We found out yesterday that what we had suspected for some time was reality and as far as we know so far, you exist and are off and running down the long and busy road to being constructed inside your mummy. This is going to be a time of a lot of apprehension and waiting, I have a feeling.

You see, we’re more reserved this time, as we don’t know if we’re supposed to be excited or not yet. The last time we tried this, we had one or two other children started and something went wrong — horribly wrong — and they didn’t make it very far. While reserved, we had already gotten our hopes up and started down the path of being excited, only to spend several days and weeks in pain and heartache over it not sticking.

The other problem right now surrounds the fact that we’re still in your mummy’s homeland of Australia and, while we could get this checked out, getting something medically examined here that isn’t an emergency isn’t all that easy, and calls to get a blood test have been returned rather rudely. We’re hoping that Auntie Mel can do some good for us once we get to Adelaide and at least get an HCG level, so we can tell if you’re doing well or not.

This was supposed to be technically held off until we got back to the States, but as things go, it didn’t happen that way. I think the nice holiday finally let us relax and unwind and let our stomachs stop cramping about life for a few minutes. We really needed the break. Perhaps in some ways, it’s appropriate for you to be conceived on Australian soil, as you’re half of this land anyway.

Now, while we finish off the rest of our holiday, we’re starting to form plans in our minds — what car seat to get, what stroller to buy — while we’re both still very, very reserved and aren’t telling many people yet, we both have the longer view of looking ahead in case this works out like we both desperately want it to. We have both learned that life consists of a lot of taking care of the present moment while having the foresight to anticipate the future. It’s not always easy, but it behooves us to try.

Despite our efforts to hold our enthusiasm in check, please don’t ever take that as a feeling that we don’t want you to happen. We do, both, from the bottom of our hearts, hope that this is right, that you’re ok and will continue to be ok, and we will get to see you sometime in October or November. It’s just we’re scared and scarred from the last time and we are cautiously optimistic towards the success of this mission.

Here’s hoping everything continues to be smoother than we anticipate and quicker than we think.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The procedure works. In fact, it works so well, the couple now has two healthy, baby girls. And they don’t want one of them, so they’re suing the doctor over it.

An Australian lesbian couple who underwent embryo implantation is currently suing Canberrian Dr. Sydney Robert Armellin for destroying the couple’s social life with children.  You hateful, terrible person — how dare you give this couple children when they went in for treatment?

Here’s some reasons why this couple of women should be taken out into the streets and hit over the head with a garden rake repeatedly for being selfish, ignorant, whiny, immature, disgusting human beings:

Reason #1: They don’t want one of the girls.

This is just awful. You underwent a procedure that has risks just like any other treatment, and not only did you get one healthy child, you got TWO! But, instead of being unbelievably happy and feeling blessed when so many other parents can’t even have one child, you turn around and sue them for giving you too many. I can’t imagine the thoughts that will go through the girls’ heads when they find out that one of them wasn’t wanted. Good job, Mum & Mum. That’ll be $3,000 in therapy to fix later, assholes.

Reason #2: They want almost A$400,000 in compensation for raising one of the girls.

I don’t know what the going rate for children is these days, but can you really quantify this and, if so, I think you’re spending far too much time worrying about money instead of raising your child. And they want this much money to help pay for a private, non-traditional Steiner school for the girl in question as well. So, not only do we want compensation, we want primo monies.

Did I mention that they make A$120,000 combined already? Yeah — does this greed make my butt look fat?

Reason #3: They want $15,000 to compensate for having to take time off work.

WAAAAH. Waaaaah. Do you want me to call the waaaambulance? You utter cretin. That’s part of the job of being a parent, taking care of your kids. I’m so glad that you feel like your time was wasted on your childrens’ well-being.

Reason #4: The women act as if their lives shouldn’t change by having children.

Quote: “She said the pair lost their lives functioning as a couple, becoming mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children.” I’m sorry, but what did you expect to happen when you had kids, that you could go out every night, boozing it up with your airhead fag-hags, and crawling home at 3am to bump beavers until dawn? Did you not realize that having children involves being up to your elbows in poopy and saying, ‘hi, who are you?’ to your partner on a regular basis? How utterly shallow can a person be?

The one woman reports her partner as having “lost the capacity to love”. Fine. I’ve lost the capacity to avoid popping a cap in your ass. Twit.

Thankfully, the doctor’s lawyer sounds 300 times smarter than the plantiffs and has said that this is a pretty common occurrence experienced by most parents when they have children, and although they might feel unique, they’re not. I would have felt a lot better if she had said, “Suck it up, bitches.” Somehow, I think that was probably in her mind anyway.

To be honest, I’m a little surprised that the case has gotten this far in the Australian courts, as they usually tend to throw out this trite bullshit with judges laughing all the way, but I suppose they’re attempting to make a case based on the “medical malpractice” part of the entire episode, not the fact that the parents are complete and total flakes.

This just…astounds me, and it should make you shake your head, too. We’re going into the whole parenting game with as realistic viewpoint as we can, that it won’t be all smiles and giggles, but the benefits will far outweigh the trials and tribulations of the experience. To see other parents treating their children like mere commodities or inconveniences pains us to no end and we’d love to beat them senseless given the chance. In lieu of that, we’ll simply strive to love the dickens out of our children and raise them so they don’t turn into asshats like these jerks.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

I am here to officially announce that I have no freaking clue.

But, in true Internet blogging fashion, I’ll happily open up my mouth and resemble the south end of a horse facing north in talking about something I have no knowledge of, if nothing else, to the amusement of my Australian compatriots.

I know that Australians once “lost” a prime minister by, supposedly, drowning, although it’s really hard to say given the country’s penchant for overly-poisonous animals that enjoy human a la stick.

I know that John Howard has mostly been a lapdog of the Bush administration and, despite most Australians I know thinking that Bush is nuttier than a squirrel pantry, the government still seems to back most things the US is doing in the world.

I know that they have a Labor party that does very little baby-squirting but has a lot of people involved with it that do things like dig rock out of caves in the ground. They also have a Liberal party which, contrary to popular belief, is actually conservative. Leave it up to Aussies to figure that one out.

I also know that Australian Parliament, much like the English equivalent, is a much more relaxed legislative body than any of the ones in the United States. Watching Congress on C-SPAN here in the U.S. is a great anti-insomnia therapy, but catching a session of Aussie or English Parliament is somewhat like watching a celebrity roast but using nice words. More than once has a news story come out about some politician or another calling another one a jackass or similar.

Or, as you can see in this clip on YouTube, a slip of the tongue may very well set back the entire legislative process while everyone quits rolling on the floor. Everyone in the world knows the Aussies are more relaxed than most, and this most definitely doesn’t depart from that notion.

I think that the Australian policy of compulsory voting is both wonderful and idiotic in the same glance. Living in a country where the “voting public” is usually a measly 35 to 40% of qualified individuals, its heartening to think that everyone in Oz is getting out and voicing their opinion.

However, requiring people to vote means you will end up with a vast majority of folks simply trying to “get it out of the way” and not giving a wet slap what they mark on the ballot, just as long as they get it done and nobody hauls them in for not doing so. This, I imagine, would mean that media exposure and making your name a household word works even better in Australia than in the U.S. — if you are looking at a ballot and you’ve heard of the one guy but not the other, who are you going to vote for? Not that this doesn’t happen in the U.S.; I fully expect McCain, Giuliani, Clinton, and Obama to receive a bunch of their votes simply due to exposure and not because of merit. But I’d imagine that there are a fair whack of people that simply don’t vote in the USA that, if they were forced to, would add to this pool, further diluting it.

