Icee Cool

Yesterday and today we finally saw real glaciers. Not these dirt covered unrecognizable mounds of crap that we saw near Mt. Cook, but real glaciers like in a magazine. It was neat. We did a guided tour up Franz Josef Glacier today, which was really cool. The thing I hadn't realized is that to get on a glacier you actually have to climb up the glacier. I had expected some circuitous route along adjacent mountsides that lead to a graceful walk onto the ice. Nope, you just climb up the face of the stupid thing with your crampons, sludging through little ice steps that the guides carve with their ice picks. It was vigorous, but well worth it. I'm tired, so no long explanation. Look at the dang pictures.

Long drive tomorrow, kayaking at Abel Tasman Nat'l Park the next day. The final leg of our journey approaches...

West Coast is the Best Coast

(Pictured: Me next to the Skyline Restaurant atop a 2000 ft mountain that overlooks Queenstown)

Yes, this is even true in New Zealand. Perhaps arguable in Australia however...

The west Coast of NZ is surprisingly different from the east coast. The first many days of our trip really didn't have any landscapes that don't exist in California or Oregon. The west coast is a different story. There are massive and expansive forests perched precariously along the steepest solid granite mountain ranges you can imagine. Much of this area is temperate rainforest that gets 6-9 meters (20-30 feet) of rain per year - often a meter or more in one day! The landscape can change dramatically with one day of heavy rain by flooding areas, creating waterfalls, and raising rivers and lakes to levels that make them unrecognizable. It's pretty incredible. Just driving up to Milford was probably the best part of our trip so far. It's just really amazing scenery. Too bad my photography skills are not really good enough for me to take the caliber of pictures that this area deserves.

Our Milford Sound boat cruise was really nice and neither of us even got sea sick, which is amazing in itself. The scenery was awesome, blah, blah, blah, now on to the coolest part. We saw dolphins!! Our guide pointed them out as our boat approached, then they casually rode in front of our boat for like 10 minutes, just like in the movies! It was really cool, dolphins are awesome. That's the closest I think I've ever been to them - they're bigger than I thought they would be. We could see them (there were three of them) swimming sideways under the water, weaving all around, and jumping out of the water about 6 feet away from us. It was so cool. We also passed some seals perched on a rock and later that night had a few encounters with a Kea bird, which is a fairly large native parrot-type bird that has a bit of a funny personality (birdality?). I'm glad we've met some of the "natives", the animals here are fun.

We were in Queenstown yesterday, which is a very cool place as well. It's like the extreme sports capital of NZ, which we're not really into, but it makes for a nice touristy town. Lots of places to stay and eat, quaint downtown, and the whole town is nestled in the mountains next to a large lake. Very nice. And it was about 30 degrees (Celsius - uh, 86 degrees F?) the day we were there, which was as unusual as it was pleasant. We rode a gnarly gondola up this huge mountain adjacent to the town to see the tourist-trap venue at the top which featured: overly expensive buffet restaurant with a killer view, bungee jumping, and two luge tracks which are like little unmotorized go-carts that you ride down a concrete track. The whole experience was very fun and even worth the ridiculous cost.

Today we're in Wanaka, a tiny town just north of Queenstown. I guess in NZ terms, this would probably be a city since they have like 3500 residents. There seems to be a hierarchy of city sizes in NZ that is a bit different than I'm used to: village 0-200 people, town 200-1000 people, small city 1000-3000 people, city 3000-50,000, huge raging metropolis over 50,000. Of course this is approximate but that's mostly because I made it all up. Still, so many towns we pass are little more than a main drag with a few buildings. Imagine Nevada but green, without all the hicks, and not so crappy and run down. Ok, that's not easy to imagine, but try.

And yes, we do notice the different accent they have here, as opposed to Aussies (in response to Monique's comment). We mock them constantly (sorry Marc) because it's funny and I'm pretty sure it's required. Some of them are very hard to understand and mockery is our only defense.

Today and yesterday have been sort of relaxing: not much driving, easy schedules, less rugged atmosphere and activities. Tomorrow we head to the glaciers (Fox and Franz Joseph) which had better be awesome.

Milford Track

(Pictured: K & A overlooking Lake Te Anau from the Milford Track)

Hello all, your comments are very funny. Annie, I hope you can get your account straightened out - and if you can't, I'm still happy to see you on as "anonymous". Rhonda, they do drive on the left, and Kane is a pro now. It's actually not that hard to get used to, and I find that the one thing I get confused about is which way we are turning. To explain: when I, as the navigator, tell Kane to take a left turn, sometimes I find that I actually meant to take a right. I'm not one of those people that doesn't know left from right (although I do mix up the colors pink and yellow, a whole other story), but I have found that I seem to associate the direction of the turn just as much with whether or not you cross traffic as I do with the actual direction of the turn. What I mean is, does the turn require driving across cross traffic, or can you just turn onto the adjacent street? In that respect, a left turn is similar to a right turn in the U.S.; you can turn left on a red light because you don't have to cross oncoming traffic. Anyway, I was surprised to find this association in my brain, and I'm trying to work it out.

