More pictures from Stradbroke (Props to Shndara)

So here are more photos from straddie. Taken from Shndara's facebook page. See how tasty those crab claws look? Yeah. I wanted to catch that sucker and eat it, but I was advised against it.

Avatar

Just found out why my internet at home has been limping along like a half dead fish in a desert this past week. Turns out that Tom, the eldest of my two host brothers, has been patiently pirating Avatar for his iphone over the past week. That explains a lot. It doesn't explain the Library's incredibly slow internet today, but it makes me feel better that 12 mbps isn't going to be a standard speed for the internet when I am trying to read all the pdf's for my research paper, which, might I add, is due in exactly 14 days. crap. better get to that.

Notes from last week

Here is what I did for the two days of lectures on politics. Needless to say my participation grade wasn't particularly high, but I did manage to sit in a room for 6 hours (over two days) without going insane from boredom.

Internet is impossible here

Ok so instead of the photos showing up as photos in my blog, all I see are a number of letters and number all scrambled together, so I don't know where one begins and another ends, making it impossible to put captions on the photos.

As explanation, the first photo of the previous set is actually mine. It was a little too scandalous to post on facebook, so I needed to share it with an audience somewhere.

Claire's photo of Jack and Spencer's intimate moment on the sea cliffs was an amazing shot as the whole thing lasted approximately 2.5 seconds before they both realized the level of commitment they were bringing to the "gay chicken" table.

The Koala was in a suburban park on the way home, they bore me to death because they don't do anything but everyone else gets very excited when we see one.

The little guppy fish is from our trip to the mangrove forest/tidal pools out on the beach at sunset (which was during low tide). They were pretty easy to catch and really cool looking. Kind of like a throwback to the evolutionary step between when things moved out of the water on to land.

We also got to see a GIANT mud crab when Emily nearly stepped on it while we were wandering around the exposed seaweed forest. You could see her footprint about an inch in front of it (it had its claws up and was staring our group down). Rob--our leader for the weekend--kicked at it so it would snap its claws together at us. He said that they have the power to break a big toe by pinching their claws. He then stuck his foot behind and kicked it over so we could see its sex (it was a male). Overall it was a great weekend out, but again, lectures are getting really boring. (most of the stuff is about BIO which I am well versed in, or politics which I don't care about.

Straddie

Hey all, sorry its been so long since I posted, I've had a very full week of lectures/tours around the city/host brothers and this past weekend we took a trip out to Stradbroke Island off the coast of Brisbane.

The internet is crawling, so I'm not sure how many photos I'll be able to upload but check facebook for new ones, as it is much quicker to load them up there. (If you don't have a facebook, you may be able to politely request that a certain rachel rogers email you some photos. She doesn't seem that busy these days).
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That was a draft that took me three days to get up here. Internet has been failing around my house and life has been hectic. Things have started to fall into a pretty regular pattern here. Classes are long and we have a lot of field trips to different places (some cool, some not) which take up a good deal of our time. I am exhausted when I get home every day, but I am loving my family and we are bonding quite well. Sam and I are halfway through the star wars trilogy and I am tutoring him in the ways of the force. The past week of lectures had a good deal of Australian Politics, which I could honestly give a flying fuck about. I have many pages of notes which I will upload after this post (You will note they are quite detailed).

Here are photos taken by my peers of our trip to stradbroke island. Photography credit goes to Caire, Kaitlin, and Travis.

uncle wayne's website

http://www.waynekrause.com/

Just in case you guys are interested. This is the website for the Uncle who ran our camp.

Work in progress: Title suggestions appreciated.

As I watched Zeus’s blowtorch
Ignite the night sky,
Planted on that deck where
Sweat dripped from my neck
To my bare, bony, feet,
I could feel the sweet aching of a
Snaking memory floating up,
Coating my throat
As I choked myself with tears,
In remembrance
Of those years
We spent together.

I remembered one such night
When you held me out of fright
And I told you the light and sound crashing down
Around us was just
A celebration of the spirits.

You cried softly for your mother.

I thought then that I had lied
To quell the rising tide
Of a child’s wild imagination
And the fear it brings,

But as my old eucalypt chair creaks
And swings with the spiraling wind
That wrestles its way through the trees,
I can hear your spirit sing.
And I see you dance and twirl among the clouds
As you prance and swirl
Across a pitch-dark summer sky.

