Super long, but interesting... (1st Day of Break)

Okay, now to what everyone (all four of you; ah, well, actually I have no idea at this point how many people read this blog, for all I know it could number in the millions) actually wants to hear about, the break! I will warn you from the get go that I will not be able to write this whole thing all at one go because SO MUCH happened over the course of thos two weeks. It was really like having 3 separate breaks. So I will try to stick to the highlights, but still this will give me the ability to give a more detailed account of my journey. So, the first phase of our voyage was the bus tour that we took from Melbourne to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road. But, in order to explain this trip more fully, I will have to back up to before we even departed.

So, we were downtown about two hours before our bus was scheduled to leave because we needed to look for a book we were reading for class. Plenty of time, right? Well, then we decided to go down to St. Kilda for lunch and we had still about another hour before the bus was supposed to leave (for those of you keeping score we never found the book and had to give up). St. Kilda is probably about a 15 minute bus ride away from where we needed to meet the bus. So we ride out and are looking for a place to eat that will be cheap enough and finally just decide to grab some pizza. The thing we had not figured into the equation is the fact that it would take some time for the pizza to cook. So we sit and bite our nails while the pizza is cooking and as soon as we get them we rush out the door to find the bus stop. By this time we only have about 20 minutes left before the tour is scheduled to depart (and keep in mind that we had also never received the e-mail confirmation we were promised by the bus company confirming that there were seats for us at all). So we find a bus stop and look at the time table and discover that the bus will not even arrive until 10 minutes before we are supposed to leave. We don’t know if another bus that goes where we need to go will be stopping at some other stop and we don’t know where to walk to get back for our bus. We just have to wait. So we sit, again biting our nails, while the wind is tearing down the street, freezing us half to death. The bus finally comes and we wait through each agonizing stop, watching the minutes tick by. We get out already about five minutes late and start sprinting from the bus stop to our pick up site. Thank God, the bus was still there, but they told us as we arrived that one of the drivers had just been on his way to call HQ and tell them they were leaving without us. Now, I ask you, do you need any more proof that God’s tangible favor is resting on us?

But, at any rate, it was after we climbed sheepishly onto our little bus, mumbling apologies to the other passengers, that our vacation finally got underway (btw, I think it was this initial lateness that made it so that Thryn and I never got to sit next to each other the entire tour, since people tend to settle down wherever they first decide to park themselves in situations like these). The thing that you have to understand from the get-go is that this was no ordinary bus tour. You should go to their website (Wayward Bus tours), their very indie and organic and probably they all eat a lot of brown rice. But the whole point of the company is to have bus tours for people who don’t like the idea of going on bus tours. The “buses” are really more like large vans and the tour groups are no larger than 21 people. They tend to be younger but are definitely not all students and they come from all over the world. So we set our for our first day of amazing driving. The Great Ocean Road was designed to be like the Pacific Highway One in CA, so the first part skirts right along these cliffs on the ocean coast on a very windy road. The weather was not especially nice, kind of rainy and cold, but that fact made it so that about half an hour of our drive we were in view of the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen, Technicolor bright, a complete arch spanned out over the ocean. For a good portion of that time it was so bright that it made a double rainbow.

We stopped at a lot of really pretty beaches that day (great OCEAN road, get it?) with water that would roll up to the shore in crashing arches, the color of clear glass after its been worn down by the sand for a couple of years. But, describing all the beaches would slow down the narrative, so moving on to Apollo Bay, where we stopped for the night. We were sitting in the kitchen when one of the people on our tour came to ask us to borrow pepper. He paused when we gave it to him and said, “We’re making a fondue, would you like to come.” We must have looked quizzical because he went on to explain, “Well, we’re Swiss, right, so we wanted to make this fondue because it’s been so long since we had one and we’re really used to having it and we miss it. We don’t have the right stuff, the right cheese, the right wine, but you could come and taste it anyway, some Swiss fondue, eh?” Well, we said that sounded really neat and we might come over. So after we finished our dinner of pasta and weird tomato tuna sauce, we looked at each other and said “Wanna go?” “Yeah!” and off we went.

We walked over to their flat and knocked timidly on their sliding glass door. As soon as they saw us, they started cracking up with laughter, but waved us in. They introduced themselves, and then explained to us the ins and outs of fondue, all the while apologizing because theirs had turned out so hilariously poorly. They were sure that it was substandard, but I think we just thought, “Hey, melted cheese and bread, where’s bad?” Well, after we tried about a slice of bread, they pulled out a pack of cards and asked if they could show us a Swiss card game. It was pretty simple, a lot like playing spoons except instead of grabbing spoons we were supposed to slap the table. They explained that it was usually a drinking game, but that they didn’t have enough alcohol left, so we couldn’t play it that way. After a few hands, someone got the idea that instead of a drinking game, the last person to slap the deck would instead have to play another little game called “Truth or Action.” It’s basically a different name for truth or dare, just with a card game added. I think they could tell that we were a little leery, because at first the things they were asking were so benign, like hopping around on one leg and yelling, or saying where and when we were born. But then things got a little rougher, first they asked Cedric to eat a clove of garlic, and then they asked me what I thought of President Bush and then, well, then more questions were asked, although at that point the tide of the game had turned and Maud, one of the Swiss, was losing more hands and she just answered them in French (they all knew like 4 or 5 languages) so we were largely spared. We also had some interesting conversations about our respective cultures; mostly centering on the fact that we were disturbing their confident belief that life without alcohol is not actually possible. Christophe actually asked us, “How do people, like, hook up, or become couples?” We were like, “I don’t know, I guess they just talk about it.” Heads shaken in utter disbelief, understandable since apparently in Europe people can’t become couples, socialize, communicate honestly or basically exist without the saving grace of alcohol. Oh, the Swiss. But they were seriously very kind people, like even though they weren’t doing anything terribly scandalous, Christophe kept telling us that this was just the way that they were, but he knew we came from a different kind of culture so if anything made us uncomfortable we should just go ahead and say so. They kept saying, “Oh, you will go away from here tonight and have such a terrible opinion of the Swiss!” Actually, Maud came to find us after we went back to our part of the hostel just to apologize for the way they boys had acted and say that she hoped we had not been offended. She was so sweet and earnest, and we assured her that we had enjoyed the evening immensely. Very true, but also true that this encounter did forever alter my opinion of the Swiss. :-)

Sorry guys, they won't all be this long, promise...