Monday, November 23

Our stuff was delivered, oh happy day. Although one nice thing about having almost nothing in your house, the junk drawer stays empty. Every time you open it, there is just the same small amount of junk, it doesn't keep growing, like it will now. In fact, now that I've unpacked several boxes, I find I need a much bigger junk drawer, yet somehow we managed to do without all that stuff for the 7 weeks we've been here. Interesting the way that works.

And I discovered an advantage to having a really small place, you only have to plug the vacuum cleaner in once, and the cord reaches the entire house.

We had dinner with a fellow ex-pat, now living in Melbourne, and he mentioned a strange policy here regarding doggy bags. He said he was having dinner with some coworkers, and one of the women asked for a to-go bag. The waiter explained that because they were not licensed for "take away" she had to sign a paper stating that she felt physically fine at the end of her meal and if she became ill the following day she would not blame the restaurant.

This same ex-pat told us about a great place to buy good wine at reduced prices, and there just happens to be one of the franchises right around the corner from us. This company buys up overstocked or discontinued wines from vineyards all over the country, strips the labels off, and puts on their own bizarrely named labels. He said one of his favorites is called Larry, Moe and Curly Joe, and they all have strange, but easy to remember names.

Well this is probably as good a time as any to discuss toilets. Everyone from home always asks if the water really does swirl in the opposite direction when you flush, and the answer is "I don't know." It's hard to tell because the water basically just goes straight down, like a waterfall, and doesn't really swirl around like in US toilets.

Some other differences are rather odd, like when you turn the DVD player on, the light goes off, and when it's off, the light stays on. Same thing with the electric plugs, there is a switch you have to hit to actually turn on the juice; but when they're on, a little red dot shows up, which to me should indicate it's turned off, since it's red. Then there are the electric cords, which never match the appliance. For some reason they put a black cord on a white microwave, and a white cord on a black lamp.