Milo, maps, and RST.

I’m just settling down in my new flat to watch Flight of the Conchords with a warm mugfull of Milo – a Kiwi original similar to Ovaltine, another take on “nutritious” hot chocolate.  I am officially unpacked and it feels great.  I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this particular flat – just the idea of getting settled in a place – but it might not be so bad after all for the time that I’m here.  My landlord, Rob, says the loft in town should be ready in three weeks, but from my dealings with him I’m prepared for it to take longer.  There are some people in life who seem to live within their own Standard Time.  One was the lead singer of a band I was in – if he said practice was at 6, there was no use showing up before 6.30.  Me and the other band members called it JST – Justin Standard Time.  And so it appears Rob operates on RST.  The first day I met him, he called saying he was five minutes away.  Forty-five minutes later, he pulls up.  So when he says three weeks until the lofts are ready – and I’ve seen for myself that construction hasn’t even begun yet – I won’t be surprised if three turns into six…or ten.

But thankfully I think my present accommodation should be better than expected.  It’s a townhouse located a twenty-minute walk from Cathedral Square.  My room is on the ground floor with the garage, looking out on the back patio.  I have my own bathroom, as bizarre as it may be – there’s no separate shower, just one room with a toilet, sink, and showerhead raining down over it all.  Upstairs is the kitchen and lounge and above that are the other bedrooms.  There are four other flatmates – a Kiwi couple, Kenny and Helene; Romain, a French guy currently pursuing his PhD in speech science with a  focus on the New Zealand dialect (which, coincidentally, was the fastest accent to develop, forming in only one generation); and Yu, a Japanese student who dreams of leading winery tours in France for other tourists.  Her father runs a hotel just outside of Tokyo, so I’m hoping to get to know her well in the chance of a hook-up!  Overall, the flat is clean, safe, and warm – and with it being the equivalent of October weather right now, I am thankful.

It’s amazing how the simple act of putting away your suitcases and backpacks into a closet and having your clothes sorted into drawers changes things dramatically.  It represents you are going to stay in this place, be settled, if just for a short while.  As much as I love to travel, as much as I love to move and start afresh, there’s another contradictory desire within me – to be put in a place, to make a home out of it.  To develop a routine, discover my favorite supermarket, and where to find the best cup of chai in town.  Maybe that’s it though – the whole restlessness vs. routine debate.  It’s not that they oppose one another, it’s that they keep me balanced – they keep me moving but they keep me around.

So yes…clothes are put away, sheets and the cherry-blossom duvet cover I take with me everywhere are on the bed, and soon pictures and posters (including a Pacific-centered world map I’ve bought!) will be up – all small acts in the process of making a random room with white walls my own.  Already my spirits are lifted.  Not that I wasn’t happy at Amber and Andy’s – I couldn’t have been more blessed with a place to stay for my first two weeks.  It just didn’t feel like I had really moved here yet, it was as if I was still in transit.  Living in their house, eating their food – I was ready to get started with my life here.  And so here I am, in a room of my own, and about to start work tomorrow at Statistics New Zealand.  I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like…getting ready the night before, making your lunch, taking care of any last-minute ironing (okay, not really).  It feels like the first day of school all over again.  I just hope the teacher likes me.

nz: getting settled and first impressions.

I’ve got nothing but time right now, and it's a beautiful thing.  Work doesn’t start until Tuesday as today and Monday are national holidays.  Amber and Andy are off at Easter Camp for the weekend with about three thousand Christchurch youth and I won’t see Arron until tomorrow night.  And as an additional consequent of the holiday weekend, the libraries are closed – my usual source of free Wifi – and the buses are running on a sporadic schedule, leaving me more or less stranded for the time being. 

So I’ve escaped to the beach, only a ten-minute walk from Amber and Andy’s.  It is incredible living this close to the ocean.  There’s a lovely chunk of driftwood for a seat; the tide is coming in; the sun is warm and the breeze is cool.  I am at rest for the moment.  The occasional blond surfer jogging by doesn’t hurt the scene either.  Perhaps as a result of watching too many crime scene shows and thriller movies, I am deathly afraid of staying in houses alone overnight, as I am doing this weekend before moving into my flat on Monday.  In apartments or flats four floors up, I am fine, assured by the fact that there is only one way in.  But put me in a house with three entrances and innumerable windows and I’m a wreck.  I kept the TV on the whole evening and played music while I read in bed, all in an attempt to block out what I can’t handle – the silence.  I fell asleep alright, but awoke at 3.20am to the sound of screeching tires – that didn’t help my imagination.  It wasn’t until the sun came up that I could sleep soundly, and of course I did so until noon!

But on to the matter at hand – life in Christchurch, or Chch as it’s abbreviated by native Kiwis.  I’ve got things relatively settled into place the past two weeks.  For a while there, I didn’t know if I’d find work, staring at the computer screen, scrolling down the same postings I’d poured through the day before…and the day before that.  One of Arron’s friends, Laura, gave me the names of two temp agency recruiters to contact.  On Tuesday, I had an interview with one of them and, just like that, I had a job!  It’s amazing, one day you feel like there’s this big wall up, separating you from the world of the employed, and then the next second, you’re in.  The recruiter said I had the fastest typing speed she’d ever seen – “You’re a machine!”  The post she has for me is a two week assignment with Statistics New Zealand doing basic data entry work on a recent census – not my life calling, for sure, but it’s a job and for that I am grateful.  Hopefully it’ll get me through until I hear from some of the other more permanent positions I applied for. 

