Things I didn't know were Things in Australia

You may think 'Australia, one-time part of the British Empire, basically Britain with sunshine and surfing'. Actually you're thinking of Gibraltar (except for the surfing). It's a fair mistake. Culture shock is a real and very serious issue for Brits moving to Oz. Here are a few Things you will encounter down under that you may not have realised are Things.

U-Turns
We all know the voice of the sat-nav woman politely asking us to 'Where possible, make a U-turn'. So you find a quiet road and perform a delicate three- or five- or seven-point turn in privacy before getting back on the road. When using the roads in Australia, be on your guard at all times. Drivers have a tendency to suddenly wheel around without warning and change direction. Even on the busiest of streets, drivers insist on their right to suddenly pull a U-ie. I saw a police car do it. Just a few days ago I was nearly knocked off my bike by a minivan which suddenly decided to go the other way. Then I locked up my bike and walked to the post office and was nearly knocked over in the road by another such incident. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Rounding
Australia has moved on from the Great British Pound. As a matter of fact its notes are made of plastic, but that's an issue for another time. Australia uses dollars and cents, but doesn't have 1 or 2 cent coins. However, you can still buy things that cost $2.98. The person at the cash register might tell you that you owe $3. It gets rounded up. Okay. Well, I can kind of understand not wanting those annoying tiny coins around. But why price something $2.98? Clearly to build up dollars upon dollars of extra profit from unsuspecting tourists. Then again, if it were priced $2.96, it would be rounded down, so you'd be gaining a cent. But the real issue here is why they don't just price things in multiples of 5.

Magpies
These birds are not the cute black-and-white thieves that we know and love in the UK. I think they're very cool, but I seem to be alone in this opinion. Magpies here are black and white but they are also BIG, like seagull big (the males at least). Their song sounds like a robot trying to do an impression of a bird which is a pretty bloody cool thing to hear. However, they have been known to swoop people when they're guarding their nests. The Queensland government recommends painting large eyes on the back of your broad-brimmed hat to deter magpies. So. There's that.

The Ocean
I don't mean to generalise (can't you tell from the rest of this post?) but it sure seems like Australians love the ocean. I mean, almost the entire population lives within spitting distance of the sea. And it's not just sun and surf. Yesterday it was about ten degrees, miserably rainy and very windy, and the waves at Point Lonsdale were huge. A day to snuggle up by the fire with a good book. OR, a day to whack on a wetsuit and jump into the waves as they crash against the beach wall? Yeah? Of course. (See my video on instagram.) I don't really know what to say except on a similar day in the United Kingdom NO ONE would be getting in that water. Also, almost everyone seems to be an excellent swimmer and have a lifesaving qualification. When they say 'let's go swimming in the sea', they actually mean swimming, not just paddling. Those of us who lagged behind the class in breaststroke in weekly school swimming lessons best stick to splashing in the shallows.

Seinfeld
I actually hadn't even heard of this show before I met Lachy (the Australian responsible for this culture shock) but I'm not going to blame the UK for my sheltered existence. Everyone was obsessed with Friends in the UK, but no one ever mentioned Seinfeld to me, which is similar in being an American sitcom featuring friends. EVERYONE here loves Seinfeld. Watch it all before you come out here if you want to assimilate. I still haven't. People say to me 'you know that Seinfeld episode where Elaine...' and I'm all, 'No. You know that FRIENDS episode where Joey...'

So, that's a little intro to Things you can now be prepared for when moving to Australia. Expect a part two at some point because seriously Australia is not just sunny Britain.

The Travels of my Summer Journal

Early in 2013 I bought a blank unlined notebook from Paperchase for a fiver with the intention of using it for a creative writing project. After realising I wasn't creative enough to pull it off, I decided to dedicate the notebook to my summer travels, and wrote the title - Summer 2013, as you see above - on the blank cover.

In June the notebook travelled with me to Skyros, where I doodled horses all over the cover, practised a bit of Greek writing, and drew a couple of cats too. Oh, and Hara the dog, as you see just below the title. One evening my great friend, 10-year-old Julietta, asked me what my favourite number was (12)  and my favourite animal (do you even have to ask?) and drew this lovely design for me.