Perhaps Aussies are just more astute.

I am trying to think if I know of any particular points of interest in Australian politics that I’d care to comment on, but when I’m still trying to figure out cultural differences (although I’ve come a long way), historical and cultural references (many of these still elude me), and attitudes, Australian Politics takes a pretty far back seat in the theatre of my mind (and is probably having a good time making out with Aussie Economics). That being said, even from my very limited exposure to anything, I have a few comments to make about things that Aussie politicians should perhaps concentrate on:

• Technology – Always a big one, and one close to my heart. Although Aussies have come a very, very long way in technology and in many ways have exceeded the US, it is something that politicians should keep at the forefront of their minds and their policies if they want Australia to continue to grow and expand in the world. Oz is a long freaking distance away from — well, most anything — but technology can and will close that gap and make it viable to conduct business from or to Australia without a huge expenditure. (plus, if it keeps expanding, I have job opportunities. yay!)
• Regulation - This comes on the heels of Technology and relates a lot to Australian telecoms (Hello, Telstra?) and similar businesses that, in the past, pretty much seemed to squelch any sort of competitive behavior. Not that the FCC or similar policymakers here in the US have done a perfect job, but on the whole we’ve recognized that a little correct regulation of monopolistic behaviors and corrections for the market promote expansion, competition, and innovation. There is a gigantic startup cost to almost any physical infrastructure in Australia, given the geography and population distribution, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that any one business has the right to disallow competitive behavior, especially when the economy could really use it. Plus, they’re going to have to start, like the US is, taking a look at VoIP and its impact on services in the country.
• Immigration – Actually, given the US’s procedure for immigration, the Australian equivalent is a walk in a park. I think the “points” system is brilliant. I just want politicians to keep this subject in their heads so it gets evaluated regularly and as many good, beneficial opportunities as possible are kept open for people willing to make the jump and live there.

Past these three things, I really can’t comment on other aspects. I’m not up on the Australian economy, I don’t know what civil rights are being debated, I’m unsure of the tax or social welfare issues at hand, and I haven’t kept up much on the national healthcare initiatives. I’m pretty sorely uneducated on most of it, as you can tell. If I move there, I’m going to be doing a LOT of reading and watching of news programs to catch up.

Anywho….this is my general, foot-in-mouth, completely unjustified look at Australian politics from the viewpoint of an almost complete outsider. If nothing else, if you are an American, I hope you learned something — if you are an Aussie, I hope you had a good laugh.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

As such, coming back from an extended time away is always a bear, but it is even moreso when it involves a trip halfway across the world. I think I have mostly recovered from my jetlag and the spinning of brain as it tries to reorient itself on the world of the HereAndNow, so I can write this final chapter in our trip to Australia.

Brace yerself, Effie — she’s a long one.

Short Hops, Matrimony Doings, and Redhaired Angels

Our trip back really started when we decided that, instead of riding a bus for 6 hours from Whyalla to Adelaide, we would ship 2 bags of our luggage on the bus as freight and take 2 with us on a flight on Regional Express, which would involve a scant 35 minutes in the air instead of a quarter of a day in a hot vehicle with a bunch of potential nutters.

The check-in for REX was smooth enough, although we were 6kg overweight and had to pay A$18 extra to put our bags on — nothing, really. We boarded and got up into the air and were having a completely lovely flight over the ocean — smooth, no bumps — if you couldn’t hear the engines, you’d never know you were 14,000 feet in the air. In fact, I was going to state that I had about the best flight ever on a small plane when the descent into Adelaide started and things got much, much more interesting.

Apparently, there was a crosswind going parallel to the shore, so the pilot couldn’t come straight in, but had to make a wide curve down the coast by Glenelg and then sharply bank back to get back to the airport. This resulted in the plane dipping down from 14K feet at an angle that makes you wonder if you actually boarded Space Mountain instead of a passenger flight. Ontop of that, the turbulence from the shore winds increased — so we were bumping, stomachs in our necks, diving towards a dark blue body of water, and then banking sharply (while still in this dive), to try to get back to the airport. I was sure I could see the little man in the back of my brain rifling through the stacks of videotape, ready to load the projector in case this was the final moments, so he could play back The Best of Things Encountered in 29 Years.

Fortunately, the ride came to a good stop ontop of a long piece of concrete at the Adelaide airport, where we were met by Mel and her cute-as-a-button 18 month old girl, Lara. This kid is like sunlight dancing on the waters of a happy ocean. She is curly and cute and spunky and completely adorable. If the ultra-saccharine-laced cherubs peering up from the front covers of Hallmark cards had names, they’d be, “Lara”. I had a ton of fun hanging out and playing with her during our short stint there.

We got back to Mel’s house (whom she shares with her hubby, Dale) and got settled in and then made some tea and generally relaxed.

Bless her heart, Mel braved traffic and hassle and took us into Adelaide to a few of the local sights, namely Tea Tree Mall, Rundle Mall, the Central Markets, and the University to try to catch the museum before it closed. Alas, we were unable to do so, but we had a look around at the architecture and the people. There was a really cool digeridoo player in the centre of the street, playing 5 different digis at once in a sort of trance-and-dance style. It was very groovy. We saw amazing amounts of fresh veggies, fruits, meats, nuts, olives, candy, and tons of souveniers and other things in the Central Markets. I was ever so annoyed that I couldn’t take any of it back with me, given the amounts of lovely meats and cheeses that I wanted to try.

Wedding Bells are Ringing in My Head

Our time was soon taken up by helping my brother-in-law, Matt, get ready for his wedding. I went and helped set up before and get the decorations configured and then did the wedding rehearsal, and then helped out a lot before the wedding itself and during pictures and after. The wedding was very nice with a outdoors ceremony and an indoors reception. I ended up giving a speech and I think I pulled it off rather well, if I must say so myself. We had some marvelous food — oysters three ways, grilled sea perch, and crispy berry baskets for dessert. I had never had oysters before, at least, not on-the-half-shell, and they were….interesting. The kilpatrick ones were by far the best (bacon, cheese, and wirchestershire sauce on them and then broiled); the “thai infused” and natural ones tasted like the sea smells — kinda like seaweed and salt. It wasn’t one of my most favorite flavors to experience, but was interesting nonetheless.

The beer, a nice pale ale, flowed very generously down my neck as well. We did a little bit of dancing, but not much, as it wasn’t that sort of wedding. I made good friends with one of the bridesmaids who was pretty fun, but there weren’t a lot of people I knew there otherwise (other than my family). We did leave after a time, said our final goodbyes to Mum, Sam, Shayne, and Peter and then got dropped off to Mel’s by Danja and Conrad.

One Last Chance to Say Goodbye

The next day, Mel and Lara took us to Victor Harbor, which is down the coast to the south and east. We first went to a fauna park where we got up-close-and-personal with some of Australia’s incredibly varied and strange wildlife. I had a parrot on my finger, shoulder, and head; I got to take pictures of wombats sleeping (my favorite!); I saw a great many snakes, lizards, crocs, and similar; I got to feed the kangaroos and pet them (will post pictures of these soon); and I got to pet the koalas (who aren’t as soft as you’d imagine, but are still pretty cute and terribly languid). It was a great park and well worth the A$10 or so it cost to get in.

Victor is well-known for its penguin population that comes home to roost on Granite Island each night. We did not, as such, see any penguins due to the fact that you have to be there at dusk and after and on a special tour, but we had a great time nonetheless. We got some KFC as we were desperately hungry and ate by the sea, then we went on a bit of a walk and canter about since Lara was tired of sitting in her stroller. We then walked the bridge over to Granite Island and checked out the breakwater where the large waves were crashing against the gigantic rocks. It was one of those “pre-storm” sorts of winds blowing, kicking up spray in semi-aggressive fashions, making you think that disaster is looming in the distance but hasn’t quite gotten here yet. I loved it — I could have sat on those rocks and just felt the emotion of despair wash over me for a long time.

We returned to the mainland and prepared to leave, but on the way caught some incredible sunset pictures as the sky was emblazoned in these amazing displays of natural artwork. Mel took the “scenic route” out of Victor so we could get as many scenery photos as possible — we got some really incredible shots that will very possibly make it up onto our walls.

It was a bittersweet time for me, leaving Victor, as I knew it’d be the last of my exposure to the ocean for a long time to come. I do very much love the water, the shore, the seagulls, the view…so much of it bodes of serenity and calm and fierceness and the unknown; I’d be very much a beach bum if we lived anywhere near it in Australia. I tried to catch as many glimpses as I could as we drove out…

The Trek Back Through Wilderness

The rest of the night was spent packing and rearranging said effort. The problem was thus: We had too much weight in our luggage for the Virgin Blue flight. They only allow 1 bag and 20kg per person, and we each would be carrying 2 bags of around 15 to 20kg apiece. My mission was to try to play the game with their Overweight Luggage Pricing Scheme and see if I couldn’t get them to be lenient enough with the charge — we were fearing upwards of A$250 just to get our luggage on the plane.

I spent a long, long time with the bags and our stuff and a bathroom scale, constantly shifting things back and forth, weighing, then shifting them again, re-weighing, etc. I eventually ended up putting many of the dense objects (children’s books, magazines, etc) in my carryon bag (since they never check that anyway) and got our bags to 20kg, 20kg, 15kg, and 16kg.

The next morning we arose and said our goodbyes to Dale and then Mel and Lara took us to the airport. My packing and shifting had worked in our favor — the lady said we should be charged A$80, but only charged us A$50, which we most happily paid. We were running a bit behind, though, so right after we got checked in we had to say goodbye, get hugs and wet kisses from Lara, and head through security.

I got stopped for a random check of my carryon luggage by this terribly nice and friendly security lady. She asked about where I was from and was most amused that I already had my liquids in their little quart bag; she noted that Australia would start the same sort of nonsense the next month. We got to our gate, bought a water, and got on the plane a bit late in different rows because of our late checkin.

The flight was nice; I really can’t complain about it, and the plane (a 737-300) was much nicer than the previous Virgin Blue flight I had taken 3 years ago. They served drinks and snacks, which you had to buy, and during this the stewardess came up and said, “Hi. Your wife wants money.” with a big grin on her face. I laughed and asked for my carryon, which she happily got for me, got out a 50 and handed it to her, telling her to tell my wife I loved her. They were terribly amused by it all. I ended up getting a Sprite for my trouble. The stewardesses were really friendly and happy — must have been the day for it.

We got to SYD and disembarked, got our luggage off the carousel, and then headed for the trains to transfer to T1, which I had never taken before, but the signs they had seemed encouraging. It cost us all of A$9 for the two of us, I think, and we rolled our bags all the way to the train, got on, rode to T1, and then worked our way via a series of lifts to the ticketing level of the T1 terminal.

We got in line and got checked in by a very nice woman who tagged our bags all the way through to Minneapolis. Little did I know at the time, but she tagged my bags wrong — I had flown America West from MSP->PHX->LAX on the way over, but was flying Frontier from LAX->DEN->MSP. She ended up tagging them with the Frontier flight number but the America West code — DOH. This wouldn’t bite me till Recheck in LAX, however.

We got through security and then decided to find some food, something we both desperately needed. So we grabbed a couple of over-priced personal pizzas and some drinks from a vendor, snarfed those down with the gusto of a starved, rabid lion on the Serengeti, and then headed for our gate.

What surprised us is that we had to go through yet another security checkpoint; this one where they patted us down and searched our bags — very strange. Makes me wonder if the US has suddenly gotten all huffy about passengers on US-bound flights and are making them double-check everyone. Very annoying at that point, really, as it was a pretty small area around the gates.

Our plane was the typical 747-400 Longreach, but we got one with the Aboriginal markings all over it, which was pretty cool at first — it turns out that the painted ones are the older models, which means they have certain — oddities. For instance, our entertainment system went on the blink about an hour into the flight and we lost all ability to start/stop movies on demand, something that really cut down on my movie-watching.

The flight was pretty standard — long and boring. We got almost zero sleep thanks to a couple of drunken assholes that sat in front of us plowing down bottles of wine as fast as they could. They were talking loudly over the noise of the plane — now, if you’ve never been on a BIG plane, they’re quite noisy at cruise. One does not talk over them — you lean towards the other person so they can hear. But these chaps were talking OVER the noise, which resulted in nobody getting sleep around them until one woman ahead of them finally gave them a piece of her mind. Then they passed out and wouldnt’ wake up, even when meal service came.

The meals were ok; the service was all right but not brilliant. It just went on a long, long time in general.

Stateside and Standing Upright — We Think

Upon landing in LAX, we got mostly up to the gate but then they said they had to get a tractor to pull u the rest of the way in, as we were too close for engines. But there was a delay, which the pilot finally came on the radio to say that an Airbus A380 (the largest plane in the world, not yet in active service) had just landed and it’d be a bit to get someone to help us out. Opening the window revealed every single vehicle on the entire tarmack racing off to the far side — it was incredible to watch! Guys pouring out of every door, jumping in trucks and tractors, and whizzing out of sight.

Unfortunately, we never did get to see it — it was on the wrong side of the airport. But Yolanda did, the lucky tart — she saw it from her plane that left LAX an hour after mine. Lucky duck.

Got through immigration just by flashing my passport and Yolanda’s greencard — never did ask for her passport or anything, which was really sweet. Got our bags, made it through customs without a hassle, and then on to recheck. As I said above, the very nice but not very observant woman did my tags wrong, so while we pushed Landa’s through recheck, we had to haul mine one terminal down to get checked in with Frontier.

We made our way back to Tom Bradley, got our money changed over, pulled some more cash out of an ATM, and got some food — I got a burger from the World’s Slowest McDonald’s and Yolanda got some Chinese food. Not only were the employees moving at the speed of butter in Siberia, but they were trying to serve the entire Chilean soccer team. It took….awhile.

We ate, I changed my underwear to a clean pair for comfort’s sake, and we rested for awhile. We eventually made our way to the bus, we went and got Yolanda checked in, gave her a kiss, and let her go into security as I jumped back on the bus and rode it all the way around to T3 and my flight. Up through security and to my gate and then lots of hanging out.

The nice part about that was that T3 has a great view of the runways so I spent a lot of time watching planes queueing and/or taking off and taking pictures — it was great. We finally boarded about 15 minutes late and I got onto one of the nicest planes and flights I’ve ever had — 2 of them in a row, in fact. See my previous blog entry about my airline reviews and read up about Frontier — they’re awesome!

