Manly

Only a few days after the LowenBrau experience, I decided to spend a few days hanging out in Manly, one of the two amazing beaches within the boundaries of Sydney. My friend Arron said that his mom lived in Manly and that he would take me there and show me around the place. I could not have asked for a better guide, he drove me around we ate some delicious burgers then he took me to a sweet spot to go snorkeling. My first snorkel experience in Australia was absolutely amazing complete with schools of multi-colour fish, baby sharks and giant blue fish who I can never remember the name of. I someone who use to be scared to death of even being in water was floating surround by all this natural beauty. I stay a few more days in Manly and found myself one of those nights eating dinner with a host of foreigners, a guy from Sweden, two girls from Finland, Two Englishmen, a girl from the Netherlands. Sitting around a table talking and making friends which such people from across the world is one of the reasons I love traveling so much. The next day I went for a hike in the Nature reserve around manly which is also an old military base, and I found some of the most peaceful and serene spots I have found so far in Australia. I spent time meditating underneath a rock overhang looking out at the ocean and also met another American name Matt and his aunt who were also out for a hike. Me and Matt became fast friends and talked plans to do some traveling down the line. Beautiful sites and good people make the world go round.

Aran’s Birthday trip to Germany

Liz’s good friend Lisa’s boyfriend Aran had a sweet as birthday party that took place at the beautiful German drinking hall in the rocks known as the LowenBrau, a place of excellent German beer. They serve these beers in Giant steins in the style of German beer halls and all the waitresses and waiters wear the traditional garb. This is an amazing place to have a birthday and also a very amazing place to spend all your money and end up rather inebriated. The night began with a whole crowd of us showing up, our numbers easily in the 20’s, and by the end of the night the majority of our crew had either been kicked out or cut off with only five or six of us remaining.

Newcastle and Kangaroo’s

I made a sweet trip up the coast to Peggy’s home near Newcastle Australia. Now Newcastle gets bagged out a lot for being a working class city, but Newcastle rocks! I mean it has beautiful as hell beaches, and plenty of funky hotels for everyone (for you non Australians most bars are called hotels because they use to be both). So I shimmied myself on up to the coast and me and Peggy went to the beach. Now the pictures you see of Australia being beautiful beaches or beautiful cliffs all along the whole country is pretty much true. He not only stopped by some gorgeous sand beaches, didn’t chill to long as it was fricken freezing and then climbed down some cliffs to play on the rocks. Day two of adventures with Peggsters took us to the mental hospital. Well not really the mental hospital but the nature reserve that surrounded it. I told her I had wanted to feed kangaroos so off to feed kangaroos we went. The kangaroos on the nature reserve run wild and there are heaps of them, but us in Peggy’s car armed with a loaf of bread went off to find them. We first found ourselves quite lost and did our first off roading on some silly as dirt barely roads in Pegs low ride car. Somehow after surviving this we became lost of back roads, and only after seing a bus with special written on it did we realize we had finally found the nature reserve through some back door secret entrance to the mental hospital nature reserve.

It was quite beautiful with a lake and many a kangaroo just chilling. We first fed just a few but Peggy being quite small got scared and decided to stay in the car. Kangaroos as it turns out are a bit more frightening in person , as they are much bigger than one thinks and are known to mess you up if provoked, and the male Kangaroos look like male body builders. We then made our way to the big spot where they all hang out.

Usually there is a lot of people who go to feed them but this being a slightly crap weather day we were the only ones. I proceed to step out of the car and slowly the horde began to surround me and my bread. First one, then three, then ten, and I had to keep getting reloads of bread through the window from Peggy. Before not to long I go for another piece of bread to feed the masses and Peggy informs me that I had just used the last piece of bread. The Kangaroos all seem to have heard this at the same time and start climbing on me as if maybe I had one more piece hidden in a back pocket, I climb in the car and they proceed to surround the car like an angry mob and one tries climbing in the window! This scene with Peggy shouting and reversing the car, me laughing and trying to roll up the window and a Kangaroos hanging out of that same passengers side window was a ridiculous picture at best, and I really hope that we brought some amusement to the residence of the mental institution watching. Stay tuned for the next adventures of Peggsters and Doran Danger as they wander the land causing a ruckious!

The life of Scooping

I am far in the past with these posts as ive been a lazy boy but they will catch up with the present soon i promise

For a little over a week I was the only Vermonter to work for Ben and Jerry’s in the country of Australia, which I took as a point of great pride until I realize I was working a hoax. It was all a sad conspiracy using the amazing wonderful Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream as a scape goat. There is two Ben and Jerry’s shops in Sydney, one is a bit far away looking at the beach, with a staff of 20 and a total sweet small shop feel, and then there was the one I was working at in the mall attached to the giant franchise imax movie theatre that dominates Australia known as Hoyts. Now Hoyts had a staff of around 150 people and I became one of them under the Ben and Jerry’s guise, and the majority of these staff were 18 or under besides the managers who were mostly over thirty. And there I was selling the best ice cream on earth at horrendously expensive prices with a bunch of 16 year olds, not exactly the dream job of the year. This coupled with a few weeks of excellent sickness ended my brief history making stent with Ben and Jerry’s of Australia.