alright people - i gotta redeem myself. These posts of mine have been lazy and horrible. I admitted it and that's the first step to fixing the problem, right? Ever since Byron I haven't taken the time to write a proper blog because I'm a cheap-skate... but no more! This will be a solid blog (in terms of length and information). It may not make you laugh, it may not make you cry, but by golly it will make you think "wow, this is much longer than any other blogs of Jesse's I've read recently" and hopefully that is a thought you are excited and prepared to have. Because I'm about to bring it on you.
Alright this is going to be a quite dis-jointed entry and I'm going to just bring things up as they come to my brain... so be prepared for anything and anything.
First off - Erin and I are homeless people. Now before anyone (I'm looking at you --> Mom and Dad) gets too worried about us, it is by choice. It's not homeless in the true sense of the world, ok, maybe technically it is, well just read on. We rented a station wagon from this awesome dude, Phil. He's a mechanic and buys these old cars and fixes them up and then rents them out to people at dirt cheap prices. Works well for him and just as well for us. So right now we are paying about $20 a day (NZ) for our means of transportation and a place to sleep at night. The back seats fold down and he threw in a nice mattress for free for us. It's actually decently big in the back and we sleep quite comfortably (after we figured out the best configuration). We're saving a fortune on hostels, which run about $22-25 a night depending on how nice the place is. The downside to living in a car is that we have no place to shower, etc. No problem for me... I hate showering anyway. I hopped in the lake the other day just to freshen up (it was a balmy 50 degrees or so). Erin payed $5 to shower and we washed her hair in the sink another time (you trained me well, mom) so she's not too miserable. It's been a fun experience and I'll be sad to see the station wagon go when taylor arrives... but then we'll have a big campervan for the three of us so that'll be something new and hopefully just as fun.
Queenstown is awesome. We have done some sweet one day hikes (just 2-4 hours return trip). The one we did yesterday was instead of paying $$ to go up a gondola. At the top is one of the sites of bungee jumping so we watched a couple people do that. It wasn't that impressive and it made us realize we were going to do the big one (134 meters) or none of them. Also up there was a sweet 3-wheeled plastic cart luge track. Maybe it sounds cool or sounds boring and it looked pretty corny but also very sweet. We'd heard good things about it so we decided to try it out. It was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. So much fun. You got going so fast and since you're on this tiny little cart it feels like you are going so much faster than you are. Plus you get to ride up this little chairlift and wear sweet helmets and stuff. Loads of fun. Also you get to crash into people and watch people smashing themselves on the way down (mostly younger dudes that thought they were cool and tried to race at full speed and rolled the carts). Also beautiful pictures and great exercise. Every hike around here is an arduous task because everything is so uphill. There are mountains everywhere and every hike is more or less making your way to the summit. My calves are dominated right now.
... Mostly because we did another uphill battle of a hike today. This one was more out in the open (as opposed to through woods) so it was quite nice. It got darker and cold by the time we got to the top and although it looked like it was setting up for a ridiculously nice sunset, we had to head back down. We were cold! Come on guys, give us a break. We're doing it all for you. Don't worry, we're going to wear more clothes (i.e. not just shorts and a t-shirt) and go with taylor tomorrow night. Then we'll get unreal pics of sunsets and mountains and lakes and everything else gorgeous.
I don't even know how to describe this place. Just watch lord of the rings and watch the background and that's where we are all the time. I can't wait to show you guys pictures, it is absolutely insane here. I wish Timmy (one of our newest dedicated blog followers) was here to take pics because he is a mean machine with a camera.
We saw sheep today. Lots of fun. Sheepies are everywhere. Everywhere in this country. They outnumber people something like 250 to 1. Not really, but I think it is 4 to 1. Somebody look that up and get back to me. Or just make it up, I'll probably believe you. One of the most popular souvenirs you see here is a little sign thing that says "men at work" and its a roadsign image (you know... the yellow background with the black stick-figurey people on it) with a man... ummm... sodomizing a sheep. It that too inappropriate for this blog? If any babies are reading this pretend you didn't read that last part. Anyway, you see these signs everywhere and people love them. I often see groups of people ogling them and cracking up. It makes me laugh and I will try to take a picture of it if I can.
Everyone in NZ thinks australia is so lame and visa-versa. It's so funny. Loads of t-shirts here talk to bad about aus and people on the radio are always badmouthing australia. And in australia all the people I knew said how lame all the people are in NZ. It's kind of like the US and Canada in a way, maybe. Or maybe I'm the only one that thinks canadian people are lame (Garrett, back me up on that one).
Wanaka (pronounced Wah-nuh-ka... accent on the Wah) is a sweet place Erin and I went to spend a couple days before taylor gets here. It, also, is by a lake. A beautiful lake with mountains running into it. You all think I'm making this up but just wait until you see the pictures. We did a sweet hike there, too! I know, all we do is hike. So what? We're trying to save money. Give me a break. Once taylor gets here we'll have much more exciting stories about bungee jumping and going to bars and whatnot. Hold your horses.
Puzzling World! Puzzling world was awesome. It is in Wanaka and it would probably be as close to heaven as Earth could get if I was about 8 years old again. It just had loads of illusion rooms, brain teasers, holograms, a LIFESIZE MAZE you walked through (kind of like a corn maze but made all out of wood and two stories), puzzles, everything I lived for when I was a kid. Mom, you woulda loved it! We would have probably gotten a lifetime membership and gone every other day until they banned us from coming. There was this one room that everything was at a 15 degree angle and it was the coolest room I've ever been in. They had balls that rolled uphill, water that flowed uphill, awesome stuff.
What else? What else? We went to salvation army and bought gloves and hats because it is cold here. And books. I read so much now! It's a joke. I read a full-length novel in two days. Who reads that much besides parents? I guess that's what you have to do when you don't want to spend money.
My mom is on Facebook now... so everyone out there on cyberspace beware. She most likely isn't aware of what she's doing and that's what makes her so dangerous I think. I'm just kidding mom. By the way you should friend Preston's mom on facebook, mom, because she is on there too. Then you guys can post on each other's wall and all that jazz.
Dad - I'm trying to live up to your trip in '77 where you guys payed for nothing and had a fantastic time. We're mostly accomplishing both of them for the time being.
Lindberg is on a boat... probably. I could say that at any time within the next 3 months and I'll have about an 80% chance of being correct, so that's pretty neato. I can't wait to get up there and give him a little visit and have him show us around his pad.
If you haven't seen the video Erin and I made... here is the link.
We ran into this huge van with shrubbery sticking out of it. A shrubbery? A Shrubbery! And we said "what's this shrubbery doing here?". Some lady got all psyched up and told us we were gunna be famous. When she calmed down a bit we realized it was more a grass roots ad campaign done by NZ to try to get people to visit. They record you saying whatever you want about NZ and then you send it to whoever you want after they do it up nice for you. Sweet gig - and you guys got to see us all in one piece. Do I look too skinny? I feel like I may be losing some weight with all this hiking and I gotta get home to get some good old fashioned home cooked meals. Few months. Anyway I hope you all enjoyed it.
And I hope you all enjoyed this much longer installment of Jesse's Brain.
That's it and that's all from Queenstown, New Zealand - the adrenaline capital of the world.
- Jesse "feels better about life now that a semi-legit blog is out and about" Meredith
keep is real on the homefront everyone!
