Rainforests and Reefs, Part 2

After a good night’s sleep, I woke up to go diving more excited than I have been about pretty much anything in a long time. You need to understand something first. Diving in the Great Barrier Reef is a goal I have had as long as I could remember. Waking up knowing that you’re going to check something off your life’s 'To Do' list is absolutely fantastic.

Ryan’s life goals (created when I was about 4 years old):

• Scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef
• See the Great Wall of China
• Go to outer space
• Climb Mt. Everest
• Learn to fly (superhero style; not by way of planes/choppers)
• Learn to move things with my mind
• Become James Bond

So, as we can see, some are more difficult to achieve than others. But, I’m a firm believer that if you set a goal, you must achieve it. So hey, at least I have one down. Only time will tell about the others, although I can guarantee some of them will be ticked off before my life has run its course.

Anyways, with this in mind, my friends and I got picked up at 8am from our hostel tucked away in the rainforest, and were dropped off at the dead end of a dirt road, with the driver pointing to a small footpath through the brush to an unpopulated beach. Sitting a few feet from shore was a small boat, which we waded to through the water to and climbed aboard. This smaller boat took us to a fairly large catamaran, and it was there that the crew launched off and took around 25 people off to a special section of the outer reef located about 30 kilometers from shore. The thought is that the more remote the spot of reef, the less disturbed and more ecologically diverse it will be. So here we were, 4 hours north of nowhere, in Cape Tribulation (again- pop. 52) a place where there’s no electricity unless you generate it yourself, and no water except that from rain or rivers, getting on a boat and going 30K further out to an exceptionally remote section of reef.

It was spectacular. I spent some time diving in the morning, and then the afternoon was spent snorkeling. I saw hundreds of tropical fish, eels, rays, unbelievable colors of coral, fields and fields of absolutely huge giant clams, and sea turtles. Fascinated by the sea turtles, I swam about for 45 min following this particularly large one, getting within a foot and just following him. Twice I tried to reach out and touch him but he always swam a few feet further away when I reached out, not getting scared and trying to escape, but simply stayed at arm’s length, probably as curious about me as I was about him. After a while I was a bit flustered that I wasn’t quite able to touch him, so I began swimming back towards the boat (I was a few hundred yards out by this point with no one near me and I was getting quite tired). After a few minutes on my way back I hear shouting and I stop swimming and look up. Then, pointing back to where I had just been, the captain was shouting something. I turn around, and a sea turtle swam right into my stomach! I swam a few feet with him and this time it let me pet it and swim with it, which was absolutely exhilarating. A French guy named Michel happened to be nearby at this point and was able to snap off a few pictures of me hanging out with my sea turtle friend. I gave him my email – I hope he sends them to me!

(Sea turtle just like the one I swam with) 

Anyhow, that just made my world. On the way back, I spent some time chatting with the crew. There was Kane -  the dive instructor, Jen and Kate – the snorkeling instructors, and the captain, Travis. After chatting with the captain for a bit, he offered me a job on the boat as a snorkeling instructor starting in June. I said that I will see what is going on after I finish my master’s in May, but if I have some time off after, I will certainly come back and work on the ship for a month or two – perhaps more. I talked it over with the crew and told them I’d let them know in a few months when I have a better idea of what’s going on in my life, and also promised I’d make sure I brought up sufficient rum from Cairns – you know, just in case we get stranded out on the reef for a while and use up our water rations. To this, Travis said “Well, in that case I’ll hold you a spot. Good men like you are hard to come by.”

 Hmm… living in the rainforest with no phone service, and working on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef… wow. Pretty spectacular. Not exactly the standard choice for a Carnegie Mellon graduate student (unless in the area of marine biology), and not the path to riches, but it would be an unequivocal life experience. And it is one I am going to give a great deal of serious consideration to.

Also on the boat, my friend Kunal and I made friends with this young doctor named Anita, who grew in Australia. A very interesting girl, she seemed to be well-informed on a wide range of topics, and Kunal and I greatly enjoyed her company. When she found out that he and I needed to get back down to Cairns the next day, she offered to give us a lift.

The next morning Anita showed up and picked us up. She gave us a great tour of NE Australia, and brought us a bit out of the way to Mossman Gorge (a beautiful gorge in the rainforest with a river running through it where we spent an hour or two swimming in the pools and waterfalls), and Port Douglas (a beautiful and ritzy resort town) for lunch.

