In Other News
Wow. This is crazy. Some girl in Ethiopia was kidnapped and beaten by like 7 men, but was saved by - ready, get this - LIONS. Three lions fended off the men and stood guard over the girl until she was found by officials. Here's the story.

But, really, I think this is even more F'd up: Snapple was trying to make the world's biggest popsicle or something, but it melted and flooded Union Square in NYC with like 20 tons of stawberry-kiwi flavored liquid. Seriously.
- posted by Nicole @ 6:13 PM

 
In a Sunburned Country
Forgive the proliferation of posts concerning Australia, but if you went to Oz, you'd be obsessed with it to. (Plus, it's not like anyone is ACTUALLY READING MY BLOG, since no one has commented on my LAST 4 POSTS. So I can write about whatever I want :P) I just finished the Bill Bryson book, In a Sunburned Country (see yesterday's post). It was a really good book, I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Most of the pleasure I derived from it was related to recognition of the places or things he was writing about, an "Oh, I've been there," or "I remember that" sort of thing. It's the kind of book that's only interesting if you've just been or are planning an imminent trip to Australia, I think. Otherwise, I fear it'd be boring and tedious. Also, Bryson also frequently commits the tragic error of being cynical without being funny, and it gets annoying. But it has its moments, many of them. The appendix in the newer edition on the Sydney Olympic Games was particularly good.

Here's another passage I really like (a very accurate description of Circular Quay in Sydney):
"An air of cheerful industriousness suffuses the scene. These are people who get to live in a safe and fair-minded society, in a climate that makes you strong and handsome, in one of the world's great cities - AND they get to come to work on a boat from a children's storybook, across a sublime plane of water, and each morning glance up from their Heralds and Telegraphs [2 local newspapers] to see that famous Opera House and inspiring bridge and the laughing face of Luna Park. No wonder they look so damned happy...It is the Opera House that gets all the attention, and you can understand why. It's so startlingly familiar, so hey-I'm-in-Sydney, that you can't stop looking at it."

Ain't that the truth.

In other news, I was accosted by a group of tourists today while crossing the plaza in front of the Capitol. They were from all over the world - literally, no two from the same place, Germany, Netherlands, China, Phillipines, Brazil, England, etc. - and part of what must have been some kind of corporate challenge of some sort. They were competing with another team, and so I was enlisted to take their picture doing something stupid in front of the Capitol (the stupid act was the scaling of one of the nearby construction vehicles and posing in an array of ridiculous positions and gestures). I was honored.
- posted by Nicole @ 5:31 PM

 
Couldn't Have Said It Better
Here's a passage from the final pages of Bill Bryson's book on Australia, In a Sunburned Country:

"I drove in the gloomy frame of mind that overtakes me at the end of every big trip. In another day or two I would be back in New Hampshire and all these experiences would march off as in a Disney film to the dusty attic of my brain and try to find space for themselves amid all the ridiculous accumulated clutter of half a century's disordered living....It seemed a particularly melancholy notion to me that life would go on in Australia and I would hear almost nothing of it....I can understand it, of course. Australia is mostly empty and a long way away. It's population is small and its role in the world consequently peripheral. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocatie quantities, or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn't need watching, and so we don't. But I will tell you this: the loss is entirely ours."

PS: The Daily Show was hilarious tonight.
- posted by Nicole @ 11:29 PM

 
Cool
The 2006 Thunderbirds team includes the first female pilot ever to fly in a demostration squadron (FYI: the Thunderbirds are the US airforce counterpart to the Navy's Blue Angels). And the really cool part is, her name is Nicole. (Hehehe, the other woman who's associated with the team - the Public Affairs officer - is named Angela.)
- posted by Nicole @ 9:17 PM

 
In Case Anyone Cares...
The EU is slipping into apocalypse and burning up in the fire of one thousand suns. This from the FT.
- posted by Nicole @ 11:03 PM

 
Back From Middle Earth and Oz
Yes, comments are back up, and so here is the moment you've all been waiting for: an in depth run down of my absolutely amazing trip to Middle Earth (aka New Zealand) and Oz (aka Australia). All in one massive dose (though this does not preclude the possibility of numerous trip-related follow-up posts. Ready or not, here it goes. . .

