Down and Out Down Under

If our blog were a Western, we would now be entering the part called “the bad.” Our blog is not a Western, unfortunately (we’re in entirely the wrong country for that anyways… the wrong hemisphere, even), and so really it’s just going to be a lot of bitching for the next few posts. Or “whinging,” as they say here. Still can’t make heads or tails of that one. I should add a disclaimer: not everything that has happened to us since we arrived in Melbourne has been bad. Quite the contrary, in fact. We’ve had some very good times here, and I’ll get to those later. But in the interests of getting all the crap out of the way, and bringing this stupid, clunky blog up-to-date, you can expect a lot of negativity. There will be no pictures, because there is no fun and happiness here. Shall we get on with it?

As I said, we boarded the bus to Melbourne. The overnight bus. In case anyone is considering saving a few bucks by taking an overnight bus instead of a plane, allow me to dispel those idiotic, masochistic inclinations for you. There is absolutely no advantage to a night bus what-so-ever. You will not be comfortable, you will not be able to sleep properly, you will not be able to see any scenery, and you will very likely end up miserably motion sick.

We rolled into town a little worse for wear, and commenced mission: find a job. Initially, all seemed to roll along as planned. We had arranged for an apartment ahead of time, and arrived to find the place was actually livable. We discovered we had Canadian roommates (sigh) whom we had, surprisingly enough, met before—in Sydney, briefly. They were floored, as we were the only Americans they had encountered. We were less floored, since we had met nothing but Canadians. Even so, it did seem a rather funny coincidence, and everything proceeded along amicably enough. I managed to find a job at an American diner, but before you think “Oh, how wonderfully appropriate!” you should know it was almost nothing at all like what a normal American would think of as a diner. I think it’s more aptly described as a tourist trap with crappy food. After two solid days on my feet with no breaks and no talk of how I would be paid from my loud, Ed-Hardy-clad Arizonan boss “Misty,” I decided perhaps I should find occupation elsewhere (ah, the folly of my youth and ignorance).

Max fell into what purported to be a job with the power company, but turned out to be a sales job. A crap sales job. And so we switched over to a different sales job, which was also a crap sales job, only a slightly more honest one. After a couple days of utterly useless, boring training, Max and I started our new jobs as telemarketers. It was easily the worst job I’d ever had, until recently, but I’ll get to that. Talk about soul-destroying! Mostly people just hang up on you, but some folks tend to get a bit overexcited and yell and call names. We lasted two days.

Thus commenced a period of us frantically trying to get out early. Our Canadian roommates had given it all up and returned to that big empty space to the North some couple thousand dollars poorer and absolutely no wiser. We were going to try to follow suit with a little more decorum. We had decided we really were done with this whole Australian adventure, and we wanted to blow the rest of our money on travel and come home early with most of our dignity intact. Such was not to be. We discovered that since the Australian dollar had soared right up next to the American dollar in exchange rates, prices for flights from Australia to the U.S. had become astronomically expensive. Tail between our legs, we set about trying to find something to keep us afloat in Melbourne.

It took a while. We exhausted our savings and desperation set in. It wasn’t until November that we managed to land a retail job for the Christmas season. “Retail job” makes it sound professional, impressively normal. That’s giving it far too much credit. We were paid $15/hour (a pittance by Aussie standards) to sell cheap jewelry, knock-off perfume, polyester sheet sets, and “pillow pets” (just look it up) via outer-suburb-mall kiosks to utter morons, a tedious job for which we were paid in cash (sketchy, drug-dealer like practices are pretty common for this so-called company). “Organization” is a word that doesn’t exist for our employers. We didn’t know our hours until the absolute last minute, and still they were subject to change. Getting paid generally required dogging our bosses until they agreed to pay us the next day, and then suffering through another week of daily reminders until they finally got their act together. Getting to work was also a task in and of itself—a 45-minute drive with tolls that cost as much as an hour of pay. Our co-workers (with some exceptions, admittedly) were some of the most grotesque people one could ever hope to avoid meeting. Take for example Kath, a 30-something smoker with far to much enthusiasm for the job and no sense of personal space. Or Lesley, a 50-something smoker with the makeup skills of a blind drag queen and a penchant for rattling on endlessly about what a martyr she is. Jess was easily the most put-together, down-to-earth, likeable one of the bunch, and she was a petite 30-something smoker, former junkie, and devoted-to-a-fault single mom with an inability to find jeans that did not reveal the majority of her buttcrack. Still, the job kept us afloat through the Christmas season, and then unceremoniously dumped us right back into destitution by December 26.

After what I like to think of as a brief vacation (and what was actually another month of scrambling around trying to find jobs), we finally found ourselves right back where we started. I was picking up occasional work selling the crap sheet sets at various markets with Lou. Lou does demonstrations for the various products our “company” sells, like vegetable peelers and imitation ShamWows. He used to work in “showbusiness,” though I don’t really know what that means … there was mention of cabaret. Lou lives alone, because, he claims, “he spent so much of his life in the public eye [he] prefers it that way.” Although “alone” isn’t really the right word, because he has a three-legged dog named Dash whom he treats like a human. So there’s that. Max was working weekends collecting coins for charity. We were eking out a living, but by no means were we sustaining a lifestyle that would allow us to save money for travel (which is kind of the whole point of being here).

The idea of going to back to readily available crap sales jobs was simply too much to bear, and so we figured we’d try charity organizations, as Max had experienced some luck in that field. At least then we’d be working for the greater good! We’d be contributing to something larger than ourselves, helping the underdog! Right. You know those people who stand on street corners and try to get you to sponsor a child in a remote, impoverished country? That was us, more or less. We worked for UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), trying to get monthly commitments from generous souls. Generous souls are surprisingly hard to come by, though, and so we mostly got rejection, after rejection, after rejection. Telemarketing is one thing—you don’t see the person on the other end of the line, and just about everyone hates to be interrupted at dinner, so it’s understandable when someone hangs up. But when you’re face to face with people, you are able to fully comprehend how much the greater part of humanity just absolutely sucks. A lot of people just nod at you and say they’re in a hurry, or shoot you a quick smile and a “sorry.” Those people I can handle. They know the score, but they are decent enough to acknowledge your presence, and guilty enough to recognize that they’re avoiding charity as they slink away. It’s the ones who ignore you completely as they blow by, or worse yet the ones who simply make a rude, dismissive hand gesture (usually businessmen), or worst of all the ones who yell at you, who really make the job difficult. The only people who actually stop and talk to you are usually the poorest—students, pensioners, backpackers, unemployed, etc.—which doesn’t say much for society, that the people on the bottom are the only ones who have the decency to recognize the suffering of fellow human beings, whether they be Ugandan refugees or broke charity workers. More than any job I’ve ever had, it has diminished my faith in others and discouraged me to my very core. I lasted a week; Max made it a week and a half.

And so it came to pass that a couple of weeks ago, I found myself once again a wage slave to our former Christmas employers, henceforth known as “National Homewares,” or alternately, “those total assholes.” Every week I drive myself out to another god-forsaken corner of the urban sprawl, and stand around for hours trying to convince people not to run away as soon as I mutter the word “synthetic.” Max still collects coins for charity, and picks up work from Incompetency Inc. when it’s available. Things are not ideal, but we’re managing. We had saved some money, and then had to spend it all fixing our pathetic excuse for a motor vehicle. So we toil away, making enough to get us by and a bit on the side. Mostly, we are counting down the days until our return to civilization (68, as of today).

