Cairns

8/1/2008

Cairns (pronounced Cans) #2

Taking it easy for a night so I can recap my experiences over the last two weeks. Not only do I want to update y’all, but I want to make sure I remember everything that’s gone on for my memory’s sake. I’m picking up at a mental lapse that occurs in Sydney…

After a little over two months without a haircut, I started getting complaints about it as well as getting tired of brushing it out of the way (mind you, I got my last haircut the morning I left the US). A few of the guys in class had gotten a cut recently, and after asking around, it seemed the going price at the campus barber shop was $15. Reasonable, you say. Well, I stroll in to the salon, and sit down for a mop chop. I tell her what I want and then she gives me over to the other lady to wash my hair. I get my hair washed sometimes at the hair cuttery in Atlanta, so it wasn’t that big of a deal until I noticed how awkwardly long she was washing my hair for. I was tense for the first part of it but realized I should probably enjoy the head massage while it lasts. I didn’t understand why a customer would want or need a full shampoo and conditioner rinse BEFORE the haircut, but whatever. When the lady finishes, she says “Come thru” to me. I didn’t know what she meant so she repeated “Come thru…” and I said “I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re trying to say” and she just tells me to sit up. I sit down in the barber chair and the stylist says “So, you’re having trouble understanding accents aye?” I replied by saying I didn’t know “Come thru” meant for the person to get out of the chair, as it certainly wasn’t obvious for me. They had a nice laugh, and the lady proceeds to cut far more off of my head than I instructed. Luckily I had short hair in DC so I could deal with it, or else I may have been a little more flustered. The next shock came when I stood at the register, ready to hand my $20 bill only to hear her say “Forty dollars please.” I was so shocked that I couldn’t even respond to her, awkwardly pulled out another $20 bill (food for the next week), and walked out the door. I couldn’t imagine hair salons in Australia were up for bargaining, so I kept walking, laughing in disbelief while hating myself for making the assumption about the price. I failed to realize all of the guys in my class got buzz cuts without shampooing, ah!! The worst part of the story is that I then had to go buy gel for my do because it was too short to stay by itself, not to mention the drastic change for all of the people in my class, now making fun of me for needing ‘product.’

The next mental lapse comes on the following day before our presentation where I attempt to iron my pants. My lightweight Columbia hiking pants were a bit wrinkly, and using the iron without a functioning steam button was not a good idea. I touch the iron to the pants, immediately burning a hole in the crotch area. Hm…let’s just say I wasn’t too happy with myself for ruining a favorite pair of pants. No excuses for either story here, just a period of bad logic running it’s course. There’s more to follow.

I took a look at my bank accounts while in Sydney to get an idea where I’m standing, since I’ve only been dealing with cash since I left home. I’m very fortunate in many ways financially, primarily that this $11,000 program was paid for by generous scholarships, for which I could not be more thankful for. Secondly, I worked for ATA Engineering this spring, so I’ve had a few months to pad my bank account for this occasion. Due to some technicalities in NZ, I ended up living off the cash that I brought until last week, of which I’ve finally finished off. So when you consider that I’ve spent around $4000 since leaving home in May, you can see why living on the cheap side is a necessity for somebody who has to live on what’s left until after graduation. Not to mention I have two more weeks of traveling after our program finishes, so every extra $25 for a sheep shearing matters.

On Sunday, we made our way to Cairns and moved into our nicest accommodation yet – a $200/night hotel with incredible views, pools and service galore. Waking up on Monday morning with the shades wide open, I couldn’t believe the sunrise I could see from my queen bed. We’re 100 yards from the ocean, overlooking the coastal tidal zone just down the street from downtown. Cairns is the gateway to the tropics here in north Queensland, servicing nearby World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest. It’s definitely a tourist attraction but weirdly doesn’t have a beach. There’s a “Lagoon” area where a manmade pool buts up to the ocean and that’s where most people lay out. The beaches in the area are a 15 minute bus ride away. Our classes pretty much ended on Monday, as we had one last classroom session followed by a field trip on Tuesday and final on Wednesday.

Tuesday, we traveled north to Mossman Gorge by way of a sugar mill. I don’t think our coordinators planned far enough ahead to arrange a tour, so we kind of drove through their staging yard, read a flyer, and left. There are lots of kane fields in the area, and the only real thing we could see were train cars full of chopped sugarcane. We snagged a few stalks and cut them up on the bus ride to see if you could taste the supposed 80% sugar inside. The stalks were sweet but took some chomping to get the sugary taste. In Mossman, we did a short hike through the forest followed by a couple hours of free time in Port Douglas. Apparently Bill Clinton vacations in Port Douglas, so that may say something about its ‘laid back but classy’ aura. Merritt and I attempted to rent windsurfers but decided taking the catamaran sailboat out would be a better use of our time in the choppy waters. It was enjoyable to sail in the ocean again, not quite as fast as I’m used to without a jib, but a lot of fun to catch a wave on the sailboat to ride into shore. When we returned to the hotel, Merritt, Nick, and I cleaned up and headed out to check out some lawn bowling for the evening. The sport is quite popular in Australia; I think I’ve only seen it in a couple places in California while in the US. It’s a less straining version of bocce ball basically. We arrived at the rink not knowing a thing about the sport and left with significant experience. We intended on playing each other, but later found ourselves in a social night tournament consisting of about 60 people (avg. age 55). The people helping to get us set up kept mentioning “The game will start at 7:30” and we didn’t understand because we just came to muck around. We kind of fell into signing up in the competition, listed as beginners so we could be split up fairly to the teams. Frank and Pam were my teammates – they were able to clean up the mess I created since the beginners bowl first. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the bocce ball idea, the came is centered around landing your teams balls closest to the white “Jack” for points. Lawn bowling is different in that the game is play on turf or closely cut grass, with gutters snagging the balls that roll long. The balls themselves are also interesting in that they are weighted on one side and they are shaped like squished spheres so they roll like tires, wobbling at first and then straightening themselves, then falling to the flat side normally when they run out of speed. The weighting causes them to tend to one side, especially when they start to slow down. This aspect is what makes the game so interesting. The terms used to describe a shot are “weight” and “grass”: weight meaning the speed of the ball and grass meaning the width compensation for the curve. I received lots of coaching and managed to score quite a few points for the team. We learned etiquette for the game, learned a lot from the locals about the sport, and felt very welcomed and in an Australian environment. It cost $6 for the four hour game, and we were lucky enough to catch a ride home with Ruth, a generous elderly woman headed toward town. Merritt was on the winning team and won a $25 butcher shop voucher, which they kindly exchanged for cash instead. It was an awesome experience, I couldn’t have asked for a better evening (or day, at that).

We have had glorious weather so far in Cairns. It’s been 80 and sunny every day, so I assumed it’s like this every day. We got lucky in more ways than one, as the three weeks prior in Cairns were rainy, windy, and gray, and it hailed in Sydney so much it looked like there was snow on the ground. It’s hard for me to sit on the beach contemplating a swim and think that it really is winter here. They say it’s paradise in the winter (dry season) and unbearable in the summer (wet season).

When the roommate signup sheet went around in Sydney, I got a taste of what my independence has gotten me. I’ve made a conscious effort to make friends throughout the different programs, but haven’t really spent much time with any one group of people aside from Mike. That being said, people have kind of paired up so there are groups of friends and they’re figuring out who they like and don’t like. On one of the bus tours, apparently the other groups were confronting the Energy group because they didn’t agree that the engineers must be smarter than everyone else. Anyways, for me this means I’m kind of out in the open and am not really attached which means it’s easy to get overlooked and forgotten about. I arrived in this position by being independent and doing my own thing, which was a conscious choice. It doesn’t bother me too much, it just makes it hard to get in touch with people when they all group up and go off together. I’d rather be by myself doing what I want to do rather than sticking with the group just for the sake of being with people. A lot of this feeling may stem from getting annoyed at people drinking incessantly and being immature, which may be a product of the age difference between the freshmen and sophomores and myself. At any rate, it’s been nice to spend some time with other kids to share the study abroad experience even if I haven’t made lots of permanent friends. I do like the idea of having even more friends to stay with across the country though.

The food situation in Cairns has been nice. We have a nice buffet in the hotel every morning that’s included in the program costs, from which I normally make sandwiches for lunch. Along the Esplanade (coast walkway), there are some nice barbeque grills that allow us to grill out since we don’t have any other means of cooking. It helps that the price of beef here is very low - $2 for a T-bone. They have marinated shish kebabs at the grocery store for $1.30 each, both of which have proven great ways to eat dinner.

On Wednesday, we finished our academic program with the final exam. The only warning we received from our professors as to its content was that it was easy and usually everyone passes. This statement normally implies to students that they don’t need to study too much, especially if they have 500 information-packed slides from the previous six weeks to look over. Thirty one multiple choice questions challenged us to remember detailed facts from all different parts of the program, supposing we memorized necessary equations and knew the efficiencies of energy use of different forms of steel shaping. Needless to say, I had trouble recalling any specific numbers from the thousands of efficiency numbers that I’ve seen since June 21^st and I’ve been paying close attention in class. I can’t imagine what the kids who play Sudoku every day thought of the test.

Thursday, Merritt and I decided to try to find some windsurf rentals up the coast. I’ve had two learning experiences and wanted to give it another shot. We were lucky and got a ride to Palm Cove with the tourism information director from the hotel, a nice 30 minute ride that happened to be on the way to her lunch appointment. We were asking about deep sea fishing, so she stopped at her house on the way to let us talk to her husband, who was tuning his fish finders in the driveway. He showed us some of his recent red snapper catch, then we hopped back into the car. Jacky said to us while we pulled away “Well, you’ve now seen some of the local wildlife: the husband.” We arrived in Palm Cove to find perfect sailing conditions but no windsurfers for rent. Port Douglas, apparently the only place in the area with the necessary equipment, was another 45 minutes and a $46 round trip bus ticket away. So to pass the time, we decided to swim to the island off shore. It didn’t appear that far away, but didn’t feel like the smartest idea when we started swimming. I was frustrated to find that Merritt was only interested in doing slow breast stroke to get over there, so it took 35 minutes of swimming to get close. When we started nearing the exposed land due to low tide, I remembered a sign at the beach in Cairns that warned of crocodiles in the area and suddenly didn’t feel so safe. As we got closer to the land, we realized the bottom was covered in coral and it wasn’t going to be an easy exit. Merritt got scared when he kicked the squishy bottom a couple times which flustered me a little more. We decided to swim back without spending any time on land. On the way back, a boat passed with a few people in it who waved as they went by. It was comforting to know they didn’t think we were in distress, as Merritt was starting to get a little tired and frustrated with the distance we had left to go. We got to shore a little ways down from where we started, as the current was picking up. When we got to our stuff and started walking to the bus stop, a guy with binoculars asked us if we were the guys swimming out there. He said that some people had just gone out to look for us, as they place we just swam across was called “Shark Alley” and produced a 6 ft shark the day before. We also didn’t realize the buoys in the water on the other part of the beach were holding up nets to keep the crocs out. Fortunately our 1 hr 10 min swim was eventless and we lived to tell the tale. On the way to the island, I was telling Merritt how stupid of an idea the swim was and we started talking about how Captain Cook had to take a few chances in order to reach the other side of the world, and this was a small challenge compared to that. Ignorance is bliss and I don’t intend on employing that kind of stupidity any longer. I’m almost home Momma…

Today, a group of kids and I went to Fitzroy Island for a real day in the tropics. This place appealed to me because for a $40 ferry ticket, you could spend the day on the island hiking, snorkeling, and sunning on an island protected by national park. We hiked straight to the summit, an incredible 1200 ft. high 360º view of the mountainous coastline with Great Barrier Reef offshore. The hike was hot until we reached the winds passing the summit, cooling us off for the next hour as we soaked in the view. We could even see whales breaching repeatedly about a mile offshore towards the reef. Stunning. We later made our way down to the beach where I swam around with my swim goggles (couldn’t fit the scuba goggles in my pack). I was really impressed with the amount of life in the water. In the hour that I was in the water, I saw sea turtles, a sting ray, a squid, lots of fish, and lots of neat coral. The rest of the day was spent lounging on the beach, trying to be smart enough to avoid lobster-like skin from the extremely intense sun. They Aussies say “Slip, Slap, Slop” for their encouragement of sunscreen use. I did a pretty good job, knowing that I’d be out in the sun the following day on my scuba trip. When we got back into the port, I found a shop to book my introductory scuba dive. Merritt and I were going to sign up together, but it turns out he doesn’t have access to his bank account until Monday so he canceled. I guess I’m going to have to make friends on my own tomorrow. I’m super excited about diving on the outer section of the GBR, this is top notch. Visibility(I’m told) is up to 20 meters out there.