Yesterday we went with friends to check out Barrington Tops. We tried to do Barrington Tops when A.J. was visiting, but according to Eric, A.J. and I did not correctly navigate us to the real Barrington Tops. Strangely enough, A.J. and I thought that a brown sign that said "Barrington Tops National Park" with an arrow that pointed left meant we should go that way. So, yesterday, Eric was determined to get to the "real" Barrington Tops and that meant not following those signs. Instead, we would go to one of the "i" stores the Aussies have sprinkled everywhere to get the needed information and maps.
We stopped at the Gloucester "i" store and encountered Lorraine. She was a kick. She gave us all sorts of good information, stories, and maps. My favorite was the story of the group of Chinese tourists who ran across a sizable lace monitor (goanna) and they all started pointing and yelling "clocodile". The goanna thought maybe he just might like Chinese food so they had to leave before the "clocodile" got them.
Armed with information and maps, we first fortified ourselves with a chicken, curry, or mushroom pie at the local bakery except Eric who had a sandwich (weirdo), and then sallied forth into the hills. We drove a while on fairly level roads, but as we started to climb the road suddenly turned into gravel and dusty gravel at that. As the elevation increased we noticed a welcome drop in temperature. It was over 100 degrees when we started, but at 1500 meters elevation it was more like 80 - much better. We got out for the first walk at Honeysuckle something-or-other. It was a 30 minute return walk (round-trip) so off we went. It was a little damp and Ron was setting a brisk pace. We were back in just under 15 minutes and a bit disappointed that it wasn't all that interesting. Little did we know.
We hopped back into the car and took off for the next point of interest which was Thunderbolt Lookout. The lookout was a 300 meter walk. We got out of the car to go and I just happened to look down because I felt something on my leg. I wigged out because there was a creature there and got it off as quickly as I could not caring one whit about identifying it first. The quick look I got made me think it might have been an inch worm - that was until I looked at my leg again. There nestled next to my sock was a black thing which I was horrified to realize was a leech! I got that off as fast as I could and it bled a bit because it was in the process of attaching itself for some lunch. Eeek!
We realized I must have picked it up on the first walk and as you can imagine our entire foursome immediately commenced with our best Chubby Checker imitation - doing the twist in earnest to complete a thorough inspection for leeches. Finding no more, we next debated whether or not we wanted to do the hike since we now knew it to be true that leeches can just drop from leaves when a potential meal passes by. Attempting to show some Aussie spirit, we decided to do the short hike. The lookout was nice and showed a great expanse of heavily forested area below.
The view was somewhat diminished in my eyes since I had the misfortune of brushing against a stinging nettle plant; bushwalking was definitely starting to lose its allure for me. I was starting to feel like the weak animal of the herd - you know, the one the lions have for dinner. But Eric unwittingly came to my rescue by noticing there was a black thing on his sock. Another leech! He yanked it off only to realize it had been a bit more attached than mine was - you know, like mine was at the hors d'oeuvres and his had started the main course. He had more blood on his sock than I did which was disconcerting because the best prewash spray they have here we have dubbed "Spray 'n Wish" as in that blood may be there to stay.
After we all did the twist one more time, we checked out some marshes and then moved onto an area where they did an experiment years ago with planting firs. The firs did very well and were now quite dense. We took a quick walk through the firs and the meadow behind them, but Eric also brushed against some stinging nettles. We both had a little tingly/throbby sensation at the point of contact the rest of the evening - nasty things they are.
We went through the dingo gate and just like that we were on the other side of Barrington Tops. I think we expected it to be a bit more scenic (and less leechy) than it turned out to be, but it was on our list of things to see and do, so we can cross it off the list. Heaven knows the leeches and stinging nettles have been completely blacked out on that list because we really don't want to do that again.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Happy Australia Day!
Australia Day, January 26th, is the day Australians commemorate the First Fleet's 1788 arrival in Sydney Cove. As the ships held many convicts and were coming to start a colony, it isn't exactly equivalent to our July 4th celebration, but close enough. Eric and I originally planned to spend Australia Day with friends, Ron and Pam, in Sydney but my health misadventures made that a bad idea. In the end we decided Eric should proceed with the original plan and I would spend the afternoon at a coworker's celebration.
Eric left before 6:30 AM and spent the entire day exploring some of the "real" Sydney using Ron's store of information from growing up there. Even though they opted not to stay for the fireworks show, they'll be getting back real late. I look forward to the next time we get to go to Sydney so Eric can show me all the cool places he now has in his hip pocket.
I spent the afternoon doing another version of the real Aussie experience. I got to eat handmade meat pies made by Aussies who clearly had some experience in this. I found out Aussies all go for a swim on Australia Day. There were Australian flags everywhere, it was hot, and there was plenty of alcohol. Percy the pelican was hanging around and got a little excited at one point because he thought he was going to get a bit of the good eats, too, but his day did not get made. There was, of course, a sausage sizzle - what else would Aussies eat on their day?
Eric's Dad's surgery went very well so thanks for your prayers. I'm slowly improving and have greatly improved mobility. I am now dealing with a lot of soreness and weakness, but I can move much better so I am counting my blessings.
Eric left before 6:30 AM and spent the entire day exploring some of the "real" Sydney using Ron's store of information from growing up there. Even though they opted not to stay for the fireworks show, they'll be getting back real late. I look forward to the next time we get to go to Sydney so Eric can show me all the cool places he now has in his hip pocket.
I spent the afternoon doing another version of the real Aussie experience. I got to eat handmade meat pies made by Aussies who clearly had some experience in this. I found out Aussies all go for a swim on Australia Day. There were Australian flags everywhere, it was hot, and there was plenty of alcohol. Percy the pelican was hanging around and got a little excited at one point because he thought he was going to get a bit of the good eats, too, but his day did not get made. There was, of course, a sausage sizzle - what else would Aussies eat on their day?
