Wednesday, January 26, 2011

last 9 months ... a-z

being home is a funny thing. it's hard to come back and start from nothing, to re-establish yourself and know what to do. thinking about the last 9 months is a whirlwind, i can't really digest it all ... so this is a simplified version i started putting together for myself.

A
"Adelaide or bust" -- the name of our beloved car, a '94 mitsubishi magna wagon. she actually started off with the name "huey". maybe that's why the second day we had her, she refused to start. after renting bicycles, riding to the car store, riding back balancing a heavy car battery, installing it, it still not starting, and then getting help from a friendly local ... she started again. a rebirth, with a new name, zoe. unfortunately zoe died one more time (after she was broken into to top it off) and was renamed "adelaide or bust" ... with problems good ol' adelaide got us *almost* all over the lovely country of australia.


B
"Bats!" -- one of the most amazing sights we saw on the trip. while driving down from Brisbane to Sydney we stopped in the small, but beautiful town of Bellingen. we had some dinner, and then parked down by the river to have some tea. a family pulls up next to us, sits on the grass, and we hear the dad say. "it's about to start". next thing we know the sky is filled with hundreds and then thousands of fruit bats. it was amazing to see the sky black from bats, when not expecting it at all.

C
"Conor, Cass, Courtney, and (Kaye)" -- what an amazing family! in total they probably hosted us almost a third of the time of our trip!... not to mention, gave us a home and a family to spend christmas with. it was great to see an aussie christmas and get a glimpse of the meehan traditions. google "the snowman". it's life changing.

D
"Dusseldorf!" -- because it was a random and fun stop! the flight back from France to Thailand ended up having a 5 hour layover in Dusseldorf. just enough time to get into town have a few beers and sausages and make the flight back. we were instantly transported into a taste of german culture ... the beers were delicious and cheap. one tasted practically like coca-cola, and they served it with ice cream and biscuits... yum!

E
"elephants" -- one of the most "touristy" things we did was book an elephant trek. this included a elephant ride through the jungle, followed by a bath in the river. our elephant was hilarious! we are sitting in the river on our elephant. with a thai man in the water screaming commands at him. apparently, the thai man thinks tourists want the elephant to suck up water with its trunk and spray us repeatedly. our elephant wasn't having enough. the thai man is screaming at him and he just falls over (with us on his back) and i just remember thinking, "oh god, i'm about to get crushed by an elephant"... it happened twice before the man finally stopped yelling.

F
"Fromage song!" -- France was amazing, Marie's family was so welcoming and we were luck to spend time with them ... and lucky us got to meet a good deal of Camille's family as well for her mom's birthday celebration. apparently. at parties french people like to dress up like mice and sing about cheese, who knew?

G
"Guy Sebastian" -- randomly, i am in love with the first australian idol winner, guy sebastian. one of the goals of this trip was to celebrate the new year in a different country. while deciding what to do for new years' i nearly died when the paper said he was performing for free! a sort of excited of gasp was let from me out which prompted something along the lines of "are you okay?" from conor's mom. anyways, guy was adorable and new years' was lovely. paul ended the night with a sprained ankle?

H
"heights" -- Australia has at least a couple things that would never fly in the states, one of them being climbing trees. these are trees upwards of 100 meters (300 ft!) with little metal rods stuck in the sides that you are expected to use to climb up to the top. to their credit, there is some sort a half-assed mesh type thing which i guess might hold you in if you fall. it was amazing, but on the way down i was shaking and scared and SO happy to be back on solid ground.

I
"Ian" -- we met so many overwhelmingly friendly and generous people on the trip. Ian was a random guy we met on the bus, we ended up talking to him for a while, found out we were going to the same place, and he gave us his number in case we needed anything. well, the first time our car seized to start we called Ian (as well as brian murphy) ... to ask if he recommened any mechanics in the area. he answers by saying he knows a bit about cars and offers to come take a look at it. he spends an hour or so checking connections and fiddling with things and amazingly gets it to start! in addition, he left is with tools, jumper cables, etc. and a lovely dinner at his house. not to mention more help when we got a flat tire a couple days later.

J
"Jim the Mechanic" -- our second guardian angel when it comes to the car. Ian came to our aid the first time it died, and Jim came the second time. we needed to put new tires on the car and brought them over to goodyear to have them fitted, but they were closed so we went acorss the street and met Jim, an old, jolly italian. at first he said they didn't have time to do it (I saw him repeatedly turn down business) but his mechanic said he would do it anyway so we sat and talked with Jim while our tires got put on. we got along well and he invited us out to dinner, gave us a place to stay for a few nights, and did a full check-up on the car (all free) before we took it on our first road trip. it was an amazing random meeting at that - but when we got back into town the car refused to start a second time. we were ready to sell it, but called jim for advice. he set up a cheap tow for us, housed us again and put $500+ worth of work into our car for nothing. he was a great guy, and it was sad to say goodbye.

