theplaceswe

March 31, 2017July 4, 2017

Surprise! We’re back!

Whilst waiting at Hong Kong airport we were both nervous and excited at the same time. Excited to be going home, but nervous that our plans would fall apart. The flight to Melbourne was uneventful and when we arrived I may have ran off the plane. We went through the automatic immigration points and waited what seemed like ages for our bags. There’s nothing like being on edge at an airport that will draw attention to you. Mark walked to oversized to go search for our snowboard bag while I waited for all 4 of our bags to arrive. As I’m standing there waiting I see a group of people with backpacks on out of the corner of my eye. I turned slightly towards them before whipping my head back to face the other way. Did I or did I not just see my cousin Scott walking with a group of people? I was so unsure and paranoid that we got this far only to be found out here. I kept my eye on ‘Scott’ as I ran through all of the things we would need to say to him so he wouldn’t tell anyone we were home, and then I had to try to work out who would be picking him up and then I was standing there wondering if it was him, where had he been? No one had told me he was going away. And then during all of this I lost track of him as I was grabbing some of our bags off the carrousel. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t even sure it was Scott, and all I had to do was keep my back to the exit and then take my time getting the rest of our bags, which would allow him enough time to get through customs and leave. Turns out I didn’t need to take my time because once Mark finally returned with our snowboard bag I had already picked up all of our bags and as we made our way through to the customs officer we were sent left which meant we had to wait for something. In the end, we were in line with a group of other people, the officers brought sniffer dogs through to check we weren’t smuggling who knows what and then we were waved through, finally back home. We had estimated it might take us a while to get through customs because we had been away for so long so we had just booked to stay at the hotel across the road and after finally managing to push the luggage trolleys across the road we checked in, turned on the TV and listened to a consistent stream of news, mainly just listening to the Australian accent. The next day we were up early, picked up a hire car, loaded it up and drove to the Great Ocean Road. We still hadn’t told anyone we were back and we were using this time to reacquaint ourselves with Australia and enjoy a couple of days to ourselves (because over a year together obviously still wasn’t enough). Our first stop was Port Campbell so we could go check out the 12 Apostles (I don’t think there are 12 anymore though) and as soon as we got there it started pouring rain and the wind was so strong it whipped at your face and made it difficult to see so we retreated to the pub, had a parma and woke up the next day bright and early to go check out the 12 Apostles. Making the most of the clear skies we drove to Ottway National Park to go for a small walk before stopping by Bells Beach to see the quality of waves, as Mark put it. We arrived at an Air BnB in Torquay and chilled out there for a while so that we could plan the next few days of surprises and catch-ups. Our original plan was to go into the city on Friday night, stay at a hotel, go have dinner at our favourite restaurant, Sud, and then wake up early on Saturday to surprise our families. We realised that this might not be possible due to the fact that my parents had appointments all day Saturday so we changed our plans and decided that we would leave the next morning and drive straight to my parents office to surprise them before going home to surprise Mark’s parents. We pulled into the car park at my parents office and organised ourselves. Mark had to camera ready and after scoping out to make sure they weren’t walking around outside anywhere we briskly walked into the shopping centre and straight into their office where my mum was sitting at reception. It’s safe to say she was surprised to see us and we went out the back to wait for my dad to get back. About half an hour later he came back and went straight to his office, not out the back like my mum expected so while he was sitting at his desk we walked in and surprised him. He was just as surprised as my mum although his reaction was completely different. A quick “what the fuck” was exclaimed before he asked what we were doing back. He explained shortly after that he had just seen a post on our Instagram about us being in Canada and then we were there in front of him. We sat around for a while having a laugh before we had to race off to go and surprise Mark’s parents. We arrived at home and knocked on the door to receive no answer. We called the house phone, no answer, called both of their mobiles, no answer, knocked again, no answer. Unsure about what to do we drove to Mark’s cousin’s house to surprise her and then we figured we could use her help in tracking down his parents. We should have stopped there because everything just wasn’t going right. We got to Sarah’s house and we could hear someone home but no one was answering the door. Eventually her mum answered, surprised to see us, but also to tell us that Sarah was at work and she was there babysitting. We went inside, met Sarah’s son for the first time and employed Mark’s aunty to help us track down his parents. She couldn’t get a hold of them either so while we were waiting Mark’s dad called me back and in a panic I asked him if he was at home or work because I needed some paperwork that had been sent to the house. He told me he was at home and as I went to say goodbye he proceeded to ask me what we had been up to and what our plans were. Eventually we said goodbye and I ran back inside to tell Mark we had to leave. We said goodbye to his aunty and drove back home. We knocked and again there was no answer, we called the house phone and again no answer which was when Mark went searching to see if he had packed house keys over a year ago. Turns out he did so we went inside and Mark yelled out hello. His dad came out of his room expecting to see Mark’s brother and instead was confronted by Mark standing there holding their dog. After saying hello we asked where his mum was and so his dad went to get her, telling her she had to come out because there was someone here and she had to quickly see them. She had been just about to shower so she came out in her robe to find us standing there. She yelled at us that this wasn’t funny and we shouldn’t do this to her, she had turned around and walked off before coming back to give us hugs and kisses. We sat down for a while before racing off to go to my parents house where my brothers would be getting home from school. We walked into the house to find James sitting on the floor of his room, Oliver sitting on the couch and they were both shocked and surprised to see us that we hung around until Chris got home and we surprised him too. He quickly took a photo and sent it to his girlfriend who then immediately messaged me asking if it was true or if it was an old photo and he was being an asshole. I replied it was true which caused Chris’ phone to start ringing with her crying on the other end. It had been an eventful morning and afternoon and by the end of all of it we decided it was time to let everyone else know we were home so we uploaded a video and turned our phones off for an hour so we could enjoy a cup of tea and teddy bear biscuits. When we turned our phones on there was an influx of messages and so we set about replying to them all before heading back to the city to check into the hotel and go eat. Our favourite restaurant is owned by my uncle and normally we would call to book a table to make sure we didn’t miss out so we called a booked a table under another name for 2. When we walked in he was so shocked to see us that we stood in the middle of the restaurant hugging, at which point a table at the back was trying to see what the fuss was. That table was filled with my aunty and cousins so we quickly joined their table and had an amazing night catching up with them all. Even though we planned everything in advance and changed a few things last minute I don’t think it could have gone any better than it did. It was amazing to be able to spend our ‘first’ day back home surprising people.

