Poem from 3 years ago

I was browsing through old folders on my computer, trying to collect old photos and documents with the intention of immortalizing them on my blog before my computer shits itself. I found a photo of my graduation and this 'poem' which i wrote over 3 years ago..

Gather 'round children, let me tell you a tale filled with wonder, excitement, disappointment, judgement and mercy.

Once upon a time a young boy found himself frolicking around his neighborhood, prancing from street to street without the slightest hint of suspicion. Don't let appearance fool you, though! The young boy had a grin on his face and jump in his step, but a worrying thought in his mind. For only hours earlier, the young boy had been at a nasty place called Knox Grammar! For it was at this place, filled with overgrown vines and perpetual thunder, that the boy was told a secret from his teacher. A secret, that once known, could not be unknown. Another student, a friend perhaps, had innocently asked this teacher

"my grades aren't good, will I ever get a job?".

The teacher crawled up to the boy and tickled his chin, then turned around and said on a whim 

"It's not about the grades you make, it's about the hands you shake."
Silence spread in the room instantly. The teacher paused, hesitated, then bellowed out
"It really doesn't matter whether your credentials vouch for you or not, all that matters is your reputation"

The children then started clapping and making a beat while the teacher continued:

"As long as you; look presentable, have a firm handshake and glint in your eye,

then the job shall be yours, I assure you, 

because that's how I got mine

For you see children, you don't need skills,

no, not at all,

but if you don't wear polished shoes, then prepare to fall!

Employers will skip past the credentials and go to the picture,

they'll see a while male and know not to hit 'ya

A suit is your best friend

It says more than a degree ever could

but remember, dear children

your real advantage is rich parenthood"

At this point the class burst into song with the teacher:
Class: "so you're saying we don't need credentials?"

Teacher: "That's right, just networking potential!"

Class: "but what if we're not fit for the job?"
Teacher: "That's what hiring minorities is for, you silly sod!"

The class soon ended and all the children confidently marched home. Our young hero, all the while, pondering the truth of the employment process. The young boy murmured under a whimper

"perhaps there is an employer somewhere out there

that will hire people regardless of what they wear

maybe, just maybe there's a company that

doesn't discriminate, and focus's on stat's"

And that is the tale of our young hero. Eight years later he works a nine till five, pondering to this day whether a moral employment system might still be alive. 

Europe Trip part 5: Germany

Goodbye Polish luxurious hotel rooms, fine food and grumpy service people - hello Germany!

We flew to Nuremberg and immediately made our way to our hostel. The experience was weirdly science fictiony; all services were completely automated. There was no receptionist, we just followed online instructions by putting in a code to get our key and went to our room. The whole hostel was supposedly completely booked out but we never saw anyone because there was no common room. Everything was so streamlined and efficient due to this automation that all we could hear was the faint footsteps of people walking in and out of the hostel. Overall it was a weird experience that I think will become more commonplace as technology infiltrates more of our lives in the future.

My first impressions of Nuremberg were pretty disappointing, it seemed grimy and beaten down with very few people. But once we actually bothered to walk towards the city center everything changed. Despite being bombed by the British in WW2, beautiful castles, walls, churches and fountains were found everywhere. It was a very lively place with plenty of live music, street stalls and Bavarian pubs open everywhere. We went into a traditional restaurant and ordered a some wheat beer and food. I thought I ordered burger since there was an item on the menu called "Nuremberger", but later found out to my disappointment that that was just the way Germans spelled Nuremberg.

We decided to stay in Nuremberg a second day because there was still a lot left to explore. Instead of going out to dinner, I made a cabanara in our room. (I didn't want to risk ending up disappointed with another nuremberger). We joined a free tour, entered a few museums and enjoyed a few crepes.

