Merry Christmas with frogs and no cyclone

Well we were under a cyclone warning/watch but up to now nothing has materialized. Actually the weather has been quite nice, it was cooler on Christmas eve so we managed to get a good nights sleep without the use of fans or air con. On Christmas eve some of our tadpoles finally became official frogs, with a little tail. They were sitting around at night, since they are night type frogs. Here are a few pictures of them and a video. L has been feeding them every day with one vegetable or another. They have an amazing appetite and are constantly eating.
Here is the pics you can click on them for a larger view.

This is a video of the frogs

Well today is Christmas and we have spent quite a bit of the day calling people in Canada, the US and Vietnam. I have been on Facebook as well chatting. The weather here is hot and humid and isn't raining except for a brief shower that lasted 10 minutes.
So if we didn't get to wish you a Merry Christmas personally please stay well and keep in touch and thanks for following us on our adventures down under.

Paul & Luna

PS No perils forecast for the next little while.

Hey this might be an actual Peril

We are under a cyclone watch. All they keep saying is that a trough is forming somewhere out in the ocean. Now I'm sure to a lifer here in Darwin that means something. To me it sounds like any ship that's floating near this trough is going to be swallowed up.
But currently it is a watch, when it becomes a warning then we start to get a little worried. If they name it, which it will be named Grant, then it's a cyclone. Now that doesn't mean it's going to come ashore where we live. For the past 4 years running they have predicted cyclones for Christmas and they have never materialized. We have to clean up the backyard of anything that can fly around. Leave a window open in the front and back of the house a crack to even the pressure and if it gets really bad sit in the laundry room. We have lots of supplies, water and food. But someone said fill up the bath so that we can use that water for the toilet, which is a good idea. They predict Saturday for it to hit but I think that this storm is tied up somewhere in some sort of bureaucratic paper shuffle and can't figure out what to do. I'll try to get some video if I can. Everyone here isn't worried because they are all flying out on Friday. Now thats' confidence!

We'll keep everyone posted, boy this is a time I miss the Weather Channel.

2011.12.17 Vlog

It's the weekend and lunchtime and that can only mean one thing ... it's time to get in front of a camera and show our lunch.

2011-12-10 Weekend VLog

Another VLog that's two weekends in a row and it pretty much looks like last weeks.

Buffet Fray

Well we went to our 2 for 1 Tuesdays which expired last week so last week was double discount Tuesdays only to find out that they cancelled that and it was only single discount Tuesdays. So I think we are off the buffet until the new year. We met some friends there and they didn't know about it either and the consensus was that we wouldn't have gone if we would have known that they'd jacked the price up.

Since it's so close to Christmas we get to go to 2 parties this weekend. L's is on Friday and it is a roaring 20's theme. There's gonna be a lot of ladies dressed as flappers. For the guys they really dressed quite dapper in those days. The only obvious fashion statement they had was very baggy pleated pants. Unfortunately for me they went out years ago and I don't have a pair so I'll just wear a hat. On Saturday my company has invited us to their dinner which sounds pretty good. The great thing about Darwin is that all places are only 10 minutes away. L's party should have dancing so we are expecting a good time. Mine is at a bar so I'm not sure if we'll get to dance later or not.

While I write this it is raining. It is bucketing down really hard. I can see blue sky at the same time. Because the roof it corrugated metal it is really loud in here. I think the cloud is right on top of the building or it seems like it.

We're gonna have to work out where we are going to eat next week. We will probably try fish and chips at the warf which is really reasonable, but they charge for ketchup. Yup a $1. If you want tartar sauce another $1. But I have a plan before we go. I'll drop in the grocery store and get a $1.97 bottle of cheap Tomato sauce, as the call it here. I'll also bring my own Coke. It'll be kind of like a picnic but with hot food. We've been there before and fish come up and people feed them. We have some stale bread at home, it goes off so quick here, and we can feed that to them as well.

Croc sightings have increased quite a bit lately. Yesterday the paper had a picture of one on a bike path and today the paper has an article of a dog being eaten. But I think crocs are the least of our worries. Here in Darwin there is a lot of impared driving going on or as the say "DRINK DRIVING". Considering the size of the cities population the problem is pretty bad. Needless to say we all must remain very careful, while driving, no matter where you live during the holiday season.

So I not to leave things on a bad note, it's Domino's pizza night tonight ..YEAHHHH. I'm gonna have to check Facebook to see what the special is for today.

It's a simple life up here and we have to make big of the little pleasures we get.

2011.12.04 Weekend Vlog

Here is a little video to show that we are still surviving here in Darwin.

They cancelled 2 for 1 Tuesdays ... that's it we're coming home

Ok we're not exactly coming home just yet but they cancelled our favourite weekly dinner treat. We are not happy, it was such a good deal. Hopefully it'll start back up in the new year. No wonder the restaurant was empty. We have a backup plan though, we figured that we should go to the pier for $6.95 fish and chips but they charge $1 for ketchup. So I said I'm stopping off at the grocery store and buying a bottle for $1.97. One of the nice things about eating down at the pier is that you can always feed the abundance of chips they give you to the fish that the come up to the pier. Somehow feeding fish with chips so that they can be later served with chips is kinda ironic. Hopefully these type of fish aren't the eating type. I somehow gather they are not.

The weather is starting to get really humid here it's really hard to sleep at night. Electricity is quite expensive so we air condition sporadically. We have fans running, the other day when L was on the phone someone asked if she was near the airport, because of the noise of the fan. I think we only have another month then it just rains. I think it's still humid but not as hot. Needless to say we love driving in the car because it has air con.

L had her birthday on the weekend and we went for a drive to a beach. From that beach we could see the city of Darwin. It was a nice drive but it wasn't much of a tourist spot that we ended up at, it was just a little town. They have a ferry that comes from Darwin but you'd be stuck at the dock without a car. When you drive away from Darwin you truly are in the outback. Hmm too bad they don't have an Outback Steak House here.

The President comes to Darwin

Well if you don't know but the Barack Obama came to Darwin. His visit was short just 2 1/2 hours, L was downtown at court for work and she was not allowed to leave the city because they had the road closed. So she decided to hang around. She claims to have seen him but wasn't sure, but it was someone in a car that had really dark windows, waving. It was very exciting for everyone here in Darwin, I think he is generally well regarded. He met some relatives of a ship that was sunk in the harbour in WWII in 1942 by the Japanese. He hugged many elder people who's husbands, fathers were killed on the ship. Everyone felt that he's as compassionate man, which won him big points with the public. He also spoke to the soldiers at the RAAF base here. They were all clamouring to shake his hand.

I, on the other hand, only got to see Air Force One parked at the airport. L and I saw it take off later that evening.

Yesterday was a weird day for weather we got 34mm of rain and it was very bright outside at the time, it rained you'd figure it would be dark but it wasn't. Since all roofs here are corrugated metal when it rains it's noisy inside. Last night was actually quite cool and I was quite chilly after I got out of the shower. Currently we have a fan, the strong one that would blow you across a room, in the shower keeping it cool because it gets so humid in the shower room. Actually we have 2 rooms, 1 room that has 2 sinks a shower and a bath and another room with the toilet by itself. Not sure why they do this maybe we're supposed to huddle in the toilet during a cyclone because it's a small room and the roof can't fall in as easily in a small room. Speaking of Cyclones a guy we met the other day said that where we live, if conditions are right with a high tide and a cyclone, we could be under 1 meter of water. I think I better phone for contents insurance pretty soon. Good job we brought our scuba gear.

At work they got me a 2nd screen for my laptop, it's pretty nice 1920x1080 but they didn't give me an extension cord so it sat at my desk for a week. I brought my own cord in to hook it up. They have funny safety laws here, in an office all computer chords and extension cords have to be certified. I asked what certified meant to the certification company guy and he said "we just look at them". Mind you, you could trip over these chords as they are strewn all over the floor, but a least they'll be inspected. So I have all these great screens and my computer is slower than what I have at home.

Our tadpoles are growing bigger and we'll have to separate them into 2 buckets. Their water is getting pretty green and I read we'll have to change it quite often. In the bucket there is mosquito larva and the tadpoles don't eat them. Although we put a few snails in there and they seemed to have been eaten by something. These tadpoles right now only seem to eat vegetation which L drops in rotten bits of her water plant, which they love, we also feed them lettuce. They don't mind the fish food flakes either. All these guys do is eat so it'll be interesting to see how many become frogs. We dropped a fish in there to see if it would eat the larva but I guess going from clean water that has lots of space into green water with 100's of tadpoles stressed him. It just froze and wouldn't move so we fished him out and put him back in the fish pot. He's ok, maybe we should have put 5 in there so he would have a gang but I won't do that. So the larva are safe ... until the tadpoles get an appetite for them (evil laugh).

Speaking of eating, Ralph our lizard buddy showed up again early last night, but because of the bad weather we didn't eat outside, which was the first time in months. Since we didn't stay outside he didn't stick around long. He ate a few pieces of chicken, papaya, mango and watermelon. He quickly left after that.

