Christchurch, NZ

"I'm losing track of myself
All over time zone lines
And if I daylight save do I jump
Ahead or fall behind?"

~Carbon Leaf, "International Airport" (I thought of this especially when trying to figure out how to call my mom from Sydney after being in Darwin, after daylight savings started, and again trying to get my watch right in Auckland since the plane's handy screen told me something different than the pilot did about local time. But I digress.)

Christchurch reminds me very much of Krakow. I'm staying just off Cathedral Square which, not surprisingly, has a big cathedral in it, just like the town square in Krakow. I exited the hostel, passed a random film screening in the square and headed towards the beautiful sunset, and promptly got lost. I was just exploring though, so it was okay. I managed to find an ATM, dinner (take-away sushi that seemed to have mayonnaise in it? ew) and tomorrow's breakfast and then really couldn't find the square again. So I just retraced my steps. After eating the sushi and watching the film (which turned out to be The Eleventh Hour, interestingly) and a brief dip back at the hostel to drop off breakfast, I reoriented myself and found out I was irritatingly close to both the square and the hostel when I had turned back! But that made it much easier for the second, shorter wandering, so that's good. Christchurch is also very similar to Australia, same brands of many things, same expressions, etc, so it's easy to see how there are very fluid borders between the two.

Hmm, Sydney. Sydney was good. I had a smashing good time staying with my friend Adina. Too many stories to share, but most of the errands got done. Except for the camera - still MIA. When Adina gets it, she will send it on to me... so no photos of NZ for the moment. Fingers crossed for making friends on the tour, which starts tomorrow! The kids on the first tour were so nice, taking photos and being my friends on Facebook so I can snatch them off there once I'm home and share them with you.

I did get up at 4:30 to get the sketcho shuttle to the airport and, instead of sleeping on the plane like a rational human being, I watched Juno :) - so now I'm VERY sleepy and am getting up early again tomorrow, so I say it's officially bedtime! Ooh, but first, trivia! I'm going to give Adina an honorary congrats, since it shows she knows something about American history (she answered it in person :P). The answer was indeed Lewis and Clark - Burke and Wills were infamous ill-fated explorers of Australia's interior.

Ok, new trivia: About how many miles is New Zealand from Australia?
a) 300
b) 800
c) 1400
d) 2000
e) New Zealand is in Australia

"And on, and on, and onto the next one..."

We are about to embark on my least favorite part of traveling: repeating myself. It will get really old by my fourth hostel when I'll have reduced my life story and what brought me to Australia to a thirty second or less soundbite, but it's begun at work already. People stopped by reception all day to inform me that tomorrow is my last day and to enquire whether I was excited or sad or would miss them, and where I was going afterwards. I do realize that it's very sweet of them to be interested in my plans, and actually, repeating them helps them become more concrete and real to me, but I get bored listening to myself recount it all. When they ask if I'm excited, it's usually a chore to say yes like I mean it, but at the same time it helps me refocus on the exciting part of traveling, instead of the stressful bits I get stuck on when dealing with the details.

I am excited, but I'm also nervous. Melbourne doesn't have the same tourist checklist that Sydney does, so I talked to everyone I knew who had been to or lived in Melbourne to get ideas and now I finally feel like I know how I'll fill my time there. I consulted my friend Shana from college who studied abroad there, Coworker Erin and Bookclub Meg who both used to live there, new Sydney-based friends Esben and Adina who have both visited, our Melbourne office colleagues, the New York Times, and my Lonely Planet guidebook. I'll stop by the Melbourne office sometime during that week to say hi and finally put a picture to it in my head, even though I don't know them very well. It will be nice to feel like I have some friends in the city though!

Speaking of the office crew, it was lucky one of them sent around an email about Monday's holiday, because I was going to visit them then! As I explained before, each state decides what holidays it's going to celebrate and when (see "Australian cooking measurements," September 17, 2007 in the blog archive to the right). It turns out that Monday is Labour Day in the great southern state of Victoria, so many an office and, I can only assume, museums and other activities, will be closed.

