Auckland, New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It has the excitement of a city with the relaxation of a Caribbean island. The city itself has everything you could ever need, great shopping, some sketchy Chinese or Thai massage parlor on a few corners, not to mention is the hub of the financial district. If you take a short ferry ride to various islands you get a remote atmosphere with beautiful beaches.. kind of like a Cayman Islands feel. When we first arrived to the city, it was about 2am and we were all exhausted. The next day we went on a boat ride around the Bay Area where they explained the history of the city. I got burned. Again. Then we briefly docked at an island and had sometime to walk around. As I was walking down this lava path with my aunt we met this lovely New Zealander and whose family lived on this island for over 100 years, and every morning he wakes up, goes down to the rocks, fishes, catches something, then smokes the fish, then sweeps his driveway where we met him. I've always debated whether I'd like to live a remote life like that, sort of off the grid, or if I have to always have to have something to do.. I think if I lived a life like his I'd get bored in a weeks time and have to move to a city, but this man's lifestyle was interesting.
So then it was time to get back on the boat and finish the harbor cruise, or whatever. But we realized as the boat was pulling away that my brother didn't board. As the boat slowly left the dock, we saw Marc standing at the dock, stranded on this little island with no money and no ticket back to the port for any other boats. Whoopsy. Luckily my dad was able to talk to the girl who worked on the boat to allow my brother onto the next boat that would leave an hour and a half later. I guess that's what happens when you don't follow directions, you get stranded on some random island and forced to smoke and catch fish all day.
While Marc was stranded, the rest of the crew and I decided to grab a quick lunch, then head to the island Waiheke where my roommate Christine lived for about a year in between undergrad and graduate school. At lunch we ran into a bit of a debacle. My mother the vegetarian for 30+ years ordered a veggie sandwich but without mushrooms because she is allergic. The sandwich comes, everyone is eating blahblahblah... she's eating mushrooms, and no one has an epi-pen. So basically we are waiting for her to just collapse and die, or something cause no one but me seemed too concerned about it. I kept staring her down and waiting for something to happen AND NOTHING DID. Good news world, the mushrooms allergy was a lie, now I can stop being a mushroom nazi and hardcore inspecting everything before my mother eats it. DREAM.
Anyways, we headed to Waiheke. One thing I've noticed about New Zealanders is that they love their mullets, rat tails, lack of deodorant, and tribal tattoos. The hair styles are ridiculous, like every other person has either a mullet of some sort of rats tail or messy hair bleach job. They also smell terrible, which is especially uncomfortable when you're on a bus and some public bus and there's a smelly man sitting practically on top of you with the window open and his arm propped up on the window sill with his body odor wafting straight into your eyes burning them as well as your nose and mouth, so bad that you take taste it (this has happened multiple times). And then there's the tribal tats. I'm sorry, what English/European tribe are you from? I asked one guy what his tattoo meant, and he said it's something in someone's native language with import shapes that represent something.. Now, don't you think you should know what your tribal tat means for that tribe before you get it on your body permanently? I see it as a form of neo- imperialism, a new hipster way to offend the indigenous cultures, just get something random tattooed on you. So anyways, those were my observations from the boat ride and traveling around the island. On the island we visited the place where Christine worked and walked around. I tried to buy a glass of wine from the island vineyards, but they didn't accept my drivers license and apparently I look under 18. Although finally I convinced the lady at the bar and tried some rose wine that was made there, which was great. I wanted to buy a bottle but we had to head back to the ferry and go back to Auckland.
When we arrived at the dock, my brother was there waiting for us, safe and returned from the isolated island. In New Zealand they have this special honey called manuka honey made by bees from the pollen and venom of the manuka plant and it has antibacterial and healing agents thats help people get better. Unfortunately since I'm allergic to bees and it's made with part bee venom, I couldn't try the product, but other members of my family did and purchased some to take home and hopefully get past US customs. Following the light shopping we headed to the hotel and went to dinner at the sky tower thing (a really tall tower that allows you to see all of Auckland) then retired for the night.
Updated:
6 am wakeup calls are getting extremely old, and my whole family has a cold but me and my father, aaaand I'll probably be the next to fall. Can't wait! Today we were headed to Rotorua, which is known for their hot springs, mud baths, and glow worms. Day one: glow worms. Gross. When I think glow worms, I think of that pointless uncuddley toy I had growing up that was like a stuffed baby doll with a plastic head that lit up, like a nightlight.. and it used to get hot because it basically had a light bulb in it.. who decided that was safe for kids to play/sleep with? Anyways, surprisingly, that is not what they are. Instead they aren't really worms at all, they just look like mosquitos and they have a sticky web-like substance they release that hangs down from the ceiling of the cave and it glows in the dark and look like a worm, I guess hence the name glow worm. So we're wandering all over the cave, the tour guide makes us sing jingle bells in the cave to demonstrate the acoustics, and then we reach a boat. Now we are boating in the cave with the worms or whatever hanging all in my face in the complete darkness. We sat in that boat for about 20 minutes. Like 5 minutes was enough for me to get the picture of how a glow worm functions and the life cycle, REALLY didn't need anymore. Finally the boat ride was over and we landed right into a gift shop, just like Disney World.
