Jared's One Blog

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November 29, 2004

Melbourne to Sydney and Back Again

Okay I know it's been eons since I posted last, but I just haven't gotten a chance to put anything up. I've been too busy seeing Australia! But anyway, here is a really massive post about what I've been up to the last week-plus around Oz.

James & I picked up the brand new white Nissan Maxima at the Hertz in Dandenong around 10am or so last Wednesday morning, and then I decided to head back towards the city to see a couple sights that I'd missed so far. First I went to Brighton Beach, which is home to a famous set of very colourful bathing boxes right on the beach, with the Melbourne skyline visible in the distance behind them across Port Phillip Bay. It was cool finally getting to see in person what I'd only seen on several postcards previously. After that I headed north a little bit to St Kilda, a nice inner-ring suburb just south of the city, where I walked by the marina (where cranes stack the boats like books in a bookshelf three high, it's really a strange sight), the pier, and the amusement park Luna Park, another fairly famous Melbourne landmark. After that it was time to turn around and finally head east out of the city. I took the Princes Hwy east through the beautiful region of Gippsland to Bairnsdale, where I got out and stretched for a bit at Bruce & Joan's house, before moving on to the coastal town of Merimbula. A large section of Princes Hwy between there (actually between Orbost & Eden) was quite desolate, over 200 km of nothing but dense eucalypt forest. And the road was pretty curvy too, there weren't any straight stretches of road along the way, it was amazing. And yeah it was late when I finally pulled into Merimbula, so I drove for an hour or two in a foreign country in the dark on the other side of the road by myself. Fun times! Oh and when I got to Merimbula the coppas pulled me over for an RBT -- a random breath test (of course I blew zeros, I was driving). It was the first RBT setup I'd ever seen, although I'd heard much about them. Usually at an RBT the police will pull everyone over and give all the drivers breathalyzers, to try and catch the drink drivers. But anyways it took me forever to find the YHA hostel in Merimbula in the dark, I had to have driven around that block four times before I finally spotted it. Sigh. At least it was a very nice sleep. And there weren't many boarders there that night, so I even got my own room. Score!

Thursday morning I woke up and drove on a couple of lovely side roads from Merimbula up through the Great Dividing Range to Cooma. I had wanted to fit in seeing both Mt Kosciuszko (Australia's highest point) from Lake Jindabyne, and Question Time at Parliament in Canberra, but on my way over to Kozzy I discovered that I wasn't gonna have time to fit in both, so I turned around at Berridale to head back to Cooma and zoom up the Monaro Hwy to Canberra. Question Time started at 2pm, and I got there just in time fortunately. At Question Time in the House of Representatives (which is open to viewing by the public), individual legislators ask questions of other legislators, either softball questions to members of their own party, or very pointed accusatory questions of the other party. What makes it really hilarious is that all the MP's (members of parliament) yell and hurl insults at each other either during the questions or answers, it's more entertaining than any television program. This particular Question Time was more testy than usual because the Opposition (Labor Party) was levelling accusations against the Deputy Prime Minister of attempted bribery of one of the Labor MP's. So of course each and every time the Labor MP's would ask the same (but slightly re-worded) question, the Coalition (Liberal Party) MP's would be shouting stuff at the Labor people, and each time the Deputy PM would be giving his categorical denial the Labor MP's would be yelling and heckling him. It was just heaps of fun to hear and see all the guffaws. It even got so out of hand at one point that the Speaker of the House ruled one of the Labor MP's out of order, and all the Liberal MP's were shouting stuff like "kick her out!" and "why is she still here?!" Needless to say, it was a very entertaining hour. And it was free too! But after that I wandered around the Parliament House a bit and learned a fair bit about Australian government and history, it was quite interesting. I even got to see a real copy of the Magna Carta, which was really cool. It is an original, one of only four made, and as it is the fourth one that King George wrote, it is the one that was officially codified into British law. Then I drove down to Constitution Park to head down to Regatta Point on the shores of Lake Burley-Griffin, where there was a memorial to Captain Cook. It was a pretty cool globe that traced out each of Captain Cook's circumnavigations of the Earth. After walking a little bit by Lake Burley-Griffin, the manmade lake in the middle of the Australian capital city of Canberra, I drove down to the suburb of Tuggeranong to James' friend Simon's house, where I stayed the night. Simon was pretty cool, and I went out bowling with him and his friends Gareth, Chris and Andy, that was pretty fun. And I scored a century in both games, a 125 and a 102, so that was nice.

After Wednesday and Thursday being sunny and hot (around 90), Friday was much cooler, cloudy and a bit rainy. I drove down from Canberra to Bateman's Bay and then up the coast the rest of the way to Sydney. Just north of Bateman's Bay I stopped at a really out of the way and relatively unknown beach, Pebbly Beach. James & Ali had quite highly recommended it to me because of the really tame kangaroos that are always at the beach. And I certainly wasn't disappointed, there were quite a few kangaroos there, some eating grass, some sleeping. And a couple of them even let me pet them, that was so awesome! A bit further up the coast I stopped by Jervis Bay National Park, which had some wonderfully squeaky and serene white beaches, despite the rain. Even further up the coast I stopped by the town of Kiama, because I wanted to see the famous blowhole at the Kiama beach. Instead I wound up going up to the Mt Saddleback lookout -- which had some breathtaking views of the countryside, by the way, despite the rain and grey weather -- but on my way back down I got totally lost out in the countryside. By the time I finally found my way back to Princes Hwy and Kiama I was too frustrated to go on a search for how to get to the blowhole, so I just got back on the road to Sydney. After some adventures of my mobile phone deciding not to work at all that evening, I finally got to James' brother Ben's house in the Sydney suburb of Dundas around 9pm. But I must say that I was rather pleased with myself, in looking at the map once in a far southern suburb, and making it the rest of the way to his house about an hour later without having to look at the map again even once -- at night in the rain in Sydney, with its messed-up and confusing roads.

