Mistakes are funny

So, after the GREAT school trip in Paris, I hung out with my now great mate, Mathieu de Chalvron at his place in Paris. Lots of preparation work for the research I was about to take part on - so it was far from a relaxing time. However, the family retreat in Normandy - bloody amazing!

I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a weekend off to...just...relax - and this house in Normandy had no internet - which was perfect. Armed with Nelson Mandela's autobiography and a body and mind prepared to help do a lot of handy-man work (it was a fix-it-up weekend), it turned out the Chalvron family knew how to have a productive yet simultaneously relaxing weekend - just amazing. We cleaned a lot of rooms out, stacked and re-stacked a wood pile, we swept, we organized equipment - but they were easy 5 hour work days, broken up with a long lunch - very tasty and finished nicely with aperitifs of tasty baguettes (the best in France from the local town boulangerie) and cheese (i fell in love with unpasteurized Epoisses). We played board games, I read my novel, took photos of sunset on the Seine, lit a fire in the huge fireplace - just a really good time - thanks Chalvrons!!

My first stop on my research trip for work was Interlaken, Switzerland. AMAZING! Just a really brilliant time of chocolating, high-ropes coursing (a really good course - actually, I've never done a high-ropes course before and I had so much fun being quite challenged), canyoning, hiking - the place and the surrounding towns are just gorgeous. I went at probably the quietest time of the year, which had its good and bad points, but one of the good points was hanging out with the owner and staff of a massive hotel (think the hotel from The Shining) and having a couple of quiet drinks - and then getting up for breakfast the next morning - only an old lady behind the desk, I walk down a massive corridor and enter a massive dining room - there's no-one else around. The old lady enters and indicates toward the breakfast buffet:"Enjoy - it's all for you!"

Munich was the next stop. I discovered that it's a really cool city too! A lot of beer everywhere - and some very cool gardens. Dachau concentration camp was sobering, whilst Dachau palace gardens was rather enchanting. Both the walking and bike tours I did were ultra fun and enlightening - and I got to go to the last hour and a half of a night of mini-Oktoberfest (aka Spring Fest). Most fun - apart from the drunk sixteen year-old kid who was looking for a fight - and almost got one courtesy of my fun Czech Republic room-mates slash new kick-boxer friends.

So this is where I elaborate on the title of this blog post - the mistakes started happening in Kiev. Actually, on the way to Kiev I realised I had left my belt on the security x-ray in Munich airport (I don't think it came out...hmm).

After withdrawing some hryvnias from a local ATM, I found myself stuck between the glass door I had entered, and the glass door to the main part of the bank - which was shut. Switzerland and German are easy places to navigate - a lot of English is spoken, and the systems they have in place for directions, public transport and facilities are just so clear and simple to understand. Kiev is not so easy. On the one hand, I wasn't as shocked by Cyrillic being everywhere as I'd been to Moscow and St Petersburg before. On the other hand, things just aren't as easy and straightforward as what the German speakers manage. And barely anyone speaks English.

So here I am, stuck in this glass door box, with just an ATM and instructions in Cyrillic. Honestly - the doors weren't opening, and there was no clear button or function to make them open. Eventually, I gain some construction workers' attention (in the bank) and the security guard gruffily screams at me and points. Seeing no other button, I press the small white button that in English reads "EMERGENCY" and the door opens. I think that one got a little lost in translation.

I bought a pizza at a local restaurant - but I had no idea what toppings I was ordering. Ended up being very tasty - that wasn't a mistake. I had a successful shopping experience - bottles of water, cereal, milk, some pastries and some chocolate. All for less than 7 Euro. It's also nice paying 17 euro cents for a ride on the metro.

Next morning, when pouring my 'milk' onto my cereal - i discovered it was thicker than I thought milk should be. The bottle looks like a milk bottle - 1 litre, typical milk bottle shape, white, with a cow on the front. Turns out it was sour cream. Having my lunch of borsch and cheese pancakes later that day - i noticed the huge dobs of sour cream included with both of my dishes, and everything made more sense again.

