Thursday, February 17, 2011

The little things...

It's funny to go to a new place and notice all these little things about everyday life that are just a tab bit different from your country. So I decided to do photography project #2 on those little touches that I've noticed.
My new favorite snack, marmite on toast!

You can turn the individual outlets on and off.

Butter in a square plastic tub, instead of sticks.

If you don't wear a helmet when you're riding a bike, you will definitely get a ticket.

You almost always get the option to half flush or full flush here. Ask yourself the next time you get off the pot: what kind of poo was that? A half flush one or a full?

I find the light switches funny looking.

To open the door you need a key and there's no door handle, where oh where did my door handle go?

The sidewalks, or footpaths as they call them here, are  slanted. I find it makes walking a bit uncomfortable.

They have giant recycle bins! I think Canada needs these.

EVERYONE grows roses. They're everywhere, all different colours and scents.

I asked my housemate what these funny lines on the road meant. It's a school zone and you're meant to slow down when you drive on them.

I noticed this one in New Zealand when I lived there, grocery stores sell eggs on the shelves instead of in the fridge. Why do we sell them in the fridge?


       This is the world that I currently live in. I've stopped noticing that people drive on the 'other' side of the road and have started to remember where the passenger door is located. It makes you question why you we do things the way we do. Why are Aussies more concerned with bike safety? Why do we put our eggs in the fridge? It's a huge waste of energy. Why do Aussies get the option of a half flush? Are they more conscious of water conservation?

     On another note, life's been pretty busy. I've joined an ukulele group that meets every Wednesday and have a performance coming up, which I have been happily invited to join in for, but I don't really know the songs all that well. We'll see. Practice makes for good uke playing :)
    The owners of The White Rabbit where I work are a couple and the male half died earlier this week. I worked at his wake yesterday, serving nibbles to all his family and friends. It was a lovely  affair and I really enjoyed myself, I felt like a hostess and it reminded me of when I was little and my parents would have dinner parties and I would serve dessert or whatever. It was a nice memory. I found my emotions a bit confusing. I never met Mark because he was sick when I started working at the rabbit, but I was quite sad and quite stressed about his death. I think I absorb other people's emotions because I am a very empathetic person. I care very deeply and strongly. It has it's benefits and it's negatives, but it is one thing I've learned about myself in the course of life. All in all it was a really nice feeling to be at a family affair. It's always one of my favorite things when I'm not at home, is to attend other people's family events. It makes me feel part of a family for a moment again. Makes me less homesick.
   Otherwise I've been spending my time gardening, doing schoolwork, yogaing, friending, and hopefully soon badmintoning, and all those other wonderful ings.

Another day in the life.

Love to all.

Monday, February 7, 2011

A self inspired photography project

I was walking home from work one day and I was noticing that every mailbox had it's own character. I remember someone once showed me a collection of park benches that they had photographed around the world, so I thought I'd do my own collection just on the 8 minute walk to work from my house....

They come in camo...

 Or just plain camouflaged

 Some look like birdhouses.

 Or are just metal boxes.

 Or metal holes.

 Sometimes the mail is just put on the ledge....


 This seems to be the most standard, the top is for mail and the bottom for rolled up magazines or newspapers.

They've got hats.

 Or noses. The owners must be away or have a good sense of humour, because it had a nose when I walked by a few days previous.

 Brick post.

 Then I got angry and did a super hulk punch and tore them a new mailbox....

 Sometimes they're shy...awwww.

 This one used to be a ballet dancer, but her partner dropped her.

 This one still is a ballet dancer :)

Everyone put in your ideas for the next photo exhibit! What would you like to see a lot of pictures of?

The White Rabbit: Record Bar AND an aussie's favorite breakfast

I've finally brought my camera into my glorious work. I love it. It is cool. It is hip. It is delicious....


We have the bar where I'm learning to cook up many a concoction by the glamorous Rabia.
She wouldn't let me take her photo so you'll have to pretend.
And the front of the kitchen where I cook glorious concoctions and customers walk by and say hello to you through the window.


The courtyard where many a groups of people hang out.

Or there's inside tables.

That's ned during closing time, trapped in a chair barrier. Ned is so cool! I wish I were just like Ned.

There's my boss, Annie, pretending to play records at the record station for my photograph, but you'll often find her in this exact position.

