The Australian Way

This whole trip can be summed up by that scene in Forrest Gump where Jenny is sitting on the curb playing her guitar, when some hippie dude pulls up and asks, "anyone want to go to San Francisco."

"I'll go," Jenny responded.

And so it was that she turned into a Heroin addict only to then face her demons, give birth to the kid who sees dead people and marry Forrest.

Apologies for the sidetracking but my point is that everything has been pretty spur of the moment, go with the flow, carpe diem.

The Diamondbacks go with Josh Byrnes at GM over Jon Budish and I find myself in Sydney.

I get an email from a random family who knew a kid who was friends with a kid who I played basketball against when I was 12. Boom, I had shelter.

So when I got an email from my cousin's Jersey friend Keith telling me that he was going up to Byron Bay, I said fuck it, I'm in.

We shared a cab to the airport, me Keith and his buddy Alex. They had been in Australia for two days and had already seen the light. The conversation titled: "Why the Fuck do we live in America" became the fall back.

Byron Bay is considered the hippie town of Australia. We hopped on the shuttle to our hostile, befriended a European traveler named Alex and were on our way.

We arrived at the Arts Factory- the name of the hostel- and it was just pretty damn surreal. It was like a commune for travellers. It was set in kind of a forresty area, with tents and bungaloos, a picnic area where people ate and drink and mingled. Hard to describe but it was really cool.

We played trivia that night and befriended a couple Norwegian girls with names I can't spell, a 42 year old hippie from San Francisco who looked like a skinnier, pony-tailed version of my buddy Louis and a bunch of random french dudes.

We got second.

I won a raffle and got a free scuba trip in Cairns. That was pretty sweet.

But then I was blown away.

I started playing with this dog who was roaming around the picnic tables. His owners, a man and a woman came up and introduced themselves. The man, a spitting image of former Miami heat great Ronny Seikaly wore a t-shirt that read: "I'm big in Europe."

I chuckled. I'm always down for the ironic frat guy humor.

So I told him it was a cool t-shirt.

He proceeded to take the shirt off his back and give it to me.

"I can't take that," I said, bashfully.

"No worries mate," replied Bizarro Seikally.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Please, it's the Australian way," he replied.

Ah the Australian way. You'll read later about the most amazing "Australian way" you could experience. But I was pretty impressed. I gave him the t-shirt I was wearing as a token of appreciation. It was navy blue and said nothing on it, but it was the best I could do.

Combined with the spirits and the setting and I was truly in heaven. The t-shirt did smell pretty bad so I went back to my room to change. But I'll never forget the story behind that t-shirt.

I developed quite the kinship with one of the norwegian girls named Bianca. Her english was pretty good and she insisted on dancing. Considering I am my father's son , possessing the dance moves of a young Brandon Walsh, I grew nervous but was up for the challenge. A couple of pints of liquid courage and I would be on my way.

I made her and her fellow Norwegians take pictures doing the Randy Moss "Break it up" TD celebration. She got me on the dance floor for the first time since Bar Mitzvah season of 1995. When she told me in a broken Norwegian accent that she was "proud of me" life had peaked.

Jon Gruden, one of my heroes, loves to talk about how proud he is of his team. It's a pretty big drunk among me and some of my nearest and dearest. Now a 5'2 Norwegian who drank scotch and orange was too.

The next day, I ventured solo to a place called Nimbin.

Nimbin was a day trip, an hour away, that can be only be described as Haight Ashbury X 10,000. It's a community of hippies based around marijuana. The whole town is a Dave Matthews' fan dream. On the bus I met two girls from St. Joes who I spent the day with.

The thing to do there was to buy pot cookies or brownies and just freak out. Another american from St. Louis named Cory sure loved to talk about his pot. I'm not really a pot guy but I thought I'd check out the place anyway.

It was worth the trip.

A total freak out. The girls I was with bought there cookies. I wasnt about to buy drugs off a guy who looked like the homeless man on 77th st who was a diehard Collegiate basketball fan, but apparently that was the thing to do.

We walked up and down the street, checked out the crowd. Really unlike anything I had ever seen. Definitely worth the trip.

Got back to the hostel and met with Keith and Alex. There we bumped into Kieran, a british traveller who we had randomly met in Sydney about two weeks earlier. He was a die hard Buffalo Sabres fan (don't ask) and a heck of a bloke.

We went to a bar where this girl from Vancouver we had met the night before was bar tending. It was a whole crew of us now, about 8 deep. We watched Barcelona play Rome in soccer. Kieran, a diehard Rugby player had this to say about Soccer:

"See the thing about soccer, is that all soccer players are a bunch of faggots."

I was expecting him to say it was a game of discipline or patience. I was rather amused.

Partied again, had a blast. Once again there was dancing. I learned a very important lesson. People from the rest of the world LOVE to dance.

And apparently so do people from Jersey.

My buddy Keith had all the moves of a glow stick twirling, Corona drinking, Cancun meat head. I was fascinated that a little white guy from Jersey could move like that.

For me, my legs just don't move as fast of my upper body. It's too bad.

