well i’m on my way…

So after we arrived in Perth, I went with my new friend Jen (also on the tour) to her beachside hostel somewhere between Perth and Fremantle.  I didn’t have a reservation, but I was confident I’d get a bed.  Jen already had reservations.  After doing some real backpacking-walking the wrong way, getting directions from about 8 different Aussies, and walking up and down some steep hills, we saw the ocean and arrived at the hostel.  The hostel had nothing for me!  I bucked up, found phone numbers for hostels in Freo, which was where we were going drinking anyway and got a bed at the first hostel I booked!  I showered at Jen’s hostel and we headed out to Freo.

When we arrived in Freo, I was surprised (or not) how excited I was that I was back in Fremantle, and for 5 more days!  I won’t be surprised if I never see Perth.  When I got to my new hostel (not the bedbug one) I learned that I was booked in the ‘Stairway to Heaven”-which is a bunkbed in the foyer of the back door to the girls dorm under the stairs.  Hmm.  It’s called the emergency bed.  Great.  But it’s cozy and there’s a window and I get a real room after 2 nights.  And it is cheaper than the real room.

Jen and I were the only ones from the tour to make it out besides the tour guides.  We had a few beers and closed the bar at midnight and headed back to the train station.  En route we encountered a man who had set up a full drum set playing and singing.  There were tons of people dancing on the sidewalk.  This is why I love Freo.

I woke up today, Jan 31, very happy to be in Freo.  I went to the markets and treated myself to a two dollar avacado and walked around, enjoying the town again.  I headed back to Jen’s hostel and we laid on the beach for 4 or 5 hours.  The waves were cool here too, but nothing like last week’s.  After I started sleeping and feeling crispy, I left for Freo to do laundry and sleep.  The sun sure gets to you out here!

I booked a 5 day tour to see the south west corner of Western Australia and left early Australia Day morning.  We did and saw a lot, and I don’t really remember all of it.  We saw a lot of rocks, mountains, and beaches-so many different rocks and mountains that after a few days it got really redundant.  I’m not saying that I didn’t have a good time, but just that I’m going to sum up the trip with the things that stick out in my mind.

The first day we drove from summer to spring and went to a chocolate factory where I could eat as much FREE white chocolate as I wanted!  After that we went to an organic winery to taste some wine-I had some of my first red wines, and actually gagged on one of them.  I’ll continue to stick with white.  After that we went to a jamery (?) where we could sample jams and different flavored olive oils.  Everything was very good but I’m sure you can imagine my stomach ache after these three stops!  We went to the estuary where the Margaret River meets either the Southern Ocean or the Indian Ocean (it’s on the corner?) and the waves were just AMAZING.  I’ve never seen such big waves in my life!  All of the currents were forcing the waves into each other and just – wow.  As soon as I saw this, I ran down to the beach, flung off my shoes, rolled my pants up and stood in the water.  The tide was very random as well-I was standing in one place where the water was hardly covering my feet and then as soon as I turned around to take a photo of myself and the ocean, a wave came and soaked me up to over my knees!  After dinner at a hostel with amazing showers and comfy beds, one of the tour guides busted out his guitar and started playing-expecting a sing-along.  I got made fun of by everyone in the group because I was the only one who knew the songs-songs from Neil Young, Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan.

On the second day I climbed a tree.  I didn’t climb it like a kid would, pulling himself up branch by branch.  There were two foot metal rods sticking out of the tree spaced about two feet apart that spiraled up the tree up to the 60 meter mark.  I’m not sure exactly how high that is, but I generally figure that a meter is about three feet?  You do the math.  These rods, or steps were made “safe” by putting a wire mesh on the outside of them.  There was nothing underneath me, nor anything below me for safety.  No Dad, OSHA would not approve this, and yes, that fact did go through my mind, but I did it anyway.  And I lived to tell about it.  I was the first one to go up after the tour guide because when I looked up at the top, I realized that the highest point is less than 27 stories, which is the highest I’ve hung off the side of a building for work.  When I got up to the top and the guide tried to scare me by shaking the platform but it didn’t work.  Swing stages sway a lot more than what he could do.  The way down was scary though.  I think it had to do with the fact that I was walking backwards down a ladder with no safety.  Maybe.  At one point the guy below me stopped and that was when my legs started shaking uncontrollably.  My mind wasn’t scared, but my body was naturally reacting.  So I leaned up against the rods and chilled until my legs stopped shaking.  I remembered that I had to ‘make friends’ with the ladder.  After a few minutes, I descended with no problems.  It was a great sense of accomplishment, since I don’t really consider myself much of a risk taker.