Dirty Jokes

I love my little homestay brother. We just spent an hour before bed just telling jokes to one another. His uncle has told him a bunch of dirty jokes that made me burst out laughing and when we went off to bed he was singing "tik tok" by Ke$ha. This has been the "American Jam" that we request at all of the clubs we go dancing at. The first time this happened the dj said "I hate you bloody American's, this ones for you:"

(in case you don't know what it sounds like here is a link):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_nlrfxpfM&feature=PlayList&p=4A3CAFA298B58DBD&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=13

Basically the little dude rocks.

Homestay

Ok. My family is AWESOME. I’ve got two brothers, Tommy and Sam. Sam is 11 and super athletic. Tommy is 13, sulky and very much a 7th grader. Last night Tom was reluctant to show me anything, to talk with me, or generally connect in any way. I went to a debate that his school (k-12) was in with another school. They are rivals. I have never seen anyone get so heated over a debate. Every grade 8+ was debating, with two or three different teams per grade. I watched his friends debate (he’s on the team but wasn’t debating that night) and they were quite articulate for 12-13 year olds. They didn’t really synch their ideas together that well, but they were articulate and presented some complex ideas for kids that age. The subject of their debate was: “Would we be better off as a society without reality television?” It was funny to hear pre-pubescent 12 year olds talking, in grown up language but incredibly childlike voices, about what the youth of Australia should and shouldn’t be exposed to. One kid who was 4’9’’ at best was infuriated that television would expose such levels of drugs and sex to the countries youth. Despicable I believe he called it.

The senior debate was crazy. It was in, I kid you not, “The Great Hall” which was a medium chapel-sized hall. It held about 300 people, and about 500 managed to pack in and around it. The pre-game ceremonies included flag-waving, war cries, chanting, stomping an all around ruckus. I can deal with that on a soccer pitch, but if I had to get up and talk in front of people after that I would probably piss myself on stage.

Tommy continued to sulk throughout the night, but in the morning we began to bond. I started giving him a hard time, and I sat and farted on Sam after breakfast. Tom thought that was great fun. P.S., Sam and I bonded immediately. He’s a live wire with a foul mouth and an incredibly mischievous smile.

Tom then unveiled his talents to me. He can build anything. Well, anything that blows up or destroys stuff. He created a marble-launching gun out of a 20 oz coke bottle, a meter of pvc pipe, a bike pump, and a metal tube with a lever that opens and closes it. Pictures will come later. We shot shit. For about an hour and a half we just destroyed boxes and trees and whatever we could shoot without Matthew and Donna or the neighbors hearing. It was great. He also made a crossbow out of Knex. It will give you a giant welt if you get hit by it and it can puncture a cardboard box.

I took the bus downtown (about 3 miles from my homestay) and did a dry run to the GED office. It’s a 20 minute busride and about a 30 minute walk (the GED office is only a mile away from my bus stop, but it’s across a busy part of town so 15 of those minutes are spent waiting at traffic lights).

I went to the city market/shopping centers (they closed an old street and just lined it with shops), and bought myself a new pair of shorts as well as a couple souvenirs for people. I came back home for dinner at five, and then I went down to the Rugby stadium with Matthew (my dad) to buy tickets for me a Sam for the night’s match (Matt and Tom have season tickets). I was going to sit with same, but Tommy wanted to sit with me when we got there, a point of pride for me. So we sat and talked about life an such for 20 min or so, then I grabbed a beer and Tom grabbed some fries, and we snuck into the 70 dollar seats next to Sam and Matthew. I had three beers for 6.30 each (a good deal in Australia, and even better at a stadium) and got drunk and watched rugby. It was another good night.

I feel a lot better now that I am with a homestay. Donna and Matt are both very nice people, and I think they appreciate my level of independence (I told them I would figure out the buses and such on my own, and I do my own dishes) but also appreciate how much I interact with the kids.

P.S. they own an xbox and have a giant-ass flatscreen plasma. How could I not interact with the kids?

Whew. I think that is a pretty good update of my travels so far. I will upload pictures/video when I can. There are some really good ones.

Brisbane

2/12/10
Took a 4 hour bus ride at the buttrack of dawn to get to Brisbane. Took a tour of the city. It was nice to reconnect with everyone. Met our homestay families. Mine was about 20 min late. It was just like getting picked up at Mother’s Place when I was little. Always one of the last ones to leave. I’ll put up photo’s later when I can get the internet speed for it.

