International "Food Festival"

I've been attending a lot of eating related events with my friends on the 12th floor lately, and my friend Mathilde from France organized the next one, which she refered to as the "International Food Festival". Anyways, the basic idea was pretty straight-forward, each person attending brings a dish from their home country. A cheeky Australian friend suggested I bring hamburgers and pizza, however my mind was moving towards the food I miss from home. Because I was expecting an abundance of food, nothing too fancy was required. Ultimately, I decided to make Guacamole, which you might say, "thats not American!", but I was repping California, and given the influence of Mexican cuisine, (not to mention hamburgers originated as a German food), I decided it was necessary, especially given that no one else was even from the American continents, and rarely get Mexican food.

Anyways, as most of you are aware, I love eating; its one of my top five passions. Overall, the "festival" was a success, and I filled myself full of delicious meats. Mathilde made some toast with patte (sp? I don't know how to accent the E if thats even right), and also some with this pork stuff that came out of a can from France and looked kind of like tuna. She also made some duck, which withheld its rank as my favorite meat (seriously, I'm thinking duck tacos. Its like cabeza, but way better). Tomomi made some sort of Japanese pancake thing that was kind of like an omelet too, and had bacon on top and some sauce, delish. There was the more Aussie/English foods, shepard's pie with mushy peas, trifle, some sort of custard with kiwi's (made by the New Zealander of course). There was chicken tika masala, malaysian assam (tamarind) prawns, some sort of Asian noodle dish I forget the name of, and some chicken wings (which wasn't really any sort of nationalist expression). After that it was time for desert. Some sort of cake, some Chinese donuts, and some Indian deserts I never quite got the name of.

My guacamole which went over well. A few of the people had tried it when I made some a month ago and where looking forward to it. Before that previous time, Simon had always made guacamole with just mashed up avocado, salt and pepper (I laughed at him, then felt pity, and finally set him on the path towards enlightenment. I mean, its not like you can't find the recipe online, how else do you think I made it?). Also, we were all pretty packed in around the tables, and I was down at one far end, and through the various voices I heard a guy at the other end, who was scooping some guacamole onto his Dorito chip, say, "...is he from Texas?". Interestingly enough, I had made a joke earlier in the day about taking a page out of Peggy Hill's book and bringing some Frito pie, to be more American (I had actually seriously considered bringing green bean casserole but couldn't find any of the crispy onion ring things).

Choppin' stuff.
These are the tasty prawns Adilah made. She also took some of these pictures and has a digital SLR I am jealous of, but its not like I'm not usually too lazy to carry around my own small camera anyway.


The joys (and sorrows) of boxed wine know no boundaries. Pakistan, what it do.

Overall, good times. I'm a little out of chronological order, as the dinner was on Sunday, and my next post I'm planning is about a skate video premier I went to on Friday. It was pretty wild and entertaining. I'm done with classes for the semester, have the next week or so to finish my final papers, and then an exam at the end of June. I'll post again when I need a distraction from my studies and my fingers don't hurt from using the keyboard.

More Skate Adventures

Last Friday I went to this town Geelong, which was about an hour train ride outside of Melbourne. I managed to make the 12 noon train at Southern Cross station in downtown Melbourne with only a few minutes to spare, sat back in the comfy chair. After leaving downtown we passed through western Melbourne, through the industrial area, and then got out into the country, passing the occasional factory. Geelong is a little over 100,000 people, which I think takes into account the surrounding suburbs but I'm not sure. Theres a Ford factory here (Ford is considered an Australian car in this country), a wool museum, a cool small downtown area, a foggy pier, and a skate plaza next to the pier. I skated the plaza for a few hours, talked to a few of the locals, but didn't take any photos. One of the locals told me which bus to take to get to the old sketchy bowl from the 80's which was one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Geelong (other than the wool museum which I ended up skipping).


Geelong Bowl. This thing is steep and deep, about ten feet high. I couldn't do any lip tricks but it was fun to carve.


Another angle, the photos can't translate its size and shape perfectly.


There was this drainage hole in the center of the bottom that had to be avoided.


