Life's a Beach: Chapter 3

It’s been ages since I last wrote, so you’d think there would be lots to tell, but on average we’ve had rain five days out of every seven; I’ve mostly been doing jigsaw puzzles, reading crappy books, watching TV and eating popsicles. (Incidentally, if you want to know what’s been happening on Oprah, who won the Australian Open or just how quickly they promise you’ll lose inches off your waist with the new abs-omatic – amazing! - I’m your girl.) Kind of unfortunate, really, how I came to Australia just in time for the insufferably hot season and the cyclones, while not being able to teach because it’s summer holidays. Ta-daa!

But never you mind. Let’s do this thing.

Cyclone Olga is the one that hit North Queensland last week, and though it did some damage up in the Port Douglas area, it was actually pretty tame and quite anti-climactic after how much everybody (including myself!) talked it up. Mostly, what we got was major amounts of rain and the inevitably resulting house full of mouldy shoes and books. Also, lots of bugs everywhere, including this massive centipede that crawled out from behind the garbage can when I was in the bathroom! (As in, the toilet – you can imagine my horror.) I always thought centipedes were sweet, wormy little fuzzy things, but this was huge, black, shiny – shellacked, really – and aggressive. Something of a military, tank-and-hard-helmets kind of vibe. Google has assured me that it’s not poisonous, so I’m less concerned about finding one under my pillow, but it was still pretty gross – especially after I half crushed it with the garbage can and it was decapitated but still squirming around. Cheeky little bugger, I’ll tell you what.

Having been stuck in the house for so many days, Mark and I jumped up at the first sign of a dry spell and went out to explore the neighbourhood. We checked out the beach at Yorkey’s Knob and while the pictures only make it look vaguely grey, it was actually super gloomy, all troubled waters and dramatically stormy trees; perfect, really, for a long walk – except that after we had walked for about half an hour, the real storm moved in and we had to walk the whole way back with the wind whipping rain and sand into our faces. Stormy beach walk: worst idea ever.

We made it back to the car and drove home through the heavy storm; funny, isn’t it, that we sat in the house for days and days while it just rained, then chose the one day the cyclone actually appeared to go out for a joyride.



(Notice the street lights are on - it's 1:25 pm!)

The next day we tried again and were rewarded for our efforts. Back up to Kuranda (where our favourite store with the yummy freshwater lollies is conveniently located) and to the Barron Falls, which we had seen before the rain as part of our Sky Rail day, when the “falls” were a little trickle down toward a stream. Now, they’re huge and gushing and we would have stayed and just gazed all morning, but for the endless succession of tourists getting off the scenic train and elbowing us in the face in their efforts to get the perfect, peace-sign-flashing pictures.

Off instead to the Crystal Cascades – you understand that these places are all within thirty minutes of where I live, right? – where we witnessed a kayak lesson gone wrong (up the creek without a paddle isn’t so funny in real life) and the necessary Stupid Teen-age Boys doing jumps into the rapids off of slippery rocks. There was a dad-aged man sitting on the rocks with all the boys, though, watching it all go down, and I found it really hard to resist letting him know what I thought of his lack of responsibility. (Mark encouraged me to mind my own business...) The cascades are as pretty as you would expect and will certainly be a favourite swimming spot in the more swimming-friendly seasons.



(The guy jumping is to the right.)

We also – can’t remember if it was before or after Olga – went up to visit “Rainforestation,” another wildlife park in the area. The kangaroos were even friendlier than at the other place, the koalas were GORGEOUS, the crocs were huge – it was worth the trip. Their fancy thing is that they have these WWII army DUKWs (pronounced “ducks”) that go on land and in the water. I’m not sure why they have them, but no matter: we had a fun ride with a wacky driver/guide. My ears are still ringing from the noise: I don’t think I was ever made for the army.





With all the rain, of course, it’s hard to get out and get the exercise that I hoped would be a natural part of daily life here, so I’ve been settling for indoor activity: instead of going for walks around the neighbourhood, I do squats and planks and lift soup cans while I watch crappy daytime television. (I’ve also tried a belly-dancing dvd – do you have any idea how hard it is? You should see how they move their butts around, one cheek at a time.) It’s all pretty miserable.

So one day when I was heading out to the grocery store, it didn’t look like it was going to rain and I decided to take my bike instead of driving. It was such a long and overwhelming ride that I timed it on the way back, just so I could boast about how hardcore I am – except it was only 20 minutes! I’m a wimp! I guess I’m out of bike shape, and I was riding along the highway, which is a bit nerve-wracking, and it was about 45 degrees with the humidity (115 fahrenheit, for the Yanks out there) – and it was noon. Which makes me seem like an idiot, but it just turned out that way.

The major trauma, though, was when I was crossing over a bridge and only had about two feet of space, as the cars were whipping past me on the highway. I saw something coming up ahead, something gross-looking with flies all around it, and of course swerving into traffic was out of the question, so I had to just ride over it. What was it, exactly? I’m not sure – maybe a small possum, maybe a donga, maybe a rat. Whatever it was, it was dead, bloody and gross and I was terrified that it would somehow get caught up in my tire and fly up onto me. It didn’t, obviously – as if that would happen! – but it took the rest of the ride for me to stop having the major ickies and I was very, very focused (and anxious) the whole ride home.

Then there was the problem of being majorly sweaty in the grocery store. I had considered carrying my bike helmet around with me but decided that would be a shallow and self-conscious thing to do, so it was just me in my butt-sweaty yoga pants and tank, wandering around the yoghurt aisle, feeling really tough. (This was, of course, before I discovered what a short ride it had actually been.) No problem, until I went to the check-out counter and the cashier said “wow – you look like you’re really feeling the heat!” I told her it was because I’d come on my bike and she said “oh, okay,” which made me realize that as far as everyone was concerned, I’d driven here in an air-conditioned car and was just really out-of-control sweaty and inappropriately dressed for the grocery store. I don’t care if it’s shallow and self-conscious: next time, I’m strapping my bike helmet to me so that everyone can see that it’s legitimate. I’ve just ridden over a dead RODENT, people – don’t judge me!

A majorly unexpected change this year is that I’ve suddenly started cooking. Like, proper cooking: buying ingredients, reading a recipe and having something tasty come out at the end – and not just omelettes, lentils and bean burgers like before. I’ve even been making things that involve puff pastry, including this great grilled veggie thing that we had to finish on the barbecue by mosquito-torch light when the power went out for two hours. (And yes, it was still delicious.) I’ve even watched a couple of cooking shows. Cooking shows! I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m really enjoying being domestic – there may be hope yet; too bad it took until my 30th year of life to happen.

Speaking of my 30th year of life, how bloody old do you have to be before you stop getting surprise zits? Sciatic nerve problems, identity crises, changing dietary needs, wrinkles and receding gums - shouldn't the trade-off be no more adolescent skin problems?!



On the work front, I’ve been working in a local day care, super cute, and waiting for my registration to be complete for Education Queensland. (The latest glitch is the supply teaching service e-mailing to tell me my Queensland registration has expired, my replying that it hasn’t and attaching copies of my very much up-to-date membership papers, and then my not hearing from them for three days. I do love red tape.) So nothing really to report, but I haven’t given up hope. Though I pretty much hate all school boards, everywhere. No exceptions.

For the record, those of you who seemed concerned: the croc I touched in the last update was small, maybe a metre long; they don’t let you pet the big killing machines! Stop worrying!

