We went to Sydney!

Man, don't we look happy? It's because we went to Sydney! After four months of trying we finally coordinated our calendars with our friends Alex and Matthew. We went for a weekend of fun and sightseeing in Sydney back in April. This picture was taken at a cute little waterside cafe where we had brunch. Brunch- the greatest meal ever in Australia.

After brunch, we went for a stroll along the walkway which was populated by lizards on the rocks. Here's one guy just saying hello.

This lizard seemed to be very interested in the surf.

After our brunch we started in on some super touristy stuff. Alex and Matthew were nice enough to not roll their eyes too much at us while they came along. We drove up to Manly beach, which is one of Sydney's more iconic suburbs. It even has its own rugby league team, the reigning premiers, the Sea Eagles. Alex said that people from Manly tend to be a very insular crew. Her co-workers from there pretty much associate only with each other, and only go out in Manly. It was a pretty nice area and beach. We rode the ferry back to the Inner Harbor, snapping some great pictures of the city and the Opera House on the way. Riding the Manly ferry is high on the list of things to do in Sydney, we'd recommend it.

From there we walked over to the Museum of Modern Art. Along the way there was a group of Aboriginal Street Performers. Laurel donated a few gold coins and we got a great picture!

Matthew hates the Museum of Modern Art. That was even before we walked in and discovered that all modern art is terrible and really not what any of us would classify as art. When the building was soliciting design ideas, he submitted one, which was not selected. The building they built is not great (which matches the art inside, so maybe that's what they were going for?), but it did have a rooftop cafe which had a great view of the city. Here's the harbor bridge on the horizon.

On Sunday, Matthew had to go into work (booooooooooooo), and we discovered that Alex is many things, but tour guide is not her forte. She actually took us to great places, but didn't sell them very well. Example:

Greg: "So where are we?"
Alex: "The Gap. This is where people go in Sydney to commit suicide."

That does explain this sign and the subsequent phone booths that we came across about every 200 meters.

Amazing, right? Alex took us to the Sydney Harbor National Park (refered to as The Gap), which consists of the cliff face that separate the Sydney harbor from the Pacific Ocean. It is beautiful and majestic. Also, how great is the picture warning that there is a falling hazard?

We were there, and it was awesome. Definitely another Sydney must see.

Looking the other way, great views of the city from there too.

The three of us, enjoying a great day.

This is the anchor of one of the, what sounded like, hundreds of ships that have shipwrecked in the area as a monument to those lost at sea.

Oh, and giant spiders liked to build webs over the walking paths, which is terrifying. These pictures do not do the size of these spiders justice. Australia- a welcoming place.

We finished off our day with a trip to the other famous iconic Australian beach- Bondi. It's definitely a very social and touristy hang-out. Stores and shopping line the beach and a major road goes right by it. It's a big beach for surfing. We were surprised that there wasn't a giant Oporto restaurant right in the middle of it though. Oporto is a local fast food chain which makes chicken burgers, and its entire advertising campaign is centered around Bondi Beach. Their main sandwich is even called the Bondi Burger.

We had an absolutely fantastic weekend! We did a lot of the touristy things in Sydney we hadn't done yet, even though we've been to the city several times before. Sydney is just a gorgeous, picturesque city, that while we don't think we would want to live there, is definitely a place that deserves regular visits.

Multicultural Festival and Bangladeshi Fair

A few months ago, (April I think) it was time for Canberra's yearly Multicultural Festival. We forget why we missed it last year (I think it was raining), but we made sure to go this year. From Friday at noon to Sunday night downtown Canberra is taken over by arts & crafts booths, food carts, and performance stages. The festival breaks into basic geographic areas covering the entire world. We went on Saturday and kind of just entered at random and milled around, eventually finding ourselves in the Polynesian section. We watched the shows and dancing a little bit before peeling off to find more food.

We would not advise messing with the guy on the left.

The place was absolutely packed. We had no idea Canberra even had so many people. It seemed like every country in the world had a booth too, most of them with food or something to sell. We're pretty sure they were all sponsored by the local embassies. Strangely, the US stand was not selling hot dogs.

Each booth had their country's representative flag displayed above, so that you could more easily identify them through the large crowds.

Polynesian woodcraft for sale!

While the women were working the booths, the guys were hanging out here drinking something from coconut shells. Whatever it was, it looked very exotic.

Clearly, we came for the food. It's one of those events that no matter how hungry you show up, and no matter how long you stay, there is just no way you can stuff in all the delicious things there are to try. We had a plate of West African rice and beans and pork, an Eastern European honey liquor (terrible), turkish snacks, and then we turned the corner and found the booth we had been looking for- Finland! Look how happy Laurel is with her pulla!

The next day, another local embassy was sponsoring an open house/fair. This time it was Bangladesh, a country we don't really know all that much about. We still don't know a whole lot about it, but we do know that they have very friendly people, delicious food, and adorable babies, as demonstrated below.

Now, the first thing to remember about fairs like these is you can't just dive in and go eat at the first table you see. Rookie mistake. You need to make a circuit and see what your options are in order to develop a gameplan. Although, we did decide we needed some chicken kabobs while we did that.

