Christmas Down Under

Hey all! Let's go over my adventures of days past before talking about today - Christmas Eve.

Mon Dec 22 - After a night of singing carols at the town chruch and being disappointed they didn't have Aussie Jingle Bells, I was on a mission to find a CD of Aussie Xmas carols. Allison took me into town and searched several stores and couldn't find any. Damn. But here are the words:

Dashing through the bush
In a rusty Holden Ute
Kicking up the dust
Esky in the boot
Kelpie by my side
Singing Christmas songs
It's summer time and I am in
My singlet, shorts & thongs

CHORUS:
OH, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS
JINGLE ALL THE WAY
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA
ON A SCORCHING SUMMER'S DAY
JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS
CHRISTMAS TIME IS BEAUT
OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE
IN A RUSTY HOLDEN UTE

Engine's getting hot
Dodge the kangaroos
Swaggy climbs aboard
He is welcome too
All the family is there
Sitting by the pool
Christmas day, the Aussie way
By the barbecue!

CHORUS

Come the afternoon
Grandpa has a doze
The kids and uncle Bruce
Are swimming in their clothes
The time comes round to go
We take a family snap
Then pack the car and all shoot through
Before the washing up

CHORUS

A yute (or "ute") is a pickup truck that is actually a car if that makes sense. So imagine a car with 2 seats and the back is open and flat (no walls surrounding the flat area). An esky is a cooler where you keep cold drinks, a boot is the trunk of a car, thongs are flip-flops/sandals.

Christmas here is during summer so backpackers go to the beach on Xmas day and you see Santas in shorts and t-shirts. Some Aussies don't eat turkey or hot dinners for the holiday so instead, they have cold food such as "prawns" (I've been corrected each time I said "shrimps").

So after failing to find a xmas CD with these fun songs, I went back to the farm and watered the many newly planted trees with Pat, one of the french wwoofers. We had to tread through long grass that reached up to my chest...this is snake territory. They love tall grass and sun. I was careful to scan the ground around me while I heavily stomped on the ground to warn the snakes I was coming. They can't hear but they feel the vibrations and move out of your way. I saw a snake slither away from me as I approached. I just managed to see the last 4 inches its brown tail....thank goodness! I'd hate to see its head.

While in the paddocks, I gave a go at driving the yute. Pat was so brave to sit with me and guide me through because not only do I not have a license but this thing is a manual car with a hard clutch! I wasn't too bad....I mean there were no disasters but I can say that I prefer automatics.

For dinner, I gathered some greens for a salad from the garden. I noticed that some of the lettuce was eaten up so I thought we've been eating a lot of salad. Days later, we learned that the ducklings managed to squeeze through the fence and eat the stuff in the garden while we weren't looking!

I tried feeding the chickens by hand today and it didn't hurt until they got a hold of my fingers. No blood was drawn so it was ok.

Tues Dec 23 - I helped Allison in the kitchen today and she taught me how to make pavlovas. It's a meringue dessert that's popular here. It's basically meringue which is baked carefully and then whipped cream and fresh berry mix drizzled on top. We only baked it today and the rest goes on tomorrow.

Cara's (dog) friend Bella (neighbour's yellow Lab mix) came to play today. Bella just came over by herself -- she's really cute but wayyy too much energy! She doesn't listen and jumps on people. She slobbered on my arm; I've never had slobber that thick on me before it was difficult to wash off. We bring her back to her home and she is back before you know it! She scares the ducks and geese (Nicky the duck ran away somewhere to hide for the night). I love dogs but this one is too much! (Her owners aren't home...I reckon they went away for the holidays).

