I miss quarters...

And no… I don’t mean the sporty evenly divided period kind… I mean good ‘ole George Washington/Eagle Freedom or State Quarters. The twenty five cent piece. The best coin in the world.

Where do I start??? On Friday the 18^th, I went for a walk to Hamilton Street (ten minutes away) to go to the News Agent, a little shop that sells newspapers, lotto tickets, stationary, makes copies, etc... On the other side of the train station, there is a little street that has some local shops on either side of it. There are a couple of coffee places, a lawyer, a dentist, a chemist (pharmacy) IGA (yes, this is the same as in America—Independent Grocer) a butcher, a fresh fruit and veg stand, a bakery, some op-shops (Salvation Army—second hand type stores) and a post office among other things. So I went for a wander down the Hamilton Street after buying my new favorite magazine “The Notebook.” As I walked by the Bakery I looked in to see how busy it was and I noticed a sign that said they had a unique and rare opportunity… Somebody took Marketing when they were in school… J Anyway, it just said Call David if interested. So, I programmed the number in my mobile—that’s right, I am using the word ‘mobile.’ And continued on my walk. On the way home I ran a conversation through my head a half dozen times about why I wanted to work in the bakery. When I got home, I called and left a long rambling message about being an American and wanting to plant roots in the neighborhood or something absolutely opposite of all the conversations I planned out in my head. Anyway, a few hours later, David called me back and gave me some information about the position and said he would talk to his business partner over the weekend and get back to me.

When Matt got home from work I told him a little about the job and we went to the bakery on Sunday before catching the train for the footy game. We got some Danishes and the place was pretty busy. It smelled sooo yummy! On Monday morning, David called me and asked me to come around at noon to meet him and Sharon for coffee and a chat. Now… I know I came from a pretty formal industry working in Life Insurance for 4+ years… but what happened next was just the strangest interview I have ever been through. David and Sharon were really nice and we went to a little coffee house down the street for ‘coffee.’ Most of you know me well enough to know that I don’t drink coffee and I am caffeine intolerant so avoid chocolate, most teas and soda… so going to a coffee house in a country where tea and coffee are the most important part of 90% of peoples days… I had to order something. Luckily, prominently displayed was some caffeine free teas and one that was apple spice or something that sounded pretty good. Sharon and I sit down after ordering the tea and we have a little chat about the bakery and David’s background with Bakers Delight which she indicates are the biggest bakery in the world (I haven’t confirmed this information) and that David broke away after some poor dealings with them and opened up his own bakery.

Side Note: Bakers Delight has franchised to Western Canada under the name of COBS. They have recently opened a bakery in Bellevue at Crossroads also name Cobs… I suggest you wet-siders stop by and take a gander. Then you can see a very similar set up to what this bakery is like…

Anyway, Sharon told me all sorts of information about the shop, what the culture is like, how they operate and what the position would be like. The culture sounded like exactly what I needed and wanted to get my feet wet with. Besides. I love to bake and be in the kitchen and maybe, just maybe, someone there could share with me how they make pie crusts. J David joined us after about 20 minutes and then he told me a little more about the shop. He admitted to being a little bit of an aggressive, vocal personality, but only because he knows the business and wants everyone to do the best they can. Anyway, they wrapped up the conversation knowing very little about me, they hadn’t asked for a resume or what my qualifications were. There weren’t any questions about my integrity or you know the one that ALWAYS gets asked… “Tell me about a time when you… “ You know the one… where you have to tell about a time when you could have made a big mistake… but you were able to persevere and things turned out like a soap opera where everyone was happy and even the customer was raving? I was a little confused at the end of the chat and didn’t really know what to think. David did ask what kind of visa I was on and if I had any limits on working. They asked if it was something I was interested in and if I needed to talk to Matt about it, I could give them a call the next day.