And as for the 8-person bunks, they were interesting, but not too bad. We had a pretty good group both nights and the only really crappy part was that the bunks were very creaky and quite rickety. And no one set of bunks were available when we got there, so Kane and I were each on the top bunk of two separate bunks with strangers underneath us. Kane complained that the guy below him on the second night seemed to be doing some sort of earthquake simulation (which can be easily caused by simply rolling over in these janky bunks) which was bothersome to him. Other than that, we dealt with the nighttime toots, bad breath, and the bustling starting at 7am. I know, sounds like hell, but it really wasn't. We do prefer the rooms to ourselves, but not much you can do when they're full and we're cheap. We have bunks a couple of other nights, hopefully those will go smoothly also.

The following night in Dunedin was excellent accommodation. The YHA there is a converted old house. And I do mean old and I do mean converted. The remodel on this place must have been heinous. So many rooms tacked on, doorways blocked, stairways crammed in, low ceilings, short doors, converted basement areas, winding passageways, etc, etc. It was sort of like the Winchester Mystery House - I liked it a lot. We got a room with a double bed and a view of the city which was sweet. Last night and tonight we are in a very small room with two twin beds in Te Anau. Which brings me to the title of this posting, which apparently will not be the majority of my writing...

We hiked the Milford Track today on a guided tour. The Milford Track is known for being one of the most beautiful hikes in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Track. You begin with an hour boat ride (on a sweet boat that can hold like 60 people) up Lake Te Anau to the start of the trail. The full hike is 54 kilometers (about 40 miles) and takes 4 days/3 nights, though we just walked the first 5.5 kilometers and back today. It was very flat, very well maintained and very pretty. They provided a nice lunch, and all in all it was very nice. Rhonda, you would love it; we imagined you ooohing and aaahing. We didn't see much wildlife up there, but one fact we did learn is that there are no land mammals native to NZ, so all the native birds are very curious and friendly because they have no natural predators. So, a little bird walked all the way up to our group and almost hopped on my foot to say hi. It was adorable, not even scared by our talking. I wished we had seen more, but I guess the introduction of land mammals by other cultures has really messed up the native wildlife here. They're trying to fix it. Anyway, the bird was cute (I wanted to pet it).

I did get to pet the calico that roams the parking lot - yeay, kitties!

Tomorrow we're off to our boat cruise (I use the word "cruise" lightly) around Milford Sound. More later, keep commenting friends and fams!

Tramping

(Pictured: Mountains behind the trail to Hooker Glacier, I am the tiny blue speck on the swing bridge)

Tramping is what they call hiking in NZ, which I think is funny. We spent a good chunk of yesterday tramping around the trails of Mt. Cook and ended up with sore feet and legs. Mt. Cook is a strange town. I had expected it to be up at high altitude, near the mountain that shares its name, but it is rather in a valley near the foot of the mountain. The mountains in that area are like huge lumps gracefully popping out of an otherwise flat landscape, which I found sort of odd. It turns out to be awesome because it means that most of the hiking trails are relatively flat - bonus for lazy me.

The town of Mt. Cook has like 100 people or something ridiculous, and they don't even has gas piped in. They also don't have a supermarket or gas station and are basically a glorified campground. We have been blazing a trail around the NZ YHAs (youth hostel) and left from the Mt. Cook YHA this morning to arrive at our third YHA this afternoon in Dunedin. We had a good day of driving today, Kane has gotten the hang of it, and, since we're prepared for the distances and aren't on a super strict timetable, the driving isn't bad. Not like the drive between SLO and Hayward which seems to take forever because you just want to get where you're going.

So, it's been nice. So far, the scenery isn't anything you can't find in California (save one particular lake that is a gnarly neon teal color - naturally), so if you want to save some cash, take a road trip around the Golden State instead. The west coast of NZ should be a bit different; we'll be heading over there tomorrow. Until then, we actually have a room with a double bed tonight, as opposed to the 8 person bunk bed room we were in last night - yowza, so we will sleep well in Dunedin.

Work and Holiday Visa

Well, in short, we have them (for Australia). We applied online last night, didn't even submit any paperwork or anything (birth certificate, passport, transcripts, etc). Approved like 2 hours later. Done and done!

Now we can get back and get to work...but not before exploring NZ...

Genesis

And so begins our epic New Zealand journey. The three hour flight was tolerable and we made it to Christchurch unscathed. I always hate the way I feel when I travel, it mostly has to do with the ridiculously crappy night sleep I inevitably get the night before. Anyway, we're tired, but fortunately we also skipped ahead two time zones, so we are justifying going to bed at 10pm NZ time, which is 8pm Melbourne time. We love sleeping, especially on vacation.

We have our rental car: the monstrous, the terrifying, the envy of all Raiders fans: the Nissan Sunny. They have basically the same cars here and in Aus as they do at home, but many of them have different names. Our Sunny is probably equivalent to a Sentra or some other relatively crappy but manageable car. Kane is deftly attacking the chaotic roadways of NZ while I hyperventilate in the passenger seat. He can't get the hang of the turn signal lever being on the right side of the steering wheel instead of the left. We have had much unnecessary use of our windshield wipers thus far due to this - yet another screaming indicator that we're not from around here.

Our hostel is really nice; it's the first time I've stayed at a youth hostel besides my initial trip through Europe (which was on a tour where we stayed in hostels and, at the time, I didn't even know they were called hostels). The staff is super nice, they have relatively reasonably priced wireless, a common room with couches and TVs, and a giant kitchen where you can store and prepare any or all of your own food. Very sweet indeed if you don't mind being emerged in a sea of potential weirdos.

