This and That...
Trip Start
Oct 13, 2007
1
10
17
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Sydney,
Australia
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
About time for another blog entry! I struggled with the title of this one, as it's a bit of a hodge-podge of things, so "this and that" seemed to be fitting. Since I have so many photos this time, I'll try to go light on the verbiage here, and will attach some description to many of the photos. Oh, who am I kidding, I still tend to write a book!
Routine
I guess we've settled into a routine at this point. The boys began their school year at the end of January. They have their guitar and piano lessons on Tuesday at a little studio in our town with nice, young tutors that they seem to like. On Wednesday am, they have band practice with the other woodwinds in the "training band." On Wednesday pm, they have their private lessons with their sax and clarinet tutors arranged by the school. They fit in play dates with friends on other days, and we make Thursday night our "family planning meeting" for the weekend.
Soccer "grading" was held a few weeks ago. Grading is basically determining their skill level and putting them on the appropriate team. We have yet to start practices, but that should be coming up soon.
Jim is still working very hard on the project. And he's definitely made a positive impact. But the work is substantial, the client is difficult, and although he's got a good team, they're still learning, so it continues to be a big challenge.
After I take the boys to school, I try to walk for an hour or so. Then it seems like there's always some shopping or cleaning to do, or even taking care of business from afar. In any case, I keep busy somehow, but am thinking about taking up tennis again. That's a relevation I just came up with today, because I walked by some tennis courts and women playing! I have managed to have some solo beach jaunts. One that you'll see pictures of was to Palm Beach, our new and maybe favorite beach. It's the northern-most beach in this area. A little farther than the others, but still only 40 minutes away. There's a lighthouse on the northern head of the beach, and you can take a steep, but relatively quick hike up there. Once up there, I decided to take a path behind the lighthouse. But I nixed it after a little bit, because it got a little "thick" and I found myself saying "no snakes...no snakes...no snakes." Seemed like a good time to turn around.
Blue Mountains
So we finally ventured beyond our immediate area to the Blue Mountains. They're only an hour and a half away, and were just beautiful. I would compare them to the Smoky Mountains. We started by venturing off to find "table rock" only to find that we were on a very red-earth and rough road to nowhere. After about a half hour, we nixed that and turned back. We were thinking at this point that the Amazing Race was not for Jim and I. But after that we managed to have a nice lunch and then went to various outlooks in the area, which you'll see in the pictures.
Jim's Birthday
Jim turned 48 on the 16th! In keeping with the Amazing Race theme....which by the way, we get old old old episodes, but we've gotten into watching...I decided to create an "amazing race" birthday. Again, there's pictures to support this effort, but I think Jim had fun navigating his way through various tasks that I concocted for him. The boys, of course, loved it! We ended the day with a sunset dinner cruise on the Sydney Harbour. I'm telling you, I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at the sites at Sydney Harbour, so forgive me for repeated pictures. But it really is cool.
Lingo and other Australian Weird Stuff
We find ourselves still amazed by things we here or see, and I thought you might enjoy some of this:
- Tazzie - that's Tasmania, the country which is just south of Australia. New Zealand is southeast. And did you know that the people of New Zealand are called Kiwis? Rachel Hunter (wasn't she married to Rod Stewart?) is a Kiwi.
- Brekkie - that's short for breakfast...one term I have begun using with the boys..."what do you want for brekkie?"
- No Worries - this is used all the time as we would use "no problem"
- Cheers - this seems to be used as a replacement for goodbye or even thank you in the stores. Often they will add "mate" to that, but mostly when it's a male paying for something.
- Loo and toilets--you don't ask for the restrooms or bathrooms, you ask where the loo or toilets are. I'm having a hard time with this one.
- Lift = elevator
- "Oi" or "Oy"--according to Max, this is used in a similar fashion as we would use "hey" in the states. I think it's really just a word used for exclamation, but since this is used by kids, what do I know?
- Hire - you don't "rent a car" here or "rent an instrument" you hire one
- Mo-bile vs. cell--you don't refer to your cellular phone as a "cell"...it's a mo-bile (long i sound)
- Car parks = parking garages
- Lollie= candy
- Rego = registration (i.e., you car registration..."is your rego current, mate?"). And it's re-jo, not re-go.
- Reckon--suprisingly, they use this a lot!
- "Look" and "yeah" - When making a statement, Aussies will often start the sentence with the word "look" and end it with "yeah", but in a questioning tone, like they want you to agree with what they've just said. "Look, the weather here in Sydney tends to be quite hot, yeah?"
- No left turn on red: keep in mind, we're driving on the left side of the road, so you would think that you could turn left on red, right? No....not unless there's a sign that tells you it's okay, and there's not enough of those.
- Australiar--this drives the kids crazy. They tend to add an "r" sound to words that end in an a. So Australia is Australiar. Amanda is Amander. You get the idear.
- And the towns in the country...where did these names come from? I can only hope to visit Wagga Wagga, Wollongong, Dubbo, Wee Waa, Tumbarumba and of course, Coonabarabran at some point.
Guess that's it folks. Hope this gave you some insight into what's been happening in our neck of the Southern Hemisphere. What's happening in the Northern Hemisphere?
Barb, Jim, Max & Sam
Comments
Spring is here!!!
Nice pictures, Barb........it looks wonderful there, yeah? Look, we have had weather in the 40's and 50's now for about a week and so everybody is feeling great. The roads are getting choked with bicyclists, runners, and walkers, the birds are chirping and everything seems like spring is here at last......uh oh, spoke too soon........tonight into tomorrow, the Chicago are is going to get socked with 4-8 inches of nice heavy wet snow. It seems almost prophetic, since when I was at the lawn mower (you probably don't have to worry, mate, about that 'down under') place last week, having my mower tuned for the coming season, a guy was bringing his snowblower in for the end of the winter. 3 people told this guy that we will be having at least one more snow storm but he said 'no way'!!! Guess he will have to use the old standby shovel again. Say hi to all for all of us here. Miss you, Bill