The third day we saw more scenery and climbed some rocks.  Can you tell I was impressed?  The weather was cool and a bit rainy.

The fourth day was probably my favorite.  Despite the overcast skies, it was a beach day.  The waves were not calm at all and seemed to be saying to us “Come play with me!”  And play we did.  I watched the guides and a few of the other people body surfing and had a blast.  The waves did throw me around and I ended up with a head full of salt water but it was amazing.  Even though the waves were vicious, it was so much fun.  The ocean can kick my ass any day.  I was one of the last ones out of the water (sound familiar?) and kept on asking when the next beach was.  One of the guides asked where I learned to ride the waves the way I was.  I’d never done anything like this in my life!  Heh, I’m a natural.  Surprise!  The sand on these beaches was the strangest I’ve ever seen:  it was so white and the grains of sand were so fine.  It retained water like no sand I’ve seen before and squeaked when we walked on it.  Crazy!

The fourth day we did a lot of driving.  A ridiculous amount.  We saw the wave rock that water eroded out of a larger rock and guess what-it looks like a wave.  A little walk away from it was a rock called Hippos Yawn.  And it looked like a big rock on top of a little rock.  Aussie tourism sure has a lot of imagination. We rocked back into Perth around 530 and made plans to go out with some of the people from the group.

Although I’m writing mostly about yesterday, today is Day 38 

I just realized I can post replies to replies!  Who hoo!

 I went to the Fremantle markets today to see what there was to see.  There were a bunch of stalls selling the same things found at every other market-clothes, homewares, magic pens, baby clothes, random things made out of hemp, jewellry, fruit, cakes, pies, indian food, fish…For being so advertized and talked about, I thought it would be bigger.  It was still very cool though.  I was able to sample the fruit before I bought it-and found the juiciest plums I have ever tasted in my life!  I bought 3 plums and 3 bananas for $2-which is around an American buck-fifty.  I also purchased a pair of “fisherman’s pants”-very popular pants in Australia that are so huge you have to fold one of the pant legs into itself to tie it around your waist.  They’re made of…cotton?  Linen?  They’re green with a multicolored striped print that folds down over the tie at my waist.  (Meghan, I can see your disgusted look now) 

When I started getting hungry, I went back to the hostel (gotta save money!) for lunch.  On my walk, I heard the so familiar guitar strumming of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”.  There was a man sitting leaning up on the side of a building (wearing fisherman’s pants) singing the song.  I came up on him as he was singing “when you got nothing you got nothing to lose”.  I got goosebumps.  I slowed down to savour the moment and listened with all my attention as I walked away.  Thanks, guy. 

After lunch of EasyMac and two plums, I headed back out to the Fremantle Arts Centre where the History Museum is housed.  The museum was so good.  The entry fee was a recommended donation of $2, which I happily paid.  There was a good exhibit on the founding of the settlement of Fremantle, with a lot of artifacts from those early days in the late 1800s, a great exhibit on what the building was used as over the years (prison, insane asylum, women’s home, and housing for American WWII soldiers), and an excellent exhibit on migration to Western Australia.  It was so moving and really informative.  It made me wonder about the immigration and migration of the US.  I’m finding that the more I learn, the more I don’t know, and that realization strengthens my desire to learn more.  It’s a rewarding cycle. 