Kathryn

Life's a Beach, Chapter 2

My first week-end here, a work friend of Mark’s was up from Brisbane and we met her in Kuranda, a little hippie town in the mountains, to spend the day. Apparently it used to be just a market and a bunch of people camping in the jungle, but now it’s super touristy and ridiculously pretty, with free shuttle buses taking you around and a huge, labyrinthine market, where you can buy crappily-made hippie dresses for $85 a pop and bottled water for $6 – consider yourselves warned.

We picked Lee up from the scenic train she had taken up from Cairns and our first mistake was listening to me: I had seen a really cute restaurant in a brochure and we went there for lunch, where I paid $16 for a “turkey sandwich,” which was two slices of store bread, not toasted, smeared with butter, some cold turkey and a slice of processed cheese. Not even a bit of salad on the plate. The view was as lovely as promised (“Rainforest View Cafe”) – I think they were wise not to advertise based on their menu; good marketing strategy.

After wandering around a bit and deciding not to go to the butterfly sanctuary (read: the bastards vetoed my desperate request to go the butterfly sanctuary), we took the Skyrail down the mountain and back. There is no good story to tell; the reason I mention it is so that anyone reading this who ever passes through Cairns will know that this is a must-do.


You can fit up to six people in each little space bubble thing, which takes you through the middle of the mountains, with a waterfall on one side, a river on the other, lush green canopies all around you – just gorgeous. None of the pictures will do it justice, as amateur point-and-shoot pictures of trees are never big sellers, but believe me that it is the lushest, most peaceful space bubble trip you could ever take, as if you're flying through the forest. Sometimes the trees scrape the bottom of the space pod.



Lee was pretty freaked out for the first good twenty minutes, as well as every time we’d pass a transfer point and our little rail car would bump and swing – I don’t think her green face was just the reflection from the trees – and I’m sorry to admit that Mark and I still speculated out loud on how solid the rail cars were and what would happen if someone fell out. (Trying to reach out and comfort her just made the car swing more, so it wasn’t really helpful – sorry again, Lee...)

There are a few stops along the way, including a mini jungle walk – where we saw a huge, beautiful, blue and purple boa constrictor sitting in a tree just beside a look-out point – and an information station that smelled awful but had great information on rainforests. (Really, it smelled awful.) At the bottom we discovered that the base station is about five minutes from our house and we could have just parked there, rather than driving up, going down and up on the Skyrail and then driving back, but I guess you learn as you go.

Skyrail: do it! It’s great!

For Christmas we drove down to Townsville, where Mark’s entire family had gotten together, which doesn’t happen often. I can never really believe that it’s Christmas when I’m sitting in a sundress, sweaty and hot and barefoot – because my humidity-swollen feet won’t fit into my sandals – so I mostly just considered it a nice visit. Yes, there may have been a Christmas tree and lots of gift-giving, and Andrew wearing a Santa hat and doing a lot of shouting, but if you’re too hot to eat dessert, it’s just not Christmas. (Our big lunch was a heavily air-conditioned seafood buffet, though we did have Christmas crackers on our plates...)

One of my personal Christmas Day highlights is that Mark and his nephew happened to be wearing pretty much the same clothes, so Ewan looked like's Mark's mini-me.



Cairns is supposed to be hotter than Townsville, as it’s 300 km up the coast and in the jungle, but Townsville was SUPER hot, very sticky (everything brown and ugly and sad) and if you didn’t have air conditioning on, you felt sick to your stomach. It was about a week after getting to Trinity Beach and I thought I’d settled in, gotten past the immediate shock to the system, only to start all over again with the wishing I were dead.

Mark and I drove back up to TB, followed the next night by Anna and Nathan, Mark’s sister and her husband, who stayed for a few days. One highlight of their visit was a day spent up in Port Douglas at one of many wildlife places, hand-feeding kangaroos and gazing at koalas, which really are the cutest creatures on the planet. Man, would I love a koala. (I’m less enamoured of the crocs, which are super cool – I touched one and it mostly feels like a snake – but not so great to have around.)


We did have a pretty intense, real-live nature moment: we were among all the big kangaroos, after so many little ones and wallabies, and were disappointed that they weren’t interested in the food we were trying to feed them. Suddenly, one of them came down towards us. Great, we thought, this kangaroo is looking for some snacks and some love, and we’ve got both.

Except that an even bigger one followed the first one down and as they passed right in front of us and his very dangly balls dropped and swung back and forth as he chased after the pretty lady, we realized there was probably something fishy going on. And oh, there was.

Here’s how kangaroos do the deed: First he drinks her pee – or maybe not pee - I wasn’t involved enough to know;


then he follows her for a bit, stands on her tail, presumably to block her escape; and then he does the pretty standard move that we’ve all seen on nature shows.


(His penis is shaped really strangely, though, and Mark got a great picture to prove it. Look closely!)

Keep in mind that all this was about three feet from where we were standing, which was crazy enough, but then this other male came in and started growling at the first one, the two turning circles around the other while the female came straight towards us, maybe looking for somewhere to hide? Anna and Nathan moved pretty quickly but Mark and I wanted to see the story unfold – until, that is, the two males started moving their fight towards us, following the lucky girl, and we decided that we didn’t need to get kicked in the face by horny and aggressive kangaroos. Maybe another time, you know?

Anyway, check out the pictures. It was very cool.

Another fun time with Anna and Nathan was our pretty intense game of Taboo, which we had gotten them for “Christmas,” and in which we were all surprised at Mark’s and Nathan’s competitiveness. I, usually known for being so competitive in these games that it stops being fun (or so I’ve been told), felt totally laid-back and zen about the whole thing. Maybe people really can change, you know?

Less successful was when I decided to be "Helpful." I noticed that Nathan had a hole in his shirt, his favourite red t-shirt, some kind of New Zealand lamb wool fabric that supposedly breathes really well and thus never smells bad. A hole in the front of your shirt? No problem – give it to me! And off I went with my sewing kit, thinking that this hole would be like every other hole I’d ever sewn, where you turn it inside-out, hold it in a tight line and do it up. Right? Who’s with me? Except that – and we’re blaming the weird fabric here – it puckered up the whole front of the t-shirt and it looks like hell. And Nathan is polite to a fault and would not admit that I had butchered his favourite t-shirt, so he kept thanking me for my “help” while I named all the various items of holed clothing I’d fixed over the years... Lame. And lesson learned: mind your own business, always.

An update on the bird situation: I hate cockatoos. Think of the worst possible alarm clock sound you could design – would hundreds of squawking birds do it for you? Every morning at 7:00, then again in the evening. I hate them.

I am very pleased, on the other hand, with the beautiful green parrots that come to munch on the tree beside the balcony. They’re quite discreet – so much so that we didn’t notice them until very recently – and just so pretty. Unfortunately, they’re resisting my attempts at friendship and have actively ignored me (and my sunflower seeds) for three days running. I make all sorts of noises that I see no reason for them not to love, I offer them the seeds, I move my head around a little from side to side, parrot-style, to let them know that we’re on the same track, but they’re just not interested. One might even use the word “disdainful” if one were so inclined, but I’m choosing to go with “not yet fully engaged.” All in good time, my sweet parrot friends, all in good time.

As far as how stupid a person can be, how many times have I lived in tropical climates? How aware am I by now of how painful and dangerous the sun can be? Might I remind you that the big, famous hole in the ozone layer that we’re all so worried about is pretty much directly over my house? And yet – and yet. Off I went to the beach to get some sun.

I'd been using lots of good sunscreen and therefore remaining quite white and pasty, so I figured that if I went in the morning, until no later than 9:00, then I would get good sun but before it gets dangerous, and if I did that enough times I might start to have a general tan. Except that I’m someone who dawdles, pretty much always, our washing machine was broken, the laundromat was not open when it said it would be, everything got moved up in the day – long story short, I fell asleep on the beach and was lying in the sun until about 10:30, when I woke up, thought “well, I didn’t get any colour but I don’t want to push it” and went home.

