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.
