I Heart Faces (Focusing on Angles)

I've been following i heart faces for quite a while now, and I've finally mustered up the courage to enter one of their weekly photo challenges!

This week's theme is "Focusing on Angles." Here goes...

If you want to see more angles, head to i heart faces - there are so many incredible entries.

♥,

the traveling (and picture-taking!) stahr...

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The Great Ocean Road, Part 1

You might remember I won a limbo contest at a bar about a month ago. The prize was a day trip down the Great Ocean Road and, having never heard of the GOR before, I had little expectations. After all, it was a limbo competition. At a bar. Don’t they usually just hand out free t-shirts for stuff like that?

Well, Becky, Hinnerk, Curtis and I headed out (at 6:30am… grumble, grumble) on the road trip last Tuesday, and let me tell you, it was wayyyy better than a free t-shirt, early start and all.

We stayed up way too late the night before to watch our roommate play at an open mic night in St Kilda. Because James was playing, they gave us a $50 bar tab and 2 for 1 drink specials which, unfortunately thankfully didn't go very far between seven people. He sang really well, but the guitarist who was accompanying him kept throwing him off by switching up the tempo of the song and then laughing about it. It was vair, vair annoying, and Becky and I may or may not have yelled “Give him back the guitar!” a few times…

He finally got the hint.

Anyways, after only about four hours of sleep we awoke the next morning and groggily walked to the pick-up location. When we boarded the bus, I recognized the Haitian guy who was sitting towards the back, strumming angelically on his guitar.

“Hey! You played at Base Bar last night, right? I have a million pictures of you!” Which doesn’t make me sound like a stalker at all, no.

He laughed, told me his name was Nikerson, and gave me his website so that I could send him some of the pics. Turns out he’s a bit of a world-wide star, and is tentatively scheduled to play in Montreal as part of Les FrancoFolies next year. I’ll try to get more details so those of you in Montreal can go see him!

He played us a few tunes, including a fantastic impression of Celine Dion, and we were off, racing out of the city opposite the early morning rush-hour traffic. After a small nap, we awoke to find that we were driving towards… a forest fire? Hmm...

As I'm sure you know, forest fires are extremely common (and destructive) in Australia. Our tour guide/bus driver Clancy told us how the GOR has been completely wiped out quite a few times, which was not all that reassuring as we headed toward this wall of smoke.

Clancy switched on the radio and we were soon informed that there would be some “controlled fires” (oxymoron?) going on in the area today.

Clancy giggled into the microphone. “Well, let’s hope this is one of them!”

We made a quick scenic stop at the famous surfer haven, Bells Beach, to stretch our legs and take a few photos. Despite the possible impending doom, it was a beautiful, warm, and perfect day. 

Here I am with Hinnerk, Curtis, Nikerson and Becks.

We continued driving and Clancy pointed out a funny house along the road. Apparently the owner got so sick of rebuilding his place after a forest fire (to which he lost three houses!) that he decided to build something that was untouchable to the fiercest roaring flames. And after the deadly fire of 1985, his was the only house that remained standing.

Despite its obvious lack of style, this one-bedroom popsicle sold for a whopping four million dollars last year.

Next we stopped at a WWI memorial, or rather, the memorial for a WWI memorial, as the first statues had been destroyed in the fire of ’85. The whole Great Ocean Road was actually a government initiated project designed to provide work for the thousands of jobless soldiers returning from battle. Curtis decided to give them a hand.

After snapping a few pictures, we were back on the road, and getting ever closer to the menacing hedge of smoke. Before we knew it, the grey and orange clouds were upon us. [Cue dramatic Jaws music]

… to be continued… 

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Four Seasons in One Day

To be fair, we had been well-warned of the temperamental nature of Melbourne’s weather. The joke amongst locals – and others in the know – is that only in this city can you experience all four seasons in the span of a day.

