A whole new me

So, after months (and months) of thinking about it, I finally just bit the bullet. You never realize how long your hair is until you see it on the floor, right? I like it, though...

Alas, no Hugh Jackman sightings

So, Sunday was my last day in Australia. In true tourist fashion, I bought an all-day ticket for those red, open-air tour buses. As gorgeous as the weather was on Saturday, it was just that rainy on Sunday. But, since it was my only day left, what can you do? Of course, at the end of the afternoon the sky cleared.

I still can’t believe I was fortunate enough to visit both Australia and New Zealand – two places on my list of “must sees.” Check!

View from Sydney Tower

Town Hall

Hyde Park

Harbour Bridge

Darling Harbour

Bondi Beach

Roof of Opera House

The “non-politically correct” tour

So, I left New Zealand on Friday – it’s amazing how quickly these last three weeks have gone by. Amazing. Anyway, since I left New Zealand on Friday, that means I arrived in Sydney, Australia on Friday. When I was first planning this trip, I was thinking, you know, that New Zealand and Australia were close to each other – like a 90-minute flight or something. Uh huh, right. Try 4+ hours. I’m not kidding.

Last week, as I was trying to figure out what to do while in Sydney, I found a “Top 10 things to do…” list online. One of the things mentioned was visiting the Blue Mountains. I thought about renting a car and driving out there (it’s about 2+ hours from Sydney), but never did get around to renting one. But then, when I checked into my hotel, right there at the reception desk was a list of things you could book through the hotel – one being a guided tour of the Blue Mountains, leaving directly from the hotel. OK, sign me up. We left at 7:30 Saturday morning and it was FANTASTIC! The guide was hilarious and informative – emphasis on hilarious. Well worth the money. I would recommend it to everyone. But, I digress. About 20 minutes into the tour Rob (aka Oi Boy, or tour guide) asked us (there were 10 of us total – 9 Canadians and me) whether we wanted the politically correct tour, or the non-politically correct tour. Which do you think we chose? I’ll give you a hint – did I mention that Rob was hilarious? We started at a Wildlife reserve where we got to pet Koala bears and Wombats (did you know that Wambats aren't bats?), pet and feed Kangaroos (or were they Wallabies – I can’t be sure), and see other native Australian wildlife. It was really cool. I even saw a dingo, but it did not eat my baby.

You can't really tell, but the kangaroo (wallaby?) is licking my arm - so cute

See the little joey?

We fed the kangaroos food in ice cream cones - those were edible, too

Again, you can't really tell, but the kangaroo is "holding" my hand with its paw - not wanting me to take the food away, I guess

After the Wildlife reserve we drove up into the Blue Mountains (named such because the evaporating oil from the eucalyptus trees gives off a blue hue). Gorgeous!! Of course Rob kept telling us that these mountains were nothing like the Canadian or Utah mountains we were used to, but he admonished us to never laugh about the size of a guys mountains, so I ooh’ed and ah’ed in all the right places. But really, it was gorgeous!

One thing about doing a tour like this by yourself is that, sometimes, other people in the tour take it upon themselves to “adopt” you. There were two couples from Alberta who adopted me. They were really cute. Everyone offered to take my picture for me, hike with me, etc. It was very nice of them.

We saw this kangaroo in the wild - no feeding or petting this one. I guess the can be pretty vicious.

The Three Sisters in the background

The Three Sisters

The tour took about 10.5 hours. After getting back to Sydney, I walked to Darling Harbour and had a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant, Zaffron. Food is really expensive here, by the way. I bought a bottle of water and a snack bar to take on the tour with me for $7+ (I converted it to U.S. dollars, so, yes, that’s $7!).

A couple of random bits of knowledge I learned today from Rob (there were lots of them, but these two are most interesting):

1. It’s totally legal for bicyclists to ride on the freeways – wish that had been the case when I was on my mission in France…
2. The kangaroo and emu, of all the native Australian animals, appear on the Australian coat of arms because they are the only animals that cannot walk backwards, so the coat of arms signifies “always moving forward.”

I thought they were interesting bits, anyway…

And Now for Something Completely Different

So, last weekend I visited glorious beaches and mountainous coasts. This weekend, not so much. That’s not to say that what I saw wasn’t glorious – I didn’t mean to give that impression. It’s just that what I saw this weekend was, well, something completely different.