Monday, March 30, 2009
more nz
hello folks!!! more stuff from New zealand...
again i've only left myself with 5 minutes so this will be rather short and probably not too sweet. apologies. hopefully you have all seen the video erin and i made by now, so that should make up for this qeak post.
ok so after christchurch we went to greymouth, which was awesome. we hiked around there and took some swell pics before going to a brewery and taking the brewery tour and pouring ourselves a few beers. deliciously enjoyable to learn about beer. we stayed in a fun hostel in greymouth and the guy running it hooked us up with good info.
then we've been down in queenstown doing fun stuff here. we haven't bungee jumped yet but we have seen some ridiculously beautiful scenery. we hiked up more gondolas instead of paying and rode on a fun luge type thing at the top.
why does typing take so long?
i'm sorry everyone... but i'm going to have to cut this blog off here.
taylor will be here in one day! Well he is already in christchurch but he is taking a shuttle to queenstown tomorrow, so that's exciting. we're all going to rent a campervan and ride all around both the south island and north island and then fly back to sydney.
i promise to spend a half hour or more sometime in the future blogging. it'll be solid, just you wait.
love you and if you havent seen the video of erin and i yet, just email me and ask for it.
-jesse "rushed" meredith
again i've only left myself with 5 minutes so this will be rather short and probably not too sweet. apologies. hopefully you have all seen the video erin and i made by now, so that should make up for this qeak post.
ok so after christchurch we went to greymouth, which was awesome. we hiked around there and took some swell pics before going to a brewery and taking the brewery tour and pouring ourselves a few beers. deliciously enjoyable to learn about beer. we stayed in a fun hostel in greymouth and the guy running it hooked us up with good info.
then we've been down in queenstown doing fun stuff here. we haven't bungee jumped yet but we have seen some ridiculously beautiful scenery. we hiked up more gondolas instead of paying and rode on a fun luge type thing at the top.
why does typing take so long?
i'm sorry everyone... but i'm going to have to cut this blog off here.
taylor will be here in one day! Well he is already in christchurch but he is taking a shuttle to queenstown tomorrow, so that's exciting. we're all going to rent a campervan and ride all around both the south island and north island and then fly back to sydney.
i promise to spend a half hour or more sometime in the future blogging. it'll be solid, just you wait.
love you and if you havent seen the video of erin and i yet, just email me and ask for it.
-jesse "rushed" meredith
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Diving My Ass Off
Ahoy Explorers! All New Explorers Must Answer A Science Question. I don't know what that means but a guy on the boat keeps saying it every time new people arrive on board so I am guessing it is some sort of reference to something or other. But anyways the point is: Ahoy! I am back from sea for a while to share some stories. You haven't even heard about my adventures whitewater rafting or wakeboarding at the cable ski park. I am still waiting on some friends to send me pictures from those events for me to post so when that happens you will hear more. Anyways, the great blue vastness. Actually the Great Barrier Reef. GBR.
So here is how the Cairns epic starts. I get hear with my madre thinking a week up in Queensland will be sufficient to sate my outdoorsy adventure craziness cravings. After being pretty ready to leave Sydney I expected to be psyched to keep moving for a while. But that was not the case. I did three days out on the GBR like I talked about before and loved it and only wanted to do more of it. So I began scouting around trying to find either work on a boat or volunteer programs. Pretty much any way to get out on a boat and under the water diving for cheap. I was directed to the CDC, Cairns Dive Centre, which does a training program for those youngsters low on cash but high on time. 46 days of working on their boats helping out with anything and everything that needs doing. Free diving just about everyday. They told me to expect to do at least 60 dives. A couple weeks of free dive courses so I can get adventure, advanced, rescue, dive master, and assistant instructor certified. Plus tons of learning and training working on a boat everyday. I don't get paid but doing all those dives and training on my own would come out to something like $7000AUD so I like to think its a pretty good deal for a couple months of work.
So I got myself all good and signed up. I've been at it a week and a half now and I am loving loving loving it. First a few more logistics about the CDC and my scheduling and whatnot. CDC sends boats out to the reef every single nonstop day so they schedule us TDC's, Trainee Dive Controller, 46 straight days and we can ask for and plead for and hope to get a few days off here and there. We have two boats doing dives everyday. The Sun-Kist is the smaller day boat that goes in and out of Cairns daily, and the Kangaroo Explorer, KE, is the bigger liveaboard overnight boat that stays out on the reef mostly. It refuels back in Cairns once a month but besides that stays offshore. Us TDC's get scheduled to work 5 days on one boat and then switch to the other plus spend some time over at the pool in Cairns where they do more dive training/certifying classes. When you work on the KE you sleep and eat and do everything out there so you don't see dry land for a week or so sometimes.
Ok I just took a break to watch the classy cold open of The Office with Jim in a tux and it was mostly the funniest thing evers. Anyways back to the action. So far I have spent most of my time on the KE with a few random days on the Sunkist thrown in. Working on the overnight boat is a nonstop always doing something sunup to sundown type of day while a day on the Sunkist has long periods of sitting around as we travel from Cairns to the Reef and back (1.5-2hr trip each way). You work 7am-5pm on the Sunkist and 5am-9pm on the KE. I much prefer working the KE. Here is a typical day on the KE (modeled after Jesse's brilliant Melbourne post).
5:05am O boy O boy it's early. The water has been pounding on the hull all night and the crew quarters are right on the other side of that hull wall. All night I have dreams that I am wading or sleeping in water. Water is everywhere in my dreams from the noise of the water outside. But the sun hasn't come up and we need to get to work.
5:15am Crew coffee and tea time. I go for the chocolate milk mostly. Take your CDC issued baseball cap and pull it as far down over your face as you can cuz it is no time to be social.
5:30am Wake up calls! I hate doing this. Wake up calls are the worst and making passengers get up at some ungodly hour is a bad way to start the day.
5:45am Wake up calls #2. Second round same as the first, only louder.
5:52am Setting up the dive deck for a day of diving. Set up the ladders and put down the deco bar. Fill up some tanks. Get divers all geared up
6:07am Dive Dive Dive! Us trainees are either on bow or back deck on lookout monitoring all divers and snorkelers and prepared to provide assistance in case of emergency. Or we are in diving with a dive class or dive group buddying up with the weak member of the herd or playing sheepdog in the back making sure no one in the class strays from the dive instructors shepherdly lead. Or we are in doing training dives such as navigation dives where we get dropped off a 20 minute swim from the dive boat and need to find our way back underwater. Or we are having a fun dive where us trainees can just go down and mess around and see what we can see without entertaining customers. All in all us trainees are doing lookout half the time and diving half the time. One in four of our dives are fun dives but mostly we are in the water performing some task or another.
7:03am Clean up after the dive. Get divers out of their gear. Fill up tanks fill up tanks fill up tanks. My hands were so raw for a week and now so calloused from filling an endless amount of tanks. So many nobs to turn and tight seals to seal and unseal. Set up all the gear for the next dive.
7:30am Shovel breakfast into my mouth. Pretty much eat as fast as I can because another dive starts at 8 and I need to start setting up for that one.
8:02am Dive Dive Dive! Same as the 6am dive. Sometimes diving. Sometimes lookout.
9:15am Fill tanks again after dive and clear dive deck so the boat can move to a new dive site. Help clear mooring lines so the boat can move. Start clearing gear of people who are leaving the boat that day and set up new gear for new passengers coming on board.
10am Maybe we get a solid 13 minutes to relax and grab a little chocolate milk.
10:29am Sunkist dayboat arrives with new passengers. We help all the new passengers on board and get them situated while simultaneously set up for the dive at 11
Alright I can continue on this line but it gets kind of repetitive at this point. There are dives at 6am, 8am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, and a night dive whenever it gets dark enough. 6 dives a day and plenty of lookout time and diving opportunities with setting up and putting away gear in between. Throw in moving the boat twice a day plus three meals there isn't much time to relax. Thats ok though because I am learning a ton and having fun even if I don't get sleep or free time. As a trainee I am working from 5am to 9pm pretty much straight through. We do our best to hang out and be social from 9 to midnight but it gets tough to do that consistently on only 5 or 4 hours of sleep.
