Guns, Germans and Delicious Baked Goods...finally!

I was trying to think of something that I wanted to write about and also sounded like ‘steel’ so that the title of this blog could be really clever, but I couldn’t. It was taking too much time, and I just wanted to write the blog. And, the most notable thing that I really wanted to share is my first delicious dessert experience since we arrived. So that’s how I arrived at the current title.

I recently came to the conclusion that the thing I will miss most during our year over here is yummy baked goods. I don’t know what it is, but up until this weekend, I hadn’t had a single good baked dessert here. The blueberry muffin I tried tasted like it had been made with the whitest flour possible, as if the flour had been bleached four times over. The cookies are really hard here—perhaps they’re meant to be dunked in hot drinks, but they just don’t taste like cookies to me. And, generally, I’ve felt like the desserts have been overly sweet in a sort of sickening way.

You’re probably wondering why I don’t just bake some desserts myself. I would, except we don’t have an oven in our granny flat. We have invited ourselves over twice to Brad and Laila’s house to make them dinner and bake in their oven, but I think they’re on to us already. Good thing they’ve liked everything we’ve made so far.

It’s probably good for me that I don’t like all these desserts here, but I was sooo happy to finally have two delicious desserts this past weekend (we shared them -- I didn't eat two by myself). As you’ll read in the next blog, we stayed in a great place in Springton that was self-catering. We made a great dinner of kangaroo steaks and veggies, and then headed over to the restaurant to seek out some dessert. I’m so glad we did because we had the most amazing passionfruit cheesecake and hazelnut chocolate crumb cake ever. Yumm, it was good. So good I just had to write about it.

And, now onto perhaps more interesting things. The first is guns. There were two instances this weekend when I realized how different it is to live in a country where no one has a gun. The first instance was when we were hiking in Kaiser Stuhl Conservation Park. We got close to the end of our hike, and found that the trail back had been closed. Our options were either to go all the way back or to walk through what seemed to be private land just along the outside of the Conservation area. We decided to walk through the private land, but I was a little bit nervous the whole time. This was probably enhanced by the eerie metallic squeaking sound that we would occasionally here coming from somewhere on the private property (we think it was meant to scare birds away from the vineyards, but we can’t say for sure).

As we were walking, Gabe (Dave's friend from college who came to visit this past weekend) happened to mention that he felt so much safer doing these sorts of things knowing that no one has any guns in this country. It’s strange, but once he said that, I did feel more at ease. I’m certainly not condoning trespassing—I don’t like doing it and I don’t think it’s a great option, but I do think it’s a good thing that you can’t get shot because you end up having to walk on someone else’s property.

The other instance was when we were talking about kangaroos and eating them. We agreed that it was good to eat kangaroo for many reasons—they’re native animals that don’t release methane and are good for you. I was saying that I didn’t understand why you have to be a professional hunter in order to hunt kangaroos, and Gabe said, “It’s because no one has any guns.” Aha. I then asked if anyone could hunt with a bow. I'm not sure what the status is on bow hunting here, but it was interesting for me because in this situation, I felt like it would be good if more people hunted kangaroos for food. It’s certainly a more sustainable choice than a lot of other meats.

The two situations certainly gave me something to think about. On a related note, to get rid of all the guns, the Australian Government initiated a gun buyback, which is what they are now using to acquire water rights for environmental flows in the River Murray (the subject of my research here). In the first gun buyback, the Government put a moratorium on prosecution for owning any illegal weapons that were handed in as part of the buyback. They collected and destroyed some 660,000 weapons. In the second buyback, they set up buyback centers at local gun clubs, and they paid people between $500 and $2000 for handguns. Could you imagine the NRA participating in a gun buyback program?

The final part of the blog is about Germans, but it’s not really about Germans. It’s about Hahndorf, which is a cute little German town in the Adelaide Hills with excellent German food and fun shops. Actually, this part of the blog isn’t really about Hahndorf, either, though we did go to Hahndorf this past weekend. It’s just a story that makes me smile, and that I wanted to share.

One day, I was riding the Adelaide tram. A woman, probably in her 50s, got on and immediately started talking to the ticket seller. It definitely seemed like they knew each other, and I assumed she must be a regular rider. I was standing sort of between them, and so heard the whole conversation, and eventually became involved in it. The woman asked the ticket seller if he wanted to see the special things she had purchased for Chris in Hahndorf. He agreed and she showed him a sign that said, “Parking for Chris Only”—the kind of sign that a young child might put up on a bedroom door. And, she had purchased a very large chocolate bar—the kind that a parent should not allow their child to eat all in one sitting. I thought it was sweet that she had purchased these cute things for her son.

The two kept talking and the woman said to the ticket seller that she and Chris had shared some special moments in the past. “That’s quite cute,” I thought to myself, “she really enjoys spending time with her son”. Then she said that she knew things would work out as they should, but she would really like for her and Chris to be more than friends. “Hmm…” I thought, with the slightest lift of my eyebrows, “I sure hope Chris is not her son”.

I figured out who Chris was when the ticket seller jokingly asked why the woman hadn't brought him any presents, and then promised not to ruin the surprise for Chris when he saw him later that day. Turns out, Chris is another ticket seller on the tram. The woman has an old-fashioned crush on Chris, carries around a picture of him in her wallet, and thinks he is sooo handsome. She was on her way home to drop some things off and clean up a bit before she got back on the train to see Chris while he was on duty.

I ended up chatting with the woman for the rest of my time on the tram (she told me she loved how Americans sounded, which made me feel good). She was so friendly, and I wished her the best of luck with Chris. I’m not sure what he thought of the parking sign, but certainly we should all be flattered to have someone think so highly of us.

I suppose that about covers it for now. I’ve been thinking through some other ideas for blogs, and am excited to write them soon. But for now, it’s time to get some sleep before another big day.