When the journal and I visited Romania, it became my lesson-planning brain-exploding outlet for confusion and frustration with the fact that I wasn't enjoying teaching. But there were good days too. As you see.

And above all, I used it to record day-to-day happenings, at first only items of particular interest (see below - ate my first chicken kebab), but with some increasing detail as time went on.

The journal ends abruptly on the 10th of August - the day I left it on the train. We got on at Lyon, and when I stepped off at Grenoble my journal was lying hopefully under the seat I'd been sitting in.

I despaired.

I called all the lost property offices along the train line, and after a few days I was prepared to give up hope. I wasn't getting anywhere. Then I received this email, entitled 'travel book forgotten in the train'.

¡ Hi !
Last sunday with my wife we took the train Bordeaux-Vintimille in the station of Marseille, and we found a notebook forgotten on a seat. Inside there is your mail adress. Is it yours ? If it is, we can send you by the post. 
Friendly,
[anonymized, of course].

The most amazing thing about my saviours is that my email address was only on the page where I'd written down my bank details. To be safe, I changed them all at once, but they had had my notebook for a few days I believe before they found the means to contact me, and all they did was let me know they had it.

Restores your faith in humanity, doesn't it?

So they posted it to the airbnb flat we would be renting the following week in Como.

Unfortunately, it arrived the day we left for France.

Fortunately, our kind Italian landlord made regular trips to the UK, and the next time he came over, he brought my package and posted it locally. When the notebook made it to Cumbria, I'd returned to Scotland for university. At last, when I returned home for Christmas, I was reunited with my journal, which officially travelled more extensively than I did in summer 2013.

2013 in Review and Plans for 2014

2013 was really my first adventurous year. In summary:

• In January I hitchhiked from Stirling to Prague - by car, lorry, ferry, foot and finally train. 
• During the spring semester I spent two weekends hiking around the Scottish Highlands and Trossachs
• In June I volunteered in Skyros again, via Athens
• In July I flew to Romania (via Italy..!) and taught for a month in the east
• From the end of July I visited (with an Interrail Pass) Cluj-Napoca, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Bordeaux, Lyon and Grenoble
• At the end of August I lived in an airbnb flat in Como for a week before spending a week (respectively) with one family in Sardinia (brief stop in Milan) and another in Chef-Boutonne.
• After working hard during the Christmas semester (earning, not studying, of course) I flew to Australia via Beijing, and spent Christmas in Melbourne and New Year at Point Lonsdale. 

And the highlights include but are not limited to:

• Finally fulfilling a childhood dream - visiting the Spanish Riding School in Vienna
• Learning to drive a horse-drawn cart in Romania
• Lying out in the field with the horses under a full moon in Skyros
• Enjoying the music of Grail in the Old Town Square, Prague
• Reaching the summit of 'Le Dent' in the Alps
• And finishing off the year by swimming with seals and dolphins in Australia.

Grail in full swing

There were low points too...

• Stubbing my toe so many times while wearing sandals that the nail turned black
• Cooking overnight in a Budapest bedroom without air conditioning
• And worst of all, learning of the death of a close friend.

The bad experiences, however, couldn't outweigh the value that travelling has held for me over the past year. And that's why I'm planning for another big adventure in 2014.

Plan #0.5: Improve this blog
As you can already see, I've given the blog a bit of a makeover, and in 2014 I hope to improve my travel writing skills and develop the blog further.

Plan #1: Driving tour of Scotland

In the second part of the university's spring vacation, Lachy and I are planning an epic voyage by car around the Highlands and Islands. Definite stops will include Inversnaid, Tomintoul and the Isle of Skye.

Plan #2: Purchase ticket to Iceland (complete)

On August 19th I will be flying from Edinburgh over to Reykjavik to spend a few days in and around the capital before heading to the far north to volunteer on a dairy farm with many horses, where I'll also be lucky enough to be taking part in the biggest Icelandic horse roundup in the country. If I can get a few days off, I wouldn't mind attending Iceland Airwaves, either; a big music festival in Reykjavik.

Plan #3: Return to Skyros (part two)

Sometime in October I will head back to my favourite Greek island to spend six weeks or so working with the world's greatest breed of tiny pony. And for the first time, I'll be working in weather my body can understand, and I might actually be quite productive!