So thats what I am doing on the boat. I wish I had more time to relate stories and experiences but I am about to go out again on another 3 day stint at sea. Taylor and his brother Cam and Cam's gf Kati are here and they are going out on the liveaboard boat with me! I gotta go show them a good time. Taylor just got Open Water Certified today and the other two will be doing intro dives out on the boat. It will be awesome.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
kiwi land
Hello from the land of the Kiwis... What is up peoples? This blog will be short and dirty as I only have 8 minutes left on my internet (I paid for 1 hour and I don't have more change to pay for more right now), therefore please excuse any grammar and/or spelling issues.
Alright so Erin and I arrived in NZ almost a week ago... maybe it was a week ago? Anywho, we got here at 1am NZ time and made our way to a hostel in Christchurch, which is a pretty sweet city. I think it is the second biggest city in NZ behind Auckland so thats pretty good. We checked out the city during the day, which is neat-o. There was a cool cathedral and a square surrounding it with all sorts of merchants and markety looking stuff. There was a delicious smell wafting through the air and we made our way over to it to find some carmelizing and roasting nuts. We sampled the peanuts, but eventually went with pistachios (mom, you woulda been in heaven) and they were out of this world. We also walked around the arts center and saw all sorts of hand-made crafts and other wares - we're so cultured.
The next day we decided to go check out the gondola, but when we saw is the price tag of $22 for a stupid ride up a ski lift... we opted to save the money and hike up instead. The path was long, steep, and arduous but well worth the pictures, memories, and calluses we acquired. The view from the top was unbelievably serene. Everywhich way you looked was a postcard waiting to happen. Beautiful.
That's all the time I have for right now... needless to say christchurch was fun and i'll fill you in on our other adventures to other lands soon. love you and goodbye.
Alright so Erin and I arrived in NZ almost a week ago... maybe it was a week ago? Anywho, we got here at 1am NZ time and made our way to a hostel in Christchurch, which is a pretty sweet city. I think it is the second biggest city in NZ behind Auckland so thats pretty good. We checked out the city during the day, which is neat-o. There was a cool cathedral and a square surrounding it with all sorts of merchants and markety looking stuff. There was a delicious smell wafting through the air and we made our way over to it to find some carmelizing and roasting nuts. We sampled the peanuts, but eventually went with pistachios (mom, you woulda been in heaven) and they were out of this world. We also walked around the arts center and saw all sorts of hand-made crafts and other wares - we're so cultured.
The next day we decided to go check out the gondola, but when we saw is the price tag of $22 for a stupid ride up a ski lift... we opted to save the money and hike up instead. The path was long, steep, and arduous but well worth the pictures, memories, and calluses we acquired. The view from the top was unbelievably serene. Everywhich way you looked was a postcard waiting to happen. Beautiful.
That's all the time I have for right now... needless to say christchurch was fun and i'll fill you in on our other adventures to other lands soon. love you and goodbye.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
you have to do what?
so apparently they dont let you go to new zealand unless you already have a return ticket booked... which erin and i did not. Luckily for us we had gotten to the airport 6 hours early because we came straight from byron and are just waiting in the airport. that reminds me of another adventure... alright lets get some structure to this blog post.
The three byronians awoke (jesse, erin and diana) at around 8:15 to the wonderful sound of jack-hammering and drilling and other loud construction noises. The hostel we were staying in was so brand new it wasnt even ready yet... thus the ridiculous cacophony of noise so early in the morning. Nevertheless, things had to be done and planes caught so we arose cheerfully. Our shuttle driver was quite friendly and floored it all the way (with one stop for a kindly older gentleman) to Ballina airport, which is about 25 minutes outside of Byron.
The flight was successful and that's where Diana would leave Erin and I to our own journey. I walked down and asked the lady at the magical window how to get to the international terminal from the domestic one and she said give me $6.20 and I said is there another way and she said no. I said, well i have to be able to walk and she said... well ya, but it takes 30 minutes. I said good deal and after Erin asked for directions (I have a Y chromosome and am incapable of asking for instruction or directions of any kind) we were on our way. Good old Nancy (the window lady) gave us the directions but failed to mention that walking was more or less impossible. Not only was it miles upon miles, but parts of it were on the sides of highway-like roads. Are you kidding me? Trucks were honking incessantly at us as we ran for our lives with our 20 kilo packs on our backs. An hour or so later we were final at the international airport... only to find out we couldn't board for another 2 1/2 hours.
After bumbling around the tiny terminal and eating some McD's... we finally went to check in... only to find out they wouldn't let us on the plane without a return ticket. Bollucks! The lady was super helpful and found us the flight we were looking for (6 weeks to the day from now) and offered to book it for us, but she also let us know that they charge a fee and we should book it for free on the free internet kiosk nearby. We did so and 10 minutes later we had our return flight from NZ on april 28th from auckland. Hopefully we have enough money to make it that long and hopefully we can be there at the right time. If not, it's only a $30 fee so not too big of a deal.
That was our exciting day and we look forward to arriving at 1am NZ time tonight in Christchurch, NZ. Keeps your eyes peeled for updates whenever we get a chance. Thanks for following and talk to you all soon.
- Jesse "Trekkin on the Highway" Meredith
The three byronians awoke (jesse, erin and diana) at around 8:15 to the wonderful sound of jack-hammering and drilling and other loud construction noises. The hostel we were staying in was so brand new it wasnt even ready yet... thus the ridiculous cacophony of noise so early in the morning. Nevertheless, things had to be done and planes caught so we arose cheerfully. Our shuttle driver was quite friendly and floored it all the way (with one stop for a kindly older gentleman) to Ballina airport, which is about 25 minutes outside of Byron.
The flight was successful and that's where Diana would leave Erin and I to our own journey. I walked down and asked the lady at the magical window how to get to the international terminal from the domestic one and she said give me $6.20 and I said is there another way and she said no. I said, well i have to be able to walk and she said... well ya, but it takes 30 minutes. I said good deal and after Erin asked for directions (I have a Y chromosome and am incapable of asking for instruction or directions of any kind) we were on our way. Good old Nancy (the window lady) gave us the directions but failed to mention that walking was more or less impossible. Not only was it miles upon miles, but parts of it were on the sides of highway-like roads. Are you kidding me? Trucks were honking incessantly at us as we ran for our lives with our 20 kilo packs on our backs. An hour or so later we were final at the international airport... only to find out we couldn't board for another 2 1/2 hours.
After bumbling around the tiny terminal and eating some McD's... we finally went to check in... only to find out they wouldn't let us on the plane without a return ticket. Bollucks! The lady was super helpful and found us the flight we were looking for (6 weeks to the day from now) and offered to book it for us, but she also let us know that they charge a fee and we should book it for free on the free internet kiosk nearby. We did so and 10 minutes later we had our return flight from NZ on april 28th from auckland. Hopefully we have enough money to make it that long and hopefully we can be there at the right time. If not, it's only a $30 fee so not too big of a deal.
That was our exciting day and we look forward to arriving at 1am NZ time tonight in Christchurch, NZ. Keeps your eyes peeled for updates whenever we get a chance. Thanks for following and talk to you all soon.
- Jesse "Trekkin on the Highway" Meredith
Friday, March 13, 2009
We won a contest
Hey ya'll... is that how you spell it? Erin, who is right next to me helping me write this, says that's right. I believe her and you should too.
Alright so the other night... Taylor and his sister were still here and Erin, Diana and I all decided we should head out to the Cheeky Monkey Bar/Pub/Nightclub for retro night. Who know's what retro night means... but I dressed up in 80s garb, or the closest I could get to it. I had my little green swimsuit and my bright yellow shirt I bought with Skinner in Melb and my chucks. Erin, Diana and our then roommate Andrea all went to the place at 7pm because they have $5 meals. Erin said "it was delish" and "they gave us free facepaint". Erin and Diana did the painting and Diana painted in Erin's eye, literally. She's fine - don't worry. They got a free glass of champagne so that may have something to do with that.