Next week is a big week for Melbourne: the holiday on Monday and then that weekend they host the Formula 1 Grand Prix. I am a little turned off by it all, as I tried to explain to several Aussies, because of the bevin (car-loving white trash) stigma attached to car racing in the US. However, as it's a big deal to Melbourne, I will take a passing interest , maybe buy a souvenir, and then get the heck outta Dodge! (Ooooh... no pun intended!) It goes Thursday to Sunday and I skip town early Saturday morning. We shall see how it goes... stay tuned!

Lawn Bowling

A perfect Sunday afternoon activity. Haidee texted me to see if I wanted to go lawn bowling. I said sure, and dragged along Alex, who then called Matt and Karen (who also ended up giving us a ride), and bang - we had a game on our hands! The club was deserted so we had the place to ourselves. After an initial beer and an informative session provided by the club's lawnsman Randall, we got down to business! Lawn bowling is basically like a cross between Bocce ball and curling, in that you throw (underhanded) a ball towards the jack, which is a smaller, lighter white ball. Since the jack isn't secured onto the field, if you bump it, it moves. The balls you throw are not perfectly spherical - on purpose - so you can't just aim at your target, you have to take the curve into account, which adds the element of surprise to it :)

Once each team has thrown an equal number of balls, whichever team has the closest ball wins. If that team has two balls closest, and the other team's closest ball is third closest, the winning team scores two points. If they have three balls closest before the other team's closest ball, they score three points, and so on. We didn't keep score, and we didn't really have teams, but we did have a lot of fun and we celebrated whoever got closest (that person then got to go first on the next round). There are a few more rules, but let's just leave it at that :) Randall and pal in the peanut gallery offered some commentary and congratulations where appropriate.

You can see more in the Picasa photo album "Lawn Bowling" (click on the "Photos on Picasa" link to the right). In the meantime, here's a photo of the intrepid lawn bowlers:

L-r: Matt, Alex, Haidee, Karen

Considerations

First, trivia. I have to apologize - it turned out this was a trick question as my internet research apparently came up short. Sooooo... they are all tourist attractions - including, yes Rachel, the Big Buffalo. Good guess though, and I love the reasoning out ;)

New Trivia: There are 851 World Heritage Sites. How many are in Australia? (Bonus points if you can name any!)
a) 4
b) 62
c) 109
d) 17

The other night, I was watching the Australian version of the US show So You Think You Can Dance. In addition to having much more diversity than most US reality shows, because this one included an Aboriginal man there was an interesting disclaimer at the beginning of his segment that piqued my curiosity. For those unfamiliar with this type of competitive reality show, they do a little biographical segment on the dancers before they do their routine. In this one, they showed footage of the dancer's mother, and so before the segment they showed the disclaimer "The following shows footage of an Aboriginal or Torrest Strait Islander who has passed away." A quick google search revealed that "[i]n many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the depiction or mention of a person who has passed away can cause great distress to people, as can showing their image through visual media. Even using the same name as the deceased person, or a similar sound, can cause distress for a period of time." Very interesting!

Sorry?

Yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd "said sorry" to the Aborigines. For those unfamiliar with the history, until shockingly recently (1969), Aboriginal children were torn from their homes (opponents use the term "abducted") and sent away to western-style schools, much like our own history of stealing Native American children to be sent away to boarding schools. These Aboriginal children are now called The Stolen Generations. (See the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence to get an idea.)

Anyway, for such a drop in the bucket, it sure was like pulling teeth. On TV, the newscasters interviewed people who said it meant a lot to them: those of the Stolen Generations, their families and friends. But what would real action mean to them? What would listening to what they want and learning to understand and treating them, if not with actual respect and reverence, at least as equals, mean? A four-page, formal, forced-sounding speech from a brand-new Prime Minister, while the jerk who held the office before him stubbornly stays absent from the scene - what does that accomplish? Rudd's predecessor, John Howard, made a big deal of refusing to apologize for the atrocities committed against the Aboriginal communities. For all my daydreams about how fantastic this magical world of Australia would be, their treatment of Aborigines has by far been the most crushing disillusionment. To me, native culture is to be celebrated and respected, not steamrolled and assimilated.

