Sweating in the New Year!

There is much to write about! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. Mine was pretty fun, though my first one completely away from my family so it was a bit sad as well. Christmas Eve saw Tanya's family over to our house for a barbecue, so we spent the day cleaning and cooking food in preparation for the family arrivals. There were 12 of us in a not so big house, but I must say we packed us all in pretty well. The food was great, lots of chatting and teasing, and finally gifts exchanged. It was a really wonderful night!

The next morning we were off to Nana's (grandma) house for Christmas Day celebration, and boy oh boy do they have a big family! There must've been about 40-50 people in and out of there at any given point in the day. It was a gorgeous day, so we played cricked in the yard and soccer, and later Santa showed up with presents for everyone! Food was fantastic with some traditional Maltese fare, a huge lamb spit, seafood galore and desserts coming out our ears. Such a fantastic spread, we could've easily fed an army. There were lots of younger kids around which gave me my kiddie fix and made me not miss my nieces and nephews quite so much. The day went into the night and the drinks flowed until we all dispersed to our respective homes. I included some Christmas Day shots on this post.

And for our 3rd barbie in 3 days, we went to Tennille's house on Boxing Day and again, the food was absolutely fantastic and more desserts than people I think! We sat in the backyard, dodging the sun, playing with the dog, and just having a few relaxing drinks. And even if I wasn't with my own family, it was great being around other families that were so much fun and obviously enjoy each other's company.

Other great family news is that my cousin Genevieve and her husband Willy had their first baby on Christmas Eve, just shy of Christmas Day. A beautiful BIG (9lbs 8oz, 22 inches) boy with a whole head of blonde hair, so congratulations to them! Basically since I was out of the country for Christmas, they needed to rebalance out the number of Bakers in the US, so thanks Genevieve for such an effort on behalf of the Baker clan - and just in the nick of time! :)

And this leads me to New Year's - the ridiculous one that it was. So for all my teasing about our lovely weather here as you battle the snow and ice back home, karma has bitten me back. Literally, the hottest New Year's Eve and New Year's Day on record at a whopping 107 degrees. And let me tell you, that is HOT and uncomfortable. I was bartending in St Kilda that night so unfortunately didn't get to ring in the New Year with my friends, but got to celebrate later that night, or should I say early that morning? Anyway, 2008 looks like it's going to be great and I hope it will be for all of you! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Lending a helping hand

I'll have to find a picture to post here - perhaps the picture of the cake we made? Let me explain. My friend Tennille works for Victoria University in a program that counsels and teaches life skills to high risk teenagers, those that have been neglected and/or abused. Technically their job is to re-engage disconnected youths, which let me tell you, is a lot harder than it sounds. She has a huge heart and it's a wonderful thing that she does. Last week, her students were "graduating" from the program and because this is most likely the only sort of ceremony celebrating any accomplishments they've had, she wanted to make it special. So she came over with a huge tray of cakes that she had baked and we spent the evening constructing the name of her program (TOTeM - standing for The One and The Many) spelled out in cake, with the help of wooden skewers of course. Then came the frosting. Of course we needed to do it in the program colors so we had nearly all of it bright blue with one letter in bright red. There were some errors along the way so the kitchen was littered with pieces of cake in various stages of frosting. When we finally finished and stood back to survey our work, the cakes looked great but the kitchen looked like Cookie Monster and Elmo had met a terrible end. Actually getting it to the ceremony was another thing. We had to anchor these cakes on two large boards so we could transport it. You should've seen the looks I got from the early morning commuters when they glanced over to see me balancing a huge T O T at chest level. Luckily they made it in one piece and still tasted good.

I spent the day with Tennille at the school preparing memory books and certificates, finding kind words to say about students I hadn't yet met, and getting the room they had rented ready for the event. The students began to arrive, some with family in tow and this was a major step for all of these students. Often the family is not very involved with them which is how they ended up in this program. To watch how their faces glowed when Tennille and her colleague Sam stood up and spoke about each individual person was so inspiring! How often can you say let alone witness the fact that you can help change a person's life? It definitely made me feel grateful for the wonderful family and environment I grew up in, that's for sure! So fingers crossed that this is the first step of the rest of their lives and in such a positive direction.