Christmas is coming and I must admit I'm not really getting much spirit here. I think without our families and no younger kids around it's just not the same. People don't really put up decorations on the outside of their house or they haven't as of yet. We have been invited to a work friend of L's for Christmas day. They are fellow Canadians. If it is a nice day we'll take some pictures on the beach for something different and to say we did it.

If Santa's reading this I could do with a vacuum cleaner.

Tuesday = buffet at Skycity Darwin

Well it's Tuesday and that means 2 for the price of 1 Tuesdays at Skycity Casino. This may seem that we have a gambling problem but this is far from the truth. It's more like we have a we like to eat buffet at a good price problem. So if you have been following Luna's Facebook page (you will need an account to see her personal Facebook account) you will see that most of her pictures are of her at the a table outside in the buffet restaurant. The only problem with eating out is that Ralph, our blue tongued Skink friend (lizard see blog for pictures), will have to go hungry. A couple of days back he didn't show up for about 3 days and we were worried. Then he did show up and one of his legs was not working well. We were quite worried. Fortunately for him he could slide around on his belly and didn't really require his leg all that much. We have been feeding him well and these last few nights he's been walking on all 4's ... if you call what he does as walking on all 4's. He really just uses his feet to push his big body across the patio. Kinda like 1/2 lizard 1/2 snake. All I can say as he sure must have a well exfoliated belly. L gave him shaved beef the other day that she puts in Pho (Vietnamese soup) and he just gobbled that down. We've fed him mango and papaya and he's eats all that. Needless to say if he is she and this is the breading season ,he/she will have healthy babies. We have determined that Ralph also has a buffet issue. He is really quite fun to feed and watch and he certainly makes dinner time interesting.

Speaking of breading the other night we had a green tree frog in the back yard perched on one of the chair arms doing a brap, brap, brap sound. Well this guy can project real well he was so noisy, but he wasn't the only one there were others calling all over the place. Later his lady friend showed up so we gave them some privacy. Later we found that the female had laid eggs in our fish/plant pond/pot and some in a bucket, that L had laying around, that had a dying plant in it. Well the eggs didn't survive in the fish pond as I think they got eaten by the fish but the bucket has about 50 tadpoles in it as well as some mosquito larva. We were fishing the larva out and putting it in the fish pond and the fish would eat them. That's what I call payback to all those mosquitoes that bit me. The tadpoles we didn't put in the fish pond because they are supposed to get pretty big, according to the Internet. In 3 days they have gotten noticeably bigger. We are afraid that they may eat the baby fish as they become carnivorous (eat meat) when they get older. We'll have to see how they do in the bucket, we are putting lettuce and fish flakes (fish food) in the bucket and some eat it. I guess those will be the guys that get bigger. I have read about these guys and it's easy to say that in a while there won't be 50 left some will most likely get eaten by the others, yikes.

Hi ho hi ho it just the status quo

Well things are settling in to a dull routine with, get up, drive to work, come home, cook dinner, eat outside and see if Ralph shows up. Speaking of Ralph he's been a regular lately although if we are walking around out the backyard when he shows he just crawls off. His loss though because some other critter will eat his morsels of steak. Last night he popped by a little early and went back into the brush only to appear when we had the food out on the table. I think he's got a pretty good nose for food. Well he does actually because he always finds the steak no matter where we put it.

L has decided to change her hair color to all brown/black for a while and will get it cut shorter because it's just too hot in this weather. Lucky for her it'll probably grow back for when we come back to visit Canada in June. I'm sure the hair color change will please my dad. I'll post pictures once the transformation is completed, she just finished dying it as I write this.

It is pretty hot here, we bought a fan to put on the floor and to place outside to keep the midges away. What is a midge? Well it's smaller than a mosquito and they bite. They seem to like L more than me so when she's outside they leave me alone, that way I don't need bug spray ... which I think is a bonus but somehow she doesn't. But the fan is pretty good at blowing them away. Heck the thing sounds like a propeller plane taking off. It pretty much would blow me across the patio if we put it on high. Needless to say that we have been eating cold food due to the fact that this fan works so well.

I have been messing around with Facebook, as it's free to me, and have posted some pics on the price of things I think mum and dad will think they're good you may enjoy them too.
Picture link is below
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.214659338604214.50561.198194326917382&type=3

You can check out our other pictures too while you're there. You don't have to join Facebook. This seems mildly familiar maybe I asked people to do this last week.

Well the Facebook page is here just in case you haven't been there and want to go.
http://www.facebook.com/PerilsOfPaulAndLuna

Introducing Ralph

Well it isn't news that we have our fair share of wildlife out in our backyard. But a few days ago we had a different visitor a really big lizard with short little legs. We have fed him things like rice, mango, shrimp, eggs, steak, pork and chicken. Needless to say I would say he doesn't like veggies or carbs that much. But he sure likes meat. Usually he shows up just when we are about to go in because the mozzies are getting bad here, but tonight we got a pleasant surprise he was under L's chair with his head poking out. We fed him some chicken which of course he gobbled constantly. He even took it from my hand. This guy doesn't seem to be as scared as the other types of lizards that are around the house. He moves pretty slow and wanders around getting under the chair and table, I don't think he likes the light. We were afraid the other night because he didn't show up but he seems to be pretty regular now. He/she is a welcome site at dinner when we eat outside, which is every night. Here are some pictures we took he is pretty cute the poor guy has very little legs. You probably think that we have overfed him but he was this chubby last week. We worry about the him because he's kinda slow and their are cars just on the other side of the fence which he crawls thru to get to us. See his pics below. If you can't see the pics go to the blog (link below).


The weather is getting a lot hotter lately and the humidity is up. It has been raining and one day we got 100mm. Some people say it can rain for 2 weeks, not sure if that's constant rain of every day for 2 weeks. I guess we'll see.

We also got our power bill which works about to $100 a month and that was without aircon running, just fans and the fridge. It could be an expensive summer (our summer not your summer).

Well I'm in the 2nd week of my part-time job. They said they want me longer than the 4 weeks so that'll be good. The money I earn will be that gets us back to Canada for next June so maybe I'll be able to afford to bring L back as well (haha). I guess not many receptionists are very good at image editing, but I'm still lousy at answering the phone. But it's a lot of fun the people are pretty cool and that's what counts.

Temporarily on hold

Sorry I haven't been in touch lately I have been temping. Well my first job was a receptionist at a TV stations sales office. The phone rang all of a dozen times, it was totally boring. In the reception they had a TV which was playing their TV channel. Well I can honestly say in that one day I heard the same commercial for funeral insurance about 30 times. I eventually found the volume control and turned it down. Now that job only lasted a day so I guess as a receptionist I just didn't have the legs for it (badump bump).

Last week and this week I am at a company, at reception again. The phone ring about 4 times all day. Here I am reformatting word documents, so I've learned a bit about word. But other than that it's pretty boring. But I was smart I brought some of my own things to work on. I can't complain the pay isn't bad for what I'm doing but they get paid really good out here because of the cost of living.

 

Our replacement lily also croaked and we lost the receipt so we couldn't take it back for a replacement so L bought a different plant. We also moved it into a shadier place thinking that maybe the plant was getting too much sun. Well it was also probably too hot for the fish, during the day they would not come to the surface. Now it's moved they frolic all day, every time we walk by they think it's feeding time.

 

Since it's spring here, we are still on Canada seasons in our head, we have noticed many changes with the lizards. Some come out onto the patio at night and do some sort of sideways slithering walking. These guys are just little, about the thickness of a pencil, but it's fun to watch. We still have the geckos on the wall that I love to watch eating all the moths. I think we have another one in the house again but they seem to hide quite well some I'm not going to try to throw this one out. Although I doubt there's much to eat in our place other than sugar ants, which I don't think they eat.

 

But last 2 nights we've had a quite large lizard visit. The other night L fed it some steak and some rice which was completely eaten. Last night it got really brave and walked all around the patio even getting up close to our chairs. I mean it's not a huge lizard, about the thickness of a sausage, but we both had our feet up so it wouldn't eat our toes. Last night we were prepared and we broke up a cooked shrimp. It must have a good nose because it pretty much found them without wandering around. We also fed it mango and some more rice but it didn't eat everything we put out so I gather rice and mango are lower on it's list of favourites or we just over fed it on shrimp. Hopefully we'll see it tonight, maybe we can get a picture.

 

Things are obviously changing, we've had more rain and this morning we came to work in rain, nothing brutal like what is forecast to come but enough to slow traffic down. With the rain things are starting to get a lot greener.

 

With the on coming wet they will be closing the Mindil beach market, which is a market that runs Thursday and Sunday during the dry that has food and stands that sell or sorts of stuff. L has a place she likes to go and get earrings but we now know that the lady that runs the booth will be at some other location on Sunday mornings. If you look at our pictures you'll see some sunset pics we took at Mindil beach. In fact the background to our blog is a picture taken at Mindil (or it was as of this writing).

