There’s only one problem with our wonderful little cottage — it doesn’t have internet access. So we spend a lot of early mornings down at Blond Coffee checking email. I try to do a little work while Jamie tries to read Hollywood gossip sites. Of course, I usually manage to piss her off by talking about politics and the ObamaCare disaster while she’s trying to read about Brangelina.

Blond is on Angaston’s main street just two short blocks from our cottage. I have about six cups of tea every morning and won’t leave until I’m fully jacked up on caffeine and ready for the rest of the day.

If our cottage is our home away from home, Blond is our office away from the office.

Jamie’s hooked on a nighttime Aussie soap opera called “Home and Away”. It’s all about … well, it doesn’t really matter what it’s all about because you probably don’t care any more than I do. But Jamie won’t miss a moment of the 7:00 p.m. Monday-Friday show.

The program used to have a little four-note theme song that was played as they went into commercials. She’s been singing it for years whether we’re here or somewhere else in the world. When we landed in Perth on this trip she was very disappointed to discover that they had done away with the little jingle, but that doesn’t stop her from singing it.

Please take my advice: Do not attempt to speak to her while “Home and Away” is airing. At best she will shush you and demand that you speak to the hand. At worst she will bite your head off.

And now, let’s segue into a story about yet another Aussie nighttime soap opera, “Neighbours”. It’s the original Aussie nighttime soap opera and has been on the air since sometime in the early 18th century. Virtually every Australian actor and actress has paid their dues by appearing on the show early in their careers.

But that’s not the story.

On another Aussie trip about ten years ago Jamie and I stayed in an absolutely stunning B&B that was, it turned out, owned by a gay couple. We arrived late at night and the two owners stayed up to talk to us. They poured one round of drinks and then another and the stories were soon flowing as freely as the alcohol.

Turns out that the older of the two men was a former executive (a very important executive, but I’m keeping this intentionally vague so as to not name names) with Neighbours. He had spent most of his career with the show and had seen all the big name Aussie stars come and and go before they made it big in Hollywood. His life partner was a flighty man who made a living doing what many flightly gay men do (I will not name the profession in order to continue keeping this intentionally vague).

Well, it turns out that the older man, the TV executive, was smitten with Jamie. Quite smitten, in fact. We had been driving all day and we were exhausted, but he kept pouring more drinks and telling more stories from his show business past and trying to charm Jamie. We had trouble keeping our eyes open, but continued to chat in an effort to avoid being rude.

His efforts to charm Jamie — I may as well not have been there for all the attention he paid to me — became so blatant that his partner eventually got miffed, excused himself, and stormed out of the room.

The former TV exec told us that he couldn’t wait until the next day because the four of us would have a delightful time eating breakfast together on the patio. The sun would be shining, the meal would be delicious and we would undoubtedly drink more wine from his personal collection.

Well, the next morning came and we went downstairs at the appointed hour and discovered that there would only be three of us at breakfast. The younger partner, we were told, had been unexpectedly called away by an emergency at work. Jamie and I exchanged glances and went on with brekky.

Let’s go back for a second. I told you earlier that the younger partner was a flighty man who made a living doing what many flightly gay men often do. Without telling you what that is in my on-going effort to keep it intentionally vague, take my word for it that the profession is so common that it’s become an almost unbelievable cliche.

If you’re astute enough to figure out what profession I’m talking about, you’re also smart enough to know that it’s highly unlikely that one of this man’s clients had an emergency so dire that he had to make a house call on an early Sunday morning. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I’m sure you’d agree that it’s highly improbable.

The moment we closed our car doors and drove away, Jamie and I both laughed knowing laughs and agreed that the younger man was still pissed off about the way his older partner had flirted so blatantly with her. He had stormed out the previous night and was still in no mood to share a delightful Sunday morning repast with the object of his partner’s ardor.

But what the hell. The B&B really was stunning, the food and wine were fab, and both the younger and older man’s performances were worthy of any prime time drama.

And that brings us to the end of our Aussie soap opera story. But don’t miss tomorrow’s exciting episode of Around the World in 180 Days …

This is Acorn, our bluestone Australian cottage. It was built in 1900, has three bedrooms and one bath, and has been completely restored to its original condition by Ken and Sue Loveday, its owners. It’s comfy. Cozy. Warm and inviting. The front and back yards are filled with roses and lavender and numerous native Australian plants.

We truly feel at home here, which is a good thing because we’ll be living here for the next two and a half months.

