We made it! We're in Melbourne! It's a beautiful day. My parents and brother Jon are on a plane right now from Sydney to here. We're going to see them very soon.

This morning, we took the airport bus to the city and walked from the train station in the Docklands to our hotel in Southbank. With our luggage and my taking pictures, it took us all of 20 minutes to get from one place to another. We would have gotten there faster otherwise.

As we were leaving the train station, we found a place where you can rent bikes. You just put money in the machine and take it. I think it's smart, green and FUN!

We walked over the bridge to the Southbank area and got very good views of (part of) the skyline.

We passed the Melbourne Aquarium. They have a hammerhead shark exhibit there right now. It sounds very good, although I was not impressed with the aquarium the last time I went.

Here's a view of our hotel (on the left). It's across the street from the Eureka Tower (the tallest building in Melbourne).

I'm very happy with our hotel room. Al and I have a one-bedroom serviced apartment, and my parents and Jon and sharing a two-bedroom apartment.

Once we settled into our room, we walked to McDonald's to get an early lunch. The front of the restaurant was open (no windows or doors), and there were the funniest little birds begging for our food. As you see, I caught this one in the act of stealing a fry.

There were many hungry birds on top of the glass.

There were many hungry birds on the table!

After lunch, we took a walk through the central business district. Look at this Santa Claus! It's a real person!  He was surrounded by people, so I'm surprised that I got a clear picture.

We also walked past Myer, which has the Christmas stories in the windows. This version was The Nutcracker. You can slightly make it out in the photo if you look closely. It reminds me of being a little girl and seeing the Marshall Field's (NOT Macy's) windows in Chicago!

Melbourne is loaded with trams! They seem to have great public transportation.

We finally walked along the river before turning in to our hotel. There's a view of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It's going to be swarming with people in two days. 

Now, time to wait for the visitors to turn up!

Even though I had a shorter day at work today (I left at 2:30), it was filled to the brim with goodies.

All of our Kris Kringle (Secret Santa) gifts were under the Christmas tree, begging to be opened. As you can see by the shapes, a lot of people got wine.

Speaking of wine, I got a bottle of Moet champagne and Lindor truffles from another client. I like this business!

At about 12:30, we had our Christmas lunch. We opened our presents there.

Somebody gave me a beautifully-wrapped digital photo key ring! I still don't know who gave it to me.....

We dined on sushi...

...and a colorful antipasto plate! There were many other nibbles throughout the office today.

My parents and brother are on a plane right now to Sydney! I can't believe it. We have a 6:50 am flight out to Melbourne, so we're getting picked up very early tomorrow morning. 

We have a lot of things to discuss when we finally meet up with my family, because Noosa (the place we're visiting after Melbourne)  will be pouring down with rain the entire time that we'll be there. When I say "rain", I mean torrential rainfall and flooding. It's not looking very good. This is a freak year for Australia weather-wise (and other places). We'd love to change our plans around, but we're not going to get refunds for that part of the trip. We either have to brave the wet or spend quite a bit of money to have a sunny and dry holiday. That's something I'll update later. 

See ya in Melbourne!

This is the post that I promised about our Lobethal visit from last Friday. Lobethal is a small village in the Adelaide Hills. A lot of people associate this place with Christmas, because they have the largest Christmas lights display in the Southern Hemisphere!

Unfortunately, my pictures of the lights were attrocious. I mean, the lights were beautiful, but my camera couldn't snap a good one. If you want to see good pictures, look on the Lobethal Lights website.

Overall, I was impressed by the beauty of the Adelaide Hills. I don't get why I don't venture out there more. 

You drive about ten minutes out of the city, and you enter a highway that feels like a rocky canyon. The speed limit jumps up from 60 to 110 kilometers per hour. You get off the highway just about anywhere, and you're in the country.

You pass fields with grazing cows and vineyards, one after another. Every couple of minutes, you come across a small town center with stoplights and places to eat and shop. Every town has a village pub.

After you drive through the town strip, you reenter the lush greenery of the country.

On the way, I saw signs for places I heard of before but never visited. These included the German village of Hahndorf and Melba's Chocolate Factory.

It was very hilly in some of the parts.

