This tree fell within 1 meter of Emma's car - yikes!
It's been a long time, I know. It's not you - it's me. I want to be able to wow you with crazy and exotic stories, but life here is just a bit too normal at the moment. It has gotten to the point where, when I take the ferry to Manly to go surf I am more interested in watching Judge Judy or whatever else happens to be on the TV than taking pictures of the opera house and harbour bridge. I am not trying to be smug, but one can only have so many pictures of the opera house, and we don't have TV on the boat.
To be fair, this is exactly what I wanted - to get to know a place and people, to learn my way around. Unfortunately I still get terribly lost every once in a while. I have been seriously considering joining the 21st century and getting an iPhone so that I might know where I am all the time, but it seems like it might take a lot of the excitement out of trying to get to work in the morning.
In other news, Australia Day was last weekend! Australia Day is the Aussie equivalent of 4th of July meets Columbus Day. Nobody could be bothered to tell me the exact significance of the holiday, except that you drink all day, have swimming races and listen to Triple J radio station's hottest 100 countdown.
Actually, Triple J is a really cool radio station. If you are interested in listening to new and awesome music, check out their website at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/. It is a government run radio station so there are no commercials, so brand endorsements, and no bad language censoring. It has been great to catch up on all the new music I have missed over the past two years. The hottest 100 countdown is the world's biggest music democracy, with millions of people from all over the world voting for their favorite songs of the year. Of course I had not heard of most of the songs, but believe it or not there is some great new music out there.
Aside from listening to the hottest 100 countdown, I survived my first cyclone. Ok, it was not a legitimate cyclone, but I forgot to check the weather before I flew up to the Sunshine Coast for a little weekend trip to spend the holiday with Emma and her mates, and as the tail end of Cyclone Evan crashed into Queensland I was in for a bit of flooding, power outages and falling trees.
Nevertheless, it was great to spend time with Emma and be back on the Sunny coast. It felt like visiting my old neighborhood! I surfed Noosa twice, which was a bit stormy but there was plenty of swell in the water, and we went to a party at Emma's friends house down the coast a ways for Oz Day. In spite of the torrential rain and howling winds, we partied until the sun came up (or at least until the sky was light).
That afternoon as we were recovering from shenanigans we watched Django in the family's home cinema. Just as we were to the climax of the movie - have you seen it? I don't want to spoil anything - where Django is about to DIE, the power went out. We were all left in the pitch black to wonder if Django makes it out alive. If you have not seen the movie I would highly recommend you do so - it is pretty good and relatively not-too-gory, at least by Tarentino's standards.
On Sunday evening we returned to Brisbane as the weather got even worse and the news on TV spewed doomsday segments. To be fair, Bundaberg (remember Bundy?!) was hit with the worst flooding in the town's history and thousands of homes were lost. People there are still homeless. Fortunately Brisbane was not hit too hard, although a few boats broke loose from their moorings and a tree fell down in front of Emma and Rowan's house, narrowly missing Emma's car. At least our minds were put at ease as we downloaded (shhhhh!!) the last 20 minutes of Django and saw it through to the end.
Alas, other than a quick weekend trip, a national holiday, a bit of work and a bit of cyclone, that is all the news that is fit to print. I have made nice friends in Sydney, have good work (albeit a bit spotty), and surf as much as I can. I have to enjoy these sandy beach breaks before we head back up to the tropical, razor sharp reef breaks of Indonesia. At least, that is the plan at this point. But who knows what the future will hold?!
Alas, other than a quick weekend trip, a national holiday, a bit of work and a bit of cyclone, that is all the news that is fit to print. I have made nice friends in Sydney, have good work (albeit a bit spotty), and surf as much as I can. I have to enjoy these sandy beach breaks before we head back up to the tropical, razor sharp reef breaks of Indonesia. At least, that is the plan at this point. But who knows what the future will hold?!
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