Paul’s 3 Tried and True Methods for a Country to Achieve National Sporting Pride

Yes, I’m capitalizing every sport. I haven’t gone insane; I just made a choice for this post.

Have you ever noticed that it’s really important for countries to have a sport where they can pimp themselves out as being the best in the world? It doesn’t matter what it is, the country will find something and say: “Yo, maybe you got basketball down but we kick yo’ ASS at Ping Pong”.

Unfortunately there’s a bunch of sports played by multiple countries so it’s really hard to be “the best” at those ones. For instance, most everyone would like to be globally regarded as the best at Football (Soccer). But there’s no clear-cut winner. Nobody can go out there and say “Yay! We’re the best!” because someone will counter with “Well, that’s not true because of reasons A, B, and C”. In Football’s case you’d probably say Brazil has the best claim but then you’d get a bunch of northern hemisphere countries who say “Pfft. That’s just because your summer is during the winter so you’re all rested for the World Cup and even then look at all these years where we beat you”. It’s a no-win situation. So where does that leave you when you’re looking to be the best in the world?

I would suggest starting with Paul’s 3 Tried and True Methods for a Country to Achieve National Sporting Pride. They are:

1. Take an international sport nobody’s all that pumped about and throw everything you have behind it to a grossly disproportional degree.
2. Take a sport you’re already good at and force it on the globe so you can achieve international success.
3. Say “Screw it. We’re never going to be good at any of these sports. Let’s just pick something as our national sport and go with that”.

Let's break them down one by one.

For your convenience I’ve provided an explanation to go with each example. Or just made a comment. Whatever.


METHOD 1:
Take an international sport nobody’s all that pumped about and throw everything you have behind it to a grossly disproportional degree.
(aka the “Whoah buddy… if it means that much to you go ahead” method.)

Examples:

AUSTRALIA: Swimming (Hey, they got sent to prison on an island. I'd be surprised if they weren't interested in swimming. What? Was that offside? I’m just getting started!)
ROMANIA: Gymnastics (They love them some gymnastics. Did they invent it? Hell no. Does every gymnast on the planet now have a 300 pound Romanian coach? Hell yeah!)
USSR: Every amateur sport they could get their hands on (“Ve vill crush you vith ze iron fist. You are weak and coddled and vill break before ze might of ze communist regime. Also, ve has steroids”.)
NORWAY: Cross-country Skiing (When the closest town is 400km away through waist deep snow you better learn how to ski if you want to look beyond the local wildlife for dating opportunities.)
NETHERLANDS: Speed Skating (Same as Norway but with canals)


METHOD 2:
Take a sport you’re already good at and force it on the globe so you can achieve international success.
(aka the “Fine, fine we’ll do it. Look at us… yay, see we’re all doing it? Just let it go already” method.)

Examples:

CANADA: Hockey (Also an example of Option 1. Canada said “Let’s be good at hockey. Everyone else who’s freezing their asses off and looking for a way to warm up during the winter will eventually sign up and we’ll have a huge head start.)
ENGLAND: Rugby, Cricket, and Field Hockey
  ENGLISH GENT #1: "Good day chap. What shall we do today?”
  ENGLISH GENT #2: “Well, perhaps we should head down to the cricket ground? Leichesterburmingshire is playing Middlesburingtonishcastle. It’ll be a jolly good go I’d think.”
  ENGLISH GENT #1: “Hmm. I was thinking of perhaps invading several countries and teaching the locals how to play our sports so we can give them a good old rogering on behalf of mother England. What do you think of that then?”
  ENGLISH GENT #2: “Oh good show. That would be capitol!”
JAPAN: Judo (They only invented the sport in 1882. Then when they hosted the Olympics in 1964 they just said “Mmm yeah. We’re all doing judo now”. They only lost one match and were PISSED about it.)


METHOD 3:
Say “Screw it. We’re never going to be good at any of these sports. Let’s just pick something as our national sport and go with that”.
(aka the “Take Your Ball and Go Home” method.)

Examples: (Note that I don’t include any of the official national sports, of which many fall under this category. Also, if you disagree with anything, well, I invite you to change the Wikipedia page I got it from.)

