Happy New Year, everybody! I think it's funny that, as I write this, it is 2008 here in OZ but it is still 2007 in Canada, and will be for another 8 hours. Time travel is a funny thing!
Jen and I had a very quiet New Year's Eve. We had originally been thinking about going downtown to watch the fireworks here in Canberra (Canadians, take note! Australia's capital city puts on a great fireworks show on New Year's... why can't we?). The fireworks here are supposed to be pretty good, although the really famous Australian display is of course in Sydney, where they were expecting a crowd of over 1 million people to ring the harbour and bring in the new year. Apparently more people come to watch Sydney's fireworks than they do New York's! At any rate, we're not in Sydney, and likely wouldn't have gone to be part of that size of a crowd even if we were there. Too many people! In the end, we were so tired after all our walking around today that we just staggered home, made dinner, watched a bit of TV and went to bed! Embarrassingly I didn't even make it to midnight so I could text you folks back home at the appropriate time. So for those of you who got Happy New Year text messages from me at 6am your time, that's why. :-)
So! Let me tell you what we did yesterday that got us so tired! There were two places on our touring list yesterday - Parliament House, the seat of the federal government here in OZ, and the National Art Gallery. I know I've already described how huge and empty Canberra is. We were really glad again today to have a car to drive around in! Canberra feels like one giant suburb - there have been times, as we've driven around, that I swear there's only roads and treed parkland here, and no buildings at all. Now having said that, Parliament House is not a building you can miss. It's situated on a hill right in the middle of the city, and any of the bridges that you take crossing Lake Burley-Griffin point directly towards it. There's also a huge and unforgettable flag pole on top. It's a very modern building (only completed/opened in 1988!) and reminded me somewhat of some of the, ah, stranger buildings you find in downtown Ottawa, like the new-old City Hall and the Museum of Civ.
We took a free guided tour of Parliament House and learned a little about its architecture and of course how Australian government operates.
Sidebar-Our tour guide was awful, just awful! He would start a topic and then jump back to a previous topic because he had forgot to mention something. He spent 5 minutes telling the group that he wasn't too sure about his facts so we shouldn't trust him about some things. The tour went over the alloted time (30 minutes), it was an hour and he kept saying that he would release us from his "clutches". One woman, next to us, started muttering under her breath about the tour guide being "Boring". I would have said that he deserved to be dragged out and staked to a fire ant colony.
The building is HUGE. Imagine all three blocks of our Parliament Hill AND the downtown convention centre all put together into one building, and you have an idea of the size we're talking about. I think the guide said that there are 4000+ rooms in the structure! The architecture is very symbolic, with parts of the building representing Australia's past, present and future. I really like how the building is built INTO the hill it stands on - and yes, there is green lawn that goes all the way over the top as part of the roof! This symbolises that the government works for the people, and that the people can always look down on the government and see what they are doing. All the interior spaces are designed this way too - with the public foyers etc. separate from those the parliamentarians work in, and above them - so the public can keep an eye on its elected officials.
The Australian government works similar to ours, with two houses of Parliament (a House of Representatives and a Senate). I liked how the House of Representatives sat in a green room, and the Senate sat in a red room (like us, they got their colour scheme from England) - but the colours were Australian greens and reds, apparently taken from the ever-present eucalyptus trees. The Senate is more American than ours is... the Senators are elected for terms of six years, instead of being appointed. The Coat of Arms was also explained to us - I had originally figured that the kangaroo and emu were on it because they're uniquely Australian animals. While this is true, the reason these two particular animals were chosen is because they are the only two animals that can't walk backward! They symbolize that Australia is always looking - and moving - forward. Cool!
By the time the tour was over and we'd finished wandering around on our own (among other things, we ended up chatting with another Canadian lady who was in our tour group and who'd seen the crest on my backpack; turns out she's from Ottawa, and she was in Canberra because her daughter was due to have a baby any day!), it was almost 2pm and we hadn't had lunch. We stopped at the cafe in Parliament House and grabbed a bite to eat, and then we were off to the National Art Gallery. On the map, the gallery is only a short way from Parliament, but wow I would not have wanted to walk that distance! This city is deceptive in how big it is. It was also well over 30C yesterday and any of the short while we spent outside on pavement felt somewhat like being in a blast furnace. When we got to the gallery, we had a hard time finding the parking... we ended up following a series of vague signs and parking two big blocks away at the National Library, then walking back along the water to the gallery. Let me tell you, we were glad to hit the air conditioning!
So far every attraction we've been to here has been free, and the National Art Gallery was no exception. They had artworks from many artists I recognize, including Picasso, Monet, and Renoir. Of course there were also lots of artworks by Australian artists. Jen and I spent quite a bit of time looking through the post-modern and pop art sections... mostly with our heads cocked to one side, muttering "I don't get it" under our breath! I know Jen was particularly annoyed with two works which were - seriously - white canvases hung on the wall. That's it! Nothing else!
Sidebar-I wasn't annoyed. I was angry. I can't believe that an art gallery would pay money for a canvas that had only white paint on it. The description said that I should appreciate the variety of white paints and brushstrokes that were used. IT WAS WHITE PAINT ON A WHITE CANAVAS. It was a cope out! It isn't Art if I can do it under less than fifteen minutes.
Of course there were some artworks that we really liked, too. One sculpture we found was called "Bone China", and consisted of a china cabinet filled with pieces of old ceramic plates that had been sculpted into the shapes of various bones - all scientifically labelled and displayed as a human skeleton! There was a grove of Aboriginal post sculptures, commemorating 200 years of European occupation of Australia. I also really liked one of the Aboriginal paintings that was displayed, framed, on the ground (since these types of paintings would have traditionally been painted outdoors on the ground, I like that some were displayed this way too) - the lines on this particular painting made the whole thing look like a 3D representation of the desert. Very cool.
Not surprisingly, we weren't allowed to take any pictures in the gallery, so you'll have to take my word on it that the place was pretty impressive. By the time we were leaving (at 5pm, with the gallery staff basically pushing us out the door as they closed) I had developed a wicked headache. So I'm glad I went to bed early - it took some serious painkillers to make the headache go away! I've had a headache pretty much every day since arriving in Canberra, and I'm hoping I finally managed to knock it down and make it go away.
Today we are going to celebrate the New Year by going on a platypus search! Wish us luck!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Australian War Memorial and Museum
One thing I can sure say about Australia - they do AWESOME museums. And so far, all the ones we've been to here in Canberra are completely free!
Yesterday morning Jen and I headed back to the Australian National Museum, because when we were there on Friday we'd seen a poster advertising a didgeridoo demonstration that would be taking place at noon on Sunday. We'd also run out of time to see the special exhibition gallery, which was all about the Western Desert Art movement. The art exhibition was wonderful. Not only did it go through the history of this form of Aboriginal art, but it also explained some of the symbolism behind the patterns used in these paintings. I was fascinated. There are layers and layers of meaning in each painting, and only the very basic or introductory meanings can be shared with outsiders. I bought a few art cards to remind me of the paintings I saw.
The didgeridoo demo was also good. It took place in the atrium of the museum. The demonstration was made up of a man (who led the whole thing), two boys and three girls, who ranged in age from about 8 to about 16. All wore traditional body paint and clothing. I was actually most surprised that it was one of the young boys who did most of the didgeridoo playing - the man led everyone else in a series of dances that told various stories. At the beginning of each dance/story, the man would explain what different movements in the dance meant, or he would give a synopsis of the story, and then everyone would act it out. At one point they called up a number of little kids from the audience to join them in a boomerang-throwing dance. The Aboriginal kids showed the tourist kids how to do each move, and then they all danced together. And then at the end, the very last dance the group did was a "footy" dance, depicting, of course, a game of rugby! It was a good reminder that dance is used to tell stories - both past and present.
After the didgeridoo presentation was over, Jen and I ate lunch and headed off to our main objective of the day - the Australian War Memorial. What with Canberra being a planned city and all, the drive approaching the Memorial is pretty spectacular. There's this huge wide boulevard that you drive up, and spaced all along each side are monuments to the various conflicts that the Australians have fought in. The Memorial sits on top of a hill, overlooking all these monuments. And when you walk up to the front of the Memorial, you stare back down this boulevard, straight across Lake Burley-Griffin, and up another boulevard all the way to Parliament House, in a straight line of sight nearly 6kms long. Very impressive.
The Australian War Memorial combines both the country's war monument and national war museum. For all my army friends back home, this place is at least as impressive (if not more so!) than our own War Museum. Once again, although we spent 5 hours there, we didn't see everything!
The museum is broken into various galleries which teach about Australia's involvement in the world's major conflicts. I really liked the dioramas that were scattered throughout. A number of the major battles in WWI and WWII were displayed in diorama form, with good descriptions of what was going on in each scene. I took a few pictures but I don't know how well they capture what I saw. (You'll have to wait until Jan. 3rd or 4th to see my pics from this trip; I can't access the internet on my own computer right now so I can't upload anything until I get back to Melbourne.)
It was interesting to learn about another country's involvement in the Great Wars. For instance, I knew that Australia came under attack by the Japanese during WWII (the northern city of Darwin was basically completely destroyed), but I didn't know that the Japanese also came as far south as Sydney, where they torpedoed several ships. I learned more about Gallipoli and the battles that helped Australia to define itself as a nation, and the birth of ANZAC Day. Most of the displays on WWII focused on the action in the Pacific and in the Middle East, where Australian troops played huge roles. There was only one little tiny section on D-Day and the war in Europe!
There was also an excellent exhibition on WWII aircraft, mostly those of Australian and Japanese design. But what I thought was REALLY fantastic were the sound-and-light shows that took place in several of the exhibits. The first one we saw took place during a bombing raid on Berlin during WWII. The centrepiece of the display was a Lancaster bomber aircraft. Situated around the plane was a small German fighter plane, a German anti-aircraft gun, and two huge screens that showed different things as the show went on. (Don't get me wrong here - I'm talking about REAL planes and guns, not small models). As different people from the plane's flight crew were talking, their position in the plane would be highlighted. When the plane was "taking off" on its run, the screens behind showed what the pilots would have seen from their vantage point. When the bomber was attacking Berlin, all you could hear were the drone of the bombers, the gunfire from the anti-aircraft gun, and the attacking of the little fighter plane. It was fantastic.
On the other end of the hall where the bomber was, there was an exhibition about the HMAS Sydney and how it sunk the German ship Emden in WWI. The museum has gun turrets from both ships on display, facing each other, and during the sound-and-light show, the floor between them became a map of the ocean around the Cocos (Keeling) islands, where the battle took place. Every time one of the ships fired on the other, a bright light would flash over the appropriate gun turret, and the track of the shots was shown on the map below. Again, very cool.
Jen and I both agree, however, that the best of the sound and light shows was in the brand new exhibit on modern conflicts. This gallery doesn't even officially open until February - but the museum staff were giving a sneak preview to everyone! Anyhow, in the Vietnam exhibit, they had an Iroquois helicopter (the type you see all the time in Vietnam movies). It was displayed with its full compliment of soldiers and airmen, and set to look like it had just landed in a field of long grass. There were two big screens behind the chopper, displaying static scenes of other choppers landing in the surrounding fields. But when the sound and light show started, the screens showed live action, as the patrol of helicopters tried to rescue a group of injured soldiers on the ground. The sounds of the helicopters and gunfire were incredible. There was even rotor-wash blasting in our faces as the chopper "landed" and "took off"!
So, like I said, we wandered around the museum for far longer than we'd originally intended. We didn't even get to stick our noses into the exhibit on Lawrence of Arabia! 5pm came and went and we knew we needed to get home to feed the animals, so we took a quick peek into the Hall of Memory, where the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is, and walked the Roll of Honour. This consists of two walls with bronze plaques, listing every Australian serviceman and woman who has died in a conflict since the late 1800's. It is very powerful. Many people had stuck plastic poppies into slots in the wall beside specific names. And again, I hope my pictures do it some justice!
Phew! Busy day! After a quick trip back to the house to feed the animals and grab a bite to eat, we zipped back across town to the movies. Gotta take advantage of this cheap $8 movie theatre! Last night we saw "Enchanted", and for my friends who are seriously into the Disney Princess thing, you gotta see this movie!
Yesterday morning Jen and I headed back to the Australian National Museum, because when we were there on Friday we'd seen a poster advertising a didgeridoo demonstration that would be taking place at noon on Sunday. We'd also run out of time to see the special exhibition gallery, which was all about the Western Desert Art movement. The art exhibition was wonderful. Not only did it go through the history of this form of Aboriginal art, but it also explained some of the symbolism behind the patterns used in these paintings. I was fascinated. There are layers and layers of meaning in each painting, and only the very basic or introductory meanings can be shared with outsiders. I bought a few art cards to remind me of the paintings I saw.
