Seven = Heaven?

Okay, I don’t want to give the end of the story away, but I worry that I am way too good a writer and by now everyone who has read the last post has assumed Tom and I to be dead. We aren’t dead.

But waking up from a rather awful sleep, to the sound of heavy rain, the knowledge that Doritos and oranges were all we had to eat still, and the prospect of having to try to hitchhike or else go through another day like yesterday, was almost enough to kill us both off. The morning came way too quickly and these were the realities we had to face sooner rather than later. What a cruel cruel world. Besides, walking as far as yesterday would now be even harder due to:

1. The immense amount of mud this rain blanket had created.
2. Our malnutritioned and underfed bodies, subsisting on crap and vitamin C.
3. The fact that now our spines were contorted beyond recognition by the boulders we had slept on and around.

Wearily we arose, and had the joy of packing away a tent in pouring rain, stowing it in our waterproof bags to make sure every single one of our possessions within, dry and protected from the elements, was as sodden and soaked as the ground and the tent and ourselves.

As many people do in the morning, I went to the toilet. Within a few seconds, Tom came pounding on the door screaming out that we had got a lift! THANK GOD! Normally I would pull up my trousers, I would do up my fly — but a large jumper covers a multitude of sins, so I leapt up and flew to Tom and our anonymous hero, that was how desperate and how grateful I as to leave this god forsaken place.

He didn’t speak a word of English, but he did take us to a place where we managed to get a lift reasonably quickly — mostly because Tom stood in the rain and looked as miserable as he felt, with lorries hurling past spraying waves of filthy motorway runoff water into his face, whilst I stood under some shelter with the bags. A couple pulled up, upon seeing a saturated Tom, and I swung both bags upon my shoulders, leapt over a ditch and lurched across the motorway straight into their backseat. Their car was customised with multicoloured pin-tacks all over the ceiling and walls.

Once again, we were left in a “really good spot for hitchhiking” — this has almost never worked out for us. This particular shithole town involved, once again, traipsing to the outskirts to find a motorway entrance. After hours in the rain we got a lift. Absolutely hours. It was grey and freezing and when we did get that lift it was only to a slightly more out-of-town motorway entrance. It was beginning to feel way too much like a less sunny, and therefore potentially even worse, yesterday. WHY DID WE EVER CHOOSE TO DO THIS?! HOW CAN WE END THIS SUFFERING!?!?

Again, we spent ages in the rain. We broke up the time by eating the last of our oranges, and crying. Well, I cried. I couldn’t tell if Tom was crying because my eyes were puffed up and besides, it was still pouring with rain.

But, eventually, a Spanish lady pulled over, and low and behold, she was going all the way to the ferry crossing place. We spent the first 30 minutes or so in silence, literally trying to stop crying and shivering — I think we were really shell-shocked. But though she didn’t have a word of English, through repetitive use of the word “loco” we described our journey to her in the best Spanish and sign-language we could. She laughed and cried in all the right places, and she shook her motherly, loving head and rolled her wise, knowing eyes at our youthful stupidity. Upon relieving ourselves of the tale of our epic adventure, she shook her head and said that she had picked us up because we looked so sad and desperate — and now she knew why.

So we did it. We did pay for ferry tickets, but there is no way that I think of that as cheating — it had been a horrible 36 hours, and a long week of being cold, wet, smelly and homeless. We were happy to buy tickets, even though at 35 euros each, they cost more than the entire week’s worth of food and accommodation and all other expenses had so far. It was money well spent.

Time for a holiday.

Hitchhiking to Morocco: Day seven was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

in layers and layers and layers

“The edge of chaos is the constantly shifting battle zone between stagnation and anarchy, the one place where a complex system can be spontaneous, adaptive, and alive.”

—M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity

My weekends are full of walking. And as I find my way, fog and sun and trees and wind never stop shuffling their order, keeping me in a constant state of jacketing and un-jacketing.

When I’m not wearing it—like when I was heading up 16th Street towards Valencia and the Mission District, past the old ballpark that’s now a grocery store where Joe DiMiaggio roamed centerfield for the Seals—I sling it through a strap in my brown bag, the same one that holds my phone, my red notebook, a couple of books, and a pen to mark everything up. I used that pen as I sat with some eggs and Borges, chatting with him in the margins about a lecture he gave in Buenos Aires on blindness. It was a gift, he said, and I had a few questions for him.

