Lunar New Year

Sydney celebrates Lunar New Year in a really cool way - dragon dances, parades, displays all around the city, markets, food, dragon boat races and so much more!

This is the year of the dog. Arf!

The Queen Victoria Building (aka QVB) in Sydney's CBD did a fun interactive art installation featuring dogs. When you played with the large tennis ball on the pedestal, the dogs on the flat screens moved around following the ball. Fun!

We explored some of the Lunar New Year events, including dragon boat racing in Darling Harbour. Wow! Such strength and power.

Just generally opening our minds and hearts to enjoying all the events and activities Sydney has to offer!

School, work, life

After our amazing summer of travels we had to get back to reality. We jumped back into our routine with gusto!

We moved houses and are now in a house (vs. an apartment-style condo). We have a dedicated guest room and a playroom since the boys are sharing a room. We made some (odd) tradeoffs - we gave up two garage parking spots to street park; and we gave up a full size dishwasher for a half size. Why someone would put a dishwasher that small in a house with 4 bedrooms is beyond me. Not very well thought out, but we're surviving just fine. And parking has been far less of an issue than I thought it would be. We also no longer have a dryer so sunny days = washing days.

Micah, age 6.5 at time of photo, doing laundry! To his future partner: you're welcome!

Real life in Sydney is much the same as real life anywhere. Except, if I'm honest, it's really beautiful and amazing. Can you tell I LUUUUV life in Australia? But the realities of life are the same - dropping off dry cleaning, making sure the boys have brushed their teeth twice / day, seemingly nonstop laundry (but now revolving around the weather), grocery runs (though now we have a lot of our groceries delivered!), after school activities, birthday parties, thinking about how I haven't been a good blogger as of late, etc.

Just two sweet boys (mostly) walking to school!

Aaron's office recently moved from the CBD (that's Aussie for Central Business District or what Americans might call downtown) to St Leonards in the North Shore. His commute has changed quite a bit but still includes a ferry ride on occasion.

Since the boys don't have homework (LOVE!), they have flexibility for after school activities. The current lineup is hip hop, swimming and Hebrew school. This means it's sometimes a pain in the arse to rally on the weekends and get out of the house since we're a bit scheduled during the week. Lunar New Year in mid-February was a great reason to explore Sydney...

AFL Theme Songs, by the Fidler males

Please note: this is a guest blog by Aaron, Eytan and Micah; all opinions expressed are theirs, not mine (Julie). I only like one of these songs and can maybe be heard singing it occasionally. Or often. That's subjective.

Since moving to Sydney the boys have really enjoyed following the AFL (Australian Football League - aka that odd sport that you used to watch on ESPN2 in the middle of the night in college). We’re fans of Sydney and GWS (Greater Western Sydney), but enjoy watching just about any game. We especially enjoy watching Collingwood where Mason Cox, the only American in the AFL, is a ruckman and key forward. The Australian crew at the New York Times just did this super cool story on Cox.

As we've learned more about the sport - and recently attend a finals match of Sydney vs GWS - we've discovered that there are theme songs (aka fight songs) for each club.

Image courtesy 3AW.com.au

Listed below (thank you, wikipedia!) are the songs for each team with our ratings (out of 10) for each and a short comment on the song. We hope you take the time to listen to a few of these (some will sound quite familiar to many of our American friends, though with different lyrics) and enjoy our take on the AFL theme songs!

