Grey Day Australia

Today was the greyest day I've seen in Australia. I snapped this picture off of my porch. It was rainy and yuck. The sun didn't peak through a single time. It was a grey day, I was feeling off and not happy. Grey days happen. Even in Oz.

Then, at the close of the day, things can turn around. Our fire alarm tripped and the 385 family, who had gone to bed, immerged from their rooms to figure out what had tripped the alarm. Niel, my favorite security guard, came up and turned off the alarm, and then we were relieved, but all VERY awake. A toasted sandwich maker, several slices of cheese and bread, and a good lot of butter later, we were all hanging out in the common room talking over some important social issues.

By some chance of fate and a few toasted sandwiches, we were thrown together and got to know one another a little bit better. And I got taught the Nutbush dance. :-)

Some days are grey, some days get greyer, but some days get lighter when you least expect it.

Cheers

Nutbush City Limits

Okay, so, I grabbed a ride into town with my flatmate Steph and her mate. We were tooling along, picking on GWB, and this song came on. I didn't recognize the song, but I knew it was Tina Turner. The next few moments went something like this:

Me: Guys, what is this song?
Steph: You don't know this song? You're from Turner-land.
Me: Yea, I know it's Tina Turner, but what's it called?
Steph: You're not kidding. You don't know this song.
Me: Nope, never heard it.
Steph: It's Nutbush. Every Australian knows this song. It's what we dance to while we're pissed at the bar. Spastically.
Me: Why?
Steph: They teach it to us in primary school.

Then she and her mate promptly hopped out of the ute (AKA truck) and started doing the Nutbush dance that they learned ages ago. In the parking lot. Of the Sturt Mall.

And I thought to myself, I'm in the middle of a nutbush.


But seriously, check out the lyrics to "Nutbush City Limits" and tell me if you think they're a good idea for small children. Here they are.

Anyway, I found this video a while ago on youtube, but when I just re-viewed it, I got a twinge of Australian lovingness. So, I'll post it here instead of my daily picture. Enjoy this QANTAS commercial. :-)

Cheers

There is Life on This Planet!

Today is my one month anniversary in Australia. I've been here a calendar month. Can you all believe that? I know I can't. I just have to keep saying to myself "You've come a long way, baby!"

Anywho--

One of my favorite things about wine is the way that it brings people together and opens up the lines of communication. As I've said before, if you like wine or hate wine, you have an opinion about it and you're likely to share it if given the opportunity. Wine is social and has remained social, hence holding it's place as a cornerstone of societies, modern and pre-historical. Things fade from history and people's minds; wine is NOT one of those eliminated items.

So, tonight was the most anticipated first meeting of the CSU wine tasting club. (I know, triple tier tastings every fortnight of different wines from different regions...be very jealous.) Tonight was Semillon from the Hunter Valley (N of Sydney), and I will say, Semillon is a good wine general, it's cheaper versions (that I tasted) are relatively food friendly. The more expensive tiers were excellent stand alone wines, as most expensive wines are. It's not Riesling, my love love love!, but, it will do over a Chardonnay.

So, anyway, I discovered tonight just how much I loved talking wine with people. I should say, RE-discovered. I've noticed that whenever I'm in a Wine Science Lecture, I really don't think about anything else. For those 4 hours every week, I think about nothing but wine and grapevines and pests and flavors and senses and fruit. I'll emerge from the lecture hall and realize that time has passed and that my pages are filled with notes and handwriting. All the while, I'm not worrying, I'm not missing anyone, I'm not having evil jealous thoughts come into my head, and I'm not remembering that I'm in a foreign country a BAZILLION miles from home with no friends. It's a welcome change and relief.

But, tonight at wine club, I got to talk to some of the people in my program, relax with them, find out about them, and I discovered that there was life on this planet! I know Aussies are nice and polite and helpful, but, they can be friends. Maybe I'm not so foreign after all. Mel put it well this fall, she said: "In Australia, you're friend until proven otherwise." I countered with, "In the States, you're otherwise until proven friend." I think I'll put Mel's theory to the test.

Well, this is a little bit of babble because I'm a bit "boozed", as Meghan (the South African-turned-Kiwi-room mate) puts it. Ha.

Cheers!

PS- Pick stolen from University of Adelaide Oenology program website! :-D

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

So, I spent Saturday poking around Wagga. I got sunburned (BIG surprise) and found Wagga Beach and other assorted sites. But, there was something that I noticed that I am dying to share with all of you. Here goes.

Last year, during one of the many marathon nights in the GIS lab, Sammie Linton was recalling Australia, as she studied abroad here, and she said that she was shocked that people actually went into the supermarket, among other stores, with no shoes or shirts on. I remembered this when I got here, and when I arrived in Wagga, I remember thinking, "Well, it must be only crazy Queenslanders that do that sort of thing." I had never remembered Mel going sans shoes into Wegmans and the people in NSW all seemed to be donning footwear in public places.

Well, I made the mistake of going into town on the week days. On the weekend, all bets are off. People are hitting the beach, the shops, the streets. I was walking down Baylis Street minding my own, and BAM. There went my first gentlemen sans footwear. I smiled at him, and he smiled back at me and said something totally kodak: "G'Day!" I walked away with a smile on my face. Not 30 seconds later, there was a whole family without shoes. So, this was on the street. I wondered if these people just magically produced thongs to go into the grocery store with. The answer to that query is: NO. I saw Mr. G'Day later that day at Woolworth's, and he stopped me and chatted as if we were old friends...all without his shoes.

