We are settling into a routine. In the morning we try to leave the apartment at 8:30 AM. (This is an ideal, and like most ideals, is seldom actually realized.) We all walk up to Coogee Public School together (about 15 minutes from our flat), the girls scamper off to find their friends, and Rebekah and I walk the rest of the way up to the Uni, (another 15 minutes from the school). School ends at 3 PM; Rebekah and I take turns meeting the girls when they get out of school. It’s quite funny; one moment the school yard is deserted, and then a loud bell sounds, and it’s suddenly filled with screaming children dressed in bright red and blue, running around and playing and yelling at each other. It’s incredibly loud and raucous and full of life. Kinda like…

At the bottom, we found a snack hut and demolished massive piles of “hot chips” (french fries, for you folks back in the states) and I was introduced to the “sausage roll,” a local delicacy consisting of sausage filling (lamb, I think) baked into the center of a cylindrical flaky puff pastry. Not part of a heart-smart diet, but amazingly delicious. The highlight of the meal, however, was Brett pulling two bottles of wine out of the car, along with stemmed classes, and asking, “Red or white?”

After wiping all the grease from my beard, we piled back into the car and drove to Wattamolla, which is a stunning beach. On one side is the ocean (or rather, the Tasman Sea, to be exact), where a bay sheltered on both sides by sheer sandstone cliffs whose feet are strewn with boulders ends in waves crashing gently on a lovely strip of sand. Opposite the ocean side is a fresh-water lagoon, fed by a 30-foot waterfall where Brett tells me adolescent boys spend the summer jumping off the cliff into the water below. It was truly a beautiful spot, and I look forward to visiting the place in summer.

Check out some more photos here.

Maya: “The first day of school was fun. I enjoyed it. It went by so fast. Lunch and snack time were so much longer than they are in Arlington. My teacher was really really nice. I had a huge classroom. Everybody was really nice to me. It was exciting. It was funny because this loud bell rang, and everyone ran out for snack or lunch or going home or whatever it was time for. They called snack time ‘morning tea,’ and at lunchtime they said ‘it’s time for big lunch.’ It was hilarious. I think I’m going to like it here.”

Elena: “The first day of school was great.  It seemed more relaxed than school at home. We had longer breaks and specials (like an hour for lunch and recess, and an hour for library). We made friends the first day. Teachers were really kind and kids helped us know where we were going. We all ate lunch outside, and we get to use the computers on a regular basis, i.e. we have our own accounts and everything.”

Overall, we are delighted with the kindness of the teachers, administrators, and staff.

I’m not even going to attempt to describe the myriad options, because (1) it would take me all day, (2) it would give me a headache, and (3) I would probably start yelling and throwing things again. From what we could determine there are two basic kinds of services: plans, and pre-paid. We decided on pre-paid. Essentially, this means that you buy a phone that you can’t work and that doesn’t come with any discernible manual, and have a running balance that you recharge as necessary to pay for your usage. Seems simple-ish, eh? Au contraire. There are five or so major mobile providers (we eventually chose Telstra, because we were at the Telstra store when we finally reached our limit). Each has a unique line of pre-paid phones. Each also has a unique set of packages that you can choose from (Recharge $40 and get $260 extra credit for calls and text messages to any 5 numbers you select for 30 days! Or, free calls and text to any five numbers on Telstra, for a period that varies with the recharge amount! Or or or!) Check out their website and see how quickly you get a headache.

Plus there are a dozen or so different ways to recharge your account, and each one comes with different amounts of bonus minutes, different expiration periods, etc. etc. Yes, the prepaid minutes expire. When do they expire? I have no clue.

Needless to say, the entire process made me very tired and crabby. The upshot is that we now have working mobiles. I think.

On a less controversial note, we went to Taronga Zoo on Tuesday. It’s situated on a hillside overlooking the harbor across from Sydney. The views were absolutely breathtaking. And the exhibits were amazing. You take a cable car up to the top, and then work your way down. Here are some photos of the girls with various indigenous fauna. They had incredible koala, kangaroo, wombat, platypus, Tasmanian devil, dingo, etc etc exhibits. No, Amira, I didn’t let the dingos eat my babies. I tried to take photos of the platypus, but they are very quick little buggers. I got several excellent pictures of a place where a platypus had been very recently, but that’s about it. One exhibit had you walking around on a path with essentially nothing in between you and emus, kangaroos, and wallabies. I don’t know how they did it, but it was incredible. My personal favorite was a leopard seal. It was bloody HUGE, and pretty terrifying. If you’ve seen Happy Feet, I gotta tell ya that they’re even scarier in person. Second favorite was a bird show in which kites, sea eagles, owls, and various parrot-kind flew around and showed off aerial wizardry on command.