Now I know I haven’t told you about many of the people I’ve met in my journey, but one guy I met last night will stand out, if only for his barefoot philosophy that I want to share with you.  I noticed that he didn’t wear shoes (I met him in the hostel-no big deal being barefoot there, but when we went for a walk, he didn’t flinch as we walked over all types of rough concrete) and asked him about it.  He told me that people miss out on so much of where they are and where they are going by wearing shoes.  “How can you really know a place without feeling it though your feet?”  I thought it was a good question, and took off my shoes until the ground got too rough, which was very quickly.

When it got cold, we went back to the hostel and played table tennis until the people watching real tennis on TV were giving us dirty looks-I guess our terrible game was distracting them from watching the pros.     

Today I will go back to the markets to see if there is anything new to look at, find an old bookshop so I can smell the beautiful smell of old books, check out the free part of the Fremantle Prison, and pack.  I’m heading on a 5 day tour tomorrow to see the southwest region on WA.  So, I might not be able to get on the internet for a few days, as a warning to those of you who might worry (Mom!) 

I took the ferry out to Rottnest Island to rent a bicycle and snorkel.  No cars are allowed on the island-just the occasional bus or garbage truck-and bicycles.  Crazy amounts of bicycles.  The roads or trails on the island cover about 26 km all over the island.  When I first got on I was pretty wobbly.  I remember the last time I rode a bicycle was when I tried out Elaine’s new bike she got for the triathlon.  Before that, I have no recollection.  And I didnt’ recall why I hadn’t ridden a bicycle-until a few hours into the day.  I’m writing this the day after and my butt is still sore. 

I rode up to the first snokel spot and geared up.  I swam out to the dark part of the water, where the reef was.  I’m still a little apprehensive about snorkeling as fish still creep me out.  Why-I have no idea.  The waves were huge and kept on pulling me extremely close to the reef and then threw me back towards shore.  After figting the waves for about 10 minutes, I gave up.  I was afraid I’d touch the reef and damage it.  I started riding my bike westward so I could look out at the Indian Ocean. 

I got to the westernmost point of the island (after stopping a few times to enjoy the blue ocean and monstrous waves, not to mention rest my butt bone) and sat.  And stared.  And thought-mostly about how much I love Australia.  And how I don’t want to leave.  I even said to myself (surprise, Meghan) out loud, “I don’t want to go to New Zealand.”  I want to stay here.  I love summer.  I love being in the water, I love being near the water, I love looking at the water.  It was amazing realizing that what I was looking out at went on forever until South Africa-or Madascar-or a few random islands.  Just water from here to there.  Too cool.  Then common sense took over and I realized that I can’t stay here, my visa runs out in the middle of March and I have a non-refundable ticket to New Zeland in February. 

So after a while of staring out at the ocean, I got up and headed towards some more snorkel spots.  There’s a shipwreck that you can view but I never made it there.  I got off my bike, vowed never to ride a bicycle again, and laid on the beach.  And laid there for a few hours, falling in and out of sleep, allowing the waves to lull me into a zone where I just chilled.  I didn’t think, I just laid there.  It was wonderful. 

I instinctively got up and just made it before the ferry took off back for Fremantle, relaxed at the hostel and nursed my sunburn for the rest of the night. 

In case you were wondering, I still have not been bitten by bedbugs. 

Before I go into Ani and her amazingness, I need to give some credit where credit’s due.  The venue, The Fremantel Arts Centre, is a beautiful old stone building.  The grounds are very shady and well kept.  The actual show was held outside the building, with no arranged seating-all general admission!  Mama Kin was the opening act, and she was good.  Very good.  Her act consists of her singing and banging on drums a bit and her brother on the keys.  He just kept on smiling, in a creepy but friendly kind of way.  This woman had a voice on her-her songs were a little bluesy and fun.  I purchased her album they were selling at the show.  The Waifs-the headliner-were awesome.  I have been trying to figure out who to compare them to.  I can’t.  Their fans reminded me of the crowd at an OAR concert-ranging from young to old, and from dreadlocked hippies to preppy college students.  The one disappointing thing about them was that their shows both nights were the exact same.  If I was a fan I would have been thuroughly disappointed, but since I liked them, I was a little glad because I could learn the words to the songs…

