Diary of a (Drunken) Day at the Footy Finals

View from the rabid Hawks supporter section just before the game starts. 

In the last blog entry, I alluded to the fanaticism surrounding Australian Rules Football here in Melbourne. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend no fewer than six footy games since I arrived here three full months ago now. It’s an amazing game and every one of the contests I’ve been to were highly entertaining...even the draw. (Seriously? 212 total points and we get a tie and no overtime?) The game itself has everything you could ask for—serious physical contact, highly excitable fan bases, unreal skills from the players on the field, and copious amount of beer flowing from just about every tap within a 10-kilometer radius of any stadium hosting a game. (They use kilometers here, not miles. I’m trying to adjust. Leave me alone.)

September is playoff month for the AFL and the league has been running these “This is Greatness” ads on TV for the last few weeks, serving up the populous with a generous helping of past Grand Final highlights in an effort to get them even more amped up for the finals, as if that’s humanly possible. Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend one of the prelims (semifinal games) between visiting Adelaide from South Australia and traditional Melbourne-based power Hawthorn, which has a huge fan base. On the line: a trip to this Saturday's Grand Final, which is basically their Super Bowl. The game was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, known as the MCG or simply “The G”, which is the spiritual home to Aussie Rules Football and also home to the Grand Final every year.

Because it would be too difficult to try to recall every instance that occurred throughout the day (you'll soon see what I mean by that), I decided to break out the Iphone and keep a sort of diary…because nothing is more fun than looking down to type on your phone when sports drama is unfolding all around you. It also makes you look like a real asshole. But here we go. 

3:30 p.m. - In spectacular sunshine and 70-degree weather, I begin the walk to Richmond, a local suburb across the Yarra River from my apartment and sort of on the way to the MCG, which is also within walking distance of my place. On the way, I pass two Adelaide fans who are carrying—and drinking—two Coronas each while walking down a main street in broad daylight. Pretty sure that’s not legal here, but I should check into it because if it is, I’m doing it every time I head out for the night. That’s like Vegas. (And that is THE coolest thing about Vegas—walking down the street with a drink in your hand. Don’t argue with me on this. I won’t change my mind.)

4:15 pm. – I arrive to meet friends at a pub called the Vaucluse Hotel. It’s packed. Like many bars in Australia, it has a section that houses an area to place bets, or “have a punt” as they say here. Aussies will bet on which old lady will cross the street first and, today, the horseracing season is underway and it’s on the TV monitors in the pub. With the footy game on tap and the ponies running, this is a punter’s paradise, if you’ll excuse the alliteration. One general observation I can say with pretty good certainty is that Aussie men in their twenties and thirties piss away money on sports betting like it’s, well, piss. That’s not a stereotype. It just is. (I should write about this at a later date. File that away.)

4:30 p.m. - We depart the pub after a couple of $4 Coronas and walk the 15 minutes to “the ground”, their word for “stadium”. The streets are flooded with Hawthorn fans in their brown and yellow scarves, game jerseys, hats, you name it. People are chanting, whistling and generally slurring words. The game starts in an hour. We pass a girl blowing the Hawthorn fight song—which was ripped off from Yankee Doodle Dandy (seriously)—on her bagpipes (you didn’t know where I was going with that, did you?) on the way into the stadium. My friends tell me she plays the fight song of whatever team is playing that day. The guys normally drop their phone numbers in her money collection bin, rather than money. (They’re new friends.) I’ll let you guess what their success rate has been. The only things getting…you know…are those bagpipes.

5:11 p.m. - We buy our first beers (at the stadium), Carlton drafts. (Carlton is the company that just made this killer commercial. Love the barricade part. Stop. Careful. Hand it over. Don’t spill. And away we go.)

5:12 pm. - The national anthem of Australia is played—because playing the national anthem of, say, Canada, would be awkward at this moment—as the two teams stare at each other, arms locked together, in the middle of the field with the late-afternoon sun splashing over much of the stadium. The entire crowd sings along in unison in what is described by many as “the best part” of the game, which I guess means we should all go home now. It’s a pretty chilling moment that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, if you have hair on the back of your neck, which I don’t because I’m well-groomed. Still, it’s something that doesn’t happen enough in the U.S., and 70,000 people singing in unison is enough to move you, unless of course you have some sort of condition that prohibits you from being moved during moments like these. Like, say, no heart. I tried to videotape the anthem but half of it is upside-down because I was trying not to spill my beer. If I get a ticket to the Grand Final, I'll tape it and post it here.   

5:13 p.m. - The anthem ends and the crowd around me breaks into song before the opening bounce. It’s a perfect afternoon and there is no place else to be in Melbourne. 70,000 fans are on hand. If two Melbourne teams were playing today there would be more people, but fan support in Melbourne is divided between 10 AFL teams that are based within an hour of the city. Next week, 100,000 screaming lunatics will fill the place for the Grand Final.

5:15 p.m. – The crowd noise rises as the opening bounce gets the game underway. Is there anything better than the anticipation and sound that comes when a big sporting event begins? I think not. 

5:29 p.m. – Second beer arrives, delivered by the courier with the weakest bladder—seriously, 15 minutes into the game? Beer No. 2 is also a Carlton draft, if you’re scoring at home. (And if you ARE scoring at home, go get another pencil. You're going to need it.) 

5:32 p.m. - Myself and about 10 other people around me are ready to kill the visiting Adelaide fan standing behind me who has complained incessantly since the game began for EVERY call to go the way of his Crows. It’s a virtual certainty that he will get himself punched by the third quarter at this rate. Not by me, of course, but there seem to be a number of volunteers around me who would be more than willing to make it difficult for him to speak. It doesn’t help that he’s dressed in tight jeans, a white clubbing shirt and some white shoes that make him seem extremely comfortable in his own skin. Maybe a little too comfortable for this crowd, actually.     

5:48 p.m. – Two more Carlton drafts arrive in a carrier (which costs an extra $1). Riding shotgun to the Carlton drafts are two 10-ounce Jim Beam and Cokes. Uh, oh!

