Blue Mountains in search of Christmas in July!

Dreaming of a White Christmas?! Well, sort of.

I went in search of "Yulefest" which is Australia's celebration of all things Christmas in winter (their July and August). Because their Christmases are anything but white, (its usually 100 degrees out when the holiday rolls around) they like to celebrate when its cold--enter Christmas in July.

The Blue Mountains are known for far more than just Yulefest, although admittedly that is what I was most excited about. Blue Mountains are probably best known for well, the "Blue Mountains", a range of mountains covered in slightly blue eucalyptus trees, and the Three Sisters at Echo Point. These "sisters" are three stone peaks (about 900 meters high each) and are thought to have been turned to stone by their witch-doctor father to protect them from an evil beast! And Katoomba (the city where the peaks are), previously a mining town, is also a Guinness World Record holder for the steepest railway at 52 degrees (doesn't sound like much but when you are 415 meters up in a rail car you would think otherwise).

Before we could hunt for our traditional Yulefest lunch, we went to see the Sisters and took the ever so steep ride down the canyon on the railway and gratefully came back up in a monorail overlooking the Mountains and the Sisters. Excited from all the site-seeing, I was eager to find my traditional Christmas lunch (pretty much what you think it would be: turkey with cranberry, roasted veggies, and some sort of bread pudding type dessert!)

But after finding out that the traditional menu is only served for dinner at all the restaurants I was a bit bah-hum-bug about this whole Christmas in July thing. Luckily, I was easily momentarily distracted by a pub lunch of Guinness Beef Pie! Then just when I thought I had lost all of my holiday spirit, Alex surprised me with ice skating! How festive! Although we were shown up by an 8-year-old with pink skates, we still gave that rink the best 10 minutes of our day.

I left Katoomba happy that I got to experience so much but also with the knowledge that I will return in search of my traditional Yulefest dinner....Bah-Hum-Bug!

Balls Head: Enough Said.

"Alight Here for Beautiful Balls Head" How can you look at a sign like that without giggling?!

Every day on the train I have passed this sign at Waverton Station, and although intrigued on my previous trip, I never ventured to the illusive Balls Head. This time I just had to see what Balls Head really was. Apparently Balls Head is actually named after a man, Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, Commander of the ship 'Supply' in the First Fleet of 1788. Balls Head was the original foreshore land included in the large Wollstonecraft Estate, which remained largely undeveloped at the beginning of the 20th century. It is now a reserve which contains many Aboriginal sites including archaeological deposits, art sites and rock engravings. (I saw none of these).

The Aboriginal name for Balls Head is "Yerroulbine,"definitely not as fun as Balls Head, but had to let you know for the sake of my historical documentation in this blog.

The reserve is now a lookout over looking the Harbour Bridge, pretty but definitely not as spectacular as the name itself. But none-the-less, please enjoy the view of Beautiful Balls Head.

Aroma (coffee) Festival at the Rocks: Thats a HUGE Schnitzel

Guess the title of this blog really doesn't flow but just trust me on this one, it'll all make sense....

But before I get into the blog, I must use some coffee jokes because well, because its my blog.

Like my men like I like my coffee, tall dark and hot!
What do you call a cow that just gave birth? De-CALF-inated! ha!

Okay, now that I've gotten those out of my system.... I had been looking forward to the Aroma Festival since I arrived in Sydney. It was an all day coffee festival that ran along The Rocks to Darling Harbour. Just the smell of the festival is enough to get you moving. The coffees were from all over the world, not to mention there was a selection of teas and chocolates to try as well. Ahh if there is a heaven on earth it is the aroma festival.

And what a better way to end the day than with a giant Schnitzel? Following the festival, we hit the Lowenbrau Keller (Bavarian restaurant) for some Polka and German eats (makes perfect sense to follow a day of coffee with Lederhosen doesn't it?! I told you the title would make sense!). I kid you not when I say that this was the biggest Schnitzel I have ever seen. Pounded flat and breaded-- I am pretty sure that it was an entire pig.... there are no jokes that would do this justice I'll just let the picture speak for itself. The jokes can follow later.

After eating this, well you are pretty much Schnitzeled(TM)
I am trying to bring the term "Schitzeled" to the states; for instance after a night on the town: "Man, that was a long night, I'm schnitzeled"

Use it, love it :)

Canberra: The Capital and a Big Mac

This week Alex and I went down to Canberra, the capital of Australia to see the sites, the arts, pay homage to Australia's great capital, and enjoy my first Big Mac....

Okay, before I go into the sites of the capital, I am sure the line that struck the biggest cord with you all was the Big Mac. Let me start by saying that on my last trip to Australia I thought I was going to try McDonalds (or Maca's as it is known out here) because the quality of the beef is much higher than the States as they only use Australian beef. I figured if I was going to eat the stuff I should try the best version but, we never made it around to it. So this time it was something I figured I would finally have to do, and the capital trip provided the perfect opportunity: any time Alex or his family drive down to Canberra they stop at the half-way mark Mcdonalds.