I flew to a town on the North Island called Rotorua. Sadly, I couldn’t arrange any flights on Friday that a. left late enough in the afternoon or b. were still relatively inexpensive, so I flew out early Saturday morning and flew back to Wellington Sunday afternoon (which, due to a “crippling computer fault”, turned out to be Sunday evening). Flying out Saturday was actually OK because I got to go to the pub with my co-worker and some blokes from the site here in Wellington (it was Fahad’s last evening in town after a nine week stay). I was quite happy to sit and visit drinking my Diet Coke (which I switched for a lime and soda later on in the evening) while everyone around me had their beer (and other drinks). I was asked a few times if I was offended hanging out with people who were drinking. First of all, I wouldn’t have been there if I was offended or uncomfortable. Secondly, should I be offended? I mean, just because they drink doesn’t mean I have to drink, and just because I choose not to drink doesn’t mean I think they shouldn’t be drinking either, right? I’ll admit, though, as the conversation became more and more slurred (and sometimes incoherent what with drunk people AND the accents), it was quite amusing for me to be the sober person. BTW, the weather on Friday and Saturday was horrific – rain, cold wind, brrr… I thought it was supposed to be summertime around here.

Anywho, after arriving in Rotorua, I was picked up by a shuttle bus to take me to Wai-O-Tapu (a geothermal wonderland). I took a nice walk. Yes, there was hiking involved. There was even a part of the walk that said it was "very active", but I chose to do it, and at least this time I went in eyes open. It was absolutely amazing – totally different to what I saw last weekend, but nonetheless amazing. Everyone at NZPA kept warning me about the smell of Rotorua (sulphur). Yes, there was a smell, but it wasn’t as bad as everyone (except Fahad) led me to believe.










That night, after a quick nap in my hotel room (I was up late on Friday being the designated “walker” back to the hotel, and had an early flight on Saturday), I was picked up by another shuttle and taken to a Maori Village for a performance and dinner. Kind of reminded me of the PCC in Hawaii. It was really cool, but by the end of the evening, however, I was so cool (LOL) that I was ready to be taken back to the hotel. Met a nice couple from Sydney (nope, didn’t meet up with the folks from last weekend) and we had a nice visit.

Food for our Hangi

Just a little side note, next time I’m in NZ, I’m just going to bite the bullet and rent a car – my friends from the UK drive in the States without a problem, most of the time, so why shouldn’t I be OK driving on the other side of the road? I’m just going to do it.

Turns out, my hotel in Rotorua was next to the Polynesian Spa, so I figured… why not? I soaked in the hot springs and then had a massage (and mud) treatment. Ah, so relaxing (except for the “disposable g-string” they gave me – ARGH).

Lake Rotorua

Walk - Addendum

I was reprimanded for not having any pictures of myself from Abel Tasman. Since I was by myself, they were all self-portraits (and thus, way too close up), but I'll post some anyway. YIKES!

Walk doesn't always mean walk

I had a glorious weekend. On Friday I flew from Wellington to Nelson - a whole 25 minute flight. At the airport I didn’t even have to show ID or go through security. Weird. I had booked a day cruise/walk online for the Abel Tasman National Park, which is about a 90-minute bus ride from Nelson. My bus (or coach, as they said here) was going to pick me up at my hotel at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday. However, as I was getting ready (say, at about 6:45) my phone rang and the front desk said that my coach to Abel Tasman was there to pick me up. Ummm… my email said 7:30. Anyway, there was a coach at 7:30, so I was ready for that one. Whew – didn’t really want to rush to get ready.

The scenery just driving to the National Park was gorgeous. I had been worried about the weather – it’s been rainy and cloudy here in NZ, but I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. The boat ride along the coastline was gorgeous – windy, but gorgeous. I kept singing How Great Thou Art in my head as I was watching the landscape go by.








The package that I booked was the Seals & Beach walk and cruise – walk was a little misleading. The description online states: Enjoy a 2hr 15min (5 kms, 3 miles) walk over a forested saddle and around the golden sands of Bark Bay Estuary with its cascading waterfalls through lush native forest. However, walk was not the right word – it was a fairly strenuous hike. At least I didn’t wear flip-flops, but I did wear my traction-lacking Converse shoes, so the wet and muddy (and steep) paths were a little difficult to manage. I only slipped a few times. So for future reference, walk = hike. On the boat ride back to our originating point, I had a great conversation with a woman from Minnesota and her traveling buddy from the UK, as well as another guy from Sydney. The woman from Minnesota (I think her name is Kat) and the guy from the UK (crap, can’t remember his name) want to meet up next weekend in another city on the North Island, so I’m working on the scheduling for that.









