On Sunday, we were invited to join two other families for yum cha.
Known as dim sum in the US, it's a meal at a Chinese restaurant where servers bring by all sorts of various dishes and you take what you want. Because we had a large group, we had the upstairs banquet room to ourselves, which was fortunate: Great chance to try lots of different foods. Lots of dumplings, steamed buns, even delicious calamari. Of course, our kids mostly stuck to rice, though they did like the dessert:
Afterwards, we took advantage of a rare warm and sunny winter day and took the kids to the park.
It was such a nice weekend. Although we try not to eat out two much, it was a rare weekend as we did it twice. Andy and I joined two other American couples (our friends Tierney and John, and their friends Annie and Colin) for dinner in the CBD on Saturday night. Luckily we were able to drop the girls off at a friends house and therefore we didn't have to pay $18/hour for babysitting! Gills Diner was delicious, and in a cool building. The menus were on chalkboards on the wall. Didn't get a picture, so I'll steal borrow one from another blog.
The waitress told us of the specials, and some words/dishes, especially in French, were unfamiliar to us. The "highlight" though was when I asked about the "oxtongue pastry" that was served with a porterhouse steak. The waitress explained that it's "a pastry with oxtongue!" Go figure. I was hoping it was something else, I guess. Despite Annie's insistence that it was very good, I couldn't bring myself to order and try it. The meals we did order were delicious, but the culinary highlight was the churros served with a cup of orange-flavored chocolate for dipping. Beat Andy's chocolate slice with peanut butter ice cream hands down!
On the Sunday before Term 3 started, I took the girls to the Immigration Museum. They were holding a special Carnivale celebration, with lots of kid-friendly activities and shows. I'd been wanting to check it out for a while (we'd purchased an annual Museum membership that included the Immigration Museum) and this seemed like a good time to do it.
Creepy roving statues
Making Brazilian headpieces
Alanna's masterpiece
Aliya and Liana checking out typical boat accommodations
Map showing migration boat routes to Australia
Venetian masks
The highlight was the two shows. One was a Punch and Judy puppet show. It was a PC-version though, and they even announced at the beginning for any concerned parents that there would be no violence. Still, the girls enjoyed the show and especially the magic tricks at the beginning. The second show was a Jamaican music and story-telling show, featuring Queen Jigzie and RuC.L aka Reuben. Apparently he's a Jahstralian (Jamaican/Australian). It was informative, entertaining, and engaging. Here are two short clips:
After their show, they led the audience in a Carnivale parade through the museum and to the outer courtyard.
More music, and a dancing contest. Alanna was one of the winners, and won a nice bag of goodies including passes to both the Melbourne Museum and the Immigration Museum. We can use them to take Gram when she comes in September!
Nothing much new to report. Andy's still in Adelaide quite a bit. For the next three months he'll most likely be there every week. Meantime, the girls find lots of ways to amuse themselves. Thought I'd share with you. And another one:
And red and yellow and green. Here's Aliya demonstrating a fun activity you can do at home and learn all about surface tension!
I think she's got a future in videos, maybe she can do the next Opto ones? And the confusion regarding the dish detergent can be explained. The Aussie instructions called for "washing-up liquid" so that threw her off a bit.
Today we went rollerskating. Several of Alanna's friends went, and they had a fun time. Afterwards they went to visit their classmate in the hospital, who'd had her appendix taken out.
Or rather a long black, short macchiato, or flat white. These are coffee drinks in Melbourne. Melbourne is famous for its coffee culture, for good reason. The coffee here is outstanding and fortunately, unlike many other items, coffee here is no more expensive than it is at Starbucks back home.
Speaking of Starbucks, when you come visit us (hint hint) you'll see that Starbucks are few and far between here. I can think of only two locations in Melbourne off the top of my head, whereas there are four within a mile of our house back home. Aussies have pretty much rejected the corporate behemoth, perhaps because, well, the coffee just isn't as good. And they much prefer their local, independent cafes, some of which even offer "cuppings," which are like wine tastings, only for coffee. (Note: I'm pretty sure it's a law that the Sunday newspaper magazines are required to have at least one article about coffee as well as several coffeehouse reviews, along with the requisite footy article)
Inspired, my friend Tierney and I headed into the CBD to learn the secrets of this great coffee and to see if perhaps we'd be able to make it ourselves. I love the flat white, an Aussie invention, and if nothing else, I hoped to find out how it differs from a latte. Answer: different containers (glass for latte, ceramic cup for flat white) but mainly there's a lot less froth with a flat white.
