An Afternoon of Bike Photography

As mentioned in a previous post, we bought some sketchy but functional bikes when we were last here in Melbourne. Then, before we left, we sold them to our Airbnb host so that she could have them for her other guests to use. Well since we decided to stay at the same house on our trip back through Australia, our host asked if we could take the bikes out for a ride again and snap some good pictures of those bikes so that she can put them up on her Airbnb page. This sounded like a fun adventure/challenge. And as it turns out, it was indeed fun. So here's some pictures from our outing.

Bikes + West Altona Beach and Kite-Surfers

Bikes + Path around Cherry Lake

Bikes + Cherry Lake

Bikes + Rose Bushes (side angle)

Bikes + Matching Colors of the Rose Bushes (side view)

Bikes + Rows of Rose Bushes
Attempting to get extra fancy w/ the symmetry. 

Bikes + East Altona Beach and Pier

Bikes + Altona Pier and Kite-Surfers

And yes we tried to take a couple of pictures of ourselves too so that it wasn't all just bike-only pictures.

Katie putting up with my picture-taking craziness

My one attempt of getting a pictures of us with the bikes...
Didn't quite turn out like I had hoped, but still kind of a fun picture.

Bike pictures taken... fun was had... Mission Complete! 

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...Kind Of

We've been loving being back in Melbourne for the last few days. In contrast to the reports and pictures of snow back home, we've had sun and low 70s. It doesn't feel like Christmas to us Northerners used to snow, but Melbourne is doing its best to look Christmas-like. 

This house in our neighborhood has tons of light up snowmen, reindeer, trees, and more juxtaposed against the palm trees

A Christmas tree of pallets at Victoria Market

The Melbourne Central Mall is subtly telling everyone to "Give" (aka buy more) with their tree

I think a giant star would be festive at the top of the spire in the mall

The trees are bundled in knitted sweaters

Flinders Street Station is fully decked out

Taco Thanksgiving in Australia

Since we're in Australia for Thanksgiving, we'll be missing out on the huge traditional dinner with family. We knew that making our own Thanksgiving dinner would be kind of depressing, because we wouldn't be able to prepare such a big spread just for ourselves and we would miss our family. But, we want to celebrate in some way and be thankful. So, we decided to create Taco Thanksgiving! 

The menu was tacos with turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, feta, and cranberry sauce salsa and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert. It turned out to be an adventure just finding some of these items in the grocery store. Cranberry sauce was difficult to find, but we eventually stumbled across it near the barbecue sauces. We are used to the easy, red boxes of stove top stuffing, but all we could find was a box of stuffing crumbs. And, the only way to get turkey without an exorbitant price tag was to purchase ground turkey. 

The pumpkin was the biggest problem. We could not find a can of pumpkin puree anywhere. A kind worker tried to help us and exclaimed that she had never heard of such a thing! There were several kinds of pumpkin soups, but no pie puree or actual pumpkins. I decided the only alternative was to make a sweet potato pie. We walked the block home to regroup. Brandon googled pumpkin puree in Australia and found that it was indeed not a common item. I looked up a sweet potato pie recipe. We headed back to the grocery store, picking up all the ingredients for our adjusted menu as well as a bottle of wine. 

We started on the sweet potato pie first. While I made the crust from scratch, Brandon peeled and cut and boiled the sweet potatoes. We mixed all the ingredients, and even pulled out the blender to get it as pureed as possible. The sweet potatoes were huge, so we had extra filling to bake without a crust as well. 

Cutting up sweet potatoes with Loki supervising

Boiling all those sweet potatoes

I simultaneously made up the salsa, which was an experimental mix of cranberry sauce, lime juice, green onion, cilantro, jalapeno, and cumin. Brandon started sauteing the turkey and some diced sweet potatoes. When the turkey was done we used the grease to fry up some clumps of stuffing that we had mixed with water. After crumbling the feta, microwaving the beans, and pouring the wine our meal was ready! 

Prepping the cranberry salsa

Sauteed turkey and sweet potatoes

Hoping the different type of stuffing works out

Multitasking and manning the stove

Taco Thanksgiving is assembled. Loki approves. 

