Life in the land down under: Christmas and New Year's 2010

Christmas felt more like Christmas this time around. Last time we had just arrived and spent Christmas just the two of us in our apartment in Docklands. My first Christmas without my family ever and the quietest Christmas day I have ever had. See my blog post http://anwareendownunder.blogspot.com/2010/03/christmas-dinner-in-docklands_23.html to see photos and read about our day.

I had no idea that Australians buy real Christmas Pine's for Christmas from local Christmas Tree Farms to decorate in their homes! This is more of what I expected to see...a tree in the food court at work all decked out in Christmas garb.

Like last time, I attended the Christmas Party for city office staff which was held at the St. Kilda Yacht Squadron.It was a lovely event with a delicious Christmas lunch. At our tables were Christmas crackers that contained a party hat, joke and toy. We all put on our party hats and enjoyed our lunch while overlooking the St. Kilda pier and beach!

St. Kilda Yacht Club Squadron building.

Enjoying the terrace during the city office Christmas party. This is my Parks Victoria colleague Rebecca and I with the St. Kilda Pier in the background.

After the Christmas lunch which ended around 3pm, most of the City Office staff headed to The Republica, a restaurant and bar located right on the beach! It was such a lovely afternoon mingling with colleagues while enjoying the sun, sand, palm trees and view of the water.

Parks Victoria staff enjoying a nice afternoon at The Rebublica on St. Kilda Beach.

Christmas Day!

As I mentioned, this year Christmas felt a little more like Christmas. We spent Christmas day with our fellow Canadian exchangees in Glen Waverly, where Helen and Rick from Jasper live. They live in what Parks Victoria calls "The Bushy Park House" as it is located right next to Bushy Park. It is a fabulous house with a neighbouring pasture with horses and cows. Helen and Rick set up a lovely Christmas table outside and for a bunch of Canadians, eating Christmas dinner outside for the first time, was an experience we will never forget! Glen Waverly is only about a 20 minute drive from where we live and with its lovely pastoral setting it was so hard to believe that we were in a city of 4 million people.

The beautiful table setting that Helen and Rick set up for us in their lovely backyard overlooking the horses and cows!

The guys, from left to right; Brian (Ottawa), Michael (Jasper), Kelly (Winnipeg), Bill (Winnipeg), Rick (Jasper), and Jeremy (Seaford, Victoria) who is now an honorary Canadian Exchangee given that he is recently engaged to a Canadian exchangee.

Bill from Winnipeg at Helen and Rick's Bushy Park House!!

Our lovely Christmas day meal. It was a pot luck so everyone brought a dish. My contribution was sweet and regular mashed potatoes..locally grown of course!! We had lamb, turkey and shrimp on the barbie!!

Rick doing up some shrimp on the barbie!!

Enjoying our lovely Christmas dinner and watching the sunset and horses

New Years Eve

For New Year's Eve we went to Clifton Hill a beautiful inner city suburb where Karen and Bill are staying. We visited their house and then walked down to Queen's Arcade where we had reservations at a family owned Italian Bistro. A perfect dinner spot, I enjoyed a lovely grilled sea perch with potatoes and vegetables. While others had Veal Scallopini and Seafood Marinara. We met a lovely Australian couple and had a great time.

Brian and I, Karen and Bill enjoying our time at this fabulous Italian Bistro in Clifton Hill.

A lovely couple from Melbourne who we met during dinner.

After dinner we had some time to kill before heading to see the fireworks so we stopped at "The Local" a common term used to refer to the local pub in the area, to shoot a few games of pool. It was fun, with retro music in the background and the locals coming in and out as they celebrated New Years Eve.

Karen and I at 'The Local'

Bill and Brian playing pool at 'The Local'!

We couldn't have timed our departure from 'The Local' more perfectly and made it to the park (which took a while to find, but we just followed others on their way) in perfect time for the Fireworks. They are just fabulous in Melbourne. They happen twice throughout the evening, once at 9pm and the other at midnight. At midnight the buildings in the CBD (downtown) shoot fireworks off of their roofs. It is quite the site to see and lasted quite a while. We had a perfect view of the whole city skyline which was a treat to see!

New Years Day 2011

\New Year's Day we hosted a BBQ at our place with friends we met last time we were here and living in Docklands.

Some goodies I picked up at the Prahran Market - Kalamata and green olives, apple, raisin and spice chutney, beetroot dip, assorted cheeses included a really nice soft cheese with fig and walnuts and assorted crackers of course!

All prepared and ready to throw on the barbie - vine tomatoes, sweet and sour lamb cutlets, mushrooms and potatoes..of course we also had shrimp on the barbie and our friends brought over some marinated chook (chicken) and steak. I got the recipe for the lamb marinade off of a TV program here called Huey's Kitchen. Huey, goes around to various historic sites and other places of interest in Victoria, brings his BBQ along and cooks up a quick meal or two. He has some quick and easy recipes to follow and this one was pretty tasty! I also did the tomatoes based on his show, on the barbie with some red wine vinegar, balsamic, sea salt and a touch of olive oil.

Our friend Ryan taking over the bbq'ing - good thing because he did an amazing job, much better than we would have done, the meat was cooked perfect, with the steak so tender it melted in your mouth! A perfect New Years Day feast!