Here was one of the other parts of the park, a "paint tray" thing. Steep, rough trannies. A kid on a scooter was trying to drop in on the corner. I'm always surprised I don't see kids on scooters eat shit more often, I mean, it was actually pretty gnarly. He was there with his friend, both aged somewhere around 10-14, although I'm not great at judging ages. They both had "wog" accents, which is a type of Australian accent kids whose parents are from Italy, Greece, Lebanon, or sometimes Asia talk with. Heres a journalist/linguists translation I got from The Age, a Melbourne newspaper:

"Ah fugen kehller maht."

"Whahr? Woihr?"

"Uhh, whahmah farghen sposadouh?"

The translation, as best as I can manage, is:

"I'll f---in' kill you, mate."

"What? Why?"

"Well, what am I f---in' supposed to do?"

I'm not really sure what the context of that specific statement was, other than it being some school kids getting off the bus. After a few exchanges of conversations, they detected my accent and correctly identified me as American. They lived nearby and hung out at the park often, riding there bikes and scooters. After a bit they went over to talk to some nearby school girls who looked quite a bit older than them but who knows.

A little after they left, the sun started to go down, and I was getting ready to leave, taking my final runs, when another guy on a scooter came up the path. He was coming slowly, stopping every once in awhile, and talking or singing to himself. At one point he stopped about fifteen feet from me, so I called out 'whats up' or something like that. He had a strong accent as well, but also something about the way he talked didn't seem quite right. I don't know if he had just been down by the creek huffing glue or if he wasn't quite right in the head, but this guy was strange. At first I had judged him to be about 18, maybe a bit of a short guy, although it was dark, and think maybe he was more around 14 or 16, at least a bit older than the previous kids. The kids from before were one of our main topics of conversations, although he'd occasionally interject with something slightly random. He kept wanting to know what the kids were talking to me about, but he didn't ask me repeatedly in any sort of hostile way, but it was more as if he needed reminding of what I had said a minute earlier, or thought there was more I could divulge. He even asked me if they had been "picking" on me (my response was "naw, there just kids!"), although I then realized he was a kid himself, and judging by his character and the questions he was asking me, I'd guess this kids probably made fun of him quite a bit. I told him they said it was their hangout spot, and his response made it seem like he thought they had some sort of gang (maybe this kid watches too much tv, or those kids just give him a hard time, which wouldn't be surprising).

I can't remember his name, but he later told me I could call him 'Scoot' or M&M/Eminem (I don't know which he was referring too). I told him I lived in Melbourne and was about to head back there, but he'd ask me 'so do you skate here a lot?' or something similar every few minutes as if I lived in town. We both happened to leave at the same time so he scooted along next to me as I walked to the bus stop. He seemed worried about getting in trouble for being late because he had told his mom he was going to Safeway, and she said he had to be home by six. He had just wanted to get out of the house and ride around on his scooter. I guess I'm glad to have met him, since he was interesting to say the least, but I was relieved that he didn't hang around while I waited at the bus stop.


The Friday previous to my Geelong excursion, I went to check out a backyard pool in western Melbourne, amid suburban homes and industrial buildings. A guy from New Jersey who skates Fitzy a lot gave me directions to this one on a Thursday evening and Friday morning I dragged Simon along and managed to find it. The guy told me it was a low bust factor (you could skate there all day drinking beer without the cops or neighbors complaining). It was supposedly an abandoned house, missing the back section, but it seems they have recently started rebuilding. Luckily, the construction crew wasn't there and the pool hadn't been touched by the them yet, so we deemed it still cool to skate, until we saw the water in the deepend.


At least I got to skate the shallow end sort of. Barely any run up and a steep tranny is my excuse for only getting halfway up the wall.


Simon, lurkin'.

meh

Lately I've just been doing the same old stuff, reading stuff for school, making quesadillas, kicking it at the lodge, cooking kangaroo steaks to put inside my quesadillas, etc. I went skating around town tonight, but most of downtown was too busy with foot traffic, but I skated the museum, which has some nice flatground and stuff. I bought an Australian skateboarding magazine and saw a spot (curb cut to tall flat bar) with a street sign in the background so I was able to locate it in Chinatown. Its too tall for me to skate, although I might be able to get into a front nose on it, but it was too busy tonight. Now I'm staying up late waiting for it to be 9am in California when two more spaces in Advanced Painting will be opened up. I signed up for classes this morning, and there wasn't space in it, but they open a couple spots a day at various times. I did get into metal sculpture though (welding), which should be fun.

