Troy Archie – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

It’s the end of something….
It’s been an interesting 5 weeks out here and in retrospect, exactly what I needed at this juncture in my journey. 5 weeks being pretty much alone out here has allowed me to get a couple things done that I badly needed to do, namely reading, writing, cooking on my own, independence and a lot of great workouts but most importantly a lot of thinking. The main thing going through my head has been, what next? My last two wwoofing experiences were good and fun but I didn’t get very much out of them as a person like I did my previous stays. So again the big question, what next? I didn’t want to jump back onto the tourist trail, paying money to take pictures of rocks and trees but wwoofing wasn’t fulfilling me like it had in the past. I realize now that I have been wwoofing for nearly 5 months of the 7 that I’ve been in Australia and change is what I needed. I questioned if my travels in OZ were coming to a close and perhaps it was time to ship off to another country (like I’m going back home yet pff). That thought and that thought alone has made me realize that I’m done with wwoofing. That probably sounds bad but it’s not. The experiences that I’ve had while wwoofing have been amazing and have not so much changed me but have allowed me to realize and find out a lot about myself and life in general. 5 weeks alone has also allowed me something that I haven’t had in a while; independence. The biggest catch with wwoofing is that quite often, you eat when the hosts eat and what they eat, you work when they work, you sleep when they sleep…Alone out here, I got to do everything on my schedule. If I wanted to sleep in until 10 I could. If I wanted curried shark or pumpkin Shepard’s pie for lunch I could. If I thought it was way too nice out to be working right then and wanted instead to have a workout, there was no one there to say otherwise, it was great. I had forgotten about how nice it truly was. So from here it’s off to the big city, Sydney to do what seems to be what the majority of the other backpackers do and that’s find a Joe job and live in Australia for a while. Seems pretty simple. Yeah I know, I used to always bitch about everyone for doing that, not really seeing the point of coming half way around the world to work at a Subway or some nowhere job but not giving something like wwoofing a shot because there was no pay check at the end of the day. From what I saw they weren’t getting anything out of it as a person and just didn’t get it. I realize now that instead of being a hypocrite, bitching about them not trying my world and wwoofing that I really should try their world and see just what it’s all about, you never know, I might just learn a couple things about myself along the way and get more than just a pay check. I completely rejected the idea of waiting tables or scrubbing dishes in Australia or teaching English in China as something I’d try while travelling but now I think anything goes. It’s interesting and very refreshing how ideas, perceptions and mindsets can change while travelling. That and well to be completely frank, I’m sick of shovelling shit. I have shovelled more animal excrement in these last 5 months than a lot of people have their entire lives. I’d be really interested in how many pounds (tonnes?) I’ve shovelled. If my next job involves poop in anyway, I’m walking out the door. Maybe that’s why a lot people don’t wwoof…So here I am closing what’s turned out to be a very interesting, educational and really amazing part of my travels and even life, out to break a whole new comfort zone. I’m hoping to get a job waiting and clearing tables in a restaurant or cafe like I had done now and again at Wind in Wings but unfortunately outside of here I have zero experience in that field and think I might have a bit of a tough time finding work. Needless to say I’m a bit unnerved. That said, I think I’m a pretty dam good dishwasher and pretty handy in the kitchen so if that’s what ends up being my means to an end so be it. It’s not like I can’t quit if I don’t like it and buy a plane ticket to Thailand…

Living in a City
I’ve been thinking about it lately but I’ve never truly lived in a big city. Sure I’ve lived in Edmonton and even Vancouver for a short stint but both experiences were at a time when I was basically flat broke. When living in Edmonton, I was going to school and when living in Vancouver I had no job, both times living pretty much on what I had saved up. I never really went out much and experienced what both cities had to offer. I’ve never attended any of the festivals, special events or special sports events that went on in the city. I never experienced the nice restaurants, cafes, social venues or social clubs. I pretty much just sat at home, rented movies, hung out with friends now and again and went to Whyte Ave bar hoping; not too much of a cultural experiences or being a part of the city I must say. This is something that I want to experience and figure why not here and now in the world class city of Sydney? So that’s my plan. I realize that for the last…forever it seems I have been either living on nothing while going to school or trying to make a living in Vancouver to working my ass off, being a cheap tight-wad, trying my best to save up and make a go at this travel thing. I haven’t really just “lived”, wasting money at a nice cafe everyday, going to a nice restaurant once a week, taking part in a social club or sports team. Hopefully I can give these things a try in Sydney and see what happens.

