We still sound Canadian

G’day Maytes! (You all knew that was coming at some point). We don't actually ever say that, but have noticed that we're picking up on the slang around here more than the accent. It's weird for Tim and I to be talking to each other and using Australian words like we've been using them for our entire lives. Makes you feel like a bit of a faker.

We’re just past our first month of officially living in Australia. And what a month. After having left Canada in so much snow, it’s a bit surreal to think about how accustomed we’ve become to birds, sunshine and flip flop tans in such a short time. Just to let you know, when we’re talking to you and you tell us about the 4^th snowstorm warning that you’ve had that week, it really doesn’t sink in to us. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe we’re just in denial, but our world consists of sunshiny days.

So, it’s Laura again. Yep, the long-winded one. Just as a point of interest, Tim and I typically take the same amount of time to write a blog entry. Think about that. I think the shortest entry that I’ve had was 4 pages in Microsoft word, Tim’s, I think we can all see, have been shorter than that. But he’s intense. Every sentence is jam packed with information, every word, important. I’m a little more liberal with my writing. I write what I think, and that’s what takes me so long to write. Tim takes so long because he’s actually researching. I’ll let you decide how nerdy or cool that really is.

We’ve had a number of fun adventures lately, but I must admit that I think we’re hitting, or have hit, the ‘Australia is cool but we liked Canada’ phase, i.e., the homesick blues. We miss our friends and we really miss our families, and our cat is up there on that list too. In Canada she used to greet us every morning by trying to jump on our bed, but just not having enough steam to make the whole jump. She’d end up ‘Prarie-dogging’ as we liked to call it, imagine a cat bouncing on her back feet while trying to see up over the edge of the bed. Every now and then I expect to see her run in and not make the jump in the morning. Thankfully she’s in good hands with my sister in New Brunswick, and is Prarie-dogging for her.

But everyone knows what it’s like to miss home, so I won’t bore you with our middle-of-the-night-wide-awake-why-the-heck-did-we-leave-our-happy-home thoughts. The reality is that we were going to be moving somewhere at this point, and we’d be missing home no matter where we were. Having a bun in the oven makes it a little more rough for us, but thanks to cheap phone cards and skype, it’s really not that hard to keep in touch. As for the bun, it likes to lean to the east in the morning, pushing my bellybutton over to the right side of my body, just a titch. Tim called me a freak the other day when he saw it. Good guy that he is.

So, on to our adventures. First off, last weekend we took the recommendation of a couple of good Canadian friends of ours (Baxter and Lins) and traveled to the northern part of New South Wales to visit Tropical Fruit World. We’d made the mistake of telling some of our new Aussie friends that we were going and they scoffed at us a bit. There’s a giant plastic avocado off the highway pointing the farm out, which makes it a little gimmicky I guess. Either way, we wanted to go and did. It’s a really, really cool spot. I highly recommend it to anyone traveling in these parts. It’s basically an old family fruit farm that decided to go into the agri-tourism business in the late 80’s. They still commercially produce massive amounts of fruit, but also run this tourist-attraction as well. I really would have no idea which is more profitable. The entrance fees are a bit dear (pricy), but it’s SO worth it. There are a lot of different things that you can do at the park, but I’d say their major tourist thing is a guided tour that takes you through different parts of the farm. The biggest part of it is a tractor ride through the fruit plantation where they tell you all about the fruit being grown, the seasons, the markets, research that’s going on, etc. It’s really informative, right up our alley. There’s another component where they have a fruit tasting session, they also hock their many health and beauty products, and brilliant sauces. We bought a few and do not regret those purchases whatsoever. Oh, here’s a fact for you that they liked to drill into our heads- the avocado is the most nutritious fruit out there. It’s actually in the Guiness Book of World Records for being such. They grow a lot of avocado, so it works well for them that it’s so good for us. I’m a little scared that I might end up with a 15 pound baby inside of me because I eat so much avocado, and it’s so nutritious. Let’s cross our fingers for a healthy, normal-sized wee one that simply has a liking for avocado...That’s delivered by a stork.

Speaking of more avocado, how many of you knew that avocados grew on trees? No lying. How many of you had never thought about where they grow (other than in warm climates and not Canada)? I was embarrassed to be shocked to see them hanging off of branches at the fruit farm…I’m supposed to be a farmer, yet I had never, ever thought about how this fruit grew. Perhaps it’s a great example of how detached we are from food sources in society (don’t they come from the supermarket?). Made me sad to think of how alienated I am from the real life of growing food.

