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some australian thoughts Within an hour of getting home from work this morning, I was sound asleep which isn't too unusual for me after my first night back at work. Then when I woke six hours later there was the oh so pleasant sound of my neighbor shredding the last of the tree that used to stand in his front yard. So rather than trying to snag an extra hour of sleep I started to clean. The other day I came up with the following slogan for third shift workers everywhere: We work at night so that you can sleep. It seemed funny if not slightly clever at the time. ... My house is just about ready for me to abandon it for a couple of weeks. All of the recyclable cans, cardboard and so on were quickly bagged and ready to go out for tomorrow. Garbage was also bagged and ready to go outside. Anything that had been lying around was put away where it should have been. Bills were paid and set aside to mail. All that is left for me to do is eat the rest of the few perishable foods in the refrigerator and do some quick vacuuming. ... I have to confess that of the three cities that I am going to be seeing Sydney would be my least favorite. Thankfully I won't have to deal with the Olympics. I think that that extra amount of fuss would have driven me insane. Oh, I'll go to see the opera house and the bridge, but I want to see more of the natural Australia than I do the urban side. If I can I want to rent a car and drive out of the city for a day. A modern city can only hold my attention for so long. Sadly Uluru or as it used to be known Ayers Rock is not going to be on my itinerary. There just isn't enough time and I'm not too sure what the cost of a flight to that part of the country would cost me. In fact I haven't even bothered to research that part of the country at all. I mean I would think that there must be some form of hotels near the area rather than having people fly in and out in the space of a day. I could be wrong though and as I said I haven't really bothered to find out either. Part of me thinks that a more regulated package will work out better for my sister and I. My brother grumbled now and then about the hostel scene when we in Europe and I can't imagine my sister dragging her luggage that far or that often in Australia. Most of my attention has been divided between Melbourne and Cairns. The majority of Australians that I met in Europe were from Melbourne and they struck me as being friendly so that was a must visit for me. Plus Melbourne is close to the Great Ocean Road. When we get to Cairns this will be the first time in years that I will have been in an ocean. The last time was when I went to Hawaii, back in 1998. Hopefully I won't have a repeat of what happened there. Nothing really bad happened, but it could have been better. Since I didn't understand or maybe more truthfully didn't read the signs, I found myself quite a way from shore amidst four-foot swells. Soon there was a lifeguard swimming my way and telling me to come back to shore. Actually he not only told me to come back into shore, but ended up pulling me back in behind him. I still give him credit for being able to drag me along through that surf. I was tired and more than happy to just relax and be pulled along. Of course whenever I tell that story most guys ask me if it was a woman who got me and I have to say no. I got rescued by more of a surfer dude. ... I guess that in some ways I want this to be more of a physical vacation than what my brother and I did in Europe last year. Yes, we walked everywhere, but we really didn't do much outside of the cities. In fact I think that all of our time was spent in cities except when we were on the bus. The natural scenery was more of window experience for us rather than firsthand. At least this time we'll be going not only into the ocean, but I also booked us some time in the rainforest. I'll probably still take in a museum or two while I am there and I know that my sister wants to do some drinking which is fine. My brother and I did about the same thing in Europe. As for food I have the feeling that we'll probably still stick with something simple. I don't have that much interest in big sit down meals. Even though sitting on the bus got old toward the end of our vacation in Europe, it was a nice way to meet a variety of people. For the most part they were either British or Australian with a Canadian mixed in every so often. More than once my brother and I were the only Americans in the group, which didn't bother us. If we had wanted to meet Americans than we would have stayed home.
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