Never Thought About Crocodiles Before…

Cooktown From Grassey Hill

Main Attraction

 While we got out of the storm, we promptly got into the heat … and the humidity!  I thought we were going away from the Equator, according to the maps.  But I can’t imagine the Equator being any hotter or more claustrophobic.

Packed in the HOT tender
to go ashore.

Cook's anchor and cannon
jettisoned to get off the reef and get on shore!

Yep.  I meant claustrophobic.  When it is this hot and you are anywhere around an ocean, it is bound to be terribly humid and that makes it “claustrophobic.”  And it is kinda funny watching and listening to the guests, all clustered on the SUN DECK, in their swimsuits, lying on lounges around an empty pool, complaining about the heat and sun.  And these are not “body beautifuls” either.  Imagine, if you can, 60-90 year old, wobbly wrinkled skin and all, in two-piece suits!  Not me for sure.  I am anywhere there is air-conditioning, riding out the heat in comfort!!  Isn’t that why God invented air-conditioning (thank you, Mr Carrier!)

Anyway back to Crocs.  We were hungry for land under our feet.  And the only land available after all those sea days was “Cooktown”. We are going north, slightly around Australia toward a place called Darwin.  Don’t know why they call it that, but maybe it has to do with the Crocs also?!  Cooktown has less than 2500 people, so when a cruise ship lands there, it is a BIG DEAL and they bring out the school busses to ferry us around.  Then comes the stories about Crocs.

You see, we never really thought about Crocs before.  Alligators, crocodiles, we in Missouri don’t have many encounters with those kinds of beasts, but why would we?  We are not, after all, Florida!  But apparently there are multitudes of different kinds of crocs all over Australia.  And this part of the world.  In Australia, they are a protected species, so they have been reproducing at a huge rate—and they are, to put it bluntly, HUNGRY.  For anything.  Tricycles, dogs, cats, people, babies, and on and on.  And they are not afraid of humans, so they traipse out of the water and walk or lumber more correctly, into houses and chomp on the nearest helpless thing like babies.  And don’t think you only need to stay away from lakes, oceans, etc.  Apparently, they inhabit ditches with water, wells with water, any place they can get a little drink and find munchables. 

Looking Back at the ship, longingly, from Grassey Hill 

Our entire tour of tiny Cooktown was a litany of how big lots of the crocs are, how many people they have eaten (or dogs or cats or whatever), and how, God forbid, some stupid tourist might want to swim in the ocean or water ski (this is beach-front island sort of place, after all) and how they will be devoured, arms, legs, heads and all.  Got the message. 

About all the snakes in the area

And if that isn’t enough, our guide proceeded to tell us about the pythons, up to 20 feet long, who are so quick when they are hungry that they wrap themselves around you in a blink and you are a gonner!  Our guide was a former school teacher from Papua, New Guinea who retired in Cooktown (one grocery, small library, lots of saloons, a gas station).  Why, one would ask?  Why retire where the heat is awful, there is a 6-month rainy season that cuts you off from civilization for months at a time, when one could move south and have air conditioning?  Puzzling, huh?

One of The main buildings in Cooktown

Capt. Cook Memorial

     
 

In any case, we are sailing straightaway toward Indonesia where the crocs, they tell us, are 15 feet long and waiting on the beaches to pounce on unsuspecting beach combers or cruisers.  Yum.  Such fun to contemplate.  Me?  I like a/c.  I worship Mr. Carrier for his invention.  Swimming?  I guess I’ll save it for my very own pool in my very own backyard in Missouri.  Why, again, did I plan this cruise????

In The Heat Of The Mid-day Sun

Eating in the shade.

The shining sea off Australian islands

Attempting to cool off...AC worked better, 87% humidity.

Sweating in the shade with iPad

HOT Mexican food for lunch.  You kidding?

Back to Reality... And the Aborigines

20 foot waves on Monday leaving Bribane

Smooth wake on Tuesday

The storm has passed us by (or, rather, we've broken out of the unreality of the cyclone) and it all seems now like some otherworldly part of our life.  Did it ... or did it not... actually happen??  And, as we sit here at our desk overlooking the seas (don't know which one, as there are so many different names of seas in this part of the world!), the waves are calm, the water looks quiet, the seaweed  passing us is the only offshoot of the storm and the captain says the ugly green color has been here since Captain Cook.  Not worried at all anymore.  We had our worry time all used up!

