Figuring things out

Hello folks,

Well, we are in week 3 (I think) of living in Oz and I feel like we are figuring some things out. We have learned our way around the area and even ventured outside of town to a conference for our church. There are a lot of Polynesian people here and for me that is fun because I have always loved the Polynesian people. Back when we lived in the DFW area of Texas, I was friends with lots of Tongans and I love how warm and kind they are to others. They are a beautiful people.

When I was at church a few weeks ago at a church about 45 minutes away from here near Sydney, I would guess over 50% of the people there Polynesian. It was a beautiful sight. One of the things that I thought was really interesting was the use of the formal lava lavas that the Polynesian men wear. Now, I have seen lava lava skirts for men many times in the past, but they were usually very casual attire. I didn't realize that they had formal lava lavas for church, weddings, etc. Basically, it is a nice suit but instead of suit pants, they wear lava lavas or long sarong type skirts that are traditional dress. My husband tells me they also have leather ones for more formal occasions. I was able to get a picture but it is not great, but I wanted to share it with you in case you had never seen one either.

In the second picture, notice the steering wheel on the right side of the car...we are still getting used to that. It is a little weird as a passenger and a driver, to adjust to because you have a totally different sense of where you are on the road. I haven't driven yet but my hubby is quite the seasoned driver now. My time is coming, school starts next week and we will be moving further away from my son's school so we will need to drive him to school most days, which means I better get used to the steering wheel and the other side of the road!

To give you an idea of the incline on the mountain that I walk to one of the bus stops, I took this video, it is a 7 minute walk up the mountain to the school and then probably a 10 or 11 minute walk down to the bus stop.

And actually, there are some much steeper inclines in the neighborhood next door...it makes San Francisco look flat! I admit that taking the bus through those neighborhoods is a little exciting.

And then this thing was sitting on the counter in the kitchen...Aussies call it a kitchen bench instead of a kitchen counter. I asked what you do with it and my friend said "Oh, these are great, you can make anything in it."

Okay...well that didn't help any but google to the rescue! It is a Flavorwave Turbo...basically it is a self contained convection oven. So, we decided to give it a go and made a roast and veggies. We were semi-successful. The veggies needed to be cooked a little longer and actually the roast probably did too. but we followed the directions and it wasn't so bad.

When it is on, it lights up every once in a while...looking very halloween-ish.


We have only used it once and I am not hurrying out to buy one yet. I think I will buy a slow cooker first...I love slow cookers!

Cooking hasn't been too difficult, I just have to convert from Celsius to Farenheit on the oven and such and I admit that I cook just about everything somewhere near 180 degrees Celsius because that is what the first recipe I cooked called for. It is about 350 F. So, when I cook, I just figure in my head if I need above or below 180C and adjust from there. (Highly scientific, I know.)

Happy cooking and Happy weekend!

Brekkie at the Beach with BBQ sauce

We had a church breakfast at the beach this morning that was fun. Everyone from our church was invited to come join in a picnic on the beach and people brought food and we chatted and the kids played on the really nice playground they had there and some of the older kiddos went down the beach for a swim. It was a lovely view and a fun time. I bought new batteries for my camera and was readyt o snap some beautiful shots, but the new batteries I bought were dead...all four of them!!

Brekky is short for breakfast. I have heard it said that Aussie's shorten everything. Thanks is "Ta", breakfast is "brekkie", and kindergarten is "kindy". It takes some getting used to but I like the abbreviations.

