Thursday, April 16, 2015

The BIG Adventure, Jervis Bay, and Melbourne


Though it has been quite a while since my last post, it hasn’t been for lack of excitement. In fact, the main reason for the hiatus from the blog has been all that has happened!  As many of you already know, the main cause of the excitement in our lives over the last few months has been the discovery that we are expecting!  Though I have been quite sick over the last few months, we are very excited for our little baby set to arrive in early October.  We are grateful that God is giving us this little peanut and hope for a healthy birth back in the U.S.  In the mean time, we have been navigating the Australian health care system, and I have been laying low for the most part due to the sickness.

However, we have not put our Australian adventures on hold and have had the chance to do two more trips since Tasmania.  The first was a really nice short weekend getaway.  My golden birthday was at the end of February, and my lovely husband and parents teamed up to give me a weekend trip down the coast of Australia to Jervis Bay.  Though I was about 8-9 weeks pregnant and a little concerned about not feeling great, we were able to rent a car and take our time driving down the coast, exploring beach towns, and having a leisurely few days.  It was a nice relaxing time and we were able to enjoy the nearing end of Australia’s sun and beach season at beautiful Jervis Bay, which apparently has the third whitest sand in the world (don’t ask me how that is determined.)  

The sand was so white it was blinding!

Overlook near Jervis Bay
More recently, we were able to enjoy Australia’s four day Easter holiday weekend by taking a trip to Melbourne.  Australia’s public holidays include Good Friday and the Monday after Easter weekend, so we had a nice amount of time to fly to Melbourne and see all that we wanted. 

We first spent a day wandering the streets of Melbourne, as one typically does in that city.  It was easy to see why Melbourne is routinely ranked among the top few cities in the world to live.  It definitely lived up to all we had heard about it.  Melbourne is a city with a vibe about it that is difficult to explain, but very cool, charming, and culturally rich.  The neighborhoods reminded me of an old ivy league college town on the U.S. East Coast.  They are filled with beautiful old brick homes, rich architecture, clean, wide, tree-lined streets, and cable trains running down the middle of the streets.  The architecture of Melbourne city itself is similarly rich and beautiful on every street.   The city is also full of art, museums, theaters, and events which add to its richness.  Probably the most charming feature, however, were the little alleys (called “laneways”) peppered throughout the city which are bustling with cafes and street art, and emanate a funky feel.

St. Paul's Cathedral - one of a few beautiful cathedrals

Flinders Station
 
In the evening, we then took the opportunity to drive to Phillip Island, an island about 2 hours from Melbourne which is accessible by bridge.  The main attraction which lured us was the miniature penguins on the island which make their appearance on a beach at the far end of the island every night around 8pm.  Hundreds of penguins emerge from the surf under the cover of night to waddle up the beach, up the bluff, and into their burrows in the bluffs of the beach.   As we arrived, there were already a few dozen penguins in the midst of their trek and we wandered for almost two more hours as dozens more filtered in.  Though it was dark and the park rangers were very strict about not taking pictures of the penguins, we were still able to see the cute little penguins emerge in groups, plan different parts of their trek, call to each other with a variety of sounds, fight, play, and find their families.  They were adorable!

The next days were spent driving the famed Great Ocean Road and viewing the beauty that is the south coast of Australia.  The road starts not that far to the west of Melbourne and we spent two days driving west and then looping back to Melbourne.  Along the way, we stopped in many unique coastal towns, did a forest walk to a waterfall, and enjoyed the views.  I was also on koala watch throughout the trip and was fairly proud of my success by the end.  Koalas are deceptively difficult to spot as they are often perched very high in the trees and curled up in a crook where they tend to blend in with the tree.  Despite this, I managed to spot many koalas and a few kangaroos as well!  Brad did a great job of quickly pulling over to the side of the road and not complaining about me yelling “koala!” at him time and again.

One of many beautiful overlooks on the Great Ocean Road

Waterfall walk

One of several koalas that we spotted

Our day spent looking for dinosaurs didn't go quite as well ...


We spotted a few of these guys right next to our car
Even though the koalas were irresistible, the highlight of the Great Ocean Road was definitely seeing the famed “Twelve Apostles” rock formation at the end of our journey.  The “apostles” are large limestone stacks carved out of the ocean cliffs, but one should be sure to note that there are only eight apostles (there were only nine to begin with, but one collapsed.)  The apostles were more grand and impressive in person and a beautiful cap to our Melbourne trip.

A few of the apostles
Our remaining plans for Australia from this point are still a bit up in the air, but we are now looking forward to whatever our time holds.  We send much love to all our friends and family and hope all are well. 