I had to use it again to update a list after breakfast when I left “Dog Eared Books” a little further down the road. It was the fourth lovely bookstore I had wandered into since I arrived in San Francisco, and the fifth was only a few hours behind. In fact, as I was to discover, “Green Apple” in Richmond might even have been a little better.

To get from number four to number five, you would do well to head toward Dolores Park, and when you climb for a moment and stand at the top, pausing to look around and watch the city roll up and down hills towards the bay—the same one Otis Redding was sittin’ on the dock of—you immediately think of the incredible tour of San Francisco that Dirty Harry gives during his epic pursuit of Scorpio. Then you think of your brother and smile, because who else does Clint Eastwood remind you of? And as you leave the park, you think of that Friday evening in Austin where you both had another one of his movies to watch—the goal being to see them all—and slowly got drunk while Eastwood dismounted his horse and did what you had never seen him do before: break into song. Remain speechless? Yes. Light a cigarette? Absolutely. Murder someone? Of course. But sing—sing? Never before had he done this. “Paint Your Wagon,” neither of you knew, was a three-hour musical, and you both just gave it your Friday night.

And one more memory: that same evening, after your decision-making had been affected by show tunes and alcohol, you decided to act on an emerging, urgent impulse: it was time to actually meet Clint Eastwood. Over the years, as you both re-tell the story—or try to, combining your hazy memories to piece it together—neither of you can remember what stopped you from actually boarding a plane. You remember searching for flights and assessing the different prices, but that’s where it stops. And it’s ok that it stops there because neither of you mind revisiting it, all you remember and all you don’t.

You think all of these things as you keep walking and turn right on Castro.

The Castro District was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the country (still the largest, I believe) and there is no mistaking it. I wanted to walk through it so I could pause outside Harvey Milk’s camera shop, “Castro Camera” at 575. His is an incredible story, one that ended with a tragic assassination actually inside City Hall. He had been in office less than a year—a true champion of sexual equality—and a disgruntled ex-colleague of his entered through a window and shot the mayor before he did the same to Milk. The building is no longer a camera shop, though it is a store that pays great homage to its previous tenant. There are photos of him everywhere, headphones connected to televisions that let you hear him speak, and shirts and mugs and stickers that let you wear slogans about acceptance and tolerance and how nobody should forget the cause his life is most strongly attached to.

As I stood outside and took a photo of the plaque in the sidewalk cement, a kind, older man who worked there came out and gave me a little bit of history. Harvey Milk lived in the apartment above, he said pointing, and here is the door that leads upstairs and this is where his ashes are scattered and down there is where he had to move when his landlord raised the rent. We chatted a while longer about the city and the changes and where things were and where they are and where they’re headed.

I find it nice to feel connected to moments and times I was not around to know myself, so I thanked him and left, heading further along, down a hill and up another. Unlike any other city I’ve been to, the neighborhoods of San Francisco do the opposite of blend. There is no graceful, easy transition from one to the other—they stack next to each other, their borders stark and definitive and clear. As suddenly as you are in one, you leave it and enter another. This happened when I turned left on Haight.

Complexity is a wonderful book, and it explores a branch of science that shares the same name. Waldrop centers his discussion around the gathering of brilliant minds at the Santa Fe Institute, and he spends a few hundred pages musing on one question: why is it that simple systems evolve and grow and combine over time into much more complex ones? Why, he wonders, do forces and ingredients combine into wholes much greater than the sum of their parts? Everything, he says, has its complex subsets: down from countries to cities to neighborhoods to families to individuals to organ systems to organs to cells to DNA—and they layer upon each other to create something their individual elements don’t intuitively add to. There’s a sense of infinite possibility, and in order to really understand it, one had better be alright with varying doses of uncertainty.

When you stand at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, it’s hard not to apply his thesis. A block further down Haight and you can see the apartment—a house now appropriately painted red, after one of his best blues tracks—where Jimi Hendrix lived. One of the first albums I ever owned was his live show in 1968 at the Winterland, an old ice-rink and music venue closer to Pacific Heights whose walls listened to Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springsteen. It’s an apartment block now, quite an unappealing one, and all that marks its existence are the recordings left behind.

