Sweet Movember

Movember was an unknown thing to me before coming down to Australia. As I first started hearing this term tossed around the office toward the end of October, I thought it was just another Australian pronunciation I was unaware of ;) Then someone sat me down and explained to me what Movember was.

Movember, the month formerly known as November, began in Australia and New Zealand in 2004 "by a group of young Adelaide men" who wanted to raise funds and awareness for men's prostate cancer and depression. The charity foundation "snowballed into a Mo-phenomenom," and in 2007 spread its fundraising efforts to the US, the UK, Canada, and Spain. Money is raised by guys who pledge to grow a moustache ("Mo".... + November = Movember) continuously throughout the month.

So, a group of Amdocs guys teamed up to be sponsored in this year's Movember. And, yours truly volunteered to be their honorary "Mo Sista" - some of you might recall the email I spammed you with for sponsorship :) To spice things up even more, the month was turned into a team contest for Best Mo, to be voted on by the rest of the office. As the month progressed, the Mo's grew longer (and itchier most claimed), the fundraising efforts grew more creative, and the team grew more competitive with their Mo trash talking. Toward the end, arrangements had been made to hijack the weekly Amdocs Ugot Shabot Friday afternoon Cakes for the purpose of announcing Best Mo contest winner. We were even able to snag some snazzy "Moughnuts" for the occasion.

The votes were in, the tallies were counted, and I was set to announce the Best Mo come Friday. It was the largest gathering I had seen on a Friday afternoon in the common room. The Amdocs Movember team - "Moustachio Fantastico" - was ushered to the front of the room, and the drumroll was sounded. Ironically enough, the winner, a guy named Shane who received a women's razor as his prize, had already mistakenly shaved his moustache the night before and had been close to an unofficial Amdocs disqualification.

There was still Friday night and the Mo Gala party. The last week leading up to Friday was spent deciding on a team costume theme for that night, and it was finally decided that we would dress 70s style and make shirts with "Mogan" on the front. A bogan in Aussie slang is a term for an Aboriginal native, so "Mo" + "Bogan" = "Mogan".

The Gala was like nothing I had ever before experienced. Imagine a warehouse filled with 5,000 people dressed in the most ridiculous outfits you've ever seen. Add a disco ball, some 70s music, and alcohol, and it was a party like no other. And check out the overall winning team costume, the Harlem Globetrotters. It was a great month, capped off by a great day, all for a good cause.

Thanksgiving Down Under

Although my original plans were to return home for Thanksgiving, my company had a different plan in mind, and I ended up spending my first ever Turkey day away from home. I’m not easily deterred though, so despite my locale, I was going to have turkey one way or another. I decided to team up with Chris, a fellow American co-worker who was also unable to return to the states for the holiday, and we began our plans to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for our Aussie co-workers. There's Chris playing guitar at his place.

Our menu consisted of the usual suspects – turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie. Chris is a fellow Cajun, so we added shrimp etoufee and gumbo to the menu to pay homage to our roots. We also assigned a few dishes for our co-workers to bring – salads, pastas, and even a brave attempt at a homemade pecan pie. Shopping for this menu was a bit tricky, given that a) Melbourne stores close very early, and b) Australia doesn’t have canned pumpkin, French Fried onion rings, or karo syrup. But after an early morning trip to the market and a shipment from USAfoods.com, we were set to start cooking.

Between 2 kitchens and 15 people, Thanksgiving with my Australian family was a success! And I must say, I was quite proud of my turkey! To the left – big Tom, pre-oven. To the right – big Tom, maple roasted.

And there is JFK, having a crack at the turkey leg. I think he might have been quite full after that attempt. A great time was had by everyone, and I was once again reminded why Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays – no matter where you are or who you are with, it’s a tradition with a pure heart. Of course, as our Australian co-workers put it, who besides Americans would celebrate a whole day dedicated to food!

Sydney!

After my return down under, it didn't take me long before leaving Melbourne yet again. This time, we were headed to Sydney for the weekend, and I was ecstatic. Given that most locals are very loyal to Melbourne, I was told time and again that Sydney is a "nice place to visit, but not to live," so I set off to form my own opinion.

We arrived Friday night - it's just a quick one-hour flight from Melbourne to Sydney, so not even enough time to take a decent nap on the plane. We didn't want to get too crazy that night, after all we had a whole day of sight-seeing ahead of us on Saturday. So, we found a local place - disco lights, cheesy music, brightly-dressed Australians - the usual. We proceeded to get our groove thing on. The bouncer was very strict and protective of his dance floor. One step onto the polished hardwood with a drink-in-hand and you were in trouble. It started to become quite a fun game, seeing who could sneak a drink onto the dance floor without being caught.

Our original plan was to do a bit of sight-seeing the next day, but we were badly craving some beach time. It was already shaping up to be a beautiful day (Sydney weather is typically warmer than Melbourne weather, because they don't have the bay breeze like Melbourne does), so we made our way to the infamous surfer's haven of Bondi Beach. The houses set in the hilltop reminded me a little of the scenery on the Italian coast. The beach crowd was quite mixed - surfers, hippies, tourists, they came from all over.

