French Island: numero uno

French Island first:

Where do I have to start?

Maybe on this point… 

Anything you should know about the Island: “Some people call it the outback island or the other island. What you can find here is the world biggest koala population (about 1700 koalas) over 250 different species of birds and about 400 different orchids. This is only an example about the number of different animals, trees and species around this place and should tell you a story about the wildlife on French Island or the outback island.” On French Island, you can’t find a McDonald or kind like this. There is only one shop on this island and its open when it’s open (only a “Tante Emma Laden” like we call a little small shop in Germany).  3/4 of the Island is a National Park what’s obviously the reason for the big number of species. On this island you can’t find any electricity or internet connection or a water pipe to the main land. Everything you need to life has to come from the island. So we have here a water pump to get water from the ground (only for watering the plants and showering because of the sea around, the ground water is really salty) a solar panel to get energy for the water pump and electricity and a lot of batteries and tanks to store these. The answer about the question: which water we are supposed to drink is: rainwater. Filtered rainwater and its really tasty!

At this point maybe some people are asking themselves why he is on this island and why he will stay such a long time at this place? The answer is quite easy, 'cause: I like! My flat member Caroline and her sister Steffi have been to this island couple of month ago and both of them were talking about the interesting farmer and his view of life. Caroline said: “That’s a guy you have to meet. He is a very spiritual person and has in many of these points the same opinion as you Jan and he believe in similar stuff”. That’s the point where I decided to come to this island when I am in Australia. So after Melbourne I thought I will stay here for one or two weeks and that’s it. I planned to make the great ocean road afterwards and go to Adelaide. But it comes like it has to come and I am still here.

I think I will write lots about this island this place and the spirit but today I will tell you something about a standard day when I am working here.

First of all the farm is an old prison. My room is a cell and there’s the beginning of the day. Did you ever wake up in a cell of a prison but you’re free? That’s the feeling here around. That’s the second thought when you wake up after the first: “dam I am in a prison”. Free to open this cell door, free to eat and drink, free to meet all the people here around. That’s a present, that’s wonderful, only little people recognize this but I do. I am free. Enough of this bullshit philosophy, I get my breakfast in a big room. There is place for almost 50 people or more but at this time we are only 6 persons. Bob, the mechanist and man who knows, does and did everything, a UK guy around 60 smart and a really good egg. Marc, the guy who runs the farm and Melinda his friend or partner or ex-wife, however. And two other female wwoofers from the UK. Amy is a cute 24yr girl who traveled almost her whole life. The last 4 years she lived on a crew ship and saw a lot of interesting things and she is a very open-minded person who is willing to learn everything. I teach her juggling, playing the guitar, climbing and some German words. She was a “beauty queen” and worked in Melbourne to make the persons nails and give some massages (I have a German friend called Corinna K. she’s really similar in this point, maybe you will read this now). But if you would now see Amy, you can’t imagine that she was a beauty queen. Oh she’s pretty but now she looks more like a hippie but that’s not bad :). Beka is also from the UK. They didn’t know each other before they come here. She changed her life after coming here as well. When she said “Mum there is anything wrong with us when we stand up and feel sad. Fell like: I have to do this, I have to be pretty, I need this make up or is this jeans better or that? And all these people here are so happy every day. There might something be very wrong in our life if they are all the time happy and we’re not.” So that’s Beka and yes, with this, she’s really right. To wake up and say “good morning how are you” and to get a “couldn’t be better” is the most normal thing. And that’s all about “all about love”. Having a breakfast in this conditions in the sun couldn’t be better. If you wake up and be happy to meet the happy people at breakfast is like a movie about golden eggs and milk out of lucky happy cows where everything is bright and healthy. Sounds very funny and yes it is, it is all about love. After breakfast (this is 8.30 o’clock) I have several work to do. For example: planting, weeding (unkrautjaeten in german), collecting sticks for the fire, shoveling shit and build a compost, watering, digging holes, clean the roofs (one of my favorites after shoveling shit, really to shovel shit makes you strong. And funny things are around in my head if I am doing this. I played a card game, Happy-Family (Quartett in german) in Italy some years ago and it was a joke, because this card game was about dog shit. Values like shit drop-high or weight or smell are available on this game, and the cow shit could be a very powerful joker shit drop-high 1,60m weight 10-20kg (who out of you can get rid of your pounds that fast??) and smell, aaawwsome, oh this is funny, talk about shit in a public plot yeah that's fun!! ). Back to the roots, one can train oneself every time to have fun. Fun to stand up, fun to meet every day the same people, fun to shovel shit. All this stuff I am supposed to do till 1pm. After that I will cook my or our lunch (eggs, eggs and eggs, you can’t imagine how creative I can be to combine eggs with…). After lunch is fun time, it’s happy time. Yes happy time is all the time but now I can do whatever I want. But this is something I will write later. I can watch a movie tonight and I don’t want to miss this lucky spectacle.