Now. You can never see that you’re getting burnt – it only comes out later. I stepped out of the shower and was a lobster from the neck down, except for the blinding white of my bathing suit lines, like I was painted red and wearing white underwear. And it’s not like I can ask for sympathy, right? Because everything here is about slip, slap, slop, panicky covering up of skin, staying out of the sun... to have gone sun-bathing in the first place is pretty much a guarantee that nobody’s going to have anything to say except “look at the scars from the various melanomas I’ve had cut out of my white, Irish skin. You should know better.”

It was incredibly painful for two days, then nice and brown for two days (I dared get my hopes up) and now, of course, comes The Great Peel. You know those plastic-type face masks that you peel off? That’s the entire front of my body. It’s fascinating (or incredibly gross, if you’re, say, Mark) and also heartbreaking, because of course under the peel, I’m just as white as ever. So not only was it dangerous, but it didn’t even serve its shallow, superficial purpose. I’d like to say “lesson learned,” but who knows – sometimes I’m just an idiot.

Otherwise: Mark and I are continuing our war against the ants (and losing); the washing machine has been fixed; schools are closed for another week and I’m not sure whether to try to find another job or to just wait and get good money; they don’t have the feta dressing that my dad mixes with cucumbers and I when I tried with herb dressing and pieces of feta it was revolting and I don’t know what to do; our friendly neighbours are a cop and a soldier, respectively, which has exciting potential; immigration has confirmed that if I want to stay for 18 months, I’d better get fruit-picking (or fishing/pearling, which the lady said was actually lots of fun - ?!!?) and I really don’t want to; and finally, after over three weeks of waiting, they connected our internet – only to cancel my phone plan so that there is more work to be done.

Happy New Year to you all and here’s hoping that 2010 is the best one yet.

Kathryn

Life's A Beach: Chapter 1

Hi everyone!

So here's the blog version of the updates. I don't know how it works yet, how much space I have or how many pictures I'll be able to add, but for those of you who are happier not receiving e-mails, here's another way to follow my life in Northern Queensland.

As for the name of this series, I’m living in Trinity Beach, which is in North Queensland, near Cairns. I was trying to find something about the Holy Trinity or some kind of queen joke, or even a word play with Cairns (they pronounce it “cans,” in case that helps you come up with something that I couldn’t), but then I thought that “Life’s a Beach” would be the right attitude to be putting forth this time around. (I’ve decided to be actively positive and pro-active in my life here, rather than just complaining all the time... We’ll see how long it lasts.)

For anyone who doesn’t know the back story, here it is: I was in Townsville (also in Queensland) last year for teachers’ college and I started dating my house mate, Mark. He was working as a financial project manager for Honeywell Australia, who are currently installing or upgrading security in Queensland prisons. He came to Canada with me and stayed for the six months his visa allowed, during which time we looked for jobs in the Caribbean without much success. Then Honeywell asked him to come back to Australia for their next project, which is on Lotus Glen prison, about an hour inland from Cairns, and we figured it was our best bet for the time being. He’s been here since early November and I flew in this week.



Our together plan is to stay for 18 months, enough time for him to complete his MBA and the maximum time my visa will allow, before moving on. My own plan is tricky because the visa requires that I not spend more than six months with any one employer, so I’ll have to keep moving around. Also, if I want to extend to the year and a half (the visa itself is only one year at this point), I have to spend at least three months doing something like picking fruit or working in the forest – the details are foggy but suffice it to say that I will have to be crafty and open to whatever jobs come up.

Now. The trip itself was a bit dramatic because I was lucky enough to fly on the staff travel card of Mark’s pilot friend, Jason. (Who is a dead ringer for Jon Livingstone and happens to be one of the all-out nicest guys I know.) The deal with staff travel is that you save oodles of money but fly on stand-by, which means you can be bumped from your flight. Not a big deal, right? Except that in the moment itself, it’s depressing as hell.

It had been a long day, starting with a 5:30 wake-up, because I had to fly to LA first (via Minneapolis.) I’d had a bad cold earlier in the week, so my ears were in rough shape and the two descents were incredibly painful and left me headachy and hard of hearing the rest of the day. I got to LA at 1:20 and hung out all day in LAX (which is a miserable airport under any circumstances), checked in for my big flight and was informed at 7:30 that I wasn’t making it on and would have to go see the check-in staff to be put on the list for tomorrow’s flight. There were a few other people who had been bumped from stand-by so we all hung around during the four hours it took to get re-scheduled and collect our luggage; even better, we shared hotel rooms so no one had to pay too much.

It occurs to me that missing the flight, exhausting a day as it was (5:30 am until 3:00 am, Toronto time), was probably a blessing, as I needed a good night’s sleep and some time away from pressurized cabins. I hung out in LA with my new friends, resigned to the possibility of it all happening again that night; at least knowing what to expect would make it easier.

We went back for check-in as soon as they opened at 3:00 and we hung around the airport again, fingers crossed and trying to talk about anything other than our chances of making it on the flight, since we were making ourselves crazy with uninformed speculation. (And also informed, as legitimate ticket-holders who had missed their flight kept showing up, which meant that they would get priority on our flight and our chances were diminishing by the minute – a very tense situation!) Among other things, we brainstormed possible new career paths for Shannon, who spent the last six years working for Disney in London, found alternative travel arrangements for Saad, whose missed flight meant no possible connection to New Zealand for at least a week, and decided that if I had a baby I should name it “Mozzie.” We were briefly convinced that Nicole Kidman was on the flight when we saw excited people flashing cameras and I remembered seeing her in a BT interview that said she was heading home for Christmas, but it turned out to be Aussie singer Deltra Goodram. Very anti-climactic. Mostly, we stressed about what would happen if one or two of us got on the flight and not the others, since everyone had such a good reason to go home. (Especially this Mississippi couple whose son moved to Australia 9 years ago and has only come home twice since – get these people on a plane!) Would any of us be generous enough to give up our spot? Probably not.

And then, just like that, we all got on. It was incredibly exciting and I was glad to have people to jump around with and hug, rather than being all happy by myself. The flight was long and my ears were bad (I was also really nauseous and couldn’t eat anything – what’s with my crappy immune system?!) and I thought I was going to get bumped from my Sydney-Cairns flight, but I wasn’t and Mark was at the airport and everything was smooth sailing from then on. Oh, except for my bags still being in LA, but they were delivered yesterday (by an elderly man who really shouldn’t be carrying people’s oversized luggage) so after wearing the same sweaty dress for two days, I’m all unpacked and clean and ready to roll.

Mark and I had already agreed on an apartment (via online real estate sites) and he had moved in on the 11th, so it was nice for me to move straight into our apartment. It’s actually a two-storey townhouse, absolutely beautiful – airy, spacious, hardwood floors, great furniture, gardens out the windows, clean and modern – AND it has a pool, which we didn’t think was the case from the web site or from Mark’s first, quick tour of the place. I spent the day yesterday picking up extra sheets, towels, garbage bins, light bulbs, organizing baskets and other such household items, and we re-arranged the furniture right away, so now I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived and I just keep wandering around and smiling at how nice and clean everything is.

Tropical jungle pool



Nice big windows out to the upstairs deck



View from guest room over main entrance



Garden outside main bedroom



What I had forgotten about the tropics is how noisy the creatures around you can be. The frogs are incredibly loud, the geckos make this weird little barking noise and there’s this creepy, whispered “hey” outside my room in the early morning. The worst, though (other than our loud neighbours with their totally screechy saxophone jazz and raucous parties) are the wild cockatoos that fly around in packs and squawk like they’re trying to raise the dead. It’s amazing and completely miserable, but it doesn’t last long – some kind of evening thing they have going on.