K
"Keith and Kristine" -- while working out in the middle of nowhere "shire" of Ravensthorpe we met the sweetest couple, Keith and Kristine. they invited us out to their property for the day, picked us up, fed us tea and homemade scones, took us on a drive through the local ranges, guided us on a bushwalk through their land, taught us about the local wildflowers, introduced us to their animals (we corraled kangaroos!) and shared some great conversation. they are currently buidling their dream house on the piece of land ... all the waiter is sustainably sourced and everything will be run on solar energy. they were incredibly warm and welcoming ... and meeting person after person like this was incredible refreshing.

L
"Laurent, Leila, Livia (Dom, Marek, and Ebba) -- the spent three weeks wwoofing at the hepburn retreat center/continental house (lovingly known as "conti") ... these people were our instant family. laurent and leila were from france, livia (our yoga teacher) from slovakia, ebba from switzerland, dom and marek locals, and zalan the leader of it all. the place is a vegan retreat on beautiful grounds with plants and food growing all over. we spent a couple hours a day working in the garden or working on the grounds, lots of peaceful painting and weed-whacking (what they would call whipper-snippering). every night we would have a lovely family dinner and it was an unforgettable experience to be in an environment that was so instanty accepting. as one particularly colorful local (peter saggitarius put it, "fusion without the con". think about it!
i have so many memories of this place, coming home and being surprised by luxurious massages from our resident masseuses laurent and dom, english lessons with the frenchies (we go to gangbang now?) this place was special, i thank cass so much for telling us about it!

M
"monkeys!" -- in Thailand we decided to make a pit stop in the toen of Lopburi on our way up to Chiang Mai. the town is famous for its gang of monkeys (apparently they have a half blind leader). we check into our room see a couple monkeys on the windowsill and think its pretty cool. after that we decide to take a walk. literally, we turn a corner and there are monkeys everywhere! on telephone wires, on the sidewalks, in the streets, like pigeons. they are weaving in and out of the traffic, jumping in and out of peoples' truck beds. one comes up behind us, rips the bag we're carrying, grabs our food and proceeds to eat in in front of us just out of reach. paul bends down to take a photo and next thing i know they are on his back!

N
"Nimbin" -- the pot capital of Australia. not being big smokers ourselves, we still couldn't resist this town after all we've heard about it. it was, for the most part, a pretty innocent experience. the local lawn bowling club basically ended up adopting us for the weekend. after checking out the town (and being offered goodies at leat 50 times) we decide to head to the local bar of the bowling club to check out their karaoke night. a big old, slightly dirty and belligerent fellow with a huge white beard comes up to us and asks us if we want to smoke. why not? after doing so, we find out this character is actually the owner of the bar! so, the owner of the bar smoked us out, and to add to that the security guard tried to buy weed off of us. next came the karaoke. i never though we'd end up singing, but of course we debut as a duet singing none other than "im yours". paul goes on to sing a jet song and for me - rihanna. what? we end up winning a free 6 pack! the next day we get invited out to bowl and join a bbq - friendly people, friendly town.

O
"Opera House" -- I really didn't expect to enjoy the opera house as much as I did - it's one of those pieces of architecture that's perfect to lie down in a park and just gaze at. (the eiffel tower is this way as well, but the opera house is just so interestingly designed). i think one of the great sites of thr trip was our first view of the opera house and sydney. we were staying in the nearby beach town of manly and took the ferry into sydney the very first time. you turn the corner in the boat and get this grand view of the city, the harbor, the bridge and the opera house. it's an overhwelming view, and provides one of those "holy shit, i'm in australia" moments.

P
"pies!" -- the aussies seem to love their pies and the like. our only real job in australia was working in a roadhouse. this is a gas station/"food" stall in the middle of nowhere. the food was ... something else. either it was frozen pies we baked, or some type of frozen thing which we first microwaved and then deep fried. to make it worse, it was a bp roadhouse we were working at right in the height of all the oil spill mess. the owners were overbearing and ridiculously anal (i felt like i was in an awkward tv show the majority of the time there) but it was an experience and we got paid (unlike our other job).

Q
"quokka" -- i assumes quokka was just the name of the australian paper in which we found our used surfboards and wetsuits, but it's really like the cutest animal ever! it's kind of like a kangaroo/cat/guinea pig ... in my opinion. sadly, after i realized what it was, i never saw one in real life.

R
"Rod Caddies" -- (of http://rodeofest.com.au/) ... Rod provided us with our first couchsurfing experience ever. he was an amazing host and so laid back ... i remember walking into an unlocked house with no one there and us just wondering if that was normal. Rod is one of the most laid back and generous people I've met. and to top it off, he's interesting as heck! he is a former ex-professional bull rider. a couple months ago he shattered his pelvis and is now taking to organizing hiw own rodeo events. he is trying to bring the rodeo out of the small rural towns and into big cities at cheap prices for families ... thanks to Rod I am also now randomly a published australian writer ... Rodeo magazine! we stayed with him and he helped us out during some tight times, and shared some good ol' aussie folk songs with us.