Minneapolis, Which Should Have Been Mega-apolis

So, a brief stopover in DEN where I spent the majority of the time walking around and trying to find a good view of the mountains (which I never did — they’re apparently a long ways away from the airport) and then back on another Frontier flight to MSP. Got in there, landed nicely, and to the gate. Got off, walked to baggage, and Dad was waiting for me there. He gave me a big hug and then said, “Want the bad news?”

I looked at him, “Uh…yeah, sure.”

“Your wife is stuck in Denver.”

I laughed. “Right!” I said, thinking it was a cute joke.

“Nope, really. Her flight got in late and she missed her connection, they’re putting her up in a hotel.”

Turns out that her United flight left LAX 2 hours late and got into DEN just as the other plane was leaving. The airline put the entire flight up in hotels and gave them $18 in vouchers to use as well. So, I got to talk to Landa when I got home for awhile, and then had to run back up to Minneapolis the next night to get her, as she came in on a morning flight the next day.

Thankfully our friend Kath, who lives up there, got her from the airport and they hung out all day and then brought her as far south as Fairbault. We had some Perkins and did a bit of grocery shopping and then went home, absolutely and totally beat — lots of slow blinking on the way home, I guarantee.

The End….Really

Wow….that turned into a really, really long posting, but maybe some of you will actually read it all the way through. If you do, congratulations — you made it to the end. I promise next time will be pictures and much more interesting comings-and-goings.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

XXXX (pronounced ‘four eks’) is brewed in Queensland by Castlemaine Perkins. It is a clear-ish lager that has a bit of a bitter aftertaste to it and goes down relatively like flavored water. Unfortunately, the odd aftertaste to it leaves it wanting and it lacks any sort of body to it. I’ll drink it (as I did on the plane ride over) as it’s decidedly Aussie, but it’s not a favorite.

Victoria Bitter, most often known simply as “VB”, is, despite its name, a traditional lager brewed by Carlton & United Beverages, a subsidiary of Foster’s Group. It does have a more bitter (hoppy) flavor than other lagers, however, and a thicker body that makes it one of my preferred mass-produced Australian beers. It goes down well yet has that distinctive heaviness of a higher-gravity beer and taste that makes sure that you’re not drinking water. Overall, a pleasant experience for a big-name beer.

West End Draught is brewed in South Australia by Lion Nathan and is a pretty light lager that is served all over South Australia and is almost guaranteed to be on tap at any pub or establishment here. While popular amongst the locals, I’m less fond of it as it has some sort of odd off-flavor overtones in the palate during the drinking that somehow turns me off. However, it’s drinkable and is usually easy to obtain, so one makes do.

Following is a rundown of several beers that I sampled per bottle, as I could pick up each bottle for approximately A$2.50 or so instead of buying an entire six-pack or similar:

Steinlager: While not an Australian beer, I felt I couldn’t forsake one of the largest beers in New Zealand on a fair taste test. Sadly, however, the bottle was horribly skunked and my first impression was skewed because of that. Brewed in Montuek, South Island, NZ, this 5% lager ended up being very watery but had a nasty bite in the aftertaste. It gave more bite than a typical 3.2 American lager, but the finish wasn’t as smooth and I wasn’t very impressed.

James Boag’s Premium Lager: This 5% lager from The Esk River, Tasmania, was slightly skunked but not nearly as bad as the Steinlager, so that helped. It also had more body during the drink and less bite on the aftertaste, but had a sour finish to it, which may or may not have been part of the skunkification. Better than the Steinlager, but not by much.

Cooper’s Original Pale Ale: The 3.5% Original Pale from Coopers (Regency Park, South Australia) was a refreshing change from the previous beers as it wasn’t skunked and had a nice, crisp flavor. However, I felt that they took the “pale” in the title a bit too far and it lacked any sort of interesting aspects to the flavor, preferring rather to emulate a more watery existence. Swing, but a miss.

Cooper’s Mild Ale: Cooper’s Mild Ale was a better shot at a good ale, giving a more thorough shot at the body of the beer and providing a nice, even release on the aftertaste. This one I enjoyed quite a bit and took some time drinking it, so I think that gives it a good review right there.

Toohey’s New Draught: A popular beer here in Australia (brewed in New South Wales), left me with a less-than-impressive experience. The 4.6% lager had a very unique flavor, but not one I’d want to replicate anytime soon. It had a very nutty flavor with overtones of…fruit? I wasn’t entirely sure, but it was at least unique.

Carlton Draught: A pale 4.6% lager brewed by Carlton & United Beverages, was a very enjoyable experience. The brew was a bit carbonated for my liking, but the flavor was really well-thought-out and flowed nicely down my gullet with a thicker taste and nice finish. Something I’d definitely drink again.

Southwark Old Stout: Ah, the stouts, one of my favorite beer styles of all time — the darker, the better, and Southwark Old Stout, produced by Lion Nathan, didn’t fail to please me. Creamy and thick, it flowed down my throat in a lovely way, had a thick, happy head on it, and had great flavor from beginning to end. The bouquet was a bit lacking, but the flavor matrix was polished, so it didn’t bother me too much. A lovely beer, one that I’d be happy to crack open again and again.

Cooper’s Best Extra Stout: I was hoping that the name of Cooper’s Best Extra Stout might really blow me out of the water, given that it was supposed to be “Extra” something or other, but the extra must have been related to the level of carbonation and not the flavor. There was plenty of the former and the latter consisted of the typical, dark stout flavor but it tastes burnt, which is not the sort of experience you care to have. You want dark, smooth, creamy, malty, but burnt is right out, and this one fell short of making an impression on me, to be honest.

So, that’s the Aussie Beer Rundown. This was, by no means, exhaustive, but was a fun trip anyway. Australians certainly know their beers and moreover, really like to consume them, so you have to respect that, no matter what your tastes.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The slag is in a large crucible carried by a wide, four-wheeled tractor-like machine that carts it from the casting building to the slag field, backs up to a new area, and then tips the pot to dump the slag. The following video shows this happening; you will note the vertical lines in the video as the extremely bright light overwhelms the video pickup in the camera.

Slag Dump Video (Quicktime format, 3.4MB)

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

Imaging my shock and horror when I realized that Microsoft had come out with yet another way to permeate the real world with its technology. Geeks unite against NTFS trucking! Open-source journaled trucking only! (Plus, it has an extra axle in case one breaks!)

(Seen in the parking lot of Westlands Shopping Mall, Whyalla, South Australia)

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This consisted of lugging twenty 40kg (88lb) bags of concrete mix into a mixer, adding some water, dumping the sloppy Man’s Playdough into a wheelbarrow, huffing it down a sidewalk, backwards up some steps, and into the house to dump it in the bathroom where it was smoothed by Alex. All in all it went very well, we used up all the bags but got the slabs exactly done right, and the job was finished a bit after lunch.

This all might seem a bit strange for you folk back in the Homeland, as we don’t do this sort of construction for a bathroom, since we have wood beam floors and so forth. Here, there are no basements, and there’s usually little or no crawlspace, either. Rooms, such as this bathroom, are literally built right ontop of the dirt and solid concrete floors are poured ontop of that and tile or other flooring ontop of that. Pipes and wires and so forth are routed inside the slab or inside the walls, which are usually solid brick, mortar, and plaster, if not gypsum board (sheetrock) or cement backerboard.