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Tasmania

Part of the reason Brad and I decided to come to Australia was the result of a common disease we share, travelitis.  Its symptoms can be alleviated, though not permanently cured, through travel, and sufferers can spend copious amounts of time reading travel guidebooks.  Brad and I had been spending too much time reading about Tasmania when we came across this claim. “Tasmania is a fantastic, world class wine-producing region.  The problem is that most of the world does not know this because Tasmanians drink almost all of their wine, leaving little to export.”  Tassies were starting to sound like fun people.

Additionally, since arriving in Australia, Brad and I have mined the brains of Australians to learn local insight on Australia’s varied regions and locales.  We had heard numerous times that Tasmania was a beautiful state and Tasmanians are a unique, rough breed of Australian.  Many attribute this to Tasmania’s past.   In the 1700s when the English ran out of prisons for criminals in the mother country, their “overflow” solution was to ship them to Australia.   The English had already been mooring old naval ships offshore of England to serve as prisons, and when these reached capacity, they began to send these ships to Tasmania.  Prisoners off all sorts were sent: young children, the elderly, murderers, and those who had merely stolen a loaf of bread. 
To those unfamiliar, Tasmania is a large island off the southeastern coast of Australia and is also an Australian state.  Tasmania, and particularly the secluded Tasman peninsula off the southern coast connected by a narrow neck of land, provided the perfect locale for a secure prisoner settlement.  Many of the prisoners that came simply worked off their sentences then gained their freedom, working in the mines, felling trees, in the mills or through other means.  Those who re-offended ended up in the prison.  Australians take pride in the claim that it was “built on the back of convicts,” and that is especially true of Tasmania.  Tasmanians have a reputation as being quite rough around the edges and prone to “marching to the beat of their own drum”.  Though we didn’t have nearly as much time in Tasmania as we would have liked, we thoroughly enjoyed the people that we met and started to get a glimpse of the Tassie mentality.  We also briefly enjoyed the beautiful scenery and varied food and produce industries that Tasmania is known for.
We initially took an early morning flight out of Sydney, and upon arriving in Hobart, the southern capital of Tasmania, we headed to Mt. Wellington.  Atop Mt. Wellington one can see all of Hobart and beautiful vistas of the southern coast.  The rest of the evening was then spent visiting a local winery and exploring Hobart, a city packed with historic buildings and a marina built around its fishing industry. 

View of Hobart from Mt. Wellington

 
The next day we headed to the Tasman peninsula, the location of the famed convict trail.  Upon entering the peninsula through the narrow neck, there is a stature of a guard dog to represent the “dog line” that was stationed at the neck on both land and floating platforms in the water to prevent prisoners from escaping.  You can then visit a variety of ruins of the convict era in a rough loop around the peninsula.  The biggest location on the trail is the Port Arthur site, the location of the main prison community.  Exploring and learning about the site itself was fascinating, and definitely excited the history nerd in me.  We heard fascinating stories about failed escape attempts, the various philosophies of prisoner treatment and restoration which were tried, and colorful stories of the churches, directors, and supporting community members which inhabited the place.  Entrance into the site also came with a cruise around the harbor, where we enjoyed seeing the prisoners’ shipbuilding site, the cemetery island, and the boys’ prison island.

Port Arthur site


The old, burnt out non-denominational church convicts were forced to attend daily
 
Later in the afternoon, we decided to explore some of the beautiful coastline Tasmania is known for.  In a drive along the coast we were able to see the famed Tasman’s Arch and Devil’s Kitchen formation, among other features.  On the way back to Hobart that night, we stopped in the historic town of Richmond and enjoyed briefly perusing the town.  The next morning, we then drove north through the center of Tasmania to Launceston, where we flew out later in the day.
Tasman's Arch


Part of Devil's Kitchen


Beautiful historic church in Richmond
We would have loved to spend more time in Tasmania to take advantage of the mountains and more of its natural beauty, but we thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent there.  Tasmania lived up to all we had heard about it and we’re glad we could explore it.  Next for us is a planned trip to Melbourne over Easter to explore the city, check out Philip Island if there’s time, and drive the Great Ocean Road!  We can’t wait to enjoy more of the beauty of the coast while celebrating the beauty of our Savior’s victory over death.    

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The A-Team Does Australia, Part 2: Cairns


Since it’s close to a month after the fact now, I figure it’s time to finally post about our trip to Cairns.  While my parents were here, we had the chance to fly up to Cairns and meet them there to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef, explore Kuranda, trek around Daintree National Rainforest, and visit Cape Tribulation.

