So This is Christmas

Somewhere between Tahiti and Los Angeles. 6/5. Time: 8:43pm in Auckland. 3:43am EST.

Today is Tyler’s version of Christmas. We are going home. As I write this, I am sitting in seat 20D on an Air Tahiti flight from Auckland to L.A. We are on our second leg of the journey. It took us about five hours to fly from Auckland to Tahiti and now we are on the eight hour flight to L.A. Wow, we are going back to the States for real. It is so hard to believe. One this is certain though: we are not entering the same country we left one year ago. So much has changed. When we left, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and Joe Biden were still in the running for president. I think back then Nader even thought he had a chance. Last June the economy was just beginning to show signs of slowing. Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers were still holding on. And although things had long been rough for the U.S. auto makers, people still had their fingers crossed that giants like GM and Chrysler would hold on to their autonomy. What a difference a year makes.

In that same vein, we aren’t coming back to the States as the same people who left 353 days ago. We’ve changed too. Many of the changes in ourselves won’t be realized until long after we land and develop some sort of routine, but there are still others that we notice even now. We are both more relaxed. Just in general. Things don’t get to us like they used to. We have a different perspective on things. Correction: we have a different perspective on nearly everything. Saying that, it is difficult for me to put exactly what I mean into words.

We’ve seen an awful lot in the past year and it some of it has made us happy and a lot of it has made us sad. The fact that we just happened to be born into loving, educated, well-off families in the United States of America is a total fluke and I can say in all honesty that that fact is something we will never forget. We have so many opportunities that others in the world will never have. For example, one of the people who touched us the most on this entire trip was a man named Biahrab. He was our host father while we worked at an orphanage in Chitwan. By U.S. standards, he had nothing. I mean, really nothing. He had a water pump, which is considered a huge luxury, a few water buffalo, and three coffee plants behind the buffalo pen. He had shelter but not enough money for a kitchen table, so he ate on the floor. Despite all of this, he is a happy man. And his family is happy too.

While we were staying with him we had many long conversations. He spoke good English, so it was much easier to communicate with him than with most other locals. One day he told us that he’d always wanted to see the ocean. He had never even seen a lake. The area of Nepal where he lives is the driest and hottest area in the whole country. I remember saying to him, “Oh, you will see the ocean someday.” “I hope I see it before I die,” he told me. It was at that point that it occurred to me that I had just said that to make myself feel better. I realized in that moment that Biahrab may never see the ocean. And the injustice of it all hit me like a brick. Biahrab was a gardener at the orphanage and worked in the hot sun every day of his life. He was tireless. He provided enough food for his family and looked forward to housing volunteers like us because it gave him a window to the world he may never see. And the reason he may never see the rest of the world? Simply because he had the misfortune of being born in Nepal. It is as cruel as that. Both Tyler and I have talked about this fact for hours on end and each time we bring it up it almost brings each of us to tears. It isn’t just Biahrab. It is the children begging on the streets of India, the child prostitutes disguised as street merchants on the streets of Bangkok, the disabled citizens of Vietnam that struggle to stay employed and alive. It is all so unfair.

We also saw countless positive things and kindness in every country we visited. People everywhere were willing to lend a hand if we needed directions, had a question, needed a hotel recommendation, and the list goes on. We met incredible people everywhere we went—in hostels, at bars, restaurants, on tours—and we really enjoyed learning about their cultures. We made so many friends that we will keep for years to come. In fact, some may even fly across the world to for our wedding. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Both of us took up reading as a relaxing hobby. Tyler especially got really really into it and probably read the better part of 20 books while we’ve been away. I read a few less and developed a taste for historical fiction and non-fiction stories on women rising up from ashes.

Going back to our priorities, while on this trip we realized the importance of being close to family. Specifically in Nepal. While we were there, the families we lived with were all surrounded by their families all the time. They all lived near each other. Seeing and witnessing that struck a chord in both of us and forced us to realize how much we need to be close to our families and friends. After much discussion and some tears (happy and sad ones), we’ve decided to leave San Francisco and move to Chicago to be closer to the ones we love. We don’t know what will happen in the future and who knows, maybe we will call SF home once again, but for now we are heading back to our roots in the Midwest.

I guess I am kind of at a loss. It is impossible to wrap-up a year of travel in one blog entry. This year has been a dream come true and for anyone who has ever considered undertaking such an adventure, I say go for it. You will never regret it. No matter what anyone says, follow your dreams. We did and we have no regrets.

Long Live the Queen

Tauranga, New Zealand. 6/1. 4:37pm

Today is the day New Zealand and Australia celebrate the birth of HRH (her royal highness) Elizabeth II. Kind of odd actually. Her real birthday is April 12^th (she turned 83 this year) but for some reason it is celebrated today every year. It is a national holiday, so government offices and shops are closed and people are mulling about town, enjoying the sun on their three-day weekend.

We are in Tauranga, an adorable resort town in the North Island on the coast of the Bay of Plenty. It was named by James Cook after he found good food supplies here long ago. It is beautiful and we are staying in a place right on the harbor. The place is a dump and its wall thinness can be equated with that of a college dorm built around 1937, but we picked it for its location. Today is our second day here. Although the air is brisk and it is windy outside, the sun is out and thankfully cafes are open, so at the moment I am sitting in lowly-lit Starbucks on a street corner. Tyler is sharing the table with me reading his new book: “The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order.” These days he is interested in anything about economics, politics and business. This one is about anti-globalization and Tyler comments with a laugh on how ironic it is to be reading such a text while sitting in a Starbucks. Ha. Asking him how the book is, he replies: “Uh, it isn’t that great yet. I’m on page nine and I think it is just a bunch of big words. I find my mind wandering a lot.”

Hmm. That seems to be a common theme for us lately. Mind wandering. Wandering home. As I sit here I honestly cannot believe that today is June 1^st, 2009. One year ago we were running around San Francisco like chickens with our heads cut off trying to tie off every loose end we could think of before boarding our flight to Shanghai on June 8^th. I can’t really say time has flown. I have felt every wonderful, exciting, scary, agonizing, terrifying, surprising, disappointing, adventurous, and most of all fun moment. It has been one hell of a ride. Although it is hard to say you’ve ever had enough vacation, in our case we just feel that it is time to return. We’ve been gone for a long time and the yearning that we’ve felt for a while bubbling under the surface to spend quality time with our friends and family has surfaced in a big way. We want to go home and hug the people we love. We miss them terribly.

That isn’t to say that we aren’t ungrateful for where we are. We are still enjoying our time and as I write this I am staring out the Starbucks window at the Bay of Plenty. The sun is setting and casting a buttery glow on the hilly countryside across the bay. It is breathtaking and I am grateful to be here. I am just happy that one week from now we will be sitting on my Mom’s couch sipping tea and catching up with family.

I look up at Tyler across the table from me. He is off in la la land. I guess he must think the pastries in the display window are much more interesting than anti-globalization rhetoric because he seems especially keen on the scrumptious-looking slice of chocolate cake staring at him from the other side of the glass. Now he has turned back to the book. I know he is trying with all his might to concentrate despite the conflicting distractions of his surroundings and his mind.

Ok, back to where I left off.

The day after our ice climbing adventure atop the Franz Josef Glacier, we woke up expecting to feel like we had been hit by a Mac truck. To our surprise our bones and muscles felt great. We had a spring in our step and were still on a high from the experience the day prior. Tyler’s toes hadn’t healed yet, but the blisters didn’t look as bad. We left the village of Franz Josef and headed to Lake Matheson. This is the lake that is featured on most postcards of New Zealand. It is surrounded by a forest and in the background are the Southern Alps with Mount Cook in the center (the country’s tallest mountain). Well, the best part is that when you are at the lake, the mountain range reflects off the lake, making a mirror image of its self. Needless to say, it was a must-see.

We drove the hour or so through steep mountain passes and held our breath as we teetered on the edge of life and death. The cliffs were especially high and without any rails it was frightening when construction workers would usher you closer than you wished to the edge. But we were fine and enjoyed the scenery. Once we got to the car park for the lake we realized the viewing point for the lake was an hour hike away. It was a beautiful day, so off we went.

The track was well traveled, so it turned out to be more like a casual stroll rather than a strenuous trek. It was gorgeous and we found ourselves walking through the rainforest. Rays of sun cast a glow through the trees above and beside us, illuminating the variously-shaped leaves and making the path speckled with a soft light. We got to the viewing point and took photos. It was a perfect sunny day. On the way back we passed a few cows that stopped munching on grass to acknowledge our presence and then went back to their meals.

From there we drove a few hours along the coast to a natural tourist attraction called the Pancake Rocks. Right on the ocean, these are a series of interesting rock formations bearing a strong resemblance to stacks of pancakes. Massive stacks. Think 800 pancakes (each about 3-5 feet thick) in one stack. They were all lined up next to each other with a few gaping holes in between. Since they were right on the coast, the waves would crash into the holes between the rocks, causing blow holes. As each wave would crash, the hole would quickly fill up with water and then spray the water high into the air. We got there right as the sun was setting and it was fun to see the rocks and the spray.

After taking in the Pancake Rocks we spent the night in a little town called Westport, and then headed out the next day to a city named Nelson.

As far as cities go in New Zealand, any cluster of establishments boasting a population of more than 8,000 is considered a city. Being that the population of the entire country hovers just around four million, 8,000 people are kind of major. Nelson is a city of around 200,000. One of the largest cities in the South Island. We’d spent most of our time in New Zealand in “small” cities, so we were excited to see what Nelson had to offer.

We drove in and found a hostel. Accents on the Park was the name. Butting right up to a park complete with a cathedral, the hostel wasn’t even a hostel. It looked more like a comfy bed and breakfast. Just without the breakfast. It was the nicest place we’d ever been on the trip by far. We were over the moon. We spent two days in Nelson bopping around town, taking in the shops, hibernating in bookstore after bookstore, and savoring every moment in our hostel. While there we heard quite a bit about a nearby wine region named the Marlborough Region. It was only an hour away, so we decided to take a tour of the wineries. By bike.

Now of course I don’t condone driving a car under the influence of alcohol, but what about a bike? Isn’t that illegal too? Apparently not in Blenheim, New Zealand. We’d heard of this tour and it sounded like a hoot, so we called the company and booked it with a nice man named Nigel. The day we left Nelson, we drove to a hotel Blenheim early in the morning and Nigel picked us up in his bright green van around 10am.

As he rounded the van to greet us, I noticed he was probably six foot five inches tall, around 65 years old, had spiky grey hair, a flannel shirt, and khaki shorts on, exposing his legs the size of tree trunks. I looked at him in disbelief. I was decked out in three shirts, fleece jacket, pair of pants, hiking boots, a scarf, wool hat, and wool gloves. It must have been about 45 degrees out. Shorts?

“Well, hello! You must be Katie!” he exclaimed, extending his hand to me and giving me a tight-as-spandex handshake. I felt like he was Andre the Giant and my hand was the sad bug he was determined to squish.

“Yes, that is me. Hello! This is my fiancé Tyler,” I said, motioning to Tyler. They exchanged hellos and handshakes. I wondered if Tyler’s hand felt as flat and lifeless as mine.

Hopping into the back of his van, we strapped our seatbelts on and started gabbing with the extra-chatty Nigel. We learned he was from England and moved to NZ three years ago with his wife to open a bed and breakfast out of their house here. In addition, they acquired the bike wine tour company and have been having a lot of fun with it since.

“You are just going to love the wineries here. All of them are so close together so you are sure not to get lost. It is a self-guided tour,” he said, looking at us in the rear-view mirror.

It was at this point that Tyler nudged me, wide-eyed. “What?” I whispered. “Are we going on this bike tour ALONE? Like without a guide?” Tyler asked. “Yeah, we get the bikes from Nigel and then he gives us a map and we just go,” I said. Tyler was flabbergasted. He put his head in his hands. “I thought this was a bike TOUR. We are just paying $55 for a bike rental! What a scam!” he said in a muffled tone and laughing quietly. “I guess it is. It will still be fun. Be chipper,” I said and then started talking to Nigel again. Tyler proceeded to stare out the window, shaking his head and smiling.

The van stopped in Nigel’s driveway about 10 minutes later and we got out and walked to a shed in his backyard with a few 10-speeds in front of it.

“Ok, here are your bikes and helmets,” Nigel said. “Now come inside and I will show you the map.”

We followed him into the shed and stood with him for about 20 minutes while he went into painstaking detail about each and every of the wineries in the region. “You have about eight hours; you should be able to make it to about ten wineries,” he said.

Ten wineries? On most of the tours we’d taken in Napa, the day was complete after four, maybe five wineries tops. Ten? I had a question burning in the back of my mind that I had to ask.

I looked up from the map and turned to Nigel. “So…will we be riding on a trail or just on the road?” I asked.

“Oh, you will just ride on the road,” Nigel said with an air of nonchalance. “Just make sure to ride with traffic. You will be on slow roads most of the time. There is only one part where you will be on Highway 6, don’t worry.”

Um yeah.

“Another thing,” I said. “Is it safe to drive a bike while drunk?”

“In the three years I’ve been doing this I can count the number of people who came back drunk on one hand,” Nigel responded, holding up one of his mammoth, callused hands in front of his face. “And anyway, riding the bike will sober you right up.”

Riiight. Tyler and I looked at each other with a smile of trepidation. We’d already paid. We were going.

Ten minutes later, decked out in our helmets and backpacks, we turned our rust-bucket Schwins out of Nigel’s driveway and onto a so-called “slow” road. We were both laughing hysterically. “I can’t believe we are doing this!” Tyler shouted over the traffic. “Did he really say ten wineries? How the heck aren’t we going to be drunk after going to ten wineries!?”

I held tight to the map and wedged it between my left hand and the handlebar. The first winery was about three minutes away, said Nigel, but it ended up taking us 10 because we were so nervous about the traffic. We got there and it was beautiful. Wither Hills Vineyard. Sprawling. Very Napa-esque. Nigel had told us all of the tastings would be free, which was a shocker and left us feeling both delighted and a little nervous. Delighted because they would be free. Nervous because that meant we could drink more. Hmm.

We tasted a few wines, walked up to the winery’s balcony and took in the view. It was about 10:30am and the sun was coming out. It was going to be a great day. After about 30 minutes and five tastings we got back onto our bikes and rode to the next vineyard, Villa Maria. Small place, but lovely with rows of vines surrounding the tasting building. Oh how we love wineries. I would love to live in a winery. There is just something so relaxing about wine tasting. It makes my soul happy. We went in and got to talking to the tasting guy. Turns out he was from Maryland but has lived in NZ for the past 13 years. Nice chap.

After about four tastings we loaded back onto our bikes and looked at the map. The next place was a small, family-owned winery that only sold its wine out of the estate. It was special. The place was called Huia and it was named after a blue-colored bird that used to live in NZ but has now become extinct. According to the map, it was about four streets away and we would have to cross Highway Six. Although we’d already had more than a few tastings, I found Nigel to be right about the sober thing. I wasn’t feeling tipsy in the least. Riding bikes next to semi trucks really sobers you up.

We got on our bikes and rode. And rode and rode. It took forever and the wind was brutal. After about 40 minutes of riding and skirting the shoulder of the highway while holding onto the handlebars for dear life, we finally turned onto a sunlit road lined with acres and acres of vines. It was gorgeous. No cars in sight. About ½ way down the road we saw a sign for Huia. Before we got there we got into the spirit of the moment and took pictures in the middle of the street doing cartwheels and yoga postures. It was a blast. We arrived at Huia and started chatting with the nice tasting lady, who introduced us to her Chardonnay. Tyler and I are religious red wine drinkers, but we thought we’d humor her in trying the Chard. Man oh mom was it fabulous. The best Chardonnay we’d ever had. Had a hint of vanilla in it. Not at all the traditional buttery and oak taste. We bought a bottle and kept riding.

It was time for lunch. We stopped at another winery for another tasting. Now this was our 5^th and we were feeling pretty good. The ride didn’t seem so bad either. All of the wineries weren’t all that far away from each other at this point, so it was easy to get to each. Lunch was delish—pizza and bruchetta. You can’t go wrong. Actually, I must emphasize how incredible it was. Mountains of feta cheese mixed with bacon, fig, rocket, and fresh veggies equaled heaven on a plate.

By the time lunch was over it was around 3pm. We had to be back to Nigel by 5, so we only had time for a few more wineries. We hit three more and then headed home. Riding along the highway we missed our turnoff and kept going for about 20 minutes in the wrong direction. Maybe that had something to do with the wine. Hmm, just a thought. Well, by the time we realized we’d gone the wrong direction, the sun was going down and the wind was picking up big time. We begrudgingly turned around and rode as fast as we could home. It took us an hour. I had tears streaming down my face because it was so hard riding against the wind and man was it freezing. I had mittens on and even then I was an ice cube. I can’t imagine what Tyler felt like about 100 yards behind me without a hat or hand protection.

We finally arrived back at Nigel’s place around 5:35pm. He was worried. “I’m so glad you are OK!” he said to us with a big smile. He was right, we weren’t drunk at all. After that ride I could have gone for a drink. Our hair was blown back, our faces were red and we were as winded as could be. After Nigel dropped us off at our hotel we had our fill of delicious Indian food at a nearby restaurant and were off to bed.

The next day we headed off to Picton, the port town at the northernmost point of the South Island, where were would get on a ferry and take a 3.5 hour ride to Wellington, the southernmost point in the North Island. Our plan was to take the ferry over to the North Island and stay in Wellington for a few days. It was not to be.

We drove up to the ferry terminal and I jumped out, heading for the ticket office. “I’d like to buy two tickets for today’s ferry at 1:10pm,” I told the lady behind the counter. “Um, maam, haven’t you heard? There aren’t any ferries going out today. A large storm has come in from the Antarctic and there are 12 meter swells out there. It isn’t safe to travel, maam. The next ferry leaves Monday at 1:10pm,” the lady told me with a ‘no-duh’ look on her face. I just stared at her and said ok before trotting back to the car to tell Tyler the news.

“Twelve meter swells?” Tyler bellowed when I told him. “That is 36 feet! Holy crap! That’s crazy that we would be stuck because of a storm from Antarctica!”

It was Saturday. We had to figure out something to do. We decided to head back to Accents on the Park, our beautiful hostel/bed and breakfast in Nelson. After an hour-long ride, we were so happy to be back. We spent 2 nights there and then boarded the boat Monday morning for the ride to Wellington.

We drove our van onto the ferry at about noon on Monday, parked and then walked into the passenger area. It kinda looked like a cruise ship. We went to the food court and noticed the newspaper. On the front page was a giant picture of a ferry going from Picton to Wellington that was getting pummeled with huge waves. Nice to see when you are ON that ferry. Well, the ride wasn’t ½ bad and we got there unscathed.

Wellington was pretty cool. Except for the rain. We stayed there two nights, went to the Te Papa Museum (NZ’s national museum) and then headed north to Taupo, a popular destination with a pretty lake and lots of shops. After three nights there we moved farther north to Rotorua.

Rotorua smells like farts. Seriously. The city is known as a cultural center where a large population of Maori (pronounced Mari), the native people of NZ, live. There are a lot of cultural things you can do to learn about their culture, but beyond that the big thing to do is to check out the geothermal pools, which are everywhere. I mean really everywhere. On every street corner, you will see smoke coming out of the ground. Hot pools of sulfur are laden in the area and since there is so much sulfur, the town is one big fart. It is awful. Walking around, I started feeling nauseous. I have no idea how people live there. Once you get out of your car no matter where you are, you smell it. We stayed there one night. That was enough.

Now we are in Tauranga and it is great. Tomorrow we leave and will head up a peninsula to a seaside town named Coromandel, which is known to be beautiful. The coolest part for us though is that our friend Steve, who we know from when we were in Nepal, lives there. So tomorrow we are going to hang out with him. We can’t wait to see someone we know. Which brings me back to my point of how excited we are to come home.

Tyler just turned to me. He is totally not into his book anymore. “I feel like I’m waiting for Christmas,” he said. “I feel like it is December 21^st and I just can’t wait for the big day.”

For my Grandma and Grandpa

Nelson, New Zealand. 5/23. 5:35pm

When I was about 10 years old, my Grandma and Grandpa Newell (my Mom’s parents) went on a three week trip to New Zealand. This was not uncommon for them. As a couple, they were big travelers, and even now that my Grandpa has passed, it is not uncommon for my Grandma to take off with some friends for a fun weekend away. As a child, some of my Mom’s fondest memories were of trips with her family (her three brothers and my Grandparents). My Grandma would always organize them and they were always thrillingly elaborate. One year they spent two weeks in Hawaii and caught a huge marlin. Another year they went snowshoeing in Alaska. Another year they explored Canada’s Banff National Park. During my Mom’s college years she spent a summer washing laundry at Glacier National Park and after her summer job was finished, the whole family went on a tour of the Rockies. I could go on. After my Mom and my uncles grew up, the traveling didn’t stop for my Grandparents. In fact, they travelled more. To Finland three times, Hawaii at least two times, New Zealand, Japan, and they even took a cruise along South America’s coast.

Their trip to New Zealand was a major highlight. So much so, they seriously considered moving to the country for a few years. Before he retired, my Grandpa was a radiologist and while they were here on holiday, he was offered a position at a hospital and considered coming out of retirement to take it. Unfortunately my Great Grandpa (my Grandpa’s father) was getting ill at the time, so they decided to stay in the States to be near him (he lived in Ohio and passed in 1991 at the age of 101).

As a kid it was understood that Grandma and Grandpa were going here or there. I really didn’t think much of it. They would always bring us back cool stuff and we would have fun looking at their photos. Not until now do I realize what an affect their travels have had on me. It is largely because of them that I’m so passionate about travel. They never boasted about their trips, but just seeing how much happiness travel brought to their lives has inspired me to incorporate it into mine and to realize that anything is possible.

Over the years they would talk about New Zealand from time to time. It was understood that it was one of their favorite places. When I told my Grandma that we were going to New Zealand on his trip she was so excited. She reminded me that they had walked on a glacier and absolutely loved it. “Weren’t you scared to walk on a glacier?” I asked her. “Ahh, not at all! It was a hoot! Just make sure not to fall into a crevice,” she said to me before we left. Because of the inspiration they gave me, I made it my mission not to come home until we walked on a glacier. I had to do it for my Grandparents.

Just four days ago we did just that. Except we kicked it up a notch and not only walked on the glacier, we went ice climbing on it. It was unreal and something neither of us will ever forget. I dedicate my climb to my Grandma and Grandpa. If it wasn’t for them, we never would have gone.

I’ll start from where I left off.

After 15 days in Queenstown, we were ready to go. Our last week there was nice, but we were excited to see the rest of the country. We didn’t attend any more bar crawls and kept our names as they are, but instead went to more than a few coffee shops and even took in a new movie—“Defiance” –starring Daniel Craig (James Bond). Excellent flick about thousands of Jews who escaped into the forest to avoid Nazis during WWII—true story. I recommend it highly.

On our last night we were woken up at 3:45am by a screaming fire alarm. It was, well, quite alarming and didn’t stop for a good 10 minutes. Turns out there was no fire, but there was so much rain (it rained for most of the 2 weeks we were in Queenstown) that the rain had worn down the roof of the hostel. Right above the fire alarm. So the water was trickling into the actual alarm device, causing it to go berserk. Ug. We didn’t sleep too well after that.

That next morning we picked up another Jucy van and drove to Wanaka, a town about an hour north of Queenstown. The weather here is now seriously cold even in mid-day, so we’ve decided to only drive the van around, not sleep in it. Instead we’ve been residing in warm beds in hostels along the way. It is so nice. We spent 2 days in Wanaka, the whole time just looking forward to our ice climb.

On Monday night we drove up to Franz Josef Village, home to the Franz Josef Glacier. The village is a little spit of a thing, owing its entire existence to the glacier and the visitors it brings in. We settled into a cute little place named Glowworm Cottages with blazingly hot heaters in the rooms (bonus) and slept great.

Tuesday morning Tyler’s iTouch beeped to life at 6:45am. “Snooooze,” I mumbled from under the covers. “Snoze? No way! We are going ice climbing today!” he replied, jumping out of bed. I pulled the covers over my head. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was actually kinda scared. Last week when I was talking to my Grandma on the phone she mentioned that a woman in her group fell into a crevice and broke her arm on their glacier walk. I was scared that could happen to me, or worse. My fear was mixed with excitement though and from under the covers, my excitement won out. I put dangerous crevices out of my mind.

We loaded on as many layers as we could manage, got in the car and went to the Franz Joseph Glacier Guides office. It was 7:45am, the allotted meeting time, but no one was in the office except a group of what looked like teenagers chatting in the corner. We waited. At around 8:05am a strapping man wearing an official-looking fleece emerged from the back and approached us. “Are you here for the ice climb?” We both nodded. “Ok well come over here and we will get you all suited up,” he said. We followed him over to the group of teenagers. I looked at the group and upon closer inspection deemed them to be in their early 20s, not so much teens. “Ok guys, here is the deal. My name is Henry and I will be one of our guides today. Here is a form you need to sign and make sure to write what medical conditions you have next to your name such as asthma, a heart condition, diabetes, etc. This is really important because this trip is pretty intense and we need to know these things for your safety,” he said.

I went up and signed my name. I wondered what exactly I was signing, but I was at the beginning of the line and everyone was waiting, so I didn’t take the time to read the form. I’m guessing it was a liability waiver so that your family couldn’t sue the company if you slipped into a deep crevice and was never found. Or maybe if a crampon spike got stuck in your cornea, they wouldn’t pay for the hospital bill. Or if you just died of hypothermia out there no one could ask questions. All of these were going through my head at the time.

After signing our lives away, Henry handed us each a pair of waterproof pants and directed us to a van sitting outside. After a short ride, we arrived at a shed where we would gear up. Each of us were given a pair of boots, resembling ski boots—stiff and hard plastic, two pairs of wool socks, two pairs of wool mittens, a Gore-Tex blue jacket, a pair of crampons (i.e. spikes to attach to the boots), and a backpack. Tyler had a hard time with his boots. I guess they only had one pair in his size. Another guy took them before Tyler could, so he was stuck with one size too big. Not good when you are going hiking for eight hours. Well, he didn’t think much of it and on we went.

The van drove us to the trail head, we strapped our crampons to the back of our backpacks, put our hats and mittens on, zipped up our Gore-Tex, and we were ready. Henry got out of the van, followed by another guy who was the spitting image of a kid I went to high school with named Pat Kinzer. They could be identical twins. “Hi everyone, I’m Rich,” he said with a heavy New Zealand drawl. “You will be following me today and Henry will take up the rear. We will be going through the forest first. Once we get through to the field, we will stop and regroup. Be aware that we will be walking through several rivers, so you will get wet.” Cool! I thought. Walking through rivers! This is such an adventure!

Off we went, all in a row following Rich. Pretty soon the forest was dense. And then more dense. And then so dense you had to watch where you stepped and could hardly see in front of you because of the foliage. We were in a rainforest. A rainforest right next to a glacier. Only in New Zealand. Incredible.

After dodging several large branches and stepping smack dab into more than a few puddles we came to our first stream. It was rushing but shallow. I looked back at Tyler behind me and noticed he had tucked his pants into his boots, not over them like I had. “Hey, do you want to take your pants out of your boots like me?” I shouted to him over the rush of the river right before we went across. “No, I’ll be fine. Let’s go,” he said. We crossed the river and my boots got soaked but since they were waterproof, it was no problem. We walked some more and pretty soon the landscape was no longer dense rainforest, but wide open land with mountains on the sides. The ground was entirely filled with boulders and smaller rocks. It looked like we had landed on Mars. Right in front of us was a real river complete with mini-rapids. I was so excited. “Take my picture as I cross it,” I told Tyler. He grabbed the camera from me and went first—right through the deepest part of the river. The water came way above his boot line and I cringed when I watched him. I was sure the water had gotten into his boots.

By the time he got to the other side he was running. “Ahh! I am soaked!” he yelled, turning around to take my photo. I gingerly tried walking across the shallower part of the river, but a little water still seeped into my socks. Nothing day-ruining though. Tyler, on the other hand, was in bad shape. “Ohmygod, I am seriously soaked,” he said looking at my with a poor-me face. “That is awful, did you bring more socks?” I asked. “No,” he said looking down in the dumps. We were only 20 minutes into the day. Oh boy.

The group gathered together around Rich. “Take a look over there,” he said pointing to the right. “That is the glacier. It is shaped like a tennis racket and you can really only see the handle now. The head of the racket isn’t traversable. We will be climbing on the handle today.” I looked and there it was. It looked like a massive pile of snow cutting its way through two mountain ranges. Except that it wasn’t snow; it was ice. It was so huge. The mountains on either side of it looked like they were being pushed out of the way.

It took 40 minutes to walk to the foot of the glacier. We stepped over a fence and came face to face with a four-foot-by-four-foot sign that read “Extreme Danger.” My fear had gone away by now. “This is awesome!” I exclaimed. We took photos by the sign. Then the whole group sat down and strapped on our crampons. Tyler sat down on a rock, took off his boots and turned them upside down. Water gushed out of them. Then he took off his socks and wrung them out. They were dripping wet. Poor guy.

