Up to speed

I've been very busy over the last week so I thought it was worth jotting down some of the things I have been up to.

Concerts
Last Thursday N, P and I saw John Butler Trio. Then on Sunday F and I saw Wolfmother. Both concerts were at the Warehouse, which is a rather nice venue, a 1920's era warehouse revamped to hold concerts. Wolfmother sold out for a second time in Houston, even though the Warehouse is a bigger venue -and so much nicer- than the Meridian, where they played last time. I was prepared this time and bought my tickets early. The lighting at the Warehouse is great, although the sound at the Wolfmother concert could have been a bit better. F had never heard any Wolfmother before, even though I gave her a CD 6 months ago -she is so crap! I was happily singing along, but was worried the sound meant that you could hardly understand what was being said or sung. F still had a great time. Also got a chance to catch up with M and meet his lovely girlfriend. He told me he'll be able to come to our wedding which is cool! I was worried he'd be too busy.


Weddings
Speaking of weddings, I went to a wedding of a girl in my lab. She and her new husband are Chinese and so were nearly everyone attending the wedding. All the vowes, hymns and speeches were in Chinese. The booklets had a translation of the prayers so we had a little idea of what was happening. The sheet music and translation of the hymns were also printed so I could at least follow the notes... The MC, who was hilarious -so energetic, translated most of the jokes he told. It was a lovely wedding but it was the first dry wedding I have been to. No dancing or anything either. The reception went for 1.5hrs. It was all over so quickly. If it were ours I would have been disappointed. But there is no way our wedding will be dry!!!

More on weddings, G and I have a date!! I was sick of not making decisions and having our wedding being pushed back and back trying to please everyone (my boss). So I grew a back bone and put my foot down. Besides some v. important people need to organise plane tickets!!! :) Finally setting a date makes things more real and very exciting. It was a big cheer up. I have been suffering bouts of homesickness. This time last year I had a trip home, but I wont get one this year. I just had a meeting with my boss and the work is piling on. Head down, bum up, get it done so nothing jeopardises the end of the year and getting the hell out of here.

Movies
Caught up with some movies I have wanted to see:
-Spiderman3
-Pirates of the Caribbean3
-Shrek3
[heh three third instalment movies... although this is the summer of the sequels]

There is also a plan to go see Transformers on IMAX. F is going home to the UK for two weeks and so wont here when Harry Potter is released (she is rather dissapointed but I told her I'd wait for her). I mentioned the IMAX release of HP and her eyes lit up, so we'll see which version we end up going to.


Parades
Back on May 12th, a bunch of us went to the Art Car Parade here in Houston. It is a huge event and people bring their cars from all over the country to enter the parade. I have some wacky photos. At the Art Car Parade there was advertising for Houston's Pride Parade. I went along to the Pride Parade in 2005 and had a great time so I was disappointed that I missed it last year and was determined not to this year. This year's was on last Saturday. The night started with Cocktails at F's house. I was so grateful that I had a friend living in Montrose, a block from the parade, I could park in their driveway. Parking was impossible. Dinner was at a restaurant on the parade route that specialises in mussels which were washed down with more alcohol. I was also on a mission to collect more beads from the parade than last time I saw it. I had never really seen the beads thing before (except docos on the New Orleans Mardi Gras) but everyone goes crazy with the collecting. Thankfully you don't have to flash you boobs to get beads -which is what you are supposed to do in New Orleans apparently. We all moved on to Poison Girls which was packed with bead-wearing party-goers. Poison Girls is a bar in Montrose that has a great atmosphere. It was one of G's favourites when he was here. It is all red inside and there are tasteful and sexy paintings of women on the walls. One table, which is popular and a great idea, is a chalk board (chalk provided). The night moved on back to F's with more cocktails until the sun came up. It has been a while since I have had an all-nighter and I paid for it on Sunday! But I had a blast so it was worth it.

Here's an art car from the parade. All shells..

The power of nature

It is fitting that I write this blog while there is a huge thunderstorm raging outside. I love the power of nature and weather. I am addicted to following storms and hurricanes on the radar and seeing images of tornados etc. Hurricane season has begun again in this part of the world. Last year was a quiet one, there are predictions this year will have a number of big hurricanes. The news programs here all try to out-do each other with the most high-tech radar systems and weather reporting. Due to Houston being so amazingly flat, there always seems to be so much sky which leads to amazing clouds and storms.

Sydney has definitely had its share of horrific storms lately. I hope everyone is coping ok. I was reading about the waterspout seen off Bondi last week. Very cool (SMH article 1 and SMH article 2). While searching SMH website I came across this huge waterspout seen in April this year near Wollongong. Then footage on YouTube of a waterspout off Croatia:



G travels to Somersby occasionally for work and has travelled many times over the road that collapsed in the storm and claimed lives. In fact some of his work colleagues would have used that road earlier that day. While up near Newcastle G dropped by to take his own photos of the beached ship. This one was one of his favourites. To paraphrase G: "I think the ship's captain failed to notice the no parking sign"

So insular

Visiting the bank yesterday to deposit a check my dad sent me for my Birthday (yeah I know it has been months since my Birthday) I had to hold back my laughter. There was a new girl in training who was watching the teller process my dad's check. She looked up at me all inquisitive and asked "oh does Australia have its own money?". I think I was a too shocked at first to laugh. After I replied in the affirmative, she responded with "huh, I did not know that!". Now I know the cliché is that American's don't know what is happening outside there own backyard but jeez. I mean the girl is going to work in a bank, where there is money, all kinds of money.

N was telling me yesterday about a girl in her lab who went to Toronto for a conference, who was surprised to notice such a thing as an exchange rate and that it changed each day. It was her first trip to another country and therefore dealing with other currencies but to never have heard of exchange rates or that they change. Hmmm.

As an aside to the story above, I nearly wrote 'overseas' instead of 'another county'. I still think of travelling to other countries as going overseas seeing that's what we do as Australians, but of course US to Canada there's no sea to go over -duh. The concept of changing countries by simply crossing boarders is still strange to me. When I was in Niagara Falls last year (a day trip during my Toronto holiday) I saw the falls from both the Canadian and US side. It was so novel to cross the boarders by walking. It was kinda strange that my mobile phone worked on the US side but not on the Canadian side there isn't that much distance between them (I called mum so she could hear the roar of the falls). Incidentally, the US side is beautiful, all parklands, while the Canadian side is like Las Vegas, incredibly tacky. I was surprised because I kinda expected the opposite, but the view is better from the Canadian side so they have exploited that. The US tried with their viewing platform that attempts to provide a better view by stretching out from the cliff face but that's the limit of the tourist attractions. Even the hotels are understated in comparison, lacking the sickly neon lights which make the Canadian side seem as bright as day. At least when you are looking at the falls from the Canadian side, all that is behind you and you aren't as distracted from the view of falls at night by bright lights.

Looking at towards USA:


Looking towards Canada:


Returning to Canada after spending the afternoon in the US enjoying the parks: