Mirrors

A conversation threw up a passing reference to European settlers' naming habits in the New World.  Far away from home, the travellers looked for mirrors of their familiar places and landmarks ... so the Southern Alps get called the Southern Alps, for example.  All of this made me think about mirrors and reminded me of these pictures I took in New Zealand before Christmas.

The science part (as Jennifer Aniston, God bless her, would say) is that glacier lakes tend to be particularly still (I can't remember why - perhaps because they aren't fed by rivers/springs like other lakes?) and so you get amazing reflections.

Right Here, Right Now

So, where are you right now, Eithne?  I'm in New Zealand.

Narrow it down a little, can't you?  All right, I'm in Auckland.  I'm sitting by the open window of my hotel room and for the last hour I've been watching the sky.  And before that I was drinking a very nice glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, crying salty tears into it as I watched the final ever episode of Gilmore Girls.

I usually am pretty good about going out and exploring when I'm travelling for work, but I have to say I draw the line at sitting by myself in a restaurant on Valentine's Day ....  Plus, I'm pretty exhausted, having arrived here late last night/early this morning for work.  I had only a few hours' sleep and then a full day of meetings but there are some compensations:

1. bright sunshine all day
2. having the foresight to download my favourite tv to my laptop before I left Australia
3. a glass of wine and a Reese's peanut butter cup (so wrong and yet so right)

I didn't really have all that much to share, but I just really wanted to update my blog.  

A Good Sign

[This was meant to be sent from Sydney yesterday, but I had to board my flight before it had finished uploading.]

I'm in Sydney today.  I should have updated the 'Where in the World' sidebar, but that would have required a level of organisation I wasn't capable of reaching when I arose at 4.30 this morning.  Yes, ouchie.

I was in meetings all day, but at lunchtime I escaped for a brief walk through the Botanic Gardens.  I saw this sign, read it, did a double take, read it again, smiled.  There should be more signs like this - and yes, I did walk on the grass and smell the roses.

Book Review: Well, for a start it has the best title EVER

One of the highlights of my January was the arrival of a thick package in the post; opened, it contained my very own copy of I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson.

Many things are pleasing about this book: as well as the fabulous title, there's the fabulous zebra print cover.  Lady Traveller's Little Sister pointed out that (what with the somewhat distressed condition of the cover) it looked like some poor old zebra had been skinned expressly for the purpose (fear not, it's actually cloth).  (Interestingly, according to this blog, the book is highly in demand by stylists who prize the aesthetic appeal of the zebra stripes.)



(Zebra stripes were a bit of a theme with Osa.)

But even better than the cover are the contents.  Osa was just 16 when she met Martin Johnson; she had never been outside Kansas.  He, though also from Kansas, had recently returned from a trip with the adventure writer Jack London (he won his place on London's ship The Snark by winning a letter-writing competition.  Kids - pay attention!)  Martin had been a keen photographer from an early age and later pioneered documentary film-making.

The Johnsons spent their honeymoon in the Solomon Islands.  For exercise they lugged super-heavy camera equipment uphill and ran downhill, pursued by angry natives.  Martin's ambition was to film  a cannibal feast; eventually they did but only narrowly escaped being served up as dessert.

You'd think that would put any new bride off adventure for good, but not our Osa (little Osa, as she's often described.)  After the Solomons, they spent chunks of time in Borneo and East Africa and became famous filmmakers.

What I love about Osa is that she determines to be an active participant, rather than just tagging along behind Martin. Yes, she does worship her husband with a fervour that gets kind of old (or maybe he really was that wonderful?) but she's not just a passive tagger-alonger.  She works - hard - to put her own stamp on their adventures.  And yes, a lot of that involves creating comfortable homes for them en route - but this is no small feat of organisation, since their homes ranged from grass huts to little boats to mud cabins.   She was also handy with a gun, made friends wherever they went and learned to fly (they had two planes, Osa's Ark and Spirit of Africa, both - wait for it - in animal print, one with zebra stripes, the other with giraffe spots.)

I previously quoted her Christmas menu from Lake Paradise (their home in a remote part of Kenya) but now I'd like to give you Osa's thoughts relative to Lady Travellers:

A woman that's too soft and sweet is like tapioca pudding - fine for them as likes it.

