Travel Tales, Revisited: Thailand: May 10 - 17, 2010

I thought I'd be up to date posting on where I was each day a year ago, but here's a quick catch up for the two weeks I've missed. According to the delightful Abe who sends me emails daily reminding me where I was a year ago, it was on Tuesday May 11, 2010 that Ora and I checked into the magnificent and opulent Asian castle, Montien House on Koh Samui, Thailand. Complete with a "poo room" and a beach-facing swimming pool, that was kinda all we needed. Oh, and coconuts. For like a dollar.

Our daily adventure of walking 20 minutes in the steamy, pre-wet-season heat following our morning swim for my scheduled feed at the kosher mecca always included a 'leisurely' stroll back down the main road where I was ripped off accordingly by purchasing a wallet (for the record, broke somewhere in Italy), shoulder bag (broke earlier, in Spain) and sarong (now that one's still in my cupboard, but has since been eclipsed by some fabulous Israeli beachwear, more on that later). Check ins on Chaweng Road tended to depend on the availability of the wifi, but three days in and I was sipping pink cocktail jugs and watching tennis on the big screen at the Bondi bar with no one but a Swiss couple for company, and a wifi password clutched in my hand. Twas a habit I'd have to get used to as the phrase "wifi password?" became the first I mastered in every pronunciation. (For the record, in Europe, it's wee-fee).

The Ark Bar, Black Moon, Green Mango and Bondi Bar were made all the more fabulous thanks to our resort neighbours and their gorgeous partners in crime, the lovely Lauren and Layla of Dubai who were sweetly obliged even after the eighteenth bucket-fuelled moment, to show us the air hostess slash stewardess slash flight attendant slash what is the politically correct term anyway method of pointing at your nearest exit (may be behind you!) Teee.

I was given my first introduction to the grooming habits of European men after a harsh lesson of inadvertently insulting an Austrian man and his hairdryer, and proved that even travel wouldn't keep a tennis habit down as I watched Nadal prove pwnership over Federer at the Madrid final in a hot, sweaty Aussie pub. Our island adventures - separately planned - brought us in touch with the sweet and lovely Awe, mother of a daughter who knew her English father only through Skype, and the gorgeous islands of Mo Koh Ang Thong Marine Park (I so got that wrong) taught me that heaven is indeed a place on earth. Aloe vera massages and DVD shopping were all that remained between us and a nightflight from the gorgeous, balmy, coconut-furniture and most-beautiful-airport-bathrooms-TM at Koh Samui airport to....

Monday, May 17, 2010, 10.19pm: CoffeeWorld, Bangkok Airport.

There were riots going on but we didn't care. That's cos we had wifi for the computer and hot water for the Osem noodles, and we were safely ensconced in Bangkok airport having survived the barrage of interrogation from Israeli security personnel. One night flight later fast unsleep under the snug, pilfered blankets of Thai Airways and I had a simcard, a 3G connection and checked in at....

Tuesday, May 17, 9.13am: Ben Gurion Airport

NEXT!

Travel Tales: Revisited.

Alright, here's the deal. Contrary to my own assertions prior to last year's epic Fabulous Tour of the Universe TM, I neglected to keep a travel blog, and in doing so, probably robbed myself of precious memories that will last a lifetime and create joy and laughter and tears and bla bla bla. But instead of licking my wounds and mourning the failure to provide adequate memories for my grandchildren, I've discovered another way, thanks to the joys of modern technology and this fabulous new phenomenon we love to hate, known as social media.

Last year, my little piece of adorable joy called my iPhone and I spent every waking (and honestly, sleeping) moment together. I also spent a considerable amount of travel time on the Neverending Wifi Hunt and the Inevitable Password Ask at bars, restaurants, public plazas, hostels and even private homes. This meant I managed to use a handy app called Foursquare to record many of my movements - and record them for posterity. Add to that my iPhone calendar telling me where I was every day and, lo and behold - MEMORIES!

Some dude called Abe who created some app thingy is now emailing me daily telling me where I was one year ago to the day. I'm taking those emails and revisiting memories. If you were lucky enough to be there with me, you'll get tagged. And that, my darling loves, is my new fashioned travel blog for 2012. So buckle up. It's Fabulous Tour of the Universe ,TM. REFRICKINVISITED

Let the sunshine in!

Today is a sunny day in New York City.

