Home Again Flannigan

Once again the travels have come to an end and we have returned to our home in Melbourne. It only took 4 airports (with associated airplanes), 1 tram, 2 buses, 1 taxi and 26hrs of traveling. Not much when you compare it to the old pioneers who took weeks to cross Kansas in covered wagons, but it still takes a toll. When we landed in Melbourne at 5am, Kristi was still planning on going in to work today - once we got our bags through customs and started heading home almost 2hrs later it was a different story. Josh had already planned to work from home (catching up on e-mail and such while laying low) and it soon was clear that Kristi should stay home as well to recuperate from the effects of traveling.

We'll be sifting through the pictures that we took on the trip (only 770) this week and should have some links and stories to share over the weekend. An exciting thing we found upon our arrival home is that we now have a Flexi-Car only a block away from the apartment - yeehah! Inexpensive hourly car rental (and therefore easier city excursions) here we come! In the meantime, based on our many hours of experience today, we're able to share these words of wisdom: Jetlag sucks.

Half Gone

We're thoroughly enjoying our vacation thus far and are a bit sad to come to the realization that it's already half over! Nonetheless we continue to explore with gusto. Thus far we have toured by bike, car, and foot. We have seen castles, cathedrals, and caverns. We have attempted to speak Deutch, Français, and British. We have tasted sweet, savory, and scrumptious. And we have visited Germany, Luxemborg, and Belgium - and we head to France tomorrow! We will have many pictures to share (surprisingly we've taken a few since we last posted).

Bonjour de Luxemborg :-)

Moving Fast

We've got 3:30 left of free internet so everyone gets a 'HELLO FROM SINGAPORE!!!'

The airport is nice, I would recommend it if you have the time - lots of Tiger Balm for sale for you runners out there. Good prices, but what can you do with 6 huge tubes of Tiger Balm? Ok, nevermind we don't really want to know.....

Cheers to everyone, this message brought to you by the Changi Airport Free Internet!!

On the Mend & On the Move

The last couple of weeks have been busy for us, but we're happy to report that we're much healthier and more active than the last time we posted. Josh visited the doc one last time on Monday to get his stiches removed - no dramas, the wound is healing well and Josh was quite happy to be able to trim his goatee again! However, the doctor did tell him that, upon further analysis of his X-ray results, it was determined that he had actualy fractured his ring finger! Not much they can do about it and we're told it will heal itself eventually (at least the swelling and discoloration are long gone).

Now we're on the move - headed out tomorrow afternoon to meet Kristi's Mum and Jim in Germany for a couple of weeks of travel around the Rhein & Mosel River valleys, into Luxemborg (maybe a piece of Belgium), and France. It's going to be a short 26 hour journey for us to get to Frankfurt (and oh boy are we excited about that much time on a plane!), but we are very much looking forward to time with family, drinking good wine, touring castles, and getting a little R&R.

Bye for now and we'll be back in a couple of weeks!

Strong Bones

Just a quick post to note that Josh received good news on the X-ray front. Despite the bruising, swelling and pain, there appear to be no cracks or fractures in the left hand - Hooray! Now we're

focused on healing and getting back into training :)

Down But Not Out

**Note: If you have a weak stomach, please avoid clicking on the majority of the links in this blog entry**

We've had a rough week at the AussieKail house hold this week. Josh workouts shifted this month so that he now the majority of his workout time in the morning and therefore he has to be up at 4:30 or 5:00 to complete the workout prior to going to work at 8:00 (needless to say, Kristi now feels it really isn't necessary for her to join in the morning workouts any longer!); Kristi decided it was a good time to come down with another round of sickness that kept her in bed for two days straight at the end of the week; and then to top it off Josh and a car had a bit of a disagreement this morning, which led to a whole new round of adventures.

Let's begin by saying that Kristi's main concern with Josh's bike riding on Beach Road is that there are too many cars that don't pay attention to the cyclists and cause accidents. Well, this morning that concern turned into a reality for Josh when a car decided to pull out in front of him and, although he managed to avoid the car and oncoming traffic, he hit the pavement quite hard with his left hand and his chin as his bike skidded out from underneath him. Fortunately the driver of the car, who felt terrible about the incident, drove Josh back home so we could head to the doctor.

