Maybe On the Way Back...

Canada - Ottawa - Home At Last.

2009-12-06T22:34:00.008-05:00

I'm home, I'm broke and I'm back to reality. Sigh.

Best way to cure end of trip blues? Start planning the next one!!

Canada - En Route to Ottawa - It Ain't Over Til It's Over!

2009-12-05T08:06:00.002-05:00

As I embarked on my ridiculous transit route home, I was filled with the excitement of going home, the disappointment that the trip was over and the terror that I would miss my connecting flights and my bags would be horribly lost (see Flight to LA, January 2009). I had heard very bad things about British Airways losing luggage, about Heathrow and O'Hare being the world's worst airports, and had had bad experiences with American Airlines rebooking connecting flights.

My travels home began pleasantly enough, with my bags (there are now TWO, the backpack and the duffel bag) weighing in at 34 kg combined, up 21 kg from my departure last January. I was delighted to learn that I could check my bags straight through from Vienna to Ottawa without having to move them to security or between terminals along the way. I did triple confirm that I wouldn't have to reclaim them in Heathrow, since I was handed an intimidating manual on how to change terminals there along with my boarding passes.

Heathrow itself was certainly massive and busy, but it was well organized and signs were posted intelligently to redirect passengers. Better yet, I managed to score the shortest security line by far to get into my next terminal (about thirty people shorter than the next shortest queue). And wandering around for my two hour layover was actually fairly entertaining. All the Christmas decor was up (there was nothing in Ethiopia; I had actually forgotten Christmas is coming) and it felt just like being on the set of Love Actually, minus Billy Mac's hilarious tune Christmas is All Around. Things were looking up.

And then the other shoe dropped. Having boarded our plane to Chicago completely on time, we then sat at our loading gate for 45 minutes while a minor traffic jam was addressed on the runway. Not a problem, thought I, since I have a four hour layover to kill in Chicago anyways. One less hour to wait at O'Hare, right?

Which would have been dandy, except about forty minutes into the air, the flight attendant goes on the intercom to ask if there are any medical staff on board. Turns out a passenger with a heart condition was having a tiny medical emergency in the back of the plane. We had to make an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland to evacuate him to a hospital (don't worry; the paramedics got him under control and safely to the hospital). Thank goodness it hadn't happened midway over the Atlantic where there is nowhere to land!

Now, Shannon is only a domestic airport and it was off course for us, so it took no less than three hours to reroute our flight and landing time with Chicago, not to mention we were NOT ALLOWED OFF THE PLANE because they didn't have adequate security to process us. So we had our light lunch grounded on the runway and took off three hours later with the promise that the pilots would make every effort to make up the lost time. Unfortunately, since planes already go so fast, there's not a lot you can do to make up time. There isn't a network of shortcuts they save up for such occasions or anything. And there goes my connecting flight to Ottawa.

As I hurriedly enter O'Hare airport twelve hours later, I learn I now have a connecting flight at 9pm (a three hour layover still) with my dear friend United Airlines. The only downside of United is that it requires me to reclaim my bags, go through US immigration and customs and re-check them since they have to change airlines now and need new tags. Boooooo. At this point, I have been awake for 25 hours due to my 4am departure from Vienna and the seven time zones I had crossed. It tok every ounce of determination not to pass out at my gate before my flight, as I knew I would be OUT and therefore would likely sleep through the boarding call.

I did however pass right out as soon as I hit my seat on the plane and pleasantly awoke to find out the flight attendant was passing out Canada landing cards since we wer on our descent already. My immigration officer was incredibly nice and welcomed me home very genuinely and I cannot tell you how happy I was to see my parents waiting for me with my winter coat, my bags safely rounding the luggage carousel and the ground still clear of snow!

Home sweet home, indeed!!

Ethiopia - Lalibela - Another Contender for Eighth Wonder of the World

2009-12-04T17:27:00.002-05:00

The number one tourist destination outside of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is a city of 25,000 people called Lalibela. The reason for its popularity is that it is the site of the should-be-more-famous rock-hewn churches. Yet one of Lalibela’s greatest assets is that it does not seem to have been affected by tourism. The twelve churches are a living relic of history, with hundreds of Ethiopian Orthodox followers making a pilgrimage to them every year at Christmas and Timkat (Easter).

I wasn’t sure what to expect and as we approached the church site, all I could see was the tent coverings installed by the UN to protect the churches from the weather. You see, the churches were not carved into the mountainside, but rather hewn out of the rock below your feet.

Yes, they are underground! There are three different kinds: the cave church (which is a cave carved in the ground), the semi-monolithic (which is partially stand-alone and partially cave-like) and the monolithic church (which stands completely separately from the ground around it, i.e. you can walk around the entire perimeter of the building). And these are not little chapels my friends… St. George, the most famous of the churches, is three floors high!

It is still not known how the churches were constructed but as we admired the tiny chisel marks found on every wall inside, outside and around the churches, we couldn’t help but think some teeny tiny hand tools and tons of people that would have been required to operate them. The churches took 25 years to build, to give you a point of reference. On the whole, pretty amazing to see!

In addition to being free from tourism fever, Lalibela makes Axum seem positively cosmopolitan in comparison. The road is only partially paved, compared with Axum’s pervasive construction of infrastructure projects. There are about five minibuses in town; these constitute the only forms of transportation for hire for the entire city. Most people travel by donkey or on their own two feet, and some of them are carrying some pretty serious loads of wood or goods for the market.

One reason for Lalibela’s integrity is its isolation. The nearest town is 160km away. Lalibela itself has one road and before the airport was built it was a 5 day donkey ride to get there. Did I mention it’s also perched on top of a mountain? We stayed at Mountain View Hotel, a brand new hotel that takes full advantage of the views.

From anywhere in the mostly glass hotel, you get sweeping vistas over the mountains behind and the massive valley below. An ideal place to stay for my last trip within the big trip.

After this, I head back to Addis to pack my life back into my backpack, say goodbye to friends and jetset home on my unfortunate two day transit route of Addis-Cairo-Vienna-London-Chicago-Ottawa. Here’s hoping Ottawa isn’t too cold when I arrive home!!

Egypt - Cairo - Awesome! And Absolutely Bonkers!

2009-11-25T08:40:00.002-05:00

Cairo is definitely a love-hate relationship. It is both one of the most interesting and most difficult cities I’ve been to on this trip. It actually reminds me a bit of Havana because it has so much personality. It’s not just another big city; when you’re in Cairo, you know you’re in Cairo. And it is a BIG city. Home to 24 million people and 8 million commuters (imagine the province of Ontario commuted to work every day to Montreal...), the traffic is insane and the city never sleeps. Looking out over the skyline, you see new high rises next to European apartments in between minarets from the many mosques with the odd Coptic Christian church steeple in the mix.

We parked ourselves at a great hostel on the doorstep of the famous Egyptian Museum, which took us the better part of a day to gawk at and probably could have taken two weeks to fully explore. They have so many artefacts that they leave a bunch on the lawn outside.

Despite the massive size of the museum, there isn’t enough display room for everything. They have an exhibit specifically devoted to Royal Mummies, as well as the bonanza finds of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, where you can see Tut’s iconic death mask up close and personal. The astonishing wealth of the Pharaohs is apparent here; King Tut’s copious goodies are all gold and precious stones and he was a paltry king compared to the big fish like Ramsis II!

Tourism is the second biggest industry here after the Suez Canal, and it shows. It sometimes feels like every Egyptian we meet is a professional Egyptologist, by far the most common university degree here and probably one of the greatest job titles I’ve come across. It’s amazing how much of their very ancient civilization is still around and being found. Egypt even has its own antiquities police, who are armed with not one but two AK-47s to protect cultural heritage sites.

We were unclear on whether the police are professional or conscripted; every Egyptian man must serve in the army here. They can reduce their time of service with education. A high school diploma drops you from three years to two; a university degree gets you down to one. And apparently a Western wife is a get out of jail free card... though no one could explain why.

This last clause may explain somewhat the excess of marriage proposals Mehron and I were bombarded with our entire time in Egypt. Most men we met, from the bus drivers to the waiters to random men in the street, were relentlessly pursuing our hands in marriage. We pulled our usual trick of inventing husbands at home in Canada, however in Egypt, this is insufficient. We were told we must also have Egyptian husbands! We were unable to avoid this unwanted attention no matter how hard we tried. Being foreigners was a big part of it as well, as we saw several local women in very tight clothing (and hijabs) escaping the comments and propositions, while no matter how much we covered ourselves, the level of attention did not vary.

This constant harassment made walking around more of a hassle than a pastime in Egypt, so we didn’t wander the city as much as we would have otherwise. We met up with Mehr’s friend Camilla who studies in Cairo several times to see a bit more of the town, including the big Souk market Khan el Khalili and landmark restaurants like Seqoia and Felfela.

Our favourite food by far was koshary, the national fast food, and the best place to get some is Abou Tarek, which only makes koshary and rice pudding. Now, when I describe it, the ingredients may seem unlikely but when mixed together, I assure you they are scrumptious. Take a bowl and pack it with spaghetti noodles, rice, rice noodles and macaroni. Add lentils and chick peas. Top with fried onions and pureed tomato. Pour on hot sauce and da’a sauce (garlic oil with cumin, coriander and other spices) and stir it up. Not only is it tasty, it is also very filling. One bowl of this got us through most of the day. To give an idea of how much we liked it, we ate it 8 out of the 10 days we spent in Egypt.

Would I go again? Final verdict: Yes, if only for Abou Tarek’s koshary and rice pudding!

Egypt - Aswan to Luxor - Upper Kingdom Extravaganza

2009-11-10T10:08:00.003-05:00

So Mehron and I have turned out to be Egypt-philes and spent the past five days whipping through all the major sights of ancient Egypt which has been fast but amazing.

We took the overnight train in first class seats to Aswan from Cairo, which wasn't half bad... vaguely reminiscent of the buses in South America without the sweet service. We arrived fourteen hours later in pretty rough shape but bounced back after a little nap and a much needed shower. We got to check out both the High Dam and the Philae Temple our first afternoon. The High Dam was built with the Russians' help, creating the massive 500km Lake Nasser south of Aswan.

The Philae Temple was moved to higher ground on what became an island to prevent it from being lost in the dam building process. The evening was spent wandering around the lively weekend marketplace and being disappointed to discover that shawarma here is served on a hot dog bun instead of inside a pita. What?!

The next morning we were up in the middle of the night at 2am to catch our bus to Abu Simbel. I hate being awake at that hour of the day, but the temples of Ramses II and Nefertari there were on my bucket list... so up I got. We drove three hours through the desert in a massive convoy of a hundred buses and minibuses and were blown away by the temples. Ramses II built them to deify himself and his favourite wife (he had dozens of them and 111 sons or something) and to scare the Nubians away from invading Egypt from the south. They were actually lost in the sands for a thousand years or so before an Italian tripped on one and dug it out.

These temples also had to be moved before Lake Nasser was created by the dam... yes, the Lake is that big. But they messed up in reorienting the temples... the holy chamber is supposed to be illuminated twice a year on the solstices on the 21sts, but once they moved them, they were bummed to discover that the illumination now happens on the 22nds. Whoops. Goes to show we still have no idea how Egyptian engineering or architecture works!

The rest of our day we lazed on a felucca boat sailing down the Nile towards Luxor and overnighted on the boat on the banks of the Nile. Did I mention we sailed down the Nile? Perfect way to spend the rest of a day that started WAY too early.

Next morning we were delivered to a minibus that was taking us the rest of the way to Luxor (Aswan to Luxor is 4 days sail by felucca), with two stops at the Kom Ombo crocodile god temple and the Horus Edfu temple, the best preserved temple in Egypt. Edfu rates top four; it was excellent and I'd never heard of it before. In Luxor, we visited West Bank, the necropolis of the Valley of the Kings and Queens' tombs of the New Kingdom, and East Bank, where the ancient temples of old Egyptian Thebes still stand in the middle of the current city. No photos allowed in the Valleys, but the colours were still intact from when they were painted thousands of years ago because they're protected underground.

We also visited Hatshepsut's Temple, the only female Pharaoh and first known female ruler of ancient times. She was quite a lady... she refused to give up the throne after her husband died to her nephew the heir, and ruled for 22 years alone greatly increasing Egypt's trade and commerce with the south. Her nephew after she died tried to erase her from history, so her image is scratched out just about everywhere she inscribed herself. Bitter much...

I skipped the Luxor temple because I was getting a little overdosed on hieroglyphics and carvings of Horus and Pharaohs, but I did manage to rally to get to Karnak, a 3500 year old temple complex dedicated to the sun god Amun Ra which was mindblowing. It was comparable in size and detail to Angkor Wat... I'm so glad I made it there!

We're now back in Cairo at our favourite hostel chilling out after another long overnight train ride and thinking we may do a seaside break from all the ruins before checking out the library in Alexandria... who knows!

Egypt - Giza, Saqqara and Dashour - The Pyramid Triathlon

2009-11-05T07:45:00.005-05:00

Whoa! I'm in Egypt! How did that happen?!

Answer: One night in Addis, Mehr couldn't sleep, so she rolled over and poked my shoulder and asked "Hey, do you want to go to Egypt?". A sleepy me almost instantly replied "Yeah, I really do." And two days later our flight was booked to Cairo!

And now we're here! We arrived at the absurd hour of 2:30am (why do African flights only fly in the worst hours of the night?!) to Cairo after a one hour layover in Khartoum, during which no one is allowed off the plane because Sudan lets almost no nationalities into the country, including Canadians. Boring...

We had planned to take it easy our first day, knowing we wouldn't be in bed before 4am, but the allure of exploring was too tempting and by lunch time we found ourselves on the way to Giza to see the Pyramids. Our afternoon on the pyramid tour was a bit of a triathlon. The three components being camel riding, Sahara trekking and climbing in and out of the pyramid tombs. No joke. And our tour guides were strict on time. Twelve minutes for pyramids, seven minutes for Sphinx, ten minutes for mountain lookout, twenty minutes to climb into Dashour, etc. It was positively race-like.

Our first stop on our pyramid bonanza was Giza and the Great Pyramids. Some people said they are overhyped. I disagree. They are massive, they are amazing and they are wonders of the world.

We did a two hour tour of the three main Pyramids and the Sphinx taking in the sights from our camel rides. Yes, I was on a camel. It sort of unfolded before I could really think things through and by the time I realized maybe I'm not cut out for camel travel I was already awkwardly astride Michael Jackson, Egypt's most foul-tempered camel who fought with the guide and driver at every turn and gave me savage glares leaving no doubt in my mind that he was out to bite me at the first opportunity.

That being said, camel is still one of the best ways to get around Giza, since the Pyramids are quite far apart and the sand makes for hard going. The small windows spent on our feet were struggling against the sand dunes of the Sahara to get up closer to the pyramids. Note: I am not a graceful person, and I am even less graceful getting on and off of camels.

We also checked out Saqqara, the site of the first pyramid in Egypt, and Dashour (which I think is in old Memphis), where we were allowed to descend into the actual pyramid into the former tomb rooms of the Pharaohs! Awesome. I am also now aware that I get claustrophobic when I go underground, so one descent was enough for me. Mehr went into two pyramids and was none the worse for wear. The hieroglyphics and paintings were still impressively intact and so detailed.

The last stops of the day involved massive meat and shish kebab platters with oodles of tahini and baba ghanouj on the side, traditional papyrus art galleries and essential oil perfumeries. Interesting in their own way, but not exactly wonders of the ancient world!

Ethiopia - Bahir Dar, Gondar and Axum - Northern Historical Circuit

2009-10-31T07:55:00.003-04:00

Alright, so due to poor planning all flights in and out of Lalibela were booked up for this week, so we’ll be taking a separate trip there at the end of November. However, in the past four days, we certainly covered a lot of northern Ethiopia!

Our whirlwind adventure first took us into Bahir Dar, the city on the southern banks of Lake Tana. Lake Tana is one of the biggest lakes in Africa and takes 8-9 hours to cross by ferry boat. It is also home to over 37 monasteries. Of those 37, only 3 are open to women (because we can’t keep secrets, we were told!), so we visited two of them, Debra Mariam and the women’s island nunnery. And against all our instilled instincts not to touch ancient artefacts, before we knew what was happening, a 900 year old sheepskin bible was plunked into our laps for our exploration. It was written in Geez, the oldest language in Ethiopia which is almost Aramaic and which neither of us can read, but thankfully it was illustrated so we could guess whether we were looking at Luke or Mark’s gospel. I held a 900 year old book! And was mostly terrified I would damage it the whole time.

We later played the musical stone slabs at Debra Mariam and learned about Ethiopian Orthodox religious practices and saints, such as the man totally covered in hair who communed with animals or Pantaleon who stood for 48 years leaning on his prayer stick. Lake Tana is also the source of the Blue Nile river and home to pelicans, lammergeyer eagles, hippos, crocodiles and local men trying to find a fereng (foreign) wife for their sons.

We also road-tripped to Tis Abay, the Blue Nile Falls. It had been a bit of a dilemma deciding whether or not to go since there are two hydro plants that divert much of the water turning the falls into a wee trickle down a hill, but our guides Haile and Nebu assured us that one of the plants was broken, so the falls would be in reasonable awesomeness that day.

After a very quiet stroll through the savannah countryside for about twenty minutes, we very suddenly heard the gushing of the water and the field fell away from us on the right side, revealing a steep cliff escarpment and very impressive waterflow pouring over the side along the Blue Nile River. The excessive spray off the falls earned it the name of Tis Abay (Water that Smokes).

And it was awesome! Not as big as Niagara, but certainly the surrounding scenery beats out the tacky casinos and arcades that adorn Niagara Falls.

Our next stop was Gondar, one of the important military strongholds of the country over the centuries. The highlight of Gondar is the Royal Enclosure, a compound of the castles of four generations of Ethiopia’s kings and queens on 1 square km of land. Mehron and I greatly enjoyed re-enacting sword and staff fights around the grounds as our tour guide looked on, completely unimpressed with our immaturity. Whatever. We had a good time. One cool fact about these kings and queens was that they kept personal prides of Abyssinian lions as companions. Kind of shows up the First Dog in the White House a bit. LIONS.

While in town, we also breezed by the Debra Birhane Selassie Church, the Sistine Chapel of Ethiopia, where the ceiling is completely painted with angels by one artist monk way back in the day. When we wrapped that up, we stopped by Sofa Juice for refreshment and thereby consumed the greatest juice on the planet, mango-guava-lime. YUM.

And then it was 12:30pm and we were kind of done with Gondar, so we hooked ourselves up with a half day trip to the Simien Mountains to Kosoye, a lookout once visited by Queen Elizabeth II in her horseback riding days. Well worth the hour long drive on very bumpy dusty road with a soundtrack of Shania and Snoop Dogg to see the fabulous views and spot baboons rustling in the valley below!

On the way back, we stopped in at the former Falasha village (diaspora of Ethiopian Jews who were repatriated to Israel during Mengistu’s regime) where we checked out a very cool local coop project of handicrafts and attended a proper coffee ceremony with fresh roasted coffee and popcorn. Whenever I ask why popcorn is served with the coffee ceremony, I get the same answer: Tradition.

On our way out of Gondar at 5am (all the domestic flights go early and have tight security requiring us to arrive at least 2 hours before the flights), we saw a number of odd things. In the pitch blackness, there was some excellent stargazing. But better was the people watching... we saw three men practicing kick boxing on the highway. And then we saw mobs of ghosts emerging from the misty woods as dawn began to break... all the locals were on their way to church, completely wrapped in the traditional white blankets called gabis, creating a very eerie effect as they moved through the trees with no lights.

Axum was our last port of call and we were there for two reasons: 1) to see the re-Erection (Ethiopia’s wording, not mine) of the Stele returned from Rome at the millennium and 2) to see the Ark of the Covenant. When we arrived to the Yeha Hotel, and saw the entire town from the restaurant’s hilltop view, we realized we might have a lot of spare time on our hands. So after a power nap, we walked down the hill to the main stelae field. We were told it was a field of over 75 stelae commemorating the deaths of the great kings and nobles of Axum. What we saw was 7 stelae in a yard. So we opted to look at them from outside the gate instead of paying the entry fee to stand on the other side of the fence.

Sadly the same thing happened when we investigated the compound housing the Ark of the Covenant. You pay an entrance fee to stand outside the same buildings you can stand outside next to the gate, since of course, women aren’t allowed inside. In the case of Axum, they haven’t let women into the churches since the 10th century, when one lady ruined it for all the rest of us. The Falasha Queen Yodit burned most of ancient Axum to the ground, and they’ve held it against the female sex ever since.

To be fair though, men aren’t allowed to the see the Ark, the Holy of Holies, either... only the high priests are allowed inside and the guardian outside descends from the same family who has guarded the Ark for generations. So we admired the building housing the Ark from outside the gate as well.

The real highlight of Axum was the high level of interaction with the locals. Mehron really got into the swing of bargaining, talking a shopkeeper down in price for twenty minutes for some amber necklaces. And on our walk through town, a gaggle of schoolgirls swarmed us eager to practice their English and show us their school and tell us about Axum and they were completely adorable and charming.

Also, I’m going to Egypt on Tuesday for two weeks. Surprise!

Ethiopia – Addis Ababa – New Flower, Old Everything Else

2009-10-23T05:57:00.003-04:00

Addis Ababa means “new flower” in English, and this New Flower is the capital of one very old country. Addis got its name through King Menelik II’s wife, who found a new flower growing where the Sheraton now stands in the city, and coined the name of the city after the discovery. Although that discovery was new, most famous discoveries made in Ethiopia are of very old things. Perhaps most famously and most old is Lucy (so named because Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing at the dig campsite just after the discovery), the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found by Dr. Leakey, who was found in Ethiopia’s swath of the Great Rift Valley. Also found here was Selam (“Peace”), the oldest child hominid ever found. The Great Rift Valley has yielded bones of human ancestors that are anywhere from 200,000 to 10 million years old. Like I said, Ethiopia is OLD.

Also, did you know that Ethiopia is home to the Ark of the Covenant? It is kept under lock and key by the Orthodox high priests in Axum in the north. Axum used to be a major center of the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia, ruled over by the Queen of Sheba. We have been told that King Menelik I, who was the son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and the Queen of Sheba, brought it here from Jerusalem for safekeeping way back in the day. Mehron and I will go to high five the guards of its resting place when we take our trip up north to see Lalibela later this month, since I highly doubt they’re going to let just anyone waltz in there to see it, especially the annoying crazy Canadian girls who are humming the Indiana Jones theme song as loud as they can while they pretend to be awesome archaeologist-adventurers! You think I’m joking. But I really really love Indiana Jones.

Ethiopia is also the birthplace of two very cool things that have equally been around forever. 1) Coffee, which originates from Kaffa in the south. I had my first coffee here in Addis at Peacock, a coffeeshop that is an institution in this city. The waiters are lifers; they are all about a hundred years old and they know their business. I don’t like coffee, but this isn’t coffee, it’s Mekyato (Amharic rendition of macchiato) and it’s worth a try. 2) The Nile. World mystery solved: the source of the Nile is here. Lake Tana is the spring of the Blue Nile, which we will also be seeing on our roadtrip north. Wicked!

Here’s a little more on day to day happenings in Addis… we seem to get invitations and have errands to run every day, so we really don’t lack for things to do. Last week Mehr and I and some of her family attended the screening of three short films being presented at Alliance Francaise. The first film was in Dutch and left us confused as to what had happened. The second movie was a dreadful melodramatic South African piece that would have put a telenovela to shame. And the third (the one we really went to see) was a very well done story about an Ethiopian man trying to survive the days of the Derg (the communist dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia from the 1970s to 1991), but it had a very unsatisfying ending.

And somehow at the end of the evening, we wound up meeting an Ethiopian movie star who invited us to the premiere of his new movie, A Guy’s Thing 2 (sequel to the bestselling A Guy’s Thing). We ended up going and despite the movie being entirely in Amharic, I found it really funny because it was mostly physical comedy and you could piece the plot together by all the angry pregnant ladies running around.

We also attended (though did not participate) in the Great Ethiopian Run, a 10km marathon around Addis with 30,000 participants at 10,000 ft of elevation. It was something to see...

Another evening we met up with one of Mehr’s mom’s friends who was in town from Nairobi with two interns. We wandered around exploring the shops in Piassa, the main window shopping district (so many jewelry stores!) before we went for dinner at Castelli’s which is famous for having hosted Brangelina for dinner when they adopted Zahara and for having the world’s rudest owners. We did not see Brad or Angie at dinner and the hosts were astonishingly rude, but the food was delish and the waitstaff were really great. Eg: when introducing ourselves, they responded with “Holly? Like Holi-day? Ohhh, like Holly-wood!”. Or better yet to Mehr, “I knew you were Ethiopian… you’re too beautiful not to be!” So funny.

Our other major restaurant outing was to Fasika with Mehr’s relatives to see some Ethiopian dancing. After going back and forth on whether we would need reservations and whether it would be better to go to another place called Habesha, we found ourselves front and center in the restaurant with the dancers and the band. I have no idea what half the things I ate were, as we all shared a communal injera plate of twenty different kinds of meat and vegetable sauces, but they were tasty. The dancing was the real highlight though… Ethiopian dance focuses on the shoulders and at times, I had to wonder if they have extra joints up there to accomplish some of their moves. And at one point, one woman mindblowingly spun her head such that I was sure it would go flying off.

Ouch. Amazing. Also, Mehr’s dad definitely got into a dance-off with one of the male dancers, so after that, we knew it was time to call it a night!

The other major event of the last week was Fidel’s birthday party, which he throws on Mount Entoto with tents and food and horse races and the whole nine yards. Every year, 50 or 60 people show up and party on the mountain with him for the afternoon and we were invited. They race all the horses, they eat, they drink, they laugh, then they go home all merry.

Unfortunately, I did not get to do any of those things because I had to go and get food poisoning on the morning of the party. Clever.

Ethiopia - Addis Ababa - Welcome to Africa. It's Just Like The Movies.

2009-10-13T09:02:00.005-04:00

When my puddlejumper plane landed on the tarmac at the Addis Ababa airport at 4am, I had no idea what I should expect. Let’s face it... most of my knowledge of Africa derives from The Lion King.
Mehr had promised to pick me up at that unfortunate hour of the morning, and I was greatly relieved to spot her sleepy but cheerful face awaiting me in the arrival area. We followed the dirt path out to the parking lot, a gravelly square filled with dozing pack animals, wandering goats and antelopes and motorcycles. Mehr whistled at one gossiping driver who disdainfully looked our way before rallying our three camels. Oh my goodness. Holly on a camel at 4am sounds like all kinds of trouble!