As for poop, I was sitting at the table yesterday when something hit my arm – I figured it was a bug of some sort but eventually noticed some lizard poo on the table. There’s an overhanging bit of ceiling, you see, and one of the many geckos running around on it had let loose right above me – luckily it bounced off my arm and not into my hair. I sit in a different chair now, though apparently it’s good luck when a gecko poops on you.

Less charmingly, Mark said that the other morning he found some possum poo right inside the big sliding door to the bedroom, which you have to leave open because it’s too hot to sleep otherwise, but which doesn’t have a screen door. I’m not that concerned about cleaning up the occasional little deposit, but I’m not feeling so hot about possums coming into the room and am trying to come up with a plan of action in case I ever wake up to see two little shining eyes staring at me in the night. I guess if you’re going to be all thrilled to be surrounded by trees, you have to deal with the tree dwellers as well.

Now for the best part. Better than a beautiful apartment with a pool, you ask? How is that possible? Better than being surrounded by lush, green mountains? Better than having a corner plaza with a goodwill, a post office, a Thai take-out restaurant AND a Brumby’s bakery?

Check it out: Jason (the pilot who looks like Jon Livingstone) happened to have a flight up to Cairns yesterday so Mark went and rescued him from a staff-hotel-room-and-partying-cabin-crew evening to come have a barbecue with us. They were chatting so much that he missed the turn-off and had to circle back, which meant that they passed a couple of big fields that are past Trinity Beach and pretty much right behind our house. Guess what lives in those fields? A herd of kangaroos! Kangaroos!



Like, maybe eighty of them, just hanging out in this grassy spot, munching away and completely unconcerned if you go right up close to them. So having never managed to see a proper kangaroo during the whole thirteen months I lived in Australia last year, I’ve landed in a house that is two minutes from their operational headquarters. I am so pleased.



I guess that’s it. My body is all puffy and panicky from the sudden heat, but I’m not that concerned because I have nothing better to do than just hang around and wait for it to work itself out. I’ve been driving a lot and was surprised at how easily I got back into the system; the opposite side of the road is actually a whole lot less of a problem than Mark’s big sedan, since I’m used to small cars. My old cell phone even still works! And I won’t even think about job searching until after Christmas, which will be a family visit period for us and during which everything’s closed anyway. In other words, now that I’ve finished with the household errands and my luggage got here in one piece, I’m ready to hit the beach or the pool as soon as the sun comes out; this is the rainy season here, so I’m happy to have nothing to do so that I can take advantage of the nice days when they occur. The rest of the time, it’s nice to sit and read with the shushing of the rain all around.

I hope you all have happy holidays and that 2010 is full of good stuff.

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Nine: Hawai'i

I like to feel that I've wrapped things up, and since I get on a plane bound for Toronto tonight, now's as good a time as any to end the series.

When I last wrote, I was heading out to Hawaii. I made the mistake of assuming that Tahiti would have a modern, happening airport, with fancy features like toilets and phones. I checked my luggage, emptied my could-be-a-bomb water bottle and headed through the point-of-no-return security check to the big room where all the boarding gates are, which turned out to be under construction. No water (which they didn't mention when they made me dump mine out), NO TOILETS - for a three-hour gate-wait - and no phones, which was the biggest crisis of all, since I had just received bad news from Australia and needed to call. Also, no air conditioning, fans or open windows, but lots of smokers. (Tahiti is French, remember.)

By the time we boarded the plane at midnight, I was so nauseous, dehydrated, shaky and depressed that I had no strength left to fight the meat-freezer cabin temperature and arrived in rainy, five a.m. Honolulu with a cold and some kind of stomach bug. (The cold didn't last long, but the bug wreaked havoc on my sight-seeing.)

The reason I went to Hawaii was to visit my friend Molly, who is in med school there. (It was nice to finally meet in person, having been pen pals since she replaced me as an English teacher in Guadeloupe.) I hijacked most of the first day with my sniffly-sneeziness and an epic nap, but on the second day we kicked off the tourism week and went whale-watching. I got sea-sick and there were no whales, though there was a group of dolphins that jumped along beside the boat and then hung out while everyone took pictures (except me; too sea-sick…)

Molly was probably wondering what kind of a loser she was stuck with for the week, but when we went back out with our try-again voucher, it was beautiful and sunny with not too much choppiness and I felt like a million bucks - and we saw whales. While they were beautiful and it’s moving to think of them just being there in the water, though, the boat wasn’t allowed to get too close so we mostly saw puffs of water, slippery backs and the occasional tail. (The dolphin sighting was actually much more satisfying - unfortunately, neither whale nor dolphin appears in any of my pictures, so you'll have to just use your imagination...)

The really entertaining thing turned out to be the many Japanese tourists on the boat with us, who gasped and clapped at every single water spurt. Now, it’s definitely exciting the first time, the second and maybe – maybe – even the third. After that, it’s nice to watch but it stops being surprising; you can just stand there, scanning quietly for signs of movement and smile at the thought that you’re looking at whales. No need to keep ooh-ing ah-ing, right? Apparently not. Sometimes the gasps were so huge that I thought something really important was happening and tried to spot the whale leaping out of the water or the shark attack, but it was only ever another water puff or a glimpse of a back.

(There was briefly some serious action when two pods met up and started showing off for each other, with some fin-slapping and general broo-ha-ha; interestingly, that’s when the group stopped gasping, many going back inside to sit down because they were apparently over it.)

On one of Molly's full days of class, I took the bus over to Hanauma Bay, which is known for its amazing snorkeling. I didn’t realize that it was the biggest tourist attraction in the area and that there would be a beach entry fee, an mandatory educational video (don’t walk on the reef, don’t pee in the water, etc.) and a gazillion people, but once I had taken so long to get there, I figured I could just find a quiet spot to read my book and go hang out with the fish when the crowd started to dwindle.

The thing about Hawaii tourism, though, is that the crowds never seem to dwindle. There were 140 seats in the video, which played every 15 minutes, and every single one was full; imagine 560 people an hour coming to swim at a beach that is about 500 metres long. I didn’t bother getting snorkel gear and trying to shove my way into the group, since I figured I would mostly have great views of other snorkelers but not so much the fish themselves. (Especially after the near-deserted beaches in Tahiti, it was hard to share my water space; tourism is tough-going when you’ve been spoiled!) The water was also pretty icy, so just going in for the occasional cool-down was more than enough for me.

My favourite moment was when a girl was adjusting her bikini top and it slipped down, exposing a breast for maybe one eighth of a second, before she gasped and pulled it back into place, looking mortified and apologetic. A woman sitting nearby was fully scandalized, huffing indignantly about there being children on the beach, and the family next to her joined in the cause, hoping to god that their children hadn’t seen such filth and there you go, you can’t even go to a public beach anymore without risking exposure to pornography. While they fretted and fussed over the possibility that their eight-year-old may have seen a flash of a human breast and may therefore be scarred for life and turn away from the church to take up prostitution and star in adult movies, I imagined the tan lines that were undoubtedly working their way into my own skin and wistfully remembered the beautiful Tahitian beaches where you can get as naked as you want and get brown all over, just as god intended. (Apparently we aren’t all talking about the same god…)


On Wednesday night, Molly and I took a bus through the mountains to do full moon yoga on Lanikai Beach. We ran into some problems upon our triumphant arrival, having followed the directions of both the bus driver and some friendly locals, when we couldn’t see yoga anywhere and were informed that this was actually such-and-such beach and the one we wanted was way over there, up the road and around the corner. We set off over the sand through the increasing darkness, Molly being convinced that set-backs are good, as they make an event more memorable, and I being highly suspicious of the lack of a full moon – or any moon, really – and wondering if Molly hadn’t confused the dates.