Free Surf Lesson

2/11/10

Have you ever been stung in the balls by a jellyfish? I wish I could say that I haven’t. It was not a bad sting. The jellyfish at Byron feel itchy and annoying more than anything else. We had a beach day today (which was amazing by the way, so much sun and fun in the water and I didn’t get burned, but got nice and tan [4 applications of sunscreen within a 4 hour period]), and while we were all playing in the surf the girls started complaining about getting stung. I got a few stings on my side and it felt kind of like an itchy mosquito bite. I told them to stop being such babies and to man up. I even mocked their fits of surprise when they got stung.

Then karma set it. I felt a warm tingling sensation on my upper left thigh. Like….really upper, as in, divot between the unspeakables and leg region. Then it spread. Most uncomfortable feeling I’ve had on this trip. And that includes the morning after we had unbearably spicy Thai food.

I got quiet and started to walk out of the ocean slowly. Anna asked me if I was ok. I told her the situation and she offered me her firstborn child in case I became infertile. She’s a sweet girl. I asked her if she wanted to kiss it and make it better. She told me she would prefer to give up her firstborn.

About an hour before we left, a group of girls from…..somewhere….Eastern Europe? decided that the breast quota for the beach wasn’t quite high enough, and that the beach needed to become a topless beach. We were all quite appreciative. They were right behind our group, so some of us made a few excuses to walk up the beach and take a drink of water, or throw a bottle out, or make a trip to the bathroom…..3 times.

The rest of the day was great. Kat, Laruen, and I had incredibly expensive and incredibly delicious sushi. We had a few margaritas at the cheeky monkey. I was selected for a competition even though I was minding my own business at the front table, and I was told to select a partner. I tried to decide whether Kat or Lauren would be more embarrassed if I chose them. I decided on Kat.

“I….HATE you” met me as she climbed on stage. The dj asked on member of the team to put their hands on their head. Kat did so. He then brought out the rubber hoses and balloons. I got a free surf lesson in about 20 seconds. I didn’t respond to the hostess’s comment that it “looks like you’d done that before.” Original, lady…original.

We headed back to camp and had a few beers at the pub across from our hostel. We met up with Katie and Annie and Keith and Robin, and Robin was lucky enough to FIND FIFTY DOLLARS IN THE GOD DAMN ASHTRAY. He bought us all drinks. It was a good night.

I packed up a bit and fell asleep in my clothes. I woke up at three and heard Kat and Jack and Catlin still chatting away on the hammock outside out tee-pee. I don’t know when they came to bed, but we had to get up @ 6:30 to catch our bus. None of us were pleased.

Epic Night

2/9/10
My journal got soaked today. It was on the outer perimeter of the Tee-Pee when it started to dump rain on us. I had forgotten that Catlin had lifted the rain-fly around the edge of the tp up so that we could get more airflow, and about 20 minutes into the downpour I realized that my journal, three pairs of shorts, and a couple tee-shirts got completely soaked.

I moved the wet clothes into areas where they could drip dry and I took my towel to the pages of my journal. Fortunately all the pages where I had used water-soluble ink had already been recorded on my computer.

Last night was ridiculous.

For serious.

I was planning on having mmmmm maybe two beers. 1/2 of a pitcher and then call it a night. We went to this place called cheeky monkey’s (8 dollars pitchers, best deal so far in Australia) and I bought a pitcher for me and Anna to share. Then, Kat discovered the margaritas. They came out of a slushie machine and they were 5 dollars. And they tasted great. And they had a lot of Tequila in them. And so the night began.

Cheeky monkeys was a pub/restaurant that had a two-level stage at the end of it. There were a number of booths around the side, and then three long cafeteria-style tables up front—with the stage in front of that.

We sat at one of the metal tables (the place was packed) and ate our 7 dollar meals—amazing bargains again (Anna and I split a giant bowl of fries w/ chicken tenders on top). We got intoxicated to a minor degree and laughed ourselves silly at the contests and events that occurred on the stage.

The first one involved three sets of two partners, one male one female. All of the males were given a small length of plastic hose, with a balloon attached to one end. They were instructed to place it inbetween their legs, while the female partners got to their knees. The first female to “make her man pop” (meaning to explode the balloon behind their partner) won a free surf lesson. The woman who won did it in about 30 seconds. The other two women had their balloons about 1/3 full.

The next contest was the fake orgasm contest. There were three males and three females. The girls sucked. A lot of screaming. One of the males was boring and not too into it. The first and last males were amazing.

