The End of a Chapter

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start....

~It's 10:12 am, Thursday morning, April 19th. As we began together in Byron Bay, so we conclude: at the Why Not Cafe, with Plucky, our trusty link to the Internet.

*It has been a spectacular adventure full of exploration, fun, and absolute scads of delicious food. Still, we have to wrap in Australia sometime if we ever want to get our Paris trip. So, we are writing one last post together and kicking off one more day of togetherness and fun.

~In Byron Bay, anyway. Ben's bus leaves the Jonson Street stop, across from the Woolies, where we came in to town at 5am months ago, at 5pm today. Between now and then, we have oodles of fun to have (including doing our last blog post). We've been pretty woefully remiss on blogging these last weeks, being rather busy squeezing every last second of shenanigans out of the days, and we've skipped some pretty key moments; sunset frisbee on the beach, the Day of The Very Cold and Windy Swim (the water was warm. the air temperature - brrrrrrrrrr!), taking ourselves out for a fancy-pants dinner (literally) at The Petit Snail, the Dinner of Subway and Cider (there's a winter cider blend here with vanilla and fruits and YUM), spotting a surf stingray while swimming at Clark's beach (and very nearly accidentally petting it), the thing with the coconuts, and this breakfast, which we can both agree is the best croissant we've ever eaten.

*Yep, it's been a great week of doing the last few things we haven't done yet (and redoing the things that were so awesome we just had to 'em again). Yesterday was our last night at the Buddha bar, which I believe we deserve extra points for going to in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. Seriously, when they say tropical rainforest they really mean the rain bit.

~He's not kidding. There were actual river-fordings in our walk to Buddha Bar where yesterday there were no rivers of any sort, huddled under a small but very plucky tartan umbrella (which has gone through it's fair share of repairs), under jackets and ponchos and wearing flipflops and shorts, the only sensible choice. Galoshes would've gone under in some of these puddles.

*Anyway, we eventually did arrive. We got a couple schooners of New Zealand crushed cider...

~... which was a surprising clear color, with a light flavor and deliciously complex and lingering aftertaste...

*and sat (in mostly dry seats under the outdoor overhang) and prepared to fight the last few rounds of the gin-rummy war we started in the airport in Baltimore.

~It's been a long campaign, skirmished out in several decks of cards and played on decks and porches and bars and picnic tables, tarmacs and buses and bunk beds, we shuffled and dueled.

*Yes indeedy, pretty much everywhere we had chairs and some waiting time, there was rummy. Which brings us to the scores.

~LET ME JUST SAY...

*Drumroll please... After at least a couple hundred hands...

~HE HAD A WINNING STREAK THAT DEFIES MATHEMATICAL BELIEF. IT WAS LIKE A MONTH AND A HALF LONG.

*....and a champion opponent throughout, Karen ends the match with 5,639 points. Applause please.
  As for myself, in the final tally I had 6,221. "VICTORY!!!" oh, I mean well done old bean.

~Yes, yes, you win. Congratulations.

~UNTIL NEXT TIME. In which you will meet your DOOOOOOOM.

*The rest of the night at Buddha Bar was just awesome...

~Wait, wait, you skipped the most important part! Tell them what you sang.

*I had a grand old time singing "Anything Goes" and "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid. It was a boatload of fun and it was nice to end my time there on a chipper/silly note.

~(Hehe, note, get it?)

*After that, there was a fantastic line up of musicians and we spent the being entertained by calypso, pop, and didgeridoo music.

~Actually, those last guys claimed to be playing 'digi-harmonica' music. Seriously, they were singing, playing drums, guitars, digeridoos, and harmonicas. There were a grand total of two of them. They're playing at The Beachie on Friday at five, and in my first scheduled Australian plans without Ben, I'm going.

*Ahh, jealous.

~Yeah, well, SAD. You're the one leaving, doofus!

*Tragic but true. Even so, I am really looking forward to going home and catching up with everyone. Though, I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself. Before I actually arrive, I have the rest of the day here, a five hour bus trip, a thirteen hour train trip, lunch with the fam in Sydney, a bloody long fight to California, and then it's across the continental U.S. Nutty as it may sound, I'm really looking forward to the journey. Trains and planes, man. It's the way to go.

~Should be a great trip. LONG, but great.

*Well, chaps. It's been lovely sharing my part in this adventure with you. Thank you for coming along for the ride.

~It's been grand.

* Take care, and always remember to adventure.
   All the best, Ben

Buddha Bar

Ben walking on stage at Buddha Bar

The Walk to the Beach

The Great Coconut Incident

The Aftermath of the Great Coconut Incident

*"Smile!"
~I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, badadadum badadadadum... 