It was time to go up the glacier. “Ok, follow me and take your time. There are some steep steps on our way up, so hold onto the rope if you need to. Henry is going to go ahead of us to find a good climbing wall. We will meet him later,” Rich said. Then he was off with us trailing behind.

My first step on the ice was a thrill. I dug my crampons in with a loud crunch. Then the next step and the next. Walking with crampons was an adjustment, but it sure did provide a piece of mind. No slippage. About five minutes into our walk I saw steps carved out of the ice. A worker with a giant pick axe was carving them out. We walked up them, huffing and puffing. The air was getting thinner and colder. There was a rope next to the stairs and a few times I found myself hanging on for dear life. Once on the top of the stairs we kept walking. And walking and walking. For about an hour and ½ we walked on top of the glacier. Every now and then Rich would stop to point out something he called a “fisherman’s hole”, which is an area of ice disguised as normal but actually is a hole that goes down many, many feet and is very dangerous if you step in it. We hopped over crevice after crevice. You really had to look where you were going. The terrain was incredibly erratic. Sometimes we were going up, sometimes steeply downhill. I was constantly bracing myself for a fall. Every few feet there would be a little puddle. I would look inside and all I would see was blue. The glacier is actually blue. It is amazing. Apparently the color blue is the only color that is reflected from the glacier, so when you are up there the glacier gives off a light blue glow. It is just incredible.

The walk was more like a hike. It was tiring and although it was mighty cold up there, I found myself dripping with sweat. I looked behind me to see Tyler had taken off his hat. Then I noticed that the rest of the group had as well. I kept mine on for fear that a strong wind might turn my sweaty wet head into a block of ice. At one point we stopped and I looked back to see Tyler cringing in pain. “What’s wrong? Are you ok?” I asked as I walked over to him, doing my best to avoid fisherman’s holes and crevices. “My feet are so wet. This is awful,” he said, eyes half-closed, mouth stressfully open. He looked like a snarling pit bull showing his teeth, ready to growl. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. Do you think you can make it?” I asked. “Yeah, I’ll be ok,” he mumbled.

We kept walking. I was pretty used to walking in crampons now, so I started to take in the scenery around us. It was overcast, but between the clouds I could see some blue sky peaking its way through. Veins of waterfalls snaked their way down the mountains that surrounded us. There were dozens of them, some gushing and some trickling through dense forest. A slight mist dusted the tops of the snow-capped mountains, making the scene all the more idyllic.

Rich stopped again to point out a natural ice cave we could walk through. “Enjoy this, guys,” he said. “You usually have to pay hundreds of dollars to see an ice cave. I didn’t know this would be here.” He was right, there are ice cave trips, but they are mighty pricey and went to certain areas of the glacier where caves were more prevalent. This area was not one of those areas. So we counted ourselves lucky and took loads of photos.

As I emerged from the opposite side of the cave and came up to where the group had assembled I noticed the day’s first ray of sun. I smiled. Because of the rain we’d experienced in Queenstown we were worried that it might downpour on our climb. But no, there was the sun. Ahh. Happiness. We kept on hiking until Henry came into view. He was securing a rope on top of a steep incline. We could reach where he was, but we stopped at the bottom of the incline. “Here we are. This is your first climb,” Rich said, putting his backpack on the ice. The incline looked like a mountain. It was huge. Henry had secured two ropes into the top of it and they both hung down to the bottom where we all stood.

After a short instruction on how to use ice picks that looked like robot arms (think Capitan Hook with a curved hook the size of a hammer handle. Maybe a little longer.). Henry came down from the top of the incline, and both of the guides roped themselves into the ropes, making sure they were secure to handle the weight of the climbers. “Ok!” shouted Rich. “Who’s first?” After a moment of hesitation, one of the guys in the group raised his hand. He went over to Rich. Henry’s line was still empty and no one was taking the bait. “I’ll go with Henry,” I said. “Alright, Katie! Come on up!” Henry said with a smile.

At this point everyone had a harness on around our waists, so when I went up to Henry, he secured two carabineers onto my harness, gave me two ice picks and that was it. I turned toward the mountain and looked up. It was straight up and really tall. I can do this, I thought. And with an “umph!” I swung the pick in my right hand straight into the ice. It stuck. Then I swung the left one. Then I dug my boots and crampons into the ice and began to climb. It so much fun. The higher I went the more confident I became. It was difficult. When I was about 20 feet up my left foot slipped and I was hanging from the picks entirely. I struggled to dig my feet into the ice, but the ice was too dense. I had to really kick my crampons into the ice to get it to stick and even then I mostly used my arms to pull me up. Thank god for yoga. I kept climbing. I would make sure my picks were securely in the ice, then pull myself up and find a spot for my feet. Unlike rock climbing where there are usually holes or slots for your feet, there was nothing here—just a mountain of ice mixed with snow. You really had to dig into the ice. There was no guarantee you would stick. Thankfully I was tied to the rope that Henry was holding. So if I had fallen, he would have caught me.

Pretty soon I was at the top. “Take a moment to look around up there,” Henry yelled to me from the bottom. “Take it all in.” I held tight to my picks, hoisted myself higher and took in my surroundings. It was breathtaking. Behind me I could see the Mars-like valley we had walked, the mountains on the sides, the glacier we had traversed, the glistening waterfalls, and the sun’s rays coming through the clouds. “It is beautiful!” I yelled. Looking down, I could see Tyler keenly watching me and smiling, with our camera at the ready. “Ok, time to come down,” Henry called up to me. “Just put your axes by your sides and stick your feet out like you are walking backwards and down.” I did just that and within five seconds I was safely on the ground.

“How was it?” Tyler asked. “It was awesome!” I said. “I’ll go next,” Tyler told Henry. Now it was me armed with the camera. I watched him get strapped in and hammer his first axe into the ice wall. “ahh!” he yelled. “This is hard!” “You can do it, keep going!” I called, all the while taking photo after photo. After a few tries, Tyler got the hang of it and looked like a trained pro climbing the mountain. Once at the top he stopped to enjoy the view. “Wow! This is amazing!” he said, his emitting white clouds of breath from his mouth. Henry lowered him down and we watched a few others climb too. Then it was time to climb on Rich’s side. I went first and for some reason this side of the ice wall was quite a bit harder. There were huge blocks of ice sticking out that you had to lean back and defy gravity to climb over. Tyler found it more difficult too.

After each person had two climbs we followed Henry and Rich to another climbing site. We had to hike there and by the time we got to the site the sun had completely come out and it was getting warmer. As soon as we got to the new location though, I looked over at Tyler. He looked grim. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “I’m really worried about my feet,” he said. “They are freezing because of the water. Do you think I can get frostbite?” he asked me. “I’m not sure, but maybe,” I answered. I looked around at everyone else then I raised my voice. “Does anyone happen to have an extra pair of socks in their backpacks that they aren’t going to use?” I asked. One nice guy from Calgary named Aaron took a look in his bag but came up with nothing. “Shoot. Are you going to be ok? I’m not sure what to do,” I said. “I hope I will be ok. I’ll just try not to think about it,” Tyler said.

We all sat down for lunch. Everyone had brought their own food and we had some tuna that we cracked open and smeared on a couple pieces of bread. It did the job. The view was tremendous with the sun out. I couldn’t stop taking photos.

After lunch it was time to climb and we were all happy to move again. Although the sun was out, we were still sitting on top of a glacier and it was freezing to anyone not warmed up by physical activity. It was time to climb. The new site posed new challenges. As in a MUCH steeper and higher wall. I actually let out a laugh when I first saw it because I thought it wasn’t possible. But here we were, the ropes were up and Henry and Rich were ready to go. I let a few others ahead of me and looked on as they struggled to get to the top. It was taking people quite a bit longer this time.

Tyler went before me and he didn’t look like such a pro this time. It was tough. His feet kept slipping and I could tell his arms were shaking at times. But he did it. He got to the top, threw his arms in the air and let out a “yeaaaah!” When he got down it was my turn. “That one was tough,” he told me as Henry clipped the carabineers onto my harness.

I turned and looked at the wall of ice. I looked up and could hardly see the top. Oh man. It had to be 50-60 feet high. I gripped my ice picks with dear life and drove them as hard as I could into the dense glacier. The picks didn’t stick. I drove them harder and they stuck a little. Enough for me to move up. The first several feet weren’t too bad. It was when I got higher than about 15 feet that things got tough. At one point I must have looked like a four-legged spider with my arms out to the sides and my legs sprawled out just trying to find a place to get my grip. I couldn’t grip, the crampons were slipping, and my axes were not sticking. I heaved my axes in as deep as I could get them. I kicked the ice with my feet until I felt exhaustion come over me like a heavy blanket. And then everything slipped and I was falling through the air. Not for long though. Henry had me by the cord and I only dropped a little. “Ahh! This is so hard!” I shouted at the ice, as if to reprimand it. “You can do it, Katie!” I heard Tyler yell from the bottom. “C’mon Katie! C’mon Katie!” I heard from a few of the others on the trip.

I drove my crampons into the ice as hard as I could. By the grace of god, one of the spikes on my right foot stuck. Thank goodness, I thought. Then I found a little traction for my left food. This is good. Then my right hand and then my left. I hoisted myself up. And up. And then I fell again. “You can do this, Katie!” Henry called. “Just think of what makes you angry and take it out on the glacier! Tyler, what makes her angry?” Everyone laughed and looked at Tyler. All the while I was at least 25 feet up, dripping with sweat with my face about 2 inches from thick ice, panting and cursing under my breath. “Hmm, I don’t know,” Tyler said. “Oh wait, yes I do. Credit card debt makes her really angry!” “Hell yes it does!” I screamed. “That is perfect!” Henry shouted. “Just think about credit card debt!”

Ya know, it worked. I took out all of my hatred for blood-sucking interest rates on that glacier and before I knew it I was at the top. I stopped and looked around, again taking in the view. It was a great moment.

After coming back down, it was time to go to Rich’s side of the wall. One of the other members of our group had had an especially difficult time with Rich’s side, so we were running out of time. Tyler decided to go to Henry’s side again. I waited for my turn with Rich. Tyler’s second climb with Henry was a breeze. He just loved it. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he told me. “Really?” I asked. “Absolutely. It really is. I just love it,” he said. “I agree with you,” I said. “This and our trek in Nepal rank right up there for me.”

It was my turn on Rich’s side. He strapped me in and I turned toward the glacier, ready to take it on. Exhaustion had really hit me since my last climb, but I was determined to climb four times, just like everyone else. I dug my axes and crampons into the glacier and started to move upward. But not for long. Soon I slipped and fell to the bottom, which was only a few feet. No harm done. I started over with frustration. The climb was terribly hard. I struggled and struggled. It seemed that each hole I would crack into the ice would be followed by me falling a few feet down and Rich having to catch me with the rope. “Ahhh!” I screamed in a wild mix of frustration and exhaustion. By this time everyone except me was finished, so the whole group was watching me struggle. The incline was incredibly steep. It bowed outward at several points, making it even harder. My arms were beginning to feel like they were going to fall off. I had to take breaks. Rich held me up and I didn’t fall. At one point I just slumped in the harness, my whole body limp. I was so tired and angry that I couldn’t make it to the top. “C’mon Katie, you can do this,” I heard Tyler say from the bottom. I straightened up and stuck my crampons into the ice. They didn’t stick. I dug my picks into the ice above my head. They slipped and I fell again. It was at that point that I let a few choice phrases slip out of my mouth.

After letting off some steam, I decided I was going to do this no matter what. With a renewed sense of vigor, I nailed the ice picks into the glacier with all the strength I had left inside of me. “Aarraggghhh!!!!” I screamed as the axes seared through the ice, sending pieces of it flying at my face. I kept going and going. Then I slipped again and fell and was caught. I was so tired at this point. My whole body ached. I looked up at the glacier and tears filled my eyes. I wanted to cry it was so hard. I struck my picks into the ice, slammed my feet in too and gained some traction. I could see the top. I felt confident. A few grunts and screams later and I had made it. Everyone clapped. I was so happy, but too tired to smile.

Rich let me down and I shook out my arms to help blood return to them. The weather was getting a little hazy and it was time to head back. We’d been on the glacier about six hours at this point and it was an incredible day. As we retraced the hike we had taken up the glacier, mist engulfed the ice and everything was a haze. The sun shone through the mist, lighting our way. “It sure is foggy,” I said to Aaron from Calgary. “This isn’t fog; this is a cloud, Katie. We are as high as the clouds. Isn’t that awesome? Who can say they’ve walked through a cloud?” he asked rhetorically. It was true. And it was amazing. We walked down to the bottom of the glacier taking photo after photo through the clouds. By the time we were at the bottom, the clouds we’d walked through were above us and we were back in the sun. We took off our crampons and walked back to the van.

That night we enjoyed a warm soak in some of the city’s outdoor hot pools. We were cold to the bone. And our feet were in bad shape. Both of us were walking like penguins on the outside of our feet. “I’m sure we have blisters,” I said to Tyler as we were heading home from the hot pools. “I feel like I have a ton,” he said.

Unfortunately he was right. When we got back to Glowworm Cottages, Tyler sat on the bed and inspected his feet. One look at them and I gasped. He must have had 15 blisters. The bottom of his feet was almost entirely white with dead skin from blisters that had formed and popped all in the same day. “It must have been the water,” I said. “Definitely,” he said. The blisters weren’t the worst of it. Near his ankles on both legs were a cluster of blood-red sores from where his socks rubbed against his boots. “Ohmygosh, those look awful,” I said. “Do they hurt?” “Only when I touch them,” Tyler said. “I’m a mess. But it was still worth it.”

Now here we are four days later and Tyler’s feet and legs are healing nicely. We took more than 300 photos on the day of our ice climb and know we will talk about it for years to come. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa.

Alice and Trent Hit the Town

Queenstown, New Zealand. 5/11. 2:45pm.

Ducks are interesting animals. Have you ever really studied one? I have. Well, I am right now. At the moment I am relaxing at Patagonia Chocolate Café in downtown Queenstown and there are two rather robust ducks hanging out right outside my window. Wait, three ducks. One of their friends just appeared and is showing off its impressive wing span to the other two. They don’t seem impressed. I can’t decide if ducks would be good pets. They seem so personable, walking up to you especially when you are sitting on a bench with a warm French baguette in your hand. I just want to give one a hug. The ducks in Queenstown definitely are not at a loss for food. They are a little chubby. But happy. They waddle around everywhere, sometimes alone just minding their own business, but mostly in groups of 4-6 no doubt gossiping about the previous night’s duck scandals. I would love to give them a little squeeze, let them give me a little duck peck on the cheek and then we would both be on our way. Hmm. Maybe this tea I’m drinking is a little strong.

Today is our eighth day in Queenstown. We are really taking it easy here and it is great. After exiting our rat-ridden motel, we have now settled into the beautiful Aspen Lodge Backpackers. It is fabulous. The place comprises a few buildings and we are in the “doubles” building. Meaning all of the rooms in our building are for couples, not single backpackers travelling alone and all staying in one big room with several bunks. Those are the ones that tend to be a little rowdy. Our building is the quiet one and it is great. The sparkling bathroom is right across from our room and down the hall is a large lounge room with three new-looking couches, a flat screen TV, and a faux-granite counter topped kitchen. And a large table and chairs. It is so pleasant. The day we moved in we made a run to the grocery store and now instead of living off Subway, Tyler is eating omelets each morning, I am eating fresh salads for lunch and we are enjoying home cooked fajitas for dinner. Ahh.

Everyday we’ve been waking up around 9:30am. We eat breakfast, workout and then find something fun to do. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of New Zealand and you can do anything from skydive and bungee jump to 4-wheel down mountains and heli bike (this is when a helicopter picks you up and drops you and your bike on top of a mountain. Then it is your job to find a way to get down). The bungee jump was actually invented here in the late 80s by a guy named AJ Hackett. Now there are AJ Hackett-branded things to do everywhere, all of them nail-bitingly-adventurous and not to mention quite pricey. In the interest in saving moolah (and possibly our lives) we’ve decided to limit our adventures to ones where our feet are firmly on the ground and don’t cost much, if anything at all.

So the other day, for example, we went on a nice long hike. One of the big touristy things to do here is to ride this gondola to the top of one of the mountains next to the city and take in the view. You can also hike to the top of the mountain for free and still get the same view. So one day after our workouts we took a hike. It took us about an hour to get to the top and man was it tough. Straight up. But it was still nice to be outside. When we finally got to the top we learned that there was a bungee jump up there, so we went over to it and took a look. Tyler is deathly afraid of heights and one look at the platform dangling thousands of feet above the city if Queenstown had him ready to hurl right there. “Are you kidding me?! Holy crap, that is insane. Ohmygod, ohmygod,” he said over and over, turning away from the view of the platform as the blood drained from his face and he squeezed his eyelids over his eyes. “Just try to breathe,” I said, trying to calm him down. “Look at the dirt, look at the mountain to steady yourself,” I said pointing to the side of the walkway that didn’t overlook the bungee platform. He took a few deep breaths and color began coming back into his face.

A little ways down the walkway was a hut where you could sign up for a jump. I walked into the hut and noticed a family of eight mingling about. I walked up to one of the little boys, maybe around 11 years old, and asked him if he was going to jump. “I’m not going to jump, I’m going to do the swing,” he told me nonchalantly. The swing is the alternative to the jump. It goes off the same platform, but you start sort of on an angle and then swing out into oblivion, instead of just falling headfirst. It seemed a little less scary to me. “Cool,” I said. “Are you scared?” “Scared? No way,” the 11-year-old told me with a smirk on his face. “My sister is doing it too,” he said, pointing what I am guessing was his twin—same age, but fraternal twin is my wager. “Neat-o,” I said, trying to sound cool. (who says neat-o?) “We’ll make sure to watch you from the viewing platform.” The 11-year-old didn’t seem interested in this and meandered back over to his Dad, who was handing over a wad of cash to the AJ Hackett people and no doubt signing a liability form for his son.

“Hey, two of the kids in there are going to do the swing,” I said, as I came out of the hut and joined Tyler, who was trying to control his breathing and fighting to avert his eyes from gravitating to the jumping platform. “Wow, that is crazy,” he said, then “oh Jesus” when he would inevitably succumb to the urge to take a peek at the platform. “I really want to watch them; let’s go,” I said, urging him back down the walkway. “Really?” he asked. “Yeah, it would be fun,” I said. In the end, I won. When the family had signed the liability rights of two of their children away, they started walking down the walkway towards us. We had situated ourselves on the viewing platform, not the jumping platform. The viewing platform was a healthy distance away from the jumping one and looked something like a three-sided house with a window to peer out of. Perfectly safe. I guess unless you jumped out of the window. Which is what I’m pretty sure was going through Tyler’s mind. He is so afraid of heights that standing on hotel balconies give him the heebie-jeebies. This view was doing a doosey on him. He stayed close to the mountain wall, while I leaned out the platform’s window for a good look.

The twins walked confidently over to the jumping platform and stepped into the swing harnesses with the help of the AJ Hackett staff. Then they waved to their Mom, who was standing close to us. She was smiling and holding a camera. “Smile!” she yelled. They both beamed their pearly whites at her with no sign of fear whatsoever. The little boy was first. All strapped in, the staff lowered him on one side of the platform and told him that when he was ready to go, it was up to him to pull “the red string.” We could all see this string as it was fastened to the front of the boy’s harness. “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I heard Tyler whispering behind me over and over at lightning speed. I could hear his quick footsteps behind me. He was pacing the length of the platform. My eyes were glued to the boy and to his face. I was afraid to blink for fear I would miss his fall, so I willed my eyes to stay wide. He was smiling and was ready to go.

It was then that his little 11-year-old hand grasped the red string. My breath caught and held. All at once he was flying through the air, a free fall, heading straight for the ground at a breakneck speed. “Ohmygosh!” I heard an adult yell from the viewing platform, no doubt his Dad. The boy didn’t make a sound. He swung high into the air and after a few seconds the cord that connected him to the platform started to slow. We all clapped. He looked up at his family with a smile. I still couldn’t see any fear in his eyes. It looked like he has just had a whirl on a carnival carousel. No biggie. “How was it?” his Mom bellowed. “Great!” he replied.

Next up was his sister. She was really egging to go. She couldn’t get her harness on fast enough. Maybe she wanted to show her brother that she had as much fearlessness in her as he had in him or maybe she was just really that much of a badass. I am thinking it was the ladder. She didn’t waste any time. Once the staff lowered her, she pulled the red string and off she went, yelling “HOLY CRAP!!!” at the top of her lungs. When she was finished her Mom shouted to her, “What did you say when you were swinging?” “I said holy crap, Mom, geeze. I don’t swear.” At that Tyler and I laughed. I would definitely not be able to claim any responsibility for what might come out of my mouth if I had the guts to do that.

It was time to go. Another one of the kids had mustered the guts to go and I wanted to watch, but one look at Tyler’s face made me realize we had seen enough. As we walked back up the walkway to a café on top of the mountain all he could do was shake his head and cringe, “Nope, I could never do that. I can’t believe how scary that is,” he said. I was with him in thought. We had considered skydiving before we got to New Zealand, but now that we are here and it is an actual option, we’ve chickened. I’m not counting out skydiving someday, but bungee is a definite no-go. As for Tyler, I’m not holding my breath for either option.

We filled other days with reading, gabbing with each other, sleeping a lot, and just roaming around town and trying out different coffee and tea shops. Tyler is really into a book titled “Capitalism at the Crossroads” and I am about 100 pages into Ken Follett’s masterpiece “The Pillars of the Earth.” It is amazing how relaxing just sitting and reading is.

After a week of relaxation, we decided to mix it up on Saturday. We’ve really been missing being around other people like friends and family so we thought meeting people here in Queenstown would quench our hunger for conversation with others. We decided to join a bar crawl. There are a few companies here in town that run bar crawls and for $20 you can join a group of fun-loving individuals and spend the night hopping to six bars while enjoying free drinks and food. A great deal.

Saturday we were pumped and decided to start early. Around 5:30pm we started getting ready for dinner and cracked open a bottle of our favorite shiraz (McWilliams, an Australian wine—a little shout-out to Kaye, who also loves McWilliams, holla!). Our dinner was tomato soup, a giant loaf of French bread cooked to perfection from our favorite grocery store—Fresh Choice—and a block of blue cheese for the bread. “I’m so excited for the bar crawl. I hope we meet cool people,” I said while blowing on my soup to cool it. “Me too, it should be fun,” Tyler said. About ½ the bottle later, a thought popped into my head. “Dude! I have a great idea for tonight!” I said. “We should make up identities. We can be whoever we want. No one would know.” Tyler gave a chuckle as he crunched into another hunk of bread. “I’m going to change my name to Alice,” I said. “Ok, Alice is good,” Tyler said, nodding. “I’ll be Trent.” “We should say we are from totally weird places and have a weird story,” I said. We kept talking about it, but then got distracted by other topics and let it go.

After the bottle and our soups were long gone we ventured out. The bar crawl started at 9:30 and it was only 7:15pm. What to do. We decided to check out a few bars. As we moseyed down the sidewalk, all the while shivering and disbelieving it was so cold we could actually see our breath in May, Tyler looked up at the moon. “Full moon tonight. Full moon partaaay,” he said as he did a little skip. I looked up. The sight of a full moon reminded me of Thailand and the full moon party we went to back in August on the island of Koh Phangan. What a crazy time on the beach. Fire dancers, loads of drinks, face painting, people peeing in the ocean, techno music reverberating in every corner of the island. Just as I was shaking the memory out of my head, we walked into a bar that had the words “Full Moon Party” written all over the walls. The bar staff had face paint on. It was surreal. Turns out a ton of them had been to Thailand for the real thing and wanted to recreate it here in Queenstown. After a beer we moved on to another place. And then another. One of the bars had a few pool tables and although I talked a lot of trash and told Tyler he didn’t have a chance against the master (ahem, you know who), he easily wiped the floor with me. He is pretty good at pool. Ok, I’ll swallow my pride. He’s really really good. And self-taught.

By the end of our second game, it was around 9:15, so we hi-tailed it over to the first bar on our bar crawl. After handing over our $20 each and getting wrist bands, we went up to the bar for our free drinks. There were a few other women at the bar who looked to be part of the crawl, so I decided to be social.

Me: “Excuse me. (Tapping one of them on the shoulder) Are you here for the bar crawl?”

Girl #1: “Yep, all three of us are.” (Motioning to the two others standing near her, smiling at us and nodding)

Me: “Cool, nice to meet y’all. Us too (motioning to Tyler, standing next to me). I’m Alice.” (shaking their hands and all the while thinking “hee, hee, they don’t know that my name is actually Katie! I am so sneaky!”)

Girl #1: (Shaking my hand) Nice to meet you Alice. My name is Kelly.

Girl #2: I’m Sharon.

Girl #3. I’m Denise.

Me: “This is Trent.” (Gesturing to Tyler)

Girl #2: “Sorry, what is your name?”

Tyler: (first giving me a you-got-me-into-this-look with one raised eye brow, then shifting his stare to the girls) “It’s Trent. Nice to meet you.”

Now that the formalities were over with, it was time to get to know each other.

Me: “Where are you all from?”

Girl #1: “We’re from Christchurch. We just flew here for the weekend. Where are you from?”

Me: “We are from San Francisco.” (I immediately regretted telling the truth. What was the fun in that? Then I elaborated.) I’m an architect.”

Girl #3 seemed very interested in this.

Girl #3: “Really? I’ve always wanted to be an architect. You must love your job.”

Me: “Oh yeah, I’ve been doing it for years. I design mostly residential buildings, but I also dapple in commercial establishments from time to time.” (haha!)
All of the girls nod and take a sip of their free drinks, very interested in my life as an architect.

Me: “Ya know it is tough though with the recession and all.” (I said this while casting my eyes down and looking a little down in the dumps, all the while thinking –I am such a great actress!)

They all nod and show empathy by looking a little down themselves. Then they recover and take another sip of their beers.

Girl #1: (to Tyler) “Trent, what do you do?”

Tyler: “I’m a consultant.”

Again, collective nodding.

Me: “We are going to take a look around the bar. We will see you in a few.”

Girls #1,2,3: “Ok, see you later!”

As we looked around the bar, I turned to Tyler. “Isn’t this great fun?” “It is ok, a little weird though,” he said.

A few minutes later we spotted our friends at a table and sat down next to them. For the next little while we made polite conversation with them as Alice and Trent. As we got to know them, I started to feel a little bad that we were lying. The thought crossed my mind of what if we really hit it off with these girls and they became our new best friends? Then we would have to have that sitcom-like moment where we confess to our lies. That is always the most awkward moment in a TV show. I just cringe at those moments. The innocent party rarely forgives the lying party and if they do, they don’t trust them again easily. As we talked to them we learned all about them and realized they were genuinely nice girls. They wanted to know about us and we found them interesting too. Guilt started to seep into my mind. But more than that, my stomach was growling. Just soup and bread weren’t cutting it. We decided to hit the road and find some pizza.

Ten minutes later, while we were waiting for our pizza to cook at a nearby shop, Tyler gave me a funny look. “What?” I asked. “I don’t want to be Trent anymore,” he said. “Why not?” I asked. “It isn’t fun for me and I feel weird lying.” I guess he was feeling the same as me. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

After scarfing a large pizza in exactly six minutes and 45 seconds, we headed off to the next bar, full and happy. We found our group at the bar but instead decided to dance. The night became one big dance party and Tyler and I were seemingly the only ones in on it. While everyone else mingled in groups and exchanged pleasantries with their real names no less, we boogied on the dance floors of the next 5 bars. It was great fun. At one of the bars, Tyler had to take a break, so I took to the floor alone. I felt like I had enough energy to climb Everest. I was a jumping bean. “You are the Energizer Bunny,” Tyler told me with a smile. “I’m into it baby! This music is great,” I responded as I glided across the dance floor showing off some of my signature moves such as the microwave, sprinkler and shopping cart. At another bar while we were relaxing on a couch the Kings of Leon song “Sex on Fire” came on and Tyler jumped up like he was a Jack-in-the-Box. A little about Tyler: he LOVES Kings of Leon and about twice a day he can be found singing Sex on Fire as he walks down the street. His voice isn’t ½ bad.

I jumped up with him and we danced and danced. We didn’t care what people thought of us. At one point I saw our friends laughing at our antics. We kept dancing. After six bars, it was time to go home. I’d like to try the fake names again, but next time we will need a better game plan. Maybe I will be Liza and Tyler can be David. Or I can be Britney and Tyler can be Kevin. Or Gwyneth and Chris. Or Lady Di and Prince Charles. Hee. Hee.

It is raining now and the ducks have gone home. Oh wait, I see one waddling alone. He has a colorful body and a white head. Maybe he just scavenging for food or, more likely, maybe he is waiting around for the next group gossip session.

Ratmotel

Queenstown, New Zealand. 5/3. 4:17pm.

We are in Queenstown, a destination considered the hottest of New Zealand’s tourist hot spots. Not hot as in weather hot—God no. There is frost on the ground every morning and we walk around in hats and mittens all day. I mean hot as in how Paris Hilton would say “hot” if she were getting interviewed by Guliana Rancic from the E! Channel. “Queenstown is so hot,” she would say while awkwardly sticking her left hip out and somehow tilting her torso to the right and upward and squinting a little bit, all the while looking like an malnourished flamingo with a cramp.

