First of all, I have to start this one off with a Happy Birthday wish to Luke Florence, who turns 22 today (Oct. 11). Barring any application problems, Luke will be joining all of us at Ohio University once again and the ensuing fun is immeasurable at this point. Also, a birthday wish to Steve Young, one of my favorite players to watch growing up because he was a southpaw who could scramble as well as he could throw the ball.
Secondly, thanks to the Cincinnati Bengals for having a bye week so I could watch the Cleveland Browns-New England Patriots game via webcam. Also, thanks to Travis Henry for at least starting the game against San Diego – it’s the least he could do for his fantasy owners (like myself) who didn’t think a prior marijuana charge and a number of kids for which he has to pay child support were reason enough not to take him in the early rounds. Who says players’ personal problems don’t show up in fantasy sports??
A few things about the Cleveland Browns’ game against the New England Patriots. It started off much better than the last time Cleveland played New England. I was in the stands for the Bethel Johnson return for touchdown on the opening kickoff, taking only 14 seconds for the Pats to take the 7-0 lead. I remember this mainly because of the comment by Alex Lucius, who immediately said, “They’re gonna score a million points. Someone do the math!!” Trips to Cleveland for bad games are only saved by good stories and/or quotes, so we had that going for us early on. To further prove how much this organization has changed in 3 years -- it was 21-0 before Cleveland quarterback Luke McCown hit Antonio Bryant for a 16-yard score. The only thing that didn’t change was the end result – Browns lost that game 42-15.
The Browns defense held up its end of the bargain by holding New England to a field goal on the Pats’ first possession Sunday. A Josh Cribbs kickoff return set Cleveland up with pretty good field position and the Browns drove right down the field and had 1st and Goal on the 1. At this point I said, “Four downs to get one yard. Give it to Jamal Lewis.” When Jason Wright took the first handoff for no gain, my only thought was, “Jamal Lewis better be hurt if he’s not in this game.” It’s really not a good sign when you think this at any point in a game.
Turns out Lewis WAS hurt and Cleveland didn’t score on that drive after a pass intended for Steve Heiden was tipped and intercepted by Junior Seau. The linebacker is ancient by NFL standards – he turns 39 in January. To drive home this point further, it was Seau’s first pick since 2002. He would add another INT that ended the next Browns drive. Anderson killed three Cleveland drives by throwing picks.
Dan Dierdorf made a great comment at the 10:40 mark in the 4th quarter when he said, “Wes Welker is 5-9 on a REALLY good day.” Sounded like something I’ve said about myself more than once, except for me it goes “5-6.”
In the late stages of this game it was one where people might randomly tune in and think, “Wow, Cleveland actually has a chance to pull this one off.” Taking over with 6:44 to play, it took just two Derek Anderson passes to find the endzone, hitting Kellen Winslow for a 14-yard score, moving the Browns to within 10 points. But in typical Browns (and Patriots) fashion, New England picked up key first downs on a 5-minute drive that left Cleveland with just 52 seconds to drive 96 yards after the Pats turned it over on downs.
Instead of hope, Browns fans were left hopeless after just one play. Kellen Winslow turned upfield after grabbing a pass and fumbled the ball away at the 15. Randall Gay scooped and scored to put New England up by 17. Gay either had money on the game or simply hates me and others who picked Cleveland to cover the spread because this score kept the Browns from doing so. A few meaningless passes moved Cleveland down the field on the ensuing possession, but Winslow couldn’t haul in a ball in the back of the endzone on the game’s final play. Browns lose 34-17.
After reading this post you might wonder why I didn’t start with the Cleveland Indians – my team in the post-season and the one actually winning. To be honest, it’s because Game 3 of the ALDS came right after the Browns game.
I was extremely happy to see the Indians take both games in Cleveland – and what Indians fan wasn’t. A 1-1 tie (or even 0-2 hole) going to New York would have set up possible disaster. Instead the bats picked up C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona was 2007 Fausto Carmona (as opposed to 2006 Fausto Carmona who went 1-10).
Game 1 didn’t hold too many thoughts from me, mostly smiles. Something I can’t figure out is the craze on this Indians team for the beard. I’m sure it goes along with the idea of team-building as well as not shaving ‘til you’re done. What concerns me is a possible return for Eric Wedge’s mustache.
Remember how it loomed in 2005, ever-so-obvious every time he was iso’ed on camera, twitching his nose?? Luke Florence, Matt Barnes and I begged for it to go (as most people did, I assume). After he shaved it that year, the team snapped out of a funk and played well until the last week of the season. Hopefully the loophole is that it cannot be a mustache alone. We’ll see.
Meanwhile beard brigade member and mountain man look-alike Casey Blake has just been sited carving a new set of bats out of some trees in rural northeast Ohio. Blake went just 2-for-17 in the ALDS with 2 RBIs in Game One, but chances are good that he’ll snap out of this funk. One must remember he had a 26-game hitting streak this season. (I was at the game with Matt Coleman, so typical result on my end.) Rounding out the beard brigade is Travis Hafner, who defied logic by finding a way to look like more of a huge ogre. An ogre that Tribe fans love – especially those in Pronkville.
Game 3 of the ALDS also brought to light exactly how money plays a part in what kind of jobs baseball general managers have. There were a few players that each team picked up at different points this year in hopes that they would help the team in a playoff situation. For the Yankees: Roger Clemens. For Cleveland: Trot Nixon and Kenny Lofton. A tip of the cap to Indians GM Mark Shapiro for the well-spent money in those two (to this point) because, if nothing else, they provide a “been there, done that” voice in the clubhouse for the younger players on the team. New York GM Brian Cashman’s choice to reach into the deepest pocket imaginable to grab The Rocket just looks ridiculous now. Those blaming injury in the Clemens situation have to remember an increased chance of getting hurt comes with age.
I fully agree with Luke Florence’s sentiment from a recent column when he said of Eric Wedge, “I’m still not a big fan of his, but I must admit, he’s a players manager. These guys enjoy playing for Wedge and it’s hard to argue with his results so far this season.” The fact that Indians players are on the Wedge Wagon has been no mystery throughout the year and it can even be seen in the dugout during these playoff games.
Maybe Ryan Garko is just a really happy dude, but even when discussing the current opposing pitcher with teammates in the dugout, he cracks a smile. Even with Jake Westbrook in trouble in Game 3, Carl Willis said something that made both men smile during a mound meeting. Westbrook didn’t exactly get out of trouble, but the point is that the atmosphere isn’t one of pressure, but one of “just another day at the office.” That, among other things, is why the measly Indians could beat down the Yankees, who were stoic in their dugout from beginning to end. Critics say Cleveland’s lax approach presents a lack of focus, but it’s more of the “Manny being Manny” theory in my mind.
Of course, you can’t get through a conversation with me on the ALDS without some mention of the broadcast itself, so here goes my rant. How bad did TBS want the Yankees to win Games 3 and 4?? Even when the Indians had one out in their at-bat, the comments from the broadcast team (namely Chip Caray, whom I really liked up until this series began) were about how New York had the 3-4-5 hitters coming up in the bottom half of the inning. I assume this was done to keep hope for the Bronx fan base watching TBS for as long as possible. Remember, the ALCS traveled to the FOX broadcast team, so the next Indians win took away that large viewing crowd from TBS.
My next complaint concerns the choice of the broadcast team. Chip Caray is the usual Atlanta Braves play-by-play man for TBS. Tony Gwynn played 20 seasons with the San Diego Padres. Ohio University alum Bob Brenly is part of the WGN broadcast team for Chicago Cubs games, spent four years managing the Arizona Diamondbacks and played about 8 ½ years playing for the San Francisco Giants. If you didn’t catch the common link, they’ve all spent their most recent careers in the National League, yet all join together to call an American League postseason match up. And it showed.
If I had a dollar for every time they mentioned how the viewers probably won’t see a bunt because the Indians-Yankees series was in the American League, I’d be able to beat out Mark Cuban for a share of the Cubs ownership. Then you have to add in the comments on how it’s harder to manage in the NL because of figuring out how long to throw your starting pitcher, how to pinch hit, etc. It’s one thing to mention it and another thing to beat it to death. Why wouldn’t you want a predominantly National League crew calling a National League series for reasons such as knowing the players better?? This crew has been pretty good overall, but these things bothered me. Next up: the ALCS with my beloved Tim McCarver, i.e. expect similar comments in the next blog.
I’ll finish by saying all people complaining about bugs affecting the New York Yankees in Game 2 need to stop. If this series had gone all five games, I would have begged for someone in attendance to have a sign that read, “Welcome to Cleveland – where smog doesn’t make our team lose like they did in New York.” Seriously, it’s along the same line. On a side note, thanks to TBS for getting as close as possible to the bugs on Joba’s neck, further driving home the idea that the bugs lost New York the game.
Congrats to Jeff Gordon on a win at Talladega, catapulting himself into the lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Additional congrats to Notre Dame, who surprised a lot of people by beating UCLA on the road. Two more big tests in consecutive weeks against Boston College and USC will really show if that win over the Bruins was a true upset or just a bad performance by UCLA. Should be a great weekend of sports (yes, weekend, considering the Tribe starts it off at 8:30 Friday morning).
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for what should be a GREAT story when I try to cancel my application for permission to work (I’ll be starting that process tomorrow) as well as some thoughts on that weekend of sports.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about three weeks away.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Big Trip, Part Two
I really haven’t covered all that much of the trip, really. I’ll try to keep this quick and simple.
New Zealand was pretty sweet, especially our first stop, Auckland. Contrary to popular belief, New Zealand is an affordable place to be, in our minds. We found most of the things that we normally buy in Australia were much cheaper here. Plus Auckland had Burger King (not Hungry Jack’s) and I saw a Wendy’s restaurant for the first time in a long time. But still no Taco Bell.
Auckland is the only city in the world built on an active volcanic field. Why they chose to do this, I will never know. When we visited the museum in Auckland, there was an exhibit on volcanoes that included a display proving that basically no one who lives in the city is aware that there could be an eruption at any point. The last eruption in the area was in 1996. These people are crazy.
We got lucky enough that a volcano did NOT erupt while we were there because one of the bigger tourist attractions is to visit all the volcanoes. The first day we climbed Mt. Eden, on which the government allows people to graze their animals. Mt. Eden had cattle.
After Mt. Eden we hit up the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It was a pretty neat place, but probably would have been even more interesting if I had known ANYTHING about New Zealand history before we got there. We got to see some neat things built by the Maori people, New Zealand’s original inhabitants.
Then there was the aforementioned volcano exhibit. They had a little house where you were supposed to feel what it was like to be in your house during an eruption. The house didn’t shake around or anything, but it still makes you feel kinda weird seeing ash and dust fly in from miles away just to blanket everything around you and your home. Not something I would want to go through. Again, not sure why ANYONE lives on a volcanic field, but they probably wonder why I live in an area that has tornadoes all the time. We pick our poison I guess.
After the museum, we tried to keep working through our daily plans and went across town to One Tree Hill. This place inspired the song by the same title (which inspired the TV show). Keeping up with the apparent theme of the volcanoes, One Tree Hill was the home to grazing sheep.
On top of One Tree Hill is a monument erected to honor the Maori people who were pushed out of the area by original settlers. There’s also a grave of Sir John Logan Campbell, who actually owned the hill and the land immediately surrounding it. He wanted to protect the area as a memorial to the Maori people. So, I guess he deserves to be buried on the place that meant a lot to him. Though I wonder if he wanted a bunch of random people like us walking around on his grave site.
We were tired from a long day of walking up and down mountains as well as across town (since we hadn’t exactly grasped the public transport system yet), but we pressed on and finished the day at the Skytower. The tower is really neat at night when it gets all lit up and gives some great views of the city and surrounding area.
If a large city with decent landscape doesn’t have a huge tower, it’s missing out on some easy tourist dollars. When we go to a city with a huge tower, you can bet we’ll be getting there somehow. I mean, if you don’t want pictures, maybe you won’t – but we want those pics!!
The next day we walked up Rangitoto Island, the most recent volcano to erupt in the area and supposedly the most active of the volcanoes in the city. As opposed to the other ones we visited that had a lot of greenery that had grown up over the years, Rangitoto Island had a lot of volcanic rocks still left behind from the last eruption.
Another long walk up a mountain gave us more great views of the city, as well as some more historical parts of Auckland. Rangitoto Island is situated on its own in the Auckland harbor and used to be home to a military outlook post where enemy ships could be seen from miles away. We got some pictures in these posts, including a sweet one (the first one shown).
The following day was the best one we had on this trip. We decided awhile back to try something adventurous, so we signed up for canyoning. To be honest, we didn’t have an idea what the heck it entailed, but we wanted to give it a shot anyway. We actually hadn’t confirmed our booking yet (yeah, the night before, we are very smooth), so I called the company only to find out we were going to have to pay for a full-day trip because there were no other sign-ups for the half-day (our original selection). But we didn’t want to miss another tour, so we paid the extra $30 and went on our way.
Before hanging up the phone, I asked the guide on the other end of the line if any experience was necessary for canyoning. When he could only laugh and say, “Well, if you’re decently athletic, you’ll be OK,” I figured we were in for it. Instead it was a great experience.
If anyone is thinking about doing something crazy like this, don’t think about it, just do it. That is, as long as you have the physical capabilities – and some mental aspect. Though, if you’re trying to overcome the fear of heights, skydiving might just be the way to do it, depending on your mental status in that regard.
We left Auckland on a very high note, ready to tackle anything and everything in Christchurch, the next stop on our trip. The city is located on New Zealand’s South Island and is described as the country’s most English city. An Anglican cathedral is the center of the city (Cathedral Square) and a lot of the buildings look like old English ones as well. It was a bit different from the modern Auckland.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Christchurch, which wasn’t so bad at this point in our trip because this was our fourth city in nine days and we were a little burned out on the tourist stuff. Christchurch did have some neat little things though, namely the historic Tram and Gondola. The tram runs all day through the city and is nice to ride just to be in the old tram cars.
