Tourism, Accents, Adventures, and Plans

1. Dreamed a dream to help perpetuate Jewish stereotypes. I talk to Tourism Australia. I tell them that they should go and do talks for synagogue boards.  I say these people have money and will be able to afford a trip to Australia. Then I go a Jewish board meeting.  It's at my mom's friend's house.   Strangely it's in her bedroom. My mom's friend sits on her king-sized bed, and other people sit elsewhere within the room.  I make a comment about rooms sometimes smelling too strong.  She worries her room smells too strong, because she did use some kind of aroma device. I assure her it's fine.   

2. Had another dream about Tourism Australia. They come to a school cafeteria to talk to young adults at one of the tables. I'm there to listen.  I'm unpleasantly surprised that the person doing the speech has an American accent instead of an Australian one.  I listen carefully thinking maybe he has an Aussie accent, and it's just really subtle.

Then it changes to a woman doing the speech.  I later talk to her.  I criticize the program, but try not to be hurtful about it. I say students don't have a lot of money to travel, and Australia is even more expensive than many destinations (because of the distance and airfare).  I say the accent is a huge selling point, and you guys would do a better job of winning people over if you flaunted that. I ask the woman if she's ever been in Australia, and she sheepishly admits that she has not. This annoys me.    

3. Answered one of those questions on Facebook. It was about dream trips, and one of the options was going from London to Sydney along the Northern Silk Road.

I found this motorcycle tour company that does the trip.  It looks like you spend most of the time in Asia.  

4. Found this sad website.  These two men were going to do the long ride.  They had plans.  They had sponsors.   Then one guy dropped out.  They were supposed to leave last year....March 2010.   It looks like they never went. Hopefully, they'll be able to follow their dreams someday. Or maybe they've already moved on to a new dream.

5. Heard a song by Jason Mraz on Pandora, and it reminded me of Elliot Freeman, because he sang the song on one of his videos.  Actually, there's two videos of him singing the song. This is the first time I've seen this one. I think I like it better than the other. Freeman is totally adorable here.

I love YouTube celebrities.

6. Went back to listening to Jason Mraz.   I think I prefer Elliot Freeman's version.

7. Worried that this will be a very short post. But I shouldn't worry because I have plenty of long posts to make up for this short one.

8. Played around with our Aussie 2012 trip calendar, and sent it to Tim.

9. Showed Jack a photo of Mt. Gambier's Blue Lake, and he was very impressed.

10. Decided to break up the drive from Melbourne to Adelaide into three nights. I need to know what is the best town to stay in between Melbourne and Mt. Gambier. Please email me with suggestions!   It would be best if it were some place in the middle, but if there's an awesome town that's not....this is fine too. I'm thinking of Warrnambool. 

11. Sent Tim a new and improved calendar.  For this one, we have 7 nights in Melbourne; 8 nights on our road trip which will include Mt. Gambier, Horsham, undecided place, and Adelaide, and 7 nights in Sydney.   

12. Came up with an idea.  I want to have this trip better planned; I mean day by day.  I feel last time and the time before there were days where we were kind of lost. What should we do?  Where should we eat?  There were days we just randomly went places.  That can be great sometimes, but other times we were left hot, tired, hungry and not sure where to find food and toilets.

So I want a better planned holiday.  On the other hand, we need to be flexible.  I don't want each day written in stone.  What if we have the zoo planned on Tuesday, and there's a huge storm?

My idea is to plan the days, but not specify which day will happen on which date. Does that make sense?

For example, we might have a zoo day.  We'll pick out some restaurants, some shops, and nearby sites.   But we won't say which exact day we'll do this.  Also, that way people might say Hey, we'd love to join you on your zoo day.  We love animals.  And then we can work around their schedule...maybe.

13. Figured out Melbourne Zoo is next to some of the beautiful colleges of the University of Melbourne. So we can see all those on the same day.

14. Thought we could probably do Royal Exhibition Building, the library, and Cook's cottage in one day. Maybe picnic in the park?  Oh, and Parliament is around there too.  This could be our historical building day.

15. Realized I forgot to add the Melbourne Museum to the mix. That's kind of important....especially to Jack.  Where can I fit that?

Okay.   I see that it's right near the Royal Exhibition Building, so we'll stick it with that day probably.  

16. Switched the museum to the day we go to Bourke Street. There was too much on the other day.   Museums exhaust me. I need an easy and relaxing rest of the day.   

17. Decided we'll probably have to choose between a St. Kilda day or a Docklands day.  I'm leaning towards St. Kilda. I'm scared of Luna Park, though. I don't trust those rides. Maybe I can convince Jack to go but make it a game-thing only. Or we can go on a couple of rides.   I don't want to buy one of those full-day ride pass things.   Either way, we're screwed really. We're either going to decide to pay for individual rides, and Jack will decide he loves something. We'll end up spending more than we would have spend on an unlimited ticket. OR we'll get the unlimited ticket, and Jack will suddenly decide he doesn't want to go on anything.

Maybe we can just skip Luna Park all together.

18. Remembered suddenly that we don't actually have to WALK everywhere. What's wrong with me?  I've been looking at everything walking-wise. But if we take a train, bus, tram....whatever; we can probably do the Docklands AND St. Kilda.

19. Stressed about learning the public transportation system in Melbourne.

20. Figured I shouldn't plan too much until Tim picks out our accommodations. Yeah. I'm leaving that to him, because it totally stresses me out.

Anyway, where we stay could make a big difference in things. I mean we might end up staying IN St. Kilda.  Then we wouldn't need to be traveling there.