Baby Got (Out)back: Barefoot Contessa.

So, firstly about the title…I don’t actually know anything about Contessa or if she is a person or if this is a show but Steph talked about the food and recipes a fair bit last year. The reasons for this title is because it is a cooking show and had a cooking fiesta on cinco de mayo and it includes barefoot, which is a cultural norm here and isn’t so much at home.

Cinco de Mayo, the fifth of May, is a Mexican holiday that more Americans than Mexicans celebrate. I found this out from Roman, a boy here from Notre Dame. He said that only people in southern Mexico actually celebrate it however we had a nice little cooking party in the kitchenette here. Roman made beans and rice and the girls made steak tacos and guacamole, it was an awesome dinner! And all the Australians were amazed by this Mexican food we were making and this holiday; none of them were familiar with the holiday.

Walking barefoot at home isn’t really ok unless you’re on the beach and even then if you want to go to a shop the regular course of action would be to put on shoes and then go but here it is completely ok to go into a store or even food place barefoot. No shirt, no shoes, no service obviously doesn’t apply. This all ties in to my regular days here because sometimes I appreciate talking my shoes off when I am walking back from class. The other day for a marine biology we went to the river for our lab class. It was awesome to learn outside of a classroom, I have never done that at home. After being in the river I was a bit sandy and wet though so I decided I didn’t want to put my sandals on the walk home and it was perfectly ok.

As for the update about spring break, the trip was amazing! I saw so many things! My highlights would be snorkeling with a whale shark, sea turtles, and real sharks, sand boarding, hiking through gorges, and visiting a province. I was pretty scared when I saw the first shark. I was just snorkeling around the reef by myself and this shark swims into vision it was around 5 feet, I kind of froze and it kept going about its business I tried to snap a picture so we’ll see if I have the proof when I get my camera developed. I need to expand a little on the province. This guy was a wheat farmer and didn’t like Australia’s tax laws so decided he didn’t want to be part of Australia anymore. He did his research, found some loop holes, went to court and they declared him his own province. This man is now in his 80s and he declared himself prince of his province. The province has its own constitution, flag, currency system, and so on (It was all a little bit crazy).

School, the reason I am here, is going really well I had two mid semester tests and did really well on both! They don’t release the finals schedule until late May so I am anxious to find out when my finals are so I can get them over with and finally get the family over here so we can travel!

I think that is it for now. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures!