The Australian Hamburger/Hot Dog

Us Americans think of the hamburger or hot dog as the cornerstone food for our ballgames, when we want to grab something to eat on the go, and generally as one of our every-day foods. Here in Australia, they have something a bit different. It's the meat pie.

Now when I first arrived here I was anticipating that it would be something like the Cornish meat pies that I had in the UK... they aren't. The meat pies here are miniature pies that fit in your hand and are filled with minced meat, sometimes steak, chicken, or other mystery meat. The meat is accompanies by gravy, onions, fungus, and other veggies. They are usually topped with tomato sauce (their equivalent to ketchup) and are much like a chicken pot pie.

Another version of the pie is a sausage roll which is a popular breakfast food as well as party snack. When I heard of these I was actually quite excited - in my mind I anticipated they'd be a sort of egg McMuffin rolled in pastry. Once again, I was wrong. They are merely a roll of sausage in pastry, which is typically smothered in BBQ or tomato sauce to give it some flavor. (Don't get me started on the different bacon and sausage

I have tried a couple different types and will be honest and say I'm not too impressed. True, the party pies can be quite good if you are looking for something small to eat. (Party pies are bite sized versions with a completely mysterious mixture of meat and ?) However the larger ones that I have had definitely have not met expectations.

To give you some statistics... Australians eat 12 meat pies a year on average. They are topped by their neighbors to the East who consume 15 pies a year. Now consider that these things have an average of 15 to 35 grams of fat per pie, and you might begin to see why Australia is the fattest country in the world.

Jenni - I'm dedicating this blog to you as you gave me the idea. I hope the pies shown on the Food Network are a bit better than the ones we have here!!

Blue Mountain Day Trip

So as this session is has been keeping me busier than I ever expected to be, it is always nice to be able to get away and forget about everything sometimes... I was able to do this last Saturday when a few friends and I took a quick road trip up to the Blue Mountains.

Now, for those who don't know - the weather has been complete shit here. It's been rainy and cold (I even brought out the wool coat today), so I was very excited to wake up to a sunny day on Saturday.

At around 1 we jumped in the car, and after a couple wrong highways, found our way up to the 'mountains'. I put mountains in quotes because in the states they would be more like a plateau or hills. You basically drive uphill for a bit then it flattens out. However while there is the plateau there are also beautiful valleys and gorges. The best comparison I had was the Grand Canyon - only less grand and covered with trees.

This is a popular area to visit and is somewhere I plan to visit more once the weather warms up. :)

Bachelorette Parties - Aussie Style

My good friend Nicole recently eloped to Fiji, so while a bit out of order, we threw her a bachelorette party last night. We started out with fantastic dinner at a pub in Surry Hills called the White Horse. The food was amazing and it started the wine flowing for the next part of the evening... which was pole dancing lessons. :)

Now I must say it sounds bad, but we had a private studio with 7 of our good friends and a teacher. The studio had fun costumes to put on to help the occasion. We learned how to swing around the pole and do some things I never thought I'd be able to do. In a sick and twisted way it reminded me of swinging around the swing set when I was little..

After our lesson we headed to a cool local club for some real dancing and general bachelorette activities (making her do embarrassing things, ask random guys weird questions, etc.). We ended the night dancing at a gay bar, which was quickly followed by a very large greasy slice of pizza.

Today I am surprisingly not too hung over (thanks to the pizza), however am beginning to feel the effects of the pole dancing and am not sure if I'll be able to lift my arms tomorrow. I also have a new optional profession should I ever get really desperate.

My Coaches Would be Proud...

Many of you know that I've been playing basketball in a rec league with some friends here. What you can't imagine is the level of refs... if you've ever played in the states and though your refs were bad - these are worse! To make things more frustrating our team does not have an offense and most people have never really played before.

Now to our credit we still do pretty well, however the league has combined with the bracket above ours and so the competition has gotten better... which means trouble for us. Our games recently have culminated in the refs not calling anything and players becoming more and more aggressive as fatigue and frustration set in. Today was the low point in this as we lost to a team which we could have beaten.

So I've dusted off all my old memories from the days of playing for Steve and Steve, and have recreated our offense. I am quite proud of this, especially considering I did a quick search of offenses which are listed online and couldn't find this one.

For those of you who don't play basketball just think that it has been almost 10 years since I have run this offense, and even though I probably ran it for at least 5-6 years I still think it's an achievement to remember it... now we'll see if I can teach it to my team.

Cliff and Coastal Walks

During my week off before classes I was able to do one of the many coastal walks. There is a path which goes from Bondi all the way to Maroubra... am not sure how far it is but it takes about 2.5 hours to do the whole thing at a brisk walk. Living near Coogee makes it easy because I am at the half walk mark and can either go North or South then take a bus back. :)

On one of my days off I headed south to Maroubra and discovered that I love that walk. Along the way you are forced to walk along the rocks below the houses and there are tide pools, cool sandstone, and overall spectacular views. The path ends at the cliffs above Maroubra and so I was able to sit and relax while eating my lunch (it was one of the few sunny days we've had). So this spurred a bit of a new thing for me... exploring all the 'nature walks' which are found around Sydney.

This last weekend was the Queen's Birthday, so we of course had a long weekend. On Saturday (the only sunny day) I did was is called the Spit to Manly walk... even though nowhere along the way is there a spitting contest to see who can spit to Manly, although that would be entertaining. The walk is a 9.3km walk which all references say takes 3-4 hours to complete. Given my natural speed walking capabilities, I managed it in 2.5 hours. Along the way you go through National Parks with spectacular views back towards the city skyline and out to sea, and there are even a few nude beaches along the path. (Thank God it's winter here and the beaches were empty!!)