Click here to view the video of us surprising our families!

After an intense first day back home we spent the rest of our time home catching up with friends and family and when our last day arrived we couldn’t believe how quickly 3 weeks had gone by. On our last day we spent the afternoon at a wedding and then the night at James’ 18^th birthday celebrating with him and saying goodbye to family and friends again, although this time promising we would be home before Christmas (a promise a part of me would like to break but also a part of my would like to keep). We had originally only planned on staying home for a week or so but are so glad we extended it so that we could be there for James’ birthday. We had told him back in October when we said goodbye to him in Rome that we wouldn’t be there so it was nice to be able to stay that bit longer.

March 19, 2017July 4, 2017

Goodbye tans, hello runny noses

After an entire day of travelling we arrived at our hotel in Calgary, and our shorts and t-shirts were no use to us in the freezing weather. We spent a couple of days in the city organising our next 5 weeks. Even as I write this I know I can’t post it, not immediately anyway. We were trying to organise visas to enter China with the plan being that we spent a few weeks snowboarding here in Canada and then flying to Hong Kong and Shanghai before surprising everyone back home. This all would have worked fine if the Chinese Consulate would give us visas but because we weren’t Canadians or permanent residents they weren’t able to finalise our visas and then we were left in a bit of a dilemma. What to do? We did a bit of research and decided to take advantage of Shanghai’s visa free stop over policy. This meant though that we needed to fly into Shanghai from one place and fly out to another. We decided to combat this by booking a short stay in Macau. With all of that sorted we had nothing else to do but catch up with our friends and enjoy the snow.

We spent a week in Banff enjoying both Sunshine Village and Lake Louise. The snow was so unbelievably soft that I often just wanted to sit in it and relax. Each day we would wake up, have breakfast and then head to the mountains where I would become increasingly frustrated with myself when I would mess up and feel my progress slipping backwards. I think a part of me was not just nervous about the snowboarding but also nervous about surprising our family and friends back home. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep it from them. All of a sudden people just wanted to FaceTime us to chat and catch up and one thing we’ve learnt is that people always want to know two things. 1. What we’ve been doing and 2. Where we were off to next. Ordinarily both questions are easy to answer but we didn’t want any possibility of us slipping up so both Mark and I avoided FaceTime with anyone, simply claiming the wifi was no good. That in itself wasn’t a lie because wifi is often terrible where we go but it was still difficult to keep avoiding people.

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After our time in Banff we travelled to Kelowna to go to Big White where Mark spent 6 months living and working when he finished high school. It was interesting to hear all of the things he remembered once we got there but the funniest thing was his comment about the changes. After the first day I asked him if it was as he remembered and his response was “Yeah everything seems the same except everyone is so much younger than when I was here.” To which I had to gently remind him that it was 9 years ago and these kids were doing just what he had done although now he was much older. He didn’t really like me pointing this out but it did amuse us for the remainder of our time. The snow at Big White was no where near as good as the snow at Banff which was disappointing but I had finally learn to snowboard so I was happy.

We left Kelowna for Vancouver and when we arrived, piled all of our gear into a tiny cab and set off for our hotel in northern Vancouver. We stayed at this amazing B&B right near Capilano Bridge where we spent an afternoon wandering around and where we bumped into a girl Mark when to school with, it’s such a small world. It was also where we both nearly revealed our surprise plans. After visiting the Capilano Bridge we walked back to our B&B and booked tickets to go watch the Canucks play. I was so excited to watch my first ice hockey game and then we had planned to go and eat dinner afterwards. Things didn’t go to plan as soon as we left the B&B. We were walking down the road to the bus stop and when we turned the corner, saw the bus just up ahead so we ran to get there in time. We jumped on board and then realised that neither of us had actually checked we were on the correct bus. After Mark spoke to the bus driver and we were told this bus would take us to where we wanted to go we relaxed and waited for the drive to be over. When we arrived at the stadium we grabbed ourselves a hot dog and drink because how could I not at my first hockey game? And then we sat down and watched a rather uneventful hockey game and to fill in some time during the breaks we ate more food, although I didn’t eat that much more as I was excited to getting Vietnamese for dinner. Once the game was over (Canucks lost) we left to go get dinner only to be upset when we found all of the restaurants closed and our wandering had led us to a not so inviting part of Vancouver. We quickly grabbed a taxi and made our way back to our B&B.

When we got to the airport the next day we realised we were 10 days from going home but to make sure we kept the surprise Mark sent our parents a message telling them we were travelling up north to the Yukon and we would be without wifi for the week we were there. This was not an unusual message from us so our parents all replied telling us to enjoy and then we turned off our wifi. Our flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong was horrendous and possibly one of the worst flights either of us had been on. The man beside Mark was so elderly he didn’t seem to be able to do much on his own without Mark helping him. To repay Mark, he would keep falling asleep and farting. The kids behind us were so loud and Mark discovered a downside to having long hair – when someone in the row behind you pulls on your chair to move and they grab your hair with it. Once the plane landed we ran off and fast as we could to get some space and then got a taxi to the safety of our hotel.

March 13, 2017March 13, 2017

Tans, Tacos & Tarzan

We spent a whole day travelling from Chile to Mexico City so when we arrived we were dead tired and starving. First thing was first though, we needed to wash our clothes so after checking into our hotel we grabbed all of our dirty washing and headed straight for the closest laundry service. After dropping our clothes off we realised we needed more money so off we went to find an ATM. The rest of our day continued like this, in our tired state we would remember we needed to do something and then set out to do it until we decided enough was enough and went back to our hotel to pass out. We fell in love with Mexico City and were a bit disappointed we only had two days there. We explored a couple of free Art exhibitions and admired the architecture all over the city. We also made sure to eat our share of tacos each day because who can say no to 0.75 cent tacos?!

