Out of the corner of my eye I spot my white and blue Saucony running shoes, still damp as they rest on the floor of my apartment. Those shoes have carried my stride many a time. Along East Cliff Drive and through Nisene Marks in the summer. To the Chestnut Hill Reservoir on brisk, fall afternoons in New England. Over the belt of the treadmill at the gym during Boston’s icy winters. Down Mountain Avenue in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. Even through Central Park in the spring. And recently, around Sydney Uni. But its destiny as a pair of shoes may have only been fulfilled last Saturday abseiling in the Blue Mountains down mountainsides, water canyons and a waterfall.
We woke up at 5:00 a.m. to catch the train. As we chugged further from the city and deeper into the mountains, the fog thickened, wrapping the hills in a comforting manner but ruining our chances of watching the sun rise all the same.
The shop wasn’t open yet, so when Caroline spotted the yellow lab sitting outside the café, we were lured in, first for a pet of the dog’s silky, floppy ears, and then for a steaming mug of chai to offset the morning chill in the mountain air.
Around nine the group piled into the creaky twelve-person van. I slowly surfaced out of my sleepy state as we bounced along the dirt road. Anticipation fluttered in my gut as my group mates took turns telling their tales of skydiving, bungee jumping, zorbing, and the like. What was I getting myself into, I wondered looking out the window.
The first of our abseils (kind of like repelling) was puny even to my standards. Maybe twenty feet high, so Jorie and I lead the pack. Roped in, I backed my Saucony’s to the edge, released some rope and continued all ten steps down the natural wall.
With my newfound confidence and a wonder about why everyone considered this an adventure sport, we hiked our way to the second site of the day. This one was not only higher but different. Instead of treading your way down the mountain, we guided ourselves over the edge and then swung under the ledge, allowing our feet to dangle as we zipped the rest of the way down.
We ended the morning with a six-story abseil. The scary and invigorating part of this descent was that the mountain continued for what seemed like miles past the ledge on which we landed. So while our drop was only maybe sixty-feet long, the height was hundreds of feet above the trees, allowing for amazing views as we repelled down. Thinking of my dad and how much he’d enjoy this, I loosened the grip on my break hand, diving quicker toward the platform. The combination of exhilarating sport with pristine and serene setting made for a perfect Saturday escape from the city.
After a nice lunch break, we hiked down the canyon to start the water adventure. When the leader of the pack stopped abruptly, turned with big eyes and said a thick, brown snake just crossed his path, I felt my welcome to Australia was complete. Knowing that nine out of ten of the world’s most poisonous snakes are native to Oz, I looked to our tour guide for comfort that was not granted. We hurried along, turning every corner with anxiety.
I wish I could describe the beauty of the water canyon. We all just kept murmuring, “This isn’t real.” Ironic, because actually, this place was as it real it gets. Forget Raging Waters, this place had real waterslides and real waterfalls. So besides being the most naturally beautiful place to which I’ve ever been, Empress Canyon also hosted the best activity of the day—rock jumping and waterslide scaling. Because we were submerged in water almost the entire way, we left our cameras behind—a bittersweet arrangement considering that I cannot describe the canyon’s beauty, but it also saved us from documenting the hideous getups in which we traversed the rocky canyon. (Or so we thought.) As if the bright blue wetsuits weren’t bad enough, add yellow helmets, a rock climbing harness and large waterproof backpacks to the mix and you had me squealing with laughter looking at my friends. So when Clare, a solo traveler from England started snapping pictures of us with her waterproof camera promising to find us on Facebook for our viewing pleasure, I couldn’t help but think of the laughing fit my mom and I had a few years ago on the beach in Maui as we attempted to walk down the shore with our snorkeling fins still on our feet. That picture still provides us a good chuckle when we pull it out, so I could imagine the future laughs these pictures would too.
After a few rock jumps, natural water slides and a crayfish spotting, we arrived at the waterfall. Instructed to stay away from the edge until it was our turn to repel down, we couldn’t see the height of the drop. Leaving it to the imagination, excitement built.
