constant crises

whew! i'm back. it took two weeks, but i feel like i really got a sense of what australia (specifically new south wales and queensland) has to offer. some things i learned about or while in australia: :: sydney is most definitely a beautiful and mature international city. the harbor is gorgeous. it's clean and crisp and sophisticated. really unlike any harbor or wharf that i've ever seen in a big city. the opera house really is one of those architectural marvels that you need to see for yourself. the streets are bustling at waking hours, but strangely quiet on crisp sunday mornings. a coworker described it a few weeks ago as "a cleaner san francisco, fused with los angeles beach culture." i think that's very accurate, though i don't think it has the vibrancy and diversity of san francisco. it's casual and formal at the same time. oh, and the food is fantastic, as one would expect from such a modern city surrounded by eclectic nations of diverse tastes. some quick photos: :: australians, despite their insistence on being part of a "great beer-drinking nation," have no idea what good beer is. i tried nearly every australian beer that i could get my hands on, playing havoc on my weight (more on that later), and i found only two that were even worth thinking about drinking again. unlike other enthusiastic beer-consuming countries (belgium, ireland, germany...), australia's beers taste like ass. my theory is that australians adopt the american attitude of, "i'm gonna drink a lot of it, so might as well make sure it goes down easy." when i got to the country, i laughed about how no one there actually drank foster's. by the time i left i was wishing that i could find a foster's. :: i always thought lists like "the world's top 10 beaches" were stupid. i mean, what could be so spectacular? then i went to whitehaven beach in the whitsunday islands. i'll give you a few pictures, but suffice it to say that i will no longer doubt the worth of such lists (which mostly seem to include whitehaven). spectacular? incredible? a dream? the sand was supposedly silica, but it felt more like soft flour spread over 6 kilometers where the jungle met water. absolutely insane: :: i was reminded on this trip how loved and incredible of a city san francisco is. yeah, you read that right. EVERY australian who mentioned visiting the united states raved about how much he/she loved our own city by the bay. even our b&b owners in port douglas, who talked about how unimpressed they were by america ("i don't think people who live in new york are tough, i think they're stupid to live in a place so beastly," and "america's so BORING. except for little pockets, it all looks the same"), praised san francisco top to bottom. i don't know if they were correct, but they were certainly objective compared to americans. if nothing else: australians love san francisco. :: the great barrier reef sounds so cliche, but you're a fool if you don't go see it for yourself. i've never snorkeled before, but moments after overcoming the initial panic of "holy shit, i'm in the middle of the fucking ocean and these waves are enormous," i was able to calm down and take a look around. when you cross the water level, it's like dipping into a whole different world of brilliant colors and plentiful marine life. i'm hoping some of my underwater camera pictures come out, but i have a feeling that my wounded duck swimming technique might have left something to be desired. we'll see. but whether or not the photos come out, just know that it was one of the most remarkable sights of my life. go see it, you won't be disappointed. :: and lastly, i was reminded of how good it can actually feel to come home. yes my (new) room still looks like a disaster area, but it's slowly coming together and it's good to be in my own place. i'm not, by nature, a traveler. at some level, i find myself needing to emerge from my comfort zone just to immerse myself in a new and different place. my travel shyness means that i'm always a little relieved to come home to comfort, but it also means that i forever appreciate even short jaunts to new worlds. i'm lucky to have the means to travel. like our rain forest guide said on wednesday, "when you're heading home all you can think about is how nice it will be. but once you get home all you can think about is where to go to next." so where to next? i'm open for ideas :)

i'm excited because tomorrow i'm jumping on a long-ass plane flight Down Under. i don't really plan on having absurd adventures while i'm down there, but hey, you never know. i think that when i'm at work and in the grind, i tend to lose focus on some of the more important aspects of being 24 with some financial freedom. for instance, i feel like seeing as much of the world as i can before i have real responsibilities is probably a really fantastic idea. when i think about it, there will be decades to work on a career, and only years to pack up and fly away to random places for indeterminate amounts of time. i need to remember to make that a priority more often. so in the theme of "tell better stories," i think that someday i'll remember spending two weeks in australia much more than i'll remember sitting in a cubicle plugging on my keyboard to earn some extra cash. i think. and for that i'm willing to invest: time, money, and my life. 9/15: fly out of sfo to sydney 9/22: fly out of sydney to cairns 9/29: fly back to sfo there are lots of things in the middle there, but we'll start with that and fill in the details later.

five years ago today, i was a 19-year old college student still reeling (perhaps alcohol-induced) from my freshman year of college. i was in kotzebue building some websites for maniilaq association and a few other organizations in the rural alaskan town. in other words, i was pretty much as far away (both in distance and culture) from new york city as i could be within the united states. i remember the summer well, spent with the johns (lincoln and stoops) doing various ridiculous things that could only make sense to 19-year old college kids or residents of kotzebue. on the morning of september 11, i was fast asleep in the bottom bunk of john lincoln's room at his family's house. there was a family room with a tv just a step outside the door. stoops was sleeping on the top bunk and lincoln across the room in his bed. i can remember somewhat groggily listening to mrs. lincoln burst into the room, frantically talking about twin towers and airplanes and crashes. as i came to consciousness and mrs. lincoln left the room, lincoln muttered the words, "wait, they CRASHED into the buildings?" i think, even today, that's a perfectly succinct way to phrase the immediate response of most anyone. the three of us stumbled out of our beds and stood watching the television coverage. i was planted there completely shocked for a good 20 minutes, staring at the craziest television images i had ever seen, mouthing words like "oh my god...", and clothed by just a pair of boxer shorts. i remember it all vividly, like a painting seared into my brain... it was, of course, the singular "where were you when..." moment of our generation. it's obviously not important, but i wonder whether 9/11 will come to replace president kennedy's assassination as the event standard by which all "where were you when..." moments are compared. i took ivy to the airport last night, as she headed out to sydney and then adelaide. as i watched her slowly make her way through the careful security process, i couldn't help but think about how different airplane travel is today because of this day five years ago. and who can even count the other things that have changed... so where were you when you heard, five years ago today?

i'll occasionally link to my friends' blogs, but i almost never outright TELL people, "go read this stuff." i think will's new blog is probably worth your time though, so you should go take a look. it's not really a blog, as much as it will be insightful glimpses into his trek through south america. the short background is that, having finished two years teaching in the new york public school system, will decided to take, oh, at least a half year to travel all of those countries to the south, accompanied by his backpack. i'm excited for him and proud that he has the balls to go travel in such a way. he's much braver than i am, in countless ways. so far, he's taken a 30-hour bus ride from atlanta, georgia to el paso, texas, before jumping (not literally) the border into mexico. so set your bookmarks, rss readers, or whatever. it should be at least interesting. oh yeah, and he doesn't know spanish. be safe, will. and write often.

one thing that i've learned in the first few days of work is that i'll be needing to make copious use of the gym facilities here. remember when you got to school freshman year and suddenly all of the food was prepaid and all-you-can-eat? and you summarily packed on 10 pounds chewing on rubbery chicken tenders and sucking down beer by the gallon? well, my new job is like that, but there are no nightly keggers and the food is really good. in other words: food budget down, new balance running shoe budget up. so i haven't discussed it on here yet, but in a few weeks i'll be trekking to australia to visit for the first time. it should be a really great experience and i'm excited about it. the itinerary for me? sydney (described by my new cubemate as a cleaner version of san francisco, fused with socal beach culture) and then cairns (only as a pitstop to the whitsunday islands and port douglas). my fourth continent and my first real travels since europe (no, walking from the venetian to paris on the strip doesn't count). time to get my camera ready... not much to report on the poker front. i've been playing low-limit omaha-8 and stud-8 online. i'll also be instituting a new evening for garden city trips (wednesdays are now shot), which should be easier now that i'm closer. this sunday i'll probably make a run to the good old gc, or maybe a jaunt up for the 6pm no limit hold'em tournament at artichoke joe's. i haven't played in that tourney in a while. in any case, time to get back at it this weekend. as with all returns to the felt, i'll be instituting my "play four orbits, take a one orbit break" rule to keep focused. eventually, i think i want to get up to that 20-40 game at gc. first stop back: the 8-16 w/ half kill... more writing to come this weekend... maybe.