Urinals are referred to as troughs, bathrooms are oft called dunnies.

Burgers are a disappointment here. Apparently, Oz is the home to the 1/8lb burger. Hungry Jacks is big here, as is KFC which I find odd. Probably no different than Outback Steakhouse being big both in the US and AUS.

Bran Muffins are impossible to find, which is probably for the best. Most toilets feature a ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ flush button. No ‘bran muffin’ button.

Americanos at Starbucks are called ‘flat blacks’

My English friend informed me that the high-class Stella I kept ordering at every bar was referred to as “wifebeater.” It has the highest alcohol content of the on-tap beers. As a result, its the getting drunk beer I was ordering.

Hell and Damn are not swear words – I was in church when a pastor declared, “Damn cancer to hell!”

Most important cultural difference: drinking in the car = ok

Northern Cassowary Video – Here’s a large bird that can eat stuff larger than its head.

Frasier Island Beach Driving Video – For Frasier Island Excursions, they take a 4×4 Landcruiser and cruise it out on the beach. We hit speeds around 100kmh as waves crashed outside and onto the vehicle.

Lake McKenzie Video – The clearest/cleanest lake I’ve ever seen. Everyone I’ve met who has gone here has said that this has a beauty that you just cannot explain to someone. This video is a shoddy attempt to do so.

Noosa Topless Beaches Video – It’s true: beaches in Australia are topless. Brad didn’t believe me when I described the women that went topless. This is for you, buddy. (warning not for the kids)

But what you really want to know is…

How to Make a Vegemite Sandwich:
-2 slices of bread
-Vegemite
-Butter

Spread butter on toasted bread, lightly coat a layer of Vegemite over the butter (a little goes a long way), slap the two pieces of bread together, and you have a Vegemite sandwich.

In my opinion, it’s terrible. But Aussies find peanut butter and jelly sandwiches revolting, so to each his own I guess.

After the class was over and I forgot about the board flipping incident, I regained confidence and went back onto the surf. I felt good until a ten-year-old boy swam up next to me and asked me if I wanted a push into the waves. He meant well, I guess. On Friday, I surfed in the morning for around an hour or so alongside dolphins. When I say “alongside,” I literally mean that. About ten to fifteen meters away, a school (?) of dolphins were playing and would often burst forward and fly through the air then diving back into the water. There was only a handful of surfers out there, but we all stopped to watch the performance. No matter how bad I looked, I could care less at that point.

As for S., my philosophical hostelmate, he exhausted me. I had more exit strategy issues than the President. And much in the same way, none of them were effective. Normal phrases like “I have to use the toilet” or “I have to go to bed, it’s 2am” or “I have to call my mom, it’s her birthday” couldn’t penetrate his social force field. S. would respond, “Oh, just one more poem/idea/concept/etc.,” which would turn into another hour. I could tell he was lonely, and because of his upbringing, didn’t understand my attempts out. Don’t get me wrong: the guy was incredibly interesting, and he said a lot of enlightening things to me that have impacted the way I view things. He quoted beautiful poetry in several languages and religions and could speak German, French, Hebrew and sans script among other languages (even one he invented himself). He understood Jewish culture and provided context on several Biblical passages. But I also enjoyed sleeping and getting out of a room that smelled like a dag.

Being “real” with other people is important to me, and it was no different with S. I was open with him on my thoughts on people, church, global issues, and spirituality. However, it got too real for me the last night I was in the hostel. So much so, that I was afraid of him when I spotted him as I caught my bus out of Byron. He spoke of so much peace and goodness unless evil became the topic. On more than one occasion, he said, “Turn the other cheek is bull sh*t. If someone gets in my way, I’ll kill them, I will. I’ve had enough.” At one point, I watched him experience demonic activity. During that moment, he walked over to my bed, grabbed a hold of me, and shook me while saying things like “get rid of the evil within you.” That was the last night I stayed there.