When I say sunny, I mean so sunny that I didn't recognise my apartment door when I came home earlier, thinking I was still one flight below my own. That's because for some strange reason, my benevolent landlord hasn't installed a lightbulb in the hallway on my floor, but on the floor below. So my apartment door is perpetually shrouded by darkness. Today when I trekked up the usual four flights, the skylight was streaming sunshine directly onto my door - and, yeah, I struggled. So that's how pretty it is today.

Now spring springs (tee hee) differently here in NYC than it does back down under. In Melbourne, I remember those few days of sunshine and blossoms in September, but I don't think anything major starts happening until spring racing in October. Then the pretty dresses and fascinators start proliferating every Chapel Street and Chadstone boutique; the horsies, B-list celebs and marquee gossip are all over the Herald Sun news; and we gear up for our first "hot day", when after the first half hour of sunshine, everyone starts whingeing about the heat.

Over here, the hot days haven't begun, but the sunshine does something that changes the city completely, like some sort of colour autoenhance on Photoshop, or changing a sepia photograph to bright technicolour. Everyone is frolicking - literally frolicking - down the streets, the kids are out and about, the birds are singing, the sun is shining - yeah, it's all because THE SUN IS SERIOUSLY SHINING, Y'ALL.

Now here comes my question as a first year New Yorker and all: Back in November, after my fourteenth fight (out of about sixty three this year, and counting) with the landlord regarding the temperature of my frigid home, he introduced me to the concept of plastic on the window panes to keep the chill out. Which has been all nice and lovely this winter, as I've shivered away, because it's meant that my fourth-floor-walkup-front-facing-windows on a rather busy street have remained curtain-less while I kid myself that the cloudy plastic shields my goings-on from the neighbourhood. Now the sun is shining, so what happens with the plastic? If I take it down, what happens if it gets cold again?

In the meantime, though, Imma make some sangria. And LET THE SUNSHINE IN!

Foursquare Stalkerazzi: Big Town versus Big Apple

Tonight I found myself explaining to someone what foursquare is. It's always interesting hearing the explanation to people out of the technotard universe, and in this case, the focus was on marketing:

"It's for people to check in where they are, and as the owner of the business, you have data of who was there, who they are, that kind of thing."

Huh.

Obviously it set off all the lovelies present in a panic over privacy issues, before they were reassured that no, it only gets shared with your friends, unless of course you press the glorious Twitter or Facebook button, or decide to keep your settings way way open. I then admitted that actually, I only check in to places that are fairly open and public and full of people if I'm alone, because, you know, stalkers abound.

Which got me thinking about how much more comfortable I've been checking in since I got to New York rather than back in Melbourne.

I joined foursquare a year ago, right before I departed the island shores. In Oz, checking in at Orange Cafe on a Monday night, in a town that I now view as tiny, meant that the other 37 social media whizkids in Melbourne who also had Foursquare, would know precisely where I am. And who knows, might decide to pay me a visit. So unless I was swarming at the MCG for a football match, I kept it way on the down low.

In NYC, everywhere I go has nineteen people already there, trending places nearby. Why wouldn't I spread the love, and keep a record of where I've been for the evening?

Well, because you could get stalked too... Like the evening I had a few weeks ago, when a friend visiting from Melbourne texted me to meet up. I had my phone open, then another text came, then I went to get a drink, and as you do, closed the text to look at something else - and promptly forgot to reply.

Twenty minutes later, while heading outside to meet a friend who had just arrived, who pulls up in a taxi? Yeah, the new kids on the block. Turns out they'd done a total stalkerazzi on me, in NYC.

What do you reckon? Do you change your checkins based on where you are in the world? Talk to me in my comments, oh reader or two of mine.

Hasta la pasta,

Aussie Girl in NYC

Watch Her Climb

Good Aussie girls living on the other end of the world like to reconnect with home in little ways. So whether that's listening to Hamish and Andy podcasts on the subway, dancing insanely whenever Jet comes on in a Brooklyn bar, waking up at unearthly hours of the morning to watch AFL footy, or keeping The Age on our home page, we do it.

This means that at times, we get overrun by Aussie news stories that have no meaning or place in the scheme of things (did you hear the Bronx zoo found their lost cobra? And yeah, there's still stuff going down in Libya) but mean a lot to our family friends left at home, and provide opportune Facebook status discussion points.

