Less than two weeks ago, I was more than 10,000 miles, and basking in the summer sun. Today I walked one mile each way to a family Christmas party. I walked because I didn’t want to risk the driving, you see, we had 15 inches of snow come down today. To be honest, as much as I like the warmth, and as much as I love the beach, it is weather like this that I really love.
It’s been a peaceful Saturday with not too much going on, which is a good thing since most traveling has had to be cancelled due to the extreme weather. With nothing more stressful than deciding between hot chocolate and spiked egg nog plaguing me, this has been a glorious day.
I love the deep, quiet snow especially as I trudge through it as it lays on the golf course with the shades-of-brown scenery of bare trees and lightly falling snow at 10 at night. I love how sore my bake and legs will be tomorrow morning due to the hours of shoveling I did today. I love the constant snuffling I’ve developed… I actually do: it signifies how active I have been able to be over the past week working outside.
Life since I’ve been back has been excellent. I have been surrounded by my family, including several adorable nieces and nephews. And friends galore! It is just such a good feeling to be visiting my old haunts and see old friends. It must be the whole idea of a big fish in a small pond: it is really easy to enjoy myself when I feel this confident with myself and am in a place where I know a large percentage of the population.
Well, the spiked egg nog has kicked in and I’m feeling too mellow to continue typing… time to go socialize. I hope the approach of Christmas is finding you all well, and thank you for continuing reading as long as you have.
Peace!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
1:3:17
According to my itinerary, it took me the 27 hours and 17 minutes from when my first flight took off, and my last flight landed to travel back into Philly. That is the equivalent of one day, 3 hours, and 17 minutes of traveling. And during that time, there was only a short period of dark due to traveling against time, if you will.
My 39.5+ hour Friday (Dec. 11th) started at 4:15am Adelaide time (12:45pm of the 10th Philly time). After only 3 hours of sleep – it took longer to fall asleep than I had hoped, perhaps due to excitement, or caffeine, who knows what – I woke up, showered, ate, and finished packing in time to be picked up at 5:30am by the taxi that I had arranged. Two hours later, my flight was bumping down the runway. The first leg of the trip was to fly from Adelaide to Melbourne; a short flight of 1 hour and 15 minutes. After a rough landing, I quickly and easily made my way through customs and to the gate with 1.5 hours to spare for my second flight.
After going through security a second time, my second flight, from Melbourne to LA, left at noon Melbourne time (8pm of the 10th Philly time). Once again, I boarded a hulking Boeing 747-400 that is less an aeronautical machine as a magical whale – only larger. Miraculously it is able to take flight with it’s 400 plus passengers aboard. The flight was pretty good, with two or three spells of rather powerful turbulence that I kind of enjoyed. Partly by choice, partly due to the undeniable nature of human beings, I challenged myself to use the lavatory during one of these, and found it rather entertaining.
My seat was 71D, which is only two rows closer to the front than my trip in the opposite direction, and 4 rows from the back (75 rows). Seat D was the seat on the right side of the left aisle. At that point in the aircraft there are 10 seats abreast (A-K, I don’t really know how that works though); three, aisle, four, aisle, three. For my particular row (71) we were fortunate enough to have seats E and F empty, which means that I had an aisle on my left, and two empty seats on my right, one of which I filled with my stuff giving me more room to spread out and get comfy.
14 and a half hours later – after four movies (Funny People, (500) Days of Summer, District 9, and The Brothers Bloom) and some TV for a total of over 9.5 hours of cross-eyed enjoyment – the monstrous beast irrationally plowing through the sky extended its steel legs and more rationally rolled along the ground.
Going through Customs took about as long as I expected, but was much simpler than I expected. If you recall, going through the Fiji quarantine for Spring Break was very rustic: on my form I claimed I had food, had been in contact with animals and fresh water, and had a weapon with me… the Fiji quarantine looked at my form and waved me through without hesitation. My reentry into the States was only a little more formal as far as the quarantine is concerned. I was asked what food I brought (I had claimed food) and I answered “Cookies. Packaged Cookies.” He routinely welcomed me into the States and waved me through. For the amount of boarder protection I have thought the States to have, this was quite a shock that he didn’t want to see any of the other things I claimed: some of my souvenirs have raw wood or animal products… he didn’t even acknowledge it.
I make the long walk over to the appropriate terminal where I ate my first piece of food since I arrived back in the States: a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle. Then I proceeded to wait at the gate for another hour and a half before boarding my final flight of the trip.
This last leg, LAX to PHL, left about 45 minutes late because the plane we were in arrived late. Apparently the wind was blowing really strongly from East to West across America because the plane was late coming in due to a strong head wind, and the same problem benefited us on the flight to PHL with a strong tail wind. Because of that we actually landed on time after circling the airport a while.
The flight felt unnecessarily long for only 4.5 hours in the air, but I landed safely and after an unnecessarily long wait for my luggage, quickly and smoothly was picked up by Jori and Tykah for the ride to the Keals. By 9pm I was settling in and seeing the family.
Green money and correct driving rules took only moments to become familiar with again. Like my first experience in Australia, the first few turns made in the car on the way back were a little frightening due to feeling like we were turning into oncoming traffic.
I didn’t go to bed until 12:30am after visiting with family, but I didn’t feel extraordinarily sleepy despite having had only about 5 hours of sleep in the past 44 (including the 3 hours I had on the night of the 10th before my flight). However, I have no memory of being awake after closing my eyes. It was a good night.
Peace!
My 39.5+ hour Friday (Dec. 11th) started at 4:15am Adelaide time (12:45pm of the 10th Philly time). After only 3 hours of sleep – it took longer to fall asleep than I had hoped, perhaps due to excitement, or caffeine, who knows what – I woke up, showered, ate, and finished packing in time to be picked up at 5:30am by the taxi that I had arranged. Two hours later, my flight was bumping down the runway. The first leg of the trip was to fly from Adelaide to Melbourne; a short flight of 1 hour and 15 minutes. After a rough landing, I quickly and easily made my way through customs and to the gate with 1.5 hours to spare for my second flight.
After going through security a second time, my second flight, from Melbourne to LA, left at noon Melbourne time (8pm of the 10th Philly time). Once again, I boarded a hulking Boeing 747-400 that is less an aeronautical machine as a magical whale – only larger. Miraculously it is able to take flight with it’s 400 plus passengers aboard. The flight was pretty good, with two or three spells of rather powerful turbulence that I kind of enjoyed. Partly by choice, partly due to the undeniable nature of human beings, I challenged myself to use the lavatory during one of these, and found it rather entertaining.
My seat was 71D, which is only two rows closer to the front than my trip in the opposite direction, and 4 rows from the back (75 rows). Seat D was the seat on the right side of the left aisle. At that point in the aircraft there are 10 seats abreast (A-K, I don’t really know how that works though); three, aisle, four, aisle, three. For my particular row (71) we were fortunate enough to have seats E and F empty, which means that I had an aisle on my left, and two empty seats on my right, one of which I filled with my stuff giving me more room to spread out and get comfy.
14 and a half hours later – after four movies (Funny People, (500) Days of Summer, District 9, and The Brothers Bloom) and some TV for a total of over 9.5 hours of cross-eyed enjoyment – the monstrous beast irrationally plowing through the sky extended its steel legs and more rationally rolled along the ground.
Going through Customs took about as long as I expected, but was much simpler than I expected. If you recall, going through the Fiji quarantine for Spring Break was very rustic: on my form I claimed I had food, had been in contact with animals and fresh water, and had a weapon with me… the Fiji quarantine looked at my form and waved me through without hesitation. My reentry into the States was only a little more formal as far as the quarantine is concerned. I was asked what food I brought (I had claimed food) and I answered “Cookies. Packaged Cookies.” He routinely welcomed me into the States and waved me through. For the amount of boarder protection I have thought the States to have, this was quite a shock that he didn’t want to see any of the other things I claimed: some of my souvenirs have raw wood or animal products… he didn’t even acknowledge it.
I make the long walk over to the appropriate terminal where I ate my first piece of food since I arrived back in the States: a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle. Then I proceeded to wait at the gate for another hour and a half before boarding my final flight of the trip.
This last leg, LAX to PHL, left about 45 minutes late because the plane we were in arrived late. Apparently the wind was blowing really strongly from East to West across America because the plane was late coming in due to a strong head wind, and the same problem benefited us on the flight to PHL with a strong tail wind. Because of that we actually landed on time after circling the airport a while.
The flight felt unnecessarily long for only 4.5 hours in the air, but I landed safely and after an unnecessarily long wait for my luggage, quickly and smoothly was picked up by Jori and Tykah for the ride to the Keals. By 9pm I was settling in and seeing the family.
Green money and correct driving rules took only moments to become familiar with again. Like my first experience in Australia, the first few turns made in the car on the way back were a little frightening due to feeling like we were turning into oncoming traffic.
I didn’t go to bed until 12:30am after visiting with family, but I didn’t feel extraordinarily sleepy despite having had only about 5 hours of sleep in the past 44 (including the 3 hours I had on the night of the 10th before my flight). However, I have no memory of being awake after closing my eyes. It was a good night.
