Never judge a burger by its cover

This is Brodburger, home to the best burgers in Canberra.  This fact is not disputed by any local, they are the best.

Located in a caravan on the lake on the south-side this place has a steady throng of customers every lunchtime, seven days a week. Politicians and public servants during the week, families and students at the weekend.  On a sunny saturday lunchtime its very popular. Its achieved cult status in Canberra.  Occasionally unknowing authorities try to shut it down, the popular uproar is so great it never gets far.

They only have a certain amount of stock per day, and they close once its sold, we were lucky as we were the last in the queue before they decided to stop selling.  As they make the burgers to order, and with such a long backlog of customers building up it took an entire hour to get round to our order. But if you bring along a picnic blanket and the weekend paper, its a very enjoyable wait on the grass by the lake. A perfect way to hang out with friends (in this case my housemates) at the weekend.

And the wait was worth it. The burger was brilliant. Big and filling but not oversized and stuffing.  Meaty, perfectly done and slightly pink on the inside. Crisp not soggy lettuce and tomato.  Good amounts of relish and sauce, enough to add flavour, not too much to make the burger soggy or overpower the real flavours. Good quality bread, not too doughy. You get a choice of cheese with it, brie, swiss or blue (in the form of a sauce in the case of the blue). I'm not usually a blue cheese fan, but it was just the right amount of blue cheese, enough to compliment the meat and make it cheesy, not too much to overpower.  Can you tell I loved this burger!

Veni Vidi Vrisbee

My other new sport is Ultimate Frisbee.  Having played a few social games with people in my department, we caved in to pressure from a frisbee loving friend* EL and formed a team for the six week Canberra Summer League. Veni Vidi Vrisbee, is our team name.  We came, we saw, we played frisbee! (but not necessarily conquered).

Being a team of novices we were pretty bad to begin, with, but over the course of six weeks we've got a lot better.  We can actually play Ultimate now, rather than running around like headless chickens.

Our record during the first five games: LDLLL.  Not so good, especially when really we should have won two of the games but we weren't quite good enough to cut out the mistakes when it mattered.  And so we found ourselves in the last place play-off for 15th place and to avoid the wooden spoon.  And we won!  Hooray!

The Autumn league begins in three or four weeks time.  Can't wait!

* he really does.  His eyes light up whenever you give him a frisbee and he looks like an excited child.

At long last: My Cherry Ripe Cherry is gone

Finally, the iconic chocolcate bar of Australia has been thoroughly product tested by yours truly.  Ladies and Gentemen, this is the Cherry Ripe Review:

I'm just back from a week's holiday in Tasmania with MC.  It was awesome, and hopefully there'll be lots of blog posts coming in the next couple of weeks with lots of photos. Located in Hobart is the Cadbury factory, originally producing chocolates for a large area it now produces all of the slab chocolates for Australia and New Zealand, providing hundreds of jobs to Hobart and the entire state with their constant need for a hefty supply of milk.  Anyway, we went for their tour which sadly is no longer a tour due to 'ealth and safety but a talk, and a video and some tasting!  Obviously very glossy and brightness and lights and happy, but then the kind of people that go on chocolate factory tours (mainly old ladies on the day we went) are those who will lap it up and are willing to overlook the propoganda style talk.  Isn't being part of Kraft wonderful for example.  Anywhere that gives me a bar of Dairy Milk (now Fairtrade!) on entry gets my vote, and then free samples at the start of the tour! Like putty in their hands.

Named after the poem by englishman Robert Hendrick (1591-1674) (quite how I have no idea but i think it became a song, then something else, then a song again) the Cherry Ripe is Australia's oldest chocolate bar and is currently manufactured by Cadbury's.  Its pretty important to the Australians, JB's kids were really suprised to learn I hadn't ever had one. Fittingly my first Cherry Ripe was a free sample, a welcome to Australia here's your Cherry Ripe moment.  I went and bought another one half an hour later at the end of the tour!

A cherry ripe is basically bounty style semi-dessicated coconut, with Cherry juice to keep it moist and fruity.  And its covered in dark chocolate.  The result: pretty damn good.  Tastier than coconut based chocolates thats for sure. Not blow my socks off this is the best thing ever, but then thats rarely the case with iconic chocolate.  Certainly good, certainly will have them again. Tasty, tasty, tasty!



Mint Slices

Along with the Tim-Tam (which I've yet to review properly on this blog!) the Mint Slice is another aussie biscuit favourite.  Unfortunately, unlike the Tim-Tam, the Mint Slice just isn't that good.  Its just a bit soft, and mint kind of works better when crunchy.  Its certainly not up to a Viscount biscuit (the closest UK equivalent) or a mint Club. A bit disappointing to be fair.