As anyone I've spoken to since returning already know, the trip was absolutely incredible. So many awesome experiences! Really, beyond my wildest dreams (I found myself using that phrase a lot). So New Zealand was really cool - very clean and
environmentalist-ish. It's a beautiful country, as the scenary in LOTR may have indicated. It has the most incredible topography - oceans, desert, mountains, jungle, everything. It's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO green. Like, hurts-your-eyes-to-look-at green. We visited a couple LOTR sites, which was really cool, mostly stuff from Fellowship. We went to this village called Matamata, which has officially changed its name to
Hobbiton, because that's where they filmed Hobbiton for the movies. Rotorua, on the North Island, was really cool - it's the center of Maori (the indigenous people, ever see Whale Rider?) culture, and also the center of a lot of volcanic/geothermal activity, so there's like steam pouring out of the ground in random spots. Wellington - the capitol - is really cool! I absolutely loved it! It's nestled into the hills that surround the harbor, so you can be in downtown at one minute, then on some deserted, rugged sea coast in five minutes. And it has a great night life,including a particularly vibrant Irish pub called Kitty O'Sheas on Courtenay Place! We flew to Christchurch on the South Island, also a cool city. A little more quaint. A bunch of us rented kayaks and navigated the little river that runs through the center of the city. There was also a HUGE rugby ralley one afternoon when we were there. LOTS of rubgy hooligans! The same rugby hooligans were present later that night when we went to the Sticky Fingers Pub. Yes. That's right. The Sticky Fingers Pub in Christchurch, New Zealand.

We then flew to Melbourne, Australia, which is now one of my all-time favorite cities in the whole world. We had so much fun! More, I think, because we had a fabulous concert there and met a lot of really cool people (we shared the concert with the Melbourne University Choral Society (hehe, acronym "MUCS") and their CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY conductor, Andrew Wailes (who has now reached the status of a legend or a god to me - like Bacchus or something - and is officially the coolest person I know. And not just because I danced with him . . . Side Story: so they (MUCS)hosted a party for us at this night club in downtown Melbourne after the concert, and their conductor - he's the same age as Jeff, our conductor, about 33, but with BLEACHED BLONDE TIPPED spiky hair (check out this picture, I feel like it might help, though I like the first picture on this page better - drank everyone under the table, totally the life of the party, buying everyone drinks, VERY VERY qunitessentially Australian. So most of us pooped out and went home at around 3am, he was still there. Then I go down for breakfast in the morning at 7am, and guess who's there, still dressed in his tux with not a hair out of place, drinking coffee? Yup, Andrew Wailes. Apparently that's his thing: he parties with guest choirs all night - literally, all night - then comes to see them off in the morning. He's officialy the coolest person I know.) AWESOME people. The stereotype of Australians being the nicest, friendliest, most good-humored/good-natured people on earth is 100% accurate. Once you meet some of them, you scratch your head and wonder why everyone in the world can't be like that, and then you really frustrate yourself thinking about how much better the world would be if that happened.

Our farm stay was awesome. I admit, I was a little concerned and apprehensive. I don't sleep on the ground, and I most certainly DO NOT do bugs. But it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The people we stayed with were sooooo nice and friendly, again - quintessentially Australian - and they have a sheep farm. Ever hear of merino wool? Yup, that's them. I got to see sheep being shorn (heheheh, say that 10 times fast), kangaroos bouncing across the road (like, realy live wild kangaroos, no zoo or anything! CRAZY!), I saw the Milky Way and the rings of Saturn (with binoculars), it was incredible. I've never seen anything like that in my entire life.

Then we went to Canberra, the capitol of Australia, and it was pretty cool, thought we were only there for about a day. We did go to this really cool war memorial/museum. I had no idea that Australia had played such a big part in the Pacific theater of WWII. So I learned a lot there, and of course all the aircraft stuff really made me happy. (Here's a link to the review of our concert with the Woden Valley Youth Choir: review.) Then we went to SYDNEY! Which was a lot of fun. It's a really beautiful city - the harbor is gorgeous, and I think I took an entire roll of film of the Sydney Opera House. Cuz it rocks. We also got a tour of the inside, which was pretty cool, and they let us sing in the symphony hall. So I've already had my singing debut at the Sydney Opera House. We also climbed up one of the pylons of the Sydney Harbor Bridge - AMAZING VIEW, and more pics of the Sydney Opera House, from an angle of 65 degrees, hehehe. We went to the infamous Bondi Beach, which is, I think, the most beautiful, perfect beach I've ever seen. Perfect, fine, clean sand, water of an astounding shade of blue, and gorgeous, lively surroundings. We also went to another beach called Manly where we played beach volleyball at sunset. The next day we went whale watching and saw
humpback whales migrating from Antarctica to the Great Barrier Reef. So, yeah, all in all, it was a pretty boring time in Sydney.

