Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Golf! Who knew I liked golf? Well, I have never actually gone golfing for real, but I have been Disc Golfing (Frisbee golf) several times and loved it, and now I have gone Super Golfing and had a wonderful time. I will have to try regular golf and some point and see if it is for me. I had never heard of super golf before I went with my friends, Sarah (dark hair), Becky (the one hugging me), and Richard (the only man present, Richard is a good sport) on Saturday. It is just like regular golf except the club heads and balls are about 3 times as big. I would say the ball was about the same weight and material as a regular golf ball, but hollow and the size of a tennis ball. The clubs were plastic and they had left-handed ones! And it turns out I can hit a golf ball straight for 50 meters every time! I was continually the best shot at every tee (we played nine holes). Sadly for me, after my first fantastic boast-worthy swing, I took an average of 18,000 strokes to get the darn ball in the stupid hole! At the end I can in third (Richard won). It was such a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I greased myself up with sunscreen and wore my summer hat. I have yet to get a real sunburn, knock on wood. The first two pictures you see above you are from Saturday morning. Sarah picked me up and we went into Fremantle (am I still house sitting until Friday). We went to the Fremantle Markets, think Portland Saturday Market, very similar. Anyway, one stall had a bunch of American candy. Now I would not say I am home sick as such, I am very happy here. I have notice, though, that I become very excited to see all things American. I bought a small bag of Hot Tamales and Reese’s Pieces. By small bag, I mean “fun Size” and those cost $3 each, but it made me happy. Sarah had never had a Tootie Roll, so I bought one of those too, but we ended up buying Iced Chocolates so we didn’t get around to eating the candy that day. What is an Iced Chocolate you say? It is sort of like a shake and sort of like an old fashion ice cream soda. You coat a glass in chocolate sauce, add a scoop of ice cream and fill it up with cold milk; to be fancy you add whip cream and sprinkles on top. Not too shabby, and just the thing for a hot day. I have decided that for High Chocolate this year we will do iced chocolate instead of hot chocolate seeing as it will be very hot then. Or maybe I will do both? Stay tuned to find out!

Hello all you darling people. Quick note this week. Not much has happened. I had a good work week, actually got stuff done and even have made some deadlines with my Profs which are very motivating. :)_________I am house sitting for the next two weeks for our department head, a very nice lady with two cats named Falafel and Tabouli. I have been in the house for 3 days now and they still avoid me, they eat the food I put out so I know they are around; let's hope they are still there when Vickie gets back. It would be very difficult to have to report to a head of department that hates you because you lost her cats._______random funny thing: Ok, when I first got here I went to chocolate "factory"(it is not really a factory because they don't make the chocolate, they buy chocolate and make candy with it. Sorry to be a food scientist about it). Among the delicious truffles and lollies there was one thing that caused me to laugh: a perfectly circular, flat piece of chocolate completely covered in "hundreds & thousands" (aka colored sprinkles). This fun looking confectionary is called...wait for it...a freckle. A freckle! What an unappetizing name! There are giant freckles (dinner plate size), regular freckles (sand dollar size), and mini (quarter). I could not bring myself to try one and if fact told my friends that I never would. I guess we all have to "eat" our words sometimes. Yesterday while out shopping with Emma and Sarah, Emma comes up to me and says "close your eyes and open your mouth". Now these words are a major test of faith in a friendship, but I like to think the best of people and so I complied. After biting down on a crunchy, chocolaty, sweetness I heard the words "congratulations, you have just eaten a freckle." It was delicious, think of a frosted animal cracker, but instead of cookie on the inside, there is milk chocolate. I am totally hooked. I plan on buying one next time I go to the chocolate factory where the best ones are made.

