Tim-tams and boxed milk.

Last night I went to the grocery store to buy some things for breakfasts over the next few days. The big grocery chain here is called Woolworth's. The grocery store is located just across the street from the hostel I'm staying in. It's part of an outdoor mall in the CBD (central business district; the Aussie shortform for the downtown). The mall is really cool. All of the stores are open to the front, like a mall in Ontario, and there's more than one level but there isn't any roof over the street. And it's wintertime here.

Shopping in a grocery store on the other side of the world was a very surreal experience. None of the familiar brands are available. Nothing seems to be in the logical place. There was an entire aisle of biscuits (cookies) and three sections of their favourite cookie, the Tim-tam. The tea section was larger than the cereal section and there was an entire wall of various brands of 'long-life' milk in boxes. Also, they don't have any blueberries in season.

So far, grocery shopping is the only thing that's made me feel homesick :( Thank you so much for all of the sweet notes and e-mails. Knowing that you're all in touch really makes my day!

Big things in Australia!

On my way to the conference I pass the Supreme Court of Western Australia. In their front yard there are five gigantic pen nibs. I was absolutely thrilled to find my first big things in Australia.



I'm presenting my work at the conference tomorrow. Turns out pit and mine restoration is a pretty big deal around here and I'll be presenting in the main theatre, the biggest room at the conference. So big that it holds over 700 people. I tried to snap a picture of the stage because it really looks nice. I'll get my friend to take a picture while I'm up there tomorrow.



Last night I went out to the student social event. It was at a very posh bar that served $9 bottles of beer. I met some friends though and we decided to find a cheaper place. We ended up at a Belgian beer house which served $9 pints of beer. Anyway. I had a really great time. I was out with a German guy, 2 Spanish girls and a Spanish guy, an Irish guy, a girl from Italy, a guy from Uganda, and 2 Aussies. Collectively, they decided that I was the one with the accent, thought my name was unusual, and wanted to hear all about Sidney Crosby. The thing is, they could understand every word I said, but I could barely follow what they were saying. So, I think their logic about the accents is flawed. Luckily, I can hold my own in a conversation about hockey. O, and they all thought the tea at the conference was horrible and I had actually thought earlier in the day that the tea was far superior to any tea I have ever had at a conference in Canada. I kept that to myself.

A post about what I ate on the plane.

Or, why my stomach hurts and I never want to see Saskatoon Berry Mousse ever again.

But before I get to that:

O man, that flight was long. I've actually been traveling since 3:00 pm on August 21. It's now 9:00 pm on August 23. I managed to miss August 22, 2009 somewhere along the way. So, let me add it up.

1.5 hours on the BC Ferry
1 hour on BC Transit
3 hours at the Vancouver International Airport
13.75 hours Vancouver to Auckland
9 hours trapped in Auckland International Airport
8 hours Auckland to Perth
1 hour Perth Airport to Perth City YHA
= 37.25 hours in transit

I am SO GLAD I don't have to do that for another 4 months because it's too much. I have a lot more to say about that, but I am exhausted so I'll just give you a rundown of the menu.

Disclaimer: if I actually manage to make this sound delicious, don't be fooled. It wasn't. I will say that the packaging was absolutely adorable though and I do love airline food service containers and such.

Vancouver to Auckland:

Dinner

-Beef curry (Where was the curry? No where. They should probably call this overcooked beef cubes instead)
-Basmati rice that was somehow undercooked, though it resided in the same dish as the overcooked beef. You could feel each little sharp rice piece.
-Green peas. great addition (sarcasm).

-Cheese portion. Actually good. New Zealand does have some good dairy.
-Two of those little Toppers crackers

-Bean salad. Okay. I'll give it an okay.

-Whole wheat dinner roll. Fine. The NZ butter saved it.

-And dessert, drum roll please for Saskatoon Berry Mousse with a chocolate cake base. As I wrote in my earlier food report to Emily, this was a dessert directly out of China Buffet's nightmares.

-Tea

-Luckily, the stewards also poured very strong gin and sodas and kept our wine glasses topped up with some of New Zealands finest vintages.

After that I sort of passed out (the turbulence kept jolting me awake and I kept forgetting where I was because I don't usually fly at night) until the stewards woke me up with breakfast at 2:45 am NZ time. I certainly wasn't ready for breakfast, I don't even know what I was ready for.