Oh, and I wrote a blog the other day for my work website about Interlaken - this fascinating, brilliant, mysterious creature that I stumbled across in the middle of the night after a couple of drinks - I had NO IDEA what it was - so I asked for help in my blog. Apparently, it was a plain old hedgehog. Umm...whoops. Maybe I could have guessed that one. It was the first hedgehog I'd ever seen, me thinks, but you'd think I could have been a little bit more wiser on the uptake. The good thing was that I was completely enamored with this animal - being ignorant can sometimes be the icing on the cake of a brilliant day.

Paris

I’m in Paris!

I love this city and yesterday was a simply amazing day – sunny, 66 degrees (aka perfect) and the awesome school group I am travelling with did a bike tour of Paris. I recommend this bike tour over every other attraction in Paris – on a sunny day.

Unfortunately one of the girls touring with us came down quite ill, so she missed out on the whole day. I really felt sad for her but news is that she’s doing well today, so that’s happy news. Whilst the Paris touring continued today, I jumped on a tour bus to Bruges, Belgium, for my own little private-amongst-fifty tour. Funny little story – having to visit Bruges for company research purposes (scoping out hotels to make sure all is well), Ned decided today was the best day for having one less counselor with the Paris girls. Only thing was that the last train heading back to Paris would leave Bruges at 3:10pm or thereabouts…not really enough time since I would only arrive at perhaps 11:30am. But I found this 50-seater coach day-trip from Paris – it would give me a longer time in Bruges, save hassles of changing trains at Brussels, and would only cost about $20 more. So I was probably the only party-of-one on the tour today, more work than pleasure, but gladly eating up the bonus information from the guide. Found out later there were strikes on Paris rail today – so I definitely made the right transport decision.

Bruges was very pretty. At first I was in horror of being shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of older people not really looking where they were going…but then I walked to the other side of the road where no-one had realized the pavement was empty. Very much a quaint “tourist town” – this concept shouldn’t always be a bad thing, and again wasn’t in Bruges’ case. Chocolate stores were everywhere, the canals and cobbled roads were full of movement and beautiful heritage – and I always love seeing lots of bicycles.

Krakow on the weekend was good, but lonely. Being such a Catholic country everything was shut on the weekend (Easter), apart from hotels and restaurants. On the bright side, those were the most important things for my research purposes. I had a light lunch in Market Square at the oldest operating restaurant in Europe (since 1342 – all class), I did a great bike tour on Sunday, and I hung out with a small group of English-teaching Australians on Friday night. Jet lag really, really affected me over this weekend (two bad stints this year – getting worse as I’m getting older), and although staying at a hotel was comfortable, I missed having people around me – like at a hostel. It was good to join everyone again in Paris on Monday.

Back to the states on Saturday – it has been GREAT being back in Europe, particularly Paris. I’ve felt quite tired at times but I’ve also sprung back with energy soon afterwards. Busy again in the states – but fun as well – POSSIBLY seeing Wilco the day back (pending how tired I am and if I can get a ticket off a scalper for a reasonable price) and then off to New York City on Sunday – work and pleasure.

Aurevoir.

Spring time revival

I've been back in the Philly area since mid-March, and it's been really nice. The trip at the start of the month, covering Atlanta, Charlotte & Virginia was hectic, and more tiring than I thought it would be. Oh well.

So, spring time has emerged and being my first transition from cold winter to spring - it's exciting and spectacular. First, the rain came (and when it rains it pours here in the north-east) and washed away all the snow. It had been a good whiles since I had seen green grass near my place! Lately, the trees have just come into blossom - a few awesome reds, pinks and oranges popping out early, grabbing all the attention from the drab brown trees around them.

Fritz took me out to Rittenhouse Square on the first really warm and excellent night of the year. It happened to be a Friday night, and was the first time I had been to the fantastic square. The atmosphere was just electric: everyone was out, feeding off the new season's collective energy. Lauren and I went back to Rittenhouse Square on Sunday afternoon again - in beautiful weather, a million dogs and toddlers wandered around whilst the rest of us lazed, happily soaking up the sun.

March madness (college basketball end-of-season tournament) is on TV, and some of the games have been super brilliant. I've been working long days in the office, then coming home and watching basketball or watching DVDs on the off-nights. It's been nice slumping into a very comfortable, non-hectic routine.

