Christmas in a death sweat is weird, but fun! Merry Christmas!

We want to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we hope Santa treats you well.

We thought you'd like to see what Christmas in Oz is all about.  Melissa showed us this yesterday and we got a real kick out of it.






Our day was fantastic.  We're sitting here watching Elf on TV.  We had such a great day even though we couldn't be with our family we were taken in and treated by our new friends to a really terrific day.

We started off waking up a tad hungover. We skyped the family trees which was great! Yay internet. We heard the little ones next door outside fascinated by the rainbow marshmallow reindeer poop that was left behind from Santa's mode of transportation last night. Who knew how delightful reindeer poop was!

Here's a pic of me with the kids last night after we set out the reindeer food:

We went over to the neighbors for brekkie and broke into the toys Santa left them. One thing we found refreshing is that families here don't go over board with Christmas presents like they do in the states. Our neighbors are clearly well-off and the kids each got one (yes, I said only one) major gift from Santa and a couple of trinkets in their stockings (but their stocking weren't full, oh the horror).  Thomas got a lego garage car ditty and Zoe got a little scooter and helmet. Even after the grandparents arrived I was expecting a shit-show of presents, but just one little gift each. The adults all exchanged just a book or something simple to one another. We found it really refreshing considering all the stuff you seem to accumulate on Christmas. Melissa and Andrew gave us a nice bottle of red vino, so sweet.  We got Zoe this little play doh set and she was fascinated with it. She played with it the entire time we were there. We had several glasses of champagne and hung out. Melissa's parents used to own a house in Steamboat, so we chatted alot about Colorado and skiing which was fun. (Melissa's Dad is a telemark skier.)

We headed home around noon, showered, and called a cab to Rebecca's place. She had told us to expect a $30 cab ride and it hit $30 on the button.  They live a few miles west of the city where houses start to spread out a bit.  The cab driver dropped us off at the end of the driveway and little did we know it was almost a mile up hill to their house.  When we got to the house we were sweaty and hot and Rebecca and her husband Pete were horrified that we had to walk all the way up.  They had forgotten to mention the driveway and were joking about the cab driver dropping us at the end.  It really was no problem but kind of funny.  Leah's Special K bars got a little soft and our bottle of wine got warm.  Have we mentioned that it's hot here?

On the way there we realized that we forgot to bring the camera.  So unfortunately we weren't able to take any pictures today.  It's a real shame too as Rebecca and Pete have a really lovely home on top of a hill surrounded by beautiful country.  The air was fragrant with eucalyptus.  It was great.

We met quite a few great people and sat down for an incredible lunch. Turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans, roasted potatoes and a fantastic green salad with goat cheese and fresh figs. Of course there was an appetizer of huge prawns.  Rebecca is a great cook and we really stuffed ourselves.  Dinner was followed up by an array of desserts that would make anyone's mouth water.

We spent hours chatting and enjoying company.  The kids were all playing a game on the Wii called "Just dance"  it's sort of like guitar hero but you have to follow the dance steps on the screen.  It's a riot.  Leah and I both took turns.  I beat an eight year old at "Groove is in the Heart"  and Leah beat one at "Pump up the Jam".  Take that kids!

I mentioned before that Rebecca is going out of town for a few days and let us borrow her car.  So we drove home.  Driving on the left side is really different.  It takes some concentration.  I drove yesterday for the first time.  Andrew let me borrow the car to go to the liquor store so I'm experienced.  Thankfully the pedals aren't reversed so it's not that difficult.  Both cars I've driven are automatic.  We'll see what driving a manual is like at some point.

Tomorrow morning we're heading down to go camping and scuba diving for a few days.  I don't know if we'll have a chance to post from the road but we will if we can.

Since we don't have any pics from today to post here's a pic of us at Australia Zoo in our $2 ponchos.

And here's Leah with some kangaroos:

Christmas Eve Y'all

You've probably noticed some changes to the blog.  We've added some links to sites we like and some other stuff.  The picture of the Croc up top is one I took at the Australia Zoo.  He's about ten feet long and I was able to get right up next to him to snap the pic.  As close as I ever want to get to one of those blokes.  You'll also notice that we're starting to post pictures in the body of our posts.  If you click on an image you should be able to see it in full size. We hope you like the way the blog is shaping up, we're going to keep trying to improve it.  As we learn more we'll share more.  In the meantime if you have any suggestions or questions that you'd like answered please send us an e-mail.  Also, I've changed the time stamp to reflect Australian Eastern time. Remember we're almost a full day ahead of you.

Wow, It's about time for us to hit the hay.

You guys are just waking up to Christmas Eve and we'll be waking up to Christmas morning.  I've just checked the NORAD web site and Santa is in Japan and due here in Australia in less than an hour.  We don't have much time to get this post done.

We had a really fun day today that mostly consisted of hanging around the house.  Leah managed a work out class while I watched the kids next door for a few minutes.  We popped over to Coles for a few items and that's about it.  Leah made some Christmas Corn Flake Wreaths and I helped by tasting.

By the time she was done with these we were both stained permanently green and covered with melted marshmallow.  We discovered that they don't have the little red cinnamon candies that we have in the states and had to scramble and come up with an alternative.  We used some little raspberry jellies that we found along with some red mini m&m's.

We discovered that they have the good kind of peanut butter here that has nothing but peanuts listed in the ingredient list.  The kind that the oil separates to the top if it sits for a few hours.  It's our favorite. In addition to the wreaths Leah also made Special K bars.  I really lucked out here boys.

We went down to the shops and got some small gifts for the kids.  We're invited over for brekkie and it's not good form to show up on Chrissy morning without at least a gift for the kids.  Never mind the fact that Andrew and Melissa have us over all the time.  Thomas is really into a cartoon called "Ben 10"  I'm becoming quite familiar with him at this point as well.  There's a whole aisle in the toy department dedicated to him.  We managed to pick out a toy for him and a bucket of Play Doh for Zoe.

This evening we cracked open some beers and cranked the ipod (everyone else in the house must be with family cause we're the only ones here) while we made dinner.  We had bought some prawns and steaks and made a nice tomato, pepper and mozzarella salad.  All the prawns that we've seen for sale here come with the heads on.  You don't see this too often in Denver but we've gotten pretty used to it here.  As a matter of fact, we already know we'll miss seafood when we go back.  The quality of seafood here is amazing.

After dinner we helped the kids spread magic Reindeer food on the front lawn.  Aparently if you spread this stuff out on the lawn and leave some rain water in a bucket the Reindeer are more likely to stop at your house.  Also, we discovered that Aussies leave a plate of cookies out for Santa just like we do, though they call them bikkies.  But instead of a glass of milk the old boy gets a bottle of beer.  I think this should be a tradition in the states as well and I plan on bringing it back with me when I come home.

After the kids went down to sleep, we stayed and had a few drinks.  Probably a few too many.

Merry Christmas.  Here's a self pic of us with Steve Irwin. Eat your hearts out.

More Shopping?

Two sleeps til Christmas. Even though the stores and markets are packed and crazy, it just doesn't seem like Christmas when the temperature is ninety degrees.  (actually 30C)

I think I mentioned before that we are going to a friend's for dinner on Christmas.  She has offered to let us use her car while she's away in New Zealand for ten days.  We have decided to get out of town for a while since we are going to be working and in school in another week.  We're heading down to New South Wales and a town called Byron Bay. It's about two hour's drive from Brissie.  Along the way we're going to climb Mt. Warning, the highest peak around I believe and the first place that the sun shines on Australia every day.