Holy jumping crocodiles

This past weekend us and some friends of ours, fellow Canadians from Vancouver, drove 1 hour south of Darwin to the Adelaide river to see some jumping crocs. I must admit watching them swim through the water was amazing, they are so graceful. They also are very thoughtful in what they do, which is why sometimes they just won't jump for the meat on the string. They know they won't get it so they won't try. I also got to try on some Australian fashion in a python snake (see pictures), actually snakes aren't slimy at all they don't feel all that bad really, saying that I probably won't rush out and get one to hide under L's side of the bed. Check out the video and the pictures. L got a really good one of the jumping croc.

A while back L bought a water Lilly and we put it in a pot, well after the possums eating it and being transplanted it eventually stopped growing. The other day I had a major light bulb come on, "aren't plants guaranteed ?". Well it seems they are and at Bunnings they have a lifetime guarantee, not sure who's life mine or the plants. So L got a new plant, put it in the pot and now the guppies that a friend of L's gave us, are super happy now. Hopefully it lasts, it has an beautiful flower blooming already. Not sure what killed the last one but hey lifetime guarantee if this one doesn't last they'll see us again and again.

I guess what they call the build-up is upon us, it really doesn't seem all that more humid that it would in Toronto in the dog days of summer, but maybe more is coming. Now that the wet is coming a lot of things are starting to slow or stop. Many of the markets will shut down as well as the Mindil beach market, which we really like to visit every couple of weeks.

The Christmas stuff is in the stores already, they don't really celebrate Halloween here but one store had some Halloween candies. But the price for a dozen was extortion, boy we miss Costco.

The Perils of Paul & Luna:Lizard for lunch

One of my favourite activities here is to watch the Gecko's that sit by our outside lights and eat all sorts of bugs. Now you would figure that they would eat any bug but no they are selective. I have watched them rush up to a bug and then look at it then turn around and scurry away. I figure that moths are high on their diet and if you have a hard shell then you're too hard to digest so they just leave you alone. Well it must be time for lizards to have babies cause I saw one in the house, figuring there isn't much to eat here I have been trying to figure out how to get it outside where it can eat some good. Well one day it was by the front door so I opened it and using my hands convinced him to go outside. I felt pretty good that it would be able to eat better things because really other than ants, which I don't think they eat, there isn't much to eat in here. So the other night after coming back from the garbage run (taking the garbage out), we carry a torch (flashlight) so we can see where we are going, but when we get home I usually shine it on the underside of the eves-trough to see how many of our buddies there are. On the wall I could see that one of them had a rather large moth so I went over to investigate. Well it wasn't a moth it was the little critter I rescued waist deep in one of the big ones mouths. I cursed him that large bugger after I saved this baby so I ran inside grabbed a broom and banged it in front of his head and he coughed little one up and ran away. The little one seemed stunned and looked like he was missing his tail. I don't know how he fared that night but I don't think his chances where that good there was a lot of big geckos out that night. So I felt pretty bad that I had saved him only to have him get 1/2 eaten. But 1/2 hour later who do I see a little gecko crawling around the house. Obviously that one I scared out was not the one that was in the house previously ... or we had more than one in the house. Well this guys staying put if he can find something to eat here then I'll chuck him out when he's too big.

L does a lot of reading here and she goes thru books pretty quick. The other day she said I should collect them all and take them back to the library. She liked to leave them piled on this brown leatherette box we have. It's about 2 foot square. So I pick them up and under the last one there was this huge cockroach flattened by the book. Now I think this death was accidental but he probably figured he was safe hiding on something that was the same color as him. Which is funny because I could see the ants running up to the box but I couldn't see them going anywhere else on the floor. I figured they were running under the couch somewhere. But no they had found it and they were small enough to crawl under the book to do whatever ants do to dead cockroaches.

This weekend we are going to see the jumping crocs. Hopefully they haven't figured out yet how to jump into the boat, pictures and videos to follow unless this is the weekend they figure out how to crawl into a boat. If that's the case obituary to follow.

Here is my favourite lizard whom I call Bender because I think he's always sleeping it off in the morning after a big bender.

This dude is there day and night and is sleeping because at night his eyes are black right now they are brown like his skin.

The Perils of Paul & Luna:Sol e Luna goes on the road

The other night was our pizza Tuesday on Wednesday night and I had Sol e Luna 1/2 set up in the backyard almost ready for a evening of pizza and atmosphere when L said hey we should eat near the water. So we did. We always have these camping chairs in the back of the car so L made some salads we packed a few drinks and off we went to the Nightcliff foreshore (or the shoreline) which is a 2 minute drive from our place. We plunked our chairs right at the waters edge. The reason L wanted to go was that the tide was really high that night. Well one thing I like about Darwin is there are lots of places to just sit and eat and it's never really crowded. Now we have seagulls here but they seem to be watching their weight unlike the fatties we have in Canada. People are always fishing from the shore, although I've never seen anyone catch anything.
Here are some pictures that I've added to the Sol e Luna picture show.



The pictures make it look darker than it was, it's the flash. Well the pizza got cold quickly but that was ok, there was a strong breeze coming off the ocean that's why L is wearing a hoodie. Looks like she's becoming a Darwinian pretty fast feeling the cold which back in Canada we'd regard as great weather.

This past weekend we went to a place called Aquascene here in Darwin. It is a place where you can feed the fish. It was great fun, there were fish everywhere and lots of bread to chuck in. Some you could actually feed by hand and there was this one lonely Monk fish, one of our favourites from diving. Here is a video of L feeding the little critter he sure is cute.

The Perils of Paul & Luna:Crocodile done deal

Well this weekend we saw our "FIRST CROCODILE". How did we see it ? Well we were driving along this dam, which was really a pile of dirt for a road and L looked in the water and there it was. Now it wasn't one of those jumping crocs, more like sitting in the sun waiting for a tourist to come along so I can eat him crocs.
We took some video, see below, and a few pictures, see belower. I must admit that the outback is really a lot of driving. The Ausies sure do contribute to global warming just going out for a little drive, when it comes to the outback because nothing it close. They also have this sneaky way of saying you're there, but you have another 45 minutes before your really there. We drove to a jumping croc place and the sign said "your here" but after a 1/2 hour drive down the dirt road at 20km/h we arrived for the lady to say the last boat left 30 minutes ago.
Good job L saw the other croc and we saved $35 each I guess. Another thing with the outback is the dust. The car was covered in dust inside and out. So thick you could scrape it with your finger.



After the croc sighting we were good and hungry so we went to a different buffet called Seafood on Cullen. It was very busy but we really didn't think it was as good as the Casino. But they had these neat food heater things that were magical, see video.



We also went to this place in Darwin where they have fish feeding. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately you could only get in with them on the boat ramp. which is pretty limiting and the lady was constantly reminding us of box jelly fish that can kill a child in 1 minute. No wonder parents were pushing there kids to the front of the dock. I have some video that I'll try to put up as well but we took so much that I may want to edit it down a little. We saw Henry the Cod and he was ugly and beautiful at the same time. He moved so slow. They gave us bread to feed the fish but Henry only liked fish scraps so he patiently waited for the presenter to throw him a scrap or two. Most of the time the other fish grabbed it before he could come up to the surface to take it. I think Henry didn't like the commotion on the surface it was just crazy. It is a definite recommend and we'll probably go again although it is hot out in the sun. They only do it in high tide and we need to look for a higher tide because yesterdays tide was not as high, kinda low actually. This really impeded feeding them from this other area as the water did not flood this other area to stand at so everyone had to stand at the dock. The place is called Aquascene, I think next time we'll go on a weekday when the kids are in school.



After eating at all these places that just seem to disappoint we tried a new place called Sol é Luna which I believe roughly translates to Luna's shoe. Don't quote me on that cause my Italian/Spanish isn't all that great. Ok so Sol é Luna is really our backyard fancied up with some bamboo citronella lamps, $2 each at Coles, a folding card table, $18 at Bunnings and a $10 table cloth. Who knew it was so cheap to start a restaurant? I think with all the lights and stuff we really almost have created a Caribbean paradise in Australia. The only down side is we had to clear the table ourselves, oh and cook the food, oh and put all the stuff away. But as you can see from the pictures it really looks nice. L says she wants to dine there every night, looks like I'll be washing lots of table clothes.

L's Facebook page is doing really well she is connecting with people from her old jobs back in Canada at York CAS, so if you're not a friend of L's on Facebook then friend her, she's actually got more friends than me now.

I'm working on a NEW combined Perils of Paul & Luna Facebook page I have lots of great ideas but none of them are working out but as soon as it's ready it'll be another thing to ignore haha

The Perils of Paul & Luna:Ants on a tight rope

A quick video of how the ants have used our string lights as their new bridge over our patio. Here they try to move a rather large insect, compared to themsleves that is.

The Perils of Paul & Luna: No work = Holiday

One rule we live by here in Darwin is that if you are not at work, you must be on holiday. So Monday to Friday holidays start as soon as L leaves work. Now today was an official holiday for her as she took off some time for time. Since we were going to relax we went to the Skycity casino for buffet lunch. We sat outside and had the whole outside to ourselves. So we changed seating twice. The second place had a breeze and a slightly better view.

