Tonight we leave for Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Last night we met some friends for a few drinks at Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbour, Sydney. Beautiful. The club was on a boardwalk, half indoor and half outdoor, and had a DJ with a live drummer, as well spectacular views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
Tomorrow we hit Brissie, as the locals call it.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
View from our picnic: Sydney
Picnics. A travelers favourite [local spelling]. Cheap, healthy, better service, and you get to choose your own ambience. (Normally, I would also include that you don't have to tip, but tips aren't compulsory in Australia or New Zealand). Today, Stender and I located a Coles, a chain supermarket in Australia, and spent roughly twelve Australian dollars on a bag of pita bread, 200 grams of ham, 200 grams of turkey, 150 grams of cheese, a bottle of water, and four bananas. I defy anyone to find a cheaper lunch in New South Wales. Let alone with this view:
Waffles and wine...
Above: Silie from Norway, Stender, Matt, and David (our host from Melbourne whom we had met again in Sydney)
Our time in Sydney is to be intentionally truncated. Having conferred with many people about our travel plans, most every Aussie that we spoke with told us that our time in Australia would be much better budgeted in places other than Sydney. Basically, we've boiled down our visit here to a photo-op at the Opera House and a few nights out on the town.
Tonight we met a group of fellow couch surfers for a waffle party. Being extremely fiscally conscious, Matt and I decided that this was by far our best option for cheap food and even cheaper drinks. The host of our party lives in the subdivision of Paddington, which is the fashion hub of Sydney. Being driven to our party, we passed numerous fashion boutiques on the upscale Oxford Street.
Couch Surfing may have made the world as small as it can possibly get, but to make it even smaller, Matt had arranged to have his former bosses granddaughter from San Antonio come meet us for the waffle shakedown. Americans in this part of the world aren't too common, so it was nice to have a conversation about chalupas and Mexican restaurants at a waffle party in Sydney...
...Opera House tomorrow...
-Civ
Monday, May 18, 2009
A Drive Down the Great Ocean Road
Great Ocean Road was commissioned in the early 1930's by the Australian government as a public works initiative to combat the Great Depression. It was designed to be in the category of roads such as the Pacific Coast Highway in California or the Road to Hana in Maui, making the Great Ocean Road one of the most gorgeous and scenic drives in the world. The drive took us about nine and a half hours roundtrip from Melbourne in a car we had borrowed from our friend Jo. To answer your next question: No, neither Stender nor myself had ever driven on the left hand side of the road before. But that was a minor issue. All and all, we only had two real innocents of lapse, where we had realized that we had reverted to driving on the American side of the road, but no big deal. It worked out pretty well. We actually made it back to Jo's house with out any U-turns. This instills a great deal of pride in a man.
In the car:
The culmination of our trip was supposed to have been the Twelve Apostles, which are [apparently] magnificent rock formations that protrude out of the ocean off of the southern coast of Victoria. Due to logistical constraints, we left Melbourne later than we had planned, so for this trip, the Twelve Apostles were beyond our reach. The rain and the dark were coming on quickly, so we had to bail and drive through the boggins town of Colnac for an interesting adventure at a fish and chips joint.
Stopping at one of the beaches:
An amazing waterfall along the way:
Alleyway in Melbourne
This is the alley behind the Tongue and Groove and the Backpackers in St. Kilda, Melbourne. There are similar allies like this all over Melbourne...
The street art is here part of the charm of the city, and it seems to cover every available surface. Alleys like this demonstrate the cultural and artistic crossroads that Melbourne is. I even heard it referred to as 'Mini-Berlin' by a few of the expats living here. Here is a video of Matt and I enjoying our chill spot for the night:
Party on a Rooftop Garden Terrace
The plans for our second day in Melbourne were pretty simple. Take the train to a southern city subdivision called St. Kilda, and walk out on the pier and hope to see the indigenous Little Penguins that come out after dark. Having already been won over by the inexpensive yet delicious wine in the states, Stender and I felt it was appropriate to pay our respects to it's namesake. 
After hanging out with the penguins, we walked along St. Kilda on our way to find $2 pints at a bar named The Tongue and Groove, which happened to be located next to a Backpackers. We were a few hours early for the drink special to kick in, so Stender and I went into the hostel to kill some time. We followed the stairs up to their 'Rooftop Garden' where we found the heart of the Melbourne backpacking community, made up mostly of British expats that have 12 month work visas in Australia.
The trip to St. Kilda pier to hang out with penguins quickly turned into a night of drinks with international citizens, and gave us a great idea of what Melbourne is. It's not a landmark city that is made for sightseeing. This city is all about the culture and the people that make up its population. And we are comfortable with feeling that we got the quintessential Melbourne experience tonight. Unlike so many other cities of the word, there is a general eagerness among the people in Melbourne. They are excited to be here. And so are we.
Below is our view of Melbourne from the St. Kilda pier:
After hanging out with the penguins, we walked along St. Kilda on our way to find $2 pints at a bar named The Tongue and Groove, which happened to be located next to a Backpackers. We were a few hours early for the drink special to kick in, so Stender and I went into the hostel to kill some time. We followed the stairs up to their 'Rooftop Garden' where we found the heart of the Melbourne backpacking community, made up mostly of British expats that have 12 month work visas in Australia. The trip to St. Kilda pier to hang out with penguins quickly turned into a night of drinks with international citizens, and gave us a great idea of what Melbourne is. It's not a landmark city that is made for sightseeing. This city is all about the culture and the people that make up its population. And we are comfortable with feeling that we got the quintessential Melbourne experience tonight. Unlike so many other cities of the word, there is a general eagerness among the people in Melbourne. They are excited to be here. And so are we.
Pro-Tamil Protest
I stumbled upon a protest by ethnic Tamil's one of the main ethnic minorities in Sri Lanka who were trying to raise awareness of the bloody conflict underway in the island nation off the coast of India. The protesters ultimately aimed to persuade the Australian government put pressure on the Sri Lankan military to stop the attacks on the Tamil Tigers. Media and NGO's have been barred from the conflict zone, but reports of mass civilian casualties are prevalent.
More about the conflict.
More about the conflict.
The Meeting of the Matts
So after two months, with Stender having left for his trip around the world (and then eventually grad school in Hong Kong), we had planned to meet up in Melbourne, Australia. Here we are in the Central Business District of Melbourne, across the street from Federation Square. The last time we saw each other before this picture was taken, we were at a bar called Dixies near the San Antonio International Airport toasting to our future travels, some 8,000 miles east of where we are now.
Immediately before we met up, I had been in Northland, New Zealand and Matt had been in Australia for a few weeks. From here, we spend the next 5 weeks together couch surfing Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Christchurch, Queenstown, Wellington, and then finally Auckland again.
This blog is a chronicle of our collective trip throughout the land down under and the land of the long white cloud. We'll be posting a View from the Window every day of our trip, as well as videos of whatever it is we end up doing... And from there, much like our trip, this blog will be left to whatever it becomes...
Cheers
-Civ
View from our window: Day 5
Flinders Street Station, CBD, Melbourne, Australia
11:32am
The Matt's are now together
View from our window: Day 4
Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand
4:41pm
Photo by Matt Civitello
View from our Window: Day 2
Bryon Bay, New South Wales, Australia
5:00pm
Photo by Matt Stender
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