Healesville Sanctuary

Yesterday, Jason and I journeyed by train and two buses to the gorgeous Yarra Valley to see some iconic Australian animals at the Healesville Sanctuary. We saw dingoes, kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras, tasmanian devils, wallabies, and more! It was awesome and felt so good to be in the midst of such beautiful creatures. Here are some pics from the day set to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. (The last one is for you, Abe.)

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Not Cho' Pizza

I love pizza. If it were not unhealthy and expensive to do so, I would eat it everyday. (Which is why I eat it every other day.) Thankfully, and probably due at least in part to the fact that Italian Australians are one of the largest ethnic groups in Australia, there is no shortage of good pizza in Melbourne, though you have to know where to go. Not all pizzas are created equally. Apparently, a traditional Australian pizza has egg and bacon on it, but we haven't tried it. However, Jason and I have recently discovered the most genius pizza ever. It's brilliant for us because it brings together beautifully two of our favorite things: pizza and mexican food. It's not cho ordinary pizza, but then again, they don't offer many ordinary pizzas at Mojo's Weird Pizza, hence the name. I've had other mexican pizzas before, but none this good. So, they call it the Gringo, and with a salsa base, corn chips, cheese, spanish onion, fresh tomato, jalapenos, cream cheese, topped with sour cream and guacamole, it's basically nachos on pizza. And no, it clearly isn't the healthiest of meals, but who cares, just look at this deliciousness:

Anyway, kind of a random post, I know, but what can I say, I get excited about good food.

streets are my favorite galleries

Warning: If you're not all that interested in street art, then the following slideshow is not for you because that's what most of the pics are of. One of my favorite things about Melbourne so far is the abundance of amazing street art in the laneways. All of the graffiti pics in this show were taken in this great little alleyway called Hosier Lane, about 20 seconds from our apartment.

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Us in Oz

-the new digs-

-the view from our deck-

-the new art-

Jason and I wanted something on our walls but we didn't want to spend much money

so we used the cardboard boxes that we shipped our stuff in

and made some good old fashioned homemade art.

Jason's painting is of course AWESOME! 

(And mine btw is incomplete and not so awesome.)

We love our new apartment in downtown Melbourne, 

which I have been spending way too much time in

looking for jobs on the internet. 

Yuck.

Sweeeeet Video!

Samoa

Our honeymoon to Samoa started off a little rocky when the airline lost our luggage, but we made the most of it and got our bags back just a couple days later. Samoa is a very interesting and beautiful place. I didn't get to take many pictures as the weather conditions were not optimal. It was not as sunny as we had hoped it would be, but I did manage to take a few pictures, which I now present in another musical slideshow! I chose the song "Jesus is the Only Answer" from Bela Fleck's Throw Down Your Heart album because Samoa is overwhelmingly (98 percent) Christian. Their national motto is "Samoa is founded on God." All Samoans adhere to a core of social values and practices, known as fa'a Samoa (the Samoan way) which are quite conservative and traditional. The Samoan culture is centered around vafealoa'i, the relationships between people. Fa'a Samoa has three basic elements to it, which are the Matai (familial chiefs), the Aiga (family) and the Church. This system essentially spells out each person's relationship to one another and to those in positions of power. Samoans have a communal way of life in which most activities are done collectively. They do not have the same ideas about privacy; the traditional homes (fales) are open and have no walls. We found Samoans to be a very kind and generally positive people who are very proud of their beautiful country! They all wanted to know what we thought of Samoa and when we would be coming back. Hopefully we will make it back there someday!

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Summer Camp 2009

Jason and I had an awesome summer, including two trips to New Mexico, camping with Chrissy, The Fandangle & ranch tour with Jack & Vera, hangin' with the Marvelous Musickal Manders in Abilene, visiting my G-Pa in San Antone, seeing Octopus Project & Explosions in the Sky in Austin with Chrissy, a couple showers, a party and much more! We'd like to send a shout out of gratitude to everyone who helped make this summer such a special one for us! I took about a million pictures, but I've spared you from most of them and present a snippet of our summer in this musical slideshow! I'm trying out this new slideshow program because it allows me to set the slides to music from my library, so let me know what you think. 

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