Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Today was a rather uninteresting day.  We started off by putting in the laundry - we did two loads - first thing in the morning as if you don't do it right away first thing, the clothes don't have a chance to dry until late at night.  The washing machine takes about 90 minutes to wash just one load, so by the time you do two it's almost noon it seems.

We spent a lot of the rest of the morning filling out my forms to register for teaching in Queensland and to supply teach once the registration is done.  I have been putting this off as I hate filling out forms - they are so long and tedious.  Once we got going, we realized that we are not going to be able to put in these forms yet anyway.  I was hoping that I could put in what I had and just get the two things from Canada that I needed and then send them off from Canada as that would be cheaper than sending the whole package from there.  As it turns out, if I don't send a criminal record check or a paper saying that I have applied for the criminal record check, they won't even look at my file.  Since I can only apply from Canada for the criminal record check, I am going to have to wait until I get back there, get that plus a reference from my principal, then either pay a lot to send the forms/papers to Australia or wait 'til I get back here and then send them in. 

After a few card games, Mike had to do some work on the computer so I watched 'Murder She Wrote'.  Mike then took himself off to bed as he was not feeling well.  He has been feeling draggy for three days now - we are not sure what it is - it could be that he's not sleeping terribly well since we are sleeping on an air mattress.  It could also be that we don't have a couch to sit on (only wooden kitchen chairs) so there's no support for the neck when he is sitting down and no place to relax on. 

In the afternoon, it started to rain and we were so excited - we felt like the 'natives' - we even rushed outside to take some photos of it.  I would attach these pics to the end of this entry, but you can't tell it's raining - just that the pic is greyish and seems out of focus.  It only rained for about five minutes, but the grass is even greener than it was before the rain - it's so neat that it doesn't take much rain for the grass to be affected.

Around 5pm, we took off for our walk - we walked for about an hour - just around the neighbourhood.  Each day we are going to go for a walk, Mike checks out the map and works out a route for us to go.  Today we walked along the roads for a bit, but then walked for quite a while up a greenbelt.  It's amazing that here it's not like in Canada (yet) - you can be right in the city and still be able to feel like you are in the country.  In this greenbelt, there is nothing besides grass and trees - it's really beautiful, and so peaceful to walk through.

Since our day wasn't that exciting and there wasn't much to write about, I thought I would share with you some of the other things that I have been keeping a list of that I thought might make interesting reading.  The first is the toad population: many years ago these brown toads were brought in to this area to help curb the beetle population.  They did that, however, now they are overrunning the land and they cause quite a havoc in gardens and to some animals.  They are ugly things, too - we saw two of them on our patio the other night and watched them catch/eat a couple of huge beetles.  The beetles were flying into our glass patio door - when we heard the noise, we went to see what it was.  We then watched them (that's when we saw the toads sitting ever so quietly on the patio stones) and the beetles keep flying up and landing plop on the ground - we couldn't understand why they wouldn't use this ability to fly to get away from the toads.  Next thing we knew, the beetles fell to the ground once again and the toads hopped up and in one fell swoop (or rather, gulp) ate the beetles.  Yuck!  Our landlord was outside the other night making a racket and when we looked out the bedroom window to see what was going on, he told us that he was killing the toads - he hits them over the head with a big stick or shovel and then scoops them into the garbage.  Double yuck!!

Another interesting thing has to do with their money.  There are no pennies in Australian currency.  They decided many years ago to do away with them - I think it's a great idea.  Goods are still priced to the penny (eg: $2.99 or $1.12), but when the total is rung up on the cash register, they round the amount up or down to the nearest 5 cents.  So, for instance, if the total ends in a 1 or 2, it's rounded down to a 0 - so if the amount is $1.12 for example, they ask you for $1.10.  If the total ends in a 3 or a 4, it's rounded up to a 5 - so if the amount is $1.14, for example, they ask you for $1.15.  It works the same if the total ends in 6 or 7, they round it down to a 5 and if the total ends in 8 or 9 they rounded it up to the next 10.  I guess in the end, it all works out fairly evenly with regards to the 'pennies' and it's a lot easier not to have all those pennies in your pants or purse.  Also, I love the way that the taxes are included in the advertized price.  What you see on the item you are buying is what you pay (so no more having to add 13% to your total).  The amount of the GST is listed on the docket (receipt) so you know how much you are paying, but it doesn't seem as painful this way when you are buying something.