Quirky, and proud of it.
been too busy to sleep or write....
Published Thursday, June 23, 2005 by Swish Lish.
No proper update today, I've only got a quick internet session here in Trondheim, Norway. It seems that as we go up to the far north of Norway to the Nordcapp, we'll be staying in tiny towns and internet access may not be possible for a few days/a week.
In other news, I'm currently recovering from a bit of a nasty hangover. Part of last night is completely lost to me. I don't think i'll be drinking that much for a while. But they're not kidding when they nickname Contiki tours Can-drinki tours. An awful lot of alcohol gets consumed most nights.
Basically, the last few days have consisted of being in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and staying in cabins in the Trollstigen region of Norway. That was absolutely unreal. Think snow capped mountains on each side of the campground and going on a fjord cruise through the second-deepest fjord in Norway. Not too shabby at all. :)
More as soon as I get a chance.
In other news, I'm currently recovering from a bit of a nasty hangover. Part of last night is completely lost to me. I don't think i'll be drinking that much for a while. But they're not kidding when they nickname Contiki tours Can-drinki tours. An awful lot of alcohol gets consumed most nights.
Basically, the last few days have consisted of being in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and staying in cabins in the Trollstigen region of Norway. That was absolutely unreal. Think snow capped mountains on each side of the campground and going on a fjord cruise through the second-deepest fjord in Norway. Not too shabby at all. :)
More as soon as I get a chance.
The Contiki Tour Begins
Published Monday, June 20, 2005 by Swish Lish.
I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe in Oslo, with about 20 minutes to rattle off as much as I can about the last few days before I go to meet up with people.
I've written heaps about the flights over from the states, but having only 20 mins to write isn't very conducive to sharing everything I've experienced. Anyway, after landing in Copenhagen where my tour began, I had to make my way to the youth hostel we were all going to be staying at. Rain was pouring and everything is disturbingly Danish. All the non-english signs are somewhat off-putting at first, but as many a traveller may tell you, you get used to it.
Being the middle of June, I was expecting mild, but warm summer weather. It was anything but. I waded through 11C weather, extremely jetlagged, along trainlines I was completely unfamiliar with, using odd-looking money that whole morning until I got to the youth hostel at around 11 am. I thought that was quite an achievement considering how tired I was and how little sleep I'd had that last night.
Unfortunately, check-in time was 2 pm, so I had to wait around for several hours before I could have a sorely-needed shower and collapse into bed for a few hours.
I woke up around 5:30pm and decided it was time to go out and see the city.
Copenhagen is a delightful city. It's clean and pretty and full of friendly people. The bus driver I had on the way to the hostel was sweet and helpful even though he spoke only a handful of english words. When I got lost and stood on the side of the sidewalk peering at my map, trying to figure out where I was, someone stopped almost immediately to ask me if I need any help. People ride bikes constantly (around 50% of the population ride bikes regularly) and almost everyone speaks English.
Not only do people ride bikes, but they don't feel the need to lock up their expensive road bikes much of the time. Literally hundreds of bikes are left at the entrances to stations, and they also hire out bikes for tourists for free. It seems like they are such a caring and trusting culture.
As one of my tourmates mentioned, they are also an extremely good-looking race of people. All tall, slim, and blonde with high cheekbones and tanned skin. This tourmate also mentioned that she saw a park in copenhagen with people relaxing and sunbaking. But it looked as though it had been staged with solely beautiful people.
On this first evening in the city, I just wandered around, drinking in the atmosphere. I walked along the main shopping streets and took many a snapshot. (photos will be posted when I have more internet time.) Tourists are everywhere, it seems.
After a while, I got tired and eventually went back to the hostel, around 11 pm. But the odd thing was that it was still very light outside. It does not get dark is this area till around midnight, and then gets light again around 3 or 4 am. It's not sunlight, just a perpetual state of twilight. But such extremely long days make for excellent touristing. You can get up late and still go out to the city for 10 or 12 hours, then come back to the hostel and chat and drink with friends for another 4 hours before wandering off to bed while it's still light outside.
Gotta run - more soon!
I've written heaps about the flights over from the states, but having only 20 mins to write isn't very conducive to sharing everything I've experienced. Anyway, after landing in Copenhagen where my tour began, I had to make my way to the youth hostel we were all going to be staying at. Rain was pouring and everything is disturbingly Danish. All the non-english signs are somewhat off-putting at first, but as many a traveller may tell you, you get used to it.
Being the middle of June, I was expecting mild, but warm summer weather. It was anything but. I waded through 11C weather, extremely jetlagged, along trainlines I was completely unfamiliar with, using odd-looking money that whole morning until I got to the youth hostel at around 11 am. I thought that was quite an achievement considering how tired I was and how little sleep I'd had that last night.
Unfortunately, check-in time was 2 pm, so I had to wait around for several hours before I could have a sorely-needed shower and collapse into bed for a few hours.
I woke up around 5:30pm and decided it was time to go out and see the city.
Copenhagen is a delightful city. It's clean and pretty and full of friendly people. The bus driver I had on the way to the hostel was sweet and helpful even though he spoke only a handful of english words. When I got lost and stood on the side of the sidewalk peering at my map, trying to figure out where I was, someone stopped almost immediately to ask me if I need any help. People ride bikes constantly (around 50% of the population ride bikes regularly) and almost everyone speaks English.
Not only do people ride bikes, but they don't feel the need to lock up their expensive road bikes much of the time. Literally hundreds of bikes are left at the entrances to stations, and they also hire out bikes for tourists for free. It seems like they are such a caring and trusting culture.
As one of my tourmates mentioned, they are also an extremely good-looking race of people. All tall, slim, and blonde with high cheekbones and tanned skin. This tourmate also mentioned that she saw a park in copenhagen with people relaxing and sunbaking. But it looked as though it had been staged with solely beautiful people.
On this first evening in the city, I just wandered around, drinking in the atmosphere. I walked along the main shopping streets and took many a snapshot. (photos will be posted when I have more internet time.) Tourists are everywhere, it seems.
After a while, I got tired and eventually went back to the hostel, around 11 pm. But the odd thing was that it was still very light outside. It does not get dark is this area till around midnight, and then gets light again around 3 or 4 am. It's not sunlight, just a perpetual state of twilight. But such extremely long days make for excellent touristing. You can get up late and still go out to the city for 10 or 12 hours, then come back to the hostel and chat and drink with friends for another 4 hours before wandering off to bed while it's still light outside.
Gotta run - more soon!
never fear
Published Saturday, June 18, 2005 by Swish Lish.
Don'w worry people, I'm still alive, just busy on my contiki tour. Man they keep you busy on these things. It's been absolutely awesome and I have so very much to blog about. I'll try and type something up in the not too distant future... For now I have to just keep writing stuff up the traditional way, in a paper-based diary.
I hope all is well with all of you. :)
I hope all is well with all of you. :)
The last few days... can't be bothered keeping count any more. :)
Published Saturday, June 11, 2005 by Swish Lish.
Ok... let me start with what i'd written about my last few days in the states:
Ah, America. 'Tis a land where there was enough of a need for 24 hour drive-through doughnut stores that Dunkin' Donuts has provided such a service.
Fed Ex and Kinkos have combined services so there's a place you can go to print your paperwork and also send it express post without having to leave the store. It's also a land where the roads are wide, drivers go really fast and roadkill is plentiful. I can't say I'm all that surprised to see roadkill every time I get into the car. Sometimes every few miles.
Unlike Australia, drivers won't necessarily slow down if they see you approaching a zebra crossing - it's treated as more of a race. If they can beat you to the middle of the crossing, they'll zoom through. If you get there first, they'll stop reluctantly and let you pass.
And so ends my visit to this place of fascination for me. It's somewhat of a love-hate relationship that I have with it, actually. This is because as someone raised in Australia I was taught to think of Americans as stupid, wasteful and slovenly. I can't say political decisions in recent years have convinced me of otherwise. Nor Jerry Springer for that matter.
Each time I enter the country, immigration looks at my passport and says 'welcome home'. They tend to then give me a funny look when they hear my accent and double check to verify that I was in fact in the right queue. I even got an interrogation this time, asking me what i do in australia, to the point of what my major is at uni and why i've come to america and why i live anywhere else.
My last few days in the states can really be described in one way: bl;oody stinking hot. Think 100F/40C. Several days in a row. And stifling humidity.
Coming in early june I was expecting mild spring/summer weather. Instead, I was confronted with chilly days to begin with, one nice day in the middle, then had a bunch of oppressively hot days when it's virtually impossible to do anything unless you're in an airconditioned space.
Not surprisingly, many of my final days were spent hiding in shopping centres, or at least in large stores where I bought more clothes than I could fit into my bag.