6:02 p.m. - Hawthorn started slowly and their fans are restless. Some of them are using language that would not require a foreigner to pick up a Thesaurus or translation book. At the moment, the object of their affection is an Adelaide player who is having a splendid game, but really should be more judicious when selecting his hairstylist (he has a mullet). From behind me, I hear: “F-ckin 1980s hairstyle, f-ckin get in there…f-ckin el...” (which means fucking hell, I think). Sorry, mom.  

6:04 p.m. – On the flip side, the fans are hysterically well mannered when complimenting the play of one of their owns, usually with a subtle, “Well done, Buddy.” Or “Good on ya, Sam.”   

6:06 p.m. - The Hawks kick a goal when goals seem hard to come by. This comes at 14:06 of the second quarter and the goal scorer’s first name is Luke. The Hawthorn crazies immediately break into song: “Luke, There It Is”. Wait, is that…? Why, yes, it is. That’s a take-off on the 1993 No. 2 billboard hit “Whoomp, There It Is” by the legendary musical group Tag Team. Of all the stadiums in all the world… You know, when the lyrical geniuses of Tag Team penned that little ditty, I bet they envisioned it would be sung by drunken Aussie footy fans 19 years later. Marketing geniuses, those guys.

Pregame outside "The G" with Melbourne as a backdrop.

Halftime arrives after a couple more Carlton drafts and the Hawthorn faithful around me are in full-on panic mode. I know this because I’m a Boston Red Sox fan. We invented sports panic. It usually comes about three games into a 162-game baseball season. Like in American sports, the crowd seems to be populated with an amazing number of experts who could really help their team get over the top if they were simply allowed into the locker room for the halftime strategy session. It’s amazing professional coaches don’t allow this.  

Sometime late in the six o’clock hour – Someone must have let the super smart Hawks fans into the locker room to share their brilliant tactical ideas; their team has come out on a mission. In the third quarter, they storm back from six points down to take a 20-point lead in a matter of minutes. It’s an exhibition. The mood of the home fans changes drastically, from pearls like, “Ohhh, shit...get the f-cker!!!” to a more proper sounding sentence like, “Oh geez, he’s done well to get there, hasn’t he?” which they say to no one in particular when a player makes a smart, effort-driven play.

7-something p.m. – Someone hands me another Carlton draft and I think about how I love going to footy games. I’ve moved up to the second level to say hello to a friend who provided me with the ticket. He’s in the company of two of his mates, one of whom has brought his young daughter (maybe age 4 or 5) with him. She is wearing her Hawthorn jumper (game jersey) and when it comes to footy she is “switched on”, as Austin Powers and the Aussies would say. One thing that I’ve noticed in going to these footy games is that fathers seem to really share their passion for the game with their young daughters. Obviously, fathers and sons share sports moments pretty regularly in most cultures, but it’s very fun to see so many young girls going to games with their dads and really getting into it. This particular little lady climbed over my friend, grabbed the open seat next to me and proceeded to dish out several high-5s in my direction while yelling relentlessly for a supremely talented Hawthorn player named “Spiro Rioli”, whose name is actually Cyril Rioli. No matter. Who would have the heart to tell this face that she had the name wrong? Not I. I was digging the high-5s. 

7-later-something p.m. - A massive call goes Adelaide’s way with just over nine minutes left and they cut the Hawthorn lead to 84-79. We’ve got a ballgame now. The Crows won’t go away and the Hawthorn crowd seems more than a bit unnerved. They jump from their seats and their arms go up and out collectively in the international signal for “WHAAAAT? Umpire, you blew the call! What the F were you looking at?!?” I’d recognize that move in any stadium in the world.

Approaching 8 p.m. (I think) – Someone deliver yet another Carlton draft and I think about how kind Aussies are? On the field, out of nowhere, Adelaide scores from 40 meters out to take the lead, 85-84, and we could have a massive upset. Moments later, the Hawks strike back, as good teams do, with Rioli leading the way. He zigzags through the midfield like an NFL tailback and sets up a massive goal. My little friend next to me yells “Spiro” repeatedly and pumps her fist. The Hawks hold on to win, 97-92, in a game that was much closer than anyone expected. Downstairs, the Hawks supporters look emotionally destroyed considering their team won. It’s never easy when you’re expected to win, I suppose. It could also be the Carlton drafts and Jim Beam. It’s hard to tell at this point.  

I think this was important to them. 

Sometime around 8 p.m. - The crowd empties out of the MCG and we make our way to a local pub, where they will have something besides Carlton draft and Jim Beam, I presume.

Later p.m. (my watch is blurry) – Yep, they have rum. Here's a good idea: I feel a little full on beer. Let's switch to rum!

(Sunday morning addendum: Turns out, this was not the greatest idea I’ve ever had.)

Moments after first rum and Coke - We encounter a supremely over-friendly girl who has definitely been out longer than us, or at least has been trying harder. She’s tenuously holding a glass of really red wine. “That’s going on someone,” I say to a buddy, before turning away to look elsewhere. By the time I turn back three seconds later, one of the guy’s shirts has a massive blotch of red wine on the shoulder and chestal area. Bad luck, Dave. Bad luck.

11:30 or so p.m. – A cabbie rakes all five us over the coals and charges us, if I am remembering correctly, $5 apiece to drive 10 minutes to another part of town. Time seems to be going by slowly at this point.

1-something a.m. – It’s well past my bedtime. I’m not writing down anything that happens at this point. It will be too hard to decipher on my Iphone tomorrow and I don’t want to get a hankering to text friends in the U.S. who are probably going about their normal Saturday morning routines. You know, regular adult things like taking the kids to soccer practice or mowing the lawn. God, I feel guilty.

Five minutes later – OK, I’m over the guilt. Lot of girls in here with accents, it seems. Oh, wait, I’m in Australia. Sweet!

2:01 a.m. – I make one last note on my phone: “It’s 2:01 a.m. and I’m dancing to 'Rumpshaker’. What a day!”

Yep, I’m dancing…and me dancing is too cool a sight for me to blog about. Think:  Timberlake, but taller and with more moves. I’ll leave you with that.