The same thing could be said for finding a flat – I’d just about memorized all the search results on Trade Me (a popular NZ classifieds site) every time I looked for a flat in the City Centre – and nothing really caught my eye.  It’s one thing to move somewhere with friends and have the chance to make a place your own, another thing when you come alone and have to hope you’ll be a good fit with the existing flatmates you find.  And I definitely was aware of that as I decided to come to New Zealand, it’s just a bit hard once you’re here and start to see the flats in person.  But I thought I’d found “the one” after the first place I saw – a one-bedroom flat right on the Avon River lined with willow trees, a beautiful garden, and charm like I’d only seen in the movies.  It was perfect…until I had to deal with the agent, who seemed to overcomplicate the affair by not showing up for the viewing and then contradicting much of the information given to me by the owner.  So I kept looking, viewing at least five other places,  but it was hard to be happy with any of them after my Cambridge Terrace dreamhouse.  But at the end of my first week, I just needed to find something.

I finally met Rob, a guy I found through Trade Me who owns eight properties around Christchurch.  He’s currently fixing up a loft in the City Centre, but until it’s ready we worked out for me to stay in one of his townhouses for a few weeks.  It’s located right outside the center of town in an area called St. Albans.  Much like my job, it’s not my dream flat, but for now it’ll do.  Thankfully the lease isn’t for a set number of months, so if I come across something better later on, I can take that.  Throughout the whole mission of finding a place, I kept wanting someone else’s opinion (not my usual way of doing things!)  This may be a fun adventure at times, doing this on my own, but it’s crazy hard too.

The whole process of sorting out a job and flat has fit in with my initial impressions of New Zealand as a whole.  One of the main reasons I chose NZ over Ireland as my next destination for a working holiday was for something different.  I was told Ireland was just like England, only with different accents.  I told myself I was done with Europe for the moment and wanted something raw and new.  But when I landed in Auckland, it began to feel like just another state.  There was a downtown area that spawned out to suburb after suburb via the highway – much like home.  The only immediately striking difference was the names, many of which are of Maori origin and entirely unpronounceable on my part!  One of my friends from London, Ryan, kindly picked me up from the airport and, after a tour of his house, took me to a mall, of all places, where I saw a Kmart, Target, Office Max, and several other American-owned companies and restaurant chains.  The mall was eerily reminiscent of home.  I could’ve been anywhere, malls having that ability of transcending cultural or regional specificity. 

I woke up the next day in Auckland feeling strange and out-of-sorts, with one question on my mind I was scared to admit:

What in the world am I doing here?

And there were two words on the tip of my tongue I didn’t want to say out loud: disappointed and homesick.  I could instantly tell it was going to take some adjusting after living in London.  There, you feel like you are in the center of the world.  You watch on the news as the G20 summit gathers, bringing together the world’s twenty most powerful leaders, protesters flooding the streets, and news stations around the world sending their correspondents to your city.  Here, it’s almost the opposite feeling, that you really are out of it, away from it all.  Moreover, I was initially shocked by how Americanized the country is – in addition to the stores I mentioned above, much of the television lineup is straight from the States.  I keep saying, “Oh, you have that here, too?” every time I see another product, show, or store from home.

Homesickness isn’t a feeling I’m normally used to dealing with, certainly not while living in London and traveling throughout Europe.  But while thinking about it some more here, I think I’ve pinned it down.  Those places were all so different from what I’d always known that the difference was distracting.  It kept my mind off thoughts of home.  But Auckland was so similar it caught me off guard and had me admitting to feelings I never thought I’d experience.  Christchurch, however, is a bit different, thanks to its strong English influence.  The City Centre is lovely, with the Cathedral, the Botanic Gardens, and the Avon River winding through it – complete with punting boats, just like Oxford. Christchurch is known as the Garden City, after all, so I’m looking forward to spending next summer here with the parks in full bloom. 

What I’ve come to realize so far is that my time here will be different from my experience in London – and that’s okay.  It’s okay I’m not as instantly starstruck with my flat or job.  My friends did warn me that the pace of life here would be slower and it’ll just take some getting used to.  I know I am in a place of incredibly majestic beauty and I really can’t wait to get out of the cities and explore it.  Until then, I will keep my chin up and look for reasons to smile in the small things all around me.

fiji time, part three.

[Written about my last day in Fiji.]

Indecision threatened to get the best of me as I tried to choose the right island day cruise for my last day in Fiji.  With the cheaper options not offering the best snorkeling options, I was looking at trips priced at over a hundred Fiji dollars.  When I was at the point of just staying around the hostel for the day, I pushed myself and went for it – a trip to South Sea Island for FJ$110.  Again, I repeated the phrase that’s quickly becoming my mantra for this trip: here goes nothing.

The shuttle to Port Denarau left Smugglers Cove at the lovely hour of 7.15am, on a coach full of young backpackers lugging bourbon and tequila in their bags.  Thankfully, once we arrived at the port, I realized there were two trips going out – one with “Awesome Adventures” that was predominately young travelers, and another just to South Sea Island that had more of a mix – some young, some families, some old.  It was a short cruise to the island where we then boarded a smaller motorboat that took us straight to shore.  My thoughts began to darken with the weather – a grey, overcast sky and soon enough…rain.  I was gutted, having spent all that money to go hang out on a small island in the pouring rain all day.  We went out on a semi-submersible craft that gave great views of the coral reefs and reef-life.  While sitting on the boat, arms crossed, back hunched, fully grumpified, a woman next to me says, “You poor thing, you look so cold.”  I knew Ryan and Arron would’ve had another word for it – surly.  And surly I was, but the woman and her daughter were from Wellington and we quickly hit it off talking about my forthcoming move to New Zealand and comparing/contrasting our respective home countries.  After the short subride around the reef, I went out snorkeling – still in the rain.  They had partitioned off the zone we could snorkel in with bright yellow buoys and ropes and I had a hard time feeling like I was really “in nature.”  But sometime while I was underwater with the clown fishes and coral, the rain cleared and some of the guides decided to take a boat out farther off the island.  Bless them!

