THE MAD KIWI'S LIST OF HER FAVOURITE THINGS

I figured if Oprah could have a list then so could I.  A pity that I can't give my viewing audience a free sample of each!

1.  Industrial strength ear plugs.  Note that they are not those weak foam ones.  These are the read deal.  No fiddling around with squeezing, then pulling your ear etc. Just jam these babies in and I'm guaranteed a quiet night.  Bonus is that they have a bright red string attached so if they fall out in the night they are super easy to find in your bed!

2.  This stuff is insanely good. I'm not usually a white chocolate or mashmellow fan but these are amazing!  I was given a bar for Halloween yesterday and now I think I am addicted.  Be warned... get ready for a sugar hit!

3.  Daniel Carter's legs.  Not only is this guy a brilliant rugby player for New Zealand, he is not that bad to look at either :-)








4.  My pink pair of fake crocs.  These are the most ugliest shoes ever invented.  I promise to never wear them in public.  And screw wasting money on the real deal when you can pick up a pair at BIG W for $4.95.  These puppies are essential when you share a shower block with 5 other people who have an aversion to house cleaning. Enough said. 




 5. Fruit snakes!  I'm addicted.  No other brand quite has the flavour. My room mate from Germany laughs at the jelly babies as apparently in her country they eat jelly bears.  I never really thought about how strange it is to eat candy the shape of children!

6.  M*A*S*H.  Still wins out over Home and Away, Neighbours and all the other mid afternoon crap they put on TV.  The earlier seasons are the best... Trapper John, Frank and Henry Blake.  I have been known to cry on occasion. 

 7. A coat hanger.  The aerial on my car was broken off years ago and replaced with a coat hanger.  Real classy looking but at least I can still listen to the radio!

8.  My black velour bathroom.  Again, not to be worn in public... even around the room mates.  But who needs clothes when you can wear a robe?  haha.

The Whanau Visits Canberra

Oh I'm all homesick now after saying goodbye to my stepbrother and his family. They came to stay with at university for two nights.  We had such a fabulous time.  It was great to have people to hang out with, go to dinner with and obviously heaps and heaps of laughs too.  We ended up gate crashing the rugby league grand final up at the other dorms as our tv wouldn't work. We looked a right bunch turning up with our cheese platter, salsa and tortilla chips and bags of popcorn while the teenagers at the dorm sat their drooling and then rushed back to their rooms to get beer at half time.  Then we go to participate in a fire drill. Very exciting with the trucks and firemen.  Unfortunately they then turned all the gas service off to the building and so my planned BBQ was ruined. The next day we went at played a Questicon.  It is a giant science playground really. Lots of gadgets for the kids to touch.  There is this slide called Free Fall which I didn't go on. You hang from an overhead pole and then just let go (hence the free fall part) and fall until you hit the slide and slide down.  Little kids were doing it so it couldn't have been dangerous but it sure looked scary!

We went up the Telstra Tower for the most amazing views over the city.  Dinner was a Traders in Dickson.  We ate in a tram carriage!  Today we went to the War Memorial Museum. We rushed around in an hour and half. You could easily spend days there.  They have amazing interactive exhibits like a bomber plane that you stand in and it vibrates and there is a screen that opens up on the floor as though you are actually in the plane getting ready to drop the bombs.  So much to see there and entry was by gold coin donation.
Classes start back next week. I have mountains of work to do before then though.  Only one more month until the end of the semester.

click on photo to enlarge

What's Going On Outside Your Bedroom Window Today?

Right outside my window are trucks as construction has started on a new parking lot and 7 story building. I'm overjoyed.

Um, I Think Something May Have Gone Wrong!

I opened up my chilly bin to do my daily turning of the cheeses and found that my brie had turned to liquid overnight!  I dunked them in boiling water which removed the green mold skin and then sprayed a new white mold on the outside.  The harder cheeses (the 3 green lumps) are quite firm and seem to be coming along well. These will be another 4 weeks of maturing before I wrap them.  They really should be dipped in wax but I don't have any.  I hope I don't give myself food poisoning!

Part of the brie slipped through my fingers and landed on the floor. Groase!

I think my career as a cheese maker may well be doomed by the results of this first attempt.  I shall keep my day job... oh that's right, I don't have one :-)

The Goods...

Procrastinating and seeking to find a haven from the noise of the drilling outside my bedroom window as construction of a 7 story building starts, I decided to cook up the paneer that I made yesterday.

 palak paneer

 matar paneer

The results are a delicious dish of matar paneer and palak paneer... both made from 100% fresh vegetables
 :-) and they tasted way better then they looked.

Having Whey Too Much Fun

Yesterday I took a cheese making course at the Old Cheese Factory near Braidwood in New South Wales (about an hour and half from Canberra).  It was run by the legendary senior lecturer from Charles Sturt University, Barry Lillywhite. 