The didgeridoo demo was also good. It took place in the atrium of the museum. The demonstration was made up of a man (who led the whole thing), two boys and three girls, who ranged in age from about 8 to about 16. All wore traditional body paint and clothing. I was actually most surprised that it was one of the young boys who did most of the didgeridoo playing - the man led everyone else in a series of dances that told various stories. At the beginning of each dance/story, the man would explain what different movements in the dance meant, or he would give a synopsis of the story, and then everyone would act it out. At one point they called up a number of little kids from the audience to join them in a boomerang-throwing dance. The Aboriginal kids showed the tourist kids how to do each move, and then they all danced together. And then at the end, the very last dance the group did was a "footy" dance, depicting, of course, a game of rugby! It was a good reminder that dance is used to tell stories - both past and present.
After the didgeridoo presentation was over, Jen and I ate lunch and headed off to our main objective of the day - the Australian War Memorial. What with Canberra being a planned city and all, the drive approaching the Memorial is pretty spectacular. There's this huge wide boulevard that you drive up, and spaced all along each side are monuments to the various conflicts that the Australians have fought in. The Memorial sits on top of a hill, overlooking all these monuments. And when you walk up to the front of the Memorial, you stare back down this boulevard, straight across Lake Burley-Griffin, and up another boulevard all the way to Parliament House, in a straight line of sight nearly 6kms long. Very impressive.
The Australian War Memorial combines both the country's war monument and national war museum. For all my army friends back home, this place is at least as impressive (if not more so!) than our own War Museum. Once again, although we spent 5 hours there, we didn't see everything!
The museum is broken into various galleries which teach about Australia's involvement in the world's major conflicts. I really liked the dioramas that were scattered throughout. A number of the major battles in WWI and WWII were displayed in diorama form, with good descriptions of what was going on in each scene. I took a few pictures but I don't know how well they capture what I saw. (You'll have to wait until Jan. 3rd or 4th to see my pics from this trip; I can't access the internet on my own computer right now so I can't upload anything until I get back to Melbourne.)
It was interesting to learn about another country's involvement in the Great Wars. For instance, I knew that Australia came under attack by the Japanese during WWII (the northern city of Darwin was basically completely destroyed), but I didn't know that the Japanese also came as far south as Sydney, where they torpedoed several ships. I learned more about Gallipoli and the battles that helped Australia to define itself as a nation, and the birth of ANZAC Day. Most of the displays on WWII focused on the action in the Pacific and in the Middle East, where Australian troops played huge roles. There was only one little tiny section on D-Day and the war in Europe!
There was also an excellent exhibition on WWII aircraft, mostly those of Australian and Japanese design. But what I thought was REALLY fantastic were the sound-and-light shows that took place in several of the exhibits. The first one we saw took place during a bombing raid on Berlin during WWII. The centrepiece of the display was a Lancaster bomber aircraft. Situated around the plane was a small German fighter plane, a German anti-aircraft gun, and two huge screens that showed different things as the show went on. (Don't get me wrong here - I'm talking about REAL planes and guns, not small models). As different people from the plane's flight crew were talking, their position in the plane would be highlighted. When the plane was "taking off" on its run, the screens behind showed what the pilots would have seen from their vantage point. When the bomber was attacking Berlin, all you could hear were the drone of the bombers, the gunfire from the anti-aircraft gun, and the attacking of the little fighter plane. It was fantastic.
On the other end of the hall where the bomber was, there was an exhibition about the HMAS Sydney and how it sunk the German ship Emden in WWI. The museum has gun turrets from both ships on display, facing each other, and during the sound-and-light show, the floor between them became a map of the ocean around the Cocos (Keeling) islands, where the battle took place. Every time one of the ships fired on the other, a bright light would flash over the appropriate gun turret, and the track of the shots was shown on the map below. Again, very cool.
Jen and I both agree, however, that the best of the sound and light shows was in the brand new exhibit on modern conflicts. This gallery doesn't even officially open until February - but the museum staff were giving a sneak preview to everyone! Anyhow, in the Vietnam exhibit, they had an Iroquois helicopter (the type you see all the time in Vietnam movies). It was displayed with its full compliment of soldiers and airmen, and set to look like it had just landed in a field of long grass. There were two big screens behind the chopper, displaying static scenes of other choppers landing in the surrounding fields. But when the sound and light show started, the screens showed live action, as the patrol of helicopters tried to rescue a group of injured soldiers on the ground. The sounds of the helicopters and gunfire were incredible. There was even rotor-wash blasting in our faces as the chopper "landed" and "took off"!
So, like I said, we wandered around the museum for far longer than we'd originally intended. We didn't even get to stick our noses into the exhibit on Lawrence of Arabia! 5pm came and went and we knew we needed to get home to feed the animals, so we took a quick peek into the Hall of Memory, where the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is, and walked the Roll of Honour. This consists of two walls with bronze plaques, listing every Australian serviceman and woman who has died in a conflict since the late 1800's. It is very powerful. Many people had stuck plastic poppies into slots in the wall beside specific names. And again, I hope my pictures do it some justice!
Phew! Busy day! After a quick trip back to the house to feed the animals and grab a bite to eat, we zipped back across town to the movies. Gotta take advantage of this cheap $8 movie theatre! Last night we saw "Enchanted", and for my friends who are seriously into the Disney Princess thing, you gotta see this movie!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Paddling
Jen and I spent yesterday with Robin, one of the Guiders I met when I came up to Canberra for the weekend camp, and her partner Paul. Robin and Paul are both originally Americans, but they have been traveling the globe for a number of years now and have spent the past few years living in Australia. So it was kinda fun to be able to commiserate with fellow "foreigners" who are also enjoying living in - and learning about - OZ. Robin and Paul are both outdoor enthusiasts and they invited us to go kayaking with them on Lake Ginninderra, one of two man-made lakes here in the city. How could we refuse?
In the morning they picked us up to take us to the local farmer's market, which was supposed to be quite good. Unfortunately, because it's the week between Christmas and New Year's, the market wasn't open! We had to settle for a mall of grocery stores, instead. Robin and Paul had also invited us over for dinner, so between the four of us we picked up salmon steaks, prawns (they're not called shrimp here!), veggies and fruit. Jen and I then headed back to Nikki's house to finish our laundry (I had finally figured out how to use the washing machine early in the morning, ha ha!). In the afternoon we headed over to Robin's place so we could help load the boats and go paddling!
Vicky/Kirsten/Erica/Tara/anyone else who's reading this who's helped load canoes at Woolsey - you'll appreciate this! We got three whitewater kayaks and a racing kayak on top of a Toyota Prius. I must admit I was a little worried that some of the boats were going to fall off, but we made it out to the lake in one piece, and then off we went. (There is no way we could have put any boats on the car that Jen and I are driving... but seriously, that car needs its own blog entry, so I'll have to tell you more later.) When we first settled on who was going to paddle which boat, Jen had chosen the purple kayak, leaving me with the yellow one. (Her logic went something like this: she was wearing a purple PFD, I was wearing a yellow PFD, and it was important for our PFD's to match our boats.) Unfortunately, I couldn't wedge my butt into the seat of the yellow kayak - it was too narrow! (I think this may be one of the reasons I prefer canoeing...) So in the end we had to swap kayaks, and I'm pretty sure I got the better boat.
The boats we were paddling were whitewater kayaks, so they wanted to turn in circles a lot. Both Jen and I really struggled for the first little while to get the boats to go straight. I was surprised at how much faster I was going then Jen - I mean, really, she's just as strong or stronger than I am, and just as good a paddler! Turns out that her kayak was really, really tippy... and the lake that we were paddling in was more than a little on the slimy side. She was taking it easy because she didn't want to dump. I don't blame her! I would've traded boats with her for the return journey except for the bit where my butt wouldn't fit in her boat.
Really, I'm pretty sure we did just as much floating along, staring at the scenery, as we did actual paddling. But it sure was nice to be out in boats, under a bright blue sky. Paul is a whitewater kayaker, and he spent a good chunk of the time doing all these fun flips, cartwheels, and other tricks, in his little red trick boat. Robin was trying out her new racing kayak, which apparently was even tippier than the boat Jen was in, so she didn't stay still for long! On the far end of the lake, there were these tall metal cylinders sticking up out of the water. They looked a bit like giant pipes from a giant organ. Turns out they were chimes - and if you rammed your boat into the bottom of one of the cylinders, the whole thing would rock and the chimes would sound! So you can bet we had some fun with that! I can only imagine what the chimes must sound like on a really windy day. When we'd reached the far end of the lake, we pulled the boats out onto a dock and walked, barefoot, over a bridge to a local pub and had a drink. The pavement was HOT so I was glad we found seats in the shade! Then it was back into the kayaks for the paddle back to the car.
When we got back to Robin and Paul's house, we took turns showering and putting together the various bits of dinner. And then after dinner, Robin and Paul introduced us to a fun board game. I couldn't tell you its name (although I'm pretty sure I've played it before) because they'd picked it up in Germany and of course all the cards etc. were in German! The basic premise of the game was to try and build settlements, roads, and cities, to gather resources, and to prevent your rivals (the other players) from doing the same. The rules were complex, but once we had the hang of it, we really go going! Jen won the game, but not without a fight from the rest of us. We've been invited back for a re-match later next week before we leave for Melbourne.
So once again, we got home really late, waaaay past our bedtime, and have slept in this morning! I gotta go though - we're going to a didgeridoo demonstration at the museum in a couple of hours. Have a great day!
In the morning they picked us up to take us to the local farmer's market, which was supposed to be quite good. Unfortunately, because it's the week between Christmas and New Year's, the market wasn't open! We had to settle for a mall of grocery stores, instead. Robin and Paul had also invited us over for dinner, so between the four of us we picked up salmon steaks, prawns (they're not called shrimp here!), veggies and fruit. Jen and I then headed back to Nikki's house to finish our laundry (I had finally figured out how to use the washing machine early in the morning, ha ha!). In the afternoon we headed over to Robin's place so we could help load the boats and go paddling!
Vicky/Kirsten/Erica/Tara/anyone else who's reading this who's helped load canoes at Woolsey - you'll appreciate this! We got three whitewater kayaks and a racing kayak on top of a Toyota Prius. I must admit I was a little worried that some of the boats were going to fall off, but we made it out to the lake in one piece, and then off we went. (There is no way we could have put any boats on the car that Jen and I are driving... but seriously, that car needs its own blog entry, so I'll have to tell you more later.) When we first settled on who was going to paddle which boat, Jen had chosen the purple kayak, leaving me with the yellow one. (Her logic went something like this: she was wearing a purple PFD, I was wearing a yellow PFD, and it was important for our PFD's to match our boats.) Unfortunately, I couldn't wedge my butt into the seat of the yellow kayak - it was too narrow! (I think this may be one of the reasons I prefer canoeing...) So in the end we had to swap kayaks, and I'm pretty sure I got the better boat.
The boats we were paddling were whitewater kayaks, so they wanted to turn in circles a lot. Both Jen and I really struggled for the first little while to get the boats to go straight. I was surprised at how much faster I was going then Jen - I mean, really, she's just as strong or stronger than I am, and just as good a paddler! Turns out that her kayak was really, really tippy... and the lake that we were paddling in was more than a little on the slimy side. She was taking it easy because she didn't want to dump. I don't blame her! I would've traded boats with her for the return journey except for the bit where my butt wouldn't fit in her boat.
Really, I'm pretty sure we did just as much floating along, staring at the scenery, as we did actual paddling. But it sure was nice to be out in boats, under a bright blue sky. Paul is a whitewater kayaker, and he spent a good chunk of the time doing all these fun flips, cartwheels, and other tricks, in his little red trick boat. Robin was trying out her new racing kayak, which apparently was even tippier than the boat Jen was in, so she didn't stay still for long! On the far end of the lake, there were these tall metal cylinders sticking up out of the water. They looked a bit like giant pipes from a giant organ. Turns out they were chimes - and if you rammed your boat into the bottom of one of the cylinders, the whole thing would rock and the chimes would sound! So you can bet we had some fun with that! I can only imagine what the chimes must sound like on a really windy day. When we'd reached the far end of the lake, we pulled the boats out onto a dock and walked, barefoot, over a bridge to a local pub and had a drink. The pavement was HOT so I was glad we found seats in the shade! Then it was back into the kayaks for the paddle back to the car.
