As expected...

Ya know, I totally knew that the moment I hit the "publish" button here on this blog, plans would change.  There just seems to be something that happens where 90% of the time, the moment I think we've settled on something I tell someone about our plans, things go the entirely opposite direction. 

In this case, not necessarily the entirely opposite, as we might still be headed east, but I think the huge road trip has been postponed.  Ruthie talked to our postmaster today [after riding my bicycle - "push bike" down here - to the consulate since I had the car], just after his return from Queensland, and apparently the water there is still frigid.  Seeing as how the reason we were headed to the beautiful beaches of the land of sun, was to jump in the waters before the jellyfish swarmed.  Turns out that even though air temperatures up there don't drop below 20, the water temperatures certainly do.

So, instead, we're looking at other options: beachy and mountainous roads that don't necessarily require getting into the water; more, shorter road trips instead of one big one.  [Tomorrow, in spite of the dodgy forecast, we're off to the Grampians again.]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset that the huge road trip is postponed - there is still plenty to see and do within one and a half days from Melbourne.  But what gets me is that when I vocalize plans that are in the works, be it an email to Mom, or mentioning it to someone in passing at work, boom, the plans change. 

Ahh well.  That's how it goes.

In the mean time, very exciting news: the movers contacted us today.  As I was in the midst of a busy day, I forwarded them onto Ruthie, and it looks like we might have our furniture delivered by next Thursday.  [For the record, furniture delivery added to our change of plans, as it's easier to have Ruthie here waiting on the movers than me, since they offer no time window, I'm trying to save actual leave for said road trips, and plans for the massive trip included Ruthie and Lorraine leaving on Monday or Tuesday.]

So, if our furniture gets here on Thursday, October 13th, and it was picked up on Monday, July 18th, it will only have taken nearly two and a half months for us to get our stuff.  Well, they told us 45-90 days, so I guess 84 days is better than 90, right?

-EP

Off to the land of permanent sunshine?

Lorraine arrived on Monday.  And with her, she brought the good news of Ruthie’s unemployment being granted.  So this meant a few things.  One a sigh of relief since Uncle Sam has been seriously dragging his feet to repay me for travel expenses and get my foreign pay allowances sorted out.  Two, Ruthie felt like she could go shopping.  So what did she buy?  A ukulele.  Yes, the instrument that is key in one or three songs that make her cry within four notes.  So, after mocking her for a few minutes, asking her how she was going to be able to play while she’s crying, I picked it up and began to try to figure it out.  It’s been quite a few years since I’ve played a musical instrument – and never since I’ve attempted to play a guitar.  Sure, in my youth, I turned my violin on its side and picked at it a bit, but that doesn’t count for much.  So we’ll see which one of us actually learn to play this silly thing.

In the mean time, what Ruthie’s unemployment also means [as well as finally receiving word that Uncle Sam is working towards getting things sorted] that we can actually put together plans of a road trip.  Ruthie has the destination of Whitsunday picked, and I’ve started putting together a route.  Because I don’t have the luxury of two weeks off, it’s going to be kind of a piece-meal trip.  Ruthie and Lorraine will drive up via mid-country and more direct routes from Melbourne to Whitsunday.  That will probably take three days, at which point, I will fly into some Cairns, Townsville, or Whitsunday, depending on the price of flights.  Then we will begin our long journey down the [majority of the] east coast of Australia, including travelling the Pacific Highway between Brisbane and Sydney.  Or at least that’s the plan at this point.  I’m always hesitant to write down plans like this because it seems that I have a knack for spelling out how I foresee them, only have them be the complete opposite when the time comes.  

-EP

We can haz furniture?

So our stuff is apparently in the country.  I got notice today [via request for more paperwork to be filed] that customs and quarantine has to clear everything, and then we'll be able to schedule our delivery.  Ruthie is excited just to know our stuff has arrived somewhere in Australia.  Me, I just want our stuff.  I think knowing it's here and has to be cleared customs is weighty knowledge: if it takes another month, it's just fuel for frustration.  Of course, on the other hand, if our stuff clears quarantine in two days, it'll be a miracle in government process.  Not holding my breath on that one ...

-EP

An ode to Ruthie

At the risk of this being the blog version of a public display of affection, I'm going to warn you: I'm being nice to Ruthie in public.  Since it does, in fact, happen occasionally, I figure it's about time for another one of those moments.

Without Ruthie, I seriously don't know how I would've made the transition to life in Australia.  Sure, I managed to finagle a 5-day paid trip from Sydney to Melbourne that took less, giving us a couple days/nights fully covered at gov't expense once we arrived here.  But after that, I really did very little.  It was Ruthie who found me a bicycle.  It was Ruthie who found us an apartment.  It was Ruthie who found us a car.

