Aussie Food

I'm losing weight - enough said. To be fair, its probably also because we don't have a car and have already walked more kilometers than Oprah has in her whole career. I think I'm going to need new shoes soon.

Let's face it although we all love a good shrimp po-boy or 10, it's probably not a terrible idea to take a break from the food that we know and love every once and a while. That sentence was actually painful to type - who am I kidding?  For the most part, as much as we are enjoying Aussie land, we've been a little underwhelmed by the food. $20 Mexican plate (taco and burrito) near the beach, $12-15 take-out gyros. Isn't ethnic food supposed to be cheap??? Anyway, there are a few things that I can live without, but after a few weeks I have finally been able to cook red beans and rice (chorizo was the closest substitute for andouille), jambalaya and shrimp bisque. It was actually the first time that I've ever cooked shrimp bisque and I was actually quite pleased at the results of John Folse's expertise (or possibly Emeril?). I think the seafood stock was the key. While I'm on the subject of eating out here, there are a couple of things to note: wine is cheap, beer is expensive, food is generally expensive and somewhat boring, tax is already included and tipping is not common or expected so the price you see is what you actually pay (waiters make like $15-20/hr here), ice cream is expensive (I'm talking like 10 bucks for a portion much smaller than a blue bell half-gallon)! Having had our fill of more peanut butter sandwiches (I like to add banana) than we've eaten as kids, we've finally been able to begin cooking a few things, which is a big improvement. I have mastered the art of the 15 minute chicken wrap once again (Erin rejoices). I think she could eat that everyday. Also of note - we bought a specialty bottle of red wine vinegar made of Shiraz from one of the local wineries. This will undoubtedly add enjoyment to Erin's specialty salad-making operations. We've made a few strawberry pancakes (sorry no pics).
One more thing, we have an electric stove and the oven is in Celsius. Fortunately, we've become good guessers and didn't burn the lasagna last night! Actually the conversion formula has always stuck with me for whatever reason, but the weather can be a bit of a pain especially when its like 28C. Bottom line - if its in the upper 30s or into the 40s, you probably don't want to go outside. Moving on - we also seem to have garlic bread and baked broccoli with salt, pepper and a little olive oil down to a science now as well.

This weekend should be good. Cooked dinner for some friends on Friday night (it was his birthday as it turns out) and will be heading out to watch a philharmonic concert under the stars (of which there are many down here). Will be refereeing my first soccer games down under tomorrow. Will keep you posted on how that goes. It figures to be hot tomorrow, unfortunately. Fortunately less than 100F.
In the meantime, enjoy a good po-boy or New Orleans specialty for us while you can. Hurry-up, its almost time to start giving those things up for Lent!

Super Bowl Monday

Who has ever experienced watching a live Super Bowl on a Monday? Well, we have! Instead of eating dinner during the game, we ate breakfast because the game was on Monday at 10:00am. You can see us with our plates piled with pancakes! One of our Aussie friends invited us over to his house to watch the game along with some other guys who know a real sport when they see one. Not that cricket or Aussie rules football crap that they indulge in around here. Although the Saints weren't in the game, at least we felt like we were back home for a few hours as we watched the All-American sport. We did miss out on the entertaining commercials which they don't get out here...we were so disappointed! Our Aussie friends were so intrigued that we have spent our entire lives watching the Super Bowl every year without questions asked no matter who was in the game. Aren't we Americans just awesome?

WHO DAT!

Aboriginal Tour

We went on an Aboriginal tour through Adelaide. Just to give a brief history, the Adelaide plains were inhabited by the Kaurna people (Aboriginal tribe pronounced "Garnah") long before the English settlers made their way to the area. We started the tour in Victoria Square which is in the center of downtown Adelaide. We often saw that the square was also called Tarndanyangga (pronounced the way it's spelled) which of course confused the heck out of us. Our tour guide informed us that it means "red kangaroo rock" in Kaurna. The second confusing part is that Victoria Square is actually not in the shape of a square but rather a spear which is a symbol of the Kaurna people. Moving along, we walked over to see the Aboriginal flag which consists of three colors: black - represents the Aboriginal people, red - represents the red earth and yellow - represents the sun. Then we walked to the north side of the city and observed some rocks formed by the Kaurna with many symbolic meanings and learned about the last Kaurna speaking school. After the new settlers came along, the Kaurna people were discouraged from speaking their native tongue and were forced to learn English. Two German professors came in and recorded the last Kaurna speaking people which was used by descendants to preserve and remember their language. As a result, the language can still be spoken in remembrance but Aboriginals of today speak English and even have the Australian accent. To add to our Aboriginal experience, Shawn and I have rented 2 Australia movies with an emphasis on the people: Australia and Rabbit-Proof Fence with the latter being the better.
Pictured below is the fountain in the center of Victoria Square:

A New Job/New Address

Well, I thought I was going to take a year off from work, but I got really bored. Plus, Australia is expensive! We figured it would be good for me to get a job to cover some expenses and keep my sanity. I got a job in internal audit with the South Australia government. It's only a five-month contract but it's full time and I'm excited to learn how the government works here. The working environment is relaxed compared to back home. Most Americans work at least 40 hours per week in a full time job but most people out here can work 30-37.5 hours per week and that's full time with benefits. Someone with no work experience during their first year on the job can easily get 4 weeks of vacation and that's expected out here! They are also paid much higher wages ($15 per hour is minimum wage) to afford the high cost of living, goods and services.