AFGHANISTAN: Buzkashi (All you need to know is that in order to score a point you have to throw a decapitated goat across the goal line while on horseback. I kid you not.)
BASQUE COUNTRY: Jai Alai (Ok, so Basque Country isn’t a country, it’s a region. But the Basque government promotes it as “the fastest sport in the world because of the balls” and I just had to get that in here somewhere.)
CAMBODIA: Bokator (A thousand-year-old technique for savagely beating the crap out of someone with whatever is handy. The name means “Pounding a Lion” for crying out loud. On a related note, 96.4% of the country is Buddhist. Go figure.)
IRELAND AND AUSTRALIA: International Rules Football (Ireland has Gaelic Football, which is awesome and all but there’s nobody to play against. Australia on the other hand has Aussie Rules Football, but nobody to play against. They’re all “Yay! This is fun!” at home, but they’re so lonely out on their islands. So what do they do? They basically looked at the rules, said “Meh, close enough”, and fudged the numbers so they could play each other)
USA: American Football, Basketball, and Baseball (I love that the US has 3 of these. But let’s face it, America kind of has a massive superiority complex and needs three sports to reinforce that. Ok, that was a joke, but you get my point*. They’ve also invented negative terminology to describe anyone who plays sports they’re not the best at, e.g. Soccer (pansies), Hockey (goons), or Math (Chinese))


OFFICIAL NATIONAL SPORTS:
In addition to those above there are the “Official National Sports”. These are sports where the country in question has actually declared in law what their national sport is just so there's no question where they see themselves as the best. Otherwise it’s up to debate. Since there are only 13 of them I decided to put the whole list down, along with a brief description of each:

ARGENTINA: Pato (AKA Polo combined with Basketball on the back of a horse. Umm, ok then.)
BAHAMAS: Sloop Sailing (Why sloops? Is it the most chill? Can you drink a rum and coke while sailing one?)
BANGLADESH: Kabaddi (Basically reverse Red Rover while holding your breath. I don’t know how else to explain it) SPECIAL NOTE: Ok, I found some footage of this. It's AWESOME!

BRAZIL: Capoeira (Dancing while kicking people in the face)
CANADA: Ice Hockey and Lacrosse (We have two because of our national inferiority complex. Ice hockey is obviously a sport where you skate around on ice and try to whip a hard piece of rubber as fast as you can at a net protected by a goalie, while occasionally hammering other players as violently as possible and punching them in the face when the referee isn’t looking. Lacrosse is the same thing without ice. Way to overcompensate Canada!)
CHILE: Chilean Rodeo (Rodeo with different rules than everyone else)
COLUMBIA: Tejo (It’s Horseshoes with gunpowder. I couldn’t make these things up)
INDIA: Field Hockey (What the girls you went to high school with played. I’m not making a judgement call here; I just don’t understand why it’s a girls sport in Canada. It looks fun)
MEXICO: Charreria (Rodeo with different rules than everyone else. Sensing a trend?)
PHILLIPPENES: Arnis (Beating the crap out of people with sticks. Think of that next time you want to yell at your nanny and she’s holding a broom)
PUERTO RICO: Paso Fino (This is a kind of horse. Was there a paperwork error or something?)
VATICAN CITY: Ultimate Fighting (Just seeing if you were paying attention)
SRI LANKA: Volleyball (Are you kidding me? Volleyball is the National Sport of Sri Lanka? Are they even good at Volleyball?)
URUGUAY: Being a Cowboy (No, seriously. That makes three countries with rodeo, all of whom use different rules. So of all the countries with national sports 23% are rodeo)

So that’s my thoughts on national sports.


COMPLETE TANGENT:
I went to the mall today to buy a pillow for Erika. I hate malls. Every mall on the planet looks the same and shares the same “please God, just shoot me” traits. This one was especially enjoyable because it didn’t have any guides! How am I supposed to be a hunter instead of a gatherer without a mall map? Ooo… then I discovered that they have digital guides on advertising boards instead of static maps. Really? What was wrong with the old style? I just walked up, looked, and went where I needed. Instead I have to push 12 buttons for each store I want to find? That’s not better!

If someone told me I had to choose between going back to this mall and choking a baby panda to death well, I hope you don’t like bamboo.


*Note to international readers: Totally not a joke

A Zooper Awesome Day

Last weekend we made an awesome discovery. Do you know when the best time to go to the zoo is? When the weather is crappy! I was very hesitant to go on Sunday because it looked like it was about to rain. Super cloudy, muggy… not sure it was going to work out. The thing is, two important things happen when it’s cloudy and looks like it’s about to rain:

1) People don’t want to go, and thus the crowds are smaller
2) The animals aren’t sweltering in the heat, and are thus more likely to move around and be active.

And it didn’t rain! Well, not until later that night when we had the storm of the century, but who cares. We had the best day at the zoo in the history of days at the zoo.

Sure, let’s get the obligatory “Oh, zoos are cruel and the animals shouldn’t be penned in like that yada yada” disclaimer out of the way. Whatever, Taronga Zoo is the best zoo in the world. You need to teach people about the dangers animals face, you need to make kids grow up into adults who care about animals, and you need to carry out breeding programs for endangered animals. And on top of that, where else can you put an expression like this on a grown man’s face:

Also, this is the view from the zoo. Tough to argue that the animals don’t get a good view:

As a last point before I start talking about the visit itself, it was $44. And worth every penny.

