Advertisement
Published: August 26th 2010
Well, well, well. It’s that time again folks. We are back in the saddle and ready to regale you with all the wild tales of adventure that we’ve experienced. It’s been a full 20 months since we returned home from our ramblings. Our tans faded, our packs gathered dust and the frenzy activity on this blog has degraded into a few sporadic hits from people trying to follow Jennifer Childress’s travels. It’s time to dust off the ole’ wit (it's been dormant for many moons. I haven’t been funny in months) and begin once again giving a completely distorted, occasionally fabricated but always entertaining portrayal of our lives as vagabonds.
We settled into a life of normalcy and routine back at home. It was refreshing to sleep in the same bed every night, walk familiar streets and see beloved faces every day. Life was comfortable and damn good, but we knew it couldn’t last. We have a sickness, you see, a fever that can’t be broken. We contracted it in South America, Africa, Asia and Europe (no not swine flu). There is no cure for our disease; one can only treat the symptoms. Every day, we battled to keep an
Sydney Harbor Bridge
They call it the coat hangeroutbreak at bay. We continued on with our lives: Jenny dominated the UCSB teaching masters program. I found a way (with the aid of some prescription amphetamines) to salvage my wayward academic career in the San Francisco State journalism program (you may lament the drastic improvement in my syntax that could suck some of the personality out of these writings. I promise not to be too coherent). Things were going swimmingly until the itch began to fester once again. It starts as a whisper when you see a cool show on the Travel Channel, then becomes louder as you revisit old photographs, and finally grows to a deafening roar when you realize you don’t even know where you your passport is kept anymore. After much debating and a staggering amount of logistical work, we decided to conquer the next goal on our massive list of travel objectives: live abroad.
SFSU has the #1 study abroad and exchange program in the U.S. so I couldn’t possibly let an opportunity to advance my studies and sate my travel thirst go to waste. Much deliberation and a series of practical considerations knocked our choices down to one: the University of Technology in
Jenny by the Opera House
it's ok to be tourists once in a while Sydney, Australia.
Ironically, Sydney was the last destination on our previous trip. Jenny and I have a distinct memory of a conversation, with Sydney Harbor as the backdrop, where we both said, “I could live here.” Well live there we can, and will, for the next 10 months.
We gathered the Childers and Bebernes clans for one last meal before we headed Down Under (at Outback Steakhouse, of course. Our server was a black guy from Torrance who faked his way through the worst Aussie accent in the history of mankind). Finally the day had come. We shared our tearful goodbyes (of which we’ve become experts) and headed into the airport for an easy little skip across the pond.
That’s of course complete bullshit. Seasoned readers will know that nothing ever goes to plan. We go to Bolivia when we’re supposed to go to Venezuela, we go to Iceland when we’re supposed to go to Greece and, in this case, we have our flight canceled and spend the night in Torrance when we’re supposed to move to Australia.
Finally, after waiting a full 27 hours, we boarded an Air New Zealand flight to Auckland’s adorably small
Durty Genius
Last Place! Recognize airport and finally to Sydney. We made it to our hotel and wanted to just collapse under the combined weight of two terrible night’s sleep, all the stress and epic jet lag (I want my Sunday back International Dateline). Unfortunately, as is to be expected, the day’s delay meant we had to drop off our bags and scurry across town to my Orientation at UTS. UTS is one of the best universities in Australia. It especially excels in the communications field, under which journalism falls. Apparently, the architecture faculty is not quite as strong because UTS is housed in the single ugliest building in all of Sydney. The Australian ascetic is a beautiful combination of classic English style and minimalist modern design. Every day I walk past intricate European churches and glass-fronted edgy shops en route to what can only be described as a 20-story-tall granola bar. It makes me weep, but I digress.
From the word “go” things were different here than our normal travel locations. Typically, the itinerary is: find a place to sleep, get some local money, find a place to eat, and be tourists. That’s all. One doesn’t need to drown in logistics to crash
Anzac Memorial
I think they have more memorials to dead soldiers than they have dead soldiers. in a city for a week or so. This trip, however, had a much more daunting to-do list: find a place to sleep, get cell phones, get Australian bank accounts, transfer money from home, buy supplies, find a new place to sleep, learn the train system, go to class, search for an apartment, continue searching for an apartment, find a damn apartment, get internet set up in apartment, set up utilities, look for a job, find a job, lose job, unpack, finish furnishing apartment, learn neighborhood, and a bunch of other things I don’t even know about will have to deal with. (you’ll notice that “visit opera house” wasn’t on the list, neither was “exhale").
Things could have been so much worse for us during our settling in phase had we had the incredible serendipity to meet Kat. By pure chance, Kat and her friend Sarah were in line in front of us while we waited four hours for Delta to reroute us onto a new flight at LAX. We ended up in the same hotel and Air New Zealand flight with her as well. We chatted, first small talk and then more in-depth as our hours together grew.
