Rugby!

We went to a rugby match tonight!

As far as I can tell, the object of the game is just like American Football.  You try to get the ball across the line for a touch down.  If you don't make it you can kick it through a goal post.  If you make it you can kick it through the goal post for more points.  But, these guys wear no helmets or padding.  The ball is still in play even if they are tackled.  If you tackle a guy, all the other players run up and make a big poop pile, and then the ball comes out of the poop pile and they can still try to run it in.  Once, the ball was in a poop pile for over two minutes, and then it came out, and yep, still in play.  Sometimes the ball goes out of bounds and then gets thrown back in, where the guys give eachother a boost, to JUMP up and get it so their team can have the ball.

Sometimes the ball goes flying into the crowd and once, the guy next to Teri caught it!  That's like catching a puck or a baseball!  But you have to return it.

Rugby is a big deal over here.  There are the "Super 14" teams, which are made up of 5 Aussie teams, 5 South African teams and 4 NZ teams.  These teams play eachother from February to May and then the "All Blacks" is the main NZ team.  Some of the Super 14 players form an All Star team to make up the All Blacks.

The crowd heckles, but the hecklers are actually pretty polite.  The following are some of the things they yelled at the players, and yes I was taking notes:

"That's against the rules!"

"Honestly that's rubbish!"

"Wanker of a call!"

"Couldn't catch a cold!"

"Shoulda kicked it when you had the chance, man!"

"BORING!"

"Go back to boring school!"

One of the All Blacks was voted the 3rd hottest sports person in the world.  Daniel Carter, #10.  He played tonight on the Canterbury Crusaders team.  He even models underwear.

Here's a poop pile, those guys just wait for the ball to pop out and then they run with it again!  Look how good our seats were!  I guess the closer you are to the field, the cheaper the tickets.  Craziness.

After the game, the players come out and sign autographs.  We got to meet some of the players!  (It rained during the game and so that's why my hair is jacked.)

In this next photo, first check out the gun show, and then look up to the guy's ear.  It's called "cauliflower ear".  When you're in the poop pile, your ears and the ears of the guys on the opposite team get sort of squished together because your heads are clunking over and over and then you end up with inside out ears.  Google it.  ICK.

Can't Talk Now-- Too Much Going On:

I stole this line from my sister Kelly, who, when visiting International Falls, sent her friend back in Portland Oregon a postcard with a cutout of the arrest section from our Daily Journal.  It had reported that one of the residents had their mailbox bashed in with a baseball bat.

Gotta love lil' local newspapers.

It's Getting Hilarious up in Here

Little turd:

BIG turd:

actually, it's a sock

Nails, I Hardly Knew Ye'

Look at these suckers!  Long, luxurious nails!  That NEVER happens to me.  But somebody said in the sun and humidity your nails grow.  Anyway, I couldn't stop staring at them every single day.  Plus I'm super tan right now (for me) and that made it worse.  I guess my head was getting too big and I needed to be knocked down a peg because all of sudden one day the middle one ripped, and I lost the ring I just bought for $120 that looked so nice with the nails.  You can kind of see the rip in the photo.  So now I'm back to my boring old self.

p.s. The ring is found and being mailed to me here in New Zealand.

Funny Money

This is just a slight complaint.  Something somebody should have asked me about first.  Before they made it the NATIONAL MONEY of Australia.

Below, in a terribly out of focus photo, you will see, from left to right, the American Dime, the Australian five cent piece, the Australian 2 DOLLAR coin, and then the American Nickel.  Now, why is the 2 DOLLAR coin so small?  So people will lose it and then other people will find it and then be super happy? 

Now, spend a month in Australia, and get used to the tiny 2 dollar coin and the larger 1 dollar coin.  Proceed onto New Zealand where their money is the EXACT opposite.  Below, on the top row, we see a New Zealand one dollar coin, smaller as it's supposed to be then the larger 2 dollar coin.

Bottom row: Australian 50 cent piece, which is HUGE, then the Australian one dollar coin, and lastly the Australian 2 dollar coin.  Can anybody make sense of this for me?

(**Interesting to note that the Australian 50 cent piece still has a picture of Lady Di and the Prince of Wales on it.) 

On my first day in Australia, I bought something for $5.80, (let's say...) and gave the woman a $10 bill.  She handed me a handfull of coins.  I need my change, I say.  You've got it, she says.  Oh, you gave me just the change, I need the bills, I say.  Then she explains that I have all the change.  Of course I was hugely embarrassed, and thus began a month of carrying around six pounds of coins in my purse.  Not realizing of course that there's like $50 in there.