So, to redo the bathroom floor, they removed all the fixtures and used a jackhammer to break out the old floor and break out the walls surrounding the pipes, then removed it all, replaced all the pipes into the floor (dirt) and walls, and then we poured the cement slab down today, right over the pipes. All the pipes are on the outside walls and head directly outside, where the supply and the hot water heater is, as well as the elbow down into the sewer. Of course, since it rarely or never freezes here, water heaters and piping is all outside the home instead of taking up space inside. You also don’t have to worry about burying pipes deep enough or any of that, as nothing is going to freeze, anyway. (There are also no furnaces in any houses — maybe a gas heater, but not very often. If it gets cold, it barely hits freezing, if ever, and people just deal with it.)

I’m serious — this old boy was BIG. He had MEAT on them there bones. You could have easily skewered him and put him on the barbie next to the tomatoes and mushrooms. Of course, he became mobile almost immediately, crawling down the patio door like he owned the place (which he mostly did, as nobody was about to stop him).

My wife, thankfully, came to the rescue as soon as I got my pictures of him (for evidence that monsters of the jungle really DO exist here in Australia) and bravely disposed of him. You should have seen it — like an Amazon warrior, she first soaked him in a goodly amount of bug spray and, when he tried to escape, nailed him between the eyes with it. (Easy enough to do, given that there were 8 of them, but — still. You have to credit the woman with a fast draw.) He curled up into a ball and I figured him for dead, but our wild Aussie heronie knew better, and knew that if we left him like that, he would only wake up later, creep into our beds at night, and lay eggs in our eyesockets or something equally nauseating. So, with a donated Birkenstock (they’re getting a lot of mileage, I tell ya), she flicked her wrist in a time-tested move and reduced the horror to little more than a smudge on the Astroturf of the back patio. Yolanda: 1, World’s Most Dangerous Critters: 0

(We think it is a Lace Web spider, or maybe a brown “garden spider”, although some people have called it a Huntsman spider, although we don’t think it matches the coloring and shape. However, I think Big Fucking Nasty Spider fits it pretty well.)

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

(At the least, it’ll distract you long enough to let me think about actually composing some sort of writing…)

Australia’s ants are very enterprising. Here some bull ants are attempting to make quick work of a leftover piece of somebody’s picnic; sometime I’ll take a video of the “regular” ants here in Australia, who are all Starbucks addicts as they appear to be very caffinated.

One of my favorite photographs from Paul and Rebecca’s wedding. I really do love black & white photography; you can probably see why.

Not something you’d see on your way to the bathroom — a bottlebrush blossom, one of the native shrubberies in Australia that blooms. I can’t tell where they got the name for it, however.

I like some of dem French-fried pertaters, mmmHRMMM.

The name of this Australian ice cream bar had me giggling for a long time, for all sorts of reasons. I loved putting Giant Twins in my mouth. (So much to write, so few electrons…)

Satin Pillows with Hints of Storms Pending
(on the rocky beaches of Whyalla, by the marina, before a rainfall. OneSteel in the background.)

The HMS Whyalla, the first ship ever built by the Whyalla Shipworks and now permanently drydocked 2km from the shore as a museum of maritime history. Translation: A big fucking ship sitting in the middle of a park.

Australia has all the comforts of home, including combines of a popular green sort. (in Cummins)

Kayla, Rebecca’s oldest daughter, probably protecting her wedding dress from melting to the upper deck of the HMS Whyalla in the 112+F degree heat.

My mother-in-law, Sharon, making a desperate jump to snag the bridal bouquet at Rebecca’s wedding. She’s pretty spry for a grandma.

A Yankie Cat in an Aussie Hat
(modeling a hat in Cheap-as-Chips, a discount store in Whyalla)

Curious Paula, Rebecca’s youngest daughter, and a cute button at that. She’s our godchild and pretty quiet so far, but she gives me shy looks from time to time.

Does this plant make my ass look phallic?

Sam: Conqueror, Hill-Climber, and Dashing Explorer
(ontop of Rocky Hill)

Sausages, fondly known as “snags”, on a barbie. Lovely things, fried to perfection.

This is an almond custard scroll, otherwise known as cocaine-in-a-pastry. I love these things; as you can tell, I had already eaten about 3/4 of it before I got enough sense back in my head to take a picture. I think I’ve had about 10 of them so far. They are lovely, they are sweet, they are….I can stop at any time. Really. I just don’t WANT to.

“Too close for missiles, I’m switching to guns.”
(Yolanda using her fake Scottish thistles to her advantage.)

A fair dinkum Aussie breakfast — eggs over easy, bacon rashers, fried tomatoes, and baked beans on toast, complete with some OJ. The author notes that he had to be rolled off his chair at the completion.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

It was a lovely time, temperatures between 70 and 80 and I went for dips in the ocean almost every day, long walks on the beach, and we saw some local wildlife — seagulls, shags, jellyfish, and on the final day, dolphins. The apartment was lovely, only 100′ from the water’s edge, with a full kitchen, 2 bedrooms, a spa bath, balcony, laundry, etc.

We had a really great time, all thanks to the incredible generosity and companionship of our two friends, Rebecca and Paul. We can’t thank them enough for the wonderful time!

	The view from our apartment; it was horrible, as you can see.
	I’m fascinated by the ocean, really, especially the waves. They amuse me highly. Yes, I’m farm boy. ~
	Nathan Pralle: World traveler, mean with a keyboard, shitty-ass fisherman.
	I love parrots — they taste just like chicken!
	I am truly outstanding in my field…err…ocean.
	I think I’ll stick to my day job, as my crappy fishing skillz won’t get me anywhere in the world. Here I am, holding a zebra perch that I did NOT catch, but am obviously having a good time showing off, nonetheless.
	Crayola hasn’t come up with a box of crayons with enough colors to capture the beauty in this one.
	Sunset over Tumby Bay — photography just doesn’t capture the serenity of the world.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The weather was foreboding; the reports on Monday morning apparently freaked out my mother who called (while I was in the shower, no less), asking if I had viewed the weather yet. I had not, I informed her, as I had barely managed to crack open my eyelids enough to avoid walls while traipsing down to the shower; news of anticipated precipitation was far from my neurons at that point.

After much back and forth, it was noted that if I wanted to get to Minneapolis, we would have to leave around 10am. This was not within my set plans, as I was supposed to be delivered to the airport around 4am the following morning, on Tuesday, and I had tons of things yet to do. My father, thankfully, stepped in and said he would be willing to leave later in the day, so we decided to play it by ear.

The morning was extremely hectic; work was hell, as I somewhat expected for the day before leaving for 5 weeks, but it was particularly incredible. Long story abbreviated, I got everything wrapped up and written out and checked off and otherwise marked by around 4pm; packing up and getting out of the house took me till 5 and we took off around 6. Dad and I picked up his girlfriend Amy in Clear Lake and then headed towards the Twin Cities in her van.

A stop at Perkins in Owatonna for some sustenance and we continued on. Our destination was the abode of one Kath, friend made through D.A.I.S.I.E. Company, and willing participant in the mission to get me on my way despite the impending onslaught of winter-whipped hydration. After missing the exit twice in St. Paul, we finally found our way to her lovely little cottage and got my bags dropped off. I said goodbye to Dad and Amy and they headed back south.