While it wasn’t the Great Barrier Reef, the view beneath the surface was still incredible.  One of the guides brought up seastars and sea cucumbers for us to hold.  The greater depth of the water felt like I was really somewhere – especially when I’d angle my line of sight just right so as to lose view of the group and feel alone with the underwater universe.  The predominant color – besides the brownish-tan shade of the coral and sea floor – was blue.  I’ve never seen sea stars in that shade of royal blue before – and little groups of fish flashing about the color of a blue raspberry Slurpee – a striking, vibrant electric blue.  And the parrot fish, bringing the most neon sparkle to the scene with all sorts of blues and pinks and greens darting about.  When you swim down about twenty feet and get right up along the reef, all the Nemos come out and seem to stare you straight down – just a little unnerving.

After the boat brought us back to the island, Kim and Sharese (the Kiwi mom and daughter duo) and I shifted to the poolside just in time for lunch – reminiscent of an American BBQ with steak, chicken, fish, and sidedish after sidedish of potatoes and pasta salad.  When I wasn’t laying by the pool (getting a ridiculous sunburn at that) I went snorkeling again, this time with beautiful rays of sunlight cutting through the surface, and I even gave kayaking a first try.  Sharese and I got in a double-seater and one of the guides, Romano, went out in a single, yelling out when to switch the direction of our paddling.  The original plan was to kayak around the island (which didn’t feel quite so big when we first landed) but about halfway around, we got caught up where the water grew rockier and the waves larger.  Despite our efforts, we capsized and had to shamefully walk to shore when we couldn’t get properly turned around. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool, attempting to read a book I’d picked up at the hostel but usually having to nod my head as Kim talked…and talked and talked.  At some points it was interesting to hear what she, an average Kiwi, had to say about life in New Zealand.  She asked about class structure in America and said there wasn’t such a division in NZ – that most everyone earns around the same amount and that plumbers and builders are just as respected as lawyers and doctors and nurses, who usually “bugger off” to the States or elsewhere to earn more.  She also talked about the pattern of attending college or university and how it’s not nearly as expected as in the States.  It’s possible to begin working for a company and work your way up, without a college degree or diploma, as her brother did for a local bank.  It’s all fascinating to me, how a society relatively comparable to my own can also be based on such different paradigms.

All in all…a great time in Fiji.  Definitely not the worst way to get over jet lag before heading on to New Zealand!

fiji time, part two.

[This was written my second day in Fiji.]

Having gone to bed around 7.30 last night (jet lag much?) we were up before the sun today.  Breakfast at the hostel isn’t served until 6.30 (never before have I had to wait for breakfast) so we laid in bed a while longer til it was time.  It was a gorgeous morning – the humidity not yet pressing down, the sun not quite up.  The tables by the pool had been covered with bright, buttery yellow cloths and vases of fresh flowers.  Soko, one of the native Fijians who works at the hostel, first brought us glasses of orange juice and each a half a papaya – my first, but the juiciest, freshest, most vivid shade of orange I could ever imagine.  We were then served the regular breakfast – four buttered slices of toast, strawberry jam, and our choice of tea or coffee.  Simple, yet we weren’t complaining.

A word about the two men who work at the hostel – I am overwhelmed by their gentleness.  With every duty or request, they take such great care and are so sweet about it all.  It is never rushed – Fiji Time, remember? – but each action is instead so deliberate.  Despite the simplicity of the breakfast, it still took up to half an hour for it all to be served.  This afternoon, Soko helped Fiona’s niece gather two avocados from the tree in the back, and later I watched the other man set the tables for dinner.  Each placemat and coaster placed so gently, each plate of incense gingerly set beneath each table.  One thing can be said of the Bluewater Lodge – you are made to feel incredibly valued as a guest – the workers and even  Mark and Fiona (the owners) learn your name, feeling like you belong there – if just for a while. 

Jessica, Ampi, and I had an extended breakfast, sitting for hours with our journals and laptops, recording the prior day’s events in great detail.  Neither of them are native English speakers, but as they both speak different languages originally, they are writing their joint entries in English.  Throughout the morning, they would ask me for help with certain words or ask for an alternative to another word.  “What else could we say besides ‘fantastic’?”  I offer up, “Magnificient?” “Ooh, yes, that’s perfect, darling!”  Sitting there in the early morning, me with my journal, they on their laptop, all exchanging details and stories about the day before, I was filled with an incredible happiness.  However painful it was to leave, it was worth it for this.  The girls said they wished we didn’t have to part, that I could keep traveling with them – it’s amazing, isn’t it, the bonds formed in these circumstances?  It seems to me to be the camaraderie of the road.  Having left our loved ones behind, we are anxious to form new connections and new memories, to create new friendships to fill the void of the ones we left at home.

