The Sky Is Falling

I apologize for negecting this page recently. The pressure to finish a couple papers has consumed much of my time. The highlights of the past week include staring at microfilm for hours and having a bird drop the deuce on me. Apparently when taking a class called "Australian Legal History" you have to go look up things that happened prior to the invention of the internet. Actually, while staring at microfilm does make my eyes hurt/give me a headache if I do it for too long (5 hours or more), it is cool to see some of the art work in the ads of old newspapers.

The bird incident (aka cockapoo) happened this morning on the walk to school. I have actually had two near misses in the time I have been in Australia, so I guess third time was a charm. It seems like the odds of that must be pretty low. Unable to calculate the odds, I thought about the old farside cartoon about how birds see the world. I wondered if the sun reflecting off of my head was an attraction or something.

Back to work.

-Ben

Cards Win! Cards Win!

I was happy to go to ESPN.com today and discover that the St. Louis Cardinals are headed to the World Series. I wouldn't bet on them to win, but at least they made it there.

It has been a fairly busy school week (by my Australian standards) and so there isn't a whole lot that is post worthy. Next week is the last week of classes and I have about 40 pages of papers to write by early November. I did go to a 21st b-day party last weekend that was a lot of fun. I will try to write more on that and other things at some point this weekend. For now, I have to head to the library and get a couple books and try to track down some newspaper articles from the 1920s.

-Ben

Fremantle Nights: The Ballad of the Old Fire Station

After covering around 2,700 kilometers (roughly 1,700 miles or the distance from London to Moscow) on the train, the first thing I did in Perth was…jump on another train. I decided to stay in the suburb of Fremantle and had to catch a local train from the interstate trainstation. In Fremantle I wandered around looking for a place to stay. The first hostel I looked at was all booked. They suggested that finding a bed without a reservation on a Saturday night might be a little difficult, but made a call for me and found a bed at a hostel called the Old Fire Station. I said I would take it as I did not want to catch the train back into Perth

After checking in and ditching my bag, I spent most of the day wandering around the city. Fremantle is an old port town and still has a major working port. Much of the center of town is made up of rehabbed old buildings and it quite nice. I walked past several cafes and the Fremantle Market. As the sunset, I felt a little homesick and decided to catch a movie.



Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby was not good, but it was amusing. After the movie I headed back to the hostel to see what was going on. It turned out the hostel was having a party to say farewell to a few guests that had been around for awhile.

I headed to bed around midnight as I had to be up at 6:30 for my dive trip to Rottenest Island in the morning. The party kept rocking until pretty late, which was not overly surprising as my guidebook had described the place as a “favourite for young ravers.”

The morning wake up call was rough, but luckily the seas were not. The boat ride to Rottenest Island is about 30-40 minutes from Fremantle. Rottenest Island is famed as the home to quokkas (a small marsupial that early visitors believed was a rat – hence the island name).



On the island we were outfitted with our diving gear and then we headed back out on the boat. We got in two dives, both of which were very nice. There were several fish, some kelp, ok coral, some good swim throughs as well as caves to explore. I also saw a stingray, a big crayfish, and a cobbler for dessert. The cobbler looks like a catfish with its whiskers and caught me a little off-guard.




Back in Fremantle I met up with some friends from the train trip out at a local microbrewery called Little Creatures.

For dinner, I had my first kangaroo which was served with bush tomato chutney. It was very nice.




As the evening wound down, I made it back to the hostel. Much to my surprise, I was the last one in the room. In a few hours, I found out why. One alarm went off at 5:30am. Later, at 7:00am the person's alarm in the bunk below me went off. It did again a minute later and finally a third time 15 minutes after that. In the unwritten code of hostel living, I believe it is clear that one should not hit snooze repeatedly in a room full of people. More startling was that when my neighbour got up he announced to his friend, “Dude I am tired. I think I could sleep all day.” As shocked as I was by this combo of events, it went a step further when neither of them had packed for whatever day trip they were headed out on. The next 20 minutes were occupied by them rustling around through their bags and trying to get out the door. Miraculously they finally left. Unfortunately I was now awake, so I got ready and caught the train into Perth.



