Flat out

I've been feeling that we're a bit behind on our blog posts since we went to Melbourne. It took us long enough to write about our trip down to the Victorian capital, and we still haven’t posted about our trip home via the Great Ocean Road or anything else since our return. I was trying to figure out how we still haven’t written about our 108 km Coast to Coast ride, which we did before we left for Melbourne, when I took a look at our calendar. It suddenly became clear why we are behind in posts--we’ve had something on nearly every day since we got back from Melbourne. As they say down here, we’ve been flat out!

I’m not complaining—we’ve been having a great time these past few weeks, but I can hardly believe how busy we’ve become in what seems like such a short time. In the past two weeks, we’ve played our first Frisbee league games (Dave is playing for Ultimate Evolution, and I am playing for Envy); visited with Dave’s friend Gabe who was in Adelaide again for a work training; attended a dinner with my department from UniSA (University of South Australia); went to see the new French movie Micmacs; ate a delicious three-course dinner along the River Torrens with the South Australian Fulbright Association; supervised a geology field trip to the beach; attended a Rotary dinner; and, went scuba diving at Seacliff Reef where we saw huge cuttlefish, blue devils, and a diving cormorant down in 40 ft of water! And, that doesn’t even include what we did for the wonderful 4-day Easter weekend.

Which brings me to the next list. This past weekend, we had hot cross buns and tea with our neighbors Ryan and Liz and Liz's family; made dinner and dessert with our friends Brad and Laila, who just got back from the US; went to an Easter Saturday BBQ at our friend Margaret’s house; went on two bike rides in the Adelaide Hills; took our friends Chris and Trudie to breakfast for Easter Sunday in Glenelg as a thank you for the wonderful trip to Melbourne and back; went to see the Sydney Swans crush the Adelaide Crows in a footy game; and ate a delicious curry dinner with our neighbors Ryan and Liz.

As I said, it’s been a busy few weeks! And, here’s the other crazy bit. I won the movie tickets to see Micmacs. I won the boat dive to go scuba diving. And, I won 6 bottles of wine at the Rotary dinner. When I brought the bottles of wine home, Dave just laughed. I’m not sure what it is, but I seem to be especially good at winning things, particularly in foreign countries, and just in time for Easter. When I was in London in 2008, I won a big box full of organic fruits and veggies which featured heavily in our Easter dinner that year. I also won a box of marine-themed prizes, including a stuffed puffin that sounded like a cow.

It’s a bit strange since the only thing I’ve ever won in the US was an extremely bizarre 3D picture of a poodle. It’s tempting to say I’m really lucky when I go overseas, but in truth, I think I’ve won these things because I’ve participated. I won the movie tickets by responding to an email; I won the boat dive by going to the monthly scuba club meeting; and I won the wine because my friend Margaret invited me to the Rotary dinner and taught me how to play heads and tails. I know it’s sort of a cheesy message, but I think you do win when you get out there and interact with people. It feels like Dave and I are continually blessed by all of the activities there are to do and people there are to meet here, and I’m feeling really grateful for that, even if it means we don’t post blogs as often as we’d like.

Speaking of which, Dave left Monday morning for two weeks in the Flinders Ranges on a geology field trip. I’ll be joining him this coming Sunday for a week, which means the blog will probably be pretty quiet next week. I may get around to writing another blog or two this week, as there is definitely more to share about our activities the past couple of weeks. But, I have to get a draft of my literature review into my advisor by Friday, so I should probably focus on that, even though I love writing blogs. Too bad the Fulbright Commission isn't sponsoring me to write blogs : )

Anyways, I'll leave you with a photo of me and Dave at the end of the Coast to Coast ride. If this is how we feel after going flat out for 108 kms (well, not quite flat out -- there was a good chunk of downhill!), then I'll take it!