Oddities from Oz, 4th edition

17. Australians seem to appreciate unique and contemporary industrial and interior design, much more so than Americans. What does that mean? Even normal, cheap outdoor restaurant chairs have a unique shape or unusual color. Coffee shops are uniquely decorated. I've yet to see a cookie-cutter house model anywhere, even in the bush. There are unique lighting fixtures everywhere...

18. Most servers in restaurants in Syndey are learning to speak English. Lots of people from Asian countries come to Australia to live for months at a time to either learn or perfect their English. So what that means is you'll have a server who is really good at the English on the menu, but if you ask for anything that's not directly on the menu, both the server and you have to enter into a sort of sign language style of communication.

19. Finally finding a good radio station in the Tablelands. It actually ended up being the live music feed from the Splendour in the Grass Festival that our cook from the Whitsundays trip was attending in Byron Bay...

20. Driving on the other side of the road. Waaay cool. I did it in the Hunter Valley and around and around the Manly Wharf as I waited for Ash to pick up gelato for church dinner from Gelatissimo, where she used to work. I drove around and around and around and around....and around. And got really good at it. Except for turning left. I still kind of it the curb with the back wheels....

Sunday in Sydney

One of the benefits of flying back a day early from Cairns was that Ash and I had a full day back in Manly to decompress after that break-neck pace backpacking tour. Until I looked at a full map of Australia, I really didn't appreciate how much territory we were attempting to cover in what I now realize is a very short period of time. We essentially traveled the distance from Miami to Maine in two weeks, picking 5 locations to spend 1 - 3 days exploring. Uhh, crazy. And exhausting.

Side note - the Cairns airport is considered a regional airport in Australia, but it's pretty "big." I mean, it's even got a few shops in it. And of course, a coffee bar. All 22 or so gates in the domestic terminal are in the same circular building. Cute. Get's the job done.

So Sunday, Ash and I sleep in, getting up just in time to take her dad and mom out for brunch to celebrate her dad's birthday, and tell them all about our trip. We went out to this place called the Bower Restaurant, and I learned that when the Corso was opened, the Bower and another restaurant on the Corso entered into a huge feud as to who was allowed to have table space on the actual Corso...Apparently there has been bitter blood between the two restaurants for a long time. However, that didn't affect the quality of the food. I had a really great serving of lemon sugar crepes with bacon. Tasty! Also, while we were enjoying our meal, we saw a demo of a sea rescue mission by the Australian Navy Corps on Manly beach, as well as an awareness march for free speech injustices in China, China's treatment of the Tibetian monks and various other political prisoners in countries all over the world. Definitely not something I'd see in America.

Ash and I then wandered around Manly for the rest of the morning, as I proceeded to leave a good chunk of my bank account at various stores around town. We went to a fabulous paper goods store called Pulp that was FULL of beautiful papers, note cards, amazing wedding invitation ideas and hilarious knick knacks. I got a few things for my classroom there and some really beautiful papers that I just found to be really inspiring. Being at that store made me want to a) drop everything and just design cards and wedding invitations for a living and b) become a buyer of artistic papers for some specialty design store. Uhh, that store was gorgeous.

We also stopped by a paint-you-own canvas store called Procreate. This guy has set up shop helping people paint their very own, personal paintings. He has artists who just use his space for studios, I saw a young kid making a huge painting of traveling through Italy, Kindergarten classes who made paintings to raise money for their school, etc. It's a brilliant idea, and it's really evident that he enjoys what he does. Very, very cool.

After walking around and around for a long time, Ash and I finally got ourselves home and changed for church. Ash goes to an emergent church called Small Boat, and they meet on Sunday evenings for dinner and a service. The service follows a "Bells" order: Blessing, Eating, Listening, Learning and Sent-ness, each portion based upon the central mission of the church group. This church service is about as non-traditional as you can get, and as far from the style of church that I was raised in, but culturally, I feel really comfortable in that kind of a setting. The first time I attended Small Boat, I didn't realize until I was on the way home that we hadn't sung. But the service was totally genuine. The church body is composed of a bunch of people who are visually artistic (the service is held in an art gallery called the Art Sanctuary), so it's much less authentic for them to sing, because they aren't gifted that way. So instead of having an inauthentic portion of a church service, they just choose not to include "singing worship" in their order...

Anyway, this particular evening, the Listening portion was entitled God is a DJ, and members were asked to send in songs that have impacted their relationship with God in some way. We listened to a really eclectic mix that included Van Halen, Ben Harper, U2, etc. During the trip, when we were in the tablelands, Ash and I had been talking about our opinions regarding the Christian music industry and why we were attracted to or wary of the whole "industry." It was really interesting after that conversation to being amongst other Christians who were attracted to God via "non-Christian" music...

I got to meet several people who are in Ash's bible study, which is always good. It's nice to meet the support system that nurtures and cradles your friends, especially when they are on the other side of the world.

Anyway, after church, Ash and I headed to Artichoke, a coffee house/restaurant/live music venue/sangria bar/live model drawing place to partake in the live music venue/sangria aspect of the place. Very fun - we heard blues from a very eclectic mix of musicians. The lead guitarist was from France, and was my age or younger, the bassist seemed to be local and was probably late 40s, the alto sax player was probably 70 and in all black and the sometimes there, sometimes not rhythm guitar/drummer was maybe late 30's. And not French. Weird mix. But great music. The sangria was also FABULOUS - very fruity and not too red-winey.

Because we had slept in until 11am, we were still pumped and ready for action at 10:30pm on a Sunday night, so we wandered down to the Wharf to the Wharf Restaurant to see if we could get a table with a beautiful night view of Manly Harbour...but, much to our schagrine, we had closed down Manly at Artichoke. Oh well. Back to the house we go to watch Beaches, the number one chick flick of all time. What a way to end the day(o:

Oddities from Oz, 3rd edition

14. People who live in Sydney are called Sydney-siders

15. I had a few more, but I forgot...

16. .........nevermind

Disappointments, when the only plan is fun

One big thing I learned from this particular trip was how to deal with disappointments in scheduling, especially when making plans on the fly. For the majority of my vacationing career, my mom planned our vacations down to the hour, it seemed. We'd have a pre-planned driving route, most of our hotel reservations made, and a good sense of the various places and tourist attractions we'd be stopping at along the way.

However.

Backpacking doesn't really work that way. The best plan you can make is to get your air plane ticket, read a bunch of books about the place you'll be visiting, pick someplace to start and have a good attitude. Seriously, I'd been in Australia for about 4 days before I really even knew where Ash and I would be spending most of our time. We did all of our activity arrangements through a place called Budget Oz Travel, one of the maaaaany travel agencies geared towards backpackers, meaning they specialize in getting you the cheapest price for whatever you're wanting to do. These places are also great resources for first-time backpackers, and can let you know when prices for various services are good, average, or really high.

So, for about $900 each, Ash and I got ourselves on-off bus tickets from Sydney to Cairns, 2 nights in hostels, a 3 day, 2 night boat trip on the Whitsundays, and a 3 day, 2 night self-guided 4WD tour of Fraser Island...Not too shabby. We just had to fork in extra money for a few other hostels, food and other funzies along the way. However, when planning with Lauren, our helpful travel agent at Budget Oz, she left us several days at the end of our trip to plan whatever we wanted. She recommended talking to other backpackers and getting some of their recommendations as for what we should do up in Queensland...And she also recommended that we wait to get our airline tickets back to Sydney until just before we left, as ticket prices were sure to go down...

With those last couple of days on our backpacking extravaganza, Ash and I decided to take the overnight bus up to Cairns, rent a car and drive into the Tablelands for 2 nights (which, by the way, no backpackers recommended to us...we just decided to go...), then drive to Port Douglas, be there for the Sunday markets. We'd then catch planes on Sunday night, me to Alice Springs to do a really fast, one day tour of Ulururu, and Ash back home to start her work week. That plan worked until we got into the Tablelands and we decided it would be a good idea to buy our plane tickets (this was Thursday afternoon and we were hoping to fly on Sunday night). Well, the prices fairy was not on our side of the planet that day - all the airline tickets were double what we were expecting, especially for a one-way ticket. We quickly realize that we'd have to cut our trip short by a day, cancel our second night in our ultra-amazing spa hotel and I would definitely not be going out to Ulururu.

