Representing all that is AMERICAN (to be read in a southern-hillbilly accent with a touch of GeorgeDubya)

As you might already know, I'm technically here as an AUPAIR, not just a nanny. So, technically, I'm supposed to be learning about another culture while teaching the kids about my own.

Thanks to the evil evil Disney channel, and the fact that I'm from the most egocentric country in on the planet, there's pretty much nothing I can teach these kids that they don't already know. While I struggle to learn the different little pieces of the Aussie lingo, everyone around me is able to translate.

bin = trash can
rubbish = trash
biscuit = cookie
lolli = candy
mince = ground meat
mobile = cell phone
chips = fries

blah blah blah.

But then the kids starting asking me about the REAL ins and outs of American culture.

"Lisa, what's a Twinkie? What's a Ho-ho? What's a sloppy joe?"

And I went on to explain why we're all obese.

For the past few Tuesday night dinners, I've been in charge. I know, it's scary. Annie (the old German nanny) and I tackle the 5 kids on our own, without adult supervision.

To distract the kids from how much nicer and more fun the old nanny was, I made tonight American dinner night.

Menu? Sloppy joes, fries, carrot sticks, pickles. Meat, potato, pseudo-veggies. The core of the American diet.

True American kids' cafeteria/summer camp/junk food.

They loved it. Really, they did.

Photo proof, from oldest to youngest ...

Elias

Ruben

Joel

Asher

Jasper

So don't you worry, America. Slowly but surely, I'm successfully spreading democracy and poor eating habits to all corners of the world.

The swine flu hits Oz

For those of you who think it’s over, here’s what they think in Oz.

Seriously. It's calmed down a bit, but they still take a lot of precautions.
I will probs be wearing a mask for my super long flight.

Part 2 - Halong Bay. And the end of Vietnam.

After realizing that Hanoi was kinda lamish, and we had a few days before our flight to the Thai islands, we changed our minds about Halong Bay and decided to check it out. With the advice of some friendly Canadians from our horrendous bus ride, we thought we’d skip the tourist traps and go on our own.

It turns out that you can’t really get to the island without a tour company unless you have a lot of time, patience and luck. We were running low on all of these things.

We ended up taking a shitty local bus and a motorbike from the side of the highway into Halong Bay, only to find out that we would have to join up with a day trip that started in Hanoi that we could have just taken from the beginning.

Oh well. I was a little sicky pants at this point, so I just hated everyone.

It was a bit cloudy and rainy, but the view was still beautiful. The boat went all around the limestone cliffs, took us into a cave and then dropped us to kayak for a bit. Pics included.

Again, this also included a lovely on-board lunch. Yummy.

We were meant to catch the van back with our tour group, but somehow got ditched and had to wait on the side of the road to meet up with another group from the same company. Of COURSE, we got stuck behind the biggest accident of all time and were delayed by hours. Everyone literally parked their car and hung out by the side of the road in rural Vietnam until the thing cleared up. No one was going ANYWHERE.

Ah, well. We tried. At least the seafood was super cheap and delicious. And we got to see yet another World Heritage site.

We got back to Hanoi super late and went back to the same shitty hotel. And got on a plane the next day to Bangkok, went camera shopping for a few hours, ditched some luggage at my storage place and hopped another flight to Phuket.

Yay. We were back in sunshine. And the Land of Smiles.

The Queens gets older, so Oz takes a holiday.

For those of you who don’t know, Australia is still a colony of Britain. So even though she barely matters in Oz at this point, they still respect her enough in Australia to make a holiday out of her birthday.

Except it’s not really her birthday, it’s just the Monday that’s closest to her birthday. To make it a long weekend. Because, really, who wants to take a Wednesday off? What good does that do anyone?

My new expat friends were taking a road trip to wine country and invited me along. Yes please.

It was quite the international crew. My friend Jorge (American/Latino), his Aussie girlfriend Renee, Vincent from Singapore and I piled into a car to stay with three of Jorge’s friends from Turkey. Talk about an international buffet.