Acorn is just a very short, two block walk from the village’s main street, where the grocery store is on one corner and Blond Coffee, where I’m writing this, is just across the street.

We’ve shown you photos of the beautiful vineyards and yellow hills in which Angaston sits, but what about the village itself. Here you go:

This is the Main Street in Angaston. Almost every building was built pre-1900, many of them pre-1850. Choose your word to describe the town: quaint, charming, historic, beautiful, serene. They all work.

The is the beautiful old church just three doors down the street from our cottage. The population of Angaston is 1900, but the town also has four Lutheran churches. Why can’t we all just get along?

We pass the Angaston Town Hall, built in 1911, every morning on our way to Blond Coffee.

The Angaston Hotel. Another one of those buildings built sometime back in the 1800s. It’s right across the street from Blond Coffee.

The statues in the park about 100 meters down the street from Blond tell you all you need to know about the history of the town. It’s always been an agricultural area and vineyards are gradually replacing wheat fields.

“31,784 more or less” is the answer to the question, “How many miles have you guys travelled so far?”

The actual number is probably far higher than that, because 31,784 includes only the air, rail, ocean and rental car miles that I’m able to add up. It doesn’t include the thousands of miles we’ve walked and ridden on tour busses, the additional miles we’ll put on our rental car in the next three months nor the air miles we’ll rack up on our return flight from Sydney-San Francisco-San Luis Obispo.

If you twisted my arm and forced me to take a guess about the total number of miles we’ll eventually rack up, I’d say 50,000.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Earth is only 25,000 miles in circumference, yet we’ll somehow go twice that far before we finish our trip around the world.

Our friend Diane Fleming added a comment to the story about the film Mystery Road that said, “I watched the trailer and couldn’t understand a word they said.” Welcome to Australia where they speak English, but often not the same English we speak in America.

With that in mind, we’ve been writing down all the words and phrases we hear that confuse and/or amuse us. Of course, everyone knows “barbie” thanks to the Paul Hogan’s commercials for Australian Tourism. But at least that one’s relatively comprehensible. Others aren’t.

UPDATE: We’ll keep adding more definitions as we run across or remember them.
Cuppa: A cup of tea (“How about a nice cuppa, lovey?”)
Schoolies: Students

The Original List:
Abo: Aborigine. Now considered offensive, but still heard occasionally.
Arvo: Afternoon
Avo: Avocado
Barrack: Cheer for a team
Bikie: Member of a motorcycle gang
Bikkie: Cookie
Billie: Teapot
Bloody oath: That’s certainly true
Bludger: Lazy person
Boomer: Large male kangaroo
Bottle shop: Liquor store
Brekkie: Breakfast
Brickie: Bricklayer
Brizzie: Brisbane, a city in the Aussie state of Queensland
Budgie: Budgerigar or parakeet
Budgie smuggler: Speedo swimsuit (this one is particularly funny when you imagine what it would look like it you stuffed a parakeet into your shorts. Or in my case, a particularly large parrot at the height of his plumage.)
Bugs: Mud crabs (Jamie was disgusted by the name until she tasted one)
Chockie: Chocolate
Chook: Chicken
Chrissie: Christmas
Chunder: Vomit
Cozzie: Bathing suit
Crook: Sick, or badly made
Dag: A funny person or nerd
Digger: Soldier
Dunny: Outhouse
Esky: Ice chest
Fairy floss: Cotton candy
Footy: Australian Rules football
Freo: Fremantle, a town in Western Australia
Galah: A fool, named after the common cockatoo of the same name
Gobsmacked: Surprised
Gone walkabout: Lost and can’t be found
Good on ya: Good for you
Grog: Beer
Hoon: Hooligan
How ya goin’: How are you?
Jackaroo: Cowboy on a cattle station
Joey: A baby kangaroo (and the name of the best cat we’ve ever had)
Kindie: Kindergarten
Lolly: Candy
Maccas: McDonalds
Maggie: Magpie
Mob: Any group of people
Mozzie: Mosquito
Muzzie: Muslim
Nipper: Child
Dry as a nun’s nasty: Dry
Ocker: Unsophisticated person, a red neck
Oldies: Parents
Oz: Australia
Pissed: Drunk (this one really confused us at first because we thought it meant angry, like it does in the US)
Pokies: Slot machines
Pommies: Englishmen (not held in high regard here)
Pommie bastard: Englishman (some would say that the use of both words is redundant)
Postie: Mailman
Prezzie: A gift
Rezzie: Reservation for dinner or at a hotel
Ripper: Great, fantastic
Road train: Semi truck with numerous trailers
Roo: Kangaroo
Roo bar: Thick steel reinforcement put on the front of cars and trucks to prevent damage caused when hitting a kangaroo at full speed
Root: Fuck or fucked as in “This old car is completely rooted.”
Rubbish: To criticize (“She rubbished him in front of his friends.”)
Salute: The Aussie Salute, to brush away flies
Salvo: The Salvation Army
Sanger: Sandwich
Scratchy: A scratch-off lottery ticket
Servo: Gas station
She’ll be right: It’ll be ok
Shiela: Woman
Shout: To buy a round of drinks down at the pub (“It’s your shout.”)
Sickie: A day off work because of illness
Snag: A sausage
Stuffed: Fucked (“Get stuffed, ya bludger.”)
Ta: Thanks
Top End: Far north of Australia
Tradie: Tradesman, such as a plumber or carpenter. There’s a TV commercial for a home improvement center that uses the tagline “Go where the tradies go.” I keep telling Jamie that I want to go where the tradies go, but she shows no interest in going there with me.
Truckie: Truck driver
Tucker: Food
Uni: University (“She attends uni in Adelaide.”)
Ute: Utility truck which is basically an overgrown pick-up
Warnie: Short for Shane Warne, former star of the Aussie cricket team
Whinge: Complain (often combined with “Whingin’ bloody pommie.”)
Wog: Slightly racist description of someone from Italy or the wider Mediterranean region
Yabbie: Mud crab (pretty damn delicious, by the way)

