Movie Monday - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Come on, like you were expecting anything else today! #Marvelfangirl I took myself to see this at the movies on opening day, and OMG IT WAS AMAZING. Things are going to get non-specifically spoilery, so I'll put in a jump cut for those of you who haven't had a chance to see it yet. But I expect you to share your thoughts once you HAVE seen it!

Source

New Zealand - the "LOOK AT THE PRETTY!" edition

Previously, Ness and I drove a really long way and it wasn't particularly exciting.

After our night in Otorohanga, we packed up and headed the not-very-far-down-the-road to Waitomo. Once there, we bought tickets to tour all three caves, because GO BIG OR GO HOME, YO. We had about 45 minutes to kill before our tour of Aranui Cave, so we decided to embrace the hobbit lifestyle and have second breakfast. Well. Ness had something resembling breakfast. I had a triple chocolate brownie. And while we ate, we eavesdropped on a conversation being had about Australia by some very loud Americans.

And lucky for you, I recorded the basic details of it in a memo on my phone, so I can tell you about it.

Know-It-All American: "In Australia, they have to take food everywhere on these massive trucks."
Friend: "Oh, really?"
KIAA: "Yeah, they're called roadtrains. And once they start driving, they're impossible to stop."
Me: "..................................."
Friend: "Whoa."
KIAA: "Yup. They drive from Perth to Sydney without stopping at all!"
Me: *busts an organ trying not to laugh*

Right. The roadtrains drive 4,000km without stopping at all. And when they reach Sydney, the only thing that stops them is that they drive into the ocean and that floods the engine and shuts it off...

KIAA: "The city centre in Melbourne is really small. And they call it the CBD - centralised business dominion."
Me: *mutters* "DISTRICT. Central business DISTRICT."
KIAA: "You can walk around the Melbourne CBD in like half an hour."
Friend: "Oh, wow. That IS small."
KIAA: "But to walk around Sydney's would take you ALL DAY."
Me: *mutters* a) You're really wrong on both lengths of time, b) Melbourne's CBD consists of more than just the grid, you abominable twat."

There was also something about the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, apparently, but I can't remember what it was, unfortunately.

Of course, these delightful individuals turned out to be on our tour. And the friend turned out to be wearing sparkly platform flip flops while carrying her nine month old baby. The tour specifically said to wear sturdy shoes with good grip as the cave is often slippery. Luckily for everyone, the baby and its mother made it out in one piece.

Anyway, Aranui Cave was pretty if not especially big (well, the parts you could walk through, anyway):

From there, we moved on to the Glowworm Cave, where you can't take pictures. And let me tell you, it. was. AMAZING. Technically, they're less glowworms and more maggot-y things, but PFFF. They're still super pretty. You walk through the cave looking at a couple of basic formations, and then they load you into boats to go through the glowworm part. I'm pretty sure I spent the entire boat ride with a massive grin on my face because it was so incredible.

(If you want to know more about the glowworms, you can go watch this SciShow video from Hank Green)

After a quick spot of lunch (under no circumstances did I have chips and garlic mayo for lunch NOPE DIDN'T DO THAT), we headed out on our tour of Ruakuri Cave, which was kind of awesome because we got to see some glowworms up locse, and also because we got to see some people doing the high ropes course through the cave, which looks INSANE. Plus, parts of the cave were really pretty:

Aaaaaand I think that's quite enough for one post, so I'll split Waitomo into two parts. Next up, we investigate a waterfall, have a delicious dinner, hang out with some more glowworms, and come across something unexpected.

K xx

You think we do WHAT??

When you travel a lot as an Australian, you get asked a lot of weird shit. This is probably common to a lot of nationalities, but due to the tyranny of distance or whatever, Australians seem to cop the worst of it. That whole "tons of weird animals that don't exist anywhere else" thing probably doesn't help...

Anyway, I put together a list of questions/misconceptions that I've heard over the years, and figured that it was time to answer some of them. In vlog form, because obviously.



What misconceptions or weird questions have you had to deal with while travelling?

K xx

PS. My thanks to Youtube for once again selecting the most ridiculous screenshot on earth.

Do you hear the bloggers sing?

Previously: it took me 16 hours of flying in middle seats to get from Orlando to Phoenix, and it was the uber-suck. On the plus side, Gina was there to meet me at the end of it.