We made it to Rotorua and went on this weird cultural experience tour where people pretended to be Mawahi natives and show us how they lived. Super similar to the colonial tours in the 5th grade. I don't even want to begin to explain this thing, because it would take too long and it's not interesting, and according to my mother I'm cynical, so I'll spare you. Basically after that we went to the hotel to prepare for ANOTHER 6am wake up call.
Updated:
So the plan for today was to go to some agriculture dome, where there would be sheep and cows and various other farm life. My family decided to skip out on that because honestly, if we wanted to see a cow, we can just walk to the end of the street and observe them in there. Instead we went to the mud baths and hot springs to do a spa-like morning at a place called Hell's Gate. I think so far this was my favorite part of the trip, the mud bath was so fun and relaxing that afterwards I fell asleep for a few hours. We met up with the rest of the tour at the airport in order to fly to Christchurch which is a city that was recently devastated by a series of earthquakes in early 2011. The city was pretty depressing. All the old buildings were either destroyed by the earthquakes, or deemed unsafe and taken down by the New Zealand government. We would be driving and then we would see empty lots with no plans to put up a new structure. We then visited the main shopping district, or what used to be the main shopping district, and saw how they converted the shops into shipping containers, which was kind of cool. Since it was Christmas Eve, there was no one out except for homeless people that were singing Christmas carols, which made it even more depressing. The hotel was by the airport, since all the main hotels in town were destroyed by the earthquakes, so there wasn't really much exploring to do. So we all went to the bar and sat around with some drinks and enjoyed each other's company. It didn't really feel like Christmas Eve, except for the Christmas music. It was too hot outside and there were barely any decorations in the hotel. SUPER depressing. Well anyways, the younger folk hung out at the bar for a little longer afterwards and then we all went to sleep. I feel like this day was kind of boring. Sorry if that bored you half to death.
Updated: Christmas Day!
Franz Josef! I'm certain I slept through the explanation of who exactly is Franz Josef or if he is a real person at all, but that was the destination of the day. Of course we had to wake up early and sit on a bus for hours, and our first stop was at a jade factory. The prices were crazy. If I'm spending $300 on a necklace it better have some sort of precious stone in it, and not some shiny green rock. Also, all the styles were tribal. Like arrow heads and spirals and symbols that mean courage or whatever.. or you could get a kiwi bird figure..lovely. Then we went to find lunch somewhere in the ghost town we were in.. but since it was Christmas, obviously nothing was open except for this one restaurant, which was hosting a private party. The little cafe thing offered to sell sandwiches to us, but there weren't enough for everyone, so it was like a mad and violent dash to grab a sandwich before they were all out. After all the sandwiches were gone everyone who didn't get one was shit out of luck, so we began storming the streets looking for food. Kind of like zombies. The only restaurant that was open was an Indian place and some settled and ate there. Personally, Indian food isn't to my taste, so I set off looking for the beach, since the town we were at is on the Tasman Sea. The beach was cold, but it was awesome. I wish we have enough time to like sit there and picnic or something, but we had to leave. We drove past some scenes from The Lord of Rings movies. I didn't recognize them though, since I could never actually sit through the whole movie, but maybe now I'll watch it, since I've been to some of the places that it was filmed.
We then went to the Franz Josef glacier, however we were not allowed to get very close, since it has been melting and the park rangers have deemed it unsafe, or something. We hiked as far and we were allowed and it was completely beautiful, really a shame that it's melting away. We went back to the hotel where they prepared Christmas Dinner for us. It wasn't really the same as having a Christmas at home, but it would do. I felt bad for the people who had to work that night, they should have been at home with their families. Hopefully they made overtime. After dinner I was feeling like I was going to be the next to fall to the illness spreading through my family, so I just went to rest, while the rest of the crew went to go see more glow worms. I was also sick of glow worms, and worms in general. Once it started to pour outside they all came back all ranting and raving about how cool glow worms are... they aren't even worms.. only their web looks like a worm..