There was one thing I noticed different between the concert going experience in America to the experience in Australia.  Usually, at every concert I go to in the States, there’s a certain smell wafting through the crowd at some point during the show, if not all of it.  It was nonexistant here, which I found strange, because the crowd was very similar to the crowd I would ecounter at home…

Now: Ani was amazing as usual.  Here’s her set list for the first night:  Little Plastic Castle, November 4, Present/Infant, 78% Water, Napoleon, Gravel, My IQ, new song?, Swan Dive, Fire Door, new wedding song, Alla This, As Is, Smiling Underneath, Evolve, and Both Hands.  She had just arrived in Australia 2 days proir to the show, her daughter turned 2 the day Obama was sworn in (she claimed that was the best birthday present her daughter could get), and her and her “babydaddy” got married in Hawaii on the way over here.  Yay Ani! 

The next day in Freo I walked around, falling more in love with the town.  I realized that on weekends is when Fremantle really wakes up.  There were so many people on the streets!  I decided to treat myself to lunch-the most expensive meal I’ve had since I’ve been in Australia- a whopping $26!  Little Creatures, the brewery in Fremantle, and arguably the best beer in Australia, has great beer and even better food!  I ordered the mushroom and avacado open-faced sandwich-which meant only one piece of bread and makes it easier for me to describe it to you:  the toasty bread on the bottom was smothered in mayo and olive oil.  A few pieces of romaine lettuce were delicately placed on top of that, then some slices of tomato, meaty-ass mushroom, and avacado were piled above that.  It was finished off with a drizzle of pesto on top.  Oh man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  The sandwich came with fries, or chips, however you want to call it, which I’ve heard are the best in Perth.  They were good, but if they’re the best in Perth, I won’t even bother eating any other ones.  I was quite buzzed after one beer so I sat in the park across from the restaurant afterwards, loving life, and loving Fremantle more.  I decided to stay out the weekend here.  Why leave?   

The second night Ani looked much better than she had the first night (though I’m not saying she looked bad).  She was a lot more energetic as well.  Set list for this night was as follows:  Fuel, Half-Assed, Manhole, Present/Infant, Nov 4, Paradigm, Alla This, Swim, Way Tight, Names and Dates and Times, Smiling Underneath, Here for Now, Untouchable Face, Shameless, Both Hands, and Overlap.  The energy that night was so much stronger-most likely due to the fact that this night’s show was sold out.  I was a little disapointed to hear some of the same songs from the night before, but it’s how it is.  A performer has to give the audience what they want to hear…I haven’t really felt too emotional about the Obama thing-in the entirety of the campaign, when he was elected, or when he was sworn in.  Until this night.  Ani told us how she and her husband woke up all early on election day to vote-got there early, and there was a line out the door-of people of all ages, shapes, and colors.  It made her proud to be American (for the first time in a while).  After she found out he won, she wrote this November 4 song.  Everyone in the crowd Thursday night recieved it well and sang “Yes we can” with Ani as part of the chant in the middle of the song.  I got a little choked up.  Even the Aussies were all excited about Obama.  And that, to me, is encouraging.

So I arrived at this so called worst hostel in Fremantle to no one at the reception desk-which I need to add that was surrounded in chicken wire.  Interesting.  I pressed the Page button on the portable phone dock and waited until the receptionist came about 10 minutes later.  It was like a ghost town-there was no one in the lobby or the internet room.  I paid for the 4 nights and went up to my new home for the next 5 days.  The room is very airy with a high ceiling and a little balcony that has become a clothesline.  After I put the sheets on my bed, one of my roommates came in and I asked her about the hostel.  She said “It’s good enough, but it is very famous for bedbugs.”  Bedbugs!  I’ve heard about these guys, and seen what they leave on people-I’m not too keen on bedbugs!  But, being a backpacker and on a budget, I decided to stay and hope for the best.  (After one night I’m not affected, so far so good.)  I showered and set out to discover Fremantle.

