Restaurant Booked for Dinner the Night of the Wedding

We have booked a private room in Barnabys Restaurant in Parramatta for dinner following our marriage. The plan is that we will take the children and the two witness couples, which will make a party of 10, to the restaurant for an early dinner before heading of to the "Bingle Tree" for 3 nights.

The restaurant is a great venue with a fabulous reputation and a little bit of an historical connection to the colonial days of Australia

"The rustic old colonial building in which Barnaby's Riverside is now housed, first came to fame during the early part of the nineteenth century as the hiding place of the infamous Barnaby Templeton - the first prisoner to have escaped from Parramatta Prison. Restored and rebuilt in 1976, Barnaby's Riverside, Parramatta, now enjoys a reputation based more on its modern Australian cuisine than its somewhat colourful past. Step into Barnaby's Riverside and you step into a great chapter of Australian History.

Convicts first built the building that now houses Barnaby's in approximately 1826. The hand made bricks are still very much in evidence today in the private rooms of the original section of the building. It is believed that the building was originally used to house soldiers attached to The Government House of the day - and because of its proximity to the river became a strategic location in the establishment of the young colony. Rumour has it, that one Barnaby Templeton was the first convict to escape from the prison at Parramatta and was discovered hiding in this pair of historic houses".

Us at Sydney Temple at Night January 2008

We took these pictures during Anita's stay in Sydney in January

Understanding Aussie Slang

I got this e-mail from Anita and thought it was a fun thing to share with our friends and family. It was an article that Anita found written by some-one who had visited Oz, Anita shared some observations...Nothing to lose any sleep over. -Lew

It made me laugh how many things I heard Lew and others say. I enjoyed it and thought if anyone comes to visit, they might want to check this out. :)
-Anita

Australian Slang
Introduction
If you've ever visited Australia, you're familiar with such common Australian slang phrases as "G'day, mate." But slang originating from down under features some of the most colorful phrasings in the English language. Check out the following sayings and impress your Australian friends, or merely entertain your American ones.

Instructions
1. Step One
Acquaint yourself with basic Aussie slang. Visit the National Museum of Australia website to test your knowledge. Start using words like corker (great) and yobbo (slob). Replace "fight" with "barney."

Lew always tells me I'm cheeky and a corker.

2. Step Two
Sprinkle your speech with colorful Aussie phrases to express emotion. Tell an exasperating person to "belt up" not "shut up." If someone is daydreaming, say "They're away with the pixies." Tell a friend "Bonzer mate!" to congratulate them on an accomplishment.

*I've heard Lew say "away with the pixies" all the time! He and his brother will say the same thing over and over in one conversation in different figures of speech. Each time they say it, it's with a different phrase. It's kind of like "who can outwit and be the most creative" contest. I laugh myself to death listening to it! He and his brother did this a lot when we went to New York last summer.

3. Step Three (Lew does this all the time!)
Rhyme with the Aussies. Australians use rhyming slang the same way Brits do "Apples and pears" means stairs, "Al Capone" stands for telephone, "Joey Blake" equals snake, "Frog and Toad" means road, and so on. Look for more intricate rhyming phrases by going to the Alldownunder website.

I was talking to Lew on his cell and he mentioned in mid conversation that he had to get the Al Capone.

4. Step Four
Substitute slang names for common food and drink monikers. A "long black" stands for double espresso, while a "flat white" means latte. "Tinny" equals beer in a can and a warm beer left on the table too long translates to "Kimberley cold." At meal time, if you hear an Aussie say "chook" that's slang for chicken, and if they ask for a "bikkie" they want a cookie.

Lew's mother kept talking about a chook. I figured out what she was really saying after a few minutes.

5. Step Five
Dress slang... First, put on your "grundies" or "under-chunder" (underwear). Then slip on your "tweeds" or "strides" (pants) or "boardies" (board shorts). Add a "skivvy" (turtleneck) or "boiled shirt" (dress shirt).
And finally, refer to ladies' undergarments as "knickers." Call a bra an "over the shoulder." Abbreviate sunglasses as "sunnies" and flip-flops as "flippies."

Lew kept asking his daughter if she'd brought her sunnies with her! I noticed that they put "ies" sound behind words... such as a brick mason is a bricky... mashed potatoes on a menu I saw was "mashies" and on the news they were talking about football and called it "footies".