South Germany

This past week we've done a bit of a road trip around the South parts of Germany. It's been generally good and fun and scenic, though we have had a few problems. Actually, we have had one problem: we do not speak German. None at all. We don't read it or write it or understand it in any measure. This has been our main obstacle during our time here which we have overcome with a combination of cowardice and avoidance (and, when we have the time, a German to English dictionary). Let's just say we have been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our hotel rooms. Ok, this plan was also to save money (yes, we're cheap and unable to communicate – come travel with us!) not just to avoid the German menus and surly restaurant attendants. Though it was a satisfactory solution to both of these obstacles.

Let's discuss the positives since I tend to dwell on the negatives because they are more entertaining and, let's face it, sarcasm does become me*. Germany is a beautiful place. At least the parts we've seen at this time of year. I understand it gets all snowy in the winter (probably also very pretty, but in an “Oh, you don't like to ski? Well then go freeze your ass off anyway” sort of way) and I really don't know what happens in the fall and spring except that I imagine it's something like between summer and winter (gold star for deductive reasoning!). The landscape is never ending hills of green, green, green – trees, forests, meadows, fields, crops, vineyards, and on and on. Just driving around is a real treat.

My favorite thing about the towns we visited was the part of each town called the 'Altstadt' or Old Town which is typically the original area of the town filled with buildings built anywhere from 200-600+ years ago and often surrounded by a big stone wall (and sometimes a disused moat!). This part of the town is typically the tourist center where shops, cafes, and landmarks abound. They are as picturesque as they are delightful** to wander around in. We had the pleasure of exploring the Altstadt areas of Nuremberg, Heidelberg, and Freiburg, which were our main three destinations on this trip.


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The first two cities also have really nice castles overlooking the towns and I would say that Heidelberg Castle (Schloss Heidelberg) has been the highlight so far. Now mostly ruins, this castle was built over a span of 300 years starting in the 1400s and then mostly destroyed by wars in the 1600s and a fire (from lightening striking the bell tower – so Back to the Future!) in the 1700s. Only one part of the castle was rebuilt in the 1800s and we took an excellent tour of the whole thing (in English).

We spent the last few days of this trip exploring the Black Forest in the south west corner of Germany – an area heavily influenced by the French and Swiss due to the close proximity. The Black Forest is really beautiful; an entire region of mountainous greenery with tiny, quaint towns nestled into the valleys. For most of one day we just drove all around, stopping at a waterfall here, a lake there, and lunch at a tiny town in between. And, this is one of the few places where it's actually easier and nicer to have a car than to take a train. We could have asked for better weather since it rained most of the time, but I guess that's why everything's so green! See the latest round of pictures here.
Now we're back in Munich to pick up some cargo (mainly Jon) before we head off to Vienna, Budapest, Krakow (Poland), and then Prague over the next 2 weeks. The adventure continues!

*I am aware that sarcasm is said to be the lowest form of wit, but I also find it to be the highest form of intelligence.
**Yes, I used the word 'delightful', what are you gonna do about it?

Munich

Welcome to Europe. We flew into Munich last Friday the 10th and have been dutifully relaxing, sightseeing, and hanging out with Jon for one solid week. This is my first time in Germany and Kane's first time in Europe altogether. So, we had (and still have) a few things to get used to. Let's start with the basics:

• They speak German here. This was something I had obviously known in an abstract way beforehand, but not really thought about. We were in Australia before; tons of new stuff to get used to but you can always ask someone about it. Now we're sort of on our own when we're not with Jon. Menus, road signs, tram ticket machines - all in German. Though most people secretly speak English, it's embarrassing to ask them to. We're getting by but it's an interesting, and often frustrating change.
• They drive on the right. Hallelujah! Well, sort of. We, obviously, have been conditioned by years of driving in the US to think on the right side of the road. We had only minor problems in Australia, but some things really are just ingrained. Other things, however, we've only experienced while driving in Australia. Example: roundabouts. I am not used to going counterclockwise in a roundabout. This is odd. We are dealing with it.
• It's summertime in the northern hemisphere. The sun rises at...some early time in the morning before I'm awake. It gets dark after 9pm. It's warm and, often, sunny. This is what I'm talking about.

And for some smaller points that are thought provoking and sometimes baffling:

• They do not serve tap water at restaurants. Not as a norm at least. If you ask for water you get disgusting bubbly water. Everyone else drinks beer, soda or juice. It's ridiculous.
• They do not keep their milk refrigerated at the grocery store. In the store aisles, milk comes in little 1 liter boxes which are not refrigerated. Nothing is wrong with this, the milk is boiled or whatever and then sealed, but it's still odd at first.
• People don't smile here. You know when you walk down the street and make eye contact with a stranger and you each give a little half smile to indicate that you are mutually friendly people even though you don't know each other? They don't do that here. Sometimes they stare sans smile (love the alliteration, don't you) but rarely a smirking stranger for no reason.
• There are very strict noise laws. In Munich, you cannot be loud or disruptive, even in your own home (provided that it disturbs others), after 10pm (till 6am) or on Sundays. This includes loud music, mowing your lawn, hammering, and possibly even running your washing machine. It does not seem to include the heinously loud and frequent police sirens reminiscent of the Nazi era. Those can go anytime they want.

