Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Things are different here



Tom is modeling a traditional Queenslander headdress worn during ceremonial witchety grub eating festivals.

Just kidding!! this is a seed pod that fell out of one of our coconut trees.

Australians spend dollars, use the internet, walk on the beach, and watch "So You Think You Can Dance?". From time to time they forget where they put their keys, gaze at the moon, plant veggies, and get annoyed with people they love. Sounds like home, eh? Except for.....

After work they might go to the BWS (Beer*Wine*Spirits) which is a drive through bottle shop. Yup, you don't even have to get out of your car. It's a carport type building selling all varieties of booze, which you can't buy in grocery stores. It works like this: with the motor running, tell the nice man which one, how many, give him the money, and you get the goods in your hands there at the wheel(on the right side of course) and off you go. I suppose folks have been known to open these recently purchased bottles while they are driving, but we have not seen a preponderance of drunk drivers here. The BAC level that will get you in trouble here is only .05%, but the penalties seem similar to the U.S. If caught driving while talking on the phone the consequences are much stiffer however. We are not planning to have any first hand experience with either of these laws.

Aussies probably think we Yanks are strange for having so many drive-through food places. Coolum and surrounds don't have them, but perhaps they exist in the bigger cities. I find food to be an interesting aspect of a foreign experience; can't get by a day without it! Naturally there is a dearth of Los Bagels bagels here and the substitutes we tried were not quite up to snuff. The supermarkets are not so different; the stores are large and have many familiar items. The names of certain foods are not the same however: silverbeet is chard; mince is ground meat; full cream is homogenized milk; biscuits and bickies are cookies, rocket is arugula, and these foodstuffs are transported out to your car in a trolley not a cart. Eggs are not refrigerated but sold on the shelf, high fructose corn syrup is not a common ingredient, and dogs have it good here as there is a large refrigerated section in every store devoted to specialized dog food! We have had some excellent lamb (the three oldest non-veg members of the family anyway) as it seems to be the national food of sorts, that and meat pies. Think chicken pot pie in more varieties and without the pasty gravy stuff.

Nutrition information dissemination seems to be a little behind America. Our landlord left behind some past issues of a magazine called "Healthy Food Guide" and the letters to the editor (in 2005) discuss how nifty it is that a magazine like this is finally available in Australia. I guess America is somewhat obsessed with food/diet/nutrition stuff; we have dozens of these magazines! Interestingly, the OZ counterpart to the food pyramid recommends only one serving of protein per day. Tom has been quite "Kilojoules Conscious" (1KJ = 4.18 calories)and I am happy to report that our regular forays to the gym have officially resulted in a reduction of kilos for the pair of parent Perretts.



We went a'fishin' yesterday! We bought used fishing gear from a nice old gent in the next town over who collects two categories of items: fishing rods and golf clubs. Tom says that this is a sign from the gods as fishing and golfing are his two new new Auzzie hobby goals. We walked down to the beach at the wrong time of day but we caught one anyway. It was a small 8" sand whiting (we're rounding it up to 10-12" for the record books) but it was heaps of fun and we only threw the line into the surf a couple of times. Didn't exactly catch dinner, but it certainly christened the pole for bigger catches in the near future.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

hike to the top



This morning we(the parent Perrets)headed to the top of the tallest geographical feature of our region..a big bump in the dirt behind us, Mt. Coolum. It is 200 some meters tall, which correlates to 673 feet. Not a really big mountain, so no packing of provisions required. We heard/read that the hike takes from 30 min to 2 hours. Promptly at 6:30 am we were out the door on our way to the trailhead. Shortly on our way up the trail we became aware we were providing brekkie for thousands of resident mozzies. We didn't have any bug spray/goo/anything but then it would have dripped off us within a few minutes as it was nearly 80 degrees already. The sign said the area was home to the peregrine falcon but the species we saw the most of was homo sapiens. All our fellow hikers were also doing the mozzie dance, which comes down to keep moving or get devoured. The view from the top was fabulous, don't you agree? It was about 30 min to the trail head and 30 min to the top so we were back home in the pool by 8:30. That part felt superb!

Friday morning I was delighted to find a yoga class in my neighborhood. Our excellent yoga instructor at the gym teaches a class at a private home just down the street from us so I was there and Tom is going to come along next week. It was incredible.... 90 minutes of yoga on the veranda, overlooking the wooded front yard, incense and music. A bush turkey foraged nearby. This is my kind of yoga! Sumptuous! I don't plan to miss any of these sessions.

Eli's first soccer practice was Friday, and he came away all smiles and said it was "perfect." He really likes the coach, and feels he is in the middle of the team in terms of ability. Looks like he will get to play goalie and he's happy about that. Around here they actually realize people are going to come watch the games so there are bleachers right next to the field!!! Isn't that an interesting concept? As a bonus the stands are shaded, protection from the sun and the frequent downpours. Yahoo. We will be watching a lot of soccer as the season last until August and then is seems like school soccer may happen after that, but we're a little vague about how that works. He continues to amaze us with his veritable lankiness, and height,he has passed me up now. Yesterday his surfboard crashed into his leg left a honkin' bruise. (didn't knock any of the teen angst out of him though,darn)

Mel is enjoying her cooking class in addition to all the music and dance she is filling her days with. We attempted to get pointe shoes yesterday but didn't come home with them as they have been ordered instead. She made some lovely bruschetta using the basil on the deck a few days ago. She has been surfing on thursdays with all the international students and even as a beginner she is doing great! Being in the ocean without a wetsuit is surely one of the umpteen joys of being in this part of the world.