Just kidding. Our driver actually brought a rickshaw around to take us home. And I can already tell you that Africa will be a whole different kind of travel experience on this trip. It’s everything you might have imagined it to be... For example, Mehron’s dad lives in a traditional but large mud hut just outside the capital city on the school compound, closer to a village called Mbutu than to Addis Ababa. There is one big communal room that is the kitchen/dining room/living room, two smaller bedrooms off the sides, and a scary, dark outhouse in the yard (thankfully not too close to the encroaching jungle... we all know how good I am with wildlife!), which is also home to the bucket shower stall. This will require some getting used to, to say the least. As a bonus, we are serenaded to sleep at night by the shrill neighbourhood zebras who I am told are participating in the Great Migration south to Kenya. At least it isn’t hyenas, I guess. Because zebras and other typical African animals are endangered species in Ethiopia, Mehr’s dad isn’t allowed to try and scare them along their way. They should be all migrated and gone by next week, I’m told.

There is a wood stove in the big room to do all the cooking, which turns the house into a bit of a giant oven when combined with the hot African sun beating down on the roof. We eat almost only Ethiopian food because Western food imports are crazy expensive here and can only be obtained via the black market. Ethiopian food is great, but they are very proud of being the origin of coffee.

This pride results in the use of coffee grounds as seasoning in the dishes, such as coffee-marinated chicken, coffee rice and coffee-sprinkled pizza. I cannot say I enjoy the coffee pizza, and I got more than a few strange looks when I asked for my pizza “buna alfelegim” (I don’t want coffee). I better not tell them I don’t drink coffee...

Many people thought I would get bored here, but it turns out we have tons to do. I first had to be presented to the local neighbourhood community at a formal ceremony presided over by the village elders. It was like a scene out of a movie. They gathered in front of our house at sunset and I was introduced by the chief in a very elabourate speech in Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia, which referred to my ancestry and accomplishments. I was careful to be especially polite to the local witch-doctor, a very small and wise old man whose only English sentence is the Nike slogan “Just Do It”. He gave me a nyala (antelope) horn for good luck. I don’t think it’s going to fit in my backpack. I was later told that he liked me so much that he privately sacrificed a goat in my honour that night.

Mehr took me out to the current hotspot, a club called Tropicana, to relax after the evening’s formalities. Turns out that Tropicana is also the favourite hang-out of the slightly sinister men of power in Ethiopia who wear sunglasses at night, the flamboyantly dressed nouveau riche here and the khaki-clad expat community. There were really great African beats playing though, so we stayed for a good while just to listen and people-watch. And just when I was least expecting it, a birthday cake was brought out with my name on it and the entire bar, including Ethiopia’s top sniper (a woman a year younger than me!), sang me Happy Birthday. Mehr and her dad were looking very satisfied with themselves and rightly so... who expects a surprise party a week after their birthday?! Well played, Torrans family, well played.

I awoke hot and sweaty the next morning to the scarlet fireball sun burning holes through my eyelids through the open window of our room. Mehr and I trekked across the hot and dusty school compound to the school building, a giant sweltering gymnasium with a grass and sand floor. There are some computers and other everyday technology available in Addis Ababa, but the school is far enough outside that it does not have reliable electricity so the teachers and students work with chalk and slate, or even sticks and sand. When we weren’t helping the kids do their math problems, we were the unofficial lunch monitors, patrolling the yard to make sure the kids didn’t fall in the well and chasing off the grabby monkeys who hassled the kids for their lunches.

So there’s a little slice of living in Africa for you... As for what’s next, we’ve had plenty of invitations we’re keen to take up, so in the next few weeks we will be going on safari on the savannah plains to try our hands at spearfishing, warrior campfire dancing, camel herding and elephant tracking.

Okay, not really. April Fool’s! Nobody expects an April Fool's prank in October...

Actual Africa

After a long day on and off of planes between Vienna, Cairo and Addis Ababa, I finally arrived to Ethiopia at the early hour of 3:30am. Even though I was one of the first people off the plane, I was definitely the last person out of customs and immigration. This was because I couldn’t find the visa on arrival office and was redirected by the immigration officer to a broom closet with a paper sign taped up on the door listing the prices of tourist visas, where the man behind the desk ever-so-carefully copied my information onto the visa sticker, peeled and inserted it into my passport, decided it wasn’t tidy enough and redid it. He was this thorough with each passenger, so thankfully there was only one woman in front of me, with him dedicating twenty minutes to each visa.

Mehron’s sleepy and cheerful face was indeed there to greet me at that absurd hour with her father’s favourite taxi driver in tow. Both of whom were exhausted having mixed up the dates and gone to pick me up at that same time the night before as well!

All the taxis here are blue and white, with no working seatbelts, a maximum speed of 40km/hr and their drivers face the incredibly difficult task of not hitting the pedestrians who waltz around the roads like they own the place. The penalty for killing someone in a car accident is a minimum of 15 years in prison even if it is not the driver’s fault, so there is plenty of motivation to drive safely and slowly.

Addis Ababa is high in the mountains of Ethiopia at 2,300m elevation, and is incredibly lush and green and unseasonably torrential with rains and cold weather thanks to El Nino. I have been living in my sweater, jeans and scarf every day. We have a fire in the stove of her dad’s house most days to warm ourselves up. Mehron’s dad does live on the Sandford International School campus, a swanky complex with six gate guards (every house has a gate and a guard here despite the lack of violence in the city) of many buildings housing an elementary, secondary and night ESL school for Addis. The biggest danger here is pickpockets... there is very little violent crime in Ethiopia.

Our house is like a really comfortable cottage, decorated with Persian rugs, Native Canadian art and Syrian furniture from their family’s many travels. Mehr and I share a bedroom with an ensuite Anne of Green Gables decorated bathroom, with a shower with plenty of hot water down the hall by the kitchen. Mehr’s dad is an excellent cook and makes a wide range of incredible meals with everything from prosciutto to litchi thanks to the slightly pricey but well stocked local grocery store, and the assistance of the refrigerator, stove and oven in the kitchen.

The only thing he has not made is Ethiopian food, which was made for us by Mehron’s grandmother, whose mother used to cook for Emperor Haile Selassie, the idolized deceased king of Ethiopia. Ethiopian food and coffee are excellent but served completely separately and I assure you that coffee pizza is yet to be invented here. Rather, they eat delicious meat and vegetables in yummy very spicy sauces with injera bread for dipping.

I have been informally introduced with more conventional hand-shaking to most of the city already since Mehron’s dad knows EVERYONE. I must have met fifty people this first week alone. The local hang out is Three Bees, a front porch bar opposite the school campus. Further afield are the Hilton and Sheraton Hotels and Bole street, where the drinking and eating happens away from home. We went to a great Motown show at the Sheraton where my surprise birthday party unfolded on Friday night.

And while the stereotypes about Africa may be exaggerated, there is a certain air of ridiculousness afoot. For example, when we asked our taxi driver to take us to a fruit stand, he abandoned the completely empty and paved road to drive along the crowded pedestrian sidewalk for a block and a half. There is also a state-of-the-art park that has been built with tantalizing playgrounds galore that it is completely forbidden to enter because some clever city planner put it too close to the palace. Better yet, today I watched two men holding hands with a goat (holding hands with the goat’s front legs, not with each other) to cross the road, all three bipedal. Plus, Ethiopia’s best sniper really did come to my surprise party at the Sheraton and sang along to my Happy Birthday chorus.

I like it!

Austria - Vienna - The Two Faces of the City

2009-10-06T14:49:00.005-04:00

"You have troubles of one sort or another -

TO THE KAFFEEHAUS!

She can't come to you for some reason no matter how plausible -

TO THE KAFFEEHAUS!

You have holes in your shoes -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!

You have a salary of 400 crowns and spend 500 -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!

You are frugal and permit yourself nothing -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!

You find no woman who suits you -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!

You are SPIRITUALLY on the threshold of suicide -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!

You hate and disdain people and yet cannot do without them -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!

Nobody extends you any more credit anywhere -

THE KAFFEEHAUS!"

-Peter Altenberg, 1859-1919

Alright, so the city of Vienna has two distinct sides to it. Two very different pairs of trousers in fact: the Fancy Pants and the Stinky Pants.

Fancy Pants:
This is a place of palaces and princes, of waltzes and women in Chanel, of Mozart and men in Armani suits on bicycles on a Sunday afternoon, of cakes, coffeehouses and classical music. You feel like you should be sauntering around town in expensive designer wares or at least a poofy ballgown to match your surroundings. Margaux and I spent our time enjoying the fantastic cakes of the coffeehouses and admiring the stunning-ness of the city, while hosted by my friend Kristin who lives here for the time being. Highlights include the Belvedere, home to Klimt's The Kiss and Judity I (such a great exhibit!), Schonbrunn, the Hapsburgs' summer palace with gardens and mazes included, a Haydn concert, Haus der Musik (excellent museum!), and of course, my birthday festivities with my friends in Europe!

HOWEVER, Vienna is also a place of peculiar perfumes. The Metro is the ultimate example of the city's unique aromas, where the denizens of the area who believe in the every-other-day-shower and in the optional-application-of-deodorant frequent the public transit and stink up the trains. Where babies poop their diapers and their moms glance at you across the aisle unapologetically and make no move to address their smelly child. Where a man lets a silent but incredibly deadly fart rip on the seat next to you and smirks as you gag and bolt for the nearest doors and claw at the doors to open as soon as the station appears in the distance. But it is not restricted to the Metro. This is also the place where horse drawn carriages mark their trails with the distinct odor of horse urine and manure. And where it is apparently okay to toss your still-lit cigarettes into the open purses of passers-by (Kristin's bag still reeks of smoke and has four holes thanks to that douchebag).

Overall, I definitely would recommend Vienna. But I would also suggest that you take a noseplug and zip your purse shut... just in case.

Sidenote: One bizarre discovery in Vienna...

Hungary - Budapest - Home of Paprika and Horses

2009-10-05T12:58:00.004-04:00

So Budapest was GREAT. Margaux and I arrived having no idea what to expect, but having heard good things from a few other people. We scored a super hostel in central Pest near the opera house within walking distance of nearly everything.

We spent lots of time sightseeing and eating yummy paprika-laden goulash soup (not a stew, by the way), and almost no time drinking any alcohol to dry ourselves out from Oktoberfest. Hungary was slightly more of a challenging travel destination as well, since the language is incredibly difficult to pronounce due to an abundance of consonants in a row and seven kinds of accents on each vowel (we only mastered please and thank you - kerem and kosonom - by the end of our stay). Also, despite being in the EU, Hungary is still transitioning to the Euro, so we found ourselves with the awkward exchange rate of 170 forints to 1 Canadian dollar, meaning we had no idea what anything was costing us!

Our first priority was to spend a few hours pampering ourselves in the Rudas Baths, the oldest Turkish baths in the city in the sketchiest most broken down appearing building ever. Inside was stellar though. There were six pools and two saunas, with the pools varying in temperatures from 15 to 42 degrees centigrade. So relaxing... I kept hearing my mom's voice warning me not to fall asleep in the tub as I dozed off.

Further afield was Memento Park, home of Statue Park, where the former Soviet statues have been relocated outside the city. Definitely worth a look. We also got to watch old reels of secret police training tapes about surveillance and secret house searches, which were dated but creepy.

The bulk of the tourist attractions were on (or near, in the case of the gorgeous Parliament building) Castle Hill, in Buda, where the National Palace houses the Hungarian National Gallery (the interesting part of which was closed for renos, bummer) and the Budapest Museum. Castle Hill is also home to the fabulously mosaiced roof of St Matyas Church and another castle, as well as Fisherman's Bastion and generally fantastic views over the city.

My personal favourite was the Labirintus, a massive underground cave network/labyrinth under Buda Hill, which includes an ever flowing wine fountain (too many fruit flies to drink it though!). Poor Margaux was dragged along in the dark bowels of the mountain behind me, and she was kind enough to lie and say she enjoyed the dank underbelly of the castle ruins. She's a good friend like that.

Germany - Munich - Dirndls and Ledenhosen and Bier, Achtung!

2009-10-02T12:10:00.004-04:00

Short version:

We drank a lot of beer.

Long version:

We passed a quiet time on our train to Munich, in silent contemplation of the challenge that lay ahead: Oktoberfest. Little did we know at that time just how grand the challenge would be... upon joining the rest of our party (Trevor, Bronwyn, Chad, Ryan, Taylor and Greg), we were informed of the goal: 8 people, 4 days, 100L of beer. We scoffed but committed to try our best.

Our first beer excursion was to Hofbrauhaus, the famous biergarten located in downtown Munich, where we had our first introduction to the Bavarian norms of beerdrinking. A full litre of 6.5 per cent alcohol specially brewed Oktoberfest beer (1 of 6 official beers) is plunked down before your eyes by a dirndl-sporting bar wench, who then slides a fat crackled pork knuckle (don't look for the vegetables, they have fled the city) almost onto your lap to accompany your drink, while in the background, the lederhosen-clad oompah bandmen warm up the crowd with a rousing rendition of the beer drinking anthem of Munich, Ein Prosit, which has the entire hall standing on the benches hollering along and clanking litres together, beer sloshing everywhere.

(Also, please note the complete normalcy of running around town in the traditional costumes of lederhosen and dirndls. No one even bats an eyelash, since more than half of any crowd you encounter is thusly attired. Note: it is not cheap fashion, with dirndls running about 100 Euros, and lederhosen at 200 Euros.)

We scored ourselves a table at the prestigious Augustiner beer tent on the Oktoberfest grounds at Theresienwiese and spent 9am-4pm on a nice Friday afternoon blowing second hand smoke out of our faces, consuming 3+ litres of Augustiner and multiple hendls (chicken roasted on a spit), pretending to know the words to Ein Prosit, which went from being played once every few hours to every twenty minutes in the afternoon, making friends with Germans who didn't speak English, participating in dance-a-long songs involves a swimming motion kind of like a German YMCA song, and generally enjoying ourselves. We had one casualty in our ranks, who bowed out for the rest of the afternoon after getting sick but rallied and rejoined us for late dinner and drinks that night (yes, beer was consistently consumed over the four days, and not just at the beer tents of the Oktoberfest fair grounds).

We did sneak a little culture into our visit. We did the free walking tour of Munich (nowhere near as good as the one in Berlin!), learning about a range of history of the city, from Hitler's failed effort to take Munich and the Nazi resistance movement to the stealing of the airport's May Pole by the local police to embarrass airport security. We also went to a soccer game between Paderborn and Munich, where we were suitably impressed with the range of cheering chants and routines of all the fans.

At one point, they were shouting something in German that sounded a lot like "She needs a washcloth!", which is probably not an accurate translation. My favourite is when the two sides of the stadium alternated shouting the same thing in German at each other. I think it was the equivalent of "You suck!", "No, YOU suck!".

Final tally was between 75-80L of beer for the whole group. Beer champions Chad and Trevor had at least 15L each. Margaux pulled off more than 5L and I managed 6.5L. All in all, we had a blast, but we were definitely were ready to give our livers a little breathing space in Budapest!

Our organizer and beer champ Chad also made a commemorative video of our adventures (3 parts).

Germany - Berlin - A Smorgasbord of Interesting Everything

2009-09-27T10:24:00.004-04:00

Margaux and I hopped on our plane to Berlin on Sunday morning, eager to flee from the thieving streets of Barcelona to the land of ze Germans. Margaux had been to Berlin already, but it so enthralled her that she was more than willing to return. Having now been there myslef, I can certainly see why. Berlin has over 150 museums, a thriving arts and cultural scene and great nightlife and food. Why doesnt everyone live here? It has everything.

We scored big time through Mehron, who hooked us up with her friend Mael in Berlin. Mael offered to put us up at his apartment in Kreuzberg, just south of the main tourist sites. Which was incredibly generous and hospitable, especially in light of the fact that he was out of town the entire time we were there. In fact, another of his roommates was also out of town, and the remaining dweller of the apartment we saw all of twice in four days, so in fact, we scored essentially a private apartment in Berlin!

That being said, it was a sequence of incredibly random events that ended with our successful arrival to the apartment. First off, we had to get from Schoenefeld airport to Kreuzberg, which appeared fairly simple on the metro maps. However, when we got to the metro station, we could not figure out for the life of us how to find our train. We knew our train number and we knew we were at the right station, however, there was no board posting which train would go from which platform. Margaux somehow deciphered a secondary train code from a yellow piece of paper of fine print on platform four, which somehow informed her we should go to platform seven, where indeed our train appeared.

Arriving to Kottbusser Tor station in Kreuzberg a good while later, and having not been fed on our easyjet flight, we could help but notice our energy was dwindling and we had yet to search for the actual apartment. It was nearly instantly agreed upon that we would stop for kebabs at the recommended Hasir restaurant on Adalbertstrasse, and true to reviews, it was ridiculously delicious! Feeling refueled and ready to set out, we prowled Adalbertstrasse for the retrieval location of the apartment key: the corner store. Yes, really. Apparently when our hosts are out of town, they sometimes leave their keys with the convenience store for others to pick up. Passing by three drunk Germans on the picnic table outside the store (picnic tables and benches line the streets outside of shops here for the public drinkers looking for a place to people watch) who either tried to hit on us or panhandle for money, I entered the shop and announced I was Holly and was there a key for me. The cashier started looking around with little success, and we were getting nervous, but then her mother appeared from the back of the store and they exchanged some hurried German and a key was produced. Check.

We had no trouble then finding the apartment building, however, we belatedly realized that Mael had not mentioned the apartment number or floor. The directory listing was under his roommate, who last name I didnt know, so that was no help. Guess who got to go door to door trying the key in each lock until they found one that opened? One man heard us trying to get in and hurried out to eye us suspiciously. Thankfully, he didnt call the police on us.

In case you are curious, it turns out Mael lives on the sixth floor.

Our first priority for sightseeing was to do the free New Berlin walking tour, which was as excellent as people said it would be. Sights seen included Brandenburg Gate (whose Victory statue sits over Pariserplatz/Paris Place and stares ominously in the direction of the French embassy in the courtyard), the Adlon Hotel (better known as the baby dangling hotel of MJ infamy where the presidential suite costs 12,000€ per night), Tiergarten and the Reichstag (the government buildings in Germany now all include a lot of glass sections of architecture to emphasize their renewed focus on government transparency), the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe also known as the Holocaust memorial, the site of Hitlers suicide bunker, the tax office (a former Nazi building, then used by the Soviets, now by the revenue service), the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz (site of the Nazi burning of 20,000 books), the Kathe Kollwitz victims of war memorial, and Museums Island (home of the Pergamon museum, Berliner Dom, and many others).

Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and struck a great balance between communicating the history of Berlin and Germany and the struggle to come to terms with its past, while still providing humour and pop trivia about this place and people as well.

We also went inside the Pergamon museum to see the Pergamon Altar and massive frieze depicting the war between the ancient Greek gods and the Giants, a famous market gate whose name escapes my memory at the moment, and the reconstruction of Babylons Ishtar Gate. We saw other things in the museum as well, such as Assyrian and Islamic artefacts, like the towers from Mshatta, but the big three were the standout items for sure. We then picnicked in Tiergarten (we self-catered a lot in Berlin knowing Munich and Oktoberfest was going to kill our bank accounts shortly), wandered through the Holocaust memorial at our leisure once more, and then walked over to the Kulturforum to check out an art gallery, only to realize we were WAY behind schedule.

The tricky thing about Berlin is that it is very spacious. The blocks go for half a kilometer or longer sometimes, so what looks like a 10 minute, 4 block walk on the map in fact is a 2km 30 minute journey. We kept forgetting this, so our schedule had to be amended constantly. Plus our priority on this particular day was to go on a pub crawl.

We made it to the first bar just ten minutes before the free beer was done, so just in the nick of time! The crawl took us to four bars and a nightclub, and I was suitably impressed with the variety and quality of atmosphere in the bar scene here. The first bar was a backyard beach junkyard, if you can imagine that. The second was the worlds tiniest hole in the wall with great music, the third was arrayed with a cheesy disco ball and winding black leather couches, while the fourth was all white and red. The club was pretty average and took almost half an hour to get to, so I was less impressed there. Didnt help that two guys looking to rumble knocked my beer out of my hand and it smashed on the floor. Margaux and I also spent a good deal of time avoiding an undaunted very short Irish man who continued to chase us around despite being repeatedly told we would under no circumstances be going home with him. Sigh. This is why Im getting too old for clubs. But the dancing was spot on, so we overcame and stayed out late dancing our brains out.

The other thing that greatly impressed both of us was the Jewish Museum, which I had as a mandatory outing since studying it in my Masters program, when we were looking at the different ways the world has tried to commemorate and educate people about genocide. We spent almost four hours in this museum, which had two massive floors portraying the history of Jewish people in Europe from medieval times until after WWII. But for me the most engaging and affecting part of the museum was the underground level which was an intersection of hallways named the Axis of Exile and the Axis of the Holocaust. The architecture was the most outstanding feature of the museum and I was truly overwhelmed at how successfully the architect had made voids and empty spaces refer to the absence of the missing victims of the Holocaust. Standing inside the base of the Holocaust Tower, the voided void, was unforgettable. And the Garden of Exile, a series of 25 blocks with the ground tilting at an angle causing dislocation and a real loss of equilibrium, was equally thought provoking. I had to wonder when it was built in relation to the Holocaust Memorial (which allows you to see what you see and works on a lot of levels of understanding), since there were similarities between the two.

Were also greatly enjoying the German language, which inevitably sounds incredibly serious or incredibly silly. Our favourite game lately is to random read sentences we find aloud to each other with an exclamation point. Weve mastered the following essential phrases:

Wilkommen - welcome
Gutentag - good day
Bitte - please or youre welcome
Danke - thanks
Bier - beer
Nein Deutsch - No German
Ausgang - exit
Ampelmann - traffic light man (who is revered by Berliners and is totally adorable with his hat and strut. They have whole stores of Ampelmann gear here)

Will try to expand vocabulary more for Munich and Oktoberfest, where we are meeting up with Margaux's friends Chad, Bronwyn, Trevor, Taylor, Greg and Ryan to revel in the beer halls. Wish us luck!

Spain - Barcelona - Take Three: The Margaux Meet-Up

2009-09-26T09:32:00.004-04:00

After a chilled out last night in Madrid drinking 1.50€ boxes of sangria while playing Crazy Eights with some fellow Canadians, I hurriedly set out for my last round of BCN on a Saturday morning, on time thanks to a borrowed alarm from a roommate (still havent replaced my cheap watch alarm that was nicked on the bus). Turns out I had once again grossly misjudged the amount of time it would take me to transit from Madrid to Girona to Barcelona to meet up with Josh and Margaux, my friends who were wrapping up their romantic post engagement Spanish vacation before Margaux set out with me to Germany. Worse, I picked the worlds dumbest meeting point. Read on.

My flight landed at 230pm, and my shuttle from Girona airport which I boarded at 3pm took 1.5 hours to get me to the main bus station in the city. From there I still had to make my way to my hostel on Passeig de Gracia, check in, shower (which so did NOT happen) and plow over to Placa Catalunya to meet my friends. I had appointed the time of meeting as 5pm. At 530pm Im stumbling out the door of my hostel (where the worlds slowest elevator had cost me many precious minutes getting me to the ground floor!) still pulling on my sandals and trying to hustle the ten minute walk to the plaza.

Of course, a spontaneous book fair had sprung up on Gracia so hordes of ambling siestaing Spaniards were blocking my path. I elbowed my way through and emerged to find an even more gigantic horde of afternoon amblers in the plaza. Such a terrible meeting point. Thankfully I took an educated guess that they would be sitting somewhere at this point because I was almost an hour late, and scouted the statues until lo and behold, from behind a newspaper, I espied them at the top of Las Ramblas!

Unfortunately I had also designated this place as a meeting point for a girl Id met on the plane, but finding her and being so late, it was a lost cause. We headed out to Caelum in the Gothic Quarter, a very cool place with a sweets shop on the ground level and a cavernous desserts restaurant in the basement. Imagine going out for a candlelit dessert in Lord of the Rings, most likely in the neighbourhood of the dwarves or the hobbits and you will have some impression of what this place was like. Additionally, fantastic hot chocolate on offer. Look into it if you ever find yourself in these parts.

After a brief stop in the hostel for a drink and some tapas, we went to dinner at Ra, a well recommended restaurant behind La Boqueria off Las Ramblas. Dinner was delicious, the wine was good, but the service was lousy. Josh literally had to chase down the waiter to pay the bill. Worse, we later discovered that Margauxs wallet was lifted there at some point, though we were hard pressed to figure out when. There is a high likelihood that it was our waiter, since he was the only one near our table.

Sigh. Oh, Barcelona. You would be such a great city were it not for your relentless pickpockets! They really do spoil it.

Spain - Segovia - Possibly the Prettiest City

2009-09-15T12:04:00.004-04:00

Having exhausted the main sights of Madrid, including a stop by the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple moved here stone by stone from Aswan in the 1970s, and a second tour of the Reina Sofia (which turns to have an entire annex building I didn't see the first time around!), it was time to freshen things up and take a day tour.

Number one on my must do day trips from Madrid was Segovia. It's about an hour by bus, and twice as pretty as Toledo with half the hills and half the tourists. Segovia was absolutely lovely. I convinced fellow hosteller Lynn from Adelaide, Australia to join me for the day and she was more than happy with her choice. The whole of the historic quarter is walkable in two hours and is positively enchanting.

Segovia is perhaps best known for its acueducto, a Roman aqueduct built in the 1st century AD over 14,000m long that used to run water from the source all the way to the Alcazar of Segovia (local palace, greatly resembles fairy tale castles, including shiny turrets, majestic ramparts, deep moat and sweeping vistas of the countryside).

The aqueduct was entrancing - it's massive at over 27m high at some points, with arches galore and it winds through the whole town. Very impressive and thanks to careful restoration work, in perfect shape and condition.

We walked its length through the town right to where it first comes above ground near the bus station. Such a small beginning for what turns into a colossal piece of architecture and engineering.

Other highlights on the must-see list are the requisite massive cathedral in the Plaza Mayor and of course the Alcazar.