New Zealand

OK so I'm here for reals now.  We stopped on the way to Sydney for a little layover.  But now we got picked up at the airport by Henry and Marion from Thames, which is about an hour and a half north of Auckland.  Now we rented a car and are in Rotorua.  They have a lot of thermal activity here and such, so we're here for two days and then we're going to see a rugby match in Hamilton between the Chiefs and the Chargers, or something like that.  bla blah blah then we go to Waitomo Caves and then Teri goes home on Monday :(

boo hooooooo sob sob sob

I'll be all alone until I meet up with Summer in Thailand around April 17th or so.
Why am I scared of being alone?  Because Teri makes all the plans that's why.  She finds my computer mouse when I lose it and decides where we're going.  Now it's up to me.  I'll probably do a lot of sleeping.  I'm sick again too.  Here comes another frowny face.  :(

I must be totally worn out or something.  Looking forward to relaxing on the south island of New Zealand.  Here they call it N. Zed.

Also they put the 'e' sound where the 'i' goes and vice versa. 

Tennis  = Tinnes

Peeing in a Wetsuit

As I mentioned before in this earlier blog post, whilst sailing on the Spank Me, I didn't want to use the on-board disgusting bathroom and neither would you.  What other options is a person left with?

One:

Pee in the ocean.  This time of year, however, most reputable companies require their patrons to wear a stinger suit at all times in the water.  This prevents death by jellyfish sting.  So, more clearly, your only actual option is to pee through your stinger suit into the ocean.

One Size Fits...Most?

 

OK so fast forward.  We were off the Spank Me and on Reef World, where we stayed overnight in the lap of luxury.  Our private room had crown molding for Gosh sakes.  BUT, when the ferry that brings the day-trip people from the Mainland to Reef World is there (from 11am to 3pm), we were not allowed to use our awesome private bathroom, inexplicably.  Instead we had to use the disgusting ferry bathroom.  Not much better than Spank Me, and so here we are back to my pee story.

During my entire first dive (wearing the neon blue stinger suit pictured above) I was completely unable to go to the bathroom.  Oh and by the way, after all the one-day people left and it was just Teri and me on the boat (the only overnighters), I saved a nice darker-colored Stinger Suit off the rack so I wouldn't be stuck with that gross neon-blue getup again.  Also I hung it in the wind so it could dry properly from use the day before.  There's nothing worse than putting on a wet used stinger suit.  Anyway.  On the second day, on the second dive, I had to pee really really bad.  I had to pee the whole entire dive.  But listen, after 32 years of telling your body "Don't pee in the pool!" it's really hard to revert back to "it's OK now, go ahead and pee in the pool".  When we were almost finished, and approaching Reef World at the end of the dive, I realized that I would have to use that gross ferry bathroom if I didn't take action soon.

I got to GO.

OCD got the one-up on tradition and I decided to go.  Unfortunately it was in the staging area where they teach you scuba skills before you go on your dive.  I let it all go.  Standing there on a metal platform thing, in the ocean, waist-deep, I started peeing.  And I kept peeing.  And peeing.  And peeing.  I pretended it was taking a long time to get my fins off.

People were starting to wonder what was up with me.  I lied and told the gorgeous red-headed dive instructor that I needed to "do that thing with my hair", where you smooth it back in the pool because it's messy from swimming.  But in truth I was still peeing.  For what seemed an hour.  Teri was ready to get out, and was looking at me funny like 'let's go' (and by the way she was not in danger of getting in the pee at all, she was in a different area.  I'm not a total jerk.) 

Then suddenly I jumped!  Right behind me, and by the way I'm STILL peeing, were two other divers with their goggles right in my butt.  They were also returning from their dive.  I was so embarrassed because I felt sure they could see the pee cloud around me.  And also I felt bad because, well, you know.  But I wasn't done peeing yet!  I tried to move around as much as possible to disseminate the pee, and I tried to do it so that they wouldn't know what I was doing.  I was sure that they were.  Kind of like, "oops, sorry, didn't mean to be in your way, NOTHING funny is going on...heh heh...."

I WAS forced to actually do "that thing with my hair."

Later Teri and I cried laughing because I finally admitted to what was really happening and she said she was wondering why I was so surprised when the other divers arrived, and also why I insisted that we go snorkeling immediately after we got out of the water from diving, and then why I was done snorkeling after 30 seconds.  (Rinsing!)

So Here Is What I Learned About Wombats

Wombats are generalists, meaning they'll eat a variety of foods.  (A koala is a specialist, only eating eucalyptus leaves.)  They dig holes under the ground and live in burrows.  They have the same cartilidge plate in their butt that a koala does, but where the koala uses his for sitting, the wombat uses his for protection.  A shield.  They can run 40-50kph!!  So if a dingo is chasing them, they start running!  And then stop!  And the dingo gets knocked out.  Also they sleep in their burrows with just their butt sticking out.  So the dingo can chew and chew at their butt all it wants, but the wombat will not feel it at all.  And the dingo gets nowhere.  If a dingo happens to get into the burrow, the wombat lets him.  He lays on his back, very still.  Now the dingo gets all the way on top of it to go for the jugular.  At the last minute the wombat uses it's strong legs to KICK! the dingo up into the air and knock it out on the ceiling of the burrow (or hopefully crush the skull.)

