A year in review

There are times in life that you need to stop, breathe and reflect. For me one of those times is now. 2013 has been a big year full of love, laughter, happiness with a little sadness thrown in for good measure. 

The year started off with a bang. Literally. Bringing in my 3rd new year in the island paradise of Vanuatu, I celebrated with friends and family watching the fireworks on the water. The multiple earth tremors and after shocks that came next gave the new year it's own version of the shake, rattle and roll.

Fast forward 4 months and it was time to say my final goodbyes to this beautiful place and my Vanuatu family. My team's farewell was so heart felt, amazingly planned and traditional there was not a dry eye in the house. They sang to me like angels and showered me with gifts - an experience that has forever changed me.

After 11 long years away, I suddenly found myself unemployed, 29 years old and living back with my parents. And let me tell you I LOVED it! Between the cooking lessons, the daily happy hour, being my father's coffee making slave (which would come in handy later on) and a surprise 14,000ft sky dive thrown in, I almost didn't want to leave. Those 4 weeks were the longest consecutive time my family had seen me since I first left home and it was awesome. But before I knew it my time was up, my bags were packed, I had stragtecially placed surprise notes around the house for my family to find and then I was in the car heading towards my new life.

I arrived in Vancouver at the end of spring, and the week long jet lag not withstanding, I was home. The scenery of this place is from another world. Before I knew it summer had arrived and life was all about sun, beach and drinks on the patio. No complaints here! A little thing called a job came back into my life and I was once again a tax payer. I challenged myself with a career change and what a journey it has been so far. Let me just say, I am a person who has never drunk coffee (and frankly doesn't like the taste) who now manages and runs a Starbucks store. Like I said, challenging.

Summer then turned into fall (aka Autumm) and I was officially in love with the city. I was obsessed with the burnt colored leaves and the image of them in and around the city. It was something from the movies. Throw in a Halloween party and Thanksgiving dinner to round out the season and I was a happy camper. With the cooler weather, shorter days and increased cloud cover, Autumm was giving way to winter and that's when the real fun started.

I was finally going to experience my first northern hemisphere, Canadian winter. After putting fake snow around our lounge room at the start of the holiday season, I was blessed with the real deal a week before Christmas. Just amazing! However, one of the many things you don't learn while living in the tropics is how to drive in the snow. This country girl had to learn fast and I now just chalk it up to another life skill.

Christmas Day came and went almost as fast as the rum & eggnogs were being poured. Feeling my first bout of home sickness, I spent the day with friends huddled around the fire place and skyped family far away who were enjoying the sun, beach & time on the water.  

2013 has been a year of happiness, risk taking, courage, bravery, strength, faith, sadness, joy, love and most of all adventure. I am blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. 2014 will only be bigger and better. Visitors will start to arrive, friends will be welcomed and farewelled and I will celebrate the dirty 30! And of course there will be more world adventures for this country girl.

 

In the words of Susan Sontag, 'I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.'

Happy New Year everyone!

How not to speak to a Canadian

One of the many things I love about travelling is learning and navigating foreign accents and words of the English language. If you feel safe travelling to a country that speaks English as it's first language think again! We Aussies are a rare breed from Down Under. At home in OZ it can be confusing for others too as we have been invaded by the Kiwis. To all my Kiwi mates out there, they will always be thongs.... not jandals.

So during my recent move to Canada, I've had a few situations where conversation abruptly stops mid way through and you basically have to play charades just to get the rest of the conversation out. Other times I find myself repeating the word in question over and over again until it feels foreign even to me. Do I have you intrigued? Ha well enjoy my somewhat embarrassing yet laughable experiences thus far.

One of the many draw cards for my move to Canada was the wildlife. I mean killer whales and grizzly bears are a normal part of life here. Not to mention the random deer that hang out on the side of the road. Who wouldn't want to experience that?!? So in my second week here I spent some time on Vancouver Island and bought my killer car aptly named Betty, Black Betty. The owner very generously picked me up the day I got her. He was asking me what I was doing on the island, where I was from etc. I told him I was on a mission to see killer whales and bears. He turns to look at me with a strange look on his face and says 'sorry what do you want to see?' So I said again, killer whales and bears. He's silent for a moment and then says 'biers?' 'No, bears'. 'Biers?'. 'No, bears'. 'Umm biers?'. 'No. Bears. You know grrrrr' (imagine me doing claw imitations with my hands). 'Oh! Bearrrrrrrrrs!' 'Yes. Bears.... like I said'.

I'm currently reacquainting myself with the whole cooking fad. I have my fall back dishes and being half Italian, Risotto is one of my favs, and I have to say I make a killer dish. So I move into my new place with 3 awesome Canucks (that's what they're called here don't ask) and this is something I make in my first week. One of them come up to me in the kitchen and asks what I'm cooking. 'I'm making risotto.' 'Reesotoe?'. 'Risotto.' 'Ree-so-toe?' 'Ri-sott-o. Italian dish'. Oh! that looks yum!'. Someone get me a wine!