I don’t want to leave you all with the impression that Max and I are perpetually on the verge of committing joint suicide. Like I said, there are good things too—and I’ll write about them. But, in the interests of ending this post on a high note, I’ll give our intrepid readers a little hope for our desperate situation. Just when the night seems its very darkest, a bright spot on the horizon: in less than two weeks time, we will be departing for our Great Ocean Road trip! A week of cruising along one of the purportedly most gorgeous stretches of highway in the world, capped off by a couple of days spent drinking wine in the Barossa Valley.

And you made it to the end! Because there were no pictures, I’ll reward you all with the next track from the Antipodean Audiorama, appropriately a song about the tedium of the working week and living for the highlights. The Easybeats, “Friday on My Mind.” Enjoy!

A Beginner’s Guide to Vegemite

You might have heard about Vegemite, and know a little something about it, in the abstract, but you can’t really know what it is until you’ve experienced it in person, far from home. In America, I think our equivalent condiment might be peanut butter, but, like peanut butter, Vegemite is more than a condiment. Ketchup is a condiment, but peanut butter (paired with your favorite jam, or maybe some marshmallow fluff) is substantial enough for sandwich-making. Same with Vegemite. You’ve all heard the Men at Work song (“He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich,” etc.), but have you ever stopped to ask yourself what a Vegemite sandwich entails, exactly? Maybe we should start with a more pressing question: What is Vegemite?

According to Wikipedia, “Vegemite is made from used brewers’ yeast extract, a by-product of beer manufacturing, and various vegetable and spice additives. It is salty, slightly bitter, and umami or malty — similar to beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky. It is not as intensely flavoured as British Marmite and it is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite.” I couldn’t have said it much better myself. Personally, I don’t find it very bitter, but maybe a little sour. Mostly you just taste the salt. Our friend Leonie told Nell, “If you like olives, you’ll like Vegemite.” That might be true in terms of flavor, but the texture is kind of unique. At room temperature it spreads more easily than peanut butter but it’s definitely firmer than room temperature butter. It’s nice, actually.

So what do you do with the stuff? Well, you could make a Vegemite sandwich, which in its most basic form consists of only three ingredients: bread, butter and Vegemite. Apparently you may also add cheese, lettuce, tomato or avocado. I’ve heard anecdotal evidence to support the avocado pairing. But how do I enjoy my Vegemite every morning, you ask? Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

-Bread

-Butter

-Vegemite

Toast the bread and spread evenly with butter. In order to add the Vegemite, get a little bit on your knife (a little goes a long way) and thinly scrape it across the surface of the toast. If you feel that the flavor could be stronger, scrape on a bit more, but be careful not to overdo it! Experiment until you find the right balance.

That’s all there is to it! I’ve been enjoying my Vegemite toast on the side of two fried eggs or half a cup of fruit-flavored yogurt and a mug of steaming black coffee. Nell hasn’t tried it yet, but I think it’s delicious. If you’re feeling adventurous, you should be able to find Vegemite in American grocery stores that stock imported food.

Now, Tim Tams … I guess that’ll have to wait for another post!

Hard Times

It’s true that Nell and I have been having a bit of a rough time down here in Oz, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Minor setbacks such as unemployment or a broken-down car have never been enough to keep a Tolomei or a Collins down, as far as I know (the same goes for the Bittners and the Preachers; the two of us come from great stock on both sides). And so, though things are a bit difficult for us in the Land Down Under, I want all of you to rest assured that everything will turn out fine for your two favorite globetrotters.

There’s a lot to blog about, from recent events to the unshared stories of our Australian Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ve had a lot of kooky jobs and we’ve tasted a lot of delicious foods. So I thought I’d put it to a vote. What would our friends and family like to read about most? Thanksgiving? Christmas? Work? Or Australian cuisine? Cast your vote in the comments section below while you enjoy the next track from our Aussie Mix, “Throw Your Arms Around Me” from Hunters and Collectors:

Whether the Weather Is Hot…

I (meaning Nell) know I’m chronologically jumping ahead here, but I figured I’d put out a brief blog post to keep things moving. I’m still working on getting everything up-to-date on this sorry excuse for a travelogue.

So a couple weeks ago (January 26, to be precise) was the poor-man’s (read: Australian) version of the 4^th of July. Can’t call it Independence Day because these suckers are still Commonwealth! (Honestly, get your act together Australia!) In any case, according to Wikipedia, “the date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland.” So what we would call Columbus Day, they celebrate as their day to celebrate Nationhood. Not quite sure what Aboriginal folks think about that, but since no one actually seems to care what the date means, I suppose it’s neither here nor there. Mostly, Australia Day seems like an excuse to run around with an Aussie flag tied around your neck while getting absolutely blasted off your face. Good on ‘em, I say!

I didn't take this picture, and I have no idea who this guy is. I just googled "Australia Day" and this came up. So that should tell you something about the holiday.

Max and I were offered a day of work from our retail employers from Christmas (still haven’t caught up with that part of the story blogwise, but bear with me). We headed up to a little place called Kinglake, for a relief BBQ for the Queensland floods. Why Kinglake? Well, Kinglake, a sweet little mountain town in the middle of a nature reserve, was essentially burned to the ground in the devastating Victorian bushfires in 2009. Queensland donated bushels of money to their rebuilding effort, so of course Kinglake decided to return the favor in Queensland’s time of need. It all sounds very nice, until you realize that both places were besieged by major natural disasters within two years of each other. So obviously, everyone wants to celebrate living in a country where if you don’t burn, you drown! Cue Australia Day.

Max and I drove up and up and up this stupid mountainside on an increasingly narrow and uneven road in an increasingly thick blanket of fog, until we were completely enveloped in a thick coat of opaque white mist. All we could see around us were the skeletons of charred eucalypts, reaching their claws out to snatch us to oblivion. It was somewhat worrying, to say the least. When we finally made it to the top of the mountain, we managed to make out some blocky shapes and concluded we had, in fact, reached the town of Kinglake. Another two or three trips back and forth on their version of main street, and we finally located the site for the BBQ. We spent the next few hours alternating sitting by our post in the freezing grey drizzle and warming up with crossword puzzles in the car. The weather finally lifted around midday, and we were able to set up our cheap sheets and sell quite a bit. There was a band playing, a free sausage sizzle (more on this particular topic later), and plenty of Aussie spirit to go around. Great fun was had by all (except us, because we were working). Hooray Australia. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!

We finally headed back to “civilization” to have fish and chips (more on this later too) with our own personal Australian ambassador, the lovely Angela. As we drove into downtown to retire to our lodgings for the evening, we saw fireworks over the Melbourne skyline. Ok, so it wasn’t so bad after all.

I should mention that there was one very significant benefit to the whole Australia Day hullaballoo. $7 Australian flag beachtowels at Aldi! Anyone who thinks they might be getting a souvenir from us now knows what it is and how much it costs. So there you go.

