More on food, plus moving

I've got some good food freebies at work last week. On Monday a girl in the department brought in stuff she'd baked over the weekend. In the morning (well, throughout the day really) we had chocolate balls rolled in coconut, for lunch there was cannelloni (stuffed pasta), and in the afternoon she served up a pavlova her mom had made. It was my first pavlova and I found it yummy. For those who don't know what a pavlova is, it's pretty much the national dessert in Australia (and New Zealand, and there's a bit of an argument over which country invented the pav (as it's known), but when I mentioned the idea of it being a New Zealand invention to someone at work, she said that was a silly idea, but then she's an Aussie). A pav is a base of baked meringue topped with a layer of whipped cream and then various fruits, usually things like kiwi fruit, strawberries, and banana. It was nice that I had a homemade one to start with; you can buy the meringue base pre-made at the store, or make it from a mix, but those supposedly aren't as good.

On Friday some various leftover nibbles were brought to our department from another department, things like a fruit plate and meats and cheeses. Unfortunately they were brought over just after I ate lunch; if I'd known all that was coming, I wouldn't have bought lunch.

I wanted to mention a place I've been frequenting that is pretty unique and a bit hard to describe. It's a bakery chain called Breadtop and they manage to be sort of French but mostly Asian. They have usual items like jam donuts and croissants and danishes, but then they have buns filled with red bean paste and green tea rolls. Other items sort of fall in between as just being unique to this place, like a pineapple custard roll and a coconut bun. Everything they make is so fluffy and soft, I dunno what they do to make it that way, maybe I don't want to know. Anyway, they've been my latest temptation, and since they sell so many things and are quite cheap, I can't resist popping in to try something new.

I haven't mentioned the Vietnamese place Wendy and I went to a couple of weeks ago. There's a suburb just over the river from us, Footscray (home to Lonely Planet), and it's like a Little Vietnam. Wendy has a favourite place there and we popped over one night for dinner, but they were closed already. So we went to a different restaurant just down the street which was good enough for me, not sure how it compares to the restaurant Wendy wanted to go to. We got these funky Asian 4-colour drinks with jelly and I don't know what else in them, delicious prawn egg rolls, and bowls of a noodle soup with chicken. The bowls were massive, big enough to drown yourself in, and by the end I was absolutely stuffed and it still looked like I'd hardly touched it. All that food for only $25 or so for the two of us.

This Monday night (yesterday) I moved out of the share house and into the apartment I mentioned that's much closer to the city. The last couple of days in the house were sweltering. It was 32 or so on Sunday, then Monday was predicted to be 37, though it got up to "only" about 35. (Yes, these are the Celsius temps, sorry to the US people, but if you'd like to convert to F, go to onlineconversion.com. Suffice it to say it was bloody hot, esp for this time of year; 35 C is 95ish F.) Sunday I was at the house all day, cleaning up my room and packing. Even though my room is usually quite cool because it's downstairs where it's more sheltered and shaded, I was still building up a sweat packing. I treated myself by heading in the afternoon to the milk bar (convenience store) for a peppermint Magnum (yum!), though to get there I had to walk up a steep hill in the midday heat, so it almost wasn't worth the effort. I slept most of Sunday night with no duvet; quite the contrast to when I moved in and I buried myself under 2 duvets and a blanket.

I went to the house after work Monday to pack up the rest of my stuff before moving across town. It was quite sad to be leaving the wonderful location next to the river. I sat out in the backyard watching the sunset for awhile and I also gave Molly the dog a hug goodbye. I had way too many bags to go by public transport, so I got a cab and soon arrived at the swank apartment building Andrea, and her sister, Helen, live in. Andrea is a friend of someone I worked with in Amsterdam and the mutual friend put us in touch. I'm very lucky to be able to stay with them for a bit. The apartment is amazing, very modern and open, and the view is awesome. I mentioned before that they're on the 29th floor, which is the top of their building. The view is to the east and south; you can see the Botanic Gardens and Shrine of Remembrance, South Melbourne, Albert Park, and I think St Kilda along with a bit of the bay. Unfortunately, though it is up so high, a lot of noise still comes up from the traffic, esp since there is a freeway near the building. So it was a lot louder than I was used to, but in the room I'm staying in it's pretty quiet. I can walk to work now, though this morning I took a tram because I was really hot already, but I was able to get up half an hour later than before, which is very good. So I'll be staying with Andrea and Helen for about a week and then I go for 3 days to Wilsons Prom and when I come back to Melbourne I'll be staying at a cool-sounding hostel called The Nunnery that's in a former convent. It's in an area of the city I really like, so I'll be looking forward to staying there.

Off to walk home in the warm evening air. =)