Shopping there is SOOO cool. Clothes are incredibly cheap. Most t-shirts (that's what i was buying, mostly - for Herrang) are around $10 US. You'd be hard pressed to find anything for $12 AU while maintaining reasonable quality. Though some of the check-out chicks leave something to be desired. At one point I was being served by this lady who took three weeks to scan 6 shirts and put them on the other side. I could feel my fingers twitching as I desperately held myself back from scanning them myself and doing it three times faster.
Interestingly, if you buy a t-shirt that is on a hanger in the store - you get the clothes hanger for free, too. I suppose it makes sense given you'll have an extra item of clothing to go into your wardrobe at home, but it sounds like you'd accumulate a lot of clothes hangers that way.
On the day before I left, I went to a balboa workshop with Steve and Heidi.... er... I can't remember their last names. But they were still really good. Steve talks a lot and does a lot of funny things while Heidi looks on in an amused fashion, and Heidi tends to join in the circle as a lead more often. I swear I danced with her like 5 times and Steve only once. Anyway. That particular workshop taught me some great balboa moves and let me feel how good it is when things actually work well. I found that with the best leads, if you're all nice and relaxed, it feels as though you're dancing while getting the nicest hug ever. I kind of felt like I was lifted of the ground and being twirled around slowly. It was just damn nice. Will have to do much more Balboa soon.
Anyway must get off the computer as there's a queue behind me.... more updates soon!
Ah, America. 'Tis a land where there was enough of a need for 24 hour drive-through doughnut stores that Dunkin' Donuts has provided such a service.
Fed Ex and Kinkos have combined services so there's a place you can go to print your paperwork and also send it express post without having to leave the store. It's also a land where the roads are wide, drivers go really fast and roadkill is plentiful. I can't say I'm all that surprised to see roadkill every time I get into the car. Sometimes every few miles.
Unlike Australia, drivers won't necessarily slow down if they see you approaching a zebra crossing - it's treated as more of a race. If they can beat you to the middle of the crossing, they'll zoom through. If you get there first, they'll stop reluctantly and let you pass.
And so ends my visit to this place of fascination for me. It's somewhat of a love-hate relationship that I have with it, actually. This is because as someone raised in Australia I was taught to think of Americans as stupid, wasteful and slovenly. I can't say political decisions in recent years have convinced me of otherwise. Nor Jerry Springer for that matter.
Each time I enter the country, immigration looks at my passport and says 'welcome home'. They tend to then give me a funny look when they hear my accent and double check to verify that I was in fact in the right queue. I even got an interrogation this time, asking me what i do in australia, to the point of what my major is at uni and why i've come to america and why i live anywhere else.
My last few days in the states can really be described in one way: bl;oody stinking hot. Think 100F/40C. Several days in a row. And stifling humidity.
Coming in early june I was expecting mild spring/summer weather. Instead, I was confronted with chilly days to begin with, one nice day in the middle, then had a bunch of oppressively hot days when it's virtually impossible to do anything unless you're in an airconditioned space.
Not surprisingly, many of my final days were spent hiding in shopping centres, or at least in large stores where I bought more clothes than I could fit into my bag.
Shopping there is SOOO cool. Clothes are incredibly cheap. Most t-shirts (that's what i was buying, mostly - for Herrang) are around $10 US. You'd be hard pressed to find anything for $12 AU while maintaining reasonable quality. Though some of the check-out chicks leave something to be desired. At one point I was being served by this lady who took three weeks to scan 6 shirts and put them on the other side. I could feel my fingers twitching as I desperately held myself back from scanning them myself and doing it three times faster.
Interestingly, if you buy a t-shirt that is on a hanger in the store - you get the clothes hanger for free, too. I suppose it makes sense given you'll have an extra item of clothing to go into your wardrobe at home, but it sounds like you'd accumulate a lot of clothes hangers that way.
On the day before I left, I went to a balboa workshop with Steve and Heidi.... er... I can't remember their last names. But they were still really good. Steve talks a lot and does a lot of funny things while Heidi looks on in an amused fashion, and Heidi tends to join in the circle as a lead more often. I swear I danced with her like 5 times and Steve only once. Anyway. That particular workshop taught me some great balboa moves and let me feel how good it is when things actually work well. I found that with the best leads, if you're all nice and relaxed, it feels as though you're dancing while getting the nicest hug ever. I kind of felt like I was lifted of the ground and being twirled around slowly. It was just damn nice. Will have to do much more Balboa soon.
Anyway must get off the computer as there's a queue behind me.... more updates soon!
Day 7 - Central Park and Swing with Frankie Manning!
Published Thursday, June 09, 2005 by Swish Lish.
On Monday I had a few errands to run, but eventually made it out to NY in the afternoon. It was one of those scorchingly hot days, where even breathing causes you to sweat profusely. While I was on the train, the weather must have clicked over into rain-before-the-storm mode, because when I got out at Penn Station, it was bucketing down, which was a welcome change. I'd brought my umbrella, so all was well.
As the last time I'd been in NYC had been in the dead of winter with delicate snow falling all around the city, I wanted to see how different Central Park looks in the summertime. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to go to the same places I went last time so I could get funky before and after pics, but here are a few green and leafy pictures, regardless.
Compare them with this from last time if you like.
After several hours in the park, I caught a subway down to where the swing class was meant to be. Going into the building, a man opened the door for me from the inside and I thanked him as I entered. I had to go up to the next floor. He started following me up the stairs and cleared his throat as he did so. Then it dawned on me that maybe he was one of those doormen I've heard about and was expecting a tip or something. But I don't know how much to tip! And he'd only opened a door for me, it's not like he did something dramatic and particularly useful. Given another second or two and I would have reached the door myself and opened it all on my own - I hadn't asked for his help. No cute puppy-dog eyes from me.
Silly country with its silly tipping habits!
I started wondering whether I should stop and give him a dollar so he'd leave me alone... but by this point I was half-way up the stairs and getting away from him anyway, so I figured I'd just let it be. I'm a clueless tourist from Australia - I don't have to tip! If he thinks I'm rude, so be it. Maybe I am.
When I got to the next floor I went to the reception desk to sign in for the class. Strange Door Guy just kept coming. Persistent bugger, wasn't he? He lurked just outside the glass door outside reception as though deciding what to do next. Would he follow me in and ask me for a tip, point blank? After a few moments he came in and went past me at the reception into the hallway where people were waiting for the next class. Was he going to stop me off in the hallway, ensuring that I tip him on the way through?
Clearly, my brain had ceased to function with any semblance of logic guiding my analysis of the situation. Had I thought about it for a moment I would have decided that his hideously yellow short-sleeve shirt was clearly not what a doorman should wear, and his slow ascent to the reception was also indicative of the idea that he was a bit too old and a bit too tired to climb stairs a dozen times a day as a doorman might have to. It was only when he followed me into the swing class and I had to dance with him that I was truly convinced of his student status, rather than doorman. I hadn't violated some stupid tipping rule after all, YAY! :)
As for why he didn't stop to sign in for the class? Well, when Frankie walked up Door Guy greeted him warmly and was met with a similarly friendly greeting in return. Seems they know eachother. He's probably been coming for a while and has paid for several classes up front. Simple, isn't it? If only I could think this way at the time, not just in retrospect. I have to say, the do-I,-or-don't-I-tip - and-how-much? feeling is highly unpleasant.
The tiny class (10 people, 3 men, 7 women) was nothing like I'd imagined. 2 women were leads so everyone got paired off before we rotated partners. I think one of the women leading was a teacher/ aide so she knew most of what she was doing and it wasn't too bad.
I'd expected at least double the number of people in the class, and far more people who were advanced than the 3 or 4 that were present. Initially, I'd been worried that my intermediate abilities wouldn't cut it in a Frankie Manning class, but I shouldn't have been even remotely concerned. I could do the steps he taught us as well as anyone else and it worked particularly well with the advanced guys. Door Guy wasn't a very good lead at all and couldn't really keep time.
Frankie's pretty awesome, though. You can see he's getting on in years, but you wouldn't for a moment think that he's 91. He still moves with such grace and fluidity most of the time that you'd think he's no more than 65 or 70. And although his right leg is giving him a bit of grief and he can't balance on it very well any more, he still has a great sense of rhythm, timing and a fabulous imagination for appropriate moves that suit the music. We were doing a move that involved hopping on your right foot for 4 beats, and he was still demonstrating it. And then he showed us how to mess around to the music with such a simple set of moves to make them more interesting.
I want to be able to move like that. Even now, let alone when I'm 90. There's an awful lot to learn from that man.
As the class went on, I noticed that people weren't as talkative and friendly as they usually are in Sydney swing classes. But then, it was a very small class. After me making a few friendly comments about what we were doing, one of the better guys opened up a bit and started guessing which country I'm from.
England?
No.
Scotland?
Nope. Wrong hemisphere.
The idea of there being another hemisphere threw him for a moment. He gave me a puzzled look before continuing to throw guesses at me.
Hong Kong?
Nuh-uh.
