No worries

No worries is the Aussie response for “no problem” So yes it’s been a while since the team blogged, but no worries…there’s a very good reason. First reason: no internet access here at the house. Second reason: were on holiday. Holiday=vacation.

We saw Joe off on Monday from Coolangatta airport in the morning and then we hired a car. Hired is what the Aussies call renting a car. With Mike at the helm, we set off on the wrong side of the road with our trusty Garmin set to the female Aussie voice and headed for Coolum on the Sunshine Coast.

All of the guys have driven the car for some period of time. For those of you back home thinking that there is going to be some massive pileup of Americans in Australia…no worries…the hard part is not driving on the wrong side of the road or all of the roundabouts…it is the fact that the turn signal lever is on the right side of the steering column. So if you see the wipers wiping on a perfectly sunny day…that’s our indicator of an imminent turn.

One of the most frustrating things for me since we’ve been on holiday is the familiar lack of sleep of the past four weeks. After a non-stop schedule for the past month, you would think we would be able to sleep in. Not so. There was a time change on Sunday, and being the start of “autumn” in Australia…we fell back one hour and lost yet another hour of sleep. That means for the first two mornings on holiday the team was up by 6:30am.

Today is day three of holiday and no worries, we were all able to sleep in. I was up by 7:30 but have been able to get in a morning nap. That’s right. I woke up, took a nap, then woke back up for breakfast. We have no scheduled plans for today. We’ve packed lots of stuff in our first two days. The only thing we’re sure of is that Dominos Pizza will be delivering dinner.

So far on holiday activities have included: Shawn cleaning the pool, a long walk on the beach, grocery shopping, committee meetings, multiple games of Pea cup in the pool, a trip to the Eumundi markets, ANZAC cookie baking, boogie boarding, sand castle/barn building, ping pong playing, sing-alongs, night walk on the boardwalk, Spanish speaking and cooking some excellent meals.

If you thought we were on our own and starving…no worries. The meal menus have consisted of: Nick’s burgers with topping (mayo, cheese, bacon, mushroom), milk, Sanitarium cereal, lemon myrtle yogurt with macadamia, milk, watermelon, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, milk, prawn/fish stirfry, pancakes, bacon & eggs, milk and milk. That’s right…flat white milk. I think I’ve mentioned how difficult it has been to find plain white milk here in Australia. We bought a combined total of 11 litres of milk and our supply is running dangerously low.

But no worries, we know our way to and from the IGA. No worries, we know how to work the grill. No worries, we completed our gift buying yesterday at the market. What we do have to worry about is that our holiday is coming to an end. I speak for the team when I say that we will miss the generous nature of our hosts, the incredible cultural and professional activities we have participated in and the easy going “no worries” feel we’ve had wherever we have gone.

It is bittersweet to say this…no worries, we’ll be home soon.

Mike, Beth, Shawn & Nick

We been everywhere man...we been everywhere.

The tiny resort town of Yamba, pronounced just like it looks, concluded our Rotary duties of the GSE experience. The district conference is attended by all clubs in the district and is a Friday, Saturday and Sunday of speakers and fellowship. It was also the Missouri team's last chance to say goodbye to the good people of Australia and reuite with our families from the past month.

It was a BLAST. By this time we are pros at giving our presentation. But at district conference we had to prepare a new one that told of our cultural and professional experiences. The whole thing lasted 20 minutes. If you recall, the competion with the Arizona team reaches its culmination at conference. We had the advantage of going second. We had a SONG, set to the tune of "I been Everywhere" made most famous by American Johnny Cash. It was initially an Austrlian tune which we found out.

You all know the tune, here is our version which pays tribute to each of the clubs that hosted along the way.

Chorus: We been everywhere man, we been every where..
Steppin roo poo in Tweed Heads

Prawns and bugs in Coomera
Chorus

Plantin Missouri roots in Boonah

Booma-rooma-rang man, in Gunda-wonda-land man

Chorus

Tenterfield-land man, Home of Oracle of the Bush Graham,

Kyogle cruisin' in Troopy

Chorus

Meeting Mayor Jenny in Goonellahbah

Mt. Warning in the Morning, ain't they got style? (it's a mostly female club)

Chorus

New South Wales to Queensland

Better check your watch man (one place has daylight savings, one doesn't...confusing)

Chorus

We sang this song with a huge lack of tone but made up for it with lots of love and spirit.

