"Everywhere You Go...

...always take the weather with you."

My roommate played this Aussie/Kiwi song last night at an open mic night. UH-MAZING song.

This is my roommate, James:

He's a bit of a rockstar... not gonna lie...

Also weather-related, we were caught in a WICKED hail storm the other day, the likes of which Melbourne has maybe never seen.

I read somewhere it caused nearly four. hundred. million. dollars damage. More pics and story telling to come!

Dry (now) and happy,

the traveling stahr...

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My Brief Stint as a Professional Tennis Player

About a week ago Curtis and I ran into a Belgian girl we knew at the hostel who was on her way to meet up with some friends of ours.

“Come join! We’re on our way to mumblemumbleinafrenchaccent!”

“Oh cool! What’s the place called?” I asked, hoping this would clarify where they were headed, as I’d completely missed what she’d said.

She looked confused. “I don’t know, does it have a name? It’s just right around the corner, come on!”

“Sure!” I said enthusiastically, because at this point there really isn’t much we wouldn’t want to explore in Melbourne.

On the way to the elevators, she turned around and beamed, “I just love tennis!”

Ohhhh…. TENNIS. Ok, Cool!

So six of us trekked to the nearby tennis courts, which did have a name—the Rod Laver Arena (anybody who knows anything about tennis would understand who that was, but me? I had no clue)—and which was, in fact, the home of the Australia Open.

But at the front desk, the receptionist informed us that unfortunately, because of a regional tournament, all the rental tennis courts were booked for the day.

We were crushed. Especially because it had been quite an ordeal to get there.

“Just around the corner” turned into half an hour, in which time we managed to sortakinda cause a car crash by jay-walking. Except, it wasn’t our fault! I swear! Some crazy yahoos were barreling down the road in a white van and we waited for them to safely pass before crossing the street, at which time they tried (successfully) to scare the bajesus out of us by letting out a piercing scream as soon as we set foot in the road. But karma is a funny thing, because as soon as they screeched at us we heard another sound: the screeeeeech of squealing tires, and a CRASH, as the van went careening into the car in front of it, stopped at a red light.

Thankfully, no one was harmed and there were several bystanders who offered their help to the lady in the now-crunched car, so we went on our merry way, a bit shook up and vowing to use the crosswalk on the way home.

But it seemed, because of the ongoing tennis tournament, that our journey had been for not. “Unless…” the receptionist trailed off, click-clicking on her computer, “you wouldn’t mind playing in the show court.”

The show court? For no extra cost? As in… one of the three main arenas? As in… where people sit in chairs and cheer on real tennis players playing real tennis? Um, no we don’t mind.

Now unfortunately, there was a bit of a picture-deleting fiasco last night on the pub crawl (in my idiocy/intoxication, I thought I’d uploaded the tennis pictures onto my computer and proceeded to delete nearly half of them… and almost cried this morning when I figured it out) so I don’t have the super-awesome picture of us walking into the arena and the glare of the sunlight looking like a million eager fans were taking our photo.

Buuuut, I had taken so many that there were still tons on the card, so I’ll have to make do.

This is an aerial image of the Rod Laver Arena, and Dave and Becky are pointing out the stadium we rented for an hour.

If only we could have rented fans to fill the seats... 

Here’s our “family photo” from the end of the day. Curtis was bouncing a ball on the tennis racket to show off his mad skillz, but instead he ended up looking like Bobo the Clown because the self-timer went off at just the right wrong moment…

From left to right: Me, Curtis, Becky, Hinnerk, Sophie, and Dave.

All in all, the day’s discovery (other than don’t jay-walk and don’t forget to upload your photos before you delete them, dummy) was that I’m really quite crap at tennis. Especially serving. I can’t seem to understand that when you serve the ball you are just aiming for the opposite side of the court, not the East Coast of New Zealand.

But it was SO. MUCH. FUN.

Oh, and another lesson learned? Even your armpits need sunscreen. Ouchy Ouch Ouch.

With love (and peeling underarms),

the traveling stahr…

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Catch-Up, Catsup, Ketchup... Partie Deux

Did you know that in Australia and New Zealand they call ketchup Tomato Sauce? Last night we went out with some friends (friends! yay!) and my Kiwi roommate asked the waitress if we could please have some tomato sauce (pronounced, toe-mahhh-toe) with our fries. Even though I already knew that tomaaahhto sauce was ketchup, it still took me a minute to realize he wasn't ordering a side of marinara to go with his chips.

Then what is pasta sauce, I hear you all asking (or, not). Well it’s Tomato Sauce, too. What a confusing and bizarre world we live in.

Anyhow… here is Part Two of what we’ve been up to in the last few weeks.

Family & Friends. My mum’s college roommate Sandy’s friend she met in England (see if you can follow that one) lives in Melbourne with her lovely, beautiful family. Martine and Philip and their children (three girls and one boy, all around our age) have been nothing but open, hospitable and helpful in our transition to life in this amazing city.

