"It is a bit of a cliche to characterize life a a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time - by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discreet options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? or later? Or later still? 
In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions - we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played on out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives fore decades to come." 
- Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Dear Australia,

I really like you. I like you a lot.

Love, Shauna

It all happened so fast. At one point while in Mission Beach, alone and far away, an idea sprouted and I planted it in Dad's head, but displaced it in the back of my mind to slowly germinate. I felt a bit lost, broke, and exhausted from traveling. I was at a point, again, where I wasn't sure which direction of life I was heading towards and any decision could waver the compass' arrow.* I just had a little over a month left in sunny Australia before my visa was up and I thought about just giving in and going home. All the decisions and options of what to do with the remainder of my time could easily be dissipated and solved if I just left them all behind and went home. Home, you may ask, is where? My flight back was booked on miles and Dad checked to see if they could be changed. The only options he could find were to fly either on Christmas back to America, when my family would be in Ireland, or on the 8th of January which wouldn't make any sense to leave just a week early. So, the idea to leave evaporated into the humid heat of northern Queensland and I continued making plans to get back to Brisbane and find a job. 
After dismissing all regional work, finally deciding I didn't want to spend the rest of my time here working towards a second year that I wasn't even sure I wanted to return for, I was set on finding a holiday job. I was flying out of Brisbane, I had friends that were there, it was close to the Gold Coast...it just made sense to go to Brisbane. The only hitch was that I had promised to be in Sydney for Christmas and had made plans for New Years Eve there too. So, technically I had two weeks to work in Brisbane, a week in Sydney, then another 2 weeks of work in Brisbane. Who would hire me for that amount of time - even if I lied about how much time I had there? Sydney was too expensive that I barely gave two thoughts about looking for a place to stay and a job there. 

I didn't think it would be hard to find a job, given most places usually hire extra staff around the holiday season, but I couldn't find any job. I didn't even get any responses back. There were no appropriate jobs posted on seek or indeed or gumtree. I blindly wrote to places of interest, in hopes that they might like my resume or just need some extra help. I wrote to all the Irish pubs in the city - just to confuse them with my wonky accent. I printed out my resume and went around to all the hostels to ask if they were hiring. Everyone said, come back in the new year. I had a place to stay for free (I paid rent with tree-building beer cans) but I couldn't justify staying in Australia for a month, just for the sake of seeing out the rest of my visa, if I wasn't working and I was done with traveling. So the idea that was already planted in Dad's head and buried in the back of my head, began to flourish. It was hard to cancel New Years Eve plans and to think about not only leaving my friends, but the sunshine warmth of summer and to finally leave behind the entire year that was my Australian Adventure. But, once the idea developed into a realisation that I could spend Christmas with my family in Ireland, I was all set and started to check out. The fact that I could pull of a surprise and not tell Jess I was coming made it all the more exciting. Once I realised all this, I went back to happy holiday mode and decided to just enjoy and take advantage of the rest of my time in Australia, trying not to spend the dim remainder of my money, and to soak up as much sun as possible. I think also the fact that I was going to Donegal rather than flying back to America made leaving somewhat more ok. It wouldn't be easy to leave, but I was actually really really excited. 

* I think I should buy a Magic 8 ball as my indecisive compass. 

It Took Me Only 2 Hours to Fly From Cairns Back Down The Coast It Took Me 28 Days To Get Up To.

Leaving Cairns, I am really happy. It's just a 2 hour plane ride back to where I (kinda) started a month ago. I'm absolutely delighted with the trip I've just had up the coast, as with the entire past eleven months in Australia.  I honestly can't believe it, but it feels a bit as though my time in this country is done, even though I still have a little over a month left here. Although I don't want to leave, especially leave the down-under weather, I feel as though the year can be completed whole-heartedly contently. I know I said before that if I could do it again, I would have done everything differently, but regret none of it. Knowing that now is all part of the traveling adventure and self enlightenment.

I have experienced a tremendous amount; I have seen iconic and stunning places; I have endured and persevered, emotionally and physically; I have grown up; I have made necessary sacrifices and worthy splurges; I have been blessed with the utmost kindest generosity and welcoming hospitableness; I have more confidence and am not only more comfortable with myself, but proud of what I've done to get there; I am still as indecisive but maybe a bit wiser; I have learnt things about myself, other people, other places and cultures and how to travel; I have seen places I have wanted to check off an invisible list of places to see, but realised that it is all about the people you are with who make the memories you will remember about the place; I have eternally grateful, appreciative, and indebted for having all these opportunities; I have met so many incredibly wonderful people that I truly feel grateful to have in my life and make me want to continue to travel - not only for the thrill of meeting new friends, but to travel to where these new friends are now to meet up again; and most importantly, I have fulfilled my 3rd grade dream. All of this with no plan except a one way ticket. The year at UNISG might still be my favourite, but this past year has been solidly the best one for me personally. It makes me excited and want to travel more, to see more of the world, to meet new people and visit friends around the world, and test more of myself in new situations to see how it will mould me into who I am supposed to be.

Since I know my time is coming to an end here with just a few weeks to enjoy the warmth of summer and spend the remaining time with my friends, I think I have nearly checked-out. When you know something is within your grasp, even if you don't want to leave, you start to look towards the future, to what's next, and get excited to go home to bask in the little things that have become luxuries to the backpacker. Despite everything I just mentioned from the last year here that I am going to honestly miss, and even though I still don't know where home is, I cannot wait to see my family.

So, as I fly over the Great Barrier Reef again (not as cool as my Whitsunday trip, but still really amazing to see from so high up) with my window seat overlooking the same coast I just traveled by ground up, it feels like the perfect ending.

Mission Beach. (and life decisions)

After my desired plane ride over the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, it was literally onwards and upwards - this time, unfortunately past Magnetic Island - but onto Mission Beach. Mission Beach is one of those places you hear about now and again as a popular stop along the coast. Mainly, it is famous for tourists to skydive: jump out of an airplane over the GBR and land directly onto Mission Beach. Although it would have been a stunning experience, I have already skydived and had to save my money for other travels expenses. I was heading to Mission Beach because I wanted an opportunity to WWOOF again and I had found a hydroponic farm along Mission Beach that sounded right up my alley in terms of what I wanted to learn about growing vegetables and herbs - a learning experience in the tropical rain forest for my future Irish farm, no doubt. Makes sense. On the 8 hour bus ride up to Mission Beach from Airlie Beach, northern Queensland is absolutely breath-taking - and this is just the views from the side of the road from a bus window. We were surrounded by cascading mountains, tall grasses, wild palm trees and eucalyptus trees, lush vegetation, fertile fields of purposely planted produce I couldn't even identify but imagined mangos, avocados, bananas and aloe vera, and the sense of the intoxicating aquamarine ocean was just beyond reach. Going further north and into the rampant rain forest, I really felt as though I was finally far away - far away from civilisation and far away from home. Even when in the middle of Western Australia, I never actually felt so in the middle of nowhere. I felt as though, maybe I had come too far, that it was time to go back. I knew I had to be back all the way south in Sydney in a month for Christmas and I wasn't quite sure how I would get there.
Upon arriving in Wongoling Beach, one of the villages along Mission Beach where my hostel was, there was nothing in the near vicinity besides a little shopping arcade with a closed news agent, an over priced Thai restaurant (over priced for the mere backpacker, but boy did it look scrumptious) and a Woolies.
So, I walked to the beach hoping to get a glimpse at the pastel sunset. As I was about to set out upon my stroll, a guy came running over to me yelling at me to watch out. He said I had to stand back or else the descending sky divers might knock me out, breaking bones or even killing me. So, I stayed back and watched the landing show. One actually did come quite close to me as I ran back into the prickly vegetation on the edge of the sand, but I smiled as they all screamed with joy at their survival. The beach was pretty empty, and it felt weird to feel alone for once. Alone and far away. Even traveling by myself for the last couple weeks, I hadn't actually felt very alone. Being alone is nice, even necessary sometimes, as long as you don't take it for loneliness. Everyone needs to have their own space, but a quote I learned along the way, "happiness is only true when shared" popped into my head. As much as I have grown comfortable with myself since traveling solo and relished in my own time, it would be nice to share these experiences with someone (oh, hello Blog). But, I had grown a bit tired of traveling; I had no desire to talk to any new people in the hostel and needed to figure out my own life before I could invite anyone new into it.

 To be honest, as I sat there on the sand and staring off into the vast ocean, thinking about my travels and all the beautiful places along the coast I had seen, with the sunset symbolically closing the day with my own ending introspection, I still thought: Killyhooey is still my favourite beach.

Mission Beach to me, since I wasn't doing the sky dive, was a quiet stop off where I did not do much, but contemplate back and forth (times a hundred million) what to do with my remaining time here in Australia. I was looking forward to some of the nature "things" Mission Bach offered, like a walk in the rain forrest, a day trip to Dunk Island, a Cassowary conservation site (what is that? it's like an emu) and Sunday morning markets.

But the following day it absolutely poured with unbareably high humidity - the kind of heat that you want to sleep completely naked, not even a thin sheet to cover your feet, despite the fact that you are in a hostel with 7 other people in the room. It was the start of the rainy season and I had to decide if I wanted to stay up here for another month, in the rain, and the curly-hair-humidity to do my remaining farm work. If I got my second year visa, it would be really, another year of living abroad. Another year of fabulous weather, meeting new people, and picture-perfect places. It would be nice to have it as an option, a bit of a shame not to take advantage, but I could always come back on a tourist visa.  I've met so many people here who were just on holiday, whereas I always thought Australia was too far away to do that. People actually go on holidays rather than moving to unknown places without a plan!!!  This year of mine, without a plan, here in Australia....I don't even know how to put into words. I do know that looking back, I would have done everything differently, but I regret nothing. It was an experience. It was my Australian Adventure. A year was exactly what I needed and now I want to create a real life. I can honestly say that I have grown up, that I am more comfortable with myself, and have heaps more confidence. I absolutely adored and appreciated the opportunities I had, the experiences while traveling by myself, the friends that I met along the way - some who I hope to keep in contact with and see again in the near future - and yes, can check off these places on my places to see.

So, back to my indecisiveness - which I still have to work on - I made a plan. I weighed all my options, over a couple hours, checking out prices for buses and flights and which combination of travel was the cheapest and most convienent and searched for some inner confidence to comfort me in knowing whichever decision I was going to make was going to be the right one. I was to leave Mission Beach earlier than planned (missed out on getting my 3rd night's refund back) and go up to Cairns to not only check it out, but to fly from there back to Brisbane. I had another WWOOF opportunity down there, who seemed pretty eager to have me run their Community Garden at this swanky mountain top resort, but something about it didn't feel right and Brisbane also was where I had a few friends I could meet up with again. I was flying out of Brisbane in a couple weeks anyways so I thought it would be best to look for a job there to earn some money to pay back for all this traveling. I had a plan, I was going to stick with it, and I was going to feel good about it. 

But this road doesn’t go anywhere,” I told him.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What does?” I asked, after a little while.
“Just that we’re on it, dude,” he said.

LESS THAN ZERO, BRET EASTON ELLIS

Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.

FAHRENHEIT 451, RAY BRADBURY

PPPPerth.

I haven't written in a while and I make the excuse that I am just living an every day life with an urban routine that includes a part-time job, managing my leftover budget after paying rent, taking advantage of going out to experience all of Perth's offerings, and attempting to meet people to establish friendships and stories along the way. That doesn't mean that it isn't fun. It doesn't mean that it's boring. It's all part of the adventure. But, with that slowed-down version of what life has been, I have had a lot more time to reflect upon life in Australia and question what I am doing here. I've been applying to jobs in order to find new challenges. I evaluate what I accomplished in the day, in the week, that I couldn't do anywhere else in the world since I made a choice to come to the other side. I look for ways to learn, as in, my own search for "the best" spinach-ricotta pastry roll in the city. I daydream over what's next in my Australian adventure. I mull over whether or not I'm making the most of my time here. There is usually at least one part of the day when I'm walking down the street and have a moment where I smile and can't believe I am here but then the other day I woke up crying and couldn't explain why.  I was walking home one day, barefoot in Australian style, and was in love with the neighbourhood I was in. I texted Jess and said, you would love Perth, it's a lot like California. And she responded, well why don't you live in California - it's much closer. And I couldn't think of a reply except that, I like their accents better here. 

photo from amber rae

I was recently introduced to a a blog by Amber Rae who describes herself as "hell-bent on cultivating a world where human potential is not governed by what we’re told we can and cannot do, but rather by our highest intentions and inner gifts; and obsessed with unrealized potential and helping people claim the lives they are meant to live." Her blog posts and quotes rang exceptionally true to many of my recent thoughts. One post mentioned this article by Paul Graham called Cities and Ambition. 

And hence, from these two, come my latest and greatest blog post about my own life's brooding musings. 

Paul Graham proposes that each city sends a message which attract people who aspire to that same message:

"New York tells you, above all: you should make more money.

What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter.

As much as they respect brains in Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should be more powerful.

The message Berkeley sends is: you should live better.

The big thing in LA seems to be fame.

 In DC the message seems to be that the most important thing is who you know.

in London you can still (barely) hear the message that one should be more aristocratic."

I actually smiled when I read this article because I knew immediately how to relate it to Perth. Whenever I am asked, I always say I like Perth a lot. Why, they inquire. Because it has a lot of potential, I respond. I elaborate that I like how Perth isn't touristy - there are a lot of foreigners, but they all live here. There aren't really many touristy sites....the Bell Tower? Along with that, and the fact that it is so far away from everywhere else, makes Perth feel as though it's your own personal best kept secret; you have it to yourself to mould it into its potential. The messages that Paul Graham associate with these cities ring true as cities are merely collections of people with like-minds. To link that idea to what I'm doing in Perth therefore makes sense. Like Perth, I believe that I have a lot of potential to be, and do, something great, and Perth is currently my stepping stone along my life-path's direction. Me, and all the other foreigners who left home and came to Perth to figure it out. 