So how did it turn out? The tacos were amazing! It really was a taste of Thanksgiving, and the salsa pulled all the flavors together to make it work. I think we've started a new tradition. 

Thanksgiving taco

We chilled the sweet potato pie in the freezer while we ate the tacos and then played Hanabi. After whipping the cream we were able to enjoy our pseudo pumpkin pie and shared it with our fellow Airbnb guests. Thankfully, it tasted delicious and satisfyingly pumpkin-like. Everyone approved. 

Playing Hanabi waiting for the pie to chill

Our sweet potato pie masquerading as a pumpkin pie

As with a typical Thanksgiving, we have leftovers for a few meals. In fact, I don't think we'll have to go to the grocery store again before we leave Melbourne. Success. 

In the Thanksgiving spirit with tacos and pie in our bellies, we remembered that we have much to be thankful for. While we miss our family and friends and are looking forward to being home for Christmas, we are very thankful for each other and the chance to do these travels together. 

We're back in Melbourne!

The time has finally come to start making our way back home. Instead of just taking a direct flight back to the States, we are following our tracks backwards making week-long-ish stops in Australia and Hawaii. So yesterday/today we made our way from Chiang Mai to Melbourne.

The quick summary of our travels is that it was a very long day. We had to get a taxi to the Chiang Mai airport, catch a flight to Bangkok, switch airlines, go through security again, kill time in Bangkok's airport and spend the rest of our Baht, catch a very long overnight flight to Melbourne, and then navigate the public transit that we already know and love to our Australian home away from home in Altona. It all went very smoothly other then our long flight to Melbourne being miserable, and possibly the worst flight we've had yet, due to some bright entertainment screens that were stuck on the whole flight and due to being seated in front of a very loud/rambunctious/drunk group of people. A quick PSA: Don't ever be those people cuz I feel like there must be a special place in hell for those that inconsiderate. That may be way too harsh, but we were not able to get much sleep, and I am still very cranky about it. 

But most importantly we have arrived safe and sound. And of course the first thing we did after dropping off our bags was to run over to Coles just down the road and pick up groceries so that we can finally once again cook/bake for ourselves. 

Katie was so excited to bake again!

p.s. Katie shared her cookies with some of our fellow Airbnb guests. The Italian guest was impressed as well even though he said that Italian baked goods are renowned, so his standards are pretty high. Katie considered this quite the compliment. 

Buying Sketchy Bikes in Melbourne

Since we're having a chill afternoon here in Chiang Mai to avoid the heat, I thought I'd play a little bit of catch up with some blog post writing. Here I have a story to still share from our time in Melbourne. 

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Within the first few days of being in Melbourne we realized it'd be awesome to get a hold of some bikes. There are a ton of trails around to take advantage of, and Altona especially had some nice paths right along the beach. And then on top of that we knew that one the best ways to get to a climbing gym in Altona North was by bike.

Our first thought was to rent a bike. But the only bike rentals we found were either really costly road or mountain bikes, or they were the public bike share stations downtown Melbourne. None of those options were what we were really looking for, so we turned our efforts to finding cheap used bikes to just buy. We figured it would still be cheaper then renting if we used them enough. And our Airbnb host had mentioned how she was considering getting a couple used bikes anyway for her guests to use. So if we found nice enough of ones, she might be willing to take them off our hands for us when we were done.

We first looked to our go-to sight, craigslist.com. But there weren't a ton of options, which was a little surprising. But we later learned that the website gumtree.com is more popular in Australia. And sure enough, we found a lot more options. 

Katie worked her research magic and sent out lots of messages to people to figure out availability of some of the cheaper options. She eventually narrowed it down to this guy on the other side of town that wasn't the cheapest of them all, but at least had several bikes to choose from, so worse case if we didn't like the specific bikes we thought we'd like based on the pictures, there was a chance there would be some others to try. This later proved to be very valuable. We also picked this guy because it was relatively easy to get to his place compared to some of the other cheaper options. But I emphasize the "relatively" part given that it still took us two train transfers, a bus ride, and a 10 minute walk to get there, totally over an hour and a half of travel.

