The Cross-Country Chronicles: Don't Mess With Texas

When Molly and I were planning our cross-country adventure, driving through the middle of Arizona and New Mexico sounded like a great idea.

But the desert is called the desert for a reason. It's deserted. There's NOTHING to look at.

The mind and butt-numbing five hour drive from Flagstaff to Albequerque, New Mexico was one of shortest drives on our trip but was by far, one of the most painful. If it weren't for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audio book, we might have stopped to drive cactus spines into our eyes just so we wouldn't have to look out on any more desert.

With the Arizona fires still raging and having burnt a hole the size of Chicago across the state's landscape, its next door neighbour of New Mexico was suffering the smokey after effects. The beautiful watermelon mountains which frame the New Mexico skyline couldn't be seen through the eerie yellow haze that hovered over the city and turned the sun blood red.

Instead, we stayed indoors with our Albequerque host, Carolyn - a close friend of Molly's - and her three, oh-so-adorable kittens. Vegging out on the couch watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a welcome refrain from the road. Especially when we had an epic 12-hour drive to Austin, Texas ahead of us.

But with Harry Potter plugged in and a brief, but memorable lunch time stop in Sudan, Texas (where, just in case of confusion, a sign states - America lives here) the drive wasn't half bad. If you can deal with the Vote Out Obama propoganda, of course. We were definitly in root-tooting, gun-shooting Texas.

After a couple of nervous days of waiting, we were able to find a last-minute couch to surf and in doing so, made two new Texan friends in our hosts, Jason and Tyler (both who weren't actually from Texas, but still qualify as Texans in my eyes).

With the boys both working during the day, Molly and I were left up to our own devices on our day off and took up a couple of Jason's local recommendations. We had breakfast tacos (and one of the best creations known to man - bacon, egg, tortilla - thank you, Mexico), swam and sunbaked at Barton Springs - a freshwater spring in the middle of Austin that has been turned into a local swimming hole and an after-swim bevvie at the Daily Juice - a local smoothie institution.

With all the Longhorn cattle wandering around Texas, there's only one thing worth eating for dinner. Meat. So, as a thankyou to our couch hosts, we took them out for what boys like best.

Barbeque.

The small suburb of Lockhart, on the skirts of Austin, is the BBQ town of Texas and definitely lived up to its reputation. We drank, we ate and we polished off every last delicious, saucy square inch of meat. Then we did what you would naturally do after eating two pounds of beef.

We went to the Lockart Elementary School carnival.

Riding The Zipper, a large ride full of twisting, turning carriages which flip upside down and inside out, probably isn't everybody's cup of tea after eating half a cow, but somehow Tyler and I made it through without losing our dinner. Although, he did lose his sunglasses as we were hanging upside down on The Kamikaze. If there was anything that made my stomach turn, it was the sight of the wirey, toothless carnies who were locking me into each death-trap.

After prying through every inch of Tyler's record collection, we threw Creedence Cleartwater Revival on the turntable, cracked open some beers and played Jungle Speed - a fast-paced, card game that involves matching shapes and colours and grabbing a totem pole. Not so great if you've had a few beers and suffer from mild dyslexia.

Molly and I were both a bit sad to leave Austin and our new friends, but with New Orleans on the horizon, we knew the bayous were beckoning.

Ciao for now. xo

Luck of the Irish

I'm going to skip the part where I apologise for, once again, letting an entire month go by without posting anything about my travels. 

Instead, I'm going to move right along to St Patrick's Day.

It seems one thing Banff knows how to do (other than be blisteringly cold) is celebrate holidays which have nothing much to do with the town or Canada itself. Much like Australia Day, St Patrick's Day is celebrated with all the green gusto Ireland has to offer, thanks to its community of Irish ex-pats. In fact, it's incredible the amount of people of sudden Irish-descent who crawl out of the woodwork when this holiday rolls around every year.

However, it seems celebrating the shamrock is as good an excuse as any to wear as much greenery as possible and drink until your thirsty again, no matter what your citizenship.

And if it's one thing the locals of Banff feel comfortable doing it's getting dressed up, getting drunk and ultimately making fools of themselves.

Which, of course, is exactly what we did. I wouldn't want to mess around with tradition now.

After a few beers at Bruno's (it was a Thursday night afterall and therefore my musical duties were required. I wore a hat in the shape of an over-flowing pint especially for the occassion), we headed to the ever lovely HooDoo nightclub, a hot spot frequented by old men with bloodshot eyes and roaming hands who've confused themselves for being 30 years younger than what they are. The old men were few and far between once us young-ens took over the dance floor with all the bravado of Michael Flatley. Lucky for my housemates and I, we had practiced our best Riverdance kicks in the comfort of our own kitchen before leaving the house.

Okay, so it was under the supervision of a few vodka-cokes.

Fiddle-dee-dee potatoes.

Ciao for now. xo

I Come From The Land Down Under

Ever since leaving home, there has been one celebration I have looked forward to with great expectation.

I considered my birthday, Halloween, Christmas and New Years Eve combined to be nothing in comparison to celebrating the one day a year when Australians are allowed to do what we do best - eat vegemite and meat pies, sizzle sausages, wear wife-beaters, reap the sunny rewards of our hole in the ozone layer and drink beer. Lots and lots of beer.

Usually, I would do all this in a bikini on the shoreline of my favourite Australian beach.

This year, I did it on the snowy plateau of Sunshine Village.

In Banff, Australia Day is regarded by Canadian locals and non-Australian internationals as the only acceptable day to stay as far away from the ski hill as humanly possible. For Australians, it's regarded as the one day when we can drink, eat, wear and behave like the rowdy bogans we all know we are, while standing in -15 weather.

Dressed in as much Australian paraphernalia as I could don - Australian flag shirt, Australian flag tattoos, Australian flag banadana and... an Australian flag, I made my way to the top of hill by 11am. Unlike many of the other Aussies celebrating in Banff, I did not stay up until the crack of dawn to see in Triple J's Hottest 100 song. Bright-eyed, bushy tailed and  flag-bearing, I snowboarded my favourite runs and then headed to Trappers

where an organised staff party was being held complete with VB and Toohey's Extra Dry bottles, 'Aussie' burgers with a beef pattie, fried egg, beetroot, pineapple, tomato and lettuce, home-made meat pies and a hundred of my closest, drunkest, rowdiest Australian 'mates'.

After I'd drank a few too many Toohey's - affectionately referred to as Teddy's and of which I wouldn't ever otherwise drink if it weren't for the sake of national pride - and initiated a few too many Jager shots, it was fair to say I was in a pretty good mood. I went snowboarding, which at the time seemed like the smartest idea, but in retrospect was probably the wintery equivalent of drinking and driving and where I would have certainly lost my license had snow patrol been bearing breathelizers. Being alcoholically-fueled however, proved a great source of confidence on the slopes and I probably fell over less than if I was stone-cold sober as well as just plain stone-cold.

I may have been tipsy from the alcohol, but what made me all the more drunk was the pure happiness of simply being from Australia and celebrating my home-country like I had never celebrated if before. Sure, there was the occassional pang for home as I thought about how I would have spent the day lying at Tamara Beach with Sister Dearest, but surrounded by Aussies shouting 'Oi Oi Oi' and my neighbours attempting to toboggan down Strawberry run on a blowup Australian thong, I certainly felt more Australian than all the Australia Days I'd spent at home.

And while I may be losing my Australian accent more and more and consider watching ice hockey more thrilling than cricket, I still try to walk down the left hand side of the pathway.

I haven't converted just yet.

Ciao for now. xo