St Kilda Evening

Last weekend, I met up with my lovely Scottish friend Ruth who I met in Tasmania to go explore St Kilda. St Kilda is a town right outside Melbourne on the Bay with a wonderful beach and feel to it. It's been cleaned up in recent years and is now one of the more expensive places to live because it's so close to the city, has a lively night life, bars, cafes and a beach! We made our way down to the beach and were enjoying people watching - all kinds of people enjoying themselves in the warm weather. A guy broke out his tin whistle and started playing, which was soulful and great to listen to. Then 3 guys came down with bongo drums and started playing. After about 15 minutes, the guy with the tin whistle came over and they all started playing together. Then a group of Argentinian tourists came down with a tambourine and they joined in singing and dancing. It was just so wonderful to watch all these strangers come together to just enjoy music on a beautiful beach.

We continued on for tapas outside and to a pub for a few beers while listening to a band. The area is wonderful with a creative edge and a diverse group of people. They have open air markets along the esplanade on Sundays, so I need to hit that up next weekend!

Night markets and barbies

As I hear tales of snow and ice from back home, our backyard barbecue the other night just keeps sounding better and better. It was a perfect night with lots of great food and great company. My cookies were a hit, or rather Betty Crocker's cookies were a hit. Our guests left full and with their lunch all ready for the next day. They got the food, we kept the untouched beers. I thought it was a fair trade.

Last night we ventured to the night markets in Melbourne which are great and not at all like the night markets in Thailand. They're only on Wednesdays for a several months during the summer. There's a live band that plays, beer vendors, food vendors of every variety you could think of, and stalls of merchandise. They have everything from scary witches that cackle and then take off at a dead run in mid-air, to wall aquariums, to jewelry, to licorice stalls, and lots of other things. So people wander around with their beers, examining merchandise, bopping along to the music while they shop. Really so much fun!

Thought I'd switch it up a bit and put the picture on the right for a change. Hope it doesn't throw anyone off :)

Wine tasting

Since I got behind, I figured I would just post from here on out. Yesterday, my friend Keith had the day off work and decided he would be my tour guide. After some questions about things that I liked and was interested in, it was decided we'd go wine tasting. I'm sure that's shocking to most of you. We had an early start with a 9AM pickup time and we were off. Well actually, we had a minor detour in the house because the night before, as I was vacuuming, I accidentally unearthed yet ANOTHER gigantic spider while home alone. I believe my panicked and incoherent text message to Tanya said, "Vacuuming. BIG spider. Me scream and scare dogs. Help!" After I watched him crawl towards one wall, I got out the big can of insect killer and sprayed liberally, and obviously from a distance. The spider seemed to tuck his many legs under him and turn into just a large black ball. I was thinking there was no way it could survive such an offensive as I had just launched, but was wary. I waited a few moments, but he didn't move and I continued with my vacuuming. So please imagine my panic when I returned a few moments later to find him missing with just a nice clean spot in the middle of the foam that was SUPPOSED to be an insect killer. I managed to find him again and launched a secondary attack, this time with success. Of course, I wouldn't go near it to pick it up and throw it away, and even Tanya who is used to these kinds of things, wouldn't when she got home either. It was rather large and scary. So that was Keith's first task of the day before wine tasting.

I digress. Off to the vineyards on a nice warm day, and our first stop was De Bertoli vineyards at 10AM. This area of Australia is specifically known for it's sparkling wines, chardonnays and pinot noirs. As we were driving into the vineyard with rows of grapes, I noticed rose bushes in front of every row of grapes and some of the rows had a small sign hammered to it identifying the kind of grapes that were being grown. I mentioned to Keith that these were pinot grapes on our left, and you should've seen his face. He thought I could tell what kind of grapes they were just from looking, and you could instantly see the fear that his expertise in the area had gone right out the window. I played along for a bit, but then told him about the signs and that I was clearly a better reader than distant grape definer. In case you were wondering, the rose bushes are an organic way to see if there's a problem with the soil or bugs, and it doesn't hurt that they're pretty and smell good either!

