Anyway. I had often wondered in bemusement at the type of teenage "rural" America that would often be described in the songs of Springsteen (though a New Jersey boy), Jackson Browne and John Cougar (in his non-Mellancamp days) amongst others. The stories of the street and the cars and the drag racing and the Saturday night driving round and round endlessly. We recently spent a weekend in Maroochydore, about and hour north of here - right on the Sunshine Coast (of course a long long way due west of the U.S. and those drag racers). The hotel was situated on a pretty busy road, the other side of which was the beach. As Saturday evening drew near, the traffic on the road began to build with the most unbelieveably inappropriately suped-up motors I have seen in a long time. 15 and 20 year old former bangers, dressed up to the nines with gleaming alloys, tinted windows, bonnet loaded air distributers, 6 foot wide exhaust pipes........ roaring up and down the street and shooting off the blocks when standing at traffic lights. Of course, into the mix, ye have to add the wheelie-mad motorcyclists that spluttered their way around and around. I sat in amazement looking down at them as they re-appeared every 20 minutes or so having "done the loop". All night long.
The next day, they retreated to the hills. Or so I'm told.
This was indeed the first trip to the beach with Aibhe, and our first trip for this summer. Though its still technically early Spring of course. The "cold" water held no fear - no stopping Alex and myself chucking ourselves in for the first bit of body surfing of the new season. Aibhe seemed to enjoy the occasion as she attempted to eat handful after handful of sand - which all comes out the other end in a not so easy fashion,
but I believe its how they ultimately learn not to eat the stuff. Constantly whacking their heads is again, another way they apparantly learn how not to try standing up against unstable tables/chairs/peeple/doors. However, at 8 months, Aibhe is pretty determined to progress to the walking stage far earlier than would be expected. So, while our lives have already been altered dramatically with her quick crawling abilities, they're about to get worse.On to Miami. I was sent to Miami last week for a 2 day Boeing maintenance workshop (exciting I hear you say) with other air operators from the America's. I can easily say, we came the farthest and that it was NOT a junket. To get there, the route taken was BNE-SYD-LAX-OHD (Chicago)-MIA. But coming back, even better. MIA-Washington-Vegas-LAX-SYD-BNE. 30 hours there and 33 back. For 2 days. On United Airlines, who still seem to believe we operate in the 70's. If you ever travel in the U.S. ..... lets just say they wouldn't be my first choice. Actually, they're shit. Oh, and they lost my bag on the way back. The event itself was useful work-wise and we met some interesting people to say the least. In particular, Angel the part-hispanic Continental Airlines maintenance planning chap who, after 2 drinks on the evening of the first day insisted on trying to do Australian and Irish accents for our "entertainment". For about an hour. After 3 drinks he was practically falling over and semi-accosted the very nice lady who had co-ordinated the entire event for Boeing!! He was a little sheepish the next morning.
I would love to describe Miami, but didn't get much time to check it out. The Marriott hotel was quite nice. There were a lot of cranes and large tracts of building sites, so I guess thats a good sign for the place - despite the constant hurricane threat, its booming. And Ocean Drive along South Beach was pretty cool - though the beach itself pales in comparison to the Sunshine Coast. 17 years since I was first there with Kieran on our first J1 travels. Man that makes me feel bloody old. Am slowly recovering from the trip, having got in at 9am Sunday morning - though ye could say I had barely adjusted to the time difference when I was back again. Oh, and I saw the territory where Horatio and the rest of the CSI Miami team operate. If one was to look for bright sides of course.
