Mette's talking

it's funny how you can organize your journey around the quotes of a 2.5 years old. she's grown very quick. before she hardly said hello to her grandparents on the speaker phone, today she started singing. what did she sing? kookaburra sits in the old gum tree! an australian song! geee. only one month in australia and now already... ok, it's the first song of this children's book that she wants to read everynight, but still.
so, after her phrase 'wat hebben we vandaag gesien?' (what did we see today?), here's the last three days.

friday/saturday, dubbo, new south wales:
how much fun it is to visit two zoos in three days (wednesday and friday)? and five zoos in three months (wellington, mclelland-adelaide, melbourne, sydney and dubbo)?and do two visits in two days to the same zoo (friday and saturday - 2nd day for free) count as one? i'd say so because otherwise lukas daalder, who lives next to artis zoo in amsterdam does 50+ per year because he goes every weekend with his kids.
mette has no problem whatsoever visiting them.
* die zijn al wakker/they're already awake (about spotted deer at 12.15 in the afternoon)
* hij heeft een natte snavel/he has a wet beak (about the hippopotamus)
* hij zit een beetje te pielen/he's sitting and peeling himself a bit (about a camel who's scratching himself)
* boertje laten/belching (about a camel roaring)
* wat doet de hond? (laurian: wafwaf). wat doet de her? (laurian: de wat?) de her! (laurian: de wat?) de hertje!

saturday, coonabarabran (it's a real name of a town. in fact, they call themselves the astronomy capital of australia)
when you drive up to the observatory you run into at least five houses with their own telescopes in their front yards. we visited the one of 40 year old peter starr(sic!), whol used to work at the observatory before he started his own business. while allard was sleeping, mette, laurian and tom saw the stars.
* daar is nog een maan!/there's another moon! (in the telescope she saw one and there was one outside)
* lijkt een beetje op het ijsklontje/looks a bit like the little icecube (she feels the moon through a telescope looks like the glacier in new zealand)

sunday, moree (known for it's thermal baths. the gwydir carapark and thermal pools has four pools that are 39, 37, 35 and 30 degrees centrigrade because they pump the water from the great artesian basin 750 meters up)
* au, au, warm!/ouch, ouch, hot! (about the 39 degrees pool she decided not go in)

and during these days a few more quotes were worthwile:
* (laurian: niet doen, knoeipot) ja. ik ben een knoeipot
* ik wil eigenlijk een slaapzak. mette heeft geen slaapzak meer aan/i actually want a sleeping bag. mette doesn't wear a sleeping bag anymore (in bed at night. tom forgot to put on her sleeping bag)
* een poepje en een plasje gaat ik doen... krijgt mette drie stickers/a poopoo and a weewee i goes to do... mette is getting three stickers (she gets two resp one for each but we never discussed what would happen in case of both. and, for those interested, from one day on another she turned herself into potty trained!)
* daddy en mammie en mette mogen een ijsje en frietjes. da's wel bofkonten/daddy and mommy and mette will have an icecream and fries. that's lucky skunks (while thinking of the prospect of having dinner at mc donald's - first time in a month)
* spiderman heeft nagellak... zwarte nagellak/spiderman has nail polish... black nail polish (about her happy meal figure who is all black)
* allardje kan staan... kijk, hij kan dansen/little allard can stand... look, he can dance (about allard holding on to a chair trying to keep his balance)
* tom? (tom: ja.) wil je een glaasje wijn?/tom? (tom: yes.) do you want a glass of wine?
* mette is heel stout. (tom: waarom ben je stout?) mette heeft mais op de grond gegooid/mette is very naughty. (tom: why are you naughty?) mette threw corn on the ground. (something that actually happened three weeks ago when she ate a cob of corn half way and then dropped it in the sand. tom had told her that was very naughty)
* nee, absoluut niet aankomen/no, absolutely no touching (to allard about a tower she built. allard was half a meter away though)
* sinterklaas zit onwijs te kijken/saint nicolas is watching big time (about a garden gnome)