I also ate at Subway a lot.

After S. left and I had made my bookings, I started to hear from several people things like, “Byron Bay? I’d only go there if you wanted to surf.” Or, the most common one: “Man, there’s a lot of weed down there.” Yes, yes. There is a lot of weed down here. I’ve never seen a joint rolled as large as the one I saw last night. They offered me a hit, but I said ‘no’ to drugs. Mom, you should be proud.

Before I continue, you have to realize what a germaphobe I’ve become on this trip. I used to live in a scummy, three-bedroom house with man everywhere. Nothing there was really sanitary, but we made it our home. “Whose pubes are these?” and “Catch the Cockroach” were common games we would play. I’ve since upgraded to a sanctuary of sanitary status by moving back in with the parents. I’ve gotten used to luxuries like showers without sandals, no traces of human waste on toilet seats, and – gasp – being able to lie down on the carpet without taking some of the “carpet” with you afterwards.

Byron Bay has posed a new set of germaphobic quandaries for me. Take, for example, arriving at the Cape Byron YHA hostel yesterday. I walked into the room, and immediately thought, “It smells like pot in here. Hey, is that a homeless man?” In any other context, I would have been 100% sure he was homeless. However, I could clearly see he had a home, and it was right next to my bed. Luckily, I had secured a locker for my nice things (laptop, wallet, scuba gear, towel). It was at this point that I was confronted with a reality. My church back home is situated quite near a large homeless population. I want to help with their plight, but the challenge then becomes putting those ideals into action. So rather than avoiding him, I talked with him… for two hours.

I quickly found out S., my hostelmate, was not homeless and my “idealist moment” was all for naught. I asked him what he was doing out in Byron Bay. “I have some things to take care of.” It was vague enough, as long as the vagueness didn’t include “To Do List Item #17 – Kill Young American Boys with Fork.” Soon into our conversation, I found out S. was a hippie-cum-philosopher. He was familiar with Buddhism, Christianity, metaphysics, Biosphere 2, the population of most any country, Phoenix, math, sciences, politics, psychology, and astrology. He even said at one point, “You seem like an April birth.” I am an April birth. I don’t really know what to say about that.

As we talked, this conversation came from a man with a scraggly beard and long hair, wearing nothing but this towel-kilt-hippie thing around his waste. He sat in the most improper way you can whilst wearing a kilt. He picked his teeth and frequently scratched his everything. Half the time I was thinking, “I hope he doesn’t want to shake my hand.”

S. and I had a fascinating conversation. He’s very deep, and a lot of the stuff he talked about (in Christianity and in general) had significant truth. He probably knows more about the Bible than most churchgoers. I didn’t buy into everything he said, but he got me thinking on several things. One thing I’ve discussed frequently with a few friends is this fear I have of returning back home. No one has really been able to speak much to this problem I have. School and self-employment have fed a workaholic attitude. I don’t feel comfortable unless I’m working every waking moment. I feel guilty when I stop and relax like there’s something more productive I could be doing. In turn, this leads to the inability to experience and know the moment I’m in. I tend to live in the mindset of two-to-three-days-from-now or in the mistakes of the past. Over here, I’ve learned to slow down, stop and live in the moment. One thing I don’t want to do is to leave Oz then come back to that attitude. S. quoted something profound in our conversation: “You can’t un-know what you’ve already known.”

We talked for a while more, but I had to cut the conversation off to grab dinner. I stood up and packed my messenger bag. “Live in the moment of positivity,” he said. The comment struck deep on the cynic within. “My name is, S., by the way.” He held out his hand.

“Good to meet you, S., my name is Greg.” I shook his hand as I walked out the door.

