As Mark stated, my friend Kristina was with us the week back. It was lovely to have her here, and like all the people who come to visit us, she's now seen parts of Australia that are still unexplored by us. We did take a trip up to the Yarra Valley together to taste some of the wines grown there, and discovered a lovely dairy farm as well. The highlight of the trip was the Yering Farm vineyard, which was just lovely, and served us a fantastic tasting platter, which sent us in search of the previously mentioned dairy farm to track down a remarkable fetta.
The whole week was a bit of a wine fest, which was fun, but left us all feeling a bit over-indulgent. To top it all off Kristina and I went on a search for the best chocolate bars in Melbourne (this city is a chocolate lovers dream, with over five specialty chocolate bars and many other "lolli-shops", add in the ncredible italian and greek bakeries and you could seriously indulge) though by Sunday we were excessed out and I feel our attempt at binging on chocolate was half-hearted.
On the whole it was a nice visit, and good to be able to play host(s) to Kristina, who has repeatedly been a very gracious hostess to us on our trips back to the States.

Questions from The Rich List's contestant profile questionnaire:

1. List some of the unusual/quirky/interesting experiences of your life so far?
2. What is your greatest achievement and why?
3. Would you describe yourself as a gambler? What is the biggest bet you have made?
4. Are you a member of any clubs (sporting, academic, social)?
5. What would you describe as your best and worst character / personality traits?
6. Do you read newspapers, magazines, books? Which kind and how often?
7. Do you watch quiz shows? If so what shows?
8. Do you attend trivia nights regularly? [note: bing!]
9. What are your interests? (Please list as many as possible and be specific):
10. List your 5 top movies of all time
11. List your favourite bands/artists of all time
12. List the 5 TV shows you can’t miss
13. Who is your favourite actor/actress celebrity?
14. List the sports you love to play and/or watch
15. What book series and/or author do you read?
16. Where have you previously travelled in the World? Where would you like to travel to?

Audition is Monday at 2pm, which is a bloody inconvenient time. (If I'm going to appear on an Australian TV show, I can use words like "bloody".)

C'mon, big money! To heck with hard work. I've signed up to be a contestant on an Australian game show called The Rich List, after a friend of a friend walked away with $250,000 dollars (pre-tax, natch, but still). I figure it suits me because I like lists and am generally a cesspool of useless information. We watched this evening's show -- the contestants had to name as many countries as possible that were formerly part of the Soviet Union but were now independent countries. Naming all fifteen would have gotten them $250,000, but I'm pretty certain I could have gotten twelve, which would be a cool $150,000.

In other news, Marjorie's friend Kristina is on her way back home after a lovely visit. I'll let Marjorie blog about that though.