The sign that hangs on the door of every American business is "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service". In contrast to that, Sammie was right. These people are crazy and don't wear shoes to go grocery shopping. I'm not going to be jumping on that bandwagon anytime soon, but, I will say this: I love it. It's relaxed, it's carefree. It's an excellent reflection of the attitude of the continent, as I've observed it so far. They're your feet, do with them as you wish. No one should be picking anything up off of the floor and selling it in a food store anyway. Who cares? As Kenny Chesney said, "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem!" No worries, mate!

In related news, this explorer and her ipod are going to Tasmania over the Easter holidays. This decision was influenced and finally made thanks to a panel of experts and my keen decision making skills (ha!). So, more details on that are forthcoming, I'm planning and scheming like a maniac! Loving it!

And I just realized this weekend that I, Catrina Nicole North, packed all of my shit in three bags, took off to AUSTRALIA and am now living here, studying to pursue a dream. How fucking cool is that! I typically wouldn't say this, but: I fucking rock! Who does that?! Geez, life has changed in the last month!

Cheers

Mozzarella Sticks

These people do NOT have mozzarella sticks. What am I going to do!? Three years without Mozz sticks? I'll go batty. That's the real fat kid talking, here!

Anyway, Mom sent me a package with my work shoes and prescriptions in it, and there were a bunch of food stuffs in it. Cut right down on my shopping. She sent normal stuff, pop tarts, Doritos, home baked choco chip cookies. She did include a box of wheat thins, as well. Well, after I came back from a swim, I decided to pop open the Wheat thins and offer them to the room mates and myself as a snack. One or two of them took my offer, and I discovered something odd. None of them had ever had wheat thins. Nor a mozzarella stick. Where the hell am I, Mars? No Wheat thins? For some reason, I just couldn't get over this. I still can't.

Well, I'm out of ideas. And tired. All of this culture shock in one day. No mozz sticks.

Lamingtons

Mel, my room mate: I have a surprise for you guys tonight.
Me: I hate surprises.
Mel: I'm not telling you, you'll have to wait.

Well, my surprise was a cool one. Do any of you US'ers know what a Lamington is? Well, neither did I. It's basically a sponge cake covered in dark chocolate and coconut flakes. Yes, it is as heavenly as it sounds. Mel and I had gone to the food market about a week early, and as usual, she had had a good laugh at my stupidity regarding Lamingtons, among many other foreign food items. (They have these huge tubes, like tubes of out Bob Evans sausage, only larger, of dog and cat meat. I'm talking friggin' HUGE tubes. Who does that?)

Well, Mel had gotten the whole 8 of us a package of Lamingtons. We were all hanging out in the "family room", as we call it, and she appeared with dessert. Jer-Bear, my fellow wine science-er, came up with some ice cream. We dished it up. Distributed it, and all sat and watched TV. I looked around the room while everyone was sitting there, mostly in awe. A month ago, I was just leaving my home. Since then, I've covered a few miles, shed a few tears, and seen a lot of things. And there I was, surrounded by people who I already consider friends and care for, but never envisioned. I felt very fortunate.

It's remarkable how quickly things move sometimes. Sometimes it takes a quiet night of TV, a foriegn dessert, and some perspective to realize just how lucky you are.

Oh, side note. Wine people. Did you know that Phylloxera originated from North America? They think it probably rode over on a boat and then did some major damage in Europe. This funny vision of a note going something like this popped into my head:

Dear World,

We're writing to apologize for the phylloxera thing. We didn't mean to cause any sobriety. We hope you still love us.

Yours,

North America




I couldn't help but think that all of the Australians in the room were looking at me as if I were the vessel that brought them to Australian vineyards. :-P

Cheers

"How Important Are We to the Americans?"

My friend Stan, the bus driver, asked me how important I thought the Australians as a people were to the Americans. He asked if we thought as much about them as they do about us.

I grimaced and shifted in my seat uncomfortably, not wanting to ruin my friendship with my new friend, and said, "No, Americans don't think of anyone but themselves. Maybe, we'll think of Europe or the Middle East, but not Australia."

He looked at me excitedly and said, "Well, I've told all of my friends that, but they never believe me. Now I know. "

I laughed. He smiled, it was all good.

So, I needed some empirical evidence. Just how important was the David Hicks case in the States. David Hicks was suspected of terrorism and is being held at Guantanamo Bay, and he's been there since he was captured in 2002. He's on the Australian news EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. I mean, he's usually in between stories about weather or grapes, right up there at the front. He's were GWB would be in our news reels. It's completely WILD.

I found my empirical evidence when I pulled a Bill Bryson (Author of "A Walk in The Woods" or "In a Sun-Burned Country") and searched the NY Times for the last 5 years. About 140 articles came up, 50 of which were unrelated to Oz's David Hicks.

I then searched "The Australian", a major newspaper over here. It only let's me search for a week, but just in the past 7 days, there had been 7 articles on him. 7! One per day! So, let's look at the math. Say they published for 50 weeks a year, for five years, at one article per day. That's 1750 articles! Another news site returned 238 articles in the past 30 days. Compared to our 90 or so. Suck on that!

So, Stan, I think you are right. But rest assured, Australia means a lot to some Americans, and they're the ones you really need to worry about. Who cares about GWB? I'm cool, and I'm at your end of the globe, so, no worries.

Cheers