Fastforward to the last week or so. Queensland was hit by category 5 hurricane Cyclone Yasi, and they could probably use another couple of relief BBQs. To be fair—no one has died yet, except one guy who asphyxiated from trying to run a generator indoors. I think he brought that one on himself. Melbourne was hit by the aftermath of the storm this past Friday night. Imagine torrential Midwestern thunderstorms, and you’ve got a pretty good approximation. It blew our power out and the whole bit. Of course, most people didn’t mind because it was a break from the scorching 40ºC (ahem… 104ºF) heat. Sunday morning I got up bright and early to head out to the markets, where it was practically sub-arctic, as well as rainy and wet to boot. Meanwhile, Perth is on fire, experiencing its worst bushfires in recent history.

So there you have it, a brief update on the batshit insane weather they endure in the Great Southern Land. Aussies will keep celebrating being isolated from the rest of humanity every January the 26^th, and Mother Nature will keep trying to kill them for it.

You all deserve a song! In response to Britain’s blatant attempt to “begin” Australian history with their arrival (silly Poms), we appropriately end with a song about returning Aboriginal lands. Enjoy! Track 2 from the Antipodean Audiorama:

WWOOFing Up the Wrong Tree

There are a variety of excuses I’ve considered to account for the lack of blog updates—everything from amnesia to amputations—but the truth is, Max and I (Nell functioning as author here, obviously) are both just really lazy people when it comes down to it. We have both been trying to con each other into writing a catch-up blog post for months now, citing one-another’s unemployment, general lack of contribution to the world, dedication to the written craft, dedication to each other, etc. Finally, the task has fallen to me, out of a sense of overwhelming guilt, and a few weeks worth of almost total inactivity. To combat my feelings of uselessness and distract me from my reality of utter destitution, here I am, bringing to you the first in a series of what promise to be brilliant and inspiring posts about our wildly exciting antipodean adventures to date. By which I mean, I will relate to you as quickly as possible how things for us have “gone South” (pun intended). In any case, we’re going to try to stick to it, this time, mostly to prove that we are both capable of accomplishing something constructive that is not strictly necessary to our survival. And, as an added challenge to our intrepid readers, we will be accepting critiques of our blog posts! You see, we have recently been considering professions in the compositional arts, myself in the form of a best-selling romance novelist, and Max as a video game journalist. That said, don’t expect any thanks when you point out our 30^th typo in one paragraph.

Fortunately, there will be the aid of a soundtrack, thanks to the mix we so gruelingly composed with the help of the fabulous MC Ang N-Diddylianis the Greekstralian (ahem, Angela, if you’re reading this, that’s your new DJ name). If anyone would like a hard copy (complete with hand-detailed album art!) of the aforementioned sonic achievement we have deemed the “Antipodean Audiorama” for the low low price of AU$59.95 (plus shipping and handling) we accept checks and money orders.

Without further ado, track one:

And now, with the use of our handy Wayback Machine, we go back to a simpler time. A time when we didn’t have to worry about a roof over our heads or the gnawing pit of hunger in our malnourished bellies. WWOOFing!

What is WWOOFing? I’m so glad you asked! It stands for “Willing Workers On Organic Farms,” and it’s a program that enables strapping young individuals, like ourselves, to stay with farmers across the country. In exchange for a day’s work, they provide us with food and a place to lay our lil’ heads to rest. The type of place you can visit varies widely—there are honey farms, stud farms, eco-resorts, and hobby gardens, just to name a few. For our first endeavor, we chose to stay in a little place called Bodalla. Our hosts were Ken and Susanna, an Aussie and a German, respectively. They had a very nice story—Susanna was a corporate type working for the American branch of a German car company when she encountered a hirsute hippy hunk working the desk at a hostel in the Southern United States (Georgia, to be precise… just outside Atlanta, to be preciser… OK, it was the Hostel in the Forest in Brunswick, GA, and it sounds pretty awesome). After a few hours chatting with him, she realized he was awfully nice to talk to, if a bit on the unkempt side. By some beautiful twist of fate, the next morning he reappeared, clean-shaven, and Ken was revealed! They fell in love and moved back to Oz, and they have been together ever since.

The happy couple

A few years back they fulfilled their dream of moving to the country and starting a sustainable homestead, and they have done it miraculously. They have about an acre of land, or perhaps more, but they have managed to pack in quite a bit. They have a small orchard-like area with an archway, a big vegetable garden, and a handful of fruit trees (including one particularly productive lemon tree).

The Garden

This bush smelled just like bubblegum!

A little garden lizard. These guys were all over--even in our garden gloves!

Ken, a painter by trade and a strapping Aussie handy-bloke by nature, has also begun building a number of structures on the property. He constructed the little cabin that was our home for the brief time we spent with them. It was so lovely and cozy, really like something out of a resort.

While we were there, he was also working on an outdoor shower. Susanna had a more artistic temperament, and she was responsible for most of the eclectic decorations in and around the house. She was a fellow jewelry maker, and while her tastes ran to the chunky, we spent a very harmonious evening poring over her collection of beads and crafting some very nice pieces. She ran a small shop in town selling goods she found all over, a very chic odds-n-ends store.

If you're ever in Bodalla, drop by and get some lemon julep cordial!

And while you're in town, visit the little café bakery down the way and get an apple cinnamon scroll! Yum!

Ken and Susanna were also masters of sustainability. This was particularly evident in their water usage—these two did not spare a single drop! Their main water source was a giant rainwater tank, and they supplemented with smaller rainwater barrels for watering the garden. They kept their shower time down to three minutes. They used their dishwater for the garden as well, and—I hesitate to write this, as I’m afraid certain readers may get ideas—their laundry water for flushing the toilet. Although Ken did seem to think of the commode as an optional appliance. We never did witness any major indignities, but he admitted it was a common occurrence for him to supplement the nutrients around his fruit trees with his own nutrients, if you catch my drift. These were people for whom composting was old news, and solar panels were a planned installment.

In addition to being very cool, capable, aware people, Ken and Susanna were also fabulous WWOOF hosts. We ate very well with them. Susanna was a tremendous cook, with a well-stocked, homey, cozy kitchen and an admirable collection of cast-iron cooking vessels. They never ate store-bought bread, but instead demonstrated the miraculous power of a decent breadmaker. We enjoyed great food and great conversation 3 times daily with them, and I happily left with a number of Susanna’s fabulous recipes, including carrot soup, fish pasta, mint julep cordial, and the real culinary highlight of the week, käse spaetzle (though I missed out on as many… one of my life’s greatest regrets is my failure to obtain the formula for that spectacular home-made bread, not to mention Susanna’s unbelievably hearty, savory bean soup). They taught us tons about Aussie culture, and we found we could converse with them on any topic, from serious subjects like religion and politics to the more engaging fare of movies and other media. They introduced us to ABC (Australian public television, for my American friends, but just so’s ya know, it makes PBS look boring and amateurish… then again, that could be because PBS is boring and amateurish), and gave us a list of classic Aussie films not to be missed. They even named their dog after the title character in Run Lola Run!

And now we’re onto the topic, a word should be spared for Lola, one of the sweetest, most well-behaved dogs I have ever met. She’s a huge white German shepherd, a fine specimen of the canine form to be sure. She spent most of the day out in the garden with us, laying in the sun, or more commonly, trying to convince us to throw her rubber toy for her. She lived to chase that rubber toy.