Other than taking in the oddities that make Munich the place it is, we've been sightseeing rather dedicatedly. At least for us. Here's a rundown of what we've seen so far:

Saturday - Gay Pride Parade. They know how to queer it up here.
Sunday - Tollwood Festival. I don't know what it was a festival for, but there were adequate amounts of people, beer, stalls of food, and nick knacks. It was good.
Monday - Walking Tour. Free walking tour of Munich with a little bit of history and a lot of standing in the sun. Got to see a bit of the city though.
Tuesday - Nymphenburg Palace. Big mansion from the 1600s. Pretty nice.
Wednesday - Day at Jon's house to plan and book our next week of travel around south Germany. Also bought a GPS.
Thursday - Pick up the car and tour at Dachau Concentration Camp. Acquired the car with no problems, Dachau was interesting.
Friday - Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. The first one is the really famous German castle that the Disney castle was based on. They were both nice but I had expected more for some reason. No idea how to pronounce the latter.
Saturday (today) - Deutsches Museum. Apparently it's huge and very in depth...unleash the nerds!

And that's been our stay so far; here are the pics that made the cut. We're having a nice time and the weather has been warm and sunny for most of the time, though it decided to start raining yesterday and today. We leave tomorrow (Sunday) for our five day road trip around south Germany and return to Munich next Friday.

Spendings - The Dirt

Yeah, you want to know the dirt on our trip, don't you? You don't care about the Sydney Opera House or Kakadu National Park. You think our pics are mediocre and just browse through them as you peruse your usual internet sites. You scoff when I mis-spell things or trip over a punctuation mark. You are overwhelmed when you log on after two weeks and I have 17 new posts that you will never catch up on and, frankly, don't much care to read. I mean, they're boring. Documentation of the day to day activities of traveling - come on! Write something interesting! Make something up if you have to, right?

Well, this entry is for the prying minds, the curious cats, the chatty Kathys. This one will tell you all about the bottom line, the real deal. So, the question remains: how much money did we spend on this trip around Australia? You already looked down, didn't you. The pie chart is just too tantalizing to resist - I know better than most*. Well, you may as well look now if you haven't already:
Let's analyze, shall we? We left June 8 and got back July 4. That means the trip was 26 days** long, which translates to $317 per day for both of us, or $158/day each. It sounds expensive, doesn't it? It was, damn it, that wasn't a trick question. Regardless, if you are acquainted with Kane and me, you are aware that we are relatively frugal. Not so frugal that I would resort to, say, camping or eating at McDonald's, but we're certainly budget conscious. As evidenced by the very existence (and accuracy) of the pie chart.

I don't have a lot of excuses; this country is expensive. I was impressed to see that almost a quarter of our expenses were for activities - I had not realized we had paid so much money for tours, cruises, etc. The bulk of our activity money was spent on: Fraser Island Tour; two Whitsunday Island boat/snorkeling tours; Reggie Watts tickets; the Australia Zoo; Great Barrier Reef Cruise and Snorkeling tour at Port Douglas; and two river cruises in Kakadu. To be fair, the Fraser Island trip was a two day deal that included one night accommodation and food and accounts for about a quarter of the activities costs. I just need to take deep breaths and keep saying the "once in a lifetime" mantra to keep calm with these ridiculous prices.

Transportation and accommodation were the next two big hitters - we rented a car for the entire trip which was just plain expensive and also very nice. It cost an average of $64/day for the car, but a lot of that was because they charge you a whole lot extra for pickup one place and drop off another - not really sure why. Accommodation averaged out to about $62/night which is about as good as you'll get here. We stayed in hostels most nights; got nice hotels in two places for 6 nights total. Totally worth it. Plus, you have to account for the fact that we weren't paying rent during this, and our rent here was $2173 a month. So, really, we were saving money on accommodation as compared to the past year and a half. Like how I worked the numbers there?

Food is probably where we could have saved the most money - we ate out almost every lunch and dinner. We tried not to go to super expensive places, but a standard meal for dinner here is typically between $20-$30 per plate which just racks up a huge bill really quickly. We did almost every breakfast in our hostel/hotel with cereal and powdered milk which probably saved us a few hundred bucks. Flights were the next offender, exacerbated by the trip to Darwin. Could have saved a few hundred bucks each if we had just come back to Melbourne from Cairns.

The stragglers are gas, stuff, and other. I was impressed that gas was such a small chunk of our spendings; we spent $513 driving 5719km (=3800 miles) for an average of about 33 miles to the gallon per Kane's calculations. Note also that gas here is between $4.60 and $5.60 per gallon (though it's sold in liters so the price doesn't sound so heinous). "Stuff" just means random crap we bought which mostly consisted of a bag I acquired and towels we purchased to replace the ones we left at a hostel, in addition to books, magnets, drug store supplies, internet, laundry, post cards, etc. "Other" was a category that I see was not used correctly as it also includes laundry and internet. If I cared more, I might fix that. I think we'll live.

So there you have it. You now know how much poorer we are from this trip around Australia. It was good times; can't really put a price tag on experiences and all that, right? I'll just keep telling myself that as I mourn my bank account. And that wasn't even the start of our troubles...Europe will surely trick us out of the rest of the money we have so dedicatedly saved up over the last year. Sigh. Save, save, save...spennnnndddd!!!

*I freaking love pie charts. In case it wasn't clear in the body of the post.

**I'm not counting July 4 as a day on the actual trip since we arrived back in Melbourne at 7am.

Darwin and Kakadu

The final leg of our Australian Road Trip was spent in the north of the Northern Territory - right at the top of the middle of the country. We flew from Cairns to Darwin on June 30 and spent three days driving in a loop to see Kakadu National Park and Litchfield National Park. Kakadu is a pretty famous park that we had looked into a long time ago, so we sort of tacked it onto the end of our trip since we probably won't make the effort to get over there ever again.

