Winter Festival

It's winter here in Australia, though you wouldn't know it from the sunny 70 degree weather we've been getting in Sydney.  On Saturday night, we headed out to the Winter Festival.  It was held in front of St. Mary's Cathedral, as you can see in the picture.  This is in downtown Sydney, between Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens.  I think it was the third year they've had this event, and they have similar ones all around Australia.  I think there might even be one in Melbourne in August.

The whole area was set up with German/Austrian food booths, little Christmas trees, a blow-up snowman, and color-changing plastic ice cubes you could use as tables or chairs.  The yellow things on this tree are advertisements for Lipton chai latte instant packets.  They were giving out free cups of this deliciousness.  I had seen a commercial for this stuff a few weeks ago and bought some at the store.  It is so good; all you have to do is add hot water!  Do they have this in the States too?  It sure beats paying $3.50 for chai latte at a coffee shop (I don't like coffee).  Yum.

After getting our fill of free chai latte, we watched the ice skating demonstration.  The skaters were pretty darn good, considering the fact that Australians probably aren't really known for their ice skating skills.  This was kind of evident when it was our turn to skate.  Everyone got on the ice SO slowly and tentatively.  It was funny.  After a bit, everyone pretty much got the hang of it though.  It was an 80s theme night, so there were fun Michael Jackson and Madonna songs playing.  We had a good time speeding around the rink in the funky orange rental skates.

Not our feet!

After skating, we got some Gluhwein in our souvenir mugs that came as part of our skating package.  This is a spiced wine that Zack said tasted like cough syrup.  We couldn't remember what it was called or how to say it, so we called it Google-wine.  I also enjoyed a brat for dinner, which was delicious.  Maybe two winters in a row isn't so bad after all!

P.S.  Hooray for Zack writing a blog entry!  He did it while I was asleep, because he knows I'm a control freak and would correct his grammar and punctuation with every sentence.  After our awesome day in the Blue Mountains (blog entry to come), he's up late working tonight-poor guy!