The next day I hung out with the St. Joes girls at the beach and took a hike up to this lighthouse that is the most eastern part of Australia. In my head I couldn't help but think of the Keanu Reeves smash hit "The Lighthouse" -the one where he and Sandra Bullock are living two years apart.

Ben Lyons of the E! channel panned the flick.

I insisted on listening to the Keane song from the preview during my trek.

I caught a flight to Melbourne that night to meet my friend Annie. I was also going to meet my maker, Bodhi Satva in Bells Beach.

I arrived in Melbourne at around 9pm Thursday, completely wiped out from my time in Byron. Annie was pretty dead too so she whipped up some noodle dish and we crashed.

But bad news.

There was no public transportation to Bells beach and she had to leave Melbourne early Saturday. I was pretty bummed. She tried to calm me down by telling me that she found out that final scene in Point Break was, in fact, filmed somewhere in Oregon - Ok Dana.

Oregon, who knew. Jesus freaks named Luke who are sweet at basketball and the final scene of Point Break. Go Ducks! I later found out that there was a type of tree in the Bells Beach scene of Point Break that doesn't grow in the Southern Hemisphere. FYI.

I needed rest before I could weigh my options.

Friday I slept for about 15 hours. I woke up, got some breaky (among my favorite Aussie terms) and went into Melbourne. While Annie worked I wandered around the city. It's a really cool town. Kind of reminds me of New York, SF, London. Very clean, beautiful.

It's cool to check out new places. I got off the tram at a place that seemed central , turned around and saw the Australian Open stadium.

Annie called me at about 5pm telling me to meet her and some of her friends at this bar in town. I knew that Bells Beach wasn't going to happen. It just didn't make sense. I wasn't seriously upset but I was in a joking way.

I met a bunch of Annie's friends, an Asian girl whose name I forget and three Australian guys. All really cool. They all worked in finance and the bar was very much an "after work" bar. Only it didn't wreak of D-bag finance people like they often do in NYC

One of them, Richard, was a huge baseball fan. We talked Moneyball for about an hour.

Then is when the miracle happened.

I'm sitting there and introduce myself to Nick, another finance guy.

We shake hands tell each other where we are from. About two minutes in I tell him that I was bummed that I didn't get a chance to get to Bells Beach.

His response:

"No worries mate, We'll take you tomorrow."

(We had shook hands for the first time within the last 200 seconds)

"Oh don't worry about it, you don't have to do that" I responded assuming he was kidding.

"You want to go Bells Beach, you're travelling all this way, I'm going to take you to Bells Beach," Nick replied.

"But Nick, it's like 2 hours away."

"No worries. Me and Rich will pick you up at 11am tomorrow."

"Are you sure?" I replied in utter shock.

"Jon. No worries, its the Australian way."


Ahhhhh. The Australian way. Befriend a complete stranger and offer to drive him 5 hours so that he can go see a beach that he is fixated on because of a Keanu Reeves movie.

Imagine meeting someone at a bar and agreeing to drive them to philly because they wanted to try a cheese steak.

I was in complete shock.

I had never expereienced anything like it. How could people be so nice? It wasn't human.

We partied the rest of the night. I got some more pics of people from all over the world doing the Randy Moss TD celebration and went home.


The next morning, sure enough I get the call from Nick.

He picks me up from Annie's house, we grab Richard and are on our way. I still couldn't believe what I was experiencing. Two people who I had met 12 hours earlier giving up their Saturday to drive me to Bells Beach.

The car ride was as pleasant as one could be.

Two hours of chatter. Sports, politics, women.

Nick insisted on driving to Lourne, a beach town about two hours outside of Melbourne for what he called the "best steaksandwich in Australia."

The restaurant was awesome, overlooking the ocean. We ordered at the bar and I insisted on paying. And this wasn't a half hearted attempt. I really insisted on paying. But Nick and Richard wouldn't have it. They paid. They wouldn't have it any other way.

I promised them that when they came to America that I owed them the world.

I made this promise about 30 times.

Sure enough, the sandwich was incredible. We wrapped up, had a few beers and I was off to meet my maker.

We drove to Bells Beach. With every passing mile my anticipation grew.

When we arrived I smiled.

It wasn't all that great, a lot smaller than I had imagined.The waves weren't that big and the day grew slightly overcast.

But it didn't matter. I was in a place that I had joked about coming to for about ten years. I took more pictures than I would if I visited the White House. I walked around and soaked in the moment and more so the act of generosity that brought me here.

I was still in shock by the gesture.

I wish my co-worker Nick the Voice could have been there. We used to watch Point Break quite frequently instead of working. He called me Johnny Butah.

Unfortunatenly there was no sign of Bodhi. I saw some footprints that may have been his, but were not confirmed. I eveen saw a surfer that appeared to be Bodhi, but it wasn't him.

It was time to go.

I accidentally cut the bottom of my foot on the beach leaving a minor trail of blood. It was special. Me and Bells Beach had become Blood brothers.

We drove back to the airport, Nick and Rich dropped me off. Their act of generosity would never be forgotten.

If anyone needs anything and I mean literally anything in the world, now is the time to hit me up. I'm in a very giving mood.

Vaya con dios,
Jon


Email of the trip: "Yo Jon. How's Austria going? Scwartzenegger is doing big things back in America."

-Jawn