I was hanging out with Taylor and his sister post-nap and then the ladies came over after their dinner was finished. We were all sitting around talking and enjoying eachother's company so much we almost forgot we were going out! We realized it was 9:56 and if we didn't want to pay the $5 cover we had to get there before 10pm... so what did we do? We Ran! Now, it's only 4 or so blocks from the hostel where we were, but we were moving fast. On the way there some guy started running with us.
Regardless of the running, we made it before the cover kicked in. It was a fun time for a while - dancing and whatnot, but then the DJ/Hype Man came out with the microphone and started giving things away. Some girl won a trip to Fraser Island in a drawing (Erin entered but her number didn't get pulled). Other people won things like T-Shirts and corny things and then it was time for, as the DJ described it, "THE REASON YOU ARE ALL HERE TONIGHT!". I don't know about that... but he asked for 8 people and 8 people ran up there. Erin and Taylor said "Jesse, get up there." So i raised my hand and just went up. DJ man loved how i was dressed so he didn't kick me off the stage.
Now is where the fun begins. The contest involved retrieving items from the crowd, the first of which was a champagne flute. Thankfully it was Diana's drink of choice that night and we successfully got up there (I was the 7th person up there out of 10 and the 3 after me got eliminated... way too close). Ok, so 7 people remaining. All of the rest they just eliminated one person at a time.
7 people test - get someone else's t-shirt. Before the hype man even finished talking taylors shirt was off and i was back on the stage waving it around. Domination... we had really hit our stride now.
6 people test - Somebody's ID or passport. Laura's passport and hop skip and a jump later and I was moving on to the next round.
5 people test - short drinking straw. Now this one was a bit iffy... as none of my immediate friends were drinking cocktails. I started running throught the crouded bar, scanning frantically for somebody who could help. Some girl took hers out of her drink and I sprinted back to the stage in time... crisis averted.
4 people test - somebody's bra. Faster than you can shake a stick (who says that?)... Erin's strapless bra was off and in my hands. It's almost as if she planned to wear a strapless bra that night. Legendary.
3 people test - Pool Ball. Now I had no idea where the pool table was, but I knew were it wasn't... so I ran away from there. As soon as I saw some fools playing pool in the distance I sprinted for it, grabbed a ball and started to make my way back. The other two people still in struggled and I was halfway back when they were still on their way. I was feeling pretty cocky so I danced a bit on the way back and on the stage as they fought their way back.
The final test... me and some other dude. - retrieve a Cheeky Monkey Staff Member. I have erin and Diana to thank completely for this. They were talking to some good-looking staff member for a bit that they knew from before (they had painted his face - relax, his eyes are fine). They grabbed his arm and I ran to him and man-handled him up onto the stage. He was a big dude, but no match for Jesse on a mission.
WE WON!!! HURRAH!
the prize - I didn't even know what i was playing for! I got down off the stage and said "Taylor, what did we win what did we win?" He says "Dude, you just won like $300". In reality I had won a 3day - 2night sailing adventure trip in the Whitsunday Islands up north. So sweet.
I wish I could keep typing but my internet is running out as we speak so this is where I leave you. I know you were all rooting for us in your hearts and for that I thank you. Love you all.
Erin says hi!
- Jesse "I love winning" Meredith
Alright so the other night... Taylor and his sister were still here and Erin, Diana and I all decided we should head out to the Cheeky Monkey Bar/Pub/Nightclub for retro night. Who know's what retro night means... but I dressed up in 80s garb, or the closest I could get to it. I had my little green swimsuit and my bright yellow shirt I bought with Skinner in Melb and my chucks. Erin, Diana and our then roommate Andrea all went to the place at 7pm because they have $5 meals. Erin said "it was delish" and "they gave us free facepaint". Erin and Diana did the painting and Diana painted in Erin's eye, literally. She's fine - don't worry. They got a free glass of champagne so that may have something to do with that.
I was hanging out with Taylor and his sister post-nap and then the ladies came over after their dinner was finished. We were all sitting around talking and enjoying eachother's company so much we almost forgot we were going out! We realized it was 9:56 and if we didn't want to pay the $5 cover we had to get there before 10pm... so what did we do? We Ran! Now, it's only 4 or so blocks from the hostel where we were, but we were moving fast. On the way there some guy started running with us.
Regardless of the running, we made it before the cover kicked in. It was a fun time for a while - dancing and whatnot, but then the DJ/Hype Man came out with the microphone and started giving things away. Some girl won a trip to Fraser Island in a drawing (Erin entered but her number didn't get pulled). Other people won things like T-Shirts and corny things and then it was time for, as the DJ described it, "THE REASON YOU ARE ALL HERE TONIGHT!". I don't know about that... but he asked for 8 people and 8 people ran up there. Erin and Taylor said "Jesse, get up there." So i raised my hand and just went up. DJ man loved how i was dressed so he didn't kick me off the stage.
Now is where the fun begins. The contest involved retrieving items from the crowd, the first of which was a champagne flute. Thankfully it was Diana's drink of choice that night and we successfully got up there (I was the 7th person up there out of 10 and the 3 after me got eliminated... way too close). Ok, so 7 people remaining. All of the rest they just eliminated one person at a time.
7 people test - get someone else's t-shirt. Before the hype man even finished talking taylors shirt was off and i was back on the stage waving it around. Domination... we had really hit our stride now.
6 people test - Somebody's ID or passport. Laura's passport and hop skip and a jump later and I was moving on to the next round.
5 people test - short drinking straw. Now this one was a bit iffy... as none of my immediate friends were drinking cocktails. I started running throught the crouded bar, scanning frantically for somebody who could help. Some girl took hers out of her drink and I sprinted back to the stage in time... crisis averted.
4 people test - somebody's bra. Faster than you can shake a stick (who says that?)... Erin's strapless bra was off and in my hands. It's almost as if she planned to wear a strapless bra that night. Legendary.
3 people test - Pool Ball. Now I had no idea where the pool table was, but I knew were it wasn't... so I ran away from there. As soon as I saw some fools playing pool in the distance I sprinted for it, grabbed a ball and started to make my way back. The other two people still in struggled and I was halfway back when they were still on their way. I was feeling pretty cocky so I danced a bit on the way back and on the stage as they fought their way back.
The final test... me and some other dude. - retrieve a Cheeky Monkey Staff Member. I have erin and Diana to thank completely for this. They were talking to some good-looking staff member for a bit that they knew from before (they had painted his face - relax, his eyes are fine). They grabbed his arm and I ran to him and man-handled him up onto the stage. He was a big dude, but no match for Jesse on a mission.
WE WON!!! HURRAH!
the prize - I didn't even know what i was playing for! I got down off the stage and said "Taylor, what did we win what did we win?" He says "Dude, you just won like $300". In reality I had won a 3day - 2night sailing adventure trip in the Whitsunday Islands up north. So sweet.
I wish I could keep typing but my internet is running out as we speak so this is where I leave you. I know you were all rooting for us in your hearts and for that I thank you. Love you all.
Erin says hi!
- Jesse "I love winning" Meredith
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Liveaboard On The Reef
Hey Hey Hey Hey. I really like having my posts at the top of this blog so I am gonna write a little quick blurb to top Jesse's last post. I am still in Cairns and got an internship/work experience position on a dive boat out here with Cairns Dive Centre. I started work today and tomorrow I will be out on the reef for 8 days straight! Really exciting and I wish I could talk more about the job and what else I have been up to in Cairns, but the job kinda sprung this 8 day trip on me today so I am scrambling getting my stuff into storage and checking out of The Asylum and all that business. I hope all is well and Happy St Patty's Day!
