(I Can't Wait to Be) On the Road Again

It is time.

Time to move and go and travel and progress and explore and see and do. Because we have been in Melbourne now for nearly five months now. And, well... I can see my breath in the morning. In my apartment.

So, for the past few weeks I have been planning. And although my head came dangerously close to detonation during this process, we have just forked over the final payment of our Totally Amazing and Cool Australian Outback and East Coast Adventure (TACAOECA for short).

And we leave on Saturday!

When I figure out how, I will make one of those fun Google Maps things that shows where we’re headed, but I think “everywhere” (except for West Australia) is a fairly accurate description to start.

We’re essentially making a big ’ole circle. From our starting point in Melbourne, we are headed west to Adelaide. Then we’ll tack north through the exciting and dangerous (probably not, but let me dream, ok?) Australian Outback (Mmm... Hugh Jackman...). We’ll pass Alice Springs (where we’ll see the famous Ayers Rock, or Uluru) and continue up to Darwin. At the end of July we’ll fly to Cairns and then begin our journey down the East Coast on a Hop-On Hop-Off bus all the way back to Melbourne, finishing the whole tour in about two months.

Ooo, I’m getting excited just writing about it!

I ended up booking the entire trip with this amazing company called Peterpans Adventure Travel. For those of you who have been with me from the start, this is the same travel company that gave me a free trip down the Great Ocean Road for winning a limbo contest at a bar.

I have always believed that when you do something yourself, time permitting, you have a better chance of getting a cheaper price, especially if you’re flexible with your dates. A handful of phone calls to hostels can result in a great nightly rate, and a few dedicated hours online can often yield the least expensive flight. (My personal fav sites are Expedia for domestic and Cheap-O Air for international... but remember, these websites often charge hidden convenience fees—even if they say they don’t!—so once I find a cheap flight, I check that airline’s own website for the base fare).

But with Peterpans, not only did we get nearly $1000 off the actual price of the trip, they threw in dozens of freebies we can redeem along the way. Free surf lessons, free dinner and drinks at nearly every stop, even a free didgeridoo lesson! This means (fingers crossed) we won’t have to spend too much money along the way.

I'll keep you posted on how true that last statement actually ends up being. To be honest, I’m preeeetty sure we’re going to come back to Melbourne flat broke...

I could always sell my soul. Or become a lady of the night. (I hear they’re good at limbo.)

Love always,
the traveling stahr...

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Early morning musings from the southern hemisphere

It’s four-thirty in the morning in Melbourne. I’m wide awake because I’m a genius and left the ambien in my checked luggage. But I don’t care. I can’t care. Right now, (and I know I will regret these thoughts in a dozen hours when it is midnight back home and my limbs and brain separate and become blobs of body parts unwilling to move or think or do) jet lag doesn’t matter – doesn’t exist. I’m flying to Australia.

Me.

In flight.

TO OZ.

My body is calmer now than it was on the way to the airport, more subdued, accepting. A half-hearted sleepiness, the immobility of being confined to a middle seat for the past 11 hours, the soothing voices of Rascal Flatts streaming through bright blue Virgin Australia headphones, and the blood orange sunset (sunrise?) I can see through the tiny postage-stamp window at the far end of the row – all wrap around me like a warm fleece blanket.

My body is calm. My legs feel sluggish. My glossy eyes peer slowly through splotchy, smudged glasses.

But my mind – oh! My mind is bubbling with excitement. My mind is dancing and jumping and flying through the upcoming year. I’ve never felt like this before – everything feels bigger (except my airplane seat… guess it didn’t get the memo). I’m not scared, I’m terrified. And I’m not just happy – I feel ecstatic and full of life and chance. Full of possibility.

I don’t even care that I left the address to our hostel at home. Or that I forgot to call VISA to let them know I’ll be traveling and to pretty please not cancel my card and prevent me from accessing any money at all. Because hey! It’s almost breakfast time, and do you know what that means? FREE BOOZE. (oh, and more importantly of course, that we land in three hours!)

I think I’m going to fit in just fine.

With love,

the traveling stahr…

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Making Progress

Great deal on a fancy shmancy boutique hotel in LA: Check!

Travel medical insurance so I don't die from a poisonous spider bit: Check!

Awesome hostel in downtown Melbourne with free breakfast and (hopefully) no bed bugs: Check!

Feeling physically and mentally prepared to say goodbye to everyone and pack up my entire life in one suitcase: ....


(I'll get back to you on that last one.)

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Here comes goodbye...

There are moments when I am struck with the sheer amazement of how quickly people can come into your life. They’re not there one minute and then—POOF—you’re sprawled out on the soft brown corduroy la-z-boy in your apartment in Montreal waiting for the nightly phone call from a boy living in the Vast Canadian Northland.

But that’s another story for another time, because at the moment I am startled by a different direction of movement. A departure.

Today is my last day at my Big Girl Day Job and marks, in my mind, the first of many Goodbye Days before I board a west-bound plane to Melbourne, Australia. Days marked with the weight of knowing I may never again see some of the people who have been in my life over the past few months. Days where I sit stunned and unable to grasp the concept of leaving, of people left behind.

Rosa, the beautiful, kind-hearted receptionist whose name I proudly announced as I wished her Good Morning! with as much excitement I could muster that early each day. I doubt she knew my name—why would she when thousands pass her smiling face daily?—but it was always a pleasure knowing hers.

And some of the regulars at the pub, the ones who feel a bit like extended family when you’re waiting out a slow dining room shift and they are perfectly inclined to update you on the goings on in their life.

“I have a new baby niece named Lauren. I went to visit her over the holidays. Would you like to see a picture?”

Goodbyes are always the most difficult in my mind, and I daydream that the people I meet walk a one-way street into my arms and my heart and nestle there warmly, forever. But inevitably, someone honks, or I buy a plane ticket to halfway across the world, and I am brought back from my reverie to the middle of a windy six-lane highway where people are rushing in and out of my life at speeds I could never hope to control.

So instead I hold onto the more menial questions whose answers I can grasp and direct with a firm hand. How many shoes should I pack? Should I bring all my SLR lenses? Or just the ones that I use most often? What should I make for dinner tonight?

And the rest rolls by me, chaotic and calm and if I squint my eyes I can see the metropolis of Melbourne and the sandy beaches of Sydney and the adventures that loom large on the horizon just a few short weeks away.

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