Blogs from New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 1124

Sydney to Melbourne Journal # 37 2/8/06 We have been in Australia now for 2 1/2 weeks and so far it's very interesting. The Australians drive on the wrong side of the road, which is the right side and they talk in an Australian accent. They have large rat-like bouncing animals that they call kangaroos and they have pig-like wombats. They have koalas that walk like bears. Austalia is very similar to the USA; they have the same technology, wear the same clothes, watch the same movies and eat the same food, only they have meat pies which are very good. The money is made out of a plasticy material and the coins go from the smallest being worth the most and the biggest being worth the least. Everything is more expensive than the USA. For ... read more

How ya going? Well we are back in Sydney. We've had an insane last few days. But before I tell you all about that I have just one thing to say. I am currently in the house of a true Aussie family (possibly one of the nicest families I've ever met) and I get to sleep on a real mattress, and eat homemade food, and watch TV, and use the internet whenever I please (without paying), and wash my clothes in a real washing machine, and use real towels (my towel for the last month has been the same one i use on the beach, no worries, i do wash it from time to time, possibly not as often as is hygenically favoured but I'm living out of a knapsack people, leave me alone). Now how ... read more

Odds And Ends Feb 19, 2006 Things are winding down here. We’ve started packing and stopped buying the largest size of milk. We are also mostly eating takeout food again as we transition out of a permanent residence to just-passing-through status. Naturally it is now, as we are about to leave, that I finally bought my one billionth smoothie and was promoted to the VIP level. It was all very exciting. I was given a free smoothie (extra jumbo size) and I received a VIP card that will give me 10% off for the rest of my life. I also get a free smoothie on my birthday. Whoohoo! Too bad my birthday is 12 days after we leave the country. Still, it’s nice to be a VIP if only for a few days. I don’t suppose ... read more

Sar, Lee and I wonder what to do for the afternoon, and decide on lawn bowling at the Anzec club! It's a cool pastime in Sydney with the young, as you can bowl and drink in the sunshine at the sametime! Lee invited his mate Jason so we played boys v girls. The girls were winning for the first hour, but then were overtaken by the boys by the end of the 2 hours. The afternoon drinking got the better of us (that's we Sar and I thought anyway!). L & S had a few friends around in the evening to watch the rugby.... read more

After two weeks settling into teaching at CCGS, we were ready for a day out. We decided to head out to the Australian Reptile Park - about 30 minutes away from Copa. The park isn't big - but it has a lot of wildlife - both in cages and free-ranging. It was a perfect day - only 24 degrees with a nice breeze. We still needed to sleep in, so didn't get there until after noon... just in time to catch the end of the show on Funnel Web spiders. Now at least we know what we're supposed to be looking for in our shoes! After the spider show came Eric's feeding time. Eric is a 5.5m long "salty" crocodile. They only feed him little bits at a time so that he'll always perform when needed. ... read more