As I said to someone who described the Aborigines she saw portrayed on the US news shows as "sketchy-looking," that image is due mostly to rampant poverty and alcohol abuse, direct results of the racism and lack of respect from the ruling government who supposedly was educating the children to be able to fit in and compete in their world. We don't have to agree with, like, or even want to adopt Aboriginal ways of life, but we do have to not only tolerate but appreciate, respect and learn from them. They have so much wisdom about surviving on this land (which, I'm learning, was not even as harsh an environment until westerners introduced certain key plants and animals) that is simply disregarded when it could be life-saving, so much soul and uniqueness that would enhance everyone's life to know of.

Another northern-hemisphere friend and I agreed recently that the northern constellations were more interesting because they have much more history and mythology behind them. It's true that the stars I could see from the beach in Byron Bay were primarily in one band across the sky, and even of those I recognized many from the northern hemisphere. But I suddenly realized we were wrong - who knows how much mythology Aboriginal culture holds? No really - who knows?

Boosh Tukkey

(In honor of Mia's return from her trip to Japan...)

I had lived in the house for maybe a day or two when suddenly Mia turned to me and said (imagine Japanese accent), "Have you seen boosh tukkey?" I gave her the look of blankness, and she got up and gestured for me to follow her. She led me down the back stairs and into the yard, and pointed at the big mound in the corner, and its king, the bush turkey who has taken up seemingly permanent residence. Apparently the male of the species makes a mound in preparation for the eggs, buries them inside, and watches over them until they hatch. So far we haven't seen any eggs, but the mound just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'm pretty sure one of my t-shirts is in there, and more than one sock, either nicked from the clothesline or snatched up when the wind blew them off. In any case, I definitely do not want them back! I did see him crossing the street one day on my way home, so I think he goes out to steal things from other people's yards too. He's been gone for a few days, who knows what he's up to. Bush turkeys are actually everywhere, on the University of Queensland campus, at our campsite a few weeks ago, in the park. Sort of like squirrels... who steal your stuff! Anyway, here are some photos of him and his pile:

A Very Aussie Sunday

Trivia: Rachel wins the prize again, it is indeed the super cool emu and kangaroo. (Deduct one point for use of "totes" ;))

New Trivia: Which of the following is NOT an Australian tourist attraction?
a) The Big Pineapple
b) The Big Penguin
c) The Big Mango
d) The Big Prawn
e) The Big Banana
f) The Big Buffalo
g) The Big Egg

So yesterday Dan and I met up with two of the book group girls at a movie at the Moonlight Cinema called Hunting and Gathering (with Audrey Tautou, aka Amelie). We took blankets and wine and a little dinner - and of course the Aerogard (bug spray)! It was a lovely evening.

Before that, Alex, Dan and I watched The Castle. It's worth mentioning that every person I've told that to has immediately grinned in recognition and nostalgia. It's the hilariously mocking story of a bogan (white trash) family who lives right next to the airport outside Melbourne and go to court to save their house from being bought and torn down by the airport. Brilliant. As I said, everyone I've mentioned it to knows it, even though it was only made about 10 years ago, and I feel very Aussie for having seen it.

Like a Drowned Rat

The most incredible thing just happened as I was leaving work. Being on the 29th floor of the office building, we can see pretty far. At happy hour, we can see to the south and west, also known as the direction of home. It was a beautiful day until about 6pm, and then I suddenly noticed a huge black cloud out over the sunset. "I don't like the looks of that cloud," I said to my coworkers, and grabbed my bag and fleece. It was getting a bit chilly and as I left the bridge and stood on the street corner, the first fat drops hit my face. By the time the light changed, I was huddled gratefully under another girl's umbrella. By the time we made it to the other side and the shelter of an overpass, my pants were soaked and the street had turned into a river. Rain was coming down in sheets and at an angle so the fifteen of us who were stranded were huddled together in the middle. Eventually it let up just a little and I decided that I just wanted to get home so I just kept walking through it. It had stopped raining by the time I got to my house and I could even see stars. I peeled my clothes off and hopped straight into my pjs!

Moving on... last night we were watching tv and happened across "Out of the Question," a tv show very similar to NPR's radio show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" - a panel of comedians answers questions about the day's or week's news. The tv show made me a little homesick for Wait Wait which my sister and I used to listen to while lazing around on Saturday mornings, so I logged on to npr.org to see what I could see, and was able to listen to about half of last week's broadcast online (before bedtime). It was absolutely hilarious, just as good as I remember. Alex, meanwhile, had moved on to Lost and I was sitting on the other end of the couch, just shaking with silent laughter as Paula Poundstone and Peter Sagal buzzed through my earphones. I'm going to have to make those kids listen to Wait Wait with me some day!