Today I made reservations for us to take a scuba certification class starting Monday at Byron Bay.  Scuba has been high on our list since we decided to come to Oz and we're both pretty stoked.  The class takes two days and gets us certified to dive with a dive master anywhere in the world.  After that we have to make a couple more dives with an instructor and get a dive physical and then we'll get our open water license that allows us to dive on our own.

Other than that is was a pretty uneventful day for us today, we hit the grocery store for a few items for Christmas eve dinner and then went with Melissa, Andrew and the kids over to Rocklea for the twilight markets. We got some local honey and some oranges for 99 cents a kilo.  We also found a nice bag of pine nuts for $8.  Pine nuts in the stores here are outrageous so we were happy to pay that.  We got some wasabi flavored macadamia nuts that are out of this world.

Today I noticed a few items that I'm going to miss.  All the dental floss at the store is waxed.  I can't stand waxed dental floss. (If anyone would like to put together a care package of dental floss and Q-Tips brand cotton swabs I'd be in your debt.) Also they don't sell cocktail sauce at the store.  We even tried to buy horse radish and make some ourselves but they only had the mayonnaise type of horseradish. (I found a bottle of the good stuff at a German butcher at the market this evening, woot!) Also, Leah is planning on making special K bars and we had a hell of a time finding corn syrup.  It's called glucose syrup here and gave us both the creeps.  We're gonna try the bars with honey instead of the corn syrup.

Some observations for today:

-"A Christmas Story" is going to be on here, but only once and at 11:30 am on Christmas day
-Prawns, Lobster, and Oysters are common items on the "Christmas Lunch" menu at most peoples houses

To Market

One of the great things about summer is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Brisbane has them in spades this time of year.  Along with the hot weather summer has brought us ripe cherries, mangoes, papaya, tomatoes, passion fruit, kiwi, nectarines and just about anything else you could ask for.  Our first few weeks we found a grocery store and did most of our shopping there, now that we know our way around we are finding the farmer's markets.

It seems that every day of the week there is a market in some part of the city.  If you know where to look you could buy fresh produce cheaply.  There's a small market at the end of the Queen St. mall on Wednesdays.  We thought it was fantastic when we found it.  It probably has 35 or 40 stalls.  Then we found the West-End Saturday Markets, they have nearly 200 stalls and you really can get just about anything there.  Today we went to a sunset market in new farm and bought a kilogram of prawns for $15 bucks, the largest bunch of basil I've ever seen for $2 some fresh green peppers (they call them Capsicums) and hand made buffalo mozzarella.  We also found a jar of maccadamia nut butter that Leah couldn't resist.

Aside from the fresh veggies there are tons of other things for sale as well.  On Saturday we ate the most incredible empanadas made by an old Argentinian man.  Today we had some Turkish cheese bread and a Greek meat and potato pie.  We have decided we could make a killing with a taco stand.  This country needs some Mexican food.  (more on Mexican food another time)

Tomorrow we're scheduled to go with Melissa over to another suburb and check out their markets.  We're becoming regular little piggies.

Unintentional segue.

Speaking of little piggies. You should see the size of the cockroaches here.  I just took a shower and when I came out there was a school bus rolling across the floor.  If I had a leash I'd catch one and  name him Thomas the Tank Engine because it was about the size of one of my nephew's toys.  These things are big.  I whacked it with a sandal and it just looked at me as if to say "Is that all you got mate?"  I don't know what you'd do but I'm going to the store tomorrow and asking for an industrial sized can of raid.

Oh, and they fly...

Some observations for today:
-big freaky flying f-----g Cockroaches.  Nuff said.

Cue The Choir!

It's a Miracle!  We have internet!  It's like an early Christmas, it's as if the heavens opened up and smiled upon us.  I can't tell you how relieved we are.  We're both sitting on the couch connected to the world and it's wonderful.

We haven't posted here much lately, believing that any day we would be connected at home and able to post in comfort (read "in our underwear").  As I write this I see Leah's little face in the glow of her personal entertainment rectangle and I am content.

Ok, so what the hell have we been up to?

I have forgotten where we even left off.  Jeez it's been a long time since we were doing daily posts.  Mostly we've been in a routine of going somewhere to find internet connection and then spending the day from there. We've both been reading a lot.  I read a history of Australia and several fiction books.  Leah did her preliminary work for school and also read some fiction.

We've spent a lot of time hanging out with the neighbors (not the nekkid one) we're really lucky to have moved in next door to Melissa and Andrew.  They are a huge help and always there if we need anything.  Besides it's nice to have someone else to talk to.

hmm.  The days kind of run together, but a few highlights:

Last Thursday we were supposed to be able to pick up our internet router after 11 am.  Just when I was about to leave the house and pick it up, the mobile phone rang.  It was the guy from the job interview a couple of weeks ago.  He asked if I could come by later in the day for a second interview.  Of course I agreed and later that afternoon I took the train to Nundah and met him for my second interview.  He offered me the job right away and I start on Jan 4th, the first working day of the new year.  I'm pretty excited.  It's a pay cut from my last job but it'll get us started.

I felt like a million bucks leaving the dealership.  I really had to fight the urge to click my heals together walking back to the train.  I'm not kidding it was exhilarating.  When the train dropped me off at Toowong I popped into the Telstra shop to pick up our modem.  It was there and I felt even better.  The day before I had called to make sure our order went through and the guy told me there was a big green check mark next to our order.  Good to go.  So new job and internet access in hand I practically floated home.

And then it happened again.  The damn internet connection wasn't there.  I called Telstra and found out that despite the guy telling me that there was a big green check mark the computer had spit out our order.  Something else was wrong.  But "No worries" this guy says, we'll have you fixed up by Saturday. I lost my shit.  Seriously, I had been so happy only seconds before and I felt as if someone had pulled the rug out from under me.  I held it together long enough to be cordial on the phone but as soon as I hung up I went on a tirade.  Imagine the father from "A Christmas Story" and you'll have a good idea of what I sounded like.

So Saturday comes around and we haven't heard from Telstra so I call again.  It's been over a month at this point since we put in our order.  This time the woman tells me that there's a problem with the lines and they need to send a linesman out to "jumper the line"  Whatever the hell that means.  Basically they tell me it'll be Tuesday.  I gave that woman an ear full without swearing or even raising my voice.

Tonight, just for giggles I plugged the router in and sure enough the green lights started twinkling and here we are: Basking in the glory of teh interwebs.

I have some more to say but I'll leave it there for now.  I'll be back tomorrow with more.

Some observations for today:

-The neighbors are hoping the grass is nice and green for Christmas.
-Arugula is called Rocket
-There was a show on yesterday called "a conversation with Michael Bubble

Bloody Telstra!

Ok, so we still don't have internet at home, but I'm using the library cpu for a few minutes to post. 

I got a job this week.  I was hired at the Honda dealership that interviewed me a couple of weeks ago and I start on January 4th.  We're pretty excited.  I'm taking a pretty big pay cut from my last job in the states but it's a great start. At least we'll be having some money coming into our account.