So yes, Queenstown is hot. And by hot I mean breathtakingly gorgeous. It is so beautiful here that you wouldn’t believe it. Just now I got back from an hour-long run along Lake Wakapitu and almost tripped on two dozen twigs lying on the ground because I couldn’t focus on where I was going; I just wanted to stare at the scenery. A mountain range named The Remarkables sits right next to Queenstown. The Remarkables are, well yes, remarkable. The range runs north to south (one of the only 2 ranges that does—the other is The Rockies) and towers over the city. Its ragged peaks look like they are raking the sky. And down below them is the lake, so crystal clear you can see every pebble at the bottom and as bright blue as the cloudless sky above. It is paradise.

In addition to its unrivaled natural attributes, the city itself is a tourist’s playground. No high-rises, just cute little shops and restaurants line streets with strategically planted flowers, to enhance its beauty. It is quite upscale actually. New Zealand’s version of Aspen. There is even a Louis Vuitton. There are only two chain restaurants (McDonalds and Subway) and they are tucked into the woodwork to look like independent shops. You can stroll along the lake and take in the sights or skip some rocks as you watch the leaves fall from trees sporting brilliant reds and yellows. It is only our 2^nd day here and I know I will be sad to leave.

We got here yesterday after 15 full days living in the back of our van. After that long it was time to move on. We were a little tired of feeling like pretzels every morning and not having a place to go and relax in during the day if we felt tired. So as we rolled into Queenstown we were seriously pumped. We were going to be in a real hostel with a real bed in a real room. Not van chairs that fold out into a makeshift bed. Ahhh, fabulous. So we dropped off our van at the airport and took a bus back into town. Then we checked into our hostel: The Blacksheep Backpackers Lodge. From the reviews we’d seen online, it looked to be the perfect place for us. One person even wrote that their 10-night-stay wasn’t nearly enough. It was “the best place they had ever stayed in and they’d been everywhere,” the review said. Well, now we have a sneaking suspicion that it may have been written by the lodge’s owner.

Walking into the reception area, it wasn’t ½ bad. A hodge-podge of 5 -or-so stained and worn down couches surrounding a TV with VHS movies underneath for public use. A fire place with a roaring fire. Kind of cozy in that backpacker-sort-of-way. I mean what were we expecting for $36USD a night? Then the lady at the desk showed us to our room. It was on the ground floor, but kind of felt like was in a basement with one window overlooking the gravel parking lot. The room was probably 10 feet by 10 feet with a teeny radiator in the corner, a desk in the other corner with a TV with rabbit ears on top of it, and a bed-side table. There wasn’t much room to store our stuff, but we wedged it in anyway. Then we went out to get some food.

“So what do you think of our place?” Tyler asked as I took a bite into a delicious chicken panini at a café a little while later. “It is a total dump,” I said, not skipping a beat. “What do you think?” I asked. “Really? You think it is a dump? I don’t think it is that bad. At least we have a bed,” he said. “You are right. I should be happy,” I said. In the back of my mind one thought kept nagging at me: we are planning to be in Queenstown for 2 full weeks. I’m not sure this place will be all that comfy for that period of time. But I kept my mouth shut. Tyler was right; at least we had a bed.

The rest of the day was spent walking around and taking in all that is Queenstown. Tyler found the perfect gym and became a 2-week member and I found a yoga center that had a deal for first-timers. Things were looking up. Last night we went to an Indian restaurant and ½ way though our meal we learned that the chef was from Nepal! We couldn’t believe it. After eating and loving the food, we went up to him and tried thanking him in Nepali. I think he appreciated our effort, although we probably butchered some of the words. We spent most of dinner reminiscing about our time in Nepal with fondness.

Back in the basement, we got ready for bed. Tyler was first to fall asleep. I was still stirring a bit. There was a lot of noise around the hostel as it was only about 9:30pm and people were getting ready to go out on the town. After all it was Saturday night. But we were happy to just call it a night. I kept hearing people running up and down the stairs, yelling to each other, slamming doors and started to feel like we were staying in a frat house. Even so, exhaustion was starting to take over. Just as my eyelids were beginning to feel heavy, I heard something else. Something different than the normal noises of the hostel. A scratching. It sounded like teeth scratching on wood. I knew immediately: rodents.

I have a history of rodents in my bedrooms, so I wasn’t that scared. When I was 13 years old I spotted a mouse on the bookshelf next to my bed and my scream could have probably been heard two towns over. The worst was just a few days later when I woke up in the middle of the night to a strange sound and opened my eyes to find a piece of mouse excrement on the pillow next to my head. At that, I proceeded to run around in circles flailing my arms and rapidly kicking my legs in every direction just to make sure a mouse hadn’t somehow slipped into my PJs. I proceeded to sleep downstairs on the living room couch for the next 5 days.

So I have a history. Through it all, I learned that rodents are far more scared of you than you are of them and the likely hood of them actually hurting you is slim-to-none. Tyler doesn’t have such a history, unfortunately, so he was far more disturbed.

“Hey,” I whispered, shaking him. “Huh?” he said groggily, turning over to face me. “What is it?” “Do you hear that scratching? I think there are rats in the wall,” I said. At this, Tyler sprung up to a sitting position and was immediately wide awake. “What?! You are joking. Ahhh! Rats? No!”

We waited and listened for them. Nothing. They must have been scared off by the commotion. Tyler was miserable. He laid back down. “How do you know they are rats?” he asked. “Maybe they’re mice.”

“Nope, they are definitely rats,” I replied. “Remember that thing I read about mammals? New Zealand only has rats, not mice.” At this Tyler shivered. “I hate rats,” he said, burying his head into his pillow.

A little side note. The other day I walked into a visitors center and was looking at the posters on the walls telling about various New Zealand plant and animal life. There was one that said “mammals” on the top of it. I went over to it. According to this poster, 90 million years ago New Zealand broke off from the rest of the world’s land mass. This is before mammals inhabited the earth. Many millions of years later mammals made their first appearance, but not on the islands of New Zealand. Therefore, the country became a paradise for birds. There were thousands of bird species and since none of them had any mammal predators, they started to walk on the ground. Many species evolved such that they lost their ability to fly altogether. All of this ended 1,200 years ago when the first human stepped foot on New Zealand. With them, they brought a mammal called the sloat. To this day, this is the largest and most devastatingly destructive mammal in the entire country. A sloat looks just like a ferret. They live all over the country and kill birds. Today there are very few bird species left here.

In addition to sloats, settlers brought dogs and rats. There was no mention of mice. Maybe since the poster was printed mice have made an appearance, but I doubt it. I was sure we had rats in our room.

“This sucks,” Tyler said. “Try not to worry about it. They won’t hurt you,” I told him. Then a thought came to me. We had food in our room. Cereal, a few apples and a chocolate bar on the bedside table right next to Tyler’s head. We threw all of it into bag and placed it near the door, as far away from the bed as possible. Then we went back to sleep.

Around 3am I was woken up again. This time the scratching was loud. Really loud. And it was coming from the ceiling. Tyler let out a huge sigh. He was awake too. “Wow, this is really bad,” I said. He got up and tapped the ceiling. The scratching stopped for a second. Then it started up again. Tyler got back into bed. “I hate this place,” he said. “I keep waking up thinking that a rat is touching my face. It is freaking me out.” Poor Tyler.

This wasn’t our first experience with rats in our room. When we were volunteering in Nepal and staying at Bihrab’s house, they were all over the attic and you could hear them at night. But for some reason it didn’t bother us. We were in Nepal. It was expected, or at least accepted.

The rest of the night we slept fitfully at best. We’ve since found a better hostel and will be staying in a room on the second floor with a well-suited kitchen across the hall. We are thrilled and move in tomorrow (we couldn’t get our money back, so have to stay one more night here). Lets hope it is rat-free.

A Mobile Life

Fiordland National Park, New Zealand. 4/30. 8:34pm

Ahhh, heat. I am starting to warm up. Man is it cold outside. Thankfully our camp ground has a lounge where we can hang out until the last possible minute we can keep our eyes open. I’m sitting on a burgundy-colored loveseat that looks like it just came out of Art Van’s clearance section. Very 90s. Not attractive per say, but perfect scrap for a dorm room or a first apartment. As usual, Tyler is sitting next to me, but instead of reading the latest issue of TIME or Newsweek, he is deeply enthralled in his new David Sedaris book, titled Naked. It is a memoir and apparently a hilarious one. Every 15 seconds or so, Tyler tilts his head back, grabs his forehead, closes his eyes, and smiling ear to ear says, “oh god!” Then he laughs for about 10 seconds and goes back to reading. I am intrigued, so I’ve thought about reading it after he’s finished, but lately he’s been really into telling me each detail of the book and I like hearing it from him, so maybe I’ll skip the paperback version.

Today marks our 13^th day of living on the road. I would recommend this lifestyle to people who are looking for a no-nonsense way to travel. But don’t be mistaken, it isn’t the easiest way. You really have to be low maintenance, for starters. I’ve been thinking about the many people out there who may be inspired to take to the road and live in the back of a van themselves. For them and anyone who knows someone who would be interested in partaking in such an adventure, I have some words of advice.

1.  Make sure to choose your travel buddy wisely

This is key. You want to make sure you can live with this person 24/7. You should like them more often than you dislike them. Having a similar sense of humor helps too. This has been a bit difficult for us. I tend to believe my jokes are fall-on-the-floor hilarious and have the tendency to laugh at them all the time. After being together for quite a while, Tyler has either given up hope that my jokes will ever improve or has actually started to find them equally hilarious (I am hoping the ladder). So now for the most part we both laugh at my jokes—which helps when you are in the car together for long periods of time. Having the ability to be complete and utter dorks together is a bonus too. For example, the other day we were driving down the road and came upon a gas station a strange name. Challenge! Yep, Challenge! is actually the name of the station. With the exclamation point. I’ve never seen a gas station name with punctuation. Interesting. Turns out it is a chain. So every time we pass one of these stations, I can’t help myself but to shout out “Challenge!” I really exclaim it, just like the punctuation suggests. Even if we are deep in conversation. Like, “did you hear Barack Obama got a dog?” “Oh yeah, he is a cute little thing, I saw a picture in last week’s TIME.” “I wonder how they pick the president’s dog. Do you think CHALLENGE! they have a special breeder?” (I later found out it is a rescue dog, further confirming my love for Obama.)

“Hey, did you see that Challenge!?” I would ask, laughing. I look over at Tyler, who laughing and nodding. We’ve both gotten into shouting the name out whenever we pass a station. It is great fun.

We also find tremendous enjoyment in scaring sheep when we stop on the side of the road. We’ve learned that sheep are naturally quite, well, sheepish (hee hee) and don’t like human attention one bit. But they are everywhere and we’ve recently learned that there are 15 sheep per resident of New Zealand. Can you believe that? There are only 4 million residents here, but 15 sheep per person? When you drive down the road, it isn’t all that surprising of a statistic. They really are on every square meter of this country. Either that or cows. Oh, and there are even deer farms. Odd. But back to the sheep. We like to take photos of them but whenever we stop the car on the side of the road, they all run away. This is the fun part because we get stare at their butts, which sway back and forth really rapidly for about 10 seconds or so. This is the funny part. Then they usually turn around to make sure we aren’t following them. Then they pose for a photo. Sheep are so amusing.

2. Pay attention to bathrooms

There are really only 2 ways to sleep in a van in New Zealand. Legally or illegally. For the real risk-takers, you can find a little spot in the woods and set up shop for free. This is if you don’t get caught by the police. As we understand, getting caught can result in some hefty fines. Or you can honker down in a parking lot with a restroom nearby (a.k.a. a rest stop). These are a little safer because if you get there late at night at least you can brush your teeth and as long you leave at the butt crack of dawn you might miss the trolling police and get off scot-free. We see people doing this all the time. Just parking on the side of the road or in an unattended lot, hoping not to get a ticket.

Since a ticket would do nothing but shatter our already swiftly-detonating budget we’ve decided to go the legal route. So every afternoon after a hike and some sightseeing, we start searching for campgrounds that take campervans. This usually isn’t too difficult and for anywhere from $25-$36 a night we have a parking space (always on grass, surrounded by trees or a picnic table), and are usually within decent walking distance to the public toilets and showers. Not too shabby if you are ok with public toilets. In my opinion, the bathrooms are the most important part of the equation when choosing a campground.

I’ve been to my fair share of campsites in the U.S. and one thing is consistent: the bathrooms are quite disappointing. For starters, the sinks are usually lined with rust and there is always at least one tissue with some kind of vile-looking goo on it wadded up into a ball inevitably wedged into the space next to the faucet you need to turn, causing you to awkwardly contort your arm as not to touch it and still turn the water on. Then, when your hands are clean you are forced to go through the ordeal of figuring out how to touch the nozzle again without brushing the piece of biohazard material. Ug. And that is just the sinks. The toilet stalls are far worse. It seems that many people don’t know how to use a toilet at campgrounds. Most toilets are plugged with things too disgusting to explain and tissues are strewn all over the floor, causing you to tip-toe around the carnage while attempting to hover, squat and make it in the hole that you really don’t want to look at to see if you aimed correctly. Then the showers. I hope to god that everyone who goes camping (or ever uses a public shower) wears sandals to protect themselves from man-eating foot funguses. Because who knows what is on those floors. I can only guess at the microscopic contents, but the visible ones are enough to make my stomach turn. Clumpy hair piled into corners not to mention the drain and stains of all colors on the walls. The key is to go in, don’t touch the wall, make sure your feet only touch your sandals, wash up and get out. Hopefully you succeed without picking up some flesh-eating disease.

But to my complete surprise and delight, New Zealand campsite bathrooms are quite the opposite. Not all of them, but most. Of the 13 nights we’ve been living on four wheels, we’ve been to a few lemons. Some hair in the drain, a few tissues, but not all bad. The other day we parked at a campsite that looked bright and inviting. It had well-tended gardens sprouting colorful roses and our site even had a bright pink painted picnic table. Neat. Festive. I was already in a good mood when I went to the bathroom. I was completely shocked! The toilet paper wasn’t the standard campground fare (cardboard). It was Downy. Light, fluffy, soft. I wanted to make a bed out of it and sleep in its pillowy goodness. I felt like that cute little bear in the Downy commercials that floats from cloud to cloud and coos with delight. I ran back to our van to tell Tyler the great news.

“Dude! You are not going to believe this!” I called to him from the opening of the sliding glass door. He was inside trying to put our bed together. He stopped immediately, turning around to look at me with wide eyes. “What? What is it?” he asked. “This is the best campground ever. Ever. You have to go to the bathroom immediately. They have incredible toilet paper. It is amazing. I am so happy,” I said, beaming. “Toilet paper? Are you serious?” he said, turning back around and continuing to fix the bed. “Yes, it is unreal. It is Downy. D-o-w-n-y. Super soft,” I said. “Well, that is great. I am happy for you,” he said.

I was happy for the rest of the night. The next day we were driving along and I brought up the Downy again. “So, didn’t that campground have the best toilet paper? I really respect a campground that invests in its customer satisfaction in such an intimate way. It shows how much they appreciate our business,” I said. Tyler laughed and then said, “I’ll have to take your word for it; I never had to use it.” Bummer. Well, at least I have the memories.

Moving on with bathrooms. Last night was the best. Not in the toilet paper department (back to the cardboard), but otherwise. We parked in Te Anau (pronounced tay-uh-now), a very small town near the magnificent Doubtful Sound in the South Island’s southwestern region. After going for a hike around the town’s picturesque lake and saying hello to some socialable cows that came within 10 feet of us to check us out, we turned in for the night. I got my toothbrush and toothpaste out of the van and headed for the bathroom. Upon opening the door, my breath caught. I was transported into a Westin hotel. No joke. There in front of me was the nicest bathroom I had seen in months. Everything was granite. Slate walls with sculptures of seahorses attached. A vanity mirror with a hairdryer for public use. The toilets were state-of-the-art with super shiny flushers. I peeked into the showers. Beautiful and spotless. I was in heaven. I came back to the car and told Tyler all about it, but he didn’t seem as impressed. Humph. I promised myself I’d take a photo of it before leaving, but I forgot. Oh well. I will remember it in my heart forever.

Moral of the story: check out the bathrooms before setting up camp. They can make or break your experience.

3. Watch what you eat

This one is of utmost importance. Specifically when it comes to foods that might give you an upset stomach. This is very important when living in a vehicle. You want to make sure that the only gas emitted is through the exhaust pipe. This isn’t much of a problem when you are staying in a hotel room and you most likely have enough room to air yourself out and not burn the nose hairs off the other person. But when you are living in a van, things are a bit different. Correction: a lot different.  When you are sleeping in the back of a van, you are basically encased in an airtight bubble that lets very little air out. That means it is probably not the best idea to go eating, lets say, a boat-load of Thai food. Recently we went to a Thai food restaurant. Never again.  I have about 2 nose hairs left. In these situations, you may find yourself catapulting your head and ½ your torso out the van’s sliding door at lightning speed as you heave in and out, struggling for fume-free air. This sight most definitely will give your campground neighbors a reason to stare, but at that moment clean oxygen will probably be most important objective on your mind and until the air is cleared, it won’t matter who stares. Unfortunately, Thai food isn’t the only stomach-irritating food. We’ve found that pizza, burgers, soup, Indian food (there’s a shocker), and salad are also likely culprits. In lieu of these revelations, we’ve decided that Subway sandwiches are the only safe option. So today is our 10^th straight day of Subway. I kid you not.

4. Stay clean

We started this journey with a devil-may-care attitude. Shower? No way! Wash our clothes? Who cares! Being dirty is great! We are living on the road, man; it’s cool to have greasy hair and clothes you haven’t washed for days on end. Well, that attitude changed faster than we thought. We learned the hard way that there is merit in being clean.

By day #4 of our trip we were driving down the road in the same clothes we’d left Christchurch in and loving it. We hadn’t showered and each day would just get up and go in the same clothes. We didn’t care. This all changed when we woke up on our fourth day, went out to breakfast (I shudder to think of what the other patrons thought at the sight of us) and came back to the car. We got into our seats and were about to drive off when we both looked at each other in disgust.

“Do you smell that?” I asked Tyler. “Ohmygod, what is that? It is awful! It really stinks in here!” he said.

Although we hadn’t changed our pants and shirts, we’d had the decency to change our underwear and socks during the 4 days. We looked back at the pile we’d made of our dirty clothes and then at each other. We knew what we had to do.

That night we showered. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so clean. It was fantastic. My hair actually felt like real hair, not matted-down dirt-filled straw. I could run my hands through it. Tyler emerged from the bathroom with a massive smile on his face. “I feel so great! I had an awesome shower,” he told me. “Me too. Maybe we should shower more often,” I said.

It took us a few more days to wash our clothes. By that time our van stunk so badly the stench could have killed insects. But once we washed them, it was livable again. Since then, we wash both our clothes and ourselves every few days or so. Staying stink-free is a new objective for us.

5. Memorize the van’s dimensions

By this I mean the height of van’s ceiling and the size of its doors. Also, figure out the best and most efficient way of setting up your bed in the least amount of time. These tips will help anyone who decides van living is the way to go.

Our first day on the road I learned the hard way that the passenger door dosen’t stay open when I want it to. So when I was moving about and transporting things from the back of the van to the front, the door had a tendency to gravitate to my behind in a violent, slamming manner. I now prop it open with my leg when moving things about.

The ceiling is another issue. When you are sitting on the bed in the back, it isn’t a good idea to ever sit up straight. If you do the ceiling will surely knock you back to size. I can almost sit up straight, but have the bumps on my head to prove that in fact, I cannot. Tyler, on the other hand, has a very short memory for such measurements and hits his head nightly.

6. No makeup, no problem

This one is for the ladies. As I mentioned earlier, it is best if you are low maintenance. Seriously low maintenance. Unlike hotels where you might get your own vanity mirror and area to put on your makeup, things are a bit different in a van. My cosmetics cabinet is the little pocket on the bottom of the door where maps usually go. This pocket seems to fit all that I need: my contact case, dental floss, toothbrush, toothpaste, and face wash. Each night after going to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, I grab my face lotion, close the sliding door and use the window as my vanity mirror as I put on my lotion. It works. I only wear makeup on the most special of occasions (maybe twice a year), so makeup isn’t in the equation for me. But if you are one that feels better with a little blush, van windows works quite well.

More important than any of these tid-bits, the main requirement to successful van living is a sense of adventure. This is something Tyler and I have mastered. We are enjoying New Zealand so much. Right now we are in Fiordland National Park, the darling of New Zealand. It is a large area in the southwest of the South Island where the Milford Sound is. As I write this, I am sitting only about ¼ mile from the Milford Sound. Tomorrow is a day we’ve been waiting for and one of the main reasons I wanted to come to this country. We are going to see the Sound. At 9:15am we will board a boat and cruise the Sound for 2.5 hours. We cannot wait. The beauty of the Sound isn’t something that can be described in words. It can only be seen. For an idea of its beauty, check out photos on the following links:

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/gallery/newzealand_glassy-water.html

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Oceania/New_Zealand/South_Island/Fiordland/Milford_Sound/

Onward!

Flying into Fall

Dunedin, New Zealand. 4/25. 11:28am.

Hidey ho from a corner of the Southern Hemisphere that only contains four million permanent residents. New Zealand. It is so beautiful here. We’ve been here for nearly 2 weeks now and are constantly in awe of its brilliant beauty. We’ve decided that instead of staying in hostels along the way, we’d get more up close and personal with the scenery. So we are living in the back of a van. Today is our seventh day in our van. It sure has been a ride (ha). I’ll start from where I left off.

Our plane landed at the Christchurch International Airport around 11pm on Monday, April 13^th and the first thought we both had when stepping out of the plane’s warm cabin and onto the tarmac was: brrrrr. It is cold here. The feel of cold weather on our skin is a foreign sensation. Ever since we left San Francisco in June of last year, we’ve been constantly in summertime no matter where we’ve gone. Well, with the exception of trekking in Nepal where mountain tops have their own season, which seems to always be winter. But other than that, we’ve made a point to travel to places during their summers. Christmas in Sydney, for example, was bloody hot and fabulous. Well, summer is over in the Southern Hemisphere. It is now transitioning into fall and winter. Stepping off the plane in my ¾-length tights and tank top, an appropriate outfit for the tropics of Australia’s Sunshine Coast, I felt a little foolish. I reached for a scarf in my backpack, but that didn’t seem to warm me up, so I just accepted some chilliness.

After a short shuttle ride, we arrived at the hostel Tyler had found earlier in the week. The Dorset House Backpackers. What a great find. The house was built in the late 1800s and retains all of its charm, from lush gardens colorful with roses and a latticework white fence outside to crown molding, just-like-your-Grandma’s-house creaky floors, and nice big bedrooms with high ceilings inside. It was perfect. We settled into our bedroom and fell asleep immediately with smiles on our faces.

The next day we awoke to bright sun and decided we’d spend the day meandering around town. About 3 seconds after stepping outside, we were greeted with a blast of cold fall air and ran back inside to grab our jackets. All bundled up, we ventured out again. What a cute city. All of the trees were changing color and we were mesmerized by the multi-colored leaves falling and scattered all over the sidewalks. I think we took about 100 photos of leaves.

For the next four days we just relaxed and enjoyed the city. We took in a movie—“The Reader” –interesting flick—Kate Winslet definitely deserved the Oscar for that one, went to a neat-o Belgian pub, and just walked the streets. Christchurch is dubbed “The Garden City” and pretty soon we realized why. There are parks literally everywhere. And they are beautiful parks with statues of old English VIPS, gardens with wide gravel walkways snaking through them, and children playing. We decided that we would happily live in Christchurch. We can’t say that about many of the places we’ve been.

One day I went out for a run. Across the street from our hostel was a park and I thought I’d give it a try. Wow-za. An hour later I had wished I’d brought my camera with me. I soon learned it was Hagley Park, a 500-acre oasis filled with running trails, streams where I spotted more than a few tourists riding in gondolas through weeping willows, a botanic garden complete with rows of roses and even latticed arbors to run through. It was incredible and reminded me so much of Hyde Park in London. Since New Zealand is a British Commonwealth, I imagine some of the parks are modeled after the great parks of England.

The city didn’t just remind me of England with its parks. Lining most streets were cute little English cottages, complete with vines growing all over them. The cottages mixed with falling leaves and parks helped Christchurch win our hearts immediately. We loved it.

But by day four we were getting a little antsy. It was time to move. Soon after I wrote my last entry we packed up and picked up what was going to be our home/transportation combo for the next 2 weeks. A Jucy van. Jucy is a company located in Australia and New Zealand that rents out campervans (a.k.a. motor homes) as well as normal cars. We picked up our Jucy around noon on Saturday, April 18^th. I was totally freaked out. It was a bright green mini-van. That is it. Well, that really isn’t it. It has 2 seats in the front and the back has 2 benches that face each other, which fold out into a bed. Where the trunk usually is, there is a stove, fridge, and sink instead. We threw our bags onto the benches in the back and started driving.

The first day was a bit tough. Thankfully Tyler was experienced driving on the left-hand side of the road in Australia, so he was ok. Except that now he was driving a boat of a car. And around every corner something would clank around in the back where the sink is. After a few hours the clanking became almost unnoticeable. We kept driving. Our destination was Kaikoura, a town about 3 hours north of Christchurch, located right on the on the Pacific. We’d heard it was a great place to see marine wildlife such as dolphins and killer whales. We pulled up to Kaikoura around 9pm and had some dinner at a Thai restaurant. I was still on edge. Tyler was cool as a cucumber. He was excited about the prospect of living in a van, whereas I was a little nervous about it.

After dinner we started driving around, looking for a campsite where we could park for the night. Across from the Thai place was a wide open parking lot with public restrooms next to it. Seemed fine to me except for the fact that if the police might have given us a ticket if they had found us in the middle of the night. So we kept driving until we found a holiday park (basically a camp ground) that would let us park in their field for $25. Kinda steep I thought, but they did have showers and toilets.

After paying the man at the desk, we drove behind the main building and found spot #17. It was in a field blanketed with damp leaves. And it was right next to a river. It was official: we were living in a van down by a river (insert Chris Farley joke here). The ridiculousness of it all hit us and we started to laugh. We couldn’t stop. I mean, we were LIVING in a van! What the heck?! Seriously?

The first night wasn’t so bad. Beside the fact that the bed cushions make my back feel like it’s been put through a pretzel maker in the morning, it wasn’t terrible. It was better than sleeping in a tent because at least you don’t feel the wind. And it isn’t that cold with 2 people in there. Not too shabby.

The next day we decided to see what Kaikoura had to offer. We’d heard that you could actually swim with wild dolphins, so we decided to try it out. After signing up at Dolphin Encounter, the company who facilitated the activity, they suited us up in full-on wet suits. And when I say full-on, I mean head to toe. Including oh-so-snazzy head coverings that make you look like an Oompa Loompa. The man who gave me mine must have thought I was skinnier than I am because when I tried cat suit on I was convinced it would have only fit a seven year old Olympic gymnast. I was convinced to fit into it though, so I contorted my body enough to make the other women in the locker room think I was doing some kind of jerky dance, complete with arms flailing left and right, until I actually got the thing on. “Does this look too tight?” I asked, between exasperated breaths, the girl next to me, who was giving me a strange look. “Um, a little,” she said politely. I went out into the hallway and approached the guy who had given me the liposuction piece of plastic. “Sir, I think this is a little tight,” I said. “Really? It looks good to me. Ya know, the tighter it is the warmer you will be out there,” he said. “Hmm, yeah, but is it supposed to compressing my spine?” I asked, beginning to think I could feel my spinal disks rub together, bone-on-bone. He laughed and gave me one a size bigger. Nice.

After watching a 10-minute video telling us not to touch the dolphins because they are wild and advising us to sing to them through our snorkels in the water (basically just hum really loudly), it was time to go. We loaded into a van, all making wet suit fashion statements, and headed to a marina about 10 minutes from the city. Then we got into a boat and motored about 20 minutes out to sea, in the open water. The weather was foggy, but it was still breathtaking. Giant Albatrosses soared above the water and every now and then we could see a gray fin sticking up. Dolphin. While motoring out, a worker explained to us that once the skipper found a pod of dolphins he would stop the boat, turn off the motor and then sound a horn. At the sound of the horn, we were all to slide into the water immediately, put on our goggles and snorkels and look under the water. The dolphins would be all around us and underneath us. “Remember to sing!” the worker told us with a big smile. “Are you all ready?!” she asked, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. We nodded, but said nothing. It was freezing. I was also a little nervous about getting devoured by a killer whale, but I tried to put that thought in the back of my mind.

Pretty soon the boat started slowing. Tyler was the first of the bunch to get on the side of the boat and be at the ready. I was a little timid. I hate cold water, but this was a chance of a life time, so it was time to buck up and deal. “I’m so excited!” he called to me from the back of the boat. With his flippers, snorkel, head covering, and wet suit on, he looked just like Aqua Man. I smiled and waddled toward him with my flippers on. We sat down on the back of the boat, ready to slide into the water when the horn sounded. All of a sudden fins starting appearing out of the water. And then you could hear the splash of a dolphin jumping high into the air and then crashing down playfully. Then another would do the same. We were surrounded by hundreds of dolphins. It was unbelievable.