Seriously, without Ruthie, I either would've had to spend a couple nights up really late, or taken a couple days' worth of leave in order to find a place to live.  The way they do things around here in terms of real estate, make it rather inconvenient for someone with a full time job to do it on their own.  Sure, we managed to see about four houses in one Saturday morning.  But none of them were really worth anything.  And even before all that, it was Ruthie who culled all the available properties on the internet down to a short-and-sweet list for us to shop.  Then, it was Ruthie, who on a Monday afternoon [while I was at work], met with a realtor, visited an apartment, and charmed him into making us a top priority, so we could move in [and out of our hotel] as soon as possible. 


Once we'd made a decision to get a car, it was Ruthie who fought the irritatingly slow and random internet at McDonald's to search the used car listings to find us something in our price range.  She then contacted dozens of people, and finally worked out some meeting times with the ones we liked best.  Sure, I might've been the deciding factor in the car, but it was Ruthie's hard work that made it possible.


So it was only fitting that after we moved into our apartment, that even with the rain, we were presented with quite the visual reward:

And even though we haven't had that many rainy afternoons since our first week in the apartment, I keep hoping we'll have plenty more of these, Ruthie's Rainbows.

-EP

Go left to turn right

So one of the topics I'd thought of in my long, boring meeting was driving on the opposite side of the road.  At the time of my meeting [three-ish weeks ago], I had noted to myself that I was finally getting comfortable with driving on the "wrong" side of the street.  At this point, six weeks in our journey, I would say I've definitely gotten the hang of it.  I've even managed to stop drifting to the left, wanting to put myself over the left side of the lane.  What continues to get me is unmarked car parks [parking lots].  Of all places, if I make a mistake, it's right after I've backed out of a spot and have to make a quick lane change.

Fortunately, what has helped with getting adjusted to driving on the left is the amount of paint they've put on the street.  At a good 75% of intersections, they've painted lines guiding each lane through the intersection - and the bigger the intersection, the more chances there are it's going to have guidelines and the more guidelines there will be.  And at almost all intersections, there's a little sign with an arrow that says "Keep left".  Those help.  A lot.  When first getting used to being over here, I got most nervous at intersections.  Those lines made it better.

What made it way worse, though, was the lack of clearly marked streets.  Road signs here, in some instances, might as well be non existent.  Sure, a lot of streets are actually marked - and some are even marked well - but the majority of them will have a little tiny sign on the corner.  And usually that sign is buried in a mix of building signs or other tourist signs.  It's like having a little Where's Waldo game every time you come to an intersection.  The other day, we were stopped at an intersection, looking around, and we noticed that the intersecting street was, once again, poorly marked.  Instead, what was much more visible was a sign that was constructed and printed like a street sign that read "Blood Donors".  Sure, I'm excited that if I want to donate blood, I can just follow a street marker.  But if I needed to turn on Flinders, and that was Flinders, and I missed it because I lost that block's Where's Waldo challenge ... well ... okay, so it's not so bad to miss one street.  But it doesn't stop the annoyance when you're trying to avoid getting lost.

Of all the street signs, the one that was the newest to us, and the most confusing was the sign for the hook turn.  Ruthie had even read about this magical traffic maneuver before we arrived, and she was still befuddled.  In sections of the CBD, there are places where you have to move over to the left side of the left lane in the middle of an intersection, with your right turn signal on, and wait until the traffic lights change before you can go.  And not like in NJ, where you have an entire off-ramp lane dedicated to making the turn across traffic.  You're actually blocking an intersection. Confused?  Yeah. Here's the street sign [from Wikipedia]:

But, I think I get it now.  It makes sense, in a way, as to how it reduces congestion [at times], and prevents blocking tram tracks.  But that certainly doesn't make it any less confusing at times.  So far, I would say I've successfully made three hook turns.  The first time I was supposed to do one, I completely ignored it because I was in the wrong lane and there was no traffic [or trams] around me.

So next up will be getting used to my motorcycle on this side of the street.  There is an entire different set of rules that seem to apply to motorbikes here, and I'm actually really excited to try them out - but that's a different post.

Happy turning!

-EP

...and always carry an umbrella.

We Americans like to complain that our weathermen have no idea what they're talking about.  However, on any given day, it's likely that they're close.  The chances of a weather forecast on the central east coast to be incredibly wrong is actually pretty low.  Of course, I have no hard facts or statistics for this, but whatever.

