WOA: Dialing Internationally

WOA: Dialing Internationally (or just because you can jump in real life doesn't mean you can get across a tiny stream in game)

Things I have learnt about Internatinonal Calling while in Australia
(where I not only have to do it myself, but need to coach other people on how to call me. When I can't call myself. It is tricky.)

First off, making international phone calls from/to countries that have completely different number systems is totally hard. Usually, when travelling, you try to use your phone as little as possible. When you've moved, that's not what's happening. Here's what six months living in Australia has taught me.

"1" is the North American country code, not a magic number that lets you call long distance.

You need to dial an exit code when calling beyond North America, which we Canadians have trouble remembering because we can dial internationally to the US like normal long distance whenever we want.

In Australia, that exit code is 0011, which means that when I dial N.A. I actually have to put in 00111 (area) (7digitnumber) which looks ridiculous, what with the three 1s all in a row, but is correct. Having one as an area code seems all fine and dandy until you have to actually use it.

Sending a text message to an international mobile number will bizarrely not follow these rules and numbers you can call will not be textable.

Various permutations of these rules will not work.

Scouring the internet will reveal that most people give up and just reply to the Canadian number and save it.

It actually turns out that if you put a  (+) sign in front of the normal 1 + (area code) + (7digitnumber) in your phone, the mobile recognizes that symbol and will just automatically apply the correct exit code when you dial/text.

Seriously? How did I not know this? We use phones all the flipping time and this is the first mention I've seen tha the little plus sign actually does something useful and isn't shorthand for something. My iphone would save numbers with it All The Time and I just thought it was being pretentious.

So yes, dialing a phone, yet another thing you have to relearn when you move to another country. Pretty sure I just figured out the international texting thing today. >.<

WOA: Blue Mountains

World Of Australia
New Location Discovered: THE BLUE MOUNTAINS

The Blue Mountains are just outside of Sydney and glorious. They are especially lovely for a beloved's birthday weekend when they are also hosting IRONFEST, where steampunkers, blacksmiths and military re-enactors run amok for a weekend. It reminded me of the Norman, Oklahoma Medieval Festivals much more than the SCA events I've been to recently, and I had a glorious time.

The theme of the event was Apocalypse and of course I made sure to have an outfit.

One of the things I love about Steampunk is that people wander up to, and ask you about it because it turns out it is exactly the type of thing they've always loved but that they never knew had a name or a following. Since that's how I felt about Steampunk when I first discovered it, I think these people are Awesome.

The Battle of Lithgow and the Napoleonic re-enactment camp were just great. The Battle is a fictional re-enactment of what might have happened if the French had fought Britain for control of the colony, and it had cannons. I enjoyed the cannons, and also, by that point in the afternoon, the sitting down.

They also had a bunker with circus acts, and a damn good contact juggler. The fallout theme actually made my partner-in-crime sad, as we'd left his Fallout costume in Ottawa to follow us later, under the evidently mistaken assumption that we wouldn't need it for at least six months. Silly us.

The circus reminded me of another quest.

Quest: Learn Aerial Dance -ONGOING
     Turns out it is called silks/tissue
     Pole dancing studies often do it (huh. Didn't see that one coming)
     Circus Avalon in Newcastle MAY teach workshops
     Pole dancing studios MIGHT be getting some courses in soon (no e-mail reply yet, the bastards)

We also saw The Three Sisters rock formation, which was FILLED with tourists, and the equally beautiful and much calmer look-out by the Leura Falls (note, the trickle you see is the falls. There is evidently not a lot of inland water in the Oz land. I may have made an unimpressed noise, but since it was following the very impressed noises I was making at the mountain views no one seemed to notice).

Plus I got to see more of my favourite Australia tree, The Bone Trees. (hmm, can't seem to find my photo of them. You shall have to wait.)

WOA: Stromblo Steampunk Telescope

While reading about Canberra, I stumbled upon a charming sidequest:
Canberra Steampunk Telescope

Steampunk continues to be one of my Grand Passions, and I'm in the midst of being an Admin for the Newcastle Steampunk Enthusiasts group, and constantly on the look-out for Australian Steampunk Adventures. Going to go see a telescope which just happened to be in the city I was in was perfect. Go Steampunk!

The Stromblo Observatory went through a brutal bushfire in 2003, and this was a commissioned telescope to replace the one that was lost. I couldn't find much information on it, and my guidebook was from 2004, which means that the Observatory basically got a Tragic Story box which was less than useful. But Adventure! Determination! Misty morning walks!

So off we go, up the mountain. The drive was easy enough, and so was finding the husk of the burnt out observatory, as well as a lovely restaurant, but there was no sign of anything resembling a telescope, steampunk or otherwise.

By this point, I had become stubborn. There is no guarantee I would ever be in Canberra again (there's also no guarantee I won't be there every year, but big moves make you very aware of change), and we'd come up this mountain SPECIFICALLY to find this thing. Trying to prod my phone's internet into providing some type of useful location/information was spectacularly unsuccessful, and the staff at the restaurant just shrugged at our question in confusion and told us that it didn't exist (I knew they were wrong. Maybe it was a conspiracy?). So we wandered into the university compound nearby, which does the actual observatory work now, and forlornly tried doors and peered in windows.

There were a couple of displays we could see through some big glass doors, but I wasn't really sure we were supposed to be wandering around, nothing was open and it was getting a little chilly, so we sadly gave up and then cheerfully continued our drive.

