It Doesn't Look A Bit Like Christmas

For the past month I have inhabited the surreal parallel world of Australian advent. The blue sky above Bourke Street is veiled with green and red baubles, the town hall is parcelled up beneath a massive red bow, and Flinders Street Station glows each night like the gaudy house front of your most obnoxious neighbour.

On December 13 I returned to Melbourne from Byron Bay to the dulcet clash of glass bottles against tram tracks, Spring Street having become the venue for a late night street brawl. Running up Bourke Street, I wormed my way between Santas, uncostumed and alone in a thirty degree Where’s Wally world. On Christmas Eve we climbed Hanging Rock and looked down with sunlit faces at the land, Tuscan yellow and far below us. Christmas day was Christmas dinner, hosted by a kindly Old Boy from a friend’s school and his wife. The sun was shining and there was hardly a pine tree in sight.

Christmas in Australia and Christmas in the UK are very different, notably that here it’s just somehow… less. I think a lot of that is down to the weather. Come late December, we Brits are desperately in need of something to lift the spirits. But here, with the sun shining and the days drawn out long, the celebration is just an added bonus.

Ridiculous.

bronte beach was sun on my salt-flecked face as i balanced, whooping for joy, on flash's shoulders, the sea up to my chest, bubbles rising from where he stood, submerged. my eyes wept for the salt, tears mingling with ocean, and i did not worry about the burn scar on my back or the precariousness of bikini tops, normally so infuriating. we floated over the first wave, dove under the second, and paddled furiously until we caught the third.

manly was avocado and soft boiled egg salad and a parking space right next to the sand and the story of how flash and gabi met, told lovingly over a jug of water and a bowl of chips.

new year's eve was dancing and photos with full makeup and kati's dress. it was hearts to hearts, sing-alongs, the sound of music, go-pro close-ups of charlie’s face, ice-cold chilean liquor and linked arms. it was stargazing, head skyward, alone atop the wrought-iron garden gate. it was fireworks over the bridge and a grumbling old man promising us we'd end the night in a paddy-wagon. we woke in the same room, exactly where we fell, having eaten all the chicken sandwiches at 4am.

2015 started with a swim in flash's pool. i anchored my ankles against the edge and starfished on the surface, gazing at the peeling eucalyptus whose leaves flecked the blue sky. cockatoos flirted, frangipanis floated, and sia sang through declan's speakers.

we drove everywhere in flash's car, triple j blasting. louis and i bickered in the back seat and kati cackled constantly while gab danced and flash showed us all his favourite places. we rolled down the windows and sang along and didn’t care.

and when my ferry left mosman i stood at the prow, gazing forward.

The 65-year-old who hosted us for Christmas: “What’s a selfie? Sounds like a type of cheap ice cream.”

“I don’t know what my boyfriend sees in me. Look at me. I’m wearing socks and sandals. What the fuck?”

 “God, Miriam, take some time off from being a feminist. Get out from under the king’s horse.”

Holidays and Homecomings

It’s December 14^th. In some parallel universe, I am on a plane skimming over the Indian Ocean, a third of the way through the twenty-four hour journey home. I imagine myself in the window seat, plugged into track 9 of The Black Keys’ Turn Blue, mind as empty and strange as it was on my flight to Melbourne back in July. The whole journey long, I don’t believe I had more than a single thought. That thought was: find the taxi rank once you’ve touched down.

I changed my return flight in a frenzy, a mid-semester crisis. We’d hit the halfway point and a whole group of us, on different levels, panicked. One looked into staying an extra semester. Two began to talk about transferring for good. These plans, though grand, didn’t come to fruition; my less ambitious goal proved easier to achieve, and I extended my stay until January. Though made in a flurry, it was most definitely the right choice. I don’t know if I will ever be ready to leave Melbourne, but I know for certain that today is not the day.

A week at Yarra. A week in Gisborne. Australian Christmas. Sydney New Year. A few days in Melbourne to say goodbye.

Then home, to Scotland, to my family, to my purple shaded bedroom and its perpetual mess. To raucous singing and chairtop dancing with my sisters; to my father’s doting on the greedy free range house rabbit; to my mother’s midnight chocolate in our yellow kitchen.

Goodbyes are so hard, but they are matched with hellos.

Rotorua stinks. That’s the first thing you notice. It’s like Haymarket: as soon as you leave the train at Edinburgh’s smaller station you’re hit by hops. But sulphur is much more pungent. From the Redwoods lookout we saw it all, hot springs smoking like dragons’ nostrils, the lake a bright, bitter blue.

Sarah, Kati, and me.