In the evening we stopped randomly at a beautiful cliff overlook and talked to a guy who was doing hang-gliding off of it. Anita had to get to her friend’s house-warming party, but he agreed to take us up, and we told her we’d meet up with her later in the evening. The hang gliding guy took Kunal up first, but as he landed at dusk the wind died out and he wasn’t able to bring me. On the way back, he said that he could take me up the following day if the wind was strong enough, but I explained that I had to catch a 6am flight. Maybe next time. I wasn’t too sad, though. Kunal’s main goal for the trip was to go sky diving, and since we weren’t able to fit it in due to time constrictions, and my main goal of diving in the reef was fulfilled, it was best that he got his chance. Plus, a 40 min hang gliding session over the reef is probably better than a 30 second free fall over the land.

That night, we met up with Anita, her friend, and some of our friends of ours from Adelaide that were also in Cairns. Since Kunal used to be a professional Bollywood dancer, he has been teaching me all sorts of dance moves since I moved to Australia. So, of course, we found a place to go dancing and ended up doing a little routine up on the stage. A fitting end to a spectacular vacation.

The next morning, sleep deprived, Kunal and I flew back to Adelaide. I packed the rest of my things, and the following morning flew to Sydney, where I am now. I’ll spend a few days in Sydney, meeting up with my friend Peter (a friend that is a CMU grad and lives in Sydney – who also graciously offered to put me up for the duration of my stay), and Brian – the Irishman I met on my trip in the desert. With either one of these individually, things get pretty exciting. But with both combined – who knows what is in store. After this, I’m off to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Hong Kong until Christmas.

To give you a preview: to get to Siem Riep in Cambodia, I can either take a bus, or I can take a boat up through the Mekong river Delta and cross the border that way. Of the boat options, I have two. The first is the luxury boat- which includes the 6 hour boat ride on a nice boat, a big lunch, hot towels, and other such niceties – weighing in at all of $25 USD.

Or, I can take the local option of a little wooden local boat that cuts up through the jungle and takes your normal, every-day passengers – the public bus version. These are the narrow boats you see in movies that maybe carry 10 people, and some animals. All I know is that it takes a bit longer, you are “probably going to get wet”, and it costs $1.70 USD.

I think we all know which option I’m going to take…

Rainforest meets Barrier Reef

Shop owner: "Do you have any idea where I am?"

Call center: "Yes, sir. Our records indicate you are in Cape Tribulation, Far North Queensland, Australia."

Shop owner: "Right. And it is far away. I mean - it's far away, and then a bit further. And you can still get me that computer in 24 hours?"

Call center: "Of course, sir. Not a problem. We have sourcing centers all over the world. We will have it there overnight."

-----------5 days later they called back and said they have no way of getting his computer here, and he would  have to drive 3 hours to the nearest small city to pick it up. This is the story that a local store owner told me as he was hanging up the phone. Land-line, by the way. There is no cell phone service up here. He was referring to a conversation he had with Dell Computer's tech support 2 months ago regarding a problem that has still not been fixed.

That's where I am right now. Cape Tribulation, population: 52. Nestled in the remote upper Northeast corner of Australia, it is extremely isolated. And it is in the oldest rain forest in the world. To get here, you have to fly to Cairns, then take a 4 hour ride up the highway to Cape Tribulation on a road that is often flooded out, and on which you must board at least one ferry to get transported across saltwater crocodile infested river. So, that's what I did.

And trust me, these crocs are no joke. They 'snapped at' one of the boats last week, and the boat (which was made of metal), was completely crumpled and bent in the front. No one bothered to tell us what would happen if a croc got mad and properly attacked. But, we were told that if the captain indicates to move to the center of the boat, we must move to the center of the boat quickly, because the crocs can, and have, ripped people over the railing and into the water. Oh, and it is mating season, so the males are a bit more aggressive right now. Although I did see some small ones basking on logs and such, the large ones remained allusive to me. Perhaps sensing the inquisitiveness, the captain reminded those of us on the boat several times to always avoid the banks of these rivers. More specifically, the rule of thumb is "Be croc-wise. Stay out of the killzone." I found it helpful.

I must admit though, this place is stunningly beautiful. The kind of beautiful place that I thought people edited on computers for hollywood movies, but didn't actually exist. And I have seen a lot of places.  In fact, Cape Tribulation is the only place in the world that has two UNESCO World Heritage Sites touching one another. The two sites are the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, respectively the number 2 and number 1 most diverse ecosystems on our planet. I spent today trekking through the rain forest, and saw all sorts of wild insects and plants and animals which are found nowhere else, ranging from the nearly-extinct fruit bat to little green ants that are used for medicine and whose bodies taste like electrified lime juice and shock your tongue. I can verify this. After some time, I did a high-wire trekking thing in the top of the forest canopy, moving from tree to tree via cables. During which time one of the guides explained that you can walk 100 meters in this place and pass more species of plants than if you walked from the top to the bottom of the entire United States. Wild. They are still discovering new species of insects and plants all the time, since most of this forest is unexplored. Tracing its origins back ~200-240 million years, the Daintree has more ancient species of plants than anywhere else - numbering at 19 discovered so far. We are talking about types of trees that are the same today as they were before the dinosaurs existed, when all the continents were connected.