Our Last Morning (with super tasty croissants)

~And so, farewell from Ben and Karen. My adventure in Oz continues for a few more weeks, at which point I'm coming to Maryland for a month for friend's wedding. Then, if all goes well, back to Oz for the whale migration, and from there, again, the world. Ben and I began this blog together, and, as he said, we'll keep it here; after all, we'll need someplace to put photos and stories of our escapades in Paris (and beyond). For me, the adventure goes on at Where in the World is Karen Eileen Carmen (at this moment, an empty blog.)

Right now, it's time to publish this, and head out for our last day of adventures together in Byron Bay.

*~Toodle Pip

Surfing and Sea Turtles - April 9th

This morning we woke up and had a light (post Easter feasting) brekky. We skyped home for a bit, then split up for exercise and sunshine, Ben for a run and me to the beach.

I grabbed my surfboard, put out the rest of the laundry (which practically baked dry while I was hanging it) and headed for the beach. The water was perfect, the sun so bright and the surf so calm you could see straight through the breaking waves.  The surf was “small and clean,” (little-ish waves with a clearly defined break that runs across the top of the wave parallel to the shoreline) which I’m discovering is my favorite. I paddled out past the breakers and hung out on my board, paddling around a bit, doing push-ups as practice for rising to my feet on breaking waves, finding the balance point of the board and developing the muscle memory. I also started playing with sitting on the board, which on a shortboard is way harder than it sounds, and also very fun. It’s a bit like one of those bucking bronco rides, and leads to a fair amount of somersaulting into the waves. The water was sparkly and blue, and I was in heaven. (Although the people dying of laughter a few hundred yards away might have been enjoying the free sea rodeo, I was having a great time and damn near in stitches myself.)

As will happen from time to time in the sea, especially when not surrounded by a school of other humans, sharks begin circling around the edges of my thoughts. I try not to worry about it; either you’ll get bitten or you won’t, and you probably won’t. Besides, I have this great protection over water amulet bought for me by a friend, and that’s surprisingly comforting. But, when sharks pop into my head I have a look around, as is smart to do.

I looked around, over my shoulders and into the surf and below through the feet and feet of clear turquoise water, left and forward and right, just in time to spot a brown head surface just a few feet away. My breath fled my chest in happiness. It was a green sea turtle.

I love sea turtles, but green are, at least right now, far and away my favorite. I’ve seen a hawksbill and a loggerhead in the wild before, a few out by Julian Rocks in Byron Bay and one in Isabela, Puerto Rico, and here, in the very same wave as myself, was a green sea turtle. I paddled full steam ahead for a better look, and freaked the poor guy out. He swam up a few yards, and I followed along at a more respectful distance, paddling parallel to the shore and lifting myself up on the board every time the turtle paused for a better look.

It was perfect and divine.

At length the turtle swam out to sea and I headed back in, catching a great wave on my way, bodysurfing like a rocket toward the shore and rising into a full crouch before sinking into the foam over the shallow water. I was on my way back home to meet Ben, as we had a plan to catch the 2:45 to Ballina, a nearby town, to check out the local KFC. Everything has been better here, and we’ve seen telly commercials for KFC have made our mouths water. So we reconvened at home and headed to the bus stop, where we had a very informative chat with a bus driver.

There were two flaws with our plan. One, it being Easter Monday, the buses were running a Sunday schedule, which meant there was no 2:45 bus to Ballina, and no return bus after the 5pm.

Also, the KFC in Ballina caught fire several weeks ago.

So we revamped the plan! We came home, chillaxed, wandered around town (at which point I bought a five dollar awesome wood carved fruit bowl, for which I’ve been scouting for ages, and the memoirs of a cetacean researcher that I’ve been eyeing for weeks at a used book store. To be clear, I bought both the book and the fruit bowl from the used book shop. The guy said it was on sale there because his family largely eats pineapples, and the bowl isn’t pineapple shaped.) We wandered around town for a while, stopped into the didgeridoo and hemp shop and saw a guy hawking amazing wooden flutes made from repurposed furniture and met a woman who said she’d seen a video on youtube of a whale surfacing near a boat on someone was playing a flute, and only swimming away once the guy stopped playing. We walked about town, Ben bought an apricot pie from the local bakery, and I stopped at the Green Garage to buy a tomato for my five thirty am breakfast sandwich tomorrow (I’ve happily got the opening shifts this week, and will have afternoons free for slacking and slouching and shenanigans).

I’m sure there’s more to say, but it’s very nearly seven pm here, and that means it’s time to chase down the last, and hugely important, objective of the day: Chicken Schnitzel. We were introduced to this fabulous food at our cousin’s birthday shindig, and have been in love with it since. We had it on the train on the way to Byron. We bought schnitzel patties from Woolies and made ourselves a barbeque of them. And tonight, it’s definitely schnitzel night again. The local dive bar opens at seven, so I’ve gotta run. Ciao! 