When we got back to Robin and Paul's house, we took turns showering and putting together the various bits of dinner. And then after dinner, Robin and Paul introduced us to a fun board game. I couldn't tell you its name (although I'm pretty sure I've played it before) because they'd picked it up in Germany and of course all the cards etc. were in German! The basic premise of the game was to try and build settlements, roads, and cities, to gather resources, and to prevent your rivals (the other players) from doing the same. The rules were complex, but once we had the hang of it, we really go going! Jen won the game, but not without a fight from the rest of us. We've been invited back for a re-match later next week before we leave for Melbourne.
So once again, we got home really late, waaaay past our bedtime, and have slept in this morning! I gotta go though - we're going to a didgeridoo demonstration at the museum in a couple of hours. Have a great day!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Australian National Museum
So - first impression of Canberra - it's physically a huge city, and nobody lives here.
Seriously!
OK, so it was busy at the train station yesterday, but once we'd gotten on the bus to head to Nikki's house, the streets were almost empty of cars. At the time I'd wondered if it was because of the time of day, but apparently not. Jen and I left the house around 11am today (after FINALLY talking to an electrician, and making an appointment for him to come to the house around 5pm) and headed to the Australian National Museum. The streets were almost completely empty of cars. There was nobody on the sidewalks. There was no one at the bus stops. I like how Jen put it - it felt a little like we'd stepped into one of those horror movies, you know, when the stranger comes to town for a visit and nobody's around, but that's only because the entire town has been turned into vampires or zombies and is just waiting for the right moment to strike...?
Seriously though, Canberra is a pretty city. It is a planned city full of large boulevards and HUGE traffic circles. I was driving again today and I was certainly happy that there was so little traffic each time I came to one of the big roundabouts! I am really glad that Nikki and Steve are letting us borrow their car... there is no way we could get around here on our own, and the buses don't run all that frequently. The car we're driving sure grabs attention though... I was conscious of lots of heads turning in the few cars that passed us, and I particularly liked the group of kids that were hooting and shouting "AWESOME" out the window of their car as we were parking at the museum. But more on the car later. :-)
Today's destination was the Australian National Museum. Like many of the attractions here in Canberra, it is FREE. (I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the parking is also free! This week could easily turn out to be the most cost-effective week of our entire tour!) It is also enormous. The museum is housed in a huge, crazy modern building on a finger of land jutting out into Lake Burley-Griffin in the centre of town. I suspect that, like the War Museum in Ottawa, this is one of those buildings whose architecture is very symbolic, but we didn't have time to take a guided tour.
The museum focuses on the social history of Australia's peoples, starting of course with the indigenous populations and then moving on to the years of European settlement. The entire museum was extremely well done. The exhibits flowed one into the next, with lots of fun interactive stations to explore along the way. I particularly liked the huge map of Australia that was projected onto one wall - it was constantly displaying various bits of Australian geographical trivia... everything from endangered species to explorers routes to bush fire patterns. I watched that thing for a good 20 minutes and the information still hadn't repeated itself. Very cool. They also had a skeleton of a Diprotodon, an ancient, giant wombat the size of a cow that used to live here. It was displayed behind a semi-transparent screen that had a painting of a Diprotodon on it. When the screen was backlit, you only saw the outline of the animal and the skeleton behind the screen. When the screen was lit from the front, all you saw was the painting.
We saw lots of other fun/funny things at the museum, too. I liked the display of "cubbies"... there were four of them, and your job was to guess where each of them might be found in Australia. In Canada, these would be tree houses or kids' club houses. In the display, each of the cubbies had all sorts of articles inside that gave you clues about where they might be found. There was also a storytelling circle at an artificial boab tree, right in the heart of the museum. You climbed into the huge trunk of the tree and sat on benches inside. The ceiling inside the tree was made to resemble the night sky, complete with twinkling stars. And there was a screen that played animated interpretations of a variety of Aboriginal stories. Jen and I also really liked the "Australiana" section, where they had a funny display titled "Aussie for beginners". It was a wall of uniquely Aussie words, accompanied by funny cartoons, and then when you flipped the word around it gave you an explanation of what it meant on the back. The book store even sold copies of this display as a book - which we almost bought, strictly for the comics!
We wandered around the museum for hours and didn't manage to see all the exhibits! But we did find out that there is a didgeridoo demonstration being given this Sunday, so our plan is to go back, finish the last few exhibit halls, and listen to some didgeridoo pieces too. Thank goodness for free museums!
We had to leave around 3:30 to get back to the house and meet up with the electrician. When he arrived and did some poking around, it became clear that there was a faulty wire somewhere in the lighting fixtures of the house. Thank goodness it wasn't something as simple as a blown fuse - I would have felt terrible if the problem had turned out to be something I could have fixed on my own. So an hour of tinkering and $165 later, the issue was fixed and we had lights again. Hooray!
To celebrate, Jen and I went to see "The Golden Compass" last night. There's a cheap theatre on the far side of Canberra (of course) from Nikki's house, where the movies are only $8. (Most cinemas in Australia charge $15.50! That would be the #1 reason we haven't been to see more movies.) We'd passed the theatre the day before when we were on the bus, so it was just a matter of finding it again. When we arrived, Jen and I both turned to each other and remarked "I think we found everyone!". There were a number of cafes and pubs all along the streets around the cinema, and they were hopping! Pretty much every table was full! So I don't know where all the Canberrans were during the day, but apparently at night they all go to the cafes!
And the movie, by the way, was excellent. But I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it yet.
Seriously!
OK, so it was busy at the train station yesterday, but once we'd gotten on the bus to head to Nikki's house, the streets were almost empty of cars. At the time I'd wondered if it was because of the time of day, but apparently not. Jen and I left the house around 11am today (after FINALLY talking to an electrician, and making an appointment for him to come to the house around 5pm) and headed to the Australian National Museum. The streets were almost completely empty of cars. There was nobody on the sidewalks. There was no one at the bus stops. I like how Jen put it - it felt a little like we'd stepped into one of those horror movies, you know, when the stranger comes to town for a visit and nobody's around, but that's only because the entire town has been turned into vampires or zombies and is just waiting for the right moment to strike...?
Seriously though, Canberra is a pretty city. It is a planned city full of large boulevards and HUGE traffic circles. I was driving again today and I was certainly happy that there was so little traffic each time I came to one of the big roundabouts! I am really glad that Nikki and Steve are letting us borrow their car... there is no way we could get around here on our own, and the buses don't run all that frequently. The car we're driving sure grabs attention though... I was conscious of lots of heads turning in the few cars that passed us, and I particularly liked the group of kids that were hooting and shouting "AWESOME" out the window of their car as we were parking at the museum. But more on the car later. :-)
Today's destination was the Australian National Museum. Like many of the attractions here in Canberra, it is FREE. (I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the parking is also free! This week could easily turn out to be the most cost-effective week of our entire tour!) It is also enormous. The museum is housed in a huge, crazy modern building on a finger of land jutting out into Lake Burley-Griffin in the centre of town. I suspect that, like the War Museum in Ottawa, this is one of those buildings whose architecture is very symbolic, but we didn't have time to take a guided tour.
The museum focuses on the social history of Australia's peoples, starting of course with the indigenous populations and then moving on to the years of European settlement. The entire museum was extremely well done. The exhibits flowed one into the next, with lots of fun interactive stations to explore along the way. I particularly liked the huge map of Australia that was projected onto one wall - it was constantly displaying various bits of Australian geographical trivia... everything from endangered species to explorers routes to bush fire patterns. I watched that thing for a good 20 minutes and the information still hadn't repeated itself. Very cool. They also had a skeleton of a Diprotodon, an ancient, giant wombat the size of a cow that used to live here. It was displayed behind a semi-transparent screen that had a painting of a Diprotodon on it. When the screen was backlit, you only saw the outline of the animal and the skeleton behind the screen. When the screen was lit from the front, all you saw was the painting.
We saw lots of other fun/funny things at the museum, too. I liked the display of "cubbies"... there were four of them, and your job was to guess where each of them might be found in Australia. In Canada, these would be tree houses or kids' club houses. In the display, each of the cubbies had all sorts of articles inside that gave you clues about where they might be found. There was also a storytelling circle at an artificial boab tree, right in the heart of the museum. You climbed into the huge trunk of the tree and sat on benches inside. The ceiling inside the tree was made to resemble the night sky, complete with twinkling stars. And there was a screen that played animated interpretations of a variety of Aboriginal stories. Jen and I also really liked the "Australiana" section, where they had a funny display titled "Aussie for beginners". It was a wall of uniquely Aussie words, accompanied by funny cartoons, and then when you flipped the word around it gave you an explanation of what it meant on the back. The book store even sold copies of this display as a book - which we almost bought, strictly for the comics!
We wandered around the museum for hours and didn't manage to see all the exhibits! But we did find out that there is a didgeridoo demonstration being given this Sunday, so our plan is to go back, finish the last few exhibit halls, and listen to some didgeridoo pieces too. Thank goodness for free museums!
We had to leave around 3:30 to get back to the house and meet up with the electrician. When he arrived and did some poking around, it became clear that there was a faulty wire somewhere in the lighting fixtures of the house. Thank goodness it wasn't something as simple as a blown fuse - I would have felt terrible if the problem had turned out to be something I could have fixed on my own. So an hour of tinkering and $165 later, the issue was fixed and we had lights again. Hooray!
To celebrate, Jen and I went to see "The Golden Compass" last night. There's a cheap theatre on the far side of Canberra (of course) from Nikki's house, where the movies are only $8. (Most cinemas in Australia charge $15.50! That would be the #1 reason we haven't been to see more movies.) We'd passed the theatre the day before when we were on the bus, so it was just a matter of finding it again. When we arrived, Jen and I both turned to each other and remarked "I think we found everyone!". There were a number of cafes and pubs all along the streets around the cinema, and they were hopping! Pretty much every table was full! So I don't know where all the Canberrans were during the day, but apparently at night they all go to the cafes!
And the movie, by the way, was excellent. But I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it yet.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
First night in Canberra
Yesterday Jen and I said goodbye to our Sydney families and caught the train to Canberra. I must admit, I was a little worried that we weren't going to be allowed to take our new boogie boards on the train with us, but everything worked out in the end. On the other hand, our suitcases were even heavier when we checked them in for the train then they were when we checked them in for the flight up to Sydney! I swear we did give out the presents we bought, and we left a whole boxload of stuff behind in Sydney for Jen's mom to take home in February! Yet somehow our suitcases were even heavier than before. Hmmm...
Anyhow. It was a pleasant 4 1/2-hr train ride to Canberra. I don't think the scenery was all that exciting - just more fields, bushy land, small towns etc., but we did see a couple of mobs of kangaroos hopping by in the distance, which was pretty cool. The Canberra train station is very small (apparently the only train that stops here is the one we were on!) - and it was a zoo on the platform as everyone disembarked.
We had to catch a city bus to get ourselves to Nikki's house on the far side of town. So picture this - the two of us, with our big suitcases, daypacks, and boogie boards, trying to get onto the bus. And then I realized we didn't have the right change to pay for the bus fare! Jen ran back to the station to try and get some change, while I waited rather anxiously in the front seat of the bus, surrounded by all this luggage! Unfortunately, Jen got caught in a huge line inside the station and didn't make it back to the bus in time... so I hauled all our gear off the bus, apologized to the driver, and watched him drive away.
We waited for a while in the bus shelter for the next bus, and it took about 20 minutes for us to realize that the buses didn't appear to be following the schedule posted AT ALL. Fortunately there was a number to call for updates, so I called it and discovered that the buses are all running on a modified schedule because it's the holiday season. Good thing I called! The guy on the other end of the line was very helpful, and when I asked him about the connecting bus we were catching in the city's downtown, he told me it wasn't running at all! Ack! Fortunately there was another bus we could catch instead. So all in all, it took us just over 2 hours to get to Nikki's home.
Nikki had called me yesterday to tell me that apparently there were some problems with the lights in the house. However, by the time we got in and did a quick recon in the kitchen, we realized we would have to head out for groceries right away if we wanted to buy dinner food before the stores closed. So we hopped in the car and got all that done. Nikki's car is spectacular... but I'm going to save that for another post. :-) Suffice it to say that when we got back to the house, it was now dusk and we realized that we hadn't dealt with the lighting issue yet... and yes, only three or four lights worked in the entire house! Not good! Fortunately the lights in the kitchen were operational, so Jen got to work on dinner while I dealt with the pets.
Our other responsibility while we're here is to feed the family's dog and two cats. Their food dishes are located outside (they can come and go as they please through a cat flap in one of the doors), and it should have been an easy thing to add more food etc... but since the lights weren't working, I did a lot of stumbling around in the dark until we found a flashlight. Ha ha! Poor Fifi... their little dog was definitely happy to see us! She'd managed somehow to escape the backyard and met us at the front door, a little on the wet and muddy side. Once she'd been fed, she spent the rest of the evening curled up right beside me on the couch!