I would say that most of the people here seem to be what I would expect: younger travelers seemingly trying to travel cheap. The word "youth" in "youth hostel" is not necessarily a requirement, however. And then there is the fact that our room is a tiny 2-bed cell surrounded on three sides by similar rooms (we have no window, but we do have a skylight). This is fine for us as we will only be in that room for sleeping, and for that it is more than adequate. We did notice, in the brief time that we dropped off our bags, that there is a tiny opening in the top of the wall that connects us to the room behind us. It is a small opening, maybe 1" tall and a foot wide, but it seems to make audio privacy an impossibility. Once again, not a big deal, we're not expecting the lap of luxury here, but the first thing Kane and I heard when we originally walked into our room was a woman on the other side.

"Fucking Jesus" is all we hear. She says it about half a dozen times.

I don't know who she is, and, obviously, can't see her. She is talking softly, but certainly loud enough for us to clearly hear her. Kane and I just stared at each other perplexed, stifling giggles. Does she know we can hear her? Does she know we're here at all? Is she ok? Is she crazy? These questions flashed through my mind. We turned to leave her to her mantra, but did not manage to get out of the room in time to miss her loud fart. Apparently we're getting rather friendly with our unseen neighbors here - excellent. We'll see if there are any other incidents during our stay here; all we can do now is laugh and type it out on the internet for all to see.

An easy day in Christchurch tomorrow, then we're off on our south island tour. Tune in next time for updates on our adventure and insight into crazy people staying at hostels.

NZ, Here We Come

The eve before a flight to a new country. Or any place, really. Always a nervous night. Packing, cleaning, did we bring everything? Don't forget to take out the trash, eat all the perishables, what time do we need to be at the airport? We need to go to sleep early, but, of course, I'm not tired. It's like Christmas eve for grown ups. The item I always forget: any guesses? My hairbrush. Not the worst thing to forget, easily replaced, but still annoying.

We are packed, the list of last minutes is ready for tomorrow morning, the cab is booked. I think we are good to go. 18 days, a rental car and a jam packed itinerary for a trip around the south island of NZ. I'm really looking forward to some great photos - my main goal besides having fun in general. I really wish that I had at least one more lens for my Canon XTi (digital SLR); I have really been aching to take some fish-eye and/or wide angle pics. Someday I will splurge for another lens, right now I'll make due with this amazing camera and its solitary lens.

Not much else to say this fine night, except that I'll be blogging in NZ and I think we'll have a really great time. Think good thoughts to the travel gods for us. Bon Voyage!

Big Brother Smiles

Kane and I are currently jumping through the numerous and gratuitous hoops to try to transfer our visa to a Work and Holiday Visa, which would allow us to work for a limited time in this country. You may be aware of this situation from previous blog entries, but to summarize, we are currently on a travel visa whereby we cannot work legally. We were expecting to be sponsored by potential employers for a work visa, which has not happened yet. A new visa has just become available to US citizens that allows us to conditionally work in Aus, and that's the visa we're trying to get so that we are more desirable to potential employers. The annoying thing is that we have to be outside of the country when we apply for and when we receive this visa. So for that and other reasons, we are headed to New Zealand.

So, of course, the application process is not very clear on the government website. I therefore fired off an extensive email that I assumed would either be overlooked, not answered in any helpful way, or responded to long after I needed the information. However, to my surprise, I received a very long email from the immigration office this morning. I assumed it would be full of random ramblings that don't really answer my question, but it wasn't. An actual person actually read my email, found the answers to my questions, and typed out intelligible answers in a prompt response. Does any of this sound like government to you? No, me neither. Big brother (and Moe, as pictured) smiles on me today.

Not only that, but the information that the lady sent me was exactly what I wanted to hear. My application is not as complicated as I had originally thought, we don't need to get a bunch of stuff notarized, and the wait time for our visa is typically 48 hours if all goes smoothly. So, unless this lady is yanking my chain and laughing her ass off over it in her cubicle (which I think is justification for a person to be sent to hell in the afterlife), we are hopefully going to be able to get through this and still enjoy our vacation. Add a drop of faith in the government bucket for me.

Workin' It

A couple weeks ago (they use the term "fortnight" here like a normal word, hehe) we went to a sustainable living festival here in Melbourne and stopped by the Engineers Without Borders booth and subsequently joined the group online. Tonight we went to our first EWB meeting in the city along with about 20+ other local members. We met at a downtown bar and fully expected a handfull of middle aged men in suits dryly discussing engineering topics. We were pleasantly surprised to find a mostly younger crowd (our age or a bit older) about half of which were females and who were all very into the multitude of projects, big and small, that the organization orchestrates. They were also a very social group, appearing to be "our kind of people": smart, involved, fun, professional, extremely good looking...you know who I'm talking about.

As an added bonus, we talked to a few people who suggested that we send our resumes their direction to be passed along to interested parties in their respective companies. Frankly, we were hoping for some sort of networking like this to occur, so we're glad that we fit in and got to talk to some nice folks who may have openings at their places of employment. A group of them even invited us to dinner after the meeting, so we shared a nice meal around a lazy susan in Chinatown. All in all, it was a success and we will be contacting the 2 represented companies tomorrow with our resumes.

