everything and nothing has stayed the same

I notice the cold the most. I shiver as I rush from one university building to another, and, having lost my gloves, my hands mottle and spread between bronzed tan at skin on my wrists and bloodless cold white beneath the skin of my knuckles. 

And I notice the dark. I am very lucky to live on Scotland's sunniest side, and I love the briskness of a crisp blue day with no clouds to quell the biting wind. But the late mornings, the early evenings, and the days of never-ceasing dusk haunt and hollow me. I arrived home and none of my clothes suited me anymore. I cleared out the browns, the greys, the blood reds and forest greens. I walk down old grey streets with a bright red coat and a bright yellow scarf and hold the clear sky close.

Though everyone tells me it's like I never left, I have returned to Scotland a minimalist. I write and write and see people who matter most and leave this tiny town when I can. I have been here a fortnight straight now, my longest streak, and in a few days it will be time to leave again. St. Andrews is best enjoyed part-time.

I think about Melbourne always. About the sun, the city, the sky, its scrapers. The friendships, the good bits and the bad. Cycling down Swanston, my mind at peace, and up Heidelberg, taking my thoughts out on my aching legs. The glow and buzz of the ever-shining CBD and the dark of the suburbs lit by streetlamps and strange starlight. Experiences which are mine and mine alone. Stories I inevitably won't end up telling because you can never tell them all. Can you even share an experience once it has already become a memory?

The hardest, strangest part of going away is coming home. I suppose I knew that all along.

It's not just haggis and ceilidhs, you know

edinburgh

In the dusk of early afternoon, Edinburgh glows blue. We cross the bridge on Viewforth and follow the steps down to the canal, where barges steam gently, yellow and red and green. The water is frozen, the ice crinkled like plastic wrap over the rocks and frilled plants and litter below. Stone skimmers, thwarted by winter, find new delights as their pebbles bounce off the ice with a xylophone chime, and, though the ice prevails, white bubbles rise and ponder at each stone’s touch. An open loaf of bread sits expectantly halfway across. Someone remembered to feed the ducks.

We walk this route each day, past the ice, past the bright barges, past the ducks with frozen feet. On Lothian Road exhaust smoke glows gold in the car lights and mingles with the fogged cold dragon breath of bustling humans. Dour lovers kiss at the bus stop and a homeless man in fingerless gloves reads a well-thumbed book to his dog. The castle, grey and impregnable, rises up as we pass Cambridge Street. Far above the grey cobbles and stone stairwells and windswept wynds, the last veiled rays glance off its windows.

Huddled beneath two red coats and two tight scarves and two warm hats, we walk this route each day.

glasgow

The first weekend of term was spent in Glasgow. Sauchiehall Street, like Melbourne’s Swanston, stretches from near the university to the centre of town. My sister walked from Kelvingrove, and a parade of little girls in princess dresses, fresh from a birthday party, did the same. I found the princesses first. Elsa was in the lead, holding tight to her mother’s gloved hand, and Cinderella and Anna followed shortly after, clutching party bags. With my bright yellow scarf and bright red coat, Imogen was the one who spotted me, but I found her as proud Rapunzel brought up the rear, tossing her hair.

It was a dry weekend, sun-filled and snowy, and uncharacteristically so. I squinted in the sunlight at the entrance to the quads as Imogen’s camera, Virgil, snapped at Glasgow University’s old stones. Kelvingrove gardens were white and gold and at George Square Wellington wore his hat with pride. We ate mushroom burgers at the 78, snacked on chilli peanuts while watching Gone Girl, and in the dark talked our way to morning.

Glasgow, wide and freeingly anonymous, is as close to Melbourne as Scotland comes.

dundee

Little has changed. Clark’s still sells late-night strawberry tarts. Henry’s still sells amaretto coffee. My sisters still cut their own hair at 2am. My family are still loud with seasoned jokes we need only half-tell. We are as we ever were: between us girls we have more piercings, more hair-dye, and more makeup than ever before, but we are as we always have been, just more so.

st andrews

And now I am back under scudding Renoir skies and ink-blot trees, translating thirty lines of Virgil* a day and wearing my scarf a la Bardot to fight the biting North Sea wind.

I don’t quite know where this blog will lead now. I suppose we’ll find out along the way.

*Not the camera this time.

snapshots of moments made vivid by goodbyes

7/1/15, 12.45pm

On a heady 37 degree day, as the warm wind blew like bad breath across my face, I hurtled out of Darling Gardens and over a pothole, over my handlebars, and into the road. The tarmac reeked, molten under the stinking sun, and what remained of my skin stung in six different places, but the eggs I’d just bought were still whole. The eggs were the first thing I checked, before I noticed the bloodstains on my purse, the buttons ripped from my dress, the deep gashes on my palms quickly sullied by bike oil as I struggled with my chain. I walked the rest of the way, black and red and purple all over, the heat nettling my skin with a sweat-salt sting. The weather broke later as I washed my wounds, thunder like a lover finishing lightning’s sentences. Fat raindrops drummed on the tarmac, cooling it until it smelled like home.

