bailed out

I have to admit I have been incredibly poor at keeping up with my blog. Luckily for the select few who choose to read this monstrosity, my friend Phil is keeping one. He and I took an excellent road trip and luckily for you he is full of enthusiasm and was also an English major. Here is the link, there are some great pictures. Enjoy!

CLICK HERE

Horrendous delay on any post that is largely inexcusable except to say that I have been enjoying my time too much to get to a computer.

Long story short:

Work at the winery finished and I had enough of 84 hour weeks and immediately headed to the tropics and spent some time in the Daintree rainforest, Cape Tribulation, Port Douglas and Cairns. It was much needed, and I even got to knock diving the Great Barrier Reef off of my bucket list. It was spectacular. I then headed back to Adelaide and hopped in my $350 car in an attempt to drive the entire coast to Sydney camping all but 3 nights in 3 weeks. The drive is aptly named the Great Ocean Rd. and it was beyond words. I met amazing people, had some nice fires, interacted with heaps of roos and koalas, saw incredible giant waves and beautiful rock cliffs. I also met some amazing people and it truly was the trip of a lifetime within what seems to be the trip of a lifetime. Sometimes I wake up and can not believe how much I LOVE my life.

Finally I departed Sydney and said a sad goodbye to some wonderful friends and drove towards the mountains. My brakes failed and I had to get them repaired the next morning after sleeping in my car and that created an interesting financial situation for a few days which included me making the 18k drive up the many switchbacks to my future home of Mt. Buller with the gas light on for the entirety of the ascent. Training was great, and it was so cool to wake up to snow in June. The job will start when we get more snow so for now I am living in Melbourne and enjoying a temporary urban environment. I miss good American coffee, beer, and most of all friends. I wish everyone could share this great time with me.

Time to go see if I can go find some cheap skis as I am required to ski to work every morning this winter. It sounds terrible.

Loving Life

I haven't been writing due to sheer enjoyment of life. We have grapes at work and this is the start of 6 12 hour days a week. I enjoy the work and am looking forward to enjoying the money to keep traveling. My life here in South Australia is so great and I need to leave before I decide to never leave. That being said the current departure date is set for June 21 to New Zealand. Who knows though my mind is like a tumble dryer of ideas with different ones on top with each new cycle and each new day. I have been seeing heaps of Kangaroos, drinking great wine, mediocre beer, and spending time with wonderful people. I've also been getting the hang of surfing and bought a wetsuit today after surfing early in the morning. Today I made my first conscious turns on the board and was immediately transported to the state of "pumped beyond comprehension!" It really is such a cool sensation and it is a very unique environment to enjoy. The perspectives of the beach, and the spray from a wave blowing back at you from offshore are very unique. I am very excited for the wetsuit as I originally bought some for cheap out of a classified to later find out that I could wear cold cardboard for the same effect. I ended up cold and very chaffed from the $45 special. It may strike you as odd that the water is cold, but keep in mind that if you went as the crow flies from the Fleurieu Peninsula that I live on the next land is Antarctica.

Enjoy the pictures, I miss everyone heaps!

I love my life.

I haven't written any words in a long time. This if you care to read may be a source of distress, but for me is a great sign. I am feeling very comfortable, content, and happy with my life here in South Australia. I am at the point where I am getting over the hump of being a traveler and feeling at home. I remember getting to this point when I was in college, but this time it was much more of an expedited process. I have made a few really close and wonderful friends, and have been surrounded by so many quality people that I can not even fathom that possibility that I ever doubted that this trip could be what it is. There were of course times when I wondered if getting a visa, and purchasing plane tickets across the world was a good idea. There were doubts of course, but without them the trip would not be quite what is is.

I can hardly believe how good this trip has been thus far. I am consistently overwhelmed with how special, and privileged I feel. If it is possible to convey how I feel it is to consistently insist that I do not write often enough because I feel as though I owe it to anyone who is not in my position, to make the absolute best of my time.

I love my job, I love the people I am living with, my stomach is often sore from overdoses of laughter. We drink good wine, mediocre beer, and eat great food. We work hard, get dirty, absolutely covered in vino. I have been trying lots of wine, learning to surf, going for long runs, man-handling 300 liter barrels, pondering different thoughts about the world, and wondering what it is that ever makes me hesitate to put myself out there and see what the world has to offer. I have talked to a few people since I left that say they are jealous, or that I am so lucky, or they wish they could do what I am doing. Rather than get a big head about being in my position I am humbled that anyone could ever be jealous of my dirtbag/vagabond style in the first place.

My inspiration and courage can be summed up simply in a Thoreau quote: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." Though I have often plagiarized the confidence, and my imagination falls short repeatedly, I know that by following this small piece of advice, my life will be very rich. I also realize how many great people I have always been surrounded by, the best of friends and the finest of family. Bloody Oath, its the truth. You should all come visit!

Time Flies and so do Airplaines

I can not believe it has been over two months since I left the U.S. February 5th marked the two month mark. Life has been flying by here in South Australia. I am loving my life here in Port Willunga, and we now have a full house. I am living with two Aussies, three Americans, one Italian, and one Argentinian. All but one of us is working at the winery, and if the weather is right grapes should be arriving in a little over a week! The staff has quadrupled in the past two weeks, and I have been working my butt of and loving every minute of it. My hands are a permamant burgundy color that no soap seems to be able to remove.

If I'm not at work I've been keeping busy surfing, rock climbing, hanging out with new friends, and just enjoying being around a fantastic group of people. On Sunday I was able to combine my talents for a triple-entente of rock climbing, afternoon beers, and surfing in the evening. It was a perfect day off and needless to say I slept like a baby. I also saw two Koala's on the hike out from the rocks. We jumped and yelled to get their attention but they were just passed out like little lumps in between branches. Apparently they get really high from the eucalyptus and just sit around in the trees stoned. Only on such an isolated continent could a creature develop such habits! We climbed at a small area called Morialta which is just a short trip from where we live. It is so surreal to have climbing and the waves so close together.\

I was able to bargain my way out of work because some of the drains were getting worked on to catch the Super Bowl. I was sad to see the Steelers lose, but at least it is to a respectable franchise that upholds good traditions like the Steelers do, not some worthless orginazation like the Dallas or Baltimore, or teams that cheat like the New England Patriots. I hope this produces the opposite effect of the "Super Bowl Hangover"

Here is an interesting discovery I made in regards to my travels and Pittsburgh Sports:

May 2008

My Location: Manila, Philippines

Pittsburgh Penguins lost the Stanley Cup

The following season when I am in the States they Win the Stanley Cup

February 2011

My Location: Adelaide, South Australia

Pittsburgh Steelers lose the Super Bowl

This makes next year look really promising, if only someone can convince me to come home!

I hope everyone is well, and I need to congratulate my sister Natalie who will be starting with Teach for America in June in the state of Colorado!!! A great result from years of being a bad-ass sister!

I can't find my camera cord at the moment so I will post some pictures soon.

Time Flies

It is hard to believe that I have already been in Australia for over a month! Traveling for over 6 weeks, and two months since leaving Virginia. It is weird how things change, and how fast too. Time seems to fly for me when I am doing new things. Time at work also flies by, I have never worked such short 10 hour shifts, it almost seems like a joke. I am really appreciating what it means to be busy all day.

There's not too much to write about at the moment. The Steelers are playing this weekend for a chance to go to the Super Bowl. It is supposed to be really hot tomorrow, which is fine because I will make it a beach day since I am off work. Also on tomorrow's agenda is going to watch a stage of the Tour Down Under. The stage I watched in Adelaide on Sunday evening was really awesome. It was incredible to see some of the riders that I have been watching since 1999 when my dad and I would watch the Tour de France in the summers. I still remember watching some stages after getting home from work at Giant Eagle in Johnstown's west end, if anybody remembers those days!

Enjoy the pictures, I like this place a lot, its rather nice as you can see. In the first photo Lance is on the far right if anyone is interested!

It sounds cliche maybe but it was really cool seeing Lance Armstrong race. I think since I've watched him for years, read his books, and just the household-name style celebrity status was pretty wild. It seems hard not to see someone like that in person and wonder what is your life like? Its also inspiring to see how much money he has helped to raise for cancer victims, patients, and survivors. Not all people do such great things with their celebrity status. That being said I'm glad I am not a celebrity I don't feel I quite have the personality for it. Also being a cyclist it was amazing to see how fast the pros are, and the amount of power they are generating. Seeing bike racing always does strange things to my mind since I have stopped racing. Bikes are beautiful, and I am under the realization that I have no bike in Australia and that is something that needs to be remedied.

Routine

This is not my photo, I found it online, but it is a view from a road on my way home from work! Vines and ocean

I haven't posted in quite a while which is largely because I have gotten into a routine so to speak. On days when I wake up, go to work, have dinner, go to sleep and repeat the whole process the next day I am often not inspired to write much. That and the random topics I think to touch on throughout the day are lost just as dreams are often lost later in the day even if you remembered them in the morning. That being said here is what has been happening in my life.

I have been working a lot, we decided to work four ten hour days instead of five eight hour days which is really nice. There often is not anything I would do in the two hours after getting off after eight hours that would warrant not wanting a full free day off. i.e. today. Work is going great too, my first paycheck was earlier this week and it feels great to be making some Aussie dollars especially when the exchange with the states is nearly even. I have an Australian bank account and feel as though I don't have any loose ends at the moment.

On the job I have been learning quite a lot. When I arrive I am essentially given some assignments to complete. They could take hours or days, but there is always work to be done. Now that I am getting the hang of things I am largely able to complete my work while stopping to ask questions. I start work at 7 A.M. and since I am moving around and busy the time just flies. Even the ten hour days are a piece of cake. What I do at work is largely moving wine around. We will move wine from large tanks to smaller tanks, move wine to blend with other wines, transfer wine to oak barrels, or transfer wine to Vinpac, a bottling facility next door. We are always getting samples tested in the lab, and the winemakers often have things for us to do to make the wines better. The smells of working at the winery are really nice too, sans a few. The smell of the wines both whites and reds are excellent, and I am starting to be decent at picking up off smelling wines, and telling how far along in fementation a wine may be. The new oak barrels smell sooooo good, especially when you are filling them up with wine and combining both smells.

I part of the job that is really novel and fun is tasting wine. When we move wine from one vessel to another at some point the wine runs out from a vessel, or another vessel is full, but since they may be far apart there is hundreds of liters tied up in hoses and lines along the way. That translates to a lot of money so we do not want to just lose the wine. Using pumps we will push the wine back with water. There is a fun part of the job called a catch in which you watch the wine flowing through a site glass waiting for the color to change indicating water is on the way, or vice versa. When you are pushing water out of the line with incoming wine you have to taste the wine to ensure it is not watered down before you change the direction of flow to the intended vessel. Meanwhile water is pouring out right in front of you at a fast rate and splashing all over, then when it changes to wine you are reaching down and splashing the wine all over to get a taste. When the time is right you turn two valves at once to alternate the direction. This change usually is done within 2 seconds, though you sometimes wait for nearly a minute before the water or wine arrives. I hope this description makes some sense let me know if it doesn't.

Other things of note are trying out surfing a bit, climbing at a friends home made climbing wall, and hosting couchsurfers that have been traveling around the world on bikes for the past six years! The couple are a french guy adn his english wife in their mid thirties. They have been to over 50 countries on their trip, and that doesn't count the trip before this one where they rode from Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Check out http://www.velomad.com/ to see about their longggggg ride. Speaking of rides the Tour Down Under will be rolling through our area for about a week next week. It will be Lance Armstrongs last race outside of the states so it should be awesome to see him and the pros all rolling through town. I have yet to get a bike here but am banking on it being a terrible time to buy since there will be mass excitement due to the Tour. The same theory that says you should buy skis in the summer rather than the first snowfall. I think that is all for now, here is a link to the tour down under: http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/