Age of Aquarius

We are in Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef and it is beautiful! Jan and Greenie and I have been snorkin it up, touring the rainforest, monetarily supporting the Australian economy, eating and drinking up a storm and just hanging out and having fun in the sun. There is an awesome local swimming pool called the lagoon which has these beautiful silver sculptural fish which look like the small palm leaf ones sold in Hawaii and shoot water out of their tails and fins.
The Lagoon on the Esplanade

The rainforest was so cool. It will pour down rain so hard and so fast that sometimes the water will build up enough on bridges to sweep a car off the road and into the underlying riverbed. The rains only last for about 15 minutes though and then it will be sunny again. Crazy rains. We went on a fabulous tour through the rainforests led by our fearless leader George, our Aboriginal tourguide who attempted to teach us some of the local language through his stories. He had the best stories about anything and everything relating to the land and Aboriginal history. Walking through the forest George would point out a tree and tell us all about the meaning of its Aboriginal name, how it will either kill you or heal you, and something about why the fruit/bark/roots/leaves are so special to indigeonous society. The man had so much tree knowledge it was insane. The forest was absolutely breathtaking. Walking through you could smell the rain seeping into the vines which twisted and curved around huge barks and glistened all shades of brown green, and even golden with the rain. It was enormous, poisonous, colorful, and moist.

I met some fun American girls, Nancy and Lauren, who do the JET program teaching English in Japan. The funny part though is Lauren lives next door to a guy who I went to High School with, Kelly Davis. Talk about blast from the past. We went out boozing a few nights ago. I danced it up with some guy who looked like Clark Kent with the square black glasses, soft and suave comb over and tight beefcake muscle shirt. I woke up with a backwards copy of the hand stamp from the bar we frequented night before on my inner thigh. I'm thinking that means I had a good time... I dont know.

SHOW ME KANGAROOS, CROCKS, AND JURRASIC PARK VELOCIRAPTORS!

SHOW ME FISHES!

Show me Liz's Blog

Well Greenie arrived this morning after a shoot and miss flight yesterday. We finally tapped into the bottle of Cloudscape that Andre and Jan gave us from the vineyard last night while watching Desperate Housewives and eating Thai take out. Good thing Greenie is finally here because this is what Mamacita and I do left to our own devices we are staying in Coogee beach just outside of downtown Sydney. It is so beautiful here. The water is so clear it looks like an aquamarine tinted glass all the way to the red coral and silky sand at the bottom.


Coogee beach

My hair is longer than it has ever been, and it has been swinging around on my back touching my elbows in a Marsha Brady pony. Sometimes ill lean my head back even further and it'll almost come to the top of my bum. Maybe I wont cut it and ill try to see how long it can get in a year.

I am now addicted to Chupa Chups lollies. Which come in the best cream flavors, such as strawberries & cream, peaches & cream, and chocolate & vanilla is also a very good option when you are feeling into a less fruity and more desserty type of lolly adventure. Also the sticks are made out of plastic instead of paper so they don't get soggy with slobber sucking, annnnnd I read that surrealist artist Salvador Dali is the designer of the lolly packaging wrapper, so that is an interesting little lolly tid bit.

About a week ago we stopped by the Royal Botanical Gardens and stumbled upon the Sex and Death plant exhibit: staring orchids and carnivorous plants. It explores the pollination mechanisms of orchids, one of the largest and most complex families of plants. The relationship between orchids and their pollinators is interpreted in three themes: 'Seduction', 'Cooperation' and 'Deception'. This little green house show was so cool. I LOVE carnivorous plants and had a venus flytrap in eugene for a while, RIP Rex. I mean, there is just something so awesome about a plant that eats meat, am I wrong? I saw a pitcher plant that had a mouth bigger than my fist!!! RAD!



I just finished reading Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk. He also wrote Fight Club. The book is totally messed up and so twisted. Ol' Pally is Liz's favorite author, but I just don't get it. I much prefer Christopher Moore.

Anyway, we are headed up to Cairns tomorrow to see the Great Barrier Reef and spend Christmas on the beach. hope everyone is doing well. Lots of love.

WAAAAAIT!SHOW ME MORE PICTURES!!

Mamacita arrived to the Down Under destination a few days ago, we have left the beautiful city of Sydney and are currently in the capitol, Canberra. We got a personal tour of the ANU University glass school from head of the department Richard Whiteley thanks to Mamacita's hook ups. He is a wonderfully friendly Aussie who loves a good stop&chat and took us to another glass gallery called Canberra Glassworks which has a hot shop (where the artists do the actual blowing with the gloryhole and everything) and a cool gallery attached in this brick-dingy-but-made-modern-because-it's-a-gallery type of way. So that was amazing. We also have seen a full show of Monet's and Degas's artistic works at the wonderful museums in Australia. I must say I am now in love with Monet's painting style and Degas's sculptures.

