Noosa News
November 16, 2002 Noosa Heads, Australia

Your perception of a place is often colored by the weather while you are there, and the people you meet there. It's been cold and rainy since I've been here, and I don't know anybody here, so I'm not a big fan of Noosa. There's only surf beaches, shops, and expensive cafes, so unless your' re a surfer dude or a wealthy tourist, there's not much to do. I wanted to check out the national park, though. First on my agenda was to catch up on world news after not having read a paper for two weeks. So I bought a Weekend Australian, found a cafe, and read it for three hours. It was great. So they caught the Bali bomber. That's good. And Osama Bin Laden's back. That's bad. Then I walked over to the park, which turned out to be tiny. When I asked the ranger for a map, she warned me not to walk alone, due to criminal activity. I asked what sort of activity, and she said she was not at liberty to tell. Not being one to turn my back on excitement, I set out alone to face the unspecified dangers. The walk was OK, with lots of eucalyptus trees, but I have seen better. Plus it was cold and raining.

Since I can't be bothered to cook dinner, I've decided I'd better self cater for breakfast (brekkie as they say here) and lunch. My brekkie toast was wearing off so I had an unsatisfying lunch of peanut better and jelly sandwhiches. I wonder how long I'll keep that up. Then I went to work on the website, but ended up doing emails again.

I thought it might be nice to see a movie tonight, but nothing good was playing at the theater, er, cinima, so I randomly picked "The Ring," and bought some chokies and lollies at the candy bar (translation: bought some candy at the snack bar). The movie turned out to be pretty wild, kinda Sixth Sense like, only weirder. There was one scene where a first grade teacher had the kids' schedule written on the blackboard. It was:

• morning meeting
• walk outside and observe trees
• read and write
• eat
• play outside
• rest

Except for the "morning meeting," that was pretty much my schedule for the day. It's funny that first graders have a busier schedule than I do! After the movie I discovered they had a 1945 Plus video game. When I was a kid I spent hours playing 1945, so I couldn't resist burning a couple of bucks. It was great!