And there are lots of interesting records. Apparently a former employee walked around with this one sticking out of his pants for a day :) 

So that is my job. I'm enjoying it a lot. All the people are fun to be around and the music is always bumping. And it's about an 8 minute walk from my front door. And it's so colourful...I love colourful things.


I hung out with Ned and Rabia the other day from work and spent the night at their house, the next day we went to a cafe called Le Chien. Which of course reminded me of Montreal and made me feel right at home. We went there with a mission:


THE PROMITE SPECIAL

And we got 3 and we ate them all..numnumnumnum. You may be asking what is promite. It is the sweeter and more liquidy version of marmite. I am now in love with marmite, we are destined to get married next week. I eat it on toast when I get home late at night, in the morning and at random times during the day. I may just go make myself a slice now. The key is butter first and just the slightest smudge of marmite. I recommend all to try it. I haven't had peanut butter in months, ...until yesterday when I was feeling nostalgic ;)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

A lot of green and a tinge of blues

Halrightythen. So I have decided that giant festivals of 50,000 in the searing Australian sun are perhaps not for me. It was a good experience though and I did see a few good acts. Props to The John Butler Trio, fabulous musicians, excellent drum duet, they're playing actually made me want to cry because Johnny was so amazing. Tools performance was absolutely beeeyootiful, of course, how could we expect any less? Rammstein was very theatrical and entertaining, and I do admit I enjoy their music, although I tend not to like so much noise usually. And last Bliss and Esso had a great show, the best audience I saw all day, and even did a wicked encore. Fun stuff.
I must've applied sunscreen about 20 times, refilled my water bottle about 40 and had to take periodic shade breaks, plus I spent a monstrous amount of money on food. I had a huge floppy hat that made my head feel in the shade all the time :) Unfortunately I have no pictures because I didn't want to worry about carrying around my camera, there was lots of wetness. You could stand under sprays of water in order to cool off a bit around the fairgrounds.
I did have my second run in with a random as person. 2 1/2 years ago I lived in Wellington, New Zealand, and I happened to be standing in the drink line at the festival with a friend of mine from that time. Hello Alastair. Really funny.

Now my veggie garden. I'm getting really into it. I play my uke and sing to them every couple of days and I know they're loving it...

Here we've got lettuces, strawberries, spring onion, garlic chives, zucchini, basil, parsley and you can't see the little guys so I took a couple more photos.

Rocket, aka arugala.

and BEETROOT! Isn't the colour just gorgeous?

I ran out of room in my little veggie plot so I had to plant a few around.
Here's my eggy plant. I also have a jalapeno in the works and a few more zucchinis. 

There were a couple of things already growing....
Some tomatoes that I think my housemate is setting out to kill, but I am secretly nursing them back to health with my ukulele :) and I'm sure the fertilizer I put on it doesn't hurt ;)

AND an olive tree! It's actually much bigger than the photo but I wanted to get those olives in, aren't they pretty? I'm not exactly sure what you do with them when they're ripe or how you know they're ripe. I've never had fresh olives before.

And if I haven't uprooted, hardy har har, you from the post from all these planty photos, I have just one more that I picked up yesterday...
Isn't she just lovely? Brenton and I fed her a moth yesterday, but I can't tell if she likes it yet. Hopefully it's not a poisonous moth. Could I have just killed her?

So those are all my lovelies! They make me very happy. They don't poo or yell or fart, well maybe the occasional fart...as I am in charge of the composting.

Otherwise, work is going well. I've already been put in charge of cooking up some specials for the special board, and I mean literally and in my head. I panicked a bit, but I had just looked through the cupboard and I got a little help from my friend Rabia and we made pumpkin daal and salmon fishcakes, which I was proud to see on the board yesterday! I will have to post some photos of the place. I'm working bar tonight so I'll bring my camera.

Life has been pretty quiet otherwise. I miss my friends :) I love you guys. It's hard at times being in a new place, as much as it's exciting at times to be in a new place. I get through it though and I've been working really hard on music. I'll have to set up a myspace so I can put up a few tracks sometime when I get a few more recordings in. I've convinced my housemate to go to some open mike nights in the coming weeks as well. So more adventures to come. Love to all my avid followers and everyone else too.