December 17 - Australia: Cairns

Into Townhouse #8

Despite having been here for a week, we still wake up obscenely early every morning.  Whether this is due to prolonged jet lag or Jon's running schedule is debatable.  But we were glad to be up because today is MOVING DAY!!!

Since Jon moved most of our stuff yesterday, it wasn't difficult to move because all that was left to take was my backpack.  So - while Jon logged onto the Internet because our phone in the townhouse isn't hooked up yet - I went over to our new abode.

The place is an oven!!  Despite three air conditioners, three ceiling fans, and a multitude of closed blinds, the upstairs is extraordinarily hot.  We figured out later why this is.  We are an outside unit, so the stairway wall is exposed to the sun all afternoon/evening.  Basically, the bricks gets heated and the place cooks.  I'm sure it will cool down at night, but this really means that we won't be upstairs very often during the day.

Our Cute Townhouse!

To the right of the townhouse is a little pool.  We like to call it "our pool" because no one seems to use it and it's pretty much in our backyard.  I've posted more pictures if you're really curious about the rest of our little house.

Errands Around Town

We went to run some errands and to buy some large drinking glasses because the townhouse didn't have any.  (And no, we didn't take them from the apartment.  We could rationalize doing "The Switch" yesterday because that was just cosmetic.  But we weren't about to deprive the next tenants from drinking.)  We stopped by a big second-hand store off Florence, but it only carried fine china and crystal.  But we found a second hand bookstore nearby which made us very happy.

It was nearing lunchtime, so we went to a place called "Hungry Jacks" which had a special promotion.  With every value meal, we could buy a "Classic Coca-Cola" glass for a bargain price.  This sounded good to us, and we were hungry so it all worked out perfectly.  Hungry Jacks is a Burger King knock-off.  It looks EXACTLY the same, and even has the same menu with Whoppers and Broilers and everything else Burger-King-like.  Jon told me that one Australian man owned almost all the BK franchises here in Oz.  But, a few years ago, he and the BK Administration had some sort of disagreement.  So he backed out of the BK franchise and turned all his BKs into Hungry Jacks.  So he now has a successful chain of restaurants here in Australia and Burger King doesn't have a chance in hell of entering the market.  Pretty interesting how that worked out.

We went to KMart for some townhouse supplies, and also stopped by the dive shop to talk to Dean about getting on the schedule for next week.

At 4:00, Jon went to the car dealer to buy the truck, but it wasn't ready just yet.  So he brought the POS back to townhouse and parked it in the garage.

Christmas Decorations

It's a bit difficult to get in the holiday spirit when it's 95 degrees outside.  But since we had three Christmas ornaments we'd picked up in Thailand and New Zealand, Jon decided to be festive and hang them up around the house.  The Thai ornaments are hand-painted bulbs, and the NZ ornament is a hand-blown glass-icicle.  

We don't have a tree or any plants in the house, so Jon hung them on a lamp instead.  When he was finished, I looked up and immediately broke out into hysterics.  I didn't even have to say anything before he looked at it and started laughing too.  Here's what it looks like:

What?  You say this is slightly phallic?  Get your mind out of the gutter!

We've kept it this way just for good humor.

Chicken Madras

For dinner, we made an Indian dish called Chicken Madras and is was heavenly!  It had chicken, potatoes, onions, some tomatoes, yellow curry, and rice, and it was absolutely divine.

A Dip in the Pool

Since we'd had such a busy day, we decided to head to our "yard" for some entertainment.  There, we had a dip in the pool.  The obvious joke here, of course, is that Jon was the "Dip in the Pool".  But even I have to acknowledge that was bad.  

The pool was really warm, because it's not incredibly deep and is in the sun all day long.  At one end is a little shallow seat area with some jets.  It's not like a hot tub, but it was still nice to sit in some water jets for a while.  We goofed off in the pool for a while and looked at the stars, but soon after went back in to shower and get ready for bed.