My greatest fear for Austin while he's half a world away is not that he'll get lost or stolen or sick, it's that he will fail to immerse himself in the experience. For example, anytime we go out to eat, he invariably orders chicken fingers, chicken strips or chicken nuggets. "This is a Mexican restaurant," I'll say. "Try the enchiladas!" Nuh-uh. No go. So as he prepared to go to Australia, I strictly forbade him from ordering chicken strips. In his 4 a.m. phone call last night he reported that he didn't like the McDonald's chicken sandwich. Sheesh.
Of course, McDonald's doesn't have a ton of other choices, so I can at least credit him with trying to try something different. But earlier this week when they visited the Maoris, he had the chance to try lamb, and he passed. "It didn't really look that good," was the excuse.
I know he's having a good time, though. He expressed remarkable enthusiasm about different kinds of water -- including some green water and some that could kill a person in less than a minute. Hmm. He blew through two rolls of film at the aquarium and bought some trinkets, including a plant and a wooden shark. I hope he doesn't have any trouble getting a plant through customs. He said he used all his New Zealand paper money (he shared with someone who ran out) and had some coins to bring home.
The only worst part of the call was that Tammy Sue couldn't hear him. She's hearing impaired and depends very heavily on one hearing aid to stay in touch with the world around her. Combine that with Austin's soft voice and the very quiet nature of a global phone call, plus my poor short-term memory and the groggy fact that it was 4 in the morning, and it should become clear how she may not have gotten as much out of the call as she'd have liked. Nevertheless, it was great to hear from him, and we look forward to the next check-in.
No comments:
Post a Comment