I'm baaaack.

Somehow there seems to be a little less to blog about these days - however I have been a very busy beaver getting around the countryside from Gerroa on the coast to Orange and Dubbo in the central west. Keeping busy and about to head to Sydney and Mudgee for the weekend.

USAisms

I've had 89 days, and a further 9 days to observe the US of A in all it's glory. All the while I've been jotting down in my notebook, all the idiosyncrasies, observations, pet hates and loves about the USA and it's inhabitants. I thought I'd share them with you.

• Only $20 notes in ATMs: On our first day in NYC we went to withdraw some cash. We needed a large amount of cash to pay for our apartment. However each ATM we went to only gave out $20 notes! This is apparently pretty standard. In fact, most shop keepers do fraud checks on notes larger than $20. This is why I took a photo when an ATM in Santa Fe spat out $50's -Wow! I'd never seen one! The shit thing about carrying around a lot of $20s is that it makes your wallet so super fat.
  

• Hygiene paranoia and irony: Every 'restroom' in the States is equipped with automatic flush, toilet seat cover sheets, soap machine, taps and towel dispenser (which, by the way never gives out enough paper towel so you have to wave your hands in front of the sensor twice or three times), and some even have hygiene papers near the door so you don't have to touch the door on the way out. HOWEVER, there are NO 'sanitary napkin' bins. Occasionally there is a waste paper basket, but that is IT! Talk about irony for a country that is paranoid about toilet hygiene. Those poor cleaners! They need Pink to set up business in the States.

• Mobile ph companies must be making a motza!: I thought that people at home were bad re: being on their phone all day, but it's even more noticeable here. As soon as a plane touches down everyone is on their phone, telling shit stories to whomever is at the other end. Shopkeepers would prefer to be on their phones than serve you (more about that later). Most talk as if they are in a bubble when really they are revealing, very loudly, the intimate details of their new boyfriend to a friend, or their issues with a new boss - as if no one else can hear their conversation. I pretty much hate it. I think it's completely unnecessary. This gadget in the picture below promotes a ladder system to be able to carry your bags together so you can 'talk on the phone'! It's like they might spontaneously combust if they weren't able to talk on their phone?!

• Wheel chairs get you everywhere: People in the states are either severely disabled or really lazy or two fat to walk or perhaps all of the above. At Disneyland and at most airports there were a disproportionally high number of people in wheelchairs. Also, it's not unusual to see said people get up and out of their chair to walk through the metal detector at security, or to buy something in a shop etc OR to GO ON A RIDE AT DISNEYLAND!! My theory is that by being in a wheel chair you get preferential treatment and get to join the front of a queue. Therefore people invent fake ailments to be able to get a wheelchair. At Disneyland it was common to see a mom in a chair get to jump to the front of a line with her entire family. That's the other thing, if you are with someone in a wheelchair you get to jump the queues also.
  

• Customer service is shit - Most sales staff would much prefer to a) continue a conversation on their mobile b) text on their mobile or c) bitch with their colleague about some work drama - than to serve you or even acknowledge you. Sometimes they just simply ignore you and act like you are bothering them by actually making them do their job. For example, we posted the package below at a post office in Miami and halfway through the transaction the post office worker got a call on her mobile phone. She stopped serving us to have a personal chit chat!! Fark. That to me is the HEIGHT of rudeness! Then these people expect you to tip them at the end - therefore this observation goes hand in hand with my I hate tipping mantra.
  

• Hierarchy - there is a noticeable hierarchy of employees and even citizens it seems. Wealthy jews are at the top, then 'regular' white people, then african americans and mexicans are at the bottom. Even other immigrants 'rank' higher than mexicans. Mexicans are often seen in restaurant kitchens, filling up water in restaurants (clearly they aren't qualified enough to take your order?!), as cleaners, and stockroom workers. Basically the 'shit' jobs are reserved for mexicans.
  

• Pot everywhere - The legal drinking age in the states is 21. This means that most kids under 21 (or at least the ones that we saw) smoke a lot of pot. Surely it would be a better health policy to lower the drinking age, then kids would have an alternative to smoking a lot of gunge?
  

• Baby carrots = best invention: At grocers, deli's, pharmacies and corner stores where can buy an apple, you can generally by a bag of baby carrots. They are THE BEST snack. I love them. They are so portable and so handy. I wish there was greater availability at home.
  

