Shane is on a plane right now and will arrive in Brisbane tomorrow morning! How exciting :) Jeremy and I were just arguing over who is going to cook dinner for him tomorrow night...hahaha. J is cooking now, so tomorrow I will be doing the cooking. Pad Thai, mmmmm...except that we were just at the grocery store and I forgot the rice noodles, which are generally a very important ingredient in Pad Thai. Ah well, that can be easily remedied. On his blog he mentioned that he thinks that he "won't understand people most of the time, but will pretend to". Bahahaha...I'd say he'll understand about 90% about what they say and the other 10% will go straight over his head. I mean...EFTPOS? Fairdinkum? Unco? Would you like some school vouchers? Bottle-o? Tracky daks? Daggy? Arvo? Sticky beak? WHAT ARE THEY SAYING?? I know now, but there are still some that trip me up every so often!

Spent today, the first "official" day of my holiday at my friend Jules' house working on an assignment. Well, first we had lunch and played with her baby for awhile, then I dragged myself away to assignment yuckiness. It's good to have it started though. Two pages down, 13 more go. Oh dear. Jules has a Canadian nanny, which is pretty cool. Her name is Jen and she's from somewhere in Ontario near Windsor...I always forget. It's nice to have someone who understands random Canadian-ness...like today I was eating a delicious cookie and said "Mr Christie, you make good cookies" and she laughed, as is appropriate! The Aussies just kind of looked at me like I was not making any sense, which I suppose is mostly true. Then Jen told me about how she was out with friends and someone sneezed and she said "Robitussin!" and they all thought she was nuts as well. Jules will be very very sad when her visa expires and she is left nanny-less. She used to be in my year of speech path, then had a baby, and now is in the year behind me and Jen is essential for her sanity and survival while she's in class and writing assignments. She keeps asking if i have any amazing Canadian friends who want to come over next year and be Billy's nanny. It's actually a sweet deal. It's a live-in position, and her house was just built last year. There are kitchens and bathrooms on both floors, so Jules and her family live upstairs and the nanny gets the whole downstairs area. Jen's room has sliding doors which come out to the in-ground pool. She does some housework and cooking and of course takes care of Billy, who is a darling. She has weekends off and is always out exploring Australia, checking out Byron Bay, Sunny Coast, etc with a big group of friends that she's made over here. Jules and Bruce are the most easy going people ever and Jules always goes on and on about how great Jen is and how she has no idea what she'll do when she's gone. My friend Nicole and I go there almost every week, and Jen sits and has lunch with us and we talk and laugh. Honestly, I wish I had a job like that when I first moved here!! (Except the live-in part would have been weird, and that's kind of what makes it affordable for Jules since part of Jen's wages include what she would be paying for rent). So yes, more Canadians getting a good name around here...always nice to hear!