Mon 31/12/12 23:58

I woke up at about 830 with little or no eye problems. I haven’t looked at my eye so it may still be red or swollen, but it doesn’t hurt and it’s not watery at all. What a relief. So I’m starting 2013 feeling pretty good. I just finished my first cup of coffee sitting outside in warm summer morning while I write this entry and finish the previous one. Life feels pretty good right now.

Just as I was getting up to go take a shower I got into a conversation with about 4 or 5 people about traveling. The discussion of travel changed to Australia and I asked what people thought about the country so far. All of the people were from Europe, except for me, and they all said there are too many rules here, and it’s way too expensive. Funny because that’s what I thought as well, but to hear it from Europeans it really made my opinions correct. In the end we talked about nearly everything for about 2 hours, until I finally decided it was time for me to get ready to see the city. Today I’m staying in a real hostel, dorm room, common area, mostly young people, and to be honest I enjoy this type of environment the best. The problem I run into so many times when I stay in a true hostel is that I feel too old, and some people treat me different. This one has been good though so far.

So I went back down to the common area and started talking to a German guy who is doing a working holiday around the world trip. He’s been traveling for like more than two years and is coming from Perth where he worked for 3 months. We ended up talking for a couple of hours and now it’s almost 2, and I haven’t stepped out of the hostel yet. Got to go now.

I think I’m going to add two days into one entry. Yesterday was a big walk around the city and today was a bus and train ride to Adelaide, so although each had some interesting points nothing really stood out as being a big event.

I started kind of late in the morning yesterday. I knew that it was going to be my last day and I didn’t really know what to do that I hadn’t already done in my time here. Well, there was one thing, I hadn’t gone to the beach in Melbourne yet and it was one of the first things I was planning on doing. So what better excursion to do before I left Melbourne than to go down to the shore? I decided to walk the long route to the nearest beach, about 5k by my estimations. I didn’t really know what to expect either, was it a regular beach for swimming, or possibly it could be a working shore that would be complete with docks.

When I did finally arrive about an hour after leaving the hotel, I entered into a very nicely groomed beach. The white sand beaches were filled with all types, there were people kite surfing, swimming, laying out, and of course lots and lots of people just walking around. About the only negative that I could find was that it was windy to the point of being a little uncomfortable.

After walking along the beach for what was marked as 5.5 km, I headed back to the city on a bike/pedestrian path. This path couldn’t have been planned out any better, it ran parallel to a park on one side and metro track on the other so the only time that I had to deal with any cars was the occasional cross street. Much of the path was covered by trees so it seemed really idyllic in fact I wish all cities, or at least Dubai, had paths like this. The walk back to the city pretty much wore me out and after hitting a downtown, Hungry Jacks, I took the metro back to the hotel. Just to note, Burger King ran into a copyright problem when they tried to come to Australia and had to use a different name, Hungry Jacks.

Something else that I keep telling myself that I need to mention in this blog is, that most of what I’ve seen of Australia, specifically where people are involved, reminds me so much like the west coast of the US. I swear there have been times like on my walk home yesterday that I felt like I was walking near Laurelhurst Park. The streets, the architecture, the parking, and nearly everything seemed so familiar.

I set both of my alarms for 6 to get out of the hotel by 7, and without a hitch I got to the train station on time. I like when that happens. About the only thing to note in my morning was that sometime over the night I developed an eye infection. It wasn’t bad at first, but by about midway through my trip I couldn’t even open my eye without tears streaming down my face. The guy sitting next to me kept looking at me, probably thought I was crying or something. Eventually we spoke a little and I took the opportunity to mention the eye infection and he nodded like now it made sense.

