Thursday, July 9, 2009

Down Under Times volume IX

(See: Back from the Memory Hole for an explanation of why these are posted now...)


December 11th, 2001

Hello again, and welcome to the final edition of the Down Under Times.

It is with great sadness that I write these words, for they signal the end of our yearlong adventure. It truly seems as if we have just arrived, and now we must pack our bags -- all of them! -- and return to Minnesota. We have seen so much, yet there is so much left to see. I guess we will just have to return one day and visit all the places on our proverbial list, including Perth, Western Australia; the west coast and western interior; the Nullarbor Plain and a trip on the Indian-Pacific railway; perhaps a ride on the world famous Ghan rail line from Adelaide, South Australia (another place we haven't been) to the Top End, Darwin and Kakadu National Park; an Australian Rules Footy match; and on; and on; and on. And this doesn't include all the places we want to see again! It's an incredible place, really, and this has been one absolutely fabulous ride we've been on.

Looking back over past editions of the Down Under Times, I realize with great regret (and I'm sure to your great relief), that there are many places and experiences we never shared with you, such as our trips around Victoria to places like Daylesford, Echuca, Paynesville, Bendigo, and Ballarat. Experiences like hosting a Fourth of July party here at the house for the staff at Fairhills; the sleepover Sophie's class had at Ferny Creek Primary School; my wonderful (!) and exciting (!) three nights spent at a rural camp with 150 or so Year 8 students; adventures while driving due to the mysterious lack of clearly placed street signs; etc., etc. But how can words relay all the things that we have done, all the things we encountered while here? They can't, and so we'll just have to have you over for 'tea' sometime and show you what we are able.

I haven't had the chance to wow you with some of the unusual language we've come across. Words and phrases like "piffing yonnies"; "wanker", "wacker" and "wally"; a "slab of stubbies"; the "dog and bone"; "skinny milk"; "windcheater" and "jumper"; "bonnet" and "boot"; "panelbeaters"; "witches hats"; and a "shocking" number of others. It's all very interesting, and really makes you wonder what we say at home that baffles visitors from other parts of the world. "Fair dinkum!"

You won't believe our children. They have literally grown several feet in the last year - Tommy is fast approaching five feet tall (not exactly, but it seems that way), and Sophie looked as much, and years older, when on stage in front of hundreds of people during her phenomenal final dance recital just yesterday. What happened to my shy little girl?? They are different people, just as we are, and have grown and changed and matured beyond their limited years. I daresay some of you will not recognize them.

We really are mourning the fact that we have to leave. Obviously we are very excited to return home, but we would love nothing more than the opportunity to travel around another month or two, with none of those silly obligations like work and school holding us back. For those of you who are thinking that we must be enjoying a wonderfully warm summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, think again. Here in Melbourne, it fairly hasn't stopped raining for the last four months, and we've had no 30 degree days (86 F) since last autumn, so we're not basking in the heat as you might think. We have been unseasonably cold with temps around 13 degrees (55 F), and lots of clouds, fog and rain. Kate actually said it (twice), and now I'm putting it down for the record: "I never thought I'd say it, but I miss Minnesota weather". So there you are, proof that we really HAVE changed!

Just as an added bonus, I have been compiling a list of the prices for various items while we've been here in Australia, and I have attached that as well. Take a gander over the list and next time you go shopping, see how prices compare. I have to admit to having no idea any longer what prices are like in Minnesota, but I'm sure the realization will hit me head on in just a few days. If you look over the prices, keep in mind several things.

1. The exchange rate. Right now, one Australian dollar will get you about 52 US cents. Therefore, the temptation is to suggest that all prices on the list are essentially half price for Americans. While true for travellers, it is dangerous if one thinks that all things are inexpensive in Australia due to that. That is because of the second thing -
2. Incomes. I have no idea what average incomes are like here in the Melbourne area. The important thing to keep in mind when comparing prices in different countries is the cost of living. If a loaf of bread in Minnesota costs one US dollar and that same bread costs two Aussie dollars, the cost of living is roughly the same. However, how much of a person's annual income it takes to purchase that loaf of bread is far more important when trying to determine the relative inexpensiveness or expensiveness of a place, and I simply don't have that information.
3. There are 3.8 liters in one US gallon, and 2.2 pounds in one kilogram.

The US is a different place than the one we left eleven months ago, and I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive about it all. We have no idea what most people in the US have gone through, just as most people in the US have no idea what we have experienced, either on this adventure or due to the attacks in September. It will definitely feel strange, but good I imagine, to be back on US soil after having been gone so long (although it really hasn't been all that long after all, has it?). Nonetheless, it will be good to be home. Dorothy (of Wizard of Oz fame) had it right.

Speaking of coming home, for those of you who might be interested, here are our flight details once more. This time we have the flight number for the Northwest Airlines flight, which we didn't have last month:

12/15 Depart Melbourne 1215pm Qantas flight #QF093
12/15 Arrive Los Angeles 730am

12/15 Depart Los Angeles 1140am Northwest Airlines flight #NW316
12/15 Arrive Minneapolis 519pm

Lastly, I must apologize. For some reason, I have become incredibly long-winded over the last year. I can't help it, so please treat me with kid gloves. I write them down more for myself and my kids than for you, although you provide a convenient outlet for my expression, and one or two of you might actually enjoy reading these things.

Thank you all for your support this past year, have a wonderful holiday season, and we'll see you soon!

The Panetti's Down Under




Down Under Times Volume IX
December 2001

All the news that no one really needs to know, but is going to hear anyway!


The End
Welcome to the final edition of the Down Under Times. After spending eleven months, many dollars and a good amount of time in reflection, we have decided to close our imaginary doors and "put this paper to bed" once and for all. We hope you enjoyed your vicarious adventure Down Under -- even as we lived it -- and that you will assist us in creating even more and better memories in person after our return to Minnesota and the United States.

Perhaps you will one day join us in our home as you are serenaded by that dynamic duo…those magical musicians…the creators of adventurous aural sensations -- Kate and Tommy Panetti! You see, Tommy has been taking guitar lessons for several months, and Kate has been learning to play the didgeridoo. Sophie has continued her dance lessons, expanding her repertoire to include tap and jazz, and she can perform a delightful dance while the sonorous strains of magnificent music grace your ears, while I sit on my butt and take it all in with you, sipping some wonderful Australian wine all the while. It should be great fun!

The Great 2001 Election
I'm sure you've all been waiting with bated breath for the results of the 2001 Australian federal poll, as the election is often referred to here. Well, the results are in and…(drum roll please)… the winner once again is the man with two first names…..John Howard! In case you've forgotten (and we'll excuse you if you did), he's the current Prime Minister, and his Liberal Party will maintain control of the federal Parliament, albeit by a slim margin. It's a sad day for the world of comedy that Abbott and Costello didn’t take over the reigns of governance here in Australia. What a treat that would have been! Oh well, there's always the next election.

Things of an Unusual Nature
Speaking of unusual things, Australia has its fair share of them besides marsupials (kangaroos, wombats and koalas, for instance) and monotremes. (The platypus and the echidna are both monotremes, mammals that lay eggs and at the same time suckle their young, and they also have one bodily orifice that functions for both excretion and reproduction. In addition, the platypus has a tail like a beaver and webbed feet like a duck, and the echidna looks like an overgrown hedgehog but has a long snout by which to use its sticky tongue to capture ants. Ain't this an interesting place?) There are some unusual things that occur during elections here as well. Here's a run down on a couple of them.

Australia is the birthplace of the secret ballot, sometimes still referred to as the Australian ballot, which has spread around the world as the voting tool of choice. However, one of the more unusual aspects related to elections here is that Australian citizens are required by law to vote in every election. Australia, as far as I know, is the only place on the planet to have this requirement. (I have heard Sri Lanka does also, but don't know for sure.) Once a citizen reaches the age of majority (18 years old) they must vote or face a fine of fifty dollars. While this certainly removes the need for "get out the vote" campaigns, it doesn't necessarily guarantee a more educated voter. Actually, just because an Australian is required to go to the polls on Election Day and cast a ballot, it is not absolutely necessary to write anything on said ballot (this is called a "donkey vote"). Therefore this system is really the best of both worlds: It completely removes your free will when it comes to choosing whether or not to vote, but instantaneously reinstates your free will to cast an empty ballot. In addition, if an Australian citizen has never registered to vote, and has no intention of ever doing so, they can live their entire lives without voting, so in fact 'compulsory' really isn't so compulsory after all. Is this a great country, or what?

Here is another interesting feature of Australian elections: Preferential voting. It works like this: First, you vote for everyone on a ballot, ranking him or her according to your preference. Then, if a candidate does not get an outright majority of first choice votes in an election, the candidate who had the least amount of first choice preferences cast for them is eliminated, and their votes are then redistributed among the remaining candidates until one candidate does have an outright majority. If the leading candidate still has no majority, the next to last is eliminated, and the process repeated, until an outright majority can be reached. Confused? How about a simplified example?

Tony, Paul and Jessica are running for office, and there are 20 voters. When the election is over, Jessica has 9 votes, Paul has 6 votes and Tony has 5 votes. There is no majority, so Tony is eliminated and his five votes redistributed. If 4 of Tony's 5 votes listed Jessica as their second choice, Jessica gets those votes and Paul gets the remaining vote. Jessica will therefore win with 13 votes over second place finisher Paul, who had only 7, and Tony has been eliminated. Get it? I'm not sure I do, now that I look over that explanation.

Undoubtedly there are other quirky things in Australian politics and elections that I know nothing about (some might argue that I actually know nothing at all, after what I just wrote), but there is one more that really intrigues me. Australia is a parliamentary democracy, a self-governing federation of six states and two territories, and has a written constitution dating from about 1901. Interestingly, however, Australia is technically still ruled by Queen Elizabeth II, who is really the Queen of Australia (at the same time as being Queen of England, among other things I'm sure), as well as head of state. Because she doesn’t exactly live down the road, she is represented here on Australian soil by a person called the Governor General, a person who is appointed by the Prime Minister and may be approved by Queen herself. Now, how exactly this could still happen, I can't say for sure, but theoretically the Governor General has the power, as the Queen's representative, to dissolve the Australian parliament if the Queen is dissatisfied (or, I suppose, if the Governor General is dissatisfied). This isn't as farfetched as it might seem, as it happened back in 1975, although some rules have been changed since then to make it more difficult. The really curious thing about the 1975 precedent was that, after the Governor General installed a favorable Prime Minister that the people of Australia did not elect, the people went ahead and confirmed the Governor General's choice when the new election was called several months later, and elected him anyway. I told you this was an interesting place!