We left the amazing Mexico City for Cancun and when we arrived were immediately shocked at the difference in temperature. We thought it had been hot in Mexico City but we were wrong. The humidity in Cancun was over powering. We got a ride to Akumal which is about an hour and a half away and checked into our apartment. We dropped all of our things off and sat down to just relax but just like when we were in Mexico City we had things to do so we got a collective taxi down to the supermarket to buy our week’s worth of groceries. We were quickly filling up our trolley when Mark headed off to pick out the alcohol. We were nearly finished shopping when an attendant told us in Spanish that we couldn’t buy any alcohol because it was after 5pm. We were quite confused and put it all back on the shelves but when he was out of site we put it all back in and thought there was obviously just a misunderstanding. As soon as we got to the check out the guy serving us told us the same thing. It was so odd but we just went with it and bought the rest of our groceries. On the way out we stopped to buy a slice of pizza each because we were starving and the owner of the shop was Canadian so we asked him what was going on. His reply was “I don’t know why but after 5pm on a Sunday you can’t buy alcohol”. It then made sense when he told us it was Sunday so we left with all of our food and made a note to go back the next day for the alcohol. We spent our 5 days in Akumal being woken up by the sun shining into our room, eating amazing smoothie bowls for breakfast and then spending the rest of the day reading by the pool. Each day I made us lunch and dinner and felt like we had somewhere we could call home. On our second last day there we ventured out to the national park area so we could spend some time by the beach. Spending some time at the beach made us excited to head further south to Tulum where we stayed during our previous visit to Mexico.

We arrived in Tulum early in the afternoon and organised bikes for our week there. Once they got dropped off at our apartment we rode straight down to the beach. As much as we loved our time in Akumal we definitely loved out time in Tulum more. We spent days at the beach and other days out exploring the cenotes nearby. Casa cenote is a huge water system with the most blue-green water we had seen in a very long time. It was so quiet there that we were able to swim around for half an hour without bumping into anyone. And then to top off a great time we walked across the road to a beach from bar where we looked out onto a tranquil beach with only a handful of people in site.

Casa Cenote was quite compared to Grand Cenote but we could tell straight away why the Grand Cenote was more popular. Apart from the main cave area there are smaller areas where you can go and spend time in the water with hardly anyone around you. One area in particular was quite enough that Mark was able to climb up the handrail and into a tree where he undeniably looked a little bit like Tarzan.

Unlike in Akumal we ate out most nights while in Tulum and admittedly ate out at the same place each night. We didn’t know the name of the taqueria but we simply called it “The coca-cola taco shop” because it has coca-cola chairs and it sold tacos. Our order each night only varied on the amount of tacos we ordered but usually we ordered as soon as we sat down, not needing to look at the menu. I actually think one of the waiters knew our order after the second night because he looked like he stopped listening to us after that but he always got everything right.

We were so sad to be leaving Mexico. We’ve decided Mexico is our Vietnam of Latin America. If we were to pick a country in Latin America to live in it would unquestionably be Mexico, just like if we had to pick a country to live in in Asia it would be Vietnam. So as sad as we were to be leaving Mexico we know that we will most definitely be back but for now it’s time for some snow in Canada!

February 18, 2017

South America for days

We’ve spent the last six weeks traveling around South America with a friend of ours. Originally we had thought we would catch long distance buses to move around but decided we couldn’t be bothered with that so we flew around instead. These are our highlights from the past month.

Colombia
We met up in Cartagena and it was the picturesque start to our trip together that we had hoped for. One day we paid for a return trip across the bay to a popular beach. We had a really relaxing day and met a great family there. At the end of the day, a few minutes before our agreed return time we packed up our things and went in search of our boat driver. Half an hour later we were still on the beach with the driver nowhere to be seen. Welcome to South America, where you should never pay for a return trip because you probably won’t get it!

aadsc08238 — Little did we know we would be left on this beach!

We flew to Medellin after a few days in Cartagena and took a day trip to the Rock of Guatape where you climb 740 stairs to reach the top and over look to scenery. At a higher than normal altitude 740 stairs actually takes your breathe away and we quickly learnt that anything in altitude is harder than normal. Medellin is also where Mark discovered a girl was trying to pick him up by offering to be his guide.

On our flight to Bogota I met a guy who had lived in NZ to study English and after I told him where we were staying he advised me that it actually wasn’t a safe area. Upon arrival at our hotel we discovered that it wasn’t a safe area very quickly and once we got to our rooms and realised they didn’t lock properly we picked up our bags, booked a room at another hotel and left. Our new hotel was more like an apartment which was perfect because we hosted a dinner party to say thank you to Joel and Carolina for taking us out the night before and for Joel’s advice on where to stay – they did make our time in Bogota so much better!

Peru
We spent a day at the beach in Lima and then picked up a hire car and drove to Paracas to spend a few days there while our Brazilian visas were being processed in Lima. Along the way we were pulled over by the police and after 45 minutes of back and forth we were able to reduce our ‘fine’, which was in fact a bribe, to a quarter of what they wanted and then because they realised I was filming them they discreetly handed us the money back and then offered us some advice on police in Peru, even though they had just been asking for a bribe. Nevertheless because we were quite sure they would either follow us or radio the police up ahead we gave them some money as a token of our appreciation for their advice. Safe to say they were a bit shocked and wanted to confirm that it was a ‘gift’. They were quite happy when we confirmed it was and they freely took the money offered. Two days later we woke up early on our 365th day of travel and climbed huge sand dunes nearby and felt super proud that we had made it to a year.

Peru was full of nature for us. We spent 3 hours hiking up Rainbow mountain which was the hardest thing any of us had ever done but at the end it was so rewarding to be able to see how high we had climbed and look out over the mountain range. Surprisingly, out of the 3 of us, I was the only one that didn’t get hit with altitude sickness. Safe to say we slept well that night and 2 days later when we arrived at Machu Picchu we decided our legs just couldn’t take another hike so we got the bus instead and felt super happy with our decision once it started pouring rain.