I also went for a long walk down the beach this evening. It was beautiful. I wanted to go in for a swim but no one is allowed to. Not that anyone is there to enforce this rule, but considering that the waters here during this time of year are teeming with Box Jellyfish - the most poisonous thing on earth - you'd have to have a death wish. The pain is so unmatchable the people usually are still screaming after they go unconscious and have been injected with something like morphene.

Luckily for me, you generally dont find them in the reef; just near the shore. Which is good, because tomorrow I'm fulfilling my life-long goal of going diving in the Great Barrier Reef. It will be an all-day affair, and I got a little underwater disposable camera in preparation. And just in case our little jellyfish friends are present out there, everyone will be wearing a 'stinger suit'.

A Journey into the Unknown: Part I

I think I had an idea that this journey was going to be one for the record books when the 1985 short-bus pulled up at 6:00 in the morning and the first thing I could see other than the glare of the rising sun off of a pair of dark black sunglasses was a sunburned, mustached man behind the wheel, finishing off what appeared to be his third Red Bull. Half asleep, I threw my bags into the attached trailer and climbed aboard. Five minutes later, I knew that this was going to be one for the record books when he was laughing hysterically driving the wrong way down a one-way alley, honking at a cab that was trying to use the street in the generally accepted manner.


I was departing for a 7 day journey into the outback, and the driver Mark (pronounced in Aussie as "Maah-ck") couldn't have been more pleased. This was exceptional, considering we were departing for an all-day, 1000k drive due North into some of the most inhospitable land in the world. Armed with a head full of knowledge, an evil laugh which seemed to suck in air in preparation before belting out in hysterics, and a matching army-fatigue green shirt complete with some well-worn shorts that were so small that I felt uncomfortable being on the same street as him, the 50+ year old road-warrior rocketed his rattling steed off into the desert. I have to admit, though - that meager bus could really move. Exhausted, I was slipping in and out of a light sleep to the sound of an odd mix of techno/disco fused tracks playing from his iPod when I was jolted by our vehicle lurching violently to the right and our bus passing a smaller car on the shoulder. A few other people on the bus woke up, too, and so I asked:


"Everything all right up there, Mark?"


He turned down the music and looked up into the rear-view mirror and smiled, saying "You bet, Mate! No draaah-maz - I reckon we'll suh-voyve this droyve. Ahhhh -hahaha" and with the hysterical, evil laughter he turned around completely to spend a few seconds laughing and peering at his passengers. Then, he looked forward and pulled back onto the road, not once losing speed. I looked down, and searched in vain to find something with which I could fasten myself to the chair or floor in the absence of seatbelts. 


A few hours later, and shouting once again, Mark said "We will be stopping up here a ways, so you all bettah use the toilets and get some water. Two litres, minimum. Three is better. Because after that, we're in the land of big hats, big heat, and big flies. You wont be finding any more shade or toilets out here, mate. Where we're going, it's just us and the outback. Something happens, and it will be at least 8 howas (hours) before a plane will be able to get out here, find you, and get you back to a hospital. At least 8 howas, mate. Ahh-hahahahaha." And with that, he adjusted his big straw hat and looked forward again. 


When we stopped, Mark filled up the bus with gas and then two extra containers with it as well. Just in case we ran out. The heat was over 100 (f), and it wasn't even noon. Plus, we had only entered into the desert an hour or two before. I ran inside the station and came out with a Snicker's bar. I started chatting with Mark and started asking him about where he grew up. He said that he grew up on a station just like the one we were at. A station, he explained, is different than a farm. A station is entirely self-sufficient and called a 'station' because it is much larger than any farm is. The outback, he explained, has a fair number of them - the biggest of which is larger in size than Belgium and has somewhere between 60-70,000 heads of cattle, many of which have never seen a human being before. When it comes time to round them up, station-heads have to use helicopters.


Many of these remote outposts also have a gas station as well, but the primary business is often sheep or cattle farming. Generally, only one or two families live on a station, hundred, and sometimes thousands, of kilometers away from the next-nearest station, town, or city.  Mark and his 8 other brothers and sisters grew up with only one another and a handful of aboriginals that worked on their land with them to keep company. They got their education from School of the Air, which were three one-half hour school sessions that took place over radio broadcast per week. Children all across the outback would tune in during those times, and after the broadcast could ask questions via radio. Homework assignments were written and mailed to the school to be graded and eventually returned. The first time he saw a TV was 18 years ago.