The first one who, mind you, did not want to be selected for the challenge at all, took it to the limit. His charade involved gesticulations of the arms, legs, pelvis, and feet. His voice was evenly tempered and his chosen words were comedic, yet oddly inspiring.

The last male, Jackson, (out group had made friends with him earlier) should have won. His orgasm went something along the lines of:

“Oh yeah baby I’m gonna, wait— hold on just a second—don’t move, I’m gonna. Crap. Hold it. Just stay. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. Fuck. Sorry. That doesn’t normally— Do you want me too—ok yeah I know where the door is…”

Brilliant.

What was even funnier was the group of males next to our group who felt a big enough connection to Jackson to yell out “HEY! YEAH! GO DUDE!! THAT”S ME RIGHT THERE!”

Priceless.

The second to last competition was a scavenger hunt. This was not announced. They just asked for 3 males and 3 females to get to the stage. They had been announcing that there would be a dance competition in a bit, but they had been asking people to sign up. I was pretty sure that this was not the dance comp, but I wasn’t entirely sure. They needed another male. What was I going to do but volunteer?

It was pretty fun. We had to get flyers from around the bar, an empty glass, a straw, a condom to put over our hands—y’know, the basic drill. The last person back each time got eliminated. On my way down for a….straw? maybe? I dunno. On my way down from the stage for something I took the rim of a glass to the head (just above my right eye). I didn’t notice it until afterward, but it swelled up and I got a nice clean cut, about 1.5 cm long on the outside of right eye socket. I was actually kind of proud of it the next day, as Robin commented that is was “more than a little BA” (That’s ‘bad ass’ for all you old people).

The last contest of the night was a dance competition. The first round had 8 people. They danced to three or four different types of music, then four were eliminated. Same deal for the second round, and two got knocked off.

For the final round, the two finalists had to choose a partner from the audience. That partner became their stripping pole, and they had to strip for the win. The gentleman competitor was quite agile, and performed some incredible moves. He got down to his boxer briefs, and made his “pole” cry with laugher.

The female competitor, well, what happens at the cheeky monkey stays at the cheeky monkey.

They used a decibel meter to decide the winners for each round, and we had to cheer three times in order to determine a winner for the final round. The male won (50 bucks cash and a $50 bar tab) by .7 decibels (116.5 to 114.8).

Then they started the music and the LC crew did what it does best. We started a dance party. We rushed the stage and danced it out til 2 in the morning. It was a great night.

(photos to come)

Photo's pre-Epic Night

There are photos from before the epic night. I will place them here once I get to an internet Cafe and can upload photos. My internet@ my homestay is too slow.

Posts

I know I know. I have not been in contact with anyone for two weeks. I have many posts to type up and a few to write. I want to upload pictures but the internet at my host family is even slower than Arundel. I think I will have to find an internet cafe downtown somewhere so #1 I can upload stuff and still maintain some level of sanity, and #2 so that I don't slow their connection speed down to slower than it is already. More to come soon.

Mom, Dad, I miss you and I will skype you soon.

Love,
-Chris

Bus to Byron

2/8/10

Made it to Byron. Currently sitting in a hammock chair after a refreshing afternoon swim and bask in the sun. We are staying at the Arts Factory Lodge and it is quite an interesting place as it is very hippie-centric (what with the murals of mother nature and tee-pee's and dreadlocked people about) but it is also quite yuppie as Byron is a complete surfer/tourist town. The "tee-pee" we are staying in has wood floors and beds and an electrical outlet. Also, next to our tee-pee is a platform for spiritual healing, including massage, sound, and aroma therapy. Only 80 bucks an hour. Or one could venture over to the "didge pit" and make your own didgeridoo for 165 dollars.

There are a great number of nationalities here and its pretty cool. A lot of people from france/germany/england and western europe, but Russia, the low countries, and eastern europe have made a decent showing too (as well as one or two Israelis). Oh and you shouldn't forget the Canadians. But everyone does anyways. It's good to know that they are still the butt of everyone's jokes even outside the U.S.

A few of us didn't want to bother walking across cap to change after swimming today, and seeing as how we've all seen each other essentially naked by this point (Kangaroo strips and aucre don't leave much to the imagination) we kind of just minded our own business while drying off and changing. What hippies.