Eric's Dad's surgery went very well so thanks for your prayers. I'm slowly improving and have greatly improved mobility. I am now dealing with a lot of soreness and weakness, but I can move much better so I am counting my blessings.
Monday, January 24, 2011
For Better or For Worse
I had a grand vision when we got back from Seattle of spoiling Eric until he was completely recovered and we could get back to the "for better" part of our arrangement. Little did I know that January 2011 was going to be quite different than I planned. I think I accomplished about a day and a half of treating him right and then the wheel fell off completely. Instead of being pampered he ended up doing the pampering as I suffered through three days of fever that plastered me to any available horizontal surface. I was still awfully weak for several days after that so aside from asking him often how his chest was feeling, he wasn't getting much of the "better" part of our arrangement (so sorry dear!). I'm happy to report that in spite of my lack of ministrations he managed to make his way back to very nearly normal and was even able to go shoot some hoops a few days ago without much aggravation and he shot really well to boot! Yay!
We were both feeling pretty decent by the weekend of the 15th so it became shopping day because we definitely needed some things and it was time to get a barbecue of our own. We were standing in a store waiting in the queue to check out and the lady in front of us starts acting a little odd. She's talking to seemingly no one in particular and a surreptitious check of her ears found no bluetooth apparatus. It soon became apparent that she is talking to her purse or little backpack thingy and saying soothing words to it. Well now that's interesting. Next thing I know she looks at us sheepishly and says she's not crazy, she has two dogs in there. We're both thinking to ourselves, "Lady, claiming there are two dogs in that little thing is not helping your case any." Then she opens up the thing and sure enough, there are two dogs in there. Okay, I guess recognizing crazy people isn't our gift or at least not if it involves two tiny dogs in a backpack in a store.
We next went barbecue shopping. We became the proud owners of the "Down Under" brand or at least the box that contained one. Eric spent a few hours assembling the thing and decided it should start with a different instruction #1 that says, "Go get a nice, big, cold beer because you're going to be here a good long while and you're going to need it." He was successful and had that beer a bit later even though the instructions didn't call for it.
I had a hectic week of the 17th at work. I knew things were going to heat up in 2011 and it sure didn't wait long. I'm trying to get a big upgrade going and as we keep finding more "uh ohs", I decided it was like peeling back the layers of an onion - it just makes you cry more. I guess the good news is the days will go fast because the deadline for completion is far too soon.
Now it's back to the worse part. Friday morning I woke up awfully stiff and sore, but didn't think too much of it because once I got going it was okay. Saturday I woke up in the middle of the night with pain and stiffness in nearly every joint I possess and they were starting to swell. What?! It was really, really hard to walk, I had no strength in my hands, and I couldn't begin to make a fist. Thankfully, the walking part improved somewhat after a shower.
The Lord is pretty amazing about looking out for us in our troubles and when Eric called a medical center that was open on Saturday mornings they were able to take us right away (wow!). Even better - the doctor was awesome! He set up some tests to figure out what was going on and said the fever a couple weeks earlier was quite likely the trigger for this episode.
Soon after we got back from the doctors, the Skype phone rang. It was Eric's brother, Dave, calling to let us know Eric's Dad, Bill, is going to have major surgery on Tuesday. Poor Eric was completely torn with the feeling that he needed to be in two places at once. He really wanted to go back to Indiana for his Dad's surgery, but clearly I was needing him here. In the end, he decided to pray for his Dad from here (two hemisphere prayer coverage is good) and stay here and make sure I was okay.
After we tried to digest that news and since I was walking okay at this point, Eric and I decided to go to Newcastle with Ron and Pam to see the ministry they're involved with, YWAM. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission and is a great organization with many similarities to Young Life in the states. I think the difference that stood out the most to me is that the schools here in Australia really embrace YWAM and actually invite them to come into their schools.
We next took off for Tahlee which is a huge site that YWAM has on the other side of the water from our house. We could get there in 20 minutes or so by boat, but by car it takes quite a bit longer. Sadly the long drive completely did my joints in and the best I could muster was the Tim Conway old man shuffle from the Carol Burnett show. Frustrating for sure, but I still think it was worth it because it was a fascinating place.
There were some wallabies peacefully eating grass by one of the driveways. At least they were until we went by. They hopped off to a safer distance and kept their eye on us. We stopped at the stand of bamboo they have and those bamboo are huge! We learned they have a 3-4 meter python (yes, like 10 feet+!) that lives in those bamboo and my less than bright husband decided to wander around the bamboo looking for it. I had to wonder if he was contemplating having to take care of me and thought being a python meal would mean he could get out of some of the "worse" part of the deal.
The good news (actually it's really bad news, but good for Eric since he was not in danger of being eaten) is we found out from Georgeena (sp?) who lives there that the python had gotten into the chicken coop the night before and eaten the three chickens! I guess some of the other residents carried the python off to the woods so he could sleep off the triple chicken combo meal for several days.
I was properly horrified by the outcome of the poor chickens and also that Australians pick up pythons and carry them places - ever! Right after that Georgeena told us that early that day a big goanna had gotten into another pen and killed a couple ducks. Georgeena had to go in and get the goanna out of there to save the other three! That seems equally crazy - just what is in that Vegemite anyway?! Georgeena said she hadn't yet mustered up the courage to go back in and clean up the mess in the pen. Well, of course not, she clearly had to use it all up on battling the goanna.