Club name	Name of team song	Basis for team song	M's take	E's take	Daddy's take	Comments
Adelaide	"The Pride of South Australia"	"US Marines' Hymn"	5	6	7	I keep expecting to hear “from the halls of Montezuma…” The first in an ongoing theme of, “hey, isn’t that song actually…”
Brisbane Lions	"The Pride of Brisbane Town"	"La Marseillaise"	4	5	5	Plays to the large contingent of French AFL fans.
Carlton	"We are the Navy Blues"	"Lily of Laguna"	1	1	4	About what you’d expect for a club that calls themselves the Blues. Not the most exciting song choice.
Collingwood	"Good Old Collingwood Forever"	"Goodbye, Dolly Gray"	5	7	5	Here we get introduced to the term “barrackers” which is a surprising synonym for “fans” since Aussies usually bias to shorter names. It’s the capsicum of sports terms.
Essendon	"See the Bombers Fly Up"	"(Keep Your) Sunny Side Up"	4	6	6	M: “I see why it says ‘up’ - it’s an airplane.” That about sums it up (pun intended).
Fremantle	"Freo Way To Go"	"Song of the Volga Boatmen"	9	9	9	A family favourite. That said, the intro sounds like something you’d hear the jews in egypt singing while building the pyramids.
Geelong	"We Are Geelong"	"The Toreador Song"	7	5	4	Starts w/ something like the rhythm of “nanny, nanny foo-foo.” Also, their coach is insanely intense. You do not want to mess w/ that guy.
Gold Coast	"We Are the Suns of the Gold Coast Sky"[3]	Original	7	9	7	Our first original song. Too bad the team is terrible because this is a good song.
Greater Western Sydney	"There's A Big Big Sound"[4]	Original	10	10	9	We love this one. After listening to the song you need to check this clip out.
Hawthorn	"The Mighty Fighting Hawks" (also known as "We're A Happy Team At Hawthorn")	"The Yankee Doodle Boy"	5	5	5	There’s just no way to make Yankee Doodle an intimidating song. But it’s fun to listen to.
Melbourne	"It's a Grand Old Flag"	"You're a Grand Old Flag"	8	7	7	If you’re going to steal a song and make it about the colors red and blue, just take the Penn song.
North Melbourne	"Join in the Chorus"	"Wee Deoch an Doris"[5]	6	6	5	Good, old timey song.
Port Adelaide	"Power to Win"[6]	Original	9	9	10	Another family favourite - nice work on the original song.
Richmond	"We're from Tiger Land"	"Row, Row, Row"	10	10	9	Rumour has it that their barrackers only really know the words “yellow and black” (that’s really all you hear if you go to one of their games).
St Kilda	"When the Saints Go Marching In"	"When the Saints Go Marching In"	1	2	9	Clearly, the kids and daddy don’t see eye-to-eye on this. How can you not like “When the Saints Go Marching In?!”
Sydney	"The Red and the White"	"Notre Dame Victory March"	9	9	9	I love all of this. Except that it’s Notre Dame’s fight song!!! Since we cheer for Sydney, we know all the words - it pains me that we do. Because, again, Notre Dame!
West Coast	"We're Flying High"	Original	5	5	3	Not the strongest start to the song. Doesn’t really do much after that.
Western Bulldogs	"Sons of the West"	"Sons of the Sea"	3	2	3	It gives a good description of a bulldog. Not sure that makes for a strong fight song.

AO

To wind down a truly magical and adventure-filled summer, Aaron and I were invited to the Women's Finals of the Australian Open. Wow! Thank you, Mastercard!

Loved this sign giving visitors directions to AO!

AO logo filled with tennis balls!

Mastercard had a very cool beach club where guests and cardholders could relax, soak their feet in a cool pool, enjoy entertainment and have a bite to eat. There were spontaneous Priceless moments, too!

Glad there was a pic of the beach club online from Nadia Cameron of CMO.com.au

Like when Chris Evert came out to give us her predictions on the match (Caroline Wozniacki vs. Simona Halep, by the way).

Australian chef Neil Perry and American tennis star Chris Evert

Our view of the court

The tennis was incredible! The players were well matched (as you'd expect at world ranked #1 vs #2) and it was no sure-thing for either woman. The three sets were intense. In the end, Wozniacki won (and became ranked #1 for a short time) - and it was her first Grand Slam. It was great to witness that history.

Aaron and I rushed back from the AO to pick Micah up from our friends house and meet Eytan at the return bus from camp! We had one day before the school year started and our extracurricular activities resumed. It was a bit insane looking back, but I'm glad we had the opportunity to do so many great things over the summer!

Melbourne (but drop the 'r')

Before I get too much into our hot summer days in Melbourne, we need to clear something up. Aussies pretty much do no pronounce the 'r' sound. In any word. Unless there's no 'r' in a word, then it's available for use (example: Micah, pronounced Miker). Along those lines, the city Melbourne is not pronounced how we Americans think it would be: Mel-BURN. It is instead pronounced Mel-Bnn. You learn this very quickly when you're in country, and it helps you acclimate and gain "street cred" with Aussies.

Anyway, after Hamilton Island and Tassie, we flew to Melbourne for a few days. Between the previous 4 weeks of travel and the newly found Melbourne summer heat, exhaustion had set in. We were much slower to tackle things, but we still enjoyed our time there!