Somewhere along the way Kat said, “Hey, if you need a place to stay while you look for an apartment, just call me.” Just a bit of perspective, she offered her place up to two strangers after knowing them just a few hours. When we did call her, she picked us up, fed us and gave us a key. We were welcome to stay as long as we needed. Had her place been closer to the city center, we would have moved in in a heartbeat and been happy for the rest of our time. As it was we stayed for almost a week, a luxury that saved us hundreds of dollars and saved us the necessity of taking the first shithole apartment we could find hust to get out of the hostels. (We felt better about our intrusion when she told us, “yeah one time I met these two guys in Vietnam and told them to call me if they ever made it to Sydney. Few months later I get a call, ‘hey we’re at the Sydney airport, can you pick us up’ so I let them stay in my extra room… 9 months later I finally had to
start charging them rent.”) Even for Jenny and I, beneficiaries of benevolence on six continents, are staggered by Kat’s hospitality.
After much searching, we did find a place. It’s a little studio an optimist would call cute and a pessimist would call a shoebox. It is ridiculously decorated with florescent walls, multi-colored sheets and a giant painting of a toucan. We live in a Miami apartment in Sydney. Regardless, it is safe, comfortable and in our favorite neighborhood Surry Hills. We’ve been there for about two weeks and it grows on us every day (though not literally, it’s not often you can sleep in the bedroom with an arm in the kitchen and a leg in the breakfast nook.)
Jenny has, through some serious effort and a touch of desperation, found some temporary work while she gets her ducks in a row so she can teach here (apparently, the world doesn’t have a huge amount of respect for the American education system, that’s inbeleivable). This job came from, of course, Kat. Jenny may be stuffing envelopes, but she's pulling in much needed cash while we she prepares to get a job with a big J. I’m currently trying
ANZ Stadium
Go Doggies! I guess. I don't really know what's going on. to figure out my schedule but things look bright. My classes are great. They will be challenging but not overwhelming.
We’ve only recently come to the realization that we live here. We’re not leaving in a week. We’ll be in Sydney for Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl, Midterm elections, New Years, my birthday, and Brett Farve’s next retirement/ unretirment. It’s surreal, daunting, terrifying, invigorating and humbling all at the same time.
Sydney is a wonderfully forgiving vessel in which to travel on such an adventure. We have the luxury of language, previous experience in the city and handful of contacts to lean on. The city is simply gorgeous. Our frantic ramble from neighborhood to neighborhood as we searched for an apartment never felt like a chore because it brought our attention to another beautiful little nook that blew us away. The food offers a quality and variety you simply can’t get in the States. Aussies, it must be said, are some of the kindest, most forgiving people in the world (they have this adorable habit of apologizing for things that aren’t their fault. As in, us: “I can’t believe the train got delayed.” Random Aussie: “I know, sorry.” Another
Not out of focus
This is how we saw this city for the first few days. of my favorite Aussiosyncracies is their categorical refusal to place any foreign accent on any word. So therefore a tortilla is a "tort-til-a", a debut is a "de-boo", and anarchy is a "national election" )
We have had the chance to have a little bit of fun in our time here. We met up with Joe, who worked at Bacara on an exchange and who we tragically missed when we went to his native South Africa. We’ve hung out with him and his girlfriend Alice a couple times. They will most certainly be our couple friends while we’re here. We also reunited with Emmie who so graciously put us up when we came to Sydney last time. We’ve hit a few happy hours, park wanders, went to dinner on Jenny’s b-day and even participated in a trivia night (most of the questions were Australian in nature, we did so poorly that the MC gave us a t-shirt and hat because he felt so bad for us). I even had the chance to go to a rugby match at the Olympic Stadium. It was for my sports journalism class so we got to tour the press box and attend the
post game press conferences, awesome (though I still have no idea what happened on the field that night).
We did, eventually, make it out to the Opera House. It took about a week for us to shed our worries and remind ourselves that we were guest in this country. It was a crystal clear night. Wakes from passing ferries made the lights off of the Harbor Bridge and Luna Park ripple silently on the water. We turned around to see the towering skyscrapers of the city. Our city. We stood there, silently, soaking in the fact that we were accomplishing our dream of living abroad and we had this moment, this perfect moment, at our command whenever we desired for the next 10 months. Sydney is perfect.
So simply, Yes, we can live here.
(P.S. I’m not planning on any frequency with this whole blog thing. Frankly, our everyday lives will be too mundane to entertain you guys with the intervals I used last time. Basically, when we do something worth sharing, we’ll share it. Look forward to trips to Melbourne, Bali, New Zealand, New Years at the Harbor, another Australian Thanksgiving, and so many more crazy
It's so awesome that there's a noteworhty person in Australian history named Batman
Unless of course this street named after the actual Batman, which would make it way more awesome things I can’t even fathom at the moment. Set your lives to vicarious.)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.047s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 9; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0215s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
shartbeck
scotty h
just discovered your blog, awesome job guys. I have been blogging on this site for a while too and for some reason, I totally feel like we "blog alike", ha ha as cheesy as that is, bad pun blog titles and all. Anyway, jealous of the extent of your travels. I am heading to Europe for the 4th time in 10 days, and I am actually bringing t-shirts to sell to backpackers, so that's my little schtick. if you want to follow my trip, I think most of my blogs this time will be @ www.theshirtoffmybackpack.blogspot.com, but maybe I'll cut and paste them over here. Scott