My first thing on the itinerary was to find the Fremantle Arts Centre-Ani Difranco is playing there Wednesday and Thursday night-I had yet to get tickets, and this is THE reason I’m staying in Fremantle.  (I will stay in Perth after here.)  Thursday night was sold out, so I bought my ticket for Wednesday and wondered about how to get tickets for Thursday.  I walked around the suburb-it has a lot of nice shops, restaurants, cafes…It’s pretty hippie-rific here and dreadlocks are everywhere!  I noticed people walking around shoeless, popping in and out of shops like it was no big deal.  I knew I was liking Freo already!  I went to the grocery store, got some food, and headed back to the hostel to make dinner and find out about Thursday night’s concert.

I looked up craigslist.com and found nothing but found a similar Australian site called gumtree and got two numbers for tickets for Thursday night.  The first one I called says she will meet me an hour before the show at the venue!  What luck!  I jumped up and down in the middle of the street so thrilled about seeing Ani two nights in a row!  And in Australia!  Who hoo!!!!  I just hope she shows. 

I took a walk after dinner to digest my food and noticed it was eerily quiet.  The sun was still up, it was 7 pm, and all of the shops were closed.  Nothing was open save a few expensive restaurants.  I headed back to the hostel taking this as a sign.  Fremantle is a port town. 

I did some of the touristy stuff Wednesday morning, found Bathers Beach (not too impressive), the Shipwreck Galleries (pretty damn cool-although I do believe I picked the day to go that my Aunt Dianne O’Connor and my sister would have chosen for themselves.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then nevermind.), and the Roundhouse (the first building built in Fremantle and was used as-gasp-a prison!)

Soon I’m off to the hostel (that isn’t that bad-it could be really nice if they wanted it to be) for an early dinner and to go to day one of my concerts.  My next post will be a concert review, I’m warning you now, so enjoy this until I get to Perth.

To those of you in North America-stay warm!  😉

I boarded the train at 630 Sunday night in Adelaide with no expectations.  I had a window seat, which I was happy about, and an empty one next to me-score!  I learned that I would get a seatmate in Port Augusta at 11 pm that night.  I laid down across the seats and enjoyed the space while I could.  There was nothing but trainyards and suburbs to look at until the sun set.  I enjoyed my dinner of PB&J, an apple, and of course, Tim Tams.  I was woken up at 1030 to make room for my seatmate-an Aboriginal woman and her baby.  I’m sure you all know how thrilled I was to have a baby sitting next to me.  She was cute but very vocal.  The seat reclined suprisingly far back and I had a pretty decent night of sleep.

Around 10 am the next morning we stopped in Cook, a town of 4 people, only to run  souvineir shop and store water for the trains to refill.  I walked around for a few minutes until I realized I was in the outback again and did not feel like swatting flies away from my face!  Halfway through the next day people started moving around and the Aboriginal woman went to sit next to her husband.  I laid down again and zoned out to my iPod.  My day consisted of this: read Lord of the Rings, listen to my iPod, and look out at the nothingness of the Nullabor Plain.  Nullabor is derived from the Latin term meaning “no trees” or “without trees” or something like that.  You get the idea.  There was nothing.  This was the outback I had anticipated 2 weeks ago when I first arrived in Alice Springs.  Wow.  This Nullabor Plain also boasts the longest straight line of track-477 km.  It curves a bit and then runs on for another hundreds of kilometers of straight track.  Bo-ring!  My breakfast, lunch, and dinner consisted of PB&J, apples, and Tim Tams until the apples and Tim Tams ran out.  I won’t be eating peanut butter for a while. 