Mark spent a lot of his youth reading and working on the land. Additionally, having grown up with many aboriginals, he knew a lot about their history and customs. He explained some of their expert survival tactics in the punishing outback heat that had been passed down through generations. These people survived for thousands of years in some of the hottest places on earth, where there is virtually no water or shade, living off extremely scare resources. Like I mentioned before, Australia is the driest continent on the planet. 80% of it is desert, and it is the same size as the US. When I say that going through the outback is big, hot, and remote, I mean it. The heat can get in excess of 140(f), and the road temperature (when and where there are paved roads) can get over 150 and the pavement actually melts. Often times, the Australian Army would come out to his family's station and the aboriginals would teach the army folks desert survival skills. Mark's eyes seemed sharp enough - several times he pulled off the road in a hurry to drive off into the sand a bit to point out a group of kangaroos or emus way off in the distance, or even a small lizard on the shoulder. 


By dusk, we had traveled over 1,000K's into the desert to a small town named Coober Pedy - the Opal Capital of the World - and a place so hot, so desolate, that much of their population of 2,000 live underground in what they call 'dugouts'. I mean, it's a mining community, so they essentually use the same mining techniques to get opals as they do to build their homes. We slept underground, too. 

In fact, Coober Pedy may be the armpit of the world. 


More to come....

The time I got robbed...(for the second time in a month)

Before you jump to conclusions, I can assure you that I did not pick up and move to Rio or something. I am still in quiet, little Adelaide, Australia. 

But for a while there, it seems that the heavens somehow made a collusive agreement to continuously throw me off my feet for no immediately apparent reason. Between getting assaulted from behind while at an ATM, having all sorts of banking nightmares and being literally unable to access my accounts for two weeks, people dying, dealing with police reports, etc, it was getting a bit excessive. So, after working through the weekend, Tuesday night I decided to go across the street to a quiet little restaurant/pub called The British Hotel and grab a beer with two of my friend after work. Granted, I got home from working around 11pm, but still.

So, I headed over to the British.   The place describes itself in the following manner:


"The British Hotel in North Adelaide is renowned for its tantalising cuisine, friendly service and great atmosphere. The British opened its doors to the public back in 1838 and now holds one of the oldest hotel licences in South Australia. Things were a little different back then, but the old nostalgia and charm of the British remains today. Situated amongst the leafy [and by 'leafy', one could assume 'posh' or 'waspy'] streets of North Adelaide, the British Hotel offers a wide variety of culinary services, ranging from silver-service dinners in our private function rooms, to tasty snacks at one of the bars. The British Hotel also boasts a fine selection of wines and beers to cater for every thirst."


Call me crazy, but considering the surrounding area, its atmosphere, and the fact that it is the building DIRECTLY across the street from where I live on a quiet street, I figured it was a pretty safe bet.

I sat down in one of the side rooms and had a beer with my two friends, enjoying the big, overstuffed chairs and old fireplace, complete with roaring fire. There wasn't a soul present other than the three of us and the owner, and we just caught up and chatted. A little past midnight, the owner was closing up and letting us hang out until he was ready to leave, when two men charged in the front door with masks, gloves, and big hooded sweatshirts. One guy had a shotgun, the other a tire iron. They ran right past the room we were in to the owner behind the bar, then noticed the three of us and pointed the gun at us. While the gun was pointed at us, the guy with the tire iron came over and relieved us of our phones so that we could not call the police, and then stayed near us as gunman forced the owner to empty the safe. A few minutes later, they fled the scene with around $10,000 in cash and four cellphones.

We were able to get their license plate number, and reported it to the police. The next three hours were spent being questioned by police officers. I still had what was left of my pitcher of beer, so, naturally, I decided not to let it go to waste and enjoy the remainder of my beverage during the lengthy chat with my new friends. Needless to say, I was an old pro at this sort of thing considering I had just gone through the process a few weeks back. When the police figured this out, they found the fact that this was the second time this month that I had been robbed, they thought it was pretty hysterical. I did too, to some extent. Some of them informed me that I probably shouldn't bother getting another phone since it seems like some divine power didn't want me to have one. It seemed that they had a pretty good sense of humor, but sadly that did not seem to hold true when I informed them that my 24k gold iPhone and 10 diamond rings were brutally stolen off of my person.