The highlight of my last weekend was going to a show in St. Kilda (a beach neighborhood south of Melbourne City). It was at the Espy which was a cool place, spacious yet intimate. We were able to save some money by drinking wine on the tram ride over, and heading over to the bottleshop and drinking beer on the beach. The show, however, was free, so I bought a drink at the bar. $4 for a pot, not bad, relatively (a pot is a glass, less than a pint). The bands were good. Loud, fast rock and roll. Most of them were Melbourneans, although the headlining band was from Tokyo (The Gimmies). Tomomi came along, and she generally listens to pop music, but was dancing and rocking out just as much as anyone (actually only about ten people in the crowd were moving at all).

My classes are winding down. Next week is the last week of classes, then I have a week off (to write papers), then the next week I have three final papers due, then another week off (maybe a skate trip to Canberra?), then a final exam, then I'm off to Queensland. So basically right now I'm mainly preoccupied with research for my three final papers, which seem interesting enough, except for my renaissance class, but I was expecting a worse topic (the only class with an assigned topic, sort of, my modern art class gave us at least 11 choices). For renaissance we could choose between:

How would you rewrite the history of the 15th century Italian Renaissance for a book entitled Donatello to Leonardo Da Vinci?

or

Write an essay about the importance of gift giving on the occasion of weddings in the Italian Renaissance?

Anyways...I've probably already bored you enough with descriptions of this class. Next week for my last Australia Now class were going to watch a movie. The lecturer wanted to show "The Rescuers Down Under", but apparently in previous semesters students had complained about watching a cartoon in a college class. I think theres still a chance he'll show it, but either way, I trust this guy to put on something highly entertaining. He wanted to show the Disney film because its a very American take on Australia, stereotypes, inaccuracies (the kangaroo has a cockney accent, because after all, what American child will know the difference?), etc. so he thought it would be good to see it through "Australian Eyes" now that we know something about Australia.

A week from Friday there is a local skate video premier. My friend Sacha who I met in my philosophy class who I skate with sometimes told me about it. Its his old skate crew's video, and originally he was going to have a part in it, but its been in production for almost four years now, and he rarely even skates with them anymore. It sounds like overall, thy'll be some good skating, some mediocre skating, and fun random stuff, kind of like our skate videos (Schpoofed, Step it Up, Bootysweat). They're even premiering it in a theater. Also, while I'm talking about skate video premiers, the new Zoo York video is going to be having a Melbourne premier in a few weeks in St. Kilda. That seems to be the thing nowadays, having multiple premiers. Zoo York has maybe changed a bit from its roots (they're now owned by Marc Ecko), but they still have a good skate team, so it should be cool.

Until next time.

Some Stuff Since Tassie

Nothing major has happened since I got back from my trip. My first week back I was busy finishing assignments, but now I'm just working on two final papers, and keeping up in classes until exams, which I only have one of, unless you count a take home paper. Since nothing is due for awhile, I've been able to relax a bit more. Although now that winter is setting in it, the sun is already beginning to set when I get out of class at 5:15, so skating after school usually means night sessions in front of the museum or the state library or somewhere around town. Whenever I go skating at night (around midnight) people in my building are like "are you going skating now?!" or "Where you out skating?!" when I return. I usually tell them I'm not tired or that night time is best for skating in the city because less pedestrians are around. Below is the main obstacle at the state library. Its a photo I got off google, so it doesn't really show the face of the bank, but you get the idea. The museum is mainly flatground, a few ledges where kids took off skatestoppers, manual pads, and some big gaps that are in a lot of videos (it says Melbourne Museum in big letters in the background).


