Australian Spring Break

On the 18th of September I hopped on a bus headed North to Sydney overnight. Having left at 8:00 pm on the Thursday, I awoke at 8:00 am in Sydney's central station. After a quick train ride I arrived in King's Cross (Sydney's dirty district of night clubs, gentleman's clubs, and hostels and bars) to meet my two friends Alex and Rob. As it had been a long night for my two mates, only Alex was able to join me at Traveller's Autobarn where we drove off with what would be our home for the next two weeks. Needless to say that the first turn out of the parking lot onto the wrong side of the road was nerve racking. So Rob awoke to our glistening red Ford Falcon. It was certainly much bigger than what we had expected, and so with smiles we drove West to New South Wales's heralded Blue Mountains and their infamous Three Sisters. The view was incredible, but in truth it simply reminded us of the landscape back home. We spent the first night of our trip camping in the mountains.

The next morning we drove back to Sydney - a distance that mimicks the drive to the townships - and met Phil, our fourth companion, at central station. We then proceeded on to Byron Bay. Byron Bay is notorious in this country as a surfer's paradise, offering an oasis from the fast pace of the big cities. We made it about half of the 800 kms to Byron, taking shelter in a small town called Crescent Head. We awoke to find that we had stumbled on one of Australia's best kept secrets, realizing that we were next to a gorgeous beach surrounded by a small number of houses. So we enjoyed the morning on the beach and then got back in the car in order that we meet our fifth and final member, Eric in Byron.

Having left Melbourne Thursday, we arrived finally in Byron on Sunday. Due to a lot of rain, and a fatigue brought on by a ton of driving we decided to splurge on a hostel for the night. We did however move on to a camp site for our second night. Was actually quite nice to come home from a city bar to your very own tent! The town was picturesque, small, and contrary to what we had been told not too busy...but then we were there on Sunday and Monday nights so what can you expect.

Our next stop was the Gold Coast and Brisbane, but as we the name "Surfer's Paradise" - yes this fair sized city is actually called that - appeared on the map a stop was necessary. Seemingly out of place with its small town neighbors, the city has been overly developed around the last surfing spot before the reef destroys the waves. Our two day, one night stay in Surfer's can be be broken down into the loss of a combined hundred dollars between the five of us at the casino, and two black eyes courtesy of several bouncers at a club near our hostel. As such we were more than ready to depart after only one night. I did however have a very nice jog along the beach in the morning, capped off with a healthy hash brown at "Maccers."

Somehow thanks to our ability to get easily distracted, we turned the two our trip from Surfer's to Brisbane to a full day excursion in the car. Brisbane, our first inland stop was the last "large" city on our adventure. Nevertheless it didn't dissapoint in its views. Of course, we hadn't had enough of the beach yet, so we spent our afternoon at Brisbane's fake lagoon before heading off to Amy's apartment. It was incredible to see a familiar face again, and my four friends couldn't get enough of the comfort of an apartment. We hung out with Amy's friends on an apartment roof top before heading to a bar called Regatta, where Amy and I reminisced on our trips and Canada. The night was capped off by my climbing three floors to break into Amy's apartment as Eric had borrowed Amy's key and was a deeper sleeper than any of us had anticipated. The next morning we ventured through the University of Queensland and admired the beauty of the buildings briefly (ever briefly) regretting out decision to go to Melbourne over the heat.

We then once again piled into the car, calling shotgun at every step of the road and headed North ...always North lol...to Fraser Island (the world's largest sand island). We spent one night in Hervey Bay, a town clearly created simply for the tourism associated with the nearby island and then headed off to the island. A group of eleven of us including three other Canadians, three Britts, and the five of us shared a seemingly heavy duty four by four. To our dismay however the clutch gave out 200 metres after the ferry, and never seemed to stop tormenting us throughout our two three day stay on the island. It was indeed a new sight for a Canadian as the beach became a highway for four by fours whizzing in and out of the ocean at speeds of 60 km/h and greater. Highlights of the island included breaching whales and sharks, champagne pools (waves splashing over rocks creating the sensation of champagne), the inland lakes, a plane landing over our heads on the beach, the continual threat of dingoes, and probably the greatest highlight being the discovery that jumping on the sand in the wee hours of the morning leads to millions of plankton lighting up under your feet!

