At least things are finally unambiguous with M. Only wish it would have happened a bit sooner so I had better circumstances under which to deal with it. Like Australia.
Not that what I currently have is bad or anything. Submitted the camera-ready version today and looked over the code I wrote in Denmark with Dan. Then got home to cook Seitan and watch three episodes of "How I met your mother". Then met up with Riinu and watched a movie with her. Then went for a swim with A. at roughly half to one at night. That was also fun, considering we hadn't talked for over half a year.
All in all, not too bad of a day. Still feel a bit shabby, though. But that will pass. What happened is actually for the better. It will just take some time to set in.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Nobody listens to Folk music
Well, except in Estonia, apparently, where Folk festivals are hugely popular. The biggest one is in Viljandi, held for 4 days. This year it had a theme "It's going to be a dance".
So, I got quite a bit of dancing in. Still a bit tired from it, even after two days... although, there may well be some residual tiredness left from my Australia trip.
Anyways, some things that I remember:
I got to dance waltz again after about 12 years of pause.. as a part of one of Latvian folk dances.
Saw a girl that was 1 cm taller than me during the Zetod concert. I stood right behind her and could measure.. I bet the people behind the two of us were quite pissed, though :P
Between two concerts, I (by accident) sat next to a very nice girl who seemed to be drawing something - looking towards the dance field where nothing seemed to stay still for long enough to actually be drawn. We exchanged a few words and then had a few dances. She was very cute :=)
Crazy Russian group Otava Yo who had a very energetic stage presence and music to go along with it. Sadly, the concert had no room for dancing because it was packed so full of people.
Everywhere the concerts were being videotaped - by girls - and fairly cute ones at that. Camera girl is the new weather girl?
Old friends and acquitances you meet, of course. Especially memorable was the scene of Annika and Richard arriving with their dinner and sharing some of it with me, at the last concert of the day. That was very sweet of them :)
So, I got quite a bit of dancing in. Still a bit tired from it, even after two days... although, there may well be some residual tiredness left from my Australia trip.
Anyways, some things that I remember:
I got to dance waltz again after about 12 years of pause.. as a part of one of Latvian folk dances.
Saw a girl that was 1 cm taller than me during the Zetod concert. I stood right behind her and could measure.. I bet the people behind the two of us were quite pissed, though :P
Between two concerts, I (by accident) sat next to a very nice girl who seemed to be drawing something - looking towards the dance field where nothing seemed to stay still for long enough to actually be drawn. We exchanged a few words and then had a few dances. She was very cute :=)
Crazy Russian group Otava Yo who had a very energetic stage presence and music to go along with it. Sadly, the concert had no room for dancing because it was packed so full of people.
Everywhere the concerts were being videotaped - by girls - and fairly cute ones at that. Camera girl is the new weather girl?
Old friends and acquitances you meet, of course. Especially memorable was the scene of Annika and Richard arriving with their dinner and sharing some of it with me, at the last concert of the day. That was very sweet of them :)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Games people play - and what to do about them
Ever met someone who stubbornly refuses to admit to whatever he is doing? Annoying, isn't it. Also works magic, most of the time, because as long as you do not understand what it is you are doing wrong, you cannot be expected to change it.
Thomas Schelling, one of the people we can blame for not having a nuclear war just yet, had some pretty good insights into the topic, though. Looked at the proper level of abstraction, of course. I will also be relying on some insights from Eric Berne. Both were geniuses. They clearly had to be.
Essentially, what the person is doing is self-handicapping. Something that can indeed work wonders in a game of war, or business negotiations and of course, in intrapersonal communications. Essentially, it forces the other party to play a restricted game, which is probably not in his favor.
So, of course, the only real solution is to change the game to be more even again. This is fairly easy, if you have something that you can use to credibly punish the person for his transgressions - you just start doing that and pretty soon he will realize that it is not in his best interest to act in that way... and stop.
This, of course, assuming a repeated game. Otherwise, the best you can do is make a threat of punishment and hope he believes it.
However, it is often very hard to make a credible threat. Much of Schelling's "Strategy of conflict" deals with just that fact - and describes how it is often required to severely handicap yourself in order to make the threat credible.
An example due to Schelling himself - if you want to buy a car and are willing to go no higher than 50 000 but the dealer's last bid is 70 000 (but you know 50 000 would still give him profit), you can try signing a legally binding contract with a friend stating that if you buy that car for more than 50 000, you have to also pay your friend the same amount. This, in effect, takes away any possibility of you paying over 50 000 dollars - in a completely demonstrable and provable way that is evident to the car dealer. He will feel cheated, but might still sell you the car.
Not that drastic measures are needed everywhere, though. The point to take home is that credible threats can be notoriously hard to muster and can be very weird and contrived in some cases.
Now, suppose however that the only threat that you can really make is the one you cannot commit to in an at all believable way... or that if carrying out that threat will essentially leave you in so terribly bad state the other party will never believe you are willing to carry it out. Think nuclear war here.. or suicide... or telling a person you love you will never talk with her again. Essentially, something so bad that you just cannot make its consequences any worse for yourself even if you wanted to.
Although Schelling considered cases in which carrying out a threat makes you worse off than you are and showed that there are definitely cases when such threats work, the key point is you have to be able to commit to that. In cases where you can't...
Well, then, you're fucked.
Thankfully, humans are not completely rational beings. This is where Berne and his idea of people constantly playing games with each other comes to play. Namely, most people just play to win and it is often enough to just take away that joy of victory for them to stop. Which sounds a big no for empty threats because you will be called on it and it will amount to one big win to the other party. One that will keep him coming back.
You can of course try to make a threat and stick to it.. but hell, if it literally or figuratively kills you.. face it, you will be called on it and then have to die:P
Now, as stated initially, calling the other person on his game directly will not help - since he is playing that he does not acknowledge it is a game, saying he is playing it (which I believe Berne to advocate) does not take away his victory because he does not have to admit to you being right.
Albert Ellis (the creator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) was the person to figure things out, though. And the solution is supposedly surprisingly simple - just replace the verbal acknowledgment with a physical one - as purely behavioral cues often work better than rational ones. Theoretically, the other person is robbed of his victory without having anything to really argue against. Especially if you have set the rules beforehand saying that the "physical acknowledgment" is o.k. in certain well-specified circumstances. And it doesn't even have to be much - a weak slap to the face with a folded paper works miracles on both puppies and humans, at least according to Ellis.
Works especially well in cases where the penultimate threat is "I will never speak to you again" - because then you can just set the terms in a way that "this is how I will act when you do the things I have specified." The person can always choose not to interact with you any more, if he wants to - so this doubles nicely as a commitment to "never talking", as it will now be the other party who would have to worry about carrying it out, taking the burden right off your shoulders :)
It helps to have friends who study psychology. It also helps to study enough yourself to be able to understand that their seemingly ludicrous suggestions actually have a fair chance of working.
And Schelling is just a good general read ;)
Thomas Schelling, one of the people we can blame for not having a nuclear war just yet, had some pretty good insights into the topic, though. Looked at the proper level of abstraction, of course. I will also be relying on some insights from Eric Berne. Both were geniuses. They clearly had to be.
Essentially, what the person is doing is self-handicapping. Something that can indeed work wonders in a game of war, or business negotiations and of course, in intrapersonal communications. Essentially, it forces the other party to play a restricted game, which is probably not in his favor.
So, of course, the only real solution is to change the game to be more even again. This is fairly easy, if you have something that you can use to credibly punish the person for his transgressions - you just start doing that and pretty soon he will realize that it is not in his best interest to act in that way... and stop.
This, of course, assuming a repeated game. Otherwise, the best you can do is make a threat of punishment and hope he believes it.
However, it is often very hard to make a credible threat. Much of Schelling's "Strategy of conflict" deals with just that fact - and describes how it is often required to severely handicap yourself in order to make the threat credible.
An example due to Schelling himself - if you want to buy a car and are willing to go no higher than 50 000 but the dealer's last bid is 70 000 (but you know 50 000 would still give him profit), you can try signing a legally binding contract with a friend stating that if you buy that car for more than 50 000, you have to also pay your friend the same amount. This, in effect, takes away any possibility of you paying over 50 000 dollars - in a completely demonstrable and provable way that is evident to the car dealer. He will feel cheated, but might still sell you the car.
Not that drastic measures are needed everywhere, though. The point to take home is that credible threats can be notoriously hard to muster and can be very weird and contrived in some cases.
Now, suppose however that the only threat that you can really make is the one you cannot commit to in an at all believable way... or that if carrying out that threat will essentially leave you in so terribly bad state the other party will never believe you are willing to carry it out. Think nuclear war here.. or suicide... or telling a person you love you will never talk with her again. Essentially, something so bad that you just cannot make its consequences any worse for yourself even if you wanted to.
Although Schelling considered cases in which carrying out a threat makes you worse off than you are and showed that there are definitely cases when such threats work, the key point is you have to be able to commit to that. In cases where you can't...
Well, then, you're fucked.
Thankfully, humans are not completely rational beings. This is where Berne and his idea of people constantly playing games with each other comes to play. Namely, most people just play to win and it is often enough to just take away that joy of victory for them to stop. Which sounds a big no for empty threats because you will be called on it and it will amount to one big win to the other party. One that will keep him coming back.
You can of course try to make a threat and stick to it.. but hell, if it literally or figuratively kills you.. face it, you will be called on it and then have to die:P
Now, as stated initially, calling the other person on his game directly will not help - since he is playing that he does not acknowledge it is a game, saying he is playing it (which I believe Berne to advocate) does not take away his victory because he does not have to admit to you being right.
Albert Ellis (the creator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) was the person to figure things out, though. And the solution is supposedly surprisingly simple - just replace the verbal acknowledgment with a physical one - as purely behavioral cues often work better than rational ones. Theoretically, the other person is robbed of his victory without having anything to really argue against. Especially if you have set the rules beforehand saying that the "physical acknowledgment" is o.k. in certain well-specified circumstances. And it doesn't even have to be much - a weak slap to the face with a folded paper works miracles on both puppies and humans, at least according to Ellis.
Works especially well in cases where the penultimate threat is "I will never speak to you again" - because then you can just set the terms in a way that "this is how I will act when you do the things I have specified." The person can always choose not to interact with you any more, if he wants to - so this doubles nicely as a commitment to "never talking", as it will now be the other party who would have to worry about carrying it out, taking the burden right off your shoulders :)
It helps to have friends who study psychology. It also helps to study enough yourself to be able to understand that their seemingly ludicrous suggestions actually have a fair chance of working.
And Schelling is just a good general read ;)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I am one of those, melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it
Green Day is the thing that is most strongly tied with Australia for me. Maybe it is because they play them in the radio here quite often. Or maybe something even more. But "Basket case" is the appropriate song with which to end this series of posts.
This post is going to be about the things I left out in the previous posts. Personal revelations and realizations that have come to me during these two weeks and the like.
Firstly, some of you have probably noticed that since "New York City Boy", all the posts have been titled with song lyrics. Songs I used to like at one time or another. Depressing songs, mostly. Followed up with a fairly upbeat blog post. In some sense, this is my way of dealing with some of my past demons. Or current ones, in some other cases. I will not deny that a few nights here it got somewhat bad again. Lonelyness, hopelessness, despair and everything that comes with the three.
I would, of course like to blame it all on M. and say I still have very strong feelings for her. Nearly a year now. At least once a day, usually a bit more often. Pretty bad, huh?
However, I know that is not really the case. I do have a lot of history with her, and I do have feelings for her, but in most cases, it is not me missing her so much as me just needing someone to be close to -- mentally more than physically - and things that remind me of her (a lot of these lying around) also reminding me of that fact. Automatic thinking. Should put an end to that.
Moving on.
Most of us act in a way so as to earn the most respect from the people we ourselves respect the most. The "inner circle" of friends, or family. Most of us will also try to deny that and say they act by some higher moral code or by their inner sense of self or.. whatever. But that amounts to pretty much the same thing in most cases - as such people usually still interact with people who also act by the same principles. Chicken and egg problem and I will not get into the argument which comes first - principles to act by or friends who respect that you act by these. All I am saying is that in the end, most people end up acting so as to be liked and respected by their closest friends.
Now comes an interesting question though: what do you do if you have no inner circle of friends nor any strong and strict moral belief system to tell you what is right and wrong? Or if you are part of two circles whose views on many things are quite conflicting?
Enter me.
I really have noone to reliably set my good-bad compass for. So I interpolate from the few friends I respect the most.
I wish.
Anyways, all of us have achievements. For some, it is stuff like completing a PhD in 2.5 years. For others, it is having consumed 20 beers one night and still walked home. People who respect the first rarely respect the second.. and vice versa. Indeed, one thing I found here was that amongst backpackers, noone gives a damn if you had a PhD or how quickly you finished it. Conversation slides over it without anyone even noticing.
Playing your own game vs letting the other guy beat you at his. My main "problem" is I usually go along with other peoples games as I am not too interested in winning.. but losing also sucks bad.
Proper reaction to "I once drank 20 beers" is not "wow, cool" but "Do you think of your liver? Do you want to die of hepatitis before you hit 30?". One does make more enemies that way though. Not much less friends though, because do I really want friends who boast about their drinking habits?
Well, except I have done that a few times too (with 9 shots of tequila.. which was fun).. just to show some people I too have tried alcohol so am not as "uncool" as I may first seem.
Trouble is, though, I could spend years trying to catch up to people who spent their youth playing sports, drinking with friends and dating girls. Its pretty absurd to assume it would take me much less time to get good at these things than it did them. I have other strengths though. My ability to think.. or work hard.. or hold a steady job.
Which is another important point. Many "cool" people are on social welfare, students or are working one odd job after another. This type of lifestyle allows for much cooler stuff to happen to you than keeping a regular job.. but I think the latter is equally hard if not moreso - it takes resources, which others can easily locate to other stuff. Should we really idolize people who make one stupid decision after another?
Because, lets face it, stupid decisions always lead to better stories and always seem to "teach" us more. Usually they teach us to try a similar thing again though, because if things worked out once, theyll probably work out the second time too - you just have to change the details enough to make it hard to understand that the same thing is being done again.. and again.. and again.
And it is not actually about what you really did, but how you tell it. Coming back from the first rafting trip, there was this very cute Swiss girl on the raft. On the first bus back, we got talking a little and I mentioned I had studied french for 8 years.. she smiled nicely but then the conversation moved on. In the second bus, she was sitting next to a danish guy from the other raft and I overheared their conversation. He got a pretty similar positive effect with her by mentioning he knew just three words of french. One has to capitalize on what one has.
Biggest losers are usually also the biggest loudmouths - they have little, but they know how to use that little pretty damn well. After all, it is just a matter of forcing the other person to play by your rules - I did these things and these things define a person as cool. Done well enough, this premise is accepted without critique and the person indeed becomes cool in the eyes of the other person. But in reality, it is just good salesmanship.
Everyone reading this - think about how often has it happenned that you feel inferior to someone you have been talking to for a few minutes to a few hours. This is how it is done, by the way.
Over the course of the past two weeks, I have done a bunch of stupid things, stories of which I could live on for the rest of my life, if I really wanted to. And it has been tremendously fun. And not nearly as stupid as I first thought some of these things would have been. Furthermore, I now realize how cool some of the other stuff has been that I have done before in my life...
With my experiences over the past half a year, I now also have enough context to understand other peoples stories about drinking, partying and travelling... and give them due respect rather than over-idealizing them.
Should come in handy.
Another thing I have had a brush with is authenticity and masks. It is very easy to keep another person at a safe distance. Hold up a polite but fairly empty conversation, either about mundane or abstract matters.
However - it is hard to actually be authentic. To look a person in the eye and say that this topic is not interesting to you, but that you would instead like to know about something deep and profound within or about him. You know, go one step further.
Normally, the "one step further" thing just happens with people with whom it "feels right". But if a person is just very shy and likes holding up the polite barrier just for self-defence, he may well never get a chance to have an authentic covnersation. For these cases, a touch of brutal but caring honesty may come in handy. Or, well, there are of course less brutal ways of doing it, as any therapist worth their salt will tell you.
Might make for a bit more meaningful relationships.
So to sum up:
a) Direction is important in life. Be wary of how it is formed.
b) Most of my pain is due to automatic thoughts that tie M. directly with loneliness. Watch for it and make it stop.
c) Learn how to sell what you have well and to scrutinize what the others are actually selling.
d) Authenticity might be a good idea. As with everything, practice makes perfect.
Now to go and put all of that into practice.
This post is going to be about the things I left out in the previous posts. Personal revelations and realizations that have come to me during these two weeks and the like.
Firstly, some of you have probably noticed that since "New York City Boy", all the posts have been titled with song lyrics. Songs I used to like at one time or another. Depressing songs, mostly. Followed up with a fairly upbeat blog post. In some sense, this is my way of dealing with some of my past demons. Or current ones, in some other cases. I will not deny that a few nights here it got somewhat bad again. Lonelyness, hopelessness, despair and everything that comes with the three.
I would, of course like to blame it all on M. and say I still have very strong feelings for her. Nearly a year now. At least once a day, usually a bit more often. Pretty bad, huh?
However, I know that is not really the case. I do have a lot of history with her, and I do have feelings for her, but in most cases, it is not me missing her so much as me just needing someone to be close to -- mentally more than physically - and things that remind me of her (a lot of these lying around) also reminding me of that fact. Automatic thinking. Should put an end to that.
Moving on.
Most of us act in a way so as to earn the most respect from the people we ourselves respect the most. The "inner circle" of friends, or family. Most of us will also try to deny that and say they act by some higher moral code or by their inner sense of self or.. whatever. But that amounts to pretty much the same thing in most cases - as such people usually still interact with people who also act by the same principles. Chicken and egg problem and I will not get into the argument which comes first - principles to act by or friends who respect that you act by these. All I am saying is that in the end, most people end up acting so as to be liked and respected by their closest friends.
Now comes an interesting question though: what do you do if you have no inner circle of friends nor any strong and strict moral belief system to tell you what is right and wrong? Or if you are part of two circles whose views on many things are quite conflicting?
Enter me.
I really have noone to reliably set my good-bad compass for. So I interpolate from the few friends I respect the most.
I wish.
Anyways, all of us have achievements. For some, it is stuff like completing a PhD in 2.5 years. For others, it is having consumed 20 beers one night and still walked home. People who respect the first rarely respect the second.. and vice versa. Indeed, one thing I found here was that amongst backpackers, noone gives a damn if you had a PhD or how quickly you finished it. Conversation slides over it without anyone even noticing.
Playing your own game vs letting the other guy beat you at his. My main "problem" is I usually go along with other peoples games as I am not too interested in winning.. but losing also sucks bad.
Proper reaction to "I once drank 20 beers" is not "wow, cool" but "Do you think of your liver? Do you want to die of hepatitis before you hit 30?". One does make more enemies that way though. Not much less friends though, because do I really want friends who boast about their drinking habits?
Well, except I have done that a few times too (with 9 shots of tequila.. which was fun).. just to show some people I too have tried alcohol so am not as "uncool" as I may first seem.
Trouble is, though, I could spend years trying to catch up to people who spent their youth playing sports, drinking with friends and dating girls. Its pretty absurd to assume it would take me much less time to get good at these things than it did them. I have other strengths though. My ability to think.. or work hard.. or hold a steady job.
Which is another important point. Many "cool" people are on social welfare, students or are working one odd job after another. This type of lifestyle allows for much cooler stuff to happen to you than keeping a regular job.. but I think the latter is equally hard if not moreso - it takes resources, which others can easily locate to other stuff. Should we really idolize people who make one stupid decision after another?
Because, lets face it, stupid decisions always lead to better stories and always seem to "teach" us more. Usually they teach us to try a similar thing again though, because if things worked out once, theyll probably work out the second time too - you just have to change the details enough to make it hard to understand that the same thing is being done again.. and again.. and again.
And it is not actually about what you really did, but how you tell it. Coming back from the first rafting trip, there was this very cute Swiss girl on the raft. On the first bus back, we got talking a little and I mentioned I had studied french for 8 years.. she smiled nicely but then the conversation moved on. In the second bus, she was sitting next to a danish guy from the other raft and I overheared their conversation. He got a pretty similar positive effect with her by mentioning he knew just three words of french. One has to capitalize on what one has.
Biggest losers are usually also the biggest loudmouths - they have little, but they know how to use that little pretty damn well. After all, it is just a matter of forcing the other person to play by your rules - I did these things and these things define a person as cool. Done well enough, this premise is accepted without critique and the person indeed becomes cool in the eyes of the other person. But in reality, it is just good salesmanship.
Everyone reading this - think about how often has it happenned that you feel inferior to someone you have been talking to for a few minutes to a few hours. This is how it is done, by the way.
Over the course of the past two weeks, I have done a bunch of stupid things, stories of which I could live on for the rest of my life, if I really wanted to. And it has been tremendously fun. And not nearly as stupid as I first thought some of these things would have been. Furthermore, I now realize how cool some of the other stuff has been that I have done before in my life...
With my experiences over the past half a year, I now also have enough context to understand other peoples stories about drinking, partying and travelling... and give them due respect rather than over-idealizing them.
Should come in handy.
Another thing I have had a brush with is authenticity and masks. It is very easy to keep another person at a safe distance. Hold up a polite but fairly empty conversation, either about mundane or abstract matters.
However - it is hard to actually be authentic. To look a person in the eye and say that this topic is not interesting to you, but that you would instead like to know about something deep and profound within or about him. You know, go one step further.
Normally, the "one step further" thing just happens with people with whom it "feels right". But if a person is just very shy and likes holding up the polite barrier just for self-defence, he may well never get a chance to have an authentic covnersation. For these cases, a touch of brutal but caring honesty may come in handy. Or, well, there are of course less brutal ways of doing it, as any therapist worth their salt will tell you.
Might make for a bit more meaningful relationships.
So to sum up:
a) Direction is important in life. Be wary of how it is formed.
b) Most of my pain is due to automatic thoughts that tie M. directly with loneliness. Watch for it and make it stop.
c) Learn how to sell what you have well and to scrutinize what the others are actually selling.
d) Authenticity might be a good idea. As with everything, practice makes perfect.
Now to go and put all of that into practice.
Fully loaded, we've got snacks and supplies
I woke up at around 6.30. At this point it was light outside so I could take a closer look at the booth I was sleeping in and the ones next to it. They were all for boat tours on the river, main attraction being, of course, crocodiles.
The first boats were set to leave at 9.30 so I figured I could probably sleep for about an hour more without anyone coming to disturb me. Nevertheless, I knew that ferry had started running at 6 already so I thought I would try hitchiking again.
No luck for 2 and a half hours.. not that many cars passing by at that time of day. I had started reading a book on the side and was making good progress with that though. Nevertheless, I figured it was good time for a break so I walked up to one of the booths and asked about the tour. 20 bucks for 1 hour and 15 minutes of tour... Seemed reasonable, especially considering they were also serving coffe to the clients - which I quite badly needed at that point.
The tour was well worth the money. I got to see 4 crocodiles in the wild.. including a big fat 4 meter dominant male ("Fat Albert") and about a year-old baby croc hiding in the plants on the riverbank.
Now for some interesting facts about crocodiles. Males keep growing all their lieves. The largest male found in Australia was 8.5 m long (i.e. about the length of my appartment). Females usually grow to 3.5 m and then stop. Other than growth, it is pretty hard to tell males and females apart (besides literally taking a finger to their privates). The scales on the back are like tree trunks in the sense that if you cut one off, you can count the growth rings to get the age of the croc.. along with info about which years were good to him and which were not.Crocodiles are cannibals. Dominant males sometimes let young males set up their territories within theirs because they can then be counted to be there on the bad years where they then constitute a good meal. Chances of a newly hatched croc making it to maturity are about 1 in 50 - most just get eaten, either by sharks, eagles or other crocs. During colder months, crocs eat just once a week or even less often. They live to be about 80 and mature at around 25 - quite like humans. They have very good senses of sight, smell, hearing and vibration sensitivity (to detect ripples in the water) and use all four to hunt. They are also quite intelligent, remmembering patterns (i.e. stopping to let a ferry past). They are also very lazy (so standing back a few meters from the water will usually keep you safe - not because the croc could not get you but because it would be too much of a hassle for him to do so). And yes, only salties (salt-water crocodiles) are dangerous in Australia. Fresh-water ones feed on fish only.
Once I got back from the tour, I raised up my thumb again. After about half an hour, I finally get picked up by a small van. I ask whether they are going to Cape Tribulation. "Yeah, sure", the guy getting out of the car answers. The van was packed pretty full of stuff already, but my bass and backpack still fit in, and thankfully, so do I (but just barely).
I pretty soon realize I have hit the jackpot, when it turns out that
a) they also plan to go hiking in the Daintree park (just like I was)
b) they need to go back to Cairns the next day (just like I do)
c) they even have a spare tent, a spare sleeping bag and even a spare pillow
So more about the gang. I was sharing the backseat with a Taiwanese girl called Amy. Driving was a german girl called Franzisca and the guy who helped with my stuff was a scot named Lewis. Lewis and Franzisca seemed to have just gotten together as a couple, using every opportunity to make out. Amy was also a hitchiker, although a bit more organized than me - she had used a hitchiking website called Gumtree to get picked up instead of just standing on the side of the road like me. All three had been in Australia for months already.
So we first went to the camping grounds to set up a tent and have lunch. They offered to share their food with me and take me back to Cairns the next day, provided I pay them for gas. It was quite a good proposition so of course I took it. This meant handing them the last paper notes of australian dollars I had in my wallet - good, as I now did not need to worry about exchanging them back in estonia.
After lunch we did indeed go for a walk.. two actually, first on a very beautiful beach at Cape Tribulation itself and second a jungle track a bit south of it. The jungle track was a large boardwalk, so uncomparable to the up-close-and-scars-still-visible-personal experience of the previous day. Nevertheless, it was very beautiful. What more, we actually got to see a Cassowary.
Now, for those that do not know, a Southern Cassowary is a human-sized black bird with a bright blue head that is related to Ostriches and Emus. Meeting one in the nature may mean serious injury or even death if the particular specimen happends to be in a bad mood.
The guy we saw had a chick with him. You know, a smaller, more monochrome version of himself.
Of course, all of us tried to be very careful around him. Trouble was, though, he was pretty much right on the path, so we could not really go past him. He was clearly aware of all of us, but he was much less scared of us than we were of him. So it created quite an interesting situation...
That got resolved about half an hour later when we just gathered our courage and walked past him at about a meters distance. I was in front of the row of people... and it was pretty scary. (although, to be fair, by that time, 4 people had walked by him already one-at-a-time, but he was a bit further away in these cases).
I call the bird a guy, by the way, because we were later told that males usually care for the chicks once they are hatched. Equal division of labor :)
After that encounter, it was getting dark already so we headed back to the camping ground, had dinner and then went to bed. I shared a tent with Amy, but got to sleep before she had even entered.
And woke up at 7.30, the other side of the tent packed up just like it was when I went to sleep. Turned out she had woken up at 6 already. There was to be a crocodile feeding at 8.30. When heading towards that, we saw Lewis waking up too.
Croc feeding was fun. The guy told pretty much the same things about crocodiles I had heared the day before, though. But watching the croc follow the feeder with his eyes and ocasionally reposition itself.. reminded me of the beginning clip from Dr. Doolittle 2 - there may well be truth to that, actually.
We went to the hiking trail that was right behind the camp site.. and then drove to another one a bit southwards. Then headed back to the ferry and started driving south, making a stop in Port Douglas to stock up on supplies and look at the sights, briefly.
We then drove to Barron Gorge.. or well, would have if it would not have been a 20 km uphill drive. The car was quite heavy and was guzzling fuel at a bit too fast of a rate.. so Lewis and Franzisca decided to turn back at a lookout point that was about 5 km drive from the base.
However, as it was still fairly early (3 a clock), I was pretty intent on going up to see the Barron falls - so I asked them to drop me off at the base so I could hitchike up. We said our goodbyes, grabbed my stuff and started hitchiking.
About 20 cars later I got picked up by a woman in her thirties. On the way up, she showed me where a good spot would be to hitchike back, and also how to get there best on foot. She then dropped me off at the center of the small town just up the mountain and also pointed me to the direction of the falls.
The falls were 3 km away. I had a 25 kg backpack and another 5 kg of bass guitar with me. So instead of heading straight for the falls, I took a small detour towards a youth hostel. I asked the receptionist if I could leave my bags there for 1-2 hours. He was somewhat sceptical, but agreed once I explained I will definitely be back as I have a plane early next morning. When I said "Back in a few hours", he corrected me though, saying "1-2, that is a couple. A few is a few more than that".
I was now free of my burden for two hours, so I started towards the falls. 40 minutes later I arrived, only to experience what was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my life (yes, quite comparable to the road up to Port Douglas I mentioned about a week ago.. or the cliffs I saw at the first rafting trip. I do have pictures to prove it). I then also headed to the other nearby lookout point that supposedly had a good view of Cairns itself.. which it did..
By now I was running out of the 2 hours I had been granted.. so I raised my walking pace a bit and raised my thumb up whenever I heared a car passing by. Halfway I was indeed picked up and got a ride back to town in a pickup truck. Went by the hostel to collect my stuff and then followed the directions to get to the hichiking place I had been shown before.
It was quite nice, next to a long stretch of straight road, with a very wide roadside where a car could easily pull over. Two problems though. Firstly, it was a long stretch of straight road so cars were going quite fast. More worryingly, though, it was pitch-black dark again, I was still dressed in black-and-gray and there was no streetlight.
Ok, so there I was, at 7 a clock in the evening, with the whole night ahead of me and only 35 km to cover.
Well, except that the traffic was quite light, the cars did not see me before passing by (as they were going too fast) and oh, right, I could not go forward either because the downhill road did not even have enough room for a person to walk there safely without being run over, much less enough for a car to pull over. So I was, in effect, stuck, and in a pretty bad situation.
Thanfully, one driver did eventually notice me (after about 40 minutes of waiting), and managed to stop just right before the downhill trail so he still did have room to pull over. Driver turned out to be a youth worker, currently working with a problematic autistic kid who used to be pretty violent but seemed to be doing ok after three years of care. The driver was nice enough to drop me off at a good hitchiking location before heading into the opposite direction himself.
So, set out looking for the next car to pick me up. Decided to start counting cars again. I got to 2 - as the second car already pulled over, driver giving me a friendly greeting and introducing himself as Mick. He said he has a small errand to run before going to Cairns. I said I had all the time in the world.
So, he drove to a small town at the waterfront just outside Cairns - just to go check when a restaurant he had once visited would be open. He said he had been there once and really liked the food, but had not found them on the internet or on white pages once he got home.
That was a short detour and we were pretty soon at the airport. He dropped me off at the domestic, we exchanged contact info and then parted ways. I went into the terminal, sat down, made a cup of coffee and then...
...got kicked out, as the domestic terminal was closing for the night. I was directed to the international one next door, though. At about 4 a clock I got back to the domestic terminal and got on the 5.45 flight to Sydney, thus concluding my vacation in Australia
All in all, it was by far the best vacation I have yet to have. I got to swim underwater as well as to climb a mountain, meet interesting new people but also enjoy solitude, challenge myself but also do things easy and familiar to me. In short, it had everything I want in a vacation.
Well, nearly :)
The first boats were set to leave at 9.30 so I figured I could probably sleep for about an hour more without anyone coming to disturb me. Nevertheless, I knew that ferry had started running at 6 already so I thought I would try hitchiking again.
No luck for 2 and a half hours.. not that many cars passing by at that time of day. I had started reading a book on the side and was making good progress with that though. Nevertheless, I figured it was good time for a break so I walked up to one of the booths and asked about the tour. 20 bucks for 1 hour and 15 minutes of tour... Seemed reasonable, especially considering they were also serving coffe to the clients - which I quite badly needed at that point.
The tour was well worth the money. I got to see 4 crocodiles in the wild.. including a big fat 4 meter dominant male ("Fat Albert") and about a year-old baby croc hiding in the plants on the riverbank.
Now for some interesting facts about crocodiles. Males keep growing all their lieves. The largest male found in Australia was 8.5 m long (i.e. about the length of my appartment). Females usually grow to 3.5 m and then stop. Other than growth, it is pretty hard to tell males and females apart (besides literally taking a finger to their privates). The scales on the back are like tree trunks in the sense that if you cut one off, you can count the growth rings to get the age of the croc.. along with info about which years were good to him and which were not.Crocodiles are cannibals. Dominant males sometimes let young males set up their territories within theirs because they can then be counted to be there on the bad years where they then constitute a good meal. Chances of a newly hatched croc making it to maturity are about 1 in 50 - most just get eaten, either by sharks, eagles or other crocs. During colder months, crocs eat just once a week or even less often. They live to be about 80 and mature at around 25 - quite like humans. They have very good senses of sight, smell, hearing and vibration sensitivity (to detect ripples in the water) and use all four to hunt. They are also quite intelligent, remmembering patterns (i.e. stopping to let a ferry past). They are also very lazy (so standing back a few meters from the water will usually keep you safe - not because the croc could not get you but because it would be too much of a hassle for him to do so). And yes, only salties (salt-water crocodiles) are dangerous in Australia. Fresh-water ones feed on fish only.
Once I got back from the tour, I raised up my thumb again. After about half an hour, I finally get picked up by a small van. I ask whether they are going to Cape Tribulation. "Yeah, sure", the guy getting out of the car answers. The van was packed pretty full of stuff already, but my bass and backpack still fit in, and thankfully, so do I (but just barely).
I pretty soon realize I have hit the jackpot, when it turns out that
a) they also plan to go hiking in the Daintree park (just like I was)
b) they need to go back to Cairns the next day (just like I do)
c) they even have a spare tent, a spare sleeping bag and even a spare pillow
So more about the gang. I was sharing the backseat with a Taiwanese girl called Amy. Driving was a german girl called Franzisca and the guy who helped with my stuff was a scot named Lewis. Lewis and Franzisca seemed to have just gotten together as a couple, using every opportunity to make out. Amy was also a hitchiker, although a bit more organized than me - she had used a hitchiking website called Gumtree to get picked up instead of just standing on the side of the road like me. All three had been in Australia for months already.
So we first went to the camping grounds to set up a tent and have lunch. They offered to share their food with me and take me back to Cairns the next day, provided I pay them for gas. It was quite a good proposition so of course I took it. This meant handing them the last paper notes of australian dollars I had in my wallet - good, as I now did not need to worry about exchanging them back in estonia.
After lunch we did indeed go for a walk.. two actually, first on a very beautiful beach at Cape Tribulation itself and second a jungle track a bit south of it. The jungle track was a large boardwalk, so uncomparable to the up-close-and-scars-still-visible-personal experience of the previous day. Nevertheless, it was very beautiful. What more, we actually got to see a Cassowary.
Now, for those that do not know, a Southern Cassowary is a human-sized black bird with a bright blue head that is related to Ostriches and Emus. Meeting one in the nature may mean serious injury or even death if the particular specimen happends to be in a bad mood.
The guy we saw had a chick with him. You know, a smaller, more monochrome version of himself.
Of course, all of us tried to be very careful around him. Trouble was, though, he was pretty much right on the path, so we could not really go past him. He was clearly aware of all of us, but he was much less scared of us than we were of him. So it created quite an interesting situation...
That got resolved about half an hour later when we just gathered our courage and walked past him at about a meters distance. I was in front of the row of people... and it was pretty scary. (although, to be fair, by that time, 4 people had walked by him already one-at-a-time, but he was a bit further away in these cases).
I call the bird a guy, by the way, because we were later told that males usually care for the chicks once they are hatched. Equal division of labor :)
After that encounter, it was getting dark already so we headed back to the camping ground, had dinner and then went to bed. I shared a tent with Amy, but got to sleep before she had even entered.
And woke up at 7.30, the other side of the tent packed up just like it was when I went to sleep. Turned out she had woken up at 6 already. There was to be a crocodile feeding at 8.30. When heading towards that, we saw Lewis waking up too.
Croc feeding was fun. The guy told pretty much the same things about crocodiles I had heared the day before, though. But watching the croc follow the feeder with his eyes and ocasionally reposition itself.. reminded me of the beginning clip from Dr. Doolittle 2 - there may well be truth to that, actually.
We went to the hiking trail that was right behind the camp site.. and then drove to another one a bit southwards. Then headed back to the ferry and started driving south, making a stop in Port Douglas to stock up on supplies and look at the sights, briefly.
We then drove to Barron Gorge.. or well, would have if it would not have been a 20 km uphill drive. The car was quite heavy and was guzzling fuel at a bit too fast of a rate.. so Lewis and Franzisca decided to turn back at a lookout point that was about 5 km drive from the base.
However, as it was still fairly early (3 a clock), I was pretty intent on going up to see the Barron falls - so I asked them to drop me off at the base so I could hitchike up. We said our goodbyes, grabbed my stuff and started hitchiking.
About 20 cars later I got picked up by a woman in her thirties. On the way up, she showed me where a good spot would be to hitchike back, and also how to get there best on foot. She then dropped me off at the center of the small town just up the mountain and also pointed me to the direction of the falls.
The falls were 3 km away. I had a 25 kg backpack and another 5 kg of bass guitar with me. So instead of heading straight for the falls, I took a small detour towards a youth hostel. I asked the receptionist if I could leave my bags there for 1-2 hours. He was somewhat sceptical, but agreed once I explained I will definitely be back as I have a plane early next morning. When I said "Back in a few hours", he corrected me though, saying "1-2, that is a couple. A few is a few more than that".
I was now free of my burden for two hours, so I started towards the falls. 40 minutes later I arrived, only to experience what was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my life (yes, quite comparable to the road up to Port Douglas I mentioned about a week ago.. or the cliffs I saw at the first rafting trip. I do have pictures to prove it). I then also headed to the other nearby lookout point that supposedly had a good view of Cairns itself.. which it did..
By now I was running out of the 2 hours I had been granted.. so I raised my walking pace a bit and raised my thumb up whenever I heared a car passing by. Halfway I was indeed picked up and got a ride back to town in a pickup truck. Went by the hostel to collect my stuff and then followed the directions to get to the hichiking place I had been shown before.
It was quite nice, next to a long stretch of straight road, with a very wide roadside where a car could easily pull over. Two problems though. Firstly, it was a long stretch of straight road so cars were going quite fast. More worryingly, though, it was pitch-black dark again, I was still dressed in black-and-gray and there was no streetlight.
Ok, so there I was, at 7 a clock in the evening, with the whole night ahead of me and only 35 km to cover.
Well, except that the traffic was quite light, the cars did not see me before passing by (as they were going too fast) and oh, right, I could not go forward either because the downhill road did not even have enough room for a person to walk there safely without being run over, much less enough for a car to pull over. So I was, in effect, stuck, and in a pretty bad situation.
Thanfully, one driver did eventually notice me (after about 40 minutes of waiting), and managed to stop just right before the downhill trail so he still did have room to pull over. Driver turned out to be a youth worker, currently working with a problematic autistic kid who used to be pretty violent but seemed to be doing ok after three years of care. The driver was nice enough to drop me off at a good hitchiking location before heading into the opposite direction himself.
So, set out looking for the next car to pick me up. Decided to start counting cars again. I got to 2 - as the second car already pulled over, driver giving me a friendly greeting and introducing himself as Mick. He said he has a small errand to run before going to Cairns. I said I had all the time in the world.
So, he drove to a small town at the waterfront just outside Cairns - just to go check when a restaurant he had once visited would be open. He said he had been there once and really liked the food, but had not found them on the internet or on white pages once he got home.
That was a short detour and we were pretty soon at the airport. He dropped me off at the domestic, we exchanged contact info and then parted ways. I went into the terminal, sat down, made a cup of coffee and then...
...got kicked out, as the domestic terminal was closing for the night. I was directed to the international one next door, though. At about 4 a clock I got back to the domestic terminal and got on the 5.45 flight to Sydney, thus concluding my vacation in Australia
All in all, it was by far the best vacation I have yet to have. I got to swim underwater as well as to climb a mountain, meet interesting new people but also enjoy solitude, challenge myself but also do things easy and familiar to me. In short, it had everything I want in a vacation.
Well, nearly :)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
No fear, destination Darkness
Hitchiking - a checklist of things to do:
Do it in the dark so you can just barely make out the road yourself.
Do it dressed in all black-and-grey
Forget to take a map with you.
Realize you do have a map, but let a car go by while searching for it.
Walk 7 km with a 20 kg backpack without seeing any cars pass you by.
Sit down to relax your legs, take your boots off and let the first car you have seen in 2 hours pass you by.
Look at the stars and realize just how beautiful they are in here.
Get barked at by a huge and scary dog.. til the owner calls him off.
Finally get to the crossroads where there are streetlamps and actual cars passing by.
Sit on your bag, watch bats fly aroung and realize that life is beautiful.
Attempt to hitch a ride.
Get picked up by the 25-th car.
Have the driver offer you a beer, and watch him also have one.
Have him tell you he drives tour busses for a living.
Let him drive you all the way to the ferry, about third of the way to the next destination.
Have a nice long conversation with the ferryworker lasting for 2 hours
While only 3 cars move in the direction you need to go.
When the last ferry goes, walk away from the river as not to be eaten by crocs.
End up at the river again, at a different pier with a few tour kiosks and a tourist information booth.
Attempt to sleep on the bench at the information booth.
Realize that the weather is not as warm as you first imagined.
Also realize you should have taken a sleeping bag, just in case.
Put a jumper on under your leather jacket.
Realize it is still too cold because of the wind.
climb into one of the tourist kiosks and attempt to sleep on the floor.
drag a wooden plank in front of the doorway just in case any crocodiles try something.
Realize that tiled floors are f***ing cold to sleep on.
Two hours later, realize you do have a towel in your bag.
Attempt sleeping on that with the leather coat as a blanket
Get 3 hours of sleep that way, then wake up because of the cold.
Oh yes, and enjoy every single second of everything described above!
Do it in the dark so you can just barely make out the road yourself.
Do it dressed in all black-and-grey
Forget to take a map with you.
Realize you do have a map, but let a car go by while searching for it.
Walk 7 km with a 20 kg backpack without seeing any cars pass you by.
Sit down to relax your legs, take your boots off and let the first car you have seen in 2 hours pass you by.
Look at the stars and realize just how beautiful they are in here.
Get barked at by a huge and scary dog.. til the owner calls him off.
Finally get to the crossroads where there are streetlamps and actual cars passing by.
Sit on your bag, watch bats fly aroung and realize that life is beautiful.
Attempt to hitch a ride.
Get picked up by the 25-th car.
Have the driver offer you a beer, and watch him also have one.
Have him tell you he drives tour busses for a living.
Let him drive you all the way to the ferry, about third of the way to the next destination.
Have a nice long conversation with the ferryworker lasting for 2 hours
While only 3 cars move in the direction you need to go.
When the last ferry goes, walk away from the river as not to be eaten by crocs.
End up at the river again, at a different pier with a few tour kiosks and a tourist information booth.
Attempt to sleep on the bench at the information booth.
Realize that the weather is not as warm as you first imagined.
Also realize you should have taken a sleeping bag, just in case.
Put a jumper on under your leather jacket.
Realize it is still too cold because of the wind.
climb into one of the tourist kiosks and attempt to sleep on the floor.
drag a wooden plank in front of the doorway just in case any crocodiles try something.
Realize that tiled floors are f***ing cold to sleep on.
Two hours later, realize you do have a towel in your bag.
Attempt sleeping on that with the leather coat as a blanket
Get 3 hours of sleep that way, then wake up because of the cold.
Oh yes, and enjoy every single second of everything described above!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Stairway to Heaven
I woke up at 6.20 to get some stuff done before the dawn, which I estimated to be at around 7. However, I finished a bit later, than estimated. Nevertheless, Diane was willing to give me a lift to the beginning of the track.. which was not far, thankfully.
The path was marked with small coloured ribbons tied to trees. However, in most places, it did not ressemble a path. It was just a trail of places that were a bit more easily passed through than everything surrounding it - but not by a large margin. Makes sense, though - the rainforest grows pretty quickly so unless the trail is walked every day by many people, it will stop looking like a trail quite quickly.
Before the trail up the mountain officially began, I had to cross a small creek. Small, but still big enough for me to have to take my boots off and walk through barefoot. Water reached up to my knee at the deepest place.
What followed was 4.5 km of walking uphill and then another 800m walking downhill, all that to reach the height of approximately 1300 m. Each of these 5.3 km took about an hour - and I was climbing nearly as fast as I could, not slacking off and watching the nature.
I did notice a few things though. In the first km, I was constantly pestered by waitawhiles, constantly getting caught in them. The second km was somewhat better and I did not see waitawhiles any more since then until climbing down again. That part had the prettiest ascents of the trail though, at least two of them actually ressembling stairways. Past the 2 km marker, the path changed somewhat. The climb got markedly steeper and past the 2.5 km mark also fairly wet and slippery.
Nevertheless, 3 hours later, I was at the 3.2 km marker - rainforest was briefly replaced by a thick overgrowth of ferns, initially only up to my knees but later as high as to my armpits.
What made that part especially scary though was that you could see clouds over the ferns. From above. They say that on clear days, one can see as far as Cairns from the top of the mountain. It wasn't one of those (on average) two days a year when it is clear there, though. But clouds themselves already gave a pretty good idea of just how high I was and just what exactly accidentally slipping on the wet path would mean.
Also, I discovered a dozen leeches sucking away at my legs, once I stopped to rest and have a drink. (Note to self - next time start with at least two litres of water instead of one - that way, you can drink one on the way up, which is the worst stretch in terms of sweating and exertion.).
The fact that the next part "requires above average fitness and rock climbing skills" was not also very promising - I was in no mood to climb a damp and slippery cliff in conditions where falling meant certain death.
Fortunately, it never came to that. Rock climbing was required, but only for two short stretches, with trees and roots offering quite a bit of support and in places where falling meant falling just a few meters before being stopped by a flat piece of land.. So nothing unreasonable. What made the last 2 km hard was the fact that the path went through fairly thick jungle and was at many places quite easy to lose.
Once I got to the top lookout point, I just verified that I was still indeed above a cloud and could not see anything below me, rested a bit and then started back. Coming down was easier, of course, but again with different stretches presenting different obstacles. first two km was easy to lose the trail, next 1.5 km required constantly reaching for nearby trees in order to not just slip and slide down (the wrong way and into certain death) and the last stretch, although walkable was still infested with waitawhiles - some of which did cut me up in a few places, but thankfully nothing serious.
As I had exhausted my liquid supply by the time I got down, I got a quick drink from the creek I had passed through before. I then crossed it again, walked back to the playhouse. The trip (10.6 km + 500m?) took 9 hours to complete. Considering I had made only 5 short brakes on the way, all of them no longer than 20 minutes, I had been walking on some of the hardest terrain I had seen for nearly 8 hours. Not bad. Not bad at all.
A good thing I started at 7.30 in the morning. It is 18.30 now and looking outside equals looking into complete darkness. If I were still at the trail, I would basically have to sit tight where I was because I would have no chance navigating the trail back. And you do not want to sleep in the jungle at night without any equipment or training. Seriously, you do not.
Hitchiking in pitch black night ought to be fun though.
The path was marked with small coloured ribbons tied to trees. However, in most places, it did not ressemble a path. It was just a trail of places that were a bit more easily passed through than everything surrounding it - but not by a large margin. Makes sense, though - the rainforest grows pretty quickly so unless the trail is walked every day by many people, it will stop looking like a trail quite quickly.
Before the trail up the mountain officially began, I had to cross a small creek. Small, but still big enough for me to have to take my boots off and walk through barefoot. Water reached up to my knee at the deepest place.
What followed was 4.5 km of walking uphill and then another 800m walking downhill, all that to reach the height of approximately 1300 m. Each of these 5.3 km took about an hour - and I was climbing nearly as fast as I could, not slacking off and watching the nature.
I did notice a few things though. In the first km, I was constantly pestered by waitawhiles, constantly getting caught in them. The second km was somewhat better and I did not see waitawhiles any more since then until climbing down again. That part had the prettiest ascents of the trail though, at least two of them actually ressembling stairways. Past the 2 km marker, the path changed somewhat. The climb got markedly steeper and past the 2.5 km mark also fairly wet and slippery.
Nevertheless, 3 hours later, I was at the 3.2 km marker - rainforest was briefly replaced by a thick overgrowth of ferns, initially only up to my knees but later as high as to my armpits.
What made that part especially scary though was that you could see clouds over the ferns. From above. They say that on clear days, one can see as far as Cairns from the top of the mountain. It wasn't one of those (on average) two days a year when it is clear there, though. But clouds themselves already gave a pretty good idea of just how high I was and just what exactly accidentally slipping on the wet path would mean.
Also, I discovered a dozen leeches sucking away at my legs, once I stopped to rest and have a drink. (Note to self - next time start with at least two litres of water instead of one - that way, you can drink one on the way up, which is the worst stretch in terms of sweating and exertion.).
The fact that the next part "requires above average fitness and rock climbing skills" was not also very promising - I was in no mood to climb a damp and slippery cliff in conditions where falling meant certain death.
Fortunately, it never came to that. Rock climbing was required, but only for two short stretches, with trees and roots offering quite a bit of support and in places where falling meant falling just a few meters before being stopped by a flat piece of land.. So nothing unreasonable. What made the last 2 km hard was the fact that the path went through fairly thick jungle and was at many places quite easy to lose.
Once I got to the top lookout point, I just verified that I was still indeed above a cloud and could not see anything below me, rested a bit and then started back. Coming down was easier, of course, but again with different stretches presenting different obstacles. first two km was easy to lose the trail, next 1.5 km required constantly reaching for nearby trees in order to not just slip and slide down (the wrong way and into certain death) and the last stretch, although walkable was still infested with waitawhiles - some of which did cut me up in a few places, but thankfully nothing serious.
As I had exhausted my liquid supply by the time I got down, I got a quick drink from the creek I had passed through before. I then crossed it again, walked back to the playhouse. The trip (10.6 km + 500m?) took 9 hours to complete. Considering I had made only 5 short brakes on the way, all of them no longer than 20 minutes, I had been walking on some of the hardest terrain I had seen for nearly 8 hours. Not bad. Not bad at all.
A good thing I started at 7.30 in the morning. It is 18.30 now and looking outside equals looking into complete darkness. If I were still at the trail, I would basically have to sit tight where I was because I would have no chance navigating the trail back. And you do not want to sleep in the jungle at night without any equipment or training. Seriously, you do not.
Hitchiking in pitch black night ought to be fun though.
Friday, July 16, 2010
My life is a circus and I am tripping down that tightrope
Today Frank drove me a hundred kilometers north of Cairns, to a place called Karnak Playhouse - right at a foot of a really beautiful mountain with a hiking trail going up it. An acquaintance of his owns the place - an actress Diane Cilento, once the wife of Sean Connery and now doing her own productions in what can only be described as one of the most scenic places conceivable for a theater.
The road there passed through Mossman, where we stopped to go walk the (touristy) hiking trail at the mossman gorge. It was quite nice, although I am slowly getting used to all the rainforest already so nothing too spectacular or jaw-dropping. We had quite an interesting conversation though - on topics raging from standard Australian english slowly decaying to what the gay community is like (Frank is gay by the way, although he does not believe in labels).
When we arrived at the playhouse (synonym for a theater), we went up a flight of stairs and arrived at the cafe/open-air theater. It was quite a spectacular sight. We went up to the counter and ordered coffee.. the girl at the counter had a slight accent which I recognized correctly as being a Finnish one. Frank asked about the whereabouts of Diane and we were politely asked to wait while they were trying to get in touch with her.