I've been trying to go to some more shows. I went to a metal show a week and a half ago. The bands weren't great, (the screaming/growling was a little much, although it wasn't quite new hardcore), but it was fun. Simon bailed on going to the show because he was too tired/hungover from the night before, so I went alone but happened to run into a guy from the Fitzroy bowl, Pete, and talked to another guy who skated, Shorty. Pete is also the bassist of the band Team Rad that I had wanted to see a few months ago, although I didn't mention that. I saw him in the moshpit and he looked at me, must of realized he recognized me from somewhere, looked down at my shoes, realized I was a skater, and gave me a high five. I hung out with him for a bit and chatted. He was also going up to random people and saying "hey, I heard Fallout boy is playing a secret show tonight!" as a joke. During the last band I ran into him again at the front. He let me take a chug from his jug of beer, then when it was done he threw it at the band, but the singer had already opened up a scab on his forehead from jumping into the crowd a few times so it was appropriate. Tomorrow I'm going to see an acoustic Chuck Ragan show at a bar in Richmond (which is actually a heavily Vietnamese neighborhood). On Saturday I'm going to go see a The Gimmies, for free apparently in St. Kilda, a beach neighborhood a bit south of downtown. They're from Japan and are influenced by Radio Birdman, MC5 and the Stooges.

This weekend it was my friend Caroline's birthday who lives on my floor. We (me and some fellow Unilodgers) spent the afternoon/evening pre-gaming in the 4th floor kitchen and ate some pizza and garlic bread with vegemite (actually I think I was the only one to eat the vegemite, but my friend Priscilla did sing the vegemite theme song twice over the course of the afternoon). We then headed into the city to a dance club that played techno music and I was one of the few guys without gelled hair, a low cut shirt and dress shoes. So basically it wasn't really my type of place, but it was fun because I had already drunk enough that I didn't need to buy their over priced beer and I was with friends from UniLodge who I don't usually go out with.


Above: Having some fun. Below: Pure excitement


I also bought plane tickets for when I'm done with finals. I'm going up to Queensland with Simon. Were going to stay at his house on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane which is supposed to real nice and less commercial than the Gold Coast (there are some sick skateparks, too). Tomomi is going to meet us up there as well. One destination of ours is the Australian Zoo which is the culmination of Steve Irwin's life work. Apparently you go in a gate and get to chill in a big open area with Kangaroos and other creatures. Were going to go down to the Gold Coast as well, both the normal people attractions, and Tomomi and Simon can go off and do stuff while I check out more sick skateparks, like Pizzey! After a week and a half in Queensland I'm flying over to New Zealand, to Auckland, where I'll start my journey and work my way down the country, through Wellington, over to the south island and on to Christchurch where I'll fly back to Melbourne. I don't have many concrete plans, although I've done some research on skateparks, so I'll probably base my various destination points on where sick stuff to skate is, and get to see cool scenery on the bus/train rides and do touristy or other stuff in my downtime. Most of the people I've talked to who went to New Zealand are like "yeah bro, skydiving!" or have gone bungee jumping, or river rafting, horseback riding, etc. Tomomi fired a gun there. I'll probably avoid most of these overpriced activities unless any specifically catch my eye. Anyways, I'll end the post with a photo of my first destination in New Zealand which made me decide I had to go to Auckland. Kudos if you recognize what skate video it was in (although it could have been in others than I'm thinking of). Sorry the picture is kind of small. That full pipe is somewhere around head height and the snake run leading to it is very tight. Very.

More Tasmania Pic's

Remember to click on the photos, it annoys me that they appear cut off.


Wineglass Bay


Bicheno


Bicheno again. Forgot to do some cropping, oh well.

Tassie Part 2 - The East Coast

My bus left Hobart around 8:30 am, but I had been in the habit of waking up early. It was the raining, for the first time since I arrived, and Tasmania is known for getting more rain than the mainland. It was quite nice, riding in on the bus in the rain watching the scenery, some of the horses had blankets on. There was thunder and lightening as well, and overall the bus was a good vantage point to sit and watch the rain and the atmospheric conditions that go along with it. I would even say the bus rides were a highlight of the trip. The rain stopped right before reaching my destination of Bicheno, an small port town, and it was dry and sunny when I got off the bus. Bicheno used to be a whaling town, but there aren't many whales left anymore, so now it seems like tourism is one of the big industries here, although according to Lonely Planet, the guidebook, it still is an active port and retains more local character than some of the other east coast towns. There were many visitors, but townsfolk as well, and didn't have too much of a touristy feel, so it was cool.