In other news, our travel visa runs out (i.e. requires us to leave the country and come back in to renew it) on March 15th. We are planning on heading to NZ just before then for a couple weeks to meet our visa requirement and to apply for a different visa that will allow us to work. This temporary work visa was not available when we left the States and it should help us to get work upon our return. We have to apply and receive this stupid visa while outside the country, which is the only tricky part. They say it only takes 2-4 weeks to process, so we're really hoping that they go faster than the US government is known for so that we can come back and get one of these jobs before the fire goes out. I have faith that we will 1) get our foot (feet?) in the door at at least one company, 2) have an awesome NZ vacation, 3) receive our new work visas in a timely fashion while on vacation, 4) come back to a nice job that pays us money. Cross your fingers for us.

Footy

We attended our first game of Australian Rules Football last night, loving nicknamed "footy": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Rules_Football. We live about one block away from the Telstra Dome, a large sporting field with a retractable roof that can hold just over 50,000 people. I thought it might be bad living right next to such a monstrosity - that there would be lots of noise and traffic during events - but it's so unobtrusive that I had previously thought that they weren't even hosting events there at all. I was wondering how they actually make money there, but I found out that events are held there all the time without any sign of noise or congestion to speak of - excellent.

We attended this event at the invitation of a couple that we met through the meetup.com event about a month ago, Lindsey and John. This is not the couple I just introduced, this is the couple that took us to the beach (damn sunburns) a few weeks ago. They had two friends (an Aussie couple from work) along as well.

We got there at about 6:30pm, about 45 minutes before the game started to get good seats since it's general admission. I find it strange that the footy game is general admission while the movie theaters assign seats...I digress. So, we got seats at the field level right at center field - pretty much perfect. And we were slightly under the overhang of the balcony above which allowed us to avoid the rain when it started about halfway through the game. It only rained for a few minutes anyway, but I was happy to have cover.

To start, the field is huge. I see why they use 18 players from each team to play a game - there's no way to cover the field otherwise. The field is a giant grassy oval - Kane estimated it to be about twice the size of an American football field (lord knows I have no idea). Footy is not American football. It's not soccer and it's not rugby. It's a whole different game entirely from any of these games. There is a ball which is oval shaped - sort of like a football but smaller and with no points at the ends. There are goals at either end of the field, but instead of there being two goal posts to make one goal area, there are four posts making three goal areas. If you kick the ball between the middle two posts, it's 6 points, between the outer posts is only 1.

You can pass the ball by either kicking it in the air (drop kick) or by hand passing, which is like serving underhand in volleyball; you can't just toss it to someone. There are no time outs and the game does not stop at all unless the ball goes out of bounds or a goal is scored at which time they either throw the ball back in or do a jump ball type thing, respectively. It is virtually continuous for the entire 4 quarters (with 5-15 minute breaks between quarters) and it looks exhausting. To get the ball from the other team you either tackle the person with the ball (no pads) or intercept, and these two actions are often intermixed. It's basically complete chaos on the field for four 25-ish minute quarters.

My favorite part of the game was the shouting coming from the fathers, brothers, and other random men (and women, they're just not as loud). It was great. Standard heckling and anger at what they envision to be poor calls by the umpires was ever present and just as entertaining as the game itself. There was one guy a couple rows behind us that had the perfect coliseum heckling voice: loud, gruff, assertive. He kept yelling insults at whichever team that he didn't like, but he kept all the abuse to a G rating which made it even funnier. "You idiot!", "Get up you wimp!", and simply, "Girl!", were among his most commonly used taunts, though he did venture toward some more obscure name-calling with "Mongrel!" and "You're such a twit!". It was great, the crowds here are excellent.

We both had a good time, despite it being a bit to cold for my taste (they left the damn retractable roof open for some reason). They do the standard coliseum-style food: hot dogs, chips, french fries, soda, beer, but they actually had a bit larger of a menu including meat pies (very popular here, it looks like dog crap in a pot pie), burgers, ice cream bars, and a few other things. I was sad to see nachos missing from the menu, but that crap is poison anyway. I even saw a veggie burger on one of the menus, though we made a point to eat before hand to avoid that junk.

All in all it was fun and, though I don't think I'm going to start attending religiously, it was a nice event to go to with friends once in a while (like an A's game), and a good old fashioned Aussie experience. After the game we hung out at John and Lindsey's place, ordered some pizza, watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and played with their newly acquired didgeridoo. It was a good night, see wiki for info on the strange native Australian instrument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo.

Introducing

I would like to introduce everyone to our new friends Marc and Alana. I mentioned them briefly before as the couple who invited us out to dinner, but we ended up having to leave because Kane was sunburn-sick (for those that are blog followers). Since then, we have hung out with them multiple times and they are both very cool. Marc is a Kiwi (New Zealander) who does web design for a company that his parents own. Alana is a native Minneapolis-ian (?) who has lived in NZ for the past three years before coming to Melbourne with Marc almost a year ago. As they are our best (and pretty much only) friends here, I will likely mention them again in the future. So, everyone, meet Marc and Alana, they are very cool.

