We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not…(It rained a lot)

I am back in a land of parrots and jacarandas. And life seems much easier now.

Before I go any further, I just want to warn you that this post is all about the weather (I must not forget my Canadian roots).

Turns out I am a wimp. Turns out the weather affects me far more than I ever thought or admitted. I will not weather the weather and I will fly to Barcelona if I have to.

After an unnaturally long and hot summer (for a Canadian), including a standout night of42-degree hell, I decided to skip to Europe instead of subjecting my sweaty, exhausted, dusty self to more humid heat.

The European chapter started off so perfectly, my luck was bound to run out. I met up with my brother and went to a beach dance party in Croatia, we went swimming in a (albeit freezing) waterfall in Bosnia, and went out at night in t-shirts in Belgrade. But then I arrived in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to grey skies that would follow me for what seemed like weeks (in reality: 12 days).

In Slovenia, I met my Tasmanian friend Jeremy and greeted him with cold and rain (to remind him of home?). We still managed to enjoy a mucky visit to Ljubljana castle and walking in the city in the rain (deluge).

Soaking it all in, Ljubljana.

Ok, we did have one perfect, beautiful day in Slovenia, when we visited this perfect, beautiful gorge near Bled.

But then it was 8 degrees in Bled, Vienna was windy and rainy and my feet never quite dried (sorry to the people in the cinema watching The Hangover 3 who didn’t want my wet socks hanging off the back of the plush seats), and when we crossed into the Czech Republic, it was flooded. Beautiful and interesting and amazing, but flooded.

Cleaning up in the rain, Vienna.

I wonder what Jesse and Celine would have done in Vienna had it been rainy and cold.

Tourists, the only ones out in this weather. Vienna.

And then it rained. And the river busted its banks. Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic.

When we got to Prague, we got a bit, em, lost. For 2 hours. With wet feet (hello, worst blisters in the history of life!) and soaked backpacks (we thought they were safe stowed under the bus!). After a day of cold and wet and being lost and frustrated and very very hungry, we finally found our hostel, took all the stuff out of our bags to hang them to dry, and went to the local restaurant-bar.

I haven’t ever been so happy (wine on an empty stomach?) to sit in a smoke-filled room waiting for a plate of meat to arrive. It was warm. It was funny. Every single person was smoking. At the table next to us sat five or six old men playing  cards in their patterned knit sweaters. Smoking and drinking beer. The bad day ended with giggles and alcohol and barely any veggies. The lesson here: this too shall pass. But mostly: don’t trust Google maps’ directions in the Czech Republic.

The river rose and rose in Prague. Everything was flooded. Everything was closed. But it stopped raining! Czech out those blue skies!

The boardwalk in Prague, under water.

The plan was to keep going north, through Poland, as I have a writing residency arranged in Denmark, and it makes geographical sense (and I want to go to Poland). Instead, I booked a not-so-cheap-but-screw-it flight to Barcelona.

When I got to the Prague airport, the destination screen indicated the weather next to each city. Everywhere was sunny. Including Warsaw. 25 degrees and sunny. Everywhere had a little sun. Except Barcelona. Hilarious! (Not hilarious.) I started questioning my choices, my life, my decision to leave Jeremy for a potentially-false promise of sunshine. But then I remembered that no: this choice is the right choice because it’s the one I made. This is where I was supposed to be. Thank you, Robin Esrock for this.

And when I landed and it was hot and the sky was blue without the slightest sign of a cloud, I knew, yes, this is where I was supposed to be.

Self portrait at the beach in Barcelona.

I feel good in Spain, except that I constantly feel bad not knowing Catalán and my Castillano is pretty rusty to begin with. But after a week, though I haven’t remembered any of the past tense, I may well have adopted a hint of the (affected?) th th th of the Barthelonan accent. To get there without going too far, I just pretend I’m Liv Tyler with her pout and lispy speech. And I leave the ‘s’ (or ‘th’) off the “gracias” in the hopes it sounds a bit Catalán.

Barcelona is colourful. It’s hot. It’s lively, but it really comes alive after 11pm. And it only rained once.

Arriving in Europe, arriving half-way home

It was too hot. I thought about going to Thailand after India, but I was too hot. My body needed a break. I wanted to be able to wear a t-shirt for 2 days in a row rather than have to change my sweaty tops a few times a day.

So after finding a cheap(ish) flight home from Bangalore via London (with a 3 month lay-over) and seeing on Facebook that my brother was on his way to Croatia, the plan was made.

