Adios Adelaide...Hello Tasmania

It has been too long since I last posted. The past couple weeks have been pretty filled down under. After returning from Melbourne, I spent a few days preparing for my final exam. Unfortunately, the finals schedule was not available when I purchased a U2 ticket for the night of the 16^th. When the schedule did come out it turned out that my only final exam was both on the last day of finals and on the day after the U2 concert. Confident in my academic ability, I decided to go to the concert anyway.

The night of the concert was chilly in Adelaide. The opening act was Kanye West. How he ended up as the opening act, I am not sure, but it didn’t work. The 66,000 people in attendance were all there to see U2 and Kanye did not adjust his performance for the largely unresponsive crowd. His frequent requests for the crowd to “make some noise” or throw their hands in the air were met with minimal cooperation. I found it to be fascinating in the way people rubberneck at car accidents.

Eventually, Kanye West’s performance ended and after a decent intermission, U2 came out. I am not the biggest U2 fan, but I wanted to see the show and it was a decent one. The crowd was much more excited to see Bono & company. However, they were still fairly sedated compared to a lot of crowds I have seen. One notable exception was the woman who danced like Elaine in the “Cry Cry Again” Seinfeld episode. She was throwing out thumbs, kicks, and everything. It was quite impressive and amusing when she kept hitting the people directly behind her.

After a couple hours filled between new songs and old hits, the concert came to an end. I bolted for the bus to try and beat the crowd so I could get to sleep for my test. Luckily, I was back in the city before I knew it and just had to switch busses to get home. While I waited for the second bus, I got to see a little bit of the less attractive side of Adelaide. There was a girl (probably 15 or 16) semi-crying at the bus stop. Apparently some guy had stood her up like 3 nights in a row. As a result she was kind of spitting/crying/cursing and sure she missed the bus. Another guy at the stop reminded me of an Australian version of Billy Bob Thorton’s character in Sling Blade. For the most part I had no idea what he was saying. I picked up a few phrases related to jail, getting/giving the bash, and working in a mining town. At some point, he and the crying girl began a somewhat odd conversation that was occasionally interrupted when one would start talking to themselves. A fine example of how this worked involved crying girl saying, “I can’t believe I missed this f’ing bus.” To which Sling Blade replied, “No, I ain’t got a missus.”

The bus finally came, so I made it home and headed to bed. The next morning I made the trip out to the testing center. In Australia, they don’t have you take the exams in classrooms. Instead, everyone taking a test (in all subjects) on the scheduled day heads out to a giant warehouse where the county fair is held and sits in a giant room. This is apparently so fewer people are required to keep an eye on test takers. I found it to be a bit of a hassle as the testing location was not close to my apartment. I did, however, find the place and I believe did a fairly competent job on the exam.

Finished with school, I headed home to start packing. I spent much of the weekend trying to get ready to go and fit in the final things I wanted to do in Adelaide. Not to be left out were a trip to see part of a cricket test and a chance to go lawn bowling on my last night in town.

My first experience with live professional cricket was amazing. I didn’t know there was a sport that could make baseball look so fast. I noticed that even die hard cricket fans were commenting on how slow it was going. I happened to show up in time to watch a guy named Ian Bell bat for England. Apparently, Bell is known to be a “grinder” and spent about five hours getting his 132 runs (which is impressive). Eventually, the pace and Adelaide’s temperature convinced me to head out.

The next day I made it to a BBQ birthday party and then headed lawn bowling. Lawn bowls is a lot harder than it looks, but has a lot of potential. It is huge over here. Somewhat similar to bocce ball, lawn bowls has larger balls with a weighted side or bias. These are rolled at a smaller ball called the jack, which looks like a pool cue ball. After a couple hours of fun, I headed home to finish packing. The next day I would be leave my house in Adelaide for the last time.

Monday afternoon I caught a plane to Hobart, Tasmania. In Hobart, I was experimenting with my first official “couch surfing” experience. (www.couchsurfing.com) Couch surfing is basically a way for travellers to get a free place to spend a night and more importantly (per the mission statement) to interact with people from other cultures. It turned out to be great. A nice Tasmanian family took me in and put me up for a night while I figured out what I was going to do in their state. Eventually, I figured out that I needed to catch a bus across the island to the city of Launceston, where I could do a day trip to Cradle Mountain.