On a different topic, we're into month three of our stay here, and therefore approaching the final third of our allowable stay on our visa. After three months in the country on a travel visa, you have to leave the country and when/if you come back, you get another three months. This can continue for a year. We were intending on having jobs by now which would have hypothetically sponsored us for work visas that would allow us to stay for up to four years. Those of you who have been in contact with one or both of us know that it has not been as easy as we had thought/hoped.

The easy way to get a job in Australia is to go to a recruiter. These are middle-man firms that match up employees with employers and take a fee from both to do so. It doesn't sound so bad except that it is not uncommon for these businesses to take 15-18% of your negotiated salary for the first 6 months! That is like thousands of dollars! So, we've been trying to do without these people, and figure that this much time with no income is better than giving a bunch of money to them. It's been relaxing at least, if not boring, not to have a job for a while.

So, we've been looking up companies online, getting references from people we meet, etc. Kane called a place Monday to ask about a Mechanical Engineering job that they were advertising on their website. Once they heard that he had done structural work, the woman indicated how they were really hurting for structural engineers, so Kane sent both of our resumes over. Their immigration lawyer called us later that day to ask about our visa situation. So that's promising, but we'll have to see how it works out. I don't know if they are willing to go through the hoops of sponsoring us for a visa, but we'll see.

Next week we will start looking for tickets to New Zealand if we haven't heard from that company- yeay, a forced vacation. Until then, we'll just have to see what happens...

Smokers

To precede this rant, I want to say that I mean no personal offense to anyone. To each his own and all that, everyone can make their own decisions and suffer their own consequences and that's fine. Having said that, this cursed town is full of smokers!! We walked some errands today, traversing probably three miles around the CBD during mid-day. It was nice to be out in the bustling business district and to walk around this rather impressive city. There are a lot of cool venues, old rad architecture, sweet skyscrapers, sculptures, public areas, parks, etc. in this town. Overall, I would say Melbourne is set up very well and has a lot to offer a resident. I'm really enjoying living in a large metropolitan area.

The only major complaint I have about this place is the ridiculous quantity of smokers. All ages, sizes, shapes, men, women...so many folks smoke!! And I couldn't care less if they're not bugging me, but walking around town during business hours means being constantly accosted by second hand smoke from people who are now doubt on their smoke breaks, or, as I like to call it, their slacker/cancer breaks.

I guess I've never lived right in a big city before, but I could swear that there aren't this many smokers in California. I know there are plenty of them, but they seem to usually be limited to the eternally addicted, the white (or insert appropriate color) trash, and the hopeful juvenile delinquents. These people are just random business people. They are dressed nicely, they look professional, and they're standing around in an alley next to their resident high rise smoking a cigarette. Maybe I've been brainwashed by PSAs, but it just looks wrong.

So, I basically dart around the sidewalks strategically holding my breath to avoid the big whiffs, attempting to dodge the hot end of their cancer sticks that they wave around rather carelessly, and ritualistically bitching about them once I'm out of ear shot. I think I may instate a smoker kicking policy when walking down the street. Or, maybe I should try something more subtle like sedative darts. Or, maybe I'll just keep walking, scowling, and silently cursing the smokers who are slowly murdering me while they kill themselves to get 5 minutes off of work every two hours.

The irony is that my face got a bit sunburned while we were walking around today. I'm an idiot. Maybe I should just take up smoking and get it over with.

Itching

It has been over a week since Kane and I went to the beach and received well-deserved yet unfortunate sunburns. We spent the following four days without leaving the house at all. I realize that this doesn't deviate from our standard schedule as much as it perhaps should, however, it was awful nonetheless. We were in significant pain the first few days - neither of us could sleep any other way than on our backs, underwear was the only welcome clothing, and Kane even opted to take Advil to ease the pain a couple times. Needless to say it was terrible and we won't do it again.

For the past few days we have found that the pain has mostly subsided and that we are peeling. We used an inordinate amount of aloe lotion on these burns, but alas, a couple layers of skin are so irreparably unhappy with us that they are leaving despite our efforts to make amends. I don't really blame them, but I'm still sad to see them go. Not because of the ridiculously uneven tan that I'm giving up, but rather because it's just really annoying.

I remember peeling being fun when I was a kid, and a small amount of that joy did manage to make it through to this episode of skin loss. However, I had forgotten about the initial and continuing symptom that plagues a peeling sunburn: itching. No, the title of this post was not some artistic metaphor for our need to really get out and explore the land or something; we're not that cool so you should just stop hoping that we are. Itching, you think, isn't really that bad - either scratch or don't and then it goes away. Firstly, I'm a scratcher and Kane's not, so that added tension floating around my sunburn doesn't really help. Secondly, I don't know how he doesn't scratch because my itching is something out of a horror movie: it stalks me, wakes me in the night, plagues my dreams and waking thoughts. It is all-consuming. Maybe it has something to do with me being a huge baby in general, but I have never itched so badly and it must be scratched.

