Losing Thanksgiving

As my family and friends back home are eating their last bites of pumpkin pie, and washing the remaining dishes, I am here in Australia, where there is no Thanksgiving. People know about it, yes, but it went by without much fanfare here. Now that I've just spent time talking to the family on Skype, I have realized that I may never have a real Thanksgiving again.

I love Thanksgiving. I think I've always loved it because it's near or on my birthday, so growing up I guess I thought it was about me. And it's a great holiday because there are no presents involved. Just family and food. I will truly miss the Northern Hemisphere autumn, and everything that I used to associate with November. Orange leaves, turkeys, pumpkins, warm sweaters, apple cider... all things savory. Of course we will celebrate Thanksgiving here over the years, and I can introduce the tradition to my friends here. But we might have to create our own traditions.

Sunday we're having a barbeque for Thanksgiving and my birthday... well that's how I'm treating it. Others are treating it as the end of the year (school year, orchestra year, etc.). So it will be a fun experience to have a warm, sunny birthday.

Maybe someday we will move back to the US, and I can return to the cold winters and the beautiful fall season in Michigan, which I have always loved. Until then, I will try my best to keep from losing Thanksgiving.

Sydney!

This is update, part 2. At the beginning of October, I went to Sydney for a short trip. My friend, Jenn, who is studying in New Zealand was coming up to buy a flute, so we decided it would be best if I joined her. One of the coolest parts was flying in to the airport because we flew all the way across the Sydney Harbour, and I saw the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and the city from the plane. It was very surreal, because Sydney has always seemed like such a faraway place (ok, it is), and I always pictured it to be blue and shiny (and it was!).

Thomas's former roommate, Ales, lives in Sydney, and we had met a couple weeks before... so I stayed with him and his girlfriend, Annabelle, for the first day. They live within a four-minute walk of IKEA, which was also surreal, as I had only appreciate IKEA from afar in catalogues. The first few hours I was there Ales showed me around a very Chinese-influenced suburb and we enjoyed cheap food en masse. Later I experienced IKEA with Annabelle and bought Thomas his very own milk frother (which he loves, by the way).

The next day was spectacular because Ales took me to the coast and showed me a few beaches and the cliffs around the edge of Sydney. It was beautiful (as you can tell by the pictures above). I got many pictures and saw the city from afar. We saw the world-famous Bondi Beach, which was very different from beaches I am used to (miles and miles of sand). The beaches in Sydney are in little coves, with some sand and surrounded by cliffs. It is very cool to see. That evening, I met Jenn at the airport and we retreived her brand new lovely flute and made our way to our hotel, which was right in the heart of the city, Darling Harbour. We found delicious greasy food and beer and had an excellent evening catching up. Day three was the one I had been waiting for. Jenn and I took a ferry from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay (pronounced 'key'), and saw the Harbour Bridge (on which people were climbing), and the Opera House, which is very bright and shiny in the sun. We wandered around that area for awhile and saw the Opera House, bought a few postcards, etc. Later we wandered around the Rocks area of the city, which is where the first settlers lived. It was very cool and nothing like I had ever pictured Sydney to be. (Australia is just full of surprises!) We also found a very reasonably priced souvenir shop, although I am starting to wonder if souvenirs in the US aren't just really expensive.... I searched for a sweatshirt for mom, but alas, sweatshirts are hard to come by here. After several hours of walking, we were a bit baked by the sun, so we decided to head back for some A/C therapy. For dinner we found a great restaurant with beer and burger happy hour specials (not quite the Grubs specials I miss so much). It was yummy and Jenn had the hots for the waiter. For the rest of our evening we wandered around Darling Harbour and looked at the shops and watched people go by. It was excellent.

The trip seemed to end as quickly as it begun, and I left around 10am the following morning. Our hotel was very close to one of the train stations, so I walked there, seeing bits and pieces of the city again. The station was at the bottom of the Queen Victoria Building, which is such a neat old building--lots of shops and cafes inside, and old fashioned tiles. The whole building reminded me of an ice cream parlour from the 20s or 30s. It's on my list of places to see when Thomas and I go to Sydney in December.

I still can't quite figure out how to put pictures where I want them on this, so I'll have to put them all at the top again.

Pictures

Picture captions going clockwise-ish. Not too hard to match the captions to the pictures.
Kookaburra! There were a few scavenging for food at the picnic area of the mountain lookout.
A view of "downtown" Melaney. Nice shops. One with yummy gelato and lots of cheese from around the world.
The hinterlands of Queensland. Very beautiful and very different from what I thought Australia would be like.
Part of the winery with the hinterlands in the distance. Gorgeous view!
Beach at sunset. Very nice...
Stay tuned for pics and trip highlights from my mini-Sydney adventure....