Hoppy Easter

*We began with the markets. Well…that’s not entirely true. We began with milkshakes. Then, we continued with the markets. Every year, on the Saturday before Easter, the artists of Byron Bay get together and put on a seaside festival. One can find everything from homemade chocolate, to paintings, to carvings, to pretty much whatever takes your fancy.

~It was awesome. As the weatherman said, Australia’s missing summer has arrived. The day was perfect, in a hot sunny blue skies over the seaside way, and the market was enthralling. Byron puts itself on parade around Easter, as the holidays collide with Blues Fest and bring a huge swarm of people flood the town. The market was an exhibition of life and color, recycled art and fine handcrafts and delicious samples, including one marinade vendor who introduced us to the wonders of finger limes. Finger limes are small lime-colored tube-shaped citrus fruits whose insides are bursting with delightful caviar-like bubbles of citrusy intenseness. We were so excited about this that he gave us one of his decorative display limes!

*Eventually, after oohing and ahhing over many spectacular wares, we meandered our way back home. Then it was Karen off to work and me off for a run.  Time passed. Karen got home. The clock struck midnight.

~And so began the chocolate.

*Yes, so began the chocolate. The epic quantities of chocolate.

~ Easter Sunday. We began with double-coat TimTams. And then went to sleep.

~I was supposed to be off Sunday, and we had planned an epic day of sibling slouching. It was going to be great. Then one of my co-workers fell victim to that classic Byron foible, and suffered a surfing injury during one of the busiest weeks of the year. Valiantly and stupidly, he tried to work anyway, and made it worse, so everyone worked extra shifts. As one of the other guys said, “Yes, we hope he is better soon. Then we break his other foot.” So, sadly, I worked Sunday. But I was off until nine am, so we got up early and began our slouchy shenanigans in a motivated sort of way. Chocolate bunny ears were the first to go.

*Also, one of our lovely roommates had left us a couple bottles of beer in the fridge labeled “The Easter Bunny.” We decided immediately that dinner was to be beer and kebabs on the beach. But first we had some time before Karen had to take off and we spent it in the most wonderful and least productive fashion imaginable, sitting on the couch and watching the Big Bang Theory. After a couple episodes and many laughs, she had to go to work and I had some hiking to get to. Group shenanigans were temporarily postponed.

~The Easter Bunny was actually very clever; as well as leaving us fabulous bottles of Australian booze – The Beez NeeZ (my new favorite, a honey pale ale) and Fat Yak, he hid two Cadbury chocolate eggs in our eggs carton. This brought our Easter chocolate total to: two bunnies and two packages of TimTams that we bought each other, two bars of Lindt chocolate from our parents (mailed from the States), and two secret bunny eggs. A mighty task, but we proved ourselves more than equal.

~Work finished for the day (and my colleagues supportively telling me to run out and be free in the sun while there still was), I raced home. A bite of bunny, and it was Easter again. We headed up for a dip in the beach, then back home to prepare for dinner. This dinner, long in the planning, was actually a repeat of one of our favorite Australian dinners, an invention from our days at the Main Beach hostel. It consists of a giant block of Kraft tasty cheese (phenomenal), two kiwi fruits, a shared Kebab from AbraKebabra (home of “the Magic Kebab,” I swear, that’s what the sign says) with sweet chili sauce, and booze. Previously, it was a bottle of cider. Today, it was Australian Easter Bunny beer. (Get it? Hoppy Easter? Hehe.) The moon was nearly full and enormous and yellow as it hung low over the lighthouse and cast its warm light on the sea, reflecting off the shiny interior of the kebab wrappers. Our pocket knives carved up the kiwis over the sand, and it was perfect.

~Utterly happy, we washed kebab and kiwi juices from our blades and hands and went back home to finish slouching; we sprawled out with season three of The Big Bang Theory, a carton of Norco milk, and slaughtered a herd of TimTams. It was perfect.

Happy Easter, Everyone. 

A Date With Cheese

Yesterday we went swimming, had another crack at surfing, and saw some astonishing fish before running to the lighthouse. We adjourned to the theater to see the Lorax (one of the best pixar films yet). Today Karen went to work, then ate sushi takeaway on the beach. Ben went running in the rainforest. We planned by telephone, divided the grocery stores, and met back at home with ingredients to make apple pie. We stuffed dates with double Brie as an appetizer (we've been talking about it for weeks), carved palm fronds on the deck while the pie baked, and ate apple pie for dinner. Now we are going to Buddha Bar for chess and beer, and good live music. Life is sweet.