You can rise to find a spring morning, flowers waking up and shaking off the fine layer of dew that can settle overnight. An hour passes and the wind can pick up and suddenly it’s autumn and the leaves are falling, spinning all around you. Around noon the sun can be so hot and the beaches so full of brown bodies and it becomes summer, the best summer you’ve ever tasted. But bring a jumper (a sweater) to dinner because as soon as night falls, the air can turn crisp and cold and wintry.

The weather is not always unpredictable; some days a warm summer breeze embraces you and carries you through morning, noon, and night. Nevertheless, it is always good to come prepared.

Though I don’t think even the locals could have predicted the weather last weekend, as thousands flocked to the city for the yearly Moomba Festival.

Curtis, James, Nicola and I arrived in the CBD and headed in the direction of the festival to meet up with Becky, Dave and Hinnerk. Along the way we passed this little guy grooving to Michael Jackson hits. I’d say he was earning a fair bit more than his weekly allowance.

The breeze was warm, the clouds were spaced out in the light blue sky, and bubbles from a nearby bubble-maker floated in the air. It was a totally normal summer’s day.

But in a matter of minutes, clouds began racing over from the horizon, and the skies grew dark and ominously green.

Noon looked like night and the lights from the train station across the river illuminated in reaction to the sudden change in the day’s brightness. And then a wall of rain began to fall. Except it wasn’t rain. It was loud, golf-ball sized hail. And OUCH it hurt when it came barreling down on my head.

We ducked for cover under patio umbrellas, but the hail chased after us, falling not only from the sky but also horizontally, like little baseballs batted by the howling winds.

Before too long you couldn’t see over the Yarra River. You couldn’t even see fifteen feet in front of you.

The sidewalks looked like small lakes.

And groups of BMX bikers, having realized that their festival competition was most certainly over for the day, headed back from the carnival grounds, wet and disappointed.

Look at the size of this hail!

We finally met up with the others and took refuge in a nearby Irish Pub. Here’s Hinnerk. He got a bit stranded and had to wade through the lake/sidewalk to get to us. Anything for a pint, right?

After we emerged from P.J. O’Brien’s a few couple hours later, even the underpasses were flooded.

On the roads, cars were at a standstill, and this driver decided he had better find a way to pass the time.

And then, out of nowhere, the skies cleared and the sun streamed in from every corner of the sky. Crazy, wild Melbourne weather!

Just kidding – that’s L.A. It was fairly miserable all day and the trams weren’t running (because of the traffic) so we swam all the way home to St Kilda through river-like sidewalks.

Ok, we walked. But still.

Lots of love,

the traveling stahr…

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"Everywhere You Go...

...always take the weather with you."

My roommate played this Aussie/Kiwi song last night at an open mic night. UH-MAZING song.

This is my roommate, James:

He's a bit of a rockstar... not gonna lie...

Also weather-related, we were caught in a WICKED hail storm the other day, the likes of which Melbourne has maybe never seen.

I read somewhere it caused nearly four. hundred. million. dollars damage. More pics and story telling to come!

Dry (now) and happy,

the traveling stahr...

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My Brief Stint as a Professional Tennis Player

About a week ago Curtis and I ran into a Belgian girl we knew at the hostel who was on her way to meet up with some friends of ours.

“Come join! We’re on our way to mumblemumbleinafrenchaccent!”

“Oh cool! What’s the place called?” I asked, hoping this would clarify where they were headed, as I’d completely missed what she’d said.

She looked confused. “I don’t know, does it have a name? It’s just right around the corner, come on!”

“Sure!” I said enthusiastically, because at this point there really isn’t much we wouldn’t want to explore in Melbourne.

On the way to the elevators, she turned around and beamed, “I just love tennis!”

Ohhhh…. TENNIS. Ok, Cool!

So six of us trekked to the nearby tennis courts, which did have a name—the Rod Laver Arena (anybody who knows anything about tennis would understand who that was, but me? I had no clue)—and which was, in fact, the home of the Australia Open.