Blood Drive
Some people were wondering what happened to The Office commentaries and I admit I had forgotten about it. I really liked Blood Drive because Michael wasn't too over the top ridiculous which does happen too often. Dwight was pretty funny with his opinions on biology and evolution. Bragging about pulling his veins into his body then expressing his opinion on natural selection before finally complaining about the lack of blood in one arm was pretty funny.
316
My other favorite show LOST needs a little mention too. I am way behind on LOST since downloading and watching a full 42min episode takes a long time. I was disappointed with the last few episodes of the show before 316 but I really liked seeing Locke's time traveling story. I don't think the episode was that revealing and it was really emotionally centered which is something I usually don't care for. But I liked this one. And I hate Jack more and more with each passing day. Alright I need to clean and pack up my room and go live on a boat for a week! Love and Bye!
BL
Blood Drive
Some people were wondering what happened to The Office commentaries and I admit I had forgotten about it. I really liked Blood Drive because Michael wasn't too over the top ridiculous which does happen too often. Dwight was pretty funny with his opinions on biology and evolution. Bragging about pulling his veins into his body then expressing his opinion on natural selection before finally complaining about the lack of blood in one arm was pretty funny.
316
My other favorite show LOST needs a little mention too. I am way behind on LOST since downloading and watching a full 42min episode takes a long time. I was disappointed with the last few episodes of the show before 316 but I really liked seeing Locke's time traveling story. I don't think the episode was that revealing and it was really emotionally centered which is something I usually don't care for. But I liked this one. And I hate Jack more and more with each passing day. Alright I need to clean and pack up my room and go live on a boat for a week! Love and Bye!
BL
Byron update
Hey peoples - It's Jesse and I am currently in Byron Bay. This place is great. Taylor's here! Laura (his sister) is too! And Diana! And Erin! Everyone is here and having a great time. Erin and I are in the midst of our three day surfing lesson and yesterday was successful. The waves were ridiculously small, but good for learning. Today will hopefully be much bigger and more exciting. Taylor and his sister are in 'Nimbin' today, which is a nearby town of about 800 locals that is the hippie capital of Australia. There's a fun tour and waterfalls and swimming and whatnot. Erin and Diana and Alex (Diana's boyfriend) will be doing that tour on Saturday when he arrives. We may also try to make it to Mt. Warning and do a fun hike there. Just wanted to let everyone know what we were up to... Sorry this is so short but my internet time is about to get cut short because we only get 15 minutes free. Bummer, i know. My posts will be pretty slim and lacking over the next couple weeks/months as my internet access is limited. I am hoping to be able to get you some pictures, but that doesn't look great either as most of the computers won't let me hook my camera up. You rock.
- Jesse
- Jesse
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Asylum
Hello Blogtown USA. It's a muggy evening in Cairns right now and we haven't had an over the top ridiculous out of nowhere thundering downpour in the last 5 or 6 hours. That is a change from the last 3 or 4 days. We have been on cyclone watch since Friday with cyclone Hamish hanging out just offshore. But even without the cyclone threat, things have been pretty exciting here in Cairns.
After moving out of the o so fabulous Lakes Resort on Wednesday I checked into the Asylum Backpackers Hostel Cairns. The Asylum is a slightly different establishment. Those of us staying there are not guests or tenants. We are referred to as inmates. I have only taken a couple showers in the last 5 days because there isn't really any point to it. With the heat/humidity I don't really ever stop sweating. And on top of that the Asylum is just plain dirty. I sit in one of their chairs or lie down in the bed or just wander out to the reception area with the dirt everywhere and the effects of the shower are lost. I love it. This place is awesome. It is a relatively small hostel so I know at least the names of most of the people. They have free breakfast every morning (cornflakes and milk) and free dinner every night (meal voucher to one of the bars in town). They claim to have free internet but that's not really true. Free internet means one computer in the lobby where we can sign up for 15 minute time slots throughout the day. I don't bother and walk down to Mcdonalds with real actual free wifi. The library doesn't even have free wifi. Gotta love Mcdonalds. Let's see what else...
First night in the Asylum I met a few guys at dinner and we headed down to the Rhino Bar for Power Hour. You pay 8 dollars and get as many drinks as you can take from 10 to 11. Great evening. As many drinks as you can take doesn't mean as many as your stomach can handle. It means as many drinks as you can get after elbowing your way up to the bar for each drink. You have to develop a system in the chaos. We adopted the buddy system. One person fights and pushes and shoves and gets some space at the counter. Once he gets his drink and has to clear out he lets his partner into his vacated space at the bar and has his drink right behind his buddy while his buddy works to flag down the bartender again. Once he gets his drink the partner finishes whatever is left of his drink and swaps back up to the bar. We managed 1 drink in the first 15 minutes without the buddy system and by 11 we had polished off about 12 (mixed drinks usually didn't have a full shot in them so it didn't feel anything like 12 drinks in an hour). After that we danced the night away for a while before wandering over to The Heritage which was doing Wii Bowling night. It was my first time bowling in a year or so but I managed a 180 which was enough for the W. So far I love Cairns.
Friday night is all you can eat bbq night at the hostel. $4AUD gets you all the sausage, lamb, chicken, and steak you can eat. I knew Sydney was an expensive place to live but I didn't realize how cheaply you can survive elsewhere. One of the favs around The Asylum is goon pong. Beer pong except for it's played with tea cups and you are only allowed to bounce the ball and it's played on a really long table. And they don't believe in water cups so the drinks get pretty dirty pretty quickly. O and the tea cups are filled with with boxed wine (goon). The Asylum has a lot of character. TV is in a room out in the back. They have 4 different sport channels piped in here among other things. 3 of the channels are focused on rugby or cricket or soccer or other aussie sports. But then they also have ESPN. ESPN! I have watched a couple nba games. I caught a bit of the world baseball classic. The big party night at the Asylum is Monday night. There is a pub crawl and drink deals and food and fun all around. Right now it is Sunday night and its the first night I have been here that people are taking it easy. Resting up. I'm excited for tomorrow. So far I love Cairns
I've had a week now in Cairns and the original plan was to get down to Byron Bay to meet up with the rest of the rescuers but I don't know if I am ready to leave yet. There is still a lot I want to do around here. It's a super touristy little town and I didn't think I would enjoy it that much for that reason. But so far I love Cairns.
After moving out of the o so fabulous Lakes Resort on Wednesday I checked into the Asylum Backpackers Hostel Cairns. The Asylum is a slightly different establishment. Those of us staying there are not guests or tenants. We are referred to as inmates. I have only taken a couple showers in the last 5 days because there isn't really any point to it. With the heat/humidity I don't really ever stop sweating. And on top of that the Asylum is just plain dirty. I sit in one of their chairs or lie down in the bed or just wander out to the reception area with the dirt everywhere and the effects of the shower are lost. I love it. This place is awesome. It is a relatively small hostel so I know at least the names of most of the people. They have free breakfast every morning (cornflakes and milk) and free dinner every night (meal voucher to one of the bars in town). They claim to have free internet but that's not really true. Free internet means one computer in the lobby where we can sign up for 15 minute time slots throughout the day. I don't bother and walk down to Mcdonalds with real actual free wifi. The library doesn't even have free wifi. Gotta love Mcdonalds. Let's see what else...