We saw more cool stuff and then dropped Ron and Pam off at their place and headed home. It was at this point that I realized I was in big trouble. I had to crawl up the stairs and, dang, it was painful. I got inside and dropped onto the bed feeling as though I had just run a marathon. Not good. Eric did a fabulous job of taking care of me although I couldn't tell if it was so much work he'd rather have been a python dinner or not.
Sunday was worse. The swelling was worse, the pain was worse, the stiffness was worse, and now my neck decided to join in on the stiffness action. I am so thankful for everyone's prayers as Monday morning held the first hope in this strange odyssey - the swelling was slightly less because my knuckles were showing signs of appearing again.
I was able to make it to the tests although I think Eric would have rolled me there if necessary. The body scan was interesting and based on Eric's research I think I'm still technically radioactive. The best part of the scan was I'm laying there with nothing but the ceiling and four fluorescent lights to contemplate and the next thing I know is I see the silhouette of a lizard on the other side of the light cover! I watched him until one of the panels of the machine obscured him from my vision. The lizard was gone by the time I could look again which was a bit disconcerting, but it was the last test so I just beat a hasty (actually, really slow) retreat.
The body scan films would be sent by post later so we paid the bill ($800+), and took the x-rays with us to take to the doctor. He took one look at the knee one and said "that's awful". So, while he doesn't have all of the test results back yet, I think that and a couple of the blood tests convinced him that starting with a real good arthritis drug was in order because that was one cause for sure even if it might not be the current cause. I already took the first pill and I'm actually hopeful I'll get to sleep more than 20 minutes at a stretch tonight and if I'm really lucky, the pain alarm will not go off.
Sorry to be so blabby about the health stuff - you'd think I was getting old or something (please, no comments from the peanut gallery!). I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband who doesn't run from the "worse" part (except where maybe pythons are involved) and for all your prayers. Please keep Bill's surgery and recovery in your prayers. Love you all.
We were both feeling pretty decent by the weekend of the 15th so it became shopping day because we definitely needed some things and it was time to get a barbecue of our own. We were standing in a store waiting in the queue to check out and the lady in front of us starts acting a little odd. She's talking to seemingly no one in particular and a surreptitious check of her ears found no bluetooth apparatus. It soon became apparent that she is talking to her purse or little backpack thingy and saying soothing words to it. Well now that's interesting. Next thing I know she looks at us sheepishly and says she's not crazy, she has two dogs in there. We're both thinking to ourselves, "Lady, claiming there are two dogs in that little thing is not helping your case any." Then she opens up the thing and sure enough, there are two dogs in there. Okay, I guess recognizing crazy people isn't our gift or at least not if it involves two tiny dogs in a backpack in a store.
We next went barbecue shopping. We became the proud owners of the "Down Under" brand or at least the box that contained one. Eric spent a few hours assembling the thing and decided it should start with a different instruction #1 that says, "Go get a nice, big, cold beer because you're going to be here a good long while and you're going to need it." He was successful and had that beer a bit later even though the instructions didn't call for it.
I had a hectic week of the 17th at work. I knew things were going to heat up in 2011 and it sure didn't wait long. I'm trying to get a big upgrade going and as we keep finding more "uh ohs", I decided it was like peeling back the layers of an onion - it just makes you cry more. I guess the good news is the days will go fast because the deadline for completion is far too soon.
Now it's back to the worse part. Friday morning I woke up awfully stiff and sore, but didn't think too much of it because once I got going it was okay. Saturday I woke up in the middle of the night with pain and stiffness in nearly every joint I possess and they were starting to swell. What?! It was really, really hard to walk, I had no strength in my hands, and I couldn't begin to make a fist. Thankfully, the walking part improved somewhat after a shower.
The Lord is pretty amazing about looking out for us in our troubles and when Eric called a medical center that was open on Saturday mornings they were able to take us right away (wow!). Even better - the doctor was awesome! He set up some tests to figure out what was going on and said the fever a couple weeks earlier was quite likely the trigger for this episode.
Soon after we got back from the doctors, the Skype phone rang. It was Eric's brother, Dave, calling to let us know Eric's Dad, Bill, is going to have major surgery on Tuesday. Poor Eric was completely torn with the feeling that he needed to be in two places at once. He really wanted to go back to Indiana for his Dad's surgery, but clearly I was needing him here. In the end, he decided to pray for his Dad from here (two hemisphere prayer coverage is good) and stay here and make sure I was okay.
After we tried to digest that news and since I was walking okay at this point, Eric and I decided to go to Newcastle with Ron and Pam to see the ministry they're involved with, YWAM. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission and is a great organization with many similarities to Young Life in the states. I think the difference that stood out the most to me is that the schools here in Australia really embrace YWAM and actually invite them to come into their schools.
We next took off for Tahlee which is a huge site that YWAM has on the other side of the water from our house. We could get there in 20 minutes or so by boat, but by car it takes quite a bit longer. Sadly the long drive completely did my joints in and the best I could muster was the Tim Conway old man shuffle from the Carol Burnett show. Frustrating for sure, but I still think it was worth it because it was a fascinating place.
There were some wallabies peacefully eating grass by one of the driveways. At least they were until we went by. They hopped off to a safer distance and kept their eye on us. We stopped at the stand of bamboo they have and those bamboo are huge! We learned they have a 3-4 meter python (yes, like 10 feet+!) that lives in those bamboo and my less than bright husband decided to wander around the bamboo looking for it. I had to wonder if he was contemplating having to take care of me and thought being a python meal would mean he could get out of some of the "worse" part of the deal.
The good news (actually it's really bad news, but good for Eric since he was not in danger of being eaten) is we found out from Georgeena (sp?) who lives there that the python had gotten into the chicken coop the night before and eaten the three chickens! I guess some of the other residents carried the python off to the woods so he could sleep off the triple chicken combo meal for several days.