Anyway, on to our lesson for the day: Aborigines.  Australia, at one time, was attached to the rest of Asia by land bridges and, over 100,000 years ago, these strange looking "people" marched from what is now Thailand into Australia and set up "camp".  Now Australia is a very large country (about the same land mass as the US) and it is amazing to me, considering how hot and deserted most of it is, that these little dark-skinned funny looking people walked all over the country and set up tribes, like our Indians, marking out their own territories.  I always heard about Maoris, but they are only one small tribe and they were located near Sydney area.  But there were many others all over, existing -- that's all I could call it, because they didn't have air-conditioning, microwaves, refrigerators, cars, or even horses to help!! What they did have was dingoes, those original dogs that helped them hunt and were so very good at it that they almost killed off all the wildlife!

Another thing they didn't have was religion--at least, not what we would call religion with a big man sitting on a throne on top of a cloud, creating everything.  But what they did have was a story of how life began in Aborigine-ville.  They called it "dream-time."  And from those "dreams" came life, art, good, bad, everything -- all explained in one nice little packet. They were, in essence, the original hunter-gatherers,  living off the land.

  When the Europeans finally discovered Australia, they looked down their long European noses at the original settlers, those pesky Aborigines.  Where were their 'farms" and "crops"?  And what about things like cows and pigs or even chickens?  These Aborigines were so backward, living off the land.  So they decided to isolate them, get rid of them, see how long they would last.  Does this all sound familiar?  But remember they were "funny-looking" with dark skin and broad noses and funny hair.  And they were short, after all.  They didn't know English.  They talked gibberish!

 Well, hundreds of years later, there are still Aborigines and many of them live in villages now.  They produce art, much admired by art collectors.  And we tourists occasionally pick up diggeredos to take home to replicate their haunting music.  A movie worth seeing is called "Rabbit Proof Fences"about the period 1920-30's..  It is the true story of a time in British-Australian history when the Australians passed a law to remove Aborigine children from their homes and put them in white homes thru forced adoption to assimilate the Aborigine culture to death.  It was a disaster and the story is about two little girls who escaped and followed the rabbit fences back to their family! Touching -- and true.

Enough lesson for today.  We had our "dream" sequence with the cyclone and it does now seem like it was only a dream.  We are off to Darwin, Australia and then to Komodo Island to see those dragons people talk about.  From there, we are on to Indonesia and further adventures.

I could describe life onboard a luxury cruise ship, if you would like.  We have certainly become intimately acquainted with the routine on this trip of "sea days".  Let us know if you would like to hear our observations of that !

Isn't There a Book Called "Shipwrecked"??

Good Sign ... heading to brisbane!

Silver lining! Another good sign
...right? Heading to Brisbane.

You may have been wondering where we have been for the past few days.  To be honest, we kinda wondered that too.  Yes, we are on a big ship with 700 other souls.  And, yes, we are technically supposed to be visiting Brisbane...but I'll get back to that.

We DID get to Brisbane.  In the rain.  With the winds.  And we were half a day late, which caused quite a ruckus for the "destination ladies".  So we all did what we could, rescheduling tours of the city, planning dinners, cutting out non-essential things.  And the Captain helped, as he announced, in his stentorious voice, that we would leave at 6 a.m. the next morning rather than that night.  We thought that should be the end of that.  So, off we went to visit Brisbane.  What we learned was that Brisbane was the place Sydney shipped off their WORST criminals to.  "We'll keep the goodies," they said.  "We'll just give you guys up there in Queensland the troublemakers, the murderers, the really bad ones."

And about the floods.  Really.  They have floods, apparently, all the time.  And three of them were so bad they are permanently marked on the downtown buildings.  Wherever we went, the guide would tell us how much of each place was underwater.  But, overall, there were a ton of beautiful parks.  And, of course, they have free health care (single payer system, no less) and, oh yes, they were not in the least affected in the recent recession.  They just continued to prosper all along. Damn! (Bos says it is because they are constantly supplying China and environs with coal and goods!)

