New Zealand

Jason and I had a great time touring New Zealand! We spent 7 days there, but we probably could have spent an entire month.

Click on this link to see where all the photos are located - PHOTOS FROM NEW ZEALAND

Day 1 – Christchurch:
We arrived in Christchurch on Saturday night around midnight and went immediately to our hotel. When we woke up Sunday morning, we decided to formulate our plan for the week and started calling around to the companies that rented campervans on the South Island. After deciding to pick up a campervan later that afternoon and stay one more night in Christchurch, we headed out to the city center of Christchurch where we saw a really cool Anglican church, walked around a botanical gardens and milled around a market on a day that couldn’t have any better weather. Once we were done, we headed back toward the airport to pick up our campervan, have dinner, and go back to the hotel.

Day 2 – Christchurch to Franz Josef Glacier:
On Monday morning, we loaded our belongings into the campervan and headed to the grocery store to stock up for our adventurous week. From Christchurch we drove through Arthur’s Pass toward the western side of the South Island – stopping along the way for a few of Jason’s famous picture taking side trips. The closer we got to the glacier, the more overcast the weather became and we arrived there around dinner time. We checked into the holiday park and made our first campervan meal of the week- spaghetti with meat sauce!

Day 3 – Franz Josef Glacier to Wanaka:
On Tuesday, we got up and decided to head toward the Franz Josef Glacier. About the time that we arrived there it was really starting to rain, but we braved the rain and headed down one of the walkways to at least view the glacier. We didn’t think that we had enough time to take a half day walk our on the glacier and drive further toward Queenstown, so a view of the glacier was good enough for us. It was truly a fascinating sight and more interesting to see how the glacier has retreated over the past 100 years or so. Once we finished at the Franz Josef Glacier, we headed up the road to the Fox Glacier where we repeated the same steps. This time we seemed to be able to get a little closer to the glacier until we reached the river that is caused by the water melting off the glacier. I decided not to brave crossing it but Jason hopped across the rocks and water and took a few closer photos of the glacier. It most likely would have been much easier to get closer if the rain coming from the sky wasn’t also contributing to the river coming from the glacier. From here we drove for the rest of the day, stopping off in a few beautiful places for some photos and finally stopping in the town of Wanaka for the evening.

Day 4 – Wanaka to Te Anau:
On Wednesday, we drove from Wanaka to Queenstown where Jason had to check out some of the bungy jumping sites. I really think that he wanted to try it but I think that I somehow successfully talked him out of it. The place that we stopped off at was the first place in the world to do commercial jumping from a bridge. As we drove further past Queenstown to Te Anau, the weather vastly improved and we set up a nice picnic lunch on the edge of a lake also overlooking the mountains. It was such a beautiful setting, I could have just sat there in the cool sunlight for the rest of the day! But we drove onward toward Te Anau where we set up a tour for Doubtful Sound in Fjordland National Park for Thursday and also booked a tour of the Glowworm Caves for later Wednesday night. The Glowworms were very cool. They took you on a high speed boat across the lake, where you got off the boat on the other side and then walked into a cave where the opening was only about 3 feet high. Once past the first 10-15 yards of the opening, the cave opened up and you walked along the inside next to the water rushing through. Making your way into the cave, you finally reached another point where they loaded us into a smaller boat and onto the water in the cave. The boat took us further into the cave where they no longer had lights and the glowworms were all over the ceiling like a mass of green stars. It was very cool and if someone in the boat would make a noise, the glowworms would sense it and some of them would become more dim. It was a very neat experience!

Day 5 – Te Anau and Doubtful Sound:
On Thursday we met up with the tour that we had booked to take us out to Doubtful Sound. Doubtful Sound is one of 2 of the popular fjords to visit in Fjordland National Park and the only one that we had an option to book because the other one (Milford Sound) was inaccessible because of an avalanche blocking the only road to and from the Sound. I’m not sure if I’d hate to be stuck on the other side of the avalanche or not…. Stuck out in the beautiful country might not be a reason to complain! Anyway, we took a boat across a lake and then boarded a bus that would take us on a tour of an underground power plant and finally on to our boat that would tour Doubtful Sound. The weather out in the sound was off and on rain but there were enough clear times that we were able to stand out on the deck of the boat and get some really great photos. The really cool thing about this area was that it was a cool climate rain forest, so while the scenery and rainforest looked like it could have been in Hawaii, it was no where near as warm as Hawaii would be! Truly amazing! We even saw snow when we were on the bus crossing over the mountain that the power plant was dug into.