Please check out the pictures below of our day. If you are interested see if you can find Waldo in our pictures.

Here are the pictures below

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.163315250420663.42502.100002265677558&l=b96bd5e419&type=1

The Perils of Paul & Luna: Happy moon festival

Happy moon festival everyone and for our Vietnamese friends happy Tet Trung Thu which I think they just shorten to Tet (don't shoot me if I get this wrong).

Not much is happening here in Darwin but this last weekend we went to the Casino for the seafood BBQ. Well it wasn't what I expected they just BBQ'd it then stuck it in the warming trays for it to go all soggy. So a NOT RECOMMENDED. We later went into the Casino because they gave us each $10 for joining the casino (so the can send emails to me), let me tell you this is the quietest casino there is. The machines make just enough noise for you to hear it when you are sitting in front of it. Most machines are 1c, 2c. They have all the other expensive things like poker, roulette so I think the stakes are in the 10's dollar range.

So after loosing the car at Pokies (that's what they call slots) we went into the bar because there was a local band that play "good music", so the doorman told us. Well it was music we knew but not any good for dancing and since everyone was well on their way to being "corked" by 9pm (a little early) they pretty much would dance to anything. I had to convince L to stay around, I kept saying "they'll be better next set honest". Well the 3rd set was OK and we danced but we had to create the atmosphere.

I also said we need to get a BBQ, well to be truthful L said this 1 1/2 months ago, so we went and looked at the 2 places and chose one. Got it home out of the box 3 dents. 2 of the dents made it so you could not open the lid. Of course they close at 6pm on Saturday, and that's late for a store here. So the next day we exchanged it no hassles so, way to go Bunnings. Bunnings is just like Home Depot, we have one here in Darwin and one in Palmerston and from what I have learned if they don't have it in one store then drive to the other. It's like combined they make one complete store. One lady once said, when I was in the Palmerston store 1/2 hour away, "You drove all the way from the city?" ... like it was a long way.

Well during Moon Festival everyone will be eating cake,except us, because I don't even think it's even on the radar here in Darwin, we went to the market which is all Asians (Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese) and not one moon cake. It's funny here people do tend to take on the Auzie accent quicker than in Canada. Everything seems to be a little washed down more HERE than in Canada or San Jose, culture wise... as far as the Vietnamese culture that is. It's funny hearing a Vietnamese lady speak native Vietnamese on minute and be calling you a "bloke" or "mate" the next with the Auzie accent.

The Perils of Paul & Luna:Who needs a script ?

Well here is a little video that I created and posted to Facebook (of all places). Now why Facebook ? Well with my current internet service all Facebook traffic is free. That means I can upload videos. They must hate YouTube. So I thought I'd give it a try and see what happens. This will get posted to YouTube eventually.

Please enjoy watching me struggle.

The Perils of Paul & Luna:New Facebook page

Well I finally got around to creating a Facebook page for L and I. Now personally I hate Facebook, but I said I would do it and I did, so there's no telling if it will be updated or not. Now if you want to be our friend or whatever you are on Facebook then look us up our name is Paul N Luna. Our user name is ThePerilsOfPaulAndLuna only do this if you are a Facebook pro, then sure go add us as a friend. If you are not into Facebook don't worry all the good stuff will be on our blog and our YouTube site(s). But the blog is the place to start because if I post pictures, a video or send an email it all goes into the blog. That way you can always keep up and I'm sure you all are just sitting there just waiting to for my next email/blog update.

L's water plant was put in a new pot that's about 2feet deep and the leaves have grown about 1foot in 2 days to get to the top of the water. It's been quite amazing to monitor it's progress. But the possums discovered it (I figured it was too tricky for them to get on) and ate one of the leaves a bit so now we have to leave the laundry basket on top of it with a rock on top for weight every night.

The weather is starting to get more humid but nothing like I expect they've had in Toronto but it's coming and they tell us it'll be worse. Plus they say the wet season won't be as wet (sure we know weather predictions) so it'll be hot humid with no rain to remove the humidity. I'll keep you informed as the buildup (buildup to the wet) happens.

Oh and it's Domino's Pizza Tuesday night celebrated on Wednesday. Why Tuesday on Wednesday you ask ? Well Tuesday is a special price night at Domino's here but the place is such a zoo and the pizza we get is only 5cents cheaper on Tuesday we do it on Wednesday. Plus we have to save next Tuesday for 2 can dine for the price of 1 at the Casino.
You have to have these small things to look forward to here in Darwin since we don't have high speed internet, cable TV, water or electricity ... OK well it's not that primitive we have PowerWater (yup that's what they call it they combined it into one word).

The Perils of Paul & Luna: Long Litchfield Drive‏

This past weekend we endured the long 1.5 hour drive to Litchfield park. This is a popular day trip for many Darwinians as well as other Australians.
They have camping there but the main draw is the waterfalls with the pools at the bottom. Now 1.5 hour drive only gets you to the gate of the park. In order to get to any of the water falls you have to drive another 45 minutes to get to the first falls. So it's a lot of driving. Well we went to the first falls (picture with the guy jumping) but it was small, crowded and cold. So we ate lunch there and promised we'd go in the next falls (honest). Well it was 130 steps back up and carting the lunch and stuff back up the stairs was pretty straining. Well L carted it down while I took pictures. Guess she's smarter than me to volunteer to go first.
The 2nd water fall another 30 minutes (at least from the first) was very nice as you can see from the pictures. The water was cool but was nice once you got in which we did quickly as there was many people watching. We wandered around the lake and we got to see some bats in the trees hanging upside down. Of course if we wanted bats we'd just go outside our house cause we have lots. Really the only interesting wildlife was the odd Cockatiel (parrot like bird), bats and some wild cows. Well they were on the road to start then they wandered in to the bush to eat it.
Needless to say it was a long ride for a swim it may have been better to go to the local pool. The local scenery is lots of sparsely leaved trees and red dirt. That goes on for pretty much miles. But it's nice to get away but this country is gonna be a lot of driving.
We have been looking at Diving in the great barrier reef maybe a 3 day/2 night on board a boat but we'll see.

Oh and L's plant that was eaten by the possums we put it in it's proper pot today. It had some leaves just starting to grow. When we put the plant 1 leaf was 4 inches below the top of the water now it's 1/2 inch. It has grown or stretched or something quite a lot in one day. Maybe it likes fresh water.

Here are the pictures here or click on the slideshow below for a bigger view.

The Perils of Paul & Luna: Sunday nights alright for fighting

Well there was a huge fight last night while we were sleeping it seems the Possums were at it and it must have been a duzie because the patio this morning had fur all over it.
Hopefully everyone walked away alright because I don't know how to give first aid to a rodent with a pouch.
Speaking of the rodents if you see the videos you'll see L's new Lily water plant, well something in the middle of the night, an animal whom we won't identify as a possum but we have our suspicions, ate the flowers off of the plant. Now it's gone from 5 flowers to just one. We have it in a large plastic storage container so we have to put the lid on it at night to keep the plant safe. Boy the wild kingdom out here is pretty wild.

If you didn't see the videos because they didn't come out that well or were hard to see cause no link came up in the email then go to our blog listed below
or click on this link here >>>>> the link to click <<<<<<
but you are on our blog so they should be just below.

The Perils of Paul & Luna: Whata plant & shady thief‏

Well it's Saturday and I figured I'd make some videos, since I'm too lazy to type and a picture is worth a thousand words so since video is made up of 20+pictures a second I figured each video is worth a novel.

This one is of Luna's water plant.


Here we introduce our new umbrella, why does everyone call it a unbrella ?


L goes plant borrowing in this video, all legal ... or is it ?


Our simple outdoor dinner setup.


Here is our patio at night with the lights, ok it looks better in real life than video.

The Perils of Paul & Luna: The Ants ONE Paul zero

Wasn't I just talking about controlling ants, well just last night i bought a nice chocolate pound cake, on special of course, and L said "you sure you shouldn't put that in the fridge". I looked at the container it came in and said "nah it's pretty tight they shouldn't get in". Well I figured I'd have a nice piece with lunch this afternoon so I opened up the lid and they just poured out on to the counter. Obviously they lid wasn't as ant proof as I expected. So a perfectly good cake in the garbage. Who would have thought you could use ants as a dieting method.

So it's an official Peril that I can finally report.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying cake that is not bug infested. Please think of me while your enjoying your food and I'm starving here in Darwin.

I did go to a job fair today it was really geared towards students not retirees like me. It seems there is not that many people that do Java (what I work with) in Darwin. But I did talk to one company that does surveying and I could be they guy that wacks the stakes in the ground. They guy that holds the stick is considered a university degree job. But the guys said "just show up at the office", so I figured hey maybe I will.

No rain still although last night it was cold we had to put a blanket on the bed. But really you can't beat the weather. You can beat the prices and the lack of shopping, we miss you INSERT ANY NAME OF STORE HERE.

Hmmm I just thought maybe I should cut out the middle of the cake. Maybe they are just surface ants ... on 2nd thought ant bury underground right. I guess I'll have a pear instead

The Perils of Paul & Luna: I've got ants in my pants

OK more like ants in the pantry.