Now, on to the breakfast! I was asked to bring a dozen muffins, so I made up my favorite blueberry muffins and other people brought muffins of a similar vein. We also cooked on the barbie (barbeque). I am still getting used to the Aussie idea for barbeque. Basically, when I think of barbeque, being a Texan, I think of a big brisket covered in sauce and cooking for hours but in Oz it really just means the food was cooked outdoors. For instance, at the breakfast, they had bacon and eggs they were cooking on the grill. Now, the bacon was really more of what I would call ham...bacon here is more like Canadian Bacon than American Bacon. And the eggs...well we all know you cannot cook eggs on the kind of grill I am thinking about unless you do it in a pan. However, both the ham and eggs were being cooked on an outdoor griddle like thing that was quite convenient. They brought these rolls, which looked kind of like a hamburger bun but they were larger and flatter. My hubby said they tasted more like a piece of white bread as opposed to a bun, they were very soft and good. When they fried the eggs, they would put down a metal circle and then crack the egg inside the circle so the fried eggs came out in perfect little circles. So, what you did was take half a roll, put on the butter, put the egg on it then the ham and the other part of the bun. Kind of like an Egg McMuffin at McDonalds, but with bread instead of a sour dough...and about 3 times bigger. I thought that sounded yummy! Then I realized they were putting some kind of sauce on it...I was amazed to see that they added barbeque sauce! Wow, I never would have guessed to put barbeque sauce on that sandwich. When I asked my friend, she said "The barbeque is the best part of the burger!" (I have noticed that they call anything you put on a bun a burger.) Wow. I actually didn't try it, I was already full from muffins and fruit because I didn't notice the sauce until later in the morning. I admit that I love to put the barbeque sauce on my Freebirds burrito, but never would have thought to put it on an egg and ham sandwich. Next time, I will have to try it!

Mufti, Mexican, and Kettle of Fish

Hello out there!
We are getting settled in here in Australia and starting to know our way around and getting used to the bus system. Tomorrow we are having a church breakfast on the beach, which should be lots of fun as well. We have mountain and beach within 10 minutes of each other so it is an interesting landscape, plus you add in rain forests and escarpments and we have it all.

Yesterday at my son’s school it was Maroon Mufti Day for the Queensland Floods. I am all for supporting a good cause but what is a Mufti? It is something warm you wear in the winter? Something you wear around your neck? I don’t know. Come to find out, it means that you can wear regular clothes instead of your uniform and you just donate some gold coins to the cause. Well, the goofy Americans were the only ones who didn’t dress up. Landry wore his uniform to school and when we realized it was mufti day, we asked exactly what it meant. He was okay with wearing his uniform and chose to not go home and change, but it was kind of funny. Next time we will be full time mufti-ers for sure! We still donated our 2 gold coins, which were a dollar each, I think. It wasn’t much but I really didn’t know what an appropriate amount was because the student at the gate just had a little bucket people were putting coins in. We will figure all this out someday….

I was really craving Mexican foods the other day and had to try to recreate some sour cream chicken enchiladas without the little can of green chilies. I was able to find some fresh mild chilies at the produce market and roasted them with some red, yellow, and orange bell peppers (which they call capsicums). I chopped them up and used them instead of the can of green chilies and it was pretty darn close to the original. I can now have my friends over for Mexican food! My husband went to a fast food Mexican restaurant yesterday and ordered nachos…I mean who can screw up nachos? He said they were awful! They were Doritos (plain without the nacho cheese) with some kind of beans on them and non-Mexican cheese. We were talking to a friend of ours and he was telling her about it and he said “I don’t even know what kind of beans these were, they were not refried!” and she said “they were probably kidney beans” and we said “WHAT? You don’t put kidney beans on nachos?”. So, now I have to make some decent nachos for these poor deprived people. Kidney beans? That just won’t do.

We shipped two of our boxes air freight and we received them last week. I was so excited to see my American (non-metric) measuring cups. I had already bought Aussie measuring cups, but all my recipes are in American measure and my guess-timating isn’t always really accurate. The Aussie’s use cups and teaspoons and such but they are a different size, so now I have both and can make American and Aussie recipes! The box also contained my Pampered Chef stuff, which I understand they do not have here. I love my PC stuff like my pizza stone, bread pan, mixing bowl, etc. It was like getting reacquainted with old friends, especially since my favorite cook books were also in the box. And hey, it was supposed to take 2 weeks to get here and it only took 4…how’s that for service? My other 7 boxes are coming by boat and are expected in April…I am not holding my breath! (Or is it breathe…I always get it confused)

There are a few things we miss besides our family and Mexican food. We also miss Netflix…you can’t get it here…or Pandora radio…we also miss our iPhones terribly and are trying to get our iPhones converted so we can use them here but it hasn’t worked yet and to get new iPhones is an 8 week wait. Oh, the torture! My cell just makes calls and texts…ugh! I can actually get facebook on my cell for free, but the app is so bad that you can only read the top half of the letters, so you have to try and guess who is posting what. No fun. We also miss our friends and hope that some are making plans to come visit. Australia has so much to offer for a vacation and it is just beautiful…you should come see for yourself!

