I’ve only been in Australia a week, but I’m soaking up information like a sponge. One of my favorite parts about moving to a new country is that things I’ve accepted as normal all my life are very suddenly not. Here’s, much in the same vein as a similar list I did for Ireland and for America, is a list of ten things that have caught me by surprise in my first week in Oz.
Fashionable Melbournians on their fashionable south bank. These plumes of flame errupt every hour after 9pm for five minutes.
1 – When Aussies move apartments, they move their large appliances, too. I helped my friend move into her new flat and wheeled a big ol’ washing machine in through the hallway. It’s typical here in Oz for appliances to stay with the owner (even renters), including refrigerators, washers and dryers — although driers are hardly needed with the blistering heat and near-constant sunshine.
2 – Aussies are fashionable. Not since I was in France have I felt so underdressed. Last Monday, I took the train into Melbourne’s CBD, ducked into a bathroom, looked in a mirror and thought, “This won’t work.” One shop and $70 later, I was hopefully looking a little more fashionable to start the job hunt.
3 – They refer to their downtown as “CBD” (central business district) — a term I was only familiar with from my urban studies class prior to coming to Oz.
4 – Things are expensive. I’m currently sitting in a bar using wifi in mid-afternoon, drinking a $7.50 Corona. To get here I needed to buy an $11.90 day pass for Melbourne’s extensive tram and train network.
5 – They take their coffee oh-so-seriously. I suppose it should be refreshing having been in Germany and Czech Republic, the land of instant coffee, but I’m trying to claim that I have experience as a barista. I thought I had that experience, but many job postings advise applicants, “Must be able to make a rosetta and heart in the latte for consideration.” Sheesh.
6 – Melbourne is massive. It’s only double the size of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, but unlike the Twin Cities, the suburbs are not just a place you go to settle down and have a family. Suburbs an hour from the CBD can still have a hip, youthful vibe about them. This can make a commute from one fashionable area of town to another over an hour, longer if you rely on public transit.
7 – They will catch you for not having the correct metro ticket. Until yesterday, I was staying in Clayton, just one stop out of the cheaper Zone 1 area. There were no turnstiles, however, so I had been just buying a Zone 1 ticket at half the price, since my Zone 2 travel time accounted for five minutes of my nearly hour-long journey. Sure enough though, I was cornered at the gate by a transport enforcement officer and had to play my “Oh I’m just an American tourist I didn’t realize…” card in order to avoid at $180 fine. Luckily, the officer was feeling generous.
8 – There are no entry-level jobs. In the service industry, everyone wants to know if you have experience. No one will interview you for a job, they’ll just ask you to work for free in a “trial” then assess how you did afterward.
9 – People actually eat kangaroo. Australians love to explain, in a self-mocking tone, that they’re the only country that eats their national emblem (a kangaroo and an emu). I had my first ‘Roo Burger the other night. It was chewy, but good. Mmm, marsupial.
10 – K-Fed is a big deal down here. He’s got his own show and everything.
The Melbournian
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Breakfast at somewhere between 29- and 31-thousand feet, somewhere between Janaury 25 and 27.
Airplane isn’t the right word for the thing that transported me across the Pacific. More like a building tipped on its side with wheels. It was one of those massive double-decker airplanes that took me from San Francisco to Sydney. Midflight I looked out the window at the endlessly long wing shaking with the slightest bit of turbulence and had to force that scene from Lost out of my head.
The contrast between my origin and destination were incredible. I left in -10C/15F temperatures, but arrived to a hot (35C/95F), sunny day. My body felt like it should be late at night when I arrived, but instead the sun was high in the sky. It felt like it should be January 26, but thanks to crossing the International Date Line, it was January 27.
But the starkest contrast wasn’t in the difference between the Minnesota I’d just left and the Australia I’d just arrived to, but in the two years since I first played this game of uprooting myself with no job or home in my new country. Approaching the Australian immigration desk, my mind flashed back to my Irish immegration experience, as well as to the endless hours of Border Security, an Austrlian reality show I spent endless hours watching In Ireland.
This time around, there was no fuss at all. She looked at the picture, looked at my face, and let me in without even searching my bag.
Last time around, I took the long bus ride alone from Dublin to Galway, lost in my thoughts of self-doubt as I entered a city where I knew nobody. This time, my friend Cate met me at the airport gate and brought me to her house for a shower, then to the mall (sorry, shopping centre in Australian parlance) to buy a mobile phone — a phone I could quickly fill with six contacts. That may not sound like much, but when I moved to Wales and had an issue with my mobile phone I called customer care.
“Can you tell me the the last three phone numbers you dialed?”
“Um,” I replied, “Well, I dialed my work, and then you.” I didn’t even have three contacts in my phone to have dialed.
These first few days in Oz have been a bit surreal — almost too normal. Cate, the friend who picked me up from the airport and is letting me crash her place, moved into a new flat the day after I arrived. So before you knew it, me and Cate’s family were helping her move her stuff into a moving van and driving across suburban Melbourne.
Last night I went to my friend Ola’s house, where her Polish parents entertained me and fed me.
This weekend some Melbourne friends took me though Chinatown during Chinese New Year parades.
What all this has amounted to is feeling very quickly like a Melbournian, more so than I ever felt like a citizen of Galway or Cardiff. So thanks for welcoming me in so quickly, Melbourne.
Next stop: Getting a job.
Mankato>MSP>SFO>SYD>MEL
By · CommentsTwenty hours, sixteen minutes of flight time. Twenty-seven hours of travel time.
Ireland, Wales, mainland Europe and now Australia. Thanks for all your support. I’m off to the airport as we speak.
Bravery
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“You’re so brave,” they say to me
But bravery takes fear
The acceptance that one could fail,
Willfull risk-taking despite potential consequences
Open and empty suitcases lay strewn across my bedroom floor
Yet again, I leave the country for an uncertain future
Yet again, I haven’t done nearly enough preparation
I let others think this is my free-spiritedness
“Are you excited to leave?” my coworker asks me
Like clockwork, everyday he asks me
And like clockwork, I respond insincerely
“Sure am.” Truth is, I haven’t given it much thought
I lie wide awake in my bed. I glimpse my future
Penniless, in trouble, in an unfamiliar place
No one to turn to for help
My pulse quickens, I feel faint
I go to war with the anxiety
I push the negativity out of my mind
And replace it with my alternate future
I am happy, fulfilled, self-actualized
But the negativity remains
Whether I focus on it or not
“You’re so brave?” Hardly.
I’m just ignoring that which scares me most
On returning to your high school job at 26
By · CommentsWhen I started this blog, I promised myself I had a few simple ground rules for myself. I’d never let it become a daily log of what I’m doing. I always wanted to write with a purpose, and if I didn’t have a purpose to an entry, I wouldn’t write one. I would never apologize for not writing for long stretches of times. If inspiration didn’t strike, so be it. This blog would be a place to reflect my thoughts on traveling the world, not just a place for undigested accounts of my life.
I never accounted for what would happen if I found myself unable to digest what was going on in my life.
My new job — for now, working the drive-thru.
Since mid-December, in what must be the most whiplash-inducing job transition of my life, I returned to my high school job at Panera Bread. My old boss was incredibly generous to take me in and put me on the schedule the day I asked for it, and before I knew it I was taking orders over my headset for the recently installed drive-thru.
Six weeks later, I’m working the same job, living with my parents and going a little stir-crazy. This is what I wanted. Last March, when I returned home to Minnesota for a few weeks, I didn’t have the best time. I spread myself too thin, tried to see too many friends and ended up running like a madman all over the state in an attempt to see everyone I’d ever made acquaintance with. Not this time, I decided. I would return for Thanksgiving and Christmas, giving myself a four or five weeks to establish a routine and recharge my batteries before the next phase of my travel.
That four or five weeks stretched to ten weeks when I fell into an incredibly good deal on a plane ticket to Australia that didn’t leave until January 25. Add that to the fact that I haven’t been working since October 6, and I’ve begun to feel increasingly listless about what I’m doing with my days.
