Picture this:

I love moments like this, when I'm doing something like I might do in Oregon, but the scene is so Australian! Duh, right? But it's just so much fun. I'll share the one that happened yesterday.

It's a colleague's birthday, so we'll all go for a coffee or glass of wine after work at the local bar. Could happen in Albany, and has, right? But here, we meet at the Star Hotel, the ancient, beautiful pub/hotel right on the river in Macksville, population 20,000, working-class town.

We pull right up in front to park about 4:15. We walk in past 6 to 7 very Australian (as my dad would say, "It's like being pregnant; you either are or you aren't; you're never 'very' pregnant.") men having their pints of beer on the veranda. They're talking nonstop with their thick, Aussie accents as we pass through. I order something from the long bar after two older men have bought their lotto ticket games from the woman bartender. A woman enters pushing her stroller the holds two kids to find someone she's meeting here. The bartender calls me "Love" and "Darlin'" as she gives me change and directs me to the water spiggett. I just smiled to myself as I walked back out through the tall doors with the brass nobs. My car pool buddies are sitting outside like it's another day, another dollar. And I feel like I'm in a movie.