Friday, April 27, 2007

Day ? - What a week

This post will be deleted later, but I thought that I would let everyone know that my week in Sydney was spent witout access to internet, thus I have been unable to post. I am now using internet fromt he airport and thought that being my last day here I should post something. Soon I will leave the southern hemisphere, but I do plan to finish this blog. Feel free to check back sometime next week to see my remaining stories.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Day 12 - Ground Hog Day

I woke up on Wednesday and noticed that my allergies (perhaps, see below) were still adversely affecting me. I got to the office and found my new friend the cappuccino machine. I continued to conduct training and then came lunch. Go figure, lunch was the same sort of sandwiches, orange juice, and sliced muffins (I think I had forgotten to mention them on my other posts) that we had had the previous two days of training. This time they were on bread again, and like Tuesday, I avoided the ones with mushrooms. The sandwiches were sliced in four triangles each and professionally laid out across the platter. The ones with salmon and cream cheese were particularly enjoyable, with the giant capers that they have down here. (The capers were not specifically the enjoyable part, I actually prefer the taste of the small ones).

After lunch we continued training and actually got to the point of finishing all of the material. As a final touch, we provided a demonstration to some of the higher-ups in the company. Nothing too special. The interesting thing about the demo was that it was arranged by the employee who had connected the IP over fiber link that we had used to talk to our equipment. He found, or rather quite blatantly made himself an opportunity to talk about how wonderful his communication link was. He got no reaction for his remarks; everyone in the room saw quite clearly that he was flattering himself.

Throughout the day, and especially towards the end of the day, with my nose was continuing to leak obnoxiously, my throat was dry caused pain when I swallowed, and my entire body was beginning to ache miserably all over.

I became acutely aware that I felt like crap.

I made my way home at the end of the day and promptly climbed my way into bed. The last thing I wanted while in Australia was to become sick. I, like the night before, woke up a few hours later, checked my e-mail and chatted online. This lasted maybe two hours and I was back in bed trying to sleep off my sickness, or whatever else it was. It did occur to me that being sore all over could actually be a result of my swimming two days earlier; the soreness and allergies together causing me to think that I was getting sick. Either way, I was back in bed having successfully spent two days in a row doing effectively the exact same lack of activities at work and in the hotel.

Day 11 - Do You Remember Your Latin

Well, it was Tuesday and I was back in the office continuing on the training I had been giving the week before. The system was operational and we had some data to play with, but the customer still didn't know how to use the system. I continued to conduct my training sessions all day long, and as I had mentioned earlier, most definitely helped one lady get her extra hours of sleep in. Oh well.

Training was training, nothing particularly special. For lunch, we had almost the exact same arrangement as the previous Thursday, only this time we had wraps instead of sandwiches. The tasted fine and I avoided the ones with mushrooms. For the first time since being here my allergies started to effect me. I was reassured by Rob from out in the field that there was a haze hanging over the city when he drove in that morning.

After lunch I continued to sniffle and the trainees continued to learn, and otherwise be bombarded with lots of new information. We took breaks when necessary and I became good friends with the automatic (and free) cappuccino/coffee/hot chocolate/latte machine.

That night when I got home, I did NOTHING, Zilch, Nada, and to a lesser extent bubkes. OK, so technically it is not possible to do nothing. To breathe is to do something. To not breathe is also to do something. But in a less strict sense of the word, and avoiding the philosophical discussion of what it means to be a nihilist and believe in nothing, since that is not quite me either. Although, once I am back home, if someone wants to have an intellectual conversation about the ramifications of what it would mean if the nihilism view of the world were the correct one, I would be up for it. Of course, the best movie use of the term and philosophical ideal is in the move 'The Big Lebowski.'

So, back into regular life and away from such words that are obviously derivatives of their Latin roots, (get this, nihilism comes from the Latin word nihil, meaning 'nothing'; thank you three years of Latin in high-school) I really didn't do anything besides respond to some left over work related e-mails after I got home. The e-mail checking lasted maybe until 7:00PM and then I went to bed. And by going to bed, I do mean that I passed out - tired!