Updated:
100% sick. That's it. I fell to the plague. The next one to drop. Aside from the anticipation of the lovely 8 hour bus ride into Queenstown today, I had high hopes. We drove a lot around mountains, everyone was getting carsick. We stopped a few times to look at some small waterfalls and huge lakes, while I was pleasantly running a fever in the back of the bus. I felt bad for the group. I'm such a tyrant when I'm sick, and all I wanted to do was sleep. We finally got to the hotel at around 5pm and I pretty much went to sleep. LET'S HOPE THIS FEVER BREAKS TOMORROW, for everyone's sake.
Oh, and kiwi birds do have wings, but they can't really fly. FUN FACT.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
The Red Center
7 am start this morning ordering $6 cappuccinos by some drifter French man in the hotel. I've quickly discovered that this country is extremely over priced and I've been channeling my inner Jew and trying to haggle with everyone about everything. "Are you SURE those cappuccinos are WORTH $6? Am I REALLY going to get my money's worth or should I just pay $4? WHERE'S THAT COFFEE FROM?" Unfortunately, Australia isn't Morocco where if you just throw out one arabic buzz word they sell you their goods 70% off. I also learned that every French man's name isn't Francois, and calling them that is extremely offensive. Oops.
So we took a bus out of the New Jersey of Australia (Alice Springs) into Ayer's rock for some good old fashioned valley hiking. On the way to Ayer's rock we first stopped by a camel farm, which I guess was interesting. But camels to me are just like glorified horses for the Arab people, and the only thing special about them is that they barely need to drink. PERFECT FOR THE MOROCCAN DESERT. The cool thing about this stop was that there were also kangaroos AND I GOT TO FEED ONE.. grass. Now, I'm pretty sure kangaroos aren't suppose to eat just regular pesticide-filled grass, so I apologize to that kangaroo for any stomach problems it has tonight. The kangaroo was adorable and I wanted to take it home, but then I smelled it, and it reminded me of rabbits. Soon, rushing back came the memories of Howard County living where some people actually heat their houses with rabbit urine and droppings, aaaand that kind of killed it for me.
Anyways along the way we went through the Australian outback. The sand was bright red and the oak trees were burnt from recent plains fires in the area. After a few more random stops we made it to some rock that is known for something and it has 36 domes, or valleys, or something (I didn't bring my ritalin on this trip so I'm going to blame my lack of concentration on that). It was hotter than hell outside. Literally. 114 degrees when we started our hike into the valley (or dome?) SO naturally I was looking good FEELING BETTER. To let you know how unprepared I was for this hike, I almost wore a dress and wedges until I was told that wasn't a good idea. So about half the group didn't make the hike, but when we got there the view of the valley was beautiful . Great invention alert: CAMEL BACKS. Honestly I made fun of the outdoors loving wannabe hippies as much as the next guy, but these things are amazing. The backpacks store 2 liters of water and it's great for hiking especially when it's 110+ degrees outside. BUT ALSO it'd be amazing to use at concerts or day drinks. Just throw an extra large margarita in there and it stays cool for hours..just a thought. So after the hike everyone was pretty much more than ready to get back to the hotel, but we stopped for a bit to watch the sun set over Ayer's rock (although the sun was setting on the opposite side..). After much needed showers we met up with a Norwegian family for dinner:
If anyone knows anything about me, they know I absolutely love Norway. It's such a lovable, happy, socialist country where everyone just loves the government and there's so much trust..and Fjords. Ever since the Norway/Denmark film I watched in 10th grade government class, my dream has been to move to Norway and enjoy some free healthcare and a government provided car. Well, apparently there is this newish program in Norway which is trying to import Americans into Norway to help the more rural areas learn English as well as the urban areas do. So basically they set you up with a Norwegian farmer OF YOUR CHOICE and it's encouraged to get married. So when I'm 35 and single, sign me up for that. (Although I'd prefer a Norwegian businessman, but we can work out the details later, right?)
Updated:
Lovely 3am wake up in order to catch the sunrise over Ayer's rock (didn't we just see the sunset?) I guess that was nice. Honesty at this point in time I am so sick of this freaking rock, I don't know how many different pictures at different angles I can take of this rock. So after the sunrise viewing we went to the climb site, but it was closed because the wind was too strong and this year 42 people died from attempting to climb the rock and being knocked over by the wind. Forgeeettttt that, I'm not dying on no rock.
Then we went to the cultural center, which was the saddest cultural center I have ever seen. I feel like the Australians are really trying to over compensate for the persecution of the aboriginal people, by saying how amazing their culture is, yet you can still tell that they are extremely prejudice. SO anyways this cultural center was a bunch of cave paintings (painted in the 1930s.. how does that work?) and a seven minute video of some topless aboriginal woman with her boobs past her waist jumping around and singing, and in the last scene she's chilling with Oprah.. okay interesante. To take a break from that my mother and I sat outside and counted how many Germans we saw for the remainder of the time.
