As great as the public transportation is here, and as many places as it can take you, when traveling with a toddler, a car makes all the difference. So this weekend we rented one and went on a driving adventure. Our adventure began by a few exciting near death experiences as Les acclimated to driving on the left. Since we live in a busy high-traffic area, there was no nice quiet suburb to practice in. I’ll say this much, it is very hard to mentally make the shift especially in a heavy traffic area where instincts come in to play. I’m [View Full Entry]

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Have I mentioned that there are no screens in our apartment? Like heat, they don’t do screens. No one has them. I’ve asked about it and the conversation always goes like this. “What? You mean like fly screens? To keep flies out?” The Aussie will ask. I’ll reply. “Well, sure, flies but also you know other things, birds, mice, leaves, stray cats - - just whatever. Screens are also handy to keep things, like children, in.” They always look mystified and answer. “Well . . . we really just don’t have any flies.” And that&rsquo [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday (our Thursday) was a brilliant sunny day and Les actually had it off, so we decided to brave the famous cliff walk, stairs and all. We took Abby in her stroller and just mentally geared up for lots of portages, so to speak, up and down the cliffs. In all, there were about 8 sets of stairs and only one was so heinously steep that we took her out and carried her. Well, it’s just a great walk. Worth every pulled muscle. It winds along the cliffs from Bondi Beach all the way south to Coogee Beach. In between you [View Full Entry]

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Ramblings on Tuesday Well today we had some of the ‘down’ in down under. Just one of those days where I realized as glamorous and fun as it is to be in Australia, I still have to get groceries , Abby still seems to have 8 billion molars yet to cut thru that seem to pain her most in the middle of the checkout lines, and the three flights of stairs up to our apartment are not going to be ‘great’ for getting me in shape, they are just flat out SUPER annoying. So there it is. Tedium is an international [View Full Entry]

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Kites and Cliffs and Charismatics This weekend was the ‘Festival of the Winds’ down at the beach. In our minds we were envisioning the sky completely covered in kites. Which naturally led me to imagine hundreds of tangled kite strings and grumpy kite enthusiasts. In reality, it was a very orderly set up. There was a blocked off section of the beach where the big guns of kiting were allowed to do their thing. These were the huge life size dragons and car sized pinwheels that were really more balloon-like in that they just hovered near the ground. The other people [View Full Entry]

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Thursday Night September 8, 2005 Let me just begin by saying that Vanilla Custard is NOT a suitable substitute for flavored creamer. Secondly, thanks for all the research on the church. We’ll give it a whirl and see how it goes. Finally, my dad has suggested that maybe the birds that I think look like Cockatoos, ARE in fact wild Cockatoos. That’d be exciting, like living in our own jungle minus the bugs and humidity. Speaking of weather, I realize I’ve talked a lot about the lack of heat because it’s so cold. But the actual daytime is fairly warm. Warm [View Full Entry]

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There are wild cockatoo looking birds the size of big seagulls that fly around our neighborhood as well as a flock of smallish parrots. There is not a belief in picking up after your dog. The dogs sort of free-style which makes for some gnarly side walks, but, the upside is, there are no dogs allowed on the beaches or parks so the free-styling is contained. No flavored creamer! I’m considering vanilla flavored custard as a substitute. Will report back. The beach is literally covered in surfers. The waves are HUGE and the water is cold. The surfers run, barefoot, in [View Full Entry]

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We 'practiced' going to Les' office today and took a few photos in the process. This proves we are really here! Ok my time at the intenet cafe is running out and I've added the photos but they don't appear to be showing up to the general public. Sorry - will work on that next time. Some day we hope to get internet at home - in the mean time I found a wireless cafe and brought my laptop over while Abby is napping and can upload stuff I wrote at home. [View Full Entry]

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It’s been kind of like Survivor. No voting or anything, but still, dropped off in the middle of a strange place with no real instructions and told “Ok, live!”. Our new apartment is really perfect for us, it’s beautiful and modern and has a nice long hallway that A can run down. It’s also in a location we had only hoped for. Just a 5 min walk to Bondi Beach and all the stores and cafés and fun any family could ever want. That said, it was pouring rain and about 45 degrees when we moved our suitcases in and [View Full Entry]

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The Flight It’s a hazy dim memory. Car seats that didn’t fit into coach class. Cheerios sailing through the air. Pipe cleaners and pom poms and popsicle sticks. Car seats that did fit into business class, but little girls refusing to sit in them. More cheerios, but mixed, thankfully, with free business class wine. It wasn’t so bad I guess. I can’t recommend flying to Australia with a baby, but all things considered it was bearable. The leg from Bos to LA was fairly miserable when our upgrade fell through. But we managed to fashion a bed out of the plane [View Full Entry]

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