Siste del av reisen

Cairns

20-24.^th of August

Cairns seem to be backpackers’ paradise. There are hostels at every corner and you can see a whole lot of caravans as well. My impression of Cairns is that it’s a place that is formed to fit backpackers at the best way. There are a lot of pubs, restaurants, discos and snack bars where backpackers easily can get a job for some months. About fifty percent of the people I met in Cairns were foreigners. I talked to a Swedish girl that worked in a local snack bar. She had been travelling for a year now, even though her plan was to go home after six months. She had been travelling a lot in Asia. Now she basically lived at cheap places in Australia, and took a job every now and then. She had a great time and I would love to do something similar myself. I enjoyed very well in Cairns, basically because I find it very interesting to meet new and open people. I think backpackers tend to fit that description quite well.

I also took an open water course while staying in Cairns. That means that I now am a certified scuba diver, and can go scuba diving wherever I want for the rest of my life. Our instructor, Westly, was a very funny New Zealander that is a typical surf guy. He basically does whatever he wants, whenever he feels like doing it. He makes his money by learning students to scuba dive, but when he gets tired of doing that he travels around the world for a year or so. He seemed like a happy man, with absolutely no worries.

We spent a night at a boat called Kangaroo express. It’s a boat based on The Great Barrier Reef, especially for scuba divers. This is where I got to do my six first scuba dives. We did one of the dives at night time, and I actually got to stroke a shark. It was awesome to see all the strange fish species, turtles, corals and sharks. It was also fun to spend some time together with the people working at the boat. They all loved to have fun, and their cheerful mood amazed me.

Airlie Beach

25^-26^th of August

Airlie Beach was also a typical backpacker stop for those who travel on Australia’s East Coast. I don’t really understand why the place is called Airlie Beach, but I guess that there once was a nice beach there. Now the beach is so ugly that they’ve had to build an artificial lagoon with swimming pools, sand and palms. I think Airlie Beach was pretty similar to Cairns, and the place was formed by all the backpackers as well. Everybody has a friendly attitude, and they all just want to have fun together. People are more social than what is normal on typical tourism destinations. Our hostel was a very cool place to stay since there was a lot of entertainment. It was for instance live music, contests and volley ball.

Rockhampton

27^-28^th of August

Rockhampton was totally different to the other places we visited in Australia. It seemed like we were the only tourists there, and that I can fully understand. We used one day to go sightseeing in the city. Rockhampton turned out to be a ghost town without any people in the streets. All restaurants and cafes closed at three o’clock and it seemed like the city was asleep. The area where our hostel was located had a very Mexican feeling. The surroundings were shabby and I got associations to a trailer park. Rockhampton is famous for their steaks and I must say that I ate the best steak of my life on a restaurant there. It was incredible juicy and tasteful. It seems like Rockhampton is a town that keeps alive of their bulls. There’s no tourism industry there and I can’t really imagine that’s there’s any other billion dollar industry there.

The Mexican feeling got even stronger when I went out for dinner. Everything took very long time, and the service wasn’t exactly good. It was obvious that Rockhampton wasn’t used to tourist. For instance, I don’t even think there was tourist information in the city.

Outside of Rockhampton we visited a crocodile farm. We saw a lot of huge crocs and we actually got to hold a small one. The fellow that was running the farm seemed like a real special guy. He had dedicated his life to crocodiles, and it seemed like as if he wanted his children to take over after him. You could easily see that he really loved these mighty animals.

Brisbane

29^-30^th of August

To me, Brisbane was pretty much the same as Melbourne, just with some slight differences. It seems like as if Brisbane is a newer city. It’s even more clean than Melbourne, and it seems like as if everybody does what they can to keep it that way. Of course, all the warnings that say that you’ll be fined 150 dollars if you litter, probably plays a vital part. Even though Brisbane is a huge city with almost two billion citizens, it’s doesn’t feel as cosmopolitan as Melbourne. People don’t seem to be as stressed as they did in Melbourne. Things are more relaxed. The cafes closes at three o’clock as well, which I think is quite strange. Apart from some small differences, I think Australians are quite similar to Europeans, and that Brisbane could well have been an English town.

Sydney

31^th of August- 3^rd of September

I spent most of my time in Sydney together with my friend from Norway. He accidentally happened to be in here at the same time as me. We went sightseeing and visited Tangaro Zoo just outside of Sydney. We also spent a night at Bondi Beach, watching football and talking to different people. My impression of Sydney is that it is a very nice and well organized city. It’s very modern, and it seems like it never sleeps.

It seems like the local government have used a lot of money to make the city very esthetic and clean. There is a monorail train that goes in the city circle. The special thing is that the railroad is built 10 meters over the road. It looks very nice and modern and I think it’s a very good icon for Sydney. There are very many different nationalities and cultures living together in Sydney. I think it’s very modern in that way, and the way the people get along really is worthy of imitation. A guy from Fiji that I talked to in Bondi Beach said that Sydney is the best place to live for foreigners. He meant that the locals are so used to students, backpackers and tourist from all over the world that they consider foreigners as a part of their own culture. All the foreigners were actually one of the first things I noticed in Sydney. I think Asian countries stand for most of the immigration, and it seems like they really like it here. I guess it’s all the free jobs and good wages that make it so attractive for them. There’s also a lot of Scandinavians here, and especially Manly has a lot of Norwegian students. I guess many of us move to Australia because of the climate, the universities, the fact that there’s a lot of other Scandinavians and that we actually can afford to study abroad. My friend arrived here the day I met him, and as many others he’s going to stay in Australia for quite a while. He’ll take different jobs to make a living. I reckon it must be pretty difficult for many employers since the rate of labour turnover is so high. My friend got a job as a bartender the first day, so the joblessness can’t exactly be high.

