Trip Update #4

Monday, June 3rd - Wednesday, June 5th Rayman and I took a trip to the Blue Mountains, just outside of Sydney. What is this Blue Mountains that you speak of, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see - these are very curious mountains in that the oil mist created by all the eucalyptus trees leaves a blue tint, or hue if you will, over the mountain range. The mountains would actually look a lot like the Grand Canyon without all the trees. So, we spent the bulk of the three days hiking up and around the cliff sides and valleys and such. No overnighter trips though - our backpacks are just too heavy for that! God forbid that we actually used our backpacks for their intended purpose; this would be a travesty. On the last morning of hiking, we walked down the Great Staircase of 910 steps, which were as straight down as possible. This was pretty easy. Then we realized that we'd have to get back up. Since the escalator was out of service, we cajoled ourselves up an impressive 1310 steps in about 17 minutes. This is probably the most exercise I've had since I've gotten here! When we got back to Sydney on Wednesday night, Rayman and I watched the USA-Portugal World Cup game in it's entirety on a jumbo screen. It was awesome. USA won... and there was much rejoicing. The commentators here are ruthless - at one point they were making fun of the Portugal goalie saying that he had his non-stick Teflon coated gloves on since he couldn't hold on to the ball. But, if nothing else, this game seemed to prove without a doubt that Jeff Agoos on the US squad sucks. Someone pull a Colombia (or was it Ecuador?) and shoot this guy for scoring on our own goal. I did meet a fellow from Germany named Mario (yes, I also think that Mario was a very unlikely German name) who just graduated from business school who is interviewing at P&G in a month or so. So, I talked the company up of course. If he signs, I expect the standard commissions fee of one month's salary bonus. Please start working on this immediately, Andrea. Thursday, June 6th Did a walk around Beautiful Manly Bay today (not to be confused with Beautiful Mt. Airy Lodge). Called "one of the greatest scenic harbour walks in the world", we could not afford to miss it. Manly is a suburb on the northeast side of greater Sydney. And indeed, it was actually a pretty nice leisurely 10km walk around Manly Bay. Not really too much else to say here. When we got back to Sydney, we walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens. This actually was pretty nice. It was free also, which is completely not typical of the standard royal botanical gardens that might be found in OTHER countries. Rayman actually had to bow out of the gardens early and go see the Opera House - apparently he felt it was a really nice romantic stroll and kept attempting to hold my hand... not that there's anything wrong with that. Friday, June 7th - Saturday, June 8th Flew to Hobart, capital city of Tasmania, Friday morning to visit my friend Simone. We drove down to the southeastern of Tasmania to an area called Port Arthur, which is now a national park to preserve its past. You see, Australia was initially a dumping ground for convicts from Europe (much like the US was before the American Revolution as I have learned). Port Arthur in Tasmania was a prison for second-offense criminals. It was amazing what small offenses people could commit and the sentences they would be given (14 years for stealing 5 pounds). Above all else, Tasmania was very beautiful - not over-populated at all, beautiful rolling hills (much like my old Eastern Kentucky home), and some spectacular cliff sides dumping out into the ocean (much unlike Eastern Kentucky). Didn't really see any Tasmanian devils though - sorry. Saturday was a dreary ugly windy rainy cold day. So we went to see a movie. Unfortunately, I had already seen Star Wars and Spiderman and could not convince Simone to see either of these again. So I succumbed and we watched Catherine Gray, a movie about some woman from Ireland in World War II who agrees to go to France incognito to help relay information to the French rebellion faction attempting to stave off the Germans. Normally, you would think that a movie about this would have some amazing ending like "Courageous lady risks death and single-handedly thwarts Nazi plans to ...", but no. She does a couple of tasks, flees back to Britain, and then decides to go back to France at the end of the movie because she liked it there better. Could you come up with a dumber movie? I think not. Sunday, June 9th Left Tasmania and flew up to Brisbane (via Sydney). From Brisbane, Rayman and I took a train down to Surfers' Paradise in the illustrious Gold Coast region of the eastern seaboard of Australia. And it confirmed our worst fears, this entire place is essentially Atlantic City down under. I took pictures for proof. Being an overcommercialized area, the standard backpacker avoids this place like the plague. However, the standard partygoer hangs out here for days and even weeks. Thus we are at a crossroads where we must choose how to toe the line. We must look deep into our souls and examine the root of our traveling existence. Then we looked deep into our wallets and decided that we'll leave tomorrow lest we be tempted by the gods of luck at the roulette wheel. By the way, in case you are interested, Rayman and I flew separately to Brisbane from Sydney on Virgin Blue airlines (part of the Virgin empire from the UK). Both of us on our own separate accords decided that Virgin Blue is the Southwest Airlines of Australia. (Ed. note: This is good stuff here. You can't peel your eyes away if you tried. Just please remember to blink every once in a while to prevent oculatory dehydration.) Thankfully it is warmer here, so I plan on offloading most of my cold-weather clothes in a box to be sent home. Then I can load up the vacated space with souvenirs for all you people... imagine strutting around in your very own randomly-coloured T-shirt emblazoned with the randomly-coloured cheap iron-on lettering "My friend Paraag went off to New Zealand, Australia, and most of Southeastern Asia for a 3.5 month escapade, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt". I can feel the anticipation from here. Please let me know in advance if you want extras. Tidbits: 1. A bit of automobile trivia... the GM car is here under the Holden brand name. Ford's are still Ford's. And Renault is still alive and kicking here. So is (brace yourselves for this one) the El Camino, or at least modern-day versions of this half-truck half-car vehicle. It's like the sausage of automobiles - pretty much made of a little of everything. Don't worry - I'll take pictures. 2. Australians also think that the Crocodile Hunter guy (Steve) is an idiot. 3. In Australian Rules Football, there's a scorekeeper guy who gets to signal like the Fonz whenever points are scored. Face it - this has got to be the coolest job in the world. 4. Koalas and Wombats are in an official two-way tie for the title of "cutest animal on the planet". Well okay, the koala wins. 5. In fast-food restaurants or cafes here (similar to some in Europe), you have to pay for additional packets of tomato sauce (aka ketchup), mayonnaise, mustard, etc.. Rayman and I have decided to put his new MBA to good use and become entrepreneurs in a condiment export business. The basic business plan is as follows: send out runners to request extra ketchup packets from local McDonalds and Burger Kings, said runners will deposit collected extras in inconspicuous drop locations (potentially resembling mailboxes or parking meters), the drops will then be collected and shipped via airplanes at precisely midnight each evening, flying at low sea levels to stay below radar, and deliver the goods to the Eastern bloc, where communism has kept ketchup from the masses for years. In Year 1, we expect an infinite % profit jump over Year 0 (since Year 0, profits equal 0). Sounds like a sound plan to me. By way of this e-mail, we are also soliciting for runners to collect the condiment packets. You can get in on the ground floor of this lucrative business and even own part of the company in a few short years.