First night in the Asylum I met a few guys at dinner and we headed down to the Rhino Bar for Power Hour. You pay 8 dollars and get as many drinks as you can take from 10 to 11. Great evening. As many drinks as you can take doesn't mean as many as your stomach can handle. It means as many drinks as you can get after elbowing your way up to the bar for each drink. You have to develop a system in the chaos. We adopted the buddy system. One person fights and pushes and shoves and gets some space at the counter. Once he gets his drink and has to clear out he lets his partner into his vacated space at the bar and has his drink right behind his buddy while his buddy works to flag down the bartender again. Once he gets his drink the partner finishes whatever is left of his drink and swaps back up to the bar. We managed 1 drink in the first 15 minutes without the buddy system and by 11 we had polished off about 12 (mixed drinks usually didn't have a full shot in them so it didn't feel anything like 12 drinks in an hour). After that we danced the night away for a while before wandering over to The Heritage which was doing Wii Bowling night. It was my first time bowling in a year or so but I managed a 180 which was enough for the W. So far I love Cairns.
Friday night is all you can eat bbq night at the hostel. $4AUD gets you all the sausage, lamb, chicken, and steak you can eat. I knew Sydney was an expensive place to live but I didn't realize how cheaply you can survive elsewhere. One of the favs around The Asylum is goon pong. Beer pong except for it's played with tea cups and you are only allowed to bounce the ball and it's played on a really long table. And they don't believe in water cups so the drinks get pretty dirty pretty quickly. O and the tea cups are filled with with boxed wine (goon). The Asylum has a lot of character. TV is in a room out in the back. They have 4 different sport channels piped in here among other things. 3 of the channels are focused on rugby or cricket or soccer or other aussie sports. But then they also have ESPN. ESPN! I have watched a couple nba games. I caught a bit of the world baseball classic. The big party night at the Asylum is Monday night. There is a pub crawl and drink deals and food and fun all around. Right now it is Sunday night and its the first night I have been here that people are taking it easy. Resting up. I'm excited for tomorrow. So far I love Cairns
I've had a week now in Cairns and the original plan was to get down to Byron Bay to meet up with the rest of the rescuers but I don't know if I am ready to leave yet. There is still a lot I want to do around here. It's a super touristy little town and I didn't think I would enjoy it that much for that reason. But so far I love Cairns.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Cairns and the GBR
Hey All, welcome to Cairns for reals this time. I finally got around to chronicling the first four days in Cairns. The time was completely dominated by adventuring out on the Great Barrier Reef. The days since have been dominated by adventuring around Cairns the actual city but I will get to that soon enough in a later post.
The Lakes Resort and Spa – We checked into the modest Lakes Resort on the 28th of Feb. Listed as only a dinky 2 star hotel we weren't quite prepared to find something like 7 pools littered about the 100 some odd condo like rooms. We had multiple bedrooms plus a living room plus a full out kitchen and eating area and laundry room. Lap of luxury at this point for me is defined as a functioning washing machine and drier. But wait it gets better! In the kitchen there was a microwave. WOW. I have not used one of those things in months. I was nuking just about anything I could find. Pita bread. Tortillas. Butter. Yoghurt (just for fun). So four nights at The Lakes was a wonderful break from the comparatively cheap accommodations I have grown accustomed to.
Day 1 in Cairns – After dropping my stuff off at the hotel I wandered downtown. I took the boardwalk along the water, and by water I mean miles and miles of mud flats with not much of a beach at all. Cairns doesn't really have beaches because of the Great Barrier Reef which breaks up all the surf so very few waves make it to the shore to break up the turf into fine sandy beaches. But that's ok because it was still a great walk with the ocean and the supergreen rainforesty rolling hills all around, something I hadn't seen too much of in Sydney. I found my way down to the wharf and visited an information centre that overloaded me with diving options. We eventually decided on a full load of day trip adventures for while my mom was in town. Finally I wandered into the cbd (central business district) area. Every other shop is an adventure booking agency or a dive shop or a restaurant or a surf clothing store. Very touristy but not too flashy and annoying. My favorite part about it was the prices of everything are much lower compared to Sydney. There is no such thing as a quick meal in Sydney for under 9 or 10 AUD. So picking up a sandwich for 6 bucks was definitely more exciting for me than it should have been. So after getting acquainted with the city we cooked a little dinner and had a little sudoku war. I got domoed by mama bear at the sudokuing while we were in Sydney. But once we got out to Cairns I reasserted myself as numero uno. I think she just couldn't handle the humidity and it affected her game. Anyways I was feeling great with the puzzle world until I tried a super hard sudoku while on a sailboat which was eventually cruising at 45 degree angle to the water with all the wind in the sails. It really messed me up. I feel a little seasick just writing about it and don't want to look at a sudoku for a while now.
After staying up way too late (this after getting 3 hours of sleep on my last night in Sydney) watching Kiss the Girls which wasn't very good at all we got up nice and early for Day 2 in Cairns to get ourselves down to the docks for an all day diving adventure. We found our way to Finger E at 7am I think where the Tusa5 was docked. The boat felt a bit crowded with about 60 Great Barrier Reef enthusiasts on board even though the skipper claimed the boat could hold 120 passengers. We did three dives during the day. Two before lunch and one after. We visited Saxon Reef and Hastings Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of hundreds of smaller reefs spanning most of the East coast of Oz. During our first four days in Cairns we tried to see different reefs and as many different areas of the GBR as we could. The first day we saw sharks and turtles and rays and many many fish. A couple eels got thrown in every once in a while. I can't remember which day we saw the eels. The days are all blending together now. The first dive or two I was focusing mostly on getting used to diving again. Managing buoyancy. Trying not to destroy any large section of coral. All that stuff. In between the dives we had a huge buffet of chicken and turkey and pasta and just all around goodness. I wasn't about to let a little bit of seasickness hold me back. So overall it was a pretty wonderful day.
Day 3 in Cairns was more of the same. Up unbelievably early to get picked up by a shuttle to take us up to Port Douglas where we boarded the Poseidon for another day of diving. Port Douglas is another touristy waterfront town about an hour up the beach from Cairns. It's more upscale and ritzy than Cairns and was very very beautiful with a few real beaches around to relax on. Alas we had no time to relax. As soon as we got out of the shuttle we got on the boat and went straight out to Agincourt Reef #4. I had heard even from people back in Sydney that Agincourt is supposed to be the best of the best as far as reefs go. While it was really amazing we didn't think it was a step above the other areas we had seen. Just your usual run of the mill best-in-the-world diving site. We saw more of the same. Sharks, turtles, fish, rays, with some giant clams thrown in. The boat was much less packed with only 11 people diving. Unfortunately one of the guys in our dive group was a complete mess underwater.
A little story to illustrate his ineptitude: we started our dive with around 200 bar of air in our tanks (loads and loads of compressed air) and we make sure to end the dive with at least 50 or 60 bar left in the tank just in case. That means depending on how deep you are diving you should be down in the water for 30 to 50 minutes. About fifteen minutes into the dive everyone signaled to the guide how much air they had. I was doing pretty well with still 160 bar left in the tank. Usually I find that I suck air a lot quicker than most people so I was pleased to be conserving my air. The other guy signaled he had 80 left. I couldn't believe it. At first I just assumed he meant 180 and was doing really well with his air. I couldn't suck that much that quickly if I tried. I wondered if he was just releasing huge amounts of his air straight out into the water without breathing it when everyone wasn't watching. After being in the water for only 20 minutes or so the rest of the group had to sit around and wait for the guide to help the guy surface while everyone else had at least half their tanks left. While this bothered me at the time, later I wished he would surface early again rather than flounder around on the sandy bottom kicking up dust everywhere he went. We found a little ray resting on the bottom underneath a rock overhang and as soon as the guy came over to take a look he kicked up half of the sand on the bottom and scared the ray away (even if the ray didn't run away we wouldn't have been able to see it anymore with all the sand/dust in the water). Anyways besides the low visibility and the guy that caused the low visibility, the three dives were absolutely amazing. My favorite was the giant clams. Clams bigger than me. Clams that didn't look like they could close up all the way if they wanted to.
