Australia - Byron Bay

Driving up to Byron Bay from Sydney, we knew we had a long and beautiful route, so we equipped ourselves with only the finest transportation medium: a Wicked van.  This thing was a beaut and packed to the brim with people, food, and junk.

The drive up North took around 10 hours, but wasn’t too bad as the van had a cool sleeping area in the back. We arrive into Byron Bay in the morning, and it is packed. Bob Dylan, Ben Harper, and Elvis Costello are in town for some blues festival, so it’s a major hippie fest, and I am offered drugs I’ve never heard of from jolly 50-year-old drug dealers. Byron’s got charm.

We make a stop at the grocery, pick up a bunch of sausages, eggs, toast and oatmeal and head to the beach. In Australia, they have these electric grills for free everywhere, and I am pumped to have a huge warm meal right on the beach.

We spend the whole day surfing, hiking around, and relaxing in the sun. It’s a nice change from the uber-fast paced lifestyle in New Zealand (sure), and I am able to amass a pretty impressive sunburn.

Apparently Byron is the Easternmost point in Australia, so I decide to take a picture with it.

That night, we park the van on some suburb backstreet and hit the town, spending most of our night at this great bar called “The Cheeky Monkey” which played 90’s rock till the wee hours of the morning, and kept us highly entertained with a raucous wet t-shirt contest (I made good friends with the winner, real charming Canadian girl).

We head back to the van after the night is done, and Jake’s friend Kyle decides to just sleep on top of it to avoid the crowd inside. I’ve missed sleeping in cars.

Sydney

So far, Australia has been nothing short of amazing. Sydney is an incredible city: clean streets, beautiful people, and parties that stop when the sun starts to rise.

My first night here we head to the olympic stadium to see Armin van Buuren, who is known as the world’s #1 DJ. The concert goes until sunrise, and after a epic trek home and some McDonald’s (Mackers, as they call it here), we finally make it back to Jake’s house at about 9:30 am.

Last night, after sleeping all day, we decide to hit the city again, because, as Jake’s Brazilian roommates insist “Sundays are big here.” Alas, not wanting to disappoint our foreign friends, we follow them to what is hailed as “Sydney’s Top Club Four Years Running,” which is called Hugo’s. I’m not huge on fancy clubs, but it was quite nice, and the company made the night. Before our cab ride home, Jake and I insisted that the two girls we had with us join us for a delicious, delicious meat pie. Shockingly there were unimpressed with our choosing food over girls, but Jake and I were hungry so we left them, enjoyed our pies, and ended the night alone.

Today we decided to explore downtown Sydney and I was amazed by how nice of a city it was. Minimum wage is quite high here, so the disparity between rich and poor is pretty small, which makes for interesting dynamics. I saw very little example of poverty, the city in general seemed extremely youthful, and the people were all much better looking than what i regularly experience in Auckland.

We have a few more days in Sydney until we head North, and I can’t wait to check out the sweet warm beaches up near Brisbon. We’ll be up at some beach on 4/20 when Bob Dylan is performing, so I expect lots of old stoners and funny stories. Can’t lose either way.

Fall Break!

Alas, Kiwis do love their vacations. I am currently in the middle of a three week long “fall break”, after only a little over a month of school here. I suppose I can’t complain.

To kick off the break, we head over to the Auckland Domain (essentially Central Park) to watch the Red Bull Grand Prix, an excellent show of fearless Kiwis hurling themselves down a hill in flimsy soapbox racers.

Events like this make me happy to be in Auckland, as no other city could really draw a crowd of 100,000 with such massive theatrics. The day is filled with good friends, good food, great jokes, and plenty of underemphasized injuries.

Next, after a few days of boredom, a couple friends and I decide to hit up Rainbow’s End, “New Zealand’s Premier Theme Park.”  Lord knows why anyone would decide to build a theme park here, but they attempted to, and fell quite short of magnificence. Imagine the California Mid State Fair without the charm, or funny drunk people (although a few of the ride operators looked pretty buzzed). Despite the shortcomings of the place, we make the most of it, determined to get our $47 worth.

I’m headed to Australia tomorrow to meet up with my friend Jake from Berkeley. I will be there for about two weeks, and good adventures seem imminent. We have already booked an RV for the whole time, and our only plan so far is to eventually make it from Sydney to Melbourne.

Australia is massive. Almost as big as the contiguous US. Apparently, there’s not much in between the cities either, so it should be pretty and quite interesting. I am very much so looking forward to the trip, but am terrified after looking up videos of “Dangerous Australian Animals.” Mom and Dad, for your sakes, don’t look them up.

Sports

Never in my life have I had so much free time. It’s not that I’m necessarily bored in Auckland, it’s more that school here just isn’t nearly as demanding as back home (may have something to do with my affinity for “slacker classes”). So, I’ve been testing out a few new sports.

