Elections, etc.

So I might have heard a thing or two about an election going on at home (wink!), and that made me think it could be interesting to share what I've learned about Australian elections and politics to-date. To be honest, I haven't immersed myself into the system here very much or done too much reading on it, but I have observed and heard a few things that are pretty interesting. Also, several people have started talking to me about politics when they've found out I'm American, so I've gotten some firsthand insight into Australian politics and mindset.

Elections & voting

Town Hall

One of the most interesting things about elections here is that Australians have to vote. If your name isn't recorded as casting a ballot at a polling place on an election day, you get a $20 fine in the mail. As an American, this seems completely crazy! However, Australia equates voting to other civic duties like paying taxes or serving on a jury, so they use the fine system to ensure citizens participate. There are lots of debates about the system in the country, but people generally agree that the system - good or bad - is effective since turnout is usually over 80% of elgible voters.

Elections are also held on Saturdays to make it easier for people to vote. Now that definitely seems like a good idea to me!

Politics

There are two main parties in Australia: the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. Interestingly, though, the Greens party, which is based on environmental policies, usually gets over 10% of the votes in elections, whereas the other fringe parties are much more on par with US fringe parties percentages.

The Liberal party is actually the more conservative party (pretty much the same as the Republican party but somewhat more moderate) and the Labour part is about on par with Democrats. From what I've heard (and been told once!), Australians tend to be hesitant to embrace comparisons between their parties and American parties since the American political system is looked on with a lot of disdain. Most Australians seem to feel that the American democratic process is broken and creates a perpetual impass that prevents anything from getting done. They also seem to agree that the tone and rhetoric of American politicians is creeping into Australian politics, and that causes a lot of distress and debate iteself.

However, as much as Australians bash the state of American politics, they still very closely follow the election. It's fairly prominent in the news here, and the people from work that I've heard talking about it seem pretty well informed. I even heard some people discussing the last debate they watched on replay the day after. And, like most of the rest of the world, Australians are huge Obama fans and, interestingly, seem to be pretty familiar with his policies and him as a person. They did a poll here last month and 74% of Australians would vote for Obama and only 5% would vote for Romney. (Not sure who all got those other percentages!) Quite interesting!

Anyway, it's been eye-opening to see a little bit of how another democratic country loves/hates the American political system.

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday walk in Kirribilli

On Sunday I went up to the Chatswood Mall to do a little shopping while T met up with some friends online. My lovely friend Helen at work told me about a store there called Daiso, which is kind of like a Japanese dollar store. I stopped by to check it out and got a good laugh at this plate, so I had to share.

Then, since I had gotten a nice brunch out that morning, I picked up some Thai takeaway on the way home for Toby's lunch. He was pretty surprised and excited, from what I could tell.

$15 spent here....

Equals this face =)

We had a nice lunch, read a little bit, then headed out on a ramble through the foreshore in Kirribilli. It was a nice sunny day, and the neighborhoods we walked through had some really cute buildings, so I took some pictures.

And that was pretty much the day!

Posted with Blogsy

Socializings

A couple of very nice people invited me out to meet up with them this weekend.

Friday night at the Ivy

On Friday, I met up with Michaela for drinks after work. Michaela is a friend of someone I worked with at Exstream, and he had given me her contact info here. We emailed back and forth a couple times before we moved, and then we set up time to get together now that Toby and I are settled in.

Michaela actually works right across the street from me, so she came by the office and met me on Friday afternoon. She showed me a really cool bar called The Ivy right by our offices.

This bar was really cool because it had 2 stories in the middle floors of a building, but it was all open in the middle so you could see the sky.

We had a couple drinks and talked about life in Sydney, dogs, our jobs, and just normal girl chitchat. It was a really nice night out!

Brunch at Ripples

On Sunday, I met a girl from work and her friend for brunch. I work with Mairead, who is from Ireland, and her friend Ayne lives near us here in North Sydney, so she asked if I'd want to meet them for brunch this week. It was so nice of her to reach out to me, and we had a really nice time hanging out.

We met at Ripples, which is right down the street from us beside Luna Park and the ferry wharf. It also happens to have an amazing view.

Ripples is in the covered area

The food was good too, so we'll put this on the list of places to go to again!

I feel very lucky to have met so many nice people in this city who are willing to give up some of their free time to hang out with me and make me feel welcome.

Posted with Blogsy

Halloween celebrating

Since we were on the go all last weekend with Megan, we celebrated Halloween this weekend. There was no way we could let the holiday pass us by since it's Toby's favorite holiday!

Australia doesn't really celebrate Halloween, at least nowhere as much as we do in the U.S. Last weekend there were a few events for kids around the city and some neighborhoods did trick or treating, but it was nowhere close to the scale of the way we celebrate.

For our Saturday Halloween, we planned some fun snacks and Toby lined up some good Halloween shows to watch. And of course, Toby came up with a costume for the day (two, actually!).

Decorations & costumes

I got into the spirit of the holiday by adding some Halloween touches to the apartment.

Bats (of course!)

Toby got into the spirit by putting together TWO costumes, even though we have the bare minimum here with us. That is talent!

The first costume was Ellis, a character from a zombie video game. This costume had the added bonus of allowing him to shoot the nerf gun all day long.

Ellis

His other, really hot & uncomfortable costume was of a Hogwarts student. I had him give me his best Toby-at-Hogwarts poses.

We laughed a lot at these pictures

This is how it's done, Australia!

Snacks

I love making themed-food, so I'd been pinning fun Halloween ideas for a while.

One cute idea I found was to make a cheese ball that looks like a pumpkin. You use cheddar cheese and red pepper on the outside of the ball to make the jack o' lantern look. I had to improvise a little bit with this one because the cheddar cheese here is not yellow - it's kept as its natural white color. So I picked up an orange-colored red pepper dip and mixed it with some cheese until I got the color I wanted.

Jack o' Lantern cheese ball

My next venture was a little less successful. I was trying to make ghosts that looked like these. I had a few challenges with this one: I couldn't find Oreos or Oreo-like cookies at the store I went to. So I ended up using some cookies that are like thin mints. I also didn't have a food processor to make the crumbs, so I tried to chop them up as finely as I could by hand. They definitely didn't turn out as cute as the ones I pinned, but they were tasty anyway!

"Ghost" truffles

To get some veggies in, I made a 7-layer dip for dinner, spiderweb style.

An afternoon walk

So we didn't turn into total heart attack blobs, we went out for a walk up through some of the neighborhoods in North Sydney and up along the foreshore. It was a little cool and overcast, so perfect for rambling.

View from McMahons Point Rreserve

Fisherman on the foreshore

These are our Halloween faces

Some "normal" faces

Cute apartments in McMahons Point

 

Posted with Blogsy