 

Bringing the (Blog) Thunder from Down Under

OK, it’s been far too long since I sat down and wrote about adapting to life in Australia (actually, I haven’t written at all) as a resident of the great city of Melbourne; pronounced Mel-Bin; like “Mel Bin Laden” but without the “Laden”. I've been slow to write anything  because I’ve been out crushing Foster’s oil cans, hunting kangaroos, putting additional shrimp on my barbie (not in that way!), and narrowly avoiding the daily shark attacks while looking for “Bode” with Keanu Reeves down at Bells Beach.

NONE OF THAT IS TRUE at all. So the sooner you can get your head around the fact that life in this Australian city of three plus million people is not like Crocodile Dundee or a terrible beer commercial—no one here drinks Foster’s, I’ve never even seen it—the sooner you’ll have a proper idea of the place. Glad we cleared that up.

In reality, I’ve been slow to put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard) because moving to another country creates an endless To-Do list that seems to grow three times as fast as things get crossed off of it. It’s been sensory overload since day one—learning to drive on the left side of the road, starting a new job, buying a new (to me) car, insuring said car, finding a place to live, insuring the contents of said place to live, setting up a bank account, and then spending money from that bank account like a drunken sailor on shore leave in Thailand while going to IKEA and Target 35 times each week (kill me, please!) in an effort to fill said place to live with items very similar to everything you just sold in the U.S. on Craig’s List for 10 percent of their original value. Fortunately, most of that is in the past at this point, aside from the 20-page employee life insurance packet sitting on my desk at home, which seems to show up weekly with more questions to answer about joint pain history and the like (they better have plenty of space in that section for this guy).

In short, I guess I sort of underestimated it all a bit. Although a move to Australia from Ron Burgandy’s San Diego isn’t exactly like uprooting to Somalia or Syria on the culture shock scale, it’s been more of a transition than I expected. It’s been frustrating at times, but also quite rewarding. I will say that everything you do in a new country takes longer. You make a wrong turn on the way to a grocery store and then spend 20 minutes finding your way back. The things you did in the blink of an eye in the U.S. now take planning. You think of things you say before you say them. You’re aware of your accent because people look at you and sort of double take every time you open your mouth at a place like the grocery store or a pub. It’s also a decidedly diffferent feeling to have it happening all the time, as opposed to when you visit a foreign country and expect it as a tourist. You forget that you sound different as you go through simple day-to-day tasks. You say something, they look at you funny, you spend the next few seconds trying to figure out why they are looking at you funny, and then you remember you sound different; it's not because you ARE funny, it's because you sound funny. It’s a weird phenomenon. On the bright side, I find myself aware of it less and less, which is a good thing. I guess it’s a sign that I’m settling in. And by that I mean I know the difference between a schooner, a pot, a pint, a stubby and a jug.

I’m finally sitting down to write about it all because my dad told me to, because it’s therapeutic, and because I’ve got six more hours to spare on this flight to Thailand (which ought to give me plenty of ammo for a future blog entry). I can’t seem to zero in on a singular topic to expound on while attempting not to spill this Singha Lager (not bad, by the way) on my laptop as the two compete for space on the tray table here, so I figured I’d just pick a couple of things I’ve observed in my first two plus months and we’ll get this party started that way. And won’t it be a party…sure it will. (No one forced you to read this anyway.)

Language barrier

I’ll dive into this further at a later date—when I have more of a clue what people are actually saying—but so far I can tell you that I was meant to be writing this blog a month ago, so it was far past time that I got stuck into it. Figured I’d have a crack. Hopefully, it will be half decent and not a shocker. 

The one thing I can say is that Aussies are very good with their slang terminology, and it's wonderful to learn. They even use it on TV in sports broadcasts. My second favorite sports lingo (that's a tease) is when a guy in Aussie Rules Football lines up a kick from, say, 50 meters out, and the announcer says: "Not sure if he's got the journey from here." They  love using slang. It's great.  

Let’s check the Sexyland Scoreboard”

Melbourne’s winter revolves around “the footy”, that’s Aussie Rules Football, the AFL. I’ve taken in about six games now and it’s growing on me quickly. But one of my favorite parts of the footy games is when they announce the scores during a radio broadcast using the corporate sponsor of the scoreboard. In the U.S., this would go something like (insert Jim Nance’s voice here): “Friends, let’s check the Cisco Out Of Town Scoreboard and see what’s going on around the rest of the NFL on this third Sunday of the season.” In Australia, it sounds like this: “6.4.40 for Geelong to 4.8.32 for Hawthorne on the Sexyland Scoreboard.” Sexyland, of course, being a chain of adult stores that sells, I think, novelty items and the like. You can tell the announcers relish the moment they get to say “Sexyland Scoreboard”; it rolls off the tongue. It would be the equivalent of Al Michaels on Monday Night Football saying, “Patriots lead the Chargers 35-3 with 2:03 left to play in the first quarter on the Bob’s Triple X Video Store Scoreboard.” The day that happens in the U.S. is the day ESPN has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is dying for ad dollars. Sadly, I don’t see the Sexyland Scoreboard making an appearance on ESPN anytime soon. And that’s a shame.

On a side note, while driving a couple of weeks ago, I heard a radio ad throw out this little pearl: “Furgasm…that sounds like a swingers’ party for ferrets.” I don’t have a clue what they were advertising. I also can’t think of anything else to say on the subject of parties involving swinging ferrets and their ability to sexually climax, so we’ll just move along.

Australia—one big town

One thing that has struck me about living in Australia is that, despite being a country the size of Europe, the relatively small population of only 30 million people (about the same as California, I think, to give you perspective) means that this island’s inhabitants act like a small state in certain ways. It’s an odd dynamic for a place so vast. During the London Olympics, the people seemed to support the athletes as if they knew them personally, which they clearly didn’t. They refer to them by their first name in many cases and with the sense that they are on the team themselves. “Sally won the hurdles for us.” “Our swimmers must be drunk.” I think our swim team lost their arm floaties on the way to London.” “Hey, we won another silver medal. Silver is the new gold.” (They were touchy about the swimming troubles.) Even newspapers often run headlines that refer to athletes by their first names. It’s part of a pretty passionate national pride that is more evident here than in the U.S. In America, too many people are patriotic on the 4^th of July, 9/11, and that’s it. We could learn from the Aussies in that area. 