We also greatly enjoyed walking the outskirts of the old town where the views of the mountainous countryside and the aqueduct were great. Aside from the official sights, Segovia is lovely just to wander around with lots of lantern-lit alleys and hanging plants on the storeys of balconies overhead. Toledo was cool in its fortress-like atmosphere; Segovia is the fairytale European city everyone is looking for to spend an afternoon strolling around. So glad I made it here!

Spain - Madrid - I Heart This Place

2009-09-11T03:55:00.006-04:00

By the time I left Barcelona, I was having an inkling of travel fatigue. And after blitzing over to Toledo from Madrid, the inkling had manifested into a solid sense of weariness. Fortunately, it struck at a very opportune time, namely after I had discovered the greatness that is Madrid. Now Madrid does not have the big river, the big landmark monuments or the renown of other capital cities in Europe, but it has plenty to offer. I have found it an extremely pleasant city to slow the pace and savour the moment.

So instead of doing all the tourist sights in three days as usual, I settled into my fantastic hostel for more than a week. Instead of rising early to pack in my days, I sleep in until whenever I feel like getting up. Instead of reluctantly eating yet another free white bread toast and strawberry jam hostel breakfast, I can cook myself a cheese and tomato omelette with proper toast. Instead of jetsetting about town, I can leisurely peruse one attraction at a time, with siesta breaks and sidestreet ambles abound. Instead of trying to fill myself up on tapas or some fried or cured ham related product, I can defend myself against the onset of scurvy with an all vegetable stirfry. It´s definitely the little things that refresh the travel spirit.

And Madrid has some pretty great things to explore, many of which are free. I went to the Prado museum, a massive labyrinth of masterpiece paintings dating from 1100-1850, with some big names in the bunch. I don´t know a ton about art, but courtesy of my Spanish minor in university, I am familiar with the Spanish Greats, so I was delighted to bump into old friends such as Velasquez, Goya and El Greco. Nerd alert sounded high when I recognized Velasquez´Las Meninas and Goya´s Saturno (a painting of Saturn eating one of his children - so much grosser in real life than in the prints!). I do have to say that while the Prado has a very impressive collection, I wasn´t super keen on it... a lot of portraits, a lot of Jesus dying horribly on the cross, a lot of dark themes.

In contrast, I absolutely loved the Reina Sofia museum, the home of Madrid´s modern art. Again, big names abound... Klee, Miro, Kandinsky, Dali, Picasso, and many more. It´s also home to Picasso´s famous Guernika painting depicting the gassing of the Basque town. Four marvelous floors of all kinds of different art, a little something for everyone. Lovely.

My wanders have also taken me by the Palacio Real which is the official residence of Spain´s monarchy despite never living there, to Plaza Mayor where street musicians have been known to play entire tribute sets to the Beatles inspiring random 50 yr old British tourists to sing along loudly, and into the Mercado de San Miguel for tapas and sangria, along over to Retiro Park where Madrilenos pay to ride a ferry on a pond and upwards of twenty African drummers beat in unison on weekend afternoons, and into the circus that is El Rastro, a massive sprawling flea market that overtakes La Latina´s neighbourhood every Sunday selling 2€ pashminas, antiques, harem pants (still not happy with the popularity of these universally unflattering pants in Europe), bootleg DVDs and CDs, art, fans, and everything in between.

Spain - Toledo - Heat and Hills

2009-09-09T16:10:00.003-04:00

The world´s least motivated bus ride got me to Madrid from Barcelona in about nine hours on Saturday. The bus literally stopped every 1.5 hours for a twenty minute break, and for half an hour in Zaragoza to pick up more passengers. Better yet, my watch was stolen right off my wrist while I and my seatmate were napping sometime on the ride, meaning I once again have no means of setting an alarm clock or of knowing the time generally. It wasn´t even worth stealing. I bought it for $5 at a Walmart and it has a crack in the screen face. That was my third watch this trip. Sigh...

After poking around Madrid a bit and discovering it´s much to my liking, I decided to spend a little more time here after my hectic time in Barcelona. It´s a good place to do day trips from such as Avila, Cuenca and Toledo. So off I went to Toledo with Eugenia from Buenos Aires on Monday. A licketysplit train got us there in half an hour and we were suitably impressed with the fortressed city on the mountain.

What we had not anticipated was the hills and heat we would have to contend with to explore said city. The walk from the train station was an ominous start, already 35 degrees and over 1 km straight upward incline. And that got us to the Wall of the old city. Fortunately, Eugenia´s friend Michaelangelo met up with us with his car and as a Toledo local, chauffeured us around the worst of the hills and took us to the Parador hotel on the hill opposite to get the best vista of Toledo.

After he went back to work, we wandered around the churches and old buildings, revelling in the Roman, Spanish and Islamic architecture and despising the intensity of the sun, lack of shade and upward leading streets in all directions. By the end of the day, I was dangerously close to yet another round of heat exhaustion, and narrowly escaped my doom with a well timed yogourt shake break before our train back to Madrid.

Fun fact... did you know Toledo has been a renown region for sword making? Now you know.

Spain - Barcelona - Take Two: Rob and Gaudi

2009-09-05T14:27:00.005-04:00

Alright so to sum up round two of my time in Barcelona, I have to say the words ¨fun¨ and "naked" come to mind.

After a tiny caffuffle over which day Rob and his friends were arriving to Barcelona that left me spending a night politely turning down drinkfest invitations from 18yr old Australians and keeping an eye on the slightly dodgy older Bulgarian gentleman eyeing my bag when I could have been already hanging out with my friend Rob, I did eventually successfully meet up with him.

Now Rob is another exchange student from Australia I met in Halifax and he seems to take international gallivanting to a whole new level. Every time I email him, he´s somewhere unexpected. He was in Rome. Then back in Aus. Then doing a pPhD in Norway. Then in China. Then in Spain (where I could most easily catch up with him). And I have to say that after three years, he hasn´t changed too much.

I had some challenges finding the rental apartment he was staying in in the Gothic Quarter, a labyrinth of narrow alleys and signless locked doors. I definitely walked in two giant circles, leaving me very hot and sweaty, then buzzed the wrong apartment twice before success. Success in the form of Rob in his boxers having raced down three flights of stairs to let me in. And of course, since we needed bread for breakfast, we headed straight to the bakery, as is. No shoes, no shirt, no pants and then me with my backpack. A fairly comical picture for passersby to say the least. The bakery lady didn't bat an eyelash. After all, this is the city where the city beach has topless sunbathers at all hours of the day and a naked man rides his bicycle on Las Ramblas in the middle of the afternoon. Considering Barcelona is known to be a stylish city, I hadn't expected so much public nudity.

I passed a very fun three days with Rob and his friends. Highlights include lazing on La Barceloneta beach indulging in 5 Euro massages, taking a fancy cheese, figs and baguette picnic to the Font Magica night light show (just as good the second time!), and general mojito and sangria related merriment por las noches. We also did a Gaudi extravaganza, taking in Casa Battlo, La Pedrera, Sagrada Familia (sorry, I really didn't like it), and Parc Guell (I loved it!). I also enjoyed when the same salesman who tried to get Marie to buy a children's shirt plastered with profanities in Spanish tried to sell me more tourist crap, then recognized me and backed off in shame (I rebuked him more than a little on our last meeting).

Spain - Girona - Gothic Vaults and Postcard Views

2009-08-30T09:12:00.004-04:00

After doing some calculations both financial and entertainment wise, I figured I didn't really need to sit around in Barcelona between visiting my godmother Marie and my friend Rob, which would have brought my total time spent in Barcelona up to almost ten days straight. That's longer than I've spent in some countries on this trip! So I closed my eyes and pointed to the map of Catalunya, and Girona became my getaway destination for four days.

I had no idea what to expect, but Girona is very pleasant. It's a medieval town with lots of Gothic architecture. It was a stronghold of the Spanish Jews before the expulsion of 1492 and the historic Jewish quarter is still largely intact today as kind of an open air museum. The cathedral here boasts the largest Gothic vault in Europe (I know fancy that!). And the pace of life is definitely more chilled out than Barcelona.

I spent yesterday with Hannah from Nice and Linn from Stockholm going up and down a million cobblestone staircases to see the cathedral, the old ramparts wall around the old part of the city, and the plazas, as well as dropping in on the Saturday markets in the park. One note on the big park, on weekends, they open up three big tent bars/dance clubs in the center of the park called Las Carpas, bringing a whole new meaning to the expressions 'park party' and 'drinking in the park'. And Spaniards don't even think about showing up at club venues until well after 2am, so my sleeping schedule is all over the place lately. No wonder they're dedicated to their siestas!

My hostel here is especially great, with a kitchen, clean bathrooms, comfy bunks, nice staff and fellow travellers and best of all, a terrace with views of the canal, old quarter and cathedral, where I will spending the rest of today with my book.

Spain - Barcelona - Take One: Have You Seen The Fountain Show?!

2009-08-28T11:14:00.005-04:00

I passed my remaining days in Rome at a fantastic camping village just an hour's commute outside the city center with some great girls (Ania from South Africa and Jayde from Queensland) in an air conditioned bungalow with a pool, hot tub and bar on site. Great way to relax and recharge after my whirlwind tour of Italy, excepting the one party night where I somehow stayed up chatting with other travelers in the parking lot until 6am after the toga party. That made for a rough next day.

Ah, but now I am in Spain... Ole! A lot of people Ive met have asked why I haven't got the UK, France or the Netherlands on my itinerary, but I just can't squeeze everything in. Also, the UK is SO expensive. Or so my reasoning went, since this was before I looked at hostel prices in Barcelona, which are a lot for crap dorms. The concern was moot in the end since I scored big time and my godmother's holiday in Spain coincided with my arrival in Barcelona, so I was thankfully able to crash with her and her friends at the fabulous Le Meridien 5 star hotel off Las Ramblas.

Now this is the first time around in Barcelona, since I'm due back there in four days (camped out in Girona for the next little while) to meet up with my friend Rob from Australia, and then again later in September to join Margaux, the most recent travel buddy to join on my world tour, before going to Germany. So in fact, there will be three passes through this city in all, hence my sidetrip to Girona this week.

Barcelona is great... a very young city, the word vibrant comes to mind. Marie, Marcus, Lenny and Bonnie were fantastic hosts. We went out for tapas and Clara my first night there to a great restaurant called Ciutat Condal on Las Ramblas. Clara is a bit like a beer lemonade but not sweet - so refreshing in the continuing European heat wave. And Las Ramblas makes for great people-watching with street performers ranging from flamenco dancers to Alien to Pharaohs to breakdancers.

It also makes for great pickpocketing though, so keep an eye on your stuff, folks! One ride on the metro ended very unhappily with one of our wallets being stolen right out of the purse being carried after a bump and run (not mine, thankfully). The creeps managed to charge over $1000 in the half hour it took us to get the hotel to call and cancel the credit card (thankfully not responsible for those charges either). Lesson learned... I already am a bit paranoid with my things but I'm even more vigilant now. They were BOLD.

We also wandered down Las Ramblas to the artisan tents and the Mirador, a very impressive statue of Colombus on the waterfront, and a bit into La Boqueria, the famous fresh market which I will definitely devote more time and fruit-eating appetite towards on my next pass through town, which will be shared with the Gaudi sites around the city.

The definite highlight however was the night music and light show at the fountains in Montjuic. I can't really describe how amazing it was - definitely one of those big moments of the trip - better than fireworks.

For anyone who ever comes to Barcelona, this is a must-see!

Italy - Pompeii and Napoli - Ancient Splendour and Delicious Pizza

2009-08-23T06:52:00.004-04:00

Pompeii was quite something. Of course we pick the hottest time of the hottest day of the hottest heatwave in Italy to go see it, but whatever!

Our lovely Ijourneys audio guide Deb informed us all about the Maritime Gate, the Temple of Apollo, the storehouses, the Forum, the Baths, the House of the Poet, the House of the Faun, the brothel, the bakery, the amphitheater, the training ground, the taverns and the arena. We had to fast forward her a little since it was so hot and Pompeii is so extensive.

I hadn't realized how big the city was and it really is a remarkable preserved snapshot of the past. It also really shows how similarly people lived in those days as today. There was the main drag with all the good bars and shops, the central marketplace, bread still in the bakery ovens, the laundromat across from the brothel and more. Very interesting and oh my goodness, the Pompeiians had MONEY.

And you can see Mount Vesuvius looming in the background of the whole city - would have been a terrifying sight when it was erupting over a day and a night to bury this place.

But again, very hot, so we bounced after a few hours to reward ourselves with a meal. And what kind of people would we be if we didn't have pizza in its birthplace? After a solid hunt for a recommended restaurant (to no avail) and a near miss with spraining my ankle on the cobblestone sidewalks, we found a hole in the wall pizzeria that gave us a margherita and a marinara pizza and a drink for less than 6 Euros.

And I can say it really was the best pizza I've had so far in Italy. The ingredients were all super fresh and well balanced and the crust was paper thin. Perfect!

Aside from amazing pizza, Napoli will be remembered for the groping hands and flirtatious manners of its male population. While ordering pizza, Luigi (actual name) our pizzamaker was flirting it up with Krishna and practically proposed to her over the course of ten minutes. He did get a solid shoulder squeeze in before we left. And as we walked down the street, construction workers overhead were going all out with the whistles and catcalls, despite us being sweaty, dusty and generally a mess. And when we met up with Seema who'd stayed behind at the train station to book tickets, she had a tale to tell as well. In our twenty minute absence, she had two guys besiege her and one even full on kissed her two minutes into the conversation. They seem to mistake Canadian polite manners for invitations to bed. Quite a cultural miscommunication!!

Italy - Rome - You Should Go

2009-08-21T14:33:00.004-04:00

WOW.

No really.

WOW.

I met up with Seema and Krishna who Id met in Florence early in the afternoon, arriving to the crazy heatwave in Italy that is making the news everywhere. Yes, it really is over 40 degrees during the day. However, as insanely hot as that is, there is NO humidity compared to say, Vietnam or Borneo, so Im not letting it slow me down too much. We had a delightful surprise upon arrival... the hostel had overbooked the dorms so we were upgraded to a private room with ensuite and AC for the same price for our three nights in Rome together. Wicked!

Krishna and Seema do not mess around. They have been travelling Europe for five weeks and have been to almost every country already... almost a different city every day! They slowed their pace a little for me and Rome, taking a whole three days to check out the Eternal City, where the saying A Lifetime Isnt Enough is all too true. The great thing about this city is despite the wide streets, you literally turn a corner and a massive fantastic monument is right there and you didn't even see it coming!

Our very first night was no small feat. We circumnavigated the Colosseum, which was actually a bit smaller than I imagined it would be, but was still terribly impressive. We watched the sunset behind the Arches of Constantine and Tito and Palatine Hill. As we ambled over to Travestere, the uber trendy night market area for dinner, we took in the Opera House, the Jewish Museum, the old chariot racing track and Ponte something or other. After dinner we climbed Capitoline Hill and saw the monument for Vittorio Emmanuel II up close.

Our second day we hit up St Peters Basilica and Piazza in Vatican City in the morning. Bernini's work inside the Basilica was astonishing. I was truly overwhelmed by the detail and the clever placement of the windows to cast beams of light in just the right places to give the church a really heavenly overtone. We then wandered over to Piazza del Popolo with a huge Egyptian obelisk with hieroglyphs inscribed everywhere (I believe Caligula the Emperor hijacked it from Heliopolis) and climbed the very worthwhile Pincio Hill for sweeping vistas of the city. The views from Castel SantAngelo back towards the Vatican were nothing to sneeze at either! After our refreshing siesta, we checked out the definitely overrated Spanish steps, which are great for people watching but really are just a big staircase leading to mediocre views of Rome. We capped off the night with gelato and gazing in wonder at the Trevi fountain, possibly my favourite sight in Rome. We did the obligatory tossing of a coin with our right hands over our left shoulders to ensure our return to Rome, though we missed out on drinking from the side fountain that is said to have the power to revirginize. So many random superstitions in this town! On our somewhat lost way back to the train station, we passed by Piazza Barberini where Bernini's Triton and Slut Fountain are on display. Not a typo. The tiny shell and bumblebee fountain was sculpted to imitate a lady's netherparts to stick it to the Pope and is nicknamed the Slut Fountain.

We also did a day trip to Napoli and Pompeii in the middle (separate post for that) and to make sure we got it all in, on our last day together we went to the Vatican Museums and the Pantheon (which I liked way better on the outside than the inside) before the girls had to get on their night train with a side stop at the greatest gelato shops in the city of course. We made it our mission to sample as many flavours as possible: banana, coconut, pineapple, lemon, field berry, strawberry, malaga, grandma, bubblegum, chocolate, nutella, hazelnut, stracciatella, tiramisu, caramel, coffee, and even one called Viagra (bright blue of course!). Seema had to sweet talk the scooper guy into selling her that one, since apparently Viagra flavour is only for men. But since he wanted to exit with her (direct quote... he meant 'go out'), it didn't take much convincing.

And the museum is when the history geek in me burst out. The Vatican Museums were phenomenal. As I put it to the girls, walking around the Egyptian and Ancient Greek wings were like the Hollywood Walk of Fame for me. My dorky knowledge of ancient civilizations worked to their benefit though since I could tell them anecdotes about all the artwork and statues we were seeing, like the story of Perseus and Medusa, of Remus and Romulus being raised by a wolf, of Hercules and the Greek gods, the Odyssey and the Trojan war, of mummification in ancient Egypt, etc. Not to mention the philosophers and poets in the paintings in the Raphael rooms like the School of Athens and Rodin's Thinker.

And Michaelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel wasn't half bad either! ;)

Italy - Florence and Pisa - Wait, Incredible Cultural Contributions AND Gelato? What More Could I Ask For?

2009-08-20T15:25:00.004-04:00

Alright, I get it. Italy's kind of a big deal and not without reason. Having now been to Florence, the city that gave birth to the Renaissance, Machiavelli and Michaelangelo, it's hard to not give this country props for how much it has contributed to the world over the years.

I had expected a lovely train ride into Firenze (Florence) from Milan through miles of sun-drenched Tuscan fields of sunflowers and vineyards. What I got was intermittent pitch black tunnels for two hours, since apparently it struck the railway engineers as easier to bore through the mountains than to travel over or around them. Oh well.

Florence was also a bit quiet, though definitely livelier than Milan, though it was mostly in sheer volume of tourists. I met two awesome fellow Canadians, Krishna and Seema, at my hostel and wasn't shy about inviting myself along with them to check out the city centre.

The Duomo was incredibly impressive. I had no idea it was green and red up close and it was too big to fit in one photograph even from a block away. The inside was also fairly spectacular and free to see (my favourite!).

Afterwards, we wandered by yet another castle, then by the Uffizi Gallery (the Louvre of Italy), through the markets where knockoff designer purses and silk ties for 3 Euros were on offer, and ended up at the train station. On a spur of the moment decision, we hopped the train to Pisa for the afternoon to picnic at the leaning tower, which despite its hype is still a pretty interesting sight, as it defies gravity.

That night at the hostel we were treated to an impromptu concert with a drum, piano and guitar featuring classics such as La Vie En Rose and Redemption Song. The jam session was broken up by a MASSIVE bee that attacked the party out of nowhere and it was a team effort to capture and release it from the common room.

Seema, Krishna and I all had such a blast that we agreed we'd do Rome together as well, so I cut Florence short by one day to join them in the Eternal City. Stay tuned.

Italy - Milano - Knock, Knock... Anybody Home?

2009-08-16T14:38:00.003-04:00

I didn't have the greatest time in transit getting to Europe. Although I got myself to Bangkok airport relatively hassle free, from there it went downhill. Royal Jordanian Airline tries really hard to please but didn't really meet its potential. First off, despite having massive crowds of people waiting by its desks to check in and get boarding passes, they opted to not open said desks until an hour and a half before the flight was to leave. In the mean time, I had the pleasure of waiting in the pretend line behind a bickering couple, the man of which was riding on a luggage cart because he had purple sunburns on his feet. We're talking serious degree burnage here... I wanted him to seek medical attention because this was above and beyond the call of aloe vera.

By the time I boarded the flight after midnight, I was rewarded with the seat next to the only obese passenger on the plane who decided my window seat leg space equally belonged to him, leading to a good deal of pushing to and fro throughout the night. And who doesn't turn off the plane lights on a nine hour overnight flight?! The main overhead lights remained on the entire trip, making sleep that much more of an elusive goal.

I wasn't a very happy camper arriving in Amman, Jordan at 5am with less than three hours of sleep under my belt. I was an even less happy camper when the signs and pictures in Arabic got me lost outside the transit zone and beyond the immigration desks without a visa or stamp. This entailed explaining I was lost and had not meant to leave the check in area and had no entry stamp to Jordanian security officials with a smattering of English ability at not my finest hour. They were incredibly nice and sorted it out for me despite having no idea what I was talking about most of the time. Note to self... come back to Jordan, they are super nice.

So I arrived in Milan with a lot of mental baggage from the annoyance of the flights, all of which started melting away the second I stepped out into the warm Italian sun. Ah, Italia, you lil charmer you.

But I couldn't help but notice as the shuttle brought us into the impeccably architectured city that most places were closed. Funny, I thought to myself, no one mentioned that Italy observes siesta. Upon arriving at my hostel, I was then informed by the incredibly sweet and helpful host Sara that this time of year, everyone and their mom pack up and head for the coast, leaving about 10 percent of the population to service the tourists. Of those still in the city, there was a very visible presence of African street hawkers, with the typical pitch of here, this bracelet's free for you and then shock when you don't want to buy it. As annoying as the touts can be, in this situation I couldn't help but wonder if some or many of them would be boat people who had made the journey across the Mediterranean and how much choice they had in where they worked. I really haven't seen any Africans in more official job industries around the city... only hawking knockoff bags and jewelry outside the tourist sites.

On the whole, the silence in the city was a bit surreal - the tourists really have the place to themselves. August 15 is Ferie, a national public holiday when everything closes down, so to say it was a quiet stay in Milan is an understatement. I did explore the city with some of my fellow hostel stayers. The Duomo cathedral with its millions of spires and statues jumped out at us when we turned a corner into the main Piazza and as it has just been spiffied up, it was more than a little impressive.

I sucked it up and climbed the whoknowshowmany stairs to the roof, which had great views over the city centre. Afterwards, we toodled through the living room of Milan, the massive Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade, which houses Prada, Louis Vuitton and the fanciest and most out of place McDonald's I've ever seen and the famous La Scala Opera House.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sauntering about with coconut and stracciatella gelati in hand, frolicking and cooling off in the fountain in front of the Sforzesco Castello and people watching in the park. I then attempted to consume a pizza the size of a desk for dinner along the Canal, which was quite a pretty evening walk. All in all, a nice and definitely delicious intro for my time in Europe.

Footnote - Our Moms Told Us Not to Talk to Strangers but Nobody Told the Strangers Not to Talk to Us

2009-08-14T06:38:00.001-04:00

As Mehr and I parted ways this week, I couldn't help but look back and notice a distinctive trend occurring in our travels together. I have already alluded to it in stories such as our plane ride with J. in Australia, but Mehr and I have an uncanny magnetism drawing strangers to tell us their life stories with no invitation.

In addition to J., there were the Jehovah's Witness Grannies who besieged us while we were having a snack in the park in Fremantle and the Italian Elders Social Club in the mall while I was repacking my bag. And that was just Australia. In KL, we had an older Chinese man who spoke no English stare us down at our restaurant table and then motion to us that satay makes people fat.

And later I was stopped on the street while walking to the Petronas towers by an Indian yogi who told me my fortune in super hushed tones (what I could hear was that Tuesday is my unlucky day and my face is very lucky). He also did a great trick where he predicted my favourite colour is blue and my favourite number is 7. Following that incident, on Pulau Perhentian, we ended up spending four hours talking politics with an Indian Malaysian internet cafe owner. We also had a tag along German guy in the Cameron Highlands... not even sure when he appeared, but he stuck by our elbows all day.

And in Thailand, a random American guy sweet talked his way into sharing a cab back to our hostel neighbourhood (that was worth it if only because when he heard we had been to Brunei, he asked if we knew the Sultan personally). And in Siem Reap, we were quizzed on things to do in the area by two passing by Irish guys. And in Vietnam, we had ladies showing us their wedding albums while selling us shoes or grabbing our baby fingers or full tummies in restaurants. We're pretty sure there is a sign over our heads saying Please Come Talk To Us.

Thailand - Bangkok - Bangkok, I Hardly Knew You

2009-08-14T06:29:00.003-04:00

We only had two days in Bangkok in the end and I was wiped. I did some shopping and I did some eating and then I got on a really long not so great plane trip to Italy. Heres what I can tell you about Bangkok...

1) It is not nearly as stinky as I was led to believe... its smelly-ness is on par with other Asian cities.
2) The sex tourism is just as bad and pervasive as I was told. On one street, we thought a club had just had a fire drill, but it was all ladies of the evening doing their rounds. It easily could have been 50 girls on one block and it made me very sad for them.
3) The street food rivals Mexicos for best eats.
4) I wish Id had more time to shop and see the giant Buddhas. But mostly to shop. Next trip.

Vietnam - Halong Bay - Pirates of the South China Sea

2009-08-11T05:34:00.004-04:00

To escape the blahness of Hanoi, we went all out and sprung for a 3 day minicruise through Halong Bay. After an always delightful three hour ride in a crowded minibus with tempermental a/c, we board a renovated junk ship (three floor vessel) and set sail. Halong Bay is so beautiful! Everywhere you look there are limestone cliff islands and green waters. Unfortunately because of all the tourist boats, there's also hidden pockets where some ships have dumped their garbage into the ocean, so you see the odd bottle, cucumber or wooden chair float past your boat.

Our first day we cruised for three hours to get to a quieter bay to kayak. Yup, sea kayaking. They took us through the caves under the limestone cliff islands into hidden lakes where we could see monkeys on the land and jellyfish in the water. On that note, guess who held a jellyfish tentacles down in her palm?! Naturally, it was a non-stinging one, but pretty cool all the same - felt a bit like a heart beating in my hand. We spent the night on a private beach island with 20 other people overlooking Cat Ba island across the bay. You'll be pleased to know that we, Team Eastern Canada, beat Team Western Canada (Craig and Charity from Vancouver) in the national championship foosball tournament, although we were whomped in the international finals against Team France (Elsa and Pierre from Paris).

Over the next two days, we changed boats three more times and ended up kayaking and swimming again in the afternoon, with our new tour friends of the day staring at us as they overheard us singing "The Littlest Worm I Ever Saw", "The Other Day I Met a Bear" and "The Princess Pat" while paddling the Bay. We then walked the plank and jumped off the ship to swim (a few bruises on my leg from a botched entry into the water) and relax before our seven course seafood dinner (pretty sure it was caught off the back of the boat!). The tour also included a stop at the Amazing Cave which was pretty amazing. Less amazing was the heat exhaustion I got from standing around in said cave for an hour. And even less amazing than that was feeling sick the rest of the day as we traveled 4 hours back to Hanoi then took our flight to Bangkok and didn't get to a bed until 1am.

Vietnam - Hanoi - A Work In Progress

2009-08-11T05:15:00.006-04:00

Alright, so I have to be honest, we didn't love Hanoi. Mehr was especially not fond of it; I think we might have enjoyed it more if we hadn't been staying in a hotel that was being built around us. Allow me to explain...

Ha Noi means "city inside rivers", and its more formal name Tham Long (I think) means Ascending Dragon. It is celebrating its 1000th anniversary as Vietnam's capital city on 10/10/2010. We stayed in the Old Quarter, the tourist area north of the astonishingly green Hoan Kiem Lake. Did you know that Eiffel the architect built one of the world's longest bridges in Hanoi? I do now.

Our hotel had top ratings online, but the experience left something to be desired. Upon our arrival, I noticed a very weird and strong smell in the room. Kind of like onions and new paint. Explanation: they had just painted the room and they use slices of raw onion to absorb the new paint smell. So we found little treasure troves of onions all around our dwelling. We had a brand new bathtub. Which leaked a lot. And our toilet either didn't have water or never flushed properly. Construction on the street started at 6am with the jackhammers and smoothly transitioned into the screaming and banging of a middle school band that was occupying the remainder of the hotel. And everytime we came back to the room, something was new. Example: we got curtains (there were none before). And a new sink. And a phone. Etc. Very bizarre.

The one real day we had for sightseeing, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex was closed. And the highly recommended Museum of Ethnology was 7km out of town. So we contented ourselves with a stroll around Hoan Kiem lake and ice cream (sidenote: why don't we have ice cream buffets in Canada?). Also, we don't understand where Hanoi dwellers go to eat, because there were about three restaurants in the whole Old Quarter... everything labeled "cafe" was in fact a tour agency. Very misleading. The Lake was quite pretty and apparently is home to giant tortoises. The legend is that the Viet king who defeated the Chinese after 1000 years of occupation with a divine sword returned the sword to its divine owners via the lake's golden tortoise.

We then got caught in pretty serious rains (which we later learned was the typhoon that hit southern China) and took in a water puppet show at the theater. No, you read that correctly. The art of water puppetry dates back to the 11th century, when they used the puppets to tell stories and legends on the rice paddies.

It was pretty entertaining despite being in Vietnamese. We then dropped in on a jazz club on the bar street which was pretty good.

We also learned why the houses are so thin here - property taxes are based on the width of the face of your property!

Vietnam - Danang to Hanoi - Stu The Bus

2009-08-05T20:20:00.004-04:00

Oh, my loyal readers, how do I even begin?

Mehron and I are becoming tightfisted cheapskates as our journey progresses and our travel funds deplete. So we opted to take the 16 hour overnight bus from Hoi An to Hanoi instead of the $100 flight.

In retrospect, that might have been the wrong decision.

Meet Stu, our sleeper bus. I consider myself somewhat of a bus connoisseur at this point, having sat on them for well over 200 hours of travel time thus far on the trip. Stu is not the worst bus ride I've been on (Bolivian waterfall bus still ranks top) but he was ten kinds of special.

Turn on your imaginations, kids. You wait on the sidewalk with your luggage and the other forty passengers. The bus pulls up and you watch everyone abandon their bags on the street because naturally there are no assigned seats/beds. This is a form of entertainment for the bus staff who can then enjoy the melee that ensues as people madly scramble for places. Slowing down the process is the mandatory removal and plastic bagging of one's shoes on the staircase boarding the bus. As you struggle to remove your shoes and bag them in one fluid (not so fluid!) motion, you are then confronted by no less than three rows of bunk beds.

Bunk beds made for elves, because even less tall Mehron could not fit inside them comfortably. We especially lucked out since we didn't get in on the mad scramble early enough and were left with a choice of five beds across either on the mountain climbing top level or the claustrophobic lower level. We opted for the top, which would later bite us in the rear, as it's VERY difficult to dismount in a pitch black bus that sways while going over bumps and has no ladders (more on that later) when one wants to use the facilities.

After we had assured our lovely accommodations for the night, we realized that our bags were still sitting forlornly on the sidewalk, screaming 'please steal me, I am not attended'. Mehr's somewhat clumsy yet quick dash off the bus ensured they were loaded, much to the annoyance of the busboy, who only forgave us for making him reopen the hatch when he learned we were Canadian. Gold card, kids, gold card.

We were delighted that the middle bed of the five was empty, separating us from 'ze long-haired Germans' with many smelly sandwiches (seriously, they had an endless supply; I think they ate seven or eight each!). Our hopes were dashed when later some random new passenger who we don't remember getting picked up crawled in next to me, and slept on one of my bags all night, having pushed over the rest of our belongings onto my legs, then onto Mehron's legs, then putting his legs clearly on MY bed, thus pushing ME onto Mehron, and Mehron crammed into the window. That was weird.

At first, we thought the rails between beds were the equivalent of armrest airport benches; designed to make you uncomfortable, unable to sleep and to block spillover into your neighbour's space. As previously mentioned with new guy, this did not succeed in preventing spillover and as the ride progressed we realized they were for safety because every time we hit a bump, we got major air. Kind of like being in kindergarten and scoring the back seat of the bus, but with none of the elated glee. Please note I couldn't even sit up on the bed, as the ceiling was too low and Mehron's was even lower, so we could only roll around on the spot, and even that, not very successfully.

We have two unique perspectives describing how our sleep passed.

Mehron: "It's like being strapped to a stretcher/spinal board on top of a waterbed underneath the Arctic drip in the jetstream with 25 strangers listening to Vietnamese musicals blaring from the world's tiniest television at the front of the bus (the only source of light aside from the sunset for the entire duration of the trip!)."

Holly: "I feel like I slept inside a blender."

Mine is somewhat more concise, but I hurt everywhere from keeping so tense against the flailing of the bus ride that I can't get into much more detail on that point.

Oh, Stu, we'll never forget you.

Vietnam - Hoi An - Shopper's Paradise

2009-08-05T01:47:00.005-04:00

Hoi An is a speck of a town in the middle of the South China Sea coast of Vietnam. It has its charms, mainly in Old Town where the colonial buildings and waterway cut through the centre, but the big attraction is the plethora of tailor shops! Literally every street has ten or more custom made clothing stores, where you can pick from ready to wear designs on the mannequins, from endless catalogues or from photos from home. The hundreds of staff will alternately bargain or bamboozle you into buying an entire new wardrobe, all ready within 24-48 hours of having your measurements taken.

We had no intention of shopping here. And yet, we seem to be leaving with 5 new pairs of custom made shoes, an evening dress and linen pants. Imagine if we were looking to buy stuff! We actually didn't get around to seeing some of the sites of the area, like the Cham ruins of My Son or the nearby beach, because we had so many fittings to attend for our purchases. We consoled ourselves for missing these cultural experiences with beer o'clock in the hostel pool in the afternoons.

It turned out to be key to enjoy Hoi An by lounging the hostels' pools by day when the sun drives the temperatures into the 40s and save your perusing of the clothes stores and art galleries for the evening when Le Loi and several other major roads are closed off to traffic and become pedestrian shopping malls ("walking street"). The temperatures are cooler, the touts are less pushy and the town is prettier illuminated with Chinese lanterns.

One further observation: as we've spent more time here, we've noticed a marked decrease in sensitivity to personal space. Eg: when I was signing the check-in forms, the reception desk lady grabbed my hand and played with my fingers. "Like baby fingers!" she remarked, "very soft". I think what she meant was "still have baby chub". And while finishing a meal in a restaurant, the waitress grabbed Mehr's tummy to check if she had any room left for more food, which startled us so quickly that we didn't even have time to complain or be alarmed before it was over. And the shoemaker poked my nose more than a few times to illustrate that it's pointy. Right...

The silver lining is that they also understand our sense of humour a bit better. For instance, Mehr and I would point out various ugly prints/colours/paintings and suggest to each other we buy them for friends at home, sort of in a out-tacky-ing competition (example: "Hey Mehr, I think your parents would really like that chubby-faced Mona Lisa ripoff" "Hey Holly, you've always wanted to buy a turquoise and pink sequined leotard.", etc.). In Thailand, they would overhear this and then try to sell us many similarly tacky things thinking they were to our taste. Here, the sales people point to other tacky items, then wink and laugh hysterically because they've caught the joke. Irony is not lost on the Vietnamese.

Smile of the Day:

Older gentleman compliments tiramisu to bakery attendant. She says "Yes, I really like it too." He responds with puzzlement and vague surprise "Oh, you eat?"

And Best pick up line award goes to:

Boy holds shirt out to girl. "Feel this," he says. She does. "Does that feel like boyfriend material?"

Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) - Wars, Armadas and Strip Clubs

2009-08-03T10:50:00.002-04:00

Our bus trip from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in Vietnam was interesting to say the least. You know what they love here? Karaoke and the movie Titanic. We had already noticed that Titanic shows regularly on tv here and that all music videos by regional artists include sing-a-long lyrics. On our bus ride, we were treated to both! Titanic is a little hard to follow in Khmer and Vietnamese ballads are somewhat difficult to pronounce, so I broke my rule of only changing my CD three times per trip (this keeps the rotation fresh among my 10 CDs and yes, I am that 90s dork on the road with a Discman instead of an Ipod, but it's indestructible and I don't care if I lose it) and listened to all 10 to drown out the television.

We had been told the trip would take 10 hours. It turns out that 10 hours in Cambodia is actually 14 in Vietnam, 4 of which were aimlessly driving around Ho Chi Minh City before reaching the last stop destination. My favourite part was the hour spent in a waiting area at Vietnamese immigration while our bus jockey disappeared into another room with everyone's passports... Since when does your passport get stamped to cross a border without you being there? Better yet, I'm still battling the remnants of a bronchial-sounding cold-related cough and with Swine Flu's Spanish Inquisition in Asia, I had to put a stranglehold on my lungs, esophagus and throat and breathe at half capacity to avoid overcautious quarantine. For an hour.

I think what's important is that we arrived. Only to be overwhelmed by the Vietnamese Armada, as we have taken to calling the army of motorbikes filling the streets of Saigon.

There are literally hundreds of them weaving and dashing on the roads in no discernible pattern and with little obedience of traffic lights or crosswalks. As you may expect, it is sometimes necessary to cross a road and Mehron and I then faced a terrible dilemma. We are the world's most skittish jaywalkers and Mehr has even been known to take a cab to get across Middle Eastern traffic lanes rather than cross it herself.

This put the pressure on me to determine how the locals move from block to block without multiple hospitalizations. Brendan Morrison had told me it was almost easier to close your eyes and go. I did not care for that strategy, but it's almost true! The key it turns out, is to watch for the big vehicles (cars, vans, buses, etc.) because they will hit you. Once there's a break in them and you only face the swarms of motorbikes you VERY DELIBERATELY AND AT AN EVEN STEADY PACE walk out onto the road and continue to cross at the EXACT SAME SPEED. Unlike in Canada, where you are expected to work around the cars, here the motorbikes will work around you. Usually. Be as predictable as possible and they will go around. Do not burst into a run at any time or stop part way. That will land you in an accident.

Ho Chi Minh is a really interesting city, traffic aside. It's got a lot of grittiness going on but not the gross kind. There's minimal garbage stench but some signs that it's rough around the edges. Also, for the booklovers out there, you don't go to bookshops because tiny ladies who appear to have hijacked stacks of books waiting to be reshelved at the library double their height wander the streets and restaurants bringing said stacks to you. And Vietnam has the world's thinnest buildings. I have never seen such narrow structures in my life. There will be three apartment buildings in a row the same width as a house in Ottawa.

Vietnam is also a country with the war very much alive in its consciousness. We visited the War Remnants Museum, which was a harrowing and very different perspective on the Indochina and Vietnam War. There were thousands of photos chronicling political events, battles, chemical warfare and after effects of Agent Orange on the population of Vietnam. They also had replicas of the POW prisons used by the French and the Americans, such as the tiger cages, where the descriptions of torture techniques were so graphic that we had to leave.

We also did a tour of the Viet Cong tunnels in Cu Chi, a network of over 200km of underground tunnels and bases. The army's motto was "in one hand the rifle, in the other, the plough". The entire population of Vietnam was mobilized during the war to repel the Americans; men, women and children were combatants awarded the status of "American killer Hero". This place really showed why the war was unwinnable. As we walked overground through the jungle with its puddles of mud from the rainy season and millipedes falling from trees while overhearing the gunshots from the shooting range nearby, it wasn't hard to imagine how hellish this war would have been for both sides. The forest was full of miniscule hidey-hole entries to the tunnel networks that were all but impossible to detect and certainly too small for the average American sized soldier to enter. And it would have been full of landmines and bamboo traps as well.

But our visit to Saigon wasn't all doom and gloom. On our way home from the museum, a huge rain cloud burst on us and we sought shelter from the downpour at a nearby restaurant. Or so we thought. The facts were these:

1) the only other customers were all men seated at one table
2) said other customers stared at us dumbfounded for twenty minutes as we drank water and orange juice
3) not a lot of food was on the menu for a restaurant
4) there was a massive glass cabinet with high end scotch and whiskey
5) on closer inspection, the multiple rooms I had taken to be toilets in the back hallway were marked with numbers and "VIP"

I whispered to Mehr under my breath, "Um, Mehr... I think we're in a gentlemen's establishment..." Yes, folks, we had afternoon tea at an upscale strip club by accident! To add to this event, I also mistook my 100,000 dong bills for 10,000 and almost overpaid our $3 check by $50. Thankfully the staff was honest and returned the extra money.

We put that money to good use at a fantastic hair salon where $15 got us a shampoo, cut, blowdry, massage and facial. Nice. It's so affordable to be stylish and well-groomed in Asia!

An Open Letter to Southeast Asia Concerning the Confusion Over What Constitutes "Tea"

2009-08-01T03:58:00.004-04:00

Dear SouthEast Asia (except you, Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, you are excused),

I am writing to you out of concern. Perhaps translation has failed us, but every time I sit down at a cafe to enjoy a hot beverage and order "tea", you unfailingly deliver to me the most dreadful of all hot drinks, the "teacino". If I had wanted this concoction, I'd have ordered a cup of tea, a cup of coffee and a cup of condensed milk and mixed them together myself.

Being such close neighbours to the great producers/consumers of tea, China and India, there is really no excuse for this substitution and stinginess. If you only offer teacino, please desist from listing it as "tea" on your menu. They are in no way the same beverage. This would save me and others a great deal of disappointment and disgust.

Regards,

Holly

Guest Post - Open Letter to Greyhound Canada from Mehron

2009-08-01T03:51:00.002-04:00

Dear Greyhound Canada,

I feel obliged to bring to your attention some unfavourable facts concerning your lack of bus service etiquette. I am a concerned citizen on a trip around-the-world, who after enduring bus rides of lengths up to 15 hours in 7 different countries, have come to the conclusion that your services are completely inefficient. This is a travesty of international proportions.

In no other country has there been a blatant disregard for movie usage on bus tv's (I know you still have copies of Men In Black...I have witnessed their showings back in the 90's), painful mandatory stops at the overly-priced and under-supplied Log Cabin restaurant on highway 7, recorded decapitations and subsequent threats of the like and/or unreliable time scheduling (it should never take 7 hours from Ottawa-Toronto, even a snail dragging a tractor could get there faster).

I propose some of the following ways that other national bus lines have used to amp up their services:

1. Replace the current uncomfortable seats for La-Z-Boy chairs that fully recline (Malaysia)
2. Use that relic of a tv that currently inhabits all buses and if they are not working, instead of leaving it as clutter, just bolt a 60" Plasma tv in its place. Voila the passengers are satisfied (Vietnam)
3. Once the tv is working and movies are playing, a good economical way of passing the time is to pop in Titanic in Khmer...it works like a charm (Cambodia)
4. If there is hesitation that the passengers will mess up the newly acquired seats then covering them with the same plastic sheeting one's grandmother uses on her couch will do the trick (Brunei) or alternatively putting up a sign indicating that passengers should refrain from ingesting stinky food on said bus will also help - i.e. "No durian or shrimp paste allowed!" (Malaysia)
5. If the trip is long and there is hesitation that the passengers will become restless then a round of musical chairs that will allow them to move around the cabin at midnight to swap seats with on-coming passengers is always a good idea (Malaysia)
6. If there is prior notice that the bus will be heated up to 28 degrees Celsius or cooled down to arctic temperatures due to air conditioning then I strongly stress that a hostess and massage chairs are employed (Thailand)
7. If there are complaints regarding the smell emanating from the toilets at the back of the bus might I suggest that moving it downstairs to a secret compartment...this may entail major alterations to the shape/mechanics of said bus (Thailand)
8. If there is to be a border crossing then instead of making the passengers individually go through immigration, it will be better if they stand at the border for hours while their passports are checked without them physically being at the counter...much like a ghost being cross examined at immigration, it's much speedier (Vietnam)
9. Personalize drop off services so instead of ending the journey at a generic bus terminal at the center of the city, the bus can drop off passengers to their respective neighbourhoods; thus extending the trip from 10 hours to 14 hours...no one can resist a good long ride (Vietnam)

I strongly urge that Greyhound Canada take my suggestions seriously as it will only serve to greatly strengthen and elevate its standing in world bus lines. Thank you for your time and patience.

Sincerely,

Mehron (a.k.a Connoisseur of the art of traveling for extended periods of time on foreign bus lines)

Cambodia - Siem Reap - Angkor Wat, Angkor What?!

2009-07-31T08:51:00.010-04:00

So we journeyed across this land of rice paddies, clay dirt and deltas north to Siem Reap, the gateway city to Angkor Wat, where the food is amazing, the people are beautiful, the bargains are cheap and the temples are astounding.

We could have stayed and just eaten our way through Siem Reap, which has a limited number of activities once you've explored Angkor Wat. Just a sampling of the culinary feast to be had includes lok luk beef, Angkor chicken stew, Angkor palm platter with curry, mango salad, fresh spring rolls, and so much more. More importantly, they can correctly produce french baguettes, which have generally been subpar everywhere I've been so far. My theory is the farther away you get from the bastions of France and her former colonies, the crappier the baguettes (kind of like the quality of bagels in relation to their distance from Montreal).

Now the star attraction is of course Angkor Wat, which is both a specific city ruin and the collective name for the area of fortified cities and temples/ruins north of Siem Reap which are (like many other cool monuments) described as the eighth wonder of the world. I can see why. We pried ourselves out of bed at 4:30am to take our 5am tuk tuk to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise over the main city ruins. By the way, I haven't been reading the news, but if the entire population of Ireland has mysteriously disappeared recently, you'll be relieved to know that I found them - they're all in Cambodia.

And Angkor Wat more than meets its hype, with intricate apsara (celestial spirit dancers) and naga (cobra) engravings.

I was totally blown away. My favourite was Bayon near Angkor Thom, a massive temple with thousands of Buddha faces carved into every surface so it looks like you're being watched by millions of eyes. Baphuon was also impressive, as it is still being put back together after being taken apart piece by piece for study, a giant jigsaw puzzle. I was also suitably impressed with the Terrace of Elephants, which no surprise, is engraved with tons of elephants, as well as garuda, half-men half-bird creatures that hold it up. The warrior carvings in the Terrace of the Leper King were also very cool.

Ta Kao, an incredibly high temple (you can see Angkor Wat from the top in the distance), was never completed because it was struck by lightning.

I never completed climbing it because it is incredibly high with incredibly steep steps and no railings that made me incredibly paralyzed with fear when I looked down. Ta Prohm was used in the filming of Tomb Raider and is famous for being overgrown. Massive trees have sprung up through the gates and the buildings, poignantly demonstrating that civilization can't withstand time and nature.

At each stop we were besieged by adorable Khmer children trying to sell either one of the following: ten bamboo bracelets, ten postcards of Cambodia or two drinks (one for me, one for my driver). I was lucky to have escaped with only 15 bracelets, 2 bottles of water and 5 postcards. Their sales pitch was impressive though. After you say no thank you to start with, they ask where you are from and then show off how much they know about your country. They knew more facts about Canada than I did. Capital Ottawa. Speak two languages, French and English. Comment ca va? Toronto biggest city. Quebec French. Population 32 million. Etc. All the hawkers would leave off once you entered the actual temples though so you could enjoy the ruins in peace.

We refreshed ourselves from our 7 hour day at Angkor Wat with beer o'clock on Bar Alley (actual street name) at a pub geniusly named Angkor What?! Would have got the t-shirt but their slogan also refers to encouraging irresponsible drinking, which we were hard pressed to find funny in light of the problem of drunk driving and alcoholism.

Another treasure in Siem Reap was the craft collective Artisans D'Angkor, a nonprofit project for job traineeships and employment in stonemasonry, carving, silk painting and silk weaving for disadvantaged Cambodians and deaf mutes. The arts centre in the city was impressive, as was the silk farm just outside town where we watched the dead silkworms being boiled and strung. It takes 3 days to weave a single scarf because they still work the looms by hand in Cambodia (mechanized in Vietnam).

The tour ended of course in the gift shop, where we were lucky to escape without spending the rest of our travel funds. So many beautiful fair trade things, so little budget for shopping!

Quote of the Day: "There are a lot of Asians in there." -American man exiting bathroom, Bangkok Airport

Cambodia - Phnom Penh - Defiance of Expectations

2009-07-29T09:24:00.004-04:00

In response to some constructive criticism from an avid follower of this blog, it has been requested that I present a more balanced perspective on our travels, since I apparently am favouring the incredible fun stuff and leaving out the hassles and challenges.

So let me tell you the travails and ordeals of our commute from Chiang Mai to Phnom Penh. We boarded yet another night bus (they never seem to travel during the day for long hauls...) for Bangkok at 10:30pm. Wait, that's a lie. We entered the tiny waiting room to board our bus at 10:30pm. Actual bus boarding did not occur until 11:00pm, with bus leaving by 11:30pm. We had splurged to make the ride more enjoyable - VIP including individual televisions, snacks, on bus toilet and extra leg room. These perks totally fell through. My free juice was vegetable. Bleh. And the AC was a solid 28 degrees, a mere 3 degrees difference from being outdoors and at least with the window open we'd have had a breeze. Our English movie selection was dreadful: I Know Who Killed Me, Apocalypto, Flood and Red Line. And made worse by the fact that these movies were in fact only intermittently in English. Apocalypto was in fact in ancient Maya with Thai subtitles. Then Mehr started feeling carsick and spent the subsequent ten hours all queasy and nauseous.

Our bedraggled selves emerged from the bus at 7am in Bangkok and proceeded directly to the airport to pass away the six hours until our flight to Cambodia at 2:30pm (which of course was delayed until 3:30pm once we arrived at the airport. Even my spirited narration of the adventures of Cu Culann, the Irish boy wonder, were insufficient to cure Mehr's nausea, so her wait was far more tortuous than mine. We were fairly ravenous and were rewarded with the worst airport meal I've ever eaten. In fact, it was the third worst meal of my trip after the raw chicken in Cusco and the rooftop meat in Bolivia. My Tom Yam Soup was a puddle of mushrooms (I do not care for mushrooms) and Mehr's noodle soup was the saddest spiciest thing I've ever seen ladled into a bowl. Even treating myself to a DQ blizzard afterwards didn't improve my mood. In fact, it made things worse, since I've had a cold and it drastically increased congestion levels. Curses! But once we made it onto our flight, all was well again (we bounce back quickly) because we were going to the kingdom of wonder, Cambodia!

We had no idea what to expect of Cambodia. We've heard both rants and raves from different sources and of course, it was nothing like whatever we might have expected. I had envisioned something similar to Thailand, maybe lots of hilly jungle forests and lots of knock off goods. What we encountered was an incredibly flat land of deltas and bayous and clay dirt, with a population full of smiles that belies a recent tragic past.

Phnom Penh is accurately described as the tarnished pearl of Asia. It shows all the traces of a major hub of civilizations that has fallen into disuse. It is a vivid city, with no skyscraper-plastered financial district to speak of, where families travel four to a motorbike and smells of every cuisine in the world and every garbage you can think of mingle in the streets.

The nicest area for strolling is the Riverside and the only areas you'll really see significant numbers of other tourists are the main sites: the Palace, the Independence Monument, the temples, and the bars. Though there are more than enough NGOs and NGO expats to be found - everywhere here lists prices in US dollars! We couldn't even withdraw Cambodian riel from the bank, so it's been a bit more expensive than anticipated because we get dinged on the exchange rate!

The other major sites are the memorials commemorating the Khmer Rouge genocide. For those who don't know, the Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot kidnapped, tortured and executed as many as two million of their own people during the 1960s and 1970s. Tuol Sleng, the genocide museum, is housed on the site of detention center S-21 in the middle of Phnom Penh.

It was formerly a high school but was converted into a prison and interrogation center during the genocide. The other major site is the Killing Fields which are just south of the city. Mehr and I were undecided on whether or not to see these, since it seems wrong in some ways to have places where so many murders occurred as tourist attractions. Tuol Sleng was a haunting experience. You could walk into the cell blocks. There was also a video detailing two prisoners' experiences. We also met the only living survivor of S-21 (only 8 were alive when it was closed), and walked through the galleries of victims' photos and paintings. It gives one chills.

The Killing Fields were more problematic. They have recently been bought by Japan which is unfathomable... Can you imagine if Poland needed money and some country offered to buy a concentration camp from the Holocaust? There is a massive charnel with over 8000 skulls inside as a memorial to the victims and you can wander around but it felt like a violation of a terrible graveyard.

Just when we started to get antsy on our tour, we were besieged by local children and their flock of roosters who asked for candy and then serenaded us with "Beautiful Girl" by Sean Kingston, which was both funny and absurd in the moment, but gave us a bit of relief from all the trauma of the day. But I think what bothered us most were the gift shops. GENOCIDE GIFT SHOPS. That was really not okay.