There was no rest for the weary on day 4, the final day before my mom flew off to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island. Because she would be flying in less than 24 hours we elected to do a day of snorkeling. Flying after diving can be dangerous as your body doesn't like experiencing that extreme change in pressure from 20 meters underwater to high in the sky. We were up bright and early again to be out on a sailboat by 8 or 9am. The sailboat was much smaller than the larger Tusa5 or Poseidon from the previous days and it was nice to go out with only 15 people or so total. We made our way out to Green Island and spent the day relaxing on the boat and exploring the reefs around Green Island. It was great to be able to wander off on my own snorkeling rather than have to be following a guide whenever we were diving. Plus I got to stay out for as long as I wanted which I think was around an hour and a half a couple times. The water was around 28 Celsius (around 80 Fahrenheit I believe?) everyday out on the reef so you could stay out snorkeling for as long as you wanted (which for me was until lunch was ready). Where we were exploring the bottom was around 15-20 feet deep but little chunks of rock and coral would jump up in your face and only be 3 or 4 feet under the water. Prime snorkeling territory. We didn't see as many of the big ticket items on the snorkel trip. No sharks. The mom spotted a turtle but I missed it. But lots of fun fish and much of the bottom was covered in spaghetti coral. It was mesmerizing to float and stair at the field of soft coral waving back and forth in the current.
So thats the long and short of the first few days in Cairns. The mom is now gone adventuring down in South Australia. I am wandering around Cairns overwhelmed by all the possibilities for what to do next. I checked into a nice little grimy hostel a short walk from downtown. It seems to have a nice atmosphere so I am excited for the next couple days there. A freak downpour just started here outside the hostel so I am off. Cairns is very prone to freak out of nowhere its completely sunny and then all of a sudden pouring rain pockets of weather. I love it. I hear weather in the states is just as nice? Happy square root day (3/3/09 the first square root day since 2/2/04 and there won't be another until 4/4/16) to all of you who forgot to celebrate.
Finally one other little tidbit from something I saw on tv yesterday. Oz is notoriously laid back but yesterday I loved seeing a commercial claim that “9 out of 10 aussies experience stress” (the ad went on to push some sort of stress relief pill). So there you have it. Whereas in the rest of the world we all experience stress and it is just part of everyday life, here in Australia that number is reduced by 10%. 1 in 10 people here do not experience stress! That's pretty incredible and another reason to come visit me because if you are the lucky 10% you might be completely and utterly free of stress!
- BL
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Leaving Sydney
Welcome to Cairns everybody! Phase 2 of Rescuers Operations is now under way. I am up in Cairns, Queensland with my mother doing nothing but scuba diving. Erin is in Canberra with Diana. Taylor is God knows where with his sister. And Jesse is still in Sydney working away for another week. But we are all moved out of 597 New South Head Rd! No more dealing with Sydney's public transport system. No more waging war with the spiders and 7 (guesstimate) species of cockroaches residing in our Rose Bay apartment. And no more selling pizzas at Two Fat Chefs.
It was a bittersweet moment leaving the apartment for the last time. We had a lot of fun there but it was well past time to move on from Sydney. That and as I was walking out the door a little worried about missing the bus to the airport, I realized I had left my The Office Season 4 dvd's in the dvd player. Alas Jesse will have to be the caretaker of season 4 for a few weeks. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Let me talk about the last couple days in Sydney. My mum arrived in Sydney on the 24th and we spent a solid 4 days hitting all the hot spots Sydney has to offer for the first time for her and for the last time for me. We walked the harbour bridge and explored the rocks. Walked around the opera house and the botanical gardens. Went to the movies. Slumdog Millionaire. So good. We visited the aquarium and had lunch in Chinatown. Sudoku wars. Fish n chips at Watson's Bay. We did the Bondi to Coogee walk and a little snorkel at Shelley Beach near Manly. Pretty full couple of days there. Here are a couple highlights I managed to capture photographically.
Here we have a nice little birdcage like object in the botanical gardens. Notice the axe and sickel I am holding. And at the top of the cage we have an arm holding a dagger. And in the middle there is a layer of what is supposed to be animal bones that you can't quite make out from this picture. We read the little plaque next to the cage and it did not in any way further our understanding of how/why a morbid piece of scultpurey like this would get created and displayed in a beautiful garden. Maybe you culture experts out there that were so good with the St George and the dragon mystery can do a little research and explain to me this particular piece of “art”.
Now here is a great picture. Here begins the amazing adventures of the mini-elephant. Some of you noticed I mentioned a mini-elephant in a previous post without any sort of explanation. Well here we have the belated appearance of our microsized pachyderm. My aunt Nancy sent me a mini-elephant with a request that I show it Australia. And I plan to do exactly that. Here is it's first day out on the town and it immediately has a run in with the largest predator on Earth. I might have to create another miniature sized blog for the adventures of the mini-elephant. I might have to make up stories to go with all the places the elephant sees. I might not have time to do any of that since I have trouble enough making time to contribute to this blog. We will see though.
Anywho. Finally we have a couple highlights from the snorkel at Shelley Beach. We ran into a super friendly blue groper right when we got into the water. It trailed us for a while and let us come right up to it and pet it. It almost seemed to like the petting but then again we could have just been imagining that. Can fish smile? Can they be happy? Do they like affection? Anyways we later came across a jellyfish that was also blue. We had no desire to pet this one though. We don't know how dangerous that creature actually was. But for those of you who like to think of Australia as a super deadly crazy dangerous place to be then yes it was super poisonous with meter long tentacles that are invisible so you can't see it in the picture and we just barely escaped with our lives. That's what I would like to think.
So that was my last four days in Sydney. I have now been in Cairns for 3 days and have so much more to write about in another post. I already miss my fellow Rescuers so much and I am blogging to let them know how I am doing as much as I am to tell you statesiders about my activities. Happy March! - BLindy
boringexcitingstory
Alright people – I’m back and better than ever. Why am I so great? Because work is just about over and we’ve moved out of our flat and gotten ALL our money back. We each had to pay $500 for bond and a cleaning fee when we first moved in to the place. After living at 597 New South Head Road for 4 months or so, we’d more or less forgotten about the money. Then as we prepared to move out, we realized as long as we cleaned up well, we were all going to get some cash money. It’s almost like getting a 100% tax rebate or something… great stuff. Anyway, yesterday I woke up at 5am with Erin for some final cleaning. She was heading off to Canberra (the capital of Australia) with her friend Diana. Lindy was in Cairns with his mom (where he is now) and Taylor and his sister were also heading to Cairns later that afternoon. Long story short, Steve (our landlord) is pretty much a jerk and made it harder than it should have been to get our money back… but we got it.
Ok so besides getting money… what’s been happening here? Well honestly not that much. I will be writing a blog in the next couple of days about an awesome track meet Erin and I went to the other day. It was the coolest thing ever, but I’m not going to write about it until I get Erin’s pictures because it won’t be nearly as good without them. Instead I’ll be writing about a rather mundane evening in hopefully a quite exciting way. If you don’t like poker - skip the boring poker description paragraphs.
Alright so the night started like any other Wednesday night. Erin, Taylor and Lindberg were all working (ok Brian was with his mom, sue me) and I decided to go play in a poker tournament at a hotel nearby. The buy-in was $22 and I figured it was not that expensive and would be a lot of fun, so why not. So I head outside to catch a bus that will get me there 15-20 minutes before I actually need to get there, but of course it came 10 minutes too early so I missed that one. Then I walked to a different bus stop to catch another bus (which I also missed) and so eventually I got there at 7:50pm. I wanted to get there at 7:30pm at the latest. Everyone had started playing already but they said I could join because they were only a couple hands in.