One of the tourist destinations I went to was the aquarium, which was pretty lame, but I got to see Henry the Octopus (above). They had a variety of different sea creatures, but overall it was a small room with a bunch of small tanks, some of which I'm pretty sure were mislabeled. Although it did have a sort of small town charm to it. There was a sign on the wall thanking the local fisherman for helping with the acquisition of the animals, and the walls were wood grain. I also had the whole aquarium to myself, although it was also connected to a restaurant and gift shop.

This natural tourist attraction above, the blowhole, I had been told about but practically stumbled upon while exploring the rocky shores of the town. The waves hitting the rock weren't all that big but I guess for some reason the force pushes a bunch of water through a crevice or hole so a bunch of water shoots out in once place. Since it was a whaling town, and the rock looks kind of like a whale, I guess it has special significance. I didn't closely inspect it because I didn't want to soaked. Overall I had more fun walking/climbing on the boulders, working my way along the shoreline, than watching the blowhole, although it was a still neat. Its just funny that its one of the things that is listed as an attraction in Lonely Planet and on signs around the town.

This is the public dock, it looks like there is another dock in the background, I don't quite remember. Like I said, this is a small town, so its port obviously doesn't rival Oakland's, or Melbourne's. I just imagined being an old man driving my boat down to launch at five in the morning to go fishing, after just having eaten a bacon and egg sandwich on toast, some crumbs still in my long gray beard, with a cooler with some Cascade Lager (a tasmanian beer) and snacks, meeting up with the boys for a day of chilling on the boat.

The second joke is in the detail, I didn't even realize it until I got home.
Wide, grass sidewalks. There were quite a few bogan-mobiles as well. Bogans are like rednecks, sometimes kind of bro-ish. I don't think I've met any proper bogans yet though. The most bogan of the bogans like to drive suped up trucks.
On top of that hill is Whalers Lookout (might have got the name slightly wrong). From there I got some good views of the area; I'll be adding some more panorama shots soon, from various parts of my trip. In the whaling days, people would stay posted up there to look for whales, but now its more just for people like me.

These were the rocks I was climbing around on. I'm not sure what all the orange is from. After wandering around the town, and checking out various tourist stuff, I went back to check into the hostel (I had already left my stuff there, but hadn't paid and stuff). It was the best hostel I've stayed at yet. The guy who ran it was some nice, mellow dreaded guy who had a dog who also had dreads. The hostel building reminded me of cabins. I didn't have much on the agenda for the night. I had tried to book a spot on the penguin tour, but it was full so I was going to go the next night. I met some German study abroad students who were debating an Aussie girl about vegemite. They couldn't stand the stuff. I enjoy it a bit, it tastes kind of like the powder that comes with ramen, but its in a paste form. Its not my top choice, but its nice to put on some toast or crackers as a snack sometimes. The Aussies grow up with it though, so they've developed a taste for it that seems to be part of their national identity.


The next day I caught a bus early to go to Freycinet National Park, home of Wineglass bay, one of the nicest beaches in the world according to various travel literature. There was only one bus a day going there, and only one coming back, but I had about a six hour time slot to fit my hike into. I hiked up to a lookout point (photo coming soon), which was between two mountain peaks, then headed down to the beach, then cut across the peninsula on a path that went alongside a dried up lagoon, down another beach, and then back around the mountains to the beginning. The mountains were once active volcanoes, so there were lots of rocks around which reminded me of Jurassic Park (see photo a bit below). The beach was fairly nice, really white sand, clear water, friendly wallabys hopping around, they're like mini kangaroos. Your not supposed to feed them, but it seems like some people do, because they come up to you looking for a handout. (I just met with my adviser today and she told me she was sitting on the same beach eating an apple and a wallaby came up and grabbed her arm, wanting some of the apple, and she pulled her arm back and got cut from the animals claws, and it still managed to snatch the apple and run off. They didn't try to pull anything like that with me though, and generally seemed friendly). I encountered them on the beach, at various points along the path, and then again in the parking lot area of the park (parking lots are always referred to as car parks here though).



