What's In A Name?

This is the story of the relationship I have with my name.

Somewhat self indulgent yes, but living in a hostel I am introducing myself on an almost daily basis and often have to follow up with an explanation that no, Dominique is not a traditional Irish name, it's French and no, I am not part French. Furthermore, some French people around the hostel have tainted my family nickname of Neeks by informing me that it is a dirty word in French and telling jokes that play on the whole name of Dominique. As such, recently I have been thinking a lot about my name and one of the conclusions all this name pondering has brought me to is that names are complicated.

New parents can spend months agonising over what to name the new addition to their family, wanting to find a name that they like or that means something special to them. You also hear stories about parents who wait until the infant is born before making that final decision, wanting to make sure the name 'fits' the child in an attempt to personalise it. But when it comes down to it, how personal can a name get? How many hundreds of thousands of other people have that exact name? In a way, there is almost some vague logic to the ridiculous celebrity baby name madness – do they just want to give their child as unique of a name as possible? (Even if this does come at the cost of potential playground teasing for the Apples, Blankets and Suris of this world...then again what do they care when they can gallop past the would be teasers on their pony?)

Specially made 'Dominique' shirt. Looking fly.

Dominique is a perfectly normal, non-made up name that is meant for people and yet growing up in West Belfast I might as well have introduced myself as Jermajesty for the reactions it evoked. I always had to repeat my name, kids on my street struggled to say it and no-one in my primary school class had the foggiest idea how to spell it. I was often informed “that's a boys name” when the Belfast accent butchered Dominique to become Dominic and as a result, a significant amount of people just called me that (often including my own grandfather). Sure it was cool to have the interesting name which stood out in a sea of Ciaras and Siobhans in the Glen Road camogie circles I rolled in but everyone hits that age when all they want to do is fit in and having an obscure French name makes that difficult from the outset. The there was that blasted song. You know the one. With the nun singing my name and taking cruel liberties with the syllables and adding “anoooh” ones. I was tortured by that song. Resultantly, I had serious problems with my name and I blamed my mother, swearing that her grandchildren would be Bob and Jane.

When I started secondary school I was eager to leave my by then tiresome name behind so I tried out a variety of nicknames, the first of which was Dee. Simple, to the point, I liked it but it never really caught on past my closest circle of friends and even they largely used it in notes or texts rather than when speaking to me. Then my cousin Laura started calling me Nicki which for some reason I loved but could never decide how to spell which made me seem a little schizophrenic; one day I would identify myself as Nikki before Niqui dropped by for some confusion correspondence. This one still pops up occasionally but was largely a write off. The only consistent nicknames I was known by in these early years were Neekers or Neeks, my family's terms of endearment. While perfectly happy with these, they also had their problems as 'hilarious' cousins were quick to change Neekers to Knickers and then laugh at their own wit and cleverness for calling me a type of underwear. And yet it continued – people were encouraged to play around with my name. There was only one nickname I could not stand: Dom.

I just hated the sound of it and refused to be called it.“Dom.” Dom. DOM. Dominique was considerably preferable. Anyone who called me Dom promptly received a verbal cease and desist order which was strictly enforced (or they were just ignored until they were capable of using my full name) and this continued until I was in my 2^nd year of university.

Scoop - The 1st people to get away with calling me Dom.

Everyone I knew in Manchester called me Dominique (except when referring to me in texts in which case I was simply known as 'Irish') until I started working at Scoop. I definitely started off as Dominique but then slowly, people started calling me Dom. I must have let it slide the first few times for whatever reason because it spread like wildfire and suddenly I was no longer Dominique. When I took a stand and explained to my co-workers that I much preferred Dominique, they informed me it was too late and continued to shorten my name. One girl even went so far as to call me “Dom Dom.” I was having none of it “Add 'inique' if you feel compelled to add more syllables to my name!” I snapped. “Oh, but please, I love it!” “Well I don't.” Surely it was more important that I, the owner of the name, loved it? But still, I came to grudgingly accept being called Dom and when I forced my university friends to socialise with my Scoop friends, the university pals found the idea of calling me Dom hilarious and told the Scoopers this. “But what do you call her?” “Dominique.” “Oh.”

Now lots of people know me as Dom which is madness considering no-one dared to utter that single syllable for close to the first 20 years of my life. I was often called Dom when working in Hanoi but not consistently, the City Picnic crew in Belfast rarely used my full name (there was another attempt at Dom Dom there that had to be swiftly stamped out) and simply everyone I know in Melbourne both from my hostel and work calls me Dom exclusively. How did this happen?! I can assure you I did not introduce myself to any of these people as Dom. It has even got to the point where someone asked me “Do you mind being called Dominique?” only to be confused when I said I preferred it.

The rapping vagabond.

There have been other incarnations of my name over the years, but mainly used in good fun rather than in a 'we are seriously going to call you this' way e.g. condom, dominatrix or just singing the Mission Impossible theme tune with the syllable 'dom.' In my final year of university, the boys started calling me Mo'nique, which I liked to think of as my ghetto alter ego. For a brief period I was even called Betty. But there have been fun moments with Dominique as well – my friends in Belfast went through a phase of circling me and chanting my name just because it was a fun name to chant. On my 21^st birthday, on the drunken bus home I was introduced to a vagabond (for some reason or the other) who began rapping about my name. I doubt these things would have happened if I was in fact a Jane. (No offence to any Janes, I happen to really love the name - much to my mother's despair). 

