Brekky and Bathrooms

In our marriage, I tend to have mornings to myself. Our first full day in Australia followed that pattern. I found an electric kettle in our kitchen, but no coffee maker. Rummaging through the pantry, I found COFFEE-MATE (not sure why they spell it in ALL-CAPS everywhere but the logo), sugar, and instant coffee. I’ve never had instant coffee, and now I know why people don’t drink it. I found it passable, though, and had two cups. Continue reading

Geelong Car Talk

Conversation with Jhett while we were driving from the airport to their place in Point Cook: Me: (Notices highway signs for Geelong) “Is it pronounced GEE-long or JEE-long?” Jhett: “It’s actually ja-LONG. I drive there every day for school.” Me: “Oh. Does it take ja-LONG to get there?” Jhett actually laughed and said he’d never heard that before. He needs more dad jokes in his life.

Taking a Cat to Australia

The official excuse for this Australian adventure is to deliver Nexu, Russ’s cat. Taking a cat from the United States to Australia requires a ton of work (or so I’ve heard — Sherry did all the work) and a lot of money (this part, I know well). Nexu traveled in a small crate, as a carry-on, from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. This crate was for the domestic part of the trip only. Continue reading

Australia: First Impressions

We lost an entire day last week. Thursday, August 22nd, never happened in our world. Gone. My Wordle streak ended, but oddly not my New York Times Crossword streak. We jumped from Wednesday to Friday like a Mr. Peabody & Sherman episode. Sherry and I left Jacksonville, Florida, without our travel buddies but with a cat in a crate. We bounced through Dallas, sweated through LA, and landed in Melbourne. Our son Russ and his partner Jhett picked us up from the airport, and we’ve spent a little over a week trying to catch up to the Thursday we lost. Continue reading

The King's English, but Does It Matter?

Most people in Europe, especially in the big cities, can speak English. We could have made our way through this entire trip in English. Wanting a fuller, more authentic experience, though, we studied some of the native tongues. Laura already knew a little French. I knew Spanish. And we studied some Italian. We were ready to build bridges through words. Once we learned a little French in Paris, we got cocky. Continue reading