One of the things you have to get used to living here in Darwin is living in harmony with ANTS, well I wouldn't say living in harmony more like tolerating them. You see all throughout the house are we find these little tiny ants, they call them sugar ants, and no matter where you are, kitchen, bathroom or any wall, you see this guys scurrying around looking for something. Now often when we have splashed something on the wall near the sink they absolutely swarm it. Now watching them is pretty interesting as ones coming from their hive/house come to the food the others going back touch them for a second. I guess they have some sort of way of communicating, through touch or just having a quick chat. Now if you get the dish cloth out and start wiping the wall then they run like anything following the path they came down, they must leave some sort of scent, then if they see another ant coming down they touch it and communicate, AHHHHHH RUN, and they turn around and run like heck. Now there can be say 50 ants in one moment then 10 seconds later they are all gone, except for a few that didn't get the AHHHHH RUN message. To fix them we usually wipe up the wall with cleaner where they came down this hopefully removes their scent trail. At least that's what we figure.

So according to a BBC Australia program Australia is basically an ant haven. They build all sorts of famous mounds that are tourist attractions, they have carpenter ants eating the rotten trees and more ants than I'd like to go into without getting all itchy. Now in the garden we have I'd say 3 types of ants. Sugar ants, something a little bigger and some green ant that's even bigger. Now they say once the wet seems to be getting near they tend to migrate into the house. Boy looks like we are going to have one heck of a summer and herding . Needless to say the stores sell all sorts of sprays and stuff to control (that's a nice way to put it) ants when they decide to come to visit. Currently we only have to deal with the sugar ants and they are always anywhere you seem to look down. Which is everywhere.

Just writing this I feel that I've got them crawling on me or at least I feel all itchy. So I guess we'll see what happens and report it as the ant migration occurs. I figure we have a few more months be for the "ANTS GO MARCHING ONE BY ONE HURRAY, HURRAY...."

The perils of Paul & Luna: Marsupial or marPOOPial

Well things are settling in to a boring pace here. Get up sunny outside, top of 30c (that's high of 30 in Ozzie speak) and a bottom in the 20s. That's pretty much been going on for 3 months now. My weather thing on my computer says it will hit 91F or 32c this Thursday. I'm not sure if this is what the call the buildup (the buildup to the wet) but I don't think so because it's not humid yet and the buildup is supposed to be really sticky.

Well we were having visits by the possums before but lately they haven't shown up. I think they move around in some sort of territory. But for sure they were sleeping in the bloody roof on Sunday morning because I could hear them walking around up there. But not my house so I'm not getting up there to shooo them out.

As you can see from the pictures that we had one visit and it was a mummy. She had her baby holding on her back and the baby is holding on as she climbs trees as well.
There are some other pictures there I don't know what happened to the first lot of pics I think Picasa couldn't find them on my computer because I didn't have the hard drive plugged in so it removed them.
By who do I call them marpoopials because when we left the food out they decided to poop all over the patio. Now I'm gonna have to get a shovel to clean up after the little buggers. But they are cute and we do love watching them and they are pretty timid so they don't come up to us. Living here is like the wild kingdom not that we can see the animals but we can certainly hear them. There are fights and screaming and that's not the neighbors but the animals. We have a tree one yard over and it looks like the tree from Avatar. I showed it in a previous video (see the blog or youtube) and now our place has finally been put in order I'll do a video of our house.

We still haven't gotten a decent connection to the internet but hopefully soon. Then I can uploading some more videos but really I can't think of what there isn't much here in Darwin. As a tourist spot it's kinda sparse (my opinion). Other than the croc attractions there isn't much here to do. There is the casino which we have joined so we can get the discount at the buffet. Not quite as good as Mandarin but good enough and coke is included (you know I may have said this in a previous email so maybe I'm getting old and jelloie in the head).

So here are the pictures

If you don't see the slideshow above click here

Take care everyone I'll try to write sooner next time.

The Perils of Paul & Luna: The place just doesn't seem to have the same echo

Well at 9am this morning some moving guy called me call me Mr Neguen (mangled L's last name) and said are you ready for delivery. Well that was right out of the blue. He said that they'd deliver by 2:30 and by 3:30 they showed up. I'd say that's pretty good for NT time (NT means NOT TODAY, NOT TOMORROW, NOT TUESDAY, NOT THURSDAY). Well all of our stuff is here and the living room no longer has that echo. So my dad hopefully won't notice when I call him on the phone. L's statue did suffer some damage which is weird it was in a crate and was pretty well packed. I think we can glue it back on and maybe do some repairs to make it look passable. I assembled our bed and for an IKEA bed I managed without too much swearing and actually got it together without many missing parts. All parts fit. So now some unpacking for the next few days.

The garden is pretty much done as far as chopping down all the palms. There is the odd one that's gonna need a trim but we took down a pretty big one on Monday (it was a holiday here some horse race day). Now all we need to do is drag it to the frond area which is overflowing and if I put the stumps there it will burst so I'll wait.

We have put up some solar LED lights wrapped around a couple of palms. It almost looks like Christmas at Mandarin Buffet Restaurant (we miss you). For those of you that don't know what that looks like I'll see if I can take a night photo to capture the atmosphere we are trying to create. The only problem with this house is there is no electrical outlet outside. They said "you can plug it inside and run an extension cord thru the screen door. Anyone see and issue with that ?
SO for now we're going solar, but it's hard for them to stay in the sun (the collector thing) because of the palms so I have to turn them off every night to preserve the battery. We will be starting on the fence next, just filling it in with either some sort of bamboo cover or some sort of green mesh type of stuff. I try to do pics later to show what I mean. This will stop people from looking in the backyard. We have some stuff up but it's old and falling down.

We just had to stop for a possum moment. They climb all over the trees/palms they fight all night usually about 4am. It's night here about 9pm and we are sitting out in the dark with the LED lights on. Oops a big fight happening over there in the field. L's got a LED torch (flash light) we use it to spot the wildlife.

Ok gotta go now my tea is here I am having a Coles (grocery store) doughnut we get 6 for $2 which is a good deal but the icing isn't all that good. I think we'll try to get their 6 iced donuts on special for $1 (ok there are some deals here but not many).

Take care

The Perils of Paul and Luna:Luna goes potty on video

Hi all another day without rain that makes exactly 2 months since we've been here and it has not rained.
Now here the weather is reasonably dry but I understand Toronto and parts of the USA are getting hammered in a heat wave.
Tough it out guys remember in 6 months we'll be getting the heat wave and most of you will be shoveling it.

I spared no expense and uploaded a video of L going potty.
>

Take care P & L

Finally some pictures

Well I have finally gotten around to uploading the pictures. I have been procrastinating because I don't have my picture computer it's still in transit from Canada and I didn't want to install Picasa on my laptop but I did anyways.

We have moved in to our new place and you can see by the pictures it's quite nice although the house part is pretty dark during the day. They have a habit of having overhangs that cover the windows and the sun is so high in the sky that hardly any light gets in. Plus the kitchen where I am the light from the front of the house is blocked by a big wall.

Our backyard has lots of palms that block out a lot of the light so I've chopped about 4 down already and there's more to go. The only problem is the lizards are in them and I squashed another on the other day Crying face. So I'm trying to fell them a little gentler now. The leaves part we can put in the FROND place (never heard of the word frond)

The term frond refers to a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature.

Ok just looked it up it's the leaf. But the trunk part I'm not sure we can put it in frond pile, we may have to drive them to the dump and I'm not to frond of that Open-mouth smile please somebody get that joke I've been saying it all week and L just doesn't give me any reaction.

So if you want to see the pics there are here

They are also linked via the blog.

I want to say Happy Birthday to Dang Khoi in San Jose.

L is getting on at work she's driving different cars on different days, they are piling the work on and saying no overtime.

Our weekend is here and we will be getting a WASHING MACHINE. Yeah I know big deal right but we don't have one. We have a new fridge, 2 wicker chairs L bought for outside. Our kitchen set is 2 other fake plastic molded wicker like chairs and a Bunnings (like Home Depot) folding plastic table. The idea is that the table will make a great computer table and if we ever entertain we can make it the buffet table. The 2 chairs (fake plastic ....) are really expensive but comfortable. Kind of the stuff you'd find in McDonald's and they match the 2 outside chairs. Right now there is a palm down in the middle of the patio (the whole backyard is a patio) and I'll have to de fond it and cut it up. Ok I also have pruning scissors and a bow saw. My other tools are a caulking gun and a box cutter. This place has a few things that need fixing not to mention THE DRIPPING TAPS THAT KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT.

Speaking of things that keep me up at night, every night I don't know what it is but something decides to run across the roof. L says it's probably a rat. She also thinks there is a dead one in the eves trough making a horrible smell making it kinda unpleasant to sit out the back.

