The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays, so it was hard to be in a place that doesn't even celebrate it, not to mention without our friends and family!
The 4th of July was actually a big day here also, as it was the final game of the State of Origin series - which is a rugby championship between New South Wales and Queensland that consists of 3 rugby games over 6 weeks.
We went out to watch the game with Charles and a few of Sev's coworkers. I tried bangers and mash for the first time - bangers are very bland sausages and are typically eaten with mashed potatoes but I went for fries instead. Queensland won the State of Origin that night for the 7th year in a row! We live in Queensland so you can imagine that this was an exciting moment here.
A couple nights later, we went out with some friends and ended up dancing until 3am! We also learned all kinds of offensive Aussie slang that night!
On Saturday, we went to a 4th of July celebration for all the expats at Sev's work (there are several Americans in his office).
Pomi and Jeff were our hosts. They have lived in Portland, Belgium, and now Brisbane for his job at Esco! We had barbecued meat, potato salad, watermelon, chips, and cupcakes!
Mandy, Shawn, Michael, Iris, and Paula are all expats from the Portland Esco office living in Brissy like us!
Since fireworks are illegal here, we ate and drank all day! It's winter here so we stayed indoors from the chilly temperatures in the 60's and 70's! We have discovered sparkling Shiraz at Pomi and Jeff's and spent most of the day drinking that!
Michael and Iris' daughter Nina and her boyfriend Cody joined us as well. Cody was our token Australian that evening, and Jeff (who knows that I love to talk politics, and happens to disagree with me on almost every issue) made me promise to avoid an international incident when Cody arrived! We did make Cody explain Australian politics to us, however.
