Some of you might remember the dreaded Bali monkeys of doom from our honeymoon. T and I barely escaped with our lives. Just when I thought we were free from demented monkeys, I read this.

I used to love those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. Now, I’m not so sure.

Since Ian and Cara have moved to Shanghai, they were unable to use their tickets to the Crowded House concert last night. They couldn’t sell them, so they gave them to us (though I like to think giving them to us was their first choice all along). And so, T and I went to our first concert in years.

The bad news: I became immediately aware of my age when I walked into the arena. No one was under 25, unless they were the young child of someone over 25. The average (median? mean?) age was 45. So in a way, I felt young. Then we walked into the stadium and I yelled to T, “Aaaaah! Too loud!” At that point, the wrinkles in my face began to burn with a fiery rage.

The good news: I don’t know that much about Crowded House, but they played the five songs I knew (albeit in descending order), so I was very happy to have known some of the music. Unfortunately, all the music I knew was released before the dawn of time, but that’s another matter (see above).

More bad news: They had this rad drummer with a bushy head of hair, who was highly entertaining. After a while, I said to T, “I think I love the drummer.” He responded, “Yeah, their last drummer just killed himself.” Oops.

The best news: Before the first encore, when everyone was standing up and applauding (except for me and T, because our bones are old and creaky and we don’t stand unless it’s absolutely necessary), I suddenly heard barking. I was up like a shot to see about 20 greyhounds standing on the stage, for no apparent reason. I then spent the rest of the show waiting for them to come back. And then…on our way out of the show, they had the greyhounds standing around, waiting for me to love them!

This is a brilliant idea and now I think dogs should come to all concerts, if only to greet the concertgoers upon their exit. Do dogs come to every Crowded House concert? Every concert at the Rod Laver arena? Every concert in Australia? I wish I knew enough to give you the answers to these burning questions. If the answer is no, then they should start immediately, if only for my benefit (which, let’s be honest, is the most important thing).

What I do know is that Crowded House is clearly the greatest band ever and now I need a greyhound. And also, it’s nice to have friends who give us free tickets to cool stuff.

This country cracks me up for a variety of reasons, but one of the things I find most amusing is the news. The other day, the cheerleader who got trampled in America was headline news here. What?!

They also cover a lot of other entertaining stories, like this one. I should warn you, it’s rated PG-13. Another way Australia is different from the U.S. is their censorship (or lack thereof). Turn on the TV at noon on any given day, and you’re likely to see all kinds of nudity and hear some highly colorful language that appears only on American cable. Turn on the news, and you’re likely to see Jennifer Hawkins’ naked bum.

Today, T and I were buying me a new camera case in town. I was talking about my old one, and I said it had

“too many zips! I just want whip it out and get it done!”

T nodded sympathetically as the man in front of us spun around and stared at me, mouth agape. Somehow, I think he misunderstood.

Thank God I’m living here during the digital age. In the past 24 hours, I have spoken to my father and sister in New England, instant messaged my brother and my cousin in Massachusetts, streamed the Red Sox game, and right now, I am listening to London radio as I play online Scrabble with my friend in SF. Any invention that allows me to interact with people without having to actually look at them is okay in my book. It’s just like being in Brooklyn, except the weather’s better.

The thing that people keep asking me about this trip is “How can you afford it?” Since that seems to be what everyone wants to know, I’ll tell you. Keep in mind that this is just how we did it, and that I have no idea how other people have managed to go away for an extended period of time.

Basically, we live on T’s income and use what I make for this trip. Since I don’t make very much, we have dipped into some savings and also save a little bit of each of his paychecks. This means that we are total losers and write down exactly what we spend each week, so as not to spend more than the $300AUD on which we live.

Most people wouldn’t want to do this (and trust me, I get why) and that’s why most people don’t take trips like this, I guess. Living like this means:

-We rarely buy anything new. This works out okay for us, since T hasn’t bought any new clothes since about 1982, and I wear everything I own until it literally falls apart. This sucks, but is acceptable to me because I generally dress like a 13-year-old boy anyway, so it just improves my look. However, it is kind of humiliating when I have to go out in Australia’s most fashionable city and I am the only person in town without skinny jeans (which is actually a blessing for the people who have to look at me).

-Most of the money we spend goes toward food. Not drink, food. I hardly drink at all, and T really only does when he is out with our friend Ian the Bad Influence, and when we’re with him, it’s only beer so it’s not too spendy. We don’t go to bars or dance clubs or anywhere where drinks cost more than $6. We cook at home during the week and only eat out on weekends. We also don’t go to nice restaurants unless it is a really special occasion–there have been two since we arrived, both anniversaries. Usually, we go to local restaurants that serve lunch for two for less than $25.

-We don’t own a car. Fortunately, we live about 15 minutes from downtown Melbourne, so we walk everywhere and T gets the tram to work.

- We do lame things like going to movies every weekend at the theater behind our house, where we have a discount card. Or we rent them from the video store downstairs.

-We do our weekly shopping at the Victoria Market in town, which means we walk 20 mins there, buy our food from individual stalls, then walk home and buy what we can’t get at the supermarket downstairs.

-We don’t have cable, but we do have broadband. Some sacrifices just aren’t worth making.

We could afford our tickets because I booked them myself, leg-by-leg, which ended up being about $2,000 less than the package deals, even from Australian travel agents. We are going to be staying with friends or in guesthouses for all of the trip, so no soaps on the pillows. And no Ritz in KL, which is the worst part of all…

It is NOT a very glamorous lifestyle at all, as you can probably see. Fortunately, we don’t have many friends here, and the ones we do have don’t make us do expensive things (and they let us come stay with them in Shanghai, but that’s  a story for another day). Saving money like this is totally doable, but it sure ain’t too much fun.

I know that two years ago T and I said that our honeymoon would be our Last Big Trip. Hey, guess what? We lied. We got to Australia and started thinking about going back to America, and it was just too much to resist. What would you do? Hang on to your savings like a responsible adult, go back to America and be a grownup, OR spend it all on a 7-month trip around the world so you can return to the U.S. destitute and living above your mother’s garage? I know which is more appealing…

And so, at the end of November, off we go again. In the meantime, we are saving every last penny we have (which ain’t many, let me tell you) so that we can afford the glamorous SE Asian guesthouses that cost up to $10USD a night (or 3¢ Canadian). Given the way the U.S. dollar is performing, it could cost us millions.

I’ll be writing here for the next nine months, chronicling the end of our days in Melbourne and the seven months of travel. I can’t promise any excitement like the last trip (it’s pretty hard to get robbed by headhunters TWICE), but I’ll do my best. In the meantime, you should be able to comment on here without having to register and give WordPress your SSN and all that jazz. So go nuts.