Happy Feast Day! Gas drops and frshly baked muffins.

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!  It was celebrated today with Holy Mass... and it was nice to see a few more people attending.  Be sure to take some time and celebrate it and wish Our Lady a happy feast day by praying the Holy Rosary or even reciting or singing the Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven).  We sang that hymn at the end of Mass.  It reminded me of the time when at the end of the Canonization Mass of St. Josemaria Escriva in St. Peter's Square, the crowd broke out spontaneously into singing the Regina Coeli to thank Our Lord through Our Lady.  I remember singing that as loud as I could with tears in my eyes along with the joyful crowd around me.  What a time!   More on the 'Cloggies' (a term which seems to be an 'affectionate' reference to the Dutch).  They seem to be getting tons of Christmas packages!  The guys share with us, so we get to have a 'taste' of Holland.  (Wait one... I asked one Dutch guy this, as I found it curious that: people from Holland speak Dutch and live in the Netherlands!)  Anyhow - the Dutch usually seem to get packages filled with this hard cookie called 'Tai Tai'... which when it was offered to me I thought was a delicacy from Thailand!  (I doubt you can blame me!)  It tastes like a gooey gingerbread cookie that - if you dip it in your tea quickly disintegrates.  (Yes - we have tea here... we have to appease the Brits!)  The Dutch seem to pride themselves in coffee... with no milk or sugar.  They jokingly take offense at us if we offer them a 'double double'.  One other thing that they get lots of are 'drops'... which are black licorice gumdrops.  One fellow walked around and kindly offered us some 'drops'.  I like black licorice, so I grabbed a couple and popped them in my mouth - just like everyone else.  It started as a nice taste of black licorice mixed with a salty taste.  (Not too bad - especially for us who are big fans of the Filipino / Chinese 'candy' called: 'Champoy')  Then, the taste turned into a weird aroma of what I can only describe as paint thinner and melting plastic bags!  All of us standing around were running to the nearest garbage and hacking this stuff up.  One Brit ran into his own care package and handed out English fruit toffees to us like he was handing out medical supplies at a chemical spill!  The look on everyone's faces was kind of funny as we were all trying desperately to get the kerosene taste out of our mouths!  ...and the Dutch guys stood back and laughed at us as they munched on.   I learned a 'Geordie-ism'.  'Geordies' are guys from Newcastle in the UK.  Whenever something is good or great, I hear them say: 'That's a Canny Bagga Chuda!'.  They tell me 'Chuda' is a Potato Chip company that went under, but the chips (or 'crisps') were good.  Their commercial used that as a strapline, so - people say it today as a way of saying 'it's good!'.  Thus - directly translated, it means: 'That's a really good bag of crisps'.   The Aussies are neat to work with because they really do open up discussions with 'G'Day!'.  They're quite the cheerful people to work with, as everything seems to be just a breeze and an exciting venture for them.  One thing I learned was that they say 'Thank you' by saying; 'Ta!'.  'Afternoon' is 'avo'.  One 'Aussie lass' came in once and said she brought some 'freshly baked muffins'.  I was busy frantically dealing with what seemed like about fifteen things at once, so I completely ignored her.  Anyways - in the course of business she later asked me: 'did I get one of her freshly baked muffins?'  I thought - 'where on earth can anyone find the time (much less the oven) to bake muffins?!!!'  I jokingly complained that everyone else ate them, so I didn't get any.  She shot back that she would make sure she made some... and would make sure I got one.  I thought - OK - whatever.  Funnily enough, she appeared the next day with a whole cardboard flat of individually wrapped and preserved chocolate cupcakes and announced 'hey everyone!  I brought some 'freshly baked' muffins!'  Everyone had a good laugh.  I suppose they were 'freshly baked' before they were wrapped to 'seal in that fresh taste!'.   It rained something fierce last night.  The dust I mentioned before that was like 'moon dust' that went everywhere when you stepped in it, that got into your nose, clothes, hair, etc., has now turned into a light brown paste that sticks to your desert boots and makes a gross mess.  There are puddles everywhere now.  I'm trying not to step into any of it, as the boots aren't designed for this weather.  I did bring a pair of boots I wear back at home, but we'll see how long this lasts.  Nevertheless - winter here is gonna be interesting.  ;)