Aussie phrase of the day for you: “kettle of fish” as in “That’s not my kettle of fish” or the American phrase would be “That’s not my cup of tea.” Pretty fun!

Hope you all have a great Friday and weekend!

Adelaide Zoo

Howdy mates,

Tonight we had our closing banquet at the Adelaide Zoo, which was a fun place to visit and a cool place for a banquet. We didn't see the whole zoo but were able to see many of the animals that you think of when you hear the word Australia. However, I didn't get a good shot of the koalas, so forgive me but just trust me that they were there.

I would say it was a pretty typical zoo, seemed a little smaller than the zoos I am used to (like the awesome Fort Worth Zoo) but still a good zoo. The grounds were once a botanical gardens, so there is lots (or loads as the Aussies would say) of lush greenery all around the paths and exhibits. One great deal for those who like zoos, is that you can purchase a season pass or family pass for this zoo and it gives you access to many other zoos in the country as well. I bet they have a similar program in the states as well, it seems to be a common practice, so check our your local zoo alliance (or whatever it might be called) for details.

Below is the kangaroo and wallaby habitat. There are mainly wallaby's in this picture, you can only see a small part of the back of the kangaroo, it is the reddish brown hump kind of in the middle. the kanga just wasn't in the mood for pictures, maybe she was having a bad hair day? The different between a wallaby and a kangaroo is size, once they reach 20 kilos, then they go from a wallaby to a kangaroo. Baby wallaby's and kanga's are called joeys. We also found out that a kangaroo mother can have a baby kangaroo, and keep it in the pouch and have another baby in her and just keep that baby in a holding pattern until she is ready for it and also be forming (or pregnant) with another joey at the same time. Wow, talk about multi-tasking!

These are the lemurs from Madagascar. There are 6 of them here and they all get along really well. There is one sitting on the log that is in the front of the picture and the rest are all nestled together in the red light area. That is a heating lamp where they like to sleep.
This is one of the pandas, either Fufu or Wang Wang, I am not sure which one. They had a great panda habitat there and we got to spend some time there as part of our banquet. They look so cuddly and fun, even thought I know they are not.
And here is the emu. They have some pretty fierce feet that can do lots of damage

It was a fun night with the animals! It was a good conference and I met a lot of people and learned a lot, but I am ready to get back to my boys. I miss them!

So, we will fly back to Sydney tomorrow and head home!

So, Cheers from Adelaide!

Paitya Dance Group-Indigenous Welcome to Country

Howdy Mates,

I hear the weather is cold back in Texas so I hope you are all staying warm. It is summer here, so it is warm but it has cooled down some and has been really pleasant.

Today I am in Adelaide, Australia at a conference. Adelaide is known for being Australia's wine country. We are staying in the downtown area, so I have not seen much of the beautiful wine country but we have some conference sessions there tomorrow, so that should be nice. Since I don't drink alcohol, I will just sample some fine grape juice! (At least that is what they do on wine tours that I have been on before, the non-alcohol people get fancy grape juice!)

Today during the welcome of our conference, we have the Paitya Dance Group come and give us an indigenous welcome. I recorded just a little of it to show you. I would equate the Australian indigenous groups to the North American Indian and their rituals and dances. They tell stories and show the heritage of a people that in many ways have been resilient and not always treated well by their country's government.

And of course we squeezed in some shopping as well. Here is a picture of a typical street mall in Australia. We have one similar to this one in Wollongong. It is interesting to see the shops and then these large hotels and buildings nestled in between, some of them look quite old and ornate and you can tell that they have filled in the empty spaces that once surrounded these buildings.

We even found a Target store, which was smaller and different from the US and really I thought it was quite expensive, but still fun to shop around. The clothing section for women was really large but it was still not the Target I love in the US.

So, tomorrow I hope to take some shots at the wineries and share them with you.

Ta ta for now!

Shopping in Oz

Well, we have been here one week and are getting settled into our house and the community. We have learned a lot and feel like we can get around town a little easier and venture out a little bit more unchaperoned. One thing we have done a lot of is shopping.

Shopping is different here. For groceries, you have a few options. You can go to the mall and shop at the grocery store or you can go to one of the local produce markets. You can also order online and they will deliver it to your kitchen bench as they call it...or kitchen counter top for Americans.

