Big Day Out

One week ago last Friday I took the day off and Emily and I went to Big Day Out, a massive concert at Sydney's Olympic park featuring over 50 bands and brutal heat. The weather leading up to the event was seasonable but on the day of the show, the tempiture pushed to record levels. The high for January 18th was 46°C (114.8°F). This was the hottest day ever in Sydney. We arrived around noon and the mercury was already over 35°  We ordered frozen mixed drinks only to watch them melt in front of out eyes.  We wondered around several venues and finally chose the wrong one: a concrete bowl with local bands playing. The music was great, but there was no shade and we did not want to venture out to the most pit where water was spraying the concert goers.  We later took up shelter in the main stadium where many bands were playing but we were so miserable we don't remember much from acts like Band of Horses, Vampire Weekend and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  We soon discovered that a strong breaze was being blocked by the stadium and it was at least 10° hotter inside than outside. Water was also hard to come by. The drinking water taps were located very far from the stadium and bottled water inside was $4.50.  This should be a crime when it was so hot. We did recover nicely to take stadium seats to see the two headline acts, The Killers and The Red Hot Chill Peppers. When the killers started their set with "Mr. Brightside," the entire arena awoke from a sun-induced funk and the ground was awash with people rushing in like ants to get close to the stage. The show was awesome from that point. When we left we encountered more trouble when the Sydney Olympic Park train platforms were super overcrowded and I was very worried that someone would get trampled when the train arrived. Of course the train was 10 minutes late and it was not air conditioned. I got separated from Emily when we boarded and I was stuck on the lower level of the double deck standing with my head lilted because of the low roof. For some reason the train which was supposed to be a direct service to Central station turned into a local inner-west train, stopping at every stop to the city. A 20 minute train turned into a 45 minute cookie oven. Everyone on board looked like they were just through a war zone with many blank stares. We did finally arrive in Central safe and sound and I had time to reflect on my first large concert: It would have been totally different if it was not as hot, so I am willing to try it again. 

Its Heating Up in Sydney

Today's high was 28° C (82°F), tomorrow it will be 30°C(86°F),and Friday it will be 38°C(100°F).  Last Tuesday the high was 40°C(102°F).  I work outside and I fell every degree of the heat no matter the scale.  I have been doing traffic control outside a construction site in North Sydney since the first week in November.  I stand outside and direct traffic entering and exiting out site.  I also wave through traffic, through.  It's a pretty boring job but the pay is good and up until last Tuesday the weather was fantastic.  I learned that most union construction sites in Australia shut down after the temp reaches 40° and I learned that we are definitely not a union site, as work continued as normal.  Australia is known for oppressive heat, but at least Sydney is cooled by ocean breezes.  We also started a boot camp workout in the evenings which is fun, but definitely not cool. To add to the heat misery we have been notified that we need to find a new place to live by January 29th, and I need to sort out car registration by January 30th.  If the heat and stress get too bad, I will just have to jump in one of Sydney's amazing beaches and think abut swimming away...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  We will be heading to Port Stephen's for Christmas tomorrow for a few days. Port Stephens is 2.5 hours north of Sydney. We will be in back for Boxing Day  and New Years eve in Sydney, which is supposed to be great. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas

The banners around Sydney say Happy Christmas and I will try to be only happy and will definitely not be merry this Christmas after having our apartment broken into.  We live on the bottom level and I was naive to leave the window in the lounge room cracked for fresh air.  While we seeped someone came into our place and took both of our computers, my ipod Emily's bank card, her prised bag, sunglasses, a gift card, my credit card and some new shoe inserts. Yes someone took shoe inserts. So now one week before Christmas we have to deal with this. Someone took their time. They thumbed through Emily's purse, my backpack and my wallet and selected things to take. They then placed my wallet back inside my shorts pocket. They took time to take the computer charger cord for Emily's computer.  Things are not any value to anyone else, the computers are over two years old and likely worthless at a pawn shop. This all happened as we slept. We have a fan running on out room and did not hear a thing. Needless to say this is very disturbing.  We will go away to Port Stephens for Christmas and get away from this gritty, grimy city.  Hopefully our stuff will still be there when we return. 

Bridge Tavern

I have been in Sydney for almost two months now and I have been a bit slow writing about my last night in Nowra in late October.

On the last night of my Nowra experience I got a crash course in Australian bogan culture. Melbournians pride themselves and their city with the abundance of culture. The culture I experienced firsthand in Nowra was the real deal, not a faux city culture. My workmates kept telling me about the “awesome” Thursday nights at the Bridge Tavern. Thursdays at the local watering hole involved topless barmaids serving drinks. I had been to the establishment in question about two weeks previously. The first experience at the Bridge was one to forget, I had been kicked out of the bar after I ignored an middle aged rather portly looking Aboriginal woman who said “hey baby” to me at the same time she was blocking the doorway leaving the men's restroom. I ignored her and within 30 seconds a hand was on my collar and I was escorted outside and greeted by the drunk hoards of locals who were refused entry. I was not drunk when this transpired. I later learned that the door man was mates with the woman and she was obviously looking for some action.

So I did have my reservations about going back inside this same bar and especially at the same time as their busiest night of the week. I arrived alone, expecting to find my workmates inside, they would be easy to find because of their high-viz shirts, or so I thought. Once inside I realized that I never should have went home to shower because everyone in the bar was wearing high-viz tradie garb. I looked around the bar for several minutes before ordering a beer from a non-naked male bartender and settling in and sitting nervously in the corner of the room all by my self. I had a view of the entire place, two pool tables and about a half dozen tall round tables with bar stools on a green carpeted floor. Two women were in stripper attire, topless and g-string bikinis. These girls were the highlight of the bar, the top attraction in town, the beacon of light for many patrons inside, the highlight of their week.

I tried to strike up a conversation with a couple guys playing pool but they were only emitting inaudible noises that only escalated when the girls approached. Their billiard skills were terrible and I was about to leave when I finally saw my workmates entering from the smoking area. I was relived to fine some familiar faces. They were slightly drunk and just had been hanging out in the 'pokies'(video poker room, I guess they tired of the scene quickly too). They challenged me to a game of pool and I obliged. We had an odd number, they sleeked out another player, my workmate Ben had no trouble finding one: The outback dust slid off wide brimmed hat as sand ripples remained. His weatherbeten skin would put an elephant to shame. An eye patch over his left eye partially covered a full facial tattoo, akin to blackbird wings fully outreached. Feathers in his hat were a likely extension of his face. A metal rod on his right leg kept him upright. Covered in rags his bony frame hid his inner pirate.

“G'day, Pirates' the name,” he cracked as I was introduced to my playing partner. "Guess why they call me Pirate? I am missing an eye and have me peg leg!" He revealed his bare eye socket to me and did a small jig on his feet. It turned out that I was facing my workmates, not allies like I expected. Ben added, “you look like you can hold your own in a game of 8 ball, I'm always weary of the quiet ones.” I was ready for this night to be over before the first que was even racked up. My game went terminal, and I missed every shot I took and Pirate and I were easily routed by my two workmates. Pirate was none too pleased and after the end of the game he came over to me and screamed: “I thought all Americans had big balls!” At the same time he reached and groped me with his bony fingers. I felt totally violated, but I remained calm to remind him that that it was an AC/DC song and that they are Australian not American.  

I had my chance to leave again when the topless bar maid made her way to the pool tables and one of my workmates told her all about my pool ablities and how I missed every shot. She turned to me: She was tall and slender with silky tan skin and roubust breasts that were soft and real. She had long dark wavy hair reaching to the middle of her back: her face was pleasant until she opened her mouth and revealed crooked yellow teeth and said in a very nasal Australian accent: “Wow you suck!”

She collected all of her tips from the pool players and moved on. In the middle of all the commotion I saw a very confused older gentleman with the name tag wondering around looking lost. He came from the other room and was a part of a group party. Barry was his name according to the white sticker, his face was even paler as he struggled to find the restroom.  I peered into the door he ventured from and it revealed a family restaurant in the very next room! I was wondering why so many normal looking people were walking through the bar to the restroom and back, then disappearing again. I followed Barry inside the restaurant and looked around and was about to order some fish and chips when a familiar voice cried out: “Joe!” It was one of my roommates' girlfriend. She was leaving Nowra just like me and she was hosting her going away party that same night. She was with a group of friends and it was much more comfortable to hang out with this group. She was going to attend flight attendant school starting the next week in Sydney. I was told that the food at the Bridge Tavern was some of the best in town so people just figured that boobs and beef just go together well on a family Thursday night in Nowra.

I had to walk back through the bar to use the restroom and was trying not to let the door hit me on the way out when I was accosted by a man who was peddling porno dvd's. Later I learned that he sponsored the entire event every week and his company is known as Blue Rocket. I told him that I was not interested in his blue penis pills or sticky dvd's and went on my way. Everyone I met before Australia told me that Melbourne was the mecca of culture when I found real Australian culture in the middle of nowhere. The guidebooks have it wrong. Off the beaten path lies some of the weirdest places that many travelers never see.

Sydney Adventures

Emily and I have been in Sydney for about a month now. We have been living in Stanmore, Wollstonecraft, and now Elizabeth Bay. We started in Stanmore, an inner west suburb for our first three weeks in a very small city apartment . From Stanmore we had a front row view to the approach of Sydney's airport. Resting on my pillow my pillow, I could see the logos on the underside of the wings on the plains as they buzzed our roof: Qantas, Jetstar, Tiger Airways, et el.  From 6am to 11pm we had constant aircraft noise, making conservation with another person in the same room sometimes impossible.  When we were not having problems communicating with humans we were communicating with the spiders to go away! We had two large Hunstman spiders visit our kitchen, one resting on the soy sauce at the same time we needed that bottle of sodium for our sushi, sending Emily across the room like a Samurai on full inverse banzai. The Stanmore apartment was super tiny and we never really unpacked our bags. The car was always full of stuff and we were constantly worried about  getting a ticket in  the two hour parking on the street we were staying on. We did not have a resident's parking permit (that's another story!)

 Last week we stayed in Wollstonecraft, near North Sydney. It was an amazingly clean house with heaps of space on a quiet street. The back of the house had a balcony overlooking bush like setting of a public park. Birds were chirping and no parking hassles. We agreed to stay one week because we put money down for a apartment in Elizabeth Bay and just needed a place to crash. We were relaxing, watching the sunset on our first night when we met one of our flatmates.  He was middle aged and turned out to be really creepy. We were expecting privacy and all this guy wanted to do was pepper Emily with questions and act like I was not even there. Things got worse later in the week when the landlady informed us that we needed to leave the room by Friday at noon, which was a real problem because we both worked all day.  We were moving into our Liz Bay place Saturday which left us nowhere to live Friday night.

We ended up staying at Emily's friend's house in Newtown which turned out to be an epic disaster. It turned out to be a party house and we had to wait for everyone to drink and go out before we could claim the broken futons in the lounge room we were expecting to sleep on. After wiping potato chip crumbs off the cushions we discovered that overnight road works were underway, including someone using a concrete saw right under the lounge window for several hours. I worked early that Saturday and Emily was woken up by the flatmates cooking vodka omelets at 8 am. We finally moved into out own apartment in Elizabeth Bay last Saturday afternoon.. We enjoy the place, it's a little old, but in a central location, only two stops from the CBD, and has a nice park nearby. Parking is a problem which is no surprise but we were really shocked to discover a mold farm growing behind the entertainment center requiring several hours of cleaning. We have been through a lot the past month, moistly struggling to find a place to live and securing full time work. We have signed a sub-lease until January 29th and this place should give us a good base for more Sydney adventures.

Why I Enjoy Traveling

I have recently moved to Sydney from Nowra after two months. Being in Sydney reminds me that I am instill in a foreign country. Nowra was eerily similar to living in small town Nebraska. Its good to know that where I came from is no different than other places on the other side of the world, There is nothing wrong with that. When traveling in a condensed period of time people make decisions that could last a lifetime. When traveling over a long period of time each decision I make feel like an earth shattering decision, knowing that I have only so much time before my work visa runs out. My last night in Nowra I was asked if traveling helps self confidence, and I was not sure how to answer. After several days of thinking about this I have come to the conclusion that I now fell less self confident because I now realize that where I am from is not all that cool and the I don't really feel any more special than any other guy next to me.

Recently my girlfriend and I, who I met in New Zealand decided to give ourselves another chance. Her name is Emily and she is from South Carolina. We met over a year ago and it seems like everywhere we turn we have similarities. When we met in New Zealand she was just starting her working holiday, at the same time I was just finishing up. I recently talked to a guy who told me that when traveling as a couple it seems like 10 years of a relationship is compressed into 10 days. I can totally relate to that. We have relocated to Sydney together and we are both looking for full time work. Emily does promotions for a living and I am doing the construction thing again. She always finds employment easily. We both admit that we would have never met each other if we were not traveling. She is my first long term girlfriend and I made a litany of mistakes he first time around that I have now corrected. Everyone has their reasons to travel. I have never really been sure of my reasons, but I am very sure that I would be very happy to travel with Emily anytime.