I had hoped to tell you that I navigated down the waterfall like a pro—legs sturdy, rope running smoothly through my hands. In fact, once I lost my footing the first time on the slippery wall of the waterfall with water dowsing on me like, well, a waterfall, I never really got it back. I repelled down that wall like dead weight. At the bottom, I swam ashore, embarrassed at my poor form despite all the practice. But as I climbed up and watched the rest of my group take the waterfall head on, I was happily surprised to find that my group mates’ shoes were just as slippery as mine.
Then, Damon, our tour guide, talked us up to the rest of the group as we dressed to hike back up the mountain. Pride swelling at his comments about our good performances, the four of us gladly accepted the title “the hardcore chicks.” Then Damon surprised us.
“Hey Hardcore Chicks”
(Collective with giggles) “Yaa?”
“You know what hardcore chicks do?”
“What?”
“They carry ropes.”
And that’s how we got tricked into hiking home with an extra thirty pounds on our backs.
Physically exhausted we opted for Finding Nemo that Saturday night instead of Cargo Bar. I fell asleep before Nemo found his dad but still consider this day among the best of my time in Australia.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Little Things
“Rain, rain go away…and if you don’t we’ll jetset out of this town and won’t return until your skies are sunny.” That’s how the song goes, right? Regardless, rain had dowsed Sydney for too many days straight, so our Melbourne trip arrived at just the right time.
As our plane climbed to altitude through Sydney’s stormy clouds and zipped onward toward Melbourne’s clear sky, I started to re-read one of my favorite books, Tuesdays With Morrie. I hadn’t read it since high school and figured that as graduation nears, now was a great time to revisit what should be life’s textbook. I finished the book later that night (all 192 tiny pages), tears on my cheeks and inspiration in my heart. Encouraging its readers to live meaningfully by connecting with people and by enjoying the little things in life, the book was even better the second time, or maybe its message just resonated more with my twenty-one-year-old self (yikes!) than my sixteen-year-old self. I appreciated its reminders and vowed to start paying more attention to The Little Things in my fortunate life. Like these:
It’s the little things in life like when your best friend surprises you on your birthday with the necklace that you fell in love with at the market, teeter-tottered about buying and then finally decided against thanks to her comment that you should “wait. Think it over,” which she only said so she could sneak back to the tent when you were busy browsing through the clothes.
It’s the little things like cruising on the Great Ocean Road with Jack Johnson singing the trip’s soundtrack. It’s the breathtaking turquoise color of the ocean—the same one that brushes your shores at home, only it can’t be because you’ve never seen an ocean so beautiful. It’s the massiveness of the rock formations that have stood along that coast longer than humans have existed. It’s looking out over the cliff and realizing that the next land mass is Antarctica. Ok the Great Ocean Road might be a bit more than a little thing, but it’s the little things like when your tour guide is cute, walks barefoot all day and talks to you about your mutual love of maps all with an Australian accent.
It’s the little things like the bar you stumble across in a seemingly disgusting alleyway with your six friends, where they play Spanish reggae music and you dance and talk all night with Aussies who teach you that the city’s name is pronounced Mel-bin, not Mel-born.
It’s the little things like realizing the world is small when you are walking around a quaint, foreign city and you start to feel worlds away from your sisters and you get a little pang of sadness in your stomach. Then you stumble into a trendy clothing store, and on the first rack you pick through you find stuffed between hangers of board-shorts a sweatshirt with your hometown’s name printed across the front. And it’s the only one. And so you laugh in astonishment and the sales guy inquires why you are staring so hard at a piece of his merchandise. You try to explain through the beaming smile spread across your face that this small town in California is your hometown, et cetera, but you can’t explain that this sweatshirt has really just sent you a message saying something more along the lines of “it’s a small world. You’re never that far away.”
It’s the little things like DJ’s that make Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” into a techno remix for you to dance to on another Thursday night at Sidebar. It’s your aunt who sends you two cards on February 14th—one for Valentine’s Day and one for your birthday. And it’s the little things like waking up to clear skies back in Sydney. Thanks for the reminder Morrie.