Like Hendrix’s, with his exceptional rawness coming through the old amplifiers. He played quite a few times there, and if you listen to any part of any show, you hear everything you ever need to from him. The best part, though, is how he makes you feel the sixties. As he takes you through covers of Bob Dylan and Cream, and of course a few of his own, all drawn out the way good blues should be—the vocals an afterthought, the guitar on full display, taking 12-minutes to ease and build from start to finish—you think of the audience he was playing to. You think of what they had endured. What they were enduring.

A few months before Hendrix took the stage, Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis, and Bobby Kennedy soon after in Los Angeles. After the year began with Khe Sanh and the massacre at My Lai, the country had become fond of chanting “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” as the Vietnam War raged on. The President who was elected in a landslide four-years earlier would have lost in one if he ran again, so he didn’t. Nixon did and won, and in the next five years, LBJ died, Roe v. Wade was decided (both happened the same day, actually), and the country was betrayed even more by a sitting President. Days after the concert was over, Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the podium at the Olympics in Mexico City and raised black-gloved hands in silent protest—still one of the world’s most incredible photos. It is now a cliché to suggest, but there really is no other way to say it: in 1968, the world was in a state of transition and upheaval. Hendrix played to it night after night.

My favorite moment of that show comes after he finishes a long, brilliant version of “Red House”—he had already been unable to play one of his songs because he “forgot the words” and he was now out of breath and needlessly apologetic (“Sorry that it went kind of slow…”). Then he starts talking about how improvised everything had just been and how proud of it he was because of how authentic it made things, and as he continues his ramble, he buries a real truth about life and art and the sixties and writing and baseball and love and racing and everything about how we should live in a much longer, drug-fueled sentence: “…especially trying to play, you know, by feeling…which is the best way…”

A few years later, he left San Francisco to die in London. He was 27, full of barbiturates, and officially died of asphyxia—choking on his own vomit.

Less than half a mile from his old apartment is Janis Joplin’s. Her place—the one she moved to after she came and left Austin from Port Arthur, and before she died in Hollywood, also at 27, also overdosing—is a little bit closer than the house where the Grateful Dead lived and played, and on the other side of the street from the curiously Victorian home that belonged to the Hell’s Angels. Hunter S. Thompson lived nearby and wrote about them. Nearby is where Charles Manson and his “family” lived, before they left for notoriety and Southern California.

I was listening to Janis Joplin (it feels somehow incomplete to call her anything but her full name) as I walked, and even as I write, I hear the opening piano that leads into her best song. I suppose you could argue “Little Girl Blue,” (the crawling guitar matched with her searching voice, both backed by Beatles-esque strings is really quite perfect) but the best I can tell, her finest minutes are in “Kozmic Blues.” She took me all the way through Golden Gate Park, and quite fittingly. I think she would have been alright with the green and the flowers that looked so promising beneath the gray, drizzly sky. Her world always seemed raining.

If I had to point to a moment of perfection in what she left behind, I would take you to the end of “A Woman Left Lonely” (give me a song that builds any day). Like all her music, it’s so immensely feeling and sad—I mean, what kind of powerlessness has someone write, “A woman left lonely is just a victim of a man…”—but dressed up in her indescribably amazing vocals. About three minutes in, when the song is at its most emotional, after she has spent all her time getting you to the place she wants you, she just sings. No words, just voice.

Perhaps it’s easy to say, but sometimes language it too restricting. It stops short of allowing us the ability to say what we want how we want. It’s why we tap our heart when we tell someone we love them. It’s why we hesitate and use our hands and wander with our eyes when someone asks us why we love someone. Words add to emotion, they don’t replace it.

Pink Floyd had—and solved—a similar problem in the wordlessness of “The Great Gig in the Sky.” And maybe the best, most chilling example of all is Blind Willie Johnson, the man who hummed and groaned his way through “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.” Whether it’s a musician singing about heartache or a generation screaming for something more sensible, very often words just aren’t enough.

Some words get close, like when Sal Paradise finally got to San Francisco.

“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.”

