This week has much revolved around letting my sunburn recover, which has been slowly getting better. Brandi, Devin, and I are the self proclaimed burnt musketeers as we have to limit our activities due to the sun's effects on our post-winter skin.Other than that, much of our days are spent rising early, usually around 7:30 or 8:00 to the sounds of birds chirping, going to the hub, and talking to people to find leads on what activities we might fill our days with.
So we got a tip on a farmer's market not far from where we stay and decided to head over there in the morning. We got off the bus at the Broadmeadow station and walked around for a little bit without any trace of a market. After asking a few people, a nice lady decided to give us a ride to the place which ended up being about 15 minutes away.
The market was very much like a flea market. All sorts of vendors had stations set up, some with children's toys, others had fresh fruit and vegetables, and then there were the prepared food vendors that were selling canned goods, chutneys, fish, donuts, and much more. We met some very interesting characters during our time spent here.
This man was one the first people we talked to. He was a passionate advocate for climate change and had some interesting stories for us.
Dennis was selling cordials which they use to flavor their water. It was really tasty and I ended up getting "melon, lime, and bitters." We ended asked him all sorts of questions about accents, Australia and British, what we sounded like, if Australian's had different accents within the group (which apparently there is a "deep bush" accent that is rarely heard)
One of the other more interesting people that I encountered that day was the lady in pink, as I like to call her because I didn't end up getting her name.
She was selling little painted flutes, wind chimes, decorative pins, little tin animals, and other things made out of wood. When I enquired to if I could take her picture she was hesitant and said "you caught me on an off day, I usually have more flair than this." Which I found surprising because she looked like she was just brimming with flair. But she was a good sport and was a nice person to talk to.
We also stopped by the Drayton Family Wines booth at which we got to try all sorts of locally made wines including desert liqueurs, a cabernet, and some of his personal favorites. I had a hard time getting Laura to leave ;) We planned on getting lunch there, but after trying about 20+ samples from carmelized onion chutney to basic garlic spread to the world's only fish sausage to donut puffs to white chocolate desert liqueur to the hottest thai chicken curry I've ever experienced, I left with a full belly. Altogether we ended up getting the cordial described above, a bottle of wine or two, the basil garlic spread, tomatoes, mangos, zuccinis and a few more things I can't recall right now.
So we finally found Laura a nice Australian boy that doesn't talk back.
We pass him by every once and a while and I think Laura is getting a little too attached.
I found this graffiti sprayed onto the side of this tunnel we pass through on our way to the house. I decided to make it my theme for the trip. Newcastle is filled with all sorts of cool graffiti and it's cool because I never see anyone washing it away. I think it is definitely something that is embraced when it is tasteful and though provoking.
We found these giant cantalopes rolling around in the road and decided to play with them!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
Oh, and a few Aussie slang terms:
Heaps - everything in large quantities comes in this measurement, as in, "you should wear heaps of sunscrean when you go in the sun or you might end up looking like Elyse"
Mexicans - this one confused me at first, but it means anyone living south of the border and has no derrogatory undertones.
Ute- Utility vehicle. It is basically a new fandangled El Camino and was created by Holden as the car you can take your family to on Sunday and then take your livestock to the market. Awesome!
Hotel - another name for a pub
Also, we tried out Sunday morning church at the Cathedral next to our house. We were by far the youngest people there by about 30 years. It was an Anglican church which I think is similar to Catholic churches but it was interesting. I felt really lost most of the time because everyone was chanting phrases in unison at random times, but it was a good experience. We will also be going to the free pancake dinner being held there on Tuesday night. Awesome!
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