The evening at Kath’s house was wonderful, hanging with her and her granddaughters, firing the feces, and generally relaxing and hanging out. We never did go to sleep, preferring to stay awake and then leave for the airport around 3:40am.

MSP to PHX: Snow-encrusted plains to Rushed flatness in a whiz

I really thought that the MSP airport would be dead as the wet bar at an Amish buggy convention, but it was teeming with tons of people apparently intent on moving themselves around the world at the hairy, greasy buttcrack of dawn. Why, exactly, I had yet to figure out, but there were more important things to do at that moment, so waiting around to investigate wasn’t going to be on the agenda.

Check-in went great, even though the extremely nice US Airways woman had to work on checking my bags through to Sydney for ages. Security was a breeze and I was through and headed to my gate; I only had a few minutes to wait for boarding…or so I thought.

As I’m sitting there, I could hear the jet radio through to the gate and could hear them talking about some stewardess on the flight who had, “been up all night and was starving, hadn’t had anything to eat in 12 hours”. They radioed back that it wasn’t their problem, as I sat there snickering in my seat, imaging some blonde thinny standing there, about to faint from lack of peanut packs.

After a quick call to Mum to let her know that I was starting my journey, we boarded the Airbus 320 jet and I settled down into my window seat just aft of the wings on the right-hand side. A smooth taxi out to the runway and the roar of the jets and we were airborne and winging our way through the night sky towards Phoenix.

I simply love flying in the dark; it is amazing to look down upon the twinkling lights of the cities you are passing over, the rows of streetlights glowing gently in the night, the snaking lines of the roadways, the glow radiated by areas as a whole onto the sleeping earth. I think it’s one of the most serene views one can have of a normally chaotic and rushed existence. I sat transfixed by this scene until the plane climbed above the cloud layer, where I was treated to an unfettered view of the starry jewels of the night sky, resplendent in their night-blue evening wear.

The flight was sparse; I had the entire row to myself, as well as empty rows fore and aft of me. A corpulent man snoozed off right after boarding and slept almost the entire flight and a very nice family with 2 kids boarded, cute as can be, and I joked with the mother about the kids a bit. The flight staff, after serving us a meager ration of Sprite and crackers, spent the majority of the time jawing in the back few rows about whatever gossip was relevant. “Did you hear that Janet made it to the Mile High club on top of the drink cart???”

The landing into Phoenix happened just a bit after dawn, concluding after a rather quick drop through thick cloud cover and a few bumps on the way, but ultimately touching down at what has to be the flattest airport in the world.

PHX to LAX: Hollywood Never Had it So Good

Phoenix was incredibly rushed, as by the time I got off my plane, I had less than 45 minutes to the next one, meaning that I had to move my tush to get to the right gate in time. As it ended up, PHX is laid out in several different concourses, and I was in the one farthest from the one I needed to be at — naturally. A series of peoplemovers and much quick walking around the various grannies and other slowpokes and I arrived at my gate, huffing and puffing, and really needing a muffin and a sit-down.

As it proved, the rush was worth the time as I had a bit to sit and relax. The muffin was not forthcoming, even though there were plenty of overpriced juice bars around me, I wasn’t about to give them a shot given the short amount of time till departure. Instead, I wandered around my gate a bit, shooting the stern business suits cheesy grins as I beamed from behind my “travel best” of an orange t-shirt and purple, faded sweatpants. When I travel, I don’t just dress for comfort, I dress for shock-value.

The flight in the Airbus 319 was annoying at first, as we had apparently been downgraded from an A320 and numerous seats had to be reassigned, which meant lots of hassling and calling back to the gate desk of the staff as passengers arrived with outdated boarding tickets putting them in row 23 when only 21 rows existed. I was half-tempted to suggest that Row 23, Seat A was the saddle on the tail, and would they be so kind as to shut the door on their way out? Humor, unfortunately, is not regarded well by airlines in any circumstance, so I kept my musings to my own enjoyment. The other thing that was unimpressive was that the plane I was on looked much nicer than the previous bucket of bolts I had been on (really…upgrade your interior, US Air, it frightens the hell out of people to see stains on the seats), but flew much worse in my opinion. Looks like a fish, steers like a cow.

The best part of the takeoff was the fact that we were in a literal lineup of approximately 10 to 15 different aircraft, all taking off from the same runway in the same direction, about every 2 to 3 minutes. I got to observe a lot of A320s, A319s, B727s, and B737s from US Airways, Continental, Southwest, and America West all queuing up like kids in a cafeteria on make-your-own-pizza day, engines barely turning over such that you could still see the individual turbofan blades. It was really impressive. I kept wondering if the ones behind us were shaking their fists, yelling at the others to, “…get yer asses moving, ya lazy bums!” or similar rush-hour epitaphs. Nudging bumpers was not something that happened, thankfully.

During the flight we got served drinks (again, meager quantities of Sprite for me), but the guy behind me asked for a menu — ha! Where have you been? Food on airlines went out with the dodo, but apparently the memo had escaped this man and he queried anyway, sounding very disappointed when he was informed that shitty, pre-packaged food was not to be found on this flight. Much to my surprise and irritation, a few minutes later the overly-effeminate steward reappeared with a packet of peanuts for Mr. Curious and admonished him greatly that he was, “…really being a nice guy, as we don’t do this on these flights.” I was enraged; what if someone else wanted some crappy peanuts, too? The nerve, indeed.

Phoenix is really bloody huge, as it turned out — did you know that? I mean, you don’t hear it in the news. “Man really damned impressed by size of Phoenix; New York jealous. Film at eleven.” It just doesn’t occur to you, but it is so freaking flat that it stretches out for miles and miles, making even Los Angeles, with its houses winding in and amongst the hills surrounding it, look somewhat ordinary by comparison.

A nice landing in LAX and an exit to the smog and smells of the city and we were off to the next terminal.

LAX to SYD: One small hop for a kangaroo, one giant leap for a 747.

My ticket said Terminal 4, but I had always gone to the Tom Bradley Terminal to fly out to Australia before, so I was pretty determined to get off the shuttle bus at that point; luckily I had the premonition to check out T4 anyway just in case, as it was exactly where I needed to be and I got checked in with no waiting time at all and a no-questions, no-hassles check-in and security scan.

While putting on my shoes after padding through the metal detectors, I got talking to this very nice older gentlemen from Los Angeles who was headed to DFW and then to Philly later that day. We got talking about my trip to Australia and he commented that he had been there before, and we wished each other luck on our trips. He would come by once more while I was waiting to board my plane and again wish me luck; what a nice guy!

My gate was one of the first ones, so after checking that everything was on time, I headed to the bathroom for a cleanup (quick face wash, teeth brushing, new deodorant, etc.) and then some horribly overpriced lunch at a place called “Chilistogo!”, where I mowed down a large helping of steak fajitas and called various people to let them know how I was doing.

Stalking up and down the corridors was my next entertainment, as I figured I had better walk and stretch as much as possible while I had the opportunity, before sitting on my ass for the next 14 hours straight. During my wanderings I was able to stand and take a good long look at the pretty bird that was to cart me to the Land of Roos, a lovely Boeing 747-400 ER Longreach, a truly magnificent machine. She looked “airworthy” to me, so I kept on trucking around the airport.

Eventually I boarded, standing in the wake of tons of other Australians and a few Americans going along for the ride, and got settled into my seat in row 60, seat H, which was the right-hand aisle seat on the right-hand side. Almost right after I got seated, I introduced myself to my seat mates, two very nice-looking gals of a younger age. I personally hate being on an “inside” seat and having to bug the aisle person to get out and wanted to let them know right away that I didn’t mind it at all and I was happy to move.

After introductions, we found out a lot about each other. It turns out that the two girls were American college students, headed to the southern hemisphere for study-abroad programs. Becky was from South Carolina (with a cute drawl), going to school at Presbyterian College, majoring in Christian Education, and was headed to Townsend, Qld. Christy (I think that was her name…) was from Minneapolis, MN, was a student at some college (can’t remember), a comparative sociology major, and headed to Christchurch, New Zealand. Both were juniors in college.

We had some good conversations at various intervals during the flight and I learned that neither had been out of the country before and so this was a pretty big leap for both, so I tried to tell them any relevant information about Australia (and to some extent, New Zealand) that I thought might be helpful during the travel. They also indicated that they had planned to stay at the Sydney airport overnight, which I already knew wasn’t straightforward (as the airport shuts down), so I offered to hang with them until we could get transferred to our flights the next day, as I was staying over. They happily agreed that that’d be good.

The flight was very, very smooth, one of the best I’ve had for the trans-Pacific flight. There was a bit of turbulence for a few minutes in the middle, but it wasn’t too bad all in all. I was able to get up and walk around a bit, although being in the middle I felt a bit more conspicuous standing there stretching, so I tended to do less than what I usually do when I’m near the rear and can get up and wander to the back of the plane.

The food and service were, as usual, wonderful. Qantas has by far been my best experience for flight service from any airline, period. Lunch was a fish and vegetable dish, roll, tea, a can of XXXX (4X, an Aussie beer), salad, and other things. I also had 2 cans of VB (Victoria Bitter, another brew from the Southernland), the second can brought to me because my steward remembered that I liked it a lot. Supper (tea) was a Mexican chicken dish, salad, roll, more tea, etc. A dessert served between was a wonderful honeydew-flavored frozen fruit bar, I believe called, “Melonama”, but I can’t find it anywhere and nobody seems to have heard of it. We got 2 of these, in fact, as they came around a second time. The girls and I were quite fond of them.

Of course, we got the usual Qantas “goodie bags”, filled with pretzels, mints, a bottle of water, and some other things. New on the experience was a hot towel just before we landed in Sydney, which was ever so appreciated, and Cadbury’s hot chocolate! They actually came around and we got lovely-chocolately mugs of Cadbury’s hot chocolate, complete with a little white marshmallow floating happily in its brown swimming pool. Divine.

Our stewards (yes, both were men) were the funniest and most attentive I’ve had. They were Sydnians with broad accents and a lovely flair for their jobs — you could tell they really enjoyed serving people and making their trip good. They’d chatter back and forth to each other and to the passengers as they moved up and down with their little food carts, cutting jokes and generally having a good time. “Oi, mate, I wanna chook!” “Yah? Where ya wanna chook?” “Ri’ here, mate!” And a chicken meal would go tossed playfully over the cart and onto the waiting tray of the next waiting person.

Of course, not everything is rosy on a long flight. The couple across the aisle were these old bags that were cranky and kept giving me daggers for talking or breathing or existing, I really couldn’t tell. There were also a couple of guys that got pretty darn drunk across the aisle and a row back and were always talking loudly, even when the lights were out and people were generally trying to sleep or at least doze. Also, the guy ahead of me kept dropping his seat all the way back and extremely annoying times, and bounced a lot on it, making my screen jump around. But, apart from those few instances, most people were very pleasant. I even chatted to a Sydnian who had been in Chile running a marathon and training and was on his way home (ripped like a washboard, of course, lucky bastard). Nice guy.

We touched down after flying over a very prettily-lit Sydney in a textbook landing. Going through immigration was a breeze; in fact, they were strangely silent, not saying a word to me about anything. The luggage wasn’t the first off the rack, but me and the girls eventually got all of our bags and headed to customs. Becky somehow got questioned early about her bags and got to go past the scanners; Christy and I had to go through, but they didn’t even look at my bags, although they did stop Christy, open a bag, and pull out a pair of flipflops that had a bottle opener built into the bottom — I guess they’re a fairly popular brand in the USA. The customs guy was so impressed by it that he asked if he could show his coworker and proceeded to show the flipflops off to all the workers on the line. We were highly amused. It is a night-and-day difference between the customs and immigration of Australia and the USA, where the US definitely feels like you are a criminal trying to pass enemy lines, and Aussies are just glad you’re there.

We all got through that, and then we piled up the bags and made phone calls home to family, friends, etc., then headed to the corner on the one side of the terminal to set up camp and stay the night. They came around and checked passports and tickets to make sure we were legitimate, which was different than last time, but there were probably 30 or more people staying there, including a fair cadre of Russians and one Greek man who was ranting and raving about the Russians taking up all the seats to sleep on, but he didn’t get much action out of the guards who shrugged him off and gave him a first-come, first-serve sort of speech.

The girls cleaned up first while I watched the luggage and then I went and gave myself a thorough cleaning in the bathroom, changed clothes, and got my Birks on, as by that point my sneakers were reeking from being worn for over 36 hours straight. We eventually all settled down and fell asleep on our luggage in various odd positions but got a few hours of sleep before being woken up by the rattle of the gates being opened again.

SYD to ADL:   Goodbye Opera House, Hello Heat 

Around 5:30 we decided to part, Christy for the upstairs to catch her flight to New Zealand, and Becky and I to the Qantas transfer station down the hallway. Unfortunately, the transfer was closed and wasn’t due to be open until 6:00, which was too late for Becky to get checked in and transferred before her 6:50am flight to Townsend. So, we headed to look for a transfer bus, but they didn’t start running until 6:50, so that was out. We eventually found a barely-English-speaking taxi driver and he loaded us up and took off for Terminal 3, the Qantas domestic terminal.

The next few minutes my life flashed by as our driver ripped through the pre-dawn streets of Sydney, driving at a pace that an F-14 would have trouble matching and doing corners that few vehicles on Earth could probably match. However, we arrived in one piece and did our first pre-checkin and got in line to get officially checked in. It turned out that Becky’s flight was actually being serviced by JetBlue, although it was co-coded as a Qantas flight, so she was supposed to be in Terminal 2, not 3. We parted ways with a friendly wave and she went to walk over to her flight, as I continued to check in without any problems.

Before we parted ways, I gave each girl my webpage address on a piece of paper and said that, if they felt like it, they could look me up and I’d love to get an email from them, letting me know how they made out and how their new school was, etc. But to date I haven’t heard from them, so either they lost it or decided not to contact me. I was hoping, but….oh well. They were terribly nice people and I’m glad they were there to hang out with, it helped make a solo trip much more enjoyable.

I walked around a lot, as I was butt-early for my flight, due to worrying about getting Becky to her flight first, so I walked and looked at all the closed stores in the terminal and eventually placed phone calls home to my family to let them know that I was ok and so forth, as it was about lunchtime back in America.

I changed over my money to Aussie funny-money once the place opened and the nice Oriental woman assisted me. (Why are all money-changers Oriental? Even in LAX…) Eventually I had to get some food, so I first bought a latte for about $4 AUD and sat and people-watched while that cooled off, and then paid $10 AUD for a crappy roll with some bacon and egg on it (looked nice in the case; no such luck with the reality) and bought a Lift out of a machine. Lift is an southern-hemisphere drink, which tastes a lot like lemonade and but is carbonated and is quite nice, and I’m terribly fond of it and its sister product, Solo.

