Post Mortem

Well I'm back home after about 36 hours of dealing with planes and delays and all of that. My internal clock is pretty well screwed up but Ed was "kind" enough to help me on my way resetting it. I stayed awake until around 4:00am and then forced myself to sleep. He came into my room at 10 this morning and shouted "WAKE UP". I didn't like the lack of sleep, but it will help me be less completely out of it for work tomorrow. Bah, work.

Anyway, wrapping up the trip just a couple of things that I either forgot to mention along the way or whatever:

Lynn and David were an older british couple we met in Cairns. They were very outgoing to the younger crowd and sort of fit in. Lynn especially was quite affectionate with a couple of the guys, it seemed odd in an indescribable way. A little later Tim and I figured that they may be swingers. I don't know if they are or not (I never really decided to ask), but if not they sure come across like it. Ignoring that they were a nice couple to hang out with - and they bought a couple of rounds when they did go out with us so not all bad :)

Tim and I witnessed a very interesting exchange between an aboriginal couple while sitting at a cafe in cairns. The conversation itself wasn't terribly interesting - especially since we couldn't understand the language. It's just the image of this older guy in an open button-up red shirt walking away from this woman screaming at the top of her lungs. A woman with a full beard. Bushy, long, streaks of grey in it, this was a full on beard. Every other part of her appearance made us pretty sure she was a she, just the beard. No pictures sadly, didn't want to risk the wrath.

This trip taught me how to pack - more specifically what I packed this time to never take on a trip to a summery tropical continent again. Jeans and a sweater will be the first to go, but beyond that:

• The tripod was handy for 6 shots in total, of which I probably could have faked it with a rock or something so tiny tripod or none at all next time.
• Don't bother with the gameboy or other such gadgets (excepting music devices), but do bring books - you can exchange them at hostels easily enough once you're done with them.
• a bowl a spork and maybe a cup is all you need, everything else is pretty redundant and takes up too much space.
• USE A BACKPACK. I took a duffle so I could carry home large things but bought things too large to fit in that duffle so had to end up buying another larger duffle. Two large duffles are not fun to travel with. I won't make that mistake again.
• Finally, wrinkle-resistant multi-purpose clothes are your friend. The pants that zip into shorts are a godsend, would be better as that nylony stuff rather than cotton though.

And finally, while in the irish pub in cairns the music video to the dance/techno remix of "Little Less Conversation" came on. I really liked the song and the video was of some kind of underground football (soccer) championship so was rather entertaining. However in all of these pubs that show music videos they always cut off the last bit of the video to show ads for upcomming shows or drink specials so I didn't get to see who won! Well with a bit of help from Kazaa I snagged the video. A reduced size version is available for your viewing pleasure here (9 megs).

So in conclusion; hell of a lot of fun, a ton of great people, several friends I'll keep in contact with, and a real desire to return very soon. The culture and climate suit me just perfectly, a nice blend of laid back with still a bit of drive. I'd like to return to work and live for a year - and hey, if our schmuck president gets re-elected I'll probably just emmigrate.