(Incidentally, even before we saw it for ourselves, the full moon-ness of the night was confirmed by the man we encountered in a beach-access alley, just as I was standing up out of a “private moment” squat; he was going to the beach to see the full moon and was disappointed that it wasn’t out yet, though Molly pointed out to me that he did see a full moon of one kind, if not quite the one he expected. I was mortified.)

We ended up finding the beach and the yoga, still in the dark but with the soothing sound of the sea (and the less-soothing sound of a big group of friends having a beach pow-wow about ten feet away from us, apparently not interested in choosing a spot somewhere else on the huge, empty beach). At one point it started to rain, which the yoga instructor called “blessings” and which Molly and I called “a long, wet, cold ride home on a severely air-conditioned bus,” but it didn’t last. Eventually the moon came out and was gorgeous, so low and huge and a warm, cheesy yellow; the only thing missing was muscle tone, and we all know whom I have to blame for that.

Otherwise, we had a nice – and tourist-packed – walk through the forest to Manoa Falls, including an off-the-beaten-track jaunt through some unexpectedly beautiful bamboo, and we spent my last morning at Shangri-La, the fancy-pants estate of a rich, eccentric lady named Doris Duke. This particular house (she owned several) was decorated in an Islamic theme, with gorgeous mosaics and tapestries and all manner of beautiful things. I love mosaic patterns and tile work, so I was pretty much jealous for most of the tour, wondering if I could find a way to recreate some of her fabulous rooms in my own home. It’s never going to happen, but it was a nice way to fantasize the morning away.

We had a rainy stroll around Waikiki-at-night, which is quite chi-chi and pretty much completely out of my league. Even finding stickers for Karine (they don’t have that kind of thing in France and I had confidently assured her that it would be no problem) took two hours of walking around the shopping centre and cost me more than I would have expected to pay for a manicure and skin treatment. You’re not in Kansas anymore…

It was a nice week, a nice break from family life, and now I’m back in Tahiti, having had one storm day, one beach day and one more day at school (giving out Canadian stickers and tattoos made me even more of a superstar on campus than I already was), and tonight at the airport I’m not going into the gate until the very last minute, onward and upward.

Thanks for reading along and… see you soon.

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Eight: Tahiti

I’m actually no longer in Australia, but am writing from Papeete, Tahiti. Phone and internet are so slow here, information so difficult to come by and everything so seemingly distant that it’s hard to focus on anything outside of my immediate surroundings. I’ll try, though, so that I can wrap up Townsville and put it all behind me.


Part One: Good-bye, Townsville

After our hot and tropical Christmas, the rain started - it hadn’t stopped when I left and it hasn’t stopped now, as a cyclone hit Queensland yesterday (no details yet on the outcome.) Mark and I headed up to a holiday apartment in Trinity Beach over New Year’s, a Christmas gift from his parents. Our pre-departure plans consisted of exploring the area, enjoying the pool and lying on the beautiful beach, baking in the summer sun - but that was before the rain.

The reality was that we spent five out of the seven days stuck indoors, watching movies and doing jigsaw puzzles while the storms raged around us. (Though, to be fair, we were also very excited about having a couch for a week, so at least that wasn’t wasted by our actually leaving the apartment on a regular basis.) Every once in a while there would be a patch of clear sky and we’d run down to the beach, but it was closed every time because when any North Queensland beach finds a stinger in the stinger net, all the beaches close for the rest of the day. Apparently that was a bad week for stinger nets. (We did spend as much time as possible in the pool, though, not least because it featured a very exciting - if hygienically suspicious – sauna option.)

We did have one sunny morning that we spent on a crocodile-sighting tour of the Daintree River and one fully sunny day of snorkeling at Green Island. We had a rough start, including not being able to find the boat departure, getting severely sunburned on the ferry (you know when you find yourself pulling thick, dead flakes of skin out of your hair for the next week?) and battling the epic crowds on this tiny little tourist trap island.

Ultimately, though, we had a beautiful, calm day of snorkeling, which ended abruptly when I saw a shark swim past me, about three feet from my face - a shark, you understand - and booked it out of the water with the speed of an Olympic swimmer (or Olympic scaredy-cat), only to stand anxiously on the shore, shouting at Mark to get out of the water but unable to break through his fuzzy snorkeling sound shell and too much of a coward to go back in and pull him out. (He eventually surfaced to de-fog his mask and bore unfortunate witness to my frantic near-hysteria. “A shark?” he said, “where? I want to see it.”) As for the shark, it obviously couldn’t care less about our presence in the water, being either very well-fed or simply one of those sharks that isn’t into people, which is something I would have liked to know ahead of time.

Back in Townsville, I had a good long stretch of not working: it’s hard enough to find office-type work in a blue collar town at the best of times, so during the panicky beginning of a recession, it wasn’t happening. I did a few more promotions and worked the bar at some basketball games, as well as having some more hours with Angus just before I left, including going on-site with him and doing construction work. Go figure.

Mostly, though, I endlessly re-created the Trinity Beach week, only alone. I read, I watched movies, I did puzzles, I baked. I couldn’t leave the house most days because of the rain (most of you probably saw footage of the horrible fires in the South of the country, but I don’t know if you were up on the flooding situation; this has broken all records for being the wettest, most flooded year in Australian history.) It was bad enough in a car - though I was always grateful for even a ride to the grocery store, just for a change of scenery - but on foot or by bike it was obviously out of the question. When I was working, we organized elaborate carpool plans; the rest of the time, I sat in our moldy apartment in my moldy clothes and watched my skin turn pale.

(After two weeks of not having a day of work or sunshine, Angus called and I went in three days in a row, all three of which were hot, glorious, sunny days. The fourth day, the rain started as I was packing my beach bag and didn’t stop until the next time I went in for work. I know that a lot of people had real problems and I had nothing to complain about, but doesn’t that sound a bit unfair?)

The lack of work was frustrating, but it did give me time to sort out my teacher registration stuff, take care of paper work like bank accounts and taxes, sell my stuff and spend lots of time with Mark while I still could. (Especially when he couldn’t go to work because of the floods, so we got to read, watch movies, do puzzles and bake - together!) And if anyone’s going to be stuck in the house for weeks at a time, it’s probably best that it be me; I can do absolutely nothing for a lot longer than most people before I start to get depressed.

The last few days were sad the way that last few days are wont to be, but a definite highlight was my first trip to a real live casino. After watching the movie “21” and wondering how the whole card-counting thing works, Mark and I started playing Blackjack and decided that since we were just so good at it, we should head over to the casino sometime. In our game, though, the non-dealer’s hand was not out in plain view, so there was some bluffing involved. I like to think of myself as having a particularly excellent poker face (Mark, misguided as he is, claims that this is untrue), at least for the first few minutes of the game, before I get the giggles. I figured that I could quickly make a couple of hundred and take off as soon as I felt my focus starting to slip.