• American companies have amazing marketing budgets: There is free stuff left right and centre. For example at the Lollapalooza music festival there was an Adidas village with free tshirts/photobooths, a local radio station sponsored free Hammocks, Toyota Prius vodka slush, free tote and novelty energy bikes/see saw, Sony lent out it's latest videocam the 'bloggie' to people for entire days to take film at the Lollapalooza festival. The marketing budgets must be huge! and also, the strategies are different to just plain TVCs or magazine ads (don't get me started on those - 3/4 of a fat glossy Vogue or Marie Claire is made up of ads, predominantly on the right hand pages to catch your attention. This makes it particularly shit trying to read an article on the left hand side).
  

• Pharmacies everywhere - but no supermarkets - Don't bother looking for a supermarket in NYC. It's either a deli or a pharmacy that you are likely to come across. Pharmacies offer strange array of shit, similar to a convenience store combined with a pharmacy and limited food products. Kind of like a priceline. At first I hated this because I was looking for FOOD in these big supermarket-type pharmacies, however then I learnt to get food from a deli or a specialised supermarket and to get all sorts of goodies from a Pharmacy.
  

• The two nicest people in customer service that we met were called Dave. Dave 1 - took us on a tour of a hotel in Boston and bought us Boston cream pie. Dave 2 - upgraded us to an amazing mustang for a very cheap price at the rental car company. I like Daves.
  

• Not aware of personal space - Americans are so happy to push in front of you (especially in the airport) or to bump you and not say sorry or acknowledge that they brushed you, they won't move out of the way, and will attach to your butt like a hemorrhoid when you are in a queue. They don't seem to understand the concept of common courtesy and personal space.

• 'uh huh' - When you say thank you, the common response is 'uh huh'. WTF. What is 'uh huh'? Is it 'You're welcome but I'm too lazy to say it'? Is it 'whatever'? I reckon it's just plain rude.
  

• Own language - Rain boots: It was raining when we were in Chicago so I asked in a shop where we could get Gumboots. *Blank look*. Ok, how about Galoshers? *Blank look*. Ok, how about Wellingtons? *Blank look*. So I asked, what do you call the rubber boots you wear when it rains? The response was "Ahhh - They're called Rain Boots!" Stupid me.
  They didn't understand me when I ordered 'Take away' and had to repeat it several times or change what I was asking for and get 'Take out' instead. They aren't very good at similies. Surely Take Away sounds like Take Out or you can make out the gist right? Also you have to ask for the 'Rest room' instead of the toilets or bathroom. If you ask for coffee you get black instant brew.

• Polite beggers: The beggers asking for change on the street corner say 'Thank you', 'god bless you' and 'have a great day', regardless of if you drop change in their cup or not. Whereas at home, you'd tend to get abused for ignoring someone asking for change.
  

It seems I'm the only one to make such observations. Check out this article that M-pie recently posted.

Cowboys and a little bite of the big apple

Just a few pics from the last two weeks back in the states. After some amazing adventures in Mehico, you-better-Belize-it, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica - we are back in the USofA. We had some little problems with immigration who detained us for 2 hours in Houston Texas, but after that we have been exploring the mid west from Denver Colorado all the way down to Santa Fe New Mexico (American Indian jewelry heaven!). The last week of travels are here in the Big Apple! More photos/stories to come. xx








That's all for the moment folks. See you real soon! x

Tripping in reverse

It seems like a lifetime ago that I sat down to do a blog post. Hello lovely peeps who are bothering to check in. I'll try and do some retrospective posts so keep an eye out for new/old posts.

I put my absence down to a combination of factors: a) lack of motivation to sit at the computer b) lack of time (I know, it sounds ridiculous because I'm on holidays right? but seriously days just get filled with exciting adventures or ridiculously long travel days) c) lack of internet connectivity here in Central America.

We've arrived in Costa Rica, the final destination in our Central adventures. Already there is a stark difference between the previous countries we've toured through. Costa Rica is a LOT wealthier, the standard of living higher, the quality of roads/cars/hotels/food a lot better - and so it goes hand in hand that the cost of traveling here is higher also. But the landscapes are breathtaking and it is pure eco-porn.

Yesterday we spent the day traveling from Monteverde in the Costa Rican highlands to La Fortuna at the base of the Arenal volcano. The skies cleared for an unusually sunny day in a string of raining days (remind me never to travel in a rainy season again!). The roads out of Monteverde are not sealed, full of pot holes and rocks and are also very very windy. The mechanics and body shops in the highlands must do great business from fixing all the vans that bottom out going over rocks and through pot holes. Needless to say it was a bumpy ride, but the scenery was awe inspiring.

