sitting in the lobby of the holiday inn

so, as the title suggests (obviously states), i am sitting in the lobby of the holiday inn in melbourne, australia. in 24 hours, i will be in auckland, new zealand for the next 8 days or so. but, for now, i am enjoying watching 6 out of 10 people walk through the automatic revolving door in the lobby, and either getting stuck in between the moving and stationary parts, or getting in and pushing on the moving doors (which it says not to on every moving part, and on the stationary parts, 6 or 7 places in all) and then the doors stopping. it's quite entertaining. 

to get to melbourne, i had to drive 12 hours from sydney. i was really hoping to see some wallabies, or kangaroos, or koalas, or some sort australian fauna. and though there were signs 

along the entire drive announcing, not only the existence of these animals, but also the prevalence of making their existence known in the roadways, i still did not see one of these majestic animals. alive, at least. kangaroos seem to be the deer of australia, constantly getting hit and ending up on the side of the road. the only other dead animal i'm sure i saw was some sort of incredibly hairy

 boar, which i naturally thought was a bear at first.

other than driving on the left, using the metric system, and the constant warnings of the pseudo-existing animals, the drive reminded me very much of the mid-southwest of the united states. the hills were very mid-western, covered in more grass than trees. however, these were more likely to be a type of

eucalyptus, than pine, elm or oak. but, even getting gas at the mom & pop station in nowheresville reminded me of the long expanses of 35 in texas. the grandmother inside watched over as her grandchildren ran the register, and the only food options next to the highway were mcdonald's, kfc, and hungry jack's (their name for burger king). very much like home.

i stopped a couple times to stretch, but also to take in the land. the crows here sound like very sick house cats. i was hoping this weird sound was some sort of animal i had only dreamed of, but yesterday i saw the pitch black avian squawking away on a street lamp. 

tomorrow will bring a little something different. if nothing else, we will be the furthest away (in time zones) that we can be. new zealand is right next to the international date line. just north of new zealand is the tonga island, and about 500 miles to the east of that is samoa. yet, despite this small distance (about the same as dallas to new orleans), they are on two completely different days, with the international date line coming between them. samoa will be having lunch at work on a friday, while 500 miles to the west, the tongans are sitting back and relaxing on their lazy saturday afternoon. it's weird to think we've imposed this line upon the entire world, and everyone recognizes it as truth.

greetings from australia (down under, shrimp on the barby, and so many other false colloquialisms)

skip a few months and you're caught up with where i'm at. we visited scotland, travelled back across the ocean, went to providence and boston for various speaking engagements, saw a new president elected, celebrated a few holidays, and are now across the pacific, not only in a different hemisphere, but most of the time on a different day. 17 hours ahead of most of my friends, and some of my family is a little weird.

we've been here about a week now, and some stark differences have popped up. according to the wildlife world information, most of australia's fauna are nocturnal. thus, going into hyde

 park across from our hotel at night runs you into this guy:

the beaches here are nice, too, though no one told me tops were optional. i found myself looking at the sand, or simply closing my eyes and lying on my towel.

work here is pretty simple. as you can imagine, there aren't many ancient greek manuscripts in australia. but, some manage to get here, and with the goal of taking photos of every single page of handwritten greek new testaments, it has to get done. it certainly doesn't hurt that a donor offered up his flying miles to get us here, either.

so, we're in sydney through saturday, then off to melbourne for a few days, then auckland, new zealand for eight days or so, then back home. we're still waiting to hear back from brazil and japan, but if those come through, it will be a short time back at home. if we don't hear from them, or they say no, then the next trip is to greece on the 23rd of february for seven weeks.