decent days and nights

The weather's turned sour for my final stand in new zealand. Clouds are easing me back into Portland winter. Raining so hard it's like being at the bottom of a lake. I'm too tired to piece together coherent sentences, paragraphs, all that nonsense, so some bullet points for you:

-Australian youth are stuck in a time vortex which keeps them pinned securely in 1984. So much neon and asymmetrical hair, it's what I imagine it would be like to be at a Wham! concert.

-Tasmania is the roadkill capital of the world.

-When you watch the news in Australia, you will hear more about the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries than you do at home. Same for New Zealand. Wall to wall coverage. Hillary Clinton is inescapable.

-Australia is brown. New Zealand is green.

-No one in Australia says "G'day." They don't throw shrimps on the barbie.

-Cricket is more important than baseball, basketball and apple pie.

-Australia has 4 weeks of national holiday. Everyone gets paid time off work. It's a tough life.

-Australian athletic development programs are 10 years ahead of ours. In the US, the cycling federations will give you support IF you can medal at a world cup. In Australia, thier federation will give you support at an early stage to MAKE SURE you can medal at a world cup. Makes sense, no?

-The minimum wage in New Zealand is $12 an hour. Healthcare is free. Gas is three times as expensive but cars are much smaller and most are diesels. I haven't seen any Escalades or Suburbans here...

-We drove 1800k in 8 days in Tasmania

-We drove 600k in 2 days at the lake last weekend

DT