Clarkey is the new cricket captain? Oh, really. The Gold Coast Sun debut this weekend? I wonder who's flying down to Brissie. Coles have taken up arms against the rest of the universe over their quest to own the heart, soul, blood and guts of every Aussie housewife? Okay, old news.

But this one has been clogging my RSS and Facebook feed just that little bit too much. It's something I sure as hell don't want to see now.

Aussie dollar, little battler? Up to $1.04. Projected UP TO $1.08 IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

And that's when I bang my head against the desk. Twice, for good measure.

Educational Disparities

This weekend was a momentous occasion for me.

Sure, I passed said momentous occasion by sitting on my couch (read: futon) with a glass of Pinot Noir and this month's Vogue (damn, Rihanna is hot, and awesome, and I love her, and I shouldn't read fashion magazines for a reason - in fact why do I read them? I don't actually look at the fashion) because I was too sick to leave the house all weekend - but no, the momentous occasion was not having my first ever Friday night home alone, though that's a pretty big deal too.

No, this past Saturday, in a tiny industrial town in the Victorian region of Gippsland, at a university campus that has been the destination of many half-faxed essays and panicky emails over the last five years - I was awarded my university degree.

Actually, that's degreeZZZ, bitches.

Turns out - and I had no way of knowing this, as the good folk at Monash don't believe in sending you emails once you graduate, which makes me presume they would've had to send me an old-fashioned postal notification of this fact - that my in absentia graduation application was granted - for March 26 or thereabouts. Meaning lucky I hadn't hinged on doing the old cap and gown thing during the April session if I'd made it home for a visit - as clearly the Monash grownups had other plans.

Either way, I'm hoping the cardboard cylinder containing a concoction of blood, tears and chocolate crumbs along with the pieces of paper that will somehow determine my life are on their way to my parents' address in Melbourne. Because after keeping 7-11 in business with that much chocolate and shedding that many floods of tears... well, you'd kinda hope I got something out of it.

Which brings me to the New York translation: Apparently, in this side of town, undergraduate degrees just don't go.

The minute university studies are mentioned, especially for someone above the age of 22 - it's automatically assumed to be a masters. Forget the stress and robbery of adolescence that is VCE; the relentless academic rigor that is Australian universities: All of a sudden, in the big city, your BA is equivalent to whipping out a Certificate II from Sunshine TAFE (though of course not to shun the high educational quality of Sunshine TAFE and environs). Even a lady like me with my BA and BBusCom (read all those letters, please, kiddies), is suddenly missing the M and the A and a whole lot of qualifications.

So, here it is, New York. My fancypants Monash University degreeZZZ will be on their way to these shores momentarily. And I dare you to tell me I need to haul my ladyness back to school for another piece of paper, because that's not happening for a while yet.

Other expats to the shores of the USA, I'd love to hear from you: Have you struggled to translate your Australian or European qualifications to American standards? Leave me a comment below or throw me a tweet @rishegee. 

Soundtrack to New York Subway

Have you ever watched a music video and watched some insanely pretty girl, hair half mussed up to show she is "just like us", sitting and staring blankly on a subway car, at some handsome stranger on the platform/in the next car/ in her imagination, or at the scenes of her life that have just gone by, with nary a care.... Oh wait, just got totally distracted there. Um, yeah.

So you watch these video clips, and all of a sudden the girl gets up, her weirdly-cut-but-supremely-fashionable swingy hair swinging in just the way it's supposed to, eyes all darkly made up looking very soulfully at the camera, and strutting through the subway tunnels in her impractical spikey heels that I can't imagine ever spending a day wearing in New York City. She keeps staring soulfully all the way through the dank, festy tunnels and never slips on the wet concrete. She strides up the stairs, pushing her way through commuters; and never has to stop and let a fat woman with a trolley full of groceries go through, nor does she end up in the inevitable commuter crush when everyone else is going the opposite direction. She makes the subway her kingdom, this woman does, and she does it all with the most beautiful music playing.

It's almost like the entire place can hear her secret soundtrack because they're all responding to her whims.

Well, the other day I was heading to the Lower East Side. Despite its proximity to the edge of the Island, where you would assume Brooklyn is just a stone's throw away, it turns out the subway situation is messy and complicated and requires a mere three transfers for me to get to my mate's place. Turns out the three transfers gave me ample time to practice my subway strut, and what do you know?