Bolivia
Arriving in La Paz we were immediately hit with the altitude and pouring rain. It stayed like this for the entire time we were there and this time around I was the one to be hit with altitude sickness and spent a full day pretty much sleeping or not doing anything. We travelled to the town of Uyuni to spend a day visiting the Salt flats which were absolutely amazing. I had never seen anything so flat and white, not only that but because of the recent rains some parts of the salt flat looked like huge natural mirrors! Our day there was definitely the highlight of our time in Bolivia

aadsc08958 — Mirror, mirror on the floor

Brazil
We arrived in Rio with no energy whatsoever. It took us all a couple of days to recover from what we think was an effect of the constant changing altitudes we had been at. It didn’t matter too much though because we spent each day by the roof top pool which over looked Copacabana Beach and had views of Sugarloaf Mountain and if we stretched out over the ledge we could see Christ the Redeemer. We took a day trip out to visit Christ the Redeemer which is actually a lot bigger once you are standing right below it. The area was packed full of people though so it was difficult to stand still to appreciate it without being pushed from side to side. Sugarloaf Mountain was a lot quieter and gave us amazing views of Rio de Janeiro. On our last day we walked across to Copacabana Beach where we sat and watched all of the people for hours.

Argentina
We travelled to Argentina for the sole purpose of meeting some of Mark’s relatives that he nor his family in Australia had ever met before but to make the most of our visas we first stopped to see the huge Iguazu Falls that occupy both Argentina and Brazil.We arrived at the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls and got a taxi to drive us across the border into Argentina. We spent just the day there admiring the huge waterfalls and then early the next day flew to Buenos Aires to meet his relatives where we were welcomed with open arms and they looked after us like they had known us our whole lives. We spoke a weird mixture of English, Italian and Spanish and were thankful when we were able to speak English and have it translated. We were fed amazing Argentine BBQ and home made empanadas and when we left it was once again an emotional goodbye of “until next time”, although no one knows when next time will be we were all sure that there would definitely be a next time.

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Chile
After a whirlwind 6 weeks of travel we arrived in Santiago and slept for hours and woke up starving but refreshed. After an intense period of travelling we always have to spend a few days planning ahead and looking back at our most recent trip and that’s what we did here in Santiago; planned for the future, and our immediate future holds a trip to Mexico, snowboarding through Canada and buying an RV. Can’t wait for the next few months!

South America didn’t always live up to our expectations. In some moments we were pleasantly surprised but at other times we would travel somewhere and feel like that particular place was letting us down. This is one of the downfalls of travelling for as long as we have. We have seen so much of the world that unfortunately now we know what we like and what we don’t like and this makes appreciating great places difficult because we don’t want to see great, we want to see amazing places. This isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy our time in South America because we most definitely did, but if we are to ever come back we will be very selective about where we go, spending most of our time in Argentina, Chile & Brazil.

January 11, 2017January 10, 2017

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Orlando airport looks more like a shopping centre than an airport to me. We got off the plane and made our way to the transport area where we luckily got the last two spots on the Cocoa Beach shuttle and an hour later were chilling at our hotel bar having a drink on Christmas Eve. Later that afternoon we called everyone back home to wish them a Merry Christmas. We were up early the next day so that Mark could hire a surfboard and head out surfing while I took my book and read on the beach. This is how we spent this first half of our Christmas Day. The second half was spent with Mark throwing up after lunch (we’re still not sure if it was the food or the smoothie that got him). He didn’t want to cancel our dinner at the hotel so we ate our dinner there in what we thought was going to be a decent meal. Mark spent half of the time in the bathroom being sick, while my steak was cold, and after waiting over an hour I thought it wasn’t worth it to send it back. I don’t think the hotel was expecting that many people to eat at the restaurant for Christmas dinner because the staff looked completely overwhelmed – Poor Mark didn’t look much better.

Our days in Cocoa Beach were spent by the beach and one night while we were deciding where to go for dinner an ad came on TV about popcorn to which I announced “I could easily go some popcorn right now”. We normally only really eat popcorn at the movies so we decided to combine something we each wanted to do – Mark wanted to watch the new Star Wars movie and I wanted to eat popcorn – and so we did both. I had never seen any of the Star Wars movies before but apparently watching ‘Star Wars: Rouge One’ first was going to be a good starting point. I admit that is was better than I was expecting which is why after 7 years together I finally said yes to Mark’s question “Can we watch Star Wars?” Each night after that we watched a Star Wars movie and one day when the weather wasn’t great, we stayed in, ordered pizza and watched 3 movies back to back.

florida — Not a bad view for Christmas morning

We left Cocoa Beach after just under a week there and flew to New York City which was so busy it was ridiculous. New York City is unlike any city we’ve been to. Mark calls it a jungle because every day we left our hotel and even if we just walked around we experienced something different compared to the day before.

New Years Eve we went across to Brooklyn early in the morning and relished the lack of crowds and the quietness that came with it. We spent the afternoon in Soho and at the Chelsea Market eating lobster and drinking beer before heading back to our hotel to get ready for the night. We didn’t have any plans as such because we weren’t sure how everything would be working in the city so decided to take things as they came and we had an amazing night because of it. We got the metro to China Town to eat Vietnamese for dinner, went to a speakeasy bar afterwards where we drank amazing cocktails and met an Aussie bartender working there who gave us some recommendations for other bars. After our drinks we took the metro up to Central Park where we set out our small towel as a picnic rug on the edge of a pond and counted down the last few minutes of 2016. At midnight the fireworks started and we opened our small bottle of champagne, drank straight from the bottle because we forgot glasses, and toasted to the amazing year we had together. While sitting on the edge of the pond with the champagne in hand, looking at Mark while he was watching the fireworks I couldn’t help but feel so happy it took my breathe away. How lucky we were to have experienced the year we had and to know that the end of the year didn’t mean the end of our trip. After our champagne we each took a shot of vodka from the small bottle we took from our minibar, toasted to each other again, and set off back to the bar we came from. We didn’t spend too long at the bar again and then while we were at the metro station we took the train in the wrong direction and at 2:00am on January 1^st 2017 we were sitting at a train station in Brooklyn, nowhere near where we needed to be so we got back on the train heading in the opposite direction and eventually made our way to our hotel.