Another example of the connectedness I noticed with other parts of the country was on a recent traffic report on a radio station.  Traffic can get fairly ugly in the big cities like Melbourne and Sydney, but I’ve heard traffic updates in which the national broadcaster gives the traffic in every major city in the country. We’re talking about cities that are separated by thousands of miles. It would be like giving traffic in Chicago, Boston, New York and Denver in the same update. I suppose it’s useful, but it’s also funny when the guy skips from a congested road in Brisbane to a street in Melbourne. (They are far away from each other.)  

The one exception to all this lovey-dovey-we-are-all-one-big-family notion is that Sydney and Melbourne, which are separated by about a 70-minute flight, maintain a healthy rivalry from what I can gather. They have decidedly different feels to them. Sydney is often compared to Los Angles, whereas Melbourne would be San Francisco. Personally, I think Melbourne has some striking similarities to Boston—absolutely crazy for sports, public parks everywhere in the city, a river running right through town, and a number of sections/neighborhoods of the city with a very distinct character. Much like Boston or New York, when the weather warms up for a few days in winter, the whole world is outside running, biking or just walking around the city. It really is quite beautiful with a cool layout. Springtime and summer should be amazing…if the city isn’t under water by then.

Melbourne Cricket Ground. The MCG. The "G". Home to the footy. Walking distance from Chateau Sweeney.

To come...
With the Footy Finals (playoffs) beginning this week (while I’m in Thailand) I’ll try to sit down and relate the Aussie footy experience in a later blog. Basically, footy is king in Melbourne. I’ll leave you with these witty words from a coworker to give you an idea of how footy weaves its way into the culture of the city. This is the description my coworker gave of his friend beginning a relationship with a woman. And this line came in the regular flow of conversation:

“So he saw the opening, tucked the ball under his wing, busted through the pack and slotted it from 50.”

He was giggling like a schoolgirl as he mentioned that last part, surprised at how his rambling had found its way to comedic paydirt with a well-placed euphemism.

Let’s diagram that sentence, shall we.

The opening

The first part is pretty self-explanatory. The player sees an opening in the defense and runs to daylight, as we’d say in American football, tucking the ball away securely under his arm so it cannot be pryed loose.  
Translation: The male saw that the female was available, and moved toward the target with purpose, protecting himself from losing his footing and carefully maintaining possession of the moment.

Busting through the pack.

Translation: The female has other suitors whose aim would be to trip up and tackle the ball carrier as he advances toward the target (goal line).

Slotting it from 50.

In Aussie Rules Football terms, that would be kicking the footy through the goal posts from 50 meters out for a 6-point goal.

Translation: You can probably figure this part out for yourself.

Sometimes the language barrier isn’t much of a barrier at all. 

Walking uphill above Lake Tahoe

The blog is back. I’d like to say “better than ever,” but you’ll have to be the judge of that.

For the past four years, my college buddy Andre and I have gone on late summer jaunts to what we imagine will be cool, new-to-us outdoor destinations. Not because we like hanging out with each other—he ought to be canonized for listening to my jokes and wisecracks for four days, OR he ought to be paying me for that kind of entertainment—but because we don’t know too many people who will leave the comfy coastlines where we dwell full-time (me in San Diego and he in Tampa) to go climb (or bike) up (and then down) mountains. In fact, if you know any leggy supermodel types who enjoy outdoor adventure of this fashion, Andre can be replaced at the drop of a hat, so feel free to spread the word.  

Our annual outdoor travels began in 2008 with a long weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado and a climb to the top of a 14,000-foot peak called Mount Holy-Shit-My-Legs-Are-So-Tired-They-Are-Shaking, which may be known to some by its official name, Mount Quandary. That eight-hour stroll also included a close (but not that close) encounter with a sheep dog...or something in the sheep dog family that I could not identify. The next year we settled on a road trip (for me) to Santa Barbara and a hike up a trail called Rattlesnake Canyon, where we both nearly stomped directly on top of—let the suspense build now—a snake. Shocker, huh? Evidently, the trail name was not a misnomer. (And yes, I wrote that last sentence so I could use the word “misnomer”. I rather like it.) This all occurred while another college buddy, also named Tim, sat under a tree halfway up the trail and waited for us to return from the top. (Nice effort, Delp. Really. Well done.) In 2010, I convinced ’Dre to meet me in Portland, Oregon so we could tackle the Bachelor to Bend mountain bike ride, 25 miles of the sweetest singletrack you’ll ever see. I had a great time. Andre probably would have, too, if his bike didn’t have mechanical problems as we climbed roughly 1,000 feet in elevation for the first hour. It makes for a funny story now, and I was even able to collect a nice photo of him flipping off the camera as our guide worked to fix his bike 600 feet into the climb. Tough break, brother. Try not to be so high maintenance next time, huh. 

 In the words of Queen: "I want to ride my biii-cycle."

As anyone lucky enough to have old friends knows, the great part about meeting up with one that you don’t see often enough is that you instantly pick up where you left off the last time you got together. Or, if you’re exceedingly immature like us, where you left off in the college dorm hallways a dozen or so years earlier. In this case, the last time we saw each other, I was carrying Andre like a wounded marine from the scene of the Gasparilla Day Parade in Tampa because whatever was in the punch bowl was a little too potent for SuperDre on that late January afternoon (and all morning, too; we started at 10:30 a.m.). It was a long walk. A very long walk. As any good friends would do, the other aforementioned Tim and I took the care to stuff Andre in the back seat of Tim’s car face-down. Fearing for his safety—and having great responsibility for our friend—we locked the car doors, told him to stay put and promptly trekked off to a house party that featured two bands in the front yard of a McMansion on Bayshore Boulevard. Andre was still there when we got back; don’t fret. We are friends, after all. We take care of each other. Clearly. I mean we left him face-down.  

There would be none of those shenanigans on this trip to the Lake Tahoe area, however. We were here to breathe some clean air, exercise the legs and enjoy the outdoors. At least until we got to the casinos of South Lake.