We flew up to Cairns, just under a three hour flight, on a Saturday morning and set off right away to maximize our time in Cairns.  About an hour after arriving, we took a coach to the Kuranda gondola, which traverses the rainforests right around Cairns to take visitors to a quaint, old rainforest town called Kuranda.  The gondola ride itself was beautiful, but stepping into Kuranda was like stepping back into Australian history.  The town is essentially an old hippie and aboriginal town full of galleries, shops, and local artists’ wares.  We had a great time perusing the shops, eating at a local café (where Brad tried an alligator burger and my dad tried a kangaroo burger) and taking a walk through the rainforest.  To get back to Cairns, we took the old time railroad out of Kuranda, which carves through canyons and provides incredible, sweeping views of the rainforest and its waterfalls.

Gondola ride through the rainforest to Kuranda

Wandering Kuranda
 
 
Brad's crocodile burger ... I tried it and was not a fan :(


 
The next day was our chance to get out to the Great Barrier Reef.  We started off early in the morning boarding a large catamaran to take us on a couple hour ride to the outer reef.  Our destination was a floating barge called Marine World, equipped with snorkeling equipment, lounging and eating areas, dive gear, a semi-submersible boat, and a glass bottom boat.  Upon arriving, we immediately outfitted ourselves for snorkeling and dove in. (It is currently stinger season, so one is required to wear stinger suits to protect the entire body from them.  They make for a nice fashion statement. J)  Quite simply, the snorkeling was incredible.  The variety of fish was immense and colors of the fish and coral were the brightest neon colors I have seen.  As we discovered, underwater cameras simply cannot capture the beauty and intensity of colors that can be seen below the water’s surface.  Some favorites include seeing sharks, parrot fish, and several large type of Maori fish about three feet by two feet which were very friendly.  We also fit in a ride in the semi-submersible boat, which provided some great underwater views as well.


Giant Maori fish


The next day we had arranged for a tour up to Daintree National Rainforest.  First, we made a stop to see some animals.  After a couple of hours of driving along the coast, we arrived at an animal preserve.  Here, we had a great time feeding kangaroos and wallabes, seeing crocodiles, holding some large parrots, and visiting the impossibly cuddly and soft koalas.  The kangaroos were especially fun and it was fascinating to see how protective they were.  A male kangaroo kept fighting off geese and ducks who were wandering over while we were feeding what I'm assuming was his wife or girlfriend. :)  I also decided if laws ever permit it, Brad and I are getting a koala as a pet.   They sleep about 20 hours a day and are even cuter in person! 



 
We then moved on for lunch at a rainforest canopy café hidden away in the middle of nowhere and enjoyed some wonderful views and food.  Lunch was followed by a walk on the beach to Cape Tribulation, a stretch of coastline that looks completely pristine and untouched.  Located in the northeast tip of Australia, it is virtually the farthest north that one can travel by car in Australia.  In the afternoon, we enjoyed a trek through the rainforest while a guide taught us about all the incredible ways that the Aboriginal people used native flora and fauna to alleviate all sort of problems and provide innovative solutions to life in the rainforest.  On the way back, we stopped to take a riverboat ride to look for crocodiles.

Cape Tribulation


.

Looking for crocs!
Brad and I had to leave the next morning to head back to Sydney, but my parents enjoyed another day of snorkeling the following day on a different location in the inner reef off an island called Green Island.  I was told that it provided some more excellent snorkeling and they had the opportunity to see rays and some other larger animals not seen previously.
This trip definitely whetted our appetite for more, and Brad and I are now looking forward to more travel.  We currently have a trip to Melbourne, Phillip Island, and the Great Ocean Road planned, and are pondering a trip to Tasmania.  We hope to have more exciting adventures to report in the coming months!  