Tuesday night at the Republic Bar and Café, I arrived an hour before his show was going to start. I secured a three-quarter view of the stage and had a cold Stella in hand. The condensation off the glass dripped slowly onto the Hobart music scene journal I was reading. Half an hour past eight, the pub started to come alive. In a moment of panic and enlightenment, I realized I had no money to blow on Jens’ fantastic merch. I had to sacrifice my seat to hit an ATM around the corner. I came back and nearly all the chairs were gone, including my prized seat. I took a seat on the floor, and I eavesdropped several conversations. “It’s pretty busy for a Tuesday night,” one man said. Most people in the pub had little knowledge of Lekman, and being such a small town, they were there for the music and the social aspects. I found this the makings of a perfect evening.

Bear in mind that Jens Lekman is very well-known back in Sweden.* He’s earned Swedish grammys, and his albums have ranked high on the charts. Here, most people didn’t much more of him than the free mp3s they scored off his website or because his name was written in huge yellow letters on the wall outside.

The concert began with an opening act, Link, who was of the standard singer-songwriter style. Nothing extraordinary, but the bar manager asked him twice to extend his set. I gathered that he was buying time for Jens Lekman, even though I had saw him a few minutes earlier. As I sat perched on a barstool, Jens walked mere inches in front of me on the way to use the bathroom. I grinned as he strolled casually to the bathroom anonymous to the pub patrons.

Jens has been playing recently with the likes of Erlend Öye of Kings of Convenience, Architecture in Helsinki, and Guy Blackman. This evening, he took the stage alone, donning a shirt that said “Sing a Song, Fighter!”

He quietly approached the mic. “I’m sick. If I fall over, will someone call my mother? Her phone number is in my back right pocket. She can help.”

Link had bought him time because he was sick and losing his voice. His extensive Australian tour was catching up with him. He said he was going to play a short set to save his voice for the rest of the tour. I braced for a letdown, but I didn’t have to. His show never had a low point. When he wasn’t singing, he was telling stories. When he was singing, he was at his best with the room laughing so loud it competed with the music. He delivers lyrics with dry, quirky wit and a crooning voice. Several times in the middle of a song, he would explain the back story. Those were the best moments, particularly in ‘Nina’ where he sang, “Nina, I can’t be your boyfriend, so you’ll have to go back to your girlfriend.” If I recall correctly, the song was based on a night where Nina asked Jens to pretend to be engaged to her so her dad wouldn’t disown her for being a lesbian. He described the dinner where he went to the house and met her father, and in the excitement of the moment, her father put one of Lekman’s CDs in the stereo because he already knew who Jens Lekman was.

In another song, Lekman sings about the riots in Gothenburg. “You probably won’t know the story behind this song, but it goes back to a visit from George W. Bush. My girlfriend at the time wanted to protest his visit, so I went along. In the crowd, I lost her hand, and we were split apart. After we reunited, I thought we would hug and everything would be fine. When she came back, something was different. It was over.”

[long pause]

“George Bush is ruining my love life.”

He played a handful of instruments: an undersized acoustic guitar, a ukulele, a harmonica, and a synthesizer box. He also whistled and clapped, at some moments, saying, “You can whistle along if you’d like.” I think his instrument choices are intentionally cheeky. After a lumbering harmonica solo, he said, “I’m not very good at the harmonica.” As he played, it was quite apparent that not one of his instruments was ‘cool’ in a scene of self-conscious, broken-hearted Indie rockers. Lekman is a musician. He is not up there because of the scene, the fame or the money. He’s up there because he loves what he does and enjoys people joining in. He made a handful of t-shirts and CDs that all sold out early in his Australian tour. “Sorry that I don’t have any more shirts. I’m not much of a business man.”

I feared that because I hyped his show so much I would be let down. After all, I had just flown to Tasmania specifically to see him, and now he was sick and his set was nearing an end. Despite the circumstances, if I had only seen him play that evening, it would have been worth the trip. I was blown away by his voice (even being sick), sounding better in person and acoustic than on CD. And it wasn’t just because I was an overzealous crazed fan from the States.

