Weird Aussie Things and Things.

Australia is weird. Australians are even weirder. Here are some weird Aussie things annnnnd whatever else comes to my mind while I write.

Tasty Cheese.

This weirds me out. For some weird reason cheddar, instead of being mild, medium or old, is broken down into well tastiness? They have Tasty, Extra Tasty, etc. It's kinda weird like that. Mind you, tasty cheese is effing...well, tasty?

Why do they call:

Pharmacists, chemists; Red peppers, capsicums; Zucchinis, squash; Squash, pumpkin; Arugula, rocket?

Because they're weird!

(speaking of produce, fruit here is AMAZING)

Aussies love J-walking. Why? I've seen a large number of Aussies (old, young, crippled, abled) nearly become roadkill because they love to j-walk on the crazy-busy streets. Often, you see them doing it barefoot which is somewhat comical but craaaazay.

Also, Aussies love saying "how ya goin?" instead of "how's it going?" or "how ya doin?". It's something of a combination of the two expressions and it still makes me smile when someone with a thick Aussie accent says it.

That, and "Y'alright?" Meaning interchangeaby, "You alright?" or "You're alright". They say it in response to nearly everything lol.

There are a berzerk number of brothels in Sydney, as well. Mostly they are pretty hard to identify and you wouldn't know it unless you noticed the THAI MASSAGES sign or notice the subtle exposed nipple on the poster on the door. Prostitution in this country is legal so brothels are a boomin' business! As is, subsequently, the sex industry in general. TONS of "adult shops".

Speaking of weird country stuff, Aussies are also, well, really racist! (I'll take this opportunity to say not ALL Aussies of course). Mostly towards their Aboriginal population and towards Indians and those from the Middle East, so I really havn't had any trouble at all and mostly have to deal with being called "dahling" and "love" all the time. At the contemporary art museum, though, there was this one exhibit with this weird negative space word art where there were instructions for the piece that read "Pull outer corners of eyes to see words and read aloud" and the words in the negative space read "CHING CHONG CHINAMAN". I'm like :O. Like, that was seriously the face that I made. On a less serious note, at that same exhibit there was one that asked you to pull the outer corners of your mouth and read the statement: "I am a banker". Try it. That one got Tim for sure. Anyways point is that Aussies (not all) are strangely quite racist though ironically enough, not towards me! Score! (lol)

ALSO, though prostitution is legal in this country, abortions are not. I'm not gonna get into the women's rights red flags that spring up in my mind but I found that quite interesting. And worth mentioning is the law that was just passed here that states that a Church organization is allowed to deny employment to homosexuals and single mothers.

Anywho, enough of the political stuff that will probably get me into trouble.

What have we been up to??

Well, we took the ferry over to beautiful Manly Beach where we hung out for a while until it got to be evening. I really do love beaches and that place was great. Not quite as busy as Bondy Beach and full of lots of shops and eateries. We were planning on making it back over there to partake in the Jazz Festival thats going on but the dang sky won't stop dripping on us so, maybe next time.

Next day, we headed to Luna Park and if you havn't seen the photos of that place on facebook yet, I suggest you go and take a look, though I warn you that you may experience terrible nightmares afterwards. Funny though is that we took the ferry to Luna Park not knowing that it was the first stop. We missed it and ended up at the next stop which wasnt' too far but we got to walk through this really ritzy area. It was a nice walk, about 40 minutes along streets with ocean-front properties. Beautiful!

Mmm that night we ate at a restaurant called Flying Fajita Sistas. I swear to you, this city really does not disappoint with the food! Sydney is a city known for its' amazing restaurants! And wow is all i have to say. Here, Tim had his first fajita ever (!!!) and I had this delicious mango and cheese quesadilla and lots of guacamole. YUMMMMMM. So YUM that it is seriously worth documenting!

Next day, we headed to the Sydney Aquarium where we made friends with the cashier who joked that we brought our Canadian weather with us. The aquarium was gorrrrgeous but I kinda love aquariums so I guess I'm kinda...biased. They had dugongs and lots of sharks and poisonous things.

Anywho it has been raining quite a bit so today we took it easy. Got some pastries this morning (YUMMMM) and read for most of the day. Though I wish it were sunny, I do really enjoy days spent reading books and drinking tea. Something I havn't been doing too much of lately since we've been out and about.

Thats all for now :)

STEPHANIEEEEEEE <3