And finally, here's a great movie clip from the 1930s that gives the Story So Far of the Johnsons:

I'd marry Adventure in a heartbeat if it gave me a zebra-striped plane.

Back to the Future

Or ‘Why moving to a new city for the second time is easier’;

Alternatively: ‘I didn’t want to leave Dublin, but now that I’m here, I’m actually quite glad.’

As ardent followers of this blog [n=6] will have noticed, my enthusiasm for blogging waned at the end of 2010.  The truth is I was tired of travelling.  When I left my job in London and started The Big Adventure, I itched to explore.  I loved the freedom of No Stuff.  I liked the lightness it gave me.  I liked my new-found openness.  Greece, France, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia … the further, the better.  Until I found myself in Melbourne in the grip of winter, hard at work and feeling like I’d made a mistake.  This wasn’t fun, it was too far, I missed my home, my family, my friends and, yes, my stuff.  I persevered and reminded myself that this was a different kind of adventure: less holiday, more work.  But still, the feeling of having had enough lingered.  Certainly, by the time of my New Zealand trip at the end of the year, I felt, too often, like I was going through the motions: glacier, check; mountain, check; city, check.  When I finally made it home to Dublin, I never wanted to leave. 

Two months seems like a long time at one end, and like no time at all on the other.  As the date of my departure for Melbourne approached I went through the motions of getting ready to leave, but found it very hard to convince myself that I really was going back to the other side of the world.  Until, suddenly, there I was, in Dublin Airport again, saying goodbye again.  Is there anything worse than the moment where you have to turn your back and walk away?  I swear that I considered turning around, asking if I could stay, letting the plane go without me. 

The journey is strange: the closest thing to inter-planetary travel most of us will ever experience.  It’s a foggy cycle of announcements, movies, funny, compact meals that goes on and on and on.  Abu Dhabi airport at nighttime added to the surreal feeling: essentially one huge duty free shop with a few seats.

And then I got off the plane and it was summer and I thought, surprised, ‘oh I like Melbourne’ and realised that this wasn’t such a bad result after all.  The second time round the city is familiar.  I recognised landmarks on the way in from the airport.  I have a phone that works and a bank account (with money in it, even.)  I have friends here.  People welcome me back.

And what’s this?  Why, it’s my dormant sense of adventure, uncurling and stretching.  And so I have resolved to make the most of the next five months.  My name’s Eithne.  I’m a Lady Traveller – and I like it. 

Plans for the next few months include going to Tasmania to visit the recently-opened Museum of Old and New Art, going to Alice Springs so that I can see what A Town Like Alice really looks like (and finally see some Outback) and sorting myself out with a bicycle so I can explore Melbourne more thoroughly.  I also have a mad idea to visit Samoa, but will have to see how I go.  If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Long Live Luíseach

It was a dark and stormy night on Friday, in Melbourne as well as Dublin.

The rain fell and the wind blew and I had to wade through flood water up to my knees to get home.  And so I did not post on my blog in honour of LUISEACH’s birthday.  But it IS still her birthday weekend, and at the start of her 24^th year, I would like to record the following:

Luíseach is awesome. 

She makes me laugh. 

She makes me things – including the origami crane earrings she gave me for Christmas which look like they were bought in a shop but were NOT. 

She invented the disaster movie drinking game.  (And for the inaugural event, made me French toast and martinis for dinner.  Fabulous combination, no?)

She has excellent taste in books and music.

She has a perfect genius for fancy dress.

Luí, when they told me I was getting a little brother or sister (some 23 and a bit years ago), it could have gone horribly wrong. 

I could have had a gin-hating, musical-despising, Mitford-loathing, Handsome Men [aka Band of Brothers]-resistant, cake-spurning, sensible shoe-wearing USURPER. 

Instead, I got you.

  

In the immortal words of that great poet of our day, Kelly Clarkson, My Life Would Suck Without You.

Picture Dictionary: Icy Pole

Icy Pole [ahy-see pohl]

-noun

A frozen, usually sweet, confection on a stick; sometimes ice cream based.  See: ice pop, ice lolly.

I am not making this up - you can visit the website www.goldengaytime.com.au

In the interests of research I've had one (well, you'd have to, wouldn't you?) and it's pretty good: vanilla ice cream inside toffee icecream, with a chocolate coating and biscuit sprinkles.