I was properly horrified by the outcome of the poor chickens and also that Australians pick up pythons and carry them places - ever! Right after that Georgeena told us that early that day a big goanna had gotten into another pen and killed a couple ducks. Georgeena had to go in and get the goanna out of there to save the other three! That seems equally crazy - just what is in that Vegemite anyway?! Georgeena said she hadn't yet mustered up the courage to go back in and clean up the mess in the pen. Well, of course not, she clearly had to use it all up on battling the goanna.
We saw more cool stuff and then dropped Ron and Pam off at their place and headed home. It was at this point that I realized I was in big trouble. I had to crawl up the stairs and, dang, it was painful. I got inside and dropped onto the bed feeling as though I had just run a marathon. Not good. Eric did a fabulous job of taking care of me although I couldn't tell if it was so much work he'd rather have been a python dinner or not.
Sunday was worse. The swelling was worse, the pain was worse, the stiffness was worse, and now my neck decided to join in on the stiffness action. I am so thankful for everyone's prayers as Monday morning held the first hope in this strange odyssey - the swelling was slightly less because my knuckles were showing signs of appearing again.
I was able to make it to the tests although I think Eric would have rolled me there if necessary. The body scan was interesting and based on Eric's research I think I'm still technically radioactive. The best part of the scan was I'm laying there with nothing but the ceiling and four fluorescent lights to contemplate and the next thing I know is I see the silhouette of a lizard on the other side of the light cover! I watched him until one of the panels of the machine obscured him from my vision. The lizard was gone by the time I could look again which was a bit disconcerting, but it was the last test so I just beat a hasty (actually, really slow) retreat.
The body scan films would be sent by post later so we paid the bill ($800+), and took the x-rays with us to take to the doctor. He took one look at the knee one and said "that's awful". So, while he doesn't have all of the test results back yet, I think that and a couple of the blood tests convinced him that starting with a real good arthritis drug was in order because that was one cause for sure even if it might not be the current cause. I already took the first pill and I'm actually hopeful I'll get to sleep more than 20 minutes at a stretch tonight and if I'm really lucky, the pain alarm will not go off.
Sorry to be so blabby about the health stuff - you'd think I was getting old or something (please, no comments from the peanut gallery!). I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband who doesn't run from the "worse" part (except where maybe pythons are involved) and for all your prayers. Please keep Bill's surgery and recovery in your prayers. Love you all.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
One Day = Four Countries and Two Hemispheres
In less than 24 hours, we passed through the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Even though it was only through the airports for Canada and New Zealand, we were definitely hearing the different accents of each one, not to mention some French added in for good measure. I liked the Kiwi accent the best although maybe part of it was the very amusing Air New Zealand safety video. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a safety video that would have been X-rated but for some timely body part blurring.
Eric weathered the trip pretty well all things considered. He’s napping now (no surprise there!) and I’ll probably get him up later so he can go to bed. ;-) Thanks so much for all your prayers – Eric is improving in spite of all the travel, the problems we encountered on each leg of the trip were solved without upsetting the next leg of the trip, the flights were smooth, and the landings exceptionally ordinary (my favorite kind!).
Because everyone likes to talk about their itty bitty travel problems, here we go:
Seattle to Vancouver – our three bag tags were printed out with final destinations of Vancouver, Auckland, and Auckland. Huh? Eventually we got it straightened out to be Sydney for all of them, but it sure makes you wonder what gremlin was running their system!
Vancouver to Auckland – somehow we ended up with four reservations in the system instead of two. Don’t ask me how, but this caused us to end up with no assigned seats at all (wouldn’t you think we could have chosen between the set of four?). Especially since we had “confirmed” two of the seats just two days earlier. The guy “got” us exit aisle row seats which sounded great until we found out that was where the queue for the four lavatories was just about ALL NIGHT LONG. When there wasn’t a queue for the lavatories, we had the great “privilege” of watching people decide to demonstrate all their stretching exercises right in our face. Eric had the aisle seat and lost count of the number of times people stepped on his feet. Ugh! All I know is a seat is a seat if it gets you where you need to go so we’ll stick with that.
Auckland to Sydney – we were waiting to deplane on arrival in Auckland when we hear an announcement that “Eric Easterbrook should check in with the ground staff”. Uh oh. It turned out that they couldn’t find Eric’s Visa in the system. Since he had already traveled three times using that Visa, we knew it was in there, so it was a bit of a puzzle. After a little investigation, the ground staff realized his passport had been incorrectly entered somewhere along the way. It did make us wonder why this wasn’t noticed until the very last flight of our entire trip – maybe it was the gremlins again.
Sydney to Salamander Bay – as luck would have it (or should it be wouldn’t have it?) our bags were essentially the last ones off the plane from Auckland, so we stood there waiting and waiting while woefully watching the line for customs start to snake from one end of the baggage area to the other. The baggage gods can be so mean, but at least the bags did show up! When we finally had our turn at the customs 20 questions food and prescriptions game, we passed with flying colors and then we were out the door into HEAT! Whoa, that warmth and sun were a jolt! Our friend Ron successfully picked us up and then drove us by his boyhood home not too far from the Sydney airport. It was interesting listening to what life was like growing up in Sydney and how things have changed – like fishing from the pier before there was an Opera House. After that we left Sydney for what should have been a 2½ hour drive home. We ran into some serious traffic outside Newcastle (what happened to our idyllic and quiet neck of the woods?). We finally got through that only to run into another backup on Nelson Bay Road which is the only way to get to the bay area and home. Even though we ended up getting back more than an hour later than we thought we were going to, we were counting our blessings because the traffic coming out of the bay area was completely nuts. The line going the other direction snaked down Nelson Bay Road for miles! Apparently most of Sydney’s residents were either leaving or coming to the bay area today.