Sunday, December 21, 2014

The Sydney Siege


Last weekend, I finally sat down and wrote a blog post about our trip to Cairns.  I had intended to post the blog on Monday.  Then Monday morning happened.  Since then, I’ve experienced a whole range of emotions and been wading through a sea of thoughts on the tragedy.  I’ve been unable to get the events of that day out of my mind, and it didn’t really seem appropriate to post about our trip to Cairns right after a day of pain for Australians.  Instead, I thought I’d just share my thoughts and the experience of the Sydney siege, and I’ll be posting about our trip to Cairns soon after.
On Monday morning, I went to work as usual in the Sydney CBD (central business district; essentially downtown).  Brad was starting his first day of work at a new company at 10am that morning in the CBD as well.  Sometime late morning, one of my coworkers ventured over to me and was commenting on how crazy of a day it was.  I agreed, mentioning how many projects I had going on that day, and then she stopped me, surprised I hadn’t heard yet, and explained that there was a hostage situation going on in Martin Place.  Martin Place is a central city square which is closed off to cars and is a busy center of Sydney’s shopping and businesses; my building is about six blocks away.  Prior to my coworker telling me about the hostage situation, I had planned to go to our company’s bank that morning, which is located in Martin Place, but I ended up putting it off after being handed numerous other more pressing responsibilities.  I knew that Brad’s new company (AHL, a holding company which several movie theaters and hotels) was located on Hyde Park, which runs right up to Martin Place.  I wasn’t sure exactly where on Hyde Park Brad’s building was, and I knew he was heading into work a little before 10am (the hostage situation started around 9:45am), so I quickly checked with him to make sure he was alright.  He was fine, and both our buildings (along with most of the CBD) went on lockdown.  Roads and public transport into the area were blocked off, and Sydney suddenly looked eerily quiet.  Everyone turned on the news and continued to monitor the situation as we tried to go about our day.
From the sound of things, the event was covered in U.S. news, so I won’t recap all the details, but it has been enveloping the country ever since as authorities continue to gather pieces of information about what happened.  Channel 7 News is directly across from the Lindt Café in Martin Place, so cameras caught the situation as it was initially unfolding.  Even though they were forced to evacuate, they were able to keep a camera trained on the store and stream it so viewers saw everything happen in real time.  It was chilling to see live coverage of the hostages being forced to hold ISIS-like flags up in the windows of the café and later watch live as a group of hostages escaped.  Brad and I ended up both being let out of work early.  We watched the news late into the night and then had a short, restless night of sleep as we woke up early to see if the situation was still ongoing, whether we could go into work, whether transportation was running, etc.  My heart sank when I woke up and heard that the siege had ended in the night with the deaths of two hostages.  As information has continued to come in, the reality of the sadness and incredulity of the night kept rolling in.  We watched coverage of two more groups of hostages escape, terrified.  We heard of the phone calls to news stations, texts sent to family, and YouTube videos that hostages were forced to make to broadcast the gunman’s demands.  We saw the scenes of the police rushing the café in the middle of the night, and saw the flashes of light of the shooting light up the dark café windows.  We heard about heroic actions of the café owner who twice attempted to wrestle the shotgun from the gunman, only to become the first fatality of the night for his actions.  We heard about the barrister who tried to protect her pregnant friend, then was killed, leaving three kids behind.
The feeling in Sydney, the effects of the event, and the response since that day has made me feel like I’m reliving 9/11 all over again, just on a smaller scale and in a different country, though this one quite literally hit much closer to home for me.  Australia is experiencing its own small 9/11, just as Canada did recently with the gunman in Ottawa, and Pakistan suffered on a much greater scale recently with the slaughter of over 130 schoolchildren by the Taliban, and the emotions, thoughts, and reactions which are resurfacing are eerily reminiscent of the past.  The range of thoughts I have had since that night are vast, and I just thought I’d share them in no particular order.   There is no pressure to read through it all, and if you are not in the mood for a political rant, feel free to skip #2. J
1.       The first emotion I have felt is simply sadness for those affected.  I feel sad that this city and country that Brad and I have enjoyed living in for the last few months has to experience this.  I feel sad that violence and terror and evil knows no bounds.
 

2.       As more information about that night has been gathered, some of my emotions have turned to anger.  It was revealed that the lone terrorist gunman was Man Haron Monis, a radicalized extremist Iranian refugee who had horribly offensive ISIS-sympathizing website and whose rap sheet included writing a string of offensive letters to widows of Australian veterans, a charge of accessory to murder in the death of his ex-wife (he is accused of having his then wife stab his ex-wife to death), and over 40 counts of sexual abuse.  Yet he was out on bail.  He had admitted to the offensive letters and received 300 hours of community service.  He was awaiting trial on the murder and sexual abuse claims.  Those in the Muslim community who noticed his odd, extremist behavior, alerted authorities several times about their concerns, but the police said they could do nothing without evidence.  I have to believe a democratic society can do better than this.  I don’t blame the judge who afforded him bail, he was simply abiding by the Australian bail laws that had been recently made weaker.  I don’t blame the authorities who could not legally act without evidence.  I blame the government for weakening the laws. 

I’m not that knowledgeable about Australian laws, but I know that the basis of the legal system is the same as in the U.S.  Just like Americans and many other democracy-loving people, Australia presumes that someone is innocent until proven guilty.  If there is not enough evidence, someone can be granted bail, and they will not be found guilty of a crime.  I believe this is an important presumption to preserve in a legal society.  But I simply have to believe that there are stronger laws that can be created to provide a much higher threshold for bail when someone has any type of terrorist indications in their background. 