I got a bit of a late start on Saturday, although I didn't mind it a bit, since I was finally able to sleep in again. It felt like it'd been ages since I'd been able to do so! Early afternoon I decided to take a little drive out to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, to Katoomba. The weather was still cloudy that day, but at least dry. The downside was that as soon as I got up to Katoomba I reached the base of the cloud, so it was very dense fog up there. I went to Echo Point lookout to see the Three Sisters rock formation and some other stuff, but the fog was so thick you couldn't even see 10 meters in front of you. Bummer. It was the same story at ScenicWorld, where I'd been hoping on taking a ride down the mountain slope on the world's steepest railroad, the tracks have a 45 degree slope. But alas, it was too foggy to see anything, so I didn't go on it. I got back to Ben's place, where we rounded up a couple of cars of his friends and we went into Sydney for the night to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (basically to show me around, since I hadn't seen them yet). It was so cool! The one downside was trying to park in downtown Sydney, we were driving around for a full hour before we found a spot. But we went out to Mrs Macquaries Chair in the Royal Botanic Gardens, where we were able to get a beautiful view of the Opera House right in front of the Bridge with all their lights, right across a small bay in Sydney Harbour. Then we went back over to the Opera House and walked all around it. There was a wedding reception going on in the Opera House while we were there, which looked super-nice. Now those must be some people that are filthy rich! I got a ton of cool night shots of both the Opera House and the Bridge, but the highlight of the night was the fireworks display that suddenly started up at 10pm at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Everyone was surprised by it, because they usually only have fireworks displays for New Years Eve, Australia Day and maybe ANZAC Day (as it turned out, it was just rehearsal for the following night's "Australian Idol" Grand Final, which was to be held at the Sydney Opera House). But I thought it was a super-special treat, and even a gift from God, because I was getting to see what I'd been planning on staying an extra two weeks past New Years to see -- fireworks at the Harbour Bridge. I had been partly bummed about having to come home before Christmas because I wasn't gonna get to see that in person, so now I'm ecstatic that I got a chance to see it. And on the way back to Ben's place we drove over the Harbour Bridge! What an awesome night!

Sunday morning I had to get up fairly early to go to the Sydney airport to meet my parents. Their flight wound up being about an hour late, but it was great to see them again finally. As sort of a "welcome to Australia" thing I drove them over the Harbour Bridge on our way to the Aylings' house in Dundas, where I'd been staying (Ben's parents, Arturo & Patricia, and his sister Liz, who all live in the house, welcomed us all to stay there that night). After letting them have a breather for a few minutes we took the ferry from nearby Parramatta all the way down the Parramatta River, which becomes Sydney Harbour, under the Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay in the heart of the city. From there we hopped on another ferry that took us the rest of the length of the harbour to Manly Beach, one of Sydney's best-known beaches, behind only Bondi Beach in terms of tourist popularity. It was still cloudy and kinda cool on Sunday, but Manly was actually a fairly nice beach, lined by beautiful gigantic Norfolk Island pines. My mom really enjoyed getting a chance to dip her feet into the South Pacific Ocean for a bit. :-) After a bit we took the Manly Ferry back to Circular Quay and walked over near the Opera House. But we couldn't actually get to the Opera House itself, or even to the forecourt, as it was all gated off for the Australian Idol Grand Final. But we did get to see the Opera House with thousands of screaming teeny-boppers outside. Then we walked around a little bit in the Botanic Gardens, and my parents were fascinated by all the new and strange plants and trees that were there. We took the train back to Parramatta, but then got lost on foot trying to find the ferry station where we'd parked. Not good, and it was basically my fault for leading them in the wrong direction initially. And then after being unable to figure out how to navigate Paramatta's confusing maze of one-way streets to find a fast food restaurant, we gave up and went back to the Ayling's house. We were just gonna ask for directions to a place to eat, but when we arrived they were just sitting down to dinner. They quickly added three more places to the table and made a little more food, their hospitality was amazing! And it was good for my parents to get to know them a bit and get to talk to them for awhile. But my goal of just getting my parents to stay up until at least 9pm (to help them get over jet lag) was easily exceeded; they didn't go to bed until 11pm, I was shocked!

Monday morning we stayed at the Ayling's for a wonderful late breakfast before making our way to Canberra. After stopping for lunch at Hog's Breath Cafe (a wonderful restaurant chain here in Oz), we went to the Australian War Memorial. It was a really cool place, with lots of awesome displays and information. We could only spend an hour there, but I could've spent all day in there quite easily without getting bored. Then we went up to the Mount Ainslie lookout directly behind the War Memorial. It provided a spectacular view of Canberra, looking straight down Anzac Pde all the way from the War Memorial straight up to Parliament House, it was a beautiful sight. It was starting to get late in the afternoon so we moved on to Bateman's Bay, but before stopping there for the night we made a quick drive into the sticks a bit north of there to Pebbly Beach, mainly so that they could see some kangaroos. It's way back in the boonies in Murramarang NP and on an unsealed (gravel) road, so not many people even know about it. But it's definitely a jewel of a place, particularly because of all the relatively tame kangaroos right there at the beach (normally you won't see them that close to the ocean, and it's also rare for them to let you get close to them and pet them).

On Tuesday morning my parents were awoken by some noisy peacocks at our motel in Bateman's Bay. Peacocks aren't usually found in Australia, so that was kinda cool to see and hear them. But we got our stuff together and drove down the Sapphire Coast and stopped for a bit in Narooma, which is a gorgeous coastal town with some beautiful clifftop views and a really pretty rock pier. We could've spent all day there relaxing and enjoying the views, but we had to get moving. Further down the coast our next stop was for a picnic lunch at Ben Boyd NP down by Eden, which had some amazing red wave-rock formations at the coast, it was pretty cool. Then we kept on going down Princes Hwy all the way to Bairnsdale, and for most of the way it went through dense eucalypt rainforest. At one point in the South East Forests NP we had to break for a huge monitor lizard that was sunning itself in the middle of the road, which was cool. It really was quite a barren road, and constantly curvy -- there was never a stretch of more than 100-200 meters that was straight, so I was getting quite a workout at the steering wheel. We got to Bairnsdale to Bruce & Joan's place just in time for the big family dinner, since their daughter Angela was back in Australia for a visit with her fiance Joey from Texas.

