Blue Mountains & Yulefest Recap

Last weekend we joined up with some friends and went to the Blue Mountains, about a 2 hour train ride from Sydney, for a relaxing weekend and Yulefest. We had a great day on Saturday, hiking around the Blue Mountain trails and seeing the '3 Sisters' rock formation. The weather was a bit cold, but not too bad considering it is winter. We were also able to walk around the villages of Katoomba and Leura....lots of great local shops and cafes.



Saturday evening we went to the Mountain Heritage Hotel for the big (6 course) Yulefest dinner. After a little mix-up with the reservations, we finally sat down and enjoyed an 'OK' dinner with great friends. Some of the highlights were the creepy Australian Santa that came around to every table and the cheesy 'gifts' at the table (which included paper crown hats). All in all it was good fun and we did actually feel like it was a vacation outside of the city.

We Be Cultured

In addition to enjoying the colorful sights and sounds of musical geniuses such as the Scissor Sisters, whose concert highlights include the launching of florescent colored wigs out of air guns into the audience, I have now added opera to my musical repertoire.

For our first opera experience, we went to the Operatic Aria Competition at the Sydney Opera House this past weekend. This is a competition that identifies young opera talent. The prize for the winner is a $50,0000 scholarship to study opera anywhere in the world.

This isn't an event that we would typically find or seek out on our own, but our neighbor, Susannah, was playing violin in the orchestra and was able to get us tickets. To boot, one of Susannah (and Will, her husband's) friends was one of the six finalists in the competition.

We didn't know what to expect, but we were thoroughly impressed with what we saw and heard. We heard operatic aria highlights from the great composers and vocal ranges from bass to soprano. The singers were in formal ball gowns or tuxes with tails. It was really a great experience. To make things better, Susannah and Will's friend won the competition!

We capped off the night with a bottle of wine at the Opera Bar, which has to be one of the best settings in the world.

We will definitely be going back for more...and by more, we me opera...and wine.

Texas Size

Everything is bigger in Texas...even when it is in Australia. Here is the back of a muffin mix, check out how many muffins it makes.

Australian Slang Dictonary

Recently we have noticed a lot of Australian slang and figured it was time to keep track of all of the crazy lingo. I am sure we will be adding to this list so I will put this a permanent link on the main page.

Here we go...

Arvo = Afternoon
Brekie = Breakfast
Blue = to make a mistake
Chockers = Crazy
Cracking = Good
Crook = to be ill
Cuppa = Cup of Tea/Coffee
Footy = Rugby
Mozzie = mosquito
Pissed = Drunk
Rego = Registration (auto, etc...)
Servo = Quickie Mart
Smoko = Work Break (originally for a smoke break)
Spit the Dummy (or Dummy Spit) = get very upset at something
Tosser = Jerk