So we made our way out there on a late weekday morning, not quite sure what to expect. Upon arriving we found a house with a car stall filled with random bikes and parts, some working, some not. The bikes we had inquired about had been moved out to the yard along a couple other bikes too. It was little sketchy. This guy either just liked fixing up old bikes, or this was some kind of bike theft/scrap shop thing going on. But we trekked on. 

We navigated our way through the mass of bikes and parts to a door to see if we could talk to the seller. He came out, showed what bikes he thought were his best bikes for the price/our size, and let us ride them around. It was immediately obvious that these bikes were not in any kind of new condition. The first bike I tried had trouble shifting into at least half the gears. The brakes had a terrible squeak. And it just wasn't comfortable to ride. I wondered if he had even tried out the bike himself at all. Katie had a similar experience with her bike but kept it to herself thinking that it was at least working enough.

At that point we almost just bought those bikes because... well, that was the plan. We wanted bikes. These were kind of working bikes. Its difficult to move away from the plan. Plus we are the types that aim to please and take the path of least resistance. This is a very bad mentality to take when dealing with this type of transaction. We needed to know what we really wanted, be firm about it, make quick decisions, and be willing to walk away if we didn't find something we really liked.

Well I came around to my senses just a little bit, which was surprising considering I had started out the day already not feeling well and was nervous about our task for the day. And when I get in that kind of "just feeling out of it" mode it is really difficult for me to be bold and quick with decisions. But I at least felt compelled enough to ask if we could try a few more bikes. 

So we did just that. I probably ended up riding 3 or 4 other bikes, all with their own quirks. Katie rode a few as well and learned how bad her first bike really was. But still none of the bikes we tried met the standard I thought we were going to get. Despite that feeling though, we still moved forward. We looked through his collection of bike helmets, which also added to the sketchy/stolen bike ring vibe, and picked out a couple that were at least functional.  

At this point I was really feeling nervous about buying these bikes. But at the same time I could tell that neither of us wanted to go through this again. It felt like a high pressure car sale situation. Like I said before, this is not the right mindset to deal with this situation correctly. We didn't want to disappoint or frustrate our new "friend". The path of least resistance was to pick one of the bikes, pay what we agreed to via email (which was 90 AUD for both bikes and the helmets), and ride away. And that's what we did.

We couldn't take the bus back to the train cuz they don't allow bikes on the bus. So right away we got to give our bikes a more true test run. Of course during the entire ride to the train station my negative feelings about the whole situation went into overdrive. I started to think about all the things that were wrong with the bike I was riding, some of which weren't even real problems. I was just hyper aware of every little noise or vibration. I was playing through in my head the conversations we had with the bike guy, regretting almost every thing I both said and didn't say. And then the train ride back to Altona wasn't that pleasant either. It's not fun standing on a moving vehicle while trying to keep a bike from hitting other people. 

So this whole situation spun me into a bit of a depression for the rest of that day and probably part of the following day as well. I just couldn't get past how dumb and used I felt. I felt like every time I was going to ride my bike, it would remind me of the whole negative/regretful experience. 

Luckily I was wrong. I eventually got out of my slump. We gave our bikes another try a few days later, and they weren't actually that bad. Don't get me wrong, they still didn't meet the standard I thought we were going get. They are as used as used can get. And I still wish I had negotiated a slightly lower price or at least addressed my concerns with the bikes to the bike sellers face instead of holding it in. But in the end they served us well for the 3 weeks we had them for. We rode them three times to the climbing gym and several more times on various paths around Altona. It ended up being a worthwhile purchase. Plus then it felt pretty good to be able to help our kind Airbnb host out by selling her the bikes for real cheap, knowing that her and her future guests would benefit from our efforts and not have to go through a such a negative experience themselves trying to buy their own bikes.

Our sketchy, but functional bikes

Lessons learned:
1. When making a big purchase or decision, especially for used items, know what you want before you get there. If you have to, make a list of things to check and test.
2. If it doesn't meet your expectations, be ready to express verbally (but kindly ideally) why you think the value does not match the price or be ready to walk away.
3. If you make a mistake during the whole process (and you probably will), don't dwell on it. Learn from your mistake by all means, but what's done is done. There is no need to live a life of regret.
4. When you can't seem to follow lesson 3 and it spins you into a bit of a depression, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Time is the ultimate healer. Eventually it won't feel like as big of a deal, and you might even be able to laugh about it when re-telling the story to friends and family.

