Understanding How Big We Really Are

We "know" that the United States is a large country and a large economy. We "know" we have a big footprint and a big effect upon the world. It's hard to appreciate just how big "big" is but leaving the country for a while helps.

I joke that "everthing is bigger in America" and in some ways it is literally true. The most innocuous and silly things are bigger. Toilet paper rolls. Marshmallows (and I'm not even talking about those gigantic ones that have come out in the last year). Pizzas.

But how much bigger is America and how big is our effect, especially the effect of our economy?

Think of some of the major countries in the world. France. Canada. Brazil. Sweden. Mexico. Russia. Australia. One of the measurements of a countries economic size/heft is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). How do the GDPs of these countries stack up against the US?

France's GDP is roughly the equivalent of...California

Canada's GDP? Texas

Brazil = New York State

Sweden = North Carolia

Norway = Minnesota, which is appropriate somehow, given how many Norwegians there are in Minnesota :)

Mexico = Illinois

Russia = New Jersey (yeah, I get the irony in that too)

And my new favorite address, Australia? Ohio.

How about let's look at it from another angle? Even our smallest and least populated states/jurisdictions have more oomph than you might imagine.

Wyoming: Uzbekistan

Rhode Island: Vietnam

Delaware: Romania

West Virginia: Algeria

Mississippi: Chile

And my actual true home, Washington DC: New Zealand. Yes, even little bitty DC, not even 100 square miles, has an GDP equivalent to all of New Zealand.

Even those states that are traditionally considered "the least among us" have the GDP of an entire nation.

That's how big we are. No wonder everyone else looks at us with...awe, fear, respect, caution, and a host of other reactions.


(I'm getting this information from the Strange Maps website.)

Australian English: Less is More 2

Afternoon = avo

Virtually any kind of personal-use truck = ute

Criminal = crim

Environmentalists = enviros

Mashed potatoes = mash

cockroaches = cockies

car registration number = rego

wet suits = wetties

rash guards = rashies

They also drop "the" and "a" often.

In hospital
At weekend

(yet, bring to the boil)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I've been out of touch for about 10 days.

I spent 4 days up in Eumundi with Ben working on his, er, our book. After 2+ years of kicking around ideas, playing around with outlines, it clicked. Big time. We have our vision, mission, goal, outline, and a bucket-load of raw material to work with.

It happened almost accidentally -- as many good true things do -- but when we came to a decision I felt it in my very bones. It's the right way to go. I'm very jazzed.

Will it sell a million copies? Probably not. Will it be good? Most likely. Will it be useful and of value to the people who've been asking for it? Yes.

I get a shiver when a writing project comes together with a virtual click like that.

Since we'd been so virtuously productive, we spent the last afternoon hiking in a nearby park, which included the 2nd highest waterfall in Queensland and -- best of all -- a pool (appropriate for swimming!) at the top of the waterfall! Next time I'm taking my swimsuit.

Came back to Brisbane for a long weekend with my in-laws. Ann and Rich arrived from State College PA on Thursday morning. I'm so envious -- they're handling major jet lag much much better than Jeff or I have ever have! Amazing.

I'm also proud of Jeff and I. I think we did a good job of showing them around Brisbane in a way that allows them to see it the way we see it. We also gave them a chance to experience somethings uniquely Australian.

Thursday:

* Lunch on the waterfront
(naps)
* Dinner at a wine bar near the hotel

Friday:

* Bus tour through Brisbane
* Views over the city to the bay from the top of Mt. Coot-tha
* Stroll to the manmade beach and lunch on the Southbank
* Ferry up the river
(naps)
* Kangaroo steak dinner at our place

Saturday

* Day at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, featuring koalas, sheepherding and sheep shearing demos, raptors, peacocks, goannas, platypuses, Tasmanian Devils, and exotic birds
(naps)
* Dinner on Queen Street Mall

And, yes, if you come to Brisbane for a few days, you'll probably get the same itinerary.

I'm spending time paying attention to how everything about this sojourn / sabbatical / boondoggle in Australia is changing me. I even spent an hour on the phone with my favorite US therapist today to talk through it.

One of the things this time is providing is distance, literally and metaphorically. I have distance from all my personal and professional relationships, from my DC-based habits, from my infrastructure, from everything except Jeff. With distance comes new perspective.

There are things we all adapt to, day by day. Some things are good to adapt to, some are merely...necessary. I'm gaining perspective on these things.

In our day-to-day lives, we end up inhabiting certain roles in our lives. Maybe we're The Leader. Maybe we're the Peace Maker. Maybe we're the Organizational Wienie. Maybe we're The Enforcer. These roles have probably grown out of some true aspect of our personalities but it can be tough to break out of them even when you may have grown out of them.