I was getting a ribbing in vocabulary from our receptionist the other day - she likes to tease me about American things such as sweaters, jelly, sloppy joes, and other nonsense (jumpers, jam, and, uh, nonexistent, respectively). It absolutely floors me that even though we speak the same language, we sometimes don't even have a word for a concept that the other culture has. I have come across this in Spanish, of course, but that is usually explained away by the language barrier - though it has nothing to do with the language at all, really, it's all cultural! Amazing.

Little Sister Syndrome

I have gotten so used to the Australian accent that I am startled when people do a double-take when I open my mouth, or when they ask me if I'm Canadian. Which brings me to another point: Little Sister Syndrome. Also known as "They're Onto Us". The relationship that Australia has with New Zealand is very much like our relationship with our lovable neighbors to the frozen north. They are our little sisters, and I say that with all the respect that comes with being a little sister oneself. They are self-righteously indignant at constantly being compared with their big sister and scoff at anyone who tries to do so, while the big sister looks on in amusement, pushing away the little one's head at arm's length while she flails her too-short arms in frustration.

Anyway, the point is that Aussies have learned how not to offend our little sisters, the Canadians: when one detects a North American accent, it is safest to guess they are Canadian. If you're right, the Canadian will be pleased as punch. If you're wrong, the American will be amused but certainly not offended. Take note if you ever come across an accent you're not sure is New Zealand or Australian: guess New Zealand!

The Unfamiliar

Travel plans are finalized! (Or should I say, finalised ;)) A week in Melbourne, then a tour up the "Red Centre" (where Ayers Rock is, among just a couple of other things - it is the outback, after all!), then a couple of days in Sydney before heading to a tour on the south island of New Zealand, then a few days in LA and then home! Phew - makes me tired just thinking about it!

I had borrowed a travel guide to New Zealand from a coworker at "Place B," because, well, he offered, and also because I thought I was going back there. He eventually needed it back and realized I wasn't coming back, which coincided with a meeting he had at our office today. So reluctantly, because my plans were just finalized and I had been waiting to see how much time I would have and where before I looked through it, I finally opened it and skimmed through as much as I could before I had to give it back to him today! It was nice to see him again though and we got a chance to catch up a little.

As the substitute receptionist / mail handler in an international patent law firm, I recently had the occasion to come across mail from the US. For those of you who have limited experience with other countries, it seems to me that almost every one has its own paper size. Australia's is called A4, and it's maybe half an inch longer and just slightly smaller width-wise. For the first time, 8.5x11 looked really bizarre - short and fat, where A4 paper is tall and skinny! It's just such a slight difference both directions, but it's amazing how quickly your eye gets used to it!

US phone numbers are also starting to look a tad short, though that's mostly to do with the fact that they're divided differently, they're the same amount of numbers (12-3456-7890 or 1234-567-890 vs the US's 123-456-7890). The fact that they have different formats for different kinds of numbers threw me at first, too. The first one above is for a regular landline, and the second one is for a mobile (cell phone), which all start with 04 (it's like an area code - it's actually a really good idea to have a way to tell if a number is a cell phone or not - one of many Australian things I wish we would adopt!). If your number fits a pattern another way, you can also read it that way, for example: 07-463-66-88-22. Then there are toll-free numbers, which are only 6 digits! Don't ask me how that works. They're all 13-xxxx (13-56-44 for example).

Long Weekends

Dear USA,

Happy MLK Day!

Love,
Tuesday

I was talking to the other American here at work (the one from Grosse Pointe) today when another attorney informed him that yesterday/today was "some sort of holiday in the US". He said, "Really?" and I chimed in with, "Martin Luther King day, of course!" Oh, how quickly they forget :) It's a little weird not just because it was Tuesday here, but also because this coming weekend is the holiday here, Australia Day (observed Jan. 26 or next working day - in this case Monday). When I was talking to my mom this weekend I mentioned that to her and she asked me if people wish each other a "Happy Australia Day". Alex happened to be passing through the room so I asked him and he laughed at me! In fact, I believe he said something along the lines of, "You're usually too drunk to wish anyone anything." This seems to be the general pattern of an Australian holiday: head to the beach/camping ground, drink too much, and fire up the barbie!