Mark on our trip back from Brooklyn heading in the correct direction

We slept in on the first day of 2017 and when we finally woke up we completely unpacked our bags and re-packed them properly for our trip down to Colombia the next day. After this entire process we went back to China Town (because it’s so cheap) and ate lunch and then headed to Central Park – we were going ice skating! Once we got to the ice rink we saw how long the line was and decided it was best not to start our new year waiting in lines so we found another one up towards Harlem but still in Central Park and went there. At this one there were no lines and we were in straight away. I couldn’t remember the last time I went ice-skating and it was a lot harder than I remember but after a few laps (and Mark holding my hand) I was getting the hang of it. I honestly couldn’t have thought of a better way to start 2017 – ice-skating in Central Park, NYC with Mark, after nearly a year of travelling and with so much more to go. How lucky I am to be me, especially as we are heading to Colombia to meet up with a friend for a month!

January 8, 2017

Tacos and beer cure the soul

So we arrived at Cancun airport and got into a taxi without anywhere to go because the internet connections in Cuba blocked us from booking any accommodation. Luckily our taxi driver knew of a hotel and took us right to the front. It was nothing special but after 3 weeks in Cuba it was nice to be in an actual hotel and not someone’s house. We left the hotel straight away and went to a local taco restaurant where we ate tacos and drank beer and I watched the tension physically leave Mark. Safe to say he was happy to be out of Cuba and in Mexico.

We had planned to spend 12 days in Mexico. The first 2 days we spent in Cancun, the third day visiting Chichen Itza and then the next 6 we spent in Tulum. We booked an apartment with a kitchen and cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday while we were there and we felt so much better for eating fresh cooked food everyday. We hired bikes and rode 6km to the beach most days and on the days we didn’t go to the beach we sat by the pool, and when it was too hot to do either we sat inside. We felt like we had a home for a change and thought we could stay there for the whole time but as usual we were too excited at the beginning and after 3 days started to get a bit bored and thought we should look at going somewhere else. The million dollar question of course was “where to?” Did we want to have a white Christmas? If so we needed our winter clothes that were all in Canada being stored by our friends. Could we rent snow gear? Yes, if we wanted to spend an exorbitant amount of money on accommodation, board hire, clothing hire and flights. Quickly a white Christmas was drifting further from our minds but then what do we do? And so after spending hours looking at different options we decided on Florida – the weather was warm, surfing was possible and we could fly to NYC easily from there – we just had to decide where in Florida. Miami was the obvious answer but neither of us liked the idea of spending Christmas in Miami surrounded by so many people. A quick google search of surf spots in Florida pointed us to Cocoa Beach, and because we were getting over researching we booked a hotel and booked flights to fly out on Christmas Eve.

aadsc08064 — Chichen Itza early in the morning

We woke up early one morning and rode in the rain (yes, the one morning it rained) to the ruins nearby to check them out. We got there shortly after they opened which we liked because there were so many people arriving within an hour of us being there – and because we are the way we are, we left shortly after to get away from the crowds. We really enjoyed our time in Tulum and plan on going back early in the new year because even though we had 6 days there, time flew by so quickly and we didn’t get as much done as we could have. We’ll see what it’s like when we go back in a few months time!

December 27, 2016

Goodbye Fidel, Goodbye Cuba

We arrived in Havana on a Friday afternoon and after we stood in line to change money at the airport and then got ripped off by a taxi driver we were standing face to face with a small Cuban lady rapidly talking to us in Spanish. She owned the casa particular that we would be staying in for 3 days. Although I could barely understand what she was saying I liked her immediately for the small reason that her house was spotless. We left our bags in her room as our room was still occupied by some other people – I noted that she didn’t seem really thrilled with those particular people – and went to explore Havana. We made our way to the main square and climbed 2 flights of stairs to get to a bar with balcony views over the square, and it was here that we sat, ate lobster, drank mojitos and watched the musicians and dancing that we were expecting to find all over Cuba. We moved onto another bar and after more music, more lobster, more mojitos and some Cuban cigars we decided it was time for bed, after all, we knew we had over a month of this so why cram it all into one night?

The next day we were up and noticed the casa owner didn’t have that same spark she had the day before so thinking we may have gotten in her way some how we quickly left for the day. We spent the whole day walking around and checking out what Havana had to offer. At one point a local was trying to sell us a newspaper and we kept trying to explain to him that there was no reason for us to buy one as we didn’t speak or read Spanish, he looked at us with a bewildered expression and eventually left. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant (for Cuban standards) and thought we would take our time eating because there didn’t seem to be a lot going on in the city at the moment and figured we just had to wait until it was later in the night. While talking to our waiter he just casually through in “well because Fidel died yesterday we are hoping it is the start of change” and then because we were too slow to actually say anything in reply, he continued talking, told us to enjoy our meal and walked away. It was now our turn to look slightly bewildered as we realised the guy selling the newspapers today was selling the edition announcing Fidel’s death. We then heard from other people talking that there would be 9 days of mourning which meant no alcohol and no music. That explained what we thought was a rather slow Saturday night, we also realised that explained why our casa owner was down this morning – she had learnt of his death. Sunday in Havana was a weird experience. The privately owned bars and restaurants were still selling alcohol while the government ones most definitely weren’t, however the private ones didn’t know if they were going to be allowed to do so for the entire 9 days of mourning or if it would change again, there was quite a bit of confusion. A lot of the locals, especially the older ones could be seen crying on the side of the street while most of the younger locals looked like the whole process was going to be an inconvenience to them. We walked around for the day, eating churos and eventually bought the newspaper announcing one of the biggest events in modern day Cuba – Fidel’s death.

