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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In the last few months we made too many pictures but we have not updated our photo gallery so often.  To solve this problem we had the idea: why not regularly post one of our pictures on the blog?

Today we were very sad: Attila`s bike was stolen last night from the staircase. He went to work but came back very soon with the lock -cut across- in his hand and said calmly: `at least we do not need to sell it anymore  (when we move)`…

So what to do? Write a message on the wall like `hello, do you know who has taken my bike?`, as that `Germany-fan` guy did from the house some months ago searching for his jacket? It was stolen from the car park where he left it and it was a very important jacket for him because he had sewn the German flag into it after some kind of German football victory in the past…

Or call the police to ask them making a research in every flat in this district? Hello, haven`t you seen anyone in the dark last night during the heavy rains with a stolen bicycle? It doesn’t make much sense.

I wrote a message on Twitter, but at this stage it did not help.

So I made a quick research on Internet and found this website of Bicycles Network Australia and its forum about stolen bikes which seems to be the only effective solution. We can register our bike there and see what happens. Maybe somebody will find it or at least if the thief wants to sell the bike maybe the buyer checks this website first. Who knows? But if you have a better idea how to find this bicycle, tell us, we would be very pleased!

When something is stolen from you - whether it is an important object or not - it is very frustrating and makes you nervous but also very empty for a while. It was yours!

Sydney is not a bad place to live and we are lucky because in this suburb we don`t feel the public safety or security to be as bad as it is said to be in some westerns suburbs. But being naive and leave the bicycle in the open staircase was not so smart.  After this we will not leave things in `unsecure places` ever. And maybe we will also tell this story to our friend who uses to leave his kayak sometimes on the street on his car, saying that `a lot of people use to have kayaks in Sydney, they won`t steel mine`…

But for now we upload this photo about the Ferris wheel from Luna Park in Sydney. It symbolizes some kind of nostalgic feeling. Ups and Downs…Generally I do not like fun-fairs.  And this park called Luna Park in Sydney also has not changed this feeling. It was almost empty every time we were walking by-maybe just because it was always raining as well…But the view must be scenic and nice from the cabins: the Luna Park is located on the harbour side in the north, just next to the tremendous Harbour Bridge, and you can see the Opera House on the left as well. Great place to visit!

We will also post a picture of the bike, in case you might see it somewhere, just let us know ….

So about the bicycle:

Type: Merida Dakar; Colour: black; mountain bike, 26 inch wheel, 21 inch frame.

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I woke up this morning, urgently checked my mail as I am used to, and there was this message waiting for me: `Kevin Rudd is following you`. Yeah, that was funny to see. LOL.

I signed up to Twitter a few days ago, because I was interested what this social network is all about, that everyone is talking about these days, even  in the news. More and more celebrities are joining this network.

So I am tweeting as well, but to tell you the truth, I do not now for how long. I am not interested in doing this all the time. And you know what? I am not alone with this. According to a research around 60 percent of twewbies -new people to Twitter- do not use Twitter after the first month. I can understand this, because I also do not use social networks as much and as intensively as many others, but this time I was really interested  why it is different from other social networks, such as the Hungarian Iwiw, the Dutch Hyves or the most famous Facebook .

If you only look at the benefits or the positive side of this site, Twitter can be useful and funny. And why not see the positive side only? Yeah, public social networks can be dangerous, but this time I do not want to be more paranoid. So let`s talk about the good things.

You can make your profile on Twitter and you even can have ‘friends’. The big difference is that you can make connection with celebrities or companies much easier. Because you click on celebrities to follow them, does not mean you know them personally or you are friends. It means only that you are `following` them. Mutually, they can follow you as well, so they become your `followers`.  Why they want to follow you or be followed by you if they have absolutely no idea who you are?  The reason is very simple: it is a really good marketing tool for them to build closer relationship and/or sell you some products much easier…

Basically, what you are following is a short message consisting of a maximum of 140 characters, about what people are doing during their day. It is like: `I am going to the cinema tonight`.  People like reading what others are doing at the same time. What they are eating, what kind of situation they are in, what they are wearing, etc. I am not sure that this is true for everyone, I think there are more important things in the world, but on the other hand I can imagine it. You use to ask your family members or friends as well what they did or what they like, don`t you? And if you can not ask but would like to, it is easy to read it almost secretly, isn`t it?

So in this way, Twitter is a so called `microblog`, because you can send your short messages, like you do in sms or text-messages, but it is going to reach a broader public on Internet, not to mention, that it is free these days. It is a bit similar to MSN where people use to make a short notice next to their names -seen by their friends-, but I recon it is not changing so often.