While staying in this dragon town we slept at Crash Palace:  definitely in my top three hostels ever,* and possibly at the top of that list. Providing free pasta, rice, hot tub (!), and internet (a rarity in New Zealand), and a free event every day (including weekly pancake breakfasts and barbecues), it’s perfect both for solo travellers and for rainy New Zealand days. The manager also runs an afternoon tour of the area, mud bath in a hot spring included, for $35, which is a great way to learn about the area without hiring a car.

Rotorua without a car is unusual but perfectly feasible. A bus to Whakarewarewa and the Redwoods runs regularly, with a wide variety of walks and the chance to see the city from above. Some adventure activities, such as Zipline Canopy Tours (which I was lucky enough to win for free!) are based in the town and provide shuttles out. Government Gardens is very pretty for a wander round and a picnic. Crash Palace’s Mud Tour, however, was the highlight for me. We roared round the volcanic countryside to local music, took in a massive sulphurous crater, and fried gently in a muddy batter. The money goes towards local youth programmes via a charity run by Crash Palace’s manager.

If you want an expensive adventure holiday, Rotorua is the place. But if you, like us, are after something gentler and cheaper, Rotorua can be your place too.

The Redwoods are decidedly green.

*The other top two hostels: Hostel Ruthensteiner, Vienna, and The Pickled Frog, Hobart. On the other hand, my least favourite hostel was the Fat Camel in Auckland, where a poorly ventilated ‘apartment’ was shared between what must have been around 30 people, while only one bedroom had any windows (though this was stated in advance, to be fair). By the end of our three-day stay, we were all beginning to get ill from what we suspected was some well-disguised, painted-over damp. The city tour advertised at reception consisted of a brisk walk up Mount Eden to the tune of our guide’s complaints of hunger and chastisement to ‘hurry up, I have a meeting at twelve.’ On the plus, it’s cheap and simple. If you only have one night in Auckland, whatever, go for it.

"Why are you eating her ice cream? Is stealing her food some weird revenge?" "Well, they do say revenge is a dish best served cold."

“I love roses. They’re the only good flowers. Other plants can go fuck themselves. Which, incidentally, they do.”

“‘White girl wasted’? Is that a phrase? I always thought it was waka-wasted, you know, like Shakira’s world cup song.”

A Pitstop

This blog, much like New Zealand’s many volcanoes, has lain dormant for a while now. My attention was focused on the latter. For two weeks Kati, Sarah and I travelled around the north island: Auckland, Rotorua, Taupo, Napier, and Tauranga. When I get back from my next adventure I will write in more depth about the trip – but right now it’s 1am, I have a flight in six hours, and I’ll just say it was fantastic. I’ll leave you with some Ben Merito, a Maori musician perfect for a volcanic, sulphur-scented Rotorua roadtrip. But more about that next time.

It’s very strange to think that, had I not extended my stay, I’d be flying home in just five days. Most of the other internationals are gone already, leaving Yarra even quieter than it was when I arrived. I am not ready to return home. Returning to Melbourne from New Zealand was a homecoming, in a small (if rather cheesy) way. We sat on the balcony, the scene of so many jokes, chats, fights, and make-ups, and drank tea like we always do. And this morning I was back on my bike, warmed gently by the greenhouse breeze, and wishing the one month I have left here were six.

Yarra is almost empty now, but one thing I feel I have learnt this semester is how to be on my own. It’s introspective o’clock and my journey to Brisbane begins at 4am, so I apologise for being so self-indulgent. When I return to Yarra once again in five days, I’ll have a week almost to myself. And yet that’s just fine. It’s been, overall, a very calm semester, and it’s finished gently, not like in St Andrews when I’m left at a sudden loose end, scrambling to fill loose time, keep busy, do something, don’t crash. But the gradual conclusion of my time in Melbourne is met with a very firm idea of what matters. And my ideas for what to do next, once vague wishes, are actually, I’m recognising, real chances.

Quotes from travels. Quotes from my Aussie home. A Mischmasch. Who’s who?

“I can’t believe that when we first met you thought I was a die-hard Tory.” 

“Well, I’m sorry, but you said to me, and I quote: ‘I am a die-hard Tory.’”

In Australia it is customary, when one wins a prize, for all one’s friends to chant “YOU ARE A WANKER” ten times or more. Kati, however, didn't quite catch on. Through the bellowing, I heard her shriek: “WHERE IS THE WAITER?”

In our last hostel, after sniffing a well-worn jumper: “Ew. Wow, that smells.” After a pause: “Smells like I could get away with wearing it for a few more days, I mean.”

A less than fluent Spanish speaker attempted to compliment my cheeks, but ended up complimenting Kati and Sarah: “Me gustan tus chicas.”