God's Glorious Earth

I can't believe how blessed I am to be spending a year in such a beautiful place! My new favorite thing has been cycling along the riverfront. It's an absolutely spectacular view of the city. It amazes me how something as simple as water can be so beautiful. God really knows how to paint a gorgeous picture! The riverfront is scattered with various beaches and rock beds. Boats of various sizes can be seen all over the water. Today I saw hordes of wind-surfers - that was a really spectacular sight! This is certainly one activity I'm going to be keeping as part of my daily routine. :)

Today I spent the majority of my afternoon down in Fremantle. I wandered the streets just seeing what was "out there." I found a lovely secondhand bookshop and picked up a little something for me to read while I visit cafes. There is also constant music flowing through the streets. Street musicians are almost everywhere. There was a wonderful flugel horn and acoustic guitar duet serenading the passersby today. I also found a quaint little cafe called "Break." I definitely needed a break because it was sweltering out today with high humidity. The heat certainly called for an iced coffee. One thing I love about Australia is their iced coffees. They aren't like typical American iced coffees with just coffee, milk, and ice. They top off all of the iced coffees with a scoop of ice cream. How ingenious is that! I hope America catches onto that idea really soon! To top that off Saskia told me about the most delicious dessert - afogado. Afogado is simply a scoop of vanilla ice cream drowned in espresso. How delicious does that sound! I think I'm in coffee heaven here in Perth. :)

In addition to my little coffee adventure today, I started asking locals about things I should do while I'm in Australia. I received all sorts of answers that I hope I can accomplish. Here is the list so far:

King's Park - Perth
Art Gallery and Museum - Perth
Mojo's (or other cafes and pubs that offer live music) - Fremantle
Cottesloe Beach - Cottesloe
Broom, WA
Esperance, WA

I'm sure I can check off the things to do around here, but I hope I can get a little traveling in as well! Speaking of traveling, I bumped into some Americans today at the bus stop on my way out of Fremantle. It was good to hear an American accent that wasn't on tv or in a movie! This couple is from Idaho and they are traveling all over Australia in the next couple weeks because of the husbands job. They were so kind and they talked with me for almost 20 minutes. Even though they weren't from WI or even the Midwest, they still made me miss home a bit.

I'm off to get some rest before singing in church again tomorrow. I also have my "Bandie Barbecue" tomorrow evening. Should be a fun time and maybe I'll meet some more people too! :) I can't help but wonder what else God has in store for me while I'm here! I'm sure it will be great things!

Missing you, America!


~A