The Cross-Country Chronicles: And All That Jazz

I wasn’t born on the Bayou but I feel a special affinity with New Orleans.

It marked a lot of firsts. The first destination I visited on my backpacking adventure last year. The first city I explored solo. My first taste of The Deep South and the first place where I felt so beyond my comfort zone and so thrilled to be so.

While I feel I have grown immeasurably in the last ten months, I was glad to arrive in NOLA and find it unchanged. As was the AAE Bourbon House Hostel where I stayed last year and where Molly and I would be spending our first night.

With the city feeling a little like my stomping ground, I was eager to show Molly a memorable time. However, she seemed to find it all on her own, taking all of 48 hours to confidently decide she wanted to someday call New Orleans home.

We scraped together enough energy to spend our first night wandering between the bars on Magazine Street in the Garden District, but our hostel beds were quick to claim us after a long day of driving. We returned in the morning for breakfast and to mosey from one vintage store to another. Despite my dwindling bank account (damn, those hard earned savings deplete quickly) and my already bursting backpack, I couldn’t resist buying yet another item of vintage clothing. This tends to happen when I see something I like (or simply fits) and the advice of my sister rings in my ears – “Don’t live to regret not buying something you wanted when overseas.” That and the thrill of wearing something, ANYTHING, that I haven’t been wearing for the last 12 months.

With our attempts to couch-surf leaving our accommodation wanting, Molly’s mum was kind enough to shout us a night in a hotel in the lower Garden District for our second night. After an afternoon of revelling in front of the cable TV, each on our own plush queen bed, we pulled on our dancing shoes and headed to the French Quarter. 

Ah, Bourbon Street. Once again, her shock tactics were as resplendent as ever, never failing to astound and disgust. The night clubs, the strip joints, the flashing lights, the naked women – where’s the jazz again?

While I learnt my lesson last year, there are some things you just have to experience for yourself. I allowed Molly just long enough to get a good, hearty whiff of Bourbon Street’s beer, barf and bad decisions before we grabbed a bite of some southern-style cooking and headed to where the real music magic happens – Frenchman’s Street.

I didn’t spend nearly enough time here on my last visit and I was relieved to know better than to waste my time looking for the true New Orleans experience on Bourbon Street. While we got a little lost on the way there, once we turned the corner and I saw the seven-piece brass band playing for tips on the side of the street, I knew we were in the right place.

We visited my old favourite – The Spotted Cat Music Club – and listened to a sultry but sassy swing band. It was then on to listen to some jazz-infused reggae at Cafe Negril and then finally to the Blue Nile to watch The Brassaholics, where Molly had her first brass band experience.

The brass band experience is an essential encounter to have while in New Orleans. It involves being in the pit of a hundred sweaty bodies and finding yourself lost in the rapid beat and the blasting horns of improvising musicians. Somewhere between your throbbing feet and the mesmerising melody, the music reveals 'the answer' – to whatever it is you have been chewing over and over like cud. It reignites the weary and wandering heart. It’s incredibly satisfying. And incredibly sweaty.

Back on Frenchman’s at 2am, we got talking to Tristan the Street Poet. Tristan’s job, his soul profession in life, involves sitting on the street in front of his type-writer writing personal poems for people. Passers-by give him a topic, a 10 dollar bill and 10 minutes.

Molly and I salivated at his artistic affluence and could not have thrust ourselves, I mean our money, at him fast enough. In 10 short minutes, he had written us a road-trip inspired poem, carefully crafted with the memorable details of our adventure. We were delighted.

It helped that he was kind of gorgeous to look at.

So I think I’ve found my vocation. I'm considering Kings Cross. I’m sure the strippers would be inspired.

Ciao for now. xo

What I've Learnt From Living in Banff, Canada

After eight months of living in the Land of Maple Syrup, I have officially left Banff and therefore, Canada. A couple of tough goodbyes, not to mention a teary farewell at Calgary Airport with the people I have shared every waking moment, every drunken night, every drunken drama, every snowboard stack and every game of pool, reassured me that my time in Canada has left me a changed person.


You certainly can't spend eight months in a foreign country - even Canada - and not learn a little something about yourself and the place that you've temporarily called home.

So here are a couple of things I've learnt about Canada, Canadians and what it's like to exist in their country.

