Another Town, Another Train

26 November 2009

One last stop in LA, at Olvera Street. This is sort of Little Mexico, established in the 1920s for white people to come eat tacos and buy embroidered shawls in the comfort of home,  but is also one of the oldest Spanish-settled parts of the city. We ogled fun t-shirts and handbags, ate an enormous meal (god, have I mentioned how much I love a country that gives you free chips and salsa just for sitting down?), and wandered a bit. Apparently there was an adjacent themed Chinatown for a while, but now there is a freeway instead. Also, Odyssey people who may be reading this: those stupid Romanian 'gypsy' hats? You can buy them in Los Angeles too, where they are 'Mexican' hats. Truly, a global icon.

Brief sojourn in SoCal is at it's end, and we're on the move again. This time, we're off to Arizona, home to David's folks and Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Continuing the overland theme (devoted readers may have noted that we are only flying over the wet bits), we've opted for Amtrak. Amtrak is America's answer to rail travel, and is resoundingly unsuccessful as a commercial enterprise. But it's a romantic idea of ourselves that keeps it alive (and well subsidized)--19th century railroads shrunk the country and enabled the population of the west and cheap transport of goods and many country songs, thus making us The Greatest Nation on Earth.

Also, it costs $38 for a 9 hour journey. So here we are. 

We started off well enough, in Los Angeles' gorgeous Art Deco / Spanish style Union Station, last of the great American stations, built in 1939. It's got lovely courtyards and tiles and fab deco chairs in the waiting room. And crappy customer service, because that's how they roll at Amtrak. They made us take everything off our bags--this means a securely strapped blanket that has made it through four flights and six months on a truck with no problems, because it had suddenly become and Health & Safety risk. Also a towel nicely stowed in an external pocket of my rucksack. God knows what mayhem could occur there--wouldn't want loose towels running around attacking people. When I pointed out that airlines were cool with my rebel towel, the woman checking the bags told me "We don't do things like the airlines.' And proceeded to make us queue up once to print tickets; twice to check the bags; thrice to get a seat; and fource (is that a word? it should be) to actually get on the train. The train was also two hours late leaving, with no notice given and no announcement. No, Amtrak does not do things like airlines--this is why Americans do not take the train.

Anyway, despite all of this, the train itself--poetically called the Sunset Limited--was super comfy. Huge seats, power point, and a real restaurant with white tablecloth and silverware. We sat with two kids from Santa Monica College coming home for Thanksgiving; the boy is in an acting class with Taylor Lautner, so I reckon we're now practically best friends with Twilight stars. Ah, LA.

Wrote my Christmas cards out (I expect to get some back people, as you can mail them to my parents this year and forget the crap excuse that you don't know how to buy stamps for a foreign country), slept, and arrived in Tucson at 2:30am. The baggage cart at Tucson station is in fact a wooden-wheeled wagon, circa 1907. Charmingly quaint, or more evidence that Amtrak is genuinely 100 years behind the times? You decide. Kindly father in law came to collect us, and we were in bed by 4am. Awoke to roasting turkey and pumpkin pie courtesy of Sandy, and all is well on Thanksgiving Day in Green Valley, Arizona, where you can eat outside in late November.

David's sister Jennifer and brother-in-law Steve brought us the best bit of the day, though--our niece Nora. She is 3 and gorgeous and brilliant and clearly takes after me. She took to David after some initial hesitation and spent the whole day tying him up, ordering him around, and sort-of doing puzzles with him and taking pictures with our camera.

Going Back to Cali

25 November 2009

California, here we come...ten hours flight from Fiji on Air Pacific and we're in Los Angeles, and grateful to cousin Patti Murphy-Pattinson who graciously came to collect us (after the 40 minute wait for our bags and some increasing panic about bags making it just fine through Kazakhstan and then getting lost in my own country). Patti took us to In-n-Out Burger for luscious American cheeseburgers and fries and then on to her canyon-perched home in Tujunga, north of LA.