So anyways, the police found the car later that night, abandoned a few miles away in a parking lot, completely on fire. It was stolen. A picture of the car when police found it:

The story made big headlines here in Australia. Then, two weeks ago, the two men were caught. They had performed a series of similar robberies across Australia and were finally caught in a police raid. They were two members of the Gang of 49.

The Gang of 49 seems to be more of a name than anything else. It doesn't represent an group of exactly 49 members; rather they are a group of loosely affiliated primarily-aboriginal youth that repeatedly commit various crimes across South Australia. These crimes are becoming a systemic problem, and much of it stems from a combination of factors such as prejudice, lack of education, marginalization, drug addiction, etc. It is not entirely clear to me how many of the notorious Gang of 49 stories are true, but one thing is certain: the mention of the phrase brings about a wide range of strong reactions and countless stories/urban legends.

These two are now going to trial. They were caught in Victoria and the police expedited them back to South Australia to stand trial here in Adelaide. The police have remained in touch with the four of us that were present at the British that night, and our statements are being used in the prosecution of two young men, pictured below.

(Big guy in the front had a the gun, skinny guy in the back had the tire iron).

"What's that accent - New Jersey?" "No... Austria."

Tonight I dined on kangaroo.  It is an experience that I have been looking forward to for some time, but until tonight I had not gotten around to trying some of this savory outback animal. My new friend Mel, the head chef at a local restaurant known for its delightful ‘roo steaks, insisted that I come in and she would whip up something truly spectacular for me. So, I did. And, I must admit, I was not disappointed. When I walked in, I wasn’t quite sure how one was supposed to order this large marsupialian dish, but when I arrived she came out of the kitchen and I asked her to make me the greatest ‘roo steak in the long and storied history of ‘roo steaks.  Fourty-five minutes later I was presented with a slab of gamey meat that was charred black on the outside, cold and red on the inside, and covered in apricot and grape chutney.  Much chewier than a normal steak, a sanguine tinge gave me the impression that this is the closest I will get to gnawing on a live animal’s leg. At least this week. (Note: I am heading into the outback in two weeks, where I’ll be camping and hiking for 6 days.)

If you are grossed out or angry at this point, it is probably because you have been influenced by lies that would lead you to believe that kangaroos are like what is displayed in the picture above. It's a big conspiracy - like the campaign to save the pandas.

Well, you're wrong. The reality is that these vicious creatures want nothing more than to feast on your flesh. Trust me. This is what a real 'roo likes to do. PETA, eat your heart out:

I strongly suggest it. Eating kangaroo I mean – only time will tell us about the Outback experience..

So anyhow, the meal has left me feeling quite content, and now I feel prepared to write. A great deal has happened in the past two weeks or so since updating, so I’m going to revert back and explain art the past occurrences in chronological order. Starting anew…

Austria is a pretty amazing place.

Yes, Austria, the small Alpine wonderland located in Southern Europe and not to be confused with Australia, the massive, hot, and flat country in which I currently reside.  They are, I assure you, two very different entities. 

If this caught you off guard, you need to read more carefully. And if this happens frequently, do yourself a favor and never mention it to anyone. Ever.

One of my favorite comedic moments in cinematic history is the scene in “Dumb and Dumber” in which Jim Carrey’s character made the same mistake that some of you must have made just now. Here’s a link – it’s pretty great:   "What's that accent - New Jersey?" "No... Austria"

Well, you may be wondering why I am writing about Austria when am much further away from Austria than most of you in the US. If you guessed because I am in an 1800’s British pub across the street from where I live, sitting on a plush leather armchair next to a fireplace sipping a beer in a room that smells of rich mahogany, than you are correct.

But chances are that you didn’t. So the short answer is that I had a fascinating discussion last week about fair Austria, with a few doctors that I believe were from said lovely place. It was Friday evening, and I was coming home from enjoying some sophisticated Australian evening cultural activities when I decided to walk into the residence hall’s common room.  Ok, to be fair, it was around 3am Saturday morning. You know, just a few minutes after the Antique Neo-Classical Pottery and Upholstery Collector’s Guild’s by-weekly meeting ended.

Anyways, I came into the common room where the aforementioned individuals were chatting with some other PhD from Brazil about mathematical modeling. The conversation was about as fun as breaking all of your fingers...at the same time.

