Welcome to the Australian Bush

Hello All!

OK so you know I will explain the subject near the end of the message.

I have been busy and fairly unhappy at work so once I have gotten out of work the last thing I have wanted to do is get back on the computer and send yet another e-mail, since that is such a huge part of my job. So I have 2 apologizes: 1) I am so sorry to all those have sent me individual e-mails that I have not replied to. I will try my hardest to reply before the New Year. That is the best I can do at the moment. 2) I am sorry that it has been almost 2 months since I have sent an update to everyone. I will try to be better in the future. My goal is at least one update a month.

Now don't you fret, outside of work I have been very happy. Here has been a basic update for the past couple of months:

I went to the Blue Mountains again. One of my co-workers, Keith, and I went to Wentworth Falls. The falls were beautiful and the wind was blowing in such a way the water was actually flowing upwards instead of falling downwards. Keith and I had a serious case of the giggles that day. If we can figure out how we might even have some video to put on the web of that day. Wish us luck.

Another thing that has taken up much of my time is I have set up a web page for a friend's band. It is not complete but it is near so: www.starless.au.com I am hoping to set up a number of free web pages as a portfolio of sorts so that I can design web pages as a free lance job. I still need to gather a number of skills but between that page, the redesign of my web page (which is in the works) and my Girl Guide District Page, I should have a good start.

I also spent a weekend at the Sussex Inlet. This is a small inlet of the ocean about 3 hours south of here. The water was incredibly clear and beautiful. I went with a number of friends and we spent the weekend running feral through the woods.

I feel I should mention here that Halloween and Thanksgiving went by completely uneventfully (is that a word?). But we have had a holiday of sorts here in the past couple of months: Melbourne Cup Day. I mentioned this last year and I will mention it again. It is basically the Kentucky Derby in which every person in the country stops to watch and bet on. I won $40 in the office sweeps. WooHoo!

Now to explain my welcome to the Australian Bush: Well I have always hated ants and this is the first time I have ever had a reason to. I went camping with the Girl Guides this past weekend. Everyone who had not been to the camp was given a basic tour of the camp. Well, within the first 15 minutes of the hike one of the younger girls had this massive red ant on her. My response was to try to get it off of her. 1) I tried using a stick to fling it off. No luck. 2) then I tried to flick it off with my hand. Still no luck. So I try the stick again. This entire time I did not notice that I was standing on the ant hill and my legs were covered in these ants. So the girl and I ran a bit from the ant hill. I finally got the ant off her than I started working on my own legs. They were stinging and biting me through my sock! And each sting/bite hurt worse than any bee sting I had ever gotten. 7 sting/bites in all on both sides of both ankles, ouch!

The rest of the weekend went extremely well. We were in tents (I had forgotten how well I sleep in tents). The weather was perfect. The guides were good fun, as well as completely interested in all the activities that there was for them to partake in. And of course we had an amazing campfire.

In less than 8 hours I am hopping onto a plane to go to Cairns, which is in Northern Australia. If all goes as planned by Thursday I will be snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. I will be there for 4 days. I am looking forward to the bigger holiday. Also, I love flying, and I have not been on a plane since I moved here so I am even looking forward to bad airplane food.

Now for everyone's favourite part of my updates: vocabulary.

American	Australian
Elevator	Lift
Cheer Barrack for (In Oz do not use the word Root unless you know what it means)
Asphalt	Bitumen
Liquer Store	Bottler
Box of Wine	Cask of Wine (Aussie invention)
General Store	Deli or Milk Bar
Newspaper Store	News Agent
Hood (of a car)	Bonnet
Trunk (of a car)	Boot
Windshield	Windscreen

Take Care,
Tia