After our extended breakfast/writing session, I went for a swim and laid out while the other two went out on a walk down the beach.  I relished the morning, having nowhere to be and nothing to do.  After a rather pointless shower (my hair was back up after five minutes), I took a taxi into the “downtown” city center of Nadi.  The only thing I knew to look for was the Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple, the largest Hindu temple in the Southern Hemisphere – as is usually the case, it was less impressive than the pictures I’d seen online.  I still enjoyed the vibrant colors and almost fanciful designs of the temple roofs, but opted not to pay the entrance fee.  For the rest of my time in town, it was the most interesting of looks into real, everyday Fijian life.  I don’t quite know what to make of Fiji.  To me, it doesn’t fully compare to the poverty level of the Dominican Republic (where I’ve been before on service trips), and the typical house certainly seems to be okay, but the main street of Nadi just struck me as underprivileged, or at least immensely backwards.  All of the receipts are written by hand, all of the shops seem to sell only the cheapest products available.  In the clothing and apparel shops, there are knockoffs – “Pamo” bags with the logo of Puma, and a logo based off Adidas, except with four bars instead of three and SPORT written where Adidas normally is.  The men are crass like in Egypt, yelling out at you on every street corner. 

I visited several handicraft markets where each stall displays the same wares – coral necklaces and beaded jewelry, wooden masks, bowls, turtles, clubs and the like – and each vendor jumped to their feet at my approach, except for one larger woman lying on her stomach in the center of her stall, cracking peanut shells.  I was tempted to buy from her just because she was the only one who didn’t seem to care if I did either way.  One man says to me, “You are my best customer.  For you I give you half off.  I give you good price.”  I didn’t have the heart to barter with him, for “stuff” I didn’t want or need, and I couldn’t help wondering if I wasn’t so much his best as I was his only customer of the day.  The tourists were few and far between in town – understandably so – and easily spotted from their white skin and their desperate attempts to stay cool by wearing as least clothing as permissible.   They congregated mainly in the larger stores with functioning A/C units, drawn in by overeager sales associates draping them in beads and sarongs.

I kept it simple for lunch, dining at Mama’s Pizza on a surprisingly delicious mozzarella pizza.  For an uncomplicated order, I again waited half an hour, but used the time to write a postcard home.  As if by clockwork, the rain started just as I walked to the bus stop.  The buses…what an adventure.  There are no windows, just rolled-up panels of plastic tarp that can be let down when the rain grows too strong.  And the bust stops work like this – pull the bell and the bus stops.  There are no designated stops, rather every child riding home from school was able to be let off right at the bottom of their driveway.  While this meant more stops than usual, I suppose the convenience is worth it.  It was a bit of an off-road experience as well, with the bus even riding on the beach itself at times.  It was yet another look into the real Fijian lifestyle, sitting on the rough seats among all the chattering school children in their various uniforms.

After a brief attempt at a nap back at the hostel (I don’t sleep well in oppressively humid environments), I went downstairs to enlist Fiona’s help with booking an island day cruise for the next day.  I sat outside with a book while she took care of the details and I got to talking with an English girl named Michelle.  She’s been traveling for two years now, she shared, going through nine countries in Africa, all over Asia (China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, and everywhere in between), six months working in Sydney, road-tripping over Australia, now Fiji, with plans to go on to New Zealand, Japan again, South and Central America, the Caribbean, and finally back to the UK.  It’s amazing, just when you think you’ve been a few places, you meet someone like Michelle who seems to say, “Honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”  It’s easy to grow discontent and anxious to cross off another thirty countries by 2010, but I’ve got to remember to enjoy each and every place I visit – it’s not just about bulking up my “Been there, done that” list. 

There was an exquisite sunset to close the day with.  I walked over to the Smugglers Cove Resort to watch it from the beach and ran into Jessica and Ampi, who’d also been into town that day.  The sun was half-obscured by full white clouds, but what shone through more than made up for it, spilling over in rich shades of gold and coral.  The partial sunlight fell onto the ocean, one half of the water a dark blue and the other half burning alive with color.  A couple walked out into this division of light on the water and Ampi, camera to her eye, said desperately, “Hold hands, damn it!”  With or without the romantic cliché, it was a perfect end to the day.

only in america: (mis)perceptions

The other night Amber, Andy, and I were watching 60 Minutes (yes, they have that over here as well!) and a story came on about Jennifer Thompson, a woman who’d been raped in North Carolina over twenty years ago.  At the time, she identified who she thought to be the rapist, a man named Ronald Cotton, and he received two life sentences, even though he declared he was innocent throughout the trial.  A few years later, another guy named Bobby Poole was put in the same jail as Cotton, also as a convicted rapist.  Cotton immediately noticed the physical resemblance between the two, and Poole, from the same town as Cotton, confessed to raping Thompson.  Despite a retrial, Cotton was not released and went on to serve eleven years of his sentence.  Not until he began following the O.J. Simpson case did he get his lawyer to prove his innocence with the recent use of DNA in investigations and he was finally released.  But it didn’t end there—Thompson wanted to meet with Cotton to apologize for her grave error.  He forgave her, and the two have gone on to speak about their experience, write a book on it together called Picking Cotton, and they even showed clips of their two families eating dinner together, having become close family friends.  My first thought was “Bizarre,” but Andy had a different saying for it:

“Only in America.”

I laughed at first, but listened as he went on to explain it’s a phrase they use over here to describe the many ridiculously random stories that filter their way out of America onto New Zealand television and into the newspapers.  It fit, though, with what I’ve been noticing so far about perceptions or, should I say, misperceptions:

“Virginia…that’s coal mining country, right?"  No, sorry, you must be thinking of West Virginia.

