Toowoomba and Tweed Heads!

This morning, Tony picked me up, and we headed back to his house, to pick up his daughter and wife. We all packed into the car, and then went for a nice drive to Toowoomba. Tony and his wife looked at a possible house to retire to, and I got to explore a modern Australian home.

I learned that generally things are similar, but they are also enough things to make an American say "huh?" The first thing is that in most homes, the toilet is separate from the shower/sink room. I am not quite sure why this is, and to me, it is a little inconvenient to have to go from one room to another to wash one's hands, but I guess it is a good thing if someone needs to shower.

Another thing that does not seem to be common here at all is a clothes dryer. My house is like this as well, where there is a washer, but then clothes must be hung on the line, or on a rack to dry. Different from home, where it seems like everyone has both a washer and dryer.

One other thing that I think is an excellent idea:



Many houses have these tanks outside, usually hidden towards the back, where rainwater is captured, filtered, and stored for later use. For some houses, this is the only source of water, but some are also connected to the city's water supply. Also, water from the city is free here, unless your household consumes more water than the average for your area. Then you are charged, but I am not sure how much.

After a while, we got back in the car, and drove south to Tweeds Head.



We got stuck in traffic, so it probably took close to an hour. an hour and a half to get there. We walked around the mall for a while, had some coffee, and eventually headed back to Brisbane.

That night, Amelia and I hung out with some of her friends at one of their houses. I had a good deal of fun listening to everyone playing the karaoke video game on the PS2, which apparently comes in an Australian music version, because there were artists on it that I had never even heard of!