Night Out

Last night we watched The Neverending Story at the Rooftop Cinema which was a very cool venue - actually, it was downright cold, but also cool in the less literal sense. The movie was not as magical as it was when I was a ten-year-old bookworm, but it has survived the tests of time better than The Labyrinth. As with most older movies, it is essential to apply liberal doses of imagination to the not-so-special effects. Take, for example, the part when Atreyu tells the scary wolf-creature that he'd rather go down fighting than be taken by the nothing. The wolf leaps toward him, snarling as the wind of the nothing tears tree from rock. The audience sharply inhales and - cut to Atreyu pushing the large, dead wolf away, its legs sticking out at right angles from its torso as it lies on its side. The whole audience, with the probable exception of the young girl sitting in front of us, laughed out loud.

On our way home, a guy around our age got on the tram and loudly asked if there were any English on board, which there weren't (I quickly decided that I'm Ameralian). A couple of stops later, someone got on wearing an English cap. Our "friend" immediately started singing "Four nil four nil four nil four nil" to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. I guess we won the cricket! The guy wearing the cap turned out to be an Aussie, too, and they soon joined voiced in a rousing rendition of "Yellow Submarine" except the chorus went, "We all live in a convict colony, a convict colony, a convict colony...."

It’s Australian for Christmas

When I was about 10, my mum, sister and I moved out of Melbourne to live with my grandmother on her farm near Woodend. One Christmas, my grandmother arranged for one of the neighbours (actually, the only other people living on our dirt road) to dress up like Santa for the benefit of me and my sister. I think that both of us were too old to actually believe in Santa, though there was still something cool about a guy dressed in red with a big bushy white beard. Sometime in the early afternoon, a ute (pick-up) carrying Santa made its way down our driveway with many a Ho Ho Ho. My grandmother, being quite proper, said, “Oh Santa, how nice of you to drop by! Would you like a glass of sherry?” Santa replied, (you’ll have to give this your best Dundee impersonation), “Naaah, but I’ll have a beeeyah.”

This ... again?

This quote comes from an article about the EU's proposed airline green taxes:

"Qantas takes its environment performance seriously and is fully aware of the debate around climate change as an issue of global significance," [Simon Rushton] said.

What debate is he talking about? There is no debate about the fact that climate change is happening and rapidly. And I dare anyone to argue that it isn't an issue of global significance. If only Qantas took science as seriously as it purports to take its "environment performance".

Say what?

I was just awarded one of these:

The Helen Macpherson Smith Scholarships

The trustees of the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust have donated funds to establish special scholarships for outstanding women who are entering postgraduate study. Two scholarships are available annually and are normally awarded to the highest-ranked female recipients of an APA or MRS entering a:

1. scientific/technical discipline, and
2. a humanities/social sciences discipline.

This is in addition to the scholarship I've already been given. I am in total disbelief. My husband is not surprised. Which is not surprising. But the money sure as hell is. As is the swing from "How are we going to pay rent?" poverty to "Let's buy a dresser and a new mattress and some clothes to go with that suhweet coat Head and Ether sent" prosperity. It makes by brain go all blooey and my heart beat quickly - which is a good thing. Surprises like this are good for my health.

All in a Name

Some companies work for a humanitarian cause or to create an innovative product or to do offer service. While ultimately the goal may be to make money, they can at least say they’re doing something good along the way. The company I work for appears to exist only to make money. Sure, they’re providing a service that certainly beats the service provided by the likes of Philip Morris, but selling booze is a job that each brewery or winery could do on their own. This conglomeration exists to make money, most of which ends up in the pockets of a select (male) few. It is demoralizing to show up to a desk every day in order to help someone “general manager” rake in bucketfuls of cash.

In addition to General Managers, QA specialists, VP’s, Marketing Coordinators and the like, I have come across several funny titles in my work. I particularly like “Shifty Bugger”, though that’s obviously a joke. Obviously quite serious is “Knowledge Manager”. Uh. Does this employee even know what she does? Can she take herself serious with that title? And then there's my favourite title: “Cellar door”. I wonder if he gets paid to revolve.

And just in case I started to think that funny titles only happen in business, Lumpkin suggested that I get work as a Whale-Vomit Specialist. How truly brotherly of him!

Speaking of names, if one wants a cup of coffee here in Aus, one usually orders something called a “flat white”. Because I can’t drink milk, I end up ordering soy. And because drinking caffeinated coffee makes me twitchy enough to give Z grounds for divorce, I usually end up ordering a decaf flat soy white. It’s an embarrassing drink to order – makes me think of stuck-up people in LA. It’s also quite a mouthful. So Z has given my coffee drink a new title: very flat yellow.

In summary, my family suggests that I be a Whale-Vomit Specialist who drinks Very Flat Yellows. I'm trying to see this as positive. And failing miserably.

Culture

I just finished reading a great book, "The Player of Games" by Iain M. Banks. For those of you who haven't read any of his Culture books I highly recommend them - and this one in particular. It's been interesting to contemplate how life would be if there was no danger, if there were no rules, if death wasn't a lingering threat. What is added to our lives by our mortality? What do we gain? When I was an earnest (ahem) young girl, I remember swearing to my skeptical third grade teacher that, were the future to provide me with a choice, I would opt to do the housework myself rather than letting a robot take care of it for me. I felt then that I would lose some essential aspect of living by relinquishing any part of my existence. Nowadays, I would jump at the chance to have something scrub my toilet, iron my clothes and wash the dishes. But how far would I want to take that? How would it be to live in a society in which there was no need to work unless one was inspired to do so, a society which also has a lack of need? Want to live in a grand house over looking a fjord? No problem. How about a houseboat floating in a sea of jello? No problem - until you find yourself living there, surrounded by jello.

At this point in time, life in the Culture sounds pretty appealing. I would love to have the luxury to immerse myself in various pursuits without the pressures of time/mortality and money. I would learn all about linguistics so that I could better understand the formation of accents and dialects. I would open my own restaurant and try being a chef for a while. I would spend a few hundred years, because that is how long it would take, learning how to draw a decent representation of the world around me. And I would study the fishes in the deep blue sea.

In some ways a PhD does afford this sort of luxuriating. I am getting paid to spend three (and a half) years studying something that I find fascinating. The down-side is that this is just one thing I'm fascinated in - one of many, many things. Some people hear their calling loud and clear; for others there is no calling, just a mumbled cacophony of interesting things to do.

Which brings me to another point that's been making lazy laps around my cranium. I have been asking myself recently if fish/ecology/biology/science is really it for me. Maybe I won't enjoy it as much as I would enjoy owning a specialty organic farm? What I have come to realize is that there can be relief in just making a choice. It doesn't have to be the right choice (is there ever an obvious Right Choice?), it just has to be a choice. And once the decision is made, you can be on the move towards something. Perhaps the particular something doesn't even matter as much as the having chosen it. And so I find myself on the bring of beginning a dissertation in marine ecology...

Which isn't to say that I won't try cooking commercially at some point, or that I won't live on a farm again or - well, ok, so the linguistics thing is probably out.

Don't say that

My Dad is in Hong Kong for a trade show, which he tells me is terribly boring but for the booth girls dressed in leather. When he tries to read my blog, he gets and error message from a Hong Kong url. Certain countries that we visited during our travels didn't like blogger either - I tried to log on for days from Addis Ababa, though that may have been less to do with censorship and more to do with the generally craptastic state of that country.

Speaking of censorship, the company I work for has a "no denim" policy. Seriously. No demin allowed. This makes my brain go waggawaggawhaaa? Dictating what employees can and can't wear to work?!?! That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. I work for a company that it doesn't trust its employees to choose their own clothing. How hard can it be? Got a big sales meeting? Pull out that suit and tie. Work in IT where the closest thing you get to a person is that email in your inbox? Wear whatever the fuck - sorry, phuck you want. And I don't just don't get it. It takes time and money for someone to come up with a "no denim" policy, time and money for someone to write up a proposal for the exec team, time and money for the exec team to give the ok, and more time and money to communicate to the suckers - uh, I mean employees. This is certainly the most corporate corporation I have ever worked for - and I hope this is as corporate as it ever gets for me.

It's almost enough to make me want to shave myself a mohawk and dye it green and get a Polynesian face tattoo and an excessive septum piercing. Almost.

Speaking of body manipulations, I had the pleasure of having eight electrodes strapped to my chest for a twenty-four hour period this week. It happened to be incredibly hot the day I got hooked up to the heart monitor - I still have a couple of spots on my chest that looked like they had an unfortunately close encounter with an octopus. And no, you can't see. That may have been the only period of time where I actively wanted my heart to do it's syncopated hiccup routine. And did it? Not that I'm aware of. This morning, though, about 15 hours after I removed the heart monitor, it does it again. Should there be a next time where I try to sleep without crushing the machine or choking on the multiple wires, I will be sure to ask my body to misbehave earlier.

On the nose

A lifetime or two ago when Z and I were exploring the South Island, we had a special anniversary dinner at a fabulous restaurant recommended by Mr. Sassyass. We ordered a bottle of local wine and were enjoying it when I decided to red the label. In addition to listing flavors like plum and berry, it listed the words "canned apricot". Canned apricot??? This lead to a hilarious competition to see who could come up with the worst wine description ever. I think the winners were a palate of last year's oysters, and a nose of seal colony.

Today, I was reading through an article describing the top 100 wines of 2006 and found the following:

2004 Carmel Road Monterey Pinot Noir ($20)
Nicely balanced, this wine is aromatic (basil, plum, red cherry and pencil lead), softly fruity (pie cherry) and spicy, with a hint of tar on the lingering finish.

Mmm... just what I want my wine to taste like: pencil lead and tar.

I Cannot Read the Clouds

One of the difficulties with moving to a new country/state/city/neighborhood (if in SF) is not knowing how to read the weather. Each morning, I look out the window and try to guess what the day will bring. Thick heavy clouds and wind should equal cold and raining. Brilliant blue sky and breeze should equal warm. But it's Melbourne where the weather is, as they say, changeable. Adding to my weather confusion is the fact that at work I sit by wonderfully large windows, which offer fabulous views of trees and sky, and under the less-than-wonderful air conditioning vent. It can be downright cold at my desk - chilling, sneezing cold.

