Thursday, February 25, 2010

Well "the doctor" is definitely not in today, it is 41C, which is 106F, although we are reminded it is a dry heat, and we should be thankful for that.  And of course our a/c went out yesterday, it appears to be pretty much dead, so we are facing several days of predicted near 100 degrees temps with no air, makes it tough to sleep, as it's especially hot upstairs.  Labor Day is Monday, so it's a 3-day holiday for everyone, even Bill, since his project due date is tomorrow.  He plans to take a bunch of beer into the office, to celebrate the delivering of the report, and yes, management does bring beer into work for parties.  Never heard of that happening in the US, and Bill won't bring it out until late afternoon, but still, I just can't believe they do that. 

I went to a LAW event today with my American Women's group, and although it sounds impressive, LAW simply stands for lunch and wine.  We met at a local winery for a little tasting, then had lunch, and we were a happy group.  On the ride back, I learned something interesting about AU and the metric system: they actually used our American system of pounds, ounces, miles, inches, etc, until 1975, when they switched over to metric. 

At these get-togethers, everyone talks about how expensive things are here, and one new lady said she almost started crying when she went shopping for the first time last week and could not find anything on sale.  She was shocked to see most of the dresses were $700, and the biggest sale was only 10% off.    In restaurants, portions are much smaller than in the US, which is no surprise, since portions there are typically over-sized.  However, the coleslaw Bill recently got with his order was no more than a tablespoon, and fit easily into one of those over-sized spoons that Asian restaurants use for spicy mustard or plum sauce.  Seemed kind of silly to even include it, and the fries fit into a regular sized coffee cup.