So, I talked to Matt (he was in Perth for work) that night and told him that it just kind of felt right. The two people I met were really nice and I felt like they would be understanding of my limits and the entry level position is what I needed to start getting my feet wet with Australian society. –You all have read my previous emails detailing some encounters… you should understand that things are more different then they first appear. JBesides, if I really liked it, it was something I could continue doing even if I did decide to get a better paying, more along my career path lines type job. As well as it is casual so if it was too much, I could cut my hours down and take things slower… so I called Sharon in the morning and took the job. They asked if I could come in that day around noon for “induction.” I agreed and soon was at what America calls orientation. I got a tour of the bakery and a few introductions to some of the staff. David asked if I could come in at 10 the next morning and work until around 2 or 3. And there you have it. I work at the bakery now.

The first day went so incredibly fast. I can’t even really say what all I did. I know I learned to slice bread on the big machine and not squish or tear it. Then, I learned that they want me to take everything home… every time I work, so I can sell it to the customers… try it 47 ways so I can describe everything inside and out… Fun. The last thing I remember is trying to make change. Total $2.25. Amount handed to me over the counter $10.00. Now here is s very brief lesson in Australian currency…

Coins: $0.05, $0.10, $0.20, $0.50, $1.00, $2.00

Notes: $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, $50.00, $100.00

Now. I worked at Subway for something like 4+ years and have had many volunteer stints at booths selling everything from raffle tickets to beer, so giving change can almost come as second nature to me… so, the $2.00 coins no problem… actually, love them. J They are about the size of a nickel, but thicker and gold colored. Okay, so my problem? What do I do about the lack of 3 quarters to make $0.75???I froze. Deer in headlights. Wait, should I say Kangaroo in headlights now? There aren’t deer here. Anyway… I froze. The lovely Sharon asked me “what do you need love?” and I just stammered something about coins and quarters and how, wha, where, I mean..ummmmmmmmmmm… WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!!! I am just staring at the change drawer and frozen. Finally Sharon must have put together that I needed 75 cents and selected the appropriate coinage out of the drawer and cracked a joke about me being an American who can’t figure out the funny Aussie money…

Well… the best part is… It wasn’t the only time. It was the only time that day but the next day at least 4 times throughout the day 75 cents was stalking me. So, I practiced when I got home. Yes, I got change out of the change jar and practice. Luckily, Friday went a lot smoother and I felt really good. Then… I had the weekend off. Today, first transaction of the day. 6am in the morning… I had to change 2.75… luckily at that time of the morning, no one expects anyone else to be awake and so I could pretend it was because I wasn’t awake yet… ha! If only they knew…

So that it’s it for now. The end of the new job-bakery drama. I hope you enjoyed it. It still cracks me up anyway… or maybe I am just going crazy. Crazy… I was crazy once, they locked me up in a white room…

Cheers everyone!

Oh…and the picture I promised awhile back… here you go!

Remember, this is the Narooma inlet from up on the surrounding hill. The island that is visible towards the left is Montague Island… where the penguins live. J

Oh… and this is a little valley on the way to Tilba Tilba.

Yes, we were driving down the dirt road… oh, and it is a “touring drive…i.e. tourists are supposed to take this route. J It’s historical and very, very scenic. J

Cheers,

So what road trip isn’t complete without rice krispy treats to see you through 8 long hours in the car. I don’t think I have ever been on a decent road trip with out them. So, given that Matt and I were about to embark on an 8 hour car trip to beautiful Narooma, I thought it would only be appropriate to make some of the handy, easy-to-eat-while-driving snack that can keep you happy and nutritioned for hours. Okay—so maybe not nutritioned—unless you are Kristy who can live on coffee and ‘snacks’ for weeks on end, but needless to say, they are filling. So off to the ever-confusing grocery store, or as Matt likes to say, supermarket for another adventure in the baking aisle.