S
"sunset surf" -- I don't know what we would have done if we didn't surf. It was the one thing we could do in every town that always provided a great experience and didn't cost a thing! I've always been intrigued by sunset surfs but never seemed to get the timing right, until our very last surf in oz at manly beach near Sydney. the waves were perfect and everything was bathed in the most beautiful shades or orange, pink, purple and everything in between. we surfed for hours and were some of the last people out of the ocean. it was absolutely beautiful.

T
"Trat" -- a little random town we found ourselves in one night in Thailand. we had a beautiful room for about $3 a night and the most amazing night market right up the street. we had plate after plate of food and deserts for at the most 50 cents each. from Trat we took a ferry to Ko Chang island. i remember grabbing a raft form our beach bungalow and just floating on it in the ocean, looking at the outline of the island, and having trouble believing i was where i was in that moment. halfway across the world in one of the most beautiful and peaceful environments I'd ever experienced. our big island activity was renting a motorbike. we rode it all the way around, through the jungle, and through rocky dirt roads that the bike was surely not meant to handle. the most amazing sight was probably a black cobra. we turned a corner and he was there in the middle of the dirt path, perked up, neck flared out looking ready to attack. it was incredible to see it in person, luckily he retreated because i was too amazed to even feel like i was in danger.

U
"uni" -- out of all the weird things we ate, this was probably my favorite. fresh uni right out if the urchin, looks weird and feels weird but i thought it was quite good. a little salty a little sweet and a little rich. the weirdest thing we ate was expectedly in thailand. i had seen these little waffle type things on a stick and had been wanting to try them all day. so in the evening we had our dinner and went to get some for our sweets. i bet into it and its filled with ... hot dog.

V
"Vegemite" -- another one of my now favortie things I tried. for months I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. towards the end of the trip vegemite on toast with avocado was my absolute favorite breakfast. paul liked it with peanut butter??

W
"Wallaroo" -- one of our funnest weekends was spent in this town, somewhere we would have never went if it wasn't for yet another amazing person we met on the road. the second time we vistied Conor in adelaide he introduced us to his lovely Toby, who within five minutes of meeting us invited us up to his familie's home in Wallaroo for the weekend. his parents are the sweetest thing, they wake you up with hugs in the morning and the rest of his family there is just as friendly. we spent a day out on the boat, snorkeling and trying our best to catch all kinds of seafood. despite our catch we had beautiful fresh seafood to eat all weekend with wonderful company. we were there on halloween weekend, which apparently isn't a big australian holiday. what did we do? watch ghost - yes, the demi moore/patrick swayze ghost.

X
"x-rated" ... never mind

Y
"yoga" -- one of our funnest days on the road trip was in the hippie haven of byron bay. it started out with a 6am yoga class -- which inever thought we would have gotten up for. but it turned out to be one of my favorite classes i've taken, all for a measely $5. that set the tone for a great day. after that we ventured to the local farmer's market, had a surf in byron's beautiful blue waters, and then another yoga class (this time free!) ... something about yoga and surfing in the smae day makes me feel so good, twice a day yoga makes it even better, and all of that in australia makes it the best.

Z
"Zalan" -- Zalan, probably the most interesting person we met on the trip. he was the owner of our vegan wwoofing sanctuary, conti. he is a 62 year old fruitarian, with long dangly arms and legs and a long dangly rat-tail. for just eating fruit, he was always working non-stop. weeding in the garden, painting floors, hauling clippings, he was always moving and searching for him was a daily activity. one of the funnest memories was preparing the monthly raw foods banquet with him. his approach was different than any raw preparation i've done and i learned a lot. strictly into whole foods, he refuses to use salt, spices, even onion or garlic. oh, and prefers to use 3 ingredients or less in everything he makes. he definitely has his own way of doing everything, and i'll remember a lot of it. his food was delicious! i have endless stories about him ... one of those people i won't soon forget.

while trying to rebuild my life down here it's helpful to look back on the year like this and realize everything that happened ... anything i'm going through now was worth it. looking through this list, i realize just what an impact the people i met had on the experience. i remember before leaving someone telling me it would be the people we met that would be the most amazing -- and i didn't really think that would be as true as it turned out to be. i can definitely be shy when it comes to meeting new people -- but this trip has reaffirmed how many amazing and genrous people there are out there -- and that's probably one of the things i was most grateful to realize and take away from the whole experience. i think when traveling you're more alone and more likely to reach out to others and it turned out amazing every time -- one of my goals now that i'm back is to try and continue that in my day to day life.

<3