Hi there, first I would like to welcome all participants of the World Blog Surf Day!

What a great idea to have a common topic “FOOD” about which every ‘expat-blogger’ writes a post today and you can surf from one blog to the other. This really is a journey around the world, thanks to the organizers.

What kind of food do we miss from home (Hungary, the Netherlands)? Well, to be honest not too much, apart from my mother`s cooking of course, and this has two reasons. The first is that I try to cook what we like to eat and what we feel like. The second is that we try to adapt to what is available here. For example the peaches in Hungary are much better; there is no competitor, so we simply do not buy these things. On the other hand, we are perfectly happy with mangos and avocados for example ))), because they are really delicious here.

Adapting to the local customs and circumstances was not very easy in the first weeks. We had many more problems than now, but it is funny to remember and to look back. I will always remember our very first day here in Australia. We arrived here after two days of long traveling, exhausted, and I offered to do the cooking and groceries. Looking around in a completely new city, in a completely unknown suburb, a kind of little Chinatown, was a cultural shock to phrase it carefully.

I could not find a “normal” western supermarket, so I started wondering around in the Asian shops and supermarkets. The huge amount and variety of products cannot be compared with what I knew from home.  There were several shelves with only different kinds of soy and chili sauces, unbelievable… I was looking for eggs, but all I could find was suspicious looking green “thousand year old”-eggs. I was looking for cheese, but I could only choose from a hundred types of tofu. At the end I came home with some kind of filled pastry, so called “dumplings”, and a few vegetables I knew. But wow, this first shopping was not something to forget.

Then of course, after time went by, we got more and more familiar with Asian cuisine, as 99 percent of our neighbourhood seems to be of Asian origin. We now even know how to deal with different kinds of soy sauce )) A while ago we noticed that after our weekly groceries, most of the bags were filled with some kind of Asian peculiarities; we just had to make a picture of this.

Our cooking changed into something completely different than we were used to from home. Finally I got Attila so far, that he actually likes eating fish, and other kinds of seafood. Last time when we bought baby octopus, he even insisted to clean this, as we had never bought this before and he had to try this.

So what are the things we have learned to cook? In the past one and a half year, I have made countless times sushi rolls, stir-fried udon noodles and our favorite, the Korean bibimbap. We noticed that it is very important how you plate your dish and that you do not just put some food in front of somebody.

But of course we also learned a few things from the real Aussies, especially regarding the BBQ. This is really their specialty and you can find `barbi` tables almost everywhere: in parks, on beaches and everywhere where you can have a grill outside.

A few times we have tried to prepare kangaroo, first I was a bit hesitating, but I have to admit it is really nice, like lamb meat, which became my other favorite here in Sydney.

Nowadays something completely different has much influence on our cooking: the TV-series MasterChef. We are really big fans now and try not to miss a single episode. As a result of this show our cooking style starts to look more like the European again. We have tried many recipes the contestants had to cook, like apple or pear Tarte Tatin, gnocchi with parsley, stir-fried udon noodles, fried zucchini flower etc. You can really learn many tricks from this show, especially from the MasterClass.

This is what I can think of when talking about our gastronomical experiences of the past one and a half year. I am curious to read how other people managed to adept or integrate in a new country, so I will  move on to the site of Hans, come with me)))…..

And finally, thanks for the WBSD Twittering to Anastasia on Thandelike
(Anastasia Ashman (Thandelike) is an American cultural producer based in Instanbul, and is a creator of Expat Harem, the anthology by foreign women about modern Turkey.  Her Tweetstream focuses on women, travel and history, and she shares resources for writers/travelers, expats, Turkophiles and culturati of all stripes.)

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It was funny to read this morning, that it was so rainy in Coogee on Saturday evening that cars were floating on the roads, while we were so lucky to see the stars on a completely clear sky in Parramatta for several hours…

Last week one of the friends/colleagues of Attila invited us to go to this program in the west of Sydney. Okay, why not? That’s a great idea, especially, because we are celebrating the Year of Astronomy this year.

This event was organised by Parramatta Park Trust: some dozen of professional and amateur astronomers gathered in a huge park with impressive telescopes, one better than the other, to show the stars and the sky for the broad public. There were a lot of people living nearby and even more school children, so the atmosphere was really good.

My husband and his two colleagues represented the CSIRO and its department for astronomy called ATNF (Australian Telescope National Facility) with two telescopes. This was the very moment, when being a so called `astronomer wife` was a very good thing)) I could stand there with these guys and I could touch the telescopes and see whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, at least before the people arrived. This was a really big experience to see the Moon with the bigger telescope for a quarter of an hour or more, and see all those little and big craters, as I had never seen it before. It was so amazing!!!

I took some photos with our camera, but if you want to see better photos, maybe this blog will contain some. It is written by one of our friends, and he is blogging about astronomy in Spanish. But since he has put the Google translation program on the blog, you can follow his astronomy-stories in English as well. Sometimes it is funny because of the translation made by computer, but the blog itself is really interesting.

Back to the evening…I do not know why, but it was organised in the period of half moon, so you can imagine there was a lot of light, but no worries, we could see some real beauties…. For example Saturn with its ring and moons. I was told it would be more attractive in a few years, when it is tilted a bit, so you would see the ring even better.

Then there was the wonderful Orion Nebula with its gas cloud, this was very popular on Saturday night. We also could see the so called Stellar Jewel Box in the Milky Way, except for me. It was a small accident… I was freezing so much after two or three hours in the middle of the park at 10 p.m.,  that I sat into the car for a couple of minutes. Then I just missed it, because the sky became cloudy… But to tell you about the Jewel Box: it is a cluster of stars, nearby and shining in different colours.

Further more, there was a really interesting thing about the `double star`, as we used this term often to invite people to our telescopes. Would you like to see double stars? Double stars? Yes, they like two shining diamonds. WOWW!!Do you see them? Yessss,amazing!!!!What`s the name? Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri….

I did not know, that one of the Pointers - the two stars under the Southern Cross-, actually consists of three stars. The lowest bright star has three stars in reality, but you can see only two of them with these telescopes (and only one with your eyes).

And then it was interesting to see so many telescopes in one big park. There were also some bigger ones than ours. One particular one was sooo big, that you had to use a 3 m high ladder to reach it. The owner told us that the lens inside was 25 inch wide… Yes, this is the size of an average bicycle wheel…This telescope was actually very popular among the public: you had to wait in a queue))) It was pointed toward Saturn, and we also wanted to look have a look. But to tell you the truth, it was not much better than our telescope, though it was really amazing.

One more thing…I was amazed how clever the little children were. They asked several intelligent questions, so they made the atmosphere even better)))

Summarizing, I was really happy to be there. I can recommend you to visit this kind of event if you have one in your neighborhood. Everyone was so amazed by the stars!! Plus the sky in the southern hemisphere is much clearer than in the north. Attila will write a post about this later, if I ask him kindly)))

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It is already a bit late, and I really would like see the French movie that is starting in a few minutes on television. But I promised myself this morning that, whatever may happen, I will write this post tonight.  Today was a very nice day, not only with respect to the weather, but much more interesting than we initially thought as well. Today is April 25: ANZAC Day, I will tell a bit more about this day.

ANZAC is an acronym for ‘Australian and New-Zealand Army Corps ‘. Both in Australia and New Zealand, they celebrate this event on April 25. Maybe it is one of the most important Australian days, with very long parades and many memorial services.

Initially this day was to pay tribute to those soldiers that died in World War One. In 1915 the Australian and New Zealand army entered the Turkish peninsula Gallipoli on this day, trying to force back the Turkish troops. The initial plan did not really succeed end ended up in an almost eight months during bloody war. At the end of the year the ANZAC-soldiers had to be rescued after enormous losses. (more than 8700 Australian and 2700 New-Zealand soldiers have died.)

The first ANZAC day was already held in 1916 to honor this war, and over the decades it became a important tradition to memorise those who died. Today ANZAC day is to honor all who have died in any war or conflict. All those who have sacrificed their blood and live for the nation and for peace.

I was surprised when I heard today, that only in the state of New South Wales, there are about 3000 ANZAC memorials.  There are many parades, services, prays, flags, drums and bagpipes, and lots of wreaths.