Wednesday was more of a relaxing day. Bruce & Joan took Angie & Joey, my parents and I around some of the spectacular countryside right outside of Bairnsdale, where Joan had grown up, and where her brothers still have farms. We just spent the afternoon at Bruce & Joan's relaxing though, it was great to have a break from driving all over the place for a day. For lunch we introduced my parents to the very Aussie tucker known as meat pies. I'm gonna miss pies...

Thursday morning it was time to hit the road again, and we drove through scenic Gippsland to Wilson's Promontory NP. I had been to the Prom for four days back in September, but I took them to a couple of beaches that I hadn't been to yet. We brought a picnic lunch to Whisky Beach and spent a bit of time there before driving down to Tidal River. I was hoping to show them one of the marauding wombats that roam freely at that campsite, but instead they got to see some rosellas (red parrot-like birds) and a laughing kookaburra. I hadn't even seen a kookaburra that closely, so that was a treat. We drove up to the lookout at the Mt Oberon carpark and then back down to the marvelous Squeaky Beach. The sand at Squeaky Beach is pure white silica sand just like at Whitehaven Beach up in the Whitsundays, so it squeaks when you walk on it. We had to have spent a couple hours there, long enough for my upper arms and face to get all nice and sunburned. I'm way too stubborn when it comes to (not) putting on sunscreen, sigh. On the way out of the Prom my mom was just saying how she was kinda bummed how we really hadn't seen much wildlife yet, when all of a sudden we had to brake for an emu in the middle of the road. Gotta love Australia! We made it over to Phillip Island a little before sunset, early enough to quick show them Woolamai Surf Beach and The Nobbies before we went to the Penguin Parade. It was so cool watching all those groups of tiny fairy penguins waddling up the beach, and also the thousands and thousands of shearwater birds flying in during almost the entire penguin parade. They banned all photography there though (so as not to hurt the little penguins' eyes), so I wasn't able to nab any pics of the parade, bummer. We finally rolled into James & Ali's place in the Melbourne suburbs after 11pm, we were all exhausted from a really full day.

Friday we got a bit of a late start, partly from having to stop by the mall so I could close my Australian bank account and pick up a couple odds & ends, so we didn't end up taking the ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff until 3pm, ugh. It was a pretty drive along the Great Ocean Road, but a bit tough since it's an extremely curvy road and I was driving west, looking straight into the sinking sun. My goal had been to make it all the way out to the Twelve Apostles to see the sunset, but when we got to where we were staying in Apollo Bay we all realized there was absolutely zero chance of us making it out there in time,so we just got settled into our motel room (which was just 50 meters from the beach!), and then got to relax and enjoy a wonderful sunset from the beach there. For supper we went to a fish & chips shop in Apollo Bay, the first time my parents had ever been to one. The food was so greasy (as it always is at a fish & chips shop) that I expect they've had their fill of the stuff, hehe. But it was so peaceful being able to sit out on the patio at our motel room and work on some stuff with my photos on my laptop while listening to the surf (and seeing it, since it was a full moon that night).

Saturday we got up and kept heading west along the Great Ocean Road, through the Otway Ranges and on to Port Campbell NP, home of some very famous sandstone cliff formations, including the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge. I've seen so many postcards of those things, it was awesome to get to see them in person finally. But after a few totally sunny days (and really warm, Friday it was 98 degrees F), Saturday was cloudy and a bit hazy, but still in the mid 80s with high humidity, which just sapped all of us of energy. But after lingering around the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and the Razorback for a bit we went all the way back to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road. But on the way we stopped at the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk in Otway NP. It was absolutely amazing! It was this really cool walk along metal platforms that were as high as 25 meters above the ground, and a big tower in the middle of it that was 47m tall. It was definitely a different perspective to see the forest from in the midst of the canopy. It was night by the time we got to the city, so I took them for a bit of a drive through Melbourne's beautiful downtown business district and along the Yarra River on our way back to James & Ali's for the night.

Sunday (today) we decided to take it a bit easy again, just staying in Melbourne and seeing only a couple of things. Around midday we went to the Queen Victoria Market, an absolutely huge market on Sunday mornings selling everything from arts & crafts to souvenirs to fresh produce and meat. I hadn't been to Queen Vic yet, and my parents had never been to anyplace like it, so that was pretty cool. We loaded up on quite a few souvenirs. I even managed to find a Minnesota Twins jersey down here for $A40, which was dirt cheap. The same thing would've cost $US40-60 at least back in the States. But we were all shocked to find even American stuff like that at the market, it was incredible. Mid-afternoon we drove a couple miles up to the Melbourne Zoo to give my parents a chance to see some native Australian wildlife, like koalas, wallabies, platypusses (platypi?) and other cool animals like giraffes and zebras. It was really a very nice zoo, with very humane and spacious enclosures, and healthy-looking animals. But the coolest part of it was probably the butterfly enclosure. There were so many endangered butterflies in there it was amazing, but they were all flitting around so much it was hard to get many good shots of them, but I did get one spectacular photo of a very colourful butterfly. After that we came back to James & Ali's for dinner, conversation and packing up all our stuff again for our trip to New Zealand in the morning.