Now, I know my own process for dealing with disappointment is to be really, REALLY disappointed for about 30 minutes, and then I'll end up figuring out all these cheesy positives for why it's a good thing I've been disappointed. Ash's way of dealing with disappointment was similar, which was definitely a good thing, and roughly 1.5 hours after figuring out that all our perfectly laid-out plans weren't going to work out, we were happily on our way to plan B...or by that time in the trip, plan D or E.

All in all, I have to say that I actually really enjoy this manner of traveling - it's a lot less hectic time of planning prior to when you leave your home, and you have more of an opportunity to talk to other travelers and get their opinion for where you should go, and where you should avoid. It's honestly more relaxing, I think, because you can discover and explore new things about where you are traveling at a more manageable pace.

However.

I would never, EVER travel this way with kids under the age of 13. Period.

God bless parents who travel with children.

Port Douglas & Mangrove Mucking

Map of Aboriginal Australia




Map of Aboriginal Upper North Tropical Queensland

Australia is a country of extremes. It took Ash and I about 30 minutes of driving on the windiest road ever to get from rolling hinterland to the beach. From crazy red dirt to pure white sand.

But before we did that, we stopped at a roadside stand called “The Humpy.” Oddly named, the Humpy seemed to be the Tablelands’ sole provider of organic canned goods and fresh veggies. And lots of hot nuts. Weird name + organic food = worthy pit stop.

Port Douglas had been hyped up to be a ritzy little town, where it was advertised you might rub elbows with celebrities (who cares) while soaking up the tropical sun (I definitely care). Well…P. Douggie ain’t quite that ritzy, but it is cute, and the beach ain’t that great, but the marina was beautiful. Whatever – Ash and I made the most of our afternoon there, picking out an Aboriginal tour over cocktails (Ash ordered a Drunken Cane Toad…so guuuud), wandering the shops, drinking the better half a bottle of wine in the backseat of our rental, meeting some crazy locals and sipping a coffee at the coolest coffee bar/internet café I’ve ever been too. It was here that Ash and I determined the difference between vacation or holiday and traveling.

Vacation is an escape from the daily rhythm of life, a chance for people to pull away and chill out. Travel, on the other hand, throws you into another culture’s daily rhythms, forcing the traveler to adapt themselves to their new environment and engage with what’s going on around them. I have to admit, our travels hadn’t quite lived up to the image I had going in my mind. When Ash talked about driving up the Gold Coast, I envisioned us driving along sunlit coastal highways in a rented, speedy convertible, dressed in cute sundresses and sleeping in bungalows just off the beach…HA. Maybe in summertime and maybe if we were both made of money…Anyway, this new realization helped me discover how important it is to have both in your life. Everyone needs vacation, definitely more often than they need to travel, but I also think everyone should really travel at least once in their life. Good travel stretches you; good vacation rejuvenates you.

Saturday morning, we roused ourselves early, after re-packing our bags yet again, and headed up to Cooey Beach for an Aboriginal tour. One of my top 10 things to do to learn more about the Aboriginal traditions. Little did I know that within Australia, before the English came in the late 1700s, there were over 1000 different language groups (think of it like the numerous nations of American Indians) spread out all over Australia. Even though the current government lumps the all indigenous people into two groups, Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander, the cultures of each language group are completely unique. We also had a hard time finding any indigenous cultural activities to do – and most of the activities we did find were kind of glitzy and based around the ceremonial activities. Ash and I were more interested in learning about the everyday lifestyle of a typical family, and boy did we find some unusual everyday lifestyle (at least in comparison to what’s everyday for us…)

Our guides were named Linc & Brandon Walker, of the Kuku-yalanji tribe, a coastal people that lived off the mangrove forests along the coastline, north of present-day Cairns. The tour wasn’t really a “tour” per say, as much as it was Ash and I following alongside the brothers on their daily routine. Both boys attended college, but after working for several years decided that they wanted to readopt the lifestyle of their ancestors. Everyday, they go out and hunt for their families’ food, along the coastline and up the Daintree River. Ash and I learned a lot about current government policy with the Aboriginal groups from the brothers. It seems like the history of treatment of the Aboriginals is quite similar to the treatment of the American Indians. A lot of coastline in Queensland has recently been protected from commercial fishing, to allow the native peoples an opportunity to fish like their ancestors would have. However, those protections have really hurt the families that depend upon the commercial fishing industry for a living. It seemed that every decision is a double-edged sword in some way…

Apparently crocodiles come into the mangroves to hunt for prey, and our guide, Linc, kept trying to assure us that we wouldn’t personally be attacked by a croc. Luckily, Ash and I were completely ignorant to that fact, so we just kept laughing to ourselves when he would remind us every few minutes that the crocs wouldn’t get us. Even when we were knee-deep in murky, clay water, right in the depth of the mangrove swamps, our biggest concern was not tripping on the knots of mangrove roots…

After this tour, Ash and I are fairly certain that if our families were dependant upon us hunting for food, we’d have VERY slender children…

Here’s what we did on the tour:
1. Licked the butt of a green ant. When you do that, the ant shoots something like a cold medicine out its butt, onto the tongue…I still can’t believe I did that…
2. Learned to throw a spear. Even though we were terrible at this, Ash did manage to spear us a crab for lunch
3. Harvested snails off the roots of the mangrove trees. If the shells are yellow on the underside, they’re good to eat, if they are orange that means they feed off a different kind of algae and will give you the runs if you eat too many…we placed all the orange ones back on the mangrove roots…
4. Looked for oysters. Looked and looked and looked and found empty oyster shells, but none that had a living oyster in them. Linc told us b/c we weren’t finding a lot of oysters, that mean a crab had been in the same area recently and eaten them before we got there…oh well. Linc & Brandon had been up in the Daintree River the day before and had harvested some freshwater oysters for us to try.
5. Played the didgeridoo. You flap your lips, and then hum through your throat…Sounds easy…and it is, for about 5 seconds before you realize you have to breath and the sound stops.
6. Linc’s favorite phrase was “easy.” Throwing the spear, “easy.” Ash chasing the crab through thigh-high deep water, “easy.” Playing the didgeridoo, “easy.” Feeding a family of 10 by hunting every day, “easy.”
7. Found a ripe coconut – you’ve got to shake them and listen for the milk sloshing around. Ash and I actually picked out a slightly fermented coconut…oops. Alcohol kills the germs, right?
8. Ate my first oyster, with homemade chili oil & lime juice….spicy, but good!
9. Ate the crab Ash speared about 1.5 hours after it was caught. The most incredible seafood flavor I’ve ever experienced.

After the tour, we headed over to their father’s house and they showed us all the kinds of boomerangs they use to hunt water birds and small land animals. They also told us some of their family heritage – their father was a member of the Stolen Generation, a whole generation of Aboriginals that was taken from their families in the 1940’s and educated on various Christian Missions all over Australia. Most members of the stolen generation don’t know their families today and if they have their own, struggle with alcoholism and abuse. It was obvious that Linc & Brandon’s father had overcome quite a lot and was very proud of how his children were carrying on their ancestral heritage. The family had even been to NYC to show some of their artwork and give a talk on their way of life. It was a real honor to follow this family and learn how much closer to the land they live, and how much more at peace they seem on the whole.

Oddities from Oz, 2nd edition

8. Ash and I had differing views about the best way to carry our stuff from place to place. I thought it would be best to load my suitcase that didn't have wheels onto her suitcase, that did have wheels, so that we could trade off the weight. That idea would have been perfect, had the my suitcase not slipped off the top of her suitcase every 10 feet as we walk through various towns along the coast. The differences came up when I kept insisting that this system would work if Ash would just walk a little slower and took inclines at a direct 90 degree angle. Ash didn't think it would work and told me she would carry both my suitcase and her suitcase, but separately. Of course, I would have none of that, and it all came to a head in Cairns, our last day of backpacking and we're arguing in front of the Budget Car Rental about how to get our bags to the nearest bar for our last beer of the trip....

9. More about the bags....we packed and repacked our bags constantly. Probably every other day, we were repacking our bags in some kind of embarassing scenario: in the park, at the lagoon in Airlie Beach, outside the Budget Car rental in Cairns, on the ferry toward Syndey, at the bus stop at Byron Bay...