As I touched on earlier, there isn’t much you can’t say to a friend you’ve had for 18 years. And so, the banter began with text messages before I got off the plane in Reno while he circled in the rental car. Or, at least made plans to circle in the rental car. 

Me: Landed.

Andre: At a bar. Be there when I finish this. (This was a text with an image of his beer sitting, nearly full, on the bar.)

Me: Seriously?

Andre: Went for a hike this afternoon, saw a snake, turned around, came to this bar.

Me: You went for a hike in 90-degree weather in the desert and saw a snake. And this surprised you? Was it a rattlesnake?
Andre: Was more of a walk than a hike. Not sure what kind of snake.   

Me: Starving. Could eat my arm. Your arm would do. But would rather eat food.

Andre: Bitch, you’re always hungry. Get your bag. Tell me when you’re at baggage.

Me: At baggage. Still hungry. Get in your red Sebring convertible and get over here.   
Andre: You’ll see a white Jeep when you get outside.

Me: And you’ll be in the purple Kia Sportage behind the Jeep, Mr. Manly?
Andre: This is going to be a long week. 

We spent the first two days at the base of a Squaw Valley. For a skier, spending two nights at the base of Squaw Valley when the lifts aren’t spinning and the ground is green is like sending Tiger Woods to an iHop with only male waiters. Clearly, I was making sacrifices here. Still Tahoe is beautiful just about any time of year, and this was confirmed the next morning. 

We awoke Thursday and headed into Tahoe City, about 15 minutes away, for an early morning breakfast at a place called something I can’t remember and am too lazy to look up right now. It was a great spot with old bicycles hanging from the walls and the kind of rustic, mountain décor you hope to see when you stroll into a mountain town breakfast spot; and that should make perfect sense. We were just about the only people in there because September is the “shoulder season” in ski country. 

No bike, no problem. And we're going up there. 

This is a good time to point out that Andre is a very low-maintenance traveling companion. In fact, he’s nearly a masochist. If there are three guys crashing in a hotel room with two beds somewhere, he embraces the floor so quickly you look at the ground twice to make sure it’s not an exotic dancer disguised as carpet. His volunteerism in these situations nearly makes you feel bad for him…until you remember that he, you know, volunteered for it. He is also the safest travel companion you’ve ever met. I should explain that this is mostly due to the fact that he drives like he is blind, which is due mostly to the fact that, without his eyeglasses, he basically IS blind. He pulls into traffic only when it is safe to do so. And by that I mean there are no cars for a half mile. Unless you count Deadliest Catch, I haven’t watched five minutes of “reality” TV since I saw Stacey Keibler on Dancing With the Stars, but I’ve always thought Andre and I could win that show The Amazing Race, hands-down. Now, I’m not so sure. With Ray Charles here at the wheel of anything but a supersonic aircraft, the high-maintenance mother-daughter team that always participates in that show would be pulling away from us. But I digress. 

Shirley Lake. Well worth the walk. 

After fueling up on pancakes and eggs, we drove around a bit before heading back to Squaw for a hike up to (don’t call me) Shirley Lake. The four-mile trail headed out of the Village at Squaw through big pines, past a mountain stream with small waterfalls, and then climbed dramatically up over a massive rock field. It was a perfect early autumn day, with temperatures in the 70s and that bright blue sky Tahoe is famous for. We scrambled over large rock formations and eventually found Shirley Lake, a picturesque setting surrounded by lush green trees and vegetation. A few folks were swimming in what had to be a very chilly (don’t call me) Shirley Lake. It was the perfect place to spend an afternoon NOT with another dude. But anyway…



We hiked back down, stopping to take the plunge in a swimming hole that pooled under cascading water. There isn’t a proper way for me to describe just how cold this mountain stream felt as I lowered myself into it—particularly the groinal section—but it was refreshing. After a burger at Hennessey’s Tavern in the village, we headed back into Tahoe City for a couple of beers before retiring back to our hotel. At least that was the plan, until we heard the sound of fun spilling out of the cantina across the parking lot from our hotel. You know the distinct sound of fun, right? Who doesn’t know what FUN sounds like?

Somehow, 45 minutes later, I found myself sitting at a dive bar with the bartender’s pug (that’s a small dog, I’m pretty sure) sitting on my lap sneering at me. We were surrounded by mountain workers from Squaw, snowmakers, and possibly pro snowboarders. The girl to my left was some kind of artist who would be showing her artwork in a local gallery over the upcoming weekend. Andre began to secretly call her “Halfpint” because the bartender would only serve her half-full glasses of beer due to her advanced level of intoxication, and I hope you saw that joke coming. (By the way, if your bartender does this to you, this is a bad sign. It’s time for some self-examination…or a smaller glass.)

Shrinkage!

At one point, Halfpint Van Goh started calling Andre “Disney” because he lives in Florida. Halfpint started this nicknaming train of thought with a line of questioning about whether or not he worked at Disney (he doesn’t), as if everyone who lives in Florida is employed by Disney World. To which I replied, “No, he works at Epcot Center. He’s worldly.” She didn’t get it. This did not surprise us.

Let’s get back to the bartender’s dog, which was sporting a spike collar and four teeth, all of which were visible when his mouth was closed, making him falsely intimidating for an 18-inch furball. The bartender was a very attractive married mother of a college student, who she must have given birth to at the age of nine. She told us she had been “all around the word, but always came back here to Tahoe because there’s nothing like it.”
“Where have you been?” I ask.

“Sorry? What?”

“You said you’ve been all around the world, so where have you been?”

“Oh, well, I spent 12 days at Carnival in Brazil, which was crazy. I’ve been to London, and Canada…”

“Canada?” I say.

“Yeah. Canada.”
“Ummm, you can’t say I’ve been all around the world and then drop a ‘Canada’ in there.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s Canada. It’s right there.” (Me kind of pointing toward the ceiling and what I think is north of the barstool I’m sharing with her lap dog.)

“Canada is 45 miles from the house I grew up in,” Andre adds in my support.

