While D took the train to work this morning, I decided to go grab a pastry and a flat white -- and, more importantly, take advantage of the free wifi offered by the coffee place. I had a thick slice of toasted pear-raspberry bread (think banana bread, but pearier and raspberrier), which was delicious, and an hour or so of really, really slow wifi. Gloria Jean's Coffees is not the place to go in Cronulla for good wifi -- or even good coffee, really. Gloria Jean's is sort of the Starbucks of Australia, apparently, and while having an excellent range of pastries, I've not found thier coffee to be that great.

After that I headed to the grocery to get some photos of something that this American found particularly amusing. Next to all the steaks and pork chops and chicken and what-not in the meat case was a section for animals:

From oz 08

From oz 08

I don't know whether refrigerated meats for animals is a response to the tainted pet food epidemic from a couple years back, or if Aussies just love their pets more than Americans, but I'm reasonably certain that this doesn't happen in America. I'm not going to tell my cats about this when I get back, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't either.

After picking up another variety of Lemon-lime & Bitters at the grocery (thus far my favorite is still Schweppes's, but Bundaberg's is a really close second) and taking a codeine-infused paracetemol (that's Australian for acetemenaphine) to help soothe my severely sunburnt skin, I headed out for an hour-long jaunt down the road that runs between Cronulla and Sutherland. On the way I saw a few interesting things, but nothing nearly as exciting as this:

From oz 08

I didn't know what we were going to do for Christmas before, but I sure do now.

After my walk I was extremely hot and tired, so I headed back to the hotel for some lunch. What does this American tourist seem to favor for lunch in this exotic land? Weet-bix and a flat white.

From oz 08

Seriously, if ever you find yourself in a locale that has Weet-bix, I implore you to try some. It's a really fantastic cereal.

It's currently 8:25am on Tuesday here in Australia, and I've just enjoyed a fantastic traditional Aussie brekkie. As they say here, "it was yuge!"

From oz 08

It was also mighty delicious. I could get used to roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and baked beans with my breakfast.

D just headed off to the train station to head to work, leaving me here at the cafe to take advantage of the free wifi to update y'all and to upload some photos. As promised, I've taken some photos of the greatest energy drink ever made:

From oz 08

From oz 08

It was really tasty, but I can't report any kind of psychedelic effects. Bummer :)

Before heading to breakfast this morning, I watched the local news broadcasts on telly, sort of round-robining through the 3 different news stations each time they got to the sport report. The big stories this morning are that the 30th ATM in Sydney was exploded during the night (they didn't get any cash this time, however), a famous Aussie bloke with the nickname "Chopper" was attacked by a nutter with a tomahawk, and that after months of talking up the 20-20-20 plan (reduce carbon footprint by 20% by the year 2020) was just reduced to 5%. There is apparently much protesting. Oh, also, there was great coverage of the Iraqi journalist who threw both his shoes at George W. Bush during a press conference.

I got a little bit sunburned whilst walking around yesterday, and one of my eyes is completely bloodshot after the plane flight. Now I understand why they call late night plane flights the "red-eye." International travel tip: it is counter-intuitive, but it's actually better to sit in the middle part of your plane's row as opposed to the aisle. At this point I feel pretty fantastic, not at all jetlagged at all. (Other than waking up at 5am local time and unable to continue to sleep.)

No phone connection yet, but at this point I'm seriously considering just not bothering. I'm clearly rather addicted to always being connected, and it will probably do me some good to have to go out of my way to check in. Anyway, catch you later. I'll check in later with some more things I've found interesting.