These are some of the cool, Jurassic park-esque rock formations.

I found a cool fish exo-skeleton on the beach. Below is some of the mountains, as seen across the dried lagoon.


That night, after returning from the hike, I went on the penguin tour. Fairy penguins are the species that live in Australia. It was dark out and you can't use flash photography because it will hurt there eyes, and I'd imagine if you have large groups of tourists freaking out the penguins with bright flashing lights every night, the penguins will avoid returning to the rookery at night. But plenty of photos came up on google, so I attached one below. That night, back at the hostel I hung out with a green haired guy from Denmark who was going to be camping for a few days in Freycinet, and a girl from Melbourne who was cycling up the east coast of Tasmania. I'd imagine biking around Tassie would be pretty cool, its very rural, not too many cars, nice scenery, a fair amount of roadkill in case you run out of money and want some wombat steaks.

The next day I caught the bus to Launceston, the second biggest city in Tassie, where I was changing buses, but had a two hour gap before heading on to Devonport where I was catching the ferry the following day back to Melbourne. I checked around the downtown area of Launceston, got some bangers and mash, then headed to check out the skatepark which wasn't great, but was worth skating. There were lots of bikers there, who seemed to dominate the park a bit. BMXers and skaters get along alright in Oz, I guess they have to since the bikers get to use the skateparks legally. At this park there was some anti-skater graffiti, although it was probably just one kid, and there was even more graffiti that said 'no mountain bikes'. There was a steep, skinny, and sketchy cement ten foot high vert ramp which was kind of cool, but hard to skate.

Afterwards, I caught the bus to Devonport and got in with still a bit of time before I could check into my hostel, so I lugged all my stuff (A full to the brim backpack with jackets tied to the outside, a sleeping bag under my arm) and skated to the skatpark, stopping by the bottleshop on the way. As I was riding through the town I got some funny looks, carrying all my stuff, a bag with some clinking bottles, while skating down the sidewalk, probably looking all dirty too. According to my skatepark guidebook, the park was pretty lame, but upon arriving, I found a lot of unexpected obstacles. Apparently they had just rebuilt the park and opened it two weeks earlier. However, a new park in town meant that it was full of scooter kids. BMXers are more respectable in a way, although scooters aren't as bad because it doesn't hurt as much if you crash with them, and they don't ruin ledges, like pegs do. There were some skaters too though. Also, the big downside was that the bowl was being painted by some "graffiti artists" so it wasn't skateable (if you'll recall, I wasn't able to skate the Bondi Bowl in sydney, a super gnarly pool replica, because of painting as well, although that was just a straight coat of blue). It was still better than I expected, and the bowl looked sort of like a smaller (and less good) version of Fitzi, so I wasn't as heartbroken as I was in Sydney (by the way, in case any of my skater bros want to see what this Bondi pool being shredded, theres a five minute clip of Tony Trujillo killing it on Youtube. I'm sure the locals can skate it well too...). Also, while discussing Americans skating Oz, I was watching the Cardiel documentary the other day and there is a short clip of him skating the Hobart snake run. It where hes talking about going on trips and asking the locals to take them to the old parks no one has seen or something like that, basically the cool old parks that are super gnarly and different is what I gathered.

The next day I sailed from Tassie on a 9 hour boat ride. I did some homework and ate at an overpriced buffet on the boat. There was a small movie theater but it only showed kids movies. I got to stand out on the deck of the boat and watch the Melbourne skyline as we approached. I took the tram back from the port. Walking through downtown to change trams was interesting, because it was saturday night, I had all my stuff, and I was in a busy city environment after having been in away from the city for a week. I had a good trip, and it was relaxing to return to my little room at unilodge.

Tasmania - Part 1 - Hobart

I wanted to get out of Melbourne for the Easter holidays, and I decided Tasmania (or Tassie as its generally referred to), would be a splendid destination. As a kid I always associated it with the tasmanian devil (which I did a report on in elementary school, on the animal, not the cartoon character, although I liked Taz as well), and just thought of it as some sort of strange, isolated, exotic place, and living in Melbourne, I'm now just across the Bass Strait from this mythical wonderland of screaming rodents and poisonous snakes. Tassie gets a fair amount of rainfall, so that they haven't been in a drought for the last 11 years like the rest of Australia, and therefore there is more vegetation. It has a population of about 500,000 humans, and judging from what I saw while riding on buses across various parts of the state, I will venture the guess that sheep population outnumbers that. I am not trying to poke fun; they're cute to look at, wool is a useful fabric, and I enjoy eating their children (although I feel a little bad about it).