The first hand I sat down for really set the tone for how the night was going to go. The game was texas hold’em and the community cards ended up being 7, 8, 9, 10 and a King or something. I had folded pre-flop but two dudes stayed and both ended up having a Jack and thus a straight, but the one guy for some reason pulled all the chips towards himself. The other guy flipped out and yelled “It’s a split pot” and the other guy said something along the lines of “No duh” (with a bunch of extra expletives). The other guy returned some more cuss words and I thought a fight was going to break out until each of them had their chips. I’m pretty sure nobody said a word the rest of the time I was there.
Anyway, there were 8 people (including me) at the table and the first hand I actually played was the 7th hand when I was the big blind. I was dealt pocket Kings and only the guy to my left had stayed in so I raised. He raised me back and I gave him a little look and raised him again. He raised back and I said enough of this and went all in. I hadn’t used any chips yet so that meant everything I was given was in there. We flipped our cards and he had pocket 9s to my pocket Kings… so I was basically a 95% favorite. Of course a 9 came on the turn… so I lost. BUT – he had less money than me so I was still in.
The very next hand I was small blind and had King-Queen so I figured I’d play again. The same guy that took me out the previous hand wanted to play again so it was just us two. I scored a queen on the flop and bet big and he called. After going all in on the turn when a King came out (thus giving me the top two-pait), I felt confident I’d get some of my chips back. Unfortunately, he had 9-5 and had three trip 9s again (the third of which he scored on the final card). So this time I was out for real. $22 and ten minutes of poker and I was gone. I know Skinner can totally appreciate this because that one time in Vegas he got gypped by that woman playing in the poker rooms. Turns out it’s more luck than skill.
Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about my night so far. I went over to Erin’s work because the hotel I had been playing poker at was really close. She wasn’t too busy so she took a break and we hung out for 5-10 mins. Then I went home (or so I thought) and on my way I realized I had forgotten my stupid keys. I’d been living in the same place for 4 months and had never forgotten them until the week before moving out… what an idiot. I called Brian to see when he might be getting home and he said maybe within an hour but maybe not. I knew Taylor and Erin wouldn’t be home forever, but I figured I’d take my chances with Lindberg.
I went across the street to feed some fisheys in the bay. It was mildly exciting because I say a couple different kinds of tiny little fish and even a plate-sized Ray (manta ray or whatever). Bats the size of dogs were flying overhead and scared the crap outta me so I went for a walk. It started raining on my little walk (it just kept getting better and better). When I got back to the flat… Lindberg was nowhere in sight, so I decided to head back to Erin’s work to grab her key. The bus took forever to come and then the train took equally as long and by the time I got to Erin’s work, she only had about 30 minutes before she was done.
I ended up just waiting for her and thus my night’s adventure was over. 5 hours, $22, and more sitting than you can shake a stick at. Be careful when you say that last phrase in your head.
Alright so this blog was quite boring, but I wanted to blog about something and that was literally the only eventful thing that has happened in the past couple weeks (besides the track meet) so I laid it out there for you. Sorry if you are super bored – you’ll get over it.
Keep an eye out for some great pics coming up soon and some even better blogs. I know Lindberg will have lots of great stuff from up in Cairns and I’ve got some firepower to work with already here.
Love you all and miss you and can’t wait to have loads of exciting things to talk about. There are so many fun things coming up soon. Be excited.
- Jesse “Bored but Excited” Meredith
Ok so besides getting money… what’s been happening here? Well honestly not that much. I will be writing a blog in the next couple of days about an awesome track meet Erin and I went to the other day. It was the coolest thing ever, but I’m not going to write about it until I get Erin’s pictures because it won’t be nearly as good without them. Instead I’ll be writing about a rather mundane evening in hopefully a quite exciting way. If you don’t like poker - skip the boring poker description paragraphs.
Alright so the night started like any other Wednesday night. Erin, Taylor and Lindberg were all working (ok Brian was with his mom, sue me) and I decided to go play in a poker tournament at a hotel nearby. The buy-in was $22 and I figured it was not that expensive and would be a lot of fun, so why not. So I head outside to catch a bus that will get me there 15-20 minutes before I actually need to get there, but of course it came 10 minutes too early so I missed that one. Then I walked to a different bus stop to catch another bus (which I also missed) and so eventually I got there at 7:50pm. I wanted to get there at 7:30pm at the latest. Everyone had started playing already but they said I could join because they were only a couple hands in.
The first hand I sat down for really set the tone for how the night was going to go. The game was texas hold’em and the community cards ended up being 7, 8, 9, 10 and a King or something. I had folded pre-flop but two dudes stayed and both ended up having a Jack and thus a straight, but the one guy for some reason pulled all the chips towards himself. The other guy flipped out and yelled “It’s a split pot” and the other guy said something along the lines of “No duh” (with a bunch of extra expletives). The other guy returned some more cuss words and I thought a fight was going to break out until each of them had their chips. I’m pretty sure nobody said a word the rest of the time I was there.
Anyway, there were 8 people (including me) at the table and the first hand I actually played was the 7th hand when I was the big blind. I was dealt pocket Kings and only the guy to my left had stayed in so I raised. He raised me back and I gave him a little look and raised him again. He raised back and I said enough of this and went all in. I hadn’t used any chips yet so that meant everything I was given was in there. We flipped our cards and he had pocket 9s to my pocket Kings… so I was basically a 95% favorite. Of course a 9 came on the turn… so I lost. BUT – he had less money than me so I was still in.
The very next hand I was small blind and had King-Queen so I figured I’d play again. The same guy that took me out the previous hand wanted to play again so it was just us two. I scored a queen on the flop and bet big and he called. After going all in on the turn when a King came out (thus giving me the top two-pait), I felt confident I’d get some of my chips back. Unfortunately, he had 9-5 and had three trip 9s again (the third of which he scored on the final card). So this time I was out for real. $22 and ten minutes of poker and I was gone. I know Skinner can totally appreciate this because that one time in Vegas he got gypped by that woman playing in the poker rooms. Turns out it’s more luck than skill.
Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about my night so far. I went over to Erin’s work because the hotel I had been playing poker at was really close. She wasn’t too busy so she took a break and we hung out for 5-10 mins. Then I went home (or so I thought) and on my way I realized I had forgotten my stupid keys. I’d been living in the same place for 4 months and had never forgotten them until the week before moving out… what an idiot. I called Brian to see when he might be getting home and he said maybe within an hour but maybe not. I knew Taylor and Erin wouldn’t be home forever, but I figured I’d take my chances with Lindberg.
I went across the street to feed some fisheys in the bay. It was mildly exciting because I say a couple different kinds of tiny little fish and even a plate-sized Ray (manta ray or whatever). Bats the size of dogs were flying overhead and scared the crap outta me so I went for a walk. It started raining on my little walk (it just kept getting better and better). When I got back to the flat… Lindberg was nowhere in sight, so I decided to head back to Erin’s work to grab her key. The bus took forever to come and then the train took equally as long and by the time I got to Erin’s work, she only had about 30 minutes before she was done.
I ended up just waiting for her and thus my night’s adventure was over. 5 hours, $22, and more sitting than you can shake a stick at. Be careful when you say that last phrase in your head.
Alright so this blog was quite boring, but I wanted to blog about something and that was literally the only eventful thing that has happened in the past couple weeks (besides the track meet) so I laid it out there for you. Sorry if you are super bored – you’ll get over it.
Keep an eye out for some great pics coming up soon and some even better blogs. I know Lindberg will have lots of great stuff from up in Cairns and I’ve got some firepower to work with already here.
Love you all and miss you and can’t wait to have loads of exciting things to talk about. There are so many fun things coming up soon. Be excited.
- Jesse “Bored but Excited” Meredith
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