Side Kiss Greeting Thing...Awkward

Today marks the completion of this goal "98. Post every day for 1 month on From Oz to Aus" from this list. So yay me (and Hyatt helped too)!

But I feel like posting that above paragraph doesn't really count as a post so I better come up with something real, right?

Ok - random thoughts and events for the week.

1 - Australians greet people with the side cheek kiss thing. I think it comes from the British influence. Regardless, it makes me feel super awkward. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, here's a visual:

This lady looks much happier than I am when she's being greeted.

I feel like this is a semi invasion of my personal space but I go along with it because it's hard to avoid an incoming kiss-greeting and it's also a little bit rude to turn it down, I think. But it still makes me feel weird and I never kiss back. Next time you meet someone new, speak with an Australian accent and do the side kiss greeting - you'll freak people out. I think I'm going to do it when I return to stateside.

2 -  Tonight while on our way to dinner at our friend's house, I started walking a pipe fence. I made it 16 steps without falling off - woo. Big life accomplishment. So on the way home, Hyatt decided to try his hand. **Sidenote**: Hyatt is NOT coordinated. Although he tries very hard. Anyway, for 20 flippin minutes he tried walking the fence to beat me. Unsuccessful - personal best 11 steps. I wish I had a video of it, because you would have peed your pants from laughter. I love him but wow.

3 - Tomorrow (Saturday) marks the first weekend that I haven't had to get up early for a conference, meeting, work or to catch a flight. Amen to that.

4 - Two months from today (Friday) we will be doing some major life changes..... drumroll............................................. We will be returing to the states that day. Only two short months left and we've got them jam packed - trip to Tasmania, trip to Alice Springs/Uluru/Coober Pedy, two research projects (not Hyatt's) and a conference in Adelaide where Hyatt and I will both be presenting. Time will fly by and we're going to try to fit as much time in with our friends here in Melbourne before we leave. :(

Ok- that's about all for today. Thanks for reading and commenting. I noticed that commenting has started to drop off towards the end of the 30 day goal so I/we must have been annoying you. No worries, you can expect to only have 2-3 posts/week from here on out. Much more manageable I hope.

Lastly, at the conclusion of this little adventure, what would you like to see done with this blog? Should I add the phrase 'and back again' to the original title? Continue with our random life happenings? Cease the blog? Looking for some comment love here, folks

Holla,
~ Brandi ~

A few of my favorite things

I've been getting a lot of questions from native Australians about my favorite (and least favorite) Aussie things. I want to share some of these answers with you:

Fave food - Chicken & chips -- not completely an Aussie thing but better than any I've found in the states

Least fave food - Vegemite. Sick

Fave street - Lygon in Carlton

Fave place we've visited - Seeing the Sydney Opera House was awesome. So was Cairns. Cairns wins because I held a koala there.

Fave drink - Cider- it's not your mama's apple cider.

Fave clothing store (that I can afford) - Cotton On

Fave clothing store (that I can't afford) - Review

Fave thing about Melbourne - the rain and the large variety of shops

Least fave thing about Melbourne - public transport

I"m going to work on getting Hyatt to fill out a fave questionnaire and if you have any questions you'd like answered, leave them in the comments section!

Cheers!
Brandi

Great Barrier Reef Trip #2

Most people don't get to see the Great Barrier Reef in their lifetime and this can be attributed to several things:
1 - Australia is way the hell far away from any other landmass except Antartica and Indonesia. There's a lot of water between us and the states, check it.

2. Most people aren't too keen on swimming with the fishes - ya know, da big ones.  We didn't see any sharks while snorkeling but we did see a few smaller ones while scuba diving. The big ones gotta eat something. Small sharks = dinner for big sharks.

3. It's bloody expensive to get across all that water.

4. They don't have the travel bug and are content to stay on their home continent - which is totally fine. There are many times that I wish I was on my home continent.

5. Did I mention it's a helluva long way over here?!

So, very blessed to have taken back to back trips to the GBR. This time it was with Lenny, Candace and Jenny.  We didn't roadtrip this time but rather flew there and back so that we had more time in paradise.

Our room deluxe huge suite was flippin awesome - look.

I"m not kidding when I say paradise. Look at all the cool stuff we did while we were up there:

Went to the oldest rainforest on the planet - The Daintree Rainforest. We took a monorail to get there (I'm petrified of suspended heights) and a somewhat antique railway to get down.

Jenny and I were very excited to hold koalas - it was the highlight of our day!

