And finally, the post you've all been waiting for:

Photos! I slaved all day over a hot laptop to bring you the photo album "Alice Springs to Darwin, Part I" (under the "photos on Picasa" link to the right). There are a lot (relatively speaking), I was quite the shutterbug, but all the commentary is there of what we did on the trip. More anecdotes available upon request. Enjoy!

Trivia answer

Remember that last trivia question, from waaaaaaay back when? Thought you might be interested to know that the answer is c) 1400 miles. Further than I thought! (Sorry Rach, no dice. But once again, I love the reasoning out. You do, however, win the prize of most trivia questions attempted! Prize to be administered the next time I see you. Let's make it happen :))

On the photos front: my computer is not playing nicely with my cousins' internet. Not sure what the deal is, or even whether it's a problem with my computer or with the internet, but I'm not sure when it will get fixed. Therefore I have no idea when I'll get the rest of the photos up, but if you're still on the edge of your seat for the first batch of Australia tour and Melbourne photos, check back in a week or two!

New photos!

Photos of the second half of the Australia tour (album called "Alice Springs to Darwin, Part 2") and the New Zealand tour (album called "NZ tour - South Island") are up on Picasa (the link is to your right, under "Photos"). As soon as my camera and I are in the same place, I'll put up the ones from the first half of the Australia tour!

"Wild Ames over the water

Headin' north and home again
Bringin' the warm wind from the south
Bringin' the first taste of the spring..."
~John Denver, Wild Montana Skies

Well, that's it. My flight leaves for LA in a couple of hours so I need to scare up some lunch and get myself to the shuttle bus in a few minutes. My camera has made it safely to Sydney and is on its way to Boston, where hopefully it will greet me next weekend, so check back after then for more photos! More detailed descriptions of the tours will be inserted as comments on the photos. I will also be stealing my fellow tourists' photos from Facebook and putting them up as they come, so NZ ones might be a bit later in posting.

The NZ tour was all right. It mostly consisted of being on a bus for eight hours a day on windy mountain roads, and not doing much of anything else. I'm not sure I would have been up for much more this week, what with this cold and all, so it seems to have worked out. After Queenstown we really didn't do much that's worth writing about, though the scenery was gorgeous.

I'm Alive!

Photos from hang gliding are on Picasa, click the link to the right and they're in the album called "Hang Gliding". Here's one to whet your appetite:

Melbourne (etc) Photos Up!... later

Disclaimer - internet was not helpful so I didn't upload hardly anything. Sorry...

I am uploading as we speak! It was a bit of a fiasco as apparently cameras and the internet don't play well together (meaning it's a darn good thing I bought that USB drive, even though it's full now and I'll just have to keep deleting stuff - oh well) so it was tough finding a place to get it all done. (I know, doesn't seem like it should be a fiasco, but trust me. It was.)

Anyway, on to funner things: Trivia! Deb wins the prize (and bonus points!), the capital of Australia is Canberra, in the appropriately named Australian Capital Territory, which, like DC, was carved out of two states: New South Wales (where Sydney is) and Victoria (where Melbourne is). Apparently people think you're nuts if you go visit there, as it's quite a boring place, so that's where the similarities end.

So, I haven't come up with a new trivia question, so I'll just pull an "easy" one out of my back pocket and hope that the next time I get to the internet, I'll have learned something new! New trivia question: Who is the Prime Minister of Australia? (Bonus points if you can name the guy who preceeded him.)

Today I basically took it easy, although I did get up early to hike across town and call my mom on Skype (again, a fiasco - don't ask). It's good to have one day to decompress and not be out in the boiling heat. I have no doubt we reached our high of 40C (105F). What a way to kick off the Grand Prix! Hope everyone down there's got plenty of water and sunscreen. We can hear the pre-racing whine all the way at the hostel!

I'm off to bed early tonight for a 5am start tomorrow to get me to the airport for my 8am flight to Alice Springs and the start of my first tour the day after. Fingers crossed for NO fiascos!

Kangaroo Point!

Trivia answer: Unfortunately, Rachel, the answer is actually (a), but bonus points for the reasoning out! (Mmm, flecks of coal...) Manchester refers to the section of a department store (or Target, or whatever) that sells linen and towels and things. I learned this the hard way when I tried to buy a new shower curtain for the house and ended up giving the saleslady the look of blankness ;)

New trivia: What is the capital of Australia? (Bonus points if you can name which state/territory it's in!)

Sunday the book group had a barbecue. We were there for probably three hours and talked about the book for maybe 15 minutes, but it was all good fun. Meg and I walked there and then back to her house together, so she could lend me a blanket. March 1 marks the official beginning of fall here, and the weather has changed a bit. It's still hot during the day (well, as hot as it was this summer, which is to say, not so much - it was an extremely unusually cold and rainy summer, so they tell me) but really cool at night. So cool that with my windows closed and winter pajamas on, my sheet was not enough to keep me warm. So Meg lent me a heavy wool blanket and I have been sleeping like a champ!