We had a great time though! Engaged in a few hand-stand contests with our beach neighbors. Somewhere in life I learned how to walk on my hands across a room and back (Meg - remember when we used to do this in our living room in Peachtree City?!) - so I succeeded in winning the hand-stand contest. We also had a few Charlie's Angels poses, and some sort of flying karate chop that Carson is demonstrating to the right.

That evening was a tourist extravaganza. We got ready and headed over to the Sydney Harbour for a dinner cruise. Basically, an evening of dinner and live music on a nice little boat that took us up and down the Harbour - it was quite lovely! Before boarding, we managed to take some pictures of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge (aka the Coathanger). According to Guiness World Records, this is the widest long-span bridge in the world. You can pay a lot of money to "scale" the bridge - i.e. walk on top with a tour guide. The bridge had its two-millionth climber back in August. I was making fun of all the scaling and climbing terminology until I actually saw the bridge and realized it probably would be quite a workout to walk on top of it.

The dinner cruise was great! Lots of good food, good champagne, and good music ala Dianna Ross look-alike. Later that evening, as we were parading down the streets of Sydney looking for our next locale, we managed to capture the essence of two very quality mullets sported by two very quality bouncers. You can kind of see them in the picture, but I don't think they are done proper justice. Mullets are actually fairly abundant down here. It's almost a comforting feeling when I see them, it takes me home to my southern roots.

Our final day in Sydney was filled by our last touristy mission. We had to see the Opera House - you can't visit, let alone think of Sydney without noting this infamous icon. It's quite the architectural structure, and has become one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. Initially, we had wanted to see the Symphony play inside, but due to time constraints, we had to settle for just getting close and touching the building. It was still really awesome!

All in all it was a great weekend! Even though it was a short trip and I only got a taste of the city and the people, I would have to agree with the locals and say that I'd rather live in Melbourne and visit Sydney. But I'll definitely be visiting Sydney again one day!

Derby Day!

It had come time for Melbourne's annual Spring Carnival celebration, a 5-week-long horse racing fiesta that filled the city's streets with men in colorful suits and ties and ladies flaunting their grandiose, flowery hats, everyone eager to place their bet and win big.

There are a few highly recognized racing days during the Spring Carnival - Melbourne Cup Day, an actual public holiday in Australia, and Derby Day, the race day event that was graced by the presence of Amdocs. It was an event extravaganza, marked by frantic last-minute hat shopping on my part.

Given that it's a season suited for quite the marketing scheme as accessories that have no other purpose in life make their way to store shelves all across Melbourne, I was blinded by choices. Should I go with a hat? Or should I choose a fascinator - a clip full of feathers that you stick in your hair, which I so fondly (accidentally) kept referring to as a fabricator. Being the decisive person that you all know me to be, I bought both. There we all are in our suits, ties, dresses, hats, and fascinators.

It was a full day of betting, spectating, drinking, betting some more, and drinking some more. Later in the day, the guys began partaking in some mask-wearing and mud-wrestling activities as the ladies chatted about which horse and jockey boasted the best outfit. We all had a great time, and I ended up breaking even on all of my betting (better than losing, right?)

It's Been a While

Hello family and friends, I must apologize for my lack of recent posting. No excuses, really. Just plain laziness. I made it back to Melbourne mid-October, visa issues sorted. A nice 2-week break at home, during which Meagan got engaged! Since I've been back, I've been having tons of fun (working somewhere in between), and I'm looking forward to many good times ahead. So stay tuned for some cool posts :)

The situation at work changes as unexpectedly as Melbourne weather. One week, I am crazy busy while the other project team has no work. The next week, I have no work and the other project team is swamped. One week, December will be my last month here. The next week, I might be brought back after New Years. I've given up trying to predict or plan, and when those back home express shock that I'm changing a Thursday international flight Wednesday evening, I am almost brought back into the realm of sanity for a brief moment. But, c'est la vie. I'm working in Australia, and I'm loving it. A few of my favorite co-workers, a handful of BearingPoint sub-contractors, have since rolled off our project. We celebrated their last day with a round of beers in the office - I'm still somewhat getting used to the Aussie culture.

I have finally found some girlfriends to spend time with. Don't get me wrong, I love drinking beer and playing pool with a bunch of bloakes as much as the next gal, but I need my gossip and shopping time too.

I can't believe 2007 is almost over. It feels like New Years was a month ago, and here I am discussing another New Years with Meagan. One thing I haven't been able to get used to is walking down the streets of Melbourne in 85 degree weather seeing Christmas trees and lights and hearing trumpets playing Christmas carols. I'm a White Christmas gal to the core, and am definitely looking forward to some hot chocolate, eggnog, and fireside dinners once I return to Atlanta for the holidays.