Putting the "woof" in WWOOFing

The work we did was easy too—planting, weeding, watering, pruning, mowing, fertilizing (OK, yes, we shoveled shit). We only ever did about 4-6 hours worth of work before Susanna would call us in and we would head out to one of the local sites. And what gorgeous sites they were! We hiked through a eucalyptus forest bordering a saltwater lake, we wandered along rocky beaches littered with shells and bluebottle jellyfish carcasses, we went seal-watching. It’s hard to describe the spectacular beauty of these places, but suffice it to say they were utterly breathtaking.

Woman's best friend

Hell’s Bells! So many shells! (and a dead seahorse)

Ken and Susanna introduced us to our first kangaroos in the wild. Very exciting! Here's Max with a wallaby.

That black splotch is a seal. I promise.

Yours truly, sur la plage.

Lola figured she's dig us a tunnel back to the States.

Is beautiful, yes?

Our few short days with them flew by all too quickly, and before we knew it we were boarding a bus back up the coast to Tomerong, a village still tinier than Bodalla, where we met our next host, Evelyn. Evelyn had a similar set-up, with a large garden and a beautifully landscaped yard. Her garden was a converted tennis court she so cleverly called “the food court” (a pun too terrible for even me to appreciate), and was planted in a style they call “permaculture.” As far as I can tell, this means that you plant stuff pretty much anywhere all mixed in together (as opposed to in neat rows or in separate beds) and it grows like it wants to. I think the idea is that it won’t deplete the soil as much, but it does make weeding a bit difficult, as one is never quite sure what the hell one is pulling out of the ground. It is a beautiful if wild effect, though, and brings to mind romantic visions along the lines of “The Secret Garden.” In any case, it seems an effective technique as Evelyn’s garden was quite robust and healthy, particularly the broad beans. Jesus that woman had a lot of broad beans. Are our readers familiar with broad beans? They are also known in some circles as fava beans, as in “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” What’s good for Hannibal is not necessarily welcome for Max and Nell, as we found a nightly diet of broad beans to be a bit lacking in culinary excitement. We preferred the snow peas, citrus, and pumpkins from the garden, though really the best thing we ate were the eggs.

That would be fresh eggs. Very fresh eggs. Yes, Evelyn did have chickens, or chooks in the local parlance—and ducks! We learned how to care for our feathery friends over the course of the two weeks or so we spent in Evelyn’s domain. While the ducks were pretty lovable and mostly just wandered happily around the yard, suffice it to say I have no reservations about eating chicken (not that I ever did, yum yum). The chooks constantly escaped their pen and spent the day scratching up anything in sight. Trying to catch a chicken once it has escaped is an enterprise best left to madmen and saints. The only thing to do is wait until evening when the chicken goes back into the coop to roost. And then breaks out again the next day.

Evelyn was similar to Ken and Susanna in her devotion to sustainability, though her personality was really quite different, though it’s hard to quite put a finger on why. She was more interested in politics and world affairs, and gave us a sense of how Aussie politics are arranged. She preferred documentary-type programs, and had an interest in foreign and prestige films. She knew buckets about aboriginal affairs and local flora and fauna. She was one of the most active women I’ve ever encountered—she was a can-do kind of gal.

Ol' Ev herself

She was also a good cook (despite her propensity for gluten-free foods), and she made me a birthday pavlova, which was a very special treat that I shall never forget as long as I live. Yes, I got the recipe!

I admit, this is my second piece.

The work at her house was slightly more rigorous, but pretty much involved the same stuff. We did get to clean the gutters and scrub the roof, which was somewhat perplexing as the gutters were thoroughly infested with very hungry mosquitoes. We also harvested bamboo at her friend’s house (a truly stunning mountaintop home in Kangaroo Valley with a terraced garden… only marred by the discovery of a leech wound on Max’s foot later in the evening), and then later split it and wove it into a lattice for Evelyn’s garden. Evelyn, too, rewarded us with trips out into the natural beauty of the area. We went to a national park where we hiked up on some cliffs to whale watch (successfully) and enjoy spectacular ocean views. We visited the beach, where we saw dolphins, stingrays, and pelicans in clear, turquoise water. We also marched around in the woods and got to see some of the native plants in bloom. Evelyn explained the resilience of eucalypts to forest fire, and we got the chance for some great photo ops.

Native flowers

Max, plus lens flare!

The billy boiling

Ev took us to a "wood chop" on my birthday. It was sort of like being in an Australian version of Twin Peaks, if one can imagine that. The picture pretty much says it all.

More native flowers

Gorgeous view!

Us amongst native flowers

It was with some regret but mostly naive optimism that we boarded the overnight bus to Melbourne…

TO BE CONTINUED!

As a note, I hope our readers enjoyed all the photos, because I’m pretty sure that’s the last time I took any. Get ready for some picture-less posts!

I Survived Surf Camp and All I Got Was This Crappy T-Shirt

Surf Camp! Sounds like a perfect opportunity for young adventurers like us in Australia. Visions of beautiful beaches, perfect waves, and Keanu and Patrick danced through our heads as we signed up. This will be great! It looks so easy! We’ll be riding the waves like pros by the end of the week! I think our readers can imagine where this is heading…

It was a tourist trap, plain and simple. They jammed as many foreign kids as they possibly could onto a bus and shipped us down to a trailer park, ostensibly to torture us and laugh at our utter ineptitude at this supposed “sport.” Surf Camp was a week of soreness, wetsuit chafing, and grungy salt-caked hair.

While the instructors there may have been kinesthetically very talented, one would never accuse them of possessing any other kind of intelligence. Take for example Chris-O, our instructor. While many of the ladies found his physique more than a little appealing, his mental capacity was somewhat lacking. His favorite pastimes included surfing, singing off-key, making squeaking noises on the wet surf boards, blowing spit bubbles, and surfing. Honestly, these boys made Beavis and Butthead sound like Shakespearean verse. They struggled with basic vocabulary. Had they spent half as much effort on speaking as they did on spraying all of us with the hose and laughing hysterically, they may have managed to be at least mildly coherent. As it was, we endured endless repetition of the phrases “You’ll be rippin’” and “Check out that poo-man” and my personal favorite, “Sick!” Of course, we were there to learn a skill set, which unfortunately for us these morons possessed, and so we were at the mercy of their sense of humor for the ENTIRE WEEK.

But did we learn to surf? In a manner of speaking. Both of us made it up onto the board to ride the waves, however briefly. Max managed to get the hang of it on the fist day, and spent the week improving. Nell, on the other hand, didn’t get up until afternoon of the second day, and spent the rest of the time trying to relive her brief moment of fleeting success. We concluded in the end that it was simply not our sport (Max because he has an “ideological dispute with surfing because he believes you should never turn your back on the sea,” Nell because she can’t physically do it) and the great expense involved in procuring a surf board and wet suit would be better applied elsewhere, perhaps putting as much distance between ourselves and surfers as possible.