I’m also hoping that Sydney is a bit warmer. The temperature is getting pretty cool down here, a couple weeks ago it was dam cold for a good week and they measured the coldest temperature for the month of May in Adelaide one morning at like 3. Yeah I know that doesn’t sound terrible but it’s all relative. It’s like when you first go back to school and the week before was beautiful out at around like 20 everyday but then it drops down to like 10 and you’re thinking, “dam it’s cold”. Same thing here plus everything is very wet and moist and there’s always a wicked wind that cuts right through you coming off the ocean. In the sun it’s always really nice and around like 10-12 in the morning it’s actually pretty warm out and you’re thinking that it’s going to be a great day but from about 1-2 onward the temperature plummets and the wind picks up and you’re looking for your jacket and toque. I love that world, toque. Only in Canada. Everyone looks at my like I’m from outer space when I use it. I have to laugh, I called Mike back in the beginning of May and he asked me if I was near the beach. Ha, I think you’d die if you went into the water, even in March it was cold. As I write this the news behind me is saying that it’s unusually cold out right now and that today was one of the busiest day’s at the hospitals in like 2 years with people coming in for colds and flu’s. I’m also wondering as I write this as to where my jacket and toque are…

Gas
Gas is $1.50/liter here on the Island. That’s $1.24 Canadian. Something to think about. I remember when I was in Alice Spring’s at the beginning of the year, gas was as high as like $1.64 in some of the remote roadhouses. I can’t wonder how much it is per litre there now…

Bananas
When I first arrived in Australia bananas were going for about $0.89/kg at most major grocery stores and the highest I had ever seen them was around $1.20/kg but you could go to the farmers markets and find them as low as $0.69/kg. They were basically giving them away. That was before cyclone Larry ripped through northern Queensland, the “banana belt” of Australia, a couple months ago and pretty much screwed it up like a bad accent. In the ensuing aftermath and devastation, bananas jacked up in price to the point where only the rich could afford to eat them. On the radio they had people calling in saying how much they were going for in their neck of the woods. The highest I had heard was $8.99/kg, basically ten times the amount it normally was. The other day I was in the grocery store and for shits and giggles I thought I’d check how much they were. At first I couldn’t find them and thought that they weren’t carrying them because of the price but out of the corner of my eye I spotted them, stashed away in a small little corner on the fruit stand with the price on the bottom of it that nearly knocked me over. $12.99/kg. I just about grabbed the stock boy that was standing next to me by each shoulder, shaking him and yelled in his face, “$13/kg for bananas!? $13/kg for bananas!?” but I didn’t. Yep…bananas are expensive.  

Oilers
I see the Oil lost again and are now done 2 games to 0. Dam. That sucks hardcore that Roloson got hurt but I don’t think it’s as a big deal as the media has put it. From what I could see thru reading articles and stats, there’s no one player on the team that’s carrying the entire team. Yeah there are players that are more predominate and fill a larger role but you can’t attribute the team’s success specifically to one player. That all said, I honestly didn’t like how the Oilers stacked up against either of the teams coming out of the east wether it was the Canes or Sabres. There was something about both teams that made me uneasy. I felt they had a chance against the Wings when they were playing them, when they were down 2-0 to the Sharks I thought they could easily come back and when they were up against the Ducks I felt there was no contest. Now, for the first time, I think otherwise and have a bit of doubt in the back of my mind but this is coming from a guy who wasn’t seen a glimpse of hockey since November.

In the end though I’m not losing any sleep over it like I’m sure a lot of people are back home and like I know I would be if I was there to witness and be a part of it. It’s probably for best that I’m not there actually. By this point I’m sure my hair would be dyed blue, have an Oiler’s tattoo, would be spending an hour ever morning applying Oiler face paint and would still be wearing the same socks and underwear that I wore when they beat the Wings. Yep, for the best…

Reading Lolita in Tehran
So I finally finished her off. I don’t even remember when I started to read it but I do remember trading in my last book for it in February, so about 3 months ago. Don’t let the time it took me to read it say anything about the book though. It’s a great book and I’d give it 4 out of 5 for sure, recommending it to anyone who’s interested in life in another country, specifically life as a women in Iran and anyone who’s a fan of classic literature like The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Lolita… The book is a memoir of Azar Nafisi, an English professor in Iran and her life through the country’s Islamic Revolution, it’s aftermath, how it changed her and many other women’s lives and the eventual private classes that she taught with a small group of women where they would read and discuss great works of English literature which were pretty much all banned. They’d all bringing parallels of their lives with the lives of the characters in the books they read and a lot of other interesting points about patriotism, religion, the roles of women and just generally how messed up their country had gotten. Give it a read if it sounds like your cup of coffee.

Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I’m not even sure if I should bother writing a review about this one as it seems a lot of people have already read it but what the hell. My sister sent me this book in the last care package that I got, I honestly never intended to read it and I think that’s just because of the hype around it and the fact that everyone else has read or is reading it and I wanted to stay away from the herd. After finishing Lolita though and being out in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to read or do I gave it a go and went into reading with a an open mind. Now I say open mind not because of the controversy surrounding it with different religious groups and such but because of the general hype and media attention that it’s gotten. I find that when something is really really popular, is super hyped up and gets a lot of media coverage, it’s usually not that good and in fact often a complete cultural dud; Reality TV, enough said.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of this book that would sum it all for me would have to be fun. It was a good fun page turning read. I don’t think Dan Brown is the most accomplished writer, the style of writing in the book is like any other thriller/suspense book, fast paced, a little over the top and constantly moving. It’s a lot like an Schwarzenegger movie actually. In Dan Brown’s writing though, he has the great ability to make you stay up an extra hour, and in some cases two, reading onto the next chapter leaving you not wanting to close it. The book is filled with so many tense moments that leave you hanging and wanting to find out more. Just about ever memory scene ends in as a cliff hanger to be revealed later on in the book, same goes with just about the end of every chapter and if there’s a scene change you’re guaranteed that it’ll change with a lot of questions to be answered in the last. The style got to be a little campy as the book wore on and in some cases I found it a little too trying. Were the characters rich and evolving like in a Pride and Prejudice, ones that you could relate to and hold emotional ties with? Nope. Was it a very interesting, descript and unique writing style like you’d find in Lord of the Rings? Nay. Is there any chance that you were going to walk out of it with a different perspective on life and philosophy like you would Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Siddhartha? Hehe, I don’t think so. That said thru and thru it was all good fun.

Now as for the controversy that surrounds the book, personally I can understand it as it does place the Catholic Church in a bit of a negative light, even though it is fiction. I don’t know if a lot of the historical references made in the book were true or not and I kind of don’t care, I’m sure I’d end up wasting way too much time on Wikipedia if I was. I’d be rather pissed off too if someone wrote a book with a character based on me and the character was portrayed in a negative way but I would have the right to sue if that was the case, which makes me wonder why the Church can’t. Anyways, because the Church is portrayed in such a negative way and you as the reader is constantly barraged with all these seemingly historically accurate references, you can’t tell me that there’s at least one person out there who’s going to think it’s the truth and completely accurate. There’s plenty of gullible folks out there that I’m sure have read this book and took a lot of what was said for pure fact but I digress.

It took me a whopping week to read this book. I don’t know if that’s because I had way too much time on my hands, if my reading level has gone up, if it was just an easy read or all of the above. I would recommend it, however, to anyone who isn’t much of a reader and only picks up a book or two a year. Like I said, I think it was an easy read plus the way it’s written makes you wanting to read more so losing interest in it or getting stuck on a really slow part is pretty much nil as there is none. 4 out of 5.

Done and done
I must say that all felt really good, writing out all my thoughts and feelings onto this blog that is. I’m finding that the toughest, and really only negative thing about travelling alone is not having someone to unload my mind onto, which is where this blog comes in so handy. I’m sure a lot of people thought, and I’m sure I did too that when I started this I would be writing more about where I’ve been, what I’ve seen and what I’ve done not so much what’s going upstairs and what I’m feeling. As I mentioned before, it’s interesting how ideas, perceptions and mindsets can change while travelling, if you call what I’m doing travelling. I guess exposing yourself to new things will do that. Now mix all of what I just wrote with the fact that I’ve had extremely little human contact in the last 5 weeks and the fact that Willow, Smooch & Screech (cockatoos) and Winger & Ranger (kangaroos) aren’t much conversation and give absolutely no feedback, you can imagine I’ve a lot on my mind.

One last thing I’ll say that kind of sucks about travelling alone is that you have no one to share all these amazing experiences and no one to relate all the wide variety of emotions that encompass these experiences with. That said, on the flip side I get all these special magical moments just to myself, no one else. It’s all mine and it’s great.

From here I’m looking to spend a couple of days in Adelaide where I will treat myself to a number of things, namely at least one good meal, a couple of movies and a lot of really long, really hot, high pressured showers, I think I look forward to that one the most. I’m thinking curried duck for the meal. As for the movies, X-men 3 and Mission Impossible 3, how’s that for culture? I want big explosions, huge over the top stunts, a shallow plot and lots and lots of special effects dammit. Plus I’ve been thinking lately that I see no point in going to a movie in the theatre with it’s big sound and picture that doesn’t take full advantage of it. That said, seeing a really tense drama like the Godfather would be pretty cool.

While in town I’m also going to do something that I haven’t done in a long time while in a city; take my time. The last three times I’ve been in the city, which is how many times I’ve been since January, I’ve spent the majority of my time running around doing errands, looking like an escaped mental patient trying my best to spend as little time in the city as possible in order to continue being a cheap bastard and spend as little money as possible. You spent $32.44(AUS, about $26CAN) in the month of May Troy, I think you can step away from the ledge.

Well, that’s it for now. My next update will probably be from Sydney and hopefully by then I’ll be writing about my new job that I found and the flat that I’m sharing with the Australian bikini team. Until then…

Safe Travels