I can't believe that my time in Australia is done now. It's flown by so quickly. And right now I'm so tired and exhausted from driving 4500 kilometers (2700 miles) the last 12 days and being the tour guide for my parents that I can't really come up with anything really profound to say about my incredible experience here the last five months. I've met some amazing people, seen lots of beautiful places and learned quite a bit too, about myself and other things. But one stage of my journey is over, and now another begins. We're gonna try to leave James & Ali's around 5am to beat the city traffic to the airport (since the airport is way the heck on the other side of the city), and our flight to Christchurch leaves at 9:35am. I'm really looking forward to seeing New Zealand, but I really don't wanna leave Australia. I almost feel like I belong here. But I've been so busy with preparations and planning for the Australia portion of this trip with my parents that I haven't even looked in the Lonely Planet guide for New Zealand yet. That'll probably be my airplane reading material. But my parents have some friends, David & Karen, who live in Ashburton, a town not too far from Christchurch, who we'll be staying with. And they'll be showing us around the whole week that my parents are there, so I'm excited that I get a break from being the chauffeur. ;-) I'm sure I'll be able to relax heaps more and soak in the landscape. But I've really gotta get to bed, I'm only gonna get less than 4 hours of sleep as it is. So long from The Land Down Under! Talk to you all again in Middle Earth!

Posted by Jared at 01:13 AM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2004

G'bye Melbourne ... For Now

I figured I'd put up a relatively short post tonight, since I don't know when I'll get a chance to next. I'm now all moved out of Monash. Yesterday while I was packing some stuff up, I burned a CD of some of my Australia photos for Stefan, since I was unable to write to his external hard drive for some reason. And then JR came up in the afternoon and agreed to take a bunch of stuff that Karolina had left for me, like a couple of comforters, a fan and computer speakers, that I simply had no room for. That allowed me to be able to focus pretty much just on my stuff. I started packing a bit last night and finished today. I took a break to go have lunch with Rob for an hour, that was really good to get one last chance to talk about stuff with him before I left. I mailed some books and stuff back home via library rate for under $35 (for nearly 7 kg), not bad at all. James came and picked me up with all my stuff around 5:30. I had a very nice dinner with him & Ali tonight and then we watched CSI and Cold Case on the telly, so it was a nice and relaxing evening.

In the morning James will take me down to Hertz in Dandenong where I'll pick up the car. $530 for a 12-day rental including all the insurance and everything, it's a really good deal! I'm planning on swinging by St Kilda & Brighton Beach tomorrow morning before heading east past Bairnsdale (where I'll stop in for a quick visit with Bruce & Joan, Ali's parents), and on to Merimbula, a small town on the southern coast of New South Wales, where I'll stay the night. Then I'll head over to Mt Kosciuszko (Oz's highest point) Thursday morning, and get up to Canberra by early afternoon so that I can catch Question & Answer session at Parliament. That's where they really start insulting each other and calling each other names, so it should be a blast! And the new session of Parliament just started today, with the first legislative issues being discussed tomorrow, so there should be plenty of pent-up name calling just waiting to be released this week. :-) After staying the night in Canberra (probably with one of James' good mates who lives there), I'll head back to Bateman's Bay on Friday morning and follow the coast up to Sydney, getting there on Friday sometime, and probably staying a couple nights with James' brother Ben, before my parents arrive Sunday morning.

Whenever I get a chance to post during my travels (both before and after my parents arrive), I will. But first I'll leave you with a couple of entertaining bits. The sore-loser wing of the Democratic party is still talking secession. Too bad that in most of the "blue states," the majority of the counties are actually red (e.g. California, all red except for the coastal areas around San Fran & LA). And I always love stories about beavers. Especially when they make a lodge out of money. Dam!

Posted by Jared at 01:18 AM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2004

Fun 'n Games

I know it's been almost an entire week since I've posted anything, but I've just been having so much fun this week I haven't had time to post! So here's a recap of what I've been up to, sorry if it gets a bit lengthy again, but by now you're all used to that on my blog, right? :-)

Back on Tuesday I rucked up to the All-Star Sports Cafe at Southbank in the city at 1pm to watch the Vikings-Colts Monday Night Football game. It's too bad the Vikes got edged out in the waning seconds, but at least it was a fun game to watch. I think All-Star Cafe is single-handedly helping me get through my withdrawal symptoms of gridiron (the Aussie term for American football, which they almost universally think is a sissy game). After the game I decided to take a walk to some areas of Melbourne that I hadn't been to yet. I spent an hour or two wandering through the Alexandra & Queen Vic Gardens, wrote a couple postcards there, saw some statues and the Floral Clock across from the National Gallery, then spent two or three hours strolling through the Royal Botanic Gardens. There weren't quite as many flowers as I had been expecting in the Botanic Gardens, but it was still really nice and peaceful there. A bit before sunset I made my way over to the Shrine of Rememberance, which is a tribute to the Australian veterans ("diggers," as they're called here) of primarily World War I, but also all the other wars Australia has taken part in as well. I was up there for at least a couple hours just enjoying the view of the city looking straight down Saint Kilda Road/Swanston Street, mostly waiting for night-time in the hopes of getting some good photos of the city from there. In the meantime I struck up a conversation with a couple of cool cops who were on patrol at the Shrine, and I talked with them for about an hour. One of them told me about his recent trip to the Red Centre, and of course recommended that I visit Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata-Tjata (the Olgas) and Kings Canyon, but he also said that I should check out the "very very strange" town of Coober Pedy at some point. It's an opal mining town in the Outback between Adelaide and Alice Springs, and the town is two-thirds underground apparently. He also said that the residents have fences around their property that are made out of just whatever old junk is laying around -- bike or car frames, scrap metal, or even old missiles (the military testing range isn't too far away) -- but then usually at the entrance to their homes would be a very nice (but very out of place) wrought iron gate with some flowers and everything, with the "junk fences" continuing on both sides of the gate. Yeah, very bizarre indeed. It sounds like it'd definitely be an interesting place to visit next time I come to Australia. Anyways, after getting some night photos from the Shrine I took the walk down St Kilda Road, a beautiful boulevard of green-lit trees (blue-lit trees in winter), and got some more photos of Federation Square and the night lights by the Yarra before hopping on a train back to Monash at Flinders St Station. My feet were very tired by the time I got back to my room, especially since I also had to walk to Monash from Clayton Station. Who knows how many k's I walked on Tuesday, but it was worth it.

