What I learned this past weekend

I know, it's been a while.  It's just been pretty boring.  Not much going on.  You know how winter is.

But, on an upside I am starting to feel like more of a local.  I stopped by a restaurant last week and some of the people working there actually remembered me, and what I ordered (that was a little weird).  I feel like I have the starting of a new Franklin Cafe, only it's not as good of value and there's no bar to eat at.  I tried their "Winter Wine."  I wasn't really sure what it was, but since it came from a large glass fermenting cask I figured it had to be fresh.  I wish I had a picture because it seemed like the wine equivalent of bath tub whiskey.  It was a big glass jug (like what I used to ferment homebrew in) with a long tube that they used to siphon the wine out.  There was also a litre of olive oil floating on top as a protective layer to keep the oxygen out.  Pretty ingenious and made about an hour or two away.  To top it off, it was a pretty good house wine.

But on to the list of things I learned over the past weekend:

• I still don't fully understand Aussie Rules Football.  I went to my first Sydney Swans game last weekend (yeah, they all have horrible names like swans and roosters).  Every time I thought I understood the game something strange happened and the ball went to the other team.  Out of bounds is only a concept.  Half the time the ball crossed the line play continued.  There are also quarters but they ran anywhere from 27 to 32 minutes.  Sure there could be stopage time, but there were never any injury timeouts or anything that had a long pause in the game.
• Hot dogs here is a general term.  I went with the Aussie Dog instead of the meat pie at the game because I had to try one.  And it will probably be the last time.  It had a bright red casing but was white on the inside (definitely not answering to a higher authority).  Plus add on raw onions, sweet ketchup (it's not called sweet ketchup, but it just tastes really sweet) and tasty cheese.  I think it's just cheddar, but all the shops call it tasty.
• When at an outdoor bar with a pool (the upside of winter), stay away from the edge, no matter what.  Now I didn't go all the way in or frankly how it happened, but I definitely had a wet leg for a part of the night.  Thankfully it was more of a roof top kiddie pool, but my food definitely hit the bottom.