Yield in the name of love

A funny thing about driving in Alice:

There are only a handful of stop signs in the whole town. Seriously, I have only actually had to stop at maybe 2 intersections in the past 6 weeks of driving around. Instead, most intersections have yield signs, only they don't say yield. Yes, they have the familiar triangular shape and lively red outline, but instead the say "Give Way." I suppose this is still perfectly descriptive of what you should do, but it is not the only time I have thought that Australians tend to use more words than necessary to communicate a point. Darned if I can think of another example right now, but you will have to trust me on this. Australia can be verbose.

A side-effect of this culture of Giving Way is that you actually have to pay attention at all intersections. Like, to the max. Rolling through an intersection is perfectly acceptable because all of the intersections have bloody yield signs! I've narrowly avoided being broad-sided a couple of times now.

Even though I've been here for a while, I still get confused a little bit about the direction of traffic, especially at intersections and when crossing the road on foot. First of all, it is hard to wrap your head around right and left turns being opposite from the States. (Left turns are the tight ones and right turns are the wide ones.) Secondly, when crossing the street, I have a really hard time figuring out which direction to look for traffic. Back home, you look left to see the traffic in the lane closest to you, and then look right to see traffic coming from the other direction. Not so Down Under. More than once I have stepped into the road convinced that there was no traffic, only to here some vehicle or another approaching from behind me. Very disconcerting. But it's all part of the experience, eh?

Riding around in my automobile

While it is terribly exciting that I am going to be travelling around Greater Australia and, in only two weeks, New Zealand, it is becoming ever more apparent that there is a lot to see and do around the Alice. On a recent day off, I got in Toby-car and just started driving around, taking roads I hadn't yet taken and venturing out of the city limits. Every time I passed a sign for a roadside attraction, I slammed on my brakes and skidded into the parking area. It was fantastic! Totally the way to travel!

My first stop was at the grave of John Flynn. Now, when I stopped, I had no idea who John Flynn was, but given the size of the sign, I figured he had to be someone important. What an incredible man! A religious minister and doctor, he saw that there was serious need in the remote stretches of the Outback for healthcare and communication, and single-handedly started reaching out to all of the people who lived "out bush" as they call it. What began as one man's ministry grew into the Royal Flying Doctors Service, an internationally renowned and very active program that gives care to remote inhabitants and, if necessary, provides transportation for those people to get to a hospital. You cannot concieve how big the outback is until you're here. Actually, I am here and I still can't wrap my head around it. Thousands and thousands of square miles of desert fill the interior of Australia and you might be more than a 20 hour drive from the nearest city and hospital. Crazy. John Flynn made incredible strides in connecting the interior of Australia. Quite remarkable.



My next stop was at the highest point on the Stuart Highway. That might sound boring, but not when you consider that the highway runs the entire height of the country, from Adelaide straight up to Darwin, around 3000 kilometres, I believe. It's especially hard to believe that it's the highest point when you look around and all you can see is flat desert except for the soaring MacDonnell Ranges to the south. But there was a sign that proved it, and a weird lookin' kind of monument, so I'll trust their word.




The next attraction was one that I was actually on the lookout for. Ladies and gentlemen, I stood on the Tropic of Capricorn! How cool is that? Aside from the fact that I myself am a Capricorn, it really put in perspective how far away I am from home. And how close I am to the tropics. It was a pretty special moment. And Australia really knows how to do weird lookin' monuments, eh?






My last stop for the day was the Warburton Memorial. Another weird one. This one is in memory of a Mr. Peter Egerton-Warburton, who, with his plucky family, travelled across the nigh on endless desert from 100 kilometres north of Alice Springs to Roebourne in West Australia, from April 18, 1873 to January 26, 1874. Well done there!

So the moral of the story is, when you're driving around the Red Centre, make sure you stop and check stuff out! It's a pretty cool place.

Quit yer belly-achin'!

I spent US$100.55 today to fill up the station wagon today. 15 gallons.

Australian: $1.75/litre.

How much did you spend on gas today?

For Make Jealous

I totally get to drive Uncle Timmy's Jeep around. It is everything I hoped it would be and more!

*For those of you who aren't in my immediate family, this has been a dream of mine since I was about 10 years old, maybe younger. And I am sure it was a dream shared by several of my siblings.

The Slacker Speaks

I can't believe it's been a week since I've updated this! So so soooo much has been going on, I hardly know where to start. I guess I'll try to pick up where I left off.