My first day in Phoenix was a pretty quiet one, on account of having spent sixteen hours in planes/at airports the previous day. Instead, Gina and I hung out on the sofa watching the Food Network while her kids played and said hilarious things and were generally adorable. Gina introduced me to the wonders of Sandra Lee, and we both snorted with laughter at the facial expression of the woman who had to try Sandra's cocktail creation.

Other things that happened:

• I flipped my hair over the back of the sofa and straight into a burning candle. Which kind of defeated the point in Gina lighting the candles in the first place.
• Kid #1 telling jokes: "What do snakes eat for breakfast? MAC AND CHEESE!!" Me: "Well, who WOULDN'T want mac and cheese for breakfast?!"
• I fell in love with Gina's shower. Seriously, you guys. It's the best shower EVER. Made better by the fact that the shower at our hotel in Orlando barely did more than trickle in a pathetic way, even with the hot tap on full.
• Gina: "I kind of want to take you to Outback just because it would be funny".
• We watched the pilot of Firefly, and Gina's husband JD said "What??" a lot. 
• Me: "So I saw an episode of that show, Pawn Stars..." Gina: "WOW. That sounds SO much worse in an Australian accent..."
• Kid #3 wandered in with his blankie and his thumb in his mouth, changed the channel on the TV, hid the remote control, and looked at me all "What you gonna do about it? Huh?" and then ran away.
• I gave Gina a packet of Timtams, and over the course of the day, all three of her kids ran into the room, went "WHAT ARE THOSE?!" and then cried when told they were for grown ups. 
• We watched Paula Dean deep fry chicken and serve it in a giant scone/biscuit/thing with a pasta salad made with tinned mushrooms and a whole bottle of storebought Italian dressing. We both had the same grossed out expression by the end of it. 
• I spent a LOT of time going "Holy crap, this house is enormous". Because seriously. It is. 

The following day, we headed out to the Desert Botanical Gardens, where I promptly discovered that I'd left my wallet behind and had to be all "Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiina, can you pay for me to get iiiiiiiiiiiiin??". Pure class, that's me. Once inside the grounds, Kid #2 endeared himself to me forever by dancing around Gangnam Style style while singing the Indiana Jones theme music. Because why the hell not?! 

Anyway, the gardens were really cool and filled with sharp pointy things and educational opportunities. 

Four Seasons themed art - Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

After we ran out of cacti to look at, we headed over to the Hole in the Rock for a picnic lunch, a mosey around, and a look at the view. Oh, and on the way there, Kid #2 (who, I should mention, had held my hand about half the way around the Botanic Gardens of his own accord) piped up "Hey Mommy? Next time we go here, can your friend NOT come with us?", which caused me to giggle non-stop for about five minutes. But I digress. THE VIEW:

Once we'd all looked at the view and all three of the kids had looked at me like I was crazy for taking pictures of a plastic velociraptor (Yes. I forgot my wallet, but remembered Clever Girl...), we headed back down to the car and headed over to JD's office to drop the kids off. Because Gina and I had important places to be, yo. 

What important place would that be? A screening of Les Miserables. At 3.30 in the afternoon. With Eileen and M. And it was freaking AMAZING. Why? Because we were the only people in the theatre, so the following things happened:

• We gave each of the songs a letter grade as they happened
• We turned "Do You Hear the People Sing?" into a sing along. The best part is that it happened organically, much like in the film. Eileen started, then Gina joined in, then M and I jumped firmly on the bandwagon of "THIS IS A THING THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN", because obviously. 
• The added-in-so-it-could-be-nominated-for-the-Best-Music-Oscar song started, and I stood up and went "Well, time to pee because this song SUCKS". 
• Crying during Eddie Redmayne's performance of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" was actively encouraged.
• We established that "Bring Him Home" is awful and should be pitched at least an octave lower than it is. 
• M informed us that she would like to lick Eddie Redmayne's freckles. 
• We gave Aaron Tveit's death scene a round of applause.
• It was quite possibly the greatest thing ever. Internet friends FTW.

And once we'd finished our private, snark-filled screening of Les Mis, we headed over to Outback because Eileen and M thought it would be equally hilarious to take the Australian to Outback. There was a hashtag and everything, because we're cool like that. 

I called bullshit on about 90% of the menu (apparently Alice Springs is known for its quesadillas. WHUT), and then when it came time to order and the waitress couldn't understand my accent, the other three started giggling. Which then progressed to full blown hysterics when I asked for American cheese (only because she listed them so quickly that I couldn't remember the other options). The poor waitress was horribly confused.  