I spent the day wandering around Perth with no particular destination. The main attractions of the city seemed conveniently located around the train station. I walked around for a few hours just seeing what was around. I then visited a couple museums. My wondering took me by the Western Australian Supreme Court and adjoining museum. As it was a Monday, I decided I should visit these to do my part as a law student. As the day wore on and I ran out of things to look at, I caught the train back to Fremantle. It was fairly quite night around the youth hostel. I grabbed dinner at the Indian place that shared the Old Fire Station with the hostel and chatted with some Germans about their travels.

After dinner, someone put on a movie in the common room of the hostel, so I watched it before heading to my room to pack up for my departure the next day. My inconsiderate roommates rolled in at about 3:30am. When my alarm went off at 6:30 I was tempted to hit snooze a couple times, but decided against it. Instead, I grabbed my bags and headed out to wait for the airport shuttle.

The flight back to Adelaide was significantly shorter and more pleasant than the train trip out.



I was glad to be back in Adelaide and very happy to see my own bed again. The next couple days were occupied with class and avoiding the heat. Yesterday it was 38 degrees (100 Fahrenheit) and I forgot my hat. This meant that on the walk to and from class I had to seek out shade to hide under. The sun is different here and it burns very quickly compared to the northern hemisphere.

I am not sure what the weekend will bring. It is supposed to cool down. I need to do some school work as we are nearing the end of the semester. I only know one thing for sure…and that is that I will be staying in Adelaide and enjoying the comforts of my own room.

-Ben

PS- This is what happens when you park in a "no parking" zone in Australia.

Come On, Ride The Train, Hey, Ride It, Woo Woo

It has been another exciting week in Australia. After attending both of my classes the first week back from break, I hopped on the train for Perth. The Indian Pacific runs from Sydney to Perth. Fortunately, I was only going to be on the train for two nights unlike those who started in Sydney and got an extra night. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of trains and decided to take this route to see some of the countryside. Unfortunately, I could only afford the student discounted day/night seat and not a room with a bed. That meant 40 hours semi-vertical.



At the train station that “I know I forgot something when I rushed out the door feeling” turned out to be right. I forgot my towel. I know this is shocking to any fans of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” but it is true. Luckily, I was able to acquire one on the train. With that problem settled, I was happy to be on the road or track in this case. The train left Adelaide just before sunset and before long it was dark outside, which meant not a lot to see on my scenic tour. For entertainment some people were playing cards, some people were drinking, some people were letting their children hassle other people, and finally, there was a movie playing. I opted for the movie and was hoping that I wouldn’t get burned with a terrible selection like on the bus to Bangkok. It turned out to be “Analyze That” the sequel to “Analyze This” both starring Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal. I watched the movie and it was ok. I am sure that if I was anywhere other than stuck on a train with nothing to do that my opinion might differ. This is primarily because of my severe distaste for Billy Crystal. I am not sure why, but I have always found Billy Crystal to be terribly annoying. This is a little surprising because the list of things that bother me is pretty short.

1. Extreme heat/cold especially if humidity is in anyway involved.
2. Poisonous snakes that want to bite me. (especially if they are on a plane)
3. Celery
4. Billy Crystal
5. Nuclear War
   

One notable movie occurrence was that a pre-recorded message interrupted the sound to inform us of the exciting history behind what was apparently lying out in the dark nothingness that we could see from the window. This happened again in the movie the next day as well. (FYI – The other movie was “Stick It” starring Jeff Bridges and was something about gymnastics…it was a far fall from being “The Dude”)

After the movie, I wandered around the train for a little while and then decided to give sleep a try. Things were not looking good as I was in the isle seat without a neck pillow. For the next several hours I woke up from time to time with a very stiff neck or back depending how I had contorted myself in an attempt to find comfort and sleep. At around 2am this became even more difficult because the guy across the isle from me was snoring like nothing I have ever heard. Seriously, when I was on the live aboard boat at the Great Barrier Reef, the guy in the bunk above me snored loud enough that I banged the bottom of the bed. This however, made that seem like a whisper. As I sat there trying to get back to sleep, I pondered if I was some sort of travel masochist. Was I purposely searching out the most painful experiences for some reason?

With no chance of sleeping in my seat, I headed for the lounge car. It was 3:30 am and the lounge car was empty except for several inviting couches. Unfortunately we had been told that we could do almost anything in the lounge except sleep and that if we were found sleeping that we would be kicked out. Miraculously I heard the night watchmen come in and pre-emptively told him that I wasn’t sleeping just before he was going to boot me and then got 4 hours of sleep. I awoke to a lounge car filled with people several of whom I believe were jealous of the sleep I managed to get.

(These two photos show the seats and lounge area of the train. I took them from the Indian Pacific website and they dramatically overstate the appearance of and fun had by passengers on the train.)




Most of the day was spent watching the scenery go by. There wasn’t an amazing amount to see, so I got a little reading in as well.



We stopped around 10:00 in Cook (Population 4) for people’s sanity. The stop provided people with a chance to take photos and have a collective sigh of relief to live anywhere other than Cook. That said, it appeared that those who lived in Cook at least had a sense of humor based on their country club sign (see photo).

(Here is some video of what we passed on the ride. If you feel an overwhelming desire to take this train trip, I recommend sitting in your chair and watching these videos for 40 hours to see if you really want to do it.)

The rest of the day was spent reading, talking to fellow passengers, and hoping to see a kangaroo or anything for that matter. I kept crying wolf (or in this case kangaroo) and got a Canadian girl to look 4 times. The key is to look at point. For those of you who have bowled with me, this is similar to the “oh! your pin just dropped” look and point even though it didn’t. The main difference is that with kangaroos there are two options. First, the kangaroo could be laying in the shadow of a bush (more likely) or second, the kangaroo could be jumping in which case you need to move your finger up and down a little to really sell it. Eventually when we did see a couple Kangaroos our Canadian friend was in the shower. (The key is to look at the back of the video and generally in the middle.)

Around 7:30pm we pulled into a mining town named Kalgoorlie. Famed for its gold and described as the El Dorado of Australia by the pre-recorded message on the train, the town was not that hopping on a Friday evening. We did get to see one highlight of the town in the world’s tallest bin (trash can).

After our tour of Kalgoorlie, it was back on the train and I tried to get some sleep. With the person next to me and the people in front of me off the train, I was able to spin the seats around and lay diagonally across them with my backpack under my hip filling the gap between the seats. Surprisingly this worked quite well and I managed at least 6 hours of sleep. The morning brought a little different scenery as we were closing in on Perth.

I met in the lounge with my new train friends and we had a breakfast out of everything people had leftover. They are fairly serious in Australia about quarantine and not allowing you to bring unprocessed food across state lines. I have some childhood memories of a similar thing between Nevada and California, but they seem a little more into it here. So with all the food eaten or trashed, we got our bags together and prepared for arrival in Perth.

I will try to post about Perth today, but this seemed like plenty of writing for one post.

-Ben

UniGames

Last week was occupied by UniGames, which are sort of like the Olympics of Australian University Sport. Conveniently, Adelaide was the host city this year and so university athletes (I hesitate to say college because here college is high school or some sort of dorm type place you live during university) from all over the country descended for a week of games and theme parties. Things really got started on Sunday as people began picking up their accreditation and then headed for the opening ceremony that night. The opening ceremony consisted of a 5,000 person outdoor dance party is the Adelaide tennis stadium. There was a DJ of mild national fame on stage and participants were supposed to wear team colors for pride and identification purposes. For one reason or another, most of the baseball team was unable to attend so I joined up with the field hockey teams who were a wild bunch.



In attempt to hold my own in the competition, I headed home at about 12:30, which was early by UniGames standards. The next morning I headed for the baseball venue, which was located in Glenelg (near the beach and airport). Sadly, when packing for a 10 month trip I didn’t think to throw in my cleats, old baseball pants, or glove. I was able to borrow a glove and one guy had some pants that were too big for him, which meant they were skin tight on me. Luckily there was a jersey that fit me more comfortably than the pants. I had a moment where I considered the possibility of being the fat kid from almost all children’s baseball movies who has to wear his jersey unbuttoned. (It should be noted that same kid usually hits a homerun.)

And so all dressed, it was time for the games to begin. Our first game was against Griffith University. Our bats may have been left in the car as we didn’t do much hitting in this game and eventually lost by a run or two. The most notable part of the game for me was when a kid slid into third high and spiked me around the knee. I ended up with about a foot long metal scrape and a tear in my pants. While nobody likes being spiked, there were a few upsides. First, I looked tough with that big of a cut. Second, they weren’t my pants. And third, with the tear the pants seemed to fit a little better. I debated cutting the legs off and sporting “coach’s shorts,” but decided not to in the outside chance I would have to slide.

After the first game, we had a lunch break and went into the town of Glenelg. Some people changed. I didn’t as I wasn’t sure if I could button the pants again. Also, there is something empowering about strutting around in extremely tight pants when nobody has any idea who you are. I think it must be like wearing chaps.

Our second game of the day was against Victoria University. We managed to squeak this one out by a couple runs. I had a double off of the fence. No one spiked me. All around it was a good game and a reason to celebrate. After the second game, there wasn’t much time to get home and contemplate a costume for the nights theme party. We were supposed to attend as something starting with an A, U, or G (Australian University Games). In a weak effort I threw on an Oregon t-shirt and went as an American. I asked people if they thought my fake accent was good. Later I told a girl in a sombrero that I was with the “u”ndercover hat police and that I would have to confiscate her hat as it was way too big for her head. She was not convinced. However, someone in an over-sized foam cowboy hat was and so back to being an American I went. I believe I called it a night around 3am as I wanted to be ready for our 11am game vs. Sydney in the morning.



On the field the next day there were some tired teammates. A few people kept rockin’ for another couple hours after I left. After some stretching and warming up it was game time. Sydney put some weird head with some medals on the field before the game, kind of like JoBoo in the movie Major League. Whatever it was, it worked as we lost 6-5. Notable notes from this game were that I got to come on in relief for the last two innings in which Sydney was scoreless. Most of that can be attributed to a solid defense and a lot of luck. My pitching highlight of the day was having some guy named Bobo (who was quite large – I wondered if it was the Australian equivalent of “Bubba”) strike out on the knuckleball. This was sweet for a couple reasons. First, I had thrown several fastballs (not that fast) to set him up and so Bobo was way ahead of this slooooww knuckleball that tailed away from him. Second, the night before one of my teammates had met Bobo and it turns out that he is the type of guy who says, “good luck tomorrow because you are going to need it.” Apparently we could have used a little more luck to win, but at least Bobo looked like a chump.

That little victory was enough to inspire us to attend the Tuesday theme party. The theme was going as what you want to be when you grow up. I wondered if at 28 it was still legit for me to do this. With little selection here in Australia I put together a costume from a red bull t-shirt I picked up in Bangkok and my roommate’s long red wig. I was a red bull promo girl. I grabbed a can of red bull at the bar and went around telling people I was on an international tour promoting red bull. I got a few strange looks and some laughs. Though not as many as the people involved in the naked race around a public fountain. Ahh UniGames, it is that kind of experience.

We had the 9 am game on Wednesday, which was a very rough draw. Our captain and starting pitcher had apparently made it home just a couple hours before game time. With no warm up, he took the mound and a combination of spot hitting and errors let Macquarie University dominate us.

Saddened by the defeat, I went home an took a 4 hour nap before getting up and contemplating the night’s theme party. It was a traffic light party where you were supposed to wear red if you were taken, green if you were single, and yellow I guess if you were shady or in my case didn’t have either of the other colors. While I have several green shirts in Oregon ( I believe 9. I know I went a week wearing only green) none of them made the trip. Blue seemed inappropriate, so I wore my other Oregon shirt. Generally it was an amusing night out.

Thursday was playoff time. We drew Melbourne University in our first game at 11:00. The winner would have to play on Friday at 9:00am, the loser played at 3:00pm on Thursday afternoon. Faced with that scenario, I think the teams desire to sleep in Friday beat us before the game started. That said it was quite close. I think we only lost by a run or two and at one point had the lead on a home run hit by yours truly (was that some nice foreshadowing above or what). It was the only homerun our team hit for the tournament and I got the ball as a souvenir. With a few hours to kill before our last game, the team had a lunch pizza and beer as we watched a great game between Monash and Macquarie. In the bottom of the last inning (the 7th for time purposes) Monash was down by 5 runs. After scoring a couple, their second baseman hit a walk-off grand slam. It was an amazing thing to see. There team went nuts as they had just won the right to play for the gold medal (which they would lose to Sydney).