The flight to Adelaide on a Qantas Boeing 737 came soon enough and it was a nice flight in a seat on an exit row (more footroom) and a nice breakfast. The lady next to me, I noticed, was a Ruby-level OneWorld frequent flyer, which means she was pretty well-traveled (she looked pretty good for it, too.) Also, much to my amusement, one of the very funny stewards from my international flight was on mine, as a passenger. He saw me, but I don’t know if he recognized me or not; he didn’t acknowledge it if he did.

Yolanda’s brother Matt and his fiancee Nadine and my two nephews, Kailum and Reiley, picked me up from the fancy, brand-new Adelaide airport, and we headed first to the bus depot to put my bags on to Whyalla (too expensive to send on the Regional Express flight) for $26 AUD and then to their house, where I got to know the kids a bit and got fitted for my tux for Matt & Nadine’s wedding by a man named Harvey. We hung out there the rest of the day, me trying to upgrade Matt’s network setup and breaking his Internet connection completely (no clue how) and generally talking and so forth.

ADL to WYA:   Touchdown?   Check.   Sweetheart?   Check.    Luggage?   Uh…. 

That night, we had a rushed trip to the airport, as we were running behind, and I gave a hurried goodbye and sprinted to my checkin and gate for my REX flight to Adelaide.

The flight was on a Saab 340 turboprop jet and we had a smooth takeoff and a very bumpy trip to Whyalla. The guy next to me on the jet was a teacher from St. John’s College in Whyalla (a private high school, the one my brother-in-law, Sam, goes to, incidentally) and had a convention in Adelaide the whole day. He was a really nice guy and we had a good conversation on the trip there, although he squeezed a lot of juice out of the armrests as he hates flying…I was pretty amused.

We had a gentle touchdown and I finally go to see my love after going through the gate, as well as Sam and our friend Mel and her daughter, Lara. It was very nice to see some familiar faces after all the traveling and we headed out into Whyalla to start my official holiday.

Another successful trip, and I’m always grateful to wind up where I am supposed to be, even though I know I will. If you were someone that I saw or met or somehow whizzed by on my trip, I hope I left a positive influence on you, even if just for a second. To all the pilots, steward(esses), and airline people, thanks for helping get me all the way across the world to reunite with my loved ones and friends. I know, I paid you to do it, but I still appreciate it. We’re all in this big boat together, I guess.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Many of you know that I'm now in Australia (and have been since the 15th of February). I am now just finally able to start catching up on my blogging and other online work; it's been very busy here so far and I've gotten precious little computer time. I promise to write a lot more "contextual" posts soon about my travels and doings here, but first I'm going to make a picture post so you have something to gaze at while I get my other things in order.

This is a "flora and fauna" post, with pictures of plants and locations around my wife's hometown of Whyalla, South Autralia. I'm trying to take more pictures of "typical" Aussie plants and views, as now with digital photography I don't have to worry about wasting film! So…enjoy.

A pink flower on someone's front yard down the street from Yolanda's Mum's house.

Australia is literally covered with bushes and trees of the eucalyptus persuasion. People usually think this means one particular species, but there are over 700 different variations in every size and shape that are grouped as, "some type of eucalyptus" by the locals.

A purple flower on a local's roadside bush.

Many of the plants here are succulents, with the enlarged, bulbous leaves and stems typical of desert and other arrid-area plants. This creeping plant used by many as edging in their gardens has these adorable little red flowers.

The ubiquitous salt bush, properly known as Atriplex, a short, shrubby plant that nearly covers the landscape in undeveloped areas around here. Salt bush is called such because it can grow very well in salty soil and water and actually retains that salt in its leaves, making it have a very salt flavor, if you can brave the tough branches and tiny leaves to try any. This is the defining plant of the "bush" regions of Australia (semi-desert regions) and no doubt responsible for that name.

An unknown bush that I call 'snake bush' as it looks like it, but I really don't know the name and nobody else seems to, either. This isn't as common as salt bush but grows pretty often and in large sizes, some spanning upwards of 8 to 10 feet wide. One has to wonder if one of the 10 species of poisonous snakes is living underneath. <shudder>

A few of the tops of the trees in the "ship park" (the park where the ship H.M.S. Whyalla is permanently drydocked).

A white flower on a tree bordering someone's yard, unknown species.

A yellow canna in Mum's garden.

A view of the city park up the road from Mum's house. That's my brother-in-law Sam and 'Pup' (his new dog). While this is a park, it is really just a section of the outback captured within the city limits, as this is pretty typical of what you would see were you to walk outside the city borders and into the bush itself.

Another picture of the trees and bushes of the park.

The park, again, from a different angle. There are some jungle gym pieces in here for kids to play on, although they don't dare do it after dark, due to the large numbers of mozzies (mosquitoes) and questionable sorts wandering around.

Me, in the city park, doing one of those touristy-type photos.  The smirk on my face is probably from ants crawling up my ass, I suspect.

I had to take a picture of their electrical poles. Unlike the poles we have in American (wooden, creosote), these are steel beams in a triangular shape with concrete in between. The lines also carry 220 volt, 50Hz electricity vs. our 120v, 60Hz and are uncovered, aluminum lines (vs. our copper, covered lines)

A few down Sampson Street, the street on which Yolanda's Mum lives. You can see Rocky Hill in the distance at the end.

Looking across Norrie Avenue towards Rocky Hill

Rocky Hill is a block up the street from Yolanda's Mum's house and is a pretty large hill that houses the water tower and water tank for the town, with very large supply and distribution pipes coming out of the bottom. The tank is supposedly topless, although I've been unable to look inside as you can't get up high enough.

A beautiful sky from the top of Rocky Hill, with the town water tank on the right. This huge tank acts as a storage buffer for the town's water supply that is piped in from the Murray River, hundreds of miles away. (local aquifers are brackish due to seawater, and undrinkable)

A stormy sky over Whyalla, with another water tank on the horizon. That night it poured down rain after dark, but only for about an hour; rainstorms here only last a few minutes at most, usually, in an area that only gets 10 inches a year total.

A view of Whyalla from the top of Rocky Hill. You can see houses in the foreground and the OneSteel plant in the background. OneSteel is a division of BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, and Whyalla's steelworks is one of the primary steelmaking facilities in the country. During WWII, it was also one of the largest shipyards in the country, responsible for most of the destroyers built, but that has ceased operations since the 1970s. OneSteel is the primary employer of this city of 32,000 people (or so) and it is really booming right now, but as my brother-in-law says, it's both the thing keeping the city alive and killing it, as the dust and chemicals thrown off by the plant are suspected to be causing one of the highest cancer rates in all of Australia for the town's residents.

Me with Whyalla in the background, standing on top of Rocky Hill after climbing it with my brother-in-law, Sam.

Another shot of Whyalla from the top of Rocky Hill, with the ocean on the left.

A sunset over Whyalla, from the top of Rocky Hill.

This is a sunset over the ocean and Whyalla, taken from another hill in town, Hummock Hill. The ocean (hard to see) is on the left past the city lights. This hill has a drive to the top where locals go and look over the town (and teenagers attempt to generate romance)

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS