New Photos!

Bunya nut excitement is up on the Picasa link to the right. Click on "Photos on Picasa" and select the album "Bunya Nut Night". Enjoy!

'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.

No dice.

No internet at the house and the library won't let me cut and paste the entry I wrote today! More later... probably after the weekend. Have a good weekend!

Photos!

Click on the "Photos on Picasa" link to the right. Three new albums: "Woodford Folk Festival," "King's Beach," and "Christmas Dinner."

This is the link to a video I took of a group playing the didgeridoo albeit untraditionally :) I have no idea if the sound will work and the picture is pretty bad because it was a packed house, but give it a shot.

And this is the link to a video of the Japanese drumming, also from Woodford. Even if the sound doesn't work their show was visually stunning as well.

Enjoy!

In Which Amy Finally "Gets" Surfing

Family trip to the beach on Sunday! We were up at the crack of 6:30 and out the door by 7:15, which is pretty impressive. Two hours up the coast later, we arrived at King's Beach and piled out of Dan's "new" '91 Mitsubishi Magna. After snagging a prime shady spot on the busy beach, arranging our towels and having a quick sunscreen-drying session, we hit the waves.

A few years ago, when I was in Guatemala, a friend of the family who lives there took me and his daughters to the beach. It is these infrequent trips to the beach that make me realize, not only why these trips are so infrequent, but just how spoiled I was growing up around so much calm water. I don't really do waves. Five minutes in Guatemala's Pacific and it chewed me up and spit me out. It wasn't quite as bad yesterday, but I did still have salt water coming out of my nose at one point and beat a hasty retreat to the shore.

As I sat on the sand, I watched the never-ending, man-eating waves. I also watched all the people who had brought all manner of floating boards and had a revelation of sorts: THIS is where surfing came from. You can only be tossed around so many times before it gets old and you need something else to do. You can't really be under the waves, so why not be on top of them and deal with the waves the easy way? And bango - you have surfing!

Even though we reapplied when we got back to the towels, we were all pretty pink by the time we got home and were able to evaluate the damage in fake light. We were at the beach for maybe three hours, through a couple of wave-fighting sessions, sausages and ice cream, and a little nap, until the sky clouded over and it got cooler. We took the scenic route home, going past the site of the folk festival, which I'd never really seen in daylight. It was beautiful and pictures will be up shortly. Sunburn excepted, it was a lovely day at the beach.

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!