Our Top 5 Experiences in Melbourne

We explored and did so much in Melbourne in just a month! We decided to reflect and challenge ourselves by making our own top five lists. Each experience we list is linked to its corresponding blog post. 


Katie: 

1. Great Ocean Road trip
2. An evening of eating dessert and seeing the Little Penguins in St Kilda
3. Attending the VFL final
4. Blind date with Flowriding and Mad Moose pizza
5. Moon Dog Brewing

Brandon: 

1. Great Ocean Road trip day 2 (hand feeding parrots and scenic driving)
2. Katie's Blind date with Flowriding and Mad Moose pizza
3. Eating unlimited tacos at Maya Tequila Bar
4. Rock Climbing in Melbourne
5. Randomly finding James Squire Brewery and getting tons of information from the barkeep on our first day in Melbourne

Travels to Phuket

Yesterday was initially a bit of a sad day while getting things packed. We had really come to like spending time in Melbourne. It felt very familiar and homey. But it was time to head off on our next adventure: Thailand.

Our host, who time and time again went above and beyond her normal host-ly duties, offered to drive us to the airport. We declined at first, but then came to our senses since sometimes you just need to take people up on their hospitality. It helped make for a much better overall day of travel.

We again were flying Jetstar, this time out of the Tullamarine Melbourne Airport, and again had a really good experience. Two for two, Jetstar! From check-in all the way to bag pickup, it never really felt like a budget airline. The line to check-in was super short, at least when we arrived. Security and passport processing at this airport was super simple. They don't do the whole take your shoes off and pull out your liquids thing, which was a little confusing cuz we did do that and had to put them all back in our bags. But they were kind and patient about it. And the international terminal of this airport had a good number of shops to look through as well as free WiFi to use while we waited. We were most tempted by the Merino wool (from New Zealand) clothing shop as well as debated picking up one of those fancy neck pillows, but didn't end up getting any. 

Finally it was time to board the airplane. The one little hiccup was that we were worried we weren't sitting next to each other. We were in the same row, but there was a gap in the seating letters. As it turns out the just don't use the letter "I". Also we had the added perk of having an open seat next to us, so we got to spread out across three seats. So great! 

Leaving Melbourne

Our fanciest flight yet. Three seats and in-flight entertainment.

The reason Jetstar is considered budget is simply that they make you pay for most comforts other airlines normally just include. If you want food or drinks, you pay for it. You want to use the in-flight entertainment, you pay for it. Being budget travelers we get around this by packing sandwiches, snacks, and water. For entertainment we have our devices, a coloring book, and plans to just sleep. But this go around they drew us in with the in-flight entertainment. They had at least 4 movies we had been wanting to watch, and it was only $10 AUD for all access. So we caved. I figured we could just activate one screen and then use our new headphone splitter to watch the movies together. In the end, we might not have needed to. Not too long after I swiped my credit card in the center seat the other two seats said they were being given complimentary access. So I have no idea if I actually got charged or if the free service came cuz we activated one screen. Either way it was still worth it. We watched Inside Out and Spy together. I watched part of Ant-Man and Welcome to Me and even got in a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory and Modern Family. Pretty deluxe. 

Over 8 hours later we landed in Phuket. Again passport processing was pretty simple. We didn't have to wait too long for our checked bag. And our mission of finding an ATM to get cash went smoothly as well.

The dark and foggy view of the Phuket Airport.

Our last adventure of the day was trying get from the airport to our hostel. We can't catch our ferry to where we'll be climbing until Sunday, so we booked a private room through Expedia to stay for the couple of nights we're in Phuket. So to get to our hostel we had to get a taxi. We wandered around outside, looking a bit lost until finally someone asked if we needed a taxi. We said yes and tried to explain where we were going. They seemed to at least understand we were trying to get into Phuket City. They threw out the price of 800 THB. We couldn't remember if that was a good price or not so we just went with it and followed this young guy to his car, got in, and we were off.