Tasmania tends to be the butt of several jokes for other Australians. There are references to Tasmanian family trees having few branches etc., but I thought the place was great. Maybe as a native Arkansan, I could relate to being from a state that gets made fun of. (Interesting connection, the license plates in Tasmania say “Your Natural State” and Arkansas is “The Natural State.”) I would like to think it was a little bit more than just this connection that made me like the place. The Tasmanian countryside is some of the most attractive I have seen in Australia. It didn’t hurt that the temperature was a few degrees cooler as well.

After a few days up in the Northern end of Tasmania, I headed back to Hobart. I spent the day wandering around the city and enjoying what it had to offer. Eventually I headed to my “couch surfing” home for the evening and enjoyed a BBQ and some good conversation. The next morning I was up early and on a plane for Sydney.

I have been in Sydney for the past few days and head to New Zealand tomorrow. I will try to post again this week about my time in Sydney.

Wine Tours, License Plates, and Moustaches...Oh My.

My first morning back in Adelaide was an early one as I had booked onto a wine tour of the Barossa Valley. The Barossa is one of Australia’s most famous wine producing regions and is quite close to Adelaide. Sadly in the four months I have been here, I had not made it to the Barossa or the other wine regions around Adelaide. Adelaide is in the state of South Australia, which as I learned on the tour is responsible for producing 55% of Australia’s wine.

Before heading to the wineries, we went by the Giant Rocking Horse. As I have mentioned before, Australia has several “big” things like this to attract tourists or interest to whatever they are near.

In this case, the rocking horse sits in front of a little factory that makes wooden toys. We spent about 20 minutes at this stop which also featured a little petting zoo with a few kangaroos and a bunch of birds. I almost asked if I could have this peacock for Thanksgiving.

After the Giant Rocking Horse, our next stop was a dam that served as a whispering wall. If you have never seen one of these, it highlights some trait of sound waves and allows you to talk to someone across a huge dam in a normal conversational tone. There is a circular version of this in some palace or shrine somewhere around Beijing. After a few minutes of amusement with the wall, we headed for our first winery. In all we visited four wineries and had a nice BBQ outside of the third one. After the wineries, we had a stop in a little town to check out a few touristy shops and try shiraz flavored ice cream.

At the last winery we visited, there was a car parked outside with a surprising Queensland license plate on it.

As far back as I can remember, I have always been interested in license plates. I assume that it was because I grew up in a tourist town and there were always several interesting ones around. That or I spent time in prison in a past life. Whatever the reason, I notice them and find the mottos to be interesting. And in addition to the above plate, Queensland also claims to be the Sunshine State (like Florida) and the Smart State. In South Australia, we have the Festival State, the Wine State, Gateway to the Outback, and the Defence State (that is how it is spelled here). Victoria, home of Melbourne, has plates claiming that it is the Garden State (like New Jersey), the Place to Be, and On the Move. New South Wales, home to Sydney, has the First State (possibly like Delaware) and I am sure a few others that I can’t remember.

Changing subjects, another fascinating thing I have noticed lately is that you are treated differently with a moustache. I can’t say that it is better or worse, but I believe people make assumptions about you. It is funny to be rocking this for ‘movember’/for laughs because I remember giving my dad a hard time about his moustache years ago. He had apparently sported it for like 25 years before I convinced him that it looked ridiculous and he should shave it off. I suspect someone will have to sit me down and have that same chat soon. It will just have to wait until December.

Beyond going on wine tours, thinking about license plate mottos, and growing my moustache, I have been getting my stuff organized to leave and preparing for my final on Friday. I will try to get in a post before I leave for Tasmania on Monday. Things should start to get exciting as we (the royal we for Lebowski fans) are headed back out on the road.

Off to the Races

Those of you who are frequent visitors to this site will remember that I put you off to write some papers. Miraculously I finished both of those. The first one took me longer than it should have and that messed up my schedule. Luckily I was able to conjure up some undergrad energy and pull an all-nighter. Despite working on my big paper for a while it didn’t really come together until that last 48 hour push (around 40 of which were conscious). With my papers turned in, I went home and packed for Melbourne.

The first Tuesday of November may be Election Day in the U.S., but in Australia it is Melbourne Cup day. The Melbourne Cup is referred to as “the race that stops a nation.” It is Australia’s biggest horse race and one that literally, most people in the country at least stop to watch on tv. If you don’t believe me, here is a blurb from their website.

