As you know, I was gone for a little over two weeks in Australia. While I was gone, I swam with seals and watched DisAbled people water ski and deal with much more than the everyday problems that we deal with. This is my story that I want to share with you.

We left Los Banos around 12:00p.m. along with my parents, our water skier Mark, and my close friend Spanky. We found out that this plane trip was Spanky's very first, his first time out of the country, his first time in L.A., and that he had never been to a zoo before that trip! Our plane left at 10:05 p.m. on March 10 and got to Melbourne, Australia on March 12 around 8:15 a.m. Our plane trip took about 15 hours which was okay on the first flight because it was during the night and we were tired so we were able to sleep.

One of the blind skiers (Mark) sat by a lady from Australia and talked quite a bit during the flight. His friend Al (also a blind skier who skis against Mark) had a walkie talkie hidden under Mark's seat and told Mark that he was going to lose and that it was God speaking, it was really funny.

You should have seen us at the airport with all of the skiers' luggage. There were 8 skiers in wheelchairs, two totally blind skiers, one partially sighted skier, and three amputees. That was the team without the manager, doctor, coach, and family. We couldn't fit all of the luggage that we had into eight by 10-trailer; we had to have two! The luggage consisted of three event bags (which holds three water skis and are very heavy), suitcases, strollers, and wheelchairs.

The skiers may have disabilities but that doesn't stop them. They're always making jokes about each other and still lead a semi-normal life. The U.S. team's biggest competitor is the British team.

Before my mom, Spanky, and I got our rental car we stayed at the hotel and watched T.V. or we took a walk into town and did some shopping or went down to the wharf. While enjoying T.V. I now have a new favorite commercial, it is for KP24 foam and lotion, which is for head lice. The reason I liked it is they have these little kids singing about head lice!

Spanky and I also went swimming and played tag 24-7; we played tag in the airport, the hotel on three different floors/stairs/elevator, and in the pool!

Once we got our rental car we started to plan our trip a little more to try to get the most out use of our rented car. The second night we were in Aussie land we went to Subway for dinner. On the way to Subway we passed a homeless man, he wasn't begging but I thought he might like some money. So I ran back and gave him six or eight dollars and his reply was so very funny. He said, "Wow! Ho-ho! Thank you very much." he said it in the most cartoon like voice and looked very happy.

We got the car the fourth or fifth day we were there and went to an old gold mining camp. Did you know that Australia had a gold rush that was even bigger than the one we had in California? On our way back we found a go cart race track and went go cart racing for 10 minutes; it was very fun.

While we shopped or walked around in Australia we noticed many different things. Like; there are more physically fit people, the cross walk lights make noises different ones for stop and go for the visually impaired, different parking meters, the food tastes totally different, different spelling of words, they drive on the left side of the road instead of the right, the driver is on the right side instead of the left, the windshield wipers are where the turning signal should be. They have different names for french fries, sprite, swim suites, lemonade, and many more things, and people who look a lot alike but don't judge people by the outside.

Before we could spend our money we had to go and exchange the U.S. money for Aussie money. That is when we found out that the Aussies don't have pennies, you have to round to the nearest five cents. The exchange rate was almost our $1 to their $2! While we were shopping Spanky said, "The whole time we've been here I haven't seen a Mexican." I replied with, "All you have to do is look in the mirror!"

When my mom drove Spanky and I around to see many things she went to turn on the turning signal and the windshield wipers went on and the laughter started. From then on Spanky asked my mom to turn the turning signal on. She said that when she drove for the first time at home she turned on the windshield wipers again!

One day we went out to the water ski training site. Since the whole ski team lives in different parts of the country, and  they don't have the funding to have a training camp every month like the British team does, the training camp they had was the week before the competition outside of Geelong, Australia.

I've gotten to know all of the skiers pretty well, either from the first world's I went to (England and Ireland in 1999) or the interviews I did with the team members. What some people don't know is that they all can have children of their own. One of the leg amputees (Camie) is pregnant and her sister-in-law asked if her baby was going to be a leg amputee also. There are also other skiers on the team who have young children.

There was a golf course we visited that had many kangaroos hopping around and the team took pictures with them.

We went to two beaches, they looked, felt, and smelled like the ones we have here in California. The first one was Bells Beach where Spanky and I played in the warm ocean water with the waves. The second place was near Apollo Bay when we traveled with our skier Mark and took some very nice pictures.

One day we went to a zoo and it turned out that it was senior citizens day and there were many seniors there, and I was very surprised to see so many seniors out and about.

The first town we stayed in was Geelong, Victoria (a state), Australia which was about as big as the town of Modesto (200,000 people). The second town we stayed in was Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which was about the same size as L.A. (3.2 mil) and is the 3^rd largest Greek populated city in the World!

If you were wondering what Australia looks like I will tell you. The country side looks the trip from L.B. to D.P. (Los Banos to Dos Palos) just add more trees, fewer pick-ups, people driving on the left side of the road, and seeing cars with Roo bars on the front end. (A Roo bar is like a brush guard; so if you decide to smash a Kangaroo, or a Kangaroo decides to smash you, your grill is protected.)

There aren't any public restrooms or bathrooms . . . there are only public toilets (public toilets, even at the zoo, have needle disposal boxes); the reason is a famous surfer stepped on a needle at the beach and became HIV positive.

Spanky and I did personal interviews with all of the team members and with some of the other contestants from other countries. I got to interview "Lovely Leo"! That is a nickname for him because every girl there has the hots for him, and if they didn't they were probably blind. He is from Argentina, is missing a leg, is a very good skier, and he is also the only person on his team.

Through the interviews I learned about things I was too afraid to ask myself (their likes and dislikes about their disabilities). I think the number one answer to their favorite thing was the awareness they got. Their second favorite thing was the special treatment. A joke that was told by two blind skiers was very funny; their names are Mark and Al. We asked them what their favorite thing was about being disabled, Al said it was the DisAbled parking spaces (remember they're totally blind). Mark said that Al was still looking for his car! Al said, "Well the only problem is I can't find my car or the road!"

The point is these people are a lot like normal people, the only difference is they had a life altering situation and are now world champions. The sad thing is water skiing is a very expensive sport, especially at the world level. Some of these people also have families, jobs, and there is no funding for them so they either have to pay their own way, not go, or get their own sponsors. But that's almost impossible at this point because they are practically invisible to the public eye for the DisAbled water skiing that they do around the world.

These are the type of people that I think are definitely role model material and I hope that some day they will become very famous for what they are doing now. If I could do anything with the fame I hope to get it would be to promote all DisAbled people and the sports they do! One last thing, while gone I learned the secret of life, and I want to share it with you. Here's the hint: it's 10 words long and each word has 2 letters in it, what is it? I'll give you two days to figure it out then I will ask you. If you can't figure it out I'll tell you! Thank you for listening to my report and I hope you enjoyed the story!

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Last Updated 11/08/01