Clearly the world is ending

"The world is ending" was my first thought when I stepped outside for the first time today, because the only explanation for it being this hot is that the sun must have moved millions of miles closer to the earth overnight. Which I'm thinking would be bad. I thought it had been hot lately. No - now I know what hot is!

Anyway, I would happily stay camped inside with the air conditioning all day except that that's kind of boring and I was told that due to the Chinese New Year, I should check out Chinatown this weekend because there would be lots going on, so that's where I went.

It was too unbearably hot for me to stay for too long - I'm sure I didn't make it past half an hour - and I walked up and down the Chinatown area and only saw one celebration thing going on: drummers and dancers and of course, the dragons:

It was hard to get a good photo since there was still traffic and stuff going down the street. And notice the smoke? When I was walking down the street approaching this event, I almost thought a building was on fire, there was so much. And then once I was standing there watching, they set some fire crackers off again - a whole bunch at once going off with very loud bangs for about 30 seconds (we all had to cover our ears, then cover our noses and mouths) - it filled the street with smoke, I swear.

So anyway, that was the one exciting thing about Chinatown today. I'm sure if I stuck around, I'd see lots more, but there was that whole thing with the world ending and the unbearable heat...

Also going down to that part of the city meant that I passed by one of the only places where there is still a Krispy Kreme, yaaaaaay!

Happy Australia Day!

Gosh, I love a mid-week public holiday.

Anyway, since it was a holiday and also the last day of my MBA course (don't get too excited - only a week off until I start the next one which looks NOT FUN), I spent the day at Manly Beach! It was my first time there. Cloudy for half the time I was there, but I got some decent sun for a little while. I took the ferry there, which was a nice ride, but man, there were a lot of people. It was odd, because there were literally thousands of people in line for the ferry and in the terminal where we got off, but the beach itself was actually not very crowded.

Anyway, I didn't like it as much as Bondi. I took my camera but didn't take pictures because it didn't impress me too much. It was just a beach. Quite small, too. And cloudy for awhile. And a seagull pooped on my belly :(

But I had a gelato! And overall it was a decent day. And I am a little more tan. And I was kind of in an unusually good, chill mood all day. Even when I saw the thousands-of-people long line for the ferry I was like "oh well, it'll take me a little longer to get there." And even when the seagull pooped on me I just wiped it off and went "oh well, I can still enjoy the sun." I think on an ordinary day I would have gotten vexed at those things.

Back to work tomorrow.

...and everybody looked like ants

Yesterday, I went with a friend from work to lunch at one of those very high up rotating restaurants (there's this food festival going on, so they had a discount special price for a fancy, fabulous feast). Naturally, I had my camera out during most of the meal:

Ow, my eyes

Happy New Year!!

So it’s been a beautiful, sunny weekend here in Sydney, so I decided to finally start working on my tan and headed back out to Bondi yesterday. I am mostly browner, but I am sunburnt on my eyelids and up to my eyebrows. Ow! Pretty badly, too. Completely missed that spot with the sunscreen. But I’ve been missing that spot with the sunscreen my whole life and never got a noticeable sunburn there! Oh well, now I’ve learned.

Anyway, had a nice time back home for two weeks in spite of the horrible weather for most of the time I was there. My journey back here was more stressful than I would have liked. First of all, I got called by VAustralia a few days before I had to fly out, telling me that my New York to LA flight was canceled and the only one they could possibly squeeze me on was a Delta flight that was only an hour and a half after my landing in New York – on a separate airline booked on a separate website/itinerary so I’d have to wait for luggage and switch terminals and check in again. I was panicking that I wasn’t going to make it, but since they called me at night and I was tired and panicking, I wasn’t thinking it through and it wasn’t until the next day that I thought to call them back and what I should do if I missed that flight, at which point I was informed that a seat had opened up on a later flight so I had more like four and a half hours, yay. And that meant only an hour and a half in LA, which I thought was fantastic because I hate the LA airport and since that connecting flight was booked on the same itinerary, I’d have luggage checked through and my boarding pass all ready to go, so I wouldn’t need the extra time there.