That’s okay though, I told myself. I’ll live like a monk. I’ll start working out, I thought. I’ll read more. I’ll work a lot and save a lot of money for Australia. All habitual travelers have phases where they need to raise some capital to support their travels. So I worked. I put notes all over my manager’s office saying I was free to pick up work at a moment’s notice and took every shift I could. I didn’t get completely full-time hours, but after two weeks I’d managed to work 70 hours. Real work, too. None of this “Sit on a bus and talk to people about travel and history and get paid for it” work, but “Here’s a mop” work. So when my first payday came, I was excited to finally get some real income for the first time since October. I collected my paycheck, opened the envelope and — not even $400?! Working for minimum wage in America can be a bitch.
But hey, the alternative is not making any money, so I’ll take what I can get. Besides, I’m in no condition to complain. My job might only pay enough for me to pay my monthly loans and paltry living expenses, but many of the people I work with are single mothers who have been working there for years.
Suddenly, I become shy about my travel experience. I’ve made no illusion about my plans to travel abroad, and as the date gets nearer and nearer for my Australian departure I can’t help but count down (five days to go!). But I’m working with people who, quite frankly, must struggle to make ends meet on their wages. If not for living rent-free with my parents, I wouldn’t be able to make ends meet for myself. I can’t fathom how these single moms I work with are doing it. Talking too much about my plans to travel the world seems somehow in bad taste.
Or does it?
Meanwhile, I’m faced with seeing people I know everyday. One of my mom’s old coworkers, a girl I went to high school with, a friend from my old church group — each time I see them I feel the need to awkwardly shoehorn in an explanation of why I’m working there, something that goes roughly like this; “HiSoGoodToSeeYou I’mOnlyWorkingHereTemporarily I’mGoingToAustralia IDidn’tSettleForWorkingMyHighSchoolJob PleaseDon’tJudgeMe.”
Does that make me arrogant, to need to make excuses for where I’m working and how I ended up here, as I stand beside people who have been doing it for years?
I don’t know anymore. Maybe the purpose of my time spent at home will become clearer with some distance, but for now, I’ve just been churning these ideas around in my head, unable to make sense of how ten weeks in my hometown working in my high school job have added to my portfolio of experiences.
Public appearances and publishings
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Me speaking to a group of students at the U of M last year
Today, my hometown newspaper published a column I wrote about being home. You can find it here. A big thanks to Joe Spear, the editor at The Free Press, for agreeing to publish it — I’d love to hear your comments on the piece on this blog post (since The Free Press doesn’t have a commenting function).
And on Friday, Janaury 13, I’ve got a speaking engagement — my first since I spoke to a U of M class on blogging last spring. This one will be less academic. I’ll be sharing my experiences of living abroad with Mankato’s Summit Center. It’s open to the public, and if you’re from the area, feel free to come along. It’s part of their series called “Lunch and Learn,” and if you’d like to have lunch, it starts at 11:30. You can skip the lunch if you’d like and just show up at noon, that’s when I speak. Either way, call VINE Faith-in-Action to reserve your spot at (507) 387-1666. I’d love to see you there — I know I’ve already gotten a couple of emails from folks who read the VINE newsletter. Hello out there!
Destination: Australia
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Me with a literal boat-load of Australians.
“You haven’t been to Australia?! You have to go!”
That was the chorus line of my summer. If you work in the young persons’ travel industry, there’s just no avoiding the Ozzies (Aussies?). Of the 28 people I trained with for my tour guide job, 21 were Australian. Of the 51 seats on my bus on any given day throughout the season, around 40 would be occupied by Aussies (Ozzies?).
Why?
Because they’re the only ones willing to spend money and time on travel. To most Americans, taking two weeks off work and spending a couple thousand bucks on a trip with a jam-packed itinerary to multiple European countries would be a major trip. We’d travel those two weeks with ruthless efficiency then get back to our jobs back home. But those from ‘stralia will quit their day jobs in order to travel for four, six, even ten-month vacations. They’ll save for a year or so — an easier feat considering their wages. A normal bartending gig can pay $20/hour in Australia. (The same gig pays $8/hour in The States.) Ten month trips aren’t enough though. This whole Two Passports adventure I’ve been up to isn’t so crazy to them. It’s nearly a right of passage to spend two years abroad for Australians. They can easily get two-year working visas for anywhere in the EU. Some estimates put 1% of Australia’s population in London at any given time due to this work visa situation.
