The lungfish are still alive after my visit!

Well, it’s officially August and I have three weeks left. It’s a scary thought. I got started on my To Do List this weekend by visiting the Melbourne Aquarium. It was very nice, kind of small but very well presented. My five year old digital camera couldn’t handle the lighting situation in there, so my photos are pretty bad. Even the sea horses were too fast for my camera. Sea horses. All of my pictures are blurry – I’m calling them “arty,” ok? You can see them on the Flickr photostream. The rays were among my favorite things there. Of course, there were the obligatory Steve Erwin questions from visitors during demonstrations, asking how dangerous the rays are. Then I was in the Caribbean, they would just dump idiot tourists in a bay with a bunch of rays and a bucket of squid. I even kissed one on its nose. That’s how dangerous rays are. :( It’s sad.

The cuttlefish were another favorite, they looked like baby Cthulhus (“Tongues kid, you got nine of ‘em?”). I also liked the sea dragons and the Australian Lungfish. Neoceratodus!! Kyah! They were so huge! Big cosmoid scales! Diphycercal tails! And LOBEY lobe-fins, not the weird, useless fins of the South American and African variety. Someone nearby said they looked like sharks, and I was thisclose to a big lecture on the amazingness of Sarcopterygia, but I decided not to terrorize the public after all. I still got to put a lot of my Vert Ev knowledge to work, like when my friend asked if the rays were related to sole (because both are flat). No hagfishes or lampreys there, which is kind of shame from a fish diversity standpoint. They aren’t the prettiest, but a few agnathans would be educational. The white sea snake was cool, too. They can hold their breath for two hours! The clownfish were cute, of course. I watched them for a while and every person who came over to see them said ‘Nemo’ at some point. There were giant crabs there (“I was three steps away from getting crabs!”) and Jacob, they had this touch screen learning center about the intelligence of marine animals, and one of the option was “Do they learn?” XD hahaha After that, we walked around the southern part of the city on Flinders Street and ended up and a cool little café in an alley. Great area, lots of fun.

In the evening, we went out to a Japanese place called Tomodachi, which was not nearly good enough to warrant the price. Do not recommend. I would only go back to try the sushi train they have (always wanted to do that!) but my friends didn’t want to this time. Karaoke was canceled because we couldn’t get a room, so we had to find something else to do. We went to a bar called Barcode that had bowling, pool, and arcade games. It was a really fun idea but the games suuucked! They were nothing I’d ever heard of before. Call me old fashioned, but I was hoping for old school arcade games, like Mortal Kombat (or basically anything they had at Cheap Skate when I was a kid). That was too bad. I spent some time getting killed by zombies and crashing my racecar into things and then we played pool for a bit. I ended up playing with a girl who was even worse than me, so the game lasted FOREVER. I got all the way down to the eightball and three times I hit that sucker into the pocket and it bounced out. That’s what you call destined to lose. Overall, it was a frustrating night in the Bid Kids’ Arcade. Hah. I think the biggest problem was that I was so excited about the games, I didn’t drink first. Always gotta have alcohol to play pool! Then we ended up and at pub to drink and dance, which was more fun.

Now I’m at the Empire for a little lunch and internet. Not for much longer, though, because the horrible music is about to chase me outta here as soon as I'm done. Not sure I will jog today, feeling pretty crappy. But let’s do one of those Differences Between Living in Australia and The US posts first. I’ll start with DRIVING.

If you’re American, you can pretty much count on the fact that anywhere you go in the world, the driving will seem a lot crazier. Europe? Much faster. Asia? Never been, but I’ve heard stories. Africa? Forget about it. (I couldn’t even look at a car in Madagascar without needing Dramamine.) But one of the first things I noticed here was their Speed Kills ad campaign. In the US, you’re pretty much expected to go at least 5 miles over the speed limit, and most people do 10 miles over (15 if it’s Sheep Pasture Rd *cough*). Here they actually follow the speed limits! And the limits are LOW! I couldn’t believe it! They have these beautiful new highways around Melbourne, and the limit is 60 kmph (40mph), and 80 (50mph) once you get farther out of the city! Unbelievable! Australia must be the only country in the world where they drive saner than we do!

Oh, and I’d like to air a grievance, against Canadians of all people. Sometimes I get asked where I’m from and I think it’s kind of silly, because my accent is pretty glaringly obvious. Every time I’ve been asked and tell them where I’m from and say “wow I thought my accent was pretty obvious!” they say, “Yeah, but Canadians get pretty offended when you ask them if they’re American!” Come on, Canucks. Seriously. I know being accused of being American is the biggest insult in the world right now and I’m sure you’re sick of hearing it, but the accent is so damned close, don’t get all huffy at the foreign community if they can’t tell the difference! Especially my accent because I'm from Damn Close to Canada!