After the cultural center we went back to the rock and went to see a watering hole, except there was no water, so I guess we saw a dried up hole, which looked like every other hole in the rock (can you tell that I am sick of nature yet?) Five guided tours about the same gum tree later, we went back to the hotel and personally I crashed for about four hours before we headed BACK to the goddamned rock for stargazing and champagne. Except it wasn't champagne, and we were on an Asian bus and I didn't understand anything. We missed the English speaking bus..whoopsy. AND you know a restaurant is going to bad when it is catered to Germans and the classic dish is a wiener schnitzel.
The star dinner was nice. I was slightly terrified that some dingo was going to smell the food and attack us, but thankfully that didn't happen. There was an Australian outback man (cowboy?) playing the digerydoo (spelling is for sure wrong) This is basically a wind instrument that is just a hollow tube and you blow on it and it makes this terrible sound. The only way I can describe the sound is that it reminded me of when I took shrooms once and every sound was so sensitive I felt it pulsating through my whole body. Scary sheyt, or maybe like a bad acid trip. At our table there were these Australian ladies who made their own cult and were preparing for the end of the world, which is today and told us they would channel us in their meditation in oder to protect us from the impending doom.. THX GURLZ. But at the moment, I'm still here typing up this post, but I guess we'll see when the Mayan bewitching hour hits.
So right now I'm waiting to board the plane to Sydney, and then head to Auckland, New Zealand. I'm ready to get out of the outback, or the equivalent to the dirty south of Australia.
So we took a bus out of the New Jersey of Australia (Alice Springs) into Ayer's rock for some good old fashioned valley hiking. On the way to Ayer's rock we first stopped by a camel farm, which I guess was interesting. But camels to me are just like glorified horses for the Arab people, and the only thing special about them is that they barely need to drink. PERFECT FOR THE MOROCCAN DESERT. The cool thing about this stop was that there were also kangaroos AND I GOT TO FEED ONE.. grass. Now, I'm pretty sure kangaroos aren't suppose to eat just regular pesticide-filled grass, so I apologize to that kangaroo for any stomach problems it has tonight. The kangaroo was adorable and I wanted to take it home, but then I smelled it, and it reminded me of rabbits. Soon, rushing back came the memories of Howard County living where some people actually heat their houses with rabbit urine and droppings, aaaand that kind of killed it for me.
Anyways along the way we went through the Australian outback. The sand was bright red and the oak trees were burnt from recent plains fires in the area. After a few more random stops we made it to some rock that is known for something and it has 36 domes, or valleys, or something (I didn't bring my ritalin on this trip so I'm going to blame my lack of concentration on that). It was hotter than hell outside. Literally. 114 degrees when we started our hike into the valley (or dome?) SO naturally I was looking good FEELING BETTER. To let you know how unprepared I was for this hike, I almost wore a dress and wedges until I was told that wasn't a good idea. So about half the group didn't make the hike, but when we got there the view of the valley was beautiful . Great invention alert: CAMEL BACKS. Honestly I made fun of the outdoors loving wannabe hippies as much as the next guy, but these things are amazing. The backpacks store 2 liters of water and it's great for hiking especially when it's 110+ degrees outside. BUT ALSO it'd be amazing to use at concerts or day drinks. Just throw an extra large margarita in there and it stays cool for hours..just a thought. So after the hike everyone was pretty much more than ready to get back to the hotel, but we stopped for a bit to watch the sun set over Ayer's rock (although the sun was setting on the opposite side..). After much needed showers we met up with a Norwegian family for dinner:
If anyone knows anything about me, they know I absolutely love Norway. It's such a lovable, happy, socialist country where everyone just loves the government and there's so much trust..and Fjords. Ever since the Norway/Denmark film I watched in 10th grade government class, my dream has been to move to Norway and enjoy some free healthcare and a government provided car. Well, apparently there is this newish program in Norway which is trying to import Americans into Norway to help the more rural areas learn English as well as the urban areas do. So basically they set you up with a Norwegian farmer OF YOUR CHOICE and it's encouraged to get married. So when I'm 35 and single, sign me up for that. (Although I'd prefer a Norwegian businessman, but we can work out the details later, right?)
Updated:
Lovely 3am wake up in order to catch the sunrise over Ayer's rock (didn't we just see the sunset?) I guess that was nice. Honesty at this point in time I am so sick of this freaking rock, I don't know how many different pictures at different angles I can take of this rock. So after the sunrise viewing we went to the climb site, but it was closed because the wind was too strong and this year 42 people died from attempting to climb the rock and being knocked over by the wind. Forgeeettttt that, I'm not dying on no rock.