So the thing with having American insurance in Australia is that there is only one clinic that we can go to where we can be assured we will be reimbursed for the cost of the medical expenses. So we called them up, learned that they had openings (Kristi had already planned a visit to the doctor for herself, so we decided to make this a group effort), and got directions to take the 109 tram from one end of the line (by our house) to the other (in Box Hill). An HOUR AND A HALF later, we arrived at the clinic, got ourselves in the que, and then waited yet another HOUR to see the doctor. It was a typical doc-in-the-box experience...in less than 5 minutes the doctor diagnosed Kristi with sinusitis and perscribed 10 days of amoxycillin, and another 15 minutes and 7 stiches later Josh was almost as good as new with another antibiotic perscription to fight off infection. Unfortunately the X-ray place was already closed for the day so we hope there is no breakage in Josh's hand (which is turning several shades of purple - the doctor thought that worst-case it was fractured), but an X-ray is planned for Monday to confirm and we will keep you updated. Myra, you'll be happy to know we got Josh's wedding ring off of his finger prior to it blowing up like a balloon!

With that behind us we headed home (this time by train, which saved us half an hour thank goodness) and made a stop in to the Rich Family Household to wish Grace a Happy Birthday as she is turning 1!

Now we're home and hoping for a relaxing evening and a less eventful rest of the weekend! Josh will still be doing his prescribed ride/run tomorrow...inside.

Hangin with Ranger Rick

Our anniversary plans were in flux for most of the week leading up to the big day, mainly because we had wanted to go see the whales in Warnnambool. Instead (when the whales didn't show up) we flipped our plans over to the other side of the bay and headed down to Phillip Island to see the Fairy Penguins.

Our trip took a couple of interesting turns when we ended up on the wrong highway, but we got sorted out quickly and were still headed in the right direction so no harm done. Although the day was pretty grey, traffic was light and we made good time to Phillip Island. We'd been on the lookout for food the entire trip from Melbourne, but it wasn't until we saw the Chocolate Factory that we decided to stop and check it out. LOTS of choices and many of them with Dark Chocolate so we had to come home with some samples. Josh also found a slice of carrot cake that looked especially tasty and it quickly became lunch!

Back on the road we first visited The Nobbies, well known for a fur seal colony just offshore. Sadly you couldn't see any seals with the naked eye, but they had some remote cameras setup that you could control from the visitors center (after paying $5 that is), and it was fun to watch them shuffling around and arguing about who was king of the rock. It is amazing how time flies while watching seals play and before we knew it we only had 15 minutes to get to our tour meeting point - of course it only took 5 minutes to drive 3k and park so we didn't have to worry much. As we sat and filled out our paperwork, the guide for the evening - Ranger Rick - showed up to give us a briefing of what to expect , and we discovered that there would only be 5 people total (inculding Rick) on our ultimate penguin tour. All our friends (including the lady on the phone that sold us our tickets) had told us to 'rug up' and be ready for cold weather so we had brought along multiple fleece jackets, rain gear, hats and gloves, and Josh had even wanted to bring long underwear. Rick led us to the official briefing room to show us our gear, discuss the temperatures and the experience, as well show a couple stuffed specimens so we knew what we were supposed to see while on the beach. It turns out that the weather was pretty mild so we didn't need ALL the warm stuff we'd brought, but we were glad to have brought it just in case.

We then said goodbye to the growing crowds at the visitor center and headed off to a different beach on the other side of the island. While the sun started to go down, Rick gave us more background on the area and started to point out the early-visible planets (Jupiter was really bright!) When the sun finally did set in a burst of reds and purples and pinks, we were on the beach in our camp seats ready for the penguins to show up. Even with a nearly-full moon it was still plenty dark. Rick whispered to us (through a headphone system to minimize noise) about how the penguins would bunch up before coming ashore for safety and also how they could move pretty darn quickly for being so little as they made their way up the beach to their little burrows. With the help of our night-vision goggles we soon spotted the first little guys moving up the beach and it was really something to see how they waddled along. We didn't see hundreds of penguins, but some of them came close enough that it almost seemed like they would trip over our feet as we sat on the beach! Once they had generally finished coming ashore, we started our walk back to the visitors center. On the walk we saw many more penguins at their burrows. The amazing thing was how loud these little guys were - all sorts of chirps, sqwuacks and quacks with their white bellies glowing in the moonlight. We were also lucky enough to see a couple Swamp Wallabies on our walk back as well.

Seeing and hearing the penguins in the burrows singing through the night is an experience we won't soon forget. We definitely understand why it is one of the most well-known tourist attractions in Victoria and it fully lived up to our expectations.