Two cups of coffee later, Diane shows up, unexpectedly to everyone (she had not been answering her cellphone). Frank introduces the two of us and tells Diane that I am the person interested in WWOOF-ing. "Willing Work On Organic Farms", as I later found out. She said that she currently had too many people as it was, but on hearing I only wanted to stay for one day to just go hiking up the mountain things worked out. I said goodbye to Frank and dragged my stuff to a luxurious green house out in the back.
I then reported back to Diane and asked if she had work for me. She introduced me to Alex, one of the other woofers, who then led me to a large patch of weed right around a tree trunk and explained I should try to uproot the weeds as best I could, and then potentially tidy up by also raking the leaves from the surrounding area.
Two satisfying hours of hard manual labour later and the job was more or less done. I went back to where Alex was and then started meeting the other Woofers, one at a time. Two brits, two Americans, a German and the Finnish girl I mentioned before. The latter had a job interview in the evening, but we sat down and had dinner with the rest of them... and then watched 4 episodes of "How I met your mother" from a dvd player one of them had bought with them.
At some point, the American guy said he was heading for bed, so I also decided to get going, back to the house I had dropped my stuff at. Problem was, however, that it was pitch-black darkness outside and I had left my phone to charge so I had no light source. Thankfully, they borrowed me their flashlight.
I have two bats flying around in my room as I am typing this. This place is seriously cool :)
Im going to try to get going at first light tomorrow. The climb is supposedly pretty hard, but we'll see. I think after that, I will just try to hitchike to Cape Tribulation (another 60 km north), spend a day hiking there and then hitchike back to Cairns to catch my flight. At least that is the initial plan.
The road there passed through Mossman, where we stopped to go walk the (touristy) hiking trail at the mossman gorge. It was quite nice, although I am slowly getting used to all the rainforest already so nothing too spectacular or jaw-dropping. We had quite an interesting conversation though - on topics raging from standard Australian english slowly decaying to what the gay community is like (Frank is gay by the way, although he does not believe in labels).
When we arrived at the playhouse (synonym for a theater), we went up a flight of stairs and arrived at the cafe/open-air theater. It was quite a spectacular sight. We went up to the counter and ordered coffee.. the girl at the counter had a slight accent which I recognized correctly as being a Finnish one. Frank asked about the whereabouts of Diane and we were politely asked to wait while they were trying to get in touch with her.
Two cups of coffee later, Diane shows up, unexpectedly to everyone (she had not been answering her cellphone). Frank introduces the two of us and tells Diane that I am the person interested in WWOOF-ing. "Willing Work On Organic Farms", as I later found out. She said that she currently had too many people as it was, but on hearing I only wanted to stay for one day to just go hiking up the mountain things worked out. I said goodbye to Frank and dragged my stuff to a luxurious green house out in the back.
I then reported back to Diane and asked if she had work for me. She introduced me to Alex, one of the other woofers, who then led me to a large patch of weed right around a tree trunk and explained I should try to uproot the weeds as best I could, and then potentially tidy up by also raking the leaves from the surrounding area.
Two satisfying hours of hard manual labour later and the job was more or less done. I went back to where Alex was and then started meeting the other Woofers, one at a time. Two brits, two Americans, a German and the Finnish girl I mentioned before. The latter had a job interview in the evening, but we sat down and had dinner with the rest of them... and then watched 4 episodes of "How I met your mother" from a dvd player one of them had bought with them.
At some point, the American guy said he was heading for bed, so I also decided to get going, back to the house I had dropped my stuff at. Problem was, however, that it was pitch-black darkness outside and I had left my phone to charge so I had no light source. Thankfully, they borrowed me their flashlight.
I have two bats flying around in my room as I am typing this. This place is seriously cool :)
Im going to try to get going at first light tomorrow. The climb is supposedly pretty hard, but we'll see. I think after that, I will just try to hitchike to Cape Tribulation (another 60 km north), spend a day hiking there and then hitchike back to Cairns to catch my flight. At least that is the initial plan.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
I'm starting to trip, I'm losing my grip
Went rafting again today. This time on the Russell river (also grade 4) and with a different company.
On the way there, the guides showed us a few local sights. Like the sugar cane mill in Babinda - one of the largest in the area. Sugar cane here is used mainly for rum, by the way, and Babinda literally translates to "The wet place" as it has 9 m of annual rain (something that is normally measured in cm-s).
The first order of business after getting out of the car was to take a 50 minute hike to the river through thick jungle. And to make things fun, all of us had to either carry around a heavy backpack or huge foam slabs (2m long, 1 m wide, 20 cm thick in total as there were 3 slabs bunched together). I got the foam slabs - which were pretty fun to slug around through the thicket as the jungle path was fairly narrow, slippery and rocky and the slabs impaired visibility quite heavily in many cases.
We were given some information about the jungle too. For instance, they showed us the worlds most poisonous plant - if you touch its leaves, it stings like hell for 10 days. The sting then becomes temperature sensitive and will hurt for months every time you have a shower.
The other cool plant they warned us about was "Waitawhile" (as the locals call it), or Rattan for the rest of the world. Basically, a type of vine that has very sharp hooks on its strands that can easily inflict long cuts on the skin. The name "waitawhile" is for a reason, by the way - if you get caught on it, the best thing to do is to take a few steps back as it will just release you then :)
Once we got to the water, the guides started unpacking the rafts. The slabs I was carrying were meant as flooring, by the way. There were 6 of us - a couple from New Zealand, a heavily tattooed couple from Sweden, a young guy from Taiwan and me. As this time the company used two-person rafts, I got paired up with the taiwanese guy. He did not speak much.. nor understand too much english, I think. Nevertheless, we worked pretty well as a team.
Well, not really. Guides explained that the guy up front is the engine (just paddles forward) and guy in the back does the steering. He sat up front, me in the back, However, initially, he also tried steering - so we just went around in circles. Thankfully, that got cleared up pretty fast.
Nevertheless, steering got some getting used to - and we did quite a few 360 spins on the water even later on, both before and during the rapids.
The high point was a grade 4 rapid, where the guide showed us - "You go down between these two rocks. Go to the left and (a gesture implying decapitation)". Needless to say we went down the way we should not have.
Backwards.
We stayed in the boat. But that was pretty damn scary when I first realized we were going down the wrong path. But things did work out quite alright and in the end, we were the only boat from which noone had fallen out - the other two had a man overboard in another rapid that had a waterfall, whilst we both managed to stay in pretty well - although in quite a few places, that seemed to hinge on pure luck alone. The two person rafts really did not have anything to hold on to (like the ropes larger rafts had) so it was mostly just paddle and pray through the rapids.. well, except for the prayer part of course.
The guides later admitted that everything had gone pretty smoothly, compared to average. Guess it is normal that people do not quite learn how to steer the rafts with just 5 minutes of instruction :) Nevertheless, they were both quite surprised we werent thrown out when we went the wrong way and backwards in that one rapid. "Guess you guys had someone watching above your shoulder".
It was fun, but a bit less than the first time. The trip was also a lot shorter. I got back to Franks by 15.30 in the evening already.
On the way there, the guides showed us a few local sights. Like the sugar cane mill in Babinda - one of the largest in the area. Sugar cane here is used mainly for rum, by the way, and Babinda literally translates to "The wet place" as it has 9 m of annual rain (something that is normally measured in cm-s).
The first order of business after getting out of the car was to take a 50 minute hike to the river through thick jungle. And to make things fun, all of us had to either carry around a heavy backpack or huge foam slabs (2m long, 1 m wide, 20 cm thick in total as there were 3 slabs bunched together). I got the foam slabs - which were pretty fun to slug around through the thicket as the jungle path was fairly narrow, slippery and rocky and the slabs impaired visibility quite heavily in many cases.
We were given some information about the jungle too. For instance, they showed us the worlds most poisonous plant - if you touch its leaves, it stings like hell for 10 days. The sting then becomes temperature sensitive and will hurt for months every time you have a shower.
The other cool plant they warned us about was "Waitawhile" (as the locals call it), or Rattan for the rest of the world. Basically, a type of vine that has very sharp hooks on its strands that can easily inflict long cuts on the skin. The name "waitawhile" is for a reason, by the way - if you get caught on it, the best thing to do is to take a few steps back as it will just release you then :)
Once we got to the water, the guides started unpacking the rafts. The slabs I was carrying were meant as flooring, by the way. There were 6 of us - a couple from New Zealand, a heavily tattooed couple from Sweden, a young guy from Taiwan and me. As this time the company used two-person rafts, I got paired up with the taiwanese guy. He did not speak much.. nor understand too much english, I think. Nevertheless, we worked pretty well as a team.
Well, not really. Guides explained that the guy up front is the engine (just paddles forward) and guy in the back does the steering. He sat up front, me in the back, However, initially, he also tried steering - so we just went around in circles. Thankfully, that got cleared up pretty fast.
Nevertheless, steering got some getting used to - and we did quite a few 360 spins on the water even later on, both before and during the rapids.
The high point was a grade 4 rapid, where the guide showed us - "You go down between these two rocks. Go to the left and (a gesture implying decapitation)". Needless to say we went down the way we should not have.
Backwards.
We stayed in the boat. But that was pretty damn scary when I first realized we were going down the wrong path. But things did work out quite alright and in the end, we were the only boat from which noone had fallen out - the other two had a man overboard in another rapid that had a waterfall, whilst we both managed to stay in pretty well - although in quite a few places, that seemed to hinge on pure luck alone. The two person rafts really did not have anything to hold on to (like the ropes larger rafts had) so it was mostly just paddle and pray through the rapids.. well, except for the prayer part of course.
The guides later admitted that everything had gone pretty smoothly, compared to average. Guess it is normal that people do not quite learn how to steer the rafts with just 5 minutes of instruction :) Nevertheless, they were both quite surprised we werent thrown out when we went the wrong way and backwards in that one rapid. "Guess you guys had someone watching above your shoulder".
It was fun, but a bit less than the first time. The trip was also a lot shorter. I got back to Franks by 15.30 in the evening already.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Maybe 6 feet, aint so far down
I went to the reef today. Woke up at 5.30 to get to the harbor (which is 7 km away) by 7.30. Checked in and then spent about an hour just waiting in the boat til it took off.
On the boat, they gave us basic diving instructions and then divided us into groups of 4 people. Since I was in the 7-th group, I had a bit of a wait ahead of me so I just went snorkling.
First attempt ended with me gasping for air and having my mask full of saltwater, which stung the eyes. Quick swim back to the boat to adjust the mask .. and a quick reflection on what I did wrong to realize I should keep my head a bit higher. Next attempt was considerably better. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Of course, I still got the occasional mouthful of salt water.. and holding on to the mask with teeth had my jaw cramping up at one point. But it was fun nonetheless. The water was really clear - one could easily see 15 meters down with the mask on. I had to take my glasses off, so it was a bit blurry, but I still saw with quite enough clarity.
At some point, my group was called. They packed the gear around us and then helped us into the water. We then did basic exercises about what to do when we accidentally lose the breathing regulator and how to clean the mask from water. And then took off, 5 of us in the row, guide in the center and everyone just holding on to him. We had to equalize the pressure (blowing hard while holding your nose closed) every meter down.. but despite that, at 6 meters, my ears started hurting very bad, so we did not go any deeper. We were down for about 11 minutes, but it seemed like much less.
The reef is really amazing. Especially the second place they took us to. I saw at least 20 different species of fish.. and I saw some of them actually feeding on the coral, which was fun to watch. No sharks or turtles, though. But the corals alone are already quite a sight to see (google "coral reef" for images and look at any one of them to get an idea).
I also tried diving with the snorkle. Took a while to figure out how to actually get below the waterline. At 2 m down, my ears started hurting and I decided not to try to go further. S. just mentioned on Skype that I should have equalized the pressure even while snorkling. Common sense, when I think about it, but did not occur to me back there.
On the way back, I sat on the bow (front) of the ship and just enjoyed the letf-right-up-down swinging motion. On quite a few occasions I got completely drenched from the spray that occurred when the boat crashed into the wave, as there was pretty strong wind.
Once back on the land, I decided to finally pay a visit to that ex-classmate of mine who was supposedly in Cairns. I was afraid it would be fairly ackward, as we had not had a conversation for at least 8 years.
It was not. Quite the opposite, it was actually quite interesting. He told me how the place he was working in was badly run and about his aspirations being related to wine economics. We could talk for about 30 minutes before he actually had to start working. I then walked back to Franks place again.
All in all, a very fun day. But one day was enough for me. Snorkling and diving were both fun to try once but are not quite for me, I think. Nevertheless, I definitely do understand what others find in it.
On the boat, they gave us basic diving instructions and then divided us into groups of 4 people. Since I was in the 7-th group, I had a bit of a wait ahead of me so I just went snorkling.
First attempt ended with me gasping for air and having my mask full of saltwater, which stung the eyes. Quick swim back to the boat to adjust the mask .. and a quick reflection on what I did wrong to realize I should keep my head a bit higher. Next attempt was considerably better. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Of course, I still got the occasional mouthful of salt water.. and holding on to the mask with teeth had my jaw cramping up at one point. But it was fun nonetheless. The water was really clear - one could easily see 15 meters down with the mask on. I had to take my glasses off, so it was a bit blurry, but I still saw with quite enough clarity.
