Popcorners...

Yes, you've read correctly, Popcorners. A few years ago I had gone to the Costco in Westbury by myself on a weekend and we know how they have free samples of things. So I see this chip that's made out of popcorn and it's gluten free, which for a person with diabetes is lovely to hear. I tried the caramel, white cheddar and the cheesy jalapeno. They had sea salt and kettle corn which I didn't try. I bought one of those huge bags I think it was around $4ish or thereabouts, they had them for a few more months and then nothing. It seems they visit Costco in the States and that's the best way to try/get them at least that was the case before, I have no idea what it's like now. So one day my husband and I are walking down the chip aisle in Woolworth's and there is a sale on these Popcorner things, now I completely forgot about them as I am not a heavy chip eater and I hadn't seen them in Costco in months before I moved here nor at this point had I eaten chips around the time of our wedding or the months getting ready to move. We bought the Cheesy Jalapeno and when we opened it and I tasted one, I was like, oh my god, I've had this before and it all came flooding back, the taste, yummy and the fact I had tried and bought them in Costco only because I got to sample them before. 

There's only one thing that sucks, the flavours that are available in the States are not available here. Kettle corn is called Sweet & Savoury, can't find White Cheddar anywhere and they have a photo of it on the back of the Butter and Cheesy Jalapeno and the Sea Salt one. The Caramel flavour is only available in those little snack sized bags which cost over $1 meanwhile you can buy the 142g (5oz) for $2.00 when it's on special (sale). I've liked their page on Facebook and noticed that they've come out with two new flavours, hopefully it won't take too long for those flavours to make it Down Under. 

Vacuum cleaners...

When I lived in New York I couldn't afford a dyson pet hair vacuum, instead I bought a purple Eureka, it was just $300, it was bagless (the type I so much prefer) and it did a pretty good job at picking up cat hair and all sort of particles pretty well. Upon coming to Australia I've been looking in stores and online and it seems the most popular vacuums here are the canister ones, you know the kind your grandma used to use? I looked at a website for a store that deals solely with vacuums and the type of vacuum they have the most of are the canister ones.  The one you drag around your house or apartment, clunking into things, and if you're tall the stick makes you have to bend over a lot more than an upright. My husband had a canister when I arrived and I must tell you, I really dislike vacuuming, as I feel the canister getting stuck behind me wherever I go, it's so annoying to have to either pull really hard or to stop and move the thing from the doorway or around a piece of furniture.  They have expensive canister ones, by Miele and dyson, I believe Hoover has one too, but my preference has always been and will always be an upright, bagless vacuum cleaner. Now the one I'm hoping to buy one day is the purple dyson, but it won't be anytime soon as it costs $949.00 AUD, good thing the tax is already figured into that price because 10% tax would just be ridiculous on top of that price. The lady at Myer told me occasionally they go on sale minus 10% so that would be $854, still a bit much for a vacuum cleaner. Hopefully by the time we absolutely need to get one, they'll have other ones or better sales than just 10%.  

The type of vacuum I cannot stand!

I Really Hate This Unit...

We moved into this new unit in Kedron because it's pet friendly. But because we were given the hurry up by our previous units property manager we didn't look over the place well enough before we signed a one year lease. It's on the second floor, which is technically on the third floor because of the garages, which isn't too bad as it makes you exercise every time you leave the apartment. It only has a doorknob lock, there is no deadbolt or chain within.  The garage is a tandem two car garage with only one remote, plus there's no interior way to open the garage. So if I want to air out the garage after my husband goes to work I can only do it via the door but not a full on open so a breeze can go through. The garage door has a flimsy lock, my bedroom in NewYork had a more secure lock than the one we have for this garage. This garage has a spider issue, daddy long legs among others. I have to go down and spray the sucker down with the habanero pepper, vinegar concoction I found online to keep the suckers at bay. The hot water tap in the garage for the washing machine leaks and therefore I can only do cold washes which sucks when I need to do towels and flannel sheets and socks. You are not allowed to hang anything on the walls, there are no nails and in order to do so you have to ask and the answer's usually no. (very annoying) This unit has an electric cooktop, which I hate, it's got an electric oven which is fan forced, so it's basically a convection oven. The sink is a double sink but it's not wide enough to soak a frying pan, the handle sticks out. It's a three bedroom deal, the masters our room, the medium one us a spare bedroom and our office, the smallest bedroom is for the boxes of stuff I won't unpack until we own our own house, and for muppets litter box. The toilet is its own separate room, which is a great idea, and the bathroom has a shower over a tub, though there's not enough room for two bath sheets. There's a heat lamp in the bathroom for those chilly evenings or mornings so you don't freeze your ass off after you get out of the shower. Ugh, only one powerpoint in every room, it's not enough outlets. The balcony is huge and off the kitchen, there's one huge problem...the guy downstairs smokes like an effin chimney and it comes up onto our balcony, into our bathroom and the worst into the toilet room, that's the worst as it's a small box of a room with a toilet, it's almost suffocating, yuck. Our biggest complaint are the lights in the stairwell. The problem is that often they're not on and when they are they get shut off early. There are ten units in this complex, there are no doorbells or gates, any deviant can walk off the street and onto the complex. If someone knocks on our door we have to answer it with a flashlights onto the knockers face. We cannot have guests over for dinner in fear they could fall down the stairs and hurt themselves. We cannot go out and come home late without taking my big blue Mag Lite. We've complained to the property manager but the body corporate doesn't give a flying fuck. We want to break our lease for the safety issue  because of the lights plus the smoker. Second hand smoke while sitting on the toilet is nasty, I think poo smells better than the nasty smoke penetrating the toilet room. I've even laid out a bowl of vinegar to help but it just helps a little, you can still taste the smoke. We SO want the get out of this smelly, dangerous place. 