Day 6 – Te Anau to Geraldine:
On Day 6, we decided to drive the route from Te Anau back to Christchurch that went past Mt. Cook which is the tallest peak in Australasia. If we had time to stop or the weather looked good enough to make it to the mountain, we might try to drive near it. But, as usual, we got a late start (trying to wake up Jason is just a losing battle). Plus, as we drove along, we had to stop for lots more photo opportunities – my favorite being the river that we photographed a group of people doing some river surfing. I think that if I had been able to participate in that, we might have stopped longer to try it out. As we traveled along, we decided that it was too icy and too late to try to make it to Mt. Cook so as the sun was getting lower we stopped at a couple of lakes that are such an amazing color of blue we could barely believe our eyes that they were real. We read in the guide book that these lakes were this color because the rocks surrounding them left a sediment in the lake that caused the light to reflect in such a way that caused this amazing color. I think that we could have built a house right next to either of these lakes and just consider it paradise found (well, except that Jason would probably eventually realize that it was a little too cold there for his liking!). We continued on to a very small town called Geraldine about 2 hours outside of Christchurch and found our Holiday Park to stay at for the evening. It was small, not crowded at all and probably the nicest facilities of all the places that we stayed.

Day 7 – Geraldine to Christchurch:
On Friday, we got up a little earlier than usual and made our final packing to head back to Christchurch and to the airport. The weather was amazing and it was fun to watch the very mountainous country turn into mostly farmland again.

More Aussie Wildlife

On our trip to Queensland we took a tour to see some crocodiles, then while driving up the Great Ocean Road we saw both some kanagoos and some koalas along the side of the road. Here are some videos of each of them.

Crocs:




Kangaroos:




Koalas:

Snow skiing in July

The last weekend in July we got a big group of Accenture folks together for a weekend ski adventure to Mt. Buller just a few hours outside of Melbourne. It's not exactly Vail but was pretty fun to actually see snow in the month of July. Jason did some downhill skiing and as much as I wanted to join him, I opted for the safer snowshoeing which turned out to be a lot of fun! We took a 4 hour tour all over the mountain and even saw a wombat and her little wombat baby. They were so cute and just having a snack on the nearby shrubs.

Here's a picture of what the mama wombat looked like:

Here's some of the video that we took of the wombat (just click on the play button below):

Penguins and Koalas

Jason and I finally gave up on seeing some Australian animals in their natural environment, so we headed out to Philip Island (just a 2 hour drive from Melbourne) for the weekend to see the fairy penguins in their daily ritual of returning from the ocean at sunset and to a koala conservation center. It was a great time and there were tons of penguins to see! It was also the first day in a long time that it wasn't rainy or windy so it made sitting around in the cold waiting for the penguins a lot more fun. Cameras weren't allowed because they scare the penguins, but here's a picture of them that I found on the penguin parade website:
On Sunday, we visted the koala conservation center where we saw lots of cute little koalas hanging out in the trees. They are nocturnal, so most of them were sleeping the day away but we managed to snap some photos of them.

Updates......

Not much new is going on in Australia. The weather is getting cooler as it is autumn here (I keep getting yelled at when I call it 'fall'). For some reason I feel like Halloween and Christmas are right around the corner, but I know that I'm wrong. Many more months to go before those.

I also want to share a photo of my friends Jenny and Jay and their new son Thomas. Jenny is the one that made the great cake our wedding. I can't wait to go by and meet Thomas when I'm at home in a couple of weeks!

Great Ocean Road

A few weeks ago Jason and I “hired a car” (rented) and drove up the Great Ocean Road here in Victoria. Wouldn’t you know it that it was probably the first rainy weekend since I’ve been here? But I’m not complaining because Australia is in the middle of a horrible drought.

The Great Ocean Road is a road that winds mostly along the coast of Victoria for about 400km (248 miles). It travels through many towns (some of them big surfing towns), next to huge cliffs, awesome beaches, and forests (we expected to see some koala but somehow never saw one). It was built in the early 1900’s by WWI veterans just after the war.

Here’s a photo of a “Kangaroos ahead” sign (we didn’t see any Kangaroos though):

And here is a picture of us in front of the 12 Apostles, one of the most visited landmarks along the Road.

