my wee report

K, here I am again!

Yesterday we got back from our two day trip on the Great Ocean Road. It was gorgeous! It reminded me of Cape Breton a little bit, with some cliffs, arches, and beautiful blue green water. We had a bunch of rain with the sunshine, but we saw nearly ten rainbows. Wowsers, God's creation is truly amazing!

On the way home we saw an echidna! It looks a little like a hedgehog but it has a long pointy snout. I wouldn't have known what it was when we passed it except that we went to the Healsville Sanctuary last Monday which had most of the Australian animals. We even got to see platypus! I had a lot of fun taking up close pictures of the animals (telephoto zoom works wonders), until Amanda's cousin George started joking about leaving me there overnight since I seemed to like it there so much.hehe

On Tuesday we went to the Vic Market, which was really neat. It reminded me of the Suq, King David Street, a flea market, a delhi, and a food court all in one! Inside was mostly food with their keepers set up in stalls, hurriedly supplying the demands of the waiting crowd, or just standing there bored with a couple yells or polite offerings of free samples. The place was fairly crowded, and as we dodged our way through the sporadic mass, a variety of smells hit me. Some of it was fish, but mostly it was odors I couldn't name, only guess at.

Large fish lay behind glass covers, or bright red meat tempted the bloodthirsty as their keepers frantically handed them out, for a price of course. Soon we started passing bread stalls, a cheese shop, or colorful candy places, all spread out confusedly one after another.

We soon left the indoors and went out under a huge covered pavilion, under which brightly colored fruit was arrayed, plus vegetables and such. Then we went under another covered area, larger than the last, with numerous very long aisles lined with a conglomeration of goods. T-shirts, Pooh blankets, boomerangs, wallets, jewelry, scarves, hats, postcards, calendars, stuffed animals, ties, shoes, and many other trinkets to amuse tourists, plus more practical stuff like baby clothes or sports team jerseys. I even saw a Red Sox jersey!!! I guess it just proves that Red Sox Nation rules even in Australia (true, I did see other teams, but Red Sox was most prominent and I didn't see any Yankees, which is very remarkable). Here we wandered and searched and browsed, making up our minds as we made our purchases for ourselves or others. We spent probably three hours there, but I didn't think it was near enough time!

That afternoon we went to a suburb called Brighton where they have a whole bunch of brightly painted boathouses lined up on the beach. The lighting was great, and they were so pretty! I think photographers Craig and Clyde would have drooled in contentment--I know I sure did!;) I snapped away, but only took like fifteen, when maybe I should have taken a roll (well, maybe; Craig probably would have:). We were only there just under half an hour though because Amanda had to get home and go to her Arabic lesson.

Today has kind of been a catch up day. We went to the supermarket and took a quick trip to the mall, but mostly I've been hanging around writing post cards or writing in my journal--I still have to catch up! Tonight we're going out to have Spanish donuts with a friend of Amanda's and two of her "Uni" friends. Speaking of donuts, we've discovered that people over here think it's nearly ridiculous to have donuts for breakfast! I think they think we're close to crazy or something, maybe. Amanda could hardly believe it when Kendra and I told her, and she went so far as to ask the lady at the gas station if she would ever eat donuts for breakfast. The lady replied no quite emphatically, and, since she was the friendly sort, she started to say that you would only eat donuts for breakfast if you were a "big fat guy" with nothing else to eat ("um, are you implying something?"). Okay, fellow Americans; prove I'm not crazy (maybe we all are): would YOU eat donuts for breakfast???

I'll leave you to ponder that question.