The problem with falling asleep that early is that you are bound to wake up before morning, which I did. When I awoke, I worked on posting here on this blog, called the Western hemisphere, and chatted with some people online, and then I went back to bed until morning.

Starting this day, and still not corrected, my sleep schedule has been way, way off from an appropriate one for this side of the earth.

Oh well, maybe it will help me adjust back to US time.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Day 10 - Excuse Me Sir

So, I was all hopeful that I was actually going to be able to catch up on my posts, but here it is, Monday night and I still haven't posted about the previous Monday.

The day started off somewhat lazily, but in a relaxed way, not because I slept late, in fact, I actually woke up in time for the hotel breakfast for the first time. (OK, so, actually, this was not my first time awake in time because I was awake on time the previous Thursday, but on that day I was rushing to get to work and skipped breakfast like usual). I went down stairs to get my self some grub and into the nice eating area with heavy utensils and nice plates. There were coffee glasses on coasters at every seat and the utensils sat upon those really thick, almost cloth-like disposable napkins. Seating was by the host and hostess so that they could first mark off your name on the list of registered guests. Breakfast costs $12.50 and is billed directly to the room account.

Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, some smoked sausage links, and very, very floppy bacon. They type of bacon that is cooked just enough to make it warm. The sausages really weren't very good at all and the eggs were pretty bland without adding some more seasoning to them. the bacon was tasty, but it just seemed weird that it needed the be eaten with a knife and fork, not my hands. They also had at breakfast some varieties of mixed fruits and some different yogurts. A couple of the yogurts were themselves flavored with other fruits. The plain yogurt was more like cottage cheese than yogurt. Next to the fruits were some single serving packages of muesli (basically just granola) and some other cereals. After that came the tray of breads for sandwiches or toast and the industrial toasters. The available toppings/spreads for the toast (all in individual packages, too) were a range of jellies, real butter, and (gasp) Vegemite. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to actually try it, so, as suggested to me just a couple of days before, I grabbed some butter to go with it.

When I sat down with my food and spread some butter on a small corner of the bread and the Vegemite on top. My initial reaction was the same as your first reaction might be with a really bitter beer. Oh, if you don't otherwise know, Vegemite is dark, dark brown, almost to the point of being black, which does not make it immediately appetizing when you see it there in the little single serving tray. I was tempted to stop eating that corner of the bread right then and there, and to continue with some jelly instead, but then decided that if I am going to give this spread a chance, I have to actually give it a chance!! I spread the butter on the entire remaining slice of bread, and Vegemite all across the top of that and started eating. What I then quickly began to taste (odd that it wasn't the immediate taste before) was the massive amount of salt in this little spread. I kept eating and the taste, again like beer, became far more bearable. I almost can understand how people start to like it. I will probably give it another try if I manage to wake up in time for breakfast again.
After breakfast I made it back to my room and decided that this extra holiday off from work would be a good day to try to get some of my laundry done. Before hand, however, I did spend some time logging into the system installed at the utility and checking up on performance and configuration, etc. When the work part was done, I gathered my clothes and changed into my swimming suit.

The laundry facilities in my hotel are in the basement next to the pool and work out facility (both of which, now that I am about to leave town as of when I am posting this, have been drastically under utilized). I spent the $3.00 AUS in coins to feed the small front loading washing machine. The detergent was available in pouches with enough detergent for two loads from the hotel staff. The graciously charged the $2.00 for the detergent to the room account. As my one load started spinning away, I went down the short hallway to the pool and started my swim.

Wow I am out of shape.

I swam hard for a lap, panted for air, swam hard for a lap, panted for air again. This went on for most of the 25 minutes that my laundry was cycling. I alternated strokes after each lap, and I do know how to breathe while swimming, so I really am just horribly out of shape. The water in the pool was warm, and not yellow, so I do believe that it was a heated pool. On interesting effect of the pool, however, was the fact that my eyes never started stinging from chlorine and the pool water residue on my lips tasted rather salt, so it is entirely possible (and this might make sense with the drought, though I really don’t know) that the water is purified sea water, and not otherwise the same clean water that comes through the sink and shower.