We, (meaning Jack, Lauren and myself) had a hell of a time getting here. We checked into the bus terminal @ 5:30 (about an hour early and went across the street for a monterous burger and a couple brews. We got on the bus an hour later and it was almost completely empty. We moved so that each of us could have two seats to ourselves. The first movie that played was sleepless in seattle. I had never seen it and it was a total chick flick but I'll admit, it kind of got to me. It was about home, and family, and lovers: all things I miss very much right now--oh and there was some sarcastic little kid that climbed on shit, which was my real connection to it.

THEN at 10pm we picked up more passengers. At 11 the turned off the tv's and the lights and let everyone try and get some sleep. I then heard a laugh. A high-pitched, wheezy, smoker laugh that carried over the engine and road and even the fat guy snoring three rows ahead of me. It was the kind of laugh I associate with drunk sorority girls and over-privileged southern-Californian royalty. This woman kept laughing her wheezy girlie laugh, almost like cuddly machine gun fire, and walking up and down and up and fucking down the bus.

Because there were empty seats behind me, she came back and started running her mouth off. The most favorable description I can giver her is that of a loud, obnoxious, giggling, c*nt. The other descriptions involve terms and phrases that I learned during my freshman year on the baseball team, and they are not repeatable here by any means.

Around 1:45 I was about to politely ask her to shut the fuck up, when she started talking about her boyfriend and certain aspects of her social life, and drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs--oh, and I almost forgot: drugs.

She couldn't stop talking about her experiences with them and her access to them and then I realized the reason that she hadn't shut her crass mouth for longer than 20 seconds in the past three hours was because she was definitely on something, either cocaine or ICE (that's what they call speed here).

From 2-4:30 she just let her mouth run off and when the two guys admiring her belly shirt/sexual aura weren't responding to her comments she talked to herself, sometimes posing hte question "Isn't it only crazy people that talk to themselves?"

"YES" went my brain

"fucking tweakers" went mouth and lips (under my breath of course)

A highlight was when she was in the bathroom shouting:

"HOW DO I FLUSH THIS THING!? FLUSH DAMNIT! FLUSH FLUSH FLUSH!"

Anyways. She crashed around 4:30 so I slept from 5-8 and and Arrived in Byron @ 8:30. We got some breakfast hung out at the beach and met up with Catlin, Kat, and Anna, got our tee-pee and started kickin back.

There are lizards all over this place and they are the least bashful animals I have seen in my life...apart from maybe Oscar. They will not move unless you flail one of your own appendages at them, and even then its only a few inches. There are also a lot of wild turkeys around here. I'll try and get some photos of them.

There had to be one before I left

This guy was on my ceiling when I woke up this morning. Needless to say i got out of bed quick. I'm heading off to Byron Bay just south of Brisbane tonight, and I'm not sure when I will have internet again, but I will try and get as much written as possible while I am basking in the sun at the beach!

Last Week

I can't begin to describe last week. I've slept 16 out of the past 24 hours. My mind and body are still reeling from it. I will try and put up some bullet-point outline of Aboriginal Camp up in the next few days, but if you want to know about it, you'll have to skype me or call me sometime. Off to do research.

-Chris

Pizza and Beer

1/30/09

Went out for "Pizza and Beer Night" last night. This genius idea was spawned by Kat Morrison weeks ago, but it always seemed to get put off. Seeing as how we are leaving for aboriginal camp today, we decided that there were no excuses for not having our pizza and beer night. We headed down Glebe street (the one next to Arudnel which has a fantastic assortment of restaurants cafes and little shops) to an italian joint that has a motorcycle in the front window. We had gourmet wood-oven baked pizza (Kelsey and I split a lamb and spinach one, best pizza I've ever had...and I've had a lot of pizza). We then headed down to the AB hotel and I bought 5 jugs of beer for everyone, as it was our last night in Sydney, and I'm only spending 262 dollars on travel and lodging expenses for my week of independent travel in two weeks, and our budget for food, lodging, and travel expenses is $650. Throwing down 50 dollars on a group of close friends for three marvelous weeks in Sydney didn't seem like that big of a deal. It made for a good night, followed--for many of us--by a couple hours of slightly intoxicated packing as we prepared to depart for Aboriginal camp. I won't be in contact for the next week, and will only have internet for a few days before I head off for my week of independent travel, but I'll try and update as much as I can. I can't wait for this upcoming week!

The makings of a good night.

The response to this photo:

"Ha! It's a perfect blend of Femininity and Masculinity"

"Well, I mean, it is Chris..."