The boat stopped and the horn sounded. Tyler slid into the water ahead of me and before I knew it, I was in the open sea too. It was shockingly cold. Just to give you an idea of how cold this water was, imagine yourself in your underwear in the dead of winter rolling around in the snow and then jumping into a bathtub filled with ice cubes. Then getting out of that tub and taking a shower with water piped straight from a glacier. Then jumping back into the ice cube tub. It was worse than that.

I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t. My lungs couldn’t acclimate to the temperature, but in between breaths, I did look down to see dolphins swimming underneath me at lighting speeds. They were everywhere. I mean, probably 20 of them were swimming under me. I swam as fast as I could back to the boat. Pretty soon the horn sounded again, signaling the swimmers to come back anyway.

Tyler was one of the last ones back to the boat. He flopped next to me on the edge. “Wow! It is F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G! Can you believe how cold it is?!” he asked me. I could see his breath in the air as he spoke. “Yah,” was all I was able to get out between my teeth chattering. Our wet hands met and we held onto each other until the boat slowed again. Although the weather stellar the sight was still totally worth it. We were swimming with wild dolphins. And they were rare ones at that. New Zealand Dusky Dolphins.

The horn sounded again and we were both in the water. This time, the water wasn’t as bad. I guess my body temperature had lowered. I looked down into the water and started humming loudly. Then I dove under water. It was so incredible to see the dolphins. For a split second I even heard them call to each other. “Remember, they are not there to entertain you. These are wild dolphins and not accustomed to humans at all. You are there to entertain them. So make sure to sing to them. They respond to sound,” the video had told us. I tried to keep humming, but it took a lot out of me. Pretty soon the horn sounded again.

We were back on the boat, this time smiling. The water in my wet suit was warming up and it didn’t seem so bad. For the next 30 minutes or so, our boat followed around pods of dolphins and we jumped in and out of the water, humming, circling and just taking in the sight of the dolphins. It was so amazing how fast they would swim right next to us and not run into us. Pretty soon it was time to get back on the boat for good and change clothes. I was feeling a little queasy, so the nice worker lady gave me some ginger cookies, which helped to calm my seasickness. The boat rode around for another hour, allowing us the opportunity to take photos of the dolphins.

We walked around Kaikoura for the rest of the day and enjoyed relaxing and warming up in coffee shops. The next day it was off to a town about 2 hours south named Hanmer Springs, known for its hot springs. After arriving and eating dinner, we found another holiday park and set up shop. We hadn’t changed clothes since leaving Christchurch. We figured there was no point. We’d get up, go about our daily business, and then come back to our van and sleep in the same clothes we’d worn for days beforehand. Yes, pretty gross. I think we waited about 4 days to take a shower. Since then we’ve decided it is best to be clean. We still sleep in our clothes though. It is just warmer.

Anywhoo, we got to Hanmer Springs and although it was late we were still awake. With nothing to do. When you are living in a van, you can’t exactly go to the bar or anywhere else and then come home because your home is a car and you would have to drive. So we decided to take advantage of one luxury our van afforded us. A DVD player. Pretty sweet, actually. We have a DVD player/TV combo nestled into the corner of the back of the van. So we decided to settle in and watch a movie. Ever since my Dad visited us in India, we’ve been dying to watch our copy of Gandhi, so we popped it in.

“Don’t you think watching this might wear out our battery?” I asked Tyler before starting the movie. “Naaa, I don’t think so. We should be fine. The only other thing we could do is to keep the car running the whole time and that would just use gas,” he said.

The movie was wonderful. Ben Kingsley WAS Gandhi. I felt so lucky to have seen Gandhi’s memorial in Delhi and experienced India. It made me miss India.

The next morning we got ready for the day and hopped in the front seats. Tyler stuck the key in the ignition and instead of revving up, the car responded with a rapid “click, click, click.” “Shit, the battery is dead. I’ll go call Jucy and see if they can come and jump us,” he said. About 5 minutes later he came back to the van looking like he could spit nails. “What did they say? Are they going to jump us?” I asked. “No, they want to charge us $140 for a stupid jump. Apparently a battery jump isn’t on the insurance we signed up for. I can’t believe this! $140!” he boomed.

This was most definitely not the time for an I-told-you-so comment, so I just kept my mouth shut and walked over to a campervan neighbor and asked them to jump us. He tried and it didn’t work. Steam was coming out of Tyler’s ears. Then I asked another neighbor. Not a second after we hooked up to his live-in-mobile, our car roared to life. “Yeah! Thank you! Thank you!” I screamed to our nice neighbor as I jumped up and down. Tyler was pleased, but still mad at himself for thinking that a 3.5-hour movie wouldn’t drain our battery. His mood was nothing a dip in a hot spring couldn’t fix.

We headed into town to check them out. Both of us thought they would basically be mud pools that you just dip in but soon realized they were a full-blown attraction. It cost $14 to get into an area that had about 8-or-so pools with steam coming off of them. We changed into our suits and jumped in. Toasty! They were sweet. Each pool was surrounded by large gray boulders, giving it a look similar to The Grotto at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. Very posh. (A little shout-out to fellow Girls Next Door fans: can you believe Kendra is pregnant?! As if!)

Anyway, the pools were very nice. Tyler’s dead-battery-induced bad mood started to melt in the naturally warm water. We went pool hopping. Each one had a different temperature. There were little holes at the bottom of the pools and if you put your foot over the hole, you’d realize that was where the actual hot spring of water came in because it was scalding. Neat. After a little more than an hour, we emerged from the pools refreshed and warm and ready for another leg of our trip.

Back in the van we started down the road toward a town called Lake Tekapo. Aptly named after its lake, this was known as a picturesque destination in the central part of the South Island and great place for hikes. We’d left the pools in the early afternoon for the 4+ hour drive. What a cool drive. The fog we’d been experiencing for the past few days had burned off and we could finally see the scenery that surrounded our car as we drove. Farms filled with thousands and thousands of grazing sheep with soaring mountains in the background and a whole lot of open road filled our eyes for 4 straight hours. Beautiful. We stopped and took photos while standing in the middle of the road several times. There was really no traffic to speak of. We stopped and tried to photograph sheep along the way, but most of the time the sheep would get scared and run off at the sight of us. So we have a lot of photos of sheep behinds. Which were quite large actually and have a very funny way of swaying side to side when they run. We found this fact quite humorous.

At one point we spotted llamas and stopped the van to take a look. Unlike the skittish sheep, the llamas came right up to the fence where I was standing to get a good look at me. They perked their big ears up at me and stared me straight in the eyes. They seemed so human and cute. Tyler didn’t want to get bitten, so he just took photos of me and stayed near the van.

Pretty soon we were in Lake Tekapo. It was dark, so we settled into a holiday park and hit the hay. The next morning we opened the sliding door of our van to a breathtaking sight. We hadn’t realized it the night before, but we’d parked right next to a crystal-clear, blue lake flanked by mountains. We rode into town, had a delicious breakfast and went exploring.

To be continued…

From Bowflex to Nerdieville Road

Christchurch, New Zealand. 4/18. 10:41am.

I feel like getting up and doing the rumba. Or maybe the merengue. There is lively Spanish music playing on the speakers and as I write this, I am wiggling my head back and forth to the music. I love Spanish music, or anything that resembles salsa.

At the moment I’m sitting on a taupe-colored leather love seat at Vic’s Café in central Christchurch, New Zealand. Cute place. Long tables, encouraging family-style seating. Servers with long, black aprons are walking around carrying cappuccinos. Tyler is sipping one of them next to me and I think I just saw him wiggle a little to the tempo of the music.

It is our last morning in Christchurch. We flew in on Monday, April 13^th and have been relaxing ever since. This is after our week-long road trip down the northeast coast of Australia. I should start where I left off.

When I last wrote, Tyler was drooling on the window of a Greyhound bus. We had no idea where we were going to sleep that night and just wanted to get to the one rental car available on the entire east coast. The Greyhound ride was surprisingly painless. As compared to the buses we’ve ridden on this trip (people puking or passing out all around us, bugs crawling into our hair, no bathroom breaks when the road is bumpy beyond belief) it was a breeze. There was even a flat screen in the front showing Happy Feet.

The bus stopped in Townsville, the largest town south of Cairns. About 3 minutes later we were in a taxi on our way to the airport and the rental car center. Ten minutes after that I was frantically trying to find the right street and give directions to Tyler (who was driving) from the passenger’s side of a white, 2008 Toyota Camry. Our rental vehicle. We found the right street and off we went. Our objective for the night was to get to Airlie Beach, a town about 12 hours south of Townsville and the jumping off point to the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsunday Islands are a group of about 42 islands along the Great Barrier Reef and their beauty is known to be unparalleled. The popular thing to do is to drive to Airlie Beach, hop on a yacht and spend 2-3 days sailing around the islands, sleeping on the yacht. As unbelievably awesome as this sounds (and the pictures prove it), we didn’t have enough days before we came to NZ to dedicate to such an adventure, not to mention the $600-or-some-odd dollars to spend. But it was ok; by the time we arrived in Airlie we were just happy to find a hostel with vacancy.

The hostel was not the Ritz that is for sure. But it had 2 beds. Bunk beds. All hostels offer shared rooms with bunk beds. This means that you bunk up with a bunch of strangers usually for the price of a McDonald’s happy meal. We’ve never done this. Tyler and I have a strict policy of never sharing a room with anyone for few reasons. #1. Privacy. #2. The safety and security of our big-dollar items such as our computer, camera, Tyler’s 2 watches (which together probably equal about $600USD)—not to mention the 2 more important things we have: our credit cards and passports. We could really lose everything and as long as we have those 2 things we are golden. Money and mobility.

Anyway, in keeping with our policy, the reception lady put us in a shared room by ourselves. 4 beds, but only 2 people. That was fine. Tyler’s sheet had hair on it. Eww. But what are you going to do. They gave us a deal and it was the only place in town with vacancy. Tyler put a clean sheet over the hair and both of us slept soundly. The next morning we woke up in the same clothes we’d worn the day prior, got in the car and hit the road. We’ve found showers not to be much of a necessity when both of us are dirty anyway. Our noxious fumes cancel each other out.

Back when we were in Cairns and went on a sailing trip of the Great Barrier Reef, we met a nice Canadian girl on the boat named Jenny. She also happened to be a travel agent on a one-year Australia working visa. Perfect. We had no idea what we were going to do on this road trip, so we asked the expert and she gave us loads of ideas. One of them was to go to the Town of 1770.

“After you leave Airlie Beach, it is about a 4 hour drive down to 1770,” she told us. “It is the CUTEST little town and there is the best hostel EVER there called Southern Cross. You HAVE to stay there.” She was very enthused.

Well, after our fabulous time on the hairy sheets of Airlie Beach, we were ready for a nice place. We looked up Southern Cross on the internet and the website was unbelievably nice. It looked like a paradise you would only find in Bali. Buddha statues everywhere, tons on dense rainforest foliage, a glimmering pool, smiling guests. Awesome. We called them and booked a room.

Four hours after leaving Airlie, we still weren’t to 1770. We stopped for something to eat. Another hour and nothing. Then another hour. We were in the middle of nowhere. No signs on the highway, no establishments to speak of. We were getting low on gas and there were no gas stations.

“Um, we need to get gas soon,” Tyler said. “There is nothing here, but we will make it,” I answered. “Um, yeah, I’m not sure about that. We are pretty low,” he said. “What? Is the red light on or something?” I asked, looking over to the right at his side of the car. Sure enough, the light was on plain as day. “Shit,” I said. Then we drove in silence, trying not to think of what would happen to us if we got stranded in the Australian wilderness.

By the grace of god, not 10 minutes later (and before any car sputtering), a gas station appeared. In front of it read a big sign saying “Next Petrol Stop 170km.” Wow. We turned in a filled up. And loaded up on highly-caloric road trip-esque goodies such as Cadbury bars and sugary pops. Yummy.

We drove on. It was getting dark, but about an hour or so later (I kinda lost count) we finally saw a little mall. We stopped and asked how to get to 1770. “You are here,” the lady behind the counter said. “This is 1770.”

“Oh,” we both answered. “Well do you know where the Southern Cross hostel is?”

“Oh yeah, I know that hostel. It is up the road quite a bit. Just keep driving back the direction where you came. It is across from the Bait & Tackle,” she said. Then she yelled to a guy in the back with a mullet. “Hey! Ya know Southern Cross?!” she screamed.

“Ya, it’s by the bait & tackle. Bait & tackle,” mullet man said.

We got back in the car. The road leading up to this mall was totally deserted forest. We didn’t see a bait and tackle and starting contemplating sleeping in the car. By this point it was about 10:30pm.

Finally the car headlights caught something on the side of the road, nowhere near any other establishments. It was the sign for Southern Cross. “There it is!” I yelled. “I can’t believe you saw that,” Tyler said.

We turned into a dirt road. The road kept on going. No sign of life. It wasn’t until a few minutes later when we saw a small light inside a little hut. Then we saw a few cars. Thank goodness. We’d arrived. There wasn’t a parking lot, so we parked next to a van. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Tyler asked me. “Definitely,” I said. “Remember Jenny told us it was like an oasis in the wilderness. This is it.”

We were sitting in the car trying to decide what to do when all of a sudden Tyler jumped out of his skin, gasping in fright. Right there, about 3 inches from his window stood a small woman with white hair, hunched over; looking into our car with a face that was so bright white you would have sworn there was no blood left in her entire head. Tyler rolled down his window.

“Hello,” said the woman. “Are you here to check in?” She spoke so slowly I wondered if she was stoned. Tyler was speechless. I took over and told her who we were. “Ok, follow me,” she said.

Tyler rolled up his window. Before we left the car he needed to take a breath. “Are you ok?” I asked. “What? Are you kidding me!? That scared the shit out of me!! Where did she come from? She might as well have had a machete! Where are we?” he screeched.

“Come on,” I said calmly, getting out of the car. Tyler walked behind me to the reception all the while whispering to himself about how weird the place was.

Once we were out of the car we could see the place more clearly. It was a series of small buildings, like little cottages. We followed whitey to one of them. After fiddling with some paperwork at the speed of an aging turtle looked up and slowly told us, “You will be in Brazil tonight.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, smiling with my eyes wide open.

“Brazil is the name of your room,” she said. “Oh, cool, I’ve never been to Brazil,” I said, hoping a mini joke would snap her out of her semi-comatose state. It did nothing. Tyler didn’t even laugh. His eyes were still bugging out of his head.

“Follow me,” the zombie told us. She led us down to a path and to a little hut with 2 sliding glass windows. Above one of the windows was a sign that read Brazil. There was a large porch attached to the front of the hut. “This is your room,” she told us. “Great, thanks,” I said. “Do you have a key?”

“We don’t have keys here. We are a safe hostel,” she said. Then we turned a left. Ooook. Hmm. We opened our sliding glass door to find a room with 2 twin beds and nothing else. It was sterile. I felt like it was a hospital room. I mean not a speck of dust anywhere. At least it was clean. We unloaded the car and brought everything back to our closet of a room. Before taking us to Brazil, zombie woman showed us the bathrooms, which were down the trail in the main lodge, about 3 minutes walk from our closet. No biggie, I thought. It was a little like camping.

Tyler settled onto his bed, still wide-eyed and silently trying to take in his surroundings. I decided to look around the porch of our little hut. It was odd. Directly in front of our sliding glass door wasn’t a table and chairs, wasn’t a porch swing, wasn’t anything normal. Directly in front of our door was a Bowflex. Yep, a Bowflex. For those unfamiliar with the beauty that is a Bowflex, let me explain.

Throughout the 90s there was a commercial that would run at least once every half hour showing an impossibly muscular man (complete with veins popping out of his neck and arms) sitting on a weight bench with tons of wires coming off of it. The muscle man always looked very serious, like he was having a very serious workout, even though he wasn’t breaking even the smallest of sweats. The deep-throated narrator would tell the viewing audience “you never have to go to a gym again. You can do EVERYTHING on a Bowflex. For only 25 payments of $39.99 you, too, can look like this.”

So basically a Bowflex is a tricked-out weight machine that is supposed to work every muscle in your body. That is nice and everything, but as I looked at the machine (which, by the way, wasn’t a REAL Bowflex, it was an imitation with a big “Made in Canada” sign on the bench) I wondered why we have a weight machine in front of our room and not, say, a bathroom. But whatever, it was late and we fell asleep soon anyway.

The next morning we were a little fried. Jenny’s recommendation hadn’t exactly turned out. We rode into the Town of 1770 and Tyler had breakfast. I hadn’t slept all that soundly and wasn’t in the best mood. Tyler had recovered from his Children of the Corn experience and was bright-eyed and bushy tailed. He was hungry for breakfast, so we stopped at the only coffee shop in 1770. We learned the town was named after Captain Cook discovered the Sunshine Coast (this strip of land north of Brisbane) in 1770. Interesting. I’d never heard of a town being a number instead of a name.

While Tyler luxuriated in his delicious omelet we started talking about our plans for the day. Brisbane was still 2 days by car away and we had about 4 days left of our road trip. We’d been hopping around for several days in not-the-most-favorable accommodations. It was time to settle down for a bit and relax. Back when we were on the sailboat, Jenny had also told us to go to a town called Noosa. At this point we weren’t exactly jumping for joy at her recommendations, but we did remember what she said after we said goodbye.

The sailboat had docked and the 3 of us hugged goodbye and took pictures. We promised to keep in touch. As we waved goodbye and walked in separate directions, she stopped and yelled something.

“Wait! Promise me one thing,” she said. “What?” I shouted back to her. “Promise me you will go to Noosa. It is incredible. And go for at least 2 days. It is worth it and you will love it.”

With that moment stuck in our heads we left the café in 1770 and got into the car to check out a map. As it turned out, Noosa was the only big destination between us and Brisbane. It would be the perfect place to stop before flying out to our 9^th country in a few days.

With little deliberation we decided to go for it. I mean, what was the worst thing that could happen. But first we decided to call around and find a place to stay. Since it was East weekend nothing was open. Except one hotel. We hadn’t stayed in a proper hotel in ages and ages and it was way over our price range, but as Tyler put it, “I am willing to invest in our happiness.” He was right. We were a bit frazzled.

About an hour after we’d left 1770 I got hungry. I hadn’t eaten with Tyler because I figured there would be another place down the road to get some grub. Turns out there wasn’t. There was nothing. Except trees. No rest stops even. Finally we came up to a town. I hopped out of the car at a gas station and asked where there was a grocery store to get some food.

“It is Easter weekend,” the lady behind the counter wearing pink and white bunny ears said to me, cocking her head to the right. “Nothing is open. We are probably the only thing for miles that is open right now.”

Hmm. What to do. I resorted to a Cadbury bar. With almonds. I figured I could at least get my protein from the almonds. An hour later and a whole bar (king size) gone, I was groaning in the passenger’s seat.

“Uhhhh. I am never eating chocolate again. Ever. Especially for breakfast,” I told Tyler. He just smiled and kept driving.

We started listen to music and sang along to some U2. A few hours later the scenery was turning a little more busy with houses and such. I started reading street signs. One we passed read Nerdieville Road. We both commented on how funny of a name that was and how cool it would be to live on Nerdieville Road.

Pretty soon we hit a little town complete with a few pubs, restaurants (that were open! Eureka!) and decided to stop to stretch our legs. I grabbed one of the best chicken sandwiches I’d ever had and my stomach started to like me a little bit more. Before we got back into the car, I went to the public restroom. I was washing my hands and looked over to the right wall next to me. Right there was a yellow box attached to the wall that read “Please deposit syringes safely.” I stopped dead in my tracks. Fascinating, I thought. Instead of ignoring drug use in the community, they are helping users deposit of their tools in a way that won’t harm anyone else. I found this highly responsible and came back the car to talk to Tyler about it.

“The same box was in my bathroom too,” he said.

Seeing this designated syringe box made me remember two old friends of mine, Alissa and Kevin, back in San Francisco. They volunteered about once a month in what they called a “controversial way.” I asked them what they did when we were out to dinner one night.

“We package syringes for drug users,” Kevin said. “Then the organization we are volunteering for gives them to drug users so they can be safe when they shoot up.”

I remember feeling weird about it at the time, but after talking to them about it for a while, I felt like it was great that they were doing that. I realized that people are going to use drugs no matter what and by helping them do it in a safer and cleaner manner, Alissa and Kevin weren’t condoning their behavior, they were just doing their part to stop the spread of deadly diseases like AIDS. I found it very progressive and think it makes a lot of sense.

Back to the road. Pretty soon we started seeing signs for Noosa and before we knew it we had entered a tropical paradise, right on the ocean, with palatial homes, Mercedes and BMWs driving by, and fancy-dressed patrons walking along streets that twinkled with little white lights. We were in heaven. We got to our hotel only to find we had actually booked a one-bedroom apartment with a balcony. It was beyond sweet and overlooked a beautiful river. For the next 3 days we went running on the waterfront path, made dinners at home, went out for food at cute restaurants, and just relaxed and slept in. It was wonderful and just what we needed.

One night we went walking down the main shopping thoroughfare and found it to be so fancy it reminded me of Beverly Hills or Orchard Street in Singapore. It was so nice to be there and pretend to be high rollers for a few days.

On our fourth day we got into the car for a 2 hour drive to Brisbane. We drove right to the airport and dropped off our car. We lined up to check in for our flight. When we finally got up to the desk to turn our bags in, the lady gave us a blank look and told us we couldn’t enter New Zealand without an exit ticket out of the country. This was news to us and not the most opportune time to get it. For the next hour we ran like chickens with our heads cut off around the airport trying to find an internet connection. Once we found one, we bought tickets immediately. Just like that. Back to Detroit. We land around 1:30am on June 6^th! We can’t believe it! But we didn’t have much time to think about it because we had to board our plane.

I carried our bags to the gate while Tyler stopped at Subway to grab dinner for us. Before we knew it our plane was taking off with us on it. And just like that, Australia was already becoming a memory.

 

Finding Nemo

Outside Cairns, Australia. 4/8. 7:39am.

It’s raining. As I sit here, water droplets are streaming sideways across the window. Then they turn their direction downward, towards the bottom of the window. Then sideways again, with the wind. Tyler is sitting next to me attempting to sleep with his head resting on the dry side of the window in a position I can’t imagine is all that comfortable. His face is sunburned.

We are sitting on a Greyhound bus that left Cairns (pronounced cans) at 7am. We are headed for Townsville, which is about 6 hours away. Man, it has been a while since I’ve given any update. I will explain why.

Soon after I wrote my last post, things got pretty bad for us, making it difficult for me to feel inspired to write about anything remotely positive, so I stayed silent. I briefly mentioned a while back about how the couple we were living with fought all the time. Well, at the time the fighting would have been easily classified as emotional and verbal abuse by both parties. Unfortunately about 3 weeks ago, things got physical. Both people are ok, but it shook Tyler and me up a lot. It is a hard thing for me to even write about and something we really hope is erased from our memory as soon as possible. We left Joondalup, Perth, and the whole West Coast of Australia on Sunday and don’t plan to ever look back.

We are moving on and slowly healing in the process. It seems the more days that go by, the better our mental states get. Today is day 3 away from the household. I am hopeful that we will be ok and I am happy to enter the blogosphere again.

Ok, enough of that. Time to move on. To the beautiful East Coast of Australia. Around 5:10am on Monday morning we landed at the Cairns airport after an over-night flight. We were so happy to be on the East Coast for one main reason: this is where the Great Barrier Reef is. As a firm fixation on my life’s to-do list for some time and something Tyler couldn’t wait to see either, we were both super excited to experience all the reef has to offer.

After taking a shuttle from the airport, we arrived at a cute little hostel. What a gem. Dreamtime Travellers Rest is the name. Colorful, clean, great decorations and even a café next door serving excellent pizzas and chicken wraps at affordable prices. We were in heaven. Soon after we arrived, we took naps and then ventured outside to discover all that Cairns is.

What a cute town. Definitely not a city, but for a destination fitting into the town category, it has a ton going on. Nice shops, restaurants (including one to-die-for Indian place we ate at last night), and a slew of travel agencies selling tours of the reef and surrounding rainforests. Add to that that it is right on the ocean and therefore has marinas filled with million-dollar yachts and the lush mountains of the rainforest behind it and you have a pretty cool place. Quite picturesque.

The next day we woke up at 6:45am to go to the reef. We were to go on a sail boat that would not only take us snorkeling, but also allow us to visit a private island called Green Island. We boarded the boat at 8am, joining about 25 other tourists and 3 high-spirited crew members. The views were unreal. Just like on the Discovery Channel. Mountains in the background, the sun glittering on the sea, the water both dark blue and a light turquoise. About 2 hours out on the water later, Green Island came into sight. We stopped about ¼ mile before the island and threw anchor. Then we went snorkeling.

The water was so warm and there was coral everywhere. The most beautiful coral I’ve ever seen. Not just normal colorful coral, but coral that looked like it was breathing, move independent of the waves in the ocean. The fish were incredible. Even though it was cloudy outside, the fish represented every color of the rainbow, some showing off just one color and some having every one you could think of in every striped variety possible.

We came back to the boat for lunch and then it was off to the island. The crew loaded everyone into a much smaller rescue-type boat and drove us to the shore of Green Island. Stepping off the boat and into the water, I looked up at the beach. It literally looked like something from LOST. Or Castaway, the movie with tom Hanks. It was gorgeous. The sun had come out at lunch and it was nice a warm. The only signs of civilization on the beach were a few straw umbrellas with straw beach chairs underneath them and a hut with a guy who charged you $30 to sit on each chair. Hmm. We stretched out our towels on the sand and walked into the turquoise water. It was so peaceful. No sound at all except for the laughing of a few small children on the other side of the beach splashing in the water with their parents close by.

I ventured through the trees beyond the beach and into the jungle. There was a pathway with a sign pointing forward. It was to a resort. Through the dense foliage of light green leaves as big as a human head, I could see a sprawling pool and a cabana. It was a 5-star hotel. Humph. I went back to the beach.

About an hour later the same boat picked us up and we went back to snorkeling. Since the sun had come out, the views underwater were even more beautiful. The sun’s rays cut right through the water in giant streaks. Each time a fish would swim through a light ray, their colors would shimmer. Schools of hundreds of fish would travel together. I caught a few glimpses of the schools swimming together through the rays and the sight was breathtaking. So much so that I found myself holding my breath a few times, worried that they could hear me breathe. Then when I would realize what I was doing, I would choke on a few gulps and need to come up for air and adjust my snorkel and goggles.

Only about 200 feet from our boat was a huge mountain of coral under the water. I’d never seen anything like it. I swam over it, inspecting every piece of coral I could with my eyes, which were as big as saucers inside my snorkel mask. When I got to the coral mountain’s edge, I looked and couldn’t see the sea floor. It was an abyss. Wow, I thought. Super cool, yet freaky. What was down there?

I swam back to Tyler, who was inspecting coral about 100 feet away from me. I looked at that coral and found a break in the coral plenty big for two people to swim through. I came up for air, took the snorkel out of my mouth and took the largest breath my lungs could muster. I dove down to the break in the coral and swam through it, taking in the sight that enveloped me on all sides. Fish, coral, more fish, more coral. It was so quiet. I was swimming through a Discovery Channel ocean special. Pretty soon I needed another breath, so I made my way to the surface. Then I did it all over again. Big breath, dive down, swim through coral and endless schools of fish and come back up again. I was in heaven.

At one point, I was coming up for air and heard a sound. I didn’t think anything of it and went under water again. But then it got louder. Even though I knew it was coming from above the water, I could hear it underneath. I came up. “Katie! Katie! Katie!” It was Tyler. He was yelling to me. I swam over to him and before I could ask what was wrong, he dove under water. I followed and saw he was pointing to something. I came up for air and so did he. “What? What is it?” I asked him. “Follow me! Look!” he said, a huge smile on his face.

I followed him under water and watched him point downwards. My eyes followed his hands to the bottom of the ocean. I saw a few pieces of coral and that was it. But upon further inspection, I noticed two moving things around them. Clown fish. Small, beautiful. Orange with thick white stripes. We both came up for air.

“I found Nemo!” Tyler exclaimed. “Wow, I can’t believe it!” I shouted, “Let’s go look at them again!” We dove down and looked at each other. Then we started waving at the fish. Tyler had talked about wanting to see a clown fish the day before. I knew how rare they were, so I wasn’t holding my breath. He was so excited. “Wow, nice going,” I said to him as we came up for air again. “I’m so excited; I’ve been looking for one all day!” Tyler said quickly before going under again.

Tyler had moved on, but I wanted to see them again. So I dove down. But I couldn’t find them. That was ok. It was more fun seeing them together. I snorkeled along, checking out more and more coral and feeling waves of happiness wash over me as I swam through warm rays of light streaming through the water. Then, all of a sudden, I looked down and saw a shadow about 4 feet long. A shark. Tyler had seen a black-tip reef shark earlier in the day, but I’d missed it. Now it was my turn. It was about 6 feet beneath me. We’d seen black-tip reef sharks in Thailand and I knew they didn’t cause humans any harm, so I dove down for a closer look. The shark sensed my presence and darted off. It was cool to see though. Sleek, moving through the water seemingly without moving a muscle.

