Aussie Sunday Lunch

Today most of us International Students were off to a real Australian home. The pastor on campus found volunteers through the community churches, who were willing to host a student for lunch. We went in pairs to their houses to see what a typical home looks like, though nothing is really typical and also to enjoy a homecooked Aussie meal.

I was partnered up with Shawn, who goes to the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. We were the first to be picked up; our host was Ailsa Auld, an older woman who lived close to campus. We started off getting to know her by sitting on her back porch over juice and a bowl of Doritos. First she cooked pumpkin soup for us. Aussies eat a lot of pumpkin foods. The soup was good…we added a milk cream to the soup to thicken it up and had rolls to go along with the soup. Then the next course was meat pies, mashed potatoes, and carrots & corn. The meat pies are also called 4 and 20 pies; it comes from the song “4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie…” They are similar to a pot pie, the crust is a croissant with the beef or chicken in the inside with a few vegetables. It was pretty funny cause she served Shawn a plate with heaps of food…she had figured all boys need a lot of food, especially since she had raised 3 boys herself. Shawn tried to eat most of it…he didn’t want to be rude…but it was just so much food! Later for dessert, Ailsa served an apple pastry with vanilla ice cream. She did not have any herself cause she was trying to watch her diet with Weight Watchers.

Before dropping us back at school, she took us for a drive to Goonellabah, a suburb of Lismore. The community had just built a sports center with heated pools, a fitness center, and a very large gymnasium. Shawn was really interested because he is a backstroke swimmer and needs to keep in shape…his season will begin in October when we return home. I was glad I checked the place out as well…it would be a lot of fun to get a bunch of us together to go swimming for the day or play a few games of basketball.

The Lunch was supposed to last a few hours, not too long cause they did not want any of us to feel uncomfortable or feel as if we had to ask to leave. Shawn & I got home around 3:30 pm. Perfect timing if you ask me, but Lisa & Kelly did not come home until sometime around 5:00. The family that they were with decided to sing karaoke…and Lisa & Kelly were “encouraged” to sing songs as well. Apparently the Philippian mother did not want to stop karaoke. I had called Kelly earlier to see if they were back yet & she ended up sneaking off to the bathroom to call me back. It was pretty funny. Those 2 little shits, Kelly & Lisa, let me know when they were back by sneaking into my room, while I was in the middle of a lovely nap, and scaring the piss out of me! My heart never hurt so bad!

We still wanted to grill out for the Fourth, American-style, so we tracked down Mark to help us grill on the Rec Deck. We probably should have found someone else to use the grill because the week before he almost blew up Orion College! Apparently the grill was not working, so he went back to his apartment. When he came back to the Deck there was fire everywhere! There was fire on the gas drum as well! But…we ended up getting the cheeseburgers cooked alright. We also had corn on the cob, carrots, and mushrooms. Kelly had been looking forward to the cheeseburgers for the past week and finally got one! We ended the night by finishing Terminator 2. Now we are going to start on the Rambo movies.

Tomorrow will probably be a boring day for me…no class or trips, so I think I may sleep in, go for a run, and get a few groceries later with Lisa & Kelly. Tuesday will be a full day of class. This coming weekend a bunch of us are thinking about going to the Gold Coast to check out the beach and the nightlife. I’ll keep you posted! Ciao.