At this point in the post, our readers are likely questioning the lack of visual aids. Well, there were pictures taken, all week long. There was one guy there whose job it was to stand on the beach and take pictures of us all day long. There were even a few videos. And then, at the end of the week, after our instructors had repeatedly insisted we leave our cameras in our rooms so as not to lose them or damage them on the beach, they tried to charge us for the pictures! Being the American capitalists we are, we recognized the monopolistic enterprise for the unfair bullshit it was, and promptly refused to give them one more cent (which, coincidentally, would have been impossible, given that they do not actually have pennies in Australia). I did snap off a quick snapshot at the end of the week:

You’ll notice we actually look happy in this picture, which seems to be at total odds with the picture of surf camp we’ve given above. We don’t mean you to think we didn’t have fun at surf camp—in fact we really did. We fell in with a bunch of Canadians who were in our BUNAC orientation (and one Dutch guy) and we had a grand time playing cards and making fun of the surf instructors. If we look like a motley bunch, that’s because we are! The weird chick on the far left is Patricia, who is from Quebec. If you know anything about Quebec, enough said. The one who looks like Taylor Lautner is Ryan, from the frigid Northwest Territory. Everyone just called him Taylor. He was the only one of us who was legitimately talented at surfing, and he was 19 and excessively irritating (to Max, especially). You should recognize the two reprobates in the middle. Next to Nell is Elizabeth, a very sweet pastor’s daughter with more piercings than the rest of us combined. On the end are Kalene and Felix, who got along famously. Kalene is the oldest and most responsible Canadian, which also made her interesting to talk to, as she had more complex thoughts than “gotta get smashed.” Felix is the Dutch guy, who did remarkably good impressions of our surf instructors, but who also had a very irritating habit of bashing America. I attributed that last to the pot and the prostitutes in his home country that have skewed his perception.

Also worth mentioning in our recap of surf camp are the vile wetsuits they made us wear. They stank and were sandy, and we damn near impossible to squeeze into. Best of all, they gave us these really classy tans, from the wrist down and neck up. Here’s a so-so picture of Max’s sexy hand-tan:

We avoided sunburn and freezing water, I guess, but at what expense, I ask you? If anyone’s wondering, the trailer park accommodation wasn’t too bad (though the bunk beds didn’t have ladders, leading to a number of beached-whale situations for Nell, with her legs dangling helplessly in midair). The rooms were reasonably clean, if inevitably sandy. The food was pretty good too, though it was frequently served late, leaving us voraciously hungry, tired campers to descend upon it like wolves, much to the chagrin of the camp staff. I suspect they had too few brain cells left between them, however, to comprehend the basic necessity for sustenance.

So that was surf camp. Oh, right, you’re probably wondering about those t-shirts we mentioned. Well, they did give us a t-shirt, the one souvenir we didn’t have to pay for in addition to the astronomical sum we coughed up for the dubious honor of learning to surf. Here’s a picture:

He doesn't look amused...

That about wraps it up. Next installment: WWOOFING!

Hello to the Town School Fourth Grade!

Max and Nell here, speaking to you direct from Australia! We’re interrupting our normal broadcast to bring you a special post for the fourth graders of Town School, who are doing a unit on Australia. We’ve been here for three weeks now, and so we figured we’d give you all the American perspective on travelling through Australia. Though the Aussies speak the same language we do, there are tons of differences in both the way they speak English and the culture here itself.

When you first arrive in Australia, a lot of things will look very familiar. You’ll see American movies in the movies theaters, you’ll see McDonald’s, Starbucks, 7-Eleven, and KFC (and Hungry Jack’s, which is what they call Burger King), you’ll see a lot of the same types of shops on the street, and a lot of the same shows on TV. Sydney, Australia’s biggest city (but NOT it’s capital—that’s Canberra), looks a lot like your hometown of New York City! If you look a little closer, though, you’ll notice millions of tiny differences, and those really add up! For example, going to the movies here is very expensive, and they give you assigned seats, like going to the theater (which they spell theatre). When you try to order coffee, you have to know the difference between flat white, short black, tall black, flat black, and so on (we still can’t make heads or tails of that system). They also drive on the opposite side of the road, which is a little confusing when you’re trying to safely cross the street. They also use a different system of measurement than we do. Instead of inches and feet, they use centimeters and meters, and instead of miles, they use kilometers. Pretty confusing for us Americans. We’re constantly having to convert the measurements in our head. Maybe you guys can give that a try too, as a little math challenge. The conversion is: 1 inch = 2.5 cm and 1 mile = 0.6 kilometers. Open a recipe book, and you’ll notice that measurement is different too. Instead of using teaspoons and cups and pints and pounds, they measure in grams and liters (or litres, for them). When we go to the store, instead of measuring our fruit in pounds, we measure in kilograms. Again, this is a little tough for us, so we have to know the conversion. We try to remember that a kilogram is a little bit more than two pounds, but if you guys want, you could try doing some conversions here too: 1 pound = 454 grams (and 1,000 grams = 1 kilogram).

One of the big differences is that the seasons are reversed, so right now it’s springtime for them. They also use a different system for measuring the temperature. Instead of Fahrenheit, like we use, they go by Celsius. We’ve heard them say things like “It’s going to be hot today! In the 30’s!” that’s very surprising for us, of course, because if it were in the 30’s in the U.S., that would be near freezing! That one’s tough to get used to, because the conversion is kind of tricky. You can try it, if you want: (Fahrenheit Temperature) = 9 / 5 (Celsius Temperature) + 32.

This kangaroo has a joey in her pouch!

As you have probably already talked about, the wildlife here is very different. Instead of seeing squirrels and deer running around, you’ll see marsupials! We have already seen a lot of wallabies and kangaroos (or ‘roos, as they call them here), as well as bunches of little frogs and lizards, and beautiful birds like kookaburras, cockatoos, and galahs. We even saw an echidna! If you smarties don’t already know, an echidna is a monotreme, like a platypus, which means it is a mammal that lays eggs.

This echidna was almost roadkill, but some Aussies stopped to help it out.

Echidnas are very cute, but some of the wildlife here is not so cute. Australia has most of the world’s most venomous animals, and so you have to be careful! We think the scariest is the funnel web spider, which is the world’s most toxic spider. YIKES! There are also lots of venomous snakes, as well as deadly sealife like the box jellyfish, the stonefish, the cone shell, or the blue-ringed octopus.

These blue bottle jellyfish aren't deadly, but you certainly wouldn't want to swim with them.

If you’re lucky enough to avoid those creepy crawlies, there are also sharks and saltwater crocodiles to look out for! Even the kangaroos pack quite a punch, and the humble little platypus has venomous spikes on its back legs! Fortunately, seeing any of the deadly animals here is pretty rare, and you probably won’t have any run-ins if you are careful and follow basic safety guidelines.

Did you know that Australia is the driest continent other than Antarctica? The people here have to be very cautious about how they use water. In the United States we often take water for granted, and we are not very careful about how much water we use. The toilets here in Australia have two flushes—a half flush, and a full flush, so that you can use only the amount of water necessary. Many people in the country have rainwater tanks.

This is a rainwater tank. Pretty big, huh?