Splendid Isolation???
To live in Australia for awhile is to discover that ones travel experiences are used regularly as a litmus test for knowledge and understanding of our planet, even though travel alone doesn't necessarily lead to more and better awareness of the world. Two small but personal examples leap to mind in support of this discovery. I was visiting a doctor several months ago simply to have a prescription filled. While I waited for him to find the local trade name for my medicine, he pops out with "Americans don't see or know much about the rest of the world, do they?" I sat politely in my chair and wondered to myself if I had gone into the wrong office, or that maybe I had "Insult Me" written on my forehead. I had only just met the man! Didn't my presence in his office negate this sweeping statement even a little bit? It was quite exasperating.

The second example is perhaps even more pernicious. In one of the Melbourne newspapers (The Age) recently, a local columnist was reviewing a US television show -- a TV show! -- and she spent her entire column lambasting American international ignorance, with no small amount of specific examples from -- let me reiterate this -- a dozen or so people from a TV show. (It's apparently called The Amazing Race, in case you wondered.) The last sentence in the article expressed her "horror" that "70 percent of American politicians don't even own a passport" and that this fact explained "why so many Americans think we [Aussies] come from a landlocked European nation with a fondness for edelweiss." To begin with, I think she has her facts wrong (although I could be wrong here), and that it isn't 70 percent but 30 percent, and it isn't "all American politicians", but just US Senators (of which there are only 100 members). There is a vast difference, deplorable as it may be that 30 US Senators don't have passports. Then there is the issue (oft repeated) that Americans mix up Australia with Austria. Forgive me for suggesting that they do occasionally sound similar, particularly when spoken by an Australian, for if they have a broad accent, they pronounce the name of their country much like "Au stray ya", with the syllables all bunched together and the emphasis on the "stray" in the middle. I won't even mention the similar spelling -- oops -- guess I just did! Anyway, there are clearly some misconceptions that need clearing up, on both sides of the Pacific.

First, let me say that there certainly are Americans who are uninformed of the "outside world", as if there is such a thing. This is an undisputed statement with which I wholly agree; which plays no small part in my motivation for being a teacher; and is undoubtedly true in every country on earth. However, to suggest that this may be of epidemic proportions in the USA (which is what happens when one prints such things in a widely read newspaper column) is a bit naïve in and of itself. For example, the above-mentioned columnist holds fast to the phrase "average American" in her article. Given that there are 280 million Americans (as compared with only 20 million Australians), it isn't terribly difficult to find an "average" American, and therefore by sheer weight of numbers, there are more "average" Americans than there are total Australians. I don't know if it's accurate or not, but given those numbers it is equally possible that there are actually more international travellers in the US than the total populations of some other countries. Of course I could be wrong. It has been known to happen.

Second, according to a Minneapolis Star Tribune article I read just recently on the Internet, the American worker puts in more hours per year on the job than any other workers in the world do. (Perhaps this fact helps support the largest, most diverse economy on earth.) The result, of course, is that it is exceedingly difficult for Americans of an average stripe to find the time, with only two or perhaps three weeks of annual vacation (received only after a minimum of one year of work), for international travel. When top executives often get only four weeks of vacation per year, even they are limited as to where they might travel for any length of time, especially with lots of interesting places to see within our own country, and which are far more accessible.

Lastly, and most importantly, the Australian "system" directly supports the man on the street in his quest for temporary escape to other parts of the world. Let me explain: In most areas of the Australian economic world, a concept called Long Service Leave exists, which should be (if it isn't already) the envy of the world. This is a system that directly allows employees the ability to take a long period of time off from work, with full pay. The most common explanation I have heard has it like this: If you work for the same company for 10 continuous years, you then become eligible to take up to twelve weeks of Long Service Leave (vacation) with full pay. If you wish, you may also tinker with the numbers, and take 24 weeks of Long Service Leave at 1/2 pay, or lots of other combinations that can be individually tailored and negotiated. You are then given an additional allotment of six more weeks Long Service Leave for each additional five years you stay with the company, and if you don't use this time you can bank it until you have a massive amount of leave available to you. There may be some variation on this theme depending upon the industry in which you work, but this is what I understand to be generally true.

Two other systems exist that certainly entice Australians to travel abroad, if Long Service Leave isn't enough already. Maternity leave here is extremely generous, as a rule. It starts with twelve weeks of maternity leave with full pay, which is already a significant increase over the usual maternity leave in the US. Then, depending upon your industry, you may also be allowed twelve months unpaid leave with a guarantee to get your job back at the end. In education, it is an even more generous seven years of unpaid leave, with a guaranteed job at the end! Again, there may be some variation, but this is what I have been led to believe is true.

The last practice that will make you green with envy is called Leave Loading. This would have Ronald Reagan and proponents of "voodoo economics" foaming at the mouth. Simply put, as an employee you are paid more money when you go on vacation in order to spur economic activity in the overall economy! My understanding is that it amounts to about 17% of your normal holiday pay (only) on top of your normal annual salary, which would amount to about $600 or $700 per year for the average worker. Theoretically you would spend this extra money and help keep the economy solvent. Australians generally look at you in utter disbelief when they discover that other parts of the world do not have such generous systems in place for the worker.

One last note on the subject. Not quite as common as it seems to have been in the past is the practice of taking a year or two off before starting a university degree program, apparently called the "Gap Year". I have no idea how common it is with today's Australian university student, but it seems that it was quite common in days gone by. I don't know more than one or two people at home who did anything even remotely close to that, even if they could afford the time and the expense of a world wide year-long (or two) whirlwind tour.

What does all this mean? To me it means that Australians by and large are more able to travel much greater distances for longer periods of time (particularly as compared to Americans); they have institutional support for this travel (or at least for the time off to travel); and they take advantage of the opportunity to do so. There is no question that Aussies are well-travelled people, and it is a testament to the "Aussie way of life" that there is such systemic support for such a lifestyle. For that they are to be applauded. It truly supports the notion that one should go to other places and know about other people. It also helps to explain why Aussies look askance at Americans who've never travelled abroad, or perhaps have only done a two-week trip around parts of Europe. Generally, Aussies don't seem to know that other countries don't have these same opportunities or support, and Americans often simply can't afford to do any more than the typical two-week trip around Europe, even if the exchange rate for US dollars is favorable. (Australians are keenly aware of the exchange rate, and the rate for Australian dollars has been historically low this year. Not too long ago, the rate was much closer to a 1:1 ratio, before their dollar was floated on the open market.)

None of this excuses ignorance, mind you. That is where we come in, those of us trying desperately to teach students about the world, and to help them appreciate the big old orb of rock and water that we share. Everyone knows the old adage "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". Well, the end result of all this is that we (teachers) are constantly trying to make horses drink when they often aren't terribly thirsty. It can be quite maddening really.

Farewell to Fairhills
I will truly miss the people I have come to know as my friends from Fairhills High School. They are indeed a wonderful group of people, and have made my time here more than welcome. I have many fond memories getting to know members of the faculty and staff during the year, both in the various staff rooms and outside of school. I can honestly say it would be an honor and a privilege to have any one of them stay with us in our home, should they ever decide to make a foray into Minnesota -- and I hope they know that I was absolutely truthful when I invited them all to do so. (Not all at once, mind you!)

Fairhills is a school of about 900 students from grades 7 through 12. The standard in Australia is that primary schools cover kindergarten (called Prep here) through grade six, and high schools (almost always called "colleges" here) cover grades 7 through 12. Fairhills is located in an eastern Melbourne suburb, about 40 kilometers from the city center. It would be more than just to say that the staff here works exceedingly hard, and care a great deal about the education and general welfare of the student body. Like any school, all the blood, sweat, toil and tears meets with sometimes limited success, as there often seems to be an oversupply of not-so-thirsty horses in attendance. But also like any good school, faculty and staff continue to show up every day, do this difficult job to the best of their ability, and receive scant little praise for their efforts, all the while hoping that they might make a difference in the lives of as many of those 'horses' as possible.

Students who wish to shine can certainly do so here, although it seems that academic and behavioral expectations (of students about themselves, not necessarily by staff) are lower than in most schools in Minnesota. A valid criticism of schools across the United States is that kids, parents and teachers are too focused on "the grade", which of course is partly done in order to help secure entrance to college one day. Here there are no cumulative grades or grade point averages, so therefore no intense focus on "the grade" as such. Similar to that US focus on grades, however, is the Australian (or Fairhills) student focus on "ticking the box", which simply means checking items off the list of things to do in order to say "I completed it", often without any real attempt at quality or to really learn the material. Obviously there are exceptions to this observation, but this is what seems to me to be prevalent.

A few things that are not at all similar to schools in Minnesota, or even to the US in general, include a staggered end-of-year release time. At Fairhills, Seniors (year 12 students are not known as Seniors here, and neither are 11's called Juniors, or on down the list) completed their last day of class for the year on Friday 10/19, which was then followed by several weeks of intense state-wide examinations. For these Seniors, the school year ended for good on Friday 11/9, even though the school year technically runs until 12/21, six full weeks later. Juniors (or Year 11's as they are called), had their last day of class on Friday 11/9 and the final day altogether on Friday 11/23, interspersed with school-run exams. Even Sophomores (Year 10's) had their last day early, on Friday 11/23 with school-run exams for one week, ending their year on Thursday 11/29 (there was no school on Friday 11/30).

For the remainder of the school (Years 7, 8 and 9), classes continue as normal (or as normal as they can be as a year comes to a close) until 12/10, when the "End of Year Program" begins. In some schools, this Program involves trips to the beach for surfing lessons; field trips (called "excursions" here) to the zoo or a museum; a day out at the mall for lunch and to see the latest movie; or other fun activities organized each day. Some schools use these last two weeks to "advance" students into the next grade level early. This is approximately what Fairhills is doing this year, so that my Year 8 students will gain exposure to Year 9 classes for most of the last two weeks. One difficulty with this program is simply getting the kids motivated to start something entirely new at the tail end of a year when all they seem to want is a break (that's all everyone wants!). As an added complication, the kids who move into a ninth grade math class, for example, may not actually wind up in February with the teacher they had these last two weeks, perhaps making the transition more difficult, not less so.

The weekly schedule (called a "timetable" here, and the person in charge of organizing it is called the "Timetabler"), is quite different as well. As a teacher I only see my year 7-10 students four times per week, as opposed to five in most US high schools, and two of those class periods come in the form of a double-period. Year 11 and 12 students do meet five times, however, and generally have two double periods per week.

Even the daily class schedule at Fairhills has at least one stark difference. Classes are scheduled to be 44 minutes in length, a fairly standard time for classes world-wide. However, when the bell rings and one class ends, the daily schedule has it that the next period has simultaneously begun, which means that everyone (teachers included) is automatically late to the next class. There is no scheduled passing time between classes, which effectively shortens every class, sometimes by up to ten minutes. Double periods are affected less, of course, because there is no break between the two periods.

There are a relatively high number of schools per community in the area, which has the result of keeping class sizes low. As the initial cost is quite a bit lower than in a place like Minnesota where the severe winter climate demands higher construction and maintenance costs, the number of schools seems to be greater. My largest class here was 26, which was a real anomaly; most were in the lower 20's. Over and above the impact of the number of schools is the relatively high drop-out rate after Year 10. An official with DEET (no, it isn't an insect repellent - it's the state of Victoria's Department of Education, Employment and Training) told me in a meeting for the International Teachers Association that 40% of public school students leave before Year 11 begins, and the Department doesn't track where they've gone. One result is that this creates a whole class of potentially under-educated young people, although they may eventually return to some form of schooling at another stage in life. Another result is extremely low class sizes in the upper grades. My Year 11 History class had only 13 students, and a good friend and colleague here at Fairhills once taught Physics in a country school to one student! These are student-teacher ratios to die for!

If school funding is a mystery to most Minnesotans (and I would wager that it most certainly is), the formula for funding in Australia is equally as baffling. Public schools are funded by the various states within Australia, and the amount given varies per school and by state. That is relatively easy to understand. However, one major difference here is that private schools also receive public dollars, sometimes in obscene amounts, even though these schools charge tens of thousands of dollars for tuition and school fees. A recent newspaper article in the Melbourne Herald Sun charted the private schools set to receive the most public dollars. Shockingly, a private secondary school called Wesley College charges $13,500 per year in tuition and fees, and in 2001 received $3.9 million dollars in taxpayer money. Under the current Howard government's plan, however, Wesley is scheduled to receive $8.4 million per year as of 2005! I highly doubt the tuition charged will decrease as the taxpayer subsidy increases. Wesley is just one example, but the article cites 21 other schools, all charging $10,000 plus per year, and all set to receive at least $1.0 million dollars EACH as of 2005. All this while teachers in many public government schools continue to teach in substandard portable classrooms that were built 30+ years ago and have long ago been condemned, and without first-class facilities like Olympic sized swimming pools or other luxurious amenities. Frankly, this lopsided system flies in the face of the whole notion of egalitarianism that Australia prides itself upon, and really exposes that belief as more myth than reality, particularly if one sees education as a great equalizer, as I do.

Another vast difference between Minnesota (and, I daresay, the US as a whole) is almost the complete absence of security measures or procedures, at least like the kind we are used to. Kids are often free to wander all over the grounds of Fairhills during recess, lunch or before or after school hours. The grounds have no more than a simple Century fence around the outside, and the entire lot is accessible throughout the day and night to the general public. While individual buildings (meaning portable classrooms and the office area) do have locks, they are only truly lockable once all have left the room and the teacher locks it up. (That is, unless the teacher has left the padlock unlocked and a wayward student locks everyone inside the portable, which does occasionally happen - but not to me, of course. I was given good counsel early on to prevent such a thing.)

The higher level of general freedom experienced by students at Fairhills does come at a price, however. The buildings are rife with graffiti and vandalism, and the grounds are fairly covered with litter most of the time. This is not the direct result of a lack of repairs or maintenance, although that is a part of it. Even when brand new garbage cans were placed around the grounds earlier in the year for the staff and students to use (which would meet with limited success anywhere kids might be), the "rubbish bins" are removed and used as backstops for pick-up games of cricket, or just stomped on and tossed in the woods. It can be quite depressing.

Part of the problem is that, in the early 90's, the state government cut a large swath through education financing, privatizing some aspects of the educational system. One of those features was for buildings, grounds and maintenance, which is now contracted out to private small businesses. They do what they can, of course, but the repairs and maintenance needed are now quite extensive after years of neglect, and seems beyond the reach of the small family-operated cleaning business that takes care of Fairhills. We were told early in the year that the portable classrooms on campus (there are about 12 of them) had been condemned a long time ago, but there isn't the money to repair or replace them. Consequently, their condition only worsens with time and more abuse.

It seems that some of these issues could be resolved, at least partly, if state government restored the balance that seems lacking in terms of the private / public funding matters I wrote about a bit earlier. I'm just an outsider looking it, however, so I may have the causes and solutions all wrong, but the effects certainly can't be denied.

The Environment
Australia is a very interesting place environmentally. It is the only country that is also a continent, contains the oldest land (geologically) on the planet, and is the driest habitable place on earth, even though it is surrounded by water. It has many United Nations World Heritage sites, and contains natural beauty and natural wonders that are really quite spectacular. While almost 20 million people live here, 90% of them occupy only 1% of the land, and so the continent is largely uninhabited. The Red Center (Alice Springs and surrounding areas) can reach temperatures well into the 120's and 130's (F), and southern Tasmania can reach 0. This is truly a place of extremes.

One of those extremes concerns its forests and woodlands. Like any industrialized nation, the economy supports the exploitation of natural resources, and the lumber and mining industries are very important to the Australian economy. In terms of trees and forest products, however, Australia is the least wooded habitable place on earth (excluding Antarctica, obviously), yet they are the world's leading exporter of wood chips. Now, I'm not a forester or a science guy, but if a country doesn't have too many trees, how do they justify taking the little foliage they do have and chipping it into tiny pieces? Lumber I might be able to understand, but wood chips?

As a highly environmentally sensitive place, Australia has lots of conservation minded people. Tasmania is the birthplace of the Green Party political movement, and was the first place to elect a Green Party member to public office. Many people have large tanks to collect rainwater for use in gardens and on lawns, as opposed to drawing from city service. (The Smiths have three 1000 gallon tanks, also used for bush fire protection.) Almost everyone we have met has a compost bin in their yard for recycling kitchen waste and other organic material, which is laudable. At the same time, while household recycling is common, it doesn't appear to have spread to other areas of society as easily. To take a trip into the city of Melbourne, for instance, is to not see much -- if anything -- in the way of places to dispose properly of recyclable material (cans and bottles). The amount of paper wasted at Fairhills in the process of photocopying has forests groaning, particularly when final reports (report cards) are being prepared.

In terms of energy, Australia seems really good at building places that make efficient use of natural light, therefore theoretically lowering its reliance on electricity. Many places have lots of windows and inserted into many roofs of public buildings, as well as in private homes, skylights let in natural light. At the same time, homes are not well insulated, so any heating done to take the chill off simply dissipates through single-pane windows (the Smiths have double glazed windows, however) or through uninsulated or lightly insulated ceilings. Consequently, it feels much colder than it really should, because it is difficult (sometimes) to warm up and then stay warm.

When it is warm outside, I have observed a colossal waste of energy as air conditioners in offices and retail stores pump out the cool air which goes straight out open windows and doors. As a result, according to the United Nations, Australia has the highest per capita output of greenhouse gasses in the world, and the figures are actually rising here while other industrialized nations show figures that are falling.

This is not a real surprise when you see the number of older cars still on the roads (which have little or no emissions control equipment), or when you hear that most electrical generation is still produced by brown coal fired power plants, which produce large quantities of these gasses. Additionally, many personal homes utilize wood stoves to heat one or more rooms, which might smell nice in the autumn, but also adds to the environmental cost. Of course the US wastes enormous amounts of natural resources as well, and is the largest producer (overall) of greenhouse gasses, but this was something I didn't expect in such an environmentally conscious and sensitive place.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (ok, maybe only Seaview Avenue)
As well as bidding adieu to Fairhills, it is now time to say farewell to our wonderful neighbors on Seaview Avenue, and also to all our new friends here in Ferny Creek and the Dandenong Ranges. One family living here on Seaview Avenue had a rather unusual surprise in store for us. Little did we (or anyone else, apparently) know that the White family, living just four houses away on this very street, was on the exact same exchange ten years ago, only to Colorado not Minnesota. Phillip and Melinda White (and their two lovely girls, Emily and Madeline), have become somewhat like mentors to us, having undergone many of the same emotions and having had many of the same experiences as we have had these last eleven months. The benefit of their experience has proven quite helpful, as has their much appreciated assistance as we prepare to leave Ferny Creek, Victoria and Australia.

They even threw a going away party for us several weeks ago here in the neighborhood, and also attended a farewell barbeque held at Fairhills just last week. They have indeed become valued friends, and we hope to one day return the favor when they visit Minnesota.

It is a bittersweet time for us, having made so many wonderful friends like the Whites, the Taylor's, the Di Stefano's, the Mraz's, the Donaldson's, and so many more. And now of course it is time for us to go. Difficult as it is, we know we will see many of our new friends on our return trips to Australia some day, as well as upon their inevitable trips to Minnesota. We look forward to those days with great anticipation.

Even more encouraging than looking forward to seeing new friends again at some indefinite time in the future is the prospect of seeing several of our new friends even sooner than that. I'm referring to our new Minnesota friends Athena and Peter Goff, our Montana friends Ed and Sherry Nissen, and our Canadian friends Alan and Maryliz Quigley, all of whom have been on the same exchange this year. We have enjoyed many meals together (particularly satisfying was Maryliz and Al's hosting of a Canadian Thanksgiving), and look forward to visits to Whitefish, Montana and London, Ontario in the near future. How different, and potentially more isolating, might this exchange have been if not for our new 'mates'.

Potpourri
Since I seem to have contracted "diarrhea of the keyboard" this time, I feel it is time to close this one out, but there are a few items left unresolved that I need to write about in order for me to have closure. These are rather inconsequential observations, but they are interesting idiosyncrasies about life Down Under. Here goes:

· Hook turns: You would not believe this one until you actually experienced it for yourself. Simply put, within the city of Melbourne there are twenty or so major intersections where you must move all the way to the left lane, directly in front of cross traffic (which is stopped at a red light), in order to turn right in front of a city tram. (Remember, they drive on the other side of the road here…) If you can't picture it, I'll draw you a diagram some day.
· Every school, town and community has what is called an "Oval". This is the Australian equivalent of the local baseball diamond in the US, yet unlike a baseball field, which actually has a diamond shape to it, ovals are anything like the shape of an oval. Mostly they are just big open playing fields.
· Gambling: It's been said that Aussies will bet on anything -- literally. Last year alone Tasmanians spent A$1.8 billion in all types of "gaming", and they are the least populated state in Australia. Further, I was able to convince 25 or so of the staff at Fairhills to pay money for an NFL Football pool, and they know nothing about American football (called "Gridiron" here). The most astounding example is that odds were laid on the federal election, which was then reported on the well-respected national non-commercial radio station, the ABC! (Like PBS at home.)
· "Don't fence me in…": It seems to us that Australians absolutely love to erect fences of all kinds, and often with a variety of materials (usually as part of the same fence) around their property. We surmise that there may be an innate need to keep ones property safe and enclosed when one lives in a country of such vast openness.
· "No shoes, no shirt, no problem": Bare feet are very common here, even in supermarkets, shopping malls, sidewalk shops and cafés. Less common but also observed has been the odd male with no shirt in these same places.
· Is it ketchup, catsup or tomato sauce?: Australians also have a love affair with ketchup (almost universally called tomato sauce, except of course at McDonald's). Unfortunately, even when at McDonald's they are quite stingy with the stuff. If you go so far as to ask for "a lot", you will be lucky to get two packets. If you ask for "lots and lots and lots", you might just get four. There is no such thing as the bottomless vat of ketchup, even at Mac's.
· The anti-smoking lobby seems to have lost the battle here. It seems far more common here than I can ever remember it being in the US, especially in Minnesota.
· People in the Dandenongs appear to have a peculiar sort of fondness for poultry. Everyone - ok, not everyone, but many people own ducks, geese and chickens here in the hills. All of them of course penned in by more fences. The idea, I hear, is to keep the family in constant supply of fresh eggs.
· Speaking of eggs, if one doesn't have a handy fowl to produce eggs, one gets them from the supermarket, just like anywhere else on the planet. However, those eggs in the supermarket here are generally not refrigerated, and while they technically don't have to be, it did strike this American as a bit funny at first.
· Rekon yur a gud spella?: If Australians spell labor with a 'u', why is the national political party spelled as the 'Australian Labor Party'? If 'centre', why not 'entre' for the way into something? If a basic unit of measurement is spelled 'metre', is the machine in which you place your coins when you park your car called a 'parking metre'? Just thought I'd ask.
· "What did you call me???": Some of you may be familiar with a brand of kitchen matches called Red Heads, made somewhere in Europe, I think. There is a man here by the name of Dick Smith who years ago started his own company to protect Australian business from the globalization machine, and the name of the company takes his name. Interestingly, he has quite a sense of humor, as he markets his own brand of generic red-tipped kitchen matches, and guess what he calls them? Why, Dick Heads, of course!

Au Revoir!
We have been given a great gift, those of us on this exchange - the opportunity to live and breath life in another culture (similar as they are sometimes), and to take in all that we can in the relatively short time of our exchange. The gift to essentially step out of our own lives and into the lives of another, with the comfort and security of knowing that our "old" lives are there waiting for us upon our return, changed as we may be for this experience. We have seen so many things of such a spectacular nature here in Australia, that it truly boggles the mind.

And in the end (as it turns out), we’re not really that different after all. Most of us live our lives as best as we can, enjoying our time with family and friends and raising our kids to be upstanding citizens of our respective nations. We teach to the best of our ability, and while the systems and structures by which we accomplish these tasks may vary according to country, state or even school, the ultimate goal is the same no matter where you are: we want to be happy and safe and live our lives to the fullest, and pass along those universal values to future generations. You might reasonably ask the question: "You had to go all the way to Australia to discover that?!?!" To that I would reply, wouldn't you if given the chance?

This experience has been so much more than a simple 'vacation'. Nothing in the world can compare to it, and it has changed us all in ways which we may not even yet know. If it is done well, it becomes a chance not only to learn about another country and culture, but about ones self. A chance to learn more about who you are and how you fit into the whole scheme of things. It forces you to think deeply about your own country, for people ask you questions that you may never have considered before, and you need to be able to answer them, and sometimes you struggle with the truth behind those answers. In a democratic society, we should all do these things more regularly, for it keeps us on our toes and keeps the dialogue vibrant and stimulating.


______________________________


We leave here now happy in the knowledge that we have experienced things few Americans -- no, few people -- have ever experienced. We have seen and travelled and met as many people as we could over the past eleven months, and now we have new friends in another country half-way around the world. In our case, we have a surrogate family, too (Mum and Muzz, the mother and brother of our exchange partner Rowan). We have lived life to its fullest, and made the absolute most of our time here. And now it's time to go home. What could be better than that, I ask you?


"I'm dreaming tonight,
of a place I know,
even more than I usually do.
And although I know,
It's a long road back,
I promise you -- I'll be home for Christmas…"



Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Down Under Times volume VIII

(See: Back from the Memory Hole for an explanation of why these are posted now...)


October 31, 2001

Happy Halloween and welcome to the eighth edition of the Down Under Times.

Before you embark on your vicarious adventure Down Under, I would like to say a word or two about the current crisis back home and in Afghanistan. These are serious times, and I hope no one takes offence at the light-hearted nature of our newsletter. We are regularly hit with bouts of guilt and helplessness when we realize that we are here in Australia, relatively safe from the many current threats that have spread across America.

Friends of ours have been criticized by others for "vacationing" while the country is in crisis, making comments such as "glad you are able to go off and have fun while we live here in fear", or something to that effect. While the resentment is understandable, I think it is short-sighted. Those of us on this exchange have had these plans in the works for a long time, and circumstances make it difficult to back out without serious economic impact. At the same time, as we all know or have heard, to sit at home and brood is to give in to the fear the terrorists live for, and many of us will not go down that road, even if we aren't terribly at risk or susceptible here, 12000 miles from the US.

Having said that, I found it quite distressing to fly so soon after the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The sweat glands were working overtime. Everyone has become a potential terrorist, everyone is suspect. The attacks have made us into suspicious people right now, who watch every plane over every city half expecting to see them veer in toward a new "target", like the Sydney Opera House (where we might just happen to have been standing), or into some other landmark. There is nothing reasonable you can say to a seven-year-old when she says "What if there are bad guys on the plane, Daddy?" or "What if a plane crashes into it?" as we stood in the observation deck of the AMP Tower several hundred feet above the streets in Sydney.

Still, we can't hole up in the house and never come out, and these recent tragedies haven't spelled the end of fun or amusement for millions of people around the world, so maybe this is actually a good time to consider that we should have more fun, not less. As the old saying goes, "No one ever muttered on their death bed that they wished they would have spent more time at the office".

Please take care of yourselves and your families. Enjoy your time together, and enjoy the upcoming season of Thanksgiving. We do indeed have an awful lot to be thankful for, even if it doesn't always seem like it.
Hope to hear from you soon, and we'll see some of you in a mere seven weeks!
Dave


Down Under Times Volume VIII
October 2001
All the news that no one really needs to know, but is going to hear anyway!

Warning!
Your subscription to the Down Under Times is about to expire! According to our records, you have one (or maybe two at the most) issues remaining - but there is nothing you can do to prevent the expiration of your subscription, so smile and have a nice day!

The Last Hurrah
We have recently returned from our last two-week holiday of the year. While reviewing past issues of the Down Under Times, it came to our attention that you might perceive that all we do is travel - not true! Sometimes we vacation, and when we're not vacationing, we're on holiday!

Ok, that's an exaggeration. Of course we have a fairly normal life here, despite regularly recurring bouts of guilt for travelling and having fun while our country is in conflict. Our weekends away and the two-week vacations have been so spectacular, however, that they have completely dominated our correspondence. This time was no exception, as we traveled to Sydney and other areas of New South Wales.

On Names…
Dave has always been fascinated by maps and place-names, and Australia has some particularly (peculiarly??) interesting ones. Let's start at home, shall we?

We live in Ferny Creek, a rather self-explanatory name actually. The house is on Seaview Avenue, yet is approximately 45 kilometers from the nearest drop of sea water. It seems to us a most unlikely name for a street so far from the sea, and one in which an actual view of the sea is so remote. It is possible, we suppose, to catch a glimpse of the sea through the trees from a rooftop on the high side of the street, but then you would have to battle the city haze in order to make it out - but we have to admit it is possible, and on a clear day, even probable. As usual in these matters, however, no one asked us our opinion when the street was named.

We left our lovely sea view for our last destination, the East-coast State of New South Wales. Along about the time Captain Cook landed in Botany Bay south of what we now know as Sydney in 1770, he and his crew declared the land for Great Britain and named it New South Wales. The problem arises in the "New" and the "South". There is a Wales, which makes sense, but no South Wales, and hence no reason to call the newly explored place New South Wales. However, that is what it was, and still is, called, so there you are.

Let's fast-forward a bit to the post-Sydney part of the trip, as long as we are on the topic of names. After five nights in Sydney, we drove along the long, undulating ribbon of concrete and asphalt (known as "bitumen" here, and pronounced like "bit chumen") called the Pacific Highway to our next stop called Nelson Bay. Then we drove the highway again another several hundred kilometers to Coff's Harbor. Problem was, while driving many hours on the Pacific Highway, we saw nary a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. Not once. (Unless you count the appendage called Port Stephen's, which is where Nelson Bay is located - but it is not directly on the Pacific Highway anyway.) Undoubtedly the road must come near the ocean at some point, but we surely never saw it!

There is also a plethora of unusual, some might even say humorous, names that we have come across in our travels so far. Just a sample of a few: Warrnambool and Wanthaggi, Victoria; Burpengary, Queensland (a personal favorite); and on this particular trip to New South Wales, Coolongolook Creek, Blackbutts Road, Dead Man's Creek, Man Arm Creek, Crowdy Head, Scott's Head, Little Head, Broken Head, Bobbin Head, Hat Head National Park and Booti Booti National Park. Certainly there must be some that are even more unusual, but you get the idea.

Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of New South Wales, and has a population of about five million. Intellectually, we're sure everyone knows that Sydney exists. However, it is one of those cities that you hear about often, and you're sure it's quite interesting, but you never really know much about it until you get there, and then - wow! - is it cool! Sydney Harbor dominates everything in the city center, and can be seen from just about everywhere. It is also extremely busy with boat and ferry traffic, yet appears surprisingly clean.

One of the trendiest places in Sydney is called The Rocks, and is located just off Sydney Cove and Circular Quay, which is the place where the First Fleet came ashore back in 1788 with its cargo of prisoners to settle the 18-years-young colony. Now, of course, it is filled with shops, boutiques, restaurants and hotels. This is where we stayed for our five nights in this wonderful, beautiful city, right in the middle of the action.

There was so much to see and do while in Sydney, we couldn't possible describe it all. Instead, we'll focus on a few highlights of our stay.

The Sydney Opera House
Our first day in the city, we had a lovely lunch in the shadow of the world famous Sydney Opera House. This must be the most photographed building in the world, and we personally took at least 25 photos of it from all possible angles. It is truly remarkable.

The next day we toured the Opera House, and learned more than we thought possible about this wonderfully quirky and unique building.

The architect was a Dane by the name of JØrn Utzon, who has the distinction of not only designing the Opera House, but of never visiting the site before winning the design competition, as well as never actually seeing his masterpiece in person once it was completed. (He left Australia in a huff mid-construction, and local architects took over the project, seeing it through to completion.)

The building was budgeted to cost $7 million dollars and was to take 4 years to build. It opened in 1973 in a ceremony by Her Majesty the Queen of England and Australia, a little later than planned and slightly over budget: it took 14 years and $102 million to complete, mostly due to contradictory planning between the state Liberal and Labor governments, who kept unseating one another during construction and reconfiguring the design, the budget, and specifics of the original plans. No doubt this spurred Utzon's early departure.

The land the Opera House sits on was originally a special meeting-place for Aboriginals in pre-colonial times, and later became a tram yard for repairs and storage of Sydney streetcars. Contrary to popular belief (we say that a lot here), it is really five theaters, not just one. The outside "shells" were not intended to look like sails, as many think, but are really just parts of the same sphere. They were, perhaps obviously, the most difficult design features of the building, and while peeling an orange one day, Utzon came up with the solution.

Imagine if you will, holding a ball in your hand. If you drew lines away from a central point to form triangles on the surface, and then could cut into the ball towards its center, you would have three-dimensional pieces that fit together like a puzzle. This is what Utzon did, and the result is breathtaking. All the pieces that form the roof system were made as if they came from the same sphere, and therefore could be prefabricated from the same molds, just in different sizes, and their design would withstand the occasionally severe winds that sweep in from the nearby ocean. A truly impressive feat.

Each of the "shells" really is two separate structures: the free-standing, shell-like roof, and inside the shell, a separate building that actually houses the theater itself. Neither one ever touches or is attached to the other. The supports that hold the shells are made up of more than 2200 concrete blocks, and the roof is covered in more than 1.1 million self-cleaning ceramic tiles.

A Gothic Cathedral in Utzon's native Denmark (apparently where Shakespeare's Hamlet was first staged) provided him with inspiration for the interior design, and Mayan temples gave him the inspiration for the use of hundreds of steps, both inside and out. While on our tour, we heard part of a rehearsal of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and it was a tantalizing teaser for what it must be like to witness a full-fledged concert in this wonderful hall. Our guide told us that the London Times produced a poll several years ago, and 95% of the people named the Sydney Opera House as the 8th Modern Wonder of the World. We think so too.

Darling Harbor
We took one of the omnipresent harbor ferries to Darling Harbor, perhaps less well-known, but an equally important and busy finger of water that forms Port Jackson (the body of water where lies Sydney).

Darling Harbor is filled with shops, places to go and things to do. There is an area of retailers that really seemed like it could be any old mall anywhere (but for the harbor just outside the windows); nevertheless, it was a really great place to spend a few hours. There is a wonderful, clean and well-kept playground area for kids of all ages (Tom and Sophie still love these), and several fountains that are very pedestrian-friendly (Tom and Sophie love these as well) along the esplanade near the harbor. A short walk away is an IMAX theater, a wonderfully outfitted Chinese garden (we skipped this, as we had been to a similar one just recently), and the raised monorail that travels around, and above, this part of the city (that was rather amusing). A bit farther along is Chinatown, complete with the rather incongruously named "Paddy's Market" - the Queen Victoria Market of Sydney, although all indoors and under a modern shopping center. We returned to Chinatown for some excellent potstickers at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

As we were being tourists for the day, we did some rather touristy things. One of them was visiting the AMP Tower, the tallest structure in Sydney, offering great views out to the ocean and as far west as Homebush Bay, the site of the 2000 Olympiad, not to mention all the nooks and crannies of the harbor itself. It wasn't the tower or the views so much as the attractions on the first level that were intriguing. A wonderful little multimedia presentation awaited us; complete with holographic images of little Australian people projected onto glass and about 1/20 normal size. As we sat strapped in our seats, these little people moved and jumped and drove cars, perfectly coordinated with the props inside the viewing area, and introduced all visitors to the wonders of Australia.

Then it was off to a ride, of sorts, where we again were strapped in and shuttled off all over the country, as the visuals were displayed on six large screens for 180 degrees of viewing and we were rocked and rolled in our seats. It was well presented, and was a very informative hour and a half. We did go to the observation level of the tower, but didn't stay long for a number of reasons, at least one of which might be obvious.

One of the more interesting sights we took in while on this side of the city was the Soviet Union's space shuttle, the Buryan (it means 'snowstorm' in Russian). As it turns out, when the USSR collapsed in 1991, the Buryan went into storage outside of Moscow, where it remained until 1999. At that point, a private corporation was formed to ship it here to Australia, of all places, where it will remain on exhibit until eventually, it will move to a new country for display (speculation is Singapore).

Oddly enough, the shipping company used to transport this massive reusable space craft (all the way from Sweden) turns out to be the very same company using the very same ship that has been in the news quite a lot here in Australia lately. The boat is the Tampa, and is the source of some controversy here as the boat that houses 400-odd Iraqi asylum seekers and refugees, hoping to come ashore here in Australia. The government isn't allowing this but instead is opting to send these people to a little island nation called Nauru, several hundred miles off shore. Quite the coincidence, really.

Da Bridge
I had to do it - really, I did. It took about three hours all told, and as kids aren't allowed, Kate wasn't particularly interested and the place doesn't offer child-care, I did it alone. After all, it is entirely possible that I will never be in Sydney again (although I hope not), so I felt I had to make the best of my time here right now. I refer to the climbing of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I felt an obligation not to climb Uluru (due to its sacredness), when we were in central Australia in April, but I had no such compulsion this time. After all, this was just a bridge…but what a bridge it is!

It was a rather gray day, but warm and not too breezy, so altogether a rather perfect time for climbing. The summit (as it is so blithely called) offers absolutely amazing views of the city, the harbor, the Opera House, and all in all, views of about 50 miles in every direction, maybe more on a really clear day. A truly spectacular way to see this most attractive city.

Now I'll bore you with some amazing statistics:
· It contains six million rivets;
· When hot, the road deck can rise a approximately 42 centimeters;
· When hot, the bridge itself (!) can rise approximately 17 centimeters;
· The road carries 200,000 cars per day over the harbor;
· The 'summit' is 134 meters over the water, exactly twice the height of the largest 'sail' of the Opera House;
· 16 men died while building the bridge;
· It opened in 1932 (1998 for climbing), and was known among the workers as "the Iron Lung" because it kept so many families alive during the Depression;
And possibly the most impressive (or at least my favorite) fact: Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) was once employed as a bridge painter.

A little quirk regarding the bridge climb is that you are only allowed to walk halfway over the harbor on the structure itself before turning around and coming back. Apparently 16 separate government and regulatory agencies govern the bridge, which connects Sydney proper with North Sydney (just over 1000 meters away), and the company that operates the climb couldn't get the authority for climbers to go the complete length of the bridge and into North Sydney!

Once I completed the climb (it was 100% safe, by the way), our Minnesota friends Pete and Athena Goff joined us for a walk around Circular Quay and a bottle of wine in the shadow of the Sydney Opera House. Quite a way to spend a day!


A Nod to the Good 'ol USA
We couldn't resist it. After a year (almost) without anything like good Mexican food (well ok, twice), we saw the shining beacon of what must be the only Taco Bell in Australia. Now, I am the first to admit that Taco Bell is not real Mexican food, but when you're used to having it once in awhile, and haven't had it in almost a year, it sure tastes good! (They looked at us real funny when we asked for refried beans, though - they don't offer them, and called them 'mushy beans', or some approximation of that.) What a shocking treat!

Just to top off our All-American exit from Sydney, we hit one of two Starbucks in town. Apparently, the day we were there was coincidentally the same day that the first-ever Starbucks in Melbourne opened. We look forward to a visit….

