Culture chock in Australia

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I have to admit that when we first came to Australia I wasn't happy at all. I missed back to South East Asia and felt that I wasn't ready to move on. I guess it was a good sign, after all it must mean that I've had a great time in Asia. But a big part of the trip was now over and it was time to seak new adventures. Reminding myself that I would be back in South East Asia soon enough, made me feel a lot better.

Asia had in the end been a very easy place to travel in. The busses were of course terrible and nothing was ever on time, but you never had to make an effort to find the places you wanted to find and buy the tickets you needed. You could always find someone who would happily help you with everything, as long as you were willing to pay for the help of course. And finding something to eat was almost too easy in touristy Asia. With restaurants in every corner offering you a meal for around 1 euro, you never had to feel hungry. Not to mention the easiness in finding accomodation in the most ridiculous prices, made life very easy for us.

In Australia things changed. Our daily budget was higher than in Asia, but there was no change for us to keep the same lifestyle that we've had. One way to save money was to start couchsurfing more, and so we did. Melbourne was our first stop in Australia and there we stayed with Nancy and Petros, a really nice couple living in Phraran, a beautiful area of the city. Coming back to a western city was, I have to admit, a bit of a chock. After all the chaotic cities we had seen for the last couple of months, I was very suprised that a city could be so clean and well organised. I had almost forgotten how it was to have well functioning public transportation and it felt so good to be able to jump on a nice metro or bus after all the annoying tuk tuks and motorbike taxies. Melbourne was amazing! It looked European in many ways and in every corner you could find a coffee shop. Getting real coffee after three months in Asia was a breathtaking experience. Never imagined I could miss coffee so much, but apparently everything is possible... Most of our time we just walked around the city and one of our big missions was to find new swimsuites and towels. Unfortunately we both forgot our bikinies and towels on Bali and being in Australia without a bikini is like traveling to the space without oxygen. At least we tought so having our belief that the only thing people did in Australia was surfing and swimming. We were of course wrong about that, but it didn't change the fact that we didn't want to be naked on the beach. We also tought finding a bikini in Australia would be the easiest thing on Earth. That is the only thing they wear after all.. Well, we were wrong again. For some reason Australians live in the belief that they have an autum and a winter. Arriving in Australia in March apparently ment that you where there in the autum and all the shops where selling winter jackets, scarfs, glows and boots. It was around 25 degrees. In the shadow. When we were there the International Comedy festival was in town. Every night there was a lot of stand up shows and different kind of performances. We decided to try some stand up and ended up choosing a show by a Finnish stand up comidian. We had been a bit home sick ever since we came to Melbourne because it reminded us of Helsinki and meeting a Finnish guy would be the perfect medicine, we tought. We were wrong again. Or in a way we were right, because after seeing his show we could again remember how good it was not to have the Finnish "junnti"-culture around you. What I mean is that he was horrible and I felt embarresed about beeing Finnish when I was sitting in the audience.

Traveling in Australia is too expensive. The bus from Melbourne to Sydney was maybe 50 euros and now when I think about it, it doesn't feel expensive at all, but beeing used to the cheap Asian bus prices, I was chocked. The bus was naturally from another world, very comfortable, with a toilet and almost no people. (Now I have to add that the Malaysian buses are still better, but I don't really count Malaysia into the South Easta Asia I'm talking about all the time.) We didn't really have a choise, so we took the bus up to Sydney. I was hoping that I would see a lot of kangaroos on the way, but the only kangaroo I saw was a dead one. A bit depressing. A nice brittish guy called Swaff offered us a last minute couch even if he wasn't home himself and we surfed his place during our stay in Sydney. I have, like everyone else, seen the Sydney opera house many, many times and I tought that seeing it in real life would be like seeing the pyramides that I saw in Egypt (a huge pile of rocks and nothing more than what you expected). I was wrong. The opera house and the harbour in Sydney was marvelous! We walked around the area for a whole day. I was sunny and warm and the view was fantastic! Next to the harbour was the botanic garden which for a reason that I don't know had thousands (at least hundreds) of huge bats hanging in the trees. It was very relaxing to walk around there too, and our day was perfect.

We couldn't afford to eat out anymore, so most of the days we had sandwhiches with us or bought some sushi. (That was very cheap, but not too tasty). Having dinner out was a big no no too, so most evenings we cooked dinner and making your own food was nice exchange! Now I have to talk about the food a bit before I forget what I have to say. CHEESE! BREAD! CHEESE AND BREAD! How cool isn't that?! At least it is amazingly GOOD! I'm not so sure about the coolness in it, but anyway... I liked eating noodles and rise every day, but changing my diet to what I call "normal" I liked even more.

