Cooler Nights and Lifestyle Changes

Fall has come to Brisbane!  Well, kind of - it's still in the 70s every day.  The evenings have certainly gotten cooler.  The daytime doesn't really seem much different than it has been over the past two months but evening temps are dropping to down to the high 50s.  I try to keep in mind that everything is essentially off by six months from what I'm used to.  That said, this would have been the best November I've ever had in Chicago!

People are still outside at the cafes and bars, though Carol and I had a good laugh when they brought out the gas patio heaters when it dipped into the 60s.  We've both been really enjoying the cooler weather, especially in our apartment.  I honestly don't think we've had our doors closed for more than a few hours total in the last month.  If we get cool, which hasn't really happened yet, we can just close the doors and the overall temp in our building stays very comfortable.  I can tell already it's going to be hard to return to A/C and heat for eight months of the year.

Since the days have been nice, I've been playing golf just about every single weekend since the beginning of February.  I got a cheap used set of sticks at a local clubhouse that included a walking bag.  My regular golfing mates and I walk every round, which not only saves a few bucks on carts, but lets us play when the course is too wet for carts and gets us some exercise.  Its been a few years since I've played with consistency like this, since high school really.  It's certainly showed up on the scorecard the past month as I'm finally getting the touch back in my short game and hitting the driver straight!  Few things make me feel better than a good day on the course.

Golf was something I never did in Chicago because the environment really wasn't very conducive - the courses were further away, I didn't have many golfing buddies and many of the courses were quite pricey.  That, and they were only really playable for a few months a year and I spent most of those months playing beach volleyball or going to baseball games.  I've realized (I just typed realised with an 's' - apparently I'm getting in the habit of spelling in Aussie English!) that moving somewhere different always presents different opportunities.  Living in a metropolis is obviously not the same as living in a small town, just as living in a college town is different than living in a moderate sized city.  Aside from the physical characteristics, going somewhere different also gives you the opportunity to redefine your daily routines.

My office just hired a new employee this past week who is from France and I had the opportunity to take him out to a welcome lunch.  We started talking about food, since neither of us particularly care for the food here, and I realized (did it again - realised) that my diet has been very different from when I lived in the US.  Living in Spain for six months in 2005, I loved the food but my diet was very different.  I ate a small breakfast, a bocadillo for lunch and usually had soup and a sandwich or something similar for dinner.  I really didn't eat that much and I never cooked - thanks to a very gracious host Mom.  In Chicago, I cooked at least half the nights of the week but probably went out at least two or three dinners a week.  Eating out was easy, relatively cheap, and usually as tasty as anything I'd make at home.  Lunch was almost always bought out, and breakfast was a rarity.  Being on the road all the time meant I was either forced to eat out or couldn't get groceries with any consistency.

Here, I usually eat a small breakfast, bring a decent lunch four times a week and cook almost every night.  The grocery store is a short walk away and food here doesn't save very well (less preservatives?) so we go nearly every day.  We also don't have a car, so we couldn't get more than a few days of groceries anyway.  Eating out is a nice excuse for Carol and I to get out of the house but it certainly isn't very economical.  Most main courses start at $25 here and its very easy to rack up a $40 tab without thinking about it.

This is what I mean by changing daily routines.  Not traveling means I cook more, I see Carol more, and importantly, I have more time in the evenings to do other things I want.  I have a certification exam coming up in July and have a nice little 1,200 page book that I've been studying.  I'm also training for a marathon in July, for which my company is sponsoring me.  I probably run three times a week for at least 60 mins and spend several hours a week reading for my exam.  On weekends, if Carol and I aren't traveling, I have extra time to go for a long run and some extra studying.  I also have plenty of time to golf, as I mentioned before.

It's funny how changes in environment cause a change in routine and changes in routine have effects on all sorts of things.  Carol's Dad gave me a 'life wheel' a few years ago where you're supposed to rank personal satisfaction with various aspects of life.  It helps to make sure everything is in balance.  The spokes include: physical environment, career/school, money, health, friends/family, significant other/romance, personal growth, and recreation/fun.  Each of these has changed in some way since we've gotten here.  Physical environment - well, pretty obvious.  Brisbane is great.  My career is interesting, I like my client and my job is overall going well.  Money is a fun little roller coaster, considering the fluctuation in the Australian dollar and the volatile world economy, but Carol and I are very comfortable and certainly not worried about money.  My health is the best it has been in a while.  With the amount of running I've been doing and the reduction in eating out, I've lost a decent amount of weight.  I don't think I was overweight before, I'm just a bit more runner-scrawny now.  Friends/family has definitely been the one thing that I would rate lower here than in the US, but that isn't really a surprise.  We do have a number of friends here that we like to see, but we spend far less time with them and it isn't the same as being around people you've known for years or your whole life.  Family is thousands of miles away - nothing we can do about that.  As far as significant other, Carol and I still have the same wonderful relationship and are still very compatible living together.  Personal growth has gone up for sure, with the marathon and certification.  Traveling also counts for personal growth - we both love to see and experience new things.  The last piece, recreation/fun, may have gone down a little, but not much.  We don't go out and party as much as we did in Chicago but we still have every opportunity to go have fun whenever we want.

We always viewed this as an opportunity to do something different and experience something new.  I'd say it's certainly lived up to that - in more ways than I realized (did it again!).

Australians can't spell.