We've moved swamps!

First of all, apologies for the delay in updating our epistle. We spent a hectic couple of weeks moving house, our crate of furniture arrived from the wide brown pancake and we hosted Christmas for the American side of our family. None of which are particularly good excuses on their own, but put together made our life a little hectic.

So yes, we've moved. First of all let me point out that finding houses over here since Katrina is fairly difficult. Lots of people are willing to sell us their house, but seeing as we're evil foreigners no bank is willing to lend us any money. Without that magic credit rating sitting on some central computer somewhere, we're terrible risks and can't be trusted with money. So our only choice was to find somewhere to rent. The second issue was that there were very few houses available to rent, and most of those that were available didn't really want animals, or if there had to be animals, then a single small dog only was acceptable. No-one wanted an 80 pound somewhat excitable blonde bombshell in their precious house. And the third problem was that no-one really wanted a long term tenant. Most people only wanted to rent out their house for 6 months until they could sell it, and we weren't particularly keen to move again in 6 months.

So please bear this in mind when you check out the pictures - we actually didn't have much choice about where to live. So here it is, the great southern mansion of the swamp dwellers.............


Mmmmmm....mansiony......

Renovated by people with extremely bold tastes in colour




Note also the extreme lack of furniture - we spent about two weeks in the house sitting on two folding chairs looking at a disconnected TV....

And especially for Marty & Mike - check out the view from our backyard. Yes, that's a golf course.And finally, looking back towards the house, and at a very distressed puppy who doesn't understand why she was shut inside the house when I was allowed outside. Life is so cruel.

And I was going to finish there, but I found a few more good shots of the kitchen, Gator Girl's office, the view from the balcony and the terrible life our dog leads. Enjoy! Merry Christmas all, or Happy Holidays to those sad types who need their hit of political correctness.

College Football Madness

Football is big here. I mean, it's big in Australia as well, but it really reaches new levels over here. And a lot of interest isn't necessarily in the major leagues like the NFL - a lot of people are crazy about their College football team. Can you imagine in Oz the local university team having a dedicated TV station? Or a 100,000 seat stadium, regularly sold out? Or even the half-hour daily news reporting school football results.

Gator Girl's brother lives in Texas and managed to get us tickets for a Texas A & M (Aggies!) college football game. We arrived at about 10pm on the Friday night before the game, only to be told that we were 'just in time'. "Just in time for what?" we naturally asked. Answer: For the midnight yell practice, which apparently occurs before every game. So at midnight before every home game, several thousand people turn out at the stadium to practice the yells and cheers that will be performed the next day. Check out the scenes:

Midnight at Kyle field

The crowd and the court

Hard to tell the crowd size from these shots, but two levels of the size of stand you can see in the background were full of aggies. And what's that on the field - yes, it's a basketball court specially put down. Apparently the Saturday was the first day that the basketball teams were allowed to train, so they held a post-midnight training session for both the mens and womens basketball teams.

The guy in the bottom picture is one of the yell leaders. There's a series of these people who's job it is to lead everyone in the chants. I'm not totally sure what the other hundred or so people standing on the field are for.

Basketball practice on a football field after midnight.

We are all listening to a guy in blue overalls with a stick.

Day of madness arrives, we turn up to find a real festival kind of feel to the day. Thousands of people are buying maroon coloured merchandise, taking pictures with cut-outs of football players, or more likely tailgating. Tailgating doesn't have the same meaning over here. Here it refers to the fantastic gameday tradition of turning up at 6 am on the morning of the game (or for the really keen, the night before), setting up a cooler (esky) of drinks, a portable barbeque and sitting behind the tailgate of your pick-up drinking and eating to warm up for the game. And if that's not enough for you, you can put on a show for the passing traffic......

And they did.

Tourists.

Maroon madness outside the stadium.

