A Valentines Surprise

Thought the trip was over? Haha, think again. Here's a recent e-mail from Melissa to Alicia, Erin, and Jeni concerning recent postal events:

"Right, so I got home yesterday, checked my mail and saw an unmarked envelope with a Queensland, Australia return address. So I was like, 'cool, I won something!....did I sign up to win anything?....aussies must love me so much they sent me a thank you letter for just visiting their country and want all of us to come back....yay!'I open the letter and... well, the words 'oh crap' or some other combination of rude synonyms came out of my mouth - the mother with the small child checking her mail next to me gave me an evil look, oops.

Anyway, the speeding ticket is for $100 and it has a photo of our car and license plate. At least it didn't have a picture of us too...well, maybe it did and they didn't include it, 4 stressed out silly Americans driving on the wrong side of the road, haha. It was a photo trap that ticketed cars that were going 13 km/hr or less over the limit. Which, honestly, isn't that much when you consider its in kilometers.

As for contesting it, um...I don't know. They do have court dates that you can set up. Anyone feel like flying back with the excuse of having an Australian court date? :o) Perhaps it has stopped raining there by now. I don't think 'we were going to hang with the roos' will fly as an excuse.

car rental: A$39.00
zoo admission: A$49.00
speeding ticket: A$100.00
the laugh we'll get everytime we remember it: priceless
...there are some things money can't buy...

That's all for now, or until I get another notice,
Talk soon,

Melissa"


The fun never ends! It's March now and the ticket has been paid and no new ones have arrived in the mail ('knock-on-wood'), should they show up we'll keep you posted - then again if any more show up we might need to start a fund to help us pay for it.