Our next stop was the beautiful whitsundays. The drive proved to be a lot tougher than we had anticipated. We departed from Hervey Bay at 4:00 pm, drove through the night taking 2 to three hour shifts, finally arriving in Airlie Beach (the port town to the whitsunday islands) at 3:30 in the morning. We drove straight to the docks and found are boat, at which point we decided to lay down our sleeping bags on the grass only to be warned of a 500 dollar fine. Not wanting to spend money on a hostel for a night already over, we parked next to a park in a suburb and slept in the car. We awoke 2 and a half ours later to soar backs and excitement to get on our eighty foot maxi yacht.

The views as you can see were beyond beautiful. The images on our cameras can be easily mistaken for post cards. We sailed around the islands for two days and one night, stopping twice to snorkel. It is often said that the Great Barrier Reef is one of, if not the greatest spot to snorkel and dive. It certainly lived up to its description. We managed to touch a full sized turtle that could have easily measured five feet in diameter, and swim with Nemo and all of his friends. We arrived back at the port burned and tired, not quite ready for the long drive to Cairns.

We did however make it to Cairns after a failed attempt to camp at Mission Beach, a speeding ticket (for driving 12 km/h over the limit....they take their speeding seriously here) and several stops at "Maccers," gas stations, and subway. The scenery drifted from desert to rainforest, to coastal views of the reef...and of course the rare Kangaroo on the side of the road. It's quite comical actually as the deer crossing signs have been replaced by Kangaroos.

Cairns, being our last destination was very relaxing. Our only real tourist event was the day of scuba diving. The city was the first that didn't have a beach, and so they had a communal "lagoon" looking over the city in the center of town (depicted above right). We were quick to make our room home (above left...first 24 hours lol), and made sure to make use of every free meal given to us at Rhino Bar (above center). Beyond the scuba diving, my favourite experience in Cairns was without a doubt my visit to the Cairns Museum (if you can call it that). The museum was deserted, left only to a man in his early sixties who had long since retired from being an Immigration officer. Thank's to Harold's genes I quickly got into a lengthy conversation with the man, and somehow ended up on the topic of race:

- "There's a race problem in Australia" he eplained.

- "Yes I know, I didn't know how racist the country was until I arrived" I replied.

He looked at me with amaze and yelped, "NO! There are too many races in this country!" and then went on to lecture me about how young students know very little about the realities of life. Our Scuba experience was however the real highlight of Cairns. The two dives were a steal for 150 on a boat that was not even five months old. To be honest you saw the same stuff from snorkelling, but the novelty of being 10 meters below was well worth it. We managed to touch several sea creatures and enjoy the beauty of the reef from far below.

So to conclude:

The trip was quite an experience. I felt like we managed to see the East coast in quite a short time. It was marked by the term bogon, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and shotguns.

All Best from Oz,

Jordan

Short and Sweet

...That's what this blog will be.

Looking at the date of my last blog it has been some time since I last posted. Since my last post both my own footy career with Trinity college, and the professional AFL league season have come to a close (or will be shortly), and with it my work at the Melbourne Cricket Ground's has also come to an end.

As students back home once again return to the books, we are just now going on mid-semester break. Four friends and I will be heading north to Carins on Thursday (the 18th) in a rented station wagon with two tents and a hope for lots of free beach to camp on. As the weather is just now hitting 23 degrees in Melbourne, we all anxiously await the 2800 km drive up to thirty degree plus weather in Cairns.