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We left Havana for Vinales, the land of tobacco, and when we arrived we were swamped by local casa owners wanting us to stay with them. We weren’t in the mood to really fend them off so very quickly we had one lady follow us and tell us we could stay with her. We just went with her because, well we don’t really know why, I guess we just couldn’t be bothered. She was lovely though and her house was on a side street where we had a view of the mountains. The next day we were up before sunrise for our horse ride through the countryside. Our first stop was what can only be described as a jungle lookout where we climbed to the top to watch the sunrise over the mountainside of Vinales. It was so peaceful up there that we stayed for a while just to relax. Our second stop was a tobacco field where we were given a mojito for breakfast and a quick 2 minute show and tell on how cigars were made and then because we were the only ones there we bought 3 cigars fully aware that we were probably being ripped off, just as we read that everyone seemingly is at these types of places. We had a few more stops after the tobacco field but we were in and out very quickly as they didn’t really interest us. With the horse ride over after 4 hours we were both hurting and tired so we went back to the casa for a sneaky nap that turned into a 3 hour sleep. We had thought we would need 3 days in Vinales but after our horse ride there wasn’t really anything else we wanted to do so we spent the next 2 days chilling out on our balcony and walking through town. We had caught a bus to Vinales and thought we would try a Taxi Collectivo to leave Vinales. Everything seemed great when we got picked up and were only sharing the car with another couple who sat on the bench seat next to the driver. After half an hour we pulled into a stop off the side of the main road that was filled with all other collectivos and had a restaurant and a few stalls. We thought we were there just to grab a coffee but after a little bit our driver was taking all of our bags out of the car and palming us off to another driver. This happened 3 more times before we were finally in a car driving towards Playa Giron. Our days in Playa Giron were just what we needed. We went to the beach everyday, read and ate great food. We were a bit hesitant to leave because we had been having a great time but we felt we needed to keep moving otherwise we wouldn’t get to visit all of Cuba.

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We left Playa Giron and spent the last days of the country wide mourning period in Cienfuegos and Guajimico and then ended in Trinidad. We had a couple of days in Trinidad but it was here that Mark mentioned that he wasn’t enjoying Cuba the way he thought he was and my quick reply was “me neither, I’m happy to leave if you are”. He was quite surprised by my response as he thought I had been enjoying our time there. We spent a couple of hours the next day working out what we were going to do and how soon we were going to leave. We agreed we would spend another week in Cuba and then would fly to Mexico and spend our remaining free time there before flying to New York. After working all of this out we had a really good final week in Cuba. We saved ourselves a decent amount of money by getting a local train for 3 hours between 2 cities and although we had to stand for majority of the train trip it was better than some of the buses and taxis we had been in. We stayed at a casa of a lovely family and from there we met a Spanish couple travelling on their honeymoon with their baby daughter. They offered to drive us an hour and a half the next day so we could get to our next stop and go to the beach. The beach at Cayo Guillermo was simply breathtaking and it was nice to spend a day with some other people, chatting to them and getting some advice for our travels to South America. After two days by the beach we packed up our stuff and travelled to another city just for the night before we made our way to Varadero, which would arguably be the most tourist-populated area in Cuba with a long stretch of beachfront all-inclusive resorts. We didn’t stay in an all-inclusive because it’s just not in our budget but it worked out much better for us. We stayed in a quiet street, a 5-minute walk to the beach that brought us to a part of the beach that was relatively quiet – our type of beach! Another great thing about Varadero was the amount of international cuisine restaurants that thankfully gave us a break from the standard Cuban dish of meat, chicken or seafood with rice and beans, which we had been eating everyday since the day we arrived in Cuba.

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We left Varadero and spent our last day and night in Havana. Havana is a really cool city and it ended our time in Cuba perfectly. Next stop: Mexico.

December 6, 2016December 6, 2016

Canada ey

For our past week in Canada we have spent the majority of our time with an old friend of Mark’s (back from his Canada days) and his girlfriend. What still amazes me along this trip is the hospitality of friends and family but especially those we don’t expect it from. Steve and Danelle have been amazing from the moment we saw them. They came out on a Thursday night to have drinks with us, stayed out until late, went to work the next day and then met up with us again the next night for dinner. This was all before they picked us up at 5:00am on Saturday morning in their RV full of beer, wine, food & snow gear. They had planned out our weekend for us and for the first time in a long time we didn’t have to organise a thing. We arrived at Sunshine, hired snowboards and jumped on to the gondola. It has been maybe 3 years since I’ve been to the snow to attempt to learn to snowboard and so this time around it was just starting from scratch although in much better snow than we find back home. After Mark spent an hour or so with me we met up with Steve & Danelle to sit in the snow and have a drink and chat before the 3 of them went off to go down a few runs together. After they were done we ate some lunch and then all went for a ride together, I again spent more time on my ass than I would like to admit but hey, gotta start somewhere. We spent the night in a campground in Banff and made a trip out to the town for dinner where we encountered more Aussies & Kiwis than we did at ANZAC Day in Gallipoli. They were everywhere and we learnt that most people would just assume we lived and worked there when they heard us speak.

Waking up in the RV after such a deep sleep and stepping outside in the cold was surprisingly refreshing. I am glad though that we parked as close as we could to the bathrooms because it quickly stopped being refreshing and quickly became cold. The only shower in the bathroom was occupied and I felt like a bit of a creep waiting in the bathroom for the lady to finish but I didn’t want to lose my place in the imaginary line I had conjured up in my mind and therefore keep everyone waiting. It didn’t take too long though and when I made it back to the RV everything was packed up ready to go. We drove back to the town and bought breakfast before stopping by Lake Louise to have a drink, enjoy the scenery and just relax before we were dropped off at our hotel and Steve and Danelle made their way back home.

The next two days we spent at Lake Louise. The first day Mark spent up on the hill snowboarding and I spent the day doing nothing that was particularly interesting but all the same needed to be done – I worked on our trip. When Mark got back I asked him how his day was and all I got back was “I was sick”. I thought at first it was something he ate so started asking him about everything he ate during the day to which he just shook his head and said “No, I was sick because I was so exhausted.” And at this I just laughed and knew he would be sore the next day but he unfortunately had to drive us into town so we could eat.

screen-shot-2016-11-21-at-8-49-29-pm — Mark out and about

On the second day we packed our things into the hire car and spent one last day together on the hill. We left Lake Louise that day and drove to Radium Springs to enjoy a bit of quiet and also enjoy the hot pool. We spent the night there and the next day after a quick last stop at Banff Mark put an address into Google Maps and told me to direct. When I looked at it I saw it was a Cinema. Not sure if that was correct I asked him where we were going and his reply was “I thought we would kill some time and go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. I love Harry Potter so going to see the movie at an actual cinema was so exciting I sat with a smile on my face the entire drive but then wasn’t focussing and nearly caused us to take a wrong turn which would have meant delays and we were already running down to the minute. We got there though and the act of walking into the cinema reminded me so much of home it was strange. When we got to the counter though we had just missed the screening by about 2 minutes. After 30 seconds of slight panic on my behalf Mark bought tickets to the next one which was in 15 minutes. One movie, one large popcorn, two large drinks and a bag of Twix later I actually skipped to the car. I was so happy and excited – I can’t wait for the next movies to come out! We drove to Steve and Danelle’s straight from the cinema and met them there for a drink before we went out for one last dinner at a BBQ House. We ate, drank and laughed for hours before it was time to go home because although we haven’t worked for close to a year, they still had their normal lives to attend to the next day.

