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I’m writing this blog because my sister told me to.  Not that I do everything my sister says.  But she tempted me with thoughts of followers (like Jesus, she said), and book deals, and…

Look, it would be cool if she was right.  Just this once.  

Today is June 19 in the year 2011, and I am temporarily located in the southeast corner of the Australian continent, home to 80 of the top 100 deadliest creatures on earth.  (just for the record, I made up that statistic)  My daughter (Erika) and son (Kevin) recited their favorites to me a couple of days before I headed out from the States.  There’s a spider that jumps 6 feet in the air and spits venom in its victim’s eyes, and then there’s cassowaries, large flightless birds that, according to Wikipedia, can “eviscerate an abdomen with ease”.  Now there’s a collection of words you don’t see every day.

I’m living in one of the largest cities in Australia, Melbourne, and so my concerns are a little more pedestrian.  

Literally, pedestrian.

You see, I’m petrified of getting hit by a car.

Australians drive on the wrong side of the road (I say “wrong” emphatically, without copping to the slightest North American bias), and this fact turns all of my autonomic instincts—honed after years of dodging traffic in California—into certain death on the streets of Melbourne.  I know this sounds alarmist and overblown, but I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been blithely thinking about something stupid—why the waiter tried to take my plate while I was still eating lunch—when I step off the curb and, out of the blue, some jack ass driving the WRONG DIRECTION tries to splatter my brains all over the pavement, like a bloody Pollock. (hee, hee, hee)  

And they want to make a sport of it.  A truck whizzed past me today with the word “BOOF!” writ large across the windshield guard, which I gather is the sound my body will make at the moment of impact (a comic book worthy onomatopoeia, to be sure).   

So here’s the deal, Australia.  I can handle your spitting spiders and eviscerating cassowaries.  But for god’s sake, will you please start driving on the right side of the road?  

Daniel Sims rap - Angry Boys

I want to be here right now.

Love Traveling to Sydney Australia come see the specials on our Fan Page for discounts you can use! http://on.fb.me/eHCRud

12/365 on Flickr.

melbourne

The Claw. Dreamworld, Gold Coast.

Sydney Harbor Bridge on Flickr.