We're supposed to have internet access tomorrow.  Still not holding my breath but I am hopefull.

Only a few days til christmas and We're missing home.  Hope all is well with everyone.

Will post more as soon as we can.

Don't give up on us yet

Howdy Y'all.
We got our phone installed yesterday and I am supposed to be able to pick up the internet modem on Thursday.  Our long wait is nearly over.  They did agree to waive the $299 installation fee for the phone line because of all the trouble, though the landlord said he'd pay it anyway.  I guess we don't get anything for our troubles. 

I just got done looking at Erin Porter's photos from Kathleen's birthday at Crested Butte.  Looks like we missed another fun gathering kiddies...

I'm at the library for a while and Leah is on campus.  Her financial aid came through this week and she has to take care of some paper work. 

I've missed writing these updates for you guys.  Don't give up, soon I'll be able to write from the comfort of my couch and then we'll keep you updated better.

Ok, so short and sweet.

The Waiting Game

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to the blog.  Nothing much has happened here of late.

I did finally get a call yesterday from Telstra.  They are going to install a phone line on Monday the 14th.  Internet should follow closely after that.  So at least we are making progress.

We rented Season 5 of Lost from the video store and have been busy catiching up with that.  We're both sort of obsessed with it.

We've also taken to using the computers in the library for our internet access.  They are so much faster than using the free WIFI at McDonalds.  But you can usually only reserve them for 20 or 30 minutes at a time and I've decided to use that to search for work instead of posting the blog.  Sometime soon I'll be able to post from home.  I look forward to it like a spoiled kid does christmas.

I haven't heard back from the job interview I had last week.  But I'm not concerned yet.  I have sent my CV out to about two jobs a day since we've been here.  Something will come through soon.

Ross sent us some pictures of Stanley playing in the snow.  Snow sounds pretty nice right now. 

Miss you guys.

Some observations for today:
-Aussies write and say dates differently than we do in the states.  They never put the little rd or th after the number and they put the day before the month so today would be ten-December and so on.  It gets confusing when someone asks for your date of birth. 
-If an item is $199 in a store they say "one nintey nine dollars"  They always leave out the "Hundred"
-We powered through a jar of vegemite and opted for the big jar this time. The stuff is great.  I actually made myself a vegemite sandwich the other day.  How stereotypical of me.

Leah’s Day

Sunday, December 6^th, 2009

Yesterday I woke up at the crack as usual, so I went for a long run. Well, a long run for me. I think Todd has mentioned it before, but one of the main bike/pedestrian paths runs along the river, very beautiful. It’s about a half mile from our studio, so I bopped on it and ran along the river for about an hour. Pretty much if I don’t get a run in first thing in the morn it’s not going to happen with heat.

When I got home Todd was just waking up. We decided that our day plan was going to consist of taking the Shornecliffe train to the bay to explore. It’s different area of the beach that we haven’t explored yet. Also, to get to this part of the beach is less of a train ride then the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast, so we thought we’d give it a go. Our neighbor, Melissa told us about beautiful bike paths along the beach area, so we decided to attempt to take our bikes on the train (haven’t pulled that one yet).

We got to the train station and were waiting for a while at the station when they announced that they were having technical difficulties with the train and that it wouldn’t be coming for another 45 minutes. Since we sort of had a late start with deciding on a day plan we decided to scrap the Shornecliffe day plan and just hopped on our bikes.

We rode our bikes on the path along the river once again to an area of town called Kangaroo Point. Kangaroo Point sort of juts out and is known for its cliffs. Sure, enough we saw these huge red cliffs where people were rock climbing everywhere. Very cool! There is also an outfitter where you can rent kayaks, canoes, and other water sports stuff to play with on the river.

Todd and I parked our bikes and opted to the stairs to the top of the point. Too bad we don’t own harnesses and rope so that we could of shimmy’ed up the sides like everyone else. The top of the point has an amazing lookout spot of the city, gorgeous.

It was about 1pm at this point, so we rode our bikes towards home and stopped at Southbank. The place with the beach, shops, and restaurants. We had bite for lunch and lay at the pool/beach area for awhile.

As we headed home we only had one thought on our mind…VINO AND BEER! We popped into the grocery and bought some items for din-din. Todd bought a case of Stella for $40 yikes, while I got a bottle of white for about $8. (Stella was actually the best deal. I could have gotten 48 MGDs for $80, but I couldn’t carry it on the bike.–tg)  Todd really should think about becoming a wino with those prices.

We immediately cracked open the alchy and took our ipod/speakers (Thanks Ross) outside. Since we don’t have chairs or a table mind you we just sat in the grass cross legged blasting music and drinking our recently purchased refreshments.

After about an hour, we bailed on cooking our gourmet dinner in our hoopty skillet and called Dominos. Oh yes, they do have Dominos here and It’s just as nasty as it is in the states. At this point Todd and I have pretty much chatted about every subject you could possible chat about. Hey, 24/7 attached at the hip for almost a month. So, we did what every normal couple would do in this scenario, we played “M.A.S.H.”  If you don’t know what M.A.S.H is just ask your local middle school girl. Just so you know when Todd grows up he will be living in an apartment, have 2 kids, Eowyn & Darwin, married to Selma Hayek, is an actor, lives in Brisbane, and has a second home in Tahiti. After our riveting game of M.A.S.H, we had a dance party by ourselves. Thank god the pizza arrived, otherwise who knows what sort of games we would have succumbed to playing.

After din we watched the boob tube, for a while and fell asleep just short of 9:30, do we know how to have fun or what? Mission vino? Check.  Beer? Check. Still making it to bed an ungodly early hour on a Saturday night? Check & check.

Needless to say we both woke up at about 5am this morning. Today we biked our patoots to campus.  It’s really hot today, so I went to the pool for a bit, while Todd made out with the internet.

Then, lucky us the Denver Crew xmas party skyped us! We had this Skype date set (thanks for organizing April) for about three weeks and we were really excited about it.  It really made our day, so fun to see everyone. It really made us feel like we were part of the excitement even though we’re on the other side of the globe. Now, were back at home blasting the Air Con and getting ready for some dinner.

Some observations for today:

-Swimming on the other side of lane is really strange…my backstroke was wavering all over the place

-We’ve decided that Todd’s weight loss is due to lack of drinking.

21 Sleeps til Christmas

Friday, December 04, 2009

We had rough day yesterday here.  Leah had to take a CPR class all day so she got up and left the house by 7.  I stayed home and did a bit of house work.  I also waited for Telstra to call me back.  When they did I found that the Indian guy had been replaced by a woman who is my new case manager.  Let’s just say she wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get our problem resolved.  Turns out that the issue we are having is caused by our address being listed in one of the Telstra directories but not in the other.  I’ve been told I will be contacted in another three or four days, but they don’t know how long it will take to confirm our address.  I was also told they’d have to do another credit check because I put my order in at the store but the customer service is a different department.  Wouldn’t it be great if they denied me credit now after all this trouble?