Plus they are cute!  I got to hold this little guy, named Tonka.  His mom was hit by a car, and a passerby checked to see if she had a little nugget in her pouch, and sure enough, there was Tonka.  He is being raised at the sanctuary.  He is 12 months old and bottle fed.  In the wild the wombat stays by the mother for 2 years.  He was so sleepy!  He fell asleep twice in my arms.  And then they were bottle feeding him they had to shake him awake a couple times because he just dozed off.  While eating.

So Here is What I Learned about Koalas

Of course a koala is a marsupial, which just means that the babies develop mostly in the pouch, and are not "placental" mammals.  They are born a naked jellybean, only 2 inches long, and possessing two claws, which it uses to make its way to the pouch, where it will spend the next 6 to 7 months turning into a real koala.  The opening of the pouch on a koala is downward, as opposed to a kangaroo's upward facing pouch.  But the two teats inside swell up and prevent the baby from falling out.  However if the baby is unfortunate enough to fall out, the mother does nothing to help it.  She will let it die.

Of the almost 700 varieties of eucalyptus, the koala eats about 70.  There is not a lot of nutrition in the eucalyptus leaf, and since that's all they eat, the koala has almost no energy.  Its brains are pretty small.  They are stupid, slow and sleep 21 hours a day.  But so cute!  (See above).
Eucalyptus is toxic, even for the koala.  In order to not be poisoned from the leaves, the koala has a bacteria in its stomach to protect it.  A baby koala is not born with this bacteria.  How does it get there?  Well, I'll tell you:

They eat their mom's poop!  Diarrhea poop!  Normally the mom koala takes about a week to digest one eucalyptus leaf, because it moves so slowly through the colon.  It comes out dry like a rabbit turd.  When the mom has a developed, ready-to-come-on-out baby in the pouch though, her body AUTOMATICALLY smooshes the leaf through faster, creating diarrhea, which the baby eats, (made easier by the fact that the pouch faces downward and it's face is practically right in the way).  So -- after the baby spends 6-7 months in the pouch, finishing their development, they are ready to eat some poop and get their stomachs ready for eating eucalyptus leaves.  Then the mom just poops and poops and poops and the baby eats it for 6 weeks.  Then the baby climbs onto the mom's back and lives there for 12 months.  Now the mom figures the baby is ready to be on its own and so she claws and bites at the baby if necessary to make it leave.

The End!

My Musings on Australian Roadways, However Inaccurate they May Be

It seems to me that nobody really speeds here.  And I should know, because Teri and I rented a car and traveled two motorways, for a total of 14 hours.  If you look at a map of Australia, we covered about one millimeter of it.  If my sarcasm is lost on you, what I'm trying to say is I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but here it is anyway:

They seem to have cameras everywhere for speeding.  They take a picture of you and just mail you the ticket.  Back in Minnesota this doesn't fly because people have argued and gotten attorneys and everything, more or less to say just because you have a picture proving that I was speeding (or running a red light) doesn't mean I really was speeding (or running a red light).

When you get to the age where you're going to get your license, you have to have a big 'P' posted on your car.  This stands for 'Provisional' and means you can drive, but not before you have a certain amount of hours practice and you can only go, say 80kph instead of the actual speed limit, whatever it may be.  Then when you're done with your RED 'P', you get a GREEN 'P', and then you need so many more hours, with fewer restrictions, and then you have to pass a written test. 

You get an allotment of 9 points and then your license is taken away.  Speeding ticket?  3 points.  Anybody in the car not wearing a seatbelt?  3 points.  Etcetera.

All over the roads there are signed warning against sleepy driving, like 'Yawning? Power Nap NOW.' and 'Nap Area Ahead' and my personal favorite: 'Don't Sleep and Drive'.  There are billboards with photos of bloody terrible accidents that say, "Slow Down, Stupid."

All this in the name of saving lives.  (Take a cue, America!!)  Anyway, so here you'll be driving the speed limit, which on the most busy highways is only 100kph, or 60mph.  Anyway, you're the fastest one.  Most people drive UNDER the speed limit. Yes we saw a few jerks fly by, but for the most part, everybody is pretty chill on the road.  

