Tonight Sylvie hosted a traditional Hanukkah dinner and gift exchange. Lauren and I decided to make jelly filled doughnuts, known as Sufganiyot, which I can't pronounce to save my life. It took quite awhile and we had to improvise a bit, but the end result was worth it.

Since neither Lauren nor I own a rolling pin, we used a tube of cling wrap. Worked like a charm! 

On a random note, i haven't been able to find sticks of butter here which is rather frustrating. It all comes in blocks, with tick marks indicating every 50 g. This is inconvenient because 1) you have to open a huge block instead of just a stick and 2) one cup is equal to JUST under the standard block here. Which means I often either have to add too much butter or am left with a tiny sliver, which annoys me. Also, it didn't occur to me that Lauren wouldn't own measuring cups or spoons, so good thing I had them as we were following an American recipe!

We used wine glasses to cut circles and then let the dough sit for awhile. 

First batch...could pass for chocolate doughnuts. 

We eventually got the temperature right and were really proud of the end result! 

A table of traditional Hanukkah food (and some cake pops). 

Plate #1

Sylvie lighting the candles. 

On Friday, I decided to bake some Christmas cookies in an effort to get us into the spirit a bit more. I'm not a huge cook/baker and have been known to screw up boxed macaroni and cheese, but these chocolate Crinkle Cookies turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Mine were pretty thin compared to the pictures in the recipe for some reason, but they did taste good! 

On Friday night, some friends and I went to a comedy show at a club downtown and then out for drinks. 

The Melbourne Christmas tree on Swanston Street. I've been meaning to write about this for awhile, but the number of children out and about downtown at 10 or 11 pm is shocking. Peter and I were roaming around a bit on Saturday night and couldn't believe the sheer number of toddlers and babies still out-and awake! I think school holidays just started so that could be part of it, but this is something we don't usually see at home that I've noticed quite a bit here. 

There was a huge crowd, again mostly children, gathered across the street watching an animated Christmas display projected onto this building. It was really pretty! 

Today we went out for burgers and then went to the beach to hang out and watch the sun set. It was quite windy and chilly, but any weather that doesn't require snow boots in December is a win in my book. 

My friend Lauren and I went for a walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens a couple weeks ago and I totally forgot about these pictures until I went through my phone today, but it's such a pretty place I had to share them!  

There's a cute little cafe and dock area where you can take (ridiculously priced) gondola rides around the pond. 

The cafe 

English breakfast tea (I think?). I thought it was pretty good but Lauren assured me it wasn't a "proper" cup of tea, so she made me a second cup when we got back to our building. Apparently Tetley Tea is the real deal. It was amazing! 

These creepy birds are everywhere. Their feet are wayyyy too big.

Yesterday we hosted a "Friendsgiving" dinner at our apartment building for our fellow American friends (and non-American friends who wanted to see what all the fuss was about). Since we essentially skipped Thanksgiving on Thursday, it was so much fun to finally celebrate/eat. Peter and I (read: Peter) did the turkey. We weren't sure how easy it would be to find a turkey here but turns out our local grocery store, Woolworth's, had plenty. 

Here's our turkey after defrosting for a day or two. 

My main contribution to the turkey was chopping up fruits and vegetables to stuff inside. 

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we had football on in the background. 

The turkey all ready to go in the oven. I mixed together some butter and herbs to spread on top. Second contribution! 

After triple checking our temperature conversions (our recipe was in Farenheit), the turkey went in the oven at about 1:30 pm. Our oven is brand new and we had never used it for anything more serious than an oven pizza, so we read the manual and figured the turkey would need to cook for three and a half hours. 

We moved the turkey and all of our supplies down to the apartment kitchen and dining area around 3:30 pm. We noticed at this point that the turkey, after only cooking for about 2 hours, looked pretty done. Peter checked the temperature and it was in fact ready to go. We couldn't believe how fast it cooked and we kind of panicked, as people weren't set to arrive until about 5 and we didn't plan to eat until 6. So, we just covered it in foil and kept it in the oven on a low temperature for another hour or so (and crossed our fingers). In hindsight, most of our guests probably wouldn't have known if it was overdone, as it was their first Thanksgiving experience. We still don't know if we just bought a freak turkey that cooked really quickly, or if perhaps the fact that the oven was new influenced cook time. 

The turkey actually turned out just fine after all. 

The finished bird, ready to eat...almost. 

Peter carving the turkey, and Katie photobombing. We may or may not have watched several YouTube videos on how to carve a turkey in the hours before this photo was taken. 

One of our Australian friends, Bec, made this adorable fruit turkey! 

The most amazing buffet ever. 

The whole group before digging in. 

My (first) plate. 

Peter got a little eager and broke his plastic fork on his first bite. The strangest part about our apartment kitchen is that you have to supply all of your own utensils. I suppose they're worried about someone swiping them, but most people probably don't have enough silverware to feed more than 5-10 people. Therefore, we ate with plastic silverware, plates, and cups. Classy!

The best part! We had an apple tart, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie, all SOOO good. The pumpkin pie was a novelty, as most of our non-American friends had never tried it. 

It definitely felt strange to be celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday, as it was 95 degrees. We hung out on the deck for a bit before cleaning up. I think I could get used to a summer Thanksgiving! 

Beautiful sunset