The gondola was an easy reminder of the Sky Ride at Cedar Point, but traveled uphill more than over a distance. Unfortunately we didn’t get a great view of the city once we reached the top because it was really foggy that day.
Our final day in Christchurch we were scheduled to take a tandem paragliding trip. After spending basically the entire day trying to reach the company in charge of our paragliding, I reached him just in time to find out it was too windy to do it that day. We got our money back, but it was tour #3 to be canceled on this trip. We still tackled just about everything Christchurch had to offer tourists and got a bit of rest in as well. Which was good because we were headed to the busy city of Melbourne next.
Melbourne is described as the most cosmopolitan city in Australia, which basically means there is a lot of shopping. We were greeted at the airport by the Customs officers, the same ones we encountered when we first entered Melbourne way back in the end of June (our flight was from Los Angeles to Melbourne, then connected immediately to Sydney, but we had to go through customs in Melbourne first). Last time went much smoother because, well, when you tell the truth on those immigration cards, it just puts you in position to be hassled.
The quarantine signs tell you to “Declare or Beware” when thinking about taking food and natural items into Australia. This made me think, “Well, as long as I write down what I’m brining in and show the officers those items, we can be on our way.” Why I even think things anymore, I have no idea. Apparently “Declare or Beware” should really be read as “Declare and wolf down all of your food once you get inside.”
In Christchurch, I thought about spending our remaining money in the casino, but I never got to it and wanted to be sure we had enough money for the cab we had to take the morning of our flight to Melbourne. When we arrived at the airport in Christchurch, we had about $12 in New Zealand currency left to use, which we weren’t going to exchange because the flat exchange fee would’ve taken about half of that amount. Instead we purchased a Powerade and a chicken baguette sandwich in the airport to have for lunch in Melbourne and saved $6 to buy muffins on board the plane.
I marked on my immigration card that we had food items and didn’t lie about one thing, thinking it was a better-safe-than-sorry situation. It was, to an extent, because I could have been charged $200 per food item that I DIDN’T claim. Instead, we had to mow down the baguette sandwich while standing at the Customs desk while our bags were being inspected. We weren’t even hungry, but when you have already committed money to something, you can’t just let it go out the window. On a side note, the baguette was pretty good for coming from a small stand at the airport.
The other stuff that was claimed included all of our dead coral we collected from the beach in Rockhampton. This was discouraging because the coral was going to serve as an easy (and cheap) reminder of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as being a gift for family and friends when we got back. The kicker is that Australian Customs had to confiscate their own freaking coral. When we entered into New Zealand, their Customs office didn’t seem to care and hardly searched anything (again, I answered the immigration card completely honestly). It was only when we got back into Australia that the coral (from their OWN COUNTRY) was taken away. What a joke. I received a paper stating that I could file for a permit to receive all of our things back, but chances are I won’t be able to get it. I’m still going to try because, if nothing else, it’ll surely make for another good story.
Once we got out of the airport, you’d think our day could only look up from there. We made it safely to the city on the airport shuttle with no problems, but after that point it gets crazy. We stopped at a Traveler’s Help station to ask about which trams or buses we needed to take to get to our hostel (which was located a little ways out of the city). After taking our first tram, we had to transfer to another one – our final one – to get to our place. What we didn’t anticipate was the giant protest by some union workers against Australian Prime Minister John Howard that was going down the street – the same street down which our tram was supposed to run.
Instead, we had to walk about 8 blocks with all of our bags and pick up the tram at a different point farther down the line. It wasn’t exactly the way we drew it up, but neither is any game-winning play in a sports contest – or life in general. When we finally arrived at our hostel, we found out the lady at the desk (and owner, I think) almost gave away our room because we hadn’t shown up yet – strange considering we were never informed about a time by which we had to check in. At any rate, we got our room at “The Beach” and were not disappointed with the view from our window.
The first thing we decided to do was to just dive right into the city and see what we could find to do. AFL World was along the way, so we grabbed a coupon and took our tour through what was really more of a kids’ center. It was a lot of fun trying to kick the ball and pass it (not throw it overhand, but “punch” it like an underhand volleyball serve) similar to how the AFL players do it. I also know that I could probably never play this sport.
The next day we decided to get up early and take a trip out of the city to ride Puffing Billy, the oldest steam-powered train in Australia. It was a nice little trip going through the wooded areas around Melbourne.
Following Puffing Billy was the Grand Final Parade down the streets of Melbourne. It was pretty interesting to see the weird things the Australians put in their parades because, as you can see from some of the pics below, it’s a little unclear as to what some of this stuff is.
(If you don't recognize these guys, visit http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk)
We finished off the week by visiting the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the annual site of the AFL Grand Final. This place has been around for years and serves as a multi-sport facility and a home field for a host of teams. It was also a home for U.S. soldiers during WWII. The place is huge as well, holding over 100,000 people at times. It doesn’t seem that big, but the only way I can justify it is by assuming it holds more people because it is shaped like an oval as opposed to being straight-edged on the boundaries like most stadiums in the U.S.
We ended our day at the Melbourne Observation Deck. Again, if you’re ever in charge of a big city, build a huge tower because, if your construction company is anything reliable, the tourist money will pay for the structure soon enough. And again, we got some great pictures.
Saturday we didn’t schedule a thing because it was the day of the Grand Final – the Port Adelaide Power against the Geelong Cats. We didn’t get tickets, but sat in Federation Square with a bunch of other random people to watch the game on a big screen. Sara had her Port scarf on, which drew a lot of comments from Geelong fans – the most common of which was, “Go the Catters!!” That is a direct quote. Off on a tangent now...
Sporting fans here have weird little sayings for their teams. The worst thing to hear someone say is the word “the” in front of the team name. For example, if this was the case in the U.S., I would be saying, “Go the Browns!!” instead of just “Go Browns!!” It doesn’t make any sense, but hey, they’re on the other side of the world, so I guess they can do what they want.
The Grand Final was awful to watch. To put it in perspective, I would have rather watched a replay of the Browns-Steelers game from Week One this season, and not because I like the Browns. Port Adelaide held a 2-1 lead over the Cats, but that was about as good as it got for the Power in a 163-44 loss. It was the biggest margin of victory in Grand Final history. In a related story, I’m very sad I didn’t bet on Geelong to cover (they were an 18 ½ point favorite). What made it worse was that we were fans from Adelaide among a sea of Geelong fans (Geelong is a city of its own that is very close to Melbourne). Fortunately we didn’t get heckled too much and made it back to our place in one piece with time to pack our bags and get ready for our final flight before the ones we’ll take in November to go back to the U.S.
Our flight from a regional airport (about an hour’s drive away from Melbourne, just a hassle and a lot of waiting around and traveling) was delayed a little bit, but we arrived safely at the Adelaide Airport around 10:45 p.m. A pick-up by our landlady and housemate, a quick drive back to 17C St. Bernard’s Road and we could breathe again.
Our 17-day trip came to an end at the same place where it started. Sara took a quick nap before the Browns game came on (2:30 a.m. our time) and we were greeted with a treat as the Brownies won a big game over the hated Ravens. A fitting end to a great vacation. Not to mention the Indians were going to be starting their first postseason since 2001 later in the week. Now they have a 2-0 lead in the series and Romeo Crennel thinks he could win in a game if he literally took on Bill Belichick. Even today, Notre Dame got its first win of the year by forcing 7 turnovers to beat UCLA on the road. Yup things are going well.
As I type, it is just 4 weeks from the day I’ll be back in the U.S. It’s been crazy how fast this time has gone. But don’t worry, I won’t quit blogging. I’m just hoping I can do it more often than the once-every-three-weeks pace found recently.
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for what should be a GREAT story when I try to cancel my application for permission to work and my thoughts on the Browns, Indians, Jeff Gordon and, yes, the Irish.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about four weeks away.
New Zealand was pretty sweet, especially our first stop, Auckland. Contrary to popular belief, New Zealand is an affordable place to be, in our minds. We found most of the things that we normally buy in Australia were much cheaper here. Plus Auckland had Burger King (not Hungry Jack’s) and I saw a Wendy’s restaurant for the first time in a long time. But still no Taco Bell.
Auckland is the only city in the world built on an active volcanic field. Why they chose to do this, I will never know. When we visited the museum in Auckland, there was an exhibit on volcanoes that included a display proving that basically no one who lives in the city is aware that there could be an eruption at any point. The last eruption in the area was in 1996. These people are crazy.
We got lucky enough that a volcano did NOT erupt while we were there because one of the bigger tourist attractions is to visit all the volcanoes. The first day we climbed Mt. Eden, on which the government allows people to graze their animals. Mt. Eden had cattle.
After Mt. Eden we hit up the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It was a pretty neat place, but probably would have been even more interesting if I had known ANYTHING about New Zealand history before we got there. We got to see some neat things built by the Maori people, New Zealand’s original inhabitants.
Then there was the aforementioned volcano exhibit. They had a little house where you were supposed to feel what it was like to be in your house during an eruption. The house didn’t shake around or anything, but it still makes you feel kinda weird seeing ash and dust fly in from miles away just to blanket everything around you and your home. Not something I would want to go through. Again, not sure why ANYONE lives on a volcanic field, but they probably wonder why I live in an area that has tornadoes all the time. We pick our poison I guess.
After the museum, we tried to keep working through our daily plans and went across town to One Tree Hill. This place inspired the song by the same title (which inspired the TV show). Keeping up with the apparent theme of the volcanoes, One Tree Hill was the home to grazing sheep.
On top of One Tree Hill is a monument erected to honor the Maori people who were pushed out of the area by original settlers. There’s also a grave of Sir John Logan Campbell, who actually owned the hill and the land immediately surrounding it. He wanted to protect the area as a memorial to the Maori people. So, I guess he deserves to be buried on the place that meant a lot to him. Though I wonder if he wanted a bunch of random people like us walking around on his grave site.
We were tired from a long day of walking up and down mountains as well as across town (since we hadn’t exactly grasped the public transport system yet), but we pressed on and finished the day at the Skytower. The tower is really neat at night when it gets all lit up and gives some great views of the city and surrounding area.
If a large city with decent landscape doesn’t have a huge tower, it’s missing out on some easy tourist dollars. When we go to a city with a huge tower, you can bet we’ll be getting there somehow. I mean, if you don’t want pictures, maybe you won’t – but we want those pics!!
The next day we walked up Rangitoto Island, the most recent volcano to erupt in the area and supposedly the most active of the volcanoes in the city. As opposed to the other ones we visited that had a lot of greenery that had grown up over the years, Rangitoto Island had a lot of volcanic rocks still left behind from the last eruption.
Another long walk up a mountain gave us more great views of the city, as well as some more historical parts of Auckland. Rangitoto Island is situated on its own in the Auckland harbor and used to be home to a military outlook post where enemy ships could be seen from miles away. We got some pictures in these posts, including a sweet one (the first one shown).
The following day was the best one we had on this trip. We decided awhile back to try something adventurous, so we signed up for canyoning. To be honest, we didn’t have an idea what the heck it entailed, but we wanted to give it a shot anyway. We actually hadn’t confirmed our booking yet (yeah, the night before, we are very smooth), so I called the company only to find out we were going to have to pay for a full-day trip because there were no other sign-ups for the half-day (our original selection). But we didn’t want to miss another tour, so we paid the extra $30 and went on our way.
Before hanging up the phone, I asked the guide on the other end of the line if any experience was necessary for canyoning. When he could only laugh and say, “Well, if you’re decently athletic, you’ll be OK,” I figured we were in for it. Instead it was a great experience.
If anyone is thinking about doing something crazy like this, don’t think about it, just do it. That is, as long as you have the physical capabilities – and some mental aspect. Though, if you’re trying to overcome the fear of heights, skydiving might just be the way to do it, depending on your mental status in that regard.
We left Auckland on a very high note, ready to tackle anything and everything in Christchurch, the next stop on our trip. The city is located on New Zealand’s South Island and is described as the country’s most English city. An Anglican cathedral is the center of the city (Cathedral Square) and a lot of the buildings look like old English ones as well. It was a bit different from the modern Auckland.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Christchurch, which wasn’t so bad at this point in our trip because this was our fourth city in nine days and we were a little burned out on the tourist stuff. Christchurch did have some neat little things though, namely the historic Tram and Gondola. The tram runs all day through the city and is nice to ride just to be in the old tram cars.
The gondola was an easy reminder of the Sky Ride at Cedar Point, but traveled uphill more than over a distance. Unfortunately we didn’t get a great view of the city once we reached the top because it was really foggy that day.
Our final day in Christchurch we were scheduled to take a tandem paragliding trip. After spending basically the entire day trying to reach the company in charge of our paragliding, I reached him just in time to find out it was too windy to do it that day. We got our money back, but it was tour #3 to be canceled on this trip. We still tackled just about everything Christchurch had to offer tourists and got a bit of rest in as well. Which was good because we were headed to the busy city of Melbourne next.
Melbourne is described as the most cosmopolitan city in Australia, which basically means there is a lot of shopping. We were greeted at the airport by the Customs officers, the same ones we encountered when we first entered Melbourne way back in the end of June (our flight was from Los Angeles to Melbourne, then connected immediately to Sydney, but we had to go through customs in Melbourne first). Last time went much smoother because, well, when you tell the truth on those immigration cards, it just puts you in position to be hassled.
The quarantine signs tell you to “Declare or Beware” when thinking about taking food and natural items into Australia. This made me think, “Well, as long as I write down what I’m brining in and show the officers those items, we can be on our way.” Why I even think things anymore, I have no idea. Apparently “Declare or Beware” should really be read as “Declare and wolf down all of your food once you get inside.”
In Christchurch, I thought about spending our remaining money in the casino, but I never got to it and wanted to be sure we had enough money for the cab we had to take the morning of our flight to Melbourne. When we arrived at the airport in Christchurch, we had about $12 in New Zealand currency left to use, which we weren’t going to exchange because the flat exchange fee would’ve taken about half of that amount. Instead we purchased a Powerade and a chicken baguette sandwich in the airport to have for lunch in Melbourne and saved $6 to buy muffins on board the plane.