All this is a way to say: I have met a LOT of Australians in the past eight months. These guys can’t stop talking about how great life is in their country. Beach culture, the great weather, the barbie, the laid-back atmosphere — I’ve heard it all. Of course, after convincing you of their country’s awesomeness, Aussies will spend a half hour telling about about the five most poisonous snakes in the world (all of which live in Oz), the deadly shark attacks and the ever-present threat of Drop Bears. (Gotta watch out, those Drop Bears will getchya.)
So why am I telling you so much about Australia? Because after months and months of hearing the familiar chorus of “I can’t believe you haven’t been to Australia!” I’ve decided to finally see for myself.
On January 25, I leave Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport for a flight so long that I’ll never get to experience January 26, 2012 — we cross the international date line at around midnight so i literally will never get that day back.
I never would have thought Australia was in the cards when I started traveling, but before long I’ll be in a country where a Devo song is revered when played at bars, where “Oi!” immediately gets everyone’s attention and where the toilets flush in the opposite direction. Australia, here I come.
My Two Year Anniversary
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The first picture of me after arriving in Ireland two years ago. Does my expression reaveal my true feelings of "Ohshitohshitohshit what have a I done?"
Two years ago today, I first set my foot on Irish soil with the intention of living there. That dream was nearly hampered by a grouchy customs agent and myself, a naiive and underprepared world traveler.
Wait, scratch that. I was never supposed to be a world traveler. Two years ago my future-self was supposed to be back in the U.S. by November 15, 2010. I was supposed to be making an honest living. I could never have imagined that I’d end up here: Working as a tour guide, getting paid to travel and feeling more comfortable abroad than I do at home.
Wait, scratch that too. I have no idea how it will feel to live at home. This is the first time since I moved abroad that I am returning to The States with no return ticket to Europe.
I guess that’s the problem with anniversaries. It’s as if it’s trying to get me to assign meaning and a bookend to something that might not be ready to end. I feel far from finished with adventuring. Yet, with my most recent gig, I do feel something. A culmination.
Unless they suffer a dramatic injury, most professional athletes need to make a determination of when to retire. As countless examples show us, professional athletes’ best season is seldom their last one, and why would it be? Why would you want to quit something at the moment you’re the best you’ve ever been on it? The problem is, life doesn’t follow a traditional Greek dramatic structure. Major League Baseball players don’t finally win the Pennant only to retire. Only years later do they realize that their culminating moment is in the past.
And that’s how I feel at my two-year anniversary. I’ve culminated. I’ve taken all the skills I’ve learned from living in Europe and applied them to my last job. Two years ago my lack of self-confidence nearly defeated me before I even began in Galway. The John of 2009 spent a week building up the courage just to drop off a CV at a coffee shop in Ireland. I actually remember standing outside a cafe window, CV in hand and walking away because I was too scared to ask for a job. That person seems like a stranger to me now.
I now have the ability to find the cheapest plane ticket to any destination in the world, but also the knowledge that saving that much money probably won’t be worth it.
I’ve gained the courage to fly to a city without the faintest idea of what I want to do there — as I type this I’m on a train to London Heathrow Airport for a four-day trip to New York City with no plan other then where I’ll sleep. If this doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, you have to understand that when I was 13, my mother once typed up a FIVE PAGE ITINERARY with a schedule down to the minute of which place we should be going to — in Disneyworld.
I’m not at the terminus point of my globe-trotting adventure, but I do see my current situation as a direct result of the previous two years, and I’m proud of that. Every time I feel I’ve culminated — whether it be working in retail in Galway or at a hostel in Cardiff — I move to another adventure. Denouement is not for me. That’s why after the holidays I’m planning a new experience altogether different from anything I’ve done so far. I dare not say it here for fear of jinxing it, but with a little (more) luck, I’ll be able to build on the experiences and lessons I’ve learned so far.