Around 21 minutes in the pool (I was wearing my stop watch to keep track of the laundry process) I decided that I had swam enough and sat down in front of the row of machines. As I sat there, I had this over whelming sense of feeling awful, in fact, I thought I might faint. I was able to hold back the feeling just barely long enough to get my clothing into the dryer, spend the $2.00, and get back up the lift and back to my room. Once there, I placed my towel across the floor and assumed a fetal position on the floor while my head kept swimming. Exactly what was wrong, I don’t know. It might well have been the over exertion that I had forced upon my body. I am also convinced that I must have swallowed some of the pool water. Anyway, I sat there on floor past the time the dryer had finished its routine and still a little longer, though how long I am not sure.

Eventually I started feeling better. I went down to get my clothing from the dryer, and found in true dorm like fashion that all of the clothes were still quite damp. Luckily my shower was equipped with a retractable clothes line, so I hung up what I could there and placed the remaining items around the room. A photo of the tub clothes line is here below.



Somewhere amidst the clothing strewn around my room, I managed to lie down to take a nap. I guess it was still on the floor. Once I work up, I moved the still somewhat damp items from the clothesline and I showered from after my swim.

Deciding that all I had really done all day was feel bad, I decided that a new good thing to do would be to walk more of the CBD and try to see some of the remaining sites of the city. This walk was designed to take me to Melbourne’s China Town and Greek area of town. Along the way, I found my way into the Royal Arcade; it happens that this is one of the sights mentioned on the ‘Welcome to Melbourne’ video they showed on my plain flight. In the arcade are the statues of Gog and Magog.



The text is hard to read in the photo, but says the following: (I had to look it up because I was having trouble reading the text even with the full sized image I have stored on my computer).

"These two 7-feet giants have been striking
the time on Gaunt’s clock since 1842. They were
carved from clear pine and modelled on the
figures erected in Guildhall, London, in 1708
to symbolize the conflict between the ancient
Britons and the Trojan invaders"


"Mythology tells of the giants Gog and Magog
(also known as Corineus and Gogmagog) having
been captured in battle by the Trojans and made
to serve as porters at the gateway of an ancient
palace on a site later occupied by the Guildhall.
It is traditional for Gog to stand to the north
and Magog to the south."


I cannot tell you for certain which direction is north in the photo, sorry, but I believe that the clock faces North.

After leaving the arcade, I saw this decorated street performer playing his wooden flute (pretty well I might add) to the background music supplied by his sound system behind him. I have some video footage of his playing for all those that would actually like to hear it. (This has not been the only street musician I have seen, but there have not been very many. On Tuesday - day 18, I saw a girl who couldn’t have been older than 7 playing her special small violin).



My next stop was China Town. In typical China Town fashion, there were Chinese arches all around the area, most were erected over the streets entering the area - this was the only one I saw in the middle of the street. The stone lions at the base of the arch happen to be the same ones highlighted in my Australia tourist guide.



Also in the China town area, the normal street lamps have been replaced by lamps that symbolize proper Chinese paper lanterns, but of course these ones are glass.



While in China Town, I made a fun purchase of some sesame balls. I was hoping for the variety filled with red bean paste, but managed to purchase the hard, solid variety instead. I enjoyed eating them anyway. I continued to walk around, enjoying my snack, and found proof positive that the Chinese in Melbourne (or at least some of them) are Methodists. I would love to know what some of the ext on the sign says, (Hint!!) though I am sure it is just talking about service times. The church also had a statue of John Wesley out front, which I have a photo of, but have not included in this post.



After China Town was the Greek part of town. Their decorating was a little less extravagant as the arches just blocks away.