So... I sat down and had some wine with them, and then proceeded to converse about Austria. I told them I think Austria is a fantastic country as they have produced some absolutely amazing people and products in the past. I then said "I mean really, when Mozart is the THIRD best thing to come out of your country, you know you've got one heck of a homeland." A bold claim on my part to be sure – and I think it piqued the others’ interest. Delighted, I reminded them Arnold Schwarzenegger was from Austria, and his two cinematic epics: "Conan the Barbarian", and the sequel "The Return of Conan the Barbarian," were Austria's two crowning achievements. This was no slight to Mozart, who followed in a close third.  I don’t believe that my comments were appreciated at that point, so I followed up with "I mean really, what other country has produced a man who, in two films, has a back that is wider than the horses he rides...and you can actually see the poor animals physically straining." Quite pleased with my astute observations, I helped myself to some more wine. 

My justification did not produce any great changes in heart, so I refrained from explaining that any noted historian will support this proof, and back me up when I explained that positions four and five are occupied by Pez Candy and Freud, respectively.  I bid them a good night and retired to my room – I knew it was time to go to bed when I nearly started a discussion about prominent Austrians of the 20^th century.

Man interacting with nature has been the subject of discussion for literally all of recorded history. I assure you, the instance of the Governator making nature bend to his will is not an isolated incidence (treat yourself to this: Arnie dishes a horse a knuckle sandwich) However, the forces of nature are not something to be reckoned with. My favorite TV show addresses this same subject, and is entitled Man Vs. Wild with Bear Grylls. Although some of it is embellished, the guy’s accomplishments cannot be disputed. He’s climbed Everest, was a survival expert in the British special forces, and now he has his own show (among other things). I greatly enjoy it, and I don’t even watch TV. I mean seriously, I watch it and I haven’t even owned a TV in two years…

So recently, Hollywood comedian Will Ferrell joined Bear to go on a two day expedition through the devastatingly cold mountains in Sweden. Please note, this is Sweden, not Austria..even I can’t wrap a storyline that tightly  Anyhow, they get dropped into the wilderness with jackets, a knife, some rope, and Twinky (which Ferrell eats in the first two minutes). It’s really funny, but also really interesting to watch. And I have to admit, Ferrell did a great job considering he had never done anything similar. In the beginning, he was laughing things off, but a little bit into the trip you could tell he could start getting really scared. Then, Ferrell was forced to face some fears and you could actually see his confidence growing. It was pretty inspiring if you think about it. There’s that common saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This though has been espoused for time immemorial – dating back to Greek times when many believed that the world was made up of opposing forces and that gradual changes led to turning points. Well, I don’t necessarily believe in a world consisting entirely of opposing forces, but I personally believe the idea of struggle leading to strength. If you throw yourself through the ringer a few times and really push your personal boundaries, you will eventually grow and be better off for it. That’s the main reason I have gone and spent time traveling and trying new things over the years – I figure the more I can see and experience now, the better I’ll be in the long run. Plus, if I fall flat on my ass, it’s better to do it now while I’m young and have relatively few responsibilities. And they give me plenty of fun stories to tell attractive sets of identical Aussie twins like the ones I met last week at the bar.

Wait, what?

In a short, informative, and humorous 45-minute segment, you can see what you think as Bear Grylls and Will Ferrell go off into the Arctic! I’d suggest checking it out on YouTube – it’s certainly worth your while: Man Vs Wild featuring Will Ferrell.

Speaking of strength – I recently witnessed a profound expression of it that I really think is worth sharing.  It was exhibited by my Uncle Joe in an email to our extended family. My Aunt Betty passed away last week after battling illness, and Uncle Joe sent out a mass email to our family expressing his thanks for all those that have reached out to him. Short and succinct, it simply said:  “Thank all of you loving admirers of our lost Betty.  I am able to accept her departure. I will try to resume my position as a pointer with pride of how good life is and that in order to enjoy it we must see, before hand, that without the perfections to which we know we will lose, we wouldn't have models to pattern ourselves on.” In the face of losing your best friend and life-long partner - that’s strength.

Well, I realized that this is getting a bit heavy, so I’ll wrap things up. A few other FYI’s: daylight savings time was recently observed, and now I am 14.5 hours ahead of those following Eastern Standard Time. Apparently Adelaide is one of only two ‘major’ cities that observe this extra .5 hours time difference. The logic behind this is beyond my ability to comprehend.

I also have another entry drafted that I’ll put up in a few days when it’s done. I went on a 9 hour wine tasting…whoa. But the next entry’s real raison d’etre is quite exciting. It’s autobiographical and is entitled: “Ryan Get’s Held Up By Armed Robbers with Shotguns.” Seriously, my life is a joke. Check in mid-week.

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Lessons learned

Hello again.

Recently, life down here has been a bit of a roller coaster in terms of ups and downs. But let me quickly mention a big "up", as well as extend my gratitude to all of you! I was checking the analytic software installed on the site, and.....