Ned & Kate have been entertaining like crazy - which has been brilliant for reasons of: good food and drink at home, new people to meet all the time, general fun times and sitting outside on the backyard patio has been even better than expected. I didn't realise how much I missed hanging out outside until I started doing it again.

So, one more week in the office, preparing for more international, then domestic travel. On April 1st (hopefully no joke), I'm off to Paris...Airport. I'm shooting straight over to Krakow to do research for Travel for Teens' 'Eastern Europe' trip in the summer - and hopefully Easter won't make the research difficult. Back in Paris on Monday, I will be a counselor on a school trip before popping over to Bruges the next day (more research), then doing uninterrupted work with the Paris school group until we fly back to Philly on the 10th.

Should be good!

Lucky perspective

A few years ago, I met and made a dear friend who influenced me tremendously. In short, her influence was her clear demonstration of being grateful for all the great things in her life. Far from boasting, she simply stated that she'd been able to do travel so much, see great things, and had met such amazing people - she was lucky. If you met the girl, chances are you too would be caught up in her optimism and lust for life.

Anyway, I think I've been a much more grateful person since meeting this girl. Since then, when I stop and reflect I realise I'm lucky.

Perspective is so very pliable. Tiredness, excitement, personal drive and success, stress, amazement, love - there are so many factors that obviously influence our mood, but they also so often shift my perspective. I put my head down into something, eventually burn myself out, and then realise this fantastic thing that I'm doing - isn't fantastic at all.

So - here's why I've been lucky, lately:

I've met cool couchsurfers in Boston and Philly.
Relaxed at a dive bar in New Hampshire after a long day, gone in alone and made about 12 friends.
Hung out with a great girl in Boston which included seeing gorgeous frozen ponds and rivers, eating at excellent restaurants and having a generally great time. We even were able to met up in Philly and be tourists there too for a weekend - good food, awesome street art, and a way-better-than-expected Philly Flower Show.
Caught up with good mates in Atlanta and Charlotte - and having a good time with good friends is precious.
Made new friends in Brooklyn, and caught up with old great friends too...new music and new great stories...
New friends in Philly - and slowly I'm getting to know the city.

After a long drive from Philly to Atlanta, and even with a good night's sleep, the whole of this last week has been tough. I drove around and worked like a madman, and all the hectic activity finally caught up with me. Without the workload letting up, my perspective slowly, slowly distorted for the worst.

And then I had this one, seemingly meaningless night, that I found so much meaning, joy and refreshment from. I had a few good phonecalls, emails and internet 'chats' that week, but really hadn't socialised in-person with real people at all. And it all started out rather mundanely:

I pulled up at a steakhouse, the bar-tender fascinated me with his southern drawl, and after getting a beer and a steak, I started talking to the gentleman next to me. In his 60s i would guess, i found out he was a doctor, and after short familiarities, we talked in depth about his work (his long, long hours), the universal and never-ending doctor shortage, and his opinion of what reform is (and isn't) needed of health care in the USA. And that was it. Although that might appear mundane and a non-story, to me, it was...i edited out 'just what the doctor ordered'...but really, it was all such a blessing to me. It was general socialising coupled with a unique cultural figure in a unique cultural time and place, and then layer onto that it was an engaging, intelligent conversation, and added onto that, it was so relaxed. And probably quite imperatively - the guy was a nice guy. Really friendly and obviously a hard-working, caring doctor. So I was definitely lucky to have met him.

Anyway, I'm in Charlotte now, and enjoying doing absolutely nothing this weekend. I went to a diner for a late breakfast, and I watched my beloved Longhorns basketball team lose another game (me watching their games on tv is the curse), and generally, I've slumped around my hotel room and done nothing at all. It was a pretty looking day outside.

So the batteries are recharged and I'm again thankful for my situation.

I'm lucky.

Moody, officey, itchy for road

I don't like working in offices, but i like doing exactly the same office work at a coffee shop. And, truth be told, I get about the same amount of work done at both venues.

