Birthday

I had an awesome birthday this year even though I was far from home and also, having it during the summer was so much better than the dead of winter. My birthday lasted 3 days this year!! Thursday, Feb 7th here in Australia, then Friday because it was the 7th back home (thank you everyone on Facebook for the well wishes) and then again Saturday with a big party!

Thursday, at work, one of the girls was so sweet and brought a cake to celebrate. Everyone got together at our morning tea (mid morning break) to eat the cake and sing me happy birthday. Then when I came home, there were some beautiful flowers at the door! Thank you mom, dad, Shelby, Matthew and of course Ab-E girl!!

I invited everyone from the winery to my house on Saturday for a BBQ and some drinks. The people here are so giving and love any reason to have a party and celebrate. One of the full time lab girls brought about 20 sausages to share with everyone, someone brought guacamole  others brought chips, jello shots, and of course beer and wine. Needless to say, we had a GREAT time!!

Cat Walk

Today at work I was doing some work on the up on the cat walks around the top of the tanks and realized I wasn't scared. I used to be SO scared of heights especially going up stairs and walking on things you can see through to the ground.

I think that skydiving this summer really helped over come some of that fear. Thanks Miss Bruna for making me do that!!!

Work, Elizabeth and Money

WORK

Work has been good so far. We received our first load of white grapes last week, January 30th. The process was pretty similar as what I had done at Gallo, just on a MUCH MUCH larger scale (weird to say since Gallo is so big..) First all the grapes are dumped in to a hopper (basically a huge stainless steel bin that moves up and down and can pivot to dump) to be weighed and then pushed through a destemmer which separates the grapes and all the other stuff (leaves, branches, lizards, etc.... yes we saw a bearded dragon lizard). The grapes then move through some pipes to the press (basically a huge juicer that uses air pressure to squeeze the juice out of the fruit) and then into a tank. In theory it’s a pretty simple process, but St. Hallett being a pretty big winery, there are many overhead pipes that need to be connected to each other just right in order for the juice to end up in the right place. You must check and double check everything, always!!

First lot of grapes

Out Looking at the Vinyards

There is always something to do around the winery when the fruit isn’t being processed. Juice always needs to be transferred form one take to another, or we need to add something, or the wine needs to be filtered. None the less, there is always something to do, unless the winemakers just like to see us push around the big pumps and drag hoses around… we’ll never know!

The saying is, “Working in a winery is 49% cleaning, 49% lifting/moving heavy stuff around and 2% drinking beer.”

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth is our 4^th roommate, the spider. I think we met the 3^rd day I was living here when Giles, Quentin and I were sitting in the kitchen talking when she was just there on the wall. She was very scary for a while until Quentin gave her the name Elizabeth and Giles told me she takes care of all the other bugs that would be in the house if it wasn't for her. She was in the kitchen for a few days, then disappeared (worst part not knowing where she is…) for a few days and then ended up in the hallway outside of our bedrooms. She sat there for about a week not moving and we all thought she was dying! It was actually kind of sad to see her not moving and kind of shriveling. But then she surprised us and moved in to MY BEDROOM!!!! Needless to say, I liked her much better when she wasn't in here... Finally she came down on the wall low enough that Quentin was able to catch her in a container and put her outside. I am sure we will see her back in the house in the next few days, but we’ll see.

Quentin Capturing Her

Above My Bed

Elizabeth is a Huntsman spider. I did some research and discovered the average lifespan for a Huntsman is about two years of MORE!! The good thing is, if she were to bite, a cold pack is all one needs to relieve the pain. Still not very reassuring but at least she won’t kill me.

MONEY

The money here is really fun and easy to spend because it looks like monopoly money. Every bill is a different color and size with a little see through plastic piece in the top corner. There is a $100 (green), $50 (yellow), $20 (red), $10 (blue), and $5 (purple) bill. The weirdest is there are $2 and $1 coins. I also got a hot pink debit card, pretty cool! 

My friend Kaitlyn brought up a good point, “When someone wants to go to a strip club, do they just throw coins?” The answer is no, you switch your money for ‘stripper dollars’ and at the end of the night its gets switched back to real money. Kind of a funny concept that I would have never thought of if it wasn't for her. 

COMING UP..

My birthday is in 2 days and I am so excited to having it during SUMMER!! Its probably the only time in my life that this will ever happen, so its so exciting!! We are planning to have a party over here at the house with all the other harvest interns as well as some of Giles friends. He just bought/moved in to this house and wants to have a house warming party. SO.... we are going to just have a joint party that is going to be American themed. Hot dogs and burgers on the grill, chips, pop and maybe some salads to go with it. We'll see!!! 

and as always, 

GO COUGS!

So far..

Tuesday, January 15th, I left the US to come to Australia to work a wine harvest job 

at St. Hallett Wines.