“Canada doesn’t count in the I’ve-been-all-around-the-world story,” I say.

I mean, seriously, that’s like saying you’re Harvard-educated because you took driving school lessons in Cambridge.

She laughed at this whole shady, self-boasting travel thing she had going on, agreed with us, and offered us more beer. We said yes. And everyone was happy. Even the dog with the spike collar was happy—probably because he was now drinking beer from a shot glass I was holding.

We left the cantina just before things could get carried away with the Pabst Blue Ribbon that Squaw Valley is famous for, or so they told us, and were up early the next morning for breakfast at another local café in Tahoe City with plenty of character. I started by ordering a breakfast sandwich with egg, cheese and sausage. And said please when I did so.

“I’ll will have the egg, cheese and bacon, please,” Andre says. “Appreciate that!” He always says please and thank you in an overly polite manner because he’s from Vermont and this is what people from Vermont do when they aren’t tipping cattle late at night or eating Vermont cheddar cheese (it has to be from Vermont) and drinking Long Trail Ales after (or while) driving home in their Volvos with a fresh batch of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

“Good call!” the young girl behind the counter says to him. 

“Whoa! What's so great about the bacon?” I ask her, kind of kidding, but worried I’m missing out by going with the sausage. 

“It’s just good. It’s pepper bacon.”

“And the sausage?”

“It’s pretty good.”

“Give me the bacon. I’ll take a lot of bacon. Lay it on me.”

And we got a boatload of bacon on our respective egg sandwiches. And it was very good. And it was peppery. And we were happy. 

Emerald Bay. See what I mean? Spectacular. 

We hopped in the white jeep and drove south through a beautiful pine forest, zigzagging against the lakeshore down past spectacular Emerald Bay in the southwest corner of the lake. Emerald Bay is the type of place that actually looks as good as it does in postcards and Chamber of Commerce pamphlets. If you go to Tahoe, drive by it. How’s that for a travel tip? Clear enough?

After a six-hour hike up and down Mount Talac, which afforded sweeping, spectacular views of Tahoe and the Desolation Wilderness Area—from the sound of it, surely not a place you want to get stuck—we headed into South Lake Tahoe to recover with a couple of nights of social activity. On the last few minutes of the drive (if 45 minutes is “a few”) we sat in traffic while the California Department of Transportation did what they do best—cause massive traffic jams and leave no alternative routes. It was at this point that a bluegrass song came on the radio and I discovered that, even if you’re moving 3 m.p.h., bluegrass music still makes you feel as though you’re being chased. Doesn’t this just make you feel like you should be getting chased? Maybe by the cops on Dukes of Hazzard.  

Yeah, I thought so.

Side note here: I’m not doing justice to the hike up Mount Talac, but it was six hours of walking and this is getting long enough and I don’t want to skip over the Oktoberfest we went to. Look at the pictures of the hike; these should sum it up.   

     

The final highlight of the weekend was an Octoberfest that Andre planned for us to attend at the legendary Mont Bleu Casino. I’ve never been to the real Oktoberfest, but I would say that it is on my barrel list—that’s the stuff that isn’t quite important enough for you to put on your bucket list, but you’d do it if the opportunity arose. I just made that up that “barrel list” thing. Feel free to use it at cocktail parties. Or future Oktoberfests at the Mont Bleu Casino.  

Most Oktoberfest I’ve been dragged to in the U.S. are populated by what I’d kindly call an interesting batch of humanity. They seem to generally include old folks who like to drink beer, old folks who love to eat massive amounts of brats and other fattening and filling food, and then young people with the same affinities for beer—and, to a lesser extent, food. There is often an old guy who can shotgun a beer faster than anyone you knew in college and a band that plays old German songs with a bit too much gusto. In the case of the Mont Bleu Octoberfest, the German family band played such traditional Bavarian hits as: “I Don't Want Her, You Can Have Her, She's Too Fat For Me”. They also seemed to get by on a lot of songs that were rooted in Johnny Cash tunes and then dropped in that old German standby, “The Chicken Dance”, which the two casino-paid, go-go dancers on either side of the stage were happy to perform in their lederhosen.

By the end of the evening, all that remained on the dance floor were three guys—and they appeared to be of African American, Indian and Asian descent. So, to recap: at an Oktoberfest celebrating German heritage, we had three guys dominating the dance floor who would likely have been ethnically cleansed out of Hitler’s Germany. One guy was wearing the San Francisco Giants game jersey of baseball Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, who is, as far as I know, still African-American. Throw in a few Jews and we've got a real Octoberfest, right? “Epstein! Seinfeld! Rosenberg! Get in there! It’s a dance party.”

Let’s end on that note. Thanks for reading.
Sorry, but you can’t have that time back. It’s gone forever.  

The craziest Irish bar in Australia...

...or maybe anywhere. 

After self-applying enough moisturizer to hopefully keep my back from turning into something that belonged to a Biblical leper, I reached deep into the recesses of my inner youthfulness and summoned the strength to meet my new friends for a few beers in town. This took a healthy dose of self-convincing with words similar to the ones my younger brother, Chris, likes to throw out when a rally is needed to keep the night going in Vegas. I asked myself: “How many times will you be in Cairns, Tim?” Except Chris would find a way to truly personalize the line and make me feel as though not going to one last bar two miles from The Strip at 3:30 a.m. would mean we missed a golden opportunity to fortify the family legacy together. 

“Dude, how many times are we gonna be in Veehhgasss…TOGETHER?”

“Alright, alright…Cab, please!”

After assuring myself that this was a one-time opportunity, I rallied with a few slices of terrible pizza at a corner shop that also served tall beers. So I ordered one of those, too. The girl behind the counter told me that P.J. O’Brien’s, the Irish bar where I was to meet the boat crowd, was just a few blocks up the streets. On first glance, it was just another Irish bar in any old country—outdoor seating, lots of dark-stained woodwork, lots of beers to choose from and big, uncomfortable booths to sit in. To be honest, at 9 p.m. it was actually rather lame and empty and I was thinking of going to bed.  

