Hey! As this is my (Ashley) inaugural post, I would like to first apologise for some of the (sacrilegious!) spelling that will be a feature of Ornella’s updates. So, when you’re seeing –ou- (colour, not color) and –ise (instead of –ize), that’s a sure fire way to know that I’ve got my hands back on the laptop and an English speaker has written the post, not an American speaker (love you O!). Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what we’ve been up to:
Visiting Home – It’s always a little tricky dropping in on places I once called home. We love catching up with family and old friends but there’s always the complications of trying to match our schedule with whoever it is we’re trying to see. The obvious answer would be to stay in one place until you’ve seen everyone before moving on, but unlimited time is a rare luxury. Even with the extended nature of our trip, we wanted to get out of Australia as quickly as we could (no offence Aus!) to get the real adventure started. With that in mind, we were really lucky to see those of you that we did in Australia and I’d like to say thank you again to everyone who made time for us and especially those that let us crash with them while we did our whirlwind half-lap of the world’s smallest continent (not allowed to call it the biggest island anymore!). Here’s a quick shout out to the loved ones we got to catch up with, so that they know how much we appreciated seeing them:
FILLER TEXT
I stupidly forgot to grab photos with our mate Ziggy (who cooked us a delicious breakfast) and his girlfriend Katie. I also missed out on pics with Emma (who took us out for dinner – an Asian fusion restaurant as a primer for our trip!), John and Bec. Our friends Ken and Trilby welcomed us at dinner on our arrival to Perth and I let Ken beat me on the tennis court a week later – no pictorial evidence so you’ll have to take my word for it. Last, but not least, Mary-Lynn, a friend of Ornella’s family, picked us up and took us for a lovely buffet lunch at the casino – thanks again!
Lastly, while in Perth, we thought we’d go to an Aussie Rules game. I introduced Ornella to footy in Houston about a year ago, when we went for a fun, open training session with the Houston Lonestars Club. They were teaching newcomers a ‘touch’ version of the the game She was a natural talent – kicking with precision and catching bombs with ease! With the Fremantle Dockers playing at home a short walk from Louise and Charles’ place in Perth, it was the perfect opportunity to see the best-of-the-best in action (not Fremantle unfortunately – the Adelaide Crows smashed them 142-70).
We went looking to buy tickets from scalpers but, after giving up on that, when we were heading to the ticket booth, two lovely ladies stopped us and offered us 2 spare passes they had in hand, with only a beer a piece as payment! Thank you very much to Jo, Sharon and Doug – we thoroughly enjoyed the game, despite the result.
The vexatious phone arrived the next day (Monday) and we hastily booked tickets to Japan, leaving Tuesday morning. The longer than expected Australian tour was coming to an end. Next stop, Sapporo!
This is so cool! I’m so excited to stay up to date on where you are, I’ll just pretend I’m there too! Keep having fun!!
aw thanks! miss you! come visit us sometime!