Happy Australia Day!

Happy Australia Day!

Saturday, 26th of January was Australia Day, which celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. Since it is the middle of the summer here, Australia day is very similar to the 4th of July back in the States, and most people celebrate by having cookouts on the beach and drinking all day.

While I was unable to participate in the Australia day festivities as I was learning how to breathe underwater this weekend (details in a later post), Mere joined in on some stereotypical activities with some of our friends at Fairlight Beach:

I would throw another shrimp on the barbie, but there's no room!

The weekend prior, Mere and I thought we could get some quality time at the beach, but it turned out to be a bit crowded with the annual Manly Carnival:

The Manly Carnival is the largest surf and lifesaving club event in New South Wales and holds races and competitions between many surf and lifesaving clubs from around the country.

Unfortunately Mere and I forgot our speedos budgy smugglers, so we couldn't compete below. Also these 10-12 year olds are also signficantly more athletic than I have ever been in my life. Pretty intimidating:

 

This past week I was also able to surf (also known as 'athletic drowning') before work, which I can now cross off my bucket list. Now I just need to convince Mere to let me buy my own board.

Also, our local library has a pretty good sense of humor. Thought you all would get a kick out of this:

 

More blog posts to come in regular intervals, we promise.

Cheers!

Scuba Motes

Mere finished her Scuba certification this week in preparation for our trip up to the Great Barrier Reef at the end of February.

I take my Scuba course in 2 weeks - enough time for Mere to give me the answers ahead of time. Mainly, don't get eaten by sharks.

On Tuesday this past week it got pretty warm in Sydney:

Since there is basically no Ozone layer above Australia, it felt a lot warmer than triple digits. It felt like 1 billion degrees out - reminds me of that annoying but catchy dunkin donuts commercial:




Lastly, a lot of people have asked how Jax is doing and we wanted to let you know he is doing great and he says hello (and a belated happy holidays):

Mere's dream of being on Shark Week may finally come true!

Duh Nuh.........

Duh Nuh.......

Duh Nuh, Duh Nuh, Duh Nuh, Duh Nuh, Duh Nuh, Duh Nuh,

Dunuh Dee!

Just a typical Sunday at Manly Beach, full with a Shark sighting today.

Apparently there are tons of illiterate swimmers in Australia.

Happy 2013!

 Now that the rest of the world has caught up; Happy New Year!

We took a cruise out in Sydney Harbor to watch the fireworks from the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  It was a pretty good deal, we got to bring our own food and drink while they positioned us in the water to see the fireworks, which were pretty amazing. Unfortunately, since we were in a boat and moving most of the time, almost all of our pictures were pretty blurry.

Here is a picture of the sun setting over by Rose Bay where we docked for awhile.

I’m glad we didn’t stay there since the Royal Caribbean cruise ship would have been blocking our entire view of the bridge. It would be like going to the movies or a sporting event and getting to your seats only to find some 7 footer sitting in front of you. With a ginormous head. And an Abraham Lincoln hat. And an umbrella. And he’s surrounded by his entire family who are also all seven footers w/ huge heads, hats, and umbrellas.

We spent New Years day testing out our new wet suits:

Best Worst cure for a hangover: Snorkeling

As part of improving our blog in the new year, we are incorporating a new feature – a running tally of things that are better/worse/different (good +bad) in Australia/US.

Item #1: Chicken Salt

Maybe we have this in the US, but I never knew what Chicken Salt was before I got here. They put this on chips (fries) and other things. Turns out it is kind of like a granulated bouillon cube (not dehydrated chicken tears as I first thought). Chicken salt explains why they have chicken flavored crisps (chips) and crackers. Because how many times have you been eating a cracker and thought to yourself, “Hey, you know what would go great with this Ritz? Chicken flavoring!”

And if you guessed that the barbecue chicken flavored shapes are disgusting, give yourself a point

Chicken Salt? Negative 1 point for Australia.

(Looks like Australia may have already totally redeemed themselves as we discovered this morning that they are airing Mere’s favorite short-lived, prematurely cancelled NBC sitcom Perfect Couples. + 1 billion points for Australia)

Scoreboard:

Australia: 999,999,999

US: 0