Sunday was also a phenomenon called Big Day Out. There is some controversy among the housemates and co. about whether this used to be held on Australia Day weekend or not, but in any case now it is the weekend before. It is basically a coordinated effort in the big cities across the country to get as many people as sunburned, dehydrated, deafened and happy as possible in one big day of outdoor musical acts. I didn't go (see the rainforest entry :)) but Alex and Ray went and had a great time. Alex was a volunteer, which meant that he wandered around spraying people with water. I'm not sure how effective that was but he seemed happy.

Update: Apparently Big Day Out is not all on one day, but is like a big tour of bands, so each weekend they hit different cities.

'Strayan

At work's happy hour on Friday I got to meet the lovely family of the partner here who got me the job. His wife is very nice and we spent a long time talking. She asked me how my Australian ('Strayan') is coming, and I told her pretty good! In light of that, some anecdotes:

At book group on Thursday, in addition to mispronouncing the bookstore name, I also was trying to spell Carlos Ruiz Zafon's second name to Meg. She kept spelling it "Louis," partly because she couldn't hear me very well and partly, it turned out when another girl "translated" for us, because I kept saying the last letter as "zee" instead of "zed." When they say "zee," I can suddenly hear how it sounds funny - mostly because they giggle as they say it!

Vocabulary lesson

"Chase up" (as opposed to chase down - must be the whole south-of-the-equator thing - also means "follow up on") Ex. I'd like you to chase up an answer to this question.

"Bogan" - white trash. Also Bevin (though that has more of a car-obsession element, I'm told) - this also made the recent election of Kevin Rudd intensely amusing to some, due to the rhyming factor.

Unrelatedly, I have also been asked my opinion on all the election hoopla, often by people I barely know just because they know I'm American, and have given more crash courses in US election procedure than I care to count. Dan the Hungarian asked me why we were having an election now and one in November; that was a fun one. I have found it confuses people to no end that, even if I had a ballot, it wouldn't matter if I voted because of the Democratic response to Michigan's primary. It is a very interesting time to be here - having been here for the Australian election and getting a crash couse in their system, and now having the tables turned.

The house is in a bit of an uproar right now - we roasted Bunya nuts (Alex brought home an entire "cone" and it was quite a project - I took some photos which will be up as soon as my battery charges...) and people kept dropping in: Mark, Chris (who lives here and from whom Dan is subletting, so we're not quite sure how that'll shake out), Joe and his cousin, Ray's girlfriend Greta, and we're all making plans for our camping trip over 'Straya Day (Jan 26). I'm going to go rejoin the "bogan/bevin" discussion I sparked and eat some more Bunya nuts!

Just Kidding - Ray Fixed It!

I think Alex sabotages the Internet connection when he goes away, because this is the second time he's gone away and the second time it's gone out! Anyway, I'm writing this at work while covering reception because it's too distracting to get anything else done, and I will stop at the library on my way home to post it.

Trivia: Since no one took a stab at it, I will tell you anyway. The didgeridoo comes from the Aborigines that live in the nothern region of the country, up near Darwin. If you haven't looked at them yet, there are some photos in the newest sets (Woodford - on the Picasa link) of a Didgeridoo-Making Workshop that was at the festival. Ok, new trivia question: How many states are there in Australia (and can you name them)? (If it makes your brain hurt too much, don't worry - most Aussies don't know the answer off the top of their head, they have to count. Hint: They can count them on two hands.)

Pretty quiet week - just book club last night. We discussed A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers and chose the next book, Praise by Andrew McGahan, because I wanted to read something by an Australian about Australia. In the big bookstore here (the Aussie version of Barnes and Noble), they have a whole section on Australian authors, which I think is a really cool feature. I also pronounced the name of the store (Dymocks) as DIE-mocks, and everyone got the look of confusion and then burst out laughing. "Oh no, what did I do now?" Apparently it's pronounced "dimmicks." We all had a good laugh about that one! That's about all that's going on here.

And We're Back!