Leah got home about 5:30 and I could see she was upset.  After a little prying I found that she was placed in a class with a group of people that all worked for the same company.  She had a hard time meeting people because everyone knew each other.  That was made worse by the fact that they were having their company holiday party and were not exactly in the mood to be serious.  It’s hard when you are the outsider.  After the class she went to get her books and found out she has five books for two classes that cost about $100 each.  Plus the classes are both repeats of classes she’d taken back in the states. Not to mention she fell off her bike while riding home.  We both are having a hard time acclimating to not having any friends and even little setbacks seem to build on each other and become big stressors.

I think I’ll go get a carton of beer and a bottle of wine tonight.  Getting shitfaced may help.

After letting it out for a while we both felt better and made some dinner.  We borrowed a DVD from Melissa and sat down to watch.  The DVD is a series from Australia called “Underbelly” sort of a “Soprano’s” meets “CSI” it’s based on true events I guess. We enjoyed the first couple of episodes.  I guess it’s kind of a guilty pleasure.

This morning I’m really stiff.  The bed we’re sleeping on has a brand new mattress but it’s probably the cheapest one ever made.  It’s sagging in the middle already and every morning I’m waking up with a stiff back.  We’re going to have to do something about that.  Add our bed to the growing list of things we miss.

Even on days that seem hard, Australia show glimpses of beauty.  The tree across the street that attracts the bats at night also attracts Budgies during the day.  Budgies are little green and red parrots that we’d call Lorikeets (sp?) back home.  They fly around really fast in huge flocks and make a phenomenal racket. They’re loud but I haven’t gotten over the novelty of wild parrots.  Also I went out to the clothes line and saw the most beautiful wild Cockatoo in the tree.  It was huge and white with a big pink crest.  It looked just like the one from Berretta, if you remember that show. 

Leah is going to Uni this morning to pick up her books.  Melissa is driving there to watch Thomas at his last swimming lesson in the Uni pool this morning and offered to give Leah a lift.  I don’t know what we’re going to do with the remainder of the day, but we need to do something fun. 

Some observations for today:

-They do have rasins here, they’re called Sultanas

-The second test between Australia and the West Indies starts this morning from Adelaide.

-Bush turkeys are also called “Scrub Turkeys’.

-Neither Leah, nor myself have had an affair with Tiger Woods.

-I’ve never been so happy in my life that the temperature dropped from 34 to 26.

-Zoe, Melissa and Andrew’s two year old has taken to calling me Bob. 

-All the celebrity gossip people on the news are American and it really annoys me for some reason.

Naked Neighbors and Entertainment Options

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

I got up early for my interview today and had a nice breckie.  Leah went for a run and when she left I sat on the front stoop to have my coffee.  That’s when I saw her, the naked neighbor.  Well actually this is the third time I’ve seen her.  Twice before but this time it was the full monty.

Last week I was sitting on the stoop and looked up across the street to see a woman, naked from the waist down going into her apartment from her balcony.  A few minutes later she must have been coming back out again and I heard a commotion and looked up only to see her ducked down behind the plants on the balcony looking at me.  She must have just noticed I was sitting there.  I stood up and walked back into the house, not wanting to look like a pervert. 

A couple of days later I woke up and heard the birds making a major racket outside so I took my coffee out to have a look.  There were several parrots out on the tree across the street.  Now I haven’t seen too many wild parrots in Denver and never outside of my house, so I went back in to grab the camera.  I wanted to take a few pics and document the moment.  So I’m aiming my camera at the tree across the street and hear a noise from the balcony and turned my head just in time to see a naked ass going in the house again.  Then I see the head peeking from behind the plants again and this time I’m sure that the police are going to show up at my door in a few minutes and I’m going to have to explain that I wasn’t really trying to photograph the exhibitionist on the balcony.

The police thankfully didn’t come knocking, and I forgot about the whole thing.  Until the other day, Frank asked me if I’d seen the naked woman on her balcony yet.  He says he sees her every morning and she sort of gives him the stink-eye.  I don’t know why she would, she can’t possibly expect the neighbors not to look when she’s out browning her boobies in broad daylight.  Speaking of brown boobies, this morning when I saw her I got a good look and let’s just say, you can’t unsee that which you have seen.  She’s maybe in her fifties and has spent far too much time in the sun.  I swear she looks like Magda from “There’s Something about Mary”.  The only thing missing is the little dog.  I need eye bleach.

So after the morning entertainment, I headed over to the train and took the Shorncliffe line to Nundah.  I headed out really early because I’d never been to Nundah and didn’t want to be late.  I got there more than an hour before my interview.  I sat at a café and had a long black.

I found the dealership easily enough and met with the guy about 10:30.  The job sounds just like I expected.  Parts counter guy for a Honda/Hyundai dealership.  The interview lasted about 25 minutes and I think went quite well.  He told me he’d call me back in one or two weeks tops and they were looking to hire for January 1^st.  I can live with that.  He told me also that a lot of other people had applied, but I had a good chance.

I forgot to mention that while on the train, I got a call from another dealership, this one in the gold coast.  They are looking for a service advisor from 7 am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday.   The only problem with that one is the train ride would take more than an hour each way, so I’d be looking at really long days.  I’m going to try and find something closer.   Hopefully the Honda dealership will call me back. 

I got back to Toowong and stopped in the Telstra shop to call customer service again.  No progress at that time.  So I met Leah at the coffee shop and we had lunch.  When I sat down and ordered my cappuccino, the waitress asked Leah if she knew the TV show “Punky Brewster”!  Even in Oz people think Leah is the Punkster.  It’s hilarious. I think the girl was really hoping Leah was her.  

Then we went over to Kmart and bought that $40 DVD player.  Then we stopped in at Blockbuster on the corner and signed up for an account.  We wanted to rent “Lost Season 5” but it was out so we got something else.  We can’t wait to see season 5.  We spent the summer watching 1-4 and are both obsessed.

It was raining so we high tailed it home and popped in the video.  It was cloudy and rainy all day and the temp was nice and cool.  It really felt great that the heat broke for a change.  Then, SHOCK AND AWE! Telstra called!  We now have a “case manager” some guy who is obviously Indian or Pakistani but his accent is flavored with Aussie.  It’s hard to follow.  He told me they are working on my case and he will call me back in the morning.  So we’re still waiting but definitely getting closer.  Keep your fingers crossed.  We will have internet at home sometime before it’s time to come back to the states.

We had an early dinner and went over to keep Melissa and the kids company.  They were putting up their Christmas tree so Leah and I lent a hand.  Actually, I mostly distracted the kids while Leah and Melissa put up the decorations.  We really enjoy hanging out with them, the kids are adorable and Melissa and Leah chat away like long lost sisters. 

Melissa gave us a really cool deck of cards with day trips around Brisbane on each one.  We’re going to spend some time tonight going over them.  I’m sure we’ll find some fun adventures in there.  We’ll let you know.

Ok, that’s what’s happening in our world. Hope all is well in the states.

Some observations for today:

-The weather people don’t say “mostly sunny” they say “mostly fine”  I don’t know what they say when it’s gonna be crappy cause it’s been pretty nice every day.

-Putting up a Christmas tree in summer doesn’t quite feel right.

-Happy birthday Kathleen!  Someone get her a cane!

 -They don’t have US Weekly here.  Leah is having withdrawal symptoms.