After such a traumatic morning, we spent the afternoon relaxing and wandering around the city. We then spent our evening on a corner restaurant where two eighteen year old girls whomped us both at Connect Four and pool. Multiple times. But they never tired of playing us, so we kept on. We even went back the next day for rematches. And were creamed again. Oh well. Better luck next time.

Thailand - Chiang Mai - Something for Everyone

2009-07-24T02:12:00.007-04:00

It is no exaggeration to say that there is something for everyone in Chiang Mai. We were nervous that nothing could follow up our time in Malaysia and Borneo without suffering in comparison, but Chiang Mai in Thailand blew us away. It has so much going on! Sample of activities: meditation retreats, language classes, spas and massages, cooking classes, elephant training/riding, trekking, boat trips to Laos, tiger and panda parks, custom tailor shops, night markets and more!

This is possibly the longest Mehr and I have stayed in one city in our travels together so far, and with so much to do and our favourite hostel so far (Green Tulip - amazing owners, spotlessly clean and cheap!) it's no surprise. We checked out the Chiang Mai Zoo, its newly born panda baby and the greatest use of parrots I've ever seen:

We climbed the 306 step staircase (they like to brag about the obscene number of stairs they have) to Wat Doi Suthep which overlooks the city - beautiful. And less physically demanding than the 272 steps at the Batu Caves in Malaysia.

And we took full advantage of the cheap spas, doing a 3 hour package our first afternoon here that involved Thai massage, hot compress herbal treatment, facials, foot reflexology and more. We also went again for manicures and pedicures later in the week, all at a fraction of the prices in North America.

We then indulged in an all day cooking class in Thai food and learned how to make: pad thai, spring rolls, green and red curry, cashew chicken stirfry, sweet and sour stirfry, papaya salad, spicy glass noodle salad, sticky rice with mango and bananas in coconut milk. Delicious! Sadly, I still haven't learned to make banana honey roti, which is our current favourite street food.

We also had three piece suits and dresses custom made at a local tailor's over the past two days, which took about two days and three fittings to get right, but wow! We feel like high rollers wearing them! And I found my own slice of heaven - a whole street alley of second hand bookstores and the selection is amazing. I'm hard pressed to keep to my rule of traveling with just one book at a time when the getting's this good.

We found there are way more tourists here than Malaysia, although we've been told it's frighteningly low compared to how many would usually be here. Right now, even though it's high season, the number of tourists is more like lowest of low season. The political unrest has diverted all of them to neighbouring countries apparently, which is a shame because it's the usual case of 5% of malcontents ruining things for 95% of the population.

We can add Chiang Mai to the list of places I would go to again - I feel like I could easily spend another week here exploring, but Cambodia's a-callin'...

Malaysian Borneo - Sarawak - The Long Hot Road from Miri to Kuching

2009-07-17T03:10:00.004-04:00

Our bus out of BSB landed us promptly in the city of Miri in Sarawak, a semi-autonomous province of Malaysia's part of Borneo. Miri is the access point for three major fabulous national parks, Limbir Hills, Niah Caves and Mulu. We had been hoping to squeeze in a half day checking out Niah's famous caves, which are supposed to be amazing. No such luck - the buses and timing were totally against us. Our Brunei bus actually dropped us off in the middle of nowhere - the new long distance bus terminal was completely deserted. No ticket counters, no touts, no taxis, nada. We did eventually grab a desolate city bus and an hour later found ourselves in the city center.

Now, as previously mentioned, I haven't disliked many places on this trip (Auckland grrr). I did not like Miri. First instinct reaction was to look for buses out of there. I don't know why. Mehr was also melting - it was very hot. So she was up for fleeing the city as well. We were directed to a third bus terminal for a 4:30pm overnight 14 hour bus ride to Kuching, the provincial capital of Sarawak, where our flight would be leaving from in two days time. We signed on with no hesitation. And the bus wasn't bad, but the passing of time was pretty slow.

We read aloud to each other about etiquette pointers for Renaissance gentlemen and ancient Celtic myths about boy-wonders (English title selection was limited in Brunei). To drown out the awful video games seated behind us, I burned through two sets of AA batteries in my Discman. And when we finally arrived all bedraggled in Kuching at 6am, I felt like I'd been kicked in the neck.

Kuching is totally charming though and the food is heavenly. We tried pansoh manok (chicken chilli cooked in bamboo) and it just melted in your mouth. We also finally had some laksa soup, which tastes a bit like Singapore noodles in soup form. Very tasty. I'm also a big fan of honey popcorn... perfect bus snack food. Also, Kuching means 'cat' in Malay and they are obsessed. We have no idea why and sadly don't have time to trek out to the Cat Museum to find out. There are cat monuments all over town too.

The one other thing that has stood out for us on Borneo as a whole is how much attention we draw. Not bad attention, just lots of it. We can't quite decide what's the cause. In Brunei, there were few foreigners, so that was a given. They kept asking us what race we were, which we found to be a very confusing question. It was even on the immigration cards, which we left blank. They were confused that we don't racially identify in Canada. They also were confused that we're both from Canada. They inevitably ask where the other person is from assuming it's a different place than whoever answered first.

We figure it is one of the following:

1) We don't match. I am very tall and very white. Mehr is very less tall and darker. We've noticed that white people tend to travel in herds here, so me being a loner might be a factor.
2) We laugh a lot, which makes us noisy.
3) We wear appropriate clothing and eat in local restaurants, unlike a lot of the other short-sporting tourists frequenting McDonald's and KFC. Hello, Muslim country... put some clothes on kiddo.

Brunei Darussalam - Bandar Seri Begawan - What?!

2009-07-17T02:21:00.007-04:00

"Mehron, we're in Brunei... what?!"

Ever since I have known her, Mehron has had a tiny obsession with a tiny Islamic sultanate located on the island of Borneo named Brunei Darussalam. This "Abode of Peace" is the kingdom of the Sultan of Brunei, who in the past five days has become my favourite international political leader and has already been Mehr's for several years. When we met up, it was hardly a week into our traveling together that Mehr popped the question. "Hey, can we go to Brunei?" I replied "Um, sure."

Here's what we knew before we landed in this country... it has been ruled by Sultans for over six hundred years. Its current Sultan used to be the wealthiest man in the world until his brother blew $16B of his money, $25m in one night's gambling alone.

Yeah, that's it.

Here's what we know now... Brunei is home to 385,000 people. It is wedged in between the two Malaysian provinces of Sabah and Sarawak on the third largest island in the world, Borneo. The population is Malay, Chinese, Indian and Borneon indigenous. Their top three pastimes are kite flying, top spinning and grass sledding. All of the country's wealth is generated by the vast oil reserves in the town of Seria near the capital. The Sultan gives out 300 new houses to his subjects on his birthday every year. He also pays child allowances, health care bills and renovation costs on the 3-5 bedroom houses that Bruneians rent for only $30-50/month. He employs 80% of the population.

And they LOVE him. I get it. If you are now thinking about emigrating here, I should warn you that you'd have to live here twenty years before you can even apply for citizenship, and you'd still have to pass several tests including Bruneian history and high Malay (the Court language).

We were hoping to attend his 63rd birthday celebrations, one of the biggest national holidays in the country on the 15th, but due to an outbreak of swine flu, he postponed the party until further notice. That didn't stop the locals from decorating though, and BSB the capital was bedecked in Christmas lights and massive banners with his pictures and birthday greetings.

In lieu of what would have been a fabulous birthday party, we spent our time around BSB and in the rainforest. BSB is home to the floating mosque (Omar Ali Saiffuddien), which was stunning to see at nighttime with the reflection in the artifical lagoon, and to the world's oldest water village, the Kampung Ayer.

We took half a day to check out the infamous Empire Hotel and Country Club, a project of his brother's that cost $1.1B to build (most expensive in the world!), and it was HUGE.

The money was poured into the details though, like the mother of pearl inlay on the mosaics on the staircase bannisters. We also paid $5 to see Transformers 2 in the hotel's cinema complex and had the theater pretty much to ourselves. Wicked.

The most impressive site was the Royal Regalia Exhibition Hall, a sprawling complex that houses the man-pulled carriage and uniforms and flags used for coronation and jubilee celebrations, as well as priceless gifts from other countries such as a glass replica of Mecca with emerald minarets, diamond studded daggers and heaps of golden treasures. Canada gave him a soapstone walrus in case you were curious and I have to say, we kind of come off as cheap misers next to the massive elephant tusks from Thailand. And to think, this is the man's closet space... imagine what he keeps in his solid gold domed palace! Money.

We also took in a day trip to Ulu Temburong National Park to see the Bruneian rainforest. It involved a number of cool moments that are easily brag-able to your friends at home at a later date.

Like "oh, and then we traveled by longboat into the Borneon jungle!"

and "we were swarmed by honey bees while on the rainforest Canopy walkway!"

and "we stood in the pool of a rainforest waterfall where the fish gave us a pedicure. It really tickled."

There are more but those are some of the highlights. We also saw a modern longhouse, where the women were weaving basket handicrafts and brewing rice wine, but all their kids are living and working in the city or are at the Arabic school down the street.

Brunei has definitely won our hearts, small prosperous little nation that it is. And our parting moment at the departure immigration centre on the border with Sarawak was the surprise drive-by of none other than the Sultan's motorcade! It's just as well we didn't see or meet him. I honestly would have been completely starstruck.

Malaysia - Melaka - Lesson on the Importance of Knowing the Days of the Week

2009-07-10T23:34:00.003-04:00

Guess who forgot and did not plan for weekend traffic again?

We took a day trip to the historic city of Melaka on Friday. Even though Lonely Planet had cautioned us that on weekends, the bus to KL sells out, we somehow did not put two and two together. We ended up with heaps more time in Melaka than we had originally planned since we had aimed to be on a bus back to KL by six and we just got lucky landing tickets for the 10pm bus. Yay four hours at Melaka Sentral station!

Melaka itself was pretty cool. Over the past thousand years it has been under the control of the Malays, the Chinese, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Brits which makes for a big cultural melange. It was a lively port throughout the ages and all the influences from other countries appears everywhere. For instance, from Portugal they have a love of desserts; there are sweet shops everywhere. And the Dutch put up a windmill, which is kind of a "Holland was here" tag on the city. There was also a sweet old school ship in the Maritime Museum and tragically we missed the sleepover on the ship by one lousy night! Chinatown had the most personality, being full of antique shops and laneways and delicious Baba Nonya cuisine (mix of Chinese and Malay heritage). Not a bad place to hang out for the day, even if it was even hotter than KL.

To escape the monstrous heat, we ducked into the People and Beauty Museum to check out how different people around the world have warped their bodies in aesthetic deformation practices.

These are the regional tuk-tuk equivalents. They are bedecked in flowers and pump loud Eurotechno as they stalk you down the sidewalk beckoning you to ride along.
P.S. We're now on our way to Brunei. No, it is not in the Middle East.

Malaysia - Pulau Perhentian - Paradise and Purple Pants

2009-07-10T07:16:00.007-04:00

Shhh, don't tell. We have found the only islands on the Gulf of Thailand that aren't plagued with touts or absurdly inflated tourist prices. They are called Pulau Perhentian (Stopover Islands; once inhabited by pirates!) and they are heaven.

Tucked away in the northeast of Malaysia, the two main islands PP Kecil and PP Besar (Little and Big Island) are postcard beach island destinations in southeast Asia.

After a very extended match of "This would be worse if...", our favourite travel game, in the cramped and under air conditioned minibus to the ferry (which we thought we had played very quietly until the Aussie girls next to us commented that their favourite was "if we were riding sneezing donkeys the whole way"), we were ecstatic to arrive on the islands. We were told there are no phones on the islands and no banks so we had cash and energy to go hostel to hostel until we found accommodation. What we forgot was that it was Friday, and literally every place at Long Beach, the main accommodation drag on Little Island, was full. Everyone kept asking why we hadn't made reservations like we were idiots. We would love to know HOW we were supposed to do this when there are no phones or email addresses for the hotels. Turns out everyone has a phone; they're just secret phones to discourage guests from asking to use them. Sigh.

I parked it with the packs on Long Beach while Mehr went door to door to prevent us from being homeless that night. She had been gone a REALLY long time and as the sun set I was getting concerned. Had she fallen down a hole? Had she had an asthma attack? A number of terrible possibilities flew through my mind. Nope, she was fine, just really winded from trekking across the island to Coral Beach on the other side, where she had triumphed and found us nothing less than a treehouse chalet! Sweet.

Not so sweet were the 77 creaky wood plank stairs that were a one way trip between the beach and our digs. Super sweet was the wicked views of the sun setting on the ocean. We weren't told in advance that our treehouse (so named because of its backwoods location and height off the ground) came with roommates. Sultan the Spider (maybe a Huntsman... not too sure) lived on our door. Gilbert the Gecko was on mosquito patrol on the porch.

Andre the Giant and the twins were the huge monitor lizards rustling about below the verandah (Andre was over 1m long and definitely large enough to eat Mehron, hence I maintain that he was a dragon, not a lizard).

We parked it there for 5 days and were even debating jumping the ferry to swim back upon our departure. We spent our days snorkeling in turquoise waters with black tipped reef sharks, giant sea turtles, baby squids, parrot fish, jellyfish and sea cucumbers (which really do feel like soggy cucumbers!). We devoured roti canai and coconut lassi and iced watermelon drinks. In case you think that lacks excitement, we also braved the invisible baby jellyfish that stung us in the water regularly, which was like being pinched with tiny elastics while swimming. Uncomfortable but not agonizing. And we risked our lives sitting in the coconut drop zone, where a coconut slamming into your head would easily give a concussion. However, I don't last long in beach sunshine and I had to risk my head for my skin and sit in the palm tree's shade.

When we weren't frolicking outside, Mehr indulged herself and finally bought a second pair of pants, which turned out to be a constant source of entertainment.

Firstly, they're one size fits all and that size is enormous. Secondly, they're bright purple. Thirdly, we're still not sure how to tie them up. We were in stitches for almost an hour trying to work out how the purple pants are supposed to work.

Malaysia - Cameron Highlands - Tea, Strawberries and Revenge of the Tiger

2009-07-08T02:06:00.006-04:00

Clever girls that we are, we booked ourselves onto the 8am bus to the famously beautiful Cameron Highlands the morning after Canada Day. While we realized that hauling our packs for the fifteen minute walk to the bus station at that early hour was less than ideal, we had failed to consider the further impacts of our Canada Day celebrations the next morning. Since we went to bed at about 3am and had to wake up at 7am to check out and get to Puduraya Bus Station, we were in somewhat rough shape and as I watched Mehron pack her bags in what looked like slow motion, I started tallying just how many Tiger beers we had consumed the night before. We had had at least five of the giant pints each, which is WAY more beer than either of us would usually imbibe. Hence the slow motion. And the feeling that we had been mauled by an actual tiger.

Know what really cheered us up? When it started pouring rain on us half way on our walk to the bus station. That was really special. Nothing like being soaked on a four hour Arctic A/C bus ride.

I made a Herculean effort to stay awake on the ride to check out the landscapes outside KL, but my body was protesting too hard so I konked right out. So did Mehr. When I woke up we were a mere 40km from Tanah Rata, the Cameron Highlands town we'd be staying in. I was bummed I'd only get to see a little bit of the scenery, until I realized that with the curves in the steep hillside roads, we in fact still had at least an hour of the drive to go. Good thing Cameron Highlands is stunning old growth forest on undulating hills with sweeping vistas, or we'd have been pretty bored.

Cameron Highlands is known for two main exports: tea and strawberries. There are several massive tea estates in the area, including Sengai Palas estates which produces BOH tea. After an hour of wandering the grounds and taking the factory tour, we still had to actually ask someone what BOH stood for, since this information was nowhere to be found in the displays. "Best of Highlands" was the answer. Go figure. BOH produces 600,000 kg of tea per year from its estates. Our favourite at the tea shop was the Earl Grey with Tangerine. Yum.

Although we didn't make it to the strawberry farm tours, we did see all the strawberry shop outlets, which sold strawberry everything (hats, clothes, pillows, calculators, etc.) But no actual strawberries, strangely enough.

It was also at Cameron Highlands that our run-in friend Brendan had a brilliant idea for a prank. We have a mutual friend (who shall remain nameless) who is quite good friends with both of us who we knew would be stoked that we'd met up in Malaysia. Brendan thought it would be hilarious to pretend that we hadn't gotten along at all. I wrote an email to said person pointing out that Brendan was annoying, a major complainer and a semi-stalker. Brendan wrote a separate email to the same person describing me as rude and mean and noting I tried to ditch him at every given opportunity. Said person was very confused upon receiving these emails. Operation Fake Out was a complete success. So, dear nameless friend, just to clarify, we got along just fine... so well in fact, that he joined Mehr and I on the trip to the Cameron Highlands for the day before he had to get back to Thailand for his summer job. Tres fun, I promise.

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur - Selamat Datang

2009-07-02T20:29:00.005-04:00

Mehr and I flew separately to Kuala Lumpur (which I will definitely refer to as KL from here on in). I was concerned Mehr's flight might not get out after mine, since Perth was looking like a typhoon might be coming through the city. The sky was black and the rain was diagonal and torrential as my flight took off at noon, and she wasn't going to leave until four pm. Luckily, the natural disaster held off until her plane escaped W.A. and we met up as planned at customs in KL airport (which is fantastic by the way).

The flights were refreshingly good after buzzing around Australia on budget airlines. Qantas had a selection of over 20 movies and 30 tv shows to entertain me for four hours. I was out of luck with the apple juice though... the hostess accidentally spilled it on my arm and enough of it fell on me that they couldn't fill my glass and when they went to find more, turns out that was the last carton. Alas. I connected to Japan Airlines in Singapore (free internet kiosks everywhere in the international terminal!). That flight was hilarious. One of the four hostesses spoke a bit of English, but they were prepared. The menu was all pictures so you could point to what you wanted. And they have a live feed camera at the front of the plane so you could watch take-off and landing from the pilot's perspective (he was a little off center to be honest...) And during the flight they played a video with only music showing pictures of what to do when we arrived in KL, such as immigration, customs, etc. I very much enjoyed it. The highlight upon landing in KL was how HOT it was. Usually I'm a bit of a cranky pants in intense humidity and heat but after being constantly cold indoors in Australia, I was too relieved to care.

Malaysia was an excellent choice for us to get our feet wet in Asia. It's a very multicultural country, with the three main demographics being Malays, Chinese and Indians. The country is officially Muslim, although tolerant of other religions (Hinduism is also very big here). We've been erring on the side of conservative dress, but after seeing the range of fashion on the streets of KL, we've relaxed it a bit. It's not uncommon to see a burka, a sari and a miniskirt in just one block of walking. If anything, the hardest part is remembering to leave my shoes at the door before entering buildings.

We wandered around sightseeing our first day, taking in the Petronas Towers (which are just as impressive as you might imagine), the Colonial District and Chinatown.

We discovered a great restaurant in Chinatown where we gorged ourselves on satay chicken and noodles, and where I even tried frog stirfried in green onions and chilli. Taste of chicken, texture of fish, by the way. We've been adventuring a bit in food since we have no idea what most words in Malay mean. A common Malay breakfast dish we tried was Nasi Lemak, a coconut rice served with peanuts, boiled egg, chicken, cucumbers and sambal (spice curry sauce with anchovies?). It was great; will definitely have that one again. Another favourite is Roti Canai, a fried chapati-like dough that you dip in curry dahl sauce.

We also learned after ordering Nasi Ayam that Nasi means 'rice' and Ayam means 'chicken'. Other vocab we've picked up from streets signs:

Selamat Datang: welcome
Pasar Seni: market central
Keluar: exit
Menara: tower
Jalan: we think it's street
Lemak: coconut
Terima Kasih: thank you
Berhenti: stop
Teksi: taxi
Ekspres: express
Muzium: museum

As you can tell by the last few, they enjoy phonetically spelling English words to make them Malay.

We spent Canada Day in search of plans. We kept hoping to bump into some other Canadians, and we were not disappointed.

We went to check out the Batu Caves, these massive Hindu temples in a mountain cave, just outside KL in the afternoon. 272 stairs later (not exaggerating; actual stair tally), we were gazing in awe at the yawning caves. We didn't go into the temple/shrine areas because they were in prayer session.

I should also mention at this point that there were monkeys. Everywhere. We had been warned not to bring food, since they can be aggressive.

You know what? I don't like monkeys. There, I said it. I don't mind the small, not too bright ones that inspire Paul Frank's fashion line, but on the whole, I'm not cool with them. And everyone LOVES monkeys. Oooh, they're so cute. Ooooh, they're so playful. NO. They are nasty-tempered, rude and probably diseased. Especially these ones. Mehr was taking a picture of one from a respectful distance and the monkey's older boyfriend attacked her backpack. I was seriously concerned there might be a monkey swarming. I gave them a lot of evil looks to make it clear that they would get no love from me. Stupid, smelly monkeys.

On a lighter note, while rewarding ourselves with an ice cream after successfully descending all 272 stairs, I ran into Brendan Morrison, who I went to King's with. Yes, this planet is really that small. How random is that? He had also met some other Canadians in KL, so we all went out together to celebrate our fabulous nation at a place called Reggae Bar in Chinatown. After 80s-crazed Australia, the reggae and hiphop tunes were a welcome change for our ears. And the DJ won our eternal affection for playing not one but TWO Sean Paul songs in the course of the evening. Happy Canada Day indeed!!

Australia - Western Australia - Mehron Ate a Bug

2009-06-27T04:40:00.009-04:00

Need I say more?

Just kidding. I will tell that story in due time.

We only had a week to explore and get a taste of Western Australia, which fancies itself as the ultimate Aussie experience since it is sprawling, isolated, and rugged. To be fair, it is Australia's largest and wealthiest state. It is over 1 million square miles of land and home to one of the last of the world's populations of wild camels, as well as home to the quokkas of Rottnest Island. It has a population of 1.9 million people in the entire state, 1.5 million of which live in Perth (that leaves 0.4 million sprinkled along the other 999,899 square miles of the state).

However, the activities we chose gave us the impression of it being historic, delicious, and charming. Perth was our go-to base of operations, but we didn't really ever spend a whole day in the city. I can highly recommend both Han's Cafe and Taka restaurant chains of Western Australia, which respectively serve delicious uber cheap Thai and Japanese cuisine (yes, we spend all our time and money eating in Australia. It's too yummy, we can't help it).

Aside from the good cheap eats, I will fondly remember Perth for its efficient and extensive city rail networks and the fastest moving clouds on the planet. Trains and Rains, for short.

We were totally charmed by Fremantle (which you can get to quickly and cheaply on Perth's fab rails). The main districts were all historical colonial buildings, with a surprising French influence that continues into the South West of W.A.

Our hostel was crap; we were eager not to spend a night there again. But we had amazing barramundi baguettes at a hole in the wall cafe called Sardines (and run by a hippy balding three dread-lock sporting Frenchman) that have finalized our decision to overturn salmon as our fish of choice for barramundi. Due to inclement weather, we went to a movie and if you haven't seen The Hangover, you're going to need to do so now.

Our one evening in town was spent fulfilling our persistent desire to learn more about Australia's prison convict past. Fremantle Prison did NOT disappoint.

We took the Torchlight Tour of the once largest maximum security prison in Australia and it ran the gambit from the cat o' nine tails whipping posts to the soundproof isolation cell block to the gallows room. Brilliant. At one point, they threw a body dummy off the building at us, right over Mehron's head. Fantastic. Two story highlights... a prisoner was accidentally decapitated during his hanging and his ghost is said to haunt the gallows room. Group photos taken in the room have often had a distortion over the heads of the people in the photos... spooky. Fremantle prison was also home to the escape-proof cell, expressly designed to hold Moondyne Joe. Joe had escaped from the local prison no less than four times before they moved him into Fremantle. He then escaped from Fremantle SEVEN TIMES. But not once from the escape-proof cell.

We found the Aussies of Freo (as they have nicknamed Fremantle) to be particularly friendly. I was lured into a twenty minute conversation with the informal Italian Aussie elder gentlemen's club that meets on the mall bench in front of the grocery store on Thursday afternoons. Mehr was beset by the kindest Jehovah's Witness Grannies you ever met who were adorable and encouraged us to share our pamphlet on the suffering of the world to save trees. We were also wished a good journey by several people as we passed them on the streets. Good on ya, Freo!

We also investigated Aussie buses in W.A. and wandered five hours south to Margaret River since we apparently hadn't satiated our taste for wine in Yarra Valley in Victoria. Margaret River was so named by Alfred Bussel (Bussels were a founding family of the region), after the woman he loved unrequitedly. Unrequitedly because she was his first cousin and refused to marry him. In fact, she never saw the river that was named after her! Lovely place though.

Our original plan was to do a cave and canoe tour but due to weather and the laziness of other tourists who did not fill up the tour, we were FORCED to change over to Bushtucker's Great Wineries Tour. Which by the way was awesome. From 10am to 5pm, we had a very hard day's work sampling the great wines, chocolate, cheeses and beers of the area. Margaret River is tiny but has 127 wineries. They produce 4% of Australia's wines which win 25% of the national wine awards. Pretty impressive stats, if you're a stats person.

Our tour guide extraordinaire Silvano (or the Silver Fox, as he was called by all the winery owners...) was also a master D.J. who had his bus full of tipsy patrons rocking out to Pretty Woman, That's Amore, Home Among the Gum Trees and of course, Land Down Under. First stop was Bettenay Wines. The owner was a total nutter, as Silvano informed us. The man was more than passionate about wine... he was lusting after it. The way he described his favourite Chardonnay was enough to make us shift uncomfortably around the room. Most interesting samples there were the ones made by his son, First Blush and Hot Flush, which were two versions of a fortified rose with chillis added. Next up was Knotting Hill, where Julia Roberts was married. The Aussie Julia Roberts of course, not the one you may be familiar with. Knotting Hill's Sauvignon Blanc was our favourite wine of the day in fact, which was surprising since Mehr and I are partial to reds. The chocolate and cheese factories provided needed respite from the drinking.

After lunch (we'll talk about that next), we tried the ports and liqueurs of the Grove (I had to buy the Macadamia one... it was amazing) and wrapped up our day with the famous Adinfern wines before changing pace to the Colonial Brewery.

Now about that lunch... Bushtucker prides itself on serving a variety of foods native to Australia and I will try very hard to remember everything we ate: Margaret River Factory tasty cheese, organic farms greens, kangaroo (better this time) with bush tomato chutney, rosella pesto, smoked emu, wild turkey, pumpkin loaf from Margaret River bakery, sundried tomatos, kalamata olives, kakadu plum, etc.