The Old Cheese Factory



I am more than a little addicted cheese and was so excited to be able to find a course being held while I am here in Australia.  The day was brilliant and I learned so much about the art of making cheese and have developed an even greater appreciation of the work that goes into making even a small block of cheese.  We make three cheeses - a paneer (I shall cook some matar paneer with that tonight and some dal and rice), a blue brie and a harder blue cheese. There were only 10 of us on the course and luckily I was paired with a lovely lady Annie (my favourite cat was called Annie) who was a very competent farmers wife. I introduced myself by disclosing what a terrible cook I am and that she shouldn't feel bad about bossing me around!  We got on wonderfully and I turned out to be a great dish washer, milk stirrer and mold turner overer whilst she took control of the temperature readings and time keeping.  Everything seems to be so precise and I kept forgetting what and when we had done the previous step in the cheese making process. We were fed home made beef pies for lunch with relish and organic vegetable salad followed by a fruit salad with sheep's milk yogurt and a glass of raspberry and pear(?) wine.  I ended up also purchasing a couple of the most delicious bottles of champagne apple cider which with 9.8% alcohol content, I might save them until my university studies are finished for the year.  I now have 7 blocks of cheese that I need to nurture with TLC for at least the next 6 weeks.  They are currently soaking for 6 hours in a brine solution and then need 24 hours of drying before I stab them and put holes in for the mould to hopefully start growing.  I then need to somehow procure materials to construct 2 humidity chambers for them to rest in for the next few months when I am required to turn them daily!    Like I said, I have a great appreciation for cheese makers now.  I am hoping that I will be able to use a chillybin and put water and the bottom and build a platform above the water for the cheeses to sit on.  I don't have a thermostatically controlled fridge like a wine fridge to keep them at 14 degrees so will just have to do my best by finding a cool spot in the apartment (and hope that my flatmates don't touch them!).   Yicks.   I also bought home in my drink bottle some of the left over whey and used instead of milk in my pancakes this morning.  They were delicious.  I wonder why we can't buy whey at the store since it is much better for you?


Next week I start my glass blowing course through the Canberra Institute of Technology at  Canberra Glassworks.  I'll have to post some pictures of my soon to be master pieces! haha.

GIDDAY MATES!

Well it's been a while since I sat down and updated my blog.  I've been in Australia for 2 amazing months.  Most of my time is spent studying but I've also managed to pick up some part time work :-)  I didn't come here to work but it is nice to be able to add some moola to the bank account rather than watching my savings dwindle away.  I'm having a blast.  I live with 5 other people - the oldest of which is 7 years younger than me and the youngest is 14 years younger! What a diverse bunch we are - a Kiwi, an Aussie, 2 Malaysians, a German/Pole and an Austrian.  Meals times are interesting with so many 'exotic' dishes being cooked up.  We joke about the cleaning fairy who seems to whisk through our apartment about once a week (when I get time).  I'm trying to gently encourage them to clean up after themselves but am adamant that I am not their mother and therefore refuse to nag. I've learned to wear shoes in the kitchen to avoid having things stick to my feet!  It sounds disgusting but really they are great companionship and as long as I can find my ear plugs I always manage to sleep well.  As for the study, well I love it.  It is the hardest thing that I have ever done.  My brain aches, my eyes strain and I am completely stressed but have learned so much already.  There are 6 more weeks until the end of the semester and I have what seems like a million assignments that I need to work on.

I haven't been out exploring much as I am truely just enjoying hanging out in Canberra.  I do love going to a park on the other side of Lake Burley Griffin.  It is only about a 10 minute drive from the apartment I feel like I am somewhere remote. It is so quiet and kangaroos hop past and wild cockatoos fly over head. There is a beach there so I hope to go swimming when the weather warms up a bit more.

Haven't finalised plans for the summer yet but I am definitely heading back to New Zealand for a few months. I'm looking forward to the first family Christmas in years.

Pictures of Canberra:

My wee room on Campus.
It is nice to have some of my personal stuff to make it my own space.  The tv room is right outside my door. The other flatmates don't ever watch it so I kind of feel like it is an extension of my bedroom.

At the Lake

There's No Place Like Home

I did it! For better, or worse I managed to last out 2 years teaching in Uzbekistan. There were a whole bunch of highlights, trials and tribulations and I am so glad to finally be back home 'Down Under'. One day I'll be ready to laugh about the whole experience - it's still a bit soon for that though. I don't want to disparage anyone else who lived/worked there as every one's experience is unique to them so at this stage I prefer not to elaborate too much on my experiences. Someone told me that over time you only remember the good stuff. I hope so.