"No matter how determined you are, it's hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do." - Paul Graham

With it's potential, I think Perth must have some sort of interesting food scene, or at least I think it should (maybe that's why I haven't found it yet.) I feel like there's something missing that I haven't caught on to yet, but I'm constantly looking for it as I feel it is well suited for Perth (re: potential). Maybe the answer is me. Maybe I should start it rather than seek it out where it doesn't exist. If I truly believe I am capable of this so-called potential, then what am I doing about it? Paul Graham says that, as determined as you are to make a city work for you, to find your niche within it, you most likely won't find it or will have a hard time building it into the city. He wanted Cambridge, but couldn't find it in NYC. 

I don't mean to sound contradictory, saying that you can't build your own niche within a city of a determined message, while saying that I am looking for it in Perth and maybe it's up to me to create it. What (I think) I mean to say is that, Perth's potential makes me want to stay here. I have a flat here, a crappy job, I have friends. I want to have a life, and that daunting yet promising future may actually involve leaving to another city and starting all over again. Maybe it's an excuse, but it is safer, more comfortable, and easier to stay than leave.  I haven't been to the east yet, but everyone says Perth is at least 10 years behind it - probably the reason why there is so much room for its budding potential. I often feel as though I am racing against a clock in the opposite way of Perth. Instead of catching up with time, I wish I wasn't as old as I am - even though age is just a number - but wish that I had more time to do all the things I want to. I definitely don't regret any of my past choices or experiences along the way, but I just don't know how I am supposed to fit in everything else in before I am really really OLD. I'm torn therefore, between fitting everything into this ticking clock - I can't believe I've been in Australia 6 months already - and staying in this comfortable way of life I've created for myself over here, on my very own. I won't know until I am in a new place, and hear it's message for myself. Maybe it will ring true, resonating all the right answers I'm looking for, or maybe it will just be silent; creating just another step along the way. 

Paul Graham says he moved to Florence thinking that it would be the art centre of the world that he was looking for, only to find out he was 450 years too late. Maybe I'm too early for Perth. Maybe Perth's potential and my potential are waiting to coincide at the right moment. Maybe I keep traveling and living all over the world because I am looking for the resonating message who's city (or farm?) is filled with the right like-minded people who will help me aspire to my own potential's greatness. Everywhere along the way has led me here, and has helped shape not only who I am, but the world I am looking for. Because I do not know what that is exactly, I take life as series of adventures, of different stages where I'm learning and living through experiencing. Before I left for Italy, mum asked me if I were to get married right then, who would be my bridesmaids. When I returned from Italy a year later, she asked me the same question and the answer had changed. Some people come in and out of our lives for a reason. They all matter. They're all connecting pieces of the puzzle. They're all part of the process that move us forward. Who knows what's next?! I'm excited to find out. In the mean time, I will take full advantage of the ticking time to realise all of Perth's potential probably* until November, when the comfort of my flat's lease is up and the weather is better in the rest of Australia (because Australia is all sunshine, beaches, and hot surfers right?)

*...I was invited up to Darwin next week, and I am tempted to say yes, to grab the spur of the moment adventure and just go with it. Even though I cannot afford it, it would be fun. 


Thank you Reena. 

"Though their life was modest, they believed in eating well." — James Joyce (Dubliners)

My flatmate keeps making fun of me for continuously threatening myself with an instant ramen diet.

The first week of living here in Perth after moving up from Frankland, I wandered past the big chains and overpriced gourmet food stores to find myself in a little mart jammed packed with all sorts of foreign Asian goods with no English descriptions on the packaging. The only thing I could comprehend beyond the savory images were the numbers marking the price. Quite content on finding the so-far cheapest bottle of Sriracha in Perth and picking up two differently flavored packages of 5-packet ramens for $5, I thought I had found myself a bargain that my partime salary could compete with.

As I've mentioned before: Perth is a ridiculously expensive city. As I've implied before: to call Perth a city is relative. Let's rephrase: Perth is a ridiculously expensive place. Since living here for the last month - really living here - I have come to understand why.

I type this as the tab for ANZ's Internet banking is open, but I am hesitant to reveal the truth of it's accounts to make my survival until next week's pay day become a stark and dismal reality.

The main reason Perth is so expensive is that it can be. It's like a spoiled only child. Located in the middle of nowhere, the nearest city, Adelaide, is over 2,000 kilometers away; a flight from Perth in the West to Sydney in the East is about 5 hours - the same length for a flight from the American East coast to it's West coast; and driving 10 hours directly north of Perth only covers about 2 inches on a map. Part of this connection between its isolation and its monopoly over exuberant prices is that it is expensive to import things from around the world, let alone transport goods from other parts of the country. Indonesia is closer to Perth than Sydney is. Maybe because of this, and/or maybe they don't have any other choice, I have found that Australia is very proud in selling their own products: most bars serve a majority of Australian beers, most bottle shops predominately sell Australian wines, many bands are local artists, everyone claims to have known Heath Ledger - just kidding.

Another tie in to the expensiveness and remoteness is that Perth is a booming hub for the resource industry. With all the surrounding nothingness, there are a lot of mining jobs to be had with a lot of work to be done. These unfavorable locations and long hours pay a lot of money for these jobs. Called FIFO - fly in fly out - people fly to remote destinations for jobs that will last maybe 2 weeks at a time working hard with nowhere or no time to spend their money, then they fly home to Perth for a week with pockets filled with money to burn. Apparently, part of the lure to bring people to work in these desolate areas is to have tremendously nice facilities. Perth then has to compete with keeping people in all sectors of the economy in Perth. Why work in retail or hospitality when you could have a cleaning job at the mines earning $100,000 a year? How can the schools compete with teachers salaries in the city and providing quality education when the teachers can get more money up north? People are literally changing career paths to earn more money in the mines. With these incredible incomes and salaries, Perth can get away with charging such high prices that people now have the money to spend. I would say that the standard employment pay is relative to the standard of living in Perth, but it's not necessarily fair to the people who do not have jobs in the mining industry who are still trying to survive. This has caused a huge discrepancy between the population. My hourly rate isn't bad, but that doesn't mean I can afford a $16 sandwich for lunch or can buy a round of $10 beers. Once in the night. For two people. It's tempting, really tempting, to go work for $80/hour at one of the mines to put away a couple grand, but at the same time, I would feel like a tremendous sell out. Money can't be everything, it can't be the driving force in life.....oh! but the prospect of the promises that financial security offers is so so tempting. I haven't necessarily ruled it out yet. The ANZ tab is glaring at me, daring me to face reality. But, what would my friends and family think if I worked in a MINE?!

So if Perth is so expensive and I'm trying to save money to travel, you must wonder: why am I living here, currently in fear of my bank account, and with the packets of ramen still uneaten? You must wonder, if it hasn't already pissed you off, why have I resorted to buying terrible ramen noodles like a poor college student, which I never ate in college, when I KNOW how to eat better than that after a year of apparent studying in Italy?