American football is an odd kind of game. For a start, each team has three teams. That is: each team consists of an attacking, a defensive and a special plays team, all of which have a full complement of players and reserves. So when you look at the sideline there can by 60-80 players standing by, ready to play. I can't help but feel sorry for the poor guy who's only job in life is to run 2 feet directly ahead and stop his opposite number from getting past. I mean, he'll never score a touchdown, kick the winning goal in a grand final, or even get noticed by most people. I know it's an important job, but I think I'd struggle if that was my only role in a sporting team.

The game itself doesn't really resemble a sport so much as a game of chess with people as the pieces. There's a lot of standing around, planning tactics, swapping teams, interspersed with occasional pieces of play. Luckily the crowd and (Gator Girl's favourite) the marching band is there to keep you entertained while you're waiting for the actual play to start.

The crowd itself is worthy of another comment. The Aggies are big on their traditions, and one of the most famous is that the entire stand in the picture below 'stands ready' to join the team should they need help. Hence the entire stand stands up the whole game. Luckily we were sitting in the opposite stand and could enjoy the comforts of the metal bench seat.

The Maroon stand with people.......well.....standing.

The small army of players on the sideline. And the back of someone's head.

Another shot of the subs. I think this many subs is worth two photos.

So they're all crazy. But a very entertaining form of crazy. And they think we're crazy for playing AFL without padding.*

* Swamp Boy has never played AFL. Just like he has never really wrestled a crocodile or ridden a kangaroo to school. But he doesn't admit any of that to the locals.

The Gator Girl & Swamp Boy Big Shindig

By popular request from a number of our Aussie 'South of the Border' friends who missed the big day - I am posting some snapshots.

To rehash the story, Swamp Boy took me at sunset to the highest point in our former Western desert thriving metropolis and poped the question complete with stunning diamond. We had of course gone shopping for this on the previous day when we had booked the reception centre.

The day before the wedding was wet and very miserable. We had planned a big pre-wedding get together with all of our family and friends from 'South of the Border' and beyond. This meant 50 people jammed into our lilypad. At least everyone had to chat and meet the people that they pressed up against. Swamp Boy and I had a great time and both agree it meant that come the end of the shindig we felt we had actually managed to talk one-on-one with all of those that had travelled vast distances to come to our day.

The big day arrived. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and Gator Girl had 4 hours of preparation time ahead of her for the big day. This is way more that I have patience for, but it all worked a treat - if I do say so myself! My Bridesmaids - Aussie Bruce and Cousin Bec looked sensational!

We gals arrived in spectacular fashion - in Swamp Boy's Cousins boat! Then the rest of the day is fairly self explanatory - a ceremony (where both SB and I forgot our vows - should really have practiced them in advance....), photos, drinks, food, drinks, dancing and then more drinks back at our lilypad.

So anyway - to the photos!




The boat!








The Brideslaves (o:






The Kiss

Don't it make your red eyes blue?

You may have heard that the confederates lost control of the house of representatives today, and are very close to losing the senate as well. Regardless of your political leanings this is a significant shift in US politics. So what is the most viewed story on CNN?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/08/spears.divorce.ap/index.html

The most emailed story on the new york times website:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=a25918d1aead20f6&ex=1163134800&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1163033319-ABnBct0AgLiELTcE3oqTFA

Well, that's interesting.

The forgotten Katrina devastation

Apologies in advance for the poor formatting - still getting the hang of picture posting.

Over in Australia we heard a lot about the damage that Hurricane Katrina caused to New Orleans, and the terrible conditions the newly homeless were forced to endure. What I didn't realise until I arrived in Louisiana was that the hurricane did not directly cause the damage in New Orleans. The flooding in New Orleans was caused when the levees failed, which happened after the hurricane had already gone through & the wind changed direction.

Other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi felt the full force of the hurricane. The city of Slidell, to the east of where we're currently living had the eye of the hurricane pass across it. And further to the east in Mississippi the coastal towns of Gulfport and Biloxi had effectively a 10 ft high wall of water swamp the sea front.

Last weekend Gator Girl & I drove down to the casinos on the Mississippi coast. About half-way to Gulfport we came across the sign on the left. This is on a major highway. I don't know what happened to the bridge during the storm, all I know is the only evidence that there was a bridge at all is the cranes currently rebuilding one.