That was before the toga party arrived, the pole dancing on the bar and the strip dancing on the back stage. Now I have your attention, don’t I? (I knew I should have led the story with that part.) Anyway, it turns out, a fair amount of Irish immigrants landed in Australia in the 1800s. And it’s a safe bet they weren’t envisioning this place when they landed in the Great Southern Land, or maybe they’d have come here 300 plus years ago. (According to a little online research, the Australian embassy in Dublin reports that 30 percent of Australia’s population claim some sort degree of Irish ancestry. Fun fact of the day there for you.)

Before I get into how the night ramped up, I feel it’s important to state that this was a Tuesday night and to point out that evidently the day of week doesn’t matter much when it comes to partying in Cairns because it’s as much a backpacker town as any place on the planet. Best as I could tell, heaps (Aussie term) of young people from around the world blow into town on bus tours of some kind, see the reef and/or the rainforest, spend a few nights at a hostel drinking and fornicating, then move on down south toward the Gold Coast. You don’t get the impression that too many people actually work any kind of 9-5 job in Cairns. Most of the jobs seem to revolve around tourism, and, with one of the world’s natural wonders just off the town’s front porch, I suppose they should.

After having a few pints with my new pals, the scene picked up a bit. In other words, a toga party arrived. Yep, it’s still Tuesday. Among the toga party crowd of 25 or so people in their twenties and thirties from Adelaide were several scandalous looking young ladies with nothing against creating a little attention for themselves. Before long, two hired female dancers in cowboy hats and jean shorts with inseam lengths that specialized in brevity were on top of the bar dancing around poles that were rolled out as props. Effective props, I might add. I’m not even sure how I just remembered the cowboy hats, to be honest. This was starting to turn into the greatest time any person this side of Charlie Sheen has ever had in an Irish bar on a Tuesday. 

Clearly spurred on by the two hired dancers, patrons were now volunteering to take part in a dance-off on a small stage at the back of the room. The price was something like a $100 bar tab for you and your friends. I’m not sure what the exchange rate was at the time, but based on what I saw next, 100 Aussie bucks must go pretty far in Adelaide. 

Three girls from the toga party took their shot at “glory” onstage, each finishing with less bed sheets on their body than the previous one until the final contestant decided it was too hot outside to sleep with any linens on at all and then showed off what the good Lord gave her, and he gave her some good stuff. Your $100 winner, ladies and gentlemen! My Matlock/Lt Colombo detective skills (actually, more just a hunch) tell me that she was brought in by the bar staff to stir things up. I say this because she did things you don’t see from any woman who hasn’t rocked platform heels as an occupation. We’re talking scissor kicks with no sheets or knickers covering anything. If she wasn’t a stripper by night, she’s leaving the hard-earned money of many men on the table.   

This, of course, riled up the crowd, who now turned their attention back to the bar where hired female dancer #1 and hired female dancer #2 were beginning another round of routines. When they concluded, it was time for more patrons to take to the bar top, including guys who thought they could dance and some who clearly knew they couldn’t but were not going to be out-efforted in the make-a- fool-of-myself portion of the competition. Among these was our new Irish plumber buddy, Alan, who chose to reveal his badly sunburned chest and back while twirling his shirt around above him. You’d hire that guy to fix your sink, right?

  

When things slowed a bit (girls stopped getting naked) we moved on to Gilligan’s, a hostel/entertainment complex with square bar, pool tables and high-energy dance floor. Based on the fact that there were 200-plus people in here on a Tuesday night, the hostel/entertainment idea is a brilliant business model, actually. The jungle tour I had reserved for 8 a.m. was in jeopardy. Then I heard the voice of reason again—“Tim, how many times will you get to do a jungle tour in Australia?”—and set my alarm for 7:30 the next morning. 

The Great Barrier Reef

Looks like Boston Harbor....500 years ago.

OK, we’re back to the blog after a little hiatus to catch myself up from the jetlag. And also because it was hard to type with tears in my eyes knowing that my vacation was ending, but no need for you to dwell on that image. Due to the widespread clamoring for more blogging—seriously, for some reason, people have been asking when I’m going to write again—I’m going to jump ahead a bit to my day on the Great Barrier Reef. Why, you may or may not be asking? Because it’s the Great Barrier Reef. It’s the size of California. It has 1,500 species of fish (depending on who you ask). And because it’s a World Heritage Site—and I’m a sucker for World Heritage Sites. And because it’s my blog. I’ll do what I want.



There are roughly 7 languages being spoken at this moment.

One of the things I’ve been telling people who asked about my trip to Australia is that I’ve experienced a number of “firsts” on this first trip to Oz. First meat pie (as previously stated). First time watching a crocodile eat a dead chicken. First kangaroo sighting in the wild (more on that later). First kangaroo being hit by a golf ball (more on that, too). First flight next to a South African-born female massage therapist (previously stated and widely commented on by male friends). And, now, first scuba dive. As locations go, taking your first scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef is the equivalent to playing your first round of golf at Augusta National or losing your virginity to an adult film star. Although, the dive did last 30 minutes, so maybe that’s a bad comparison. 

So, with great expectations on the brain, not to mention the possibility of coming face-to-face with a shark, I took an unsettlingly bumpy plane ride to Cairns. Far less polished than Sydney or Melbourne, Cairns is a popular backpacker city on the northeast coast of Australia and an easy jumping off point for The Reef. An honest-to-God rainforest sits in the mountains above the city and the climate is humid. Florida style. Aborigines and tourists stroll the streets and the waterfront is the highlight of the city. Several large hotels overlook a healthy sized marina filled with tour boats that haul visitors to and from The Reef. 


I woke early and (this is important) APPLIED MY FIRST LAYER OF SUNSCREEN, then strolled a mile or so along the waterfront. After a brief stop for a tasty plate of scrambled eggs and toast, I found my boat, the Ocean Freedom, and met the crew. The first paying customer I met onboard was a 23-year-old guy from Galway, Ireland, named Alan. Alan had just landed in Australia earlier in the week with his friend Rebecca, and both were looking for work for the next year. Yes, that’s how economically bad things are in Ireland, folks. The whitest people on the planet are packing up and moving to a place where they dole out sunburns like there’s a hole in the Ozone layer (which there actually is, as locals will remind you). “Make sure you put sunscreen on, mate! We have a hole in our Ozone layer. No, seriously, a HOLE in our Ozone layer.” 

