There's No Place Like Home

Where in the world is KH?

KH is at home. In Australia.

SURPRISE!

I know, I know. I apologise for fooling you. There was only a handful of people in on it and had I made it public to... the public... that would have ruined the big heart-palpitating surprise I had organised for my clueless parents. They had no idea, until I was standing at the front door at 9:30pm last night.

I am not sick or ill or unhappy. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It sounds unbelievable, but I actually reached a point where I felt ready to come home. You can't blame a girl. After 15 months of living out of a suitcase (or three) I started to miss certain things - my fancy summer dresses, my high heels, my books. And you know, my friends and family.

The realisation that maybe I didn't want to move to Vancouver came to me about half way through the summer. I came to realise that if I moved to Vancouver, I would have to set up a life for myself all over again. Find a job, make enough money to support my addictions (to clothes), find a house (preferably where I didn't have to share a room, again), find friends, find hobbies, find a local watering hole. I would have to set up my life all over again, put myself out there, be the fearless ball-buster. And I thought, I could be a fearless ball-buster in Vancouver. Or I could move home to Australia, set up my life again and be a fearless ball-buster in Sydney instead.

And for the first time, the idea of going home didn't rise bile in my throat. It actually sounded, kinda nice. Seeing my friends and family, moving back to Sydney, drinking good coffee, going running on my running track - all the things I loved about living there. But also, implementing all the things I want for myself now, like satisfying this parching thirst I have for making art and music.

So I made one of the biggest decisions I've ever made. I rebooked my flight for September. I came up with a detailed plan for arrival, wherein my best friend was going to pick me up on the Sunday I arrived and then her parents would drive me the two hours home to surprise my parents.

The week leading up to my departure was tough enough - all those ghastly goodbyes I had to make - but by the time I got to Vancouver airport, I felt like I was ready. All I had to do was get on the plane.

Then the plane sprouted a fuel leak.

I was stranded at Vancouver airport until 1am (five hours after my flight was scheduled to leave) when they finally decided that despite the plane no longer leaking fuel, it was not safe to fly (yah think?) and the flight was cancelled. They had organised buses to take us to a hotel, but having a plane-full of people all trying to do the same thing is like being stuck in a perpetual line for a Disneyland ride. By 4:30am I finally climbed into my hotel bed only to wake up at 9am the next morning, feeling like I was suffering the world's worst hangover, and be told that the flight was rescheduled for noon on SUNDAY.

So there I was, stuck in a Vancouver hotel, wobbling between insanity and reality as I tried to work out if this was all a cosmic road sign that I was supposed to stay in Vancouver and not return to Sydney.

But my flight eventually took off, with me in it and after another night's stay in Auckland, I touched down in Brisbane on Thursday morning and into the welcome arms of one of my best friends. I hung out with her for the day and then she put me on a train bound for my home town.

Half way there, the train broke down. They put us on a bus.

Half way home on the bus, a rock flys up from the road and smashes the driver's side window.

They put us on another bus.

I finally make it home where my friend's mum picks me up and we make it to my house without anything going wrong. With more excitement in my stomach than I knew what to do with, I knock on the front door. My dad answers, acknowledges me with a bemused face and next thing my mum is coming down the passageway wailing like a banshee. I'm pretty sure they both thought I was a figment of their imaginations. They're still waiting for me to disappear in a puff of smoke.

But it's not a dream. I am home and my journey, this beautiful adventure that has been the last 15 months of my life is over. It doesn't feel like it though. I feel like this is just another port on my travels and tomorrow, I will pack up all my belongings and head off again.

But this is for real and it's for good, for now at least. I thought I would be scared and bitter about coming home, back to a life which I fled from 15 months ago. But what I have come to realise is that my tale might be over, but it's not the end of the book altogether. This journey was just another short story in my life's collection. Tomorrow, a new adventure will begin.

I don't think I'll ever understand how everything came together like it did. How I ended up at Appel Farm; how I started working as a musician in Banff; how I travelled for 15 months without running out of money, losing my posessions or getting bed bugs. The person I was 15 months ago pinned all her hopes and sanity on this trip. She was looking for something she didn't yet understand. And she returned having found it.