Success! This was an orangey, rice pudding. Amazingly good, but ridiculously sweet. It probably took us the better part of a week to finish off the whole container.

This, my friends, is why you have to scope the whole place out. In the very back was a family selling smorgashbord plates with small servings of about a dozen different dishes. For people like us, who want to sample as much as possible, it was perfect. Wow, was it good. After licking the plate we went back to tell them how good it was, and we took a picture of Laurel with the family.

Hmmmmm, sweets. I'll have one of everything.

Those are some happy, well-fed faces.

One of Greg's co-workers went as well, and ate at the same family table that we did. She said that it was one of the better meals she's had since she's been in Canberra. We don't think we would go that far, but it was fantastic. So, if you come cross a Bangladeshi restaurant in your neighborhood, we highly suggest you eat there.

Iron Chef Australia II

Laurel produced the above amazing announcement for the second Iron Chef Australia battle. Her photoshop skills are unmatched. Here's a nice picture from early in the evening perfectly displaying the theme ingredient for the battle. It's oranges, not wine. Also, that's our friend Tim in the picture and he actually is more excited to be there than this picture makes him look.

The party in full swing! Everything worked out beautifully, we could not have planned it better. We had seven entries- two entrees (aka appitizers), two mains, two desserts and Greg's orange, lemon, and cinnamon vodka infusion. Laurel made one of the desserts, which was ricotta pancakes with an orange compote and dark chocolate sauce. It won Best Use of Ingredient.

Brevin and Sadie brought their two boys along, Jackson (4 yrs) and Orion (1 yr). Jackson wanted us to take some pictures of him. This is our favorite. Not sure if he was being a pillow monster or what, but it's pretty great.

It never seems like we have enough counter space, but everyone managed.

Laurel keeping an eye on little Orion. He was very excited about all the activity!

The Balfrey-Boyd family took the orange theme to a whole new level. We may have to offer an award for Best Costume next time, because this was awesome.

Adrian and Cristy, the reigning Iron Chefs, made prawn, vegetable, and orange pockets. Below is a picture of one right before it went in the oven. The pocket let everything bake together- quite good. It was funny, apparently oranges = prawns in Australia, because half the entries featured prawns. Not that anyone was complaining, because prawns are delicious.

Cooking action shot! So much going on in the kitchen island!

Here is the eventual winner, Nabil's prawn and fruit biryani. Several of us agreed that since he's Lebanese and middle eastern food is extra delicious, he had an unfair advantage. It does not matter, though, he is now Iron Chef and totally deserves it.

Now as normally happens at our parties, we're pretty good with the camera for the first hour, and then completely forget about it. So, we only have a picture of the first dish as it was served, but fortunately it was the winner for Best Presentation, a grilled prawn salad with sliced oranges and an orange sauce. Both beautiful and delicious!

We had a great time, and like always, the entries were amazing. We've had three of these parties now, and we can't wait for the next one. What our friends have learned is that if they are coming over to our house they will not be leaving hungry. All of our get togethers seem to heavily involve food. Because really, what else is there?

Remember that time the President came to town?

So . . . this is embarrassing. The side effect of not being able to publish posts for a few months is that it really makes our laziness at publishing posts before the shutdown look ridiculous. Case in point. This happened in November. We are now telling you about it in July.

You may remember (or might not, it was a long time ago) President Obama came to Australia, specifically to Canberra and Darwin. Melbourne and Sydney were super pissed, and since all the media comes out of one of those two cities we heard a lot about how Canberra and Darwin were too small and not "worth a Presidential visit." Screw you Sydney. You may have a cool opera house and 20% of the population, but whatevs- Canberra got Obama!

After giving an address to Parliament (we got stuck in the traffic closures as he drove there) President Obama was going to go to the Embassy to give a private address to Embassy staff. Since Greg works for the US, he naturally got to go. Laurel, however, works for the Aussies. So she called in sick. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. As with any event concerning politicians, the schedule got behind almost immediately, so we had a lot of waiting and standing around. Which is fine, because really, who is going to chastise the Leader of the Free World for being late? Also, Greg was able to convert a hedge into a cup-holder.

A helicopter came and circled the area a few times to make sure everything was legit. It was. I can only imagine how many pictures of this helicopter some of the nearby embassies took. Probably only two or three less than us.

When he arrived, the excitement was really building. The Ambassador gave a short opening address. He's a really good speaker, and a great guy, but I felt a little bad for him, since everyone clearly just wanted him to stop talking and give up the podium.

There he is! We were literally within 20 feet of the President of the United States. All we had to do was move to another country.

We were about one row too far back to shake the President's hand . . .

 . . . but this picture makes it look like we totally did.

Ah, don't leave! Melbourne and Sydney had a point. Darwin is lame, you should totally stay here. Sadly, he did not listen. Stupid future marine base in Darwin. Always making President Obama go visit it.

Now, you may notice below how smartly dressed Laurel and Greg are. They look good (and patriotic). They put some effort in to looking their finest, since how many opportunities like this do you have? And if you aren't going to suit up for the President, who exactly are you going to suit up for? Strangely, we would estimate that only about 40% of the crowd followed this philosophy. There were quite a few people in shorts and sandals, which just seemed weird. Suit up, America, suit up.