Tag Archives: travel

Mar 31 2012
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Travel

Dear Gold Coast Family

Please forgive the forthcoming sappiness.

I always seem to meet the most incredible people when I travel. And I always seem to be traveling, so fortunately, I’m always meeting incredible people. People who walk me to cafes instead of merely explaining how to get there; people who lend me wetsuits and surfboards and warm coats; people who welcome me into their homes, who make their homes my homes, whose friends open their homes; people who actually consider whether their homemade meals clash with my morals; people who share their Coronas, their whiskey, their Milo, their wine; people who pick me up at the airport, who drop me off at new breaks, who reveal hidden waterfalls; people who give me birthday cards and Christmas cake; people who show me things I’d miss on my own. People, in short, who make me feel like I’m not on my own. Who make this big world feel small.

Not so many places that I’ve been have felt like “home.” There have been a few: I instantly felt like I belonged in Paris. New York has always been “the City.” My city. I never seemed to make a wrong turn in Glasgow. And I still think I’m a Californian who just happened to be born in Jersey. I didn’t fall in love with the Goldy the first time I came here. I felt comfortable, but that’s different than feeling right. And that’s still different than feeling at home.

I don’t believe home is a place. I believe it’s a person. Sometimes, it’s people. As a constant wanderer (and hopeless romantic), I conveniently pin “home” to movable being[s] . I have found family on the Gold Coast, and it’s for that reason that it feels like home.

My family in the States will probably tell you that I have no trouble–at all–leaving people behind. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fought back tears while boarding a bus. That’s a lie; I can tell you that it’s happened twice in recent memory. Ask Yudi about the bus ride we shared. I’m terrified of walking away. I hate leaving people I love nearly as much as I love leaving. Nearly. So, I choose to believe that we’ll run into each other at Versailles, at The Pass, at the QT Hotel. It wouldn’t be the first time. Because it is a small world, after all. And, of course, you’re welcome to come with me. If not, until next time, at least we have Facebook. But seriously, thank you. For everything. And see you soon…

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Dec 13 2011
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Hither and Thither, Travel

Id, Ego, and Superego.

Chasing interviews, hunting cheap [enough] flights, drinking coffee, checking the surf, trying to feel out the future while remaining “noncommittal.” Or untethered. Avoiding [additional] credit card debt. Making coffee. Serving coffee. Drinking coffee. Thinking about surfing. Checking the surf. Eating massive bikkies for lunch. Skyping my mom. Pitching editors. Thinking about not thinking about boys. Boy. Thinking about surfing. Surfing. Eating mango/vodka smoothies for dinner. Facebooking. Thinking about flying. Dreaming about sharks. Missing Scotland. Prematurely dreading leaving Australia. Thinking about “home.” Surfing. Charging flights to my Amex. Frequent flier miles. Working to pay off my Amex. Funneling money into social life (beer/Mexican food/bus fare/body wash) instead. Drinking coffee. Re-pitching editors. Accruing interest. Starring/ignoring emails with the subject line “Your Student Loans.” Absolutely refusing to think about boys. Boy. Wearing sunscreen. Failing to reapply sunscreen. Working. Surfing. Editing. Skyping. Coffee. Harassing editors. Stalking sources. Calling legends. Leaving voicemails. Texting legends. Answering the question, “Who are you?” (Posed by legends.) Drinking coffee. Formulating hypotheses. Digging up statistics. Checking the surf. Tweeting. Transcribing. Surfing. Breaking down and thinking about boys. Boy. For 10 seconds. Eating wedges for dinner. Sleeping. Just a little. Devising a plan. Tossing said plan out the window.

Such is life.

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Nov 15 2011
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Travel

Circumnavigating Part 7: Making Like Magellan

Day two at Hanalei. Mike is exceptionally patient and encouraging, so I’m not sure what I’m hoping Alouette will do for me in the water, but I do have hopes of a better outcome than yesterday. I suppose on some level, I’m thinking that Alouette is a woman and, maybe, more my speed. Mike is a gristley guy with a lifetime of surf experience, ranging from New York winters to pumping Hanalei and beyond. I’m also hoping that the waves will be a size that I consider more fun than, say, deadly, since everyone keeps saying the swell’s going down.

Alouette turns out to be just as dauntless as Mike and just a little less nurturing (in the lineup). The swell is still up.

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Oct 22 2011
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Travel

Circumnavigating Part 4: Sydney Revisited, Canberra, and Melbourne

I’m at Pancakes on the Rocks. Again. Mildly hungover and/or sleep-deprived. I order the most embarrassingly big breakfast. It literally arrives on two plates. There are chocolate pancakes involved. The shame is heightened by the fact that I am sitting by myself. That, and, the way the waiter looks at me–like some kind of curiosity; a bottomless pit at which to marvel. A half hour later, I’m slumped on a bench near Campbell’s Cove, unsure whether the massive brekky will help or hinder my recovery and hoping for some noticeable vitamin D absorption; the sun is brilliant. The harbour bridge is just behind me and the opera house is right across the water. It’s just so pleasant in Sydney. It’s just so clean, so temperate, so… not Cairns.