Breakfast (I went with the continental because I was scared of the hot meals at this point)

-Blueberry crumble muffin which you can probably purchase out of a vending machine somewhere

-Fruit plate with all my favourites (sarcasm): unripe honeydew, cantaloupe, RED grapes, pineapple, and a canned peach half. I actually really like canned peach halves, so that was okay.

-Yoghurt. Yum.

-Orange juice with the peel-back top, which I also love for some reason.

-Tea.

I actually received the 'lucky last' fruit plate, but my neighbours had the salsa omelette and it actually looked pretty good (contrary to my first impression).

Auckland to Perth:

Lunch

-Pan-seared chicken thigh. I avoided the lamb curry (look Dad, already being the New Zealanders even make airplane lamb).

-Green beans with a blob of red stuff. I think it was some sort of tomato-based sauce? How is that even questionable? I don't know.

-New potatoes. Goodish.

-O, and under the chicken was an interesting surprise. I couldn't figure out what it was at first because it was just a perfectly round, grey disc. Then I realized it was stuffiing. I think.

-Cheese portion.

-Different crackers. Whole-wheat of some sort.

-An okay salad with cucumber, pineapple, shredded carrots, and lemon vinaigrette. If the pineapple had been fresh this would have been good.

-White dinner roll with butter.

-White chocolate, almond, raspberry ice cream. This was pretty tasty and I like the tiny dessert spoons they give you.

-More gin.

-Tea.

And a surprise tea meal (my ticket only said snack)

-Two scones. I've had much better, but they were warmed up, at least.

-Strawberryish jam, no real berries actually existed in it anyway.

-Some sort of cream spread that we don't usually eat in Canada.

-Smaller fruit plate, this time with out of season apples.

-Orange juice.

-Tea.

Well, that got long. I hope you're all completely captivated. I really regret not taking pictures.

Have to run! Cass

So long and thanks for all the fish!

There are two things that I don't miss about Ontario: the bugs and the humidity. Out here, on the west coast, they don't even put screens on the windows. In Ontario, we get chased inside at night by the mosquitoes. Here, we come inside because it's just too cool and windy.

We're about to head into Victoria so that I can catch the 3:00 ferry. Then it's off to the airport for the longest flight of my trip. I'm feeling a bit antsy and I'm just ready to get this show on the road.

This morning Jill and I took a drive down to Pedder Bay. This is the body of water that I can see from the top of the hill at her parent's house. In the bay there is a marina where several large fishing and sailing boats are docked. This weekend the annual Salmon Festival, a big fishing competition, will be held out of the bay. I sort of wish I could stick around to see it, but I need to be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

Last night, we made dinner with Leah. We ate the salmon a neighbour had dropped off, veggies I grilled, mojitos with mint form Jilly's garden, bread from the farm down the road, tiny beets with goat cheese that Jill made especially for Leah and I, and an amazing mixed greens salad that Leah whipped up with dressing from the Rebar cookbook. Leah has been making her way through this cookbook that was put out by a local restaurant.

After dinner we took Leak out to the bus stop and dropped by 17 Mile Pub to meet some of Jill's work friends. Jill and I were the first to arrive so we played a game of pool. We were doing really well until her friends showed up. It took us about 20 shots each to finish the last 2 balls. The game ended with Jill sinking my last ball and the 8 ball all in one shot. Fabulous work. Of course, they had a great time making fun of us and talking about their game. Once they started playing though, we realized that we weren't that awful.

Okay, I'm off. Next time I post I'll probably be in Perth. I'll definitely upload some pictures once I'm there because I've taken an awful lot of good ones!

Talk to you soon, Cass

Our butus tree.

A very interesting tree species grows all over Vancouver Island. It has a very distinct bark, red and orange paper-y skin peels away to leave a perfectly smooth surface. This tree is broad-leaved, but evergreen; it's the only broad-leaved evergreen in Canada. Most commonly, you come across smaller examples of this tree. I thought it was a shrub until I asked Jill about it, but it can grow up to 100 feet tall. Since then, I've seen some huge individuals. The scientific name for this tree species is Arbutus menziesii. Commonly, it just goes by Arbutus. I noticed a street in Vancouver that was called Arbutus Street and I was wondering what the name referred to; once I was on the Island I learned about the tree.