The next day we took the ICE train to Munich. I'd been to Munich a few times before so the mixture of beautiful and grimy didn't surprise me as much as Kaz (our hostel was located adjacent to a stripclub). We went on  a huge walk around the nearest park. It was beautiful. There was a strong river flowing through  the center of the park. We saw surfers who were riding artificial waves caused by the river flowing through a narrow canal. It was amazing and a bit embarrassing to watch these Germans perfect surfing in an almost completely landlocked country. To finish off the day we went on a desperate pilgrimage to a beer garden. We found one called "English Garden" and reluctantly went in our of desperation for food. However, when we got in we were served amazing German schinitzels and pretzels! It turns out that English Garden is the just the name of the park we were in - whoops.

The next day we met up with Sebastian (Basti) and John to begin our hike to the Watzmann! We drove down in Basti's scoopy do style mystery machine, took the ferry across and began our hike. It was wonderful! Wonderful weather, and fantastic views. We stopped off at Watzmann hut (a conveniently placed stopover located only 2 hours away from the famous summit) and enjoyed a very delicious beer and some food. I was briefly humiliated by ordering some fresh milk at the bar to go with my Tim Tams. The bar tender kept assuming I meant wine and a nearby camera crew decided to film my petty attempts to correct him. The next day we headed for the summit. It was phenomenal and incredibly scary. Only photos can describe it.

After the hike, we were incredibly sunburned, exhausted and sleep deprived. A perfect opportunity to catch a 7 hour nighrider train to Cologne! We arrived in Cologne, and after some mcdonlads and museums, and some temporary travel difficulties to get back to Delft (blabla car = worst way to travel ever), we were on our way back to Delft.

Europe Trip part 4: Poland

Ryan Air. Bloody Ryan Air. We printed off our boarding pass, but we hadn't checked in online and were forced to pay a 55 euro per person check in fee. Very annoying!

Once we arrived in Poland, Krakow, we took an unbelievably cheap bus (like, South East Asia public transport cheap) to our hotel. By the way, thanks Mum and Dad for offering to pay for the Hotel. Very much appreciated. We were overjoyed to see it start to rain as we got to our room. Finally, some colder weather.

With a spring in our step, we bounced our way around the old town of Krakow. The old town is exceptionally beautiful; with colourful markets, cobblestone walking ways and a moat of forest surrounding us. However, beyond the old town, things look very different. It looks as if it's been through a war! Drab grey buildings stained with what looks like bullet holes and rubbish everywhere. After surviving quite cheaply in Norway and Sweden we decided to treat ourselves by going to a Michelin 5 star restaurant. The whole meal, including an entree, two mains and drinks cost a total of 30 euros. That sounds like amazing value, in terms of taste / money spent, but it's actually pretty bad value in terms of mass / money spent. I can't complain though, the service and food was brilliant, and they let me walk in with a stinky shirt and pants.

The next day we decided to head to Auschwitz to do some sight seeing. Fittingly it started to rain just as we entered the main area. We waited in line for an hour to get tickets and were then greeted with a very rude, impatient and blunt cashier - a pretty standard greeting in Poland, I've discovered. It was so busy today that they had a very tight schedule for organized tours every few minutes. We even worse headphones so that the tour guides wouldn't talk over each other in different languages. Auschwitz was amazing. We got to see official documents signed by the Nazi's and photos taken of the camp during set up and liberation.

What did I learn?

1) The gate at the entrance said "Arbeit macht frei" meaning "work sets you free". I wonder if this type of slogan is what motivated George Orwell's work.

2) Is early as 1940 the Germans were gassing and burning people. However the technology improved during the war to gas as much as 6000 people a day towards the end of the wary in 1944.

3) Nazi's tried destroying evidence of the gas chambers by detonating them. Only the original one still stands.

4) The myth that the showers had 11 holes (all fingers plus 1) is a lie. Instead they had these 'stones' which they would pour through slots in the ceiling. The stones would then evaporate and make everyone's lungs melt.