Yesterday, I watched as the trees outside the window threatened to join me at my desk, invited in by a viscious wind. The heavy grey clouds lit the middle of day as if it was dusk. Imagine my shock when I stepped outside at 5pm into a sauna. The air seemed to have taken on a personality - that of a sulky, brooding, tempestuous child. It was thick and tropical. The wind rushed in ferocious bursts blowing dust into my eyes. And then it began to rain a little - or more correctly, occasional drops of water hurtled from the sky. The result felt like pins and needles as cold droplets hit very warm skin.

When we got home around 11pm, the thermometer on the Abruzzo club's sign said it was 27C. And today? It's been beautifully sunny and breezy - and cool; this morning it was 16C. I may just have to concede this match: Melbourne weather 2, Bartlebee 0.

Where you from?

My job has reduced me to once-a-week blogging. The company has all the bells and whistles to prevent me from doing anything other than work while at work - with the exception of Troublonia and Sassyass, I can read no blogs nor gmail nor any other fun sites. And last week I discovered that emails containing profanity are also blocked - Z tried to send me an email about the American election, an email that contained the words, Fuck Yeah. As Si says, we'll have to start spelling it phuck instead. Remind me to never work for a company that mistrusts its employees so overtly (temping doesn't count).

There's a man that sits near me with a North American accent. I found out the other day that he's from Canada - thank god I didn't just say, Where in the States are you from? I hear Canadians will turn you into a bear skin rug if you do that. I find his accent comforting and familiar. My ears are now primed to hear North American while I'm walking through the Melbourne streets - just like my ears pick up any Kiwi/Aussie accents while I'm in San Francisco. It's another reminder of how I'm neither one nor the other, but somewhere inbetween. Ameralian? Australican?

Z and I were discussing citizenship the other night and decided that what makes someone a certain nationality is when the actions of that country are embarrassing - when you feel vaguely responsible for the stupid things you read about on the news. I know that I've always felt that way about Australia - the Whites Only immigration policy, kowtowing to Bush's agenda, etc. - though it has faded in the last few years. But when Bush does something idiotic, I don't feel a sense of personal responsibility or shame. Despite what my passports might say, I am perhaps not yet truly American.

I am American enough to host Thanksgiving though. No way am I passing up on that holiday! We have to hold it on Saturday so that I have enough time to cook - I think the plan is to start on Wednesday night. Also on Saturday I get - no, have to vote. This will be a first for me - I have never in all my thirty years cast a vote in a political election. Will I feel more connected to this place afterwards? More ready to feel shame? Maybe. But I'm sure it's nothing a few pieces of pumpkin pie won't cure.

Be still my beating heart

Today I feel vaguely human. This may not sound like the vast improvement that it is. Yesterday was an out-of-body experience. And Tuesday and Wednesday were so completely full of fear that I could barely think or feel or breathe. Today, I managed to make at least one joke and then giggle about it. I've struggled over whether or not to blog about this, but considering it's a pretty major thing, I've decided to write it out.

On Monday night I got home late after spending an hour and a half talking with the professor at Melbourne Uni with whom I hope to work. After wolfing down half a roast chicken from the shop around the corner, Z and I sat relaxing on the couch. He had had a particularly shitty day and I was trying to cheer him up. Suddenly, my heart did a strange little hiccup thing, the thing it's done every couple of months for many years - but this was the first time it happened while I was sitting up, not lying on my back. It's a lurching gurgle that feels like a pooling in my chest, but it's usually over so fast that I barely have time to register panic before I'm fine. This time was different: it kept going. I put my hand on my neck to feel my pulse in an effort to figure out what was going on. I could feel it steadily beating until it wasn't beating - then it would pick up again - and then stop - and then start - and stop. It kept on going like this and my breath started to catch, so I took a few deep breaths mainly to see if I could. Z and I were continuing to chat, though he stopped and asked me if I was taking my pulse. I said yes - and then, "My heart's doing this... thing." It kept on doing that thing for a couple of minutes but then settled back to it's normal rhythm. And then I felt completely fine. Z, however, was aghast, mainly because I had never mentioned this to anyone particularly someone with a medical degree. I really have never thought much of it; figured that lots of people have funny things like that happen to their hearts. It had been getting more frequent, though, and had firmly made it onto my mental mention-when-I-next-see-a-doctor list.

Z asked what we should do. I had no idea. I was sitting there on the couch in my pyjamas feeling perfectly fine. I was joking about the incident, down-playing it. It was late, after 9:30, on a night before a state holiday. I didn't know who to call, so I tried my mum (out of town, mobile off), my step-mom (mobile not working) and my dad (I sent him a text). Then I noticed a deep and subtle ache in my chest. It was at that moment that I truly understood the gravity of what had happened - truly got that my heart had just acted very strangely. My heart: that vital organ that pumps that vital fluid to the rest of my vital body. This, I decided, was not something to be messed with. Knee pangs can and should be ignored; heart hiccups are not in the same category.

So I got dressed and threw some things (large sudoku, book) into a bag and told Z that I thought we better go to a hospital. He suggested I call first. I pulled open the phone book (look what dial-up will reduce a person to!) and tried the Royal Women's Hospital but the number was no longer in service. So, I tried another number and after an age it was answered by a woman at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She gave the number of an advice nurse. After ten minutes a very calming and friendly nurse came on the line. He asked me a bunch of questions in a soothing tone and then put me on hold. He came back on the line less than a minute later and uttered the very ominous words, "Now, I don't want you to panic". He proceeded to tell me that he was calling an ambulance. I panicked. Completely. My hands started shaking, my jaw locked, I grinned (like lots of other animals, I smile when I'm scared), I stopped thinking. I do remember asking if that was completely necessary - couldn't I just drive myself in? "Noooo," he replied. "We don't want to peel you off from around a tree."

Z jumped into gear, packing a bag with toothbrush, books. He opened the front door and turned on the porch light; I sat on the couch trying to get a grip on myself. Not too long later, the paramedics arrived at the house. I walked to the door to let them in, still shaking with anxiety. I had been able to tell myself that nothing bad was happening right up until the word "ambulance" had joined the evening. Since then, I had been literally a nervous wreck.

The paramedics were very nice, also equipped with calming voices. I remember them walking in and saying, "Madhavi?" I think one of the first questions they asked was how old I was - it was a nice question that I knew the answer to. They stuck some electrodes to my chest and asked what had happened. I explained as best I could. My hands continued to shake and I kept thinking about how stress causes heart problems, that I needed to calm down, but even the words "heart problem" wound me up.

They took my pulse. The EKG read-out came back fine. They explained that this happens to a fair number of people, and went on to chat about several people they work with who have arrhythmias. They tried to blame it on caffeine - but I'd had my normal three cups of tea during the day, the last one around 3:30pm (it was now after 10pm). They suggested chocolate, alcohol and smoking none of which I had used that day. They even tried for jet lag but we explained that we'd flown in from NZ and that a two-hour time change simply cannot last three weeks! At this point, I was starting to calm down; I think I'd lost some of the big-eyed panic that I've been told about in every SCUBA class I've ever taken.

Eventually they left, telling me to see my GP soon - not Tuesday because it was a holiday; Wednesday would be fine. Z has brought up this point several times since in an effort to reassure me: they did not take me to hospital then and there, they did not even insist I see someone as soon as possible. Just soon.

I've been so attuned to my chest ever since - I feel everything, analyze everything. As instructed, I went to see a doctor on Wednesday who sent me off for a bunch of blood tests. I will wear a shoulder halter EKG for 24 hours in December (the earliest one is available). I only hope that I will get some answers, though I'm not at all sure that I will. I guess ruling out major things will be fine, too.

The panicky fear is still present, but I don't feel it all the time. I'm remembering that a cup of tea or a piece of chocolate does not mean that I will immediately drop dead. And the worst exhaustion from the shock of it all appears to have passed - that was yesterday when I had to fast before getting my blood taken. Me and fasting don't get along at the best of times, and this has certainly not been the best of times.

So, there's no need to panic. Seriously. Lots of people really do have heart arrhythmias. And if I can not panic, so can you.

Engaged

On the tram on the way home from work the other day, I looked out the window into the gardens and saw a statue of a man who looks like he's in the middle of a wind-up to throwing the hammer: his knees are bent at right angles and he's leaning back as if against a great weight, almost into a sitting position. The only point anchoring the figure to the ground are his toes, but the weight is all on one side in a way that defies gravity. I remember that statue from way back when I used to live in Melbourne and I'm pretty sure I've even described it to various people in the States. And there it is again, out the window on my way home from work.

And that perfectly sums up what it's like to return to a city you used to live in once long, long ago - a place where they almost speak a different language: vaguely familiar things keep appearing. On Friday night, I walked into the women's restroom at the bar behind some girls who were chatting about the fact that last time they came in, all the stalls were engaged. It took my beer-heavy head a while to remember that engaged = occupied. And chockah means full and a dunny is a toilet and a pot is a half-pint (though I have no idea how to order a pint!) and one doesn't call someone back, one rings them back. And Uni and school are not the same thing; school is for children. It's hard keeping all of this straight and I grew up here.

Yayboo

We moved into our new house on Thursday and spent the next three days with exactly one piece of furniture: our very nice bed. On Sunday we got some chairs - chairs! I'm writing this while seated in one at our dining room table next to a cup of tea and a crumpet. The house is very much liveable at this point - if you ignore the completely empty front room.

With all the house hunting and then house setting up and all the other stuff that goes into moving country, we haven't had a whole lot of time to explore Melbourne. But I can tell you that I really like it so far. Sure there are some quirky annoying things, but people are really friendly - really friendly. In fact, we have friends - friends! There's also a lower middle class here that simply does not exist in San Francisco; ads on TV entice people into certificate programs in construction. While it's hard to pinpoint exactly what this adds to a city - flavor? bargains? less snobbishness? - it seems clear that it's a good thing. Another good thing is that there are no Walgreens or RiteAids - just smaller, more personal pharmacies.