I was totally in a soundtrack of my own.

Ludicrous! I tell you.

Today, I spent a total of 40 not-cheap minutes (out of my sadly limited 600-minute-per-month-T-mobile plan) on the phone with the behemoth, those evil corporate souls that cause me to tear my hair (and those of my workmates nearby) out in frustration...
BANK OF AMERICA.

Now I'm sure some Online Reputation Manager is seeing this right now and going, oh dearie me, how do we win this customer back? And as per my conversation with the lady today, the lovely Lori, my associate, and her supervisor the lovely Laura, I will say: It's not their fault. Lori, Laura, they did their best. But goddammit, herein lies the issue, and I will try to be brief:

THEY HELD MY PAYCHEQUE.

And they didn't just hold it, for, shall we say, a decent period of time. For example, 24 hours. Honestly, I'd prefer it to be just an overnight hold, available next business day, but, okay, let's pretend they're really incompetent (because they are). 24 hours? Fine.

But no. The bastards are holding on to my paycheque (and I WILL persist in calling it a cheque rather than an irritatingly stupid check spelling, as if I can't pronounce the q...) for nearly THREE WHOLE DAYS, from this morning, when I casually strolled across the sunlit boulevard to wait in a smelly ATM  queue (that I called a line, even to the man who didn't understand it when I asked him if he was in it) to deposit the cheque during the workday so it might have the chance of being cleared early... . until FIVE PM ON THE 3RD, that's Thursday, biatches. A full two and a half days away. So I'm calling it three.

Ludicrous.

I did also mention to the lovely Lori and Laura that I have experienced banks in other countries, over Europe and Australia (I failed to mention Israel, where the situation is way beyond the realm of imagined retardation) but indeed, in Oz where something like this would NEVER HAPPEN. NEVER HAPPEN, I TELL YOU!

Seriously. The hold is beyond insane, and I was supposed to pay my rent tonight. Sorry, roomies.

Where There’s Snow, There’s No Water Restrictions

We’re having a bit of a heat wave here in New York. Heat wave, as in, instead of my usual three-sweaters-and-two-pairs-of-tights-plus-thick –socks-under-heavy-boots-and-puffa-knee-length-parka, I can wear just the odd pair of tights, light jumper and jacket. Incredible, really. The temperature hit double figures today (I still think in Celsius and adamantly refuse to figure out these weird Fahrenheity numbers) and while I was strolling down the street, revelling in the feeling of the wind on my less-than-three-layered skin, I heard the delicious sound of trickling melting snow. Oh, the joy.

This means those big blocks of ice that continue to harass me as I walk the streets with trepidation, eyes down as I navigate my delicate, Australian-pedicured but boot-clad toes through blocks of black slushy disgustingness, are now spreading into muddy puddles that I greet with joy. I gingerly place my industrial-strength boots in each puddle, checking for consistency – after all, they could be the enemy, Black Ice, creator of broken legs (yes, me, in 2004); a harmless, splash-worthy puddle, or the worst: that slurpee consistency that straddles the barrier between good and evil, representing black ice tomorrow morning if the night turns cold, or a lovely puddle to splash in by lunchtime if we get some sunshine. It really is too confusing for me, and this is coming from a girl who is all too familiar with Melbourne’s four-seasons-in-a-day and happy to dress accordingly, sniff the air, and advise tourists.

So this evening, as I was admiring the growing puddles and forgetting to be irritated at the chocolate-slurpee slush, it hit me: all this melted snow would be creating a helluva lot of extra water somewhere. Which would mean that the dams, wherever they are in this big land of concrete that doesn’t showcase a hint of natural resource, kinda like a lady with eyebrows plucked out and painted back on again, must always be full. At least, in wintertime.

Which would explain my flatmates/relatives/coworkers penchant for leaving taps switched on at their every whim, until crazy Aussie lady (that would be me) switches it off by explaining that it “hurts me”. Kinda the way Carrie Bradshaw’s sobbing in her bathroom with the tap running had to be fast-forwarded when my girlfriends and I had a girlie SATC DVD night.

So can someone back me up on this? Do the research and I will nod and say “oh”? Do the natural reservoirs in snowy countries, like, never dry out? Please advise.

This has been, tales of an expat in New York City.  

The End - Or The Beginning?

