Photos from Australia

My friend Ken and I went to Preston Beach, with Tippy, for a dog-related adventure. Preston Beach is a short distance down the coast from Perth, which, as you might have noticed, is on the Indian Ocean. This is a cool ocean to be on, although it is very full of sharks, apparently, not that I've seen one. Today on Cottesloe Beach, for example, I saw a school of herring just jumping out of the water, which means there were probably dolphins around...and then the other day in Fremantle, I saw an absolutely gorgeous sunset, but no sharks.

Tippy's shadow is much more terrifying than Tippy herself, who frequently immobilizes enemies by sitting on their feet and licking them.

There are kangaroos in Preston Beach.

Quite a lot of them, actually.

I love the way the rills in the sand show the footprints.

Actually, Australia is awful. You shouldn't come here. Definitely not WA. Sydney is nice. Go over there.

Updating etcetera

Valentine's Day in Australia is remarkably low-key -- everyone pretty much mostly ignored it, in favor of the super major interesting holiday coming up, Easter. We're talking about Easter egg hunts and all the grocery stores have fabulous Easter candy displays with six thousand things that are very bad for you, like chocolate-covered Turkish Delight eggs from Cadbury's and...well, mostly just stuff like that.

In the meantime, I have been trying to cut back on eating so much sugar again, which is difficult because it seems like everyone is surviving entirely on carbohydrates and sugar syrup. I've never seen a nation that doesn't drink diet soda quite so much. Everyone puts loads of butter on pretty much every bread product known to mankind, including their hamburger rolls before they put hamburgers in them, and piles of crackers with Vegemite on them are considered a nutritious meal for school students. There's this thing called "cordial", which is basically sugar syrup, and is pronounced "cord-ee-all", for those of you who might be convinced it's pronounced "corjal", as I pronounced it until I was corrected by virtually everyone...cordial is brightly colored sugar syrup that you mix with water and drink. It doesn't even pretend to have health in it.

last night I spent about twenty minutes amusing some kids by repeating words they asked me to say in my American accent. "Darcy," for example. And "marshmallow" had them in hysterics for several minutes. Then they asked me if I would swear for them, and I pointed out that cussing is funny no matter what accent you have, with which they concurred. Two points for me!

I've been really remarkably busy, a state of affairs I'm actually pleased with, although I'll have to start turning down social engagements when school starts. Note to self: just because you CAN say yes, doesn't mean you SHOULD say yes. I've been speaking at Rotary clubs pretty much every Monday and Wednesday since I got here, and I'm starting to feel a little bit dazed...they're all very nice, but meeting so many new people is moderately confusing. After so long in LA, where people said they wanted to hang out and never did, it's a bit of a shock to see the cascading effect when people say they want to see you and they actually really DO want to see you, so you end up with ninety-two invites. I never knew I was so popular. I'm not sure I *am* popular, or if it's mostly just novelty.

I've also started taking aerialist classes, so I spend an hour and a half every Wednesday hanging upside down, very badly, from strips of silk or a trapeze. I think it's really beautiful and I love the idea of it, but I really could use more practice, and short of hopping around on the bus poles, I'm stuck with once-a-week practicing, which as everyone knows, does not make you an expert. Whatever is the opposite of expert, that is what it makes you. Probably a quadriplegic, given that if I am not an expert, I slip off the silks and fall on my head.

I have been spending a lot of time on the beach, listening to waves and walking around and watching surfers. I met Natasha, a couchsurfer looking for a fun partner, and we drove to Margaret River on Friday, which was a seven hour round trip. It was worth every minute of wonderful conversation, delicious vegetarian food consumed while staring out over the ocean and watching surfers get smashed on rocks.

Also Ken got me a gift certificate to dive in the shark tank at the WA aquarium, which is the best present I think anyone has gotten me for a very long time. And I learned how to say bad words in some Aboriginal language, but I don't know which ones. And then the kids laughed at me some more.

New list of things that can kill you

What is Australia famous for? Things that can kill you in horrible, disfiguring ways. Ken and I went to the aquarium, precisely so we could go to the section called "Dangerzone", where they store all the dangerous sea creatures that you'd really rather not accidentally brush against if you had a choice. Like, you know, a great white shark. They don't have one of those, but they have a display about people staggering from the surf while missing limbs which is riveting.

So what is there?