“The $5.1 million Emirates Melbourne Cup is more than just a horse race – it is a 145-year old social and cultural tradition that literally brings Australia to a standstill. The race draws competitors from all over the world with the annual invasion of northern hemisphere-trained stayers making it a truly international event. The Emirates Melbourne Cup now attracts a worldwide television audience of around 700 million people in 120 countries and territories while millions more either view or listen to the event via the internet.”

Anyway, hating to miss such a big spectacle, I was off to see what it was all about.

I got into Melbourne late and had another memorable hostel experience, but I feel like I have written alot of hostel stories up here already. The next morning, with some sleep back in my system, I headed to the Flemington race course with some friends.

As we headed to buy tickets, my first bit of luck showed up when someone gave me a free ticket (saved $50). Inside the grounds, it was a parade of people dressed either very nicely or in some amusing costume or both. I was rockin’ the tuxedo t-shirt so I didn’t feel out of place.

A side note on the tuxedo t-shirt. I have now worn it out a few times and have figured out that guys love the tuxedo t-shirt. I have had people ask to take their photos with me and certainly get a lot of compliments for it. That said, the compliments are probably 15 to 1 male to female ratio. The only explanation I have come up with is that guys see it and think “Awesome, I wish I was wearing a tshirt.” Meanwhile, women think “what a slob, I can’t believe he is wearing a tshirt and I am here in these uncomfortable shoes etc.” If this is wrong, please chime in.

Anyway, back to the race. The weather was not ideal to be standing around outside. It was a little chilly and cloud covered. The roughly 103,000 people in attendance milled around between races and tried to stay warm.

This was my first horserace ever and as with all horseracing, apparently betting is a large part of it. I have no knowledge about horses and don’t even like them very much. I think they are attractive enough in the distance, but have no desire to ride or touch them. With this in mind, I was definitely going to be picking a horse completely based on its name. And what name stuck out? Delta Blues. This horse might as well have been named Lynard Skynard because I was putting a whole $10 on it. And as you can probably guess, it came in. Delta Blues won by a half head and made me $170 in the process. As many of you know, I looooooooooooove winning. And I realllllllly love winning money, so this was awesome. Also, very few people picked Delta Blues, so that was cool. I will probably never bet on another horserace.

The next day, I took it easy and did a little touring of the greater Melbourne area. This morning, I made it to the Foster’s/Carlton United Brewery for a tour. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the XXXX tour in Queensland. One nice thing was getting to see a cut-out of Kevin Cavendish. If you haven’t seen the commercial, it is worth watching.

http://www.flashbeer.com.au/

After that, I did some more touring of Melbourne and saw a street sign that I thought some of you might appreciate.

Overall, Melbourne seemed like a really good city and I wish that I would have had more time, but it was off to the airport and back to Adelaide. The next few days will involve cramming in the things I have meant to do in Adelaide and preparing for my exam on the 17^th. I’ll try to keep you all updated.

Cheers,

Ben

Happy Movember!!!

Well I am sadly still trying to finish my last paper. For better or worse it is due Monday, so it will all be over then. In the mean time I will continue to feel bad for neglecting this page. Hopefully knowing that it is now Mo-vember will hold you all over.

Movember

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Movember is an annual, month long celebration of moustaches celebrated throughout the world. Movember is a portmanteau of the words 'Moustache' and 'November'. Starting in Melbourne, Australia in 1999, Movember first appeared to the general public on Seven Network news in the event's inaugural year in 1999. Since then it has been gaining momentum inspiring movements throughout Australia and the world.

Movember typically runs well after November, concluding on the first Friday or Saturday of December with a Mo Ball or Mo Crawl (a pub crawl), hence more than 30 days of Movember is typical.

In Australia, Movember is a fundraising event to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, and to raise community awareness of Men's Health Issues.

Well I am ready for Movember. Are you?

Changing subjects -(Family Guy fans this is going to be my own "Grinds My Gears" segment) for all of you in the U.S., when Thanksgiving rolls around this year be thankful that we have Thanksgiving and celebrate Halloween pretty big. Here in Australia, Halloween isn't very notable and they don't have a real November holiday. The result is that I have been seeing Christmas ads on tv for over a month already. Also, there is a big Santa Claus in the main shopping area of the city. It just feels a little early. Then again, everyone here goes to the beach for Xmas, so what do I know.