Brisbane in the rain .... again!

The black bars
are high water
marks downtown.

Shoals of jellyfish greeted us at
 docking! Bad sign!

Typical Queensland raised house
seen all over Brisbane

Brisbane overlook pergola in rain
.... could not see Brisbane

But on to that book: Shipwrecked.  We got up at 6 a.m., as the Captain had told us we would be shipping out of Brisbane for the Great Barrier Reef.  Only we weren't.  They have changed the schedule and we were going to have 2 sea days instead and then, somehow, come back to Whitsunday Island and the reef later on.  Only we didn't.  You see, by 6 a.m., when Brisbane said we had to be off and out, the seas had become so bad, we can't get out of the shelter of Moreton Bay.  Sounds convoluted, I know.  But this is the thing.  Our berth in the harbour of Brisbane was supposed to be for some other ship.  So, scram, they said.  BUT, in the meantime, Cyclone (they don't call them Hurricanes on this part of the world) was swooping in and, with seas upwards of 18 feet waves and 75 knots (that's a boat term and no, I don't know what it means!) outside the Bay, it was not safe to leave here.  So we are 6 miles out in the ocean from Brisbane, anchored so we don't float aimlessly around, and we are suffering through "Cyclone Oscar," I think his name is.  The Captain calls him a slow one.  So who knows where we are -- or where we will be.  Remember the old series "The Twilight Zone" from years ago?  Maybe WE are in "The Twilight Zone" right now.  Didn't they always come out okay after an hour???

So, if you do not hear from us after this, remember that my big diamond is for Iris's college.  And I would like my ashes to be spread over Bermuda.  NOT the Tasman or Coral Seas!!! In fact--- HELP!!!

The Australian “4th of July”…

Today is January 26^th, the day Aussies celebrate “Australia Day”, a kind of 4^th of July in the states.  Yes, it includes fireworks off the Sydney Harbour Bridge, lots of drinking ale and beer, many barbies going on the beaches and in the backyards.  And most of this occurs in Sydney.  They tell us celebrations are much more circumspect in other parts of the country.  We are currently sitting in Brisbane harbor, waiting to go ashore and the announcement we get from our Australian friends is “Happy Australia Day, mates.”  Circumspect.  Maybe they’ll raise a glass of bubbly or ale when they get home from work.  But nothing over the top in this over the top country!

So what happened on January 26, 1788?  Well, there was no revolution like we in the states proudly celebrate.  Instead, Captain Arthur Phillip, as head of a squadron of 11 ships, called the First Fleet, left England in May and, after 252 days and covering 15,000 open seas, arrived in Botany Bay Australia, with a cargo of convicts.  Now Botany Bay didn’t appear to offer much to the sailors or convicts, so they continued up the shore and found another inlet where Sydney now stands and, if you visit Sydney, you can enjoy the point at which this ragtag group got off the boats as Circular Quay.

While we can the group “convicts” and the trip “transporting of convicts”, the new settlers were not at all prepared to start a new country.  There were small children, old people, no people with particular skills to help with settling.  But, somehow, they survived, learned what they needed to know, and began to settle a vast country.  So today, with their barbeques and beers, they take the time to celebrate that fortuitous first trip down under!!

Breakfasts Around the World...

Well, it can't be really ALL around the world.  But, in this part of the world, I was curious about all the different breakfasts offered in the dining room.  And it shows how truly different we are, based on where we were raised.

FOr instance,  the "Australian Breakfast" includes 2 free-range eggs (scrambled, boiled, poached or fried) along with waffles, pancakes, or french toast, served with has browns, grilled pork sausages, baked tomatoes, field mushrooms and "streaky" bacon (which means floppy and not totally cooked).  Now that doesn't sound too different, right??

Let's go on to the "Chinese Breakfast."  This is traditional "congee" with choice of pork, chicken, or prawns, accompanied with Chinese spring onion, fried shallots, pickled vegetables, and soy sauce.  Add to that steamed dim sun accompanied with light soy sauce, stir fried vegetabl asnfes and egg noodles and Chinese green tea.