At some point, my group was called. They packed the gear around us and then helped us into the water. We then did basic exercises about what to do when we accidentally lose the breathing regulator and how to clean the mask from water. And then took off, 5 of us in the row, guide in the center and everyone just holding on to him. We had to equalize the pressure (blowing hard while holding your nose closed) every meter down.. but despite that, at 6 meters, my ears started hurting very bad, so we did not go any deeper. We were down for about 11 minutes, but it seemed like much less.
The reef is really amazing. Especially the second place they took us to. I saw at least 20 different species of fish.. and I saw some of them actually feeding on the coral, which was fun to watch. No sharks or turtles, though. But the corals alone are already quite a sight to see (google "coral reef" for images and look at any one of them to get an idea).
I also tried diving with the snorkle. Took a while to figure out how to actually get below the waterline. At 2 m down, my ears started hurting and I decided not to try to go further. S. just mentioned on Skype that I should have equalized the pressure even while snorkling. Common sense, when I think about it, but did not occur to me back there.
On the way back, I sat on the bow (front) of the ship and just enjoyed the letf-right-up-down swinging motion. On quite a few occasions I got completely drenched from the spray that occurred when the boat crashed into the wave, as there was pretty strong wind.
Once back on the land, I decided to finally pay a visit to that ex-classmate of mine who was supposedly in Cairns. I was afraid it would be fairly ackward, as we had not had a conversation for at least 8 years.
It was not. Quite the opposite, it was actually quite interesting. He told me how the place he was working in was badly run and about his aspirations being related to wine economics. We could talk for about 30 minutes before he actually had to start working. I then walked back to Franks place again.
All in all, a very fun day. But one day was enough for me. Snorkling and diving were both fun to try once but are not quite for me, I think. Nevertheless, I definitely do understand what others find in it.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Little things give you away
Yesterday and today have been somewhat slower than before as I have just gone out walking instead of taking day tours. Yesterday I spent walking around the city and today I went to the national park right in the outskirts to walk up a 325 m high mountain. All in all, probably around 15 km the first day and 25 in the second (with 5 being rough mountain terrain).
Small things I have noticed about Australia during the week here:
Traffic lights for pedestrians go green, then start blinking red (instead of blinking green). Seems a bit more effective, as people are reluctant to cross with red.
Most houses here are a specific type of two-storey building, with a garage and a cellar as the lower floor and entrance with a stairway and from the first floor (instead of ground floor). Im guessing because of the rain during the rainy season.
In shops, the by far cheapest drink you can buy is milk with 100% natural juice a close second. Coca-cola and even water are both roughly twice as expensive. Small exception at Woolworths with their house brand water, but otherwise this seems to be the case - thus, it is actually cheaper to drink healthy stuff here.
Sadly, same cannot be said for eating. Australians love chips (potato wedges, bit larger than freedom fries usually are). I went by an Italian fast food place today, and they had a special - chips for 2.95 . Pasta was 8 and Lasagne 15, by the way.
Like in Denmark, nearly every road has a bike lane on both sides. A bit thinner than in Denmark and a lot less used, but still.
However, unlike Denmark, most roads lack a pedestrian walkway on the sides, so one either has to walk on the bike lane or on the grass. Only the Central Business District (CBD) is fully equipped with walkways too.
The temperature is just perfect right now. If the sun does not shine, it is comfortable to both stand and walk around with a T-shirt. If it does, it is a bit hotter, but still quite ok. Unlike what is currently going on in Estonia, with 35 degrees.
By the way, I am currently living in a small nudist colony of 2 people (excluding me). Thankfully, they allow me to walk around in a loin cloth. Couch Surfing - it is meant to widen ones world view, after all. Strange to say this but I am actually getting quite used to having two nude people around. And Frank and Philip are both pretty good company.
I made Alu Gobi again this evening. 4-th batch, I think. Came out pretty good, like the previous ones.
Going out to the Reef tomorrow.. and then rafting again the day after. Then try to go up north to go climb yet another mountain and possibly do some other forms of sight-seeing. And then possibly hitchhike back to spend the last night in the airport. Time flies when you're having fun.
Small things I have noticed about Australia during the week here:
Traffic lights for pedestrians go green, then start blinking red (instead of blinking green). Seems a bit more effective, as people are reluctant to cross with red.
Most houses here are a specific type of two-storey building, with a garage and a cellar as the lower floor and entrance with a stairway and from the first floor (instead of ground floor). Im guessing because of the rain during the rainy season.
In shops, the by far cheapest drink you can buy is milk with 100% natural juice a close second. Coca-cola and even water are both roughly twice as expensive. Small exception at Woolworths with their house brand water, but otherwise this seems to be the case - thus, it is actually cheaper to drink healthy stuff here.
Sadly, same cannot be said for eating. Australians love chips (potato wedges, bit larger than freedom fries usually are). I went by an Italian fast food place today, and they had a special - chips for 2.95 . Pasta was 8 and Lasagne 15, by the way.
Like in Denmark, nearly every road has a bike lane on both sides. A bit thinner than in Denmark and a lot less used, but still.
However, unlike Denmark, most roads lack a pedestrian walkway on the sides, so one either has to walk on the bike lane or on the grass. Only the Central Business District (CBD) is fully equipped with walkways too.
The temperature is just perfect right now. If the sun does not shine, it is comfortable to both stand and walk around with a T-shirt. If it does, it is a bit hotter, but still quite ok. Unlike what is currently going on in Estonia, with 35 degrees.
By the way, I am currently living in a small nudist colony of 2 people (excluding me). Thankfully, they allow me to walk around in a loin cloth. Couch Surfing - it is meant to widen ones world view, after all. Strange to say this but I am actually getting quite used to having two nude people around. And Frank and Philip are both pretty good company.
I made Alu Gobi again this evening. 4-th batch, I think. Came out pretty good, like the previous ones.
Going out to the Reef tomorrow.. and then rafting again the day after. Then try to go up north to go climb yet another mountain and possibly do some other forms of sight-seeing. And then possibly hitchhike back to spend the last night in the airport. Time flies when you're having fun.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Pull me under, I'm not afraid
I went whitewater rafting in Tully today. That is - going down a fast-running shallow river with many stones of varying sizes.
The busride there was quite long but very scenic - quite comparable to the car ride to Port Douglas from yesterday. Instead of the shoreline, I saw mountains with their tips in clouds and with sun just rising above them.
Then it started to rain, and that kept up for most of the day. Again.
Did not spoil the trip though. I had booked an Extreme rafting experience, which pretty much meant we were given chances to do pretty crazy stuff.
The day started off with us splitting in two crews. I was in a boat with two Englishmen, a girl from Switzerland, a couple from Netherlands and our guide, originally from Chile. The guides explained that the company initially tried running the extreme group with the best guides, but the rides had been too uneventful then as everything went according to plan. So now they instead had him. "11 years on the job and I still haven't got the hang of it".
We put on our helmets and life vests and then got the basic training of a raft crew. Initially just 4 commands: "forward", "stop", "backpaddle" and "hold on". Later another two were added "Get down" (Pablo Francesco came to mind) and "Lean left/right".
Those six commands eventually got us all the way through. But we had a lot of fun in between. For instance, our guide managed to flip the boat in the second straight, in a place called (fittingly) the "washing machine". What followed was a pretty scary mostly underwater trip, down a very fast running river and over quite a few stones. What was especially fun was that once I got my head above water, I pretty much instantly had to swim stronly towards the shore, as the current was carrying me towards the next treacherous straight. Or at least, so it seemed back there. Water was pretty fast and swimming against it was not at all easy. I did manage though. So did everyone else. Thankfully, all of us made it out safely, with the Swiss girl having a small cut on her knee and most others having just suffered minor bruises from the bottom stones.
This was unplanned. The rest of crazyness was scheduled though. For instance, we got to jump off two 5 meter high rocks - again, very scary but fun. We also went under a waterfall to get a cold shower and took a feet-first ride down a fast waterfall that pulls you under for 4 seconds.
The coolest thing, however, was the "drowning simulator" - basically, going through a fairly deep section of a rapid without a boat. It was so fun I ran it twice. Only two other people did it the second time though, as it really did involve spending quite a bit of time under water and wondering how long it will take to get a chance to breathe again. Seconds can indeed seem like minutes, as I found out. Nevertheless, it wasnt nearly as scary as the unplanned first flip.
Same went for the second and planned boat flipping - although, this time, I came up right under the boat, which was also pretty freaky.
Rain kept up for most of the boat trip. Despite this, the river was just scenic beyond the wildest beliefs - like right out of Lord of the Rings movie, yet again. At some point, we noticed a large butterfly was following us. Really beautiful, once it caught up and we got to see it up close.
At one point, our guide asked if one of us wanted to try steering for ourselves. Of course I did. Harder than it looked, but doable.. although I did nearly fall out of the boat when going through a rockier section. After me, one of the duch guys also got a turn but our guide pretty quickly took over the post again.
At yet another place, our guide just casually said "If anyone wants to go for a swim, just jump in the water". Could not say no to that offer so I took a dive. Others followed my lead in a while. We did it later as well, just before the "croc territory". Not that there would have been any actual crocodiles beyond that poing (one had been sighted 3 km downstream 2 years ago), but just to be sure.
Near the end, the guide said that about one person dies there each year. One guy on the other boat had his knees bashed by the stones fairly badly in the drowning simulator. Not a safe activity by any standards. But a lot of fun, and definitely worth the risks.
Now a word about the clever pricing scheme of the photograph CD-s. One CD was 100 whereas 6 CD-s were 120. Im fairly certain nearly every group left that place with 6 cd-s -- as it puts a very strong pressure on everyone to contribute as then the cost is just 17 per person (if one gets cd, then copies), but then one may as well pay a bit extra and just get 6 cd-s. Yes, we also got one.
The scheme at bungee jumping is also quite good. 139 for first jump and then 35 for next and 25 for the remaining ones. And jumping in a costume is just 5 extra.
And, of course, the free lunch paradigm of the hostels here - it is usually at a bar where you have to buy a drink to redeem it. Orange juice was 4 AUD, and the meal was pretty small with only a few fries, some salad and a tiny bit of meat (or a spring roll for the vegetarians like me). Not too shabby a deal, but still.
Then again, it is hard to find a place that offers meals under 10 AUD. The hostel's own bar had a fairly decent sized pot of fries on offer for 5 but they do advertise they have the cheapest meals in town.. which may well be true. Mackie D-s meals start at the same price range, for instance. What can I say, Australia is expensive
The busride there was quite long but very scenic - quite comparable to the car ride to Port Douglas from yesterday. Instead of the shoreline, I saw mountains with their tips in clouds and with sun just rising above them.
Then it started to rain, and that kept up for most of the day. Again.
Did not spoil the trip though. I had booked an Extreme rafting experience, which pretty much meant we were given chances to do pretty crazy stuff.
The day started off with us splitting in two crews. I was in a boat with two Englishmen, a girl from Switzerland, a couple from Netherlands and our guide, originally from Chile. The guides explained that the company initially tried running the extreme group with the best guides, but the rides had been too uneventful then as everything went according to plan. So now they instead had him. "11 years on the job and I still haven't got the hang of it".
We put on our helmets and life vests and then got the basic training of a raft crew. Initially just 4 commands: "forward", "stop", "backpaddle" and "hold on". Later another two were added "Get down" (Pablo Francesco came to mind) and "Lean left/right".
Those six commands eventually got us all the way through. But we had a lot of fun in between. For instance, our guide managed to flip the boat in the second straight, in a place called (fittingly) the "washing machine". What followed was a pretty scary mostly underwater trip, down a very fast running river and over quite a few stones. What was especially fun was that once I got my head above water, I pretty much instantly had to swim stronly towards the shore, as the current was carrying me towards the next treacherous straight. Or at least, so it seemed back there. Water was pretty fast and swimming against it was not at all easy. I did manage though. So did everyone else. Thankfully, all of us made it out safely, with the Swiss girl having a small cut on her knee and most others having just suffered minor bruises from the bottom stones.
This was unplanned. The rest of crazyness was scheduled though. For instance, we got to jump off two 5 meter high rocks - again, very scary but fun. We also went under a waterfall to get a cold shower and took a feet-first ride down a fast waterfall that pulls you under for 4 seconds.
The coolest thing, however, was the "drowning simulator" - basically, going through a fairly deep section of a rapid without a boat. It was so fun I ran it twice. Only two other people did it the second time though, as it really did involve spending quite a bit of time under water and wondering how long it will take to get a chance to breathe again. Seconds can indeed seem like minutes, as I found out. Nevertheless, it wasnt nearly as scary as the unplanned first flip.
Same went for the second and planned boat flipping - although, this time, I came up right under the boat, which was also pretty freaky.
Rain kept up for most of the boat trip. Despite this, the river was just scenic beyond the wildest beliefs - like right out of Lord of the Rings movie, yet again. At some point, we noticed a large butterfly was following us. Really beautiful, once it caught up and we got to see it up close.