So, the other day, Teri and I were driving the Great Ocean Road, which is similar to the Pacific Coast Highway in California in that it follows the coast from Melbourne westward and is surrounded by beautiful scenery.  But apparently it is a high accident area.  Suddenly all of the traffic was stopped.  We saw that a police officer had pulled everyone to the side of the road.  We waited in line, wondering what it was all about.  Turns out he was giving EVERY SINGLE DRIVER a breathalizer. 

I thought that was so awesome.  I asked if I could take a picture and he was like, "absolutely".  The policeman was really good natured and was totally OK with us laughing the whole time.  He said that in Australia they don't need to have any "probable cause".  If you're driving, he can pull you over and give you a breathalizer.  I say that's brilliant.  I don't know the statistics and I don't do research on my opinions, EVER...but it seems like that's a good way to keep your nations' roadways safe.

"Backpacking"

So yah.  When I quit my job and sold all of my furniture and clothes, I had to really minimize what I would need for traveling.  I would be gone for a year or more hopefully, visiting warm-climate countries and therefore needing only summer clothes.  Easy, right?  Not really.

Even when you cut your wardrobe down into what you consider to be nothing you have too much.

I didn't really pack my bag until the day I left, and so I ended up bringing WAY too much stuff.  I couldn't get my bag zipped, and brought an unexpected additional carry-on bag.  I flew to Samoa with a backpack filled to capacity, a tote bag brimming with heavy books and my purse/laptop bag stuffed with everything that couldn't fit in the other bags.  "I'll just trim the fat along the way," I thought.  Try as I might, I couldn't imagine my life without each and every item in all three bags.  "I'll just make sure to use the same dental floss each time, and then I can throw one of the three out, and that will make more space," I reasoned, as my clothing expanded in the humidity, making it harder and harder to zip the bag shut.  "I threw away some receipts today!" I gleamed, believing that surely now I could illiminate the tote bag. 

Since February 2nd, I have strapped my backpack onto my back a total of three times, and that only mostly on principal.  Otherwise, the cab driver grabs it and throws it onto a wheeled cart, and I push it around.  I have carried it like an awkward, heavy, handle-less suitcase back and forth from hotel lobbies to rooms, lifting it's 19 kilograms with my low back and not my knees.  Every time someone else hefts my backpack into the trunk of a cab, Teri laughs at the idea of me "backpacking" Australia, never actually putting the "pack" on my "back".

As far as 'trimming the fat' goes, in Sydney, I finished The Thorn Birds, and parted with a skirt and a sweater.  In Airlie Beach, I tossed that old embarrassing straw hat that Melissa Kasprowicz loved so much and a paper-thin white shirt that had become stained from sunblock.  However, I bought pajama pants, a pair of shorts, and a new hat.  Every time I think I'm making weight/space headway, I buy a T-shirt or acquire some new "needed" toiletry. 

The point of this whole story is that I finally broke down yesterday in Melbourne and bought a suitcase.  It's a lovely forest green hardcase number by the makers of CATERPILLAR truck and tractor accessories.  I'm terribly angry about it because at home, I have an AWESOME hardcase suitcase that my aunties Julie and Debbie bought for me for my graduation 15 years ago and another smaller suitcase that works for a nice carry-on.  I should have scrapped the backpack and just brought those two.  After all, Teri has been easily and without effort wheeling around her two suitcases for five weeks and doesn't have to spend 6 minutes on the zipper, trying to force them shut like me and my ol' backpack.

So, new suitcase.  $200.  Yah, everything is way more expensive here.  Aveda face cleanser, travel-sized?  $25. 

And then I threw all caution to the wind and went fancy girl shopping.  Made me feel like a real traveler --more than a stupid backpack ever could.  And I spent money, wooo DOGGEY.  Coulda lived in Thailand for a month on what I spent.  But it felt goooooooooooood.  So good.  Take that, backpack!

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Teri heard, "Teri?  What should I do?"

And when she turned around, this is what she saw:

But the truth is, I wasn't asking what to do with that long long long arm.  I was asking what should I do about having to go out in public in that get-up.

This is for You, Ross

A Japanese lesson!!  There's probably lots of useful phrasology in there, I would think.

The Spank Me Cook

This was our cook on the Spank Me.  He did a great job, truly.  And a NICE guy.  Seriously.  In fact, we met him in the dive shop the day before.  He was applying for the job, and they hired him the next morning at 9am.  I just wanted to illustrate, or I guess show you his butt crack:

 

Which we were subjected to for four straight days.  On top of his head sit 37 red dreadlocks, four of which liked best to sit square on his forehead, no match for the hand sweeping them back once every 30 seconds.  On top of his bottom, the same board shorts.  For four days.  Never a shirt, never a different pair of shorts.

