The Last of the Baking, and Visiting the Night Market

First off, I'd like to say thanks to the many folks who sent me chocolate-melting advice. I will remember the double-boiler trick for next time. The funny thing is, I've melted chocolate over low heat before (and often at camp, over a propane stove) without any problems! Jen and I have decided to blame cheap ingredients. We are, after all, on a bit of a budget. :-)

We finished the baking this morning with no further problems. I guess I was pretty darn tired after the day at the zoo yesterday, 'cause I slept all the way to 9:30 this morning and woke to find Jen gone! That's the first time that Jen's managed to sneak out of the room in the morning without me noticing. Anyway, she'd snuck out early to make the rest of the dough, which needed to be chilled before being baked. Once all that was prepped and in the fridge, she, Irene and I headed off to the supermarket for one more round of grocery shopping. With any luck that's the last shopping we have to do until the end of January when we return from our wanderings! Then this afternoon we baked peanut butter cookies and sugar cookies, and had everything cleaned up and hidden away before the rest of our house-mates got home. For a while there as we were packaging up tins of cookies, we were worried that we'd baked far too much - but in the end all the tins were filled and we only had a little bit of leftovers. You know, just enough for us to snack on. I swear it wasn't planned that way!

Tonight we headed off on another adventure - this time to the Night Market! This special market is held throughout the summer months (December - February) on Wednesday nights, down at the Victoria Market. Jen and I have been to Vic Market lots of times during the day, but since trampolining is also on Wednesday nights, we hadn't been able to check out the Night Market until this week. Let me tell you, it was pretty cool! The evening was hot and muggy and the market was crammed full of people - so the fruit smoothies we bought halfway through the evening were definitely needed. :-) There were stages set up at either end of the marketplace, and there were bands performing on each stage all night long. All these tables and chairs had appeared out of nowhere, and these were all packed with people listening to the music. One side of the market stalls had been transformed into a smorgasbord of food stalls representing dozens of different cultures. I'm glad we'd eaten dinner before heading to the market, otherwise I would've spent a lot more money on food!

And the shopping... oh, the shopping! I had been half-afraid that the Night Market would be just like the regular Vic Market, but held at night and with live music. (Don't get me wrong, I love Vic Market, but by now I pretty much have all the stalls memorized.) Instead, I was pleased to find the stalls filled with all sorts of local artisans and craftsmen, instead of the usual t-shirt and trinket sellers. If I hadn't had to mail all my Christmas presents home long ago, believe me, THIS is where I would have bought everything! I particularly liked the one artist who was selling pinned origami butterflies, made from various magazine photos or food labels. Each one had its own scientific name underneath, like "Milo chocolateato" (for one made from a Milo chocolate milk wrapper) or "Colateaus cocacoleata" (made from a Coke advertisement). While these were cool, I figured I could make 'em myself. I did cave in and buy some artwork from one stall, because it was so striking and different from anything else I've seen here so far. But other than that, I was very well-behaved, thank you very much!

I can't believe that Christmas is only days away now. Jen's working tomorrow (she's probably the only CRT in the entire city who's working tomorrow), and I've got a huge long list of stuff that's got to get done before we leave early Monday morning for Sydney. Jen's friend Dan sent her some Christmas music to play on her computer, including "Green Christmas" by the Barenaked Ladies... and that's pretty much how I feel about this upcoming holiday season. How strange that the weather is still getting warmer and the days are even longer - it feels like my internal clock and my senses are at war with each other, trying to figure out what time of year it really is!