When he published On the Road in 1957, it is surely doubtful that Jack Kerouac knew just where it would lead, but like it or not, it remains (along with Ginsberg’s “Howl”) the seminal work of the Beat Generation—a “generation” that took root in San Francisco. Their world centered around a small bookseller and publishing house called City Lights, and if you visit it, walk downstairs. That’s where the questioning world they named and unleashed would sit and meet and read and chat. The Beat Generation really wasn’t as pervasive as its name suggests, but it did logically progress into the rebelliousness that was to come a decade after, and a decade after that.

And as seems to be the case with all of the featured players of this era, in 1969 Kerouac also met an early death. After years of drug and alcohol abuse, he died in Florida, internal bleeding resulting from cirrhosis of the liver. I have no idea if Janis Joplin read Jack Kerouac or Jack Kerouac ever listened to Janis Joplin, but their connection exists regardless—they both occupied a city of districts and causes, each one spilling into the next: the Beats and the flower-power and the Castro, side-by-side, yelling for identity and justice.

What you have, then, is a small radius that brims with counter-culture. It’s a complex system—a collision of minds and talents—that produced more together than they ever could have done separately. And you can walk through it in an afternoon, your feet touching pavement that matters, step after step. These neighborhoods created soundtrack to America’s most famously rebellious series of generations.

There is peace (Scott McKenzie: “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…”), love (Janis Joplin: “All you ever gotta do is be a good man one time to one woman…”), sadness (Jimi Hendrix: “Manic depression’s touching my soul, I know what I want, but I just don’t know how to go about getting it…), and loss (Jefferson Airplane: “When the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies…”). Everything you need to know about America in the sixties can be found in things that grew alongside each other in a small part of a small city.

Jorge Luis Borges, the same brilliant writer I sat with at breakfast, sits with me at dinner. And tonight he’s offering me a way to tie all of this together.

“In every moment of our life we are weaving and inter-weaving.”

What he gives you with that sentence is an unarguable truth—one of those facts you have to nod at. When it exists only as a set of words, though, it’s incomplete. And so it needs something more.

Maybe it needs a time or a place or a story or some people or a person. Maybe it needs five good bookshops or a Clint Eastwood movie or a gay pioneer or a now-demolished music hall or a war with Vietnam or the apartment of a dead musician or a long walk through Golden Gate Park or some good lyrics or or a passing reference to Joe DiMaggio or maybe even a little Kozmic Blues. And ideally, it needs to take all of these and weave them together, telling the story of a few commingling forces.

What it needs is San Francisco.

San Francisco was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Cross-Country Story

Late last year, I turned 26. So, in the tradition of the great panel show QI, for the first half of 2014 I will be running through an alphabetical view on 26 things in my world so far.

On Sept. 26, 2012, I posted a thread on NeoGAF. It was my first public confession of a steadily-growing desire: I, a girl who had never left the Eastern time zone, wanted to go west.

Six months later, March 6, I landed at PDX. In heavy rainfall.

I still applaud the city for being so honest, right from the get-go.

I didn’t move to Portland that day. I’d like to think I’m a pragmatic girl, or at least one not so crazy as to cross the nation on a whim and a prayer. My visit actually included a job interview and a few looks at apartments that I managed to coordinate remotely. I wasn’t a tourist; I was a scout.

And I was in love. A frightened, nervous love, but by the time the Red Line dropped me back at the airport I knew my mind was made up. I had considered Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, the lot. Portland won.

About two months later, I hesitantly accepted a job offer and gave my two weeks. And since you only get one youth, I was going to become an Oregon girl by way of The Great American Road Trip.

Woefully unprepared for what I was doing, I packed up my New York life. I spent far too much money sorting out logistics. Friends visited to help pack crates and say goodbyes. Family, for various reasons, refused to.

The last visitor was my old friend, Sydney. I had proposed that she join me on my cross-country drive, and she agreed. We spent my last night in New York at a quaint hotel right off I-90, and on May 20th, we drove off.

Day 1

Sydney and I knew each other for years. But, we hadn’t spent much time so near each other. Not so much in each other’s company, but in a Ford Fiesta. It’s a small car. I fully expected we’d snap by Mountain Time.

But the trip was young, and we had our energy. We made it through New York and the Erie chimney of Pennsylvania without any fuss. The weather was kind, the company was good, the roads were clear.

