Back North

Whelp, time for a bit of a recap. Spent the second day in Sydney hanging out with one of Mary's friends, Kathleen. She is at the University of New South Whales in Sydney but lives on Coogee beach, right next to the famous Bondi beach. It was a really good day, got to see a different, more my type part of Sydney. The Aussies have another good thing in place here, pour concrete at the base of a cliff side so that people can swim in a true saltwater pool near the cliff face with minimal risk of being turned into ground meat. Well after spending some time with Kathleen, we had to catch yet another overnight train back to Casino and then a short bus ride to Lismore to begin our home stays. Life experience #23425 gained on this trip. Left Sydney at 4pm and if you remember the first leg of the journey to Tasmania, you remember this is a 12 hour train trip. Yep, got into Casino at 4am and then hopped (er, stumbled) onto a bus for the 20 minute ride into Lismore. We arrived at the bus station, still in the dark and were expecting to head to this aquatic center to swim, wake-up, and/or shower. Well, this was a Saturday (maybe?) and needless to say, they open at 10am on Saturdays. I guess swimmers here don't subscribe to the ungodly hour practice rules.

Listening to: Little Wing - J. Hendrix

So after finding out this lovely bit of news we headed over to the park where we were meeting our families at 9am (this is 5am now) to introduce ourselves as the American students that would be living with them for 2 weeks. Since most of us hadn't showered in just under 24 hours we were pretty grungy but most of the group choose to sleep on benches in the park or my personal favorite, in the tunnel of the play set.

 Not really an SIT student. Sorry.

While the group was sleeping, Phebes, Zeeka, and I headed to the local bus station to find some showers. Free showers at local bus station, odd concept I know. After this we headed back to the park and had some breakfast that was cooked on the grills on site. Eggs, croissants, juice, and sweet nectar of life coffee from a french press. Fast forward a few hours and I met the awesome family that I would be living with for a while: Laura (single mom), Ehren-15, and Arthur-13. They are really great and receptive of having another male in the house. Here is where I am going to delve into some of the cultural differences between us and them (just gonna ignore grammar here for a bit). First off, they are not afraid of letting nature into their homes. All of our windows are open 24/7 and there is just a tiny wall unit A/C in one room. Once the dirty dishes are put into the sink, a trail of ants begins to take shape and start the clean up process for you. Spiders roaming around my bedroom along with more ants (before you start gagging/gasping/groaning, spiders eat 'skeeters, therefore I love spiders). 3 garbage bins (rubbish, recycling, compost). Aussie homes have these cool outlets that can turn off so you virtually eliminate phantom loads (leaving your phone/laptop charger in when not in use).

The Australian culture is much more perceptive of its natural resources as well (they essentially live in an uninhabitable country) as the environment as a whole.

The family I live with do not consider themselves to be "environmentalists" or "greenies" by any means but they still take care of their planet better than many Americans ever will. Hopping off my soapbox. On a lighter note, I think every Aussie thinks that when an American turns 18 we go out and buy a handgun (instead of the typical cigs and porn) without any licensing program in place and just go ape-shit.

But he parties like it's his birthday.

On a related note to this picture, the "gangsters" at Ehren and Arthur's school are called G-Units. Really glad American culture is spreading its seed far and wide.

Listening to: Things Goin' On - Lynyrd Skynyrd (makes me miss fried chicken and sweet tea)

I learned how to sail this past weekend, Ehren is a nationally competitive sailor in Aussieland and quickly showed me the ropes along with scaring the ever living hell out of me a few times by removing the majority of the boat from the water and nearly removing my head with the boom a time or two.

I'll stick with my wake boat if this is business as usual for sailing.

After sailing in the harbor near Ballina, we went a bit more inland for some old fashion, testosterone fueled, cliff jumping. Walked up to the cliffs and Arthur just hopped off as if he was jumping into a pool, mind you this is a 35ft cliff into water. I've sent myself down things on a bike that most people wouldn't walk down (Keegan, buy a bike, I have been watching videos and am having a Renaissance), but this kid has very little fear. So I strapped my camera to my hand, hit the record button and jumped off. The first bit of the video is really cool but I managed to hit the stop button upon impact (imagine that, I squeezed down after hitting the water from 35ft?). Had a few classes and a Sustainability Workshop the past few days which inspired me on many fronts to bring what I am learning here back to the states to make changes in my personal life and the places I live. I think that is why I am here? At any rate, home stay is fun, same bed for 4 nights now (could get used to this) but we have a 5 day weekend (spring break?) and then some more class, and after that Coolola National Park. Sorry for the abrupt wrap-up, living in a home has turned me into an old man (bed before 11pm). Give ya an update later on in the home stay period.

Cheers!

-zuey