The barbecue was at Kangaroo Point, which is one of the peninsulas formed naturally by the Brisbane River's winds and twists. I think it's almost directly across the river from the part of downtown where I work. There is also a fairly substantial cliff face (not exactly sure what from) in the park that is very popular with the rock climbers. I took a few photos down there, they're on the "Photos on Picasa" link to the right.

We've also had a couple of people interested in the room, and one came by last night. She's already friends with a few of Alex's friends (that's how she learned about the room - she just dropped in) so I have high hopes. After she finally left, I rounded up the kids and we took off for Ray's mom's restaurant where we had a full-on feast as a little going-away party for me. It was a good time. Here's a photo of us housemates (and Mark, who also happened by last night and got swept up in the group):

L-r: Mark, Mia, Alex, me, Ray, Dan.

New Stuff!

Trivia
Well, old trivia first: Congratulations to Rachel, the seventh (eight-pointed) star on the Australian flag stands for the number of states and territories. (And even though she didn't name them correctly, extra credit for creativity, and for making me laugh out loud at work!)

Ok, new trivia: Which two Australian animals appear on the country's national coat of arms?

Photos
Photos from last weekend's camping trip to Byron Bay are up! Check the Picasa link on the right.

The Sound of Silence

Congratulations to Mindy (aka Manisha) for getting the answer right on the nose! There are 8 states, and since no one apparently wants to take a stab at naming them, here they are: Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Victoria, ACT (Capital Territory - very similar to Washington DC), New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania. (Ok so technically there are 6 states and 2 territories, oh well.)

New trivia question: Of the seven stars on the Australian flag (including the Union Jack), five form the shape of what? (I'll try to give you guys about a week to get up the nerve to post... remember, you don't need to register anymore in order to post a comment, and you also can't cheat by looking up the answer!)

Yesterday, Dan and I ventured out into the wild world beyond Brissy, aka the Northern Hinterland (they really do call it that!). We had stopped at a lookout place on our adventure to the beach a few weeks ago that was just across the road from a "scenic preserve" so we decided to go back up and check it out. It turned out to be a rainforest (called Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve) and it was beautiful. The walk was less than 2km but we ambled through and it took us about 2 and a half hours. There were lots of families and other assorted really loud people (including one girl on her cell phone, which was completely baffling), but when they were out of earshot it was wonderful and hardly quiet at all. Between the occasional rustling of pademelons (small reddish marsupials in the wallaby/kangaroo family) and the various birdcalls (one sounded like a crying baby!) were the soft sounds of falling leaves, the hum of insects, and the creaking and sighing of trees. I mostly took photos of the trees, since I'm not a good enough birdwatcher to spot them and the pademelons were too quick. The trees were spectacular, though, as you will see. Most of them had vines curling around them, one even to the point that the trunk was growing over around the vine! Some were really big around, a lot looked like many trees growing extremely close together, and a few had fallen down, creating holes in the canopy which let in lots more sunlight than I was expecting to see in a rainforest!

At one point I mentioned to Dan that I'd never been in a rainforest before. About five minutes later when he had registered and digested this information, he said, "But you lived in Guatemala!" I explained to him that the rainforest parts of Guatemala were found in the north, waaaaaaaay the heck away from anywhere, and in a malaria zone. Even had I had the money and inclination to travel around, I still would not have because I didn't have malaria medicine.

It was nice to be quiet for a while and let the world do the talking. Try it sometime! In the meantime, check out the photos on Picasa (album called "Rainforest").

New Photos!

Bunya nut excitement is up on the Picasa link to the right. Click on "Photos on Picasa" and select the album "Bunya Nut Night". Enjoy!

Photos!

Click on the "Photos on Picasa" link to the right. Three new albums: "Woodford Folk Festival," "King's Beach," and "Christmas Dinner."

This is the link to a video I took of a group playing the didgeridoo albeit untraditionally :) I have no idea if the sound will work and the picture is pretty bad because it was a packed house, but give it a shot.

And this is the link to a video of the Japanese drumming, also from Woodford. Even if the sound doesn't work their show was visually stunning as well.

Enjoy!

New photos

Ok, I'm giving Picasa, gmail's photo service (they also run Blogspot), a try this time for a supplemental photo fix ;) Try:

http://picasaweb.google.com/amy.horning/BrisbaneHousemates1

Let me know of any problems...

New photos

Check out the Flickr link on the right for new photos! Here's the deal: Flickr only gives me a certain amount of bandwidth each month, which affects how many photos I am allowed to put up. I already hit the limit for December today, uploading 36 photos! I also hit the limit for number of albums, or "sets" I'm allowed to have. So what I did was, I put tags on all the new photos. When you click on the link, there is a link called "Tags" under my name and photo near the top left hand side of the page. Click on that link and then click on either "Sydney" or "Brisbane December" to see either group.

