Travel experiences: Australia

After over 24 hours of flying from Jacksonville, Florida it was a relief to get here, nervous of course because I jumped into this alone. I’m glad about that though. I feel like at the end of all this I’ll have the experience to actually deal with the “real world” in a way that college doesn’t compare to. With the added incentive that I get to immerse myself in Australian culture. Initial problems arose, wattage, which I foolish neglected (even though I knew it wouldn’t be the same). I solved this issue within a few hours when I visited a “chemist” which served as a sort of Walgreens with drugs and various other goods. The trek to find the converter took a while, with some bumps along the road. I walked into a place with the words “tool shop” on the outside assuming it might have something to do with electronics and hardware, etc… I was a bit surprised when I reached the top step to find that the word “tool” was a euphemism. Made a little note to myself that any store with stairs probably isn’t selling conventional goods. Driving looks out of the question, taking a cab here was just a blur of cars. I was baffled we didn’t get into an accident. I’ve been in cabs before, but this was ridiculous. Eighty kilometres on a two lane street with houses on both sides, that paints a good picture. Not to mention it cost me more to get a taxi here then it did to spend the night. Its strange, given how large Australia is, that it all isn’t spread out a bit more. I don’t think most people realize how big this continent is, most people think its the size of Texas but Australia is enormous. I know Sydney isn’t the outback, but even in city centre I expected some sort of space here and there. Currency takes getting used to, there are no one or two dollar bills, coins instead. The hotel check-in is at 1pm, which was of course a hassle considering I got here at eight in the morning. I waited in the lobby for a while before walking around for the next few hours. I plan on visiting Melbourne and Brisbane, probably Melbourne first in about one more week. I’ve started looking into the next place to stay. Everything is similar and foreign at the same time, which I love. I’ve noticed odd things; certain things that were popular a decade ago in the states are still thriving, everyone is a bit more friendly of course, but not eagerly talkative. The radio stations are, well, awful. most of the music is an amalgamation of 80s and 90s music blended into a sort of light-pop music style. They don’t have toilet paper here, would have been nice to know before I came. I mean, it could be isolated to where I’m staying, but they have tissue sheets instead. No shower heads, I’m sure thats just because of the thriftiness of the hotel. Met a nice guy from Perth who had been traveling around, including Florida. He’s leaving tomorrow unfortunately and the rest of my room ‘mates’ (look, a pun) don’t speak English incredibly well. In nine more days I’ll probably be at the YWCA a few blocks away, which is friendlier and cheaper. I’ll try to sound more coherent in the future but for now I figured the best way to explain things was to talk about them the way I saw them; one big chunk of strange notables.

- September 16th, 2005