Melbourne

Well I've been here for a few days now, I didn't do too much on the first day, just wanting to get used to the area & all. The hotel seems nice, it's located in a really good area. The last two days were spent doing a lot of walking, up & down the main streets having a look around. Yesterday I walked down to Federation Square which was only a few blocks away, it reminds me a bit of Younge & Dundas Square in Toronto, where lots of people hang out, & performers play there too I think. I went all through the National Gallery which I really enjoyed, saw lots of different art by many great artists, mostly Australian I think. Walking up & down Swanston Street is really interesting, with lots of shops & cafe's, the people watching is exceptional. It really does remind me a lot of NYC, because everyone seems to have a really unique sense of what is fashionable to them.

One of the things that was a bit of a shock is the prices of things. Yesterday I went & had pancakes for breakfast, just three pancakes & a small glass of apple juice mind you, ended up costing $14.50! Wow! So, I think I got smart, I happened to notice an IGA Express & decided to get some milk & cereal stuff, that will be breakfast from here on out I think, hahah.

I've done more walking in the last two days than I have in awhile, but it's been fairly easy & good then to get a sense of my surroundings. My hotel is bounded by Bourke Street, Collins Street, Swanston Street & they've all been fairly easy to navigate.

Met up w/ a girl named Alana yesterday, nice girl, interesting to talk to. There'll be a couple other meetups with other people too. For Monday, I've signed up to go on a day tour of Great Ocean Road, which I'm looking forward to, so it seems as the week rolls on, it's shaping up to be a pretty good experience.

Today, on Sunday, I believe they're doing Chinese New year celebrations, so I will probably go & have a looky-loo at that today. Chinatown is really colourful & interesting to see. I've also been through the shopping arcades which are quite attractive, although I'm really not buying anything, since it's all a bit more pricey than I would like to spend. Dad should get a good laugh out of that!

That's about it for now, but I'll be back after I do the tour for a full report on that. Bye for now!

Lisa

Last Days in Jesmond, Newcastle

I'm here in Melbourne but just to update you on the last two days spent with Derek, Wed & Thurs were a gift, because it actually got sunny & hot long enough that we were able to go out & actually see some great stuff!

Derek & I went to Blackbutt Koala Reserve on Wednesday, I finally got to get up close to a koala & they're even cuter than they are in pictures. I also so many beautiful & colourful birds, such as Kukaburras, Lorikeets, owls, & a peacock. There were also emus & kangas sunning themselves lazily in the sun. Later, we went for a walk through a trail which was lovely & peaceful, & quite long. There was a bit of an incline so I was huffing & puffing a bit, but the shade of the trees kept it from being too hot.

Thursday, we went out to Nelson's Bay, which once again had many gorgeous views of the ocean. By this time Dereks' lovely girlfriend Linda came up from Sydney for the weekend & joined us. In Port Stephens, we looked out at a look out called the Tomaree Radar Station, really beautiful 360 degree views from up there. Then we went to another area, a mountain called Tomaree Head, in Tomaree national park, where it was decided that "we", meaning all three of us, were going to go walk up to the summit, 161 metres up. Yes, I did it too, I really huffed & puffed a lot doing this, but it was a challenge & I did it okay, despite having to stop & sit a few times. The pay off was well worth it however because again of the 360 degree views from the top. I won't be disappointing any of you, I took loads of pictures, & having reviewd them, they turned out fantastic!

Once we were down from the mountain, we sat on the grass under a tree near the water & ate a lunch of sandwhiches that Derek & Linda had made up before we left. He then decided that he wanted to go for a swim, so we drove down the road a bit to a beach area. Now I hadn't thought to bring my suit with me, but I did stick my feet in, & it was shockingly like ice water! I don't know why I thought it would be warmer, given that it is summer, but it was quite refreshing anyway. It also felt really great to feel the sand squishing in between my toes!

