What a wild Christmas! It started off with a 6 a.m. wake up call from Julia, who knocked on my door and rousted me from sleep. After getting up, it was just a matter of time before she got everyone else up and awake. One thing about traveling so much is that I get to see how other people celebrate Christmas…. The Coursey family starts by opening gifts from Santa first. There were quite a few, and Julia and Alyssa really tore into them with gusto.
After the initial gifts, we all opened presents, but each in order – something a little different than what I’m used to. I did pretty well – I got some toothpaste and deodorant – two things that are really hard to find in Japan. I also got some warm hiking socks, a t-shirt, and a cool hat that is really popular in Australia. I think the gifts that I had brought from Japan were a hit – it was fun to give something so different to everyone.
After the presents were opened, we relaxed around the house until Brenda’s parents arrived. I had met them at the birthday party on Saturday, and we sat and chatted for a while. Steve was cooking up a ham and a turkey, and even before that we had a seafood snack. The presentation was beautiful – an ice bowl with imbedded flowers, petals, and lemons. Inside the ice bowl were oysters, prawns, and “bugs” – a kind of tiny lobster that we ate by pulling out the insides and dipping in a spicy wasabi sauce.
After the snacks we focused on what Australians call a Christmas lunch. We worked on the turkey and the ham, along with sweet potatoes, asparagus, roasted potatoes, and stuffing.
Everything was excellent – the food was delicious. A Christmas tradition in Australia that I didn’t know about was to pair up with someone and pull on a “popper”. The popper with break and one person has the big end – kind of like a wishbone on a chicken. The popper contains a piece of chocolate – something you get to keep if you win. It was kind of fun – apparently there are silly hats in some poppers that you get to wear.
We wrapped lunch around 2 o’clock. After the meal everyone was pretty wiped out. The heat was pretty intense – more than 30 degrees Celsius. We had dessert with Brenda’s folks and then they left for home. The rest of us were tired, but before everyone passed out, we organized a trip to the beach in Wollongong. Cassie, a friend of Alyssa’s came along – I understand that along with Cassie she is a beach regular.
I donned my new swimsuit I had purchased in Sydney, borrowed a towel, and we drove down to the beach to sit out and relax. The beach here was beautiful, and the sand was very clean, with very few shells, rocks, and debris. We sat out and relaxed – alternating between walking in the surf, swimming out a ways, and coming back to dry off. Even though some people went out swimming, but I stayed pretty dry, concentrating instead on taking pictures and watching people walk by. Cassie’s dad came by and hung out with us – he was fun to talk to.
I caught a ride back with Cassie and her father, and I was able to take some great pictures of the tidepools and lighthouse in the area. We all drove back to Cassie’s house, and there we drank lots of beer and talked for quite a while. The house was built from scratch, and it was interesting to walk through – it was very non-traditional as far as the layout goes.
Cassie’s brother Ben is leaving next week for Canada. He’ll be studying there for a year on an exchange. I could see how excited he was and I couldn’t help but be reminded of how I felt in the days and weeks leading up to moving to Japan. The culture shock shouldn’t be too bad for him – I recommended taking in a hockey game. Hockey is pretty foreign to everyone here, but I think he’ll enjoy it.
Afterwards, we went home, but then soon after we went to a neighbor’s house to drink more beer and talk. It was nice to sit on the porch – they have a wonderful view of the town and the ocean beyond it. We talked about red wine, and they insisted on opening a premium bottle of Australian red wine to get my opinion. I always feel weird analyzing wines in front of the people that bought them, but I figured it was the least I could do – they were certainly being nice by opening the bottle.
Finally, around 11:30 p.m. we organized ourselves and went home. I’m now getting ready to crash out for the night. We may do a bit of a hike tomorrow morning, and I’m hoping that I can do some food shopping to take some stuff back to Japan.
