Happy New Year!

This year has been 16 hours shorter than normal for me and I am already into 2008. Sydney does hard core fireworks and I am too tired right now to describe them! I do recommend going over to the SMH website to check out their slideshow of the event.....

Gym culture shock

I went to try out a gym today and had the rude shock of discovering that, of course, the treadmill pace was in km/hr. Had no idea how fast (well, slow) I was running....

Ugh

I really hate the Sydney cockroaches. They are out in force tonight and my kill rate is low.

Oh yeah

Merry Christmas, y'all! I think that as I type is part of the short window of time were all of the US and Australia are in Christmas together (though Santa is still hard at work over there).

We didn't do much to celebrate except enjoy each other's company, eat pie on fancy place mats, and build lots of bookshelves. Yay!

My first Aussie animal

I know it doesn't look like much, but this little guy climbing up the bank was my first Australian animal sighting. We spotted him in the road (in time to avoid smushing him) but were too excited to think of cameras until the last minute. This is an echidna, which, along with the platypus, is a monotreme (an egg-laying animal that suckles its young). Echidnas look a bit like porcupines with a long, anteater-like snout. And they waddle. In a very cute way.

(N.B.: I recommend clicking on the picture for a better view.)

Another mystery solved

As my sister and I were walking through Anandale on our unsuccessful car caper (perhaps a story for another day) I finally, definitely heard a kookaburra! I have been dying to hear one and I saw a couple at the wildlife park in Tasmania (where the 'roo picture is from) but they were stubbornly silent. But this was an honest to god kookaburra call(s) that started out as sort of a fast laugh (I think I have heard that before) that then crescendoed into an incredibly loud monkey laugh. Oo oo ah ah!!!! I think there were two of them, laughing away.

Tassie

Some of the recent silence has been because I was in Tasmania with the family for 5 days. Will be posting lots of pictures over the next bit, but this is a teaser.