At one point, our guide asked if one of us wanted to try steering for ourselves. Of course I did. Harder than it looked, but doable.. although I did nearly fall out of the boat when going through a rockier section. After me, one of the duch guys also got a turn but our guide pretty quickly took over the post again.
At yet another place, our guide just casually said "If anyone wants to go for a swim, just jump in the water". Could not say no to that offer so I took a dive. Others followed my lead in a while. We did it later as well, just before the "croc territory". Not that there would have been any actual crocodiles beyond that poing (one had been sighted 3 km downstream 2 years ago), but just to be sure.
Near the end, the guide said that about one person dies there each year. One guy on the other boat had his knees bashed by the stones fairly badly in the drowning simulator. Not a safe activity by any standards. But a lot of fun, and definitely worth the risks.
Now a word about the clever pricing scheme of the photograph CD-s. One CD was 100 whereas 6 CD-s were 120. Im fairly certain nearly every group left that place with 6 cd-s -- as it puts a very strong pressure on everyone to contribute as then the cost is just 17 per person (if one gets cd, then copies), but then one may as well pay a bit extra and just get 6 cd-s. Yes, we also got one.
The scheme at bungee jumping is also quite good. 139 for first jump and then 35 for next and 25 for the remaining ones. And jumping in a costume is just 5 extra.
And, of course, the free lunch paradigm of the hostels here - it is usually at a bar where you have to buy a drink to redeem it. Orange juice was 4 AUD, and the meal was pretty small with only a few fries, some salad and a tiny bit of meat (or a spring roll for the vegetarians like me). Not too shabby a deal, but still.
Then again, it is hard to find a place that offers meals under 10 AUD. The hostel's own bar had a fairly decent sized pot of fries on offer for 5 but they do advertise they have the cheapest meals in town.. which may well be true. Mackie D-s meals start at the same price range, for instance. What can I say, Australia is expensive
Saturday, July 10, 2010
What I've become
After writing the last post, I went back to the comic book store. I then took a walk in the Botanical gardens and then see the Opera house and bridge again one more time. Really, there is not much to see in the City, at least not for me.
I arrived in Cairns without any problems. I was greeted with an amazing view of the mountains already on exiting the airport building. I then had to wait a while for the hostel shuttle bus to pick me up and drive me to the place where I was to sleep for the next 4 nights.
After settling in, I booked a jungle tour for the next day. The guy who was doing the booking asked me where I was from. After hearing Estonia, he went "oh, Wow, Im living with two estonians at the moment. Alice and Jegor... Mitrofanski". The latter is a classmate of mine from back in the day, by the way. Talk about small world.
Rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. Had a chat with two fellow backpackers, a guy from the Us, and an overly cute girl from Belgium. Seems that americans who travel outside the US are mostly sensible: nonreligious and anti-bush. Or maybe they just learn its better to be that way. Who knows.
Anyways, on to the next day.
I had booke something called "Uncle Brians Jungle tour". Turned out Uncle Brian had stopped running it about a year ago, but that Cousin Brad had taken over. That guy was funny. Seriously.
Trip mainly consisted of him taking us to different places in the jungle to go swimming: a pond before the rapids, a pond in the rapids (where you could waterslide down a rock - really fun), a very famous waterfall (featured in numerous shampoo commercials and a Peter Andre video) and lastly a dead volcano (how many people can say they have swum in a volcano, especially in pitch black dead of night?). Enjoyed that quite a bit. We also went platypus watching.. and I think I saw even two different speciemens.
The guy was really good at what he did. He had party games going in the bus and by the end, the whole bus sang along to whatever was blasting from the bus speakers. We arrived in front of the largest backpacker hostel in a pimpin fashion, the bus jumping up and down as it drove in. And it seemed that everyone had indeed had a terribly good time. Me included.
There was an afterparty planned at a local pub, but sadly just me and one other irish girl showed up. After a brief chat with her cousin (who she had brought along), we went on to a second pub. Which was a bit more fun, as it actually had quite a few people dancing, some even on the tables. However, I left quite early, after figuring something fairly important out for myself.
So on to the next day.
I woke up at 8.30 without any plans about what to do. Thankfully, I met a guy over breakfast who was in the same situation as me, but had a car. Turned out he was british, 2m tall, also 23 and studied CS at some point.. and just as weird as me in all other respects too (in a good way).
So we went on a daytrip together with him, his friend Daniel and a girl we met at breakfast Sara. Our initial plan was to go hanggliding. It did not quite work out that way though.
First off, we rode by a cable ski place.. basically, a pond with cables running on top of it where you can do wakebarding and water-skiing. We decided to go. Only me and Pete wanted to give it a try in the end..
We spent two hours there. First, we both tried the bodyboard.. We got the hang of that pretty quickly, he on his first and me on my second try. We both then decided to try the actual wakeboard. What followed was different for the two of us. After about 6 attempts, he could more or less get pulled up and get moving.
As for me, I mastered something else -- being pulled into water head first and at a high speed. Skill that will no doubt be useful tomorrow for whitewater rafting. I am pretty sure I could get the hang of wakeboarding itself the next time, as I just tensed up very quickly - just like when learning to ride a bike. And I got the hang of that on the second day I tried. As for the experience -- it was actually a lot of fun, despite the fact I must have hit water about 30 times.
Having wasted two hours, we then drove on towards the hanggliding thing.. only to be distracted again, this time by a Bungy jumping place. It was a bit too expensive for both me and Pete, but Daniel was keen on doing it and jumped twice. Second time in a cow costume. I also got to go up to the jumping deck. Some nice views from there.
Another two hours later, we were again driving towards Port Douglas. Sun was slowly setting and the views on the road that meandered along the ocean were just unbelievable. I am not lying when I say I had not seen anything this beautiful in nature before.
We got to Port Douglas with about half an hour to go before sunset. It was a very nice place too, with a lot of greenery all around and a very nice small wedding chapel with a view out to the sea. We walked around, saw a few guys walking tightropes in a park and then sat on the shore watching the sun set and the sea splash against the rocks. Idyllic, to say the very least.
The way back was.. contemplative. At least for me. After having heared Pete does not drink, I started thinking about my own life and the events of the past year.
To be honest, I still have no clue who I am. However, I have got a fair bit smarter on the topic of what I am not and that the "average joe" lifestyle of going out drinking with friends, getting drunk and then considering that fun.. just does not work that way for me.
I want to be taken as the goofy self that I am. Even though it carries some clear risks. Being alone for the rest of my life, for instance. I know there are people that can take me as I am and like me for it. They are rare, but, so be it. I will either eventually run into a girl that does.. or not. Intermediate choices can only be temporary.
I arrived in Cairns without any problems. I was greeted with an amazing view of the mountains already on exiting the airport building. I then had to wait a while for the hostel shuttle bus to pick me up and drive me to the place where I was to sleep for the next 4 nights.
After settling in, I booked a jungle tour for the next day. The guy who was doing the booking asked me where I was from. After hearing Estonia, he went "oh, Wow, Im living with two estonians at the moment. Alice and Jegor... Mitrofanski". The latter is a classmate of mine from back in the day, by the way. Talk about small world.
Rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. Had a chat with two fellow backpackers, a guy from the Us, and an overly cute girl from Belgium. Seems that americans who travel outside the US are mostly sensible: nonreligious and anti-bush. Or maybe they just learn its better to be that way. Who knows.
Anyways, on to the next day.
I had booke something called "Uncle Brians Jungle tour". Turned out Uncle Brian had stopped running it about a year ago, but that Cousin Brad had taken over. That guy was funny. Seriously.
Trip mainly consisted of him taking us to different places in the jungle to go swimming: a pond before the rapids, a pond in the rapids (where you could waterslide down a rock - really fun), a very famous waterfall (featured in numerous shampoo commercials and a Peter Andre video) and lastly a dead volcano (how many people can say they have swum in a volcano, especially in pitch black dead of night?). Enjoyed that quite a bit. We also went platypus watching.. and I think I saw even two different speciemens.
The guy was really good at what he did. He had party games going in the bus and by the end, the whole bus sang along to whatever was blasting from the bus speakers. We arrived in front of the largest backpacker hostel in a pimpin fashion, the bus jumping up and down as it drove in. And it seemed that everyone had indeed had a terribly good time. Me included.
There was an afterparty planned at a local pub, but sadly just me and one other irish girl showed up. After a brief chat with her cousin (who she had brought along), we went on to a second pub. Which was a bit more fun, as it actually had quite a few people dancing, some even on the tables. However, I left quite early, after figuring something fairly important out for myself.
So on to the next day.
I woke up at 8.30 without any plans about what to do. Thankfully, I met a guy over breakfast who was in the same situation as me, but had a car. Turned out he was british, 2m tall, also 23 and studied CS at some point.. and just as weird as me in all other respects too (in a good way).
So we went on a daytrip together with him, his friend Daniel and a girl we met at breakfast Sara. Our initial plan was to go hanggliding. It did not quite work out that way though.
First off, we rode by a cable ski place.. basically, a pond with cables running on top of it where you can do wakebarding and water-skiing. We decided to go. Only me and Pete wanted to give it a try in the end..
We spent two hours there. First, we both tried the bodyboard.. We got the hang of that pretty quickly, he on his first and me on my second try. We both then decided to try the actual wakeboard. What followed was different for the two of us. After about 6 attempts, he could more or less get pulled up and get moving.
As for me, I mastered something else -- being pulled into water head first and at a high speed. Skill that will no doubt be useful tomorrow for whitewater rafting. I am pretty sure I could get the hang of wakeboarding itself the next time, as I just tensed up very quickly - just like when learning to ride a bike. And I got the hang of that on the second day I tried. As for the experience -- it was actually a lot of fun, despite the fact I must have hit water about 30 times.
Having wasted two hours, we then drove on towards the hanggliding thing.. only to be distracted again, this time by a Bungy jumping place. It was a bit too expensive for both me and Pete, but Daniel was keen on doing it and jumped twice. Second time in a cow costume. I also got to go up to the jumping deck. Some nice views from there.
Another two hours later, we were again driving towards Port Douglas. Sun was slowly setting and the views on the road that meandered along the ocean were just unbelievable. I am not lying when I say I had not seen anything this beautiful in nature before.
We got to Port Douglas with about half an hour to go before sunset. It was a very nice place too, with a lot of greenery all around and a very nice small wedding chapel with a view out to the sea. We walked around, saw a few guys walking tightropes in a park and then sat on the shore watching the sun set and the sea splash against the rocks. Idyllic, to say the very least.
The way back was.. contemplative. At least for me. After having heared Pete does not drink, I started thinking about my own life and the events of the past year.
To be honest, I still have no clue who I am. However, I have got a fair bit smarter on the topic of what I am not and that the "average joe" lifestyle of going out drinking with friends, getting drunk and then considering that fun.. just does not work that way for me.
I want to be taken as the goofy self that I am. Even though it carries some clear risks. Being alone for the rest of my life, for instance. I know there are people that can take me as I am and like me for it. They are rare, but, so be it. I will either eventually run into a girl that does.. or not. Intermediate choices can only be temporary.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
New York City Boy
I forgot to mention yesterday that one of the main things that struck me when I walked out of the metro was how the Center of Sydney reminded me of all the popular culture images of New York - tall buildings, busy people always in a hurry, streets in a pretty regular rectangular grid... I did not get that feeling last year, but only because I saw the circular quay area, not the downtown. Seriously, the place is like I imagined Manhattan would be.
After the second day of the conference ended, I went with Douglas and James to see a photography exhibition (top press photos). Some of them were quite striking emotionally. Topics ranged from war crimes to sports to androgynity to nature photos, and quite a few caused a strong emotional reaction. I do not get that often with art..
The conference dinner was also quite fun. Craig Gentry has a Harvard Law degree, by the way (that besides being one of the top cryptographers at the moment). Impressive, to say the very least.
The presentation that I had yesterday morning went pretty well. I had had a nice 9 hour sleep - something I managed last year only after a week of bad jetlag - so I could also follow the other talks. A few were quite interesting actually.
After the conference ended, I asked Phil Hawkes for suggestions as to what to do with the remaining two half-days I had in Sydney. He suggested I see Darling harbour and go check out the Powerhouse museum. So I did.
Darling harbour is actually quite darling, like the name suggests. For instance, it had a Chinese garden (celebrating the large Chinese minority in Sydney). I really have a thing for chinese garden architecture since my trip to Suzhou - and this time was no exception. Serenity, pure and simple. Something I really needed. Badly. I felt at peace when leaving the garden, ready to face anything life had to throw at me.
And then I got blown away. In a good sense. By the Powerhouse museum, a museum of pop culture, science, engineering and design. I had only 3 hours to spend there before it closed and I could have easily have spent twice as long. Exhibits were all very interesting, ranging from "80-s are back" (giving a broad overview of 80 pop culture in Australia) to "Sustainable living" to "Australian design awards" (which was really fun. This for instance) to an exhibition on steam engines (Word of the day: Line shafting - or what they had before they invented wall sockets). The latter exhibition also featured a short clip from the movie "Metropolis" where the steam engine exploded.. It made a lot more sense now. Then there was also an exhibition on musical instruments (For instance a Stylophone - a really odd instrument, featured quite fittingly in Bowies "Space Oddity"). And the exhibition on cyberworld that had a video of time-travelling Babbage meeting Turing was somewhat like a religious experience to me. Don't ask me why, though.
