Muir Woods

I do apologise: the updating of this blog is somewhat sporadic these days! I was trying to give weekly updates, but that hasn't been happening as I've run out of time or, well... that's about it: I've run out of time! Or we just haven't done anything interesting.

But this past weekend was Father's Day here. Robert wanted to go to Muir Woods which is our closest forest of redwood trees (it's about a 60-90 minute drive one way, depending on traffic). These forests are some of the oldest in the world, and some of the trees here are around 1000 years old! The place was really beautiful, and for me, it was nice to wander around in nature without having to be too afraid of spiders! Haha. The drive was a little scary: the road we took was very windy and some parts were on the edge of cliffs. I was often yelling out to Robert to drive slower or to move further into the road in fear of driving off the edge! Ha...

After wandering around the forest for a couple of hours, we headed to Stinton Beach for lunch. I'd been looking forward to finding a beach as it's now Summer here, and it would be nice to take the toddler swimming. And coming from Australia, I had expectations of spending much of Summer at a beach. But I don't think that will be quite so. Stinton Beach, at least, was a big surf. Which is fine. It's just not as child-friendly as perhaps a Sydney beach is. It was also very open and big. Like everything here, it was bigger than beaches tend to be in Sydney. And according to someone Robert spoke to, people tend not to go swimming as much as the water's so cold. And I'm not going to lie: it just wasn't as picturesque and as beautiful as Sydney beaches are. The sand's a bit grey and the water doesn't seem to have that sparkle that I'm used to. It's also quite a drive, where I'm used to living about 15 minutes away from Balmoral. Oh well...

That said, it was a lovely day. Here are some pictures:

Following on from that, on Sunday we went to Lands End, but I haven't finished going through the photos of that little trip, so I'll save that for another post.

In other news, our stuff finally arrived!!! It only took four months! Haha. Although our lounge has been lost. As far as we know, it could still be on the boat. But it's good to have all of our stuff and our apartment is starting to look more like us now. It's been very exciting for the toddler: as far as he's aware, we've suddenly been gifted with all these new things! 

Anyway, I will updated again soon with some photos from Lands End and another beach. 

xoxo

A Wet, Wild, Wintry Week

This is very true. Except for the wine part; I'm not a big drinker, unless you're talking about coffee.

I struggled through motherhood a lot this week. I had quite a few of those moments where I just thought 'I can't do this' or 'I can't handle another tantrum. What has my life become?!'. LOL. And usually I like cold, wet weather. But not with a toddler; this kind of weather only makes life more difficult when you have a small child who needs attention 99% of their waking time. Apparently this weather is unusual for San Francisco. Just our luck that we should get it in our third week here. When we don't have a car. For the Aussies who may be reading this, the weather here has felt quite similar to the Winter temperatures felt in the Blue Mountains around Leura or so. Just with a lot more wind. Unfortunately, I also wasn't prepared for this kind of weather, so all my Winter clothes are in a box on a boat somewhere! So I'm not surprised that I'm a little bit sick now! On the other hand, Robert - the lover of jackets - has very much been enjoying making use of his various black jackets that he always has on hand (even when it's about 40 degrees C outside. Crazy person). 

This will basically be me for the next couple of months or so!

Speaking of cars, we have a car. Well, not just yet. Robert should be going to pick it up over the weekend sometime. But our bank account has a lot less in it. It's a BMW. It's black. It's shiny. You'd think I'd be excited about this especially after the past few years of car drama with the NRMA and not having our own car. But I'm not. Cars are expensive things (regardless of whether BMWs are cheaper here than in Australia or not). Especially when you and your husband are very picky and have quite specific wants/needs in a car. I'm also extremely anxious over having to learn to drive on the opposite side of the road. I get very anxious over a lot of things, driving being one of those things. Plus, my husband had to get a manual, which I basically had no say in. Thankfully, I know how to drive a manual (he taught me on his old, old car many years ago), however it still only makes my anxiety worse knowing that I need to learn to drive a new manual car in a foreign country, on the other side of the road, in a very hilly city. And it doesn't help that drivers here seem to enjoy communicating with their horns more than they do in Sydney (I didn't think that was possible!). Still, at least we have a car. Now I can get places, and getting places is good.