And, to be honest, I wouldn't really recommend it. Kakadu was nice and, actually, Litchfield was really nice, but Darwin is quite a hole and the effort and expense to get to that part of the country wasn't really worth it for me. It was nice, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't spectacular and it's in the middle of freaking nowhere so it sort of needs to be spectacular for me to make that kind of effort. That's my two cents.

An interesting fact: Darwin is closer to the capital cities of 5 other countries than it is to the capital of Australia. Think about that one! That kind of fact is probably true for places in Europe where the countries are all small and smashed together, but Darwin is almost 3000 miles from Australia's capital (Canberra) and there isn't really a city to speak of near Darwin for probably 1000 miles. It's like if Seattle was a city of 120,000 people and the closest city with over 5000 people was Denver. This country is so ridiculously sparse!

Kakadu is actually a really interesting place because the difference between the dry, "cold" season (now) and the warm, wet season (December-April-ish) is immense. The climate is tropical but in the dry season the place is a desert. This was the "cold" season and the days were easily over 90 degrees F. It was sort of miserable actually; I cannot imagine the horror of wet season heat and humidity. Anyway, in the wet season much of the park can be underwater as all the rivers flood. Some ridiculous percent of the world's birds migrate there to breed in the wet season and apparently it's just an entirely different place. It sounds like it would actually be much more interesting in the wet, but I would most likely only be happy viewing it from a temperature controlled bubble. So, maybe it was better that we saw the boring dry.

Since we were there in the dry, we did the standard crocodile river cruises (saw many crocs) and went to the Aboriginal rock art sites, which were ok. Like I said, it was nice, but not really worth traveling across the country. Litchfield National Park, though only large enough to fill one day with activity, was really nice. There are a series of waterfalls and creeks that are safe and warm to swim in, in addition to being beautiful. We had a good time Friday exploring all the sites that Litchfield had to offer. We even swam in a lake - how uncharacteristic of us! And, Kane did not get seasick, thank god (I was beginning to think that a bathtub might make him sick...). Here are the pics from Kakadu and Litchfield.

Friday night we did not need a hotel because our flight back to Melbourne was at 2:25am. Yargh. After a drawn out dinner and coffee, we watched a movie in our car in the airport parking lot until it was time to check in at 1am. We arrived safely back in freezing Melbourne (in our sad flip flops and t-shirts) on the 4th at 7am and have been staying with Marc and Alana again since. But we only get a small break - we fly to Munich on Thursday at which point I will become...EURO ANGIE!!!

Cairns and Port Douglas

We're actually back in Melbourne now staying with our friends again as of yesterday the 4th. Since we did not have internet access for the last 4 days of our trip, I will go back a bit and post about the last few places we went. Cairns (pronounced "Cans" by Australians) and Port Douglas are towns in the tropical far north of Queensland in Australia, approximately 3500 kilometers (2500 miles) north of Melbourne via the coastal route and were the final destinations of our 3-week long road trip up the east coast.


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Cairns is the larger town (150,000 people approx) in the area but thankfully we only stayed for one night because we didn't much like it. It's just a small port town and there is a lively tourist area with endless restaurants and shops, but the feel of it is a bit dingy and Thailand-esque. We didn't hate it, but it wasn't the best. Fortunately, Port Douglas was far nicer. We made the hour or so drive from Cairns on Saturday (27 June) and arrived in what might be my favorite place of the whole trip.

PD is a tiny little town that is basically just an upscale tourist trap. The key word here is upscale. So many tourist towns are run down and/or dominated by drunken 18 year-olds and that just makes them boring for us old farts. I enjoy a nice atmosphere, decent restaurants, perhaps some nice hikes or museums, and friendly, respectable clientele. Port Douglas has all of these things. And on top of that we scored a super cheap hotel ($85/night compared to $99 for a room with a bathroom at the hostel!) that was completely perfect:
On Sunday we partook in the single most expensive activity of the trip: the $200/person outer reef pontoon cruise. This was quite a plush tour that included an hour and a half boat ride to and from a stationary pontoon at the outer barrier reef. On the pontoon we had a buffet lunch, unlimited snorkeling access, submersible boat cruises, access to an underwater viewing platform, and a variety of additional activities available for hire (snorkeling or scuba diving lessons, helicopter rides, etc.). Despite the cost (or more likely because of it), it was really nice. Of course Kane was sick the whole time - and this time I think we may have learned our lesson - so he didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did.

Just look at the video on their website:

We took advantage of the underwater submersible boat trip, the underwater viewing platform, and, of course, the buffet (twice). And I did a bit of snorkeling while Kane laid down on the picnic table benches. It was a really nice tour and I even got to pet a giant fish! Here's me from the underwater viewing platform in my Lycra blue stinger suit:
See more pictures in this photo album (combined with the Whitsundays photos).

The second day we took a leisurely drive up to the Daintree rainforest where we took a river cruise to see some crocs and birds. It was fun and the weather was great, if a bit hot. We took it pretty easy on our final day and got back to PD for an early night. Monday we were back to Cairns to return our car and catch a flight to Darwin for our 3 day trip around Kakadu National Park.

Whitsunday Islands

Now this is the vacation that I was imagining. Airlie Beach is the gateway town to the Whitsundays and it's an actual tourist town with (wait for it) decent places to eat and shops that (gasp) stay open after dark. Imagine that. If you want to see Australia's tropical destinations START HERE. And if you can afford it, stay on Daydream Island:
More pics here for Whitsundays and Port Douglas.

