Random Musings

First off, it's the same day here as back home right now so I can legitimately say Happy Father's Day Dad. Also, happy birthday Sivan.

So today was pretty uneventful. Got to sleep in which was nice and my shoes are dry for a change. Didn't really do too much today. I booked some hostels so that I have a place to stay up until July 5th and took care of some financial stuff. I'm going to clean my room and go to bed early as we are getting picked up at 7:30 tomorrow to go to Lismore. They are going to involve us in some of the orientation week activities for the new students at Southern Cross so that we can get more of an exposure to the Australian way of life as in the hostels, especially in Byron, its mostly all people visiting Australia. Tomorrow we're supposed to participate in soccer. I anticipate crushing defeat if they do locals vs. us.

In any event, I figured I'd post some random observations about Australia, though some of them may be location specific as I haven't traveled too much yet.

Every outlet has its own power switch located at the outlet. There are light switches as well, but for your plugin appliances, you can leave them plugged in and turn off the outlet so that you aren't wasting power. This seems like a pretty easy way to save money and I'm surprised that they aren't more common in the states (I haven't personally seen it ever).

All the toilets have two flush modes, 1 for solid waste and the other for liquid. Yet another easy way to save money. (For anyone who was curious, I haven't noticed which way the toilets spin yet due to the way the variable flushing system works)

They make astounding use of the traffic circle. Everyone seems to be able to traverse them without too much confusion. Traffic flows much more smoothly. There are traffic lights, but in Byron there are none (at least in central Byron). I'm definitely a fan.

Alfa Romeo's are cool. 'nough said.

At least in Byron, most everyone is in decent physical shape.

There's a lot of public restrooms, many of which work on a key system.

In New Zealand the water fountains also had an alcohol based soap dispenser with them. (or at least that's what I thought it was)

English really is the predominant language. I was impressed at how many foreign people speak it. One of my room mates speaks a Germanic language, it might be sure, I think he's from Holland, but he might be from Germany. In any event, when I woke up today he was reading an English Dictionary (with conversions to what I presume was his native language) Dad said, that his professor once said you'd master a language if you can complete a crossword puzzle in that language. I think being able to learn a language in another language would demonstrate equal mastery of a language. Would be like me going to Italy and learning to speak Russian.


Anyways, this week we will also be going to Rocky Creek Dam, and I'm hoping Minion Falls (I think that's what they are called), but we'll see.

That's all I can think of but I might add to the post later...