Ciao for now. xo

Here's To The Future (um, someone hand me a drink...)

I could count the amount of days I have spent in the USA over the last 15 months or I could just sum them all up and say - a lot. So, after a lot of days spent in the Land of the Free, I have returned to the Home of the Mounties.

Even at the tail end of summer, Canada manages to be chilly. While all my fellow Vancouverians (Vancouverites? Vancouverers?) trot around in cut-offs and tank tops and apply sunscreen (whaa...?), I am in leggings and a cardigan and sleeping beneath the biggest comforter (that's Canadian for doona) imaginable. Seriously, every duck native to the mid-west was primed and plucked for this thing. A human could drown in the down.

By no means was San Diego hot, at least according to this Australian, but returning to the wintery world of Canada only further reminds me that the summer truly is over and my time in America has come to its end. I've said goodbye to Appel Farm, I've said goodbye to my friends and I've said goodbye to WaWa warm cookies. Let's just stick the knife in a bit further and say goodbye to the warm weather, shall we?

My bitterness stems from having an amazing final week in San Diego. I could not think of a better way to spend my final days in America (although lying on a banana lounge at a five-star resort in Mexico does spring to mind...). Mackenzie and her family were the kindest hosts, making room for me in their homes and lives and giving me the locals' guide to San Diego. We went biking around Coronado Island, ate wicked Mexican, visited the Birch Aquarium and each night, returned to the warm comforts of home. No fighting for kitchen space in the local hostel or counting sheep while some nameless backpacker with a sinus problem snores light a freight train in the bed next to you. Just the couch, a blanket and the most adorable Shnauzer-cross-poodle you've ever seen dropping a floppy frizbee in your lap and looking up at you with hopefull eyes.

But that said, on return to Vancouver, I remembered what is was I loved about this city. Sure, my last visit was for all of 32 hours and the visit before that, a tidy 2 days, but I know enough about Vancouver to feel confident that given the opportunity, I could make a happy life for myself here. Last night, my Vancouverian and Appel Farm friend, Zosia took me to an abstract theatre performance in Granville Island called Brief Encounters. It was a mixed-medium performance where 12 artists from different disciplines are paired together and given two-weeks to create a 15 minute live performance. Watching each creation and later discussing them with like-minded artists instilled in me an incredible sense of purpose and belonging. For the first time since leaving Appel Farm, I felt excited to be a creative individual out in the real world and to be finding a new Appel Farm to belong to.

So here's to the future, whatever that might be.

Ciao for now. xo

Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

I've found it hard to blog since being in Banff, which is the reason for my lack of posts. My life has fallen into a routine - wake up, go to work, go for a ride, come home, go out, go to sleep - and the ins-and-outs of my day to day living barely seem blog-worthy.

I have been in Banff for six months now and find myself suffering from a common sickness to seasonal ski bums - the mid-season blues. I find myself tiring of Banff and the all-too-familiarity of it. Of doing the same things, seeing the same people, living in a town that's city centre consists of one by two blocks of store fronts. And the drama... The drama is wearing me out most of all. If it weren't for the lack of cameras following me around each day, I could swear I was part of a trashy MTV reality show.

The irony of this is that I remember a time when I craved routine, when I ached for a cupboard and a place to unpack. And now that my feet have remained in the same place for so long, I can feel them starting to grow numb. Like a cup of coffee left to sit to long, I'm growing stagnate and cold.

I don't know if it's the fatigue of familiarity, a touch of homesickness or just the feeling that maybe it's time to give this travel tale a time of death, but I've been feeling a real pull to return home. I find comfort in looking at what jobs are available and at cute one bedroom studios available in Sydney. I remember my wardrobe and what it felt like to wear high heels and order cocktails and flirt with the suits at Ryan's Bar. I remember my life.

