Funny Difference Video

Two weeks into my new job, I am amazed at the language growth I've already experienced, and also overwhelmed by my sheer exhaustion from the challenges I've taken on. I would have said that I knew this would happen, except that I did not fully understand how tired I would be; more tired than I ever remember being. I don't can cope with exhaustion when I'm in professional mode, but tend to fall apart when I get home, which is not great. So I'm trying to cram as much rest and decompression into this weekend as I can, and so far, I think it's working. While I don't want to be completely checked out of anything but work, I also need to be careful about the outside commitments I make during this transitional time, as I am needing all the energy I have (and more) to do my new job well until it becomes more natural to me.

So... I will not be writing a long or fascinating post, but I will be sharing this video that I stumbled upon a while ago, and was saving for just such an occasion. It's one Kiwi man's take on the differences between the State and NZ, and it made me laugh, so I thought others might enjoy it too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6cInZvsPPI

Australia Part 3: Fun with Friends

This will be my last post about my Australia visit, and undoubtedly my favourite. Sorenne, Amy, Doug and I had lots of fun together, and the best part of the trip was just spending time with them. I used to be lucky enough to do that every day, and now I have to content myself with Skype for the most part, which is amazing but not the same as really being together.

For example, it would be very hard to build a Tuatara (native NZ reptile that is basically a dinosaur) together over Skype. I found this construction kit in Wellington, and thought it would be fun to do together, which it was.

It's a simple concept of layering many shapes on top of each other, but it was quite entertaining to add them one by one and watch the cute little guy take shape. (Fortunately, Sorenne was better at reading the instructions than I was, or the poor Tuatara would have ended up with no eyes).

We were quite proud of him in the end, and thought he looked rather wonderful with the flowers outside our cottage.

I mentioned before that we went on a rather long walk in search of the missing horses. Well, we didn't find the horses that day, but the walk was a grand success. We forded multiple streams, sometimes by balancing on rocks, and sometimes (after giving up on keeping our shoes clean or even dry), by simply walking across. It was a bit rainy, but nice and warm, and the water felt great on our feet.

I know I put this picture in my "Beautiful Place" post, but I just think it's stunning, and this is where we were hiking, so I thought I'd share it again. It was glorious just being out in nature, chatting as we walked along.

We went to Sunshine Beach, near Noosa, on a beautiful afternoon. As I mentioned in my last post, the prolific blue bottle jellyfish prohibited swimming, but that was fine, as we decided to build a sand castle instead. Sorenne and Amy had been teaching me to play Minecraft, and so we decided to take inspiration from that (and also keep our sculpting expectations low) and make a Minecraft cube for our sandcastle.

The sand was beautifully fine and felt amazing, and we had a nice time making our cube and moat, which turned out pretty well, I think, with the added touch of a footprint in each corner.

This somehow got left out of my "Beautiful Place" post, and I couldn't resist adding it in here. It is the lookout where we saw the Koala and Kookaburra, and it was just so gorgeous!

 At this same lookout, there was a big open space (the purpose of which is unclear), and Sorenne saw it as the perfect place to try using the panorama setting on my phone to see if we could get three of her into one picture. After several failed attempts, we ended up with this, which is pretty awesome, except for the amputation the middle Sorenne suffered. Sorry, Sorenne!

We tried again, and were quite successful, although the middle Sorenne might still be a bit unhappy about the previous amputation incident, because she looks a tad strange. But still, a success.

On Easter Morning, we had hot cross buns, which until I moved to NZ, I had thought were imaginary things in nursery rhymes. Apparently, they exist in Australia, too. They are an Easter tradition in both countries, but this was the first time I'd eaten them on Easter day, so that was special.

Amy had some lovely Easter treats for Sorenne and I, which brought back so many fond Easter memories from my childhood. Not having children of my own, and being so far away from family, I'd really forgotten about the celebratory aspects of Easter, and it was wonderful to remember them. Sorenne and I proved our architectural prowess by building a house for her little baby bird out of pencils with fancy erasers and a tissue. I was quite impressed with us. 

I also taught Sorenne to play SlapJack, at which she quickly became a formidable opponent. Amy joined in sometimes as well, and we all had fun and no one broke a finger, so I think it was a success.

