There Are No Bad Experiences

Some things that have happened since I left Bali and flew to Melbourne on the 9th:

– Took a road trip along the south coast of Australia, on what’s called the Great Ocean Road. Very scenic and neat, a lot of quaint little Aussie seaside towns along the way. On this trip, I successfully drove a car on the left side of the road, shifting with my left hand and everything. We also saw kangaroos, kookaburras, wallabys, bats and cockatoos that are loud as hell and wake you up with their cawing before dawn every day. The wallabys and kookaburras and pretty red-and-black birds that I have no idea the name of were only found when we took off down a random dirt road, which was quite the adventure. Stayed in a place called Warnambool. Learned how lush an adjective “lush” is. Ate some of the best lamb ever.

– Saw Roger Federer play tennis. Also: Rafael Nadal on the practice court, Daniela Hantuchova (meow!) playing doubles, some guy named Baghdatis who is hugely popular here but I’d never heard of before — and a bunch of other random players playing. Also saw Jim Courier walking around — he does a superb job doing the announcing for the big matches here. Tennis tournaments are fun, I now realize. I want to go to the U.S. Open sometime. I also saw Gael Monfils out at a bar on Saturday night, after he’d lost to fellow countryman Richard Gasquet. So there I was, standing outside with our group of folks, waiting to make a move to the next whiskey bar, and he walks out the door. I recognize him, and mind you I’m really drunk at this point (it’s around 3 a.m.), and so all I can think of to do is say, “Gael! Hey Gael!” And he turns and looks at me… and all of a sudden, I’m at a loss. Because I am at least sharp enough to NOT say the one thing that pops into my mind (“Sorry you lost!”) — instead, I just give him the international “hang loose” symbol, with an extra dorky swerve to it. He smiles a big smile despite my dorkitude, and then walks away with his entourage. An entourage that was not too shabby, I might add. Then we went back to Meg’s friends’ house and wore funny hats. So, yeah. That was a fun night.

– Went lawn bowling with another group of folks who are friends with my friend Meg here. (To everyone who knows Megan, she says hi.) Then we watched the Melbourne gay pride parade go by — and I scoffed. (“This ain’t no gay pride parade! Come to San Francisco, we’ll show you a gay pride parade!” … yes, we were drinking while bowling, and this was the afternoon after my late night drunken accosting of a French tennis player, so I was probably still a wee bit tipsy …) Actually, it was good gay fun — I mean, how many naked gay dudes in leather fishnet outfits do you really need to make it a quality gay pride parade? This one had at least four.

– Saw an exhibit at the Museum of Southern Australia in Adelaide about Aboriginal culture. Very interesting stuff. Like how they came to Australia: someone sailed (or rowed) sometime around 50,000 years ago across the strait separating the continents of Asia and Australia, or Sahul, as this continent at this stage of plate tectonics was known. This is one of the great feats of the ancient world — that some primordial primate (okay, not really — I just liked the sound of “primordial primate”) — that some early man decided to sail off towards NOWHERE. To a land that he didn’t know was out there. And to bring friends. (Or, it is a paradigm-shifting geological and evolutionary mystery that contemporary archaeological science cannot even begin to fathom… which is possibly even cooler…) Also learned about the Aboriginal belief system here. That the world was created in The Dreaming — and that The Dreaming is ongoing and ever-active. That the creation of a story is also the creation of the thing — so each individual, whether its a person, an animal, a rock, an ant or a tree, each creature’s Dreamtime is their personal identity, from the past forward to the now. That these stories are metaphors and maps, directions to ways to cross over mountains or self-defining allegories. The Rainbow Serpent is one of the major mythological creatures featured in the Dreaming tales, as it lives in rivers and lakes, and metaphorically controls all the water — and I’m sure to learn more about this next weekend…

Because Friday is Australia Day, which is their version of July 4. Big summer bbq party fireworks stuff. And I’m going with Megan to the Rainbow Serpent Festival, a music/art/hippie festival outside of Melbourne, that is dedicated to (you guessed it!) the Rainbow Serpent. Should be good times, good ole summer music festival stylee, but Aussie style.

Yep yep yep. G’day, y’all.

Oh, P.S.: My camera is fixed, and I’ve taken a lot of photos here, I’m just lazy ’bout the upload. Stay tuned, though. Cheers.

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Ahh, travel. Is there anything better than being on an island in Indonesia (Lombok) and wanting to get to another island (Bali), an island a mere 20 km away, and not being able to? Indeed, after NYE, I was on my way back over to Bali, to continue on around Indonesia for the next two weeks, before catching my connecting flight to Australia on the 16th… except I couldn’t get off Lombok. The ferries weren’t running. There’d been some heavy weather and the seas were choppy — indeed, a similar ferry to the one I wanted to get on sank off Java on Dec. 29 and lots of people died. So: safety first. I am down with that.

Travel fact: When in Indonesia, do not get on a ferry in stormy weather.

All of this meant that, after having a tremendously fun and relaxing week, I left Gili Trawangan and landed on Lombok, and ran right into the midst of a chaotic nightmare, where no one knew anything about (a) if the ferry actually might be running today, (b) when the ferry for certain will be running again (“maybe this afternoon!”), and (c) what would be a cheap alternative to a ferry — like, say, a flight. I didn’t have any really pressing concerns, but I knew a couple folks who needed to make connections in Bali and Jakarta and elsewhere. And there were many more like them. Drama! Yeah, two days of waiting for some guy to make the decision whether to send the ferry or not, two days of hanging around Mataram, the biggest city in Lombok, a place with all the personality of a drill bit. (i.e., it was boring… aww, forget it.)

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Last night was fun. I was at a giant party along a strip of bars on a beach boardwalk on this tiny tropically paradise-y island I'm on. Everywhere decorated in cool light designs and artwork. Everyone wandering ... [Continue reading this entry]