We finally reached Lobathal, where we followed the slow train of cars to view the lights. It wasn't even dark yet!

We followed Trail 1 (you can follow 2 trails), and then we ran into two very special people on our way out: our friends Kosal and Rob. What a surprise!

They were spending a long weekend in Hahndorf, and they decided to see the lights. They already had a great day in the Hills. They showed me several pictures of them feeding carrots to horses. Adorable.

There were other things that I wanted to see, such as the live nativity scene (I've never seen one before!) and the Christmas tree display, but we sadly didn't have time. It was almost 10 pm, and we were both starving!

I'm so glad that Al took me, though. I was thrilled to see new parts of Adelaide.

I had a very fun time on Saturday night. We had our office Christmas show (party) at the Lion Hotel in North Adelaide.

I took some very classy pictures.

I didn't get as many as I had hoped, though.

This was our menu. Everything looked good.

I saw the menu in advance, so I had weeks to decide. I finally settled on the honey duck breast.  It tasted a bit like chicken teriyaki. I know that everybody says that strange things taste like chicken, but this really did. I liked it very much.

**If you don't live in Australia, do you notice how the entree is the appetizer?? It took me a while to get used to that.**

As usual, pardon the horrible picture below. I was too busy chatting to play around with the light settings. I also ate a portion of the food before I did anything with the camera. This dish was the moussaka. It seemed like a combination between lasagna and eggplant parmesan. It was good, but nothing to jump for joy about.

The Christmas pudding was the pinnacle of the entire meal. I loved everything from the baked apple slice on top of the ice cream to the spiced cream in the middle to accompany the rich dark fudge-like cake. Everybody who ordered this dish looked like they wanted to lick their plate.

That's all for now. I still have to do a post on my visit to the Adelaide Hills from the weekend. I'll try to blog as much as I can this week. We have a couple of dinners and a very early flight on Friday morning, so I have a lot that I have to try to squeeze in before then. Unfortunately, you don't have all day to do things when you work full-time!

We just got back from the lights at Lobethal, and MAN I am sleepy! We had a great time, and I'm going to post those pictures in the next few days. 

I just want to let you all know that I am losing my war with chocolate (refer to yesterday's post), and there is nothing that I can do about it. Today, some of the ladies at work received personal gift baskets from one of our clients. 

I hope you can forgive the mess on my desk. There was a lot going on. It's much cleaner now.

I had to get a close-up of the snowflake ornament on the bow. Even though there is no snow in Adelaide during Christmas (or ever), I still see a lot of snowflake decorations. This one's a keeper.

The gift basket included James Road dark chocolate covered apricots (I already downed six of them today), James Road chocolate fudge biscuits (the James Road food is apparently made in Lobethal- what a coincidence!), milk chocolate toffees, flowers in syrup (you put them in champagne??) and a bottle of Yellowglen wine from the Barossa valley. Funny enough, Al went to work in the Barossa today and came home with three bottles of wine. Really...what are we going to do with all of this wine?

I'm curious about these edible flowers in syrup. It looks very pretty in the jar. It will make an interesting blog post when I decide to use it.

In addition to that, I also got a generous gift card for Netflix (or the Aussie equivalent). Have I mentioned that I work with amazing people?? I can't wait for our Christmas party tomorrow night. 

I also ran three miles after work! That's the most I have run since I became injured. I admit that I was in a lot of pain when I finished my run, but it went away after a few minutes of walking and especially after using my foam roller. I guess I'll have to see how I feel in the morning. I'm hoping that it will be pain-free! 

I hope all of your Fridays are a lot of fun AND full of chocolates!

I've been known to eat indulgently during previous holiday seasons as though food around me is disappearing exponentially, and I have to eat everything I see before it goes away for good. Last year, however, I learned something: Christmas in Australia is HOT. I can't quadruple the amount of goodies I put in my mouth, because I can't hide the extra weight under heavy clothes anymore. I have to eat smart! 

This year, my eating habits have been excellent. I satisfy my sweet tooth by storing low-calorie ice cream bars in the freezer and drinking low-fat chocolate soy milk (in moderate portions, of course). So when one of our clients dropped off a mammoth Christmas package full of sugary and carb-olicious snacks, I almost avoided it successfully. That is, until my boss put some of the chocolates on my desk. 


