Happy Hour

Rachel:

Back home, my aunt Mary-Beth invented a wonderful hour.  It usually occurs on weekends and between the hours of about 3pm and 6pm.  This hour is called "Happy Hour" and it is a very happy hour.  It isn't the type of happy hour where you get half price drinks or food. During Happy Hour, one collects those around them for a delightful hour filled with chips or pretzels, crackers or cookies, dips and drinks and everyone socializes and takes a break from their stressful day.  Summer happy hours are taken by the pool, while winter happy hours occur in the kitchen.

Well Kurtis and I have brought happy hour to Australia and are currently enjoying Tim Tams and Doritos whilst we discuss fascinating topics, such as, "Should be pay $2 to dry our clothes or hang them outside?" and, "Border Security is on TV tonight! How delightful!"  

Happy Hour: A truly civilized hour.

Australian word of the day: "Shout" - similar to a round of drinks, Aussie mates shout each other.  For example, I will shout my friends by buying them all a drink and later, they will all shout me back.

ANZAC Day

Rachel:

Today is ANZAC Day in Australia, which is similar to Remembrance Day in Canada.  Australians commemorate their veterans from all wars today by having a dawn service.

Here in Melbourne, the dawn service is held at the Shine of Remembrance at the Botanical Gardens, close to our house.  We didn't go because Kurtis' back was messed up (I'm sure he'll share the story, but whatever he says, it WAS his skateboarding that did it) and because I was extremely sleep deprived after going to practicum and then straight to work, getting home at 10:30 on Thursday and Friday.

We did watch the TV coverage though.  It was nice to see that the veterans were being remembered and honoured on this day.  I did find it very Australian, though, that on ANZAC Day, the Aussies had somehow found a way of incorporating sport and beer into the ANZAC Day tradition. They have the ANZAC Day AFL game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is sold out almost a year in advance and attracts 90,000 spectators at the MCG.  They also "Raise a glass," of VB (Victoria Bitter) to honour those who have fallen.  Quite an Australian Day if you ask me.  The only thing missing was Vegemite and Tim Tams.

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and they make many references toGallipoli, an infamous ANZAC battle in WWI in Turkey, where the ANZACs lost many soldiers or "diggers" as they are referred to here.  Australians flock to Gallipoli, specifically Anzac Cove, on ANZAC Day to remember those who died there and in all other conflicts Australians have fought in.

I also found out that the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in St. John's commemorates ANZAC Day with a march to the National War Memorial in St. John's. (For Papa)

 

Australian Word of the Day: "ANZAC Biscuits" - a type of cookie or biscuit made for Australian WWI diggers by their wives.  Made of rolled oats, sugar, flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup, baking soda and water.  The ingredients were selected so that the cookies wouldn't spoil during the long trip overseas.  ANZAC Biscuits are still made and sold today.

Why I like working at IKEA

Rachel:

I started work at IKEA this week and my love for IKEA did not fade when I started working there. 

First, my wage is really good and I get paid 150% of my pay when I work on Sundays.

Second, I work at Smaland. That is the place where parents drop their kids off while they shop.  Getting to watch Sponge Bob Square Pants while getting paid rocks.

Thirdly, they give us free hot chocolate on our breaks. Enough said. (We also get free cereal, coffee, tea and fruit, but we all know I loves my hot chocolate)

Fourth, I get an IKEA discount.  Again, enough said.

Fifth, the people who work there are pretty cool and everyone is friendly, in a wierd cult like, drink the punch nice.

And last, I get to shop at IKEA while I'm working. 

DONE AND DONE!

Australian word of the day: "Home and hose" (for Dad) - although I have only heard this once on the radio, my dad has asked me to find out what it means about a million times.  It means something that is safe or successful.  

In Defense of My Television Watching Habits

Firstly, We dont have cable.We get 5 channels on a good day so my television viewing options are fairly limited. Secondly, I eat my lunch infront of the tv. I cant read and eat a sandwhich, its too complicated. I watch TV instead. There is NOTHING else on at lunch time. Between the hours of 12 and 1 pm my options are Dr Phil,Indonesean News and Turkish News. Thats all. Lastly, I'm ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE Ellen does not enjoy dancing every day. I like Ice Cream but I dont want to eat it every single day because I'd probibly come to hate the taste of it. I'm sure Ellen feels the same.

Kurtis Cute Quote

Rachel:

We get Ellen on TV here and Kurtis has become an undercover Ellen fan.  He says he watches for "the cat updates!" but I feel he likes the whole thing.

Anywho, I was brushing my teeth and he comes up to me and says, "Her dancing looks forced, you know?" and then I started to laugh.  He responded by elaborating, "But today, she doesn't look that in to it. It must be tiring having to dance everyday." I'm just laughing in the background.

homebrand overkill

As previously mentioned,my thrifty girlfrind has taken to purchasing homebrand products at nearly every shopping opporitunity. Now,I'm all for saving money but this week the practice got a bit ridiculous. I can take homebrand cornchips (super salty, stale in a day,nacho chips), I can take homebrand tomato soup (tastes like eatting a tin can). I've even put up with discoloured, mishaped, reject "homebrand cage eggs". What I simply will not stand for is homebrand toliet paper. For the last week I have been wiping with and sneezing into what feels like shards of broken glass. I would honestly prefer to use the plastic it came wraped in.
never again.
-kurtis

The Washing Machine Saga

Rachel:

As some of you may have heard, we bought a washing machine for our apartment. We weren't going to but when we found out that it would cost $4 to wash one load of laundry (only wash, no dry) we decided it would be best to buy our own. I found one on Gumtree (Australian Craigslist) and we bought it. Now for the list of trials and tribulations caused by this machine in order:

1. We had to get it home. The people we bought it from live two blocks down the street from us. I asked around to see if someone had a dolly to help us move it but no one did. So we carried it home. The walk which takes about 4 minutes sans washing machine, took about 30. We had to take about 12 breaks on the way and some old lady who is about Christopher's size helped us because we looked that pathetic.

2. Then we had to figure out how to fit it in our little corner in the bathroom. As illustrated by this photo, 

we tried to place it one way but it didn't go down all the way, as evidenced by the lip of the machine resting on our counter. AND everytime we moved it we had to lift it straight up because as you can see, our toilet-counter proximity does not allow for our machine to be easliy slid into place.

3. We finally got it the right way, despite an incredible mess and numerous muscles strains and bruises. Success...... or so we thought. Then we realized that our wrench wouldn't fit around our taps to remove the previous owners taps that were rusted on.

4. Borrowed a wrench from two people, which didn't work because the bolt was rounded and rusted on.

5. 5 days after we dragged the machine home, we bought a visegrip wrench from Big W (Australia's Wal-Mart). FINALLY got the previous hose off and connected ours! Perfect! Nope.... the hoses were leaking because one of them had a crack in it.

6. Sent Kurtis to the store to buy some sealent. While he was gone, I superglued the crack and by the time he got back I had gotten the machine working. This took 6 days to get going. By this time we had about 5 loads of laundry saved up so we spent the rest of the day doing the wash. I have never been so happy to do laundry in my life.

The End... or is it??

Aussie word of the day: "Bogan" - I look like a bogan in these pictures I think. Its someone who doesn't take care of themselves, someone who drinks all the time, just like a gross person. It's basically someone you don't want to sit next to on the bus.

The Real Possum

Rachel:

Here is a picture of our real possum friend. He is playing shy in the picture. Hopefully we'll get a better shot of him.

In other news, Kurtis fixed the Wii. He broke it in the first place. Funny story actually. Kurtis brought the Wii because he thought it would give us something free to do while we were down here. So he packed it all up and we thought we would play it at Lauren's house. Kurtis decided that he didn't need to use the power convertor so he just plugged it in and short circuited the house and the Wii wouldn't turn on anymore. I wanted to kill him. Wiis are $400 here so we thought our Wii playing days were over.

Kurtis called the Nintendo office in Melbourne and explained what happened. First they laughed at him, as anyone would, and then they told him that all he needed was a new cord and so he bought one over the phone for $35 and we got it today! And guess what? The Wii works! Welll sort of. It's black and white. We've figured its something to do with the overseas compatability or something. But its fine for now and we might buy the adaptor that makes it colour so as we speak Kurtis is playing MarioKart and all is right in the world again. lol

Aussie word of the day: "heaps" - means a lot of something, like "There were heaps of people who thought it was stupid of Kurtis to plug the Wii in without an adaptor"

Bushfires are no joke...

Rachel:

On my first day of practicum, I went on a field trip with my geography class to a forest north of Melbourne. We were looking at how sustainable the logging practices of the area were. On our way there we drove through some of the area that had been hit by the recent bushfires. I took some pictures but even these pictures don't really do justice. There were homes that had been completely surrounded by fire and had survived and then others that had fire far from their place and their house burned to the ground. There were cars burnt out, entire forests with not one speck of green and just charcoal everywhere.

The scary thing was that this area was about a 15 minute drive to Lauren's house, where I was staying at the time of the fires, and the ranger at the forest said that this fire had traveled 40 kms in 7 minutes. Quite scary when you think about how close the fire was to Melbourne. A lot more people could have died. We're really lucky not to have forest fires in Canada. They are quite depressing. Everything in the forest dies pretty much; the animals, trees, birds etc.

Leave it to Australia to have a tree that only reproduces if it is burnt. The Mountain Ash tree only releases seeds if it is burnt by fire and the seeds can only grow if they are covered in ash.... This is a wierd country sometimes.

Aussie word of the day: "Daggy" - unfashionable, uncool, unclean, not neat as in "The constant dust that gets in our apartment means its quite daggy most of the time."