And so that next day brings us to today. After saying thank you and goodbye we drove to the airport (stopped by McDonald’s for breakfast on the way), flew to Toronto and then got the shuttle bus to our hotel where we have had dinner, packed our bags and I finally managed to book a house to stay at in Havana, Cuba, where we flew to tomorrow. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute. We don’t expect to have much internet (if any) in Cuba so you might not hear from us for a while.

Until we are back, our love, B & Mark xxx

November 25, 2016

New York, New York

After an easy flight from Iceland we arrived at JFK Airport in New York and I was pretty excited but also trying to act cool… Customs officers always make me nervous; I never know if I should smile or frown, look at them or look away but while I was being pre-occupied with my internal struggle of if I was smiling too much the officer handed us our passports and through we walked into America. We grabbed a cab and waited patiently for the drive to end so we could get to our apartment and start exploring. If you were to look up the definition for rush hour traffic you would find New York City there which meant by the time we got to our apartment the time difference from Iceland had started to hit us and we were getting hungry. All we did for our first night in NYC is eat and then sleep, which was probably a good thing considering the mood New Yorkers were in after the election results. The next day however we were up early and our first stop was Washington Square Park to check out the archway and fountain. The archway was there as was the waterless fountain. Not to worry though because we were in NYC and nothing could ruin our mood. That first day we quickly became familiar with the NY Subway system and also become very familiar with all of the interesting people, smells and sounds that can be found below the surface of NYC.

We’ve learnt to get up as soon as the sun rises, if not before to start our days when we are in heavy tourist areas so we got up early and made our way out to Brooklyn for our morning walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We were lucky enough to experience Brooklyn Bridge with the locals while they all started their days with their morning routines; walking, running, or riding. We decided to spend the morning doing our laundry because we knew if we left it any longer we would be exploring NYC in our summer clothes so we picked up our bags of dirty clothes, grabbed a coffee (hot chocolate for me) from our new ‘local’ cafe and made our way to the laundromat. 2 hours later we had bags full of clean clothes and were ready to start our real exploration of the city that never sleeps.

We are lucky enough to have a couple of friends from Melbourne living in NY so we caught up with them to get their recommendations on what we should do while there. Because of them we were able to eat some amazing food and visit some amazing sites free of charge thanks to their memberships. Thanks also to the US Election we were also cut off from many roads and access paths due to protests. I found the protests themselves quite uneventful to be honest except for one where a lady started yelling at us to join in. At this point I thought about trying to tell her that we weren’t American but didn’t think she would actually care and sure enough after about 30 seconds of yelling she was back walking with the crowd. These posts I write are never meant to be about politics, they are only meant to be about our trip but I’ve learnt a lot throughout our travels so far and I believe I am quite well versed on the world these days. One of the main things that has stood out from our travels for me, and I know Mark feels the same, is that a lot of people never see how deep a scar runs. People living in cities all over the world who have jobs and can support themselves rarely think about the indirect affect a government’s policy can have on their own population and on those who were already doing it tough. I don’t think any country is perfect in the way they do things but I strongly associate myself with the government and social systems of Scandinavian countries. The sense of pride and gratefulness shown by so many Scandinavians about politics is truly unbelievable and I hope that in the future Australia heads more towards the Scandinavian way of life instead of the American. There are simply too many people hurting in America that are being left behind and forgotten about thanks to the media. There are many places I would like to live in this world, American is not one of them. I find this feeling of mine hard to handle when I absolutely loved New York.

After 3 full days of exploring it was Sunday so we slept in and then went and treated ourselves to brunch. After brunch we went back to our apartment to pick up our bag and while Mark sat down to do a bit of research on where we should go, I did some research on tattoo shops that take walk ins. I easily found heaps but after a bit more research I found one I liked and showed Mark. We had already agreed on what tattoos we were going to get but once we looked at them again there was something that just didn’t feel right so I began researching new ones and quickly found ones that we felt worked better – bind runes symbolising love. We sent photos of them to our phone and off we went to see if the tattoo shop could fit us in and within minutes they were leading us through to meet our tattooist and get everything set up. I went first and it was over so quickly with minimal pain. I don’t understand though how people could sit there for hours. Mark went after me and after an hour the entire process was done and we were walking out of the shop with our new tattoos – Mark’s second and my first. Now we’ll never forget NY. We spent the rest of the day with one of our friends as she showed us around the Chelsea Markets. We ate the most amazing lobster and tacos that we vowed to be back there before we left for Canada.

Monday was the start of another week and thankfully talk of the election was slowly (and I mean at a snail’s pace) starting to die down. The weather was starting to go downhill on Monday so we tried to fit in a few of the last things on our list and before we knew it the day was over. Our days in NY just went by and before we knew it we only had 2 days left. Our second last day was met with pouring rain so we hung out inside and began organising ourselves for our trip to Canada. We applied for our ESA’s and mine came through straight away that it had been approved, Mark’s however came back ‘pending’. This caused Mark to go into slight panic mode but within an hour he was all smiles after getting his ‘approved’ email. To further lift his spirits we went to Chelsea Pier Driving Range where I agreed to let Mark try to teach me how to hit a golf ball. It wasn’t quite as boring as I always imagined it to be but I can’t say I could stand there and hit over 100 golf balls. Leaving the driving range we walked past a sign for the bowling alley so we turned and went and played 2 games of ten pin bowling. Mark won the first game but I won the second so I was happy to leave it at that… I hate losing. Before we knew it we were back at our apartment packing our bags getting ready for our last day in New York.

