Our Garden

Matt and I had a very domestic and enjoyable weekend.  We had drinks with some friends on Friday night and sampled Townsville's version of Mexican food at Cactus Jack's, which turned out to be loads better than expected.  Either that or we were both so ravenous that it could have been anything and it would have seemed fantastic.  

Saturday morning we braved the massive Townsville crowds (no, I'm not being facetious) and ventured over to one of the local malls/shopping centers.  The layout of these malls is very interesting.  They're sort of like random collections of small clothing stores, small bookstores, dollar stores, etc. in combination with one or more grocery stores and a Kmart (or Aussie version of that).  The whole concept of having a grocery store inside the mall seemed at first very weird - masses of grocery carts are strewn all over the mall areas, which adds to the chaos and crowds.  But admittedly it's quite convenient being able to pick up the liter of milk we forgot the day before without having to make an extra stop.  Speaking of grocery carts though, I have a beef with the carts over here.  You'd think that grocery carts would be the same everywhere, right?  Well, they are most definitely not.  At first I thought that I had a habit of picking broken carts, but I'd say between the two of us Matt and I have tried over 50 shopping carts and they're all the same.  I can't exactly explain what it is that's different, but it would only take you a few seconds to realize they're poorly designed.  As you push the cart forward, the stupid thing doesn't actually go forward. It turns sideways instead, crashing into the shelves of the aisle or the unlucky person next to you.  If you're really intent on having it go straight it takes some serious muscling, which after a few minutes has me completely exhausted and whispering not-so-nice things under my breath. I've found that the carts actually work best if you push them from the side, although if the store is busy you're out of luck as there's just no room in the aisles.  Anyway, I really really do love it here, but I don't feel the least bit bad about saying that the grocery carts in the US are indeed superior to the ones here. 

Sorry for digressing.  Anyway, we picked up some things we needed for the apartment at the Kmart and office supply store in the mall.  Afterwords we went down the road to Bunning's, which is more or less like Home Depot.  We finally found a suitable desk for me to set up in our guest bedroom, and we also picked up a bunch of plants and potting soil to start our little garden. Some of the plants we got were herbs, so our patio smells quite delicious.

Saturday night Matt worked a late shift and was on call, and I worked for a few hours at home as well.  Sunday morning we woke up around 8am (6pm Eastern on Saturday) and listened to the radio via internet of the Clemson football game.  We made a valiant effort to find a way to watch the football games online, but it turns out radio is about our only option.  I was initially annoyed about that (after all, I'd pay good money to watch the games!), but the radio made for an awesome football experience.  Anyway, my Tigers did well, and at half time we walked down the street to a cafe and had eggs benedict and a spinach/feta omelette. The Arizona game was scheduled to start at noon (7pm pacific time), but there was a 50 minute storm delay so we managed to squeeze in a workout and a dip in the pool before the game.  The Wildcats had a really exciting game and had no problem defeating Central Michigan.  I still feel very strongly they should have picked Nick Foles as the starting quarterback, but that's for another discussion....

Matt's back at work doing the late shift tonight and unfortunately has to be back in by 8 for the early shift tomorrow morning.  This week probably won't be terribly eventful since we'll both be working a lot, but the plan is to go up north to Port Douglas this weekend for a day of diving and some hikes in the Daintree forests.  More details to follow...