Hey, once it's right in front of me, my self-control has no fighting chance. 

I had no idea what was in the middle....

...but I bit in anyway to find out that it was a chocolate truffle. A wonderful chocolate truffle. 

After I enjoyed my first chocolate, my boss put another one on my desk.

It was a chocolate-covered honeycomb square. There is a chocolate bar in Australia called a Crunchie Bar. It's very similar to what I ate below. I never liked it, but I swear this honeycomb thing is starting to grow on me. It's super-sweet, and it melts in your mouth.  

When I finished my afternoon snacks, my boss put another object on my desk. It wasn't edible, though.

It was a Coles/Myer giftcard, which is the perfect card for anybody. I can use this card at Coles (a large chain grocery store), Kmart, Target, Myer (a department store like Macy's), Officeworks, 1st Choice Liquor Superstore, Vintage Cellars ("Australia's Fine Wine Specialist") and Liquorland. Since I now get lots of free alcohol, I don't need to put that money towards the last three options. I'll probably  use it to get a nice dress at Myer or maybe get a couple of things from Target. Either way, I am so touched that they gave me something like that for Christmas. I'm not permanent there, but they still treat me like I'm part of their family.

We have our Christmas party this Saturday, and I'm very excited! Those are always fun. I'll try to be good and take pictures. 

Alastair also promised me that he'd take me to see the Xmas lights in Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills (for Chicago people, it's the equivalent of our Sauganash) tomorrow night. This is the last weekend that we'd be able to go, because we're going away next week. We don't have a Christmas tree (where would we fit it?), and I have hardly heard any holiday music this year, so I need to get my fix!

 I'll also have to remember to post pictures of the West End Brewery Riverbank Christmas display from last year. I have some good stories about that...

Bye for now, friends!

No more Oprah posts. This is about one of my several recaps that I promised a few months ago. I'm going to Sydney very soon, so I figure now is a better time than ever to tell you about my birthday weekend in June 2009. My generous boyfriend (before he was my fiancé) took me there for four perfect days.

Here is photo documentary of what we did!

Below, I'm sitting on a fountain by Circular Quay (pronounced KEY). This is where the ferries dock by the Opera House. There are a lot of restaurants there, too. You eat there for the views; not for the reasonably-priced bill. You won't find one. There IS a Gelatissimo, though.

We were frugal and got our food from a cafeteria. I ate a tuna sandwich, and Al ate chips (fries). The seagulls watched our every move, hoping that they could steal some of our food. The generous Al donated one fry. We watched them fight over it.

While walking through Circular Quay, I got a kick out of the "toilet" signs. Come on, I had only been in Australia for a month. It was still funny (I need to add that to my next "culture clash".

I got up close and personal with the Opera House.....

...and posed in front of the Harbour Bridge. 

WE posed :)

I sat on Mrs. Macquarie's Chair in the Royal Botanic Gardens.....

....then we strolled up the Harbour Bridge.

We almost walked on a pirate ship....

...but instead got on a bus to Bondi Beach.

I wanted to have tea at the Icebergs...

...but we walked along the coast instead.

We went to China Town.

We spent so much time at Darling Harbour, we could have walked there with our eyes closed.

We found a dog with sun-sensitive eyes...

...and we waved to Sponge Bob at the Sydney Aqarium.

We saw more animals at Taronga Zoo. After that, it was time to go back to Adelaide. I was very sad that my long birthday weekend was coming to an end...

...until I found a homemade cake waiting for me at his parent's house!

Sydney, I'll see you for New Years Eve 2010-2011!

If you follow Oprah at all, then you know that she's shouted those words when she gave her entire audience a car. In my (probably) last post about Oprah in Australia, I'll tell you about the gifts that she gave out today during her two tapings at the Sydney Opera House.

To start, zero of the thousands of audience members (6,000 at each taping) walked away empty-handed. The first audience received Oprah-engraved necklaces with pearls from the northwest coast of Australia. One necklace costs $450 AUD a pop (retail price). See the necklace here. 