One night, Teri went down to her bunk and noticed a gassy smell.  This wasn't unusual, but it was stronger than normal.  So she mentioned it to the 23-year-old skipper.  He mentioned it to the cook, and that was about it.  We went to bed.  That night, the poop smell was particulaly strong coming out of the toilets, and so I didn't notice any accelerated "natural gas" smell.  At about 6:30am, when Teri was waking up, she heard the sound of repeated matches being struck, but not ignited, and then the Cook cursing.  She considered getting the heck out of there, but was too sleepy.  Another strike, and then nothing.  Then, BAM!!! 

The above picture was taken from my bunk.  So you can see we were sleeping right by the gully.  Gally.  Whatever, the Kitchen on a sailboat.  During the explosion, Cook singed all of his arm hair off, and got burned.  Turns out the gas was leaking all night long (like Teri tried to tell them).

I'm going to count that among my many near-death experiences.

Conversation over Wine Reflecting on Conversation at the Train Station

Teri and Kady: "hahahaha HAAHAHAAAAAhahahaa"

Teri: "Next stop: Cameltoe.  But I'm already there."

Teri and Kady: "hahahaHAAAAAHAAahahahhaahaaaaaaAAAHAAAAAA!!!"""  laugh laugh laugh

Look What I got to do Today!

Teri and I rented a Smart Car today and pedaled it all the way up to Townsville from Airlie Beach.  Our intent was to go to a place called Magnetic Island, and we were in search of Koalas to hold.  It's not OK in most part of Australia, because of the DANGER of it all.  But Teri loves her some cuddly wuddly animals and so we set off.  On the left side of the road!  Everywhere we went, we had people laughing at us, because the car was so tiny, said "Fun Rentals" on the side, and we were screwing up the way of driving all the time.  But it was fun!

Almost all the way to Townsville we saw a Billboard for an animal sanctuary and we decided on a whim to stop.  We were so glad we did, because we spent hours and hours there, playing with the animals and never did end up going to Magnetic Island.  Teri loved and loved the animals and I kept getting freaked out by them.  I held a snake!  Just like Britney Spears! 

And the cuter stuff came later:

Airlie Beach and the Sea Plane

Suddenly I'm miss money bags and I'm booking things like sea plane rides out to the Great Barrier Reef.  I'm deciding that since Southeast Asia is going to be really really cheap (seriously, I found a 3 star hotel today for $14 per night) I can't keep stressing out about how expensive it is here.  Anyway, we took a cab out to the Whitsunday Airport, which turned out to be a little runway and a lobby with two couches.  Outside were two seaplanes just sitting right in front of the lobby windows.  I started to get nervous about forgetting my Xanex.  The ride was really pretty smooth though and the view!  Wow...

Notice anything about the pilot?

Yep.  Crocs.  That just aint right.

This is called the heart reef.  It's so cool!  It's pretty small and we looped over it a few times so everybody could get a good look:

We did a water landing!  Some people that were with were going snorkeling on the reef and got dropped off at Reef World.  That was so amazing.  One time also we dipped down and skipped across the water for a while, but didn't land on it.  We were in the plane for an hour.  We flew over Hook Island, Whitsunday Island, Hamilton Island (which is where we flew into to get here) and then the reef.  I saw Manta Rays from the plane!  Swimming along, looking like they were flying under the water.  You could easily see them because they looked like big black diamonds.

At one point the pilot was sort of tapping/hitting one of the instruments to get it to work.  That and the crocs made me very nervous.  And then when it was all over, we got our picture with him and his back was very sweaty.

 

Teri and the Towel

Teri innocently following her beauty regime, unwittingly leaving behind evidence sure to make the housekeeper believe we couldn't find the toilet paper:

Spank Me needs a Hanky

I need to preface this blog entry with a disclaimer:  I am freaked out by things that are dirty.  Maybe you already know this about me.  I like to keep my place really clean.  Not necessarily picked up, but clean.  If I see a dust bunny, I get out the vacuum and do the whole floor.  You get the picture.  (And don't go calling me a hypocrite, yes, I know my bedroom looks like the Wreck of the Hespress and my computer area is complete filth.  That's different.  Why?  I think because I don't put any part of my body on my computer desk.  I don't really need to parenthetically explain my OCD, do I?)

ANYWAY. So Teri and I arrived to the marina and walk all the way out to where the Spank Me is docked.  As we were getting on the boat, our shoes were confiscated.  They'll wreck the boat they say.  And so for the next four days, I walked in and out of a filthy bathroom, and into and out of my bed.  Barefooted.  Both are pictured below. 