The class was three hours, some theory and lecture, but a lot of hands-on time on commercial machines. We learned the tips and tricks on how to grind and properly store beans, how to heat and froth milk, how to tamp the coffee and make the espresso. We tasted the effects of too-finely and too-coarsely ground coffee. And finally we made most of the drinks on the basic coffee menu: cappuccinos, latte, flat white, caffe mocha, chai latte, short and long blacks, short and long macchiatos, and hot chocolate. (We skipped the babycino, a small drink of warm milk and froth with a sprinkling of chocolate, popular with the under 5 crowd.)
Alas, we didn't stay for the coffee art class, which teaches you how to pour in the heated milk/foam to create hearts, leaves or other designs:
Not unusual to be served a coffee that looks like this!
We were allowed to drink whatever we made, so I left with a nice buzz, as well as two certificates:
Certified Barista
So will I go forth and spend many hundred of dollars to purchase the grinder, espresso machine, frothing jugs, thermometer, not to mention fresh coffee beans every week? Let's just say for the time being we'll just continue to visit our local cafe. It was fun learning how to do it though, and I've gained an appreciation for what it takes to make really great coffee. And hey, with my TAFE certification, who needs a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering? I can always get a job as a barista!
Andy's written today's blog, hooray. Alexi's comments are in italics. The girls are on winter break for the next two weeks.I know that must sound strange to you northerners who are enjoying a nice warm summer. We're quite envious of you and your sunshine, but there’s no sense hoping that you get stuck with a summer of June gloom.Instead, we broke out the winter gear and decided to celebrate with a trip to the snow for a bit of sledding and snowman building.
The planning began last week as I rearranged my schedule to free up one day this week. We pulled out the winter clothes to see what made it to Australia and what still fit. Thankfully, Alexi was smart enough to get some nice winter jackets for the girls before we left, but their new winter boots were nowhere to be seen (probably in storage in California). And Alanna has reached 5 feet tall, which means that her snow pants were now perfect for wading in a shallow creek. So Monday was a shopping day. (Because nothing says 4th of July like shopping for winter gear! For good measure, we threw in a trip to Costco where we enjoyed pizza slices and smoothies, and bought 400 digital prints and organic salsa. Now that's American! But I digress...) And Alexi came through again, with a good deal on boots and ski pants. (Good deals being extremely relative here. Snow pants under $90 that actually fit Alanna? That aren't pink? Score! And try not to sob thinking that my mom could have gotten me a pair for $5 at Goodwill. Still, we got some good advice on a used gear sale for next year, as well as information about the local resorts and snow conditions. The friendly saleslady even pointed out our best option, a place less than two hours away that had snow. Perfect!)
Martian? Or goggle-wearing Alanna?
The gear was all set out and ready to go on Monday night. All we'd have to do the next morning is stuff it in a few duffel bags and hit the road, by 9 am was the plan.The final packing was slowed down as we kept thinking of things to bring (iPods, more books, pillows, extra extra clothes, snacks, etc).Classic Sherpa parenting for a drive of less than 2 hours.In the end, we were on the road by 10:30 am.For me, not too bad, although nothing but stress for Alexi--who as you know hates to be late for ANYTHING, even snow that is not going anywhere :-).Nonetheless, we were all kitted up and ready for snow.Chains in the boot (trunk), kids fed and pit stopped, mom caffeinated, and dad on the phone with clients who desperately needed his expertise. Don't worry, I (Alexi) was driving. Or wait, maybe you should worry, if you live in Victoria...Anyway, I should mention that part of the delay involved a last-minute search for chains. While double-checking the resort website for snow conditions, I saw that for today, chains were required to get to the resort. Yikes! Andy called around and located a set for purcha$e, but we decided to go back to the shop I bought the snow pants to hire (aka rent) a set of chains. So that added to the delay. Still, better than getting all the way there and not being able to get up the mountain, right? 'Cause that would be awful to go all that way and not be able to play in the snow! Right?