I’ve spent most of the night sitting on my bed, staring at the computer screen, doing anything other than what I am officially supposed to do.

Of course, this isn’t any different from my activities on most nights. Except this time, the thing I’m supposed to be doing is packing, and that makes this night way different than any other night.

I’m packing to go home, back to Australia, and with all the feelings and thoughts and emotions swirling around it’s a wonder I can get anything done.

I left home eight months ago, on what I self-coined the “Fabulous Tour of the Universe, TM.” The plans were pretty flexible, but there was one in place. My friend Ora and I planned to spend a week in Thailand, to get a breather from work and stress and in the holiday mode, sunning ourselves and partying it up in Koh Samui. From there, it was on to Israel for two weeks, taking in the Jewish festival of Shavout with family and friends, adventuring the North of the country, and ending it all with my school friend’s beachside wedding. Come early June, the European adventure was to begin, where my tennis obsession would have us starting in Paris for the French Open final, heading to Lyon to visit a friend where I would also finish sitting my university exams, and starting the Spanish adventure. We earmarked a six week period for Italy and Spain, with a spare two weeks in the middle that we had honestly no idea what to do with. Greece was off the cards, so it could’ve been anything, from South of France to extra time in the country of our choice. Come late July, we planned to visit Ora’s best friend in Zurich, picking up my mammoth suitcase I’d dropped there at the start of Europe, and head to New York for the next stage.

The New York Plan was the first segment where I knew from the start our plans differed. Ora was heading to the Big Apple for the first time in her life, and wanted to tourist it up while experiencing all that is mammoth – and awesome – about the city. A daughter of ex-New Yorkers, I was more pressured by the notion of setting foot on American soil, where countless grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins and friends would immediately signal to me that the adventure was over. I also had vague plans to settle in the city following the trip, and wasn’t quite sure how the differentiation between ‘backpacking’ and ‘living’ in NY was going to pan out.

Turns out it didn’t turn out quite that way. After an extended four weeks in Spain and ten days in Italy, Ora bought her train ticket to Zurich and we said goodbye in our tiny shabby Venice hotel. I spent the next two days in Venice alone before taking the overnight train to Rome to meet a friend from Los Angeles, who joined me for another two weeks in Europe. While Ora made her way to New York and started her American adventure, I backtracked from Rome down to Corfu in Greece, back up to Venice, and for a crazy week in Ibiza. Left alone once again in Barcelona, I embarked on the final part of the adventure: Switzerland, alone. Two weeks of solo travel taught me more about myself than the first two months with a partner, and before I knew it was late August, I had my last night drinking in a Swiss hostel, and boarded a plane to New York.

That could’ve been the end of the trip, and I suppose in my mind it was then. But it wasn’t, because tonight, I realise that the adventure only continued. The first half of September was a blur of adrenalin was I indulged my tennis obsession, volunteering at the US Open and meeting people of the awesomeness persuasion left, right and centre. The Jewish Holidays over the month of September were another blur of family and religious obligations, but it wasn’t until October, when I found myself in an uninspiring temp job, that real life hit and the struggles began.

Travel adventures aren’t just about the awesome: they’re about the challenges and the strength it brings out in you. I can wax lyrical about the adventures I had in Europe, and take up an entire blog with my tales of awesomeness. And trust me, I think they’re pretty damn great. But it wasn’t until October, when I found myself attempting to furnish an empty apartment in Brooklyn with no friends, no money and a very precarious temporary job situation, that the real mountain was climbed. Finding myself jobless a few weeks later, crying desperately under a blanket to my Mum on skype, I knew the only way was up. Those few weeks were the most desperate time – but now I have them to look back on and see how far I’ve come.

It’s December now, and I’m heading home. But this time, the adventure isn’t over. I have friends in New York, new friendships that are blossoming and hoping to grow into something bigger. I have a job, one that I enjoy that presents great opportunities for the future. I’m involved in some amazing projects that get me so excited I’m up all night working on them, using my talents properly for the first time in my life. And I walk through the streets and finally feel that I can be myself, in this big bad city.

Everyone talks about moving to New York to make it, but no one says precisely how hard it is. Let me tell you. It’s seriously goddamn difficult. And I’m not even close to being there yet. But this time, I know that when I get back here after this visit home, I won’t be embarking on a Fabulous Tour of the Universe TM. But it’ll be an adventure, and one with a happy ending. I just know it.