That was that. We attended some of the conference speakers that afternoon and then took a little bit of team time to go for a swim and a nap before heading down for Western night at the Conference. Jeans, western shirts, and a tip-of-of-the with a "Howdy" set the mood. Our team's getups for Western night topped everyone except the Coomera River crowd who dressed up as Gold Coast Meter Maids in rhinestoned cowboy hats. See pictures. :-)

There was one last bit of friendly competition with Arizona that night. GSE coordinator Wendy and her husband Charles had a quilt to raffle off. The jobs of the AZ and MO GSE teams was to sell these raffle tickets to the attendees. The proceeds of the raffle went to a Brisbane school in need of textbooks that were damaged from the recent flooding. We raised over $2500 for the school thanks to the generosity of the Rotarians. Both teams sold all of the their tickets and the real winner was the kids of the school!

The winner of the raffle ticket sales was declared a draw...but Missouri stepped it up a notch and auctioned off our uniform ties to benefit The Rotary Foundation. We raised over $1200 on the sale of 4 ties and one scarf! Talk about dear! "Dear" is what Australians say when something is expensive. Our ties had a lot of international flair and were the talk of every club we visited and highly coveted by Rotarians. Joe Beltz played auctioneer for Beth's scarf and it brought the highest price of the night at $310 dollars. My math my not be totally accurate but it's a good sum for the Rotary Foundation!

Then it was time to party. The conference hall turned into one big barn dance. Rotarians, friends, family, exchange students and GSE teams partied in true Aussie style. Visit www.rotary9640.org to see other photos from the conference!

Mt. Warning in the Morning while it's Pouring

It has been a while since I've blogged. I blame it on the frantic schedule at the end of this trip....and the lack of internet access at the District Conference.

To keep you up-to-date I'll fill you in with my last host. I met Bob the book binder during my last vocational day of the trip. Many thanks to my host Anne of the Mt. Warning AM club for making the arrangements. Bob does the exact thing my dad does back home. The only difference is he has a machine to make his letters...a Ludlow...which First Impressions Book binding must desperately find...and he makes movie props. While perusing his shelf of accomplishments I see a US Passport. This passport was made for a movie in which Jodie Foster starred. He has also created books for Scooby Doo, and the Chronicles of Narnia. Very cool and very profitable!

Thursday night's dinner was at the White Olive in Murwillambah, owned by Rotarian Simone and her husband Li Ping. The meal was 8 courses long...and the best meal I have had in 2011. It consisted of: fresh bread with 3 dipping sauces, won tons, spring rolls, kangaroo, spotted mackerel, 12 hour roasted lamb, grilled eggplant, and a medley of desserts which included chocolate souffle, merinenge porcupine ice cream, Anzac cake, and another cake-like dessert.

That was on Thursday night.

Friday morning the team minus Joe climbed Mt. Warning. Mt Warning is the highest eastern peak of Australia and the point of which the sun first hits the Australian continent. Sounds lovely right? The climb up Mt. Warning is a crap shoot. It takes about two hours to get to the top and you never know when a cloud might obstruct your view. The aboriginal name for Mt. Warning is Wollumbin meaning cloud catcher. Mt. Warning was called Mt. Warning by Captain Cook because ships would use it as a landmark to determine the start of the dangerous reef in the sea. Cloud Catcher did a great job catching Friday Morning. A third of the way up the top, it started raining. Granted we were in a rainforest setting, therefore rain wasn't much of a surprise.

We climbed this switchback path full of steps, puddles, rocks, and leeches. Shawn wore cowboy boots...an inappropriate footwear choice for the climb but he made it most of the way to the top. The top you see requires use of chain handrail of sorts to assist climbers in their ascent to the top. The chain is about 1km long (.6 miles) and a 50-60 degree climb. Shawn made it up half the chain in his boots and wisely chose to stop along the wet rocky climb. Beth, Mike and I trekked on to the top. My footwear choice was tennis shoes...mesh tennis shoes...which give ample protection from the rain. Insert sarcastic tone.