So that is the story of me and my name (went on for a while, didn't it?) Our relationship has been pretty rocky at times but at least we have had a relationship, I am sure there are many people out there who have never given their names a second thought. There may have been rough patches but we are good now, I like my name (and a decent amount of its variations), it feels personal and I do not think I would suit another. In all the reactions to my name I've never heard “Oh...you don't look like a Dominique” so my mother must have been onto something. And as she says I should count myself lucky – I came pretty close to being Shaharazad.

Confessions of a Junk Foodaholic.

I have always had a tricky relationship with food. When I was younger my mother swore that my appetite had mood swings; I would eagerly munch down on every edible item in sight (and those in closed cupboards) for the best part of a week before picking like a bird at whatever was put down in front of me for a day or two. In recent years my bird picking days have been limited to stressful, busy times when I do not necessarily find the time to sit down to a proper meal or when my funds are running dangerously low.

In general, if there is food I want that is easily accessible then I must eat it. Even if I am full. When I order a take away (and standardly order enough to feed the masses) I have a strategy to cram in as much of the deliciousness as possible – speed eating. My theory is that the faster you eat, the longer it takes for your stomach to realise you are full and as such you can enjoy much more food in the one sitting. Once I hit the full level, I simply sit back for a few minutes, maybe do some light burping and then begin eating again very slowly. At this point, you must be careful not to startle your stomach – it should not know that ingestion has recommenced until it is too late. This process can be repeated a number of times until you have cleared your plate...and the food containers.

With amazing restaurants and delicious cafés being close to ubiquitous in Melbourne, returning broke from the farm where I had also been incredibly well fed was insanely difficult for me and my stomach to bear. I spent $20 on a week's supply of food which mainly consisted of bread, ham, cheese and a lot of instant noodles (a staple that kept me alive through my university years). As a result I was not eating all that much because while the taste aspect was delicious for about a day, after that day my supplies did not make any meals I particularly wanted to eat. Eventually, my financial situation ruled out ham (even the cheapest packets, that were supposedly 'shoulder ham' – yummers!) and I became a reluctant vegetarian. Weeks later I would lament that the last proper piece of meat I ingested before my animal abstinence was a Sausage McMuffin (my first ever in fact) which is more 'meat' than meat. Considering what a carnivore I am and how many (semi-joking) anti-vegetarian rants I have produced over the years this was not actually that difficult. I have always said that when I get fat (and let's be honest, it is coming to me, my metabolism is going to quit eventually) I would never have the willpower to diet but it is fine – just become flat broke so you can only afford things you do not really want to eat. The real problem kicked in once I had a little bit of money. Of course what I should have done was buy moderately interesting ingredients rather than being stuck with noodles and toasties. What actually happened was that my junk food cravings took a hold on my stomach and my wallet.

I have openly admitted on a number of occasions that I find few things on this earth as delicious as chips; garlic chips, mayo chips, chilli chips, curry chips, gravy chips, cheesy chips, curry gravy cheesy chips (don't knock it until you have tried it) or just golden and piping hot with salt and vinegar, slapped onto fresh bread so fast that the butter starts to melt and escapes the buttie to drip down your fingers. They may be “the devil's starchy fingers” but sweet heaven in a cone are they tasty! It is not just chips – I have an unhealthy love of most unhealthy food and always have but it is only since I have been in Australia that I have came to terms with things - my name is Dominique and I am a Junkie. (Not in the heroin way, in the junk food way, get it?) 

Once I was earning money in Melbourne I reverted to that petulant seven year old who cannot walk past a McDonalds or a KFC without suddenly becoming faint with hunger. The pangs were too much – I deserved a treat after those weeks of taste starvation. So I went in and spent money on this little treat. Naturally the same thing happened at dinner time. And the next day. Who cared if I barely had the money to cover the next week's accommodation, I needed that Big Mac and nothing else seemed important except getting my fix. I made excuses for my habit like "I do not have time to cook" and "I only eat chips socially" even though I was hitting up Red Rooster solo and dumping the wrappers in case anyone found them. KFC in particular became a vice, it is just so good here! All the varieties are available in a spicy option and the chips are generously sprinkled in chicken salt, one of the most abstract but delicious seasonings I have ever had to good fortune to come across. The only disappointment I encountered in this fast food rampage was Burger King.