10. Every beach town in Australia has a street name "The Esplandade."

11. The Wicked tour company rents out vans to backpackers and they are everywhere along the Gold & Sunshine coast. Each van has a unique paint job, with some kind of dirty joke regarding sex

12. Raisons are called sultanas

13. Alcohol is really expensive in Australia, especially when you go out to a bar or to eat in a restaurant. Therefore, they've instated a "BYO" system in most restaurants, where you can bring in your own bottle of wine that you buy cheaper at a bottle shop. Generally the restaurant will charge a corking fee of $2.50 per bottle, which is way less expensive than a $7.00 glass of wine.

Reef to Rainforest

The best aspect of traveling to visit friends is that they are a free wealth of knowledge of all sorts of local haunts and off-the-beaten track gems the average traveler wouldn’t be aware of. Ash and I found out about the North Tropical Queensland Tablelands area from a friend of hers at work and he said that anyone who gets that far north in Queensland shouldn’t miss out on the waterfalls in the area. Ash and I decided that we should pursue a well-rounded exploration of Queensland, which meant venturing off the coastland and into the wild unknown, aka “the bush.”

Before my arrival to Australia, I didn’t know that there was any difference between “the bush” and “the outback,” but oh, is there ever! You can think of these definitions like concentric circles: inner ring is metro area, next ring is the bush and waaaaaaaaaaay far away is this expansive ring that is the outback. In the bush, one might encounter another human being, and lots of cows. And the occasional small town. In the outback, however, is apparently desolate. Full of tumbleweed and a few exuberant kangaroos. And maybe 1 of Australia’s 10 poisonous animals that will do you in.

Ash and I made it to the bush – the NTQ area is quite lush and diverse foliage-wise. After an overnight bus ride from Airlie Bay to Cairns, which dumped us out on a city street a hair too early in the morning – 6am. After breakfast and the dozenth “mukkah,” we set off to find a car rental agency to being our trek into the hinterlands. (Another synonym for the bush. I think. We kept seeing that word everywhere – signs, road maps, postcards. It must be legit.) By 8am, we were rolling out of Cairns, following the Reef to Rainforest route. In a short, 2 hour drive, we moved from tropical coastland, through dense rainforest, into a mix of rain & deciduous forest, and finally into the rolling Tablelands. The vastness of the views is hard to describe – the rows of hills stretching out as far as the eye could see, yet at the same time seemingly close enough to trip on. Which I did…

Now, I am a girl who enjoys saving money and generally have to think for a couple of hours about buying anything over 5 bucks. Therefore, I thoroughly enjoyed how cheap our hostel accommodations were and how inexpensive our bus tickets were for the distances we traveled. Ash and I even became quite fond of our 80 cent Ramen noodle dinners that we could whip up in about 5 minutes. Thrifty & delicious! However, Ash and I can also do luxury really well. And after enduring 3 separate overnight Greyhound trips, one rather scary 12 hour daylight Greyhound trip, walking in the rain through a pretty dead little coastal town, camping on a very damp & windy island, staying in all manner of interestingly scented hostels and gone unshowered on a sailboat for three day… Let’s just say that we were quite ripe and ready for an unshared bathroom and something other than raison toast for breakfast. As much as we had embraced backpacker culture for over 10 days now, living out of our very poorly packed suitcases, by the time we got to Yungaburra, we were ready for some luxury…

Anyone who ever decides to visit the Queensland Tablelands NEEDS to stay in one of the renowned bed & breakfasts. Everywhere we drove, we passed dozens of B&B’s, spas, retreat centers, etc. Our B&B was actually a spa center as well, and the whole complex exuded peacefulness and rejuvenation. We had a little villa of our own, complete with outdoor seating area, HUGE bathroom, gas stove, kitchenette, table & chairs, couch and the world’s softest mattress ever. Ugh, it pained me to the core to leave that mattress. And get this – there wasn’t any glass on some of the windows, just wooden plantation shutters. We are in the tropics now, baby! And we had these absolutely deliciously soft robes to wear at our leisure. And included in the price was a hot breakfast that was so good…And why did I leave this place again???

Within the Tablelands area, the towns are quaint (= small, rustic, sparse, stereotypically small Australia) and as an American used to measuring distances with miles, really close together. We covered lots of territory in just 1.5 days of driving. And we saw a TON. The Crater Lakes, the Milla Milla waterfall district, the platypus nesting area (sadly, no we platypus swimming around, available for photos…), full exploration of the towns of Yungaburra, Atherton, Milanda, Milla Milla, tasting of mango wine, etc. etc.

Fish are food, not friends

Luuuuke, I am your faaatherrrr

The snorkel mask is probably the most awkward-looking piece of sporting equipment: when properly positioned, it smashes in the upper lip, forcing the mouth into a fat-fish sort of arrangement, and then the suction of the make pulls the skin around the eyes taunt, forcing oval eyes into a temporary Asian position. And then the breathing tube…that pushes fat-fish mouth into fat-fish-lip mouth. And then when the mask and snorkel are removed, you’ve got a lovely red suction line to remind you of your trip for the next several hours. Attractive. Even the adverts hawking the glories of the Barrier Reef, with the bikini & speedo-clad tourists can’t make the models’ faces look normal with that mask on. And then there is the sound of air rushing in and out of the breathing tube. I ended messed around with various movie quotes where a breathy, windy tone of voice was used. Pretty entertaining when you’ve got a lot swim ahead of you and the water is what the Aussies call “fuckin’ cold, mate.” It’s also pretty entertaining to hear yourself burp through a snorkel…not that I did that, Mom.

The views were worth it, though(o: Ash and I snorkeled at three different locations along the Inner Reef, where the Whitsunday Island Archipelago is located. (I know using the word archipelago is absolutely pretentious, but I actually know what the word means and there are very few opportunities in my life where I can use it. Archipelago means “grouping of islands.”) We snorkeled Maureen’s Cove, aka Butterfly Beach, Pearl Bay, nicknamed the fish bowl, and then…Whale Bay? I don’t remember the name of the first stop.

Let’s just get it out in the open that I was absolutely petrified of actually getting in the water to see the Great Barrier Reef. That’s because I have two great fears in life: the dark and depth. Ash and I were fully aware that our particular boating trip was labeled “Eco,” which meant we’d be doing lots of bush-walking on the islands and more importantly, snorkeling. I’ll admit that I hadn’t fully gripped the reality that I would actually be snorkeling, in a wetsuit, in the water. With that attractive mask. Even paying my $15 extra bucks for the wetsuit (stinger suit, or wettie) didn’t help reality set in that I was actually going to get in the water. Looking back, I don’t really know what I was thinking…Like, would I just put the wetsuit on for fun and catch some rays? That’d make for fetching tan lines. No, reality for me didn’t set in until I had my wetsuit zipped up fully, mask spittled on and smashing my face, my flippers making me walk like a stork over the deck towards the swimming ladder. That’s when reality hit. And I hit reality, at a refreshing 55º F. The impact of hitting the water knocked the breath out of my body and it took me a couple of minutes of flailing around before I steadied myself enough to put my face in the water. Later on, Ash told me that I had a deer-in-headlights look about me once I surfaced…that didn’t go away for about 20 minutes. All I have to say is that it was cold, it was my first time snorkeling and I realized I needed to pee, but didn’t want to: a) pee through my wetsuit (gross) and b) didn’t know if human pee would attract sharks. I swear, I was looking out for everyone else who was snorkeling with us.

However, I’ll also proudly say that I didn’t ever consider not snorkeling…And surprisingly enough to me, even though I was scared witless (obviously) the whole time in the water (think about it: 100s of fish, swimming directly for YOUR face didn’t make me feel more comfortable in the water.), there was really no where else I wanted to be in those moments. Go figure. I wasn’t brokenhearted about getting out of the water though.

The coral was incredible – the diversity of the reef is shocking, really. I’ve never been anywhere else in the world where I could see literally dozens of different types of organisms crammed into such a tiny area. Wow. And the colors! Above the water, the coral looks like a shadow against the blueness of the water, but as soon as you put your face beneath the waterline, it’s like looking into a fragmented rainbow of textures. WOW. I loved the coral.
I didn’t love the fish.

Fish are food, not friends.

Oddities from Oz, 1st edition

This will be a recurring entry, a list of sorts, of all the idiosyncrasies within Aussie culture that I've picked up on and various memories from the trip that don't really fit into any other entry...