But at the front desk, the receptionist informed us that unfortunately, because of a regional tournament, all the rental tennis courts were booked for the day.

We were crushed. Especially because it had been quite an ordeal to get there.

“Just around the corner” turned into half an hour, in which time we managed to sortakinda cause a car crash by jay-walking. Except, it wasn’t our fault! I swear! Some crazy yahoos were barreling down the road in a white van and we waited for them to safely pass before crossing the street, at which time they tried (successfully) to scare the bajesus out of us by letting out a piercing scream as soon as we set foot in the road. But karma is a funny thing, because as soon as they screeched at us we heard another sound: the screeeeeech of squealing tires, and a CRASH, as the van went careening into the car in front of it, stopped at a red light.

Thankfully, no one was harmed and there were several bystanders who offered their help to the lady in the now-crunched car, so we went on our merry way, a bit shook up and vowing to use the crosswalk on the way home.

But it seemed, because of the ongoing tennis tournament, that our journey had been for not. “Unless…” the receptionist trailed off, click-clicking on her computer, “you wouldn’t mind playing in the show court.”

The show court? For no extra cost? As in… one of the three main arenas? As in… where people sit in chairs and cheer on real tennis players playing real tennis? Um, no we don’t mind.

Now unfortunately, there was a bit of a picture-deleting fiasco last night on the pub crawl (in my idiocy/intoxication, I thought I’d uploaded the tennis pictures onto my computer and proceeded to delete nearly half of them… and almost cried this morning when I figured it out) so I don’t have the super-awesome picture of us walking into the arena and the glare of the sunlight looking like a million eager fans were taking our photo.

Buuuut, I had taken so many that there were still tons on the card, so I’ll have to make do.

This is an aerial image of the Rod Laver Arena, and Dave and Becky are pointing out the stadium we rented for an hour.

If only we could have rented fans to fill the seats... 

Here’s our “family photo” from the end of the day. Curtis was bouncing a ball on the tennis racket to show off his mad skillz, but instead he ended up looking like Bobo the Clown because the self-timer went off at just the right wrong moment…

From left to right: Me, Curtis, Becky, Hinnerk, Sophie, and Dave.

All in all, the day’s discovery (other than don’t jay-walk and don’t forget to upload your photos before you delete them, dummy) was that I’m really quite crap at tennis. Especially serving. I can’t seem to understand that when you serve the ball you are just aiming for the opposite side of the court, not the East Coast of New Zealand.

But it was SO. MUCH. FUN.

Oh, and another lesson learned? Even your armpits need sunscreen. Ouchy Ouch Ouch.

With love (and peeling underarms),

the traveling stahr…

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Catch-Up, Catsup, Ketchup... Partie Deux

Did you know that in Australia and New Zealand they call ketchup Tomato Sauce? Last night we went out with some friends (friends! yay!) and my Kiwi roommate asked the waitress if we could please have some tomato sauce (pronounced, toe-mahhh-toe) with our fries. Even though I already knew that tomaaahhto sauce was ketchup, it still took me a minute to realize he wasn't ordering a side of marinara to go with his chips.

Then what is pasta sauce, I hear you all asking (or, not). Well it’s Tomato Sauce, too. What a confusing and bizarre world we live in.

Anyhow… here is Part Two of what we’ve been up to in the last few weeks.

Family & Friends. My mum’s college roommate Sandy’s friend she met in England (see if you can follow that one) lives in Melbourne with her lovely, beautiful family. Martine and Philip and their children (three girls and one boy, all around our age) have been nothing but open, hospitable and helpful in our transition to life in this amazing city.

We were invited over for dinner and then again the following day to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies (from the perspective of an Aussie news channel… weird!) and it was just our luck that Sandy’s husband Jim (the two of them have always been prominent figures in my life) was in town on business. Jim insisted on a group photo, though I think this had more to do with certain strict orders from Sandy, rather than a desire to capture such a fun and wonderful gathering.