We also have some furniture. Which is also a good thing. Our apartment isn't as empty now! The toddler also has a high chair again, which thankfully means I don't need to chase him around all over the place trying to get him to eat! 

I've managed to make a few contacts/friends here who are also Aussie, which is great! It's interesting/great that this place seems to appeal to lots of us, and the company of others makes me feel slightly less alone. We're also all quite similar; most of us being here because our partners or us ourselves work in computing and technology. It's interesting to hear everyone's backgrounds but also know that we came here from the same place. I don't like to separate people based on nationality, but the reality is that culture separates us (whether we like it or not), so being able to come together with people who may understand you just that little bit more is a good thing, I think. 

It's been interesting to see my husband go from being a relatively big fish in a small pond to being a little fish in a big pond. He is just another tech worker in San Francisco now, whereas I think he was feeling a bit like he couldn't go much further with his career in Sydney. 

I'm certain that I had more to write, but I'm beginning to doze off. So I will say ciao! Thanks for reading this far if you have!

xoxo

Moving, Parenting and Ballet-ing

This week was busy. Especially for Robert who had to work at/on a really big conference in San Fran this week (he estimated there were about 40 000 people in attendance!), as well as continue sorting out the logistics of our move here. Meanwhile, I had the little man for much of the week on my own. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I feel like having a toddler is more difficult than having a newborn baby. But my memories of having a newborn may very well be rather hazy in the fog of getting very little sleep and early parenthood in general! Regardless, by the end of last week, I thought I'd go mad(der) if I had to deal with another tantrum! And he's not even two yet!

That said, this is now the second night in our apartment! It's quite empty as we have some furniture arriving on Thursday and the rest will be here in a couple of months as it's coming by boat from Sydney. I don't think it's even left Sydney yet. But it feels so good to have a home again. It was only three weeks of being homeless, but it feels like it was so much more! We moved most of our stuff (that we have) yesterday, despite cold, rainy, windy weather. I would not recommend moving with a toddler in that type of weather. But Robert was adamant to get as much done as he could this weekend. Because he's crazy. Although our apartment is only a few blocks from the place we were temporarily staying in, he needed to get a few Ubers to transport a lot of the stuff. And me and mr toddler? We walked. Yes, through the *lovely* weather, our final trip was at about 6:30pm, and boy, did those 3-4 blocks feel like about 100. It's not fun pushing a pram with one hand and holding an umbrella in the other while wind blows you around. I believe the little guy held up better than I did; he didn't really complain while I was cursing under my breath and generally feeling quite angry for most of the time. 

But we got here in the end, and I guess you could say it was worth it... Stuff is everywhere here, but hey, at least we're in and maybe we can get back into some sort of routine and normal life!

That said, although I should have probably been helping Robert unpack and get settled, I took my first adult ballet class today!!! Some background info: I did ballet all through my childhood until it really started getting serious. And then I quit. Typical me: quitting when things get tough. I think people were a bit surprised/disappointed when I quit, but nevertheless, the quitting happened and I quit cold turkey. No more dancing at all. Ever since, I've wanted to continue, but was always too scared, self-conscious and just hesitant. Fast forward to now, San Francisco is home to a few of these awesome adult ballet schools. They're made for people who just want to dance casually. They do have classes for pros, but if you're not pro, you can just pay some monies and attend whatever classes you like. They (apparently) range from very basic to pro level. I was never able to find a school like this in Sydney. All I could ever find were schools for kids or teenagers. Or random classes run by places like Sydney Dance Co. or the Aussie Ballet, which are great, but when you're scared and nervous and haven't danced for a couple of decades, they are quite intimidating places! So if anyone is a dance teacher in Sydney and you're reading this, I really think there'd be a market for the schools like the one I went to today and the one I was looking at previously. 

