a final entry

I arrived in Sydney after dark and was pleasantly surprised at how close my host lived to the airport. We met at the train station and walked back to her apartment in the Alexandria neighborhood of Sydney. I spent my time hanging out with Ali and her friends or wandering the city.

First stop - Sydney Opera House. Both exterior and interior of the building were incredible, and the overall area is beautiful... right on the water, next to a bridge, botanical gardens. Really a nice place. Here are some photos:



From there I walked through the botanical gardens. Strange plants, huge bats (flying foxes?) and some pretty creepy spiders:





Also did the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach. Bondi was kinda of busy and touristy but a very nice beach nonetheless. I did hear more North American accents here than anywhere else on my trip. Most of them didn't have Canadian flag patches on their backpacks, so I will just assume they were from the US.

The walk itself was not too crowded and very scenic:







From there I left for Fiji. This ended up being more of an extended layover than part of the vacation. It was raining the entire time I was there and I didn't even go to the beach yet alone any of the other islands. My host there was a nice guy and had a couple of other couchsurfers staying there. One guy, Raymond, had actually come from Portland where he had spent 1/2 his life. He was returning to Fiji (where he was born) and waiting for his parents to arrive. He had a lot of tattoos, one that he had given himself, and was really into it. Had made some *sketchy* tattoo gun out of a little battery powered motor, a needle, and bic pen. He seemed like kind of a tough guy until he started talking about how into Dungeons and dragons he was.

There is another German guy staying at this place who didn't know about D&D, so Raymond explained:

"Aw dogg you dun know about Dungeons and Draggons? You know what a role playing game is? Aw DOGG?!?! Yo check it out...it's like .... "

This went on for like 10 minutes. The German guy couldn't really understand at first, so Raymond said:

"No? A'ight.. you seen Lord of the Rings?"

German guy: "Vel, no but I read them a ven I vas a teenaga."

Raymond: "Alright so you know how Gandolph is like, the wizzard right? And The dwarf... they's like characters knowm'saying?"

Entertaining at the very least. I tried to video tape some of it but it didn't really work. Here's a picture:



Nadi itself was a very poor city. I was definitely singled out for being white and asked to come inside of everyone's shop for a good deal.

So I stayed for 2 days and then got on a plane. only 9h45m flight to LAX. Not horrible. And now I'm back in Portland, going back to work on Monday. Hope you all enjoyed my trip as much as I did.

G'Day

I had a great time in Melbourne.. lots of really nice cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, etc. etc. A very cool and young city. Here are a couple of pictures:


The last picture does not even begin to describe how out of place that 7-11 looked. Transforming beautiful 19th century architecture into corporate convenience stores is certainly not helping Americans abroad.

ANYWAY, I'm in Western Australia now... I just spent two days on Rottness island, just of the the coast of Perth. Apparently the island was first colonized as an aboriginal prison (hooray for genocide!) and has since become a nice holiday spot for local Aussies. It's very dry there but all in all very nice. There was a surprising amount of wildlife there and some really nice snorkeling to be had as well. I saw a Manta ray. The thing was the size of the blanket on my bed. I've never swam so fast in my life. There are also these little animals called Quokkas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka) running around everywhere... 7,000 or so on the island. Here are some photos:


I will be here for a few more days and then off to Sydney!

skydiving

I've had a number of complaints about how short and boring my skydiving entry was. Since I am cheap and unwilling to pay the extra $200 for photos, I have taken some photos off the company's website and photoshopped my face in them:




That's about how calm I was in the air... playing it super cool.

milk for blokes

One more thing. I thought this billboard was funny:

Dunedin, Christchurch, and OZ

I'm in Melbourne right now and this city is awesome. Like a larger Portland with LA weather. In general aussies hate Americans even more the kiwis. A friend tells me they have taken to calling us septics. Oh well. I have still yet to meet any other Americans here, so I am basically the ambassador for our country. Wish me luck. Tomorrow I'm off to Perth for about a week. I'll try to write again from there at some point.

I wrote this entry a while ago but haven't had a chance to upload it until now:

--

After a butchering "We Are the Champions" at a karaoke bar in Dunedin we left for Mt. Cook on the advice of our host Alana. We were her first couchsurfers and she was a very gracious host. She is engaged to her Czech boyfriend... they've been "dating" for over a year now, though they've only spent 6 days physically together. Their relationship is entirely skype-based, but they are going to get married anyway.


We stayed in a cabin-like hostel very close to Mt. Cook. The following morning we went for a long hike. Mt. Cook itself was obscured by clouds but we were able to see some other beautiful peaks and glaciers. There are two lakes near Mt. Cook that had neon blue water. I've never seen anything like it.



From there we drove to Christchurch and got quick dinner at some kabab place. About halfway though our meal a fight broke out just outside the door to the restaurant, and ended in one of the guys in a headlock literally in the doorway of our restaurant.

As it turns out the loser of the fight had stolen a small can of pringles - valued at $2.50 - and been chased down and tackled by the small asian convenience store manager. The thief was Canadian and offered to pay the manager twice what the Pringles cost and said he would never go back to his store, but the manager would not let him out of the headlock and insisted he wouldn't move until the police arrived.

As we were leaving the police arrived, asked what had happened, and the told the Canadian to pay the man double what the chips were worth and not come back to the store. What a lucky break. In the US he probably would have been deported.

So from there we went over to another couch surfer's home. We played some Texas Hold 'em (I had it and then lost all my chips in two ridiculous hands) and some pool (I won all 3 games) and went to sleep. I spent today wandering around Christchurch (didn't see the famous wizard) and making arrangements for getting a ride to the airport at 3:55am tomorrow morning.

Next time I write I will be in Australia. Until then...

Rain

I came to the southern hemisphere in the hopes of getting out of the Portland rain. As it turns out it's been sunny in Portland pretty much since I left (so I've heard) and been raining on us for most of the days we've been in the south island. Oh well.

We stayed in Queenstown with a fellow couchsurfer and had a great time. That town is super touristy, but beautiful nonetheless.


We had a great view from the place we were staying as well:



From there we drove to Milford. It was pouring rain the entire time we were there, but arguably more beautiful as a result.



We stayed with some kayak instructors in a compound of caravans:



We're in Dunedin now. MGD is really expensive in this country:


And it's raining. Again. We went out last night and had a really good time. This is kind of a wild university town and the culture is much different here than it's been anywhere else in the country. I think from here we're going to Mt. Cook, then Christchurch. More coming in a few days.

skydiving

I just jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet. I don't have any pictures because it was like an extra $200... but I can assure you that it was INSANE.