The really strange thing with these electrical problems is that it's only the lights that are controlled by wall switches that appear to be affected... anything plugged into the wall still work. So I took the flashlight and did a little tour around the house, turning on small lamps here and there so that it was a little less creepy. We think there must have been a big thunderstorm... all the clocks are blinking and we found out the hard way that the hot water was turned off too! But that at least has been sorted out now, and I am shortly going to go and have a good hot shower.
So here we are, on our first morning in Canberra, waiting for an electrician to arrive to fix the problem. Jen and I have agreed that if nobody's called us back by noon (I've left messages at a number of places), then we're heading out to explore anyway. I mean, really... there are enough lights in the house for us to get by, and all the big deal stuff like the fridge and stove and hot water do work, so we can survive!
Anyhow. It was a pleasant 4 1/2-hr train ride to Canberra. I don't think the scenery was all that exciting - just more fields, bushy land, small towns etc., but we did see a couple of mobs of kangaroos hopping by in the distance, which was pretty cool. The Canberra train station is very small (apparently the only train that stops here is the one we were on!) - and it was a zoo on the platform as everyone disembarked.
We had to catch a city bus to get ourselves to Nikki's house on the far side of town. So picture this - the two of us, with our big suitcases, daypacks, and boogie boards, trying to get onto the bus. And then I realized we didn't have the right change to pay for the bus fare! Jen ran back to the station to try and get some change, while I waited rather anxiously in the front seat of the bus, surrounded by all this luggage! Unfortunately, Jen got caught in a huge line inside the station and didn't make it back to the bus in time... so I hauled all our gear off the bus, apologized to the driver, and watched him drive away.
We waited for a while in the bus shelter for the next bus, and it took about 20 minutes for us to realize that the buses didn't appear to be following the schedule posted AT ALL. Fortunately there was a number to call for updates, so I called it and discovered that the buses are all running on a modified schedule because it's the holiday season. Good thing I called! The guy on the other end of the line was very helpful, and when I asked him about the connecting bus we were catching in the city's downtown, he told me it wasn't running at all! Ack! Fortunately there was another bus we could catch instead. So all in all, it took us just over 2 hours to get to Nikki's home.
Nikki had called me yesterday to tell me that apparently there were some problems with the lights in the house. However, by the time we got in and did a quick recon in the kitchen, we realized we would have to head out for groceries right away if we wanted to buy dinner food before the stores closed. So we hopped in the car and got all that done. Nikki's car is spectacular... but I'm going to save that for another post. :-) Suffice it to say that when we got back to the house, it was now dusk and we realized that we hadn't dealt with the lighting issue yet... and yes, only three or four lights worked in the entire house! Not good! Fortunately the lights in the kitchen were operational, so Jen got to work on dinner while I dealt with the pets.
Our other responsibility while we're here is to feed the family's dog and two cats. Their food dishes are located outside (they can come and go as they please through a cat flap in one of the doors), and it should have been an easy thing to add more food etc... but since the lights weren't working, I did a lot of stumbling around in the dark until we found a flashlight. Ha ha! Poor Fifi... their little dog was definitely happy to see us! She'd managed somehow to escape the backyard and met us at the front door, a little on the wet and muddy side. Once she'd been fed, she spent the rest of the evening curled up right beside me on the couch!
The really strange thing with these electrical problems is that it's only the lights that are controlled by wall switches that appear to be affected... anything plugged into the wall still work. So I took the flashlight and did a little tour around the house, turning on small lamps here and there so that it was a little less creepy. We think there must have been a big thunderstorm... all the clocks are blinking and we found out the hard way that the hot water was turned off too! But that at least has been sorted out now, and I am shortly going to go and have a good hot shower.
So here we are, on our first morning in Canberra, waiting for an electrician to arrive to fix the problem. Jen and I have agreed that if nobody's called us back by noon (I've left messages at a number of places), then we're heading out to explore anyway. I mean, really... there are enough lights in the house for us to get by, and all the big deal stuff like the fridge and stove and hot water do work, so we can survive!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Boxing Day
You know, I'm beginning to understand why so many North Americans head to tropical places during the winter. :-)
We had a wonderfully lazy day today. Both Jen and I slept in (not as late as we'd've liked to, because of the birds) and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. We helped Ruth finish cleaning up from the party yesterday, including mopping the kitchen floor (for some reason, the kitchen was smelling really strongly of dead prawns, and it took quite some time to figure out where the smell was coming from... in the end it turned out to be the drip pan from under the fridge). We were really killing time until it was time to contact our families back home via web cam. I'm very proud of my parents - we got through to each other on the very first try! It was great to be able to see everyone in Kitchener and to be able to exchange Christmas greetings. Thanks to Dad and to Aunt Roseanne for helping me to set that up.
After a lunch of Christmas leftovers, we headed back to the beach for the afternoon! Of course the boogie boards went with us. This time, I really got the hang of it! If you push yourself off the bottom at just the right moment as a big wave is approaching you from behind, the wave will push you - and your board - all the way to the beach! COOL. This was way, WAY more fun than the splashing around we did yesterday - and I thought yesterday was pretty darn fun. Poor Jen... it took her quite a while to figure out the trick. It was kinda funny - for once, I was the expert (having boogie boarded once before, eight years ago in South Carolina), and Jen was the newbie! I know she was getting frustrated, but in the end she figured out the trick too!
After we'd been surfing for about 45 minutes, we went back to shore to take a bit of a rest. The ocean really does taste pretty bad... I was glad I'd brought my water bottle so I could swish my mouth out. When we headed back into the water for a second round, we encountered a nasty surprise - a portugese man-o-war (or, as they're known locally, blue bottles), which was being washed in on the surf! Fortunately we saw it in time and got out of the way as it was coming in. For those of you who aren't familiar with man-o-wars, check out the AVRU website, which has some good information and pictures. The blue bottle packs a nasty sting (as in horribly, horribly painful but not fatal) and we didn't want to leave this one floating around in the surf. So I scooped it out of the water on the far end of my boogie board and carried it way, waaaaay up the beach, far out of the way of foot traffic.
Yes, we did go back into the water, and we played around for a good long time before we finally decided we were cold enough that we needed to go in. And no, we didn't come across any more jellies. Thank goodness! The reality is, in surf like what we were swimming in, if a blue bottle got dumped on top of us, we'd never see it coming. So since we'd only encountered the one, and there was absolutely no sign of anyone else having any problems in the water whatsoever, we decided it was safe enough to head back in. No Mom, there are no deadly jellies in this part of Australia. That's only up in Queensland, where I'm taking you when you come to visit. :-)
Suffice it to say that boogie boarding is a blast and we will be carrying our boards with us when we head to Perth!
We had been invited up to Chris and Alan's apartment, which overlooks the beach, for afternoon tea. (Alan is Ruth's son.) So once we'd had our fill of the beach, Ruth, Jenna (Carroll's daughter, who'd joined us for the day), Jen and I headed over and up. Let me tell you, Chris and Alan have a beautiful view of Cronulla beach from their flat, which is on the 4th floor of a condo building literally across the street from the beach. We enjoyed some wonderful green tea and Christmas cake (yes, Mom, I ate Christmas cake... I even went back for seconds and thirds, it was yummy!). Alan and Chris are really fun and entertaining and we ended up talking with them until well after 7pm - at which point we figured we'd better head home so we could make poor Bill some dinner!
Tomorrow is a travel day. We'll be leaving Ruth's house mid-morning and heading to downtown Sydney to catch the train to Canberra... and the next stage of this journey begins.
Thanks, as always, to Ruth, Bill, Carroll, and everyone here in Sydney who have been so kind and hospitable to us. This place really is beginning to feel like home!
We had a wonderfully lazy day today. Both Jen and I slept in (not as late as we'd've liked to, because of the birds) and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. We helped Ruth finish cleaning up from the party yesterday, including mopping the kitchen floor (for some reason, the kitchen was smelling really strongly of dead prawns, and it took quite some time to figure out where the smell was coming from... in the end it turned out to be the drip pan from under the fridge). We were really killing time until it was time to contact our families back home via web cam. I'm very proud of my parents - we got through to each other on the very first try! It was great to be able to see everyone in Kitchener and to be able to exchange Christmas greetings. Thanks to Dad and to Aunt Roseanne for helping me to set that up.
After a lunch of Christmas leftovers, we headed back to the beach for the afternoon! Of course the boogie boards went with us. This time, I really got the hang of it! If you push yourself off the bottom at just the right moment as a big wave is approaching you from behind, the wave will push you - and your board - all the way to the beach! COOL. This was way, WAY more fun than the splashing around we did yesterday - and I thought yesterday was pretty darn fun. Poor Jen... it took her quite a while to figure out the trick. It was kinda funny - for once, I was the expert (having boogie boarded once before, eight years ago in South Carolina), and Jen was the newbie! I know she was getting frustrated, but in the end she figured out the trick too!
After we'd been surfing for about 45 minutes, we went back to shore to take a bit of a rest. The ocean really does taste pretty bad... I was glad I'd brought my water bottle so I could swish my mouth out. When we headed back into the water for a second round, we encountered a nasty surprise - a portugese man-o-war (or, as they're known locally, blue bottles), which was being washed in on the surf! Fortunately we saw it in time and got out of the way as it was coming in. For those of you who aren't familiar with man-o-wars, check out the AVRU website, which has some good information and pictures. The blue bottle packs a nasty sting (as in horribly, horribly painful but not fatal) and we didn't want to leave this one floating around in the surf. So I scooped it out of the water on the far end of my boogie board and carried it way, waaaaay up the beach, far out of the way of foot traffic.
Yes, we did go back into the water, and we played around for a good long time before we finally decided we were cold enough that we needed to go in. And no, we didn't come across any more jellies. Thank goodness! The reality is, in surf like what we were swimming in, if a blue bottle got dumped on top of us, we'd never see it coming. So since we'd only encountered the one, and there was absolutely no sign of anyone else having any problems in the water whatsoever, we decided it was safe enough to head back in. No Mom, there are no deadly jellies in this part of Australia. That's only up in Queensland, where I'm taking you when you come to visit. :-)
Suffice it to say that boogie boarding is a blast and we will be carrying our boards with us when we head to Perth!
We had been invited up to Chris and Alan's apartment, which overlooks the beach, for afternoon tea. (Alan is Ruth's son.) So once we'd had our fill of the beach, Ruth, Jenna (Carroll's daughter, who'd joined us for the day), Jen and I headed over and up. Let me tell you, Chris and Alan have a beautiful view of Cronulla beach from their flat, which is on the 4th floor of a condo building literally across the street from the beach. We enjoyed some wonderful green tea and Christmas cake (yes, Mom, I ate Christmas cake... I even went back for seconds and thirds, it was yummy!). Alan and Chris are really fun and entertaining and we ended up talking with them until well after 7pm - at which point we figured we'd better head home so we could make poor Bill some dinner!
Tomorrow is a travel day. We'll be leaving Ruth's house mid-morning and heading to downtown Sydney to catch the train to Canberra... and the next stage of this journey begins.
Thanks, as always, to Ruth, Bill, Carroll, and everyone here in Sydney who have been so kind and hospitable to us. This place really is beginning to feel like home!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Aussie Christmas
Merry Christmas, everybody! Time to catch y'all up on my adventures from the past couple of days.Jen and I flew to Sydney on the 7:15am flight from Melbourne on Christmas Eve day. Thanks to our house-mate Brendon, we enjoyed the luxury of a taxi ride to the airport instead of having to take public transit. (Brendon thought it was rather ridiculous that we were going to spend so long on the train/bus just to save $20, so he paid for our taxi! Thanks!). I must admit it was nice to have door-to-door service for once. Unsurprisingly, the airport was pretty crowded with folks trying to get away for the holidays. However, our flight wasn't fully booked and we had space to stretch out once the plane took off.
Carroll's husband Nick picked us up and took us to Ruth's house, where we ate breakfast and unpacked all the presents and goodies we brought. For this trip Jen and I each ended up bringing our big suitcases instead of just the little carry-ons, because we had so much stuff! Bill took one look at our bags as we entered the house and asked us if we were moving in. No such luck - but we did bring a ton of stuff for Jen's mom to take back to Canada with her when she comes to visit us in February! :-)
Next came a wonderful surprise - Ruth and Carroll had bought us boogie boards! When we got to the spare room where we'd be sleeping, we found them all wrapped up at the foot of our beds. (I mean really - boogie boards definitely fall into the category of presents that you can still identify even when they're wrapped up.) Both Jen and I were pretty much dancing around the house - Ruth and Carroll had originally told us that they had arranged to borrow some boogie boards for us to play on while we're here, and instead we have ones we can keep. Cool! They insisted that we unwrap them straight away. Unfortunately, it was too cold on Christmas Eve to even consider trying them out - we left that for Christmas Day.