Thanksgiving in October you say? That right, if you take a careful look at your calendars you will see that last weekend was Thanksgiving Day in Canada. My friend Melanie (moon pie) and I wanted to throw a thanksgiving feast for our bible study. And as Mel is Canadian and the end of November is a little too hot around here to facilitate a winter feast, we decided to celebrate on Canada’s day. Not counting shopping, we cooked for 6 hours on Friday night. The most fun was when we couldn’t find Turkey, cranberries or puréed pumpkin. How do you have thanksgiving without those three things?!? We compromised on chicken and on Saturday I learned that while fresh or frozen cranberries are not to be had; cranberry sauce is in the relish aisle. (a slight cultural miscommunication, we asked ask least 3 store attendants for cranberries, no one assumed we wanted it for sauce, go figure). Now around here when you say Pumpkin everyone thinks Squash. Butternut, acorn, etc, is all called pumpkin and is always served savoury. (Squash refers to zucchini), and when you say pie everyone thinks of small meat pies; so when you say pumpkin pie you get a lot of weird looks. I had never made a pumpkin pie from whole pumpkin, but lucky for me, my Aunt Kathy has, a quick email and I had the recipe for scratch pumpkin pie. No one at the dinner had ever had it before, it was a huge it, at least four people were begging for the recipe, unfortunately, we used sweeten condensed milk instead of evaporated milk and so we had to modify the recipe was we went, I am still trying to recreate it on paper ._________________It was a great day. We were 15 in all for dinner. I will now go through and give you names to go with each pic started at the top: 1) Mel and me, the cooks!___2)The pies, best pumpkin I have ever had.___3)Emma brought a ham and glazed it___4) Rachel stirring the gravy, we had at least half a gallon of gravy___5) Mel and me served up___6) Reba craving___7) someone’s hands, Tim L, Rebecca, Sarah, someone’s head, David eating, eating , eating¬___ 8) Joanna and her grandpa___ 9) Jono pouring me a drink of Kola Cola, sort of like cream soda but more Australian___ 10) Emma, Jono, Sarah, Becky all taking a walk after dinner with Reba to make room for pie___ 11)Sarah, Reba and Becky being silly on walk because we can___ 12) folks we left behind finished the dishes and started playing cards___13) Emma and Leoni eating pie___ 14) Lorraine and Sarah eating pie_____________The whole day was great, the walk, the card game, just like a real thanksgiving. I gave a short talk on what the holiday was all about and we went around and said what we were thankful for. Everyone said a different version of being thankful for friends and church family. And then to wrap the whole night up, I got a laugh attach as I was leaving. First appearance of the exotic bird laugh in Australia! Woot! It really felt (and tasted) like thanksgiving I had a great time.

Last Saturday I went to the Perth Royal Show aka Country Fair with Sarah and Emma. I don’t know why it is the royal show and my friend didn’t either. We decided to go in the afternoon, because although there was a lot to see, we wanted to stay until the 9pm fireworks and we didn’t really want to be there for 12 hours. It was a perfect day, nice and warm but not hot. The first thing I did when we walked through the gate was buy a cotton candy which is delightfully called Fairy Floss over here (love it!). I don’t like cotton candy that much, but it is sooo fair like I just couldn’t resist. We walked around everywhere and saw little animals and weird stuff for sale and lots of rides and games. I played “hit the balloon with a dart” I hit 4 out of 5 and won a parrot which I named Harriet. The rides were a bit spendy so we decided to do just one, the Ferris wheel, is there anything more classic? We waited until dark so we could see the lights it was so enjoyable. I think I have mentioned everything you can see in the pictures except the Dagwood Dog. What is a Dagwood dog you ask? Well, it is sort of like a corn dog with more of a like tempura batter and, as the pictures illustrates, they dip the whole thing in tomato sauce (ketchup). I of course dripped great amounts of sauce on my shirt. We then went to the oval (aka soccer field) and sat to watch the fireworks. What a great show! Because we were all in stands and on the grass looking down at the base where the fireworks were being launched, they were able to have smaller fireworks near the ground as well as ones in the sky. Such awesome configuration that I had never seen before, and the night was started to get cool so we shivered just a little. Very reminiscent of 4th of July in the NW. Fabulous! Before we left Sarah bought a “show bag”. Apparently the thing that every kid remembers doing at the show is buying a show bag. It is a bag of toys and lollies that you buy. They are themed and come in multiple prices. $5 gets you a few small candy bars, where $25 gets you big candy bars and stuffed animals or backpacks or playing cards. There are Cadbury bags and Hannah Montana bags, hello Kitty and Cowboy bags. There are many locations around the show where you can buy them. On the wall there is a display showing all the bags, their price and what they contain. It was an all around good day. _____________just an aside before I sign off, if anyone is thinking of sending me a care package please but in peanut butter candy of some kind. There are some great lollies here (they have got caramel down pat), and you can buy peanut butter, but no candy! No Reese’s cups, no Peanut butter M&M’s, nothing! I had no idea I liked those candies so well, but I have been craving them lately for sure.