Originally, while making my plans, I attempted to get Simon to come along with me, but since he hadn't been saving up money for a foreign excursion, as I had been, he wasn't able to afford it. His girlfriend Tomomi is an exchange student from Tokyo, and was going to be headed for New Zealand for the break, which meant Simon would probably be alone on his birthday, laying in bed, suckling on a goon cask and playing the occasional Fifa soccer on his computer. To make up for my betrayal, I went daytime partying with him the day before I left (not that I didn't want to anyway), which mainly consisted of drinking in various pubs and alleys, and the occasional pool match. We met an old dude in a suit from the former Yugoslavia who randomly sat at our table to smoke a cigarette. After getting back to Unilodge, I threw the essentials in my backpack and headed to catch the bus to the airport around 11pm. The flight to Tassie is only a little over an hour, but I got a cheap flight at 6am in the morning, which was too early to get a shuttle from my house. My choices were to either skate to the train station at 4 in the morning (which looking back I kind of regret not doing), or sleep at the airport. The only benches I found at the airport were hard and wooden, and the janitor kept driving by for awhile in a little cleaning cart that made a lot of noise, and even after that stopped the escalator was squeaky. Also, my hangover started kicking in sometime around 1 am, but I managed to get a few hours of sleep.


As I walked down the stairway off the plane outside the tiny Hobart airport (the old fashioned way), I knew I had chosen a great destination. The sun was still low in the sky, and we were surrounded by beautiful mountains. Everything was peaceful and calm, and I was at that point were after staying up all night you start to feel rejuvenated as the sun comes up, but in a delirious sort of way. Looking back on it, it reminds me of coming out of the studio back in Santa Cruz after a long night of painting, and looking out over the meadow towards the ocean, except now I was looking at mountains, and I felt like it could have been New Hampshire. I picked up my luggage; all I brought was a sleeping bag (that I ended up not using), a backpack stuffed to maximum capacity, and of course, my skateboard. I had almost considered making Tassie a strictly hiking trip, but after seeing a photo and reading a short description of the West Hobart snake run, I knew I had to make it a skating trip as well, if only just for that single spot. And besides, whats the point of traveling if you don't bring your skate? I stood on the curb for a bit, with some other travelers, sort of looking around, figuring out how the hell I was going to get into the city from the airport. I joined up with two Aussies (graduates of Melbourne Uni) and a girl from California who were doing the same thing and shared a taxi. The driver was nice and talkative. He made it clear he wasn't Australian; he was Tasmanian. Sixth generation Hobartian to be exact, which could mean his lineage goes back to the convict days. Hobart is the second oldest European settlement in Oz, behind Sydney, both of which were created as places for the British to send the petty thieves when the jails were too crammed full. I got dropped off at the Old Hobart Hotel, which was now a hostel. It was almost 8 in the morning by this point, and I couldn't check into my room yet, but I was able to drop off my bags and head up the hill in search of the West Hobart snake run that I was so anxious to skate.


The picture is a panorama, you'll have to click on it to see the whole thing. Its also only the lower half of the snake run, and the bowl it spills into.

I have a little guidebook I bought at a skateshop in Melbourne that has every skatepark in Australia, with the address, cross streets, a rating, description, etc. The park was in walking distance to my hostel (walking because it was mainly uphill). I took a detour to bomb a hill. Being in Hobart made me realize how flat Melbourne is. Hobart reminded me of the Bay Area a bit, especially Berkeley, with its hills, laid back medium sized city vibe, and cooler weather. It sort of reminded me of the Northwest as well. All this partially reminded me of my homesickness, but it also made me real stoked. Melbourne is cool, its a way bigger city with lots of stuff going on, but I really enjoyed how chill Hobart was, and its probably my favorite city here so far.