But at the same time, the thought of home terrifies me. It would mean leaving the life I've come to know now. A life of backpacking and exploring and eating at cute cafes in city backstreets and sleeping on long-haul buses and wondering who I'll meet at the next hostel and what waits around the next bend in the road. It would mean finding a new job, a new home, a new sense of stability. It would mean collecting the broken fragments of the life I left and I trying to piece it back together to fit everything I know now. I'm not sure if the strange feeling sitting in the pit of my stomach means I'm terrified of having to do all that or if I'm terrified because I feel I might be ready to do all that.

But despite this strange state I'm in, I'm reassured that with time and a good dose of Vitamin-Stop-Being-A-Sad-Sack, these mid-season blues will pass. Just like the cold, miserable winter weather will make way for blue skies and spring snowboarding, I'll find my stride again as a traveller and all the things I love about backpacking will be returned to me. And I bet the routine of going to work and seeing the same people doing the same things and creating the same drama will be something I'll miss as I'm pulling everything out of my backpack just to find a clean shirt to wear. I guess as a traveller you're always struck between something good, and something better.

And soon I'll find myself back at Appel Farm and Banff will be another folder of photos I'll look back on and ache over.

Ciao for now. xo

Happy Half Anniversary, Kristen Hyde

I know it's been awhile since I posted last. I've been a tardy blogger which means I've been a tardy traveller too. After all the excitement of the USA - moving to a new city every few days and finding new adventures to write about - my life in Canada has fallen into a routine. Work, boarding, work, boardring, partying, boarding, work. And sometimes I sleep. But mostly I board.

But I couldn't let today go past without posting, as today is my six month overseas anniversary. Correct-o, I've been an ex-pat for six months. I can't believe that half a year has gone by since I was hugging my parents farewell at Brisbane airport. I've been lugging the same backpack around for the last six months, wearing the same clothes and thinking the same thought that there really is no better way to live. Seeing new things and meeting new people and being so far outside of your comfort zone you don't even recognise yourself. The only buzz-kill is the thought of one day going home. But after six months of travelling and everything that goes with it - the occassional homesickness for your own bed, your own cupboard, breakfast at Le Monde and Tamarama Beach - even home has its merits.

But for now, I'm in Banff and (I'm sorry, family and friends) I'm not going anywhere too soon. Especially now that I have my brand new snowboard in my posession. With all the fresh snow dumping out of the sky and tired of having a debt to my name, I decided to just buy my board and deal with the after-effects of being poor and not being able to drink or eat. Moving from my neighbour's beat up Capita to my untouched Arbor was like driving a rusty old pick-up truck and then upgrading to a Mercedes Benz. The new board not only looks like a dream but turns like she's on rails, which is a vast improvement on the Capita which was like trying to steer a cruise ship on ice. Needless to say, the amount of time I spend boarding verses the amount of time I spend falling on my ass is now greatly outweighed thanks to Betsy.

Yes, I named the board.

Other interesting things that have happened in Banff include the Muskrat Street House losing one housemate and acquiring two new ones, acquiring enough movie files to start our own illegal movie store (including The Neverending Story which just isn't the same when you're 23), taking up yoga and not knowing how I've lived my entire life without it and implementing the tradition of $8 Steak Night every Tuesday at the Elk and Horseman.

And then there's wanting to get my ear pierced again, but that's another story for another time.

Ciao for now. xo

Bless Me Father, For I Am Travelling

I spent the better part of yesterday morning reading back over my blogs from camp and the earlier posts of my travels around America. I do this every now and again, as narcisistic as that might seem. Sometimes it's to torture myself at how much I still miss Appel Farm and the friends I made there. Sometimes it's to comfort myself. Sometimes it's to gain a little perspective.

I've been in Canada for two months now and consider myself fairly settled.  I have friends who are more like family, a job that drags my butt out of bed each day and a local pub where the bouncer no longer bothers to check my ID. I don't have to plan how or where I'm going to get my dinner each night or fight for a position in front of the stove in a hostel kitchen. I have my own kitchen cupboard and a shelf in the fridge and cooking a healthy dinner for myself remains a blessing I can count. In all respects, I feel like I've established a life in Banff.

