October, November, and December - we are the model of blogging efficiency...

It's been a relatively uneventful few months for us. It would be nice if that was the excuse for not writing, but I think you guys know us too well to know that's not really the reason.

The higlight of October was going to the HSBC World Match Play Championships at Wentworth Golf Club. We went with another couple and spent the beautiul fall day walking behind the likes of Angel Carbrera, Justin Mahon, Swenson, and of course, Ernie Els - who won for the 7th time. It doesn't hurt that he has a house on the course- bit of a home court advantage.

And of course, the highlight of November was Thanksgiving. The advent of technology means that we recieved 2 Thanksgiving e-vites from our families back in the states, and every day someone new had RSVP'd, describing the tasty dishes that they would be bringing. It makes our mouths (the individual mouth of each of us) salivate. But we'll be home for Christmas, so please, please everyone keep up the good work for Christmas. In the past, we've been able to celebrate with friends who have made the trip over from the states. This year, no one came to see us, so we took Thanksgiving o Cambridge where we shared the lavish feast with our English friends B&G and some Texans, M&C, for good measure. Bree practiced her pumpking pies and pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bread all month long, but our main concern - an Englishman's way with a turkey - was overcome as G-dawg handled the task superbly.

We did have one trip - a quick weekend in Warsaw. You may remember that we visited Poland in the fall of 2005 during our Austria/Hungary trip. We had a difficult communication/translation issue on the train from Krakow. The conductor told us we had the wrong ticket (even though the attendant at the train station told us (all in Polish, of course) that it was the right train. The conductor wrote down on paper the amount of money we need to pay for the right ticket - 200,00 ZLT. When we saw that, we thought, right okay - 200,000 ZLT / 100 (what we thought was the exchange rate) = 2,000 Euros. Quite ridiculous! But the conductor seemed to think that as Australians (yes, he thought we were Australians, and we felt it best not to correct that misconception), we should have a credit card that would pay it. Matt put up a fight for about 20 minutes. Finally, the kind lady who was translating for us talked the conductor out of making us pay. He wasn't happy, but there wasn't much he could do. We offered to get off at the next stop, but this was the fast train, so the next stop was the last stop.

As we talked to the nice lady, we realised that in Europe, the ',' actually means a decimal point. So it was really 200.00/100 = 2 Euros. Right. We put up a fight for 2 Euros.

We avoided the train on this trip to Poland, so one would have thought we were in the clear. But this time Matt was the subject of harassment by a local drunk on the tram! Being ridiculed in another language is a strange experience. Warsaw has a very unique feel and has survived a lot, practically being levelled by the Germans and then occupied for decades by the U.S.S.R.

And onto December...


Matt's finished up third quarter reporting and Bree has been journeying up to Leeds to start a new project that will probably last off and on til Christmas.

Other than, we had a weekend away in the country with some friends and have been busy with Christmas parties and Christmas programs and Christmas presents. Now in just days, we'll be home for Christmas!

Your ever-faithful bloggers,
M&B