5) Nazi's bought in Jews from multiple countries - even Italy which was an ally at the time. Goes to show that antisemitism was pretty strong back then all around Europe. Hitler didn't invent it, he used it. 

On the way back to Krakow we were in need of a bit of a pick-me-up so we went out to find some traditional food and music. We found both in an outdoor square. We tried "Zapiekanki" which is kinda like a pizza in a baguette and enjoyed some ice cream. The exchange rate made us modern day kings and queens with big pockets. We walked around aimlessly and spent money on random trinkets and snacks everywhere.

Europe Trip part 3: Sweden

Ok, so I'm really behind on my blog post. I'm actually in Munich, Germany at the time of writing this so I've got a lot of story telling to catch up on. Spoiler: I couldn't have died.

Ok, hybrid story telling using dot points. Here goes!

The nightrider dropped us off at Stockholm central station at 6:45am. We both didn't get much sleep so the 45 minute march to our hostel in extreme heat was quite a challenge.

We arrived at our hostel and only slept for a few hours before we decided to meet up with my Swedish friend Max. Side note: Max is a Swede Matt Gates and I had met travelling around Cambodia together.

Meeting up with Max was amazing. He's just as social as I remember (but not in the superficial American way) and very welcoming. He lived up to his word and took us out for meatballs in the city center!

I can tell Stockholm has way more character and excitement to it than Oslo. Oslo seemed empty 24/7. Stockholm, by contrast, has plenty of outdoor pubs, busy supermarkets and even VR gaming stations!

Later on that day we met up with Tim and Rebecca (other Swedes which we met in New Zealand together) and went to Aifur, an old fashioned Viking restaurant selling excellent quality Mead and meat. Definitely a tourist trap, but still lovely!

The next day Kaz and I took a ferry over to a nearby island (not technically an island) and toured a few museums. We walked briskly past the Abba Museum and into a viking museum. It was amazing! They covered the facts behind vikings and the average lifestyle of vikings in much more detail than the Oslo museum. It was really surprising to hear that Swedish vikings had gone as far down south as Istanbul. It was also interesting to hear that around the 10th century Christian culture had started to overwrite Norse culture - and anthropologists know this because Swedes stopped burning their dead, and started burying them. Overall amazing museum. It's called "Vikings Alive".

We topped off the day by visiting Max, Tim, Rebecca and another Swedish friend. We enjoyed some pizza, beer, played some soccer in a nearby park and then went in for a dip in the nearby river! Really nice finish to our trip in Sweden.

Europe Trip Part 2: Norway

Norway 10th July – The extreme hour

We arrived in Norway at midnight. We got off to a great start by accidently purchasing two train tickets from the airport to Oslo using a trainline that wouldn’t be operational until 5:30am the next day. Immediately after purchasing our non-refundable tickets, we realized our error, contemplated briefly whether it would be worth staying at the airport for an additional 5 hours, and then promptly purchased two more train tickets for an express trainline that operates every 20 minutes.

Before you read this and think “classic Matt”. I should tell you that we weren’t the only people who made this mistake. We saw a woman on the deserted platform who made the same mistake.

Once we arrived at Oslo train station we waddled our through the city center in search for our hotel (that’s not a typo, I actually mean hotel). Even though it was very early in the morning, we were still amazed to see how empty the city looked. It had a semi-modern feel featuring large roads, low rise buildings and the occasional small supermarket. We heard the faint yell of some drunk British footballer yelling something about the world cup in the distance, but that was it.

We got to our hotel at around 2ish, checked in and passed out. Fun fact, in Norway during summer it gets dark at 11:30pm and light again at 4:30am.

Norway 11th July – Viking Biking

We were pleasantly awoken by the smell of free breakfast hanging outside our door; two ham sandwiches and two bottles of orange cordial. Once awake, we bolted into town to join a free tour around the city. The tour was led by a Slovenian woman who told us mildly interesting stories about a 3-day fire that raged through Oslo in the something hundreds which destroyed half of the wooden city. This claimed this was why Oslo looked half traditional and half modern. There was also some brief mention about the origin of the Nobel Prize, and a few infamous people, but nothing too interesting.

