Koalas and wombats and roos, oh my!

How can you not love these faces? This weekend we had the most amazing animal encounter experience. On the way to the Great Ocean Road, we stopped off in The Otways to experience the The Otway Fly - a treetop walk through the rainforest. Then, we stayed at the most amazing place. It is called Fauna Australia, and is a small, family-run wildlife park. You can only have access to see the animals if you are a guest at the property. You can hand-feed the animals - wombats and wallabies and other marsupials in the kangaroo/wallaby family. They have over 400 animals there. The owner also took us in to see the koalas up close. You can pet and feed them too. They are the cutest things ever!

This photo is of a mama and baby having their dinner. Koalas need to eat one kilogram (more than 2 pounds) of eucalyptus each day. That's a lot of leaves. They don't drink water, and they aren't always as stoned as they appear to be. It's just that they relax in the trees to conserve energy - and they sleep up to 20 hours per day. They have no natural predators in the wild, but because they eat so much eucalypt, they often run out of food and die (or are culled) in the wild. But these girls were happy and doing just fine.

Later, along the Great Ocean Road, we were surprised to see a koala bounding down the side of the road - they can move fast when they want to.

I wanted to take one home with me, but I don't have any eucalyptus trees in my back yard - oh well.

And, here's a photo of the friendliest wallaby ever!

Back in Home #2

After two months back in the Good Ol' U.S. of A., I'm back in Australia. Most of you know all this already, but just in case, here's an update. I went back to Florida in July to try to bully my dad in to taking care of himself (and failed miserably) and to visit with my Mom and some friends. I had a brilliant little side trip to Boston to see my good friend Lil G and had a wonderful time. I also took mini-trips to South Florida and Orlando to visit with other friends. But the most of my visit was just spent with family, acting silly with my Mom and just hanging out. Windsor came for a visit as well, which was good fun. It was his first time to "meet the parents" but it ended up being not-so-stressful, or at least I think so.

After a brief visit with Windsor to see some friends and family and a festival in California, we headed back to Melbourne just over a week ago. We had to fly through a massive dust storm in Sydney - which was a bit like flying through orange-colored milk. It was crazy! And a bit scary. Everyone applauded when we finally landed - thank goodness we had an experienced pilot.

So now we are back in Melbourne. Windsor is already back at work. And I am doing some editing and Martha Stewart-ing. I'd forgotten how FREEZING this house is. I think it was built in the 1920s or so, and has no insulation. So I am just (not-so-patiently) waiting for Spring to appear. The plan is to do a TEFL course and apply for English teaching jobs in South Korea. I'll keep you posted. If anyone's ever done that, I'd love some feedback.

Hugs

Lucy, I'm hoooooooooooooooooooome (for now).

I left Australia on Thursday for the epic trip back to the other side of the world. I did a quick fly-by trip to New Zealand to visit my friends Margot and Dave. I was surprised to find out that New Zealand was actually a bit warmer than Melbourne!!! I still froze my arse off because they had no heat in their house though. It was a quick trip, but I managed to squeeze in some favourite things that Windsor and I had discovered while we were there, like ginger cake and honey.

My trip to LA went through Fiji, and the flight to Fiji was fine but on the connection, the 10-hour one to LA, I sat next to this old old woman with a cane, who started doing that sick old-person's loogie hacking thing where it sounds like they are about to spew. She did that for hours and hours. Later I come to find out that she actually has the flu, has a fever, runny nose, and feels like she is going to spew, so I spent the rest of the flight breathing in to my jumper and holding my ears when she started the coughing thing (because I can't stand spew sound either). Why they ever allowed her to travel in the first place is beyond me. So it was fun, and needless to say I nearly ran off the plane when it was all over! And then I proceeded to overdose on vitamin C and zinc, so my body could fight off whatever cooties she spread throughout the plane.

California was beautiful and warm and dry, my friend Brian picked me up and we rode beach cruiser bikes down by the beach, which was wonderful. It was beautiful and sunny and warm with a nice breeze, and it was so nice to not be cold!!! I also hung out with Brian's family for a zany dinner. Garlic sabotage made me feel a bit sick on my flight to Florida Sunday night, and I couldn't sleep either.But finally last night I slept 15 hours and am feeling just fine today! Florida is freakin' hot and it is like soup outside. My hair is all frizzy. It's funny.

I'll be here for probably two months and am going to try to find some temporary work and also deal with my parents' health issues. That's all for now.

June Update

Hi. Remember me? Has it really been nearly two months since I wrote anything? Sorry for the delay, but I guess I'm just "living" instead of "traveling" so haven't had all that much to report. We are still living in "the frat house," the boys are still as messy as always, but I am coping, because it is cheap, and I can't work here. So.