Once I got home, I began to prod the internet much more efficiently than on my maddeningly rubbish little phone (I miss my Canadian iphone so much. I seriously need to get around to finding a way to get it unlocked). And imagine my surprise when I realized that my partner and I had, in actuality, stared RIGHT AT the damn thing and not realized it was steampunk.

It turned out that the telescope was the exact thing we had peered at through the glass doors at the academic observatory and then unanimously and categorically dismissed. And that's because we had been expecting to find something like this:

and had found instead this:

I think you can see how we got confused. Interestingly, those two pieces are done by the same sculptor, and you can read about their creation here.

So yes, maybe it is more impressive when you can get closer to it? Anyone been?

WOA: Canberra

World Of Australia
Quest: Post those backlogged adventures DING!
New Location Discovered: CANBERRA

First off, because I am the type of person to admit to horribly stupid stuff that I have done, I didn't know Canberra was the capital of Australia until I decided to move here. Much like Ottawa, they picked a location between their two heavy hitters (Sydney and Melbourne) and turned it into a capital city.

It has a the reputation for being a bit dull, which has been echoed by both my lovely travel book In A Sunburnt Country by Bill Bryson (So funny, and bizarrely entitled On Australia here. I find non-translated but totally different book titles very interesting) and by the various people I have met. I figured that, much like Ottawa, it was awesome when you got to know it, but didn't make finding the cool stuff easy.

The drive there was AMAZING. Not only did I get to see The Big Merino (yes, that is a giant sheep. Yes, I hugged it. Yes, there are MANY MORE giant things in Australia. And yes, you should come visit me)

but the landscape in Australia continues to be breathtaking and driving along the Australian countryside in our little convertible in the shadows of the mountains, surrounded by unfamiliar trees and SUPER WEIRD birdcalls (I kept insisting the car was falling apart. He kept telling me that it was a bird.) is a glorious glorious thing. Also,

Highway Driving Quest
SUCCESS

My ability to drive along Australia highways is totally getting better, especially since I am no longer frantically checking my lefthand mirror to figure out where in the lane I am. I forgot how much I enjoy country driving with the music blaring. Also, I have found all my old mix cds from highschool/undergrad, so the drives are particularly epic; Tenacious D is now stuck in my head.

We bummed around Canberra, played 500 (which is the Australian beloved card game equivalent to Eucher) until two am and FROZE. Dear lord, it gets down to freezing but they have no insulation and no centralized heating. WE WERE WEARING COATS INSIDE. I SLEPT IN SOCKS. I .. yes, I don't approve of this. Of course, back in Newcastle, I just went swimming at the beach in late Autumn, so my complaints sort of lose their weight, but still! I get cold when I sleep. /sulk

We also went to the Roller Derby game, because a)roller derby is AWESOME, b)they were playing our Newcastle team and one of our friends is on it (Her name is Beaver Destruction. As a Canadian, I try not to take offense. ;) ) and c) one of our 500 partners is sometimes a ref. Yes, the further I get from the Roller Derby Heartland of Texas, USA the more I see of it. Canberra's Vice City Rollers PULVERIZED our Dockyard Dames (seriously, I LOVE the names in Derby), and they should be very proud of how hard their blockers hit, but it was an awesome game none the less and the DJ was genuinely good.

We checked out the Tower thing, wandered the Museum of Australia (which told me things I did not know), I hung out in the Rainforest Gully of the Botanical Gardens (I was horribly allergic to Something/Everything in Canberra, but the Gully cleared my lungs right up. Also, Australian rainforest makes you think that you are about to get eaten by a dinosaur. The weird birds reinforce this), and we accidentally ate at Samy's Chinese BBQ, which it turns out is an institution. I have a knack for randomly picking iconic restaurants ( Chili in Washington D.C., Five Guys in an airport), for which I am extremely grateful.

So Canberra was grand, but I will tell you this now: it is not a walking city. There is way more road than anyone should ever need, and it tends to just spit you out in strange places, all the while you are surrounded by park which is surrounding suburbs and you are just trying to figure out where the city is. Plus, many of the pubs were closed at noon on a Sunday, which is just mean. So good times, but I prefer my beach.

From Toronto: A Bento Box

Work sent me to Toronto last week (no, wait, week before that? Why is keeping track of past time so very hard?), which was v. fancy etc, (despite not getting to train business class as I was promised. NEXT TIME! Very keen to try out the fancy travel), but I decided to stick around and see the sundry family and friends that I have kicking about that city.

Which of course meant I went shopping.

In the course of Saturday, I went to Chinatown, Kensington Market and bopped around Queen's and King Street. This was by far the best trip to Toronto  I have yet had, and I finally FINALLY understand why some people really love the city. Although riding the subway with baggage is still not my favourite thing.

So what did I buy while I was in Toronto, you ask?

Well, a number of things, one of which I am still keeping a secret (Can we say Halloween Costume?). But one of things is that I finally found a bento box!

Yes, it has Happy New Year written on it, but I have crafty plans for this little lunch pail, which will hopefully involve awesomeness and not disaster (there may be chalkboard paint. but only if it takes well to plastic).

Part of why I am so pleased is this partitioned lunch box is a size that is actually useful, unlike the previous lunch box I bought.

Yes. Here it is beside the much prettier bunny bento box I purchased from the internet. And which, when it arrived, I realized was of the appropriate size to house three celery sticks. Four if you were VERY determined.

So Happy New Year to you guys, and I am very excited about bringing my lunch to work. Of course, I am going to have to also bring a plate because I can't go putting metal into the microwave, but Whatever! I needed to stop microwaving plastic into my food anyway.