8:06 pm Tuesday in Aus.

The first week here went really FAST!  I am walking every day, sometimes more than once a day.  I finished a book I brought, I don't think I read a book since I was here last.  I love sitting on the deck and reading.  We spent Saturday and Sunday in Sydney taking in the festivities of the arrival and departure of the Queen Victoria on her maiden voyage and the farewell voyage of the Queen Elizabeth 2.  I got plenty sunburned and I'm sure I'll peel on my forehead.  Even sunscreen couldn't save this fair maiden.    The price of taking the train to Sydney and back has gone up a bit but still a better deal than paying for parking down there.  We had time to kill on Sunday before the two ships crossed so we took a ferry to Manly Beach.  The storm did serious errosion damage there as well.  They had signs up warning of exposed rocks on the beach and the sand loss was almost up to my thigh in some places.  It's still a beautiful beach but there will be alot of work to do to restore it.  The waves were pretty good and some beaches were having the surfing championships.  They do alot of scuba and snorkling here too.  Okay, here is more of what I learned: A sweater is a jumper, a Cardigan is a Cardie, Oregano is pronounced Or-E-Gone-Oh and Al-You-Minium is Aluminum.  Most words that end in "A" are said as "R".  So they say I live in Ameriker or the Amerikers.  Krispy Kreme is still here just relocated to a smaller shop.  At Starbucks I have to remember to say no cream instead of no whip.  Capiscum is green pepper.  We are getting a few bits of news on the election, McCains's supposed affair and the housing forclosures which brings up the "recession" word.  To turn on the lights the switches have to be pushed down instead of up.  Each outlet has a switch that has to be on or what you plugged in won't work.  Sales start in this town on Thursdays, so the stores are open late (Maybe 9pm) there are people playing music and singing in the court and there have food vendors.  We really like this thing called Turkish Gozleme (sp).  It's kind of like pizza.  Some of the slang is just hysterical.  The freeway was not gridlock it was "all ****ed up" according to the tv people, and today they talked about a guy getting "boned" which meant fired.  Yes, I watched just to see what that meant.  They also use the term "sacked" for fired.  Now, back to that "Napkin" thing I have also seen them in packages labled pads and towles.  So how do you know what's right?   They have some of our tv shows here but not all of them.  The ones they do have the US is a week ahead of here, so last week was all repeats for us.  We only get three tv channels anyway.  They just started running the trailer for the movie "The Bucket List" this week.  Okay, we are several hours and a day ahead of you so I will sign off now.  Till next time take care all!