Which is why I return to my blog posts every now and again - to remind myself that as settled as I might be, I am still a traveller. My feet might be grounded for six months, my backpack empty and stored in the cupboard beneath the stairs, its contents easily accesible in my bedroom closet. But just like when I was jumping buses every other day, bound for a new city with temporary friends and uncomfortable hostel beds, I should still be waking up each morning with that zeal for travelling, that appreciation for everything around me and everything I am experiencing, no matter how settled I might feel.

I remembered this yesterday when I was boarding at Sunshine. I was walking to the gondola with a snowboard under one arm and the snow beneath my feet and I remembered how removed I am from the life I was living in Sydney. Once upon a time I was sitting at my kitchen table struggling to believe I would ever be able to tell travel stories like my family and now travel stories are my reality. Tomorrow, I will go to work on a snow-capped mountain in a country on the other side of the world to my own.

Tomorrow is another day of travelling.

Ciao for now. xo

Land of the Free

It has been three months and 21 days since I left the golden shores of Australia, bound for the land of the free. Since then, I have been the counselor for 27 beautiful and boistrous teenage girls, had a shaving cream fight in my bikini, swam in the Atlantic Ocean, stood at the top of the Empire State Building, eaten alligator sausage, drunk bourbon on Bourbon St, stood in Elvis Presley's living room, painted the town red in Nashville, surfed on a complete stranger's couch, eaten deep-dish pizza, gained a few too many kilos, seen the trees change in Ohio, spent a lot of time driving a lot of highways with a lot of life-changing people and stood on Carrie Bradshaw's stoop. And after three months and 21 days, my time in the United States of America has officially ended. .

My last post from the US of A is being written from the Philadelphia Airport where I arrived after a two hour bus ride from NYC at midnight. Here, sister dearest and I bid our farewells after spending the week in New York City together. I don't think there could have been a more perfect way for me to spend my last week in America. Each day I was treated to a different side of NYC's mixed personality as I trotted between the east, the west, the shabby and the chic. I bought used books from chatty roadside vendors in Greenwich only to purchase over-priced Christmas decorations from Saks Fifth Ave. I drank cocktails and coffee and marvelled at the strange creatures which inhabit this city. And the cream on top of the New York cupcake - I stood on Carrie Bradshaw's stoop. Even if I never marry or have children or publish a book, this small achievement allows me to die a happy and hopeless woman.   

Having just spent three very uncomfortable hours of the early morning sleeping on a line of chairs in the completely empty ticketing foyer, it's no suprise the Do Not Disturb-look has gone up on my face. And at 5:35 in the morning, this is only the beginning. To reach a town in the country right next door to the USA, I must survive three flights, two stop-overs and a lot of bad airplane coffee. But what, and who, wait for me on the other side are all worth it.

And with that, as my flight is called on the over-head, I must say my final farewell to the USA. Part of me feels a pang to be leaving the country that introduced me to so many 'firsts' - my first independent travel, my first camp, my first pumpkin pie. But another part of me rests assured that it won't be too long before I feast my eyes on her stars and stripes once again.

Ciao for now. xo

A Little WaWah

There was a serious pull on my heart-strings last night as Tim Carmeny and I drove the eight hours from Canton, Ohio back to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The tug came as we stopped to get gas (*cough*, sorry, petrol) at a Wawa.

Having not seen a Wawa in little over a month (being an eastern roadstop), I was overwhelmed with memories of camp and our miscellenous roadtrips to get slushies or hogies or just plane candy at the local Wawa. Being back on the eastern coast, so close to Philly and New Jersey and therefore camp,  I realised that essentially, I was home. Back to the old stomping ground that is the eastern seaboard.

