Saturday, April 26, 2008

2 months, 17 days

I must be the most spontaneous person on the planet...ok maybe not the most spontaneous, but certainly pretty spontaneous. I double checked my last resort at studying my final units university online and I actually found a way to do it. Long story short, we get to leave Perth earlier than we planned to and are now moving to Paris in July (instead of November). YES!!!

So, 2 months and 17 days until we move to Paris!


Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 01:16:57 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, March 31, 2008

engaged (in more than one sense of the word)

I just thought I would let you all know that the French-man and I are now officially engaged! : )

After what I think has been the most drawn out engagement ever, I finally had to look for the ring box myself (with his permission of course!). I asked him "If I find it, can I have it?", he agreed and I then spent the next 20 minutes hunting like a little kid at easter. I checked in cupboards, shoes, behind curtains, up high, down low, etc etc and still nothing. I then remarked in passing that if he was smart, he would hide it with something of mine because it would be the last place I would look. Later on he replied that he was smart and I began looking casually through my own things. I lightly frisked my hanging clothes and bent down to search my shoes when I noticed he was giggling like a little child. I must have been close! I went back and took more care patting down the clothes. Success! A little square box in my grey trench coat! : ) Bending on one knee and presenting the ring upside down, what could I say but YES!!!

Funny thing, but had I not found the ring yesterday, I would have had to wait until he decided to do it. But lucky it was yesterday because today it was raining and I would have found the box in my coat pocket by accident! 

On another note: I've come to realise strongly that I'm not a big fan of Aussie TV chef, Ian Hewitson. Man, he is a moron. But why do I continue to watch his idiotic attempts at cooking? Because there is nothing else on. I frequently find myself yelling at the TV at his absolutely stupid, impractical, wasteful, and clumsy cooking. He is obsessed with cleaning the plate for presentation, yet he measures everything ("measure out 2 tablespoons of olive oil into the pan...") and leaves half of it in the bowl while hastily putting his recipe together. At one stage I had to turn off because I got very angry all of a sudden. He splashed a drop of raspberry sauce on his shirt (barely noticeable) and after the commercial break he returned with a different shirt explaining how he just "had to" change shirts because he made a mess of himself. It was one drop, dude! What a tossbag! Now I find it self-torturing and I find myself tuning in to his show just to see what unco (aussie slang for un-coordinated/spazzy) things he does. Why do I torture myself this way? Why keep watching, I hear you ask... well, I just like to watch cooking shows and get new ideas for cooking. Now I know that no-one beats Mr Jamie Oliver! 
Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 21:59:27 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, March 17, 2008

uni, work, and a one-way ticket...

Finally being settled in Perth (or any place) is a nice feeling. I have settled into my fourth week of uni (without text-books however, but managing to fluke my in-class essays) and have settled into my shifts at work. Selling clothes is easy and I am relishing a job that I don't have to deal with at home. I like walking away and leaving all thoughts and reponsibilities there. Dealing with a full-on job and full-time university, as well as maintaining an intimate relationship is not so easy, so that is why I like my current position...

Hurray, does this mean I am happy? Lets hope so!!

We booked our one-way tickets to Paris for late November. So it's officially on. We will move to Paris and let's hope I won't have to live out of a suitcase (hence the blog name, clever huh? :) forever. Let's hope that this is the last year of temporary residency! I will always be the 'Kangaroo with a Suitcase' but here's hoping that it will be for leisure and not for settlement.

Wish me luck! : )
Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 17:22:36 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

What is it about plumbers...?

Our toilet was leaking... and with Australia's great problem of drought, our water restrictions and the cost of water is bogus. So when your toilet refills itself every 20 minutes, you know you've got a problem. I can't wait to see the result of this on our next water bill. Anyway, we called our real estate agent and she called for a plumber to come fix it. Pretty straight forward, right? HAHAHAHA! No! 

Not only did we miss his call (our fault, yes), he left a barely audible message and we had to guess as we wrote down his phone number. We called him back (luckily our guess with the numbers was right) and he said he would call us Tuesday morning to make a time to see us that afternoon. Good, all sorted then. No!! He called Wednesday (what happened to Tuesday?) and said someone would be there between 11 and 12. Ok then. Not only do I have to postpone my study time at the library (it was 9.30 am) but I had to wait on tenterhooks while he no doubt was lost due to the fact that most people seem to have a hard time finding our apartment block. 

So, when it came to 11.45 and no sign of the plumber, I gave them a call. "Yeah, well, apparently the guy knocked and no one answered... " Ah ha....yes, highly likely considering I was home and waiting quietly on the couch for this dude. Ok, so he would be sent out in the next 15 minutes to try again. Ok... so almost half and hour later, he was there but at the wrong apartment block...next door... finally coming up to our apartment, not having the right parts, leaving for 20 minutes to go to the supplier, coming back with the part on order, and promising to call us Friday morning to make an appointment for Friday afternoon.... yes, ladies and gentlemen, our toilet still leaks.
Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 17:54:51 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Choux pastry is not my friend

What is it about me that choux pastry doesn't like? No matter which recipe I try (I've tried 2 or 3 so far) I can't seem to get my wooden spoon to stand in the bowl (as per the recipe instructions). I whip it, I mix it, I beat that dough until my arm feels like its going to drop off, but still no "thick and shiny" choux. Argh! : ) I baked it anyway, just see if they would work, but alas no... after 20 minutes in the oven, all I had were flat brown discs of hard pastry. Damn.