First, the cereal aisle. Where I find Rice Bubbles. These are in a bright blue box with three very similar characters on the front of the box that look and are dressed just like Snap, Krackel and Pop, my good friends from America. Then to the baking aisle, where I wander very slowly looking for some resemblance to marshmallows. I find some finally, ¾ of the way down the aisle on the bottom shelf there are three varieties. Multi-pastel colored miniature sized ones. Medium pink and white ones and “large” sized pink and white ones. Large marshmallows here are apparently half the size of good ‘ole Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows back home. So I debate. I could buy 4 packages of the ‘large’ ones and pick out all the pink ones to have enough white ones to make a small batch or I can risk using the pink and the white together and should only need two packages. I decide to consult the back of the Rice Bubbles box to see what kind of quantities it says since everything is in metric and the recipe as I remember it says 40 large (remember—US large is twice the size of Aussie large) or 4 cups of miniature… again, their miniatures are like 6 colors and I know they won’t look good melted together… As I browse the back of the box there are three recipes and not a single one of them for rice bubble snacks… I decide to turn to the side, as what Rice Krispy box doesn’t have the staple treat printed SOMEWHERE!! Nope. Nothing. Not even anything close. Alright, it is down to my good judgment and I head to the Lolly aisle.

Yes, the Lolly aisle. AKA candy aisle. Here I find a large assortment of tear dropped shaped “cloud” candy. It is closer to the size of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows, but still, white and pink. So I stick with what I have. I made them, and they taste much the same, but they are a nice shade of pink. Matt ate some and I asked if he ever had any back in Seattle on any of his visits and he doesn’t remember having any. I tried to convince him to envision them without the pink and he looked rather confused…nope, still didn’t remember them. Oh well-all is well.

The road trip. We drove a lovely 8 hours from Melbourne northeast to Narooma. Let me tell you. This is the part of Australia I wish I had seen on my very first trip here. Absolutely gorgeous. Every last mile—uh, I mean Kilometer. After about an hour and half of travelling we were officially in rural country. Rolling green hills and ‘mountainous’ peaks… aka, larger hills that resemble mountains when everything else is so flat. As we drove I saw a sign for Snowy River. I asked if it was “the” Snowy River” (from the movie ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Return from Snowy River.’) and I was told we were quite close to ‘High Country’ which was Matt’s cryptic way of saying ‘Yes’. Let me tell you the movie does not do this area justice—and if I remember correctly, the movie had some beautiful scenery in it. Nothing like seeing in the flesh. It was a nice, sunny day and as we drove closer to the coast, the greener things got. Parts of the way were quite windy through gum tree lined gullies and wrapping around rocky limestone cave regions. Then we would come around dramatic corners to catch glimpses of the shiny blue ocean. After we left a little town there was a lookout that looked back over the sleepy valley. I took some pictures that are on Matt’s camera and I will send some along here as soon as I get them downloaded to my computer. It, like the movie, does nothing for how beautiful it was. It was right near sunset so the light wasn’t to strong and the colors may not have turned out quite right.

Now we have landed in Narooma and it was pretty dark when we pulled in. It rained something fierce over night and it is a little overcast still this morning, but I can see how tropically beautiful this area is. It is suppose to be getting on into winter and yet everything is green and several plants are blooming. This area is one of the most mild in all of Australia because it gets warm northerlies in and cool southerlies in but never the extreme of either… By the time they reach this area, they are about as mild as they can be. So the weather is consistent most of the year around, but I would say it is perfect as it is right now. I plan on spending some time walking around this town the next couple of days while Matt is working so I can take lots of pictures. Hopefully we’ll get at least a day or two of nice sunshine so the inlet has it’s best qualities shown.

Day One:

Wow. What a view. I am just in awe of the view from my hotel room. I want to live right HERE!

What great weather too. Pack up the sunscreen, visor and camera and I am that lone tourist in town because this is the off season my friends and this sleepy little town has nothing but Rugby and fishing to keep the locals busy. I took a nice little walk down to the left from the hotel and very shortly I was on the “flat” as they call it. This is where the main little strip of shops and services are and there are two large caravan parks on either side of the two lane highway that serves as the main drag through town. Also. There is one signal along the highway in this area and it is for a crosswalk, not for cross traffic. Anyway, Matt is working along the highway at a service station so I stop to check on him. He has a little bit of a toothache that developed before we left Melbourne, but he seemed to think it was going to be fine. Ha. I know what kind of agony my sister went through with her tooth from hell, I wasn’t convinced. He told me it was getting worse and it is only day one. On I continued across the bridge. The water below is brackish sea water meets fresh water but clear as Evian water. Stunning turquoise blue and full of fish.