There was nothing particularly exciting about the Greek part of town. I have had baklava since being here, but I did not purchase any while in that part of the CBD. The only other specifically Greek decorating I saw was on the sidewalks. The concrete slabs in some areas have the same pattern as around the trees stamped into them. The other cool sight that this part of town had was some souvenir shops where each and every item had Greek writing on them only, and there was also a CD/Music store featuring only imported CD’s of Greek musicians.

When I felt satisfied with having walked around this area, I continued on my way far up Swanston Street and found familiar sights such as a new Aldi opening soon and an Avis rental car office. More importantly, I found the big public library, the old Swanston Street City Baths, and the campus buildings RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). By this time of night, the Library was forcing people out and the Baths didn’t appear to be letting anyone in either, but at least I was able to find out where they are located. At this point it is very unlikely for me to manage to see the insides of either place. I guess I will just have to make it back down to this side of the world sometime again.

The baths, some of the creative RMIT buildings, and the statue of St. George slaying the dragon can be seen below.







Across the street from the library was a nice corner side Gelato shop. I purchased a cone to keep me company as I walked back do to the other end of the CBD. Being that it was late, I decided that I needed a real dinner and stopped at Young and Jackson’s restaurant right at the busiest corner of the CBD. (the corner Flinders and Swanston Sts.) At this restaurant, conveniently also a micro-brewery, I ordered a Cajun chicken sandwich and a beer. The sandwich had some floppy bacon on top of it and was served with fries. The beer, which I ordered based on the recommendation of one of my two waitresses, was a Y&J Hefeweizen. It was a good beer served in a true Imperial Pint glass. It had a definite hint of fruit (seemingly strawberry) flavors, which worked very nicely with the overall taste and texture of the brew and it drank nicely.

The two waitresses were working very, very hard with the full room of tables, and provided very good service, so I decided, though not expected nor needed in Melbourne, to go ahead and tip them a couple of dollars each.

[Aside: I found out in conversation on Tues. – day 18 while having lunch with one of my clients that there have been newspaper article recently talking about how the waiters and waitresses in the city are starting to expect tips thanks to all of the ignorant tourists who don’t know better. Since the wait staff in Australia get paid proper wages, unlike back home, the tip really is what it should be, a completely optional ‘thank you’ to be given for exceptional service, only. I explained to my client why tipping is necessary in the States based on the earned wages and how most wait staff are supposed to report their tips as income. We also discussed the GST (goods and sales tax) that is automatically included in all purchases of goods and prepared foods, etc. It really is very convenient not to have to do the math of taxes and tips when determining what meals fit within your budget, and which ones don’t.]

After dinner, I started walking home and went to bed, needing to be back in the office the next day. On the walk home, however, there were these two confused looking guys walking down the street. They stopped as I approached and asked me if I knew where China Town was located. I told them simply that they were heading in completely the wrong direction, and being a tourist myself, though I have only had to look at it once or twice over my entire stay, I pulled out my trusty map of the CBD. I pointed out to them where we were and how to best get to China Town. It was very convenient that I had just come from their myself. Along with this small activity, I had realized that I was starting to feel much less like a tourist and more like a temporary resident.

I continued to walk down the street towards the hotel when I found, at the corner of Queen Street, a very confused looking couple. I approached them to find out where they were trying to go. They told me, in their noticeably British accents that they were looking for the Queen's Bridge. They were right to think that the bridge belonged at the road with the same name, but there happens to be a very large subway train station in the way. The bridge is actually at the end of the street on which my hotel and office reside, so I offered that they just follow me down the block for a bit. They did and we parted ways when we came to the crosswalk. Melbourne really does have a HUGE tourism industry with a never ending supply of tourists from all over the globe.

[Aside 2: The larger number of photos in this post is to make up for the lack of photos, and even lack of fun things to read about in my next few posts. Fair warning!]