Sorry, Toledo, but this was the most impressive zoo I’ve ever seen.

For example, next time you’re walking towards another person on a sidewalk, think about which side you drift towards in order to avoid a collision. Next time you’re on a busy sidewalk, take a moment to notice the traffic flow. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but for the most part in the States people on sidewalks and in hallways tend to (unconsciously, I’m sure) mimic traffic rules. When two people are approaching each other, each naturally drifts a bit to his/her right, which usually allows them to smoothly and effortlessly avoid walking into each other. Here, of course, people do the same thing. Except “doing the same thing” means “doing the opposite” when I’m involved. They naturally drift to their left and almost always avoid walking into each other. However, when some unsuspecting Aussie has the misfortune to approach me on the sidewalk/hallway, they drift to their left, and I drift to my right, and there is inevitably a near-collision. I’ve been here for scarcely a week and I can’t tell you how many near-collisions I’ve had with native pedestrians. My solution to this problems has been to walk around muttering to myself, “Left side, left side, left side.” Maybe it will work.

Another problem is that I automatically look to my left when attempting to cross the street (that’s where my brain thinks traffic comes from, despite having lived in Boston for nine years, where traffic can essentially come from anywhere). Of course, down here, traffic comes from the right. This combination would result in my being quite the sitting duck (and I’ll bet an American is worth LOTS of points down here… or practically anywhere, these days) except for the fact that the Olympics were here in 2000 (I think) and the thoughtful city officials installed signs inscribed in the pavement at busy intersections that say, “LOOK RIGHT.” This stroke of brilliance probably saved countless lives during the Olympic festivities, and has saved my butt on several occasions as well. My solution to this problems has been to walk around muttering to myself, “look right, look right, look right.” It’ll probably sink in just in time for me to come home to Boston and be systematically looking the wrong way there too. And with Boston drivers being Boston drivers, that could be a real problem.

Finally, the most subtle and insidious manifestation of this difference has to do with eye contact. When you’re crossing the street and there are cars around, even if they’re stopped at a red light, you (again, unconsciously, I’m certain) tend to seek to make eye contact with the driver of the car, to ensure that they see you, to flirt, to make sure they’re not a slobbering maniac, or whatever. Pay attention next time you cross a busy street; I bet you do it. So… I do exactly the same thing here. The trouble is, the driver sits on the right side of the car, rather than on the left side, where I expect a proper driver to be. So my finely-honed cognitive routines for establishing eye contact with the driver lead me to either (a) gaze into thin air, or (b) lock eyes with someone sitting the passenger seat, which is lovely and neighborly and all but not very effective at saving my pedestrian skin.

Driver: “Crikey, I think I just ran over some bald bloke!”

Passenger: “Oh yeah, I saw him.”

Not sure how to solve this one yet.

So I set off for the local lovely, quaint, organic, and expensive produce market. I had no problem with the onions and OJ, but the tubers threw me for a bit of a loop. They had several kinds of potatoes:  “Pontiac,” “Finkelstein” (OK, not Finkelstein, but something like that), “Brushed,” and “Washed.” “Brushed” and “washed” seemed very odd names for varieties of potatoes, so I stared and stared at these two, trying to decide which would be tastiest with a roast chicken. The “brushed” potatoes were the same shaped as the “washed” potatoes, but had a lovely golden-reddish-brown skin, almost hash-brownian in its appeal, whereas the others where quite pale and featureless. “Brushed” potatoes were also cheaper. So I carefully chose one and hefted it, to check it out more closely. To my surprise, the lovely golden-reddish-brown skin came off on my hand as a fine clay powder. I rubbed the potato with my thumb, and low and behold, it was covered in this thin and uneven layer of very fine reddish-brown dirt. Underneath, it was the same as a “washed” potato. I looked at the signs again, and started to chuckle at myself. “Brushed potatoes” were dug up, brushed off, and sent off to market. “Washed potatoes” were dug up, washed off, and sent off to market. In essence, brushed potatoes are unwashed washed potatoes. Washed potatoes will cost you an extra dollar per kilo, by the way.

I ended up buying 4 lovely Pontiac potatoes. They were delicious.

-by Maya and Elena

Rebekah was excited because they had Hawaiian, her favorite. Her assessment: “OK, not great.” She thought the crust was a bit dry and hard.

I was hungry and so didn’t care all that much.  I thought the sauce was a bit too sweet. There was lots of cheese (this is a good thing), and the cheese actually had taste and character, and was pleasantly chewy.

Maya thought it smelled funny.

Elena thought it was different from American pizza, but OK.

It remains to be seen how this place compares to others. But in conclusion, our results are inconclusive, and more research is clearly necessary.

Pix are coming, I promise. As soon as we can find a digital camera that can take more than 2 photos without exhausting the batteries…