When you go to the mall, it literally is one stop shopping. It is set up very similar to a mall in the states, but the malls have everything, not just clothes and shoes and electronics. At the mall we have gone to the most, we have a KMart, 2 grocery stores (Coles and Woolworth's or Wooolie's as they call it), nail salons, clothing stores, electronics, reject shops (which are similar to $1 stores in the US but more expensive), book shops,butchers, sea mongers, etc. There are not really any huge departments stores here (that I have seen) in the mall like a Macy's or Dillard's, but I imagine they probably have those types of stores closer to Sydney. The stores here also close early. I think they close around 6pm on most days except they stay open late on Thursdays and I think many of them are closed on Sundays. I have also heard that many stores close around 4pm on Saturdays, so no late night shopping here.

We have made numerous trips to the grocery stores. We have been to both Wollie's and Coles and have also gone to a local produce market. Right next to the produce market is a butcher and a baker...and yes, there is a candle store there as well!

The produce here is lovely. We have enjoyed walking around and looking at all the nice fruits and veggies, some of which we have no idea what they are or what to do with them. I was told before I got here that Australians eat healthier than Americans, which I have found to be true. One reason may be because healthy food is the same price as fast food. It is just as easy and most of the time cheaper, to buy healthy food as opposed to fast food. My husband went to McDonalds the other day while he was out because they had free wifi. He ate lunch there and spent about $10 on a regular meal that in the states would probably be around $5.

There have been a few things that we have found to be of a different size. Below is a picture of my son holding a sweet potato...it is huge! Biggest sweet potato I have ever seen...although it tastes the same if not better! Green onions here were also huge and we bought some avacados that were quite large as well. There was one sign that said that okra was on sale but nothing near the sign looked like okra, so we weren't sure if it was mislabeled or if they just didn't know what okra really was or if they have a variety that looks like a squash.

Going out to eat as a family of 3 for fast food cost us at least $30, so we have eaten at our house most of the time but do occasionally grab a bite if we are out. Aaron has a pastie the other day, which was like a shepherd's pie wrapped in a pie dough to make a little half circle pocket. It has ground beef, peas, carrots, and potatoes. He has also tried a savory roll, which looks kind of like a burrito, but this one had mushrooms, ricotta cheese, and chicken rolled up in a phyllo dough. He said they were both good. I had quiche Lorraine (ham and cheese), which tasted just like quiche Lorraine in the states.

I hear you cannot find good Mexican food here so I will just have to make my own. We have already had quesadillas and breakfast burritos. You can find some of the Old El Paso brands of Mexican food here, so we have used that. I haven't found any green chilis in the little cans like we have in the states, so I bought some fresh green chilis at the produce market and will see if I can figure out what to do with those. I want to make my sour cream chicken enchilladas!

We have not tried vegemite...and to be honest, we really don't plan to but I bet we do at some point. It is a yeast paste that they put on toast with butter. I would equate it to the American peanut butter and jelly sandwich in popularity.

There are a few other differences as well....jelly(US) is jam(AU) here, jelly (AU) is jello (US). Cookie(US) is a biscuit (AU), yogart(US) is yoghurt(AU). You can't find graham crackers here, they use digestive crackers and their marshmallows are different, they come in a pack of pink and white and are really sweet. Rice Crispies (US) are Rice Bubbles(AU) and Raisin Bran (US) is Sultana Bran (AU).

You also have to take into account that things are weighed here in grams and kilos. So, when chicken is $8 a kilo, that is 2.2 pounds. When I go to the deli, I have just learned to say, I want 10 slices of _____ please because I am still learning the weights.

Taxes are also included in the listed prices, so when you check out, there are no additional costs than the ones posted. You also don't have to tip at most places, tipping is included in the cost for getting your hair done or nails and even for waiters at restaurants.

All in all it has been a fun adventure learning our way around the system...and there are times you just have to stop and laugh because you cannot figure out what people are asking you or what something means on a package. It took me 5 minutes the other day to find dishwashing detergent that you can put in the dishwasher, and then 5 more once I got home to figure out where to put the detergent in the machine!

It is different, but so far we love it!

Until next time...G'day from the land down under!

Heather