Since when is Hong Kong in the Southern Hemisphere?
South Africa?
Just then, Frankie asked us to rotate partners, so I just shook my head in response with a smile and started walking away.
AUSTRALIA!
I couldn't help but grin when he got it, but it was probably in large part due to the fact that everyone else had stopped to look at him curiously for declaring the name of a random country so loudly in the middle of the class. :)
It seems it's not just the Americans who think their country is more important and better known than it is.
When I got back around to him the next time, he claimed that he'd known all along where I was from... he was just messing with me. Of course he was. And I was just playing along. :)
As the last time I'd been in NYC had been in the dead of winter with delicate snow falling all around the city, I wanted to see how different Central Park looks in the summertime. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to go to the same places I went last time so I could get funky before and after pics, but here are a few green and leafy pictures, regardless.
Compare them with this from last time if you like.
After several hours in the park, I caught a subway down to where the swing class was meant to be. Going into the building, a man opened the door for me from the inside and I thanked him as I entered. I had to go up to the next floor. He started following me up the stairs and cleared his throat as he did so. Then it dawned on me that maybe he was one of those doormen I've heard about and was expecting a tip or something. But I don't know how much to tip! And he'd only opened a door for me, it's not like he did something dramatic and particularly useful. Given another second or two and I would have reached the door myself and opened it all on my own - I hadn't asked for his help. No cute puppy-dog eyes from me.
Silly country with its silly tipping habits!
I started wondering whether I should stop and give him a dollar so he'd leave me alone... but by this point I was half-way up the stairs and getting away from him anyway, so I figured I'd just let it be. I'm a clueless tourist from Australia - I don't have to tip! If he thinks I'm rude, so be it. Maybe I am.
When I got to the next floor I went to the reception desk to sign in for the class. Strange Door Guy just kept coming. Persistent bugger, wasn't he? He lurked just outside the glass door outside reception as though deciding what to do next. Would he follow me in and ask me for a tip, point blank? After a few moments he came in and went past me at the reception into the hallway where people were waiting for the next class. Was he going to stop me off in the hallway, ensuring that I tip him on the way through?
Clearly, my brain had ceased to function with any semblance of logic guiding my analysis of the situation. Had I thought about it for a moment I would have decided that his hideously yellow short-sleeve shirt was clearly not what a doorman should wear, and his slow ascent to the reception was also indicative of the idea that he was a bit too old and a bit too tired to climb stairs a dozen times a day as a doorman might have to. It was only when he followed me into the swing class and I had to dance with him that I was truly convinced of his student status, rather than doorman. I hadn't violated some stupid tipping rule after all, YAY! :)
As for why he didn't stop to sign in for the class? Well, when Frankie walked up Door Guy greeted him warmly and was met with a similarly friendly greeting in return. Seems they know eachother. He's probably been coming for a while and has paid for several classes up front. Simple, isn't it? If only I could think this way at the time, not just in retrospect. I have to say, the do-I,-or-don't-I-tip - and-how-much? feeling is highly unpleasant.
The tiny class (10 people, 3 men, 7 women) was nothing like I'd imagined. 2 women were leads so everyone got paired off before we rotated partners. I think one of the women leading was a teacher/ aide so she knew most of what she was doing and it wasn't too bad.
I'd expected at least double the number of people in the class, and far more people who were advanced than the 3 or 4 that were present. Initially, I'd been worried that my intermediate abilities wouldn't cut it in a Frankie Manning class, but I shouldn't have been even remotely concerned. I could do the steps he taught us as well as anyone else and it worked particularly well with the advanced guys. Door Guy wasn't a very good lead at all and couldn't really keep time.
Frankie's pretty awesome, though. You can see he's getting on in years, but you wouldn't for a moment think that he's 91. He still moves with such grace and fluidity most of the time that you'd think he's no more than 65 or 70. And although his right leg is giving him a bit of grief and he can't balance on it very well any more, he still has a great sense of rhythm, timing and a fabulous imagination for appropriate moves that suit the music. We were doing a move that involved hopping on your right foot for 4 beats, and he was still demonstrating it. And then he showed us how to mess around to the music with such a simple set of moves to make them more interesting.
I want to be able to move like that. Even now, let alone when I'm 90. There's an awful lot to learn from that man.
As the class went on, I noticed that people weren't as talkative and friendly as they usually are in Sydney swing classes. But then, it was a very small class. After me making a few friendly comments about what we were doing, one of the better guys opened up a bit and started guessing which country I'm from.
England?
No.
Scotland?
Nope. Wrong hemisphere.
The idea of there being another hemisphere threw him for a moment. He gave me a puzzled look before continuing to throw guesses at me.
Hong Kong?
Nuh-uh.
Since when is Hong Kong in the Southern Hemisphere?
South Africa?
Just then, Frankie asked us to rotate partners, so I just shook my head in response with a smile and started walking away.
AUSTRALIA!
I couldn't help but grin when he got it, but it was probably in large part due to the fact that everyone else had stopped to look at him curiously for declaring the name of a random country so loudly in the middle of the class. :)
It seems it's not just the Americans who think their country is more important and better known than it is.
When I got back around to him the next time, he claimed that he'd known all along where I was from... he was just messing with me. Of course he was. And I was just playing along. :)
STC - Day 6.
Published Tuesday, June 07, 2005 by Swish Lish.
Sunday was mainly a day to relax. I was taken to one of the local churches by the parental, where a mysterious invisible choir sang quite nicely. I'm not sure where they were hiding, but they certainly did a good job of it.
There was this little girl in the row in front of us who decided she was bored and peeked over the seat looking at each of us in turn. Those big brown eyes were so intense! I'm usually quite happy to stare someone down, but damn, this little girl was a staring pro. After a little while I decided to throw my ear-wiggling trick and her and I still didn't get a reaction. But shortly afterwards she did make her way to the other end of the row where her mother was and I'm sure I saw her pointing in my direction telling her what a freak I am. :)
So hrm.... no wonder I frighten small children. This one was probably too petrified to react in front of me.
In the afternoon we went out to check out the Jersey beaches. Although they took over an hour to get to, they were indeed beautiful and very very flat. Took forever to get to the water because the sand just kept going. Of course, they pale in comparison with the beauty of Sydney beaches, but you can't have it all.
The beaches we went to were on a peninsula called Sandy Hook. Being a peninsula, it was also previously used as a defence position, Fort Hancock. It's only a ghostly memory of what it once may have been, but the crumbling barracks made the haunting peninsula that much more interesting to explore.
Here are some pictures of Fort Hancock:
Look at how much junk there is on the beach, too. I'm not sure why the photo has that white section on the top and left, but I'll fix it when i have a chance.
Other randomly interesting photos I took that day:
That last one was of a tiny stalagtite that was forming inside one of the barracks from the previous pictures. Yay for macro!
The other fascinating thing I did on the weekend was try to drive the car. I've been driving for years, you say, it's easy enough! Well, not exactly. It's quite freaky being on the passenger side of the car, even, because I keep looking up at the rear view mirror and getting frustrated that the mirrors are set up all wrong. When I'm on the driver's side, it takes concentrated effort to remember that the indicator is on the left, the windscreen wipers on the right, rather than vice versa as it is in Australia. My poor little brain was ok with driving along the highway, but I tended to drift over to the right, because I'm used to sitting in the right hand side of the lane. I found I would compensate for my off-positioning by putting the car in such a position in the lane where i was in my usual position relative to the lane markings unless i concentrated really hard.
Like many other things, it takes time to rotate things around in your brain. Personally, I found it a lot like trying to lead in dancing - you have to swap everything around, left instead of right for many many things. But not everything, thankfully. If the Americans had decided to swap the accelerator and brake, I can only imagine that utter chaos would result whenever people tried driving in other countries.
I'm not sure if i'll have many more opportunities to drive around, but I'll let you all know if I do.
There was this little girl in the row in front of us who decided she was bored and peeked over the seat looking at each of us in turn. Those big brown eyes were so intense! I'm usually quite happy to stare someone down, but damn, this little girl was a staring pro. After a little while I decided to throw my ear-wiggling trick and her and I still didn't get a reaction. But shortly afterwards she did make her way to the other end of the row where her mother was and I'm sure I saw her pointing in my direction telling her what a freak I am. :)
So hrm.... no wonder I frighten small children. This one was probably too petrified to react in front of me.
In the afternoon we went out to check out the Jersey beaches. Although they took over an hour to get to, they were indeed beautiful and very very flat. Took forever to get to the water because the sand just kept going. Of course, they pale in comparison with the beauty of Sydney beaches, but you can't have it all.
The beaches we went to were on a peninsula called Sandy Hook. Being a peninsula, it was also previously used as a defence position, Fort Hancock. It's only a ghostly memory of what it once may have been, but the crumbling barracks made the haunting peninsula that much more interesting to explore.