But most importantly, as alluded to in the title, Mehr opted in to try arguably the most authentic Australian cuisine, the WITCHETTY GRUB. His name was George and he was a sandgroper. A big white chubby worm like insect. He was from the royal line of witchetty grubs. He looked as gross as you might think.

When asked what he tasted like, Mehr said the following: "No, it is not the worst thing I've ever eaten. He tastes like pureed cashews in a latex glove."

Confession: I am in no way sorry that I passed on this 'delicacy'.

Speaking of adventurous eating, we're flying to Malaysia tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mehr has developed an interpretive dance to express her glee and excitement. I call it: The Seated Shimmy. I will leave its execution to your imaginations.

Australia - Great Ocean Road - Room With A Glimpse, located near bar with Australian celebrity

2009-06-24T05:35:00.005-04:00

This past weekend, we were treated once more by our fabulous hosts Ryan, Lori and baby Aidan to a roadtrip, this time westward along the coastal Great Ocean Road. We skipped part of the Road in favour of keeping the baby happy, arriving in the seaside town of Lorne in 2.5 hours instead of 4.5. We stayed in a sweet apartment suite that was accurately advertised as having an "ocean glimpse". Verily we could see glimpses of the ocean through our window and the trees in the courtyard. Emphasis on glimpse.

Aidan possibly enjoyed our accommodations the most of all since he had plenty of room to run around and lots of lights to insist on having turned on for him. We spent an evening being entertained by our hundredth viewing of Aidan's Baby Einstein videos (the barnyard jamboree was my favourite) and watching VH1's exclusive 80s-related shows. I should also point out that despite Australia's living in the future, they are very retro in that the 80s do not seem to have passed from popularity here. There is a shocking amount of leggings being worn; there are too many mullets to excuse; and there is a hilarious frequency of radioplay of Land Downunder by Men at Work.

That evening after the baby was snoring away, Mehr and I offered to chill with sleeping baby to let Lori and Ryan go out for a game of pool. They went to a local dive only to spend their evening playing pool with Ben Cousins, who is a very famous Aussie Football League player (Aussie rules for the familiar). The Cuz spent the evening calling both of them "Toronto". He'd actually been there (for rehab...), although he definitely thought it was in the States. It's hard to explain but that's a big deal. And super random. Lori and Ryan insisted they would have jealous friends when they told the story later, though the magnitude of this event was a bit lost on Mehr and I.

The next day Lori drove with Mehr and I along the coastal section of the road (with 80s tunes on the radio, you better believe) through the Otways Forest Park and to the iconic Twelve Apostles in Port Campbell National Park, which are pretty much the reason for the Great Ocean Road's existence.

We lucked out on weather, with a beautiful twenty degree day with plenty of sun and much less wind than expected.

The Twelve Apostles were stunning (although puzzlingly, there weren't 12 of them...).

Best sign on the trip was outside a church in Apollo Bay: "The 12 Apostles... Made and Loved by Jesus".

We also drove a little further to the Loch Ard Gorge on Shipwreck Coast and appreciated the difficulty of trying to moor a ship anywhere on this stretch of land, with its big cliffs and tiny tiny crevices leading to bay areas.

After a lazy start on Monday morning we came back to Melbourne to do a last load of laundry and repack before setting off for Western Australia on our Tuesday flight to Perth. We were sad to leave Melbourne (though not the chilly weather). The city has been very good to us and I'm sure there's lots more we could have done and seen with more time and warmer temperatures. Still, onward the adventures go... so watch out Western Australia, we're headed your way!

Australia - Melbourne - Capitalizing on the Cultural Capital

2009-06-18T22:41:00.003-04:00

There is a rather fierce and long-standing rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne as to which city constitutes Australia's cultural capital (Sorry, Brisbane, you haven't quite caught up with the big boys yet...). After sampling both, Mehr and I concur and award the title to Melbourne, or as the locals pronounce it, Mell-bin. Sydney has lots going for it but it's all flash and money, whereas Melbourne has lots of personality and character.

Even if we hadn't gone into a single museum or gallery, we could have kept ourselves entertained all week wandering in and out of the many many laneways and alleys of the CBD (Sidenote: whenever we say we're going/staying 'downtown', people stare at us and wonder where that is and point out there is no 'uptown' so why would there be a 'downtown'. Here the city centre is called the central business district, hence CBD).

Melbourne is definitely very European in that respect. There are tons of cafes, restaurants and small venue clubs to be found on these streets and you never know what you're going to find.

Tastiest laneway was Degraves, which featured both Spanish cafe Lorca with desayunos completos harking back to my South America days and unnamed Middle Eastern place with wicked food. Funniest discovery was a creperie that self described as "arrogantly French" on Hardware Lane. Runner up was "Bogan Bingo" at one of the bars downtown. Bogan is a term describing an individual akin to a hick with a dash of trailer trash.

However, we did hit up the galleries and museums, most of which were free with our student IDs from U of O. At the excellent Immigration Museum, we learned about all the ways Australia tried to keep out all immigrants except for Brits over the years, notably the Dictation Test which once kept out an immigrant who spoke four European languages by requiring him to do the test in Gaelic. Best sentence in the whole tour: "Batman signs 'treaties' with Aboriginal leaders, giving him 250,00 ha of land." Who knew the Caped Crusader exploited indigenous groups when he wasn't rescuing Gotham from the baddies? There is even a Batman treaty. No joke.

We then headed over to Federation Square, the centre, not the middle of Melbourne.

Very cool buildings and home to multiple museums and galleries. We arrived to a rally for the Australia Socceroos (actual team name) who were competing that night against Japan on the way to the FIFA World Cup. So random. The whole team was there signing autographs and giving typical comments such as how they would give 137% this time around. Athletes are not known for their charismatic public speaking.

We did an art afternoon (yay free activities) and took in both the Ian Potter Centre, the only exclusively Australian art gallery, and its parent, the National Gallery of Victoria, to see the touring Dali exhibition, Liquid Desire. Dali was excellent, though very graphic at times. Mehr wandered into a video he coproduced called the Andalusian Dog where a woman's eyeball is sliced open. I thankfully missed that room and wandered into Destino, a coproduced animated film short between Dali and Walt Disney which was stunning. Who knew they hung out? This exhibit also gave me the most hilarious overheard conversation of the week. In his later years, Dali was recognized as and self referred as the saviour of modern art. Blonde girl in front of me reads this caption and comments as follows: "Oh my gawd... this guy is like the Kanye West of his time." I had to muffle my tears of laughter. Salvador Dali... just like Kanye West. Huge ego, most collaborative work, no shelf life of his work. Right... I still tear up thinking about it. That girl made my day.

We also checked out the Melbourne Museum, where I experienced a silent but crippling phobia-induced panic attack when I accidentally wandered into the insect exhibit where the LIVE spiders of my Discovery Channel special nightmares reside. In one area alone I was surrounded simultaneously by the venomous Sydney funnel webs, the redback/black widow, the whitetail and several massive tarantulas. By surrounded I mean they were encased in glass and dirt enclosures on the walls, but that was WAY too close for me. DID I MENTION THEY WERE ALIVE?! Multiple coronaries later, I stumbled into the dinosaur hall and began a long recovery process by delighting in the pterodactyl skeletons.

The rest of the week was spent kicking around St Kilda, the trendy suburb near Melbourne's best beach. We wandered up and down the Esplanade and Acland St, where funky shops and yummy cafes ruled. This week has also been Mehr's first major foray into backpacker hostel living and getting her feet wet has certainly been interesting. She didn't care for our first hostel at Greenhouse Backpackers in the CBD, which smelled a bit like feet but was clean and quiet and had free internet. Her opinion of it greatly improved with the contrast to our next hostel Base St Kilda, a boutique-y spot that caters way too much to drunk 18 yr old backpackers, which she thoroughly disliked. Our next choice, the Cooee hostel in St Kilda has won the day. It was clean, quiet, great showers, and good common spaces with free internet. She has also encountered some of the usual suspects of hostel living, such as Sleeps Nearly Naked Guy and Guitar Playing Guy. She did not care for either of them. We both look forward to Asia where we can get away from residence dorm accommodations and into beach bungalows... and more importantly ditch our sweaters!

Australia - Yarra Valley - Choppers and Vino

2009-06-15T02:26:00.005-04:00

We were whisked away to Yarra Valley the day after our arrival in Melbourne. Yarra Valley is best known as wine central. We stayed at a great cottage at the Healesville Sanctuary, with a great fireplace that we took serious advantage of. Our lovely hosts of the moment are Mehr's cousins, Ryan, Lori and baby Aidan. Ryan and Lori share our keen enthusiasm for red wine and yummy cheese; sixteen month old Aidan shares our keen enthusiasm for playing games.

Our big day out in Yarra kicked off with nothing short of a HELICOPTER ride to our first winery.

Having never been in a helicopter before, I can verify that it is in fact awesome.

And boy, do you feel VIP rocking up to the winery via the heliport landing area on the property. We then toured the Dominic Portet, St. Hubert's and Yering Station wineries (with a number of tastings at each). My favourite was Yering's Shiraz Viognier.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating amazing food, playing with the baby or board games like Trivial Pursuit and SceneIt?, drinking delicious red wine, and savouring the fabulous fireplace in our country chalet.

Not too bad. Not too bad at all...

Australia - In Transit - Hostage to Airlink and J.

2009-06-12T01:02:00.007-04:00

In order to get to the airport in Sydney, you have to take a train. The transit here is both public and private. We opted for the public rail, assuming it would be cheaper. But no. The Airlink group owns the airport terminal stations, so regardless of whether you take their private train or the seedy public train, it will cost you $15.00 to go 3 stops over about 15 minutes. While there are ways to stick it to Airlink (see Darryl Kerrigan, The Castle), we didn't have time to kick up a fuss, so we had to fork it over.

We boarded our flight eagerly to Melbourne, ready for our next stop. Let the misadventures begin! Our seat neighbour, whom I shall refer to as J., was a friendly fourteen year old guy just returning from his first trip overseas. He was in Turkey for 2.5 weeks for a language competition. And boy, did he love our Canadian accents. The rest of this post will relive the stupefying conversation he continued with us for the entire flight.

"Do you think I'm a boy or a girl?" Honestly, was fairly sure he was a boy until he asked this, though he did have scraggly longer hair and generic clothing on.

"You look like my lesbian cousin's friend.", "You smell like purple.", "Your eyebrows freak me out.", etc. Thanks, kid. I appreciate your unsolicited comments on my person.

Number of times he smelled/touched Mehron's hair = 6
Number of times he pushed Mehron's head = 10 maybe more
Number of time he pushed our noses down on our faces = 3
Number of times he pried Mehron's eyelids apart with his fingers = 2
Number of lip massages offered to us = 2
Number of lip massages accepted by us = 0
Number of unwelcome group hugs = 2
Number of unwelcome kisses on cheek = 2
Number of times he drew on Mehron's hand = 2
Number of times he washed his hands before touching us = 0
Number of offensive not funny racist jokes = 7 (No, we get it. It's just not funny)
Number of times he referred to "proper Australians" or implied that I was the "real Canadian" over Mehron = 8 (even though we were born in the same city and attended the same schools...)
Number of inappropriate comments/passes made at us by said 14 yr old = 4
Number of times he belatedly wondered if his flirty ways would earn him a beating from our hulking brute Canadian hockey-playing boyfriends = 3
Number of times he repeated after me = 15
Number of times he overshared about family deaths and murdered ghosts = 3
Number of times he asked if I could see a resemblance between him and Mehron = 5
Number of times he called Mehron a retard and asked how I would go about killing her = 3
Number of times he contrasted the perfection of Mehr's eyebrows against the messed-upness of mine = 4
Number of times he compared my husky-man voice to Mehr's nasally timid voice = 2
Number of times he managed to insult BOTH of us in a comparison = 9
Number of times we wanted to slap him but restrained ourselves from beating a child = 78
Number of times we were willing to exchange correspondence information = 0

The plane couldn't land fast enough.

Australia - Sydney - An Open Letter to the City of Sydney Concerning Its Architecture

2009-06-11T08:49:00.004-04:00

Dear Sydney,

You are renown for one of the most famous buildings in the world. This would lead one to believe that you are at the forefront of attractive architecture. Mistakenly.

You have so much potential. Where did you go wrong? You have a stunning natural setting of harbour front, beautiful beaches, ocean galore, scenic cliffsides and more. And obviously for many years, the majesty of the region was duly reflected in the construction of city buildings when the colony was first founded, as evident by the number of really beautiful old buildings sprinkled throughout the city centre.

And yet... sometime in the later half of the 1900's, you thought it'd be a great idea to throw up the world's ugliest skyscrapers and apartment buildings to fill the gaps and overwhelm the space between the extensive public gardens and the colonial edifices. What might have been a truly amazing skyline on the harbour front is plagued with company logos tacked atop monstrous utilitarian concrete blocks (think the Dunn building on Carleton campus, but taller) and apartment towers that look like the construction companies forgot to put the outside wall on the building frame.

Such a waste.

Regards,

Australia - Sydney - Why Is It So Cold?!

2009-06-10T07:13:00.007-04:00

So we said goodbye to Brisbane on Sunday. A huge thanks once more to the many excellent Australians who made our time there so much fun, with special mention to the Stein family and our roommates Mick, Colin and Ingrid.

We arrived in Sydney and my first thought coming off the plane was "brrrrrr". I have officially become a cold weather wuss. It is a respectable 15 to 18 degrees here during the day and I have never felt so cold in my life. I sleep with most of my clothes on (admittedly, I don't have enough at the moment) under many many layers of blankets and walk around all day in the sun in jeans and a sweater and scarf and still the circulation has not returned to my hands.

We're taking advantage of Carolyn and Gavin's hospitality once more and staying at their place in Mona Vale, taking the VERY scenic one hour L90 bus ride in and out of downtown Sydney every day. Having rushed around the CBD (central business district; no one calls it downtown here) to see every major sight in our $5 guidebook over the last few days, here are our review (Mehr's specific input: "It's bloody cold in AustrAHliaH!" Mehr thinks she's hilarious when she puts on an Aussie accent. She adds that the Sydney Opera House is... "Meh."

Yay's

Sydney Tower views. Not so much actual tower, which is kinda ugly. Take a book, go mid afternoon and hang around to watch sunset. Wicked 360 views of the city.

Opera House bathrooms! Not kidding. The sinks were incredibly cool. The water just disappeared into the wall!

Harbour Bridge. I really liked it, more than I expected to.

Stolen Generations Maze in the Australian Museum. Aside from my academic interest in genocide and historical trauma, I found this exhibit to be a really engaging way of presenting a really controversial issue. For those who are unaware, the Australian government used to remove mixed children from Aboriginal communities and foster them to missions or white families, very similar to Canada's Indian Residential Schools. The exhibit showed the social impacts of this practice through various media. Very well done.

Sydney Jazz and Blues Fest. We caught the Dan Sultan concert right on the Darling Harbour waterfront which was excellent. Better yet, the whole event was free! I was sorry we only arrived in time for the end of the festival.

Manly ferry to Circular Quay. $6 for a 1 hr cruise with great views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Hyde Park. Has sweet artifical lamplit promenade and a very strange Greek-mythology themed fountain in the center. Also, there are generally loads of fountains in Sydney, all spouting heaps of water. I don't think Australia understands what the word 'drought' really means.

Art Gallery of NSW. I really enjoyed this place. And I'm not usually one for art galleries.
The Rocks. Feels like a movie set. Full of historical buildings and yummy cafes.

Storytime on Mona Vale beach. Not an actual scheduled event. Mehr and I took our books down to read on the beach and I read several of Garner's politically correct fairy tales aloud to her (she'd never read them before!) as we watched the chilly surf crash on the sand. We were the ONLY people on the shoreline; the clever Australians were all inland where they were sheltered from the winds. Looks fairly similar to Cavendish beach, PEI.

Food. I really haven't been disappointed with a meal here yet. We particularly enjoyed the Malaysian restaurant we patronized for dinner with my friend Aaron, who recently moved back to Australia from Canada. Also my new favourite fish is Barramundi. I may even like it more than I like salmon. And that is really saying something.

Paddy's Markets in Market City. We wandered around in there for an hour. Buy of the day: matching aviators, which you will soon have seen all too often in our photos henceforth.

Warringah Mall Target store. Where I finally caved and bought a second sweater. I'm that cold.

Lighting of the Opera House sails. They're much prettier when painted with different coloured lights at nighttime.

Meh's

Opera House. It's not a gleaming white and huge as the pictures indicate. And $35 for the one hour indoor tour? Pass.

The weather. We REALLY wanted to try out sailing for a day but the windy sunny weather prohibited this activity. It's been nice enough to be outside but not nice enough to really want to stay outside.

The Domain and Botanic Gardens. I think I'm over gardens.

King's Cross much-hyped cafe atmosphere. We both liked the Rocks better and Mehr insists it's all too reminiscent of East Hastings, strung out sketchmos included.

Boo's

OzTrek. Included in admission to tower exhibit. Very dated tourism promo for Australia. Cheese factor = ouch.

Museum of Contemporary Art. Excepting on wall with some funny postmodern concrete poetry work by Richard Tipping and a lovely painting by Rosemary Laing, I was literally yawning through most of the exhibits. My cell phone also rang in the silent gallery and I got evil glares from all twenty artsy poseurs in my midst. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Australia - Brisbane - The Tourist Extravaganza

2009-06-10T02:51:00.005-04:00

The week after our trip to Fraser Island was spent furiously touristing Brisbane with a vengeance (pictures link to be found on the side bar under Illustrated Version). I had tried to save the "tourist" activities for when Mehron arrived, only to discover that there were fewer than we'd imagined. Better yet, I am singlehandedly curing the drought in Australia. Of the 9 weeks I've been in Queensland, it has rained for 6 of them. This in a state whose weather motto is "beautiful one day, perfect the next". So poor Mehron has gone from the paradise islands to damp chilly wet city living.

Our first fun-filled day was spent toodling around the Botanic Gardens (like NZ, every Australian city has some of these). We were very much looking forward to our tour of the Commissariat Stores Museum, which was advertised as a history of the Brisbane penal colony. Misrepresentation of the facts, let me tell you. Although the building itself was constructed by convicts, the museum actually outlined the separation of Queensland from New South Wales as its own state with artifacts completely unrelated to the storyline. Example: the dialogue between the governors here and Queen Victoria over the name of the new state was above a printing press. What??

As we left, it of course started raining again (if there is one cloud in the sky, it's a safe bet rain is coming) so we decided we would wait it out with a leisurely lunch. We happened upon the famous Pancake Manor, a restored manor that serves 24 hour pancakes and other breakfasts. We considered that to be a heritage site and very much enjoyed our ten dollar tour of buttermilk pancakes and syrup in the dank old mansion. We braved on through the light mist of rain that was continuing to ANZAC square, a rather picturesque plaza near Central Station. However as we approached the center, torrential rains picked up and we had to duck for cover in the subway tunnel. We conceded defeat at that point and hopped on the train back home.

Day Two we had a very late start getting out of the house at three p.m. (the morning rain was a factor) and made it to the Museum of Queensland about an hour before it closed.

Fun fact: Australia had its own dinosaur: muttaburrasaurus. We then wandered around South Bank, which is quite pretty at night time as the city lights come on. I have decided Brisbane is much better looking at night. We were due at a friend's place for 7pm to watch the State of Origin rugby match, first in a series of three games between NSW and Queensland teams (it's a big deal). Because I'm hopeless with estimating distance, we of course were late, but luckily didn't miss the beginning of the game. I made an effort to explain some basics of the game to Mehr before it started, but also gave her the fallback option: "when in doubt, imagine a complicated version of Red Rover".

Day Three was our ambitious journey to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which literally took us almost three hours each way to get to on the south side of Brisbane. Lone Pine made good on its promise; there were TONS of koalas everywhere.

Mehr also got to frolic with kangaroos and wallabies, which she has decided are not as cute in real life. Also, they smell suspiciously similar to skunks. We meant to get back to the Queensland Cultural Center as well to see the Art Gallery or the Library, but by the time the incredibly slow bus got us back downtown it was after closing time. Plus we still had to take the train and do the half hour walk home. Oh well. Next time right? ;)

Australia - Fraser Island - Mehron Gets Off Her Plane and Into Our 4WD

2009-05-31T18:34:00.009-04:00

After oodles of anticipation, my next travel buddy Mehron finally arrived in Brisbane this week. Like myself, Mehron has abandoned her responsibilities and opted to saunter around the world for a year. She just left a bit later than I did, which in the long run was probably very clever, since I will ultimately return to Canada in the dead of winter, while she will return home just in time for summer. Mehron 1, Holly -1.

Having come directly from Hawaii, she is finding Australia a little bit cool. Our 20-25 degree days and 10 degree nights would seem frosty compared to the paradise islands. Confession: I am wearing a sweater right now - the mornings are on the cool side and my house is made of cardboard. So I can't give her too much of a hard time over it.

Her first incredibly jetlagged day or so in Brisbane was spent on the important tourist landmarks of our neighbourhood. Namely, the wicked Cold Rock ice creamery (actual word) and the scuzzy Stafford City shopping mall. And both lived up to their descriptions. Cold Rock is the ultimate DQ blizzard - they use hard ice cream and mash in whole mini chocolate bars and other toppings according to your wishes. Stafford is the Westgate mall of Australia, complete with senior citizens, multiple dollar stores, a dodgy food court and sleazy clientele. If only it wasn't also the location of the only banks within walking distance of my house...

These fascinating experiences were leading up to the big event of her week in Brisbane: our roadtrip to Fraser Island on the weekend (for people who enjoy trivia, Fraser is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the largest sand island in the world). On Friday night, Mehr and I put our lives in the hands of Mick and our giant 4WD rental that made pick-up trucks look like delicate flowers. We drove out to Samford to meet up with his brother and sister, Jordan and Alisa, and headed out at the absurdly early hour of 4:45am the next day.

The tides north of Noosa and on Fraser Island were against us from the start, with high tide being between noon and two p.m., making beach driving impossible during the bulk of the normal hours of the day.

Mick took us up the northern beaches of Cooloola in Great Sandy National Park (very fitting name). After a missed turn or two, we did eventually make it to Rainbow Beach and Inskip Point to board the incredibly overpriced six minute ferry across to the island. On the way, everyone was trying to come up with clever ways to play on how my last name was the same as the name of the island or somehow make a joke at my expense. This was the best they came up with: "Hey, your last name is Fraser. That's the island's name". Good effort, team, but no dice.

We then spent Saturday and Sunday exploring the island by doing a whole lot of driving and a whole lot of loud-and-not-necessarily-in-tune singing along to the music blasting from our speakers. No wonder the dingos stayed away from us.

Other stunning sights seen include the Eastern beach, the Southern Lakes (Birrabeen and Mackenzie were tops), Happy Valley (actual name), the sandblows (massive sand dunes), the Cathedrals (sand formations resembling steeples?), the coloured sands, the Maheno shipwreck (beached in 1935, once carried 500 passengers), Indian Head, and the Champagne Pools.

The driving was great for the most part. We did reach one impasse when we encountered a tree that had fallen across the road, but our lovely rental towed it aside with relative ease.

There was also an incident when I was not reminded by the driver to roll up my window before crashing through a big beach creek... a significant splash and a lot of laughter at my expense ensued. Moreover, the only time we got bogged was when our car boarded the ferry on the way home. The ship drifted too parallel with the shoreline while loading cars with strong winds and waves and the docking end was more than a little mired for a couple of minutes. All in all, a fantastic weekend.

Australia - The Cultural Edition

2009-05-16T19:52:00.013-04:00

Since the thrills of my travel lifestyle have ebbed significantly this past month, I present to you a few cultural observations gleaned from my daily neighbourhood strolls, my watching of the four channels on our television, my kitchen endeavours, and my perusal of Australian news media.

In the News

Last week, there were two major stories competing for the public's attention. The first was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's release of the new Federal Budget, which amounted to a $58 BILLION deficit. The second was renewed allegations against a retired Rugby League star named Matthew Johns who was involved in a group sex scandal seven years ago in New Zealand. Guess which one got the most coverage? I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with Batthew Pohns.

Lingo

"To Glass": a common Australian verb denoting the action of attacking another person, generally in the face, with a broken beer bottle (see Winnipeg Handshake). Most commonly associated with (though not limited to) the geographical area of the Gold Coast. (Yes, this terrible phenomenon happens often enough that they developed a verb to describe it. It's almost a weekly event on the news.)

Lax TV standards

I am constantly amazed at what they can get away with on television here. Two and a Half Men is on every night for instance. And the other day I heard the news anchor make the following comment on air: "that would really be a pain in the bum". I cannot imagine Peter Mansbridge or Kevin Newman ever saying that in Canada. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The commercials like to toe the line. Here are two run of the mill examples (for the more risque, google the Red Bull nude beach or Advanced Medical Institute bedroom cop ads):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNKS3S5h8yQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frP3RqaCHAI&feature=related

Food

1) Like New Zealand, the most common type of cheese in the grocery store is "Tasty" (actual cheese variety name). It's a bit like medium cheddar. Notably one brand of Tasty cheese is produced by the company Coon Cheese. That's how P.C. they are around here.

2) While you may be familiar with Australians' affinity for the infamous Vegemite, you may not be aware that they also have pumpkin on the brain. To be fair, their pumpkin is not the same as the giant orange North American Jack O' Lantern pumpkins. It's a bit closer to a butternut squash. But it's used as commonly as carrots or potatoes. Pumpkin scones, roast pumpkin, pumpkin pasta, pumpkin curry, and so on and so on. And yet, no pumpkin pie.

Cinema

While I generally associate Australian cinema with anything ever made by Baz Luhrmann, it turns out he is not the only Australian movie maker. Mick has been talking up a film called "The Castle" pretty much since the day I met him, but we never had any success in tracking it down. They didn't carry it in Halifax, Ottawa or Toronto. I thought it would be easier to find in Australia, but that was not the case. The first video shop didn't have it; the second had broken their copy. It wasn't available in stores. We missed catching it on tv twice in two months. It just seemed it wasn't meant to be. So we cheated and ordered it online and it arrived yesterday. After so much build up, you might expect disappointment with a film. But I have to say the movie was funny and very charming. It's a low budget movie about a family fighting airport bureaucracy to keep their home, packed full of Australianisms, and very enjoyable. I'd recommend you go rent it, but if you're in Canada, you're probably out of luck. I can't even buy a copy here to take home, since the DVD format isn't universal. Alas.