On the down side, Melbourne street signs are the size of a dollar bill and placed in the darkest part of an intersection at an angle that makes them legible only to an acrobat on a pogo stick. It makes for some interesting driving experiences in which tension in the car mount as I try to remember which side of the road to drive on and how to shift gears with my left hand while Z struggles with the maps and geography of a city he barely knows. Ah, fun.

While Melbourne may get a D in street signage, it gets an F minus in street numbering. Unlike the States, blocks are not numbered by the hundreds. This is merely annoying. What really sucks is that the numbers for a street will often start over in a new suburb. This means that there's a 203 Lygon Street in Carlton and, a few blocks north, a 203 Lygon Street in Brunswick. This has got to be the most stupid thing EVER. Who's idea was that???

But despite the road issues, I like Melbourne. I like the diversity, the comfort, the friendliness and the plethora of interesting things to explore. We have been here three weeks and haven't even scratched the surface of places to see and things to do. On the Yayboo Scale it falls clearly in the Yay.

Here

People keep asking me to blog, but I’m yet to be inspired to prose by this transition. There’s been too much going on for our little dial-up connection to capture, though I’ll now try to do my best.

It’s both strange and completely normal to be in Melbourne. My accent has returned quickly making it easy for me to pass as a local. The problem is that I have no idea how things work here, and I’m quickly discovering that it can be quite different to the way things work in the States. For example, I passed a bank branch last week with a sign in the window advertising new, extended hours. I glanced at the times listed and noticed that “extended” in Australia means M-F 9-5:00pm. Yep, that’s right: they don’t close at 4:30.

There are lots of other small things, like the traffic and pedestrian lights which last much longer than in SF. I find myself racing toward the corner when I see the light go green only to realize that it will stay green for a while and that there was no need to hurry.

The rental process here was also different. As far as I can tell, at least 99% of all properties are let through a realtor. They are responsible for showing the property at open houses, which are approximately every two weeks and last a total of about 20 minutes. We’ve had a few frantic days rushing between properties.

We found exactly one house that didn’t have something wrong with. “Wrong” in other buildings included a bright, apple green kitchen, which may sound fun but wasn’t; a hole in the wall; carpet that looked like the padding used under a carpet; a construction site next door; the most hideous tiles of swirled purple; a shower cubicle the size of my leg – just one leg; a bedroom in the attic accessed by a rickety ladder leading through a small hole in the ceiling; and most commonly, having to make the choice between living and dining rooms. But we did find one place we liked and so we applied for it. There weren’t many people at the open house, a refreshing change from other properties that were so full of prospective tenants that you could barely see the rooms. And, shocker of all shockers, we were chosen to be tenants! We sign the lease tomorrow.

Why so shocking? Well, Z doesn’t have a job and can’t legally work for the next couple of months while we wait for his residency to be processed. I’m a temp. We just arrived in the country and don’t have enough of a credit history to qualify for a cell phone plan. So, we got references sent in from the States and are paying two months rent up front. Eek! The good news is that we won’t need to pay rent until December.

And we move in on Thursday. Us and our four bags, two mugs, one bowl, one spoon (stolen from an airline), and brownie pan. We have a dining table and chairs coming this weekend, a couch set at my grandmother’s house, and we’re borrowing a bed that’s a little too small for either of us to get a good nights sleep. The obvious missing item is a fridge, which we’ll need to get on the sooner side.

And the place? It’s great. It’s a terrace - one of those places that has houses right against it on both sides. It’s brick – a novelty after years in the earthquake-prone bay area. It has a large kitchen/dining/living room with exposed brick, a skylight, and a wall of windows looking out on our twee yard with a couple of rose bushes, a wooden deck just waiting for a bbq, and the all-important clothes line. We have a bathroom with bright blue sink, toilet and tub, a laundry room, bedroom with built-in-robes and a nice office in the front. And, inexplicably, under the maple tree in the very small front yard, is a black bowling ball.

I still can’t believe we got it and that it’s so nice and that we’re going to be living in it in Melbourne for a few years. I can only assume that one day this will feel more real. Until then, I'm here. Just here.

The last voyage

We leave for Melbourne tomorrow morning, early. The excitement has changed to palpable tension. This flight brings our lollygagging to a close; reality and routine are about to become the norm. I both look forward to and dread the metamorphosis. There will be bills to pay and deadlines and most mornings will begin with an alarm. But that alarm will soon sound in our own home where we will (hopefully) be sleeping in our own bed.

I also portend some tension between Z and I. Moving to Melbourne is like going home to me. Though I haven't lived in that home for 15 years, I still have a vague sense of my way around and rough idea of what to expect. I am Australian, after all. Z, on the other hand, is not. Not only has he never lived in Melbourne, he has never lived out of the States. To him, Melbourne seems like a long way from home and full of foreign people, foreign customs and foreign accents - including mine, which is about to get a whole lot stronger. He will be the one who occasionally won't understand people, including me. Here in Wellington, we shared our immigrant status and miscomprehension of the "natives" and their "customs". In Melbourne, we will be in decidedly different boats. To take the metaphor too far, we will need to learn to row at the same speed.

So, while I will be itching for a home and more than a little anxious to find one, Z will need to take time to feel out the city and to gauge what it will be like to live there. I want to charge ahead; he wants to hold back. I'm sure that we will negotiate this with some element of grace though all will not be roast chicken and apple pie. I need to remember to go easy on him; I know how difficult it can be to move countries.

But soon enough, I suppose, I will be able to cook that dinner for my love in our new home. The tension will have been negotiated, the routines set and comfortable. And then we can start planning our next big adventure.

Ha!

Now I understand

So *this* is what they mean, those hardened Wellingtonians, when they intone the word "Southerly" with grave misgiving. Lying in bed this morning, I watched the curtains sway gently as the howling wind blew through the tightly closed windows and the plastic seal that J&A cleverly put up to insulate against winter. In the bathroom, I listen to the washing line spin in manic, squeaky circles and feel air stir against my skin. At the doctor's office, the radio tells me to expect gusts of up to 120kph. Walking home, I literally get blown sideways as I cross the school playground. For once, the locals and I look similarly cold and miserable in our hats, raincoats, scarves and gloves.

This afternoon, Z and I are going to take a bus out to the Cook Strait to see what kind of recklessness this gale has stirred up in the ocean. Until then, I'm huddling in some blankets next to the heater with my laptop on my thighs for added warmth and a cup of hot ginger to toast my insides.

Losing time

It's been a very bizarre morning and it's only 10:23am. I woke up at 7:20 this morning, groaned on the inside and lay in bed for a few minutes trying to fall back asleep. I opened my eyes again, ready to surrender to wakefullness, and looked at the clock: 8:56. Huh? I would swear that I hadn't fallen back asleep and that I was lying there awake for under 20 minutes. I seem to have lost an hour and a half.

Thinking about this is enough to kick my brain into full awake mode so up I get to make myself some tea.

First stop of the day to check e-mail and my usual blog and news sites. I need to actually accomplish a few things this week, so I give myself an hour to play on-line before tackling various items on my to-do list. I glance at the computer clock: 10:23. Huh??? I look at the clock on the Mac and it reads the same time. By my calculations it should be 9:23. Perhaps daylight saving time has kicked in - or ended? I can never figure out which section of the year is which. So I check the local paper on-line: nothing. I check another local paper: still nothing. Have I unwittingly entered the twilight zone?

Google - ah, Google, has the answers as it always does. It is indeed the end of daylight saving time. The fact that eNZed does not advertise this on the cover of its newspapers goes hand in hand with the fact that all its banks close at 4:30pm and are not open on Saturdays. Clearly, if the banks stayed open later the newspapers would tell us when it's time to change our clocks.

I take this as another sign that it is time to move to Melbourne where they have discovered the key to world peace and a solution rampant global warming.

Rack o' Spice

We'll be leaving for Melbourne in a little over a week (8 days to be precise). I'm excited, mainly by the thought of settling down somewhere. It's been close to a year that we've been travelling and I'm a wee bit tired. I've been slaking my nesting urges by looking at pictures of Melbourne rentals, even though I am admittedly getting a tad ahead of myself. While in Oamaru, we purchased a nice little print of a Kauri tree and I proceeded to amuse Z by pretending to hang it on an imaginary wall in our non-existent house while walking down the street. It will go nicely with the beetles we bought in Christchurch.

Back in Wellington, I stopped by the Med Food Warehouse to pick up some more cumin (for the fabulous four-dish Indian dinner I cooked) and was overwhelmed by the thought of actually setting up a house. When was the last time I really and truly started from scratch? Probably when I moved off-campus to Foster Court with K&K - then there were five of us with at least eight local parents willing to donate various items. That was in, let me think, 1996? Good lord, it's been a while! And now there are two of us and one local parent, two of us who currently possess exactly no furniture, no bedding, no pots, no pans, no utensils, no towels - not much of anything, really, except clothes, shoes, dive gear, a couple of laptops and some books of crossword puzzles (essential).

I imagine us signing a lease and moving in to our new home. It's the easiest move we've ever made, dragging in our four bags. There we are on our first night, sleeping on the floor wrapped in sleeping bags we borrowed from someone. We get up in the morning and don't even have the capacity to make ourselves tea because we have no pots, no spoons, no cups of any sort. Want some water? Better cup your hands under the kitchen tap. Want a shower? Too bad - we have no towels. The house is completely empty but for us and our four bags, which we stack into "desks" and perhaps a "table".