1. Aussies adore abbreviations. It's like they're so chilled out that they don't even care to finish the full name of what they're talking about. And they especially love it when they can plaster and "ie" onto the abbreviation:
Schoolies = swim school races
Brizzie = Brisbane
Sunnies = sunglasses
Eski = Eskimo cooler

2. Peeing on the beach front on Fraser Island at 6:30am...And realizing that there are 3 cars of people within plain sight of the process....it's their own fault if they got uncomfortable...I tried to hide behind the dune...

3. No one says good bye here: just a friendly "see you later." And they sound like they mean it.

4. Generally, you're greated with a "how ya going?," in place of a "hello."

5. Heat. Aussie don't believe in heating the insides of their houses. Ash says it's because they're in denial of the fact that they actually experience winter for 3 months, because the other 9 months of the year are so warm you don't need any heat....Therefore, it's often colder inside the houses than it is outside.

6. Australian toilets flush with and incredible gusto.

7. The crosswalk alerts sound like ray guns when they beep to let you know it's safe to cross the street.

Stereotypes in Paradise

Even though I had to share a communal snorkel set with you know, the 200 other Whitsunday travelers that have used that set before me, I'm pretty sure that sailing the Whitsundays has been the highlight of my trip to Australia. The last time I was in the tropics (I consider the tropics the areas between the tropics of Capricorn & Cancer), I was 8 years old and unbelievably jet-lagged in Hawaii. I slept most of the time, and the rest of it I spent eating fruit.

So when I arrived to the Airlie Marina on Monday morning bright and early, well-rested and laden with a box of wine, a bag of clothes and a beach towel, and saw all the freaking huge boats that we might be sailing on, I knew I was done for...Miraculously, Ash and I made it to the marina early and had a chance to take in all the huge boats - we're talking multi-million dollar yachts that are 10 time bigger than my apartment, that come outfitted with jet-skis, a dingy, diving platform and enough decks for everyone on board to have a private sunbathing area. Therefore, when our boat crew arrived to bring us down to our boat, we had pretty high hopes for what we'd be calling home for the next 3 days. We walked down the ramp into the floating dock past rows and rows of beautiful, shiny boats...and kept walking, and walking....and walking....until we stopped in front of the smallest boat on the docking lane, with the least shiny paint job and the most unglamorous name. Welcome aboard the Enid...

At first glance, the Enid didn't look like she could hold more than about 2 people comfortably for more than about 3 hours, but here we were, 17 people total, preparing to share an insanely small amount of space for 3 DAYS. However, there were places to cram things and people all over that boat. Everyone on board had a bed, albeit you woke up staring into the faces of your 7 newest best friends every morning. Everyone on board also had plenty of room to spread out on the deck as well. We even had two bathrooms, the smallest kitchen I've ever seen, and a separate crew's hold underneath her deck.

Each day we snorkeled, sunbathed (sometimes covered head to toe in blankets), star-gazed, bush-walked, watched for whales, turtles and dolphins, and in Ash and I's case, drank several cups of red wine each night...not too shabby for a little 23 foot timber sailing boat.

Anyway, on to the stereotypes:

Tom, our skipper was the picture of a seasoned seaman. Portly with a very capital, bolded P, frizzy white hair that was permanently blown into a Crusty the Clown type do, big blue eyes and a wry sense of humor and a very, VERY interesting history...He'd been to college and gotten a master's degree in astrological navigation (or something like that....he can tell exactly where he is by looking at the stars and doing a few calculations...), but before that he was a chef and somewhere in there had a few kids...The only thing missing from the image was a flask. However, the law is so strict in Australia for commerical captains and alcohol consumption that he'd probably lose his job just having a dry flask on board the vessel

Lindsay. The first mate, and stereotypical young, sexy Aussie dude. No lie, every time he popped his head above deck, all the ladies' eyes, directly to him. Or if he hopped around the deck to hoist the sales, ladies' eyes, on him. Or jumped into the dingy to bring us to shore, ladies' eyes, on him. When he was explaining the various techniques for snorkeling, all the ladies just started smiling lazily. And even more so when he wore his aviators. Hilarious. Ash and I determined that his one major flaw was his unbelievably random sense of humor....that wasn't humor, just more of a blurting out random facts about unrelated topics.

And Ashley, our hostess. She did all the cooking for us, in the tiniest kitchen I've ever stood in. All you had to do was pivot and you were instantly in front of the stove/oven, sink or counter. Take one step to your right and there's the fridge. Lean a little to your left and you could get a slight breeze over your forehead through the hatch above you.

The pact

Here's a list of the contents of my grocery basket from this evening:

3 Bueno Bars
1 minty bar
1 family pack of Violet Crumbles
1 family pack of Picnics
1 pack of Starburst Babies
creamed honey

MMMMM, candy bars taste so much better in Australia. Maybe it's got something to do with the salty air...

Each time Ash came back to the States from visiting her family, she always brought back really interesting candy....Tim Tams, Violet Crumble, Allen Mints, Mint Slices, Sugar Babies, Picnics, Bounty Bars....and the most incredible assortment of Cadbury chocolate bars I've ever seen.

I decided that part of my Aussie "cultural education" would be to try a new kind of candy every few days, beyond the kinds I've mooched from Ash over the years. Of all the types I've tried, my new fav are Bueno Bars....oooooooooh. Heaven encased in a chocolate stick. They are so freakin' good. I'm going have to ration them when I get home...

accomodations

My friend Courtney was backpacking on the east coast of Australia earlier this summer and she very aptly described hostels a summer camp for 20-30 year olds. Seriously, nearly everyone we've met at hostels have been under the age of 23, hail from somewhere in the EU or Great Britain. Hostel life revolves around 3 spaces: the community kitchen, the community bathrooms and the overprices community internet cafes. Ash and I are newbie backpackers, in that we are not at all packed well (we are traveling with approximately 8 bags of various sizes and shapes...) and take ourselves out for one meal a day - breakfast. And we have a bit different standards for when it's inappropriate to wear your dirty clothes just one more time.

And all hostels are not created equal. We quickly realized that all hostels involved with YHA - Youth Hostel Australia - were a safe choice. These hostels don't smell, have relatively clean bathrooms and provide decent kitchen areas. I would recommend that anyone who backpacks Australia to only stay at YHA. Good bang for the buck.

The hostel in Byron Bay: BYRON BACKPACKERS': Deceptively clean, well-fragranced and well-located. Should have known better than to set this place as our standard for all future hostels....

The hostel in Airlie Beach: MAGNUM'S: Beautiful and "cheap." They surcharge for everything. Even a blanket. But it's really pretty.

The hostel in Hervey Bay: PALACE BACKPACKERS': Damp and dreary. Cleanliness of kitchen utensils questionable. Don't look too hard at the floors and try not to smell anything.

The hostel in Port Douglas: PORT O' CALL: Well decorated. Not expensive. Very clean. Friendly reception. Staying here on my last night of backpacking leaves me with a fond impression of hosteling. In fact, I'd like to backpack again.







Confession: Ash and I spoiled ourselves and stayed at the Eden Guest Villas and Spa for one night in Yungaburra. ABSOLUTELY beautiful room, with private garden area, fireplace, kitchenette, private bathroom and deeeeeliciously soft mattress. And complimentary soft robes.... I don't even want to do the math for the number of nights we could have stayed in hostels for the price of one night in this perfection of a room. It doesn't matter - I will come back there anytime just to sleep on that mattress and lay around in that robe....so good. I'm such a backpacker cop-out. And don't even care...

paper bags

Ever heard of someone who is described as not being able to find their way out of a paper bag? Well, I have always prided myself on being able to find my way around a place, if I was provided with a decent map. I mean, I've been in Manly for essentially less than 7 days total and when driving at night, I get less turned around than Ash. I can't really vocally tell people directions, but I can definitely follow them.

So, when faced with a self-guided tour of Fraser Island (All previous spellings of the island's name on this blog are incorrect. In case you care.), where each group is provided with a map, detailed itinerary and lots of enthusiasm, I figured our group would be fine. Day one of the island exploration went fairly smoothly, aside from various members of the group questioning the other members of the group on their directional skills...I mean, we did find ourselves a sweet camping spot, right on the beach and protected by a sand dune. Day two would be just fine.