Which brings me to two points I want to discuss:

Despite feeling quite proud in my bargain shopping of cheap ramen, even doing a comparison shopping of different brands and prices and flavors, there is a reason why they are still sitting in the larder. I thought I was doing the right thing, buying cheap food to save my money and thinking this $5 would feed me for at least 10 meals (10 days actually, I don't think I could even attempt to endeavour eating more than one packet in a day). But the more I thought about it, the more I understood how I was dooped into the negative way people think about food these days. I felt, without thinking about it, that I had to buy crap in order to not spend a lot of money. But didn't I just spend a whole year studying the culture of food, the economy of food, the politics of food, the effects food has on the environment and on our health? Why did I immediately think I had to buy instant processed food in order to save money? Shouldn't I be preaching better purchasing decisions and better eating habits to show people that they can buy quality food without breaking the bank? Isn't that what made me so frustrated about customers and their thoughts towards buying foods at the farmers market last summer - didn't I want to prove them wrong? Isn't this what I want to educate people on: how can a 69 cent bag of instant just-add-hot-water food with dehydrated vegetables and high sodium flavoring from Asia actually cost 69 cents? What is the nutritional content of 69 cents (I don't know, it's all in Chinese). Here I was going into "survival mode" of bulk instant ramen - the spicy kind of course, I might add - and getting angry and frustrated at the way food is treated and marketed and even more so, embarrassed at myself.

Instead, I bought bags of red, green, and black lentils, chickpeas, couscous, whole wheat penne, and flour to make homemade bread to slice and keep in the freezer. I'm not sure where the food comes from, but the Subiaco weekend market has terrific prices and all sorts of produce. If you go at the end of the day on Sunday they are literally trying to give away the food for $1 a bag. The little Asian shop down the street in Maylands sells discounted food that most places would throw out because of a few blemishes or is on it's last day on the shelf. My body craves vegetables, not instant food, and despite every purchase being a comparison shop and being conscious about what I want and what I need and what I can afford, I am more aware of the price of the food and wondering how certain bags of carrots or a head of lettuce can be so cheap. I know I shouldn't be complaining because I'm trying not to spend money either - I expected 10 meals from $5 - but it's ridiculous what people expect out of food. How they will pay $4.50 for a small cup of coffee or $3 for a soda, but then complain about the cost of milk or not have any comprehension surrounding the efforts put into production or the cost of transportation or the wages for the labor. *sigh

dilemma. 

6 bottles of cheap wine may seem like a good deal, but 2 bottles of quality good-tasting wine really make a difference. Same goes for olive oil. For local fruits. For vegetables in season. For making homemade bread.

buy less for your budget. buy better for your life. 

I am still tempted to do a full-on ramen diet week - I have the packets already, why let them go to waste (if there even is an expiration date). I've tried already, but once mixed in a jar of kimchi and another time added some sauteed bok choy and cut up tomatoes into it with drizzles of Sriracha. I physically can't bear to empty the packet of powdered flavoring into it, knowing how much sodium is in it, but maybe, just as an experiment, I could see what it's like to really live on a ramen diet.....thoughts?

And so to the second point from that previous discussion:

I like Perth a lot. Despite being one of the most expensive cities in the world, it is also ranked as one of the most livable and one of the highest qualities of living (is there any oxymoron somewhere there?) Just seventeen years short of being 200 years old (!) it reminds me a lot of California. Yes, the sunny weather and beach side proximity do help in this comparison. It's clean, pretty, budding, walkable, manageable.  Sure, there are a lot of ugly buildings, but there's a lot of breath-takingly unique ones. I love the neighborhoods in the suburbs where each house is distinctly different as though each plot of land had its own architect with a freedom to design whatever they wanted and took advantage of that opportunity. I could go on and on about the houses, but I can't find the right descriptive vocabulary right now.

What I like about Perth, and part of the reason why I decided to come to the west coast first, is that despite all the travelers, backpackers, and heavily populated foreigners, there aren't a lot of tourists (differentiation: tourists don't live here). It's kinda its own hidden gem. There aren't a whole lot of touristy sights in Perth in general and maybe that observation has something to do with me making fun of it being called a city. Before I left for Australia, most people I had talked to who had been here had been to the east coast, but said they never made it to Perth or Western Australia as it was too far away. I haven't been to the east coast yet, so I can't say anything about that, but for now, I like Perth. A lot of people rave about Melbourne and say Perth is 10 or even 20 years behind it, but I think Perth has a lot of potential. And for that, I'm rooting for Perth.
For the last couple "moves" I've always had a time frame: a year in Italy, a few months in Ireland, a summer in Portsmouth, a little over a month in Ireland, then a few weeks in Perth before 3 months in Frankland. Now I have no time frame, no future destination or plan, and I kinda like the freedom of it. I applied for a job in a restaurant because I thought it'd be still along the food lines slash hospitality side of things in terms of learning all the in's and out's of the food industry while at the same time being flexible, social, and non-committal so that I could test out the Perth waters to see if I liked it or at least get some cash before deciding where I wanted to go next. But for now, I like it, and think I might look for something a little more serious until something else comes along. I like the paychecks, the routine of work, the rent responsibility, the budgeting of money I've worked for, the "real life" I haven't had in a while. I love my little home with my own room and my flatmate, but living out of a backpack still makes me feel a little "unreal." For now, it's ok. For now, the ramen will be there for cases of starving emergencies in between paychecks and as a reminder that although life can be tough, there's always a lesson to learn from it. Sacrifice may mean learning how to prioritize, but it doesn't have to mean sacrificing the quality of your life or disregarding your standards, no matter where you are.

I have since opened up the ANZ tab. Let's not talk about it. 

“I sensed that a clear picture of my predicament lay veiled nearby, like an exam result in an envelope, or a pair of policemen sitting in the next-door room, awaiting my arrival.” - The Country Life.

As vintage slowly came to an end, so did my time at Frankland Estate. At first, I was taken aback when Elizabeth mentioned May, suggesting that I could stay until the end of vintage if I wanted to. Three months seemed like a daunting amount of time, but it soon became clear that it made sense. Not only was it the amount of time I needed for my regional work, but it was also the length of time Felix would be there for his internship. Those three months would have been a completely different experience for both of us if we didn’t have each other as roomies – I could not have been more grateful.

As the previous day's road trip clearly showed that vintage had come to an end (the work is so full-on that it is rare to have a day off) I spent the following day reading a book about a twenty-nine year old who leaves her London life to move to the country to work on a family estate. Suddenly, I had a terrible thought. Not terrifically terrible, but almost panicked. I thought, what if, once again, in a state of contentment and easiness, I have over-extended my stay. I don’t think it is quite over-extended yet, as last week was the end of vintage, but another month here I think will be over-extended. I knew the time was coming up, but I didn’t think that it was now, sooner rather than later. There wasn’t much work left for me to do at the winery – although there is always something to do – but I’m pretty sure I was all set with my experience in labeling, bottling, and shipments. It wasn’t so much the what or where that had me in a panic, but the time frame I had to figure those out. Last time I was trying to figure out what to do it took me three weeks. Luckily, as things always seem to work themselves out, I figured it out sooner rather than later during a weekend in Perth. After a week of researching, applying, and writing to people and places, I had an interview and a flat meeting set up. And before the weekend was over, I had a  part time job and a room in a flat! Everything seemed to come together so easily that I was just waiting for something to go wrong.  It didn’t. Goodbye country mice and vineyard spiders, Hello city life. 

Easter.