The drive out of the city was uneventful, unless you count my inattention to navigating while using my Crackberry to great effect, texting/emailing/GoogleMapping continuously for the first hour. Which means that I had to tell Alexi to pull off the road at one point so the GPS could find us again, and we could verify our route.
But once back on track, the roads became magnificent twisties through a beautiful rainforest akin to Kauai:
as we ascended the mountains in rain and watched the thermometer drop from over 10C (50F) to 3C (37F), at which point the car’s digital thermometer started blinking to let us know that it was, you know, cold outside.
Passing through Lillydale and Healesville, we finally reached Marysville, where we saw this:
Not believing the sign, I insisted we drive the specified 22 km (14 miles) to the resort to confirm this:
Yep, the resort was closed because the rain was not turning to snow. And the girls broke into tears, which quickly turned to sobs about how unfair it all was, and how we’d driven so far for nothing, yada yada yada.
So we shifted to salvage mode. At least we’d seen a bit of snow on the side of the road a kilometer back, and decided to make lemonade out of lemons.We built our (itty-bitty) snowmen, had a snowball fight, got cold and wet, and were smiling throughout.(Never fails to amaze me how well Andy can turn tears into smiles, crying into laughter. Reminds me yet again that parenting is mostly marketing and distraction.)
Itty-bitty snowbaby
It was all good until Aliya demonstrated her amazing throwing arm by launching a snowball right into the (barely) open window from which Alexi was taking pictures and videos of us from the comfortable warmth of the car. Gotta love the zoom lens!Notice the excellent foreshadowing at the beginning of the video: Not wanting our day to end quite yet, we headed back down the mountain to find this:
Healesvilleum, yeah, of course it was uncrowded, it was a freezing-cold rainy day!) with plenty of fun things to see, including a barn owl that flew RIGHT OVER our heads during the bird show:
a duckbill platypus (did you know they’re only about a foot long? I’d assumed they were about the size of a manatee), an inland taipan (the deadliest snake in the world, found right here in Australia, which Aliya refused to hold for some reason), plus emus, koalas and kangaroos.But no Huntsman spiders which I wanted to see but which probably would have caused Alexi to faint if they’d actually had any (I’d include a picture here, but I think Alexi might refuse to post it, so you’ll just have to Google it yourself to see how big these babies can get). I know for a fact Andy seriously considered this since he left up the Google page full of images of Huntsman spiders. Thanks Andy!
As we departed, we grabbed a few hot chocolates, purchased our smashed penny souvenirs, and hit the road back to Melbourne. Oh, we also stopped at the toilets where I was greeted with this sign on the stall door:
In case you're wondering, they want you to buy recycled TP
So not a complete success, but not a complete failure either. Before the girls fell asleep on the drive home, they were begging me to take another “snow day” to make up for today, and Alexi was checking the weather to see when the rain would finally end.I’m thinking Thursday, but we’ll see.
PS One final note from Alexi. I changed the comment settings, so you should be able to leave one even if you aren't registered. I think that was causing problems for some of you if you didn't have a gmail address. Anyway, give it a go.
1. TV times are a bit random. For example, tonight "Big Bang" is on from 7:34 to 8:04. "How Clean is Your House" is 11:37 to 11:39. The DVR seems to handle it okay, but it's bizarre that they don't start on the hour or half hour. In my opinion.
2. Lots of flavors. I would say that in general there seem to be less types of food in the grocery store. But when Aussies find something they like, they make it in as many flavors as possible. Take potato chips for example. There must be at least two dozen flavors. A dozen chicken flavors alone. Haven't tried those, but I'm all over the Balsamic Vinegar and Salt, as well as the Lime and Black Pepper ones. Yum! On the other hand, there's jelly, known in the States as Jello.
What demographic buys this, do ya think?
3. Rinse, schminse. I'd heard rumors about this on a forum for Americans in Australia. And I've now witnessed it twice at dinners with Aussie friends. They have no problems just putting the soapy dishes in the dish rack. I didn't want to risk offending our lovely hosts, so I didn't ask why they don't rinse, but feel free to speak out if you know. All I can think of is it's a habit from days of tight water restrictions?
Today is the last day of Term 2. Seems like a good time to do a post on my thoughts on the school system here, so hopefully this weekend I'll get a chance.