Port Stephens and Nelson's Bay
Sadly, we left Sydney for points north (along the already discussed Pacific Highway), and arrived in our new destination, Nelson's Bay.

Due to the collapse of the Australian airline Ansett several weeks earlier, many people from New South Wales were driving to closer destinations, Nelson's Bay included. Together with the first weekend of the school holiday, and the state's Labor Day, the town was teeming with people.

Our hotel was packed to the hilt, and thanks to some rather unpleasant neighbors who partied until the wee hours of the morning, we got almost no sleep our first night. They left the next day, as did many other travellers, and it was quiet once again. Tom and Sophie met a nice little girl from suburban Sydney, and have since talked on the phone and received a post card from her after our return. She has an aunt in Minnesota (it's a small world, after all), and the next time they visit, they're sure to come and see us.

We took a dolphin watching tour on the body of water where Nelson's Bay is located, called Port Stephens. We roughed it a bit with cold (relatively speaking) gale force winds to see a small pod of six to eight dolphins frolicking in the even colder water, and heard over the radio of whale sightings just outside the bay.

The area reminded us a bit of the Door County peninsula in eastern Wisconsin, with marinas and resorts and little shops and restaurants. Other than the dolphins, whales and the nearby Hunter Valley wine region, it felt just like home. We did take a day trip out to the Hunter Valley, although we only visited two or three wineries, as Tommy and Sophie were keen to get back to the nice warm pool at the hotel. The rest of the valley will have to await our return!

Coff's Harbor and the Big Banana
Another six hours up the Pacific Coast Highway and we arrived at our northern most destination, Coff's Harbor. (A few more hours in the car and we could have returned to Queensland, sight of our July vacation.) It sits in the midst of a tropical fruit-growing region, as the "Big Banana" name might imply.

While there, we hit two major attractions as well as two Hollywood movies for the kids in the evenings.

The first was called the Pet Porpoise Pool, which (obviously) specializes in marine mammals like dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions. It wasn't altogether a bad value for the money, and the animals seemed rather well cared for, unlike some wild animal parks we've seen. Tommy and Sophie were able to "shake hands / fins" with a dolphin, and Tommy brushed the teeth of one as well. He also fed calamari to a very friendly, very large sea lion, and Kate fed a dolphin as it leaped about 10 feet over the surface of the pool, which was really quite cool (except she didn't get wet).

While there, we met a very nice family with four kids from Kalamazoo, Michigan, although they currently live in Sydney while the father works for Kellogg's. After our morning at the Pet Porpoise Pool, we said our goodbyes, parted with the hope that we might see one another around the area in the next few days, and went off for a nice picnic lunch along the seashore. Then it was off to the main attraction, the Big Banana, which is (not unexpectedly) a banana farm.

Upon our arrival, we did in fact bump into our new friends the McGuires, and together we spent the next several hours touring around a banana plantation-cum-amusement park and indoor snow ski area. (Interesting combination, don't you think?) It's amazing what you can learn if you visit some of these places; for example we had our world rocked as we discovered, much to our surprise, that the banana plant is really an herb that is a member of the grass family (!), and the banana itself is simply the fruit of the plant. While bananas have only been in Australia for the past 100 years or so, they exist in the historical record back to 600 or 700 BC! Amazing!

We spent the next day lolling by the pool, having a pool-side lunch in the company of little lizards that literally ran over our toes, and winning a trivia contest for the hard won prize of a cold Victoria Bitter at our new friends lovely resort. It was a great way to finish off our trip north. We now look forward to a trip to Kalamazoo to visit our new friends, and their dog Winston. (This is important because Kate already had plans for the same kind of dog (golden retriever) with the same name!)

On the Road to Woy Woy
Before we were to fly out of Sydney and back to Melbourne, we scheduled a stop in the thriving metropolis of Woy Woy, New South Wales. (Actually, it was just to break up the trip back south to Sydney - there isn't much thriving in Woy Woy, although it is a nice town).

As we drove, we reached the lovely little town of Port Macquarie, named (along with 832 other geographical place names, a major bank and a national dictionary, among other things) after the Scotsman Lachlan Macquarie, one of early Australia's first governors. We lunched in an idyllic setting, with a beautiful blue sky and a high sun complementing a quaint little beachfront. The only fly in the ointment was the rally occurring just in the park next to where we planned to eat.

In the shadow of the ANZAC memorial, dedicated to the war dead from the town of Port Macquarie, and just around the corner from McDonald's, Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors and an unloading Coca-Cola truck, "Concerned Citizens for Peace" were gathered, breaking the peace by making a wee bit of noise. Mostly, the noise had a distinctly anti-war tone, coupled with a distinctly anti-American feeling. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not, individuals spoke out against the impending US-led retaliation (which had not yet started at the time) and in support for innocent Afghan civilians and the looming refugee crisis that would no doubt accompany it. We are as certain as we could possibly be that we were the only Americans in the crowd, and although we didn't stay long (we hadn't eaten lunch yet), we heard enough.

I don't claim to have the answers, and I'm in favor of peace as much as the next guy, but to suggest that the United States and our allies should do nothing, or should just shrug this off and work to give food or other aid to those who sheltered the terrorists is a slightly naive position. Should the US have aided Afghanistan in different ways 20 years ago? Perhaps, but that cannot be changed now, and that was at the height of the Cold War. Through that lens (of the Cold War, that is), the actions of the US 20 years ago were focussed on stopping the spread of communism. I think we need to understand that the world would be a significantly different place had the Cold War turned out differently.

We enjoyed our lunch, and headed for Woy Woy.

Who's on First?
As we close out this penultimate edition (and longest, by far - sorry for that!), let us mention a rather interesting phenomenon that is about to occur here in Australia - a federal election, to be held on November 10th.

This may not be terribly interesting outside the continent of Australia or the region surrounding it - but for one humorous possibility. The current Prime Minister is John Howard, a member of the Liberal Party (which, oddly enough, isn't really all that liberal), and he has in his administration two fellows with rather out of the ordinary names. Now I grant you, just exactly the right circumstances would have to take place (perhaps involving the stray passing of an unknown comet or something), but if John Howard does not win his election yet the Liberal Party continues to hold the majority in Parliament, the current Federal Finance Minister Peter Costello could become the next Prime Minister. All by itself, nothing to write home about, unless of course his second in command should be the current Federal Workplace Relations Minister, who goes by the name of Tony Abbott. How exactly this might happen I can't be sure, but boy would it make our last month here interesting! Abbott and Costello could even grab more headlines than a former professional rassler / Hollywood film star / state governor might!

"This is the end, my friend…"
Well, you've wasted another perfectly good thirty minutes of your life reading about ours, although we're glad you did. As you may already be aware, we are coming home to the United States a bit earlier than previously expected, due to the lack of available seats on any flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis in the few days before Christmas. With that information, I approached my principal here with our dilemma, and he suggested that if we could find seats on a flight on an earlier date, he would check to see if I could be released early, and that is exactly what has happened. Below you will find our itinerary for the last gasp of our journey, the flight home.

For those of you in the area, it would be fantastic to see you at the airport upon our arrival, but under the circumstances of tighter than ever security and the fact that we would not be likely to spend a lot of time together right then and there, we certainly will understand if you are not present. Having said that, we are looking forward to spending time together after the holidays. It's been a long haul, and we look forward to seeing all of you.

Here are the specs:

Depart 1215 PM Melbourne 12/15/01
Qantas Flight 93
Arrive 730AM Los Angeles 12/15/01

Depart 1140AM Los Angeles 12/15/01
Northwest Airlines Flight ???
Arrive 519PM Minneapolis 12/15/01


See you soon!
Kate, Dave, Tommy and Sophie Panetti

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Down Under Times volume VII

(See: Back from the Memory Hole for an explanation of why these are posted now...)

Down Under Times Volume VII
September 2001
All the news that no one really needs to know, but is going to hear anyway!

SPECIAL EDITION

An Ominous Two Weeks
As your side of the world dealt with the real-time, mid-day rush of news related to the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, this side of the world was shocked out of what's become the usual slumber of a world largely at peace, into a world for which none of us could have ever been prepared. I thought it might be useful (and it is certainly cathartic for me) to share some of the goings on over here in Australia of the last 12 days.

We are fifteen hours ahead of Central Daylight Time in the US, sixteen ahead of Eastern Time. When the first tower was attacked, and news broke around the world, it was approximately 1045 pm Tuesday here in Melbourne. We are able to get the US TV show "The West Wing" here (those from last season in the US), which airs from 1030 pm to 1130 pm on Tuesdays. We had planned to stay up and watch the show, but Kate fell asleep so the VCR took over, and we would therefore watch another day. As it turned out, if we had watched it live that night, we would have had absolutely no sleep at all.

I was up on the Internet preparing and sending the last edition of our newsletter, and so potentially could have come across a news bulletin announcing the attack. That didn't happen. If you wondered about the timing of the arrival of our last newsletter, write it off to the vagaries of time zones differences.

Like previous generations that are forever able to say "I remember where I was when…" (fill in the blank - the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK, MLK or RFK, the Challenger disaster, etc.), a new generation around the world will now (sadly) have a new event to add to the list. As for us, our good friends Pete and Athena, on exchange from Minnesota and living here in Melbourne as well, called us at about 200 am Wednesday morning. Pete has a sister who lives in New York City, and her husband works on Wall Street. She called Pete to tell him all was ok in their house, and Pete immediately called us. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night.

D-Day (June 6, 1944) is described in history books as "the longest day", and while I was not directly affected by the attacks, September 11, 2001 will certainly go down in my history as the longest day.

Australian Reaction
It has been very difficult, as I suppose you can imagine, for us to be here at this time. Being home in Minnesota would not significantly change what we could do personally (besides perhaps giving blood), but it would be home nonetheless. Having said that, if we have to be somewhere else when the country is in crisis, I guess Australia is that place (not that we have much choice in the matter, mind you).

