Nobody believes me when I say that the 80 days thing is a coincidence. But it is.
We leave the day after Isabel's last exam and return the day before the first full day of school. 80 days.
Actually from take off to touch down at Winnipeg International is 79 days and 20 hours, but door to door from our house... precisely 80 days.

And a bit about the backstory. In 1993 after three years in veterinary practice Lorraine and I quit our jobs and backpacked around the world for eight months, doing everything from living in a cave in Greece (a very nice cave mind you) to camel trekking across the Rajastani desert to celebrating Christmas in Hong Kong to island hopping in Thailand to volcano climbing in Indonesia to living with a family in Samoa to... well, the list does go on and on. Everyone said, "Wow, that was the trip of a lifetime!" To which we responded, "Nooo! It can't be the only time we do that! It just can't be." We swore we would do something similar again when we had kids. It's 22 years later. Isabel is 13. Alexander is 10.
It's time.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Day 7 - Seussville, Australia

There is no more Seussian place on earth than Australia. In fact, there isn't even a runner up. From the wacky starburst flowers through to the escaped lunatic kookaburra laugh to the absurd portmanteau platypus, this country was clearly designed by Dr. Seuss. The flocks of manic cockatoos, the trees with long spindly trunks ending in riotous fern fronds, the ibises with their ridiculous long curved beaks rooting about on people's lawns... all of it. Even the names of the animals: potoroo, bandicoot and hairy nosed wombat. Or the place names: Wagga Wagga, Woolooroomoo, Bong Bong and Humpty Doo (yes, seriously). Seen from this perspective Australia makes a whole lot more sense. I kind of love it.

Postscript: I got it the wrong way around. Seuss apparently did not design Australia. Rather it seems likely that it designed him, so to speak. Theodore Geisel declared Australia to be his favorite place in the world after travelling here in 1964.

No comments:

Post a Comment