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.)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The best thing of the Hunter Valley is that in all the wineries, you can taste several wines for free. At the different locations you will often find merchandise items as well, but in most places the area is full of wine bottles and a counter with a few, very friendly sellers behind it. First you look around, but after a few seconds there is an appealing question: how can I help you? Which one would you like to try?

You get a wine card, and if you are in a small group, one of you will say what he or she wants to try first. You all try this wine, and then of course all the shyness disappears, and everyone wants to try his favorite. Of course you don’t have to try all the wines and usually a few is enough. You have to take into account, that you will probably visit more wineries on the same day, and you can taste wines in each of them.

If you do not know much about wines or wine drinking, “no worries, mate”! All the sellers are very friendly and keen to help or give some advice, not to mention that the main goal of these wineries is to SELL! After all, believe me, after a day spent with tasting wines in several places, you will have a feeling for tasting wine, and know what your favorite is.

To start with, taste some light and clear white wine, than some of the more tastier red wines - maybe a rosé in between -  and at the end a sweet dessert wine, like tokay, port, etc. There is a big sense in doing so, because one wine influences the taste of others. And at the end you will feel the taste of sweet raisins more in the heavier wines. Sometimes people are only curious for red or white wines, or dessert wines. In that case the usual response of the sellers is a kind of very friendly question, whether you are sure you do not want to taste something else before that. That is just because they want the best for you… You do not need to drink all the wine in your glass, so you can pour it into the metal bowl used for this purpose. They are sort of organised for the drivers as well, they cannot drink too much of course…

Yes, the drivers…Unfortunately they are definitely the biggest losers of the day. They are the persons who can not drink but probably would like to taste much more than the `lazy` and shy passengers. But they can not, or maybe just a little bit from the best wines.

So during the day, everybody is tasting wines and chatting happily, and usually everybody is getting a better idea which wine is better, in which wineries and why, which one they like, which one is their personal preference etc. If you have some money and are keen to buy some bottles, no doubt, the sellers will recognise this…They keep asking you whether you like the wine you are tasting at the moment. They tell you more and more about a wine they think you liked, and start to offer you some similar bottles. And of course you like when they are friendly with you, don`t you? So you will tell them more about yourself or what you like, which is a good base to get somewhere. And the interesting thing starts when you tell them that you maybe want to buy some bottles of the nice and clean Semillon. You can notice how much more other interesting wines they will show you to try, and of course these types are not on the list…You come from Hungary? …(two minutes)…what about this light and sparkling dessert wine? Or this Tokay?…

Believe me, you will not forget these happy moments in Hunter Valley, and you can drink your bought wines later at home as well, of course))))

PS. You should try Semillon (white wine) in Hunter Valley, and Shiraz (red wine), because they are really famous here. One `normal` bottle of wine is about 20-30 AUD, but they can be really expensive as well, of course. Usually a bottle of wine here contains more alcohol than the ones in Europe (especially in France), with approx. 1-2 %point.

Do not miss the Semillon and Seafood Festival this year (17^th to 19^th April `09)!

Or at least check out the official Tourist Information Website for Hunter Valley!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Excited by all the news and advertisement, last week it was our chance to watch the movie Australia. Now we can finally make up our own mind about all the comments in the newspapers.

In the past few days there were some critics about the movie, which question marked on one hand the acting talents of Nicole Kidman, on the other hand the theatrical style of the producer. We have to say there has been overkill on advertising, as you can see the two main actors in almost every show on television to promote the movie, and then we haven’t even talked about all the commercials and advertisements.    However this big excitement can be understood: it is the most expensive Australian movie ever made and the expectations are very high. The hope is not only to make a great movie, but to attract many tourists as well with all the beautiful landscapes.

But let’s go back to the movie. It is almost three hours long, but in contrast with the critics we weren’t bored at all. The start is maybe a bit slow, but if there is no action, the film is usually funny, sometimes romantic, but luckily this didn’t reach Titanic-like scales.

It is true, that Nicole Kidman is almost over acting at some moments, which doesn’t look very realistic. But it would be to much to say that this kills the movie.  I think she acts well, although it maybe isn’t her best role ever. The film is mainly carried by three other actors that make the film a success: Hugh Jackman and two aboriginal actors, the small boy Brendan Walters and his grandfather in the movie, David Gulpilil. It is really enjoyable to watch them through the whole movie.

Furthermore it is quite funny to listen to the strong Australian accent, that certainly gives the film more atmosphere, which unfortunately will be lost in synchronised translations.

Some scenes ended up being very theatrical, mainly due to the filming techniques. The film is recorded on amazing places, but quite often animation tricks take away your attention from this. For example when they are driving the cattle - several hundreds of cows are chased - through a really nice region, but it almost looks like a scene from a Disney movie.

I was looking forward to this movie, especially because of the locations. As I have read in several interviews, most of the scenes were shot around Bowen, Kununurra, Darwin and Kimberley; and this all of course in extreme dryness and hotness. You can see all of these locations in the movie, but they don’t get very much attention. You can read on other blogs and websites what the film is about, so we will keep this short. It plays around world war II, when an English aristocratic lady travels to Australia after her husband, to help him selling the cattle. When she finally arrives, she finds her husband murdered. It is only proud that makes her stay, to cope against the bad guys and drive the cattle through the desert on her own, helped by some outsiders. She faces all kind of struggles and at the end, when she finally brings the cattle to Darwin, the city gets bombed by the Japanese.  What is interesting about the movie, is that the ‘Stolen Generation’ gets a lot of attention, which actually deserves a few more movies dedicated to it, so the world learns a bit more about the fate of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent.

Aboriginal people live for about 40-60.000 years on this continent, which makes them the oldest continuing culture on earth. They don’t have written remnants or memories; all stories are told from father to son. These stories live on for thousands of years and play a very important role in daily life. There is a story for each natural appearance, tree, stone or star, which helps in navigating. People can go on large tours (walkabouts) without getting lost, by singing the stories for days. This can be seen as well in one of the most famous aboriginal movies; Ten Canoes.

From the end of the 19th century till about 1970 many aborigine children were taken away from their families. They were sent to white families, or put into church missions to be raised according to Christian standards. This is called the “Stolen Generation” .  For this generation the ties with their culture and families were broken.

p.s. The interesting tree with the very thick trunk you can see at the start of the movie and which is later used as Christmas tree is the so called ‘boab prison tree’, or baobab tree. It is family of the African baobab tree, it can hold a lot of water in its massive trunk and likes extended rocky environments like around Kimberley (Eyewitness Travel Guides-Australia). In the past they have been used to lock up the native inhabitants on their way to Derby, which is where the name “prison tree” comes from according to Wikipedia.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!