• Cone shells. So, the slow motion video of this innocuously pretty-looking seashell engulfing a small fish is pretty entertaining, but then you read the information and realize that it contains a fast-acting toxin that causes muscle paralysis and extreme pain. But don't worry, the notice cheerfully informs us, there is an antidote. Oh good. I'll be sure to keep that in mind while I pick up this shell that's washed ashore with the tide and raise to my ear to OH GOD OH GOD MY BRAIN IS ON FIRE!!!!!!
• Sea snakes. These are kind of pretty. They have flat tails. And enough venom to kill several people. They tend not to emit it when they bite you in defense though...only when they're trying to eat you. So you should ask it its intentions while it's dangling from your calf muscle. "Were you trying to swallow that or just piss me off?"
• Blue ringed octopuses. These very tiny little octopuses are capable of hiding behind rocks and under sand, and are so poisonous that even the water they hang out in can become toxic. They contain enough poison to kill 10 people. It causes muscle paralysis and cardiac arrest. There is no antidote. Consider that one for a minute. There is a tiny octopus that can hide in small spaces, that can immediately kill you in drooling searing agony, and there is no antidote for the poison. Oh, and also, you might not know you've been stung immediately...only when your face starts to tingle might you think, "Hey, this isn't so good, is it?"
• Also the dunes near the beach have tiger snakes in them. So when you come screaming out of the water to avoid a blue ring or a bluebottle (these are extremely poisonous and painful jellyfish) or a shark, and you stagger into the dunes for safety, chances are you'll get bitten by a dangerously poisonous snake up there. The water isn't safe, but neither is the land.
• Stonefish and lionfish. both disguise themselves as rocks or pretty kelp. Both have extremely sharp pointy spikes on them that can pierce all the way through your flesh. The stonefish also injects you with a toxin that causes -- you guessed it -- muscle paralysis. The lionfish just ruins your day.
  

Shorties

People have asked me repeatedly: what is the main difference between Australia and the US? Everyone asks this...my friends in the States, Rotarians in Perth, random strangers who find out that I'm from the US, the guy who runs the bellydancing studio where I taught a class two weeks ago. Everyone wants to know what I think, and I'll tell you: nothing like Steve Irwin, so you can just get that out of the way right now.

They don't sound like Crocodile Dundee either, although one of the kids at the College I work at described in graphic detail the methods he uses with his machete to kill the cane toads that infest his farm up near the Northern Territories. "I toss them in the air and try to cut them in half," he said, with a peculiarly flat affect. If you don't hear from me for a while, it's because he's keeping me in a basement and he's hacked off all my limbs.

Mostly, the main thing that Australians are easily identified by, the one thing that would make it obvious to everyone that they were Australians, aside from their cute accents, is this: shortening everything. Everything has a cute nickname in Australia, including your food, your friends, and your times of day. They shorten placenames ("Fremantle" becomes "Freo", "Victoria Park" becomes "Vic Park", "Subiaco" becomes "Subi") and peoplenames ("Sharon" becomes "Shazza", "Daniel" becomes "Dazza", "Bob" becomes "Bazza"...you get the drift).

They shorten documentaries ("doccies") and presents ("pressies") and sandwiches ("sangers"). A utility vehicle, which is what Americans would call a pickup truck, is a "ute". The afternoon is the "arvo". Breakfast is "brekky." Americans are "morons for electing George Bush." Okay, I made up that last one.

Also, Australian humor is significantly more subtle and wry than North American humor; they think our witticisms are similar to Harpo and Groucho falling down the stairs: obvious, tasteless, and overdone. A lot of Australian humor relies on sarcasm, irony, and witty repartee, which makes me very happy, as I established with Justin when we were Skyping today that I am funnier than he is because I deliver punchlines faster. Like when you put down one meal in front of three teenaged boys: the fastest one eats the most. So Australian humor suits me fine.

In sad but further news: my camera is currently broken. I am trying to fix it so I can update you with stunning pictures of my local area and the Target and the Hungry Jack's, which is what Burger King had to call themselves when they got here because "Burger King" was already trademarked by some random Australian guy. Also the bubble tea place right down the street, where I am trying to see how long it will take before I fill up my intestines entirely with sago. Which is what Australians call tapioca pearls.

Did I mention all the money has little see-through windows? How cool is THAT?