Dinner at a Chinese restaurant (and really, Chinese food is ever so much nicer when you're not in China) with my cousins Christie and Sean, children to another cousin, Ike, and who are evidence of the strength of Irish genes--Sean looks more like my brother than I do.

Monday morning,  and we collected a little rental car and took ourselves off to Santa Monica. Personally, am very excited about the idea of a town called Monica, and not just because I am self-absorbed. Okay, because I am self-absorbed. I have a t-shirt that says Monica in pink. And many photos of things saying  Monica on the pier. It was all terribly exciting. For those of us called Monica, at least. Played on the swings and ogled the thong-clad butts of random denizens of the beach. As you do.

A spot of shopping at the 3rd Street Promenade and we are proud owners of skinny jeans and ballet flats and jumpers and other things that make us look like normal people again. I looked in a mirror and saw me instead of a hippie, which was nice for a change. Mexican food for lunch...sigh. Life is good.

Driving tour through LA: Wilshire, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood, La Brea, etc. Dinner of leftover Chinese food in front of the big screen tv, perhaps one of the best evenings we've had in ages. Tuesday and perhaps the best day ever--both Taco Bell AND Target! Mmmm...meximelts.

Then the requisite touristy thing and we went up to Griffith Park. The Observatory is iconic LA (as seen in modern classics such as Rebel Without a Cause and TV's Angel), overlooking the Hollywood sign and the Los Angeles Basin. This is the view you still see in movies, all the grid spread out below you to the Pacific, with the ocean glowing in the late afternoon light.

The Observatory is home to free displays on astronomy and telescopes and infrared cameras, as well as a Planetarium, and since neither of us had been to one since we were about 10, we spent our 8th anniversary afternoon pondering the wonders of the universe. Yes, eight years, and no, we don't look a day over 25. I will thank you all for agreeing.

Old Pasadena for dinner at an excellent Peruvian restaurant, including David's appetizer of marinated heart. Very romantic. But tasty. And then to see New Moon! Twilight, yay. David was very good and only checked his watch twice. Good to be home in a place where we are not a novelty and everyone speaks like us and you can buy anything you want for practically nothing. America is good.

Survivor: Fiji

20 November 2009


Twenty-four nations and counting, plus Tibet which technically isn't it's own country these days (thanks, China). Arrived in Fiji last night after a surprisingly non-miserable 4-hour flight from Sydney. Air Pacific is the Air Tran of international carriers, cheaper and without such great reviews. But cheaper. And we like cheaper. Anyway, expecting Aeroflot or equivalent, instead we got a nice clean 747, decent food, full-size cans of beer and coke (I think more things in this world ought to be held to the coke standard), and a choice of movies. Said movies may have been out for 7 months for all I know, but they're all new to us. The Time Traveller's Wife I found much easier to get through in movie form— the book was self-consciously whiny, but Eric Bana does make it go down easier.

Sydney airport is crap, as it is being renovated, and the only reasonable places to eat are pre-security, though there is nothing to tell you this until it's too late. At which point you can watch other people eating through the giant glass wall from post-security. There is sushi for $16 a California roll, but that is not reasonable. At least to people who until recently lived in a van. Otherwise it's shiny and nice. There is a whole Lonely Planet shop which we killed some time in.

We're only in Fiji for a few days, so we're staying on the main island, Viti Levu. Really what you should do is go off to one of the many stunning smaller islands, but we're trying to not be picky, as we are cognizant that we have been on vacation for 7 months. We're down on the Coral Coast, a place called the Beachhouse, near Navola village. Shared bathrooms, but our own spacious and decently-decorated bungalow, free breakfast and afternoon tea for $55 a night. Can hear the sea crashing from our hut, have eaten gorgeous fish poached in coconut, and beer is like $4. Spent the entire day lounging in hammocks abut 5 feet from the water, reading, and having yet another vacation from the vacation.