Here are some pictures of Fort Hancock:
Look at how much junk there is on the beach, too. I'm not sure why the photo has that white section on the top and left, but I'll fix it when i have a chance.
Other randomly interesting photos I took that day:
That last one was of a tiny stalagtite that was forming inside one of the barracks from the previous pictures. Yay for macro!
The other fascinating thing I did on the weekend was try to drive the car. I've been driving for years, you say, it's easy enough! Well, not exactly. It's quite freaky being on the passenger side of the car, even, because I keep looking up at the rear view mirror and getting frustrated that the mirrors are set up all wrong. When I'm on the driver's side, it takes concentrated effort to remember that the indicator is on the left, the windscreen wipers on the right, rather than vice versa as it is in Australia. My poor little brain was ok with driving along the highway, but I tended to drift over to the right, because I'm used to sitting in the right hand side of the lane. I found I would compensate for my off-positioning by putting the car in such a position in the lane where i was in my usual position relative to the lane markings unless i concentrated really hard.
Like many other things, it takes time to rotate things around in your brain. Personally, I found it a lot like trying to lead in dancing - you have to swap everything around, left instead of right for many many things. But not everything, thankfully. If the Americans had decided to swap the accelerator and brake, I can only imagine that utter chaos would result whenever people tried driving in other countries.
I'm not sure if i'll have many more opportunities to drive around, but I'll let you all know if I do.
STC - Day 5. The day in which the Lish FINALLY goes to NYC
Published Monday, June 06, 2005 by Swish Lish.
Ah, Saturday. A day of much fun and frivolity.
The day started out as a grey and drizzly morning, not really foretelling the nicest of weather for a trip to NY. Nevertheless we (the parental and I) headed out to the train station to board a train, of all things. :P As far as I can tell, most trains are quite similar, world-wide, so there's not that much to tell about them. But you can all have a photo anyway.
Feels like you're there with me, doesn't it?
Coming from Australia, my impressions of Americans have been tainted quite severely by the television I've watched and the movies flung my way. For some reason I wasn't expecting it to be quite as multicultural as it is. My viewing experiences have shown me a mainly white America, whereas my actual experiences show me large proportions of Blacks and Hispanics. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying it's different to what I expected.
However, regardless of what I may or may not have been expecting, the girl I was sitting next to on the train made me giggle. Her name, believe it or not, was Destiny. I never really thought people with that name actually existed! I was sure it was just a myth propagated by the media to make it seem as though the 60s never ended. And she spent the vast majority of the trip with her mobile phone glued to her ear as she called various people in a voice that could rival Mickey Mouse for the squeakiest ever invented.
Thankfully, she got off fairly early along the train line and I was able to resume normal functioning by gazing intently out the window at the Manhattan skyline as it approached. By this stage the sky was clearing and the sun was peeking out, giving the faintest hope of beautiful weather.
We got off at Penn Station and then hopped on a subway which took us down to South Ferry. Interestingly, while the walls in the subway cars may have been mostly scrubbed free of tag-paint, you can still see where the graffitti has been... pretty much on about 90% of the available wall/door space. I guess it's just an indelible part of what NYC subway system is like. Many of them also have an American flag painted on the outside near the door. That's just in case you forget which country you're in. At least the ones we were in didn't smell and contained a minimised proportion of creepy old homeless men due to the large number of friendly looking tourists heading downtown.
Saturday must be Tourist day in NYC. As such, when getting off at South Ferry, the easiest way to find the ticket office and the queue for the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands is to follow the hoardes of tourists flowing towards them.
And where there are tourists, there are buskers. And what buskers there were! None of this silly busking by playing regular popular songs on a guitar business! Each one was meticulously dressed in a ridiculous outfit. From posing as the Statue of Liberty herself, with that lovely green complexion, to standing around with a large (around 2 metres long) live snake, hoping people will pay to hold it, each busker was an individual.
My personal favourite was the one standing by the queue to the ferry. He may not have had the brightest clothes, but he certainly made up for it with his rainbow wig and quick thinking. Every few minutes he'd speak to someone in the queue, asking them where they're from and ask them to join in in his act. At one point I saw a man juggling beside him, a few minutes later he was asking a lady from Germany to dance a German jig for everyone. She declined, but when she did so, he launched into a random German song, playing on his guitar and cramming in more German phrases and jokes than you'd think were possible. Between acts he'd keep telling everyone to smile, for today is a happy day and there is no reason to look so miserable. He made it impossible to hold back a smile. Not surprisingly, his tip hat was brimming with one-dollar bills.
Alongside this smattering of street entertainment came the tourist-leeches. You know the ones -- the merchandise sellers, with a million mini Statues of Liberty, Empire State Buildings and I [heart] NY t-shirts. There are the fake/stolen watch, sunnies and Prada handbag salesmen. You know it's suspicious when they start unzipping suitcases and call out "Prada Handbags" to you as you walk along, minding your own business. And you can see they're keeping it all together for a quick getaway in case a policeman strolls by.
Now that I have set the scene, let me give you all some general advice in case any of you decide to visit the Statue of Liberty one day:
Do:
Bring plenty of water and good food with you.
Don't:
Rely on the local vendors to provide you with good food or honest service. The sandwiches we bought gave one of us a nasty case of indigestion, and when I purchased two drinks it cost me $5.50. The nasty drinks vendor tried to only give me back $3.50 change from a $20 note. I had to go back and demand my change.
Do:
Buy your tickets at least 2 days in advance. Also, make sure you get a time pass observatory ticket to let you into the monument itself.
Don't:
Leave it to the day you arrive and then stand in a ferry ticket queue for 20 minutes in the blazing hot sun only to find out that you won't be allowed up the statue at all. You're only allowed onto the island with the ticket. If you want to go into the statue, you need some silly time pass, which will let you up to the Observatory level (16 floors up), apparently... I wouldn't know for sure. Plus, these time passes are pretty much only available well in advance. But don't assume you're getting anywhere near the face or crown of the nice lady of liberty even if you do have a time pass. I think there'd have to be some bribery/sexual favours involved to get up that high.
Do:
Send someone over to the ferry queue STRAIGHT AWAY when you get there.
Don't:
Go la la la... oh let's get some ferry tickets, then meander over to the ferry queue and go SHIT! A 40 minute wait?!
Do:
Bring a hat, sunnies and sunscreen for the time you will be waiting in queues.
Don't:
Turn into a baked vegetable, like I did.
Do:
Allow heaps of extra time for all sorts of delays. Allow at least 5 hours for the whole experience of ticket-buying and getting through the queues and sightseeing on Liberty and Ellis Islands.
Don't:
Don't look at it rationally and think 'an hour to get there, an hour in each place, half an hour to get back' because you will be SORELY disappointed.
Do:
Bring a healthy sense of humour. And only a small/medium-sized backpack.
Don't:
Take it the wrong way when you realise that the 40 minute long ferry queue was actually for the queue for just the security tent where they make you take off you belt and shoes and anything even remotely metal. The Americans are WAY paranoid, and not only do they tell you to take all locks off your luggage at airports as your bags WILL be searched, but they also figure that each visitor to the Statue of Liberty is a potential terrorist and they will go out of their way to inconvenience you. It doesn't matter that you can't even go into the damn statue, you're a threat for just walking AROUND it.
Makes you feel so proud to be an American, doesn't it?
Do:
Go on some of the complimentary group tours run on each island by the people who work there.
Don't:
Pay the extra money for the audio tour. It's mostly a waste of time and money on Liberty Island, unless you're really interested in knowing in great detail just how many years it took to build, etc. I did like the audio tour in the Ellis Island museum, but it went on and on and on ...
All in all, Liberty Island was kind of disappointing, though very pretty:
Check out the vultures with cameras:
Look: A Liberty Island cup on Liberty Island with a SWAT team member in the background. Why do they need SWAT team members there?
Ellis Island was very interesting; the audio tour gave you lots of information. But then, I don't know how much I might have gotten from the free tours put on by the people who work there. It makes you appreciate the age we live in when you hear about the appalling conditions people went through. If you were female you HAD to have a male escort to leave the island after arriving. As such lots of women married on the spot. Can you imagine marrying someone you'd met that day just to enter a country?
After months in ships to get there, you could be sent back if you were deemed unhealthy. Not only were they concerned about basic illnesses, but if you were considered mentally unhealthy it could be just as bad. They'd mark an X on you with chalk and then try to determine whether you're crazy or not. One of the indicators of mental instability, apparently, is EXCESSIVE SMILING. Call me crazy, but I couldn't stop grinning after I heard that.
Ellis Island museum pics:
It ended up taking us all afternoon just to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so don't think you can squeeze too much more in.
On the way back to the train, the last few impressions were that being in NYC is very much like being in all those movies and TV shows that I've seen... everywhere you turn is a surprise. Outside Madison Square Gardens were a line of women sitting on the footpath, meditating. Just before the station I saw a large black woman telling her friend: : "You gonna regret that, girlfriend!" Cliches! Cliches are everywhere!
And finally, some more random pretty pictures I took. One in Battery Park, the other on the train home.
The day started out as a grey and drizzly morning, not really foretelling the nicest of weather for a trip to NY. Nevertheless we (the parental and I) headed out to the train station to board a train, of all things. :P As far as I can tell, most trains are quite similar, world-wide, so there's not that much to tell about them. But you can all have a photo anyway.
Feels like you're there with me, doesn't it?
Coming from Australia, my impressions of Americans have been tainted quite severely by the television I've watched and the movies flung my way. For some reason I wasn't expecting it to be quite as multicultural as it is. My viewing experiences have shown me a mainly white America, whereas my actual experiences show me large proportions of Blacks and Hispanics. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying it's different to what I expected.
However, regardless of what I may or may not have been expecting, the girl I was sitting next to on the train made me giggle. Her name, believe it or not, was Destiny. I never really thought people with that name actually existed! I was sure it was just a myth propagated by the media to make it seem as though the 60s never ended. And she spent the vast majority of the trip with her mobile phone glued to her ear as she called various people in a voice that could rival Mickey Mouse for the squeakiest ever invented.
Thankfully, she got off fairly early along the train line and I was able to resume normal functioning by gazing intently out the window at the Manhattan skyline as it approached. By this stage the sky was clearing and the sun was peeking out, giving the faintest hope of beautiful weather.
We got off at Penn Station and then hopped on a subway which took us down to South Ferry. Interestingly, while the walls in the subway cars may have been mostly scrubbed free of tag-paint, you can still see where the graffitti has been... pretty much on about 90% of the available wall/door space. I guess it's just an indelible part of what NYC subway system is like. Many of them also have an American flag painted on the outside near the door. That's just in case you forget which country you're in. At least the ones we were in didn't smell and contained a minimised proportion of creepy old homeless men due to the large number of friendly looking tourists heading downtown.
Saturday must be Tourist day in NYC. As such, when getting off at South Ferry, the easiest way to find the ticket office and the queue for the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands is to follow the hoardes of tourists flowing towards them.
And where there are tourists, there are buskers. And what buskers there were! None of this silly busking by playing regular popular songs on a guitar business! Each one was meticulously dressed in a ridiculous outfit. From posing as the Statue of Liberty herself, with that lovely green complexion, to standing around with a large (around 2 metres long) live snake, hoping people will pay to hold it, each busker was an individual.
My personal favourite was the one standing by the queue to the ferry. He may not have had the brightest clothes, but he certainly made up for it with his rainbow wig and quick thinking. Every few minutes he'd speak to someone in the queue, asking them where they're from and ask them to join in in his act. At one point I saw a man juggling beside him, a few minutes later he was asking a lady from Germany to dance a German jig for everyone. She declined, but when she did so, he launched into a random German song, playing on his guitar and cramming in more German phrases and jokes than you'd think were possible. Between acts he'd keep telling everyone to smile, for today is a happy day and there is no reason to look so miserable. He made it impossible to hold back a smile. Not surprisingly, his tip hat was brimming with one-dollar bills.
Alongside this smattering of street entertainment came the tourist-leeches. You know the ones -- the merchandise sellers, with a million mini Statues of Liberty, Empire State Buildings and I [heart] NY t-shirts. There are the fake/stolen watch, sunnies and Prada handbag salesmen. You know it's suspicious when they start unzipping suitcases and call out "Prada Handbags" to you as you walk along, minding your own business. And you can see they're keeping it all together for a quick getaway in case a policeman strolls by.
Now that I have set the scene, let me give you all some general advice in case any of you decide to visit the Statue of Liberty one day:
Do:
Bring plenty of water and good food with you.
Don't:
Rely on the local vendors to provide you with good food or honest service. The sandwiches we bought gave one of us a nasty case of indigestion, and when I purchased two drinks it cost me $5.50. The nasty drinks vendor tried to only give me back $3.50 change from a $20 note. I had to go back and demand my change.
Do:
Buy your tickets at least 2 days in advance. Also, make sure you get a time pass observatory ticket to let you into the monument itself.
Don't:
Leave it to the day you arrive and then stand in a ferry ticket queue for 20 minutes in the blazing hot sun only to find out that you won't be allowed up the statue at all. You're only allowed onto the island with the ticket. If you want to go into the statue, you need some silly time pass, which will let you up to the Observatory level (16 floors up), apparently... I wouldn't know for sure. Plus, these time passes are pretty much only available well in advance. But don't assume you're getting anywhere near the face or crown of the nice lady of liberty even if you do have a time pass. I think there'd have to be some bribery/sexual favours involved to get up that high.
Do:
Send someone over to the ferry queue STRAIGHT AWAY when you get there.
Don't:
Go la la la... oh let's get some ferry tickets, then meander over to the ferry queue and go SHIT! A 40 minute wait?!
Do:
Bring a hat, sunnies and sunscreen for the time you will be waiting in queues.
Don't:
Turn into a baked vegetable, like I did.
Do:
Allow heaps of extra time for all sorts of delays. Allow at least 5 hours for the whole experience of ticket-buying and getting through the queues and sightseeing on Liberty and Ellis Islands.
Don't:
Don't look at it rationally and think 'an hour to get there, an hour in each place, half an hour to get back' because you will be SORELY disappointed.
Do:
Bring a healthy sense of humour. And only a small/medium-sized backpack.
Don't:
Take it the wrong way when you realise that the 40 minute long ferry queue was actually for the queue for just the security tent where they make you take off you belt and shoes and anything even remotely metal. The Americans are WAY paranoid, and not only do they tell you to take all locks off your luggage at airports as your bags WILL be searched, but they also figure that each visitor to the Statue of Liberty is a potential terrorist and they will go out of their way to inconvenience you. It doesn't matter that you can't even go into the damn statue, you're a threat for just walking AROUND it.
Makes you feel so proud to be an American, doesn't it?
Do:
Go on some of the complimentary group tours run on each island by the people who work there.
Don't:
Pay the extra money for the audio tour. It's mostly a waste of time and money on Liberty Island, unless you're really interested in knowing in great detail just how many years it took to build, etc. I did like the audio tour in the Ellis Island museum, but it went on and on and on ...
All in all, Liberty Island was kind of disappointing, though very pretty:
Check out the vultures with cameras:
Look: A Liberty Island cup on Liberty Island with a SWAT team member in the background. Why do they need SWAT team members there?
Ellis Island was very interesting; the audio tour gave you lots of information. But then, I don't know how much I might have gotten from the free tours put on by the people who work there. It makes you appreciate the age we live in when you hear about the appalling conditions people went through. If you were female you HAD to have a male escort to leave the island after arriving. As such lots of women married on the spot. Can you imagine marrying someone you'd met that day just to enter a country?
After months in ships to get there, you could be sent back if you were deemed unhealthy. Not only were they concerned about basic illnesses, but if you were considered mentally unhealthy it could be just as bad. They'd mark an X on you with chalk and then try to determine whether you're crazy or not. One of the indicators of mental instability, apparently, is EXCESSIVE SMILING. Call me crazy, but I couldn't stop grinning after I heard that.
Ellis Island museum pics:
It ended up taking us all afternoon just to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so don't think you can squeeze too much more in.
On the way back to the train, the last few impressions were that being in NYC is very much like being in all those movies and TV shows that I've seen... everywhere you turn is a surprise. Outside Madison Square Gardens were a line of women sitting on the footpath, meditating. Just before the station I saw a large black woman telling her friend: : "You gonna regret that, girlfriend!" Cliches! Cliches are everywhere!
And finally, some more random pretty pictures I took. One in Battery Park, the other on the train home.
STC - Day 4
Published by Swish Lish.
Friday started out as at least one of my days here had to. I went in to my dad's work and got introduced to all his workmates. I can't begin to count just how many times I explained the rough direction of my trip to people. I'm thinking of investing in a sign on my forehead that says*:
NJ/NYC -> Copenhagen (June 13th).Contiki tour around Scandinavia and Russia.
-> Stockholm (July 15th). Herrang Dance camp - YAY!
-> Amsterdam (July 25th).
-> Munich (August 1st), followed by traipsing around through Austria and Poland, ending up in Prague.
-> London (August 26th), and another month of further UK wandering.
-> Frankfurt/Bonn (September 28th).
-> Beijing (October 2nd), then I take a tour down to Kunming, then make my own way to Hanoi where I join another tour which takes me through Vietnam and Cambodia to Bangkok. I take another tour in just Thailand, which brings me back to Bangkok.
-> Sydney (December 13th).
* Please note, all flight dates are currently approximate and subject to change if and when I feel so inclined. But they are unlikely to move by more than 3-4 days.
Unfortunately, that sort of message would take up quite a lot of room on my forehead, and people might get a tad distracted while I try and talk to them like a normal person.
In any case, after visiting with the funky physics people here at Rutgers, I then went to chat with the Psych people to see if they had any interesting seminars or lectures running that I could join in on. Unfortunately, the Summer Break status of the uni meant that nothing was on at all. And the maze-like design of the psych building meant that I couldn't find the main psych office at all. I was just lucky to find my way out of there. :)
I couldn't go to NY that afternoon, either as we'd been invited to go to dinner at the house of some of my parents' friends. This was good fun, food was yummy, and their 2-year-old is extremely cute. And although I tend to scare small children most of the time, he got fairly used to me by the end of the evening and was happy to play ball with me. Woo.
They had fun, too, apparently, since we've been invited back again next Friday night.
NJ/NYC -> Copenhagen (June 13th).Contiki tour around Scandinavia and Russia.
-> Stockholm (July 15th). Herrang Dance camp - YAY!
-> Amsterdam (July 25th).
-> Munich (August 1st), followed by traipsing around through Austria and Poland, ending up in Prague.
-> London (August 26th), and another month of further UK wandering.
-> Frankfurt/Bonn (September 28th).
-> Beijing (October 2nd), then I take a tour down to Kunming, then make my own way to Hanoi where I join another tour which takes me through Vietnam and Cambodia to Bangkok. I take another tour in just Thailand, which brings me back to Bangkok.
-> Sydney (December 13th).
* Please note, all flight dates are currently approximate and subject to change if and when I feel so inclined. But they are unlikely to move by more than 3-4 days.
Unfortunately, that sort of message would take up quite a lot of room on my forehead, and people might get a tad distracted while I try and talk to them like a normal person.
In any case, after visiting with the funky physics people here at Rutgers, I then went to chat with the Psych people to see if they had any interesting seminars or lectures running that I could join in on. Unfortunately, the Summer Break status of the uni meant that nothing was on at all. And the maze-like design of the psych building meant that I couldn't find the main psych office at all. I was just lucky to find my way out of there. :)
I couldn't go to NY that afternoon, either as we'd been invited to go to dinner at the house of some of my parents' friends. This was good fun, food was yummy, and their 2-year-old is extremely cute. And although I tend to scare small children most of the time, he got fairly used to me by the end of the evening and was happy to play ball with me. Woo.
They had fun, too, apparently, since we've been invited back again next Friday night.
STC - Day 3. Wow NJ is dull.
Published Saturday, June 04, 2005 by Swish Lish.
I was planning on going to NYC yesterday, but didn't quite get around to it for a variety of reasons.
First we had to go to the post office to go pick up my registered letter from Germany which contains my funky sim card. The post office is technically only about 3 mins drive away (that's how long it took us to get back), but getting there was a right-royal pain. They're changing the roads around here at the moment, so we had to go right around the whole university to get there, and then we weren't sure where the street was and didn't go far enough down the road, then went back the other way, thinking we'd gone to far.... short cut to 20-30 minutes later and we finally found the silly thing. Lord knows why they didn't leave it at our local post office on campus here which is less than 5 mins walk away.
Not that everything was peachy when i got to the post office, either. Apparently my Australian driver's license wasn't enough to convince them that I was in fact the person named on the envelope. They needed something with the address. It's a good thing my dad and his driver's license came along, or else it would have been a wasted trip.
I don't get that, though. It's not like my names very common or anything, surely they should be happy to give it to the right person, not just someone from that address. Anyway.
Well, after that exceedingly riveting ride to the post office we came back and i had to decide what to do with the rest of my day. There's a whole problem with going to NYC in that it takes around 2 hours to get there, and 2 hours to get back, and local buses stop running at 11pm because everyone here is on summer holidays. So I'd have to leave NY at like 9:30 to get back here to New Brunswick in time to catch the bus back. So that puts a serious spanner in the works if i want to go to any swing dance socials given most start at 9 pm.
So, given such transport issues I decided to go to the local town and ask about what else there is to see in New Jersey. Maybe I could go use my afternoon productively without needing 2 hours to get there. I walked into a local book store and even found an interesting book on sale. While paying for it I asked the nice-looking salesperson what there would be to see in New Jersey since i don't have time to go to NY that day. He looked at me and told me flat out that there's really not that much to see in Jersey. It's pretty boring, he said. "The best thing about Jersey is that it's fairly close to New York." Can't argue with a local, I guess.
During my campus explorations the day before I came across a flier for a Summer Session Kick-off party near one of the local fraternities. Cool, I thought. Maybe I'll get to go to one of those famous frat parties I've heard about. Who knows what wild tales I could come back with. Some of those Buffy episodes made frat parties look like an awful lot of fun, and they were often inspired by the lamest of events. The Somebody-Sneezed party idea was pretty funny, after all. :)
What could be more fun Summer session party? Here was my chance to go and check one out, my brain filled with thoughts of beer kegs and spiked punch bowls. There was even meant to be a live band playing. And free ice cream.
The free ice cream should have set alarms going in my poor little stereotype-filled head. No self-respecting party would be advertising "free ice cream" as a major attractor. But, lo and behold when I came up to where the party was meant to be, the ice cream was by far the star attraction. I think they had vanilla, chocolate AND mint... or some other green flavour I'm not familiar with. Not a drop of booze in sight. A pretty decent band was playing to the 3 people (including me) who were standing about. The other two people left as soon as they finished their ice cream. I must say I was thoroughly disappointed to the point that I went shopping instead.
Speaking of shopping, I must say that having a large backpack instead of a suitcase for a 6 month trip is annoying for one major reason. Anything I buy, I need to carry on my back for the next 6 months, or else post home. This is an excellent incentive to NOT buy much. But, at the same time, it's very frustrating looking at so many enticing products and needing to tell myself no each time. It doesn't matter how cheap or cool it looks, if i don't need it for the next few months, I shouldn't buy it. Phooey. Stupid tempting shops.
I bought a pair of shoes yesterday, but only because I'm going to European countries soon where it should be very hot and I had no sandals. See? I had an excuse. I'll need them. It's not just me being frivolous. But I think I might send some other items home, if i can decide which ones it is that I don't need so much. Eeny, meeny, miney mo...
Never fear, dear friends, tomorrow, Saturday June 4th will DEFINITELY be a NYC day, as will Monday the 6th. And Monday will also be a swing dance day. Mmmm.... swing. Exciting stories coming soon, I promise.
-------------------
It has come to my attention that some of you people who have been reading my adventures would prefer to receive them via email and not put in that massive effort that is involved in clicking on a favourite. Due to few requests, I'm going to both send out my blog entries to people via email, as well as post them up on here. If you would like to be one of these special email people, please send me an email to swishlish@gmail.com from the address you would like to have it posted to. I'll see what I can arrange.
First we had to go to the post office to go pick up my registered letter from Germany which contains my funky sim card. The post office is technically only about 3 mins drive away (that's how long it took us to get back), but getting there was a right-royal pain. They're changing the roads around here at the moment, so we had to go right around the whole university to get there, and then we weren't sure where the street was and didn't go far enough down the road, then went back the other way, thinking we'd gone to far.... short cut to 20-30 minutes later and we finally found the silly thing. Lord knows why they didn't leave it at our local post office on campus here which is less than 5 mins walk away.
Not that everything was peachy when i got to the post office, either. Apparently my Australian driver's license wasn't enough to convince them that I was in fact the person named on the envelope. They needed something with the address. It's a good thing my dad and his driver's license came along, or else it would have been a wasted trip.
I don't get that, though. It's not like my names very common or anything, surely they should be happy to give it to the right person, not just someone from that address. Anyway.
Well, after that exceedingly riveting ride to the post office we came back and i had to decide what to do with the rest of my day. There's a whole problem with going to NYC in that it takes around 2 hours to get there, and 2 hours to get back, and local buses stop running at 11pm because everyone here is on summer holidays. So I'd have to leave NY at like 9:30 to get back here to New Brunswick in time to catch the bus back. So that puts a serious spanner in the works if i want to go to any swing dance socials given most start at 9 pm.
So, given such transport issues I decided to go to the local town and ask about what else there is to see in New Jersey. Maybe I could go use my afternoon productively without needing 2 hours to get there. I walked into a local book store and even found an interesting book on sale. While paying for it I asked the nice-looking salesperson what there would be to see in New Jersey since i don't have time to go to NY that day. He looked at me and told me flat out that there's really not that much to see in Jersey. It's pretty boring, he said. "The best thing about Jersey is that it's fairly close to New York." Can't argue with a local, I guess.
During my campus explorations the day before I came across a flier for a Summer Session Kick-off party near one of the local fraternities. Cool, I thought. Maybe I'll get to go to one of those famous frat parties I've heard about. Who knows what wild tales I could come back with. Some of those Buffy episodes made frat parties look like an awful lot of fun, and they were often inspired by the lamest of events. The Somebody-Sneezed party idea was pretty funny, after all. :)
What could be more fun Summer session party? Here was my chance to go and check one out, my brain filled with thoughts of beer kegs and spiked punch bowls. There was even meant to be a live band playing. And free ice cream.