Soon after Tyler’s Nemo sighting, we headed back to the boat. The weather was perfect. Blue skies, a gentle wind. The crew put the sails up and we sailed the 2 hours home. We met a nice girl from Canada and hit it off gabbing with her almost the whole way home.

This morning we woke up at 5:45am. We are finding that planning ahead for our travel schedule might be the best route. Case in point: Tyler and I are fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of people, and that is an understatement. We have hardly planned anything in advance (specifically where to stay, how to get to our destinations) on this trip. It hasn’t been much of a problem for us. Until now. Turns out Australia doesn’t really operate like Asia does. For example—you can go to a train station and get on a train leaving within 5 minutes in Asia. You can get to a destination without a hotel booking and find something immediately, no prob. Not here. This hasn’t been much of a problem in Australia so far because we’ve had friends to stay with, etc, but now that we are on our own and on the move; it is a bit more difficult. So last night when we got home from our snorkel trip, we decided to rent a car for today to drive down the coast. Except that every car rental place was sold out. We forgot Easter is this weekend. Oops. So here we are, on a Greyhound bus. We are riding this to Townsville, and then will pick up the only rental car we could find on the whole east coast. From there we will drive another 4 hours to Airlie Beach.

Our objective is to get to Brisbane by Monday, April 13. At 8pm on that day we will board a plane out of Oz and into New Zealand. We can’t wait to start a new country. We are a bit restless. But for now, we are just happy to have found a way to get to Townsville and to a rental car center with available vehicles. Set aside the fact that we don’t have a place to stay tonight (ha), at least we have transportation. We will sleep in our car if we have to. Oh, such is life on the road.

The Secret Life of Joondalup

Joondalup, Australia. 3/15. 3:06pm

So last night was interesting. After a nice afternoon on Cottesloe Beach looking at art instillations (i.e. larger-than-life-size pencils, flowers, garbage trucks, etc.) sticking out of the sand as part of the Sculpture at the Sea Festival and going to a nice dinner in Freemantle, we took the train back to Joondalup only to witness a massive fight. We crossed the street next to the station, rounded a corner and started cutting through a massive parking lot to get home. The time was about 12:45am. Once we got onto the parking lot, we heard screaming. A guy screaming at two girls. The words were completely indecipherable. The girls were screaming back. The guy was beyond livid. It was apparent alcohol or drugs were in his system and if not, he could easily win the award for angriest man ever. Then, as we walked and our ears rang from the shouting, I began to understand just one word coming out of his mouth. Car. He kept saying it over and over. As if straight out of a movie, we saw headlights. And they were coming straight for us, through the parking lot at full speed. I mean this car must have been hauling at about 60 mph. “Tyler!” I screamed. Tyler was standing closer to the center of the lot, directly in the line of the car. It took him a few seconds to register the danger that was looming in front of him on 4 wheels, but when he realized it he ran over to me and out of harm’s way.

The car screeched to a halt directly in front of the three screaming banshees. Then the world’s angriest man walked to the driver’s side door, opened it and started beating the man inside the car. I started walking faster and urging Tyler to come along. Tyler was in shock. Right there in front of us, a man was beating another man and the two girls were trying to pry them away from each other. One of them was yelling, “Stop! He’s my brother! He’s my brother!” at the top of her lungs. The guy hitting the driver was yelling as well. “What the [insert expletive here] are you doing in my car?!!! This is MY CAR you [bleep]ing [beep]er!!!”

This went on for a while. In fact we could still hear the yelling long after we had lost sight of scene and its participants. It was at that point when a realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I expressed it out loud. “Tyler,” I said, turning to him as we walked. “I can honestly say that I felt safer in Nepal and India than I do in Joondalup.” He didn’t blink, but instead responded, “I know what you mean, especially at night.”

This may come as a surprise. I mean, from all we wrote about in Nepal and India with farm animals being herded along makeshift dirt highways to crazy drivers and no street signs at all to homeless people begging without any clothes on to strikes in the streets led by gun-toting policemen, I can understand the confusion with such a statement. But let me explain.

Joondalup is an idyllic-looking place to live. It is perfect. Really. Even Oren, our friend from NYC who visited Nat and Al the first weekend we were here said it. “This town looks like a movie set.” And it does. There isn’t a speck of garbage on the ground. Not a brick out of place on the perfectly paved sidewalks. Every shop has a cute little front to it. The movie theater doesn’t even have popcorn on its floors. I swear. It feels safe. Has that Main Street USA feel to it. Except for a few small details.

There are no people. On an average day, you can walk to the mall and see maybe 2 people on the sidewalk. And that is a good day. At night you see no one. Every single store closes at 5:30pm every day. Except Saturdays, when things close at 4pm. And Sundays, when nothing is open at all. Except the corner store attached to our apartment complex, which closes at 8:30. This is all very odd.

Stores aren’t the only things that close at 5:30pm. So do many restaurants. The only one that stays open to my knowledge is a Thai place called Kulcha, located down the street. It is closed on Sundays and Mondays, but every other day it closes at 9pm. Whoo-hoo. It makes me wonder what is behind the perfectly-manicured gardens lining the brick streets that no one walks on.

It is a big mystery. An odd mystery and one that just gets weirder and weirder. You’d think that in a town like this nothing out-of-the-ordinary would happen. Everyone would walk around with plastered smiles on their faces. Little girls in cute pink dresses wearing socks with lace edges and hair tied up in pig tails with matching pink bows would hold their mother’s hands as they skipped along. Families would be out and about enjoying a nice afternoon. But it isn’t like that. Not at all.

It is odd. But here we are, living here for 2 months. And we’ve decided to make the best of it. I mean, so what if we live in a place that looks like a movie set? It has everything we need from grocery stores, to clothing stores (even a Target), to hair salons, and the library is right across the street (Tyler and I have gotten really into going to the library lately. It is so cool! Like a store where you get everything for free and can go back for more!). But more we are here, the more cracks in Joondalup’s picture-perfect façade are becoming apparent.

Our first inkling that things weren’t quite right was when we went dancing a few weeks ago. There is a club about 3 blocks away called Dusk and on a Saturday night they were slated to play hip-hop and 80s music. Perfect. This is the night Tyler and I went crazy and ended up dancing on the club’s stage to “Get Your Freak On.” Good times. Anyway, upon our arrival at the club’s doors, Tyler and Al were separated from Natalie and me by bouncers who had to be pushing 300 lbs each. The bouncers then waved a metal-detector wand in front of each of them and even went so far as to pat them both down. I found this highly bizarre and brought it up to my co-workers the following Monday.

Talia, one of my fellow workers, looked at me funny. “Where did you say you went?” she asked. “We went to Dusk. That club in Joondalup,” I said. “Oh, I know that place,” she said, cocking her head to one side and looking down. “I know why they patted down Tyler and wanded him,” she said. “Why? I thought it was so weird. I mean I’ve been to clubs everywhere from San Francisco to Chicago to New York and that has never happened before,” I told her. “It is because someone got shot there last month,” she told me. My response was silence. I was in complete shock and horror.

Upon further research I found out it was true. The month before there was a drive-by shooting in front of the club and a bouncer had been shot 5 times. I told Tyler, Natalie and Al and they were all as shocked as me. I mean this is Joondalup, not Cass Cooridor in downtown Detroit.

My next indication that things were strange was last weekend. After spending a nice Saturday biking around Rottnest Island, located off the coast of Perth, we came home again on the train. After we exited and were about 5 minutes from our door, we started to hear a very loud man’s voice, screaming in an angry manner. We looked in the direction of the voice and could see that about 2 streets over a man had pushed a woman into a fence. Tyler started toward them. “What are you doing?” I shouted in his direction. He stopped at looked at me. “I am not going to just stand here. I think he is going to hit her and I want to stop him,” he said. “What if he has a weapon?” I asked him. Just then, another guy walked up to us on the sidewalk. “I have a phone,” he said. “I’m going to call the police before this gets out of hand.” That stopped Tyler. We waited for the guy to call the police and only when it seemed like the screaming guy had calmed down a bit did we walk the rest of the way home. It was an awful sight and made me consider just how widespread domestic violence is. This happened a few weeks ago and I still think about it. I hope the woman is ok and the police got there to diffuse everything.

I started to get the feeling that these instances of weirdness are just a micro-sized window into the reality of life in Joondalup. It got me wondering what people actually do here and how they occupy their time. I didn’t have to look far for the answer to that one.

Only a few apartments away from us live a few guys: Martin, Troy and Ryan. They are Natalie and Al’s friends and we’ve gotten close to Martin in particular. He came to the Coldplay concert with us. Anyway, they work during the day and drink at night. Every day. Except for the weekends, in which they start drinking at 9am, go to bed at 4am and then start it all over again the next day. The day of the Coldplay concert, Martin came into our apartment to pick us up and walk to the train station. He was really down and I asked him what happened. “Troy and I got into a big roué (the term used for fight in England—Martin is English) and he threatened me with my life,” Martin told me. “What?!” I asked.

Turns out Troy got drunk and, as Natalie puts it, “took pills” (i.e. ecstasy) and told Martin he wanted to “beat his head in.” Whoa. I’ve only met Troy once, but by the looks of him (huge muscles, even bigger tattoos all over them); I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side. Especially if he takes drugs.

Since then, Martin and Troy have made up and Troy is in the process of moving out. But after living here for a while, I started piecing things together. Everything in this town closes at 5:30pm. There isn’t anyone on the sidewalks. There is no social scene to speak of (at least not a safe one). What is there to do for the teens and 20-somethings that don’t have families? What is there to do for the families for that matter? In many cases, I’m afraid the answer is a negative one. Drinking. Smoking. Drugs. Violence. All stemming from boredom.

While I find these things sad, scary and even tragic, they aren’t what bother me about Joondalup. What bothers me is that it is all a façade. And that people carry on acting like the façade is actually their true lives when it really isn’t. Walking down Boas Street (the main street in Joondalup), you’d think this is a perfect little town. A great place to raise a family. But instead of beautiful homes being as nice as their outsides, their interiors rot with the truth behind their shiny exteriors. This is a frightening thought to me. One that stinks of people being more invested in putting on an air of artificiality rather than letting their true colors shine through. And I truly believe that when people feel forced to act a certain way and that way isn’t their true self, they harbor hatred, anger, and sadness. All of which come out in different forms. Such as alcohol and drug abuse and violence.

It is the same in so many places. Even my hometown of Brighton, where only after college I took a job as a crime reporter for the Daily Press & Argus did I find out that my beloved town is a hub for drug trafficking. Who knew that the intersection of I-94, I-96 and US-23 was a hot spot for drug dealers? You’d never know it from its nice and tidy Main Street and cute little shops. Although in Brighton’s defense, people do walk around more than in Joondalup. But my point is that it seems like everyone has something to hide. This fact is something that keeps me up at night. I wish people (and places for that matter) could just be honest and deal with the consequences.

But I digress. What I meant to talk about here was how much safer I felt in Nepal and India as compared with Joondalup. The reason I say that is because in those countries, you know what you are in for. When you walk down the street, everyone lets everything hang out. Cows roam, dogs bark as foam froths out of their mouths and you know to go the other way unless you want to be infected with rabies, ½ clothed families beg for money and food. But next to them people are laughing. Hardy, belly laughs at a joke their friend just told them. Children attached hand-in-hand run into open-air stalls to grab a snack with the little money they found on the ground. Mothers hold their children close to them. And all of this is authentic. It is all out in the open. Nothing is hidden. All of the misery, all of the greed, all of the anger, all of the sadness, all of the happiness, all of the laughter, all of the love is right there for the world to see. And I appreciate that.

This is not to say that Nepal and India are without danger and drive-by shootings and domestic violence. In fact it is the opposite. They have all of those things, but for some reason I still feel safer. Tyler puts is perfectly. He says he feels the same way because in those countries people don’t have the luxury of going out for an all-nighter of binge drinking. They don’t have the money to spend on drugs and alcohol. In the evenings, children are at home with their families working, sleeping or studying hard in hopes for a better life. So if you are walking around at night and see someone, they are minding their own business and usually just walking. Not trying to make trouble. There is an honesty there that is something I’ve never experienced anywhere else.

But here it is different. Maybe it would change in South Asia if money was brought into the equation and wealth and power. But I hope not. I hope it would stay as authentic as it is. It is refreshing and a way of living I think little Western towns like Joondalup can learn from.

A Rare Moment of Relaxation

Joondalup. 3/1. 6:25pm.

We’ve been pretty busy lately. Correction: crazy busy. With some stress sprinkled in. But as I write this I am smiling from ear to ear. I am sitting on a couch in the apartment listening to James Taylor on our iTunes and Tyler has just handed me a glass of wine. I just woke up from a 2 hour nap. The comforting aromas of roasting potatoes and onions are wafing around the room. Tyler is in the mood to cook and is in his element in the kitchen, humming James Taylor while he prepares a meal that will without doubt be delicious. Tonight’s menu will also include grilled chicken and pasta. Life is great.

Since I wrote last I’ve been working from 7:30am-4:30pm every weekday. Talk about an adjustment. I’ve been completely exhausted every day-taking naps every free moment I have. But I’m still enjoying work for the most part. There are a lot of strange and cute things there. Such as the ducks that waddle up from the nearby lake every morning around 7:45am, expecting to be fed. My manager, Yvette, goes out to them waiting right outside the café and feeds them bird food she has stashed behind the credit card machine. I’ve gone with her a few times. This is every day. Or the fact that there is this parrot (there are colorful parrots everywhere in Australia—the one I speak of is green with blue and pink near its beak) that stands near the window of the café peaking in while keeping an eye on all the people inside. Once he thinks no one is around, he flies in the window, grabs 3 or 4 sugar packets from the canister near the window and flies off. You can see him opening those packets on a terrace nearby, enjoying the sugar high. Sneaky little bugger.

The strange parts are borderline creepy. Like the other day when one of the cooks, Ingrid, who looks a little more like Frankenstein than any other person I’ve ever met, attempted a casual conversation with me. I was in the walk-in fridge grabbing some milk when she came in too. It is a little cramped in there, so I tried to grab what I needed and leave. But before I could go, Ingrid piped up.

Ingrid: “Hi Katie, did you sleep well last night?”

Me: “Yes, I did. I had a nice sleep.”

Ingrid: “Do you sleep naked?” (Asking with a creepy smile)

What? Did she just ask me that?

Me: (answering almost forcefully, as if in a knee-jerk reaction) “No! Eww! No!”

Ingrid: (chuckling) “Oh c’mon, really? You don’t sleep naked?”

Me: (composed and stern) “No, Ingrid. I don’t sleep naked.”

I left the fridge, reeling from the conversation. Umm yeah. What am I supposed to do with that conversation? If I wasn’t so shocked with the line of questioning I’d like to think I could have had the peace of mind to tell her what she was asking made me feel uncomfortable and not to do it again. But I didn’t. I kicked myself for missing the moment. Then I told one of my co-workers, Talia, who I knew wouldn’t say anything to anyone. She told me to tell Yvette. I was worried that if I told Yvette, Ingrid would be fired for sexual harassment, so I kept my mouth shut. That night I told Tyler she must be a lesbian and attracted to me. A thought that gave me chills.

Turns out she isn’t a lesbian (at least outwardly, who knows what her secret life is all about). The following day she acted like we hadn’t had our weird-o conversation at all. As I was walking by her, I noticed a diamond ring on her left ring finger. I asked another co-worker if she was married. Turns out she is and has 3 kids. I was speechless.

I guess sexual-esque talk isn’t all that uncommon at my café. The day after I was questioned, the rest of the staff was laughing to each other about how they didn’t think Ingrid had ever worn a bra. Hmm. I tried staying away from the back talking, but man; it is sure a different environment from what I’m used to where you can be fired for looking at someone strangely.

Moving on to Tyler. Last week he was completely slammed at the university campus where I work. He was helping the university’s union (called The Guild here) with orientation events, since school is just starting. He BBQ-ed thousands of hot dogs for thousands of students for 5 straight days and said he enjoyed it. On Thursday of last week his boss told him there was a job opening at the ECU Bar (ECU is the school—short of Edith Cowen University) and asked him if he was interested in bartending. Interested? Tyler jumped at the idea. It is his dream fun job. So after a short 10 minute phone interview with the bar’s owner, he had the job. After watching the movie “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise on Sunday, he worked all last week and really enjoys it. His bar is probably all of 700 feet away from my café and he works until 6pm every night, so every day after work I trot over to his bar and chat with him for a bit. It is fun. We’ve been incredibly fortunate with jobs. Since his bar is on the campus and most of the kids commute, it closes at 7pm every night and on weekends. Perfect hours for Tyler to still have a life.

While our jobs, apartment and the little town we are living in couldn’t be better, we struggle at home. Natalie and Al are nice people to us, but not to each other. They have an incredibly unhappy relationship and are fighting about 98 percent of the time. This is difficult for us to deal with at times. We’ve found that working out a ton has helped as well as spending time alone together. But it is tough.

It isn’t all bad though. We’ve had some fun times too. Like last weekend when we decided to go dancing. There is a nightclub near our house, so we got all dolled up and hit the town. The beginning of the night was a little slow with the bar only about ½ full, but pretty soon it filled up and the music was pumping. Before we knew it, Tyler and I were on the stage dancing to Missy Elliot’s “Get Your Freak On.” It was one of those nights that we danced so much we had to take showers when we got home because we had sweat so much at the club. Good times.

Last night was the best night we’ve had in Perth. We saw Coldplay! It was a completely impromptu decision. I thought we would just be able to go to the venue right before the show and scalp a few tickets, but at first it wasn’t that easy. So we stood around for quite a while until we found 2 people selling two FLOOR SEATS for $90 Australian dollars ($58.50 USD) each. Tyler and I jumped up and down and paid happily. The show was insane. I would see them again in a second. I couldn’t stop thinking of Kristy and Erik, who I know both love them. It was a blast.

Ok, time to enjoy the rest of my Sunday night. Dinner’s almost ready.

Settling In

Joondalup, Australia. 2/12. 7:12pm.

Hidey Ho, friends. Since I wrote last things have definitely changed. And I am happy to say the changes have been for the better. As I write this, I am sitting on a different couch in Natalie and Al’s living/dining room while the same fan as noted in my last entry circulates air around me. Man is it hot here. As the news is vigilantly following around the globe, there have been serious bush fires in northern Victoria (the name of the state where Melbourne is located) that have claimed the lives of more than 180 people. It is terribly sad and tragic and the whole country is banning together to help. You can’t go to any retail establishment, restaurant, or any store without seeing signs to donate to the Red Cross or give money in tins on store counters. The fires have affected the entire country is other ways as well. It has spiked the already-stifling heat to record highs. The other day it got up to 114 degrees in Melbourne, a record for any metropolitan area in the country, ever. It is seriously hot.

Here in Perth it isn’t quite as bad, but it is still uncomfortable. Yesterday was completely brutal. It must have been 105 degrees outside, no joke. And instead of cooling down at night, which seems to be the natural progression of things, it actually HEATS up. We don’t want to turn the AC on in our apartment because it costs too much, so Tyler and I (literally) sweat it out all night long with only the gentle breeze of a fan oscillating around the room to cool us off. I would much prefer 20 box fans against each all on full blast. I would be happy to wear ear phones to combat the airplane engine-like noise that would create, but at least I wouldn’t sleep all night feeling as sticky as a day-old piece of gum. Every morning I wake up with a thick film of sweat all over my body. Good morning to me. Ug.

But enough complaining. When there is a breeze and the temps hover around 95 instead of 105, it isn’t all that bad. Actually, it can get quite pleasant. And it is nice to wear dresses all the time.

The heat didn’t stop our job search, but we did take a break. After my fantastically wondrous (note my seething sarcasm) experience working 2 hours for free at La Vita, we took about 3 days to relax with our friends. Oren and Sharon, our friends from New York who just so happened to be in Perth at the same time as us, flew in from Mumbai the same day as my disastrous evening of free labor. It was a Friday. Men’s finals for the Australian Open. Oren and Sharon’s flight wasn’t getting in until midnight, so Natalie and Al left around 11:30pm to pick them up. Tyler and I switched on the Open and sat at the edge of the couch while Nadal and Federrer battled it out for the title of champion. It was a tight match. Until the 5^th set. Now I am a massive Nadal fan, but I can’t deny the respect Federrer commands as the universally-recognized best male tennis player of all time. They were literally neck and neck, point to point, game to game. And then The Fed choked. Completely. Nadal saw his weakness and pummeled him like Andre the Giant would squish a one-cell organism. The catch was, if The Fed had won, he would have tied Pete Samparas’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles. The magnitude of the pressure placed on The Fed meeting this record was unimaginable. The whole world was watching. So when he tripped up and Nadal ended up winning, Fed overflowed with emotion. In the form of tears—big, crocodile ones. It was really sad—I think everyone at the Rod Laver Arena, and watching on television (especially my Dad, a massive Fed fan) was joining him in his tearful moment. But The Fed will prevail soon enough. He recently told the press that he plans to play for at least 5 more years (he is only 27, after all—even though he looks quite a bit older), so by the time he retires he will definitely have captured the record and then some. If Nadal doesn’t catch h him first.

Ahh, I digress. Anywhoo, the next morning we woke up to a house of 6 people. It was great to see Oren and Sharon and rehash all of the goings-on since the six of us had met months earlier in Koh Tao, Thailand. We couldn’t believe we will all together again. What a small world. Really. For the next 4 days we had a great time. One day we took the train into the city and lounged around Kings Park, a sprawling patch of greenery with statues, palm trees, birds of all types, stages for concerts, and beautiful views of the Swan River (Perth’s main inland waterway). As great as it was to spend time together, there were some ups and downs. A little tension between people who really had only met over the course of 4 hours in a foreign land and were all trying to settle into another foreign land proved a bit difficult, but nothing was unsolvable. The last day Oren and Sharon were here, Oren’s shoe got caught on the escalator at Target and ripped it to shreds. For the next 2 hours he fought with the general manager of the store to reimburse him. It was a mess. But other than those hiccups, we had a nice time.

They left on a Wednesday morning. That day Tyler and I headed over to the nearby internet café to search for jobs. I decided canvassing stores and hoping they were hiring while trying to act perky (smiling ear to ear) and passing out resumes to people who would tell me “well, we might be hiring sometime, but I will take your resume just in case a position comes up” was completely disheartening and took up too much of my emotional energy. So I resorted to internet searching. About 2 hours in I had emailed countless resumes. Then I found a posting for a café right here in Joondalup. It was located at Edith Cowen University, which is right across the street from our apartment. Instead of emailing, I gave them a ring. Yvette, the manager, answered, and after a 5 minute conversation, I had an interview the next day!

Tyler wasn’t so lucky. He also went through an internet search for hours, but didn’t find anything promising. Poor guy.

The next day I met Yvette at 9am on the dot. At 9:14 I left with a job. It was great. She was so nice, the café looked adorable and it was located in the center of campus. Right next door was the Police Academy for all of Western Australia, so the café was constantly flooded with coppers. “You will feel nice and safe working here,” Yvette told me with a chuckle. A nice thought, although I think working anywhere in Joondalup would be safe. This town literally looks like the set from Leave It To Beaver. My first day was Monday. They were going to give me 40 hours a week! Whoohoo!

I came home in the best mood ever. Tyler decided to take his search to the streets that day and headed downtown to find work. He came back that evening with an interview at an electronics store called Dick Smiths. Basically the Best Buy of Australia. “They need a greeter at the door, so I am interviewing for that position,” he told me when he got home. “A greeter? Don’t you have to be older than 75 to get a job like that?” I asked with a smile. “I thought so, but they said I would be perfect for the job. I’m so excited! I’m going to be a greeter!” he exclaimed, jumping up and down.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were on top of the world with hope for our new jobs. The 4 of us watched the movie “Revolutionary Road” (very deep, I recommend it if you are in the mood for an emotionally-charged drama with top-notch acting) on Friday and on Saturday we left the house at 9am and didn’t get back until 1am. We took the train to a town called Mandrah, about 1.5 hours away. It was beautiful and right on the Indian Ocean. Tons of great shops and markets and options for boat rides. We ended up taking a jet boat ride along the coast. It was a complete thrill. The guy jumped HUGE waves and made turns that led me to believe we were going to go flying through the air. It was a blast. On our way back to the dock we saw a dolphin!

That night we rode on the train to another town called Freemantle, had a fantastic dinner and hit a bar called Little Creatures. Tons of fun. At one point I recruited a bunch of girls in a park to wheelbarrow race. I was really into the competition and won handsomely. Tyler was laughing hysterically.

Needless to say, I was a little blurry-eyed the next day. Actually, Sunday was basically a wash. A lot of sleeping and lounging on the couch watching movies.

Monday morning I dressed all in black and walked the 10 minutes to my new job. I was the new counter girl at Six Street Café. I worked from 9:30am-2:30pm and it was actually fun. Everyone was so nice. I work with a bunch of older ladies who flutter about and mock fight with each other about whether or not Cadbury Chocolates originate from Australia or England (that was today’s squabble). Today is Thursday and is my third day at work (I had Wednesday off) and I can honestly say that I love my job. It is so much fun and I get to talk to friendly cops, students and faculty all day. Most come twice a day and you get to know the customers in a jiffy. We are planning to stay with Natalie and Al until early April and I am so happy to have a steady gig that I like.

Back to Tyler. His interview at Dick Smith’s was on Monday. I saw him when he came home. He had a huge smile on his face. “It went great!” he told me. He proceeded to explain that the general manager, Tanya, was out sick, so he met with Craig—the 2^nd in command. Craig explained that Tyler was to be the greeter, but more than a friendly face to see when patrons would come in the door, he was to be “an extra level of security.” “Wait, what? They want you to be a security guard?” I asked. “Yep, they want me to look intimidating,” he said. I thought he was kidding, but apparently not. Craig told him he would be the guy who looks though bags if they beep when people leave the store. And he was to stare down suspicious-looking customers he thinks would try to yank something. “I am supposed to look intimidating,” he said, smiling his huge smile that conveys everything but intimidation. “The one thing Craig emphasized to me was that I wasn’t allowed to chase anyone down,” Tyler said. “Apparently Craig has chased someone down, but I’m not allowed to.” “Geesh, I said. This is serious. But I’m excited for your greeter/security guard job. Just flex then they will run away!” I told him.

Well as of today Tyler has unfortunately not heard anything from Dick Smith’s. Tomorrow he will head over there to check up on the position. Although, he is still getting work. My first day at the café I met the activity director for the university’s student union. He told me he needed casual work for student orientation events (it is the beginning of the year here). I gave his number to Tyler and today was his first day. He BBQ-ed 400 sausages for a student event. Our café catered it. And next week they have booked him to BBQ 4 more events. Things are looking up.

Hasta La Vita

Joondalup, Australia. 2/1. 4:08pm

 

Perth. Ahh, Perth. The land of unending adventures. In our case anyway. We’ve only been here 7 days and already we have had a world’s worth of drama. It started with us narrowly escaping the clutches of a money-siphoning Nigerian apartment scam and extended into in oh-so-fun search for employment.

 

At the moment I am sitting on a pristine, micro-suede, tan, L-shaped couch. There is a white stand-up fan blowing cool air on me, helping me cool off from the (conservatively) 100 degree heat outside. Tyler is sitting next to me with a glass of water. He is on his third change of clothes today because he’s sweat through the other 2. We are in a beautiful apartment in a suburb about 15 km outside of Perth called Joondalup (pronounced June-da-lup).

,

Back when we were in Koh Tao, Thailand, we met a lovely couple from the States. Sharon and Oren. They are from New York City and were traveling for one year too. We hit it off and planned to get together a few days later. When we met up again, they brought a couple they had recently met named Alan and Natalie. A delightful couple from England. The six of us ended up hanging out the whole night at a beachside bar, watching expert fire twirlers against the backdrop of the ocean. We learned that Sharon and Oren were on their way to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and were even going to visit Nepal and India. We hoped to meet up with them at a later date. Natalie and Alan, on the other hand, were on a 5-week vacation in Thailand before heading to Perth, Australia to work for one year.

 

After hanging out the following night as well, we all exchanged emails and promised to keep in touch. Over the months that passed, we kept tabs on each other. Unfortunately we were never able to meet up with Sharon and Oren in Asia. But when we left Singapore for Australia, we contacted Natalie and Alan and told them we would love to see them if we made it over to Perth.

 

Soooo…when we got in our Nigerian scandal, we contacted them. They couldn’t have been more welcoming. They picked us up at the train station and let us stay with them that night. The next day they invited us to stay for as long as we wanted. We didn’t want to impose at all and we had made contact with several real estate companies who were going to show us apartments the following day.

 

The next day we looked at a few places and found them to be ok, but quite expensive. We thought at Nat and Al’s offer to stay. It was looking better by the minute. They live in a really cute little village near a movie theater, restaurants, shops, running paths, and all within walking distance. To make matters even better, they live in a complex with a sweet pool and there is a gym for Tyler to join located right across the street.