We made it to the top to find the view spectacular. April Fools! We were in a cloud. But at least we were above the rainy portion of the cloud. Our descent would take us back into the rain where we got soaked like a cane toad. Despite the weather and no falls or injuries, the team had a great experience and can cross off a trip to Mt. Warning off our Australia to-do lists. Next time though we will choose better weather so we can enjoy the views.

Friday afternoon was a transport day to Yamba, where the district conference was to be held. We checked into the Star of the Sea retreat center which is a converted convent. The rooms were small and cozy but provided all we needed...a bed and bathroom.

Gingi, There are muchas languages en Australia.

That my friends is a three language title inspired by our adventures yesterday. Here's a translation:

Gingi= Aboriginal for hello
There are= there are in English
Muchas= many in Spanish
Languages= languages in English
en= in, in Spanish
Australia= Australia

The full translation= Hello, there are many languages in Australia. I didn't know how many of my readers needed help with the English parts, so I included them as well. You're welcome. De nada.

What inspired the my multilingualism? Is multilingualism even a word? Yesterday after the Mt. Warning AM club presentation the guys minus Beth (see the Moo blog for Beth's location) went first to the Murwillumbah Museum, the equivalent to a county historical society. They had quite the collection. Then we traveled to the visitor center where we all loaded up on Australian souvenirs . I completed my niece Sophie's shopping at that stop...or so I think. Then we went to an Aboriginal Museum in Tweed.

Joining us along the way was Boia (pronounced BOY-a), a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Brazil. Boia's full name is Luis Fernando Fakih Amellei Furquim. You see why we call him Boia. Being Brazilian, he speaks Portuguese and Spanish. Beth and I have had a chance to practice a little Spanish speaking with him, he practices English with us. I always tell people "Hablo un poquito Espanol" meaning I speak very little Spanish. But Boia tells me my Spanish is good and I should change my phrase to "Hablo un poco" meaning I speak a little, not very little. He tells me my pronunciation is dead-on and that it is "Vury good" in his accent.

At the Aboriginal Museum, our tour guide Marley took us on a tour of the museum and told us about the culture of the native Australians. There are still over 360 tribes of natives in Australia, and even more dialects of the language! Much like the Native Americans, these people have no written history. Theirs is an oral history passed down from generation to generation and more and more is being lost every day. Marley was quite the character and taught us a few aboriginal words. The only problem with this language, like many languages, is that the meanings of the same word change from place to place.

Here are a few words we learned:
Gingi (JIN-jee) = hello

Jarjum (Jar-JUM) = kid, child

Moogle(MOO-gull)= silly

Nin-gan-nar (Neen-gone-ARE= Shut up, stop doing, or Please be quiet

Koala= No drink...because koalas apparently don't every drink water, they get it from eucalyptus leaves

Kangaroo= What's that? see below for the "legend" story...I'm not sure if I believed this one.

Nar-loo-waliya (Nahr-LOO-Wah-lee-ah)= good bye

The kangaroo story is this. An Englishman was inquiring an Aborigine about what certain things were called and was writing the translations down. The man spotted a kangaroo and asked the Aborigine what it was. The kangaroo proceeded to hop away out of site as the Aborigine was turning to look. When the Aborigine saw nothing (the kangaroo had hopped away) he told the white man "kangaroo". Kangaroo translated to English means "What's that?" The white man, not knowing any better, wrote down kangaroo. And the name stuck.

Right now I'm waiting for my host Anne to come pick me up to take me to a book binder in Queensland. So it is time for me to ninganar and say narloowaliya. (Shut up and say goodbye)

Mooball Moorrning!

To get to the Tweed Valley Whey Cheese factory, Murwillumbah you do not need to go through Mooball, but you should. It is an old cow-town- For real. We started off the day with a lot of laughs and fines. Afterwords the boys headed to museums and Margarita took me to The Cheese farm. Here's the tale of our mooorning....
Years ago, (Margarita and husband Gary explained this story to me) the main highway when right through the town of Mooball in the Tweed Shire bringing the tall B double trucks right through this little shire town. It is a perfect resting spot for truckers and families. Somewhere along the way the black and white spots were introduced to the buildings, light poles, gas pumps and cream houses. The town no longer hosts B doubles due to the by-pass, but the spots ares still fresh.