Then I ate my burger with cutlery because it was enormous and I'm a fucking lady well brought up, and Gina lost her shit all over again:

Stolen shamelessly from Gina's blog

Several hours and one shared Chocolate Thunder from Down Under later, the evening came to an end. Albeit with plans to meet up the following night for Mexipalooza. 

Up next, Gina and I get up at stupid o'clock for a very special reason.

K xx

Colorado - the "apparently Bigfoot lives in the Springs" edition

The day after Lyndsy and I went to the baseball, I headed down to Colorado Springs to stay with Megan and David, and do all manner of touristy stuff for a few days. We started out with a wee jaunt to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. It was a pretty miserable day, but that just meant that there was hardly anyone else there! I started off with feeding a giraffe. And it didn't occur to me until the last piece of lettuce that it would be sensible to take a photo of me feeding a giraffe. Oh well. I have this photo that Megan took of me teasing a giraffe with a piece of lettuce. Close enough! 

The bears were hilarious - one was having a health check, and the other was attempting to coerce bits of food out of the keeper by slapping his paws on the surface of the water. Occasionally, the bits of food would go a little too far, and the bear would have to swim a little to find them. That totally freaked out the salmon that were in the water. Understandably... (Apparently the bears aren't particularly good at the fishing thing, and have caught a record FIVE salmon this year!) I think my favourite was when we got to the wallabies. 

Me: Awwww! Aren't you guys cute? And you made delicious food for the early colonists in Tasmania too!

Wallaby: [looks at me] O.O

Don't believe me? Check out this face:

Yeah. He was seriously traumatised by that idea. The weather decreased as the afternoon wore on, and by the time we headed up to the Will Rogers Memorial thingamibob, it was drizzling quite substantially. Which meant that this was our view of the mountains towards Pikes Peak:

Thrilling, no? But it was okay because on our way home, we came across these grazing in someone's front garden, and that totally made up for it:

The next day, we figured we'd take our chances with the weather and head up Pikes Peak. Part of the way up, we came across this sculpture:

I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sure that's Jesus trying to win the Hairiest Body Builder award... #goingtoHell But according to a nearby sign, it was Bigfoot. By the time we got to the top of the Peak (which is a 19 mile drive), it was completely foggy. But I didn't really care that we couldn't see a thing because SNOW!!!! 

Here's me in the snow:

I think Megan found my level of excitement rather amusing... 

I also ate a cinnamon doughnut that had fudge icing on it. It was amazeballs to the point where I neglected to take a photo of it. And I don't even want to contemplate how many calories were in it, but if I had to guess I'd have to go with A MILLIONTY. And they were totally worth it. 

The view at the top of Pikes Peak prompted the writing of 'America the Beautiful'. Thanks to the fog, this is what we saw from the top. SERIOUSLY. 

When I reviewed my photos, I thought something had gone horribly wrong.
Then I remembered what I'd been taking photos of...

It totally inspires me to write songs! Not. #bringingthatback #channellingChandlerBing

The drive back down featured some awesome views, including this one from the Bottomless Pit:

The next day, we headed up to Seven Falls. As the name might suggest, it's a series of seven waterfalls of all different kinds. The downside? This:

Two hundred and twenty four stairs. I was more than a little glad I'd gone to the pharmacy to get an emergency Ventolin inhaler before I left home! Still, the falls were pretty, and I got to play around with shutter speed. Wheeeeeeeee!!! 

Ahem. We also went to Cave of the Winds. I successfully managed to not brain myself or get stuck in any narrow passageways - yay me! I was rather relieved to not be visiting back in the day when it took six hours to tour the caves, along with commando crawling through a 50cm high passageway... Afterwards, we overheard one of the guides saying in the shop that they'd had a guy on their tour try and take a photo of total cave darkness. With the flash on... #EPICFAIL 

That night, we went out to a steakhouse for dinner. This happened:

Hostess: Have you guys been here before?

David: We have. But she hasn't. She's from out of town. 

Hostess: [disinterested] Oh really? Where are you from?

Me: Australia.

Hostess: OH MY GOSH! I've never met anyone from Australia before!! If you fill in this card, we'll get you a little something on the house!

Me: Um. Okay?

David: Huh. Maybe we should tell her it's your birthday and see if we can get MORE free food!

Bless her, she was so excited about meeting someone from Australia. (And no, it wasn't an Outback Steakhouse.) I was kind of hoping for dessert or mozzerella sticks (they may be terrifyingly bad for you, but my GOD they're delicious). Instead, I got free ribs. Eh #freefoodisfreefood 

Oh, and I nearly forgot! I came across these in Colorado Springs:

Source

Worst. Ugg boots. EVER... I apologise on behalf of my country for introducing these monstrosities to the world...