Packing really wasn't all that bad until I got to the airport and realized my large bag was 14lbs over the 50lb weight limit. I got there about an hour before the flight thinking it would be like any other flight and things would go smoothly.... but of course they didn't. I was told that it would be $100's to check the overweight bag the whole way to Australia and the other option would be to separate things out and check an extra bag for $70. That being said, I rearranged my bags in order to meet the weight requirement.


I then went to check the luggage and the nice lady whispered in my ear, 'I won't charge you this time =).' It was very nice of her, but because that took so long I needed to rush through security and board the flight to San Francisco.  I made it, and it went well.


The cheapest flight at the time that I booked the trip had a 14 hour in SF. Luckily, Sierra lives there and we were able to spend some time together before the 14 hour flight to Sydney. That all went well. I was able to have a window seat but it was in the very back of the plane. It was torture boarding the plane at the front and walking through the first and business class looking at their fully reclining seats with foot rests. There should be a back entrance for the economy class people. Once arriving in Sydney, I needed to clear customs  and take a bus to the domestic flights terminal in an hour and a half in order to catch the flight to Adelaide.  That all sounds ok, until you see that a bunch of other international flights landed at the same time which also need to clear customs. So, I missed the flight to Adelaide but was able to catch a later one in the afternoon.

Finally arrived in Adelaide on Thursday, January 17th.

I took a taxi to the neighboring beach town of Glenelg.  They have a great backpackers hostel that I had emailed a few weeks prior reserving a single room. I dropped my bags off and headed to the beach.  It was late afternoon when I arrived so I relaxed in the sand, went to a few shops and then watched the sunset. It was beautiful!!

After a good night sleep, I was ready to get some things done in order to start working. There was an Australian bank (ANZ) down the street and so I was able to set up and account and order a debit card. I was hoping to get my cellphone up and working as well, but the company that has been recommended didn't have a store in Glenelg, so to the beach I went.

 

 Shelley, a winemaker at St. Hallett, had arranged to pick me and a couple co-workers up in Adelaide that Friday and take us to Nuri. Adelaide is about an hour and some to Nuriootpa where I am currently living. Nuriootpa is about a 15 min drive to the winery, so I was nervous about living here and not having ride to work. Also, Giles (the guy who owned the house I am living in) was not home when I arrived in Nuri, he was working.  Luckily he left a key for me in the mail box and some information about the house on the table.

I met Giles the next morning when I woke up and before he had to leave to work again. It was nice to get my things put away and get settled into the house but a bit lonely in a new city with out anything to do. But then later that afternoon, my new roommate Quentin arrived. We had an instant friendship and headed straight to Tanunda to meet up with some others and walk around a car show. We bonded over the cars, drinks and some food and made plans for the next day.

Quentin (French guy), Andrea (Italian guy), Kaitlyn (California girl) and I went wine tasting and to the Whispering Wall on our last day off before starting work. We tasted at St. Hallett to familiarize ourselves, and Jacob's Creek (big big winery here in the Barossa). The Whispering Wall is a dam which a person is on either side and when you speak next to the wall, the sound travels to the other as if they were standing next to you. It was really cool!

Monday the 21st was my first day of work at the winery! The first few days was all about paper work and many tours from different people pointing out what they thought was important about the winery. It was interesting to see the different roles each person plans in making the final wine what it is. The staff also had a nice BBQ lunch with us. Steak and egg sandwiches! YUMM! At the end of the day, we got to taste through all of the wines with the winemaker talking about them with us. The main wine produced in the Barossa Valley is Shiraz (Syrah). There is really a big difference in wine depending on which part of the valley it was grown on because the environment (climate, soil, ect.) is so different. The differences are interesting and fun to try and pick out.

The paper work got old after a few days, so St Hallett took us to the beach for the day! Never thought I would get paid to go to the beach! I could defiantly get used to that. We spend the day playing beach cricket, dodgeball, tug of war, swimming, eating, and drinking.  It was one of the hottest days, so made for the perfect day to go to the beach! Once we got back to the Barossa, everyone went to one of the interns houses and we continued to bond by having a BBQ.
















Australia Day was next. It is basically the 4th of July in that everyone spends the day BBQing and a day of drinking at the beach. It was different celebrating the Australian holiday with all foreign people... Italian, French, Italian Swiss, South African, Canadian, and Jordanian! We didn't get the full "Austrailan" experience but it was still a lot of fun because of the great people. It was fun learning bits and pieces of Italian and French and crazy to think we had a table of 3 different first languages of people.

This past week and three day weekend was a great way to start out before the heart of harvest. So far I have made some great friends and just had a lot of fun. 

Also, realized that I MUST live near a beach to see a sunset every once and a while! LOVE THEM!

SATURDAY NIGHT:

SUNDAY NIGHT:

MONDAY NIGHT:

There are also some awesome perks of living with a chef.... Duck Curry & Pork with Peanut Sauce dish once night and then tonight we had this... Chicken, potatoes cooked in duck fat, baked tomatoes and the most amazing carrots you could ever imagine.

And as always, 

GO COUGS!