Not to mention that I'm not really happy with the entire purpose of the itching. As I understand it, the itch of a sunburn is our body's way of encouraging us to get this dead layer of skin off our bodies. It is an instinctive stimulus and we respond in kind by aiding this molting process. Now, I understand this natural function of human evolution, however, I think it's out of date by a few thousand years. I am no longer a Neanderthal that needs a whole cause and effect situation to do what needs to be done with this sort of thing. It's not like having pain receptors or feeling hunger or something - things that actually let me know, or at least confirm, something previously unknown about my body. No self respecting, opposable thumbed human can avoid - neigh resist - peeling off skin that has formed a neat little "pull here" tab. And even if you could, or, god forbid, the skin was peeling somewhere unreachable (and I thought my burn was bad...), I'm pretty sure it will just come off in the shower or in your typical daily movin' and shakin'. So what's the big deal with itching; it's unnecessary and bothersome and I don't appreciate it. I am submitting this complaint to the god of human evolutionary changes, I think there's an office just downtown. I am also submitting to have people stop having bad eye sight - there's no point anymore, we have glasses, contact lenses, and Lasik; you're not weeding anyone out anymore.

So, I've scratched and scratched and I'm still itchy but now with irritated skin. I've tried not scratching, hoping the itch would take the "I'm not home right now, so go away" hint, but it just persists like the most hard core, knowing-you're-hovering-behind-the-peephole Jehovah's Witness ever to approach your front porch. The only upside is the rare but coveted occasion when the skin does actually decide it's time to depart from the body and Kane and I can compete to see who can get the most gigantic single piece of peeled skin from their torso. Now that's some good old fashioned fourth grade fun. I think I'm in the lead for largest chunk of skin, but he's certainly winning for most overall skin lost. His sunburn damage traversed significantly more body area than mine did, but mine was highly concentrated in an awful spot: the "seam" of skin connecting boob to stomach - very harsh. It may be part of the reason that my skin seems to be suffering more (I'm on round two of peeling); that area is not only really sensitive and (obviously) never sees the sun, but it's also being constantly irritated with each slight bob of my chest. Good times.

Basically, next time we go outside for a prolonged period of time and/or with less-than decent amounts of clothing on (why can't we all just go to the beach in t-shirts and shorts anyway?), we're sunscreening up our entire bodies directly after showering. Why try to anticipate every little crevice that the sun will make it into - we clearly need to cover any and all crevice-like areas of our respective (but not necessarily respectable) bodies. Sun, you are not an enemy, but you are a dangerous friend and we can no longer permit you to just hang around without us preparing properly to see you, similar to being around, say, a rattlesnake or Fran Drescher. We're watching you...(scum).

So You Think You Know Aussies?

Coming Feb '08: You've seen Australians on TV; You've heard a few Aussie accents at random local establishments over the years; You loved Olivia Newton John in Grease...So, You think you know Aussies??

For those of you who think you know some stuff about Australia and its quirky culture, or would like to know some, here's some trivia for you. Since I can't put the answers upside down on the bottom of the box, I'll just put them right side up...at the bottom of this entry. So take your best guess at what these crazy Aussies are all about, and remember: this is only the stuff that we've noticed so far...

Level 1: Gimme Questions (or stuff I habitually mention in my blog)
1. Which side of the road to the drive on in Australia?
2. What do they call the area of town we call "downtown"?
3. In what time increment do they advertise rent (ex: our apartment costs $ per ___?)
4. What is the standard percent used for tipping at service establishments (restaurants)?
5. What worldwide yearly tennis competition was held in Melbourne last month?
6. What are these words slang for: brekky, uni, avo, telly?
7. What do these words translate to in American English: car park, footpath, singlet, chips?

Level 2: A Bit More Difficult
1. Do Aussies actually say g'day mate?
2. What sports are Aussie 'equivalents' of baseball and football?
3. What denominations does their money come in?
4. What is lemonade?
5. What is the emergency number (911 equivalent)?
6. What are these words slang for: mozzies, rego, piss?

Level 3: Good Luck Figuring This Out
1. What is a gaol?
2. What is dim sim?
3. How is the word "quay" pronounced?
4. What quantity of liquid is a pot of beer?
5. What is virtually the only brand of toothpaste available?
6. What do these words translate to in American English: capsicum, milk bar, bogan, nappies?

Think these over carefully...cue Jeopardy song...doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo...

Answers
Level 1:
1. Left
2. The CBD
3. Weekly
4. 0% - it's standard not to tip (awesome)
5. Australian Open
6. Breakfast, university (which means college), avocado, television
7. Parking lot, sidewalk, tank top, French fries

Level 2:
1. They definitely say g'day and mate, but I haven't often heard them together
2. Cricket and Australian Rules Football, known as "footy" (or, you could argue, rugby)
3. Bills: $100, $50, $20, $10, $5; Coins: $2, $1, $.50, $.20, $.10, $.05 and NO PENNIES!
4. Lemonade is lemon/lime soda (like Sprite or 7up) - this one really pissed me off at first
5. 000
6. Mosquitoes, registration, alcohol (or just beer)

Level 3:
1. A gaol is a jail; it's just some old British way of spelling it. Pronounce the g as a j and it actually does work. Damn Brits.
2. Dim Sim is an Aussie version of a Chinese inspired dumpling dish. See wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_sim. I ate one not knowing that it was pork; they're pretty good, though I thought it tasted more seafood-ish. I guess it's just all mushed up hot dog style - probably horrible for you. And, of course, they shorten the name to "dimmy" in good Aussie form.
3. Quay is pronounced "key". Having a hard time with this one
4. A pot of beer is 10 ounces and appears to replace a pint in popularity
5. Colgate, wtf?
6. Bell pepper, quickie mart/convenience store, white trash/hick, diapers

So, that's Round One of "So You Think You Know Aussies"! Enjoy your consolation prizes and we look forward to seeing you again next round. Thank you for playing, and now a word from our sponsors.