So what happened, after the Sydney opera house? I can't really remember what else we saw exept that we went to the National Art Gallery, which by the way was the second museum we had been two during our travel. I'm really proud of us! It was an interesting gallery with a lot of modern Australian paintings. I don't know anything about art, but for some reason I always start feeling that I want to try diong some art when I visit a museum. It can't be too hard, can it? Inspiration is what artists call it I guess and to be honest many of the paintings were more inspiration then art, at least from my point to view. (The painting I still have strongly in my memory was called "Blue lines" and it was exactly like the name promises, blue lines with a white background. The same paintor had made one in black too, but I'm more into the blue one.)

To save money and not pay to much for getting from one place to another, we desided to try rideshare. It's a web site where you can put an add to let other travellers know where you are heading and when and if you need a ride or have a car to share. We wanted to go to the Blue Mountains for a day trip so we put an add about that. It worked! A really nice (and handsome) guy called us and offered to take us there and back. Henry was his name and we spent the whole day together walking around and admiring the scenery.

We also got a ride from Sydney to our next destination, Coffs Harbour. I don't have much to say about this place. It was raining almost all the time we were there and the couchsurfing experience here wasn't that good. Our host was nice, but the surfer staying there at the same time as we, was annoying. But I found my new bikini here and that's always something!

Byron Bay was the place everyone was talking about. It's supposed to have a beautiful beach and be a real party place. Here we stayed in a hostel for the first time. It was a bit strange to stay in a hostel in Australia, because after traveling around Europe, you are kind of used to meeting Australians in every hostel and here there was naturally none. Most people staying in the hostel where by the way Swedish and nothing agains them, but I don't need to travel to the other side of the world to hang out with neighbours. We did some surfing, at least we tried. But we didn't feel like partying at all, so we ended up going to the cinema on saturday night. It was really crowded there...

Gold Coast was our next place and here we couchsurfed again. It was a good experience even if our host was exaggerating a bit telling us with a serious face that he could speak five languages. Beeing able to say "how are you" in a language doesn't according to me mean that you speak it. We spent our days biking to Surfers paradise. It's a town that actually changed its name to something as stupid as Surfers Paradise and the whole place is filled with huge resorts and restaurants. There is a nice beach with enormous waves, so I guess they know what they're talking about. We did some "surfing" there too.

Our last destination was Michael, the Aussie who surfed at my place last summer. He took us to his Dads farm and turned us into farmworkers. For two days we helped them clean their fruit farm . It was hard work but a welcoming change from all the normal tourist things. The farm was wonderful! I can't really describe the place so you just have to take my word for it and it was definitely the highlight of our Australian adventure. They had kangaroos jumping around everywhere and a lot of beautiful birds flying around. We had a great Aussie barbecue one night and tried some kangaroo aswell. Michael kept us busy whole day long and I enjoied not having to plan everything myself for a change. The last day in Australia we walked around Brisbane and did a boat ride along the river with Michaels boat. It was the perfect way to see the city!

Australia ended up beeing a lot like I expected it to be, even if all the stereotypic beliefs where wrong. Espesially in the beginning we spent a lot of time getting used to our "own" culture again. (For Anna it was by the way a bit more difficult. She kept on running out on the streets like a madman because that is how you get over the street in Asia and she wanated to buy toilet paper all the time. Very amusing.) So just walking around kept of happy for a long time. Our three weeks in this enormous country was far from enough and in the end I felt like I hadn't seen anything at all. What I have to do (and will), some day is to go back adn explore some more.

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Photos

Brisbane
The boat trip. Micheal was driving like a madman

Melbourne
Anna is driving formula 1

Melbourne
In the botanic garden

Sydney
The opera house.

Sydney
The opera house again.

Sydney
The city from the botanical garden.

Sydney
Bats hanging from the trees.

Blue Mountains
Don't know why its called blue. But it was beautiful

Blue Mountians
Me and our guide Henry

Byron Bay
Cinema on Saturday night

Byron Bay
On the beach.

Gold Coast
The sunset. Surfer Paradise in the background.

With Michael
Michael is buying meat.

Coffs Harbour
A big banana.

The farm
Working on the fruit farm.