randomness.

there have been a couple of things i have been wanting to blog about forever and other things have taken precedence.  so, since i am caught up on big trips/happenings, i am going to share some randomness. 

first, the snakes here.  have i seen them?  yes.  have i seen a lot of them?  no.  

when going to the lagoon (the pool right outside of our apartment), you see all kinds of signs like this:

and here are the conditions of entry (beware of snakes):

now, don't get me wrong, these signs are good precautionary measures, but when i first got here they scared the s*** out of me!  when one comes to australia you are acutely reminded by EVERYBODY YOU TALK TO of the deadly snakes here, which leave you with this sense of i don't know if i am going to survive australia!  

this is completely unnecessary and false!  yes, i have seen snakes.  two.  in ten months.  and i have been in the rainforest lots of times and in the bush when i was working at the mine.

in other words, there is no need to worry.  funny story is, i actually saw a snake on one of my trips HOME IN STL!   the snake was sitting in my parents' window (the outside of course) of their house and i don't think it was deadly, but my point is that there are snakes everywhere.  don't let snakes scare you from coming to australia.

next piece of randomness:  australian pelicans.  so, when jim and i returned from our july trip home, i noticed some very large white birds in the river outside of our apartment.  they hadn't been there before so they peaked my interest and i googled them.  sure enough, they were australian pelicans.  they are gone now so they must just come here to nest for a couple of months, but i really enjoyed them while they were here - gorgeous birds and fun to watch.  here are a couple of photos:

we actually saw these in tasmania.  i was able to get pretty close to them!

and continuing with the bird theme, we have lorikeets that fly around outside our apartment every day.  these birds are BEAUTIFUL but incredibly loud.  in fact, most locals consider them a nuisance, but being from america and not having birds like this to look at every day really made me appreciate them.  they look like miniature parrots and there are hundreds of them where we live.  

that's all the randomness i have for today, but to give you a little update on our lives:

jim's last full day of work is today!!  tomorrow, we will wrap up some things around here and pack.  then, saturday we will leave for phuket, thailand.  we will be in phuket for 4 days and then we will head to bangkok for 2 days before heading back to brisbane.  when we get to brisbane, we will have two nights there before we wake up to catch our flight to AMERICA.  words cannot express how excited we are to get back to the country we know and love.  australia is great, but home is where the heart is.  looking forward to seeing you all soon!!!