I admit I was a little naughty during my travels and would randomly stop through McDonalds for a drink or an ice-cream. This one day I was driving through the drive-through and ordered a coke. OMG let's just say every other item on the extensive menu was added to my bill with me literally yelling at the speaker that I just wanted a coke. 'I'm sorry, you want a McChicken meal?' 'Ummm no a coke.' 'So that was 10 nuggets?' F*^K! 'No a coke. You know a soft drink?' 'Oh so that's a caramel sundae?' Really?!? About to get out of my car and hit something I try and remember all the American lingo I can from the movies I've watched (as charades wasn't an option to the speaker) and say 'OK I want a coke. You know - pop, soda  - does that make sense?' 'Oh you want a cola?' FML. 'Yes.' 'OK drive through.' I'll never get those 10 mins back.

I've got to say though I am loving the Canadian accent. I love it when people try to imitate the Aussie accent and say what they think is an Aussie phrase. Most of the time I have no idea what they think they are saying. One of my flat mates is currently working on how to say 'around the round about' in 'Australian' purely because we have a round about at our corner and she thinks its funny that I say that when I literally need to go around the round about. Confused but kept entertained.

As much as single words trip people up, our slang keeps 'em guessing too. I've just started a new job in the service industry. Talking with people is a passion of mine and I'm good at it. So being my friendly self I said to a guy 'Good Morning how are you going?' His step faulted only slightly and he looked at me like a deer in headlights for a split second. 'I'm going' he answered. Before I could laugh, apologise or explain (I probably would have just laughed),  he quickly followed that up with a 'You're obviously not from around here' while still trying to mentally work out what it was I was actually saying. Note to self: use that line more often.

So next time you think about learning an exotic language like French or Spanish, don't waste your time. Travel to another English speaking country. Trust me, some of it will be just as challenging! 

Stars and Stripes

It was with a 4am wakeup call that I began my epic 36 hour journey to my new life. I had meticulously tried to prepare as much as possible to ensure my journey was a smooth one. One thing I did not account for was an Asian group check-in on the same flight, arriving 1 minute after them and getting stuck in a ridiculously long check-in queue. After accepting my fate and graciously getting in line it wasn’t until a leader of the group thought he could squeeze in 5 more people in front of me that I laid down the law on my foreign traveler friends and told them in no uncertain terms that if he was going to try that then I would jump the queue and go straight to the front. Guess who got checked in first?

I had an uncanny dream about a month before this trip that one of my flights got cancelled and I missed my connecting flight. When I woke up the next morning I found Qantas had emailed me informing me that my first flight had been cancelled and it would need to be rebooked. All went well and I got a flight 30 mins later allowing a bit more of a sleep in. Yay me! Now on a 36 hour journey with 3 different flights, any well-travelled person would book a connecting flight so they didn’t have to deal with dragging luggage all around at each stop. So that’s what I booked…. Or thought I had. Due to the cancellation, my national carrier downgraded me to their low cost carrier, which in the beginning I didn’t mind, but as the check-in lady proceeded to explain to me that due to the different carriers I would have to transport my own bags in Brisbane.

Now I wasn’t upset that I had to get my bags. What made this traveler an unhappy traveler was that my connecting booking was no longer connecting, my 4.30am start was not starting the way I it needed to and 2 checked bags (46kgs) 1 carry on bag 1 laptop bag & 1 handbag did not equal ‘fun times’ to me as I hashed out a plan to move terminals. So I informed her as much. Upon arriving in Brisbane I tried my luck at International check-in, because let’s face it my trip wasn’t amazing so far, and after some checking the check-in lady Marji upgraded me which made the 13 hour flight more bearable.

It amazes me how people can board a flight at 10.30am and be asleep soon after take off. Didn’t you just wake up? Needless to say I didn’t sleep. The flight to LA was super smooth and other than 2 bits of turbulence you would never think you were over 30,000ft in the air. The flight was pretty non eventful for all on board but this is me I’m talking about. Where there is a will there is a way. Not that I wanted to but I somehow found myself red-faced and embarrassed midflight.

I made quite a few trips up and down the isle to stretch my legs and to the toilet. My first trip to the toilet, in my defense, was in near darkness. I went to the door that had a sign mentioning toilet and I assumed that was it. Well it wasn’t. What a nice surprise it was when the male flighty came over and in a not so quiet voice advised me that the door lead to the cupboard and I couldn’t go in there. Red faced, I turned around to see the door behind a curtain behind me. After returning to my seat I was putting my bag in the overhead locker when the same flighty stopped by and kindly advised me that the cupboard on the left (super small and skinny cupboard) was not a toilet either and I shouldn’t try going into that one either. Ha. Ha.

So I finally made it to LA, scanned all 10 fingers & thumbs on the customs scanner and seemingly registered myself with US Homeland Security, got some well needed sleep, skyped my family and got asked if my accent was English. Now I sit in the Alaskan Airlines departure lounge waiting for my next and final flight to my new home – Canada!