Extreme caution must be taken when embarking on this type of legislation, however, as a society is forced to reassess which of their rights are most important, and which they are willing to concede a bit.  If the threshold for granting bail is heightened in certain instances or if the government decides to more closely monitor its citizens, a society may have to decide that giving up some of their right to privacy, prevention from unreasonable search and seizure, etc. is not as important as their right to safety and security.  Quite frankly, a society must weigh how much of one right they are willing to give up for a variable amount of added assurance in another right.  This debate is an age old one, and is one that has resurfaced in the U.S. in various incarnations frequently over the last decade or two.  Americans started to tip the balance in favor of preserving security with the sweeping passage of the PATRIOT Act after 9/11, but in more recent years, has begun to question that balance in light of the revelations from Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and the revelations of torture tactics used by the U.S. government.  Even the recent hacking of Sony has put this question into the spotlight once again. 

While I do favor tighter bail laws in certain instances, I do foresee that the passage of such laws could open the door to undesired consequences in the future.  For instance, if a government decided that certain religious expression that is considered acceptable now is later deemed to be detrimental to a nation’s security, laws could be used in ways not intended now.   I don’t have all the answers to these questions and would not presume that I could accurately assess how much security could be gained by giving up measured amounts of various rights.  I can only hope that societies around the world and especially Christians seek guidance, exercise reason, logic, and caution, and ultimately act wisely to preserve the rights we treasure.

3.       Another emotion I have felt is pride that I have had the pleasure of living in this beautiful city, if only for a short time, that is dealing with the tragedy in a really admirable way.  In the days after the siege, I have walked through Martin Place a few times on my way home from work.  In just two days, the first site next to the blocked off café where people started to lay flowers quickly grew to the edge of the street and police cordoned off another area across Martin Place for people to continue to lay flowers, sign condolence books, and pay their respects.  The two times I visited in the two days after the siege, the second memorial site has grown immensely with thousands of flowers, lines curling around the block for people waiting to enter and circle the flower laying area, and the square packed with quiet well-wishers.  There are many people also mulling about with signs offering free hugs to anyone.  The Australian people are truly kind and generous, and this is showing through now more so than before.

 

4.       Finally, I think part of the reason why I keep ruminating on the events of the siege is the realization that anyone could have been involved.  I had no intention of going to the Lindt café, but I had planned to go to Martin Place that morning.  I wasn’t sure what mode of public transport Brad was taking into work that morning, but he might have taken the train in Martin Place.  A coworker usually goes to the Lindt café for coffee every morning, but was in too much of a rush to stop that morning.  That same coworker’s boyfriend was heading into work at Channel 7 News right as it was happening and bumped into the gunman before it happened.  There were reports in one of the YouTube videos the hostages were forced to make that the gunman had other bombs planted in Central Station, George Street, and Circular Quay.  I take a bus from Central Station every morning and I eat lunch at George Street, one street from my office.  The point is that anyone could have been involved in the Sydney siege; anyone’s life can change in an instant.  The safety and sense of normalcy we experience could be stripped away in a second.  Just as my wonderful students pointed out numerous times before I left, they cautioned that I needed to watch out for the hordes of deadly animals populating Australia, including most of the world’s deadly snakes, sharks, stingrays, crocodiles, deadly spiders, and various other animals they believed to be deadly, rabid or unpredictable, including koalas. J  The reality of the fragile state of our normalcy can hit like a lead balloon and even incite crippling fear to those who let it, but the beauty of this reality has surfaced in the forefront of my mind in the days since.  Evil, danger, and uncertainty are everywhere, but I serve a God who is The Rock of stability, certainty and strength.  I find joy in the one who provides purpose.  I find peace in the security of my eternal fate.  I take strength in the One who controls it all.  Though evil and disaster will continue, I can breathe knowing that the one who gives me breath has conquered evil eternally.      

Saturday, December 6, 2014

The A-Team Does Australia, Part 1


As we enter the holiday season, the celebration of Thanksgiving and the coming of Christmas have reminded Brad and I that a new country provides a very different perspective and experience for this time of year.  Though we can anticipate celebrating the birth of our Savior, the fact that we are walking among palm trees strung with Christmas lights, singing Christmas carols in 80 degree heat, and attending Christmas barbeques on the beach in the middle of summer is an entirely strange experience.  Understandably, Australians think that celebrating Christmas in any season other than summer is odd.  However, if I know my biblical research well, I believe that most Christian scholars believe that Jesus was most likely born in the summer, so perhaps it’s entirely appropriate that we experience Christmas in this way.  Mary was probably suffering the heat on that ride to Bethlehem, and she and Joseph were perhaps a bit concerned about shielding Jesus’ baby skin from the sun. Maybe we can relate now just a bit more. J 