In Australia, however, the forecast for the day changes up until 10 minutes after the fact.  It is currently just about 2.30p on Friday afternoon.  On Wednesday, the forecast for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, was sunny, highs in the mid 20s.  On Thursday morning, the forecast for Friday, was partly cloudy, Saturday and Sunday sunny and warm.  On Thursday afternoon, the forecast for Friday was sunny and low 20s, Saturday sunny and warm, and Sunday partly cloudy.  On Friday morning, I rolled out of bed to cloudy skies and a cool breeze.  The forecast for Friday was cloudy and high of 20, Saturday still sunny and warm, and Sunday, cloudy and highs of 20.  And now, as I write this while sitting on the balcony in the sunshine, there's barely a cloud in the sky, and it's 22 degrees [and the forecast for tomorrow is sunny, highs of 26, and showers in the afternoon].  So, yeah.  Good job guys.

Upon having a conversation with a coworker about the weather, his claim was that Australians are crap at predicting cold weather, but pretty spot on when it comes to the summer-time temps.  So we'll see.  For what it's worth, his justification sounded legitimate due to his technical jargon referring to completely erratic winds that surround southern Australia during winter, and I'm no expert, so I'm going to go with it.

In the mean time, I've learned to expect the unexpected.  I wear/take a jacket with me all the time, and often spend half the day with it on and half the day without.  This morning I started off with jeans and a jacket, and now I'm sitting on here barefoot and in shorts and a t-shirt.  I also find myself just barely making it to work before the rain hits - where it will rain pretty solid for an hour, and then be over.  I think last week it rained for the entire morning, and that was actually pretty miserable by Aussie standards. 

On that note, whenever the locals bring up the weather, finding out that we're not from 'round here, they apologise for the crap weather.  Seriously?  Sure we arrived here as winter was ending, but really, if your winter is comprised of some rain and temps in the teens, I can totally handle that.

Note: all temps are in Celsius - I've started to make the switch.

-EP

On penguins and people

For the second Friday in a row, I've ditched work in favour of doing something resembling sight seeing. 

Last Friday was a trip to Healesville Sanctuary, where with beautiful weather [mostly sunny, 60ish], we almost had the place to ourselves.  I think we might have seen 26 other people, and thus many more animals.  At this point half of the animals blur together, which is fine, because that clearly leaves the awesome ones to stand out.  And by awesome ones, I mean, dingoes, roos, koalas, wombats, tazmanian devils, the lyrebird, and most importantly, the platypus.  Well, the tazmanian devil was kind of a fail, as we only saw one and it was sleeping deeply burrowed in its den, it wasn't much to see.  So next time, hopefully.  But the great surprise was the wombats.  When we arrived, we were presented with signs that the wombats were not in their habitat.  To our surprise, when we visited the hospital, we got to see little wombats climbing around their pen.  [We also got to see two joeys up pretty close, so that was cool, too.]  The wombats were way cute.

For a bit extra above the entrance fee, we were able to hang out with some dingoes.  We could've gotten up close and personal with koalas or roos, too, but we figured we'd save that for another time.  Next on the awesome list would be the platypus.  Firstly, I expected them to be bigger.  Second, they remind me much of otters: playful.  Once our eyes finally acclimated to the dark rooms, we started to spot the platypuses darting around their tanks, zooming back and forth.  I honestly can't remember the last time I was actually giddy to be watching animals. 

On the unexpected awesome list is the lyrebird.  The range of sounds, voices, and vocals that this thing produced was nothing short of amazing.  I think Ruthie might even have a new favourite bird feather, too.

But onto the subject of this here post: penguins.  This past Friday was a trip to Phillip Island to see a penguin march.  Phillip Island is home of the smallest penguins of the 17 different types, and man they are cute.  My comment about giddy while seeing animals?  Yeah, twice in two weeks.  Seriously, watching them waddle up from the surf, across the beach, to their sheltres, in groups of a dozen or so was a sight to be seen.

Except for when the tourists stood in your way.  I don't think I've ever gone through such a range of emotions so quickly: from awe to awesome fury and back to insides melting at sheer volumes of cuteness.  I don't think I can do justice to describe just how rude people can be.  The irony though, was the waddling.  To set the stage, we were supposed to be seated from the sand up in large, amphitheatre-style seats.  The ranger made his speech before the march, calmly explaining how photography was strictly prohibited, and clearly explained that people needed to remain seated in order to allow viewing for all those in attendance.  What seems only natural to me, is that if you are attending, say, a movie, or a parade, do you get up and walk around whenever you feel like it to change your view?  No.  But apparently when viewing the penguin parade, all that sense goes out the window.  I mean, at one point, I had to tap a bloke on the shoulder to ask him to sit down or get out of the way.  Anyways, the humour in all that frustration is the fact that people, while running around for a better view, did the kind of half-ducking crouch walk back and forth across the sand.  So here we were, watching people waddle around in front of us to watch the penguins waddling up from the ocean.

But back to happy, cute, squishy thoughts ... like penguins and platypuses and wombats.  Sooo cute!

-EP