Of course I should have expected it would all go horribly wrong. First of all, I mentioned I hated LA airport and JFK is not so bad – but I’d never been to the Delta terminal of JFK before and whew, it’s almost as bad as LAX. And the lines took forever. It took about half an hour for the bags to even start coming out, so that alone would have meant I’d have missed check in if I hadn’t managed to change my flight, but then check in and security at Delta took so long as well that I was getting impatient even with all my extra time. And of course the Delta agent was so confused about my itinerary booked through VAustralia (and kept asking “what’s the other airline?” even though she had my itinerary printout with the V logo right in front of her) and was convinced that she couldn’t check in either me or my luggage all the way through to Sydney, and when I argued with her that V promised me on the phone I’d be checked in and my luggage checked through so I wouldn’t have to worry about the short layover in LA, she finally said “Oh, yeah, I can check through your luggage.” But not me. Somehow she could check through my luggage without me. No boarding pass. So I started worrying a little, but at least didn’t have to worry about waiting for my luggage.

And then while waiting in JFK, I tried checking into V online (they don’t have online check in!), tried calling them up (got random beeping or “this number cannot be completed as dialed”), and emailed them (only got the reply “They should have been able to check your luggage all the way through!” right before I had to get on the plane).

Then on the flight to LA, we ended up sitting on the runway in JFK for 40 extra minutes before take-off, and then we get to LA 20 minutes late and they couldn’t get the walkway to come up to the door for another 20 minutes, so I was of course freaking out. I got off the plane later that the latest check-in time for my next flight (which is one hour before take-off). I literally sprinted – SPRINTED – through the terminal, and then got on the bus that takes you between terminals which was sitting stuck in traffic for another 15-20 minutes, and then sprinted through the VAustralia terminal to check in and ran up to the counter “I know I’m late!!” And the guy said, “Yeah, you are. We can’t get you on. Everyone’s checked in and they’re not accepting anybody else.” And I was like “Noooooooo!!! I just ran all this way.” And he said, “Hold on one minute.” And he went away for about 5 minutes, and then came back with another lady saying that apparently I did get checked in at some point (was it the Delta lady? My email?) and had a seat so they just had to print out my boarding pass and then I had to race through security to the gate, where they were already well into the boarding process. I made it! And then had to sit through a 14 hour flight after I’d been sweating buckets from running everywhere. But once I was safely on the flight, I was remembering back to the first time I was passing through LA on the way to Sydney and sitting there waiting around thinking “This airport is horrible and I’ve been traveling all day and have so much farther to go and don’t know if I can do it anymore! I’m so tired!” – well, this time, I didn’t have time to dwell on any of that. The adrenaline didn’t allow the tiredness to set in, and I didn’t have time to look around at how horrible the airport was or think about how long my next flight was. So, a positive?

And my luggage somehow made it too!

Anyway, so that’s the story of the stressful aspects of it, but other points to note: VAustralia is so cool. It’s got cool lighting, it’s got good meals, it’s got a bar, in business it does full on beds that they make up for you when you ask, rather than just reclining into a bed position with a blanket. Also: on the Delta flight to LA, I was seated next to a dog. That was a first. I mean, I’ve seen people come on with their little pets in little cages, but this was a full on big dog on a leash that was just sitting on the floor next to my feet. A service dog and fully trained, so it was very nice and well-behaved. And quite cute and fluffy.

Anyway, so I’ve now been back for almost a week, over the jet-lag, but my eyes are red and puffy from the sun so I probably look tired anyway. Let’s hope that fades soon!

I did it!

So, due to a crazy mix-up, I'm having to fully move out of my place during the two weeks I'm home for the holidays and then either move back in or move into another one of their apartments. And I only found this out on Monday, so it has been my huge burden of the week ("shoot, I wouldn't have bought that huge box of cereal a few days ago if I'd known I'd have to either throw it away or stuff it in a bag!") There are a lot of things that I know I will ultimately end up throwing away before I move back to Bermuda, but that I still need while I'm here, and I am pretty opposed to the idea of throwing something away only to buy the exact same thing two weeks later, so it's been tough squeezing everything - the apartment place is storing stuff for me (and I asked "is it OK if stuff is in random plastic bags and stuff instead of packed away neatly in suitcases?") and I've managed to get everything I'm leaving behind into one ginormous-busting-at-the-seams suitcase, a backpack, and three shopping bags. I did it! With a little over half an hour to spare, wooo!

And I think this was a pretty good test for how my packing will go when I head back for good: as long as I don't go on a major shopping spree between now and then, totally doable, if I consider the stuff I will throw away and also the fact that my suitcase I'm taking home for Christmas will likely come back mostly empty once I leave all the Christmas presents and winter clothes at home!

I'm on my way, folks. See most of you soon!

To make up for not posting in awhile, here are some cute, fuzzy animals

OK, well I was on the phone with my parents earlier, and my dad called me out for not blogging in forever, and I have been thinking about this and how I never did the rest of my parents’ visit here including the zoo visit with fun pictures, so here I am, even though I’m back on my MBA study schedule and I should be writing a homework assignment if I'm writing anything!

