Taxi drivers, more trouble than they're worth...

I'll start out by saying that Sydney is more beautiful than I remember. It may (definitely) has something to do with the fact that we were staying in an incredible residential area filled with harbor side expanses built in the early 1900's. Todd and I had two very nice planned walks through the winding streets, and one unplanned walk.
The wedding was at a ladies college (6-12 grade) in the outskirts of the city and the reception was at a restaurant straddling the water on the north side of Sydney. After a beautiful ceremony, Todd and I returned back to our hotel which was very close to the reception (not a coincidence ;-D). We decided to taxi it because I was a bit tired of driving stick through a city with hills that could give SF a run for its money. We called the cab and waited, and waited and waited until it showed up, zoomed passed the hotel and screeched down the street. Not the best start to the trip.
The cabbie proceeded to pick us up and then go the wrong way down a dead end street. A few minutes later he dropped us off at what we thought was the correct location. Boy were we wrong. iPhone maps gave us the wrong address and we were 3.5 k away from the actual location. Already 30 min late, we decided to hike up our skirts (Todd's theoretical) and find the place ourselves. I took off my heels, he loosened his tie and we were off! 35 minutes later we sweatily reached the restaurant and fell into chairs right before dinner was served. Lessons learned: never trust iPhone maps or cabbies that miss your hotel and go into a dead end street and Todd and I need to step up the exercise ! It was only 3.5k after all, obviously we have nothing to complain about :)

Getting hot hot hot

I definitely remember the heat last summer. The dripping, stifling, as soon as you walk outside you can't breathe hot but I forgot about the storms. Believe me, we welcome the rain. It means a chance to catch up on work and the possibility of a day off. The thunder and lightening, however, still slightly terrify the little girl inside of me. This is why Todd took pictures of the storm while standing outside and I took pictures from the window :) I don't think I did too bad though! The heat is something else here. Worse than I remember CA heat although that might just be because there isn't a movie theater nearby for me to take refuge in. Actually I think it is worse here. Wayne (a surveyor) was just saying that when he worked at mt iser it got to 50 degrees Celsius. Look it up, it's HOT. So hot in fact that when he set up his Total Station and pushed the tripod into the pavement, it pushed right through. The tar was melting under his feet hot. Definitely fry and egg on the bonnet of a car hot. So if you are freezing this Thanksgiving, remember me and send some cool weather my way!

Everyday Occurrence

I have never seen so many interesting things on the backs of semis before. One day on the way to work there was a house precariously balanced on the bed of the trailer. Not 1/2 a house that has just come from the factory like track homes, but a full blown house barely kept on the back of the trailer by flimsy straps and people running before and behind to keep it balanced. We had to drive onto the curb to get out of the way. Pretty amazing.

Here is another wide load that I spotted this morning coming back from the gym. A huge moxie sitting on the back of the truck blocking off all traffic. Yup, just another day in Dalby... :)

Unwelcome friends

So I've just been out in the field and these little buggers are out in full force! I have never seen such ballsy little suckers. They don't fly, they swarm. Hopefully it means more rain is coming!
Our handy soil tester Sam posed for this picture :)

Getting your pen license

Yes you heard me right, pen license. Sometimes Australia jut shocks me with their old-school, commonwealth-ish traditions and this one is now close to the top of my list. When a young lad or lass starts grade 5 ( second to last year of primary school), they get the option of buying pens. Before this there was only pencils on their book list. I can only imagine how exciting that must have been. I LOVE stationery shops and to be deprived of a whole row of supplies until grade five; the summer before must have been like Christmas and Hannukah all rolled into one!
Back to the facts; in grade five, you would continue to write in pencil until the teacher said you were neat enough for your pen license. Then you would be written down in a special book and the wonders of writing in pen would be open to you. So the reason this all came about is because Todd still does not have his pen license. He used the pen training wheels but to no avail. What are pen training wheels you ask? Those rubber triangles that force you to write correctly. I know, I know. Too cute.
In any case, Todd was never neat enough to get his pen license and he still says he is worried he might still get a smack on the knuckles for bad penmanship. The thing is, I think Todd's penmanship is pretty darn neat. I can't imagine how many people I know that would never have gotten their pen license...

Emu!!

Sitting in the office eating my lunch and I thought I would share a quick picture I took earlier today! I was out with Wally (one of Todd's new employees) showing him the ropes and this walked across the road! I have never seen one of these in the wild before and especially not on our site! Pretty crazy, ey?! I will try to snap a picture of the kangaroos I see on our site. We used to see the same family every morning but they have moved on. We still see one four times a week or so. Pretty nuts :) it's a jungle out there!

New start

Hope everyone had an easy fast today as we start the new year. I have just downloaded a blogger app on my phone to help me blog more. It is so hard to find time to blog with my hectic schedule. I have even started working in the car to and from work. Upside is that Todd and I are taking Thursday/ Friday off this week. First two day stint off since I was in America. Soo looking forward to this. In any case, long story short, with this new app I should be able to blog once a week now. As soon as I see something I want to share I will! Expect some pictures from Brissie tomorrow!