Also, for those of you who do not have our new address, it is 1/2 Davenport Terrace, Wayville, South Australia 5034. The 1/2 means we live at 2 Davenport Tce and in unit #1. It's certainly not a charming New Orleans home but it will do for the year.

Wine & Bike Tour Down Under

We headed out to McLaren Vale and Willunga in search for some wineries with 2 friends we made at Carnegie Mellon (2 Americans at that). Renting a car and hoping that our friend would remember the time he drove on the wrong side (left side) of the road in New Zealand was an interesting feeling to say the least. There was a little hesitation when he pulled us out of the rental car parking lot but then he had 3 people yelling which way to go...all good from there though! Our first stop was at Christie's Beach to take some pictures and run out into the water which was a little too cold for our liking. It was beautiful!




Adelaide was hosting the "Tour Down Under" in mid January which is a bike race that attracts the best cyclists in the world including Mr. Lance Armstrong himself. Little did we know that when we went on our trip south of the city to see the beach and visit some wineries, we would be right in the middle of the biking action while driving through Willunga. One of our friends kept saying he saw Lance Armstrong but they zoom past you so fast, it is really difficult to tell. Funny story: We were driving along a road going the speed limit (mostly) and all of a sudden we're getting flagged down by police motorcycles and getting ugly looks by some serious Aussie cyclist enthusiasts parked on the side of the road. We were driving right along the racing path but proceeded to the finish line anyway. Our excuse was that we're American and don't speak the language! Plus, you know we Americans had to finish first!



So we finally reached the wineries in McLaren Vale. Shawn and I are no wine experts, but we tried some delicious wine and saw some beautiful lanscaping in the country just south of Adelaide. We stopped by around 5 different places where we would try a sip and move to the next one. The Wirra Wirra Winery had this huge wine bottle display made out of corks. Interesting.

Koalas, and Kangaroos, and Wallabies! Oh My!

A continuation of "The Hills" tour with Carnegie Mellon...we saw many local Australian creatures at a wildlife preserve. Leading up to the moment, we were so excited to see our first kangaroo and koala in person! As for the kangaroos, I think we saw the rather tame retired ones because they would hop very slightly every now and then but only in an effort to pursue food out of your hands. Of course we have included a picture of Shawn feeding a kangaroo. If you were lucky, the kangaroo would place his paw on your hand as he ate out of it which was so cute. Shawn was not so lucky as he ran off too quickly with a nervous laugh from the ironically slow, harmless kangaroo...hmm. Then again I was too scared to try to feed the old guy! As for the wallabees, they are simply "mini kangaroos" and would hop around a lot in a quick fashion. All of the Americans from Shawn's school, us included, were so excited to see them hop in action. Felt like we were in the outback but not really...

Now, for the exciting part! Not only did we see koalas, but we got to actually "hug" them or really hold them. They had kind of ratty looking fur and were so ugly they were cute. While we held them, they munched on some leaves which was a good idea because I'm sure they would have clawed us otherwise. We were told that they sleep 18to 20 hours at a time...lazy little suckers. In fact, after we hugged our koalas, they went right off to bed in their very own trees.

Also, we got a chance to see the "Whispering Wall" which is the retaining wall of the Barossa Reservoir. At this wall, you can talk on one end and someone can hear you on the other end which is approximately 100 meters away (328 feet). We were skeptacle at first but we could actually hear people talking on the other side of the wall. If we were able to hear and understand some of Shawn's classmates who do not have English as their first language then we knew this wall was legit. How's that for acoustics?!


It was a really great day and a productive one at that!

Wine Country

So it turns out that we landed right in the middle of wine country in Adelaide. The famed Barossa Valley is an hour to the North and McLaren Vale is an hour to the South. South Australia produces more than half of all Australian wine. It is hard to go anywhere around town without seeing, hearing or reading something about wine. Fortunately, as a student, most of the wine can be had at less than $20/bottle (and its about 100x better than Yellow Tail). At the moment, I'm hearing that the wine industry is not doing so well here.

While I'm on the topic of beverages, Australians seem to love their hot beverages. It can be 40 degrees Celsius outside (more on the warm weather to come) and they will continue offering you a glass of coffee or tea all day long. Being from the South, you might think that they might like a little glass of iced tea to cool off, but not so.

Our first formal introduction to the wine industry in South Australia was through our Carnegie Mellon tour into "The Hills." As promised, I have included a picture of our tour guide below.

We learned that German immigrants introduced winemaking to Australia in the mid 19th Century. Our first and only winemaking stop of "The Hills" tour landed us at the Kies family winery, which has been entrenched in the region since 1857. http://www.kieswines.com.au/?cat=home

Although our stop at Kies was short lived, it was there that we discovered a few of the basics:

• Almost all South Australian wineries offer a "cellar door" for free (i.e. open bar tasting)
• Wines can be shipped across the country pretty cheaply (a little different from our U.S. laws)
• Most of the wines including the moderately expensive bottles are fair game.
• It is impolite to ask for the expensive wine first!

More information on Australian wines can be found here:
http://www.wineaustralia.com.au/

Cheers!