Now, what is so special about this bathroom, as you can see, is that the toilet is acutally on the counter.  I don't know what purpose this serves.  Maybe my brilliant niece Hanna, who knows that Stinger Suits can't keep out a sting ray can enlighten me.  So in this photo you can't really see that there is another foot of space below that little counter where the toilet is located.  It's kind of situated like a urinal.  By the end of the first night there was pee all down the front of the toilet and all over the floor.  I'm not sure how, but the entire room was wet with like a sweat on the walls and even the inside of the garbage was wet and everything in it was soaking wet.  When the captain was explaining the rules of the boat, he mentioned that the toilet had tiny little pipes and so you really don't want to put a lot of paper in there, especially after a nice number two.  Do your business, he said and then flush and then wipe and then flush again.  It's true.  The toilet is electric or something.  Cap'n said that to fix a clog is disgusting and he really hates to have to do it and so could everybody just please use less paper than they do at home?**

He also asked the girls to please brush their hair on deck because hair gets everywhere below deck and it's gross around mealtime to find hair in your food.  That turned out to be very true.  So back to the chewing toilet.  It makes a really weird sound as it's grinding up the poop or whatever, and the longer the poop, or the more the paper, the longer it will chew and so everybody knows if you went number one or number two.  I vowed that I was NOT going to use that bathroom for the next four days.  Somehow.  

Teri and I accidentally chose bunks near the toilets.  This proved to be annoying not only because of those late night rude-ys who had to noisily use the bathroom at 1am, but also because there was absolutely NO ventilation below deck and so all we could smell all night was 18 people's poop, ground together into a poop hamburger and stored nicely in a tank not eight feet from our faces.  And guess where all that stew goes?  Yep, into the ocean.  Not treated in any way.  YUCK!!

When it was absolutely necessary for me to use the toilet, I tried to stand on the ground and squat.  But since the toilet was above squatting height, that didn't work and I tried Amy Poehler from Baby Momma's method of standing on the sides of it and then squatting way down, and that didn't work and the only other solution was to sit on it like I would on my own clean toilet seat at home.  ICK! 

On the morning of day three, nature called and there was no stopping it and I had to use the toilet and flush it twice if you know what I'm sayin'.  I waited until no one was below deck and non-chalantly went into the bathroom.  Very quickly I was finished so there was a chance that nobody would know what I had been up to if they were listening.  Well then that insanely loud grinding toilet exposed me to all, taking 5 minutes to grind up my last three nights' dinner.  Don't tell a soul this and I'll kill you if you do, but it wasn't going down at first, and I didn't know how the stupid thing worked and it was just grinding and grinding and nothing was happening and so I had to use some toilet paper and kind of push it into the grinder.  GROSS!!  And then I had to wipe and flush again!  I want to throw myself in the garbage and get a new me as I type this.  And who was standing outside when I was finished but Cap'n Matt and cute diving instructor Johnny from Ireland, neither of them yet 25 years old?  (Cue the cougar jokes).  I sauntered out of there like I owned the place and quietly died inside.

Below you'll find a photo of our bunks.  We slept right out in the open, Teri and I and 12 other people, plus 4 crew members.  It was SO hot.  We did try to sleep on deck, but it rained at night and it was really cold up there.  One night I got up at like 1am, and stuck my head into the fresh air for a half an hour.  I looked to my right and there was the Big Dipper, upside down, laying right on the horizon.  That was so cool!  I probably haven't mentioned that the constellations here are completely different than at home.  And sleeping on the ocean you could see everything so clearly, black sky, white stars.  Gorgeous.  This story is about snoring though.  When I woke up at 1am, hot and sweaty and dying, I couldn't fall back asleep and the reason was because about 7 people were SNORING.  LOUDLY.  One huge regret, other than not getting a photo of the dirty floor in front of the toilet, is that I didn't get out my camera and take a video of the noise of the snoring.  Too bad for you, but check out the bunks.  There was no private place to change either.  I had to get in and out of my suit somehow in front of everybody else.

Imagine how dirty my feet were.  In fact, I had a special designated 'feet area' in my bed, that only my feet were allowed to go in.  And so when Teri went below deck to grab my sheet and pillow because she's super nice and sweet, I got mad at her anyway because she had no idea which was the top of the sheet and which was the part I wrapped around my feet all night long.  And so for all I know from that point on my face had poop on it.  From the sheet.  From my feet. 

This photo shows four bunks actually.  There are more to the left of the hallway, and further down.  There is another hallway on the other side of the kitchen.

 

Look at those puffy sunburned lips!

  

We had to pretend the dirtiness wasn't happening, and had a blast anyways:

**(Summer Grimes and I were talking about how your writing style really is influenced by who you're reading at the time. Right now I'm reading Flannery Oconnor and she doesn't really bother with quotation marks in diaglogue.)

Corrections to my last post

Teri went down 44 feet, not 60.
Stinger suits are for Jellyfish stings, not Sting Rays.
Abbreviation for "Great Barrier Reef" is GBR, not GBF.