 

We decided to put our apartment search on the back burner and to focus on job hunting. We printed off 50 resumes each and decided to hit the ground running the following day. We were going to find ourselves some jobs.

 

Friday morning we woke up, ran, showered, and got ready to go. Tyler wore his nicest outfit—polo shirt, black dress pants. I wore a nice black dress and black tights. And we were off. We were going to attack Joondalup, Natalie and Al’s neighborhood with all of the perky enthusiasm possible.

 

For the next 4 hours we walked in to coffee shops, clothing stores, grocery stores, jewelry shops, smoothie stands, bars, and restaurants—you name it. We wouldn’t go in together because we figured the tag-teaming approach would prove daunting to most employers, so instead we would go from place to place alone, only meeting up now and then.

 

I spotted a cute Italian restaurant named La Vita only about a block from the apartment. Upon walking in, I was greeted by a friendly-looking woman. I introduced myself and we chatted for a bit. She seemed interested in hiring me, but said she wanted me to come in for two hours that night for a trial session. “Be here at 6:30. You will work until 8:30 and then we will see if you made the cut,” she said. “Wow, great! What should I wear?” I asked.  “Come in all black,” she said, making a sweeping hand motion-up and down. “Ok. Thank you! See you tonight,” I told her.

 

Tyler was waiting for me outside. “I have a trial tonight,” I said, excitedly running up to him. “What? Really? At that place?” he asked. “Yep, that Italian place,” I said, pointing behind me. “That is great! Congratulations!” he said.

 

I didn’t have an all-black outfit, so we headed over to Target (also near Nat and Al’s place) and I bought one. Black pants, shirt, socks, and shoes. I was ready to go. But to be honest, I was feeling a bit tied up on the inside.

 

“I feel kinda sick,” I told Tyler on the way home after Target. “What’s wrong?” Tyler asked. “I don’t know. I am just really nervous. Now that I have this trial, I am not sure I want to work at a restaurant,” I said.

 

It was true. I’ve worked at a few restaurants in my day and I can safely say serving is one of the most stressful and thankless jobs I’ve ever had. Maybe I was just weary about working for the first time in a while. But the more I thought about it, the less I thought that that was it. It was the restaurant work. If I was working as a receptionist at a spa, say (my dream easy job), I would like to think that I would’ve been relaxed with a trial period.

 

I came home and changed. Then I laid down on our bed. I actually felt sick. Maybe I was just dehydrated. I got up, had a sandwich and a glass of water. I was feeling better. It was 6:20pm. Time to go.

 

Closing the door to the apartment behind me, I suddenly felt empowered and ready. I was going to kill it, I was determined.

 

It took me all of 4 minutes to walk there. When I got up to the eatery, I asked the host for the female owner. He pointed to a woman sitting at a table outside. I walked up to her and realized it was the same woman I spoke with earlier that day.

 

“Hello!” she said, with a smile. I shook her hand. Elaine was her name. The man sitting at the table must have been pushing 70 years old and was looking at me, questioning. The woman turned to him. “This is Katie,” she said. “Hello. Pleased to meet you,” I said, introducing myself and shaking his hand. “Hello,” he said. As he shook my hand, he slowly pulled me toward him. Weird. “What is your name again?” he asked me. “My name is Katie,” I said slowly. “Katie is here to try out for 2 hours tonight,” Elaine told him. “Ahh,” the man said, still holding my hand. “You can try out here tonight and you try out for me tomorrow,” he said, laughing and winking at me. I let go of his hand. Eww. Dirty old man. I gave a nervous laugh and walked into the restaurant behind Elaine, who was laughing to herself. “My husband,” she said. “He is so naughty.” Uh Huh.

 

Elaine showed me around the restaurant and told me to stand behind the bar. Then she left me alone. Just standing there. Another girl was also behind the bar. Hannah. I asked her if they give any kind of training and she just laughed. “No way.  I had to learn everything myself,” she said. Ok. I could do this. No problem. Hannah showed me a few things tried putting me at ease. “It is really a laid back job. I’m usually really bored,” she said. “Although I’ve never worked on a Friday, so it may be a little bit different today,” she added.  

 

Drink orders started coming in. Coke, Sprite, Diet Coke. No problem. Mixed drinks were a little tougher. The wait staff would crowd around the bar waiting for their orders while Hannah and I would scramble trying to find the correct bottle of wine, beer and glass for each of them. As time progressed, the place started filling up and getting loud.

 

On the end of the bar empty, used glasses were piling up. I went over to the end to clean them. As I was doing so, the Dirty Old Man I’d met earlier (I will just call him DOM for short) would periodically come over and give me dirty looks. Finally one time he piped up. “You must clean faster!” he barked. “There shouldn’t be so many glasses here!” “Yes, I understand,” I answered. I was working like mad. I could feel the sweat dripping down my shirt and covering my brow. Salt was seeping into my eyes, stinging them. Meanwhile I could hear Hannah calling from the other side of the bar for me. “Katie, could you come over and help me with these drinks?” she would ask. I would look over at her through my sweaty haze and see that she had about 7 drink tickets in front of her, all with at least 4 drinks on them each that needed to be filled. We were swamped. I ran over to her, tried to help, and them came back to washing the dishes. DOM stopped by 2 more times to tell me off. I would nod and try to convey that I was trying my best. He didn’t want to hear it. “This is not acceptable, don’t you know that!?” he would bark. Geesh, I thought. He sure has a burr up his butt. I tried not to let it get to me. I could only try my best.

 

About an hour into the night we got an order for one scoop of strawberry gelato. “The gelato is over there,” Hannah told me without looking at me, pointing to an ice-cream-style freezer near the kitchen and panting while she tried to fill drink orders.

 

I walked over to the freezer and shoveled a scoop of strawberry into a glass sundae dish. Man did that look good. It was so hot in that restaurant and I was sweating so badly from running around like a chicken without a head. It took every ounce of restraint not to eat it myself. But I didn’t. I wanted to make a good first impression.

 

I carried the dish and scoop over to the bar. Elaine was standing there and as soon as I walked up, all of her attention turned to the dish I was holding. “What is that?! Who scooped that?” she asked with disgust seeping out from every pore. “I did,” I said. “Don’t you know that that scoop is too big? That is 2 scoops not one!” she yelled in my face. After her rant, she grabbed the dish out of my hand and went back to the freezer. I just stood there dumbfounded, following her with my eyes. She was taking gelato out of the dish and putting it back. Then she came back to the bar and placed the dish in front of me. Without saying a word she turned on her heel and stomped away.

 

I kept going. I’d had crappy bosses before. This would be fine yet. I resumed filling orders and attempting to dodge DOM’s mean looks by washing dishes as quickly as possible. I was starting to get the hang of things. The bar was running a little smoother.

 

Then an order for Tiramisu came in. “Can you get that one?” Hannah asked me. “Sure, no problem,” I said. I’d seen how Hannah plates up the desserts and tried mimicking it. She would make a nice design on a clean plate with chocolate sauce and then place the Tiramisu in the center of the plate. Simple enough. I grabbed the dessert tray and scooped the last piece of Tiramisu out of it, placing it on the plate.

 

Elaine approached and looked at the plate. “Who did this?” she asked. Wasn’t it obvious? I was standing right there. I guess not. “I did,” I said. “This is way too small!” she growled. Just then, DOM appeared right behind her. He looked like he was going to punch someone. “You did this?” he asked, pointing to the Tiramisu. “Yes, I scooped it,” I said. “Don’t you know this is way too small!! My God, this is an EASY JOB! An EASY JOB! Anyone could do this but you clearly CANNOT!!” He was actually screaming at this point. In the middle of his restaurant. “Send her home,” he told Elaine. She pretended not to hear him. It was 8:20pm at this point. I didn’t say anything and actually didn’t even feel much of anything. He clearly had major anger management issues. This was ridiculous. It was my first day for goodness sake.

 

At 8:28pm on the dot, Elaine came up to me while I was in the middle of making a lemon bitter (Australian drink-sprite plus bitter tasting syrup). “You can go, it is 8:30,” she said. “Ok,” I answered. As I walked out of the bar, Hannah gave me an “I’m sorry” look. I somehow wasn’t losing hope that I had still made the cut.

 

I grabbed my purse and clocked out. Elaine had told me in the beginning that my 2-hour trial would be unpaid, but if I made it I would be a paid employee. I walked up to her. “Excuse me,” I said. “Yes?” she asked, walking over to me. “What is the next step?” I asked. She gave me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “As my husband said, you are just not fit for this job. Sorry,” she said. “OK,” I said and left.

 

I couldn’t believe it. But what I couldn’t believe even more was that I had been fired from a job I didn’t even have in the first place. As I walked back home, tears stung my eyes. Getting fired sucks. I’d only experienced it once before in college. Ugh. I started thinking about it. Who fires someone who is working their butt for scooping a gelato too large and a Tiramisu (PRE-cut no less and not by me) too small?!?!

 

As I walked, I felt like I was in a movie and the soundtrack was some sappy, feel-sorry-for-me song. But about 2 minutes later, I found myself lifting my head up and smiling. This was ridiculous. I didn’t need this. I am on vacation! The soundtrack in my mind turned from sap to something energizing. Then I started laughing to myself. Thank goodness I didn’t make the cut. I wouldn’t have wanted to work for them anyway.

 

I got home to Tyler and Al sitting on the couch. “So, how’d it go?” they both asked. “I got fired,” I said. Tyler’s face fell. “You are joking,” he said. I told them the whole story. Tyler felt awful. He wanted to make sure I was ok. But after talking about it he realized I was just fine and actually better off without that thankless job.

 

The crappy job behind me, it was time for a beer. The four of us ate dinner and talked about the plans for the rest of the night. Talk about surreal. It turned out that THAT NIGHT Sharon and Oren (remember, our friends from Thailand?) were flying into Perth at midnight and were planning on staying with Natalie and Al for 4 days! Talk about a coincidence.

 

This was 2 days ago. Now the 6 of us are hanging out having a blast. Even without a job, life is pretty good.

 

 

Close Call

Perth, Australia. 1/27. 8:17pm

Unbenounced to us, over the past 3-4 days Tyler and I have been the targets of a well-orchestrated scam, aimed at stealing a huge percentage of our life savings. It is because of this scam that, after only a few hours of deliberation, we agreed to pull an all-nighter without a hotel in Melbourne, and take the first flight out in the morning to Perth, a city 3,400km away. It wasn’t until today that we found out what we had gotten ourselves into. As I write this I am sitting in a Perth hotel room and can happily say we have escaped the clutches of this scam. It almost got the best of us. Almost.

It all started Friday, Jan. 23^rd, the day we left the delicious luxury of The Westin Melbourne. The night before, we had gone to the 4^th day of the Australian Open and watched Venus Williams and Andy Murray play (a thrill I will try to write about at a later date). We woke up Friday morning a little weary as to what our plans were. We had run out of Tyler’s hotel points, so staying somewhere for free was out. We needed a job. And an apartment. So we went downstairs into the Westin’s lobby to try to find something online.

About a ½ hour into our internet search we were finding apartments way out of our price range, jobs that weren’t attractive and hotels that were mighty pricey. Three hours of looking later, we were ringing out our hands in worry. We had no place to sleep. Finally we settled on The Holiday Inn down the street for way more than we wanted to pay. But after all, the Australian Open was going on. Everything in Melbourne was going to be steep.

The next day we awoke with a renewed sense of purpose. To find any apartment we could get. We hunkered down in the Holiday Inn’s business center and searched and searched. It was important to find an apartment before finding a job since we were liquidating our bank accounts faster than we were willing to admit.

A few hours later we’d found a lot of apartments, but anything we could afford was far outside of the city—not anywhere near potential job sites. So we changed our tactic. We had friends in a city named Perth, located on the far west side of the country. We’d met them last summer when we were enjoying the beaches of Koh Tao, Thailand and had thought about heading over to Perth at some point to say hello.

We didn’t know much about Perth except that it is the 3^rd largest city in Australia and is the capital of the state of Western Australia. But we thought: what the heck? Why not look for apartments and jobs there? Maybe it would be cheaper.

An hour later we were deep into our search. We were finding ok jobs, but more than that we were finding cheap apartments. Really cheap. I found one in particular located next to Kings Park, a large park in the center of the city. The ad quoted a price about $200 below what we had found in Melbourne. Another ad I found had an apartment in the same neighborhood for around the same price. Things were looking good.

And since the jobs weren’t looking too shabby, we decided to make a decision. We really only have two options: #1. Stay in Melbourne and possibly spend more money than we would make in a coffee shop, or #2. Take a chance on Perth. We decided to go for the latter.

We quickly bought 6am tickets to Perth and, to save even more money, decided to stay up all night and maybe grab some sleep at the airport. It was a long day, including a midnight showing of Valkyrie at a local cinema. Around 2am, the Holiday Inn let us use their business center even though we weren’t staying there that night. I had emailed the Kings Park apartment and had a response.

The email had three photos of the place and the photos were gorgeous. Granite countertops in the kitchen, leather couches and a flat screen in the living room. “Ohmygosh, Tyler. You have to look at this,” I said. “Wow,” he said. “We will have to check that out.”

The body of the email was a little hard to decipher. It was written by a man named Rev, who lived in Perth, but his family was currently living in the U.K. And he was “on a crusade” in West Africa. He said he would love to rent the place to me while his family was out of the country, but that I would have to communicate with his wife, Laura, who was in the U.K. to settle things. Then he gave me her email address. Fair enough.

In his email, Rev had explained that the money for the place didn’t matter as much as the quality of the tenants. He wanted to make sure he could trust us. I completely understood his concern and wrote him back (copying Laura) explaining a little about Tyler and me, focusing on our volunteer experience in Nepal. Since Rev’s language was a little broken, I figured he and Laura weren’t native English speakers, so I made sure to highlight how important it is for Tyler and I to learn about other cultures—hence the reason for our year-long trip. I thought this would put us in a good light to them.

“Nice email,” Tyler said. “I can’t wait to hear back.” “Me too,” I said. “I have a really good feeling about this place.”

At this point it was about 3am. We packed up and went to the airport. A few hours later we were boarding our plane to Perth. Tyler was dragging. We hadn’t slept a wink. I was ok. In the back of my mind I was both excited and terrified that flying four hours away from the center of Australia’s commerce on a whim might not be the best idea.

We landed and checked into the Sheraton Hotel, the place we had booked at 2am that morning while staring bleary-eyed at the computers in the Holiday Inn’s business center. Upon entering the room, we threw our bags on the ground and were sleeping in 2.5 seconds.

Six hours later we woke up and checked our email. Laura had written me back and sent a leasing application. She said that since she was in the U.K., she’d need to send us the key and to please email her our mailing address. We didn’t have one. That night we were staying at the Sheraton, but it was only for one night. I emailed her back our first and last names and the Sheraton’s address. I took a look at the application. She wanted us to give her work and past apartment references. Odd. Why would someone need references if we were only going to be staying for 2 months?

But then I figured it must be because we would be taking care of their house and they wanted to make sure we were trustworthy. I emailed Laura back and asked her (for the 3^rd time) what neighborhood the apartment was in. I said we were going to look around town that day and would really like to know the neighborhood, so we could check it out. I told her I would work on the application and send it back to her soon.

Later that day Tyler and I got to talking. “I have a weird feeling about this apartment,” he said. “What? What do you mean?” I asked. “Don’t you think it is a little weird that they want to send us the key and don’t have someone here to give it to us?” he asked me. “Well, they told me that when they left the country they weren’t planning to lease it, but then Rev went to be a missionary in West Africa he decided it would be a good idea. It makes sense to me,” I said. “I just think this might be a scam,” Tyler said. “Really? Are you serious? How can you say that?” I asked. “It just doesn’t seem right. Maybe we should look at other apartments,” he said.

At this point, the Kings Park place was our one and only place we were considering. Laura was being so responsive and seemed to really care about our integrity. She was looking for the perfect tenants and I knew that was us.

The next day I was excited to check my email. I was hoping to learn what neighborhood the apartment was in. I kept looking at the photos and they were so nice. I was hooked. Tyler wasn’t. We went to check our email and not surprisingly I had heard from Laura. The title of the message was “PYYMENT NINFORMATION…ASAP.”

Here is the actual message, verbatim:

Hello,

I will send you all the information needed for the apartment including the key and other document, i do believe my apartment will be very fine with you that is why am so excited,the keys will be send to you via DHL to you as soon as i confirm the payment your information i will proceed with shipping of the keys and other document and you can pack in to the apartment anytime you wish , please i want you to promise me you will take very good care of the apartment like your own. Only your information will be allowed to receive the key ok. am assuring you as soon as the payment is confirmed today, I will send you the key and receipt out to you immediately, at this point the next step is payment, i want you to look any WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER local outlet and make the payment, it is very easy and comfortable to send money when you reach there, just write the payment information’s below to the money WESTERN UNION place.

Make the payment here is the information below. immediately the payment is confirmed that mean you have secure the apartment. IN GOD I TRUST

WesternUnion Money Transfer
Receiver’s Name:   Daniel Oyedun
Address: 56 omowumi street lagos. NIGERIA 23401

Amount: $1480

Text Question:GOD IS
Text Answer:LOVE

Thats one of the missionary pastor information resided in West Africa,he is the one to pick up the payment on my Husband behalf, because of his busy time in the church. Payment method is thruogh WESTERN UNION and as soon as you send the payment from the western union agent, you would be given some informations.

Hmm. I read it twice before turning to Tyler. My face said it all. It was dragging on the floor. “What is it?” he asked me. “Just look at this,” I told him.

He came over to my computer and read the message in about 15 seconds. “Nope. Nope. Nope,” he said, voice wavering and getting higher. “I am not sending them a dime. This is a total scam, Katie. Western Union-ing $1,400 to NIGERIA? You have to be kidding me!”

“What the heck! It is Laura’s husband’s account!” I said, getting upset. “You have to trust people, Tyler. I know it sounds really strange, but those pictures are real and I have a good feeling about this. They are so worried about getting good tenants. I mean it must be legit. How can you be so untrusting?!”

I emailed Laura back telling her I felt uncomfortable sending any more than $120 for the first week.

I was really upset. How could he be giving up like this? Later that night we had a long conversation about it. We were both upset. Both frustrated that we had put all our eggs in this apartment’s basket and now things were turning shady.

“Look,” I said. “I can understand that they want something for sending us the key. I mean, for all they know we could be thieves and steal everything in their place before getting a cent from us. I would never send them all of that money, but maybe just $120 for the first week. I told her that in my email response.”

“What? No way,” Tyler said. “I am not giving them a cent. I am not sending money via Western Union to Nigeria. Can you imagine telling that to our friends back home? I can imagine telling them, ‘oh yeah, we thought we found this sweet apartment but we couldn’t get it until we wired someone $1,400 to Nigeria.’ Yeah, that is not a conversation I am going to have. People will think we are complete idiots.”

“Well, I’m going to tell her tomorrow that I will give her $120,” I said, ending the conversation. To be honest, red lights were flashing in the back of my mind, but I shoved them farther back. This was going to be a great apartment. We needed a place to stay. This was it.

I woke up this morning and ran to the computer, excited to see what Laura had written. Tyler’s comments had gotten under my skin. As much as I didn’t want to believe him, doubt was creeping in. Just a little bit.

Laura had written. Here was the message in my email this morning:

I really do understand were you are coming from and i can also go and send you the key and get back to you with the tracking number. But as soon as i nsend it out to you, i will want to confirm your full payment before iot can be delieverd to you which is first month rent and the bond. I reall want to make you feel save.

OR

Go and make the payment through western union tranfer and use any text question and anwser you want and get back to me with the senders name and the MTCN number for me to confirm that you truly make the payment. Than i will allow you to recieve the key and go inside the flat. As soon as you go in, i will want you to provide me the question and anwser you use so that i can pick up the payment.

Hope this is ok with you. Hope to read from you soon

Tyler was sitting at the computer next to me. I was only ½ way through reading Laura’s email when he piped up. “Katie, come over here and look at this,” he said. “What? I’m reading Laura’s email,” I answered. “No seriously, come over here,” he said.

The top of Tyler’s webpage read “Nigerian Apartment Scams.” It was official. “Laura” and “Rev” were part of a world-wide scam to extort money from apartment searchers. It was happening everywhere. The same story. A man who left his home to be a missionary in West Africa was trying to lease his place. Many victims of this scam were in New York City, where apartment searches are especially competitive. Scrolling down on the page we even found an ABC special where reporters actually went to Nigeria to find the scammers. The clip was eight minutes long and I just couldn’t watch more than 10 seconds of it. I couldn’t believe it.

I closed the computer and we walked across the street to get breakfast at a café. I was silent. Tyler was trying as hard as possible to hide his ‘I told you so’ grin. We got into the café and sat down. We both started laughing. “Ohmygod, we almost wired money to Nigeria!” I said between gasps of laughter mixed with despair. “Oh no, YOU almost wired money to Nigeria. I wasn’t going to send them a cent,” Tyler said, laughing. “Well, when it really comes down to it, all I lost was my dignity,” I said, bowing my head. “That is overrated anyway,” Tyler answered, trying to make me feel better.

We talked about the scam throughout our entire meal. The mood turned from laughter to bewilderment at the situation to feeling totally bummed at having to start over in our search. At one point neither of us talked and I had a feeling we were thinking the same thing. “Ya know, that was a really good scam,” I said. “It sure was. I could have people wire money to my Bank of America account and no one would know,” he said, giving a devilish smile. “But then they would arrest us when we got home,” Tyler added. “We don’t have to go home,” I offered. “They would find us in Australia,” he said.

In the end, we scrapped any get-rich-quick schemes and left the café, walking out into Australia’s mid-morning sun, knowing our dealings with illegal Nigerian scams had come to their best possible end.

Australian Open: Day One

Melbourne. 1/21. 10:19pm

 

It is Day Three at the Australian Open. At the moment Tyler and I are watching the evening match at the Rod Laver Arena on TV. Bernard Tomic from Australia vs. Gilles Muller from Luxenburg (87^th in the world). At only a mere 16 years of age, Tomic has become Australia’s Golden Boy overnight. He is something like 767^th in the world, but on the first day of the Open he dominated and became the youngest person ever to win a match at the Australian Open. We were there for his win. It was awesome. Especially because the crowd was of course mostly Australian and they were going crazy. This match is quite a surprise to most people because it is in the prime time slot of the day (last for the day on the docket, prime time television) and is featuring a man (ahem, I mean boy) who is virtually unknown. Last night the time slot was set aside for Spain’s wonder boy (and my secret crush) Rafael Nadal and the day before to the world’s favorite Roger Federer. The match is only a few minutes in, but Tomic is doing quite well.

Being here in Melbourne during the Open is a thrill. We are lucky enough to be staying within walking distance to the Rod Laver Arena (Laver is a 70-year-old man who was a legend back in the day and is from Australia), putting us smack dab in the center of all of the excitement. Every morning when we walk out of our hotel we see droves of tourists and locals all donning Australia Open shirts, hats, and tennis balls—which they hope to get signed by the pros at the tourney. Most of them are walking in the same general direction—towards the tournament.

On Monday morning we were one of those tourists. After waking up around 10am, we put on gobs of sunscreen because the weather was expected to be in the high 30s (in Celsius that is, which translates into the mid 90s Fahrenheit) . Walking outside, we instantly felt like we were entering an oven. It was going to be a hot one. Beaming with smiles and occasionally nudging each other to say, “Ohmygod, we are going to the AUSTRALIAN OPEN!” we followed the crowd to the Open. Doors opened at 11am. On our way to the entrance gate, we passed a series of framed posters showcasing the winners of the Open from 1988 and onto 2008. Seeing photos of Steffi Graff, Andre Agassi, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras and Martina Hingis made me realize how much a fan of tennis I really am. I love every one of these people. Thanks Dad. He is the one who introduced me to the game. (And by the way, I must correct myself in saying he had a crush on Sampras back in the day. He has since assured me that Pete was a “zygote”—a word I had to look up which means the cell at the point of conception—when he was playing tennis and the people he loved included Rod Laver and Arthur Ashe among others, all of whom now have arenas named after them.)

After showing our tickets to the attendants at the entrance gate, we walked in. It was so exciting. Programs were being sold for $15, but if you had a MasterCard, you got a brochure for free. I have one, so I picked one brochure up just to realize it wasn’t a program. Oh well. Good info about where to spend the money on my MC, I guess.

A bunch of people were sitting on a large patch of grass staring up at a big screen TV broadcasting what was going on inside the Rod Laver Arena. (Side note: that arena requires a special ticket, which costs mega bucks and normal access to the Open only costs about $30 Australian Dollars (AUD), so that is what we had. We walked on and were greeted with many concession stands selling everything from Powerade to sandwiches to bratwurst to sushi (eww, who would want raw fish when it is 95 degrees outside?).

The pass we had allowed us to see all of the outer courts. There were 14 of them. Each had a match playing. We could come and go as we pleased to any of them we desired. One of them was a practice court. We walked into the first one we saw and watched an American get his butt kicked. Robbie Genepri. Poor guy. He was playing Tomas Berdych from the Czech Republic. Tomas had a cheering section usually only reserved for college football. These guys were not only choreographed with their cheers and songs, but they all were dressed the same and loud enough for the whole place to hear from. Needless to say, poor Robbie got killed. Tyler and I felt bad we didn’t have an American flag to wave in his favor. I tried shouting his name a few times, but that didn’t seem to help. The Czech was just better. And the fans were there for him. He would even wave to them every now and then, obviously playing up the intimidation factor. That game finished quickly. We moved on.

Andy Roddick, who is American and not only famous for his tennis (which he is very good and is in the top 10 in the world, but also known for dating Mandy Moore a few years ago) was playing at the Rod Laver Arena. He was winning. No surprise. We could hear the crowd cheering. It was so exciting to be there. I wish my Dad was there. I know he would have loved it.

We went to another court and watched a few women. It was great to see women out there. One was from Japan and had a surprisingly large fan contingent. Come to think of it, most of the fans were Japanese. She was unranked and playing a favorite from Estonia, who had about 100 pounds on her. We squeezed into the tight stands, trying not to touch the people next to us because if we did we would be greeted by a unwelcome swath of sweat (it was bloody hot—both of us were dripping) and watched as fans held up signs with Japanese characters and chanted choreographed cheers in Japanese. We were excited and started cheering for the Japanese woman too. We found out later that she was 38 years old (shocking for the shape she was in—I’m guessing .00001 percent body fat) and had been retired for 12 years. Unfortunately she lost in a tight match in the final set. But it was still fun to watch.

After leaving that court we were panting we were so hot. So we decided to get some powerade. On our way to the concession stand we passed the practice court and the player on the court hitting volleys caught my eye. I thought, do I know him? Wait a minute. A second later I realized it was Andy Murray, the #4 male in the world, from Scotland. Holy crap. “Wait, Tyler! That is Andy Murray!” I shouted to Tyler, who was in front of me, trying to weave through the crowd. “What? Are you serious?” he answered back. We walked up to the gate that bordered the court. There weren’t even fan stands. We were right there. Standing next to Andy Murray.

There was a girl signing autographs. She was literally dripping with sweat. I saw drops falling from her chin. She must have just finished practicing. “Who is that?” I asked Tyler, prompting looks from the fans around me. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Wait, I know who that is. It is the world #1! It is Jelena Jankovic!” Wow, I thought. That was so cool. Back to Andy.

I stood on the side in the blazing sun waiting for him to come to the side for a drink of Evian, laced with some sort of protein powder prepared by his handlers. I was standing directly behind his chair and umbrella, hoping he would look my way and sign the MasterCard brochure I had for him, outstretched over the fence. Tyler was melting. He was excited to see Murray as well, but couldn’t stand the heat. Thankfully for him he found an umbrella and found some reprieve from the heat. I stayed in the sun to the detriment of my scalp, which is now painfully burnt. But it was worth it.

A full hour later Andy came back to his seat for the 4^th or 5^th time to recharge on his Evian/protein shake combo when a kid standing 2 people down from me along the fence who was no more than 7 years old yelled, “Andy! Andy!” Murray looked his way. “Yeah?” he asked. “Will you give me your autograph? I’ve been waiting!” the cute kid said. “I have 5 more minutes,” Murray said. “Ok, cool,” the kid said, satisfied. I chuckled with the girl standing next to me. About 10 minutes later Murray came over and signed autographs for everyone. He was so nice. During his practice I even noticed his concern for his handlers. He was worried about them getting sunburned and asked if they “had any cream” for each other in his Scottish accent. None of them did, so on Murray’s recommendation they all put on their shirts and hats and continued to play for a while longer. I was so excited to get his autograph. It really looks like a line of scribble, but if you use your imagination it looks just like his name.

From there we went to a few more matches. Until it was about 6pm. At that point we were at a big late afternoon match between Dinara Safina from Russia (world #4) and Alla Kudryavtseva from Russia. Safina was amazing of course, but the heat was getting to me and I was sleepy. During an especially impressive point, Tyler looked over at me for a reaction and, as he puts it, “you were in full head bob-mode.” I was out. It was time to go.