It took me a while to realise that Hungry Jacks was in fact Burger King under a different trading name. My first trip was to grab a small nuggets meal which was below average – the nuggets contained nothing that resembled chicken and the chips were lukewarm and floppy. When I realised it was BK and would serve my beloved Bacon Double Cheeseburger meal I assumed the nuggets encounter was a singularly sub-par experience, a bad day for the home of the flame grilled whopper. Oh how wrong I was. The chips were just as bad as they had been the first time round, the bacon was rank and the meat itself was flat and tasteless.I only ate half of it. I was truly devastated. I came close to weeping (in my defense I was hungover and that burger was supposed to save me rather than crush my soul). It became clear why they could not trade as Burger King in Australia – their products were terrible. Burger Jester would have been more fitting because that bacon double cheese was a joke (that's right, no capitals for this one, it did not deserve it). And poor Jack, clearly he is so hungry because even he does not want to eat his own burgers. Now I'm not saying I hit rock bottom, but this disgusting burger was certainly somewhat of a wake up call. The dirty satisfaction I normally got from fast food was missing and I had to start looking elsewhere for what my stomach was craving.

Once I got into the swing of things at work and the money started rolling in with a glorious consistency I did a proper food shop and began cooking. Being in a small hostel with a modest sized kitchen also helped as so many shared kitchens become intimidating with huge groups of backpackers forming cliques around the stove tops making them impossible to get to. In previous hostels, I often reverted to cooking instant noodles in the microwave (which I very much frown upon) as it was worth not having to do battle to claim a saucepan and gas hob. It is not that I cook particularly healthy or exciting things – various forms of pasta, chilli and stir fries are largely what I whip up but it is definitely the way forward. Of course I still give the fast food chains more of my money than I should (I can sense them out there...calling to me...) but it has become a treat rather than a staple. This way, I can fatten my wallet instead of myself. Or you know, spend the money on alcohol, which we all know is calorie (and guilt) free. Besides I could never give it up entirely - I get free pizza in work and you cannot say no to free food. I just have to occasionally exercise this mystical 'willpower' I have heard so much about and take it one day at a time.

UPDATE: Around two hours after I posted this blog I was inexplicably in Hungry Jacks.

Going South For Winter Does Not Always Work

It is somewhat unfortunate that I love the city of Melbourne so much. When I came to Australia, my vague travel 'plan' was to visit various pals who had also chosen the Land Down Under as their continent of choice and then follow the heat. Australia's mass is sufficiently huge for some regions to endure all four seasons while others enjoy the consistency of the tropics. I fully intended to take advantage of this by spending summer and some of autumn in southern territories before packing up and heading north as soon as I detected a chill in the breeze (yes, southern hemisphere has crazy backwards migration). This would save me the cost and trouble of having to purchase a coat – the dream was to constantly have a backpack stuffed with many tiny summer clothes, completely free from bulky, space stealing winter items. Basically, if I was going to travel all the way to Australia why on earth would I choose to be cold? As it turns out, it is because Melbourne is in south east Australia and it's flipping awesome!

A Fed Square building

One of Australia's best known cities (often cited as the capital by those smart enough to know it is not Sydney but too stupid to know it is Canberra) Melbourne has a large and bustling CBD with towering office blocks, numerous shops from high street to designer and streets that create a perfect rectangular grid. After some exploration of the grid however, you find that sections are packed with narrow, winding lanes that are crammed with cute coffee shops and cool bars that create a quaint, cosy atmosphere in the heart of the energetic city centre. The grid is also dotted with interesting buildings both old and new; Flinders Street Station, the oldest train station in Australia, is a majestic Victorian building that sits on a corner facing Federation Square, an open area marked buy a set of modern metal and glass buildings constructed in a complex geometric design. But as a local once told me, “Melbourne is all about the suburbs.”

Part of the Docklands - my restaurant is to the right

My current hostel is on the border of two such suburbs – Collingwood and Fitzroy (although the post office have proclaimed it Collingwood). A twenty minute tram ride from the CBD, I live on a street littered with vintage clothing stores, second hand shops, cafés with open mic nights and art galleries. It is like the CBD but cheaper, cooler and closer together. Then there is St Kilda, a suburb on the other side of the city that very kindly hosts a lovely beach as well as the standard night life offerings. (Supposedly St Kilda is where “all the Irish are” but being a rebel I decided against it as my 'burb of choice). There is also the beautiful docklands area, which is where I am lucky enough to work. The outside seating area of my restaurant gives a view of gentle water, flashy boats and the odd row boat race. The suburbs in Melbourne seem to take on a life of their own; they may be a sub level of urban but when you are there you do not feel like you are on the edge of something bigger and better because everything you want is right on your doorstep.

One of the other things Melbourne is 'all about' is coffee. I would go so far as to posit that it is the unofficial Coffee Snob capital of the world. Now I have on occasion considered myself somewhat of a Coffee Snob (partly symptomatic of giving a caffeine addict barista training) but these people take the biscotti! Previous coffee related culture clashes have involved my own indignation but in Melbourne I have transformed into the confused waitress from my No Speak Americano tale; pen poised to write down the order just as soon as I hear a word I recognise, marvelling that the bar comply in endlessly brewing these very specific types of coffee (but more on that in a later post). But Melbourne is known for its café culture in general, even outside of the world of coffee - Melburnians are serious foodies. If I had more money I would fit right in.