Carroll had a doctor's appointment down near the beach at Cronulla, so she, Ruth, Jen and I all piled in the car and headed down together. While Carroll was at the doctor's, Ruth and Jen and I explored some of the shoreline near where we would be swimming later on. I really liked the rocks that made up one of the headlands at the end of the beach - clearly some parts of the rocks were softer than others and had eroded away in a cool pattern, leaving the surface pockmarked with craters. In many of the craters we found tiny pools of water, and they were full of life. I never seem to have as much time as I'd like to explore tidal pools though, and before I knew it we had to head back to Ruth's house again.
Jen and I went to the local Catholic church for the Christmas Eve mass. The church was a very modern building and didn't bear much resemblance to any other Catholic church I've been in. For one thing, the pews were arranged stadium style, with the rows behind being elevated so you could see over the rows in front. Also, the altar was square (not rectangular) and placed right in the centre of the church, not at one end - it was kinda like watching the service in a boxing ring! The band consisted of two electric guitars, an electric piano and a drum set! They also had a set of screens on which they projected a power-point type presentation throughout the service, including the words to all the hymns and prayers etc. But other than that, it was still church, and in some way it was comforting to be there. I am not a big church-goer any more; I find my spiritual connections in other ways, but there are still times when I feel that connection in church... and Christmas is definitely one of those times.
We spent the rest of Christmas Eve watching part two of "The Hogfather" a made-for-TV movie adaptation of Terry Pratchett's book. It was great... although I must admit I was amused just as much by watching Jen as by watching the show. She loves all of Pratchett's books but especially this one, and she kept giggling before the funny bits because she knew what was coming! We went to bed about 11:30 after a long and tiring day.
I woke up early on Christmas Day, probably around 6, with a secret mission to fulfill. Several weeks ago Jen's mom had mailed me her Christmas stocking, and I was under instructions to fill it with goodies and leave it by Jen's bed - secretly, if I could at all manage it. Well, after getting up to go to the bathroom at 6am, I thought that this would be the perfect time to put out the stocking. I made more noise than I'd hoped, rummaging through my suitcase to find the darn thing (and let me tell you, it was a bit of a challenge getting that thing packed in the first place without her knowing about it!). I thought I'd done a good job of being quiet, but in the end it turns out that Jen is better at faking being asleep than I am, and she knew what I was doing all along. What's so funny is, pretty much as soon as I'd settled back down to "sleep" for a while longer, Jen got up to use the bathroom and to "secretly" put out the stocking she'd put together for me! We gave up the farce of pretending to be asleep soon afterwards (well, actually I ended it by lobbing a pillow at her head) and we opened our stockings together. Ruth and Carroll had also put together stockings for us, and we opened them too... all the while cackling over the Aussie presents we got, like vegemite and sunscreen!
Here's where Ruth and Carroll's families' traditions began to differ significantly from what Jen and I are used to. We emerged for breakfast around 8am, kinda expecting that we would be opening the presents under the tree soon afterwards. Not so much! The tradition here is for the families to get together and enjoy their big meal - lunch, not dinner - first, and THEN open presents between the meal and dessert! Ha! Poor Jen... she was SOOOOOOOoooooo anticipating being able to open her presents, and in the end we didn't get to that part until almost 4! I know that my family would have gone bonkers too.
Instead, Carroll and her daughter Jenna took Jen and I to the beach, so we could cross that off our trip to-do list. All along, we've been pretty hell-bent that we would spend Christmas Day on the beach! Well, wouldn't you know it, Sydney is enjoying the coolest Christmas it's had for many years. Typically it's around 35C and really humid... well, today we'd be lucky if the temperature topped 22! Which is certainly a whole lot nicer than what we get in Canada at this time of the year, but let me tell you, it was a little nippy on the beach. But I'd had enough of being thwarted in our plans to enjoy the ocean. We were GOING IN - even if it was for 35 seconds of photos! So off we went.
I will admit that both Jen and I did more than a bit of squealing as we went into the water - those waves were COLD! But after the first big surf wave smacked us full in the face and we were soaked from head to toe, it wasn't that bad! We paddled our boards out into the surf and PLAYED. We could've stayed there all day. However, we were expected back at the house so that the families could begin lunch, and we hadn't put on sunscreen since we weren't expecting to be out there very long. So we played as much as we could, and then reluctantly headed back to the house. I had forgotten how terrible the ocean tastes. I feel like I spent a lot of our surfing time spitting out ocean water. Gotta work on that tomorrow, 'cause you can bet we're going back! Carroll took all our pics from the surfing and cobbled them together into a slideshow - which is on my facebook page should you care to look. All the photos from the day are in my "Christmas" album for you to enjoy too.
So after returning home and having our second showers of the day, it was time for Christmas lunch! Here, the big meal of the day is typically lunch, not dinner. Like at home, each family has their own traditional foods. We had roast beef, cold ham, pork loins, and slices of turkey breast. There was potato salad, a yummy concoction of cauliflower and cheese, beans, green salad, and roasted potatoes. We also had prawns, served chilled and in their shells and pork crackling, which is squares of cooked pig skin. MMMmmmmmmmm. What a feast! I understand that most years, all the dishes are served cold ('cause it's too darn hot out to even consider eating hot food!). It was a leisurely meal and we didn't finish eating until almost 3:30.
Then it was finally, FINALLY time for presents! I took a picture of the Christmas tree with all the presents under it. Christmas here in general is much more subdued than it is at home, and the emphasis is definitely on spending time with family and friends as opposed to on the number of presents one receives. Between all of Ruth's family, Carroll's family, and me and Jen, there were actually more people at the party today than we have in my family back home. The pile of presents, conversely, was only about a tenth of the size of what I am used to. I loved it.
Jen and I had brought the parcels we'd received in the mail from our friends and family back home, as well as the presents we'd bought each other. (Yes, we're both still waiting for parcels to arrive... hopefully they'll be in Melbourne when we get back from our January travels.) My brother, Dave, and his wife, Carly, gave me a beautiful stone and silver necklace. Cat mailed me a really cool crocheted fishy hat and some yummy gingerbread cookies (which miraculously did make it through quarantine). From her friend Dan's mom, Jen got a couple of cool books and a CD. I gave Jen a t-shirt from our trampoline club, a necklace, and a book. She got me two fish hangings for my walls that are really beautiful. Carroll and Ruth gave us presents too - we got biscuits, tea mugs, and Aussie calendars, and of course some chocolate. In return, we'd made CD's for the two of them - compilations of Canadian music and some fun music for them to play for their Guides. We'd also made tins of Jen's famous cookies for each of their families. Really, everything was wonderful!
For dessert we sampled real plum pudding. It had been marinated in port (I think) and set ablaze! As the pieces of pudding were handed out, Ruth's son Alan was sneakily sliding coins into each person's serving, before Ruth poured cream over top. I had forgotten about the tradition of including money in the pudding, and was kinda glad that Jen found her coin - so I knew to look for one in mine!
By this time it was well after 7pm and we needed some fresh air, so Jen and I went for a walk around the neighbourhood to see the Christmas lights. In our neighbourhood in Melbourne, very few houses were lit up, but here it was a whole different story! It still looks a little funny without the snow, but we sure saw a number of beautiful light displays as we wandered around the streets. I really liked the one of Santa, riding in a ute (like a pickup truck but not quite), being pulled along by six kangaroos. Ha ha!
When we returned to the house, we discovered that everyone still there had just finished tucking into the leftovers from lunch! Jen and I were pretty much stuffed already, but I managed to find the room to finish off the rest of the prawns and to eat a little bit of salad. And then before we knew it, it was time to clean up and send everyone on their way home!
It was a truly wonderful day, and I enjoyed every minute of it. My apologies to all my friends who were hoping/expecting to get bragging text messages from me today, about being on the beach and all - our cell phone service provider, Vodaphone, had network problems pretty much all day long. We could receive calls but not send them, nor could we send text messages. (According to a number of the folks at the party today, Vodaphone is apparently a little notorious for having this sort of problem on high-volume call days like Christmas. Ah well!) We'll try again tomorrow. So let me take this opportunity to wish you all again a very merry Christmas! I hope that however you are celebrating, you are surrounded by family and friends, and enjoying everything the holidays brings you.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Travel Itinerary
So... tomorrow at 4am, our big month-long adventure begins! While we will have internet access fairly reliably for the next week or so, things will definitely change after that. So to keep our families and friends from worrying too much, here's what we're up to:
Dec 24th: Get up at 4am, leave house by 4:30 so we can get to the airport on time, fly to Sydney (takes just over an hour by air) to stay with Bill and Ruth for Christmas.
Dec 25th: Spend at least part of the day on the beach, regardless of the weather forecast (which has not been all that promising).
Dec 27th: Catch a train to Canberra (about 4 hours).
Dec 27-Jan 3rd: Tour Canberra, the Snowy Mountains, and hopefully a bit of the NSW coast too. Many thanks - again! - to Nikki Coleman and her family, who are letting us house-sit for them in Canberra while they're off on their own adventures.
Jan 3rd: Catch a bus/train combination back to Melbourne (about 10 hours).
Jan 4th: Day off in Melbourne to do laundry and repack for the second part of the trip.
Jan 5th: Catch the Overland train to Adelaide (about 9 hours). Overnight in Adelaide.
Jan 6th: Catch the Indian Pacific train to Perth. We will be on the train until early in the morning on Jan 8th. Definitely no internet and likely no phone during this time.
Jan 8th - Jan 20th: Explore Perth and Western Australia. No, our plans aren't all that fixed at this point. Yes, Western Australia is a huge place and there's no way we'll see it all, but we'll do our best! We will likely be out of contact for a good portion of this time... based on our other road-trip experiences, there won't be a lot of cell phone reception where we're going (unless we're actually in Perth). Internet will likely be dependent on our ability to find internet cafes.
Jan 20th: Get back on the train to Adelaide. We'll be on the train until Jan 22nd.
Jan 22nd - 25th: Explore Adelaide. We'll be meeting up with the Glenleg Guides on Jan 23rd to do a campfire, which will be great!
Jan 25th: Catch the train back to Melbourne.
Jan 26th: SLEEP IN!
So wish us Bon Voyage! I'll try to keep the blog as updated as I can while we're traveling. I wish everyone a wonderful, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Best of luck in 2008! Cheerio!
Dec 24th: Get up at 4am, leave house by 4:30 so we can get to the airport on time, fly to Sydney (takes just over an hour by air) to stay with Bill and Ruth for Christmas.
Dec 25th: Spend at least part of the day on the beach, regardless of the weather forecast (which has not been all that promising).
Dec 27th: Catch a train to Canberra (about 4 hours).
Dec 27-Jan 3rd: Tour Canberra, the Snowy Mountains, and hopefully a bit of the NSW coast too. Many thanks - again! - to Nikki Coleman and her family, who are letting us house-sit for them in Canberra while they're off on their own adventures.
Jan 3rd: Catch a bus/train combination back to Melbourne (about 10 hours).
Jan 4th: Day off in Melbourne to do laundry and repack for the second part of the trip.
Jan 5th: Catch the Overland train to Adelaide (about 9 hours). Overnight in Adelaide.
Jan 6th: Catch the Indian Pacific train to Perth. We will be on the train until early in the morning on Jan 8th. Definitely no internet and likely no phone during this time.
Jan 8th - Jan 20th: Explore Perth and Western Australia. No, our plans aren't all that fixed at this point. Yes, Western Australia is a huge place and there's no way we'll see it all, but we'll do our best! We will likely be out of contact for a good portion of this time... based on our other road-trip experiences, there won't be a lot of cell phone reception where we're going (unless we're actually in Perth). Internet will likely be dependent on our ability to find internet cafes.
Jan 20th: Get back on the train to Adelaide. We'll be on the train until Jan 22nd.
Jan 22nd - 25th: Explore Adelaide. We'll be meeting up with the Glenleg Guides on Jan 23rd to do a campfire, which will be great!
Jan 25th: Catch the train back to Melbourne.
Jan 26th: SLEEP IN!
So wish us Bon Voyage! I'll try to keep the blog as updated as I can while we're traveling. I wish everyone a wonderful, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Best of luck in 2008! Cheerio!