—

Over the next few days, I spend an inconsiderate amount of time with friends, avoiding hostels by sleeping on a vintage love seat in Adam Mada’s living room somewhere near the beach in Sydney. I share the room with his magical fish and Emily’s mom, Eileen, who sleeps on the floor. Kindly, no one makes me feel like the spectacular mooch that I am.

Adam, a magician by profession, is Emily’s brother-in-law and he has allowed me and, pretty much, their entire family to invade his home. One morning, Adam plans to take us on an alternate coastal walk–the route is known only to him, so the whole crew sets out, blindly, on foot from Bondi. We walk through a ritzy neighborhood, past many bays full of sailboats and pontoon planes, up hills. Up more hills. We stop to swim and it’s lost on no one that Sydney Harbour is more notoriously populated by sharks than the ocean. Thankfully, this swimming area has a net around it, but Eileen wonders, “What if a baby shark swam through the net and grew up?” It’s so hot that we swim despite the remote possibility of a shark outsmarting a safety net.

We continue walking: even more hills. After a while, we are begging for coffee and a place to rest our weary feet. Adam promises tea on a cliff overlooking the ocean, so on we trek. Several hours later, we are sunburnt and mutinous.

“Where’s that cliff-side café, Adam?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said if we kept walking, we’d be rewarded with coffee and a fantastic view!”

“Oh. Yeah. I don’t know, I just figured we’d find something like that.”

THERE IS NO CLIFFSIDE CAFÉ!

We are rapidly losing faith, but still, we follow Adam. When we turn up at Bondi Sewage Treatment Works, which, admittedly, does have a great view but, you know, also processes shit and is probably a little toxic, we abandon our fearless leader and find comfort in body surfing, followed by beer. Later, looking at a map, I still can’t figure out exactly where we walked. But I do know that it was almost entirely uphill and it took about 6 hours. Possibly longer.

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Aug 05 2011
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Travel

Circumnavigating Part 2: Sydney and The Subs

You know how sometimes on those red-eye, trans-Atlantic flights, 7 hours doesn’t quite cut it? By the time you’ve had your lasagna, watched Nicholas Cage’s latest, and, finally, lulled your brain into a state somewhat resembling sleep, you’ve got to put your seat in an upright position and prepare for landing. Sleep be damned. This is not an issue on the flight from London to Sydney.

Also not an issue: The condensation of time. I leave London Friday night and arrive in Sydney Sunday morning. Just go with it. “We’re not spending much time in Saturday,” Nick says casually. Nick is the amiable British guy to my right. He and his girlfriend, Kate, will be splitting five weeks between New Zealand and Australia. They ask me how I liked London and when I hesitantly say something along the lines of, “It was cool…” they inform (as if it is a fact) me that people in England get friendlier as you climb in latitude. Interesting.

In our stout Saturday, we experience Suvarnabhumi International Airport (and what is visible of Bangkok through the windows) as hot, hazy, and lush. The sun sinks into evening as we begin the second leg of our flight, after just an hour and a half on solid ground. Qantas serves dinner, but I’m still full from breakfast. Somewhere between Thailand and Australia, in the middle of the night, I look out one of the few open windows and observe a stupendous display of lightning: It’s bouncing off the clouds and it’s orange.

Stepping into Australia is like napping on that incredible couch you used to have in that apartment you used to have: Slightly disorienting but oh-so cozy. It’s just after 7 a.m. in Sydney and I am greeted by a chatty man in passport control and a smiling customs officer. And sunshine.

After arriving too early to access my first ever hostel room, I stumble upon Darling Harbour, by which locals seem unimpressed. I think it is beautiful. I can’t believe how many fish and likely poisonous jellyfish are visible right next to the dock. By 4:28 in the afternoon, I am completely exhausted and completely enamored with Sydney.

The hostel, on the other hand, is not doing much to win my favor. The girl at the front desk gave me the wrong change for my key deposit and when I told her, she had to check the surveillance camera to see whether my claim was accurate. They don’t allow alcohol in the building. I feel like I’m back in freshman year at Rutgers. Except there are five other vagabonds in my room, I need a swipe card to use the bathroom, and I’m pretty sure the bedroom door doesn’t really lock.

With sleep-deprived eyeballs, I decide to watch Drive Thru Australia because 6:37 p.m. is clearly too early to go to bed. I don’t make it much past nine, and am wide awake at four the next morning.

