Top Ten Noteworthy Things from Australia:
1. G'day mate! They really say it! All the time.
2. Good on ya, mate. Meaning - okay, sounds good, no problem, good choice. A term of general agreement.
3. Accents. Well accents are always fun to listen to, but it's especially fun to try and pick out the Irish and English influence.
4. Wine. Um, delicious.
5. English! As a former British colony, they all speak English there! Wahoo!
Friday, July 17
A note from Dave
So does Harry Potter come out tomorrow in the US? I’m hoping at some point it’ll be shown on the boat, but I’m not holding my breath. Wall-E was on today. I still think it’s an overall mediocre movie, I just get irritated with its preachiness. On a positive note, I got to see the Southern Cross last night for the first time. It made me sing the song “Southern Cross” to myself in the airplane. It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be. On another positive note, I dropped a 2000 lb bomb today. That’s about the same weight as the original Volkswagen Bug. It blew up too, which was nice. I also got to see an F-15 up close for the first time in the air. However, since he was supposed to be a bad guy, and I saw him behind me, that wasn’t so good. Oh well, can’t win them all ;). I’m hoping the pic of me and Relay off the tanker turns out.
Sunday, July 12
The Land of Oz
An Attempt to Recap my Nine Days in Australia
My mom told me the use of "'B' headings" will help the reader focus and know what to expect. So I'll try those.
The Flight. We caught a bus from Atsugi, departing - late - at 4pm. We had no problems getting checked-in, despite the fact we were overweight with luggage. (Girls packing for winter means sweaters and boots...aka extra weight.) We made our flight, no problems. Leaving the gate was another issue, however. After taxing to the runway, we were informed there was an "electrical" problem. It was fixed, no problem, but it delayed us about an hour. An overnight-12-hour-flight is way easier than I expected. I was able to sleep a lot of the way. All of our baggage arrived with no problems. We got our rental car, no problem, though it took me a moment to remember to put the clutch in to start the car... but then it was like riding a bike - kinda.
The Hotel. Kelly navigated Laura and I from the airport to our hotel. All Seasons Perth was located - surprise - in the asian district of Perth. So it was just like being in Japan - we couldn't read much! Hah. The hotel was recently purchased and undergoing a make over - new lighting, new paint, etc. The receptionist was super nice and helpful. We had weird room keys: something like magnetic mini pencils...They had to be inserted to a special receptive on the wall when you first walked in to turn on the lights. A good energy saver. It had a "king" size bed. "King" because it was obviously two twin beds squished together. I know that this is common in hotels. However, other hotels have a nice padded thing that the put over the bed so you can't tell it's two beds made into one. This hotel did not. As a result, Dave and i slept in the "same" bed, but on two separate beds. Boo. It also had a lime green wall, which was interesting. Also, the room had a fake window: it was curtain covered glass, but instead of looking outside, it had a small framed picture of the Perth skyline, with a skylight (we think) above it. Something that became readily apparent were the thin walls. I could hear the elevator-style music that was playing in the hallway from the bed. I could hear my neighbor's business calls, word for word. I could hear when someone used the bathroom. Awesome. Luckily, not much time was spent at the hotel. We either walked or cabbed everywhere in the city.
The Boys. The carrier, the USS George Washington, was parked 2miles off shore, about 30km south of the city of Perth, in the town of Fremantle. I drove Mike, Kelly, Laura, and Lauren down to the port. Again, it was a coordinated effort that navigated us to where we needed to get to. We only knew that the boat was in Fremantle. That was it. We had to find it. Like a treasure hunt! We were able to find the ports easily enough. Kelly was able ask for directions easily - because they speak English in Australia!!! So awesome.
I should have taken more pictures of the building the boys were loaded into. It was the "Old Passenger Terminal," with the railway 100m away, and the ocean 20m on the other side. It was old, charming, wooden, rustic, and plain old romantic. Not to mention the fact that the boys had to wear Standard Dress Blues - SDBs - so it was super picturesque. Yet I took like no photos of it. Sorry. So our hubbies were in their SDBs, with thier cute white covers, while the Enlisted sailors where in their cracker-jack uniforms. Just think of the famous VJ-Day picture of the sailor in Time Square kissing the nurse. Yup. 
Super cool. Additionally, everyone was required to wear their SDBs out that night. It made for awesome people watching. Tyler, as the only one of our group to make it off the boat that day (Glenn and Dave had duty, so we didn't see them till Friday morning), probably caught a lot of wistful glances as he escorted Laura, Kelly and I out to dinner. We had dinner at my new FAVORITE restuarant, The Brass Monkey. Reasons I love the Brass: 1. Housed on the 2nd floor of a building constructed in the 1880s, it has massive charm. 2. It has massive charm. 3. The food was awesome. After the Brass Monkey, we went to our first wine bar... whose name escapes me currently. This is where we people watched. It was fun to see sailors talking to women/girls, with the girls alllll about the guys. Fun times. Then Kelly and I retired to our rooms, alone. Boo. :(
Dave! The next morning, I got up bright and early and drove to Fremantle to pick up Dave. This is also the morning I backed the rental Hyundai Getz into a pole in the parking lot. UGH. So with a scratched up bumper, i followed "Karen," my GPS voice, to Fremantle. Yay! We got him a muffin and drove back to Perth. We had lunch at the Brass Monkey, yay, and walked around downtown. We stopped in at Target and bought Dave a few long-sleeved shirts so he wouldn't freeze. Later we met Kelly, Glenn, Tyler, and Laura out at MUST Wine Bar. Fun times. After a good glass of wine or two there, we hopped acrossed the street to Queen's Brewery. I'll tell you one thing: Australian Beer, awesome. Australian Wine, also awesome. Good on'ya!