First off is rugby. Great sport. The Kiwis love it, are amazing at it, and are extremely forgiving teachers. We had an inter-residential tourney the other day, and I can say I’ve never had so much fun getting my ass kicked. Rugby is really hard, and extremely physically exerting. The comparisons to football make no sense, as rugby is nothing like football. In football, you have time to think and strategize. Rugby requires a lot of quick thinking and “just go for it” moves. Also, non-Americans like to say American football is sissy because we wear pads -  but I disagree with such a statement, as in Rugby, without helmets and pads, the hits aren’t nearly as hard.

Next are two that I have some familiarity with - Badminton and soccer. Badminton is probably the greatest game invented, because anyone can play and be pretty good, and when you’re in a competitive match you sweat your ass off. There are two reasons why I love soccer here. First off, the Kiwis call it soccer, and I really get sick of all the Euros saying “but it’s football!” I know you don’t play football with your foot, but the word “soccer” has the pizazz appropriated for a sport featuring players as metrosexual as Ronaldo. Secondly, I am on a motley crew of a team assembled from my housing complex, and the kids on it are hilarious. We have a few Malaysians, who are nice as hell but very tricky with their feet, a zealous Danish captain who writes up player reports every week, and a Chilean who, despite the gentle nature of some of our opponents, flagrantly fouls continuously during the games.

Next we have squash. Now I know squash is pretty big in some places back home, but here it’s huge. I tested it out with my Scottish buddy and got dizzy with how tiring it was. I’d like to get into it though, as it’s way more fun than tennis and a better workout.

Then there’s Cricket. I haven’t attempted to play and refuse to. Cricket is, without a doubt, the worst game ever invented. It’s way slower than baseball, more lazy than bowling, and about as exciting as a darts match in slow motion. I have no idea why the world enjoy this sport, and am glad that it isn’t big back home. The cricket world cup just happened, India won, and I was unfortunate enough to watch a few games with the Indians downstairs. No game should take five days and not even have a clear winner at the end of those. America - lets stick with baseball.

Lastly we have the game that I am confident the Americans will dominate in - beer olympics. We have a residential-wide tourney today, my partner being the Chilean. Other than the Kiwis (this is absolutely a country of alcoholics), I am positive the Americans will hand the competition their pride on a plate. USA! USA!

Kiwi Fun

Had a great time hanging with the Kiwis again last night. I feel very fortunate to have found a group of natives that I can hang out with. I didn’t come halfway across the world to hang out with all Americans.

Pi’s parents just bought this new house, which they are planning on tearing down, so we just partied in it last night. After we had exhausted hide-and-seek (the loser in each round had to finish their vessel), we got to pretty much just destroying the house, throwing things around everywhere, doing the usual nonsense.

Next, Joe (floor eggs) recommends we get a stripper, I’m down, all the guys are down, the Kiwi girls there is down, but the American girls with me are not. Freaking prude Americans. Thats what I love about the Kiwis, they just love doing crazy things for the story, regardless of the cost.

Also, the guys showed me their sacred tattoo, which I have never heard about before. On all of their left ass cheeks, they have inked in “SWC”, which stands for “Sperm Whale Crew”. I would love to have that on my ass. I’ll see what I can do about that.

Mardi Gras

(Note: Pardon any spelling errors in this entry. My computer is sticky from heaps of beer and some green substance, so typing is quite difficult)

Yesterday, in honor of the holiday American’s do best, Mardi Gras, we show the flats a good time!

Apparently, Mardi Gras is not that big of a deal to the Europeans. The British folk tell us they do not participate in any of this drinking and bead debauchery. No, instead, they call it “Pancake Tuesday”, and eat pancakes all day. Pancakes all day long - imagine the peace it must bring to that nation.

So, we opt for the better way to consume carbs and have a rousingly American time.  The beads were thrown, classic games like King’s Cup and Flip Cup are played (in red cups - the Brits all think it’s soooo cool that we party with red cups), and we paint the town red.

And by painting the town red I mean I opt out of the bars, and head straight for McDonald’s, where I feast upon the “Mac Attack” - a value meal consisting of two Big Macs, a large Coke, and a large fry, all for $11.50, which is a great deal, especially considering the exchange rate is the best it’s been since I arrived here (Go USD!). To cap it off, I order a double cheeseburger and ice cream cone on the walk home.

It is “Fat Tuesday” after all.

Meat Club

In honor of Joe's newfound meathood, I have joined the University of Auckland Meat Club. Yes, they have a Meat Club here. Pretty much all we do is just pay a little bit at the beginning of the semester and then every once in a while we all get together to talk about meat and eat all the meat we can. It's incredible. This may also be the place where I find my Kiwi bride...