“So, do I need to speak slowly for you?  I've heard we talk too fast for Americans.”  I promise I can keep up.

“Oh, I know Virginia.  West Coast!”  Sure, buddy.

Watching people guess where in the world they think Virginia is located in the States is not far from watching kids play Pin the Tail on the Donkey—Northeast, Midwest, out West, they all take a stab at the right region.  And when they do get it right and say the South, I then have to deal with all the crazy connotations that come along with the American South.

Friday night I went along to the youth centre Amber and Andy run through their church.  I’d already met one of the girls, Zia, earlier in the week, so I started talking to her again and she introduced me to some of her friends.  Soon there were about four or five girls sitting down with me, ooing and aahing over my “cool accent,” quizzing me and learning my life story better than I know it myself.  Every time a new girl came over, they’d say, “This is Candace.  She’s from Vir-ginny-ya in America,” and the girl would sit down, clasp her hands under her chin and say, “Oh, this is so wonderful!”

“So do, like, cheerleaders talk, like, they’re from California?”

“You know that show Greek?  Do they really have, like, sororities?”

“How did Columbine affect you?”

I could have been sitting in front of a Grand Jury, for all it felt like to me, with ten thousand questions being thrown at me about who knows what.  Or almost like an alien, having to field questions from a group of scientists about my extraterrestrial environment.  But it is, after all, what I love most about being an “American abroad”—getting the chance to break some stereotypes, to smile to myself at their ideas and every so often say, “Well, we’re not all like that…”

That’s what happens, though, when the only information you have about a place is received through the media—that lovely instrument of exaggeration and distortion.  If we never get out and see things first-hand, through our own eyes and not through a TV set or movie screen, we’ll never know the real thing.  I don’t want to hold filtered opinions and perceptions about the world, I want to form my own.  Before I left the States, I’d tell people I was going to New Zealand and could expect about four responses from them:

1. Flight of the Conchords

2. Lord of the Rings

3. Sheep

4. Kiwi (fruit or bird)

Amber said when she took some of the kids home after youth centre that night, one girl was so excited and said, “Now I can say I know a real American!”  And I myself now know some real Kiwis and can say they’re not all guitar-playing comedians or shepherds—although Ryan’s family in Auckland did have three sheep in their backyard, so that didn’t help that stereotype!

But I myself had a “Only in New Zealand” moment today.  While I sat in ASB opening up a bank account, the banking officer asked me, “So what do you normally expect from your bank?”  A bit puzzled at first, I think I answered with various things like being able to access my accounts online, use a debit card, and set up direct deposit with my work.  I asked her to clarify and she paused for a moment before saying, “Well, the way banks work here in New Zealand is that we discourage customers from actually coming into the branch.”  And discourage they do, slapping a $3 fee on every transaction performed by a teller in a branch.  I was shocked—not that I’m in frequent need of a teller, what with online banking, online bill pay, direct deposit and ATMs eliminating most need of physically going into a branch—but just the mere fact that I’d be charged for doing so here amazed me.

Checks (or should I write, cheques?) also receive a similar fee, but that doesn’t seem to be a big deal either.  Andy explained the other night that New Zealand is moving closer and closer to becoming a cashless society, and my experience today wasn’t the first sign of that.  When I signed the lease for my flat on Saturday, my landlord gave me the details of his bank account so I could transfer my rent to him weekly.  After handing over my rent in cash every month in London—and the three of us standing there watching him count it meticulously and lay each pound100 in its own stack—this method of payment is going to be quite a step up technologically, quite the seamless transaction.  I’d always watched the commercials back home for the Visa debit card where a whole store runs perfectly until some out-of-the-loop customer tries to use cash to pay for their purchase and the store’s rhythm breaks down.  Turns out that might actually be the case in this part of the world…

Only in New Zealand, ay?

fiji time.

We landed in Nadi (pronounced Nandy) around 5.45am - two major sighs of relief: one when my bag came out on the luggage carousel, another once I saw a man from my hostel holding a sign with “Candice Riarden” on it.  It was close enough for me.  It’s funny, I’ve been booking hostels online for several months now and it’s never once not worked out, but it always seems a small technological miracle when I can book a hostel for Fiji while in the States and actually have someone waiting for me upon arrival.  There were two other girls being picked up by my hostel - Jessica from Italy (a 31-year old stripper, I later found out) and Amparo (Ampi, for short) from Spain, a freelance make-up artist and aspiring photographer.  They were both living in London until recently, when they quit their jobs and set out on four months of travel - Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, China, and home again.  It worked out well to share a room with them as we have been able to book various tours together and I’ve been able to have a few quasi-travel companions while in Fiji.

On our ride to the hostel - the Bluewater Lodge - Fiji immediately reminded me of Egypt, with one crucial difference: GREEN.  Everywhere.  A lush, deep green - palm trees, hibiscus plants, grass, sugarcane fields, the mountains in the distance - it’s all got a dreamlike quality about it, straight from a movie or paradise itself.  Definitely the most beautiful place I have been thus far.  But like Egypt, the economic situation is not the best - straight from the plane you get the impression that they “depend” on you, that they depend on the tourists.  Even in the Duty-Free Shop in the airport, ten sales associates stand outside shouting, “Hello!  Bula!  Bula!” desperate for your attention.  Many of the streets are not paved, especially outside the city center.  The cars, except for Land and Range Rovers, all seem outdated and the houses are small and patchwork.  Our hostel is located on a beach-side street filled with other hostels with names like Smugglers Cove Beach Resort, Tropic of Capricorn Resort, Aquarius Fiji, and Edgewater Accommodation.

