Morning Tea with K-Rudd

My workplace was in a flurry recently as I walked in to find that everyone had been cleaning madly for the past few days. While the (grocery) store was looking great, I knew that this wasn't all for naught.

I could only visualize a scene from North Korea where steel workers were tidying up for Kim Jong-Il's (1941-2011) imminent visit. Who could possibly be showing up?

Luckily I didn't have to clean everything much to the chagrin of my workmates, but with a few inquiries the visitor was revealed: Kevin Rudd.

Yes, former Prime Minister of Australia was on his way to my grocery store to pitch a tea for Twinings.

Quick history: K. Rudd was elected PM when we first arrived in Australia in 2007 - he had a catchy slogan: "Kevin '07", a 'hip' nickname: "K-Rudd" (for the kids), he was almost always drawn as Tintin in political cartoons, but mostly (our favourite) was a t-shirt emblazoned with: "Viva la Kevolution" with Rudd's face in place of Che Guevara's iconic photograph.

       

Needless to say that based solely on these things, and being new to the country, K-Rudd became our new favourite politician.

Subsequently Kevin '07's term as PM came to an abrupt end in 2010 when (we had left the country), his political party - the Australian Labour Party, sacked him in some sort of mutiny.

But, he's still a politician serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs - and now is also serving Twinings tea at the grocery store where I work!

I entrenched myself among the photographers and news cameras that had set up inside the lobby when Kevie showed up (2 hours later), and gave his pitch for a charity tea blend that gives 100% of the profits to the RSPCA (an animal charity).

At one point during the show, he poured out some tea and offered it to the media. Quick like a bunny, I stuck up my hand, "Sure, I'll take one please."

"You take milk with that, mate?", he replied.

"Two please, Mr. Rudd."

"There ya go mate!"

The tea was good, but being served tea by the former Prime Minister was better. It definitely got my vote! (Nuk nuk nuk!)

-A.

Canberra, Sydney... and Dookie

The big Aussie road trip is officially underway-- two days and 4 1/2 hours later than planned, we managed to get Daisy fully packed and ventured into the Melbourne rush-hour gridlock on Wednesday at 9:30am (doesn't anyone go to work at 9 these days?). It was a long and monotonous drive up the Hume highway to Canberra, broken up only taking photos with funny roadside signs-- pity the fool who lives in a town called Dookie!--by snacking on leftover pizza. We were more than happy to get to Canberra in the early evening, and did a couple of loops around the Parliament building's numerous roundabouts to celebrate. We even got an angry pointing-at from a French diplomat's car (not sure what that was about!) while hooning around the futuristic monstrosity that is the Aussie Capital Hill.

Canberra is a bit of an oddly designed place-- made of cube apartments and futuristic building designs. Everything was really clean and sparkly looking, and there were heaps of trees everywhere, and wide boulevards. We couldn't stop thinking about Sim City! The CBD is pretty unexciting, so we retreated to our first caravan park of the trip and had a surprisingly wonderful sleep... and woke up shocked we were no longer in our little riverside apartment in South Yarra.

On day 2 we headed straight for the Parliament building-- first the new Parliament building, which was finished in 1988. It's a space-agey place (with grassy lawns on the roof!), mixed with that Washington feel of long grassy 'malls' and symmetry, ringed by mountains which surround the city. We figure there must be some cool bomb shelter underneath the giant hill it's built on... well, you never know. On the way into the building, Dayle was caught by parliament security for accidentally carrying a boxcutter knife around in her purse (it was a long and sleepless move-out from the apartment!), and Adrian and the security guards laughed at her a lot. That's the trouble with large purses-- you never know what's lurking at the bottom!!

After that, we took a guided tour of the building, watched some government dudes hurl insults at each other ("Mr. Smith(?), your points are about as damaging as getting hit by wet lettuce..."). A very creative bunch they are here! We decided to book tickets to watch Question Time, since the House only sits 18 weeks of the year, and we'd get to see the PM Kevin Rudd up close, and see how much he actually resembles TinTin (he was depicted as TinTin in many a political cartoon prior to the election last year). The PM was kind of sassy in person, (which was cool) but unfortunately we didn't catch too many snappy comments (or lettuce-slapping) so we snuck out after a half hour and headed first to the Canadian embassy to snap photos by the totem pole-- the building itself is really unexciting compared to other consulates!-- and then onto the really cool National Museum of Australia for a bit more culture & history (everything's free admission in Canberra, which is awesome!). The it was a dash for Sydney in a thunderstorm, since we had a (budget) hotel booked...

Yesterday we met up with a couple of Dayle's parents' friends from Sydney (they've been exchanging Xmas cards for 30 years after meeting on a European bus trip!). The Isbisters were super sweet and took us for a wonderful driving tour around Manly & Sydney's northern suburbs... without them I don't know if we'd have even ventured out there! We saw many giant houses, huge boats, and ate a beachside lunch watching the surfers toughing it out in the rain.

Later we used our ferry daypasses to head way up into the Parramatta River, where it was mangrovey and didn't feel like Sydney at all. We made it back to the city in another thunderstorm, bought a giant umbrella, and headed out for the evening to the Rocks area (the oldest area in the city, with old warehouses converted into shops, restaurants and pubs) and found ourselves drinking giant Lowenbraus with a bunch of Germans before the long walk back to our Kings Cross hotel past many of Sydney's finest prostitutes (gee, sometimes you forget you haven't see one in ages!)...

Today it's off to Bondi, maybe a trip up the Sydney tower for some views, and then who knows! Tomorrow we'll head off to the Blue Mountains for some hiking and some natural scenery, just west of the city... it's shaping up to be a good trip already!

It was a dark and stormy night...

Based on True Events...

(Adrian) So there I was cooking up some burgers talking to a friend on the phone leaning against the doorway to the boudoir on Friday evening. "Yak, yak, this and that" and I casually glanced away from the meal when I noticed that the walls were shifting. At first I thought it was my eyes adjusting to the light, but it turns out it was a Huntsman spider about the size of a hand palm skittering about the wall.
(Dayle) I was flipping through a book on the other side of the kitchen, when Adrian told our friend on the phone abruptly "I'll call you back. Oh my God!" He told me, "DON'T come over here... DON'T!" Of course I had to find out what was on the other side of the wall... spider? rodent? snake? bunyip?
A: I got off the phone and stood stunned for a split second. "What the hell do I do? I didn't read about how to handle this situation in college!" Since Dayle would no doubt freak out i told here to move to the complete opposite of the trailer.
D: But curiosity got the better of me. I peered around the corner to see what Adrian was staring in terror at...
A: Dayle screamed like a banshee when she saw the spider, as I figured she would. My ears still hurt.
D: Shut up! You were freaking out too!
A: So anyway...
D: The spider started moving sideways along the wall, that was the scariest part. Not to mention it was huge, hairy, and kind of stepped like a Muppet character. We stuck a mirror around the corner and watched it... it was a little less scary.
A: The next problem was how to get rid of the beast. As Dayle screamed, it started inching toward the vented door that it must have come into from the pouring rain. But it wouldn't leave, no matter how much she screamed.
D: Finally, Adrian got a bucket, the fly swatter (the longest stick-like object we could find), and a newspaper. The plan was to cover the Huntsman with the bucket, cover the top with the newspaper, and release it back into the rainy outdoors. The fly swatter was in case it jumped-- as they apparently do!
A: After some mental preparation, I waited for the spider to get into the perfect trapping position. Then I slammed the bucket over it.
D: I think I was still shrieking.
A: I had to make sure it was in the bucket, so I peeked inside. The spider made a mad dash to escape... and that's when I dropped the bucket on top of it.
D: And then we had this large, icky carcass to deal with....

Epilogue: Dayle and Adrian got out of the incident without any physical injuries. The spider, however, was not so lucky. On the bright side, the old rule that if you kill a spider, it will rain did not apply. It had already been pouring rain for 24 hours by the time the soggy spider came in for shelter.

In other news... the rain detsroyed a lot of the cherries at the orchard we're working at, so we're not sure if we'll still be cherry pickers in a week. But the countdown to our second visas continues-- 3 weeks left, including this one! This weekend we got a new prime minister Down Under-- a guy named Kevin Rudd who seems a lot cooler than John Howard, who's been in power for the past 11 years or so and has annoyed his citizens by following George Bush into Iraq and not really giving a rat's ass about Kyoto, or the environment as a whole (among other things). We have hope for this country after all! And it's definitely interesting watching the whole thing as kind-of outsiders but from the inside.

What else? Oh! The spider story might not make any sense to everyone who didn't get the memo about our new "apartment". Yep, we got sick of camping/driving/eating/sleeping in the same tiny van, and splashed out to rent an on-site caravan in Stanthorpe while we're working here. Yes, we live in a trailer (we're in anticipation of all of your jokes). It's great! We have an oven-- we've been baking pies!-- we have a bedroom AND a kitchen area AND room to sit around in! We've unpacked our clothes for the first time in ages. And it's all decorated in fake wood. Classy.

After this, we're debating whether to settle in Brisbane or Melbourne for the next few months... Brizzie is close by, a nice city, plenty of work, and loads of fun stuff to do nearby, but we're not sure if it has that magical city mojo Melbourne does. And on the other hand, Melbourne's awesome, fun, gorgeous, and it's the good weather season, but really far away, and we're worried it'll be packed with travellers (hence: all good jobs gone). In the meantime, why don't you all give us a vote on where we should go next on our snazzy new blog poll. We'll close voting in a month... that should do it. Kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure. And in the meantime, check out our new favourite website, Hats of Meat. Bye!