What triggered this thought? Spices (duh). I was thinking about what goes into making a working kitchen and spices are definitely up there. This got me thinking about spice racks which made me realize just how many essential kitchen items we don't have. Okay okay, so "spice rack" may not be essential, but there are plenty of things we don't have that are. I suppose we'll empty out mum's old jar collection and become depositories for all the crap various friends and acquaintances were going to throw out. And we'll scour the local Sallies and garage sales and whatever passes for Craigslist in Melbourne. And then, one day, we'll wake up in a bed and, after drying off with our own towels after a shower, we'll cook up a big spice-laden breakfast, which we'll eat sitting on chairs around a table that is not made of an old suitcase.

And one day there will be world peace and a solution to rapid global warming.

A girl's gotta dream, y'know.

Tour de Sud

We just returned from nine days exploring eNZed's South Island. Despite coming down with the flu about twelve hours before our departure, I had a grand time. Getting the flu was worth it for one reason: it's been a while since I've seen Z smile so largely when he started calling me Croakie. Croakie quickly gave way to Squeaky which passed its baton to plain old Stuffy. There's not quite so much smokey-piano-bar-alto glamour in Stuffy, but she's apparently here to stay.

But I digress from my stories from the south...

1. Franz Josef Glacier
We drive south down the west coast in pouring rain. The land is brilliant green and the steep rise to our left is shrouded in mist and covered in lush growth. Every now and then, the clouds lift a little to hint at the immenseness of the peaks they hide. We arrive in town and learn that the rain has closed all access trails to the glacier so we check into a hostel and sit in the lounge to wait out the drenching. Z drinks beer with some friends; I take a nap. At about 5:00, the time when my stomach wakes from its lunch-induced torpor to request more food please, Z pokes his head outside and realized that the sky has lightened from ominous to pale gray. We jump in the car and drive up to the parking lot at the foot of the glacier. We pant our way through the drizzle up the trail to a look-out. And all of a sudden we see it: a curve of ice that seems to be caught in mid-flight down the mountain. It seems a live, wild thing. Around us are lush forests snaked with waterfalls that are incongruous with the tongue of ice. The clouds rush by occasionally clearing to give us a glimpse of a jagged snowy peak high above. We are the only people present and the silence seems not so much peaceful as like the inhalation before a roar.

2. Milford Sound, Fjordland
The drive to Milford is jaw-droppingly awesome. We start out of Te Anau in the sun, though we can see where the clouds have gathered around the peaks ahead. We drive along a wide, U-shaped valley crisscrossed by a small river and carpeted in brown tussocks. The steep sides are covered in a lush beech forest that drips with moss and lichen. Slowly, the walls around us rise as does the windy road we drive. And then we are in high country where the walls are sheer black rock glistening with water falls, too steep to support anything more than the odd grass and brave shrub. All around us we see where avalanches have rolled down from precarious cirques of snow. I drive about 10kph so that I can lean over the steering wheel to stare straight up through the windscreen at the towering walls above us. Right before the tunnel, we see the avalanche that closed the road the day before. A solitary man in a small yellow tractor works to clear it. We pass from daylight into the dark tunnel. Water drops from the rocky ceiling as we bump over the barely-paved road which is inclined just enough so that our headlights don't illuminate it at all. I drive almost blind into the depths of the mountain, thinking suitably dwarfish thoughts and gripping the wheel tightly as neither of us dare to breath much. Out the other side we are greeted by fog swirling around a sheer rock wall that's easily 1200 feet tall. The canyon we drive down is wet and damp and it feels like the glaciers only just packed up and moved out. All is raw rock and icy stone and cold water. By the time we reach the water, the rainforest has returned to cloak the sheer cliffs in lushness.

3. Riverton, pop 1850
It's a long drive south from Milford to Riverton, a drive that begins by skirting the impressive peaks and wide lakes of Fjordland and ends in the pastoral greeness of sheepland. For no particular reason, we decide to spend the night in Riverton. The bar-tender and hotelier is a woman named Caroline whose purple and gray streaked curls don't quite hide the fact that she's in her 40's. She and everyone else we meet in town is exceptionally friendly. The folks gathering in the bar for their Saturday night out all say hello and ask where we're from and where we're going. I'm more used to locals ignoring us - Riverton is a welcome change. We have a large room upstairs at the back of the pub with a fabulous view over the wide river that turns into a maze of sandbars at low tide. Unprovoked, Caroline gives us a run down of dining options in Riverton - all five of them. One is described as the "second best restaurant in New Zealand" and another supposedly serves (gasp!) salad. We opt for the salad and are halfway to the bar/restaurant when we decide that we can't face another crappy pub meal even if it claims to contain vegetables. So we jump in the car and drive out to the best place in the South Island telling ourselves to hell with the money. We've been warned that we might not get in, it being Saturday night and all. However, it being Riverton in low season, we are of course seated immediately. We both get glasses of wine and delicious entrees (mains) that are not battered and fried and re-battered and fried again, and finish off with a piece of moist honest-to-god chocolate cake. Total tab? $70. That's Kiwi dollars. We actually check the menu to make sure they didn't undercharge us. We return to our hotel, turn on the hot blankets, take blissfully hot showers that come with decent water pressure and crawl into bed together happy and content.

4. Penguins - at Milford Sound and in Oamaru. Yellow-crested and Yellow-eyed, they all look ridiculous waddling on land.

5. Lambs. Everywhere. Including one that was probably less than an hour old with mum still in labour right by the side of the road.

6. Taking Sassyass's advice and eating a spectacularly good meal at Cook 'N' With Gas in Christchurch. Their tag-line should read: Stupid name; great food.

... And so much more! Check out our pictures up on Z's site.

Brought to you by the letter Yee

I have what is possibly the most boring job Ever. I am temping at the hospital, which seems like it could be vaguely interesting, but is in fact not. It is Boring. It is my job to wade through stacks of patient and doctor letter, enter addresses and other information into an Excel spreadsheet, do a mail merge, fold the hundreds of letters and stuff them into envelopes. Did I mention that it's boring? Even reading about bizarre diseases does not add interest, though it does make me realize how many people in this world are sick and how fortunate I am that those who are close to me remain healthy. Listening to my coworkers answer phone calls and schedule outpatient visits adds the only glimmer of anything to an otherwise dull day. Yesterday, I heard the following half of a phone conversation:

"Could you give me your patient ID number, sir?"
....
"W."
...
"Was that S as in Sam?"
...
"OK"
...
"What was that last letter, sir?"
...
"Could you repeat that for me?"
...
"One more time?"
...
"Yee? Yee???"
...
"I'm sorry sir. I don't understand the letter, yee. Could you repeat yourself?"
...
"Yee?"
...
"Sorry, sir. I still don't understand. Could you use the letter to spell a word?"
...
"What's that? Yee?"
...
"Could you try to spell something with it?"
...
"Spell something - like R is for Roger and robot and rolling and red and rabbit."
...
"No- No -- Can you spell something for me using the letter?"
...
"I don't understand, yee. Can you please spell something using the letter for me?"
...
"Can you please spell something using the letter, yee?"
...
"Spell something - like, G as in George?"
...
"No, sir. Yee is not a letter."
...
"OK. We'll go through this by process of elimination..."

And that right there was the highlight of my week, because photos of patients with massive lumps on their skulls do not count as highlights.

Quote of the century

We have known for some decades that the climate change we are creating for the twenty-first century was of a similar magnitude to that seen at the end of the last ice age, but that it was occuring thirty times faster. We have known that the Gulf Stream shut down on at least three occasions at the end of the last ice age, that sea levels rose by at least 300 feet, that the earth's biosphere was profoundly reorganized, and we have known that agriculture was impossible before the Long Summer of 10,000 years ago. And so there has been little reason for our blindness, except perhaps an unillingness to look such horror in the face and say, "You are my creation."

- Tim Flannery in The Weather Makers

I fear we will blow away

It is really windy today. Really. The gusts are shaking the house. The good news is that the wind is from the north - the mercury is not in freefall. That does not, however, mean that that I can feel my fingers or toes. But it's much warmer than it's been - in the sun and out of the wind, it's quite decent. On Friday, I was able to be outside with skin exposed - by skin, I mean my neck. And on Wednesday, I could have worn a t-shirt if I'd been smart enough to put one on when I left the house instead of the usual layers.

I think we may be nearing an answer to the question that keeps Z up at night and wakes me up early in the morning. There are still a few things that need to fall into place, so I'm certainly not going to broadcast any premature predictions here. I will, however, say that it is going to be one helluva relief to be playing house rather than playing ohmigodwhatthehellarewedoingwithourlives.

Ramble

Went on a nice hike with an American friend today. We took a bus from the CBD up the first big hill to Brooklyn, where we started walking through residential and suburban neighborhoods until suddenly we were in the bush on a track that wound along steep ridges covered in scrubby bush, flowering gorse, pines and grass. The weather was gorgeous - still, clear and sunny. We climbed up to the turbine and I admired the view over Wellington harbor and neighborhoods. I turned to walk back to Z and realized that the white formation off in the distance was not a cloud: I was looking at an conical, snow-covered mountain on the South Island. Hiking with layers of misty blue and white mountains in the distance, I couldn't help but think of LOTR. Yes, I am a dork. After walking for three hours, we made it down to the coast along the Cook Strait. I dipped my hands in the water and discovered that's it's cold enough to make Monterey proud. There was nothing about it that said, Come on In!

Five hours later, I'm back home with achier legs and stickier shirt. I like how close we are to hiking here. No need to get in a car at all. I could use more walking in my life. And yet the jury is still out on eNZed.

What confuses the whole situation for me is how much I've changed over the past few years. There was a time not so long ago that I thought I wanted to live on a big chunk of land far away from other people. I don't think that's the case now at all. In fact, I'd rather live in a city where I can access just about everything I need by foot, bike or bus. I think it's a greener way to live.

That's the other thing I'm thinking a lot about: carbon dioxide. I'm reading a great book, The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, that discusses global climate change. It's scary and fascinating and it certainly has me thinking about everything in a different way.

Including where I want to live. Perhaps I should look on this as growing pains. I'm trying to adjust to a new mentality, which is just as awkward as a toddler learning to walk. And much less amusing.