“I have to stop or I won’t have a voice in New Zealand. If you want, afterwards I will sing you a few songs in person. If I lose my voice, I can whisper in your ear.”

He left the stage to a long ovation, and then we all stood waiting for more denying that the moment was over. The crowd stayed locked in place for a few minutes. You could count on one hand the people who left the floor.

“Do you think he’ll play more?” I heard someone say. “Was he kidding when he said he was finished?” No one tried for an encore because we could see he was clearly exhausted.

A few minutes later, he quietly walked back onto the steps of the stage with a small stack of CDs in hand. I was able to score an autographed copy of a “Oh You’re So Silent, Jens.” He sold out of his CDs quickly. We all stood around to listen in on conversations he was having with the fans and to see what he would write or draw on whatever people put in front of him. His requests for more songs were obliged. He grabbed his guitar and sang a few more verses from other pieces. I got a spot in queue and snapped this killer picture with Jens.

One of the Tazzies I chatted with afterwards said, “He’s just so down to earth; like you know who he is on stage is who he is off of it.” If you listened to his CD, you probably wouldn’t be blown away by it in today’s overproduced, commercialized music scene. He doesn’t have the emotional crescendos of a Coldplay song or the masterful guitar riffs of a U2 song. You have a down-to-earth Swedish musician who loves to play and write beautifully strange songs about his life or that which he imagines is his life.

As we all slowly filed out, a few people who couldn’t purchase merchandise tore posters off the wall and snapped last minute pictures. The feeling in the room was that we had all just made a new best friend, and we wanted just a few more minutes of him singing or talking about his life. He’s a charming, random, off-beat, quick-witted bloke with an amazing love for music. His songs are strange and hilarious, blending optimism, cynicism and the kitchen sink. On CD, his brilliance is subtle: if you don’t listen with care, you’ll miss how much time he puts into his samples and the power and originality of his voice. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll overlook his profoundly ridiculous humor. I eagerly await his return to the States.

*Edit: I’ve read interviews with Jens Lekman that have called him “famous” and “a celebrity” in Sweden. He’s been in Swedish magazines about music and pop culture. However, last night in Byron Bay I met someone from Sweden who knew who he was, but said he wasn’t very well known. Take that as you will.

I crashed around 11pm last night to catch some sleep for an early tour today. I knew the tour would be cancelled, but in the chance that it wasn’t, I didn’t want to lose the money on it. Despite it being a Sunday night, everyone partied and kept coming in and out of the room. We are also situated directly above Gilligan’s dance floor. The bass shook the bed until 2am. I’m also pretty sure there was some sort of naughty shenanigans that occurred in the bathroom while I was sleeping.

Mom, I hope you read this after I return safely back to Sydney. I’m ok.

**Update: One of the hostelmates this morning said, “I got home late last night, and C. walked out of the bathroom with his trousers down.” Fortunately, I’m safely out of that hostel now.

Jens Lekman “Black Cab” Video, live performance in Hobart, Tasmania – I apologize for the quality and the angle. I filmed it from my lap because we weren’t supposed to video the concert, and I didn’t want to get caught. The audio, however, is excellent. This is a nice acoustic rendering of my favorite song.

View from the top of Mt. Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania – Here’s the view from the mountain I cycled. It’s 1500 meters high and a 21km bike ride down. Pictures available here.

Tropical Cyclone Larry in Cairns, Monday, March 20th – Video of the storm moving down the street. Category 5 storm (at the point I took the video, it was downgraded to 4).

Keg Mover in Cascades – High-tech booze mover.

Migrating Birds – Video of a bird migration we took a boat through. No one got crapped on (sadly).

All things considered, I’ve never been to Daintree. I’ve also never seen a cyclone. I figured the Daintree tour would have involved a lot of older couples romantically rehashing the old days whilst I stood blatantly single smacking the mozzies off my exposed skin. Either way, I’m experiencing something I couldn’t see back home. Here’s hoping the window in front of me doesn’t burst open.