One of the vineyards we stopped at was Chandon, and it reminded me very much of Napa. Here we had a nice pairing of wines with cheeses that were out of this world (see above picture)! A purely Australian invention is the red sparkling wine. Now I thought I would hate it, but I actually loved it so I would recommend that everyone give it a try if you find one in your local liquor store. Several vineyards later, we stopped for lunch at the Yering Station Vineyard, the oldest in Victoria which had this amazing view, and we had an even better meal. With one more stop before heading back to Melbourne, we savored every last taste. Course I was giggly and trying to find a dance radio station on the way home, but that's the way all good wine tastings should go in my opinion!

Oaks Day

Still catching up on my posts, so Oaks Day was indeed nearly two weeks ago. Shame on me. Anyway, traditionally Oaks Day was the ladies day at the races, where all the women dolled themselves up in beautiful dresses and outrageous hats, placed some bets, had a few cocktails and enjoyed the races. In more recent times, gentleman, in their infinite wisdom and single-minded thinking, have figured out that ladies day at the races meant it was full of beautiful women dressed out in their evening best during the day and they tend to be consuming alcoholic beverages all day, and saw this to their advantage. So in this day and age, it's a 50/50 mix of both now.

About a dozen of us girls dressed up, made lunches, brought snacks, picnic blankets, our own alcoholic beverages and made a day of it. It was so much fun! The day begins with finding your own stretch of grass to put down your blankets and daintily sit so you don't mess up the dress you've spent two weeks looking for and or inadvertently expose yourself to the jockeys dashing by on their horses. Of course the day begins around 10AM when you have your first beverage and look at the various ladies, discuss to pros and cons of their outfit choices, take sneaky pictures of the truly hideous ones, and observe the clusters of gentleman in their suits. As the day progresses, people scream louder for the horses, bounce up and down, the people watching turns into oggling and the once separated boys from the girls becomes a mish mash of people, making it hard to find where your homebase picnic blanket is. It's definitely an experience everyone should have. After the 7th race, you pack up the rest of your belongings, take you and your severely sun burnt friends and dash to the pub where the mixing continues. You meet lots of people and generally have a great night!

And there you have it - my first Oaks Day completed.

Overdue Updates

OK, I realize I have neglected my blog since landing in Tasmania two weeks ago and so much has gone on since then! So I will post in bits so as not to overwhelm anyone and inadvertently cause anyone's eyes to cross. The picture is one I took on one of my first hikes in Tasmania!

So first I will just do a summary of the rest of my Tasmanian adventure and below is a link to just a few pictures of my trip if you're interested. Tasmania was wonderful and completely diverse. You can go from climbing 30 meter sand dunes to hiking through rain forests to waterfalls in the space of a few hours. I did loads of hiking while I was there and absolutely loved it because you could really separate yourself from everyone and feel like you claimed a piece of the earth just for you. It was really quite magical. Some of the hikes were really challenging and some were not so challenging, but all were beautiful. Coming back down from Wineglass Bay, I became the cheerleader for everyone who was still climbing and even though they smiled at me, I'm sure many people were thinking "Shut up. I still have a lot farther to climb. I hate you." It didn't bother me because I knew once they got up to that view, all the sweat and cursing was worth it and they in turn would become cheerleaders to others on their way down as well.

Wildlife was abundant. We saw lots and lots of wallabies and kangaroos, and quite a few wombats. We also had our kitchen crashed by a possum with her baby clinging on to her back - they look nothing like the US possums. These ones are big and fluffy and a dark brown and black color. One of my favorite animals was the echidna which is sort of like a cross between a porcupine and a platypus and they were in abundance. And we saw quite a large tiger snake which of course, was extremely poisonous. In fact, there are only three snakes in Tasmania all of which are poisonous. One night, we climbed out onto these rocks on the ocean at dusk, waiting until it was dark. Then we began to hear calls and hear splashing. The calls were from baby penguins stashed in the bush and in the rock crevasses and the splashing were their devoted parents climbing these rocks to feed them. Quite an amazing experience!

Anyway, it was a great experience and I met lots of great people who I've stayed in touch with and have met up with back here in Melbourne.

For a few Tassie pictures, click here