You might think that the Chinese and the Japanese could share their breakfast tastes, but NO.  So the "Japanese Breakfast" includes miso soup served with dried nori, Japanese pickles and nasto beans.  Add also steamed rice, soft poached egg with light soy, grilled salmon served with sauteed spinach and toasted sesame seeds.  Japanese green tea is also on the menu.  WOnder if it is different than the Chinese green tea?!

So, depending on where you are, you have many choices.  Breakfast, for me, is toast and an egg.  Along with ice tea.  DOesn't work here.  Maybe miso soup would be a good substitute!

Why Oh Why??

There is nothing like being sick on vacation.  Especially when, after a year of planning, that sick part starts BEFORE you actually get on the cruise ship.  There is something terribly wrong about that.  I don't think God or anyone else could plan such a downer.  But here we are in SYdney, Australia, stuck in a hotel room, coughing, snarking, hacking, with various liquids coming out of orifices in one's head.

And, to make it worse, I have to hide myself so I don't infect all the old people going on this cruise with us.  I don't,, frankly, know how this happened.  We took sterile wipes and wiped down plane seats, tray tables, arm rests.  I went through a whole bottle of Purell in two days.  It's just not FAIR!!

But there is nothing like being married to a Boy Scout.  And we were prepared .... for almost anything. Not snake bites or stuff.  But the epizootic.  So late last night, thanks to our doctor, we began Z-Pack to try to kill this thing.  And today, fever is down, head is feeling better.  And we are off to the boat to float up to Brisbane and from there, the Great Barrier Reef. (Where there are sharks and box jellyfish!)

Maybe, in a week or ten days, as they say, this thing will be beaten back.  And I can enjoy our trip!!

"Every Third Person...'

My mother was Swedish.  She grew up in a very small town in northern Wisconsin where everyone was either Scandinavian or Irish.  No diversity at all.  Now, Mom came from a farm family background and, in those days, each family had scads of children!  After all, they helped with the farm chores and helped, later on, to support the large families.  In fact, 12 to 15 children, at the time, was not unusual.  And Mother's family started branching out.  Yes, the farm was the central gathering place, but her uncles became doctors, dentists, even merchants (although I'm not sure where the "chiefs" went!).  Her father, although he and his brothers worked the farm, also taught school at a one-room school.

But he had great hopes for his only daughter.  So Mother went to River Falls State College and her last two years she transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, although her father had passed on with pneumonia (no antibiotics at that time)!  And the money from the sale of the farm went into Mom's education -- where she met my dad and, well, you know the rest.  THe point of this is to tell you that Mom was well educated and quite intellectual, being an English and Speech teacher.

BUT, my mother was prejudiced. Not about African Americans. Not about Eastern Europeans. Maybe about Norwegians ("they are Swedes with their brains knocked out," said my great uncles!) It was only Asians -- or as she called them,  "third persons".  And regardless of their backgrounds, if they were Asian they were "Chinese". Be patient.  We'll get to Australia soon.  You need the background first.

  When I was old enough to go to college, also at the University of Wisconsin, we were driving around the campus one day in the 1960's, peering out the car window at the teeming humanity from all over the world, and Mom huffed, "It seems every third person is Chinese!" She was probably right, because Wisconsin is so large that it attracts people from all cultures, even more so today.  And I like to excuse a bit of this because of Mom's lack of diversity when she was growing up.  But, for many years after that trip, we would tease her about "third persons".  She didn't mean just Chinese -- it was all Asians and she would turn up her Swedish nose, feeling probably that she was being pushed aside by those "third persons."

What I learned today in Sydney is that probably more than half the population is "3rd persons."  This is such a diverse society, such a mix of cultures, that Mom would have collapsed!  The brightness of the city, its youth, its exciting atmosphere comes in large part from the absorbing all these cultures.

