Wine Glasses and Dissenting

On Thursday I rented a car with a Dutch girl I met at the hostel and took off to Wine Glass Bay, a scenic area north of Hobart. The drive was very scenic, and the day was clear and beautiful. It felt good just to drive a car again. It was my first time driving a car on the left side of the road; the driving part wasn't really the problem, it was the orientation of everything inside the car. I kept on turning on the windshield wipers when I wanted to signal, and I kept on reaching over my left shoulder to fasten my seatbelt, only to be swatting at thin air.



Wine Glass Bay was very beautiful. We started by wandering around Coles Bay, on the other side of the mountain, first, then heading up to the viewpoint over Wine Glass Bay. I found the viewpoint to mediocre, but when we headed down the mountain and hit the beach, it was far from mediocrity. The white sand was fine, much like a Thai beach. The water was cold as balls, however. My feet were more than I wanted to immerse in it. We took another way back to the parking lot, which lead around the mountain we crossed to get to the beach. The path wasn't very exciting, the highlight of it a pleasant beach that had a mother Wallaby with a Joey.

On Friday I started my new job at the Kathmandu outdoor gear store. I was really thrown to the wolves this first time round by being put on the sales floor without knowing anything about the store or it's products, but simply telling people I didn't really know much but would help them out was a more than adequate response for them. One kick ass part of the day was when I received a voucher for an employee discount of 70% off for anything in the store. Time to buy some new gear!



Yesterday I braved the soggy, shit ass weather and headed out to the Parliament Grounds to take part in the Occupy Movement, a worldwide protest that's been ongoing around the world, aimed at stopping corporate greed. It started out well, but seemed to lose it's steam quickly. The message started to get blurred when everyone split off into groups to talk about different aspects of civil liberties, workers rights, etc. It slowly became more of a forum than a protest, like there was no fight in anyone. However, it was good to see the Australian point of view on the matter, and the fact that the crowd was diverse, a bold sign that more and more people are taking notice of this world problem.