The Continuing Saga of the Home Phone/Internet

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

We got up on Monday morning with one thing in mind: Get Phone and Internet!  Over the weekend my neighbor, Frank, told me about the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) a service for people who are having issues with the phone company.  We walked over to Telstra in the shopping center and talked with the girl who has been “helping” us with our service.  I told her that I intended to call the TIO and she thought it would be a great thing to do.  I don’t know why she didn’t mention it to us but that’s beside the point.

I called the TIO and they gave me a case number and had me describe the problem.  The man told me that I may be entitled to a “Customer Service Satisfaction Entitlement” basically they have to pay me for every day they don’t provide service without a valid reason.  He then gave me the number for the senior customer service agent at Telstra.  I called them and told them my case number with the TIO.  That really seemed to get their attention.  I was assured the issue would be dealt with in two days.  We’ll see.  I’m not holding my breath, though I do feel as if I’ve gotten the ball rolling.

Aside from that, the last two days have been pretty uneventful.  I sent my résumé out for a bunch of jobs.  Most of them were in solar and a few in the automotive world.  The job market seems to be good here right now.  Though I’ve been told most places are on Holiday from now until new years.  So I really wasn’t expecting much right away.

The job that called the other day didn’t pan out and the only other jobs I’ve heard from have been “thanks but no thanks”.  Today we went over to the art museum and when we were getting ready to head home my phone rang.  It was a Honda Dealership on the north side wanting to interview me for a parts desk job.  So I have a job interview in the morning at eleven in Nundah, about five train stops north of home.  Wish me luck.  I need work.  I feel pretty confident that I’m more than qualified for the position so I don’t even feel nervous.  I know auto parts.

When we got home, Melisa invited us over for dinner.  Andrew is out of town for work for a couple of nights and we entertained the kids and chatted with her for a while.  She cooked a lovely quiche, salad, and cookies & cream ice cream for dessert, yummers. She also let me use her computer to check my route to the job and also let me iron my shirt and slacks so I don’t look like a crumpled fool at the interview. They are such sweet neighbors and the kids are adorable.  I’m not looking forward to wearing long pants, but the temp is supposed to top out at 26 tomorrow.  Today got up to 33, really hot.

That’s about it for today kids.  I’m a little hyper about the interview and I’ll be sure to post what happens.

Some observations for today:

-The top prize on “Deal or No Deal” in Australia is 200k.

-“The office” started tonight, a whole season behind.

-Thomas (the 6 year old that lives next door) calls “Paul Newman Ranch Dressing” cowboy sauce because of the cowboy hat on the label. So cute!

- My computer won’t play DVDs that are region coded for Australia.  We spotted a DVD player at Kmart for $40.  I might buy it if I get that job tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to Me; Or get a load a that little beauty!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Yesterday was my birthday.  I’m now three dozen years old.  Yikes!

We went to the Australia Zoo, otherwise known as the Steve Irwin Zoo.  Crickey!  It was really great.  We got on the train about 8:00am and made it to our stop at Beerwah just about 9:30, there was a shuttle from the train station that took us over to the zoo a few kilometers away. 

From the moment you get on the shuttle, you’re inundated with images of Steve Irwin.  He’s truly an Australian hero and the sense of loss is palpable.  Leah and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad every time we saw another photo of him.

The park sits on about seventy acres and is in a constant state of expansion.  There are plans to almost double

the size of the park within a few years and there will be a train stop directly at the zoo.  It took us hours to see the whole thing.

Steve Irwin’s parents started the zoo in 1970 and used to be called the Beerwah Reptile Park.  It was used primarily as a rehab facility for problem crocodiles.  Steve and Teri Irwin took over operations in 1992 and renamed it.  Crocodiles still dominate the place; most of the grounds are croc enclosures.  The rest is mostly devoted to Australian animals but they do have some other really excellent enclosures devoted to tigers and elephants.  The Tiger enclosure in particular was one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. 

The animals were almost all easily seen and seemed at ease, the cages were spacious and clean.  Most of the animals were active and busy going about their business.  The enclosure for kangaroos was a stand out.  There was a large area, about a third of the park, devoted to kangaroos.  The whole thing was enclosed in a fence but you can walk through without anything between you and the animals.  There was a vending machine with food so you could hand feed the ‘roos.  It was awesome.  Many of the larger ones were sleeping or resting in the shade.  It was hot, about 34 degrees and the sun was intense.   While we walked through we managed to pet two that were sitting around.  They were juveniles about the size of a medium dog.  They are really soft and well used to people.  They’re hand fed all the time, so as long as you don’t make too many sudden movements they’ll walk right up to you.  It was cool.

Most of the marquee animals were featured, koalas, wallabys, kangaroos, snakes, crocs, echidnas, lizards, birds (kookaburras are really cute and cassowaries are huge) and Dingoes.  Dingoes are beautiful and a little smaller than Stanley.  They had a great habitat and seemed quite at ease. 

There is a big amphitheatre in the center of the park where they have the “wildlife Warriors” show.  We sat down in the shade at eleven to watch.  The show features many of the parks animals, birds, elephants and snakes, with the main portion featuring a saltwater crocodile feeding.  Before they brought the croc out they put up a “little beauty” warning on the big screen, hilarious. The guys running the show did their best Steve impersonations and fed scraps of meat to a huge croc.  I managed to get a bunch of great pictures of it jumping out of the water. 

In fact I managed a bunch of great pictures of many of the animals at the park.  The cages are set up really well and even when the animals were hiding in the shade you could get a good look at them.  You can get within a couple of feet of most of them and you sort of don’t notice that the cages are there at all. 

We ate some lunch after the show and popped into the gift shop.  There you could buy has just about anything you could ever want with Steve Irwin’s image on it.  We got a coozie (called a stubby cooler here) and a couple of fridge magnets.  As you might have guessed Bindi’s image is almost as popular.  They really are pushing her as the face of the park.  We didn’t see her in person though.  Bummer.

While we were in the gift shop, the skies opened up.  I haven’t seen a rain storm that intense in a long time.  It rained buckets for an hour and a half.  We took the opportunity to check the Crocodile Hunter Museum and the memorial for Steve.  People from all over the world sent items in memoriam and they are on display here.  It’s poignant. 

Tired of waiting for the rain to stop we bought a couple of $2 ponchos and set back off into the park.   We managed to pat a koala but missed the chance to have our picture taken holding one.  The park must have twenty or thirty koalas that were busy after the rain stuffing themselves with leaves.  I guess they mostly sleep and eat.  They’re amazingly adorable.

We left the zoo and hopped the train back to Brisbane.  We showered up and headed over to Fortitude Valley, a neighborhood known for its restaurants and nightclubs.  We found a nice place to have dinner (in fact most of the menus we looked at were more reasonable than most we’ve seen, we’ll be going here often) and had a bite and a few drinks.  The restaurant had outdoor seating and while we ate a band started playing in the square.  It made me realize how much I have been missing live music.

In fact it made me feel a bit homesick.  Homesickness comes for both of us in little waves.  Mostly we’re fine but once in a while something sets off a little pang.  The band did it for me.  I really miss being with The Nod.  It’s not only the shows either, I miss the practices too.  I’m not sure how long it will be before I get back on stage and I miss it.  It was nice to hear a live band for the first time here. 

We were both tired and we called it a night early.   It was a great birthday.

Some observations for today:

-the legal drinking age is 18 so the streets are wild with kids getting drunk.