On our way back we stopped by the fast food chain “Los Taco” to enjoy some traditional Norwegian burritos. I’m only half joking, a few of the Norwegian people I’ve spoken to in the Netherlands have told me Tacos are by far the most popular food in Norway.

This is where the day gets interesting! We decided to go to a bike rental place called “Viking biking” and try and zoom around the city. Against the advice of the information center, we decided to bike ride all the way to “Bygdoy” (spelled with a weird o). The bike ride was amazing! It was bright, sunny and right along the shore line. We stopped at a Viking ship museum to finally learn something about Norway’s violent and barbaric past. If memory serves me right, Vikings pillaged and colonized eastern England, Greenland and Canada between 700 AD and 1100 AD. Perhaps what was most surprising thing was the quality of the Viking ships; they had perfectly curved wooden planks, fine engravings and well fitted ores. It was hard reconciling how a group of monastery pillaging, woman raping murderers could at the same time have such an appreciation of delicate trinkets and fragile engravings. I also liked the museum because it got me thinking a bit about the philosophy of territory ownership. In every blockbuster we see a group of underdogs valiantly defending their land from a group of foreign invaders. But I think the Viking conquests show that over the course of hundreds of years, the line that separates who owns what land gets blurred. Vikings landed their ships in east England, settled down in that area and eventually assimilated into British culture.

After the museum we rode down to the ‘beach’ (which was really just a small collection of rocks near some water) and then proceeded to go to the Holocaust museum. Apparently the King and Queen of Norway fled the country early in the war fearing execution by the Nazi’s. Supposedly in this power vacuum, a fascist prime minister took charge and allowed the Nazi’s free access into the country to use their oil supplies and deport their Jews to concentration camps. The museum definitely gave the impression that the whole country was betrayed by the fascist prime minister, but after learning a bit more about Norway’s popular view on eugenics and culture of anti-Semitism in the leadup to the war, I really wonder how much of the history museum was white washed. I mean, Norway was still a democracy, so this fascist leader must have still been elected…

When we finished with our bike riding, we decided to head to the nearest pub to grab a few drinks and watch the football. We ended up squeezing ourselves next to two 50-60 year old men; one from Norway, one from Sweden. They were really nice people and were equally interested to learn about Australia as we were to learn about Norway. They were drinking very heavily and at one point they bought us a shot of schnapps. We clinked shot glasses, shouted “skull” and then gently sipped on the liquor – apparently “skull” here just means cheers. By the end of the very engaging England – Croatia football match, the Swedish guy was quite drunk and was beginning to ramble in broken English about how lazy and self entitled the younger generation of Western kids are, and how India and China are going to overtake Europe eventually. I mean, he’s not wrong, but it was still interesting to hear.

Norway 12th July – Hiking Bessegen ridge

We woke up early to catch a bus to Gjendensheim (in Jotenheimen national park) to begin our 3 day hiking adventure. Just before we started our 5 hour bus ride, we decided to double check the weather. To our jaw dropping surprise, today was the first day in 6 weeks that was forecasted to experience heavy rain and thunder. With our backpacks filled to the brim with food, water and clothing, we simply squared our shoulders for the task ahead.

The bus dropped us, and a few other equally shaken hikers at the base of the mountain at 1:40pm. It was already raining and thick dark clouds were starting to gather in the distance. Undeterred we started our hike uphill towards Bessegen ridge. The uphill hike was easy at first – only light showers and the occasional slippery rock. However, once we ascended to the top of the first mountain, a crack of thunder ripped through the sky letting lose an army of water to batter us from above. Like Spartans bravely resisting wave after wave of assaults, we slowly powered on. Occasionally we’d run into an American or Russian straggler who was hiking the other way. With hardened faces, but beaten bodies we yelled advice to each other over the roaring rain. “STEEP DESCENT! SLIPPERY! BE CAREFUL” one screamed at us we marched on. He wasn’t wrong. As we approached the edge of mountain we witnessed the descent that lay in front of us. Illuminated only by the periodic crack of lighting, we saw the maze of jagged slippery rocks we would need to navigate down to reach the closest camping site. At this point, Kaz was hysterical, unsure what to do, but sure we had to do something. I bravely comforted her with my deep voice of reason: there was no going back now, we had to go down. Reluctantly, but bravely, she agreed, and we began to step down the stairway to hell together. One at a time we hopped down each ledge of fragile rock silently wondering with each step whether it would be our last. Then, without warning, mother nature released a sudden powerful gust of wind directly at us. Kaz tried to hold on, but her weak arms were unable to overcome the sheer power of the icy wind. She slipped and fell. Without a moment’s hesitation I ripped off my shirt revealing my 6 pack and modestly chiselled shoulders, constructed a pully like mechanism with the cloth over one of the pultruding rocks, and swung over to her, grabbing her hand, preventing her from an inevitable gruesome death. As I pulled her up to safety by my side we noticed the clouds begin to clear and the camping ground, only a few hundred meters in front of us, reveal itself as the curtain of rain began to separate. “What a day” I sighed in relief. Kaz cracked open a faint smile and then proceeded to weep uncontrollably. I consoled her as we stepped into the safety of the camping ground, knowing full well that this was just the beginning…

Ok some of that may have been exaggeration. Here are the facts, this is a 3 day 2 night hike. For the first day we intended to start at Gjendensheim, hike along Bessegen ridge and camp at Memrubu. For the second day we intended to hike to Gjendebu and take a ferry back to Gjendensheim. This seemed doable on the map since the first part was only a ‘family friendly’ 14km walk. However, there was some bad weather and some scary steep declines which slowed one of us (not going to say who) down a lot. Instead we ended up camping in the middle of nowhere about 5 km from the village.

Norway 13th July – Memrubu

I awoke at around 4:30am just as it started to get bright. In the hazy distance I witnessed 3 mountain lions only 400m from us walking over Bessegen ridge and behind a mountain! In a frantic fury I woke Kaz and pulled all the leftover food from last night (canned sausages, corn and tortilla wraps) inside the tent. When fears had subsided and we were ready to move on, we packed up the tent and continued our hike to Memrubu. Our pace was a lot faster because the weather was bright and sunny. Along the way we passed 3 wild sheep, leading us to the obvious conclusion that these were a special breed of Norwegian killing sheep  that must have eaten the mountain lions I had saw earlier.

When we eventually arrived at Memrubu village we decided to set up our tent and relax with a much needed cider. The village is located right by the lake. The view was tremendous. We met 3 locals there and struck up a conversation. They were in their 50’s and were farmers growing potatoes. We asked them for a second opinion about traditional Norwegian food and were glad to hear they had some suggestions; reindeer beef cake was the only one I can remember. So far every person I have met from Norway is a proud patriot – they were tremendously trusting in their government and talked fondly of their people and their countryside. It was nice. However, characteristic of true patriots, they seemed quite clueless about other parts of the world; one of them asked why Australians can speak English so well.

Later on in the day, I decided to challenge myself by climbing the nearest mountain from the village. God I missed non flat surfaces.

Norway 14th July – Back to Oslo

We decided once again to stay put in Memrubu for the remainder of our time in Jotenheimen national park. Even though the “hike” had turned more into a camping experience, it was a welcome one. Memrubu is beautiful, and we used the time we had to go swimming in the icy lake. But all good things come to an end. Our food supply of corned beef, tuna and cheese was all gone and we needed to catch our ferry then bus back to Oslo.

We arrived back in Oslo at around 4:30pm, dropped off our bags at our new hotelish thing and then went on the search for traditional Norwegian food. We found a place that made raindeer meat cakes and cod. Once Rudolph and Nemo were eaten we headed back to our accommodation for some much needed sleep.

Norway 15th July – Ski slope

This was our last day in Norway, and so we decided to make the most of it by renting a few hybrid bikes from Viking Biking and travel to Frognerseteren and back. Frogerseteren is the last stop on the trainline and is located at the top of a nearby forest. It’s most famous for featuring the worlds largest and almost largest ski jumps. We visited both. As we bike rode around, we saw a bunch of young Norwegians on ‘ski rollerblades’. No wonder these guys are so good at skiing – they practice year round!

We then bike rode back to Olso via well travelled dirt path. I loved it! Kaz didn’t. I think it had something to do with her falling over and scraping her shoulder and hands.

Finally when we got back we had some cheap (well, as cheap as Norwegian food can get) Indian food and were ready to catch our night bus to Stockholm!

Europe trip part 1: The Netherlands

7^th July: The arrival

For some crazy reason, Kaz decided to fly a solid 30 hours via Shanghai to Amsterdam. Coincidently I was in town and decided to train up from Delft to meet her. The meetup was great. It was really nice seeing her directly through my fleshy eyeballs rather than through a 240px camera resolution. After an hour long commute back to Delft without experiencing any lag or WiFi issues while chatting, we decided to quickly drop her bags off at my place and head out for a quick dinner. Since my entire diet while studying at Deft consists almost whole heartedly of cereal, I was just as surprised as her to see all the food available in the city center. We settled on some half German, half Dutch, half Italian (Gerutchan) restaurant. I was equally as tired as Kaz after dinner because I had stayed up till 4:30am the previous night making sure all my assignments were completed so we were both pretty keen to call it a night.

8^th July: The red light mission

We woke up and decided to take the world by storm by bike riding to Rotterdam. We had originally decided to go to Den Haag, but I reckoned the bike ride to Rotterdam was much better. After purchasing a mobike subscription we were on our way! The ride was tough, the view was stunning and the sun was fierce. We parked out bikes at Rotterdam near a local lake and enjoyed a nice brie (the good brie, not the bad shit you get a your local super market) and baguette and some salad.  Once our stomachs were pumped with cheese we decided to waddle around Rotterdam a bit and see the sights. Shortly afterwards we hopped on the nearest train to head to Amsterdam to meet an old childhood friend of Kaz. Her name was Gwinie (Guinnie? Quinnie?) and she was very friendly. We met at Vondelpark, drank a few ciders and got to see a live band performance in the blistering sun. After exchanging pleasantries, banter and embarrassing childhood stories we decided to split ways and head to the red light district for some much needed red lights. Like children finding the porno section of a candy store, we wandered around slack jawed at every 99% naked woman pressing herself against the window. The red light district lived up to its reputation because once we got back we realized both of us were insanely sunburned.

9^th July: The Errands

Today was an easy day. The accumulated effect of sunburn, lack of sleep and just plain bad planning made today a Delft day. We spent a large part of the day getting travel plans organized for Norway and cooking food. We made a nice lasagne and some pesto chicken wraps and enjoyed a relaxing time at the lake watching the ducks fight fiercely over  arbitrarily small patches of land.

10^th July The Norway flight

At some point over the last few days Kaz had casually mentioned that she might be interested in learning to play a computer game. Needless to say, I made a big deal out of this and insisted she install Age of Empires II conquerors expansion so that Adi, her and I could all play a game together. The game was amazing! There’s a lot to say about the strategies I used to beat Adi while playing as the Vikings, so I’ll have to write it in a separate blog. After the AoE game we headed to Den Haag to walk around town. We enjoyed a good cider at an Irish pub and trip down memory lane by visiting a Games Workshop. After that we took the train to the airport to head to the Norway!