One of Jill's friends told me a funny story about Arbutus trees. Years ago, his mother, Ellen, told one of the little neighbourhood girls about Arbutus trees. Awhile later the girl was visiting Ellen with her own mother. The girl's mother mentioned that Ellen's tree was a particularly nice example of an Arbutus. The little girl said, "No Mom, that isn't our butus tree, that's Ellen's butus tree."

I think we need to write to Reader's Digest about that one.

From Glenrosa Farm.

I'm currently writing from the sun room at Jill's family homestead. I can see down the hill, past the barn to the shoreline of Pedder Bay where a little marina is located. We're going to walk down there later this week to check things out. Jill's farm is just outside of Metchosin, BC. The farm is a hobby farm at this point, but it's been here since 1881 and was named Glenrosa in 1885 by J.D. Reid, a Scottish immigrant. Jill's family has a horse named Brandy, a mini donkey named Snowy, a pony, a dog named Riley, 4 cats, egg-laying hens, and 10 sheep, one named Phantom. They also have an apply orchard and they make juice each Thanksgiving. I'm going to have to come back for that one of these years because I love their apple juice. This summer Jill has also been running a market garden. It is beautiful and I will definitely add pictures later. The internet connection is a bit slow out here and I can't upload any pictures today. That's okay, I know how difficult that sort of thing can be.

Since I last posted, these are some of the things I've done:

-Swam 6 lengths of Kits Pool. My goal was 5, but I would have ended up at the wrong end and wasn't about to walk back. My swim was great and good for my knees after being cramped up on the airplane the day before.

-Strolled around the Kits shopping district in Vancouver. Such a cool part of town. All sorts of neat stores and restaurants. I had lunch at a place called Sejuiced. It was all organic, vegan hippie food, but it was tasty.

-Went to a beach called Spanish Banks with Crystal and Geoff after they got home from work. Watched the big ships and volleyball players and had a picnic dinner. We could see the Gondala going up the mountain at Grose Point.

-Went to a fantastic gelato place for dessert. It was called La Casa Gelato. They have 218 flavours of gelato and ice cream at any given time out of the 500 flavours they make!! These flavours include about 50 chocolate variates, garlic, wasabi, and a huge range of exotic fruits and spices I had never ever heard about. I sampled fig and almond (YUM), grapefruit champagne (YUM, you can totally taste the alcohol), and apple cheddar (YUCK no one needs shredded cheese in their ice cream). I actually purchased one scoop or pear ice cream and one scoop of strawberry champagne sorbetto. They made a good match. Crystal had spanish coffee and Geoff had Praline. Delicious. This particular gelato castle is in the middle of an industrial area so we ate at the garden area beside their parking lot. very interesting experience and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Vancouver.

-The next morning (yesterday), I took the BC Ferry across to Victoria. The ferry is gigantic and it sails through the gulf islands. It was a great 1.5 hour trip. I have some really good pictures which I will add later. Jill picked me up at the dock and we headed back to her place.

-Once we were here, I said hi to Jane and Peter (Jill's parents) and then we rode the bikes into town. We had lunch with Jill's friend Megan at the Broken Paddle then went blueberry picking. I had never picked tame blueberries before. They are huge and there are so many of them this year. They literally fell off the plant into our hands and buckets. YUM.

-We came home and explored Jill's garden. We picked zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, beets, little round carrots, and 3 artichokes. We took the produce to Jill's bootcamp workout. I joined in. It was a tough workout, but I made it through.

Now, we're about to head out to the lake to go swimming with Jill's friend Tracy and her kiddos. Should be a nice afternoon before we head into Victoria to see the town and have dinner.

Good-byes.

Mom just sent me an e-mail with pictures she took the day before I left Warsaw. I had to say good-bye to these two sweeties. And you can also see the size of my pack. It's pretty full. I needed to bring stuff for the conference, working at the research stations and the farms, springtime weather, and end of wintertime weather.

Please note the green Frisbee in my lap. Sammy pretty much has one thing on her mind at all times: finding someone to toss the Frisbee so she can make a spectacular catch.



The dryer lint likes a good belly rub, and don't miss the green Frisbee in the corner:



Mom also sent some pictures of us at the airport, but I can't post them because everyone looks too sad! Really, I'll be home before you know it and I'll probably call and e-mail way more than I did when I was in Guelph.