I had a long weekend for the Easter holiday so I decided to take advantage and use the travel time to go up to Perth. I yearned for a bit of civilization, socializing, and familiarity - sure, we’ve taken the weekends to get away and be touristy around Great Southern, but they've just been day trips really - and yet at the same time I was anxious about how I would feel towards “big”* city life after two months in “isolation”**: would I hate it, would I love it, would it be loud, would I feel rushed, would I miss it?  In the end, I really enjoyed being back in Perth: seeing people I knew, laughing a lot while catching up, learning how to play poker - and winning - singing karaoke, not drinking wine, and relishing in the familiar ease of navigating my way around.

*"big" as in Perth isn't really a big city.

** "isolation" as in Frankland really is isolated.

It would have been nice to have another day, but I had quickly spent all my money without knowing or realizing it – it’s just an expensive place in general. I spent in three hours to feel like a “normal” “civilized” “real” person again three times as much as I spend in an entire week down south. It was nice to know that I still liked Perth for future movements, and also nice to realize that I was happy to come back to my little "zoo" of a home in Frankland.

What I really realized from this weekend away was how lucky I have been. From talking to people about what I was doing four hours south, it occurred to me that I couldn’t have written to a better place to work at. I wrote to Frankland Estate because they were listed in the WWOOF book, not because I had heard of them before. Going through the book, I knew I wanted to work towards my three months of regional work to be eligible to apply for my second year visa as a dual-experience by combining it with a continuation of learning in an area I was interested in. I don't think I would be suitable for or interested in fence building, outdoor lavatories, or massive cattle farms, but I wrote to wineries, olive orchards, and even thought I could sacrifice my asthma for working on a goat farm making cheese. The WWOOF book only contains hosts that practice organic farming. The places I wrote to out of interest in their farming practices could have been of any quality and any size production. Only after had I received a response from the estate did I think to look it up online and began to search for it in wine guide books in the book stores of Perth. The fact that they even had a website and that the books even listed them gave them credibility to me – and more so with their high wine scores. I guess it is safe to say I was desperate for an opportunity and willing to take anything, but for some reason, luck was on my side. Despite all the anxious anticipation I had from reading how remote they were on the website, that soon eased away with the compatibility of my roomie, the friendliness of the family, the hands-on approach to the work, and the deliciousness of the wine. It all could have been crap and I could have hated it. But the Frankland Estate wines, even though I am still learning and trying to train my palate, are remarkable and I could not have been luckier to have such a wine-learning experience here. The patience and the fervor in which the people like to talk about wine is tremendous.  The hard work is literally never-ending, but because it is a family-run estate, the dedication is unstoppable and full of passion. They work for each other and with each other and the final product reveals this time, effort, and love.


Leaving for a long weekend and coming back, I realize how much I have learned and am grateful for the experience and opportunity. It was the perfect timing for it - not only mentally but because it is the end of vintage. Now, I need to figure out what’s next. You’d think I was used to it by now - always moving, always changing, always planning, always unsure of the future - but it always causes a scratching of anxiety that I try to block out. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it eventually comes to the surface, peer-pressuring me to face it, like the chore you don’t want to to do or the bill you avoid paying until last minute.

Baa-Baa 

2010: Two years ago I spent Easter in northern Greece eating all parts of a lamb roasted whole outside in the back yard with friends I had just met, but are now life-long friends.

2011: Last year I spent Easter with our family friends in Dunfanaghy eating Irish lamb and potatoes.

2012: This year I spent Easter in Australia with an American and a German eating a backyard-raised lamb grilled on the BBQ in the typical Aussie fashion outside on a warm autumn night. 

Maybe lamb is the only commonality between these last couple of years, in various countries around the world with different people, but as we remarked this year, it doesn't matter where you are or who you are with but that one little piece of tradition brings the holiday together. Tradition doesn't have to be about doing the same thing every year, but you make it mean something to yourself. We could have ate pasta. We didn't have mint sauce. But the lamb made it feel like we were celebrating Easter. It was appropriate and it was appreciated. 

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For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings.

Ends and beginnings - there are no such things.

There are only middles.

~Robert Frost

W(h)ining.

Not everything is learning about wine, frolicking in the vineyards, and drinking lots of wine.

Sometimes it's about impressing guests. Sometimes it's about cleaning the winery. Sometimes it's about putting your headphones on and getting down to some hard core power-washing the floors. Sometimes it's about really enjoying the power-hose and seeing the different colored floor being revealed underneath the layer of wine-stains. Sometimes it's about helping with the cooking. Sometimes it's about volunteering to do the dishes. Sometimes it's about eating two carb-hearty meals a day before 1pm and eating it all because you're hungry and it's in front of you, and then being invited to dinner and saying yes and eating more because it's free and homemade. Sometimes it's about pretending to look busy and refilling your water bottle because you're not sure what else to do. Sometimes it's about cleaning out the stainless steel tanks. Sometimes it's about having work nightmares but those nightmares include spiders, not presentations or conference calls. Sometimes it's about taking the leftover and/or half-opened bottles of wines because no one else wants them and enjoying them yourself. Sometimes it's about walking into a room or your house and looking up at the ceiling and along the walls, almost always unwillingly, to see what creature might be lurking above. Sometimes it's about sneaking in some iChats early in the morning as it's the best time to converse with a 13 hour time difference. Sometimes it's about being a stereotype. Sometimes its about going to bed at 9pm and sometimes it's about having to be at work at 1:30am. Sometimes it's about being a girl squealing at squashed birds, gagging at drowned mouse, and convulsing at ginormous spiders as they pass by on the grape-press conveyor belt with the guys making fun of you. Sometimes it's about labeling wine bottles with the appropriate and necessary export stickers. Sometimes it's about taking the 5 hours of WWOOF work requirement and then sitting on the internet to catch up on "real-life" while the work outside in the winery continues. And sometimes it's ok to be alright with that. Sometimes it's about sticking around until the work is done to receive that cold, rewarding beer to drink with the guys.

And then sometimes, when it is about the wine, and you have no idea what you are doing, it's ok to make a mistake like letting oxygen into the tube, or water into the tank. Because the details were not explicit and the questions were not known to be asked. Well, let's just hope that sometime's it's ok.

It is all about the in's and out's of a successful, functioning winery of a family-run Estate. So, yeah, sometimes it really is about learning about wine, frolicking around the vineyard, and drinking good wine. 

"Envision, create, and believe in the universe, and your universe will form around you."


...thank you Reena :)

“When I was young, my father used to say, ‘If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive.”
― Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone

Every Little Bit Helps: A Bit of Appreciation Not to Lose Sight Of.

On our long road trip's way to Monkey Mia, JD started to question what he was doing here in Australia and what rewards his job were giving him. Sounding a bit disheartened, I reminded him why he had applied to the company in the first place, that ultimately his concern and interests were in the reduction of energy, for the good of the environment, and that every little bit he is doing helps, even if the scale of work was different in Australia than in America. Even though the commission and the amount of energy that is being reduce is significantly lower, these Australian companies are participating in a lower-energy scheme in times of need then they usually wouldn't be without the help and advice of JD and his company, therefore making their part in relieving the power grid rather than everyone losing out all together. It’s like the probably-more-than $4 plastic bottles of water in Starbucks that donate, I don’t know, 30 cents or so to water-starved places in Africa. Even though you don’t want to pay that much, or know better than to buy another plastic bottle, every little donation is 30 cents more than they would be receiving without the customer’s help. It’s easy to lose our ways and forget about our priorities or our initial reasoning behind doing something, but generally, or hopefully, every little bit helps.