Trivia Answer

I asked this question because I had a bet going with the housemates about how many people thought the national anthem was "Waltzing Matilda," which the Aussies thought was just preposterous. M wins the prize, the correct answer is "Advance Australia Fair," which makes the restaurant sign below very clever (Tukka is "tucker," the Aussie word for food, spoken with an Aussie accent).

However, I am liking this trivia idea, so here is another one: What region of Australia does the didgeridoo come from?

Mudford

The folk festival was excellent. I never thought I would have so much fun camping. For a week. In the rain. But it was great! It would have been even better if I had actually moved my camp up to where everyone I knew was camping, but oh well. I got a lot of exercise going between the two hills (where the camps were) that were on opposite sides of the "festival village". It really was amazing how this little town sprang up in the middle of nowhere, just for a week. With all the rain, everything was quite muddy. All of the venues were tents and dirt (mud, lake) floors. Eventually you just had to stop caring. I took a few photos and some videos, which I will try to get online soon. I had to restrain myself when it came to buying CDs because they are crazy expensive here, but I did get three that I am very excited about :)

Fantastic Little People

In order to attend for free, I worked in the Operations Center which is the hub of the festival. Anything the venues (stages where artists were performing or bars connected to the stages) needed, they contacted us. Half the time it was for more gravel to fill in their swamps, or other weather-related incidents (like towing out of the mud). We also handled all emergency calls, keeping the caller on the line while dialing "Triple 0" (911) and relaying information between the two. It was exciting to say the least. One of the supervisors described her five-year-old twins as "such fantastic little people" one night as we were trying to fill the rare void left by silent phones. It struck me as such a funny and interesting way to describe one's children that it's still ringing in my head. All the supervisors were great, and my team had a good time. It consisted of Peter who handled the foot traffic and two-way radio requests, and then Georgie and me on the phones in back. Georgie is hilarious - her kids are about my age and she looks like this really sweet lady and then she breaks in with something sassy that someone my age might say. She constantly kept me on my toes and was a lot of fun to work with.

Rainraingoa Way
One of the many clever street names created for the festival - and the most appropriate. The camping areas were better organized than they probably seemed to most campers, but there were little dirt roads with street signs. It was especially crucial for emergencies, to get a tow truck or ambulance to exactly the right spot. At the office we had an ellidex of all the street names and some of them are quite clever. My favorites included Longandwinding Road, Helovesmeinhisblokey Way, Ilovea Parade, etc.

The After-Party

Some friends from the festival who were flying back to Sydney from Brisbane were going to go camping for one more night at a different site, but by the end they decided they had had enough with the camping in the rain. Before they could book a hostel, I checked with my housemates and invited them to stay at our house. I got home on New Year's Day at about 11:30pm, slept for ten hours like a rock in my big-soft-comfy-warm-dry bed, and then woke up to get laundry going and greet the guests. So that day we had a party - those three friends, then Alex's brother, brother's girlfriend and their friend. We got fish and chips and beer and took hot showers and sat around talking and laughing. It was a zoo and so much fun. While I was at work yesterday, the guests all trickled off and I came home to a quiet house and had a lovely relaxed evening.

The Coldest Summer Ever

It is still raining here in Brissie. It apparently rained here the entire time I was gone, and hasn't stopped yet. It is also about 50 degrees which feels COLD. Last night I slept in my winter pajama pants, quilt on the bed, window closed, and was quite cozy. It should be cold and rainy for another week or so, then next weekend sunny. Fingers crossed!

Happy Holidays!

This country is ALL about Christmas. I find people don't really understand when I tell them I don't celebrate Christmas, even less when I explain further that I'm not Christian (like, what does being Christian have to do with celebrating Christmas?). People ask me what I'm doing for Christmas, where in the US they would ask what I'm doing for the holidays - recognizing that people at least have some time off, though rarely the entire week like here (but then, four weeks per year is standard... and that's a whole other can of worms. Go see "Sicko"). There is also no religious diversity - people don't even attempt to pretend like in the US, where store employees are instructed to wish everyone "happy holidays" for fear of a lawsuit or something.

That being said, the housemates and I had a lovely Christmas dinner last night. After a full day of scrubbing the house (which was badly, badly needed - I barely recognize the living room anymore), we had a snack of meat pies (or "poy" if you're Australian, which amuses me - and therefore Alex - to no end) and then set off to the store for supplies. We started cooking around 5:30 and didn't finish until 10:30. We had mulled wine, roast potatoes and pumpkin, various chocolates, Hungarian dessert I didn't catch the name of, and ham (well, the rest of them had ham).