Many years ago I was lucky enough to work very briefly on the Australia Tourism Commission account. The Melbourne Cup horse race was the subject of one of my ads. They call it “the race that halts a nation” and today, the first Tuesday in November, is the day it halts.

As you would expect, the Melbourne Cup is a thoroughbred horse race that takes place in Melbourne. It’s the richest “two-mile” handicap in the world (“two-mile” in quotation marks because it’s slightly shorter than that since Australian switched to the metric system).

It halts the nation in the same way the Super Bowl would halt America if it were played on a Tuesday afternoon. One of the major Aussie TV networks is broadcasting live from the race course today. Millions of parties will be held around the country. Billions of dollars will be bet. And, of course, since this is Australia about a gazillion gallons — oops, that should be litres since Australia went to the metric system — of alcohol will be consumed.

My money’s on Dandino because instead of being owned by the typical racing billionaire, it’s owned by 129 average Joes across the country.

As they used to say in the Santa Anita commercials, “Go, baby, go.”

UPDATE: The race was run two days ago and the favorite won. My horse is expected to finish the race soon.

This is the Central Market in beautiful downtown Adelaide, South Australia. It’s the fifth largest city in Australia with about 1.2 million people.

Adelaide’s about an hour’s drive south of the Barossa Valley and we came to town today to browse the Central Market where hundreds of permanent stalls sell every food and ingredient known to man. It covers most of a square block.

Jamie loves exploring every nook and cranny of the Cental Market. I love to people watch at Zuma, a cool little coffee shop right outside the front door. It works out perfectly for both of us.

This commercial for the Barossa Valley was just named the world’s best long-form commercial at the prestigious Cannes Advertising Festival.

Well, it’s different. I’ll give it credit for that. But it seems too dark, too oppressive, too raw for my tastes. It doesn’t celebrate any of the light and beauty and joy that I see in the Barossa.

But as someone who earned a living owning an ad agency in Orange County for many years, I think it’s very cool that a small agency in an out of the way spot like Adelaide, South Australia walked away with such a huge honor.

What do you think of the commercial?

Jamie and I always like to catch an Australian film or two when we’re in the country. One of the reasons we drove down to Adelaide yesterday was to see one called Mystery Road which we had seen reviewed on the Australian version of the Today Show.

It’s the story of an aboriginal police detective who’s returned to his home town in the outback from the big city. The only indigenous member of the local police department, he soon finds himself investigating the murder of a young girl. The investigation reveals a sinister underside to the community.

It’s not going to win any Academy Awards, but it has spectacular cinematography, a solid cast, and an intriguing plot that gradually peels away layers of corruption in the small outback town.

It’s worth a look — if for no reason other than taking a look at the gritty side of life in the Aussie outback — if you see it listed at some local art theater or find it on Netflix.