We expected to be better at this…

Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

So Tami kept her part of the bargain, flying halfway around the world to bring us our stuff.

(That’s not a turn of phrase, by the way.  She actually did.  Fly, that is.  Pretty much halfway around the planet…with our stuff.)

And now we had to deliver on our part…unique and interesting cultural experiences.

But how do we even top flesh eating fish cleaning your pores?

Or getting mugged by a sacred temple monkey!?

Um…hey surfing!

20120309 (18)Yeah, yeah!  Bali is famous for surfing!  It’s a thing!

Yeah, this’ll be good…

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Criminals vs Rebels

Departing Australia

Australian friend: Well, we are a bunch of criminals over here.

Us: Is that considered better or worse than the bunch of violent rebels we come from?

20110405 (22)

One of the things that has amazed us about Australia has been its similarity to the United States.  In some previous articles we talked about how the “imperfect mirror” taught us some pretty profound lessons about racism (theirs and ours) but the little things were just as fun.

We have the same TV shows
(2 and a half men is a big deal down under…who knew?)

we drive big cars
(Mad Max was an Australian movie…)

and we speak
(…’a horribly maimed version of’…)
the English language.

After all, we we’re both colonies formed by the same father country!

So as a salute to the continent that is a country and that constituted one of the largest single portions of our journey, here are some of the little things that made “down under” so interesting…

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Happy 4th of July, Comrade Americans!

Happy 4th of July!

As travelers over the past few years

(wow, that’s still weird to say)

Our history of celebrating the birth of our home nation has ranged from “cowboy guitars around a campfire” as interpreted by the people of Bora Bora, to launching fireworks into an Australian Blizzard.

No matter where we have been, we’ve done our best to take our traditions and blend them with the people we’re around.  To create a little celebration of America with local flair, if you will.  This year is no different

We enjoyed hot dogs:

100_3154Alongside other iconic American foods
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KGB ukulele Christmas 2012

It’s time again for another foray into our tiki-style Christmas carol extravaganza!

This time with a little help / good natured tomfoolery from our friends Rod & Elizabeth, who we just happened to stumble across during a visit back to California…

(hey, what!?  We all happened to both be back in CA at the same time?  As we already told you all, in the sailing world it was just a matter of time and proximity.)

They were even nice enough to teach us that cold war Christmas classic…

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Australia National Pride

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

It’s pretty much common knowledge that Australia freaking kills people right?

Tons of venomous creatures, the barren deserts, dingos that do in fact eat babies, great white sharks, etc, ad nauseum.

That’s part of the international community’s common knowledge right?

Well, we knew about it before we got here at least. And, you’d think, the Aussies would kinda downplay it right? Bad for tourism and whatnot.

The most common car hanger here fits under the theme “stuff that will kill you” and yes, Kangaroos count

Nope, quite the opposite in fact.

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Vegemite and firearms

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Being as Australia isn’t exactly known for its alpine ski industry pretty much no one outside the natives typically makes it to the slopes here.

The upside of this is that working at a ski resort in Australia enabled us to meet one of our main goals for our time down under: we spent 3 months working and living with actual Australians.  As opposed to our previous job where we spent the majority of our time around European cowgirls; here for three months we were immersed in a, granted atypical but nonetheless genuine, Aussie cultural experience.

This, inevitability, led to the conversation on Vegemite.

Because Vegemite in Australia is a lot like guns in America.

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Chairlift PLZ!

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Travel is all about learning about other cultures right?  How other people do things differently from us and how that works out for them.

Like snow…in August.

For example, Australians don’t really believe in chairlifts at their ski resorts and when Americans show up it provides a source of much amusement to them.

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Guys are not “cute”

Pittwater, NSW, AU

As we’ve previously stated, friendships lead to a lexicon whose size is directly proportional to the time invested in the relationship.  These lexicons lead to key phrases that communicate much more than the simple words involved when we are lucky enough to have been together long enough to be “in the know.”

It’s not just shared experiences like stumbling up the towering mountains of New Zealand that create this shared vocabulary.  Another source of this insiders verbiage is simply and consistently hashing out the meaning of words over time.  Because while two people may speak the same language, they probably don’t use the same words to describe the same things.  Example: what might be “cool” to one person may be “wicked” to another (“phat” could also be substituted.)  Though these words may be synonyms, there are variations of meaning that make each more appropriate at different times.

There is a difference between something that is “gross” and something else that is “disgusting.”  The choice of using either of these words describes more than just that fact that something is repulsive; there are nuances (for a 12 year old boy “gross” might be a good thing).

As a married couple (or anyone building a joint vocabulary) it is important to nail down these subtle differences in word use to more effectively communicate with each other.

We ran into this particular nugget of nuptial knowledge when Tiffany started calling Greg “cute.”  She meant it as a compliment and Greg took it as a bit of an insult.  Then Tiffany got confused:

Tiffany – “But you’re good looking.  That means you’re cute!”

Greg – “No.  Bunnies, baby horses and Mini Coopers are cute.  I am not.”

It was at this point that a working definition of the word “cute” had to be established…

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Surf’s Up!

Coffs Harbor, NSW, AU

Our Australian East Coast Adventure continues!!

Ok, we all know why Greg says he’s from San Francisco right?

So what he didn’t mention was that this habit started when he was in at the Coast Guard Academy and the following conversation inevitably followed from meeting a new person at school:

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Taming the Beast

Melbourne, Vic, AU

Leaving Melbourne we found ourselves with the same situation we faced in Auckland.  How the heck do we get around?  Additionally, Australia is a vast and for the most part barren place devoid of human habitation…much less hotels.  Those hotels and hostels that are around charge exactly what you’d think they would when they are the only bed for the next 200 or so miles.

We found that, like New Zealand, long term travelers in Australia tend to purchase cheap cars or camper vans to get around and have a place to sleep at night.  Wanting to have the genuine Australian backpacker adventure and having just come off a very positive used car experience in New Zealand, we decided this was for us.

Our Kiwi car never got a name.  It just never seemed like it needed one.  However, the second we saw the 1988 Mitsubishi Triton that would become our own wheels down under we both looked at each other and knew this “ute” (Aussie for “pickup truck”) had a name,

Say hello to ‘The Beast’

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