We woke up with the dawn, after a fitful night's sleep and I began producing my one contribution to the group - a hot pancake breakfast. Cooking pancakes on a dirty griddle, on a sandy beach at 6:30 in the morning made for some pretty interesting tasting cakes. Luckily I had the foresight to get chocolate chips: chocolate covers all manner of sins, including the stray sand grains or 10,000. As I cooked, the rest of our group packed up camp and we were ready to start driving on the beach by 7:30. Using our map, and fabulous navigational skills, we drove north, right on the beach, towards a large shipwreck from the 1930's called the Maneho. The boat has been pummeled by the surf for over 80 years, and between the salt and the pounding waves, there isn't much left of the boat. From there we hit up the Painted Sands and a really beautiful freshwater creek that flows right into the ocean. Now, here's where the day goes a little awry. In my lack of caffeine fog, I didn't realize the group had decided to adapt our travel itinerary. Instead of driving back down the beach towards beautiful Lake MacKenzie, we drive straight into the island to take the "blue route" marked on our map. However, our map was good for about....toilet paper, and we never actually found the "blue route." Nor did we find any other the other "roads" that were supposedly marked on the map. After driving around for about an hour, and back-tracking several times, we soon realized that we were adventuring onto roads that hadn't seen a lot of use due to the number of times we all had to jump out of the car to push various trees and branches out of the way.

We soon realized how lost we were and happened upon a group of local fishermen whose comment to us was, "We haven't seen backpackers on this side of the island in years..." They told us to take the Northern Road south towards Central Station and that would put us right out at Lake MacKenzie. "Goodie," we thought, "we're well on our way to the Lake." Well, the Northern Road had seen even less use than these other little roads we'd been driving, and we were hopping out of the car every 5 minutes to move trees out of the way. We were growing more and more confident of our ability to get ourselves past any roadblock, until we came across a freaking FOREST in the road. None of our pulling, pushing and wacking with our miniature hatchet on these huge trees were going to move anything. The boys were quite determined to get us through this roadblock, as we were quickly realizing that we were not only going to miss the Lake, but we were in danger of missing our ferry back to Hervey Bay. And the tide was coming up on the east side of the island...we were actually, quite possibily going to be stranded on this island.

What's group of 20 somethings to do at this juncture? Curse profusely, continue wacking at the trees with the miniature hatchet and squint at the map some more. We've got no cell phones and are facing the reality of having to camp another night on the island....Right at this moment, a French couple show up in a miniature SUV, along with 4 BMX bikers, who drive themselves right over the fallen forest. The bikers advice to us is to yet again backtrack back towards Happy Valley, and figure out what to do there. The boys wack a few more times at the trees, while the girls officially decide that we're heading to Happy Valley, Damn it and we're going to get ourselves the hell off this island. By this point, everyone's nerves are a little shot, I'm sporting a rip-roaring headache, and we're all just wanting to make sure we get on our busses that night.

The long story short: we found ourselves another way off the island, hopped a commerical ferry back to Hervey Bay (We weren't supposed to be on that ferry. Oops. The first mate kept calling for the driver of the lost backpackers car to please come to the "bar" for a drink. Note: there is no bar on this ferry. Hilarious....)

Ash and I not only made it back into our hostel in time to catch our bus up to Airlie Beach, but we even had time to take a shower, and re-pack our bags. Again.

Bump! Puddle! And the stars....

What do two pessimisstic British boys, two adventurous Dutch girls, one Canadian girl who makes American girls look great to foreigners, and two well-humored American girls have in common??? Why, they all shared a 4WD vehicle on the famed Fraser Island World Heritage sight, of course! We were all so different in some really hilarious and frustrating ways (depended upon the given moment of the trip...), but we actually ended up being a pretty well-balanced group of strangers forced together into one very small car for 36 hours. Tim & Jonnie, our friends from the motherland were definitely the comic relief of the trip, adding their dry banter to every experience. Marleis, and her sister Annaleis were able to joke (& emphatically curse at all the appropriate places) about the ridiculous situations we found ourselves in throughout the trip. Tasha just made Ash and I look good. And Ash and I rounded out the trip with our level-headedness, our sense of adventure and our audacity of finding the bright side of every situation. And to eat at every available moment.

Our Fraser Island trip had already been postponed for a day, due to the fact that the day before we were supposed to leave, another LandRover from our tour company had flipped their vehicle and the owner of the company had spent the entire day sorting out that mess. There were also gail-force winds blowing on the island, as well as on the mainland and the rain hadn't stopped since it started two days prior. We all met for a briefing session at the hostel, where we watched videos on how to 4WD in the sand, how to be "dingo safe" and how to generally keep yourselves and your belongings safe on the island. We then proceeded to grocery shop for the trip, upon which the Brits just amically said "YES!" to whatever food item was suggested, the Canadian reminded us that she was vegitarian and the Dutch and Americans actually filled the cart with a decent spread of food.

Redezvousing the next morning, with the blue skies on our side, we packed up our very clean LandRover with overhead storage compartment, and set out for a fun-filled 4WD adventure. After all the rain we had, and the disappointment of spending waaaaaaaaaay too much time in a town that had absolutely nothing to do (seriously, Ash and I thought that all the people in our hostel didn't know how to find fun things to do...no. They were really right. Hervey Bay is only a gateway to Fraser Island. And is NOT accessible by walking. In the pouring down rain. And the whole town had sold out of rain ponchos.), we seriously thought we were in for a very low-key 4WD adventure....

Our first day went smoothly - I drove manual on the island, on the right side of the car and the right side of the road, through some pretty crazy turns and down some very steep, sandy inclines (all of Fraser Island is made out of sand....Rain forests have taken root there, but there is absolutely no soil anywhere...), we walked through a beautiful rainforest creek, climbed and jumped around on sand dunes, spashed through tons of puddles left over from the days of rain, and bumped our way to our beachfront camping sight. The Brits had fun "setting up home" for us, and after looking at the most incredibly "pumping surf" <--Aussie phrase, we made dinner, and settled in for a good night on the beach.

I'm going to have to sign off this post, but I'll leave you with this: Day two of the trip did NOT go as according to plan (we go to know 4 roads on the Island really well, and true to fashion, Ash and I almost had to readjust our travel plans due to being late....). But I saw the Milky Way galaxy like I've seen it in satellite photos. And I've learned how to face up to some pretty daughting situations with good humor and long-term perspective....

Love you all - I'll post more after I'm back from snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef!!!

Fight Aggressively

Fraser Island: Location of Ash & I's knock-down, drag-out of the trip. Advised to "fight aggressively" when attacked, we took that advice to heart, ripped each other to shreds, after she revealed that she totally didn't like me, was unsure of why she was even friends with me, resented me for coming and stealing all her holiday time from work and then called me a dork....

Ha. Fraser Island is actually one of the few locations in Australia where dingos have not inbred with other dogs - they are pure-bred, wild dogs. Unsupervised children have been mauled by dingos, and the animal is one of several species of non-humans that make Australia one of the most dangerous places to live....other species include snakes, jellyfish, plants and bugs. Basically, anyplace you step and are not instantly killed, you're lucky to have lived another day in Australia. Just kidding...sort of.

Anyway, all the literature Ash and I read about Fraser Island, and the info video our 4WD tour group had to watch before we left included lots of advice for how to fend off dingos: At first, when noticing the offending dingo, do not move. However, if attacked, fight agressively. We kept seeing that phrase everywhere and applying it to other life situations: when unwantingly attacked by offending sex at the bar, fight aggressivly. When someone steals the only clean water cup right from under your fingertips, fight aggressivly. When faced with a felled forest in the middle of the only road to the only location on the island you want to see, fight aggressively, with an ax...

perhaps that's my new life motto.....

Working backwards & inebriation

SO much has transpired since I posted last. Unbelievable amounts. It's been almost a week since a serious "what I've been doing in Australia" post. I fully realize I'm long overdue. It's currently Sunday night, and I was deliciously unaware of the date and what day it was for the last several days. Something about vacation and lots of absolutely crazy travel will do that to you.

I've commisserated with Ash, my ab fab (absolutely fabulous) travel bud about the best way to share what we've experienced and lived to the full in the last few days. We both decided that subject matter, versus a day-by-day account would be best.

