The Thief Colony, or that country we know (and love) as Australia
Beginning with WJM's travels there during WWII, continuing through the Olympian journey in 2000 of MJ, Donna, and kids; and moving to the present with Mavourneen's epic Study Abroad adventure there, the Marion family has well establish roots in Australia. Therefore, we shall dedicate this web page to that very topic: the land of Oz.
Tracking Mavourneen...She's Baaaack!
Just two of the places she's made her mark in our house in the few short hours she's been here (there ARE other spots, mind you -- basically anywhere and everywhere she goes, you know she's been there). After a brutal 32-hour sojourn, and hopping from Cairns to Brisbane to LA to Chicago to Detroit, Mavourneen is now ready to depart on Friday morning by car for a real vacation right here in the good old USA...well, as soon as she does a few loads of laundry that is.
Tracking Mavourneen...The Final Weekend:
(Gateway to the 1200 mile Great Barrier Reef)
Before Cairns:
The Wonder of DownUnder
She's off! (And no, she's not flying first class -- although this sign made for a nice prop.) Having started out at 10:20 am on June 16 commencing with her arrival at Detro Metro, Mavourneen will at long last hit Brisbane around 6:20am Friday, June 18. All told, we're talking about 32 hours of airports and jumbo jets. The capper: Her group will barely have gotten their land legs when, three hours later, they'll board another bloody plane for Darwin, nearly 2000 miles away! The final tally: close to 40 hours of transit time.
Visa problems. Although I tortured her with my camera, Mavourneen was lucky I stuck around: American attendant Mike is speaking with his counterpart Heather of Quantas Airlines (on which Mavourneen will fly from LA) about Mavourneen's missing Australian visa. I had the travel agency fax over paperwork showing that they had arranged her visa back on May 1st, but Quantas had no record of it, so it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Hence, the malfunction. The solution? Mike gave me the phone, and I paid $25 to Quantas for an instant visa. Sounds like a scam to me, but Mavourneen could not have boarded her American flight without it, so what are you going to do?
The Big Gulp. All the experience of our years of family travel and all of our chanting the mantra of bare-bones packing was disregarded by Mavourneen on this trip: Her red behemoth of a bag was so heavy (65 pounds, right at the limit) that I could barely lift it into the car. Fortunately, it was being routed directly to Aussieland, but still, she's going to have to deal with it upon her arrival. Live and learn, as they say.
Or not.
Australian Update:
June 18. After some 40 straight hours of bouncing from Detroit to Dallas to LA to Brisbane, Mavourneen is now safely on her feet in Darwin (far north on map). More to come, including how she called last night to tell us that she can't find her credit card.
June 22. Just above, I reported that Mavourneen, ON HER FIRST DAY IN AUSTRALIA, feared that she had lost her Visa card and called us with her concerns. Well, it turns out she HADN'T lost it, nor had it been stolen. After conducting a full investigation and contemplating cancelling the account, I discovered that her sister had it! Amira had borrowed the card earlier in the week (having misplaced HER card) when the two were together shopping at the mall, and she had never given it back. Mavourneen, violating a basic tenet of smart travel, simply assumed it was still in her possession, and never thought to check her purse before departing. Hello?!?! She does have her credit union ATM card and a Visa debit card, so she'll be fine. But still.... As someone once said at some point somewhere: Never assume nuttin', never. I fully concur.
Breaking News: June 25, 2004. You know how just above (June 22nd), I wrote about how Mavourneen forgot her Visa card at home. And how I wasn't that concerned because..."She does have her credit union ATM card and a Visa debit card..."? Well...there has been yet another major malfunction in Australia involving Mavourneen's credit cards, cash, ID, and Western Union...She was ripped off in a Darwin nightclub. It seems that she had her valuables in her wallet in her purse -- not ON HER PERSON as is imperative while traveling abroad -- and she learned firsthand why security wallets and money belts are essential gear for strangers in a strange land.
The Replacement Paper Trail
Some of the paperwork required by the UM Credit Union, AAA, the Post Office, and Western Union in order to replace Mavourneen's Visa Debit Card and University of Michigan Credit Union ATM card and to wire her cash. She'll have to tend to obtaining a new UM Student ID and driver's license upon her return to these shores.
Advice we gave to Mavourneen 5,456 times before she left (and that was just in the car on the way to the airport): Never put all of your monetary eggs in one basket: Distribute your valuables! ("A single wallet that contains all of your shillings and other forms of legal tender will invariably fall into the skillful hands of one nefarious knave or another. Beware...you have been warned!" Thomas Cook, World Traveler, 1799); carry only the cash you need for that day's activities and meals; always use a security wallet concealed under the clothes; and never carry anything you'd hate to lose (cash, credit cards, traveler's checks, passport, airplane tickets, rail passes, ipod, camera, jewelry, photos of your parents, etc.) in a handbag or backpack, both of which are easy prey for pickpockets, pursesnatchers, scallywags, and bushrangers, bludgers, and lowlife opportunists of every size, shape, and color.
And finally, NEVER deviate from the above advice as one such departure will invariably cost you....
(especially of the foreign kind)
June, 1986
What do these bonny lasses have in common?
Back when this photo was taken at John & Alayna's wedding, nobody could have predicted that these two young ladies would eventually share so much history, including a.) attending the University of Michigan b.) being robbed during their first week on foreign soil, Mavourneen in Australia, Annie in Germany and c.) returning home this August after lengthy stays abroad. More on this as their arrival dates draw near.
A simple truth: Modern-day Australia originated as a penal colony.
In 1788, the first shipload of English convicts -- 736 in all, including a motley assortment of thieves and pickpockets -- arrived at Botany Bay, near Sydney. By the time "Transportation" ended in 1868, some 160,000 luckless criminals had been unceremoniously deposited in this godforsaken place...
Thieves, robbers and villains, they’ll send ‘em away,To become a new people at Botany Bay.
—from "Botany Bay: A New Song" (1790)
You may not be headed DownUnder anytime soon, but that doesn't mean you can't embark on a regimen of self-improvement and study a foreign language just because. Start to work on it today, and soon you'll be able to...