1. Tim Hortons - the purveyor of doughnuts, 'doughnut holes' (referred to by CAers as TimBits), bagels and other sugary treats and the brewer of what CAers consider to be gourmet coffee - is not just a Canadian institution, but a deliciously cheap religious experience.

2. Just like How I Met Your Mother insinuates, Canadians really do put 'eh' on the end of everything, therefore turning everything into a question. It's such a strange custom, eh?

3. Eight months living in a ski town has turned me into a professional at pool. I am also in the draft to turn pro at foosball - wicked attack line. Not so great at defence.

4. Clamato juice and tomato juice are two different things.

5. Which brings me to ceasers. While at first I turned my nose up at Canada's national beverage, I can't deny I have developed quite a thirst for these little cocktail concoctions. Vodka, clamato juice (which, for the life of me, I STILL don't know what is made out of), a splash of tobasco, a shake of worcestershire, a couple of olives and a green bean, all topped off in a celery salt rimmed glass. Hello, I'm drunk.

7. Don't live in Banff if you don't like Jagermeister. Something like 30 per cent of all Jager is ingested in Banff (Okay, so that's not a real statistic. But when you’re knocking back the 50 bazillionth shot of jager in the last two hours, it sure as hell feels true). Statistic or not, live in Banff and be prepared to drink Jager like its running water.

8. After a surprisingly drunk night where we both woke up asking, "What the hell happened?", Housemate Maadi and I decided, under no circumstances, should we be left at home alone with a bottle of Housemate Luke's Jager, a ski shooter and a couple of leftover party hats.

9. Ski shooter = a ski with four or five shot glasses attached to it, wherein the people shotting must hold the ski, lift it together and drink their shot all at the same time. Inability to do this results in Jager down your front.

10. When it's -15 degrees outside and your freezer is too full to hold the giant punnet of vanilla ice cream you bought for Christmas, you would think putting it outside on the patio would keep it frozen. This isn't true. The ice cream melts and gluttonous deer try to eat it.

11. In a similar idea, leaving cans of coke out on the patio in -15 degree weather doesn't keep the coke cold. It makes the cans explode.

12. When you live in a ski town and you want some coke, be sure to call it coca cola. Coke is something different altogether.

13. Every national or international holiday, regardless of whether you celebrate it in your own country or not, are guaranteed to be celebrated in Banff. Drunkenly.

14. Being a musician in Banff is surprisingly lucrative. I think it comes down to hotels, bars and establishments being kind of lazy when it comes to finding talent, not when they can simply steal their competitors' instead. And I'm certainly not complaining. In all seriousness though, Banff is extremely supportive of local artists and being a musician as your full time job is certainly do-able.

15. When it's -30 degrees outside, never underestimate how many layers you can actually wear. However, no matter how many thermals you put on under your jeans or how many t-shirts you wear under your coat, your hair, your eyelashes and your snot will still freeze.

16. Living in a house with four girls, results in a lot of hair ending up tangled around the drain. It's embarrassing when the hot plumber has to come over and yank it out.

17. No matter what the boys in your house think at the time, finding an 80s exercise bike on the side of the street is like striking gold. It might rattle a bit when you ride it, but it makes for the best clothes horse.

18. Milk and bread crates stolen from the backdoor of the pub make for the best shoe racks.

19. Give it eight months and you're guaranteed to become as freaking ice hockey-crazed as every other puck enthusiast in the country.

20. Canada might be Australia's version of New Zealand - the USA's overshadowed side-kick who gets bullied and poked-fun at - but after eight months of living there, you're quick to realise that the side-kick has his own attributes to offer. I may have been on the other side of the world, but I found commonalities between Oz and Canada which made me feel strangely at home. And it's the reason I intend on returning and moving to Vancouver in August.

Ciao for now, Canada. xo

Slush Slush Slush

On Monday 23rd May, 4500 very drunk, very colourful, very rowdy snow enthusiasts arrived at Sunshine Village to celebrate the end of eight months of record breaking snowfall. And they did that by skiing and snowboarding down a hill and trying to make it across a dug-out of chilly, winter water.

This is what they call Slush Cup.