So when I read that, until 1970's, there was a ban on non-European immigrants moving to Australia, it was a bit of a shock.  You see, there was a gold rush in the 1850's and the Aussies saw those industrious Chinese digging up "their gold" and wrote up their law, preventing more Asians from coming here.  Sounds like the US, with the Chinese being banned after building the railroads.  What a mistake we have all made.  What a change has occurred when all cultures mix and share!!
Mom might be huffing less today.  I certainly hope so!! Our countries are so much richer with all the diversity of cultures we share.  Think about foods we have absorbed in our culture: sushi, sashimi, tabboulah, pad thai, haggis, challah, hummus, yakitori, falafel and on and on.  It's all good! And I am beginning to wonder if those "third persons"  in Asian countries have become WE WESTERNERS.  And little Chinese grandmothers are huffing at the influx of us in their countries!!  TUrnabout's fair play, don't you think.

To Get Over Jet Lag, It Takes a Village..or Was It 8 Courses?

I mentioned our dinner.  I need to first explain that Bos and I are "foodies".  SOme people think that is some sort of "negative ", but we acknowledge it proudly.  We watch all the cooking shows from "Chopped" to "The Next Food Network Star" to "Master Chef".  Our daughter Betsy calls it "food porn" and I would have to agree with her.  When I went to work in 1983, I gave up cooking.  All I did was work, work, work.  So, if people at home wanted to eat, someone had to take over...and the designated cook was Bos (while my mother lived with us, she, God forbid, would never cook.  Her job was to clean up afterward!).  He started out slowly and, shall we say experimentally.  His first endeavor was fish covered with salsa and slathered with cheese slices.  The kids turned up their collective noses and asked why he did that?  His answer: "I just wanted to make it taste less 'fishy''.  Our son's response:  "Just start out without fish."  Since that time, we have learned that no chef worth his toque EVER puts cheese with fish.  Who knew!!

But, as time went on, he went from the status of "cook" to nearly "chef".  I wondered at first why all the enthusiasm for this new, for him, occupation.  It seemed he liked eating snibbles, as he called them, while he cooked.  But then the real reason became apparent: he's a chemical engineer and, after all, cooking has a lot to do with chemistry!  So now, even though I have retired from the working world, he continues to amaze me with his dedication and his creativity in the kitchen.  My job is merely to read him the recipes, sitting at the counter, while he whips up anything from green vile looking smoothies to his mother's complicated shortbread cookies to intricate Italian meals. It also means weekly trips to Farmers' Markets, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Great Harvest Bread, even Penzey's spices, all in search of that elusive ingredient for his newest and latest creation. And, the advantage, it gives us something to do in our retired state!  And I don't have to do anything except drive...or read.  Lucky me.  Happy him.

So, as two old retired people now, we search out restaurants we've heard about from locals, read about in magazines and newspapers, and see on tv.  And, I'm sorta ashamed to say, we plan vacations around trying these vaunted museums of culinary acumen.  Really. We actually do that.  Hence, here we are in Sydney, Australia -- and we are using the fact that we have been here two other times, to make the highlight of this trip eating. We chose to eat at two of the most highly commended restaurants in the city rather than sightsee.  It is probably an excuse to forgive us to do one of our favorite things: eating.  But so it is. (Also, because you are probably wondering, we have planned gastronomic adventures in some of the ports on the cruise, like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bangkok.)

Last night we were lucky.  The official reservation deal at Quay is:  you need to call between 10 and 12 30 days in advance to get a table.  Well, I had done research, but the dates were definitely not right for that.  So, on a whim, we stopped by the concierge desk at 3 p.m. yesterday and asked him to call and see if there had been any cancellations.  Voila!  We had a table for 8:30.


Some restaurants can make their own rules.  Quay is one of them.  You'll see the pictures.  And their menu is small.  You either choose their 4 course menu with 4 choices on each of those 4 categories at an extraordinarily expensive price  OR you select their 8-course tasting menu with wine flights at an even worse extraordinarily expensive price.  Of course, we were all for the tasting menu.  It takes 3 hours.  And, I must confess, by course #5, "Smoked and confit pig cheek, shiitake, shaved scallops, Jerusalem artichoke leaves," we were really pushing it.  Yep.  That was one course.  Now the courses are not large.  But, with so many courses, your enthusiasm starts to wane.

