February 11 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland
Flight? What flight?
Myrt has missed her flight. It was at one-something this morning, and she thought it was tomorrow morning. Apparently, she woke up at 6:00AM this morning with a sick feeling in her stomach and she realized what had happened. So she and Martin came down this morning with very sheepish looks on their faces. I thought to myself, "Now what kind of trouble could these two have gotten into in the eight hours since I last saw them?". Then they told me what had happened and I couldn't help but laugh! Poor Myrt. Because she flew in on frequent flyer miles, she can't fly out of Cairns for another week using miles. But she can get a few flights out tomorrow if she buys them.
The fins is our (Jon and my) reactions to the problem of a missed flight. A year ago, we would have felt her pain. But now, our reaction was "So what? Stay another week! You don't HAVE to be back right away. What's the rush?" But she had a set schedule in her mind and didn't want to deviate from it. So she booked a flight for tomorrow and she and Martin went into town to pick it up.
Our Afternoon
We decided that - since today is the lovebirds' last day together - they should go to the Atherton Tablelands on their own. So we had sandwiches for lunch and they hopped in the truck and left. Jon and I were supposed to spend the day studying, but we really spent it napping and watching TV. Actually, Jon spent some very productive time grumbling about the lack of a laptop. The shop said it would be ready by 4:45, but since we don't have the truck we can't pick it up.
Myrt and Martin got back around 6:30 and we all chilled out and did Martin's crossword puzzles. Then we got dressed and went out to eat.
A Night Out on the Town
The Raw Prawn
We ended up at a cool restaurant on the Esplanade called "The Raw Prawn". This phrase "raw prawn" comes from an Australian phrase, "Don't go the raw prawn with me, mate!". It's a colloquialism which means, "Don't deceive me!". We also spent a lot of time laughing about our other new-found Australian phrases. Earlier, we were telling Monica and Martin about our antics in the drive-through liquor store and ordering a case of Foster's bottles: "A slab of Foster's stubbies". Martin enhanced this by adding, "And toss a cask of weasel piss in the boo for the sheilas, mate!". This translates to "Put a box of cheap wine in the trunk for the ladies, buddy" and it gave us such a laugh when Martin said it.
Dinner was delicious and a lot of fun. Myrt and I ordered the barramundi - a local fish that was divine. Jon had a combination of coral cod, calamari, prawns, and barramundi. And Martin ordered the chili mud crab - also a local dish. The owner of the Raw Prawn brought "Cedric" to the table to introduce him to Martin before he was taken to the kitchen for cooking. He was a greenish-blue color, and didn't very excited about become dinner. But such is the life of a crab. Post-kitchen, Cedric was a lovely orange color and was very, very good.
Cedric, Before-Kitchen |
Cedric, Post-Kitchen |
After dinner, we walked to Cold Rock, which is an ice creamery off the Esplanade. Cold Rock is a cool variation of Baskin Robbin's. They have a slab of frozen rock on which they put the frozen ice cram and a selected topping, they chop it all up, and mix it together, and roll it into an ice cream cone or cup. Click here to see pictures of the ice cream-making process. It was so delicious! We sat outside at some tables, ate our ice cream and told really goofy jokes.