The next week or so I'll be up at the folk festival, so there won't be any posting going on. In the meantime, I leave you with a bit of trivia: What is the Australian national anthem? (And NO cheating by looking it up!)

Oh, and a follow-up to the Hamper entry: turns out "hamper" just means a gift basket, the kind that's all done up in cellophane and tied with a bow.

The Brissie Chrissie Hamper

I went into the city yesterday after working for a couple of hours at Place B, for Place A's Christmas party. When I got to the office, a coworker informed me that I should check out my "hamper." "What the heck is that?" I wondered as I followed her down the hall. Apparently it either means suitcase or is the name for Christmas baskets that the company gives out. The reason it's hard to tell which is that in this case, it was both. I certainly wasn't expecting anything, since I had only worked for them for about six days, but sitting on my desk was, apparently, a hamper. It was a rolling suitcase, covered in cellophane and tied with a big bow. I undid the cellophane as quietly as possible (which is to say, not at all) and opened the suitcase. Keep in mind the suitcase itself would have been gift enough - I have been wanting a rolly one for a while, and this is the perfect size for all the extra junk I have that won't fit in the backpack, plus it won't make my arm fall off carrying it! But anyway, I opened the suitcase and it was filled with goodies - mostly chocolate, much to my delight, but also crackers, a bottle of wine, and some other things. Yay Christmas!

(By the way, Aussies like to abbreviate everything in some way or another... hence the title of the entry: Brissie is Brisbane, Chrissie is Christmas.)

Lost in Translation

No, not about words, but about weather. Specifically, cold weather. It's one thing to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, it's quite another to explain what 10F feels like to a city of people who do not know temperatures below 40F (-12C and 5C, roughly). They get the general idea - that it's COLD - but don't have anything to attach that to, or any experience with it. (Speaking of cold, my office is FREEZING. This is not new - I'm always cold - and at least I'm not sitting under a cold vent in the middle of winter like I was at one place... but still! Brr. Sort of feels like it's actually winter!)

What's weird about the date is not actually that day and month are switched (so December 5 becomes 5/12/07), but that when they read it out loud, they say "the fifth of the twelfth" as in the twelfth month, instead of "fifth of December."

Book fun

Last night I went to the first meeting of the book group I joined! It sounded like a perfect way to meet new people, and this is a good group. I enjoyed our conversation - which flowed from the book to various tangents, and back again, and was just the right amount of intellectualism and socializing. The only problem was the choice of location. We met at a pretty swanky bar in the city, where even in my nice work clothes I did not feel sleek enough to be there, and where I way way overpaid for a small bowl of veggie curry. It was also pretty loud and I had trouble hearing everyone, even though I was in the middle of the table! But that aside, it was a very nice evening. We read The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, which I had read this summer and which was perfect because I didn't have my library card yet when it was decided! At the end we decided on the next book and somehow got to talking about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I said I loved it and someone said we should make it our next book, but really I would rather read new books, not ones I've read dozens of times! Anyway, the next book turns out to be A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which I've also had my eye on for quite a while, so I'm happy as a nerdy little clam :)

Mealtime and Roadway Fun

On Saturday afternoon, Dan and I were drafted into going to a barbecue going-away party for Mia and Alex's friends Jen and John. They had come over a couple of times and are very nice - they are moving to Thailand for at least a year to teach English. I met Jen's parents at the barbecue which explained Jen's wanderlust - her parents are these totally hilarious hippies who have traveled everywhere, mostly by driving and/or camping along the way. They had just gotten back from a six-month trip all around Australia so I picked their brains for a long time about where to go and what to see and do (but not how to get there or where to stay, don't worry!). They also regaled us with tales of their adventures in Europe, which were fascinating. I admire them for their courage.

