Thepunkguy

so I am finally getting around to posting some pictures from Australia. Here’s some panoramic pictures from Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef.

click to make bigger.

So before I end up posting a shit load of pictures, let’s talk about Australia. Unfortunately due to unseen circumstances, I was unable to go to Melbourne. So most of my trip was spent in either Sydney or in Cairns (aka the Great Barrier Reef.)

So some things I have definitely learned on my trip:

a. Australians love rules. Well, actually Australians, hate rules, the Australian government LOVES rules. I mean there are the strangest rules in Sydney. We visited this one bar that was suspected to be a “trouble” bar, which means they had to call the cops the most, even if the call wasn’t violent. Anyway, this bar couldn’t serve SHOTS after midnight. And for awhile had to take ten minutes at the top of everywhere without serving any drinks at all. what’s up with that?

I am going to start up a bar, I can’t serve alcohol and people will be thrown out if they smile!!

Truly fuckin’ strange.

b. I really take it back. I swear. Everyone I met through someone was the nicest person ever. It was the bogans. yes bogans. the Australian version of rednecks. They were everywhere in Cairns. They don’t like Americans. They also don’t like anything else really.

c. Most people will not say “god bless you” when you sneeze. I had the discussion with someone that maybe the only person who says it to you is someone who likes you or is related to you. Have you ever been hanging out with someone who you like but you don’t know how they feel? Wouldn’t this be a great test.. Can you believe it, Rebecca said God Bless You. Hot Damn!

d. Australians truly are linguistically lazy. They shorten football. The word only has two syllables. Two fucking syllables. They call it footy. Which I think is way too cutesy for such an aggressive game.

There are currently three different sports that confuse the fuck out of me in Australia. One is rugby, one is called rugby rules (I think) and the other is AFL (australian football league). One of them is about kicking a ball through poles. One of them, the dudes are fucking huge and you can’t be on team if you have a neck. One of them involves kind of stopping and going, alla “downs” in our football. There might be a fourth. Who knows. Anyone?

e. Korean tourists are friendly and fun and smoke. In that order.

f. Australian beaches are beautiful. Period. I don’t like beaches and like these beaches, if that gives you any idea of how nice the beaches are.

g. I had a lot of trouble finding an Australian delicacy. I tried Vegemite. It was anti-climatic. I ate sour cream and hot chili sauce with potato wedges. It was tasty. I ate tomato sauce (sshhh, it’s actually just ketchup.) I asked around and most Aussies told me that they don’t really have much of their own food. I did eat some good Malaysian food, Italian and good seafood. Let’s get at it Australia.

h. Sydney is not very PC. I mean, they aren’t PC at all. There is a picture that I will put below, that I thought was incredibly racist. No one, even the half Chinese girl I was drinking with, did not think it was racist at all, and I quote “that’s what we look like.” Wow and wow.

i. Do whatever you can not to fly to Australia in one shot. I mean as great of a time I had, which I very much did, don’t fly. If they have invented transportation by the time I write this, just do that, no matter what the cost. The plane and travel is really exhausting. And it takes a lifetime and a day. A day that you get back cause you time travel.

j. Time travel is awesome.

so anyway, that’s about it for writing, go and visit australia, (take two seperate flights if you can) and make sure you meet friends of friends. It’s a beautiful continent and really really big, so take some time to travel around.

also watch a footy game, it’s wondy… or something.

I take it back. Australians DO like Americans. Or maybe just the Australians I met in Sydney. Those guys are sweet.

However below is some proof that Australians think we’re fat..

I am leaving tomorrow and plan to do some serious time travel experiments on my way home. I leave Sydney at 9am on Wednesday and then arrive in LA at 7am on that same Wednesday morning.

Any suggestions on how I might disrupt the time continuum? I plan on maybe standing on my hands at 8am in Australia and then on my feet again at 8am in LA.

Ill text myself the word carrot and then the word torrac again. We’ll see what happens.

If the world implodes, I am sorry, I was just being curious.

I will be writing a full “words” update as well, as one or two posts of photos.

Someone in this internet cafe stinks like patchouli oil. Glad to know that hippies are everywhere and not just in America.

PS I will be sporting a new look when I get home. Watch out!!

So far, my theory that people from New Jersey are literally stuffed into every corner of this globe has yet to be 100 % debunked but I am starting to wonder…

Let me tell you this with 100 percent certainty; Australians fuckin’ hate Americans. Period. There is very little wiggle room when it comes to this. For some reason, I swear I thought we’d get along just fine, you know with the whole sharing a language thing and all. Nope. I mean don’t get me wrong, all of the Australians I have met have eventually liked me. But this is after about ten drinks and a ton of convincing. (note to editor… try bribing more often)

I am not sure which Americans have come in and fucked up this country / continent but you’d think they’d hate us less than the Brits but that’s not true. Damn. Do the Canadians still like us?

Things I have done in the town of Cairns, Queensland, Australia that I didn’t expect I do:
a. come this close to winning a game of Ping Pong against a Brit with a radiohead tattoo
b. Eat chicken wings with 3 Brits, 2 Chicagoians and 1 Australian
c. Be welcomed into a clan of four Korean tourists
d. Hear so much god damned dance music
e. Explode into a million freckles
f. Actually hear the song “Land down under” by Men At Work
g. Drink a lot.

wait maybe I expected that last one to happen.

