You'll never guess who I met....

Pretty exciting, eh? Okay, okay, I admit my new best friend is rather two dimensional and not nearly as eloquent as the original, but it was still really cool to "meet" him nonetheless.

The annual Multicultural Festival is on in Canberra and despite the heat last weekend, we ventured out with our friend Jet to take in the sights, sounds, sweets and savories. The US Embassy drew quite a crowd with their cardboard cutout of Mr. Obama - they had a photographer taking the photos and then they emailed a copy a few days later! Can you imagine the fate of a cardboard cutout of Mr. Bush? Not quite the same appeal methinks.

After a lovely but sweltering day in the crowds of the festival, we retreated to the crowds of the public swimming pool. For about two weeks, we endured unbelievably hot days here in Canberra. It stayed at 40C (104F) for days on end, and at night the temperature barely dropped at all. We survived by literally hibernating at home in front of a fan blowing across frozen bottles of ice or by retreating to somewhere air-conditioned, like our offices.

Then all sorts of crazy things started happening. Many regions in the state of Victoria are on fire and somewhere around 200 people have died. Many more are still to be found and they say many bodies will never be identified as they are too badly burnt. The stories I hear on a daily basis are wrenching. People dying trying to save their homes, people dying trying to escape, families getting separated in the chaos. People in Canberra are especially sympathetic as bushfires swept through the ACT in 2003.

And then, strangely enough, there is flooding happening in the state of Queensland! And, here in the ACT, we went from furnace-like temperatures to having to wear a coat and gloves on the ride to work in the morning - overnight! At the moment its 17C or about 62F - not at all normal for February.

Well, what started as a happy post about my new friend Barack Obama, ended up as a sad story about tragedy and what has been aptly referred to as "global weirding." Sorry about that.

Australia Day Weekend

Last weekend was a three day weekend in recognition of Australia Day. Chris came up from Melbourne and we went to the coast for the weekend. Our destination was Jervis Bay, about a three hour drive, but after stops at the farmer's market, our favorite winery (Lark Hill), and the Braidwood bakery, we arrived late Saturday afternoon.

I'd booked us a little cottage/cabin about a week and a half before the long weekend and as all of Canberra was making a beeline for the coast, I was pretty pleased to have found us a place at all. We followed the directions to the cabins but the first place we see is a run-down looking trailer house with many haphazard additions and about ten cars in various states of disrepair randomly parked out front. A young girl with a baby on her hip tells us to go up around the corner and go to unit number three for the key. The units were all built about two years ago so we were pleased to see that they looked quite nice. Unit number three, however, looks like all the others so I'm not sure how you'd know which one was the office without the help of the red-headed girl. Anyway, we get out of the car and a young twenty-something red-headed kid comes out and is immediately impressed by our rental car. It's a black and shiny sports car like thing - I can't even remember what it was. Chris booked a compact economy car and was "upgraded" to a mid-size model we nicknamed Kit. Not really our style at all, but fun nonetheless. So Red takes us up to our cabin and hangs around for no less than twenty minutes telling us about his rural adventures of fire-fighting, traffic convictions and subsequent dealings with the local judge who impounded his car. He now drives the judge around in his old car while the judge drinks (Red doesn't drink) and apparently they're buddies. Bewildered? Imagine how we felt listening to these random stories until he finally decided to wander back to whatever he'd been doing before we arrived.

Sunday we spent playing on Hyams Beach, a gorgeous white sand beach that apparently is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having THE whitest sand in the world. I have heard that some other beach had their sand tested in a lab to prove that theirs was actually the world's whitest sand but I'm sure the locals don't care about that. The water was crystal clear and the most amazing color blue given the sun's reflection off of the white sand. The beach was quite busy with families romping in the waves on one end, but walking to the far side of this very long beach, you'll see that we had the place to ourselves.

On the far end of the beach we find a few patches of tiny seashells washed up on the sand....

On the way back to Canberra we stop at Morton National Park and see Fitzroy Falls. If these photos look familiar its because we've been there before but the falls are always a gorgeous sight.


And here a look at the length of the falls....

A really fun weekend with nice food (Indian and an attempt at Mexican that was tasty, but not authentic), great wine, great beaches and great company. Oh and our stay in the cabins was nice enough. It was quiet and we were surrounded by beautiful bushland. Kookaburras sang to us in the trees and Red didn't regale us with any more stories.