On my last night there, Sorenne suggested we do some origami, which is something I use to enjoy, but haven't done in years. With the aide of YouTube, we could do anything!

We made some very respectable swans, and then made an excellent start on some butterflies. Amy joined us, and the tree of us did quite well until the YouTube lady did something completely incomprehensible that none of us could follow, resulting in her butterfly looking astoundingly realistic, while ours persisted in resembling crab rangoon. Oh well. It was fun anyway!

Thanks to Sorenne, Amy, and Doug for a fantastic visit, and I can't wait for the next time we can get together, whether it's in NZ or Australia.

Australia Part 2: Amazing Animals

Now that you have a sense of the stunning setting of my time in Australia with my friends, I thought I'd share with you some of the fascinating animal life we got to observe. Australia and New Zealand have completely different fauna, and it's interesting to observe the native wildlife. Unfortunately, I don't know much about Australian animals, so you will largely have to be content with pictures.

I just tried Googling "Queensland frogs" thinking that I would be able to find a picture and match it to this one to tell you what kind it is, but it turns out that there are approximately a million kinds of frogs that live in Queensland, and far too high a percentage of them at least vaguely resemble this one. So I'm not even hazarding a guess. But it was a lovely little frog.

I believe that this minuscule specimen is a garden skink.

Sorenne and I had fun with the "sketch" setting on my camera, and thought this skink looked particularly striking that way.

This one was quite a bit bigger, sunning himself with many of her friends on a telephone pole.

When we went to the beach near Noosa, there was a warning posted about bluebottle jellyfish, which apparently can still sting painfully even once they're dead on the sand. Indeed the whole beach was fairly covered with them, necessitating stepping carefully between them. However, I waded a bit in the water, and didn't actually see any. I don't know if that's because they're harder to see in the water or if the bloom (apparently the word for a group of jellyfish) had moved on. But I didn't get stung while wading, so it was a success either way.

I found this coconut (I think) that had been washed up by the tide, and in addition to the multitudes of barnacle-types on the outside, there was a completely adorable crab living on the inside, calmly looking out as I picked up and moved her home.

Amy was determined to spot a koala in the wild, something she has not done in her more than six years in Australia. After our visit to the beach, she took us to a place where she'd read online that you could see wild koalas quite near the carpark (as some of us were not interested in a long hike). She offered to pay $5 to anyone who spotted one, and we were ready, but we didn't even get a chance, as Amy was barely out of the car before she spotted this one herself! Yahoo!

It was way up high in the tree, but we could actually see it quite well, and it was very exciting! It is not as easy as it used to be to see koalas in the wild, so it was pretty special.

Flashback: When we were in Australia together the first time, all those years ago, we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and we got to meet very friendly koalas.

Sorenne was so fascinated!

Anyway, that was deeply awesome, and seeing one in the wild was a completely different and equally inspiring experience.

Amy also spotted this kookaburra, even though it was quite well camouflaged against the pale branches.

And then this one. They're very cool-looking birds, although they do get that delightful but slightly annoying song stuck in my head every time I think about them.

We also saw lots of Australian magpies, which we do have in NZ, although they're not as common, I don't think. They're quite pretty, with their sharply divided black and white.

By far the most fun we had with animals was with the cows and miniature horses who live at Cooroy Country Cottages. The first day, we went on a quest for the horses, who usually come up to a certain field for carrots, but were absent that day. We didn't find them that day, but we did make friends with some lovely cows, especially Gina, who liked to have her head rubbed so much that she almost knocked me over as she nuzzled against me. We were joined by one of the owners and his dog, Beby, who was friendly and full of energy.

We did some climbing near the horse paddock, with their lovely dog Ted watching. We discovered that he loves country life, as he became very brave and adventurous, even around the cows and horses.

Speaking of horses, we did find them the next day, by waiting at their usual carrot spot. We'd discovered that while we'd hiked all over the landscape looking for them, they'd gone around the other way and ended up right where we'd originally gone to see them. So the second day, we were more patient, and soon we saw them heading up the hill towards us. The dark brown ones in the lead were trotting along, with the lighter brown ones galloping quite fast, assumedly trying to catch up so they didn't miss out on carrots.

 The horses were all tiny (compared to normal horses), beautiful, and very determined to get the most out of the carrots we fed them. Even once the carrots were all gone, they kept checking just to make sure we weren't hiding any more.

