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.)

Peanut, peanut butter... (and jelly)

How people think peanut butter is disgusting is beyond me. Leaving aside for a moment that this is a nation of people who eat vegemite like it's going out of style (which is not so much gross as just really really salty) because Dan the Hungarian is grossed out by peanut butter, too. Grossed out - seriously - this is a guy who taste-tests his raw meat (to see if it needs more paprika, no doubt), and suddenly I'm the wacko? Riiiiight. (Though he did donate some celery to me and was so amused by the fact that I went straight to the cupboard and put peanut butter on it that he actually tried it, so I'll give him credit for bravery.)

In other news, my two places of employment have been duking it out for the pleasure of my presence in the new year. Place B was supposed to only have me for December and then give me back to Place A, but I am filling a gap made by a person on vacation and another one who quit and they are slow on the hiring uptake. The agreement they came to in the end was that I would go back to Place B for the rest of the first week of January just to hand things back over to the person who was on vacation, and then I'd go to A for a few weeks, until they run out of things for me to do, then back to B... sounds like a lot of bouncing. We'll see how it goes.

This is all in the midst of making preparations for my big camping trip between "Chrissie" and New Year's. Those of you who know me know I am not big on camping. However, this is a big music festival and a lot of people I know are going, so I think it might be fun. More fun than staying home and being bored out of my mind, anyway. I think I also have found a ride up and back from the festival - if this girl would ever email me back! I'm getting a tad antsy. I'd really rather not have to take enough things for a week of camping with me on a train and then bus.

Ok, I'm off to work at Place B for a couple of hours, then it's Place A's Christmas party and then I don't have to think about either place for a week and a half! Yay :)

Right - the Weekend

Sorry, got distracted by housemates. The weekend was good and low-key. Tried out a new synagogue, which consisted mostly of six people about my parents' age, including two Americans and a "Pom" (Brit), who were just thrilled that I was there. I got home just in time to swing by the Saturday Farmer's Market, on the way to which I ran into Alex and his friend Juliette, who were on their way back from buying supplies for a massive meal. I got my basics for the week and hurried back to help. It turned out to be, instead of the promised ratatouille, a tuna-couscous salad, which was excellent. (It was a hot day, so no one really felt like cooking ratatouille.) When Juliette left, Alex and I agreed to go into the city and run some errands together - but laze about first, of course. He went off to take a nap and I went off to lie on my bed and read - I ended up with the nap and he ended up watching a movie. But we successfully avoided the hottest part of the day and by the time we got into the city, it was getting a little chilly.

I think it's safe to say that Alex is my favorite cooking buddy. I try to hold off on making anything for dinner until he's home because he usually has a better idea and many ingredients to contribute. Sometimes we get the rest of the kids in the house in on it, too. Last night he and Mia made pumpkin soup that I also got to contribute to and which was sooooo yummy. Sunday we made breakfast burritos - and the tortillas. He's (almost too) willing to try making every part from scratch, as much as possible, an adventuresome spirit which I appreciate, even if it does mean it takes hours to make anything! To top it off, he doesn't mind much if I laugh at his accent "like it's the funniest thing you've ever heard," as he described my unbridled amusement ;)

All's Quiet on the Home Front...

Not too much to report this week, it's been a quiet one. Had a Christmas cocktail party for work on Tuesday - it was actually really easy to follow directions and mingle with lots of people because I didn't know anyone! However, I did feel really silly ostensibly "networking" because I only have another week to go. Oh well. They're nice people, anyway. Other than that, work actually kept me pretty busy for the first couple of days. But in general I spend all day online so that's why I'm not terribly eager to hop online once I get home to post on here... sorry :(

We've had some guests at the house in the evenings - Alex's friend Juliette, from France, came over on Wednesday and I made more latkes. Right now his friends Mark and Angie are visiting and they are having a jam session, which is pleasant to have in the background. Mia graduated from her program this week so we all celebrated a little with her last night. There's been lots of general hanging out and group cooking endeavors, which are always fun. I should come up with something new and interesting to do this weekend... check back in a couple of days ;)

Koalas and Kangaroos and Cassowaries... oh my

All right, for all those who have been badgering (kangarooing?) me for photos of native Australian animals, here you go! Kay (the girl from Nebraska that I had Thanksgiving pizza with) and I made it to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on Sunday. It was great! They have the day organized into informational talks all over the little park about every half hour on the different animals. First we went to the koala talk. Afterwards the ranger brought out a koala so we could pet it - it was softer than I thought it would be. His name was Monacle because he was blind in one eye (from birth). Then we went to the kangaroo talk. The most notable thing about the kangaroo talk was that an emu wandered up and just sort of stuck his beak into the gazebo that we were sitting in. There are some pretty funny photos of that - emus are hilarious-looking to begin with, and this guy had his beak parted and he looked really excited and curious and almost like he was laughing! It was great. All of the talks also addressed the issue of the impact of humans and the danger that the environment is in, and what we can do to help preserve the habitats (like planting eucalyptus trees) and ways to avoid accidentally killing the animals in the wild (ie by being more alert when driving, especially in the bush and especially around dusk and dawn - like deer). Then, since Kay is really into birds (she was a fisheries and wildlife major in college, I think, and went on to work at a zoo for 6 years), we went to the Birds of Prey flight show. There are some photos of a couple of the birds in there. Finally, we went to the Lorikeet feeding, where the ranger put out a bunch of different bowls and you could hold one and have these beautiful birds flock to you - that was cool. In between the talks, we wandered around, petting what you could pet and taking photos and reading about the rest. You can go right into the kangaroo area and even feed them, so there are a million photos of them - they are so cute. These ones are really docile, I'm sure because they're used to it. I wouldn't go up to a completely wild one and try to pet it! There are also photos of other animals - tree frog, wombat, cassowary... All in all, a good day trip (about an hour from the center of the city, where we met up).

Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/amy.horning/LonePineKoalaSanctuary
Enjoy!

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 :)