Here Comes the Sun

Yesterday we had our first opportunity to explore outside of Melbourne proper a bit. One of the nice couples we met at the meetup.com event invited us to the beach in Williamstown, about a 15 minute drive south-west of the city. It was beautiful - nice small beach, warm day, gorgeous green/blue water. I wasn't sure exactly what we'd do on the beach, but our friends wanted to mostly layout, which was nice and relaxing.

We did not, however, apply appropriate sunscreen. I had sunscreened up before we left, but I did so in preparation for standing sun exposure (i.e. face, shoulders, chest, feet) rather than laying down sun exposure (full body). Once we realized we were going to be laying in the sun, we added sunscreen, but not nearly enough. The day was nice: sunshine, good conversation, nice temperature water, a nice lunch at a restaurant on the beach.

Once we returned, our lack of sun preparation was evident. Kane was pretty burned at first, his whole front and splotchy in the back. My stomach was burned. We showered and I napped a bit and another couple wanted to go out to dinner. So, we gathered the beach couple again and went to meet the other couple for a night out. There is filming going on downtown - it appeared to be a 1940s type movie; we saw the extras in costume and they had blocked off the street. It was pretty cool, couldn't see much though. Anyway, we decided to go to a part of town Kane and I hadn't been before which was really nice.

This area of town reminded me of a quainter version of San Francisco's North Beach area - lots of Italian restaurants intermixed with boutiques and shops (minus the nudie bars though). It was very nice. Kane started to feel nauseous so we actually had to leave before even ordering dinner, but we will surely return. We're pretty sure it was his sunburn accosting his body that made him feel ill, and realized it probably would have been better just to rest that night. We came home and he went to bed lathered in aloe.

By then, his sunburn had progressed to cover his entire front and back, parts of his legs and face. I hate to see him hurting!! As of this morning, his back and legs seem to be a lot better, it's just his front and parts of his face that got it pretty bad and will give him trouble for a few days. My stomach got it pretty good and other splotchy parts (good splotchy Doctor splotchy) such as right armpit and right hip. Good times. We heart aloe vera.

Well, lesson is live and learn. I figure if you're learning a lot you are either: in school, living a lot, or not too bright. I like to think we're living a lot, though you can draw your own conclusions.

Urban Wakeboarding

Invitation from Kane:
Some sort of festival going on next to our apartments this weekend. As you can see in the picture they are setting up the urban wakeboarding pools in the parking lot right now (wakeboarders will jump from one pool to the next and hopefully not fall onto the asphalt). Let Angie or I know if you would like to come play.

We Have Internet

Perhaps the most momentus occurance since our arrival in this country, and perhaps since our departure from the internet-abled haven of our San Luis Obispo home - we have DSL internet!!
We are basking in the glory as it flows effortlessly through our home, searching the internet far and wide for useless knowledge and youtube videos. We feel liberated, invigorated, able again. Thank goodness for the best invention ever; welcome back into our lives, internet, we missed you.

Smrt

Mom emailed me yesterday to tell me of a letter she received. She thought it was junk mail, and the title line of "congratulations" probably didn't help to show that it wasn't. However, upon reading further, she found it to be a letter from the California Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Apparently I passed my engineering test, weee! I am now allowed to legally be called a Civil Engineer. And I'm in Australia so it doesn't really matter. It does mean that I don't have to take that wretched test again, which was basically the goal.

So, Kane took me out to a nice dinner last night to celebrate and then made me watch tennis the rest of the night. Just kidding, he didn't make me, it was the men's championship match for the Australia Open, so I didn't mind. And I just played mahjong through most of it anyway.

For those of you who aren't avid Simpson's watchers and quoters, the title line is Homer trying to spell "smart". I thought it probably paralleled my performance on the civil engineering test - done poorly but people still knew what it meant - and was hence chosen to title this post.

In other news, it is said by *the powers that be* that our internet subscription is pending and that we may have internet at our apartment by Thursday of this week. Based on previous attempts to initiate peaceful relations with utility companies in the country, I seriously doubt the legitimacy of these claims but will nevertheless remain hopeful of their fulfillment. Who knew it would be so hard to ask someone to hook something up for you which requires no maintainance at all in exchange for a ridiculously high monthly payment? It sounds like a relatively good deal for them, but they still make it difficult. Oh well, we're almost over the hump, say a prayer to the internet gods for us.

Meetup.com

We signed up for an American Expat group with Meetup.com and went to a meet-up last night at this beer garden in town. It was a really nice place, large outdoor area with an outdoor bar and plenty of space for all 35 of us to mingle and hang out. It was fun and it was damn nice to talk to some people - thank you for finding me the website Jon.

We were a bit wary of going - are these people weirdos? Are they all old people? Will no one show? When we got there, we assumed it would be easy to find the American group, but there were lots of people there and we couldn't tell who was there from our group. We tried listening for accents, but it's awkward to eavesdrop on strangers, so I eventually just walked up and asked a group if they were from meetup.com. They were, and we started chatting. More and more people showed up, many asking people awkwardly if they were from the group of Americans (I preferred to say from the meetup.com group) and it was very nice. Very "lively" as my mom would say.