From the beginning of the season, Slush Cup had been pegged as the loosest, craziest, busiest day we would experience on hill and its reputation certainly delivered. After a few days of bipolar weather patterns, the sun got its act together at the last minute and rewarded us with a beautiful, blue bird spring day for our last day at SSV.

My boss at Trappers very kindly gave me the day off (as well as the Saturday and Sunday before it) to play my final gigs at Sunshine with Lisa Baskin. We spent one and half very memorable hours playing our final show together on the main stage that morning. It was the perfect way to end my season - playing my music in front of the snowy hills that hold so many happy and unfogettable memories.

It was my pleasure to then boot up, line Bluejuice up on my iPod and ride those snowy hills one last time before fighting my way through the crowds to buy a jug of Richards Red and a good posie for the big show.

Slush Cup is a well-known Sunshine Village tradition and 2011 marked the 83rd year that skiing and snowboarding extremists have streamlined down Angel run in hope of making it across the watery dug out. While many of the snowboarders crashed to their aquatic end, a few skiers had the skill to make it without getting their feet wet and were rewarded by an appreciative drunk crowd.

After polishing off a jug of beer to myself, it was back to the slopes with all the confidence and bravado of a professional. Needless to say, I ended up back at the bar with a spiced ceaser on one arm and a bloody, ice graze up the other.

But beneath the beer haze, I hardly felt the pain. All I could feel was happy. A happiness that continued well into the evening until the ceasers, snowboarding and sun-burn sent me home around 2am.

Yes, my snow season was over. But that was not the point. The point was that it happened.

Ciao for now. xo

The Bye Bye Bruno's Gig

After eight months of singing, drinking, collaborating and hoping that one day we might each be KT Tunstall in our own way, Lisa and I's Thursday ritual of playing together at Bruno's came to an end last night.

And what an end it was.With pretty much everybody I know and love in Banff in the audience and with Gary (the bartender and our in-house roadie) letting the beer and the Jager flow freely (and I mean, free) it was always going to be a night to remember.

And remember it I do, despite shotting more than I care to blog about and having a couple of very deep-and-meaningful conversations thanks to my inebriation and impaired judgement. How I was still standing, let alone still singing, is yet to be determined.

 While standing on stage in front of my friends and family (even if I was seeing two of everybody), all of who had come to support me at the finale of my musical journey at Bruno's, I had another one of those moments. The kind that will be a defining memory when I'm a little old lady remeniscing about those crazy 12 months I spent overseas, running away from responsibility. In that moment, I felt like I had achieved something and it wasn't to do with my music. It was my friends - the fact that these people were in my life and had been for the last eight months and they had come to support me. And the realisation that in one week, this community of people we have forged around us, will all be going their seperate ways and making new communities for themselves.

While last night was not the last time Lisa and I will play together (we're fully booked out this weekend playing up at Sunshine for Slush Cup), playing our last show at Bruno's left me feeling melancholy. Bruno's was where it all began - this whole unplanned musical blessing I've been so fortunate to experience while in Banff.

While my snowboarding enthusiastic friends learnt to do 360s and ride rails and throw themselves off cliffs, I played my music and established myself because of it. Despite all the other experiences I've had since being in Banff, that one thing is what I will take away with me proudly.

Ciao for now. xo

I've Got The Music In Me

I haven't blogged about it much, but every Thursday night since arriving in Banff, I've been performing at Bruno's. I haven't blogged about it because it became such a regular part of my routine. I'd rock up, have a few beers, play a few songs with my muso-friend Lisa, do a few shots and stumble home to wake up with a hangover.

I mentioned it to a friend at work who has contacts all over town and next thing you know, I'd lined up another gig playing the piano at the Banff Park Lodge every Friday night. So I'd go along, drink a few waters, play a few songs, help myself to their seafood buffet and go home with a bit of cashola in my pocket.

So there I was, running a fairly self-sustainable side business as a musician in Banff without really trying. When my contract at the BPL ran out a few weeks ago due to their seafood buffet finishing, I was left with my un-paid, alcohol supplemented gig at Bruno's and thought that would be it until the end of the season.

But word got out, as it always does in Banff, and next thing you know my boss is lining me up another (paid) gig to play three hours each Saturday and Sunday at Creekside - the bar at the base of Sunshine Village. Knowing that I don't have enough songs, or enough voice, to hold out three hours, I invited my Bruno's buddy Lisa to join in with me.