We were invited over for dinner and then again the following day to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies (from the perspective of an Aussie news channel… weird!) and it was just our luck that Sandy’s husband Jim (the two of them have always been prominent figures in my life) was in town on business. Jim insisted on a group photo, though I think this had more to do with certain strict orders from Sandy, rather than a desire to capture such a fun and wonderful gathering.

In the place of Canadian flags, we waved around a couple of maple leaf backpack pins Sandy had sent along for Curtis and I, as Martine and Philip cheered for their home team.

After the somewhat comical failure of the Olympic Torch signaled the end of the Opening Ceremonies, we headed out to the picturesque Brighton Beach, a small stretch of sand modeled after the famous Brighton Beach in England. Little “Beach Boxes” line the shore, each one valued at around $200,000, though rarely do they ever go on sale.

A couple of wedding parties braved the cool temperatures and overcast skies to pose in front of the beautiful and ever-vibrant backdrop of the Beach Boxes.

Not a bad spot for photographs, no matter the weather!

Fun in the Sun. Having secured an apartment but not yet moved in, our last week in the hostel was filled with lazy summer days like this one, when Hinnerk, Becky, Curtis and I took the tram to Port Melbourne beach to soak up some Vitamin D.

We laughed and played under the sun’s warm embrace

Drank the beer we kept cool in the ocean surf

Watched the sun sink over the horizon

And soared off to dinner (I think there was more than a bit of Victoria Bitter involved at this point).

The end.

But not really.

the traveling stahr… 

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Catch-Up, Part One

Sometimes it feels like it was just last week that I stayed up all night packing until my bones had been thoroughly marinated in exhaustion and I stumbled, bleary eyed, down the front steps and into the car to head to the airport.

But other times this picture feels like the memory of a distant moment years ago. The kind of moment you squint your eyes and tilt your head just slightly to recall.

And in a way, I guess it’s a bit of both.

We’ve been getting settled into our new apartment (translation: spending all day cleaning, scrubbing, vacuuming, re-arranging… nesting) and though it feels like we left home just yesterday, we’ve been in Melbourne for almost a month!

Here are some of the highlights of our trip so far – a sort of disjointed photo-blog style catch-up post, if you will.

Target. Oh, sweet, sweet Target. I remember wandering about the city on day two, feeling disoriented and out of place, and stumbling upon this beautiful, familiar sight:

We bought a liter of Target-brand sunscreen yesterday for $11.99 (Australian Dollars). To put that into perspective, the first day we went to the beach I scoured the local pharmacy for the best deal and bought a 150ml bottle for $13!

Street Entertainment. I could—and will—write an entire post solely on Melbourne’s unbelievably vibrant street culture, but for now I’ll just touch briefly on the subject. You can’t walk anywhere in the CBD (central business district, the main part of the city) without bumping into various people painting, acting, dancing and singing on the streets.

This beautiful oil pastel was drawn right onto the sidewalk and remained there for days, faded hand outstretched, waving goodbye as each passing rain washed away a layer of color and exquisite detail.

And here, age doesn’t seem appear to matter much in street entertainment. One evening walking home around 11pm, we saw a woman who was at least 80 years old, her long grey hair cascading over a humbly bent head right down past her wrinkly fingers, which danced beautifully across a portable piano.

And the week prior, when I was out doing some much-needed window shopping, I passed a kid who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old, just givin’ her on his chalk-drawn dance floor.

The best part was when he stopped for water and… his inhaler. He was either asthmatic, or really, really smart, because the amount of people dropping coins into his bucket must have doubled after his little breathing break.

The Year of the Tiger. Melbourne’s Chinatown, the longest in the world, I’ve been told, was positively exploding with people and color and excitement and, well, explosives, on Chinese New Year.

The dragons (two gymnasts each; one standing on the other’s shoulders) spent all afternoon prowling up and down alleyways, stopping in front of restaurant doorways to “eat” a suspended cabbage and then light a round of small explosives. Does anyone know what this means? I’m thinking it symbolizes the desire for prosperity in the upcoming year or something…

Whatever it means, it was pretty cool to watch.

Alrighty… I’m getting a bit tired writing this post, which means you are definitely getting bored reading it (if you’ve gotten this far). We’ll call this Part One, and I’ll continue with Partie Deux tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the photos!  Miss you all…

the traveling stahr.

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Ode to Bucket Night

I miss these faces.

I miss the way the Wednesday night neon lights of the Union Pub color each picture, each memory in a soft pink and orange haze.

And the buckets—boy do I miss the buckets.

At $7 for the cheapest bottle of beer and $9.50 for a skimpy shot of Jameson, my wallet really misses the buckets.

Our second night in Australia was a Wednesday, and although my body was craving sleep and my mind felt shy and introverted, when the hostel staff made the announcement that they were giving away free drink cards for a local bar, I waited about thirty minutes (not to seem to eager, of course) and then made a bee line for reception.

As the guy at the front desk handed me two drink cards, one each for Curtis and I, I heard him turn and say to the staff member standing behind him, “Well, that’s three.”

