One of the frustrations of travel is that you only completely appreciate it in retrospect, not unlike nature. The immediate experience is banal, unimpressive—standing in front of a breathtaking vista merely thinking to yourself, “oh, well I am supposed to appreciate this moment and be wowed by the breathtaking beauty before me.” That beauty is only appreciated in retrospect, while remembering said breathtaking vista in the mind, while looking at photos after the fact.

At least, that’s how it goes for me. I can plausibly imagine that some people, somewhere in this world, may appreciate such things in their immediate grandeur, but I am not one of those people. Last year, while traveling around the country on a six-month road trip, I largely griped about the bugs and the lack of free wifi in rural areas and allergies and my inability to sit up straight against a flat surface while camping in a tent. It wasn’t until months after the trip that I began to appreciate the freedom of that time.

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It really isn’t (only) a stereotype: the Australians love their country music, as evidenced by Australian radio, approximately 20% of which is populated by country stations. Just today, I heard Kenny Chesney, Dolly Parton doing “9-5″, and a truly abysmal modern-Nashville Dire Straits cover on Australian country radio. During the flight into Sydney, I couldn’t quite place why I was getting so many complements on my Hank Williams tattoo, forgetting the Aussie enthusiasm for American country.

I’ve yet to hear a homegrown country track, however; there seems to be a contemporary-Nashville-country-only policy dictating the playlists. Funny, since the alternative rock-skewing station seems to play a fair share of domestic hip-hop, albeit domestic hip-hop tracks featuring guest spots from Americans such as Pharaoh Monch.

One thing that the Australians appear to have a market on are surrealistically banal talk show topics. A few topics of discussion on today’s talk shows:

“What do you smell like?”

“What were your favorite candies and lollies growing up?”

“How do you feel about shopping? Do you love it or would you rather run burning spears through your eyes?”

Not that American talk radio topics are any less banal, but certainly less bizarre.

Bonus local colloquialism watch: for heavy drinking, “grogging on”, as in, “you should have thought about that before you grogged on all night.”

After three days in Sydney, we have made our way out to the rural Kangaroo Valley, and are staying for a few days at a farm house owned by my wife’s uncle. The sights are rather breathtaking, I can attest to as I stare out the window at a low-lying bed of fog over a pond. Climate and surroundings-wise, it’s not all that unlike Northern California, though this is the winter. The meteorologists on the radio are bemoaning the “cold” weather, which is approximately 60 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes us Chicagoans to laugh bitterly in the same way that I do when my mother calls from the depths of a California winter and talks about the frigid sub-70s temperatures she is enduring.

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“What is it,” I mused to myself, “about warm climates and white people playing in reggae bands,” as we listened to four sunburnt gents with Hawaiian shirts and beards amble through “Waiting in Vain” on the patio of a restaurant beneath the iconic Sydney Opera House. Breaking my vegetarian edge, I was scarfing down a proper British meal at the restaurant, a Shepherd’s Pie (all food should be topped with mashed potatoes) and grooving to the official soundtrack to white people sitting next to large bodies of water in the sun.

It’s winter in Australia, and in comparison to Chicago, winter here is characterized by a light breeze, an average of 68 degrees (F), and inevitable complaints that the weather is too cold. (more…)

Shockingly similar to America, in many ways, but with better animals. The basic layout of Sydney is reminiscent of Seattle, with the ferries (and furries?) and the waterways and the whatnots. Plenty of McDonald’s, Burger Kings (called Hungry Jack’s here; the rest of the branding is exactly the same), and Oprah-rific workout purveyor Curves. The street signs are identical, not sure if they were designed by the same street-sign branding committee as in the states, or if they bought leftovers from the U.S.  street-sign run at a severe discount. Strangers are rude and drive SUV’s on small winding roads like assholes. The world is truly flat, Thomas Friedman. (more…)