The view of Flinders Station from Fed Square

Another aspect of the city that has so far been a double edged sword is that it is mad for sport. Near my work is Ethiad Stadium where the Aussie rules 'footy' is played (a crazy game based on an oval pitch – the playing grounds do not have corners!) I have not gotten into this sport quite yet but it helps keep me light on my feet in work when there is a match on and the resulting atmosphere is always great. The other weekend, Melbourne hosted the Grand Prix which pissed me off as it messed with the tram timetables and stops and you could hear the screechy droning of the cars from random parts of the city even though you were nowhere near the track. On the other hand, when I first arrived in Melbourne (the pre-farm week) the Australian Open was on and I got caught up in the excitement of being in the same city as Federer, Nadal, and Murray et al. While at the time I was shit broke and could not entertain the idea of buying even the cheapest of tickets, the atmosphere in the city was amazing. The matches were shown on a massive screen in Federation Square every day and the crowds that gathered there to watch it in the sunshine were as equally thrilled as I was to be there.

So although there are no epic tennis tournaments due soon and autumn has commenced, I have settled into Melbourne enough that I have no plans to head north any time soon. For now I am loving the city, I am enjoying my job, comfortable in my hostel and have made some really good friends. I am pretty darn happy and if that means I have to buy a coat with insulating properties, then so be it.

...and that's how we get hamburgers.

My first month in Australia was reasonably fast paced considering that in those four weeks I managed to visit four states – pretty good going! After my arrival in Sydney, New South Wales I headed to Canberra, Australian Capital Territory then did a fun ACT – NSW – ACT – NSW hopscotch that eventually landed my back in Sydney for a few days. Then on January 6th it was up to Surfers Paradise (yes this is the actual name of the town), Queensland to visit Lewis, a Hanoi Backpackers alumnus.

Surfers had been described to me as the Blackpool of Australia which as it turns out, is largely all you need to know about it. Very touristy beach town with a strip of bars and restaurants, general ‘amusements’ such as a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum and…that is about it. I spent the vast majority of my time there lounging in the shade with cider but I met a lot of great people and it was really good fun. One of the best parts of this week was a day trip to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary (note: not in Surfers) where I saw my first kangaroos and koalas. We also got to watch crocodiles jumping out of the water for food with a massive snap of their jaws which was freaking awesome. It was a completely glorious day, even despite my sudden wariness of kangaroos once I was walking amongst them and given the opportunity to feed them. But really, it was all about the koalas.

One day short of my one month Aussiversary I arrived in Melbourne, Victoria (on which there will be more in a later post considering it is my current home). Mapping these journeys is not (only) a way of once again flaunting how well travelled I am, but also illustrates the sheer randomness of my eventual decision to settle down on a farm. All those wonderful places I had visited and somehow I decided that rural Victoria was the place for me. Well, OK, that is not exactly how the decision process evolved. It was more like being in Surfers, realising I had spent ridiculous amounts of money considering all I was doing was sitting in the shade, drinking cider (hmm…) and getting a well timed call from Jenny (yep, you guessed it, yet another Hanoi Backpackers alum) saying the farm she was on could do with another worker and wouldn’t it be fun if that worker was me? It was not going to be a paid gig, just accommodation and food, but a whole month of spending next to no money sounded great and it had been over a year since I had seen Jenny so after five days in Melbourne I jumped on a bus to Taggerty. 

The bus journey itself managed to be quite eventful, partly because I was hideously hungover and tragically sleep deprived. The previous night, a civilised evening of dinner and drinks with Jono (who yes, I also know from Hanoi Backpackers, let’s not dwell on it) turned into a beer pitcher fuelled karaoke night that went onto 5am with people from my hostel who I had ran into while attempting to go to bed. Ain’t it always the way? So as I crawled onto the bus with my 20kg of belongings, cringing at the memory of storming the stage when Drippy Girl sang her 5^th Drippy Song of the night (Especially For You – she had to be stopped) I just about remembered to tell the bus driver I was going to Taggerty and would it be OK if he dropped me at Yellow Creek Road? Sure, not a problem. Excellent.  

About 100 kilometres outside of Melbourne (that’s right, I use kilometres now and yes, this is probably the furthest I have ever been from a city at any point in my entire life when I have not been on a plane) the winding bus journey takes two and a half hours so around this time I am getting ready to disembark, eyes peeled looking for things that say 'Taggerty'. Naturally, I end up in Eildon which is about 40km of bus route past Taggerty and the terminus. Whoops. I asked the bus driver if there is a bus going back to Taggerty. "Why did you fall asleep?" he asked me, clearly amused. 'Um, did YOU?' I internally rage. (External rage proved to be far too exhausting for my current state). My rage subsided after he informed me that there was no bus going back but since he happens to live in Taggerty, he will drive me back, which is awfully nice of him. It would however have helped if he had not chuckled while telling me, "I forgot you asked me to let you know when we were in Taggerty...I actually did not even stop the bus there!" Cheers mate. 


Approaching Taggerty (supposedly for the second time) it becomes clear that there is no way, even on my most alert, sober day, I could have spotted it myself as it is in fact a bus stop without a proper sign on it, beside a bridge called 'Little River.' As I would later realise, Taggerty is off the main road and seems to consist of a general store (a post office/convenience store/ cafe/coffee shop/off-license - in your face City Picnic!) and a primary school. I am sure there are some houses around somewhere but I still reckon you could walk from one end of Taggy (affectionate nickname)  to the other in two minutes which uncharacteristically, is not an exaggeration. According to Wikipedia aka Source of All Knowledge, about 600 people live in the Taggerty area and while I'm not sure what the land mass of this is, the nearest towns were at least 20 kilometres away.