Things I did while I was here (and kind of expected to happen):
a. See the Great Barrier Reef in all of it’s amazingness (wait till you see the pictures)
b. Sleep in a bunk bed
c. Go White Water Rafting down the Barron river
d. Eat the worst slice of pizza I have ever had
e. (last minute addition) Eat the worst hot dog ever. (picture will prove this one also)

Cairns is a strange little town that I have tried to summarize four times already but keep having to delete it cause none of it really fit right. It’s all the beauty in the world wrapped up with a bit of abnoxiousness nestled in a box of a sleepy beach town. Come and visit. If you visit before you’re 30, you can get a year work visa.

Ok back to Sydney and then maybe to Melbourne. Fuck I do not need to fly on any more planes.

more soon..

So unfortunately, I might not be able to post pictures till I get home since I have been taking pictures at the highest resolution and for some reason (I am looking at you webmaster) I can’t upload any pictures or save comments or anything.. so you’ll have to hear more about my trip without seeing any of it at the moment.

A small compiled list of things:

a. My favorite line of the trip so far; “Linguistically, Australia is the laziest of all English speaking countries.”

Remind me to start every sentence with the word, Linguistically.

b. (Linguistically) in the last 24 hours I have eaten:
four coffees, vegemite (like a salty butter, pretty anticlimatic), calamari, beer, beer and some more Australian beer. Toohey’s and Coopers mostly.

I also ate a “meat pie” from this famous place called Harry’s. here’s the LINK. it looked like a cupcake with the cream on top being mashed potatoes and the cream on very tippy top being mashed peas. not to mention the inside of the cupcake looking thing was chicken and mushrooms. yeah. exactly.

it was surprisingly good.

c. I did a double decker tour bus thingy of Syndey. I found out that Darling Harbor said in an Australian accent sounds not so fun when it’s said over and over. It would phonetically be pronounced “Dah LINGGG HAH BAH” it’s truly nightmare inspiring.

d. things I learned so far:

1. an slutty guy or girl is called a “slapper” but it’s mostly of English origin
2. a bridge and tunnel type is called a “westie”
3. australians love.. the Australian Ass Crack. the AAC. rock that shit everywhere. I have seen more ass crack in two days than one man should in a lifetime. (that being said, Geoff is the biggest offender of them all)
4. trying to install a dryer at midnight drunk is a bad idea no matter what hemisphere you are in.

more teachings soon..

e. Sydney is really beautiful and their ‘winter’ is way better than any other winter I have experienced in my life. If you come here, you must see Bondi and Rose Bay and Paddington.

so tomorrow morning I will be going to Cairns (the Great Barrier Reef). I have to get up at 5am for the 3 hour flight. More flights?? Bets on me not making it??

Let me say this, when I walked off the plane in Sydney, I was welcomed with something I missed. Cool fucking temperature. I am talking like amazing 60 degree weather from SF weather. It was amazing and like the most perfect,” good morning” I could ask for.

Have I mentioned why Delta and I are no longer fighting? Well I got on the phone with someone from Delta and told him my plight of the night before (HERE) and not to mention, when I showed up at LAX I found out that they had issued me a middle seat. A middle seat for 14 hours. fuck that. so I called… I brought all I could to the performance. it paid off. Within 20 minutes, I was in Business Class. Have you ever taken business class for 14 hours? Well, neither have I. And truth be told I couldn’t tell you what it was like, since I slept 9 straight hours of that flight. Lovely. Like a handjob burrito.

So when I got to Sydney, I got a call from my buddy Geoff, who I am staying with. He was slurring his words and speaking in what I thought was some strange aboriginal language. Actually he had just gotten off of work and was still completely hammered. Ha.

I am staying in a nice area called Balmine. It’s kind of like Park Slope, really nice and cute with no fast way to get there. It’s like a 20 dollar cab ride and one bus that brings you here.

Sydney is beautiful. It is sort of a mix between San Francisco and London, or Maybe Stockholm. Lots of water, lots of bridges and tons of hills. Tons of seafood too.

I dropped Geoff off and then proceeded downtown, which I later found out isn’t really called downtown but the center city. Semantics…

The Opera House, is as expected, pretty beautiful and stunning, the weather didn’t hurt it either. I did a little video on my phone and if I can I will upload it.

I tried the local energy drink called E or some shit. A picture will be attached eventually. It tasted like green apples and made my ears hurt. I’d try it again.

Then I proceeded to walk all around this city. I swear must have done 5 km. *a little metric joke there. took about 200 pictures.

So far I have had a traditional Australian b’fast which mostly was a traditional English b’fast. Some octopus and fries for lunch. And for dinner some bar good which was called Potato Wedges but it was really just french fries with a sweet chili sauce and sour cream.

things I have noticed..
a. australians are not scared of dumb hats. lots of dumb friggin outback hats.
b. there are a ton of strange birds around. things I don’t even know if they’re birds or not. i have a picture of this huge beaked bird about an inch from my camera. I think he was telling me something.
c. there’s definitely a version of bridge and tunnel in sydney. I have to find out what they’re called.
d. my friend Geoff swears that my “eyes will get sunburned”. maybe he was drunk or maybe things really do work differently down here.

more soon.