On Wednesday I took it easy after spending two days walking all around the city. In the evening I went over to Peter & Naomi's place with Bradwa and Kieran to play some "Risk." A few other CU people showed up too, like Jillian, Emily, Connie, John & Paul, so we had to split it up into two games. But I was pretty excited because I finally managed to win a game of "Risk" by total domination. I even beat Peter, which is apparently kinda tough. Afterwards we played a couple games of 500 before heading back to Monash around 3am. It was fun to play some games with everyone again and get another chance to hang out.

Thursday afternoon I played a bit of Starcraft with Bradwa & Kieran, it was good getting a chance to play that game again finally (especially since I won all two or three games, woot woot!). Then we watched "Ocean's Eleven," but also with Connie and their friend Lyndall, who had just returned from a few months of travelling the world. She'd been pretty much everywhere too, including China, Vietnam, Namibia and other African countries, plus all over Europe, so it was cool hearing about her experiences. After that Brad, Kieran & I picked up Rob from work and went to the cinema at Knox City to see the movie "Hero." It's a Chinese-language action film starring Jet Li, and it's in a similar style and genre as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (especially in the fight scenes, where the characters fly around a little bit, but it just adds to the aura of the film). I'd have to say that "Hero" is the most visually beautiful and artful film I've ever seen, or at least in the top five. It's simply a stunning film, with a refreshingly different plot progression. After we dropped Rob off at home Bradwa, Kieran & I, since we were starving from not having eaten anything in forever, made ourselves a nice pasta dinner after midnight. A very good midnight snack indeed.

Friday was the third day in a row that I slept in due to really late nights. Definitely starting a bad habit here. In the early evening Bradwa, Kieran & I went into the city to the Old Melbourne Hotel, the restaurant where Rosie works (Rosie is one of the girls from MBT, and she's sorta actually in charge of most of the staff at the restaurant). We were hoping to give her a bit of a surprise, and judging from her reaction she definitely was. :-) The meal was a bit expensive but very good, it was super-nice to have a delicious steak again. And then coconut sorbet with fruit salad for dessert, it was sooooo good! After dinner we drove back to Monash, and then they dropped me off up at Mars's place for a fun little party (unfortunately it was pouring) while they came back and played some Starcraft (I let Connie use my room and my computer for it while I was gone). But it was good to say goodbye to Rowan & Stuart too, Ro bought himself a nice $30 Cuban to celebrate being completely done with uni for good. Congrats Ro! Brad came back up to Blackburn to pick me up around 2am or so, and when we got back I beat him in another game of Craft, since I wasn't at all tired. Chalk up yet another 3am bedtime this week.

Saturday I slept in till 1:30pm. That's definitely the latest I've slept in probably ever, I was almost pulling a Purdham (for those of you who don't know John, he'll routinely sleep till 4 or even 6pm on weekends, it's crazy). But anyway after a bit more Starcraft, this time with Simon (and I lost, he's much closer to the other 202ers in skill level than me), and a bit of helping Bradwa move out, basically everyone from Christian Union drove over to Colac (a couple hours west of Melbourne) for Kathryn's 21st. I rode over there with Jimmy (Mars). It was actually a joint 21st party for Kathryn and her cousin Jess from RMIT, so it was a whole bunch of their friends from Colac, plus basically everyone from the CU groups at both RMIT and Monash, it was pretty cool. Kathryn's dad had a couple of big bonfires going out in the paddock too, that was nice, especially since it was kinda drizzling and cool all evening. A lot of people stayed the night, but since Jimmy was my ride and he wanted to go back to Melbourne at 1am or so, we went back. Tally a 3:30am bedtime. I'm sure doin well in the staying up late department these days!

Today (Sunday) I actually got up relatively early, before 11am! I didn't do too much during the day, although I did call my parents to start ironing out a little bit more of the itinerary, and I called James to get the process started for me renting a car on Wednesday morning for my drive over to Sydney. But then this evening was the last MBT of the year. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but after the talk several of us stayed at Rob & Simone's till midnight or so, playin some foosball and "Taboo," so that was a fun way to end it. It was definitely Australian Taboo though, as there was a fair bit of Aussie slang in there. Good thing I've been paying attention this semester! But yeah, I'm definitely gonna miss everyone from MBT (and everyone from CU for that matter), all the Christian Union stuff has been the highlight of my semester abroad, I'd say. Hopefully some of them will be able to come visit me if they ever take a trip to the States, or vice versa if (when) I come back to Australia someday.

So tomorrow I've really gotta start packing, as I'm gonna be trying to move out of Monash on Tuesday afternoon. The end of my time here really is drawing to a close, it's hard to believe. I've really got a lot to do to get ready for heading out.

One of the bigger stories in the news back home, apart from the Fallujah invasion of course, was John Ashcroft's resignation as US Attorney General. I would tend to agree with Jonah Goldberg that Ashcroft was actually a pretty good AG, despite his extreme demonization and villification by the forces on the Left. And then I also recently read a wonderful piece by Charles Krauthammer on the myth of the "bigoted Christian redneck" voter, who again the Left is blaming for their loss in this year's elections. Basically, it's a myth that "moral values" was the #1 issue that people voted on. Yes it was near the top, but it wasn't the all-important issue that the media's been claiming it was (and in claiming so they've been trying to demonize Bush supporters in the same breath). And will the Western world turn a blind eye to China's abominable human rights record just because the Olympics are coming to Beijing in four years? Hopefully not. Also, it appears that there's some serious debate in the scientific world about the recently discovered "Flores man" in Indonesia. It now appears likely that the hobbit-sized humans were actually a variant of humans that simply had a condition which stunted the growth of both their brains and bodies.