Kane and I ended up in seperate circles of people, which was actually good because we got to meet even more people that way. And it probably isn't bad for us to spend one night talking to someone other than each other. I hung out with a couple from Ohio and a guy from Arkansas most of the night and Kane was mostly talking to a girl from Minnesota and her Kiwi boyfriend. We actually live two buildings over from the Ohio couple and just down the road from the other couple, so we all exchanged phone numbers and took the tram home together. Definitely a successful night.

The only weird thing was there was one strange guy who kept awkwardly trying to poke into groups of people. I felt sorry for him because he was obviously socially awkward and couldn't start conversation well, but I also got a strange vibe from him so decided not to talk to him. One of the girls, Alana, later told me that he shows up to all these events and tries to sell some sort of thing to do with social networking. She said he's weird and it was good I didn't talk to him, so that worked out. We didn't even talk to most of the people that were there; supposedly there were 35 people. I was just glad to latch on to a few people that we could probably hang out with again. Yeay for the internet!! If only we could get some at our house...

Laptops

Hurrah, we have laptops! Our laptops arrived yesterday from FedEx, and I just wanted to briefly review the hijinx that occured trying to get these laptops. They have been a fight since the beginning: trying to pick the right ones for our needs, shipping them to Thom to get them set up, Thom paying a ridiculous amount of money to ship them to us...ridiculous taxes that customs made us pay to let them into the country (which I am disputing currently), etc. They arrived on Saturday, at which point we could have picked them up before noon at the FedEx office but since we don't have a car and the FedEx office is a ways out of town, we opted to wait two more days and have them delivered on Monday.

Since we live in a secured building, the delivery people can't just leave packages for you and actually can't even get in the building unless you are there to buzz them in. Monday was also the day of our first and only appointment: we were meeting with Doug, a friend of a friend of Thom's who works at ARUP, an awesome worldwide engineering company with an office here (where I would love to work). We were hoping the FedEx guy wouldn't come during our meeting with Doug, as we could be home anytime except then. I suppose the only fortunate thing about this whole endeavor is that the FedEx guy didn't come while we were away. After we returned, we watched some TV and Kane took a nap while I read. The buzzer rang for the door downstairs. Kane shot up off the couch and stumbled into our room half awake mumbling about the FedEx guy. "Did you buzz him in?", I asked. He ran to the phone to buzz the guy in, having dashed for our room instead of the phone in his half-awaken-ness. Don't you love being awoken by a loud, ominous ringing?

So we buzz the guy in, tell him to wait in the lobby and that we'll be right down to meet him. We run into the hallway and push the button for the elevator. There are two elevators, one is flashing "out of service". The other is moving, but skips our floor. It won't come back to our floor and is obviously not working correctly. We investigate the emergency stairwell and it's as dark as a cave at midnight. I venture a poke at a nearby switch hoping it's not an emergency button or something, and lights flicker on. I tell Kane to man the phone in our apartment and keep trying the elevator while I run down the stairs to meet the FedEx guy. I dash down to the 10th floor and find the door back into the hallway ajar (we later found that the doors back into each floor from the emergency stairwell are locked). I try the elevator from the 10th floor and it miraculously stops for me and takes me to the lobby.

The package and FedEx guy are waiting, I sign for the package, blah blah, and have a seat on my package of computers. The elevator is not responding at all anymore. It won't budge from the ground floor. I think this fiasco occured only slightly before we arrived because people were starting to slowly bleed out of the emergency stairwell and bustle about complaining about the elevators. A guy went to get someone to fix it. I just waited. I didn't bring my cell phone, so couldn't call Kane. I didn't have any keys so I couldn't get back into the emergency stairwell or even get up to my floor if the elevators were working. Good move, me.

I called Kane from the buzzer at the front of the building and asked him to come down with the keys. He arrived and the elevator still wasn't working. We decided to get back to our apartment by climbing the 15 flights of stairs, Kane carrying our 31 pound box-o-computers. Another couple made the journey with us, but couldn't get into their floor because they didn't have the key and our key only works to get into the ground floor and our floor. I think our apartment is run by communists, or at least people who think communism is humerous to watch. We told the couple that we'd leave the door to our floor ajar in case they want to come up to see if the elevator is working or come use our phone or wait at our place. We didn't see them again, so I assume they figured it out. We heard the familiar *ding* of a working elevator not long after that.

So, we have computers. We don't have internet but are mooching off the public library for all they're worth in the internet category. The internet here is giving us guff about going to gmail.com to get our email though, so we still won't be terribly responsive yet. But in another week or so, I hope to have all emails responded to. Don't give up on me yet. At least blogger.com works.

On a side note, we have some tentative reservations for visitors: Rhonda says she wants to come for the end of July to mid-August, Carissa and EJ want to come in June, and Eric said August-ish (is that what you said, Eric?). So, like I said, space is limited so if you want the extra room and bed in our house and desire our undivided attention during your visit, let us know when you plan to visit asap. Keep in mind that your summer is our winter, though I think it's "mild" like in California (freezing to me and mom, pleasant to Rhonda and dad, tolerable to the rest of you). We don't know what our situation will be later in the year (with jobs, vacation time, living situation, etc.), but don't let that stop anyone from planning a trip; we want to see all you people!!