I Love This Place/I Hate This Place

Tuesday
We start a process of exploring Wellington's neighborhoods one by one to figure out where we would want to live should we decide to stay here.

Newtown: Thrift shops, dime stores, kebabs, chippers and good coffee. All in all we give it the big blah.

Over the hill to Kilbirnie: much bigger and bland as they come. We head into the organic food shop which is very small but stocked with brands I recognize, including corn chips that are not flavored with cheese product.

Melbourne seems better and better.

I write to Vic prof to express real concerns about my ability to engage in a project with a field component due both to conditions (gale force warnings one out of every three days in the Cook Strait) and a dive program experiencing growing pains. Would it be better at Melbourne Uni?

Tuesday night is cold - really cold.


Wednesday
First thought of the day: We should move to Melbourne. I write to two profs at Melbourne Uni.

Then I get a comprehensive response from Vic prof in which he more than adequately addresses all of my questions and then proceeds to introduce me to his other students. Wellington sounds great.

We walk over to Brooklyn, take a wrong turn and end up panting up a really steep hill where we are rewarded with views of the Cook Strait. Despite the fact that we're several miles from the coast and on top of a hill, I can see the white caps. We wind through residential streets to the "center" of Brooklyn which is fairly appealing and features a malay/chipper/thai/chinese/burger joint. More cute houses and lots of parks and I realize that I wouldn't mind living here as long as we were on the lower part of the downtown side. Living in Wellington for three years doesn't seem so bad.

We hit downtown at about 5:00 and it's full of people leaving work. I am wearing about four layers not including hat, scarf and coat. We pass women in skirts and light coats and feel like we're the coldest people in Wellington.

We realize that there is no hidden section to Wellington that we have not yet discovered. Nope, what we've seen is what we'll get, which is a polite way to say that it's small. Really small. We wander in search of somewhere to get good appetizers for a decent price. Nothing. More nothing. We eat in some cafe and realize that every one is much younger than us. Most people our age live in London or Sydney. Maybe we should follow their lead.

We end up back at the Dubliner which is quiet and comfortable. Z mis-orders, and we sip at a beer that tastes like it had an unfortunate run-in with a gewurztraminer and work our way through yet another crossword puzzle. We agree that Wellington may just be too small, though if we ended up here for a PhD program it wouldn't be bad. Melbourne would probably be better.

Back into the cold we go to meet Neener. We walk in circles until we realize that there are two burger kings and she meant the second one. She introduces us to more of her friends. They are outgoing, interesting, occasionally incomprehensible (hate sounds like "hit" and a "pin" is a pen) and two of them are hilariously drunk. We sip cocktails in a bar straight off the set of LA Confidential and talk. It's a fabulous night and we have a great time. And everyone agrees that it's really cold, which makes us feel much less wimpy.

Walking up the driveway we see scorpio twinkling overhead near a smudge of the milky way. Z and I agree that we will probably stay here.


Thursday
I get a response from a prof at Melbourne Uni who has a really interesting take on my research questions and is currently seeking funding for a similar study.

Melbourne?

Disproving a hypothesis

By my calculations, we have a little over two weeks in which to decide whether or not we are staying in Wellington. That will leave us with about a month to find our own place to live. Two weeks!?!? Eek!

How does one go about making decisions of this magnitude? What should one look for in a place to live? What's important to me? To Z? To us?

My best approach to answering these questions is to resort to the use of science. In science, you don't set out to prove anything but instead strive to disprove a hypothesis. Using this method, I assume that we are staying in Wellington and spend the next two weeks trying to find a reason to leave. A good reason to leave, because our back-up plan (Melbourne) may not be any better. If we go to Melbourne hoping it makes up for some of the things lacking in Wellington, we may be sorely disappointed. However, if we go to Melbourne because we've found something that really won't work for us in Wellington, we're more likely to not regret the decision to move on. (Those who know me well may recognize another situation in which this same approach was employed - I'll leave you guessing.)

We'll see how this fine principal works when put into practice - if I can put it into practice!

In other news, I have been conditionally accepted into a Ph.D. program at Victoria University in Wellington. The conditional part goes away when I secure funding in the form of a scholarship. I'll know about that by early December, though my potential advisor said I have a really good shot. Basically, it looks like I'll be starting a PhD program in January. Excuse me while I emit another EEEK!

This is good news - I think. It does make the committment to being away for three years feel more real. When I was in SF, the time and distance were more abstract. Now that I'm faced with the reality, I feel bewildered. In the end, I suppose all we can do is make a decision and live with it. After all, three years is only three years.

Gumboots, "Mounts" and Brooklyn

We arrived in Auckland four days ago. Our friend Sean introduced us to NZ by taking us out to Karekare beach. It was a day where rain and brilliant sunshine fought for control of the skies. The ocean was wild and big; from the beach, we looked up at a mass of seething water. Mist and foam blew across the black sand and cliffs, and the tea trees were bent to a uniform height that made the hills look like they were covered by a manicured hedge. From the beach, we walked to a waterfall that spilled down a black, rocky cliff into a peaceful green pool. If Hawai'i and Scotland had a love-child, it would be NZ.

On our second day in Auckland, we took the ferry across the bay to Devenport where there was really nothing much to see or do. We did, however, climb "Mount" Victoria which is one of several very small volcanoes jutting up from Auckland's neighborhoods. Even Mainers would laugh at the designation of "Mount" for these bumps. I think they probably stand at an elevation of 120ft. On a good day.

On Wednesday, we caught the train down to Wellington. On the way, our naps were interupted by announcements made by a woman who sounded like a man and who therefore made me think of Eddie Izzard, and another couldn't pronounce her "r's" which left me wondering if towns like Wairaparara were actually Waiwapawawa. They told us about the sites as we passed them: the town in which the annual sheep shearing competition is held (note, to your left, the lovely and large statue of someone shearing a sheep); numerous tunnels and viaducts (length, date of construction, and height described free of charge); the carrot-growing region of NZ; a length of track that completed a spiral to get up a grade (oh the excitement!); and, my favorite, the site of the annual gumboot throwing competition. Indeed, an entry for the Guiness Book of World Records was made right there when someone tossed a size 8 gumboot 74 meters.

The train also passed by some truly impressive (and active) volcanoes covered in snow. Off in the distance, a perfectly conical peak poked its head through a ring of clouds, while next to us, a huge and scraggly mountain rose from the flat lands surrounding it. There were double rainbows and hours of rolling green farmland covered in sheep and the occasional wild peacock. It was a pretty ride.

And now we're in Wellington where it is neither windy nor particularly cold nor raining. Today, we hiked through one of the city's many green belts to another "Mount" Victoria and sat at the top in the sunshine looking at the city through the branches of a tree that someone had cleverly planted right in front of the view point's only bench. We sat and talked and tried to come to terms with the fact that we have just moved halfway around the world. Excitement, nervousness and overwhelm and vying for control of my mind at any given moment - that is except when sleep wins, as it does at around 8:00pm!

Wellington seems to have a lot of interesting people, at least to look at, though it is disappointing to discover that the 80's resurgence that has gripped the 20-somethings of America has also taken root here. Enough with the polka-dot bubble skirts and skinny jeans with heels! Enough stripey shirts with big belts!

There are also lots of cafes and restaurants and pubs. The aforementioned train operators told us that Wellington actually has more cafes and pubs than New York city -- per capita. Wellington also has Brooklyn, which, as it turns out, is right next to Central Park. And, Wellington contains perhaps the only immigration office in the world staffed by friendly, smiling people who really are there to help. So far, I'm liking what I see. Now I just need to find me a Ph.D. program.

You too can experience the wonders of our first four days in NZ by checking out some pictures here (listed under 2006 - the honeymoon is over, folks).

Just kidding - the light was a train

There I was thinking that everything was good. And then Z's computer woes got worse. And worse. And then hit total suck rock bottom bad. So instead of watching the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean from our camp site in Big Sur we spent the day in Circuit City transferring data from old hard drive to new laptop. But hey, it wasn't so bad. In the end, the new computer worked and the data was saved and we were treated to a fantastic meal and so everything was fine.

On Friday we drove to LA through the baking Central Valley. We were dreading the trip until Z realized how lucky we were to be in our own car (borrowed from Z's parents - far better than a rental) and not in some cockroach-infested dusty bus on a broken seat for 14 hours. Six hours later we arrive in LA in one piece despite the loveseat that someone dropped into the middle of our lane at the bottom of the grapevine, and me sandwiched between a truck and minivan. Hooray for good brakes!

And we see Aunt Sylvia (one of the kindest people I know) and enjoy her airconditioned house and eat some food before heading over to our storage unit to pick up a few things.

Or so we think. Turns out that the world had some more suck for us.

Back in Ethiopia, I remember Z telling me that there'd been a small flood in the storage room but that everything was OK. I didn't really give it too much thought. We were, after all, in Ethiopia and therefore unable to do a single thing. And hey! Everything was OK, right?

Well, it turns out that it isn't all OK. More than a few boxes were completely rotten, the cardboard disintegrating in our hands and cockroaches scuttling around inside. And the contents? Beyond rescue. Some of the stuff doesn't matter - it's just stuff, after all. But those four scrapbooks of mine? Gone. That great photo of Z with Steve Martin? Gone. My clothes? Gone. Z's shoes? Gone. We filled a dumpster with boxes and mould and scrapbooks and photos and clothes and broken plates and a rolling pin that looked like it belonged in a mycology lab. And it sucked.

Before we left on our honeymoon, we pared down our belongings to the essentials - the important stuff. We have now pared down some more. There's some lesson here about detachment but hell if I can stomach it right now.