Posted by Jared at 02:52 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2004

Done With Tests Until 2005!

On Sunday morning James drove me back to Monash, after I spent the night at their house. I got a call from Sarah B., a fellow Gustie who was studying abroad this semester over at the University of Wollongong, about an hour south of Sydney, saying that she was in Melbourne today instead of Wednesday, and thus wondering if I wanted to go into the city to hang out, but I had to say no because I really had to do at least a modicum of studying for the GRE test. Le sigh. She might be back in town on Wednesday for a bit before she hops on a plane back to Sydney, it'd be cool to hang out with another Gustie down here in Australia. So I spent all afternoon taking a practice test and a half (the second one I skipped the writing portion on), but for neither test did the software tell me my score. The spaces where the scores should've been listed were simply blank. Weird. But I was a bit frustrated too, since that was part of the reason I bothered taking the practice test in the first place, so that I'd have an idea of what type of score I could expect, oh well. At least I got an idea of the sort of questions that would be asked, I guess that's the more important thing. And then in the evening it was time for my next-to-last MBT. A sermon on Ecclesiastes 3 and Psalm 39, not your typical "happy" or uplifting passages, that was interesting. And then afterward a bunch of us stayed for quite awhile (till almost midnight) just talkin and having a good time, it was great! I'm really gonna miss those people. At right is a group photo of everyone at MBT last night. After I got back I hurriedly looked up a few words on dictionary.com that I was a bit fuzzy on during the practice GRE test. Dictionary.com is probably almost as good as a real dictionary, but certainly not as heavy!

And then this morning I caught a train into the city to take the General GRE test. It was at the Exchange Tower on Little Collins Street, and while I had no idea where in the city business district it was on Little Collins Street, I guessed it was near Spencer Street Station, so I got off there. Bingo! Less than two blocks from there, yay. Maybe I'm starting to figure out this city after all. Anyway I took the test at 1pm. I think I smoked the writing section (two essays), though I won't find out my writing score for at while yet; there were more new and strange words than I had anticipated on the verbal section, which must've affected my score a bit; and I smoked the quantitative section too. I finally beat John at another test, woot woot! Or at least in one section, since I forget what he said he got for his verbal score. For my four free score reports, I chose to have them sent to the University of Oklahoma (Norman), University of Wisconsin (Madison), Penn State University (Happy Valley) and Mississippi State University (Starkville). Now I've just gotta figure out which other schools to pay to send the score report too, and then it's on to starting the grad school application process. Oh yay. But at least now I'm completely and totally done with tests until 2005, woohoo! Now I can spend my last week in Melbourne stress-free and not worrying about tests or studying or anything like that. Now all I have to do is start planning my trip to Sydney and then what I'm gonna do for the two weeks I'm in New Zealand by myself. But those are happy dilemmas to have, most definitely. (Side note: I can't believe I only am gonna be in Melbourne for another week to 10 days. Wow.)

Tiny Grantsburg, Wisconsin (just 45 minutes northwest of Cumberland) has made national news by revising its school's science curriculum to include the teaching of creationism. This is very welcome news indeed, and I sincerely hope that they don't cave in the face of the firestorm that's already started since the decision was announced. And more dissection of the election reveals that the youth vote "fizzled like a North Korean light bulb," as the incomparable Jonah Goldberg puts it. Some local Melbourne divers are proud for raising some money for a local charity while setting a new world record in the thrilling "sport" of . . . underwater ironing. You can't make this stuff up fast enough! And two ladies came to blows, quite literally, over a sneezing fit in a church in Germany.

Now time for some relaxin'. Let me know what you think of my new photo album design, or of the new photo albums I put up the other day in general.

Posted by Jared at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2004

The Last Laugh

Well I've had a couple of pretty interesting last couple of days. Yesterday afternoon Uriah, one of Rich's friends from UW-Eau Claire that I met on our trip up to Cairns a little over a month ago, was down here in Melbourne and came over to Monash to pay me a visit. We went back into Melbourne for a little while, and walked around all sorts of places, such as Federation Square, Swanston Street, the Greek Precinct, Lygon Street ("restaurant row") in Carlton, and then back down Russell Street to the Last Laugh Comedy Club on Collins Street. We had thought that the Last Laugh was up on Lygon Street somewhere, because that's what our Lonely Planet guides said. Unfortunately when we got up there and couldn't find it, nobody we asked knew where it was either, so we gave the club a call again. I asked what number they were on Lygon Street, and the lady said, "188 Collins Street," which was way the heck back in the CBD, near Flinders Street station, where we'd started from! Apparently they'd moved since our Lonely Planet's were published. Sigh.

The comedy club was great though. There were three acts (if you count the emcee, who was up there for about as much time as either of the other two guys), headlined by a guy named Tommy Dean, originally from America, but who has lived in Australia for 12 years now. He was absolutely hilarious, and surprisingly clean with his jokes too! When he got up on stage he said, "You know, I feel a little weird saying that I'm from the United States. I'd rather say that I'm from the superpower, so I'd really appreciate that, if you said I was from the superpower," which everyone thought was a riot. He had the perfect balance of making fun of the States (superpower, airline security, etc) and Australia (cricket, footy, the fact that Aussies call beer "piss," etc), it was great! Uriah & I both thought it was well worth the $25 to have a good night of laughs. After that we both got a beer from Young & Jackson's pub on Flinders Street before catching a train back to Monash. Uriah stayed overnight in my room.