Anyways, along the way I happened to pass by the other skatepark in town, which was a couple of blocks away from the snakerun. This park was more modern, and I decided to come back to it later. The snakerun is probably one of the coolest things I've ever skated. There aren't all that many possibilities, so you can only spend so long there, but its quite the experience. Its from the 80's, or even possibly the 70's, and is one of the gnarliest skateparks I have seen (warning to non-skaters, the next little bit here might be a bit confusing, understandably). Its fairly rough in the flatbottom, although you get going so fast you hardly notice it, and the walls are covered in graffiti so they're slick and smooth. There isn't really all that much flatbottom anyway, its almost a perfect U. Also, the transitions are kinked all over the place, but that just makes it more fun. Theres a big corner you hit before you ride down into the bowl at the end. Overall it is a 180 degree turn and in parts, probably has about three foot transitions with four feet of vert. When I'd ride through it, I'd be going fairly fast since the snake run is going down a hill, and this is towards the end, and I'd do one carve on the first part of the turn, come down then carve up the next wall, and be doing a frontside carve up on the vertical wall and then come down into this small transition while going downhill into the bowl. It was really fun and felt gnar, and I was super stoked. The picture below will give you a better idea of what the first part of that last turn looks like.


After the skatepark I wandered around through the town and by the waterfront, checking stuff out. I took a nap in a park (I still couldn't check into the hostel). I eventually went back to the skateparks. At the snakerun, I met a guy from Berkeley who was living in Hobart for a bit because his friend from Washington, where he had been living previously, had married a Tassie girl on exchange. The Berkeley guy asked me where I was from because I was wearing an Oakland A's shirt. At the other skatepark I chatted with some of the locals and skated for a couple hours. Afterwards I headed back to the hostel, chilled for a bit, and went to sleep really early. I woke up a couple of hours into my sleep because my roomate was coming in for the first time. He seemed apologetic for disturbing me, but it was still pretty early, so I tried to convince him it wasn't a big deal. His name is pronounced like Phone (he even made a hand signal like he was talking on a phone when he told me his name), I'm not sure on the spelling. He was from Hong Kong and had been in Oz for five months and I was the first American he had met, which he seemed excited about. He had been saving up money for a long time, working in a printing shop, and had really wanted to go to America, but couldn't get a visa. He had been to a rock music festival in Melbourne though, so he was pretty satisfied, because that was the thing he wanted to do most during his travels.


In my room, reading my Australia guidebook, trying to decide what to do.

The next day I lurked around town a bit more then went to check out the Tasmanian Museum. It was a mix of history, natural history, and art. I learned about the Tasmanian tiger that used to live there before going extinct (although some believe there are still some out there). The tiger now lives in memory as the state animal and on the label of Cascade Lager. They had a room dedicated to Charles Darwin's time in Tasmania as well. The had some really cool installations with taxidermied animals in an artificial environment. The strangest and coolest exhibit was the contemporary art section that was a series of silicon sculptures of imagined genetically mutated creatures by a Melbourne artist, Patricia Piccinini:







Afterwards I went on a really long walk that wasn't too eventful, but I took some photos of various parts of Hobart which you've seen above. I went back to the skatepark for a final session, and then went back to the hostel where I ran into Phone at the bar which was the ground floor of the hostel. I chatted with him for a bit. When he found out I was an artist he wanted me to draw him, and he ran off and came back with a ballpoint pen and a blank sheet of paper. The pressure was on, having to work in ink, but I came up with something that was visually interesting at the least, although it didn't look to much like him. The face looked fairly generic, but he was really happy I drew it on the spot like that considering I'd just met him, so he grabbed a deck of cards from the barkeep and showed me some magic tricks in return. I was actually quite impressed, and later he played a song on his guitar as well. The next morning I woke up early to catch a bus to the east coast, my next destination, a small port town called Bicheno, which was nearby to a national park I had read good things about, and Phone had told me there were friendly wallabies (mini-kangaroos) on the beach there (at the park). It was raining out, but I was nice being on the bus watching the countryside with the mountains and the rain. I saw some lightening too. It stopped raining right before reaching Bicheno as well, and I'll save that part of the trip for another post, probably this weekend. Expect cool nature shots.