real people day

It's real people day! I meet Gavi, long time family friend, and we walk to Queen Victoria Market together. Gavi was traveling in China for a month and stopped over in Australia to visit some friends from college who live here. It's a total coincidence that we're here at the same time, and we wouldn't even know it if our parents didn't blab about us so much! I haven't talked to Gavi for years, and we catch up on the walk and while swiping fruit samples at the market.

She is an experimentor just like me, so we buy a bunch of foreign fruits and have a tasting! The quince is large a yellow, and feels and tastes like a really dry apple. It is clearly not meant to be eaten plain. Next is a passion fruit, which is so pretty and round and purple/green on the outside, and then crazy orange and goopy on the inside. This particular passion fruit is really sour, so we pour sugar over it (quite liberally) and then it's really tasty. Too many seeds for me, and also, I'm not into fruits that require utensils to eat. Third is the golden kiwi, which looks like a normal kiwi from the outside, and then a little duller on the inside, but tastes very little like kiwi and very much like banana. I like it, and it doesn't make my mouth pucker. Last is the mangosteen, which I have gobbled down freeze-dried from Trader Joes, but never had fresh. From the outside, it looks like a plum, but the part you eat inside is white and soft and comes apart in chunks like a head of garlic. It is wonderfully delicious, like a mango/bananaish berry flavor. I will get more of these in Sydney.

After the market, we half walk, half tram to St. Kilda by the beach, walk along the pier as the sun is setting, and see a mini penguin nesting in the rocks! There are many picture attempts, but we are not allowed to use flash because the area is protected, so instead we and a bunch of people silently huddle around a clump of rocks and whisper to each other when the penguin moves. Everybody is very respectful of the animal and no one wants to disturb the peace. It feels very sacred and special and it's nice to share the experience with this small group of strangers.

In the evening, we go to dinner and party with Gavi's friends, Claire and Cameron. And thirty of their closest friends and relatives. It is Claire and sister Bridget's birthday. I eat dinner in a real pub! Which is called a Hotel! And I know I'm not entirely objective because I haven't had a restaurant meal in over a month, but my sun-dried tomato grilled onion cream and tomato sauce pasta is SO FUCKING GOOD. We talk to Claire's friends and it's nice to have a conversation other than how long were you in Cairnes or did you do self guided or tour group on Fraser Island. Gavi and I are the youngest by 10 years and I'm definitely the scruffiest in my jeans and t shirt, but it's still fun. After dinner, the party moves back to Claire and Cameron's flat and we drink long island ice teas and eat delicious rasberry birthday cake and I'm social some more before I have to leave and catch a tram home. I tell one fellow who we talked to all evening that I was happy to hang out with “real Australians,” and he responded that he was voted Most Australian in his class in high school. (He grew up here in Melbourne, in Australia.)

Australian thing of the day: Real Australians.