Let me say, the pictures of the Big Mac are quite frightening when you are about to try it for the first time. All my years of vegetarian living I never had a Big Mac, the closest I had was a burger in a happy meal when I was 8 (I was pretty sure that this wasnt the same) and in the pictures it looks MASSIVE. Thankfully for me and my stomach it was quite small. My verdict of the Big Mac was meh, I'd rather have the fries. But I can now better identify with American culture: I too have shared in the Big Mac glory, take that "Super Size Me!"

The rest of the trip was great, we saw the Parliment House, (like our Whitehouse, except no one lives there) the Cosolates (offices and housing for all of the different countries that interact with Australia, each are designed in the traditional syle of that country) and for the arts we went to the Vanity Fair Portrait exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. If this exhibition makes it out to the states, I would highly reccomend it; it showcases all of the famous portraits from Vanity Fair from 1910 to present, truly impressive. Although I didnt get a chance to see the War Memorial which is supposed to be one of the best in the world, I feel like I did get a good feel for Canberra, but am happy to be back in Sydney! And definitely no more Big Macs for me!

I'ts true, Australia is exactly like "Thunder Down Under"

Lauren and I were invited to go on a Purity Cruise last night in Sydney. (We have no idea why it was called Purity Cruise as it was a booze cruise around the harbor)

After having a few cocktails we headed over to the wharf and were soon reconsidering our trip when we saw gaggles of women dressed alike and seemingly celebrating bachelorette parties (or Hen parties as they are called here). We asked some women to make sure we were in the right place and thankfully we were not. It was "Wild Boys Afloat" which is a cruise with male strippers.

Happy that we avoided screaming women and Australian strippers, we headed to the right wharf. Once aboard, we were noticing that the only attractive men seemed to be the ones who worked there. So as we got our cocktails at the bar we struck up conversation with a guy and soon found out that we were on a boat that normally is called "Studs Afloat" another Australian male strip cruise. This however, was their night off so the company just organizes fun booze cruises. By this point I am starting to think that everything I had previously learned in Vegas about Australian culture is true: all Australian men are strippers and at any moment could rip their clothes off and dance to "I'm too sexy for this shirt."

We couldn't help laugh that out of all the places we'd end up it would be on a boat with off-duty strippers. But we had a good giggle and didn't take anything too seriously as we danced and hummed, "do my little turn on the catwalk...."

French and Saunders & a Light-up Martini Glass...

Last night we went to the final tour show of French and Saunders (phew, I was worried I would miss their final show. hehe)

For most of you (like me) the best reference point for the humor of French and Saunders would be the show Absolutely Fabulous which aired on the BBC channel, where the the crazy adolescent-minded mother was played by Jennifer Saunders (I suggest you watch some clips on youtube--you didn't know that there would be homework involved in my blog did you?! or check out this link which is a skit on Mamma Mia! they did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq-FX1ced8g) very funny :)

Some of the show was well... absolutely fabulous, and some parts went right over my head (mostly the reference to British shows) but all in all it was very funny, perhaps I thought I understood more due to my dinner consisting of champagne and half a strawberry daquiri.

Now, before you pass judgement on the daquiri you must know it was a VERY special daquiri. Special because it came in a light up martini glass! Very appropriate for british humor and all the women and gay men in attendence! And in honor of the show I have decided to consume all future beverages at home in the martini glass. So as such, I am sipping my coffee in a brightly lit blue glass.... Cheers!

Oh, and p.s the glass changes colors from red to blue to green OR as I JUST discovered this morning you can have it rotate the colors....thank God for inventions like this, where would we be without them!?

Acclimation, Sydney Style

Welp! I made it!

Friday night was a bit tough: my luggage was overweight by two sweaters and a pair of heels, I was told that I would be sitting in between two people on the plane, and was just generally stressed. But after two glasses of wine, a glass of champagne, some chocolate dessert, and a few tears, Jason took me to the airport.

But things started to look-up, Jason and I pulled some Macgyver moves and shoved my sweaters and heels into my carrier-on (take that Qantas), even though I WAS sitting in between two people on the plane, they couldn't have sat me between two better people: the woman on the isle was pregnant so she had to pee as often as I did, the guy in the window seat was a handsome Asian guy from Perth with a very strong Australian accent (heaven?!) and to really make my flight, my Aussie friend Rebekah was on the same plane so I had someone to hang-out with at baggage claim and customs! (we stayed at Rebekah's the first time we were in Australia, her kitchen is where we tried Vegamite for the first ...and last... time)

After Alex picked me up at 6:30am I vegged a bit, then we had an amazing first day starting with lunch on the Harbour: oysters, garlic shrimp, and champagne! We walked around the weekend markets at the Rocks (there was actually a product called Scent Logs-- a women standing next to me at the booth told me that I should put the chocolate log in my drawers so that my underwear would smell like chocolate...true story) and after that good laugh we enjoyed some coffee and chocolate at Guylian. A perfect start to my adventure in Australia.