What kind of French wife am I going to be if I can't even make a decent profiterole or eclair?!??! ; )

So, after that kitchen disaster, I had to redeem myself and I made chocolate macadamia brownies instead. They were a complete success (yay!) except that I think the recipe could be a bit more chocolatey... maybe I'll add a bit more cocoa next time. 

So, after my cooking adventures in the kitchen, a pretty lazy day... 
Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 22:19:03 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, February 29, 2008

Yep, it's been a while....

Hello again, this time from sunny (and disgustingly hot) Perth, Western Australia. I know I lose mega-points for not writing since last December, but I have been relocating (via a few cities) and have only just settled in to a life of study, part-time work, planning an overseas wedding (mine! giggle!!!) and planning another relocation, this time to Europe in November after I have finished my final year at uni. Let me fill you in on what's been going on so far:

Our collective families joined us in Auckland for the graduation. After five minutes in our cardboard box of a house, my mother declared it unfit for even rats to live in and marched down to the school to express her disgust that the school would let us inhabit in such a place. Needless to say, they offered their usual excuses and tried to claim that they tried "very hard" to fix it... I've never heard such crap in my life! Anyway, I'm over it and was very happy to leave Auckland for a fun-filled trip around the North Island. Two days later, I regreted immediately trying to organise two families travelling together and tried to keep the peace while everyone wanted to do something different. Finally splitting up, everyone was kept pretty happy and we reconvened for dinner most nights. Happy days...

We left NZ (just as my sanity was reaching it's tether) and set off for a trip to France for Christmas. We went via Germany to visit my side of the family before heading over to Paris to spend Christmas with the Frenchman's family and friends. Apart from the lack of French speaking skills on my part, most tried hard to speak the little English they knew to welcome me, and it was touching. Christmas was really nice (wow, descriptive I know!) and I was included in the Frenchman's festivities. That is until Christmas dinner where the lovely Escargot and Fois Gras was served. To give me some credit, I did try one of those slippery little slimy things also known as Snails, and predictably it wasn't really my thing. Very chewy, weird texture and they  didn't really pick up much flavour from the garlicy-butter it was cooked in. I didn't mind sopping up some of that lovely butter with my baguette, but I couldn't be convinced to eat the fois gras, much to the offence of the Frenchman's very traditional grandfather. Everything in my head was telling me to just eat the damn thing but being the stubborn-arse that I am, I didn't do it. And thus, causing some sort of scandal within the family and was quickly shunned by the grandparent. Nice introduction. Great!

Other than that, Paris was great but overwhelmingly french-speaking (duh!!! what a genius I am!). Our plans to eventually move here were crushed slightly because of my fear of being able to communicate in French. I wasn't going to subject myself to that without knowing at least how to understand people and construct sentences by myself. So Paris as our next living-destination was put on the backburner (at least for now).

So arriving in Perth (via Auckland again, just for 1 night and Canberra to say hello to the family) we came face to face with hot hot weather and a brick wall. While I was away, Perth has boomed and prices for almost everything has pretty much doubled. My sister and I paid $200 a week for a nice 2 bedroom apartment in 2005. Now, it costs us $280 a week for a one-bedroom apartment (which we had to fight almost 3 weeks to find and secure after many apartment inspections, phone calls, emails, and train travels). So we finally got into our place after the disaster of a place we had originally secured while we were still in Auckland (me being organised and arranging things in advance to make things easier - ha!). That fell through so we had to find something else, while outstaying our welcome at a family friend's house. What was "could we stay for a couple of days?" turned into a couple of weeks while we spent over 3 hours daily on trains/buses to attend house inspections that were snapped up immediately by others. Argh! Since when is Perth so popular??

So here we are in sunny (very sunny) Perth until I finish my degree in November and then we are outta here (once again!) to FINALLY settle somewhere... so far London is on top of the list and Paris as a backup.



Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 22:06:04 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, November 30, 2007

And so it begins and ends...