The rest of the pictures are uploaded here: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762401655184

Tahiti and Sydney

As I told our friend Ashby, the honeymoon was “freaking awesome”. He really seemed to like that description.
After finalizing a few things at home for about four days following the wedding, Jason and I once again packed up our belongings – set to fly to the southern hemisphere – where it’s the opposite season, the constellations are upside down and (we’re told) the toilet/bath/sink water swirls the other way, though we keep forgetting to try to verify this.
I apologize ahead of time for the length of this blog (and that it took me so long to write and finally post), but I really feel that there are quite a few details that I must share.
Headed to the airport we arrive way ahead of schedule (yes, Jason was still with me), check-in at Delta where they inform us that we can’t have our Air France boarding pass from LA to Papeete and we will need to obtain them at the Air France desk at LAX – no problem we say! We head up to the Delta Crown Room for a bit and then to the gate about 45 minutes before our flight only to discover that our flight is now delayed 2 hours which would cause us to miss the once a day flight to Tahiti. Running to the ticket desk and seeing the line we run back to the Crown Room ticket desk. The lady informs us that that because so many people from our flight have tried to do the same thing, she has only one seat available. We explain that we’re trying to make a once a day connection and we’re on our honeymoon and she says that she’ll see what she can do. While she’s making a phone call, I also try to see if I can produce some tears to help her know that we don’t really want to spend an extra night in Atlanta. She comes up with another seat, right next to the one seat that she originally told us was available. I mean REALLY, right?! We collect our new boarding passes, head to the gate, make a couple of phone calls and hop on the plane. When we arrive in LA, we think that we have 1 hour and 35 minutes to collect our Air France boarding passes and get to the gate! No problem – HA! We arrive at the Air France ticketing desk (because we must exit security to get to their terminal) to find a sign that says “FERME” – French for CLOSED! Believing this to be an impossible situation, we quiz anyone nearby (TSA baggage screeners, Air China employees, random people, etc) only to find out that the people working there had already left (at least 1 hr and 5 minutes before our flight). Someone suggests we try to find an Air France employee at their baggage services – so after about 10 minutes of trying to find that (no one even knew where it was!!!) we gave up hope and tried the folks at the TSA security at the terminal entrance. They wouldn’t let us past without a boarding pass (which we completely understand) and wouldn’t even escort us to the gate (which I also somewhat understand because if we bolted once we got past, they’d have to shut the entire airport). One girl was kind enough to call Air France and then they told her they’d meet us at the ticket desk. How nice! When we get there, we wait 3-5 minutes (seems like 3-5 hours!) and someone shows up explaining that the flight is closed and they have booked us on the next days flight. Now, for those of you who know Jason well, you may have never witnessed him getting mad. This was a site I only wish that I had videotaped to prove it’s possible! He was yelling (and possibly throwing out some offensive words) to explain that we were going to be on that flight that night. However, Air France guy wasn’t budging ONE BIT. Jason must have argued with him for 15-20 minutes and by then I realized it was now too late to get on the flight and asked that he go ahead and give us the new itinerary for the next day. He gave us some lousy printout and told us to have a nice time in LA!!!!! (The LA comment was like a slap in the face). We immediately headed to the Delta counter to complain, where they hooked us up with an evening’s stay at the Hacienda Hotel and meal vouchers for the next day (Billed to Air France, some satisfaction, I suppose). Not exactly the hotel we had paid for in Moorea, but ah, what can you do, right! So we spent the next 20 hours in LA – visited Venice and Santa Monica beaches and had dinner with Caryn, Warren and Minnu. I mean – it had been almost a week since we saw Warren and Caryn at the wedding, so thanks to Air France, we got to spend some extra time with them!
The next day, we board the flight to Tahiti and are on our way to catching up with our dream trip! We arrive in Papeete at 4:30 in the morning local time, head over to the Air Moorea ticket desk when they open at 5. They give us our boarding passes – laminated pieces of paper that it looks like they reuse daily for that particular flight. We board the plane, our pilot (who we can see through the open door to the cockpit) also doubles as the flight attendant by telling us about the flight and how it will be 7 minutes long. Jason video tapes the entire flight. We arrive in Moorea are presented with the second of 4 flower leis we will receive and head to the Moorea Sheraton.