The taxi ride was quite exciting. I'm pretty sure we found the fastest taxi driver in town. He was whipping in and out of traffic, using turn lanes and bike lanes to get ahead of slower drivers. I'm pretty sure most of the time we were going twice the speed limit. While we were driving I pulled out my phone and tried to get the GPS working. Eventually it found where we were and it helped assure me we were heading in the right direction. 

We made one stop that was not our hostel. I think it was their head quarters or some kind of travel agency because he just got out the car and some nice lady came and talked to us to figure out where we were trying to get to. Our hostel was either new enough or changed names so that they didn't know what we were talking about. After about 5 minutes he got back in the car and just asked me if I could give him turn by turn directions. So I'm very very thankful my GPS started working so that I could do just that, else it might have been more complicated.

Waiting for our taxi driver, not quite sure what was happening. It's all part of the adventure

We eventually got to the spot I had saved on my map and sure enough our hostel was there. I wasn't 100% it would be since sometimes addresses don't always show up correctly. Even with our stop we made it in record time. We paid the taxi driver 900 THB since he only had 100 THB in change. Maybe a little sketchy, but it was late and in the end that's still only $25 USD for what was supposed to be a 30 minute taxi ride. Seemed worth it.

We are staying at the Bed Hostel. It had really high reviews on Expedia and was still really cheap, even for a private air-conditioned room. Check-in went smoothly. They were waiting for us and had our paperwork all ready. They showed us to our room. And that was that. Finally... with great relief... our travels for the day were complete, and we could sleep. And sleep we did.

Our room complete with some cool artwork over our bed.

Solo Travels

Yesterday was already our last full day in Melbourne. What?! The time seems to have flown by. This afternoon we're Thailand bound. We've realized that we're going to be spending a lot of time together in Thailand until we get used to the area we're staying and feel comfortable venturing out alone. So, we decided to do some solo travels for our last full day in Melbourne since we're very comfortable now with the suburbs and train system. Here's what we ended up doing! 

Katie: 

I decided to return to Yarraville and explore the area more in depth. You don't have to go to the city center to reach it, and it's only a twenty minute train ride from Altona. Though it's quieter than the city center there's still a lot to take in. 
The first place I stopped was a pop-up shop. Pop-up shops are a new trend in Australia. It's essentially a shop that "pops-up" using a short-term lease wherever it can find sale space in a suburb. When the lease runs out the shop "pops-up" in another suburb. Pop-up shops are often used collectively by local artists to display and sell their wares. The one I went to had all sorts of handmade purses, jewelry, clothes, teas, cards, artwork, etc. It was a lot of fun to wander. 

Next, I stopped in a private physical therapy (or physiotherapy as they call it in Australia) clinic called Physiotherapy & Clinical Pilates: Yarraville Village. One of my co-workers recently suggested seeing what physical therapy looks like in Australia, which I thought was a brilliant idea. I purposefully went during lunch hours not to interrupt too many patient sessions. I was able to talk shop with with a kind female physical therapist for a few minutes, but didn't want to steal too much of her lunch time. She explained that the physiotherapy clinic was initially stand-alone at another location in Yarraville, but recently moved in with the pilates and barre studios. They have found this merging of businesses into one space to be very helpful in continuing care with their patients. There are three physical therapists on staff as well as some staff for the studios. Manual therapy techniques are a main focus of treatment. Unlike in Michigan, physiotherapists are allowed to order x-rays and do dry needling. I didn't get a chance to ask about length of visits or amount of visits, but the therapist did mention that the care at this clinic is one-on-one. It was a fun and interesting visit, and I wish we had had more time to chat. 

Outside of the physiotherapy clinic

You can see they provide a lot of great services to the community. They also have a sign stating that they are members of the Australian Physiotherapy Council, which seems to be an indication of good practice. 

Inside the gym area with pilates and exercise equipment. The three doors in the rear are manual therapy treatment rooms. 

I then continued wandering thru the streets of Yarraville and in and out of shops. One of the main draws in Yarraville is the historic Sun Theatre. The art deco architecture has been preserved and movies are still played in six theatres that seat between 23 and 200 people. In the affiliated Sun Bookshop next store, I was tempted by and bought an adult colouring book. Just like in the States, these seem to be all the rage in Australia. I justified the purchase because it should provide good entertainment for our flight and provide a technology-free, relaxing outlet for me when we have down time. Plus, one of the colouring pages is of Sydney, Australia! 