I rocked up today, expecting to attend a 90 minute beginner ballet class, only to be told that they were holding an all-you-can-dance day, where you just pay $5 and go to whatever 30 minute sample classes they were running throughout the day. Which was great. And a little intimidating at the same time since so many people were there and I was already nervous as it was! Turned out I'd already missed the beginner ballet class and so got the nerve up to go to the advanced beginner class! (It was either that or the very, very basic one: for people with no knowledge of ballet, whatsoever.)

I loved it.

The class had some assumed knowledge, but hey, all that came flooding back like it was only yesterday that I'd danced, the only indication of the past couple of decades going past being that my body is much, much less flexible! Ha... Oh, and then once we moved to centre, I definitely screwed up a couple of times and made a couple of things up, but hey, it was all OK in the end and I had a blast! I'm definitely signing up and making it a weekly thing! It may have taken me a couple of decades to get back to, but I'm so happy I have. And I'm so glad these schools exist! 

Big shoutout to Robert, though, for even being OK with me buzzing off to dance when I probably should have been helping him unpack or look after the toddler. I'm totally OK with him going to whatever Magic the Gathering tournaments he likes...! Heh... (good deal, right?!)

Life has been busy but good here. Loved the ballet, love our apartment and the city is pretty cool: one of the coolest things, for me, is that art is a thing here. There seems to be so much more appreciation for the arts here than Sydney, which I just love. It's so inspiring and I can't wait to be more a part of it. :-) 

I think I should go sleep now. The toddler hasn't been sleeping well with all this change and I've been required to get up multiple times throughout the night again. Sigh... it's like having a newborn again! 

xoxo

House!!!

So after having been here for only two and a half days, we have scored ourselves an apartment! Woo hoo! After a week of being homeless, I was really starting to get sick of it! It's a place that Robert had been eyeing off for a few weeks, we saw it yesterday, filled in an application last night and managed to beat another keen guy and (apparently) someone else in trying to get it! We met the owner/s of the place today, and they're a couple who have a two year old and another on the way, so it's great to know that they had a toddler in the place and that it's suitable to Mr 17 months who thinks he's boss of wherever he goes.  (As a side note, it's sad to understand why there's been an increasing no. of homeless people in this city when you see how crazy real estate prices are here. I didn't think any other place could make Sydney look cheap, but San Fran does...! We have a two bedroom inner-city apartment for which we will be paying more rent than a single person's yearly salary! Although the computing and tech industry probably had a huge impact on these costs, I'm still awesomely proud of where my husband's going in his career in the industry. Oh, the irony...) But, like I said, I was already sick of being homeless, so I'm just excited that it didn't take long for us to secure a place at all! So we have a place to call "home". It's also only a few blocks away from Robert's office, so he won't need to spend much time or money on commuting, which is great! I think he was always aiming to walk to and from work, even if he needed to go a couple of KMs, but a few blocks makes that so much easier!

And excuse the D&M, but it got me thinking last night (when I couldn't sleep at 1am) of the idea of "home". I've been referring to Sydney as "home" and I probably always will. Yet, I always felt like a small part of me belonged in Korea, so I consider it to be mildly a second "home" country as well... yet now we live here, and depending on how long we're here for, our baby may end up considering this his "home", regardless of how I feel. Maybe that's all irrelevant, but it's a weird feeling of displacement when you realise that you're not quite sure where your "home" truly lies...

*Ahem*, excuse that side note. Heh.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to explore much. Between finding a place to live and adjusting to the other side of the world, time's gone by a bit quickly. But I'm hoping to venture into the city a bit tomorrow and find some places where Mr 17 months can run around and burn off energy a bit.

Right. Well, it's 9pm and I'm basically ready for bed. Haha. 

Oh, and I actually had an alright coffee today...! #priorities

xoxo