hey Barbie

[Jacques]

Hello, this seems like a rather friendly forum. I am planning a trip to Adelaide in January-February 2023.

I am a retired engineer (French-Canadian), full of vigor, fit and especially fond of Australia. I grew fond of Australia because I worked there for a few years – in the Melbourne area, I won’t bore you with the details – and there is nothing that I didn’t like about Australia, after all there are bell birds, a musical instrument on wings. But what about the things that I liked? That’s harder to describe because they're were many surprising events. I was in Traralgon and on an outing one day going down a marvelous road God knows to where and on my left was this beautiful stream lined with trees and flat grassy space for people to sit by the stream and enjoy the sunlight, the magic of water flow and peace without any fellow admirers.

A work friend told me that he had seen a platypus in a stream where he was fishing, imagine that. I saw an echidna by the side of the road as I was driving down to the beach east of Traralgon; the echidna species is hundreds of million years old and platypuses are not far behind.  Heeew, quite a site; but there are many like that in Australia that I could tell you about. Perhaps in a later post, because in my experience we know less about the place we live than the place we want to live or that special imaginary place in our hearts.

So I’m hoping that I can organize a swap with someone in Adelaide who wants to stay in Montreal, my home for your home. I’m planning to stay for a couple of months; I know it's not possible to match the times one for one but every little bit helps. I will again attempt to surf, which I failed at when I was in Melbourne.

Are there any home swap web sites that you would recommend? It would help offset the cost. I’m not looking for something high end, I am perfectly happy with modest accommodation.

There is something special with Australia and I think comes from the isolation from the major centers which breeds self-reliance, probably not the first to say that.

There are a lot of wonderful Australian movies which I watch whenever I can. The Dish is one of my favorites. Russell Crowe made a movie about his experience in the 1st world war where he retrieved his sons from the sequels of their captivity and went through enormous anguish as usual. And lately I saw a movie called Mcleod daughters which I enjoyed because she’s so cute and spunky, and I like horses. It seems that the Adelaide countryside is very Texas like, not in geography but in culture, not that I’ve ever been to Texas. Is that a coincidence or is it some sort of convergence?

There are no guns in Canada. Well, there are guns but it’s highly regulated, hunters only type of thing. It’s a wilderness country after all. I don’t think anyone is against guns but they are not really required 99% of the time. I have more to say about the contradictions in loving guns, using them, and being responsible; we don’t have 2nd amendment in Canada, thank God; and I’m not religious.

Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions, and hopefully we may even meet.

Jacques Delongprés