It turns out, however, that it’s all open on the table! Dammit! You can’t bluff, you have no control over the situation, you can just sit there and watch them take your money away. I watched a few people laying down chip after chip and losing it all and was too intimidated to play, but after sitting in on Mark’s game for a few rounds, I decided that you only live once and I traded in my twenty dollars for some chips. I was a very responsible gambler, putting aside whatever I won and only ever playing my original bet, so that at the very least I would walk out with my original twenty dollars, except that… wait for it… I ended up with eighty dollars! Sixty dollars profit! My casual plan to make hundreds of dollars was maybe aiming a bit too high, but within my own comfort level I’m actually a hot mama at the Blackjack table. I can’t wait for round two, for which I intend to wear extravagantly high heels and possibly draw a dark beauty mark just under my lip.

Part Two: French Polynesia

My trip home is all international flights, where you’re allowed two bags at 23kg each. After spending over a year in Townsville, I culled through everything I owned, made some hard decisions, gave eight bags to good will, packed only what I really loved or needed and got it down to about 50kg total. At the Townsville airport, though, they informed me that no, in fact, for domestic flights (Townsville to Sydney) I’m only allowed to have 23kg. If I tried to bring everything I had, it would be about $250 in overweight charges.

Now, a tearful morning at the airport is never fun, so finding out that I had to go through my “bare minimum” and get rid of half of it was unsettling, to say the least. Even I, who love a good cull, was pretty weepy about having to ruthlessly abandon anything that wasn’t immediately necessary in my life. (You know that great Chinese bathrobe? And the sexy cleavage top with the lace along the straps? Gone. Feel my pain.)

Mark got some bags out of the car and we filled them up with all of the discards, all the shirts and bras and shoes that were lying on the floor of the airport, and I got my overweight charge down to my casino winnings. And we agreed that having that kind of situation to deal with was a good distraction from the sadness of saying good-bye.

My night in Sydney was uneventful, in a Formule 1 hotel (where the bathroom is so tiny that they ask you to close the door while the shower is on, lest you flood the whole room) at which I paid $7 for the “continental breakfast” that turned out to be a selection of white bread, jam, coffee and tea. And not even nice tea, just tea.

Air Tahiti was very exciting because the flight attendants changed outfits three times, so that we were greeted by shoulder pads and heels, then served by traditional flower dresses, then sent off by cute little enjoy-the-breeze dresses. And they gave us those yummy-smelling flowers during the flight, then blasted Tahitian music as soon as we landed, so we were all in full tourist mode before even setting foot in the place.

What would you most want to know about Tahiti? It’s not necessarily as you picture it, for one. Papeete is full of people and noise and litter, though there is definitely a stunning mountain backdrop and once you go up the coast in either direction it gets a lot calmer.

There are hens everywhere. And chickens and roosters and all manner of loud, freakish farm birds.

Those beautiful Tahitians, all slender and curvy with coconut boobs and a long, black braid? Fictional. People here are quite big, kind of a sumo vibe. The official reason for this is apparently that they went from having zero money to lots and lots of it when France set up the military. So they suddenly have lots of money, which means that every third car (not an exaggeration) is an SUV, they eat horribly and they don’t get any exercise. At this point, sixty per cent of the 18-35 population suffers from diabetes/heart problems/cholesterol type health problems, to the point where they can’t work past 40 years old. SIXTY per cent! The implications on the health system and the economy are really scary, but they aren’t doing the kinds of health-and-fitness education initiatives that everyone else is. Pretty scary.

I walked Eva to her junior high and was completely intimidated by the aggressive stares of the kids sitting outside, smoking: not only are they huge, but they also aren’t the soft, gentle people they are stereotyped to be; they’re pretty tough and very hostile. And they walk around with ghetto blasters, ‘80s style.


Lots of tattoos, thick and usually full-arm or -leg, usually symbolic. They look really good.

Here’s an interesting one: there are boys who are raised as girls, called “les rérés.” My hosts claimed that it was just at random, like Catholic families who decide that the first son will be a priest, but a local guy I met told me that it’s only boys who are a bit effeminate in the first place, raised to be women so that nobody will give them a hard time about it. Some of them are like drag queens, tall and gorgeous and much more womanly than your average woman, plus with great legs. But most of them are dumpy and heavy with moustaches and sailors’ muscles. Isn’t that an interesting societal decision?

The accent is lovely, with a rolled “r” instead of the throaty French one. And they only say “tu,” never “vous,” which is VERY hard to get used to. Imagine talking to an old man for the first time and saying “est-ce que tu sais quand le prochain ferry arrive?”

Pretty nosy. I pay my bus fare, she says “voilà, madame. Or is it mademoiselle?” A few people (as in, total strangers, on the bus or handing me the drink I just bought) have asked me my religion.

As for my own situation here, I have found it a bit exhausting to fit into a family routine that is not mine. The teenage hormones, for one. The very specific way of doing things, for another, so that when I try to help I’m actually not helping, but what am I supposed to do, sit around and not help?

And then there’s just the Frenchness of it all, which I miss when I’m away but which drives me a bit crazy when I’m in it. The way that women flutter around their men, with their voices going up really high and full of baby talk; the way the men explain things to you (even things that you know a lot about, like, say, the country you’re from) as if you were a child, indeed a moronic child; the stress about good grades and this one getting .25 less than his school rival, so maybe he should be studying harder…

Here’s my least favourite word in French: allez. It means “oh, come on” and can be “mais, allez” or “allez, Kathryn” or any other variation, but you have to say it a certain way. “Mais, allez” is pronounced “meh ah-leh,” except that you really drag out the “leh,” with your lips pursed and the tone of someone who is speaking to the biggest asshole they’ve ever encountered.
Katy: “I don’t like mountain biking; it makes me anxious and afraid.”
French person: “Mais al-LEZ, Kathryn,” meaning “oh, come on, of course you want to come to the race we’re running in and mountain bike behind us. Why would anyone not like to do the things that we like to do? If you don’t like to do what we like to do, then you are obviously wrong.”

Once at the race, on the mountain bike, I certainly felt smug when all these die-hard runners came gasping along the trail, hot and exhausted and looking like they were about to throw up. They made comments about the heat and looked at me for sympathy - forget it! What kind of idiot runs in a mountain race in the middle of the summer in Tahiti? Of course it’s hot! Get yourself to a water source like anyone with half a brain, or suck it up; just don’t live your life pretending that you’re still in Bordeaux and then look at me for support when the sun starts to burn.

I went into school with Karine a few times to speak English with the kids, most of whom do languages through a computer program and were just off their tits excited to have a real, live English person in the classroom with them. When I took them outside for games they looked at me like I was the Messiah and when I brought out the guitar they practically passed out with joy. It was very worthwhile, not least because it reminded me of what the French school system is like and how much I would never want to put my kids in it, so it might make my future life decisions easier for everyone involved. We may not have their delicious food, but at least we don’t make our six-year-olds sob all over their workbooks because they didn’t underline the date with the right pen.

Is that enough negative? Let’s talk about the good times, too: the best days have been when I’ve gone out on my own schedule and done things alone, so that I had a better feeling of the local lifestyle. After a few creepy encounters at the beach, for example, I met Matahi (which sounds more like Mat-HAY-ee, as they’re quite percussive with their “h”s), an interesting, curious, funny guy who took me around to see different beaches and local sites and was just a lot of fun.

I had some hilarious (and sometimes surreal) conversations on buses and while hitch-hiking, and when I’m not with a whole group of white people, the locals seem less resentful of me and are willing to take a chance. Maybe because when I’m alone I look more like a tourist, rather than with grocery bags and a family of four.

I went over on the ferry to neighbouring island Moorea, which is much smaller and more authentically Polynesian, hardly any French people (other than the hotels) and, of course, so beautiful. (The water here is unbelievable, to the point where you can just stand there and watch all these amazing, colourful fish swim around you and you don’t even need a snorkeling mask.)