The second audience got a different necklace: white gold with seven diamonds forming the shape of an "O" (keep in mind that the majority of the people there were women).I didn't find a link to that one. 

Oprah also surprised the Anderson family with a check for $250,000 and X-Box Consoles for the kids. Christian, the father, has been suffering with liver and bowel cancer for the last year.

The final gift (that I heard about) included $1 million worth of laptops AND a visit from Jay -Z for an underprivileged school.  

Not bad, Oprah. Sure, a lot of people could use help, but it sounds like she will make a huge difference in these peoples' lives. 

Scheduled famous guests from the show included Russell Crowe, Bindi, Terri and Robert Irwin (remember Steve Irwin?),  Jay-Z, Bon Jovi, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, Olivia Newton-John and John Foreman. 

Hugh Jackman actually got injured during his stage-worthy entry to the second show. He came in abseiling on a rope over the audience and onto the stage, but he didn't break on his rope hard enough. He hit a light and cut his eye. It sounds bad, but he should be okay. You can watch the footage and read more about that here (and find other links about the show). 

I'm pretty sure that this is a wrap-up with the Oprah stuff now, but there may be more to report. We shall see. 

In my closing remarks, I want you all to know that Oprah LOVES Australia. If you haven't been here before, then COME HERE! Don't come just because Oprah loves it, but come because it's amazing. There will be so many good things to see when the shows air. There will be specials on Oprah and her 302 American guests traveling around the country AND the two Oprah House episodes. Lots to look forward to!

It's 8:00, and I'm ready to crawl into bed. I just had an exhausting sculpt class. I was so lazy about making dinner when I got home, I heated up soup from a can. It's summer! Instead of crawling into bed and not blogging, though, I'll give you the Oprah update. 

Today, Oprah took many of her American friends and Russel Crowe on a yacht around Sydney Harbour. I've shown you plenty of pictures of the Harbour over the past couple of days, but what's one more?

Looking at that Opera House in real life NEVER gets old. It's incredible!

Tomorrow, Oprah will film her show there. The audience will be full of lucky Australians who are very happy to have their tickets. They are hard to come by!

Read about Oprah visiting a Sydney family bbq here. I kind of like Oprah's shirt. 

That's all for today. My bed is calling me!

Yes, of course I'm going to continue to talk about Oprah until she goes back to the US. Before I do that, though, I want to say that I love my little weather widget on my site. If you look at the Chicago/Adelaide weather boxes on the left side bar, you can click on them. It takes over your screen (like a screen saver), and you can see the current weather as well as the forecast for the next couple of days. Right now, the Chicago widget looks like a barn on a snowy night in a Christmas card. It's so cute, and it makes me miss snow. I know it's cold up there, but as I've said before, I love snowy holidays. By the way, I hope the blizzard back home isn't too bad!

Back in the Land of the Warm, Oprah had a busy day. I can confirm that she did the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb with 270 of her American friends and her best friend Gayle King. That's a big accomplishment for the talk show queen, who is reportedly afraid of heights. 

If you do the Climb, then you go all the way to the top of those black rails (134 meters/439.6 feet above Sydney Harbour). For a cheaper fee, you can also walk across the Bridge (Al and I walked halfway across- it's free) AND you can climb one of the pylons. The pylon costs anywhere from $10-20 (AUD). I can't remember the exact price. 

Read more about the Climb and last night's cocktail party and see pictures here.

Later in the day, Oprah hit Bondi Beach at famous Icebergs Dining Room & Bar. I watched her raving about her beef salad to the news reporters on TV as she walked out of the restaurant.

 I walked past Icebergs both times that I went to Bondi, and it always draws me in. I've never seen anything like it. Of course, it attracts lots of celebrities. 

I didn't get many pictures of it, but I got one of its pool that seems to run into the ocean.

It sits along this coastline.

If you click on the website that I hyperlinked above, you can see more images of the views as well as the interior. It seems like a remarkable restaurant. 

While Oprah was enjoying her lunch, some of her lucky guests took surfing lessons on the beach. That's another must-do when you can come to Australia. 

I'm not sure what the O is up to now, but I bet it's something fun.