Annie Clements Music

Australia

Posted on 24. Mar, 2008 by annie in Notebook

I’m forcing myself to write right now even though I’m totally jet-lagged and distracted. Ok, here goes:

So I went to Australia! It was awesome! The flight over wasn’t bad at all since we left at 10pm so we all just watched movies on the plane, went to sleep and woke up in Australia. Trying to keep ourselves awake until the evening on the day we landed was really hard. We all decided to walk to a theater and watch the action/thriller “Vantage Point” starring Dr. Jack Shepherd from “Lost.” Wait a minute, I just realized after writing his name that Jack’s last name is “Shepherd” as in he’s a shepherd of all the Lost people. Eureeka! Anyway, I have to tell you it was a pretty terrible movie. Luckily it kept us awake and laughing long enough for our bodies to adjust to our new time zone, 14 hours ahead of U.S. time. Man, I’ll bet everyone on all of the Lost message boards already put the “Shepherd” thing together. It seemed so poignant 2 sentences ago…

So we played some shows and they went pretty well for the most part. We were up against several obstacles (not having most of our normal show equipment, tiny stages, etc…) but the people attending were very appreciative. It was fun to play some smaller clubs where you can actually connect with the people in the room. It was pretty hot and sweaty but super fun.

Wildlife: So unfortunately the only Kangaroo we saw in it’s natural habitat was dead on the side of the road on our way to the Threadbo Blues Festival. It was very upsetting. Thankfully we took a trip to the Sydney Zoo and I saw several in captivity that were happily hopping around and lying in the sun. I also paid $20 to take some up-close pics with some Koala bears. I was freaking out. They mostly sleep all day but one of them woke up and stretched out and arm and a leg and proceeded to scratch it’s little arm pits. It was the cutest thing ever. I don’t know how to post pics on here yet but if I figure it out I’ll post the one that the zoo took. My facial expression is a mixture of joy that I’m struggling to contain but am pained by the struggle, so it’s pretty ridiculous.

Snack Pack: I had a panic attack before I left for Australia thinking that there wouldn’t be any of the types of food that I like to eat (mainly beef jerkey and Crystal Lite) over there so I ended up packing up a shopping bag from Marc Ecko which had originally housed Kristian’s birthday present with boxes of crystal lite and assorted jerkey. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let me take the jerkey through Customs which was heartbreaking. I ended up lugging the Snack Pack all over Australia and found that just by having a designated bag for snacks, my snack inventory grew exponentially. People in the band and crew were literally throwing snacks at me. It was all fun and games until we got stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam somewhere in Melbourne and then they all came crawling back for snacks. I’m thinking about taking a pic of the battered Marc Ecko bag and sending them a Thank You note.

Just as cousin Lauren predicted I didn’t take any pics with my own camera but luckily everyone else did so hopefully I’ll be able to share them as soon as someone shares with me! All in all it was a great trip and I hope we can get back there again sometime soon!