Balance & Spice

I’m an overpacker. I tend to have this thought that time changes it’s continuum, and a 24 hour flight might last seven or eight days. (Don’t get me started on a seven or eight day trip!)

However, Anthony really helped me to get organized and pack well, so even though I’m carrying a ton of stuff with me, it looks and stays organized throughout the trip.

Here how I packed my stuff in my fantastic Tom Binh aeronaut bag:

I divided into sections of comfort, entertainment, medical, and food and just in case.

In my comfort section:

Comfort

• Eye mask
• Inflatable pillow – this is what we used, and they worked quite well
• ear plugs
• cozy socks
• lavender oil (to help sleep, rub on earlobes or drop dots on pillow)

Entertainment

In terms of entertainment, I definitely went overboard, and barely used any of these items besides my headphones and laptop. However, it’s great to have a lot of options to share with Ant.

• Laptop
• Ipad
• Ipod
• Kindle (I borrowed my mom’s, in case my ipad died…turns out, I never even opened it because I slept through the flight – Yay!!!)
• headphones
• headphone splitter
• Three magazines (TOTAL impulse purchases, but such fun)
• A couple of books that my mom and sister gave me – thats mom and Aly!!)

Medical

It’s always good to have a medical kit of the types of things you either use on a flight, or may need afterwards. Put pills or other things in plastic baggies to save space and prevent too much searching. Mine included the following:

• Lactaid tablets
• Advil
• Advil PM
• Sleeping Pills
• Jet Zone – a wonderful homepathic supplement that is supposed to really help with Jet Lag – I’ll let you know in a few days. (UPDATE: I think it helped, as much as it could.)
• Contact lenses
• Glasses

Normally, I rarely take pills like advil PM and almost never do sleeping pills. However, on a flight like this, I knew I wanted to be awake and alert when we arrived (I met Anthony’s whole family at the airport, after all!), so I made a decision to take a sleeping pill, and later one advil PM to allow me to sleep through the flight. It worked quite well, and I slept around seven hours out of thirteen.

Food

I’ve already covered what food we brought, and it was very successful. We definitely had too much, but I was able to share it with our grateful seat-mates, and I definitely enjoyed having my own fresh and healthy food. (Though I will say, the Qantas gluten-free meal wasn’t too bad – grilled chicken and edamame and corn salad.)

Just in case

Just in case were things in case our luggage got lost. This included:

• Two changes of clothes
• An extra pair of socks
• Extra contact lenses
• Etc.

All of this, and a few other things fit into my ABSOLUTELY AMAZING Tom Binh carry-on bag. I feel like I should do a separate review of this bag because it’s so very useful.

Time to go spend more time with my Aussie family…have a great day everyone!!

Ant and I at the airport

The treadmill is in kilometers! I was so lost.

I feel like I hit a “move across the world” milestone today – I signed up for a gym membership!

When I worked at the JCC, I used that as my gym. That had it’s own drawbacks, as people often came up to me during my workouts to ask for advice. As flattering as that was, sometimes you just want to focus and train. For the past two days, I went with Anthony’s sister to one of the gyms in Brisbane, and really liked it. They were having a big promotion, so I signed up, and we had a lovely time taking a spin class taught by a very enthusiastic Russian. I had no idea what she was saying, but the music was great and I sweat up a storm, so had a grand ol’ time.

It’s been a bit awkward taking photos of food, as most meals have involved meeting Anthony’s family, and it’s felt a bit uncomfortable to be like, “hi, I’m Kat. I’m a food blogger. I take photos of food.” I figure that’s a conversation for a second meeting.

Flying Nun

However, I managed to snap some shots yesterday at breakfast at my new favorite restaurant, The Flying Nun.

The Flying Nun is in a former convent that is now a lovely cafe open for breakfast and lunch. Surrounded by the most beautiful greenery and cawing birds, it’s a wonderful place to spend a morning or afternoon. They make a big effort to have organic ingredients, and have a ton of gluten-free options.

For breakfast, I had the “vego” (note about Australians: they abbreviate EVERYTHING. Vego is vegetarian, obviously.) which involved a potato & pumpkin rosti, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, sauteed spinach, and the best gluten free toast I’ve ever had.

Vego breakfast - beautiful in looks and taste.

It was obscenely delicious. A bit more oil than I normally like, but it was so fresh and beautifully prepared. Anthony had the Eggs Benedict, which was also beautiful.

Heavenly Eggs Benedict

Buddha and a Christmas Tree

Afterwards, we wandered the property, which is in the beautiful area called Samford.

I love the Buddha under the tropical Christmas tree.

The rest of the day was spent in a shopping mall in a suburb called Chermside. Since I haven’t been to a mall in years, I found it quite intimidating and overwhelming. However, I did find the single most amazing pair of shoes I’ve ever seen.

Kermit Shoes!! My life is made.

I didn’t buy them, but looking at the photo makes me want to go back and snatch those babies up.

Question of the Day: What was the most ridiculous impulse purchase you’ve made?