The cabin - my first rural home

Our host, a gun toting farmer dentist ( try fitting that on your business cards) owns a vast amount of land, mainly occupied by cattle but also containing a cherry orchard where most of my work was to take place. The picking season was over but I was there to help Jenny do odd jobs which started with 'wipper snippering' which involves snipping wippers/cutting suckers. Yes, that's as technical as I got. We also moved logs, weeded and other tasks that amounted to glorified gardening. At the end of my first day (about 2.5 hours of actual work) my arms were aching, my back was sore and the skin on my hands had started to peel. Oh, rural life! I was also dirty as sin, which was great considering showering was limited to three minutes, preferably not every day since we were not connected to a water supply, instead relying on rain to fill up the water tanks. Obviously in the middle of summer, this is great. 

Yes, you may think I am setting the scene for a heart-warming but ultimately predictable movie about a city girl who moves to a ridiculously small town and while appalled at first, eventually rises to the occasion. I am not. Anyone who knows me knows I am a city girl to the core, if I ever discover or devise the word for being discriminatory against tiny towns I will emblazon it on a t-shirt and wear it with pride. Even Romy’s coast house often proved too rural for me. She would giggle watching me cautiously prowl through a small patch of overgrown grass leaving me to spit “I’m not Nature Girl, OK?!” So when I hit the farm I could have given Paris and Nicole a run for their considerable wealth. I never got used to the early starts, the endless dirt under my finger nails or even the basic concepts of manual labour. I showed obvious disgust when pulling the slimy yabby (crayfish type crustacean) nets out of the dam, moaned when my feet got muddy and never fully trusted the cows not to do something to me (although I was unsure what since they are slow and incredibly stupid creatures). 

It did not help that we were told to be on the lookout for snakes. Jenny had been on the farm for two months before I arrived and never had seen one but this just made me more convinced that the snakes were waiting especially for me. This wariness reached a head one night when we had to go up to the orchard to turn off the irrigation (a word I had not used since A-level Geography that was suddenly back in my life with a practical vengeance).  Having decided that snakes were nocturnal creatures, every time I hopped out of the ute (Aussie truck) to open and close a gate I was frantically scanning the long grass with a torch and taking quick, giant leaps like a madwoman.

I have two points to make about this incident, the first being somewhat of a tangent. I no longer understand the phrase ‘were you born in a field?’ being directed towards people who fail to close doors. Fields may not have doors but closing gates is very important. If someone was born and presumably raised in a field I can only believe that they would have an almost obsessive need to close every door they subsequently encountered due to their gate like function. You do not want cows roaming into your living room. 

The second is on the fear of the unfamiliar – the orchard at night completely terrified me, I was constantly afraid of a snake attack or even a particularly rambunctious wombat charging at me. And yet, on many occasions I have been in big cities at night and not even thought about the possibility of encountering a mugger or any other sort of street criminal. In Hanoi, I would preach to tourists about the importance of taking approved motorbike taxis home and not bringing out all your belongings but often walked home by myself with my phone, purse and camera and felt perfectly safe. I am sure far more city people are mugged than rural folks are bitten by snakes but to me there and then spotting a snake seemed imminent. In fairness, if I had spotted a snake and (as was much more likely) it just went on its merry way without coming near me I still would have reacted. You cannot react to muggers who do not mug you, they just look like regular people. 

Of course the benefits of the farm considerably outweighed my largely irrational fears and dislike of being grimy. The biggest advantage was getting to spend time with Jenny again, who although I had only known for six weeks in Hanoi, I considered a dear friend. A close second was having a double bed in a room all to myself. Our wooden cabin was cute and homely with a deck to sunbathe the afternoons away on. The main house was a minute’s walk away; a large, modern building where the farmer cooked us dinner every evening. For a month, I had ridiculously good food from chicken livers to venison to the yabbies we had caught in one of the farm’s dams. Of course we had regular pasta dishes and stir fries as well but it is important to point how spoiled we were. We also were treated to some fine wines and in our last week, some truly exceptional port – I could get used to this aspect of ‘farm life’ very easily. 

Safe in the wildlife park - not on the farm

In addition to being a farmer and a dentist, our host was also a hunter. One evening, while doing the dishes I spotted a rabbit bouncing around the back garden and happened to comment on this out loud. In under three minutes the rabbit had been shot, skinned, gutted and was in the fridge. We had it as a starter the next evening. This took some getting used to (and some of you may find it highly controversial, for which I apologise) but it was also quite fascinating. Early one morning we got up and headed to the farm in time to see the kangaroos, one of which bit the bullet. It was one of those surreal moments at 6.30am when you are standing on a farm, watching Jenny fillet her first kangaroo. I am sure you can all relate. We kept some of the organs to use as bait for the yabby traps while the meat was to be marinated and enjoyed at a later time. The animals were shot to be eaten, not for sport. We were just cutting out the middle man. And it was not all blood and guts – civilised fishing also took place. (That’s right, I have been fishing). Once reeled in and admired the fish were dehooked and returned to the dam.