Day 9 - Funny and Not So Funny

Sunday was almost going to be another late start to the day, but when I woke up I actually remembered that it was Easter Sunday. I went online to find the nearest Catholic church. Actually, I would have been more than happy to attend service in a church of any denomination, but I wanted to find out if there were Catholic churches around, or just Episcopalian churches. The church was a small quaint black stone building hidden between tall urban buildings. It had a reasonable court yard in front with a wrought iron fence around it. I do not recall seeing a gate on the fence. In a fashion suitable for emphasizing the big difference between Catholics and Protestants was a big red banner hanging from the church steeple across the front of the church. Printed on this banner were the words "Jesus Died For Your Sins".

A quick aside for some religious talk... what I typically hear as one of the primary complaints against the Catholic religion is the emphasis on the Death of Jesus rather than the Resurrection, this is why protestant crosses do not have the image of the crucified Jesus on them. I know some of the people who read this will say 'Duh, Dan, we all know that', but I am pretty certain that not everyone reading this does know. Although those that don't know also probably don't care at all.

Now, in my typical fashion, I was a little late to Mass. [another quick aside: Ben, the Aussie I met on the train did not know the term Mass when I used it while chatting with him later. I do not know if this is a cultural difference between our countries or something he just didn't know. After all, Lent is not the same term used in all countries.] But I did make it there for the readings and communion, not that I take part being that it is not my place. If you can't think of at least two VERY good reasons why it is not my place, just assume that I am not in a state of grace.

Joining me in the back of the church, where kneeling is done on the floor and there are no seats, were plenty of others who had arrive, though before me, much too late to have a place in a pew. There was also a girl there who was wearing no less than five Rosaries around her neck and one looped as a bracelet around her wrist. There were also a couple of girls, of good dating age for Ben, who were dressed for church in a manner that would prevent them from being admitted to St. Peters at the Vatican.

[Dan has too many asides: When I was going Italy many years ago, we were warned as a group that the ladies/girls attending the trip needed to be sure to pack with them a long skirt or dress to wear when touring some of the more conservative churches that do not allow ladies to enter wearing pants. Along with a long skirt as a dress code requirement for the ladies, all guys and girls had to have their shoulders covered to be allowed into these same churches. When in Italy, the only time I noticed this as an issue was on the day we went to the Vatican when a lady, not in our group, was wearing a tank top and tried to get past the Swiss Guards by placing small white napkins under the straps to cover her shoulders. It was all very amusing. Her boyfriend tried to distract the guard while she ran up the stairs. In three attempts, they never got past the guards, but she did get escorted away all three times.]

So, there I was at Mass. It felt like the perfect beautiful Spring day that should accompany Easter back home, except that it is technically fall down here. Flowers are still in bloom though. There was nothing particularly noteworthy in the service for posting here except that the girl with the Rosaries kept giving the evil-eye to everyone else in the church. I was almost saddened to note that after the service, just like in the States, many people decided to 'beat' the crowd by fleeing the church as soon as he or she had received their communion.

After the service there was a meet-and-greet in the courtyard and volunteers handed out slices of raisin bread and those small individually wrapped solid chocolate eggs. I stayed around for a little while, went to find lunch, and then went back to my hotel. I can't remember what I ate for lunch that day. It must not have been that impressive.

Once back in the hotel, I sent some e-mails, made some posts, chatted online, and made plans for the rest of my day. I again thought about heading out to Phillip Island to see the Penguin Parade, but decided against it for the same reasons that I didn't drive to Healesville the day before. I planned at the time to go there on Monday, but that didn't happen either. It is actually somewhat relaxing not having to worry about your car and traffic, and parking, and parking tickets, etc. (No I did not get any parking tickets here. I thought I might the very first morning, though).

One offer I did have for something else to do that night was attend a Bunny Shuffle. This was just the creative name for the Rave that night at a club called Twister. This offer came from Ben, the guy on the train, and it was because of this invite that I figured out what PHD stands for, and with it, what HSD stands for. PHD is Pure Hard Dance, and HSD is HArd Style Dance. This Bunny Shuffle was an event with dueling DJ's representing both styles of dance. I had a good feeling that I wouldn't be in attendance at this event, but was quite humored by, and appreciated the invitation. They flier for the event is below, and is in fact my only picture for this post.



