I'm not usually one for celebrating things to do with war but when there's a gathering of Expat Aussies happening, then we're usually keen to go for a bit of Aussie-ness. It gets quite exhausting at times living in another country, particularly one that speaks a different language. Your mind is constantly trying to understand the other language and you have to try and remember words and phrases that you've learned along the way. Even when you are amongst other expats who speak english you have to always try and not use Australian idioms, otherwise the conversation doesn't go very far. Instead you just have a bunch of confused people and two stupid laughing Australians who aren't making any sense. It's nice to sometimes be surrounded by some other stupid, laughing Australians because you can take a load off, sit back and relax without fear of confusing people by saying things like "'ow's it goin'".
My friend who is an honorary Australian (she's actually British but married to an Australian) sent me an email about this ANZAC day event happening in Lausanne. Her and her husband have been living in Switzerland for about 3 years and they have been to it each year. It was lucky that ANZAC day happened to fall on the Easter public holiday in Switzerland so we were able to go and have a good ol' Aussie BBQ. I couldn't go to this BBQ unprepared. I bought an esky, packed it with ice blocks to keep the beers cold and I even made a batch of ANZAC biscuits. Lucky for me, a couple of weeks earlier I found a shop in France that sells English golden syrup. Whilst making the bickies, I made sure I had my favourite Australian radio station streaming over the internet to create some atmosphere. The ANZAC biscuits came out of the oven just right, golden in colour and soft and chewy when you bite into them. I couldn't resist eating a few while I was transferring them from the oven tray to the cooling rack. I put a few in a container and put them in the letterbox of our landlady who lives downstairs so she could have a taste of a traditional Aussie biscuit. It was kind of hard trying to explain what ANZAC day is all about in french. I found the word for "war" in my trusty dictionary and didn't really know what else to say. She probably thought that Aussies are a bit morbid celebrating war. Oh well, the biscuits were good.
I was rather surprised to find out that I was only one who brought a batch of these delicious bickies to the BBQ. It might have been the fact that you can't buy brown sugar or golden syrup very easily in Switzerland. Needless to say, the bickies were a hit. They disappeared in no time.
The BBQ was at a sports field next to Lake Geneva and apart from the giant mountains on the other side of the lake, it almost felt like we were at a beach which definitely added to the Aussie feel. The sun was shining, every one was happy and after we all gobbled down our BBQ lunch, we gathered for a good game of cricket. I probably shouldn't neglect the fact that there were also New Zealanders at the BBQ since ANZAC day includes them too. There was a little bit of Aussie, New Zealand rivalry during the cricket game but everyone had a great time playing. It was a bit of a novelty playing a much loved Australian sport on the shores of Lake Geneva.