A LEGO Discovery Centre had opened in Melbourne a few months prior and the boys were quite keen to have a go (translation: they were very excited!). Great indoor activity to avoid the scorching heat outside.

Melbourne in LEGO

LEGO AFL

Melbourne Cup in LEGO

Goofballs!

At the suggestion of a friend (another mom of two similar aged boys, so a good person to get advice from!), we booked a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

MCG has hosted thousands of events in its history - the olympics (1956), World Cup final (1992), Commonwealth Games (2006) and thousands of cricket matches, AFL, rugby Union, rugby League, concerts, historic speeches and more.

MCG is awesome! It can hold more than 100,000 patrons at any given time. The largest estimated single-event crowd was for a Billy Graham appearance in 1959; low estimates put 130,000 people in attendance!

E and Aaron on the field

Aaron and the boys in the visiting team locker room

View of the field from the members only Long Room

We also got to see some "behind the walls" features - locker rooms, training facilities, media rooms and more.

It was so hot in Melbourne (did I already mention that?!?) - I'm pretty sure we collapsed in our hotel after the MCG tour.

On our final day in Melbourne we visited SCIENCEWORKS. We all enjoyed it!

City planning

After some great (and hot!) time in Melbourne, we flew home to Sydney to pack E for sleep away camp, pack our house to move down the street, and pack Nani and Papi to return home to the US. 

Just after we moved houses (the day Nani and Papi left) and while E was at sleep away camp, Aaron and I would "boomerang" back to Melbourne for the Women's Finals of the Australian Open!

Tassie

From Hamilton Island we flew to Tasmania, an isolated island state off Australia’s south coast.

Simple yet valuable map of Australia from Gold Coast Australia Travel Tips.

Tassie is known for its rugged wilderness, much of which is protected land. We spent our time in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Though occupied for thousands of years prior, Hobart was founded as a British penal colony in 1804. There is so much history in this city!

Our first full day was quite cold but that didn't stop us (too much). We explored Salamanca and took a carriage ride through that part of town.

The five of us that went for the carriage ride loved it! The man with the horse allergy opted out.

The boys got a quick turn at driving!

Our tour guide / carriage driver / all around awesome human told us some great history about Hobart and even pointed us towards some American history in town. Nani and I went for a quick exploration and, sure enough, found the stone marking of what used to be a US Consulate in Hobart!

Little connections to "home" are so valuable to us!

On day two we were supposed to go to Port Arthur but the weather didn't cooperate so we instead went to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Bonorong was super cool! They offer 24/7 wildlife rescue service and have an eclectic collection of animals.

For example, they came into a few koalas, but never meant to. They actually started with one, who they quickly learned was expecting! They plan to continue to care for them until they pass. With a lifespan of 20+ years in captivity, they'll (hopefully) have koalas for a lot longer.

There are Tasmanian Devils (of course!). These critters have been through the wringer IMO, and are quite misunderstood (they can also be vicious, no sugar-coating here). They've been hunted for many years and often fall victim to roadkill (while they're eating other roadkill...). For the last 30 years, the wild population has been impacted tremendously by devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). The Tasmanian government is working around the world to help breed healthy Devils that can one day be returned to the wild.

Randall the echidna lost a fight with a dog and had to have a leg amputated. He happily trots around Bonorong now!

There are HEAPS of kangaroos hopping around the grounds and there's kangaroo feed available to brighten the 'roos day!

M feeding a 'roo!

Papi feeding some 'roos!

Love this mum and joey!

Day three was meant to be MONA but E got sick so he and I stayed back. The crew that went was...intrigued. MONA was founded by David Walsh, an eccentric Australian gambler who hit it big and founded the Museum of Old and New Art. I guess, why not?

One of Nani's pics from MONA

M enjoyed the ferry ride to get to MONA from downtown! And yes, he's sitting on a cow statue.

On our final day before heading to the airport, we did a tour of the Hobart convict penitentiary (aka the 'tench'). Another winner that kept us all engaged and interested!

The tench was the convict prisoners' barracks for Hobart Town. Most prisoners lived at the tench but worked around Hobart for the government. They had some freedom to move around, have a beer after work and buy their necessities at the local shops. They had a curfew and rules - including mandatory church on Sunday.

If you look closely at the bricks that form the outside of the tench, you'll see some imprinted with the Broad Arrow; this meant these bricks were government property (leading to a decrease in theft). Today, these bricks are incredibly valuable and collectible!