Next up: the least reassuring flight attendant announcement ever, and museums and monuments aplenty in Washington DC!

K xx

Colorado, the "doing touristy things in Denver" edition

Contrary to popular belief, I am still alive. I'm currently on a train from Washington to New York. Sadly, there's no Wifi on the train, and Wifi at our hotel in New York is $13.95 A DAY (WTF?!), but I have high hopes that I'll be able to steal make use of some poor unsuspecting person's unsecured internet to at least post this, because I've been an epic slacker of late. [It didn't. I'm now in Boston...]

I don't really know where to start with Denver. Perhaps with the fact that it was about 10 degrees C hotter than Chicago when I arrived. And I was wearing jeans. #terribleidea Or perhaps the fact that Hello Kitty takes on an ENTIRELY different meaning when you're talking to a three year old who pronounces her Ks as Ts. That, incidentally, was a couple of days after I arrived, when Lyndsy and I took her little cousin to the zoo. Small children and their amusing speech impediments aside, the zoo was fun. Insanely hot, but fun. The tigers had just been fed when we got there, so we got to see them chewing on enormous chunks of bone. And the hornbill was going crazy, flying all over the place. 

The Sunday after I arrived, Lyndsy had a Pampered Chef party, and I inadvertently bough $60 worth of cookware #whoops (It's okay, it's all small stuff that'll TOTALLY fit in my suitcase!!) 

Obviously, with me being me, a trip to the museum was on the agenda. I was crazy excited mildly entertained to find that the palaeontology curators in Denver are just as smutty as the ones in Chicago. Sure, they may not have had a rape-tosaurus or skulls with knobs on them, but you could "Fondle a foot", and there was a "Bone Bar" that asked you to please touch gently. *snigger* (Lor/Sweeney, does making smutty jokes equal a #hosuspension??)

The museum also featured the largest gold nugget ever found in Colorado. 

Lyndsy: Wow, look how big that is!
Me: Awwwwww... It's so little and cute! 

Largest gold nugget ever found in Colorado:

(Replica of the) Largest gold nugget ever found in Australia:

Source

Yeah. Ours wins.

About a week after I arrived, Lyndsy and I went to the Taste of Colorado Festival downtown. It was kind of like the Multicultural Festival in Canberra, only with Denver based restaurants. I'm kind of sad that I missed out on seeing ASIA play on the Friday night, solely because Heat of the Moment reminds me of a very entertaining episode of Supernatural. I also missed out on seeing Boyz II Men play on the Monday night. I'm not particularly sad about missing that though. Anywhendredidtheyfindthosebands, the Festival was fun. And being a total failure of a blogger, I neglected to take photos of anything. Which is probably for the best, because I have a sneaking suspicion that I mostly just ate cupcakes. They were mini cupcakes, so it was okay that I ate like four different kinds. Oh, and I ate beignets. I passed on the alligator, the pickle on a stick, the rattlesnake bratwurst, and the deep fried turkey drumsticks. I *did* get some food from the first Indian restaurant in Denver - established in 1989 #really??

Eventually, the Festival became exhausting, so we headed over to the Art Gallery, because it was the first Saturday of the month and therefore entry was free. #epiccheapskate They had some pretty fun pieces, including this salt cellar:

New aspiration for when I'm an actual adult (rather than the fake kind that I am at the moment): to own a salt cellar shaped like a sailing ship. Because it's AWESOME.

The following Monday was a public holiday in the US (Labor Day, which should totally contain a U, for those of you playing at home). The Rockies happened to be playing at home, so it was time for America's favourite pastime: baseball. 

Baseball = cricket, only BORING. I'm pretty sure more time was spent changing sides than was spent actually playing baseball... Oh, and this happened:

Announcer: Please be upstanding and remove your hats for the national anthem!

Me: Australians all let us rejoice for we...oh CRAP, wrong country... *stands around awkwardly*

Despite all of that, and the fact that I managed to get a one inch strip of my right leg sunburnt, it was pretty fun. I have no idea what the score was in the end. I *DO* know that the Rockies scored at least seven home runs because there was a big fireworks display on the big screen about how that meant we could now get free tacos at Taco Bell. I also know that they didn't win. But I sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" like a champion, and did my best to avoid sniggering during the line about rooting for the home team. #thingsthatmeandifferentthingsindifferentcountriesdespitebothbeinginEnglish #longesthashtagever

Next up, Colorado Springs!