Our last stop was Brisbane, which is a really young, vibrant city. I liked it a lot. While we were there, we went to the Australia Zoo - it's Steve Irwin's zoo, you know, the Crocodile Hunter? The zoo is as insane as he is. I got to pet a couple koalas, and hang out with and feed some kangaroos. Really, like there's this kangaroo paddock, and you can go in and just hang out with the roos. The're sooooo tame, they just come right up to se and you can feed them and pet them (yes, yes, it's slightly exploitative, but really, am I actually supposed to turn down the opportunity to pet a kangaroo?) And some of the mommy roos had little baby roos in their pouch. SOOOOOOOO cute. I also got to see wombats, which have replaced polar bears as my favorite animal.

I was on the skit committee and we did these awesome skits at the final banquet - essentially a roast where we make fun of every Glee Clubber, all in good fun, of course. People were dying they were laughing so hard. We did a good job. Then we stayed up all night partying in the hotel before our flight the next morning.

We had some adventures on the way home though: when we got to the airport in Brisbane to fly home, wefound out that our trans-pacific flight had been cancelled. Haha. So chaos ensued an our tour managers set to work on coercive negotiations to get us seats on another flight. We ended up flying Air Pacific, which is the FIJIAN national airline, so we have to fly from Brisbane to Fiji (?!?!?!?) then to LA. It was insane. Then we had a 7 hour layover in LA (so a bunch of us left to airport and had lunch and saw a movie - Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, it was really funny, but I was kinda half asleep the whole time.) Then we had a red-eye flight into Newark, then I had a 4 hour layover before I flew to DC
(though that flight was delayed an I had to sit on the runway for 45 minutes). Total return travel time clocked in at 40 hours. Kill me.

It was such an amazing trip, and now I'm fighting real hard against post-stimulating-trip depression. It's a good thing that I came right to DC where I can be with Al and Caitlin, getting ready to start my job. It's another exciting adventure and it will keep me from being mopey and missing you and the other amazing people that I just spent the last 3 weeks with. Damn - I live next to the SUPREME COURT!?!??! It still hasn't really sunk in yet. I'm still on sensory overload from Aus/NZ. With all the excitment of this summer, I fear that the normal and mundane will never be good enough ever again. It's dangerous.
- posted by Nicole @ 4:42 PM

 
New Links
I've added two new links to my sidebar: the ultra-liberal Obsidian Wings and Rude Pundit. Not out of any real affinity for their viewpoints (ok, who am I kidding, so I kind of agree with most of what they have to say . . . but they're among that species of crazy ranting liberals that I usually try to distance myself from, cuz they're kind of crazy . . . but also really, really funny), but they're an amusing read, even if you're a red-blooded (hehe) republican (as long as you can laugh at yourself anyway).

What? What's that you say? The majority of my devoted readers are *gasp* republican? Well, Barb will appreciate it at any rate . . .
- posted by Nicole @ 10:55 PM

 
Comments?
My comments died. I have no idea why. Barb? Leah? Any ideas? I haven't touched my template, I don't know what happened.

Will blog about my ABSOLUTELY FRICKIN' AMAZING TRIP TO AUSTRALIA once commenting capabilities are restored.
- posted by Nicole @ 9:39 AM

 
Australia!!!!!
Finally got to a computer, having arrived safely in Australia. This country has been like a dream come true for me! I absolutely love it here (but I am still planning on coming home, so don't worry) and the people are just great! THere are not enough superlatives in the English language to describe my experiences here so far - it has been absolutly incredible. Allow me to briefly summarize my activities of the past 24 hours:

1. Sang a combined concert with the Melbourne University Choral Society and the Royal Melbourne Philharminc (who have an AMAZING, COMPLETELY INSANE, 100% AUSTRALIAN conductor) in a European-stye Cathedral to an audience of over 600.

2. Went to kick-ass after party hosted by their chorus in downtown Melbourne. Much dancing, much drinking, much happiness!

3. Drove out to The Middle of Nowhere, Australia to meet our wonderful, friendly farm hosts. ("Population 17." "Hundred or Thousand?" "People.")

4. Saw sheep being shorn (sheared?) . . .REAL far outta the "comfort zone", thank you Ronnie.

5. Saw kangaroos bouncing across the road in front of the car. Like, NOT IN THE ZOO. LIKE RUNNING AROUND OUTSIDE.

6. Went outside to look at stars once it got dark; saw the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, and Saturn (rings and all).

THis trip is incredible. And the last 24 hours in particular have been almost more than I can comprehend. I'm excited, elated, overwhelmed, exhausted, overjoyed and all sorts of other related adjectives. Words are inadequate.
- posted by Nicole @ 7:31 AM