For me the biggest advantage is that it is an easy way of getting news-updates. On a separate page, you can see all the messages of persons or companies you are following, ordered in time. I started following the Hungarian “Index” and the Sydney Morning Herald, as I noticed that they are continuously sending their latest news headlines. It was funny that the SMH immediately replied and started following me, but I am still waiting for Index, they need a wake-up call. If they only knew what they loose by not following me…

So I have four followers with Kevin Rudd: the Sydney Morning Herald, an SMH-blogger Joe Hildebrand, a figure that is changing his personality all the time, and now Kevin Rudd, the REAL ONE!!! Oh, if you have not heard from him, he is the prime minister of Australia!!!

I say the REAL ONE, because if I search for Kevin Rudd at this moment, the search engine gives 13 results. Among these KevinRuddPM is the real nickname, and it is not Kevin Rudd, just because the so called ‘squatters’ already hijacked his identity.

Not everyone is real however, it seems unlikely that the prime minister sits in front of his computer because of this. They employ someone for this purpose, the so called ‘ghost-twitter’. Hugh Jackman embarrassed himself recently, when his “ghost-twitter” was talking about the Opera Center instead of the Opera House. This looks quite bad for someone from Australia, so to save his image after these harmful 140 characters, he donated 100 thousand dollar to charity a few days later. From now on, I also will be very careful when writing something on Twitter…

Like on other sites, there are also some people here hiding behind the name of someone who is famous, and abuse it by writing nonsense. Today there was an article about this in the SMH. In general there is quite a lot of news about Twitter or Facebook, as a kind of advertisement, telling which celebrity reached a million followers or who the latest famous member is. There are also articles with a warning, how people can use these sites for wrong reasons. But there are also many success stories.

Recently I read, there was a smart company (SR7): that immediately adapted to these new developments they are doing research for other companies about the behaviour of their employees on social networks. Many companies are afraid (maybe with a good reason), that employees can damage the image of the company, if they are writing negative things on these sites. To prevent this, Telstra  came up with new regulations, about how their employees should deal with the social networks.

A well known recent case for example is Domino Pizza, when two employees uploaded a few pictures, about how they are ‘polluting’ the pizzas, before bringing them to the customers. This was all I needed! I hate it, if you are so vulnerable; you indeed never know what exactly you are eating…

It became clear, that many companies cannot really use this kind of damaging accidents and they sacked people because of their Facebook messages. Attila read somewhere yesterday, that a person got fired because she stayed home sick, saying that she cannot work, because she is not allowed to use a computer. But then she uncovered herself while writing on Facebook…

So be careful!

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Some of my family members -especially my dear sister- asked me several times to write a post about the aussie slang. Here we go, I took my time to collect some funny and truly Australian slang expressions. Some of them were known by us, but there were plenty of them which were completely new to us, of course.

It was really interesting to see what differences there are between websites and between their slang word collections - what kind of words are included there, and how they are spelled. I think there are some words that are only used for a short time, but on the other hand, this country is sooo big, that it is virtually impossible that everybody in every corner of this country knows everything. Here is a nice video on Youtube, it is worth to read the comments as well. Nice to see how some people are almost angry on each other because of using different expressions in the same country.

To tell you the truth, the task to write about the slang of another country is a bit difficult-especially because we are not native English speakers. We do not know every expression here; it is much more difficult to understand them on the train when other people are chatting behind you, etc. However if we knew more we also would not use them -except maybe those two or three which are really in our mind because they are used commonly in every situation, not just as slang words, like `no worries`, aussie, etc. Furthermore it is always really weird when a non-native English speaker tries to say something funny `aussie`, because it just does not work. You can not imitate that kind of funny and energetic pronunciation, especially if you have some kind of sweet but tough European-sounding accent. This is not funny but embarrassing. Especially if he wants to curse (Attila: what about she-ilas??). There is a saying that one can pray and count numbers only in his/her own mother tongue. In my opinion, cursing is the same category. Or do you have a different view?

So, let`s talk about the topic!! We shall start with the most typical expressions.

Australians use to talk about themselves as `aussie` or `Oz`, and the latter means the country itself, as well, just like the expressions `down under` or the `Lucky Country`. By the way, the lingo or the slang is called `Strine` (Australian English).