Embarking on life the other side of the fence, will the grass be greener?

My IMac has arrived, and it is huuuuuuge. 27 Inch screen!, with all the bits and bobs located behind it.  Just look at it compared to my old laptop.  I spent a long while deliberating between mac and PC, and have decided to see what a Mac is really like.  So I'll be spending the next four years without a delete button or a stop button in the name of sleek efficiency, the Ctrl key not doing what the Crtl key should, an international rather than UK keyboard, and the nagging issue that its not really possible to turn anything off, not properly anyway.  On the other hand I've got a laptop style trackpad to go with it, and the things you can do with the gestures is amazingly cool, and about as useful as having a toolbar at the bottom of the screen.  Oh well!

Addendum (26/10/10): Though Mac does have a delete key, its actually the backspace key, the delete function does not exist for text.  Similarly, there is a stop button in Itunes, and a pause button on the keyboard, the two buttons serve the same purpose, which is a pause/stop hybrid which does neither of the two functions adequately, jack of all trades-esque.

Twisties

These are Twisties, another Australian must have.  Basically they're oversized NikNaks with Wotsits flavouring.  I'm not 100% convinced, not too much of a wotsits flavour fan.  but there you go!

First Impressions

I arrived on Thursday morning, and it wasn't too bad a trip.  Partly helped by the fact I got two seats on the lengthy flight from Dubai to Brisbane, so at least I could spread out a bit and get some sleep.  I've been suprisingly not that jet-lagged, which I'm thankful for.

I'm currently staying with the Aunt and Uncle (ES & JB) of a girl who joined my lab in Oxford last year.  They're really nice people and have certainly helped me settle in.  They have three kids and I'm currently displacing the eldest by living in her room.  I suppose I should move out as quickly as possible!  But the housing market is something I'm attempting to get to grips with this weekend.

So on Thursday I got myself a bank account.  Which was suprisingly easy, just the passport needed.  Though the idea that I can't use any ATM anywhere for free is a bit alien to a Brit! Getting hold of a mobile phone proved trickier. I'm aiming to get a contract phone, but right at the start I'm going to stick to PAYG, which I thought would be easier, SIM card for $10, but it takes 24 hours to activate, which is really annoying when you have no means of your own transport and have to call to get a lift!  Plus there's no credit included in the $10.  That's one of the biggest differences I've noticed so far in Australia, commercial markets are a lot less competitive and so its company driven rather than consumer driven, if there isn't enough choice for consumers then its the company that holds the power.  In the UK you would get a free SIM when paying for phone credit, which would work instantly, and not have to pay to withdraw cash from another banks ATMs simply because if anyone did charge, people would go elsewhere.  Maybe the consumer choice is less in Australia and until one company uses these kind of tactics, none of the others will.  Anywho....

On Friday I ventured in to ANU for the first time.  Canberra has a really good network of bike paths, and the one from Hackett, the suburb where I'm staying to ANU pretty much follows a storm drain for its duration, so its pretty green.  About twenty to twenty-five minutes cycle through the suburbs of Canberra, though then again, this city is nothing but suburbs.  The one thing thats really different about Canberra is the birds, parrots and cockateels and cockatoos and the like. Its really quite cool to have "tropical" birds in a suburban environment.  Though I have been warned about the magpies!!  They're bigger than UK magpies and look decidedly meaner, plus its "swooping season".  Its the beginning of Spring so the magpies are getting a little frisky and the males often dive-bomb passers by, some people even have cable-ties attached to the top of their cycle helmets (supposedly compulsory but not everyone wears one) as the magpies swoop the highest part of the person.

Registered successfully, though I forgot my passport *slaps forehead* so had to cycle all the way back to Hackett and in again, which was fine as I didn't have much to do.  Then I attempted to try and find my new department, RSES, I ended up cycling around the entire campus thoroughly lost.  The campus is a big place, and quite disorientating, but I found it eventually, walked in through the front door, no security, no reception, Canberra is a very safe place, and quite quickly located my new supervisor (MG).  MG seemed nice, as did the rest of his group that I met, much smaller than OceanBug thats for sure, but then how many scientifc groups are bigger than OceanBug?! Spent the rest of the day with MG, getting a tour, introductions etc.  The department is a real warren, and is going to take a long time to get used to, and quite quiet it seems.  Met a couple of Postgrads, before joining the departmental friday night football game, (which apparently wasn't that departmental) before a few "pints" and then back home.