Peace!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Last Day
Today is my last whole day in Adelaide. Very fittingly, it has been raining on and off for the whole day. Between downpours I’ve managed to do the few errands related to closing up shop here. I originally had hoped to also go to the beach one last time, but the rain prevented that. I did take the time at one point to walk along the Torrens River for one last time.
Leaving something that I have grown familiar with (in this case not necessarily something I have loved, but become accustomed to) is usually an odd sort of feeling. Now more than ever, I am emotionally torn. More than once I had to take a break from packing when the feeling sunk in a little. It is very odd because I am both excited to go home and see my friends and family, but at the same time there is a reluctance to leave. It’s like I feel that I haven’t completed what I came to accomplish. I had hoped to travel more while here, but I think it’s more like I had expected to feel differently by the time my visit was over.
It’s hard to explain, and I don’t know if I actually know what I’m trying to explain. I’ve had fun, and I’ve seen a lot, but I guess I expected to have done more of both. I feel like I’ve missed out on a few things; nothing specific, just something.
I forgot to mention in my last post that I went to the Museum here. On Tuesday, it was too rainy to try going to the beach, so I had the museum as a back up plan. The 2 hours I spent there were pretty good. After about an hour of reading and walking through one floor of aboriginal history and artifacts, I got a bit board and only skimmed the second floor of the aboriginal gallery. They also had a large gallery of Pacific Islands (mostly Papa New Guinea, Solomon, and Fiji islands), a large gallery on minerals (telling the history and science behind the formation of minerals including fossils, ancient inland seas, the formation of crude oil), a small gallery on ancient Egypt. A gallery of the world’s mammals, and a whole floor closed for construction completed the larger-than-it-looks-from-the-outside museum. Pretty fun. It’s been too long since I spent some time looking at those glow in the dark rocks.
Well, I’m off for my last Cooper’s Ale before leaving Oz for good. I wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning, so I won’t be out too late. See you all soon!
Cheers!
Leaving something that I have grown familiar with (in this case not necessarily something I have loved, but become accustomed to) is usually an odd sort of feeling. Now more than ever, I am emotionally torn. More than once I had to take a break from packing when the feeling sunk in a little. It is very odd because I am both excited to go home and see my friends and family, but at the same time there is a reluctance to leave. It’s like I feel that I haven’t completed what I came to accomplish. I had hoped to travel more while here, but I think it’s more like I had expected to feel differently by the time my visit was over.
It’s hard to explain, and I don’t know if I actually know what I’m trying to explain. I’ve had fun, and I’ve seen a lot, but I guess I expected to have done more of both. I feel like I’ve missed out on a few things; nothing specific, just something.
I forgot to mention in my last post that I went to the Museum here. On Tuesday, it was too rainy to try going to the beach, so I had the museum as a back up plan. The 2 hours I spent there were pretty good. After about an hour of reading and walking through one floor of aboriginal history and artifacts, I got a bit board and only skimmed the second floor of the aboriginal gallery. They also had a large gallery of Pacific Islands (mostly Papa New Guinea, Solomon, and Fiji islands), a large gallery on minerals (telling the history and science behind the formation of minerals including fossils, ancient inland seas, the formation of crude oil), a small gallery on ancient Egypt. A gallery of the world’s mammals, and a whole floor closed for construction completed the larger-than-it-looks-from-the-outside museum. Pretty fun. It’s been too long since I spent some time looking at those glow in the dark rocks.
Well, I’m off for my last Cooper’s Ale before leaving Oz for good. I wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning, so I won’t be out too late. See you all soon!
Cheers!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Month 5
Today marks the completion of my 5th month in Australia. So how, you might ask, did I choose to celebrate it? Well, I didn’t really. It wasn’t so much of a celebration as recognition. Without realizing it had been 5 months, I had planned to go back to Mt. Lofty for my second time, but those plans fell through when I realized I would have to spend 3 hours there due to the bus schedule. So I instead went to Glenelg. That didn’t turn out too well because today, as the past few days, was cloudy and cold, so I walked down the coast for a few kilometers to pass the time before returning to the city.
Not only was today the completion of 5 months in Australia, but today was the second to last whole day I have left in Australia. In approximately 34 hours from now, I’ll be in the air on my first leg of my trip home. If my flight goes the way my itinerary says it will, I will by landing in Philly in 61 hours from now.
I hope the time remaining passes quickly.
Cheers!
Not only was today the completion of 5 months in Australia, but today was the second to last whole day I have left in Australia. In approximately 34 hours from now, I’ll be in the air on my first leg of my trip home. If my flight goes the way my itinerary says it will, I will by landing in Philly in 61 hours from now.