Friends or buddies like saying hello as `ga day`/`gidday`/`G`day, mate`, but it is also common among friendly strangers and you can hear the shop assistant saying it as well. If they want to start a conversation, it often begins as ` How you going`. Also a very typical expression is the so called `onya`/`Good on-ya` instead of the well known `good on you`or `well done`. Sometimes if they want to say thanks, cheers or don`t worry, they use simply the same words: `no worries`.`No drama` is also used as no problem. They say `Hooroo` (without h) instead of goodbye sometimes, and `ta` or `tar` as `thanks`.

If you live here, the very first thing that you realise, is that these guys in Australia really like friendships, so they use buddy or mate in almost every sentence. How are you doing, mate? Good on ya, mate! Have a drink, mate? Etc. The so called `fella` (fellow) or `bloke` are also used very often. By the way, an aussie woman is `Sheila` for a lot of people when they talk about an Oz girl or woman.

After the greetings, let`s talk a little about the geography. You know, the big cities -like Sydney and Melbourne -are `big smoke` in slang, but this is not as typical as the expression for `the bush`, which means the rural area near towns. The bush is not so extreme as the `outback`, where so called `bushwhackers` live. On the other hand, even aussies can not tell you where outback begins exactly, but you maybe feel the difference between these two words. However we also have not been in the outback yet, but we are planning to do so later this year before we leave…

Going further on the map, I have learned many more expressions related to the states and their people. If you come from tropical Queensland, you are a `Banana bender`, or a `Cane Toad`. Its state capital -Brisbane- is called `Brizzie` or `Brisvegas`, showing how famous it is for its night life, local bars, casinos, etc. If you live in the far north, you come from the `Top End`, and the middle of the country is called `Centralia`. If you come from South Australia, you are a `Croweater`, whereas those coming from Victoria are so called `Gums..kers`. Tasmania is shortened as `Tassie` very often, and its inhabitants are the `Apple eaters`, while New-Zealanders are `Kiwi`-s, or `Sheepsh..ger`-s. According to this site, people living in NSW are `cockroaches`, but I can not understand why, because as far as I know, people in all parts of Australia are suffering from these animals. However, after several tough months, at least we managed to make a clear sweep of them. In addition, if we talk about geography, let me tell you, that Manchester is not a town here, but means bed linen, quilt, etc., just like `Matilda` is also meaning the `swagman’s bedding or sleeping roll`. A swagman, or tussocker is an old expression for temporary workers who travelled from farm to farm while carrying a “swag”.

There are also some nice or less nice expressions in slang lingo for foreigners, of course. Englishmen are `Poms` or `pommies`, meanwhile Americans are called as `yanks`, `Seppo` or `Septic Tanks`. Less PC words for Lebanese origin people is `Leb` or the `wog` for Mediterranean originated people usually with darker skin types, but this word is a kind of insult for them. However, wog means influenza, as well. Further more, `Westie` is used for those people, living in the western parts of Sydney and are mostly associated to people from lower social or economical background. Aussies have a slang word for refugees as well: like `reffo`.

But lets continue with some happier and more common words… Very typical and commonly used is `Barbie` instead of BBQ or grill; or `veggie` as vegetable; and those shortened `cute` words ending with `ie` or `y`. In this way, underwear is just called `undie`, and a kangaroo is `skippy`. A bottle of beer (375 ml) is a `stubby`, but the canned beer is `tinny`, while the cold beer is `coldie` among friends. Not to mention, that the famous aussie souvenir thing is called `stubby holder`. The chewing gum is just `chewie`, breakfast is `brekkie`, and both the cockroach and the cockatoo are called `cockie`. People who do not go to work because of sickness, are `sickie`, but they `chuck a sickie` if they are actually healty. Sunglasses are only `sunnies` in Australia, as mosquitoes are `mozzies`, a surfer is `waxxy` or `waxhead`, maybe because they are using wax to wipe their board. If you have a good `pozzy` in the stadium, you can see the aussie football called `footy`, and you can shout ` Av-a-go-yer-mug`!!!  to your favorite team…Children use to go to `kindie` (kindergarten); Christmas time is only `Chrissie`; a gift is a `prezzy`, and expensive is `exy`. Lipstick is called `lippy`, like sweets are `lollies`, and your cup of tea is also a `cuppa` for Oz-s, just like for the `Poms`.

There are more interesting slang expressions, maybe more interesting than the ones mentioned here. Would you like me to continue? Than make a comment))))

www.aussieslang.com

www.koalanet.com.au

www.australiatravelsearch.com.au

www.australianhistory.org

www.dunway.com

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