Communicating with people in Sydney is very easy. It seems like since everybody are used to people from all over the world. They talk to me as if I should have been a local. It seems like the Australians always are in a good mood since they often laugh and tell jokes about everything. An Australian doesn’t really need an excuse to go and talk to whoever they want to talk to. There are many people that have started talking to me without needing any information from me.

After all, Sydney was a perfect place to end our International Communication journey, it must be one of the most intercultural cities in the world.

International Communication

Through our six weeks around the world I’ve met a lot of new interesting people. They’ve all been very different, and I’ve been amazed and shocked many times. I’ve got to experience the huge cultural differences versus for example Mexico and USA. I’ve met people living in a very isolated society in Fiji, and I’ve met people that very similar to Norwegians in Australia. I’ve also met many subcultures around at the different places. Backpackers, Indians, actors, fishermen and surf guys appears like very different cultures to me. Talking to these different kinds of people always gives me new challenges. Of course there is the obvious part that in Mexico we didn’t speak the same language, but there’s also many other elements that plays a vital part. Of course, I’ve met idiots and grumpy people some places as well, but I think that you’ll find idiots all over the world. I don’t think that any of the places have been better or worse regarding the population of grumpy and angry people. I guess I’ve just met some of the people on a bad day.

Communication in Mexico

There’s no question about that Mexico is very different to what we know in Norway. It’s a totally different culture, and we don’t have much common knowledge about things. The Mexicans are probably very well-informed in their field, but their general knowledge, as we see if, is rather low. Many of the Mexicans I talked to hadn’t even heard about Norway, and they thought that Europe was a big country. It wasn’t unusual to never been outside of Mexico, and I don’t exactly think their news stream from around the world is too big. I think they often consider general knowledge of thinks outside of Mexico as needless, and that there are many things that are much more important to learn. We learn about geography or history when they rather could spend the time on learning how to make a living. The society shows signs of the survival of the fittest syndrome, and everybody is struggling to be the fittest one.

A bartender I talked to in Zacatecas told me that his father used to work at a bar, and that he always knew that he was going to be a bartender as well. Therefore he had never cared about getting any proper education. He started to work very early, and found out that his most valuable knowledge was how to mix a Strawberry Margarita as quick as possible. When I was talking to him I either had to talk to him about my life, or he could talk about his. We didn’t really have much common knowledge.

Communication in USA

The most obvious part with communication in USA is that we’ve got very much common knowledge. We have adapted their lifestyle in many ways. We listen to the same music, see the same movies, eat the same food and have the same multinational enterprises. This makes it easy to chat about almost whatever you want. It’s very easy to understand what an American is talking about, and I guess they feel the same way regarding to us.

When I entered stores or restaurants in the US I was always met with a polite phrase, and they always called me bro, buddy or something else that’s including. I must admit that I found it a little bit artificial, since they weren’t really interested, they were just doing their job.

Some of them actually seem quite egocentric. I heard a story about some Americans that went out to a club in Mexico. At the club there were a lot of other Americans as well. They had a great time and said that the place was really cool, it was almost like home. Why do they travel to different countries if they like it so much at home. That attitude seems to be quite common amongst the Americans. One man asked me why he should travel outside of America when America is so huge? He could just travel around in America instead. Their way of communicating often show signs of this philosophy. Like for instance when I talked to Jamal, the conversation was mostly about him.

Communication in Fiji

In Fiji you’ve got the same phenomenon as you got in Mexico. Even though they speak English in Fiji, you haven’t got any common knowledge with them. Many of them have never been outside of Fiji and don’t know much about the rest of the world. It isn’t that long time since Fiji was a very primitive nation without any technology or influence from overseas. They’re modernizing very quickly, but still they’re way back on many areas. These huge culture differences makes if strange to communicate with the local Fijians about many subjects. You have to keep the conversation on a pretty low level. They are pretty fun to converse with though, since they use their body language and facial expressions much more than what we’re used to from the western culture. They laugh very much, and if they get engaged in the story they use their body to illustrate and explain. For example, the fisherman almost showed us a play when he told us about the birth of his newly born son.

Communication in Australia

Australia certainly is a very multicultural country. I think the locals are so used to all the foreigners that they consider them as a part of their own country. That has made it easier for me to communicate with Australians, and I don’t feel like a stupid tourist when I talk to them. In USA I kind of got the feeling that people talked to me from above, but in Australia I felt more equal. As in USA their daily talk are filled with polite phrases such as “how are you?” and so on. The difference is that it doesn’t feel that artificial in Australia. I haven’t really figured why yet, but I guess it might be because the conversation often continues, while in USA it stops after you answer. One of the few things that are different compared to the western culture, is that they’re more open to unknown people. It’s much easier to start talking to an Aussie than a Scandinavian.

Communication with different subcultures

When I went scuba diving in Cairns I got to stay with a lot of guys that fits the classic surf culture in Australia. They were people that first of all cared about having fun. They were joking all the time, and they had a very relaxed view on life. They taught me some International communication under water. We started with important signals as up, down, okay, I’ve got a problem etc. Then they went on to the funny part. They had made logical signals for expressions like stop fucking around, fucknose (who the fuck knows?), fuckhead, you fucking wanker and so on. Swearing is actually very easy to do under water.

I’ve met backpackers at hostels all over the world, and what most of them have in common is that they’re very social, and that they love to talk to new people. Many of them have a very interesting life story, like for example Phillip. There’s something special with every one of them, and that’s what makes it so funny to get to know them.

When I communicated with the fisherman at Fiji I didn’t know what to talk about, because I didn’t know anything about the fish species, and it seemed like he didn’t know anything except of Fijian fish species. This meant that first he was telling about his life, and then I told about mine. I think it is fun to hear other peoples story, but being able to discuss with different people are even more fun.