So, there are two people in the world that I feel absolutely safe with when I am inebriated: Ashley M. Curl & Charlie R. Nesmith. Lucky for Charlie, at my present state, I am with the afore-mentioned Ashley M. Curl. We arrived in Airlie Beach (pronounced "early" beach) this morning, after another overnight bus ride. We soon realized, quite to our dismay, that our first Greyhouse Australia experience was not typical - we were able to choose our own seats, wherever we wanted. Since our busride from Brisbane to Hervey Bay, Greyhound had not only dictated where we stopped for eats and when we got to poo, but also dictated where we sat, and who we sat with. (Everyone knows that the sole cardinal rule of riding a bus is that one never, EVER poos on a bus toilet. Right? Everyone that I know at least knows now. DON'T DO IT!) Anyway, our bus ride from Hervey Bay to Airlie Beach was particularly stressful due to the fact that TONS of people were migrating north from HB to AB, and all of them had the presence of mind to travel at night. So, in true high school fashion, as if we had been seperated for being too talkative (Shelly, you know how this feels), Ash and I passed notes to each other about the passengers behind us (Very sketch guy talking to very, Very unaware Canadienne girls) and the rather dismal state our travel had turned to. No longer could we drool on each others shoulder, nor could she lay all over my lap while I shifted positions all night long....oh no. All we could do was stare mournfully into each others eyes as we woke up this morning with oddly stiff bodies.

Thusly, we decided that after the craziness of the last three days for us, that we deserved a freakin' break, man. Arriving in Airlie meant that we legit arrived in the tropics. Our overnight bus ride brought us over the Tropic of Capricorn, which I take to mean TROPICS BABY! And it's warm - Ash and I laid out in our bathings suits all stinkin' day. I finished a book and she starting writing a book...haha(o: In her journal. Anyway, we also had a few things that we absolutely HAD to take care of: check in for our amazing boat trip through the Whitsunday Islands ("74 Islands, out of the blue"), do some laundry (we smelled so bad...ugh. I didn't even want to sit next to myself in the bus last night), and sign onto the internet. And after our Fraser Island tour, we were in serious need of a bottle of wine. So, we checked into MAGNUM backpackers resort (seriously.....how sexual can than name be???) this morning, after waiting for 10 minutes to check our bags (they only access the storage area every half hour, on the half hour - LAME, and annoying) we ate a delicious breakfast, checked in, dropped our smelly bags, changed into bathing suits and promptly spent the rest of the day marinating in the warm sun. THIS, my friends, is what I came to Australia seeking: warm weather, tropical islands and lots and lots of down time. After marinating on a beautiful, even though man-made lagoon, Ash and I completed our list of errands quickly and decided that the best night we could think of was to drink a bottle of wine down at the beach, eating chocolate and talking about life. Inebriated, after an incredibly life-giving conversation in which we discussed a correspondence pal for Ash and how unbelievably fantastic of a man my husband is, full of life, we left the beach in search of french fries and internet. So here we are. Fried in more ways than one, safe enough for my mom and husband not to worry (don't - we are in a VERY safe internet cafe attached to our hostel) and so ready to chill the heck out on the beautiful water.

As many ads have said for the Whitsundays, the world is 70% water - race you for it!

Rainy, rainy, rainy Hervey Bay

Well - Hervey Bay must be what small-town coastal Australia is like...in the rain. There's not much to do, and our lame hostel doesn't have a courtesy bus that will take us into town. Nor did they even give us a map to help us out. Ash and I are surprisingly calm, given the fact that our 4 wheel drive adventure tour into Fraiser Island has been shortened by a day, without receiving any kind of refund at all for that lost time. We're in the throws of deciding whether or not to completely ditch this area and head north, but we've already got a boat tour booked for three days that starts un Monday, that we've also already gotten the bus ride booked for. What to do!?!?!?!? Go to an internet cafe, of course!

We're probably going to take in a movie tonight, and were considering getting our haircut. The owner of the only salon we walked into to check prices happened to be on the front page of the "Hervey Bay Town Crier," giving the details of her treturous hysterectomy.....hmmm.

So: Today: We're trying to cheer up and be flexible with our ideas of what to do.....and stay dry. We miiiiight even by a poncho! We were going to go whale-watching, but it's even a little too chilly for that. Hmm. Good thing we have some books with us.

A note on the Australian dialect: I've noticed that Aussies ADORE abbreviations. Stacey Tester, Abbrev Queen, you were totally in your element here. Seriously, nearly every word or phrase that could possibly be shortened is. And often a chipper "ie" has been tacked on the end.

G'Byie!

this is costing an arm and a leg....literally

Ok, I only have time to make a list of crazy things we've seen b/c this out of the communal money pot and Ash gets 10 minutes of our $2 for 20 minutes of internet time...don't I just love traveling with a buddy...(o:

(a more serious update will come when internet is a more resonable price. and I can spell words correctly.)

-Over night bus from Sydney to Byron Bay = not great, but not bad
-Byron Bay = AMAZINGLY fun hippie city. Definitely could have spent way more time there, and bought oodles more of stuff...aren't you glad I had to leave after only a day, Charlie??(o:
-Hot Volcanic Stone Massage = absolutely incredible. Never thought that having a toasty, hot volcano stone wedged into my upper butt-crack would be relaxing and comforting, but it totally was...I HIGHLY recommend this massage to people with stiff backs. Absolutely declicious.
-Woman with feather in hair = definitely one of the most memorable experiences of dinner last night. A lady, who called all her friends "Goddess" (and didn't seem to acknowledge men) Had the best/worst laugh ever...no lie

I will have to describe it to you later - it's Ash's turn for the expensive internet!!!!

Overnight Bus ride into PARADISE

Ok seriously, I'm so digging the Australian eastcoast. I'm quickly turning into a beach girl. The scenary is so beautiful here.

Ash and I took an overnight Greyhound from Sydney to Byron Bay, where we'll stay for 2 nights, before we head up to Frasier Island Wildlife Preserve to camp for about 3 days. Then we head up to Airlie Beach to take a FREAKIN sweet 3 day 2 night boat ride into the Whitsundays Islands. From there, we're planning to head up to Cape Tribulation and spend some time in a rainforest. With koalas and kangas and lots and lots and lots of sunshine!

We just booked out hostel in Byron Bay - 100 metres from the beach, and within walking distance of all kinds of bohemian/hippie goodness. Byron Bay is like a hippie enclave on the Australian East Coast - one could liken it to Sedona, Arizona. Many places advert Tarot readings and alignment treatments. Ash and I plan to make the most of this place and maybe get some spa treatments or even a haircut. We figure a haircut includes a free shampoo and blowdry...so we actually may end up waiting for that after we get back from three days of camping the Frasier....I'm already feeling sorry for those hairdressers(o:

We'll, we need to catch the bus to our hostel, I'm signing out for the next few hours. Get excited to hear from a guest blogger quite soon!

Love to you all,
Kate

new pictures

I just uploaded pictures onto a Kodak PictureShare Gallery of the first few days that I've been in Australia. Just go to Kodak.com and search for my name: Kate Nesmith! Enjoy drooling!!!

love you all!

Opera & Sunday

I have to admit, the Sydney OH doesn't look impressive size-wise from the Harbor, especially when you see it next to the Harbor Bridge, which is enormous. However, when you get up close to it, it's really quite beautiful. And big.

The scalloped lines of the roof are I think meant to resemble the sails of the boats that pass through the Harbor each day. I had read that the roof was tiled with self-cleaning tiles (I imagined little scrubber bubbles magically appearing to whisk off any dirt), but didn't realize how small they were - only about 2 inches square. What I enjoyed most about the OH were the details: How the lines of the roof came together like a Chinese fan, and how instead of having overhead lighting in the women's bathroom, each toilet stall had an illuminated TP dispensor. Pretty sweet. We saw My Fair Lady (yes, Mom, I got a program) and saw the most incredible costumes and sets I've ever seen on a stage production. This was definitely not a low-budget affair...