Brandon: 


I decided to head to downtown Melbourne. I had only one must stop place, and that was more of an errand than anything. Katie and I discovered on our last flight that'd it be nice if we had an audio headphone splitter so that we could be listening to the same bit of music or audio book and both have our own set of headphones as opposed to sharing one set and getting to only listen in one ear. So I went straight away to the location that had said splitter and found it with ease.

For the rest of my time out, I just wandered aimlessly. If I saw a shop that looked interesting, I stopped and looked in the window or went in. I stopped at a couple of outdoor shops. I kept my eye out for a good juice or smoothie place and stopped at a couple to price them out. I even went back to one to actually buy something, but they didn't accept credit cards. Stymied. But about 10 min later I found myself in a mall we had been in a few times since that's where our church is located, and there was a juice shop I kept eyeing, so I decided to give it a go. I got a watermelon, orange, and strawberry ice frappe. Well worth the hunt.

A cool Dr Seuss art shop I stumbled across. I thought my dad might appreciate this since he's a big Dr Seuss fan.

An alley converted to be fancy with a bunch of coffee and food shops 

I then made my way back to Federation Square where I had heard there was an information center where I could get a free sticker of this rhino on a skateboard. We've seen the signs on the trams as safety promotional thing. Sadly they didn't have any. But I did get a button that says "Heart your trams". I suppose that was a pretty good consolation prize. And they gave me some other places to ask, but those didn't pan out either.

The sticker I was hoping to find.

After that excursion my time was running out. My "curfew" was 6:30, so Katie wouldn't worry about me. I had just enough time to get off the train in Newport and stop by a shop that sells a good variety of local craft beer to pick up some brews for dinner. 

The drink selection for our last evening in Melbourne.

I made it home and then Katie and I went to the grocery store to pick up dinner. The original plan was to get some kind of turkey or chicken patties to make burgers, but a chicken roast dish with bacon and cheddar and cream cheese that I had been wanting to try was finally back in stock. So we went with that instead even though it was going to take at least 3 times as long to cook. It ended up taking even longer cuz I did't realize the oven turned off after the first timer went off. Still totally worth it though. 

Our delicious dinner that was TOTALLY worth the extra wait :)

We agreed it was a great way to spend our last full day in Melbourne. Thailand here we come!

Everyday Life in Altona

We've posted a lot about specific adventures around Melbourne, but we've also had some really nice down time that we've spent in Altona. Melbourne locals always act surprised when we say we're staying in Altona. Probably because it's further than other suburbs from the city center, there's no night life, and there are a lot of retirees. But, we've grown to love Altona with its quiet small town feel, sea smell, shoreline trails, bustling main street of cafes, conveniently located grocery store, easy access train station, our Airbnb home away from home, and a place just a couple doors down from home where Brandon got his hair cut. 

Everyday life. Our everyday laundry. 

As an added bonus, here's a video of our everyday surroundings. Caution: I am not an expert videographer and the shakiness may make you nauseous. Yes, it is that bouncy even after YouTube claimed to do its anti-shake corrections. Sigh. You've been warned. 

( https://youtu.be/e6ofXGnKeds )

City on a Hill

Spending a month in one city (in this case, Melbourne) rather than traveling all over the country has been an intentional decision. One of the reasons we have chosen to do this is community. Community, we felt, would lead to better understanding of culture, more local information about the area, invitation to participate in activities, and a sense of connection in a new place. One of the ways we find community at home is our church. We also want to use our sabbatical to grow spiritually. So, it made sense to find a church in Melbourne to regularly attend. 

We have a church in Lansing called Riverview that we closely identify with. It is part of the Acts 29 Network, which is comprised of churches with several key characteristics including gospel-centered teaching. So we decided to see if there were any Acts 29 churches in Melbourne. As it turns out, there are two such churches in Melbourne, both known as City on a Hill. One was on the west side of Melbourne, which is where we are, but not easily accessible via public transit. The other was located in the movie theater of a mall in the city center. The basement of the mall also just so happens to be a train station. Perfect. 