Moorea was absolutely stunning – beautiful water, a gorgeous mountain and a wonderful hotel. We basically spent 2 days sitting on the beach, swimming and snorkeling, napping and reading. We even met a little rooster friend. We never left the resort, so that satisfied my honeymoon requirement of a stress-fee trip of not much more than hanging out on the beach. We did consider taking a 4X4 tour of the island but decided against it and instead continued to just sit on the beach. From Moorea, we took a quick 30 minute flight to Bora Bora. On the flight we met a hilarious couple from Miami – he was a lawyer and she was a former travel agent who now didn’t work and just spends all his money. Somehow we told him about our Air France whoas and he told us we should file a claim in small claims court. We’re going to look into doing this for sure.
Here are the photos from Moorea: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395297423

Bora Bora proved to be just as great as the rumors suggest it would be. I don’t know how it could be possible but the water here proved to be even better than in Moorea. The Sofitel hotel picked us up at the airport via water taxi (with another flower lei) and took us to the Sofitel Motu hotel where we would be spending the next 4 nights in an overwater bungalow. We met a nice couple from France on the taxi and talked to them as best we could for a bit. The taxi dropped us off at the hotel. We spent the first day exploring the water just outside of the bungalow (Jason was like a fish in his natural habitat) and we swam quite a way almost to the end of our little island. Then we came back and napped on the lounge chairs on the porch attached to the bungalow. The following day we decided to do some scuba diving in the morning. This scuba diving trip took us to 2 sites and we were told that at both sites we would be diving with some sharks. Jason was very excited at this prospect and I was quite a bit more hesitant. Of the 5 of us that were going on this particular dive, I made sure that I was last one in the water. All ended up going very well - and the sharks were not interested in us (though I originally would have thought differently prior to entering the water by the way that they were circling the boat!). Then for the rest of the afternoon after the diving, I resumed my daily napping schedule! The next day we decided that we had so much fun diving the day before, we would repeat the adventure. So we met up with the same dive company, where this day we did a dive through the one pass into the Bora Bora lagoon. The pass was created by the US military bombing the coral reef during WWII (presumably to create an entrance for boats to use to gain entry into the Lagoon). There wasn’t much coral to see here, I guess the bombings killed it but here we did see 2 giant manta rays so it was a very successful dive. Then for the second dive we returned to the second site from the day before for more shark diving. Again – Jason excited about seeing sharks, Michelle not so much! After the diving we stopped at a little outdoor restaurant on the main island for lunch – where Jason had a hamburger and I had a pizza. Then we went back to our little island for the daily swimming off the side of the bungalow followed by a nap! Later that afternoon however I began feeling a bit queezy and turned up with a mild case of food poisoning. Jason was the only one to eat dinner and felt bad that I was feeling bad. However in the morning, he came down with a more mild case and we were both feeling pretty crummy the entire next day – but ironically this was the only day of the trip where it was overcast and sometimes raining during the day. So we wouldn’t have been doing a whole lot that day anyway! We spent one last day in Bora Bora and then packed up our belongings and headed back to the airport on the water taxi (where we again saw the nice French couple). At the airport, we boarded our next flight to the island of Rangiroa.
Here are the photos from Bora Bora: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395412023

Upon arrival at Rangiroa, we were greeted again with a flower lei and brought to the Kia Ora Hotel where we would spend one night before heading out on a catamaran cruise for 4 days and 3 nights. The Kia Ora was again fantastic – we had a beachside bungalow with a hot tub (I might like to rename the luke-warm tub, but fine with me since it was already hot outside), a hammock and a little kitty that came to visit us! The hotel had a great infinity pool right next to the water and we had a very tasty fish meal at the restaurant. The next morning we woke up, hung out on the porch/hammock until we checked out and one of the members of the crew from the sailboat came by to pick us up at the hotel dock. From the dock, we boarded the dinghy and were brought out to the catamaran and greeted by the rest of crew. The crew consisted of a couple from France and a native guy from Rangiroa. The couple from France (Stephanie and Paschal) were in charge of the boat and the guy from Rangiroa (Emaio) was helping them navigate the waters of Rangiroa. On the sailboat trip we spent days sailing, snorkeling, eating fresh fish (all of which I believe that Emaio caught himself) and generally lounging about. On the last day we were there, we went to the Tiputa Pass for the most awesome snorkeling I have ever done! The pass was through 2 huge walls of coral where it seemed that every species of fish was hanging out. It was absolutely amazing and hopefully we can get the underwater pictures that we took developed soon. After the snorkeling we returned to the boat to gather up our things and return to the airport. The taxi that met us at the shore took us for a short stop at the Relais Joséphine – a little hotel situated right on the Tiputa Pass. While we were sitting here relaxing, we again ran into the French couple, chatted with them for a bit, decided to have our pictures taken with them and then exchanged emails. Surprisingly, they weren’t on our next flight, so as they headed off to the beach we took the taxi back to the airport and headed back to the island of Tahiti to catch our 3am flight to Sydney.
Here are the photos from Rangiroa: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395427895