After a 45-minute ride out to the snorkel/dive spot with about sixty people from all over the planet, the majority of them in their 20s and 30s, we all popped on our masks, PUT ON MORE SUNSCREEN, and jumped in. This seems like a good time to point out that I was well aware of the fact that I would be spending much of the day face down in the ocean in an area of the world where the sun is particularly, umm, potent. I was not going to get sunburned today. 

The first few minutes of snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef is a little bit surreal. On one hand, it feels odd to just hop in the ocean so far from any land and swim around without knowing what’s down there, but there’s comfort in the fact that someone around you must taste better than you do. Hard to believe in this case, I know. The colors of the reef were like nothing I’ve ever seen before and the coral and tropical fish seem to have no end. You swim 20 yards and think you’ve seen all there is to see. Then you swim 20 yards farther and see something totally new. It’s one of those experiences that cause you to somehow heighten your senses and really try to process everything you’re taking in. In the back of your mind during all of this is the realization that you are looking at The Great Barrier Reef, something that always seemed so far out of reach. You don’t think of anything else in life. You just soak it all in. Those moments are pretty rare in life, I think…you know, without alcohol.

It was from this blissful state that I was abruptly jolted when a small watercraft buzzed by me with the boat captain at the helm yelling, “Tim! Tim! Where’s Tim?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m Tim.”

“It’s your turn to dive, mate. Didn’t you hear us yelling for you?”

“Umm, no…because I’m SNOR-KO-LING. You know, with my head in the water?”

“Oh, well, we’ve been yelling for you for a while now. You couldn’t hear us?”

“No, sorry. I had my head in the water. You know, where it’s hard to hear anything above the water when you’re, you know, a human.”

“Right. No worries, mate. Hop in the boat.”



Note to self: Cut back on Beer...

...tomorrow.

With 59 people peering up from the water to look at me, we commenced the short and marginally embarrassing two-minute ride back to the main boat in what they had earlier termed the “rescue boat.” I suited up for my first scuba dive, trying to remember the details from the 20-minute safety chat we’d been given earlier. So, let’s go back a couple hours to this group safety lesson and recap what we learned about scuba diving in the Cliffs Notes version for something that takes weeks to be officially certified for: 

If you get in trouble, do this.

Hold your nose and pop your ears on the way down.
This means “OK.”
This means “Up.”
This means “Down.” 
Go like this to remove water from you goggles.
And this means “shark.”

Me (thinking to self): Umm, pretty sure if I see a shark, I will have my own signal and it will look a little bit like me sitting in the boat before my guide diver realizes I’m gone. But, ok, got the signals. What’s the bunt sign?

There were several other important tips to digest, all of which would ensure that my lungs would not explode upon resurfacing, resulting in a lonely, painful death in front of 59 tourists with no one around that I even remotely know, approximately one entire ocean from home. Pleasant thoughts, pleasant thoughts. The most important tip was a simple one: remember to breathe. Got it. Evidently, lots of first-time divers have a habit of holding their breath because that’s what your brain tells you to do under water. Your lungs fill with air when they shouldn’t and bad things happen. Noted.

Underwater camera: well worth the $25.

Both dives were with a guide and I have to admit that any nerves I had went away immediately when I jumped off the back of the boat. It was very cool. The first dive was over a large coral reef with vibrant colors and schools of multi-colored fish swimming around us. My guide, a Kiwi dude named Alastair, inspired plenty of confidence. Once I got settled, he showed me bits of coral, picked up things along the ocean floor and handed them off to touch and feel. At one point he handed me a sea cucumber. (That’s right, I just told you I did a tandem dive and the guy handed me his sea cucumber.) We only went down about 20 feet on the first dive, but it really did provide a totally different perspective than snorkeling did. I came back to the surface wanting to do it again. 

Between dives I applied MORE SUNSCREEN and enjoyed an amazing meal provided by the boat. After lunch, a pretty French girl named Natalie offered to apply sunscreen for me and I said yes, because I’m not stupid. When we got to the next dive spot, which was a deeper area with less coral and reef, Alastair told me we’d be looking for some reef sharks that hide out in one area of the reef below us. Twenty minutes of diving under my belt and now we’re seeking out sharks? This sport has a steep learning curve. When he assured me that things would be safe, I dropped a line about only having to be second slowest in order to be safe, telling him, “Well, if the sharks get ornery, I only have to beat you out of there, right?”

To which he smiled and said, “Yeah, but I could just pull out my knife and cut you. They like that sort of thing.” Fair enough, Alastair. Fair enough.

Yep, 20-minute safety class. 

In a weird way, I found myself wanting to see a couple of sharks, figuring this opportunity would probably not come along often. We never saw any, but Alastair gave me a little more freedom on the second dive, allowing me swim around on my own and stay close to him, which was pretty cool—the swimming on my own part, not the staying close part. We went down about 30 feet and swam into a couple of caves and checked out some sea rays that were busy minding their own business, celebrating how their big brother took out the Crocodile Man a couple years back. Alastair snapped his fingers over a couple of small organisms living on the reef that were no bigger than my thumb, and they immediately shut closed when he did. Now he’s just showing off.

On the ride back to port, I applied MORE SUNSCREEN and spoke with the woman who was second in command onboard. She told me that they’ve seen plenty of hammerheads, tiger sharks and even crocodiles in the area where we were diving and snorkeling. Evidently, they rely on the helicopter tour operators to let them know if a large shark or croc is swimming in the area. In which case, they will cancel their stop and move along to another location, which seems like the responsible move in that situation. All indications are that those bastards (crocs) are just mean.

At the end of the day, I did what everyone else did on that boat—went home to nurse my brutally sunburned back. Freakin Ozone hole.

Stay tuned for my next report on the most insane Irish bar on the planet. And, yes, that statement that was verified by my new Irish friends from the boat, who—having not seen actual sunshine since they were seven years old—were slightly more sunburned than I.