At the moment, I'm almost out of internet time, which is a bit pricey at the hotel here in Melbourne, so I will continue the end of Newcastle in a day or two. Til then,

Lisa xo

Another Sunny Day For Awhile

Just a quick post before I roll off to bed tonight, we got lucky & had another nice sunny hot day today, we took off for Nelson Bay to have a look around, I also climbed up a steep (sort of) mountain, courtesy of Derek. Also saw him do a speech with his Speechmasters group. When I have more time I"ll fill in a lot more details. Next up: MELBOURNE (hopefully with my luggage!)

Brand New (Sunny!) Day

Wednesday, February 6....

So the rain stopped long enough last night (Tuesday) so that Derek could take me for a scenic drive down to the ocean & popular beach area near where his old house was. Despite the fact that it was still looking pretty stormy & the sky was still threatening burst open again, we were able to park & walk down the path & over to where the restaurant, Eats on the Beach was, where we ate dinner outside. The views are spectacular, I'll have to see what I can do about trying to post some pictures, but I may have to wait until after I come home to do that. Anyway, after dinner we drove a bit more & went to his friend Jeff's house & had a visit. His house was gorgeous & far more what I'd be used to than Derek's abode, it works for him though & that's okay, I certainly can't complain too much, he's been a great host so far!

This morning was great because for at least the better part of the day, it was sunny today! Derek went off to work for a few hours to do stuff, leaving me to once again putz around trying to find out the whereabouts of my missing suitcase.....Apparently, I was too dopey to notice that it had actually arrived last night after we'd gone out for dinner! Honestly, it was parked right outside my room where I am sleeping & this morning, I walked right past it without even noticing, so needless to say when I finally discovered it, I was doing a happy dance knowing I'd have more clean undies!

When Derek arrived home around noon, the plan was that we were going to drive out to the BlackButt Reserve to see some koalas & other cool & interesting creatures. I wasn't disappointed, we saw many beautifully coloured birds, some big some small, & almost all of them very vividly coloured. The day was sunny, with some clouds & hot, so it was a great day to do this. Once we'd gone through all of the exhibits, we went for a walk on the trail that's there, it was great until it started going up & down a lot, it wasn't long before I was huffing & puffing & hot & sweaty, for a minute there I thought Derek was secretly torturing me, but in all it was a good long walk.

Once we finished with our walk, there was a small koala presentation, one of the men working there had a female koala named Susie . He spoke about the species, & the few of us who were there got to come up closer to her & give her a scratch behind the ears & feed her a bit of her bottle. I have to say that while I didn't get to actually hold her, seeing them up close was really cool, they really are the cutest things to see, & she was very gentle & passive, & seemed perfectly at home having so much attention lavished on her.

Once we were done with Blackbutt, off we were again, we stopped by a small bakery to pick up a desert for our dinner at Louises' house. I picked out an apple cake with that really great confectioners icing on it & apple pieces in the middle, it would later turn out to be a good pick, eaten up by everyone. When we went back to the house, I decided I needed to pick up a few things so Derek drew out a map of how to walk over to the mall that was about a 10-15 minute walk away. While I was gone, he was going to mow his very tall grass in the backyard. Not that he found anything wrong with the length of his grass in his estimation, but he took enough ribbing about it to finally decide it needed a trim!

So off I went & made it there in good time, I went into the "Big W" store, which I'm told is the Australian Walmart. I picked out the few things I needed & I even ended up buying a really nice pair of fancy looking strappy (not too high) heels - Mom, I think you'll approve when you see them - at their Payless shoe store. With that, I decided to get out of there before I did some real damage. By the time I'd made it back to the house before the sky opened up & poured again, I could hear the rumbling in the sky as I walked back, so I went as fast as I could despite having gotten a small blister on the bottom of my foot from my "hike" earlier in the day.

After I'd changed clothes & Derek cleaned up a bit, we went off to Louises' house for dinner & for me to meet her girls, Ester, Acacia, & Mariah. They're all very cute, & very talented in arts & crafts, like their mom, they're into doing ceramics, Acacia set out to show us all of their creations which were really excellent. And they showed off their menagerie three cats, a dog, a very friendly & affectionate python (!!), & a fish tank of fish. Then we ended the night playing games on their X box which was a lot of fun.

