SInce the last time I wrote, Oprah has been to Hamilton Island, Uluru, Melbourne and Sydney. That's a lot of places over the past few days! 

The gorgeous Hamilton Island (above) is part of the Whitsunday Islands, off the coast of northern Queensland on the Great Barrier Reef. These tropical islands are very popular holiday spots for Australians. See a gallery of Oprah at Hamilton Island here.

Uluru (Aboriginal name) or Ayers Rock (Australian name) is a gigantic sandstone rock formation in the middle of the desert in Northern Territory. It is very sacred to Aboriginals and attracts a lot of tourists, although it is not easy to get to. 

Oprah apparently was going to pass on this sight, but Paul Simon rang her to tell her that she had to go. Oh, to have famous friends. 

Yesterday, Oprah flew from her private jet at Uluru to Melbourne where she met an audience of thousands of Australian fans at Federation Square. She took the stage with Prime Minister Julia Gillard. See Oprah's Melbourne gallery here. 

For Friday night dinner, one suburban Melbourne mother got the surprise of her life. Megan Castran met Oprah while viewing a taping of her show in Chicago in 2008, and she invited her to Australia. Oprah told her that if she ever came there, she'd come over for dinner. She kept her promise and crashed her birthday taco party last night. 

She also went to a baby shower for another fan before that. 

Today, she's meeting all of her 302 guests in Sydney for a cocktail party and their official welcome to Australia. She's staying at the Intercontinental, which is where I'm staying in a few weeks. 

Also, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have been spotted at the airport on their way to Australia. They'll be one of the guests in one of the two tapings of Oprah's show at the Opera House. 

Some of Oprah's guests also went to Kangaroo Island on Thursday. I'm so happy that they came to South Australia! 

Oprah arrived in Cairns, Australia (far northeast part of the country) today in her private jet. Now, the party really begins! As you know, we have all been in the dark about which parts of Australia Oprah and her guests are visiting. Today, we still don't know all of the nitty and gritty details, but we do know where everybody is going. 

The 300-ish guests are splitting up into smaller groups and going to:

Click on this link to see more pictures of the destinations!
I'll add updates as much as I can. I'm just so excited that people will see so much of the country- especially South Australia.

If you don't know very much about the geography of Australia, here are some quick facts that may or may not paint a better picture of the destinations.


Australia is split into six states and two territories. 

The six states are New South Wales (Sydney, Hunter Valley), Queensland (Great Barrier Reef and Daintree), South Australia (Kangaroo Island and the Barossa Valley), Tasmania (Port Arthur), Victoria (Yarra Valley, Philip Island, Melbourne) and Western Australia (Margaret River).

The two territories are Northern Territory (Uluru) and Australian Capital Territory (Canberra). 

I hope that helps! Now, it's time for me to catch some zzz's. I have a work function tomorrow night, and I want to get in a run before work. I've never exercised before work since I moved here, and I also haven't run since October. Yikes! I'm setting my alarm for 5:30. There is a 50/50 chance that I will get out of bed. I think (I HOPE) my leg is getting better!

Hopefully I'll have the energy to blog tomorrow after my work function. Catch up soon!

I took a picture (a bad picture, because I still haven't charged the camera battery) of my snacks last week on the way to work. 

Behold: a banana, a pink lady apple, my breakfast (in the blue tupperware) and Nestle diet chocolate mousse. 

I eat the banana at 10:30 am, the apple at 4 pm and the mousse whenever I darn feel like it. 

Now, you know what my snacks look like. You didn't get a good view of the mousse, but maybe you'll get one another day. 

Healthy. Delicious. Snacks.

In other news, I participated in my sculpt class today for the first time in about six weeks. I didn't do exercises that irritated my leg, and I still got an awesome workout. Even though I treated my leg well, it still hurts. I rolled and pressed on my Grid for 15 minutes when I got home. If my leg still hurts tomorrow, will this stop me from doing activities for another month? Probably not. If I end up crippled in six months, remember this one-way conversation. Take it as a lesson from me that you should NOT ignore your injuries.

OR let's hope that my leg behaves and it magically heals without me stopping. I  mean, come ON. I rested for almost six weeks. I stretched and rolled and did everything that I was supposed to do. Why is my leg rebelling? I just wanna run, darn it! I wanna lunge! I wanna jump!

I'm sure you know how I feel if you've ever been injured. 

I guess I'll just have to see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow.

Till tomorrow, then!

Today reached 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 F). When it's that hot in Adelaide, you do one of three things. You lock yourself in your home and blast the air conditioning (the smart thing to do), go to the beach/local pool or you sit outside in the blaring sun at the Adelaide Oval with hundreds of other people and watch the cricket. 

I haven't mentioned much about cricket before. I don't understand it, and I don't have the attention span to watch a game that goes all day...for five days. Regardless, it's the talk of the town these days. Australia is playing England in a series called the Ashes. This happens every "two years". I put that in quotes, because it's never an even two years. Cricket is a summer sport. Since Australia and England have their summers at opposite times of the year, the timing is always uneven. 