On Sunday, prior to my flight back to Wellington, I just walked around Nelson. They have a huge cathedral right next to the hotel where I stayed. As I walked around the cathedral grounds, I noticed several people in the parking lot with dogs, and I also saw some rabbits and guinea pigs. I thought to myself, wouldn’t that be funny if this were like that Vicar of Dibley episode where the Vicar holds a service for everyone’s pets? Well, a woman stopped to talk to me while I was walking around and asked if I had been to the service. She said it was a great service because it was a pet service (pronounced peet). Hilarious!

Gorgeous weekend, so much fun!!

kia ora

Which means “hello” in Maori. Ready for a quick (maybe not so quick) update?

Last Thursday I took the l o n g e s t plane ride of my life to Wellington, New Zealand. When I checked in at the airport, the Delta employee asked if I had my Australian visa. Um, what? Oh yeah, evidently, to get into Australia you need a visa – who knew? OK, when I looked at my printed itinerary from Delta, there was – in small lettering – a statement that passport and/or visa requirements may have changed for this itinerary, but if a visa is required to get into Australia, it really should have been more specific, shouldn’t it? Luckily, it could be done all online, and the visa is electronic, not paper, so the nice Delta personnel helped me take care of it. Good thing I was early. Funny part of the story – since I was just connecting in Sydney (on this end of my trip), I didn’t need the visa. But since I’ll be staying in Sydney for a weekend at the end of my trip, I guess it’s better that I have it now, right?

Here’s a little traveling tip. Don’t let the ticket agents stick your baggage claim receipt on the back of your boarding pass. OK, so I’ve never had a problem with this before, but this time I did. The Delta folks checked my bag all the way to Wellington, which was nice because I changed airlines in Sydney. So, nothing to worry about, right? They stuck my receipt on the back of my LAX to Sydney boarding pass. However, in Los Angeles, for some reason they had to issue me a new boarding pass (no, didn’t get upgraded, darn it). I really didn’t even think anything about it at the time. However, once in Sydney, when I checked in with Quantas, they asked to see my luggage receipt. But my bags were checked all the way to Wellington already? Well, that didn’t matter, Quantas still needed to find my luggage (using the code on my receipt) in order to get it on my flight to Wellington. So, I pulled out my Sydney boarding pass… and then realized what had actually happened in L.A. Double drat. The Quantas agent was quite helpful, though. She had me wait off to the side while she called someone to find my bag (in ALL the luggage that came from Los Angeles). The stars were aligned because it was found rather quickly, and it actually arrived in Wellington.

Now, for the flight itself. Fifteen hours in an airplane is a LONG, LONG time. I had an aisle seat so that it would be easy for me to get up and walk around. I had my own personal movie/TV screen, which was veddy nice, so I could watch whatever I wanted (well, from the available options). Since the flight left Los Angeles at 10:30 p.m., I was hoping to fall asleep – it kind of worked. I’d start a movie or show on my personal screen, and then fall asleep while watching it. Wake up after it was over and start another one. I watched Ghost three times (well, I actually watched it all the way through only once, but had it playing three times). I do love that Patrick Swayze. I watched a couple of other movies, several episodes of different TV shows, and read a book. Before I knew it, we were landing in Sydney (not really before I knew it, it still felt like a LONG time).

So, I left SLC Thursday evening and arrived in Wellington on Saturday afternoon (you have to take the 18-hour time difference into consideration). I walked around Wellington a little bit on Saturday, but I was quite exhausted. My internet quit working on Sunday, so I had difficulty finding a church to attend, but, stars aligned again and I was finally able to get a meetinghouse address to attend 11:00 a.m. church (after I realized that New Zealand experienced a time change Sunday morning – there’s now a 19-hour time difference), even though I had been awake and ready for a 9:00 a.m. meeting. The members of the Wellington ward were extremely nice. Several people stopped to talk to me to find out if I was new or visiting. There was one sister in particular who sat behind me who was just so nice, I was quite touched.

Not much touristing during the week… it’s too bad work gets in the way of all my fun. I will have the weekends, though, so I will take some pictures, but I may not be able to post them because I didn’t bring the cable to get the pictures off my camera. Ah, the humanity – I knew I’d forget something.

haere ra (good-bye)

Big hair, tight pants and tattoos

A couple of days ago, my friend Michelle and I went to the Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick concert. I totally loved it. (As a matter of fact, I’m listening to Poison right now – I love Pandora radio – I created my own Def Leppard “station”)

To avoid traffic, we left early and spent some time wandering around the Usana “village.” We were going to buy T-shirts, but they were $40 to $50, I mean, seriously?

Right before Cheap Trick came onstage, this geriatric looking fella walked on stage, and Michelle jokingly said “hey, it’s Cheap Trick.” We laughed until the guy sat down at the drums. It WAS Cheap Trick. I only knew one Cheap Trick song, so their part was OK. Isn’t it amazing how much difference it makes when you know the songs being performed?

