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Turducken!
Dec. 9th, 2006 06:36 pmFirst off I would like to say that if you value safe, short, boring drives, NEVER DRIVE ME ANYWHERE. Ahem. Now that that's out of the way..
Today was Thanksducken, where Mia and Acute made a turducken(pics to come at a later date) and the 10 or so people who turned up gave thanks for it. My adventures for the day started at around 9am when I finished work. At Town Hall I noted that I needed to head to platform 6. So I'm in the train and all, when I hear that it's first stop is Martin Place. Back the way I came, for those unfamiliar with the Sydney train map. By the time this information had penetrated my particularly dense skull we were already past Martin Place and already headed to Kings Cross. Yes, I somehow got on the wrong train without noticing. Sigh. Cityrail: 1, Jen: 0
Then I get back to Town Hall, and consulting the Cityrail map again I decide to head to platform 2 to get the Inner West line. After about 10 minutes of waiting I hear an announcement that due to trackwork buses replace trains on the Bankstown line. Cityrail: 2, Jen: 0
So then it was back to platform 6 (this time getting on the correct train) to train to Sydenham, followed by 2 different railbuses to finally get dropped off at Chester Hill, where I rang Mia to beg for a lift. Total travelling time by this point: 3 hours. Cityrail: 3, Jen: 0
On a random tangent, I couldn't help noticing during today's travel through the west that at some places it's almost like they just ran out of names for the roads. In Campsie we were driving along a street imaginatively named Ninth Avenue while passing Fourth Avenue, Third Avenue, Second Avenue, and First Avenue. This happened again later on the way back but with ever-so-slightly varied names, like First Street, Second Street and Third Street. And then it would go back to Lincoln Road and so forth as if the town planners were suddenly struck by inspiration for a slew of new names.
I managed to get to Acute's house with no further mishaps, where I got to view the turducken and its half a containers worth of juice, help make this cool rice capsicum dish thingy, and generally stand around and be helpless in the kitchen. Then it was time to head to the park where we were meeting the others. Qkwozz and Acute made off with the rice, Jaz took the turducken, and Mia and I were left to clean up and follow with a salad. Somehow, despite it only being a 5 minute drive away we managed to get lost on the way. Yes, I am that powerful when it comes to causing other people to get lost and have other adventures while driving.
Now, onto the food. We had the turducken, the rice dish, the salad we whipped up out of a bunch of lettuce and tomatoes and a single cucumber, and Jaz's surprise dessert: A giant Wagon Wheel*. It was the size of a small cake.
The food was all awesome. The turducken was slightly spicy but very very tasty and cholesterol-inducing. The rice turned out better than we expected it to (we had low expectations though since it looked terrible in the saucepan), the Wagon Wheel was giant biscuity goodness, and well, the salad was a salad :)
Then came the drive home with David kindly offering me a lift back to civilisation (as much as I hate imposing on others, there's a limit to how much lousy public transport I'm prepared to take in one day). The lesson I learnt today was to never have an in-depth philosophical discussion about anything when you're driving to a place that the driver is unfamiliar with and the passenger has to pay attention and give directions to. At one point we were driving through Bondi Junction, having come from the city, and discussing the difference between a fundamentalist and someone who is merely very religious. Five minutes later we were somehow driving back towards the city while discussing the importance of trying to understand your beliefs rather than just accepting them at face value. I still have no idea exactly how this happened. After that we managed to get to my place without anymore major problems. And we even managed to hold an interesting discussion about religion at the same time**. And we didn't crash! (this is more of an achievement than it sounds, given the number of times I ended up giving last second directions)
It occurs to me that all this time that I haven't been celebrating Christmas I've been somewhat missing out. Ever since one of my coworkers told me on Tuesday that Christmas is a nice family day for them it's occurred to me that we do no such thing for Chanukah. And I think this is sad, because we could all use a nice quiet family day outside, that isn't necessarily centred around a giant dinner like most Jewish festivals are. Then again, we get Purim and Christians don't, so nyah :p
*For those unfamiliar with Wagon Wheels (as I was until today), it consists of a chocolate coated biscuit with jam and marshmallow in the centre
** Does God have a right to demand worship and absolute purity of us, given that He is our creator? I say not. Of course, all these discussions are undertaken with the assumption that God does exist, and that the scriptures (both Old and New) contain the truth, for some version of true anyway.