And so it goes with endings and new beginnings: I finished my last day of work (much to the cries of "don't go" and "we only just got to know you..") and had an 8 hour late-night shift of crazy or just plain fussy customers. The thing I love and hate about retail work is that the people are so very strange. You get the normal customers who are nice, say hello back, and are happy amusing themselves (and hopefully actually buy something), but then there are the difficult ones who insist you show them every single product in the store, let them try it on, then say they are just looking and take off with not even a "thanks" or "cheers", leaving you to put everything back while trying to serve the other customers who just walked in. I guess that is what I am paid to do, but I am also paid to ask you how you are and say hello. It amuses me to no end when I say a friendly "Hi, how are you going?" and they bark back with a "I'm just looking!" and look scared and scandalised, thinking I am about to attack them with some sort of pushy door-to-door salesman routine. I don't actually care how their day has been, and I don't care if they are happy just looking, but to keep my job and earn my $13 an hour, I have to ask these things! So please, don't take it out on us poor sales staff...just humour us both and say a quick "Hi" and we will generally leave you alone : )

Before work I decided to do a thorough clean-up of the vital areas of the house... bathroom/toilet/laundry/kitchen... I must have mopped, scrubbed, sprayed, and wiped almost all surfaces and I am pleased with what I achieved, considering I'm the only female in the house and if I didn't do it, no one would! All my subtle "man, this place is dirty" hinting wasn't working, and besides, everyone was busy finishing off school stuff so I don't really blame them. I do enjoy a good clean up once in a while (don't let my mother hear that! I had been stubbornly refusing to clean my room for years at home!) and lets hope the boys don't mess it up before we move out! I am also conveniently avoiding my suitcase, which stands in the spare room almost mocking me. Generally I don't start packing my suitcase until the day before I leave. My theory is that I am going to need or want something that I have already packed, so there is not much point riffling through my freshly folded and strategically placed belongings until I find that one pair of undies that match with the skirt I just have to wear one more time before we leave... too much hassle and repacking is required, so I'd rather do it last minute. I do however get a bit organised and separate the "absolutely not gonna wear before I leave" clothes and get those ready. So unlike my mum, who has been packed and ready to go for almost a week before her flight to come here, I must not have inherited the anal-organised gene. 

And so having fortunately and unfortunately at the same time, missed the screening of my Term 4 Film project (because of work and cleaning) I was given a polite congratulations by some of the other students this morning at the last school meeting on this, the very last day of school (THANK GOD FOR THAT!). I am not sad to leave, and I still feel like I was jipped out of a lot of money/time/sanity this year, but I can thank them for uniting me with the French-man. I am still at least, grateful for that. 

So now that school is officially finished today, we have a end-of-term BBQ (or what these Kiwis claim is a BBQ) and then me and the French-man (the French-man and I?) can go to my favourite place in Auckland and relax, trying to soak up as much as we can before we go. When we both have a free afternoon, we love nothing but to leave the cardboard house we inhabit and go to the local Starbucks in Takapuna to have an "Iced Mocha, no cream, with skim milk" for me, and usually a "Mocha frappacino, no cream" for the French-man. We sit and read, and I attempt to write something down in my little notebook. During the year, I was writing screenplays, but now having finished my projects, I'm on to fiction. I need motivation to do it, and thankfully I feel an afternoon at Starbucks does it for me. I have to admit, that although I dislike Auckland with a passion (if you hadn't have guessed), I will be missing Takapuna - the beach, the shopping street, the bookshops, the cafes and restaurants, the general atmosphere of it. If you do make it to Auckland, do try to visit this cool little part of the North Shore. It's certainly not fancy but it's the only place that I have admitted to actually missing once we are gone. Starbucks isn't my favourite tasting coffee, but their cafes are cool to sit in and since there is no Gloria Jean's in Takapuna, we simply forego coffee yumminess for cool surroundings...a small sacrifice.
Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 12:00:13 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Auckland, aka: Stink-town

Don't ask me what it is about Auckland (and to a greater extent, NZ) that I dislike so much. Is it the fact that my neighbours seem to have a constant domestic every other day (the yelling and screeching coming from the mother and teenage daughter would make Ozzie Osbourne cringe), or is it the crap weather which never wants to decide whether to stop raining? Or the drivers here that think nothing of cutting you off or teens who think that a few little 'prangs' are all part of the learning curve? For the largest city in NZ and the home to over 2 million kiwis, why-oh-why have they only just begun to build a proper public transport system to try and stem the flow of cars that congest their motorways 7 days a week? The traffic problem here is absolutely gobsmacking. How could a country so small ahve such a huge rush hour problem? Every single kiwi living in Auckland seems to complain about it and its reputation proceeds it in the rest of the country too. Well at least they are building a new bus lane....wooooow...I bet that will fix it all.

Anyway, before you yell at me and tell me to leave if I hate it so much, rest assured that I will be doing just that and will be out of here in 16 days and counting. My mum have never failed to remind me that it was my choice to come to Auckland 'so be it on my own head if I hate it here'. I came to NZ purely to shut myself up (i.e. I didn't want to be 60 and think 'Oh man, I should have done it when I was young') so here I am. I hate it, and now that it's out of my system I can move on. I can say that after racking up a tidy sum on a student loan (on a pretty useless 1-year course), I did get myself a French-man out of it, so it's not all bad : )

So, counting down until our families come over for our graduation and a tour of the North Island before we go to the French-man's native Paris for Christmas, I will be listening to loud music (to drown out the latest yellings coming from next door) and mentally packing my suitcase...again.
Posted by Kangaroo with a Suitcase at 20:17:43 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |