Travel Blogging Part Trois: We’re Here!
December 21, 2008 / 2:33 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierSydney, Australia is quite simply gorgeous.
Birds sing. Trees blow in the breeze. It’s in the low 80s. There’s water everywhere. Stunning! The little town, Rozelle, reminds me a bit of San Fransisco, a bit of Grand Haven, Michigan, and a bit of some vague European city with the twisty-turned streets, brick everywhere and crammed together business and housing. It feels familiar enough that I don’t feel like a tourist, but I look like one. I have my Superman backpack (they’ve run out of them, but this is the style, and they work great!) and a camera in my hand and I don’t give a hot damn that I look like a nerd.
Finished up the book Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)
on the trip. Yes, it’s good. Nothing that’s going to give you extra I.Q. points, mind you, but a great story with interesting characters and all the angst of adolescence on full display. Some reviewer here in Sydney said the book was just like Harry Potter. I’m wondering what sad planet of I-didn’t-read-the-book he was from. Whatever. The book is entirely different in tone, setting, and focus. Where Harry Potter is epic good-evil with a dash of growing pains thrown in, Twilight is a “first love/true love” story with vampires thrown in. Sheesh! Sometimes, I think I should be a book reviewer. Anyway, it was good enough that I’m finishing the series, maybe while I’m here. We’ll see how much time I have to read.
Tomorrow the ferry and Mandalay Beach. I expect to fry like a marooned baby seal. I don’t exactly intend to fry, mind you. I have the sunscreen and cover-ups, etc., but Australia has a monstrous ozone hole over the continent, no doubt created by the tiny Australian population using excess resources and being big, fat, wasteful consumers since they are a Western Democracy. Or, it’s the Chinese fault, kinda like it’s Detroit’s fault that all parts Toronto are polluted, or rather, it used to be Detroit’s fault back when they had factories, back in the olden days. Anyway, there’s a big ozone hole and it’s easy to get burned. I’ll do what I can to prevent that. Don’t want to prematurely age. Too late, I have kids. Comes with the territory.
Strange thing about technology: I’m in America. I’m in Sydney. My Twitter and blogging friends are so ass-backward body-clock wise, it’s like I’m home. And so, in a weird way, technology plays along with the normal-seeming yet strange sensation of being 14 hours off my body clock’s time.
I’ll be updating, if I can get the Australian data network to work, on Twitter with pics and all. Hope you’re having a great break, if you’re on one.