I know there are a couple reasons why I signed up to WWOOF.  One was definitely not to say, “I’m a WWOOFer,” or “I’m here WWOOFing.” OK, but seriously, one reason was a chance to live and eat “for free” in exchange for a couple hours of work each day. This also includes the chance to travel to places I might not normally go to, and meet new people within a new lifestyle in another country. Another was a chance to have a unique learning experience - whether it was learning how to make cheese on a goat farm, or herding cattle (prob not), or learning about organic farming practices, or learning about healing herbs, or being a part of a hippy community, or working on a vineyard - but in all honesty, it was a continuation of a stage I was creating for myself and another opportunity to learn hands-on, as I am a visual learner, by being a part of a production process.

(and really, in serious all honesty, it's because it gives me the chance to be able to stay in Australia for a second year, if I so desire). 

This also includes my way of understanding appreciation. I’m a firm believer that to be able to appreciate something, and to fully respect it, you really have to experience it for yourself. For example, from working in a restaurant, I understand what it’s like to be the dishwasher, to bus tables, to be in the front of the house and the back of the house. From those experiences, I have a better understanding as a customer in a restaurant for knowing why something maybe go wrong or why things go well. This gives me more patience in these circumstances because I know what it’s like to bust my ass and still have things go wrong, or the rewards from a successful, flawless night. To further the example of appreciation and understanding, as I see it, it also means that I may not know what my mother and father went through raising us, until I’m a parent myself. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate them, it just means I can’t fully realize the decisions and choices they made until I am forced to be in that position to make them myself (don't laugh Jess.) I can only hope I can be so good, but I have no idea what it’s like right now. If that makes sense. Anyone that knows me knows that I absolutely adore my parents. And anyone that Really knows me, knows that when I say adorable, I mean it. Stemming from that, I wanted to WWOOF to make this exchange experience a way that I can fully appreciate food/wine by being a part of it’s production from start to finish to understand how its made from a hands on experience rather than just eating/drinking or reading from a textbook (HA! Should I say website? UNISG get your act together)

In terms of appreciation, so far, I have done a lot of manual labour. It’s line work. Repetitive. Almost mindless. I say almost mindless because you’re repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again and it’s easy for the mind to wonder, but actually it’s really imperative to keep up with the work and pay attention. "make attention, people." One pause or change of pattern and the work will fall behind. But this experience will (hopefully) ultimately lead to an appreciation for the work that goes into making wine.

Because it’s still new, I’m still in the excitement mode of the novelty of the process, despite the aches and pains throbbing throughout my body from literally the cramping of my fingers to the blisters on my ankles. The reason for this post is that I was thinking today of the advice I gave JD in the car, and because of all this grueling-tiring-intensive-manual-labour work, I hope I don’t lose sight of the reason(s) behind why I’m here and don’t lose the sense of excitement that I currently have. But I know it’s not a job that I will be doing forever, and that makes it tolerable to endure and manageable with an end in sight (It’s still new, let’s not even begin to think or talk about what comes next after this). 

I sometimes think, as I’m packing bottle after bottle into a box, or picking through grapes, what am I doing this work for when I have a great education, a wonderful background, and a lot to offer. Why am I not sitting in an office like everyone else? Why can’t I be normal? What am I doing here and with my life? But I think about the hands-on education that I am gaining that not many people have: whether it is learning about the in’s and out’s life and work of a winery, the dedication and hard work of the people behind it (especially a family-run estate), the little details no one thinks about as they are drinking or ordering wine based on prices and labels, or just being a part of the process, I appreciate it, and I hope I don’t lose sight of that. I know I don’t have any obligation to stay here, maybe a sense of pride not to give up and no other current option to leave to, but I hope, and I think, that the hard work will pay off and if anything else, the sore body parts will turn into shapely muscles that have never been used before ("heyyy sexy fingers"). Every little bit helps.

So next time you’re in the wine store or "bottle shop" buying a case of wine for your dinner party, or for your Tuesday night on the couch, think about the person who is putting the wine into the boxes, minding the cardboard apparitions, and appreciate it.  Because, I know, now that I have been a part of it, I will. 

3 Months.

3 months is the amount of time needed of regional work experience to be eligible to apply for a second year visa. 3 months is the amount of time Felix will be here for his internship. 3 months is the amount of time I lived in Ireland for last spring.

I was telling Elizabeth about Monkey Mia and not seeing any dolphins and not seeing any penguins on Penguin Island she was like well at the end of vintage we’ll take you to see the whales in Bremen Bay in May – if you decide to stay. And I was like do they expect me to stay that whole time? I was thinking maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month or two and thought I’d continue WWOOFing somewhere else to gain another experience. But, on the one hand from this comment, I liked the trust they instilled in me, and reliability on a continued experience. On the other hand I counted in my head…February, March, April, May…ahhh! That seems so far away. I guess that counts for my 3 months regional work. It could be nice to have it all done at one place, all at once, with a better overall experience of the process rather than short and choppy. It’s a better understanding of the wine making process I’m looking for, after all.

 February. March. April. May.  I can do this. 

The Start of My New Adventure.

As Mum and Dad excitedly exclaimed, "welcome to your new adventure!" I kinda like that idea of this as my new adventure, and more so their enthusiasm :)

Monday Feb 20 - Ok, so I have arrived at Frankland Estate in seriously, the middle of nowhere Frankland, in Great Southern Australia. After a 4 hour bus ride from Perth, to Kojonup, I got off the bus and laid my bags on a bench beneath a tourist board displaying mostly Aboriginal historical sites and natural explorations of the area and looked around the car park to not knowing who would be picking me up to the realization that there was no one there waiting for me. The bus was surprisingly on time so I gave a little bit of leeway before panic set in and would have to make a phone call. Luckily, shortly after, a car pulled up with a smiling woman waving to me. 

Kojonup, from the one main street that drove through it, despite the fact that it actually had a bus stop from Perth was extremely quiet. We went to the “big” supermarket in town, an IGA, which was noticeably clean, orderly, and well stocked, but empty of mid-day shoppers. If Kojonup was considered one of the bigger towns in the area, I had little expectations of life in Frankland. “I forgot to mention to you in our emails how isolated we are out here,” Elizabeth commented. I smiled somewhat nervously. 

We drove for about 50 kilometers on pretty straight but hilly roads surrounding on either side by huge trees offering the road some shade and blocking the views of the expansive yellow fields behind them, until we suddenly arrived in Frankland. It all went by so quickly I’m not sure I really have a grasp for what Frankland is, or is not. We passed by the local store, which they call “the Bank” because it is overpriced, and I suppose being in the middle of nowhere you can get away with charging ridiculous amounts to desperate shoppers. A community center was pointed out but I am not sure I saw it, there were a couple houses or buildings along the road, but then we turned the corner, passed an agricultural supply store and a sign for the Frankland Golf Course, and then it was gone. We drove for another 5 or 10 minutes and as we came across the hill Elizabeth welcomed me to Frankland Estate as we could see the blocks of vineyards in front of us. I could feel a smile come across my face. I don’t know what it is about the magic of a vineyard: the neat rows of vines line the hills absorbing the soil and withstanding the heat of the sun and cool nights to be ultimately turned into something (hopefully) delicious for people to enjoy. And now I was going to be a part of this process.

