Aussie delights

Just a few minutes prior to writing this post, I experienced a pretty delicious Australian food product for the first time. It's called Milo, and its a malted chocolate powder that you could use to make chocolate milk or hot chocolate, sort of like Ovaltine in the US, I think. However, the preferred way to eat it here is to mix it with milk in such a way that the chocolate does not dissolve (not difficult if you avoid stirring) and then eat it slowly with a spoon. It basically tastes like malted milk balls crushed up with a more chocolate-ly taste, combined in excellent proportion with milk (lots of milk, especially great if you are a milk person). It was so good. Thank goodness Lauren enticed me to have some, or else I might never have discovered this!

Yum. Yum. Yum. Now, on to other matters.

Last Friday, as I mentioned in my last post, I had a day of sightseeing. Few times before can I ever remember doing so much walking. I took a tour of the Sydney Opera House which was gorgeous; I am so lucky to have seen it in person. My tour guide left something to be desired, but much of the building could speak for itself. I next spent a great deal of time exploring the Royal Botanical Gardens in search of a perfect Opera House/Harbour Bridge shot, and found a couple of minor landmarks - Mrs. Macquarie's chair, which is a chair cut into the rock on a point opposite the penninsula that the opera house is on, a place where the wife of Governor Macquarie was particularly fond of sitting, and the Fleet Stairs, which is the place where Queen Elizabeth II first set foot on Australian soil; I walked up them. I also toured Government House, which is the official residence of the Governor-general of Australia. This person is the queen's official representative. Although the governor-general wields no official power in Parliament, he/she does have the power to dissolve the parliament in times of strife/dispute. Since 1997, the governor has not actually lived in this historic house so that it can be open to the public, but continues to use it daily for official functions. I had to wait a while to go inside on Friday because the governor was there. While I was waiting, I checked out the grounds and an exhibit about some of the furniture and befriended some of the old ladies who work for Historic Houses Trust. They were pretty great. I did finally, after some patience, get to go inside. The inside of the house was really interesting because it has been painstakingly restored to preserve most of its original (Victorian era) decorations, but as a working house, they have also tried to keep it updated and to integrate new pieces that showcase Australian talent (an object of the original decoration as well). So in the main stateroom, for example, there are some 19th century reupholstered couches around a modern, yet tasteful coffee table made of cut glass and mirrors. In all, I thought the restoration and modernization were very well done.

After I left the Botanic Gardens, I walked back to the main Circular Key/The Rocks area (which is right around the harbor), looked around in some shops, found a fun street market where I attempted to buy a delicious soft pretzel, but was disappointed by the one I got. As a great lover of soft pretzels, this was depressing. After this little break, I set off on the next part of my mission, which was to walk across the Harbor Bridge in search of the famous Luna Park (amusement park with the huge clown face on the front entrance) which lies just on the other side. This was a VERY long walk, but I made it there eventually. Luna Park was a bit on the sketchy side. I get the impression that it is the sort of place that fills up during the night time. I walked back across the bridge, spent a bit more time exploring, and took a bus back home to Drummoyne. I was so tired, but it was SO worth it.

On Sunday, I went to a going away party and Mass for a girl called Kelly Edmunds who is leaving this week to join the Dominican sisters in Nashville. It was quite lovely, and a great way to celebrate St. Dominic's real feast day, especially since Kelly's parish used to be Dominican and still bears a great deal of evidence of the Order's presence. I've only met Kelly a few times, but I am quite impressed with her and have no doubt she will be a great addition to the community in Nashville. She was (is, really) pretty close to finishing a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Sydney when a vocations retreat with the sisters here gave her an inkling that God had other plans for her. I think she applied around Christmas time, and now she's moving halfway around the world. The thing that was most amazing to me is how happy and unflapped she seemed about going because she is so happy about and confident in her decision. Besides all this, the party was just generally very nice. It was outside on a big lawn next to the rectory, there were a lot of people I knew, and the outing was a surprise one - I hadn't been planning on going at all until I received a surprise phone call and invitation from Jess's friend Amy. I also got to spend a little time talking to Srs. Mary Rachel and Cecilia Joseph, the Dominicans who teach at a high school outside the city and I've only really met one time before. What a great afternoon!