So that's today in a nutshell, not sure what I'm doing tomorrow but I'm sure it'll be just as fun as today was, although it's supposed to rain again tomorrow.

Monday Morning Reflections

Monday morning, Derek & I went off to the grocery shop for a few things early this morning before Derek had to go off to work so that I could have a bit of breakfast & buy a couple of things. I'm sitting on the computer for the time being, watching out the window looking at Derek's chooks, which I was expecting to be these small cute things, but these girls are actually quite big! There are birds flying around, making lots of noise, & it's been raining off & on, it's pretty humid, but there's a bit of a cool breeze too.

At some point, I'll be getting together with Louise, Derek's friend, I'm sure she'll be glad to take me around to buy a few articles of clothing to change into, that'll feel really good! Not much else to do yet, I may take a nap at some point because I'm still acclimating a bit.

A few interesting tidbits, did you know that what we call the pound key (#) at home on a phone is called a hash key here? There are a quite a few "roundabouts" here in Newcastle, what we call traffic circles at home. As I looked out the window of the room I'm sleeping in, formerly their lounge room, which is in the front of the house, I noticed one of those big fat spiders just hanging out there. Thankfully there is a screen in the window so I'm safe at the moment, hahah. We're just keeping a respectful distance, that spider & me. Derek says it's not one of the poisonous ones at least. Whew.

No pictures yet, but stay tuned, hopefully I'll get out sometime soon & start snapping away.

Made it - Here I am!

But first, I have been in airport hell!

Hello friends, yes, I'm finally here in Australia, got in at 2pm Sunday, it's been a painfully long three days, forgive me if I ramble a bit, my brain & stomach are feeling a bit strange at the moment.

So far, the start of my trip has been a bit of a disaster. Let me explain. Original flight - cancelled due to major winter blizzard. Second flight, rebooked with Air Canada, delayed. Why you might ask? Well, it turns out that there was no co-pilot for this flight. The original one was over his flying time limit, so they had to find another one. Only problem was, according to the pilot, there were non available & sorry folks you'll have to sit on the plane unil the next available one comes along. Joy oh bliss.

Two & a half hours later, at 9:15pm we take off, after having sat on the plane since 7pm. It gets better from here, just wait. So we get into L.A. some time around midnight, as expected, the connecting flight to Sydney is gone, & we're told we have to go the customers service desk for our next plan of action. Being that it's after midnight, nothing of course is open. Long story short, I'm told by the ever so (NOT!!) helpful Air Canada person that, "sorry, the best we can do is advise you to get yourself to the Qantas desk & get yourself on to a standby flight, which will be available either late Saturday night or Sunday night at the earliest, bye bye". Say whaaaaaaaaaaaat?????

By this time, it's after 1am, & I have no clue what I'm going to do, I'm basicially following the herd of other people wandering aimlessly around too. After I've gone & gotten my suitcase, & wandered down towards the street level exit, I airport people with a radio that I see wandering around where the terminal for Qantas is. She explains to me that I could just go & walk down around the corner where it is. I say, "not at 2 o'clock in the morning I won't!" & basically give her a look like she's an idiot. Once I got on the shuttle bus w/ the other people, I see that it wasn't just a mere, "walk around the corner" it would've been a good hike to get there!

I decide that I'm going to get myself to the Qantas counter & park myself there, rather than go to a hotel, which I flatly refuse to pay for. There's nobody else around, except for the odd cleaning person, or some other weary traveller. So I sit down & stare at the empty Qantas counter, watching the scroll go by in bright neon red. And I have a quick, 10 second sob to myself wondering wtf I'm going to do. I go to the payphones I passed a few minutes earlier & decide to call home. It took me three attmepts because apparently when dialing through the (barely even helpful) operator, you have to choose a long distance carrier. By the third attempt, I lost it on the poor operator, screaming at her to just put it the hell through! So I get through to Dad, who listens patiently while I cry hysterically, trying to explain the situation. Since I have no cel phone, he can't get back to me, so we each decide we'll both see what we can do on our respective ends.