We did rouse ourselves one day for a jungle trek, which I was told took half and hour and in harsh reality takes three hours. That was two days ago, and I am still sore. Stupid lack of sedan chairs. With a Fijian named Jiuta and a French/Turkish girl called Melissa, we walked down through the local college, provided by the Korean Methodist Church to Navola village in 1995, and into the jungle. Over several raging rivers and up dangerously steep inclines and treacherous canyons, braving the giant centipedes and baby pineapples. Arriving at the promised waterfall we stripped down and swam around for a while, before being urged up the rock face by the guide to be photographed.

On the arduous trek back, we were ordered to hold hands to cross the last stream. David, being David, let go of me, and I slipped and tripped on a huge log and now am bruised and cut and probably dying.

So we came back and have spent the last two days lying about. Jiuta invited us to his church today, being Sunday, but we have opted for some more intensive lying about instead. He was very enthusiastic about the luck of his village in being selected by white Methodist missionaries in the 1840s to be converted to Christianity from the satan worship and cannibalism previously practiced here. I didn't think anyone actually talked like this anymore.

Have had an hour-long coconut oil massage for $10 US, which is nice. I smell delicious. And I have frangipani flowers in my hair.

Anyway, the food is good, the wifi is good, it's only rained once. There is a new herd of British kids who are returning from 2 months building wells or houses for the poor or some such hippie thing and who clearly think they're hardcore travellers. Pshaw. If I was willing to speak to any of them, the stories I could tell...what I really need is some of our Odyssey mates for backup. Gang fight in Fiji-- Backgammon versus humanitarianism!

We leave tonight from Nadi airport, en route to Los Angeles and the land of the free and the home of the brave. Flight is at 11pm Sunday, 22 November...and we arrive at 1pm Sunday, 22 November. That's the magic of the international date line. While you're all working, we'll be traveling back in time. Travel has been good for us, look at all the new skills we've acquired.

Slimy Jewfish in Sydney

16 November 2009

Sydney, at last! Last stop on the Oz Express. Camped two nights at Lane Cove River National Park, which is Eco friendly and zero carbon and all that hippie junk. Also home to insanely unafraid animals who clearly spend too much time quality with people. Bandicoots chased us away out of our own chairs and away from the beer—little buggers with their freaky glowing eyes. Ugh. Isis birds (the big nasty ones with long, curving black beaks), magpies dive bombing brush turkeys. Crikey! I don't trust any animal that isn't afraid of people. It's just not natural.

Took Sydney's very nice trains into and out of town on Saturday and Sunday, in between sorting out the campervan—actually cleaning it for once, what to keep (pink sheets), what to drink lots of (wine), etc. Gave unopened stuff to some nice Germans, ten minutes later offered a similar pile of food and wine by other Germans also leaving their campervan behind. Maybe it's a Teutonic instinct. Ja. Sorry to leave Charlotte, actually, she's been brilliant and good fun. We would definitely campervan ourselves around Australia again—I can't imagine a better way to see this country.

We seem a bit travel fatigued—not in a huge rush to see Sydney itself, instead we're taking out time and stretching some leisurely sight-seeing over the four days. Saturday we got to see the iconic Sydney Opera House, which is beautiful. But strangely disappointing—I think maybe it's more impressive in pictures. In real life it's sort of beige and mounted on brown granite, so it's a little reminiscent of a 1970s school cafeteria. It always looks so white and stunning in photos. Still, cool. Have booked ourselves into an all-female production of 'The Taming of the Shrew' there tomorrow night.

Took the ferry to Manly, across the harbour, and one of the lovely beach-side suburbs surrounding Sydney proper. The ferries are included on the travel day pass, and run constantly all over the little coves and harbours on Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour to you people who aren't, you know, here). Spent some time in The Rocks, the gentrified and lovely historic district, home to a craft market that the Lonely Planet is scathing about and which I therefore loved, had a pint with all the other tourists in the Oldest Pub in Sydney, saw the Sydney Museum. Last camp meal, pork steaks in a mustard and balsamic sauce with baby spinach and a bottle of shiraz. We are spoiled.

