That sink in feeling.

Today is the coldest by far. By cold, I'm implying that for once, we aren't sweating profusely just by sitting and doing nothing in the shade. Yesterday we ventured into the city of Brisbane for the first time. An hours ride and $4.60 later and we were there. Everything seemed familiar and yet at the same time totally foreign to me. There were definite aspects of London present, a bit of what I would expect New York to look like and even a tiny hint of South Africa all thrown into one metropolis.

Then, out of nowhere, it struck. The skies darkened, a shadow fell across the land and the heavens opened. Within minutes, shops below ground level were flooded, roads were being closed, drains on the street were overflowing and even 4x4's were experiencing difficulty traversing the concrete jungle. This was unlike anything I had ever seen before. After marveling at it for a few minutes we took evasive action and headed to higher ground - the food court inside the mall. 

It's been nine days since we landed in this country and I am still unaware of what has really happened. Often, Christine and I have discussed when our adventure to another continent will really sink in. It didn't happen the night before we set off on our journey. It didn't hit us on the plane ride over here and even the unfamiliar accents that surrounded us on a daily basis didn't even really do it for me. There were brief moments of realization I guess: feeding the marsupials at the zoo, roads and entire cities flooding in minutes being the norm and perhaps even stopping for a picture moment on the corner of Blackbutt Avenue and Scribbly Gum Place (yes, these are genuine road names, I kid you not!). So I am left wondering when this all will really sink in. What if it never happens? But more importantly, how do you even define that moment? What is the criteria needed for it to have officially sunk in? Maybe my realization sponge has lost its absorbency or is totally saturated and is allowing nothing more to sink in. I wonder if there is a cure for that? Mental note: Eat more sponge cake.

 

Kangaroos: Spring loaded

 

 Brisbane: Or London?

City: Wet

Street Names: Surreal.

  

The Time Traveller... and his wife.

Good day from the future! We are now speaking to you from a completely different time zone than we were a few days ago which technically makes us time travellers. And I was always told that it was scientifically impossible. HA! Not true. Time travel is within our grasp. And time machines are scarily similar looking to a Boeing 747.

Our almost 21 hour trip to Australia has gone pretty smoothly so far. We are in Adelaide at the moment and are currently experiencing a heatwave. It was 38 degrees here yesterday. Needless to say, we spent a great deal of it in our air conditioned hotel. Today is slightly better but not much. We ventured further out of the city today to Adelaide beach. It was fantastic! Clean, calm and sunny. Just perfect. Got some photos to upload and will do so soon but the computers here at the hotel do not allow me to do so.

People here are extremly friendly! A trait that I am still not used to. I can almost imagine a scenario where one could walk into someone's house here, brutally assult their entire family, rob them of all their earthly possessions and burn down their house... only to be offered a cup of tea thereafter. Customer service is also off the scale. Everyone is very helpful and willing to assist. Its as if everyone is on large doses of Prozac. Happy shiny people.

We are leaving the hotel tonight and are living with friends in the suburbs for 2 days, then off to Brisbane on Friday. Great. More flying. Just what I need. Maybe we will get some frequent flyer benefits soon. Im still trying to figure out how I can use this time difference thing to my benefit. Possibly involving the lottery results. But Christine tells me its impossible. Just like we always thought time travelling was impossible huh...

Up, up and away.

So the big day has arrived and Im not sure if it has actually sunken in yet. With 3 hours to go until our connecting flight, I am now sitting in a cafe at Joburg airport, sipping on a cappucino and typing a blog from my cellphone. This is weird... Thanks again to everyone who came to see us off from the airport, especially my bandmates who gave me an awesome surprise. I will miss you all! Ok, Im going to stop typing now, my thumbs are starting to ache. Chat again when I reach the other side of the world.

Smooth like sandpaper.

I normally tend to get a bit wary when things are going too smoothly. For some reason, I have always believed that behind every cloud with a silver lining... is another, gargantuan cloud. A storm cloud to be exact. One that is emitting vast amounts of rain, lightning, hail, snow and other such nonsense. All at once. Maybe I'm a pessimist. Maybe I'm a realist. Maybe it's this kind of thinking that attracts that nasty cloud towards me in the first place. Perhaps its time I bought all my thoughts a good set of raincoats.

I recently read a very interesting article about the flaws within human thinking. One flaw in particular - the Gambler's Fallacy - stated that as humans, we make the mistake of using past occurrences to predict future probabilities. An example being that if one flips a coin, and it lands heads up for a dozen turns in a row, one automatically assumes that the chance of it landing tails up in the next few turns, is very high. This, I am told, is not true. The probability is 50/50. Every time. I have often experienced this flawed thinking (or "flinking" for short) myself and this has left me not only feeling like a jackass but also wondering why I was flipping a coin in the first place. Who still does that?

Applying this to my own life, I can now see that just because things are going smoothly now, doesnt necessarily mean that a rough patch is looming. According to the Gambler's Fallacy, I may be flipping a heads for the rest of my life. No more tails. Great! Smooth sailing ahead forever. Rough times have been banished in these parts for good! Right? Hmm, why am I not convinced?

Anyways, things are really good right now and I'm not complaining. And it's not like there hasn't been ample opportunity for things to go wrong. Even after moving house this week, Telkom managed to re-establish our broadband connection within hours. Yes, you heard right. Hours. Shock, horror. Don't worry, I would not have believed it either if I didn't witness it myself. Things are looking up. Let's just hope they stay up.

Two more sleeps until Oz! Farewell party at Taco Zulu tonight. Let the good times roll!

Firstly Forked in February

Hi and welcome to my blog.

Its 2010 and its the futuristic year that everyone has been waiting for! The Mayans have predicted that I only have 2 years of existence left on this earth, so I have therefore decided to try my hand at a few new things - the world of blogging being one of them. I figured that it would be just like keeping a conventional diary, except that the usual pen and paper has now been replaced with a computer and an internet connection. So nothing at all like conventional diary keeping then. I have always been better at typing than writing anyways so it suits me just fine.

Why Project Forked I hear you ask? Well, initially, I started this blog in an attempt to showcase a photographic project that I spent a fair deal of time on in the past. Namely things that I have impaled on forks (don't worry, its not as gruesome as it sounds). More about that in a future post. This blog however would be fairly inadequate in length, were it only about that, so I have decided to include other ingredients to make its girth more substantial. Expect other random photographs that I have taken to come your way, as well as updates on my life as I undertake and document my adventure to travel from South Africa to Australia (E.T.A = approx 6 days).

So please feel free to follow me on my journey through life if you are interested. If not, I'm sure there are countless other websites on the internet that will require less thought-processing skills from you, the viewer. (Try Zombo.com or The Drama Button) N.B: Both need sound for the full effect.