-Girls really dress to the nines to go out.  You see tons of really short prom style party dresses everywhere.  Going out is not casual.

-Terri Irwin has a line of clothing called “The Cougar Collection”.

-Beet root is a common hamburger topping. Also they love a burger with a fried egg on top.

-Prostitution is legal in Queensland, the Sunday paper has an explanation of the law in the personals section.

Highs and Lows

Friday, November 27, 2009

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving.  We missed you. 

We started by biking over to the Uni and checking e-mail.  We got to Skype with Leah’s parents and family.  It was great to see everyone around the table.  I admit to having a bit of a tear-eye when we saw Stanley.  No offence to you all but I really miss my dog.  Ross is taking good care of him though.

When we were getting ready to sign off with the family our friends in Denver skyped us from the Thanksgiving party.  That really made our day.  You guys are great.  It was awesome to see everyone.  The purple teeth were phenomenal and I could smell the highballs.  We both decided that Skype time with Leah and Todd should be a part of all parties from now on.  Get working on that y’all.

Feeling great we made our way back to Toowong and popped in to the Telstra shop.  They’re still giving us the runaround about the home phone and internet.  We decided to cancel the work order and get wireless internet from another provider.  (Wireless internet here is the kind that you pop into a USB port and it works off the cell network)  The girl who has been handling our account at Telstra was pretty relieved when we told her we changed our minds.  She had been just as frustrated as us.

We went over to the “3 communications” store in the mall.  They have a relatively cheap plan that they call month to month.  It’s not as fast as Telstra’s home plan but the price is right and we thought we could get it right away. 

Even though the plan is called “month to month” and you pay for the USB modem up front, they still want to

do a credit check. It doesn’t make any sense to me.  A credit check for Telstra was no problem.  They were willing to sign me up for nearly $200 a month on a 24 month plan.  So I figured we’d be fine with 3.  Nope.  Since I don’t have a job, have never worked in Australia and don’t have any Australian credit cards they aren’t willing to let me sign up.   

I failed the credit check, credit here is totally independent from credit in America, so they don’t care that I’ve never missed a payment in my life.  It’s irrelevant.  So I had already cancelled the work order with Telstra and now we’re back to square one.  No internet no home phone and no credit.  The guy did say there is an 80% chance that Leah will pass because she’s a student, but we didn’t have enough ID for her to try. 

There are some pre-paid mobile internet plans out there but they are expensive and charge you for downloads in 10 megabyte increments.  Not exactly fair.

I was feeling pretty crestfallen.  We thought we had it all figured out and we were knocked back.  I’ve never

had this much trouble trying to get basic utilities set up.  I feel helpless.

We went home and sat in the air-con while I fumed for a time.  We made some dinner and sat down to watch a movie on telly.  Tomorrow is my birthday so we’re planning on going to the Australia Zoo, the zoo that Steve Irwin started.  I want to wear my white river/pirate/Michael Jackson/spf shirt (GR 09!) that’s dirty so I threw it in the sink to hand wash so it’ll be ready tomorrow and when I pulled it out of the sink it’s got these yellow stains all over it.  I’m not sure what happened to it but the last time I wore it was on the beach and I suspect the sunscreen from the dermatologist had something to do with it.  Whatever it was, my shirt looks nasty and is probably ruined.  It was really the last thing I could handle tonight.  It seems like I can’t get anything right at the moment. 

So I don’t want to sound too negative, because I don’t really feel discouraged.  I’m just feeling stressed.  I never expected to slide right into the lap of luxury here, but internet at home would be nice.  Also I’d like a Diet Dr. Pepper.

Some observations for today:

-The eighties are alive and well in the dress of Australian teenagers.

-School children here all wear uniforms; you can tell what school a kid goes to by the color of their outfit.  All of them include a hat with a wide brim.  It’s cute.

-The Queensland government has a PSA campaign going on now aimed at road safety called “Slow down stupid.” 

-Things I didn’t know:  I didn’t know that the space shuttle was even on a mission until it landed.  It took 12 hours for the story about Tiger Woods crashing to get here. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday November 26, 2009

Hope all of you are having a great day with friends and family.  We wish we were there to eat and drink too much with you.

We just got back from Melissa and Andrew’s (neighbors) place.  They had us for dinner and to our surprise cooked us a lovely American style Thanksgiving dinner.  It was their first and they did a lovely job.  We’re quite lucky to have neighbors as nice as them.  Melissa even made a yummy sweet potato pie.  It was a real treat.  We spent a couple of hours chatting and playing with their kids.  It took the edge off of missing friends and family on TG. 

The rest of the day:

Leah got up about five this morning to visit the bathroom.  She woke me up because our bathroom was flooded.  The hot water line under the vanity was leaking.  We had eight rolls of TP under there.  Not pretty.  There is no cut off valve under the sink so I went outside and under the house, but couldn’t find the shut off valve there either.  I had to call the emergency plumber from our rental agreement. He told me where to look and I found the valve for the water heater and shut it off.  That stopped the leak, but we had a mess in the house.  And half the apartments in the house had no hot water.

The plumber came out at eight and it only took him two minutes to get the thing fixed. The plumbing is brand new and apparently they left that fitting loose.  Not the way I wanted to start my day. 

 It didn’t get better quickly.  My phone rang at about nine and it was the rep from Telstra telling me she was still having trouble getting our phone installed. The phone company refuses to send someone here because according to their records our apartment doesn’t exist.  It’s frustrating.  One of these days it’ll get worked out.  But I’m losing my patience.

We did manage to get down to the uni so Leah could go to a work out class and I could use the internet.  I submitted my resume for several jobs that look promising.  I then got a chance to Skype with my parents.  I hadn't talked to them since the first day we got here.  It was great. 

We rode our bikes home and turned on the air-con.  I stretched out on the bed for a few minutes and my phone rang.  It was one of the companies I applied for earlier in the day.  I was and still am shocked.  I don’t know how to feel.  It’s not common to get a response so quickly.  I had applied for a job installing solar hot water systems.  Admittedly, I have no experience in the field, but you’ve gotta aim high. The girl on the line told me she thought I’d be a great candidate not for the job I applied for but for another job assessing houses for solar hot water installations. I am qualified for this as the process for assessing sights for solar hot water is exactly the same as assessments for solar electricity. Sounds perfect at first blush but there are some huge caveats.

First, it pays by the job.  I’d have to visit six to eight sights a day.  The appointments are set by the company, but it’s still a little like door to door work.  I’d have to drive around the city all day assessing houses.   I wouldn't be selling the system, just doing the feasibility work.  If the customer buys the system, I’d get paid a few dollars more than if they didn’t, but I’d still get paid even if they didn’t buy.

Secondly, I’d have to have a car.  That’s the big thing.  We haven’t planned on even buying a car, let alone right after we got here.  It’s a tough decision to make.  Cars aren’t exactly cheap and then you have the expense of insurance and fuel.

I told the woman that I had some concerns and need some time to think.  Just from my resume and a quick talk on the phone she thought I’d be perfect so it sends up a red flag in my mind. I’d think they’d at least want to interview someone.  My CV is pretty good though.  I have to call her back in the morning; I have a list of questions I need to ask before I decide to pursue it further.  If it works out it may be the perfect opportunity, but “too good to be true” sends up a red flag in my mind.  Though they didn’t exactly offer to make me rich, the pay would be close or a little more than I was making in Denver.  (Is this getting a little TMI here?)  I don’t want to be too hasty. 