Once we arrived back at the Papeete airport, we thought that it might be nice to take a taxi into the city to have some dinner (since we have 9 hours before our flight). We arrived in the downtown to find that virtually all shops were closed and only a couple of restaurants were open. We stopped in at one of the few open restaurants and ordered a couple of Tahiti beers and cheeseburgers. Once dinner was finished, we couldn’t find anything left to do in Papeete, so we got back in a taxi and headed back to the airport to wait for 5 more hours. Fun……

We arrived in Sydney around 8 in the morning, went to our hotel where we had to wait a few hours to check into our room, so we headed next door view the photographers wedding photos. Then we checked into the hotel, freshened up and headed out to Find Nemo – I mean, see Sydney. In our few days in Sydney, we took a tour of the Opera House, walked around the Rocks area, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, saw a symphony at the Opera House, and went to Bondi Beach. Jason even did some surfing here, I basically just napped on the beach and did some people watching. Sydney was a very fun city to visit but I’ve decided that I think that I would prefer to live in Melbourne over Sydney. Melbourne just seems like a more livable city.
Here are the photos from Sydney: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395452063


Sorry for the long ramblings of the honeymoon, but we went to a lot of places, saw so many different things, met so many awesome people (and some not so awesome at the LA Airport….) and had an overall FANTASTIC time.

I love being in places that are different than what I’m used to

I had a piece of veggie pizza for lunch today. Upon further inspection after ordering it, I realize that it has the usual on it – onions, olives, green peppers, red peppers and mushrooms– but is also has corn, peas and carrots. And corn isn’t even that popular here in Australia– one ear of corn at the market is $1!
I would have taken a picture of this interesting piece of pizza but I don’t want my co-workers thinking that I’m any weirder than I’m sure that they already think that I am! Anyway, seems like a sneeky way to throw in some of those "extra healthy" veggies!

Easter Bunnies

We've all seen how Jason celebrates a Gator National Championship, here is how his friend Mike and some of his friends celebrate. I know that this has nothing to do with Austraila but I can't help sharing...... especially since Jason and I are still laughing at how funny it is.

Mike and friends at Braves game with Urban Myer (the UF football coach)

Basketball

Well, March Madness is finally over and Jason couldn’t be happier. His beloved Gators have walked away with their second basketball national championship in a row - which means they’ve won basketball, football and basketball again all in the span of a year. And of course the game was in Atlanta and we were some 10,000 miles away. Go figure, right! But as in the fashion of watching the football national championship from this great distance, we fired up the TiVo and the Slingbox and watched the game with about 12 hours delay on the TV at the apartment. Jason’s friend Ethan came over (he’s from Minnesota so Jason again insisted that Ethan wear a Gators shirt) and we all 3 watched the game. We also determined that basketball games turn out to be very short when you can fast forward through the commercials! But I just want to thank everyone for not emailing Jason and me with the results of the game before we had a chance to watch it. This is almost the first sporting event that I’ve watched from here on delay where I didn’t already know the result.

Here is a picture of Jason celebrating the victory!

More football

While I’m trying to type up a blog on our Tahiti and Sydney adventures, this past Sunday we went to the AFL (Australain rules Football) game of the Western Bulldogs vs the Geelong Cats. I decided to cheer for Geelong since I refuse to cheer for any team with the mascot of a Bulldog…. Jason also agreed that was a good reason and he wore a FL Gators shirt and didn’t look like he was cheering for either team. I have to say that the game is quite interesting. It seemed like some weird cross between an action packed soccer game, a tackling US football game and a fighting, brawling hockey match. I can’t say that I completely understood the game – I got the basic premise but I am still having trouble on what constitutes a penalty or not (and first let me say that there doesn't seem to be much). But either way, the game was quite action packed, the fans were definitely spirited in their clothing and cheering and it was an all around great time. We had forgotten to bring the camera – but here’s a picture of the action from the AFL website.

