A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

Many of you may not care about this post... but I forgot to bring my towel!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are wondering... Today is the towel day in America (I am one day ahead... so I forgot my towel yesterday to celebrate the Douglas Adams tribute... Yeah yeah, I know... I am not making myself clear.

Douglas Adams was an English writer... Author of ‘Hitchhiker guide to the galaxy’, ‘The restaurant at the end of the universe’, ‘Life, Universe and everything’, ‘so long... and thanks for all the fish’, and ‘Mostly harmless’... All of them brilliant and entertaining.

So... happy towel day and thanks for all the fish.

Edit: Boing boing and other sites has added some information about the towel day... 

I did not notice... It was so fast... I have reached 100 already!!!!... WOW!

The fact was pin pointed by a friend whose write me... ‘What is it gonna be? I mean the topic of your 100 post!!?’

I don’t know what to post... but I do know that I would like to share it with you :)

Maybe I just buy a cake....

Eew... hahaha not like that...

NEITHER LIKE THAT!

Anyway, thanks to those reading my blog... Even when I got few comments (damn) I know someone tried to understand this jib jab.

Thanks.

A couple of days ago I met a Venezuelan couple in the street and they asked me if I knew where they could find ‘Harina-PAN’...

If you are not Venezuelan or Colombian you might be thinking... ‘What the hell harina-pan is?’

Harina stands for flour and PAN stand for ‘Producto Alimenticio Nacional’ or national foodstuff. Is corn based flour widely used in Venezuela to make ‘Arepas’ (toasted bread alike), ‘Hallacas’ (tamales alike) and bollos (again... tamales alike)... Colombians used it as well but the same purpose (ish).

This product can be found in FreshCO Fruit Markets, in NSW; or in Woolworth in the city. If you want to try one Arepa and you have found ‘Mazeca’, ‘Harina PAN’, ‘Mazarepa’ or similar corn based flour, here is the recipe of how to make Arepas.

Take one cup of water and put it in a bowl with your salt and mix it up. Then start powdering the flour into the bowl trying to get it really smooth.

One all the flour has absorbed all the water (around 5 minutes later the mixing process) you can check the consistency; must be soft yet firm enough to make dough balls in your hands (half tennis balls size). If the dough is too hard and crumbles, needs more water.

Flatten it with your hand, trying to get something round of 1 cm of thickness and then put it in a pan with a little bit a butter (... veeeery little, is not meant to be fried) and cook it using low flames... It might take around 10 minutes to be cooked.

You need every own and then to take it with your hands, hitting it gently. If it makes a drum alike sound (like hollow inside) is ready, otherwise need more time in the pan.

Once is ready, split it open by the edges and put whatever you want inside... A really common stuffing is cheese with some butter.

Enjoy it

=)

A common question people (with brand new visas) do is...

How do I know where is my visa number?

How do I read the information in it?

Let’s see if I can dissipate as many doubts as I can =D

First, here is an Australian visa...

And here is an Australian visa with numbers and legend (thanks to 'Visa HQ' to publish the info)

1. Australia visa category as defined by Australian embassy. Expose the number of times you can travel in and out Australia.

2. Australia visa validity. Grant date.

4. Name of Australian visa holder. That would be you (if you have one, of course).

14. Australian visa number. Pretty much self explanatory.

16. Date of Australian visa expiration. Maximum allowed date for you to arrive to Australia otherwise your visa is cancelled.

18. Purpose of entry to Australia. Why are you visiting of coming to Australia.

19. Forget this one... Applies to business visa only.

If that isn't enough description... I also found the image below...

Hope this is useful.

Comments are well received.

Cheers

I have been checking my blog visit logs and I have found some interesting topic made to Google and forwarded to me related to...

In general, yes. Venezuelans are weird as people and I am not saying it as a negative note. Our culture is pretty weak in comparison to most of the Australians and thus, we feel curiosity about their culture, their manners and experiences. We love (in most of the cases) the Australian accent and somehow we would like to have it, but without losing that exotic ‘thing’ we have.

Now, if anyone was asking about actual ‘love’ I have found that we enjoy blending with Australians (or to be honest, with anyone who’s not Venezuelan as the matter of fact but those whom are already married).

At least two friends are in serious relationships with Australians and some acquaintances (single or divorced) are married/dating Australians.

So yeah, I can say Venezuelans enjoy Australians (as friends or partners). Or at least that is my perception...

What do you thing?

Writing the previous post noticed that.... I didn’t change my blog title since my arrival... I am fully living my dream... so I have decided to change the blog’s title... 

What do you think?

Last few weeks, several people have written me to know a little bit about my wife... Her current professional status to be precise...

Kathy is statistician and mathematician (as we already said it long time ago) and at the moment is finishing some volunteering at Mission Australia.

A volunteer or voluntary is someone whom provides their services without payment for their time, effort or expenses.

Well.... several reasons, first she wanted to familiarise with the working environment in Australia, wanted to get some local working experience and wanted to learn new tools of wide use in the Australian market.

When we arrived and started looking for job, she was a bit worried about some tools required on most of the roles published in the Internet. One of those tools is SAS, which isn’t part of her working experience (or knowledge as the matter of fact) though she had worked with similar tools before.

Working as volunteer she managed to contact some people with the knowledge and position to start working with such tools (or Australian data).

Yes... A volunteer is very noble activity; where people have fun, improve their people and technical skills.

Kathy loves go volunteer web site; but there are tons and tons of them, such as seek volunteer or volunteering Australia. Check that out!

If you have comments or questions, write it below :P

Cheers.