Pam (Ron’s wife) had a great lunch waiting for us when we got back and then she and Ron took off for their next house-sitting stay. Pam was sharing that in the last 20 months they have moved something like 48 times! I can’t even imagine that especially since it involved the United States, India, and Australia. They will probably be moving back to the states near the end of March and their hope is they can stay put for a while! We will surely miss Ron and Pam, but know that this is the next step in the Lord’s plan for them.
The beach here is a little busier than before we left – maybe 20 people or so and a couple hopeful pelicans. It does seem really weird to go from the Pacific Northwest green, cold, and wet to this blue, warm, and dry place in such a short time. It’s also a little hard to decide where home is again. Did I go home for Christmas or did I just get back home today? If home is where the heart is, I’m thinking I must have left a chamber or two in Seattle because I’m feeling pretty confused.
I do know I’m already missing family, friends, and some of the comforts of home (the Seattle one). We sure could use some visitors, hint, hint, hint!
Eric weathered the trip pretty well all things considered. He’s napping now (no surprise there!) and I’ll probably get him up later so he can go to bed. ;-) Thanks so much for all your prayers – Eric is improving in spite of all the travel, the problems we encountered on each leg of the trip were solved without upsetting the next leg of the trip, the flights were smooth, and the landings exceptionally ordinary (my favorite kind!).
Because everyone likes to talk about their itty bitty travel problems, here we go:
Seattle to Vancouver – our three bag tags were printed out with final destinations of Vancouver, Auckland, and Auckland. Huh? Eventually we got it straightened out to be Sydney for all of them, but it sure makes you wonder what gremlin was running their system!
Vancouver to Auckland – somehow we ended up with four reservations in the system instead of two. Don’t ask me how, but this caused us to end up with no assigned seats at all (wouldn’t you think we could have chosen between the set of four?). Especially since we had “confirmed” two of the seats just two days earlier. The guy “got” us exit aisle row seats which sounded great until we found out that was where the queue for the four lavatories was just about ALL NIGHT LONG. When there wasn’t a queue for the lavatories, we had the great “privilege” of watching people decide to demonstrate all their stretching exercises right in our face. Eric had the aisle seat and lost count of the number of times people stepped on his feet. Ugh! All I know is a seat is a seat if it gets you where you need to go so we’ll stick with that.
Auckland to Sydney – we were waiting to deplane on arrival in Auckland when we hear an announcement that “Eric Easterbrook should check in with the ground staff”. Uh oh. It turned out that they couldn’t find Eric’s Visa in the system. Since he had already traveled three times using that Visa, we knew it was in there, so it was a bit of a puzzle. After a little investigation, the ground staff realized his passport had been incorrectly entered somewhere along the way. It did make us wonder why this wasn’t noticed until the very last flight of our entire trip – maybe it was the gremlins again.
Sydney to Salamander Bay – as luck would have it (or should it be wouldn’t have it?) our bags were essentially the last ones off the plane from Auckland, so we stood there waiting and waiting while woefully watching the line for customs start to snake from one end of the baggage area to the other. The baggage gods can be so mean, but at least the bags did show up! When we finally had our turn at the customs 20 questions food and prescriptions game, we passed with flying colors and then we were out the door into HEAT! Whoa, that warmth and sun were a jolt! Our friend Ron successfully picked us up and then drove us by his boyhood home not too far from the Sydney airport. It was interesting listening to what life was like growing up in Sydney and how things have changed – like fishing from the pier before there was an Opera House. After that we left Sydney for what should have been a 2½ hour drive home. We ran into some serious traffic outside Newcastle (what happened to our idyllic and quiet neck of the woods?). We finally got through that only to run into another backup on Nelson Bay Road which is the only way to get to the bay area and home. Even though we ended up getting back more than an hour later than we thought we were going to, we were counting our blessings because the traffic coming out of the bay area was completely nuts. The line going the other direction snaked down Nelson Bay Road for miles! Apparently most of Sydney’s residents were either leaving or coming to the bay area today.
Pam (Ron’s wife) had a great lunch waiting for us when we got back and then she and Ron took off for their next house-sitting stay. Pam was sharing that in the last 20 months they have moved something like 48 times! I can’t even imagine that especially since it involved the United States, India, and Australia. They will probably be moving back to the states near the end of March and their hope is they can stay put for a while! We will surely miss Ron and Pam, but know that this is the next step in the Lord’s plan for them.
The beach here is a little busier than before we left – maybe 20 people or so and a couple hopeful pelicans. It does seem really weird to go from the Pacific Northwest green, cold, and wet to this blue, warm, and dry place in such a short time. It’s also a little hard to decide where home is again. Did I go home for Christmas or did I just get back home today? If home is where the heart is, I’m thinking I must have left a chamber or two in Seattle because I’m feeling pretty confused.
I do know I’m already missing family, friends, and some of the comforts of home (the Seattle one). We sure could use some visitors, hint, hint, hint!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Just Another Sausage Sizzle
Everything that happens here seems to call for a sausage sizzle. Case in point is the standup meeting coming up tomorrow morning at work. It's the last one of the year for the commander and some of the personnel will be rotating into a new assignment beginning next year so they've got some serious "farewelling" to do. Apparently "farewelling" (and just about any occasion you could conjure up) calls for a sausage sizzle. Aussies love sausage sizzles. You can't go shopping on a Saturday without finding at least one sausage sizzle going on out front of a store. We went to a farmer's market Saturday and it was no surprise at all to find they were having a sausage sizzle.
