Saturday, December 5

Found a new place to hike today called Bold Park, and it's nearly as big as King's Park. The flies were awful, again, and we forgot to bring the new fly nets we bought. We finally saw someone wearing one today, and while he did look kinda weird, at least he was not shooing away flies, like his wife was.

After shopping in the afternoon, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant, but since it didn't open until 6:00, we had about a ten minute wait. When we walked in, there was only one table occupied in the whole restaurant, which was no surprise since they'd just opened up, but we were still asked if we had a booking. I wanted to laugh but I think that is just something they always ask, whether or not they are busy. However, if we'd been told there was an hour and a half wait, then we would have been suspicious. That actually happened a few weeks ago when we tried to get seated at another Mexican restaurant, which was very busy, but we think they didn't like the fact that we were wearing grubby hiking clothes and had kangaroo poop on our boots.

Our Ozzie friends who lived in Santa Monica for 3 years told us to simply forget about having Mexican food while we're here; they simply do not know how to make good Mexican food. The place we went to on Saturday had very bland food, seemed like they used no spices or seasonings whatsoever. I'd like to make some enchiladas and chile rellenos, but I'll be surprised if I can find all the ingredients I need.

Grocery shopping here is an interesting experience, it takes forever because they only have 1 or 2 brands of each item, so it's easy to pass up whatever you're looking for. I decided to make some Christmas cookies for our friends but could not find chocolate morsels or powdered sugar. After much searching I found what I'm sure are morsels, but they call them either buttons or melts. The powdered sugar I bought (at least I hope that's what it is) is called icing sugar. So the uncertainty of not knowing if I even have the right ingredients, coupled with the fact that half of the temperature markings are rubbed off of the oven, should make for some interesting baking.