My mom told me the use of "'B' headings" will help the reader focus and know what to expect. So I'll try those.
The Flight. We caught a bus from Atsugi, departing - late - at 4pm. We had no problems getting checked-in, despite the fact we were overweight with luggage. (Girls packing for winter means sweaters and boots...aka extra weight.) We made our flight, no problems. Leaving the gate was another issue, however. After taxing to the runway, we were informed there was an "electrical" problem. It was fixed, no problem, but it delayed us about an hour. An overnight-12-hour-flight is way easier than I expected. I was able to sleep a lot of the way. All of our baggage arrived with no problems. We got our rental car, no problem, though it took me a moment to remember to put the clutch in to start the car... but then it was like riding a bike - kinda.
The Hotel. Kelly navigated Laura and I from the airport to our hotel. All Seasons Perth was located - surprise - in the asian district of Perth. So it was just like being in Japan - we couldn't read much! Hah. The hotel was recently purchased and undergoing a make over - new lighting, new paint, etc. The receptionist was super nice and helpful. We had weird room keys: something like magnetic mini pencils...They had to be inserted to a special receptive on the wall when you first walked in to turn on the lights. A good energy saver. It had a "king" size bed. "King" because it was obviously two twin beds squished together. I know that this is common in hotels. However, other hotels have a nice padded thing that the put over the bed so you can't tell it's two beds made into one. This hotel did not. As a result, Dave and i slept in the "same" bed, but on two separate beds. Boo. It also had a lime green wall, which was interesting. Also, the room had a fake window: it was curtain covered glass, but instead of looking outside, it had a small framed picture of the Perth skyline, with a skylight (we think) above it. Something that became readily apparent were the thin walls. I could hear the elevator-style music that was playing in the hallway from the bed. I could hear my neighbor's business calls, word for word. I could hear when someone used the bathroom. Awesome. Luckily, not much time was spent at the hotel. We either walked or cabbed everywhere in the city.
The Boys. The carrier, the USS George Washington, was parked 2miles off shore, about 30km south of the city of Perth, in the town of Fremantle. I drove Mike, Kelly, Laura, and Lauren down to the port. Again, it was a coordinated effort that navigated us to where we needed to get to. We only knew that the boat was in Fremantle. That was it. We had to find it. Like a treasure hunt! We were able to find the ports easily enough. Kelly was able ask for directions easily - because they speak English in Australia!!! So awesome.
I should have taken more pictures of the building the boys were loaded into. It was the "Old Passenger Terminal," with the railway 100m away, and the ocean 20m on the other side. It was old, charming, wooden, rustic, and plain old romantic. Not to mention the fact that the boys had to wear Standard Dress Blues - SDBs - so it was super picturesque. Yet I took like no photos of it. Sorry. So our hubbies were in their SDBs, with thier cute white covers, while the Enlisted sailors where in their cracker-jack uniforms. Just think of the famous VJ-Day picture of the sailor in Time Square kissing the nurse. Yup. 
Super cool. Additionally, everyone was required to wear their SDBs out that night. It made for awesome people watching. Tyler, as the only one of our group to make it off the boat that day (Glenn and Dave had duty, so we didn't see them till Friday morning), probably caught a lot of wistful glances as he escorted Laura, Kelly and I out to dinner. We had dinner at my new FAVORITE restuarant, The Brass Monkey. Reasons I love the Brass: 1. Housed on the 2nd floor of a building constructed in the 1880s, it has massive charm. 2. It has massive charm. 3. The food was awesome. After the Brass Monkey, we went to our first wine bar... whose name escapes me currently. This is where we people watched. It was fun to see sailors talking to women/girls, with the girls alllll about the guys. Fun times. Then Kelly and I retired to our rooms, alone. Boo. :(Dave! The next morning, I got up bright and early and drove to Fremantle to pick up Dave. This is also the morning I backed the rental Hyundai Getz into a pole in the parking lot. UGH. So with a scratched up bumper, i followed "Karen," my GPS voice, to Fremantle. Yay! We got him a muffin and drove back to Perth. We had lunch at the Brass Monkey, yay, and walked around downtown. We stopped in at Target and bought Dave a few long-sleeved shirts so he wouldn't freeze. Later we met Kelly, Glenn, Tyler, and Laura out at MUST Wine Bar. Fun times. After a good glass of wine or two there, we hopped acrossed the street to Queen's Brewery. I'll tell you one thing: Australian Beer, awesome. Australian Wine, also awesome. Good on'ya!
Saturday, July 11
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