I spent all of last week in New Zealand. I caught up with a bunch of friends, was shell shocked by consumption choices at the mall and restaurants, baffled by the price of things and totally devoid of any knowledge of popular culture. After 9 years of living overseas I felt a wee bit foreign in my own country. I did get to watch an All Blacks rugby game on tv with friends (we won against France! About bloody time after the horrendous result at the World Cup in 2007). I think it won't take much time for me to readjust and get back in the swing of things. I'm still dreaming of the day when I can finally buy a place of my own there. So in my 8 days at home I managed to consume more than my fair share of chicken chips. No, they're not made of chicken and don't really even taste like chicken but they sure are bloody good. I'll be looking out for something similar when I'm over in Canberra. Email me some brand suggestions :-)

For the next 3 weeks I'm in Queensland, Australia just chilling with my Mum and stepdad. Gosh I missed them so much. We got to spend a brilliant few weeks together in India over Christmas but again there is nothing like being together at home - even if it is in Australia (joking, I really do like it here). Went to the bowling club tonight and then out for dinner. BBQ planned for tomorrow and a few test matches to watch on tv. How quintessentially Australian is that! We have no fixed plans for the rest of the time just hopefully selling the house so that my parents can move back to NZ ASAP.

After my holiday up here I will be heading down to Canberra for university. My stepdad has given me his old car (haven't driven in 2 years and was pretty bad when I did) and I'll be loading it up with my stuff and driving down. I think it will take me about 3 days to get there. Boo hoo. I've finally got accommodation sorted. There is such a shortage of places for rent there and the prices are ridiculously expensive. I will be staying in a student dorm on campus. I'm almost positive that I'll end up lumped with a bunch of 18 year olds. I can just see their reaction now when they find out this old lady is sharing the apartment with them! Anyway I am totally stoked to be able to focus on studies as a full time student and not have to juggle work at the same time. Here's hoping for some decent grades! I have a few ideas for travel (if I can get the time) and will head down to Melbourne for a weekend some time at the end of July. Can't wait to catch up with friends that I taught with in North Carolina. I am also hoping to pick up my camera again and get back into photography. Life has been so stressful for so long that I haven't taken any pictures this year.

What a Day, What a Week

I've been feeling really antsy about moving country again.   Australia will be my third country in 3 years and it means yet another set of goodbyes, packing up my possessions and moving on.  I'm totally psyched for it though and have been counting down the weeks for what seems like forever (I'm at 3 weeks to go and I'm been counting since 24!).    I'm a bit bummed that time isn't going by quicker (and I feel guilty for this as I know there will come a day when I will regret wishing away a single second) and I'm missing my friend and family like crazy.  However, today was one of those days when a reality check comes in the form of news that slaps you around the head.  In the middle of firing off a whinging email to someone back home about the crap week I've had, I was interrupted by a friend who shared some news about a very challenging personal situation that has the potential to drastically change her own and her family's life.   I was stuck for words and did my best to respond supportively and then spent my entire day thinking about her and wishing that I could just wish away all her worries, and thinking about how out of whack my outlook on the next few weeks is.   I'm spoilt.  So I'm going to work on attitude.  There's some corny quote that goes something along the lines of "Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it".   Yeah, I need to work on that.

In other news...  apparently a UFO was sighted in Tashkent.  

http://www.allnewsweb.com/page6826828.php

Putting Out The Trash

This morning while I was hanging up my freshly ironed clothes (yes, miracles do happen) the door bell rang.  It scared the bejebbers out of me at first as I seldom have visitors and if I do they phone first.  I ignored the first and second ring as my landlady told me that she'd already payed 'taxes' for the year and so no one should come bothering me.  The third ring was irritating so I went and peeked through the spy hole and saw a woman there - not a uniformed police officer coming to 'inspect' passports, so I unlocked the 3 locks that secure me safely in my apartment and swung open the reinforced steel door.  I have no idea what the woman wanted to tell me but through the tone of her voice and the waving of receipts I guessed it was to pay 'taxes'.  Not wanting to part with any of my soum I waved her on upstairs to the other apartments where I promised someone would speak English and could then translate for me/her.  I rushed back inside and tried to call my landlady. I say tried, because I failed to get hold of her.  It would help if I actually had any credit left on my cell phone.  Opps.  Well my friendly upstairs neighbour came down and told me that this was the Trash Lady and that she wanted 12,000 soum which is apparently the tax for taking care of the trash.  Gid yeah trash?  I asked.  Where is the trash?  What trash?  Where does she take it?  Apparently she comes every month. No one knows what trash she collects as it certainly isn't ours as we regularly traipse the 1/2 km to the dumpster down the road where homeless people peck through it before the feral cats get a chance.   Anyway my friendly neighbour gave the Trash Lady my landlady's phone number and so I get to keep my 12,000 soum and best of all I get to keep putting my own trash out.

And so I did.  I took my giant blue plastic trash bag for a walk and decided this time to take my camera to record this wee adventure.  Today's trash walk ended up being rather fun actually.  I was escorted by 3 wee kids that were roaming the apartment complex.   We didn't really understand much of what we were saying to each other but it made a mundane chore interesting.  

p.s.  check out the Uzbek eyebrows drawn on the doll!