Today was Thanksducken, where Mia and Acute made a turducken(pics to come at a later date) and the 10 or so people who turned up gave thanks for it. My adventures for the day started at around 9am when I finished work. At Town Hall I noted that I needed to head to platform 6. So I'm in the train and all, when I hear that it's first stop is Martin Place. Back the way I came, for those unfamiliar with the Sydney train map. By the time this information had penetrated my particularly dense skull we were already past Martin Place and already headed to Kings Cross. Yes, I somehow got on the wrong train without noticing. Sigh. Cityrail: 1, Jen: 0
Then I get back to Town Hall, and consulting the Cityrail map again I decide to head to platform 2 to get the Inner West line. After about 10 minutes of waiting I hear an announcement that due to trackwork buses replace trains on the Bankstown line. Cityrail: 2, Jen: 0
So then it was back to platform 6 (this time getting on the correct train) to train to Sydenham, followed by 2 different railbuses to finally get dropped off at Chester Hill, where I rang Mia to beg for a lift. Total travelling time by this point: 3 hours. Cityrail: 3, Jen: 0
On a random tangent, I couldn't help noticing during today's travel through the west that at some places it's almost like they just ran out of names for the roads. In Campsie we were driving along a street imaginatively named Ninth Avenue while passing Fourth Avenue, Third Avenue, Second Avenue, and First Avenue. This happened again later on the way back but with ever-so-slightly varied names, like First Street, Second Street and Third Street. And then it would go back to Lincoln Road and so forth as if the town planners were suddenly struck by inspiration for a slew of new names.
I managed to get to Acute's house with no further mishaps, where I got to view the turducken and its half a containers worth of juice, help make this cool rice capsicum dish thingy, and generally stand around and be helpless in the kitchen. Then it was time to head to the park where we were meeting the others. Qkwozz and Acute made off with the rice, Jaz took the turducken, and Mia and I were left to clean up and follow with a salad. Somehow, despite it only being a 5 minute drive away we managed to get lost on the way. Yes, I am that powerful when it comes to causing other people to get lost and have other adventures while driving.
Now, onto the food. We had the turducken, the rice dish, the salad we whipped up out of a bunch of lettuce and tomatoes and a single cucumber, and Jaz's surprise dessert: A giant Wagon Wheel*. It was the size of a small cake.
The food was all awesome. The turducken was slightly spicy but very very tasty and cholesterol-inducing. The rice turned out better than we expected it to (we had low expectations though since it looked terrible in the saucepan), the Wagon Wheel was giant biscuity goodness, and well, the salad was a salad :)
Then came the drive home with David kindly offering me a lift back to civilisation (as much as I hate imposing on others, there's a limit to how much lousy public transport I'm prepared to take in one day). The lesson I learnt today was to never have an in-depth philosophical discussion about anything when you're driving to a place that the driver is unfamiliar with and the passenger has to pay attention and give directions to. At one point we were driving through Bondi Junction, having come from the city, and discussing the difference between a fundamentalist and someone who is merely very religious. Five minutes later we were somehow driving back towards the city while discussing the importance of trying to understand your beliefs rather than just accepting them at face value. I still have no idea exactly how this happened. After that we managed to get to my place without anymore major problems. And we even managed to hold an interesting discussion about religion at the same time**. And we didn't crash! (this is more of an achievement than it sounds, given the number of times I ended up giving last second directions)
It occurs to me that all this time that I haven't been celebrating Christmas I've been somewhat missing out. Ever since one of my coworkers told me on Tuesday that Christmas is a nice family day for them it's occurred to me that we do no such thing for Chanukah. And I think this is sad, because we could all use a nice quiet family day outside, that isn't necessarily centred around a giant dinner like most Jewish festivals are. Then again, we get Purim and Christians don't, so nyah :p
*For those unfamiliar with Wagon Wheels (as I was until today), it consists of a chocolate coated biscuit with jam and marshmallow in the centre
** Does God have a right to demand worship and absolute purity of us, given that He is our creator? I say not. Of course, all these discussions are undertaken with the assumption that God does exist, and that the scriptures (both Old and New) contain the truth, for some version of true anyway.