Since then we’ve been keeping track of the matches on TV. Federer gracefully and beautifully won Tuesday night in a surprisingly long match against Andreas Seppi from Italy. Last night it was like watching David vs. Goliath in the match of Nadal vs. Christophe Rochus of Belgium. Rochus looked as normal as a next door neighbor. Playing an impossibly muscular gladiator. Needless to say Nadal bested him. But good for Rochus, he won a few games, proving he deserved to be there.

An update on Andy Murray. He played yesterday morning, but apparently the guy he was up against retired during the second set because he had a bad back. Lucky Murray.

So here we are watching Australia’s Bernard Tomic. He is doing ok. The match is in the third set and it is currently tied at one set each. Tomic is losing this set. Hmm. I really hope he wins. It is a big match for Australia as well as the scrawny teenager.

Tyler just went downstairs and got the schedule for tomorrow’s matches, for which we have tickets. We are going to the big evening show at the Rod Laver Arena. Venus Williams and our new friend, Andy Murray, will be playing. We can’t wait. Venus Williams! She is a legend! To make matters even better, Tyler’s favorite American tennis player, James Blake, will be playing as well. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

 

Penguins on Parade

Melbourne, Australia. 1/18. 10:45pm

We’ve arrived. After a 4-day road trip I can say that at the moment I am happily nestled under the snow white covers of our king-size bed in our tastefully-decorated room at The Westin Melbourne. Tyler is sitting at the desk about 10 feet from me reading the newspaper and trying to memorize the names of the tennis stars (many of them Russian—lots of j’s and v’s) we hope to see at the Australian Open. It is great to be here. The city feels so electric with excitement surrounding the tennis tournament. Every newspaper has a photo of Roger Federer (the favorite to win—hailing from Switzerland) on the front, there are yellow Australian Open flags on every light post downtown with black outlines of a tennis player hitting a high serve, and everywhere we go people are talking tennis. I swear the 4 hotel employees I’ve talked to since our arrival earlier this afternoon have undoubltely asked me if we are here for the tennis tournament.

“Yep, we are so excited,” I would say. Then I would lean in closer to them and ½ whisper, “So….have you seen Roger Federer strolling around the lobby?” “Ahh,” they would reply, smiling. “No maam, I haven’t seen him yet.” “Well, you probably can’t tell me if you have,” I would say, leadingly raising my eyebrows. “No, I can’t tell you that,” they would say—trying to change the subject (although the front desk lady did tell me that the hotel’s Martini Bar is “the place to be seen and if anyone famous is here, that is where they will be.” Seeing that each drink at the bar is upwards of $15 per glass, I plan to stake out a seat in the lobby right near the bar for perfect viewing of its patrons upon every opportunity I have).“It is a very exciting time to be in Melbourne,” the employees would then say, effectively ending the exchange. That it is. But it would be unfair to just jump the gun and talk about our new home city before explaining the journey that got to this point. It was a journey indeed. Full of excitement, annoyances, and a sprinkle of weirdness.

The last time I wrote we were staying with our friend from San Francisco, Dave Thomas. He was traveling through Australia and New Zealand with his brother on a 2-week vacation and they were nice enough to let us crash with them on their last night in Sydney. (Side note about our friend: since his name is Dave Thomas and that is also the name of the late Wendy’s founder, we call him Frosty. Frosty’s brother’s name is Erik. Spelled the same as my brother; making it easy to remember.

So after wrapping up my last entry, the 4 of us got gussied up in our Sunday best and walked down to the Sydney Opera House’s Opera Bar. The weather was perfection, with just the slightest breeze as a nice reprieve from the mid-80s heat. The sun was going down, casting a buttery glow on the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge beyond. It was just perfect. After a few glasses of wine we hopped in a cab and headed to a Thai restaurant Frosty heard was good. After 2 hours and four plates of curry, beef, and trout we were stuffed and hit the hay.

The next day was slated to be the day Tyler an I left for our road trip. I woke up early because I had found a store that sold yoga clothing that had free classes on Wednesday mornings. Frosty and Erik woke up at the butt crack of dawn to go surfing on Bondi Beach. They were up way before me. Well, after my class, I came back to the hotel to find Tyler had woke up and was watching the latest on the Israel/Hamas conflict on the BBC. Frosty and Erik weren’t back from the beach yet and we were starving, so left them a note and headed to breakfast. They ended up meeting us there shortly afterwards. Pretty soon it was time for them to board their flight back to the States. After saying goodbye, Tyler and I looked at each other and knew what the other was thinking: there is no way we are leaving Sydney today. And so it was. We stayed one more night in the city we had come to love so much. That night we watched “Slumdog Millionaire” at a nearby movie theater. We left the theater with our hearts ripped to shreds over the issue of child slavery in India. We had seen sight-less children begging on the street in almost every town we went to. It was gut-wrenching to see in person and on the big screen. I left the movie feeling both helpless and hopeful. Helpless because I wasn’t sure what I could do to stop the slavery of children and hopeless that people will move for change in India and other Asian countries in terms of child welfare after seeing the movie.

The next day we woke up early, worked out, and headed to the Avis car rental place. Around 12:30pm we were on the road in our shiny, black, 4-door Toyota Corolla. Except that we didn’t have a map. Before leaving we just asked the rental car guy which way to go and he pointed out the door to the direction of the highway. “Take this street and turn right. Follow signs for Wollongong.” Okey dokey. That’s just what we did.

Driving south we started to recognize some things. This was the same way we had gone with the Pflegers to the national park we hiked through last Saturday. Wollongong was the town right beyond the park. The road was primarily inland, but every once in a while it would snake eastward and we would catch a glimpse of the coast. Breathtaking. At one point we stopped at a look-out to take photos of the cliffs plunging into the frothing ocean below. There was even a stretch of highway that led us over the water in a bridge-style that reminded me of a rollercoaster.

About 2 hours into the drive, we were back inland and going through little towns every 30 minutes or so. They were so tiny. Little spit of things. There would be a sign for one of them about 80 km before we would come up to it and then every 10 km before we would arrive, making us think it was some big place, but when we would get there, it would be a Mobil gas station, a church, and a pub. That was it. Maybe a block long. Oh well. We were seeing the back country of Australia and enjoying it.

We tried finding cool road trip-esque tunes on the radio like “Life is a Highway” or “Shook me All Night Long” by ACDC (They are Australian afterall), but all we got were about 2 FM stations that broadcast nothing but religious talk shows and the Dr. Phil/Dr. Laura-type of shows that make anyone (or maybe just me) either want to puke or voluntarily drive themselves off the road, and an AM station that played classical/Enya-esque music that would have been perfect if I was at a spa getting a massage, not wanting to be amped up on a road trip. So we chatted. And looked out the window. And chatted some more. We tried singing but that wasn’t too successful. More towns went by. More chatting.

By 7pm we decided it was time to look for a place to turn in for the night. We’d seen signs with lots of hotel names for about 40 km and decided we would look in that town (the name escapes me at the moment). When we finally got to the town, we were happily to realize it was more than one block long. It was 3. And had some decent-looking restuarnts, shops and a few motels. The motels were definitely motels, meaning the doors to each room opened to the parking lots of each establishment. We thought—‘perfect! Cheap accommodations!’ Not so much. Since Dec-Feb/March is Australia’s summer season, it is peak holiday time. Meaning the most expensive. We couldn’t find a place for less than $180. Yowza. Finally we found a place for $120, even though that was over our budget. It was nice through, with clean rooms—which was better than some of the other places we’d visited. After paying for the room, I asked the owner/front desk man if breakfast was included in the morning. He looked at me as if I had asked him what his sexual orientation was. “Umm…Where are you from?” he asked, not waiting for the answer. “No, breakfast is not included.” Ooookkk. That was that. We slept well and left before 10am the next morning.

The next day we picked up a map at a gas station. It really wasn’t necessary seeing that we were really just staying on one road the whole way, but it put our minds at peace being able to follow our path on paper. Since the radio wasn’t providing much entertainment, I decided to take inventory of my surroundings and found them to be highly interesting. Specifically roadside signs. Australia must have a MAJOR problem with people falling asleep behind the wheel, because, and I kid you not, every 10 km there would be a sign encouraging drivers to take a break and recharge. Since we drove a whopping 1,000 km, we saw our fair share of these signs.

At first the signs seemed to be gently encouraging. There was even a station that offered free coffee to drivers. “Driver Reviver. 2km free coffee (the word coffee was replaced by a illustration of a cup ‘o joe).” Another nice one was “Stop, Revive, Survive.” Nice enough. As we drove, they got more interesting. “Yawning? Take a powernap.” “Weary? Powernap now.” “Sore eyes? Powernap now.” “Only sleep cures fatigue.” I kept wondering where drivers were to take these supposed powernaps, but at one point I did see a sign for a powernap stop. It was a dirt parking lot on the side of the highway. Kinda creepy if you ask me. But essential if one is tired I guess.

At this point, we were no longer on a coastal drive at all. We were exclusively going through the forest, seeing tree after tree. It was quite beautiful actually as some of the foliage would form a canopy over the road and when the sun would going down beams of light would stream through the leaves overhead, casting soft shadows on our car. It was peaceful and serene.

That is except for the powernap signs. As we drove deeper and deeper into the woods, the signs got more and more aggressive. “A 15 minute powernap could save your life.” “A microsleep can kill in seconds.” “Rest and Stay Alive.” “Don’t Sleep and Drive.” The most aggressive: “Don’t Close Your Eyes For the Last Time!” Geesh. And my personal favorite: “Slow Down Stupid!”

Pretty soon the signs become routine and I had to occupy my mind with something else. Thankfully we came upon the village of Mogo, which turned out to be the cutest spit of a town on our trip. It was adorable and reminded me of towns the Upper Pennisula of Michigan where art galleries, jam shops, and antique stores thrive. We ended up stopping there for 3 hours and enjoyed lunch at a cute little bistro. Then it was back to the road.

Our destination for the second leg of the journey was a town called Lakes Entrance. Strange name. Seems like the start to a sentence that gets cut off. Throughout the day we stopped to roam around a few other towns, but quickly realized that all of them, with the exception of Mogo, were a tad on the creepy side. For example, one of them had a bunch of shops, but in each one people would stare me down like I was an alien. I asked the owner of one store if they had a restroom and she gave me such a look of distain I thought the skin was going to melt off her face. After maybe 10 seconds of silently waiting for her response she finally said, “No, the public restroom is at the end of the block. Make a right.” With that, I scurried out the door before she turned me into a frog.

After making my quick exit, I walked down the block and began noticing signs posted everywhere. Missing persons signs. All for the same person. A woman, who looked to be in her mid-30s, smiling in a photograph with the word “MISSING” on the top of the flier. I got to the end of the block and made a right. As I walked into the dirty, deserted bathroom with writing all over the walls, I couldn’t help but hope I wouldn’t be the next missing person. I quickly left and headed back to the car. Tyler was still shopping, so I waited by the car, hoping he would reappear soon so we could get out of Creep-town. He did and we commiserated about the town’s creepiness from the safety of our car’s interior for the next 5 km.

Hours went by. More powernap signs. More chatting. More trees. It was getting a little dark and we weren’t to Lakes Entrance yet, so we started looking for a place to stay a little early. The only town before Lakes Entrance had but one hotel. And it was above a bar. I went in and asked if they had any rooms open. “We sure do, love (what Australian men call women all the time). They are $50 per night,” the bartender said. I went out to the car and told Tyler. We decided to go for it. We walked in to the bar and couldn’t find the bartender, so we found another employee. “We’d like to stay here for one night,” I said. “Ok,” he said, “come this way.” He led us into an office. “It is $50, correct?” I asked. “Well, it is $50 per person and since you have 2 people; that will be $100.” Ouch. This place wasn’t that great. I think he could tell what we were thinking as our faces fell. “Ya know, you can find something better if you go down the road. This place really isn’t that nice. I wouldn’t even stay here,” he said. Wow, way to be honest. I appreciated his frankness and we got back into the car. Onto Lakes Entrance.

About an hour later we rolled up to a town that consisted of more than 3 blocks. It even had a McDonald’s. The town was situated on the lake and looked to have more than a few thousand residents. And tons of motels—even one hotel. After learning that the hotel was charging $225 per night (um, no thanks) we found a modest but clean place for $95, stopped at grocery store for a rotisserie chicken and ate at our room’s little round bistro table. It was just right for us.

The next morning we left at 10am again. It was day 3 of our trip and today we were set to drive to Phillip Island, an island about 4 hours from Lakes Entrance and only about 2 hours beyond that to Melbourne, but (according to our guidebook) a great place to stop with miles of picturesque beaches and fantastic wildlife—namely penguins. Tyler was pumped because penguins are his favorite animal. “I like how they waddle,” he always says.

Day three consisted of, not so surprisingly, driving through more forest and more little towns. In many of these towns I started noticing how stores and homes were still decorated for Christmas. This is something I’ve noticed around Sydney as well and strikes me as odd seeing that in America most people feel it is uncouth not to jump to the next holiday only days after one passes. Case and point: I swear stores in San Francisco start advertising for Halloween on Aug. 30, Thanksgiving on Nov. 1 and Valentines Day on Jan. 3^rd. Well that is not the case in Australia. Here, you can see trees still up everywhere. You can even buy Christmas stuff. Full price. Many of the towns we went through on day 3 had cardboard sitting Santas on their roofs. They were situated in a way that they were sitting on the roof with their legs hanging off. These where everywhere. I swear, I think I saw 40 cardboard Santas. Whoever invented those made a fortune. But I can’t imagine why. I thought they were kinda weird looking. The Santas were sort of looking down and not smiling. But the eyes would follow you wherever you went. Creepy.

The revelation of the extended Christmas season in Australia has brought up a few other things I’ve found interesting and specific to this country. Such as their greetings. Walk into any service-based establishment and you will no doubt be greeted with “How you going?” from the person on duty. Not “How are you?” or “Where are you going?” Nope. “How you going?” This was disarming to me at first, but I’m slowly getting used to the dialogue. It is odd though (as well as grammatically incorrect) and a little difficult to answer. Am I supposed to say I am doing well or am should I tell them where I am going? But isn’t it obvious where I am going? I am in their store afterall. This is a conundrum I’ve solved by just saying, “I’m fine, how are you?” This seems to please them and a polite conversation usually ensues.

Another tidbit I’ve observed about this country is their obsession with El Caminos. I’m talking about the car that was popular in the 80s. The car/truck combo. It looks like a sedan in the front, but it has a bed in the back, perfect for hauling things. I believe El Caminos are the car version of the mullet. Business in the front, party in the back. Well, they are everywhere here. I mean everywhere. Which is something I find odd since they have passed their prime in the U.S. But to each their own I guess. I often wonder why people don’t just choose one or the other. A truck or a sedan. Maybe El Camino drivers know where it’s at. They have it all.

My final observation (for this entry) has to do with McDonald’s. I know in the States that Mickey D’s is trying their best to be healthy with salads and such, but in Australia, the health conscious initiative has been taken up a notch. Here, they have something called McCafes. Every time you walk into a McDonalds you are greeted with a counter that has been cut in ½. Half of it is the regular McDonalds counter that sells the usual burger, fries and happy meals, but the other side looks like a high-end European café. On the McCafe side you can buy a grilled chicken sandwich on rosemary-infused foccacia bread with an avocado spread that doesn’t taste ½ bad (we tried it and were pleasantly surprised), or a biscotti, or fresh out-of-the-oven banana bread. And flouffy coffee drinks like low fat lattes with extra foam. The décor is totally different as well. The walls are uneven slate, the chairs and tables are made of deep, dark wood and there are even café tables outside, each sectioned off by rich-looking wood paneling. Might as well be dining in a courtyard bistro at the Ritz in Paris. For $4.40 a sandwich you can’t beat it.

Back to the road. Day 3. Since it was only a 4 hour drive from Lakes Entrance to Phillip Island, we were excited to arrive before dark. As we drove we kept seeing signs warning drivers to watch for wildlife and report any injured wildlife they see. There were kangaroo crossing signs everywhere, but as the day wore on I started seeing signs with a different type of animal on them. Upon closer inspection I realized it was a koala! How cool. I hoped to see one.

No more than 2 hours later, Tyler and I were chatting when he stopped talking altogether and gasped. “What?” I asked. “That,” he said, pointing over the steering wheel at a furry animal on the side of the road. “What is that?” I asked. “I have no idea,” he said. Then the animal started moving. It was the size of a small dog. It had large, sharp-looking claws. Thank goodness there weren’t any other cars around. It crossed in front of our car and got safely to the other side of the road. “It’s a koala!” Tyler said. “Ohmygosh! Stop the car! Stop the car!” I screaming and“ beating my hands on the dashboard. Tyler screeched to a stop, I grabbed the camera from the console and started running down the road. The koala was meandering about the weeds on the side of the road and walked deeper into the bush to where a gum (eucalyptus) tree was. Then it started climbing the tree. I was totally in awe. It was straight out of Animal Planet. When it was about ½ way up the tree, the koala turned and looked down at me. It didn’t seem afraid at all. I rapidly took as many photos as I could. By then Tyler had parked the car on the road’s shoulder and was standing next to me. We both looked up at the koala in silence and it stared back at us. It was a really cool moment but we decided to let it eat leaves in peace and went back to our car, pleased as punch that we saw a koala in the wild.

A few hours later we arrived at our destination and settled into the Phillip Island Cottages, a place I would recommend to anyone. The man at the desk had us talking for 15 minutes before we even showed us our room and when we saw it I almost fell over. It was twice the size of our apartment in San Francisco and maybe even nicer. Sold. For $150 in the most touristy place we were staying on the road, it was worth it.

I went for a run along the beach and looked out over the water. It was sparkling. There were a few boats here and there bobbing along, enjoying the afternoon. Families with small children built sand castles. Then were long stretches of beach where I was all by myself. I smiled as I ran. It was nice to stretch my legs after so long in the car.

That night we planned to see the penguins. What we didn’t realize was how big of a spectacle it was. Turns out, Phillip Island is world renown for something it calls “Penguin Parade.” On a certain part of the island every day at sun down, hundreds of penguins emerge from the water and climb onto the grassy sand dunes on the shore to sleep for the night. This has been happening for years and years and back in the earlier 20^th century, humans caught on to how predictable these penguins. It turned into an attraction. People would come from all over the region to see these penguins up close in their natural habitat. Back in the old days people would just come and sit on the beach and wait for the penguins to come. Then they would leave. Nowadays things are much different.

Tickets are $20 a piece to see the penguins. We thought this was absurd at first but a woman at a visitors center earlier in the day assured us that the price goes towards conservation and the care of the penguin habitat. So we bought them. That night, we headed down to the Penguin Parade at around 8:20pm. As we turned the corner where the sign pointed, we saw men with reflector vests on directing traffic. We were directed into a spot on the grass. The parking lot was already full. We felt like we were at Cedar Point.

We parked and followed the crowd up a boardwalk to a large building. Everyone was carrying blankets and had bags filled with chips and other snacks. We were just wearing hoodies and weren’t carrying anything to eat. Were we missing something? As we approached the building, we saw someone in a penguin costume and posed for a picture with him. Tyler stuck out his arm in an attempt to look like a penguin. He had a perma-smile on his face. He was giddy with excitement to see the creatures.

Entering the building was like walking into an Asian train station. We had to hold onto each other’s hands to make sure we wouldn’t lose each other. There were people everywhere. To the right was a giant gift shop selling everything you can imagine with a penguin on it. To the left was a museum with diagrams of penguins. On all side of us were kids running to find their parents, foreign-language-speaking tour groups with guides speaking loudly in their native languages. Since the place was so loud, other tour groups had someone speaking into a microphone while tourists listened to what he/she was saying on headphones. It was a zoo.

We followed the mass of humanity outside and onto a boardwalk leading out to the ocean. Signs everywhere warned people not to use their cameras or face significant fines. They didn’t want flashes scaring or bothering the penguins. The boardwalk led us past 2 concession stands where you could buy everything from hot chocolate to popcorn to lollies (candy in Australian) of every sort) to stadium seats, large enough to fit a few thousand people. The seating faced the ocean. It was quite a sight but both of us agreed it was beyond odd to be surrounded by people eating popcorn waiting to see animals in their natural habitat. I felt like I should have been at a circus.

An official-looking man stood on the beach and started talking into a microphone. He explained that the penguins don’t come out of the water until the sun goes down because they are afraid of being spotted by predatory birds. They travel in groups. He asked everyone to be quiet so as not to scare them. Then he told us that these penguins are appropriately called “little penguins” because they are the smallest penguin species in the world at only 12 inches tall. Little guys.

We sat there. And sat there. No penguins. The sun started receding and we got colder. I zipped up my hoodie and blew hot air into my hands. Lights, just like the ones at a football stadium, stood on either side of the stands and turned on, flooding the beach with artificial light. We waited some more. There were a fair amount of seagulls and as the sun went down, I kept thinking I saw a penguin when it turned out to be a seagull.

Then, as the sky got darker and darker, I saw what looked like a little black fin. It was sticking out of the water and would then go back under. It was a penguin waving at us, saying hello. We were so excited; the whole crowd gasped together. Then we waited some more. A few minutes later I saw people pointing to the end of the beach. By the moonlight, I could see a group of penguins emerging from the water. A few looked to be unsure if they wanted to leave the water and would run back, but finally they all moved together as if in an army regiment up to the sand dunes.

We hadn’t seen any in front of us, but we didn’t have to wait long. About 10 minutes later we saw our first group. There were 6 of them. I don’t know much about penguins, but I do know that they mate for life and care lovingly for their young. I have also heard that they take good care of each other. This was evident with this group. The first to emerge was a confident-looking penguin. I will call him the leader. Then a group of 3 emerged behind him. Then 2 more. The leader stopped on the sand and waited for the other 5. They seemed to have some sort of pow-wow about their plans to cross the beach because they stood in the same place for a while. Then one started moving and they all started moving in a collective unit. They were heading for a reef of rocks on the shore. I wondered why they were heading for the rocks when they could just go around them, but then I realized they probably did that to disguise themselves from birds overhead.

As they moved, one chickened out and ran back to the water. Another, most likely his best friend or mate, stayed behind and waited for him. When he didn’t resurface, the best friend went and got him. The whole group waited. Finally they were together again. They moved together to the rocks and started hopping from one rock to another. Once they were safely through the rocks, they were in best view to us. The next step was to cross the beach right in front of the bleachers to get to the dunes. This was the tough part. The penguins regrouped, no doubt discussing their plan for the journey.

About 2 minutes after their regroup session, they were off. Then everything went wrong. One penguin sprinted ahead of the group while one in the back was too scared to go on. The middle group stopped dead in their tracks and turned around. Then the one who had sprinted ahead stopped too and went back to the group. It was amazing to watch. I couldn’t help but think the leader was in the middle group and yelled up to the sprinter, “there is no ‘I’ in team! Get back here and help the brigade!” Which is when the sprinter turned around.

The poor penguin who was squeamish about crossing the great divide hobbled up to his group and they stood there for a little while longer. A few minutes later they were off again, all going at the same speed, all as a unit. They made it safely into the sand dunes and we smiled.

We watched several other groups just like this one. Most of them traveled in packs of 5 or 6. It was fascinating to watch. But it was getting cold. We went back to the building and looked at the penguin exhibit until we were too hungry to stay any longer. We hadn’t had any dinner and it was already almost 10pm. Since Australia traditionally closes its stores and restaurants around 9:30 (odd, I know), we had no choice but Subway. We brought it home and it was delicious. A great ending to a memorable journey.

Cockatoos, Kangaroos and Kookaburras

Katie post

Sydney. 1/13. 4:25pm

By most counts, I had a pretty great childhood. Growing up in Brighton, Michigan, there wasn’t much crime to speak of, everyone smiled at you when you passed them on the street, it was a small town so most people knew each other’s names, etc. etc. Think of the movie Pleasantville and that was my town. One of the best parts of my childhood was playing with the kids in my neighborhood. We lived in a subdivision (my Mom and Kristy still live there, in the same house) where many of the kids were of similar ages—a fact that made everything more fun. Over the years, about 5 of these families became very close and went on yearly camping trips together, had elaborate Easter egg hunts, block parties where we would section off our entire street and have watermelon eating contests (one of which I handsomely won at age 11—only to throw it all up behind the trash can about 5 minutes after my win…but no one needs to know that), water balloon fights and even parades where we would decorate our bikes and ride down the street in front of our houses, honking our toy horns.

One of the families we got closest with was the Pflegers. They lived in the big yellow house near the entrance of our neighborhood and had three boys. The oldest was a year younger than me and I drove him to school when I got my license, the middle one was Erik’s age and they paled around all the time and the youngest was a few years older than Kristy. Around the time I turned 16 they moved to North Carolina. We were so bummed. My Mom kept in touch with Mrs. Pfleger and over the years I would hear updates on the boys—where they were going to college, so-and-so had a new girlfriend, etc. etc. Meanwhile, Mr. Pfleger was advancing quickly in his company. So much so that they asked him and Mrs. Pfleger (after the boys had already left for college) to move to London for a few years. A few years after they arrived in London, they were transferred to the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

I remembered this fact so a few months ago I dropped Mrs. Pfleger an email. This turned into an exchange of emails and pretty soon we were planning on getting together. It worked out perfectly because at the same time the Myhans were visiting, the Pflegers were available for lunch. And all the boys were visiting for the holidays to boot. So about 5 days after Tyler’s parents got here, we all met up for lunch. I hadn’t seen the family in 11 years, but it felt like not a day had passed. The boys had all grown and voices had changed, but Mr. and Mrs. Pfleger were their same friendly selves.

About a week later when the Myhans were leaving, I emailed Mr. and Mrs. Pfleger to thank them for meeting us for lunch. Mr. Pfleger immediately responded, inviting us to stay with them for the time we had left in Sydney. We had 6 days before we were heading to Melbourne. He said that was fine. So the next day after bidding Don and Kaye adieu, we strapped on our bags and rode the subway deep into Sydney’s suburbs. Mr. Pfleger met us at the Padstow train station, located about 50 minutes outside of the city center. We were seriously in the ‘burbs. After loading our mountainous bags into his car trunk, we looked out the window to the perfectly manicured lawns and pretty houses. No big skyscrapers like in the city, no honking horns, just residential heaven.

Our 6 days with the Pflegers transformed us back into our 15 year old selves. They would leave everyday to go to work well before we awoke, which usually wasn’t before 10am. We would then proceed to check email, watch the NFL playoffs on their satellite TV, go for runs, and do yoga. Between 5-6 each evening they would come home and we would make dinner. Then we would usually either watch a movie or just chat until we all felt tired.

Other than running, Tyler and I never left the house. We didn’t have a car and the only commercial establishment for who-knows-how-many miles was a little “mall” on the corner of their street with a convenience store that specialized in toilet paper, toothpaste and beef jerky; and a nail salon that was never open. Hmm. By day three we were going a little batty. Neither of us had lived in the ‘burbs since high school, so we are talking 10 years here. But for what it’s worth, it was incredibly quiet and peaceful, so that was nice. For the first 1.5 days. Pretty soon I needed traffic and noise.

Besides our minor boredom, the Pflegers were amazing hosts and did everything in their power to make our stay incredibly enjoyable. They basically treated us like their children. Taking us to the grocery store, telling us to buy anything and footing the bill; making us dinners; chatting until past their bedtimes. It was great fun for me to reminisce with people I knew when I was very young. So much had happened since I’d seen them last (my parents’ divorce, college, European vacations, Erik (my bro) going into the army and getting out of it, Kristy growing up, me moving to San Francisco, now getting engaged) that we never had a lull in a conversation.

Over the weekend Mr. Pfleger took us to a nearby national park for a 3 hour hike. It was right along the coast and was gorgeous. In the first hour we even saw a wild kangaroo! Thrilling! It was about 50 feet away from us and stared at us just long enough to pose for my camera. Then it hopped its 4-foot-tall body away into the bush. On Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Pfleger took us to the beach. It was a little chilly, so we stayed on the sand, but it was really nice to get out. We finished the day at a Thai food restaurant where the server taught us how to fold napkins into lotus flowers. I failed miserably. Tyler’s napkin came out better. He was very proud.

One of the coolest things about staying at the Pflegers was the birds. Yep, the birds. They don’t have any pet birds, but each time you go outside you literally feel like you’ve entered a rainforest. Cockatoos, which are the big white birds with bright yellow mohawks people in the States own as pets are as prevalent as pigeons here. They are literally everywhere. Or at least they were all around the Pfleger’s house. A select few had warmed to Mrs. Pfleger and she had a routine of feeding them pieces of stale bread each night around 6:30pm. I went out with her once and gingerly tried, but the birds’ beaks scared me stiff and I just ended up hiding behind Tyler.

Cockatoos weren’t the only birds we saw. We got quite the animal education. When I was small, my Mom used to sing me a song that went “The kookaburra sits on the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, kookaburra laugh….” and I forgot the rest. Well, a gum tree Australian for eucalyptus tree they are everywhere. And so are kookaburras, which are funny looking birds with average-sized black bodies and unproportionally large white heads. They actually do laugh not in a cutesy way. Instead think Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. Kind of a freaky sound when you are running without headphones. I felt like I was in Oz. Oh, wait? Hmm.