What I like most about the second picture is the woman in the foreground picking up rubbish. Doesn't matter how devastated the local area might be, people have a real sense of pride in their local area.






And finally, if you turn around from the road closed sign, this house is what you see. The entire street contains houses that are in similar, if not worse, conditions.










And then further down the road where we filled up with gas we found.....


















The fast food strip along the coast didn't survive the wave. For some reasons the pylons holding the signs held up better than some of the buildings.














Not that the buildings that survived did so in any usable fashion. I imagine the only solution with the entire beachfront will be to bulldoze and start again.


To be honest, that's enough depressing photos for one post. But I think it makes my point: New Orleans wasn't the only place that was devastated by Katrina. These people have lost everything they owned, and are the victims that a lot of the world doesn't really know about. Yet despite everything they've gone through, the general feeling by talking to the locals is that they are upbeat, keen to come back and rebuild. They've developed a real sense of community which means that they are friendly to neighbours and strangers, and that's something we could probably all stand to learn from them.

The other important lesson is not to build on a swamp in a hurricane zone.

Great Things about Louisiana (extended)

Ok all, my last message was a little negative about things over here, and I'd like to set the record straight. I was a little frustrated with the DMV at that point and needed to vent. So to balance the ledger a little here's a list of great things about living in Louisiana. It was going to be just 10, but I found more....

- You don't need to wait on hold when calling a service company (eg: I need insurance). You hop on the website, fill out some details and specify a time for the company to call you back. Then you can put them on hold.

- They sell alcohol in supermarkets. Makes my shopping a lot easier :-). And not just beer, most supermarkets have a really wide selection of quality wines.

- The food is sensational. Probably in part due to the really great fruit and vegetables available; the berries are better than anything we've found in Perth.

- Restaurant food variations - there's no problem with customising any meal on the menu to your particular taste, in fact, it's encouraged. So don't take the suggested menu as given, add mushrooms to your sauce, swap the side of fries for some garlic mash, extra olives on the salad, with honey mustard dressing, on the side, swap the cheese on the pizza for artichokes…all at no extra cost & they're quite happy to do it.

- Interstate speed limits. 80mph (~130 k's) is quite acceptable and won't get you fined. You'll still get overtaken by half the traffic though.

- Highway and exit numbering. Rather than trying to remember street names, which exit to take, what part of the road to be on, you just know that you need to take the I-12 to highway 190 and you're set. And since even numbers go E-W and odd numbers go N-S, you can even tell approximately where the road will go.

- Drive-through. Anything can be drive-through, not just fast food and bottle shops. Try banks (with tellers in booths, not just atm's); pharmacies; coffee shops. If you choose you could probably never leave your car. Which leads me to:

- Cars are very cheap, even factoring in the exchange rate. And petrol is way cheaper than in Oz (though people still complain about the price).

- The internet speed is blindingly fast - way faster than anything I've seen before. Average download speeds in multi-MB/second.

- People have been exceptionally friendly, see Gator Girl's driving test story for just one example of it. It seems like Katrina really gave people a sense of community.

- Right turn on red after stopping.

- Extended shopping hours and weekend shopping.

- Daylight savings! Yes!

- Continuous refills of drinks (not alcoholic unfortunately)

- The whole service culture. It's not just the people that rely on tips who provide great service, the whole concept has permeated down to all levels - everyone's willing to help!

- Loyalty programs are everywhere and provide great discounts for no outlay.

- Satellite radio. Dedicated hardcore/punk/ska station with no commercials. You do get 5 country channels unfortunately :-(.

- Saturday services - the postman delivers, all banks are open.

- Postman picks up mail as well as delivers.



This place is great.

How to get a driver's licence

How to get a driver's licence (or 'why I love people and not governments' )

Person L (name withheld for reasons relating to my memory) came over to Louisiana from Australia on an E3 visa. He strolled down to the local department of motor vehicles (DMV), handed over his old licence, stood for the photo and got given a nice shiny new drivers licence.

