A very Aussie weekend

I am a little late on this blog, but last weekend was so fun so better late than never! Now you might think everyday is an Aussie day, but when you live in a share house with people who are from all over the world it can be hard getting a true Aussie experience. But this weekend was very Aussie.

Saturday Jill, Condon, and I were invited to go to an op shop party. It was a "footy do" according to our friend Josh. I met Josh, a Melbourne native, at Miami while he was traveling in America. When I decided to move to Oz he was the first person I looked up! So anyway
Josh plays footy ( Aussie rules football) and his team had an op shop party at their club. Ok i'll slow down, an op shop, or opportunity shop is like a thrift shop or second hand store. And a footy do is an Aussie rules event...I think. I'm still trying to catch on. So we shop around for some good outfits, I happened to buy what the lady I believe said was "an exquisite shirt, with a wonderful label". I've never heard of my shirts "designer", but apparently she can make clothes. The footy do was so fun, lots of great outfits an we got to see the footy field, which according to many of the players is not where they play, but where the win. Yes sir, whatever you say. Such an Aussie night!

Sunday was first of all a national holiday for Australia and New Zealand, called ANZAC day. It is a day to pay respects and remember those of each country who fought in world war 1. Sunday also happened to be the birthday celebration of fellow Miami girl, Allie's boyfriend. So we went to allie's boyfriends for a barbie. The minute we arrived we met his roomates and they offered us a snag and pointed inside. Well we thought they said "do you want a snack", and when I
walked in I did notice food so we said sure and went in to get some of these snacks. As we left I heard some laughs, and I assume it was our accents that was so funny. But it turns out they said "do you want some snags", where a snag is a sausage that was been barbecued. And they realized when they offered we had no clue what a snag was. But we were not the only ones learning, because we taught the Aussies about the popular US game corn hole, which was the birthday boys gift from Allie.

Now because Sunday was a holiday, Monday was a work holiday. Sounds good to me, 3 day weekend! So we met up with Josh again and had brekky, breakfast, and decided to go into the city and walk around Southbank, a very cool area on the Yarra river. We sat by the water and had coffee/tea for a really long time just because it was so nice out and comfy by the water. The best part of Southbank would be the Melbourne Crown Casino. It is huge! Filled with of course the casino, but also restaurants, pubs, movie theaters, clubs, shops, fast food places, a hotel, and probably much much more. We tried our luck and gambled as a team at roulette and won some money, and then played this wheel spinning game where we really won! We ended up being up $135! We quit while we were ahead and decided to take our winnings and buy a nice dinner. We went to lygon st. Which is like little Italy and ate delicious Italian food. Such a good ending to a great day as well as a weekend.

Some more terms:
Mackers = McDonalds
Foot Path = sidewalk
Lemonade = Sprite/7 Up
Jam = jelly
Jelly = jello
Ta = thanks alot
Serviette = napkin
Cutlery = silverware

There are so many others...I will keep you updated on the good ones! Sorry...I will try blogging more often.