Merry Christmas, Christmas Christmas!!!

No beating around the bush here. I'm not even sure the locals know what "Happy Holidays" means.
When were in downtown Melbourne the other day, I was overwhelmed with the use of the word Christmas. It was everywhere. There was even a nativity scene in the window of a popular department store. Next to the window, was a queue of parents and eager children waiting to see Santa. Here is the store front with the Holy Family. You can sort of make out Baby J.

Locally, the theme is "Shine at Christmas!" There are large stickers across store front windows in our local shopping district and big signs attached to handrails near sidewalks. The office of our nearest train stop has a mini nativity scene as well; right on their front counter. I love the lack of care about what is "proper" and PC!

A Little Bit of Lingo

Sometimes, it's the small things that make the biggest difference.

Trivia night at our local pub boasts a round called "Sink or Swim." The MC displays a tin can announces what we will be testing that evening, for example: fried clams in garlic marinade, barf, i mean beef-a-roni, sardines. We note on our play sheet if we think the contents of the tin will sink or swim(float) when dumped/poured into a pitcher of water. We later test that theory and partake in another great phenomena; that some people will do anything to get their team an extra point for pub trivia. After our curiosity is satisfied (everything always sinks), 3 people voluntarily gather around the MC. He asks if they will accept 2 points to scull (chug) the party punch/science experiment mixture. If they say no, he will go up in points. They always say "yes" so he then moves down in points. The girls are usually uncooperative after this, as the next question is "will you scull it with your pants off?" Typically, there is one guy that always accepts the 1 point. I have seen him scull the juice in only his boxers. Here he is just pantless. It's always an impressive show.
Before I joined the trivia team, they had really boing team names. They would change it every week. Usually, it described what all of them had ordered for dinner: 2 Pizzas, 2 Parmas. We have been using the best name for the last 2 weeks and the MC did a double take when announcing the scores and seeing our team of plain janes cheer. We are in ranks with "nothing says f*ck you like a punch in the dick", "Trivia Newton John", and my favorite, the group of gay men + 1 lesbian +1 cross dresser as "Twisted Sisters".
History of the name: My friend, Liz, was the first to save my ass when I used the seemingly meanless American phrase of "double fisting." She was drinking wine and champagne when we were watching a footy match at the pub. I called her out on her "double fisting" and her eyes got really wide. She then schooled me on the meaning of that phrase here in Oz and it is quite different. Is the literal act, a hem, sexually. You can see, quite inapporiate here. We shared the story at trivia because I accidentally let it slip again when one of our team mates poured himself 2 glasses of water. It is the perfect team name.

Here is another quick tale of wordage. At work, I noticed everyone says "chuck it in the bin" to mean, "throw it away". I have been saying "toss it in the bin," as it comes more natural to me. I learnt (the Aussie past tense for learned) the other day that "toss it" can sound too close to "tosser". Tosser is like wanker. It was described to me like this, "Men are wankers cause they wank."
Time to start chucking.

All work and no play...

I'm sorry if you have felt abandoned! I have been working SO much in the last 2 weeks...about 45hrs in 4 days!! When I wasn't working I was sleeping or not doing much of anything.
This week is a little more manageable. I'm only working the weekend. This gives me time to catch up on the never ending laundry, meet up with friends and make dinners (yay!).

Working has been pretty fun though. A few days, I helped prep food in the kitchen...then went to a job and served it. The double shifts are long. You are damaged, but you get kind of used to it. Doing prep work in the kitchen was a nice change of pace.

In the past week, I worked in a greenhouse nursery, car museum and on a boat. Here is my photo recap.

We set the tables at the nursery, but the staff placed the plants for the function. People got to take them home.

Sometimes, we don't even have a kitchen to cook in. We bring our own propane hot boxes and propane burners. The burners go on the floor and we do all the prep and serving on tables. Here we are heating the pumpkin soup. The chefs are pretty fabulous. Sometimes they perform miracles. Here is the kitchen from the front and back.

In our Nursery (makeshift) kitchen, we fed about 70 people. Meals were on real plates with real cutlery! The night before, they served 150.
Here are about 40 lemon tarts.

We served finger food appetizers at a corporate holiday party held at Fox's Classic Car Collection Museum. Lindsay Fox, a prosperous local, has over 35 cars in this collection. It was awesome!The Jags were my favorite.











Then there was the boat, the Victoria Star. I am scheduled on here pretty regularly. The kitchen is small and tight but the guests seem to be happier and it's fun to work this way.










At sunset, the city is gorgeous and the night skyline in brilliant.