Hello Cellar Dwellers, I'm back in Oz!

[chrisinhouston]

Seems strange to be back in Australia for another 4 weeks. You know you have been traveling too much when driving on the left side of the road seems more natural than on the right and when you have a really deeper appreciation for roundabouts and wish your own country would use them more instead of traffic lights and 4 way stop intersections! Or when it becomes more natural to be buying veggies, meat or fish at the local Woolworths market and it makes sense to calculate the price per kilogram and you wonder why the USA still uses the archaic non metric system of measurements. And will it be chicken or kangaroo for dinner or Tasmanian salmon?

And you kill some time watching Australian television whose programing (at least in Geelong) leaps from those nutty folks out on Bondi Beach to the Polish news show to America's PBS News Hour and then to a rerun of Green Acres with a few cooking shows mixed in, and then commercials come on for Coles market and Curtis Stone is telling you how to create a really light summer meal this year for Christmas, perhaps a prawn salad. Did you know that they run American NFL football games on TV really early in the morning? But who cares because you now enjoy Aussie Rules Football where the guys have the legs of soccer players and the upper torsos of body builders and they keep crashing into each other with no kind of padding or helmets and get back up and kick the ball 200 meters down the field through the small space between the goal posts. And talk about full body tattoos!

So, we are here almost a week now and settled back in and it's warm enough to sit out on our balcony with the view of the pier and Corio Bay and eat dinner and drink lots of really good cheap Australian wine. We had a few days to adjust but on Monday, Sarah started work at the Shell refinery. I drive her as she won't attempt it. The security folks at the entry gate are so nice. Each morning and afternoon I pull up and look in the camera and the security guy says "Hello" and I say in my American accent, "Hi, I'm dropping off my wife", or "I'm picking my wife up at the ADMIN building," and they say, "Right, no worries." I love that term... No Worries. The next time I get forget to pay a bill and get a late charge I'm going to say, "Right, no worries!"

And yesterday as I ate breakfast at my little desk looking out on the bay I noticed that there was a plume of really thick black smoke coming out of one of the stacks at the refinery and then a 50 foot flame and my wife said, "Uh oh, must be a big release." In case you aren't up on refinery lingo, a big release means something is wrong and it's kind of like letting all the steam out of the pressure cooker on your stove before dinner ends up on the ceiling. Oh well, turns out they had an unexpected black out thanks to the power company and they had to burn off about 3 days worth of production of automobile gasoline. It wasn't a good day for Shell, Geelong to put it mildly.

So I brought a fishing reel from home and some soft baits and jig heads and I bought a fishing rod for $39 and got a $12 fishing license and have been killing time trying to catch dinner. So far, no luck but that's ok because they have a great fish shop not far away with REALLY fresh fish and even shucked Tasmanian oysters which are very tasty. I figure when we are leaving I will go down to the pier and pick out the guy with the crappies fishing rod and pay it forward by giving it to him as a gift... Something about teaching a man to fish?

And when I'm not fishing or driving or out taking pictures or even cooking dinner for my wife I'm trying to figure out Adobe Lightroom 3 on my computer which I bought last year and don't really like but feel compelled to try to figure out why so many other shooters like it. I brought a little 1TB drive with a copy of my digital photo archive on it and Lightroom says I have 62,000 some odd images and the import for the catalog will take a while to complete. Perhaps a month?

So that's life up until now down here on the lower edge of the southern hemisphere. I'll post some pictures once I get Adobe Lightroom figured out!

[zippyt]

Look at Chris !! Liven the life !!!

[xoxoxoBruce]

50 facts about Australia.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by chrisinhouston

you have a really deeper appreciation for roundabouts and wish your own country would use them more instead of traffic lights and 4 way stop intersections!

word

[xoxoxoBruce]

They are OK if the traffic isn't too heavy. They're building some new ones on Cape Cod, but New Jersey is removing them. Of course that may be a comment on Jersey drivers.

[glatt]

I wish at a minimum that we would replace most stop signs with yield signs. It's frustrating coming to a stop when no cars are coming. A huge waste of gas too. I bet simply replacing stop signs with yield signs would solve our dependence on foreign oil. OK. Maybe not, but it would save a lot.

It would require education of US drivers, because I think most drivers treat yield signs as "Go" signs.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

They are OK if the traffic isn't too heavy.
They're building some new ones on Cape Cod, but New Jersey is removing them.
Of course that may be a comment on Jersey drivers.

Or, on the influence of insurance companies.
Round-abouts are hazard courses for pedestrians.
Years ago Oregon had a few, and they were removed for that reason.

Now our cities are building them again... this time with tall landscaping
to prevent drivers and pedestrians from seeing cars coming around the circle !

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Round-abouts are hazard courses for pedestrians.

You get used to them. I cross just after a roundabout every day. my only issue with them is the people who don't indicate, which might mean I miss a chance to cross.

Only time I was ever involved in a traffic "collision" was when I was knocked down on a zebra crossing. Foreign driver, no driving license, no road tax, no insurance. Hitting me was dropped from the list because the other penalties carried a higher premium. Must have shit him up big time though - he was flagged down less than 50 yards away by people coming out of the station who had seen what happened. He only caught me a glancing blow but it probably lived longer in his head than mine.

ETA - thanks Chris - a wonderful post about Oz.
Photos please!!

[Lamplighter]

I'm surprised no one commented on the conformation of Wombat poop, not even Dwellar Wombat.

[chrisinhouston]

Dinner with a view!

[glatt]

I'll be right over.

[chrisinhouston]

Finally headed home tomorrow after about 30 days here. I think I will have to readjust to right side of the road driving after all of this left side stuff. We are at the Park Royal hotel adjoining Melbourne airport. Sadly, while I got a B/F upgrade for SYD to MEL and LAX to IAH, I did not get the upgrade for the 14 hour SYD to LAX flight. My wife insists I take her B/F seat and she will sit in my seat in E+ as she just plans to read and sleep. What a great wife I have!

We sure enjoyed this trip as well as the earlier one we did in September and all the friendly people we met. Great food! Lean meats, fresh fish and super veggies and fruits and fabulous wines. We hardly ate out as we really enjoyed cooking our own meals in our apartment. We are bringing back 26 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of a new limited edition Bailey's Creme with orange. Oh and a Kahlua with peppermint for Christmas.

I learned 2 new phrases last week; Instead of "how are you?" it's "How ya going?" and for a compliment it's "Good on ya!" I'll miss all the Aussie banter and sodr ends to words like shuut for shirt and yeaha for year.

Tomorrow is our time interstellar time warp trip where we depart at 12:30 pm and fly for something like 22 hours plus layovers and plane changes and still get home at 6 pm tomorrow night.

[Chocolatl]

Safe travels home!

[ZenGum]

Well, g'bye!

Y'all come back now ya hear!

[Aliantha]

I loved reading your op for this thread Chris. Just awesome and totally spot on.