This southern-hemisphere summer, Australia is hosting the Ashes. Each match lasts about five days, and this goes on for five weeks. The location changes for every match, and this match is in Adelaide. There are lots of English people here this weekend.

I'm not going to get into a long explanation of the sport, because I would sound like a blubbering idiot. If you don't know about cricket, you either need to watch a game with somebody who understands it (someone from a Commonwealth country, most likely) or go research how to play on the internet. For Americans, it's not completely dissimilar from baseball. You have a batter and a pitcher (a bowler), and the goal is to score the most runs. In baseball, though, you don't have to take lunch breaks!

Today, as I predicted from last weekend, was very relaxed. I woke up with Al, planning to watch some of the cricket with him. As it turned out, though, I took more naps today than I think I have ever taken in  my life. Once I got in a comfortable position on the couch, I nodded off several times. Each nap lasted about 15 minutes. I woke up every time, looked at the clock, saw that the cricket was still on and then I went back to sleep. This went on for about two hours. We then braved the heat to get lunch on the Parade (I was so hot that I all I wanted was a banana smoothie). When we got back, I got tired again and repeated the same routine for another hour. 

Some people will tell you that cricket is the most boring sport in the world, but I'm actually making an effort to try to follow it. Naps aside, I can stay engaged in the game for a while. I'm also going to a one-day game in January. There will be lots of beer there, but I'm going to make an effort to watch the game instead of drinking the whole time. I'll get back to you on that next month!

Dinner

I've had a lot of good food over the past few days, but I haven't been good about documenting it. We celebrated Al's dad's birthday last night with home made burgers, chocolate cupcakes, cheese and deliciously fresh cherries. 

Then tonight, after several naps, Al and I grabbed another meal on the Parade. I wanted something NOT hot (again) from the cafe, so I ordered a chicken Caesar salad. For you Americans who are used to Caesar salads, I want you know that the Aussie version is different. 

Here, they will almost always come with bacon and an egg. As you can see below, I got a sunny side up egg. 

I've had some less-than-edible Caesars here in the past, but this one was great. The chicken was plentiful and cooked to perfection. The other protein-the bacon and the egg- was also very good. I stupidly forgot to ask for the dressing on the side, but the dressing wasn't too heavy. It could have been a lot worse. All in all, the salad hit the spot for a hot night.

I also had a glass of savignon blanc. I didn't take a picture, but you can see the stem of the glass below. 

Now, we're just relaxing at home. I just watched a documentary on TV about how scientists think a mega tornado will hit downtown Chicago soon. Don't you just LOVE those shows that are supposed to freak you out? A huge tornado wouldn't knock down the skyscrapers or other structures such as the L lines, but it could still cause billions of dollars worth of damage and kill people. I've always been skeptical about super twisters in Chicago. I know there have been deadly ones in the suburbs, but never in the actual city. Let's hope that doesn't happen, guys! I don't want anything to damage my beautiful city or hurt anybody. 

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your weekend. If you're in Chicago, I hope you like snow. The Chicago weather widget on my page looks like a Christmas card right now. 

Happy December! December 1st means many exciting things to me. Every year, it's the first day of the month of Christmas and giving and happy songs. It's also my friend Nicole's birthday. This year, though, specifically marks the day that I allow myself to run again.

Unfortunately, there are complications. I woke up on Sunday morning with a sore leg for reasons that I don't understand. My two guesses are that I did lunges on Saturday, and I walked around in high platform shoes that night. I can't tell you what I'm doing that keeps straining my leg, but it's very frustrating. I've been an avid exerciser for years, and I've never injured myself like this.

If you're wondering about the title of my post, I wore my trainers/gym shoes at work today. I brought heels, but I figured that wearing comfortable shoes until I got there would ease any tension on my aching leg. Once I got to work, I didn't change my shoes. I realized that nobody cared anyway, so what was the point? That's one of the things that I enjoy about my office: it's very casual. One of the girls sprained her ankle a couple of weeks ago, and she showed up the next day in sweat pants and slippers. Nobody cared. We don't have customers coming in very often, so it really doesn't matter.

I had a run planned for tomorrow morning, but I think I might skip it and do weights in the afternoon instead. Plus, it's supposed to rain. I was so excited to start my running and my sculpt classes again, but I don't want to injure my leg even more. I'll start running in a few days, and I'll use my foam roller if it starts to hurt again.

Culture Clash

Here are some more Culture Clashes. Look at yesterday's post if you don't know what I'm talking about!

Australian word-American word
Trackies- Sweatpants
Brekky- Breakfast
Brolly- Umbrella
That's alright/no worries- You're welcome (or don't worry about it- depending on the context)
Manual car- Stick shift
Buck's night- Bachelor party
Hen's night- Bachelorette party
Partner- People commonly use this word for their significant other, whether a boyfriend/girlfriend or fiance. This applies to both heterosexual and homosexual relationships.