We also went on a snorkeling/scuba trip. This was our ship

Catching some rays

Lots and lots of fish.

Perhaps one of the most spectacular sites during their visit were the things we saw on the Great Ocean Road.  The London Bride, 12 Apostles (there are only really 6 or 7), koalas in trees, a gorgeous lighthouse and sunset over the ocean.

All in all - wonderful trip. So glad we got to see our friend if only for a short time.

Another post tomorrow - promise!

Until next time,

~ Buzzard ~

Catching up from July

Hola! Wait, wrong country.

I'm back from my wondrous adventures in Kansas, Canada, Ohio and North Dakota. Yeah, I get around.....the world.

So, back in July, I promised updates on our trip with Andy, Mandy and Kristen and the pictures from our trip with Lenny, Candace and Jenny. I'm going to do that all.... right now. But really fast and in less detail because I have a lot I want to blog about in the upcoming days and as usual, when I have something to talk about, I'm generally swamped.

As I was saying, A,M and K visited and we left off in Sydney where I was planking and your brain exploded. Caught up? Great.

After Sydney we went to Tamworth and saw friends Daniel and Kate (who we met on our honeymoon in Fiji) and a giant golden guitar (Tamworth is the country music capital of Australia)

 then to Lamington National Park where went hiking, checked out a waterfall and watched the sun rise at about 6 am

gorgeous, huh?

 In front of the waterfall. It was a long way down.

Andy and his massive hiking stick.

Then it was off to Rockhampton to meet some beef producers. Many thanks to the Lawrie family for hosting us and treating us like royalty!

Quite the sight to see so many eared cattle (Brahman influence)!

A good looking group and check out my shirt (K-State I <3 Beef)!

They use camels to keep watch over their cattle. That's neat!

 Finally, we landed in Airlie Beach.....where we had a blast!

Andy made a new friend

Andy, Hyatt and the martian triplets went snorkeling.

And the view was amazing.

We returned back to Melbourne 9 days after we left - tired and broke (er, more broke) - but we had the time of our lives.

I know I promised to post about Candace, Jenny and Lenny but it's late and I'm tired and honestly, I need to live up to my goal of posting 1/day for a whole month (#98) and to do that I can't stuff 3 weeks time into one post. So you'll have to wait.

See you on the flip side!

Until next time,

~ Brandi ~

Our First Visitors!

We had the great pleasure of hosting some of our friends from the states from June 25- July 6. And boy oh boy did we have a blast.

After picking them up at the aiport at 9:30 am, and hugging and crying, we rushed them back to the Phat Flat at Hilda's so that we could get on the road. We fed them and sprayed some water on them to wash the stink off and then set off in this magnificent beast of a vehicle. I present to you: Maxine the iMax.

Okay - after writing that, I realized I didn't have a great picture of Maxine but I have this one that shows most of her body and highlights Andy's charming smile. Did I mention our friends were Andy, Mandy and Kristen? Now I did.

I also have this picture of the inside of Maxine and the backseat which became known as "The Man Cave' - Andy sat there and that shall serve as explanation enough.

We girls didn't go back there much - ew.

Our first stop was Sydney and we didn't get there until approximately midnight. Which was fine except we stayed in the heart of Sydney in the *Red Light District*. Hostels, houses of ill repute, bars and no parking. Awesome. Our accomodation was fine but finding a parking spot and getting into our room was a you know what.

The next morning, after some fruit, yogurt and squished muffins (ask Andy about that) we set off for  what is probably the only thing that 90% of American's can identify with Australia: the Sydney Opera House. I remembered to charge the camera this time so hallelujah!

Cue angels and trumpets etc.

Awesome huh? We also saw the Harbour Bridge which you can climb if you dish out $200 AUD but we're not loaded and I'm pretty much petrified of heights so we bowed out of that one.

Here are some pictures of Sydney and the Harbour area on our trip which Mandy, Kristen and I dubbed -- "Chronicles of the Boat Shoes"

K-S-U Wildcats!

From l-r: Mandy, me and Kristen

Ha - I snuck a mushy one in there on you. Do I hear 'awwww'?

I can't find a picture of the whole group of us in Sydney buuuutttt I did find this picture....

I bet your brain just exploded - planking, boom.

Ok - that's enough for now. Coming up: more of our road trip from Melbourne to Airlie Beach (which is the equivalent of driving from LA to Chicago. Google it, I'm serious).

Thanks for reading!

Love,

FroBuzz