thebaldgeek

Messy head = messy blog, so lets get started.

We left Sydney (yah!, over crowed, too much traffic, too noisy, too smelly, nothing familiar) yesterday.

Drove down to the nations capital, Canberra, really nice drive. Good to see the country side again. Really good. Little to good. Tugged at a few heart strings.
(Just on the whole heart thing…. I was please to tell the kids that after the chest x-ray was developed we had solid proof that I really do have a heart!!!)
Got lost on the way to my auntys (they are changing a major interchange and the GPS had us driving off the map), ended up at a big shopping mall.
Since it was lunchtime (side note, according to Terry, its always lunchtime), we pulled in and grabbed a pie, still not sick of them and noticed that Avatar was on at the movies.
Saw Avatar. More on that soon.
Got unlost and arrived at the auntys place…..nice to be somewhere that we recognize.
Had a typical ausi bbq. Some real beer and got attacked by flies and mozies. Yah. We are home….. wait, where are we?

Freddy, Amy and I are all still nursing sore arms from the shots. Really sore. Like, cant really lift them very high, they are hot to touch and just generally constant ache.
I am feeling pretty off too. Hard to put my finger on. Just really flat and sickly. Not tired, but not awake. Not crook, not well. Thirsty, not hungry. Im not sure if its what the Dr pumped me full of or something else.

The light in this place is amazing. Just watching the sun dance off the gum trees is amazing. I have always been aware of it, but its like the volume has been turned up on it now.
There is no way I can catch it in a photo or even HD movie. Its just is something to have to see and feel.
It was nice last night to watch the thunder clouds build up, get all gray and black and then just dissolve at sunset.

Further proof that the timing of this trip was not up to us….. its leading into a full moon. By the time we get out of the cities and into some dark skies we should be totally blown out by the moon that will not set in time to get some star photos. Blah.
Does not sound like a big deal to you, and it probably is not, but I will bear my sole a little and give you a glimpse as to what it means for me…… The southern cross is my favorite constellation. I think its the most beautiful group of stars in the whole sky. And since this is my blog, and I have just spent 21 months in the north, and so have now seen all that the night sky can offer, I can say that and you cant argue…….
In the plane on the way over, I opened the shutter near the toilets and looked out, there was Orion and Taurus, I thus walked over to the other side of the plane, opened the shutter and there it was. At 35,000 feet, it was shining bright! It was such a beautiful sight, I could not hold back, I started crying….. So yeah, seeing the night sky, with no moon…. its a big deal to me!

Today I feel like lying in bed all day and feeling sorry for myself. So, Im not. Freddy and Melva are going to go to the art gallery (there is supposed to be some amazing paintings here from Europe for some reason or another and its all very rare to see them blah blah blah), the kids, myself, aunty Marion and one of her grandkids are going to the science museum next door.
It should only take half a day or so for that. Then we are going to come back to the house and do some home work.
Tomorrow we drive to Freddy (and Melva’s) home town of Shepparton to see her family and mum. Her mum is not well, so the timing to see her is spot on.

At Shepparton we enter the black hole of WWW access. My mum-in-law does not have any, so we will be quite for a few days till we get up to Matts at Uranquinty.

Chow for now.

We had our medical’s today. So that means Freddy and I had our shots (note to parents, keep track of your kids immunization records. Because Freddy and I did not have any records, we had to have all our shots, Amy and Terry did not have to have any because Freddy has kept all their records from year zero. Also, if your kid catches anything, like chicken pox, get a dr’s certificate to say such. It can really help latter in life. I mean, when I was 4 years old and covered in spots, who would have thought I would need proof some 40 years latter).
We also had to give three vials of blood. Amy and I had trouble with the first vein, so we both have two sore arms. Freddy did not have a problem giving up the red stuff and so only has one spot to show for it.
The Dr’s we chose (there were only two in all of NSW that can do the medical – go figure) were just fantastic. Really easy to deal with and knew their stuff. That really helped take some of the stress out of the process.
So, now we wait. It takes about 10 days to get the results, but because Australia pretty much shuts down the week before xmas and a week after new years, we do not get the results until the 11th of Jan. That’s the sole reason we had to come out when we did. (Americans, remember, its summer here, so its our main break for school and work).

Only the one photo from the past two days….. We have just been resting……(The past few weeks have been pretty out there for us all).
There is a park at the end of the road where the motel is, Freddy and I walked down to get some fresh air. When Freddy saw this tree, for some reason she thought of Zim……

Its hard to see on this small picture, click on it to embiggen, but the tree has dreadlocks. Exactly why it reminds Freddy of Zim? (I’m quoting here, so don’t shoot the messenger), ‘Because its wacky and weird’.

We hit the road tomorrow to start heading south to see our families and friends.

Before we left the States I down loaded an off-line blogging tool. What this means is that I can type up my blog entries on the computer, and then when we get some internet access on the computer, I can publish them.
The idea is that I can do quick little updates from places like Internet cafe’s and the sort, but then write better longer entries when I have the time, but not the net access….. Like now for example.
Right now we are all pretty burnt out. We are all lying on the beds in the hotel trying not to go to sleep. (Terry is the exception, he’s pretty much punching out the zzz’s).
We left LA around 1pm ‘yesterday’, drove up to LAX, got a little lost finding the rental car return place, got unlost and had a nice little surprise. They now have a service where someone at the rental place drives you and your car to the terminal. You don’t even have to get your luggage out of the car. It works well. We all liked that rather than getting the bus.

United flight check in is broken. Just broken. There are about 30 counters and 3 people, they spend their time running up and down helping each person a little, sometimes they helped one person check in, often not. Anyway, I think if you knew how to use the touch screen and had all your paperwork sorted, it might work, sort of……..The usual security check in was pretty smooth… its all pretty crazing taking your shoes off and such, but hey, it is what it is and I don’t see it changing any time soon.
Once we cleared the security checks, we milled about for a while, I have no idea why they insist that you are there some 2 hours before the flight leaves….. but, they do, so we milled.
We then boarded the plane, a little domestic job, the same sort that went ‘bang’ last time we went on one (doh! one of the down sides of this off-line thing is that I cant look up my old posts and link to them…. Anyway, do a search for the word ‘bang’ and you should find the last trip’s experience).
Anyway, we taxied out and stopped. The pilot then came on and told us that SFO was shut because of weather. So, we waited, and waited and waited. We were sitting on the tarmac for about an hour. Finally a short one hour fight had us land in fog and light rain.
It’s a long walk from the domestic to the international terminals, but it was nice to stretch our legs.
Got there in plenty of time, did not have to do the whole security thing again which is nice.
So we sat around at the terminal for about 2 hours. Terry and I kept busy with him trying to teach me how to do the Rubiks cube, and Amy is teaching herself contact juggling. Freddy was amused watching the show.

 

The flight over was ok. It was pretty smooth. Not the usual bumps and bangs over the equator….. that came later for about an hour out of Sydney. Anyway, we were packed in pretty tight, not a lot of room to rattle when you are strapped in;

You can see that our knees pretty much touch the seat in front. Anyway, its only 14 hours, its over before you know it.
We touched down at Sydney in the pouring rain, a nice bit of weather, real weather.

We also found out that there is also a snap bus strike. So, no buses, pouring rain and Sydney all add up to be a pretty interesting time.
We got to the motel via taxi, pretty smooth, he knew the back ways and that seemed to save a lot of time.
We sort of unpacked and then food was pretty high on the agenda…… Long ago we made up a list of foods we missed, so there was not a lot of time spent trying to figure what we wanted, it was more a case of where to find it within walking in the rain range of the motel.

(Best to click on it and see it bigger).
It was not cheep, but it was very very yummy.
We are still waiting for the rain to stop so we can walk around some more and find some other places to eat since we are here for a few days while we get our medicals done.

Anyway, as I said at the start, we are all just crashing at the moment…. Its been a really long day.

Sorry that this blog entry is going to be a little out of order, but the photos and extra details should make up for it (I hope)…… I wonder if I can change the ‘published date’ and make it fit in…. hmmmm……..

So, here we are, not sure where here is…. see last post… (am I home?)

Smoothish flight.
Sat on the tarmac at LAX for an hour, they shut SFO due to weather.
Still made it on time to get the fight to Sydney.
AAA did not seat the family together so that was a bit of a pity, but there you go, lesson there is book your own flights!
Very bumpy for the last hour into Sydney.
Pouring rain and a bus strike, so the traffic is just NUTS!
Motel room is small, but clean, so thats all we need.
Sending this from a very small internet cafe.

More soonish.