Special thanks to Martha who was visiting when we went and took all these photos because I’m a dumbass and forgot my camera.


So let’s talk some animals! Did you know that Koalas jump? I had no idea. I thought they just slept (saw that), ate eucalyptus (saw that), and looked cute (check). And then we saw a Koala that was on one branch who decided he wanted to be on another one. And he jumped! Really didn’t see that one coming. It’s like being in South America and looking at a sloth when it suddenly flips up into a handstand and starts doing pushups.

Very cool.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We hit the tiger enclosure by chance right when it was feeding and were fortunate enough that there was a large rock we could stand on so we had a clear view of the action:

That’s the flesh of the zookeeper it’s licking off its lips. You’d think that would make it hard to find zookeepers but it’s more a matter of people really want to work at the zoo, they just don’t want to get assigned to the tiger cage.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the highlights for me was this snake:

It’s called an Inland Taipan and is the most venomous land snake in the world. Seriously? This guy? How can someone so dangerous look so innocuous? It should really look a lot more deadly than it does.

There, much better.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aren’t elephants fantastic? Just look at this guy:

One caveat I’ll throw out there… this guy does NOT like people. I say this because the first thing he did was back up into the crowd, take a gigantic leak, and fart in everyone’s faces. Oh yeah, and he dropped his dink out before taking the leak:

Yeah… I’m pretty sure I got the gender right this time. That’s quite the ugh, package. Some observations:

1) As Martha said, you don’t need a fancy car when you’re hung like an elephant
2) Even controlling for size, that thing is pretty damn big
3) I can’t be sure, but I think he’s circumcised

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, there was a lot of animals at the zoo, so I’m not going to bore you with every one we saw. So this is going to be the last one, and it was the animal that I was strangely pumped to see. Meerkats:

There’s only a few in this shot, but they live in these big communities of burrows in the Kalahari desert. They don’t have any body fat so they have to scrounge on the surface every day, which means they’re pretty vulnerable to predators as they’re looking for food. They’ve coped by having at least one member of the group always on lookout for predators, standing up on its hind legs to get a better view. Here’s a shot from the wild:

This guy is pumped for action. He knows the team is depending on him, and is ready with constant vigilance to identify a threat the moment it presents itself. As a result, I thought it would be cool to see that community at work in the zoo. Instead, what we saw was this:

What the hell? Where’s your concern for your brethren? You’re on duty for god’s sake, show some intensity! Sadly, here is the real sadness in the zoo. Regular food and water just can’t help but take away some of that natural instinct. So while the wild Meerkats get this:

The zoo Meerkats get this:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all it was a great day at the zoo. Topics not covered include seeing a Snow Leopard jump around, Kangaroos cruising, a Komodo Dragon looking like the badassest of all badasses, and coolest of all we saw a platypus doing barrel rolls in his tank and swimming around like a madman. Amongst other things. Long story short, definitely check out the zoo if you go to Sydney.


COMPLETE TANGENT:
GO CANUCKS GO!!!

Visitor update #4: Martha rolled into town for a visit! She’s off elsewhere right now but will be back to hang with us again next weekend. Dave was also supposed to come, but he thought he was Spiderman and broke his ankle. Smrt move Dave, we look forward to seeing you when you heal up.
#1: Sylvia
#2: Timmaaaay!
#3: Amelia, Daniel, and family
#4: Martha

For the Love of God, Someone Please Just Get Me the Internet

Going to be a short post today, and I’m sure you’d like to know why. It's because I’m tired of having to post these things from a pub. Do you know what I said to Erika this morning? I said I would check my email at work. At work! I’ve started to refer to the pub as “work”? That’s unacceptable. WHAT IS SO DAMNED HARD ABOUT GIVING ME THE INTERNET! It’s 2012 for crying out loud. I’m not asking them to breed me winged white rhinos that will fly about the country with packets of ones and zeroes. Just hook me up with the thing that already exists, thank you very much. I’m 100% certain that I would have an easier time getting the internet in rural Afghanistan than in Sydney. I’m also 99.99% certain that the preceding sentence contained no hyperbole.

Can you believe they give a timeframe of 10-20 business days? That’s a month! It’s ludicrous, but I’m patient. I think: “I’m going to wait until I’m entirely justified in screaming my head off” (which I’ve been assured by multiple people is the only way to get internet around here). So I wait. And I call. And the guy says that my request was entered but never processed. Are you kidding me?

PAUL: Are you kidding me?

GUY: Uh, no. We’re really sorry about that. What would you like to do?

PAUL: I want the express 1-3 day setup, and I don’t want to pay for it. I want the internet in my home, this week.

GUY: Well, that’s usually an extra fee on top of the regular installation costs.

PAUL: So you want me to pay extra to get my internet in 1-3 days when I’ve already waited 20 days? You have to agree with me that’s ridiculous right?

GUY: Umm… I’m going to go talk to someone. Do you mind if I put you on hold?

PAUL: Yeah, go ahead.

MUSAK: Doo dee doo doo… love you baby… doo doot doo… hold me… doo doo… we hate customers… doot doo be doo… lovin’ yoooouu

PAUL: …wait, what?

GUY: Hi sir. We can do all of the installation for $79 and have it in 1-3 days (normally $225)

PAUL: Fine, whatever.

Please note, that was a week ago and I don’t have internet yet. If it isn’t hooked up by the time the NHL playoffs hit I’m going to head down to the iiNet headquarters and start throwing people off the roof.


COMPLETE TANGENT:
BMO can also go hump a moving Buick for their complete inability to wire money internationally. I’d get more competent service from a room full of monkeys hucking feces at a fax machine. That is all.


UPDATE:

It's over. I finally lost it. After a few choice words regarding sex and travel I am now in the search for a new internet company and will probably miss the first round of the playoffs.

I called Erika after getting off the phone with iiNet, still swaddled in rage. We have a rule around here of "no drinking before 5pm" but I asked Erika for an exception. We agreed that this was an appropriate situation for it. She said that I had to limit myself to one glass though, which I did:

Thank God she didn't ask me to limit myself to a standard drink:

At any rate, this is the last you'll hear from me about the internet. It's not funny anymore.


BTW, if you want the full story here's the email I sent to Paul Cahill, the General Manager of Customer Support for iiNet. I can never resist trying to be a little tongue in cheek, but it's not exactly a humour piece:

Dear Mr. Cahill,

I just wanted to send you a note about how catastrophically bad my experience with your company has been since I first signed up. To summarize:

- I signed up, asking for 1-3 day connection

- A month later I still had no connection or contact from your company
- I called and was told that the order had never been processed. It was agreed that I would be given the 1-3 day service for free and half the regular connection waived
- A week later I still had no internet
- I called and was told that they had checked and there was no phone line installed, and that it would be $300 to do so.
- This is ridiculous by the way. I live in quite an old building with established jacks in the walls. The concept of it not having a line makes no sense to me.
- I then asked when this fact was going to be shared with me since nobody had been in contact, to which I was told the technician had been trying to get in touch but was unable to
- I pointed out that I had not received a single email message or phone call from anyone, to which the person on the phone asserted that the tech was right there and had definitely done so. This assertion is tantamount to claiming I was lying, something which I am positive the tech was doing themselves.
- I then proceeded to lose my freaking mind.

Mr. Cahill, I encourage you to listen to the phone calls I placed to your company. Up until the end of the last call I was reasonable and clear headed. When you get to the point where I fly off the handle (something I have never done before) don’t think of it as just an angry guy being angry. Ask yourself “What could my company possibly have done to drive a person to this point?”

I can’t believe the difficulty I have had with your company. I sincerely hope this is the worst customer service I ever experience in my life, it has certainly been so up until this point.

Paul Parsons

The Wonderful Animals of Oz

There’s a lot of animals right around our place, which I guess isn’t surprising. To most locals they’re probably no more exotic than I’d find a crow or a raccoon, but it’s still pretty cool given that I’m not a local, so they’re all new to me. Let’s start with things I have actually seen in my backyard:

BACKYARD:

Mockingbirds are all over the place. Having just read The Hunger Games while here, it’s pretty cool to have these around since they’re the template for the mockingjays that feature heavily in the book. As a short sideline, The Hunger Games is fantastic, please read it before you see the movie if you can. And if you can’t then read it after. It’s an incredible piece of writing, although if you actually think it clocks in as a “Young Adult” novel after reading it you might as well break out Grimm’s fairy tales for your 5-year old. The movie leaves some of the grisly out, for sure.

And then someone pointed out that these are actually Magpies not Mockingbirds and totally ruined for me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our tree filled up with Rainbow Lorikeets and they were swooping and singing all over the place. The written medium may not be the best place to convey the moment but I’ll try anyway.

Cawoot! Woot! Woot! Tweee… tweee… tweeeoo! Tweeeoo!

WHOOSH

Cawootwee! Cawootee! Tweetweetweeoot! Cwa! Cwa!

REPEAT

I think you get the point.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a mosquito that I crushed. Eff you mosquito.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Geckos are awesome because they:
a) Eat bugs that annoy me, and
b) Move faster than I thought anything was capable of. 100% fast-twitch fibers these guys.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, that is a whole tree full of bats. Flying Foxes to be exact, and they all have bodies about the length of my forearm. These suckers are so big that they actually glide. I didn’t know bats could glide.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These guys have only showed up in our backyard once, but they were pretty cool. Some kind of woodpecker? No, it's an honest-to-god Kookaburra! Did you know these things eat meat? I thought they just chewed gum or something like that. Regardless, they clearly have a sense of style. Judging from the thickness of their necks they need to spend a little less time in the gym though. C’mon guys, maybe take a spin on the elliptical next time?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is our neighbour’s cat. Although we haven’t seen our neighbour in a long time, and he lives on our porch, and he tries to come in, and he meows at us when he’s hungry. So maybe he’s our cat now. I call him Cat, although we’ve since learned his name is Natasha. So I’m mulling over the idea of referring to him as her now. Anyways, we’ve only fed him once when we had some extra prawns, but I’m hesitant to let him get too attached since the possum controls him with its mind at night. Seriously, I’m not joking:

It’s fucking creepy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of creepy, we have a wormhole to another dimension in our bathroom window:

Actually, it’s just this crazy spider who started to build a web in our bathroom window (which doesn’t close, but that’s another story). At first I didn’t know what he was doing, it looked like there was no rhyme or reason to the web and I’ll admit, I thought that maybe he wasn’t as far along the evolutionary chain as the spiders back home. But who cares, if he protected me from mosquitos I’m on board. Then after a while I realized that not only was his web not random, it was freaking complex:

He’s built a damn tunnel to funnel bugs into our home so that he can catch them en route!

Hmm… funnel web. Where have I heard that before? I should look it up. I’ll try “funnel web spider” and see what comes up:

#4 Deadliest Spider in the World - Funnel Web Spider
Funnel-Web spiders are found in Australia close to Sydney. The bites from these spiders are dangerous and can cause a number of frightening symptoms in as little as 10 or 15 minutes. Of greatest concern are symptoms such as difficulty breathing and coma. Lesser symptoms include chills, fever, vomiting, numbness of mouth and lips and drooping eyelids. If bitten by this spider, seek an antivenom.

Hmm… the 4th deadliest spider in the world? Well that’s grossly inconvenient. Sure, I enjoy not having a mosquito problem but isn’t that like preventing mosquitoes by throwing some DDT in my drinking water? I figured I should take a picture of him up close so I could verify the identity:

Well THAT didn’t calm my nerves. Fortunately for us, when we sent a picture of the guy’s nest to the natural history museum (who is amenable to this kind of thing) they said that he’s actually a black house spider, which isn’t dangerous. They also eat red back spiders which ARE dangerous. So that’s good. In fact, the only problem we've encountered is that he laid an egg and we spent half an hour the other day squishing dozens of baby spiders all over our bathroom ceiling. I don’t think I’m very good at guessing animal genders.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of spiders, some of the ones kicking around here look extremely badass. Probably the most badass one of the lot is this crazy web-spinner guy who does the job of orb spiders back home:

If they made tiny Harley’s this guy would drive one. And their webs aren’t small either, they’re about 2 feet tall and 3-dimensional with all sorts of different planes to catch bugs. This guy knows his shit.


NON-BACKYARD:
Crazily enough, everything I've shown up to now we’ve seen in our backyard. Maybe the bats weren’t hanging there, but they’ve definitely done a flyby. So here’s some things that we saw elsewhere.

This weird curved-bill guy is an Ibis, but I call them “banana storks” which I think we can all agree is a better name. You only see them along the shoreline or on the part of the grass at the university that students aren’t supposed to walk on, so I assume they have PhD’s or something. Which would make them Dr. Banana (yes, I know it should actually make them “Dr. Stork” but work with me here).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t know what this is called, might be a Noisy Miner? That's not a joke by the way. We saw it in the Blue Mountains, it dive-bombed Erika, and she freaked out a little. Then I laughed and she hit me so I filed a spousal abuse report. It’s the only protection I have.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let me tell you, did this guy ever catch us by surprise. In retrospect I can't believe Erika even got a picture off. We were just walking along the shore and BOOM, he tries to take Erika’s leg off. Obviously I pushed her out of the way but he got her purse (probably because it was leather) so I had to dive in after him. I’ve seen Crocodile Hunter enough times that I figured I could handle it. Still, it’s harder than you think. If you don’t grab the snout juuuust right you can get a finger caught in there. Which sucks I might add. If I had to do it again I think I’d do a much better job, mostly because I don’t have that finger to get caught.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a Purple Swamphen and if you didn’t believe that birds descended from the dinosaurs you’ve never seen one of these guys walk. It looked like a friggen velociraptor. And c’mon… doesn’t that thing look like a dino with feathers?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really cool and REALLY flat bug.

Yep, so those are the animals we’ve seen so far, or a reasonable chunk of them anyway. There’s also lots of ants, but you’ve seen ants for crying out loud. If you want to know what they look like just do this: Close your eyes… now picture an ant. That’s what they look like. Oh yeah, and Erika saw a spider the size of a dinner plate.

See you next week!


COMPLETE TANGENT:
I say “see you next week” because we still don’t have internet. They say it takes 10-20 business days. Yes, a month to get internet. Tomorrow is Day 20, and they also say that billing begins when service starts, or at 20 days. Whichever comes first. So if they think I’m going to pay a dime for internet that I haven’t gotten that I waited a month for they can kiss my rosy red behind. Which means that I’ll probably have to cancel my order, swich companies, and wait again. It’s FANTASTIC! And this is why I only get internet on the one day a week that I walk down to the pub and check it. I like Sydney, I really do. But the companies here couldn’t give a popcorn fart about customer service. I think every call center has a poster on the wall that says “Always remember: The customer can go fuck themselves.”

Sigh.

Sweet Merciful Crap!

Did I ever tell you about the time I dropped my asshole off a cliff? More on that later.

Last weekend Erika and I went to the Blue Mountains so Erika could catch fish for her research as well as doing some sightseeing. This is what we knew about the Blue Mountains before we left:

1) They are blue in some manner
2) They are a mountain of some sort

We’d also been told that they were an awesome must-see but we really didn’t know why. It had also been noted that when they say “Blue Mountains” what they actually mean is “Blue Hills” by Canadian standards, so in general we expected to be underwhelmed by the scale of things. With that in mind, off we went.

It was wet, and apparently far wetter than it normally is, which is to say that it was Vancouver wet. The morning we left it was actually raining so hard in Sydney that we didn’t bother leaving for several hours, so I guess the fact that it was wet in the Blue Mountains hardly qualifies as surprising.

We stayed in a place called Wentworth Falls at a little hotel above an Irish Pub. On St. Patrick’s Day nonetheless, which was cool.

*SIDE NOTE: It was so busy that we ended up waiting an hour and a half for dinner. Actually, it wasn’t – our order never got put in by the bartender. So when I told the server we’d been waiting an hour and a half for dinner she gave me this “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” look, to which I responded with a “Lady, I’m Canadian. I didn’t want to bother you” shoulder shrug*

We figured that since we were in Wentworth Falls and had a few hours to kill before dinner we should at least go to check out these alleged falls, and conveniently there was a trail that led from right next to our hotel down to the falls.

Let me tell you about hiking the Darwin trail in the rain:

PROS:
1) No spiderwebs across the trail.
2) Did not get bitten by snakes.

CONS:
1) Got soaking wet despite my craptastic gore-tex jacket that can just go fuck itself already.
2) Had to take four lateral steps for every one forward to avoid the mud.
3) Was following Erika who is about a hundred pounds lighter than me, meaning she just skips over ground that I sink up to my ankles in.
4) Being at the bottom of a ravine with houses on either side the entire way, which is an oh-so magical experience.
5) Getting slapped in the face like a Japanese game show contestant every 8 steps by some spring-loaded Eucalyptus tree that is trying to violently moisturize my face.

To say my expectations were low when we finally got there after an hour and a half of hiking would be an understatement. And then we were rewarded with this:

ISN’T THAT SPECTACULAR!

Wait, let me put Erika into the shot so you have some perspective of scale:

Not exactly worth our effort. Dejected, we set off to return home. Along the way though, we saw a sign that said there was a scenic view ahead. Or we could walk to the carpark and call it a day. We figured meh, what the hell. Let’s check out the view.

And that’s when I dropped my asshole off a cliff:

Oh yeah, and those waterfalls? Apparently that was the Weeping Rock. This is Wentworth Falls:

So, yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to jump to ornery conclusions.

By the way, you should check out the YouTube video I made, just follow this link. It does a WAY better job of expressing the scale of what we saw, although to be honest nothing can match the real thing. It was friggen amazing.


AND NOW A COMPLETE TANGENT:
You know what else is awesome? Eating at IKEA. You can jam back a plate of meatballs and mashed potatoes for $6, and you can even get them to substitute extra lindenberry sauce instead of the disgusting gravy. And that’s not all… hot dogs are a dollar! A freaking dollar! If this place were in walking distance I’d probably jam back an average of 12 hot dogs per week. Not only would I save money but the nitrates would likely preserve me so well that I’d live past the century mark. Top it off with a 50 cent ice cream cone and you’re golden.