They also are very conscientious about their daily water usage, and many Australians keep a bucket in the sink when they are washing dishes or washing their hands, and recycle that water in their gardens to water their produce or their flowers. Some of them even recycle the water from the clothes washing! This helps them conserve water for the most important things, like growing food, and having plenty of drinking water. Also, because Australia is so dry, they face the constant danger of bushfire! When the land gets dried out, these fires can sweep over huge areas, and often they destroy both wildlife and human habitats. Often these fires are started by humans, and so Australians have to be very aware of their surroundings. Sometimes, though, the fires are started by lightning. They are a part of the natural cycle, after all. The fires clean out the old dead junk and make room for new life to grow and flourish. Many of the trees even survive the fires. The eucalypts, the group of trees that is most dominant in Australia, are specially adapted for this. They have thick bark that keeps the inner wood protected, or very slick bark that doesn’t burn well. After the fire comes through, they may look burned and dead, but they are still alive on the inside. They send out little shoots with leaves to perform photosynthesis, which gives the tree enough energy to re-grow its big leafy braches and to start thriving again. Here’s a picture of a tree that looks burned up, but it’s actually leafy and healthy at the top. The little spindly branches are where new sprouts came out, but now the tree doesn’t need them, and so they will dry up and fall off.

One of the other things you might notice in Australia is that the money is different, of course. They don’t use pennies! Instead, they round to the nickel, so everybody practice your rounding skills! They also have very colorful money, and their lowest bill is $5. For smaller amounts, they have $1 and $2 coins. Their coins show Australian wildlife on the back, which is pretty cool. On the “heads” side of the coins, where we might see a picture of a past president on our coins, they have the Queen of England.

Top row from left: echidna, platypus, Queen of England. Bottom row: lyre bird, kangaroo, Aboriginal elder

That’s because unlike us, Australia is still a commonwealth of England, which means it is not independent. Instead of a president, they have a prime minister, and instead of a congress, they have a parliament. Right now, they have their first female prime minister in office!

Most of the foods they eat are the same, but there are a few things that are a little bit weird. They eat this stuff called vegemite, which is a spread you put on bread. It’s dark brown, and it smells very strong, which doesn’t make it very appetizing! It’s made from yeast, and it’s very salty, but it’s a good source of vitamin B. They use it kind of like we use peanut butter, and they constantly put it on their morning toast.

Doesn't that look just scrumptious?

They also eat lots of pies, and we’re not talking about pumpkin pie or apple pie like you might think. They make meat pies here, which are similar to what we call pot pies. They are usually small, hand-held size, and they like to serve them with “tomato sauce,” which we would call ketchup.

Oh, my! Meat pie!

They also have one very nice treat, though. They sell little cookies (“biscuits,” to the Aussies) called Tim-Tams. They’re a little like Oreos (though not as tasty), and they’re covered in chocolate! They have all different flavors, and they go very well with coffee and tea. They’re very tasty!

Now these are really good stuff...

They have different holidays from us too. They have Halloween, though it’s not as popular, and not everyone trick-or-treats. They don’t have Thanksgiving at all, of course, which is very disappointing for us, since that’s coming up very soon (we’re going to miss the turkey and mashed potatoes, yum yum!). They do have Christmas, but instead of playing in the snow, they go to the beach! Christmas is in the middle of summer time, for them! Also, on January 26th, they have Australia Day, which is like their equivalent of the Fourth of July. They celebrate it a lot like we celebrate the Fourth, with summer activities, and cooking on the grill, which they call a barbeque.

The most obvious difference as an American, though, is the differences in the language. Obviously the Aussies all have Australian accents, but they also have tons of slang that they use in daily conversation. They love to abbreviate words, and they have some pretty funny phrases too! Below we have made a list of all the Australian words and phrases we have encountered. This is only some of them–there are thousands! Maybe you guys could see how many of them you can use in one day!

They would say:	We would say:
Lollies	Candy
Sultana	Raisins
Mince	Ground meat
Biscuits	Cookies
Scone	Biscuit
Barbeque	Grill
Jumper	Sweater
Tomato Sauce	Ketchup
Boot	Trunk (like in your car)
Swimmers/Togs	Swimsuit
Summer Holiday	Summer vacation
Thongs	Flipflops
Cinema	Movie theater
Chooks	Chickens
Mobile	Cellphone
Tele	TV
Jackaroo/Jillaroo	Cowboy/Cowgirl
Ta	Thanks
Arvo	Afternoon
Brekky	Breakfast
How ya goin’?	How’s it going?/What’s up?
Bob’s your uncle!	You’re all set!
Good on ya!	Good for you!/Good job!
No worries	No problem
She’ll be right	It’ll be OK
Moreish	Addictive, as in “we want more and more!”

The very best thing about Australia, of course, is it’s citizens. Much like the Americans, the Australians are incredibly outgoing, hospitable, and friendly. They love to laugh and have a good time, just like us. I hope all of you get the chance someday to pay a visit to this spectacular country. Until then, G’day!

Coo-ee, indeed.

We finally ventured out of Sydney, into the Blue Mountains and boy was it SPECTACULAR!! We had the time of our lives, fell head over heels in love with the adorable mountain town where we stayed, and were loath to return to city life after a full day of fresh mountain air. Such is life.

We started our day early, jumping on the bus with our tour guide, Jason. He was a real character, with a wicked sense of humor. He kept us in stitches basically the entire time. Our tour was small (only 10 people), and we were all young and reasonably fit, so Jason took the opportunity to be a bit of a rogue and change up the tour, especially for us. This is almost always a good thing, and this was no exception. Our first stop was a big open field in the Blue Mountains National Park to look for kangaroos. We didn’t see any, because the field was so overrun by campers. Although we were slightly disappointed, we couldn’t really blame the ‘roos either because we don’t much like spending time with outdoorsy people ourselves. Jason assured us that there will be plenty of chances for us to see kangaroos (and other native fauna, for that matter) in their native environment if we’re staying for a year.

From there we stopped to get breakfast in a quaint little village, and had the opportunity to talk movies with Jason, who turned out to be quite the cinephile. We got some good Aussie film recommendations, and we were off to see the mountains themselves. Here’s the view from the top (before we did the hike and were too pooped to breathe):

Jason kicked off the hike by taking us to Empress Falls, which is the spot that is not normally included on the tour. We could see why!!! The path to get down was treacherous, and slippery! It was almost difficult to enjoy the scenery, so focused were we on not sliding off the path and plummeting to our deaths. When we did make it to the bottom, though, it was more than worthwhile. I could try to describe it, but as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words:

From there we started the trek to Wentworth Falls, the tallest waterfall in Australia. On the way, Jason regaled us with aboriginal stories and personal experiences with the local flora. The path was slightly less deadly here, so we were able to get more snapshots. For the most part, we walked along cliffsides that extended far above our heads, making for some pretty good photo opportunities:

The cliffs’ proximity also provided a good bouncing board for sound. Jason instructed us to face the wall, and then all together yell “Coooo-eeee!” which came back to us as an absolutely perfect echo. Coo-eee is the sound that aboriginal people called out to one another in the mountains to let each other know their positions. We got opportunity to yell it A LOT, as you might imagine. Here’s a shot of Jason explaining something or other to our group, while standing on rather uncertain ground (there were huge gaps between those stones, people):

When we finally reached Wentworth Falls, they were impressive, certainly. We were getting a little tired, at that point, and they weren’t quite as nice as Empress Falls because they weren’t as lovely or secluded, but we still got a couple good photos:

After a brief stop, we started the journey back up to the van. That’s when the real fun started. 500-some steps up!! And not piddly little steps, we’re talking full blown haul-your-whole-freaking-body-up, Sasquatch-sized steps. Poor flatlander Nell was not amused. After much moaning and groaning and huffing and puffing, we finally made it back to the top, to be rewarded with a huge, healthy lunch spread. We certainly didn’t expect the food to be so good, but we quickly took the opportunity to replace the calories we burned off hauling our fat selves up a mountainside.