The sign welcoming us said please call for appointments, as they do not get very many visitors stopping by for tastings. This is not Margaret River, which they call the Napa Valley of Western Australia, where vineyard after vineyard welcomes open cellar doors for free-for-all tastings. The road, their driveway, was cinnamon dusted dirt and I chuckled to myself at this introduction to a new life. As we drove up to the winery, Elizabeth pointed out all the different varietals on the vines and then as we approached she said, “I told you it was just a big tin shed.”

my new home!! 

We drove on through more rows of vines to the little house where I would be staying. Somewhere off a dirt road to the right was where Hunter and his family lived, and over the hills a barely visible house where Elizabeth and her family lived appeared quickly, and I couldn’t even see where the mother and father of the estate lived.

the house in the distance, a 5 min walk from the winery.

My new home is simple and basic, but perfect. The front door is led from the dirt road by sprouting purple lavender and a huge rosemary bush. Inside, there’s a fully equipped kitchen (fully-equipped with a mouse too), a dining room table, a TV with four channels and a DVD player with 1 DVD (Milk), another room with an old fashioned fire place and a couch, three bedrooms (one’s attached to the bathroom) and a wrap around veranda. We’ve already met our roomies: a black spider in the drain, a ginormous Huntsman spider lurking on the walls outside, the noisiest swarm of black flies, a mouse and apparently a rat, there’s a field of grazing sheep that will become our lunch, gawking guinea fowl I’m sure will be part of our dinner but, I have yet to see a snake. It’s perfect!

The view of our backyard from the porch. We moved the couch outside and many nights so far have been spent sitting on the couch until the sun goes down and then the stars come out. 

It’s still too new to know how I feel about the remoteness. Work will be consistent and nice to have a routine and responsibilities while at the same time hopefully learning. It’s really nice to have my own room and little home for once. I just have my backpack, so the simplicity of it is quite appropriate. I am feeling intimidated about the wine work, not knowing what I’m supposed to do, or what I’m supposed to know and what’s expected of me, but I am anticipating hard work, despite the magic the vineyards exude, work is never as glamorous as one might think. I’ll be up early cleaning casks and folding boxes to case dozens of wine bottles instead of sipping on the fruits of our labour and frolicking amongst the vines. Maybe because I have no obligation to stay here and initiated this experience on my own, I am looking forward to the change of pace, the new experiences, and the different lifestyle, despite how much I enjoyed the “city” life of Perth. It would be nice if we at least had a cell phone reception at the house (tin roofs apparently reflect the signal) but maybe it will be nice to not be so reliant on technological communication that become so easily dependent and time-consumingly distractive. It’s definitely an “author’s quiet” which mum and dad will like as they encourage me to write a book :) (as you can probably tell by the amount I write via Word then copy and paste onto the internet when I have the ability to – writing is like my social outreach into the black hole of cyber space where someone might be listening/reading with the possibility of a response/interaction)  

 The sunsets are Gorgeous!

The vines and vast sky.

Somehwere in me since I reached out and was invited to have this opportunity, I have felt good and right about this new move, this new direction, and this new adventure. 

The Last Days of Perth and a Road Trip to Monkey Mia

(the little outburt of land in the very top left hand corner is Monkey Mia, Frankland is somewhere in the unidentified land in the very south, above Denmark, below Kojonup, to the left of the Y in the white road.)

 Right now I’m on the bus to the Great Southern region of Australia. A four hour ride to my next step and all I can think about is the whirlwind of the last few days. I guess I have absolutely no idea what to expect on this next adventure so it’s easier for me to think about what has happened and what has led me here. Tuesday, Valentines Day, was a day to celebrate getting a WWOOFing opportunity and to play bingo at the Claremont Hotel. Wednesday was filled with errands and departure preparations and then some more-celebratory beers and oysters in Fremantle. Thursday was more organizing and packing. Then that night there was Frankland Estate’s annual Riesling release event at Must Wine Bar in Perth. The event was quite busy and I started talking with a German couple who had been living in Perth for years and had actually been down to Frankland Estate.  The chatty wife was very opinionated about her Riesling, refilling her glass frequently so I learned a bit about the wines from them. There were three different Rieslings from Frankland Estate, from different vineyards on their property, which resulted in all three of them tasting completely different. One was quite light and easy to drink, the next was a bit more complex with fruitier notes while the third was much sweeter and had a fuller texture like most people would associate with a Riesling. There was also a French Riesling from 2001 that was reminiscent of petroleum – depending on your taste is a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s kinda funny like the wine wheel describing wet  cardboard: who actually knows what this taste likes….(!) Apparently that is a sign of an aged wine and definitely an acquired taste. I introduced myself to Hunter, one of the winemakers who was the son of the family and then met Brian, the husband of the woman/brother-in-law I had been emailing with. I also met Felix, the German guy who was also working at the winery with me. He is studying wine and this work is part of a three month internship. He has worked on vineyards before and is actually fully studying wine, not just WWOOFing so I think, and hope, that I will learn a lot from him. They were all incredibly enthusiastic and extremely friendly. It really eased a bit of my hesitations and I actually left the bar really excited about the new opportunity I had ahead of me to work with these guys.

I had plans to meet up with my first “friend” – the Irish guy who worked down by the Swan Bells. Since meeting him that first day, I had gone back a couple times while in Perth just to chat and we finally exchanged numbers. We met at the Cure ("come here for your hangover cure") where he was out with his friends. It’s funny in Australia – the Irish bars are only filled with Irish people. And it doesn’t matter if it’s 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday or a Saturday night. I don’t know if it’s because Irish peple just like to drink together. Pajo, let’s call him, calls Irish people sheep: they all flock together. He thinks that they give themselves a bad name to the Australians because they say there is no work in Ireland, making the place sound horrible and poor, but Pajo, his roommate and his girlfriend, and other people he knows actually left their jobs to come to Australia so it’s not like there’s nothing there for them. But anyways, there we were, him from Dublin and me “just moved here from Donegal,” hanging out in the Irish bar like all the other baa-ing sheep. We left though to go to the Brass Monkey – a pretty well known beer bar in Northbridge. They next day, with nothing better to do, we continued our joke-filled tour of Northbridge. As my first friend in Australia, I had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs on my last days. 

Two sausages are frying in a pan. One sausage says to the other, gee it's awfully hot in here. The other sausage responds, AAHHH A TALKING SAUSAGE!

(this joke also works with muffins in an oven)

Saturday morning, JD and I left really early for our road trip up north.  We were driving over 800 kilometers north to Monkey Mia in an attempt to swim with the dolphins as it was one of the things on the “list” to do in Australia. JD kept thanking me for the trip, but I swear it was his idea to go there. I had read somewhere that it was only about 6 hours, not 8 or 10…Even with speeding (the speed limit is 110  on the highways) it took us about 8 and a half hours. JD drove for the first couple of hours out of the city and then I drove for about 5 until I uncomfortably couldn’t drive anymore. Driving north out of Perth, the towns got smaller and more hick-ish with great distances of cattle farms and grain fields in between. At times it appeared very “outback-ish” but we were nowhere close to what the Outback actually is like. After we passed Geraldton, the empty expanse of land really exposed itself. The red clay soil lined the sides of the road and on either side of the road, dry prickly low bushes covered the land. My eyes of course were peeled for kangaroo’s, always, but only a few lying on the side of the road could be seen, drying out and half eaten.  You're welcome for the description. 