After some discussion, we arrived at the conclusion that we needed to find another storage space. Which meant renting a van. Except no-one will rent a cargo van for a one-way trip (we find this out at Enterprise after speeding from Woodland Hills to Van Nuys to catch the store before it closes (at NOON on a Saturday) and to get the last cargo van available). And all the trucks have been rented because it's the last weekend of the month. So I call and call and call as Z washes out a box of kitchen stuff and repacks it. And I call. I find some woman with a heavy Russian accent who offers to help secure a U-Haul van. She says she'll try her best and call me back. Then I get through to Budget in Northridge and they have a truck - but we have to get it today. As in right now. So, back in the car to go speeding off to Northridge. And yay! We have a truck.

So we go and have a wonderful evening with Tano and Holly and Header. The latter is sweet enough to bring me a brand new dress that she bought to make up for the fact that I'd just lost all my clothes. Z approves of the plunging neckline.

Sunday morning rolls around. We are not driving via Santa Barbara where I was supposed to meet up with my advisor to go diving at Santa Cruz Island. No, I've had to cancel that, too. Instead, I'm in the shower when Z comes in to say there's some woman on the phone with a heavy Russian accent who's threatening to charge us for a U-Haul truck because we haven't come to pick it up. Oh, and good morning.

At this point, I want to give the world the finger. Instead, I call the woman back and she yells at me. I apologize for upsetting her and she yells and I apologize again and let her yell some more. She never says anything about charging us - I don't think she will. I think she just needed to get angry.

So, we load up the truck with mouldy stuff and head out of LA, stopping for a delicious breakfast at 1:00pm at Burger King (shudder) - but there's nothing else in the strip mall hell that is the valley. And we drive home past Cowshwitz up I-5, me bopping away to the iPod (not mouldy) and Z listening to my damp CD's. We unload into Z's folks' garage with their help and find parking for the truck on a Sunday evening in Russian Hill. We fall into bed at 9:00pm.

This morning, I returned the truck and had to fight the woman at Budget over "damage" to the truck that I did not do nor notice when I inspected the truck in LA. She points it out to me several times and I can barely see it. It's the kind of thing you would only notice if you were used to looking at trucks - compartively, I can see that the piece is bent. But just looking at one truck, I can't tell. Fortunately, her manager agrees with me and I leave with our full deposit.

And now I'm sorting through out stuff, removing the mould, doing loads and loads and loads of laundary, and carrying stuff to Henry the drycleaner and praying that he'll be able to salvage the good stuff. My moms-in-law has been a fabulous help, braving bags of mouldy, still-damp sheets and helping to sniff-test Z's clothes (that takes a brave nose).

As for me, I'm just trying to remember that this is a new week. And I'm trying to believe that it's all going to be OK. I mean, at some point, things have to get easier for us, right???

That light is not a train

On Friday, I sat in the central quad at San Francisco State University reading scientific papers and wondering if I had really graduated. After getting most of the way through a paper authored by a Kiwi professor with whom I'd like to work, I went and talked to my old advisor. The excuse for the meeting was to discuss the manuscripts that I'm preparing from my theis, though we quickly got off-topic to discuss things like my wedding, travel, and how diving in CA compares to diving in the tropics (CA wins, btw). Our on-topic discussions were interesting, too. We chatted, of course, about my friend the treefish and all the questions that are left unanswered by my thesis. If it's true that good research leads to more questions, my thesis must be downright brilliant!

It was a fantastic day. I realized - remembered - that I love doing science. I love discussing experimental designs; I love learning about the latest research; I even love manipulating and analyzing data. I really enjoy engaging in the particular kind of thinking that doing science requires. (Someone's going to make a nerd joke here and to you I say, Bringit!)

Before Friday, I had decided to get a PhD because I couldn't figure out what else I would do. All the jobs that looked interesting required a PhD, and the jobs I could get with a MSc would be primarily administrative. So the PhD seemed like a no-brainer. But it didn't seem like fun.

Since Friday, I have been excited about the PhD not only because of where it will get me, but also because it will be fascinating in its own right. And let me tell you what a huge relief it is to be excited about the future rather than feeling lost and full of dread.

While Z extracted data from the dead hard drive of his brand new laptop (long and very sucky story with what looks to be a happy ending - fingers crossed), I sat in the sun and read E's New Zealand Lonely Bollocks guidebook. Wellington sounds beautifully arranged on steep hills overlooking a harbor (sound familiar?). There seems to be all sorts of things to do, from music and pubs to art galleries and theatre. I'm really looking forward to it, despite having a dream about a dead body in the bathtub of my rickety NZ house. Who know what that was about!

All in all, it feels like the blinding light that has been shining directly into my face for the last year might not be a train. I can't help but feel like this is a positive development.

Rolling in Sheep

Back in October, I thought I was being so clever to avoid all the "What's next?" questions that accompany any major life change - like marriage or graduation or moving house/country. I laughed me all the way to Africa in my cleverness. I laughed from Africa to the Middle East, and from there to Asia and even laughed in Australia. Well, the laughing stopped about three days after we landed at SFO. All those questions weren't avoided so much as they were postponed. We have since had a head-on collision, them in their Hummer and me in my Geo Metro. (They won.) I am now mired in a morass of WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

While it may not sound like returning to SF for the summer was a brilliant plan, it has managed to answer one question about where I want to live: Not here, at least not right now. It seems that almost everywhere we've been has been a whole lot of "Not here". Which begs the question, "Then Where?" The answer is contained within a multidimensional scatterplot with axes like (but not limited to) job availability, job likability, friendliness quotient, distance from family, minimum temperature, proximity to water, language barriosity, and cost of living. It's a complicated business trying to make decisions for two people.

On Monday night, waiting for the 49 bus (our new Muni friend which I already hate), Zack pointed out that I have street humor. This is not to imply that I have a potty mouth (which I do, but that's not the point), but rather that my humour is spur-of-the-moment, spy-a-shiny-thing-on-the-ground-and-pick-it-up in character. At least I usually laugh.

And on Saturday, Bill taught us a new game the name of which I've already forgotten but which was great fun. It involved Zack rolling in sheep. And we haven't even got to New Zealand yet.

To Excess

Our first day in Melbourne, we head to the supermarket with mum. I'm excited about cooking dinner and we need supplies. I forget that this simple errand can induce culture shock. And it does. There are aisles and aisles and aisles and they're all full of food. At least, I think it's food. Everything is wrapped or canned or otherwise packaged and there's no smell. I compare this experience to that of most Africans and get a taste of the shock of immigration. Not only must it be a hard adjustment to make personally, but also there are friends and family still at home who do not have access to such excess.

On Saturday night in San Francisco, we head over to our old 'hood to play ring toss. On our way back to Muni we pass Marcelo's and find we can't pass up on a slice of pizza. We sit at the window seats watching the Castro scene as a mopey song plays in the background. Again with the excess. There are shops like Marcelo's all over the city, full of food for the purchasing. I remember the pizza Z ordered in Lallibela: a piece of bread with a mainly ketchup sauce and about three small slivers of grated cheese. Not really comparable to Marcelo's at all.

And then yesterday, we walk over to Union Square in search of a watchmaker and I realize just how much capitalism sickens me. There are all these people who have too much money and then these other people who are busy finding ways for the people with too much money to part with their money, all in order to make more money that they can then spend on things and stuff that they don't actually need - but there are people whose job it is to convince them that they do actually desperately need sunscreen for their dog. It's all disgusting. And the worst part is when I realize that somehow they've sunk their barbs into me, too.

Ah, the joys of reentry. I think I'll have some lunch.

Camera Shutter?

David Attenborough rocks for many reasons (I'm dead serious). This clip of a lyre bird is one of them.

The Other Side

In the early 1940's, my paternal grandfather was given a 48-hour leave from the base where he was a mechanic for the RAF. He and another serviceman walked past a theatre and decided to go in. They dug into their pockets for change but were quickly told that they didn't need to pay. They were given front and centre seats ... at the theatre recently featured in the movie Mrs Henderson Presents. He said his eyeballs still haven't popped back into his head.

He and my grandmother have been married for 63 years. They met in Blythe when she was 14 and he was 17 and moved to Australia with three children in the mid-1950's. In Adelaide, they got off the boat with a single trunk and $50.

We spent two days with them in Adelaide, which, along with Melbourne, is having the coldest June since the 1800's. Some places are recording the coldest temperatures ever. I'm so glad we're here to feel such important history being made. My toes are not so glad. Despite socks and nearby heating, they remain frozen. But I digress.

My grandfather had lots of stories to tell. He told us about their friends dog who only eats chicken breast (cooked and diced) and who needs to be walked every night at midnight. He told us about where he was on D-day: his squadron moved from Iceland to a loch in Scotland in terrible weather. He said that when someone in the squadron was killed, you would say that he had gone to have a Burton - a type of beer. This allowed all the men to keep a stiff upper lip, which is a vital part of being British.

It took me a while to realise why seeing Nana was strange. In the past, she's been so motherly - going out of her way to take care of me. This time, it was she who needed to be taken care of. She's much more frail and her memory is not what it used to be. She asked us at least three times per day when we were moving to Tasmania. While her memory may be declining, her cooking has certainly improved, most likely attributable to my grandfather's heart attack. She can no longer use as primary ingredients bacon, cheese, butter, cream, bacon and cheese. All of our arteries are glad.

There are magpies a-plenty around their house and they have trained my grandparents quite well. In the morning, they warble just outside the back door and are rewarded with bread for breakfast. Then they warble for morning tea. And for lunch. And afternoon tea. They have quite a racket going. In the mornings, Z and I would wake up to their songs and extricate ourselves from the guest bed, which is older than me. It was impossible to avoid rolling downhill into the centre of the mattress, though sleeping close together (with pyjamas, socks and sweaters on) helped keep us warm. There were still windows in the house open despite the bitter cold.

The first morning I opted for a shower to warm up. The trickle of water dribbling out of the tap was barely hot without any cold water on at all. But I guess it's all a part of sucking it up and not complaining. As my grandfather likes to say, Keep a stiff upper lip.