So, the downside of Tropical Fruit World, perhaps an upside for younger kids, is a guided tour to Old MacDonald’s farm and Treasure Island within the vicinity of the farm. Both of them were rather disheartening. They really didn’t need to have captive animals on display for us, nor did we need a boat ride around a man-made island with ducks to feed and sappy Zeller’s music playing over a loud-speaker. The funniest part of it all was a little train that they took us on a ride on to get around treasure island. You’ll see in the picture, the Tropical Fruit World Express is no major passenger train. The funniest thing was that the conductor’s knees were basically up around his ears to ‘drive’ the thing. At least it gave us a good laugh. And, I actually saw ‘roos for the first time at Old MacDonald’s Farm, although they were in a caged in area. Did you know that they use their tails as a 5^th leg? How is it that I didn’t know that? I’m not sure what I thought they used to help them bounce (springs in their hind legs?), but that tail is essential. I should have paid closer attention to Sesame Street creature features. Overall, Tropical Fruit World got two thumbs up from us though. It’s a pretty neat little spot.

On the way back home up through Southern Queensland, we decided to hit up either a beach or park. We lucked out and got both at once at a place called Burleigh Heights National Park. Burleigh Heights is actually formed from an old volcano, the heights make up the rim and it overlooks Surfers Paradise. It was an amazing little hike along a rocky, undeveloped coastline and eventually the path led to more of a public beach, the first beach that we’ve been on since we got here. The water is like bath water. Now, I grew up in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia where a day at the beach consisted of a numbing period so that you could stay in the no more than 8°C water all day. Even on the hottest days you had to be foolhardy to get in the water (I loved it!). This, was warmer than any pool I’ve been in, in my life. It was amazing and I’m gonna like it here.

So all of that adventure took place on Saturday of last week, but we still had the rental car on Sunday. So we decided to check out a Koala Conservation Park not far from us (and also bought a 2^nd hand lawnmower from an old man that morning). I’m not sure what we expected to see at the Koala park, but we seemed to be the only dorks walking around the forests craning our necks to see Koalas in trees that were higher than 3 story buildings. It was about a 7km hike and we looked, and looked, but saw possibly 1 Koala off in the distance. Possibly. We felt like idiots because there were so many other people running, or biking and in general enjoying being out in the woods while we were dying to see a Koala in the wild and feeling grouchy because we weren’t and because our necks hurt. So, in the end I decided that perhaps the park was just in the shape of a Koala and that’s how it was named. But later in the week Tim spoke with a new friend of ours (a former Vancouverite) who said that he’s been to that park and seen Koalas there. I guess it’s just hit or miss. And we missed. It’s actually a Koala rehabilitation park. So there are definitely Koalas there.

So our weekend was action packed. It was nice to be doing things that weren’t necessary functions. And we found it a relaxing weekend despite all of the running around.

So, my newest favorite Australian find is a restaurant called “Seafood Platter” that’s just down the street from our place. Despite its name, it’s the cheeseburger that’s taken my affection. A couple of weeks ago Tim was out of town for a conference and on the Saturday that he was returning, I had one last meal to find for myself before he got home. I’d seen the big picture of the cheeseburger on the outside of the restaurant, but the place didn’t really look all that clean or non-greasy. Either way, on that Saturday, I just had a hankering for a cheeseburger, I blame it on the hormones. So I walked down to the shop and ordered one for take-away (take-out). When the lady handed over the package, I was a little shocked by how big it was, but, you know, I like a good challenge, so I took it and walked back home. It was hands down, the BEST cheeseburger I’ve tasted in my life. I savored every heart-stopping bite of it. I don’t even know exactly what it was about it, but the combination of sauces and vegetables and hunk of Australian beef- but you couldn’t ask for a better burger. I will make sure that if you come and visit us, you will get a complimentary cheese burger from the Seafood Platter on us, just to prove my point. Once I had eaten one, I made a deal with myself that I could only eat another if Tim was eating one (he’d not had one at that point and I knew that he could resist better than I could). He has tried the burger and agrees with me (that means that he’s had one so far, and I’ve had two). I think it’s our tickers that might be saying ‘take it slow kids. We’re not built to last’. So, I try not to think about the burger. Most days it works.

So, Tim and I have both been working for a couple of weeks now. Tim’s started his post-doc position at Griffith University and I’m still working for the same environmental consulting company that I had been working with in Canada. We’re both glad to be back into a working routine, and have slowly been able to get involved with organizations outside of work that make us feel a little more human. It’s been good. One organization that we’d both been quite involved with in Canada was Engineers Without Boarders (EWB). We’ve gotten ourselves hooked up with a chapter here in Brisbane and are getting back into the swing of things with them here too. It’s a lot of fun and good to get back into some critically thinking circles. It’s hard not to say “well, we did things this way in Canada”…but we’re learning lots about Aboriginal issues here in Australia and about development in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, PNG, etc. It’s good to have a fresh take on what poverty means to people on this side of the world.

And that about wraps it up for us this week. If you’re reading this, you can take some solace in the fact that it’s probably you specifically that we miss. Take care of yourselves and keep in touch, please!

Oh! And a big thanks to Joy for pointing out that people can’t leave comments on our blog without registering with Google accounts. GRRR. I would be mad at us if I were trying to leave a comment for my friends and found out that I’d have to give personal information to a huge super-corporation in order to do so. So we’ve fixed the situation. You shouldn’t have to give any information to anyone in order to leave us a message. So feel free!

Lots of love to everyone.