A Christmas Down Under

Hello Everyone, Merry Christmas!! We hope everyone is having a great holiday season! We added a few more pictures and put up a "Merry Christmas from Us" video on youtube if you want to take a look. Here is a little rundown of how we spent our Christmas day!

Christmas day turned out to be a beautiful hot day for us, we got a little sunburnt, with the racoon eyes and all... First time thats happened to us on Christmas day. During the day we went down to Bondi beach to hang out with all the other 'familyless' travelers.

After that we went to the Botanical Gardens and checked out the Opera house before we made our way home to make our Christmas Supper.

Our meal turned out to be better than expected!! We had a BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing and some desert too... not to bad for us. We managed to keep some tradition by watching 'Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas' on the computer. See the TV nearly started on fire and blew up on us a few days after Steve and Toni left, perfect timing.

After supper we went back downtown to check out all the Christmas displays. They actually light up entire buildings, with changing images... its pretty neat stuff.

Thats about it from us for now, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Nathan & Erynn

An Orphan's Christmas

The roles down here have finally changed. Nathan is now the sole provider of this relationship and I am the beggar. My term at Amnesty International has come to its end. I suppose getting 5 weeks of work was quite the extension from the 3 days I was originally needed for. That has come and gone now but I made a few new friends along the way. Not sure if I’ll find much till after Christmas as a lot of businesses close down for a couple weeks over the holidays.

Nathan, however, starts bright and early Monday morning. He’s starting at Datacom where he’ll be doing Tier II Tech Support. Basically the same type of work he did at Shaw Cable… but somewhat more advanced. He was Tier I at home and if he came across something he couldn’t figure out then he’d pass it on to the Tier II crew. So I think he’s a bit nervous and maybe feeling a bit out of his league but I’m sure he’ll do just fine. It’s a job and the pay is great so we’re both happy with that.

Before coming here I must admit that I thought the Christmas holidays would be very lonesome for us. I mean I don’t remember that last time I wasn’t at Grandma Welch’s for Xmas Eve. How were we going to deal with this?? *L* Luckily it’s so different here it’s like we’re going to completely miss the holiday all together. The whole ‘no snow’ thing is throwing us off a lot. It’s very strange to see Xmas trees at the shopping centers and to here the carols over the speakers as we’re shopping. Even today we went to Chatswood Mall and there was a pack of ‘carolers’ donning their Santa hats and singing all the Xmas carols you could think of. Well – as I’m watching them in my skirt and singlet, sweating from the heat, I just can’t seem to get into the Christmas spirit. So perhaps it won’t be so bad or lonesome for us after all. I mean – it just doesn’t seem like Christmas!!

We are however going to attempt to make somewhat of a Christmas meal. It will only be the 2 of us as Steve, Toni and Charlie leave for New Zealand on Tuesday. They are gone for 3 weeks to spend time with family. I think our holidays might be with other travelers as there are a lot of festivities going down at Bondi Beach. I believe one is called the “Orphan’s Christmas Party” or something. It should be fun and somewhat of an experience as this will be the “oddest” way either of us have ever spent Christmas. So as you’re all waking up to find presents from Santa under the tree, Nathan and I will be relaxing on the beach working on our tans. *L* Quite different.

So from both of us down here we hope your holidays are great!! We’ll talk to you all again around the 25^th!!

Erynn & Nathan

p/s I did a tour of where we’re living so make sure to check it out in the video section!!

Aussie facts of the day:

- The so called 'dingo fence' in Australia is the longest fence in the world, and is about twice as long as the Great Wall of China. It has a gate every 19kms along it's length.

- Australia has more beaches than any other country. About 7000 of them.

Spiders and Wasps and Birds

Hello again everyone! I hope you liked the video's we added. We put one more up there today, and we'll probably add a video or two of a tour of our place here once we get a chance. We also put up some more pictures in the 'Sydney Oct/Nov' folder too, so take a peek if you like. This picture is of me eating a Mango that Erynn has perfected in cutting. It has to be our new favorite fruit!!

If you are squeamish you may want to stop reading now...

Last week I had a little encounter with some Australia sized bugs. I walked out into the backyard and saw the scariest and coolest thing ever!! I almost stepped on this HUGE wasp!! The body of it was bigger than my thumb! not only that but it was attacking an even bigger Spider!!! The spider was the size of my hand!! I'll admit it, I ran back inside screaming like a little girl. Luckily no one was home to witness that. But I am sure everyone else I know would have done the same! After a few seconds I regained my manliness and grabbed the camera and snapped a few pictures, they may not be too clear cause I wasn't getting any farther than three inches from the doorway in case it turned on me, and I was still a bit shakey from before... So I watched this giant wasp kill this man hunting spider and drag it away. I guess they feed the spiders to their young! We talked to Steve and Toni about it and I guess the spiders are very common, and about the size of a hand, but don't actually hunt men, and apparently not venomous. They just climb on walls and jump really far. It didn't make me or Erynn feel any better about anything. Neither of them had seen a wasp that big before. I am almost glad that wasp killed the spider... (instead of me of course) cause I think the spider was scarier than the wasp.

So ya, that's about it for now. This weekend we are going to go to this medieval fayre where they have guys on horses doing real jousting and sword fighting with the armor and everything. We just hope the weather cooperates... they are calling for rain. We'll let you know how that goes next time. For now, take care and let us know how you are doing, we miss everyone!!

Nate and Erynn.

Aussie fact of the day: Pedestrians do not have the right of way; cars do. No one will not slow down for you. Its customary to speed up and honk at anyone in your way.

- From Gov Oz website - "walking is 2.5 times more dangerous than travelling in a car"

"Pedestrian accidents account for between 15 and 20% of all road deaths in Australia"