We did snorkeling the first day; Kane got too sick to hop back in the water at the 2^nd stop near Hook Island (the prescription pills and pressure point bracelets seemed to not help much, though at least he didn't throw up). I'm still not sure why we keep coming back to the ocean for activities when neither one of us can handle it. It's actually funny; we end up on a boat or ferry and just look at each other and say, “What the hell are we doing?” But really, it's hard to avoid if you really want to see what the country has to offer; the Great Barrier Reef is pretty famous. And we got to see our first bit of it snorkeling around on Wednesday. Neat coral formations, pretty fish; pretty much what you see on tv but with murkier waters and less brilliant colors. It was very cool though.

The 2^nd location they took us to had no coral (or it was way deeper than you could see) but a whole lot of pretty fish that fluttered all around us as people from the boat threw in nibbles. Kane spent this half hour hovering near the edge of the boat trying to contain urges to vomit, but I spent it in the water following around a fish about half my size and trying to stay out from directly under and/or down current from Kane. Poor Kane. That was a bad idea for us.

The next day though, we went on a tour more suited to our style. And I use the word “tour” loosely since it wasn't really a tour as much as ferry rides to two islands and a boring guide to optionally follow around while on the islands. There was all sorts of stuff to do on these paradise islands but they all cost money so we sat by the pool, read our books, took alternating naps, and dipped our feet in the hot tub. That's what I'm talking about. We saw a wallaby on each island and a bunch of birds in the trees and begging for food.

The one island (Daydream, go there) has a man made, ocean fed lagoon where they have brought in coral reef, fish, stingrays, and sharks to hang out. It's like a little underwater zoo where the animals are as pampered as the guests. So cool. And, I'm not sure what their summers are like but the winter that we have experienced these three days has been sunny, about 80-85 Fahrenheit with a slight breeze. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? Why the HELL did we move to Melbourne?

Road Trip Pictures

Since uploading pictures takes a good internet connection and a bit of time, it's a bit difficult to get the pics up as we go. But, do not fret, I have been taking plenty and filing and labeling them ready for Picasa albums to be uploaded at the first opportunity. That day has finally come, thanks to wireless internet at Cairns YHA. Please see my Picasa site to peruse the new albums, or see the links below for the individual albums.

Sydney pics from June 10-13

Sydney to Brisbane pics including all stops in between: Terrigal, Newcastle, Byron Bay, Gold Coast and Brisbane from June 13-19

Australia Zoo pics from June 19

Fraser Island pics from June 20-21

Enjoy!

What Engineers Do on the Beach

Construction Constraints:

1. Kane must not be required to move the location of his buttocks. The initial location of the placement of his posterior shall remain constant through design, documentation, and construction.
2. Angie shall not be required, at any time, to put her feet in the water. Only minimal contact between the lake and her hands shall be permitted to occur.
3. Construction shall begin promptly at 1:30pm and end at or before 2:20pm the same day so that we don't miss our bus ride away from the lake.
4. The construction method is to be “design/build” such that building commences before design is finished to use time most efficiently.
5. Hands and feet are to be the only tools used for construction.

Design Constraints:

1. Two engineers are the only ones available for design of this structure therefore it will most likely be relatively devoid of any architectural worth.
2. Sand and water are the only materials to be used.
3. The general description of the structure(s) must fall into the category of “silica fortress”, more commonly known as a “sand castle”.
4. No parapets are to be used since everyone knows they are ugly and inherently unstable.
5. No documentation shall be required since no forethought need be put into any of the design decisions.

The final product of 45 minutes of harvesting sand and dripping sandy blobs into little piles:

Ok, so maybe regular engineers just sit and enjoy the beach like normal people. Maybe they even get in for a swim even though the weather isn't quite warm enough and the water is too cold. Maybe they don't hate sand in their shoes and pockets and don't sort of wish that someone would build a concrete patio with some deck chairs to sit on.

I don't think Kane and I should be allowed to go to the beach, we're just too ungrateful. But, at least we occupied our hands and minds with more familiar activities, however unconventional. (Lake Mackenzie, Fraser Island, Saturday June 20)

Fraser Island

Friday, after exploring the Australia Zoo, we continued our drive up to Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay itself is nothing special, but it is the closest town to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. We booked a four wheel drive bus tour to take us around the island back in the beginning of May and, to be honest, I sort of forgot what the tour was all about. But we were reacquainted with it this weekend.

Our tour began with a pickup from our hostel at 7:45am on Saturday. They drove us to the ferry terminal where we ferried over to the island (about a half hour trip) and then got on 4WD bus which drove us across the island to the resort where we would be staying the night (resort is a kind word, more like motel with dining hall). We picked up a few passengers there then proceeded to spend the rest of the day at two fresh water lakes and taking a walk through the only sub-tropical rainforest growing in sand in the whole world. I realize there are a lot of qualifiers there, but the place was still neat. The freshwater lakes were very nice – one more so than the other we thought – but it was a bit too cold for swimming. The outside temperature was probably in the mid 70's with a bit of a breeze and the water was also around 74 or so degrees (Fahrenheit). So no swimming for us, but other people did.

We had buffet lunch and dinner at the resort that day and then spent the night watching a dumb movie called In Good Company in our room since there isn't much to do on the island at night. Sunday morning we left at 8am after a buffet breakfast and headed up the coast about 50 miles to see a number of sights along the way including a rusted old shipwreck (highlight for me), a big rock outcropping with excellent views of the island, some naturally formed pools of water just next to the ocean, and a fresh water creek that you can walk up (but it was too cold of water for me – about 67 Fahrenheit).
The pace was a bit slow for us, but that's because they tend to give you a lot of time at the waterside where Kane and I tend to get bored (we're not beach people, sorry). But we had fun and I think the tour was a great way to see the island since we really wouldn't have known what we were doing if we had rented our own 4WD vehicle. And we got to see a wild dingo as we were driving back to the ferry home! The island is famous for their dingos since they're one of the purest breeds in existence because their genes have not been altered by interbreeding with other dogs (they're isolated on the island).