As promised here is the link with some photos around our place. We'll try to add some every few weeks. g'day mates, good on ya for readin' the blog, and no worries...

http://picasaweb.google.com/TOMARCATA

Sunday, February 7, 2010

oz ramblings

We ventured north this last weekend, up to the Cooloola region. On any section of any map for the whole country one is hard pressed to not find at least one word with double O's. Mooloolaba is close by and where we go to get fish. Yaroomba is where we live, Coolum is the thriving metropolis just a few minutes north, Noosa is the touristy place with great surfing and no parking up the road a piece, and Maroochydore is the big city around here and the government centre for this shire. Aussies love there double O's! In citing numbers, our Arcata prefix of 822 would be announced as "8 double 2" and then of course the triples are around also.


The Cooloola region was scenic, green, intermittently rainy, and provincial. We stayed overnight in a place called Tin Can Bay. I didn't see any tin cans in the bay but there were lots of yachts and fishing boats. It is jumping off place for Fraser island, the largest sand island in the world and a place we are going to plan to visit soon.It was a sleepy town, our restaurateur confirmed the lack of action at 8 pm. "Cricky, they've all got their teeth in a jar by now" Tin Can Bay's claim to fame, not being nightlife, is feeding the dolphins. They are trained to come up the channel at 8 am because this way the cafe at the end of the pier sells many brekkies (breakfast)whilst the tourists wait. We arrived at the appointed time(at least 50 other tourists were waiting as well) and a dolphin feeding volunteer announced that the ONE dolphin was a couple of hours late yesterday. We opted to not wait, and instead returned to our accommodation swimming pool where Melissa proceeded set a new personal best of holding her breath under water for an astonishing 62 seconds.Bravo Mel. We returned in a couple of hours but alas we had missed the dolphin. dang

Eli and Mel are enjoying school and so far have been underwhelmed by homework. We are hoping it will pick up a bit. Melissa particularly is wanting to move up a year in math. Or maths as they say here. She is enjoying her music class, and is playing in a string ensemble once a week and has a lesson at school once a week in addition to music class 3 times a week. She has a full slate of dance classes in the afternoon...modern, jazz and ballet, same as home. Eli is enjoying his wood-shop class, computer technology, and core subjects. For those of you who are acquainted with our oldest he continues to be a tremendously social youngster. He signed up for soccer (some here call it soccer, and some call it football, very confusing!) which starts soon, 3/x week for practice and games on Saturdays, through August.


early February Observations:
1.I thought Californian supermarkets had a lot of choices in yogurt until I came here.
2.The population of obese sunshine coast children is nil
3.Pennies do not exist but prices are marked in cents, then rounded to the nearest nickel
4.Resting on the stereo speaker at the gym this morning was a bat--an event not likely at Healthsport
5.Band-aids are called plasters
6.Wildlife we have seen in the last few days: Pelicans, goanas, the aforementioned bat, a green nonpoisenous snake, magpies, lorikeets, black swans,a "roo at school, and laughing kookaburras(the largest kingfisher) No koalas yet but we're looking.

The powers of a skillful blogger are not with me tonight as I'm not able to add any pictures. sorry. Tom has been fooling around with Picassa however so soon we may have a website to send around with heaps of photos. Our cameras have been busy.

keep the comments coming....we love to hear from you!

Monday, February 1, 2010

australianisims

How ya going? This is used the way we say "how's it going" except the how does not rhyme with cow it is "ha" like the first part of hat. The first part of "going" is pronounced like it rhymes with cow. Got that? We are keeping a list of uniquely Australian terms, like slip, slap, slop which means don't spare the sunblock.A wanker is a jerk. Another one is halfer for half an hour, and Eli's contribution to the list is root which means sex. This reportedly results in heaps of snickers in math class.

Our schoolies are settling in, both of them said on the first day they were asked if they had been to Disneyland, and did they know any famous people. Melissa also said the kids want her to say words like "orange" because she sounds so funny. Everyone also asked them what part of California they were from, which I think is an interesting observation of the larger understanding of geography of these kids. I doubt very many Californian kids would ask an Australian what part of Australia they were from!

California has been drenched in winter rains and we have recently been blanketed by summer rains. A storm hit on Friday night and it was spectacular! Thunder, lightning, howling wind, and then buckets of rain poured for about 30 minutes. This little movie clip is the rain pouring over our front deck.( the quality of the movie may be less than great, sorry!) It's still warm and humid, but the rain has cooled things off a bit. I've noticed many restaurants have very large permanent awnings over the tables for shelter from the breezy rains.

On one of our early morning walks we saw a couple of 'roos quite close to the road, happily munching on the grass. They are like deer, sort of around a lot and but I don't think they eat roses. I haven't even seen any roses though...so maybe the kangaroos do eat them..... We have large pandanus tree in our yard, it has leaves like an aloe vera plant and a large fruit that is as big as a pineapple but it isn't edible. On the back deck are several large pots of herbs we have been raiding to enliven our dinners. We have heaps of bougainvilleas and hibiscus but the air does not smell like flowers the way it does in Hawaii. I don't miss the smell of redwood trees yet, but give me time...

We have a pool table downstairs and Eli has been challenging Tom to a game most nights. The other day I said the loser had to vacuum so Eli got a chance to try out our central vac which is a pretty cool invention. Melissa is of course not one to be left out of anything so she is learning to play as well. She is a bit of an unconventional player, and short for a pool player, so she figured out a way to get the best shot. I have a feeling this would not be acceptable in tounament play.



We have our phone/internet sorted out finally I think. Today I had to resort to paying somebody to remote in on my computer and reload my drivers (whatever that means) so that the DSL would work on my laptop too. It was rather eerie to have the mouse being moved by somebody on another continent. I learned that when you pay for a technician from India they don't feel the need to take an american name. hmmm.Interesting.

Thanks everybody for reading my blog....I'm having a great time writing and love all your commments! Guest posts coming soon from fellow queenslanders......
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