After the museum, I went back to the hostel, dropped off my bag and had a resevation made in a hostel in Cairns. I then went out to just walk about. I ended up visiting a boardgames store, a comics store and a used books store. The comics store had a whole shelf of Buffy comics. Sad they are so expensive, though. So were the used books, but I just could not hold myself back and bought three of the latter anyways.
Then got back to the hostel and took part in a quiz that they were holding in the common room. The others then went on to partying but as I still had jetlag, I decided to just head to bed. Which I did.
I woke up at 4 a.m. with roughly 5 hours of sleep behind me. Not too bad, but I am still considering stopping by a pharmacy to get melatonin. I went to the 7eleven next door and bought some cheese and ketchup, then got some pasta from the ground floor (they have free rice and pasta for guests) and made myself a strong breakfast (I suspect one reason I woke so early was that I was hungry ).
I then packed my stuff and checked out. Headed to the nearest McDonalds (that is one of the few places in Australia that has free wifi - as I remmmembered from last year). And so, here I am, writing this post.
After the second day of the conference ended, I went with Douglas and James to see a photography exhibition (top press photos). Some of them were quite striking emotionally. Topics ranged from war crimes to sports to androgynity to nature photos, and quite a few caused a strong emotional reaction. I do not get that often with art..
The conference dinner was also quite fun. Craig Gentry has a Harvard Law degree, by the way (that besides being one of the top cryptographers at the moment). Impressive, to say the very least.
The presentation that I had yesterday morning went pretty well. I had had a nice 9 hour sleep - something I managed last year only after a week of bad jetlag - so I could also follow the other talks. A few were quite interesting actually.
After the conference ended, I asked Phil Hawkes for suggestions as to what to do with the remaining two half-days I had in Sydney. He suggested I see Darling harbour and go check out the Powerhouse museum. So I did.
Darling harbour is actually quite darling, like the name suggests. For instance, it had a Chinese garden (celebrating the large Chinese minority in Sydney). I really have a thing for chinese garden architecture since my trip to Suzhou - and this time was no exception. Serenity, pure and simple. Something I really needed. Badly. I felt at peace when leaving the garden, ready to face anything life had to throw at me.
And then I got blown away. In a good sense. By the Powerhouse museum, a museum of pop culture, science, engineering and design. I had only 3 hours to spend there before it closed and I could have easily have spent twice as long. Exhibits were all very interesting, ranging from "80-s are back" (giving a broad overview of 80 pop culture in Australia) to "Sustainable living" to "Australian design awards" (which was really fun. This for instance) to an exhibition on steam engines (Word of the day: Line shafting - or what they had before they invented wall sockets). The latter exhibition also featured a short clip from the movie "Metropolis" where the steam engine exploded.. It made a lot more sense now. Then there was also an exhibition on musical instruments (For instance a Stylophone - a really odd instrument, featured quite fittingly in Bowies "Space Oddity"). And the exhibition on cyberworld that had a video of time-travelling Babbage meeting Turing was somewhat like a religious experience to me. Don't ask me why, though.
After the museum, I went back to the hostel, dropped off my bag and had a resevation made in a hostel in Cairns. I then went out to just walk about. I ended up visiting a boardgames store, a comics store and a used books store. The comics store had a whole shelf of Buffy comics. Sad they are so expensive, though. So were the used books, but I just could not hold myself back and bought three of the latter anyways.
Then got back to the hostel and took part in a quiz that they were holding in the common room. The others then went on to partying but as I still had jetlag, I decided to just head to bed. Which I did.
I woke up at 4 a.m. with roughly 5 hours of sleep behind me. Not too bad, but I am still considering stopping by a pharmacy to get melatonin. I went to the 7eleven next door and bought some cheese and ketchup, then got some pasta from the ground floor (they have free rice and pasta for guests) and made myself a strong breakfast (I suspect one reason I woke so early was that I was hungry ).
I then packed my stuff and checked out. Headed to the nearest McDonalds (that is one of the few places in Australia that has free wifi - as I remmmembered from last year). And so, here I am, writing this post.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Arrival in Mordor.. err.. Sydney
First of all - the two last nights in Estonia were quite fun. On the first one, I went out drinking, first with Sirgi and Elis and then with Miki and his friends.
The last day there was a wedding which, with the exception of a VERY corny official registration, was actually quite a bit of fun. I was given the role of Protector of the bride.. which included a plastic shield and sword and an absurdly small helmet. Some parts of the wedding were somewhat depressing for me - mainly because of my lack of success with finding someone to share my life with, but definitely amplified by factors like lack of sleep and the thesis getting ready. However, in total, it was still one of the most memorable experiences I have had in estonia in quite a while.
I left the wedding at 2 a.m. to get at least some sleep before my 30 hours in transit.
The next morning, I quickly packed my bags and then got a lift to Tallinn in a car of a friend-of-a-friend. They dropped me off at the airport. My mom came to meet me with food there, as I had asked her to make some sandwiches for my long trip. She had, but had also brought a lot of other stuff with her, "just in case". Salad for instance.. some of which I ate but most of which I had to throw away in the security check.
I had a nice long 8 hour wait in Helsinki airport. Enough to make 2 cups of coffe, have 5 hrs of bass practice, to finish up the slides for my conference presentation and to chat with some friends over the internet.
In the plane to Bankok, I got a seat in the front row.. which meant extra legroom.. or even putting my legs on the wall.. literally. I spent most of the flight watching episodes of "Simpsons" and "How I met your mother". The latter actually seemed better than I initially thought.. I now understand my friends who have started to watch it from the start...
In Bankok, I met two australian girls who seemed to be following the same route as me. We walked the whole length of the airport, which was basically one huge shopping street. Afterwards, I pointed out a wall socket and we sat down. The cuter girl started playing plants and zombies, while the other one solved crosswords and I practiced my bass. Time passed fairly quickly.
I managed to sleep a little in the second plane. Mostly movies and comedies again, though. "Better off Ted" seems fairly promising. I got to see very nice things through the window though - clouds underneath and moon above - miraculous. Or Sydney from above in pitch black darkness - looked like Mordor in the LOTR movies - but a very scenic view nonetheless.
In Sydney, they confiscated my supply of rasins and dried plums. The quarantine they have is pretty strict, but at least they were very nice about it :)
When I got to the city (by rail), a few things surprised me. For instance, the GPS in my phone was not particularly cooperative.. and map did not even show Sydney on the map unless you zoomed quite close. However, what struck me even more was how people crossed the streets. Although most places had lights for pedestrians, they were OFTEN ignored, as people seemed to be in a general state of hurry around 7.30 in the morning. There were scents in the air - both coffee and foods.
I went to my hotel and asked whether I could check in a bit early. Unfortunately, my room was not yet ready, but they allowed me to leave my bags there, in their basement, in a room located in the end of what can only be described as a long maze of corridors.
I stopped by a shop to get something to drink and also a phone card. I then continued towards the conference venue. The hostel was 412 Pitt str. Conference was 37 on the same street. Yes, all the intermediate numbers were also present. It was a nice walk, as I was surrounded by skyscrapers with ground floors generally filled with stores, cafes or hotels.
I arrived at the venue just in time for morning coffee. Met a few people from last year too. Strange I still remembered their faces, but I did. Asked one of them (whom I knew to be one of the organisers) about the wifi and got access.
First talk was by Gentry who explained his Fully homomorphic scheme (one of the biggest breakthroughs in Cryptology in the past 2 years). Realistic ciphertexts are 260 mb and each operation takes about 3 minutes. Painful, but very interesting nonetheless. The presentation was surprisingly easy to follow though - I was afraid it would be a lot more complicated.
During the first session I attempted to activate my new SIM card over the internet. Without success. After lunch, I finally called their customer service about that. A man with a noticeable indian accent responded. He had to hold for 10 minutes while I looked up the address and phone number of an acquaintance in Sydney -- as they required an Australian address and land line nr in order to grant me a mobile phone number and told me that was required by law. Strange.
The conference is now ending for today. There is a dinner in the evening, and I still need to practice my talk before giving it tomorrow. I am really looking forward to getting to bed tonight, though.
The last day there was a wedding which, with the exception of a VERY corny official registration, was actually quite a bit of fun. I was given the role of Protector of the bride.. which included a plastic shield and sword and an absurdly small helmet. Some parts of the wedding were somewhat depressing for me - mainly because of my lack of success with finding someone to share my life with, but definitely amplified by factors like lack of sleep and the thesis getting ready. However, in total, it was still one of the most memorable experiences I have had in estonia in quite a while.
I left the wedding at 2 a.m. to get at least some sleep before my 30 hours in transit.
The next morning, I quickly packed my bags and then got a lift to Tallinn in a car of a friend-of-a-friend. They dropped me off at the airport. My mom came to meet me with food there, as I had asked her to make some sandwiches for my long trip. She had, but had also brought a lot of other stuff with her, "just in case". Salad for instance.. some of which I ate but most of which I had to throw away in the security check.
I had a nice long 8 hour wait in Helsinki airport. Enough to make 2 cups of coffe, have 5 hrs of bass practice, to finish up the slides for my conference presentation and to chat with some friends over the internet.
In the plane to Bankok, I got a seat in the front row.. which meant extra legroom.. or even putting my legs on the wall.. literally. I spent most of the flight watching episodes of "Simpsons" and "How I met your mother". The latter actually seemed better than I initially thought.. I now understand my friends who have started to watch it from the start...
In Bankok, I met two australian girls who seemed to be following the same route as me. We walked the whole length of the airport, which was basically one huge shopping street. Afterwards, I pointed out a wall socket and we sat down. The cuter girl started playing plants and zombies, while the other one solved crosswords and I practiced my bass. Time passed fairly quickly.
I managed to sleep a little in the second plane. Mostly movies and comedies again, though. "Better off Ted" seems fairly promising. I got to see very nice things through the window though - clouds underneath and moon above - miraculous. Or Sydney from above in pitch black darkness - looked like Mordor in the LOTR movies - but a very scenic view nonetheless.
In Sydney, they confiscated my supply of rasins and dried plums. The quarantine they have is pretty strict, but at least they were very nice about it :)
When I got to the city (by rail), a few things surprised me. For instance, the GPS in my phone was not particularly cooperative.. and map did not even show Sydney on the map unless you zoomed quite close. However, what struck me even more was how people crossed the streets. Although most places had lights for pedestrians, they were OFTEN ignored, as people seemed to be in a general state of hurry around 7.30 in the morning. There were scents in the air - both coffee and foods.
I went to my hotel and asked whether I could check in a bit early. Unfortunately, my room was not yet ready, but they allowed me to leave my bags there, in their basement, in a room located in the end of what can only be described as a long maze of corridors.
I stopped by a shop to get something to drink and also a phone card. I then continued towards the conference venue. The hostel was 412 Pitt str. Conference was 37 on the same street. Yes, all the intermediate numbers were also present. It was a nice walk, as I was surrounded by skyscrapers with ground floors generally filled with stores, cafes or hotels.
I arrived at the venue just in time for morning coffee. Met a few people from last year too. Strange I still remembered their faces, but I did. Asked one of them (whom I knew to be one of the organisers) about the wifi and got access.
First talk was by Gentry who explained his Fully homomorphic scheme (one of the biggest breakthroughs in Cryptology in the past 2 years). Realistic ciphertexts are 260 mb and each operation takes about 3 minutes. Painful, but very interesting nonetheless. The presentation was surprisingly easy to follow though - I was afraid it would be a lot more complicated.
During the first session I attempted to activate my new SIM card over the internet. Without success. After lunch, I finally called their customer service about that. A man with a noticeable indian accent responded. He had to hold for 10 minutes while I looked up the address and phone number of an acquaintance in Sydney -- as they required an Australian address and land line nr in order to grant me a mobile phone number and told me that was required by law. Strange.
The conference is now ending for today. There is a dinner in the evening, and I still need to practice my talk before giving it tomorrow. I am really looking forward to getting to bed tonight, though.
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Thesis is done
At least, the first rough draft of it. After two days of fairly intense work writing up what I myself actually did.
An abstract is still missing, and the last paper contained within it is only halfway finished. However, I have most of August to get these things in order. For the moment, at least, it is in a state where I can safely just leave it be for a month - which is essential if I actually want to have a vacation. And I do.
Australia, here I come.
(Well, I have a wedding to attend to tomorrow before actually going.. and then 8 hrs in Helsinki airport between two planes. And a bit of fun out on the town tonight - hopefully)
An abstract is still missing, and the last paper contained within it is only halfway finished. However, I have most of August to get these things in order. For the moment, at least, it is in a state where I can safely just leave it be for a month - which is essential if I actually want to have a vacation. And I do.
Australia, here I come.
(Well, I have a wedding to attend to tomorrow before actually going.. and then 8 hrs in Helsinki airport between two planes. And a bit of fun out on the town tonight - hopefully)
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