Catch-up

I am not very good at updating the blog. I think that is mostly because I don't really know how to use it. Since I last wrote, I have been to a few new places, so I will slowly try to bring this up to date. A few weeks ago, our friend Paul took us up north to see the Glasshouse Mountains. It's about an hour or so north of here. It was quite enjoyable. The mountains are very strange looking, but it was beautiful. And we went on my first "bush walk," which was really just a hike through the woods. The pictures at the top of this are a couple of the mountains in the range.

After the mountains, we headed to Melaney, a town nestled in the mountains, or as they call it, the hinterlands. It was very nice and the cafe was good. It's a very organic, home-grown kind of town, so they had local ingredients and it was tasty. The views were really nice, and looked nothing like what I pictured Australia to be. I will attempt to post pictures of the views at some point.

Later on we went to a small winery, Summit Rise. It was cute and the wine was pretty good. We liked it, although the wine here in Queensland is not as good as in New South Wales or Victoria, which makes sense because it is very hot here. It was my first wine-tasting and I enjoyed it. Especially the chick peas as a palette cleanser.

After the winery, we finally made it to the beach! My first trip to the Pacific was in Caloundra. King's Beach I believe. It was very cool, though we didn't have to much time, as our friend Ales needed to get to the airport. I took a bunch of pictures throughout the day. Hopefully soon I will get to go to the Gold Coast.

Reminiscing

I can't believe I never realized how lucky I was to have an office to store my stuff and a guaranteed practice room anytime I wanted it. Well, I sort of knew it was unique, but now I really know. Here I am finding it difficult to practice... going to the Con is an option, but if students need my room, out I go. I can go to the TQO Studios, but the evening is really the only time. So, I fear that my playing is slipping beyond repair... Hopefully I can get it back. My goal is for our next apartment/flat/house to be more conducive to practice. It will work out, I just can't believe I used to have an office and didn't jump up and down everytime I went in there. Now I understand why some people stay in school forever...

New words I've learned...

Brekky=breakfast
She'll be right mate=it'll be ok (used in ANY circumstance; even if your arm has just been cut off)
Chips=fries
Crisps=chips (potato)
Biscuits=cookies
Uni=college, university, etc.
Boot=car trunk
Good on ya=Well done, great job
Pram=baby stroller
Nappy=baby diaper
Eupho=euphonium
Lift=elevator
Footpath=sidewalk
Flat white=espresso coffee with milk, as opposed to a long black, not bumpy white
Crook=sick
Dag=funny, as in "You're a dag!"
Ute=truck (Ford Australia's famous vehicle that looks like those old car/truck hybrids)

I know there are more... will add as I can remember them...

Also, every cafe here seems to have milkshakes! YUM!

Saturday market!

Today we went to the Saturday market in West End. I was expecting a modest farmer's market with a few produce stands and was just hoping to get a few deals. Well, was I mistaken! The market is spread out near the river, bordering a cricket oval (I believe they were playing rugby today), and it was packed with people. There were arty-crafty type things, probably 10 different produce stands, a few different coffee stands, fresh meat and fish (a bit fishy though), people sitting around playing digeridoo, flowers, and even crepes and smoothies, which we had for lunch. It was great! Definitely something for us to go to frequently on Saturdays (though not all the time because it could get ridiculous after awhile). We also found a booth with fresh herb plants, which I have been wanting for awhile. The lady gave us two cilantro plants (here they call them coriander) for free because the leaves were starting to turn a bit yellow. To top off our adventure, we saw signs for a garage sale, so we toddled over to that, while I secretly yearned for a large pot to boil pasta.... and lo and behold, there it was! We got a large pot and two saucepans for a very low price. It was excellent luck.

Last night was an evening of music. The orchestra played Brahm's Academic Festival Overture, Liszt's Piano Concerto (gorgeous---I had never heard it), and Beethoven's Sixth. The orchestra sounded great and I enjoyed sitting nearer to the front than usual. The orchestra has another run tonight and then tomorrow Thomas is playing the Penderecki Capriccio at a recital. Quite a busy weekend!

I've created a Blog!

After much wishy-washying, I've finally created a blog to commemorate my new and exciting life in Brisbane! (Thanks, TZ, for the idea... if you have time for it, goodness knows I do!)

So, stay tuned for information and pictures. Now that I have found some things to do with my time here, I will have many updates!

Now I will attempt to post a picture...