But in Egypt, besides their dependency on tourism, you sense a mutual dependency of theirs is on the past.  They almost seem to live in long-lost centuries, in the pyramids and pharaohs, in the sarcophaguses and scarab beetles.  Here, though, it seems to be all about the present.  In the here and now, in the current moment. “No worries,” is what they say.  FIJI TIME, the favorite phrase, implying “we’ll get there when we get there” and no one’s any worse off for deviances from any schedule they might have held in the first place.  A woman at the tour desk in Smugglers Cove Resort told us not to stress about which trips to go on: “It’s Fiji!”  Only two things don’t run on Fiji Time, we were warned: planes and boats.  In a brochure for an island day cruise, the trip leaves at 9am “No Fiji Time” but returns at 3pm “Fiji Time.”  There are no museums here, no historical sites charging an overpriced entry fee.  We were even discouraged from visiting Suva, the Fijian capital, and told their sole museum would take but an hour to browse through.  Everything is designed for your utmost relaxation in the moment.  This is island life, if i’ve ever experienced it - pools and beaches, waterfalls and village tours...

We (me and my two new friends, Jessica and Ampi) took it easy this morning - a light breakfast at the hostel, a walk along the beach, a seven dollar coconut drink from a little man with every intention of ripping us off.  I bought some Internet minutes from Smugglers Cove to go online and checked my email - messages and Facebook comments from family and friends, full of prayers and well wishes...it was the best feeling.  It was much of what I had been thinking the whole time I was home - how grateful I was and am for a home like mine to come back to.  To know where I am truly from - to know where I belong.  I’ve met people along the way who can’t say for sure, having been born in South Africa, raised in New Zealand, currently living in England - for them, “Where are you from?” isn’t an easy question.  But for me, I am - without a doubt - from Virginia.  Having such solid roots gives me just a bit more courage to branch out and see the world.

In the early afternoon, we were picked up for our tour of the day - the Nalesutale Highlands Tour. Our driver, Mike, is a native Polynesian who moved to Fiji at thirteen and now calls the island his home.  It was a rough ride in his Range Rover, bouncing over rocks and ruts and unpaved gravel.  He stopped along a stretch of sugarcane and hacked off a section of it for us.  What an experience - you bite off a chunk of what honestly feels like a piece of wood kindling, chew until all the sugar juice is gone and spit out the leftover cane!  He drove us into a village of about seventy people called Nalesutale, meaning “Welcome back.”  We were invited into a home for lunch - the dishes were laid out on a blanket on the floor: bananas, tapioca (tasted starchy like potatoes), sausages and fried fish, a dish of tuna, onions and wild spinach cooked in coconut milk, and lemon juice to drink.  The woman who prepared the meal sat on the floor fanning away flies and other little friends, while her children poked their heads in and out of the doors.  

Mike sat with us as we ate and told us about the village way of life.  What was once a cannibalistic culture 200 years ago has now been Christianized - we were grateful on our parts.  “It’s a simple life,” he explained, “But they’re happy.  The more you get, the unhappier you are.”  The villages are based on subsistent farming, growing just enough for their families.  Any surplus is then sold at the markets in town.  They get fish from the rivers for protein and gather wild spinach and yams in the jungle.  They are all in all self-sufficient and have no need for money - there are no supermarkets because everything is fresh.  Tourism is helpful as well and many activities are organized in the villages for visitors.  There’s even a village chief who controls the 2,000 acres available and decides who can or cannot move into the village or use the land.  I was fascinated by this way of life, by this basic system that seems not only to work but to fulfill the villagers as well.  Mike said it’s important for visitors to get out of the resorts and to see the real Fiji - that you can miss this by staying only on the islands.  

But the highlight of this visit to the Highlands was yet to come.  After lunch the chief’s son, Aaron, met us to lead us to the waterfall.  The girls and I got back in Mike’s car, thinking we would be driving some more up the mountain.  Shame-faced and feeling slightly foolish, we climbed back out when we realized Aaron had already started walking.  We passed several more thatched-roof huts (called bures) and houses and exchanged “Bula!”s with other villagers before we entered the rainforest.  “Watch out for shiny rocks,” Aaron cautioned, pointing to piles of horse-crap. 

It wasn’t long into our hike that we realized our rubber flip-flops might be inadequate for the conditions. We’d come to Fiji during the rainy season and many of the paths were more mud than dirt.  Our sandals often sunk in and made a squelching sound as we fought the suction to pull them out.  We crossed several sections of the river, stepping carefully from stone to stone and Aaron helping us one-by-one through deeper crossings.  It was all overwhelmingly beautiful.  The thick, lush vegetation, bananas hanging upside down in groups, red pineapples growing from the ground.  And even though it was an organized tour, I was grateful it never felt like it - we were the only three there and we never came across anyone else on the hike.  Aaron even broke or bent leaves and branches along the way to mark our path as if we were covering uncharted territory, although he later shared he leads this tour twice a day.