Cruising through the villages.
The winding dirt roads. This picture doesn't quite show just how steep, windy and rocky the roads were.
Arriving at Lake Arenal for the boat portion of the Jeep-Boat-Jeep transport. NB: the jeep wasn't actually a jeep, but a mini van, they just make it sound adventurous by saying 'jeep'.
The Arenal volcano last erupted in 1968 and is still somewhat active - see the plumes of smoke rising to the right of the volcano? Those are volcanic gases that it releases with a thunderous grumble. crazy.
We set out on a walk up part of the volcano, through muddy jungle trails and alongside a lava lake. There were so many amazing colourful birds, frogs and insects along the way. None of which were easy to capture in photo.
Nice and sweaty at the top of the volcano look out. By this time the clouds had started to roll back in again, and a 'mushroom cap' style cloud had formed on top of the volcano. It is too dangerous to go any higher on the volcano and we didn't get to see any lava (which I believe you can do on other volcanoes in Central), but it was still beautiful.
Beers at the bottom of the hill, settling in to watch for lava under cover of darkness. I was more interested in the thousands of fire flies in the fields around us. They are so beautiful. It was like twinkling fairy lights. Oh my god, I just love fire flies.
After the walk we headed back towards town to the thermal springs. There are about 20 baths ranging in temps from 68 to 27 degrees. There were also waterslides (which I boycotted - I was much too relaxed and also full from dinner). It was so relaxing lying in the baths - we skipped from pool to pool checking out the varying temps. My fav was the 43 degree bath with tiled beds in the middle on which to recline- soooo relaxing.

The Costa Rican slogan is 'Pura Vida' - meaning literally, pure life. They love saying it and say it in a range of circumstances - eg: 'How are you?' 'Pura Vida'... 'Thank you' ' Pura Vida'... It has come to mean Life is Good, or It's All Good.

Pura Vida mi amigos. xx

Superwoman and sloths - Monteverde Costa Rica

Zip lining in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

It had been pouring rain for days and we weren't even sure if we'd get to go ahead with the zip lining. I was getting a little cabin feverish after days and days of rain, days and days of bus, boat, van and taxi travel - so I was pumped when we got the go-ahead for the 'extreme!' activities.

All kitted up. Hot!
Practicing our Superwoman position for the final line.
The big sissa covered in mud that dripped off the lines - I too was covered in mud, but oblivious until it was pointed out to me.
The free-fall swing - awesome. Free-fall jumping off a 20mtr platform and swinging through the jungle like tarzan (or jane) on a rope. I did squeal. Yes it was fun. Yes I did want to do it again, but we had to move on to the next zip lines.
Superwoman! It was an amazing drop into the clearing of the jungle. The line extended for about 800 metres. Fun times - except for the harnesses digging in.
The alternative activity to zip lining was going for a nature walk in the cloud forest where we could have seen sloths and tree frogs, or then again, we could have seen nothing, zip, zilch because of all the rain. So I opted for the guaranteed good times - even though I would have loved to see a sloth in the flesh. We did get to see a lot of humming birds which were so gorgeous! I took some videos of their furiously flapping wings as they stuck their beaks in flowers and scooted around, however I can't upload it. You'll just have to be satisfied with my mediocre description of their amazing beauty.

That night we ate at a Tapas restaurant down the road from the hotel. It was the culinary highlight of our central american trip. Most places have been pretty standard food (beans, rice, meat, tortillas and cheese) - and the availability of decent restaurants has been scarce.

As it was my culinary highlight of the last 40 days I'll tell you what I ordered:
- Heart of Palm and spiced cashew salad with hoisin balsamic vinaigrette
- Roasted eggplant and smoked provolone Napoleon with sundried tomato sauce
...and for dessert
- Firecracker apple cake with vanilla icecream and caramel chilli glaze.
*Mouth is watering now just thinking about it!*

Adventures galore

Hey kids,
Updating the blog hasn't been a simple task as internet connectivity here is pretty scarce. Am currently sitting in a tree house structure looking out over a gorgeous lake in Rio Dulce, Guatemala. The last few days have been adventure filled as we head deeper into jungle territory and further from the coast. The Gutatemalans are lovely and my spanish skills are getting a work out.

