And suddenly we have less than a month left in Australia. Two and a half weeks from now, we fly to Auckland for a visit to New Zealand's North Island. We fly home in a little over four weeks.

On the one hand, it's amazing to think that our year here is nearly over. The time has flown for us -- in many ways it seems that we only just arrived here, jet-lagged and eager to discover this wonderful country. On the other hand, it's been an incredibly full year for us. We've done and seen so much, met so many terrific people (and, yes, a few jerks as well), had so many memorable experiences, that it seems we've been in Australia for far longer than just eleven months.

We'll be processing the memories we've accumulated here for years to come. Australia has become an important part of our lives. Long after we leave Woonona, we'll continue to think of this country as a second home, a place we'll all want to return to again and again. Just as there are things we've missed about home (covered in a previous entry) there are many things that we're going to miss about Australia when we return to the United States. Here, in no particular order, are a few:

-- Arnott's biscuits, particularly Tim Tams and Mint Slices. This may seem trivial to you poor, unfortunate souls who have yet to sample these treats, but we can assure you, this is no small thing. Tim Tams are . . . well . . . sublime in their simplicity. They are beyond delicious. They are, quite simply, nature's perfect cookie. Er, I mean biscuit.

-- Nancy says she's going to miss Cadbury chocolate. Of course, her first contribution to the "What We Miss About Home" list was Hershey's chocolate, so make of that what you will.

-- Chinese, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Lebanese, Greek, Ethiopian, Moroccan, and other cuisines that are so readily available here and so incredibly, depressingly, desolately unavailable in our little corner of Tennessee.

-- The ocean (to get away from the food theme). Every morning, when we drive down from our house to take the girls to school and Nancy to work, we can see the ocean in the distance. Alex and Erin can see the ocean from their school. We go to the coast with some frequency on weekends and holidays. We've grown accustomed to having the seashore nearby, the scent of brine in the air, the sound of waves in the distance. We'll miss that a lot.

-- Gum trees. We were told that the forests here were dreadfully monotonous because they're dominated by Eucalypts. And in fact there are a ton of Eucalypts here. But they're incredibly beautiful trees, with gorgeous smooth barks and fascinating shapes. In many ways, they define the Australian landscape, which we'll miss as well.

(Below: The forest canopy at Minnamurra Rainforest.)

-- We'll miss the rainforests, of which there are several varieties, far more than you might expect in a country known for its aridity.

-- The incredible diversity of people here. Australia attracts people from all over the world, and while this is also true of the United States in a general sense, it's not all that true of the part of the States in which we live. As Alex has noted in previous blogs, in her class alone there are more than a dozen nationalities represented.

-- The Australian accent. In many ways we don't notice it anymore. It sounds so normal that we find it more jarring to meet someone who doesn't have an Aussie accent. That'll be changing soon....

-- Wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, platypuses (platypi?), echidnas, poteroos, pademelons, possums (yeah, I know, there are possums in Tennessee. Different possums here-- far less like overgrown rats).

-- Being awakened each day by the cackling of Laughing Kookaburras and the rasping screeches of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos. And while we're at it, David is going to miss a whole host of cool birds that he won't bore you by naming. (Except to say that he'll miss Fairy-Wrens in particular. Also Honeyeaters. Oh, and Pardalotes. And he loves Spinebills. Whistlers, too.)

-- Aboriginal Art, which is remarkably distinctive and, at times, quite lovely. We won't miss the cheap rip-offs of Aboriginal Art, or the way the styles of Aboriginal artists are coopted and exploited by Australian mass culture, but then again, we haven't missed the same phenomenon in the States with respect to Native American art.

-- We'll miss our weekend adventures. No doubt we'll try to take some weekend trips back home, and we'll try to explore the area around our home in Tennessee as we have the area around Wollongong. But the reality is that this year has been exceptional in that way. We've felt driven to get out and see things, to go on our adventures whenever we could. Once we're home, it won't take long for us to return to our routine. Our weekends will fill up with soccer games and play dates and errands and work. That's natural. There's nothing wrong with it. But we will miss having the freedom and time and excuse to explore and play.

-- We'll also miss our weekly visits to the Wollongong Public Library. Again, that's something we could do back home. The libraries at the University and in Monteagle have collections of adult and childrens literature. But even if we start out trying to do this, chances are that somewhere along the way we'll get too busy, or we'll have other things to do. That, too, is only natural. But we will miss it.

-- Alex is going to miss frangipanis, which are grown as ornamentals all over Wollongong. Go figure.

-- Pretty money. American money looks so boring now. (Well, probably it always did. We just didn't realise it.)

-- The Australian sky, which is as big as the sky in the American West, and which is positively breathtaking on a clear night.

-- We'll miss EFTPOS, the Australian electronic banking system. Sounds weird, I know. But it's actually very cool. Banks issue EFTPOS cards which allow you to make purchases pretty much anywhere (shops, supermarkets, department stores, restaurants, movie theaters, government offices, etc.) directly from whichever bank account you choose. At some places, supermarkets mostly, you can even get cash out. The card also works in ATM machines. It's very much like a VISA check card, except -- and this is the thing we love -- you can't make any of these purchases or get any cash or do anything with it at all (except scrape frost off your car windshield) without a four digit pin number. So unlike a check card, if you lose it, or someone steals it, your money is still safe. It's simple, secure, and convenient. We love it.

(Below: The giant merino sheep in Goulburn, the unofficial capital of the wool producing district in the southern tablelands of New South Wales. There's a shop inside the sheep that sells lots of wool stuff as well as some truly tacky souvenirs. There's also a staircase that leads up into the sheep's head so that you can look out the small windows in the sheep's eyes. We are not making this up. The eyes afford a rather uninspiring view of the main drag leading into and out of Goulburn. Not much to look at, it's true. But how often does a person get to look at anything through the eyes of a giant cement merino ram?)

-- We'll miss the Australians' ridiculous penchant for decorating their roadsides with really big stuff: giant guitars, giant bugs, giant crustaceans, giant sheep and cows and horses. We don't get it, but we think it's pretty amusing.

-- Lemon squash, that mix between lemonade and sprite that has become our favourite softdrink.

-- Measuring distances in kilometres. It doesn't make anything closer, of course, but because kilometres are smaller than miles, road trips seem to take a shorter time. Yeah, it's odd and a bit hard to explain. You'll just have to take our word for it.

-- The lovely botanical gardens that one can find in pretty much any city in the country. Each city, it seems, has set aside land for gardens and green areas that are free and open to the public.

-- A whole host of friends from the girls' school, Nancy's work, David's conventions, Friday night swimming, and the two neighbourhoods in which we've lived. They are too numerous to name, but we'll miss them all very much. More than anything else, they've made our time here incredibly special.