The Great Ocean Road: Day 2

Another bright and early start on day 2 led us to Mait’s Rest Rainforest wherein reside carnivorous black slugs and 300-year-old trees. Our drive took us away from the coast and into the rolling hills just a few kilometers parallel.

Walter’s driving is a thing of beauty. Thousands of repetitions have given him the ability to pull even the sharpest curves smoothly and at top velocity. Our little mini-bus hugged curves, passed station wagons, practically flying through the Otway Forest and back to the coast by mid-morning.

Where the Twelve Apostles waited:

"Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment; when I
wrapped it in thick darkness; when I fixed limits for it; when I set its doors and bars in place; when I said, "This far you
may come and NO FARTHER. Here is where your proud waves halt."

Above is not actually an apostle, but the Salt and Pepper Shakers.

Actually, there are only eight left standing—or seven, or nine, depending on who you ask. And the name “The Apostles,” created by the Australian government in 1922 when it decided sailors’ name “Sow and Piglets” didn’t have the right feel, carries very little actual significance. Coincidentally enough, though, they are falling one by one as the waves slowly wear cracks into them until they collapse into the sea. But by that same order, the waves will continue to create new apostles. Surely there’s a Biblical metaphor in there somewhere.

Don't remember this formation's name. Perhaps "Wall"?

Loch and Gorge is host to a shipwreck and the cave that hosted the only two survivors of said shipwreck—Tom and Eva. The cave, to which I didn’t bring my camera for fear of getting it wet, would have made my 12^th grade English teacher proud, as it perfectly demonstrated what Plato’s Cave was supposed to describe. Plus there were cool shells!

The remaining stops were similarly beautiful, but I have no stories to tell about them. Pictures, I think, will suffice.

Rebecca and Luciane - my two mates on tour . . . who happened to be Brazilian

Upon this rock I will build my church?

London Bridge's first arch fell down, creating only one little island arch instead of the previous two. Apparently when the other arch fell a few years ago, a couple had been parked on what is now an island. They had to be rescued off the
suddenly-created island by helicopter. At first thought to simply be camera-shy, it transpired that the couple was
conducting an affair and the publicity of their "accident" outed them. Justice?

Shipwreck coast (wonder why).

Soccer Time: Aussie Style

KFC! KFC! (this was 20 minutes before the game; the seats were full for
the game)

On my birthday, I bought myself a ticket to an Australian soccer league game: Melbourne Victory vs. Wellington Phoenix. Heading into the game I had very little idea what to expect. The last professional soccer match I watched live was nearly three years ago: a between Turkey and the United States. I was in the nosebleeds, and it was a very unimportant game played in front of an American crowd (American soccer fans are the Eeyore of soccer fans, if Eeyore was dumb as well as unenthusiastic).

Australia did not disappoint me—my tickets were the cheapest I could find, and I still got to sit in the second row—and Australian fans definitely didn’t disappoint. From what I understand, there’s a lot of British culture underpinning Aussie culture—they drive on the left, incorporate the union jack in their flag, and have an incomprehensible appreciation for cricket. And they speak with funny accents (surely that’s a British thing!).

And—like their forebears—they know how to appreciate a good soccer match, with all the illogical fervor of true fans. They cheer and groan in all the right places. The layman fan behind me was explaining strategy to his kid will a level of competency that made me want to turn around and pump his hand as a fellow connoisseur of the Beautiful Game.

After Melbourne’s first goal, the cheering/taunting/loudmouth-competition with the Wellington fans (two sections to my right), opened up. The loudest, longest, and most widespread Melbourne cheer that involved all four sides of the field’s participation and a lot of pointing and yelling was on the topic of bestiality. However, due to the incomprehensibility of most of the shouting to American-accent trained gal like myself, I have no idea who was supposed to be shagging whose sheep under which circumstances or for what reason. It shall ever remain a mystery.

Queuing or Coup-ing, which is worse?

(Sidenote: I’m writing this in the beautiful Carlton Gardens, next to the fountain on the South side of the Royal Exhibition building and everyone with children in a two-mile radius has chosen to descend on me. Moreover, I think the local pigeons are going to make a move in the next few minutes. They’re coup-ing ominously. Heh.)

But my favorite cheer and, indeed, the best part of the game came early in the second half when Marco Rojas took a beautiful corner kick (fifteen meters from where I sat!). The ball bounced back out to him and he attacked the goal with speed before laying it off to his fellow player at the top of the goal box. The shot was just wide, banging against the post back again to Rojas, who easily netted it, despite the sharp angle. The crowd around me erupted and broke into this little cheer:

“Marco Rojas! Marco Rojas! Marco Rojas! He scores when he wants! He scores when he wants!”

Lovely.

I wonder how many beers it would take to get an American crowd of 18,600 to cheer that for a soccer player.

And now, a birthday picture!

Birthday cake!!

Melbourne: Setting the Scene

Scene:

Melbourne, January 6, 2013

Skater park (actually called Lincoln park, but there are gangsta white boys working on their skateboard trix as the trams go by on Swanston Street, so “Skater park”)

Temperature: mild enough to make you forget it’s summer

Windy: always

I have been to Vienna, I’ve been to London. I’ve been to Tokyo and Beijing and Seoul. I’ve seen Bangkok, Siem Reap, Hong Kong, Guatemala City—Chicago, New York, Washington D.C.

And Melbourne—in the summer, in the windy windy summer, with its green parks, its clean trams, classy cafes and second-hand book stores, both cosmopolitan and comfy—Melbourne is the loveliest of them all.

Perhaps I’m just basking in the aura of a new city (I’m prone to) or perhaps, confined to the grey of Busan and the winter of the Midwest, I’ve been coveting the glories and greenery of summertime and this is a long-awaited payoff that couldn’t have gone ill.

Perhaps I’m influenced by how beautiful people are here—stylish, zany, smiley—or by how helpful they are. Australians are westerners at heart, so they don’t attack you with niceties but help asked for here is help given—with a friendly nod and a g’day.

I love that the weather is beyond bipolar. Tri-polar? Quadripolar? Hot enough to melt you one day and jeans weather the next, and all the while wind to blow your skirt above your face. Seriously. It’s a hazard, and on the windy/hot days it feels as though you’re living in a hair dryer (the analogy compliments of Camilla, my newest in a bizarre string of roommates).

I promise to write more soon, blogosphere. I think I’m too much in love with the city right now to do it proper justice. And it’s a lazy kind of love, too—one in which I’d rather bask in its beauty than discover its insecurities—

I’m rambling.

Perhaps perhaps perhaps I’ll have a more coherent thought soon and very soon. In the meantime: pics.