Turn left at the black and white cream house just before the holding pen of Frisians, to get to Tweed Valley Whey Cheese Factory. Debbie Allard and Sue Harnett, two happy ladies with pink cheeks greeted us with a G'day!
They have been making and selling cheese for two years. Sue and her husband still have a dairy farm just down the hill where the 100+ cows are grazing. Sue told us that they still
sell 95% of the milk to Norco, and she uses the rest to make the cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, kefir, natural yoghurt, yoghurt cheese balls, feta, and haloumi. Check out these names: Cam and Bert, Heluva Haloumi, Norm and Bee camembert, and Fresian Fog. Me: How did you come up with these names? Sue: (giggles) A lot of bottles of wine!
They sell to a few small scale stores (we found some at the butcher shop in Murwillumbah), 2 farmers markets and a handfull of restaurants. She explained that the stores sell for the same price, $9/ small round of cheese, as they do at the markets. They want to encourage patronage at the stores that support them, the same for the restaurants.












Sue said her father is a great salesman. He comes to help out at the markets and store promotions often telling customers that he is Jamie Oliver's dad and this is the best cheese in the world. Sue is the Ebay queen, she searched night and day to find pasturizers, containers sinks, etc... After taking classes, the ladies toured large cheese plants to gather ideas and methods, they also received a great deal of help from a local agriculture extension agent. Norco also helps them through lab testing and general support. The thought being that there used to be more than 150 dairy farms in the Tweed Valley, now there are 8, so as long as these ladies are not creating competition Norco will give them support.


I had to include this black and white dog that is staying with Shawn is Wolfy, and he lets me tell him stories about Butter.
It's the start of another day- Headed to White Olive restaurant today!

Tranfer to the last club!

I shaved this morning and my shave gel is running low. By my estimations that means I've been gone about a month. The days of the week have been lost to me this past month. Today was Tuesday and we transferred to the Mt. Warning Club who will be our last hosts before we head down to Yamba for district conference on Friday.

Our meeting place from Gonnelebah (I spelled it wrong I know) to Mt. Warning took place at Byron Bay. Byron Bay point is the farthest eastern point on the Australian mainland. My teammates Shawn, Beth, and Mike got to visit this site on their very first day with the Tweed hosts. It is quite a sight to behold. I would have seen this my first day also, but I was at an even more interesting place...the doctor. So today was my chance and our leader Joe's to visit this must-see Australian landmark.

I must update you on the status of our team presentation last night in Lismore. The Missouri team presented first, followed by the Arizonans. Leader Joe Beltz brought his A-game and killed last night. The rest of the team performed equally well. We blew(my opinion is biased mind you) the Arizona team out of the water. I have to give a shout-out to Larry from the AZ team. Larry is a Mizzou grad and did the MIZ cheer. I know Beth and I yelled out the ZOU cheer back to him. The Aussies didn't know what to think...and with only three people participating...MIZ-ZOU doesn't pack the punch it should. At the meeting there was also a fellow who had ridden his motorcycle through Jefferson City once for a Rotary fundraiser. So he knew about my town!

We have a morning presentation at 7am tomorrow, then off to some museums and a swim in the Pacific weather permitting. Thursday...Thursday I get to visit a book binder. It has been arranged by my wonderful host Anne. This guy's bindery, like my dad's business, is pretty much a one-man-show! So I can't wait to see the comparisons to our business. I am really looking forward to this vocational day!

OH, and I mentioned that district conference is this weekend in Yamba...guess what else is happening in Yamba this weekend...A Relay for Life! That's right, they have Relay in Australia and I sure hope I get to visit. I'm going to try and get some stuff and see how they do things.

House with no Steps, TAFE, the Mayor and a little friendly competition

Sorry folks for the lack of blog postings the past few days. I see that my Trooopy blog was my last...I'm still sad we had to depart from Trooopy. We switched hosts from Kyogle to Goonellbah (Gone-Ill-i-Bah) near Lismore, NSW last Friday. That handoff occurred at the hippie capital of Australia known as Nimbin. It was certainly an interesting little town...My hosts for the Lismore club don't exactly live in Lismore but in Ballina. The bad part of Ballina is that it is about 25 minutes from the rest of the team...but the great part of Ballina is that it is only one dune crossing from the Beach! Unfortunately it's been raining the past couple of days so my stint at the beach has been limited to two occasions.

