Hugo, Minnesota
I thought Australia was a dangerous place to live. I have had many a run in with Brown and Red-bellied-black Snakes and Red-back and Funnel-web Spiders and Brown Scorpions and wasps as big as small birds and even one argument with a Tazzie Devil. I wanted him to eat a piece of sausage and he wanted to eat my fingers instead.
This place Minnesota is extreme. I got off the plane in the middle of winter, which happened to be March, having just left 40 degree heat in Australia. The insides of my nose promptly froze.
I spent the next week getting over the 17 hour time difference (who made up the rules for that anyway?) and then went out to play in the snow (which I had never seen before). Over the next few weeks, I learned to avoid the places where the snow covered ice, but my rump was very tender having fallen on it more than a dozen times.
The place where I was to spend a year was called Hugo. It is only half an hour's drive from the capital city of Minneapolis and St. Paul (as far as i can tell, they are both the capital and the same city with no division). As close as Hugo is to civilization, it may as well be in the middle of the antarctic if you don't have a car. there are no trains, busses or taxi's I have seen, and I have been stranded here for eight months.
I am just now coming to the end of the summer. I was amazed at being able to walk through tall grass without worrying about King Browns. I was pleasantly suprised when I saw a bird that wasn't a sparrow or goose (they are the only animals to hang around in winter). I saw the countryside come to life and look very much like my home country does all the time. This impression was amplified by the swealtering 40 degree heat, 90% humidity and the abundance of overlarge mosquitos and flies. I was missing my cork hat.
Where I come from, there are a lot of small things that can kill you. Here there are a lot of large things that can kill you. Black Bears, Timber Wolves, Elk, Moose, hunters, tornados, partly frozen lakes (there are 10 000 of them), ice slick highways (I nearly lost it last winter), and speeding drivers in those huge pickup trucks that I can fit my car in the tray (I've not yet seen one stick to the limit)
Autum is coming, and the leaves have started turning (they don't do that where I come from). I am looking forward to dressing up and partaking in a bizzare holiday called Halloween. Perhaps I can write about that later on.
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| Messages left for this Researcher | Posted |
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| Hey there, traveling Aussie :-) | Oct 12, 2002 |
| Hi the Aussie.... | Oct 1, 2002 |
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the Aussie
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