(Disclaimer: Mom, and anyone else who worries excessively, you should probably not read this paragraph...) After the barbecue, Jordan (another friend of the group) let me behind the wheel of his car. Now, let me explain something. This was a manual car (they were intensely amused by the expression "stick shift," by the way), which I have only ever driven, joltingly, around parking lots, most recently under the direction of my very patient friend Andrew. I know the mechanics of it but had never tried to actually get anywhere, and certainly not on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road. But there weren't many cars around and it was a quick 5-minute drive back to the house. Also, Alex was sitting in the front passenger seat, doing the actual shifting of the gears for me - I was just operating the pedals and steering wheel. All in all, a totally funny and bizarre experience! (By the way - the pedals are NOT reversed. I agreed to drive before I thought of that and had a moment of panic, but it was fine. More complicated was remembering the turn signal was on the other side of the steering wheel...)

On Sunday I wandered into the city and killed some time at the Botanic Garden, which was lovely as usual. On Monday I arrived home after work to find all of the housemates home - including the elusive Ray of Batman fame. Matt and Jordan came over and we ended up all cooking and eating a big meal together, which was very nice. I also got to have a long chat with Ray, mostly about books, which was great. He lent me one which I am reading right now, called The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, on top of everything else I'm reading (what can I say, I'm a book hog!). To round off the mealtime fun, I made latkes for Mia and Dan tonight to kick off Hanukah!

Day 1, Take 2

So, I had my second first day of work on Thursday. It's gone okay so far. There's a lot to learn and it's hard to keep it all straight, lots of details, but I will get it. They also have a happy hour on Fridays, like the law firm, so I stopped by for a little while. It was nice to chat with and meet some of the other people there, plus I was killing some time before heading into the city for the tree lighting. It was pretty nice, they had some different performers singing Christmas carols and Santa came onstage for a little bit and then they lit the tree. I took some photos of it and of the ride into the city on the ferry, so those will be up asap.

This morning my housemate Dan the Hungarian and I went to the farmer's market, which was a lot of fun. There was a lot of food: fruits and veggies, honey, jams; plants; clothes; random guy cutting people's hair; massage table; musicians; etc. I got two enormous mangos the size of your head; Dan got a bunch of vegetables and swears we're going to make a vegetarian feast tonight. I said, "with meat on the side, right?" because every meal he makes has meat; he just laughed. He made kangaroo the other night and I tried some - he cooked it rare, which is not how I prefer meat anyway, but that aside it wasn't bad. It tasted a lot like beef, actually. I'm sure I'll have it again, so stay tuned!

Some notes:

• Australian women wear a lot of sundresses - or just dresses in general, like to work. It makes them look really dressed up, at least from an American perspective.
• Tobacco products have enormous warning labels that say things like "Smoking causes cancer" and "Smoking while pregnant harms your baby."
• Light switches are on the outside of bathroom doors.
• The drugstore is called the "chemist" (or pharmacy). They sell nothing but drugs - none of this random stuff like notebooks and Hallmark cards and food, like CVS.
  

More soon!

"Do Australians Dream of a White Christmas?"

asked my cousin Erin. Turns out, they do! Most Australians I've talked to so far have a completely romanticized view of snow (spoken like a true jaded Midwestern girl), and have all the idea that it would be so wonderful to have a whole winter of it, or at least Christmas. They know (and sing) the song. They also sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells. They do have their own Christmas songs, too, but Christmas is so commercialized, and culture in general so American-bent, that they know all of our traditional songs. A very Australian thing to do on Christmas is to go to the beach and have cold foods (like pasta salads) and/or a barbecue. And they've never heard of "It's a Wonderful Life" (which took some explaining as I only saw it myself for the first time two years ago!).

The tree is up in the Brisbane Square; a huge fake furry thing reminiscent of my aunt and uncle's fake tree, only nowhere near as pretty as they make it with the gold bows. I watched them putting the branches in the other day on my way to work. I think there are lights on it, which probably get turned on at night. The lighting happens tomorrow night but I'm not sure if they'll light it regularly since they just turned off the weather lights for wasting too much electricity. (The weather lights were these lights on top of a building downtown that flashed different colors and patters - basically red or white, flashing or steady - to indicate different types of weather. The only useful-sounding one to me was "rain coming" since it's often cloudy for a long time before it actually rains - all the rest seemed like, if you could see outside to see the lights, you could probably tell if it was actually raining or sunny or cloudy, which are basically the only changes in weather... But I digress.) Anyway, thinking about going to the lighting makes me feel like I'll be standing there sipping hot chocolate and wearing mittens, which I know won't be the case!