Arriving at Heathrow was like arriving home. So familiar. I knew which over-priced sandwich to buy at Costa’s and where to catch the bus. I hopped on the cleanest, most high-tech coach I’ve ever seen and slept all the way to my friend‘s house in the type of village you’d imagine an English village to be.

Time enough for a catch up, hot shower (and brushing my teeth with tap water!), a chill in the cold Spring air, and then it was back to the bus in the middle of the night, off to another airport for another flight.

When I arrived in Split, Croatia, I ran into my brother on the street. We had pizza at a cafe in the sun and found out our hostel room had a disco ball.

I was going to like it here.

My brother dancing in our amazing hostel room.

So long and thanks for all the barramundi!

Things I have learned or realised while in Australia.

1- Bondi beach is actually a really cool place and no amount of drunk 18-year-olds can take that away (it helps if you have a chocolate ice-cream with Fiona).

Bondi beach, Sydney.

2- You should always wear your bathers underneath, just in case.

Yay! No crocodiles! Or strong currents! Or box jellyfish!

3- Australians (at least the ones who are in charge of making signs) care not an ounce about the placement of apostrophes and other grammatical details. It’s time I left because it’s starting to drive me crazy.

If you’re going to rip off a grammar book’s title, then at least try to make it make grammatical sense. Unless this sign is a satire?

4- Sometimes the most wonderous installation art is not human-made.

Untitled #1. Mixed media (boulder, desert, burnt trees)

Untitled #2. Mixed media (boulder, desert, burnt trees)

Untitled #3. Mixed media (boulder, desert, burnt trees)

5- Australia’s distances are ridiculous.

I don’t know what to say about this.

6- There are a lot of big things here, but my heart has been left with this tiny two-toned horse, Redman (6-month-old red kangaroo with a broken tail), and Albert, a little wallaby (his name may not be Albert, but he perked up when we suggested this name).

My lovely horse running through the field.

I would like a 6-month-old kangaroo (ideally Redman) to take home with me. One that never grows up, please and thank you.

Albert, you’re so cool the way you eat grass and are so small.

7- Turns out I am able to herd a massive steed through a gate all by myself. (Photo not available, obviously.)

8- The best theatre is often hidden in a small venue, far from the expensive festival lights. I’m talkin’ ’bout you, Rust & Bones!

9- You will be asked your age at least every other day and you are expected to be squarely between 19 and 26. You will be greeted with “you don’t look that old” and “why are you travelling now?” when they find out you are not 26 anymore. It may make you self-conscious.

Why? Don’t I seem mature?

10- You will become the type of person that takes pictures of birds. Lots and lots of pictures of birds.

Galahs in a tree.

Sunny Sydney

I am so happy to be in a city! And it’s pretty thrilling that that city is Sydney.

Even though it’s unbelievably hot today (43 degrees?!), I am enjoying every minute (except those minutes when hostel roommates decide to switch on lights in the middle of the night, but that can happen anywhere).

To celebrate being out of the woods and back in civilization, here is Sydney seen in yellow, the colour of sunny cheeriness.

There is art everywhere in Sydney.

There are weddings everywhere all the time because people love each other and want their photos taken in front of the opera house.

There is a duck, 5 stories high, in Darling Harbour.

Small version of the duck.

Stylin’!

Stylin’!

This place is full of tourists posing with stuffed animals.

Seeing a rocking Hawksley Workman show in an intimate venue made me so damn happy.

The Arts Festival started this week and I’ll be seeing a bunch of shows and filling you in so that this blog gets back to being at least slightly about theatre. Stay tuned!

Bye bye 2012

At home, I usually usher in the New Year with a nice dinner with friends, a house party, or DVDs (and an inevitable cold) and sometimes I even stay up past midnight. So this year I didn’t miss spending $800 on a NYE ticket in Sydney (seriously), battling crowds at outdoor concerts or January 1st morning dodging vomit on city sidewalks.

This year I didn’t have a cold, my feet didn’t freeze, and I didn’t have to negotiate the public transit system after a night out (for some reason, sitting in a subway car alone in the middle of the night will always bring you down a bit).

Instead, we ate outisde and roasted marshmallows on the hottest bonfire known to man (hotter than the sun!).

Bonfire!

These marshmallows were too small to be roasted and pink/strawberry flavour, which is wrong.

We played catch with a glowstick, caught a frog, and took pictures of the ducks by torchlight.

Duck in the night.

Catching frogs by flashlight light.

I ate too many peanuts after too much rosé, watched 10 minutes of the Proms on TV, and went to bed.