I'm not a fan of sausage so it's hard to really dig this phenomenon, but sometimes they also offer egg and bacon in addition to the sausage and that's when I'm all in. Eric always gets the sausage and they tell us the way we say sausage is a tip-off that we're not Aussies. We aren't quite sure what it is although we think we might say it with a bit more "aw" while they say it with more of an "ah" sound.
It is funny to watch people's faces when we start talking. We were at the brand new Bunnings (like Home Depot) on Monday checking out all their stuff and as the store had just opened, the workers were extremely eager to help people. One bloke asked if he could help us and we said "we're looking for a bird feeder". As the first couple of words came out of my mouth his eyebrows shot up to be quickly followed by the customary furrowing as he tried desperately to translate US English to Aussie English. His response was, "Did you want a bird bath?" I'm not sure how he thought feeder sounded like bath, but I don't even try to figure it out anymore.
I do know it would have helped tremendously if I'd said "bird feeda". Aussie English rules seem to dictate that anything that ends in 'er' be pronounced as though there were no 'r' at the end. What's even more interesting is that words that end in 'a' such as Australia or America are pronounced "Austrialier" and "Americer". There does seem to be a conservation of the letter 'r' - what's taken away is just added elsewhere, but there is a pair of words where it leaves me completely confused as to what they're talking about and that's the Myna and the Minor birds. My pronunciation is exactly the opposite of theirs so which bird is which I couldn't tell you.
There is one instance where they actually sprinkle seemingly far too many 'r' sounds into one word and it is my very favorite word to hear them say. The word is drawing and since we often refer to drawings of parts at work I get to hear them say it in that awesome way they do that sounds like "drarwring".
We've been enjoying the birds here a lot lately. Sea eagles out front of the house just hanging on a breeze inspecting the water for a prospective dinner. Kookaburras do their "laughing" every evening around the time it gets dark just like clockwork.
We had a couple rainbow lorikeets come for dinner earlier this week. It was a little wet that day and suddenly I see one on the railing looking pointedly at Eric who was working on the computer. The lorikeet kept moving down the rail trying to get his attention. It was so deliberate it was almost comical. Once Eric (the maitre'd) acknowledged his presence, the lorikeet took his place at the table (the door). At this point their waitress (me) ran and got a few sultanas (Aussie raisins) and served the lorikeet and his spouse tiny chunks of the sultanas. They loved them in spite of the fact they had to keep scraping their beaks on the deck to get the sultanas off the side of their beaks.
I can just imagine the conversation Laurie and Keith (my names for them) had before they got to our place.
Laurie: "I don't feel like fixing dinner tonight. It's wet and I'm tired."
Keith: "Okay. You know, I think there's a restaurant not far from here that might be open. I'll check."
Laurie: "Just make sure it's a place with a nice view of the water."
Keith: "All right. I'll just see what the maitre'd has available. Now if I could just get his attention..."
Sorry to be so silly, but I do enjoy wondering what goes on inside their little heads sometimes.
This afternoon was the Boeing Christmas party. It was at the Newcastle Paceway. Yes, it's "Paceway" and not raceway. I have never been to harness racing for horses. It was quite the affair especially when you consider what Boeing does for Christmas parties back home (as in nothing). Eric and I really enjoyed watching the horses "pacing" which is what we would call trotting. They had the most beautiful cadence in their step and went so fast you'd have thought they must be galloping. We didn't bet on any of the races; just watching the race was entertaining enough.
Our last weekend before coming home is just around the corner. Time goes so fast we'll be jumping on that plane before I know it. I don't look forward to 24 hours of traveling, but the carrot on the end of the stick is getting to see family and friends. For that, I'll gladly put myself through those paces! Love to all and see you soon!
I'm not a fan of sausage so it's hard to really dig this phenomenon, but sometimes they also offer egg and bacon in addition to the sausage and that's when I'm all in. Eric always gets the sausage and they tell us the way we say sausage is a tip-off that we're not Aussies. We aren't quite sure what it is although we think we might say it with a bit more "aw" while they say it with more of an "ah" sound.
It is funny to watch people's faces when we start talking. We were at the brand new Bunnings (like Home Depot) on Monday checking out all their stuff and as the store had just opened, the workers were extremely eager to help people. One bloke asked if he could help us and we said "we're looking for a bird feeder". As the first couple of words came out of my mouth his eyebrows shot up to be quickly followed by the customary furrowing as he tried desperately to translate US English to Aussie English. His response was, "Did you want a bird bath?" I'm not sure how he thought feeder sounded like bath, but I don't even try to figure it out anymore.
I do know it would have helped tremendously if I'd said "bird feeda". Aussie English rules seem to dictate that anything that ends in 'er' be pronounced as though there were no 'r' at the end. What's even more interesting is that words that end in 'a' such as Australia or America are pronounced "Austrialier" and "Americer". There does seem to be a conservation of the letter 'r' - what's taken away is just added elsewhere, but there is a pair of words where it leaves me completely confused as to what they're talking about and that's the Myna and the Minor birds. My pronunciation is exactly the opposite of theirs so which bird is which I couldn't tell you.
There is one instance where they actually sprinkle seemingly far too many 'r' sounds into one word and it is my very favorite word to hear them say. The word is drawing and since we often refer to drawings of parts at work I get to hear them say it in that awesome way they do that sounds like "drarwring".
We've been enjoying the birds here a lot lately. Sea eagles out front of the house just hanging on a breeze inspecting the water for a prospective dinner. Kookaburras do their "laughing" every evening around the time it gets dark just like clockwork.
I can just imagine the conversation Laurie and Keith (my names for them) had before they got to our place.
Laurie: "I don't feel like fixing dinner tonight. It's wet and I'm tired."
Keith: "Okay. You know, I think there's a restaurant not far from here that might be open. I'll check."
Laurie: "Just make sure it's a place with a nice view of the water."