Music

I do highly recommend you download the Hamish and Andy podcasts, which ARE available in Canada.

And just in case you thought I was being paranoid about threats to my life in Australia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_TB6onHVE&feature=related

Australia - Sunshine Coast - Getting Bossed Around the Big Pineapple, the Glass House Mountains and on the Netball Court

2009-05-04T03:21:00.007-04:00

This weekend, Mick's sister Alisa and their mom Karen invited me along for a day trip up to the Sunshine Coast. Of course, it turned out to be the one rainy day of the week, but it was pretty beautiful all the same. Our route was planned by the female voice of the GPS in the car, who I will refer to as 'Bossy', according to POI. Now I was not aware that POI was an acronym for more than one expression. And the only one I knew was Persons of Interest, i.e. criminal suspects. Turns out Bossy meant Points of Interests. In case you're curious about her name, Bossy didn't even trust us to follow traffic laws at roundabouts correctly. She was quite a micromanager.

We had breakfast in a town called Mooloolaba (yep, just trying pronouncing that one!) and it was a bit cool for Australia, but as I'm constantly told, it's almost *winter* now. Ah yes, winter. Perhaps I should have worn my jeans instead of my shorts today... no wait, it's still 22 degrees. Everyone keeps asking me if I've remembered to bring my jumper and my honest reply of puzzlement is always 'what for?'.

After breakfast we headed up to Noosa, which is a big holiday resort area for Australians. And tourists. But fewer than down on the Gold Coast. It's all relative when the bulk of international tourism is beach-oriented. That area has a really nice national park right on the headland of the coast where there's a river mouth going inland. But of course it was raining by then, so I had to settle for gelato instead of a 3km walk in the bush. Darn it.

We then went inland to the hinterland of the area and after driving up into mountains I seem to have missed on my way there, we arrived in Montville, a completely charming town nestled right onto the edge of the mountain with a truly panoramic and awesome view of the coastline. And thankfully by then the sun was peeking out so I could get a glimpse of how spectacular the area would be when bathed in sunshine as it usually would be.

I should also mention that on this outing I got to see the famous (infamous?) heritage site, the Giant Pineapple. It was especially pointed out to me on the drive. Apparently the owner didn't want it listed as a heritage site, and now he can't make any changes to it without lots of red tape etc. We also drove by the lovely Glass House Mountains again (en route to Australia Zoo), and just like Mick and his brother Jordan, Alisa and her mom were eager to tell me the cool story behind them. Which they all learn in primary school. And which none of them can remember. Thank heavens for Google, eh?

First story: Short English version. Captain Cook, the Colombus of the Southern Hemisphere, saw the mountains from his ship and remarked that their unique shapes made them look like the glass houses of his homeland in Yorkshire.

Second story: An Aboriginal legend. Each mountain represents a member of a family. The father Tibrogargan noticed a flood was coming and asked one son Coonowrin to help his pregnant mother Beerwah to safety. The son ran away to save himself and when dad found out, he was so angry that he smashed his son's head with a club, leaving the son with a terrible crook in his neck. The son tried to apologize and everyone wept at his cowardice, creating all the rivers and streams in the area. But the father wouldn't forgive him and turned his back on him forever. Which is why the father mountain faces away from the son mountain and the poor mom mountain is still pregnant (it takes awhile to give birth to a baby mountain...)

While Australia is certainly known for its sunshine and beaches, it's perhaps less famous for its enthusiasm for a sport called Netball. This past Sunday afternoon we received a phone call - one of Mick's friends was super short on people to play in a local netball league and wanted to know if we were up for it. I agreed on the basis that it was like a women's version of basketball (though what that meant, I had no idea) and had minimal rules. This was misleading representation. Netball resembles basketball in that it takes place with a ball on a court and the goal is to get the ball through hoops on posts. That is where the similarities end.

I had to remember more of what NOT to do than what to do during the game. You aren't allowed to dribble. You can't move when you have the ball. You can't hold the ball for more than three seconds. You can't pass across an entire third of the court. You can't wave your arms in front of someone unless you're more than a meter away from them. And there was no backboard on the net, so my crap aim was even crappier since I had no ricochet to back me up.

Unfortunately, most of these rules were not told to me before the game started and as a result, I had seven whistles on me in the first quarter alone, until I finally started clueing in to what I was doing wrong. There are assigned positions in this game, so I was the goalkeeper and thus not allowed to leave the third of the court at our end. Thankfully this kept me minimally responsible for the ball, since our team had a reasonably good offence which kept the ball at the other end of the court. Unfortunately, the other team's goalscorer (my nemesis) was a guy about a foot taller than me, so once I was back the required one meter in order to wave my arms in the hopes of nabbing the ball, my efforts were pretty futile. I did manage to swipe it once or twice on rebound. Oh well. We lost the game by ONE point, 21-20 in the last few minutes of play. Which actually wasn't too bad, since we were one person short and the other team had subs. Plus, our team had the Canadian handicap to make up for.

Australia - Brisbane - Lest We Forget and Back Alley Gambling

2009-04-27T01:15:00.002-04:00

Sidenote: for the curious out there (looking at you, Carly), the kangaroo meat was purchased, prepared and mostly consumed by none other than Mick the Australian, though he didn't want to eat it anymore either after Colin and Ingrid ragged on it as dog meat.

This past Saturday, April 25th was ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day in Australia, the second biggest holiday after Australia Day. Like Canada's Remembrance Day, everyone gathers to pay tribute to those who have served in the wars and to those in service around the world today. Australia holds candlelit dawn services all over the country to mark the occasion. For some reason, the dawn of said services started at 4:30am instead of when the sun actually rises at 6am.

However, once the dawn service is out of the way, the tone of the day changes quite dramatically. Where Canadians would file away from ceremonies dressed in dark clothes with jackets pinned with poppies and solemnity abound in remembrance, Australians disperse to "raise a glass" for ANZAC. Actual motto of the day.

I opted for my ANZAC Day experience to center more around the latter spirit of the day instead of the getting up at 4am part. I attended an ANZAC day BBQ (of course), where the orders of the day included a blind beer tasting competition before lunch and a fiercely competitive game of Two-Up in the back alley. Not kidding - our whole party of about twenty people were yelling at coins on a blanket in the alleyway behind our host's house for an hour.

For those who are unfamiliar with the game (like myself), Two-Up is gambling based on coin tosses. There are two coins; you bet that both will be heads or both will be tails. It's that simple. I'm appalling at gambling games but managed to not be the first person out of play money, quite a coup for me. Mysteriously, this game is illegal in Australia every day of the year except for ANZAC Day. No one knew why.

You almost want to wish people a Happy ANZAC Day. That's how festive the day felt at times. After the gambling, it was back to the booze. After all, those glasses aren't going to raise themselves to the veterans and the troops overseas.

Australia - Brisbane - Wildlife Encounters At Home and Away

2009-04-17T01:55:00.025-04:00

It was only a matter of time before I had my first encounter with a kangaroo in Australia.

What I didn't expect was for it to happen in my kitchen. Rather than sighting a roo bounding footloose and fancy-free around my backyard or alongside the car on a highway, I observed one diced, marinaded and fried in a container in my fridge. In the spirit of adventure, I did try some. It wasn't too bad - a lot like beef or venison, but with a stronger flavour. I don't think I could sit down and eat a whole steak of it. Certainly not as keen on kangaroo as I was on alpaca. And now that Ingrid and Colin have repeatedly insisted that kangaroo meat isn't fit for dogs, I'm even less of a fan.

And kangaroo in my fridge was not the only wildlife in my kitchen this week. As previously mentioned, we have a bit of an issue with ants in our house. What I had not realized is that ants are a tasty snack for geckos, and in a house with open windows and no screens, the geckos can't help but be lured indoors by the feasting potential within. They also eat mosquitos, so at first I had no issue with our lizard roommates. But another thing I learned this week about geckos is that they can be a bit territorial. To the point of dive-bombing resident humans. I am now a bit wary of them as they scuttle overhead on the ceiling. When I had the back door open the other day, a pair of them menacingly scurried in my direction. I gave them a very evil eye promising them a nasty end. It was a bit of a stalemate for a few minutes. Luckily, they didn't call my bluff and wandered back outside.

Fortunately, this week I also had my second encounter with a kangaroo and this time it was alive and eating food out of my hand at Australia Zoo, in no danger from my BBQ. The lazy little grey kangaroo (little in comparison to his cousin the red kangaroo) wouldn't deign to get up for his snack, and like a Roman emperor remained reclined to nibble at his pellets. Seeing as these roos lounge around all day in a walk-through enclosure with zillions of tourists eager to offer them some grub, I guess I can understand that they've gotten a bit choosy.

A much more exciting feeding that same day was for the crocodile in the Crocoseum. Apparently Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter whose family manages the zoo, was inspired to build the Crocoseum after seeing some movie starring his friend Russell. You may have heard of it... Gladiator. But in his nature-loving ways, instead of having man vs. beast in the arena, the Crocoseum highlights how to live alongside each other.

I have to say, I couldn't take my eyes off that crocodile for even a second while he was moving around the arena.

I really don't know how these people hand feed these dinosaurs on a daily basis!

At one point under heavy security from adult wranglers, Bindi Irwin was feeding the croc and you could really sense how the croc did not differentiate between the meat strip in her hand and the rest of her arm. The look in his eyes and body language said she would make a tasty lunch. Bindi was responsible enough to remind kids in the audience at the end of the show that just because she fed a croc today by hand, that doesn't mean they should go home and try it in their backyards.

Less enjoyable about the show in the Crocoseum was the opening segment. Now, as many of you know, my greatest pet peeve in life is when people work the crowd. I find it incredibly patronizing and inauthentic. And at this show, I got to sit through almost 40 minutes straight of it, the worst of it being the "Crikey!"-off. I wish I'd made that up. And it was followed by 6-7 songs from Bindi's Jungle Dancy Party. Ughhhhhhhhh. Now, I have no problem with Bindi being a child star and entertaining children with songs and dances about animals. I just don't want to attend her concerts. Is that so unreasonable? To give you an idea, there was one song where she walked out leading a pony and sang a song whose chorus was "I love horses". Not kidding. She and the pony just stood together for most of the song. I'm just saying, they probably could have set up a separate showing for the Jungle Dance Party and left me to enjoy the awesome croc feeding show in peace.

Australia Zoo was pretty great on the whole there - put in a good six hours wandering around the place. I learned that otters are the greatest escape artists on the planet, having disassembled the nuts and bolts of their enclosure in one instance; koalas have two opposable thumbs and are every bit as adorable as the hype suggests; elephants can spray but not drink through their trunks; tigers enjoy playing in the water; alligators are extremely long-lived; crocodiles can recognize voices; and the Woma python is my new favourite snake, since it eats venomous snakes.

Australia - Brisbane - The Expanding Backpack and the Peach House

2009-04-12T05:51:00.007-04:00

After my short but sweet visit in Mona Vale, I flew up the coast to my home for the next two months: Brisbane. Carolyn, Gavin and Alysa drove me out to the airport (there was some concern as to whether my flight would go out due to some blackouts in the city, but it all worked out) and I was fortunate in scoring yet another airport pick up at my destination, this time courtesy of Mick's family, which was very kind of them considering we'd never met before.

Upon landing, Brisbane was already a good deal warmer and more humid than Sydney and I had been obliged to wear jeans on the flight, as my backpack had become ridiculously crowded over the previous week or so. Up to this point in the trip, I have been traveling very light. We're talking five shirts, three pairs of pants and two pairs of shoes, including what I wear. So yes, I do a lot of laundry and wear clothes out pretty quickly. Also, this enabled me to carry my own bag most of the time, notably up the Inca death staircase on Isla del Sol. However, as I intend to get a temp office job while I'm here, I had to upgrade the wardrobe substantially. Neither hikers nor flipflops are really ideal interview shoes and my t-shirts were in shambles. So after shopping in NZ, Sydney and Carolyn's closet, my bag ballooned up from 12.5 to 21 kg.

I reassured myself that this was alright because I would be unpacking and hanging up my clothes in a closet upon arrival. But when that bag rolled around on the luggage carousel with an angry green HEAVY sticker, I felt a bit guilty over maybe overdoing it. Not guilty enough to carry it myself though... Mick was kind enough to volunteer and I was lazy enough to accept his offer. Although an annoyance at the time, it was definitely worthwhile - I've already had occasion to wear my new dress shoes three or four times this week and it's swell not having to do the wash every five days.

I've moved into a peach coloured house with a bright pink door shared with Mick and his friends Colin and Ingrid. Colin enjoys Xbox, bacon and running the taps when others are in the shower. Ingrid enjoys puppies, waking Mick up with a watergun to make her breakfast on holidays, and going to bed at exactly 9:05pm on weeknights. Safe to say we all get on well.

The house is all one floor but fairly spacious for four people. My favourite part of the house is the kitchen. And here's why - not only do they have an entire freezer devoted to meat, they also have an entire full size fridge just for beer (in addition to the small scotch keg and the wine rack, of course). No joke. I also enjoy the front yard, because the two cars are parked on the lawn - no driveway to speak of really.

I have a front bedroom with loads of sunlight (a lil too early in the morning... I'm awake most days by 6:30am because it's so bright) and far too many neighbouring birds in the front yard tree. Between 4-7am, our house sounds like we live in a rainforest reserve. It's easy to forget how LOUD animals are. The choir of crows and magpies and geckos sounding off all morning is quite a racket to wake up to in the morning. And I'm on the quieter side of the house!

In case any of you were worried that I've relaxed my guard, I continue to eye anything alive with the suspicion that it could kill me. I'm keeping a very close watch on the small spider in the corner of my room, but he seems pretty chilled out up there, so I'm leaving him be for now. There is also a persisting rumour that our back shed has a resident carpet snake, who I am not eager to meet. Our biggest problem is ants, because the windows are always open and there are no screens on them to keep the bugs out, but on the scale of threatening wildlife in Australia, I'm happy to settle for ants in the cupboard.

When I'm not being paranoid that something venomous is out for my life, I'm just getting some sort of life organized here. I had a quick visit with my cousin Kim this week, who is also wandering around Australia. She dropped in for dinner and an overnight en route to the Gold Coast. Aside from her visit, this week was full of exciting activities like opening a bank account here, getting a tax file number, job applications, one phone interview, baking cookies that are consumed astonishly quickly by my roommates, making my dad's homous, meeting my roommates' friends and families, cleaning the house, two naps, etc. I haven't really wandered into downtown Brisbane just yet, but since I'll be here for awhile, there's no hurry on that count.

Australia - Mona Vale - En Garde, Nature and Vegemite!

2009-04-06T00:47:00.005-04:00

Well friends, I made it to the land down under. My first few days here were spent in Mona Vale in the northern beaches area just outside Sydney with some family friends. Carolyn is our neighbour Barb's daughter and she got married and moved to Australia about five years ago. She, her husband Gavin, her adorable baby girl Alysa and their incredibly well-behaved dog Fudge were my hosts in Mona Vale.

First off, I had no idea Sydney would be so big! Watching it as the airplane landed, you could see the urban sprawl in every direction. Added bonus to my flight was that I was on the right side of the plane to see the harbour and opera house as we came down. I didn't actually get into Sydney to do much sightseeing this time around, as I was happy just to visit and poke around the beaches. Plus, Mehron is on her way here to meet me in less than two months and we'll be making the rounds in Sydney in June, so best save the big ticket sites for then, right?

Mona Vale, I've been told by Gavin, is the centre of the universe, which is the kind of claim you'd think would appear on the town signs, but no. Carolyn amended the statement to Mona Vale being the centre of Gavin's universe. Ha ha. It is however home to an incredible gourmet pie shop (the staple of Australian cuisine, almost as common as burgers, savoury not sweet). I spent almost ten minutes struggling to decide between spinach and feta or chicken brie and avocado (I went for the second). They must have had about thirty different kinds!

Anyway, Mona Vale is a lovely place altogether. When driving around, golden beaches peek out from random directions and you can see the sea air over the roads sometimes - that's how humid it is here. My incredibly hospitable hosts were concerned that I might be cold and put extra blankets on my bed. Too cute - me having just come from 10 degree rainy Dunedin to sunny 24 degree Sydney. I had to go shopping because all of my clothes are too hot!

Also did I mention they have a pool in their backyard? You know what I like about pools? No sharks. Also, no jellyfish. And no rip tides. Or any of the usual life threatening forces of the Australian oceans.

And first meal I was served was butterfly lamb on the bbq. At no point did they force feed me Vegemite sandwiches. Best of all, unlike the Discovery Channel portrays, I don't find a Sydney funnel web spider in my shoes every time I go to put them on, nor have I found any snakes under my bed. At least, not yet - it is still early on. Still plenty of time for the Island of Death (as my friend Emily affectionately nicknamed Australia) to catch me off guard and cause my demise.

New Zealand - Auckland - Meh vs. 'O' for Awesome

2009-03-31T03:07:00.004-04:00

Let me tell you straight off, buses in New Zealand are not as good as buses in South America. On my eleven hour overnight ride from Wellington to Auckland, my seat reclined exactly 3 cm. 3 useless cm. Thank goodness I brought my travel pillow and blanket on board, which kept me warm, if not comfortable.

Eleven hours of tossing and turning later (did I mention the bus stopped every half hour to pick more people up or drop them off in the middle of the night?), we pulled into Auckland bus terminal at about 6:30am. Malheureusement, my hostel's reception desk didn't even open until 8:30am, so I had to kill time having the most leisurely cup of tea of my life at the station. Luckily I had a book to read, or it would have seemed interminable. Better yet, when I arrived at the hostel, my room was mercifully empty so I could crawl right in and crash on the bed without having to wait for the 1pm check in. Whew.

I woke up several hours later ready to explore a bit. And I have to say that after a day and a half of wandering around Auckland, I don't love it. There is the Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. But after seeing the CN Tower... it kind of pales in comparison, alas. And the whole vibe of Auckland is just... bland. Most of the activities they advertise here are all *outside* the city, so that is pretty telling. Now I know I can't love every place I get to on this trip, but Auckland is the first time I've been really unimpressed.

Luckily, the rest of New Zealand more than makes up for Auckland's blandness, so I head off to Australia tomorrow being able to advise other travellers to not judge NZ by Auckland. The concise summary being: Auckland = meh; NZ = 'o' for awesome!

New Zealand - Wellington - Seafaring to the Capital

2009-03-29T23:22:00.006-04:00

I was really dragging my feet on leaving South Island after realizing it would be a tough act to follow. I was dragging them even harder as I rolled out long before sunrise in Christchurch to catch my 7am bus to Picton. Although all I wanted to do was sleep out the ride, the absurdly beautiful sunrise over the plains of Canterbury province wasn't having it.

And then it was three hours of driving right along the shoreline on the coast, notably Kaikoura.

It's really not fair for one island this size to keep so much stunning scenery all to itself!

In Picton, I scurried off my bus right onto the Interisland ferry, which is a three hour crossing of the Cook Strait, noted as one of the prettiest ferry rides in the world.

The first hour is spent winding out of the Marlborough Sounds (wine country, where some of the trees were red) to the strait where you can see the coasts of both the North and South Islands at the same time. Then another hour coming around the point into Wellington Harbour. And I don't know what's with my weather luck, but the sun has followed me everywhere I've gone (notable exception of Dunedin). The crossing is apparently quite hard when the seas are rough, but we had a clear day and moderate conditions, so it was smooth sailing. Except in one respect...

For the ride, I opted to sit up on the top observation deck to enjoy the sights and to avoid the hordes of schoolchildren running around the lower decks entertaining themselves. The wind was quite loud, despite it being a rather calm day, which I didn't mind until the crew started making announcements over the speaker. Turns out the wind drowns them out. Here is what I heard: "Attention passengers... garble, garble... emergency... garble, garble... fire on deck seven... garble, garble, garble... abandon ship." And then the emergency siren sounded.

No surprises, I was somewhat alarmed. Now, during emergencies, passengers are directed to gathering points to await further instructions from the crew. I and my fellow top deck observers looked around to the designated meeting place; there were no staff in sight. Huh. Not encouraging. So more than a few of us proceeded downstairs to a passenger deck. Where we were bewildered to discover everyone just sitting around watching the tv and playing cards. At which point we learned that the announcement had in fact been: "Attention passengers, at this time the crew will be running an emergency drill. Please disregard the following instructions. Crew members, assume there is a fire on deck seven. The emergency siren will sound. Prepare to abandon ship."

They really should look into amplifying that top deck speaker.

Wellington had heaps of things to do, but I wasn't feeling ambitious after my whirlwind tour of Christchurch. I took the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens (which I liked better than the one in Christchurch) with a British girl I'd met at the hostel who enjoyed my pronunciation of the word 'duvet'. We agreed that the view of the harbour was quite pretty and there were some very impressive trees (a big admission from two people who aren't horticulturalists). However, since it's autumn, the flowers were all dying off, the ducks were gone from the pond and the observatory and treehouse were closed. Oh well. Spent the afternoon wandering around town down Cuba St (the "latin" quarter - mostly trendy shopping and cafes) and the waterfront.

Day Two was spent at The Museum, Te Papa. It was enormous - six floors of interactive exhibits. You could spend hours in there. I was suffering from information overload fairly quickly, so I tried to pick and choose areas of interest. Coolest part: preserved giant squid on display. I do not want to run into one of them in the wild. They could definitely eat me. There was also a high tech floor map of NZ where if you step on a square, pictures of the area would appear on the walls in the room. Before I knew it, I'd been in there for three and a half hours, so I had to book it to the grocery store to get some dinner organized before my 11 hour overnight bus ride to Auckland that night.

Could have done another day in Wellington I think - missed the free tour of their Parliament buildings, which was highly recommended, as well as the film archives which screen any NZ film for you for free as well. Ah well, time is short, what could I do? I probably should have left more time for North Island, but South Island was too hard to leave.

New Zealand - Christchurch - Best Sign Ever and Free Day

2009-03-27T21:34:00.006-04:00

"Attention customers... we would like to inform you that our business will not be participating in the recession."

-Barbershop, Manchester St.

Fantastic.

Leaving Dunedin was bittersweet. With my flight to Australia impending (in less than a week!), lots of ground to cover, and increasingly cold rainy weather arriving, it was time to get on the move again. It was sad to leave Mike and Ashley - staying with them was a) super fun b) delicious (shout out to Ashley's Chicken Parmesan especially!) and c) did I already mention super fun?

I am once again rocking the buses. I left bright and early Wednesday morning on the six hour bus to Christchurch. The drive was especially nice around Timaru, which has a beautiful stretch of coastline. Christchurch itself was pretty nice - I only had two days there and could have done more. I spent the first day shopping for groceries and enrapt in some fabulous second hand bookstores. No surprises that after this I spent the evenings enrapt in a good book. My hostel was pretty sweet - it had a community herb garden, excellent showers and a pool!

My second day I ran around to the listed must-see tourist attractions. First up was the Arts Centre, which literally felt like a beehive of creative activity. The winding halls of rooms with everything from carpentry to glass-blowing to painting to ballet were really impressive. Afterwards I wandered over to the art gallery, where I perused the work of Rita Angus, a pacifist NZ painter who protested WWII, and the contemporary art exhibits.

When I felt I'd used up my enthusiasm for art, I ambled around the Botanic Gardens (are there any cities in NZ without these?) until I found myself in the Canterbury Museum, where I learned about the extinct moa (wingless giant ostrich), the existence of the shark-toothed dolphin and 2m clams in prehistoric times, and about the discovery of Antarctica. Poor Scott, who died on the expedition, was a month behind the Norwegian who got the credit.

I then explored the market stalls in Cathedral Square and popped into the Christchurch cathedral, the centre of town. It was quite a pretty church and merges different Maori, Polynesian and European influences into its design, but I probably wouldn't have liked it half as much without the choir singing in the background (they were rehearsing for evensong later that night).

Not a bad day's work all in all.

Did I mention every activity I did that day was free? Nice.

New Zealand - Moeraki, Mount Cook, Wanaka - Lil Miss Muffet Roadtrip

2009-03-23T18:38:00.004-04:00

Happy Anniversary Otago! My enthusiasm for this regional public holiday springs from the fact that it gave both Mike and Ashley a long weekend which gave us a window of roadtripping opportunity. So we rented ourselves a car and made plans to go to Mount Cook.

Bright and early on a dreary and rainy (i.e. usual) Sunday morning in Dunedin, we loaded ourselves into Lil Miss Muffet, aka SuperLame, our Vitz rental hatchback and set out for Mount Cook and sunshine.(The more curious may wonder about the nicknames for the car. Within about fifteen minutes of driving around in it, we were forced to conclude that this car was powered by a lawn mower engine and made of plastic. We tested out this theory. Maximum speed flooring it in D2 was 123km/hr and that's coming off a big downhill stretch. Maximum speed flooring it on flat road was 113km/hr. Maximum speeding climbing a hill was 78km/hr. There were some hills we really wondered if we'd make it. Also, the ventilation system would only work for ten minutes at any time, leading to multiple fog ups in the car in the mornings. And the CD player would only play ten tracks off of any CD before skipping tracks automatically. Quality.) We had been told by many locals that it's only Dunedin's cursed coastal location that makes its climate so appalling (sorry Mike and Ashley...) and that inland Otago usually had great weather this time of year.

We decided to drive north to Oamaru then west to Omarama and then north to Twizel and Mount Cook on the way there. About twenty minutes outside Dunedin, the skies miraculously cleared and the sun beamed upon us. Along the way we stopped at one in every ten photoworthy moments - you become a scenery snob pretty quickly when the getting's this good! Stops included the Moeraki boulders, 15 million year old bowling ball shaped rocks on the coast; the dams of the Waitaki River; and Lake Pukaki, which we would never have found had it not been for a missed turn off for Mount Cook Road.

The brilliant sunshine continued in Mount Cook. The Visitors Centre in Mount Cook Village recommended we spend the afternoon on the Hooker Valley trail, as it offered some of the best scenery of the mountains. So we did. It's about an hour and a half to two hours each way. The path winds through the pass between the mountain ranges along the river between Mueller and Hooker Lake and includes three bridges. Mike, being the least keen walker I've ever met, was shockingly content with this choice. At least, until we were close to the end, at which point we were all ready to see Hooker Lake already.