Standards

We just returned from a visit to my maternal grandmother's house in Kyneton, about an hour NW of Melbourne. I have always been nervous about introducing people (read: males) to my grandmother as she used to adhere to a standard of etiquette that would make Miss Manners swoon. When I was little, the most commonly heard phrase at the dinner table (which was set formally every night) was, "How would you behave if the Queen was here?" I had noticed, while in Malaysia, that Z manipulated his cutlery with his elbows somewhere up around his ears, a move that would have guaranteed a, "Where are you flying to, dear?" said pointedly, with snide haughtiness. This from the same grandmother who begged me not to marry an American as that would give me more reason to not return to Australia.

Needless to say, I was nervous to introduce the two of them. I had nothing to worry about. Last night, my grandmother said that she would like to keep Z. No, she had no need for mum and I to stay; just Z, thank you very much. I think what really enamored her was his ability to dry dishes. She just wouldn't stop going on about how her husband would never - Never! - have done anything in the kitchen; that was women's work. How things have changed! I would never - Never! - have considered marrying anyone who wouldn't help out in the kitchen. And I don't know a woman who would.

She's softened up a lot, my grandmother has. She's a bit wobbly on her feet and a looks a lot more frail. She has trouble thinking of the word she wants to say. Yesterday she was telling us a story about entertaining important guests when she lived in Malaysia. The food was taking a long time to appear so she went into the kitchen to see what the problem was. She found the cook on his hands and knees picking up (and here she fumbled) white stuff from the floor. What is that stuff called, she asked us? Rice? we guessed. Pasta? Spaghetti? Noodles? Rice? Finally, I said potatoes - and she was off to finish the story. She had the cook hurriedly wash the potatoes and serve them because the guests had already waited too long for the food. There was so much emphasis on looking right in that social circle and at that time. This also explains why she once served tea after seeing a cockroach floating in the tea pot: she couldn't admit that there were vermin in the kitchen! But don't worry - mum cooked the food on this most recent visit. Nothing fell on the floor or came into intimate contact with any kind of insect. I think.

It was great to see my grandmother again. I came to Australia in 2001 and saw her for what I thought would be the last time. I've seen her twice more since. To say that I'm glad she and Z had a chance to meet would be an understatement.

She's intent on being remembered - she wants to give her things away to people who will treasure them and use them. She gave us a beautiful silver pitcher that, she explained, allows one to have the wine decanted and ready to serve as soon as the guests arrive. Like I need things to remember my grandmother by. She will always be with me through her stories, her love of animals, her table manners and that stubborn streak that runs thick through the blood of this family's women. While looking through some old photographs, Z pointed out that she and I looked alike as young girls. I think it was the set of our jaws. I've never seen that resemblance before; it's one more way to remember her.

End of Travellator

We are in Australia, Melbourne to be precise. It is winter down here. Yesterday must have been a mild day because other people were walking around in t-shirts and light jackets. Emphasis on Other People. I sported four layers including woolen jumper (sweater to you yanks), long coat and scarf. In Malaysia, our a/c was set to 20C; here the heater is set to 20C. And everyone talks funny. I am doing my best to resist reverting to full-on Aussiedom knowing that communication between me and my husband would quickly devolve to grunted Huh's? and pantomime. So far, so good: we are still talking.

I have received many curious e-mails about my sister who moved to Melbourne with her husband in January. Despite the fact that we are all in the same house, I have seen her for all of 15 minutes (she was exhausted) in the three days we've been here. Hiding out? Who? Where??? Z has been great at reminding me exactly how much things have improved: she is talking to two members of the family (mum and her partner); she is working; she is not lying in a ditch somewhere. And yet, of course it is hard for me. I did not see her at her worst which means that now she appears as a shadow of the young woman I used to admire so much. I know that there was a huge dip between 2002 and 2006, a dip which I thankfully did not have to witness first-hand. Compared to that dip, she's doing brilliantly. But for me, it seems like a down from her former glory. It's sad; it's hard. And I'm trying not to let it completely rule my time here nor my emotional well-being. So, tonight we are going to stay with Alicia and Mick for a few days. It will be great to see them both; they are wonderfully fun people.

In other news, there are hilarious photos now up from the time we spent with Lev. They're on Z's site and we will hopefully be moving the rest of our photos to the same spot in the next month or so. Emphasis on the Or So.

It's interesting to be entering this new phase of our travels. In this part of the world, the moving walkways found at airports are called Travellators. En route to the car park in Melbourne aiport, a recording of a woman's voice sternly warned of the End of the Travellator. In Singapore, they had bright red signs. I took them as signs - as in Signs, of the end of our Travellator. I just need to remember to release the brake on my luggage-laden hand cart.

A Day in the Life

It's midnight. The light's been out for over an hour when we realize that none of us are able to sleep in the steaminess of our room in Bako National Park. Lev resurrects the ghost of Aruba (oooooooo!) and thwacks me in the face with a pillow. Z mumbles something and pretends that he's actually been able to sleep. I give up and take a sleeping pill. They lie awake until the storm breaks with (purportedly) torrential rain; I hear nothing.

I wake up a little before 8:00 feeling refreshed. Z and Lev are not so thrilled to greet the new day. I help Lev out of bed by putting a large, black, leggy insect on his pillow right next to his face. It does wonders.

We pack up and head to breakfast as the sky above us rumbles and drips. As we eat, a bearded pig does laps around the cafeteria. They are large beasts resembling dwarf bison that have somehow managed to get the contents of a can of salmon catfood stuck to their faces - their noses are pink, drastically bare compared to the hairiness of their faces, and tubular. And almost prehensile. In a word: strange.

It's low tide, so we walk a long way out to our boat, across mudflats crawling with a variety of crabs and some kind of worm in a round shell that flops around looking exactly like a caricature of large sperm. The sky is immense and grey over water that is flat and grey-green. It's hard to tell where sky and water meet. Thunder rolls from the green cloaked mountains across the sea. It begins to rain, big juicy drops that quickly soak us as we motor back to the bus stop.

The bus stop stinks. I can't see what it is that we're sitting next to, but I'm pretty sure it's been there a long time. Back in Kuching we check into the hotel with the fantastic showers and go out to eat. I get "fast food", otherwise known as buffet: a combination of coconut chicken with Indian spices and crisply cooked Chinese-style vegetables. I love Malaysia's international approach to cuisine.

After lunch, we set off in search of souvenirs and a taxi. The clouds have cleared and the temperature has soared. We find the latter, piloted by a man named Chin Chin Min, who has a triangular face and crinkled eyes. He takes us to Semonggok wildlife refuge. As we pass through the gates it begins to pour. And I mean POUR. We sit under an awning and wait for 3:00pm to arrive: Orang Utan feeding time. The world's most boring public speaker gives us a pianissimo introduction to the Park and its inhabitants. He says things like, "It's very dangerous to have [mumble mumble mumble] so be careful of the [mumble mumble mumble] and whatever you do, don't [mumble mumble mumble]." It's a very instructive speech.

After a short walk through dripping jungle, we see an Orang Utan. He is big and, we later learn, named Josh. After gorging on papaya, oranges and bananas, he lazily leaves the platform by deftly climbing a rope and swinging from vine to vine. He seems too big to achieve such quietly graceful movements.

Back at the hotel, we all fall asleep, naps punctuated by three really loud explosions. Perhaps someone is holding a microphone to a backfiring tailpipe? Or are they mining right outside our window? When I get up I check: No, Kuching is not on fire.

We splurge on a great meal and a bottle of wine that is not made from banana or papaya. Lev orders the organic chicken and is served an entire chicken in a delicious tandoori-like sauce. My lemongrass chicken comes with a mound of vegetables including broccoli. How I have missed broccoli! We finish with mud cake the ingredients of which are chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and chocolate. In chocolate sauce.

Suitably junked up on sugar, we head to a bar. It's ladies night: yay, free drinks! But, boo, apparently only if you're Asian. They try to charge me about $4 for half a glass of tonic that was held next to a bottle of gin. I try to send it back; they relent and give it to me for free.

We sit and try to figure out the social dynamics of the bar. We fail. No matter what we do, we are apparently doing it wrong. I dance anyway, and slowly as everyone in the bar gets more drunk, they loosen up. Soon I have not one, not two, but three stumblingly drunk women grinding themselves against me. I extricate myself and we move to another section of the bar where the women are able to stay on their feet without grabbing on to me. The music is a mix of Chinese pop, Bollywood, and 80's & 90's hits. I figure out the dancing rules: Grab and grind. There are no introductions; all those people I thought were couples have probably only just met. It's like 10th grade all over again.

And that is how the day ends: me and Lev sweatily dancing in a packed nightclub on Borneo. I just have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. This is my life.

Hear ye! Hear ye!

New incriminating pictures now available!

A Slice of Pai

I'm sitting in an internet cafe under a fan, sweating like a pig. That's because it's 39C - inside, under the fan! It's gotta be well over 40C on the street.

It cooled down here for a while when Cyclone Mala stirred up weather in the Bay of Bengal causing a grey and intermittently raining sky to settle over the Pai valley. On the evening of the second full day of rain, a globular insect with flapping lacy wings hatched. Swarms of them filled our room, appearing from nowhere. They flew down my shirt and got tangled in my hair as we hurridly hung our mosquito net. A big, spotted gecko set up shop outside our bathroom window, grabbing excitedly at insects on both sides of the screen. At dinner, the chair by the light remained unoccupied - the air around it frothed with life. Nearby, frogs, toads and geckos chirrupped drunkenly. And then, as suddenly as they appeared, the insects were gone, though their brown winged carcasses littered our bathroom for days afterwards until the ants carried away those I hadn't managed to wash down the drain.

The rain cooled everything down and made the earth smell like it was growing. The river rose, the sandbanks disappeared, and we sat inside playing cards, reading, eating pad thai and discussing whether the clouds on the horizon were dark enough to signal rain or light enough to signal a break in the weather. Break it eventually did, with a spectacular day of brilliant blue sky and skudding puffy white clouds. The blue was so blue it hurt the eyes, and yet the clouds kept the sun from heating everything up excessively. That was a few days ago. Now we have flown rapidly past excessive heat and are into a whole other category of hot. Hot wind. Hot ground. Hot bicyle seat. It's even hot under a fan with a watermelon shake in hand. Everything's hot - it's the Grand Unified Theory of Hot.