Our final game was a total joke. We played University of New South Wales for I believe 7th or 8th place. With no real pride on the line, both teams just had a laugh. Our pitcher took the mound in Ugg boots, our catcher went up to bat in just his sliding shorts (think bicycle shorts), and general hilarity followed. I am not even sure who won. I think it was them as our pitcher was a little more generous. I think one of their players hit a home run while our outfielders were lying down.

Thursday’s theme party was a pyjama party. The best idea I had was to buy a goodwill suit jacket and write "birthday" on it. However, time did not allow that to happen. I ended up in a pair of purple polka dotted pj pants (borrowed) and wore a pair of superman undies over the top (mine – I got them here). Needless to say people were impressed and fun was generally had. We saw the Melbourne baseball team out and teased them about playing at 9am the next day and enjoyed the freedom of losing until the early hours.

I then slept for 11 hours and got up to play a video game. Some of my teammates had gone to watch the gold medal game. I told myself that as one of the oldest competitors in UniGames, I needed the rest. (I actually know of two people older than me who were playing.) Well rested, I was ready for Friday night’s closing theme which was to come dressed in your best with a sporting twist (meaning that you wore a bit of your equipment or something). My best is limited by my current backpacker lifestyle, so I rocked the tuxedo t-shirt, my baseball hat, and put some zinc under my eyes. It was another good night, but I wasn’t too upset to see it come to an end. I needed to catch up on some sleep. I spent the rest of the weekend lounging. I worked on my couch yoga and was able to hold a position for several hours.

All and all, UniGames was a lot of fun. It was good to play baseball again and it was good to experience the games as the locals do.

Monday was labour day here, so it was another one off of school. I had to get a paper done for Tuesday (though I don’t have class on Tuesdays) and finally went back to class today. It has been a good run of break. After class tomorrow, I am headed to Perth for a few days. I will try to post from there or more realistically when I get back.

-Ben


PS – Because this post is a little light on photos, here is a pic of some cane toad taxidermy art from Queensland. For those of you that don’t know, the cane toad is an introduced species that is quickly taking over Australia and killing everything in its path.



PPS - I leave for Perth in about 17 hours. I am about to go to sleep knowing the following about my trip: (1) I have not packed. (2) I am not totally sure where the train station I leave from is. (3) I don't know where I am staying as I will find a place when I get there. And finally, (4) I have no idea what there is to do in Perth. Luckily, I have a 40 hour train ride to figure it out. Stay tuned....

Reef Madness

Well on my blog posting plans, tomorrow or the next day quickly became almost a week. However, today may produce two postings. I don’t want to get your hopes up too high, but the perfect storm seems to be brewing. First, I turned in a paper a few hours ago and have very little to do for school now. Second, it has been a fun filled few weeks. Finally, there is not much on TV tonight. (After writing this, the perfect storm hit a glitch in the form of a computer malfunction. Also, CSI was on and so only one posting for today.) Without wasting anymore time, here we go…

I arrived in Cairns on the last day of some sort of festival. Nobody was really able to tell me what it was about, so I just accepted it as an excuse for a party. Cairns is just that type of town. It is filled with youth hostels, bars, and travel agents offering “extreme adventures.” Basically, it has whatever the tourists who have come to see the Great Barrier Reef could want. It even had a dance party float in the town parade.

I was staying in a 6 bed dorm room and was the first to call it a night as my dive trip left early in the morning. For those of you who haven’t stayed in a dorm room of a youth hostel in a party city, let me tell you that it is an experience. One that if I had remembered (as I should have) would probably have convinced me to shell out for a better room. However, I didn’t remember as it had been a few years and I generally believe I sleep through most things. This is partially true and enhanced by the fact that I often have no recollection of being woken up in the night. For example, if you were to call me at say 3am, I would either not remember our conversation at all or remember and vow to get even somehow. Back to the room, so I went to bed around midnight with my alarm set for 6:30am. About an hour or so later someone came in and quickly left. A couple hours later, I woke up and noticed there were several other people in the room. The most notable of whom was the dude across from me trying to tuck a sheet into the top bunk so that it would hang over his bed and provide some privacy for himself and his guest. About an hour after that, someone started knocking. I was the closest to the door, but decided that at 4am I was only getting up if there was a fire. The German girl across from me (in the top bunk above mr. privacy and his guest) is either nicer than me or less patient and eventually got up on the third or fourth set of knocks. Upon opening the door, a drunk English girl apologized for having left her keys in the room. I don’t speak German, but I believe the response had a four-letter English translation. After that, I managed to sleep until my alarm went off. Some people recommend ear plugs for dorms, but I find it a little weird to sleep with ear plugs and then you become that person with ear plugs whose alarm is going off (I have experienced this as well).