It’s been a good two years.
Safety first
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Guiding tours and driving a bus can be serious business.
I never jay-walk anymore. Well, sometimes, I do, but not without a serious pang of tour-guide guilt. If I have a group of forty people behind me, I wait for the red man to change to green, even if all of my passengers have already crossed and are waiting for me. I shutter to think what would happen a passenger were struck by a vehicle.
This ethic was drilled into my brain in a Mid-April meeting. Twenty-six of us trainees are sitting in a cold coach parked outside a Berlin hostel. What me and the other two dozen training tour guides thought was going to be another dry talk on legal EU driving hours or hostel check-in procedures has quickly spiraled into something unexpected. We’re undergoing a Scared Straight-style lecture on the importance of safety on the coach.
“Picture it guys,” our trainer says. “A tyre pops, causing the coach to sway. The coach needs to avoid another car, so it overcorrects. The coach begins barrel-rolling down the freeway. Glass is shattering, flying through the air. Bodies are flying out of the coach onto the pavement. Sparks everywhere. You’ve broken your foot and the coach is on fire. Do you really want to be unsure of if you’ve instructed your passengers on where the fire extinguisher is that day?”
Jesus.
Our trainer goes on to tell us, in vivid detail, a few of the incidents that have happened in the past few years to the company. Luckily, none of them are so extreme, but various injuries and near-death experiences are described with such detail that they jar us into realizing the responsibility we have as tour guides as we lead tourists through Europe. There are constant reminders: Just this month another tour company faced a lot of questions following the death of one of their clients on tour.
This summer I’ve learned that being a tour guide is different than being a person. Decisions made, even when off-duty, need to be made considering the effect they’ll have on my tour. When I told one of my bosses the other day that I was planning on going to an indoor skiing facility in Spain, his only response was “For the love of god, don’t break your leg.”
All these thoughts were far from my mind one hot afternoon in Tuscany last August.
———
The sun is high in the Tuscan sky as we make our way toward the Florence exit. Traffic is surprisingly light for an August afternoon in the midst of the peak season. Our coach is a few hundred meters behind a pack of cars. The heat reflected off the pavement gives the cars an out-of-focus appearance. Suddenly, one of the cars starts wobbling. The heat blur makes it hard to tell what’s happened, he’s either fishtailing or second-guessing himself (I’m aware of his gender for reasons that will become clear in a moment). After five seconds of wobbling between lanes, the car, traveling at 100kms/hour (60mph) swerves at a forty-five degree angle. Its tires dig into the pavement as the car goes airborne, flipping on its roof. Quickly approaching from behind are me, my driver and 51 passengers. We simultaneously gasp in horror as we watch the car rotate on its roof as it crosses all three lanes of traffic, debris flying left and right.
“Slow down, slow down, slow down,” I quietly instruct my driver, trying impossibly to make myself useful. Now we’re 50 meters from the wreck, quickly decelerating as another driver has pulled his car to the shoulder and runs out of his car, frantically throwing his arm in the air to oncoming cars in a gesture that communicates across all languages. “Stop! Stop!”
But we can’t stop. My driver and I never discussed it, but I’m sure we were both thinking of that same safety talk at the beginning of the season. Fifty-three people at the scene of an automobile accident on a busy motorway? Not going to happen. Instead of stopping, we drive slowly past the car just after it’s stopped. A very panicked-looking man emerges, pulling himself by his hands and knees from the upside-down car’s passenger window and immediately standing up. I can’t imagine he stayed standing for too long, but I’ll never know, since we kept driving by. John, the individual, absolutely would have stopped to help. John, the tour guide could not.
A not-so-traditional Oktoberfest ride
By · CommentsYes I went to Oktoberfest in Munich, and yes I could have taken a video of everyone singing “Ein Prosit” and clinking glasses together, but I went for the more juvenile route: I got drunk on five maßes and I went on a carnival ride, where I was granted a beautiful view of the massive Oktoberfest grounds.
