Southern Comfort

A recent endeavour involved introducing my Aussie housemates to the delectable goodness that is real Southern cooking.  My roommate is actually another exchange kid from North Carolina, so after many food conversations, we took it upon ourselves to educate our new friends as to what great food really is.

The menu began as baked chicken thighs marinated in Italian dressing, green beans, fried potatoes, fried okra, pasta salad and chocolate-oatmeal cookies for dessert.  After some searching, we had to go to a sketchy Asian food stand to find okra (where we also got some mystery flavor ramen that we'll try sometime).  

Our apartment lacks a proper oven, so a neighbor let us borrow her convection oven of sorts to cook the chicken.  When the time came to cook, I realized that my Italian dressing was missing, probably commandeered during a BBQ the night before, therefore Plan B was put into play, which involved some Portuguese marinade I had purchased out of curiosity.  Not exactly good representation of the southern US, but it got the job done, and rather well, at that!

Nikki and I had quite an adventure attempting to work the convection oven and have three different pots cooking on a teeny tiny stove, but we made it work!

The meal went over pretty well.  About seven people had a full plate, and a few others picked and tasted.  The pasta salad and potatoes were pretty tame and easily liked by all and the chicken turned out to be extremely tasty!  The green beans and okra were a bit dodgy, though.  Some were in love with what butter does to green beans, others just thought they were gross and mushy.  It's true that the okra needed a little salt, but no one was particularly fond of it except for Nikki and me.  The "cow pies," "mud puddles" or whatever you chose to call chocolate-oatmeal cookies were an absolute hit, as they should be, and have been requested to return.

 

All in all, a great time was had by all.  Nikki and I got to have a taste of home, and our new friends got to experience something very American.  Success.

 

Nice to meet you, Mr. Pacific Ocean

This weekend the Exchange Office at the University of Canberra organized a beach trip to take about 50 of us poor, pitiful inland students to get properly acquainted with an Australian beach.  We met at 7 a.m. to ride a chartered bus down to Broulee Beach near Bateman's Bay-- a two and a half hour drive through beautiful countryside.  There are so many rolling hills bulging straight out of flat plains, and more sheep than I have ever seen in my life.  

We had to cross the Great Dividing Range, which proved to be quite a challenge for our bus that did seem to approve of the hairpin curves and steep inclines.  On the other side of the range was a rain forest, not a tropical rain forest, more like the Washington kind, which was really neat to see!  The eucalyptus trees there have white bark and leaves only on the tops of the tree, then on the floor were huge ferns probably reaching four or five feet tall, sort of reminding me of Jurassic Park.  We watched Australian movies on our trips to and fro, Rabbit Proof Fence on the way and Tomorrow when the War Began on the return trip, both of which I highly recommend.

We made it to the coast before 10 and hit the beach!  The place was SOOOOOOOOOOO beautiful!  The sand was not as fine as what I have been around and it was mixed with so many different colors, then the water was so clear and blue!  Absolutely lovely.  We were in a small bay, so if you see how the beach goes around and there's an island kind of area far away?  That part is relevant later.  We also saw some black cockatoos, which I was told are rare.

 

It was overcast all day and about 27 degrees, so according to my XKCD guide to metric conversion that is slightly cooler than beach weather, but it was very nice!  The UV rays here are quite ferocious, so even without direct sunshine most of us came away a shade of pink (Yes, Mother, I put on sunscreen).  The water was a bit chilly, but great once you got out in it.  The waves were definitely more exciting than in Gulf Shores and some folks went to rent wet suits and surf boards.  There was a short bridge in another little inlet we stumbled upon, so we had fun jumping off of it and swimming around in the calm area.  

The "alligator" rock formation.
Eh, it was more convincing in person

Around noon, Domino's delivered pizza to us on the beach and we took a break for food, played volleyball and decided to go for a walk.  Remember the picture earlier with the far away place?  Yeah, we decided to go there.  It probably took around 20 minutes to get there walking with purpose and not letting ourselves get too distracted since we only had an hour before we had to head back to Canberra.

It was TOTALLY worth the hike!  Apparently the area was a nature reserve of sorts, with  a huge shallow area with interesting rocks and some tide pools.

 This is our victorious group.  We were pretty proud of ourselves for finding such a cool spot.  All in all, beach day was HEAPS of fun!  There will be plenty of beach time in the future- Hopefully Sydney next weekend and Surf Camp later in March!

  

Oh, to be an American abroad...

Very cool place, but, alas, no photography inside, so this
is as close as you get.

Today, my graphic design lecture was cancelled for an excursion to the National Gallery of Australia, which I must say is an amazing place!  We met to tour the "Space Invaders" exhibit of street art and things of the like as a taste of the awesomeness expected from our class by the end of the semester... which is rather daunting.  The exhibit was really exciting and reminded me a lot of the wonderful random things found in the Art+ Architecture building at UT or in some of the First Friday galleries on Gay Street.

