-
Aussie Expats Update – Road Trip? COMPLETE!
Happy Monday everyone! I decided late last week that since we’d be getting home over the weekend (and I had a 2000 word essay to write) I would delay the final road trip blog post until after we finished. And thus, we arrived back into Lawton yesterday afternoon with 9100 miles total on the car (14,560 km: a third of the way around the earth!), a crack in our damn windscreen (more on that later) and a huge sense of relief because there’ll be no more driving for a while. On to the recap then, and a quick warning that we’ve crammed a lot into the past 10 days: be prepared…
-
Aussie Expats Update – Five Weeks Into the Roadtrip!
Happy St Patrick’s Day everybody! I’m finding it a bit challenging to write a blog post right now, because my whole head feels as though it’s filled with rocks… Wading my way through neck-deep Structuralism in my Literary Theory subject at uni has put me firmly in struggletown, and I have some mild regret about choosing this particular subject. Regardless, we are currently motoring our way down the interstate and leaving Utah behind as we head towards Bryce Canyon to see some rocks! I hope everyone enjoyed James’s excellent post last week: I don’t think it was until after he had finished the long slog that he realised just how…
-
Aussie Expats Update – Part 3 of our Roadtrip
Woooop, the end of week 3! Wow, are we getting around a heap and seeing a lot: we’re 21 days and 4000 miles (6400 km) into the road trip to end all road trips (seriously, after this, we’re pretty sure we’ll never really want to drive again), and are currently on our way to Knoxville. So, on to the recap! Luckily for us, our Day 14 trip from Savannah to Charleston wasn’t too long (just a little under 2 hours), which meant we had some time to do a bit of training in the morning: my frog hops and transition into handstands are really coming along. [A weird thing to be excited about,…
-
Aussie Expats Update – Our Big Southern USA Roadtrip, Part 2!
We’re back again for the week 2 update of our epic US road trip! We arrived in the Keys last Friday via Key Largo, where we impulsively decided to book in for a jetskiing adventure on Saturday and followed it up with feasting on an incredible lunch of steak sandwich and fish and chips. If you haven’t had fish for eight months—because how the hell can you trust ‘fresh’ fish in landlocked and rustic Oklahoma?—then believe me when I say, you’re happy to have fish. And this Mahi Mahi was juicy and delicious (and also deep-fried). We gorged ourselves and then gorged a little more with some Key Lime pie…
-
Aussie Expats Update – The First Road Trip Report!
Hello from Florida everyone! Well, we’re on Day 7 of our amazing trip, and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind so far. Despite a less-than auspicious beginning on Saturday—whe the alarm clock failed to wake us up at 0400—we managed to be on the road by 8 am with our borrowed tent in tow (as, despite ordering our new one 3 weeks prior, it still hadn’t arrived). But, we got out butts on the road, and drove through to Dallas for an Arby’s lunch-stop before kicking on to Grand Gulf Military Park (MS). The ranger had left the gate unlocked for us after we’d called ahead earlier in the day,…
-
Aussie Expats Update: A Ball, Cookies, Hiking and General Adventures!
Holy schmolys people. What a doozy of a week and what a lot to cover off on, plus, stacks of pictures (you can thank me later). As I mentioned in our last update, we had the St Barbara’s Day Ball for James’s Brigade on Friday night. Of course, this necessitated an early slammer of a gym session for the day, some bright red toenail polish, a couple of cheeky G&Ts, and a whole bunch of cheesecake. Despite my promises not to eat as many pieces of cake as last time, I think I ate more (thereby, one might argue, actually keeping my promise. Semantics). I would like, however, to point…
-
Aussie Expats Update – Our Expat Australia Day & Other Tales
Friday again—where does the week go? We’re off to yet another ball tonight, since James’s Brigade decided that celebrating St Barbara’s Day when it’s meant to be celebrated (in December), is lame, and we’re much better off doing it in late January. The big upside is that I’m going to paint my toenails red and James’s sister, Amy, will be coming with us: so hopefully we will all get out of it alive! I can’t, however, promise that I won’t eat other people’s desserts. I’ll try to restrict myself to just two or three. We’re greatly looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing this weekend (though we’ve got…
-
Responding to Prompts in Writing Comps
Before we start, I hope everyone noticed that the title of this post rhymes. It wasn’t intentional (originally), but I did it, so I needed everyone to appreciate my skills. Okay, now that’s out of the way, welcome to a brand-spanking new week everyone! There’s been a lot happening in the world: to everyone who participated in the Women’s Marches all around the world (there was a march on every continent! How cool is that?), you’re awesome. Regardless of what your political leanings are, those marches that took place over the weekend are an incredible feat of solidarity, and are a sign of a societal promise to work for change which…
-
Aussie Expats Update – Uni Break and another 2017 Bulletin!
Happy Friday everyone! Well, James and I are currently hoofing (great word, right?) our way from Lawton up to OKC. We’re collecting his eldest sister, Amy, tonight and then James has a 20km race tomorrow. Yuck! Well, I mean, he’s looking forward to it, so I guess that’s all that matters. Ahem. I can’t believe I’m in love with a man who likes to run 20km races for fun. Good god. Anyway, I’m on uni break. Finally! Despite a bit of a kerfuffle on my way to Oklahoma City Community College on Tuesday—our debit cards have been scammed, which is just awesome—I managed to get in and smash out my 120…
-
Aussie Expats – A 2016 Recap and The Year Ahead
HELLO EVERYONE!! Well, it wouldn’t be the end of the year without an obligatory ‘look at everything we did’ kind of post, so I’m going to do one, mostly because it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that 2016 was a big year. Mammoth actually. Those always seem to happen when you’re getting ready to put up your feet and tell everyone that ‘last year was huge, we’ll take it down a notch for this one’… Actually, as you go along in life (it seems to me), there’s nothing but big years. And they speed up, until they’re flying past and slipping through your outstretched hands. At least that’s how…