Then we went to the cultural center, which was the saddest cultural center I have ever seen. I feel like the Australians are really trying to over compensate for the persecution of the aboriginal people, by saying how amazing their culture is, yet you can still tell that they are extremely prejudice. SO anyways this cultural center was a bunch of cave paintings (painted in the 1930s.. how does that work?) and a seven minute video of some topless aboriginal woman with her boobs past her waist jumping around and singing, and in the last scene she's chilling with Oprah.. okay interesante. To take a break from that my mother and I sat outside and counted how many Germans we saw for the remainder of the time.
After the cultural center we went back to the rock and went to see a watering hole, except there was no water, so I guess we saw a dried up hole, which looked like every other hole in the rock (can you tell that I am sick of nature yet?) Five guided tours about the same gum tree later, we went back to the hotel and personally I crashed for about four hours before we headed BACK to the goddamned rock for stargazing and champagne. Except it wasn't champagne, and we were on an Asian bus and I didn't understand anything. We missed the English speaking bus..whoopsy. AND you know a restaurant is going to bad when it is catered to Germans and the classic dish is a wiener schnitzel.
The star dinner was nice. I was slightly terrified that some dingo was going to smell the food and attack us, but thankfully that didn't happen. There was an Australian outback man (cowboy?) playing the digerydoo (spelling is for sure wrong) This is basically a wind instrument that is just a hollow tube and you blow on it and it makes this terrible sound. The only way I can describe the sound is that it reminded me of when I took shrooms once and every sound was so sensitive I felt it pulsating through my whole body. Scary sheyt, or maybe like a bad acid trip. At our table there were these Australian ladies who made their own cult and were preparing for the end of the world, which is today and told us they would channel us in their meditation in oder to protect us from the impending doom.. THX GURLZ. But at the moment, I'm still here typing up this post, but I guess we'll see when the Mayan bewitching hour hits.
So right now I'm waiting to board the plane to Sydney, and then head to Auckland, New Zealand. I'm ready to get out of the outback, or the equivalent to the dirty south of Australia.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Traveling Woes, Sydney, and The Armpit of Australia: Alice Springs
So far, six hours seems like an eternity. Don't even remember those days when I was in grade school at sat through classes for six hours straight. Only five hours to kill in LA and fourteen hours on the next plane.. should be interesting
Updated: I've officially decided that plane rides over 8 hours aren't that bad. When traveling to France or Italy the plane ride is about 7-8 hours and you attempt to sleep the whole time and just end up getting 2 hours of semi shitty sleep, but being stuck on a plane for 14 hours, you have all this time to attempt to get sleep so instead of totaling like barely any sleep, you have nothing to do but sleep, so it forces you to sleep 6 hours at least. Unless you have a Chatty Cathy next to you who thinks that it's necessary that you hear their whole life story. On the plane from LA to Sydney I have the glorious isle seat with an Australia girl next to me. She kind of reminded me of myself when I'm pretending to care about other peoples lives. Asking really irrelevant with a huge smile on her face, but then I realized that everyone converses like that, so many people here are just nice, or I'm an extremely interesting person. But my philosophy on a plane is all I want to do is pop a few bars of xanax and pass out and have no recollection of the flight, so thankfully she had her conversational outlet with the African guy next to her. Since the flight was so uneventful, I can entertain you with his life story, that I reheard every time the girl next t me went to the bathroom:
So I can't pronounce or spell his name. Actually I don't even remember it, but it was complicated. He's from somewhere.. shit I actually don't remember anything (shows how much I remember things from conversations..) BUT THE INTERESTING PART WAS he's dating some girl who lives in Russia who looks like a model and HE ORDERED HER OFFLINE. She's being shipped to LA extremely soon and they are getting married. So anyway I thought that was weird and a fun thing to share.
Anyways, it's like hour 12 and I can no longer feel my lower body, pretty sure I'm paralyzed from the waist down. That was it. The last experience I would have walking would be down the isle of a Delta flight. We could barely stand up because we were flying through a typhoon that hit Fiji. So bad the girl next to me asked if she could use my barf bag because her seat didn't have one. Finally that nightmare was over and I was surprised my legs worked and we walked off the plane onto Australia soil.
The lack of customs security shocked me. We literally walked right out without consulting with any officers (I guess we just look like trustworthy Moroccans?) I could've had a suitcase full of stinkbugs getting ready to infest Australia and they would have had no idea. Amateurs.
The best way to beat jet lag (apparently) is to just blaze on through the day without stopping, so that's basically what we did. We walked around Sydney and made a last minute decision to go to the zoo. The Sydney Zoo was interesting. Most the animals were like weird rat mutants. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of those animals in the Metro and Subways. Oh, this in a Plains Rat, it lives in the plains and eats.. sand? WOW LOOKS JUST LIKE MOUSE I TOOK OUT OF THE TRAP IN MY ATTIC THREE DAYS AGO. And this is a long spotted tail rat that is native to the outback of Australia... Looks like the inbred rats I've seen in the Newark, NJ train station with like some awkward discolored tail and only three legs with eight toes. Gross. The kangaroos were cute though, honestly I thought they'd be bigger and they weren't really hopping, just laying there not giving any fucks. The gorillas were cool, but there was no fence or glass to separate us from them. All I could think of was the prequel to Planet of the Apes (I forget the name.. the one with James Franco) and how they are all probably abused and they were going to revolt an attack me and rip my face off. Which would be such a shame, for everyone. OH ALSO. I think that people in Australia think that Dinosaurs are still around.. somewhere... because they had more exhibits of fake plastic dinosaurs moving than actual animals. AND they were honestly attracting the most attention. Like don't people realize that there's a live Asian Elephant over there yet they are staring at some T-Rex imitation that looks like it was
shipped over to Australia after it broke down one too many times at Universal Studios in the 90s?
Updated part duex:
Later that night after spending sometime at the bar down the corner I was literally about to pass out since I hadn't slept in about 48 hours. So we all went back to the hotel and crashed. JUST IN TIME FOR OUR 7AM WAKE UP CALL TO ALICE SPRINGS.
Alice Springs. What can be said about this town that is literally the creepiest place I have ever seen? The flight there was not bad. It kind of reminded me of how flights used to be in the 20s or something with the flight attendants like actually giving you service instead of ol' Sherri-Lynn throwing stale pretzels at your face while spilling your water (which you asked for no ice, yet it's 70% ice) all over your white shirt while shes bitching about her divorce to the other flight attendant constantly ramming the cart into your elbow. This Quantas flight was different. It was SERVICE. But, what did freak me out with that no one checked my passport.. ever. Like no one gave a shit who we were and where we were going. They let the Moroccans on the plane with no questions asked, and this my friends, was a first. Whilst being slightly freaked out about the airport security, we made it through the 3 hour flight with a grand selection of in-flight movies. The only downside was almost vomiting on the descend, and the fact that when we got there, my brother's bag didn't arrive (Oops). At least they gave him Quantas brand boxers and tshirt. (Yay, consolation prize, THANKS FOR PLAYING)
So we roll up in this town, seem quaint enough, my first reaction was that it looked like a frontier town that you would find in some 6th grade field trip to the "Old Wild West". But as we approached the area, the Aboriginals, or indigenous Australians, seemed to be loitering all around the town and acting really strange around us. Now some background information from my Anthropology class this past semester:
Apparently, the Aboriginal people were heavily prosecuted by the white Australians and they were sent to work camps and hunted down and mistreated, like usual colonial stories. However, this JUST ended in 1970 (de facto.. it probably went well into the 80s AND they were only allowed to vote in like 1969) so there is still all this tension between the whites and the Aboriginal people. And you can sense it. Tension so thick you can cut it with an authentic Australian boomerang with a knife attached. Basically, it's like Mississippi, the deep dirty south where everyone is STILL semi-racist.
So Alice Springs is deserted, except all these Aboriginal people kind of just sitting there. Like a ghost town. And it was creepy. And it never rains. But it rained today. A lot.
So we got out of town as fast as we could. The employees at the hotel told us not to go into town at night. I felt as if when the sun goes down all the Aboriginal people turn into zombies and hunt the flesh of tourists, and I AM NOT prepared whatsoever for a zombie apocalypse. I guess we'll see what happens in Alice Springs on December 21st. (lolz)
So currently I am hiding out in the room until tomorrow when we leave this shithole and go to Ayers Rock for some good old fashioned outback hiking! GIDDY UP.
Sorry for the long post, I can only post when I have reliable wifi and enough time to express my true feelings. Also I apologize for any spelling of grammar mistakes. I am not about to proofread this shit. AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.
G'Day Mates!