All in all, the walk was great exercise and a good way to be get outside and stay within the city. On the way back I took the ferry from Manly back to the CBD (central business district) and just confirmed that the Washington State ferries are my favorites. :)

Anyways, here are a couple pics from the hikes and there are more on my flickr account as usual.

Fraser Island

After the boat trip to the Whitsundays, I hoped on a 12 hour bus ride to Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay is the starting point for tours/camping excursions to Fraser Island which was the second part of my vacation trip. Fraser Island is the largest sand Island in the world, and is home to many different types of forests, perched lakes, and fresh water streams and lakes. The island is a world heritage site and received many different travelers throughout the year. Given it is winter here there weren't too many people on the island.

(the picture of the dog is a Dingo we saw eating coconut on the beach)

The tour we went on was a 2 day 1 night guided tour where we were taken to all the hot spots on the island in a massive 4 wheel drive bus. :) The good thing about this is that we had the benefit of our friendly local tour guide (Steve) and all our meals and lodging was included (aka - no camping). Now I'm not one who is completely opposed to camping, I'd just prefer to go camping with a group of friends as apposed to a group of strangers - which is what happens when you just show up and go camping.

On the first day we did a hike through the rain forest and saw some massive trees which were in the range of 400 - 800 years old. After that we drove up 75 mile beach. Now this isn't your typical beach, regardless of the length. This beach is actually the only registered highway on the island... speed limit of 90 km/hr. So the phrase to remember was look both ways before you cross the beach.

Along the cost we were able to see the ship wreck Moheno - which is a ship that ran aground in the early 1900's and has been slowly sinking ever since. There is now only one level of the ship that is visible above the sand. After seeing the wreck we swam/walked down one of the larger fresh water creeks which lead out to the Pacific. Now the irony with this was that all the brochures showed people swimming down this creek in swim suits... while we were precariously walking down in our sweatshirts, trying hard not to fall in, because of the cold weather and wind.

After making it out of the creek without falling in we headed to the only rocks on the island, which are at a point called Indian Head Rock. On a clear day you can apparently see the local sharks, turtles, and other fish life swimming in the water below; however when we were there it was hard enough to stand without being blown over so there wasn't much to see in the water.

Given the fact that the waters are highly shark infested - you are not advised to swim even in the surf. So we were keen to go swimming in one of the perched lakes on the second day. This was slightly downgraded when we woke up to a torrential down pour of rain. The perched lakes are essentially lakes that have formed in the sand dunes over hundreds of years. Luckily the water is a bit warmer but is crystal clear and actually has a very slight acidity to it which makes it perfect for washing your skin and hair. So when we did manage to make it to one of the lakes and a brief break in the clouds - I promptly jumped in. It wasn't as warm as they said it would be... but it was crystal clear and almost as clear as drinking water.

OK as this post is bordering on novel length I will end here, but as before I have posted a collage of pictures here and will also include a link to the other pictures I have uploaded for those who'd like to take a look. Click here for more pictures

The Whitsundays

Last week I spent 3 days and 2 nights aboard a ship called the Summertime with a group of friends.

Our boat launched from Airlie beach and set sail for Whitehaven beach. When the wind was in our favor the sails were put up. The landscape reminded me of the San Juan in Washington - with the difference in weather - and made me miss what I would call home. One thing that was surprising was the butterflies... they were everywhere! It was a bit surreal.

Once we reached the beach I knew I was on vacation - and at that point was satisfied with the money well spent. Now If you can picture a large white sand beach on an island which is only attainable via charted boat or helicopter - add in warm weather, warm water, and not a cloud in the sky and you might have an idea of what it was like. :) We spent a couple of hours at that beach then the boat made anchor for the night at the next bay.

In the morning we hiked to a lookout point where we could see where a fresh water river met the Pacific. This is where the swirling sands are... essentially the water from the river mixes with the tides and the sand makes magnificent swirls in the shallow water. It looked like someone had painted the river and sand into the island - truly beautiful.

After the hike and taking some pictures it was time for some sea kayaking. Now the bay that we anchored in happened to be a turtle breading ground - so there were turtles around the boat in the morning. When we set off in the kayaks we were able to go into the shallow waters where the massive (3' wide 4-5' long) turtles where hanging out. It's hard to describe, but if you were able to paddle up as quietly as possible you could actually float right over the top of the turtles. When the did get nervous and decide to move they would make a massive wake from their movement. The water was really muddy otherwise I would have tried to get a picture, but for now the description will have to do.

Later that afternoon I took my first turn at scuba diving and LOVED IT!! Now I will admit that I had a bit of trouble starting off with the whole breathing under water thing... which wasn't assisted by the fact that my mask was leaking. In the end, after a little salt water in the eyes and mastering the art of clearing my mask of water, all was good. This was good because we dove again on the second day and the number of fish was amazing! I was able to see Nemo, an eel, and didn't see the shark that was swimming with us but am glad for that!

I have lots of pictures but can't post them all, so will put this link and post a collage of some of the good pictures. (Click here for more pictures) This trip was amazing and I truly recommend it to anyone coming to this area - and I can get discounts with the company we went through and make recommendations as to which boat might be good. :)