Freezing Fall

Pretty Fall Leaves in Front of a School

In Australia, it is autumn.  Actually, we're heading into winter very soon.  And I'm not going to lie-it's cold here!  Yesterday, the high was only 8 degrees Celsius, which is 47 degrees Fahrenheit.  It also rained on and off throughout the day, and the wind never stopped blowing.  Today's not supposed to be much better...about 52 degrees.  I'm not complaining, because I know people will be thinking, "You're in Australia-poor baby-just be quiet."  But I'm just reporting the facts.  I know people will also be thinking, "52 degrees is not that bad.  You lived in Denver for Pete's sake."  However, it's different for a few reasons:

1.  Denver has sun.  300 days of it every year.  Sun helps it feel warm even when the temperature is cold.  It's pretty darn cloudy here every other day or so.
2.  Rain makes it feel colder.  There's a wet, damp coldness to the air that you just can't shake.  In fact, our bath towels never get completely dry from day to day-only when I do laundry and they come out of the dryer.  My umbrella has seen more use in the few weeks I've been here than in my entire seven years in Denver.  Seriously!
3.  My body is craving summer.  I like all four seasons, but in order.  Coming from winter in Denver back into fall/winter here is a bit brutal.  We're hoping to start traveling around Australia soon.  Maybe we'll get to somewhere warm for our anniversary in July?
4.  It is really windy.  Maybe it's because we live right on the bay, but there are some serious wind gusts going on these past few days.  That makes it feel colder too!
5.  I didn't pack all of my cold-weather gear.  Sure, I've got my sweaters and sweatshirts (or jumpers as they would call them here).  And I have my North Face fleece jacket, which is pretty warm.  But I only have one light set of a dressy hat/scarf/mittens.  Maybe I should have brought my snowboarding get-up!

You can all remind me of this post when I'm writing about how hot it is in the summer, but for now, I'm curled up in bed, and I don't want to move from this nice warm spot.  However, there are some killer mid-year sales going on right now, so maybe I'll do some shopping today.  The stores should be warm, right?

Federation Square Fun

A major icon in Melbourne is Flinders Street Station, which is actually a train station near Federation Square, one of the main gathering spaces in the city.  Lots of tourists congregate around here, and in the mornings/evenings, it's full of commuters.  Basically, it's busy.

This is the area where Oprah spoke when she was in Melbourne.  Some people think these buildings are really ugly, but I think they're kind of cool.  In one, you find the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).  The other has the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), which I haven't visited yet.  There are always various events going on in this area, and a lot of folks just hang out in the space outside just eating lunch or people-watching.

Across the street is St. Paul's Cathedral.  It's very beautiful inside too.  Across the Yarra River, you can also see the Arts Centre Spire.

If you walk down the river a little bit, you come to this Ferris wheel.  In the background, you can see the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) where we saw the footy game.  On the streets surrounding Federation Square and Flinders Street Station, there are all sorts of restaurants, souvenir shops, specialty stores, and even an Ugg store!  There are several more pictures on my Shutterfly website, so check them out if you're interested.  I had a fun afternoon last week exploring this iconic part of the city!  

Queen Victoria Market

On Saturday morning, we biked downtown to the Queen Victoria Market.  To start the day right, you have to have some yummy jam-filled doughnuts from this cart.  So good!  I'm not sure why it's called "American" though.

This famous market is busiest on Saturdays, but it's open several other days of the week as well.  There are aisles of fresh fruits and vegetables, areas with meat, fish, cheese, breads, clothing, and more.  It's one giant flea market-type atmosphere with crowds, sellers yelling their prices, etc.  And the prices are pretty good-I'm never buying produce at the grocery store again!

You can even buy your own ducks and chickens.  Peking Duck anyone?!  We didn't buy a lot this time around, but we'll be back for sure.  It was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.

Sharing in the Shows

One of the cool things about living in a big city, especially in a country with very few big cities, is that several television shows are filmed here.  In my research on things to do in Melbourne, I came across some websites where you can get free tickets to be in the audience of some shows.  A few weeks ago, Zack and I went to a Studio A taping, which is kind of like a very small local Saturday Night Live type of show.  It was okay; it was something unique to do on a Monday night I guess.  

We caught the end of Australia's Got Talent on TV the other night, where Jack Vidgen sang.  He's apparently all the rage.  You can check out his first audition on this YouTube video-pretty amazing stuff-especially right after the two minute mark.

