Three days of Lessons in Australian Culture

Been here for what feels like an eternity yet was a mere three days and I have learned some much about Australian culture. To start the plan flight really wasn't as bad as I thought. The 18 hours for some reason went by faster than my 8 hour trip to Europe. I arrived off the plan into their dead of winter wearing flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt; I wasn't cold a bit. The temperature outside was 60F and sunny although this was unusual the absolute low here in the winter is 32F with ave. temps around 45F. Once arriving to the couchsurfing house nobody was home but the door was unlocked and the place looked as bad as a college frat house. An interesting first sighting to Australia but I ended up just heading out for the day to take care of setting up my phone and a bank account

The first night I was introduced to goon. Basically, it's a 4L bag-o-wine and the cheapest thing to drink down under. Alcohol and beer is literally twice as expensive as the states so any travelers should probably max out on the 2.25L limit at duty free. Even though I don't smoke, packs of cigarettes are $14 which I believe is also ridiculously expensive.

Another very interesting topic I was introduced to here was dumpster diving. The people I'm staying with and other couch surfers across the city literally dumpster dive for food and vegetables. I ate with a couch surfer Olly last night that has 0 dollars in his name. He's Vegan and has been traveling for 2 1/2 years couch surfing; and literally lives off dumpster diving and other organizations that give away waste so it's not dumped. We went dumpster diving and then cooked up a delicious meal consisting of fruit salad and a vegetable dish. Although I'm not planning on it being a daily occurrence like it is for him, I'm not saying I won't do it.

Other things to note:
1. Excessive use of the word brilliant for anything meaning you like it. For example, "this pizza is brilliant.".
2. They call Macdonals: Mackers.
3. No one heats there houses so at night and early morning it can get cold.
4. They have chia Obama pets.
5. Many others that I just can't think of right now.

Keep it Real,
Jeff

All packed and ready to roll...

Made it to LA with I hope everything after a hectic week as I was packing and preparing for a life move. Amazingly, I was pretty much packed 24 hours ahead of time, which would be a first for those that know me as I usually am lucky to start packing 1 hour before lift off. So this meant one last trip out in stl on a party bus for a friends birthday:

and grabbing lunch on Saturday:

Then I took a night flight out to LA and for those that haven't been out to LA it's beautiful and the humidity isn't suffocating like Stl so I'm hoping the humidity down under is pretty tame. Since it was such a beuatiful day, Sunday we spent time exploring and had a little beach action:

Tuesday night I depart to down under where after an 18 hour flight with a layover in New Zealand I'll arrive at 9am Thursday morning. I'll be staying with some random 22 year olds couch from couchsurfing.org until I find a permanent residence.

Best wishes America, I'm out for awhile.

One Week Till Lift Off...

So this past week after seeing some of my best friends for the last time in awhile, and realizing the amazing experiences/travels I've had over the last year. The thought of a blog crept into my mind. It's not something I would usually do but as I've kept up with a friend of mines in Morocco in the peace corps, Cara, I realized it seems the easiest way to keep in touch and reminds me of the journal I kept from Europe.

Well, back to packing the first suitcase which is actually more of a struggle than I thought but for completely opposite reasons. I feel like I don't have enough Winter clothes to fill it up to 50lbs and I brought all my snow skiing gear. Now I'm just trying to get it full because I still have a carry-on and another 50lbs suitcase to boot.