When people ask me about my month on the farm I always say, ‘well...it was an experience.’ But really, it was an amazing experience. As much as I moaned and grimaced, I had a brilliant time, it was something completely new and different for me and really, isn’t that what I am supposed to be searching for on my travels? (Other than a good party of course). It was a simple, enjoyable time and let’s not kid anybody, I was not engaging in any actual farm work. Jen and I coined our tasks as ‘landscape tidying.’ I would not take back my time in Taggerty for anything but getting back to Melbourne and returning to the hospitality industry has been a massive relief. City girl to the core.

Oh and no, I never did see a snake.

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

My Australian coffee menu knowledge got another addition over Christmas - muguccino. Cappuccino in a mug. As opposed to a cappuccino in a glass or cappuccino in a petri dish or some other unsuitable receptacle. Rather than just asking for a large cappuccino, you must choose between a cappuccino (small) or a muguccino (large). Madness. (I feel like I could let it go if a cappuccino was in fact a cuppuccino - there would be some sense to that). I fear I caused another coffee house scene, especially after Romy went on to order a muguccino and enjoy it in front of me while I petulantly sipped at my inadequately sized cappuccino, having refused on principle to order a muguccino. No point in encouraging them after all.

I did not take photos of coffee or hills hoists

 
Many more eyebrows were raised over Christmas when I was with the Packards and exposed to a whole host of new words. Some perfectly acceptable while others were closer to the muguccino incident and not just from my side - the Aussies were not happy either. Romy, my main slanguage sparring partner certainly did not always find the inconsistencies between UK and Australian English interesting or amusing. They slightly infuriated her and my often incredulous reactions to discovering these new terms probably did not help. For instance, a rotary washing line is called a hills hoist. Not just a washing line. Hmm. It is hard for me to accept that she would call it anything other than a washing line. But, for her, why would it not be a hills hoist? We end up staring at each other in disbelief and frustration. She says thongs, I say flip flops; she says 8.15, I say quarter past eight. Let's call the whole thing off, eh?

It is not like we are ever going to give up and start saying things the other way. But perhaps Romy's attitude comes from a 'When in Rome...' type notion? Although that would probably be giving her a lot of credit since we had these arguments long before I came to Australia. The  classic extends back to Hanoi and possibly even the first week we met; I say "duvet", she says "doona." . Then the Americans tried to chip in with "comforter" but they were told to pipe down. When you share a bedroom with someone this word comes up so many times it becomes exhausting so it is an argument we largely try to avoid. 
 
 There was a temporary true called over the pepper v capsicum battle. "But then what do you call chilli peppers?" asked Romy. "Chillis." "Oh." But then when we actually decided to roast the damn things (very yummy, stuffed with feta, chilli and basil) and it flared up again with Romy 'correcting' me with "capsicums" every time I dared to refer to the "peppers." But it would be unfair to say it was all her; many a times she will use a word that despite knowing exactly what she means I will pretend to be confused so she has to explain it, allowing me to say "Oh, you mean ..." 


However, there were many things I was genuinely clueless about and it went beyond words alone. Often I felt like a small child in a zoo wandering around Guerilla Bay having to ask a series of questions to get a basic understanding. What was making that noise? And what is that? Oh, really? So what does it do? I spent half of this time amazed, half of it terrified. Some of the creatures and plants I had never heard of before while others I had a completely misguided idea of what they actually were.  (Did everyone else know that a kookaburra was a bird? Huh.)  

The ever present wildlife

Escaping The Great Outdoors is not always a relief as even the supermarket is a place of confusion. If you want meat or cheese from the deli counter they expect you to know the grams/kilos  (I still live in Imperial Land when it comes to this). If you want cash back you ask for "cash out". If you want to top up your phone you have to ask for a "recharge." If you want to buy alcohol, there is not an aisle for it, but instead you must go to the nearby "bottle shop." On the upside the chocolate aisle is stacked with a familiar tasting Cadburys but even here there are some discrepancies - sure there is Freddo but chilling out beside him is his Australia cousin Caramello Koala.  


But it is easy to come around - the beaches are beautiful and the BBQs are tasty. Koalas are the cutest creatures ever and kangaroos are not too bad either (especially when they are not dead on the side of the road). The people are friendly and easy going, the weather is pretty damn nice and holding schooners does not flare up my RSI as quickly as holding pints does. Plus I have stopped constantly pondering the grammatical intricacies of being asked "how you going?" (Any thoughts on this? The Aussie "how are you?" that fails to be a "hows it going?" or a "how are you doing?" If Friends was set Down Under this would have been Joey's pick up line). From my perspective it is good to note down all these differences now because something tells me that in another couple of months I will be roasting capsicums and hitting the bottle shop up for some goon like I have been doing it my whole life, blissfully unaware that these words used to melt my brain. 


I do however ask that if I ever cosy up in a doona with a muguccino that someone shoot me.