As our plane climbed to altitude through Sydney’s stormy clouds and zipped onward toward Melbourne’s clear sky, I started to re-read one of my favorite books, Tuesdays With Morrie. I hadn’t read it since high school and figured that as graduation nears, now was a great time to revisit what should be life’s textbook. I finished the book later that night (all 192 tiny pages), tears on my cheeks and inspiration in my heart. Encouraging its readers to live meaningfully by connecting with people and by enjoying the little things in life, the book was even better the second time, or maybe its message just resonated more with my twenty-one-year-old self (yikes!) than my sixteen-year-old self. I appreciated its reminders and vowed to start paying more attention to The Little Things in my fortunate life. Like these:
It’s the little things in life like when your best friend surprises you on your birthday with the necklace that you fell in love with at the market, teeter-tottered about buying and then finally decided against thanks to her comment that you should “wait. Think it over,” which she only said so she could sneak back to the tent when you were busy browsing through the clothes.
It’s the little things like cruising on the Great Ocean Road with Jack Johnson singing the trip’s soundtrack. It’s the breathtaking turquoise color of the ocean—the same one that brushes your shores at home, only it can’t be because you’ve never seen an ocean so beautiful. It’s the massiveness of the rock formations that have stood along that coast longer than humans have existed. It’s looking out over the cliff and realizing that the next land mass is Antarctica. Ok the Great Ocean Road might be a bit more than a little thing, but it’s the little things like when your tour guide is cute, walks barefoot all day and talks to you about your mutual love of maps all with an Australian accent.
It’s the little things like the bar you stumble across in a seemingly disgusting alleyway with your six friends, where they play Spanish reggae music and you dance and talk all night with Aussies who teach you that the city’s name is pronounced Mel-bin, not Mel-born.
It’s the little things like realizing the world is small when you are walking around a quaint, foreign city and you start to feel worlds away from your sisters and you get a little pang of sadness in your stomach. Then you stumble into a trendy clothing store, and on the first rack you pick through you find stuffed between hangers of board-shorts a sweatshirt with your hometown’s name printed across the front. And it’s the only one. And so you laugh in astonishment and the sales guy inquires why you are staring so hard at a piece of his merchandise. You try to explain through the beaming smile spread across your face that this small town in California is your hometown, et cetera, but you can’t explain that this sweatshirt has really just sent you a message saying something more along the lines of “it’s a small world. You’re never that far away.”
It’s the little things like DJ’s that make Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” into a techno remix for you to dance to on another Thursday night at Sidebar. It’s your aunt who sends you two cards on February 14th—one for Valentine’s Day and one for your birthday. And it’s the little things like waking up to clear skies back in Sydney. Thanks for the reminder Morrie.
 |
| Australia |
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Illusions and Evolutions
Someone dressed up school in a uniform of fieldtrips and told it that homework was no longer necessary. I don’t know who is responsible for this genius evolution, but if I had to venture guess, I’d say it could be my Australian Sporting and Traditions instructor. He’s the one who mandated a fieldtrip to the beach, where upon arrival he instructed us to think up a research topic while we lounged on the sand and floated on the waves. Then we’d meet him at the pub in two hours to let him know the subject on which we had decided to write. Over a beer that afternoon he encouraged me, “it’s just like Oscar Wilde said, ‘life is too important to take seriously.’ You only have eighty odd years here, so…bugger it!" So, yes, I feel pretty confident that he could be the brain behind the other school sponsored fieldtrip I took this weekend with my Australian Wine Industry class to the Hunter Valley.
There, we employed our wine tasting skills that we had rehearsed in class the week before—no holding the glass by the bodice, check for color against a white wall, swirl to release the aroma, smell and then, finally, taste. So for two days, we toured the wineries of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia attempting to develop our palates. Really, we were just faking maturity. Sure, we tasted and discussed wine by day, but the ruthless game of Sharks and Minnows that we started that night at the hotel’s pool adequately demonstrates that we are not real adults yet.