Well rested, I was picked up and taken to the shop where I would sign away my life to a dive company. Law school has made signing contracts like this a mixed bag. On one hand I now feel much more obligated to read them. On the other, once you do read them, you realize how ridiculous they are.

After assuming all responsibility for anything that happened anywhere in the Pacific Rim, I headed for a boat that would take me out to the dive boat that would serve as my home for the next three days. The ride out went through some choppy seas. I was smart and took a seasickness pill and therefore was not rocking the bag like most people. Hands free I was able to make jokes and quote Seinfeld saying, “The sea was angry that day my friends.” The Australian and two Italians I initially said it in front of were not impressed, not familiar with Seinfeld, or seasick. Later I found a Conneticutian and we laughed all the way to the Kangaroo Explorer, which was tied to a mooring line 2 ½ hours from shore.

Once on the dive boat, we were given a safety briefing, asked to reconfirm that we had signed our life away, and then outfitted with some gear. After a quick lunch, we jumped in and went for a dive. On my first dive there were a few cool fish, a gigantic clam (several feet in length), and a lot of dead looking coral. Part of it looked dead because it was as a result of coral bleaching, which happens when the water gets warmer from El Nino. Part of it looked dead because we were deep enough that a lot of colors began to fade. We moved dive sites for the afternoon by ended up in a place with rough visibility (approximately 1-2 meters). That said, I still saw a sea turtle and a lion fish and that was pretty cool.

We were supposed to go on a night dive, but the lack of visibility made it unsafe, so I was out of the water until 6am the following morning. I was doing an advanced dive course that required a deep dive, so on the first one for the day we went down to 30 meters. My instructor brought a few things to demonstrate the pressure that exists that far under water. Most notably, she cracked open an egg and the yolk remained intact and we were able to bat it around like a ball.

On the next dive, I had to do some navigation exercises and then spent the rest of the time checking out what was around. This location had tons of fish, some good coral, and was generally quite good. After another dive in the afternoon, the fourth dive of the day was a night dive required for my course. We all got little flashlights and jumped in the water. I found the night dive to be a little unnerving. You swim around and are only able to see the small amount illuminated by your flashlight. Some people describe it as being in outer space. I’m not sure about that, but we did see a little shark which was cool.

The next day I had three more dives and a snorkel before heading back to Cairns. They were all pretty good. I ended up seeing an amazing amount of marine wildlife by the end. It is hard to explain it, but it is a lot like what you see on tv and a great experience.

Back in Cairns, I went to a show called “Reef Teach” which might have been good to see before going out, but was still great. This crazy Irish guy who has been diving for 30 years does a slideshow presentation about the Great Barrier Reef and what you can see there. This guy was a total lunatic and should be on television. I wish I could have recorded some of it.

An excerpt from Salon.com might help paint the picture for you. “The Irishman stalks back and forth across a low plywood platform. He leans forward; he crouches; he stretches tall. His voice ranges from tent revival preacher boom to Monty Python lunatic screech as he veers from thundering pronouncements to the high-pitched tone he uses to talk about the "teeny-tiny microscopic animals" who built the titanic wonder we've all come to this remote place to see: the Great Barrier” Reef. For the entire article go here http://archive.salon.com/travel/feature/2000/03/04/reef/print.html

The rest of my time in Cairns few by. I made a trip up to the touristy rainforest village of Kuranda and also had a night out on the town. It turns out that I was the last person into my new dorm on my last night in town. I wondered who the people were, sleeping so soundly so early in Cairns. After all, it was probably only 2:00 am. At 7:00am when one of them started using an electric razor just above me, that curiosity quickly faded.

With enough youth hostel living to last at least a few weeks, I was happy to be headed for the airport and back to Adelaide.