It is also a little bittersweet that we don’t get to celebrate the season with our friends and family, but the recent visit from my parents was a wonderful gift in this holiday season.  Though Australia doesn’t have Thanksgiving, my parents were able to spend two weeks with us over Thanksgiving (except for a few days when they went to Adelaide) and for THAT we were very thankful.  They arrived first in Sydney, where we spent about five days with them, then they flew to Adelaide and visited Kangaroo Island for a few days before we flew to the top end and met them in Cairns for four days to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef and explore the rainforests.  Cairns was so beautiful!  We looooved the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforests, so I’ve decided that Cairns deserves its own blog post, coming soon.  There are too many pictures we’d love to share!  For now, I’ll share about our time with my parents (the A-Team) in Sydney.

My parents first arrived on a Friday while I was at work, but Brad had the chance to meet them in the afternoon and then take them to the beach for a coastal walk.  They completed the Bondi beach to Coogee beach coastal walk, and in the span of a couple of hours, saw all five of the beaches closest to us … if that doesn’t welcome you to Sydney, I don’t know what does!  The next day we headed to the harbor and enjoyed everything it has to offer.  We walked all along Darling Harbor, Circular Quay, and Farm Cove and strolled through the Royal Botanical Gardens.  Along the way, we of course had to get 1,001 pictures of the Opera House and we spent a bit of time exploring it.  How could you not?  It was a beautiful sunny day, and we had so much fun showing off the area that we’ve been enjoying the last few months!


You can never have too many pictures of the Opera House, right?
 
After that, we perused the Rocks and the Rocks’ weekend market, the historic district across from the Opera House where the first English settlement in Australia was established.  From there, we decided that a Sydney Harbor cruise was in order and enjoyed all the sights, including Fort Denison, the Opera House and bridge from the water.  When we got back, we decided to walk across the bridge and enjoyed even MORE great views of the harbor.  We reached north Sydney and then took the train back to Darling Harbor, where we enjoyed a great dinner on the water, and capped off the evening with the Saturday night fireworks show over the water.  What a great day!

On the Sydney Harbor Bridge

My lovely parents :)
 
On Sunday, we took the A-Team to the Hillsong church that we’ve been attending, then we decided to take a ferry across the harbor to visit Manly, a quaint and beautiful beach town at the northwest mouth of the harbor.  We also walked along the coast to check out one of my favorites, Shelly Beach.

The next day the A-Team decided to check out the Blue Mountains.  They took the train out to Katoomba, saw the Three Sisters (the famed rock formation of the Blue Mountains), and hiked down into the Jamison Valley along the same route Brad and I took a month or two ago.  Along the way, they took the Great Staircase down, saw lots of wildlife, viewed Katoomba Falls, and took the Furber Steps back up the canyon.  It sounded like a wonderful day.  Tuesday was the A-Team’s last day in Sydney, and Brad had the chance to accompany them on an exploration of Royal National Park, to the south of Sydney.  They wandered through some trails, enjoying nature, loved the wonderful senior citizens they met along the way, and capped off the day with a rowboat ride in the river.

They left us then for a few days to fly to Adelaide and then trek across the water to spend two days on Kangaroo Island to see the beautiful rock formations on the coast and all the wildlife Kangaroo Island has to offer.  They then flew up to Cairns, where we met them to begin our Great Barrier Reef and rainforest adventures … to come soon!  As soon as I get a chance to go through all our pictures, I hope to provide an update on our time there. 

In the meantime, as always, we miss all of you, our friends and family, and hope that you are enjoying the coming of Christmas and the celebration of our Savior’s birth.  We hope that you are blessed and able to take the time to truly appreciate the meaning of the season.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Let's Talk about the British ...


To start, I will apologize in advance for the length of this blog, but I suppose it is my way of making up for my lack of blogging over the last several weeks.  Read on if you wish, and there is no judgment if you don’t make it all the way through J.

Since we’ve been in Australia, we’ve been asked several times by Aussies variations of the question, “What has surprised you most about Australia?”  Others have asked us to identify the biggest difference between Australia and America or whether Australia is what we expected.  These are incredibly difficult questions to answer because they seem to bear the burden of identifying and describing all the slight nuances and variations of Australian culture which differ from the American experience.  Furthermore, we have not been in Australia long enough to fully understand or experience all of its culture and have not yet had the chance to venture to many of its differing geographies.  As with any country or culture, it is quite simply impossible to capture or fully explain an accurate and full picture of life in that country as opposed to one’s own.  A country or culture cannot be captured in a prism of explanations or quantifiable qualities, just as a person cannot be explained through delineating a few key characteristics. 

