Hunter Valley Escape

This past weekend I decided to get out of the city and go to wine country. The Hunter Valley is about two hours north of Sydney, and is a popular weekend getaway for city people. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was for 40 degrees Celsius (also known as 104 Fahrenheit) on Saturday. I was feeling some serious regrets as I left my nice beachy suburb, but I decided to brave it anyways since the tour I booked was non refundable.

The bus picked us up from Central Station, and wound its way through the Northern Suburbs until we had left civilization behind. We stopped for coffee in a tiny town called Wollombi, and before I knew it we were at the cellar door of Lindeman’s. They were SUPER generous with the tastings, and I ended up buying a bottle of port here to drizzle on my ice cream this summer. We had lunch and more wine at Hunter Cellars (where I picked up a Shiraz), and finished the tour at McGuigan’s, where I bought a cheap red blend. While most of the group was heading back to Sydney, I was dropped off at the hostel in the middle of a vineyard/cow pasture a couple of kilometres outside of Cessnock. It was more like a cabin than anything else, with a wooden veranda surrounding the whole building. I was greeted by a five foot snake on the driveway (non poisonous according to the caretaker), who slowly slithered away under the porch fortunately not to be seen again during my stay. It was BOILING hot by this point so I went for a dip in the pool, had a shower, and sat in the shade drinking my red blend out on the deck. As night fell, there was an electrical storm from all the heat. I took a video of what it looked like-it’s not the best quality, but you can kind of tell how dramatic it was!

The next day was equally lazy. I walked into town and watched the early bird showing of Skyfall, and by the time I got back it was time to return to Sydney. Great weekend! 

Odds and Ends

So far I've been enjoying a relaxing weekend. I spent all of yesterday afternoon outside of Bunnings Warehouse (the equivalent of Home Depot) peddling sausage sandwiches to raise money for the Sutherland Shire Brass Band. I can't believe I'm saying this, but interacting with random people who came to buy paint or flowerpots or whatever and detoured over to my sausage cart kind of made me miss working in customer service. I guess it helps that I only had to be there for 3 hours and wasn't getting paid, so I didn't have to be overly cheerful. I slept in a bit today (Sunday) but by the time I woke up it was already about 80 degrees, so I'm just waiting for my laundry to finish and then I'm hitting the beach.
I always feel like I'm missing out on a lot being so far away from home in November. I tried calling mom on her birthday but she could only hear static, which was kind of depressing. Thanksgiving was especially hard; it has always been one of my favorite holidays, since you don't have to worry about buying presents and everyone gets to overeat and drink too much. This year it was just me and my roommate, so I didn't bother with a big dinner or anything. I decided to make pumpkin pies from scratch to celebrate. I found a recipe online, but when I started putting everything together I realized everything was in Aussie terminology (apparently 185 grams of brown sugar= about 1 American cup). They don't stock canned pumpkin puree in the stores here, so I steamed a pumpkin and then pureed it in our blender. I also realized that I do not own a rolling pin, and nearly gave up on the crust, which was extremely weird and lumpy and gross looking. Despite all of the setbacks, it actually turned out really well! I took one pie to work, where not a single person in the office had ever tasted pumpkin pie. It was completely gone by the end of the day, so I feel like my attempt to indoctrinate Australia on American food customs was a success. Yay!

Jacaranda

It’s been kind of chilly and rainy here lately, which is annoying because I was hoping for a really hot spring and summer this year. One thing that has assured me that it is actually spring are the Jacaranda trees. They were one of the things I really noticed when I first arrived last year, and it’s amazing to think that already another year has gone by. There are a TON of them in the Sutherland Shire (my neighborhood) and I learned that during the 70’s there was a hospital that would give parents a seedling Jacaranda tree to take home with every new baby. Now, there are 40 year old Jacaranda trees all over the place! They have really beautiful purple flowers, which are starting to fall now that we’re headed into summer. It kind of reminds me of the cherry trees on the quad at UW, except these actually match the school colors! I went for a walk on my lunch break and took a couple of photos around Surry Hills. These are a bit younger than the ones near my house, but you get the idea.

Four More Years!

I've been trying to keep up on the election today. It's so frustrating to be at work, when four years ago I was sitting on my parents' couch stuffing my face with guacamole. There is a lot of interest in the election here, but I've been getting most of my updates via US news sites. I have to say, so far the results have mostly been a relief. And early this morning, I received proof that I have done my part:

Happy Halloween!

Yesterday was Halloween. It’s not a very big deal in Australia yet, but it seems that people are slowly starting to adopt it. (Although they’re a little confused on the details of what you’re supposed to do) I got asked a lot of questions:

Do you give the kids candy when they come to your door, or let them reach in and take it?

How late are they supposed to stay out?

How do you carve a pumpkin? The pumpkins over here are more like squash, so... you can’t really.

So far they’re treating it like a holiday for kids, with a big emphasis on trick-or-treating, no costume parties for grown ups the Saturday before, no gory movies, etc. I stole a few of my favorite brands out of the basket intended for the trick or treaters: Boost, Aero, Dream, and Cherry Ripe. Sadly no Reeses or Twix to be found!

Imported from the USA

Ben and Jerry's. Only $11.95 at the local IGA.

Canberra

This past weekend I decided to make a trip down to Canberra, the capital of Australia. Canberra was selected as the capital as a compromise between Melbourne and Sydney, who were both competing for the honour. I left straight after work on Friday, and couldn’t see much during the three hour drive down there since it was already dark by the time we got past the suburbs of Sydney. I woke up nice and early on Saturday morning to take a hop-on-hop-off bus tour that allowed me to select four attractions that I wanted to see.  I started off with the war memorial, which was incredible! There were different sections for each conflict involving Australia. I only had a little over an hour to look at the exhibits, and the amount of artefacts and information to absorb could easily have taken me twice that long. The outside of the memorial is incredibly peaceful, with a reflecting pool and eternal flame leading up to the domed building containing the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Wall adorned with poppies to commemorate people who have lost their lives:

The next stop was Floriade, which I thought would be an arboretum/botanical garden but turned out to be a carnival with a couple of sad, wilting flowerbeds. I basically just killed an hour here before I got picked up again to go see Parliament House. Here is a view from the front:

There were an impressive amount of portraits of various politicians and prime ministers on display. I think my favourite part was seeing the chambers where the House and Senate meet to pass bills. Unfortunately they weren’t in session since it was a Saturday:

The last stop on my trip was the Australian Museum. I was pretty tired by this point, so I did a quick walk through and sat in the cafe looking out over Lake Burley Griffin, an artificial lake in the middle of Canberra. It was named after Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion, two Americans who designed the city in the early 1900s. I could see the many similarities between Canberra and Washington D.C., and I’m sure that’s what the Burley Griffins had in mind during the design process. Overall, it was a very educational (and cheap) trip, but I could never see myself living there!