I did make a mini-visit back to Alpacaland where, goodness me, they've all been sold. I was very sad. I guess they got an un-refusable offer for the whole lot, so bye bye alpacas. But they did keep three, one of which was my favourite little baby from last year, so at least I got a little bit of quality time with the alpacas. And of course some quality time with my friends there too!

Next stop: Florida. I am heading back in July, via brief visits in Auckland and LA to see friends. I am not sure how long I will be in Florida, perhaps two months? It all depends on too many factors, the most important of which are my parents. I have to see how they are doing, if they are healthy enough and sane enough for me to leave them again :-) We'll see.

So post Florida, it looks like I either:
1) Come back to Melbourne for another few months while Windsor works and does his family thing. If we move out of the frathouse I might actually have enough inspiration to finish my book!
2) Go off to fill-in-the-blank country to teach English. That way we can BOTH work and feel useful. But we are not sure where we would go, if we would like it, and if we would be any good at it. We are open to suggestions!
3) Get a 1-year working holiday visa for NZ. Again, mainly so we can both work, but we have nothing/no one there really.
4) Stay in Florida a bit longer to look after the parentals. But that would mean either Windsor can't work or we are apart. Mom says "No hon, we are fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine." But I need to see for myself.

So that's it. I am slowly working through editing my book. Sloooooooooooowly (the aforementioned frathouse is not the ideal place for creative inspiration). I've been going Cuban Salsa dancing every other week or so, which has been wonderful and fun, and I've met some fun people too. And I'm just hanging out with my girlfriends and with Windsor, doing lots of baking to keep the house warm (and maybe fatten ourselves up for winter because it is COLD in Melbourne).

Oh, and if anyone knows of some short-term temp work in Florida, LET ME KNOW!
Hope all is well for whoever is still reading this :-)

The Best Pre-flight Announcement Ever

Why can't all pre-flight announcements be this entertaining?
This guy is fabulous.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1137883380?bctid=16920289001

Living with Boys

I've never lived with boys before, well, other than my dad, and my brothers who moved out of home when I will still a wee little thing. But in my adult life, I have never lived with boys. I've lived with girls, I've lived with my parents and I've lived alone. I have stayed in the same room with boys at numerous hostels around the world, but I have never lived with them.

I came back to Australia to live with my boyfriend (which, in itself, is a whole-nother-huge thing, but it is all going quite fine thank you for asking) and wound up getting two extra boy housemates as a bonus. It's like three for the price of one!

Luckily for me, my boyfriend has been house-broken and potty trained. He does all the things normal people are supposed to do, like clean up after themselves, share work around the house, etc. He's actually even better than that, he cooks too. I lucked out with this one! He's a keeper!

But the others ... well ... they haven't entirely been house-trained.

Let's see if I can give you a few examples.

1: The Shower. I frequently walk in to the bathroom and find myself stepping in puddles. I look down and see that both the bath mats are soaked and there are water puddles all over the floor. It is as if one of them takes a shower and grabs handfuls of water and, with a flourish, says to the world, "here I am," and flings the water all over the bathroom. If we had a detachable shower head, I would assume one of them had a water fight with his shadow. But we don't. So I guess the only logical explanation is that they shower, step on the bathmat with soaking feet, shake themselves off, and then walk to the other side of the bathroom to pick up a towel to finish the drying process. I, on the other hand, hang my towel over the shower rail so that I can get dry without soaking the floor. Logical? Common sense? No? Que?

2. The Smoking. They don't smoke in the house. If they did, I wouldn't live here. But I can't tell you how many times we've asked them to shut the door when they are smoking on the patio so that the smoke doesn't drift inside to the kitchen and then right in to our bedroom. We might have to resort to stuffing hairs in their cigarettes. I wonder how that would go over?

3. Dishes. We've all had roommates that didn't do dishes, but this is a bit ridiculous. I think one day the boyfriend said to one of the guys, "Um, your dishes have been waiting in the sink for you since Friday."

So combine this with drum lessons; shoes left in perfect "trip over me" positions; loogey-hocking sounds emanating from the bathroom; empty milk cartons, empty potato chip packets and glasses lying around; it is sort of like living in a frat house. So this is what living with boys is like. But really, it's not all that bad, I mean, look at the bright sides ...

um ...

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight ...

uh ...

The drumming keeps would-be burglars away.

And ... um ... it's cheaper.

It's kind of like being at University again.

As my dad would say, "Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you."

Working from home?

Does anyone know about LEGITIMATE work-from-home jobs? Do they actually exist? I've been searching and searching for US-based work-from-home jobs (proofreading, data entry, whatever) and everything on the internet appears to be a scam or requires some start-up fee that will eventually turn in to a scam. Even links from careerbuilder turned out to be "just pay this small fee to sign up" type stuff ... and I'm just not falling for that. But something US-based that I can do remotely is all I can legally do at the moment, so ... calling all home-based workers ... where did you find your job?