When Poison finally came out, I was so excited (I say “finally” because the intermission between Cheap Trick and Poison was quite long). Bret Michaels told us that their bass player (actually a Utah resident) was really sick and was unable to play, but as luck would have it, the bass player for Bon Jovi had been backstage and rather than Poison not playing the concert, Hugh McDonald volunteered to play for them and took 20 minutes to look over all the music.

Def Leppard was amazing. I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve seen them in concert. I’ll definitely be going again! As they started, I told Michelle that there were three songs I wanted them to sing for sure, and they didn’t disappoint – but EVERY song they sang was fantastic and one that I really wanted them to sing.

Almost as fun as the concert was the people-watching. There was a girl a few rows in front of us who kept dancing around with a full cup of beer in her hands (a cup which she kept replenishing) – I kept waiting for it to spill on the people in front of her, but she evidently had mad drunk-dancing skills and only spilled on herself.

People always had the strangest reaction when I said I was going to Def Leppard. I’m not sure what kind of image I’m portraying (and I’m not complaining), but these reactions bring two stories to mind.

a. When I was 19, I spent a week babysitting three of my nephews. One night I was driving my (then) 11-year-old and 13-year-old nephews to get ice cream. One of the few AC/DC songs that I liked came on the radio, so I started singing along. After a little while I noticed that there were no longer any noises coming from the back seat. I looked in the rear view mirror and my two nephews were looking at me like they had no idea who I was. “Katie, you know this song?” “Yup, I love this song.” “Wow! You’re cool!” It’s the little things, isn’t it?

b. A few years ago, I was in Tennessee working with a couple of male co-workers. We were driving from Nashville back to Jackson – Mark was driving so was in control of the radio. He had a heavy metal station playing and it just so happened that they played something like 5 or 6 songs in a row that I knew and liked, so I sang along. Mark looked at me, aghast, and said that he would now have to change his whole opinion of me. Not quite sure what that means, but…

Long live rock and roll!!

FYI

If anyone is interested, I have started a new blog. This blog will chronicle my journey to becoming fabulous and fit by 40 (fabandfitby40.blogspot.com). I'm not sure what it's really going to be - right now it's just a hodge-podge of different stuff. We'll have to see what develops.

Michael and me

Michael Jackson died on Thursday, June 25, 2009. I had just heard on the radio that he was in a coma when my friend texted me and said that he had died. My first reaction was “huh… that’s weird.” It really wasn’t until Friday evening that I really thought about it. No matter what Michael’s life deteriorated into, back in the 80’s and early 90’s he was untouchable. Not only did he impact the music and music video industries, but he impacted my life as well. So many memories, but just to list a few…

1. Michael Jackson was the first man I ever loved – as much as a young teenager can, anyway.

2. I had to have sleep tests done at the local hospital one Saturday, and I was not allowed to sleep the night prior to the tests. My parents said I could rent some movies to help me stay awake. I rented Lili (GREAT old movie) and The Making of Thriller. It’s amazing how long “all night” is to a young teenager. I must have watched Thriller 5 or 6 times that night (of course, trying to do all the dance moves along with the video).

3. My friend Kristen slept over one Friday night so we could stay up late and watch Friday Night Videos to see the music video of Beat It (yes, this was WAY back in the olden days when a. MTV played videos but b. MTV was not a free channel). Of course, since that’s the video we cared about, it was the very last one they played that night (I think Friday Night Videos started at midnight and lasted until 1:30 or something). We loved it!!

4. 1984 is the only year I’ve ever watched the Grammy Awards (and I watched the ENTIRE show).

5. I used to buy every magazine possible that contained pictures of Michael Jackson – my room was plastered in posters, pictures, etc. I might have been a little obsessive, but heck, I was a teenager.

6. When I learned that Michael Jackson was a vegetarian, I thought I’d try it out – much to my mom’s dismay, as she prepared the meals. I don’t know how long it lasted, because I really do like meat. ☺

7. In 1984, my father was in a car accident that left him a partial quadriplegic for the rest of his life. He was in intensive care for quite awhile, and for awhile we weren’t sure whether he’d make it or not. Even after he left intensive care, he was in the hospital for almost a year. Being a Michael Jackson fan provided me with something stable that I needed at a time when my life was anything but.

You can laugh, mock, whatever you want, but I am a Michael Jackson fan. And, as I mourn Michael Jackson, I mourn, at the same time, a time gone by. Actually, better said, as I celebrate Michael Jackson I celebrate, at the same time, a time gone by. Thank you, Michael, for all you gave me. I hope you are finally at peace.