The last several weeks I’ve been thinking about how to explain our experiences so far with Australian culture.  I decided this week that I would focus on the one response Brad and I have settled upon as our “go to” answer for the time being when asked what has most surprised us.

Australian culture has more British influence than we expected.  To be sure, we knew of Australia’s connection with the British, we knew it is part of the commonwealth, and we knew the history behind it before arriving here.  However, when we imagined Australia, anything British did not enter our minds.  Almost every time I have mentioned this answer to an Australian, I have been met with a surprised look and usually a laugh as they explain that the British think that Australia is very Americanized.  First, let me make my case for the British influence in Australia, then I want to explain what others have pointed out as the Americanization of Australia.  As a brief disclaimer, the qualities I will point out are of course massive generalizations and not true in all cases or of all people, but they are just used in an attempt to point out some differences.

First of all, the sporting culture here is very British.  The big sports as of late are rugby, horse racing, soccer, and now cricket.  Though the Australian rugby season has ended, the sport still looms large in Australia at the moment as its national team is competing in the international Four Nations Tournament against New Zealand, Samoa, and the UK.  Soccer and cricket are gearing up and we cannot escape them as there is at least one game going on in the field next to our flat every weekend and cricket games are seen all over the city in every field as well.  To that end, lawn bowling is very popular, and lawn bowling clubs and games can be found everywhere. 

The big event this last week was the Melbourne Cup, the culmination of racing season in Australia.   The month of October is known as Carnival season in Australia, when the finals of the horse racing season occur, and the “big one” happens at the start of November in Melbourne.  We live very close to the horse track in Sydney, so we decided a few weekends ago we had to check out a race.  Though anyone and everyone can and does attend, the races seems very British and high society.  Men must wear suits, and women must wear dresses and sport some sort of headgear, usually a fascinator.  Though initially wary, I decided that when in Rome, I must do as the Romans, so we went for the look as best we could.  It was a lot of fun hanging out for the afternoon at the track and this was magnified when the big race on November 4 “stopped the nation”.  On that day, the state of Victoria officially has a holiday, little work is done as people are making bets throughout the day and having parties, most people come to work dressed in their racing finest, and all stops when the race is on so that the country can watch the race.  Pretty fun, and definitely British.



 

 
Another even more obvious way the British culture pervades is through the close travel connections between the countries.  Since coming here, we have learned that it is so commonplace that it is almost considered cliché for young Australian adults to go to London to study or work for a few years or for young Brits to come to Australia.  We have met many Brits here in Australia and there are quite a few Irish as well.  (While we’re on the subject, Sydney is incredible international, and many of the people we have met are from Asian countries or South Pacific islands as well.)  The crazy part of this is that I sometimes feel like I’ve lost the ability to differentiate a British accent from an Australian one.

This brings us to the Australian ways of speaking.  My view on this may be skewed a bit by the fact that I have been working in the business sector, but Australians seem to use more “proper” ways of speaking.  I certainly will not claim to be an expert on British English, but as far as I know, Australian English uses almost all the British spellings, and their word choice seems almost indecipherable from the Brits as well.  I answer many “queries” at work, we throw trash in the “rubbish bin”, we wait in the “queue”, moms take their babies around in their “prams”, and so on.  Just for fun, I started to make a list words and phrases that Australians use that are different than words Americans would use, and I included them at the end of this blog for anyone interested.   

To be fair, there are also many differences in the ways Brits and Australians speak.  Of course there is a difference in the accent, but Australians also have many informal, more “chummy” ways of speaking with their mates.  Everyone’s name is somehow shortened or given a nickname.  In my opinion, the best part of the Australian lingo is their indefatigable penchant for abbreviating everything.  There’s not much I like more than a good abbrev.  Yet paradoxically, they often abbreviate words, then add some sort of vowel sound to the end, often leaving the word just as long as it was before, but I attribute this to the Australian way of wanting to make relationships more personal and casual.  Some examples of this are breakfast (brekkie,) a cup of coffee (cuppa,) McDonald’s (Macca’s,) and sunglasses (sunnies).

Though their word choice seems more “proper” in some instances, in many other ways the Australian ways of speaking represent the Aussie friendliness, lack of pretention, and intent on creating familiarity and rapport with people instantaneously.  The Aussies love to joke about everything, can’t resist lampooning those who take anything too seriously, and communicate often through ribbing.  You know you are liked when a joke is made at your expense, and you are liked even more when you show you can throw one back. 