8/1/15, 9pm

Southbank glitters and I spin. The fairy-lit trees are blurred blotches, skyscrapers cradle street-level lovers, and I am alone with my coupled-up friends but I am happy. They hold hands and walk on as I lean backwards over the railing of the bridge, ponytail swinging towards the slow Yarra below. Brown in its daylight lethargy, the silt sits on the water’s surface, and so they say the river flows upside down. But tonight Melbourne is upside down, shimmering blue and pink and gold on the slow black swell, and the real city reaches towards the sky, but the mirrored city reaches towards me.

The sun has set pink and red. Now the sky is black, and the storm never came.

9/1/15, 01.34

It’s early in the morning of my third-last day, and the clock hands have tipped me deep into my thoughts. And I wonder if back home I’m known as the yellow girl with the swinging ponytail and strange fascination with rooftops who wastes no time working out who she likes. And whether I was known as this before Melbourne, or if these are traits I’ve formed here. And if it’s how I’ll be known when I return. And I notice that I like myself here, I like what Melbourne makes of me, and I like what I make of Melbourne. I haven’t found myself. What a stupid phrase. We've lost ourselves, if anything. Introspection so far from home is like looking in a new mirror and realising the mirror you had before was distorted, and this one is too, but in a different way, and yet the mirror here and the mirror back home both show you yourself. I don’t want to lose this sense of self-assurance, this city-sense of peace. But something tells me it’ll be okay. I won’t.

11/1/15, 22.41

I’m sitting in the airport and, unlike the past few days, my eyes are dry. Moments stay with me. Friday's rain-dappled nightlit walk down Swanston Street; the Trades Hall disco ball spinning as we danced to The Jam; my laughing friends singing the Proclaimers over and over; their reddened eyes as they hugged me goodbye at the terminal entrance. 

 But I’m in action mode: endure now, think later.

I don’t want to go.

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.”

Byron and Back Again

The first person I met when I arrived in Australia was more stoned than the regular clientele of Medusa’s favourite Amsterdam coffee shop. We played a game on his phone and he defeated me mercilessly despite my temperance. Then our brief friendship came to an end. “Duuuude,” he drawled. “This was sick, dude, but I’d better go. I need to meet my dealer.” His phone buzzed gently. The lock screen was a leaf of sweet Mary Jane.

I was reminded of this encounter when I arrived in Byron Bay. The stereotypical image, once a mere doodle in my mind, is filled in at the edges and becomes as colourful as a sun-tanned tattoo. I had never seen a dreadlocked mullet before going to Byron, but now I’d hardly give it a second glance. Most people are barefoot, but the hair wraps and tie dye make up for any lack of sole covering. On my final day, the white rastas got out their ukuleles and bongos, dreadlocks enveloped in Santa hats, and performed an acoustic Christmas Carol concert on the grass.

Byron Bay offers more than just people-watching. Surfing, sea-kayaking, diving, and snorkelling are all on the to-do list, though I ticked off only the last. At Julian Rocks I met a sea turtle and watched it dine on jellyfish, but stayed far away from the rays lurking on the seabed. I burnt myself at Belongil Beach, the quieter, nicer beach about a kilometer from the town. A slow, hot walk to the Cape Byron Lighthouse and Australia’s easterly point, passing as many beaches as it does, could fill a day. At the lighthouse I scribbled a windswept postcard to my friends at Yarra, and at the easterly point a school of dolphins frolicked in the glittering waves.

I’ve spoken a lot about the residence I’ve been living at while studying in Australia. It’s been the source of most of the friendships I’ve made while here, and certainly the ones I know I’ll keep when I’m gone. Res life isn’t for everyone, but if you don’t mind a messy kitchen, thrive in a busy, loud environment, and like to be surrounded by people, it’s for you. (Tip: this year, floor 1 was the noisiest, floor 2 was the friendliest, and floor 3 – mine – was the most peaceful.)

Take a look for yourself with our handy resident-made virtual tour.

Yarra House Virtual Tour from LV Media on Vimeo.

"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’ve been through a lot. Even my scars have scars.”

“But the German for Ovulation is Eisprung. That means ‘egg jump’.  So the egg jumps between the fallopian tubes, back and forth, and the sperm shoots it. Like Space Invaders. Right?”

 “Empower: for women. The new fragrance by Chappell.”

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.”