When I rattle of the list of places I've been in the last month - from New York down to Miami, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, St Louis, Chicago and Ohio - it sounds like I've been on the road my entire life. But when I think about it, it feels like only yesterday that I was kicking back with the musos in Nashville, only the day before that Caitlin and I were cruising down the highway between North and South Carolina. So much has happened in the last month and it has rushed by just as quickly as the road beneath my bus's tyres. I've gone swimming on Miami's South Beach, drank bourbon on Bourbon Street, stood in the studio where Elvis Presley recorded his first song, played pool with future country music sensations and wandered the streets of Chicago with my jaw dragging along the pavement.

It's easy to look back and only remember the long slogs between cities on uncomfortable bus seats or packing then re-packing my backpack for the fiftieth time that week or lying on someone's couch missing my own bed and own bathroom and Sex in the City collection like crazy.

But walking through a new place (or even an old familiar place like Philadelphia) still gets me. It still instills in me the satisfaction and excitement of being in another country and of seeing different things and being foreign unto myself. Even when travelling gets fatiguing and the thought of climbing on another bus is enough to make me want to cash in my passport, just being here puts me back where I belong.

Ciao for now. xo

Travelling Alone - A Pro and Con List

Pro - You can crawl out of your miserable hostel bed at what ever time you please. You are your own alarm clock.

Pro - You can eat what you want, when you want, where you want and for how long it takes.

Con - Sometimes, sitting at the bar with nothing but a vodka and soda for company makes one feel kind of pathetic.

Pro - You can stop and shop in a store for as long as you like.

Con - But when you find that gorgeous dress that is about the same price as a few nights in a hostel, it would be nice to have a second opinion to make you PUT IT BACK ON THE RACK! YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT! HOW ARE YOU GOING TO EAT?!

Pro - Deciding what you're going to do, where to go to get there and how long you're going to be there before you move on to the next tourist attraction, doesn't take the entire day to organise. You're own itinerary is just that, you're own.

Con - When you're standing in front of the World's Biggest Blah Blah Blah, it would be nice to have someone to share it with.

Pro - You can take as many photos as you like without someone tapping you on the shoulder, telling you to hurry up because they need to pee/are hungry/are tired/will cut off your fingers if you take one more damn photo.

Con - You take so many carefully aimed selfies of you and said tourist attraction, even Facebook would be ashamed. Or, you have to do the awkward "Hi, can you please take a photo of me in front of Lake Who Really Cares?" and then try to smile while hiding the fear in your eyes that the good samaritan you just asked to be your paparazzi might suddenly make off with your camera.

Con - With no one to share the load, you constantly look like a pack horse.

Pro - With no one to share the load, you don't have to listen to people complain about how heavy your and their bags are.

Pro -  You can sleep on the bus/train/plane.

Con - It would be nice to have a friendly shoulder to sleep against on the bus/train/plane.

Con - When the old man who sat down next to you on the bus/train/plane starts telling you about his rheumetism, you'd sell your soul for a friend to turn to keep you conversationally unavailable.

Pro - When the cool cats you met at the hostel invite you to spend the day with their travel party at That Beach or That Park or That Neighborhood, or are also heading to That City on That Train and staying at That Hostel, it's nice to feel your little heart inflate. Ah, friends.

Pro - When people ask what you're doing and who you're doing it with and you say that you're travelling alone, the impressive look that crosses their face makes even your toes feel proud.

Con - Then the pride turns to fear as you worry that they might kidnap you or steal all your belongings, including your sacred collection of travel magnets.

Pro - When you're sitting alone in a cafe eating the most delicious breakfast you've ever wrapped your lips around, or on the train whizzing past burnt orange corn fields and electric blue skies, or standing in front of the most magnificent sculpture or building or creation, and you could share it with someone or you could just exist their quitely taking in the sheer awe of this inspiring world you're in, travelling alone totally trumps.  

Ciao for now. xo

Music City

After spending four days in Nashville, I was generally disappointed to leave the place. I found things there that I never expected. For the first time since being on the road by myself, I didn't feel the pulsing pressure to go out and see as much as I possibly could. There was something about the daylight in Nashville - it just makes you want to be and appreciate, without a map or an itinerary or a camera. I found myself falling in to step with the world and finally finding my stride as a traveller.