This past Sunday night, I went to the taping of the final night of the Melbourne auditions for The X Factor.  The audience was pretty packed, and the whole thing was kind of a major production.  It was cool to see, because there were some really good singers (and a few that were not that good at all!), but it was a long evening.  I had to wait in a line outside for an hour before getting inside and sitting for another hour (in the very back!) before they started.  Then there were three hours of taping, which included a lot of clapping and cheering and waiting between acts for the judges to get their makeup and hair touched up.  

Speaking of the judges, they were kind of an interesting mix.  Guy Sebastian was the first Australian Idol in 2003 (yes, they have that show too), Ronan Keating was in the band Boyzone, Natalie Bassingthwaighte is an Australian actress/TV personality, and Mel B was Scary Spice back in the day!  They wouldn't let you take any pictures during the taping, but I did capture the shot below with my phone when I first got inside.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at a taping of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire Hot Seat.  It's a lot like the Millionaire show in the States, but instead of one person going as far as they can go with answering questions and then being done, their contestants can pass on a question they don't know and then hopefully work their way back up through the other five people to get back in the "hot seat."  Anyway, this taping was a lot of fun, mostly because I'm a big dork and like to see if I know the answers to the questions.   

The show looks so much bigger on TV.  In reality, the studio was quite small, with only four rows of audience members on each side.  I actually got to sit in the front row for all five episodes that they taped. They moved us around between episodes so it looks like the audience is different, but I know I'll be on TV, because one time my head was directly behind the contestant's head on the camera, and another time it was right behind the host's head!  So if you have access to Australian television, look for me wearing orange on that show in the next few weeks, as that's when these episodes are scheduled to air.

In true Australian fashion, they fed us sausage rolls for a snack between the third and fourth episodes.  We also got some lollies!  It was an exciting afternoon, especially in the first few episodes.  In the first one, a guy won $20,000.  In the second one, the guy won $250,000!!  I guess this has only happened a few times on the show (nobody's ever won the $1,000,000).  Anyway, when this guy won the money, everyone went crazy.  His wife and daughter ran down, they gave them flowers and champagne, and they shot off confetti all over the stage.  Very cool!  In the other three episodes, people won $1000, $10,000, and another $1000.  I think I could get sued for telling you this; I signed some paper about confidentiality, but I didn't really read it.  Oh well!  

I liked when I was sitting behind the host, because on his screen you could see a tiny box in red or green letting him know if the contestant got the answer right.  That way, even when the host went to "commercials" or kept everyone in suspense, I already knew if the contestant was out or not!  They were super strict about not allowing cameras, phones, or anything into the studio, so the best I could do was grab a few of the confetti pieces from the big win and take a picture of those when I got home.  So here you go!

Well, time to figure out what adventure I'm going to have today, so goodbye for now!

  

Aboriginal Art

Yesterday I spent the afternoon walking around Federation Square (more about that in another entry), and I stopped in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).  Most of the exhibits were free, so even though I'm not much of an artsy fartsy person, it was cool to see some Australian artists' work.  I especially liked the first floor, which was full of Aboriginal art.  Each painting tells a story, and its description was next to it.  I liked the colorful ones.

Last week, I stopped in a shop down in the CBD that has this type of art for sale.  These large ones cost $20,000 or more!  Bummer, because it'd be cool to have one of these colorful paintings above a couch in our house some day.  Anyway, I'm not even sure if I was allowed to take pictures in here, but I did.  I kept the flash off and snapped quickly!  I'll put the rest of my pictures on my Shutterfly site.  Enjoy!

Aubree's Observations about Australia Part II

Other interesting tidbits, differences, things I've noticed about Australia lately:

1.  When an Australian soldier dies, it's a huge deal compared to in the United States.  I guess it's a numbers thing, because this was only their 24th soldier to die in Afghanistan, but when a "digger" got killed last week, every TV channel was talking about it, a head general guy gave a press conference explaining what happened and describing the guy's life, family, etc., and the Prime Minister even gave a speech.  It just seemed very different from back home where they would barely mention it in passing on the evening news.

2.  Trash cans and public restrooms are not nearly as plentiful here in Australia.  In the States, it feels like there are bathrooms and wastebaskets everywhere, but here, it's sometimes pretty difficult to find a "rubbish bin" or a "loo."  Street signs are also not always there; sometimes it takes awhile to figure out what street you're on!

3.  The racial makeup of this country is different from the United States, at least in the areas we've visited so far.  There are tons of Asians and not very many African Americans or Hispanics.  Basically everyone is Caucasian or Asian.  I saw a couple of Aboriginal people in the mall once, and I saw a school group get off a tram once, but that's it.  Also, there don't seem to be a whole lot of Americans.  I've only actually met a few.  However, we've only really explored the Melbourne area, so this may be an unrepresentative sample.

