Island Hopping!

Sydney is having it's annual International Food Festival this month. The city is hosting tons of events TONS! One was breakfast on the bridge, they close the Harbor bridge and roll out green grassy carpet and you get to picnic there, how cool! We did not get to go to that, maybe next year, but we did go Island Hopping. I am not sure what the link between the event and food was, because no food was served, oh except for hot dogs and prepacked ice cream for purchase. Nonetheless, it was a great afternoon! We took a small ferry to three seperate islands all with activities and themes, colonial life, marine and aboriginal. We picnicked and had a great day! A few calamities: our Bob Stroller would not fit on the ferry, Mike discovered this as he was trying to get through the door, the boys and I were already making our way to some outdoor seats so we had no idea. He had to fold the stroller which sent all of the bottom basket contents flying...two mini soccer balls, a towel, tissues, diapers, Thomas the Trains you get the idea, shit everywhere. Other passengers helped him collect the contents and he folded up the stroller and eventually made it in. We sat unaware in the back practicing our wave. Folding the stroller meant he had to move the soft sided cooler perched on top, as he slung it around his shoulder the strap broke so he had to carry the heavy cooler dangling like a pendulem.  Again, we were too busy practicing our wave to help. WAVE WAVE WAVE!
One of the many highlights was getting to watch the Keel Boat Spinnaker Event in the Harbor. Yeah, I had to look it up. There were about 50 little sailboats that are more like little catamarans, manned by three people each that would sail back and forth based on when a loud horn would sound. They go very fast and get extremely close to each other and all sailers wear wetsuits cuz there is a good chance you are swimming if you are not so good, like the guys on the red sail boat, they went over twice while we were watching. It is quite a sight to see them right themselves, they hang on the one high side and heave ho heave ho flip it and and two of three scramble on to start working the sails to make sure it does not tip again and then the last guy can get on after they make sure they are balanced. I wish I had some kind of skill like that.  It would be so cool to go racing around the harbor in my wetsuit!
We were all very relaxed on the ride back, except Colin, he talked the whole ride back, he talked so much that a 4 y.o behind us who was trying to nap shushed him twice! Colin paid no mind and kept narrating the trip, BOAT WAVE OCEAN BRIDGE OPRA HOUSE BOAT WAVE BRIDGE OPRA HOUSE GO GO GO GO, you get the idea.

BRIDGE!!!!!

I think my brother just dropped Thomas over the edge! 

Miracle Shot! Both Boys looking in the same place at the same time!

Marine life straight from the Harbor, literally divers were pulling them up and then putting them back!

Funny mushroom rock, you would not believe how long it took to take a pic without another person posing in it!

Go little boats GO!

big day out!

I love this pic! Please know I am not making fun, I love the Jesus and the Gospel!  It sums up Ozzie attitude, they do not try and make it pretty or say "fun and  fellowship" or "change your life" "meet new friends" etc... they just tell it like it is. This is exactly what will happen when you show up on Sunday. Period. 

It was probably the prettiest day weather wise since we have been here so we walked around the Harbor, through the Botanic Garden, went to pizza dinner in the rocks, it was terrible (our original choice would have been way too fancy for a family outing) then in an effort to capture every minute of the weekend, we sat in the Oktoberfest BierGarten. This is where a girl fell in love with Car, she tried to kiss him three different times. She was wild and rough, she gave him a WWF throwdown at one point, she put rocks and sticks in his hair, he loved all of it. Colin hid behind Mommy.  He told Mike her name was Dawn, he has no idea, I am sure which makes it funny he chose Dawn, Dawn meet Jim, Jim this is Dawn. When we ask if he has a girlfriend he points to his hair.

Hooray for physical fitness!!!