We arrived in Kalgoorlie-Boulder around 7 and we had a three and a half hour stop.  I took the whistlestop tour and boarded the bus headed for the gold mines-and don’t you know, they will be the biggest quarry in the world by 2017 when they’ve finished cutting into the ground.  It seems everything in Australia is the biggest, most, first, only…I’m beginning to think the Guinness Book of World Records was started here.  We drove past Paddy Hannan’s statue, house, and tree; he was the first recorded person to find gold in Kalgoorlie-or was it Boulder?  It started out as two towns, but as they became bigger, they kind of meshed into one.  This town also is the only town that has legalized prostitution in Western Australia (or is it all of Australia?) so of course we drove by the burlesque houses.  The older men on my tour seemed pretty impressed and made a few comments about being dropped off here.  Ha ha. 

I noticed that the town was not well lit-and nothing seemed open except for a few restaurants and of course the burlesque houses.  We arrived back at the train station an hour and a half before we were supposed to leave, but I still hung out at the train station for that time.  There was no way I was going to walk around a dark city at night by myself!

Quite a few people got off the train at Kalgoorlie, so there were a bunch of empty seats, meaning that I had two all to myself!  I laid across them and slept until 7 the next morning.  We were supposed to arrive in Perth at 9 am, but I guess we stopped for a few hours for some reason or other so we arrived in Perth at 1130.  No biggie-I was booked at the worst-rated hostel in Fremantle (suburb of Perth) and I was in no hurry to get there.

All in all, the train ride was nice, but I wouldn’t do it again. 

My first day in Adelaide I caught up on lost sleep.  I ran into a guy from the Ayers Rock tour and we went out with some other guys in the hostel-it was an early night, we only went through 3 jugs.  (A jug in Australia is what Americans would call a pitcher.)  I woke up the second morning and made my way to the beach.  Glenelg beach is nice and the water is oddly warm.  It was ridicously hot that day-I think around 40 C-and the water was not much of a relief.  The wind was hot too! 

My third day in I decided to mail some things home.  I developed my pics from the Great Barrier Reef-since I couldn’t mail a disposable camera-and was so disappointed.  10 of the photos were a fuzzy black, the rest had bad color and were a bit out of focus, and 4 actually turned out good.  Better four than none!  I mailed them by sea so it can take anywhere from 6 weeks to three months to get to the States.  Crazy!  I went out that night with a friend I met in Berlin when I was there a year and a half ago.  We were the only non-German 12 year olds on a school field trip staying in the hostel, so we became quick friends.  David and I went out for Vietnamese food and he drove me around his city.  We saw his high school, places of work, a beach that I forget the name of, and the skyline of Adelaide.  We drove to a high point out of the city so we could look at the lights.  It was amazing!  And eerily looked like the same light-filled city that LA is depicted as in so many movies….

The next day I went with my friend Cynthia-a girl I roomed with in Alice Springs-to the Central Markets.  The markets sell food-it was such a beautiful display of colors!  I finally found avacados that are cheaper than at home-massive guys for $1 each!  Cynthia and I enjoyed a cup of coffee-one thing that we both miss.  We wandered our way to the Art Gallery and looked at every piece of art in the place.  I always enjoy going to museums by myself, so I can go at my own pace, but it was nice for a change to go with someone-we could make comments and show each other what we were seeing.  We found the Botanical Gardens and sat for a few hours, just enjoying the scenery and talking.  After a while, we noticed we were surrounded by couples so we started walking around the gardens, since we had only stopped about 50 meters inside the gates!  Adelaide Botanical Gardens are beautiful!  I highly recommend to anyone.  Have I told you how much I enjoy the trees in Australia?  They are so amazingly huge and wrinkled-a sure sign of their age.  It makes them so beautiful.  (If I wasn’t a tree hugger before, I definately am now!)  My dinner today consisted of avacado spread over toast with a piece of cheese covering it.  It was probably one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time.  So simple, yet so delish!