Keith: "All right. I'll just see what the maitre'd has available. Now if I could just get his attention..."
Sorry to be so silly, but I do enjoy wondering what goes on inside their little heads sometimes.
Our last weekend before coming home is just around the corner. Time goes so fast we'll be jumping on that plane before I know it. I don't look forward to 24 hours of traveling, but the carrot on the end of the stick is getting to see family and friends. For that, I'll gladly put myself through those paces! Love to all and see you soon!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Ticks and Turkeys
In the last few weeks, Eric has definitely had the more interesting of experiences. He got to crew for one of the sailboats that races on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It was a lot of work, but he had a great time. He also realized the bay is a lot bigger when you're in the middle of it than when you're on the shore. They did well in spite of the penalty turn they had to do for cutting someone off (not Eric's fault).
One of the other things Eric got to discover was he had picked up a tick on his neck from walking through the woods. He was successful at removing the whole thing without my help (I was at work). We also discovered that Australia has some really bad ticks (what a surprise!). You have to worry about Lyme disease with ticks all over the world, but Australia has a paralysis tick. It can kill animals; not so much humans, but being a little paralyzed has to fall in the category of "bad news".
The worst part of the whole thing for me was that Eric emailed me at work that morning to relate his little episode. After quickly realizing I'd shared a night's sleep with a tick, I spent the entire rest of day imagining I had a tick somewhere on my person. I'm sure people at work were wondering why I looked so disheveled, but they did not know I was busy trying to keep everyone safe by checking my hair a thousand times for invading creatures!
While I'm on the icky little critters subject, Eric has been helping with a construction project at the church and what an eye-opener that's been. They pulled a panel off and found two large snake skins. Leaves you wondering where the former owner is these days. They also found cicadas so large they should be required to have a pilot's license before they take off. There were lots of spiders and when they uncovered one in particular, an Aussie helper said "Probably ought not to mess with that, it won’t kill you, but it might get you close to death."
Mess with a spider? As if! As it turns out, young Aussies seem to think this is a perfectly ordinary and sporting thing to do. Remember Charlotte? Well, a relative of Charlotte got into the church and one nice (and nutty) young man herded it onto the palm of his hand (what?!) and calmly walked it out of the church.
We had the couple we met at the Newcastle church over for a substitute Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday. Getting ready for this was a lot harder than Thanksgiving back home. We found out that completely plucking the turkey is optional here and those quills don't give up easily. In the scheme of things we were just thankful there were turkeys to buy even if it was something like $3 a pound - yikes! We also discovered that in spite of their love of pumpkin, they don't sell it in a can. Eric tried to explain to a clerk that he was looking for this so he could make a pumpkin pie, and their response? "Why would you want to do that? That sounds gross!" Eric ended up baking and pureeing the pumpkin himself. There's no Crisco equivalent so we had to use butter for the crust. Eric also had to make the french-fried onions you put on top of the green bean casserole from scratch - no such thing here.
On the plus side, Ren and Glynis genuinely enjoyed the meal. Ren and Glynis had never had turkey before; we can hardly fathom that in our home environment. Ren had never had pumpkin pie before and said he really liked it. Glynis had tried it once before so she was an easy convert to our American ways.
Speaking of things new to Aussies, Eric made oatmeal cookies and took some with him to the construction project to share with the other guys. It was mostly young men from the church and we were dumbfounded to find out they'd never had oatmeal cookies before! It seems like such an unremarkable (but always enjoyable) thing in our world, but they loved them and were threatening to break into our place to get more!
The main thing of interest I've done in the last few weeks is play in the championship of the soccer league at work. Because it's at lunch and it's a military environment, you quite often have teammates unable to get there due to meetings they can't get out of or being on deployment. Such was the case on Monday for the semi-final where the other team couldn't even field a full team of 6. This meant we easily moved on to the final, but what goes around comes around, and for Wednesday's final we found ourselves with just enough to play.
It was a really hot day and we were feeling quite out of gas by halftime. Our halftime strategy adjustment was to limit our runs forward and see if we could hang on and get to penalty kicks because no one had anything left. We got to full-time successfully without being scored on, but lost on a crazy shot in the first overtime period. Bummer! I was very proud of our team even though we lost because the other team was all men while we were split evenly between men and women and I think I was the oldest one out there (certainly by the way I played, but I think even by age!). The biggest downside of the final is the next league doesn't start until February which gives me ample time to get completely out of shape again. Ugh!
We arrive back home on December 14th for 2 1/2 weeks. I don't care that I'm going to freeze my arse off - I can't wait to see everyone. I just have to get through 2+ more weeks of work. The countdown starts soon!
One of the other things Eric got to discover was he had picked up a tick on his neck from walking through the woods. He was successful at removing the whole thing without my help (I was at work). We also discovered that Australia has some really bad ticks (what a surprise!). You have to worry about Lyme disease with ticks all over the world, but Australia has a paralysis tick. It can kill animals; not so much humans, but being a little paralyzed has to fall in the category of "bad news".
The worst part of the whole thing for me was that Eric emailed me at work that morning to relate his little episode. After quickly realizing I'd shared a night's sleep with a tick, I spent the entire rest of day imagining I had a tick somewhere on my person. I'm sure people at work were wondering why I looked so disheveled, but they did not know I was busy trying to keep everyone safe by checking my hair a thousand times for invading creatures!
While I'm on the icky little critters subject, Eric has been helping with a construction project at the church and what an eye-opener that's been. They pulled a panel off and found two large snake skins. Leaves you wondering where the former owner is these days. They also found cicadas so large they should be required to have a pilot's license before they take off. There were lots of spiders and when they uncovered one in particular, an Aussie helper said "Probably ought not to mess with that, it won’t kill you, but it might get you close to death."