The ravens here sound like children. Really. They let out these sounds that are the mixture of a wine, a giggle and a little bit of jibberish. It is bizarre. And they talk to each other. I swear they meet for gossip sessions in the gum trees. A bunch of old friends bragging about the day’s events and comparing how many worms they consumed in the past 12 hours. This is what I’ve occupied my mind with for the past 6 days. Yeeeeah.

Now we are back in Sydney and as I write this I’m sitting on a bench in a pedestrian mall named Martin Place. Ahh, the city. Each time I look up from my computer I see people bustling about, all looking like they have very important places to go. A New York-style newspaper stand is in front of me selling publications and Mars bars. On the other side of the walkway is a florist selling the last of the day’s flowers to weary well-dressed office employees coming home from work. A woman in a yellow dress is sitting on the bench opposite to mine singing softly to her smiling baby boy in his stroller. I can hear the beeping of the sign signaling people to cross the street. Cars and buses are driving by. Ahh, relaxation and mental stimulation. It’s great to be back.

Tonight should be fun. We are staying with a friend of ours from San Francisco, Dave Thomas, who just happens to be traveling through Australia and New Zealand with his brother for 2 weeks. He has hotel points, so we are crashing on his other double bed at the Westin tonight. Sweet! It is the nicest Westin I’ve ever been to and I swear the room must be 600 square feet. There is even a hallway in the room leading to the shower and toilet. Amazing.

Tomorrow leave this beautiful city for Melbourne. The plan is to pick up a rental car around noon and head to the highway nearest to the coast and take 4 days to get to Melbourne, the second largest city in Australia. We only have the car, nothing else. We have no idea where we will stay or if we will just park somewhere and live in our car. Should be an adventure. I don’t even think we have a map. Probably should get one of those. When we get to Melbourne we’ve secured tickets to 2 days of the Australian Open tennis tournament, which is one of the Grand Slams. My Dad, once #1 singles in high school and forever a tennis follower (I think he had a crush on Pete Sampras back in the day), is green with envy. We’ve promised to give him a play-by-play. Something you can expect as well.

Orange Tree Trunks and Blue Mountains

Don post

Pokolbin, Australia

January 5, 2009

(Welcome to the second installment of our guest blogger series written by Tyler’s Dad, Don Myhan. Enjoy!)

Our excursion to the Australian wine country turned out to be all we had hoped it would be. We drove 2 hours north of Sydney to Hunter Valley, the wine region of New South Wales, Australia. Driving there was definitely an experience in itself, driving on the opposite side of the road than we’re accustomed. There was more than once, when the wipers came on when we intended to signal, and we made right turns into the right lane instead of the left lane.

The journey began after, Tyler and I had been to Cheers Bar in downtown Sydney at noon on January 3^rd to watch the live telecast of the Sugar Bowl on TV (7:00 p.m. January 2 in Chicago). What a disappointment that outcome was, but we made the best of it. I would highly recommend Cheers Bar (www.cheersbar.com.au) to any U.S. sports fan visiting Sydney. These were the nicest, most accommodating people, and they provided Tyler and I with our own table right in front of one of their big screen TVs featuring the Sugar Bowl. A native of Miami, Florida joined us there who said he came only to see if Utah was in the same league with Alabama. What an understatement! I’m sure he left thinking the other way around – Alabama was not even in the same league with Utah. We nevertheless, enjoyed Cheers greatly. The food was fantastic and reasonably priced, and the selection of beverages was much to our liking. We left Cheers and rode the subway to Kings Cross to rent a car. Then we headed back to Bondi Beach to pick up Kaye and Katie and headed to the wine country.

An odd phenomenon of nature exists in this region. There are trees in the forest with orange tree trunks! We began noticing one here and there, and Katie pondered they had been marked for some reason. I didn’t argue with her logic, but wondered why anyone would go to the trouble of painting the whole tree trunk and branches orange to somehow mark a tree. The further we drove into The Forest of Tranquility (actual name), the more we noticed this phenomenon. Now these are not fluorescent roadside barrel orange. They are more like baby aspirin orange. A very pretty tree, with green leaves. We began to speculate what type of tree this might be. It had not been featured in any of our education about plant biology.

They are very pretty silhouetted against the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Hunter Valley is situated between several of these gorgeous mountains. One particular ridge in view of Pokolbin, where we stayed, is called Brokenback Mountain. We looked hard for sheep herders practicing alternative lifestyles in this area, but none were found. Touring the winery museum, however, did provide us with an interesting story. Wilkinson Winery was owned by a sister and brother in the very early 1900’s, named Audrey and Garth Wilkinson. They were apparently of very wealthy means, and inherited the winery from their parents. They were privileged, and attend numerous picnics, balls and social events hosted by the fine people within this region. It was at one such picnic that Audrey met Beatrice Holmes. Audrey’s personal diary for years thereafter was sprinkled with too much information about her relationship with Beatrice. Being from that era, Audrey probably never thought anyone would read her personal diaries, and planned to destroy them before her death. Audrey died, however, in 1963 without sealing her diaries beforehand. Perhaps she lived before her time and intended it that way. I really don’t know. I won’t share the details of their relationship here, but if you’ve seen the movie, Brokeback Mountain, you can imagine the happiness Audrey and Beatrice shared with each other the remainder of their lives. Garth preceded them in death, and the winery had Audrey added to its name.

Audrey Wilkinson Winery was the first stop on our tour. Now, I’ve been on several wine tours in my lifetime. We’ve been to Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley in California, and we’ve even been on a wine tour in Washington, Missouri at the time we lived in St. Louis. Most U.S. wineries have five, maybe six wines featured at a tasting. In Australia, our initial stop offered no less than 13. I noticed by the seventh wine, Kaye was sitting her glass down on the table with a loud bang each time after she took a sip, as if her arm were heavy or something. By number 12, we cut her off. I knew at this pace, she would be difficult to carry after the second winery we visited, and would not be happy if we just left her sweating on the hot bus.

Fortunately, our next stop was at an olive vineyard. Hunter Olives has the most overwhelming selection of tapenades and relishes, jams and chutneys, sauces and olive oil I’ve ever seen. It was like Williams-Sonoma on steroids. They had plenty of bread strategically placed to sop up the splendid assortment of spreads and dipping sauces. This was a nice reprieve from the wine tasting overdose we’d just experienced.

Then we were on to our next stop, Lucy’s Run Winery. Lucy is a dog. No, I’m not insulting the owner, whose name is John, or his wines. John named his winery after his dog, who’s right there on the premises to greet visitors. We noted when we arrived, at this very modest winery in John’s shed, there were three donkeys standing under a shade tree near the shed (winery). Upon seeing the bus arrive, Lucy ran out and darted toward the fence, scaring the donkeys back. It was as if she were saying, “Get out of here, you inferior creatures. My customers are coming.” After seeing her display of aggression, I was a bit concerned about stepping off the bus. But in an instant, after putting the donkeys in their place, Lucy had changed into the most charming host one could imagine. She sniffed each person getting off the bus, and offered her head to a nice pat or scratch from anyone who so desired. She led us into the shed to the wine tasting room, where John had displayed a selection of wines and more olive spreads and bread. She sat at our feet as we sampled her wares, moving from person to person and leaning up against their leg if they wanted. She could sense who was dog-friendly and who wasn’t, and sat by me for a round before moving on to the next customer. Her dessert wines were incredible, and although we’re not dessert wine drinkers, we bought two bottles.

For the remainder of the day, we visited no less than five wineries, a cheese and gelato shop and a restaurant for lunch. The views of the vineyards are incredible, the food delicious and the wines are outstanding. Along the way we learned a lot and cultivated our ability to speak wine Zen-twaddle. “Zen-twaddle,” is a termed coined by our artist friend, Barb Stroer, back home. It is used to describe that artfully-spoken talk people use to describe their feelings and experiences with something wonderfully made. Many of us would call it bullshit, but that would not be appropriate to say in front of your Australian wine vintner. It goes something like this …

“This flavour rich vintage provides intense lemon, lime and mint characters on the palate, followed by a constant line of elegant acidity to finish the wine.”

“Once again, this wine is typically Hunter in style. It shows a pleasant combination of spicy plum fruit and liquorice integrated with a soft lingering earthiness.”

“This wine is complex, with evident spicy oak overtones, generous fruit on the nose, and is beautifully balanced.”

“This wine is a cheeky little Portuguese varietal, with its abundance of tropical fruit and tight structure, interweaving dreams and passions into one.”

My absolute favorite was our host at Iron Gate Estate Winery. He was definitely more laid back with phrases like:

“We twist it, pull it, and pour it.”

“We practice the 3-R’s here – Remain focused; Remain calm; Remain drinking.”

“Fermentation is like when your Uncle Charlie farts and you leave the room, and come back 30 minutes later and it still smells.”

We finished the day at McLeish Estate Winery, where none other than Bob McLeish himself was our host. You can tell by Bob’s bulbous red nose, he has sampled more than a few bottles from his harvest. Bob had a tasting menu he was supposed to follow that had been laid out by his wife before our visit. Problem was she left him alone, and being the good sport that he is, he let us sample a bottle from every variety in the house. Once again, we cut ourselves off after number 12 and enjoyed the ride back to our lodge for a rest before dinner.

By the way, the orange tree trunk mystery was explained by our bus driver, Derrick. They are a variety of Eucalyptus that shed their bark revealing an orangey sap that coats the tree, but pales as the tree grows older, and weathers in the sun, wind and rain. They eventually turn a chalky-white color with streaks of grey, like a beacon of light at sunrise. Sounds a bit like Zen-twaddle to me.

Relaxation, Sydney Style

Katie post

Hunter Valley, Australia. 1/4. 11:07pm

Wow, it sure has been a while since I’ve written. I’ve missed writing in the blog and now that it is the New Year I think I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. The past month has gone by in a flash of fun and relaxation. I will try to encapsulate it in this overview post. I call it an overview post because it will glide over our happenings since I wrote last and end with the present moment. Therefore, I will be able to get into more detail in my future posts. (This so-called overview may actually take a few posts, so please bear with me)

Ok, let’s see. I’ll start from the beginning. After what turned into a fantastic 2 weeks in Singapore where not only did we get engaged but also enjoyed hob-knobbing around town and Tyler became the city’s #1 model of Chinese-style tuxedos, we boarded a plane on Dec. 15^th to Sydney, Australia. It was only a 7 hour flight and after more than six months of travelling through Asia on buses, trains, you-name-it for up to 36 hours at a time, we were quite comfortable. Over the seven hours I think I watched 2.5 movies, read a bit and just stared into space. Again we were flying Singapore Airlines, which is now officially my favorite airline. They even served us yummy food.

Upon landing, we approached customs and were greeted with giant signs posted everywhere warning arriving travelers that if you didn’t declare goods or food from other countries, you would be fined handsomely. So basically if you had anything that might contaminate the country (such as bug stowaways from foreign lands that could cause the next epidemic on the island nation) you would be in big trouble. Thankfully we got though security without bugs and were cleared to enter the country.

We were so excited. Not only to be in a country we’d dreamed of visiting for years, but also because we actually had someone we knew picking us up from the airport. Steve Olman. Steve is a guy Tyler has known for years. They met back at Michigan State when Steve was Tyler’s TA in his Intro to Accounting class. From there it seemed that everything Steve would do, Tyler would follow, only by coincidence. Case in point: #1.Tyler went to work at Ernst & Young in Chicago one year after Steve did. #2. Tyler went to work at KPMG one year after Steve had transferred there and just so happened to be in the exact same group Steve worked in. So they kept in touch. About 12 months ago Steve told Tyler he was transferring with KPMG to Sydney.

Well, the light bulb went off in our heads. One day when we were in India Steve emailed Tyler telling him we were welcome to rent his place (for quite a bit less than he pays) over the holidays while he was away on vacation. Sweet! To make matters even better, Steve lives about 5 minutes walking distance from the most famous beach in all of Australia: Bondi Beach. We were beside ourselves with excitement.

So after getting successfully through customs, there was Steve to pick us up. We loaded our stuff into his red, open-top Jeep that I immediately called the beach-mobile. About a minute after taking off on the highway, I tilted my head back and smiled. It was 5pm and 85 degrees out. The feel of the warm wind blowing through my hair was heaven.

About 40 minutes later we arrived at Steve’s place. Wow-za. A modern, 2-bed, 2-bath place with wood floors, a big kitchen with an island and track lighting, living room with an L-shaped faux leather couch and a flat screen TV. And an outdoor terrace. Pretty much the nicest place we had an opportunity to stay in within the past 6 months, by a long shot.

A few days after we arrived, Steve and his roommate Jeff left for their holiday (Australian’s word for vacation) to Northern Australia. This meant we had the place to ourselves. We had kinda been tip toeing around them for the 1^st few days since it was their place, but the moment they left we felt as happy as kids in a candy store. Our own place until Jan. 3^rd—a full 2.5 weeks!!!

For the next 2 weeks we fell into the category of what I call lucky dogs. This is a phrase I’ve made up and it doesn’t have anything to do with dogs. It refers to a person who has it really good. I mean really, really good. Well, that was us. Basically every day we would wake up around 10-10:30am and go for a run down by the beach on something called the Coastal Walk. The Coastal Walk should be written in that book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. It is unbelievably beautiful. Think Big Sur, but pedestrian friendly without the cars. Basically we would run the 3 blocks from Steve’s place down to Bondi Beach, swing right and follow a concrete pathway along the rocky coast of Australia. It was honestly the most beautiful place I’ve even ran. Ever. The path was carved into rocky cliffs so that you were looking at the bright blue ocean the entire time. Then, about every 4^th of a mile or so, the cliffs would recede to make way for another beach. After the beach, the cliffs would jut out again, showing the ocean’s beauty and then recede again for another beach. This went on for about 6 miles. I ended up running almost every day.

After running, I would come home and work on my yoga. I bought a mat in India and have been really serious about it ever since. Just yesterday I finally did a headstand on my own—I’m super pumped about that. But anywhoo, after working out we would go out for some lunch at one of the cute outdoor cafes nearby and then grab our towels and spend the rest of the day reading books on the beach. It was honestly heaven. We became members of the Bondi Beach Blockbuster Video store nearby and rented movies nightly. It was just great.

On a few occasions we got off our behinds and went downtown. A few days after we got to Sydney we were just dying to see the world-famous opera house. This is the white building you see in all of the photos of Sydney that kinda looks like it has fins. And there is a bridge nearby. Well, this is the Sydney Opera House and it is right on the Sydney Harbour (they spell it with a “u”—very British). Next to it is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. These two things are the landmarks of Sydney. We hadn’t seen either so we took the subway downtown one day to the stop nearest the opera house. After a 30 minute bus/subway journey, we got off the train and right there, in front of us in plain view was the opera house and the bridge. We could see both perfectly from the subway platform. Both of us were unable to speak for a moment while we soaked it all in. I just couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I’d wanted to see this sight my whole life and there it was. I had chills.

We hurriedly walked down the subway platform and onto the sidewalk leading to the landmark. I think I skipped a little down the sidewalk. There were high-end restaurants on the sidewalk with happy-looking tourists chowing down on salads. Since the opera house is right next to the harbour we were walking along the water. There were tons of ferries waiting to take tourists on cruises. On every light post were pretty white flags advertising the upcoming Sydney New Year’s fireworks display. The theme for the display was Creation. I wondered what that meant.

Upon approaching the opera house my heart was pumping. There was a series of steps leading up to it that made me think of the scene from Rocky where Sly Stallone runs up to the top and yells “Adrienne!” I ran up to the top too, but when I got up there I just tilted my head up and stared at the magnificent building. It was stunning.

The rest of the day was spent walking all over the downtown area and learning about the history of Australia, which I found especially fascinating.

Just a little history lesson: Australia was a county inhabited strictly by Aboriginals until the late-1700s. In what I believe was the late 1780s or so (maybe 1788?) England’s prisons were overflowing. This was a major problem for the European country. So much so that they looked on a map and found an island on the other side of the world to send their criminals to. So for the next 100 years or so, England would send their criminals to live in exile in what is now Australia. What the English didn’t realize was that this little “island” was actually quite large (basically the size of the U.S.) and incredibly livable with a nice year-round climate, specifically in its coastal areas.

Over the 100 years of criminal inhabitation, felons lived quite well. England didn’t have much watch over them, seeing that they were thousands of miles away, so the criminals basically roamed free around what they discovered to be a beautiful country. They even built the infrastructure for a society. This specifically happened in Sydney, where most of them landed. They built European-looking hospitals, pubs, grocery stores, you name it. Finally England got wind of this and came to look for themselves. It was then (mid to late-1800s) that they established what Australia is today. It is still a British Commonwealth, but it has its own government. Kind of confusing. Queen Elizabeth is still their queen.

But anyway, what I found so interesting was that native Australians (this is not including Aboriginals) are actually descendants of criminals. Humph. Well, today Sydney has transformed the area where the criminals arrived into a historic district called The Rocks. It is so neat. Cobblestone streets, old brew pubs, hotels that have been turned into pubs, old churches. Every nook and cranny has history seeping out of it. And it looks so British, which really makes sense since the criminals came from England and that is the only architecture they knew.

So we walked around The Rocks, got some pizza and headed over to a bar we found in our guide book called The Hero of Waterloo. This is a Sydney institution because underneath it lies a maze of caves that leads out to the harbour. Apparently there was a time in the old days that, much like the U.S., alcohol was illegal. Therefore, pubs would smuggle it in through this series of underground tunnels.

We approached the bar and got into a conversation with the bartender about the establishment’s history. She took us downstairs to see the tunnel. There were shackles on the walls where she said they would keep prisoners. We could see the entrance to the tunnel, but you couldn’t get in there because of a “rat problem” she said. Eww. I asked her why there would be prisoners and she said there was a trap door at the end of the bar and every night young men would come into the bar and get drunk. This would happen all the time. Well, at the end of the bar, one lucky mate (Australian for man) would usually be so out of it that they could open the trap door and below would be a group of men to catch the guy as he fell. Then they would carry him out through the tunnels to the harbour and load him on a boat. The guy would wake up the next day on a boat in the middle of the ocean having no recollection of what happened to him and be forced to work on the ship. I guess the shackles where for when the boats weren’t ready for the men and they had to wait in the basement for a while. Craziness.

That was enough history for that day. We went home and watched one of our videos from Blockbuster.

One great thing about living in an apartment was that we could go shopping for our food instead of spending $14 on a burger at a restaurant. So one day not too long after we arrived we headed to Woolworths, the area’s largest grocer (wasn’t that a 5-in-dime store in the U.S. back in the day?), to buy some grub.

What we thought was going to be a quick trip to the supermarket turned into an educational experience in Australian culture and terminology. As I was walking through the aisles I heard a woman trying to get past another woman wheeling a stroller with her toddler in it. The woman who was trying to get past said to the other woman, “Miss, could you please move your pram?” I thought: what is she talking about? What the heck is a pram? Well, since then I’ve learned pram is the Australian word for stroller. Hmm.

I then accidentally turned into the diaper aisle. In my defense I had no idea it was diaper aisle. The sign on the aisle said “nappies.” I thought it meant napkins. Nope. Nappies = diapers in Australia.

Ok, this one was disheartening. Tyler and I are massive fans of Mexican food so we thought it would be nice to make a few fajitas for dinner with some chips and salsa. I looked in the chip aisle (oh, they call both regular French fries and potato chips, chips—confusing) and there was the salsa. But no tortilla chips. They had loads (Australians use the words “loads” or “heaps” constantly to replace the word tons) of Doritos, but not tortilla chips. I was stumped. I proceeded to look on every single shelf of that confounded store for Tostitos, but came up with nothing. I ended up buying hard taco shells and breaking them apart as a substitute. I wondered why they had salsa next to their chips. Get this—turns out they dip their Doritos into salsa. The thought makes me want to vomit.

The last bit of knowledge I gained from our trip to the supermarket was that Australians don’t eat maple syrup. Nope. We wanted to make French toast for breakfast the next day and only with the help of 2 supermarket employees did I find the store’s one and only bottle of maple syrup on the top shelf of the cake aisle. Cake aisle? Yeah, anyway, the bottle was just enough for about a ½ of a piece of French toast, but I bought it anyway. The next morning the “maple syrup” we dipped our French toast in tasted more like sticky, spicy Kool-Aid dyed brown. Lesson learned. Guess they don’t have Maple trees in Australia.

I’d say one of the big highlights of our 2 weeks at Steve’s place (this is all pre-Tyler’s parents visit, which I will get into in the next post), was Christmas. This was going to be the first Christmas either of us had spent away from our families. We were sad not to be able to spend time with them, but tried to make the day as special as possible with just the two of us. Since neither of us thought it appropriate to spend money on each other when we are on this journey together and our money isn’t exactly busting out of our pockets, we decided that Tyler would make Christmas Eve dinner and I would make Christmas dinner.

It was lovely. He grilled (did I mention Steve has a grill? Tyler was so happy.) steaks and made mashed potatoes into the shape of xmas trees with asparagus on the side. Scrumptious. I made him bruchetta, pasta and cookies.

A few days before Christmas we got a massive package in the mail from Jenna and Kyle (Tyler’s sister and brother-in-law). We opened it and found 2 bottles of wine, one bottle of champagne, chocolates, and cookies! It was the only thing we were going to open for xmas and we were so excited. It was so generous of them and we were touched.

So on Christmas night we took advantage of their gift. After a day of sun and fun where we soaked up rays at the beach with the crowds and made a sandman (instead of a snowman) and named him Russell Crowe (we even got interviewed by a local TV station for our sand creation), we sat down to a nice dinner and listened to the Christmas carols we downloaded from iTunes. Not too long after finishing our food, we switched on Bob Segar and started dancing around the living room. Pretty soon I found myself belting out “Old Time Rock ‘n Roll” into an empty wine bottle and looking across the room to see Tyler doing the sprinkler. It was great. This went on for a good 2 hours. We love Bob Segar. He helped us feel a little more at home on Christmas.

Happy New Year!!!

Don post

Sydney, Australia. January 2, 2009

(Hidey Ho and happy new year! Welcome to another installment of our guest blogger series. Tyler’s parents, Kaye and Don Myhan, are currently visiting us from Chicago and Don has decided to write a post about some of our experiences so far. We are so happy he has because it is always nice to get another person’s point of view on the craziness that is our lives. Enjoy and have a great year!)

I was glad to be asked to guest blog on this web site, primarily for the benefit of those poor souls back home that have become addicted to following this journey. Tyler and Katie shared with me they get about 60 people visiting this web site daily. They don’t know who reads it, but the web master provides them the number of people visiting here each day. I shared with them the growing anxiety those people are experiencing when they have to go for over a week without a post, so here’s your fix for the week.

We are having a wonderful time in Sydney.  Tyler and I cooked dinner on New Year’s Day.  His friend, Dave Thomas, from Chicago and now San Francisco, is in town on vacation with his brother.  They came over and joined us for dinner.  Then everyone, except Mom, went down to the beach and walked around the cliffs to Bondi Icebergs Bar.

Guess who was there?  Paris Hilton!  Seriously!  We came up the sidewalk, and there were tons of paparazzi waiting outside.  My first thought was, OK, they found out Tyler Beckham Myhan is in town, but no one took any photos of Tyler and his entourage.  Katie went up and asked one of the paparazzo (is that the singular of paparazzi?) why they were here, and one of them told her Paris Hilton was inside.  This is a private club and you have to sign in, giving your address and all.  We gladly signed in (as guests of Paris) and went inside.  Once we were in, we realized Paris’ party was on the upper level, and we had entered the lower level.  We tried to go upstairs, but heavy security was in the way.  Katie gave them her best speech about reasons they should let us in, but nothing worked.  We were resigned to sitting on the lower level, perched above the ocean leaning over the balcony trying to catch a glimpse of Paris just above.  There was disco music with that beat where you know people are dancing and having a great time. The lower level extended a little further toward the ocean than the balcony above. We had a nice seaside table, but people were spilling their drinks on us from Paris’ party upstairs.  After a couple hours of gawking, I think we saw Paris, and took her picture as she stood on the balcony.  Then we found out she had left an hour ago.   We never even saw her, but it was kind of fun knowing she was standing about 10 feet over our heads, spilling her drink on the little people below, maybe for the first hour we were there.

New Year’s Eve, we headed down to Sydney Harbour around 10:00 a.m.  We arrived via subway at Martin Place train station, near the Botanical Gardens.   We were headed to Mrs. Macquaries’ Point, a peninsula right across the Harbour from the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.  We arrived around 11:00 a.m. and found a sea of people standing in line.  We found out later there were over 1.5 million people at the Harbour that day, and I believe at least half of them were in this line. Security was checking every bag, so we kind of fell in with the crowd and actually were quite near the front.  I don’t want to say we broke in line, but we were just kind of swallowed up by the crowd, and had to go with the flow.  It seems we were one of the first groups into the park.

This was the most ethnically diverse group of people I’d ever seen in one place together, but one thing stood out – Kaye and me.  Everyone was twenty-something, and Kaye and I were the oldest people in this group.  The crowd thinned out once we got inside, and we were on our way (about a mile walk) out to the point, to claim our spot for the fireworks display, some 13 hours later that evening.  We found a nice magnolia tree with a great shady spot in view of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge in the background.  It was beautiful, and we took several photos.  It was hot, however, and the temperature steadily rose during the day.  There were numerous food stands around, so we checked out the Thai food first, but settled on a nice Himalayan dish at the booth next door.  It had fried chicken kabobs, rice, potatoes, noodles, and a little lettuce and tomato with yoghurt sauce.  They could have put more salad and less carbs on that, but when dining with the Himalayans, you eat as the Himalayans do. Katie had a Middle Eastern dish, like a quesadilla with feta cheese and spinach.  Sounds Mexican, but there were no Mexican food vendors in this place. As ethnically diverse as it was, I don’t believe I saw people from Mexico in the crowd.

The beer tent opened at 2:00 p.m., among much celebration within the growing crowd.  Beer was $8.00 per can, but you did get a $1.00 refund if you returned the can in exchange for your next beer. Bottled water and cans of Coca Cola were $4.00 each. Water was our drink of choice for the day – a wise decision.

Mid-afternoon Kaye and I were beginning to grow weary.  The crowd surge at that point was becoming so large that every square inch of lawn space was being taken over by partying twenty year olds.  The sun, by this time, was beginning to drop lower on the branches of our fantastic shade tree, and we found ourselves moving slightly, this way or that, to shield our eyes from the blazing sun with even the smallest magnolia leaf we could find hanging on the tree.  By four o’clock, there was no shade left at all, and the fireworks display was still 8 hours away.  We had to begin holding up objects around us to shield our face. Shifting from a book, to a beach bag, then a neck pillow to get a little reprieve from the hot sun. Placing a towel over your face was too suffocating in that heat. The snow in Chicago would have been a relief at the moment, but only for a moment. I would take this weather over Chicago winter weather any day. It’s just that I wouldn’t choose to sit in one place under a blazing sun and roast for hours at a time.

Now there was a time when I would have loved this scene, but that was 30 years ago. Today my butt was sore, my skin was burning, my feet hurt, and trying to lie down brought more pain to any pressure point against the hard ground. At this point Michael Jackson’s Thriller came over the boom box to my right. A group of kids stood up and started that zombie dance in unison. I thought of joining them, but my knees creaked when I stood up, and it was all I could do to hold my balance. Forget that. I felt old and sat back down.

Around six o’clock I realized the sun was going to set behind the tall buildings in downtown Sydney, and we watched the clock trying to hurry it along.  Finally, around 7:30 p.m. it was blocked off by one of the buildings, and the temperature dropped to a tolerable level.  The partying twenty-year olds were drinking $8.00 beers like they were water. Remember the bag check? No one was allowed to bring alcoholic beverages inside the park, I’m sure so they could sell $8.00 beer, and you would feel good about getting a $1.00 refund on your next one. But twenty-year olds can be creative. One young man in front of us pulled out his gallon-size jug of apple juice. He proudly proclaimed the juice inside was actually Jack Daniels, and proceeded to pour his buddies some “apple juice.”  They were mixing it with the $4.00 soda pop. Jack n’ Coke – Lynchburg, Tennessee would be proud.

Another group was smoking pot right on the other side of the tree trunk from us.  People were up dancing and falling over people.  One rather attractive blonde was dancing right in front of us. While shaking her booty she stumbled backwards and fell, and in the process spilled her glass of wine on the poor guy sitting in front of her.  Have I said we were growing weary (with the fireworks display now only five hours away)?   We endured this until the 9:00 p.m. early fireworks show, and having seen some fireworks, Kaye and I declared our weariness was just about at the point of despair, and we were heading back to the apartment.  We said our goodbyes and left Katie and Tyler there to ring in the New Year without us.

Remember it is a long walk back to the entrance, and a subway and bus ride back to Bondi Beach.  By the time we arrived home, Kaye had two huge blisters on her toes, and another one that had ruptured between her toes.  She was hardly able to walk.   We settled in front of the TV in an air conditioned apartment and watched the fireworks display from there.  We wished each other Happy New Year with a kiss, and promptly fell asleep until Katie and Tyler rang the doorbell around 1:40 a.m.  It was 2009 in the Land Down Under.