Someone said 'ambiance'. Now, maybe - maybe it is the cool indie tunes playing over the coffee shop speakers (compared to tinny lap-top speakers), maybe it's the moving scenery through the massive windows compared to the tiny window behind you. Maybe it's the moving scenery indoors - instead of stinky farts by the guy you share the office with (it's funny on weekends on social outings when it's a recollected anecdote or it's happening to someone else) - instead - it's a constant changing scene of people of all types, and you see everything in your periphery. Maybe it's the artificial(?) sense of pressure put on you in a place of walls, cubicles, efficiency, progress and stifled, fart-smelling air. And maybe it's just the difference between a damn good latte and coffee you quite gladly pass on. Probably not. That same latte doesn't taste as good in an office.

Now, you say, why don't you just work in that office on the top floor of that super massive sky-scraper in Austin you once delivered some photocopiers to? HA! Great question. Now there's an office that has some hip feng shui going on for it - massive windows with a constantly changing view of 360 degree Austin, with the weather always moving. And i'm sure the coffee is better there.

Well, friend, after staying at lovely hotels on the road, visiting lovely schools, meeting lovely families in lovely houses, karma says that the loveliness has to stop somewhere, sometime, and that sometime is in the office. One cannot have too much loveliness without turning sour. That is an ancient office saying i just created to make me feel more zen about my time served. The thing is, i work extra hard in that office, and i work hard already. And the reason i work extra hard in that office is so that opportunities, many opportunities, will be set up outside of the office. Otherwise, it's just more hard work in the office. And we're not talking Austin top-level-sky-scraper dream office here. We're talking Pennsylvania (hang on - i like PA, bear with me), office slightly below ground so you see ground outside window at eye-level whilst twirling on OK chair office. Different. And we're talking no smashingly beautiful women office. Smashingly beautiful women, placed anywhere in an office, is good feng shui, one must think.

The road is calling, and yet, the office is calling louder and closer and will pull me by the ear back to it's sweaty gross chest tomorrow, because it's the office's day to have custody of me. So i work hard, diligently churning over paperwork that is all electronic these days (electronicwork), as my eyes ache, and then behind my eyes ache, and then my head aches at the front, and somehow i must be closer to being on the road again, and must be closer to being on the road in a greater capacity - surely!

Whether the Weather...

Snow.

I had seen very little of it. Nowadays, I still haven't seen a super tonne-load (like they're getting in Philly/Baltimore/DC), but i've seen enough to make me giggle and then go all silent, tilt my head and open my mouth a wee bit.

The pretty kind.

And, as a side point, i've discovered that when it snows, it's often not even that cold. Two points here: since I arrived in the USA on January 14th, i have quickly adjusted to what is truly cold. At first i felt cold when it was something like 40 degrees farenheit. Now i've discovered that those people wearing t-shirts during that weather weren't completely, ludicrously crazy, but maybe just a touch silly. The second point is that, other than relativity, it's the cussing wind that is the eerk of all living creatures. It is the wind that makes my ears want to divorce my body but only after stabbing me multiple times in rapid succession in the side of the head. That one night - walking back to my car from the bar in Harvard Square, Boston - ugh - it was a deathly cold walk of fear at wind's evil doing. The guy wearing shorts and a t-shirt that night was completely, ludicrously crazy...and then some.

It's about time i told you what i'm doing in the USA.

Wells...i'm keeping busy, that's for sure.

Basically, my volunteering for Travel for Teens involves me driving around the country (currently in my little Toyota Yaris hatchback rental), going to super lovely prep type schools; camp fairs; and house visits in super lovely areas, and promoting our company's spring break and summer trips.
It's been fun!

First of all i studied up on the trips - the Travel for Teens office in Philly is a hot-bed for people Skype messaging each other when they are actually only 4 decent-efforted leaps apart. Since it's also not at all top secret but also not that much interesting, mum's the word for the rest of the goings ons (pssst...i will tell you - just between you and me - that there's also a dog in the office named Se7en who could possibly be super evil but by all appearances is friendly, placid and never barks).

Next i did some further on-the-road training with Fritz. Fritz has one foot in a post-surgery mega boot. He couldn't drive, and sometimes when he walks he sounds like a pirate, so i, after having never driven for a sustained period of time in the USA before, took the wheel and drove to NYC. All hell broke lose when it was discovered that Fritz was into hip-hop and so was his entire CD collection that he brought. Needless to say, i'm writing this blog now, so all's well that ends well.

I learnt the company craft from Fritz, then we crashed on the upper west side, with a pitcher or two of the finest cheapest beer we could find, in between.