What was really interesting for me is that the memorials already started at quarter past four in the morning.  Not only here, but everywhere in Australia they start with the ‘Dawn Service ‘ before the first light. This has a very deep meaning. On the war-field it was very common (apparently it still is), that the enemy starts to attack at dawn. For this reason the defending soldiers had to be ready for war way before sunrise, quite and without moving. These are the moments that makes the bond between troops stronger, the moment that are still remembered, that soldiers were in the same situation with the same problems.  This is the so called ‘stand-to ‘ moment, which is repeated at sunset.

The precise program of all the memorials can be found in the link at the bottom of this post. I found a lot on interesting information on these pages. Maybe you would like to know what kind of symbols they use on this day. Apart from the many decorations that can be found on the countless uniforms, there are the paper poppies. These small flowers can also be seen on Remembrance day, which are used to make wreaths and are placed on all the war memorials. They are also used to pin next to the names of those who have died, on the so called Memorial’s Roll of Honour. The other one is the laurel, which is used to make laurel wreaths, we have seen many on Market Place.

Most common on ANZAC day, is that those who ‘remember’ pin a small twig of rosemary on their breast. We asked a friendly veteran, who allowed us to make a picture of his decorations while he was telling about them. Many were not his own, but from his father who was in the army all his live. The rosemary is  a very old symbol , and because of the smell that apparently improves your memory, it is the symbol of memorial.

We are not Australians, but we like special events, and for us one of the best associations with ANZAC day is the ANZAC-biscuit. This is a small coconut flavored tea biscuit, which originally used to be baked by the women and was sent to the front, ‘to keep morale high’.

It was interesting to see the many generations of soldiers: the young man in his early twenties, the grown up man surrounded by his family or the old veterans, sometimes in a wheelchair. The city was full of celebrating families; all the bars were occupied by marines with their friends and girlfriends. In front of us one marine man traded his cap with that of girl from the royal air force.  During a memorial service in Hyde Park, the boys holding the flags were starting to faint one by one, it was to warm, or teenagers here do not eat properly either The veterans were proudly showing their medals and decorations. On every corner we met men in skirts playing the bag pipe.

After all, I am really glad that we have seen the parade and one of the memorials in Hyde Park, as it was very interesting and impressive.

So this was our ANZAC-day very briefly. And while I have been writing all of this, I also managed to see the movie…)))

http://www.awm.gov.au

Wikipedia

cityofsydney

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“The race that stops a nation.” That is how Australian people describe the Melbourne Cup and it really does! Today was the second time I watched this horse race. Last year I did not have a clue what the Melbourne Cup is, but now I know it is big, really big, almost bigger than the U.S. elections. It is the major annual horse race and generally regarded as the most prestigious “two-mile” handicap in the world, according to Wikipedia. The event is held on the first Tuesday in November, just like the U.S. elections. Actually I thought that Australians are mostly interested in rugby and cricket, but now I think that more people watch the Melbourne Cup than the rugby-league final. Most weekend newspapers came with a special edition dedicated to the race with more analysis and pictures about Master O’Reilly or Septimus than about Obama and McCain together.

The Melbourne Cup is celebrated as a public holiday in Victoria, but we live in Sydney so unfortunately no free day for us. However everyone in Australia stops working when the race is about to begin. Where I work you could by ‘sweep tickets’ during the day and bet on one or more horses. An hour before the race everybody came together in the canteen for free drinks and snacks, all prepared for ‘the Cup’. I think this is different for every work place, last year there was a big lunch and then a whole ceremony of selling and bidding on horses.

I was quite excited to see my first horse race, because I have not been very interested in any sport that is related to horses. More than 100.000 people come together on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne. It is also about fashion, wearing your best suit, your most extraordinary hat and get to be seen. But you have to pay very much attention once the race really starts, the horses run almost 60 km an hour, so the whole race takes less than 4 minutes. This years winner is Viewed, who beat Bauer in the closest finish ever as can be seen on the picture

Unfortunately we could not visit the race our self and we had to do with television. Therefore no photo report or video this time, but if you are interested you can watch this video.

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