I walk along the footpath to Mill Bay board walk. The board walk goes across the north shore of the inlet and out to the protective rocks. I had a look at the tide schedule before I left the room and knew that high tide was to come within the hour. As I walked along the boardwalk I was in true wonderment at the clearness of the water. Then I noticed this stream of fish. Millions of these were lined up and swimming in with the tide. The line up began about where the Gum trees began shading the water and it turns out that it continued all the way to the end of the boardwalk. Millions.

Little did I know that I would get to see the biggest Sting Ray I have ever seen. Not that I have seen that many, but it was incredible. I found myself following its elegant, graceful movement back down the boardwalk and took half a dozen photos along the way. It seemed to be very happy to stroll along the bottom right near the boardwalk in the shade of the Gum Trees. I learned later in the day on my walk back to town from a local man that there is one that is very friendly with the local fishing charters and often hangs around the fish cleaning station on the other side of the bay when the charters come in with their haul for the day. The local seaman feed it and it is quite tame and nice. Don’t worry Mom, I was very safe on the boardwalk and there was no chance the deadly barb could get anywhere near me, much less in my heart like the incident that killed Steve Irwin last September. The thought did cross my mind as I watched this one go by.

I could go on for pages about all the wildlife and stuff I got to see on this day… but these are by far the highlights of day one. In the evening Matt and I drove a couple of miles down the road to Mystery Bay where he taught me all sorts of fun and exciting facts about geology. I learned about folding, why some rocks weather or wear away faster than others and dykes. Absolutely fascinating. Rob—you and Matt could go for hours I am sure. While we were exploring all the fascinating rocks, I found some fun tidal pools filled with anemones, little fishies and even a few starfish. Matt was on the hunt for crabs, but we didn’t find any.

On day two I went for a walk along the south end of the inlet and took in the view of Montague Island where fur seals take a rest and a small colony of penguins call home. The island has some significance in the local aboriginal history and has been preserved from any danger by the Australian government. You can take guided tours out to the island to check out the historic light house and it is a very popular tour in the spring (August through October) as there is fabulous whale watching as they head towards the Antarctic ocean. Then down to the beach to look at more tidal pools and this fabulous rock. Look like anything you might know?

Day three:

I got to help Matt with some Micropurging. Woo-hoo! His toothache was making things very difficult for him to concentrate. It wouldn’t be because he couldn’t really eat anything and he was taking some codeine coated painkillers to get through the day or anything… He did make an appointment for the next day with a local dentist, but had to finish up with 8 monitoring wells before we could go back to Melbourne. Abby—I don’t know how you do this for a living… Definitely not my cup of tea. J Fun for the day… not a career option for me. The next day, even though Matt was struggling, we did take a nice drive around the inlet and I got to see lots of birds and a great view of the inlet from higher up.

We also drove to Tilba Tilba. This town exists because of cheese. This whole area is very good for dairy cows because it has lush grass year around and the weather is not too extreme cold or hot, so Bega, Tilba and Bodalla all grew up to be great cheese towns. Think Wisconsin, but warmer. J Now Tilba is a historical town with local artisans and crafters selling their wares in old little shops. Very quaint and fun for exploring. Matt had an appointment at 3 for his tooth and we had to get back to Narooma. He had an abscess that is now waiting for a root canal in the next week or so. Matt really turned around after that appointment. He was feeling so much better after that was over. In fact, he slept something like 12 hours last night because he hadn’t been able to sleep for nearly a week with the tooth hurting the worst laying down at night.

We made it back to Melbourne and settled back in. I already want to go back to that area. It is just incredible. If you are ever planning on coming this direction… I can’t say enough how great that area was. It is not commercial like some of the other coastal towns I went to on my first trip and it was truly beautiful.

Hope all is well back home and hope to hear from you soon.

Lots of love and a big hug!

Alison