Apparently there'll be a "cake walk" - I'm imagining cakes on legs parading on a stage, but I suspect it's a local term for a "cake stall". There'll also be a Petting Zoo, Face painting, Inflatables (jumping castle?!), and Pie in the Face ("1 ticket to throw at your favorite teacher"!!). I shall report back ...
In the meantime, spring has well and truly sprung in Middle Georgia, with an abundance of blossoms and pollen laden pine trees, causing a local rush on antihistamines and the like. I thought we'd leave Melbourne - hayfever hell and have some relief here, but oh no, the locals tell me it's a shocking place to be in spring because of all the pine trees, etc, which leave a lovely little powdery yellow blanket on all external surfaces. Trust us to buy two dark coloured cars!! The blossoms are pretty, though!
Isabella had a little friend over last weekend - Kennedy, a sweet local girl, whose Southern drawl requires me to do a double take quite often. Isabella, on the other hand, seems to have no trouble understanding her friend. They enjoyed the (recently unpacked!!) playroom, doing lots of baking and the like.
Apart from finishing off the unpacking, with only one room requiring attention - see if you can guess which one - we tried to celebrate a certain Piscean's birthday. Sadly to say, despite dragging the kids out and ordering a lovely plate of seafood and the biggest margarita I've ever seen, I was overcome with some 24 hr lurgy and ended up not eating or drinking a thing, only to come home and hang my sad and sorry head over the porcelain pony ... too much information? Sorry!!
The margarita was impressive, but my face is perhaps showing the strain of someone yet to do a recce of the nearest bathroom - just in case!!
Daniel, Dave and Isabella, however, managed to enjoy themselves regardless, but by the time Daniel submarined under our table and started doing laps of the Red Lobster, it was time to go.
Thankfully, the bug was gone within a day or so, and we organized a babysitter - our first in 3 months!!!! - and tried out the "best" restaurant in town ...
For those of you familiar with The Age Good Food Guide, I can tell you that Marco's might scrape a 12 out of 20 - on a good night. We've been here long enough to have fairly low expectations when it comes to eating out, so it was with hopeful trepidation that we entered Marco's impressive, chandelier-laden entrance, to see what they could do.
The sight of stainless steel trolleys laden with Grand Marnier and the like, for table-side flambe theatrics didn't bode well ... think Melbourne fine dining in the 70s!
However, our waitress could barely contain her excitement about the starter special of "jumbo shrimp wrapped in angel hair pasta and fried, served standing up in a bed of potato mash with Harissa tomato sauce". I imagined these feisty crustaceans sitting to attention, and saying "hello", and just had to see what they would look like - against my better judgment.
Mains were so so, with my osso bucco quite tasty by not falling off the bone as much as I'd have liked, and a watery tasteless attempt at polenta. Dave's veal scallopine was on par with what you might cook at home - ok, but not really fine dining.
The desserts, however, were much more impressive. We shared an Italian Cheesecake, and a gooey chocolate pudding with saffron infused cream.
Anyway, overall, it was a pleasant evening, if not for the food, but for the unique experience of eating an entire 3 course meal leisurely, and without small people doing laps or throwing pencils in our food.
Would we bring visitors here? Only after they've been in location for more than a month, and have adjusted their palates and expectations accordingly.
After finally moving into the house, and hence having a permanent address to record with "the authorities", it was time to get our local Georgia Drivers Licenses. Driving here has been interesting and I think, on the whole, most local drivers are very courteous - perhaps everyone's scared someone's going to pull a gun on them?!
I had investigated online and ascertained that we would need to sit a written exam, as well as a practical driving test. After 3 months of driving on the "wrong" side of the road, along with negotiating the 4-way stops sign intersections (whoever gets there first has righ of way), and "suicide turning lanes" (the middle lane on larger roads is used by turning traffic from either direction - you just don't want to enter too soon!!), I thought I'd be fine to sit the tests. So, yesterday was the day!
Unlike the customer service in shops and restaurants, etc, public services here seem to be like a lot of public services everywhere else - staffed by people who really should have stayed in bed that day, rather than go into work where they snarl and snort at everyone they meet. Mind you, some of the people they deal with would test anyone's patience. Talk about "trailer trash" - the tattooed, toothless, and cussin folk I encountered yesterday were like something right out of a Jerry Springer audience.
There was a mother and son in attendance, and while he was at the counter explaining what he wanted she was announcing to everyone in earshot that she needed a zanax(?) or a gun to deal with him, as he has dyslexia, can't read, and doesn't drive but wants a license to ride a scooter(?!!!). Another colourful exchange involved a largish chap who muttered in a stage whisper to his girlfriend to just "sit down and wait and hope to hell you don't get some butt-hole servin' ya". Get my drift?!
I'm not sure I'd describe the staff who served me at the Department of Driver Services as "butt holes" but they wouldn't have won any prizes for southern charm and hospitality either. After about 20 minutes of administrivia I was directed to a computer room where I sat the two-part multiple choice exam of 40 questions in total on road signs and road rules. While I had done a sample test online, about 3 weeks ago, I relied on my common sense, and the confidence that if the people I'd just spent 30 minutes with were capable of passing this test, then I should probably cope with it, too.
A pass of 75% is required for both parts. Not to be too smug about it, but I will because I can, I scored 100% on the first part and 90% on the second. The only near human interaction I had with the DDS staff member was when she joked "look at you, aceing the test!", to which I replied that I'd been driving for nearly 30 years. "You'd be surprised!" was her reply.
The practical test required me to park in three different spots between orange witches hats - parallel, angle and straight in, reverse, brake and drive around the neighbourhood for a bit while following directions. I tried to joke with the examiner, something along the lines of "I bet the neighbours get tired of having their letter boxes knocked over", but she was having none of it, so imagine my surprise when she handed me this:
<- Hard to read, but I scored 100%!!Poor Dave - he's yet to sit his, but given the parking element of the test, I advised him not to do it in The Truck!!!
A final postscript to the move: Isabella was a little upset by the state of some of her books and took it upon herself to pen a complaint, which I may well forward to Pickfords, "the careful movers"!!
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