Also, I don’t have too many stories to report from the last few weeks, so it’s pretty fitting that my return post is about stuff from about a month ago.

So, once we were back from New Zealand, we did two day trips before my parents had to go back home: one to Hunter Valley wine country, and one to Blue Mountains, which had the stop at the zoo. I have pretty pictures from Blue Mountains, but this will focus on the zoo because animals are fun and cute. Except for crocodiles, so I won’t be posting that picture. He was more scary than cute. And maybe you’ll get the Blue Mountains photos next month if I finally get around to another blog post!

Also: I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve had photos of me here instead of just scenery, and all I have to say about that is: I’ve been complaining that it’s been raining too much for me to get my reverse-summer-tan, but looking back at me a month ago, I think I'm noticeably darker now, wooo!

Koala:

He was the most active koala we saw, sitting eating eucalyptus. The rest were just very sleepy:

And check out this dude! I love him:

And this one's like "Hey. 'Sup? Got an ice cream cone for me?"

And here's me feeding a little one. I'm not sure why the left half of the photo (the half that's actually cute and munching away at an ice cream cone) is a bit blurry, but it's the best one I had. I blame my mom's picture taking skills ;)

And me and a koala. My dad said the koala looks like he's sitting up straight in surprise going "Did she touch my bum?" but I swear he was sitting in that same pose before I got there. And I didn't touch his bum. I actually patted his head but then the zoo-worker standing there said "keep away from his head - he might bite." So I hesitantly touched his back and then got scared and didn't touch him anymore. And behind this frozen smile I'm thinking "Please take the photo quick so I can back away from the crazy bear who might bite me."

And that's it for now.

I'm heading home for Christmas this weekend, with a little stopover in New York! I can't believe it's come so soon. It's gotten really hot here the last week or so, so I think I'll enjoy the little winter break.

And lastly: this week I made the discovery that the band Journey never journeyed to Australia. They haven't heard of them. They don't know "Don't Stop Believin'!" Or if they do, it's only because of Glee. Way to go, Glee, for expanding their horizons, but it's sad that it was necessary! Journey's legendary!

And back to homework...

Finally the New Zealand post!

Well, it’s been a shockingly lovely weekend considering the weather lately and the forecasts, but I don’t quite have the energy to head out to Bondi today to catch some sun and make sure I come home with that Christmas-time tan to make you all jealous, and I do have to get this blog post done before I forget what all of my New Zealand photos are, so I’ve taken my laptop out to the nice, sunny, harbour-side park that’s just a few minutes walk from my place. It’s a bit hard to see the screen in the sun like this, but I’ll try my best. I take these moments when I can get them! Blogging with the sounds of people at Luna Park screaming their heads off in the distant background.

Before I get into the photos – and guys, I have about 200 I just realized, so you’re not going to see all of them here but it'll still be a long one – just a little bit about the New Zealand accent: it’s quite similar to Aussie, but still different and there are some more distinct changes in vowel sounds. Like they say the “e” sound in “left” like I would say an “i”. And they say the “a” sound in “map” like I would pronounce an “e”. And this wasn’t all over, but there was one region where the “i” in “pint” sounded more like an “oi”/”oy” – I figured that one out before my parents did and was trying to translate the bartender for them. Anyway, I imagine it would be very difficult to navigate if you were lost with a New Zealander: “Chick the mep – we go roight, not lift!”

But anyway, onto the pretty pictures. So, we saw lots of pretty mountains and pretty lakes, and sometimes pretty mountains right by pretty lakes, like so:

And from inside the church by that same lake, looking out to the same view:

Pretty reflections:

Impressive cloudy peaks (Mount Cook):

Sheep!

Fancy castle grounds! (Lanarch Castle at Dunedin):

Dunedin, don’tcha know, is apparently Gaelic for Edinburgh and this was a bit like a poser imitation Scottish town, and they had a haggis ceremony and read some Burns and made my dad dress up in a silly wig and cap (and I think a kilt over pants? My memory is bad) and hold up a sword until his arms were tired, but I unfortunately don’t have a photo because my mom and I both forgot our cameras that evening.

But anyway, seals!

There were a bunch of them hanging out on the rocks down there which I couldn’t see at the time without binoculars and just took a photo in the hopes that I’d see them on the full-size version, and I do! Also, this little guy climbed up from the rocks, waddled up this green slope and took a nap. I have a video of his journey which I don’t have the patience to upload, but here he is part of the way up:

And after he made it all the way up there and the rest of us on this tour were like “look at him go!” ten minutes later, my dad goes “Hey, there’s a seal up there on the grass!” And he always calls me out for being unobservant….