Now we're off to the Whitsunday Islands to get our first taste of the Great Barrier Reef!

Brisbane

We arrived in Brisbane Wednesday* night after a nice drive through the Gold Coast from Byron Bay. Brisbane is the third largest city in Australia (approx 2 million) and is located just about midway up the east coast of the country at the south end of a state called Queensland. Queensland is home of the Great Barrier Reef and pretty much all of the deadliest things you hear about in Australia including, but not limited to spiders, snakes, sharks, jellyfish, etc. Queensland has a tropical/subtropical climate which supposedly means that I won't be cold anymore on this trip. The wet, humid, hot season is their summertime (December – February) and the winter is supposed to be more temperate.

Brisbane is a nice city reminiscent of Melbourne. My initial thought was that it's really just a toned down version of Melbourne: bigger city but still not bursting with activity like Sydney, a nice downtown, a river running through, not really any big attractions to see. We spent Wednesday night walking around the part of downtown that was still open and then watching Xmen 2 in our room (don't hate - we do what we want on our vacation!). We turned in for the night just after realizing that we left our towels at the Byron Bay hostel. Oops.

Thursday we had all day in Brisbane which we used to mostly just walk around and see the city. Like I said before, there aren't really any huge attractions in Brisbane (one of the reasons you probably haven't heard of it if you reside in the US of A) but it's a nice place. We went to the museum in city hall (which sort of sucked), bought new towels downtown, took a nice walk through South Bank (cute with shops, cafes, and an awesome man-made beach that must be totally jam packed when it's not under construction), and then continued up through their botanical gardens, which are nice and populated with possums who are only mildly scared of people.

We had an excellent lunch at a place Kane picked out then took the City Cat – public transport system on the river that runs through the city, very cool – back the center of downtown and walked back to our hostel. We finished the night by driving around – there wasn't hardly any traffic! - and having dinner at a truly excellent Turkish restaurant in the West End. I think Brisbane would be a really nice city to live in: good climate (though I suspect it's a bit muggy in the summer), nice size, general good feel to it.

We took Friday morning to explore one of the many wildlife parks in the area. I wanted to go to one with the largest koala breeding programs in Australia, but Kane wanted to see the Australia Zoo – the (previous) home of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. So we did what Kane wanted (for once) and drove up to the infamous park. This was by far the best zoo I've ever seen. The animal habitats were stunning and the entire place was in excellent order. We had a great time seeing the crocs, patting the roos, and taking pics of the elephants, echidnas, and everybody else. I did feel a bit Jurassic Park-esque with the double fences around the croc areas and the awesome warning signs:
Seriously though, seeing all the Steve Irwin tribute memorabilia made me a bit sad – I feel like his death was a real loss to the world, and to his cute family. At least his dream lives on – those crocks are huge! P.S. - pics will be added to Picasa soon.

*Ok so I'm way behind on the blogging. I apologize. It's been a bit hard to find good internet, especially at reasonable prices. And these entries take some finesse people!

Sydney to Brisbane

Last Saturday we left Sydney and started making our way to Brisbane, where we arrived Wednesday night. Even though we are enjoying ourselves, I have to say that there's not a whole lot to do between Sydney and Brisbane and even though Brisbane is Australia's 3^rd largest city, not a whole lot there either. Here's a bit of a play by play of our stops along the way:

Terrigal (like terrible but with a "G")

Saturday we hurried up to Terrigal from Sydney to meet up with our friend Janna who also happens to be a travel agent at Flight Centre. As mentioned before, she helped us book our rental car in Europe and we needed to be there to sign the paperwork at 11am. She even went into work on her day off to help us finish the reservation! In addition, of course, to having us as guests in her home that night. She actually lives with her boyfriend Dom (we met them when we were traveling in Thailand – we bonded over car sickness; they also stayed with us for a night in Melbourne a few months ago) in Dom's parents' sweet house. Terrigal reminds me of a small San Luis Obispo – it's a little beach town with a nice feel to it and a cute little strip of cafes by the water. Of course if Janna hadn't been there we would have never stopped to see it, but it was a great respite for a day.

Newcastle

Sunday we made our way up to “Newy”, home of the infamous Silverchair (dreamy sigh). And apparently they still live there on and off, which I find commendable. Aside from the “Silverchair Plays Home Town” poster that greeted us in the lobby of our hostel, we saw no evidence of their presence at all, which I found somewhat disappointing*. We spent Monday, a beautiful sunny day, wandering on the jetty and around Fort Scratchley – where cannons were fired at a Japanese submarine during WWII - and peeking into the cute boutiques on the main drag, Darby Street. We also had a wander through the free animal sanctuary a bit outside of town - very nice!

Byron Bay

We only spent one night in this sleepy little village since we spent all of Tuesday driving from Newy (approx 8 hours/450 miles), but we did manage to hike out to the lighthouse on the peninsula on Wednesday morning - the most easterly point on the continent! This is a total surfer town that isn't particularly exciting if you don't enjoy beach activities (yep we're lame). Cafes and long haired hippies abound, but Wednesday afternoon we were off to Brisbane.