I am so behind on blogging which is probably no matter since I have talked to my Mom and Sally at length and I think they may be my only faithful, but anyway...my Dad or Gil maybe interested :) The boys started swim lessons last Wednesday at the Ryde Athletic Club. It hosted some portion of the Sydney Olympics so it is a pretty nice center. Learning pool, MANY lap pools,  and they have lots of stuff the kids like, a kids slide, a big duck that shoots water, a lobster shower, no doubt all parts of the original Olympic creation.! (and now for Olympic Lobster Spray...the favorite is Colin Medor he has been training vigorously in the big boy shower to prepare for this moment)
They did as well as to be expected at swimming, I have not enrolled us in the JR Olympic team just yet, but we show promise in the bubble blowing event. Their instructors name is Titik and she sings nursery rhymes that sound familiar but have really different words, so I hum along b/c I never know when one of the crazy words will hit, and sometimes I sing loudly on accident and she looks at me like I am not so smart.
At this age you still get in the water with them but she is confident that in a few weeks they will not need me, I know I will be suited up until December. Not that I mind, but I realized I must hover because my kids do not think they can have fun without me. Carson even pulls me into things like slides and tunnels I am way too big for. I will soak it up for now as I know soon I will hear "go away MOMMY!" Here is an odd thing about Sydney SAHM, they do not like to be involved in anything that resembles play with their children. I have witnessed this at parks, the pool, everywhere, they kinda hang back with a friend or two and check out of the scene with a cappuccino or two. There are Moms at the pool with kids who are clearly not capable swimmers, the kids are off by their non swimming drowning risk selves and the Moms are dressed in street clothes.  Two ladies had their older boys about 4 y.o swimming while they sat and drank coffee with their 2 y.o in the pram crying to get in the water. They finally let the younger ones in but never suited up themselves. I have heard kids begging for the Moms to play and the moms act deaf. It is odd to me, the only time you see Moms playing is on the weekends and I have to assume these are working moms who miss the time with their kids. To be a working Mom here requires you make a large sum of $, daycare is about $100/day per child so the choice to stay home may not have been a choice at all? Who knows why these Moms are so checked out? Who am I to judge? Anyway, Weds at the center was so quiet only the kiddos doing lessons and some Grandmas enjoying water aerobics and coffee club. We went back Friday, the kids had been begging since we got home Wednesday, Friday was a much different story. There were about 1000(I am not exaggerating at all) school aged boys having a fun old fashioned field day. This was complete with tug of war, water polo-ish games and all around fun. These kids were playing so hard and having a ball. All the boys participated, no one went in a corner to rebel and not play and all of the boys were fit. There were a few chubby middle schoolers but I think that is the age and growth stage. I wish I could have taken a pic, but I would have looked like a complete extreme illegal cougar. I think my only point for mentioning this is we can yammer on all day about why America is fat, it could be alot of things but if our kids loved to and were encouraged to and felt safe to play I know it could cure most of the problem. So hooray for physical fitness! One point for OZ.

Why are we 6 white boomers? They are only 4 of us, right?

This is what Mike asked me a few weeks ago? He may have been worried I was thinking of cooking up another set of twins or going on an animal spree. I do love the boys, they are a treasure, and I sure miss my animals but...NOPE! We are only 4, and we are not old man roos either, it actually has little to do with us directly. 6 white boomers are special old man white kangaroos that help Santa deliver presents to the children here in OZ, too hot for reindeer is what Rolf says, I think. This song just strikes me as funny and sums up what I think about living here SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT. That means things are pretty much the same, here just different. They celebrate Christmas yes, they have Santa yes, but, he gets around with the help of roos, so SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT. My brother is the one who told me about the song and he is the funniest person I know so I thought naming the blog in inspiration of him would be a good thing.

Here are the Boomers...











Here is a great video: you may have to copy paste








http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlSsffF2xhA
 
Here are the lyrics in case you want to incorporate it into your holiday caroling repertoire:

by Rolf Harris and John Brown, 1960

This song is a favourite of most Aussies, young and old alike. For those of you who don't know this song, white boomers are special kangaroos that Santa uses in Australia instead of a traditional reindeer team. Our boomers are stronger than reindeer so Santa only needs six of them to pull his sleigh. It's quite sight to see!

Wondering what the six boomers names are? Rolf tells the story about them on one side of a 45 record he did with this song on the other side. The boomers names are Jackaroo, Bluey, Two-up, Desert-head, Curly and Snow.

Early on one Christmas Day a Joey Kangaroo,
Was far from home and lost in a great big zoo.
Mummy, where's my mummy? They've taken her away.
We'll help you find your mummy, son. Hop up on the sleigh.

Up beside the bag of toys little Joey hopped,
But they hadn't gone far when Santa stopped.
Unharnessed all the reindeer and Joey wondered why,
Then he heard a far off booming in the sky.

Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
On his Australian run.

Pretty soon old Santa began to feel the heat,
Took his fur-lined boots off to cool his feet,
Into one popped Joey, feeling quite okay,
While those old man Kangaroos kept pulling on the sleigh.

Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
On his Australian run.

Joey said to Santa, Santa, what about the toys?
Aren't you giving some to these girls and boys?'
They've got all their presents, son, we were here last night,
This trip is an extra trip, Joey's special flight.

Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
On his Australian run.

Soon the sleigh was flashing past right over Marble Bar,
Slow down there, cried Santa, it can't be far,
Come up on my lap here, son, and have a look around.
There she is, that's Mummy, bounding up and down.

Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
On his Australian run.

Well that's the bestest Christmas treat that Joey ever had,
Curled up in mother's pouch feeling snug and glad.
The last they saw was Santa heading northwards from the sun,
The only year the boomers worked a double run.

Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
On his Australian run.

Your Going the WRONG WAY!!

Ahhh! I am starting to lose the urge to shout that to all of the other drivers driving on the wrong/I mean left side of the road. As many people told me, hang in there it will be like second nature to you soon. It is. I think. I still have to repeat what my friend Cristin taught me, left turn easy right turn hard. I still have to think, which I guess I really should have been doing all along while driving. AND I still think it is the wrong side, I will tell you why 70-90% of the world's population is right side dominant... and....I found this our today doing research for this sophisticated highly factual blog 2/3 of the population is right eye dominant. So, to drive in the left side requires you take in alot of information on the side that is not dominant for you and is really far away now, (more than likely your a rightie, unless you are Pete Montaigne) I find this to be true when trying to judge the space on the left side of the car. Am I about to hit those parked cars or am I going to be in oncoming traffic? Hard to tell, but important to know. I have started checking my side mirrors and if I can see the lines, behind me, I am good! Who knows whats coming ahead but I am center in the lane!

So, a few things, the speed limit here is how they like for you to keep the swings at My Gym, low and slow.   Real Slow, the speed limit on most freeways is 80 KM  or 50 mph sometimes you can really fly at 100 km or 62 mph. The side streets are generally 40km - 25 mph or 50 31mph or a racy 60km 37 mph. There is no secret speeding they have speed cameras everywhere and you can lose your license for speeding. It is a non aggressive driving culture which makes being a new driver here alot easier. When you use your blinker people actually let you in/over and other drivers generally use their own signals! The blinker is not universally on the right, our Ford rental has it on the right but we test drove another Ford model that had it on the left b/c it was made in Germany? This is another confusing part of wrongside driving I often turn on the wipers on the left when I am trying to indicate I am turning, then I get flustered can't get the wipers off, water sometimes discharges to clean the window, I don't signal my turn and basically f it all up. I do this at least once every trip. argh.
Petrol is by the liter and very expensive, but cheaper mid week than weekends, and you know when someone has a good price because the line can be 10 cars deep.
Cars are also very expensive with a Range Rover and BMW X5 running about 200K. Of course, we bought 2.
The El Camino is alive and well in OZ, the 70's dilema of do I need a car or a truck must still be a pressing one here because this trar(truck/car) is everywhere.
Trucks and El Caminos are called UTE's. El Caminos official name is coup utility vehicle, cute.You may think a road is 4 lanes but watch out the left hand lane maybe used for parking, not off to the side so you can get around, but SURPRISE just right there where you were just driving so you better pray your brakes work and there is no one on the right cuz you are going to swerve city! Swerving ala defensive driving school style. I can not seem to get over this one, it just seems crazy. Do you remember that silly joke about why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? Well this parking on the street is like that bad joke come to life. I attached a pic.

Pedestrians are lucky to be breathing the same air as cars and don't you forget it! You only have the right away when the light up sign turns green starts beeping and tells you to run like hell and then it is still up to you to wave away any oncoming cars. At roundabouts forget it, you can stand forever until some kind and probably foreign soul waves you through. When this happens run like hell because the person in the egg sized 2 door, 3 cars back is going to be honking any minute, and all involved will have to be embarrassed at such a public display of emotion.

Honking is frowned upon and is only used in EXTREME situations, like when the Woolies truck got stuck on a little two lane side road and held up traffic on the big road, some people honked but most just acted like it was totally normal to be at a dead stop for like 10 minutes with an 18 wheeler perpendicular to the road. Also note, if you are honked at, for the love of THE QUEEN and all things decent act like you can not hear anything and nothing is out of the ordinary, reacting to the honk would be almost as shameful as honking!

I think I have mentioned before but backing in and parallel parking are national pastimes, seriously  Australia is trying to add them the Commonwealth Games. 

Can you tell if this car is driving or parking?

This one?

Random pic! Beautiful Wild Cockatoos are everywhere!

And now for our every night feature movie...