Almost a full moon

The last couple of months of 2012 were slightly lonely and challenging, but maybe they were necessary in order for me to jump full-on into 2013 with all its promise. I am feeling ridiculously optimistic (13 is my lucky number sometimes) and hope you’re feeling the happy vibes and best wishes I’m sending your way.

Bonne année, grand nez!

Sparklers!

In my backpack

This week was quite quiet, work-wise (the cynic in me thinks it’s because my employer didn’t want to shell out for the slightly increased holiday wages and cut down on my hours), so I spent my time reading and repacking.

While doing this, I realised I am very limited in the colour palette I am dragging around with me. Inside my bag, all my clothing are black or dark blue. And all the things that are not clothing are lime green.

I am obviously a bit bored and have no fun adventures to recount (only 5 more days of being stuck here, though!), so here are some pictures of my stuff to keep myself entertained:

How is it that all my things are lime green? (Pictured clockwise from top left: Backpack, luggage tag (which I think is meant to be a key chain), foldable day pack, iPod, headlamp, journal, scissors, toothbrush, novel)

Except for my scarf and bikini that randomly match in their orange, pink, blue, grey, and purple stripes.

Do you think this means anything?

The cuteness of ducklings: can it make up for itchy feet?

As you may have been starting to gather from my posts, I’m a little sick of being stuck in the sticks of NSW.

I think it has to do with my travel bug being told to hold still, chill out, wait out the holiday craziness when all it wants to do is go and discover things! Or at least get to Sydney to bask in civilization, an arts festival, and a Hawksley Workman concert.

In an attempt to not let the bastards (the bastards being: loneliness and dependence on others for things as simple as going to a grocery store) get me down, I’m focussing on things that I’d never get to experience back home (in a city, surrounded by friends and delicious distractions).

For instance: alpaca shearing!

Alpaca, concernedly watching his friend being sheared for a safe distance.

After the trauma of the first shearing, the alpacas- fluffy and scraggly- ran towards each other and cuddled. It was heartbreaking. And I missed the moment. But here they are.

The second alpaca being sheared with his friend overseeing it (and the goats being meddlesome).

And then there’s the magic and mystery of life! Seven ducklings hatched- I hadn’t even seen that there were eggs. They were so cute and fluffy and yellow and black. I say “were” because there was only one left at the last count. And I haven’t seen in it a couple of days. Gulp. The magic and mystery of life.

Cuteness being herded by their mother.

Ack! So cute.

Can’t stand the cuteness. And now they’re all disappeared, presumed dead.

Other than that, I’ve seen a dead possum and cooked with fresh turmeric.

I really don’t like to be counting down the days when I’m on my big around-the-world adventure, but it turns out I don’t have the guts to let my employers down (so no leaving early) and that for once in my life, I have to try to make money my main motivator. It’s all about learning and challenges, right?  And also the peaches are quite nice.

A visit to the koala hospital (and also the beach)

Working in hospitality means that the holidays are not your holidays. It gets busy. Very busy. Because everyone else is on holiday.

And after about a month (that felt like 4 months, honestly) of working in the middle of nowhere New South Wales, my boss suggested I go on a little trip and spend the night somewhere to get away before the rush.

I think they sensed my restlessness.

This is the middle of nowhere, with signs of civilization.

So a school bus then a train then rushing around in the heat trying to find the place the Greyhound bus stops in Taree, then a nice air-conditioned bus to Port Macquarie.

Waiting for the train. So excited, I got to the station 2 hours early.

A kookaburra joined me at the train station. A laughing, meat-eating Australian icon.

And then waiting for the bus.

And then Port Macquarie. Buildings! People! Ice cream parlours! A gallery! Cutest hostel ever! Turns out I like some civilization and meeting people once in a while.

Hostel with a pool and pool table. And people. Yes.

A walk along the harbour revealed the existence of a $10 sunset cruise into the National Park. Seeing dolphins and birds in a little boat was just what I needed. This is a white-bellied sea eagle, which I thought was pretty cool.

The sunset in said sunset cruise.

The next day, I explored the various beaches along Port Macquarie’s shoreline.

Thing with Australian beaches is that there are so many amazing ones that most aren’t that busy.

My view from the beach. I got freckles!

It was also really nice to make it there (even though the city itself isn’t actually anything special) because I’d seen a flyer for the koala hospital there. At the time, I’d dismissed it as something I wouldn’t see and was sad. But there you go- tell the universe you want to go to the koala hospital and it shall deliver.

This sign is not just for tourists looking for a photo opp.

Koala patient recovering at the hospital. Most koala injuries are caused by cars hitting them.