Updated: I've officially decided that plane rides over 8 hours aren't that bad. When traveling to France or Italy the plane ride is about 7-8 hours and you attempt to sleep the whole time and just end up getting 2 hours of semi shitty sleep, but being stuck on a plane for 14 hours, you have all this time to attempt to get sleep so instead of totaling like barely any sleep, you have nothing to do but sleep, so it forces you to sleep 6 hours at least. Unless you have a Chatty Cathy next to you who thinks that it's necessary that you hear their whole life story. On the plane from LA to Sydney I have the glorious isle seat with an Australia girl next to me. She kind of reminded me of myself when I'm pretending to care about other peoples lives. Asking really irrelevant with a huge smile on her face, but then I realized that everyone converses like that, so many people here are just nice, or I'm an extremely interesting person. But my philosophy on a plane is all I want to do is pop a few bars of xanax and pass out and have no recollection of the flight, so thankfully she had her conversational outlet with the African guy next to her. Since the flight was so uneventful, I can entertain you with his life story, that I reheard every time the girl next t me went to the bathroom:
So I can't pronounce or spell his name. Actually I don't even remember it, but it was complicated. He's from somewhere.. shit I actually don't remember anything (shows how much I remember things from conversations..) BUT THE INTERESTING PART WAS he's dating some girl who lives in Russia who looks like a model and HE ORDERED HER OFFLINE. She's being shipped to LA extremely soon and they are getting married. So anyway I thought that was weird and a fun thing to share.
Anyways, it's like hour 12 and I can no longer feel my lower body, pretty sure I'm paralyzed from the waist down. That was it. The last experience I would have walking would be down the isle of a Delta flight. We could barely stand up because we were flying through a typhoon that hit Fiji. So bad the girl next to me asked if she could use my barf bag because her seat didn't have one. Finally that nightmare was over and I was surprised my legs worked and we walked off the plane onto Australia soil.
The lack of customs security shocked me. We literally walked right out without consulting with any officers (I guess we just look like trustworthy Moroccans?) I could've had a suitcase full of stinkbugs getting ready to infest Australia and they would have had no idea. Amateurs.
The best way to beat jet lag (apparently) is to just blaze on through the day without stopping, so that's basically what we did. We walked around Sydney and made a last minute decision to go to the zoo. The Sydney Zoo was interesting. Most the animals were like weird rat mutants. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of those animals in the Metro and Subways. Oh, this in a Plains Rat, it lives in the plains and eats.. sand? WOW LOOKS JUST LIKE MOUSE I TOOK OUT OF THE TRAP IN MY ATTIC THREE DAYS AGO. And this is a long spotted tail rat that is native to the outback of Australia... Looks like the inbred rats I've seen in the Newark, NJ train station with like some awkward discolored tail and only three legs with eight toes. Gross. The kangaroos were cute though, honestly I thought they'd be bigger and they weren't really hopping, just laying there not giving any fucks. The gorillas were cool, but there was no fence or glass to separate us from them. All I could think of was the prequel to Planet of the Apes (I forget the name.. the one with James Franco) and how they are all probably abused and they were going to revolt an attack me and rip my face off. Which would be such a shame, for everyone. OH ALSO. I think that people in Australia think that Dinosaurs are still around.. somewhere... because they had more exhibits of fake plastic dinosaurs moving than actual animals. AND they were honestly attracting the most attention. Like don't people realize that there's a live Asian Elephant over there yet they are staring at some T-Rex imitation that looks like it was
shipped over to Australia after it broke down one too many times at Universal Studios in the 90s?
Updated part duex:
Later that night after spending sometime at the bar down the corner I was literally about to pass out since I hadn't slept in about 48 hours. So we all went back to the hotel and crashed. JUST IN TIME FOR OUR 7AM WAKE UP CALL TO ALICE SPRINGS.
Alice Springs. What can be said about this town that is literally the creepiest place I have ever seen? The flight there was not bad. It kind of reminded me of how flights used to be in the 20s or something with the flight attendants like actually giving you service instead of ol' Sherri-Lynn throwing stale pretzels at your face while spilling your water (which you asked for no ice, yet it's 70% ice) all over your white shirt while shes bitching about her divorce to the other flight attendant constantly ramming the cart into your elbow. This Quantas flight was different. It was SERVICE. But, what did freak me out with that no one checked my passport.. ever. Like no one gave a shit who we were and where we were going. They let the Moroccans on the plane with no questions asked, and this my friends, was a first. Whilst being slightly freaked out about the airport security, we made it through the 3 hour flight with a grand selection of in-flight movies. The only downside was almost vomiting on the descend, and the fact that when we got there, my brother's bag didn't arrive (Oops). At least they gave him Quantas brand boxers and tshirt. (Yay, consolation prize, THANKS FOR PLAYING)
So we roll up in this town, seem quaint enough, my first reaction was that it looked like a frontier town that you would find in some 6th grade field trip to the "Old Wild West". But as we approached the area, the Aboriginals, or indigenous Australians, seemed to be loitering all around the town and acting really strange around us. Now some background information from my Anthropology class this past semester:
Apparently, the Aboriginal people were heavily prosecuted by the white Australians and they were sent to work camps and hunted down and mistreated, like usual colonial stories. However, this JUST ended in 1970 (de facto.. it probably went well into the 80s AND they were only allowed to vote in like 1969) so there is still all this tension between the whites and the Aboriginal people. And you can sense it. Tension so thick you can cut it with an authentic Australian boomerang with a knife attached. Basically, it's like Mississippi, the deep dirty south where everyone is STILL semi-racist.
So Alice Springs is deserted, except all these Aboriginal people kind of just sitting there. Like a ghost town. And it was creepy. And it never rains. But it rained today. A lot.
So we got out of town as fast as we could. The employees at the hotel told us not to go into town at night. I felt as if when the sun goes down all the Aboriginal people turn into zombies and hunt the flesh of tourists, and I AM NOT prepared whatsoever for a zombie apocalypse. I guess we'll see what happens in Alice Springs on December 21st. (lolz)
So currently I am hiding out in the room until tomorrow when we leave this shithole and go to Ayers Rock for some good old fashioned outback hiking! GIDDY UP.
Sorry for the long post, I can only post when I have reliable wifi and enough time to express my true feelings. Also I apologize for any spelling of grammar mistakes. I am not about to proofread this shit. AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.
G'Day Mates!
Friday, December 14, 2012
I Come from the Land Down Under
About 4:00 on a Friday sitting in Dayton staring at a suitcase I have probably packed and repacked at least 5-7 times; if only Saturday afternoon will get here faster! My family and I are about to embark on what seems to be our last family vacation as a whole to far away Australia. Now that my brother and I are older and moved out, it is increasingly difficult to get everyone in the same place at one time, which is why I am thankful I am about to spend a month with the people I am closest to. BUT AUSTRALIA. WOW, THAT'S FAR. A whole 16 hours separating me from the east coast of the US, but I'm ready. Maybe not as ready for the bazillion hour plane ride or wearing the same clothes for three days, but ready to experience the outback.
It always makes me smile that my family travel to the most amazing places in the world, yet we do it in the weirdest ways. In Cannes, in the Southern France, we were on the private beaches with bottle service and oysters for days, where when we got back to the apartment we were staying at, we were all in the same room sleeping on the floor in a line. Morocco, a completely different experience. We lived that country how people in Morocco actually live. No toilets, scarce clean water, buying food from markets, and staying in people's homes. Honestly, I wouldn't trade any of these experiences for anything in the world. Travel is something that no one can ever take away, and with my move to Scotland looming over the whole family, it's great to have an amazing experience before I set off next fall.
On to lighter things: How can I prepare myself for Australia? Besides playing Down Under by Men at Work on repeat (Get ready for the desert dance scene remake..), I'm not too sure. SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE WITH SOME VEGEMITE AND GETTING PROPER PISSED!? I've been practicing my accent and brushing up on episodes of Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, and We Can Be Heros. CHRIS LILLEY I'M COMING FOR YAH.
So this post is a bit boring, sorry for the nostalgic beginning and I'm sure the next post will have to address Moroccans going through airport security. Ya'll have to arrive two hours before an international flight? Child's play. WE'LL BE THERE FOUR HOURS AHEAD AND BARELY MAKE OUR PLANE. Damn you last name.
It always makes me smile that my family travel to the most amazing places in the world, yet we do it in the weirdest ways. In Cannes, in the Southern France, we were on the private beaches with bottle service and oysters for days, where when we got back to the apartment we were staying at, we were all in the same room sleeping on the floor in a line. Morocco, a completely different experience. We lived that country how people in Morocco actually live. No toilets, scarce clean water, buying food from markets, and staying in people's homes. Honestly, I wouldn't trade any of these experiences for anything in the world. Travel is something that no one can ever take away, and with my move to Scotland looming over the whole family, it's great to have an amazing experience before I set off next fall.
On to lighter things: How can I prepare myself for Australia? Besides playing Down Under by Men at Work on repeat (Get ready for the desert dance scene remake..), I'm not too sure. SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE WITH SOME VEGEMITE AND GETTING PROPER PISSED!? I've been practicing my accent and brushing up on episodes of Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, and We Can Be Heros. CHRIS LILLEY I'M COMING FOR YAH.
So this post is a bit boring, sorry for the nostalgic beginning and I'm sure the next post will have to address Moroccans going through airport security. Ya'll have to arrive two hours before an international flight? Child's play. WE'LL BE THERE FOUR HOURS AHEAD AND BARELY MAKE OUR PLANE. Damn you last name.
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