Trip Down Under

I finally got all my posts written about our trip to Australia in November! I imagine I'll be adding more details to some of the posts from time to time as I recall them. So if you scroll back through all my posts tagged Australia, you'll get the whole trip.

Some general observations: 

We know we didn't spend the tiniest fraction of the time that needs to be spent in a country of that size and variety, but luckily Alex did get to see a good bit more during his previous 4 months, and we did actually do a good bit in our week: 2 major cities, beaches, rainforest, lots of good food, met new friends. And we didn't really feel rushed - everything in Australia seems to be at a nice relaxed pace, even in the cities.

Driving on the left wasn't too bad, but the car we got from Avis (a Holden Commodore) was no fun at all. I had reserved a compact, but when we got there they gave us a "free upgrade" to this POS barge. It had a built-in nav system, which meant we didn't have to pay a surprise one-way fee on a separate nav unit (I did appreciate the clerk telling us about that little tidbit before we would've gotten to Sydney and been stuck with it), but it was a pretty poor system.

We liked how all toilets, public and private, were of the dual flush variety. I don't see why ours aren't all like that.

Australia (at least the parts we were in) seemed to me very like the US, but just completely not. Things were arranged in much the same way, but they were all different things.

We loved the people - everyone was very friendly, and it is after all nice sometimes to be in a foreign country and be able to understand the language without too much trouble.

Hopefully you can tell by reading my posts, that we enjoyed our trip immensely! Despite the wet weather through much of it, we always found plenty of interesting things to do and see (as always...)

Now, on to writing about New Zealand before I forget all the details!