I hope the time remaining passes quickly.
Cheers!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Hahndorf
Since my last post, the weather has improved, and it turned out that that bike ride was just the first of several days spent in the sun. In the last 5 days I have gone to the beach for three, and went to Hahndorf for the last.
Each time I went to the beach, I stayed to only tan a bit. On the day I didn’t get some sun, I had some other business to attend to. Ernest left for Malaysia (his home) on Friday morning, so Thursday we went to the movies (got to see Where The Wild Things Are… A good movie, but definitely not a kids movie: too violent, and the characters have emotional issues that may be a bit hard to deal with.) then after dinner went out for one final drink together at the Strathmore.
Then on Saturday, I went to Hahndorf. Hahndorf is a little village about a 40 minute bus ride from the city. When we first got here, we read about it, and I was under impression that it was a settlement of people of German descent and the village was built in a German style as well. That isn’t the full truth. If I am not mistaken, the descent is correct, but the style of the architecture isn’t very German as I had assumed it to be. It was still a nice way to spend a few hours.
For those of you in the Philly area, Hahndorf was a mixture of New Hope and Peddler’s Village. It’s geography was more similar to New Hope: Hahndorf the attraction is almost exclusively made of little shops along one stretch of the main street. However, the style of the village was more like Peddler’s Village: most of the shops (souvenir oriented) was folksy like Peddler’s Village, but it did have a little New Age feel like New Hope to some of it. But in my… patriotic?...opinion, Hahndorf wasn’t as pretty as either.
This was my last weekend in Australia. I’ve already explained how I’ve celebrated it. It’s been good to keep active, but not too much is going on here. If this is the bachelor life, living on my own is not for me. I can see how some guys might like the idea of living this independently, in an apartment on his own, in a party town. But that’s exactly it: the only social life I could have if I lived here on my own would be with friends from work/school, and likely involve pubbing or clubbing each time we got together. I don’t like pubbing (and even less clubbing) like that, and I’m not outgoing enough to really make many other friends. Nope, the bachelor life is not for me.
By the way, I have decided that I’ll likely update this blog a few more times even after I arrive back in the States. For my own future benefit if I choose to read what I have kept here, I would like to have some conclusion. So, my current plan is to keep the blog updated until I am into the class routine back at Clemson. I tell you this, so that any of you who might actually be interested, you now know that I may not be finished even once I get back home.
Cheers!
Each time I went to the beach, I stayed to only tan a bit. On the day I didn’t get some sun, I had some other business to attend to. Ernest left for Malaysia (his home) on Friday morning, so Thursday we went to the movies (got to see Where The Wild Things Are… A good movie, but definitely not a kids movie: too violent, and the characters have emotional issues that may be a bit hard to deal with.) then after dinner went out for one final drink together at the Strathmore.
Then on Saturday, I went to Hahndorf. Hahndorf is a little village about a 40 minute bus ride from the city. When we first got here, we read about it, and I was under impression that it was a settlement of people of German descent and the village was built in a German style as well. That isn’t the full truth. If I am not mistaken, the descent is correct, but the style of the architecture isn’t very German as I had assumed it to be. It was still a nice way to spend a few hours.
For those of you in the Philly area, Hahndorf was a mixture of New Hope and Peddler’s Village. It’s geography was more similar to New Hope: Hahndorf the attraction is almost exclusively made of little shops along one stretch of the main street. However, the style of the village was more like Peddler’s Village: most of the shops (souvenir oriented) was folksy like Peddler’s Village, but it did have a little New Age feel like New Hope to some of it. But in my… patriotic?...opinion, Hahndorf wasn’t as pretty as either.
This was my last weekend in Australia. I’ve already explained how I’ve celebrated it. It’s been good to keep active, but not too much is going on here. If this is the bachelor life, living on my own is not for me. I can see how some guys might like the idea of living this independently, in an apartment on his own, in a party town. But that’s exactly it: the only social life I could have if I lived here on my own would be with friends from work/school, and likely involve pubbing or clubbing each time we got together. I don’t like pubbing (and even less clubbing) like that, and I’m not outgoing enough to really make many other friends. Nope, the bachelor life is not for me.
By the way, I have decided that I’ll likely update this blog a few more times even after I arrive back in the States. For my own future benefit if I choose to read what I have kept here, I would like to have some conclusion. So, my current plan is to keep the blog updated until I am into the class routine back at Clemson. I tell you this, so that any of you who might actually be interested, you now know that I may not be finished even once I get back home.
Cheers!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Depression: n. A state that’s not so fun.