Some Like It Hot

In all the excitement of coming to Australia and being warm, it was very easy to forget that the Christmas season was upon me. Sure there were Christmas trees, tinsel and the like but there were also open air festivals and bikini clad beach goers. Very confusing indeed. I spent Christmas 2010 in Hanoi where outside of my Western Hostel Bubble they did not really celebrate Christmas - decorations are put up around the city but if you asked the Vietnamese what they were going to do on Christmas day the answer was not very much. But whilst hardly traditional, last year still managed to feel like Christmas thanks to the WHB and the weather being suitably grim (if only compared to the previous months).


Now I always enjoy the argument that a hot, sunny Christmas is the most traditional of all if you play the Christ in Christmas Card. Yes, the scene of the very first Christmas was essentially a desert aka hot and sunny. Fair enough. But do not champion this notion and then put polystyrene snowmen in the window and play Let It Snow! If you get to spend Christmas being warm and working on your tan it is unfair to simultaneously get in on the iconic aspects of a Northern Hemisphere Christmas. You, dear Australia, appear to be having your brandy pudding and eating it too. Besides, the surfboarding Santas in red tank tops and sunglasses are much more apt - even St. Nick needs a vacation.

The view from the Packard Coast House

Thankfully, I was whisked away from my Christmas confusion by Romy (a very dear friend from my Hanoi days in case you live in a cave and have never heard of the unstoppable force that is Romdom) to be treated to a traditional Aussie Christmas with her family on the coast in Guerilla Bay. Situated on a small peninsula, the house has access to not one, but two beautiful beaches and stunning views all around - pretty damn spectacular. The massive Packard Family considerately arrived in small groups to allow me to learn their names and were warm and welcoming without exception. Suddenly, despite the amazing weather, it was feeling a lot like Christmas.


The 25th itself got off to a concerning start when I was rocked awake about 9am by a grinning Romy who cheerfully announced that I had to get up because I was ruining Christmas. The family had started getting up at 6am, sweetly unable to shake off the Christmas excitement that so many of us lose over the years and Packard tradition is to wait until everyone (around 25 people) is up before opening even a single one of the presents in the ridiculously large pile. (Seriously, never seen anything like it. All of the presents could not be put under the tree until everyone was going to bed on Christmas Eve as the pile took up the majority of the living room). In my head this many people with this many presents was going to be pure mayhem but far from the standard Christmas morning picture of people frantically grabbing every Christmas present in sight and ripping it open, a lovely little ceremony took place. The oldest and youngest members of the family distributed the presents in a completely orderly fashion, calling out who each present is for and who it is from e.g. "To Dom, From Rom." I must ask, are other families this civilised on Christmas morning or am I just disgustingly greedy? Regardless, I loved it and will definitely take my time with presents from now on.


Then of course, we went to the beach. Access to the 'back beach' is only possible by practically abseiling down a dirt track/cliff, clinging to the ropes the family have put in place over the years. I made it down very slowly with much help and teacher-like encouragement from an amused Romy who could have made it down in a fraction of the time if she did not have to babysit my own descent. However, those "good job buddy!"s really helped and I felt victorious, if not exhausted, when I hit the ground. It is completely possible that no-one other than the Packards know about this little gravel beach which made it a particularly special place to spend Christmas Day as there was no-one on the beach other than us. Oh and seven dogs. I mean, OK, all seven dogs probably were not on the beach, but it seems as good of a time as any to mention the huge canine presence and allow you all to picture how on edge I was a lot of the time. 


And dogs certainly were not the only animals present during my Christmas. Some played in the sea with what was thought to be 'harmless, flat jellyfish' and actually turned out to be two mating stingrays. Bouncing on them probably was not the smartest move. (You understand that I took no part in this as the second 'jellyfish' was uttered, I swam for the safety of the shore). Never mind keeping your wits about you in case the local wobbegong showed up - do not be fooled into thinking that's a cute or silly name, as it is in fact a shark. But in the distance some spotted dolphins or whales or something cute like that. Back on land, despite numerous stickers on the windows on the decking, kamikaze birds managed to fly smack-bang into them on a daily basis. And these were not standard pigeons but beautiful lorikeets; colourful, parrot type things that we would have in an aviary for sure. They knocked themselves out so hard they would  pass out on the grass below barely moving for 20mins. Black cockatoos flew overhead regularly but managed to avoid the window. Then there were the goannas and possums supposedly scampering around the deck at night time. Just ridiculous amounts of wildlife fluttering around for a simple city girl like myself! 

The scene was set

But despite intrusions from the animal kingdom we had a completely lovely Christmas. Once back from the beach, everyone got cleaned up and stuck into dinner preparations. The strawberry on top of my Aussie Christmas (I don't like cherries) was seeing the giant (and mouthwatering) ham come in from outside....could I dare to dream that they had BBQ-ed it? Disappointment temporarily sank in when I was informed it had been done in the smoker but inspection determined that the smoker was in fact a small, charcoal BBQ! (All fancy gas BBQs in Oz). All my Aussie Christmas dreams came true in that very moment. Dinner was amazing, with a few additions I would not normally see on my plate such as rice stuffing and sweet potato but everything was insanely delicious and as always I ate until I was fit to explode. 


