Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Oh my word! My birthday party was a bash and a half. Leoni and Tim hosted it, but we had it at the Rowbottom’s. It all started a couple months ago when everyone started talking about the birthday parties they had had as children, they kept talking about “pass the parcel” and “fairy bread”. I had no idea what they were talking about, so Leoni said that for my birthday she would throw me a traditional Australian kids party. Did she ever! Leoni decorates cakes; she said I could have any cake in her book. I chose a Mushroom… because… I mean…how quirky and me is a mushroom cake:) That gave Leoni the idea to have an Alice and Wonderland theme, so we had a Mad Hatter Tea Party. When everyone got there they were shown the craft table to make their own hat (we did have some kids present, but mostly adults who were so keen on their hats that the actually party started late). Then there were games of musical chairs, pass the parcel, and pin the smile on the Cheshire Cat, all with prizes for the winner of course. Pass Parcel is a game where a gift is wrapped in multiple layers of paper, in my game each layer had either a lolly or a message. Like hot potato, you pass the parcel around the circle and when the music stops whoever is holding the parcel unwraps one layer and gets to eat the lolly or do whatever the message says. We had things like, “say the alphabet backwards, fold a paper airplane with one hand, and do the fudderwaken (a dance from the new Alice in wonderland movie). The person who removes the last layer of paper gets the present. Between the games we ate. And ate and ate. Leoni out did herself on the cake, you can see the pictures, the mushroom is made out of vanilla cake and the green grass in chocolate, you can even see the blue caterpillar on top made from fondant icing! We also had typical kid birthday food, none of which I had had before coming to Australia. Chocolate crackles made from rice krispies, cocoa and coconut; honey joys made from corn flakes and, you guessed it, honey. Fairy bread which is buttered bread with hundreds and thousands on it. (colored sprinkles). The fairy bread was surprisingly good. I liked it, of course it was really butter and high quality bread, and that helps. For savouries we had “little fanks” aka small hot dogs (no buns) and curried egg salad sandwiches. Now it is interesting to note that I went to a birthday party a while ago and I noticed that the deviled eggs tasted different, it turns out that they were in fact curried eggs and now I was having curried egg sandwiches. Also we had sausage rolls, aka ground sausage in puff pastry. Because different people had brought different things, I felt obliged to try one of everything, so much sugar! To many sweets, I am not a kid anymore :) The last game we played was Pin the Smile on the Cheshire Cat (aka pin the tail on the donkey). It turned into a hilarious game of Watch David Rowbottom Mess With the Blindfolded Person. First he got in the way and directed my housemate, Jayelle, to put the smile on his face, then he kept shouting at people to go the wrong way and finally he brought out a pane of glass and stood directly in front of the sliding glass door where the Cat was. I was rolling on the floor it was so funny. All and all a great party, over 20 people were there and several couldn’t make it. I feel so blessed to have so many friends. It is amazing to think that I have been here just one year and I have such a community around me.