I guess I should first be perfectly clear about one thing: I get depressed, but I have never been, and never plan on being suicidal. There is no need to be concerned about my physical health for these last 11 days I have in Australia, despite the poor mental health I’m about to describe.
I think I can truly and accurately attribute a significant portion of my depression on the weather we’ve been having recently. As I mentioned in my last blog, the past 10 days have had very poor weather. It isn’t that it’s always been raining, because it hasn’t, and it’s not because it has always been cold, but because the combination of heat and clouds has made me decided it was not worth attempting an outdoor activity (like tanning). However, I do recognize that I would still have been depressed even if each day was sunny and cloudless.
These past month or two, and in particular these past two weeks, have not been good for me. Granted there is a few bright moments of the past two weeks that have been appreciated and enjoyable, but for the most part I’ve been struggling with an internal string of thoughts that always gets me down. I have too much time to think, and too many things that I get caught into thinking over that lead me down a path of self-criticism that is not healthy.
If, as is common, I get caught in this thought process just before bed, I loose sleep over it, but if it strikes during the day, it just reinforces my absolute lack of motivation to do anything! I now make an effort to use the free internet (which I’m using now) at the library purely so that I have a reason to get out of the apartment that is stronger than my desire to stay in bed or in front of the tv.
I’ve been through worse depression in the past, but never a depression as immobilizing. I know that this is because I really have no one to talk to in person (even skype isn’t very good) about anything! Laura, as I mentioned before, left 11 days ago, followed by Alex about a week later, and Ryan just left 3 days ago. Freshman year at Bryn Athyn College, I beat the blues by going to Garrett’s room. I spent countless hours either just listening to his music while he was doing homework, or he and I would sing along with his music, or just chatting with him about my most recent woe. Here, I’ve been forced into writing friends pointless Facebook messages, which I hate doing, just so that I am occupied, and in the hopes that I may receive a response.
But things, as God usually makes it work, are looking up. Today I was able to beat the blues by going for a 24 kilometer bike ride to Henley Beach where I spent an hour taking photos (to be uploaded later), and another hour and a half tanning (or, rather, burning). Yesterday I also was able to get into a very nice mood for a while – I prove myself to be my Sisters’s Brother: in part, the movie Pride and Prejudice (2005) is the cause of this sudden lighter mood I experienced yesterday.
Again, you have no need to be concerned for my physical health: I wouldn’t have the guts to hurt myself intentionally even if I did want to. Miss you all!
I think I can truly and accurately attribute a significant portion of my depression on the weather we’ve been having recently. As I mentioned in my last blog, the past 10 days have had very poor weather. It isn’t that it’s always been raining, because it hasn’t, and it’s not because it has always been cold, but because the combination of heat and clouds has made me decided it was not worth attempting an outdoor activity (like tanning). However, I do recognize that I would still have been depressed even if each day was sunny and cloudless.
These past month or two, and in particular these past two weeks, have not been good for me. Granted there is a few bright moments of the past two weeks that have been appreciated and enjoyable, but for the most part I’ve been struggling with an internal string of thoughts that always gets me down. I have too much time to think, and too many things that I get caught into thinking over that lead me down a path of self-criticism that is not healthy.
If, as is common, I get caught in this thought process just before bed, I loose sleep over it, but if it strikes during the day, it just reinforces my absolute lack of motivation to do anything! I now make an effort to use the free internet (which I’m using now) at the library purely so that I have a reason to get out of the apartment that is stronger than my desire to stay in bed or in front of the tv.
I’ve been through worse depression in the past, but never a depression as immobilizing. I know that this is because I really have no one to talk to in person (even skype isn’t very good) about anything! Laura, as I mentioned before, left 11 days ago, followed by Alex about a week later, and Ryan just left 3 days ago. Freshman year at Bryn Athyn College, I beat the blues by going to Garrett’s room. I spent countless hours either just listening to his music while he was doing homework, or he and I would sing along with his music, or just chatting with him about my most recent woe. Here, I’ve been forced into writing friends pointless Facebook messages, which I hate doing, just so that I am occupied, and in the hopes that I may receive a response.
But things, as God usually makes it work, are looking up. Today I was able to beat the blues by going for a 24 kilometer bike ride to Henley Beach where I spent an hour taking photos (to be uploaded later), and another hour and a half tanning (or, rather, burning). Yesterday I also was able to get into a very nice mood for a while – I prove myself to be my Sisters’s Brother: in part, the movie Pride and Prejudice (2005) is the cause of this sudden lighter mood I experienced yesterday.
Again, you have no need to be concerned for my physical health: I wouldn’t have the guts to hurt myself intentionally even if I did want to. Miss you all!
Cheers!
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