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.