The Turks are here working at a stud farm a few hours north of Sydney, so they have a pretty big house near the stables that they share. It was super cozy and relaxing. We ate a lot, drank a ton, attempted to ride an ex-racehorse, visited wineries and local drinking holes and generally had a great time.

Did I mention that there was a lot of really great wine involved?

We got in fairly late on Friday after hitting traffic and making sure to eat dinner in the equivalent of a Aussie greasy spoon diner.

I tried a chicken schnitzel, which I’ve seen offered everywhere here. It’s essentially a steak fried chicken, very flat and breaded and fried. With gravy and potatoes and veggie. Country style for sure.

Oh, and this diner had the smallest, most ghetto ATM machine I’ve ever seen. So we took a pic. (see above)

After a few glasses of wine and some introductions, we settled into the cozy country house and got lazy. Excellent.

The next morning we tried to ride Bill. He wasn’t in the mood and nearly threw each and every one of us off. I managed to stay on, but only barely.

We rode with jockey saddles, which means no horn to hold on to. So when Big Bill got a little feisty, I had to hold on with my legs. Ohhh wee. I was sore for days after only a few minutes on this guy.

At 3 we decided it was time to start drinking. So we went to the bar and watched horse races on TV.

On day 2 we hit up some wineries in the area. Yum.

On Monday we hit up the more famous Hunter Valley wineries on our way back to town. I wasn’t that impressed with many of them. We almost headed straight back when Renee saw the sign for Petersons.

This ended up being the winery that made the entire trip. Katherine, our lovely hostess, was awesome and let us try everything, and it was all delicious. I ended up finally buying a bottle of shiraz, even though it was 50 bucks, because it was just that delicious and she was just that fabulous.

She gave me a ton of Peterson’s stickers too, so that’s something.

It was a fab Aussie weekend.

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty.

If OUR pigeons looked like this, would we still chase them away?

It was a rainy yet peaceful Sunday afternoon. I was in the market, enjoying my pumpkin soup, when all of a sudden THESE guys showed up.

Not lost pets. Just the normal annoying birds that you get in Oz.

I think they're cute! And so did all the other tourists.

Hanoi, Halong Bay, back to Hanoi. The end of the Vietnam journey. Part 1.

From beautiful Hoi An, Adam, my herpes and I headed to the capital of Vietnam, which is Hanoi.

Call me dumb, but I always figured Saigon was the capital. It’s not.

We loaded onto yet ANOTHER overnight bus, which proved to be the nightmare of all nightmare buses.

Broken toilet for 15 hourish ride? Check.
Attempt at scamming our fellow travelers and trying to leave them on the side of the road? Check.
Loud dude constantly yelling into his cell in Vietnamese? Check.
At least 5 brushes with death? Check.
Terribly loud Asian music videos blaring over your iPod until 1am? Check.
Bruises on knees from trying to stay in bed during near-death car passes? Check.
Getting jumped by 30 cab drivers crawling into the bus at 5am while you get dropped off miles from the center of town as promised? Check.
Additional scam at the end of the ride to force us into specific guesthouse? Check.
Crazy spinning cab meter that charges you 3 times for the cab ride that you shouldn’t have had to take because you were supposed to be dropped in the center of the city? Check.

The only saving grace was the load of fun backpackers in the back of the bus with us, and the monks and nuns holding up the front. For the most part, our company was pretty great.

And I managed to snag the over-the-toilet bed for a certain male travel companion. So he could stretch out. I’m the best, I know.

It really was scary as hell though. And loud. Even the locals thought so. Like this guy.

The bus driver kept swerving off the road and having to STOP the bus to not go off a cliff or whatever kind of road we were driving on. I ended up half sleeping in a ball, wrapping around a metal post and a safety belt, trying to keep myself from flying off the top bunk.

Imagine trying to stay on top of a bunk bed while participating in a high speed chase. It was like that.

