day 3

day 3 of my trip was cause for alarm.  the Australian and i were heading to visit his family in south australia, and i had no idea what to expect.  after a two-hour flight (which lands you in a 1.5 hour time zone because apparently Victoria is a bitch) and an initially awkward 6-hour car ride with the Australian's brother (that is, until i implemented a game that sam selfrige taught me called "hey cow/sheep/emu/kangaroo".  thanks, sam!), we had a great comfort-food dinner in mt. gambier at the brother's house and proceeded on to Australian's parents' house.

right before we arrived at his parents' house, i had awkwardly seen that Australian's ex-girlfriend had texted him.  i may or may not have lost my mind for a hot minute, but managed to pull it together to meet the parents of the man of my dreams. 

later that night, we managed to talk about what happened, and im glad we waited a couple of hours and had some wine in us, because otherwise i would have totally lost my shit.

Aussie's parents are farmers through and through.  they live on a vineyard that is 20 miles from the nearest town, and that has been in the family for at least 3 generations.  they have also intentionally left 80% of their land as natural bushland.  so frickin rad.

in the morning Australian and his dad took me on their version of a safari through the vineyards and to "have a look through the scrub."  this tour included all of us straining to find the resident koalas, bitch about the kangaroos eating the veggies from the garden, and watch all the predatory birds circling in the sky.  Aussie showed me here that one of his many talents is the uncanny ability to name almost every native bird/plant/animal he sees.  i say again: so frickin rad. 

i am clearly my mother's daughter, so when we got home i tried to make myself useful to Aussie's mom by offering to pick oranges from the trees outside the window.  she looked incredulous.  i reiterated that i would love to help in any way i could.  she then handed me a longsleeve tshirt of dubious durability, gloves ("because they have prickers"), and a hat ("in case the ants fall on you.  be careful, because they bite pretty hard.")  oh, ok thanks!  wait... what?

yes, the orange trees had ants the size of your fingernail that bite the bejeesus out of you when you try to steal their food.  i was unaware of this when i offered myself for this job.  awesome.

everything turned out ok and i didnt fall off the ladder and ants didnt fall on my head or down my shirt.  great success.

then we all packed up the cars and headed out to the family beach house in kingston, which somehow reminds me of what santa cruz would have been 20 years before the hippies arrived.  its a really charming little place.

the next few days were a blur of driving long distances to meet friends and family members of the Australian.  luckily, hes a good road trip buddy, and his family is totally sweet.


ill post about christmas tomorrow.  its so good it deserves its own entry.

days 1-2

days 1 and 2 of my trip were absolutely wonderful.  the Australian is an exceptionally caring and attentive man who alternately let me sleep off my fijian frustrations and showed me around brisbane.  we did laundry, drank rose wine in the backyard, made dinner, and napped excessively.  it was perfect.

flying to AUS

the flight to australia was hands-down the worst flying experience i have ever had.  cyclone evan delayed my plane by 12 hours, but none of the passangers were informed until about 2 hours before the flight.  un/luckily for me, Queen Chrisann had just dropped me off at the airport and wished me bon voyage not 10 minutes prior to some airline employee casually walking by me mention that "oh, if you havent heard, youre going to be delayed 12 hours."  so i quickly called the Queen and she swung back by to take me home, because ill be damned if im going to be this close to home and sleep in a shitty motel by the airport. 

so i finally got on the 915am flight to Nadi, Fiji.  the 14-hour flight really wasnt that bad, and the airport itself looked pretty much unchanged from the last time i was there- last year.

so i hurried up and waited in the trasnfer line for a layover that i knew was going to be 14 hours.  clearly, i was thinking that this is going to give me plenty of time to walk outside the airport, take in a couple of sights, have soem local food, etc. 

no.

i was dutifully informed- after waiting an hour in this line- that i needed to go back downstairs, outside the airport, to the front desk and rebook my flight because even though there was a cycone, i apparently missed my flight.  i rushed downstairs to rebook the same flight that i was already booked on. 

i start this comment by saying that i recognize vast cutural differences in a number of suddenly obvious ways.  fijians live in a wonderful time/space continuum called "island time", where western definitions of work ethic just cannot be applied.  there is quite literally no sense of urgency, and oftentimes there will be 5-8 other employees wandering around and admiring the mayhem occurring around them. 

this would have been highly entertaining if you werent the one waiting in line FOR 6 HOURS to rebook your flight with the 100 other people who needed to do the same thing.  this would not have taken 6 hours had they simply turned on another computer and had more than one person working the front desk.  because of "island time", the other workers stood around, watching all of us miserable passengers pleading for their help, and all of them saying that it wasnt their job. 

it actually is hilarious looking back on it now, probably because i know that i will never vacation to that country and probably never use it as layover destination either. 

all turned out well in the end, because since i was the very last person to be helped at 1130pm (i had arrived in fiji at 2pm), the only hotel with room still available on the entire island was a 5-star resort.  so i spent my last 5 hours on fiji, sleeping, in a stunning, beautiful room on the beach... with non-fuctioning AC... because its "island time".

nothing extraordinarily funny has happened to me in the last few days.  just the normal stuff while living at home and working at a bar, like so:

mom- "taryn, dont say 'penis'!  good thing youre going to austr-"
me- "mom!  if i cant make dick jokes, you cant make dick jokes!"

random patron- "youre serbian?  my friend here is serbian!  well, hes russian.  thats the same thing, right?"
me- "actually, its not."
RP- "well they are both in eastern europe."
me- "..."


my life is the alanis morissette version of 'ironic': white-girl, mildly frustrating "problems".  like so:

its like youre on a skype date with your pseudo-bf and his parents decide that that is the best time for their weekly phonecall.

its like when you get super excited about a gift you bought for someone for christmas and you cant wait to tell them but when you do youve just spoiled the surprise for them and for yourself.

its like when you live with your parents and they keep buying the shitty cheap wine instead of the good cheap wine.
its like that.