Without a doubt, the best part about Nashville was the music. Every night offered a new buffet of talent. On my last night, I went and saw the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - a brass band from New Orleans who played southern jazz like you've never heard before. But it wasn't just about the bands in the bars. It was the people I was staying with at my hostel. Everyone harbored some secret talent for music and some of my favourite memories involve sitting around the hostel at 3 AM listening to these incredible musicians playing music just for the hell of it. I was exposed to some incredible people who have encouraged me and changed me and certainly left their treble cleff imprint on my travels, each in their own way.

Ciao for now. xo

Jazzed To Be Here

Imagine if Byron Bay and the Amsterdam Red Light District had a love-child - all the blues-tooting, grass-smoking genetics of Byron Bay mixed up in a petrie dish with the bright lights and dirty street germs of Amsterdam. What do you get?

New Orleans.

Sorry, N'awleans.

As I flew out of Miami, bound for The South, the realisation that I was going to New Orleans and would probably end up dead in a drive-by-shooting really hit home. I believe, 'Kristen, what the hell are you freaking doing? Are you crazy? Are you freaking crazy for walking so blatantly to your GRAVE?!!' passed through my head a few times before we touched down on the tarmac.

But New Orleans is not the delapidated dive I expected. The city is a bustling hub of street cars shuffling people between districts, as old, toothless men blast jazzy tunes from the sidewalks. The houses stand two, three stories high, supported by pillars and curling cast-iron gates where hanging plants dangle like christmas decorations.

Like most major cities, there seems to be more tourists than locals, but those native to New Orleans possess a pleasant and polite kindess that identifies them from the crowd of photo-snappers. On my arrival at the AAE Bourbon House Hostel, the receptionist was helpful enough to show me where everything was in relation to the hostel and how to get there. It's these simplicities that make travelling alone not quite as daunting.

It was a relief to be able to wander around the city today with only my self and my feet to determine the direction. The French Quarter, the main draw-card of New Orleans, is a standard block layout and is easy to negotiate with a map. Bourbon Street, much like Kings Cross or the Red Light District, is where the music and mayhem happens at night. But in the cruel light of day, all its dirty corners and cheap illuminated strip joints look trashy and tasteless. Stores selling cheaps New Orlean nicnacs are everywhere - everything from magnets and postcards to feathered masks and giant plastic necklaces sporting peace and marijuana symbols.Turn off Bourbon and onto Royal Street and you meet a totally different vibe, with gallery after independent gallery line the street walk.

Around lunch time, the hopeful musicians begin to drag their music cases out into the street and turn the place into an outdoor jazz club. This, served with a side of Gator and Shrimp Gumbo is exactly how lunch should be spent. It's easy to enjoy their sexy, sultry sounds and think nothing more of it, but at the end of the day, they're just as much a business as the restaurant you're eating at. It's something the New Orleanians seem to respect and appreciate and the tip jars and music cases are consistently filled with beer-soaked one dollar bills.

It's been five years since Hurricane Katrina ripped a wound through the heart of New Orleans and while the city has rebuilt itself, 'the storm' is still referred to in quiet reverence by tourists and locals alike. The storm remains a historical scar that is referred to much like Christ's crucifiction - 'before the storm' and 'after the storm'. Tours can be taken along the Mississippi River where the majority of Hurricane Katrina's damage was directed, but like visiting Ground Zero, there seems to be something immoral about turning a memorial into a tourist exploit.

As much as I'd like to think I'm safe walking from place to place, I can't help but feel like I'm looking over my shoulder 99 percent of the time. Down Town and the Garden District feel like safe havens, but there are definitely areas you wouldn't want to wander into in the middle of the day, let alone after dark. Going for a 'wander' is potentially dangerous, as the good and bad streets seem to be intermingled. 'Walk where the crowds are walking' was the advice I was given and that's what I've been doing, with one hand clutched firmly around my bag.

But I'm okay, Mum. I promise.

Off to get some gator sausage. Delish.

Ciao for now. xo