Well that's were we are as of today check out the pics see how we are suffering, well the pics make life look great here and once we get things sorted out life should settle down to just being plane boring (I hope so). We also got note that our stuff that was shipped cleared customs and "just has to be delivered", so I'm thinking 2-3 more weeks. I hope it comes we bought a cheap foam mattress and I don't think it was made for people that weigh than 100lbs cause I'm prettying much touching the floor. Plus it doesn't spring back. Well we didn't pay much so if you come visit guess what you will be sleeping on????

Take care all L & P

If that doesn't work just click this link it should work.

CLICK ME FOR PICTURES

The Perils of Paul & Luna: Best fireworks this side of Disney

Well last Friday was Canada day (in Canada) but here in Darwin it was Northern Territory day. There was fireworks signs plastered all over the place and on Thursday (the day before) people were lined up outside these firework places. I thought boy these Australians are mad keen to celebrate. Even on the Friday, which by the way is not a holiday here, they were parked down the street and lined up outside the store for fireworks. A few people seemed to want to get an early start on the festivities by letting them off during the day on July 1st. I don't know why I couldn't see the color part of the fire works I could just hear the bang. Which by the way is pretty loud when you live between 4 apartment buildings. It sounds like they are letting them off outside your window when they are lighting them off quite a ways up on a hill.

So we went to Mindle beach that night and it was pitch black that night there was no moon, so I could not see where they were going to set them off from. But people had brought their own and were letting them off all along the beach. It was quite a sight to see, although some of them could have exercised a little more caution in regard to safety but this is the outback so I guess you gotta go with the flow.

The fireworks that the government put on were amazing they lasted a long time. They had a barge way out in the bay. Further in the bay there were sail boats, some of these sail boats were even setting off their own fireworks. On the beach there were these fire cannons and thy would let of these fire balls. There were about 8 of them and they would do patterns and things. It was pretty impressive. So there were fireworks on the beach and on the water. I came here expecting that they would be OK but it was a very good show. Now all I have to say to the people that were standing in front of me "hey you, you make a better door than a window". I would have said that but no one can understand me here with my funny Canadian accent (just kidding).

Well after the fact we find out that no where else in Australia can people have fireworks (not sure how totally true it is) and they can only buy them the day of and the day before NT day. They can only fire them off on NT and they must be finished by 11pm. I would say that at about 11 things got quiet ... well quieter. There were the odd blast every so often. Now I must say that I think there were a few fireworks that people had forgotten about because just about every-night this week one or two go off and it's always when I'm trying to get to sleep.

Another piece of news is that we have found a new place to live. It figures now we have gotten all the bugs worked out of this place (except the microwave) we are going to move. Now in our new place we have to buy a fridge, gotta good deal on a new one, it comes with a stove, so we still need a washing machine which we'll get next week. We have enough clothes to last a month I think we haven't even unpacked 1/2 of them. So since all of our stuff is still being shipped here we have nothing so we had to buy cutlery, dishes, kettle, microwave, cleaning stuff, a mattress (just a foam thing), Luna got some outside chairs that we'll have to use inside and I'll buy a folding table that I can use later as a computer table.

L sent me off to buy a toilet seat and the ones here are pretty flimsy. The one I thing is even any good is $50, holy crap (pardon the pun). So as usual I decided to think on it (I think there's a pun in there somewhere too).

Our place is near the beach not facing the beach as I would have liked but it has some good qualities like it is a townhouse thingy with parking right outside so we don't have to go up stairs. It has been freshly painted but it's far from new. The backyard will be good for L to put in some plants. Although the backyard is completely covered with palms (palm trees) of sorts so we are gonna need a tree trimmer (don't want to mail mine back to me do you dad). A few need to be chopped down completely. But  I think it'll be a nice place to relax not too sunny but it'll have some sun once we do a little trimming.

The good thing is that we'll be able to go for evening walks, well we don't have TV so what else we'll we be able to do. Hopefully soon I'll get the internet and I can make some more videos. But all around this area is a pathway and park that runs right along the ocean. Every so often there is exercise station that has a chin up bar. I certainly could use this. So hopefully we'll get out more to see the show (sun going down) because we'll be living in the best place for it.

Just next to us is a house with 2 little ones I'll say 4 and 2, they were peeking at me today as I was taking stuff into the house. I guess these'll be my new friends, actually I need some kids I just bought some type of ice cream that I thought was cones but it's just ice cream and chocolate which I'm not too keen on, so instead I'll feed it to them ... better get the wet naps or dry bots as they are called here (meaning dry bottie or bottom), they certainly have funny sayings here which believe it or not I understand. A byproduct of having English parents, all of this unfortunately goes over L and I have to explain it to her.

These Aussies love to shorten things like McDonald's is called MACCAs, McDonald's even has that word in their advertising. But they shorten lots of other words none that come to mind (figures).

I just wanted to say a thing about bugs here, generally there are not very many flies NOT LIKE CANADA, BUT we have a lot of really tiny critters mostly ants. The ones I see are called white ants and they seem to scurry around the floor looking rather lost but if you leave food out on the counter their all over it the next morning. I've found you just remove the food wipe the counter where they have walked and it seems to get rid of them. I think washing the count messes up the scent trail they leave. We have seen 2 cockroaches 1 big and 1 small both dead (or they soon were) and in apartments, on in ours I think. They other day I saw a huge grasshopper it was as big as my finger. But other than the tiny ants all over the floor, I know they are there because I lay on the floor to do some exercises, it's pretty bug free. Now that could change in the wet seasons I won't know until then.

As far as birds they don't have much of a variety here although we did see a big black parrot up a tree doing some sort of gymnastics on the branch. There have also been these swarms of other types of parrots (or we think they are) and they make a racket and fly around in circles like mad. I think they're eating bugs. In the complex we are in we have these things that look like a very small ostrich but are about the size of a chicken. Now I know they can fly but maybe they don't fly well (like chickens). They walk around outside in the mulch kicking back with their feet. L keeps saying who's been putting all this mulch on the side walk ... well I can probably guess.

So not much perils I have to leave soon to drop off some luggage at the house and get a microwave, boy K Mart saved out butts here only cheap place here. Hopefully I'll see the kids so I can make some new friends and it is the weekend so we'll be ... oh yeah cleaning the new place, that doesn't sound like much of a holiday. I keep thinking I have to find a job but I don't ever seem to have enough time. I guess those retirees are right.

Take care all L is doing OK at her job it's certainly a different place than what's she's used to and when she goes out on a call she gets to drive a different car. So she's gonna have driven more cars here than I ever will.

Last thing I had an achy tooth and went to the dentist, I figured I was gonna pay thru the nose but one xray and an exam was $90Aud which is about $95us. So the dentists in the family was that I good deal ? I thought it was.

OK gotta go now for sure take care I'll write again next week.

Perils of Paul: Darwin is for Diets‏

Well I guess what they say is true reducing calories does EQUAL weight loss, who would have thought. For some reason I seem to have lost a little bit of weight here in Darwin. Really I think it is because when I lived in Canada L used to make some really big lunches (yummy) and since I am at home all day she doesn't have to do that. I really don't eat that much at home just cereal and fruit. My coke consumption really is about the same as it was at home. Speaking of coke I bought a kids happy meal at Mc'Ds yesterday and the small drink (not included of course) $2.50, they must tax coke like booze here that can be the only reason why it's expensive. So because of my diet I'll soon have a 2 pack for a belly, I'll never be able to afford a 6 pack here in Darwin cause a 6 pack of beer must be like $20.

Well I've gotten a new internet thingy this is similar to the other one but it gives my 8gig upfront and was $99 compared to 5gig @ $129. With a $50 recharge I'll get 6gig compared to 3gig with the other one. So this is a little better but hopefully when we get a place I can get full on internet, but that days a few months off yet. It's OK considering that I'm at home, I'm really not using it that much, I've been busy I'm always late picking up L.

Well we may get the microwave fixed next week, if the real-estate lady ever shows or calls. Now the tap is dripping in the laundry faster. The other day it was pouring out I had to shut off the hot water. It's at the point where you can't turn it anymore it's metal on metal. I warned the people but hey to get a plumber to fix a washers gonna cost $100. I'm sure they'd rather wait till it's totally messed up then he's gonna have to come in an replace the faucet as well. Not my money.

So things are settling in we're still looking for places hopefully something will come up soon as this place is so close to the road that at 5am when the trucks start driving by I end up waking up. No wonder I'm so tired. Compounding that is the people upstairs must belong to river dance or something they are always stamping and dropping things. But overall the place is clean and new and that's what counts. After saying that sitting on the couch feels like sitting on sandpaper so I'm well exfoliated on the legs.

The great thing about this place is we're always dressed like it's a holiday, I haven't worn socks yet and it's nothing but sandals and flip flops (thongs as the call them here), shorts and t-shirts. I'd grow a beard but L has her limits on how much of a slob I can be. But I must say that Darwin has been tough on clothes, I think it's the washing machine is junk. So far this place has ruined 3 of my shirts with the color running out of one shirt into another. L's stuff seems to be immune to stains, it figures she has more clothes than I do and it always happens to either something I paid a lot of money for (Holister shirt) or one I would really need (long sleeve white top). I'll just tell people they're tie died.