Wed Dec 24 - Today is Xmas Eve and everyone is gone except for Pat and I. We decided to stay on the farm and have a traditional northern hemisphere dinner of roast chicken, mashed potatoes (garlic and chives), stuffing, etc. Rhys and Allison went to Sydney to her family's while Nicky (the other french WWOOFer) went to Bondi Beach for a touristy Christmas on the beach. And no, we did not slaughter any chickens for our dinner! We got one from the supermarket instead. We had permission to take 2 from the farm but we didn't after all. Tomorrow when everyone comes back, we are going to have an Aussie Xmas dinner of cold food (prawns and ham, etc). Because...it's summer here.

Bella the dog came back today. She was tied up and she escaped by breaking the rope! She is really too much and she gets sweet Cara into trouble. They are cute together...a black and yellow Lab playing together. But really, Bella has too much energy for us.

Alright, I should go now to gather the celery, sage, chives from the garden for my mashed potatoes and stuffing. It's so wonderful to eat fresh food!

Chillaxin' at Bondi Beach!

I went to Bondi Beach with 3 of my roomates, the Swiss girl and 2 Koreans. We walked up to Hyde Park to catch the bus. We spent 15 min. looking around to buy bus tickets but couldn't find any since the express bus requires pre-paid. So we ended up catching the local bus and paid the bus driver $4. It took about 40 min to get to Bondi. This beach is well-known around the world but to the Aussies, it's" just another city beach". The sands were very pale yellow and clean. There were heaps of surfers riding the waves. We didn't go swimming because it was very windy and the water was quite cold. I hear that the water at Manly Beach is warmer (no, the guys there aren't more "manly"...there really is a place named Manly!).

On our way back, we managed to buy a bus ticket from 2 public transportation guys standing on the street. This time it was only $3. I'm glad I got to see Bondi Beach...it was quite nice. The water starts out greenish and turns blue as it goes out farther.

Socializing and Bank Stuff

Last night I went on an outing with the IEP group. We went to the Glenmore Hotel for some drinks and food. I had 2 beers and fries...hmmm, very healthy. I met more Germans (a couple) and finally some other North Americans. I met 2 girls from Florida, 1 from Texas, and 1 from Toronto. The Americans I've met are here on the 4-month visa because they can use as many of those as they want whereas, the 1 year visa can only be used once. One girl from FL is working at a high end Italian restaurant at Hyde Park. The pay isn't the best but she gets to eat yummy food and watch people play the huge chess game in the park. She told us that we can get ice cream cones from McD's for only 30 cents! All the McD's here look like high end restaurants with nice decor and beautiful displays of pastries. Apparently, McD's in Europe are similar.  On our way back to the hostel, we dropped into the McD's for an ice cream on a windy cold night.

This morning, I woke up to find none of the bathrooms had toilet paper. Ugh. But alas, I went into the guy's bathroom and stole their only roll. Hahaha. Sorry guys. I can't wait to go to my WWOOF thing next week and do medieval crafts! Yay!

I'm going to visit Hyde Park today to see the huge chess game and the Botanic Gardens to see the large bats in the trees.  Tomorrow, I will be going to the famous Bondi Beach with 2 of my roomates (a Korean, and a Swiss). I turns out that girl who didn't really talk is Swiss. I got to talk to her last night and she's very friendly. I think a lot of people want to talk but are too shy because english isn't their first language.

I picked up my bank card today! Yay! Now I can leave Sydney! This city is too chaotic like NYC...I need peace. I heard that Melbourne is really cool. Apparently, Sydney is like Toronto (busy city), Melbourne is like Montreal (cobblestones, beautiful, cool, amazing.....biased, am I?), and Canberra is like Ottawa (BORING). I will see and let you know if this is true!

By the way, if you guys need to wire transfer money it can be a pain if you don't know what to do (because the bank people don't know either). I called the general number and I was told to either do it automatically on the phone with my phone code OR call my branch during their hours. Since I don't have my code on me, I decided to call my branch between 12:30am-9am Sydney time (9:30am-5pm EST). I got up early to call and my branch tells me I cannot do it through them. I had to fax a request. Arrrgh. So I faxed it and now hopefully everything works out.