THE Menu

Then add: "Poached Rangers Valley Beef, bitter chocolate black pudding, morel, ezekiel crumbs. shaved mushrooms."  Really.  Well, you get the picture.  Lovely.  Unusual. Worth it?  Maybe.  And tonight, we are headed to the next premier restaurant called "Rockpool."  Burp.

Sashimi of local lobster

Add caption

Salad

Tasmanian Squid

Coturnix Quail

Smoked and confit pig cheek
shiitake, shaved scallops

Rangers Valley beef

Andalucia citris and almonds

Coconut and cherry snow egg

What Is It About Australia??

When we booked the cruise, we didn't think about it.  After all, we'd been to Sydney twice before.  We'd been to the zoo. We'd done the harbour cruise. We'd refused to do the bridge climb. We'd taken the requisite pictures of the Sydney Opera House.  We'd even bought the required didgeredo for our kids back home. We'd seen the backward climates(it's summer here now) and the upside down constellations. By the way, I figured out why they use centigrade rather than fahrenheit when talking temperatures.  It was 45 degrees C the other day here.  I didn't know how to translate that, so I just ignored it.  However, when they told me it had been 120 degrees fahrenheit when translated, I fully understood.  It keeps most of us Americans in the dark and that keeps tourists coming.  If I had known how hot, I might have reconsidered!!

We figured we'd done it all here.  Nothing could surprise us anymore.  Nothing could be different.  Right??   What was different was a book.  Called "In a Sunburned Country".

It is written by Bill Bryson and it is a rambling account of his trip to Australia.  So far so good.  THEN he gets to the good parts.  The country was founded as a penal colony. Okay.  That is fine and that was also a long time ago.  But, he proceeds to tell me, it has more things that will kill you than anywhere else.  Getting not so good.  Of the world's ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian, he continues.  And five of the Australian creatures, such as the box jellyfish and the funnel web spider, are the most lethal of their type in the world.  And there are even caterpillars, fluffy ones no less, who can give you a toxic nip.  Or, what about the seashells that have creatures inside that will give you a venomous bite.  To continue don't forget the crocodiles and, of course, the sharks.  Most beaches have shark nets to try to keep swimmers from being chomped on by the ever-present sharks!  But those pesky sharks have their ways of getting through the nets and taking bites of unsuspecting swimmers. "Not too often," they will tell you.  Maybe only once a year or so.

So, I am beginning to see that in our first two visits to Australia, we were just plain lucky to not be stung, bitten, or pronged to death!  When reading about the history of Australia, you can't help but see that a lot of unsuspecting explorers were attacked by aborigines and even eaten by them!  Remember Captain Cook? He was a hero for first exploring Australia and the South Pacific, only to be killed and eaten by the natives.  Did they use barbecue sauce?  Catsup?  Mustard?  Salt and pepper.  Shiver...

 Sydney Opera from the room
 before we "crashed"

Here we are, ensconced in a luxury hotel in "The Rocks" part of Sydney, no spiders, crocs, jellyfish or snakes around that we know about.  The sun is shining.  The people are so friendly.  Hard to believe we are braving the potential threats to our well-being.  Now the threats are only from colds and flu, that we can tell.  And we have become experts at rubbing down our room from doorknobs to desks with disinfectant, to prevent those things as well.  And, as a final line of defense, we have brought lots of Cold-Eze to suck on!!  Seems we are well-prepared for at least those modern hazards.

To assuage our anxieties, we search out one of the most famous Sydney restaurants for dinner.  Overlooking --- the harbor.  With a huge cruise ship as our view. Even that was interesting,  And we choose the 8 course tasting menu.  But more about that, next...

View from room; afternoon

Sydney Harbor Bridge
at sunset.

An Engineer Should Never Travel (Or One Should Limit Their Devices!)

I really don't know what has happened!  When I was working in years past and we were planning a trip,  I would most often pack my bag the night before we took off.  Sometimes even the morning of, if you know what I mean.  And, being in real estate, oftentimes I didn't get home until 2 in the morning the night before, so I was a giggly super-tired traveler totally spaced out.  My daughter used to say she was traveling with a "small child", referring to me, so couldn't she board during the early boarding faze.

