New Years Eve<\/strong>: Friends of ours recently bought a house, so they decided to host a New Years Eve celebration and luckily invited us.\u00a0 It was a great experience to have a BBQ and sit outside on the deck while it was light until 9pm on NYE.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I was roped into the Australian version of the drinking game “Kings” – what strange rules they have here.\u00a0 I ended up having to drink 3 warm glasses of champagne.\u00a0 That hurt in 2016.<\/p>\n Moving House<\/strong>: For some reason “moving” here is called “moving house”.\u00a0 Anyhoo, our lease is up in mid-March and we were looking to move.\u00a0 Renting here is quite strange – things are priced weekly, but paid monthly – I still haven’t figured out what the point is, other than make people multiply by 4 and still not have the rent right (people: multiply by 52 and divide by 12).\u00a0 Also, when a place is for rent, they have “inspections” scheduled – basically an inconvenient 15 minute window where you can go look at the property and decide if you want to rent it.\u00a0\u00a0 Most rental agents won’t rent to you if you haven’t inspected the property.\u00a0 The first place we went to look at had been rented already, but they failed to notify us – so we showed up and couldn’t even look.\u00a0 The second place we looked at had about 40 people looking at it and it was terrible.\u00a0 This had us worried about the market here.\u00a0 We kind of liked the 3rd place we looked at – enough to put in an application at less than they were asking for and a date a few weeks after it was available.\u00a0 They tried to negotiate and we didn’t budge so they didn’t accept.\u00a0 This made us a bit more worried, but the next weekend we looked at another place and loved it.\u00a0 We put in an application for list price starting on the day it was available and we were accepted. Woo!\u00a0 Now we have to deal with furniture.\u00a0 But we are excited to have much more space – making having visitors (MASSIVE HINT) much easier and more comfortable.<\/p>\n Mardi Gras<\/strong>:\u00a0 We went to a Mardi Gras party – though half the people there called it a “New Orleans” party.\u00a0 It was fun and it made Sara mad that she didn’t throw her sweet bead collection in her suitcase when we moved.\u00a0 We got dressed up.<\/p>\n Soccer<\/strong>: Some of Sara’s co-workers wanted to see the Melbourne Victory play Melbourne City.\u00a0 For some reason they call it a derby (pronounced: darby) here when two teams from the same city play each other.\u00a0 For $48 we got some 3rd row seats.\u00a0 Not too shabby.\u00a0 Also, 4 goals were scored, but only 1 at our end.<\/p>\n ROC Race<\/strong>: I’ve always loved watching “Wipeout” and wondered how I’d do.\u00a0 We saw that the “Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge” was coming to Melbourne, so we decided we’d partake.\u00a0 I think I determined I’d make an ass of myself on wipeout.\u00a0 It was a 5K run with 9 various inflatable obstacles set up.<\/p>\n It was a lot of fun, and fortunately, it allowed me to wear a ridiculous outfit.<\/p>\n Since our holiday in Tassie, it has been mostly work and some play while we hoard annual leave for our next trip!\u00a0 Here’s what we’ve been up to: Cricket: After watching so much T20 cricket on our holiday, we decided we should go watch a game live.\u00a0 We went down to Etihad Stadium to watch … Continue reading Summer, woo!<\/span> ![\"t20a\"](\"http:\/\/www.handelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/t20a.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Tennis<\/strong>: We are both fans of sport, so we figured it’d be good to check out the Aussie Open.\u00a0 We got a “grounds pass” for the first Saturday of the tourney.\u00a0 The pass allows you to see any of the outdoor courts and one of the indoor courts.\u00a0\u00a0 Much like going to a horse race, this seemed to be more of an excuse to drink outdoors than see actual tennis.\u00a0 Sara and I managed to stop by a few courts and watch some juniors play.\u00a0 They were quite good.\u00a0 But mostly the people watching was fantastic.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"