What I eventually decided to do with the rest of my day, besides walking around the CBD some more, was to find a comedy show to attend. On April 4th and until April 29th there is a HUGE international comedy festival here in Melbourne. It does seem to be an annual event, and a organizational nightmare. The link of information for the festival can be found here: http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/. There are hundreds of shows being performed by an even larger group of comedians in venues all across the downtown/CBD area. Most of the venues even have several rooms or stages setup for the performers. There are performances at almost any time of day that you might want to attend starting at 11:00AM.

I spent far too long trying to determine which show to go see. Originally I was thinking about one titled 'Andrew McClelland's Somewhat Ambitious Solution for Making the World a Better Place (in general)', but decided against it strictly because of the $30 admission charge. I figured that I can be cheap for my first show and then make a more educated judgment on the value later. The show I found instead was listed for only $19 (I know, not a big difference, I must just actually be THAT cheap). This show is called 'Sammy J in Cyclone'. I invited my co-consultant to attend the show with me, and would have invited other people had I been able to reach them, or had they (meaning Ben) not had plans. My co-consultant did join me for the show, and when I went to purchase the tickets I was only charged $15 each. I fronted his money to buy both tickets when I got the the central ticket booth/venue and saw the swarm of hundreds upon hundreds of comedy goers and I think they gave me the 'concession' (student discount) price, even though as a foreigner I am not supposed to be eligible.

Interestingly, my co-consultant claimed to not be a fan of comedy in general. I am not sure how this can be, being that I am convinced that everyone likes to laughs now and again.

We attended the show of Sammy J, where the premise was that we were some 30 people stuck in a small cyclone shelter in the middle of a huge storm crisis in Melbourne. They performer sang some jingles, all very funny, with the aid of his electric keyboard, and intermixed in his cabaret performance opportunities to have fake, though in line with the story, conversations on his cell phone. He also had a back story for the ensuing catastrophe that he had pre-filmed in parts to be played on the projector screen behind him. In short, he was the reason that no one knew that the cyclone was coming to destroy Melbourne. In the videos, he found the time for a side joke in which first a polar bear stole his car, and later, he got to fight the polar bear mortal combat style; complete with dumbed voice overs for 'Fight' and 'Finish Him'. What really impressed me was the fact that they had rented a helicopter to film the fight just for his act in this comedy show. He also arranged a phony interview with one of the most prominent news casters in the city on channel 7. The news caster read, again just for this comedy routine, lines from a script all about the cyclone coming to devastate Melbourne.

I know that my description is a little bit too 'matter-of-fact' but the show was very, very funny. At one point he asked someone in the audience to give out the phone number of a loved one who hadn't been warned about the impending doom. A guy in the back yelled out a cell phone number (all cell phones here have the area code 04) and our comedian called the unsuspecting person. When Sammy asked the guy in the back who we were calling, the response was "I don't know, I made up the number". "Well, its ringing", said Sammy. When we got the voicemail message, he had us, as a group, all yell out in unison "Run for your life, a Cyclone is coming". How would you like to check your messages to have that left for you? Again, very, very funny.

When the show was over, Sammy J (his character name, not his real name, though I don't remember what his real name is), thanked us all for coming and gave us each a sticker that says 'I Survived'. I am looking forward to adding this sticker to my mini-fridge in my basement.

This show had taken us well into the evening. My co-consultant and I parted ways and I headed back to my hotel. On the walk back to the hotel, I noticed a police officer walking quickly in front of me. This caught my attention mostly because I very infrequently notice police officers around town here. As I made my way down the street, the police officer in front of me stopped to congregate with five others. This, I thought was an odd sight. As I approached the congregation, I noticed why the cops seemed to all be standing at that spot. They had four young kids, all about 13-14 in hand-cuffs sitting against the side of the building. I decided that wise choice would not be to ask the kids, nor the cops, why they were sitting there hand -cuffed, and instead kept walking to my hotel.

I am still not sure what the kids may have done, but one thought was that the CBD might have a curfew. Hopefully I will remember to ask the people at work.