And speaking of real adults, I am about to become one, or at least be expected to be one. This weekend I will turn twenty-one, and if that’s not enough, I just received word that I will in fact graduate next December, making me a college graduate by the end of this year. I’ll repeat that: a college graduate. Luckily, my best friend/roommate/travel companion, the one and only Miss Jorie Larsen, is in the same predicament, leading us to the discussion we had last night.
“Kate, do you feel scared to graduate?”
“Well...it’s kind of exciting. I mean we get to start doing what we want to do!”
“Ya…what do we want to do again?”
“Well…yes, I feel scared.”
For now, I’m taking the advice of my instructor: bugger it.
There, we employed our wine tasting skills that we had rehearsed in class the week before—no holding the glass by the bodice, check for color against a white wall, swirl to release the aroma, smell and then, finally, taste. So for two days, we toured the wineries of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia attempting to develop our palates. Really, we were just faking maturity. Sure, we tasted and discussed wine by day, but the ruthless game of Sharks and Minnows that we started that night at the hotel’s pool adequately demonstrates that we are not real adults yet.
And speaking of real adults, I am about to become one, or at least be expected to be one. This weekend I will turn twenty-one, and if that’s not enough, I just received word that I will in fact graduate next December, making me a college graduate by the end of this year. I’ll repeat that: a college graduate. Luckily, my best friend/roommate/travel companion, the one and only Miss Jorie Larsen, is in the same predicament, leading us to the discussion we had last night.
“Kate, do you feel scared to graduate?”
“Well...it’s kind of exciting. I mean we get to start doing what we want to do!”
“Ya…what do we want to do again?”
“Well…yes, I feel scared.”
For now, I’m taking the advice of my instructor: bugger it.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Escape
After sixteen days in the city, I needed an escape from the masses of people and cars. Relief came in the form of Coolangatta on the Gold Coast of Australia.
Home to some of the best surf in Australia (and perhaps the world?), the Gold Coast requires nothing beyond board-shorts and flip flops by day and a sundress at night—my kind of place. For as much as I appreciate the thrills of the city (hence my moves to Boston and Sydney), my roots are in a small, beach town and I intend to keep it that way. So three days on the white sandy beaches of the Gold Coast would hopefully provide the relief I needed.
We decided on Coolangatta because a friend of mine from high school had made the small town home during a month of his three-month surf trip to New Zealand, Australia and Bali. So we operated on surf time with him: up with the parrots, which sang from the trees beautifully and loudly just after daybreak.
After renting a car that was barely bigger than a Volkswagen Golf, we packed in—two surfboards running from front to back, two girls squished in the center and side seats of the rear, and one six-foot-five guy at the wheel.
Along the way to Bryon Bay we drove through a torrential downpour. Fortunately, in true tropical style, the storm passed as quickly as it came. Upon arrival the sun started peaking through the clouds.
Byron Bay boasted everything we were looking for: secluded beaches and great surf. My surf knowledge does not stretch far beyond your average non-surfer from a surf town; I know some lingo and some big names, et cetera, but not much. However, even I “woahed” out loud at the site of one guy being barreled at the beach we decided on. I had never before seen a wave like that, and I suddenly understood why my guy friends were off combing the world for the best waves. The guy shrugged off the congratulations that he was met with from the other four surfers at the beach, but the look of elation on his face was impossible to conceal.
Vast and expansive—they’re the only words to explain the setting: the ocean, the sand, the trees, but especially the sky was vast and expansive. Everything looked untouched, like the way it was millions of years ago. I’ve always said that if I could time travel to any other time, I would go to the time of dinosaurs; I have a fascination for the world before people touched it. I’m not counting on time travel, but after this weekend I can imagine better what the Jurassic era might have looked like. Laying on the delicate sand the color of bone, hugged by a seemingly-never ending grove of mixed trees, looking up at the sprawling sky, I could feel the curvature of the earth.