After that break in the action, we continued on to our next destination, which was more rainforest than bush, shady with dense ferns, and oh yeah, 1,000 MORE STEPS!!!! Fortunately, they were all going down (or fortunately, you would think, but in reality that’s a lot of steps going either way). This was the walk where we got a vista of the Three Sisters, one of the most famous geographical landmarks in Australia. We also got the traditional aboriginal story of the Three Sisters, which involved a magic man and his magic bone, his three mischievous daughters, and a “bunyip.” It’s a bit long to write out, but if anyone is interested, we’ll post it (leave a comment if you are that interested, or you could look it up online). In any case, here’s a photo:

Also included in this walk was the picturesque Katoomba Falls. Katoomba is the local aboriginal word for waterfall, so this waterfall translates to Waterfall Falls. Katoomba is also the name of the town where we stayed the night, and it’s also just really fun to say. Katoomba!

Once we hit the bottom (of those 1,000 steps, mind you), we were spared the horror of walking back up by the steepest railway in the world. It’s not really a train so much as an amusement park ride. It shoots you straight up the side of the mountain, and goes through a tunnel in the process. It’s pretty exciting, but it only takes about a minute to get to the top. At the top, Nell got a souvenir coin. She’s nuts for those little bastards.

Jason drove us to one more lookout point before dropping us off at the Katoomba YHA, which was fantastic. Besides being a beautiful building, it was also sturdy, as Max demonstrated for this photo:

Really though, the rooms were clean and the people working there were beyond nice. At Jason’s recommendation, and after walking up the block to look at menus, we ate dinner at Chork Dee, a very cheap and very very tasty Thai restaurant. After stuffing ourselves (for the second time that day), we went back to the YHA to watch some TV and then laid our tired bones down to rest (note: 2 days later, Nell is still walking around like John Wayne… ouch!).

The next morning, we had fresh-baked goodies for breakfast and caught a train back to Sydney. The ride was wonderful. We rode on the top deck and were rewarded with spectacular views of the countryside. Arriving back in the city after such a wonderful trip was kind of a bummer, and checking into our new (very skeezy) hostel was even more of a bummer, and meeting our annoying new roommate from Stuttgart was bummer enough for us to swear off Europeans forever, and losing out on our best bet for a job in Tasmania was just about the king of bummers, but we have high hopes for the near future. We’ve spent most of today applying for jobs and looking up WWOOF locations (cross your fingers that we get to go take care of bees on Kangaroo Island), and on Monday we leave for Surf Camp. Hopefully we’ll have a lot of embarrassing photos, so keep your eye out for updates, or newspaper headlines detailing the spectacular surf-related demise of 2 stupid Americans. In the meantime, pray that we don’t contract scabies from our nasty hostel.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, the Blue Mountains really are blue!! It’s because the eucalyptus trees exude an oil that hangs in the air like dust particles, and when the light shines through it, it creates a blue haze. Though it doesn’t make you feel blue, because it’s far too beautiful!

Oot and Aboot in Sydney

So it’s been a while since we’ve updated. It’s not that we’ve been particularly busy, it’s just that we have minimal internet. We’re actually writing this offline, and hopefully we’ll be able to post it tonight. Internet is so expensive here!!! No free wifi at all, except in McDonald’s. Let’s hear it for American companies!

We’re still not too nuts about Sydney. We talked to a surfing instructor for a while at a barbeque on the roof of our hostel. He told us that there are very few Aussies living in Sydney, and that if we wanted to experience the real Australia we’d have to get out of the city. We were predisposed to take his advice, since he’s the nicest, funniest person we’ve met yet. We get the impression that Melbourne would be better than Sydney, and so we’ve put in a couple applications there. The Tasmania position is also promising, since everyone we’ve mentioned it to claims Tasmania is absolutely fantastic, and not very touristy at all. Also, that job would provide a place for us to live, which is pretty amazing given the cost of living here. We’re hoping to get a phone interview this Friday, so cross your fingers for us!

In non-job related news, Max and I have hit a couple more sights around Sydney since we last posted. We headed over to the Sydney Aquarium, which was pretty small, certainly nothing on the level of the Shedd, but nice anyways. It had almost exclusively Australian sea life, including the deadly ones (which they really downplayed, demonstrating once again the Aussies’ nonchalant attitude about their remarkably toxic fauna). They had a platypus, but it was hiding when we were there, so we didn’t get to see it. They also had the cutest little penguins! They were only about a foot tall! The big draws, though, were the dugongs and the sharks, which each had their own massive tanks with tunnels running underneath for viewing. Admittedly, they were pretty cool, the sharks especially. The Aquarium even has a shark breeding program, since so many shark species are endangered. Here’s Nell’s hand touching a shark egg (because Max was too chicken):

If anyone’s wondering, it felt kinda smooth and a little squishy when you pushed on it. Not as gross as you might expect. The grossest thing we saw, or rather, the most ridiculous, was the burnt sausage sea cucumber. The name says it all:

Just think about what it’s called. It’s a sea CUCUMBER. But it’s a BURNT SAUSAGE sea CUCUMBER. Right? Moving on.

The Aquarium also had this really odd exhibit running through the museum. Calling it an exhibit might be too strong a word; it was a number of displays dispersed throughout the sea life (with no discernable connection to the fish on display) that were totally and completely cracked out. It was called “The Future Is Wild,” and it imagined where evolution would take a number of existing species a couple thousand yeas in the future. They seemed to focus mostly on ocean life, which might be why it was in the aquarium. In any case, there were these crazy pictures of sharks with glowing panels on their sides, gigantic penguin/walrus hybrids, and best of all, the mega squid:

No, it’s NOT Cthulu. It’s what will replace elephants on land in the future. Prepare yourselves.

We also walked around Darling Harbor, which is the area where the Aquarium is located. It was quite touristy, and not as pretty as we might have thought. We went to a restaurant called Blackbird, which aside from being very overpriced, offered a very creative menu. There was a lot of local Australian fare, for example, a crocodile burger. Here’s Max, with said burger:

Nell got a veggie pizza, and it was pretty tasty. It had pumpkin on it, which was the only really exiting thing about it. We both did sample kangaroo, though, at the hostel barbeque. It probably wasn’t the best kangaroo, since it only cost us $5. Flavor-wise, it was somewhere between lamb and beef. Definitely more gamey than American indigenous meat that I’ve had. The most distinctive thing about it was the chewiness. Our surf-instructor pal joked that it lasted longer that way. Neither Max nor I were amused.