After wandering around the exhibit, a few of us went around to see what else there was to see, first coming across what seemed to be a section of Australian artists' works.  As a studio art minor, I at least like to think I have good appreciation for art and can find a way to appreciate most pieces that I come across, but I was definitely at a loss looking at some of the works in the room.  That's when the security guard came over to ask why I did not seem to be understanding what I was looking at.  He proceeded to give his friendly explanation about a couple pieces and I was happy for it since I was unaware of what Captain Cook looks like or the back story on some of the artists, apparently vital information for understanding what was going on.

It soon clicked with him that I was American, sparking an immediate turn in the conversation to what I have been waiting for since I left the country-- the "America is the worst place in the world" conversation.  For starters, the man was very nice and I later learned he is from Croatia, explaining the even more difficult accent.  He began talking about how America started out as a place for dreams, but is now a nightmare that is spewing out to take over the world with giants like Chase Bank and Google that watch our credit card purchases and Internet searches, always looking over our shoulders and making note of our every move.  He expressed his lament over globalization and what it is doing to our world, then warned me to not buy in to what the media and society are trying to tell me and to be sure to always think for myself because the world I live in does not want me to be my own person, but a puppet that does everything I am told.

He seemed like just another aged man who wanted to share his knowledge of the world to the younger generation and I was by no means offended by him sharing his thoughts with me-- this is probably only the first of many similar conversations of the like that will happen over the next few months.  I do enjoy learning how other people view the US, and I have already talked to many people with interesting thoughts on where I come from.  It only makes things that much more interesting.

Around the world, around Canberra

This weekend was the Multi-Cultural Festival that the city of Canberra holds every year, and it was preeeetty awesome!  Basically, there are stalls representing countries all over the world set up throughout the civic center of the city with stages set up for concerts and dance performances.  

 

Oh, and did I mention the food?  There were plenty of Aussie meat pies, along with basically everything you could imagine from any given region of the world! 

My neighbor Ella bought some Kava from the Fiji stall-- really trippy stuff.  It looks and tastes like muddy water, but  makes your entire mouth, lips and throat go numb.

 

After picking and choosing among a world of choices, I settled on a tasty Thai plate for dinner.

My roommate, Nikki, myself and Ella decided to go for henna tattoos!  We were skeptical as to whether or not it would work, but I got good results, at least!

Overall, it was a great experience!  The place was really busy-- rumor has it that about 110,000 people attended the festival, total, and I have a neat reminder of it that should stick around for 7-10 days.

Green Bay, FTW!

SUPER BOWL TIME! 

You know, watching with friends in pajamas, snacking and having to leave during halftime to grab a shower in order to… get to class on time?  This whole time difference thing is mind blowing.

Anyway, the most awesome Australians ever who I am lucky enough to be housemates with (if you read this guys, that’s just for you) wanted to watch the big game for the American experience, so they woke up and watched with me at 10:30 this morning.  It was definitely not like any other Super Bowl party I’ve attended—eating breakfast of tea and toast having just rolled out of bed in order to catch kickoff with folks roaming in and out of the house going to and from class. 

Another first was that I, of all people, was the most knowledgeable person in the room regarding the game, I, who have probably never sat through an entire NFL football game in my life.  The main reason I am usually in the room for the Super Bowl is to watch the commercials… but in Australia the game means nothing, so there were normal ads about used car lots and bug spray.  Ultimately, it was fun but short lived.  Everyone had places to be in the middle of the day, so halftime was as far as we got, and I’m not really complaining.

Classes started today with Political Communications and Intro to Graphic Design Practice, and everything seems to be interesting enough.  I’m excited about how this semester will go and have great expectations for the rest of the semester!

Ahh, Australia!

Greetings from Down Under!  I've made it and have settled nicely in my home for the next few months.

Travelling went smoothly- I ditched gross, snowy Nashville...

...for beautiful sunny Australia!

I had never flown by myself before and the only time I had been on a plane before was a 45-minute flight, so flying across the planet was quite a stretch, but everything went very well!  I landed in Sydney and was taken to my hostel for the night, arriving around noon.  In attempt to avoid the horrendous jet-lag I was warned of, I took off exploring instead of sleeping, in spite of my body screaming for a nap. 

It was actually cloudy and breezy in Sydney when I got there, so instead of running to the nearest beach, I decided to make my way to the Opera House, just because I could.  I stumbled upon the Royal Botanical Gardens on the way, which was filled with many interesting plants and birds I had never seen in my life.

 

Then, after wandering through the winding paths and enjoying the interesting plants and birds, what do I stumble upon but one of the most iconic sights of Sydney!

It was most definitely as impressive as they say it is.

The next morning I caught a bus to Canberra, and dove into Orientation Week festivities, where I met LOADS of great people, both Aussies and other exchange kids like me.  It has only been a week, but I can already tell that this semester is going to be absolutely fabulous!