Today we took Charlotte home to her Depot, argued with the toll people who won't let you pay cash for tolls and then charge you twice as much to pay them online or by phone than if you have an e-tag thing—this amounts to just punishing tourists as far as I can see, and finally checked ourselves into the first real hotel in 5 weeks. I do not consider the roach motel in Moree a hotel, and prefer not to think about it at all, actually. Currently we live in the Metro Hotel Sydney Central, which is clean and has a TV (unfortunately showing American football) and a bathroom and is making the loss of Charlotte much more bearable. She did about 9,500 kilometers with us here, making 37,700K or so, so far.

Walked across Darling Harbour this afternoon to the Sydney Fish Market, where we gorged on a massive plate of beautiful seafood. The market also still sells fish, including lots of kinds we're not familiar with. I think my favourites are the 'Jewfish' and 'Slimy Mackerel.' These have recently been renamed 'Mulloway' and 'Blue Mackerel.' Again with the naming--the local delight? Balmain Bugs, sort of prawn-lobster things.

The Maritime Museum is free and very good. They've got loads of boats moored outside, including the HMAS Vampire, which is such a good name for a boat. None of your 'Missouri' or 'New Jersey' boats here. Also a lovely 18th-century style tall ship called the Endeavour; a destroyer, a sub, a Vietnamese boat-people fishing boat, a Japanese fishing boat used to lay mines in sneak attacks in Japan in WWII, etc. The best part of the Australian Maritime Museum, however, is that the first thing you see when entering is the United States of America Gallery, given by guess-who for the Aussie bicentennial in 1988, and celebrating our traditional close links, forged over happy events like whale killing and the illicit resupplying of Confederate ships. It covers the entire bottom of the museum. Ship-shape.

The Secret River

13 November 2009

Last stop out of Sydney, and we've opted to come a bit north of the city and stay in the Hawkesbury River area for two days. Both of us have read Kate Grenville's really excellent novel 'The Secret River,' set in this area circa 1806-1826, about a convict family from London. It's brilliant and you should all go read it. The bloke is a Thames boatman transported for a bit of honest theft, and ultimately must make his way on the Hawkesbury. The two rivers are so much a part of the book and as we know the Thames pretty well, we felt like we needed to see this place. It's not disappointing. This is definitely more England than anywhere else we've been—the towns were laid out by Georgians and it shows, lots of brick and narrow streets and names like Windsor, Richmond, Wilberforce, and Pitt Town.

It's lushly green and full of winding little country roads and calm water—albeit populated by waterskiers. I sort of thought people stopped waterskiing in about 1983. Apparently I was wrong. It's huge here. The Hawkesbury itself is twisty and full of coves and inlets and creeks, amber coloured water, and old stone houses called things like Primrose Hill perched on hills overlooking their verdant fields.

We drove up from Windsor today to St Albans, a tiny village housing what is without a doubt the nicest pub in Australia—the Settler's Arms, circa 1836, of blonde sandstone and with chunky wood tables and wonky doors and stone fireplaces and room-temperature real ale. Even a bog shaggy dog called Jamie who laid about the place waitng on leftover pate. Makes me more than a bit homesick for Blighty.

To get there, we had to take a ferry across the river, because we are obviously in the 19th century. It's an actual chain ferry, with the cables pulling it along visible next to you as it goes, and free to boot. Back across the other free ferry in this town of about 500 (on the other side), and here we are at a little campground on the water again. A convict could do worse.

On the way out of St Albans, we stopped for a few minutes at the tiny cemetery tucked in a curve on the unpaved road. These are the graves of convicts and their families, mostly, as well as a few free settlers. As Australia has recently decided not to be ashamed of the whole convict thing, they've cleaned up places like this and put new labels up to tell the stories of their ancestors. So pretty and such a good story.