My First Opera...

Last night we went to my first Opera ever. It was a Cinderella Opera sung in English, and they had subtitles, just in case you didn't understand what they were singing. This Cinderella is not your typical Disney Cinderella, it's got comedy and the standard story with a slight twist. In this story, Cinderella has the 2 stepsisters but in this one she has a stepfather instead of a stepmother. There is no fairy godmother, rather a godfather. The one thing I did notice is the color of the stepsisters dresses, in most movies I've seen, they wear red and green, this is true in Ever After (my favorite), and even in A Cinderella Story with  Hillary Duff (modern age Cinderella) the stepsisters wore red and green. There must be a reason, some symbolism about it, but I can't seem to find it. The Opera was amazing and since it was sung in English it was understandable and fun, we had a smile on our faces the whole performance. These tickets were free and we even had free champagne, very nice. There was a 20 minute intermission (that's when we went out and got free drinks). I enjoyed this very much and believe that if my husband ever gets free tickets to another opera we'd definitely be going again.

Now, onto the dress code. When we received the invitation, the invitation stated a dress code, lounge suite. Now, personally I had no idea what this meant and didn't want to assume anything, so I Googled and found that lounge suite means for men, a suit and tie matching their ladies dress, for women it meant a dress, one that's a bit on the longer side. So, we walk from the car park and when we get to this place I am the fanciest dressed woman there, there was one dude wearing a tuxedo but there were people wearing jeans, jeans to an Opera? Ok it wasn't at the Sydney Opera House, but still. We were people watching while we waited to be called in, and you'd think people didn't have mirrors in their places. I'm not saying wear a ball gown or go out and buy a dress like I did, but wear something fancier, it is an opera and I've heard many women say while I was dress shopping, that an opera was the place to get dressed up to the nines. I even wore my wedding shoes, they are comfy I must say for 4 inch heels. 

Myer, David Jones, I just want my Macy's...

Since my husband works in radio and does interviews with many different people from different places, we get tickets for free movies, or concerts and next Tuesday, Opera. I'm very excited about this since I've never been to an Opera before and to make it even better it's Cinderella. Now, since I've gained a few kilos since I've been here, I don't fit into my dresses properly and need to buy a new one. One should dress up for the Opera! So my shopping spree takes me to two different Myers and a David Jones. So far I've found nothing, very exasperating. I'm hoping Thursday the 4th of July, I'll have some luck at the David Jones in the City, it is their flagship store after all. Much like Macy's Herald Square is for Macy's. Since I don't have a job and we do not have money to throw around I have not gone shopping at all, except for minor little things. I've seen some cute dresses in Myer in the City, but I'm trying to keep costs to under $150, and what I've seen is gorgeous and over $400...so ah, no.We went into the city and we found this wine colored dress and they didn't have my size so I decided to check out the other David Jones on Friday.  So I went to the David Jones at Chermside and found this absolutely GORGEOUS dress, thing is it's $250 and way over my budget, it looked awesome on. So Saturday we wound up driving down to Harbour Town Outlet Center, it's kinda like Tanger Outlet The Arches. I went into this Events store and I found this very nice teal long dress and it was on clearance for $119.95 but the lady saw there was a little hole by the zipper, (the seam split about an inch) she gave me a further discount down to $99. 

This is the one that I simply LOVE and is out of my budget as it looked awesome on! The dress I bought at the outlet is below. It too looks stunning, I just prefer the look of the navy blue. 

Australia Post and Mail in General...

Ok, living in the States I am very used to the US Postal Service, sometimes sucky but for me often pretty damn good. I know some things have changed, but this reflects the things I was used to and compared to what I now have here. I remember being in grammar school and waiting for Mailman Joe (we all knew his name) to come down the block with the letters to see which High Schools we'd gotten into. It figures it was the one time he didn't show up until 2ish, when he was always by us the latest 10:30am. We knew our mail deliverers, they had a face, they had their mail cart and door to door they walked with yucky bills or that magazine you couldn't wait to get your hands on.  I miss Saturday delivery, I miss being able to go to the Post Office on a Saturday or if in Roosevelt Field Mall, on a Sunday. I still anticipate my magazines, especially my FoodNetwork Magazine, it's the one thing I will not unsubscribe to, it keeps me in the loop with what's happening on FoodNetwork as that cable channel is not available here, they do have a Food channel with a few of the FN's stars but it's not the same and the most important is that we don't have cable. 

What I truly dislike about the Post here is that it's a shop, in a mall, on a street, there's no Post Office. Except the Main one in the City.  At the Post you can buy stamps, envelopes, post cards, express mail envelopes, greeting cards, pay as you go mobile phones, printers, stationery, water, candies and chocolates. You can even pay some of your bills, I've seen that in Croatia too. Since we live in a complex of 10 units, there is a brick wall with metal opening in the front and the back, so really anyone can walk by and steal your mail, my biggest problem is that most people don't care that their mail gets wet. I went outside earlier to take the cat to the vet and checked the mailbox and there is a puddle of water inside the box and all of our mail is soaking wet. I mean do we have rent a Post Office Box? Moving's a pain in the ass, much less having your mail forwarded and notifying EVERYONE of your new address. When we lived in Gordon Park it wasn't that bad, but this one is ridiculous, what if we get something important and it's raining for days? The Post man does not come with his little cart walking down the street, nope he's on motorbike and he never gets off that thing. I've read that sometimes, if you get a small package they sometimes just leave a notice in your mailbox to pick up the stuff instead of knocking on your door. Yes I said knocking, there are no bells at this complex. 

This is just a sample of the type of mailboxes some complexes have, this one is pretty decent, I've seen worse on our walks.