We had trouble finding the church the first Sunday, because it is a really, really big mall and at that time we didn't actually know the church was in the movie theater. Mercifully, we stumbled upon it and were only a few minutes late. We settled into the super comfy theater seats (maybe too comfy during a sermon) and were able to worship with Christians in another country. We learned some new songs and the teaching was gospel-centered and expository, which we relate to well. Pretty cool. 

The pastor giving the sermon that morning was actually visiting from the west side church and we were able to briefly meet him on the way out. We discovered his name is Luke and he lives in Altona near us, so we exchanged email addresses in order to meet up sometime. Pastor Luke ended up being the guy who loaned us his car for the Great Ocean Road. At that point, we had not even met up with him yet. We finally were able to meet him at a cafe and chat yesterday! Again pretty cool. 

City on a Hill church in Melbourne

Now for some reflection. I was hoping to expand our community through regularly attending a church, but I didn't really know what to expect. In order to facilitate meeting people, I was hoping for a greeting time. I must admit that I normally hate greeting times at churches. Yes, hate. They are usually forced and awkward making them feel insincere. As it turns out, there was indeed a greeting time. And, yes it was forced and awkward. In fact, once, we couldn't get anyone to talk to us. I don't bring this up to blame. I bring this up to reflect on myself. Now having been the outsider who actually wants to meet people, I have been convicted of making an effort to meet new people when I have a home church again. Brandon and I have previously discussed intentionally meeting new people at church and actually inviting them into our home for more personal, real conversation and community. But, we've only actually followed through once. Interestingly, the reason I started going to the church we attended in Holland is because a family did just that; they invited me over for dinner the first time I was there. And, you know what? I, and now Brandon, are still in contact with this amazing family. I know that something miraculous like that isn't going to happen every time I step out of my comfort zone. But, I still feel convicted to be more hospitable and sacrificial of my time as Christians are commanded to be. More than the sermons I've heard recently, this has motivated spiritual change for me. 

I've also been trying to cultivate spiritual growth on this sabbatical by personal Bible reading. I've been working my way through the New Testament and have recently been reading a lot about the early church, including Acts 4:32-35 which says, 

• "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there was no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, and brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need."

Wow. Pretty radical for our self-driven, independent culture to hear. This is of course just a description of the early church at that time. Nevertheless, this has stood out for me for a couple reasons. First, because our friend group in Grand Rapids has been trying to create such a community, one that generously shares food, resources, time, emotion, and spirituality. We've been trying to build that community by meeting once a month and having intentional, deep discussion not just the surface "How are you doing?... Good." conversation. It's been challenging, but it's been real. And, I miss it. 

Second, because of Pastor Luke's example. He gave his car to us, strangers from another land. Crazy, generous sharing among believers as in Acts. And then he shared his time with us chatting about all manner of things over warm beverages. Simple, but meaningful spiritual community. 

So, yes, I think I've found both community and spiritual growth. Or at the very least I've found the beginnings of those things, which I hope would continue to root if we were able to spend more than a month in Melbourne. 

Katie's Australian Blind Date

A couple of weeks ago Katie took me on a blind date. She already wrote about it in this post. But needless to say it was quite fun. So the pressure was kind of on to come up with a quality blind date for her since she is always so good at coming up with good ones for me. I started thinking off and on about different ideas until finally I came across this really good option while browsing Groupon. So here is said blind date.

We set off around 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, October 20th after a bit of a delay due to my last minute planning and note taking. Turns out the location wasn't quite where I thought it was, so I had to do some last minute research. But I think it helped add to the mystery of the date. I also learned that what we'd be doing was actually outside, not inside like I originally thought. Luckily we had still had some warm weather, but it was turning cold that night. *Phew*

Katie experiencing the non-sights and sounds of public transit.
She didn't have to wear the blindfold for long, as Katie talked about in her post, it is a bit too sketchy to lead someone around blindfolded in a busy city. Plus the stops are announced over the intercom, so there's no point.

After about an hour of travel on two trains and a tram, we arrived at our first destination: Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Center.
At this point she was guessing that we were doing some kind of swimming, but there was still more to the surprise.

The surprise is revealed. We're surfing!.. well fake surfing. They call it flowriding.