The publisher would like to apologize.

Fear, Schmear

Pap Smear.

I just went scuba diving. Literally and seriously. This is one of the biggest fears in my life. Combine claustrophobia, fear of sharks, fear of monsters, fear of the dark, fear of drowning, fear of being alone in water, fear of being seen in a wetsuit...well that's Scuba Diving folks! But, part of my mission statement this year -- my "year off" --was to conquer fears. I wouldn't say I conquered anything, but I stared death in the face and went snorkeling and diving at the very famous Great Barrier Reef! (From here on out, referred to as the GBF) Now, to be fair, I did chicken out on my second dive, and I got too sunburned to really snorkel the GBF, but I'll get to that later.

Teri and I said goodbye to the fabulous Fishers from Sydney after purchasing loads of chocolate and flew to Hamilton Island in about three hours. We both marveled at how the flight seemed only 15 minutes and then realized we both slept through it. Landing at Hamilton Island was just beautiful. Imagine seeing ocean, sky, beach, and island right out your plane window. Now imagine that the runway is about 100 meters long and the pilot has to land you RIGHT NOW! We had planned to take a helicopter from Hamilton Island to Airlie Beach, however we mistook the online price of $55 per person to be literally $55 per person. Upon landing we found out that it actually costs $500 to charter a helicopter for a 15 minute ride, and so we opted to take the ferry for $45pp. We arrived to a wonderfully spacious hotel room complete with shower, air conditioning and view of the mountain. From there we checked into the dive shop for our sailboat/diving excursion to depart the next day. The two teenagers working the counter could not BELIEVE how OLD we were. This was the first of about 16 times we were to be called "cougars" over the course of the weekend. Two women who just happen to be in their 30's in the presence of 20-year-old babies does not a cougar make. For the record.

Check out this sign in a shop window in Airlie Beach:

I digress. We got to the sailboat on schedule, I picked up my Stinger Suit (which later would make sense, since you have to wear it anytime you get in the water to prevent being STUNG by a sting ray.) and we got aboard the Spank Me. The Spank Me is a sailboat, previously used to win all sorts of sailing races and now strictly for the purpose of taking groups out to the reef for diving and snorkeling. We got acquainted by playing a couple of games. The first, we were tied at the wrists, and entwined with a stranger, and told to "get free." That was pretty fun. And I couldn't tell you how the trick worked, but my little twosome didn't figure it out. The German PhD Engineer and his girlfriend did. 

We had 4 Brazilians, the German and his Chinese girlfriend, another German girl, a Canadian girl and a Norwegian girl, each flying solo, Teri and me, and 3 Canadian boys. 14 mishmashed strangers.  At some point during the night, the Norwegian girl noticed something greasy on her leg.  While Johnny the diving instructor went to get something to clean it with (toilet paper), everybody started noticing it everywhere, and when he got back, he said it was Squid Ink!  then later we found the squid.  I assumed this meant a 40 foot beast would be next to the boat, trying to tip it over, but instead it was this itty bitty tiny thing on the deck, dead.  It jumped OVER the boat, but didn't quite make it.  Funny, huh?

The next game was "Eat My Cardboard", where a cornflakes box was placed in the center and we were told to pick it up with our teeth, without our knees or hands touching the ground. Once you got it, you ripped a piece of cardboard off, making it harder and harder as you went. If you didn't get it, or your hands or knees touched the ground, somebody was elected to SPANK you with a snorkeling fin. Teri and I actually made it to the finals, along with one of the Canadian boys. My strategy was to let them fight it out, touch the ground and then calmly pick it up once they eliminated eachother. But Teri knocked out the Canadian and picked it up quite easily, won the game, and spanked me so hard I was back to 1984.

The next morning we woke up with the sun at around 6:30am, had breakfast and parked the sailboat somewhere out in the ocean and took the Tender (dinghy) to Whitsunday island. We hiked for a while through the bush and ended up on the other side, where a white sand beach spread itself as far as the eye could see. The beach sand was actually Silica, and NASA had taken 10 tons of it in order to make the most pure glass possible for it's satellites. We were told to rub it into our skin for an exfoliant, and to polish gold or silver jewelry with it, but NOT to take it off the beach, for fear of a $10,000 fine.

This story is getting long. Sorry. It was a four day weekend.