—

The Tim Tam Chiller’s one flaw is that it doesn’t actually have any coffee in it. However, by adding a shot of espresso, it is rendered the perfect way to keep cool in summertime Sydney. Another great way to keep cool is to roam the streets and let copious amounts of wasted energy wash over you: Every shop seems to blast the A/C whilst maintaining a literal open door policy. Not that I’m complaining–I think this is the hottest week that Sydney will see all summer, and at one point, I hover in the doorway of an under-construction bar and chug a half litre of water.

In miles and miles of walking, I note that people in Sydney are damn good-looking. And they look like surfers: sun-tinted. It’s funny, though, because I don’t think the majority of them are. I’m sure there’s some kind of statistic that reveals that while 98% of Sydney residents have, at some point in time, found themselves on surfboards, only 40% of them actually surf regularly. Surf mags are also surprisingly hard to come by. And they cost $9–$14 if you get the “Air Freight” [CURRENT] issue.

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Aug 04 2011
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Travel

Circumnavigating Part 1: Paris and London Plus Board

The Inertia kindly published part one of Circumnavigating a few months ago. In case you didn’t see it, here it is. If you did (and enjoyed), look for part two tomorrow.

Against all logic and airline stipulations, my board and I traveled from New York to Paris, to Metz, back to Paris, to London, and to Sydney (via Bangkok) without paying a single baggage fee. Unless you count needing a bigger-than-standard taxi in Paris. And actually, the board got me some free first-class Chunnel seats.

—

Friends at home kept suggesting that I just ship the Penguin straight to Australia and forget about dragging it around with me, for the sake of expediency and cash flow. I insisted that taking it with me would be a “funny” thing to do—and would probably be cheaper. To those friends, I say… “Wait a second, I was right?” Okay, only half right, maybe.

—

The guy who checks me in at the Iceland Air counter gingerly presses a “Fragile” sticker onto the bag and says it is light enough to fly for free. The very image of hospitality. Nevermind that I will shiver through the entire flight, there will be no food served, and Icelandic sounds like a mash-up language.

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Jun 17 2011
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Melodious, Travel, Video

Friendly Fires’ New Video “Hawaiian Air”

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May 19 2011
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Flicks

Q&A with Ryan Moss on SURFER

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Mar 29 2011
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Travel

The Trouble with Hostels

As I sit in Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport, refusing to pay $6 for 30 minutes of wifi, and marveling that the explosive check guy asked if I was over 18, it also occurs to me that hostel people are a curious type. By “hostel people,” I mean people who genuinely like them. And by “curious,” I do not mean inquisitive.

I spent the last week in a hostel–my longest stretch yet. As you may have deduced, the word “snob” has been thrown at me from time to time: I fancy fancy beers and I don’t particularly enjoy sharing bedrooms with strangers. Judge me as you will. Anyway, I am calling seven nights in a four-person dorm a personal accomplishment. I wouldn’t say it was ace, but I wasn’t miserable. Sharing a room with three is better than sharing a room with five or nine. The Nunnery is clean and provides a [sparse] breakfast each morning. And there are lots of opportunities for socializing. The thing is, socializing can be frustrating in this setting, which basically amounts to an itinerant frat house.

Weirdly, my aversion has nothing to do with screaming, sloppy 20-year-olds. They’re fine. It has to do with the fact that people who stay in hostels always (okay, often) try to make your trip inferior to theirs. I had a guy from Indiana tell me, “Well, I’ve got the travel bug real bad.” As if my being on the other side of the planet–alone–isn’t proof enough that I enjoy traveling. Mind you, this was after he said, “You’re from Jersey and you haven’t fallen in love with anywhere here?” Let the record show that I merely said I haven’t [yet] found a spot in Oz where I’d be willing to work any random job to pay the rent.

I told another girl I’ll have spent a little over two months in Australia and she said, “Oh, a short little trip!”

Yeah, hostel people are weird.

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Mar 25 2011
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Hither and Thither, Travel

When Manners Go Awry

People have been asking me if I’m Canadian.

I don’t say “aboot” or “eh” (very much). That aside, our accents are similar, so I was thinking this was a fair guess.

It’s sort of vital for us “morally indefensible” hustlers (journalists) to be able to put people at ease. I’m decent at making people think I:

a. want to hear their thoughts

b. won’t judge them.

These are mostly true. As a result, strangers ask to join me for meals. They also seem to feel they can confide in me. You’re wondering what this has to do with me being Canadian, eh?

Well, my receptive and amicable demeanor has apparently encouraged a handful of recent acquaintances to reveal that they already suspected I was American; they only asked if I was Canadian(not American) to avoid offending me, on the off-chance that I was, in fact, Canadian. Does anyone else see a discrepancy here?

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