For the record, I’ve never eaten a plate of meatballs & mashed potatoes, a hot dog, and an ice cream cone in the same visit. And a piece of schnitzel. And bought a half kilo of chocolate for $5, which would be a great deal if that happened. It’s all lies and conjecture if Erika tells you otherwise.


More visitors, as Erika’s grad school friends Amelia and Daniel, with their kids Cailin (Kaylen? Caylen? K’aylin?) and Hannah! And these one’s don’t even live in Australia!

Visitor update #3: Amelia, Daniel, and family
#1: Sylvia
#2: Timmaaaay!
#3: Amelia, Daniel, and family

Mmmm… Zesty!

Despite my previous comments about the affordable nature of K-Mart, don’t make the mistake of thinking that impression can be extended out to Sydney at large. Sydney is hella expensive. For instance, our place is $380/week (they do everything per week here). That’s roughly $1680/month for a place that while nice, isn’t exactly the Shangri-La. Granted, we have a terrific view, but considering most of the places we saw were complete hovels for $350 I think it’s more a matter of us having gotten a great deal than anything else.

And it’s not just the housing. Pretty much everything here is more expensive than Vancouver and certainly more than Seattle. For the most part it’s not so bad though, once you commit to living frugally you can get by. Ground beef is $16/kg? We’ll eat sausage for $5 a pack. Coca-Cola is $3 for a bottle? I’ll have tea at home for 5 cents a bag. Cigarettes are $17/pack? Good thing I don’t smoke! Beer is $17 for a six pack? I guess we’ll just… wait, what?

BOTTLE GUY: That’ll be $17 dollars.

ME: Come again?

BOTTLE GUY: Aht’s $17 dollars therer mate.

ME: For a 6-pack of beer? Um, would it happen to be some kind of magical beer where the hops are watered exclusively with unicorn pee and harvested at midnight by pixies? I don’t need that kind of luxury, just give me the “water and migrant workers” beer, where does that get us?

BOTTLE GUY: Well, therer’s Unilever Lite. Tastes like it was filtered through a koaler if you ask me.

ME: How much is that?

BOTTLE GUY: $15.95.

ME: :o

BOTTLE GUY: It’s a little weak through, only 3% alcrohol.

ME: Well that’s just ridiculous, back home we use that for mix. What’s the unicorn stuff clock in at?

BOTTLE GUY: 3.8%

(bry the way, if you want to do an Australian accent yrou need to thrower in a lot of extra r’rs. Ir’m still wororking on irt. Of coorse, if yoo wahnt too doo ah Cahnaydiun ahccehnt yoo joost nehver yoose heyrd vowels, eh? Now brawk to ourer regularly schredruled bloggring)

You have no idea how weak the beer is here. In all fairness, for a mere $17.95 you can get a 6-pack of beer that’s 4.8% alcohol, but the majority of it is 3.5%. I told them that it wasn’t uncommon to see 5.5% at home and they looked at me like I was asking where they kept the rubbing alcohol. Clearly beer is not going to be part of the day-to-day rotation for Erika and I, and hard alcohol is right out of the question. The crappiest vodka you can find is $30 for 700mL (when you buy two at once) and you have to mix it with a dollar’s worth of 7-Up per drink. It’s even worse at a pub or restaurant - check this out:

Don’t expect a classic USA overpour either, they’ll measure that thing out like it’s a uranium shipment to North Korea.

Which understandably leaves us in a bit of a pickle. What are two forlorn globetrotters to do when accosted by high priced liquor on a small bankroll? Enter this bad-boy:

YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

4.4 Litre box ‘o wine? Now you’re talking my language!

I would assume that at this point you, the reader, are wondering “What might a box of wine like this cost? Surely a classic dry red which is full of richness and body yet soft on the palate would be at least $50?” I concede your argument, but it is less than that.

“$35?” you say? Nay, lower still.

“$25?” Alas, you are still too high.

“Certainly it couldn’t be less than $20? Below that a merchant would feel too deep a sense of personal shame to sell such a product!”

$12.95

For $12.95, you can get 4.4 Litres of wine. Here, I’ll save you the math on how many drinks that is, it’s printed right on the box:

Mmm, preservative 202,220... gluuahhhh...

Now let’s see… $12.95… divided by 42…

Well then, that’s $0.31 a glass! This means that beer is 864% more expensive than the delicious boxed wine I brought home one sunny Sunday afternoon. That said, I guess “delicious” is a subjective term. When we first had a glass Erika was unhesitant in her judgement:

ERIKA: “It’s awful.”