Halfway to the waterfall, Aaron began to apologize: “I’m sorry about this, but it’s about to rain.”  And by rain, he meant to say an absolute raining-cats-and-dogs downpour - not terribly strong at times, but completely drenching altogether.  But it only added to the surrealistic quality of the hike.  Gratefully I hadn’t worn a stitch of makeup and my hair was up and back, with a headband keeping any stray hairs in place.  It was incredibly freeing, my only concern being that my $400 camera would be soaked beyond repair in my bag.  There were moments while I waited on one side of the river for Aaron to help the other girls across, when I would look up into the trees and say to myself, “Where AM I??”  I woke up yesterday in Suffolk, Virginia, and am now hiking through a Fijian rainforest.  Ridiculous.  And it’s amazing how painful it was to leave, holding back (or not holding back) tears at the airport, but it shows you how strong fear is - how such a fear of the unknown can hold you back from seeing all this.  Even when I was saying goodbye to my family, I know I would be fine once I got to Fiji.  It’s just that initial separation that threatens to overwhelm.  But now that I’m here - wow...

We finally reached the waterfall, one flip-flopping, mud-covering, rain-soaking hour later.  And there were three of the waterfalls, it turned out - Honeymoon, Massage and Swimming Falls.  I soaked it all in, no pun intended.  The falls weren’t huge by any means, but they had a simple beauty about them, which - now knowing more about the Fijian culture - seems to make sense.  I felt so connected to the earth, standing among the rocks with the river rushing around my legs, thunder and lightning booming and striking overhead.

The hike back was intense, harder than the way there, and it grew harder by the minute.  The storm was going at full force and where there were paths before, now small creeks or runlets streamed past us.  Our main concern was the cameras - Ampi put a raincover on her camera bag and Aaron offered to carry it for her.  Parts of the river we’d crossed before were now more treacherous, even waist-high at times.  You know it’s bad when you come to the river and your guide mutters, “Damn it.”  I asked Aaron if we would make it.  “We’re going to try,” he said somewhat dubiously.  On a particularly steep slope down, I slipped and covered my whole backside in a red-clayish mud.  But our next three crossings through the swollen river soon took care of any remaining traces of that.

But that’s the rainy season for you - a couple hours of full-on rain each afternoon followed by a pleasant evening sun.  The villagers just dealt with it - as we passed them on the last leg of our hike, they were sitting under awnings, drinking kava and sharing stories.  Children on their way home from school ran by with brightly covered umbrellas, shouting cheerfully, “Bula!  Bula!  As we stepped timidly from stone to stone in the river, the children stormed past brazenly, putting us to shame.  Our last feat was crossing a bridge we had before driven over.  Aaron held my hand for precaution - “Just in case,” he said - and I gladly held it back, looking down at the water below, churning angrily in the current.  We were greeted by the chief himself on our return, who picked us up in his SUV and drove us back to our hostel.  Once back, we showered (in the dark, due to a power outage), ate dinner (a delicious lemon chicken and mash) and I was in bed by 7.30pm.  As Ampi said, “we went freaking hardcare for our first day!”

prague.

so a lot has happened in the past month in which i've shamefully neglected to post...well, partly from neglect and partly from a never-ending lack of steady internet. trips to tallinn (estonia), helsinki, amsterdam, brugge (belgium), and prague along with moving to london - kind of the whole reason i'm here in the first place. but in the fashion of my life right now, i'm going to go a little out of order and write on prague as my re-entry into blogging.

the trip to prague was perhaps the most spontaneous i've ever taken. emily, kim and i arrived in london on friday,  the 15th of august, and a week later we all had jobs (a celebratory moment i will discuss later). the next friday, the 22nd, we all arrived back at our flat after a day full of getting things done in the city. emily and i were due to leave the next day for a BUNAC-sponsored weekend trip to amsterdam and brugge. all of our jobs, however, weren't starting until at least the first of september. earlier in the week, i had suggested going to paris before we started work. apparently last-minute eurostar tickets are not a good idea (i'm talking in the hundreds...of pounds.) on a whim i said, "emily, have you ever been to prague?" three hours later, we were in mcdonald's using free wi-fi and booking tickets and a hostel. 

we went to amsterdam (post coming soon, i promise...), came back late monday night, i went to work for one day that tuesday, and wednesday morning we boarded a plane for prague. the utter spontaneity of the whole affair would become a theme on the trip. we got to our hostel around 7pm wednesday night and from that moment, until the moment we boarded a plane for london saturday afternoon, i was in love with the city. why? let me break it down for you...

beauty.

after dropping our bags off at the hostel wednesday night, we started off for old town - always the first place i like to go in a new city - but an hour later, we realized we were horribly lost. we were the kind of lost that in complete loss of hope, you begin to make the streets you're actually on look like the streets you think you're on from your map. "well, if you look at the road that way, it could curve to the left..." yes, if you were in prague that wednesday evening, you might have seen us standing in the middle of the sidewalk, turning our map to all sides and angles, desperate for direction. i have to say, it stung my pride. a lot. i take great pride in my navigational skills and my ability to read a map. thankfully, a kind english-speaking couple were able to re-direct us and walked with us to a metro station. after we were finally set back on course, we saw just how lost we were - we had wandered so far we weren't even on our map of the city. starving and a little weary from almost two hours of walking, we stumbled along the cobblestone streets in search of old town square. with every match between our map and the streets we turned onto, our hearts leapt a little higher. and then...

talk about a welcome sight. this breath-taking building was the first thing we saw as we turned into the square. emily and i couldn't even walk, we just stood, almost reverently, in complete and utter awe of a) finally reaching our destination and b) the unbelievable beauty of the place. within ten minutes, i was in love with prague - the churches, the architecture, the alleyways - everything was beyond all expectation. we dined outside at an italian pizzeria, followed by gelato from a street vendor. it was perfect.

friendship.