Person M (wife of L) strolled to the same DMV, handed over her driver's licence, was asked to sit a written road rules test, then was given a shiny new Louisiana drivers licence.

Person R came over to Louisiana from Australia on an E3 visa. He strolled down to the local DMV only to discover that he would be required to take a driving test and a written test in order to get a new driving licence. He thought "that doesn't make sense, my friend didn't have to do this", so went to the DMV in the next town, found a nice lady who took his photo, gave him the licence without a written or practical test.

Gator Girl came over to Louisiana from Australia on an E3 visa. She was told that no-one had ever heard of an E3 visa and that she would need department of homeland security (DHS) authorisation in order to get a licences, as well as sitting a written test, taking an eye test and also a practical test. Also she would have to supply her own car, and they couldn't do it anyway as it was raining and we can't test people in the rain and we only test between 9-11am and 1:30-3:30pm anyway. Gator Girl was a little distressed by this, pointed out that she didn't actually need DHS authorisation, and she had a hire car, would that be ok? They assured her that this was ok, as long as her name was on the insurance and to come back when it wasn't raining. So Gator Girl went away, found out that her name wasn't on the insurance because the Swamp Dredging Company had hired the car for us, so she would need to hire a car especially for the test. So Gator Girl hired a car with her name on the insurance, and went back to the DMV when it wasn't raining. She passed her written test (with a higher score than Swamp Boy as she frequently points out), she passed her eye test and then they told her that she wasn't able to take the driving test as you can't take driving tests in hire cars. She pointed out that several people in this very office had said she could, but that didn't work. So then one of the ladies in the office pipes up and says: "oh, my son just took his driving test in my car, so why don't you just use that one?" Talk about a good samaritan. So Gator Girl promptly went and passed her driving test in a total stranger's car. The lady explained to me that she had lost everything in Katrina and felt the kindness and generosity of so many people in the last 12 months, that she wanted to return some good will. It worked! I love the non-government people of this area now.

Swamp Boy came over to Louisiana from Australia on an E3 visa and also went to the DMV (a few days after Gator Girl. He was told that no-one had ever heard of an E3 visa and that he would need to provide department of homeland security (DHS) authorisation in order to get a licences, as well as sitting a written test, taking an eye test and also a practical test. Swamp Boy pointed out that this wasn't the case and maybe they should check with someone who knew the rules. They did so, and after about 2 hours allowed him to sit the tests in his shiny new car. Easy.

Person S came over to Louisiana from Australia on an E3 visa. She was also told that no-one had ever heard of her visa type (incidentally at the same office as all the other people above). She knew person R and decided to drive to the next town. They told her the same story, so she decided to drive to a third town. They also told her the same story. So she gave up and printed out the offical instructions from the DHS about E3 visas and Louisiana drivers licences. What actually is supposed to happen is E3 visa people submit an application to another government department, and 3 days later you get a licence in the mail. You don't actually need to sit a test.

Person Z came over to Louisiana from Australia on an E3 visa. While trying to find the DMV he got lost and ended up in Mississippi (the state, not the river). But that's another story.

So that's how you get a driver's licence. People are astoundingly nice. Governments are just plain confusing.

Hello and Welcome

Howdy y'all. A few words of introduction.

Swamp Boy & Gator Girl are two Australians who've moved to Southern Louisiana for a while to explore the natural wonders that the US of A has to offer. And some of the unnatural ones as well.

When we first arrived we spent a lot of time writing long winded and only occasionally amusing emails to friends and family in Australian and around the world. Due to the mildly positive feedback overinflating our egos, we now believe that we are literary geniuses and everyone with a connection to the internet will be interested in our experiences. The other advantage of a blog is it allows us to post some of the photos we've collected.

And most importantly it cuts down a bit on the emails.

We expect to update the blog between weekly and fortnightly. Please feel free to post in your comments or questions, we'll do what we can to answer.

So to start off, we're going to rehash a few of the old 'newsy' emails and add a few pictures. Over the next couple of weeks we'll try and expand on a couple of topics (eg: College Football craziness) which deserve a post of their own.