We got to go swimming there, and saw huge Sting rays. I didn't wear my Stinger Suit and so I got the heck out of there. They were so curious though, and it was kind of fun to see something like that so close up. You're supposed to shuffle your feet around them, because they can recognize the movement, and then they're less likely to sting you. After that we hiked back and headed in the sailboat out to a little bay, where we got to snorkel. I went, but only because everybody was in the water, and Teri promised to stay close. After an hour out there, I felt confident enough to try my hand at Scuba, with the promise that if ever I felt uncomfortable, I could stop. So we went to the beach, I was fitted with a regulator, a vest, a tank...told what to do if I lost my regulator, the signs to make if I wanted to go up, if I felt like something was wrong. And then we set out! I couldn't believe I was SCUBA DIVING! In Australia, land of the Great White Shark! I had a death grip on the poor instructor's hand, and didn't let go, but I got through it. I cut my foot on the coral reef, and panicked, and my regulator came out of my mouth, but I remembered what to do and everything turned out A-OK.

When I took off my stinger suit I realized that my shins were burned bad. I had put sunblock on them, but didn't reapply quickly enough, and then fell asleep on deck. I was happy that I had at least soaked my burn in the water for so long.

That night we sailed to the GBF, which took about 2 1/2 hours. We slept there and in the AM I was told that I would be in the first group of divers. I started to get that shaky fear shake while I tugged on my Stinger Suit and felt pretty freaked out about it. When I first dove, I was near a beach, the water was relatively shallow and here we were, in the middle of the OCEAN, on the Great. Barrier. Reef. I got into the Tender, still shaking and tried to calm myself down. Now I realized I was going to have to drop backwards into the water. With a tank on. Like you see in the movies. This got me more panicky. And then, my vest was too big. I couldn't get it tight and then suddenly it was time to drop into the water. Which I did. I can't believe I did it but I did it. Then, while in the rough, wavy water, I had to get my mask cleaned out. Spit in there, rub it around, swallow ten gallons of salt water. I wasn't quite on top of the water.  Finally my instructor mercifully inflated my vest a little bit and that made it better. We were ready to drop. And we did. I breathed through my regulator, and as we dropped I realized there was no reef in sight. Just miles and miles of ocean, and no bottom. I started breathing more rapidly and that started a panic which was added to my already panicky state and suddenly I'm hyperventilating through my regulator. I gave the instructor the sign for "something's wrong" and then the "let's go to the surface" sign and so we did and I just told him I wasn't feeling it. I had to go back to the boat. So he said are you sure, and relax and I couldn't. I was terrified! Then he called the Tender over and dropped out of sight. Now I was alone in the water, and the man in the Tender said, "now take off your weight belt, remove your vest, etc" and I'm like, AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! I'm alone in the water fool! Pull me in! But had to be brave and just hurry up already. I got my weight belt off and my vest and then finally I was safe in the boat. We drove back to the sailboat and as we did I saw all four of the others surface. We went back and it turned out the Tender dropped us off in the wrong place and they weren't supposed to be so far out and Teri said they dropped to 60 feet under the water and still no bottom in sight. I was kind of glad I didn't have to drop that far. But by the time we got over to them, I was feeling totally calm and I still regret that I didn't just ask for a second chance at that point.

Anyway, so here I am, in the Tender, with no hat, and I have gotten water all over my sunblock and we drove around for about 45 minutes. (On the upside, I did get to drive the boat.) But, you guessed it, SUNBURN. All over my face, ears, neck. Eyelids puffy, lips swollen, etc. Which pretty much ruined my chances of any more fun on the boat. I was MIZ! (Miserable, for all of you who haven't met Charli Taylor.)

And so, I didn't snorkel the GBF, didn't dive the GBF either. BUT, I did go on a dive, I did drop out of a dinghy into shark-infested waters, and so I consider it a success.

In another post I will describe the unsanitary conditions of the Spank Me, but I'll leave that for now.

This is proof that I can't travel anywhere without something very embarrassing happening to my face:

Sunset, from the sailboat:

Spank Me

...but not too hard, cuz I got a mad sunburn whilst sailing on the former racer with the same name as this post.  Of course everybody else is now enjoying their golden tan, and I look like I got Collagen injections to my lips.  OUCH!  It hurts to laugh, or turn my head.

Dinner

One night when Teri and I were having dinner at Alan and Judy's place, I was pretty sure Teri was farting repeatedly throughout.  I felt really bad for her, because I know she wasn't feeling well and so I kept pretending it wasn't happening.  But she never really even got an embarrassed look on her face and so I got confused.  Later on that night, I asked her,

"Did you fart like 6 times during dinner?"

"NO!  Why do you ask?"

And then I explained about the farting noises I heard all night long from her end of the table. We deliberated and decided it must have been her chair.  But here's what she had for lunch that day.  I'll let you decide.

Exciting News from Ramona Day

Hey you! by Ramona Day

Here is a break from my trip to share my band's first recording!

Written by Nancy Morris
Produced by Ben Grimes
me on bass and vocals
Nancy on guitar
Beata on drums

 

And, we have our very own super fan!  Davey Dorsett sent this photo to our facebook page...that's our t-shirt he's wearing.