Miss u all, hugs and kisses back home and to all my friends where ever you are

Melbourne

Hi there.

First of all:
I’m writing now in English because of all the people I’ve met here and in Seoul to follow my trip as well. So, where do I have to start? My last post is now I think 3 weeks ago and a lot of my friends are saying something like "please update your blog, or go on". I tried a few times but it’s more difficult than you can imagine. There is one Laptop here with an internet connection but you have to pay per Mb and so the farmer announced us to use it only if we have to. That’s also the reason why these posts come without pictures. I’ll update this when I’m able to up- and download more than a few Mb.

Melbourne:
So what about Melbourne? I arrived here after my stay in Seoul and the first thing I recognized was its quite cold isn’t it? So I need all my jumpers I’ve taken with (ok it’s just one :) ). I took the Skybus from the airport for 17$ or so. Yes its expensive that’s what I thought. In the city I remembered that some friends told me to use the free bus or the tram what I did. So I take the bus and drove in 1.30h around the city and learned something about the famous buildings, because the lady uses the microphone to speak to the people. I jumped off at the southest point to get to the beach. Yes, the first thing I want to see was the sea. So I decided to walk to the sea. It looks like a pretty long way but it takes me only one and a half hour. On my way to the see I met a girl who lives in Melbourne and I ask her for some good places to go. So she underlined the places of her interests in my map. She also offered me some places to go where I could find some hostels near the beach. The place called St. Kilda. So next plan: go to St. Kilda and find some good hostels. I walked around the entire road and met some very polite people who helped me out to find the way to St. Kilda and walked some minutes with me and I had some pretty good conversations with people I’ve never seen before. So once arrived in St. Kilda there are no Hostels. I needed another hour to find one called “backpackers home” and I have to pay 30$ per night in a 4 person room. That’s fucking much money. But I was soooo tired and I only want to sleep. Remember I have to wake up in Seoul at 7 o’clock AM (to pack everything eat and drive to the airport and so on) then (2 hours more) arriving in Melbourne without sleep in the plain and the plane arrived M. On 7 AM also. Walked around the whole day, you can imagine how tired I was. But the people, who know me, also know that’s the night what is always interested for me. So I went with a French guy called Antoine and two other German guys (girl and boy) to find a location to go out. So the German guys want to meet some friends but we missed them 3 times. So we met each other on Fed. Square to find a pub. But all Pubs aren’t in the inner city. So we only find a club with some security in front of and the people in the inside (we could look through the windows) are pretty well dressed. Doesn’t matter we talked with the sec. Guys a couple of minutes to let us in. And yes! We were UNDERDRESSED. One sec. Guy told me “next time better shoes”. But the shoes are the best things I weared. Haha funny thing. The people weared their best clothes. A wedding is nothing against. So we were surrounded by the well dressed Australian guys and drunk half a liter of beer for 10$. Fuck the Oktoberfest is nothing if you are here, but most of you guys will know this. So we (Antoine and me) drunk one or two of this fucking expensive things and, he also had a jetlag, went back to the hostel at one AM. After, I don’t know how long time I felled to bed almost dead. Several hours later (felt 5 min) the girl who cleans the room said to me “wake up you have to check out at 10”. Fuck, I asked her to get another night, she said yes but I have to stand up. Dam, because I talked to Antoine to leave this hostel and get to a better one in the city the next day, so, today. Doesn’t matter I only wanted to sleep, took another night and fell back to sleep till 4pm. Afterwards I walked around St. Kilda, went for a swim and got a Australian SIM card. This night was free barbecue at the hostel, so good to stay another night. But yes, never get a hungry “Jan the man” full. After two times I got something to eat, it was empty.  Next day I went to the library to get free internet, but only for one hour. Not enough to backup the next 1.5 GB of pictures I took after the last backup in Seoul. But I met another nice German girl she lives near a little city where the guys from the day before are from. Funny thing and she sat next to him on another computer. The world is so small. Both of them wanted to go away from Melbourne, because it’s too cold for them. He booked already a flight to Cairns but she want to do some wwoofing as well. I told her to come with me to French Island but at the end she decided to go with him to the north. Many people did so, I met later. The people here called M. A city with four seasons a day.