4.  Italian food is a lot more popular than I expected.  "Parma and a pot" is a normal meal offered on special at a restaurant; this means chicken parmesan and a small glass of beer.  Spaghetti bolognese is a favorite kid's and/or family meal.  Lygon Street, where we had dinner last night, is a lot like Little Italy in New York City with several authentic Italian restaurants.

5.  iTunes songs cost $1.29 here, versus $0.99 in the States.  I'm not complaining about prices; I'm just giving the facts!  They also don't have Hulu or Netflix, although there is some sort of Australian version of it.  Redbox-type movies are actually in a green box, and they cost $2.99 (versus $1) to rent per night.

6.  I can't find regular stick deodorant out here.  I know this seems stupid, but it's all sprays and gels.  Thankfully, my mom is sending us a box of some stuff soon, and she got me a two year's supply of Secret from Sam's Club.  Don't worry-I'm not out yet!  Oh yeah, and they call it a chemist instead of a pharmacy.

7.  Many toilets have two flush buttons-one for when you go #1 and one for when you go #2.  It's supposed to be a water-saving feature.

8.  Adidas is pronounced "AH-dee-das," aluminum is "al-you-MIN-ee-um," and you spell apologise, realise, centre, theatre, labour, etc. like that.  Australians shorten lots of words...breakfast is brekky, afternoon is arvo, and ambos are ambulance drivers.  Gas is called petrol, and trucks are called utes.  

9.  All students wear school uniforms, and they are fancy...sweater vests, jackets with crests on them, ties, skirts, etc.  They look very proper, and with their accents, the kids sound smarter too.

10.  We get several American TV shows over here.  Ellen is on at noon, and The View is on at 1pm.  They are a day later than in the U.S.  Zack is currently watching House as I finish up this blog entry, and we get Glee episodes a week or two later than the States.  They played the final three Oprah shows in the evenings last week, and Australians have their own versions of lots of our reality shows (Amazing Race, The Biggest Loser, Australia's Got Talent, etc.).    

That's all I can think of for now!

Eating Down Under

We're still getting used to the differences in food-related things over here in Australia.  We are on a week-long, self-imposed hiatus from complaining about the higher prices, so I won't talk about that!  Most things are the same as in the United States.  You don't find as many Mexican restaurants, but there are lots of Asian ones, plenty of Italian ones, Greek places, pizza, etc.  But other things are pretty unique.  Lamb is huge here, and seafood is a lot more common than it was in Denver.










Also, you can buy kangaroo meat at the grocery store!  So yes, of course I got some and cooked it up for dinner the other day, because I had to try it.  It was pretty good; it kind of reminded me of venison.



Vegemite is the classic must-try in Australia.  I already knew that I didn't like the salty brown paste because of a previous Australian roommate, but Zack hadn't ever had it.  So I picked some up from the store, and he gave it a whirl.  I guess if you spread it really thinly on toast, it isn't that bad.

                     

Some other interesting facts related to food... a filet is pronounced FILL-it, baking soda is called bicarbonate soda, candy is called lollies, carryout is called takeaway, and taking home your leftovers from a restaurant is not a normal thing.  Dim sims are popular, but we haven't tried them yet.  These are large, Chinese-inspired, fried dumplings that became a hit at the South Melbourne Market and now are the rage all over town.  Restaurants don't always automatically bring you water to drink.  When they do or when you ask for it, it is always room temperature-no ice.  And if you ask for lemonade, you get Sprite!  When you go to a fish and chips place, you have to pay for a little container of tomato sauce (ketchup).  They don't just have the little packets out for free.  Oh yeah, and chips are fries.

I'll leave you with the transcript of a funny interaction that took place with a girl at the counter where we stopped for lunch on our way down to surf this past weekend.  I wasn't that hungry, so I saw a few things listed as kid's meals, including one that said "chicken nuggets, chips, and postmix."

Me:  What is postmix?
Girl:  It's a syrup (said in a very heavy accent).
Me:  A what?
Girl:  A syrup-like at McDonald's (vaguely gesturing to something behind her).
Me:  (not wanting to look stupid by asking more questions) Oh, okay.

So I ordered the kid's meal, still not really knowing what I was going to get.  We were thinking maybe it was some type of dessert or something.  It turns out, postmix is soda!  Like a fountain drink.  So I got a Coke, which by the way is sweeter over here, because they make it with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.  

Anyway, we're finding the little differences pretty interesting, so we thought you might too.  Soon I'll devote an entire post to the chocolate over here, because it's good enough to deserve its own day!