On the ferry ride over to Moorea I got quite boat sick, to the point where I got off and puked my guts out into the nearest garbage can, thereby missing the one bus that leaves for every ferry arrival. I would have to wait two hours for the next one but luckily was able to hitch-hike (which isn’t really done here, apparently) with this little old man who insisted on taking me all the way to my destination, way past his house, so that he could keep giving me a tour of his beloved island.

The destination was the Intercontinental hotel, where they have dolphins. I couldn’t justify paying for the swim-with-dolphins package, but even sitting beside them was awesome. (Really awe-some, for those of you - ahem, Papa - who think I overuse the word!) I stayed almost two hours, occasionally chatting with the concierge who kept coming around to hang out with me, before finally tearing myself away, with the promise that someday - preferably when I’m not by myself - I’ll swim with them.

(Hopefully as a guest of the Intercontinental, which is just beautiful and has those little huts on the water so that you wake up, accept the fruit that someone has kayaked up to your door, then step out into the turquoise sea and watch the dolphins play as the sun rises. Sigh.)

I walked to the Tipannier public beach, but the access to it is private. Right. Feeling very devious, I snuck around the back, slicing my leg open on some kind of scary vine, and made it through to the beach, only to discover that the boat that takes you across to the tiny snorkeling islands wasn’t running because the guy wasn’t there that day. His dad was, though, and offered for me to take a kayak across for the same price. Great!

Off I went, a pretty hard row but that’s okay, because apparently there are rays that swim up over you and beautiful fish. I got the kayak up on shore and got into the water, then when I tried to stand still to put my mask on, the current dragged me away. It was so strong that I couldn’t get anywhere and had to hold on to the big rocks in the water if I wanted to stay still, but why bother because the current was too strong for the fish - of which I saw literally two in half an hour. I eventually gave up and tried kayaking around the mini islands, which wasn’t a go, tried walking through the islands, but they were full of brambles and painful, scratchy things, so I got back into the kayak and headed back to the beach. In a windstorm. Where did it come from? The twenty-minute ride took me over an hour on the way back, as I was constantly tossed up on the shore (at people’s houses) and couldn’t get back to the beach. Very exciting stuff.

(Moral of the story: choose your own activities, rather than doing what someone told you was great, because they were there in a different season and under different circumstances and when you do it, it kind of sucks.)

I had a really long chat with the dad, who is from Pays-Basque and definitely one of my new favourite people, then missed the bus, hitch-hiked back to the ferry and got sick again on the way home. Moorea: check.

So that’s where I’m at. It’s really quite beautiful here, I’ve loved my beach days, I feel sunned and soothed and will be sad to leave, I’ve had a warm welcome from my hosts and although it’s rained half the time I’ve been here (which meant lots of frustrating games of Scrabble in French), it’s been a really nice holiday so far. Lots to see and do and think about, lots of interesting conversations and unexpected discoveries, AND they have my beloved Milka chocolate. It will take a lot of will power not to pack eight kilos of it into my suitcase.

Tonight I leave for a week in Hawai’i. This is the life!

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Seven

Holiday Greetings!

Who's up for some news? It's Boxing Day and the cricket is on – God help us all – and while I'm trying to be a good sport and get into the holiday spirit, I can't sit through an entire day (or two or three or five) of this mind-numbing game. I've already finished my jigsaw puzzle, painted my toenails, washed the floor, done the laundry and sewn hems on two shirts. I'm out of excuses not to be sitting in front of the television, which happens to be where the internet plugs in, so it looks like it's time for an update...

***For those of you who skip the reading or who don't make it to the end, let me wish you lots of joy in this holiday season. Best of everything in 2009!***

Teachers' College

Done! Ha! Never again!

Work

Interesting situation that I find myself in. I quit the restaurant, see, having had enough of crazy long shifts, angry staff, absentee management, total mayhem most of the time, and of course the constantly and excessively drunk customers. Done and done. And why not? I'll just pick up some office work, get some temp stuff until my papers come through and I can do some supply teaching – no problem.

Turns out, though, that in blue-collar army/mining towns like this, the only temporary work is in manual labour – other than some office work for government/army organizations, but then you need to be an Australian citizen. I thought it might actually be a good idea to get my construction site blue card and a pair of steel-toe boots, as doing some digging and hauling and lifting would make me strong and fit (and rich) – but even that fell through because you have to have your own transportation to get out to construction/farm/mine sites way out of Townsville, and my bicycle -- though excellent -- just won't cut it.

But no need to panic. First, I've found this guy who runs a construction company from home and needs office management help, such as typing up project bids and e-mails and letters to sub-contractors and anything else that needs to be done around the office.
He even lets me unleash my organization skills, including furniture re-arrangement – look out! Cash-in-hand, super casual (jean shorts, tank tops and bare feet tend to be my work uniform) and a nice family vibe, as I get to chat with his teacher wife and coo at their eight-week-old baby.

Second – and less satisfying but we all have to pay our bills, right? – is working for a promotions company, which I thought would be dressing up in ice cream costumes and handing out popsicles at the beach and that kind of thing. It's not. So far, in a series of increasingly inappropriate-for-me-and-everything-I-stand-for promo jobs, I've been:


1. The pork lady, setting up a stand in the supermarket to cook and hand out samples of "moisture-infused" pork;


2. The White Stag girl, standing in drive-thru bottle shops (oh yes, they have drive-thru alcohol stores), handing out samples of Toohey's latest low-carb beer to people in cars; and


3. The Beer Promo Chick, setting up kegs of Pure Blond Naked and serving it out to drunk soldiers at the local army base's end-of-year parties. (You can't see the high heels and cleavage hole, but it was hot!)

They were desperate for staff and super grateful that I showed up when I did, but I'm not exactly what they're looking for in a promo chick – which I should have figured out from their being called "Casting Couch" and having a web site full of pictures of girls in slutty costumes and coquettish (read: whorish) poses. As it happens, they're so disorganized that I was mostly left to my own devices for the first few weeks, just wearing more or less conservative black, depending on the venue. I chose to disregard the army base uniform of "high heels, short black shorts and baby tee," for example, opting to wear pants and a fitting top and let my sparkling personality make up for the rest.

I was a bit suspicious when I opened the bag for the first White Stag deal, surprised to discover that a ten-year-old child would be accompanying me on this beer promo and then realizing that, in fact, I was supposed to be wearing those tiny little munchkin-sized short shorts. I started to think that maybe this wasn't going to be the best job for me. Now I've seen the doll-sized one-piece Kahlua overalls and the bra-and-short-shorts standard "uniform" for anything pub-related and I think I'm going to look into a different line of work in the new year, though no one can take away the memories. Ah, Casting Couch.

Teaching

Grade six was great. I was all stressed out about going back to pre-teens after having such fun with the littlies, but forget it – grade six is a fantastic age and I'm hoping against hope that one of the grade seven teachers gets sick in January so that I can have my class back for a few weeks.

I'm not such a great basketball coach, is the only thing. I mean, I'm a terrible basketball coach. But other than that, we did so many interesting things, had such good talks – about racism, relationships, community, travel, kindness, politics, xenophobia, "lie" vs. "lay" – you name it – did rich tasks and integrated activities, including everything from yoga and aerobics (for the mandatory half-hour of exercise a day) to folk singing and mock elections. Awesome.

They went a little wild for my birthday, decorating the classroom with balloons, bringing me gifts and chocolates (no complaints here), writing me cards... and then two days later it was my last day and they did it all over again, only with tears and promises and lots of hugs, even from the boys. What do you with all the overwhelming love that you feel for a group of kids? I went back to see the plays they performed for the parents and some of the shyest kids were up on stage, everyone so excited and nervous and the whole thing so dear – I could hardly stand to watch it, I was so choked up with it all. How could anybody not want to work with kids?!