Ok back to the roads, I followed Antoine to the Greenhouse hostel. The night there was about 32$ but with breakfast. And I know I can eat a lot. And with only 2$ I can’t get a good breakfast which is enough, I decided. So at the end I stayed there for 3 nights. To save money I had a BIG breakfast and a BIG dinner. I met Antoine and almost 1000 other French persons. What the hell is going on? About 50% of the people are from Asia, 30% from France and all the other, some German some Italian some Uks. But I enjoyed being together with the French guy; they are really nice and funny too. And a big surprise; they are in my age or older. All the German girls (there are a lot of two German girls around 18 years old traveling together after the A level) or couples are pretty young. And Antoine has a good description for these persons: “they are thinking like this:” and pointed with his fingers in every direction and changes these. That’s I recognized now really good. And I know exactly what he means. People who think they know exactly what’s going on and what they want to do, but change their mind after a few days straight into the other direction. And that’s exactly I already learned and still watched at these girls. “Don’t know what to know or what to want”. So but this might be a phase in everyone life. And I met a French girl, pretty girl, she’s 25 now but still like this. And Antoine if you’ll read this, she didn’t come to French Island as you said. Also because it’s too cold for her (I can understand).
Yeah in the next days I spend lot of time to get to every place the first girl I met in M. Underlined in my Map. And if I don’t know anything about M. I never would get to these places. Thanks a lot unknown girl, if you can feel. For some places I took one of these public bikes. You’ll pay 3$ a day and 30minutes drives are for free. But 30 min is almost nothing. So I took one bike for a big tour around the outer-inner city. I wanted to use the bike for 1h30min to pay 7$ more. But after 3 not found return-stations I drove to the University (I already visited) and need a little bit too long. 3 minutes, 10$. Great big huge shit....haha but that’s life. After 90 minutes for two hours the bike costs 17$, ten more. The next 3 hours I went by foot. And Melbourne is fucking small. All “points of interests” you can do on one or two days. But yes, if you want to go to the great places, the very very pretty pubs I found for example or to find hidden art you need much more time. M. Is small if you’ll compare it with Seoul. In Seoul there are 21 Mio. People in whole Australia there are about, I don’t know, 20-40 Mio. ? So yes if you arrived from Seoul every city is fucking small.
At this point if some people didn’t realized it, here as well the persons are using: fucking, shit, pretty, huge, awesome and these words in almost every sentences. After 2 for free festivals near the river in M. And a great time with all the new friends I met, my inner voice want me to get to French Island. Caroline my flat member in Constance (Germany) told my about Mark a very interesting guy “who do stuff like me” she said and means a lot of spiritual things. Mark is the owner of a farm and I called him whether he has a place for me or not. So he sad yes and described the way to get to the ferry to French Island. He said there will be a pretty girl to put me up but I have to call if I am at the ferry point at the mainland. So I called (glad to be 10 minutes earlier at the train station because the train got 7 minutes earlier off) and he said “everything all right I’ll send you 2 pretty girls to put you up” and on the other side, on French Island, there are 3 pretty girls they wait for me...what a nice surprise :)
But that’s another story mate. I’ve now a computer here since, now :), and a can write posts and upload it later on Marks computer. So I hope I can update soon the rest and continue my story with a lot of good experiences I made on French Island. Otherwise it was enough to read for one day.

Kisses and hugs back to Germany, love u all....