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Published: December 1st 2015
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Aussie Slang
This is the only photo from the last couple days in Australia and my 9 hours in Hawaii. Fun slanguage! So when we left off I was just getting back from Cairns, Australia. The last few days in Australia were laid back. We went to the plastic surgeon again on Mon (and again learned so much! He's a master at his craft). After work, I went to the Queensland museum in south bank. A very nice (and free) museum! Learned all kinds of cool things: The Solomon islands are close, and back in the day (1800s), that's where some of the forced labor came from; there were many crops imported, so not all the exotic foods here are native; one example is sugar cane, which grew extremely well, and brought an increase in mice, which led to an increase in taipans (snakes); the sex of baby sea turtles is determined by the temperature of the sand they're laid in; the big sea cucumbers I saw while at the reef are actually a delicacy in some Asian cultures (ew)...and way more! Cool museum, then I walked home- a very long but very enjoyable walk through the queen street mall!
Tues we did dermpath again, then to Jim's. Another great day! I actually felt like we were fitting in with the residents
Eek
This was what welcomed us to Cairns on a banner in the airport walkway. That is a terrifying mascot. and if we were there longer it would be so much fun! It was sad to leave, especially when we were just starting to get to know them.
Wed was the day before we were leaving, so we slept in (again, the sun rose at 4:45am so that's relative) then made plans for a fun day. It was gorgeous weather, so we planned to head back to our favorite beach: South Bank Parklands. Another gorgeous day, then met up with Jim and Jacinta for dinner. Was a great way to say goodbye!
Thurs morning Rachel left early and I just bummed around until it was time to go to the airport. Fairly uneventful, and an easy flight to Hawaii. I slept for most of it, with the help of complementary wine (and a nice free sandwich/chips for dinner!) I'm really not sure what my internal clock should be doing so I figured just sleep a bunch. And thanks to the date line again, I left on Thanksgiving night and arrived in Hawaii hours later on Thanksgiving morning.
Hawaii was 9 hours with friends for Thanksgiving. Nice layover! And super hospitable friends- picked me up and dropped me off! Thanks Michelle!! And then I was off to Alaska. 2 days in Anchorage and 2 days in Fairbanks. That'll be the next (much colder), and probably last installment for this trip.
Musings about Australia:
1. They really do talk like the movies (g'day mate), or at least Jim does.
2. Everything is backwards (driving on the other side, blinker on the other side, walk on the other side of the street, go south to get colder, summer break was just starting in Dec, news reporter said "it's record breaking heat- beginning to feel like Christmas!")
3. Vegemite is an acquired taste, but if used sparingly on fresh-baked buttered toast isn't horrendous.
4. Australian cuisine is the same as American but with more fish and chips.
5. They have some fun slang words, which makes it like a different language sometimes (add cute endings to words: brekkie= breakfast, brolly= umbrella, mozzie=mosquito)
6. Koalas are super cute but man do they smell.
7. It was surprisingly entertaining to hear a cockatoo talk with an Australian accent.
8. Holy crap they have a lot of skin cancer here.
9. It's one of the hottest places and no one has central air. You're lucky to have a wall AC in the main room. And no screens on the windows! It's crazy.
10. I didn't see the enormous bugs and spiders I'd heard about, or snakes. It was just like a regular place.
11. The people are all extremely nice. It's like being in the Midwest, with accents.
12. Everywhere has free wifi.
13. Their TV sucks. Very limited choices of stations. Everything is on a delay (so "new" episodes of the handful of American tv shows were a couple weeks old. Plenty of time for spoilers). I've never watched so many Friends and Gilmore Girls reruns (and never want to again).
14. The unions have the country by the balls. Stores close at 5, including the giant mall, and this is considered ok. Capitalism is apparently dead.
15. Not tipping is amazing. I never realized how much I hate tipping. Especially dumb things like cabs. Maybe I'll just stop tipping. 😊
16. Which brings me to #16: service industry as a whole sucks. I guess tips are good motivators for people who may not love their jobs.
17. They LOVE coffee here. Coffee shop on every corner. I got used to drinking a flat white every day.
18. Flying in Australia is what it must have been like pre-9/11 (assuming they were using scanners and metal detectors back then).
19. The Cairns University mascot is freakin terrifying (the taipans).
20. There is not that much diversity here, though probably more so since the repealing of the Immigration Act in the 1970s (aka the White Alaska act)
21. That is one biiiig country.
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