Plan #4: Christmas in Cumbria and Hogmanay

Since the last Christmas season was spent with another family in another hemisphere, I promised my parents (well, my mum) that this year I'd be at home. And I am determined to attend Hogmanay for my birthday this year, something I've always wanted to do but - despite living so close to Edinburgh for so long - I've never done it yet.

Plan #5: (technically, this one is for 2015) Move to Australia

That's right. Lachy is transferring and I'm moving to Melbourne with him. Much adventure awaits. Much excitement, much excitement indeed. 

Hello Melbourne.

Losing Track of Time

This is a short post because I'm out of practice and because it's a short post.

Before I went abroad in the summer of 2013 I decided to stop wearing a watch.

I can be obsessive over punctuality and the time I spend on certain things and basically I was counting the minutes every day of my life. So when I set off for Greece I took off my watch and put it in my pink toiletries bag, just in case. I wasn't ready to leave it behind altogether. And it was a lovely 18th birthday present from my parents.

I didn't lose track of time altogether. I still have my phone and when I really need to know what time it is, I pull it out of my pocket and check, and I'm still rarely late. But now that the option to glance at my wrist to see the time isn't there any more, it's rare that I wonder how many minutes have passed. And I think that's a symptom of the fact that since I started travelling, I've been living a better life. A much more interesting, filled, and stimulating life.

Of course, I don't mean to say that we should all stop wearing watches. I mean only that those of us who, like me, used their watch as a measuring device to be checked regularly, as something that reminded them that they were wasting time and that made them always too cautious - those people should consider taking their watches off.

I took my watch out of the toiletries bag a few weeks ago and realised that it had stopped. A year ago, I would have panicked and had the battery replaced immediately. I couldn't help but smile when I saw it.

My Romanian family. Note the watch-free wrist

*

I know many posts about the summer of travelling are owed, and now a few about the Australian summer as well, and they'll come in due time.

What this summer made me realise about my life

This summer, I was too busy with trivial thoughts like 'how am I going to afford breakfast' and 'now I'm in Berlin, where actually is my hostel' to have any startling revelations. Actually, this revelation wasn't really startling at all, even when it did show its face. It just gradually built up until it was glaringly obvious.

In my daily life I spend a lot of time at a desk. I sit at a desk to write my essays. I sit at a desk to translate Old English. If a book is particularly painful, sometimes I have to sit at a desk to read it so I don't fall asleep in my bed. I'm a hotel receptionist, and when I get to work, I sit at a desk. For an eight-hour stretch.

Sitting on a mountain. Preferable to sitting at a desk

Over June, July, August and a bit of September, I must have spent about eight cumulative hours sitting at a desk. I'm not saying I didn't sit. I sat at restaurants and on sofas and on the bed while I read a book (for pleasure, not for my degree!) but I barely even saw a desk the whole summer.

I never had sore shoulders or a sore neck, I barely had a single headache (apart from one strange week of tension headaches, but that may be because I'm not really used to sunlight...). I was tanned, and I felt strong for the first time in years.

Sitting on a horse. Preferable to sitting at a desk

Now I'm back in St Andrews, a town that I love, in a house that I love, with people that I love. That's all great. And the desk. The desk is back. I've already had to go to a physiotherapist about the ache in my shoulders and the pain of trying to maintain good posture and keep from hunching over my books is almost as bad.

Like all other fourth years I am continually battling The Fear about graduating in a year, but at the same time, it can't come quickly enough. I don't want to sit at a desk any more. 

As an English graduate I used to think I wouldn't have many job options, but then I started to get the message that English equips you to persuade just about anybody that you're the man for the job. One thing is kind of a given, though: you're going to have to work at a desk. But I'm not going to.

If you thought this might mean I know what I'm doing with my life - no. Of course not. I'm a fourth year English student. I know I like to write, and I don't mind spending an hour or two at a desk. I think what I want is to work with horses in some capacity.

For an English student, and a university student in general, this feels like a lot to admit. It's difficult to realise after three years that you're not doing what you want to be doing. But I am in the place I want to be. So that's enough for now. :)

This got way deeper than I anticipated! Next blog post will be about silly things that happened in Romania. Over and out.