Since starting it roughly a month and a half ago, this site has been visited almost 700 times from people on every continent on the planet except for Antarctica! 

I'm very excited! Thank you to everyone that has been reading it.

Anyways, I was going to try and keep these entries in chronological order, but I've changed my mind. Things have been moving pretty quickly since I've gotten here, with lots of random things happening all the time, so I will probably just end up writing about whichever interesting things happen at the times when I am free to write. So ya, to put this in a more logical, relational format....  Ryan's blog:chronological::Fosters:Australian. This may be a bit of surprise to some of the American readers (I've gotten a few people asking me about Fosters), and I have not seen it anywhere. Not in any pub, advertisement, or store. Nowhere. Of course, I haven't really been particularly looking for it - because I hate the stuff. So much, in fact, that if I get stranded in the Outback with nothing to keep me alive except a case of Fosters and my own urine (and yes, drinking urine is actually a survival strategy if you are ever stranded in a place without water), it would be a game-day decision. Luckily for me, this is not a likely scenario. The part about choosing between these two alternative beverages, that is; I'd say the probability that I get stranded in the desert is at least 50% - maybe better. Especially the way things have been going lately.

Don't get me wrong - I'm the first to admit that I'm a pretty lucky guy. Things usually tend to just work out well for me for no apparent reason, regardless of how unlikely they may seem. Like going to mass in St. Peter's and just happening to meet the Pope. Or sitting cramped on a trans-Pacific flight and having the stewardess coming to ask me if I'd like to sit in first class. And even just getting the opportunity to study here in Adelaide and meet so many diverse, interesting, and kind people.

Well, luck was not with me this week.

Now, I don't know if it's pure chance, or some great equalizing power at work, or because the third derivative of the second moon phase indicates that Saturn's hamster died and Aries' girlfriend dumped him, but something happened.

It's never a good sign when you wake up feeling sick on a rainy Monday morning. Especially when you are in a region of the world that has been in record-setting dought for the past 10 years. And when you don't own an umbrella. And walk a mile and a half to school. But, in the scheme of things, this isn't a big deal. My feelings of illness kind of stayed at an even keel for a few days, and aside from not really being able to sleep, it eventually dwindled into mostly just head congestion.

Luckily, on Wednesday night, a particularly considerate individual must have realized this and attempted to provide a solution to my little inconvenience. By sneaking up behind me when I was at an ATM and bashing the side of my head in two or three times, and running off with my wallet and cell phone, which dropped out of my hands in the process of me falling quite dazed into the soft and voluptuous lap of Mother Pavement. Sadly, this all turned out to be an unsuccessful medical procedure, and my cold remains. And I didn't even get a chance to thank my new friend because I did not even see him on account of his stealthy approach and disappearance. So, a bit disoriented, I stumbled bleeding into a cab and went home - only for the realization to set in about half way home that the burden of carrying cash was relieved of me. Fortunately, the cab driver was (grudgingly) understanding as I explained this fact to him during the drive, and took me home anyways.

The next morning I woke up and canceled my credit card and had Verizon shut off my cell phone. No charges had been made, the person was apparent unable to crack the password to my phone so no calls were made, and so I toss it up as being in the wrong place at the wrong time and realize that it could have been worse. I could have been hurt quite badly or worse, so I'll take some bumps and bruises and call it a day. Plus, I've been traveling long enough to know that when you go out, you only put one ID and one credit card in your wallet and ALWAYS leave the rest of your cards and such back in your place of residence. You know, minimize your potential losses. So luckily I had another card back in my room, so I figured I could still access cash. Sadly, when I attempted to do so the next day on the way to the police station, I found that the magnetic strip was scratched and thus rendered my card useless.

So I went down to the police station, filed a report for assault and robbery so that I could at least have documents to submit to my insurance company. The two young police officers were quite nice and helpful. They appreciated my American accent, completed the necessary paperwork, and talked to me about traveling. Before I left, they said that they hoped to see me again - which caught me off guard considering it was coming from two cops at a police station - and I assured them that this probably will not be my last time at the Adelaide police station. So one of them beckoned me back over to the desk, and in handwriting that was all too similar to the kind I find on the parking tickets tagged to my car's windshield back in Pittsburgh, quickly jotted down her name and two phone numbers and handed it to me with a smile. Important note: those numbers will only be used if I actually get in trouble for something down here. That would have the potential to be absolutely disastrous.