NYC is gorgeous in the winter. We walked the city, caught the subway around, did some research, and found a coffee shop to crash out at and do all our laptop and phone business type things that are essential and boring and made tolerable and faster by lattes.

Before too long, Fritz is gone, I'm visiting schools in Massachusetts, I'm making friends with couchsurfers, I'm doing house visits in areas where celebrities such as Bill Clinton live, I'm catching up with old buddies in New Jersey (great times), I'm flying from Philly to Miami and visiting schools down there, I'm catching up with my roller-coaster buddy in Fort Lauderdale, I'm talking to the guy I'm sitting next to eating my dinner with at a sports bar (and we're having another great time), I'm watching silky smooth Dwayne Wade get schooled at basketball by my countryman, Andrew Bogut, I'm flying back to Philly just in time to drive like the evil wind to Boston and escape the heaviest snowstorm in Philly in forever and ever (the accuracy of this statement can be attributed to Fox News), and after schools and fairs in Massachusetts and Connecticut, I'm now in New Hampshire, writing this.

I talked about Ned and Kate's parents in the last blog...

Seems like I'm doing a US tour named: 'Travel for Teens staff - meet their parents'...with me last night getting a home cooked meal that was delightfully delicious from Nic Emery's parents. Fantastic stuff, there. I could write a blog, indeed two blogs, about Jerry's intrepid edge-of-your-seat stories and Juliette's split pea soup. Divine. Had i ever met these people before? No. I was just scared of snow, they lived close to the school that I was going to the next morning, so Nic hooked me up. Best couch-surfing-gone-sleeping-on-Nic-Emery's-bed-surfing ever.

Watch out Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA. I'm heading in your direction....

...and this time: i have a beanie.

Disoriented Landing

This is how I flew from Adelaide to Philadelphia:
via Auckland (with a pat-down in both ADL and AKL)
via San Francisco (with another pat down, i believe, and a long enough stop-over that i could get the BART train into town, and have an awesome Indian lunch in Mission with my mate Pat and his Indian boyfriend, Waylon)

...and then i landed in Philly the same day, after 25 hours of travel. C'mon - that 'going back in time' time difference thing, never gets old.

So, i'm sitting on the train on the way into San Francisco, and my mind is racing, and a smile is growing huge on my internal face. And i'm walking down Mission - definitely not San Francisco's 'poster street' - and i'm radiating happiness, completely overcoming tiredness. It's all these little, irrelevant American nuances - eavesdropping on loud conversations that are difficult not to; ridiculously cheap things (relatively speaking); a warm, sunny winter day in San Fran (now how can you go wrong with that); a girl wearing thrift shop clothes and a Belle and Sebastian sticker on her bag.

What can i say - i like the USA - and i know all the negatives - probably the biggest negative being the blandness and repetition of shops and restaurants as you cross the country - not a family-owned fish & chip shop in sight. That's what you were going to say, right? Ugh, those diners and fast food chains turn me off. OK so maybe i've changed...but on the other hand, i don't think i've ever enjoyed Denny's. Not a single good memory.

So, arriving in Philly i hit the ground running - with a slight sleep-in, i'm in the office the next morning.

I'm staying with Ned, the Vice President of Travel for Teens, and his wife, Kate. The house, in Conshohocken, PA, is a dream house for someone like me - that is, late 20s, with a disposition to be hospitable. Funny, that's a pretty similar non-detailed description of Ned and Kate, too.

I'm using the master bedroom, and N&K have been brilliantly welcoming. Watching football or basketball on the massive TV, eating good food, drinking great wine (a very tidy little cellar in the basement) - Ned and Kate are fun to be around - it's getting a little serious, i gotta say: I've met their parents.

Ned's parents are cool - dad watches football and mum makes sensational art. Quality. Kate's mum cooks a mean roast, and Kate's dad is hilarious. I pretty much fell in love with Kate's dad because his wit is cutting, and, on his advice, i even had a little horse-radish on my roast meat (ahh the things you do when you're in love. Actually, a little horseradish is a good thing, and i knew this already, but it's always good to give credit to 'love' - it brings about good karma).

I don't believe in blogs being too long (see i have changed), and although this one hasn't gotten across the info i intended...

...there's always the next blog.