Day 5 was a bit discouraging.  My original flight had me flying out of here on the 17, which was the next day (today January 17).  So I called United and they told me that I could change my date,  but not my route…after a few hours of coming to terms with this, I called back.  My flight leaves here and arrives in Chicago May 12.  I cringe writing this, but I know that very soon after arriving in my home city, I’m leaving for Europe.  So it’s not so bad.  (There’s real Mexican food in Chicago, and so are my tennis shoes.)  I went out with my friends from the outback for a few beers.  We were all so tired, we could barely keep our eyes open!  I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been so tired…probably because I’m not doing anything but lounging around? 

I went back to the beach today to work on my tan some more.  It was a bit chilly out (no idea what the actual temp was, but I’m guessing around 75 F?) so I didn’t make it in the water.  Just laid there, feeling the breeze, listening to the water, and half paying attention to the volleyball competition that was going on.  Now I’m sitting in my hostel telling you about my last week while doing laundry.  I just went grocery shopping, and don’t you know I bought more Tim Tams-the original are just as good as the caramel!  I leave here tomorrow for Perth via the legendary Indian Pacific.  I’ll board the train at 730 Sunday night and won’t get to Perth til Tuesday morning!  

See ya! 

I have a new addiction: Tim Tams.  I was told by many people before I left about how wonderfully delicious they were, so I held off on trying them.  My sweet tooth has won, and at my last grocery shopping experience, I picked up a box of Chewy Caramel Tim Tams.  As soon as I got back to the hostel, I opened the box.  I pulled two out (who was I kidding?) and put them on my plate, along with my PBJ (blackberry jam is the closest I can find to grape) and apple.  I took a bite and I instantly had goosebumps in my mouth!  It’s a simple cookie-biscuit if you’re in Australia, and probably most other places in the world-a chocolate coating that melts a bit on your fingers, a plainish cookie/wafter inside and a gooey caramel inside between the inside cookies.  It’s heaven in a cookie!  There are other flavors, but I have yet to try them.  I have heard a rumor that they sell Tim Tams in Target back home, but they’re not the same. 

For those of you who have worked with me, you know that I’m rarely ever late  to work.  It’s almost safe enough to say that I’m never late.  I’m also a clock-watcher.  If you tell me you’ll meet me at a designated time, I’ll be early.  I’m never late, and if it’s looking like I might be, I get anxious.  One boring way to describe me is punctual. 

Well…until now.  I misplaced my watch yesterday somewhere between the beach, some shops, and a shady spot under a tree.  I’m not as worried as I thought I would be.  I’m more concerned about my wrist feeling naked without it on.  Time doesn’t matter when you’re on holiday, right?  I do have planes to catch and I anticipate some early mornings, but a watch?  A constant reminder of time slipping away into a past that doesn’t matter anymore?  A constant reminder of what is yet to come?  Why does this need to be defined by a number?  Before I get all philosophical (or as Emily says that I think too much), I’ll stop. 

But I’m embracing not knowing what time it is with open arms.  It’s a new Laura, a Laura not restricted by time.  It goes with my new “laid back lifestyle”, as Hilary called it.    =)

Who was asking about food? Here’s one for ya:
I’ve had a few veggie burgers in the last week or two. Veggie burgers here aren’t made to resemble meat like they are back home. It’s a pattie of maybe hashbrowns or another crispy goodness and there’s chunks of vegetables inside it. Even whole peas. Now what is standard on the burger goes for carnivorous burgers and veggie burgers alike: burger (duh), lettuce, tomato, maybe mayo, and beets. Yep, sliced beets. And it’s surprisingly really good!

Another thing I’ve noticed as I’m meeting less and less native English speakers: I have slowed down my speech so much. I’ve noticed my inner dialouge has slowed down as well, which is what I find wierd. I’ve also noticed that my actions have slowed down and I’ve adopted a very slowish way of life, lounging around, taking a walk, sitting down under a tree to take in some scenery or a nap. I’m getting lazy, I know, but by whose standards? I’m enjoying every minute of it!