Monday, February 20, 2006

Austraila, the Land of the Weird

Sorry to launch this new blog and not write in it since I launched it. I had an interesting encounter with the local radiology department, which prevented me from writing. Or, I could blame Australia.

As many of you know, I traveled to Australia in January of this year and just fell in love with this country. No where else on earth can someone be flying home to his "ranch" of 15,000 acres, and make an emergency landing on the biggest platinum deposit in the world (this was only a few years ago, mind you) and become a bazillion-gazillionaire. They don't know (and don't seem to care) much about their own history, but they can all tell you about Utzon, who designed the Opera House. It's a strange, and wonderful place.

Where else could you get funding for these particular studies?
Tiger Poo Study
Platypus Is Weird Study

Keep in mind that it is a country founded by "people with too much initiative" (a.k.a. criminals) as they like to say down under. Though obviously not "people with too much brain power"

It's probably one of the deadliest places in the world with the most poisonous spiders, the most poisonous snakes, bushfires, the deadliest jellyfish. For three days when I was there, the headlines were "FATAL SHARK ATTACK!" (a woman was eaten by not one, but three bull sharks in a netted beach area), "FATAL JELLIE" (a 7-year old girl was killed by a box jellyfish in 7 minutes) and "FATAL CRANE" (some guy fell off a crane in the rainforest.)

Here are other examples of how dangerous it is there, but they just take it all in stride, like it's no biggie:

It's not code yellow or code orange, it's code "snake" or code "croc" or even code "toilet paper"

Plus, their government is just ridiculously confusing.

I can't wait to go back!


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1 comment:

Peter Matthes said...

Pro: Koala Bears and Kangaroos

Con: They have most of the White Sharks.