We both slept until noon, and it was the longest either of us had slept in probably all year. Uriah went back into the city to do some more sightseeing, but I stayed at Monash with the intention of doing a little studying for the GRE. But before you know it I'm over here at James & Ali's place workin on putting several new photo albums online -- ten, to be exact. Plus, I also uploaded a new video clip of an echidna burrowing for some ants. Check 'em out! While I've been here I've also been doing a little bit of planning of the itinerary for when my parents come down in two weeks. There's too much to see and too little time!

Both New Zealand and Canada are reporting spikes of American visits to their immigration websites in the days since George W Bush was re-elected. I wonder how many of these people are serious about leaving. I say let 'em go, it'll increase our majority! ;-) Most reports are indicating that Yasser Arafat, the terrorist leader of the PLO, is brain dead in a Paris hospital. Trouble is, Yasser's the only one who knew where the money was. In other news, IBM has just smashed the world's supercomputing record, with it's BlueGene/L machine reching a stunning 70.72 teraflops, twice as fast as the world's current fastest computer, the NEC Earth Simulator in Yokohama, Japan, and 100 times faster than any desktop computer. And in weird news, a naked Canadian really really wanted to go to Australia, by jumping into the wheel well of the Qantas jumbo jet that was moving down the tarmac. And ya gotta love stupid criminals, especially when a burglar leaves his name and photograph behind.

Posted by Jared at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2004

Spring Cleaning

So I spent a good chunk of the day today cleaning my room, I guess I finally got the spring cleaning fever (a bit late, I might add, since spring started way back in September down here). It really really needed it, especially since I hadn't cleaned it even once since I moved in back on July 11th. My desk had accumulated nearly four months of junk on it, everything from old receipts, used metcards (bus/train tickets), old papers, and even that short ethernet cable i've been looking for since August. I'm tellin ya, it was a veritable treasure trove! Well, apart from the completely full rubbish bin of junk. It's so nice finally having a mostly clean desk now! Not to mention a now-cleared-off relatively comfy chair to sit in. Hmm, perhaps I should've done this before finals started, so I could've studied in a bit more comfort... Oh yeah, and I gave the room a good vacuum too, which it desperately needed. I daresay the carpet appears a slightly darker shade of blue now! Haha, j/k (sort of ;-). At least now I'm in a much better position to start packing, which I'll need to do soon, since I move out in two weeks (if not a day or two sooner).

I also started studying a little bit for the GRE test, although I let myself get interrupted. Oh well, I'll take one of those practice tests either Saturday or Sunday.

Kerry very gracefully conceded the presidential race earlier today. I didn't hear it or see it, but I've read quite a few people saying it was actually the best, most relaxed speech he gave the entire campaign. But what was the deal with trotting out Edwards to also give a concession speech? Since when did veep candidates do that? In contrast to Kerry's speech, his was rather lacking in class. It seemed rather obvious that it was a 2008 campaign speech, but it was a bad start for him. What did Edwards do for the Kerry campaign anyway? He certainly tread very lightly on the electoral world, delivering nothing to Kerry, not even a closer vote in his home state in North Carolina. And it's lookin like the punk Terry McAuliffe's tenure as DNC chairman is almost up, and there are rumours that Dr Dean might be next in line. I love the idea! Seriously, I do. It'd be a hoot to have Dean in there!

Well, that's about all for tonight. Uriah decided to stay at a hostel in St Kilda tonight, but he'll be staying overnight here in my room tomorrow night (hence why I picked today to clean my room), and I'll be showin him some of the sights in Melbourne tomorrow. It'd be nice if it'd get warm again though, the last few days have been rather cool and wet. The last couple mornings have been in the upper single digits C (mid 40s F). The weather here is so variable, although I'm still waiting for the semi-permanent summertime switch to hot every day.

Posted by Jared at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2004

George W Bush Is Re-Elected!

So I woke up fairly early this morning (before 9) so that I could get caught up on reading about all the happenings to that point on Election Day, which took awhile. I did some laundry, read some more stuff, keeping constantly updated on what was happening, through several news sites online (CNN, FOX, C-SPAN, Drudge, BBC, etc), along with a healthy dose of NRO for more of the behind-the-scenes happenings and chatter. For around 2-3 hours this afternoon I was watching election returns on TV as well. I found out that Channel 9 was carrying a CBS feed (eww), and Channel 7 was broadcasting an NBC feed. Yay! It was cool getting to see at least a little bit of it on TV, it made me feel like I was a little bit more a part of it for some strange reason. But then Channel 7 stopped their coverage for the local news at 4:30, I flipped it over to 9, but could only take Dan Rather for about 10-15 minutes before I had to come back and get a dose of reality again with NRO, as well as chatting with friends back home about what was going on (happy, neutral and upset parties, hehe). I'm sure you're all very aware of what's going on, but it's been interesting to see that NBC and FOX are still sticking by their call of Ohio for Bush, although it's quite odd how neither of them are also calling Nevada for Bush, like ABC, CBS and AP all did. At any rate, the long and the short of it is that it's painfully obvious that Bush has been re-elected. He's won Ohio, even if the provisional ballots haven't been counted yet. Bush has a lead of 145,000 votes, and most estimates say that there are around 150,000 provisional ballots out there. In other words, for Kerry to pull off a miracle, he'd need an astronomical majority of those votes to be for him, and there's just no way he's gonna make up 145,000 votes. If Kerry had even the class of Nixon, he would've conceded late last night when it became clear that he was losing Ohio. Instead he trotted out Johnny Edwards, had him introduced as the "next VP of the United States," where Edwards proceeded to give a speech that sounded way too much like the Gore un-concession speech in Florida in 2000. I don't think this country will stand for another long recount process, especially with a 145,000 vote advantage for Bush in Ohio, and 3.7 million vote advantage nationwide.

