Why the Hell Can't I Find Anything?!?

My biggest problem anytime I go somewhere new is trying to figure out what that countries equivalents are to stores we have in America. I started a list a while back but I'm not sure where it got to. I figure it's smarter to just keep it on here that way I can't lose it again. 

General: 

Drug Stores: They are called Chemist's in most other counties. They will have most of the stuff your average Walgreen's/CVS/Duane Reade/etc has.

Australia:

Grocery Stores: Woolworth's (which they call Woolies), Coles/Bi-Lo (This is not our Bi-Lo, and as far as I can tell whatever it used to be it is owned by Coles now because all the store brand products are Coles brand), I'm sure there are more, but those are the only one's I've seen so far.

Hardware Store: Bunning's is your basic Home Depot/Lowe's/Ace type store. 

Liqueur Store: They can't sell alcohol in any of the random stores you might find it in in the US. Basically, if you want booze you gotta go to a "bottle shop." From what I can tell these come in all shapes and sizes. They have what we would traditionally call a liqueur store. Then they have little open air drive through style places. Some bars double as bottle shops. 

"I'd like a pint of Heineken and a 6 pack to-go please."

And lastly if a restaurant serves alcohol, sometimes you can by a bottle for "take away," like you're in a chinese place or something. 

"I'll have....the Egg foo young....a number 8 with plum sauce and....throw a bottle of vodka in there while you're at it."

Obviously, the last two are exaggerations, but you get the idea.

Can I get a McPotRoast and a Supersized Peach Cobbler?

My Italian room mates wanted to have a BBQ last week. So we all got together last Saturday and grilled veggies, and chicken, and sausage (we were full/to drunk to operate a grill before the hamburgers even made it out of the fridge.)

Somehow we got on the topic of how good traditional food from our home countries is. There were 6 different nationalities there so it was a pretty interesting conversation. Because I love to cook, I said I'd make an American family dinner some night for everyone. The German, Italian, and Portugese girls (almost in unison) said,

G:"You mean you'll bring home some McDonald's?"  
I:"McDonald's right?"
P:"Oh, McDonald's?

While this is quiet funny, and I took no personal offense, I was channeling Barney Stinson in my head. "Challenge Accepted!"

I made pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, and peach cobbler for dessert. I didn't even have time to take a picture of anything because it was all gone in like 20 minutes. They all conceded that American's also have good food.

Right in the middle of my triumph, Fernando asks, "If I go to America can I get a McPotRoast?"

*shakes head*

Random Happening of the Day (IV)

The Scene: American family dinner. 7 people around the table. 1 German, 1 Brazilian, 2 Italians, 1 Australian, 1 girl from Portugal and me (an American, just in case that wasn't obvious.)

I was gonna make peach cobbler, but I didn't have the right pan so I asked my Australian neighbor, Ash, if he had one I could borrow. When he came over to deliver the pan everyone introduced themselves. After hearing all the different accents Ash asked where they were all from. His response after hearing all the answers was, "Geez, it's like a UN meeting in here."

I LOVE IT!!!

Random Happening of the Day (III)

As I've mentioned before I live in an old Queenslander house. For those who don't know, that means one of the designe features of the house is that it has tons of windows and no A/C. You just open the windows strategically to get the breeze to move through the house the way you want to cool certain rooms.

Well, none of these windows have screens so any time we pulled food out to cook all the flies started hanging around the kitchen and dinning room. It took about 2 days before I decided this was unacceptable. I did some research and it turns out flies don't like the smell of basil.

So I went to the Bunnings(Australian equivalent of Home Depo/Lowes) to get some basil plants to ward off the flies, and extra benefit, fresh basil in the kitchen! I went up to two guys standing out in the gardening section of the store and asked, "Do you guys stock any basil(bay-zul)?"

The first guy looks at me kinda funny and replies, "I'm not sure, I've never heard of it. Let me go check with my supervisor," and starts to run off.

I watched him walk away and turned to the second one thinking there is now way these guys have never heard of basil so I asked the second one, "Sorry, do you have any basil(baz-el)?"

"Dude! She's looking for baz-el!"

"Oh, baz-el! Yeah, we've got that right over here."

I can only imagine more of these delightful verbal misunderstanding will follow in the year to come.

Meet the gang:

I Can Hear the Thunder....

...but hopefully the women don't glow.

I made it a little over a year back in the US before I got that feeling like I needed walk on ground I've never touched before.

So.......I moved to Australia! I'm gonna be here for a year on a work/holiday visa.

I'm working in a hotel in Townsville for the first 6 months then off to who knows where. (Melbourne is the front runner at the moment)

I moved into a beautiful old queenslander house with a Brazilian, a German, and 2 Italians. I love it!

I'll try to be better about updating this blog then I was when I was in Europe, haha.