November 12, 2008

We've decided we need to reorient ourselves with the Western world (and stock up on a few groceries), so we're going to Australia for a long weekend.  Also, it will be nice to  replenish the Vitamin D or E or one of those letters provided by the sun.  I plan to sit by a pool and have someone serve me tall iced teas for a few days (thank you, good exchange-rate!).

And for those of you wondering what the above jumble of letters mean, that's Australian slang for "Hello," "How's it going," "How are you," and any number of other ways we Americans greet each other, although I'm not sure if it would score in Scrabble.    Just try saying, "How are you going," in about 0.2 seconds without annunciating, and you'll get the idea of what it sounds like.  At any rate, I've been practicing.  After all, it is polite to know a few "foreign" words when you go to another country, right?

November 20, 2008

Before we even left the island we started our vacation off with a bit of adventure.  First, we got a flat tire in a torrential rain.   BUT we just happened to be making a pit stop at the golf course when the flat tire was noticed, and were able to change it under a rain-proof canopy. Disaster averted. 

The next weird situation that happened was that I was told that I looked like Uma Thurman.  Or I think the quote was something like, “You look like that beautiful woman in the movie where she’s swinging swords and kills people.  You’re a dead ringer!”  Yeah.  Imagine my excitement at getting roped into conversation with someone who was slightly incapacitated from drinking too much of whatever it was he was drinking.  But after much discussion, we all figured out he meant the movie “Kill Bill” and Uma Thurman’s character.  However, I tried to discourage this conversation from continuing much further because I am nothing like Uma:

1) I have never worn a bright yellow leather motorcycle outfit and matching yellow Puma shoes while doing various martial arts moves;

2) My alter ego does not intend to destroy Gotham City or kill Batman and Robin.  In fact, I’m pretty sure my alter ego would be a backpacking hippie in Nepal.  But I might just be saying that because I'm wearing purple and aqua tie-dyed pants.

After a good night’s sleep we headed to the airport with several empty suitcases, in preparation for shopping.  Upon trying to check in, we had a bit of panic having to do with visas, because someone in HR forgot to update mine, and the airline was not going to let me get on the plane.  However, after a couple of phone calls and 45 minutes of waiting, I had a visa and was able to get on the plane.  I’m glad we showed up early.  Then on the plane, I had to sit by the very same person who thought I looked like Uma the night before (and no, it wasn’t Eric).  Let’s just say this guy was not nearly as outgoing as he was the night before.

We had a very uneventful time in Australia.  And I don’t mean to gloss over our holiday, but it was incredibly NORMAL and nothing weird happened for the entire five days.  We stayed at a hotel on the pier, ate loads of good FRESH food and walked and shopped. A waiter at one of our favorite restaurants remembered us from five months ago, when we were last there, so we spent some time chatting with him as we snacked on fresh oysters.  Also, at that particular restaurant (The Raw Prawn) the spicy cabbage, bean sprout, carrot and cilantro coleslaw was to die for…yummy green crunchy things?  What are those?  Our other favorite places: 1) The Red Ochre – www.ochrerestaurant.com.au/  - their specialty is using foods that are native to the area; 2) Picollo Cucina – www.piccolocucina.com.au/  -a small Italian place that has really good handmade pastas and the best tiramisu known to man; 3) Olano’s – a somewhat fancy food type of place, specializing in Italian cuisine, on the boardwalk at the pier, with the wonderful ambiance of being outdoors and overlooking the bay, and they have great service staff – absolutely perfect for romantic dinners.

It was a great weekend and we really got to relax for a few days, which was very much needed.  It also helped the relaxing process for both of us have a horrible head-cold for the entire time, because we also spent a lot of time lying around our hotel room, watching the boats go by.

Also, the bell-hop at our hotel looked like “Data” from Star Trek: The Next Generation…but I did not tell him that. 

November 21, 2008

More from Cairns.

One of our three cappuccinos per day...

  It's mine and you can't have any!

View from our hotel room.  

We walked through the Aboriginal Arts Center and viewed the beautiful paintings. 

A view of the sailboats at the pier.

If I win the lottery, I'm buying this:

And this is what Eric wants.

I expected Dr. No or even James Bond to step out of this one at any minute. 

And for you "Foodies" out there...

Say, "Cheeeeeese".

November 27, 2008

A new "art dealer" knocked on our door today, and then proceeded to make himself at home by plopping down on the couch and showing us his wares.  All of the Indonesian words that I hadn't practiced in six months started coming back to me when we started having a "conversation", which must actually sound like what we think two-year olds sound like when they talk to each other.  We both stuck to simple words and phrases, and I found that like the Papuans at the Cultural Festival that we went to last month, his accent was more similar to mine than the Indonesians' accents, so he was easier to understand.  We discussed that he was of the Komoro people, and he thought the photos of the Papuans wearing headdresses that we'd hung on the wall were really neat.  And he thinks that Indonesian-made shoes aren't very good because they are always "broken" and that the Americans and Australians here have better shoes.  And he thought Eric's size 12 shoes were "much big" for him, since he wears a size 6.    After dealing with a very high-pressure job today, talking to this guy was just what I needed to bring me back to reality and stop thinking about work.  The people who live outside of the company property have very, very little and their lives are very hard.  So in the spirit of the holidays and being generous, I  bought a carving from him, and I hope he uses what we gave him for good things.