House Christmas Party
Last night we held our house Christmas dinner. This marked the last time that all of my current house-mates would be together, so it was a fun but somewhat sad evening, if that makes any sense. Today we said goodbye to Irene, who has headed to Tasmania to spend the summer holiday with her boyfriend - and with any luck, she'll find work there and be able to stay! Irene, I wish you all the best.We also had a new guy move into our house yesterday, just in time for the party! His name is Olivier and he's on the far right of this photo. Olivier is from France and has been traveling around Australia for most of the last 8 months! He's come to Melbourne to find work for the next few months before he has to head back to France. Seems like arriving at "Balmy Lodge" just in time for a party is becoming a bit of a tradition! So we dragged him down to enjoy dinner with the rest of us.
The dinner itself was wonderful. Everyone contributed something. I made my (apparently famous) seven layer dip and also garlic mashed potatoes. Jen made trifle. Irene was in charge of the turkey, along with Yo, but he had to work at the last minute so Jen and I helped her to wash and prepare the bird. You know, I think that was the first time I've ever de-gibleted a turkey? EEEEW. The giblets weren't all nicely pre-packaged in a bag in the cavity; I had to do some, ah, rummaging around inside. Yummy. I also helped to stuff the bird. It was absolutely delicious.
Our other house-mates also contributed to the meal. Julianna made pigs in a blanket (pieces of sausage wrapped in bacon) and roasted parsnips, Brendon brought a pavlova (apparently a signature Aussie dessert, and MAN was it good). Yo helped make the veggie-friendly stuffing. Suzanna and Marya, who were unable to help with dinner prep as they were out all day, treated us all to a fantastic breakfast this morning instead. More on that later. It was just a wonderful evening. We pulled Christmas crackers and wore silly hats on our heads. Wine flowed freely but people were enjoying it, not just getting drunk.
After dinner was over and everything was cleaned up, we all squished ourselves into the living room to watch "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" (the original, of course, not the Jim Carey version!). It was funny - we actually had more people than couch spots for a while! And although the show was on, we were all more interested in talking to each other than watching the show! Brendon showed us how to do some silly drinking games (which Jen and I just sat back and laughed at; one of the things I love so much about this house is that we are not ostracised for being non-drinkers - we were just asked to shoot the video footage instead! Ha ha!)
A number of us retired to the upstairs common room to watch "Home Alone" (which, for some reason, has become THE Christmas movie to watch here) when it was obvious that the party in the living room wasn't going to be winding down any time soon. Unfortunately, I had a pretty wicked headache that had been slowly building all evening, so although I did genuinely try to stay up for the movie, I had to give up after about an hour and go to bed.
This morning, Suze and Maria hosted a champagne Christmas breakfast for all of us, and they served wentelteefjes, which are a Dutch version of what we know as French toast. So once again we all gathered together and had a leisurely breakfast. The weather both last night and today has been absolutely horrid, so unfortunately we weren't able to enjoy any of this wonderful food outside.
With the continuing downpour of rain all day long, pretty much everyone decided that today would be a good day for hibernating indoors. The Dutch girls have gotten Jen and I hooked on the TV show "Kyle XY". So far we've watched four episodes today, and as soon as I'm done this blog I'm heading downstairs again so we can watch another one, or two, or three...
One more day to go before our big trip starts! Jen and I tried to do some packing this afternoon but it proved difficult without having done the laundry - which we couldn't do because of the weather. Gah. So tomorrow's gonna be a busy day, with all the things we have to get done before we go. Jen's shocked at how much stuff we're taking with us to Sydney - we're each taking a big suitcase (we usually do our travels with just our carry-ons)! But between the gifts, parcels, and goodies we're taking for Christmas, the extra clothes etc. we're taking to Ruth's for storage until we can ship it all home, and our actual travel stuff, there was just no other way!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Random Stuff
So today I went and got my hair cut. It took me two hours. I am blaming this on the fact that some parts of Australia (like the hairdressers at the Barclay Mall, for example) appear to operate in their own time zone which has no connection to the rest of the world. I went in at 4:30 with my friend Irene, who assured me that I didn't need an appointment (even though she had made one). The place was packed! I got my name put on the client list and we sat down to wait. We were assured that the wait would only be half an hour. Well, Irene didn't get seen until 5:30 (her appointment was at 4:30); I didn't get seen until 6! All the time we were waiting, more and more people kept coming into the salon, hoping to get their hair cut, and the ladies in the salon kept telling everyone that the wait would be about half an hour. Gargh. Ironically, in the end I fared way better than Irene did - she was getting highlights done as well as a shampoo and cut... she didn't leave the hair salon until 7:30! Craziness.
I am still working on slide shows for summer camp. They seem to be taking me a ridiculously long time this year. I don't know why. Sometimes I wonder if I'm lacking in motivation because I am on holiday and so far away from home. Other times I'm sure I'm struggling because I still have no idea whether I have a job at camp next summer or not. In any case, I'm now working on the Week 4 slide show... then it's just down to the Passport canoe camp slide show and an easy-to-cobble-together promo slide show. I am still hoping to get everything done before I leave on my adventures on Monday morning. Wish me luck!
Jen made a big decision today that will affect our travelling and planning for the new year. For the past three months she's been supply teaching at a variety of schools around Melbourne, including a french immersion school. Well - the french immersion school loves her SO MUCH they basically tried offering her a permenant contract! Of course, that's not gonna work so well, what with her having to return to her real life in Canada and all... but she has accepted a shorter term contract which will see her working full time until at least the end of June. This is great - it reduces her stress about having to supply teach at icky schools, gives her more steady money, and the job itslef is one she's gonna love - she'll be teaching french, math, sport, and integrated studies. The school loves her so much that they're willing to let her have some time off in February when her Mom comes to visit us! As an added bonus for me, the school teaches half its subjects in french and the other half in english... so I'm going to go in and see if I can volunteer there for at least a few days a week when we come back from our January adventures. So congrats Jen!
Tonight we celebrated our friend Tarra's birthday. Her birthday isn't actually until tomorrow, but we've all got commitments tomorrow so tonight was the night of choice. Jen and I met Tarra downtown on Lygon Street and we wound up in a cute little cafe for some decadent cake and drinks. Let me explain about the cake. First, it was hideously expensive - almost $8 a slice! We split one slice between the three of us. It was Tim Tam cheesecake. For those of you who haven't experienced the joys of eating a Tim Tam yet, I can't fully explain this to you... let's just say it was DAMN GOOD cheesecake! I hadn't been down this stretch of Lygon Street before, and there are all sorts of funky shops that I am definitely going to have to come back and explore at some future time.
Tomorrow night we're having our house Christmas party. This could prove to be interesting, since the last time I looked, the turkey was still a solid, frozen lump. We gave up trying to defrost it in the fridge earlier today and now it is sitting in a bucket of water in our living room. I only hope it defrosts by tomorrow morning so we can cook it!
See - what did I tell you? All sorts of random stuff tonight.
I am still working on slide shows for summer camp. They seem to be taking me a ridiculously long time this year. I don't know why. Sometimes I wonder if I'm lacking in motivation because I am on holiday and so far away from home. Other times I'm sure I'm struggling because I still have no idea whether I have a job at camp next summer or not. In any case, I'm now working on the Week 4 slide show... then it's just down to the Passport canoe camp slide show and an easy-to-cobble-together promo slide show. I am still hoping to get everything done before I leave on my adventures on Monday morning. Wish me luck!
Jen made a big decision today that will affect our travelling and planning for the new year. For the past three months she's been supply teaching at a variety of schools around Melbourne, including a french immersion school. Well - the french immersion school loves her SO MUCH they basically tried offering her a permenant contract! Of course, that's not gonna work so well, what with her having to return to her real life in Canada and all... but she has accepted a shorter term contract which will see her working full time until at least the end of June. This is great - it reduces her stress about having to supply teach at icky schools, gives her more steady money, and the job itslef is one she's gonna love - she'll be teaching french, math, sport, and integrated studies. The school loves her so much that they're willing to let her have some time off in February when her Mom comes to visit us! As an added bonus for me, the school teaches half its subjects in french and the other half in english... so I'm going to go in and see if I can volunteer there for at least a few days a week when we come back from our January adventures. So congrats Jen!
Tonight we celebrated our friend Tarra's birthday. Her birthday isn't actually until tomorrow, but we've all got commitments tomorrow so tonight was the night of choice. Jen and I met Tarra downtown on Lygon Street and we wound up in a cute little cafe for some decadent cake and drinks. Let me explain about the cake. First, it was hideously expensive - almost $8 a slice! We split one slice between the three of us. It was Tim Tam cheesecake. For those of you who haven't experienced the joys of eating a Tim Tam yet, I can't fully explain this to you... let's just say it was DAMN GOOD cheesecake! I hadn't been down this stretch of Lygon Street before, and there are all sorts of funky shops that I am definitely going to have to come back and explore at some future time.
Tomorrow night we're having our house Christmas party. This could prove to be interesting, since the last time I looked, the turkey was still a solid, frozen lump. We gave up trying to defrost it in the fridge earlier today and now it is sitting in a bucket of water in our living room. I only hope it defrosts by tomorrow morning so we can cook it!
See - what did I tell you? All sorts of random stuff tonight.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Last of the Baking, and Visiting the Night Market
First off, I'd like to say thanks to the many folks who sent me chocolate-melting advice. I will remember the double-boiler trick for next time. The funny thing is, I've melted chocolate over low heat before (and often at camp, over a propane stove) without any problems! Jen and I have decided to blame cheap ingredients. We are, after all, on a bit of a budget. :-)
We finished the baking this morning with no further problems. I guess I was pretty darn tired after the day at the zoo yesterday, 'cause I slept all the way to 9:30 this morning and woke to find Jen gone! That's the first time that Jen's managed to sneak out of the room in the morning without me noticing. Anyway, she'd snuck out early to make the rest of the dough, which needed to be chilled before being baked. Once all that was prepped and in the fridge, she, Irene and I headed off to the supermarket for one more round of grocery shopping. With any luck that's the last shopping we have to do until the end of January when we return from our wanderings! Then this afternoon we baked peanut butter cookies and sugar cookies, and had everything cleaned up and hidden away before the rest of our house-mates got home. For a while there as we were packaging up tins of cookies, we were worried that we'd baked far too much - but in the end all the tins were filled and we only had a little bit of leftovers. You know, just enough for us to snack on. I swear it wasn't planned that way!
Tonight we headed off on another adventure - this time to the Night Market! This special market is held throughout the summer months (December - February) on Wednesday nights, down at the Victoria Market. Jen and I have been to Vic Market lots of times during the day, but since trampolining is also on Wednesday nights, we hadn't been able to check out the Night Market until this week. Let me tell you, it was pretty cool! The evening was hot and muggy and the market was crammed full of people - so the fruit smoothies we bought halfway through the evening were definitely needed. :-) There were stages set up at either end of the marketplace, and there were bands performing on each stage all night long. All these tables and chairs had appeared out of nowhere, and these were all packed with people listening to the music. One side of the market stalls had been transformed into a smorgasbord of food stalls representing dozens of different cultures. I'm glad we'd eaten dinner before heading to the market, otherwise I would've spent a lot more money on food!
And the shopping... oh, the shopping! I had been half-afraid that the Night Market would be just like the regular Vic Market, but held at night and with live music. (Don't get me wrong, I love Vic Market, but by now I pretty much have all the stalls memorized.) Instead, I was pleased to find the stalls filled with all sorts of local artisans and craftsmen, instead of the usual t-shirt and trinket sellers. If I hadn't had to mail all my Christmas presents home long ago, believe me, THIS is where I would have bought everything! I particularly liked the one artist who was selling pinned origami butterflies, made from various magazine photos or food labels. Each one had its own scientific name underneath, like "Milo chocolateato" (for one made from a Milo chocolate milk wrapper) or "Colateaus cocacoleata" (made from a Coke advertisement). While these were cool, I figured I could make 'em myself. I did cave in and buy some artwork from one stall, because it was so striking and different from anything else I've seen here so far. But other than that, I was very well-behaved, thank you very much!
I can't believe that Christmas is only days away now. Jen's working tomorrow (she's probably the only CRT in the entire city who's working tomorrow), and I've got a huge long list of stuff that's got to get done before we leave early Monday morning for Sydney. Jen's friend Dan sent her some Christmas music to play on her computer, including "Green Christmas" by the Barenaked Ladies... and that's pretty much how I feel about this upcoming holiday season. How strange that the weather is still getting warmer and the days are even longer - it feels like my internal clock and my senses are at war with each other, trying to figure out what time of year it really is!
