| Australia Surfer's Paradise & Melbourne April & May |
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| This was the view from our hotel room balcony in Surfer's Paradise, outside of Brisbane. The entire beach is filled with hi-rise buildings. For those of you with a sharp eye, that is a Marriott Courtyard across the street, and even with the government rate, it was still way out of our price range. |
| These are one of Monica's favorite animals here in OZ (mine is the wombat), the echidna. They eat insects, and tear up flower beds and shrubs. Hawks and cars kill a lot of these little guys. Not sure if they are properly called hedgehogs, but they sure look the name. They are spiney like a porcupine, and have a little snout for rooting out their food. |
| Koalas! They move about this fast in real life. |
| Me with a wallaby at Steve Irwin's (the Crocodile Hunter) zoo outside Brisbane. You can really walk through the enclosures, and these guys come out for a bite to eat and a scratch under the chin. They are actually very soft, unlike the Koalas which have hair like steel wool. |
| I wasn't a big fan of the standard poodle, but Jacque is one nice puppy. He lives at A Tudor Manor with Inez and Kieth. |
| This is me with Mr. Kirkwood. |
| These are the Kirkwoods (Tony & Pauline) and the two of us at a zoo outside of Melbourne. During the birds of prey show at the park, the sea eagle took off and never came back. Not sure if they ever got him back or not. We'll be meeting Tony and Pauline in Singapore after a month in Bali. They've promised to come visit us in the States when we get back. |
| The Montesanos of Melbourne |
| I found the relatives of my fathers that I had been looking for. We stayed with my "new" cousin Rosa for the first few days, of what became 5 weeks, at her home. Here we learned that they still cook like they do in the old country, and the fact that you were full had very little bearing on how much food you were going to eat that evening. This was the beginning of a kilo a week weight gain, but I'm sure we'll burn it all off in Asia. |
| This is me with Rosa in her back kitchen, a separate kitchen built in a detatched building out in back of the main house. Operations like pizza making take 4 to 5 hours because everything is made from scratch. They also produce their own tomato sauce, salami and preserved vegetables here. |
| Bet you don't have a wood-fired oven out in back of your house! This is Rosa's husband Enrico (Mr. Grande) preparing the oven for the pizzas. Just like the old country, I'm telling you! |
| The pizza gets placed on baking paper prior to going into the oven. No mozarella is used to top the pizza, authentic toppings only! All kinds of fresh veggies, olive oil, home-made salami, hot pepers. After your 10th slice (and 6 beers and 4 glasses of home-made wine), you have to think about whether you really want to continue the trip or just stay and eat. |
| The Great Ocean Road & the 12 Apostles |
| We took a ride out to this area with Rosa's brother, John, and his wife, Pat. This section of coast is about 3 hours from Melbourne. What started out as a cool and sunny day turned into a very cool, and very wet, day. The usual Melbourne winter weather greeted us on our trip, and we got to see the coast on a day that most try to avoid. With a trip as long as ours, one can't expect perfect weather all the time. I'm glad we went, but boy were we wet and cold by the end of the day! |
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| If you want the pizza and rolls to taste right, you better make the dough yourself, and by hand. Yes, you can taste the difference! |
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| This is me with my cousin (Rosa and Enrico's son) Nick enjoying the zaaaa! |
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| This is my long-lost cousin Mario. He and Enrico own the Gran Monte Market. Mario is really happy that we came to find the family in Melbourne, he's just a bit sad in this picture because we took it just as we were leaving Melbourne after 5 wonderful weeks with them. We love Mario. |
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| This is Monica with Mario's wife, Lisa. In the foreground and hanging is a lot of VERY expensive prosciutto at her deli counter. Lisa was very good to the both of us, frying me peppers and making pasta fagiole. She would also make us tasty deli sandwiches whenever we were at the shop. We'll be returning to Melbourne in December of 2003 to celebrate her birthday. Yeah! |
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| And we finish off with a shot of one of the famous Melbourne trolleys. Or are you really in San Francisco? I guess the Mazda driving on the wrong side of the road is a clue. |