Crocodile Deanie

Great Barrier Reef: Trepidation and Recognition

2006-06-21T21:26:00.000+10:00

Part II: Recognition

All that remained for the day was finding food and watching the Socceroos practice match against the Netherlands.

Pete and I walked into the hostel courtyard to find the owner behind his desk, waiting. "Ah, which beds was it that you were staying in, boys?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Ah yes because I noticed that you switched from top to bottom bunk, you've got to tell me about that, don't you, you see the fire department wants to know which beds you are in, wouldn't want you to be in the wrong one, would we?" He made a joke about accidental meetings in the night and managed to simultaneously laugh and snivel at it. Pete and I stared, for the moment, speechless. In the silence, a hunched woman shuffled past the door. The owner's eyes widened as he cocked his head at an angle and said, tonelessly, "A boy's best friend is his mother."

The owner worried us consistently during our stay, entering our room repeatedly to rearrange our belongings and continuing with his off-beat humor and searching, hopeful looks. We were happy to have escaped the hostel across the street. There, Pete's mp3 player had been stolen by a thief in collusion (I suspect) with the ownership. And now we had our free meal tickets to look forward to. We found the named establishment downtown, and walked to a small port in the wall. We exchanged our tickets for our small, steaming piles of slop. We took our plates to the eating area, which was plastered with advertisements for cheap beer. Clearly, we were meant to eat a little, and drink a lot. Instead, we split and found some cheap sushi. With our meal deliciously complete, we stalked the streets in search of a bar showing the Socceroos game.

The public interest in the game was disappointingly thin. Everywhere we asked, the bartenders either claimed ignorance or said that they wouldn't play it unless there was more expressed interest. As a last shot, we walked into the domed casino at the center of town. The strings of lights flickered their cheap imitation of lightning as we stepped inside.

The interior was much the same. There was one room, and it was all underfunded, run down "flash". Everywhere we walked, we were confronted by guards, who outnumbered the patrons. Their voices were accusatory, thick with the expectation that we would be drunk and belligerent. We juked and found a hole that led to the sports area. Cushioned wicker chairs were arranged in front of a massive screen. Soccer was showing on it. It was like the big race day. But with soccer. The beautiful game. It was a good time despite the embarrassing performance of the Socceroos. I went to bed satisfied with the night, but dreading the morning I would have to spend alone, waiting for my plane.

Next morning, I settled for a pleasant read in the seaside park. Soon it was 11:45 AM, and I closed the book. It was time to investigate! A certain sign read "Best Sushi in Cairns", and I hadn't tested it's audacity. When I arrived ten minutes before opening, thirteen people were already outside, all locals. Business women mixed with long-haired teenagers on the sidewalk. We watched anxiously through the half open, corrugated steel garage-type door, as a middle aged couple prepared a few sushi rolls. Then the woman turned to us and started taking orders. When I tried my sushi, I discovered it wasn't the best in Cairns, but the best sushi I have enjoyed in Australia. Thankful to the enterprising couple, I made my way to the airport shuttle pickup.

As I stood at the bus stop, I reflected on the preceding days. I was tanned and tired from my long day on the reef, but excited by the new experience. I realized that the trip to Cairns is to my more ordinary life as the sushi shop is to Cairns: a stark reminder of beauty amongst more ordinary surroundings. Though each dash of brilliance was isolated and ephemeral, for me, it was more than enough. I stood straighter on the sidewalk, excited to finish my exams and return to the US. The European style 15 passenger van pulled up and the driver hopped out to get my bags.
"Are you David or Brendan?" he asked.
"Brendan," I said.
"You can just pay the ten dol..." He stopped short as I produced the bill with an even look. He paused for a moment, glanced at me, then took the bill. He climbed in the driver's side while I climbed in with the 3 other packagers. I was lost in thought before we pulled out into traffic.

My thoughts were interrupted.10 minutes later with a crackle over the CB radio: "Drivers be advised, we have a traffic light outage on the airport access road." I realized that they referred to the lights just ahead. I saw that we would need to cross heavy oncoming traffic without the aid of the traffic light. Our driver slowed at our turn for a moment, then returned the gas pedal to the floor. 15 seconds later, he saw a break in traffic and, with a calculated motion, whipped the van into a U-turn. He accelerated hard in the other direction, smoothly pushing the van through it's gears, staying mere meters ahead of oncoming traffic. We arrived at the airport mere seconds behind schedule.

Passengers and driver piled out to convene at the trunk. I stepped forward for my bag:
"The small black one in the front, please." He looked at me, stopped the shoveling motion of his hands and stood up straight.
"Brendan, it was..." He turned my bag to see the luggage tag.
"Brendan Kemp?" His mouth formed a bemused smile as his eyes weighed my face. I responded with a wry smirk.
"That's right."

-------

Disclaimer: All events are true to life, except the hostel owner quoting Norman Bates. That was included because it conveys my perception of the man better than many paragraphs of (real life) dialogue.

Great Barrier Reef: Trepidation and Recognition

2006-06-20T17:32:00.000+10:00

Part I: Trepidation

THE boat ploughed ahead, dropping hard into every trough while the pit of my stomach lurched. The trusty cutter persevered but moved forward with more bob than cut. Over 2 hours my weariness built into a roiling apprehension sloshing from top to bottom in my gut. Doubts in my head followed the same pattern, rising insistently to the top while I repeatedly pushed them down. Would I be able to dive? I had never even used flippers. All the equipment we were briefed on during the ride was unfamiliar; each piece I put on added to my uncertainty. Flippers, wetsuit, regulator, weight belt, goggles, tank. I walked with stiff knees and arms held out to the side. Didn't I need to take a dive class involving a pool and hopefully safety nets (literal fishing-type ones)? The dive instructor seemed confident enough as he ran us through the basics. But as the journey continued to an improbable length, I realized that I was further offshore than I had ever been.

When the waves lessened and the boat slowed, I spotted a long dark shape stretched before us under the water. The boat nosed up to the dark patch and docked with a boat already stationed there. We first-time divers sat in a line across the low stern of the ship, receiving last orders and final gear checks. I glanced at Peter to my left. He looked around alertly, but readied his equipment with self-assurance. The word was given and we rolled, one by one, head first into the bracing water.

I panicked. My limbs stuck out straight to the side as my face repeatedly submerged and surfaced. I breathed at all the wrong times and then spat mouthfuls of salt water. I bobbed on the surface with all the grace of a dead Beluga. A current threatened to drag me away from the group, and I clung to a line. Then our instructor was distracted by a girl who needed help with her snorkel. As we floated above a great Wonder of the World, he described to her his car back in Canada, how much horsepower it had and how many large LCD screens it contained. She giggled with half-hearted admiration. I realized that if they allowed anyone out on the Reef without prior experience, I was more than capable. It was simply a matter of applying some logic and my well-tested affinity for the water. I used the break to pull myself together. I put aside the visions 6th grade ropes course field trips, frozen with uncertainty 30 feet above the ground. I put my regulator in my mouth, submerged my face and took a few breaths in and out. Simple. I pointed my flippers upward and kicked; I moved down. I was a vector. I descended slowly into the formless murk.

As we swam deeper, we paused every 5 feet or so to hold our noses and blow. The shadow moved upward until it surrounded us. Even on the ocean floor, our instructor described his car with dive signals, evoking its sporty lines with a sweep of his hand and then indicating the size of the TV screens with the space between his palms. But it didn't matter. I was in a different world.

All around us, the reef loomed. We were in a 4-story deep canyon of water and fish. Schools of little fish swam near; meter long shapes floated far. The walls of the canyon were lined with water-plants of every description. The light was blue, dim and unnatural, and the ocean floor was white and smooth. But this moonscape was dotted with dark cucumber forms. They were shaped like dark gherkins, and they were the size of two breadboxes held end to end. They were fishy to the touch and strangely weightless to hold in the high pressure. There were the sea clams as big as a large pizza, that closed on your fingers and were fluorescent, velvety purple on the inside. I made like my 6th grade graph papers and directed myself at will. The regulator and tank disappeared and I was an entity of pure curiosity and observation. I investigated every shape I saw ahead, straining at the edges of the group. I would have spent hours like that, lost amongst the life, but our instructor pointed at his watch and then up. We ascended slowly to allow time for the Nitrogen to leave our joints. The hull of our boat appeared above us. We surfaced near it and climbed aboard. I pulled off my mask and checked Peter's face for a reaction. "That was awesome." "Yeah." We put our names down for the second dive.

We dove and snorkeled for the remainder of the 5 hours. The second dive was even better than the first. We spent another 30 minutes in that alien world, and somehow there were more fish and strange lifeforms to discover. The snorkeling was just like the diving, but with brighter lights and bolder colors. The fish were even more plentiful near the surface. I spent the entire afternoon snorkeling at full tilt, following every flash of color back and forth across the reef. Tossing up and down once again on our way back, I felt exhausted and a little sea sick from the motion and swallowed salt water. But I knew I would never, ever forget. What a day.

The beauty of an unforeseen landscape

2006-05-04T18:04:00.000+10:00

THE old lantern bobs alone in the dark, 15 paces in front of me. It does not throw light; the night is too dark. There are only 8 shadows trudging forward, human and shivering in their form. Water falls in sheets, from the darkness that encloses, from the close creaking trees, and from the burnt out shell of the cathedral we are approaching. The clouds break, exposing 1 full white orb above. The steeple remnants appear, pointed and empty without their roof. "This is where the first men fell to their death," Laura says, staring, "if you climb to the bell tower, they will probably follow you up."

I met up with Peter Axtman that morning, outside the Nararra Backpackers in downtown Hobart. The airport shuttle disgorged me, returning to the international airport 40 minutes outside Tasmania's capital city. There Peter stood, out of place away from the context of UMass Amherst. Then again, I thought Tasmania was Saturday morning mythical until booking a real flight just one week ago. I had no idea what to expect.

Peter drove the 1983 Mitsubishi Magna Executive on the left side of the city streets while I rode as passenger, declaring myself official taker of unnecessary photos. And take unnecessary photos I did, though the farms and mountains and bays we saw were unnecessarily beautiful. Each hilltop presented a view that was unexpected: I never recognized a landscape from a photo.

We rode through the landscape on our way to Port Arthur. Australia formed as a jail continent for the British, and Port Arthur was one of the original infamous penal colonies. The rock formations impressed when we stopped to see them, but they did not warn us of the sinister place we would find.

We explored the Tasman Peninsula, and found it to be wet and quaint. Palmer's lookout gave us a look at the entire region of forested hills and rocky coastline. When darkness fell we tore ourselves away to find accommodations for the night. In the continuing bluster, we didn't like the idea of camping, so we paid for beds at the Roseview YHA , an older looking place with a wood stove for heat and girls playing hymns on the piano. The guidebook said it was haunted by a ghost named Annie. In return for our money, we received a key, and a top sheet and bed sheet sewn together into a sack . Thus situated, we struck out for our VV Vacation Value of History, and the Port Arthur Historic Ghost Tour.

So there we stand in the dark and the rain, listening to Laura tell us about the tragedies of Port Arthur's past. She tries to impart a spookiness with the timbre and timing of her delivery. She fails. It is the inherent creepiness of the place that has us shivering and glancing over our shoulders. From the cathedral we walk to the parsonage and learn about the 'woman in the blue dress' who has driven multiple residents to distraction or flight. The tour finishes in the dank cellar of the doctors house, where three waist-high sandstone blocks are pushed together. They served as surgery and dissection table. The gaps between the blocks are for the blood to drain down.

Thoroughly scared, we drove back to the Roseview. If Annie appeared during the night, I slept right through it. It is just as well; we had a long day of exploration ahead of us.

A Dip in the Brisbane: refreshing albeit forced

2006-04-13T10:37:00.000+10:00

THE broom handle slugged Quentin mid-chest with such force that he hung horizontal in the air for a moment before crashing into the swirling Brisbane waters. My diminutive friends scattered into the water like terrified gulls before the charging bullish brute.

Wait, let me backtrack. To break the Great Posting Slump of 2006, I am going to relate to you a story of high drama, and great woe. A Tragedie, of some guys trying to find a cheap way to get to Uni.

It began in early February, when my flatmates Damien and Quentin moved in. It wasn't long before we discussed our collective woes getting to and from the University. To get to the campus directly across the river, we could bike 10 minutes to one ferry service, or walk 10 minutes to another. Either way, it would cost us about $2 a day, just to get to school.

We needed to make our own way. It would have to be fast and practical, and most importantly, not deprive us of all those cool $2 coins we were collecting. We hit upon a plan: if we could buy or construct some type of punt, gondola, junk or canoe, we could hide it on the bank of the river and take it to school as we pleased. We prowled the classifieds, internet, discount stores and neighborhood streets for the proper materials.

The breakthrough came from a friendly neighbor who wasn't using 3 kayaks. He said we could use them all we wanted, and that we could launch from the dock next to our flat. Perfect. We would just have to get permission from the dock owner.

That Friday, Damien and Quentin decided to get some practice in. They knocked on the owner's door, but nobody seemed to be home. They mopped off the dock because it hadn't been used in a long time, and the local birds had given it an entirely new paint job. They had just brought their stuff down to the dock to push off when a man ran out of a neighboring house, brandishing an shop broom.

"Get the f--- off my dock!" the burly 40 year old calmly intoned, "I pay $400 a month for that dock, get the f--- off!" He shoved Quentin into the water and threw all his stuff in after him. At this point, Damien dove in of his own accord, partially to retrieve the camera floating on the quick Brisbane R. current.

Upon entry into the water their first thought was: "Ahhhhhh. This is nice." It was a hot day.

They ended up retrieving all their stuff (they had waterproof bags) and swimming the kayaks to the next dock and walking them down the road back to their berth. The bad news is we are stuck on the ferry for the duration of our stay.

It's ok. I like the CityCat anyway.

Wake up

2006-03-02T17:38:00.000+10:00

A few minutes later, I woke to the soft patter of rain. Or at least I thought it was a soft patter. Exploring outside, I found that the rain was screened by the palm trees overhead, and to step out from under them was to subject yourself to a pelting by the largest raindrops I had ever experienced. It was my first taste of the outsized weather from the subtropical region of this outsized continent.

Since my roommates were still gone, I stayed in the room and organized my things until the rain let up. I took the time to itemize my goals for the day: 1. Food 2. Cell 3. Haircut. In 20 minutes the rain stopped, and I was on my way to my first look at the new country.

Since I didn't have any sense of the place, I let myself be herded onto the hostel's hourly shuttle to the city center. A short and bewilderingly frantic dash through city streets later, I was standing, knees shaking, at a bus stop under a bridge. With Brisbane's mysterious lack of traffic, it looked like a clean but forgotten unplaceable piece of city. Fortunately some pedestrians were walking by, and I followed the crowd to the city's central business district.

At the CBD I found the Queen Street Mall: an intersection of pedestrian streets forming a cross in the middle of 4 blocks of stores. With no map or other indication of the layout of the place, I wandered around the labyrinthine corridors and malls with only my itinerary to guide me. By this point I was ravenous, so I dispatched my first goal in short order with a stop at "Fresh Ones" in the first food court I saw.

I had gathered by the sign that they sold non-ethnic tortilla wraps because the photo illustrations pictured wrap sandwiches, and the "Fresh Ones" logo was unadorned by sombreros. What I didn't realize was that this was a health fast food place, a revelation that came to me when I inspected my "Grilled Chicken" wrap to find that it consisted mostly of grated carrot and yogurt. Still, the entire ordeal had a refreshingly citrusy taste to it, and I was too hungry to care. I later realized that this experience was indicative of a larger theme in Australian cuisine: since Australia doesn't have it's own culinary culture, it brings in other counties' food in a way that can become, at it's most extreme, post-ethnic. Most of the time you just get your choice of all the world's best fare. Also Australia, sporting country that it is, often has a healthier take on food. Barring that, they just serve it with an espresso. Where they concede the saturated fats of McDonald's and the Burger King equivalent "Hungry Jack's", they tack on a "McCafe" that serves cappuccino to go with your Big Mac. Espresso drinks have attained such ubiquity here that, by no exaggeration, some Chinese places have a bar and baristas. The Aussies do like their coffee.

Leaving the food court, I threw myself back into the river of countless stores. This small-town American had never seen such a concentration of consumerism, even in monstrosities such as the Holyoke Mall. It was like they had taken the Holyoke Mall and spread it over four blocks, destroying the roof and making it open-air in the process. Still, I was fresh off the rush of being in an urban environment in a strange country, so nothing seemed derivative to me. All the stores seemed to have daring original clothes, and all the people seemed to dress artsy/eclectic. I was feeling a garish and obviously unsubtle American with my bold one color t-shirt with no artful print as I wandered agog with new experiences.

While I was stumbling about, I managed to direct myself into one cell phone store for each of the competing mobile providers. With no knowledge of coverage, or friends with certain carriers to lock me into their attempts to create a networked economy, I just picked the one that had the best deal on a cell phone with some prepaid minutes. Telstra and Vodaphone came up short when I bought a Nokia from Optus. Now, once I got my account activated, I would have a way to coordinate my campaign to find housing. But I didn't want to think about this frightening prospect just yet: I had a giant mop of hair to attend to.

While wandering the streets I had been especially sensitive to customs and visible culture of the passing Australians. Each style was unknown to my eyes and therefore made a big impression. So far I had seen that they seem to like muted colors with big asymmetric logos and designs splashed on their shirts. Even all the pants seemed to be adorned with carefully considered blotches and slashes in a way that seemed much more... daring than anything that would be acceptable in the US. Maybe this is just my backwater small-town perception, and this is the way with all vibrant, culturally relevant cities. One thing that I noticed for certain was that almost everyone was sporting a short, practical haircut, and I was beginning to feel why. My sweat was now a permanent fixture on my back and face, and my scalp was greasy to the point of feeling crawly. My long locks of unkempt hair were not helping.

Somewhere still in the bowels of the Queen Street Mall, I found my way to an airconditioned salon where the all female hairdressing staff surveyed me with a mixture of pity and trepidation. While hairdressers stood around idly twiddling their scissors and blowing locks of hair out of their faces, I was told that there wasn't a seat at the moment, and that I should come back in about 20 minutes. Indeed all 8 seats in the salon were full of dashing and sophisticated people of both sexes. Feeling sweaty, foreign and out of place, I explored yet another hall of the maze until I found an airconditioning vent to lean into face first.

Returning to the salon I discovered what the extra staff was for, as my "haircut" turned into a carefully orchestrated conveyer belt experience of deep tissue scalp massage/shampoo+condition, plus highspeed sharp scissor attack, plus rapid no questions asked hair styling. Each hairdresser knew their role and waltzed in at the appropriate moment to apply a third kind of smoothing conditioner, or a snip from some lightning-bolt-shaped scissors. All for $21 Australian, and this was no mass produced hack job. Not a single one of my hairs had ever felt more in place.

Feeling highly sophisticated and much less conspicuous, I was still feeling very lonely. Even the conversations I struck up with vendors for a bit of human interaction left me feeling off tempo, too earnest, out of touch and somehow just very American. I wanted to talk to someone I actually knew.

I had been lugging my laptop around all day for this purpose, so I plunked myself down in the one familiar aspect of the landscape: Starbucks. Feeling very sure of myself for the first time in the day, I ordered a "short" soy mocha, only to be told by the barista that their short was a children's size (caffeine for children?! the monsters! ...the short monsters evidently), and I would get what I expected from a "short" by ordering a "tall". She was used to the demands of American tourists, and she showed it by asking me, in a very friendly manner, if I had just arrived today. "Ah, yes," I responded in my crass sounding American accent, "actually just about noon."

Thus reprimanded, I sat down in the only remaining seat in the place, where the uniformity of international conglomerates did not disappoint. A short sign-in and $11AU (*cough*) later, I had an hour of wireless access. Unfortunately, due to the vagaries of international time, it was something like 27 o'clock back home, and neither were any of my friends in foreign countries online. I sent a couple emails and felt just a little bit better.

At this point it was past 8pm Brisbane time, and the effects of my jet-lagged sleepless night were catching up with me. If souls travel at the speed of bicycles, mine is Lance Armstrong. Still, Lance-soul had 10,000 miles to cover, and I was feeling a little empty in the head. I was ready for some sleep. I waited at the shuttle pick-up until I realized I had missed the last bus, then set off to the West End over the gorgeous white-stone arch bridge and past the young men shattering beer bottles on the sidewalk and yelling accented taunts at each other. When my directional intuition finally led me back to the hostel, I was exhausted and I walked past the inert forms of my roommates and dropped directly into bed and deep sleep. Tomorrow I would have my first chance to meet fellow students and my first crack at finding accommodations.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

2006-02-13T12:54:00.000+10:00

IMG_0090

THE flight was long and tiresome, but full of great vistas and interesting people. On different legs of the journey I was able to discuss politics with Adam the President of the Democrats at Brandeis, talk ecology politics (specifically the demographics of city park users) with a new professor from Griffith University, and learn about Brisbane from a couple returning from vacation on Fiji. The view out the small airplane window changed every time I glanced out. First the close skyscrapers of the Boston skyline, then the icebound landscape of New York, south Canada and Minnesota. Then came the small cities of the midwest like men drawn in the desert with their single interesection of roads. Then the Rocky Mountains, still lit by the sunset that we were chasing, finally down south to the unending exapanse of LA at night. The whole of the Pacific was one dark void until we descended to the dawn-lit peaks of Fiji. At this point I had been traveling 30 hours, so the final 5 hour flight to Brisban was just plain tedious.

In Brisbane I charmed my way through customs, and found my driver from the university: Gina, a short lady in her brusque 70s. After collecting the other passanger, we headed out to the car. Approaching from the right side of the vehicle, I momentarily considered the front seat, but opted instead for the sliding door to the passanger area. "Oh, you think you're going to drive. He thinks he's going to drive. Oh, you've decided not to drive." This is followed by a couple stories about Americans who have killed people driving down the wrong side of the road, told with the same resigned disapproval I imagine she would use when talking about other social deviants.

When Gina isn't laying on the sarcasm, she is giving us a very thoughtful tour of Brisbane as it passes by. All the buildings have been built in the past 70 years, and the majority of those in the past 20. Brisbane had been undergoing sustained economic development, driven partially by the 6,000 or so people who move there every year. Gina says that the infrastructure is insufficient, but I don't see it. By US city standards, the streets are wide open: only a sparse but steady flow of traffic is visible downtown. Many landmarks are pointed out, but with little geographical reference to place them, I soon forget. Mostly what I retain is an impression: clean, sunny streets with prevelant trees. 10 minutes after we started, we crossed the bridge south of downtown, entering the district where I will be staying. The main street is lined with small restaurants and boutique type shops but once we make a turn the neighborhood is completely residential, with one or two story houses lined up with a continual line of gardens across the front yards. A break in these houses is a small parking lot; we turn in. The sign says "Somewhere to Stay": it is my hostel. A swipe of my ATM card and some dragging of bags later, I am in my room. From the made beds I can tell I have at least two roommates, but for the moment they are out. I collapse briefly on my bed, glad for the rest.

The Sound of Silence

2006-02-04T05:51:00.000+10:00

Takeoff...

THE week leading up to my departure is free from the usual bothersome distractions of job, school, friends or warm weather. So I am left with time to reflect on my impending escape from the US and anything I have ever known.

First, I am traveling 10,000 miles in 18 hours. This in itself can't be real to me: I've never been further than Florida before. All my experience up to this point has been clustered in one state in one country, all within a couple lines of latitude and longitude. With this proximity of location and culture and climate, there is a level of congruency. Any exploration within Massachusetts is similar in many ways to other experiences had in Massachusetts. Since birth I have been inducing from my experiences a list of assumptions about existence that have yet to be challenged. These assumptions are comforting because as I grew up they enabled me to do more for myself and become more self-sufficient: they afforded me a kind of world-saavy security that I can fend for myself.

...and Landing

I guess these assumptions are going to be fundamentally smashed by Brisbane. I'm told that studying abroad will be different in the ways that I least expect, and that this destruction of the comfortable known will be very frustrating for me in a way that is often summarized as 'culture shock'. Descriptions that I've heard have been sketchy, but I gather that this 'culture shock' centers around the loss of perceived world-saavy due to world assumptions being turned on their head (especially true "down under").

I remain skeptical. I think that I deal well with uncertainty - I guess I will know for certain in a month. Outside of my own traits, Brisbane isn't going to be that different. The official language is Australian English, a dialect of my own language. Culturally, Australia has been described as suspended between the influences of the UK and the US. As a measure of cultural influence, I researched if I knew any bands that call Brisbane their home. Wikipedia revealed the distinguished names of The Bee-Gees, Keith Urban and Savage Garden! Everyone knows the Bee-Gees, Keith Urban actually had a show at the Mullins Center Fall of '05, and a search of Facebook reveals 51 Umassers claim Savage Garden as one of their favorite bands, including prolific Collegian columnist Matt Brochu. Talk about your cultural influence. I'm sure the return street is even wider. Perhaps Australia is very similar.

So my end worry is whether Australia will challenge me enough. Maybe it will just be a little jolt to my experience while being a relaxed semester engineering in the sub-tropical sun. That would be ok too.

To the Nameless Blog, I Have An Idea Concerning Your Predicament

2006-01-29T12:06:00.000+10:00

SO, a week before departure, the blog is christened. More to come.