We finished the baking this morning with no further problems. I guess I was pretty darn tired after the day at the zoo yesterday, 'cause I slept all the way to 9:30 this morning and woke to find Jen gone! That's the first time that Jen's managed to sneak out of the room in the morning without me noticing. Anyway, she'd snuck out early to make the rest of the dough, which needed to be chilled before being baked. Once all that was prepped and in the fridge, she, Irene and I headed off to the supermarket for one more round of grocery shopping. With any luck that's the last shopping we have to do until the end of January when we return from our wanderings! Then this afternoon we baked peanut butter cookies and sugar cookies, and had everything cleaned up and hidden away before the rest of our house-mates got home. For a while there as we were packaging up tins of cookies, we were worried that we'd baked far too much - but in the end all the tins were filled and we only had a little bit of leftovers. You know, just enough for us to snack on. I swear it wasn't planned that way!
Tonight we headed off on another adventure - this time to the Night Market! This special market is held throughout the summer months (December - February) on Wednesday nights, down at the Victoria Market. Jen and I have been to Vic Market lots of times during the day, but since trampolining is also on Wednesday nights, we hadn't been able to check out the Night Market until this week. Let me tell you, it was pretty cool! The evening was hot and muggy and the market was crammed full of people - so the fruit smoothies we bought halfway through the evening were definitely needed. :-) There were stages set up at either end of the marketplace, and there were bands performing on each stage all night long. All these tables and chairs had appeared out of nowhere, and these were all packed with people listening to the music. One side of the market stalls had been transformed into a smorgasbord of food stalls representing dozens of different cultures. I'm glad we'd eaten dinner before heading to the market, otherwise I would've spent a lot more money on food!
And the shopping... oh, the shopping! I had been half-afraid that the Night Market would be just like the regular Vic Market, but held at night and with live music. (Don't get me wrong, I love Vic Market, but by now I pretty much have all the stalls memorized.) Instead, I was pleased to find the stalls filled with all sorts of local artisans and craftsmen, instead of the usual t-shirt and trinket sellers. If I hadn't had to mail all my Christmas presents home long ago, believe me, THIS is where I would have bought everything! I particularly liked the one artist who was selling pinned origami butterflies, made from various magazine photos or food labels. Each one had its own scientific name underneath, like "Milo chocolateato" (for one made from a Milo chocolate milk wrapper) or "Colateaus cocacoleata" (made from a Coke advertisement). While these were cool, I figured I could make 'em myself. I did cave in and buy some artwork from one stall, because it was so striking and different from anything else I've seen here so far. But other than that, I was very well-behaved, thank you very much!
I can't believe that Christmas is only days away now. Jen's working tomorrow (she's probably the only CRT in the entire city who's working tomorrow), and I've got a huge long list of stuff that's got to get done before we leave early Monday morning for Sydney. Jen's friend Dan sent her some Christmas music to play on her computer, including "Green Christmas" by the Barenaked Ladies... and that's pretty much how I feel about this upcoming holiday season. How strange that the weather is still getting warmer and the days are even longer - it feels like my internal clock and my senses are at war with each other, trying to figure out what time of year it really is!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Melbourne Zoo
Round two of baking today didn't go quite as planned. Jen didn't realize that she'd have to chill the batter for the peanut butter cookies we're planning to make, and so we didn't have time to make those ones today (got started a wee bit late this morning). Instead, she decided that we'd make the marzipan mice that were also on our baking list. This should have been simple - you roll out little balls of marzipan, dip them in melted chocolate, place them on a tray and then add almond ears, decorative silver balls for eyes and coconut strips for tails.Well...
I got put in charge of melting the chocolate, and I have no idea what I did wrong, but boy did that chocolate not melt the way it was supposed to! We tried turning down the heat, turning up the heat, adding more margarine, adding more chocolate chips, nothing worked. The melted chocolate was grainy and lumpy and just plain gross! But we were running out of time and the marzipan was already rolled, so we tried our very best to dip the balls and get the mice made. We discovered the hard way that if you leave marzipan balls in hot melty chocolate for too long, the marzipan softens and melts too. The chocolate, for its part, did everything in its power to resist properly coating the balls. Let's just say that by the end of the whole fiasco, half the chocolate was burned to the bottom of the pot and I've dubbed the cookies "franken-mice". Ah well! Some of them are cute.
The reason for the rush at the end of the baking was that we'd planned to go and visit the Melbourne Zoo today. Irene's trying to fit in going to all the places around the city that she hasn't seen yet, since she leaves us on Saturday. We finally headed off for the zoo around 1pm, knowing that it closes at 5 - hoping that we'd have time to see it all. The zoo turned out to be quite deceptive in size - on the map it's not all that big, and the number of exhibits seemed fairly small compared to the Toronto zoo. But we wandered around it all afternoon and we didn't see everything - I might actually have to go back!
For the first couple of hours, to be honest, we weren't all that impressed. Many of the enclosures we passed were fairly small and full of thick vegetation - I would say that we only saw about half the animals! Rather disappointing when we paid almost $20 each to get in. I kept reminding myself that we do have a world-class zoo in Toronto, and that there won't be many zoos around that can compare with it. But our luck changed during the second part of the afternoon. First we walked through an excellent display of tree-top monkeys. This was essentially an elevated walkway with 'blinds' set up all along its length, looking into different enclosures - at tree-top level, where the monkeys actually hang out. This area was really well done... each enclosure was screened from those around around it by bamboo thickets, and being up high meant that we were seeing the habitats from the same level as the animals.
The best part of the zoo, though, was the elephant rainforest. I swear it felt like we had been suddenly transported to Indonesia. We walked through a section of rainforest jungle and emerged in... wait for it... an Indonesian farmers field! Complete with village huts and a broken down rickshaw. All the signage in this part of the zoo was written in Indonesian, with English translations underneath. It was excellent. There was also an excellent display in this part of the zoo on orangutans. Their enclosure was really cool, with lots of fun poles etc. to swing on. I guess that's one advantage that subtropical places like Melbourne have over Toronto - the animals can be out on exhibit pretty much all year round because the weather is so much warmer - so some of the exhibits, like the orangutan's, was pretty huge.
By this time it was past 4 and we still hadn't seen any of the Australian animal section - and Jen really, really wanted to see a wombat. So we double-timed it to the outback display. Just like at the Toronto Zoo, this was an open display where you could walk right through the middle and the animals were free to range all around you! There were different types of kangaroos and pademelons, and also a couple of emus (which are really disconcerting up close, since they're taller than I am!). At last we came to the wombat cave. Inside there were viewing windows where you could watch the wombats sleeping - but no wombats! We made Jen pose by the wombat sculpture in the cave, figuring it was the closest we were going to get to the real thing. But once the photos were taken and we were turning to leave, I glanced into the viewing windows again - and there was a wombat! So she did get to see one in the end. Upon exiting the wombat exhibit we came across the echidnas, who were out and actively searching for food. They're SO CUTE in a nearsighted, large-clawed, prickly sort of way. We watched them for as long as we could.
We had one more exhibit to go through at this point - a giant aviary displaying a huge variety of Australian birds. We practically ran through it (as we entered, the announcement came over the PA system that the zoo was closing). I will have to go back there again. The aviary was probably about as long as a soccer field and had three different habitat zones in it, and everywhere you looked there were birds, birds, birds. Very cool.
So suffice it to say that by the end of the afternoon we had hiked about a zillion kilometers and our feet were pretty sore! All we managed to do tonight when we got home was to collapse on the couch and eat leftovers!
Tomorrow will be a serious baking day, as we try to get the rest of the cookies done for Friday's party. It's supposed to rain, so it'll be a good day to stay home and take a break.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Yarra Bend Park
Jen and I were busy little girls today. We spent the morning preparing part of the Christmas present we're working on for our house-mates. I think it's finally dawned on me that this is the last week that we'll all be together... the Dutch girls and Irene are moving out on Friday, a whole bunch of us are going our separate ways (although ironically we're mostly heading to Sydney) for Christmas itself, and then by the time Jen and I get back from our January travels, everyone else in the house will have moved away and we'll be coming back to a whole slew of new house mates. We just hope they'll be as cool as the current lot are!Anyhow! Back to the busyness. We're baking cookies for all of our house-mates, but due to the fact that every time we bake cookies when others are home, the kitchen starts to resemble a vultures' convention, we knew that in order to get all this baking done we needed to wait until most people were out of the house. So we baked one batch of cookies today, and then we'll do more tomorrow and the final batch on Wednesday. This way all the goodies will be ready to go for Friday's party. While we were working on the cookies (white chocolate chip with macadamia nuts, mmmmm) we also caught up on laundry, email, and all that good stuff. Suffice it to say that by early afternoon, we were definitely ready to get out of the house for a while. The weather today was nice but not overly warm, so instead of going to the beach (which had been the original plan), we headed out to explore Yarra Bend Park.
There's a bit of a story behind the choice of this park as our destination. On the weekend when we were at the Moonlight Cinema, I was (of course) completely fascinated by the hundreds of fruit bats flying overhead. Back at home the next day, I did some poking around on the Internet and discovered that the bat colony (or camp, as they're properly called) was in Yarra Bend Park. So when we needed a destination to explore today, I suggested this park, and away we went. It turned out to be a bit of an adventure getting there, what with the trams and buses and trying to find bus stops and all, but a little over an hour after we'd set out, we arrived at the park. I had been expecting another manicured, formal park like the Botanical Gardens or Fitzroy Gardens, but this park was basically a chunk of wild bushland, just sitting in the heart of the city!
There were a couple of things I wanted to check out in the park. We stopped in at the boathouse to see how much it would cost to rent canoes or kayaks. While the prices are a little steep, it's still under $20 to rent a boat for an hour, so perhaps that's something Jen and I can look at doing at a later date. Of course I wanted to check out the bat camp, but it turned out to be on the exact opposite end of the park from where we were, and we didn't have time to walk there (the park is at least 300 acres, with an extremely windey river going through it, and a golf course, so it's not like we could easily get to the other side). I'll go back another day to look for the bats. So instead, we took a footpath that promised to lead to Dight Falls. These falls are significant because they mark the spot in the Yarra River which separates the fresh water upstream from the brackish/salty water downstream, leading out to Port Phillip Bay.
The route to the falls was not as well-marked as I would have liked, and several times we ended up detouring or backtracking to find the right way. In the process, we managed to get ourselves completely turned around, and lost all sense of direction! We did in the end find the falls, but it turns out that the falls had been converted into an artificial weir many years ago (apparently to supply the local flour mill, which has long since been demolished)... so they weren't as pretty as we would have liked. Ah well - can't win them all! At any rate, after resting for a bit at the falls and checking out the local heron and ducks (who were checking us out in return), we decided it was time to head back to town. Problem was, we were all turned around and had no idea which way we needed to go! It was a 2km or more walk back the way we had come, and we didn't really want to go that way, so we chose a footpath at random (not that it was signed or anything) and headed off.
It seems surreal in some ways that the first part of my Australian adventures are almost over. This coming weekend will mark a big milestone, with so many of our house-mates preparing to leave. There seems to be an unspoken agreement in the house that we're going to spend as much time together this week as we can. So tonight, a whole bunch of us sat down in the living room to watch the old movie "A Christmas Story", in the hopes of putting ourselves in the Christmas spirit. (This has been quite the challenge in a land of sunshine and warm weather!) Hopefully we'll be able to continue gathering for some evening Christmas cheer all week long.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Today We Got Arrested...
...and now that I know I've got your complete and undivided attention, let me tell you about today's adventures at the Old Melbourne Gaol.First off - I didn't know, until this week that is, that the word "gaol" is pronounced the same as "jail" - in fact, it's the older spelling of the word "jail". Which means that I've been mis-pronouncing that word in books for more years than I'd like to admit. :-)
We'd wanted to visit the Gaol because, while it is famous for having housed some of the most notorious criminals in Australia, it is by far the most famous for being the hanging place of that most famous of Australian bad guys, Ned Kelly. Embarrassingly, I had no idea who Ned Kelly was when I came to Australia - Jen had to bring me up to speed. In essence, he was a murderer and horse thief, but due to a whole series of circumstances he's ended up being revered as an extremely popular folk hero here - mostly for the way that he and his gang resisted arrest and for the home-made suits of armor they wore. If you'd like to read more about Ned Kelly's life of crime, there's lots of information on the "Ned Kelly: Iron Outlaw" website.
The Gaol was a fascinating place. It was built in the mid-1800's and over its lifetime, saw 136 hangings. The jail cells have mostly been converted into mini displays about various aspects of prison life. Like the prison we visited at Port Arthur in Tasmania, the inmates here spent a lot of their time in silence and isolation. Each prisoner had their own tiny cell with a solid door (not just bars), so when the doors were closed they were completely alone. When the prisoners were outside of their cells, they had to wear hoods over their faces and remain silent. Creepy!
