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.