So there we are on the mini-stage at our first performance at Creekside, doing the set we do each Thursday night at Bruno's, when the director of events from Sunshine walks in. In the middle of our gig, he pulls us to the side and asks us if we would like to open each Saturday for the head-lining acts on the mainstage at Sunshine's Spring Music Series. To which we answered,

"Um... HELL YEAH!"

So last Saturday, admist the sunshine at Sunshine, Lisa&Kristen played their very first mainstage show. Okay, so we were simply the opening act, but when you're plugged into a professional system, playing your own songs and hearing your own music amplified out among the masses, not to mention standing on a big fancy stage surrounded by big fancy equipment, you can't help but feel like a bit of a big, fancy rockstar.

We played for an hour, took about a bazillion photos, and then headed down to Creekside for our afternoon gig. I got home at six o'clock feeling absolutely wasted.

Like a true rockstar, minus the addictions.

Ciao for now. xo

No News, No Snow, No Sanity

I wish this post was bursting with news from abroad. I wish I could say that I've been run off my feet at work, hitting the slopes every other second I get, making enough money to cover my coffee addiction and the layby debt I've established at almost every ski and snowboarding store in Banff.

But unfortunately, none of this is true.

I am still waiting to start work.

I have not hit the slopes.

This is because there is about as much snow up on the mountain as I have things to fill my day with.

And I don't have any of my snowboarding gear as it's all still sitting on layby and can't be paid off until I start work. The only piece of snow gear I have acquired is my WestBeach jacket, which is as warm as it is smashingly attractive. Let's just say that if I get trapped in an avalanche, my jacket will save me. It's a beacon of colour. It's the Skittles of snowboarding jackets.

Unfortantely, all this spare time means I have acquired some seriously bad habits. I now sleep in until at least 10:30am. This is partly because it's too cold in the morning, partly because I know I have nothing better to do than stay in bed and usually because I'm sleeping off a night of 'playing pool' at the Devil's Gap Bar. I skip breakfast and move straight on to lunch, followed by a mid-afternoon nap which gives me enough energy to return to the Devil's Gap at 9pm for more pool. I realise this is far from a healthy lifestyle.

But this week, apart from sitting around watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother, praying for snow and pining for Appel Farm, my small achievement was playing my first gig at Bruno's Bar and Grill. My housemates, assorted neighbours and spattering of friends from around town all turned up to watch my first show and made for an appreciative audience. I play again next week and am hoping I can find a cheap used guitar before then so I can play more songs than just those I learnt in 10th grade music.

I hope my participation in Banff's cultural community might appease the snow gods and in return they will award me with snow.

I never thought I would be so impatient for a dump.

(Okay, that was cheap and nasty - my apologies).

Ciao for now. xo

Halloweening (Off-a the Candy)

It's been an eventful week in Banff, Alberta as me and my new housemates settled into our new home and tried to establish some sort of normalcy in our lives.  But it's hard to feel normal when every day seems to offer up some new Canadian experience.

This week, it was Halloween.

The costumes were outrageous, the candy consumed phenomenal and I'm not even talking about the kids. Trick-or-Treat is a child's game. Trick-or-Try-and-get-as-drunk-as-possible-while-dressed-up-in-a-skantily-clad-costume is the adult interpretation.

Halloween at the Muskrat St house didn't get off to a stereotypical start. We left it until the day of Halloween to buy our pumpkin to carve, only to find out that Banff, and probably the entirity of Alberta, was completely sold out of pumpkins. We didn't bother to buy any candy to hand out and none of our costumes were inspired by porn stars or showed a jaw-dropping amount of flesh (it's just too damn cold for that sort of thing).

But dress up we did - a pirate, an 80s skier, an All Black and a rastifarian - and when we woke the next morning, the demolished pumpkin heads lining the streets weren't the only heads that felt like they'd been kicked in.

This week also marked my first day of work and my first visit to the top of Sunshine Mountain (I was, quite literally, walking on Sunshine). I met the team I'll be working with over the next eight months, started the mass preparation that is setting up Trappers and got a feel for what life is going to be like working up on the mountain. As Sunshine isn't officially open yet (and won't open for at least another week), a lot of the runs remain untouched. That's right, smooth, white untouched powder - like icing on a cake - just begging to be carved across.