But here only Jeff has any pre-existing expectations of me. There is freedom to that and I find myself metaphorically relaxing. I find I am interacting with all these new people in slightly different ways than I usually do.

Freedom. Changes. Reflection. It's gonna be that kinda time.

Giving DC Humidity A Run For Its Money

Virtually every Brisbanite I've talked to who's found out I'll be here all summer has warned me about the weather. "Oh, it's so hot! But it's not just the heat. It's reeeally humid" they'll exclaim.

Then I tell them about the average temps and humidity levels in DC in August. Their response is usually some variation on "oh, well then, you'll be fine."

The difference, I suspect, is that the humidity starts a lot earlier here and lasts longer. November here should be the equivalent of May in DC. But the humidity the last couple of days has been a lot closer to July. The temps have hovered right around 80 with lovely light breezes but I'm sweating like....well, let's just say "like something very unpleasant" and leave it at that, shall we?

After my 2.5 hour walk on Wednesday, my massage therapist offered me a bathtowel to dry myself off before the session. I was quite grateful!

Today I went over to Mt. Coot-tha, popular for the fabulous views over Brisbane and out to Moreton Bay as well as a trail down the mountain's eucalyptus forest.

I packed carefully for the afternoon outing.


* Camelback with 72 oz of water (plus a few ice cubes thrown in for fun)
* Bandana to keep sweat from washing out my contacts.
* Contact lenses so I could wear sunglasses
* Jeff's hat with wide brim and mesh crown
* Sunblock
* Hand towel
* Walking guide
* lip balm

Plus the usual wallet, camera, reading glasses (see: contact lenses, above). Before I left, I slathered myself with sunblock and bug spray. Had my hiking boots all laced up. I was ready.

I got some funny looks walking through the CBD to the bus stop. The fashion style downtown is more miniskirts, gauzy tops, and high heels for the ladies. Screw it, I was going to Mt. Coot-tha!

The views at the top were as wonderful as I'd been led to expect. Even with a little bit of haze, I could see all the way out to the bay and the islands of the bay. Nice breeze on top of the mountain.

Couple of brazen wild turkeys strutting around (they apparently have gotten the memo that they're protected and are taking full advantage of it).

While walking along the road to the trailhead, I came across a 3-foot snake in my path. Many of you will be pleased to know that:

* I did not scream
* I did not beat it to death
* I did not freak out and run higgledy-piggledy back the way I came

I did, however, move to the other side of the road.

Found the trailhead and plunged into the coolness of the forest.

It's not a long trail. Maybe 4 km. And it's all downhill, even steeply downhill (so I was darned glad I'd started at the top!). There was lots of shade and regular pleasant breezes.

And I had to stop after about 20 minutes, completely wipe myself down, and re-apply sunscreen. There's no way I hadn't sweated all of it off. The people I passed, huffing and puffing uphill, weren't even really dressed for hiking -- they were dressed more like the people downtown and carried, maybe, a single water bottle -- so I have no idea how they did it.

I had a great time. I think there's only the one trail there, which is a shame, but I'd love to go back for the sunset dinner at the restaurant. Jeff's parents arrive on Thursday and I hope to take them up there on Friday.

But, yeah, the hand towel and sunblock are going on all my long walks this summer.

A More Relaxed Town

I'm finding Brisbane to be a city that relaxes better than DC does. It may just be me. I can relax more because I'm not working in the traditional sense. My schedule is quite loose.

But it feels like Brisbane is happier to let go and quicker to chill out somehow. I had tea with a local woman on Sunday and she said the same thing. This is a town that lives for warm weather, beaches, and good times.

Heck, the city built their own beach on the riverfront! These are a people who live to be outdoors and chillin'.

Saturday dawned stunningly beautiful here. It was clearly going to be a warm day -- up near 80 -- and suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuny. Bright blue skies. You know what I'm talking about.

We'd discovered an affordable movie theater on the south bank (only $8.50, which is about half what a ticket normally costs). It's 2nd run movies but at the rate we get to movies, that's just fine. Neither of us had seen "Despicable Me" and that sounded just about our speed so we headed out about 9:30 anm to make the 10:15 am showing.

Jeff's not a big walker and it's maybe 20-30 minutes to walk so we actually took the ferry straight across the river. If you draw a straight line from our apartment to the theater, the only thing in your way is the river. We were on the ferry for a whopping, oh, 30 seconds but it did save about 20 minutes of walking.

When we came out of the movie, it was noon and the south bank parkland was busy. Lots of people having picnics, cooking out, throwing frisbees, or just strolling along. It really is a sweet part of downtown Brisbane.

These people seem to have a strong and natural urge to kick back. Gotta like that.

Australian English: Less is More?