Yesterday was an interesting travel day. We started out with breakfast at a back packers in Florez. It was recommended for being healthy vego food. Firstly the Big Sissa found plastic bag pieces in her smoothie. When she went to show the staff they looked at it and said in spanish, oh it's from the ice. They then took the drink and did nothing further. A buddy we were having breakfast with then found a hard piece of plastic in her eggs - again, the complaint fell on deaf ears. The Big Sissa then had a kitten climb her back like a scratching pole (she has scratches/scars to show). My porridge, which was meant to be the quickest meal on the menu (according to the menu) came out 1 hour after I ordered it and the fruit plate was a bunch of pre-frozen then thawed fruit - Mmmm thawed banana! Needless to say it wasn't my favourite. So that was the start of the day.

We packed up and got ready for the 2nd class bus from Florez to Rio Dulce. The journey is supposed to take 5 hours. When the bus rounded the corner it looked like it was about to tip over. It was incredibly lopsided and we loaded our luggage under the bus on the lower sloping side which I don't think helped. On the bus the windows opened in some seats and not others. We found seats towards the front of the bus. The bus struggled - to say the least. Each time we stopped to drop someone off or pick someone up on the road side, it chugged along slowly. We picked up a family of Guatemalan women who decided not to move all the way down the back of the bus but to hover in the aisle at the front and then... sit ON me. The woman leaned on my arm rest and then tipped the rest of her bum back onto me. Eeek. What was I supposed to do. The woman behind her was elbowing me in the head and the 9 yr old kid tucked between the seats must have thought I was interesting enough to stare at for 2 hours. So we continue along down the road (with the woman still sitting on me - she still hasn't said anything to me at this point (like, sorry or excuse me or smiled?) or even turned around to acknowledge that yes, she was sitting ON me) and the bus goes over a speed bump and.... bottoms out. It's all over at that point. The bus stops, the driver jumps off, the men at the back of the bus all start to pile out. Oh oh, something is not working out here. I got off to check it out and low and behold the wheel is jutting out. The driver is under the bus trying to fix it and the bus load of passengers are either on the road or on the bus (throwing their rubbish out the window onto the road).

We tried to learn some more spanish, like, where can I get a taxi from here - haha. After about 1.5 hours of false starts the bus was finally on it's way, minus a few passengers who managed to hitch a ride with passing trucks. The guatemalan woman returned to her resting place on my knee and off we went. Then it started to pour with rain which came flying in the windows. It was a trade off between fresh air and getting wet. Fresh air it was. We wound our way slowly through guatemalan jungle and hills and finally made our way to Rio Dulce where we were stuck in a traffic jam for 20 minutes (which we found out was a petrol tanker stuck in the middle of the road - I was gearing myself for an explosion but luckily not). We walked the last 800m into town with our packs and waited for the boat to our hotel.

The hotel is run by American couples and it has a lot of yachts moor during the hurricane season (which is now). It is super cute and possibly the best place we have stayed in so far. Our room is a wooden cabin on stilts with gorgeous white fluffy blankets and mosquito nets. There are no walls on the end of the room that looks out onto the water, just insect netting. We settled in for happy hour beers (DEF. needed them) and the yummiest dinner of the whole trip.

Today I think I'll head to a local orphanage and then swim around on the river. There is a gorgeous looking pontoon with beach chairs that look like they have my name on it.

x

Taxco aka - Silvertown

Those who know me will attest to the fact that I.love.silver.jewelry.A.LOT. So off to Taxco we went. Taxco (pronounced Tas-ko) is known as one of the silver capitals of Mexico. It originally had silver mines and consequently it attracted lots of silver jewelry makers and silver wares, but the mines are no longer functional.

As a side note: There seemed to be a mexican cowboy convention happening in Mexico City when we left. See picture below - there were more cowboy hats than you'd expect and they were all hanging outside hotels as if on the way somewhere - like, a bootscooting or gun-slinging seminar or something.

We took a tour to Taxco. Many are run as day trips from Mexico City. But we decided to stay the night as we didn't want to be restricted by tour bus timetables of 10.5 minutes in a location before getting back in the tour van.

Taxco is set in the hills on the way to Acapulco and took about 2 hours to reach from Mexico City, with a stop in Cuernavaca (pronounced Korna-va-ka) on the way.

We stopped to check out the impressive cathedral - the Cathedral de Cuernavaca - which was previously a Franciscan monastery dating from the 1500's.

These girls were attending a wedding - they were so super cute in their fluro tuile skirts.