Wedding

Jason and I are back in Melbourne, the wedding has finally occurred and the honeymoon was awesome (both in French Polynesia and Sydney)! And there isn’t one thing about the entire wedding day that I would have changed (well, maybe that Jenny Jenkins had been able get into Park Tavern on time for setting up the cakes and could have made it to the wedding, I did scan the audience while we were sitting up there and notice that she wasn’t there yet). But the cakes were fabulous (both in looks and taste!!!). It was an absolutely perfect day in my mind (even Jason was on time!!!) and I sure hope that everyone had fun. Our many thanks to all our family and friends for all their support and love. It wouldn’t have been a perfect day without each of you.

The professional wedding photos are in and here are just a few of my favorites:

http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Ceremony/source/128.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Formals/source/227.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Formals/source/275.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Formals/source/301.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Formals/source/403.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Formals/source/412.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Reception/source/657.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Reception/source/662.html
http://www.blueworldstudios.com/MichelleAndJason/Reception/source/515.html

I’ll definitely be looking forward to getting any pictures that anyone else has.

More to come on a blog about the honeymoon.

Don’t tell my mom – we took some surfing lessons

I thought that Jason would have updated the blog while I was back in the US with his stories of the Australian Open or his painball adventures, but alas, I now realize why it's titled MichelleAustralia.... instead of MichelleandJasonAustralia, because there's a slim to none chance that he'll make an update :)

Jason and I had a very fun and exciting weekend! On Saturday afternoon, he got his hair cut (okay, not so exciting for me) and then we went for a nice long bike ride along the Port Philip Bay. It was a quite windy day, so as always being right next to the bay, I felt like we were riding uphill the entire time – but the view was great and half the fun was just people watching. Jason took this great picture of the city in the distance. We signed up to do a sprint distance triathlon on Feb17th that is also along the part of the bay where we took the picture, so that should be lots of fun (as long as it isn’t as windy as it was on Saturday!!!).

For Sunday, we went with a group of fellow Accenture colleagues for some shark-bait….. errrr, surfing lessons. I talked to my mom shortly before we left and she asked me what we were doing that day – so she didn’t spend the next 24 hours worrying about us as shark food, I simply replied that we were going to the beach. It's not exactly a lie, there was a beach involved. Jason was pretty good at the surfing but I however never made it to actually standing up for more than 2 seconds. The beach that we were “surfing” at is just about an hour outside of Melbourne and a hair down the road from a place called Bells Beach….. now think Patrick Swayze, Keaneu Reeves and Point Break….. the scene at the end of the movie with the “50 year” storm (or maybe it was 100-year storm, but you get the point) where Mr. Swayze surfs his final surf was supposed to be Bells Beach. Now, to go back to reality, the movie wasn’t actually filmed at Bells Beach (it was filmed in Oregon and they just said that it was Bells Beach) and the “50 year storm” was no where in the vicinity of our surf lesson! But none the less, we had a great time and I didn’t see a single shark. And better yet, they didn’t see me! I’m told that they don’t really come that far south because the water is too cold. Here is a photo of Jason catching a wave and standing up on the board! I’m pretty sure we’ll try this again and maybe before we leave here for good, I’ll be a little better at it (no promises).

Jason surfing

The Beach we surfed at

Football!!

We spent Tuesday night watching the Gators play Ohio State for the BCS National Championship. We invited anyone we knew from the project to join us – and had a turn out of several Americans, a couple of Aussies and one girl from Austria. It was quite a good time and Jason talked pretty much everyone into cheering for the Gators! Here’s a picture I took of Jason and Ethan (Golden Gopher fan during the regular season) sitting on the couch with the game in the background! I'm pretty sure that this is the same thing that we'll be doing to watch the superbowl.



Sunday, we got together with about 25 of the people from the project (again, both American and non-American) and played some flag football. I asked one girl from Brazil how she knew of American football and she said that she didn’t – she just runs around a lot and enjoys being out there! It was a great time especially with the great weather that we had.

We also purchased a couple of bikes today for just riding around town, etc. It’s going to be great!! The public transportation system in Melbourne is great (there’s a tram that will take you anywhere you want to go) but I think that Jason and I will enjoy tooling around town on bikes. We did ship over our triathlon bikes for longer rides but these new bikes will be GREAT for just getting around town.