Now...the possum. Well before I had arrived here I had naively expected - or rather hoped - that the Australian racoon would be the Tasmanian Devil. As it turns out the Australian Racoon is the Ringtailed Possum pictured above. They look like huge furry rats, and are usually about a foot to a foot and a half in body length, and another foot in tail length. They hop from branch to branch and run across the footpaths in front of you twenty-four hours always as if they're late for an important date.

Although it seems that there are at least twenty of them just on the college grounds I hadn't really encountered one until a few nights ago. While walking back to my room late one night with a friend I suddenly realized that something had just crawled up me and jumped onto a tree. Indeed it all happened so fast that I didn't let out a yelp until two seconds after it had jumped from my face. As my heart stopped I realized that I had just stepped on what had appeared to be a black shadow, and the shadow in shock had then climped up to my knee, jumped up on to my arm, and then climbed over my face to the safety of a nearby branch leaving a wet sensation on my arm and face.

I don't think it qualifies as Australian Experience Number 4, but it was certainly an experience!

Hanging Rock

"Oi! You walked all the way from the train station in Woodsend?" The ranger asked in astonishment.

"Yep" we replied.

"No one picked you up?"

"No! I put my hand out but no one stopped" I explained.

To take a step back to a friend of mine's room on Saturday night you will find three Trinity Exchange students and a quasi Australian discussing a day of touristing for Saturday. I had just been convinced at dinner that a road trip the Dandenong Ranges would be an adventure of the century, one that was worth calling in sick for work the next day. So I did. Yet to our dismay we soon found that one must be over the age of 21 to hire (we say hire over here) a car, and none of us were. Further at 10:00 pm the night before we couldn't find any 21 year olds available to drive. Thus we randomly choose the next best option, a tourist spot located an hour of the city by train.

We left college around 9:30am and hopped on a few trams in order to make our way to Southern Cross Station (which like many things in Melbourne seems to imitate London's Waterloo Station). From Southern Cross we took the first train departing to the small town of Woodsend and quickly fell asleep on the train.

Upon arrival we strolled through our first small Australian town to the information hut and as obvious tourists we scanned through all the brochures. Before leaving the town towards the supposed dormant volcano in the distance we stopped at the local bakery where one could find "Victoria's best Vanilla Slice." Rob, a fellow tourist from Trinity was taken by curiosity and purchased a slice and soon verified the store's advertisement. We then departed to our dormant volcano named "Hanging Rock," which we truthfully knew very little about (especially the distance it takes to walk there). It was voted (not in my favour) that we would walk to the volcano rather than cab. Well, ten cold, wet kilometers later we arrived to speak to the park ranger, who in shock of the distance we had walked offered us a lift back to town after our hike.

The mountain - as you can see below - was nothing less than beautiful and dramatic with proper Australian views of sheep, fields, and wallabies (we didn't actually see any wallabies, but we were supposed to). Ironically the volcano with its many interesting rocks and shapes is named after one in particular - the hanging rock (depicted above) - which really isn't all that interesting. The mountaneous rock formation is typical of Australian scenery, and is made infamous by the movie "The Hanging Rock" - a horror movie in which a few girls dissapear in the maze of rock formations at the top of the mountain. We too had fun trying to find our way back down.

Well it was a great trip... certainly the third Australian Experience, yet I don't know...I think Niagra Falls wins lol.

All Best,

Jordan

The Shogun

To commence this post I would first like to announce that the fraudulant waiter was successful. I have now worked three days and was somehow assigned to train a newbee today! While the first day of work was a virtual hell, I have subsequently caught on to the pace of hospitality.

But then what does this have to do with a bike...or more importantly "The Shogun?" Well, nothing, its just an update.















The story of the shogun begins last Sunday when I decided that it was necessary that I find a bike. Having called the cheapest (or so I was told) bike store in Melbourne, I was dissapointed to find out that their cheapest bike was over 150 Aus dollars. The owner however was kind enough to direct me towards "what I was looking for." I guess this was going to be the cheapest bike store in Melbourne.