Gold Coast – Surfer's Paradise

The Gold Coast is a strip of little surf towns turned tourist havens where development has not been restricted resulting in strings of huge resorts, condos, casinos and the like. People compare it to Vegas but I didn't think it was anywhere near on par with Sin City herself. We drove through the towns and stopped in the hub of Surfer's Paradise which seemed to me more like a poor man's Waikiki beach. It's made entirely for tourists and caters most famously to spring break-esque gallivanting and debauchery for teenagers. Needless to say it probably isn't really our type of place, but in the day I found it to be rather nice. Shops and restaurants line the streets interspersed with tacky high rise apartments and hotels. Everything is over the top and has a sort of vomit-recently-cleaned-from-the-sidewalk feel to it, but I found it to be kind of fun. At least there were people there and things to do. I think it could be good if you know what to expect. It did prompt us to be as cheesy as possible and eat and the ridiculously overpriced (and over-rated) Hard Rock Cafe. At least they play music videos to groove to while you eat.

And from SP we continued on to Brisbane, a proper city (finally)...to be continued. (Posting from crappy internet connection in Hervey Bay and hence not able to keep up with posting photos or info as much as I'd like, but, I take what I can get!)

*Yes I did sort of hope for a Silverchair museum or memorabilia center or free poster or something. And let's face it, I did hope that maybe we would see the guys having a casual coffee in our local cafe and give him a high five. Not all dreams come true...sniffle...

Sydney

Our glorious return to Sydney...wasn't exactly glorious. Sydney is a truly great city - I would honestly say one of the best that I've ever seen. I would happily return again and spend time exclusively here, and I hope that someday we do.

We ended up spending a lot of time outside of Sydney with Kelvin and Yan Shih, which was good, and even more time trying to get our car rental for Europe sorted, which was not as good but certainly necessary. We made the mistake of waiting too long to rent the Europe car, and have been pestering our friend Janna, who is a travel agent near Sydney, to help us. And, alas, another friend with a tiny halo over her head, she got it all sorted and we signed the paperwork and paid all our money and now have a car in Europe.

But, it was at the expense of seeing a lot of Sydney. We did the show at the opera house the first night (see previous entry), then spent most of the second day looking up info about the Europe car and securing accommodation in the city (since we decided it would be better for us to actually see some of Sydney from a more central location than Kelvin and Yan Shih's house). The second night we walked back to the opera house to take some night pics of the neat patterns of light they project onto the structure which are really neat. See?:Our second day we finally secured the booking of the car over the phone with Janna and then went to lunch in the city with Kelvin. We made it to the museum near Hyde Park (which was ok) and then wandered over to Darling Harbour for a snack before heading out to the suburbs (in heavy traffic) to hang out with Kelvin and Yan Shih again for our last night.

We had to leave early Saturday to get to Janna's office before noon to sign Europe car paperwork. And now it's finally done! We've been hanging out with Janna for a day in a town called Terrigal north of Sydney and later today (Sunday) leave for Newcastle.

Reggie Watts

On Wednesday, the day we arrived in Sydney, we had bought tickets to see Reggie Watts at the Opera House with Kelvin and Yan Shih. Kelvin and Kane went to high school together and we stayed with them once upon a time when we first arrived in this land. We saw Reggie on Good News Week (Australian show previously mentioned many times) - see video below for a sample since it's hard to describe what exactly he does. When we first saw him on tv, we looked him up and found that he was playing in one of the smaller theaters in the opera house on the first day we were there!



His show was very strange. His main show included music sort of like beat boxing but often with piano also; he had an amazing voice and made really interesting little songs. I found the whole show to be hilarious and awesome but definitely very odd. His whole routine was a mix of a type of stand up comedy yet-to-be-invented and performing neat digital-style songs like in the video. The comedy was really just him talking, often in changing accents, completely nonsensically. He talks like he's giving a lecture on something important, using big words, etc, but he's just rambling about nothing. And occasionally he throws in an awesome phrase like, "kangaroos are one of the few animals that look like they should be wearing hats", which cracked me the heck up. Overall, I rated it very highly and would recommend him to anyone who likes weird stuff.

Canberra

First stop: Canberra, ACT. Canberra is the capital of Australia, located in the Australian Capital Territory which is a little patch of land between Melbourne and Sydney. After about a 7 hour drive on Monday, we arrived in chilly Canberra and found our YHA with relative ease thanks to our borrowed GPS (good call Alana).

We only had one full day there even though we spent two nights (we had to drive Monday and Wednesday). So Tuesday was our Canberra day and we had a great time: pictures are here. For those of you who haven't been to Australia, Canberra is typically the brunt of many jokes and settles many Melbourne versus Sydney arguments with sentiments such as: "well, at least we're not from Canberra". It's a small-ish city (population circa 350,000), compared to the monstrosities that straddle it, but it certainly has the population to sustain a decent community.

The other thing Canberra is know for is that it was a “planned city”. And I don't mean that in the sense that most modern cities are planned by city planners, I mean that they had a design competition in 1913 for the layout of the city, and an American dude named Walter Burley Griffin won. So, basically, the layout of the city was done by an architect. You may think, oh, that's good, he's probably competent and reasonable. But you forget, with all due respect, architects are artists. And as we traversed the concentric circles that meander around the town, we realized that the whole place would look really neat from a helicopter, but looks like a huge garble of shit from the passenger seat. Pardon my language, but cussing really is necessary in Canberra.

The place is a navigational nightmare. The layout is so schizophrenic that I would often not know which direction we were facing, much less where we came from or where the hell we were going. Dad, you would have exploded immediately. I'm good with directions and I'm a good navigator and I had three maps, a guidebook and a GPS unit on hand and we still missed exits, circumvented overpasses, and got lost in round-abouts pretty much continually any time the car was moving. It makes you realize that it's not so important that a city is planned as who does the damn planning. Mr. Burley Griffin may have been a great architect, and indeed possibly a really cool dude, but it is my humble opinion that he should have stayed the hell away from city planning.