The free ice cream should have set alarms going in my poor little stereotype-filled head. No self-respecting party would be advertising "free ice cream" as a major attractor. But, lo and behold when I came up to where the party was meant to be, the ice cream was by far the star attraction. I think they had vanilla, chocolate AND mint... or some other green flavour I'm not familiar with. Not a drop of booze in sight. A pretty decent band was playing to the 3 people (including me) who were standing about. The other two people left as soon as they finished their ice cream. I must say I was thoroughly disappointed to the point that I went shopping instead.
Speaking of shopping, I must say that having a large backpack instead of a suitcase for a 6 month trip is annoying for one major reason. Anything I buy, I need to carry on my back for the next 6 months, or else post home. This is an excellent incentive to NOT buy much. But, at the same time, it's very frustrating looking at so many enticing products and needing to tell myself no each time. It doesn't matter how cheap or cool it looks, if i don't need it for the next few months, I shouldn't buy it. Phooey. Stupid tempting shops.
I bought a pair of shoes yesterday, but only because I'm going to European countries soon where it should be very hot and I had no sandals. See? I had an excuse. I'll need them. It's not just me being frivolous. But I think I might send some other items home, if i can decide which ones it is that I don't need so much. Eeny, meeny, miney mo...
Never fear, dear friends, tomorrow, Saturday June 4th will DEFINITELY be a NYC day, as will Monday the 6th. And Monday will also be a swing dance day. Mmmm.... swing. Exciting stories coming soon, I promise.
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It has come to my attention that some of you people who have been reading my adventures would prefer to receive them via email and not put in that massive effort that is involved in clicking on a favourite. Due to few requests, I'm going to both send out my blog entries to people via email, as well as post them up on here. If you would like to be one of these special email people, please send me an email to swishlish@gmail.com from the address you would like to have it posted to. I'll see what I can arrange.
STC - Day 2
Published Friday, June 03, 2005 by Swish Lish.
It's the weirdest feeling being here in the states, to be honest. It's somehow familiar because it's so much like on all the movies and on the TV; the people talk and act the same... and the stereotypes seem to all be true. Big cars, big meals, lots of black people, industrial size packs of food/toilet paper, flags outside houses, the lists go on and on.
Just looking around my parents' place makes me laugh because of all the products I find which look so stereotypically American. From the super-huge packs of cereal (5lb/2.2kg! We have 3 of them.). To the massive rolls of paper towel. They're standard sizing here in the States, but in Australia they're the super-size variety. When my mum came home last week she bought us some huge paper towels because that's the size she was used to in the states, but they looked huge to us.
The thing that really makes me crack up, though, is looking at the paper towel that we have in the cupboard. It looks EXACTLY like the guy on the Burly paper towels in that episode of the Simpsons where Marge gets a crush on the guy in the picture. Big bulging manly muscles, manly-looking flannel shirt, reasonably hunky-looking guy on a background of tall trees, suggesting he's a woodcutter of some sort. Everything suggests testosterone and virility. :) The paper towels even sound manly. They're called Brawny paper towels. I'm not making this stuff up.
And guess what, toilet paper doesn't come in just standard sized sheets. Why have just one size when you can have four? Regular, Big, Giant and Mega. Our thirty pack of Giant toilet paper is apparently equivalent to seventy-five regular rolls.
As you can tell I've spent a bit of time around the apartment for the last day or so. I was still pretty whacked yesterday after the flights on Tuesday so I spent most of the day sleeping, exploring the 65 channels of TV and I went out walking around the university campus that we live on.
It's the start of summer here and everything is just so very very green. The grass is green, the trees are lush and green, especially after the colourful non-green leaves of autumn that we have around the house back at home in Sydney that I'm used to. When I was out walking yesterday afternoon I was almost blinded by the brightness of some purple flowers in the sun. It was incredible. All that sun and vibrant colours were actually exhausting to a poor little jet-lagged vegetable like myself yesterday so I wasn't out for too long.
Look at the green and brightness:
It's pretty interesting, though. Being in a slightly cooler region of the world than Sydney means we can find all sorts of berries and animals in the local forests. My dad brought home some wild strawberries yesterday and said he saw a deer. And today we drove past a flock of wild geese which had at least a dozen fluffy down-covered goslings within it. They're so cute. :) Shy, too, but I'll take photos next time from a distance.
Just looking around my parents' place makes me laugh because of all the products I find which look so stereotypically American. From the super-huge packs of cereal (5lb/2.2kg! We have 3 of them.). To the massive rolls of paper towel. They're standard sizing here in the States, but in Australia they're the super-size variety. When my mum came home last week she bought us some huge paper towels because that's the size she was used to in the states, but they looked huge to us.
The thing that really makes me crack up, though, is looking at the paper towel that we have in the cupboard. It looks EXACTLY like the guy on the Burly paper towels in that episode of the Simpsons where Marge gets a crush on the guy in the picture. Big bulging manly muscles, manly-looking flannel shirt, reasonably hunky-looking guy on a background of tall trees, suggesting he's a woodcutter of some sort. Everything suggests testosterone and virility. :) The paper towels even sound manly. They're called Brawny paper towels. I'm not making this stuff up.
And guess what, toilet paper doesn't come in just standard sized sheets. Why have just one size when you can have four? Regular, Big, Giant and Mega. Our thirty pack of Giant toilet paper is apparently equivalent to seventy-five regular rolls.
As you can tell I've spent a bit of time around the apartment for the last day or so. I was still pretty whacked yesterday after the flights on Tuesday so I spent most of the day sleeping, exploring the 65 channels of TV and I went out walking around the university campus that we live on.
It's the start of summer here and everything is just so very very green. The grass is green, the trees are lush and green, especially after the colourful non-green leaves of autumn that we have around the house back at home in Sydney that I'm used to. When I was out walking yesterday afternoon I was almost blinded by the brightness of some purple flowers in the sun. It was incredible. All that sun and vibrant colours were actually exhausting to a poor little jet-lagged vegetable like myself yesterday so I wasn't out for too long.
Look at the green and brightness:
It's pretty interesting, though. Being in a slightly cooler region of the world than Sydney means we can find all sorts of berries and animals in the local forests. My dad brought home some wild strawberries yesterday and said he saw a deer. And today we drove past a flock of wild geese which had at least a dozen fluffy down-covered goslings within it. They're so cute. :) Shy, too, but I'll take photos next time from a distance.
The Swish Travel Chronicles - Day 1
Published Thursday, June 02, 2005 by Swish Lish.
Yes, people, as threatened, I have finally gone overseas. Woo! :)
I'm currently at the parents' place here in New Jersey, and recovering from what would have to be one of the longest and most exhausting Tuesdays in history. Not only did I spend about 20 hours flying (13 hrs on one flight, then 6 on the other) but there was also the added fun of sitting around in airports at Sydney, San Francisco and Newark.
Tuesday started out as many other first-day-of-travel days have done: sleep deprived due to staying up till 4 am packing. (Speaking of which, wow I had to cut out a lot of stuff I wanted to take. Even so, I think I packed too much.) But I figured it didn't really matter since I could sleep on the plane, right? Technically, yes. In practice, well, not so much.
Due to me wandering a little at the airport and seriously underestimating the time to get through immigration and to gate 60, I ended up getting there as one of those people being paged to rock up for the plane. (I was there half an hour before the scheuled take-off time, so I don't know why they were already paging me, exactly.) And since my boarding pass was one of those "best seat available" ones, on a 400 seat plane with me being one of the last 5 cattle-class passengers to board, I got a damn crappy seat. Row 54 (yes, they do go up that high), one of the middle seats with at least one person to crawl over whenever I wanted to get out. Good ol' Economy. There's nothing else like it to make you feel more like a battery animal.
Anyway, I was seated between a self-absorbed 40yo-ish couple on my left, and some exceedingly untalkative moderately cute 25yo guy on my right. I tried making conversation a few times with the guy on my right but got fairly minimal answers and gave up in the end. Oddly, simply because we were of roughly the same age, one of the flight attendants thought we were married.
The main good thing about Untalkative Guy was that he tended to get up every 2 hours or so to stretch his legs, so I got to get up fairly regularly to stretch my legs. And what did I do in such a confined space as a plane to stretch my legs? Well, after going up one aisle and back down the other a few times, it was getting kind of dull so I did some Charlestons. 20's and 40's. Think about that for a moment. Imagine you're on a cramped plane with 400 other people and you see a loony up the back bobbing up and down as she kicks her feet around a lot. No wonder people gave me some funny looks. :)
But I'm sure the guy who saw me doing the Shim Sham must have thought that there was something seriously wrong with me. At least with 20's Charleston it kind of looks like stretching. With the Shim Sham I probably looked like I had something stuck on the bottom of my shoes. :) Or that my feet were possessed. Whatever. :) Swing is good for getting the circulation going in one's feet during long flights. I heartily recommend it.
I tried sleeping, but being in one position for lengthy periods of time doesn't really promote it so much. Also, the lack of a window or friendly shoulder to lean my head against didn't help, either. Ended up dozing for about an hour or two before being fed breakfast at 9am San Fran time (2 am Sydney time).... and herded off the plane an hour later just when i was getting particularly sleepy.
So, there I was, the first day of my 6 months of fun-filled travels, wondering why people were being so untalkative. Some might say this could have been to do with the fact that I was being a weirdo making funny kicking gestures at the back of the plane, but I was kind of disappointed, regardless. Until some nice American guy started chatting with me as we were on a travellator at SFO. Apparently he hadn't been on one before and he needed to tell someone. :) I suppose they are pretty cool the first time you go on one, what with it feeling like you're walking super-fast and all. :)
He'd just come back to the states after his first trip overseas, which happened to be to Sydney for the Mardi Gras. I lost him when we went through Customs and Immigration, but it was nice to chat with someone after being trapped between not-so-friendly people for 13 hours beforehand.
Flight number 2, although being much shorter was more tiring for me because I was already pretty tired after the first one. And since it was a much smaller plane there was only one aisle to move around in, and thus my leg-stretching was much shorter.
Flying across the states was pretty interesting. I was hoping to see the Grand Canyon, but either we went around it, or I slept through it. I did a lot of dozing on that flight. Pretty much whenever I closed my eyes I'd doze for a few minutes. We went over a mountain range which was all white and snowy, I think they were probably the Rockies. And then there were a few massive lakes. I'm talking HUUUUUUGE. The plane was going at like 1000kph, but it still took us like 10 mins to cross the damn thing. I got up and went to the bathroom in the middle of crossing one of them and when I got back it was still under us. Then, as we got closer to Newark the views started getting really pretty because it was getting close to sunset. At one point the clouds were all odd and scattered and I was thinking it looked as though some giant naughty puppy had torn a massive couch cushion to shreds and strewn the cottonbally goodness all over world.
The last half hour of the flight was particularly pretty. The sky was slightly cloud-filled, and the sunlight shining through it was all orange and red as it got low over the horizon. You could see reflections of deep crimson off the tops of various buildings in New Jersey. There was a Manhattan skyline in the distance on the other side. I can remember thinking I should take a photo. So sleepy. Several photos. So very very sleepy. Need to get my camera out of my bag. Too sleepy. Don't want to move. And then we landed a few minutes later and all the pretty views were gone. So, no photos just yet.
Came off the plane feeling pretty much like a boiled vegetable. Thankfully airports are frequently designed for the boiled vegetable to navigate in, and I was able to find my way out to the baggage collection carousel with minimal hassles, and then was found shortly afterwards by a familiar-looking parental. All was well. Walked up to the car on the passenger side before realising that it was actually the driver's side here in the states.
Got home, chatted a little, but mainly was soooooo glad that somebody had invented the shower and beds. There's really nothing like a good lie-down after 20 hours of flying. This bed is sloped and kinda hard, but anything beats a seat in an airplane.
Thus ends my first travel-related entry. Stay tuned for further tales from the mind of Lish as she is unleashed upon the world.
I'm currently at the parents' place here in New Jersey, and recovering from what would have to be one of the longest and most exhausting Tuesdays in history. Not only did I spend about 20 hours flying (13 hrs on one flight, then 6 on the other) but there was also the added fun of sitting around in airports at Sydney, San Francisco and Newark.
Tuesday started out as many other first-day-of-travel days have done: sleep deprived due to staying up till 4 am packing. (Speaking of which, wow I had to cut out a lot of stuff I wanted to take. Even so, I think I packed too much.) But I figured it didn't really matter since I could sleep on the plane, right? Technically, yes. In practice, well, not so much.
Due to me wandering a little at the airport and seriously underestimating the time to get through immigration and to gate 60, I ended up getting there as one of those people being paged to rock up for the plane. (I was there half an hour before the scheuled take-off time, so I don't know why they were already paging me, exactly.) And since my boarding pass was one of those "best seat available" ones, on a 400 seat plane with me being one of the last 5 cattle-class passengers to board, I got a damn crappy seat. Row 54 (yes, they do go up that high), one of the middle seats with at least one person to crawl over whenever I wanted to get out. Good ol' Economy. There's nothing else like it to make you feel more like a battery animal.
Anyway, I was seated between a self-absorbed 40yo-ish couple on my left, and some exceedingly untalkative moderately cute 25yo guy on my right. I tried making conversation a few times with the guy on my right but got fairly minimal answers and gave up in the end. Oddly, simply because we were of roughly the same age, one of the flight attendants thought we were married.
The main good thing about Untalkative Guy was that he tended to get up every 2 hours or so to stretch his legs, so I got to get up fairly regularly to stretch my legs. And what did I do in such a confined space as a plane to stretch my legs? Well, after going up one aisle and back down the other a few times, it was getting kind of dull so I did some Charlestons. 20's and 40's. Think about that for a moment. Imagine you're on a cramped plane with 400 other people and you see a loony up the back bobbing up and down as she kicks her feet around a lot. No wonder people gave me some funny looks. :)
But I'm sure the guy who saw me doing the Shim Sham must have thought that there was something seriously wrong with me. At least with 20's Charleston it kind of looks like stretching. With the Shim Sham I probably looked like I had something stuck on the bottom of my shoes. :) Or that my feet were possessed. Whatever. :) Swing is good for getting the circulation going in one's feet during long flights. I heartily recommend it.
I tried sleeping, but being in one position for lengthy periods of time doesn't really promote it so much. Also, the lack of a window or friendly shoulder to lean my head against didn't help, either. Ended up dozing for about an hour or two before being fed breakfast at 9am San Fran time (2 am Sydney time).... and herded off the plane an hour later just when i was getting particularly sleepy.
So, there I was, the first day of my 6 months of fun-filled travels, wondering why people were being so untalkative. Some might say this could have been to do with the fact that I was being a weirdo making funny kicking gestures at the back of the plane, but I was kind of disappointed, regardless. Until some nice American guy started chatting with me as we were on a travellator at SFO. Apparently he hadn't been on one before and he needed to tell someone. :) I suppose they are pretty cool the first time you go on one, what with it feeling like you're walking super-fast and all. :)
He'd just come back to the states after his first trip overseas, which happened to be to Sydney for the Mardi Gras. I lost him when we went through Customs and Immigration, but it was nice to chat with someone after being trapped between not-so-friendly people for 13 hours beforehand.
Flight number 2, although being much shorter was more tiring for me because I was already pretty tired after the first one. And since it was a much smaller plane there was only one aisle to move around in, and thus my leg-stretching was much shorter.
Flying across the states was pretty interesting. I was hoping to see the Grand Canyon, but either we went around it, or I slept through it. I did a lot of dozing on that flight. Pretty much whenever I closed my eyes I'd doze for a few minutes. We went over a mountain range which was all white and snowy, I think they were probably the Rockies. And then there were a few massive lakes. I'm talking HUUUUUUGE. The plane was going at like 1000kph, but it still took us like 10 mins to cross the damn thing. I got up and went to the bathroom in the middle of crossing one of them and when I got back it was still under us. Then, as we got closer to Newark the views started getting really pretty because it was getting close to sunset. At one point the clouds were all odd and scattered and I was thinking it looked as though some giant naughty puppy had torn a massive couch cushion to shreds and strewn the cottonbally goodness all over world.
The last half hour of the flight was particularly pretty. The sky was slightly cloud-filled, and the sunlight shining through it was all orange and red as it got low over the horizon. You could see reflections of deep crimson off the tops of various buildings in New Jersey. There was a Manhattan skyline in the distance on the other side. I can remember thinking I should take a photo. So sleepy. Several photos. So very very sleepy. Need to get my camera out of my bag. Too sleepy. Don't want to move. And then we landed a few minutes later and all the pretty views were gone. So, no photos just yet.
Came off the plane feeling pretty much like a boiled vegetable. Thankfully airports are frequently designed for the boiled vegetable to navigate in, and I was able to find my way out to the baggage collection carousel with minimal hassles, and then was found shortly afterwards by a familiar-looking parental. All was well. Walked up to the car on the passenger side before realising that it was actually the driver's side here in the states.
Got home, chatted a little, but mainly was soooooo glad that somebody had invented the shower and beds. There's really nothing like a good lie-down after 20 hours of flying. This bed is sloped and kinda hard, but anything beats a seat in an airplane.
Thus ends my first travel-related entry. Stay tuned for further tales from the mind of Lish as she is unleashed upon the world.
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Name: Swish LishLocation: Sydney, Australia |
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