Fans! PM's! Camels!

We had a very eventful couple of days! Not only was Cairns a fantastic vacation, it allowed me to add a few critters to the list of animals I've eaten. For those of you who don't know, I have been keeping a tally of the different kind of animals I've eaten over the years. Now, I am proudly up to 20! Australia has been very kind to me with adding 7 new ones: kangaroo, wallaby, emu, rabbit, quail, goat, and camel. YES! I've finally eaten the much sought after camel meat and it was really good! Not stringy or gamey at all. Much better than my ill fated goat adventure in Melbourne. Now that I've hit 20 animals, I'm aiming for 25 (this of course doesn't count the bugs I've accidentally swallowed while biking. Nor does it count creatures that live in water as they are too numerous and would skew the numbers. I have a separate list for fish.)

Yesterday as we were walking home from our ferry, we passed the Prime Minister's house. Normally it's very quiet with a couple of friendly guards outside saying hello to everyone who passes. On hot days, they stand across the street in the shade. Yesterday there was a bit more hubbub: a few more guards and several official cars. As we got halfway down the street the motorcade of John Howard passed us. I actually saw him in the front seat of the first car reading a newspaper. He's a lot smaller than all the pictures I've seen before but his head is very round! This is the first time either of us has seen our reclusive PM despite the rumor he goes jogging through Kirribilli.

Today was even more exciting as we finally found a fan!!! We went to Manly to bum around a bit this morning and we passed a store that had them on sale! We weren't able to get one quite as cute as Hoppy, but it's bigger, more powerful, much taller, and REALLY gets the air moving through the apt. Now our clothes can dry in a night! I personally have a huge pile of clothes to test this ability on. The name hasn't come to us yet. Any suggestions? Actually I just looked at the fan and the name came: Filburt the Fan.

~Mike