Getting Into The Swing

Well...I did it. I have found a dry cleaner that uses starch on BDD's shirts, found a good doctor, figured out how to park in the parking garage at the grocery store and found someone to cut my hair. I can live here now. After seven weeks of trial and error, some of the basic needs are getting easier. I am keeping the windshield wiper count down to single digits and I made it all the way to my hair appointment the other day (17 miles) without getting honked at ONCE...Yea!!! I've gotten into the swing that "Left turns are easy. Right turns use signals." The only time I mess up is in parking lots. It must be the absence of lines.

Surferdude is in Bathurst today. He left from his school at 7:30AM and will return tomorrow around 6:00PM. Bathurst, NSW is one of the sites of the Australian gold rush. They will be panning for gold, hiking, touring mines, etc..

Ponygirl is enjoying her horseback riding lessons. One funny thing about that is the fact that she cannot use her very pricey Troxel riding helmet because it is not on the "Approved" list made by the Australian government. I went to the tack shop and was told that the approved helmets were against the wall...minimum price $250.00. After looking at Ponygirl's helmet and then the approved ones, the shop clerk said..."I don't see a difference." So....Ponygirl is going to wear one of the extra ones at the riding stable. I will not buy a new helmet. My argument that I would never let my daughter wear an unsafe helmet didn't seem to sway the stable. Long live government regulation!!!

Surferdude also will have a great opportunity in October. To celebrate 100 years of Australian Scouting, his troop (which is the oldest one in Australia) will be traveling to Tasmania for a week in October to campout, hike and visit Hobart. Big Dog Daddy may be accompanying him if he can take a week off. If they both go...Ponygirl and I will head to the beach and enjoy the early Aussie summer. No camping for us...just nailpolish and pools. Girl's Road Trip!!!!

More rugby and horses on Saturday. Then, next week will be filled with music. Ponygirl will be singing with the school choir and Surferdude will be playing percussion with the orchestra.
Thursday is the celebration of 15 years of marriage. Next Sunday...we will be at Bondi for the famous City to Surf race. Big Dog Daddy's company will have a "house" for entertaining purposes. Sand, surfers, and convenient cold beverages...I feel like a native.

"See ya latah"

Things I like this week:

1. Ugg boots - still heaven

2. SCEGGS Redlands School

3. North Sydney Pool - Beautiful. It's outdoors, it's open to the public, it's heated and it looks out over the Sydney Harbor Bridge. All the great Aussie swimmers have trained here and now I have swum in it too. The karma still didn't help my breast stroke. http://www.northsydney.nsw.gov.au/www/html/2148-about-the-olympic-pool.asp

Things I don't like this week:

1. Aussie riding helmet regulations-Would you put an unsafe helmet on your kid's head? I mean...would you???

2. The absence of ANY Swiffer products-how does the world live without them?

3. Being cold!!!!!

Where The Streets Have No Name

The Brisket on the Barby family made an important discovery this weekend....In Australia, you have to know where you are going before you get anywhere. This may sound confusing, but this is the land of streets that don't have names and major highways that just end abruptly with nothing but a roundabout. (Major highways...like the Pacific Highway....along the Pacific Ocean.... It goes around the WHOLE continent) We all headed out for a 3-day holiday to Port Stephens in New South Wales. The drive is a 2 1/2 hours...if you know where you are going. We were lucky enough to make it in 4 hours. It is only due to Big Dog Daddy's sense of direction and my knowledge that we should take any route that said "Nelson Bay" that we got there at all. Google maps is helpful only when the streets they list have the names actually posted on them. Anyway, we made it to Port Stephens and explored this pretty corner of the world. (We really did explore...we kept getting lost because the streeets were so poorly marked. Our sand dune driver said "Oh yeah...ya gotta know where ya goin' in this town. The streets won't hep ya.")

Port Stephens is a collection of bays and coves. Nelson and Anna Bay were the areas we visited. Nelson Bay was heavily fortified during WWII to protect the steel works in nearby Newcastle, NSW. General MacArthur also had training grounds built in Nelson Bay to practice for the invasion of Japan. The terrain and plant-life are similar. He also had a military hospital constructed for injured GI's. The hospital is still there....the trenches are gone since they were sand and the parade ground is now the town rugby oval.

Anna Bay is home to the Stockton Sand Dunes...the largest moving land mass in the southern hemisphere. It was fun to watch SurferDude and PonyGirl surfing on sandboards down the dunes. It was also hilarious to watch them have to climb the dune back up to the top. SurferDude reminded me of Peter O'Toole as he exits the desert on his way to Akaba. Sand really really sticks to sunscreen!!!

Another highlight of the trip was seeing the whales as they migrate to the Great Barrier Reef from Antarctica. The day was beautiful and the skipper of our boat kept us entertained. There was also free "Tea and Bikkies" to keep everyone well caffeinated. Caffeine, not petrol, is the primary energy source in this country. Perfect for me!!!!

We will definitely go again ...we have to .... we know how to get there.

The children start Term 3 tomorrow. The next break will be the last week of September. Surferdude will resume his rugby and will also start Australian Scouts. PonyGirl will begin her horseback riding lessons and start singing in the school choir. That's about all the driving OperaDiva is willing to do on a regular basis. My next assignment is to find a babysitter that we can afford. August 7th is our 15th wedding anniversary. We would like to go out for the evening at least.....wish me luck!!!!

Things I like this week:

1. The audiobook of Portugese Irregular Verbs by Alexanader McCall Smith - it's read by Hugh Laurie and he makes an otherwise average book absolutely terriffic!!!

2. Ugg boots - heaven

3. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum - she is the ultimate "straight man" in the world of Trenton crazies

Things I don't like:

1. Streets that aren't marked and the maps that don't seem to mind

2. Australian drivers who take your picture on the freeway because you aren't going fast enough (we were already5km over the limit) and they want to pass you. I guess honking incessantly just isn't enough for some. Do they report you to Big Brother????? I'm looking forward to the letter we get from this one...Do Aussie's have the right to confront their accusers like we do in the USA? Well, we're foreigners here...we don't speed. Stay tuned.

3. The Pacific Highway (They call it Hwy 1--sometimes, sometimes not, sometimes, sometimes not)

Watching a Slow Motion Train Wreck

Just a quick note today. We are celebrating the 4th of July tonight with some other Americans, so I will have to keep it short.

I feel as if I am watching a slow motion train wreck. Australia has just agreed to kill the meager growth this country is showing in the midst of this economic slowdown and lower the standard of living for all these good, hardworking people. Today, the Rudd government announced that it is going to start initiatives to work on "greenhouse gases" that they feel the population of Australia produce. Each person/family will be given a carbon-emissions limit. Some of the results will be....penalties for not switching to solar or wind power, an added $85.00-$100.00 per airline ticket for "carbon credits", gps systems that report to the state how much driving an individual does----and then sending a bill to their house if they exceed what the state-almighty says is the limit. I have attached the article below. Notice how the environmental minister says "If we don't do something the result COULD BE......". Too bad the Rudd govt. wasn't in place during the last ice age a millenia ago....maybe the ice flows could have been delayed by 20minutes or so....maybe a herd of mastedons could have survived. I can't wait to see some twenty year old environmentalist kid have to pay an extra $100.00 a month for going over his cellphone limit. (Attach a solar panel to it pal.) Like I said I see the wreck coming...coming to my country as well. Shouldn't such radical changes be delayed until we can come up with something better than .... "well, just in case" or "maybe this will happen" or "it could be.....".

Happy 4th of July everyone....drive anywhere you want, crank up the air conditioning and spray some hairspray just for me!!!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23967822-2,00.html