Now it takes us a week to pack.  And, instead of one or two bags, we left this morning with 4 LARGE bags and two carry-ons.  I told Bos he had to apologize to the car driver BEFORE I would leave the house.  And, frankly, we took with us pretty much our whole house. So, you ask, how could it take you a week to pack?  Well, it was a combination of packing and unpacking and repacking.  And remembering stuff we might need if...  And there were the shoes.  They were a suitcase unto themselves.  What happened to that carefree giggler? Probably forgot to pack her.

Some of what happened is called "being married to an engineer".  He prides himself on planning.  For everything.  Rain. Snow. Hot. Cold. Infections. The epizootic.  Sprained ankles or feet.  Whatever.  And medicine.  Well, medicine is a whole another story.  This old age thing is a logistic problem.  Not only do you have to get the insurance company to okay extra medicine and get the drugstore to get it in time, but you have to pack that same medicine.  And, for six weeks, well, that could ALSO be another suitcase. We look like a traveling Walgreens!

In any case, we took off this morning and flew to Los Angeles to wait a longggg time before we are supposed to get on the Qantas flight to Sydney.  And it was only then that I fully understood what being married to an engineer means.  We had many crises. Now, if you are not an engineer, you might not think you had "crises". You'd go with the flow, so to speak.  But not Bos...

Guy Bos got the newest iPhone from.
The day before departure!

What crises, you ask?  Well, number one crisis is the iPod lost all its music and how, he moans, can we go on vacation without music?  And, although we are stuffed with 2 iPads, an iPhone, an Apple Mac Air, 3 kindles (one just "in case") and my lowly Android phone -- HIS iPad proceeded to freeze up.  Franticness.  Call Apple.  Try to read microscopic numbers on the back to get help.  Success.  IPad back up.  (BTW, who needs 2 (two) iPads  anyway??!) And then, well, the Apple Mac Air needs charging, and one of the 3 (count them - three) kindles needs charging.   And suddenly,  from that mysterious iCloud, the music suddenly appeared on the iPod.  I am getting confused with all the iPad-Pod-Phone stuff.  We even had to take Bos's phone AND his iPad to see if Skype really worked from here.  Engineers.  What can I say... Life for most people used to be so simple...

We are now sitting in the AA lounge, eating chips, drinking wine, plugging in all devices we apparently can't live without.  I have duly lectured Bos on how I hate him and never want to go anywhere with him.  And I'm ready to go home...so, despite everything,  we are off, halfway around the world, engineer and wife, sparring all the way. To Australia.  With all the bugs, sharks, snakes...but more about that in my next post.

IT'S TIME FOR THE IRVINE TRIP BLOG ONCE AGAIN!

    
                                        Southeast  Asia  2013

So. It's time once again for the Irvines to take a trip. AND it seemed, a year ago, at the time when we booked the trip, like a good idea. You know how, in the winter, people browse through seed and bulb catalogs, dreaming of summer? Well, travel companies are not stupid. They do exactly the same thing. Our mailboxes are jammed with cruise and travel catalogs that show us swaying palm trees on white sand beaches, colorful foreign outdoor markets in colorful foreign countries, exoic sights and sounds. And we browse these catalogs.
So, about a year ago, we booked a trip to Southeast Asia. After al, it is summer in Australia now. And isn't it hot in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia all the time?? Except now it is TIME. The year's up. Yikes! Which means al the good intentions of losing weight, getting in shape, reading up on the sites and countries, saving money to pay for it: -- all these intentions except ONE remain intentions only. What ONE? Not the weight, nor the shape thing, and not even the reading part.  We have saved the money and, in fact, paid it to the cruise line.  And I so do not want go a year later!! But since we can't get our money back or have to die or something to do that, we are headed out.  Bu first, we have to pack... ye gods!

Yeah, it'll all fit in two small bags.

TO FOLLOW OUR ADVENTURES, COMPLETE WITH PICTURES BY BOS, GO TO AND FOLLOW US FLOATING FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY ON A DAILY BLOG AT:

knbtrip.blogspot.com