Sorenne was very brave, enjoying observing them and trying to pat them before they realized that there were no carrots in the proffered hand. The horses completely ignored Beby, who raced around, frolicking and barking to her heart's content while they milled about.

With perseverance and luck, we were able to pet them a little bit. Sorenne was the most determined, and did a wonderful job of making friends with the skittish horses.

This horse seemed the friendliest, was very beautiful. I'd say he should become part of their family - he fits right in!

We spent time with them each evening, and often the cows would come up as well. I'm surprised to discover that I didn't take any pictures of the cows, but I was probably distracted by Gina demanding head rubs. Which is better than taking pictures anyway. J is a bit jealous, as he loves cuddling cows. Perhaps I'll have to bring him there someday.

Australia Part 1: A Beautiful Place

As I mentioned last week, I went to Australia over the Easter Holidays. In addition to the statutory holidays of Good Friday and Easter Monday, the university is closed on the following Tuesday, so I had a five day weekend, and took advantage of it to fly to Brisbane to visit Amy, Doug, and Sorenne. Some of you will remember them as the wonderful family I nannied for in Manhattan from the end of 2008 to when they moved to Australia in 2011, when Sorenne was 2 1/2. I even went with them to Australia for a couple weeks during their transition, which was amazing. Getting to be a part of their family and spend so much time together was a very special time in my life, and we've kept in contact ever since (thank goodness for Skype), and so I've gotten to see Sorenne grow into the amazing 9-year-old she is today, and their friendship is still very important to me.

When I arrived on my direct Wellington-Brisbane flight (which is a rather new and fabulous air travel advancement), we went to their house just for a bit, then headed out to Cooroy Country Cottages, a couple hours from Brisbane towards the sunshine coast.

The cottages are tucked into beautiful, lush forest, and the whole setting was breathtaking.

This was my lovely room upstairs.

I was lucky to have the upstairs room, because look at my amazing view! That's Mount Cooroora you can see in the distance. It was very beautiful, as was the greenery all around.

Also, just because I couldn't resist, check out this hilarious wardrobe with an odd, deeply recessed, chest-level mirror in the middle! I was so entertained! If anyone has theories about what in the world this is for, I'd love to hear them.

One of the first things we noticed were all the beautiful flowers, and while Amy and Doug got checked in and talked with the owner (who was from Iowa of all places, just like my Dad's family), Sorenne and I admired them.

We were both very impressed with this perfect pink one that had fallen. We gathered several pink and yellow ones from the ground for the vase on the kitchen table, and they looked beautiful for the rest of the day, but when we woke up in the morning, they were unrecognizable, astonishingly brown and wilted. We just admired them on the plants for the rest of the visit.

There were flowers of all shapes and sizes, including these amazing upside down ones that reminded me of chandeliers.

On our daily walks, we usually passed this charming little pond. We learned the the stunning bright orange flowers in the lower left-hand corner are actually a variety of ginger, which is pretty cool.

Sorenne took this lovely picture of the beautiful lilies, which we both loved.

One of my many great memories of being in Australia with Amy and Sorenne when they first moved there is seeing the birds of paradise. I just think they are incredible flowers.

This one, too, was gorgeous, although I have no idea what kind it is.

The flowers of this tree caught our attention even from a long way off, as they were practically glowing vivid orange. Our host told us that the tree is an African tulip, and even though it's invasive, he quite likes it.

Again, I don't know what this is, but isn't it beautiful? I don't think I've ever see such striking purple leaves.

Sorenne and I agreed that we think this one is a hibiscus, and are definitely sure that it is amazing.

We drove to the base of Mount Cooroora, the one I could see from my window, but discovered that the trails up it do not allow dogs, and as we had darling Ted, the Cavalier King Charles, with us, we elected to go exploring elsewhere. It was still lovely to see it up close. 

As we explored the trails around our cottage, Sorenne spotted this unique and fascinating tree, covered with very serious thorns. Actually, while I'm sure thorns is the accurate word, I think that horns is a much more apt description, with their wide bases and bony appearance. Sorenne tried to put one in her pocket to keep for later, and it poked right through!

This post is setting the scene for my next few posts, which will be about the glorious things we did while I was there. Hard to imagine a more beautiful place for fun, exploration, and quality time together.