Australia

I'm so damn far behind on my other posts that I'm going to just go ahead with new ones.  I'll post new ones regularly as I go, and occasionally I'll supplement with a few old ones from my adventures with Blove and Veber.

This time around, I'm headin out solo.  It was a great privilege to travel with Blove and Veber, two of the best guys I know.  We had some incredible times and a ton of fun.  Unfortunately they are staying back in the USA attempting to become responsible and contributing members of society.  I choose to put that off for a little while longer...

I was admittedly a bit apprehensive at first about the prospect of traveling solo.  I'd been solo for a few days before--when Blove and I split up in Vietnam so that he could travel to Sapa and I could travel to Halong Bay--but this experience will be completely different.  I'm making my own itinerary.  I haven't really even decided where I'm going after Australia, but Fiji, Malaysia, and Indonesia are all top candidates.

I arrived in Melbourne last Wednesday after a long 15+ hour flight.  I actually slept about eight hours, so when I arrived (at 8 in the morning), I felt good and rested.  It didn't take too long to acclimate myself to the clock.  I wandered around for a few hours until I got in touch with my friend Ryan who lives in Melbourne.  I met him back in South America when he, Blove, and I all traveled through parts of Peru and Bolivia together.  I'd been looking forward to meeting up with him in his hometown, where he let me crash on a mattress behind the couch.

Surprisingly comfortable

So that is where I made 'home' for the next week.  I couldn't have been happier about it all, to tell you the truth.  Ryan was very generous to allow me to stay with him, he has been a fantastic host, and it's a helluva lot more comfortable than many hostels I've stayed in.  Not to mention, the internet is AWESOME.  Finding good internet when you're abroad is like finding a unicorn.  It just doesn't happen very often.

So Ryan and I hung out a bit, played a little game of pick-up basketball in the park behind his house, then went out and got a few steaks and beers with some of his mates.  We had fun, played a little pool, then I was overcome with jetlag and decided to crash.

For the next two days, my schedule was pretty simple.  I'd wander and explore the city for a few hours, Ryan would come home from work, we'd play a little basketball, then grab some beers and dinner.  It's been great.

In my wanderings I've happened upon a few very interesting things.  There was one street performer that was shredding on his electric guitar, using hammer-ons Van Halen style, all the while playing on a digeridoo.  Wicked cool.  I wandered through a few back alleys as well, seeing some of the most impressive displays of graffiti I've ever seen.

I think some of it is actually commissioned art, so it's all very intricate.  One day I went to the aquarium, which was a lot of fun to see as well.  It's not as big as the Baltimore aquarium which I'm used to, but it had some cool sharks and rays that I'm pretty sure are not in Baltimore, as well as penguins.  Who couldn't love a penguin?

*Side note: For a few of my friends who might be reading this, and you know who you are, actual penguins are cool as long as they have no affiliation whatsoever to the Pittsburgh Penguins organization or its affiliates.  Also, Crosby sucks.  

I tried to get a photo of the hammerhead too, but he wasn't very cooperative.  He wasn't too photogenic either.  The aquarium was interesting though, with plenty of jellies, fish, and crustaceans from all corners of the world.

On St. Patricks Day, which I thought I had missed, I met Ryan at a bar called the Irish Times or something like that and did the usual.  Drank lots of Guinness, the occasional Jameson, blah, blah, very exciting.  It was cool to be around a few actual Irish people though, which is a change from Ann Arbor frat parties which have no Irish people, just drunk sorority girls, Jewish guys in basketball jerseys (in 40 degree weather), and an abundance of "festive" green beer.  Not that I didn't enjoy that sort of thing while I was there, just that being around Irish people seems more authentic, if you will.

On the weekend, Ryan and his roommate Kahlia took me on a tour of some of the areas of the city that are a little less accessible without transportation.  They took me out to see the St. Kildas area, which was absolutely awesome.  The area around Luna Park reminded me of both the Santa Monica Pier and Funland/Boardwalk area in Rehoboth Beach.

Me, Kahlia, and Ryan outside Luna Park

Epic air hockey games...but i think i was a bit out of practice...got my butt kicked

Kahlia, Me, Ryan

That night, one of Ryan's mates was having a birthday party at some bar which was all rockstar themed. Once we found out everyone was rockin' some kind of awesome costume, makeup and all, we decided to go all-out.  Ryan went as Alice Cooper and I went as Slash from Guns N' Roses.

We had an awesome time at the party and closed the place down.  On the walk home we grabbed some Hungry Jacks (basically Australian Burger King), which as delicious as it was, is always a nightmare to deal with the next day.

The next day we took it easy (as you might imagine), hung out a bit, and went to the park where the guys showed me the ins and outs of how to hackey-sack.  It's not a big thing to do in the States.  If you hackey you're either a stoner or you simply have no explanation.  But that's not the case Down Under, and we fooled around for a few hours until I started getting the hang of it.

After the weekend, I borrowed Ryan's car and took a drive down the Great Ocean Road.  More stories and photos to come.