thursday night, after an exhausting day of walking tours and rambles about the city, we picked up dinner at tesco - our new favorite european grocery store! - and brought it back to our hostel to eat in their kitchen. we ate with our roommate, damien, an argentinian traveling europe alone. he spoke hardly any english and we spoke barely enough spanish to pass a spanish 1 high school exam. needless to say, it was a pretty awkward dinner filled with your standard questions and uncomplicated answers - no real "conversation," if you will. after dinner, emily went to take a shower and i got online to try and reply to weeks-old facebook messages and wall posts. a little while later, the hostel receptionist brought four more people to our room - two guys and two girls. i looked up from my laptop with dismay - besides damien, who kept to himself, emily and i had the eight-bed dorm room to ourselves. not for long! our new roommates came in - again, speaking only spanish. they were from spain, as we later learned. i didn't say much, except for answering one of the guys when he asked if a bed was "libre." ("si, si, es libre..." was my feeble response five minutes after i finally understood what he was asking.) damien talked with them for a while and i sat quietly on my laptop. emily came in later, obviously taken back with a towel wrapped around her head! she started to speak with them in the little spanish she knew and i tried to do the same.  they were very friendly, though, and very patient with our piece-meal spanish. then they asked us if we wanted to go out with them for a "quick drink." i should've known there is no such thing as a "quick" drink when it comes to the spanish!  

we walked down the street to a little bar and sat around a battered wooden table together - emily and myself, the four spanish travelers, damien, and a czech man who happened to be fluent in spanish. now i have a hard enough time talking in english in those kinds of situations - what with the blaring music and all - let alone a language i haven't really spoken for almost three years. thankfully i have a good basic knowledge of spanish that i think will always stick with me, even if it is on the spanish 1 level, but it came in handy. 

the night was amazing. totally unexpected. who knew emily and i would connect so well with four people from spain? to me, it's a huge testament to the power of human connection, despite language barriers. we talked about traveling, about music, about football - european, of course - and about our bad spanish and their poor english. it was definitely tricky at times - i'm afraid i gave them many a blank stare - which they even joked me for! but it only augmented the times when i did understand them and especially when i got one of their jokes! we then left and went to a second bar, very similar, sitting around another wooden table and just talking. i especially connected with one of the guys, victor, who called me "la jefa" ("the chief") when we left the bar and i pulled out my map to find our way home. we played fusball in the bar - i lost, sadly - and victor taught emily how to flamenco dance! i've never enjoyed myself more. as i write this, it's hard to describe what was so magical about the night. maybe i'm just so amazed that people who barely spoke the same language could have so much fun together. emily and i couldn't stop smiling about it the next day, thinking - "did we really do that??" yet again, it was so spontaneous and unplanned on our part, but so incredible. 

heritage.

when emily and i decided we were going to prague, i mentioned to her that i have always wanted to travel to uhersky brod - where my czech ancestors immigrated from in the early 1900s (weirdly enough, i am 25% czech.) she immediately took to the idea - i couldn't believe it. when we reached the prague airport, a lady at the info centre explained the right bus and train routes that we might take to reach the town - situated four hours from the capital! despite the distance, emily was very much in favor of the plan, so friday morning, we woke early and walked to the main train station in prague. even though there were a few issues with getting the ticket (which even led to emily asking one station attendant, "habla espanol?" after our attempts to speak with them in english had failed...), we caught the train just in time and were soon headed towards uhersky brod. once we had delved deep enough into the czech countryside, we could see many of the train stations were nothing to speak of - located far from town, small gray buildings covered in graffiti - certainly nothing to travel four hours for. i won't lie and say i wasn't worried - i had no idea what to expect.

what would uhersky brod be like? how would we get to the town - surely they couldn't have taxis? my anticipation - as well as my nerves - were great. as it turned out, i had absolutely nothing to worry about. the station itself in uhersky brod was charming - two stories, painted brown with white decorative elements and patterns. before we left the station, we bought our return ticket - this time, i communicated with the attendant by writing "uhersky brod --> praha, 18:00?" on a piece of paper. whatever works, right? she got the picture and with our tickets in hand, we had about five hours to explore the town. the entire day, i kept repeating "thank you, God!"

thank you that the town was only 100 metres away from the train station, up a short flight of stairs...

thank you for the information centre, where i found lots of brochures about the town and region - in english! - and bought adorable souvenirs for myself and my grandmother whose parents immigrated from  czechoslovakia...

thank you for the beautiful catholic churches my ancestors probably attended and the j.a.comenius museum  and the random japanese garden and the gorgeous vistas and hidden spaces and paths...

the entire day was such an unexpected blessing - a worthy end to a daring adventure. i was just so grateful there was something "there" - as emily said, it could have easily been one of the many run-down towns we passed, where we would have spent the day sitting on a bench saying, "okay, my turn to watch our stuff while you go to the bathroom." but it wasn't, by any means! it was beautiful - full of history, both nationally and to me personally - quiet, small, understated, yet so epic. i couldn't believe i was there. ever since sixth grade, when i poured over the family genealogy my great-great uncle george wrote, i knew i had to visit uhersky brod. and now...i have. it was such a momentous, meaningful visit and emily's excitement as she took in the town with me meant all the more. we wandered through back streets, bought dinner from a grocery store and ate in the town hall square, walked along the old wall of the city and basked in the richness of history and heritage...

...a beautiful end to a beautiful adventure...

here's what you have to look forward to:

posts on tallinn

helsinki

amsterdam & brugge

and...

LIFE IN LONDON.