The type of eye infection is the same type as I usually get, I don’t know what causes it, but it seems to be common after being in strong wind where fine dust or sand is around. It happens a lot in Dubai. Another thing that I feel like kind of talking about is that on the second part of my journey we were on a bus, and there was a short, round, old man sitting across the aisle from me. He was the type that would talk to anyone and when he talked he didn’t care who heard. For the most part his voice just turned into background noise, much like the din of all the other noises of the bus, but at one point he says, “…I’ve been all around the world and I like all countries except for one.” He piqued my interest, which could it be? Russia? Japan? China? He continued, “America. The people are crazy there, they want war, and every one of them has a gun. And if it weren’t for America there wouldn’t be any wars. Just look, every war that there has been, America has been in it.” I was being given a rare inside look of what so many Australians think about the US. He didn’t know that I was from the US but I was smiling at that point. He mentioned, “I lived there for two months so I know what I’m talking about. At the time my wife was pregnant and she got nervous, so we got right out of there and came back to Australia!” I thought about breaking down his logic to him, like mentioning that the time frame he’s talking about is over 50 years ago (he mentioned that his daughter is 52), or that most of the wars the US has been in have been either at the request of other nations, WWI, WWII, Kuwait, and a number of other encounters. Sure, there are the ones that we’ve done wrong, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, but not every war. The whole time that I overheard his rant about how evil the US is/was, I just kept thinking how ignorance is like a warm blanket that people love to cover themselves in. He was so content in his belief that America was evil, he used the cause of wars to rationalize his theory, and now he could hate it without ever having to question his own beliefs. He is a perfect example of why I hate ignorance in everyone. In two months in Los Angeles and we’re all supposed to believe his hate of another group of people, who are so much like him that he couldn’t even tell an American(aka one of the demons) was sitting less than 4 feet away. To be honest though, I really enjoyed the opportunity that he gave me and only wish that I had said something to him… you know to let him hear my accent.

The bus pulled into Adelaide at about 730 in the evening and no lie, the city looked deserted. If it weren’t for an occasional car it would have looked like marshal law or a curfew was in effect. I made it to the hostel without any problems, and about the only thing that I can mention is that my eye was so swollen, red, and watery that I was embarrassed to talk to anyone. Earlier in the day I kept my sunglasses on so my eye was somewhat hidden, now that the sun was pretty much down my sunglasses aren’t really an option and my eye is out there to creep everyone out that happens to look at me. I quickly grabbed something to eat and headed to bed. It was about 9:30 when I laid my head down, and that is about the last thing I remember. It is somewhat interesting to me that I slept nearly half the trip to Adelaide asleep and then fell asleep at night before 10 on New Years Eve. Must have been the eye infection.

The bus was supposed to pick me up at about 720 in the morning, but ended up being a little late. No worries, I was looking forward to getting out of the city and was proud that I was doing something a little bit out of the norm for me. Today was to be a day long road trip along The Great Ocean Road, stopping along the way for photos, tea, lunch, and breaks.

We started the actual journey at about 8, but didn’t actually stop until about 10. That left me about an hour to take a small nap to make up for having to wake up early. There were lots of stops along the way and the coast was absolutely beautiful, and about my only complaint was how cold and windy it was.

Most of the photos that I took were of the landscape, but a few were from wildlife that we saw along the way. We stopped at several surfing locations and one place that is well known for having Koalas. The vast majority of our stops were to take photos of the rock formations along the coast. I was also playing with my new phone’s panorama feature.

One more thing of note, on our way back to Melbourne last night we stopped in a small farming town which I swear could have been straight from Western Texas. The big open road, the tractor supply stores, a few cars waiting to cross road, of course there was the scattered fast food restaurants (KFC, McD). It was just strange, in a good way. :)

It’s Friday, the 28th and I really don’t know when I last made an entry. I decided that since I have internet here in Melbourne that I’d fix the problem with the blog not showing images before I post again. Unfortunately though I couldn’t fix the blog and I didn’t add a post, it appears that it’s a double loss. And now, as I’m writing this, the internet isn’t working at all.

Tonight was going to be my last night in Melbourne until I realized that my timing for everything was a little bit skewed. Because of the holiday season many of the hotels are full for this weekend. This kind of forced me to make a decision to either add a few nights on here or leave and take a chance of getting a hotel elsewhere. I decided to play it safe. I have to leave for my Jan 3 flight back to Dubai so I don’t want to get too far from Sydney, and everyone seems to think that everywhere I want to go is too far. I think the next time that I come to Australia I’ll start in Cairns, then head to Alice Springs, and then possibly back to Melbourne. Australia has been great so far, but I wasn’t prepared for the difficulty getting around to the key areas, so I’m kind of considering this as more of a scouting trip for at least a month long vacation here sometime later.

Yesterday, just like any normal vacation day for me, I’d go walking/hiking around the city trying to get a feel for the culture. It didn’t take long before I realized that I was just plain tired. Tired enough that by about 12 I had no reservations about heading back to the hotel for a nap. The nap turned out to be a day lounging around watching movies and tv. I have no regrets I think that I needed to just sit back and rest a little. In fact I’m thinking that after going for a walk this morning I may do the same thing again, head back early for some lounging around… it is after all supposed to be a vacation.

Tomorrow I’m planning on going for a tour outside of Melbourne. I haven’t decided which tour, but I’m leaning towards a ocean drive that takes about a day to complete. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but Dubai is a cheap city to live in. Since I’ve been in Melbourne there have been so many things that have sounded like a blast to do, like take a helicopter ride or go for some acrobatic flying in a vintage airplane… the thing is, is these things are just out of my budget. To get an idea of one of the cheaper things that I wanted to do was go to the zoo. I’m not really a zoo lover, and to be honest I only wanted to go because there is an exhibit called, “I, Animal” that sounded interesting. Turns out that it cost $50 to go. It occurs to me that I must be getting old because a visit to a zoo or museum should never be more than $20…I just can’t grasp $50 per person to go to the zoo.

You know what I realized a little while ago? If you could see me from the space station I would be upside down. :)

Oh, and I have tried several times to see a toilet flush in the reverse direction. Heck, I even filled up a sink to see if I could get a whirlpool to go in the opposite direction and as of yet everything seems to be the same.

Time for me to go for a walk… I think I’ll head to the closest beach. Though from the looks of it, it will start raining soon, and I may only get close.

I got downtown and to my surprise the city was crowded with people everywhere. Considering that at 8 when I arrived it was completely deserted it was a nice change. Not really sure of what I was going to do, I took a seat on a bench in front of the train station and pulled out my map. As I did, I looked across the street and saw a “free” tour getting ready to start. What timing. So in just a few minutes I joined up with the group and we headed out. I got to admit I think the free tours are the best tours. Maybe because the expectation is lower, or maybe the tour leaders try harder, but whatever the reason I enjoyed this tour.

After the tour I wasn’t ready to quit so I kept walking. I had hoped to make it to the ocean, but didn’t get that far. I was walking along the Yarra river following it to the sea for about an hour before the path ended. Oh well, I felt that I was getting too tired to actually make it much further so although I didn’t make it to the sea, I did get to see much of that part of Melbourne… the rich part.

I got back to the hotel checked in and then headed out to find a place to eat. There’s quite a few small restaurants in the area, and many of them looked like they’d have great food in the end I opted for fast food.

It was a long day yesterday. I had to check out of my room by 10 and my bus didn’t leave until 8 that night. That left about 10 hours on Christmas day just to walk around and take in any sights that I may have missed the past four days.  Turns out that I’ve pretty much seen all of Sydney which means most of the ten hours was just walking around and dodging rain showers. That was okay until it started to rain heavily and there was no “dodging” any more. No worries though, it has been a long time since I’ve walked in the rain and it was kind of nice.

The bus left a little early and to make things even a little better, I had both seats to myself the whole journey to Melbourne. Considering how many times we stopped to let people on and off I feel pretty lucky.

It’s 10 am and I’m at my hotel in Melbourne right now and have just finished breakfast. I can’t check in until 2 this afternoon, so I’ll have to figure out what to do for next few hours. Although I’ve been through the city by bus and by train I don’t know what to expect before I go out again. There doesn’t seem to be very many people out on the streets though. I guess it could be that many, or most people have the week off.