The walk certainly did the trick for wiping us out though - we all slept like babies that night. Just before bed though, we got up the energy for one more activity - stargazing. The skies over the Mount Cook area are renown for their lack of clouds and generally awesome potential for stargazing. But because we are cheap travellers and students, instead of driving an hour each way and paying $35-60 to go to an observatory, we drove ten minutes each way and spent $2 of gas money to go back to the Hooker Valley trail parking lot and did it there. And let me tell you, no observatory was needed - the sky was phenomenal. We were entranced for a good thirty minutes despite fairly cold night temperatures.

Mount Cook had clouded over overnight, which was unacceptable to our trio of sun hunters. We were on the road again chasing the blue skies south by 8:30am to drive down to Wanaka for the afternoon. We caught up with the sunshine quickly and two and a half hours of more stunning scenery later, we arrived.

Since it was still early, we opted to check out Puzzling World, a local tourist attraction of mazes and illusions. Pretty funny photos were a result. Note about the mazes: while I completed all four and Mike and Ashley completed three of them, we were too hungry to bother with the final challenge of finding the exit again, so we cheated and took an emergency escape door. No regrets.

Wanaka was lovely - the lakeshore looks across to Mount Aspiring National Park. We enjoyed a leisurely picnic bench patio lunch and then were off again for the four hour drive back to Dunedin. We also ducked off the main motorway to the Southern Scenic Route for the last half hour of the drive, and though its monstrous hills taxed Lil Miss Muffet to the max, totally worth it for some of the views of the coast. The highlight of the trip was really the drive moreso than the destinations. South Island is absurdly beautiful on a sunny day. Too bad the whole island has to share the one sunny day that travels around the jetstream with the other fourteen days of rain and cold.

New Zealand - Fiordland - Te Anau and Doubtful Sound - Words Fail

2009-03-19T02:26:00.009-04:00

So this week I decided to take a mini-break and give Mike and Ashley the chance to miss the joy, laughter and humility I bring into their lives with my presence here. I headed out for a quick three day excursion to Fiordland, in the SouthWest region of New Zealand to check out the slightly less famous and way less touristed Doubtful Sound (the more famous and incredibly touristed one being UNESCO World Heritage Site, Milford Sound). Doubtful Sound is ten times as big as Milford and probably ten times as remote, hence has ten times fewer tourists. This was not a cheap excursion, but I sensed it was one I would regret not doing so I ignored my cheap miser instincts and forked over the cash for the day cruise.

In order to get there, I first bussed from Dunedin to Te Anau, the gateway town to Fiordland National Park. About four hours drive across the prettiest farm pastures and rolling hills you ever saw with a liberal sprinkling of sheep here and there. And then in the last half hour of the drive, these looming mountains (the foothills of the Fiords) appear out of nowhere. Very cool.

Te Anau itself I found pretty vanilla. It had lots of hostels and shops and info booths, so it was a useful place. And it was on a big lakeshore, but not a particularly remarkable lake in my experience. Very quiet place too - full of trampers and campers, so the whole town is in bed by 9:30pm (even on St. Patrick's Day!) and up and off to the trails at 6am. Quietest big hostel I've stayed at so far, that's for sure.

I was disappointed to awaken to dreary plentiful rain in the morning. The weather in Fiordland is notoriously wet, fickle and often unpleasant. The day before had been a stunningly sunny day, so I was bummed I'd missed out on the Sound's one decent weather day this week. Turned out not to matter, since the weather on the Sound blows in from the Tasman Sea and changes every few hours regardless. All four seasons in one day indeed. And it turns out that regardless of the weather, the curse of Fiordland perseveres - the evil sandflies. They literally swarm any open skin when you are not on water. Unrelenting and far worse than the mosquitos of northern Ontario, the sandfly is my new most hated insect.

After being picked up from my hostel, I was driven to the nearby town of Manapouri, on Lake Manapouri, a far more impressive and generally gorgeous lake to the south. In order to get to Doubtful Sound, we had to ferry across the lake to the Manapouri Underground Power Station, to transfer to a bus to drive forty minutes along the length of Wilmot Pass Road to the wharf at Doubtful Sound, where we would take a 3-4 hour cruise out through the Sound to the Tasman Sea and back again.

On the way there, we also were given the chance to tour the power station, which produces 15% of NZ's power and 85% of which is used entirely by an aluminum smelting facility in Bluff. They hollowed out a 2 km tunnel leading into the station, which looked a bit like a James Bond villain's lair. I didn't find the station itself that interesting but the tunnel was fascinating. It took two years to build and because the rock around here is all quartz and granite, i.e. super hard, they had to blast it out the entire way! The rubble was used to pave the Wilmot Pass Road.

The Sound itself is not actually a Sound (drowned river valley taken over by the sea once the glacier retreats), but rather a Fiord (land carved by glacier, filled in by sea). But English didn't have the word Fiord when Doubtful was discovered so they call it a Sound. Doubtful's water comes from three places. First, the Tasman Sea. That's a no-brainer. Second, when the 5-9m of monthly rainfall lands here, the temperate rainforest filters it to the ground and then the hundreds of streams of waterfalls carry the rainwater back into the Sound's basin.

Third, the power station diverts the water from Lake Manapouri that churns its turbines to generate electricity through the mountain into a manmade river that empties into Deep Cove, the harbour for Doubtful Sound. That's a whole lot of water.

And true to form, the weather was rainy when we embarked, misty as we neared the Tasman Sea and then cleared up into a lovely sunny afternoon. As for describing Doubtful Sound, I could try to tell you about the steep fiord cliffs, the buffeting winds, the landslides from the earthquakes, the waterfalls, the mollymawks, the sea lion colony, the wild dolphin pod and the utter remoteness of this place. But they have to be seen to be believed.

New Zealand - Dunedin - Criminal Activity

2009-03-18T22:30:00.007-04:00

We recently went for dinner with some of Mike's Scottish relatives from the Watters side of his family... whom he had never met before. It was particularly interesting walking into the appointed restaurant when Mike had no idea what they looked like or what their names were. We agreed that to resolve this problem, he would enter and loudly announce that he was Mike from Canada and hope they identified themselves. It played out exactly that way. Bonus: they treated us. Nice.

On our way home, our party broke apart. Ashley headed off to the gym, while Mike and I caught the bus home. Now everytime we leave the house all together, we take a poll to see who has the key. There are only two keys between the three of us and generally one key cannot be found when it is needed. Hence, we double-check. This excursion had been no exception and Ashley assured us vehemently that she in fact had a key.

Unfortunately said key remained with her upon our parting. Mike and I arrived back to the flat and realized this. Couldn't we call Ashley, some might say? No, since none of us have a cell phone. Couldn't we wait until she got back then? Estimated time until Ashley returned home: 60-80 minutes. Too long for those of us who'd worn shorts to dinner.

We were obliged to consider criminal acts to force entry into the flat. Sadly, this is not the first time I've had to break into the place I call home. I also had to do so with my sister when I was younger when we got locked out. It was frighteningly easy with a little imagination.

I took stock of the situation while Mike tried to pry open the downstairs windows with little success. We had at our disposal: one second floor open window. One garden ledge. Two bobby pins. One broken clothes-drying horse. One garbage can. One baby plant. Two reasonably useful individuals. One kitten. All in all, not great resources. Surveying the upstairs window, the height and potential for serious damage should a climber fall made it an unappealing choice. We brainstormed for solutions.

Mike suggested we throw the kitten through the open window so that the kitty could then come open the door for us. He then bargained with the kitty, reminding her that she owed him for the bacon treat of the day before. The kitten responded by playing with a ball of garbage. Mike was fired from brainstorming.

Now Mike generally boasts his ninja talents to anyone who will listen (not many people, since he has zero ninja skills), I asked if they extended to lock picking skills and loaned him my bobby pins. Turns out he (and I) have zero lock picking skills too.

That left us with the dodgy option of scaling the wall to the open window. Seeing as neither of us were Spiderman, that meant someone was going to be a human ladder and someone was going to put their life at risk. No surprises, I volunteered to be the ladder with the condition that he not stand on my head. Shockingly, this plan worked extremely well. Mike stood on my knee as I boosted his other foot up to my shoulder and slid up the wall till I was standing, at which point he somehow moved his feet to the ledge of the window frame and then chin-up'ed through the open window above.

Not to be a nay-sayer, but I definitely didn't think he could do it. Way to prove me wrong, Mike!

New Zealand - Dunedin - Not the Wonka Factory and the Pride of the South

2009-03-14T16:46:00.007-04:00

Saturday we were feeling ambitious. Ashley and I decided to tour the Cadbury Chocolate Factory before hitting up the farmer's market. We presented ourselves at 9am sharp for the tour, after busting a move to walk there in less than twenty minutes. I had already been warned the tour was a bit disappointing, and it was if only because there is so much more they could have done with it. You're not allowed to take any pictures inside the factory (trade secrets, etc.), but seeing as the factory itself was closed because it was the weekend, I really didn't see anything worth taking a photo of, let alone pirating.

We did learn a fair bit about the history of chocolate and how to make it. For instance, most white chocolate is not real chocolate because many companies make it with artificial flavours instead of with cocoa butter. And Cadbury chocolate tastes far better here than in Canada because they get their cream from Otago Holstein cows, as opposed to the Jersey cows used in the North American factories.

And of course, we saw the famous Chocolate Fall. While watching 1 tonne of liquid chocolate drop the length of the 750 tonne silo we were standing in was fairly impressive, I secretly wished it had been more of a chocolate waterfall like in the Wonka Factory. Plus, the fall itself is only aesthetic; it serves no functional purpose at all (except luring tourists in, I guess). Ashley almost got caught in the splash zone of chocolate too - the entire inner railing was splattered in deliciousness. We did get free treats out of the deal though.

Far far far better was the Speight's Brewery tour that Mike joined us for that evening. We were guided through the history of beer from Ancient Egypt to the foundation of the brewery in Dunedin.

Interesting trivia fact of the day: the expression skull/skol in Australia and Scandinavia derives from the Vikings' practice of honouring their fallen enemies by hollowing out their skulls and using them as beer mugs. No joke.

We also learned about beer is brewed. A lot of the information was really boring, so here are the highlight facts.

1) Malt dust is highly combustible. They use wood shovels to move it because any spark from contact between a metal shovel and the ground could ignite the dust. The malt warehouse burned down in the 1940s because some dummy used a metal shovel.

2) Hops is the only other plant in the same genus as marijuana.

We also really enjoyed the continuous showings of the Southern Man ad campaign for Speight's beer. Mike asked if it bothered us at all how the commercials were entirely geared towards men and honestly, at least they were shameless about their target demographic. In North America, they're also targeting the male audience but are sly about it. The Southern Man heavily draws on the beer's motto of Pride of the South too, which means all the scenery in said commercials is spectacular South Island vistas. And I know some of my more feminism and gender studies-inclined friends would probably be very critical of the identity construction of the Southern Man - have a peek here: http://www.speights.co.nz/Southern-Values/Southern-Man-ID-Chart.aspx

Obviously the best part of the tour was the half hour at the end dedicated to tasting six types of beer brewed by Speight's: Harvest, Summit, Gold Medal, Distinction, Old Dark, and Porter.

Did I mention it was unlimited supply? We were encouraged to at least try all of them and work our way from lightest to darkest. Seeing as we were drinking... I mean 'tasting'... alongside two Aussies and three Germans guys, there was some pressure to keep up. Mediocre fan of beer that I am, I am proud to say I did try all of them (and then some - I think I made it through eight glasses in 30 minutes). I figured I'd like the Harvest one the best, since it was the girly apricot flavoured pale lager, but I was surprised to discover that my favourite was Distinction, followed by the Gold Medal ale.

New Zealand - Dunedin - T-Shirt Slogans and Non-Winterized Housing

2009-03-11T19:29:00.003-04:00

"Dunedin - it's cold but cool!"

I kid you not. I cannot verify if this slogan is officially sanctioned by the town, but it's certainly on enough T-shirts. Not the most persuasive marketing campaign I've seen, however honest it may be. Especially since this week, we have really noticed just how far SOUTH Dunedin lies on the world map. This was brought to our attention because it's awfully crisp weather for just the beginning of autumn here. And we personally experienced the Antarctic weather patterns during our thwarted day at St Kilda beach:

Not to mention the sleet, snow and hail that made cameo appearances in last night's rainstorm (although some scientists are claiming a lot of the weird weather in Dunedin is after-effects of the bushfires in Australia, since the jetstream wraps back around to here after passing through there - I don't really understand the logistics myself).

And apparently only the extravagantly wealthy have central heating here, leaving the rest of the Kiwis to improvise on staying warm in the cold weather. How very unegalitarian. So Mike, Ashley and myself are on a mission to insulate the flat. Right now, it's a bit like living at the cottage at Lake of Bays... in January. We've put up blankets over the back door and the big window to cut down on the draft (which we can see pushing against the blankets), but it's not cutting it. And while space heaters are great for a band-aid solution of one hour of reasonable warmth, that's going to add up on the electricity bill pretty quickly once they're going regularly throughout the winter. Hence, we have begun a hunt for insulation related products. There was a great Saran Wrap-like film I used in my university apartment in Halifax that worked like a charm, but we're having some trouble locating it here. We're hoping the Mitre 10, NZ's Canadian Tire, may carry it, but of course when we scurried down there last night it was already closed! Our next best bet may be an invention called Thermal Curtains, but we are unclear what they do exactly and they don't create an air seal, so draft may still find a way. The mission continues...

I am definitely out of here before the real winter sets in. Best of luck to you, Mike and Ashley. Bundle up.

New Zealand - Dunedin - 'O' for 'Awesome'

2009-03-07T20:42:00.009-05:00

This university town is nestled into the rolling fairytale pasture hills of the coast of South Island. Saturday mornings they hold a sizeable farmer's market at the train station with everything from fresh blackberries to lamb kebabs, and it's the one place to get cheap produce in town. The shops all close on Sundays, and everyone's out and about in the parks. Everything is within walking distance, although Mike is adamantly anti-walking at most times, so we've been flagging down the buses a fair bit, with success being 50-50... I'm quite surprised how often the bus drivers fully ignore you at the stop and keep going. If you really need to catch that bus for sure, you pretty much have to jump in front of it on the road!

Contrasted with this Pleasantville lifestyle, there is a social, ready to party energy that radiates from the University of Otago. There are a million pubs and bars around, sports events and concerts on regular rotation, and generally at least one front lawn of afternoon beer drinkers per block throughout Dunedin. While that may sound like a generic description of any university town, there is plenty of personality here as well. For instance, when walking downtown with Ashley to the farmer's market on Saturday, she pointed out Loose Hair Salon and whispered that there were never any customers inside. Glancing in the window as we passed, she was right. And not only no customers, there was no evidence of business period. It was a white room with a few barber chairs and a till on a small table in the rear. The only person inside was an older Asian lady, who was brushing her teeth while watching the street. Can anyone say dodgy? I can't decide if it's a racketeering front or if that woman is illegally living in a commercially zoned space.

Or better yet, let's look at the kids running around Dunedin. When they're not dressed up in their whites to spend 10 hours of their Saturday playing the world's longest game, cricket, in a little league, their parents randomly let them run around in costume. Maybe it's a Halloween envy complex, since they don't have it down here, but seriously, the number of times I've seen a small Spiderman running around the grocery store or a Dora the Explorer skipping down the sidewalk is unbelievable. Not that I disapprove... I wish my parents had let me dress up in costume when we left the house as a kid. It's certainly good for a laugh now and for perking up otherwise dreary or unremarkable days.

And I should be fair... it's not just the kids who like to dress up. I attended the big professional rugby game on the weekend, where more than half the stadium had gone all out to support their team. Otago fans had dusted off their best blue and yellow ensembles, even painting all exposed skin in the team colours. Canterbury fans dotted the crowd in red and black as well. And let's not forget to mention their abundance of funny hats to complete their outfits. I'm pretty sure there were more adults decked out in costumes at that game than children.

Now, Mike, Ashley and myself had been talked into said rugby match on the pretext that it was THE sporting event of the year in Dunedin. Pretty big claim. Ah, but this was the level just under international league, we were told. And an epic rivalry, as the Otago Hilanders were playing the Canterbury Crusaders, the neighbouring province. Kind of like if the Leafs played the Canadiens in the NHL, we were told. A pretty big deal. Alright, said we. If it's THE sporting event of the season, we'd better go.

Sigh. It turned out to be THE (WORST) sporting event of the year. Otago's team hasn't really been much good in the past five years, and Canterbury was missing a few of its star players due to injuries. And it showed. The game was pretty crap. Each team dropped the ball without cause five or six times during the game. And the score was pitiful. It wasn't due to excellent defense, that's for sure. Otago managed to fumble into a try in the last five minutes of the game (at least, that's what I was told happened... Ashley and I had stopped paying attention part way through the first half) and then grabbed another 3 points on a penalty kick. Lame-o. Otago then had the nerve to brag that this was the first time that Canterbury had ever been held to zero in a game. I wouldn't broadcast that, boys. That game was an embarrassment, although it did provide an excellent opportunity to observe the crowds and get a glimpse into rugby fever.

The Kiwi crowds are pretty crazy and harsh for such a mellow, otherwise easy going culture. Upon each fumble or error, they chant loudly in unison "you f---ed up, you f---ed up!". Even to the poor ball boy on the sidelines when he tripped. He couldn't have been more than twelve. Otago fans were happy to cheer the victory and assault the Canterbury fans after the great victory too. Beer was sprayed everywhere, notably all over my right side. Two streakers made it onto the field, and holy cow, those security guys are way faster than they look. Might have been a better game if they'd played - they were made better tackles on those streakers than we had seen all through the game. Outside the stadium, a bunch of Otago boys swarmed a guy wearing a Canterbury shirt and dumped about ten beers on him.

Half time was also filled with entertaining antics. They had a giveaway of some kind. One guy was wearing a brown cloak and had to run across to the other end of the field while four other guys, plus the team mascots and the midget stadium host, tried to stop him. Or so we thought. Once they caught him, they seemed to be stripping off his clothes. Which was hilarious and baffling. Until we worked out that he had prize money stashed under the cloak, which was what they were after. The next giveaway, they had four girls trying to land a ball into a boat (again, did not understand the logistics of the competition) from about ten metres away. None of them were even close. So they gave them another go. Which resulted in even more embarrassing misses. And another go, when by sheer chance, one girl managed to ricochet the ball in off a guard rail. Don't even know what she won, but it saved us from watching the train wreck of effort they were putting into this game.

More importantly, at this time I also learned the origins of the expression 'O' for 'Awesome'. Heavyweight boxing champ David Tua appeared on NZ's version of Wheel of Fortune in the mid 1990s and when asked for a consonant, he requested 'O' for 'Awesome', which became a legendary moment of New Zealand's modern history. Indeed, Kiwis pronounce 'awesome' as 'o-some'. All in all, the day panned out. After all, as one of Mike's friends said, we experienced more of Kiwi culture in that hour and a half of bad rugby than we would in an average week of traveling around New Zealand. Fair enough.

New Zealand - Dunedin - Dinner of Disasters and Moonlit Serenades

2009-03-06T17:01:00.006-05:00

On my first excursion from the house, I wandered over along the Oval, the local park and cricket-playing field, to the grocery store, which demonstrated to me that we literally live on the other side of the tracks in town, the division between North and South Dunedin. Mike walked me as far as his bus stop at the bottom of the street, where I had a sink or swim introduction to traffic driving on the left.

Although I obviously knew they drive on the opposite side of the street here, I was unprepared for how my brain was trying to correct this phenomenon. It literally refuses to believe my eyes showing the cars moving on the other side. I feel like shaking myself or slapping my head a few times to correct what I'm seeing. Makes jaywalking especially difficult, let me tell you! I may very well get hit by a bike or car if I'm not careful.

Upon my return to the flat, I discovered a note from Ashley requesting my assistance in preparing the pot roast for dinner. While I'm happy to help out in exchange for the free room and board I get from them, Ashley obviously was unaware that cooking meat is definitely not a culinary strength of mine. The directions seemed fairly straightforward though, so I ambitiously accepted the task. Defrost meat - check. Season with garlic, salt and pepper - check. Oil big pot - check. Brown meat on both sides - mostly check (a little too hot when it first landed, one side noticeably crispier than the other). Add broth and already chopped veggies in fridge - check. Let it sit till Ashley gets home - check. And it smelled so good. Ashley made the sides of mashed potatos, broccoli and wellingtons. It was shaping up to be a great dinner right?

And then Ashley spilled the pepper in the potatos. Whew - were they peppery. But not the end of the world, since the pot roast was central and was so full of promise. Mike and I soaked it in tasty gravy and dug in. We are chewing our way through the first amazing bite and yet... we slow the chews and glance inquiringly at each other. Ashley pauses as she notices and hesitates to take her first bite. "What? Is it not cooked?" she asks. Mike and I continue to look at each other in genuine puzzlement tinged with disappointment. "No, it's cooked" says Mike. "It's just not..." I say. "Beef..." supplies Mike. Ashley's face joins ours in puzzlement. The package fully said beef. It looked like beef, and smelled like it cooking. But it distinctly tasted like ham and the texture was totally off. And holy cow, was it too salty, courtesy of the broth. Still tasty, but you don't pot roast ham in beef broth until tender. It just tasted... wrong. Upon further investigation, we discovered it was corned beef. Which we will never buy again.

We also treated ourselves to a movie on my parents, who sent a little play money our way, let's say for Mike and Ashley's six year anniversary which they celebrate today. We saw The Watchmen, which Mike and his friends thought was awesome and philosophical, which Ashley thought was total crap, and which I found pretentious and unintentionally hilarious. On our walk home up our beloved dodgy Maitland street, we were serenaded by four drunk guys fumbling with a guitar on their front balcony. "And a very good night to you cuties!" they hollered as we passed. To which Mike turns and announces, "Um, I'm a guy." Priceless. And we waved to them again this morning, as they were still drinking on their front porch as Ashley and I went to the market at 9am. Nice.

New Zealand - Dunedin - Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle

2009-03-04T22:04:00.002-05:00

I arrived in Dunedin airport not even knowing which way was up. I had gone with Mick to the airport in Santiago at about 1pm, despite the fact that my flight wasn't until 11pm since we were low on cash and reluctant to go the bank AGAIN. The Scotiabank branch manager back in Ottawa has already emailed me to remind me about international ATM withdrawal fees. Thanks, sir, but I am aware and would certainly be using affiliated ATMs if I could find them.

Anyways, this meant that once Mick was checked in for his flight at 2:30, I had a glorious 7 hour wait to endure in the terminal before I could even check in. Two books and one two hour conversation with an elderly South African couple later, Qantas finally opened a counter. I fought my way through the hordes of American tourists who had all just arrived to fly home to Dallas after a cruise to Antarctica to get to the check in desk and was rewarded for my absurd earliness with an aisle seat next to an empty seat for my 13 hour flight. Unfortunately, that massive line of cruise passengers got ahead of me into the security and customs lines, so some more line ups delays passed my time before the flight actually left.

The flight wasn't too bad... after 24+ bus rides, 13 hours on a plane doesn't really compare. I did overhear a rather disturbing conversation behind me where some Aussie girls were advocating the mandatory drugging of infants and young children on flights to keep them quiet. Which was totally uncalled for in the case of the six kids on our flight, who slept soundly through the night and the one baby who really only fussed when the plane was landing.

After deplaning (which I maintain should not be a word), I then was thrilled to find out that the check in counters in Auckland don't open before 5:30am. It was 3:30am when my plane landed. Sigh. I took my time going through immigration and customs again. In New Zealand, it turns out you have to declare hiking boots, since they may have foreign bacteria or plants in the soles, so the agent had to check my shoes. It was no easy task wrestling with my shoelaces at 4am, let me tell you. And let's be honest, I'm hardly outdoorsy... the guy was more likely to find gum from the city sidewalks than foreign plant species from tramping in the woods. And so I passed on, shoes unconfiscated, to wait to check in for my connecting flight to Dunedin.

On that flight, I had an early introduction to the craze for low fat food in NZ cuisine. I had the choice between low fat muesli or a fat free muffin with a low calorie orange juice or water for breakfast. Having now been to the local grocery store as well, I can tell you that every product comes in either light, low fat or fat free varieties. Except ice cream, which is an institution around here.

Finally made it to Mike and Ashley's place around 10am, no thanks to Mike. He figured it would all work out by itself. Luckily Ashley was a bit more proactive and emailed me the address, directions, and transportation options from the airport, as well as leaving me the key and detailed instructions in the mailbox. I was overwhelmingly happy to get in and throw my bags on the couch and then spent the rest of the day puzzling over what kind of jet lag would eventually settle in. Turns out I just wake up a bit early... should be over that soon.

Mike and Ashley have scored themselves a nice 2 floor flat (in which I have a bedroom all to myself!) in what is known as the Bermuda Triangle. Maitland Street, their place of residence, earned this nickname through having a somewhat shady reputation, which originates from a couple of halfway houses and group homes on the street. Mike, Ashley and I have decided to believe it's just bad press. We shall see...

Argentina - Mendoza - Adios to the Americas

2009-02-28T16:19:00.003-05:00

So in about 48 hours, I´ll be boarding my flight from Santiago to Auckland. And 48 hours after that I will arrive in New Zealand, despite the fact that the flight is only 13 hours. That´s right, I have discovered time travel and will be skipping March 3rd this year. I never cared for that date anyway, so no big loss. We´ll see how the jet lag pans out...

While I´m definitely looking forward to getting to New Zealand and shamelessly abusing Mike and Ashley´s hospitality in Dunedin when I arrive, I´m also sad to be leaving the Americas, which have proved both challenging and amazing. For now, I´m chilling in Mendoza again en route back to Santiago for my flight on the 2nd and trying very hard not to spend money since I´m already outrageously overbudget for this leg of the trip.

I have to say Argentina was a stand out for me, for any number of reasons, but particularly because they have solved three problems that affect me regularly in my Canadian life:

1) Serviettes. Here, there is a cloth napkin for your lap and then a supply of paper (or plastic) napkins on the table. This solves my long term dilemma over shuffling the one serviette I´m given in Canada between my lap and the table.
2) Individual servings for purchase at the grocery store. I can buy just one yogourt, or just one granola bar. I don´t have to buy the club pack of anything.
3) Most importantly, they have invented ice cream delivery services here. I can´t tell you the number of times I bemoaned the unavailability of this service when I was too lazy to drive 20 minutes to the nearest DQ or Baskin Robbins.

That´ll be the last post from the Americas, my readalongers. And if anything really important happens on March 3rd, pass it on.