Jim Travels The World

everyone i know here whinges (that's Australian for complain ) about how St. Kilda beach is dirty and crowded. If this is as crowded as it gets, it'll be fine with me. These people I'm sure have never seen Ft Lauderdale on spring break. Our first really warm day at the beach. Next week we should see plenty of beaches on our trip down the Great Ocean Road

cheeky

Every once in a while I get used to my daily train route and job and eating at restaurants and paying bills just like in America, and then I run across stuff like... and I  remember that I'm in bizarro land...

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Australians, particularly Victorians, particularly Melburnians, are rabid sports fans. Of the 16 AFL (footy) teams across the country, 8 of them are in or around Melbourne. Cricket, footy, and soccer are high on the list but Aussies love any kind of competition. Yesterday, while on an outing to see an exhibit about Pompeii at the Melbourne Museum, we ran across hundreds of people going to the Caulfield Cup (horse race). You can't see it to well from the picture, but people here treat horse racing as a gala dress-up event. Drunken guys in suits and ladies in these crazy star-trek type hats go and bet on these horses. Aussies love to bet too. I believe i read they have the worst gambling problem of any country in the world. But you might expect that from a bunch of ex-convicts. Also, around the bay in a day is a 250km bike race. We accidentally stumbled onto some of the festivities while searching for a place for a late lnch af

Now back from our whirlwind 8 days in a campervan in Tasmania, Australia. Originally, we were going to go to Uluru (that great big red rock) for our vacation, but we met some people who told us something like "if you've seen the red rock desert of utah, uluru will be a letdown". And my coworker instead told us that Tasmania was the place to go. I have to say it was the right call. Tasmania is: pristine white sandy beaches; rugged coastline cliffs; rainforest waterfalls; snowy alpine mountain peaks; rolling green hills; abundant exotic wildlife; unique subterranean caves; incrediblly fresh and tasty local seafood; strange and quaint country towns. Except for downhill ski and sea diving, we did just about every outdoor activity you can imagine in those 8 days... though we could have skied and dived if we had the right equipment with us. above is the painted cliffs of Maria Island. Maria is where we first came in close contact with kangaroos, wallabies, and wombats (and some

whirlwind week. flew to the US of A, 5 days in beautiful boulder:  (lisa said i wouldn't believe how packed the storage unit was.  pictured: my real, honest reaction to the state of the storage unit) two days in texas, and then back to melbourne (after missing a flight in brisbane because customs was very interested in the camping equipment i brought back with me), then the next day to sydney with my boss for some meetings, now back home with a sorethroat and generally confused brain. traveling around the world is fun, but maybe best to not do it twice in one week,