In the place of Canadian flags, we waved around a couple of maple leaf backpack pins Sandy had sent along for Curtis and I, as Martine and Philip cheered for their home team.

After the somewhat comical failure of the Olympic Torch signaled the end of the Opening Ceremonies, we headed out to the picturesque Brighton Beach, a small stretch of sand modeled after the famous Brighton Beach in England. Little “Beach Boxes” line the shore, each one valued at around $200,000, though rarely do they ever go on sale.

A couple of wedding parties braved the cool temperatures and overcast skies to pose in front of the beautiful and ever-vibrant backdrop of the Beach Boxes.

Not a bad spot for photographs, no matter the weather!

Fun in the Sun. Having secured an apartment but not yet moved in, our last week in the hostel was filled with lazy summer days like this one, when Hinnerk, Becky, Curtis and I took the tram to Port Melbourne beach to soak up some Vitamin D.

We laughed and played under the sun’s warm embrace

Drank the beer we kept cool in the ocean surf

Watched the sun sink over the horizon

And soared off to dinner (I think there was more than a bit of Victoria Bitter involved at this point).

The end.

But not really.

the traveling stahr… 

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Catch-Up, Part One

Sometimes it feels like it was just last week that I stayed up all night packing until my bones had been thoroughly marinated in exhaustion and I stumbled, bleary eyed, down the front steps and into the car to head to the airport.

But other times this picture feels like the memory of a distant moment years ago. The kind of moment you squint your eyes and tilt your head just slightly to recall.

And in a way, I guess it’s a bit of both.

We’ve been getting settled into our new apartment (translation: spending all day cleaning, scrubbing, vacuuming, re-arranging… nesting) and though it feels like we left home just yesterday, we’ve been in Melbourne for almost a month!

Here are some of the highlights of our trip so far – a sort of disjointed photo-blog style catch-up post, if you will.

Target. Oh, sweet, sweet Target. I remember wandering about the city on day two, feeling disoriented and out of place, and stumbling upon this beautiful, familiar sight:

We bought a liter of Target-brand sunscreen yesterday for $11.99 (Australian Dollars). To put that into perspective, the first day we went to the beach I scoured the local pharmacy for the best deal and bought a 150ml bottle for $13!

Street Entertainment. I could—and will—write an entire post solely on Melbourne’s unbelievably vibrant street culture, but for now I’ll just touch briefly on the subject. You can’t walk anywhere in the CBD (central business district, the main part of the city) without bumping into various people painting, acting, dancing and singing on the streets.

This beautiful oil pastel was drawn right onto the sidewalk and remained there for days, faded hand outstretched, waving goodbye as each passing rain washed away a layer of color and exquisite detail.

And here, age doesn’t seem appear to matter much in street entertainment. One evening walking home around 11pm, we saw a woman who was at least 80 years old, her long grey hair cascading over a humbly bent head right down past her wrinkly fingers, which danced beautifully across a portable piano.

And the week prior, when I was out doing some much-needed window shopping, I passed a kid who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old, just givin’ her on his chalk-drawn dance floor.

The best part was when he stopped for water and… his inhaler. He was either asthmatic, or really, really smart, because the amount of people dropping coins into his bucket must have doubled after his little breathing break.

The Year of the Tiger. Melbourne’s Chinatown, the longest in the world, I’ve been told, was positively exploding with people and color and excitement and, well, explosives, on Chinese New Year.

The dragons (two gymnasts each; one standing on the other’s shoulders) spent all afternoon prowling up and down alleyways, stopping in front of restaurant doorways to “eat” a suspended cabbage and then light a round of small explosives. Does anyone know what this means? I’m thinking it symbolizes the desire for prosperity in the upcoming year or something…

Whatever it means, it was pretty cool to watch.

Alrighty… I’m getting a bit tired writing this post, which means you are definitely getting bored reading it (if you’ve gotten this far). We’ll call this Part One, and I’ll continue with Partie Deux tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the photos!  Miss you all…

the traveling stahr.

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