The outpouring of support, sympathy and camaraderie has been overwhelming. Absolutely everyone we know has been wonderful, as have people we don't know. School was difficult for me that Wednesday, but at least it gave me a place to go, something to do and people to talk to. Kate was home alone most of the day, or so I thought. The phone never stopped ringing, and several good friends stopped by just to check in on her. Flowers, cards and notes from the staff at Fairhills High School, students in Tommy's and Sophie's classes, and from our good Australian friends have provided support to us at a time when we needed it most. For that, we are forever grateful.

The media here was probably just like home, filled with images and concepts no one should have to see or contemplate. Newspapers put out special editions, and TV news coverage was largely US TV coverage, only breaking for local interviews or to put the local spin on it (approximately 65 Australians are known dead or missing). By the one-week mark, many TV stations had largely gone back to regular programming and we found it hard to get the information we so badly wanted. Of course the newspapers and the morning and nightly TV news covered progress (or lack of it) and George Bush's addresses and such, but we wanted - needed - more than just the few minutes afforded the stories during each show. I can't really blame them - New York and Washington are an awfully long distance from here, and it was another country after all - but this is one big story. The Internet has been very helpful in this respect…if you look in the right places.

The United States has an embassy in Canberra, the federal capital of Australia. In Melbourne, there is a US Consulate for Americans travelling or living in the area. On the Sunday after the attack, we visited the US Consulate building, down in the city. It was absolutely unbelievable. There were hundreds of thousands of flowers, notes, cards, candles, photos and tributes, as well as several hundred people - all there to show solidarity with the United States. If ever there was a moment when the tears came easily, it was then. The first time for me occurred as we approached the building, and we saw for the first time the US flag flying, in concert with the Australian flag, at half-mast. Since that day about one week ago, I have seen more US flags displayed than I would have thought possible in a foreign country, in sometimes rather unusual places, but done of course as sign of respect and unity. It would also appear that there are many closet New York Yankee fans, as hats, t-shirts and other memorabilia emblazoned with the symbol of the Bronx Bombers have been dusted off and are worn with pride and to show a connection to the Big Apple.

Fairhills High School proceeded with a moment of silence that week, and asked me if I would like to say a few words in advance. I agreed, although they didn't come easily. Simply by virtue of being the only American on staff, I have put a recognizable face on this disaster, although I'm not necessarily the best choice for that. We have no family living in New York or Washington, and while we have good friends living in both places, everyone is ok. Some members of staff are more directly affected than I, as at least three that I know of have family in New York City, and one of my students has an uncle who is a New York City police officer, who has yet to be heard from. Just up the road from us here in Ferny Creek, a man lost his twin brother, the only surviving member of his family, in the collapse of one of the towers. This is truly a global disaster unlike any other single event we have ever experienced, outside of outright war.

In the last days of term three at Fairhills, an all-school assembly was held. Once again I was asked to say a few words, which at least came more easily as I had had a week to put thoughts and feelings into some semblance of order. Students were very considerate, and have shown me only respect in these last two weeks. The only possible negative thing had to do with the flag at school. There hasn't been one on the pole all year long, and a member of staff produced an Australian flag to fly at half-mast as a sign of respect. Unfortunately, the flag was stolen after only a few days. Sad, but if that is the only negative thing to come out of a situation that had (and still has) potential for much more, I guess we should count our blessings.

The Multi-Faith Memorial Service
This past Thursday, on a raw, windy and gray afternoon that fit my mood perfectly, Kate and I attended a multi-faith memorial service that was held in the city at the Rod Laver National Tennis Center. Approximately 12000 - 15000 people attended (according to news reports), once again to show sympathy and remembrance for those who died, and unity and solidarity with Americans and all people of faith. Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, B'hais and Muslims were all represented by small groups who spoke in their own way to the solemn crowd, expressing sorrow for the tragic events in the US, and hope for the future. Many thousands in the crowd were members in uniform of the CFA (Country Fire Authority), the MFB (Metropolitan Fire Brigade), the SES (State Emergency Services), the various branches of law enforcement, and the paramedics. It was a very moving testament to the brave women and men who risked and lost their lives in the initial harrowing moments of the attack.

The United States Ambassador, J. Thomas Schieffer, was present, as well as many prominent local and state politicians and religious leaders. Ambassador Schieffer gave a particularly spirited and inspiring speech, made all the more so given that he has only been the US Ambassador to Australia for approximately 30 days. Possibly the most emotional moment was, of course, at the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. Containing oneself in such a situation, and under these circumstances, is virtually impossible. We were an emotional mess, but we felt it was vital that we attend.

I think the two most difficult moments for me in the past two weeks were, in this order, telling Sophie and Tommy about the attacks just after they woke up Wednesday morning, and visiting the US Consulate in Melbourne. The unadulterated, cold fury I felt at having to explain this to my seven- and eight-year-old, even in a rudimentary way, will never leave me. In addition to the sense of loss and sorrow I feel at the massive death and destruction in the US, I resent the fact that a person unknown to so many forced their agenda upon us, took the lives of thousands of innocent people, and necessitated the stripping away of one more layer of innocence among millions of children world-wide.

On a More Positive Note…
If anything good can come of all this, as so many of us have already realized, at least it has brought unity (at least unity of purpose) within the United States and among the nations of the world on a level not seen in my lifetime. Perhaps the singular vision of so many world leaders, together with the hopes of so many millions of regular people in every country on earth, can finally lead to something akin to world peace. As a historian, I understand that world peace as an ideal will probably never exist in its entirety, but any move in that direction is a positive step. If only one more person lives in a peaceful home, then perhaps they can influence their community in a positive manner, and the community will become more peaceful; and then the state; and then the nation; and then the world. Then we can get to work on the other pressing issues that demand our attention - like poverty, education, the environment, malnutrition, health care, etc., etc.

Sydney and New South Wales
It's cliché I know, and I really hate to say it, but our life will go on. I am a little concerned about tomorrow however, as we fly from Melbourne to Sydney in the afternoon. It is the last of our two-week school holidays, and it couldn't have come at a better time - we are really in need of a break, especially with the stress of the last two weeks. At the same time, I guess it couldn't have come at a worse time, too. Not only did the worst act of terrorism in history occur last week, but a major Australian airline folded last week as well (the two events were unrelated). It just so happens that Ansett Airlines was the only real competition in Australia for Qantas Airlines, and we had booked our tickets to Sydney on Ansett! Unfortunately, we lost out on the money we spent on the Ansett tickets, but fortunately Qantas had four seats available.

So we lost a little money and two days of vacation - on the whole pretty small potatoes, and we still have the remaining time of our vacation left. Under the current circumstances of crisis back home, and the uncertainty of the next step the US and the allied powers might take, I admit to feeling more than a little guilty having any fun at all. The vast majority of the last two weeks I have felt like I've been kicked in the stomach, and that feeling is still with me when the gray matter starts working and I remember what's going on in the world. I know, however, that "she'll be right, mate."

Our Itinerary
The following info is mostly for family, as during these times of uncertainty we want them to know where we are at all times while we travel in New South Wales. For the rest of our friends around the world, thanks for letting me vent, take care of yourselves and your families, and may peace reign in place of war.


9/24 - 9/28 Stafford Apartments
Sydney
PHONE: 2.9251.6711

9/29 - 10/1 Westbury's Resort
Nelson Bay
PHONE: 2.4981.4400

10/2 - 10/4 Calypso Apartments
Coffs Harbor
PHONE: 2.6652.6468

10/5 Watersedge
Woy Woy
PHONE: 2.4341.2888

10/6 Ferny Creek Five Star
Ferny Creek
PHONE: 3.9755.1205 (ha ha)

Post Script
A long time ago (by standards in our present situation, anyway) I recorded a message on our answering machine that includes, as an introduction, the song "God Bless America". This was originally my attempt to be humorous - to "have a go" at any Aussies who might call to leave a message, just so they knew up front who lived here. It has since taken on an entirely different meaning…

Monday, July 6, 2009

Down Under Times volume VI

(See: Back from the Memory Hole for an explanation of why these are posted now...)

Down Under Times Volume VI
July 2001
All the news that no one really needs to know, but is going to hear anyway!

We're Back!
Another successful 'vacation from our vacation' is now complete. While those are not our words, others have described our various trips around Australia while living here as such. It is not too far from the truth, although many will not believe us when we say that the daily grind is not much different here than at home, it simply takes place in Australia instead of Minnesota.

This time we spent our two-week holiday in the tropics of northern Queensland. Basically, we flew to one of the more northern cities on the east coast of Australia, Port Douglas, and then made our way south along that coast to the southern most point of Queensland, about two hours drive south of the state capital, Brisbane. (Like "Mel-bun", this is pronounced "Briz-bun".) After fifteen days in the sun-drenched tropical north, we flew home to more gray, wet and dull winter days in Melbourne.

Coral, Crocodiles, Cassowaries and Cane in Cairns, Queensland
Whew! Try saying that one three times fast! Without anything like evidence to support the assertion, it seems to us that the list above would roughly approximate, in descending order, the level of importance these things have to the economy of tropical Queensland. (We actually think an additional "C" should be added - for all the carbon produced by burning sugar cane remnants and surplus undergrowth in forests. It was relentless!)

First, however, the name needs clearing up. "Cairns" looks as if it should be pronounced as spelled - something nasally like 'karnes' with an 'a' sound as in 'care' - but this is not so. All Australians that we have come into contact with pronounce it as 'cans', which could easily be confused as the city in the south of France where the film festival is held each year. At least that's what we originally thought a year ago when we heard it pronounced. You can imagine the look on our faces as we envisioned boarding a plane for Queensland only to picture ourselves disembarking in the French Riviera! Wouldn't that have been a neat trick?

Alas, it was not to be, and so Queensland it was.


The First "C"
Obviously, coral refers to the Great Barrier Reef (a good portion of which is located in the Coral Sea) which, contrary to its name, is not just one reef. In fact, this World Heritage-listed area stretches 2900 kilometers along the coast and is made up of about 1500 separate, living reefs, and contains untold thousands of different species of fish and other life. It is truly staggering, and provides yet another example of that feeling of human insignificance that seems to abound here in Australia.

Without question it is the attraction of the Great Barrier Reef that draws thousands, perhaps millions of tourists to the Queensland coast each year. It is one of those seminal things to do when coming to Australia. Not going to the Reef would be like going to Paris and not visiting the Eiffel Tower - it just isn't done if you can help it.