ME: “I don’t mind it.”

You see, Erika had forgotten the fundamental law of tastiness:

QUALITY / (% OF INCOME) = TASTINESS

Once reminded of this fact, Erika quickly came around:

Yes, that’s her squeezing the last dregs of the wine bag like it’s the udder of the mystical beaux vine, patron animal of poor-assed drunkards. And is a whole lot more affordable than unicorn piss!

Where Humour Comes From

I think I’ve been relying on ranting too much as a source of humour for this blog and as a result have come across as a bit too negative about our experience down here, particularly given how many people are sending messages of a “don’t worry, it’ll get better!” nature. We’re actually having a really good time so far, and with our place all set up now we’ll be able to turn some of our downtime energies towards exploration and entertainment. It’s just that... well, most humour at its root is complaining. Think about it:

Seinfeld: “What’s the deal with…?”

Chris Rock: “You know what the problem is with…?”

Not to mention the gazillion sitcoms that revolve around insecurity, which is essentially complaining about yourself. In general, nice and happy just isn’t all that funny. You need some sort of oomph to push a good joke forward. Now granted this isn’t a universal rule, not all humour needs to be complaining. For instance: Australians want nothing more than to stop for you at the crosswalk. It doesn’t matter where, when, what time of day… they will slam that car to a halt for you in seconds, waving you across with smoke still streaming from their tires. The other day I walked up to the crosswalk and this guy was roaring down the street. He saw that he wasn’t going to be able to stop in time so in desperation he jammed on his brakes and jerked his car into a truck full of kittens. I think his last living act was to wave me across. True story.

That said, I generally do find that if you throw complaining into an otherwise boring anecdote you can really start mining some comedy. In the interest of proving my point I’ve taken the liberty of providing some examples:

Story #1:
Up the street from us there’s an avocado tree, which is awesome because I love avocados and if they’re growing on a tree I get them for free. Just one of the things I love about our place. (Great story right? Not really)

Now add the complaining:

Does anyone have any idea how to tell when an avocado is ready to be picked? I want to pick some of these avocadoes but I’m at a total loss: avocadoes are green when they start growing, green when they’re ready to be picked, green when they’re ripe to eat, and green when they’re past their prime. They spend their entire lives looking exactly the same. Not to mention there’s a 45 minute window where they transition from “Pre-Judge Dredd Stallone abs” to “Bat guano jammed inside shoe leather”; if you don’t grab them somewhere in that timeframe they’re pretty much inedible. Granted you could bludgeon a cow to death with the ones currently on the tree, so I’ve probably got a little waiting to do.

Story #2:
We live in a really pleasant neighborhood with a good mix of folk. It’s not uncommon to wander past a guy in a suit, then a girl with hair dyed pink, and then a young family taking a stroll.

Now my complaint:

Ok. I get it. Babies require a ton of stuff to keep them alive. It’s not the 1970’s and nobody carts their kid around in a stroller that folds up smaller than an umbrella anymore. But when you’re already marching around with your kid in a stroller the size of a pregnant rhino do you really need the extra coffee holder that juts an extra 6 inches off the side? I just want to get past you without doing the steeple chase through an adjacent café!

Story #3:
The University here is really quite beautiful. It has a much more British flair to it than what we’re accustomed to in North America – very well-manicured lawns and majestic stone buildings. It’s kind of neat to see the cricket pitches all over the place as well. I’m sure Erika will enjoy working there.

Aaaaaand…

Why on god’s green earth would you build a university like a fortress? Honestly, this place is impenetrable. Did Vikings range this far south? Were seaborne samurai a threat from the north? If you’re going to build a University shouldn’t the students be able to navigate it? To illustrate, here is the official campus map, which I assume was passed out to invading forces:

For starters, this map is ungodly hard to read. On top of that, once you go to the school it is also abundantly clear that the map is also totally inaccurate for purposes of navigating the campus. Seeing as how the school of cartography isn’t quite up to snuff, let’s help them get a more accurate representation of the university (click the images for a larger view):

Not only is it virtually impossible to even get into the school, once there you discover that every possible route across campus is cut off. There are no shortcuts, and I’m fairly certain that even if invaders did manage to broach the walls they could just retreat like Russians in winter. I’m surprised anyone even graduates.

So don’t fret folks, the moral of the story is that Sydney is great. We’re having a good time so far, and even though it’s been a torrential downpour the last couple of days it’s still warm enough to sit on the deck and watch it fall, and cools things down enough to sleep well at night. What’s to complain about? Well… there is the internet. Who gives an install window of 1-20 days for crying out loud!



Visitor update #2: Timmaaaay!
#1: Sylvia
#2: Timmaaaay!