Halloween, Burgers & Pomegranates

The Big Report

Now as we have been reporting things in Texas are generally big. You would think one exception would be the groceries, those everyday items we all purchase wherever we are in the world. A potato is a potato, an onion is always an onion and the humble pomegranate is a pomegranate no matter where you purchase it from. But yet again Texans take the previously standardised fruit and veg to a new level. I am not sure what creates this phenomena, if it is artificial or simply an evolutionary adaptation on behalf of the fruit and veg, so they don't feel inadequate in a place where everything else is big, but even these simple items are double the size of those produced anywhere else I have been. Initially we were hesitant and fearful of these giant abominations but as with all others things we have grown to accept their difference and consume with vigor.  Even sausages take the eater to a new dimension here!

The Weeks Past
We are back! A week off, with not too much happening we thought one action packed and mind boggling blog would be more fun!

October 31st was our first authentic experience of Halloween! Now I understand that in some areas of Australia, Halloween has recently grown in popularity, but Az and I had not experienced this in Brisbane. I arrived home on Halloween eve, with Az excitedly wanting to take me on a sunset bike ride. It was close to 6.30pm so I was less enthused, it took some convincing, but I put some bike shorts on and off we pedaled into the sunset! Az can be such a romantic :)  The suburbs close by to us are a real mix. To our east is a large Latino community with some interesting characters, whilst to our North it is a new/old area, new as people are buying older houses, knocking them down and building giant new houses that look like old house and castles. These streets are very similar to those that we grew up seeing on American television shows and movies, big elaborate houses. Earlier in the day Az went riding to get himself into shape so he can beat me one day in the future around Whiterock Lake and noticed that some of the really giant houses close to the lake were setting up there decorations for Halloween. The sun was slowly setting, we casually peddled towards the lake, as the night started to light up with vibrant decorations at the eve of Halloween. The sun was still on its way down so Az lead me to the lake to watch the moon rise over the water.

What we next experienced was an unexpected bonus. The moon was creeping over the horizon, we excitedly tried to capture this spectacular scene with our fancy camera but found it difficult to do the scene justice... We will let you be the judge of how you think we did?

Halloween at IEEM continued the experience for Ez as it meant large supplies of "candy and chips", which allowed plenty of opportunity to sample different types of American chocolate, to be honest it would of been rude not to try them all. That evening we were invited to a Halloween Party so after Ez got home from work, we jumped back on our bikes and pedaled over to nearby Marquita St. for a gathering with local families. The party was hosted by the same people who has held the engagement party Az attended previously. They are lovely people and we met some more great people, in particular we met a rugby coach called Ren and his hilarious wife Paula. Apparently there is a large Union competition in the US and we had just met the local coach for Dallas. We ended up chatting away and finished with an invite to "Thanksgiving" at there place after the local "Turkey Trot". We will tell you about this in the future.

There is a local burger bar near by to us and it seems to be the easiest place to reference when telling people where we live. So last Saturday night we set out to find out what all the fuss was about. Az's new favourite football team was playing so this made the trip to the bar even more exciting, burgers, drinks and football, wow! The bar is called Jakes, and the burgers were ridiculous, as were the beer glasses! We enjoyed our first experience but not sure we will be making it a regular thing, I don't think our hearts/waistline would appreciate it! If you can read the menu check out the heart attack that is burger number 5!


Az the dork that he is has finally had his working rights approved, we say finally but really it took a lot less time than we were told which is great. Also on the positive I have found a new hairdresser who is just around the corner!

Whilst I was at the hairdresser, Az was making new friends at a nearby bar. Angela and DW were interesting, fun characters who are also descendants of "swamp people" from Mississippi. One of them grew up with a huge gator regularly hanging out in their back yard that they would hand feed, just like in that movie Lake Placid. Well they decided that they wanted to show us more of Dallas and asked if we would like to join them in an area full of live music called Deep Ellum, it was an interesting place. First we parked behind a bikie bar as it is the cheapest and safest parking. Then we wove our way through some streets to arrive outside a place called TREE which had a que 100m long of kiddie boppers waiting to get in. Apparently they get some top acts there, DW saw Vanilla Ice there once. We were definitely too old to go in there this time and we needed food so we went next door to the pizza place and had a brush with a TV celebrity!!

Well she was not really a celebrity but featured on the national geographic taboo series called "Bizarre Bodies" Some of you might have watched the show 60mins when they had the lizard man, cat woman and those other people who do bizarre things to their bodies. The girl that sold us Pizza was one of those people, with horns inserted under the skin in her head, covered in tattoo's, and all those other scary things some people decide to do to their bodies. Ez wanted a photo but was a bit scared to ask. For those of you who want to see what I mean there is a link below to the episode, she is featured at about the 4min mark. Now if you decide to watch this please don't do it whilst eating, or when children are around or if you don't like the sight of blood. It is quite disturbing! So the night finished by watching some live music in a venue called "The prophet"....

 Local Shopping centre "North Park" has ducks and turtles, inside playing in their pond. They were pretty cool!

Az fitting into his new role as homemaker, baker and cleaner.









That's about all for the last couple of weeks, I do warn you only watch the episode if you are not easily disturbed.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/bizarre-bodies/