Penguins! This was on a penguin tour, which was where we also saw the seals above:

Here I’m not going to bother uploading the photos, but we also went on to see Baldwin Street – the steepest street in the world which we were supposed to be very impressed by, and also stopped in a little town called Gore which is apparently filled with fans of country music and giant fish. And stopped at Lake Manapouri which was pretty but no prettier than the lake up above.

And then we went up this crazy narrow winding mountain road, and saw more pretty mountains:

Waterfalls:

A few funny, friendly, clever, devious mountain parrots known as “Kea”s:

Went down a crazy, crazy mountain tunnel that is not worth showing photos of because it’s just dark, and then got to THE CHASM! This thing was epic, I can’t even tell you. I tried describing it to one of the guys from work and all I could do was make large arm gestures and facial expressions of fascination. I don’t think the pictures will fully capture it:

Milford Sound, where we went on a boat trip and saw lots of pretty even though the weather was pretty awful, and also more seals, and then when it was raining too much I decided to get some “artsy/impressionistic” photos from inside through the rain-splattered windows.

And then we went to Queenstown, and on our first night there (the only place we stayed for more than two nights), we went up on the gondola and ate at the Skyline Restaurant on the top of the mountain:

There was also a mixup at the hotel at Queenstown which I will not go into here because it will only make my parents bitter again!

And we went to a little bird museum where we saw kiwis (no photos – they’re nocturnal) and OMG, family of baby ducks, awwwww!

And Queenstown was the only place where we (“we” meaning my dad and I – mum skipped out on this one) did anything remotely New Zealand Adventure Adrenaline Rush, which was the jetboat through Shotover River and you think it’s just a boat? No this thing goes zooming down through the canyons, and the driver glides right up against the walls just to mess with you or he’ll be heading straight for a wall at full speed and then turn away at the last possible second and I was like “dude, I’d be having fun without you almost literally killing me every five seconds, you can cool it now!” but I survived.

And then we went to Fox Glacier which was a bit of a lame town, but you know, there was this big ol’ glacier…

And this seems like a good time to mention how the road signs and warning signs and stuff are a bit different in New Zealand and sometimes hard to interpret – like I still have no idea what “guy walking with a white block for a hand” is supposed to mean, but I got a kick out of the warning signs at the glacier, and I think the meanings are fairly obvious:

Beware: Rocks will fall on your head

Beware: you might encounter swimmers flailing around because they were dumb and didn’t realize how cold it would be until they got in

Although, also! I refilled my water bottle up at the glacier directly from a pure mountain spring flowing down from a waterfall, and I drank it and didn’t get sick. Wonderful, and quite refreshing.

Dad and I also took a walk that night to go see the glo-worms and again, no photos because glo-worms are really damn difficult to catch on film. My dad got one where you can see a few distinct glowy dots, but I just got blackness. And we were just told “go when it’s dark” with no mention of flashlights and had we not run into a nice group of people with flashlights right away, we would not have made it. Pitchblack, honestly. I don’t think we would have been killed, but we probably would have walked head-first into some trees or twisted our ankles. Although, yeah, maybe we would have been killed. Dad compared the feeling of walking through that path to the Blair Witch Project, and I totally saw where he was coming from. But as I said, we found a friendly bunch of people with flashlights and instead of encountering an axe murderer in the woods, we were the scary people lurking in the dark going “Can we follow you?”

And I mentioned on my initial “back from NZ” post that West is lame compared to East, and the reason for that was that up until Fox Glacier, we were in the East. Fox Glacier was alright but the weather was lame and the people who wanted to go on a helicopter trip to the glacier couldn’t, and then the rest of the time we were in the West, the weather was lame, and when we were doing our train ride back from West to East back to Christchurch to go home, I kid you not the weather was appalling and then we went through this magical tunnel and came out further East where the weather was gorgeous.

Then back to Christchurch, felt a little earthquake, headed back to Sydney the next day – two more days of touring which I may get to in another post (I have pictures of me with koalas and kangaroos, I guess I can’t not share that!)

OK, I think I now have to go back to my apartment so I can actually see the pictures before I post them and make sure I’ve chosen the right ones and not missed anything fabulous. I’ve just checked my tan lines to make sure I’ve been out here long enough, and while there isn’t much significant change on my top half, I do have a bit of a weird line forming from my shorts, so off I go. Also, bugs have just started attacking me. I’m no longer welcome here.