L has had training 3 days this week, Working with Aboriginals will have it's difficulties because they have what they call "sorry business" that's when a relative dies they don't take visitors for days to weeks (could be months). So in training they warned them about this. We have also read about this in some big manual they gave her last year so she could read up on things.

Oh HAPPY CANADA DAY everyone. I had visions of dressing up in my "I am Canadian" t-shirt today but here in the Northern Territories (NT for short) it's NT Day. We didn't get a holiday but they have fireworks in 2 separate places here. For a town of only 80k they sure know how to spend the governments money. Hopefully we can go to Mindle beach (the place we watch the sun go down a lot) but it'll be murder getting there. We may just have to ... walk (ugh) I just looked there is no free buses (too bad). I'm sure it wouldn't be polite saying "happy Canada day" to strangers. Well enjoy the day off hopefully it's a nice long weekend for you all.

Oh and HAPPY 4th OF JULY for all our American friends. I just looked they get a long weekend too. Wow long weekends in Canada and the USA, boy cross border shopping will be busy at Niagara falls.

For everyone else HAPPY SATURDAY and SUNDAY. I think that covers about just everyone.

I think we get one more public holiday then that's it till Christmas. It seems all the public holidays are in the first 7 months here then nothing. But hopefully the hot weather makes if feel like one long holiday but I can only verify that once the WET gets here (the hot rainy season).

Well take care all one of these days I'll get the picture situation worked out, but to be perfectly honest I really don't want to install Picasa on my laptop I'd rather wait till my computers from Canada arrive and mess them up haha.

Paul & Luna

PS any dentists reading this my tooth hurt

The Perils of Paul & Luna: CARnage

Well today I picked up our new car. I'll send pictures later (yeap like all the others I haven't uploaded). It's kinda strange not having L there for the fanfair but we can go back on Saturday for our picture. They say they'll send us as calendar with our pics on it. So we can count the days till our 2 years is up ... just kidding.

So everything is good here just the microwave is outstanding and I haven't received a call yet from the realestate lady. I guess she doesn't want to have to face a client or this is the type of work no one likes. Not making money doing house calls.
We did go out for dinner for our anniversay at the casino to the buffet and for a Monday it was quite busy and I only have 2 words for this buffet UNLIMITED COKE. The price a little cheaper than Mandarin not as good but it wasn't bad. Coke was included in the price so I had my $3 worth and no tipping. So this dinner was a ok buffet and we got to sit out on the patio because inside was freezing. Table clothes would have made things a little nicer but hey what can you expect I guess. The grounds of the casino are nice so we went for a little walk. Oh yeah it's 20% on Mon-Wed.

Today we go back for a 2nd look at a place, well it's my 2nd look and L's first. I want her to see this place. Although most places have ratty old appliances (if any) usually the oven is ancient (state of the ark as dad would say). Plus we have to get our own fridge and washer. we'll see what the bosses opinion is.

Ok later all nothing big to update no real Perils finally.

Take care Paul & Luna

The Perils of Paul & Luna: AnNOTversary

Well have been so busy lately that we even forgot our wedding anniversary on June 18th. If mum hadn't have called it would have just slipped by. My friend Jeff emailed a day later 19th here 18th back home, because his is the same day, so I would have known after the fact but I guess being away from my job I didn't have Jeff to remind me that it was coming. So we haven't celebrated it yet we wanted to go to a buffet last night at the casino but the table they offered us wasn't that great and the place was empty. But they assured us it was all booked, a booking as they call it.

Oh and we've been married 6 years, and it just feel like yesterday 10 years.

I put the money on the car and I pick it up on Wed morning. So I'll try to send a picture (yeah right no pictures out of me so far so don't expect much). This internet is killing me and we are down to about 1.5gig left. I may try a different company but people say it's is killer slow. But if I can do emails then I'd be ok. We'll see.

I saw a place today nice but way overpriced I saw a place in the same complex last Friday cheaper and bigger with a better balcony, so I'll see if we can go back there this week and take L there.

Actually I feel a little disheartend I called a few placement agencies and they don't really place computer programmers here much. They gave me the line "send in you resume and we'll ..." you know the line. But they had plenty of dishwashing jobs available if I wanted to do something a little different, I'm kidding, although they did say there I could take some temp work if I wanted doing ???? Guess I better get working on that resume, and for me that is a job I don't like. Mind you I L and I did a great job on her resume to get this job.

The weather here is great, not too hot and not a cloud in the sky. They are still doing a lot of burning the brush. The aborigionals used to do this in the past now the the city does it, although I think the aboriginals still do this elsewhere.

The microwave may get fixed soon, I'm supposed to hear from the real estate agent, I'm sure they'll want to visit to see it in action for themselves. I'm sure that the microwave will do it's 1111 tune for him/her and they'll know that it is really fried. Funny cause it looks brand new to me, must be a lemon.

Speaking of lemons we went to some nurseries yesterday and we saw a lemon tree with blossom on it. It smelled great so that's what I want. Things are funny, some of the house plants we have in Canada are plants they put outside here. In Canada they are cheap, here expensive. But other plants that look really cool and they are big here are cheap $30. So hopefully we get a place that we can have some really interesting plants on. One thing is for sure whatever we will get won't be anything like we have in Canada.

Mind you one of the best shows that they have here is the sunset. It's free (except for the price of gas), it happens every day (well so far cause there's been no rain), lots of people watch/photo/video it and no one ever claps when the shows finished ... well except me I do, they all look at me and smirk.

Well that's all for now not much peril going on I'm sure there's some out there somewhere to be found but things are starting to settle in except we have to take a loan to go to a buffet place at the Casino.

The Perils of Paul & Luna: I can see the light

Well the people at L's work said that they would give us the money if we bought the light bulbs for the kitchen and the hallway. If not it would cost the at least $100 to have a handy man come around. So we went to K-Mart and $18 later we should be able to see what we are doing in the kitchen.

So really all that needs fixing is the microwave. Of course once we get all this stuff sorted out we'll probably find a place to live. Now that's a good thing but our furniture hasn't arrived. L was talking to a lady at work who moved up from the southern part of Oz and she says it'll be 2 more months before she'll see her furniture. So I wonder what that's gonna mean for us. We looked at a place right on the beach today, well us and about 20 other couples. Needless to say I think that places will be gone by Monday. There is a place 1 row behind the front row that I saw on Friday. I want L to see it. It has a front and back balcony great for plants, can't say I don't look after my wife's interests. Of course if we move there soon plants is about all we'll have. I'll keep you postede.

Our car I think is ready. We drove to the dealer on Friday night and I was looking inside cars trying to figure out which one was ours. Of course the non mechanical one L said "maybe that one with the tinted windows", hmmm some days she surprises me with the obvious. Kinda messes it up for me I had some sort of great mathematical calculation that relied on aligning with the stars to figure it all out. But tinted windows beat that. I'll call the guy Monday we'll pick it up Tuesday or Wed.

So it's Saturday here not much house hunting this weekend, but we'll be hard at it again soon. L has a headache and is reading on the dusty couch. We are doing wash and the dryer is making a racket in the background. Now I've figure since it vents itself into the house and we have no heat ... yup it's our new heater, a little humid but we have to get used to humidity in 5 months.

Oh we also got a hair trimmer for me because the one we bought is 110v and we forgot to get the converter from my dad. So we went to the bargain store and picked one up for $9.99. Hey can't beat that. It's a little big but L should be able to handle it with 2 hands. I mean so what she shaves of an eye brow or 2. It's not like I haven't done that to myself by accident in the past.

Wow a big clunk then silence so that means either the dryer is finished or the circuit breaker in the dryer has flipped again.

Water here is interesting since it's not cheap, my brother would probably say "yeah cause it's costs a lot to ship and it's just water", we have been buying it in big plastic jugs. Not that big it's about 5 litres and it was like 7 dollars. Now I calculate it that's more expensive than milk. Maybe I have my figures wrong. So we bought water in this big cardboard box thing, it's kinda like the wine you can get in Canada in a box. Probably just as expensive as wine, no I think it was just over $3, I just checked it's 10 litres. Well the other one we bought before is just as much as milk. What a crazy country.

The perils of Paul & Luna: Winning today kinda‏

Well I had my first hot shower since last weekend and I'm am super clean. Poor Luna I had to keep her warm with the hair dryer after she got out of the shower today. It's been kinda cold here 12c at night. Now that's just a normal summer night for you guys in Canada but here it's full on news. That and anything to do with a Crocodile seems to be news.

So showers fixed, TV is back, although I figured that would get fixed quick as it affected the whole building. We went to the library and got a few movies we watched Da vinci code, we finally had a version with subtitles we missed the whole other languages bit in the (cough copy) we saw.

So it's just the lights and the microwave. Now I did talk to some lady at L's work and she said she'd get back to me. So we'll see where that gets.

I'm also waiting for a call back from the car salesman. I want to know if the cars gonna be ready so we won't have to rent for a few days. In this case I think NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS. Oh the laundry machine is singing to me. This is the 2nd time I did this load, the firsttime  the powder did not dissolve it was just one big clump in the place where you put it.