The first of the silver - I was pretty excited! I bought the ducky charm in the 4th row, second from the right.
It wouldn't be shopping in Mexico if you didn't celebrate EVERY purchase with a tequila. Wowzers - my head was spinning after a few. It was only about 1pm when we arrived at this stop/shop and hadn't yet had lunch.

Arriving in Taxco. Our hotel was super cute - reportedly at 1600's convent.
There was some slight confusion when we booked the hotel. It's oldschool and so you have to call to make the booking (as opposed to almost everything else, where you can book online). The address that was given to us on the phone was different from that in the guide book, which was in turn different to that in the online ratings guide (tripadvisor.com - check it out if you are planning any travel). We weren't sure if we would be turning up to Taxco, only to have booked a hotel in another city. All worked out well and we did indeed book the right (cute) little place.


The streets in Taxco are all cobble stones, the taxis are vw beetles or combis and all the houses are required to be white with red roofs. It is these elements which add to the charming character of the village set in the hills.






I spot 4 pieces of jewelry that I already own which I thought were unique. Apparently not! Ha. These were some of the more heavy-duty pieces of silver jewelry and the prices didn't differ too much from home (disappointingly).
I had fun trying on the really expensive artisan pieces. This one is the original design as worn by Frida Kahlo. I love Frida.
The 'Vista bonita' - I'm slowly adding to my spanish vocabulary.


We stopped off for an afternoon refresher. I ordered a strawberry smoothie - it came out like pink Quick with 'can-o-cream' all over the top. Not reaaaally what I had in mind. But pink drinks are fun all the same.

We visited an artisan store with some really nice jewelry - but you had to pay a price! I tried on pretty much everything in the whole store and didn't find anything I loved! This bracelet came close - HA. It is a prawn bracelet that bend's around the wrist.

We played at the weekend markets - not much silver to be seen here just rows upon rows of beads.
Ah, after a long day of sight seeing, silver jewel shopping and walking up steep roads around Taxco - we settled in for dinner at a rooftop restaurant next to our hotel. Guacamole (mandatory), spicy spicy salsa, Tortilla soup and mushroom tortillas. Nom!



The following morning we explored some more markets - these ones were more for the locals to get their weekly shopping. We tried many edible things from street vendors. My broken spanish and their non-existant english made from some funny/interesting exchanges.



Not quite sure what this is but we ate it. See plastic cup in the back ground - it was topped with fresh lime and chilli. The consistency is almost like passionfruit as the white in the red beads are hard/crunchy seeds.
This is the red fruit lady who was so lovely and explained how we were meant to season our fruit with chilli and lime.
We took a vw beetle taxi to the hill at the top of Taxco to check out the Christ statue. The ride up was an adventure in itself - not to mention the ride down. I have some very funny video footage of our driver navigating the narrowest streets i've ever seen, on a very steep gradient, with oncoming traffic and sharp hair pin turns around houses and shops. Our driver was amazing - very much a precision rally car driver.
Getting ready to head back to Mexico city - smiles on our faces and our bags only ever so slightly heavier with silver. All in all I was dissapointed with the lack of quality and variety of silver jewelry. Most of it was like that stocked in Tree of Life and for the same prices.

I asked this guy (in spanish) if I could take his picture. He willingly agreed, only I think I asked him if he would take my picture... hmmm.... need to work on the spanish a bit. Anyway he was super embarrassed to have is photo taken and his buddies around him were laughing. I then tried to ask him if he knew what 'dork' meant - he said 'no, no english' and tried to shoo us away to pacify the laughter of his buddies.
Our trip back to Mexico City in the local bus was fun. We watched Wolverine and a pixar animated film in spanish. The seats were super comfy and had a HUGE leg rest thing that tucked under your calves so it was almost like a recliner seat.

The arrival at the Mexico City bus station and the subsequent taxi ride into the city was interesting (and a little scary/stressful) to say the least. There was a huge cultural gap evident and noone spoke english to be able to understand where we were going. I thought the taxi driver was going to dump us on the side of the road in Mexico City (only one of the most dangerous cities in the world) as we had to pay upfront. Anyway, my fears were allayed as soon as the taxi driver popped in his CD which started blaring out 'Our House' by Men at Work. It was just a little bit of Australia in Mexico. Coincidentally in a later taxi on the way to Mexico City airport 'We come from the land down under' was playing on a cd. Men at Work certainly have a cult following here in Mexico.

Adios Amigos. xx