Hello mate, how're you doing?

oh yes, finally I write about Australia!
Heaps of stuff to talk about after these two weeks. Or rather: hopefully I have something to talk about after two weeks, right?!


Like I mentionned already in my last story: I don't feel so much like travelling at the moment. I am rather visiting: I know people in 5 out of my 7 big destinations I am planning to go to in Australia: in Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide; I don't know anybody in Alice Springs and Melbourne though. This fact and the closeness of the Australian culture to European, makes me feel far less as a traveller than in Asia. Furthermore, the first time since 6 months nobody can spot straight away, that I am not from their country...

So I definitely got accustumed to the Western culture quite quickly. Even though Australian culture is of course still different to Austrian, or European in general, it is still closer to my own very culture than any Asian culture was. So, after only one day I was back in my old way of living - enjoying going out with friends, having a glass of wine in the evenings, eating good bread again, oh and cheese of course (I can't talk enough about cheese), ....

I was nearly two weeks in Sydney, and really started to feel like home. I stayed with Jean-Marie, a good friend I know from Paris. It was like living in France again: apéro, and barbeque :)
On my arrival-day I more or less went direclty from the airport to the beach, where JM's sons 2nd birthday was celebrated with barbeque and many presents for the little gentlemen. But not only on this first day but nearly every evening friends were around, we were having drinks and simply a great time: we were living like God in France!

So yes, barbeque at the beach - nice start to Australia isn't it?? And there is no thing so typical to Australia than the BEACH! The beach is the main-sight of nearly every city: "More than 85 percent of Australian's live within 50 kilometres of the coast, making the 10,000 beaches an intregal part of Australian life." (...) And it's really funny, but when talking with Aussies you will end up talking about beaches sooner or later!

Sydney has many beaches as well and I visited (yes, visited!! Weird word for a beach) three out of them. But Sydney has so much more than just beaches. It is a really hip, young and vivid city. Sparkling I'd even say! I was lucky to stay in a really central part of the town from where I could walk everywhere by feet. There are sooooo many nice bars, cafés and restaurants around, it's amazing! The atmosphere where I lived - Surry Hills - is really hip and remembered me of Viennas 7th and 8th district.

But still, Sydney is of course completely different to Vienna: both cities have loads of culture to offer. But I felt that here the culture is so much - let's say - lighter! It is new, starting, young, experimental. Culture in Vienna is historical and well in place; and heavy: classical music, beautiful historical buildings, big museums,... I don't say, that Vienna doesn't have young and experimental art, or that Sydney doesn't have big museums or classical music (It's opera house is really famous as well, however more because of the architecture, while Vienna's opera house is really famous because of the music).
I'd just say that the focus is more on older and classical culture in Vienna whereas in Sydney on younger one...

And I got to feel this vivid art scene even closer: one day walking home after a big sight-seeing day, I came past an art gallery with a just opening exhibition of the artist Sharyne J Jewell. I really liked her works and ended up staying till nearly everybody had left - I admit: that was thanks to the champagne - chatting with the people running the gallery. I really liked the atmosphere there, they had many projects running all the time. So I finally offered them to help out for their next group-exhibition on 23rd of March. Which was great fun! Maybe maybe, this will bring me back to arts, a path I have left in my life at the age of 18. Maybe back in Vienna I will check out art galleries more than I did...

So yes, one can really feel the age difference between the Australian and the European society. Surprise surprise, their country (I'm not talking about Aboriginal history here!!) is not even 300 years old - 1788 being the year in which the first settlers arrived. But their lifestyle is really Western indeed. I can't say, if it is closer to Europe or to America - a question I was asked by a friend - having never been to America. But I can say in what I see our own culture and lifestyle reflected:

One really funny thing about our lifestyle I realised being back in it: we are definitely health-freaks! I never saw it like this before, but after Asia I did: everything is labelled "bio" or "organic" - most food here is of course "Australia grown". People try to eat healthy stuff: when walking around the streets of Sydney, past these hip bars and restaurants I always checked what the people had on their plates: nicely looking sandwiches with cherrytomatos and rucola leaves looking out between the slices of slightly toasted wholemeal breadrolls. Oh yes, we do love our healthy and hip food, don't we?! And the cappuccinos with loads of milk-foam and cacao-hearts drawn into it. Well, me too I love it - or maybe rather: I would love them, but as a low-budget traveller paying around $15,- for these great looking sandwiches definitely exceeds my budget.

Oh yes, Australians want to be healthy. And they not only pay attention to what they are eating, but also do sports, and hell lot of it! And my body thanks me so much for it: I am finally back to jogging, which is great. Doing sports is not difficult in a country, which is really providing it's citizens with many opportunities to spend their free time nicely and with sports. The jogging-field I chose was just next to the flat of my dear host in Sydney. The pic is my very jogging-playground - try to find something like this in Asia! So you understand why I didn't go jogging that much over there...

But what is more, Australians do really appreciate their leisure time, far more than we do - at least I have this impression. Or their government took more efforts for them to be able to enjoy it: there are so many possibilities to enjoy your leisure time and the facilities are made for you to do so: Sydney is full of parks for joggers and other fans of sports; there are loads of bike lanes and of course many many beaches and facilities for surfers! Surfing is defintiely THE national sport - and AFL (Aussie-rules football). Sports and barbeque are seen as part of the national culture: "A laid-back lifestyle involving barbeques, time at the beach and sports (both playing and watching sports) makes Australia a wonderful place to visit and live." (...)

What I will write now, may be contradictive... I really feel that Vienna is a highly livable city and love living there. And of course Vienna has most of what Sydney offers mentionned above: parks, bike lanes, the Donauinsel... I do really understand that Vienna got elected a few times already as being on the first place in the quality of living worldwide city ranking in the Mercer surveys. However, there is something about the Austrian character, which I now feel in Australia, as it is not lying so heavily on my shoulders:

In Austria I often had the feeling that you couldn't do something just for the sake of doing it. Just because you like doing it. You should always justify what you're doing or what you like. Just liking it is not enough. You should have reason for doing something. Having fun is not enough for a reason: having fun is ok - but please not too much and not too excessively, because you should not forget all the tasks which are still waiting for you! Or, better way of describing my feeling: I always had somehow a bad consciousness of doing something just because it was fun!
I guess that's a relict of our catholic culture: asceticism this is, right!?!

In this way I really felt a difference to Europe: I had the impression that Australia is so much more made for people to enjoy themselves. All the sport and leisure time facilities - there are free barbeque grills at beaches and at some highway stops - are made for the people. In the Botanic Garden of Sydney I was so surprised about a sign saying like (I should have taken a photo) "We please you to walk on the grass, have picknicks in the grass, touch the trees and enjoy the nature"... I am now just thinking back to the struggles we have in Vienna with the public gardens, where it is often prohibited to walk or sit on the grass. For whom should the grass in the city-parks be if not for the people?! So I'd say: Go on people: sit on the grass, but don't  your rubbish afterwards...


So what I am doing here is having as much fun as possible :)
I really enjoyed Syndey, had a cruise on the river with Severine and her friends - all for free! Was walking around a lot, lying around in the gardens or jogging around them.

After Sydney I went further to Newcastle, where I visited Danny and Pete - two guys I got to know in Vietnam. They definitely helped me to get a maximum out of my stay in their little town! We went to pubs together, one of which had once been owned by Danny.

On Saturday I celebrated my big Aussie-Day: in the morning we went to the beach (yes THE BEACH!!) where I had my first try-outs on a surfboard. Wohoo, that was fun! How lucky I was - I had a personal trainer and a cameraman for my first trys on a surfboard!






So, even you can check out and have a laught at my poor surfing... I blame the waves!!

After that I had my first Aussie-style Burger: with beetroot - delicious!!

Then we went to a kind of zoo, where I saw the first kangoroos, wallabis, wombats and koalas in my life! Sweet :)

For dinner we had of course barbeque, and as I had never tried kangoroo before they had bought some kangoroo-filets. Hm, it is really good flesh, liked it :)

The evening finally ended in an Aussie-pub with a local band playing live...
hello Shebeen :)

The next day me and Danny would drive up to the Myall Lakes National Park, kayaking on the river, surf down sanddunes - that's the Australian way of sleding down a hill haha!!
But - no offence mates - snow is better!!
And to top the sand-dune experience we went to drive around in Danny's 4WD on the huge sand-dunes of the Worimi Conservations Land.

At least on the sanddunes I was not irritated by the left-driving-system...

Even though this was fine sand, this short trip to the sanddunes made me think back of Mongolia, where we had been driving for days through the desert, without any streets and only steps ahead...

It's a pity that you can't really feel how much we were tossed around in the car. Driving on ice must feel quite similar - you feel the tyres losing their grip... was fun indeed! But yeah, not half as spectacular on this clip than in real life:

And now I am off into Hunter Valley, where I gonna learn how olive oil is produced: I'll go wwoofing on the Rivers Flats Estate for a few days!

PS: for those who want to know a bit more about Singapore: Rindo, who lives there since a few months, has written a really interesting comment on my last story...