upside-down land

australia is kinda strange in some ways...

at dinner last night, i ordered grilled barramundi, which is a type of estuarine fish. when i received my food, i was rather dismayed to see that while the plate containing the food was huge, the fish fillet (pronounced "fill-it" here in australia) was about the size of my fist. unfortunately, i am accustomed to american sized plates of food where if it doesn't provide fifteen hundred thousand calories, it's not a meal. when presented with such a plate, i thought, "this isn't enough for a real man!" and ordered a chocolate and blueberry bread pudding. that came on an equally huge plate, but the actual food turned out to be even smaller that i had imagined. the weird part is that after eating these two smidgens of food, i was so full i felt like falling asleep at the table. maybe a sign of getting old?

after dinner, i called my friend in melbourne to confirm my arrival. however, when i called, i was hardly able to speak because my mind was so completely blown away by the price of the call. i was hoping to talk for a while, but i found that i had but sixteen minutes of talk time on my calling card, which had about ten USD of credit on it. calling the US? no problem. calling australia? that'll cost you.