Throw another shrimp on the barbie!

How do you officially experience all Australia has to offer? When you tell Jason “throw some shrimp on the Barbie” and this is the result:

NOW, who is volunteering to visit!!!! On Saturday we stopped by the Queen Victoria Market to get some fresh seafood and veggies for dinner, we grilled them and then sat on the couch as the jet lag set in!
For Sunday afternoon’s activities, Jason and I tried a new sport – lawn bowling. Apparently it mostly enjoyed by the older crowd here in Australia but I don’t see why since it was sure a lot of fun. But then again, we were playing with 5 other Americans who also had virtually no idea what they were doing.
For those with little or no exposure to the sport of lawn bowling (as was the case for me until the guy named “Chopper” at the bowling club fully explained the game to us), it seems a lot like bocce ball, horseshoes, shuffleboard, or curling. One team throws a small white ball about 20-30 yards down a grass lane. Then, each team takes turns throwing their 8 larger balls down the lawn to land as close to that white ball as possible. To add some challenge, the larger balls are asymmetrical and therefore begin to curve as they slow down on their way down the court. I’m also not convinced picking one of the windiest days since I’ve been here was the wisest choice. Seems a lot like learning to ski on ice (but a lot less dangerous). But either way, it was a very fun experience. I’m waiting for Jason to try to talk me into joining the bowling club, similar to how he wanted us to be members at the High Museum and Fernbank several years ago. I’ll have some lawn bowling pictures to post soon – just waiting to get them from someone since we forgot the camera at the apartment that day!

Christmas and a New Niece

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, fun and safe New Years!!! I had a very long, jam-packed week without even a minute of free time….. but it was worth it to try to get everything done that I needed to!

I flew back to Atlanta on Dec 23 (also arriving on Dec 23) after quite and adventurous flight. First, about 15 minutes before I wanted to leave for the airport, I locked my keys in my apartment. After about 2 minutes of complete panic, I knocked on my neighbor’s door and THANKFULLY he was able to put me in touch with the only locksmith in the city that could open that particular type of high security lock. And not only that, they were able to come out within 30 minutes. Unbelievable considering everyone at work takes off from Dec 23rd-Jan 8th for the holidays! I was completely floored!! Then I called a taxi and they were at my apartment within 10 minutes (again, still shocked at this turn around time!). I was at the airport at approximately the same time that I had originally planned on being there. When my flight arrived in Sydney, I stepped off the plane and walked to the gate next door to immediately board my flight to San Fran. When we arrived in San Fran, the flight was about 30 minutes late, leaving me less than one hour of my original 1hr20min connection time. Knowing this, when the seat belt sign went off, I immediately hopped up, walked past about 15 rows of seats, down the stairs of the 747 and was the second person off the plane. I went through one customs person, picked up my bags, went through another, and RAN to the place where I had to recheck my bags. I explained to the guy that was taking my bag that I was on the flight to Atlanta at 11am and he said that I wouldn’t make it – I begged him to take the bag and try and he said that he’d personally take the bag for me! Now that’s what I’m talking about. So, from this point, I ran through the San Francisco airport – having to then go through the regular security again to get to the gate my flight was departing from on one of the busiest travel days of the year! I don’t think that I even looked at any part of the airport to remember what it looks like! I was one of the last people to board the flight to Atlanta – but I made it home on time – actually the flight was about 20 minutes early, combined with the fact that Jason was 10 minutes late picking me up, so I had an extra 30 minutes hanging out in the Atlanta airport. But I was just thankful that I made it. Of course I had to return to the airport the following morning to drop Jason off so he could spend Christmas in Florida!

Now I know that no one is interested in what went on back home last week but I do need to share a picture of my new niece who was born on Dec 27th – luckily 4 days before her due date in plenty of time for me to see her before flying back on Jan 1st. I think that she looks just like her adorable brother did when he was a few hours old and in complete fairness, I’ll share some pictures of both of them!

So, Jason and I flew back to Melbourne on Jan 1st (arriving on the 3rd Australian time). It’s great to have him here and I’ve very excited to show him around and then venture outside the city to do more fun things! I think that so far he really like Australia (don’t worry, we are eventually coming home!).

Take care everyone!!