On Sunday, Ash and I relaxed at the house until she had to go to work. Because she's the greatest friend ever, she arranged for her friend Nadia to come pick me up and take me to the service, since Ash couldn't take me herself. Now, I had been looking forward to attending a service at "Small Boat, Big Sea" (cool name for a church, yea?) because it's held in an art gallery. HOW AMAZING. The church is part of the emergent church movement, and is very non-traditional. I might actually say it's a contemporary worship service, where as most "contemporary services" as we know them are actually of the mid-90's era. Which was 15 years ago. Which is not contemporary. However, I digress - if you really want to know more about my thoughts on that subject, just email me. Anyway SBBS is a dynamic, small church located just outside Manly and some of the artists that exhibit and run the art gallery (called the Art Sanctuary Gallery)

Anyway, SBBS follows the "BELLS" liturgy which stands for Blessing, Eating, Listening, Learning and Symba-something or other (they pray for a specific member of the community). So within the service, the members end up eating dinner together, catching up on life, spending time in prayer alone with God and learning about Him. I really enjoyed the rhythm of the service, and even more enjoyed talking with Nadia and David about the visual arts and faith. One of the frustrating and exciting aspects of being a visual artist within the context of a Christian life is that since the split with the Catholic Church, protestant believers and churches haven't fostered the visual arts at all. I believe that as society has moved into the Post-Modern Era, with a lot of focus given to contemporary design, there has been a huge resurgence of appreciation for the arts in general culture. Unfortunately, within the culture of the American church there's been a lack of encouragement for visual artists to use their gifts for the Lord. I was particularly interested to meet Nadia and David, with the hopes of continuing a conversation with them about being a Christian and being an artist and how those two facets of life can be intertwined in a worship setting. So I have email addresses(o:

Anyway - I need to either get to bed or get up and pack, as Ash and I are heading out to the Hunter Valley Wine Country tomorrow and tomorrow evening are taking our first overnight bus ride up to Byron Bay to start our 2 week long sight-seeing tour! WOOOOOO!

new format & a pic!

The best aspect of hosting a blog on Google's Blogger is how much you can adapt your blog to your own specifications. So when I get the urge to change up the layout of my blog, the colors and the various elements, it's really, really easy. And right now, I'm relishing the fact that I brought my computer with me, because I just made all these changes to "Under where?" under nice, toasty covers, as I listen to the rain dribble on the window. Yeaaaaaaaaaaah(o:

Now, as promised, I'll pick up from where I left off about my ridiculously long walk with Travis. After walking all through the downtown area of Sydney, Travis and I met up with one of his friends from "Uni" (Aussie for college) and she convinced Travis to take the train out to where the main campus of the University of Sydney is located. Now, the train in Sydney is equivalent to the Tube in London or the Metro in DC, save one thing: the trains are double-decker and absolutely pristine. Probably due to the fact that there are "Don't put your feet up on the seats" signs everywhere - a picture of a little stick-figure man with his feet comfortably up on the seats with a very stern slash mark over it. At this point in the day, seriously, all I wanted to do was put my feet up, but Travis and his friends assured me that I would be handed a $250 fine if caught. Bugger.

After debarking the very clean train at Redfern, Travis and I walked through part of the main campus of the USyd. Earlier that day, Travis and I had been talking about how I wanted to see a rugby match and he told me a few of the more specific detail about rugby in Australia. Apparently there are two different forms of the sport, and various levels of teams play nationally and internationally. We happened to walk by a rugby league match (what I mean by "happened to walk by" is that we heard the shouting, climbed a very steep, short dirt hill full of brushy stuff that was difficult to get up without sliding back down the hill...) up onto a swath of green lawn, where a rugby game was underway. Rugby is a rough sport, with some seemingly odd rules, but is quite exciting to watch. Instead of stopping the game each time someone is tackled (without any pads, for the record) like in American football, players can pull the ball up from the tackled players and punt the ball backwards to their teammates, and keep the game going. And when the ball is thrown out of bounds, it's thrown in, and one player from each team is lifted up to collect the ball from mid-air. Based on what I saw, if a son or daughter comes home and tells me that they want to join a rugby team, I'll have to take out stocks in a Band-aid company to ensure that we have enough on hand for the daily cuts, brushes and busted up appendages.

By this point, I'm seriously dead exhausted from walking, so Travis and I sit on a bench watching a black swan and various other avian creatures wander around. From there, we decided to get some coffee before meeting up with Ash, and had a cappuccino & cookie before hopping onto a blessed bus (more "we'll fine you for actually getting comfortable" signs) back to the Circular Quay.

Back at the Quay, we listen to some sweet traditional Aboriginal music superimposed on top of electronica beats...pretty trippy. After Travis had to leave, I was getting cold and had already added as many layers to my outfit as I could, so I decided to head over to the Opera House (OH). On the way, I had fun and got frustrated taking pictures of the Harbor at night - it's beautiful, but my camera sucks at night shots. So I end up erasing nearly all the pictures I take. Oh well. At least I forgot about how cold I was.

Ok, I'm going to end this post b/c it's getting really long. And regardless of the fact that I'm just going to start another one to finish the days details.

and I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...

So I can check off the "Walk from Sydney to Perth -- and back" spot from my "What to do in Australia" check list. My feet have never been so tired. Not even after hiking Old Rag, or walking all over creation in San Fransisco or even walking through Tokyo. Oh no, nothing beats the streets of Sydney for making you crumble to your knees in foot-filled agony.

Walking forever was not how my first Saturday in Australia started, though. Ash and I started the day by going to a market that's held once a month in the Manly public school yard. The is the market where Ash has gotten some of her more incredible jewelry, so I was excited about the prospects. She did warn me though, that this market is more often used as a sort of massive community yard sale and that sometimes it's just pretty terrible. Yesterday was a mixture of incredible and terrible. Parts of the market look like the flea markets I used to frequent with my Pop-Pop and parts of it looked like the really cool artsy markets that I've been through in NYC. I didn't find anything that I wanted to come home with, so Ashley pointed me in the direction of another weekly market held on the Corso in Manly.

Now, this market hit the jackpot. I seriously could have dropped $500 in a heartbeat. However, for any of you who have been shopping with me, I absolutely cannot impulse buy anything above $10. I just can't. I have to think about the purchase for at least a few hours, and then I'll come back and buy it. Now, this tendency has gotten me into trouble in Mexico (missed out on a gorgeous pair of earrings), NYC (missed out on gorgeous, cheap clothing) and now Manly (missed out on the coolest convertible shirt thing). I looked at the shirts for a while, but decided to go down to the beach to think about it for a while (actually ended up thinking about all the seagulls that were wandering around the sand, and the millions of cute toddlers running around, EVERYWHERE.), and then wandered home to think about it some more. By the time I decided I wanted to buy the thing, I had already made plans to meet up with my friend Travis in Sydney and I did not have time to go by the market and pick it up. So then I decided that if I really love it, still at the end of the trip, that I'd go down to the market on my last Saturday and buy it. However, on that last Saturday, I'll be in Daintree National Park, in Queensland. Oops.

Anyway, after the markets, I got home, cleaned up and caught the ferry to Sydney. Now, down in Sydney, the wharf is called the Circular Quay, pronounced the "circular key." And those who pronounce it phonetically are immediately identified as foreigners, nearly always American. Mrs. Curl thankfully saved me from that embarassment and at the ticket gate, I deftly asked for a "day-tripper to the Circular Key" (That's an all day pass for ferries, busses and trains from Manly to Sydney.) By the time I arrived at the Quay, I was starving, so Travis suggested we walk over to the fish market for lunch.

"Sure," I said, the unsuspecting visitor, who picked her shoes because they matched her outfit, not because she expected to be walking a marathon through the city. The walk to the fish market was beautiful and we walked through Darling Harbor area, past Travis' old office building, past the National Meritime Museum and a number of beautiful bridges. By the time we actually got to the fish market, I was famished and getting a little tired. But, I knew a good basket of fish and chips would definitely revive me. So, I ate my fishy, fried goodness in the company of about 5000 seagulls and one very interested, unidentified avian creature. Tasty and greasy. Mmm!

Then, Travis and I were off to Hyde Park area to meet up with a friend of his from Uni (college). Now, I have a pretty decent sense of direction, so I quickly realized that not only were we completely backtracking our walking path, but that we were walking quite a bit further beyond the Quay to get to Hyde Park. Now, we happened to be walking through the main part of the city, and currently the whole of Sydney has been overrun with World Youth Day Pilgrims. So we walk through the main shopping districts, and the heart of the city to Hyde Park, where St. Mary's Catholic Church is located. Past 1000s of Pilgrims. Travis and I were discussing that we weren't sure exactly what the deal was with World Youth Day (Catholic youth convention held in various cities around the world) but that we were fairly certain it was pretty intense experience for them. I mean, the Pope has been making appearances all week. I liked Hyde Park because of the giant chess board with the 2 foot tall pieces.