All that being said, the city itself is quite beautiful. There are plenty of sights to see, lots of cafes and shopping, and all the tourist venues are free! If you can keep calm enough to complete the drive to the other side of the city, the things that await you are worth the trip. Like I said, we were only there one day, so we had to choose our venues carefully. We decided to hit up the National Museum of Australia, the War Memorial, and the Parliament (Capital Building). They are all three in different areas of the city, and though they are not technically very far from each other, it would be either a really long walk or an insane, round-about, loop-de-loop, wrong-turn, where-are-we-going, I-hate-this-map, this-town-is-completely-useless, Walter-Burley-Griffin's-a-moron sort of drive from one to the next. We opted for the ridiculous, poorly signed driving and eventually made it to all three.

The museum was awesome (above). I don't know what the stuff was in it, but the displays were pretty, the building was beautiful, and everything was very photogenic. That's all I really want: to wander around in a beautiful, warm building with colorful things to look at. I won't deny that I'm just a large child. With a camera. The war memorial (below) was also really cool, though not as visually appealing in my opinion. We happened to walk in just as a 90 minute (free) tour was starting and, even though we were hungry, joined anyway. The tour made the place a whole lot better because it's a lot easier for me to listen to things than to read them. Our guide told us all sorts of tid-bits that made the place really interesting. War is a terrible thing, but it's also amazing to learn about.

Our third stop was the Parliament building (above) right in the center of town. It's a quite famous building and it is pretty impressive. We stood in awe, we took some pictures, and we left. Definitely not the highlight, but it needed to be done. Forty five minutes was plenty, next please!

Canberra was definitely a place where we agreed we could spend more time. There are parks surrounding the city that have hiking trails and a zoo that would have been fun to see. Also, I could have easily spent an entire day in both the museum and the war memorial. Heck, I could go back tomorrow. And I'm sure there are plenty of other smaller attractions on offer that we didn't even blink an eye at. If we're ever back this way again, we'll surely stop into old Canberra; definitely a place I thought was worth seeing in this gigantic country.

P.S. We stopped for lunch outside Canberra on Wednesday and were greeted by this Giant Sheep! Australia has a bit of a problem with giant sculptures of things, and we were happy to have finally found one. So happy, in fact, that I bought a magnet.

On the Road Again

I'll admit it - I didn't warm up to this road trip right away. I know, what a spoiled brat, don't even appreciate the massive vacation that I get to take. But our lifestyle for the week prior to leaving was so plush and awesome, I didn't really want to leave. Here are my reasons:

Wanting to stay: Living with friends - rent free and not working - in a nice, warm house with tv, video games, and internet. Is there really anything else I ever want? Yes, I suppose there probably is, but those items can sustain me for a long time. We hadn't been with Marc and Alana long enough for any of us to be annoyed with each other (at least not that I'm aware of) and we were still in this "honeymoon" phase of being around each other all the time that includes having fun, eating dinner together, and lots of laughing. It was great. And, Kane and I had enough errands to run for the impending move/trip that our days were still occupied but not hectic. It can't go on forever like that, but it was really great while it lasted.

Not wanting to leave: We're in the south of Australia and it's now officially winter. It's cold. When you're traveling, unlike when your safely locked away in your friends' toasty home all day, you must be outside at least some of the time. I was not looking forward to this, and, honestly, it's been quite a shock. And while I love hostels (cheap, clean, don't mind sharing bathrooms and kitchens), they just aren't home, as you might imagine. And so, it's taking me a couple days to warm up (possibly literally) to the idea of being on the road again. But warming up I am.

Our first day was a seven hour drive from Melbourne to Canberra on a cloudy, wet day. And it was a public holiday so almost nothing was open upon our arrival. But today rejuvenated me and, except for the cold, reminded me why we came in the first place. Being immersed in different places with strange people is totally worth all the crap you go through to be out in the world. And so we're on the road again, getting used to the lifestyle, rusty as we may be. Thank goodness it's only supposed to get warmer from here on out...

Next up, comments on our visit to Australia's capital: Canberra.

Roomies

We moved into Marc and Alana's place on Wednesday. We piled our somehow massive amount of stuff* into their hallway and settled into our designated futon in our own sweet bedroom with bathroom (excellent). We plugged in our computers (there are now six computers in the living room, a feature that makes Kane, Marc, and me all so proud) and are happily eating Malana food, showering in Malana water, and powering our gadgets with Malana electricity.

I'm not sure about them, but I'm having an excellent time. It's great to have fun room mates, especially when you're not around long enough to get sick of each other! We buy them dinner and they let us take their master bedroom, use all their crap, and generally crowd their house way too much. We certainly got the better end of this bargain.

This week Kane and I have been mostly fussing online (emails, travel stuff, general screwing around), running errands (close this bank account but open this one, redirect mail, dentist, etc) and sorting our crap. We've been going out to nice dinners and basically doing stuff that's not work.

Last night we finally cemented our friendship by attending a cheesy theater restaurant show that we've been meaning to do for months: Witches in Britches**. The place was decked out like a sale at Spirit Halloween store*** and featured a mediocre-to-bad diner-style dinner, a ridiculously silly show loosely based on witches but more focused on crude jokes and less-than-talented renditions of contemporary pop songs. Just writing about it fills my nostrils with the scent of fog machine. The silver lining? A) It was so bad it was good, and B) the tickets were half price. An excellent way to spend a Friday night, for sure.

