On the Bottom Half

What's new Pussycat?

Woah-Woah-Woah-Woah-Woah... Nah, I don't really know that song, but for some reason it just popped into my head.

Not too much new on the Aussie homefront except for the warm summer weather. It was 32 today (that's real degrees), followed by 30-something tomorrow, then 38 on Sunday and Monday. All you sun-worshippers who were jealous of my leaving the winter to the summer of Aus should spend a month in Alice Springs in January and have all your fantasies straightened out. One Aussie summer ought to be enough for just about anyone ;-) Except you, Kristin, I reckon you'd always like the heat! Naw, all kidding aside, it's hot.

I've a bit of ordinaryness for the last week or so... this past weekend, Andy and I went diving again out from Portsea, which is south of Melbourne a ways. That same day, Australia celebrated its birthday as 26 January is Australia Day - a day of drinking and merriment, according to the founders ;-) I actually did sip a bit of inebriating long chain organic hydroxls, but mostly I just enjoyed the fireworks. After diving, Andy dropped me off at the house, which was followed by a trip into the city at the behest of my roommate to catch what was goin' down in the city for the Australia Day festivities. The roommate packed it in after about 30 minutes, but I stayed on to watch the cultural festivites followed by the fireworks, which I have to say Melbourne knows thoroughly how to do. They were from three locations: rooftops of Federation Square, the Sid Meyer Music Bowl across the river, and from the roof of the Eureka Tower, the Southern Hemisphere's tallest residental complex (effectively). Sort of a firey trinity if you were to stand on the bridge above the river. In the link about the Music Bowl, you can see the Eureka tower when it was still being built last year - that's probably about half its completed height. This is also a good picture of the bowl. This is a good site about all the buildings of the Melbourne skyline.

Just before the fireworks, I got an invite to go to a BBQ in St Kilda, which is Melbourne's closest beach district. I made my way there after fighting my way through the hoardes of people leaving the CBD after the show, got off a couple of stops too early on the tram line to St Kilda, and promptly got lost while trying to get directions to where I needed to go. That was quickly followed up by my phone running out of credit, and my frustration. If you ever travel in Australia, you will find so many things to love, but the road system is curiously confusing and it seems to be a shortcoming of the urban planners to make the streets navigable. Part of my confusion lay in the fact that the street I needed was marked as a 'no exit' road from the direction I was travelling, but which it was in fact not a 'no exit'. But, that's pretty small bananas, because Calgary's not much better with all the streetlights everywhere and the interminably long drive to get out of the city just from my Dad's house, which is really on the outskirts. Ahhh traffic, what could I complain about if it weren't for traffic?

Several of the PhDs at Monash seem to be able to afford rent in St Kilda and for fairly obvious reasons they enjoy it. They'd saved a little food for me and I chatted and got the confusingly unfiltered yet somehow less pretentious advice about life in general and doing post graduate studies in particular from some of the wobbling weekend lushes. I ended up staying overnight and fighting with a friendly but persistent cat who wanted the whole foot area of the covers I was sleeping under. I'd kick him off, but he'd leap right back on when my feet stopped moving. Comfortable sleep though, for all that!

Saturday I spent wandering the town in and out of the shops looking at all the amazing array of stuff. The winter season clothes are hitting the racks already! People were in the ski shop (yes, a ski shop - Altitude) buying boots and last year's ski and snowboard jackets. They actually stock ski racing stuff and I was only too glad to gawk at that while dreaming of my racing days and when I might pick them up again.

I phoned about flying, but the airplane was booked now that it's not broken. I'm slated for tomorrow afternoon and I'm pretty stoked about that!! Makes me wonder though... there's something about a Rotax engine in an airplane that still doesn't seem right to me.

Sunday was spent sleeping in and cleaning the house. It was yucky and it rarely gets organised, thus it was calling out to me for some work. Neighbour's computer is toast, literally. Power spikes fried it. He's got it fixed, but it's still giving me hassles and I can't get the wireless working again. Apparently there's some worldwide upgrading of electrical lines and equipment which is taking a particularly high toll on T.V.s, computers, and other electronica.

Miss you lots!

posted by Kyle @ 07:48