We drove through an area called Wildflower County that apparently is just blooming with colorful wildflowers between July and November. I can only imagine how impressive it must be. We drove on and on, as the names on the road signs slowly were crossed off as we passed them, overtaking massively intimidating road trains and speeding as fast as the little rental Toyota Corola could handle and bear it’s "high performance vehicle ability" until only Denham and Monkey Mia were left.  We entered Shark Bay, Western Australia’s first World Heritage area granted in 1991 for matching four natural criteria: it’s stromatolites, seagrass beds, extraordinary scenery, and fauna: 26 mammal species, 13 reptiles threatened to extinction, 3 types of rare birds, 12% of the world’s dugangas, and a large loggerhead turtle rockeries.* 

*According to Scoop Mag (the same one I think that told me it was only 6 hours away).

As we came over some of the hills, the dry land cleared away to absolutely breathtaking aquamarine water and crisp white sand lining the coast. It was so pristine, so empty, you could really understand the appreciation for the World Heritage protection of the area. 

Signs for people crossing were everywhere, but where were these people coming from, and where were they going?

Denham was a quiet sleepy town on the water with a couple hotels and boats docked in the water. We drove on though, for another 24 kilometers to Monkey Mia. It had a cooler sounding name and we only do the cool things. Monkey Mia, is basically a little resort community. There is the Monkey Mia Resort which has villas, camping site, hostel accomodations, and caravans. There is a small pool and hot tub, tennis courts, games to rent, a bar and a restaurant, beach access and of course, the opportunity to feed dolphins. Monkey Mia is the only place in Australia where wild dolphins will come up to the shore to bed fed daily, rather than seasonally. Except for Sunday, Februrary 19th. That was not one of the “daily” days. Apparently they will come to shore between 7:30 and noon, but on this particularly day, when we were there, there was a warm current filled with fish so the dolphins were out to sea and didn’t need to come to shore to be fed. They seem to be smart animals, habitual animals, so they know to come back if they want to but since Monkey Mia is part of the World Heritage area, they do not encourage the tourism of the site into making the dolphins circus animals. I liked that and commented on how easily you could see the place bening like a Club Med with daily activities like water yoga and kids camp but it was more of a relaxation spot for travelers – a little out of the way, but definitely a worthwhile reward.

 the view from our beach side hotel room.

the beach.

 The water was incredibly warm and shallow and clear. Monkey Mia is in a little hamlet so there were no waves, although the current was quite strong. The sea floor was covered with different types of shells and you could see little fish swimming around you. JD thought he felt a jellyfish in the water, saw a turtle, and a long water snake while snorkeling. Oh and apparently there were sharks in the water, but they were well fed so they didn’t bother with the humans – good to know!

Is that water deep or are you just really short? OMG YOU'RE SO TALL!

 But I don't wanna get out. 

 We had veggie burgers and salt and pepper squid for dinner then played pool with the greatest comeback the Black Widower ever saw and defensive fooseball. I lost both, even with knowing JD was trying to play down his coughmadcough skills. Some beer, white wine, and two tequila shots later, we went to the beach and laid down to stare at the stars.

The sky was absolutely stunning. I have never seen anything like it. And I can't even describe it to you to give it justice. From lying on the sand, looking out onto the sea’s horizon, there were stars just inches above the horizon - I had never seen them expand so far. They stretched all the way over us and behind us as far as we could see, not a cloud in sight - that thing that looks like a cloud, oh, that's just a galaxy, clearly visible to us right now. The Milky Way wrapped around the middle of the sky, directly above us, laying a belt of twinkly clusters of stars amongst the brighter ones. JD was soon snoring*, but I could’ve just stared out upon that sky for the entire night. The clarity of it’s expanse was really was unbelievable. The area around us, in the middle of nowhere of the World Heritage site, was so pure, so clear of pollution, the sky just shone.

*details like these are not only funny, but definitely part of the story and experience. 

 The next morning, a dip in the sea and then we waited by the jetty for the dolphins to arrive. The jetty was full of people standing, then sitting, then dispersed onto other day activities with the dolphin's no show ("they are definitely going to get fired"). Everyone had their eyes peeled from the shore to the horizion, as people pointed at every bird that swooped and fish that jumped making a splash, with the sun sparkling upon the little wave breaks, but none of these were dolphins.

We were two for two: no peguins on Penguin Island, no dolphins at Monkey Mia.

There were howerever a flock of befuddled emu’s wandering around, sometimes chasing each other, sometimes going up and pecking at the grass in front of sun bathers. At first they were a touristy novelty of intrigue and after less than 24 hours they were almost annoying and in the way with their jutting beaks and huge feet. 

“Hey guys, how’s it going, whatcha doing, hey guys, wait up”

….picture Will Ferrell in A Night at the Roxbury….as an emu.

It really was beautiful. We had planned on leaving at 12 and ended up leaving at 2 – 1 because the restaurant for lunch didn’t open until noon, 2 because it was way too hard to leave the sun and views for another 8/5 hour ride and 3 because we couldn’t leave without having a pina colada.

Back in the car, back to speeding and testing the car’s limits in the middle of nowhwere, back to passing the caravans of packpackers, pack to passing the tremendous road trains, back to driving until you're numb and stuck to the seat, back to chugging sugar-free Red Bulls and eating chips until your stomach hurts, back to the shuffle dance party of the iPod, and back to the not-so-clear-aired sky of the city.

So now, after that whirlwind, I am sitting on the bus not really sure where I’m going or what to expect. I am not nervous, I don’t really feel anything to be honest. Just sort of going with it. It’s like, it’s going to happen, there’s nothing you can do about it, and just let what happens happen. There’s no point in fretting, everything works out the way it is supposed to and maybe I have a good feeling about it. I am not scratching or pulling at my hair – that is a good sign. I suppose it helps that I met three of the people I will be working with and Elizabeth seems nice on email. I think if anything, I am nervous about what I have to offer. Sure my letter was heartfelt and personal and passionate and I should have a lot of knowledge from UNISG and the amount of wine I've drunk but I don’t know if I actually have the tasting ability to really know what I’m talking about nor do I have the slightest clue about actual wine making. I am hoping to be trained and learn about the production process. I guess I’m really not worried because I have no  obligations here. I don’t have to stay if I don’t like it. It will be nice to work during the morning, to have a routine, and then if I want to work in the afternoon I will be paid for it. Felix the German guy said that during vintage there is always a lot of work going on but there is also a car so if I want to use that and explore the area I can do that too. Valley of the Giants, Walpole, Denmark, Albany, 40 wineries in the region, Mt Barker, Australia's (or the world's?) oldest mountain range, a couple national parks, Australia's whitest beaches in Esperance, also a salt lake, isolation, remoteness, learning the in's and out's of the life of a winery, tasting pure grape juice, unpolluted air to stare at the stars....seriously, what is there to not look forward to?!