After calling the bank from Skype, I learned that I would not be able to get a new card mailed to me for at least two weeks, and that it would take several days to process a request to wire my money from my US account into an account here. I guess I understand that they might be a bit hesitant to empty my bank account and wire all of the contents to a foreign bank. But still, its their job, as I informed the woman on the other end, and I was running out of options and facing the reality that I might have to have to make my $10 or so in various coins of accumulated wealth in Australia sustain me for a few days. Either way, it didn't matter, the department that takes care of wiring money was closed until Monday, and only customer service is available 24/7.

Oh, and during the conversation, the woman informed me of such interesting facts as "Oh my God, I have always wanted a pet Koala!!", and "Ohhh you're so lucky to be in Australia! (speaking to the woman in the cube next to her) Susie, a customer is calling from AUSTRALIA!" Odd, considering that this was part of her solution approach to my explanation that I had just gotten my head bashed a few times, robbed on the street, moneyless and phoneless while stranded on the exact opposite side of the world. Towards the end of the ordeal, she apparently couldn't help herself and asked: "Ok, but really, have you gotten to see or hold a koala yet?"

I might mail her one. One that has rabies.

I figured the weekend would bring better luck. Weeks back, some friends and I signed up for a 2 day intensive sailing certification course for which I have been studying. Run by an internationally recognized sailing organization, passing this course would give me a "competent crew" certification, meaning I'd be eligible (and perhaps even sought after) to be a crew member on international sailing vessels. I paid a pretty penny for it, and was very much looking forward to it. I woke up at 6:45 am Saturday morning to begin my two hour walking-bus-train journey to get to this particular marina. Google Maps instructed me flawlessly...up until I got off the train. After walking around for 45 minutes I realized that I had been instructed to get off one stop too far. I walked the way back to where I was supposed to be, and searched at length for some time and couldn't find it. Because I was phone-less, I could not call my friends. I found a pay phone, and called the number of the guy running the course, which i had written down, and got his voicemail. Dejected, I began my two hour trek home. Because this course is limited in number due to space on the ship, and that it is in high demand, am still waiting to hear back to see if they will let me reschedule to take it another weekend, or if I will have write off the money as sunk costs.

Today, I spoke to my parents and they went to a Western Union and wired me some cash to hold me over until I am able to access my bank accounts again, which looks to be probably Tuesday thankfully. So, I walked about 35 minutes to the branch here, only to find that, for whatever reason, they do full transactions every day, but on Sundays this branch only SENDS cash, not dispense wires that have been sent to there. So be it. It's like going to a McDonald's and having them tell you that you can order a Big Mac, pay for it, but despite the fact that it's right there on the counter you can't pick it up until tomorrow.

Looks like I'll be sending Western Union a rabid koala, too.

I will put my sarcasm aside for a moment. I really am very fortunate. Things could have been much worse. For whatever reason, I sustained no really serious head injuries from the mugger, and all the stuff that got taken are material and can be replaced. The sailing folks seem like decent people, so I think I'll be able to persuade them to let me reschedule my course. Plus, I've met some really great people here in Adelaide . I've had lots of people offer to give me money until I sort things out, offer to make me dinner, and one friend gave me an old cell phone of hers to use for the duration of my stay here. Another friend took me out last night and we had a great night on the town...which turned into a great morning on the town. And a bakery at 7 AM. Remember - this is Adelaide - NOT New York. It's a good thing he knows basically every bouncer and club owner in town.

And to top it all off, I live next to the Adelaide Zoo. Like, 100 yards away. I wake up to lions roaring sometimes. And the monkeys take great pleasure in making themselves heard. When you combine that with the variety of native parrots and exotic birds that just sort of fly around here, its a veritable cacophony of wild sounds that is always present. There really is no other place like Australia - and I've been to a fair number of places. Eighty percent of the flora and fauna in this country exists nowhere else. Which is amazing, considering Australia is the driest, flattest, hottest, most infertile of all the inhabited continents (Antarctica, again, stands in the way). And much of is entirely unexplored. It is home of the largest living thing on earth - the Great Barrier Reef, the largest monolith - Ayers Rock (actually named Uluru). It has more things that can kill you than anywhere else in the world. Of the 10 most poisonous snakes in the world, all of them are Australian. And five of its creatures: the funnel web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, paralysis tick, and stonefish, are the most deadly of their type in the world!  Not only that, but somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 years ago, the Aborigines were here, which is long before there were modern humans in the Americas or Europe. Plus, they have no racial or linguistic kinship to their neighbors in the region... which would indicate that they must have somehow sailed here at least 30,000 years before anyone else and then devoted themselves to living in the harsh desert. (Picked up these facts from various places, but mostly from Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country - a hilarious and informative read for those interested.)

It's definitely a wild place. And, despite all the ups and downs thus far, I really like it.