Little Dancer Age Fourteen

The art history books that I have laboured over in my art history classes just do not do justice to these fine masters of French Impressionism. The textures are absolutely amazing. Monet's Water Lily paintings just use so many vibrant colors that his work looks good enough to eat, like savoring the multi-colored sprinkes on a sugar cookie.




This is the first time I have been able to see MTV since I left the US and catch up on my music culture. I have been thinking about this crazy MTV music video phenomenon, which indubitably is going to be left to the following generations as a history about how we of generation Y constructed our society and acted as a whole. Some of these videos, actually the VAST majority of rap videos, I really loath because they degrade women and only contribute to our consumer culture. But you know what? I really like Katy Perry. I have liked her since her first song and I love her new music video "Hot'n'cold" (as shown below). Not only is she a cute little number, but her music is super fun and I totally jam out. For those disbelievers in Perry's awesomeness I have 3 reasons why this is a fantabulous video and she is a great artist.
Numero Uno: In a time when the new cool is to get married at a young age her video comments on the fears held by society of marriage and possibly divorce and being jilted at the alter. Zombie brides taking their own revenge by flanking the groom with a break dance circle number and baseball bats when he gets out of line = Awesome.
Numero dos: She has an amazing fashion sense and goes against the norm in of women dressing slutty to sexify themselves for the popular music videos shown in the "bling generation". The girl has a kick ass fashion sense and her own dance moves. You go girl!
Numbero Tres: There is a yellow crazy wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, a zebra, AND an old school boom box... Need I say more?


Even though Katy Perry copies Bat For Lashes on the bike scene...


I still love it anyway!

Alright, I only have 20 min left before my internet time runs out and I have to email back a ummm friend... so here are the long awaited pictures:


Click on me to see Adelaide and Melbourne Pics


Click on me to see the Homeless World Cup shenanigans and Farming/Vinyard

I am going to meet up with the Mamacita very shortly so I will write a post tomorrow, but these should keep you entertained for the time being.

xoxo

The anticipation of doing farm work is always the worst part. There are the questions like: Is it going to be cold at night in our too small child sized Argentinean sleeping bags? Are we going to be asked to stomp around in horse shit, or handle other fertilizers risking infections when we cut ourselves? What work will we be doing? Do they eat polenta? What are we going to do at night if we get bored? Will Liz be allergic to their cats? And last but not least, Will the hosts be slavedrivers? The anticipation of all these questions is always the worst part.

Now let me tell you a little bit about the “farm” we choose and the outcome of these questions.

First off, I say ‘Farm” because Cloudscape is actually a beautiful vineyard about 90 min. outside of Melbourne. It is rare that we get cold in our own private wing of their gorgeous eco-friendly house. We sleep in the guest bedroom and have our own private reading room/ lounge area overlooking the vineyard from the elegant floor to ceiling windows. Our jobs for the day include 5 hours of walking up and down the rows of vines and ever so gently retraining the vines to go within their wire holdings. I tend to get through this devilishly hard task by bumpin my Ipod and having a daily booty shakin rock out jam session. Andre Deutsch & Jan Ward (the owners) are former hippies/scholars and have a massive book collection. There are shelves upon shelves of awesome books in the living room and Liz and I are invited to choose from any of them. I am currently reading a tom Robbins book called Still Life with Woodpecker. It’s hilarious. They also have a huge VHR collection (which made Liz reminisce about her old school pirating days in Reno) which includes The Princess Bride. Andre is a hobbyist chef, so every night along with wine tastings we have been getting delicious food from around the world. My favourite so far has been Vietnamese salad and noodles with calamari on top. He also makes a wonderful homemade pizza. Liz is allergic to the cats, one poor little kitty has 3 legs and is named Whoopee because she is black. Jan and Andre certainly do have a sense of humour. So we told them we never want to leave. All in all we’re quite happy here. When I think back to the other farm I can’t believe we actually did it. Liz says working for 9 hours a day stomping around in barrow was character building, but personally I prefer this type of character better.

They have dial up connection so uploading pictures is pretty much out of the question, but I will be sure to get some visual goodness to you when we get to the Chiefly Hotel in Sydney to meet up with the parents on the 13th.

Hey guys! We just got back to Melbourne today and we are going to go WWOOF it again starting tomorrow until the parents get here on the 13th of December for Christmas. We are headed to a winery about 90 mis outside of Melbourne called Cloudscape Wineries to smash some grapes, knowing me it will probably be I Love Lucy style. Im looking forward to finally seeing a kangaroo! Sorry I have been lacking behind in stories and exciting pics, but you can expect A LOT when I get back into town and around internet again. Until then, I have sent out post cards to keep the masses appeased. I think that this little scene from Top Gun is in order for a little post card teaser. Enjoy... and you're welcome!



Next post will be the dedicated to the delicate art of inserting and maintaining earplugs throughout the night. Stay tuned!