Wonderful World (Chapter Five: Happy Birthday)

So this trip was over my birthday.  This is me smiling at the rain forest again, maybe day four.  I think that is the day that I realized that I didn't have enough good pictures.  But let's back up to where Chapter Four left off. 

The French Open.  As you all know, I am an avid tennis fan--but my ability to see tennis matches is fairly limited to the majors.  Only one major is in the US and that is in NY--three time zones away.  Another is in Australia (18 time zones), London (8 time zones) and Paris (9 time zones).  So four times a year for about two weeks at all crazy hours on limited channels, I get to see tennis matchs.  One time I had a terrible cold and stayed home from work for a whole week in January right at the perfect time to see matchs in the Australian Open.  Except for the coughing and puking--that was an awesome week.  But I digress.

The plane trip to Australia involved going forward 17 time zones and 14 hours travel time so that I lost June 4th.  I didn't have a June 4th this year.  But that was the date of the Women's Final in the French Open.  I wasn't too sad to miss it, because for some reason I just don't like Sciovone.  She's such a scrapper and so volitale, that logically she should be one of my favorites, but I just don't like her.  It defies logic, but it's not like I'll ever meet her in person and if I did, I'm sure that I would be suitably impressed and polite and not embarass myself.  Where was I?  Oh yes, the French.  Li Na made it to the finals.  I really like Li Na.  Although she is a solid player, I don't think I've seen her play more than twice.  The women's field is really wide open--there are so many excellant players and without the dominance of the Williams, no one remains a clear favorite.  So yes, I did kind of really, really, really wanted to see the final.  I was soooo happy to see the red clay of the French through the window of that restaurant on the Brisbane River.  What a wonderful treat.  Li Na won--awesome for the sport.  Awesome for her.

They gave us way too much food, but even though I had a refrigerator in my room, I insisted that Adam take the left overs, because I wasn't going to be in the room very much and certainly not for meals.  We walked back to the hotel and tried to get the car out of the elevator to go to the grocery store to buy a bag of ice.  No attendant.  The car was in an elevator, but we didn't have the controls, so we had to go back to the desk.  Mr. Smilie, just wasn't as smileali as he had been before and he avoided eye contact amazingly well.  However, very soon the attendant appeared and let the car out of the cage.  I think I tried to drive again, but we were only going a few blocks.  Parking was very odd, but we survived.

Adam had asked me if I wanted him to bake a cake for my birthday (the next day).  I love chocolate cake and pizza.  I had just eaten pizza, so before I could tell Adam it was totally unnecessary to go to any trouble, my mouth said an emphatic "Yes."  "Then I'll need to buy a cake pan," he said.  So we shopped for everything that he'd need to make a cake.  They didn't have an oblong cake pan per se, but there was one that was close.  It turned out to be a roasting pan, but it worked.  And the cake mix boxes were a very odd shape.  He was going to need a 1/4 cup (metric equivilent) of vegetible oil, so we had to buy a great big bottle.  They had a name brand that I recognized and a brand I didn't recognize (surprise, surprise--I was in a different hemisphere) for 4 cents cheaper.  Adam wanted to save the 4 cents, but I wouldn't let him.  [As an aside, it couldn't have been 4 cents, because they don't have pennies in Australia.  Generally, the smaller the coin, the more it is worth.  I think they had five dollar coins, and I know they had two dollar coins, one dollar, fifty cents (that was a giant coin), 10 cents (very, very small and thin) and I think that there was a five cents coin, but I don't remember having one.  The dimes really threw me off just when I thought it was logical.  But I digress.]  At the check out counter, Adam suggested that I buy a 24 can case of diet coke (great idea--stock the fridge in case we have an ice catastrophy) and at the last minute remembered that we were there to buy a bag of ice.  My girl scout training kicked into gear and I ran out of line to pick up ziplock bags (or their version of the theme) so that I could put some ice into a smaller bag to fit into the teeny tiny freezer for the following day.  I was so impressed with my foresight.

We had decided to park the car at Adam's apartment.  They had a dedicated parking space and no cars, so I would save $9 a day and not have to park in the elevator.  It was probably going on 3:30 or 4 p.m. by that point.  I had been awake for over 40 hours or more.  Although I was no longer not not hungry, I was pretty exhausted.  I told Adam that I would go back to the hotel and take a nap and call him later to do something.  If I didn't call him, then he should just come over at 9:00 a.m. and we would head up the Coast.  I wanted to see the Pacific Ocean first on my trip.  When I had mentioned wanting to go to the Ocean north of Brisbane, Jade had suggested King Beach, so that sounded like a great plan.  We'd go to the beach. 

Adam was going to drop me off, because he would be taking the car to park at his place.  But I couldn't carry the ice and a twenty-four pack of cans of diet coke, so I took just six.  I forgot the ziplock bags.  When I got to the room I unpacked a little and put the diet coke in the fridge and I was going to make myself a cup of ice to have a diet coke, but instead, I put the big bag of ice in the bottem of the fridge and laid down to take a nap.  Ten hours later I woke up. 

It was 3 a.m. and I was wide awake.  Now what?  I turned on the tv.  OH MY, LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS.  There were 14 channels.  14.  None showed movies.  None.  Six showed sports:  rugby.  All. The. Time.  Four were news channels.  One rather local.  One rather national.  BBC and another International.   Sometimes the news shows were exactly like Good Morning America--about American news, but with different people.  It was so odd.  Two of the channels were music videos.  Except that one was sometimes frozen on the screen.  The other showed music video themes--the top 1,000 songs about sunshine--counting down.  I tuned in at about 857--It was so awful that I couldn't turn away--it was like watching a natural disaster--you just can't turn the channel.  My favorite was TV Land.  Murder She Wrote was on at about 6 a.m. each day.  I made sure to tune in.  Diagnosis Murder was at 7 a.m.--I'm not a fan, but sometimes it was the only thing on tv.  Literally.  In between, they had a "Who's the Boss" Short episode.  The title credits, three scenes to give you the gist of the plot and the closing credits.  Then it was Hogan's Heros at 8, but by that time I was pretty much getting ready to go, so I only caught a couple of episodes.  I basically turned the channels over and over and over and over, maybe stopping to see a news story or a music video and turned the channels over and over and over for three hours until Murder She Wrote came on.  It was strangely soothing and mind numbing.

Although I knew it was Winter in Australia, I brought jeans and tee shirts mostly.  I reasoned that I had a sweater and a jacket, so I should be fine.  I brought only one sweatshirt.  That first morning, I lameted the fact that I had only one sweatshirt.  I needed it as my pajamas (I sleep in sweats because I am always cold), but it was really cold outside (at 3 a.m.) so I was going to need the sweat shirt, sweater and the jacket.  And this was only my first day.  Oh well, I thought--if I have to buy something to wear, I'll buy something to wear.

As it got closer to 9 a.m., it warmed up a bit, so that I wasn't going to also take my sweater, but I was definitely taking my jacket--even if I just left it in the car.  We were going to the beach in winter--I bundle up at the beach in summer, so I was ready for some cold.  The sky was a brilliant, beautiful blue.  It was going to be a gorgeous day.  I'm not sure how Adam and I connected, because I don't think that I could make phone calls, but I walked out and there he was.  I got in the car and he told me that there was a cake in the back.  I could smell it.  It was going to be an awesome day!

Stay tuned--I wouldn't pet a Kangaroo, and a one-eyed bird attacked me.  I swear that it is true.