Thus I hopped on a tram - and yes I have forgotten to mention this but Melbourne is a city of trams and environmentalism - north. With limited directions besides "Ceres Park," which no one seemed to recognize I found myself playing the tourist holding a map upside down yelling through the glass to the tram driver. It was certainly much farther than I had anticipated.

To make a long and confusing trip brief, I stumbled upon what appeared to be a forest in the middle of the city Melbourne. Outside the park was a gyspy van offering interesting services, and as I walked into the park one could find alternative energy sources (solar panel fields, wind turbines etc...) on one side, and environmentally friendly housing on the other. It kind of looked like hippies living in the shire - I think that evokes the right image.

In any case I eventually found the cheapest bike store. It was really more a dump with tools for reparation. The way it worked was that you choose a frame, you ask a price which depends on the time it will take to repair the bike into working condition, and then proceed to demantle surrounding bikes to try and make your own bike semi-road worthy. I chose the Shogun...and now I have a bike! She was a little pricy with her v-brakes and mostly sealed inner tubes, but she runs like a top - kinda. I did however forget to mount a chain guard and so I have already completely destroyed a pair of pants (even too bad for my infamous jean repair skills).

Thus I now have a bike, used primarily for arriving to class late and going to work. I'm quite impressed with myself - quite the find.

All best,

Miss you all,

Jordan

The Fraudulant Waiter and Strange Stories

The Fraudulant Waiter

As my financial circumstances do not bode well with living costs so overwhelmingly high in Australia I decided that a job was a necessary endeavour. I had kindly been given a contact to work at the Telstra dome (one of the two large footy stadiums) by a friend in Montreal. Yet when I tried to contact the company they clearly were not very interested in hiring new people as they took their time to reply. Fortunately when I explained my situation at the dinner table, another student suggested that I apply at the Melbourne Cricket Ground where she works - a benefit of the welcoming community of a college I guess. She explained that the MDR (Members Dining Room) was a four star restaurant that payed 21 dollars an hour plus tips. The only dilemma was that it requires a fair bit of experience to work at a high class restaurant. I have none.

"Fear not" she explained, as she helped me doctrine a fake CV while trying to teach me which way you pull a napkin over a client's lap, and how to carry three plates at once. In any case I went for my interview yesterday and I think I did ok (luckily they didn't ask me about any wines - I was scared shitless to say the least). Either way I'll find out today whether I got the job, and will be starting Friday for the "Triple Header" or their term for three footy matches in a day. But if anybody asks if you know a Food and Beverage attendant at the Hotel de la Montangne in Montreal named Jordan....please say yes.

Perhaps I should really have done separate blogs for the two next stories on earlier dates. But my internet connection still is not what it should be and so I will include them here:

Culture Shock

As some of you may now, I experienced culture shock for the first time in Greece while spending time with a group of Norweigans. Briefly, Nick and I came to the conclusion in Greece that Scandanavians are simply wired differently from us. Susan, or more commonly known as "Swedish Susan," reaffirmed this upon our return. Well, prior to my arrival I had assumed that the Australians were similar enough that this would not be the case here. I seemed to be proved correct during the course of my first few days here, yet Friday's night adventures changed this. You see my first few days here was spent almost entirely with Americans with a few exceptions as school has not yet started and so the sole students are internationals. It seemed a long way to go to be living with North Americans! However I had by the end of the first few days found a small pocket of Australians, and friday was our first Australian house party.

Culture shock is a hard thing to describe. To be brief, as the Australians became increasingly inebriated on Friday night the communication between us became increasingly difficult. Eventually they made absolutely no sense to us;

Out of the blue, Dave (my australian college neighbor) looks over very seriously and explains:

- "Ali (another australian) once lead us as a fictional character."

- As I glance at my American counterpart with complete uncomprehension I find a familiar expression on his face. "What?!" I ask in astonishment as the other Australians nod in remembering Ali's "leadership as a fictional character."