Needless to say, the whole buying a car thing is a big decision.  I’m sure we’ll hash it all out.  I’ll tell ya this right now though, we ain’t lookin fer no Mecedes.

Some observations for today:

-The first Test of the Season started today between the Aussies and the Windies (West Indies) at the Gabba.   Eat your heart out Daniel. (This observation is about Cricket if you haven’t noticed.)

-I think a Carolina style BBQ joint would make a killing here.  

Friends!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

We had our first visitors from the states today.  Paul and Mary were on vacation in Australia and made a special trip up to the Gold Coast to see us.  We got on a train at 7:30 this morning and headed down to Surfer’s Paradise and met up with them.  It was great to have friends for the day. 

Paul and Mary rented a car for the time they’re in Queensland.  They picked us up at the train station and we bopped over to the beach.  It’s funny that they have more experience driving here than we do.  Paul said he got the hang of driving on the left pretty quick.

We hit the beach at Surfer’s Paradise and managed somehow to avoid the throngs of Schoolies that have taken over the Gold Coast.  It was a perfect day, light breeze, no clouds and nice surf.  Paul had rented some boogie boards and we took turns getting thrashed by waves.  Leah was the best of all of us at it.  Of course this should come as no surprise to anyone. Leah was a fish in a past life I’m sure of it.

We spent several hours on the beach, chatting and catching up.  All of us got a lot of sun despite heaps of sunscreen.  I somehow managed to cover everything but the tops of my knees which are lobster red tonight.  We have this great spf 60 that Leah got from the dermatologist that works really well when you put it on right (Thanks Christ).  Paul managed to get lobstered all over his body.  If you’re planning on visiting, spf 15 should be left at home.  Bring the hard stuff. You’ve been warned.

After the beach we went to get some lunch.   We found a restaurant with a bar and talked and drank for a couple of hours.  Then went over to their hotel and while they showered and changed, Leah and I checked out the pool.  The Marriott at Surfer’s Paradise has one of the nicest pools I’ve ever seen.  Actually they have two huge pools outside.  One is shaped like a river and has fresh water.  The other is shaped like a lagoon and has a sandy beach and is salt water full of tropical fish.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I took a picture from their balcony and will put it up when we can.  It was awesome.

All clean and showered, Paul and Mary drove us back to Brisbane and we stopped by our house so we could change.  We then walked over to Park Road and grabbed a pizza.  This time we went for the meter pie.  It was great and we damn near took the whole thing down. 

Paul and Mary are leaving at six am to go back to Sydney, where they started their vacation, and then back to the states.  It was great to see them, but we’re sad they had to go back so soon.  One day is too short.  Keep that in mind for your visit.

Some observations for today:

-The Australian media is obsessed right now with a singer from Canada named Michael Bublé (pronounced boo blay) it’s really fun and funny to say with an Australian accent.  I’ll try and record what it sounds like and post it up here soon.  We all laughed about it all day.

-On the spot fines apply.   There are signs warning people of possible consequences for everything everywhere.

-Four jugs of beer divided by three people equals a nice buzz.

Two Weeks and Counting

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Today marks two weeks since we’ve left the states.  It’s gone quickly but looking back we’ve done a lot.  We’re settling in nicely.  Not that we have a routine yet, but we have roof, a bank account, a phone number and are starting to feel at home.

Brisbane has been an easy city to like.  I said before it feels a lot like Denver; it’s big enough to have all the benefits of a city, but feels much like a small town.  We like that people are active here.  You see people jogging and biking everywhere.  I think we’ll have no problem adjusting for the long run.  Brisbane is the capital of Queensland, the sunshine state.  Queensland feels a lot like Florida. 

I find Queensland, and Australia as a whole, to be a bit of a nanny state.  Taxes on sin items like alcohol, cigarettes and soda are high.  A case of coke costs $13.50 here (that’s the sale price), cigs are $14 a pack, a six pack of beer $17. A government official today is trying to get legislation passed allowing hospitals to put the obese to the end of the line for health care.  There has also been talk of refusing health care to smokers. 

The place has tons of surveillance cameras all over the place.  People here don’t expect the same level of privacy that we expect.  The police have some broad reaching powers here too.  It’s not uncommon for drivers to be stopped at a random sobriety stop, and for the police to give everyone a breathalyzer test in order to get through.  From what we’ve heard they occur all over the place all the time.  It has the benefit of cutting down sharply on the numbers of drunk drivers.

Really it’s a lot like home but the little differences (Hey Vincent Vega) are what we are noticing now.  We went to the grocery store and couldn’t find any dill pickles.  Well they did have some that were sort of dill but they were super tiny, like miniature gherkins.  There’s not one Grape flavor in the jelly section.  NO GRAPE JELLY! If you look at the jelly aisle at home I’ll bet you find at least six brands of grape alone.  Here there are several types of black currant. (Which I like better than grape anyway but I did notice) We found out hamburger buns aren’t pre-sliced.  We went to get laundry soap and didn’t recognize a single brand. The same goes for the medicine aisle. You take for granted the items you see on a daily basis.  Here we have to read the fine print in order to make sure we know what we’re getting.  The writing is in English but it’s like a foreign language.

When you read the nutrition information on the side of food containers here, the energy is listed in kilojoules (kJ) instead of calories.  It’s been a long time since chemistry; I don’t even remember what a Joule is.  They also say serve instead of serving.  So “a single serve of this product has blah blah kJ of energy” just sounds strange to my American ears.

Tomorrow we have a busy day planned so I’ll sign off without any observations. This post was mostly just observations anyway.

Hello Kitty

Monday November 23, 2009

Yep, that’s right, I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to mention.  There’s actually a Hello Kitty store in the mall right by our house.  If you closed your eyes and stood on the street, you really might think you were in Japan.

Well today was a good day.  Leah headed over to UQ Sport and took a yoga class.  I stayed home and did laundry.  When she got back we went to a pay phone and I called about our phone connection.  The Connect Now people still didn’t have their shit together, so I cancelled our order and went straight to Telstra.  I should have done that first, but I didn’t know. 

At the Telstra store we signed up for a home phone line, internet access and a mobile phone.  We saved a nice amount by bundling all of them together.  It’s going to take about four days to get hooked up, but at least we know we’re dealing with the right people.  The plan came with a really nice phone for free, so I now have a new phone.  We only have 150 minutes a month and 150 Mb of data, but at least we’re reachable now.  I can also get emails on the phone so I’m much more accessible than I have been.  I can get all my normal e-mail boxes on the phone so feel free to shout out. 

Internet plans are really different here than they are at home.  I’ve mentioned it before, but now I’ll explain a little.  They measure the amount that you download including browsing web pages.  You pay for the speed you want, but you really pay for the amount of data you use.  You have to pick your plan based on how much data you’re likely to be using.  I’d consider myself a heavy internet user and I really have no concept of how much data I’ve been using in the past.  Australia forces you to be aware of how much you use of everything, water, electricity, food, and even data.  It’s been hard for us to acclimate to the data usage thing.  At home, you pay for the speed and not the data, unless you’re hosting web sites.