Mission accomplished. We’re rejuvenated.
Home to some of the best surf in Australia (and perhaps the world?), the Gold Coast requires nothing beyond board-shorts and flip flops by day and a sundress at night—my kind of place. For as much as I appreciate the thrills of the city (hence my moves to Boston and Sydney), my roots are in a small, beach town and I intend to keep it that way. So three days on the white sandy beaches of the Gold Coast would hopefully provide the relief I needed.
We decided on Coolangatta because a friend of mine from high school had made the small town home during a month of his three-month surf trip to New Zealand, Australia and Bali. So we operated on surf time with him: up with the parrots, which sang from the trees beautifully and loudly just after daybreak.
After renting a car that was barely bigger than a Volkswagen Golf, we packed in—two surfboards running from front to back, two girls squished in the center and side seats of the rear, and one six-foot-five guy at the wheel.
Along the way to Bryon Bay we drove through a torrential downpour. Fortunately, in true tropical style, the storm passed as quickly as it came. Upon arrival the sun started peaking through the clouds.
Byron Bay boasted everything we were looking for: secluded beaches and great surf. My surf knowledge does not stretch far beyond your average non-surfer from a surf town; I know some lingo and some big names, et cetera, but not much. However, even I “woahed” out loud at the site of one guy being barreled at the beach we decided on. I had never before seen a wave like that, and I suddenly understood why my guy friends were off combing the world for the best waves. The guy shrugged off the congratulations that he was met with from the other four surfers at the beach, but the look of elation on his face was impossible to conceal.
Vast and expansive—they’re the only words to explain the setting: the ocean, the sand, the trees, but especially the sky was vast and expansive. Everything looked untouched, like the way it was millions of years ago. I’ve always said that if I could time travel to any other time, I would go to the time of dinosaurs; I have a fascination for the world before people touched it. I’m not counting on time travel, but after this weekend I can imagine better what the Jurassic era might have looked like. Laying on the delicate sand the color of bone, hugged by a seemingly-never ending grove of mixed trees, looking up at the sprawling sky, I could feel the curvature of the earth.
Mission accomplished. We’re rejuvenated.
 |
| Australia |
Beauties and the Brains
I have a confession. I cheated. Well, actually we cheated. But I’m the one with the guilty conscious. Ok, here’s the story:
Wednesday evenings feature two great happenings in the Broadway neighborhood of Sydney. The first is Australian-rules football practice in the park by our apartment. The second is trivia night at the Australian Youth Hotel (hotel means bar here.) Jorie (my roommate and best friend since the first day of our freshman year in Boston) and I discovered both indiscriminately on our first night in Sydney.
After an evening stroll through the park sprinkled with Australian footie players, we stumbled upon a happenin’ little pub where five or six tables of mostly Australians were engaged in a game of trivia quizzing them as much on American history and culture as on Australian history and culture. But because jetlag told us it was bedtime at ten, we agreed to play the following week. Because we play to win.
Come Tuesday, a group of boys in our study abroad program approached us to inform us that the Lansdowne Hotel does trivia on Tuesdays. The boys already had a team name—The Sunburned Americans. We, the self-named Beauties and the Brains, which consists of Jorie, five of our friends and me, accepted the challenge. So, we go. We play. We win third and beat the boys. Prizes include $25 in Lansdowne mula and an Ashton Kutcher-style trucker hat.
Provoked by our winnings, Beauties and the Brains trek to trivia at the original bar the next night. We’re convinced that we’ll be able to make a living out of trivia bar hopping. Too embarrassed to play again, the boys aren’t there. But guess what? The questions are the same questions from the Lansdowne the night before. We know every answer, including questions about Australian cricket players, New Zealand films from the 1960s, and random facts about the earth’s highest and lowest points. But we’ve still got some competition—mainly the McClosky’s. Hence, we’re in third as we enter the jeopardy round. True to our philosophy of playing to win, we bet all our points. Palms sweaty and hearts racing, the final question is asked and it’s a new question: what country is 22 times longer than it is wide? Now let me stray for a moment and say that in the last five months I have become obsessed with a little place called Chile. I bought Frommer’s guide to Chile before I bought a book on Australia. I revamped my Spanish studies last semester, and I dream of moving to Chile next January after I graduate from school. So, back to the story, I know this answer. I have to muffle my mouth with my hands to keep from screaming the answer out for everyone to hear. We win the game—the whole thing, including a fifty-dollar gift certificate to the bar. Take that McClosky’s! Sweden is not that long!