I was more than a little creeped out by the deathmasks on display in many of the cells. Basically, after a convict was executed, a casting was taken of their face and from that, a sculpture of the person's head was made. In many of the cells in the Gaol, the masks were on display along with biographical information about each prisoner. Not all the condemned were men, either - I learned about a number of women who were hanged at the Gaol too. I thought that the range of people who had passed through the Gaol was interesting - the first two men to be hanged there were Aborigines, and the gallows didn't work properly at their executing, resulting in long, agonizing deaths. Some of the men who were hanged were hardened life-long criminals; others were discovered to be innocent long after they were dead. The womens' stories were equally varied, including one lady who poisoned her family and others who found themselves in desperate situations, prostituting themselves to keep bread on the table, or "baby farming", which means they ran completely inhumane daycares for other desperate young mothers.
We saw the gallows where Ned Kelly was hung, along with a fairly grisly display of items from the "hangman's trade", including nooses, restraining devices, and cat 'o' nine tails. We tried on a replica of Ned Kelly's famous armor and stared at his deathmask. In some of the cells, the museum staff had re-created what the cells would have looked like when they were inhabited by prisoners. Although these dioramas looked a little fake in real life, I was kinda surprised at how realistic they appear on camera! Check out my photos in my new album - "Melbourne - Part Three" for all the gory details.
Along with the self-guided tour of the Old Gaol, our ticket also included a guided tour of the City Watch House, which is right next door. Well! When we showed up for that tour, we discovered that it was one of those "reality" tours - so we were all treated as if we had just been arrested for various crimes! Sargent Flannigan, who took us all into custody, lined us up in rows and handed out our Charge Sheets. On each person's sheet it listed who we were representing and what our crimes had been, etc. Jen had been trafficking drugs, Irene was a thief, and I was arrested for stalking! We were all marched into the Watch House and booked. Then we underwent a full body search (minus the need for rubber gloves, as Sargent Flannigan pointed out, since we were tourists, ha ha! Phew!) and were taken down to our cells. The whole time, we were basically treated like prisoners. The City Watch House had been in use from the early 1900's to the mid 1990's - and basically when it was closed down and turned into a museum, they didn't remove ANYTHING. The site was preserved exactly as it was the day it shut down.
The entire site has been heritage listed for its historical importance. It was kinda nice, in a strange way, to see such an unlovely building so well-preserved for posterity. This included all the graffiti that was scrawled throughout the building! It was eerie, wandering the hallways once our brief incarceration was over, to read the graffiti that we knew had been placed there by real prisoners. It added another dimension to the whole experience.
The Watch House was a holding facility only; it's the place that detainees would be brought once they were arrested so they could await their trials. Hence the jail cells here were minimalist to put it mildly. In each cell (except the padded one; more on that later) there were three benches. Each cell could hold up to ten men. So apparently whomever was put in the cells first claimed the benches to sleep on, and everybody else had to sleep sitting up on the floor. Ick. There was a separate cell (with the words "love shack" scratched deeply into the door) set aside for sexual offenders, and a single cell and exercise yard set aside for females. The padded cell was used for detainees who might do harm to themselves or others. Naturally, Jen and I had to go inside to take a closer look, and Irene snapped a photo as evidence. (Gah.) At the end of the tour, another cell had been set up so we could take our own mug shots, which of course we did. Throughout the Watch House, audio installations played back actor's renditions of transcripts of what really went on in the jail. Again - creepy, but effective! Sure didn't make me want to spend the night there!
Apparently there are candlelight ghost tours of the Gaol and Watch House, but we took a pass. Entrance to the Gaol was fairly pricey (over $15 each, and no concession pricing!), and we didn't want to spend even more on the extra tour. But Jen and I have heard that there's a really good ghost tour of the jail in Perth, so when we're out that way in a few weeks, maybe we'll get to that one!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Moonlight Cinema
So in the end, we did make it to the Moonlight Cinema, and had a great time! Too bad the weather yesterday was so crappy... our original plan had been to cook up a bunch of picnic foods to take with us. But with the weather so iffy and cold, we weren't sure if we were going to actually go or not, so no food got made. Instead the bunch of us (me, Jen, Irene, Yo - as the Canadian contingent - and our house mates Maria, Suzanna, Maria's boyfriend Martin and Martin's friend John - as the Dutch contingent) stopped off at various fast-food places downtown before making our way to the Botanical Gardens. Meh.
It was an interesting evening! The Gardens are pretty big and although we'd been instructed to enter through Gate D, there were no signs once we were inside to point the way to the movie. We found it in the end, but I can't help but think we took a longer route getting there than we strictly needed to. Turned out they'd set up the outdoor cinema on a nice sloping hill overlooking the lake. When we got there, only a few other folks had arrived, and there was lots of space for us to spread out. Only problem was, there was no screen! We figured they were still setting up, and since all those already seated were all facing downhill towards the lake, that's what we did too. We rented these fun beanbag 'beds' for $6 each, and let me tell you, I was sure glad we had by the end of the evening! I swear I'm getting old, what with my back being so crotchety and all. If I'd had to sit or lie on the grass for the whole evening, I'm not sure I would've been able to move at the end. :-)
Suzanna, Maria and I needed to use the washroom, so once we had our seating are all set up, we headed off through the gardens to find the toilets. I like the stamp the cinema folks stamped on our wrists as we exited (so we could get back in); it said "I'll be back!" - which led us to doing all sorts of terrible Shwartzenegger-impressions all evening long. Anyhow, when we got back from the bathroom, they were finally hoisting the screen. It was SO COOL. It was essentially a huge, inflatable balloon - and larger than any indoor movie screen I've ever seen. Once it was fully inflated, it completely blocked the view of the lake... so I wonder if that's why the organizers waited until just before movie time to put it up?
The movie we watched was "Hairspray" and I've seen it before, but it's a great movie so I sure didn't mind seeing it again. But (not surprisingly) I kept getting distracted by the nighttime wildlife in the Gardens! Turns out that, just like Sydney, there's a big colony of flying foxes (fruit bats with a 3-foot-plus wingspan) living in and around the city. And as the sun set, the bats took flight. The first one I spotted I thought was a gull, it was that big... but then I realized the wings were all wrong. Then there was another, and another, and then HUNDREDS of them flying by. It was only afterwards that I realized what was so eerie about watching the bats - in the movies, whenever large hordes of bats are flying around, they are accompanied by a 'scary' screeching/skittering noise... but these bats were completely silent. I'm pretty sure that these bats don't use echolocation at all - after all, they eat fruit, not insects. I know they can make a pretty serious ruckus - I visited the bat colony in Sydney, after all - but when they fly, they're silent.
Anyhow, like I said, it was eerie watching all the bats fly by, but cool at the same time! Throughout the movie I kept glancing at the sky and there were always a few bats overhead, searching the Gardens for fruit. At the end of the movie we had to walk back through the Gardens, which have precious few lights along the walkways, I'd like to add! (Although I guess that makes sense since typically the Gardens are closed to the public in the evenings...) There were a couple places where it was pretty dark, and the trees ahead of us were making rustling sounds! Turned out that the bats were in the trees, eating the fruit - and they would flap off whenever we approached. Let me tell you, it's something else to have a bat with a 3-foot wingspan take off out of a tree right by your head!
We got to the tram stop and that's where I discovered that I'd lost my Metcard, which was annoying because (a) I'd already paid for my evening's ride, and now I would have to buy another ticket, and (b) there were still about 6 rides left on the card. Wah! Thankfully Jen and Irene were able to scrape together enough change that I could get on the tram. Blah. The tram ride home was... um... interesting. There was another group of folks about our age further down the tram, and they were very, very drunk. Which was annoying but wouldn't have been a problem except that a number of our house mates who had come to the movies with us were also drinking beer - on the tram! (Strictly speaking, drinking in public is not allowed here, and consuming alcohol on public transit can get you kicked off/arrested/fined, but it's still a common practice and generally folks just ignore it.) Anyway, since some of our friends were drinking beer, this one really large, really drunk guy came wandering up the tram and tried to make friends with us - in the hopes of scoring some free beer. Gotta give it to my house mate Yo, he knows how to handle himself... the guy who'd come over was a head taller and much more heavily-built than Yo, but Yo fended him off with friendly words and jokes, and the guy eventually left us alone. Phew! I mean, really... the guy was probably completely harmless, but I can't help it if my mental "warning" flags go up when confronted with a strange situation, can I?
So between last evening's adventures and the fact that I'd hardly slept the night before, I was pretty tired - so as soon as we got home I headed straight to bed!
Today we will be off on another 'adventure' this afternoon... to points unknown... bwa ha ha...
It was an interesting evening! The Gardens are pretty big and although we'd been instructed to enter through Gate D, there were no signs once we were inside to point the way to the movie. We found it in the end, but I can't help but think we took a longer route getting there than we strictly needed to. Turned out they'd set up the outdoor cinema on a nice sloping hill overlooking the lake. When we got there, only a few other folks had arrived, and there was lots of space for us to spread out. Only problem was, there was no screen! We figured they were still setting up, and since all those already seated were all facing downhill towards the lake, that's what we did too. We rented these fun beanbag 'beds' for $6 each, and let me tell you, I was sure glad we had by the end of the evening! I swear I'm getting old, what with my back being so crotchety and all. If I'd had to sit or lie on the grass for the whole evening, I'm not sure I would've been able to move at the end. :-)
Suzanna, Maria and I needed to use the washroom, so once we had our seating are all set up, we headed off through the gardens to find the toilets. I like the stamp the cinema folks stamped on our wrists as we exited (so we could get back in); it said "I'll be back!" - which led us to doing all sorts of terrible Shwartzenegger-impressions all evening long. Anyhow, when we got back from the bathroom, they were finally hoisting the screen. It was SO COOL. It was essentially a huge, inflatable balloon - and larger than any indoor movie screen I've ever seen. Once it was fully inflated, it completely blocked the view of the lake... so I wonder if that's why the organizers waited until just before movie time to put it up?
The movie we watched was "Hairspray" and I've seen it before, but it's a great movie so I sure didn't mind seeing it again. But (not surprisingly) I kept getting distracted by the nighttime wildlife in the Gardens! Turns out that, just like Sydney, there's a big colony of flying foxes (fruit bats with a 3-foot-plus wingspan) living in and around the city. And as the sun set, the bats took flight. The first one I spotted I thought was a gull, it was that big... but then I realized the wings were all wrong. Then there was another, and another, and then HUNDREDS of them flying by. It was only afterwards that I realized what was so eerie about watching the bats - in the movies, whenever large hordes of bats are flying around, they are accompanied by a 'scary' screeching/skittering noise... but these bats were completely silent. I'm pretty sure that these bats don't use echolocation at all - after all, they eat fruit, not insects. I know they can make a pretty serious ruckus - I visited the bat colony in Sydney, after all - but when they fly, they're silent.
Anyhow, like I said, it was eerie watching all the bats fly by, but cool at the same time! Throughout the movie I kept glancing at the sky and there were always a few bats overhead, searching the Gardens for fruit. At the end of the movie we had to walk back through the Gardens, which have precious few lights along the walkways, I'd like to add! (Although I guess that makes sense since typically the Gardens are closed to the public in the evenings...) There were a couple places where it was pretty dark, and the trees ahead of us were making rustling sounds! Turned out that the bats were in the trees, eating the fruit - and they would flap off whenever we approached. Let me tell you, it's something else to have a bat with a 3-foot wingspan take off out of a tree right by your head!
We got to the tram stop and that's where I discovered that I'd lost my Metcard, which was annoying because (a) I'd already paid for my evening's ride, and now I would have to buy another ticket, and (b) there were still about 6 rides left on the card. Wah! Thankfully Jen and Irene were able to scrape together enough change that I could get on the tram. Blah. The tram ride home was... um... interesting. There was another group of folks about our age further down the tram, and they were very, very drunk. Which was annoying but wouldn't have been a problem except that a number of our house mates who had come to the movies with us were also drinking beer - on the tram! (Strictly speaking, drinking in public is not allowed here, and consuming alcohol on public transit can get you kicked off/arrested/fined, but it's still a common practice and generally folks just ignore it.) Anyway, since some of our friends were drinking beer, this one really large, really drunk guy came wandering up the tram and tried to make friends with us - in the hopes of scoring some free beer. Gotta give it to my house mate Yo, he knows how to handle himself... the guy who'd come over was a head taller and much more heavily-built than Yo, but Yo fended him off with friendly words and jokes, and the guy eventually left us alone. Phew! I mean, really... the guy was probably completely harmless, but I can't help it if my mental "warning" flags go up when confronted with a strange situation, can I?
So between last evening's adventures and the fact that I'd hardly slept the night before, I was pretty tired - so as soon as we got home I headed straight to bed!
Today we will be off on another 'adventure' this afternoon... to points unknown... bwa ha ha...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