Dinner was followed up with flaming puddings and lashings of very brandiey brandy butter and people whipping out a guitar and a ukulele for some sing alongs. I was dragged into the entertainment after serious pressure for an Irish Jig. Yikes. While I have drunkenly 'treated' many a club with my 'Irish dancing' when they foolishly play Tell Me Ma or something by B*witched it is not something I do with remote seriousness since I am in fact incapable. But a few glasses of wine and Christmas cheer was sufficient enough for me to embarrass myself so up I got to drag up my vague memories of an Easy Reel. Ultimately, it was good fun and like Tinkerbell and Rachel Berry before me I got applause which I do in fact need to live so it worked out in the end. Then to wind down a wonderful day we played a number of different games and even though no-one wanted to be on my team because I did not know who Julia Gillard was (whoops!) I muddled through. 


Basically I had an amazing Aussie Christmas and I cannot thank the wonderful Packard family enough for taking me in. As long as you are with good people (and eat until you feel sick) where you are or what the weather is like is inconsequential. Besides, some people still had red noses - sure it was from sunburn rather than Jack Frost nipping at them but as long as we all look like Rudolph, it does not really matter. 

No Speak Americano

Sydney skyline from the harbour

Being in Australia has been a pretty weird experience so far - you travel for what feels like a week only to emerge in a Westernised country where everyone speaks English. Does not compute. If you were to see a photo of Sydney city centre (or CBD as they refer to it) you could be forgiven for guessing it was a scene from an American city. Probably not by actual Australians but I am sure fellow tourists would readily accept your apologies. The city is organised into blocks by wide, smooth roads and pavements with skyscrapers towering over the busy commercial district amongst new, shiny buildings and only a sprinkling of older ones. (The oldest residential building in Sydney was built in 1816 – as our tour guide said to our largely European group, “Yeah, I bet you are all impressed. None of you have anything as old as that in your countries... ahem...”) But what I am saying is that for all that flying life is easy, nothing is particularly foreign feeling (except the warmth, oh sweet warmth!) and you will fit in nicely since you already know all the quirks of the Aussie slanguage; thongs go on your feet, good things are bonzer, drink too much and you will chunder, everything comes in heaps, etc. I became accustomed to most of it randomly enough in Hanoi due to 'heaps' of Aussie staff. 

So when exhausted from the Sydney sun (when the shy bastard decides to pop its head out from behind the clouds that is) you flop down in a cafe for a caffeine fix you do not expect things to go wrong. “Regular americano please,” I ask the waitress, but rather than whisking off to give the barista my order she just stands there looking at me like my neck has had a spontaneous and rapid growth spurt and decided to produce an extra head. “An americano?” Assuming she is just double checking the order to ensure my accent has not caused any confusion I give a polite nod and return to my book. No such luck, she continues to hover. She admits to me that she has no idea what an americano  is and from the expression on her face, it is clear she thinks I am the ludicrous one. “Just a standard, black coffee?” I cannot help but pose this as a question. Realisation dawns. “Oohhh, you mean a long black, OK.” No I did not mean a long black but if it means she is going to bring me a cup of coffee then I am not going to correct the girl. So I mutter “sure” and off she swishes, clearly bemused by the whole encounter. 

Seriously? Even disregarding the fact that Long Black sounds like the name of the lead male character in a porno movie, how ridiculous is it that coffee names have not been standardised over the world? I feel a petition coming on. Resultant peering at coffee menus suggests that the rest are the same (although I fear an espresso has been dubbed a Short Black, Long Black’s midget and probably moustached sidekick) so why mess with a classic? The real issue here of course is that Aussie stereotypes are useless. Why have we been introduced to largely useless words like Sheila and didgeri-flipping-doo when what we should be taught are slanguage survival skills like how to successfully order a coffee! 

A schooner or pot - somewhere between a half and a pint

And once you notice one thing, it all starts piling up. For instance, when casually strolling around you are thinking ‘wow, there are a lot of hotels with pubs in the reception.’ Now, I know, in retrospect that this was a crazy thing to think but as it is slowly dawning on you just how different things are you go with it! Finding out (several days later) that in this upside down land hotel = pub clearly makes more sense but still blows your mind a little bit. I mean, how did that happen? When the colonists got here were they so bored they thought ‘hey, let’s mess around with the dictionary?’ I have yet to discover if I can go into an establishment which advertises itself as a pub and book accommodation for the night. And once you're in the supposed hotel, more madness comes at you in the form of stubbies, schooners, middies and the chunder inducing goon. You feel like shouting "I just want a flipping drink!" but it is best to accept this will not get you very far. 

I have yet to successfully navigate my away around most of these hurdles, having chosen to drink spirits as an altogether safer option. Thankfully, today I head to Canberra to meet up with Romy. While it's staying with a friend, I can also think of it as an Australian homestay; hopefully some sort of cultural exchange will occur, my slanguage skills will improve and all that other stuff that is supposed to happen when you go on an exchange and stay with a foreign family. Besides it is not all bad, 'bogan' is one of my new favourite words.