Yup, that's right. I found a sweet groupon deal for this surfing machine. All day passes for two people for only $35. And that includes entry to the other aquatic center stuff like an indoor wave pool. It's something I've always wanted to try, but when I've seen them at other water parks they were always so busy and cost extra. So as we often do for blind dates, I found something I really wanted to do and dragged Katie along with me. I think it worked out. We both had a lot of fun. 

You first start out on a bodyboard. And then from there you work your way up getting on your knees on the bodyboard.

Katie bodyboarding.

Me bodyboarding.

Katie picked it up quite quickly.
Her second or third time she was already getting up on her knees.

I picked it up pretty easily as well.

Our instructor was awesome. He was really interactive, joked with us a lot, and was just overall a lot of fun. But as a result he pushed us pretty quickly into the real deal surfing. They do a really good job of easing you into it. 

For our first few times we start out on the front of the "wave" and our instructor helps ease us into the flowing water.

We then get a chance to figure out how to balance and turn on the flowing water while holding onto a rope. It felt a lot like wakeboarding at this point

Once you get that down you're moved to the top and taught how to drop into the wave.

Me being helped my first time down into the wave

https://youtu.be/fjp6HFwuDIM
Here's a video of me dropping in semi-successfully.

We then took about an hour break. The flowrider was reserved for an hour by a private party. We were a little bit bummed, but it worked in our favor to take a bit of a break. And as a perk we got to go into the water park area and enjoy the wave pool and eat a snack.

Chilling by the wave pool.

After our break we got right back out on the waves and practiced some more. It took a bit to warm up again. We both had some nasty falls. But eventually we managed to have some pretty good rides too. It helped that the lines were short and the other guys that were there were a lot of fun to be around. Everyone would cheer you on if you were having a good ride. If you fell down early a couple of the guys had some hilariously awesome phrases they'd yell at you to get you to take another turn (imagine all of these in a heavy Australian accent): "Have another go, mate! Have another go!" and "Come on now, step in time... step in time!" (Gotta love the Mary Poppins reference).

Katie tearing it up!

Hang Ten Mate!

https://youtu.be/wFStFJjRoRA
One of Katie's best rides. 
She even had a pretty graceful dismount at the end there.

https://youtu.be/lYY1FAlwik0
 One of my best rides.
Notice the stirring motion my arms are making to keep balance. The guys would yell out "And he's stirring the pot! That he is... stir that pot". It was quite funny at the time.

We ended up being there way longer then I thought we'd be. It helped that we both exceeded our own expectations of how good we would do. Katie didn't think she would even try the stand-up surfing. But as you can probably tell from the pictures and videos, she did awesome! Success!

At this point we were pretty tired. I had looked up a few other things we could have done in the city, but given the time and our energy level we decided it best to head back home. But I had one more surprise. On our train ride home we stopped a few stops early in Yarraville. Katie was a bit confused at first, but then she quickly figured out what we were doing. I still tried my best to keep it a secret.

Even though she more or less knew where we were going, I still blindfolded her for good measure.

It's a Katie-moose.
Seemed like a must take picture. I wish I had found a box for her to stand in.

Mad Moose is a pizza joint we found while exploring Yarraville a couple of weeks before. They looked like they had some really interesting and tasty options. So I stole the idea from our to-do list for this blind date. It was really tough to decide what to get because there were so many good options. But we ended up with this:

Our Pizza!
We got a pizza with half Oasis and half Plucka.

Oasis: Garlic, napoli sauce, tasty cheese, Spanish onions, roasted red capsicum, green capsicum, diced tomato, falafel and a sprinkle of chilli. topped with tzatziki

Plucka: Plum sauce, tasty cheese, peking duck breast, topped with cucumber, carrot and coriander.

Katie approves!

Both types of pizza were amazing. We ate it all in one sitting. So it was well worth the stop even with being exhausted from our earlier activities. It was a good way to end Katie's Australian blind date.

And that was that. I hope you enjoyed my retelling of one of our last Australian adventures of the month.

Cheers!

p.s. We definitely paid for some of our falls the next day. Both of us had some pretty sore necks and shoulders. But due to lack of time and a previous commitment with another house mate, we still went rock climbing one last time. It wasn't our best performance, but at least we didn't make it too much worse.