- "O, sorry. What I meant to say was Ali once lead us as a fictional character" Dave explains with as much seriousness and surety. The other Australians nod their heads again.

This is just a funny example of the difference in the way we think as the next twenty minutes of explanations failed to help the North Americans understand what the hell they were talking about.....I love it!...Can't wait until the rest of the Australian college students arrive.

Random Acquaintence

Well it seems this story will also make reference to Swedish Susan but in a more linear fashion. For those of you who don't know, Susan and I know each other as neighbors on Lake Memphremagog a few weeks each summer. Originally the entire Maclean family would come to Canada once a year, and Susan's elder brother's last visit was when I was 12. Oviously the two of us never reall talked as he must have been something like 18 at the time. We did however get in touch recently as we knew we were both coming to Melbourne, yet hadn't yet contacted each other here. Well while in line today for some international student lunch someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Jordan Altman, its Angus (his middle name), Susan's brother!" Incredibly he recognized me through pictures he'd seen and my name a name tag that read Jordan among other things. Nice to see another Canadian/Swedish face. We can talk about maple syrup, good peanut butter, and hockey among other things so I'm sure we'll stay in touch.

Finally - sorry about the length of the post - additions to my Australian lingo include:

Avro - afternoon

Loly - candy

Ta - thank you

Bogon - Hic

Skull - Chug

Cheers (maybe I'm picking it up?)

Jordan

Salutations

7:30 am on the 17th of July - I've awoken at 5:30 both mornings due to jet lag, yesterday I went for a jog, today I thought I'd blog! It seems this summer was (and yes, it is now past tense for me) the summer of adventures as so many of my friends have travelled great distances to see different parts of the world. Having followed - and thoroughly enjoyed - both Gabe and Willy's blogs, I thought I'd do the same to keep friends posted back at home.

I got on a plane at Trudeau at 5:30 pm on Sunday the 13th of July, arrived in L.A. six hours later, and then finally arrived in Melbourne at 9:00 am on the 15th! In total it was a 28 hour trip. Even the brilliance of air travel which most tend to depreciate could not bellitle the distance one travels to get to the world down under. The Melbourne airport really distinguished itself from those in North America with farms and forests brushing the gates of the runway. On arrival I was very happy to get my tub of Kraft Peanut Butter and maple syrup through customs as I'm not the biggest fan of vegemite , (an odd east extract that New Zealanders and Australians adore).

The university picked a few other Americans and I up at the airport and drove us to various colleges (their version of residences). I'm staying at Trinity College, which is essentially a fortified castle built in the 1850s.

Now in my third day here this is what I have picked up:

• The architecture is beautiful here; a nice mix of old and new. You can certainly tell that there economy is in a much better state as all the new builidings have new and interesting designs.
• For some reason all the sidewalks are asphalt instead of cement
• If there was a scale from 1 - 10, where 1 is the most consumer oriented society I would give the U.S. a 10, Canada an 8, Europe a 4, and Melbourne a 6. Obviously this isn't Africa, but there is certainly a smaller variety of goods one can find...and they aren't at the same level of quality as at home.
• People are very friendly
• Contrary to foreign advertising no one drinks Fosters here! In fact you can't even buy it at any liquor store or bar.
• Melbourne is a huge city that has a small city feel.
• Everything costs a fortune, yet minimum wage is something like 15 bucks.
• There winter is a complete joke. Everyone is wearing parkas and scarfs, us North Americans are walking around in shorts and find it hard to sleep at night with the heating on. lol
• "Kiwi" doesn't refer to Willy as Charles Deslile would suggest but rather "New Zealernder," "Slab" implies a "teuf," "blind," "legless," and about forty other bizarre terms refer to being intoxicated (guess they all make sense)
• Aparantly Luxembourg has its own language - sounds like a mix of French of German

Well in my third day the novelty of travelling has not yet worn out so I have not yet begun to miss any of you. However I'm sure that will change quite soon. I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy the summer!

All best,

Jordan