I rode home last night at about 11:30. Riding fast, the warm air felt comfortably cool against my skin. I rounded a corner onto our street and was caressed by the scent of jasmine. In the sky, a yellowing crescent moon sank through a patch of wispy clouds. I was so carried away by the beauty of the moment that I barely managed to swerve in time to avoid riding over the flat and very dry toad that's been sitting in the middle of our street for days.

And that's what life is like. Beautiful this, beautiful that - and mind the dead toad.

The Memoir I Didn't Write

I just finished a book called All the Fishes Come Home to Roost. It's the memoir of a girl who is moved to an ashram in India when she is 7 years old. Both Z and I got a little creeped out by how similar it was to my own life. Her parents even considered naming her Arwen Evenstar, settling on an unpronounceable Indian name instead. Lucky me, I got both! Perhaps smarter than me, the author opted to change her name.

It's certainly been an interesting read. I've been thinking a lot about what it was that the ashram wanted us to believe and what I actually do believe. Realizing that it was all about relinquishing this material and illusory world in the pursuit of a higher plane of existence explains the poverty that I grew up in. Things like gym shoes and jeans didn't matter, but chanting every morning did, even if it made me late for school.

Some of the things Rachel writes about could have been lifted straight from my past: Accounts of spiritual experiences via a guru's photograph; plays full of humor usually involving people dressed in drag; endless cheek-pinching; interpreting all events as the will of someone; drinking water by pouring it from cup into mouth without touching lips to rim; and parents who were no longer speaking to one another.

There are some notable ways in which I had it much, much better than Rachel. For example, I had other children to play with, and I didn't have to attend a Catholic school full of abusive teachers. Also unlike Rachel, my time in India was full of freedom. My days were mainly my own, and Mum tells stories of me not coming back to the room until after 10:00pm, ridiculously late for a 7yo. I guess I ran a little wild.

And yet, in the background was the ashram and those beliefs. How did washing a statue bring someone closer to god? And waving lights at a chair with a photo on it? Z says that he feels like he has no idea what my upbringing was like; I guess I'm a little lost as well. I was involved until I was about 18, and yet have a really hard time describing Siddha Yoga when asked. Like most religions, I feel that it had a great heart but poor execution. (Another similarity with Rachel's story: Siddha Yoga claims not to be a relgion but a "practice".) Devotees obsessed about things that just didn't matter, that were beside the point, like how many times to wave the tray during puja.

In the end, I'm left with a low-level frustration with all things ashram. I don't know what it was all about, I no longer believe any of it, and yet it did form me, my beliefs and my childhood reality. I wish I had been clever enough to question it at the time; perhaps that would have resulted in more immediate answers. Now it's like assembling a jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces are my quirks and beliefs, but the picture was lost long ago.

So if you, like Z, are curious about my upbringing, I recommend reading All the Fishes Come Home to Roost. Subtract the abuse and about two thirds of the really freakish characters and you get a good approximation of what my childhood was like. Even I have to remind myself that it really was that weird.

Sorry Bro

But not so sorry. This picture perfectly sums up why I love the Kushners. They are in a word, awesome. And I get to see this particular one in 18 days. But who's counting?

Close

The news about the bombs in Dahab is downright creepy. I was there three months ago. This was our favorite restaurant; their grilled chicken was fantastic.


We've talked about our safety a fair amount on this trip, perhaps understandable considering where we've been. I remember a moment in Cairo when we were walking past a large important building surrounded by armed guards called the World Trade somethingorother. As we walked past, an old beat-up car pulled up as close as it could get to the building and a man leaned out. I had a moment of pure fear. But he was only asking for directions from one of the guards.

The only other time I've been really scared was when our bus from Louang Prabang to Vientiane almost skidded out of control on a mountain curve.

But now this. And in a backpacker place. Relatively low-budget. When we went to Amman fairly soon after the blasts there, we assuaged our fear by remembering that we wouldn't be staying at the Hilton and that our small, crappy guesthouse wouldn't be a target.

But Dahab was.

SE Asia is the first non-western part of the world that I've come back to after a prolonged absence. And this Dahab incident is the first time I've been somewhere and then seen it blown to pieces. I guess New Yorkers, Londoners, Madrid-ers and many, many others relate. It's just my first.

Being back has got me thinking about the homogenization of culture as the west penetrates ever deeper into the east, north and south. One night over dinner in Louang Prabang, Anne, Alex, Z and I talked about the foods we miss and crave. I was hard-pressed to come up with anything, finally settling on Mexican cuisine and Kettle Chips. Pai has both. Cravings satisfied? Check.

This homogenization is related to the fact that more and more people are traveling. We talk about why: travel's easier; more places are accessible; travel is more accepted. But not necessarily safer. I once asked my Dad if he felt like the world was going to hell when he was my age. He said, Yes - but it wasn't nearly as bad as it is today.

He knows how to cheer a person up!

I do not mean to be alarmist. This is one incident in a world of travelers who have had perfectly safe days. It's just makes me think.

And considering how hot it is here, there's little else to do. Though the middle of the day is usually too hot even for thought.

Reasons to love Laos

An old woman wobbles a tumbler of lao-lao aloft in the vague direction of the companions seated at the table around her, cracks a large gap-toothed grin and collapses onto her nearest neighbor in a fit of giggles. She is one of several thousand drunks in Louang Prabang and all of them appear to be having a good time; there is no threat of the mood deteriorating into angry drunk. What other place can make this claim?

Drag queens grind against poles set up outside a guesthouse facing the Mekong. They are just short of fall-down drunk and it's the middle of the day. One wears a kimono, one a Sadaam mask and green beret, another a peaked chinaman hat and ao dai. I feel like I have traveled back to the Castro for Pride.

Our bus from Louang Prabang to Vientiane plays Asian pop videos that make me want to shoot myself in the foot. They are, it turns out, also karaoke videos. One of the three conductors who started drinking Beer Lao at 8:00am picks up the mic and sings along. Fortunately, he has a decent singing voice. This is the same conductor who offers a giggled two-word explanation for each of our frequent stops: Pee pee.

There is no way to avoid the water - no way to say no, only a way to take it graciously, with a smiled "Sabaidee pi mai!". But most people pour it graciously, making it feel like the blessing it is intended to be. By early afternoon each day, I feel very, very, very blessed. Blessed to the undies.

One afternoon, Anne, Alex, Z and I retreat from the water to an outdoor table at a cafe. We order spring rolls and laap and very chewy beef and mekong seaweed that never shows up and drink vast quantities of beer over several hours of serious card playing that involves wiggling our butts while standing on chairs, quacking like ducks and doing our best impression of Anakin's Noooooooo from Star Wars III. Our tab is $10. Total.

Walking through the night market alone, I realize how different it is to any other market I have ever been in: It is quiet. There is no yelling, no, "Meeeeester, you wan' (fill in the blank)?", no music, just women sitting by their hand-made wares talking quietly with eachother. The hush makes me feel like I'm walking through a temple. All of a sudden, the power goes out and the quiet crowd emits an "Oooooooooh!" in unison. I just have to smile.

And that is what Laos is like: It forces me to smile. Even when I don't feel like it, I smile.

Wet

There are a few things in my bag that I haven't used all that much and that I look at on those repack-the-bag occasions and think, Why the hell am I carrying this around? Like our mosquito net; we've used it maybe three times, but on each of those occasions we were exceedingly glad to have it.

And like the dry bag which I unearthed from the bottom of my pack yesterday, trying not to drip into it. It now contains our cameras and money. It is the only thing that I have on me that remains dry. I'm very glad to have it; it has allowed me to take several pictures that can later be used to blackmail my friends and husband. Thank god for dry bags!

Elsewhere

I am back in Laos. Back in Louang Prabang. When I was here 5 long years ago I loved it. I still think it's a nice place, though it's very different. There are lots more foreigners. And a night market. And street lights. And fancy cafes serving real coffee and bagels with cream cheese. And I've been here before, even if here has changed. Perhaps that's the main difference; it's no longer new to me.

I read an interesting article by Marcel Theroux in a Newsweek I found in Vientiane. He wrote about travel as the search for Elsewhere, a place that's harder and harder to find in this age of rapid communication. For example, on the road from Vientiane to Louang Prabang we passed tiny villages perched on the side of immense valleys with satellite dishes hooked up to huts with palm-thatch roofs and walls.

And the more one travels, the harder it is to find somewhere really different. When I traveled five years ago, everything felt foreign. It was all new. Being back in Laos proves this point: it's beautiful here, but it doesn't fill me with a tingling sensation of Strange.

This partially explains our reason for going to Africa (the other part being how exotic the word Zanzibar sounded). We were searching for an Elsewhere to experience and call home for a while. But it didn't quite work out like I hoped or expected; it's been much more of a struggle. We've spent lots and lots of time examining ourselves in search of an answer to the question of why - why travel has been this way. The answer lies in the fact that we've changed. We're married, and that makes a huge difference. Marriage is an Elsewhere all of its own - being physically Elsewhere at the same time complicates things. True to form, we're doing too many things at once.

When I stop and think about what I want, it all comes down to a home somewhere. Anywhere! A place of comfort from which to explore this new state I'm in. And that's why we're going to New Zealand for a while. It will be foreign but not too foreign; different, but not too different. There, I think, we can be just married for a while. And that will be enough.

Laos New Year starts tomorrow, though the traditional celebrations (water fights) started several days ago. We bought some water pistols in Bangkok so that we could join in, though they will be rather ineffective against the buckets full of water thrown at us. Yesterday, each of the three main streets had multiple road blocks where people stood waiting to drench all who walked, rode or drove by. And that was two days before New Year. Tomorrow should be madness. I'm looking forward to it.

An Aussie we met in Jordan sent us some pictures, including my new favorite picture of Z:



I just love it.