The Aussies love to shorten words.

Breakfast is brekkie.

Poker/slot machines are pokies.

Mosquitos are mozzies.

Motorcyclists are bikies (though I really don't encourage trying that one with, say, your local Hell's Angels chapter...)

Moustaches are mo's. (Seriously, could I make this up??) And in case you didn't know, November is Movember . Movemeber is an international "moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men's health." I admire that but there are some blokes out there (yes, I'm talking about you, Charlie Pickering on the 7PM Project, cutie though you are) who just look cheesy in their mo. But points to you for trying! (But you will be shaving it off on December 1, yes?)

Duck Day

The last few days have been the epitome of late spring / early summer. Sunny and in the 70s. Light breezes. High fluffy clouds. Clear blue skies. Yesterday was so perfect -- you could just smell impending summer on the air -- that I found myself reminiscing about vacations in Rincon, Puerto Rico.

Today (and tomorrow it looks like) is gray, windy, and damp. Very damp. My plans to go hiking on Mt. Coot-tha? Shelved. New plan? Experimenting with a new spaghetti sauce recipe. While the kitchen here in Brisbane makes me really appreciate my kitchen in DC (where's my cast iron skillet? My soup pot? My wham-wham food chopper?? My GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL for the love of God????), it's more than adequate to spaghetti sauce and I'm grateful it works as well as it does.

Outside is for ducks today. Inside is for cookin'!

The View From Here

So, the "mid-term" elections are over. Now comes the wailing and gnashing of teeth (your side lost too many elections) or the gloating and self-congratulation (your side won more elections).

I may piss some people off but....I'm really glad I'm half-way around the world and don't have to be in the middle of it. Not the election, the reaction to the election.

We have become, if Facebook is any indication, an ugly people around politics. The hate and invective directed towards the "other" shocks me, especially from people I know who are otherwise devoted to peace and reason.

"Those" people over there? The ones who voted for the candidates you secretly suspect are Satan's spawn? They are your neighbors (figuratively, literally, and spiritually). They're desperately trying to figure out what's best for their community, their country, and their lives.

Just like you.

They did what they thought was best.

Just like you.

They vote rampant self-interest sometimes.

Just like you.

But daaaaaaaaamn it feels so good to get agitated and over-excited that we can't hardly resist. Which is why I'm glad I'm not there and why I won't even look at Facebook for the next 2 or 3 days.

And A Good Time Was Had By All

I've been feeling the strains of a lack of a social life pretty sharply the last few weeks. I've been trying to make contact with social groups, recreational groups, volunteer groups without much luck.

I decided to dip into a group I'm already a part of, though usually from DC, the CouchSurfing community. This is an international organization of people who love to travel. They provide free hospitality / lodging to each other and maintain a loose but active network of people around the world.

We've hosted a ton of people in DC and have been hosted a few times on our travels. The biggest challenge is that the group skews heavily to the 20-somethings, which means some segment of the group, honestly, all about the party-party-party-hookup. Blessedly, an even larger segment really is about travelling and meeting people of whatever age.

I've dropped an e-mail to a few people locally to see if they'd be willing to meet for coffee and I'm getting some positive responses. Also last night, a CSer in town for a few months organized a group to go see a documentary over at the University of Queensland, "The Way of Life".

We ended up being 6: 3 Americans, 2 Aussies who've lived in the States for the last 10 years, and a German. The funniest part was that they were all sailors except me and the German (in fact, those 4 sailors sailed to Australia and met in a marina)....and Jeff was at a sailing club meeting!

Beautiful doco. It made me reflect on the "modern" urban lifestyle I live, on parenting, on marriage, on a lot of things. I respect the people who filmed it and the family being filmed.

Afterwards, we eventually worked our way over to Chinatown for a late dinner and a lot of lively conversation. I had the most active and interesting conversation with the 20-year-old Aussie moving back to Brisbane after 10 years in Minnesota and Maryland.

Which reminds me that I really need to quit being so self-conscious about age. :)

I'm feeling....just happier this morning because I went out and I had fun with new people and I think I'm actually developing a more robust social life here in Brisbane. It makes a difference and I'm grateful to Chris (the woman who organized the outing) and to Couchsurfing for providing a venue to meet cool people.

If You Love Asian Food....

...Brisbane is your kinda town. I've taken to eating a lot of noodles and sushi. Why? Because there are tons and tons of Asian eateries in the downtown area, most of them quick carry-out or lunch/snack places.

To give you an idea of just how omnipresent they are, I carried the camera with me to the library today, a 3.5 block walk. These are the places I passed along the way.

The last pic is a hallway that has about 8 more Asian eateries.

And Brisbane still has a Chinatown! It's about 2 km away.