Disclaimer: in the Brisbane set, I used the low-light/nighttime setting for the first time, which is where you really notice the slow shutter speed. A lot of the nighttime photos are really blurry, which is not my fault! It requires me standing absolutely still for four seconds, which is very hard to do (especially if your subjects are moving!). So, sorry they're blurry.

Also: They are probably not in any real sort of order. Sorry about this too, but there doesn't seem to be too much I can do about it. I tried to be as specific as possible so you would know what you were looking at, and what other photos were taken at the same place.

That being said... enjoy! And let me know if you have any trouble. :)

Master's in Australian Culture

(Re: photos - apparently there is a max per month and I have hit it. More photos in a couple weeks.)

After moving in on Saturday morning, I started right away on my goal of learning about Australian culture. There is an election coming up so a lot of talk has been focused on that. Alex and I got into a whole conversation on the differences between American and Australian elections and federal government. There are lots of ads for the election on tv, and we've watched a lot of tv. We watched a show called Rove, which is kind of like the Daily Show only about 2-3 hours long, with many guests. We watched some cricket on tv and I got a crash course in the rules before Alex deemed it too boring and changed the channel. We watched Kath & Kim, which is an awful show about a mother and daughter who are both pretty crazy and detrimental to the other and sort of white trashy. We also played some Euchre, because somehow Alex knows Euchre, and we will teach our other housemates one day (we played a two-player version).

Some other things I've learned:

• Foreign language study was not compulsory until recently, but you can study Indonesian
• People expect you to walk on the left side of the sidewalk, like you're in a car
• The $2 and $1 are coins
• The game played at the World Cup is actually called soccer - Football means "Aussie Rules" - which is apparently soccer with its own rules unique to Australia
• Banks are only open 10-4 or so, and not at all on the weekends. Libraries keep odd hours (the one by my house is closed Sun-Tues, open Wed-Sat 10am-5pm and Thursday until 7pm). Lots of things are closed on Sundays. The green grocer is only open in the morning.
• I think the Bill Bryson book "In a Sunburned Country" has the title "Down Under" here. An interesting switch...
• Someone working in a store asking you "Are you all right?" means "Can I help you?"
• Our house is a typical Queenslander - up on posts to avoid flooding from the wet season and catch the breezes when it's hot, has a long hallway running straight through and verandahs front and back, with open areas over the doorways all to faciliate air flow. Guess it gets hot here ;) The toilet and kitchen are on opposite corners of the house and usually not connected to the other rooms (though our kitchen is).

Ok, I know there are more things I'm forgetting, they keep coming to me at inopportune moments but I will try to have paper handy when they do come to me, walking down the street, for next time ;)

Paradise Found!

There it is! It got nice out the last two days. Unfortunately, my cousin Laura wasn't feeling well, but her husband Jay kindly took me around Tuesday afternoon. We walked on Waikiki Beach and then hiked up Diamondhead. Then today, since the kids had a half-day of school, we went to the beach! It was pretty cloudy so we didn't take a lot of photos, but Jay did take me snorkeling, which was awesome. Being a diver in the Navy as well as an avid surfer and snorkeler, he knows a lot and it was really fun. Laura and I went to the swap meet, which is a big outdoor market that encircles the University of Hawaii football stadium with gobs of cheapo touristy junk, but I did manage to get a new bathing suit and a sarong. All of these activities are featured in the album "Hawaii Part II" under the Flickr link to the right.

Jay and Laura are going to lend me their big packpack so I should go make sure all my junk fits in there. Then it's off to bed and up early for 10 and a half hours on the plane!

Oh by the way, I am aware that the world clock link on the right ("Sydney Time!") is not working. I'll fix it as soon as I have time. In the meantime, you can go to www.timeanddate.com/worldclock and look it up.

Paradise Lost

Greetings from Hawaii! This is a photo of the sunset from the plane, shortly after takeoff from LA. The sun was setting for about an hour as we followed it west.


My friend Paul referred to Hawaii as Paradise the other day, but the weather here has been uncharacteristically grey and rainy, which has proved finding activities difficult. On Saturday, my cousin Laura, her husband Jay, and their boys Keegan, Brendan and Collin took me on a driving tour of Oahu, which included the Heiau, Laniakea (Turtle) beach, and Byodo-In Temple. On Sunday, we were rained in most of the day but did manage to drive to Ford Island and see the base and Pearl Harbor from the west. Today (Tuesday), Laura and I took the kids to school and then went to the USS Arizona Memorial. We had lunch with Jay (who got out of work early due to sewage overflow in Pearl Harbor from the rain) and Collin at the Rainbow Bay Marina, and then hung out at their house.


The weather is supposed to get better the rest of this week so maybe I'll have photos from the beach and other outdoor activities later! In the meantime, check the Flickr link on the right for the album "Hawaii Part I"!