Here's the best self-taken picture ever, from our Witches in Britches adventure:

*How we amassed this amount of stuff is beyond me. We had a furnished apartment for goodness sake! I am aware that my bag of bags isn't helping, I do know that...(but what if we need more bags?)
**More commonly known amongst the four of us as Witches 'N Bitches. It's only two letters away, they had to see it coming.
***Do you see those rad Star Trek costumes on their web page? I gotta get me one of those. I want one with pants though - no stupid mini skirt!

The Move

It's almost like our plans are unfolding without any effort at all. Not to say that it's not difficult to leave our work and our friends, move out of our place, ship stuff home, and get rid of everything we own save what can fit in our backpacks. No, that's actually always more difficult than it seems. But the process of beginning this big trip is just sort of happening; we have things to do and we get them done and in the end that seems to lead us to the places we decided long ago we wanted to see.

Right now our house is half packed and half cleaned. We have one more day to finish these items and then we will be living full time at Marc and Alana's house (imagine tiny halos over their names) until next Monday. Sunday we pick up our Hertz rental car and we're off on our 2500 mile road trip to Cairns in north Australia. Note: moving out of a furnished apartment is significantly more simple than moving out of one filled to the brim with your own crap. Good foresight, us.

Today was actually a bit of a milestone: we finally bought plane tickets to Germany. Up until now it's been purely speculation that this trip will actually occur. But now, we have paid someone in advance to take us there. See you soon Jon!

As a side note from home: Can we all keep my aunt in our thoughts as she goes into surgery/begins recovery later this week - love you Annie! Also, if everyone in the Bay Area could just take a sec and fan out to find my mom's car (my old Explorer) that was stolen last week, that would be great.

The Final Stretch

This is it. This week is our final week of work. We came, we worked, and now we're just about to get the heck out.

It's been a good time here in Aus, let us recap:

Arrived December 15 2007: acquired furnished apartment
Traveled to NZ March 2008: acquired work and holiday visas
Got jobs in April and May 2008 (Angie and Kane respectively)
Signed 9 month contract and received sponsorship for long-term work visa August 2008
Visit USA November 2008
Visit Tasmania December 2008

And now, May 2009 closes out 10 months of working on our long-term visas and begins our second round of travel adventures.

We will kick off our 4 month vacation with a 3-week road trip up the east coast of Australia. We will drive 3500 kilometers (approx 2500 miles) in 21 days and then fly over to Darwin in the Northern Territory for a short 4-day stint around the famous Kakadu National Park.

After that, in early July, we fly back to Melbourne to take care of any last odds and ends and say goodbye to our awesome Melbourne friends (sad face). On approximately July 9 (happy birthday Kane) we fly to Germany to begin European adventure.

European Adventure summary:
Fly to Munich: hang out with Jon
Fly to Stockholm, witness other blond people for 6 days, return to Munich
Pick up long term rental car in Munich
Road trip with Jon starting Munich: Vienna, Zagreb, Budapest, Krakow
Jon leaves us and we continue to: Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels
Then through the ridiculously expensive Chunnel to England, Scotland, Ireland
Back through rip-off Chunnel: Paris, Switzerland, Italy
Then over to Greece sans automobile.

And that, my friends, is how you do it. Will be blogging the whole way through, please do join us.

How did we miss the Zombie Shuffle?

To my extreme dismay, we found out about the most awesome Melbourne event the week after it occurred. For three years in a row, hundreds of costumed citizens have taken to the streets disguised as the undead for no reason other than to profess their love for brains (yum!) and boast their knack for gruesome makeup. I speak of the Melbourne Zombie Shuffle.

I have no idea how this escaped my attention. As an avid zombie enthusiast, I thought I would be issued some sort of newsletter or email or at least a glimpse of a poster in an alleyway. How does one find out about the shuffle? The facebook page lays down the ground rules. From this information, I would assume this is a pathetic gathering of homely nerds who want to brush up against other would-be zombies (not altogether unlike those people who think they are vampires, maybe?). And perhaps on some level it is.

But, from the pictures and videos that I've seen, it looks awesome. People go all out. It's like Halloween but better - a whole gathering of dedicated people all wanting the same thing: brains. In fact, their slogan pretty much says it all: "What do we want? Brains! When do we want it? Brains!" Ah, rarely does one hear such eloquence as from a horde of zombies.



Basically, it looks like a whole heck of a lot of fun and I'm quite upset that we missed it. After all, I already have so much practice!

The Chop

Last weekend I finally did it*. I cut the mop off. It's been five years since the last time I cut over a foot of my hair off and donated it to Locks of Love. I like the long hair, but it really does get oppressive. God forbid a breeze come up and I'm suddenly entangled in a massive unforgiving spider web of hair. And the amount of hair that I shuffle through in my apartment on a daily basis becomes a task as irritating as it is unnecessary. I can't believe the amount of hair I lose in a day: in the shower, in my brush, on my clothes, on the couch, on the pillow, in my food, etc. etc. etc. And when each hair is as long as my arm, it becomes a problem.

But alas, no more. Not for a while at least. Short hair is so easy, there are just fewer options. And, thankfully, I can still fit it into a teeny spritz of a pony tail if need be. The only thing I don't really enjoy is the continual risk of looking like a child with a cute little bob cut. That's the main thing I've been pondering for the last week; do I look sophisticated and professional or like a 13 year old school girl? It seems to vary moment to moment. Thank you for tuning in for my ramblings about me.

Before:

*Please do note that the top picture is taken from above so the hair looks longer than it really is. It does not reach my shoulders and I'm happy about that. It comes just below the chin. And sorry for the weird expression, I just like the clarity of the picture more than anything.