For our last day we decided to head out of the city and drive up state to Storm King Art Centre. The drive up there was really nice and we were able to see so much of New York. The first thing we noticed when we arrived at Storm King was the fresh air thanks to the large open space. To make the most of our day and to see as much as we could we rented bikes and rode around. It was so peaceful compared to NYC that at some of the art installations we stopped and sat down on the grass just to take in the tranquility. Of course driving back into NYC took some much longer than it did to get out so by the time we dropped the car off we were happy to be done with it and jumped back onboard the subway to head to Soho and then Times Square just one last time.

325cc975-0fe3-4f92-90b8-77bb8bfda94d — Getting that pout on at Storm King.

I loved New York and although I’m looking forward to the several weeks, I can’t wait to get back to the city and next time it will be for New Years Eve.

And now, off to Canada we go!

November 10, 2016November 10, 2016

Ummm it’s cold here.

We woke up early in Rome to say goodbye to my family and then walked around Rome and ate breakfast at the Colosseum while the sun rose. It was the perfect end to our time in ‘mainland’ Europe. When we got back to our hotel we packed our bags, checked out and walked to Roma Termini station to head to the airport. Once at the airport it was anarchy. An airport staff member yelled at us to move our bags, we weren’t able to find the start of the priority check in line, and once we got to a check in counter our booking didn’t show up on their system so we were pushed aside while someone tried to sort it out for us. The plus side to all of that was that the lady who checked us in was the most hilarious ‘check-in lady’ we’ve ever had. She was not shy to express her frustration and utter disappointment at how her day was turning out. We eventually got through all formalities and were on our flight to Berlin. I will say that neither of us were happy to be at Berlin airport. It is probably one of the worst airports we have been to, and we’ve been there multiple times. And so after walking around for a while, sitting in the lounge for a while, and sitting on the plane for a while, we finally took off and flew to Reykjavik.

We arrived at Keflavik airport and we so amazed at the airport that we knew it was going to be a good 10 days. I don’t care what people say – first impressions do matter. We walked out, got on the bus and 45 minutes later were standing outside a hotel that wasn’t ours, looking for the apartment that was ours. We found it pretty easily, or so we thought. We walked into the apartment block just as some people were walking out and then were stuck inside trying to find our apartment for half an hour. At this stage it’s 3.00am and I’m wondering about the people who left the building and what they were doing leaving so late and wondering if Mark had managed to find our actual apartment while searching outside. Mark eventually showed up again and we left to go to our apartment. Once we got inside we were both so tired but also so hungry. It was while we were organising our phone chargers that Mark asked me where his Kindle was. I froze and my heart skipped a bit. “Fuck!” I thought. I knew exactly where it was, it was in the seat pocket of seat F23 on our plane. I put it there where Mark was falling asleep but in my daze I forgot to get it out or tell him where I put it. I was so annoyed at myself, 1. for forgetting and 2. because it was going to cost us money to replace it, and these days that money just adds more days to our trip. Let’s just say I had a very fitful 3 hour sleep before my alarm went off and we were up, dressed and out the door. Reykjavik at dawn is a beautiful city but my god it was cold. After walking the city we went back to our apartment to have breakfast and so I could sit on the phone and hope that Mark’s Kindle was turned in by flight attendants, assuming that found it. I felt such relief when the rather grumpy lady on the phone told me that she had his Kindle. Yep, it was going to be a good day. We picked up our car that afternoon and had an early night so we could try to catch up on sleep we had missed.

The next few days we were up early each morning to make it out to different sites before the sun rose and before the crowds moved in. At some points along our drive we would drive out onto a gravel road and within 5 minutes were completely isolated, it was something truly amazing and after 2 days it was odd if we encountered other people. We stopped to visit so many waterfalls along our journey and the raw power of some were breathtaking. My favourite however was the Seljanfoss waterfall. We were there early in the morning by ourselves and were able to walk around behind the waterfall to watch the water cascading down in front of us. Even though the water spraying on my face was so cold it went numb I loved it there. It was simply beautiful.

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After a few days we began to slow down and relax a little bit, after all, there are only so many waterfalls you can see before they all begin to blur. Toning down our chase for waterfalls worked well because we began our chase of the northern lights. On our first night we stopped in an open area and were looking for any hint of them in the sky. At the beginning we could see a silver glow in the sky but weren’t sure if we were in a good spot. While we waited Mark got out of the car and started taking photos to practise and get the camera settings right. After a couple of shots and getting the settings where he wanted we looked at the last photo and part of the sky was green. Turns out we were in a great spot to see the lights except clouds had moved in so without the camera we were only able to see a glow. We were happy with our find and the next night were out again, only this time to an even better spot and within a few minutes of arriving we could see them. It was so strange to see them with our own eyes and not through pictures. Ever since I watched Balto as a kid I always wanted to see the lights so I’m so glad I was able to see them in my life and with Mark beside me.

Have you ever seen anything so ‘out of this world’?

Our last few days were spent further out in eastern Iceland where we were able to see huge glaciers just off the side of the road. From the road they look huge but once you drive down the gravel roads and walk to the edges of the glaciers you appreciate the enormity of them. It’s not just the size that gets you though, it’s the look. The whiteness of the glaciers with the bright blue glow against the black mountainous backdrop is stunning.

We left eastern Iceland and drove 4 and a half hours back to Reykjavik and checked into a beautiful hotel. The first thing we did after checking in was venture up to the bar for the free tastings. Free chocolate and drinks? Yes please. The next day we took it easy before heading out to the Blue Lagoon in the afternoon where we could relax in the thermal pools which was the perfect end to our Iceland experience. To top it all off though Mark bought last minute tickets to see Björk at the Harpa in Reykjavik and afterwards we ate hot dogs for dinner – So Icelandic of us!

We both loved our time in Iceland but are looking forward to heading to New York especially now that they have voted for a new President. Let’s see what’s changed in 24 hours.

Love, an intrigued B x