This weekend was Labor Day here in Australia which meant that there were no classes on Monday (I don’t have classes on Mondays anyway, so it was just like a normal 3-day weekend for me….kind of). Not only was it Labor Day, it was also Daylight Savings – we ‘sprung’ forward an hour. Labor Day + Daylight Savings = one great weekend. Let me tell you about it…
Saturday was a great day. A few friends and I went into the city for breakfast at a place called Pancakes on the Rocks (it’s in the historic Rocks district of Sydney where convicts were first shipped back in the day). I had the ‘blueberry heaven’ pancake stack – so amazing. These were two of the fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever had, topped with a scoop of ice cream and some of the best blueberries I’ve ever tasted. Yum yum. After breakfast, we all caught a ferry out to Manly Beach. It was an overcast day with rain showers throughout the afternoon – not the best for swimming, but there was a jazz festival going on along with some markets on the street that we checked out. We also spent a little time sitting in the sand in front of the surfers rescue tent, playing with bluebottle jellyfish and watching the waves. What a relaxing afternoon. After Manly, we went back to the city to try some emu and kangaroo pizza at the Australian Hotel – so delicious. Both meats definitely had a gamey taste, but I loved them both (especially the kangaroo). I guess kangaroo is very lean meat, very healthy for you. They also had some native berries atop the ‘roo pizza. I’ve never had berries on a pizza before, but it was soooo good. To end the evening off right, we went back to one the homestays to watch a movie and do some ‘Tim Tam slams’. Because I know you’re all curious, let me introduce you to the ‘Tim Tam slam’…
Step 1: go to the grocery store and buy some Tim Tams (little rectangle cookie things that are coated with chocolate on the outside and have a layer of chocolate on the inside – they also come in other flavors).
Step 2: make a ‘cuppa’ (Aussie slang for cup of tea/coffee, hot cocoa is good for the slams too).
Step 3: take a small bite off opposite corners of a Tim Tam.
Step 4: use the Tim Tam as a straw to suck up your hot drink, but you can’t use your hands…
Step 5: once the beverage makes its way through the Tim Tam straw and into your mouth, tilt your head back quick and let the whole Tim Tam drop into your mouth.
Step 6: experience the wonderfulness of the Tim Tam as it melts in your mouth.
Seriously, this is the best thing in the world. Too bad it’s hard to find Tim Tams in the States. Looks like I’ll be packing a suitcase full of them to bring back with me :)
Sunday was an excellent day as well. My roommates and I invited about 15-20 people over to our homestay for a Lord of the Rings marathon and baking party. Since we’re all going to New Zealand in just a few short weeks, we thought it was appropriate to watch this epic trilogy (which was, of course, filmed in New Zealand!). Throughout the 9 hours of hobbits, orcs, elves, and other creatures, we made a variety of different homemade goods: Milo cake (Milo is huge here – it’s in practically everything from cereal to snack bars. What is it you may ask? It’s kind of like chocolate…but not really. It’s just Milo…), fruit pizza, nutella cookies, American biscuits, bread, and french fries (or ‘chips’ as Aussies would say). All of it was soo delicious, and absolutely everything was made from scratch. These past few months, I’ve discovered that I really enjoy cooking. Since my mom is such an AMAZING cook (which I’ve definitely taken for granted in the past…), I plan on taking full advantage of her culinary knowledge/skills when I get home :)
Monday was also a very good day. I slept in till about 10am (which is the latest I’ve slept since coming here – I normally get up around 6am). In the afternoon, one of my roomies and I hopped a train to Newtown (yet another one of the many suburbs of Sydney). Newtown is known for its artsy/hippie/gothic/earthy sort of culture. Because of this, they have some awesome shops: secondhand bookstores, vintage clothing, natural/earthy stores, and a shop completely dedicated to buttons (that’s my favorite). We wandered around there for about an hour before catching another train to MacDonaldtown. What we were interested in seeing in MacDonaldtown was a mural of the two U.S. African-American sprinters (Tommie Smith and John Carlos) who gave the “Black Power” salute during their medal award ceremony in the ’68 Mexico City Olympics (the mural is called “Three Proud People” – the third man on the mural was Aussie sprinter Peter Norman). The only tricky thing about this mission was we had no idea of the location of this mural - all we knew was that it’s kind of visible from the rail station and it’s on the side of someone’s house… Well, it only took us about 5 minutes to find it (I have no idea how we managed that one). Since we were there, we decided to knock on the guy’s door to get the story behind why he had it painted on the side of his house. What resulted was a wonderful conversation with an Italian man named Silvio and his son Lorenzo. They invited us to come back next weekend for a block party thing, celebrating the mural. It’s cool to see who you meet when you randomly knock on someone’s door…
There are a couple other exciting things that I’ve gotten to experience this past week. Allow me to take you back a few days….
Last Wednesday (Sept. 29th), Gail took the four of us staying at her house this semester to the Sydney Tower 360 Restaurant to celebrate all of our birthdays. Now, the first thing you should know is this is a very fancy restaurant. Gail has spoiled us rotten, and she’s waaaay too good to us. This meal ran her $75 per person….like I said, she’s definitely spoiled us. Included in the $75 was a 2-course meal – we chose to have a main dish followed by a dessert. For my main course, I had the Barramundi (grilled fish fillet served over tomato and saffron stew, baby spinach, and poached potatoes. Side note: Aussie’s pronounce fillet “fill-ett” rather than “fil-aye”. One more quick pronunciation quark: they say “tor-till-a” rather than “tor-teeya” for tortilla. Funny, eh?). Anyway, back to the fish. It was very good. I’d still take a nice walleye over that any day though. For dessert, we shared a couple sampler platters. Those consisted of four different desserts: a vanilla bean crème brulee with poached strawberries, a pan-fried house made brioche with rum soaked prunes and malt ice cream, an aromatic poached pear with ginger cannoli and toasted poire william marshmallow, and a chocolate opera cake with peanut butter parfait (ice cream), peanut brittle and salted caramel. Let me just tell you, it was deeeelicious. I will probably never get the chance to have a meal like that again (fancy’s not really my style anyway). One more note about the restaurant: it revolves. The outer wall is lined with windows, so as you eat you get a magnificent panoramic view of the entire city that keeps changing. We happened to go during dusk – it was even more impressive because of the sunset.
Let’s back up even further to last Saturday (Sept. 25th)…
A few of us took a trip out to the Featherdale Wildlife Park in one of the surrounding Sydney suburbs (it took us about 2 hours by public transportation just to get out there, but it was well worth it). The great thing about Featherdale is that it’s really just a big petting zoo of all the cute and cuddly Australian animals. I got to get up close and personal with lots of kangaroos, emus, koalas, wallabies, wombats, kookaburras and other native birds and animals. It was sooo much fun. My favorite were probably the emus – they were kind of scary looking, especially when you were holding an ice cream cone full of food that they wanted…
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