We stayed in the pleasant, if touristy, town of Port Douglas. It reminded us a bit of Key West, Florida, and not just because of its tropical climate. Port Douglas definitely caters to tourists, with a wide selection of wonderful restaurants, lots of resorts and other accommodations, and many souvenir shops. In addition, it seemed as if residents of Port Douglas fit the description of many Key Westers as well - older Australians with higher levels of disposable income and people escaping from someone, somewhere or something, ala Jimmy Buffet. While there we took three day-trips: to the Reef, to the Rainforest, and on the world's longest gondola ride to a village in the verdant, rainforest-covered mountains.

There is only one word to describe the Great Barrier Reef, and that is whatever word you can come up with to describe the most amazing place on earth. We travelled by what could only be called a super-catamaran, which cut through the waves and had us to the Outer Reef in less than two hours. (Contrary to popular belief, the Reef is not just off shore, within swimming distance.) We docked at a floating platform where people ate, scuba dived and went snorkelling. We didn't realize it until we were actually in the water, but the sheer scope of the Reef is beyond imagination. As snorkelers, we are like the proverbial grain of sand on an immense beach. We saw so much, yet at the same time we saw so little.

The highlights include: the four Panetti's pretending to be fish food together with many exotic species hovering just beyond our reach; watching Tommy confidently swim away like a fish to explore this section of the reef; witnessing Sophie and Kate conquer their fear of the open ocean to "take the plunge", so to speak; and simply interacting with this system of life that is so unique, so extraordinary and so unbelievably large. Tommy and Dave watched as scuba divers touched the "lips" of a giant clam and its massive shell closed just enough to be seen 30 feet above, and we were all astonished (and some of us were a little frightened) when the crew began feeding fish right on the entrance platform and thousands of fish swarmed around our feet - including the gigantic Maori wrass, which is the size of a small refrigerator!

The Reef was a must see on our list, and we highly recommend that, even if you have never been interested in seeing the Reef, you should do it anyway. It is worth it.

"C" Numbers Two and Three
It is our belief that the second reason people might choose to travel to the nether regions of Queensland would be to see crocodiles in the wild. There are two kinds of crocs here, "salties" and "freshies". Freshies are freshwater crocs, tend to be smaller and eat only fish and small mammals. Salties, on the other hand, are to be feared and will even pursue large mammals (read: humans!). Some of the bigger ones can grow to 12-15 meters (or 40+ feet)!!!! They can also be quite aggressive, and every year newspapers report the loss of several unsuspecting (or quite probably inebriated or irretrievably stupid, or both) tourists who go missing in croc infested waters.

We discovered, much to our surprise, that the estuarine crocodile, contrary to its name, does not live only in river estuaries. One could, with relative ease, avoid them if this were true. Salties have been found 300 kilometers inland, and as far as 1200 kilometers out to sea! This gave us a whole new realm of things to worry about!

Given that it is currently winter here, and crocs are poikilothermic (great word, isn't it?), which means they need the warmth of the sun for survival, they were quite sluggish when we saw them. We took a day tour into the Daintree Rainforest, about an hour's drive north from Port Douglas, which included a boat tour along the Cooper Creek for a bit o' croc spottin'.

The man who operated the boat was a true Queenslander, yeah? (We have been assured that this is how many true Queenslanders speak - they end many sentences, even declarative ones, with a drawled out, question-like "yeah?") He floated us around the river and located five or six sunbathing crocs, lots of bird life and talked about the wide variety of dense mangroves that exist in this part of the world.

It was pretty impressive despite the lackadaisical attitude of the crocs, and we did wind up seeing them "in the wild", which was the goal after all.

As part of the trip into the Daintree Rainforest (the world's oldest rainforest at approximately 110 million years old, and another World Heritage-listed area), we encountered "C" number three, the cassowary. I would bet good money (as opposed to bad money) that unless you are Australian or New Guinean you have never heard of a cassowary. There are three or four species of cassowary, one of which resides in and around the coasts of northern Queensland (the others live in New Guinea).

The cassowary is a distant cousin of the emu, which itself resembles the ostrich. Cassowaries, however, have what appears to be a dome of bone on their heads, over a bright (I mean bright) blue feathered neck and a bright red wattle. It stands about 1.5 meters tall or taller, and with its bony head looks an awful lot like a throwback to prehistoric dinosaur days. Even as a protected species living in a protected reserve of land surrounded by relatively few people, the number of cassowaries continues to decline. Mostly, this is due to loss of habitat by what our guide called "rednecked greenies", or people claiming to be environmentalists who purchase five acre lots and then proceed to clear four of them and live on the remaining one so they can say they live "in the rainforest". Clearly he despised this behavior, so I took to calling him a "Greenie Queenie", or a true environmentalist Queenslander. I'm not sure he thought I was funny.

In addition, there were plenty of other surprises that we encountered there. We were startled to find that the rainforest covered mountains (low as they may be) slope directly to white sand beaches or drop precipitously down to the tropical ocean - this was unexpected, although we can't be sure what, precisely, we did expect. It is quite interesting to find so many natural wonders meeting in such an unlikely place where very few people live. It is a very beautiful, if stark and sometimes hostile, place in the world.

Another astounding "discovery" we came across was that the Daintree is home to something like 22 of the world's 29 surviving species of primitive plants. These ancient plants require a separate male and female to produce offspring, unlike modern flora where one plant contains both male and female structures for reproduction. I wouldn't really know one if it bit me on the nose, but it is fascinating to learn about.

The last truly mystifying natural phenomenon we learned of is Bennett's Tree Kangaroo. We didn't actually see any of these little critters, but they are one of two species of treetop dwelling kangaroo, both of which live in this region. Roo's are pretty amazing as it is without imaging one hopping monkey-like from tree-top to tree-top, dropping who knows what on to unsuspecting tourists down below. Actually, they are quite small, but still - what a thought!

It was also fun using a driftwood stick to draw an American flag in the sand on Cape Tribulation on the Fourth of July. The Cape is where Captain James Cook, skipper of the H.M.S. Endeavour, crashed his boat on the reef while exploring the Australian continent and the South Seas back in the 18th century. It is a gorgeous stretch of white sandy beach, and was very quiet and serene on that day. Together with a shore lunch at a remote site in the forest along a crystal clear river, a rather pleasant way to spend part of Independence Day.

Last, But Not Least…
"C" number four stands for sugar cane, the largest crop in northern Queensland. 80% of the cane from this region is exported, and the large container ships that haul it could be seen chugging along inside the limits of the reef just offshore. More than one of them has taken out parts of the reef in the past, which will no doubt continue, even with advanced levels and layers of legal protection.

As we left the northern regions of Queensland for the central coast and the Whitsunday Islands, we saw sugar cane growing along the highway like sweet corn in August in central Minnesota. In fact, the drive south reminded me a lot of driving through cornfield after cornfield, complete with lots of road-kill, too. The only difference was that this road-kill happened to be roo's! It felt a bit like Wisconsin or Minnesota just before deer season - they were everywhere! I counted close to 100 as we sped along down the highway - it was a surreal trip, let me tell you.

The Whitsunday Islands
We then spent four nights in an exotic locale called the Whitsunday Islands. This region consists of 74 mostly uninhabited islands; many in pristine condition and with their own coral reefs just off shore.

Highlights include sailing for about 1 1/2 hours on an 80-foot long sailboat, out to a place called Blue Pearl Bay. Our trip included more snorkelling, Dave's first-ever scuba dive (outside of a swimming pool, anyway), and sightings of whales breaching and dolphins swimming along side the boat. Another fantastic experience.

This is a place where travel books get all those exotic looking pictures, filled with blue seas, palm-lined beaches (never mind they are mostly coral and very hard on tender bare feet!), and stunning tropical scenery everywhere you look. The Whitsunday's are a place that we highly recommend, if ever you make it Down Under!

The Gold Coast and the "World" Tours
The last leg of our journey took us just south of Brisbane, to an area known as the Gold Coast. Imagine, if you will, a place like Wisconsin Dells on steroids (sorry to any of you who aren't familiar with this locale), only with lots of 20- and 30-story hotels, and more than half the signage in Japanese. That should give you an adequate picture of Surfer's Paradise, the town we visited on the Gold Coast. The weather held out for us, and we had more beautiful sunny days like the first part of the trip. It was also here that we met up with our Minnesota friends the Carberry's and Kay Bazler and his daughter Analisa.

The first "world" we visited was Warner Brother's MovieWorld, which Tom and Sophie just loved. It was just the right size for small legs, and we were able to see just about everything in the park in one full day, without wearing us all out too much. A good time was had by all.
We went to visit Seaworld and hoped to swim with dolphins there, but after waiting in a long line that had started a full four hours before the opening of the park, we missed the spot for that special event by one person. We'll just have to find a way to swim with dolphins some other way!

As a consolation, however, we did find a wildlife park south of the Gold Coast called Currumbin where we all were able to hold a koala who cooperated and posed for a lovely photo. Of course, there were many other interesting things we saw there, but that was a highlight.

The Gold Coast also has a Wet and Wild Water World, but we felt it was more important to drive a few hours north of Brisbane to visit the Australia Zoo. For the uninitiated, the Australia Zoo is home to the (in)famous 'Crocodile Hunter', Steve Irwin. Despite the fact that Aussies generally look down a reptilian nose at him, Americans (us included) absolutely love him! We were very excited to visit his zoo, and although we didn't actually meet him or his wife Terry, we did enjoy their wildlife park, which is undergoing some serious renovations and additions at the moment. This was probably the best maintained wildlife park we have visited in Australia so far - proof that not all of what comes from television is bad… We had a ball!

Another One Bites the Dust…
Well, the second of our two-week holidays is over. The sad realization now is that as we return to school this week, we are already at the half-way point in this adventure. There are twenty weeks of school remaining, and then "Presto!", it'll be December and we'll be on our way home. Where has the proverbial time gone?

So much more to do, so little time left! Aaahhh!

The Antipodean Panettis