Though we haven’t had a chance yet to get far outside of Sydney, I’m told that especially outside of big cities, in the Outback, and in western Australia, the Australian slang is much more “bogan” and can be almost indecipherable at times to outsiders.  “Bogan” seems to be a uniquely Australian word for a uniquely Australian type of person.  Most Australians can’t entirely explain it, but as best I understand, it is their work for a typical type of Australian who is a bit uncouth, somewhat “redneck”, perhaps a bit high-wheeling, and often speaks using heavy Australian slang.

Anyway, I should probably get back to my original point of finishing my explanation of British influences in Australia.  However, I wanted to explain a little further about Australian ways of speaking, because I believe that this is what I have found most distinctive about Australian culture.

Two final ways we have seen the British influence is through their food and government, though these influences aren’t as strong.  Aside from vegemite (which I don’t recommend!) there doesn’t seem to be much cuisine that is uniquely Australian.  Fish and chips and meat pies are commonplace and could be considered part of Australian cuisine, but these are of course traditionally British.  Australians do love to barbecue, and some grilled items (kangaroo burgers anyone?) are Australian.  Outside of that, they have cuisine from all around the world.  Here in Sydney, there is a ton of Asian food from every country as well as Turkish and basically food from all over … Africa, Greece, Italy, South America, America … you name it. 

The government also has British influences.  Australia is a parliamentary system with some socialized institutions, including socialized health care and a government mandated employer pension contribution for all Australians (called a superannuation).

Yet I’m told that many Brits, others from outside of Australia, and even Australians themselves view Australia as extremely Americanized, and I can definitely see how that is true.  A lot of the shows on TV and most of the movies are American.  The music scene includes all the current American singers/musicians along with some Australian names.  American pop culture seems very embedded here.  There are American stores (Target and Kmart are big) and lots of American food and restaurants.  McDonald’s, Subway, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and KFC are the popular American fast food places that can be found around.  Typical American food can be found on many menus and many American food product brands are found in grocery stores.  I’m heard that fried southern food is a trend in Australia right now as Australians have fallen in love with fried chicken, among other things.

I’ve also noticed very similar ways of thinking about politics between Australians and Americans.  Of course the classic debate over how much government influence to accept in everyday life is an ongoing discussion which seems to surface in every political issue.  There is much frustration with the current government, but it seems as though there has been frustration with almost every government.  Australians have complained about a lack of trust for government.  Especially as of late, the Australian government has closely allied itself with America and very much assumes the same stance on issues such as ISIS and the crisis in Ukraine as the U.S. government.  To be sure, this is definitely not to say that Australians follow or even always value the American way or the opinions of others.  Though Australian policies and government actions may be similar to other countries, Australians seem very independent in their thinking and will act according to what they believe is right, regardless of how it appears to others.  They are not concerned with following anyone, nor do they idolize or strive to emulate other countries. 

Another striking difference that still catches me off guard at times is the absence of a concern for political correctness at times; quite frankly, Australians don’t always care about how they are perceived.  The prime minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, recently threatened to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin, and this comment was both heralded and derided as a very classic mark of Australian political culture.  Though perhaps not the most diplomatic comment to make to alleviate tensions with Russia, Abbott vowed (understandably) to assume a confrontational stance with Putin over a lack of clarity regarding the MH17 disaster, which affected many Australians.  This is a mild example, but a lack of concern for political correctness is seen in many other areas of Australian culture.  Racial slang and stereotypes are still used here more openly and commonly (though it is still derided) than in the U.S., and colorful language is much more common on tv.  The Australian news media has been particularly interesting for me to take in.  In the print media, the voice and opinion of journalists is freely and readily seen.  The journalists’ opinions on a subject are often openly shared through the course of an article, and this usually emerges in the form of sarcasm or jibes at the expense of the subject.

All in all, we have really enjoyed Australia so far and I continue to enjoy observing both the similarities and differences between Australian and American culture.  We love the laid back culture (and I especially love the beach culture J) and the fact that Australians tend not to take things too seriously.  We have met lots of friendly people and have felt very welcomed.  As always, thanks to those who keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  We love and miss you all!
 
 

Australian Phrases/Words

How you going? = How are you doing?

Lollies = candy

Brekkie = breakfast/brunch

Cuppa = cup of coffee/tea

Footy = rugby

Boot = trunk

Pram = stroller

Bits and pieces = things

Billabong = watering hole

Capsicum = green pepper

Chooks = chicken

Rock melon = canteloupe

Mate = friend

Way out = exit

Take away = take out

Bush tucker = original Australian food off the land

Bush walking = walking in nature

Bogan = Uncouth Australian person/redneck

Superannuation = government mandated employer retirement contribution all employers must make

Heaps = lots

Good on ya = good for you, nice job, etc.

Trolley = shopping cart

Rubbish = trash

Macca’s = McDonald’s

Sunnies = sunglasses