A seasonally confused Keighty

October is my favourite month back home.  The temperatures drop enough to start wearing riding boots, sweaters, and scarves.  The leaves start to change colours which means pumpkin spice and apple cider. Two of my favourite holidays occur, my birthday and Halloween. Here October means rising temperatures, more beach days, summer dresses, and the end of the semester.  Yet I've still found myself at an apple festival, pumpkin patch, and dressing up for Halloween.

The biggest difference between October here and October at home was the amount of time I spent at the beach. I've checked out a bunch of different beaches in the area. I went to Moroubra, Bondi, Manly, Brighton, Thirroul, and Coogee just in October.  Bondi had the Sculpture by the Sea festival on, where there are large sculptures on the path along the beach.

My personal favourite

Made out of bottle caps!

 October was also Good Food Month in Sydney so there were food festivals and cheap eats all over.  I went to the Night Noodle Markets with a friend.  The noodle markets are basically where some of the best Asian restaurants set up stalls in the park so you can eat lots of your favourite foods all in one place.  Living in China Town I've come to love Thai and Chinese food a lot.  But my favourite part was definitely getting Messina gelato. Messina won the world gelato competition last year so there stuff is gooooooood.  The gelato I got had lychee on it. I mean maybe I live under a rock in VT, but I hadn't heard of it before.  Does it even exist in the USA? It is really good though!

Heaven.

Lanterns at the festival

I also went to the Granny Smith Apple festival.  Apparently Granny Smith apples were accidentally invented for the first time in Ryde, Australia. Who knew? So every year the town has a festival with a parade, rides, and shopping stalls to celebrate the only thing that puts them on the map.  I went for the free apples and to eat apple pie.

Free apples!

Apple Pie tastes different here. Definitely missing my mom's homemade version!

So even though this country has a festival for everything they don't really celebrate Halloween. It's starting to be celebrated in the cities, but children here don't go trick or treating.  And they don't carve pumpkins.  So being the American, I decided it was my responsibility to get a pumpkin and teach my flatmates how to carve it.  I was lucky enough to find out about an "American Style Pumpkin Patch" that a company was putting on.  And they were giving away free pumpkins!

Pretty good interpretation of what our pumpkin patches look like in the states

So I ventured into the suburbs to find this pumpkin patch and when I arrived I was the only one there not accompanied by a small child.  But I didn't let that stop me from choosing the biggest and best pumpkin I could.  I then had to walk back to my apartment carrying a solid 15 pound pumpkin.  That was a workout and I got some really weird looks.  But seeing two 20 year olds carve a pumpkin for the first time made it all worth it.  My favorite reactions were (1) one thought I would actually be getting a hollow pumpkin and then we would just cut out the face and (2) describing pulling out the pumpkin guts as pulling out hair from the shower drain.  They did an awesome job gutting the thing and carving the face with our less than superior carving tools. Baby Frankie turned out beautifully! We even had a candle to put inside for the real Jack-O-Lantern effect.

Baby Frankie!

Everyone here thought that Halloween was all about dressing up scary and using as much fake blood as possible.  I had to inform everyone that Halloween is really about getting creative with your costumes.  I found a pinata costume on Pinterest a while ago and decided to go for it. (Side note: Pinterest also isn't really a thing here.  What is wrong with this country?!) I expected streamers would be an easy thing to find, but I actually had to trek all over the city to multiple party stores to find enough colors.  Even though the supplies were hard to find I was really happy with how it turned out.  To celebrate I went out with some others on a Halloween boat cruise in the harbour.  Everyone was dressed up and the views were beautiful!

Ta da!

I love this city

 Besides that I spent October preparing for November, both in terms of studying for exams and making travel plans.  I finish finals on November 17th and after that I'm free to explore! I've decided to see two of the things that define Australia, the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef.  I'll head to Alice Springs for a tour on November 20th. After 5 days there I'll head to Cairns for a couple of days of scuba diving the reef! And then, instead of going back to Sydney, I'M GOING TO THAILAND! One of my friends from high school is studying abroad in India currently and we both finish around the same time, so we decided it would be fun to meet up in Thailand for some adventuring.  I'm both super excited and super nervous for this adventure. Its going to be the first time I visit a country where the official language isn't English!  But I am super excited for the beautiful beaches, delicious food, and the full moon party we'll be attending!!