Mess with a spider? As if! As it turns out, young Aussies seem to think this is a perfectly ordinary and sporting thing to do. Remember Charlotte? Well, a relative of Charlotte got into the church and one nice (and nutty) young man herded it onto the palm of his hand (what?!) and calmly walked it out of the church.
We had the couple we met at the Newcastle church over for a substitute Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday. Getting ready for this was a lot harder than Thanksgiving back home. We found out that completely plucking the turkey is optional here and those quills don't give up easily. In the scheme of things we were just thankful there were turkeys to buy even if it was something like $3 a pound - yikes! We also discovered that in spite of their love of pumpkin, they don't sell it in a can. Eric tried to explain to a clerk that he was looking for this so he could make a pumpkin pie, and their response? "Why would you want to do that? That sounds gross!" Eric ended up baking and pureeing the pumpkin himself. There's no Crisco equivalent so we had to use butter for the crust. Eric also had to make the french-fried onions you put on top of the green bean casserole from scratch - no such thing here.
On the plus side, Ren and Glynis genuinely enjoyed the meal. Ren and Glynis had never had turkey before; we can hardly fathom that in our home environment. Ren had never had pumpkin pie before and said he really liked it. Glynis had tried it once before so she was an easy convert to our American ways.
Speaking of things new to Aussies, Eric made oatmeal cookies and took some with him to the construction project to share with the other guys. It was mostly young men from the church and we were dumbfounded to find out they'd never had oatmeal cookies before! It seems like such an unremarkable (but always enjoyable) thing in our world, but they loved them and were threatening to break into our place to get more!
The main thing of interest I've done in the last few weeks is play in the championship of the soccer league at work. Because it's at lunch and it's a military environment, you quite often have teammates unable to get there due to meetings they can't get out of or being on deployment. Such was the case on Monday for the semi-final where the other team couldn't even field a full team of 6. This meant we easily moved on to the final, but what goes around comes around, and for Wednesday's final we found ourselves with just enough to play.
It was a really hot day and we were feeling quite out of gas by halftime. Our halftime strategy adjustment was to limit our runs forward and see if we could hang on and get to penalty kicks because no one had anything left. We got to full-time successfully without being scored on, but lost on a crazy shot in the first overtime period. Bummer! I was very proud of our team even though we lost because the other team was all men while we were split evenly between men and women and I think I was the oldest one out there (certainly by the way I played, but I think even by age!). The biggest downside of the final is the next league doesn't start until February which gives me ample time to get completely out of shape again. Ugh!
We arrive back home on December 14th for 2 1/2 weeks. I don't care that I'm going to freeze my arse off - I can't wait to see everyone. I just have to get through 2+ more weeks of work. The countdown starts soon!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Guess What? It's Poisonous
Eric made it back safely from the States on Friday which left us the weekend to spend together bludging. Bludging is my latest Aussie word, but technically we weren't really bludging. Bludging is basically hanging out with a connotation of being a sponge. We were hanging out, but we weren't sponging.
I gave Eric the option of doing whatever he wanted to do for the weekend and number one on his list was going goanna hunting. As is so often the case in life, the weather was non-cooperative on Saturday so we watched a few movies and did our grocery shopping instead. The good news is Sunday was nice so that afternoon we headed out to the site of my previously way-cool and successful goanna hunt - Tomaree Head.
We tramped along heading toward the spot where I spotted my big'un a few weeks ago. Just past that point I spotted a SNAKE! Since it's Australia, it seemed prudent to assume it might be poisonous. I snapped a bunch of pictures all the while making sure we gave it a really, really, really wide berth.
After watching the snake do its snaky things for a while, we moved on down the path. It wasn't long after that we spotted a goanna! It was not a big'un; it was around 3 feet long and just plain cute. I didn't think I'd ever say that about a lizard, but goas (as Aussies call them) just seem to start growing on ya. We saw another one about the same size later on, but alas, we did not see my big guy or his brother. This goa was in a tree which was a bit disturbing because this means I need to be watching the ground and above me all at once.
We next did the short walk to Zenith Beach and saw another snake. Since some of my coworkers have not seen any snakes in the wild in the year they've been here, it seemed a bit crazy to see two in one day.
When we got home we looked up the snake, and, yep, it's poisonous. It's an Australian red-bellied black snake. The description for its bite, "seek immediate medical attention", was just a bit sobering, but our strategy of treating everything here as poisonous seems to be a good one.
We'll be keeping with that strategy on our next hunting adventure.
I gave Eric the option of doing whatever he wanted to do for the weekend and number one on his list was going goanna hunting. As is so often the case in life, the weather was non-cooperative on Saturday so we watched a few movies and did our grocery shopping instead. The good news is Sunday was nice so that afternoon we headed out to the site of my previously way-cool and successful goanna hunt - Tomaree Head.
After watching the snake do its snaky things for a while, we moved on down the path. It wasn't long after that we spotted a goanna! It was not a big'un; it was around 3 feet long and just plain cute. I didn't think I'd ever say that about a lizard, but goas (as Aussies call them) just seem to start growing on ya. We saw another one about the same size later on, but alas, we did not see my big guy or his brother. This goa was in a tree which was a bit disturbing because this means I need to be watching the ground and above me all at once.
We next did the short walk to Zenith Beach and saw another snake. Since some of my coworkers have not seen any snakes in the wild in the year they've been here, it seemed a bit crazy to see two in one day.
When we got home we looked up the snake, and, yep, it's poisonous. It's an Australian red-bellied black snake. The description for its bite, "seek immediate medical attention", was just a bit sobering, but our strategy of treating everything here as poisonous seems to be a good one.
We'll be keeping with that strategy on our next hunting adventure.
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