As for the littlies, I kept going in when I could and got to witness some pretty excellent six-year-old moments, like funny little Leita saying to Clay, who had just let her use his ladybug eraser: "You're the greatest friend I've ever had." Or Harley, part of some in-joke that I was not in on: "Hello, Hannah. Or should I say, 'Lulu.'"

My favourite one all year, possibly ever: Georgia is a little girl who's having a pretty rough time of it all, generally quite bright but totally disengaged and can sit for an entire day and get nothing done, other than distracting everyone around her. I think she's super cute and was lucky to have a really good connection with her, as some kids just respond better to different teachers. (Greta wasn't a big fan of Georgia's, but she loved the kid that I would have paid money to remove from the class. Go figure.) Georgia just thought I was really great and always worked hard when I was there, getting completed-work stars for the first time all year.

Now: Peter, a funny-little-old-man-though-only-six, sees Georgia's sticker card, which suddenly has all these gold stars. He says: "Georgia, is that your sticker card? Are those all your stars? Wow, Georgia – you're only two stars away from a tuck shop voucher! Well done, Georgia! You must have really been working hard, to get all those stickers – that's just great! Good on ya, Georgia! You must be so pleased with yourself – well done!" With Georgia just standing there, beaming.

**And let's not forget the lesson in that: model positive behaviour and language with the children in your lives, because they really do pick it up and use it. And so earnestly!

They wrote me messages during a computer lesson and Greta e-mailed it to me. This was Georgia's:

Halomrstomesm
Iyvbenwiliygoodforthelast3weiyweksbutimissyoulovegeorgia

And some of the other ones, just because it's funny to see how they write at that age (don't think they haven't been told – and told and told and told – about spaces between words!):

-Hellomristomeshowareyougoinglovedaniellefulton

-Haloo mess tomes from Harley

-Deatomes tomsmarrychrtmasnadahaveahappynewyearfrombrysonn

Seriously, though – how could anyone not want to work with kids?

*You know how people say that baseball is too slow because a game can take up to three or four hours? The same cricket batter, this one guy, has been going for four hours – FOUR HOURS – and the game is not finished until every batter on both teams has had a go. Four hours! He's had a total of eight different people pitching to him so far! There is a morning tea break, a lunch break, an afternoon tea break, and then they come back tomorrow and keep going. They won't let it go longer than: five days. That's about 30 hours of game time. Even just having Mark try to and explain the rules makes me hostile, anxious, bored, aggressive and depressed. All at once. Am I just being close-minded or is this the single most absurdly ridiculous game on the planet? Who ARE these people?

Nature

So here's something that's a problem for me in Australia. I'm here because I love the tropics, right? I can accept that there are ants EVERYWHERE, in all the food, without exception. I can accept that there are giant flying cockroaches and that my fingers swell up and ache in the humidity. I can accept that there are huge and terrifying storms that cause major flooding and take out all the power for up to seven or eight hours, melting the ice cream and keeping the laundry perpetually moldy and damp – even though it isn't officially cyclone season yet. I can accept all the less-fantastic things because they're in exchange for water holes and beautiful beaches and a real return to nature, right?

So it's irritating that even nature is a bust. To wit: Mark and I drive out to Jourama, a water hole/creek that he remembers from a few years ago and wants to revisit. A beautiful day, perfect for a nature walk, a peaceful break from city sounds and smells. Can't wait.

We set off through the forest, which is probably pretty but who knows, since we're concentrating so hard on swatting away the monster flies – horse flies? deer flies? – that are taking chunks out of our skin.

We arrive at the first swimming spot, slow-motion tip-toe our way over the treacherously slippery rocks and, sweating profusely from the sun and the forest mugginess, jump into the water. It's just as cold as expected, knock-the-breath-out-of-you cold, delicious mountain-water-cold – but there are little crab things that are chomping away at our flesh and it's more stressful than it's worth.

When we try to warm up in the sun, though, we are so completely swarmed by the monster flies that we can't even take the time to dress or pack. In our dripping bathing suits and carrying clothes, shoes, cameras and sandwich bags, we slip and slide back over the rocks (which really are dangerous if you're distractedly running away from giant mutant flies) and scramble up through the forest until we escape the hub of the swarm – though by no means escaping the flies altogether.

We climb up to the look-out, gasping for breath in the humidity and the direct sun, and when we reach the end point, the big prize with the nice waterfall view, Mark turns to make a comment and I can't hear a word he's saying. He tries again, but he's too exhausted to raise his voice higher than the ear-splitting roar that is surrounding us. What is this noise? Well, it's crickets, cicadas, frogs, birds – any number of creatures, all sitting in the trees and making a hideous, overwhelming symphony of sound.

And as we stand there, panting, sweating, swatting the monster flies away from our itchy, red bodies, deaf to everything but the piercing car-alarm-like cacophany of the forest, we think: what are we doing here? This is hell. If we had to design hell, this is how we'd do it. If we wanted peace, we should have stayed in the apartment with the ceiling fan on; neighbours' squabbles and loud music have nothing on the misery of a nature walk.

We tried other water holes but the damn flies are relentless: either it's winter and it's too cold for ice swimming, or it's summer and you can't get near the water for the flies. You can't go near the beautiful beaches because there might be crocs and sharks and there are definitely stingers.

We went camping at this gorgeous waterfall on Christmas Eve and on the endless Christmas day hike down through the rain forest, we had warning after warning of the various poisonous plants to avoid (all of which are green and leafy, possibly with berries – thanks! That really narrows it down!) and how to be safe in croc country... It's hard to just enjoy the scenery around here.

I mean, it's beautiful - there are some beautiful places - but you don't really have access to most of it. Unfortunate, is all I'm saying.

(And when you do find a good one, like Crystal Creek, you take a picnic, you marvel at the beauty, you enjoy the clear, refreshingly cold water, you start to feel like things are maybe better than you thought, and then some dag-o, redneck, trashy, drunk hick, there with his group of dag-o, redneck, trashy, drunk friends, starts horking and/or stand-up peeing in the water and it's so gross that you can't even conceive of going back in and your "let's spend the day at Crystal Creek!" plan becomes "let's drive all the way to Crystal Creek, go in the water for eight minutes and then get the hell out before the yobbos' taunting turns into an attack." They go on and on about crocs here, but it's the locals you actually have to look out for.)

Anyway.

So there it is. The cricket game is going strong (looks to me like they're all standing around, but Mark informs me that there's a lot happening) but I might have to take a break to play with our beloved little neighbours' cat, Nugget, who is looking for someone to wrestle with. God bless Nugget.

Mark's parents gave him (and me, by extension – score!) a week in a hotel North of Cairns (= extremely tropical), so when we've had enough of nature day trips where we can't do anything, we'll have our choice of pools and general leisure activities. I can't wait. It's not like I've been very busy these past few weeks and particularly deserve a break, but it was pretty non-stop February through November, so I'm decided to be completely okay with just being pampered.

For all that I'm shut down on cold winters, I'm not a big fan of the tropical Christmas, at least not when they follow cold weather traditions. The Caribbean carnival thing was fine, because it was totally different from my sense of Christmas, but here, with their mall culture and fur coat Santa and "Let It Snow" and "Winter Wonderland" playing in the supermarket, it just makes me want to either go home or go very, very far from people. So I wish you all a very merry Christmas (or Boxing Day, since Christmas is over) and Happy New Year, and hope you're making the most of wherever you are and whomever you're with.

Kathryn