Welcome to Australia, Land of Venom.

I sent out an email yesterday to a large group of people to tell them I had arrived in Syndey safely, wax lyrical about the views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I also outlined our plans to go to Manly Beach today. When I checked my email this morning I had received four replies, all of which referred exclusively to our plans to visit "Manly" beach along with the kind of entendres you would expect. Including the reply from my mother. I'm not sure if that means that I have friends with dirty minds, or if the people in my life really, really think I need a man. I'd like to think the former but suspect the latter.

Flagging down Australian men is the last thing on my mind. Frankly, I'm just trying to stay alive. I'm reading Bill Bryson's book, "In A Sunburned Country" while I'm here (apparently the book is pretty notorious here, although I have yet to come across anything that could really be perceived as insulting. Maybe the Australians aren't used to anything other than the standard warm tourist reactions to their country - try being American). To give you an idea why I might be concerned about my well-being, I'll give you Bryson's description of the delightful Australian wildlife:

It is the home of the largest living thing on earth, The Great Barrier Reef, and the largest monolith, Ayers Rock (or Uluru to use it's now-official, more respectful Aboriginal name). It has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world's ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of it's creatures - the funnel web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octupus, paralysis tick and stonefish - are the most lethal of their type in the world. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but somethings actually go for you. Pick up an innocuous cone shell from a Queensland beach, as innocen tousits are all too wont to do, and you will discoer that the little fellow inside is not just astoundingly swift and testy but exceedingly venemous. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistable currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death int he baking outback. It's a tough place.

Oh, goody. Crocodiles and snakes, two of my favorites. I was reading the Chronicle on my flight to Honolulu and found on the second page an article about an Australian woman who called a plumber because her toilet was backed up and found a seven-foot python was the cause. The article referred to the fact that the python had actually stuck it's head up out of the bowl. It's like this country is custom-made to terrify me. I remember hearing about snakes in toilets as a kid, and it kept me in "hover" stance, anxiously peering over my shoulder. Eventually I convinced myself that Snakes In The Toilet was an urban legend, only to discover that I'm going to the very place where these kind of things happen. Not just with little garden snakes flushed away my mischeveous little boys, but seven-foot pythons. Something that could really do some damage to one's pale, unsuspecting derriere.

In the meantime, in comfoortable, clean, No Snakes In The Toilet Syndey, I've discovered a new way to get hurt in Australia: going outside. The sun's rays are incredibly powerful here, and any spot on my tender Irish skin not slathered in high-powered sunscreen turns pink almost instantly. I think of the boatload of British prisoners and their wardens who first landed in Syndey and I wonder how they fared. No sunscreen back then. No plumbing, even. Just a big beautiful harbour and a country full of lovely animals waiting to try new and exciting ways to kill you.