We chose a 12 gig plan at a decent speed; it will slow down when we reach our data limit, as opposed to charging us for overages like some other plans.  The bloke Mark, who had us over for dinner last week, told us that when he first got here, his first internet bill was $8000au. Eight Bloody THOUSAND dollars.  He was on an “Unlimited 10 gig plan” unlimited up to 10 gig and then apparently they rape you.  We didn’t want that to happen.   So just like the house, we’re paying more for less here, but that’s how it is.  They just don’t have the population of the states.  We take it for granted how cheap information is.

The home phone is another thing, we have to have one because the internet is going to be DSL, the house isn’t wired for cable.  You get the phone line for a price and then pay for individual calls, no free calls included.  You even have to pay for local calls.  Calls to mobile phones are more expensive.  I need to get a job quick y’all.

So with phones sorted out we headed home for a while.  It was a hot day so we hid out in the apartment with the air-con on.  Later we headed over to the coffee house to use the internet and drink an iced coffee.  The coffee was delicious, the internet was slow. 

I did manage to make some changes to the blog, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.  The picture at the top was taken on our last night at the hotel when we got here.  The pool deck was on the second level and the view of the river was really great.  The bridge (I’m blanking the name right now) is recently opened and is only for pedestrians and bikes.  It goes from CBD (on the left) over to Southbank and the art museum.  The colors change every minute or so, it’s neat to watch.  I took a bunch of photos from up there.  That one took ten minutes to load to the blog.  Hope you like it.

Some observations for today:

-Aussies love to say “Heaps of” as in heaps of data for one low price.

-I can read cricket scores now and understand much of what I’ve read.

-You can’t escape stories about Shittany Spears by traveling half way around the world.  The celebrity goss (duh) is a regular spot on the news.

-Heaps of people walk around barefoot here, even though the sidewalks are as hot as the sun.

-Popsicles are called “Icy Poles”  the

Busy Weekend

Monday, November 23, 2009

It’s Monday morning here. I’ve decided that we need to take a day or two off each week from writing the blog. It will probably be Sunday and Monday here as most of you who are reading are back in the states. That’ll make it the weekend for you. So we’ll start that this week.

Looking at the TV schedule this morning I see that the Broncos are playing on TV here at 3:45. I’m going to try and be around for that. I’m missing football a little. Don’t get me wrong, Cricket has just started its regular season last night, but I do miss American sports. (Aussies seem to like basketball the best of American sport. It’s not really my fave.)

We started our weekend on Saturday morning by biking over to Southbank, an area just the other side of the river from CBD. Southbank is where the state library of Queensland is, along with the Queensland Museum, Maritime museum, and the art museum. There is a really big park there dominated by a man-made beach/swimming area called Streets Beach. It’s really lovely, a nice lagoon area that’s free to swim in. Around the beach there are a bunch of restaurants and shops. They also have a market on the weekends where people sell their crafts. We spent an hour or so browsing and then grabbed some lunch at an outdoor café.

We took the opportunity to drink a jug (Aussie for Pitcher) of Victoria Bitter (VB). VB is the state beer of Victoria. It tastes a little like Heineken, only not as skunky. It was good and cold and we both managed our first little buzz in Oz. We ate a nice lunch of fish and chips and set back off to explore.

We walked up and down a really nice footpath and took a few pictures. We also popped in the library and used the WIFI there. (We’ve decided to sort the home internet and phones out this morning, enough is enough) We spent about a half an hour exploring the Queensland Museum, reading about the history and culture of Queensland. We’ve picked an interesting state to live in. Did you know that macadamia nuts are native to Australia? They were found wild in a small part of Queensland then planted in Hawaii where the industry took off. I always thought they were 100% Hawaiian.

After walking several miles, our feet hurt and we biked back home. The bike ride was only about four miles one-way, and it only took us fifteen minutes or so. We’re both excited that it’s so close. We plan on spending a lot of time there.

On the way home we stopped off at Coles for some groceries for dinner. The shops close at five or five thirty every day, so you need to get any shopping done early. We made some turkey burgers and a salad for dinner. Leah was relieved to find ground turkey in the market.

The next morning, Sunday, we set off to the beach. We’ve been here for almost two weeks and hadn’t seen it. That is unacceptable. We grabbed a train to the Gold Coast, an area of long white beaches and huge hotels just south of Brisbane. We had an appointment to meet a girl from the states who just finished the OT program that Leah is about to start. The train ride was about an hour and the bus was another twenty minutes. We’re told that you can drive there in under an hour, but we didn’t find it inconvenient at all.

We got to Broad Beach at about 10:30 and weren’t set to meet Beth until 12:00 so we took some time to check out the beach. It’s beautiful, long and white, just what a beach should be. The water was colder than I expected, but it felt great on a hot day. There were surfers everywhere. We found out that this week is called Schoolies here. It’s sort of like spring break (SPRNNNG BREK, that’s for you Katie) in Florida. Schoolies week sees thousands of year twelve seniors celebrating the end of school by going to the gold coast and getting wasted. The news is full of stories about how your kids are getting high and having sex while you’re none the wiser. It’s pretty funny to us. We were only annoyed by them when a couple of drunken teenagers on the bus were acting like retards. They almost got in a fight with a rather large Asian.

We met Beth at about noon and grabbed some lunch. Leah and Beth hit it off really well. They had been e-mailing with each other for over a year. She had lots of great information about the program and what it’s like to live here while in school. Leah feels a lot more confident about the program after talking with Beth for a while. Leah’s taking a pretty huge leap here with almost no help. She’s been really brave so far, but I can tell she’s much more at ease now. She’ll do great.

We ate lunch and had a couple of beers and talked with Beth for almost three hours. Afterwards we said goodbye (Beth is going back to the states in December) and went back to the beach. Too bad Beth is leaving because Leah and her would be great friends, you could just tell. They had a ton in common. Leah read her Kindle (world’s best gift) and I snoozed in the sand. There’s something about the sound of waves, I can sleep like a baby on a beach.

Leah here…by the way, while we were eating lunch there was a guy dressed in white linen pants and an electric blue shirt with, oh no he didddn’t, a microphone. He was belting out the funniest songs in a Robert Goullet (sp?) slash Tom Jones voice in the middle of this beach -mall strip area. He had about 200 chairs set up, a little aggressive in his audience turnout considering there was one lonely grandpa sitting there. We did hear Dirty Dancing’s, she’s like the wind (RIP Patrick, I heart you). Tom, he may have stole your thunder, he done did it and sang Chris Issac’s “Wicked Game” (we thought of you). Todd may have had a crush on the guy. He kept making so many comments that at one point I offered to get his autograph for him, but he was a tad too shy.

We made our way back home and got back around dark. Both of us were tired and a bit browner. We’ll be at the beach a lot.

Some observations for today:

-ketchup is called “tomato sauce” here. The bottles are shaped differently but mostly it tastes the same.

-Teenagers in Australia have underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex just like American teens. We started calling them PFC’s.

-Cows look hilarious in a field surrounded by palm trees.

-There is no tipping in restaurants so the service isn’t as quick as it is back home. It’s sometimes hard to get a second drink.

-Christmas decorations look out of place when it’s 90 degrees outside.

-SPF 30 isn’t going to cut it.