We did venture back to try the Chinese Noodle Restaurant. It was also quite tasty, but not as delicious as the first venture to the Chinese Noodle House, perhaps because our expectations were higher. We did get to sit by the window to the kitchen, though, so we could see them make the noodles, which was pretty cool:

Also, here’s a picture of the outside for comparison’s sake, so you can understand our initial confusion:

We’ve also had some downright terrible food. We went to Chinatown with 2 Canadians and a Kiwi (sounds like the title of a sitcom). The Canadians weren’t what you might call adventurous eaters, so instead of going to one of the top 10 ranked restaurants in Chinatown on Urbanspoon (which we looked up in preparation for the event), we ended up at one of the busy places on the main drag that offered an $18 4-course meal. The logic was “if there’s a kid eating there, it must be pretty generic.” We were a little put out, but we figured what the heck. The food, well, sucked. It just was very blah Chinese food. Nothing to write home about (or maybe it is, since we’re writing about it). The service was far more miserable than the food, and the company (specifically the two Canadians) was the worst of all. Or so we thought. About half way through the meal, Max let out a horrible gasp. I (Nell) was afraid to turn around, knowing that whatever I saw behind me would likely make me want to run away screaming, if Max had such a strong reaction. What was it? A COCKROACH!!!!!! Crawling up the wall! To top things off, they never brought us our fourth course, which I suppose was a blessing, given the rest of the meal. What’s the lesson here? It’s time to move on from Sydney, and stop hanging out with Canadians…

The other notable thing we’ve done since we last wrote is walked up to Circular Quay to see the Harbor Bridge and, of course, the Opera House. What a disappointment! Horribly touristy and overpriced, and the Opera House is pretty ugly up close. Our roommate said it looks like toilet paper, and she’s not wrong. It’s kind of dirty looking, and it basically just looks like the ugly modern architecture that it is. Especially the inside. Major bummer. We did walk back through the botanical gardens, though calling them that is giving them a little too much credit, since it’s really just a big park with a few manicured patches here and there. Still, it was very pleasant to be out in nature, and we had our first true wildlife encounter. They had THOUSAND OF GIANT BATS!!! They’re called flying foxes, and they’re fruit eaters (though I personally didn’t want to get too close). They’re also destroying the trees, so the people who run the garden are trying to get permission from the government to relocate them. Here’s some pictures, in case the bats are gone by the time you all make it over here:

Also, there were some very beautiful trees with the most amazing twisted braches. The pictures below look like there are multiple trees, but it’s all the same tree:

Some other items of interest are Hyde Park, which is a beautiful park nearby our hostel. There was some sort of art festival thing going on, so they had these incredible photos taken around Sydney positioned along the main drag:

Part of the art festival was the “statues project,” where they dress up statues to make them more interesting and relevant to the current day (or somesuch like that). Here’s ol’ Vicky herself:

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! We’re headed off to the Blue Mountains tomorrow, which are reputed to be quite beautiful. We’ll also be going to a wildlife park on the way up, so stay tuned for pictures of kangaroos and koalas!

First Impressions

We made it! We’re here!! We’re IN AUSTRALIA!!! The flight was just about as dreadful as we imagined it would be, and customs was no picnic, but we made it in one piece so it’s hard to complain too much. We both have really nasty jetlag, which neither of us really expected (given the flexibility of our college sleeping schedules), which is why we’re here writing at 6 AM. Our hostel is fortunately remarkably nice, and the beds are far more comfortable than they look. Here’s a picture:

When we first got into our room, there was a British couple sharing it, and they were total pigs. We’ve got somebody who’s much neater now, but as we have yet to meet him or her (him, judging from the clothing items lying around), we can’t say much more. I (Nell) cleverly deduced he must be European, from the size and shape of the cellphone charger plug. (UPDATE: He’s a Korean named Benjamin and he gave us some gum… so much for Nell’s detective skills.) It’s really very strange to be living with someone who we haven’t actually met, but I guess we’ll have to get used to that, since we’re going to be living in hostels a fair amount.

Onto the interesting stuff! Our first impression of Sydney is that it’s a mighty multicultural city. There’s more Asian languages spoken on the streets than there is English, and 2 out of 3 restaurants have some kind of Asian cuisine. This might be due to our proximity to Chinatown, but we get the impression than this is a trend for Sydney on the whole (again, cleverly deduced by the top restaurants on Urbanspoon Sydney). Other than that, Sydney seems to be an average big city: expensive, dirty, and smelly. But we’ve only really seen Chinatown and the financial district so far, so maybe we shouldn’t judge just yet. We haven’t even seen the harbor, and that’s supposed to be the nicest thing about the city. Today we’ll be redeeming a pair of free tickets to the Sydney Aquarium, which is down by the water, so maybe we’ll see some parts of the town more to our liking.

We acquired the free tickets at a nearly completely useless “orientation” at IEP, the office that’s going to be helping us out while we’re here. The tickets were really the only good to come out of the staggeringly boring 2+ hours during which IEP representative Bree demanded our attention. It was all information we already knew! Information they sent us before we left! And then they gave us these stupid bags with little booklets that had all the same information all over again! But then there was a brief presentation about Surf Camp, and we might actually do that because it looks pretty fun. Can any of our friends or family imagine either of us surfing? How about working on a farm? Because that’s the other thing we’re thinking about doing very soon.

After we were done using the free wifi and picking up our totally cheap “mobile” phone, we decided to embark upon our first culinary adventure. Up till then, we had been eating at the hostel café, which has very respectable food. We were anxious to actually try the local fare, though, and so we consulted the guidebook and decided on a dive called the “Chinese Noodle Restaurant”. We wandered into Chinatown, and spotted the “Chinese Noodle House” in this bizarre little mall. We figured, this must be it! We went in, and ate some damn good noodles. They were hand made, thick and chewy, and in the most delectable sauce. Max said they were like bread, they were so dense, like “black hole bread noodles.” And the pork and chive dumplings were good too. They had the loveliest ginger flavor, making them taste so fresh and light, and they also had handmade wrappers that were chewy and delicious, like the noodles. The place was a total dive, with these goofy rugs depicting deer, of all things, hanging on the walls. It was packed, naturally. We left, totally satisfied and thrilled at the first real highlight of our trip, only to discover that tucked across the way was an identical restaurant called the “Chinese Noodle Restaurant.” We’re not entirely sure if they are the same place, but we’ll likely be going back to find out which is better, or if they are the same. Here’s a picture of Max with the girl out front trying to pull in customers:

It’ll make things a little out of order if we write about it now, but we saw a movie the night before last. The movie was Easy A, a really clever teen comedy, a lot like Heathers (with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater). If you’re into that sort of thing, you should definitely look for it at an American theater. We can’t really recommend the Australian movie-going experience, however. The tickets cost an astronomical 35 DOLLARS for two tickets. According to up-to-date conversion rates, that’s about $33.55 US. And they gave us assigned seats! At the register the woman asked if we wanted front, middle or back. And then the tickets came out with little numbers on them. What the crap, right? Anyway, people were sitting in our seats when we went in so we just sat wherever. The movie was great, by the way.

In the interest of keeping this post from going on forever, and so that we may once again set out into the city to find things to blog about for our next post, we’re going to wrap things up here. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our adventures Down Under, and we promise to be in touch again soon.