Once we got to Hanoi, we were met with more unfriendliness. And rainy weather.

I should let Adam guest-blog here to talk about his gambling experiences. This is a formal invite.

The coffee was AMAZING in Hanoi, but that’s about all it had going for it. Other than ok Western food and a pretty great little bar that had hookah and drinks on a balcony where we could sit in peace and watch people get in motorbike accidents. Oh, and a park that I ran around TWICE, concluding my attempts at real physical activity for the remainder of the trip.

We went to a water puppet show, which Hanoi is kinda famous for. It was really cute, if not cheesy. But you know, when in Vietnam. It was a unique thing to do, blah blah.

The actual puppet show was developed around the flooding of the rice paddies and it’s still done with the old-style wooden puppets. We couldn’t take any pics, since you had to pay to get a camera permit. But EVERYONE else did. I’ve included stolen examples.

I swear, all I could concentrate on the ENTIRE time was what I wanted to say to all the terribly obnoxiously people that watched the whole 1.5 hour show from the lens of their HUGE cameras.

I think they could make a flip book and see the entire show again with how many prints they must have now. Maybe they should sell them. Or hang themselves with their neck strap.

Since is was kinda rainy and there wasn’t a lot to do, we just shopped, ate, and drank our way through Hanoi. Repeat.

One great, sharable moment, was when we went out for pizza. Because I was craving it.

My beautiful veggie pizza needed a little flava. So I grabbed for salt and pepper.

Not salty enough. A little more.

Seriously? I still want more? What’s my issue? Is it not coming out properly?

Alright Lis, that has to be enough salt …

Wow, what a dumbass. You’ve been trying to sprinkle your pizza with the lid from the toothpick holder. You. Are. Retarded.

Since we’d been traveling together for waaay too long at this point, Adam and I had a habit of going silent during meals. Or at least once the food hit the table. So this whole convo happened in my head. To myself.

So in the middle of the meal I just started laughing, loudly and hysterically, while pointing at the lid of the toothpick holder.

But don’t you SEE how I could have gotten confused? Right?

He didn’t even pay that much attention. He’s used to this kind of asinine behavior.

But I made him take a picture so I would remember to tell this little gem of a story. Because it’s where my true personality shines. Like on MySpace.

(If you don’t get this reference to my past dating experiences, please inquire for a recap.)

Hmm, and that’s all for Hanoi.

We went to Halong Bay too, and then went BACK to Hanoi, but I think I’ll make that a separate presentation. Because there are pretty pictures to go with it.

Kangaroo brunch

It’s not as exciting as tarantulas, but it’s still pretty cool.

In celebration of an impromptu visit by my old friend Marianne – from Thailand/London/Maryland – we decided to do some touristy sightseeing and treat ourselves to an awesome meal.

After a night of romping around Darling Harbour, we took a recommendation from Marianne’s backpacker friend and went to check out the Sydney Tower.

The tower itself isn’t significant at all, it just provides spectacular views of the city.

Since Sydney’s surrounded by water and bays, it’s actually a pretty amazing skyline. As you can see.

For $25 we could just go up and down on the tower. For $50, we could sit for a couple of hours and stuff our faces on the all-you-can-eat buffet while getting a 360 view at the rotating restaurant.

Sold.

Along with a beautiful assortment of meats, salads, pastas, rice and amazing desserts, there was one key item on the menu.

That’s right. Kangaroo roast.

As you can see, it wasn’t THAT gross. But after my second bite I did get a really strong gamey aftertaste and got a little grossed out. Unfortunately we had stopped taping at that point.

Just watch for the shudder at the end.

It looks a lot like beef, but it’s a different color. And the grain is really big.

Would you call it a grain? Like wood? We didn’t really know.

In any case, you can eat kangaroo. You know, if you like that kind of thing.

They’re roadkill here. You can see them dead on the side of the road. Like deer in Michigan.

Weird, huh?