Three? The hostel had offered free drinks to backpackers on a budget and only one other person had taken the bait? Oh no. This is going to be so lame.

I could see it now: a big vacant venue, a terrible DJ spinning to an empty dance floor—or worse, a dance floor with one brave (or drunk) guy flailing his limbs and looking slightly sad and lonely—and a collective sentiment of awkward discomfort floating like thick fog throughout the bar.

But there were really no compelling reasons not to go. If it was miserable, we’d have our free drink, fight off some of the jet lag that was beginning to try to define our nights, and be on our way.

When we arrived, we redeemed our tickets for a Carlton and a Bulmer’s on tap and made our way to some empty bar stools. The DJ was talented enough and the music was current, and there were more than a few brave (or drunk) people giving it their all on the dance floor.

“This would be really great if we had friends with us,” Curtis said, giving voice to my own loneliness. Then he smiled and reassured himself (and me by extension). “Soon.”

The music stopped and the host of the night, dripping with sweat and wearing a prominent Habs belt buckle, announced that it was time for—and I’m not kidding—DANCING MUSICAL CHAIRS.

As the game neared its finish (I believe it was the semi-final round), there was a dispute as to who had the biggest percentage of bum on a chair occupied by two guys. The host decided to settle the issue with a friendly game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Except, one of the guys had clearly never played Rock, Paper, Scissors before. Each time the other contestant pounded out his choice of weapon, the boy from France, looking very bewildered and uncomfortable, responded by copying the same hand sign half a second later.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors!”  Rock… Rock.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors!”  Paper… Paper.

It took them a few rounds to realize the French boy had no idea what was going on, and after a few minutes of near-hysterical laughter from the crowd, they settled instead on repeating the disputed round of musical chairs.

At the end of the night we went home cheerful and tired, and the following Wednesday we were back again with a handful of friends we had met over the previous week. It felt like progress.

The games began, and we watched, hands over our laughing mouths, as players danced and fought their way through musical chairs, boys stripped down to their boxers in the lap dancing competition, and girls spun dizzily in the Mummy-wrapping game.

Last night we were back again, and this time a new friend and I worked up the courage to compete in the Limbo competition. And I won a free trip down the Great Ocean Road, worth $115! My thighs were sore and my hands were red from too many enthusiastic high-fives, but I was happy.

It’s not a perfect substitute for Bucket Night, and the friends we go out with change week to week as people come and go out of the hostel, but it marks the beginning of a social life, of friends and patterns and laughter because “ohh, do you remember when he did that last night? That was soo funny.” The beginning of a temporary—no, new—life away from the life I knew and loved. Not a replacement but another adventure altogether.

With love,

the traveling stahr...

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Coming up for Air

Hello!

Hello?

Crickets…

Well I suppose that’s what I should expect after having ceased to write as soon as I landed in the country around which I set up the entire blog.

I received the following e-mail from my aunt this morning:

Lauren - I went to your blog and you are still on the plane.  Is that right?  Love, RD 

As a child I was always fairly terrible at keeping a diary. I’d spend hours finding the perfect notebook, deciding on the proper greeting (should I address the notebook? or just begin to write?), and figuring out how I would end my posts (with love, Lauren? Or Goodnight, see you tomorrow?). I would write with fervor for the next couple of days, jotting down all manner of sights, sounds, and small details. And then days, weeks, months would go by, and each intermittent post was always apologetic, full of excuses and remorse. Inevitably, I gave up the diary altogether, or found a more interesting-looking notebook and started all over again, vowing that this time I’d commit myself fully to journaling.

I was swapping travel stories with Jess the other night over facebook, whose blog Mountains are Mountains is a beautiful and truly sensory chronicle of her ongoing adventures in India, when I expressed regret at having been unable to find time to write.

"You’ll sit down to write when you find time to sit down and write," she soothed. It was simple, but I felt better.

So here I am. Because the time is finally right. Because after two long weeks filled with boot camp-style house hunting (up at 8 am for free breakfast of rice crispies and peanut butter toast, a couple hours spent combing through Gumtree–Australia’s version of Craigslist–for apartments that didn’t say “no pets, no couples,” out for the rest of the day viewing places by appointment, and falling into our creaky hostel bed, exhausted at 10 pm, to do it all again the next day), we finally found an apartment!

I’ll write more on our place when I have proper pictures to post later (famous last words, right?) but for now, I’ll leave you with an idea of where we’ll be staying (I ♥ Google Maps).

The apartment may not be luxury (as you will soon see…), and it certainly needs a lot of little TLC, but it’s cheap and it’s RIGHT ON THE BEACH.

So, yesterday we did something wild, something we haven’t done in what seems like ages. (Oh, get your head out of the gutter!) We didn’t set the alarm to wake up.

And you know what? We got up at 11 in the morning, right on time for free Sunday pancakes…

Fondly yours (even in blog-failing-absense),

the traveling stahr…

P.S.  A more informative “what we’ve been doing” post coming next, with pictures!

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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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