Much of the original buildings from the tench were torn down; several courtrooms inside the penitentiary like this was were still used until the 1980s!

M had a go at playing piano in the chapel.

E learning about capital punishment from the days of the tench 😨

We all enjoyed the tench tour. It was fascinating to learn a bit about daily life for the convicts and gave us interesting insight into Tassie's history.

From Tassie we flew to Melbourne, where the cool weather became a distant memory...

Fidlers ON the Reef!

After NZ and some time in Sydney, we set off for a tour around some east coast Aussie cities: Hamilton Island, Hobart and Melbourne. If this all feels ridiculous, it was!

Hamilton Island is part of Australia's Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, and is known as the commercial centre for the area thanks to its close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

While lovely, Hamilton Island is a bit manufactured; what I mean by that is most everything is owned and run by one company. Though there are restaurants of different cuisines, many food and beverage items cross-over from menu to menu. It's still a magical place, though!

The island is mostly car-free. Our accommodations included a "buggy" for transport around the island. What fun! Seat belts must be worn, driver's licenses are required, and each buggy is registered / plated.

Though the driver sits on the left-hand side, they also drive on the left-hand side! Those are some serious right turns.

A boat bringing a box truck full of island supplies

Beautiful sunset + buggy parking

We had a pretty full itinerary for our time on Hamilton Island: swimming at our pool, snorkeling (and SCUBA!) at the Reef, a day cruise around the islands, golf / spa / kids club and KOALAS!

Our first full day was a ~3 hour boat ride from Hamilton Island to the Heart Pontoon above Hardy Reef. (It should be noted here, the Great Barrier Reef is a collection of *thousands* of smaller reefs; Hardy Reef is one of the reefs that makes up the GBR.)

Cruise Whitsundays, who provided this map, took us to Hardy Reef.

The boat ride to the pontoon was choppy and long. There were plenty of ginger tablets and motion sickness bags to go around. No further elaborations required.

Once aboard the boat to the pontoon, the sales pitch began - underwater camera hire, upgraded snorkel gear, photos, SCUBA lessons and first dives, helicopter rides and much more.

Nani and I took the plunge and signed up for SCUBA lessons and were able to do our first dive at the Reef. Incredible! I personally didn't care much for the sensation of SCUBA, but the sights were awesome. Giant, colourful fish swimming all around! Oh my!

Ready to test my SCUBA skills!

Nani with a humphead wrasse fish!

We could hardly get E out of the water to do anything but snorkel. He absolutely loved it!

The ride back to "Hamo" was equally as treacherous as the way out to the pontoon. And it was cold! M and I cuddled up in towels and dozed off for a bit.

I don't remember what we did the rest of that (late) afternoon and evening, but I'm quite certain we were all in bed asleep at a very reasonable time. What a fun-filled and tiring day!

Day three included a bit of R&R. The boys went to the clownfish club and had a great day - scavenger hunts, the amazing race, loads of activities, sport, and fun all day!

The ladies had lunch, shopped a bit around town and went to the spa.

The men had a chance to play 18 holes at the Hamilton Island Golf Club. Papi noted it was one of the more difficult courses he's played.

Day four was another full day! We visited Chalkies Beach, hiked to hill inlet, snorkeled the coral gardens and walked along Whitehaven beach. We also saw the beach where a few scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed. I swear there were more stops than just those on our itinerary -- it felt like we were on and off the boat all day and hardly had a chance to enjoy much.

Hill inlet photo op

Whitehaven Beach

The fam

Our boat captain was super strict on making sure we wore stinger suits if we were in the water. He was less concerned about stingrays and more concerned about Irukandji. Irukandji are nearly translucent teeny tiny venomous jellyfish.

The boys rocking the stinger suits

How cute are Nani and Papi? They went snorkeling off the back of the boat!

Day five was departure day. We snuck in a quick morning visit to WILDLIFE Hamilton Island. A few mornings per week, visitors can pay a small fee to hold a koala. Queensland is the only state in Australia where visitors can hold koalas. (It can be quite disruptive for the koalas sleep cycles; the staff at WILDLIFE Hamilton Island assured me their koalas are rotated and held only when they're awake -- but you have to be careful to hold them almost uncomfortably so they don't snooze on you.)

From our koala encounter, we raced to the airport and set off for Hobart, Tasmania! Read about that next time!