More little quirks

I noticed a while ago that Americans eat a lot of apple sauce. For example, it's in those snack boxes that you can buy on domestic flights (which I never buy). I dunno what they do with it, eat it with a spoon like baby food, I guess. I do know that Jews put apple sauce on potato pancakes (which they call latkes) but when I asked someone why they couldn't tell me. But here's the strange thing: when I commented, 'The only thing I associate apple sauce with is pork chops.', they were shocked. None of the Americans in the room had heard of putting apple sauce on pork! One said, 'I've heard of mint sauce on lamb.' but they don't even eat lamb! How can they, with so much apple sauce around, not have discovered the combination of pork and apple sauce?

Oh, and I got a new number plate for my car in the mail today. Strange, they allow me to renew my rego online -- convenient -- but insist on giving me a new plate, even though the other is less than two years old. Sounds like a waste of aluminium, having just insisted on giving me a new plate when I bought the car. Whatever, I never learnt the old number anyway!
The old one looked like this:

A nice field of corn, with a barn in the background, which is what the state actually looks like. The new one is uglier:

But, better still, there's a new style coming out next year that you can request at no extra cost, which will last until 2013:

I'll probably get it if it's free. But I don't see how it's Lincoln's bicentenary, if he was born in 1816 but the plate can only be retained until 2013. The other question is, "Will the Illinoisans resent it?" because they claim Lincoln too. I think he's on all their plates.

Back in the USA

The time is about the same in either direction but coming from Sydney to Indiana is worse. That long leg across the Pacific leaves you feeling completely buggered just when you're trying to stay away to get on and off planes.

I think it might have been a little longer door-to-door because we had to get to the airport so early. We weren't able to check in online so we got there 3 hours before the scheduled departure. Then when we checked our bags they told us we'd only get seats allocated at the gate because they had overbooked -- they were offering people $800 to come back the next day. So when we got to the gate half an hour earlier than the boarding time, the woman told us to go away and come back at boarding. Worried about getting seats, we kept coming back and asking, which I'm sure annoyed her, but we were worried about overbooked flights.

Oh, and when we were going through security something in Cindy's bag attracted their attention. It was the mini leatherman knife (geologists need these things) she had got for Xmas, she'd forgotten to take it out. We apologised but they weren't worried, they kept the knife and that was all. (I have to wonder what would have happened had we tried that at an American airport.)

So eventually we got into Indianapolis at 11pm, where a friend was waiting to drive us back to Bloomington. That was Monday night so we missed the first day of classes but it was worth it.

More Adventures in Australia

Our holiday went basically as per the schedule below. I think we did quite well to combine my need to see friends with Cindy's need to do touristy things.

Tuesday we went to Muru Mittigar for boomerang lessons etc. We took a little tour of the centre and learnt about uses of various plants. When we spoke to the guy making didgeridoos, he explained that he still uses the traditional method of letting termites hollow out the branches. I figured that he must have grown up in a rather traditional community because he spoke with that stereotypical aboriginal accent. Cindy commented that that the way he spoke English sounded just like the rustic accent from central France!

Wednesday went to Featherdale with Lisa and Jezebel, as planned. So Cindy and the little girl both got to pat all the animals. Cindy was eager to see wild kangaroos too, so we went up to Euroka clearing for those.

The BBQ lunch at Steffan's was great. As well as seeing old friends we ate kangaroo. Cindy said she prefers it to beef (but it's not quite as good as horse!).

Saturday we went to the Opera House to see a carols performance. It was an interesting mixture of traditional, formal carols sung by professional opera singers and some more modern numbers. Erin got all excited about the sleigh-ride song.

Then Xmas day was a big deal. We had all my mother's family and some of my father's over at our place for lunch (17 people in all).

Boxing Day we drove up to Wooli. Traffic was ok, got there at a decent time. But the weather was not great. At first it was just a little rain, but after that cyclone came down the Queensland coast the storms became quite violent. We still managed to swim between showers. We'd go in the water, it would start raining so we'd just stay in until the rain stopped!