I marked on my immigration card that we had food items and didn’t lie about one thing, thinking it was a better-safe-than-sorry situation. It was, to an extent, because I could have been charged $200 per food item that I DIDN’T claim. Instead, we had to mow down the baguette sandwich while standing at the Customs desk while our bags were being inspected. We weren’t even hungry, but when you have already committed money to something, you can’t just let it go out the window. On a side note, the baguette was pretty good for coming from a small stand at the airport.
The other stuff that was claimed included all of our dead coral we collected from the beach in Rockhampton. This was discouraging because the coral was going to serve as an easy (and cheap) reminder of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as being a gift for family and friends when we got back. The kicker is that Australian Customs had to confiscate their own freaking coral. When we entered into New Zealand, their Customs office didn’t seem to care and hardly searched anything (again, I answered the immigration card completely honestly). It was only when we got back into Australia that the coral (from their OWN COUNTRY) was taken away. What a joke. I received a paper stating that I could file for a permit to receive all of our things back, but chances are I won’t be able to get it. I’m still going to try because, if nothing else, it’ll surely make for another good story.
Once we got out of the airport, you’d think our day could only look up from there. We made it safely to the city on the airport shuttle with no problems, but after that point it gets crazy. We stopped at a Traveler’s Help station to ask about which trams or buses we needed to take to get to our hostel (which was located a little ways out of the city). After taking our first tram, we had to transfer to another one – our final one – to get to our place. What we didn’t anticipate was the giant protest by some union workers against Australian Prime Minister John Howard that was going down the street – the same street down which our tram was supposed to run.
Instead, we had to walk about 8 blocks with all of our bags and pick up the tram at a different point farther down the line. It wasn’t exactly the way we drew it up, but neither is any game-winning play in a sports contest – or life in general. When we finally arrived at our hostel, we found out the lady at the desk (and owner, I think) almost gave away our room because we hadn’t shown up yet – strange considering we were never informed about a time by which we had to check in. At any rate, we got our room at “The Beach” and were not disappointed with the view from our window.
The first thing we decided to do was to just dive right into the city and see what we could find to do. AFL World was along the way, so we grabbed a coupon and took our tour through what was really more of a kids’ center. It was a lot of fun trying to kick the ball and pass it (not throw it overhand, but “punch” it like an underhand volleyball serve) similar to how the AFL players do it. I also know that I could probably never play this sport.
The next day we decided to get up early and take a trip out of the city to ride Puffing Billy, the oldest steam-powered train in Australia. It was a nice little trip going through the wooded areas around Melbourne.
Following Puffing Billy was the Grand Final Parade down the streets of Melbourne. It was pretty interesting to see the weird things the Australians put in their parades because, as you can see from some of the pics below, it’s a little unclear as to what some of this stuff is.
(If you don't recognize these guys, visit http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk)
We finished off the week by visiting the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the annual site of the AFL Grand Final. This place has been around for years and serves as a multi-sport facility and a home field for a host of teams. It was also a home for U.S. soldiers during WWII. The place is huge as well, holding over 100,000 people at times. It doesn’t seem that big, but the only way I can justify it is by assuming it holds more people because it is shaped like an oval as opposed to being straight-edged on the boundaries like most stadiums in the U.S.
We ended our day at the Melbourne Observation Deck. Again, if you’re ever in charge of a big city, build a huge tower because, if your construction company is anything reliable, the tourist money will pay for the structure soon enough. And again, we got some great pictures.
Saturday we didn’t schedule a thing because it was the day of the Grand Final – the Port Adelaide Power against the Geelong Cats. We didn’t get tickets, but sat in Federation Square with a bunch of other random people to watch the game on a big screen. Sara had her Port scarf on, which drew a lot of comments from Geelong fans – the most common of which was, “Go the Catters!!” That is a direct quote. Off on a tangent now...
Sporting fans here have weird little sayings for their teams. The worst thing to hear someone say is the word “the” in front of the team name. For example, if this was the case in the U.S., I would be saying, “Go the Browns!!” instead of just “Go Browns!!” It doesn’t make any sense, but hey, they’re on the other side of the world, so I guess they can do what they want.
The Grand Final was awful to watch. To put it in perspective, I would have rather watched a replay of the Browns-Steelers game from Week One this season, and not because I like the Browns. Port Adelaide held a 2-1 lead over the Cats, but that was about as good as it got for the Power in a 163-44 loss. It was the biggest margin of victory in Grand Final history. In a related story, I’m very sad I didn’t bet on Geelong to cover (they were an 18 ½ point favorite). What made it worse was that we were fans from Adelaide among a sea of Geelong fans (Geelong is a city of its own that is very close to Melbourne). Fortunately we didn’t get heckled too much and made it back to our place in one piece with time to pack our bags and get ready for our final flight before the ones we’ll take in November to go back to the U.S.
Our flight from a regional airport (about an hour’s drive away from Melbourne, just a hassle and a lot of waiting around and traveling) was delayed a little bit, but we arrived safely at the Adelaide Airport around 10:45 p.m. A pick-up by our landlady and housemate, a quick drive back to 17C St. Bernard’s Road and we could breathe again.
Our 17-day trip came to an end at the same place where it started. Sara took a quick nap before the Browns game came on (2:30 a.m. our time) and we were greeted with a treat as the Brownies won a big game over the hated Ravens. A fitting end to a great vacation. Not to mention the Indians were going to be starting their first postseason since 2001 later in the week. Now they have a 2-0 lead in the series and Romeo Crennel thinks he could win in a game if he literally took on Bill Belichick. Even today, Notre Dame got its first win of the year by forcing 7 turnovers to beat UCLA on the road. Yup things are going well.
As I type, it is just 4 weeks from the day I’ll be back in the U.S. It’s been crazy how fast this time has gone. But don’t worry, I won’t quit blogging. I’m just hoping I can do it more often than the once-every-three-weeks pace found recently.
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for what should be a GREAT story when I try to cancel my application for permission to work and my thoughts on the Browns, Indians, Jeff Gordon and, yes, the Irish.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about four weeks away.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
“It’s been awhile, since I could...”
...post a blog update. There isn’t a whole lot of constant, free internet access available on our big trip, so internet time has been limited to checking e-mail and fantasy sports stuff. I’ll do my best to get everyone up to speed on what’s happened on our trip so far.
It began in Brisbane, where our accommodation was so-so – it supplied a bed, a roof over the head and, as a throw-in, a TV. The city was probably the most interesting place we’d been to that point, but for all the wrong reasons. The first trip we were supposed to take was to a lookout point on Mount Coot-tha. We knew a bus service ran to the top, so we figured once our plane landed and we got checked in at the hostel, we could head to see a great view of the city.
We found the right bus just as it was pulling up, but we probably would have been better off just buying a postcard with a bird’s eye view of the city. The buses apparently stopped running to the very top of the mountain, opting instead to drop us a little ways up the hill. The bus driver – or as Sara later described her, “our transvestite bus driver” – pointed us in the right direction, letting us know that she “hoped we had our walking shoes on!!” She said it with one of those tones that you just KNOW you’re getting into something bad.
We hadn’t really eaten, hadn’t had a whole lot to drink. We had to climb this large hill through the grass – the fact that there aren’t even sidewalks just another thing laughing in our faces. Sara was about ready to die. I had cotton mouth, something which probably didn’t help my hitch-hiking attempts – a fatigued pair of mountain climbers, one passed out on the side of the road, the other foaming at the mouth, hopeful thumb sticking out.
When we got to the top, the view was just great, though maybe not worth the climb on foot. Regardless, there was a café (where we grabbed some water), a bathroom (or, pardon me, “toilets” in Aussie speak) and some benches for rest. Oh yeah, can’t forget about the wild turkey that got up on a table and started eating someone’s attended plate of cake. Refreshed and more willing to go down a hill than up, we made our way back to the hostel in hopes that the next day would be a bit easier.
It was at this point that I remembered my words once spoken, “Once you start betting on your hopes, that’s when you’re in trouble.” Thankfully I didn’t put any money down because the house would have taken all I own. Our next trip held a plan that would drop us at the Noosa Beach, a popular spot for swimmers and various other activities – like ours, horseback riding on the beach. It was something completely different from all the other stuff we’ve been doing, so we just had to figure out how to get to the beach.
We re-read our booking form and it told us we were supposed to call ahead and be sure everything was still on. I ran to a payphone to take care of that business, but found an undesirable answer on the other end. But first, a digression on payphones in Australia.
They’re basically awful. You pay a flat rate to start the call and then you have to keep pumping coins in until you’re finished with the call. If you don’t, the call doesn’t end, either. The call just disconnects and gives you a certain amount of time to put in more money. If you put some more in, the call is reconnected and the person on the other end can then talk to you again. It’s one of the dumbest things ever.
So once I was finally connected for good, the woman on the other end of the line lets me know that the horseback riding expeditions are all on hold for the time being because an equine influenza has quarantined all the horses until it passes. Our trip is canceled, but at least we can receive a refund and we didn’t travel all the way out there to find out.
Instead of doing that, we spent the day at the Gold Coast – specifically, at Surfer’s Paradise. This was a side of Australia we hadn’t really seen before – lots of big buildings and resorts, a long beach with lots of people, tons of stores and shops. In other words, our change of plans turned out to be a pretty good deal. Of course, there’s always a catch. This time, it was the sunshine – pretty much non-existent, settled behind a cloud for all but the first half hour we were on the beach. But walking on the beach and through all the shops was still a good way to spend a day that would have otherwise been spent sitting around in the hostel room.
The next day brought another order of mayhem, with a bit of negativity on the side. We were booked to go on a sailing expedition that included a trip to Moreton Island, where we would sandboard, feed dolphins and all sorts of other crazy stuff. We had our plan of attack, ready to arrive a half hour early for the day-long adventure. We got up early enough, caught the right train, hit our marks from the start.
Then the unplanned track work. When we checked the journey planner the night before for our scheduled departure time and route, it said nothing about track work. We had to disembark the train at an earlier stop, hop on a bus for a 20-minute trip to another train station farther down the line and then finish off the route. Since the station was a little ways from the harbor, we had to run from the station to the pier (which we didn’t even know exactly where it was). Since Sara had flip-flops on, that meant I had to run to the pier.
Asking random town residents as I passed, I found the pier, ran to the end and talked to the security guard who let me know, “That’s the boat you need, right there,” pointing to a sailboat about 10 minutes out of the harbor. The best laid plans of mice and men go awry. We’re still not sure if we can get any money back from the sailing company. We were mad that we didn’t get to do all of that fun stuff, sure, but there comes a time when you realize that you just want SOMETHING out of it. That part of the story is “To Be Continued.”
We decided instead to go to the Sunshine Coast, with popular beaches located on the opposite side of the city. We stopped at the beach closest to the city (to save on train fares), which dropped us at Bribie Island – albeit after a length of time waiting around for a bus to take us from the train station to the island. We arrived at Bribie around noon and the Sunshine Coast beach lived up to the name – lots of sunshine and, again, a beautiful beach area. For the second time in as many days, tragedy was averted by a decision to finish the day at a beach.
After our time in Brisbane, we got on the Tilt Train towards Rockhampton. This was a high-speed train that traveled up the coast and stopped at a few different places along the way. The ride lasted seven-and-a-half hours, so if it wasn’t for the nice sunset and some other great scenery, the ride would have seemed like a year.
Probably the funniest part about riding the train was the fact that it was Sara, me and about 9,000 old people. Not middle-aged – old. And every time the train stopped somewhere, almost every one of them stood up to stretch out their old legs. They also have the loudest conversations about ridiculous topics. One guy directly behind us talked for almost the entire trip to a woman (also elderly) whom he had just met when he walked onto the train.
Another funny part came when one of the old women posed a question to no one in particular, “How much mileage is left?” Sara immediately turned to me and asked, “Shouldn’t they be asking how much ‘kilometerage’ is left?” This is just another example of how the U.S. rocks, even in unintentional ways. People around the world make fun of the Standard System of Measurement, yet the terms are easier to use and, as we would find out later on this big trip, that system is used for “Heritage Listed” landmarks around the world, not the otherwise widely-used Metric System.
Once our train stopped in Rockhampton, we were welcomed by a small train station that wasn’t close enough to our hostel to walk. With no shuttle services and buses that weren’t headed to the city center, we were left with the option of calling a taxi (usually more expensive than the other two options). When we finally arrived at our place, it was located above a bar that was really hopping for a Sunday night. The room wasn’t great, but hey, we weren’t going to be there for long, so whatev.
The only thing in Rockhampton (pretty literal here) is the portion of the Great Barrier Reef. We didn’t schedule too many days to be here, but one was just enough to soak in some rays and snorkel to see the coral. Off we went to Great Keppel Island for what turned out to be a great day. The temperatures were the warmest we’d seen in Australia and the sky went from overcast in the morning to basically cloudless the rest of the day.
The water, however, was still pretty chilly at first, so we decided to lie out on the beach until sometime after lunch. To find a spot that had coral, we had to climb over a wooded hill infested with mosquitoes (or “mozzies” as the Aussies call them), getting bitten all the way. We got into the water (still cold, but manageable) and snorkeled out to find big patches of coral. I was really excited to see it, yet a little disappointed because the living coral we got to see was mostly dark colored, not the vibrant reds, blues and yellows you might find on a nature show. But it was a part of the Great Barrier Reef, so how could we complain??
When we had had enough of swimming and sunbathing (or “sun baking” in Aussie-speak), we headed back to the main beach to turn in our snorkeling gear and wait for the ferry back to Rockhampton. En route to the snorkel rental stand, we saw a Dad playing catch with his son on the beach. Jokingly I said to Sara that “they must be Americans if they’re playing baseball.” When we passed by them, the father yelled in our direction, saying, “Ohio Bobcats?!?!” We’ve been spotted as Americans before, but we didn’t think the green “OHIO” on my t-shirt was distinctly “Ohio University.”
The man and his family are originally from Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. He and his wife attended Marietta College and roamed Court Street in Athens on more than one occasion during their college days. We visit one of the most remote places in world, yet find someone from right in our own backyard – still pretty ridiculous when I think about it well after it happened.
We finally made it back to the city and decided to go out for a steak dinner. Both Sara and I don’t have a lot of money to throw around, but Rockhampton is known as “The Beef Capital of Australia” and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I didn’t get a taste. To ease the pain of the bill, we split a steak dinner and it WAS pretty darn good – though there can be something said for a Randy Hunt steak on the grill (which I’ll be expecting as one of my first meals when I get back home in November).
We wanted to have a good finish to the dinner, too, so we went with the apple pie a la mode. It turned out to be pretty crummy for eight bucks – and no, I don’t mean it had a lot of crust. The Australians need to leave the apple pie to the U.S.
An early start to the next morning (5 a.m. to the airport, again by taxi) was necessary to get on our way to Auckland, New Zealand, almost a week into our big trip. This post is already long enough and I’m already backed-up enough that I’ll end it here. Coming soon (hopefully) will be the remainder of the trip, including why I’m never watching the Browns again, our first attempt at canyoning and a life-size version of chess.
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for adventures in New Zealand, before we head back to Australia, hitting up Melbourne for Grand Final weekend (just before heading back to class, yuck).
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about six weeks away.
It began in Brisbane, where our accommodation was so-so – it supplied a bed, a roof over the head and, as a throw-in, a TV. The city was probably the most interesting place we’d been to that point, but for all the wrong reasons. The first trip we were supposed to take was to a lookout point on Mount Coot-tha. We knew a bus service ran to the top, so we figured once our plane landed and we got checked in at the hostel, we could head to see a great view of the city.
We found the right bus just as it was pulling up, but we probably would have been better off just buying a postcard with a bird’s eye view of the city. The buses apparently stopped running to the very top of the mountain, opting instead to drop us a little ways up the hill. The bus driver – or as Sara later described her, “our transvestite bus driver” – pointed us in the right direction, letting us know that she “hoped we had our walking shoes on!!” She said it with one of those tones that you just KNOW you’re getting into something bad.
We hadn’t really eaten, hadn’t had a whole lot to drink. We had to climb this large hill through the grass – the fact that there aren’t even sidewalks just another thing laughing in our faces. Sara was about ready to die. I had cotton mouth, something which probably didn’t help my hitch-hiking attempts – a fatigued pair of mountain climbers, one passed out on the side of the road, the other foaming at the mouth, hopeful thumb sticking out.
When we got to the top, the view was just great, though maybe not worth the climb on foot. Regardless, there was a café (where we grabbed some water), a bathroom (or, pardon me, “toilets” in Aussie speak) and some benches for rest. Oh yeah, can’t forget about the wild turkey that got up on a table and started eating someone’s attended plate of cake. Refreshed and more willing to go down a hill than up, we made our way back to the hostel in hopes that the next day would be a bit easier.
It was at this point that I remembered my words once spoken, “Once you start betting on your hopes, that’s when you’re in trouble.” Thankfully I didn’t put any money down because the house would have taken all I own. Our next trip held a plan that would drop us at the Noosa Beach, a popular spot for swimmers and various other activities – like ours, horseback riding on the beach. It was something completely different from all the other stuff we’ve been doing, so we just had to figure out how to get to the beach.
We re-read our booking form and it told us we were supposed to call ahead and be sure everything was still on. I ran to a payphone to take care of that business, but found an undesirable answer on the other end. But first, a digression on payphones in Australia.
They’re basically awful. You pay a flat rate to start the call and then you have to keep pumping coins in until you’re finished with the call. If you don’t, the call doesn’t end, either. The call just disconnects and gives you a certain amount of time to put in more money. If you put some more in, the call is reconnected and the person on the other end can then talk to you again. It’s one of the dumbest things ever.
So once I was finally connected for good, the woman on the other end of the line lets me know that the horseback riding expeditions are all on hold for the time being because an equine influenza has quarantined all the horses until it passes. Our trip is canceled, but at least we can receive a refund and we didn’t travel all the way out there to find out.
Instead of doing that, we spent the day at the Gold Coast – specifically, at Surfer’s Paradise. This was a side of Australia we hadn’t really seen before – lots of big buildings and resorts, a long beach with lots of people, tons of stores and shops. In other words, our change of plans turned out to be a pretty good deal. Of course, there’s always a catch. This time, it was the sunshine – pretty much non-existent, settled behind a cloud for all but the first half hour we were on the beach. But walking on the beach and through all the shops was still a good way to spend a day that would have otherwise been spent sitting around in the hostel room.
The next day brought another order of mayhem, with a bit of negativity on the side. We were booked to go on a sailing expedition that included a trip to Moreton Island, where we would sandboard, feed dolphins and all sorts of other crazy stuff. We had our plan of attack, ready to arrive a half hour early for the day-long adventure. We got up early enough, caught the right train, hit our marks from the start.
Then the unplanned track work. When we checked the journey planner the night before for our scheduled departure time and route, it said nothing about track work. We had to disembark the train at an earlier stop, hop on a bus for a 20-minute trip to another train station farther down the line and then finish off the route. Since the station was a little ways from the harbor, we had to run from the station to the pier (which we didn’t even know exactly where it was). Since Sara had flip-flops on, that meant I had to run to the pier.
Asking random town residents as I passed, I found the pier, ran to the end and talked to the security guard who let me know, “That’s the boat you need, right there,” pointing to a sailboat about 10 minutes out of the harbor. The best laid plans of mice and men go awry. We’re still not sure if we can get any money back from the sailing company. We were mad that we didn’t get to do all of that fun stuff, sure, but there comes a time when you realize that you just want SOMETHING out of it. That part of the story is “To Be Continued.”
We decided instead to go to the Sunshine Coast, with popular beaches located on the opposite side of the city. We stopped at the beach closest to the city (to save on train fares), which dropped us at Bribie Island – albeit after a length of time waiting around for a bus to take us from the train station to the island. We arrived at Bribie around noon and the Sunshine Coast beach lived up to the name – lots of sunshine and, again, a beautiful beach area. For the second time in as many days, tragedy was averted by a decision to finish the day at a beach.
After our time in Brisbane, we got on the Tilt Train towards Rockhampton. This was a high-speed train that traveled up the coast and stopped at a few different places along the way. The ride lasted seven-and-a-half hours, so if it wasn’t for the nice sunset and some other great scenery, the ride would have seemed like a year.
Probably the funniest part about riding the train was the fact that it was Sara, me and about 9,000 old people. Not middle-aged – old. And every time the train stopped somewhere, almost every one of them stood up to stretch out their old legs. They also have the loudest conversations about ridiculous topics. One guy directly behind us talked for almost the entire trip to a woman (also elderly) whom he had just met when he walked onto the train.
Another funny part came when one of the old women posed a question to no one in particular, “How much mileage is left?” Sara immediately turned to me and asked, “Shouldn’t they be asking how much ‘kilometerage’ is left?” This is just another example of how the U.S. rocks, even in unintentional ways. People around the world make fun of the Standard System of Measurement, yet the terms are easier to use and, as we would find out later on this big trip, that system is used for “Heritage Listed” landmarks around the world, not the otherwise widely-used Metric System.
Once our train stopped in Rockhampton, we were welcomed by a small train station that wasn’t close enough to our hostel to walk. With no shuttle services and buses that weren’t headed to the city center, we were left with the option of calling a taxi (usually more expensive than the other two options). When we finally arrived at our place, it was located above a bar that was really hopping for a Sunday night. The room wasn’t great, but hey, we weren’t going to be there for long, so whatev.
The only thing in Rockhampton (pretty literal here) is the portion of the Great Barrier Reef. We didn’t schedule too many days to be here, but one was just enough to soak in some rays and snorkel to see the coral. Off we went to Great Keppel Island for what turned out to be a great day. The temperatures were the warmest we’d seen in Australia and the sky went from overcast in the morning to basically cloudless the rest of the day.
The water, however, was still pretty chilly at first, so we decided to lie out on the beach until sometime after lunch. To find a spot that had coral, we had to climb over a wooded hill infested with mosquitoes (or “mozzies” as the Aussies call them), getting bitten all the way. We got into the water (still cold, but manageable) and snorkeled out to find big patches of coral. I was really excited to see it, yet a little disappointed because the living coral we got to see was mostly dark colored, not the vibrant reds, blues and yellows you might find on a nature show. But it was a part of the Great Barrier Reef, so how could we complain??
When we had had enough of swimming and sunbathing (or “sun baking” in Aussie-speak), we headed back to the main beach to turn in our snorkeling gear and wait for the ferry back to Rockhampton. En route to the snorkel rental stand, we saw a Dad playing catch with his son on the beach. Jokingly I said to Sara that “they must be Americans if they’re playing baseball.” When we passed by them, the father yelled in our direction, saying, “Ohio Bobcats?!?!” We’ve been spotted as Americans before, but we didn’t think the green “OHIO” on my t-shirt was distinctly “Ohio University.”
The man and his family are originally from Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. He and his wife attended Marietta College and roamed Court Street in Athens on more than one occasion during their college days. We visit one of the most remote places in world, yet find someone from right in our own backyard – still pretty ridiculous when I think about it well after it happened.
We finally made it back to the city and decided to go out for a steak dinner. Both Sara and I don’t have a lot of money to throw around, but Rockhampton is known as “The Beef Capital of Australia” and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I didn’t get a taste. To ease the pain of the bill, we split a steak dinner and it WAS pretty darn good – though there can be something said for a Randy Hunt steak on the grill (which I’ll be expecting as one of my first meals when I get back home in November).
We wanted to have a good finish to the dinner, too, so we went with the apple pie a la mode. It turned out to be pretty crummy for eight bucks – and no, I don’t mean it had a lot of crust. The Australians need to leave the apple pie to the U.S.
An early start to the next morning (5 a.m. to the airport, again by taxi) was necessary to get on our way to Auckland, New Zealand, almost a week into our big trip. This post is already long enough and I’m already backed-up enough that I’ll end it here. Coming soon (hopefully) will be the remainder of the trip, including why I’m never watching the Browns again, our first attempt at canyoning and a life-size version of chess.
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for adventures in New Zealand, before we head back to Australia, hitting up Melbourne for Grand Final weekend (just before heading back to class, yuck).
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about six weeks away.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Do it to me one more time
Sunday marked the beginning of the second half of our trip. It’s hard to think that it’s already halfway over. Plus, I know the end will go faster because we have a 17-day trip during school holiday starting on Sept. 13 that will eat up a huge amount of time. Before we get there, however, I wanted to share some of the recent goings-on here in Adelaide.
Two weekends ago we undertook Learn-to-Surf Day with the Exchange Society. As I’ve bragged before, this group is really nice because there are a lot of foreign students in our same boat (not knowing a ton of people) and the prices to participate in the activities are pretty cheap compared to what it could be.
It’s just starting to get warmer in South Australia. When we took the surfing trip, it was about 17 degrees Celsius for a high (about 63 degrees Fahrenheit) – not normally considered swimming weather. Wet suits were a necessity on this occasion and really helped out – and they were a good look, too.
Surfing itself wasn’t too bad at all. It was hard to get used to getting on the board, but as long as you have decent upper body strength and sense of balance, newcomers to hanging ten will probably do well. The first thing most people said when we arrived at the beach was that the waves at the beach didn’t seem very big, but it’s a different story when you get into the water. Above anything else, surfing is pretty fun – though not something I think I could do everyday for hours on end. Maybe that’s because I’m not very good, but I think it rides more on the fact that it’s not all that great.
Our most recent Adelaide adventure came with the attendance at our first Australian Rules Football game. It was the Port Adelaide Power (not my designated team, the Crows) against Fremantle. Port Adelaide needed to win the game by a certain margin in order to maintain their second position in the standings (called “the ladder”). This experience was a lot of fun for a few reasons.
First of all, the price of the ticket was only $15, since we purchased through the Exchange Society. That made me think we wouldn’t have very good seats, considering we bought part of a group package. Much to my surprise, we struck lower level seats behind one of the goals – we couldn’t really see the other end of the field, but that was alright with us.
Secondly, the atmosphere was pretty good. The stadium didn’t seem like it was very big at all, but the official attendance was over 39,000. The only problem is that footy is a lot like soccer – lots of continuous action, but with footy there’s more scoring. So unlike an NFL game, where there are definitive times to yell or rest one’s voice, the noise level wasn’t extremely loud at any particular point.
That also made it tough on starting the wave. There are a few other Americans in the Exchange Society who teamed up with some of their friends in the group and made it their personal duty to start the wave (called “the Mexican wave” here). It literally flopped for about the first 100 times they tried to get it going, with very few people outside our section actually continuing it. With the game well in hand in the final few minutes, the Power fans decided to jump on the wave-wagon and followed the lead of those in our group. Personally, I think it happened because they decided to take off their shirts – something that I have yet to see any non-American do as a sign of cheering on a team. Check out the video below:
Our Exchange Society leader Andrew, an Australian who cheers on (“barracks”) the Power and has been to a lot of games, said that that was the best wave he had ever seen at a Power game. Everyone in the stadium seemed to be participating, which was pretty cool. Even on the team website the poll read:
What was the best part about Saturday night’s game?
+The last quarter comeback
+Shaun Burgoyne’s four goals
+The huge crowd and Mexican wave
+Getting that home final
As of the writing of this post, the last two choices were tied for the lead with 42% each. The wave was a lot of the talk on the team’s fan message boards. Hard to imagine that popularity for something that seems to make its way into each and every one of the 162 Major League Baseball games on the regular season schedule. Glad we could leave a little bit of our culture with them.
The second half of our entire time in Australia began when the calendar flipped to September. That’s almost unbelievable. What’s even crazier is that when we return from our big trip, it will be October, meaning we’ll have about 5 weeks remaining. I figured now would be a good time (riding on Sara’s idea) to review what I’ve been missing the most so far on this trip. These are not ranked, just numbered so it’s easier to read.
1. My family and friends. This is the only one that is ranked. It’s not that we have no friends here, but some things just aren’t the same. It gets difficult trying to stay in touch, mostly happening through instant message or facebook. But hey, it’s a lot easier now than it would have been before the internet age.
2. Driving in my car. This is a two-part submission. First, I want to be on the right-hand side of the road. I think it would take me a lot of practice time to get used to driving in this country or any other one that involves the left side of the street. Secondly, I miss listening to the radio. Again, the internet does wonders in helping me listen online (unless it’s a damned Clear Channel station), but nothing compares to a nice drive with some tunes.
3. Wal-Mart. I guess I should make this clearer by naming it “Wal-Mart-esque stores” – you know, the ones that have every single thing you need in one trip. It would be IMMENSELY helpful here, considering we don’t have a vehicle to transport a lot of groceries, so one trip would be FAN-tastic. The prices aren’t steep either, which would help in the pocketbook. Speaking of which...
4. American money. I will bring some Australian money back (if I have some left in the end) so everyone can see how much time and work this country wasted on making nice bills. They’re actually made with a flexible plastic, so you can crumble a bill in your hand and when you let it go, it will (more or less) uncrumble on its own. But the bills don’t go under the five, since there are one- and two-dollar coins. Plus, it’s not uncommon to walk around with a couple 50s in your money clip. And yes, I AM just waiting to get mugged.
5. American football. Especially the Cleveland Browns, but we’re going to be able to watch sporadically through webcam, so at least there is a chance at viewing live. That chance will still come at 2:30 a.m. Mondays, with the most opportune games actually being any of those held on Sunday or Monday night. While I KNOW the Monday Night games will be on, Sundays are suspect because NBC holds the rights, not FOX or ESPN – the only two sports networks we get here. By this time every year I’m antsy to watch football and this schedule just makes it tough. Though, it’s almost a God-send that we can’t see Notre Dame games live.
6. Watching sports constantly. It CAN be done here, but it’s much harder to do and honestly I don’t feel like watching replays of AFL games all the time. I want the morning block of SportsCenter and the evening block of general sports events. But it will have to wait until November 3.
7. My cell phone. I’m not huge on calling or texting, but I miss the random ones. The ones when I’m watching an Indians game and I hear some guy in the background yell something hilarious, then grab my phone and call Luke just to relay that pretty useless information. Now that my parents changed our plan to include mostly text messages, it will be same stuff, new format. I don’t miss having to deal with calls, though. It’s kind of nice not to have to be answering a lot of the time.
8. Laying on the family room floor. For those of you who don’t know, my permanent house in Tiffin has a nice, open area in the family room where I like to grab a floor pillow and just lay to watch TV. You can ask my parents, it’s one of the first things I do when I go home. I think I mostly just like it because there is TV and a lot of space around it – two things I don’t normally get at school.
9. Food and drink. This is the last one because there are so many subcategories. When I wrote up my list and showed it to Sara, her first response was, “So you miss being a fat ass??” I guess so. But eating is something I do 1-2 times a day and enjoy doing almost all the time. It’s a daily part of every person’s life and it’s a huge part of my list here. A number of things were left off the list (like the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet) because they’re technically available here, but the prices are outrageous. I won’t enjoy them while I’m here simply because they are too expensive. Again, the following isn’t really ranked.
a. Taco Bell. For those of you who didn’t read any of my previous posts, there are none here. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nil. There are Mexican restaurants, but I’m not sure I’ll be craving anything more than a Nacho Cheese Chalupa when I return to the U.S. If you’re shaking your head already, then just stop reading because I’ll probably make you nauseous.
b. Burger King. Here it’s called “Hungry Jack’s” and it has almost all the same foods – except the fries. Burger King’s fries are at the top of my list and there is a difference between theirs and Hungry Jack’s fries. Though I must say, the ability to get a Whopper is still a good thing.
c. Dollar menus. I’m not really talking about the “I’ll take 9 junior bacon cheeseburgers” effect of these. I’m more missing the simple, cheap meal. For example, I was in the city the other day completing my work permission forms (that’s a story for the next blog, goodness gracious) and it was going on 1 o’clock. I went straight from class and didn’t have anything to eat up to that point in my day. I was thinking about swinging into McDonald’s for a quick bite, but that bite would have cost me at least $6 for a sandwich and drink. Not life-changing, earth-shattering stuff, but just little things I’d rather have.
d. Tortilla chips. Australians can slap stuff on them (i.e. Doritos) but there isn’t a plain one to be found. There’s salsa, too, which just taunts my taste buds. I might just fulfill Sara’s quote by dipping my Doritos in hot cheese sauce. We’ll see.
e. Large pizzas (of a large size). It just doesn’t make sense here – the sizes are something like “large,” “extra large,” “jumbo,” and “mega.” What’s the point?? The worst part is that pizza is still sort of expensive here, so I might pay the same large-pizza price in the U.S. for a pizza that would be considered a jumbo here.
f. Free refills. Since the time when I first wrote this down, we’ve found some places that let you refill your own cup. But that number is at something like 3. My very nature is to wash down every bite and I ALWAYS fill my cup for the road. It’s not really a get-your-money’s-worth thing, I just enjoy it.
f2. The huge cup. This one piggy-backs on the last one. KFC took this to a whole new level by introducing the cup that actually looked like a small bucket and held a half gallon of pop. What a great idea. Totally sucked in people like me who just want a ton o’ drink. Much like the pizza industry here, the large cups just aren’t very big – almost not worth it to supersize. Taco Bell provides a double-whammy here. One of the first meals when I get back – Nacho Cheese Chalupa value meal with one of those XL cups standard. Delicious.
g. Mountain Dew Live Wire. It’s the pop that’s only sold for a limited time, but one or two bottles can almost always be found in a convenience store refrigerator. It’s yummy.
h. Cheap cereal. I love Kroger-brand anything and cereal ranks pretty high towards the top. It’s such an easy meal and we eat a lot of cereal here, but it still eats a lot out of our wallet.
i. Cheap candy bars. There’s a reason they put them at the front of the store in the cashiers’ lanes – a lot of people (myself included) just want a little bite of sweet. The lowest price for candy bars here is something like $1.75. I just can’t bring myself to pay that. By now, you’re probably smacking yourself at my awfulness. Thanks, I owe you one.
j. Ranch dressing. I probably should have put “cheap” in front of this one too, but I’m convinced it also won’t taste as good here. Am I wrong?? Probably, but I’m not going to pay $4 for a small bottle just to find out. I’m a dipper and ranch dressing is one of my favorites.
k. Domestic beer. The prices for beer here can be summed up as “outrageous” and if people think they get drunk on a weekend here, I would love to see what they could do with a night out in the Athens bars. I think I just like beer that other people generally hate to drink. Maybe it’s because I’ve just gotten used to being on a student’s income still trying to have a good night out every now and then. I think it’s genetic – my Dad once told me he “remembers when he used to drink Keystone Light.” So I’ve got THAT goin’ for me
And that’s the list of things I could remember that I am missing. Yeah, I know I’m pathetic, but that’s OK. I enjoy all the things listed above, especially number one. I could have elaborated on it a lot more, but if I mention names it turns into, “So – you’re not missing ME very much are you?!?!” But that would infer a lot of people read my blog, which I don’t think is the case.
For those of you who are reading, that’s it for now. Love you all in the states. Check back for what will probably be a post somewhere during the time of our 2 1/2 week vacation. And good luck to the Cleveland Browns, who begin the campaign of Romeo's Last Stand (I know what General Manager Phil Savage said, I'm not buying it). My prediction is that Brady Quinn will be playing by Week Six against Miami or Week Eight at the latest. Go Browns.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, start digging.
Two weekends ago we undertook Learn-to-Surf Day with the Exchange Society. As I’ve bragged before, this group is really nice because there are a lot of foreign students in our same boat (not knowing a ton of people) and the prices to participate in the activities are pretty cheap compared to what it could be.
It’s just starting to get warmer in South Australia. When we took the surfing trip, it was about 17 degrees Celsius for a high (about 63 degrees Fahrenheit) – not normally considered swimming weather. Wet suits were a necessity on this occasion and really helped out – and they were a good look, too.
Surfing itself wasn’t too bad at all. It was hard to get used to getting on the board, but as long as you have decent upper body strength and sense of balance, newcomers to hanging ten will probably do well. The first thing most people said when we arrived at the beach was that the waves at the beach didn’t seem very big, but it’s a different story when you get into the water. Above anything else, surfing is pretty fun – though not something I think I could do everyday for hours on end. Maybe that’s because I’m not very good, but I think it rides more on the fact that it’s not all that great.
Our most recent Adelaide adventure came with the attendance at our first Australian Rules Football game. It was the Port Adelaide Power (not my designated team, the Crows) against Fremantle. Port Adelaide needed to win the game by a certain margin in order to maintain their second position in the standings (called “the ladder”). This experience was a lot of fun for a few reasons.
First of all, the price of the ticket was only $15, since we purchased through the Exchange Society. That made me think we wouldn’t have very good seats, considering we bought part of a group package. Much to my surprise, we struck lower level seats behind one of the goals – we couldn’t really see the other end of the field, but that was alright with us.
Secondly, the atmosphere was pretty good. The stadium didn’t seem like it was very big at all, but the official attendance was over 39,000. The only problem is that footy is a lot like soccer – lots of continuous action, but with footy there’s more scoring. So unlike an NFL game, where there are definitive times to yell or rest one’s voice, the noise level wasn’t extremely loud at any particular point.
That also made it tough on starting the wave. There are a few other Americans in the Exchange Society who teamed up with some of their friends in the group and made it their personal duty to start the wave (called “the Mexican wave” here). It literally flopped for about the first 100 times they tried to get it going, with very few people outside our section actually continuing it. With the game well in hand in the final few minutes, the Power fans decided to jump on the wave-wagon and followed the lead of those in our group. Personally, I think it happened because they decided to take off their shirts – something that I have yet to see any non-American do as a sign of cheering on a team. Check out the video below:
Our Exchange Society leader Andrew, an Australian who cheers on (“barracks”) the Power and has been to a lot of games, said that that was the best wave he had ever seen at a Power game. Everyone in the stadium seemed to be participating, which was pretty cool. Even on the team website the poll read:
What was the best part about Saturday night’s game?
+The last quarter comeback
+Shaun Burgoyne’s four goals
+The huge crowd and Mexican wave
+Getting that home final
As of the writing of this post, the last two choices were tied for the lead with 42% each. The wave was a lot of the talk on the team’s fan message boards. Hard to imagine that popularity for something that seems to make its way into each and every one of the 162 Major League Baseball games on the regular season schedule. Glad we could leave a little bit of our culture with them.
The second half of our entire time in Australia began when the calendar flipped to September. That’s almost unbelievable. What’s even crazier is that when we return from our big trip, it will be October, meaning we’ll have about 5 weeks remaining. I figured now would be a good time (riding on Sara’s idea) to review what I’ve been missing the most so far on this trip. These are not ranked, just numbered so it’s easier to read.
1. My family and friends. This is the only one that is ranked. It’s not that we have no friends here, but some things just aren’t the same. It gets difficult trying to stay in touch, mostly happening through instant message or facebook. But hey, it’s a lot easier now than it would have been before the internet age.
2. Driving in my car. This is a two-part submission. First, I want to be on the right-hand side of the road. I think it would take me a lot of practice time to get used to driving in this country or any other one that involves the left side of the street. Secondly, I miss listening to the radio. Again, the internet does wonders in helping me listen online (unless it’s a damned Clear Channel station), but nothing compares to a nice drive with some tunes.
3. Wal-Mart. I guess I should make this clearer by naming it “Wal-Mart-esque stores” – you know, the ones that have every single thing you need in one trip. It would be IMMENSELY helpful here, considering we don’t have a vehicle to transport a lot of groceries, so one trip would be FAN-tastic. The prices aren’t steep either, which would help in the pocketbook. Speaking of which...
4. American money. I will bring some Australian money back (if I have some left in the end) so everyone can see how much time and work this country wasted on making nice bills. They’re actually made with a flexible plastic, so you can crumble a bill in your hand and when you let it go, it will (more or less) uncrumble on its own. But the bills don’t go under the five, since there are one- and two-dollar coins. Plus, it’s not uncommon to walk around with a couple 50s in your money clip. And yes, I AM just waiting to get mugged.
5. American football. Especially the Cleveland Browns, but we’re going to be able to watch sporadically through webcam, so at least there is a chance at viewing live. That chance will still come at 2:30 a.m. Mondays, with the most opportune games actually being any of those held on Sunday or Monday night. While I KNOW the Monday Night games will be on, Sundays are suspect because NBC holds the rights, not FOX or ESPN – the only two sports networks we get here. By this time every year I’m antsy to watch football and this schedule just makes it tough. Though, it’s almost a God-send that we can’t see Notre Dame games live.
6. Watching sports constantly. It CAN be done here, but it’s much harder to do and honestly I don’t feel like watching replays of AFL games all the time. I want the morning block of SportsCenter and the evening block of general sports events. But it will have to wait until November 3.
7. My cell phone. I’m not huge on calling or texting, but I miss the random ones. The ones when I’m watching an Indians game and I hear some guy in the background yell something hilarious, then grab my phone and call Luke just to relay that pretty useless information. Now that my parents changed our plan to include mostly text messages, it will be same stuff, new format. I don’t miss having to deal with calls, though. It’s kind of nice not to have to be answering a lot of the time.
8. Laying on the family room floor. For those of you who don’t know, my permanent house in Tiffin has a nice, open area in the family room where I like to grab a floor pillow and just lay to watch TV. You can ask my parents, it’s one of the first things I do when I go home. I think I mostly just like it because there is TV and a lot of space around it – two things I don’t normally get at school.
9. Food and drink. This is the last one because there are so many subcategories. When I wrote up my list and showed it to Sara, her first response was, “So you miss being a fat ass??” I guess so. But eating is something I do 1-2 times a day and enjoy doing almost all the time. It’s a daily part of every person’s life and it’s a huge part of my list here. A number of things were left off the list (like the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet) because they’re technically available here, but the prices are outrageous. I won’t enjoy them while I’m here simply because they are too expensive. Again, the following isn’t really ranked.
a. Taco Bell. For those of you who didn’t read any of my previous posts, there are none here. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nil. There are Mexican restaurants, but I’m not sure I’ll be craving anything more than a Nacho Cheese Chalupa when I return to the U.S. If you’re shaking your head already, then just stop reading because I’ll probably make you nauseous.
b. Burger King. Here it’s called “Hungry Jack’s” and it has almost all the same foods – except the fries. Burger King’s fries are at the top of my list and there is a difference between theirs and Hungry Jack’s fries. Though I must say, the ability to get a Whopper is still a good thing.
c. Dollar menus. I’m not really talking about the “I’ll take 9 junior bacon cheeseburgers” effect of these. I’m more missing the simple, cheap meal. For example, I was in the city the other day completing my work permission forms (that’s a story for the next blog, goodness gracious) and it was going on 1 o’clock. I went straight from class and didn’t have anything to eat up to that point in my day. I was thinking about swinging into McDonald’s for a quick bite, but that bite would have cost me at least $6 for a sandwich and drink. Not life-changing, earth-shattering stuff, but just little things I’d rather have.
d. Tortilla chips. Australians can slap stuff on them (i.e. Doritos) but there isn’t a plain one to be found. There’s salsa, too, which just taunts my taste buds. I might just fulfill Sara’s quote by dipping my Doritos in hot cheese sauce. We’ll see.
e. Large pizzas (of a large size). It just doesn’t make sense here – the sizes are something like “large,” “extra large,” “jumbo,” and “mega.” What’s the point?? The worst part is that pizza is still sort of expensive here, so I might pay the same large-pizza price in the U.S. for a pizza that would be considered a jumbo here.
f. Free refills. Since the time when I first wrote this down, we’ve found some places that let you refill your own cup. But that number is at something like 3. My very nature is to wash down every bite and I ALWAYS fill my cup for the road. It’s not really a get-your-money’s-worth thing, I just enjoy it.
f2. The huge cup. This one piggy-backs on the last one. KFC took this to a whole new level by introducing the cup that actually looked like a small bucket and held a half gallon of pop. What a great idea. Totally sucked in people like me who just want a ton o’ drink. Much like the pizza industry here, the large cups just aren’t very big – almost not worth it to supersize. Taco Bell provides a double-whammy here. One of the first meals when I get back – Nacho Cheese Chalupa value meal with one of those XL cups standard. Delicious.
g. Mountain Dew Live Wire. It’s the pop that’s only sold for a limited time, but one or two bottles can almost always be found in a convenience store refrigerator. It’s yummy.
h. Cheap cereal. I love Kroger-brand anything and cereal ranks pretty high towards the top. It’s such an easy meal and we eat a lot of cereal here, but it still eats a lot out of our wallet.
i. Cheap candy bars. There’s a reason they put them at the front of the store in the cashiers’ lanes – a lot of people (myself included) just want a little bite of sweet. The lowest price for candy bars here is something like $1.75. I just can’t bring myself to pay that. By now, you’re probably smacking yourself at my awfulness. Thanks, I owe you one.
j. Ranch dressing. I probably should have put “cheap” in front of this one too, but I’m convinced it also won’t taste as good here. Am I wrong?? Probably, but I’m not going to pay $4 for a small bottle just to find out. I’m a dipper and ranch dressing is one of my favorites.
k. Domestic beer. The prices for beer here can be summed up as “outrageous” and if people think they get drunk on a weekend here, I would love to see what they could do with a night out in the Athens bars. I think I just like beer that other people generally hate to drink. Maybe it’s because I’ve just gotten used to being on a student’s income still trying to have a good night out every now and then. I think it’s genetic – my Dad once told me he “remembers when he used to drink Keystone Light.” So I’ve got THAT goin’ for me
And that’s the list of things I could remember that I am missing. Yeah, I know I’m pathetic, but that’s OK. I enjoy all the things listed above, especially number one. I could have elaborated on it a lot more, but if I mention names it turns into, “So – you’re not missing ME very much are you?!?!” But that would infer a lot of people read my blog, which I don’t think is the case.
For those of you who are reading, that’s it for now. Love you all in the states. Check back for what will probably be a post somewhere during the time of our 2 1/2 week vacation. And good luck to the Cleveland Browns, who begin the campaign of Romeo's Last Stand (I know what General Manager Phil Savage said, I'm not buying it). My prediction is that Brady Quinn will be playing by Week Six against Miami or Week Eight at the latest. Go Browns.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, start digging.
Friday, August 24, 2007
I'll Take a Scotch and Water, Hold the Scotch...
Let me start by saying that my previews of this post were pure let-downs. Sorry, folks, but I really didn’t go out to celebrate my birthday. And Learn-to-Surf Day didn’t beat me up quite as much as I thought it would. Pictures from that event will come next week, so I’ll save that story for another post. The reason I didn’t celebrate my birthday, however, can be discussed.
I think women need to be on equal ground with men, no doubt. I didn’t do any studies, polls or surveys, but I’m pretty sure more women are getting “in tune” with sports and being “one of the guys.” But women need to pull their weight with drinking, and no, I’m not trying to encourage alcoholism. I just want “Men’s Night” at a bar. You know, discounted drinks for all guys before 10 p.m. No cover charge for men on a certain night of the week. That’d be great.
It’d hold even more value in Australia, where last Thursday, on Ladies’ Night at local pub P.J. O’Brien’s, I spent $7.80 on a beer. The U.S. dollar traded at about 80 cents per Australian dollar, putting that beer at about $6.25 USD… for a beer. It didn’t come in a gold-plated mug or even with a coupon for a dollar off a basket of potato wedges. It was just a pint of beer, 16 ounces.
Even though the pint was pretty good (Toohey’s Extra Dry), I wanted to try and get bang for the buck as well as try something different. I asked about rum and coke because I heard liquor was cheaper than beer in Australia (an odd thought in the States), which it was, at least at this pub - $7. It wasn’t bad either, but at this point, I had spent $14.80 on two drinks. That is the equivalent to a week’s pay at my job – I’ll get to that story soon.
That was the last drink I had that night, one part due to the prices and another part due to the fact that buses only run after midnight on Saturday nights. I don’t mind, though, it’s just nice to have a drink with friends and see what everyone’s up to – overall it was a good (yet expensive) night.
Being with friends is a little harder here, too, mostly due to the fact that the University of South Australia has no residence halls. I don’t have a cell phone here (well, they’re called “mobiles,” but you get the point), making facebook messaging the biggest way of contacting someone. Most of the Australian students in my classes are really great, but it would take a huge planning crew just for everyone to be able to meet up on the weekends at the same place.
For one thing, a lot of the students work and they work all over the place. Secondly, they live all over the place, too. Put those things together and it gets really tough to squeeze in a night of hanging out with a lot of people at the same time. Being at a campus like Ohio University’s is great because everyone is on basically the same class schedule and almost everyone lives within walking distance of everyone else. Even those who have to close down on the night shift are close enough to walk and finish off the night with friends. They’re little things I take for granted.
Since everyone else here has a job and I’m running out of money, I’ve been trying to find a job here basically since I stepped out of the plane and into Adelaide. I’ve been extremely unsuccessful. Recently I found the only call-back to my inquiries – a position delivering a once-weekly newspaper. The terms: $15 per week to deliver 300 papers to residents around where I live. Oh, and I get $6 per insert that goes into the paper. I start next week.
The best part is that I can’t even officially work yet. I’ve been trying to apply for my “Permission to Work” for weeks now and it’s finally coming to a close (hopefully). Just like my student visa debacle, I tried to apply online, but had to settle for the paper application when some number or type of input was incorrect. In fact, I might not even be able to work next week because I won’t technically be allowed to work yet, even though I’ve been trying to get this sorted out for weeks.
Once I finally DO receive the permission, it costs $60, which means I’ll have to work 3-4 weeks just to make up the amount of money that I’m spending simply to have the right to work here. Since we’re taking a two-and-a-half week vacation in September, I’ll be missing two weeks there as well, meaning I will deliver for, at most, 8 total weeks. Here’s hoping the advertisers come out in droves ($6 per insert is terrific, haha).
Even though the buses only run late on Saturday nights, the shops and grocery stores only stay open late on Friday evenings. I still haven’t seen a 24-hour store, except for small convenience stores. I just don’t get why no one would be open for an extended time. I guess Australians don’t really stay up late and just walk around their version of Kroger’s when they’re bored. OK, so most Americans probably don’t do that either – my friends and I are just the special cases.
Restaurants are the same way with an even crazier stance. Most places that aren’t fast food or delis close to the public between lunch and dinner hours. Even if it’s just an hour or two, they’ll close, windows dark until the next meal time comes along. As far as convenience for customers, this move ranks pretty low. When considering overall costs, however, it’s probably a smart move. Two hours of saved wages, utilities and hassles during a time when the customer per hour rate is pretty low.
What really gets me at restaurants is a terrible habit that seems unfathomable to me. Most fast food restaurant patrons take all their trash, put it on their tray and dump it in the wastebasket before leaving the place. Here in Australia, none of the above takes place. We thought it was an isolated instance; just one group of kids who wanted to be jerks to the workers. But over and over we find people finishing their meals and leaving their trash for someone else to pick up – and that usually means the next people who want to sit down.
If not for the consideration of other people who want to sit down and enjoy their meal, why not clean up your spot to help the restaurant workers?? They already work in a fast food place and helped fill your stomach. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that in the U.S., but maybe I’m just not in the right place at the right time or haven’t noticed. I just like to hope that Americans are better than that. Or maybe the “Obese States of America” are just getting more practice cleaning up after themselves than everyone else.
It’s been a fairly quiet last few weeks, which was welcomed after all the traveling we did in the first month that we were here. There are only a few weeks before the biggest and longest excursion in our time here, so the rest will be needed. And in just one week we hit the midway point of our time here in Australia. When that comes around I’ll bring you a list of “Things I’m Missing” so far. I’m compiling it as I go and I’ll let you know it’s pretty interesting and mostly deals with food.
+Notes: Australians seem to love automatic sliding entry doors. I’ve never been in a place that’s had this many of them. Walking around Rundle Mall is just a long line of automatic doors that are constantly sliding open, then sliding closed. At first I thought it to be completely unnecessary, but I’ve warmed up to it since. That might be because I’ve never had to sit at the front desk in a store and hear the doors slide constantly all day long.
I went from “Men’s Nights” in bars to automatic sliding doors in the matter of just one blog post. If that’s not reason enough to come back for more, then you’ll want to read all about the biggest things I’m missing on this trip, as well as all of the random thoughts from me that I KNOW you’re missing. Plus, I should have the Learn-to-Surf stuff ready to post.
That’s it for now. Love you all in the states, check back for all the goods.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, start digging.
I think women need to be on equal ground with men, no doubt. I didn’t do any studies, polls or surveys, but I’m pretty sure more women are getting “in tune” with sports and being “one of the guys.” But women need to pull their weight with drinking, and no, I’m not trying to encourage alcoholism. I just want “Men’s Night” at a bar. You know, discounted drinks for all guys before 10 p.m. No cover charge for men on a certain night of the week. That’d be great.
It’d hold even more value in Australia, where last Thursday, on Ladies’ Night at local pub P.J. O’Brien’s, I spent $7.80 on a beer. The U.S. dollar traded at about 80 cents per Australian dollar, putting that beer at about $6.25 USD… for a beer. It didn’t come in a gold-plated mug or even with a coupon for a dollar off a basket of potato wedges. It was just a pint of beer, 16 ounces.
Even though the pint was pretty good (Toohey’s Extra Dry), I wanted to try and get bang for the buck as well as try something different. I asked about rum and coke because I heard liquor was cheaper than beer in Australia (an odd thought in the States), which it was, at least at this pub - $7. It wasn’t bad either, but at this point, I had spent $14.80 on two drinks. That is the equivalent to a week’s pay at my job – I’ll get to that story soon.
That was the last drink I had that night, one part due to the prices and another part due to the fact that buses only run after midnight on Saturday nights. I don’t mind, though, it’s just nice to have a drink with friends and see what everyone’s up to – overall it was a good (yet expensive) night.
Being with friends is a little harder here, too, mostly due to the fact that the University of South Australia has no residence halls. I don’t have a cell phone here (well, they’re called “mobiles,” but you get the point), making facebook messaging the biggest way of contacting someone. Most of the Australian students in my classes are really great, but it would take a huge planning crew just for everyone to be able to meet up on the weekends at the same place.
For one thing, a lot of the students work and they work all over the place. Secondly, they live all over the place, too. Put those things together and it gets really tough to squeeze in a night of hanging out with a lot of people at the same time. Being at a campus like Ohio University’s is great because everyone is on basically the same class schedule and almost everyone lives within walking distance of everyone else. Even those who have to close down on the night shift are close enough to walk and finish off the night with friends. They’re little things I take for granted.
Since everyone else here has a job and I’m running out of money, I’ve been trying to find a job here basically since I stepped out of the plane and into Adelaide. I’ve been extremely unsuccessful. Recently I found the only call-back to my inquiries – a position delivering a once-weekly newspaper. The terms: $15 per week to deliver 300 papers to residents around where I live. Oh, and I get $6 per insert that goes into the paper. I start next week.
The best part is that I can’t even officially work yet. I’ve been trying to apply for my “Permission to Work” for weeks now and it’s finally coming to a close (hopefully). Just like my student visa debacle, I tried to apply online, but had to settle for the paper application when some number or type of input was incorrect. In fact, I might not even be able to work next week because I won’t technically be allowed to work yet, even though I’ve been trying to get this sorted out for weeks.
Once I finally DO receive the permission, it costs $60, which means I’ll have to work 3-4 weeks just to make up the amount of money that I’m spending simply to have the right to work here. Since we’re taking a two-and-a-half week vacation in September, I’ll be missing two weeks there as well, meaning I will deliver for, at most, 8 total weeks. Here’s hoping the advertisers come out in droves ($6 per insert is terrific, haha).
Even though the buses only run late on Saturday nights, the shops and grocery stores only stay open late on Friday evenings. I still haven’t seen a 24-hour store, except for small convenience stores. I just don’t get why no one would be open for an extended time. I guess Australians don’t really stay up late and just walk around their version of Kroger’s when they’re bored. OK, so most Americans probably don’t do that either – my friends and I are just the special cases.
Restaurants are the same way with an even crazier stance. Most places that aren’t fast food or delis close to the public between lunch and dinner hours. Even if it’s just an hour or two, they’ll close, windows dark until the next meal time comes along. As far as convenience for customers, this move ranks pretty low. When considering overall costs, however, it’s probably a smart move. Two hours of saved wages, utilities and hassles during a time when the customer per hour rate is pretty low.
What really gets me at restaurants is a terrible habit that seems unfathomable to me. Most fast food restaurant patrons take all their trash, put it on their tray and dump it in the wastebasket before leaving the place. Here in Australia, none of the above takes place. We thought it was an isolated instance; just one group of kids who wanted to be jerks to the workers. But over and over we find people finishing their meals and leaving their trash for someone else to pick up – and that usually means the next people who want to sit down.
If not for the consideration of other people who want to sit down and enjoy their meal, why not clean up your spot to help the restaurant workers?? They already work in a fast food place and helped fill your stomach. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that in the U.S., but maybe I’m just not in the right place at the right time or haven’t noticed. I just like to hope that Americans are better than that. Or maybe the “Obese States of America” are just getting more practice cleaning up after themselves than everyone else.
It’s been a fairly quiet last few weeks, which was welcomed after all the traveling we did in the first month that we were here. There are only a few weeks before the biggest and longest excursion in our time here, so the rest will be needed. And in just one week we hit the midway point of our time here in Australia. When that comes around I’ll bring you a list of “Things I’m Missing” so far. I’m compiling it as I go and I’ll let you know it’s pretty interesting and mostly deals with food.
+Notes: Australians seem to love automatic sliding entry doors. I’ve never been in a place that’s had this many of them. Walking around Rundle Mall is just a long line of automatic doors that are constantly sliding open, then sliding closed. At first I thought it to be completely unnecessary, but I’ve warmed up to it since. That might be because I’ve never had to sit at the front desk in a store and hear the doors slide constantly all day long.
I went from “Men’s Nights” in bars to automatic sliding doors in the matter of just one blog post. If that’s not reason enough to come back for more, then you’ll want to read all about the biggest things I’m missing on this trip, as well as all of the random thoughts from me that I KNOW you’re missing. Plus, I should have the Learn-to-Surf stuff ready to post.
That’s it for now. Love you all in the states, check back for all the goods.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, start digging.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Beware the Many Stories Contained Within this Post
Last week in my Sport Literature class we had to give a short speech on something we’ve encountered in our sporting lives. It didn’t have to be anything significant, but after the speech everyone in the class had to give suggestions as to how that speech could be turned into a newspaper story. It was meant to highlight the fact that everybody has a story to tell; that it doesn’t matter if the person of interest is a celebrity.
My story had to do with perseverance, something I’ve come across on more than one occasion while sight-seeing across Australia. My sports story dealt with my wrestling career, mainly those matches against Dan Gerritsen from Hopewell-Loudon. He was my opponent in my first official match and he tossed me around like a rag doll. I didn’t do better than being technical falled by Gerritsen anytime I faced him sophomore year, my first in wrestling. Junior year I fared a bit better being major decisioned (winning by between 8 and 15 points) early in the year and finally only being beat by a decision (fewer than 8 points) in our final bout of the season.
Senior year held my best matches against Gerritsen. After being beaten all of those times, probably about 10 altogether, we met in the consolation finals at the league championships. I won with a 12-6 decision to take 3rd place in the MAL. My career had just about come full circle. The next week I wrestled Dan Gerritsen for the final time. It was the consolation semifinals at the Sectional Tournament. Both of us were seniors, so we wanted nothing more than to reach that previously unattainable level of the postseason state tournament, Districts. I had a comfortable lead (5 points) fairly late in the match, until Gerritsen knocked out my post (my right arm, which was holding me up) – perfectly legally, I might add – and I hit my head, blacking me out temporarily. When I came to, I found myself on my back, nearly being pinned in my last match as a Calvert wrestler.
I got myself to turn over and looked to my coaches, Matt Coleman and Mike Steyer. I knew the match was getting close to the end and that Gerritsen’s (and the entire Chieftain team’s) weakness was riding on top. Matt and Mike were yelling, “You need one!!” meaning I had to earn an escape from Gerritsen. I was, to my amazement, fairly calm and found my way out of Gerritsen’s grip within the last few seconds of the match. I got my one.
When my head hit the mat, I basically forgot the score, which is why I got to my stomach and looked to my coaches. I thought my escape at the end of regulation earned my shot at overtime. At this point, I remember being hunched over, uncharacteristically pretty fatigued (I prided myself on being the most fit wrestler in every one of my matches), looking over my shoulder at the scoreboard on the wall. It read 9-8 in my favor. The escape point not only kept me IN the match, it actually WON the match, punching my ticket to the District Wrestling Tournament.
My coaches were ecstatic. I was very happy, though it was tough to show at that minute. I remember looking at Gerritsen, knowing that just over two years ago he had been more than able to flip and flop me to easy wins. I went something like 8-25 in my first year wrestling, but, with plenty of support, I never gave up. I just wanted to get better. I ended up taking fourth at Sectionals and winning one match at Districts – achieving the goal set out by the coaches and me and the beginning of the year.
Not everyone has great stories like that. But the difficulty of achieving that feat for me was what really made it great. I learned how to effectively and intelligently lose weight. I learned new moves, went to summer camps, increased my level of conditioning. I had to sit out some weeks due to injury to my knees which doctors told me probably came from being thrown around all the time. My junior year ended prematurely after I hyper-extended my elbow at the league tournament near the end of the season.
I contemplated quitting, but couldn’t take that threat seriously because I had been voted a captain junior year and knew that, if nothing else, other people really wanted me to be there. For the team to say that I should be their captain really humbled me and let me know that I might not be there for the wins, but maybe for something else. This is “sports” for the 99% of people on this earth who aren’t stud athletes. It’s working hard for some goal that, in itself, might only be really important for a year or two.
With age comes wisdom (supposedly) and I’ve found that I use a lot of those lessons I’ve learned from sports at other times in my life. For example, when vacationing at Rottnest Island off the west coast of Australia, Sara and I rented bikes for the day to ride around the island. We later found out that the island was pretty hilly and not so easy for bike riding. When I got to the bottom of a hill, I felt a NEED to get to the top while pedaling. There was something inside me that told me I couldn’t stop until I got to the top of each hill.
Whether it’s “perseverance” or “stubbornness” is just a technicality. There are certain times during this trip where I almost feel too stubborn to let someone else do something for me. I felt that way during the first big meal with our Asian housemates when we all went out to eat authentic Chinese food. I used chopsticks the whole time mainly because I wouldn’t let that be a barrier for me – if someone else could do it, I should be able to do the same. Sports taught me that if I couldn’t do something well enough, my spot was taken and my basic worth for the team was gone. That’s probably the harshest way to put it.
Wrestling has put its two cents into my life a few times, especially when it comes to food. It was the most grueling sport I’ve ever participated in and it took the most years out of my body. It also taught my body how to go a long time having barely anything on which to run. While my stamina now isn’t at the point it was during wrestling season, it’s still pretty common for me to wait until dinner time to have anything substantial to eat or drink.
Watch me walk around campus at Ohio University on any given day of the week – I probably don’t stop a whole lot. I like to block classes and work together so I can stay on the go and not have to worry about food – though I have been better in recent years at drinking a full bottle of water over the course of a one-hour class (for better general health).
The best part about sports is that any participant can take these lessons away, regardless of which sport it is or age at the time of participation. All it takes is having an athlete who is willing to give her or her right arm to get something done – a willingness to start, dedication towards a final goal and perseverance to connect those two points (amongst many other great things that come out of sports, including the teamwork aspect, etc.).
Participating in sports has also taught me to be pretty resilient, keeping a strong mind no matter what the environment produces to make me consider otherwise. Imagine the concentration necessary of a college basketball player trying to make a free throw during a game while visiting Cameron Indoor. Now imagine that same person trying to concentrate on some task in an office where the boss simply walks in and says, “Hey, this needs to be done today.”
Also during the first meal with the housemates (yes, I learned a lot during that one little trip) I asked the landlady, Susie, what she thought about my chances at getting a job. The conversation progressed to my asking, “How many students get jobs usually??” Susie responded by saying, “It’ll be easier with people like [your housemates] not taking the jobs.”
Daniel is one of the housemates studying psychology at UniSA. When Susie said this, his only response was, “I can’t help it that I’m rich.” That really rubbed me the wrong way and made me feel like I was just some chump. But just a week ago I sat at the brunch table talking with Daniel and Susie (both from Malaysia) about things that are different in various countries. After I had tried my best at explaining baseball to Daniel (he followed really well until I had to try and explain stolen bases), he and Susie went on to give the Cliff Notes version on how the government in Malaysia worked.
I heard stories on how the Muslim regime basically runs the show, “once a Muslim, always a Muslim” and about how torture is used in some instances. Once this part was out there, it made me think back to the “I’m rich” comment with a little less anger. In the U.S. there is the idea of the “American Dream” where anyone can work really hard to build up cash supplies and find true happiness and success. Hearing about how Malaysia worked made me very happy to be an American, living in a country that generally won’t take you off and torture you; a place that holds the unofficial separation of church and state.
Comparing the U.S. to some other places, I find that it would be my choice to live. I’ve lived there the longest and that might be a lot of the reason I choose the U.S., but I feel that there are a lot of things going for good ol’ America despite all the negatives people bring up about political actions (or inactions) in place.
Sara and I just got finished with a trip to Hobart, Tasmania, which, to my surprise, is just another state of Australia. For some reason I thought it might be its own country, but I guess that’s just New Zealand. The Hobart trip was one of the best yet as far as activities go. I really like to hear about and see things that go in two categories – history and natural phenomena. We got a good dose of both in the same day during our trip to Port Arthur, a 19th century convict colony about an hour-and-a-half away from Hobart.
Along the way, we got to see “The Tesselated Pavement.” Because the east coast of Tasmania is located along a fault line, this piece of nature created itself without the assistance of civilization’s hands (whether intentional or unintentional). Water mixed its way into cracks in the stone and then made larger crevices when mixed with the shaking ground. I found it pretty cool anyway.
After that stop, we continued on to Port Arthur, officially Tasmania’s top tourist attraction. Hearing the history of Australia’s largest penal colony was pretty interesting as that topic is considered one of Aussie history’s most prominent. One such story involved the buildings that housed the convicts when the site first opened in 1833. We were told that if the structures were used to house army soldiers today, they would provide living space for between 40 and 60 men. Back at the time of establishment, however, these structures had earthen floors, no plumbing (so waste buckets were a must) and housed over 1,000 convicts!! Talk about horrible conditions. Eventually an old flour mill and kitchen on the settlement was converted to a new penitentiary (seen below), which gave the convicts better living arrangements.
When the convicts misbehaved, they could receive between 25 and 100 lashes to their backs. At first some of them were so damaged by these lashings that they found pass out and had to be revived in a bath filled with freezing cold saltwater. Eventually the prisoners became almost immune to the punishment and the physical injuries didn’t stop them from continuing to misbehave.
This was when the prison officials decided to implement mental punishment, building a completely separate place to house those offenders deemed “worthy” of a new wave of injury. The cells were extremely small and were assigned to individual convicts. All that was in the cells was a small stool and table on which to eat, one shelf on the wall to hold the Bible and possibly one personal belonging and the convict’s bedding. There was nothing but natural lighting, either. The convicts weren’t allowed to see anyone other than an occasional officer who took them out to dump their waste bucket or take them out to the exercise yard, where the convicts spent AT MOST one hour (on the luckiest of days).
If the convicts acted up while already in this separate prison, they were sentenced to do time in the building’s solitary confinement chamber. It was separated from the rest of the building by four doors that were each a meter thick, with no two doors open at the same time. The convict then had to stay in absolute darkness and silence for up to weeks. They had to receive a certain amount of rations (consisting of simple bread and water) for each 36 hour period they were in there, but sometimes the guards would mess with the confined prisoner’s mind by giving them two rations fairly close together in time.
As long as the prisoner received the allotted amount during each 36-hour period, it was still legal. So, for example, a prisoner might go 35 hours without food before receiving that period’s rations. The guards might then bring the next ration within an hour – messing with the convict’s biological clock and forcing the convict to sit with the ration in the cell for a long period of time OR eating them both fairly quickly, then not getting anything else for possibly 3 days’ time. Also, since the prisoner’s in that cell were in complete darkness, often when they retreated back to the normal cells, the natural sunlight was too bright and immediately blinded them. Now THAT is what I consider doing the time. I found these various stories fascinating.
Saturday in Hobart held adventures of outdoor activities. We began the morning by kayaking in the bays and river surrounding Hobart, hearing some history of the harbor and wildlife. We didn’t tip the boat, which was good, but somehow I ended up with the whole back side of my jeans being soaked in water. Sara was completely dry. Go figure.
After a quick change into sweatpants (my only pair of pants remaining), we got on a bus to ride a little ways up Mount Wellington. With our guide and another pair of hikers, we then set off to trek our way up the mountain. Our guide, Jeff, was pretty funny and knew a lot about the natural plants and animals that inhabit the mountain, so we got more little tidbits of information about the area. The views overlooking Hobart from the mountainside are spectacular and I recommend you taking a look through my facebook album “Hobart #2” if you haven’t already. The picture below is shot from a small landing where we stopped to eat lunch (which was delicious, I might add).
At the top it was really freezing and snowy. People in Hobart really never get to see snow unless they get to the top of Mount Wellington, so they were all going crazy. Apparently it’s a tradition to build a snowman on the hood of your car (here they’re called, “bonnets” haha) and try to drive all the way back to your house without losing it, which sounds like a hilarious and challenging thing to try and do, considering the road going from the top of the mountain to the bottom is ridiculously curvy.
Our flight made it back to Adelaide safe and sound on Sunday, the day of my birthday. I had forgot it was August 12 until Sara randomly said, “Hey, happy birthday,” to me that morning at the bus stop. The only birthday I’ve really celebrated in the past how many years was last year’s 21st in Cincinnati (for obvious reasons). Luke Florence put it best when he recently told me, “It's official, we are getting old. 21 was cool and fun, but now, it's just overkill.” I didn’t really celebrate much, though the housemates surprised me by getting a thick chocolate cake and singing for me. Sara and I figured out that we told them our birthdays in casual conversation during one of the first days we were here and they remembered it. That fact will probably be included in one of my future blog posts having to deal with “things that are universal no matter who you are or where you’re from.”
I spent the latter part of my birthday doing laundry, cleaning the room and going to church. It may have been relatively uneventful, but maybe I’ll just belatedly celebrate this weekend. But Saturday can’t be too rough considering I’ll be spending Sunday on the beach at Glenelg for “Learn to Surf” day with the Student Exchange Society.
That’s it for now. Love you all in the states, check back soon to hear stories from the above two events, as they will likely be enough to fill an entire blog post.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, start digging.
My story had to do with perseverance, something I’ve come across on more than one occasion while sight-seeing across Australia. My sports story dealt with my wrestling career, mainly those matches against Dan Gerritsen from Hopewell-Loudon. He was my opponent in my first official match and he tossed me around like a rag doll. I didn’t do better than being technical falled by Gerritsen anytime I faced him sophomore year, my first in wrestling. Junior year I fared a bit better being major decisioned (winning by between 8 and 15 points) early in the year and finally only being beat by a decision (fewer than 8 points) in our final bout of the season.
Senior year held my best matches against Gerritsen. After being beaten all of those times, probably about 10 altogether, we met in the consolation finals at the league championships. I won with a 12-6 decision to take 3rd place in the MAL. My career had just about come full circle. The next week I wrestled Dan Gerritsen for the final time. It was the consolation semifinals at the Sectional Tournament. Both of us were seniors, so we wanted nothing more than to reach that previously unattainable level of the postseason state tournament, Districts. I had a comfortable lead (5 points) fairly late in the match, until Gerritsen knocked out my post (my right arm, which was holding me up) – perfectly legally, I might add – and I hit my head, blacking me out temporarily. When I came to, I found myself on my back, nearly being pinned in my last match as a Calvert wrestler.
I got myself to turn over and looked to my coaches, Matt Coleman and Mike Steyer. I knew the match was getting close to the end and that Gerritsen’s (and the entire Chieftain team’s) weakness was riding on top. Matt and Mike were yelling, “You need one!!” meaning I had to earn an escape from Gerritsen. I was, to my amazement, fairly calm and found my way out of Gerritsen’s grip within the last few seconds of the match. I got my one.
When my head hit the mat, I basically forgot the score, which is why I got to my stomach and looked to my coaches. I thought my escape at the end of regulation earned my shot at overtime. At this point, I remember being hunched over, uncharacteristically pretty fatigued (I prided myself on being the most fit wrestler in every one of my matches), looking over my shoulder at the scoreboard on the wall. It read 9-8 in my favor. The escape point not only kept me IN the match, it actually WON the match, punching my ticket to the District Wrestling Tournament.
My coaches were ecstatic. I was very happy, though it was tough to show at that minute. I remember looking at Gerritsen, knowing that just over two years ago he had been more than able to flip and flop me to easy wins. I went something like 8-25 in my first year wrestling, but, with plenty of support, I never gave up. I just wanted to get better. I ended up taking fourth at Sectionals and winning one match at Districts – achieving the goal set out by the coaches and me and the beginning of the year.
Not everyone has great stories like that. But the difficulty of achieving that feat for me was what really made it great. I learned how to effectively and intelligently lose weight. I learned new moves, went to summer camps, increased my level of conditioning. I had to sit out some weeks due to injury to my knees which doctors told me probably came from being thrown around all the time. My junior year ended prematurely after I hyper-extended my elbow at the league tournament near the end of the season.
I contemplated quitting, but couldn’t take that threat seriously because I had been voted a captain junior year and knew that, if nothing else, other people really wanted me to be there. For the team to say that I should be their captain really humbled me and let me know that I might not be there for the wins, but maybe for something else. This is “sports” for the 99% of people on this earth who aren’t stud athletes. It’s working hard for some goal that, in itself, might only be really important for a year or two.
With age comes wisdom (supposedly) and I’ve found that I use a lot of those lessons I’ve learned from sports at other times in my life. For example, when vacationing at Rottnest Island off the west coast of Australia, Sara and I rented bikes for the day to ride around the island. We later found out that the island was pretty hilly and not so easy for bike riding. When I got to the bottom of a hill, I felt a NEED to get to the top while pedaling. There was something inside me that told me I couldn’t stop until I got to the top of each hill.
Whether it’s “perseverance” or “stubbornness” is just a technicality. There are certain times during this trip where I almost feel too stubborn to let someone else do something for me. I felt that way during the first big meal with our Asian housemates when we all went out to eat authentic Chinese food. I used chopsticks the whole time mainly because I wouldn’t let that be a barrier for me – if someone else could do it, I should be able to do the same. Sports taught me that if I couldn’t do something well enough, my spot was taken and my basic worth for the team was gone. That’s probably the harshest way to put it.
Wrestling has put its two cents into my life a few times, especially when it comes to food. It was the most grueling sport I’ve ever participated in and it took the most years out of my body. It also taught my body how to go a long time having barely anything on which to run. While my stamina now isn’t at the point it was during wrestling season, it’s still pretty common for me to wait until dinner time to have anything substantial to eat or drink.
Watch me walk around campus at Ohio University on any given day of the week – I probably don’t stop a whole lot. I like to block classes and work together so I can stay on the go and not have to worry about food – though I have been better in recent years at drinking a full bottle of water over the course of a one-hour class (for better general health).
The best part about sports is that any participant can take these lessons away, regardless of which sport it is or age at the time of participation. All it takes is having an athlete who is willing to give her or her right arm to get something done – a willingness to start, dedication towards a final goal and perseverance to connect those two points (amongst many other great things that come out of sports, including the teamwork aspect, etc.).
Participating in sports has also taught me to be pretty resilient, keeping a strong mind no matter what the environment produces to make me consider otherwise. Imagine the concentration necessary of a college basketball player trying to make a free throw during a game while visiting Cameron Indoor. Now imagine that same person trying to concentrate on some task in an office where the boss simply walks in and says, “Hey, this needs to be done today.”
Also during the first meal with the housemates (yes, I learned a lot during that one little trip) I asked the landlady, Susie, what she thought about my chances at getting a job. The conversation progressed to my asking, “How many students get jobs usually??” Susie responded by saying, “It’ll be easier with people like [your housemates] not taking the jobs.”
Daniel is one of the housemates studying psychology at UniSA. When Susie said this, his only response was, “I can’t help it that I’m rich.” That really rubbed me the wrong way and made me feel like I was just some chump. But just a week ago I sat at the brunch table talking with Daniel and Susie (both from Malaysia) about things that are different in various countries. After I had tried my best at explaining baseball to Daniel (he followed really well until I had to try and explain stolen bases), he and Susie went on to give the Cliff Notes version on how the government in Malaysia worked.
I heard stories on how the Muslim regime basically runs the show, “once a Muslim, always a Muslim” and about how torture is used in some instances. Once this part was out there, it made me think back to the “I’m rich” comment with a little less anger. In the U.S. there is the idea of the “American Dream” where anyone can work really hard to build up cash supplies and find true happiness and success. Hearing about how Malaysia worked made me very happy to be an American, living in a country that generally won’t take you off and torture you; a place that holds the unofficial separation of church and state.
Comparing the U.S. to some other places, I find that it would be my choice to live. I’ve lived there the longest and that might be a lot of the reason I choose the U.S., but I feel that there are a lot of things going for good ol’ America despite all the negatives people bring up about political actions (or inactions) in place.
Sara and I just got finished with a trip to Hobart, Tasmania, which, to my surprise, is just another state of Australia. For some reason I thought it might be its own country, but I guess that’s just New Zealand. The Hobart trip was one of the best yet as far as activities go. I really like to hear about and see things that go in two categories – history and natural phenomena. We got a good dose of both in the same day during our trip to Port Arthur, a 19th century convict colony about an hour-and-a-half away from Hobart.
Along the way, we got to see “The Tesselated Pavement.” Because the east coast of Tasmania is located along a fault line, this piece of nature created itself without the assistance of civilization’s hands (whether intentional or unintentional). Water mixed its way into cracks in the stone and then made larger crevices when mixed with the shaking ground. I found it pretty cool anyway.
After that stop, we continued on to Port Arthur, officially Tasmania’s top tourist attraction. Hearing the history of Australia’s largest penal colony was pretty interesting as that topic is considered one of Aussie history’s most prominent. One such story involved the buildings that housed the convicts when the site first opened in 1833. We were told that if the structures were used to house army soldiers today, they would provide living space for between 40 and 60 men. Back at the time of establishment, however, these structures had earthen floors, no plumbing (so waste buckets were a must) and housed over 1,000 convicts!! Talk about horrible conditions. Eventually an old flour mill and kitchen on the settlement was converted to a new penitentiary (seen below), which gave the convicts better living arrangements.
When the convicts misbehaved, they could receive between 25 and 100 lashes to their backs. At first some of them were so damaged by these lashings that they found pass out and had to be revived in a bath filled with freezing cold saltwater. Eventually the prisoners became almost immune to the punishment and the physical injuries didn’t stop them from continuing to misbehave.
This was when the prison officials decided to implement mental punishment, building a completely separate place to house those offenders deemed “worthy” of a new wave of injury. The cells were extremely small and were assigned to individual convicts. All that was in the cells was a small stool and table on which to eat, one shelf on the wall to hold the Bible and possibly one personal belonging and the convict’s bedding. There was nothing but natural lighting, either. The convicts weren’t allowed to see anyone other than an occasional officer who took them out to dump their waste bucket or take them out to the exercise yard, where the convicts spent AT MOST one hour (on the luckiest of days).
If the convicts acted up while already in this separate prison, they were sentenced to do time in the building’s solitary confinement chamber. It was separated from the rest of the building by four doors that were each a meter thick, with no two doors open at the same time. The convict then had to stay in absolute darkness and silence for up to weeks. They had to receive a certain amount of rations (consisting of simple bread and water) for each 36 hour period they were in there, but sometimes the guards would mess with the confined prisoner’s mind by giving them two rations fairly close together in time.
As long as the prisoner received the allotted amount during each 36-hour period, it was still legal. So, for example, a prisoner might go 35 hours without food before receiving that period’s rations. The guards might then bring the next ration within an hour – messing with the convict’s biological clock and forcing the convict to sit with the ration in the cell for a long period of time OR eating them both fairly quickly, then not getting anything else for possibly 3 days’ time. Also, since the prisoner’s in that cell were in complete darkness, often when they retreated back to the normal cells, the natural sunlight was too bright and immediately blinded them. Now THAT is what I consider doing the time. I found these various stories fascinating.
Saturday in Hobart held adventures of outdoor activities. We began the morning by kayaking in the bays and river surrounding Hobart, hearing some history of the harbor and wildlife. We didn’t tip the boat, which was good, but somehow I ended up with the whole back side of my jeans being soaked in water. Sara was completely dry. Go figure.
After a quick change into sweatpants (my only pair of pants remaining), we got on a bus to ride a little ways up Mount Wellington. With our guide and another pair of hikers, we then set off to trek our way up the mountain. Our guide, Jeff, was pretty funny and knew a lot about the natural plants and animals that inhabit the mountain, so we got more little tidbits of information about the area. The views overlooking Hobart from the mountainside are spectacular and I recommend you taking a look through my facebook album “Hobart #2” if you haven’t already. The picture below is shot from a small landing where we stopped to eat lunch (which was delicious, I might add).
At the top it was really freezing and snowy. People in Hobart really never get to see snow unless they get to the top of Mount Wellington, so they were all going crazy. Apparently it’s a tradition to build a snowman on the hood of your car (here they’re called, “bonnets” haha) and try to drive all the way back to your house without losing it, which sounds like a hilarious and challenging thing to try and do, considering the road going from the top of the mountain to the bottom is ridiculously curvy.
Our flight made it back to Adelaide safe and sound on Sunday, the day of my birthday. I had forgot it was August 12 until Sara randomly said, “Hey, happy birthday,” to me that morning at the bus stop. The only birthday I’ve really celebrated in the past how many years was last year’s 21st in Cincinnati (for obvious reasons). Luke Florence put it best when he recently told me, “It's official, we are getting old. 21 was cool and fun, but now, it's just overkill.” I didn’t really celebrate much, though the housemates surprised me by getting a thick chocolate cake and singing for me. Sara and I figured out that we told them our birthdays in casual conversation during one of the first days we were here and they remembered it. That fact will probably be included in one of my future blog posts having to deal with “things that are universal no matter who you are or where you’re from.”
I spent the latter part of my birthday doing laundry, cleaning the room and going to church. It may have been relatively uneventful, but maybe I’ll just belatedly celebrate this weekend. But Saturday can’t be too rough considering I’ll be spending Sunday on the beach at Glenelg for “Learn to Surf” day with the Student Exchange Society.
That’s it for now. Love you all in the states, check back soon to hear stories from the above two events, as they will likely be enough to fill an entire blog post.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, start digging.
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