Here at the Medina our TV channels are limited. We get about 12 stations about 11.5 of those are FOX, one is Nick.
24/7 we can watch:
Family Guy
American Dad
Simpsons
Icarly
Spongebob Squarepants
Competitive Darts(seriously, do not take this lightly the competitors are fierce and make pro bowlers look weak, I know I thought that was impossible to do too, they all wear sweat towels around their necks tucked into their shirts ala getting a short haircut)
Old and New rugby depending on availability, when u can't get new old will do!
Old and new cricket same as rugby!

and...the best is every night they show a full length feature movie. The newest film we have watched is Marly and Me but usually they are about 10-20 years old at the newest. A few nights ago was Wall Street, last night was Crocodile Dundee 1 and 2. I make fun but they are always addicting! I had to make myself turn off the TV last night as they were going into Croc D 2, I knew if I let Mick Dundee have me for one scene he would have me until 1 am. The other best thing is when they go to commercial they show a still promo pic for the movie like what you would see on a DVD cover and they play a little baah bumm! this is exciting type of music. I kind of remember networks doing this when I was a kid like the Sunday night movie is...and it was a big deal when it was ET or something cool! If you loved it then come to OZ and you can love it now, complete with commercials!

I am sure there are great offerings if you are fancy and hifalutin and have more than 12 channels but I wouldn't know about all that.

Tomorrow...I will tackle the topic of driving and some really strange things they do

How are you going?

Hi Maam, HOW ARE YOU GOING? The nice young lady at Woolies asked me as she approached me with some samples of ice cream. Currently, I go by foot, once I leave here I will go by car and when it is family fun day I go by ferry, I said. Just kidding, I said, "I am Well how are you going?" You see this is what Aussies say to ask each other HOW THEY ARE DOING.
Well GOOD ON YA MATE! This means Great job, well done good for you! They even say it when in reality you did not do so well like the swimmer that got Dehli Belly and did horribly at the Commonwealth Games, the announcer still closed the interview with Good on ya mate! Even though the dude stunk it up! When people say it I can not help but think I am going to need my Tide Stain Stick STAT or the time when my Mom got bird pooped on about 4 miles from our house and had to wash up in the sprinklers of the park like a hobo! All funny but none make me think I did a good job!
YOUR TURN TO SHOUT-no silly not your turn to talk at a loud bar your turn to buy for the group.
NAPPIES-diapers
CAR LEASE-actually in reality a loan
CHEERS- see ya peace out later gator, has nothing to do with toasting you with a beverage

I am sure there are many more that still fly right by me :) I will keep updating this post as I am able to understand these people.

My name is Carson but you can call me Jim

Be forewarned this section is all about the funny things Carson and Colin but mainly Carson say...people who will love this section...Nana, Momo, GGI all others proceed with caution.

This morning I was working on teaching the boys their own names and how to answer when someone says what is your name. Over the months they have thought their names were "me" "brother" and Carson thought his name was Colin for awhile. They call each other by their names but will rarely say their own. I asked Carson what his name is and he said "JIM," I said what? HIM? Thinking this was another instance where he thought the pronoun was his name, he said  "noooo JIM" and I asked Colin what carson's name was and he cracked up and said "JIM" I got my Mom on the phone and asked Carson to tell Momo what his name is and again he said "JIM." I asked him in the car and he said "JIM" We only know one Jim and have not seen him in two months, none of his characters on his DVDs are Jim I have no idea where he got this, but it is hysterical.

I was changing Colin this weekend at the park on a blanket on the grass and Carson was all in Col's business as he is fascinated by all things potty. Mike pointed to Col's bottom and said "whats this?" thinking he would say Butt, tushy, etc... he said in a loud monotone voice "BALLS." Daddy was so busted as clearly Mommy did not teach him BALLS! Enough with the anatomy lessons and slang at bathtime puhlease!

He also greeted the cashier at Woolies yesterday by saying loudly Hi, Have a good day! She said, are you having a good day or should I, he yelled back YEAH GOOD DAY BYE THANK U WELCOME!

We taught him see ya later alligator well, he forgot the rhyming part so now he says "bye bye...(pause)... GATOR" He only says this when he is trying to be funny and casual.

"MEENO MEENO"...the twin language war cry. At the museum yesterday Carson could not find Colin and he yelled MEENO MEENO and Colin lit up smiled looked around and yelled back MEENO MEENO! Everytime they yell this to each other they get the cutest all knowing smile. They yelled it to me this AM and I had to break the news that I am not their triplet and I do not know what MEENO MEENO is, wish I did!