By about 3am, I notice this man wander by to where I was sitting, near the Qantas counter. He introduces himself as Noel, an Aussie, who as it turns out just so happened to be an airport official out of Brisbane who's flight also got screwed up. Long story short, we both seem to manage get booked onto another late arriving flight out of New York, which we're told was leaving at 4:30am. Now, We're told by the lady who booked us, drop your bags over at the American Airlines counter when it opens at 4am. Okay, so we go over, & we get redirected back to the Qantas counter! Grrrrrr, this is getting beyond ridiculous at this point. So this nice Noel person & I go running back to Qantas, hurriedly dropping off our luggage explaining that we have to catch this 4:30am flight. Might not have been the best idea at the time, considering what was to come later.

So we get up to the gate area, because we were told we'd have to go back through the security screening process. It's corrdoned off. We see a bunch of bored looking "officials' standing around, yet, not one single one of them willing to help or answer any of our very anxious questions. They curse us out under their breath at our exasperation at them! Needless to say, I'm so not impressed with the ever so lovely staff at LAX. When they finally bother to open the line up, the bored looking girl who takes my passport & boarding pass to check, very deliberately looks me up & down & then back at my passport. Yes, I think incredulously honey, it IS me!

So we finally get to the gate, Noel finds out that the flight will in fact leave at 5am, because it was delayed. So we get on the plane & off we go & hallelujah I'm on my way, finally! Now, I did manage to get some sleep on the flight from Toronto to LA, on the LA-Sydney portion, I slept kind of off & on, as best one can on such a long flight. I will say having my Jysk travel pillow was worth it's weight in gold, & a sleep mask is invaluable. During the flight, I am finding the turbulence a bit hard to bear, it's like being on a roller coaster & those of you who know me, know that I don't have an iron stomach for that. I do manage to get through the flight though without having to be sick or anything, thank God for small blessings.

So I finally arrive, I'm here, yaaay! But, my run of bad luck isn't done with me yet. Remember the suitcase thing at the Qantas desk in LA? Well, just to add insult to injury, yes, I am without my suitcase!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I can only hope that the rest of my trip will go just a bit smoother than how it started. I am now brain fried & a bit dizzy from it all, my stomach still feels icky & best of all, I've got nothing but the clothes on my back to sleep in until God knows when, but hopefully in a day or two I'll get my bag. I hope.

Oh, & as far as I am concerned, Air Canada is still poo!

*As of Tuesday February 5...I've been checking up with the Baggage Services place...The bag arrived in Sydney & as of about 1pm Newcastle time was enroute out here to Newcastle to me, so I'm feeling much more relieved now & hopefully it'll arrive to me soon. And a feeling a bit silly for getting all up in arms about it, oh well, onwards & upwards!

Away I Go......I Think!

MAYBE! Har de har har! Apparently Mother Nature is saying not so fast!


The day has finally come; my bag is packed, (fully-oy vey!), I think I've got everything I need (snow shovel maybe?) for this amazing trip I'm about to go on. And I'm leaving in the middle of a blizzard! Figures, but, I'm going to think positively. What is it they say, it's not the destination, but the journey along the way that's so interesting. Well okay then. I'd love to know who "they" were who said that in the first place!


In the last week or so, everyone's been asking me, are you excited? you must be getting so excited. I am, it might not seem like it, I think at this point, I'm more anxious than anything to just get going & get there already. I think once I leave L.A. & this continent & get closer to the other one, I'll get more excited. I think I'll be positively giddy to be in a warmer neck of the woods at this point, but I promise I'll try not to rub it in too much for those of you left behind in the currently frozen tundra that is Southern Ontario at the moment.


And so with that, let the adventure begin. Stay tuned folks, I'll be in touch soon!

P.S. Don't forget to leave your names when you post any comments please