Christmas Party

It seems funny to me to walk into the grocery store wearing shorts and a t-shirt, dripping with sweat from the 90 degree weather only to hear “Jingle Bells” playing throughout the store.  It is December, though, and Australians seem to love Christmas as much as we do. The houses are decorated, the music is playing, and the Christmas parties are in full swing!

Last weekend, Fluor had their big Christmas party at The Rydges. It was a beautiful night! I only had my IPhone, so I wasn’t able to capture some of the views as well as I would have liked, but you can get a little taste of the fun we had!

Looking out over South Bank

 

A little fuzzy, but you get the idea

 

Pre-dinner picture with Janelle

 

The moon that night was spectacular! I wish it showed in the picture!

 

Again, not a great picture, but we had a great time with David and Janelle!

 

The girls!

 

 

Gangnam Style!

 

Every Christmas party that I have been to so far has had “poppers” at each place setting. You pull both ends of the popper to open it with a bang. Inside there are nice trinkets like these hats and the fake mustache with jokes that are very far from funny.  My joke was the funniest: “What did the scarf say to the hat?  You go on ahead and I’ll just hang around.”  I know you are rolling on the floor with laughter.  Even with several glasses of wine, the jokes were not funny. I take that back, we laughed at how bad they were!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bunco

"Bulimba Buncettes"

 

 

I have heard about Bunco, but had never played it until moving here. My sister-in-law has talked about it for years and always seems to have heaps of fun. Now I fully understand!

My friend, Erica (born in England, but has lived in Australia for 20 years), decided to start a Bunco group. She played in Adelaide when an American friend of hers introduced the game.  For those of you that do not know, Bunco is a dice game that requires little thought or effort.  I get the idea that the point of Bunco is to have an excuse to get together and share lots of laughs. That is what we did that night, anyway!

The picture above shows four of the people in our Bunco group. From left to right you see: Erica (England/Australia), Stefanie (Italy), Christine (France), and Rosemary (Ireland). Erica is a hoot and has become one of my dearest friends here in Bulimba. Stefanie moved here six months ago, not speaking any English. I think she is very brave! Christine is a delight to be around! Her smile is infectious! Rosemary cracks me up! I don’t think she means to be funny all of the time, but she keeps me in stitches! So, before the game started, the five of us were standing around chatting. As has happened before, I faded away from the conversation and can’t tell you what we were discussing.  I became totally side tracked at the fact I was standing with these fabulous ladies from all over the world.  (I wonder what my face looks like when I am totally thinking of something else besides the current conversation?) Anyway, I just kept staring at each of them, hearing their accents, but not their words.  Then, I really focused on Stefanie.  She fully admits that she doesn’t always catch on to everything people are saying (hmmm…that makes two of us).  All I could think was, “WOW, How did I get here?!” So, I ended up taking a picture of these fantastic ladies that I now call friends.