Bush got the most votes ever for an American presidential candidate, he was the first son of a former president to win re-election, and with 51% nationally he was also the first President to win a super-majority of the popular vote since George H. W. Bush in 1988; not even Clinton got 50% either time (he got 43% in 1992, 49% in 1996). Plus, the Republicans captured four seats in the Senate, pushing them up to 55 seats, and they increased their majority in the House as well. Overall it was a very good night for Republicans and conservatives. I think tonight proved that the United States is not quite as divided as the mainstream media is still saying it is. Even Senate Minority Leader Tom "Puff" Daschle was knocked off by John Thune in South Dakota! That's the first time a Senate leader has been defeated in a re-election bid in half a century. The downer of the night came when Sen. Arlen Specter (Republican) was re-elected in Pennsylvania. I was really annoyed when I found out he had won, as he's a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Why on earth did Bush campaign for Specter back during the primaries? Specter's been campaigning for Kerry ever since. Oh well, you can't win everything. Just like Bush lost Wisconsin by less than 14,000 votes, sigh. But my parents were able to confirm when they voted this evening that my absentee ballot had in fact arrived at the polling place, yay! I love living in a small precinct where you can find that sort of stuff out. :-)

Well, I should probably get a start on cleaning my room a bit, Uriah's comin tomorrow and probably is gonna stay in my room, at least one of the next two nights, maybe both. And seeing as how I haven't cleaned it at all this semester... yeah. I'll probably be hangin out with him in Melbourne at least one of the next three days. And at some point I've gotta start crackin on studying for the General GRE, which I'm takin on Monday here in Melbourne. The studying just never stops, argh.

Even if CNN doesn't "officially" call Ohio for Bush, I'm not worried tonight. I can sleep easy tonight knowing that George W Bush will be the President of the United States of America for the next four years. :-)

Posted by Jared at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

November 02, 2004

Melbourne Cup Day

I'm done with exams for the semester! Woot woot! And sure enough, true to form (and true to my predictions), the Large-Scale Weather & Climate exam this morning contained no questions that weren't on one of the three years' previous exams, hehe. Let's just say that that exam was money, totally cake. It was a three-hour exam, but I was out in half that time, woot. I hung around for a bit afterwards to say bye to Chris, Jane & Jess, although I'm hopin to see them all at least one more time before I leave. I'll almost for sure see Jane & Jess again though, since Jane's studying abroad at Penn State next semester, and Jess is studying abroad at Oklahoma (both doing meteorology stuff), and since I'm planning on visiting both schools as I go through my grad school search.

After that I went down to Flemington Racecourse to catch the Melbourne Cup. It was warm, bright and sunny when I left Caulfield at 1pm, but by the time I got to Flemington half an hour later it was pouring, cold and windy. That meant that the indoor areas and the concourses were packed to the gills with people -- so many people! Tens of thousands for sure. Despite the rain I was pretty excited to see my first-ever horse race live. And I also threw caution to the wind and wagered a couple of bets on horses for the big 3:10 race, the actual Melbourne Cup race (there were other smaller races going on all day at Flemington). I put $10 on both Vinnie Roe (6:1) and Elvestroem (12:1) to win, hedging my bets a bit (I would've been satisfied with any winnings, no matter how small :-). Unfortunately for me the favourite and defending champ Makybe Diva (4:1, pronounced MACK-uh-buh) pulled it out over Vinnie Roe, who came in 2nd. (In the photo in the article from The Age that I linked to in the previous sentence, I'm not in the photo, but during the race itself I was somewhere along that flowering hedgeline amongst the umbrellas.) So I'd say that the Melbourne Cup, "the race that stops a nation" (quite literally, it's a public holiday in Melbourne and all life across Australia pauses to watch the Cup), was not a bad place at all to watch my first live horse race or place my first bets on anything. :-) And I sure didn't let the rain stop me from getting down close to the rails at the edge of the course. I got to see the horses go by twice during the long 3200-meter (2-mile) race on a grass track, it was pretty exciting. I got completely soaked and freezing cold in the process, but it'll probably make the whole experience more memorable. :-)

Well, it may be midnight here in Australia and just starting November 3rd, but it's 7am back in Minnesota & Wisconsin on this very important Election Day. So much is at stake, just get out there and vote! And vote Bush/Cheney '04! Four more years! When I wake up I'll be eagerly checking up on the latest exit polls to show how it's going. Polls start closing on the east coast at noon Australia time, so if I don't know the winner by the time I go to bed tomorrow night I'll be slightly miffed. VOTE!

Posted by Jared at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2004

You Have Mail

Happy All Saints Day everyone! I wonder how many of you out there actually knew November 1st was called something other than November 1st, or that there was even an All Saints Day in the first place, I'm hoping heaps of you did. But anyway, yeah, so I got an adequate amount of minimal studying done today. I was really unmotivated to do anything, but I think I'll be fine with what I studied. The exams from the last three years seemed to all take from a very limited pool of questions (some were even on all three), so I'm banking on the trend continuing this year.

As soon as I finished studying for the night about 15 minutes ago I went over to the common room to check my mail, and lo and behold, I found two postcards in there for me! Josh sent me a very pretty postcard from Japan of Himeji Castle (I think in Osaka), and Heidi sent me a cool postcard of Buckingham Palace in London. Thanks Josh & Heids! Now this makes for four postcards I've gotten since I came to Australia, these two today plus one from Jill of Olin Hall (lol), and one from Mike of Lambeau Field. If any of the rest of you out there wanna get in on the action too, you'd better post it this week or weekend. ;-)

As Election Day looms ever nearer (thank goodness, I can't wait for it to be over and have real news again), I have to throw this question out there: why would anyone trust John Kerry to be our president? And to all those Bush-haters out there, this article from the Wall Street Journal might be right up your alley, with the author giving ten reasons he's not voting for Bush. It's really funny (not to mention completely satirical of the Angry Left)!

Well, tomorrow at 9:30 is my exam in Caulfield, then after that I'm probably heading down to Flemington Park to catch the Melbourne Cup, "the horse race that stops a nation." Should be a grand old time!

Posted by Jared at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)