Happy Australia Day!

Last week I celebrated my first Australia Day! It's the national day of Australia and is celebrated every year on January 26th in commemoration of the arrival of the First Fleet in Australia. According to Wikipedia, the First Fleet was "the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 consisting of 10 Civil officers, 212 marines, including officers, 28 wives and 17 children of the marines, 81 free persons, 504 male convicts and 192 female convicts." They came to establish the first European colony in Australia, and landed in New South Wales (the state where I live). Basically people do the same thing as you do on the 4th of July in America- I ended up having a barbeque and drinking beer by noon. There was a free concert in the park about a five minute walk from where I live, so we ended up sitting out on the grass and listening to the runner-up from Australia's Got Talent sing Frank Sinatra mixed in with Nessun Dorma and a few other arias, followed by a fireworks show.


Australia Day was on a Thursday, so I took Friday off work and went to the Gold Coast with Hayden. It's about an hour plane ride away, and known for its really beautiful beaches and sunshine. Unfortunately Queensland has been caught in the middle of some pretty massive tropical storms lately, so by the time we got there the water was really murky from all of the storm drains that feed into the ocean. There were also a bunch of branches and logs lurking in the water, waiting to hit some unsuspecting swimmer in the head. Here are a couple pictures of the cleanup effort that was underway when we got there:

View of the main beach. It stretches on for about 7 miles.

There were backhoes all over the beach raking all the debris into little piles, followed by a dump truck that would come and collect them...

All of the shops sell stuff with the flag on it for Australia Day (flip flops, towels, shirts, stickers), so here I am modeling a flag that you can clip onto your car. You can see that there are a lot of high rises in the downtown area (known as Surfer's Paradise), many of which are vacation homes that people rent out when they're not using them.

On the hotel balcony. The weather was hot but you can see how gloomy it is in the background. Unfortunately it was pretty much like this the whole trip...

Ouchie!

Sorry, this is kind of a gross post but also cool!

I fell during my run yesterday. It wasn't the kind of fall where you feel it happening for a few seconds, it mostly happened like this:
Me: Oh look at the beach.
Me: Isn't the sun pretty on the water?
Me: Looks like the tide is in. Surfers got an early start.
Me: Ow that pavement really hurts.
It was really embarrassing because the only people who are motivated enough to get up that early/the only people who were there to witness it were SUPER ripped dudes. Anyways I cut my route short and went home. BUT I was bored at home tonight and noticed my scab is shaped like Australia!! Kind of neat.

Lazy Weekend

I woke up really early for no reason today, and since I couldn't get back to sleep I'm already on my second episode of MacGyver, which is apparently on all days at all times. Occasionally they mix it up with an episode of Murder She Wrote or M.A.S.H. It's strange which shows end up being a big deal over here.

More vocabulary to add to the list:

Cossie=Swimsuit
Grog=Booze
Pom=English person
Sparky=Electrician
Go to the cinema=Go to the movies
Petrol=Gas
Rice Bubbles=Rice Krispies
Z=Pronounced "zed"
H=Pronounced "haych"
Period=Full stop
Demister=Defroster