Just returned from my first Barbie - no shrimp, but excellent lamb and a host of other yummies.

Looked up in the sky and realized - Orion is upside down! Duh!!

And I finally found someone who could identify which stars constituted the southern cross, and saw it for the first time. Now will Stills and Nash get out of my head ?!?

Epiphanies from earlier in the day:

Fleets of Ti and carbon ridden by spandex and logo-infested jerseys = weekend warriors of Australia.

Swans here are black, while cormorants have a lot of white on them.

Developing left-handed reactions as a driver of a car does not translate into developing left-handed reactions as a cyclist.

Both motorists and cyclists in Melbourne respect bike lanes (of which there are many, at least on major roads) and everyone obeys traffic signals. That may just be a first impression, but it was a positive one!!

There are far fewer F-bombs uttered in Australia (or at least in Tasmania and Melbourne).

Currently, only 3 in 4 Aussies are actually born in Australia. At dinner tonight, it was 2 out of 5, though the other 3 have been residents for decades.

Artists are not like other people.

There’s a lot more ink in these parts, possibly an artifact of the its being summer and there is a lot more visible skin, or a nod to Aboriginal culture, or youth culture (though plenty of the body art is sported by people in my age bracket), or casual culture, or FU culture in general.

Development interests and green interests are generally at odds. (Not exactly revelatory)