We have been looking at places and I saw a place today not bad but it had this huge table thing that was made of 1 piece of wood. Must have been 2ft wide. It kinda took over the apartment, I think I'll get L to have a look but I want to be near the water and this place can kinda see it if you look between 2 buildings. Not exactly the same. We've seen other places ... what a mess, I bet who ever gets us as a tenant won't want us to leave. Since I'll be a full-time house keeper. Even the place I saw today the fridge was a mess. Hmmm better go check ours but we don't leave stains all over things.

So I hope this finds everyone well I hope your summer is getting on better I hear it's on and off in Canada.

Take care Paul on behalf of Luna who is working (I think she's training actually).

What else could possibly go wrong‏

Well the cable of course.
We have what must be an antenna line for the TV. Now we get about 9 channels. When I say 9 channels what it really is 4 channels are duplicated the first 4 of them are fine the 2nd 4 duplicates are ghosty, and some other channel. Now as of last night we have 9 channels of snow. If I stand holding the wire with one foot in the air the snow isn't that bad.

Hopefully this is affecting someone else in building.
Our water heater is supposed be getting fixed today possiby. Well they are supposed to call Luna, but since she is in training all day I doubt they'll be able to get a hold of her.

We put a down payment on a car now we need to see if they'll actually have it ready for next Wed. Something tells me the salesman may have stretched the truth on delivery a little, we'll see.

Ok gotta run doing our long stay visa application.

P & L

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok that was a cold show. Luna managed to at least get some warmth in her shower before work but mine 1 hour later was down right cold. In canada in the shower was hot but getting out in the bathroom the room was cold, but here it's cold in the shower and cold out.

It's the coldest morning since we got here, kind of reminds me of Canada. This is not acceptable in any way. We have no heat here. I had to unpack our new dryer to heat myself up with. Looks like I'll be wearing a sweat shirt in side the house today.

Well just a quick update to tell you that fiddling with the thermostat didn't give any results. Hopefully Luna tells the lady at work so we can get this fixed ASAP.

Take care all we miss Mandarine Chinese buffet if anyone can please send a huge take-out order.

Paul

The Perils of Paul & Luna : Condominium monium‏

Well the condo troubles continue, this weekend we tried to turn the air conditioner on in the bedroom. So I set it to 28c and let it run, at bedtime I decided to turn it off. So I got the remote control and ... dead. It was dead. Now I poked and proded the control and I could not figure out how to take the batteries out. So to turn it off I had to shut off the power via the circuit breaker. So when we got up the next morning, no hot water. So I figured that maybe it was attached to the same circuit but on the breakers it has it's own. So I popped off a plug and turned up thermostat, switched on the breaker for the air con and waited. Well the water came out luke warm at best. Now as I write this the top pipe seems to be hotter than it was yesterday. Now yesterday I turned down the thermostat to see if that works. So if you hear a huge scream that'll be me taking a cold shower.

Parking, when we first got here we asked a guy in the lot, where can you park and he said "wherever ?", so we did. Two days we got letters on the car saying we are parking their spot, so we asked work where was the parking they contacted the building and they gave us a map. Now we looked at the map and it indicated that we are supposed to park under the building. Which is ok but you need a garage door opener which they didn't supply. So we are now parking on the street.

So what else is wrong, the microwave still doesn't work, the dryer only dries on warm, and the dishwasher cannot take a full plate standing up. We have to lay all plates on their sides in order to wash them, we don't wash 1/4 of the dishes we did in Canada, cause we don't have any. Oh and when we do a load of laundry we have to put it in the dryer as 2 loads, which take twice as long to dry. Luna left a towel outside to dry and it's like sandpaper so that should either be good for drying ourselves off or for exfoliating.

We have been looking at cars and I think we have decided on a Hyundai i30, white, 1.6L automatic, hatchback. Someone asked why we are picking white automatic. Well automatic because Luna and I can't concentrate on driving on the WRONG side of the road and change gears and white because any other color in this heat makes the car an oven. Hatchback so we can carry stuff like, fridges and stoves, washing machines that we may need to get when we find a new places. Oh and we are getting the windows tinted for an extra $600. They said we should but paint protection from fruit bat droppings but that is $2400 that's 10% of the cars value. So I think not I'll have to wash it off. Their droppings are acidic and can eat thru paint if left on.

So today we are going to give Luna's new GPS a spin to determine if it's any good. So far it won't show a preview of the route like her old one. But it's only $100 (we miss you Costco). Hopefully it'll suffice. Just enough to get her in the general area and back to work.

We only have a week and a bit before we have to return the car so we need to put a down payment on the car on Tuesday and this car is not in their lot but is in their ???? area. Where they put the cars together, I don't know what that means I thought cars would come assembled, but I think it's something to do with having some Australian content in the assembly that keeps the taxes or something down.

I'll try to make some more videos it's just this internet limit is a killer and there is no end in sight it's pay as you go here and 3gig is $30 for 30 days use it or loose it. Heck that was 4 days worth at home with youtube video watching. Needless to say there's no youtube watching going on. Not that I miss it much but youtube uploads are restricted. I thought Vietnam was a 3rd world country but it seems in some ways Darwin is a little 3rd worldie.

So some good news, this town seems to have a lot of things going on as in markets, there are 3 every week and there is one on Thursday and Sunday at a place called Mindil beach. Where everyone goes to get some food and watch jugglers and watch the sun go down. Now you would think that this sort of thing would die after a few weeks but there are thousands of people there every time it's open and they bring wine and beer and watch the sun go down whilst sitting on the beach. We have been there 3 times and every time the sun went down without any issues, I wanted to clap but I'm affraid they'd send me in for a mental health assessment. People video'd it, pictured it and I don't think all these people are tourists. So to get about 3-5% of the cities population out twice a week is quite a feat I would think. The food is ok. Mostly meats, vegetables are a luxury here. I think that poor diet is a problem here for Australians and aboriginals alike.

We found a store the other day that had bananas on for $7.95kg instead of the usual $12.95 so we bought 3, 3 bananas not kgs heck we're not millionaires you know. It had other things priced pretty good. So we'll be back 4 sure.

Coke, I do not know what coke has against Darwin (not sure about the rest of Australia) but it is really expensive. A 1.5 litre bottle in the store 2 for $5. Now Pepsi is 2x2litre bottles for $4. I guess coke is more popular in Oz. Now the cans I bought from Kmart don't taste all that good. So I mostly stick to water, expensive 24 bottles $10, or milk $3 for 3 litres if you buy the store brand. Luna's drinking water and orange juice and we have tea once and a while but we can't find our type of tea here even though we know they have it in Oz. So once we run out then I guess Luna is off of tea because it's decaf and regular tea keeps her up at night.

We have been driving around Darwin looking at places so much that I could become a real estate agent. There are lots of houses on the market as well as apartments for rent. Good for us I hope, but we can't buy they are expensive for what you get.

It sounds like there are gonna stick a carbon tax on things here in Oz. Even though they Lady prime minister said she wouldn't. I haven't been keeping up on things much here but I'm sure that'll stick the price of gas up. Although it is a coalition government here so maybe they'll just delay as long as possible because taxes usually get people un-elected.

I must admit that the weather has been amazing, it was cold at night although lots of people are saying it's cold, for us Torontonians it's just right. No humidity and sunny every day. There was a fire the other day in a field but the paper said it was a controlled burn. Didn't seem like it was very controlled to me it was burning in all different spots and we only saw the fire department sitting at the gas station, probably a wise place to protect.

The Australian forces have a big presences here in Darwin and every so often we get to see fighter jets flying around making lots of noise. Although they are the outdated ones that the Canadians are trying to replace.

They have a place like Lowes/Home Depot here. It's smells kinda funny must be some sort of dirt or something but it's huge and clean. We bought Luna's GPS at a place similar to Staples and the prices on hard drives seem pretty good. Some prices on things are a little better cause taxes are included, others are a little more, and others a WAY more. Over all we are way better off in Canada except for the weather. Even healthcare wise you are better off.

OK well I gotta go gonna see if the shower is cold, warm or hot (please be hot). Since I am writing this email offline (can't afford sending packets out to the interent it'll eat up my 2.5 gigs that are left). I will report back what the water heater situation is.

Take care all we love you and miss you all, we miss Oceans Chinese food store (good prices and lousy service beats HIGH prices any day).

I'll write in the week. Please write us (cough Luna cause she's the only one with friends) she reads them all it's just that I won't let her on the computer to write you back hahaha.

Paul and Luna (in absentia or the kitchen).


SHOWER REPORT:
Well it was a little more than warm today and lasted enough for us both to have a quick shower. But we had the faucet cranked on full heat. Now really we should be scalded on that setting but we were just not shivering. I also see that under the sink there is some sort of thing that mixes cold with the hot I think it's some sort of safety feature. But the pipe on the hot water heater should be too hot to touch and it is not. So I have upped the thermostat maybe it needed a reset, it's probably the element or the thermostat is fried.