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!
Hey Heather, might not be worth the cost (or maybe it would be) but Netflix offers a bunch of stuff via instant watch. You could watch via your computer or stream to your tv (depending on the tv capabilities you may or may not need a Wii or Playstation to do it. Our newest tv. it came built in!). Or maybe you could leverage a family member's account for instant watch and not have to pay for a membership?????
ReplyDeleteHowdy Becca, I am glad you are reading and liking the blog, thanks for the comment. We actually just cancelled our netflix account because it won't work here! We were so bummed, we wanted to be able to watch via streams but it is blocked here. :(
ReplyDeleteThere is a version, I have heard, here called Big Pond but it is just videos and not streaming and more expensive, so we are still looking for an alternative. Enjoy a netflix video for me!