Then Saturday was a free day/rest day with nothing scheduled. Our team spent most of the day at Mike's host Tom and Meg's compiling photographs for our district presentation.

Sunday it was raining. My host Rob accompianied me to Sunday Mass in Lennox at this quaint little beach church with a very spartan interior. So spartan that the kneelers were wooden. No padding, just wood. As one would expect at a Catholic mass, the service was the same as in the states. There was a few words of the creed that I didn't quite know...and the accents and low mumble that is the creed...I still don't know what I missed. But still an interesting thing to cross off my list in Australia.

Sunday was also my host Judy's (Rob's wife) birthday. For breakfast we went to Shelly's on the Beach...a seaside cafe where I had pancakes with berries. For lunch we went to the House with No Steps' cafe. It is staffed by persons with physical and mental disabilities. They are trained at the site's many divisions...macadamia farm, avocado farm, cafe, nursery, gift shop, fruit packing, etc. Judy got a Hawaiian birthday cake of which I am enjoying a piece of as I type this blog. Dinner was at Rob and Judy's house and consisted of salad and prawns.

Monday was a vocational day for me. We first met again at the House With No Steps and was given a tour of the facility by the president Bill Buddee. He showed us around and we got to see macadamia sorting in action. First the green husk is removed by machine, then the nuts are visually sorted by workers and then sent through a water bath. If the nut sinks it's good and it is taken from the bottom of the tank by an auger to the storage bin where it will be shipped to a processing plant to remove the kernel. Any bad nuts will float to the top where they are discarded...sort of...to be sold but at a lower rate because of the lower grade. The House With No Steps also has the largest fruit packing facility in the region. They pack their own grown avocados and also pack for other growers in the area. Other fruits they pack include limes and many other stone fruits (peaches, plums, etc). Beth and I both toured this place and we decided to buy a sampling of thier macadamias to take home with us. The cafe had an assortment of nuts and we purchased ours there. The staff noticed our uniforms and we gathered quite an audience. We gave each worker there a Missouri quarter and posed for pictures....and they all held up thier MO quarters! It was a great moment.

After that Beth and I headed to the TAFE (Technical and Further Education) at Wollongbar. I was toured around by Dave, a horticuture faculty member and Beth was toured around with a culinary faculty member. Like Linn State, the horticulture students maintain much of the campus. We talked all the business end of education (classes, schedules, competencies, and the like) and then walked around looking at various student projects. Nearly all of the funding of TAFE, and other higher education in Australia for that matter is fully government funded (federally and state). The number of students is dependent on how much funding they get. There is virtually no tuition. I asked what the average student would pay per year...the first answer was "nominal" and after a little searching for data...the pricetag was somewhere around $600. My jaw dropped to the floor.

After my tour, I met briefly with Greg who is the head of the horticulture department. I traded him an LSTC golf towel for a Wollongbar horticulture t-shirt. After TAFE, we headed into Lismore to meet with mayor Jenny Dowell. She welcomed us with mid morning tea. Tea doesn't just mean tea...it means (tea or coffee, juice, miscellaneous cakes and nibbles, summer sausage with cheese) Australians refer to each meal as a tea. Morning tea, evening tea, and sometimes they do just stop for a cuppa tea and that's it. You have to pay attention to what tea means. Sometimes you eat, sometimes you drink, and sometimes it means both. Mayor Jenny was very gracious. She gave us a book of Lismore history and we capitulated with various Missouri items (a MO book, miscellaneous pins, Rotary banners).

Since she was mayor I presented her with a "Visit Jefferson City" pin, a "Missouri State Seal" pin, and a book of quips from Mark Twain. I said I "was the unofficial bearer of the official seal of Missouri" and she joked "So what sort of buildings does this get me into?"

Tonight we have a big meeting. The Missouri team (us) will cross paths once again with the Arizona team (them). It is completely coincidental that two teams from the States are on GSE at the same time. There is no trophy to win, there is no official competition...but we want to WIN. I suppose the only thing we get is bragging rights...but that's good enough for me. We had one joint presentation at the beginning which in my unbiased opinion WE beat THEM. Our uniforms were coordinated, we had a personal touch in our presentation...good first outing to size up your competition. We have this meeting tonight for round two. Then next weekend we have presentations at district conference. It's the final...it's our March Madness...and Missouri will be victorious!