K xx

A walk down memory lane

Earlier today, I read Bi's blog post about having an idiotic squirrel stuck her window well. And it reminded me of a rather ridiculous story that I realised needed to be shared, because that's how fucking over the top this story is. (Right about now is the point I should mention that I don't actually remember any of this, because I was five at the time... But I've heard my parents tell the story often enough to give you the gist of it!)

Waaaaaaaaaay back in 1988 (and if that's the year you were born, please keep it to yourself), we moved from Melbourne to Toronto. After eight weeks in an apartment, we finally moved into what would be our house for the next two years (I think).

The house in question

I don't remember much (again, because I was five), but I *do* remember that there were a shit ton of squirrels living in the roof of that house. Because the little bastards used to run up and down outside my room at stupid o'clock and wake me up. Obviously, we didn't want squirrels in the roof, so my parents called a pest control guy. Squirrels were a total novelty for us, so we didn't want them dead, just elsewhere.

The pest control guy turned up with something like 25 cages, which were baited with peanut butter. He put them in the back garden, and within about 10 minutes, they were filled with stupid little squirrels. Every day, he'd come back, change the full cages for empty ones, take the full ones out past the city limits, and set the squirrels free there.

This went on for God only knows how many days. #squirrelsaredumbyo But one day, we came home and all the cages were empty. And not in a "the pest control guy changed the cages" kind of a way...

It wasn't until we were either moving house or leaving Canada (I have no idea which, it's kind of irrelevant though) a few years later that we finally found out what had happened. In 1988, a little film called Crocodile Dundee II came out. And apparently none of our neighbours were home each day when the pest control guy turned up. So they'd leave for work seeing cages filled with squirrels, and come home from work to see the cages empty. This fact, combined with the antics of Mick Dundee on the big screen, led our neighbours to think that we were TRAPPING THE SQUIRRELS AS FOOD. And so the teenaged son of one neighbour climbed over the fence into our garden and set all the little squirrels free so that they didn't end up 'chucked on the barbie'.

What we had. Also, source

What the neighbours saw. Source

(Believe me when I say I really wish there hadn't been any Google Image results for "barbequed squirrel"...)

So there you have it. Mick Dundee - giving Australians a bad name overseas since 1986...

K xx

Central Australia Part 3 - Kata Tjuta

Yeah, yeah. I'm a slacker, I know. Let's get into part 3 of the saga. So we left Uluru at like 8.45am, which was an incredibly depressing realisation. Nothing like having walked ten ks by that time of day to make you feel exhausted! So from Uluru, we headed down the road to Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas. And while we were on the way, we got hit with the most godawful collection of songs. Yes, our tour leader decided that we needed exposure to some "classic Aussie hits"...

The list of doom included 'Pub with No Beer', 'G'day G'day', and the obligatory 'Down Under'. But as the list went on, it got progressively worse. We moved from "classic Aussie hits" to "crap they teach you in primary school" - when we hit 'Click Go the Shears' followed by 'Bound for Botany Bay', I was about ready to jump out of the bus window. Thankfully, we got to Kata Tjuta, and the torture stopped.

When we got there, it was time for yet another walk. *sigh* This time, it was into Walpa Gorge.

The start of the walk looked quite a lot like it belonged in Jordan or somewhere similar, in my opinion!

Sara, as you can see, was thrilled by our second walk of the day:

As we got further into the gorge, it became less like something that had escaped from the Middle East:

This bit was pretty cool - more of the black algae that grows where water runs during the rains:

And here's the end of the gorge. Honestly, while it was impressive and all, it was rather a let-down after having spent two hours walking around Uluru!

The view back towards the plain below wasn't too shabby:

It was pretty nice to see the sky this blue though after the previous day of epic rainingness:

On the way back to Uluru for lunch, we stopped off at a viewing platform where you can see the whole of Kata Tjuta from the one site, which is FAR more impressive than the view you get from up close:

And off to the right, you can see clear across to Uluru:

After a quick stop there to take photos, it was back to the campsite at Uluru for lunch. And from there, it was a sad and dull four or five hour drive back to Alice Springs. Good Lord, but it was long and painful... Although I suppose it can't really be avoided!

Anyway, Kata Tjuta is spectacular, but unlike Uluru, loses some of its impressiveness the closer you get to it. But from a distance? Totally worth the gazillions of hours of driving!

K xx