Thursday the 17th
The flight was great! While waiting for take-off, I looked out the window to see a glorious rainbow arching over the southern sky. I love rainbows. When I got to Alice Springs, Uncle Timmy was waiting right inside, looking very much like himself, which is to say great. Getting into "Uncle Timmy's Jeep" was like coming home. Granted, it's not the same one he used to have (the black one was totalled some time ago in England, I believe), and it's a different color (white), and the steering wheel is on the right side, but it was still just right, the way it's supposed to be.

He took me back to the house to drop off my stuff (sans the duffel that was, at this point, still MIA), then took me on a little tour of Alice. It's a nice small town; we live about 10k out, but you can park downtown and walk any where. Then, we came back to the house again and hung out until the kids got home. While waiting, I was looking out the window when what should I see but a kangaroo hopping across the face of the hill out back! Hurrah! My first sighting!

The rest of the day I spent jumping on the trampoline with my little cousins and hanging out with Timmy and Alison. (I love living here, by the way.)

Friday the 18th
Fridays are Alison's day off, so when she got back from running the kids to school and stuff, she came and picked me up and took me down town. We did some cleaning up at her dental practice, ran some errands and caught up with a friend of hers for lunch, who gave me some much needed career advice: work mornings in hospitality and get a job clearing plates at the steakhouse. She was very specific.

While down town, we also stopped in to Flight Centre, a travel agency, where I met my new friend Daniela. She helped me figure out my first big adventure! Right now, the plan is to leave in late August for Cairns (in Queensland, on the Pacific coast, a little ways north of the Gold Coast), go from Cairns to Sydney for a few days, head from there to New Zealand South Island for a 7 day tour, fly back to Sydney for a few days and then head back to Alice. I'm pretty stoked, myself. I hope it pans out!

After we got home, I started calling around to hotels for jobs and got a few nibbles, so I ran around with Uncle Timmy filling out applications. I also called the steakhouse (Overlander's), and set up an interview for the following evening. That evening, more trampolining, more hanging out. Just good times.

Saturday the 19th
Saturday morning, my duffel finally caught up with me. Joyness! I took a celebratory shower with my towel and bathrobe and razor and soap and shampoo and conditioner and loofah. I was pretty excited.

Afterwards, I learned to drive. Driving in Australia is startlingly similar to driving in the States, surprisingly enough. I mean, the driver's side is on the inside of the road, the difference is that the driver's side is on the right, so you drive on the left. But it makes pretty logical sense to me. The biggest challenge is the blasted turning signal. It's on the right side of the steering wheel, so every time I want to turn left, I inadvertently turn on the windshield wipers. Oops. I haven't accidentally drifted over the line or anything, haven't hit any kangaroos, so I think I'm doing alright.

Exciting fact: the car I'm driving is named Toby!!! For those of you who don't know, Toby was the name of my most beloved light blue '97 Mercury Sable. Sigh.

I had my interview around 5pm; the "interview" consisted of "So, when can you start? Tonight?" I said I could start Monday, which seemed ok with them. When I got home, Alison's brother and (beautiful pregnant German) sister-in-law and mother were over for a bar be que. We ate and drank and enjoyed a bonfire and generally had a good time. Around 9:30 I left to go meet my friend Daniela and her sister and cousin and various others at Todd Tavern, a local watering hole. It was lovely going out, and I even managed to stay awake past 10 for the first time since I left the States. All in all a great day.

Sunday the 20th
I decided to go to the 11am Mass, but got there and found out it was at 9:30. Lucky for yours truly, they have a 5:30pm, so I resolved myself to get back there later.

Before I had left, I had a phone call from the head of housekeeping at the Comfort Inn Outback for another "interview". This one when something like this: "Can you be here at 8am tomorrow?" Seriously. That's how easy it is to get a job here. That's two, count 'em, two jobs and I had been in town for 2 and a half days.

The rest of the day consisted of a lengthy nap and watching TV until I went back to church. It was an exciting drive for several reasons:
1) a kangaroo hopped across the road in front of me
2) the DJ said, in regards to the hottest curry in the world, "You could come out unscathed, but you could also come out very very scathed," which I found hysterically funny.
3) I heard "Neverending Story" on the radio.

Mass was nice, very Mass like. When I'm far away from home, I always find Mass very comforting. I like hearing the same songs we do, and knowing that thousands and thousands of miles away, they're hearing the same readings. The pastor was at World Youth Day, so when he comes back, I'm going to see about getting involved in reading or singing or something. There's also a potential opportunity to get involved with Prison Ministry, which would be cool. I'll let you know if it pans out. That about wraps up Sunday.

It's past my bed time! The rest of this update will have to wait for another time.

Join us next time for "Jo's first day!", "Jo meets a kangaroo up close!" and the long-awaited "Jo opens a bank account!"

Peace.