Anyway, my fingers are hurting right now from typing, so I'm going to sign off now to shower, and get ready to meet one of Ash's family friends. I'll pick up the rest of the expedition later today. To entice you to check back later, the next chapter of this massive walk does include: A rugby match, a digerredo, the Sydney Opera House and My Fair Lady.

much, much better

To combat jet lag when traveling to the west, I was told it's best to just stay up the first day and not nap. That way, even if you wake up at 4 or 5 am, you're that much closer to being on a normal sleep cycle with your new locale. Whew. I never really realized just how much humans need sleep until yesterday at about 4:30pm when I thought I was going to lose my lunch (breakfast, really) from not having slept yet. I managed to stay up until 7:30 and then crashed until 6:30am this morning. Since I was well-rested, I decided to get up and watch the sunrise off the back of the Curl's back balcony. I bundled in two blankets and with a "cuppa," met the morning in a very relaxed fashion. The sunrise was very peaceful, aside from the birds that look like minature parrots, who sound like distressed babies as they call to each other (that was the sound that I woke up to this morning....rather alarming, actually). And the kukuberras....Gracie, Ash's little sister identified them to me.

Ash and I walked past Manly Beach north to Freshwater Beach area to Qi, her yoga studio and took a yoga class with Mark (sounds like Maaaak). First of all, walking past three different beaches in order to get to another little beautiful neighborhood was just...GREAT. I could totally do with a commute like that in the mornings! I didn't realize how much tension I was still carrying in my body after the trip until Maaaak had us in the royal pigeon pose and this meditating tree pose. I could really do with taking yoga regularly. The best part of the whole 1.5 hours was the 1/2 hour breathing meditation, otherwise known as a "nap." After annointing the area of our foreheads where our breathing contacted our skin with saliva, we were told to focus on our breathing and where the air hit our nostrils. My nostrils were quite relaxed, as was my jaw. (For any of you whom have had the great pleasure of me napping on your shoulder, be impressed that I didn't, I repeat DIDN'T, drool during this whole session.) After yoga, Ash and I walked back through Queenhead (I think that's the name) to a little neighborhood cafe and had pumpkin soup and an egg, bacon and tomato chutney sandwich. Ash told me that it was one of the only neighborhood cafes in Manly, as it's a fairly touristy area. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and learned some random coffee facts from a little trading card game.

Currently, I'm sitting in Budget Oz Travel, a backpackers travel agency that helps people book tours throughout Australia. Ash and I planned on planning our travels once I arrived (not at all normal for me), but now that we're here, I'm having a difficult time making decisions about what to do. I realized that travelling and exploring is a very active endeavor and in order to get the most out of my adventuring, I need to get my head in the game, so to speak. So, now that I'm feeling somewhere close to normal, I'm taking it upon myself to really dig into the rhythms of where I'm at.

At breaky, I noticed that Australian books smell different - vaguely vegan. Like....some sort of herbal supplement has been added to the binding glue, or the paper and peppers the book with a very earthy, hippy scent. Not unpleasant, just...unexpected. Also, Aussies on the whole are way ahead of Americans in terms of living "green." Australians have already gone green and have adopted sustainable practices into their daily lives. Such as: Since most fridges don't have water spickets on the doors for getting a cold glass of water, Aussies fill glass bottles with tap water and keep them in the fridge. Not only is that more economical than buying plastic bottles, but it's better for the enviro and is way more aesthetically pleasing. How smart.

In a few moments, I'm heading out to walk around Manly and get a better feel for this community. I'll head down to the Wharf, wander around some neighborhoods, check out some shops, etc.

p.s. Have also noticed that Aussies tend to abbreviate everything possible and drop identifying, personal pronouns. Rather like it. Love to you all!

p.s.

Forgot to mention that during the traveling between DC & Sydney, I completely missed Wednesday because of the time change. yeah.

19 hours, minus a Wednesday & lots of coffee

It's so surreal to be typing this sentence in Australia.....on an Australian computer that has an Australian electrical plug. I've been thinking about traveling in Oz since December 2003, when my friend Ashley moved her with her family, so having that trip actually be reality is just weird...and great(o: Since I don't have the mental energy to write a creative entry that encompasses the last 36 hours of my life just yet, I've devised the "Lady's List of Fabulous Happenings."

1. The 5 hour flight from DC to LA felt waaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than the 14 hour flight from LA to Sydney. Why??
a) Qantas Airways (Australian airline) treats even their coach passengers with respect and dignity. We were well-fed, given a goodie-bag of snacks, constantly supplied with fluids, provided a bathroom that you could actually turn around in, had a personal TV with movie channels, TV shows, music & video games, free headsets and seats that actually reclined more than 5 inches. And the wine is free!!! And you get real glass cups. However, on the American Airlines flight, I could purchase snacks for obsurd amounts of money, barely squatted in the bathroom, rent a headset for $2 to watch a poor choice in movie.
2) Aussies drive on the wrong side of the road, the roads are quite narrow and the cars are quite wide. Makes for stimulating car rides.
3) It's winter here and tomorrow is the last day of winter holidays for the students, so down at Manly beach (a short, 3 minute walk from my friend's house) all the kids are playing in the surf and many are out catching waves. In winter. (Winter temps are around 60...)
4) A large coffee here is smaller than the smallest coffee you can get at Starbucks in America.
5) Today is midway through an event called World Youth Day (note: WYD lasts 5 days....) and the Pope arrived today, so many roads were blocked off to allow for his "boatercade" to safely negotiate the harbor....yes, roads were blocked off for his boat ride....I guess if you're the Pope, you get those kinds of priveleges.
6) Aussies are a rather relaxed breed of human beings, especially those on the East Coast. This good-natured sensibility has led to the coining of several phrases that essentially mean "don't worry about it," such as "no dramas" and "no worries."
7) Ta = thank you
breaky = breakfast
arvo = afternoon
Oz = Australia
the bush = any uncultivated land
the outback = beyond the bush, definitely the wilderness
cuppa = cup of_______ (tea, coffee, cadbury chocolate)
Mukka = mocha
Coldy = cold drink, most likely a beer
"Suck down a coldy" = "drink a beer really fast after work"
8) People surf all the time here. It's not uncommon to see any age of person wandering around a shopping area in a wetsuit, carrying their surfboard.
9) Grocery stores really only carry dairy, pastas, produce and juices. Aussies still go to the bakery, the butcher, the pharmacy and beverage stores to complete their grocery shopping.
10) Homes are not heated on anywhere but the ground floor. Even though it gets quite cold here at night in winter. Like at least around 40 degrees.
11) Even the boys wear skinny jeans. And have good taste in shoes.
12) The surfing brand RipCurl was founded here.
13) Most people exercise.
14) Gas is also really expensive.
15) Manly (Sydney suburb) has it's own environmental resource office, where you can find all kinds of info about living environmentally friendly. Aussies have done it for years already.
16) Coffee tastes better...and is stronger(o:

Dinner is almost ready, and my eyeballs are permanently crossed, so I'm signing off now to eat, read about travel options for heading north (to warmer weather) and fall into bed by 8pm.

Kate

p.s. Not only have I crossed into the Eastern Hemisphere, but I have also crossed the Equator. BOOOYAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Final preps

My mother just told me she brought her knitting to a golf course. Did she swing a golf club? Did she haul a club bag around the course? Absolutely not! Instead of playing the game invented by our Scottish cousins, she knit a sweater inspired by Scottish fishermen's sweaters. (Not really, but she did knit while riding around on a golf cart.) Only my mother could make knitting on a golf course look chic and perfectly normal!

Anyway, I'm in the midst of final preparations for my trip to Australia to visit my good friend and fellow female nomad, Ashley! Ash and I lived together through most of college and are ridiculously excited about reconnecting over the next three weeks. We began planning this trip 3 years ago when her family moved to Sydney.
Final preps included:
1) Chasing down eyelash curler pads. Neither Target, nor Martin's, nor Wal-mart carry replacement eyelash curler pads. You have to buy a whole new eyelash curler unit if you want to replace the pad. Lame.
2) Mulling over what shoes to bring with me. The biggest question was whether or not the slouch stacked-heeled brown boots would make it into the suitcase. They did - regardless of whether or not I'll wear them, I just feel better with them in my bag.
3) Ensuring that I have every possible ID necessary to make sure that I can get into and out of Australia.
4) Perfecting my rendition of Men at Work's "Land Down Under." I've yet to figure out what "chunder" is....

I hope you enjoy reading about Ash & I's adventures. Check back soon for a link to my picture website!