On my walk home from the hospital, I ran into Jamie who saved this koala from crossing a very busy street. You aren’t supposed to handle koalas (their claws are insane), but Jamie risked it and saved the day and this koala’s life.

After seeing so many cute and cuddly koalas with sad stories, I went back to the hostel and ate a kangaroo.

I was a bit afraid that a short break would only tease my travel bug and make is so alert and powerful that it would make another month of staying still and working frankly unbearable. But I think it just gave me some time to breathe and it reminded me that the road will still be there when I’m done and so will the beach.

Elise’s field guide to snakes of New South Wales

When I was 7, I went to High Park snake camp (the arts and crafts camp was full) in Toronto. We’d wander around the park, looking for garter snakes. We found one or two, picked them up, put them back down again, and kept walking, looking for more.

Snakes in Australia are not High Park Day Camp style. Watch where you walk and wear closed shoes (fun when it’s 30 degrees and your Adidas sneakers are stupidly falling apart- Adidas, never again). Red-bellied black snakes are venomous but are scared and will slither away. They also apparently eat baby brown snakes, which is good because Brown snakes are venomous and aggressive and fuel nightmares. Pythons are nice (I mean, that link goes to a petting zoo’s website).

The normal reaction when seeing a python on your veranda, according to my boss, is to scream and then realise it’s “just a python” and carry on with hanging the laundry or whatever. But I was warned that should I pick up a python, not to put it around my neck because it will strangle me. I’m keeping that in mind for all those times I’m tempted to pick up a python (I estimate you could fit about 120 garter snakes in a typical python, mass-wise).

In 6 weeks, I’ve only seen two red-bellied black snakes and two pythons. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have vivid snake-attack dreams a few times a week (in the latest edition, my apartment was overrun by snakes and none of my friends seemed to notice- frustrating. I ended up killing a pregnant one with an antique printers’ letter tray). Doesn’t mean I don’t jump a few times a day, thinking there’s a snake ready to bite.

Things that are not snakes
Wires and cables on the ground
Dried leaves
Creases at the bottom of swimming pools
Shadows cast by a branch
A branch
That other branch
A sound of rustling coming from a tree (usually a bird, not a snake)
Little mounds of sand
Lizards
Discarded guitar strings
Facecloths that have fallen from the laundry line
Bicycle tire marks in the dirt road

Update: Since writing this post a day an a half ago, I have seen a red-bellied black snake slithering a little too close to the front door and, more alarmingly, I maybe or nearly or did step on one as I went into the laundry room. I screamed like a little girl and bolted. Laundry will have to wait. Maybe until Syndey in a month.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The smell of fire interrupted my kitchen-cleaning this afternoon. I thought maybe the CD player had had a short circuit because Ben Harper was skipping. It’s just a scratched CD and I think the smell was a fire somewhere in the hills because the normally periwinkle-blue sky was little hazy.

There was no one to ask, though, because I and my Italian carpenter coworker have been left on the retreat for ten days while the family/owners take a much-deserved break before holiday madness hits.

The black birds are everywhere and look a bit onimous. And they steal the chicken’s food.

The change of routine (or maybe the start of one) has helped me take in and appreciate my surroundings. The walk down to the homestead, where I’m staying for the moment, gives me an amazing view of the hills and the sky above the lilypad pond.

For the past couple of days, the clouds have been amazing in the evening.

Pink!

Orange!

I have taken on the kids’ chores of feeding the animals morning and afternoon and collecting eggs. I am getting to know the goats’ and chickens’ personalities. I think Nelly might be pregnant (really moody, greedy, and maybe getting fatter round the middle?) and that one chicken is a rebel that never wants to go to the coop because it might be guilty of contributing to the other chicken’s limp. And those alpacas have got to start asserting themselves or the goats will just keep stealing their feed.

Sassy but shy alpaca.

Seriously, don’t mess with this guy.

Baby goat Steps shares his food with a parrot.

Cute guinea pig. I don’t know why, but this one reminds me of my beautiful friend Erica. Probably the mischief in its eye and auburn hair.

The barn. Wheeee!

And now my new series of photographs: Animals next to the car.

Goats next to the car.

Rabbit next to the car.

And then once in a while, a wallaby will hop by and be cute.

We’re not in Ontario anymore, Toto.

I am playing the farm girl, trying to imagine living like this permanently. I love the animals (except for the poop and pushiness at feeding times) and the quiet and the changing light on the hills. I’m enjoying this time to be quiet and research the next legs of my trip before the retreat fills up with guests for the Christmas holidays.