Thanksgiving in Oz

Toby and Teri making the dinner

One small entry before we start traveling again.

Because we’ve gotten to know Teri from Chicago, we ended up having Thanksgiving one Thursday about a week ago. We provided the house and Teri provided the cooking (together with Toby (see picture above) who has seven years experience as a chef and couldn’t stay out of the kitchen…the slight bickering between the two over gravy and turkey was quite hilarious) while we invited Amy and her sister Tori, and Teri brought along some friends from her hostel.

from the left: Cecilia (Sweden), Amy (Aussie), Hennie (Germany), Andra (Germany) and Tori (Aussie)

All in all we were three Aussies, two Norwegians, a Swede, two Germans and an American enjoying a lovely and tender turkey breast with an excellent stuffing (crackers, onion, chicken buillion and bacon) as how Teri’s mum usually makes it, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, gravy and cranberry sauce with a succulent apple pie to finish it off. We all agreed that we quite like this American holiday where the premise is to stuff your face with food and we enjoyed listening to stories of Teri’s Thanksgivings back home where the basics is women cook in the kitchen while they bitch and gossip, and the men watch American football.

from left: Cecilia, Amy, Trine, Tori, Teri, Henriette, Toby, Andra and Hennie

There is also apparently a tradition to start your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving and stores will open at 4-5 in the morning with massive limited sales and people will queue from midnight on Thanksgiving to get the good stuff. At least a couple of people die each year from the fights and crowds that ensues. Crazy Americans.

Trine, Teresa and Teri: The Three Ts :D

Teresa (co-student from Contemporary Media Practice at University of Westminster) came over to visit one weekend while on her trip along the coast with her parents. Teresa is also staying for a year of working holiday in Australia, but will be based in Sydney at first. We had a hell of a weekend going out and introducing her to the wonder that is goon (cheap Australian wine on a box, don’t ask us or them why they call it goon, they just do) and taking her to Buddah Bar where they brew the local Byron Beer (oh yes they have their own beer). We usually prefer to drink a low-carb beer that they until recently called Bimbo (“may I have a schooner (pint) of Bimbo please?” I had fun saying that) but someone complained that it was offensive and they have now changed it to Blonde (I am sad :( ;) ).

Now Christmas has arrived in Byron Bay. We can tell by this wonderful, plastic Christmas tree (pictured above) they have decorated the main road with (oh yes it is as ugly as it looks). We are rather trying to forget that it is Christmas and hope that we can fool ourselves to believe that we are only on a very long summer holiday :D

Right now there is a big school holiday in Australia, which basically means that the entire Gold Coast, especially Byron Bay and Surfer’s Paradise (Aussie’s answer to Miami) are filled to the rim with “schoolies”, also known as 17-18 year-olds. As you can imagine, us now into our twenties don’t find it so amusing to walk around and be reminded of how much of a twat we were only half a decade ago, so we are not all that pleased. What schoolies basically has meant for us is a hell of a lot more police around and everyone being asked for ID. Still, it is a testament to how small this place is when the other day this was one of the main headlines (see picture below).

I for one found it rather sweet that someone would ever write this in bold and put it at the front. But then again the other week one of the newsstories sporting three pictures in the free local newspaper Byron Shire News, was the graduation party of the level 12 pupils of the local high school (and we are talking nice dresses and suits, not robes and funny hats;). This makes us realize just how small Byron is.

Another thing that made us realize how small Byron is, was the other day when Toby took us to Tweed Heads for the day (50 minutes drive north of Byron). He was going to do some team building there with his job and suggested that Henriette and myself go check the city out for a change of scenery.

The first ecstatic moment came when we saw a McDonald’s on the way there!!! Byron only sports a couple of Subways and a lonely Domino’s to prove that there is a world outside it’s borders. The rest is locally owned and run restaurants and cafés, which we appreciate, don't get me wrong, but it was a rather exotic moment to glance upon the big, yellow M again and feel like you were approaching civilization.

see if u can spot the surfers...

There were even tall buildings and shopping malls!!! :D
Henriette and me practically spent all our time in Tweed Heads and the neighbor city Coolangetta (from 8.30-16.30) going through a shopping centre and a shopping street. It was not that we bought anything, but it was just so nice to go through different shops than the ones we trudge through in Byron. And just the mere size of them were astonishing. We did manage to take a little scenic walk however around Point Danger (named so by Captain Cook to warn people of the treacherous rocks below). The ocean was teeming with surfers and they all rather looked like little sea ants from the viewpoint we had (pictured above).


This area is apparently an important stop for professional surfers (as opposed to Byron where there are mostly beginners) with long and unbreakable waves making it possible to surf for upto 1500 metres in one go. It really was a beautiful beach, with Surfer’s Paradise (pictured above) popping out of the sea like a science fiction city in the distance and a lowly Christmas tree (pictured below) trying cheerfully to pretend that the decorations he had been given were any good.


The fun about this place is that the border between New South Wales (NSW, where we are staying) and Queensland (QLD, further north) is just in the middle of Coolangetta. And as we were jumping from one side to the other of the line they had painted up to signify the border (pictured below), we realized that we were actually time travelling, jumping one hour back and then one hour forth again in time because QLD doesn’t have any daylight-saving time so when we were in NSW the time was 12.00. Then we stepped across the line and it was 11.00!! Fun times!!! We heard rumours that there is a pub built exactly over the border and that on New Year’s Eve they simply have two countdowns! Now that would be a fun New Years ;)

Tours have been booked for the end of December, so then we will be getting out of here and we are quite happy to. Byron Bay is, as I have stated a lot in this entry, a very small city and can only be interesting for so long. We have gotten to know loads of fun people, but now we feel ready to travel and see some more of this vast country.

I would like to point out that this was originally a half a page entry, which has now turned into two. Hope it isn’t too long for anyone, I must obviously enjoy writing these ;)