And carve across it I will on my beautiful new Arbor snowboard, which waits patiently for me at the ski and snow store in Banff. With my official start day at Trappers still a week away and pay day another fortnight after that, I haven't been able to formally purchase my snowboarding gear and have consequently, set up lay-by debts in multiple stores around Banff. It's either eat, or buy my board. Tricky... very tricky.

But the real blast out of the blue this week came in the form of an open mic night at Bruno's Bar and Grill. Still living a little off the high of performing at Appel Farm, I put myself back on stage and busted out a few original songs at the open mic night for a crowd of appreciative music fans. What resulted was the supervisor asking me to play a regular set at the bar every Thursday night, unpaid but compensated in drinks. It's going to be advertised in the local newspaper, my new friend Jay-the-bongo-player is going to back me up on percussion, they're going to provide me with a guitar to play on and I get to play whatever I want.

Missy Higgins, here I come.

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

Beneath the Brim

What is most interesting about Nashville is not the hat-wearing-boot-scooting cowboys or even the music they play. It's all the things that lie beneath the stereotype that make Nashville more than just a hicksville city.

Like the fact that in Centennial Park, there sits a giant replica of the Greek Parthenon. Giant. And it's surrounded by the lush green grounds of the park where ducks wonder between the fountains.

Or at The Frayed Knot - the local bar for the Vanderbilt collegiates - they actually play beer pong, on tables designed and designated strictly for beer pong. And dressed in their deck shoes with the sleeves rolled up on their salmon pink Ralph Lauren shirts, they get very drunk trying to prove their masculinity by bouncing a ping pong ball into a slightly-full cup of beer.

Or how the music is not strictly knee-slapping-swing-ya-girl-round country tunes. The live music (of which there is plenty to choose from) is a hybrid mix of country, pop, jazz, soul and even hip hop - a rapper beatboxing with a violin is quite a scene to behold. Even my hostel, AAE Music City, is overflowing with talent. A piano sits in the lounge room where people lay down honky tonk tunes when the feeling suits them, or each pick up a guitar to play the Dueling Banjos or their latest musical creation.

That's what makes this city Nashville.

Ciao for now. xo

Thank God I'm A Country...er...Girl

After another pleasant journey on the Greyhound, (I sat in front of a man who was having a phone conversation about an ex-friend who just got out of jail - "He was let out with nothing but the clothes on his back, a bag of Cheetoes and a bible" - direct quote), I arrived in Nashville, the home of country music.

I feel every night spent out at the Toyota Country Music Muster listening to country rock, every performance I've seen courtesy of the School of Country Music and every time I've sung Keith Urbans' 'Love Somebody Like You' at the top of my lungs has prepared me for being in Nashville.

Even on a Wednesday night, Down Town was a side-show fair of bars bursting with people listening to local bands hoping to make it big. With some new friends I met at my hostel - AAE Music City Hostel (a winner) - we saw a cover group who were like a countrified beer garden band. The streets are full of buskers, some playing spoons and using a suitcase and a kick as their slapdash drum kit. Every corner boasts another leather boot store and everywhere everywhere, cowboy hats. It's like the Muster on uppers. 

But as tantalizing as the music has been, I got to Nashville with only one thing on my mind.

Cowboys.

Ha, just kidding.

The one thing on my mind was - vegetables. Fresh fruit and vegetables. For days, I couldn't work out why I was so lethargic and tired until I realised, I haven't eaten vegetables in weeks (well, months if you gloss over the sad excuse for vegetables we got served at camp). My poor body has been running on bagels and granola bars and the occassional serving of pulled pork (my new favourite American pastime).

So armed with eyes bigger than my backpack, I made a trip to the Farmers Market on 8th and Jackson where I found manna from heaven. Beans, eggplants, peppers (capsicums), squash, cucumbers, onions, avocados, peaches, nectaries, apples, oranges, bananas and tomatoes as big as your face. And with the intention of eating it all, I arrived back at my hostel with enough produce to open my own stall.

And tonight, I'm cooking me a feast.

And then finding a cowbow.

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