So it’s funny at this point—the looks on the faces of the Australian men who thought a group of American girls knew more about cricket than they did. We leave laughing, check in hand.
Here’s where I hope you’ll forgive us: we did it again the next week. Another fifty dollars to the bar. More applause from the moderator. More dirty looks from Australians. Now I have a guilty conscious, so I’m out. I can hear my little sister Taylor telling me to keep going—“Kate, who cares!? You win free drinks!” My best friend Allie would agree. Big sister Brooke would laugh and ask, “but is it really fun if you already know the answers?”
I broke the news to them the next day; I told Beauties and the Brains that I can’t do it again. The lies haunt me at night.
Wednesday evenings feature two great happenings in the Broadway neighborhood of Sydney. The first is Australian-rules football practice in the park by our apartment. The second is trivia night at the Australian Youth Hotel (hotel means bar here.) Jorie (my roommate and best friend since the first day of our freshman year in Boston) and I discovered both indiscriminately on our first night in Sydney.
After an evening stroll through the park sprinkled with Australian footie players, we stumbled upon a happenin’ little pub where five or six tables of mostly Australians were engaged in a game of trivia quizzing them as much on American history and culture as on Australian history and culture. But because jetlag told us it was bedtime at ten, we agreed to play the following week. Because we play to win.
Come Tuesday, a group of boys in our study abroad program approached us to inform us that the Lansdowne Hotel does trivia on Tuesdays. The boys already had a team name—The Sunburned Americans. We, the self-named Beauties and the Brains, which consists of Jorie, five of our friends and me, accepted the challenge. So, we go. We play. We win third and beat the boys. Prizes include $25 in Lansdowne mula and an Ashton Kutcher-style trucker hat.
Provoked by our winnings, Beauties and the Brains trek to trivia at the original bar the next night. We’re convinced that we’ll be able to make a living out of trivia bar hopping. Too embarrassed to play again, the boys aren’t there. But guess what? The questions are the same questions from the Lansdowne the night before. We know every answer, including questions about Australian cricket players, New Zealand films from the 1960s, and random facts about the earth’s highest and lowest points. But we’ve still got some competition—mainly the McClosky’s. Hence, we’re in third as we enter the jeopardy round. True to our philosophy of playing to win, we bet all our points. Palms sweaty and hearts racing, the final question is asked and it’s a new question: what country is 22 times longer than it is wide? Now let me stray for a moment and say that in the last five months I have become obsessed with a little place called Chile. I bought Frommer’s guide to Chile before I bought a book on Australia. I revamped my Spanish studies last semester, and I dream of moving to Chile next January after I graduate from school. So, back to the story, I know this answer. I have to muffle my mouth with my hands to keep from screaming the answer out for everyone to hear. We win the game—the whole thing, including a fifty-dollar gift certificate to the bar. Take that McClosky’s! Sweden is not that long!
So it’s funny at this point—the looks on the faces of the Australian men who thought a group of American girls knew more about cricket than they did. We leave laughing, check in hand.
Here’s where I hope you’ll forgive us: we did it again the next week. Another fifty dollars to the bar. More applause from the moderator. More dirty looks from Australians. Now I have a guilty conscious, so I’m out. I can hear my little sister Taylor telling me to keep going—“Kate, who cares!? You win free drinks!” My best friend Allie would agree. Big sister Brooke would laugh and ask, “but is it really fun if you already know the answers?”
I broke the news to them the next day; I told Beauties and the Brains that I can’t do it again. The lies haunt me at night.
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