Spirits were, therefore, high. We laughed at what we were doing and had inane little conversations about random girl-geek things. We were happy to be on the road.

I had planned this trip meticulously. I knew that we’d arrive in Cleveland for lunch, and sure enough we managed to just beat the rush at a downtown sandwich shop. It nicely fit one of the Road Trip Rules: never eat what you could eat at home.

Downtown Cleveland felt like a real, proper downtown. I wasn’t exactly used to it, having mostly lived in suburbs, but it was nice. Nothing exceptional, but nice.

To maintain the timing, and to give us a break from sitting in a car for hours on end, I took Sydney to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I’ve been to the Hall once before, many years ago (maybe a decade or so). It’s about how I remember it, but it was good to see it all again. And good to see a bit more hip-hop representation.

We talked about how the future history will look in the Hall; exhibits on MySpace and Soundcloud and the whole digital landscape. I was left wondering, in a world where the Internet offers every and any kind of music to anyone, would there even be rock stars like what the Hall immortalizes. It feels like there’s less of a reason to care these days, and less cohesive and emergent movements.

I also had my gusto for performance reignited. It’s hard not to wanna rock out after you’ve immersed yourself.

We rested outside South Bend, Indiana. Because of our I-90 approach, what we saw of the area was mostly Wal-Marts and strip malls, the sort of neighborhoods I sought to avoid. We passed up dipping into Michigan and instead, after dinner at Culver’s, got to resting. Driving a car all day, it turns out, is pretty exhausting. And there were five more days of it.

Day 2

My grand planning meant that Day 2 needed to get rolling nice and early. The reason: Chicago. We’d be crossing into Central time on the way, but even so, rush hour was to be avoided.

In avoiding both high traffic and toll roads, we snaked through South Bend and neighboring Mishawaka. Beautiful towns, much more visually interesting than what we encountered the night before. I felt bad for writing the area off entirely.

The snaking through Chicago was less endearing. Something about driving rather slowly through neglected ghettos with all your life’s possessions in the back of a hatchback is, it turns out, unsettling.

Ultimately, the detours weren’t actually saving time, and so they were abandoned.

First bit of planning gone awry.

Next bit was in visiting a friend near Sheboygan, the second-most amusing town name in our trip. We had planned on a lunch spot, only to find it closed. We wound up chatting music in a pizza buffet place. Turns out, the three of us share almost no tastes in music.

Third bit to go awry: what to do with our padded afternoon. The weather wouldn’t allow for mini-golf, and the midwest is slightly lacking in other distractions. So after several awkward fits of shrugging, we played Rock Band for a little while (I know the friend through the Rock Band Network) and called it a send-off to a series that had ended the month before.

Amid the day’s confusion and my slowly-worsening shoulder, the in-car chats got a little more serious. Somewhere in Wisconsin (the state seems to drag on for ages), Sydney confessed that she didn’t want to go back to New York.

I couldn’t blame her. We had gone 900 miles, put three Great Lakes between us and our hometowns. Neighborhoods rural, urban, and suburban were all still familiar, but with more and more new names showing up. We were going through change, exploring physically and metaphorically. It’s confusing and disappointing at times, but that doesn’t make it a bad experience.

Day 3

Next destination was Minneapolis/St. Paul. Getting there from Wausau, WI meant hours of country highways, the most rural of our drive yet. The sort of roads that only bend for the curvature of the Earth.

We were so bored, Sydney and I let our minds wander into absurd associations and topics just to provide some matter of stimuli. Red Bull proved ineffective. I don’t know how truckers do it.

We eventually made it to the Mall of America. Sure, it’s a blatant tourist destination, but the trip is all about doing things big and that’s what Mall of America is about.

But it wasn’t actually that interesting. It’s huge, but it’s all stacked on itself, so it doesn’t really feel that big. King of Prussia felt bigger. Plus, we didn’t go into the whole theme park in the middle (although, I admit, it was a bit of a sight). The Mall is huge, but only in the context of malls, which themselves are relatively small. We had broken the 1,000 mile mark by that point; a single building was never going to feel huge in comparison.

Lunch was food-court food, because it’s a mall. That’s what you do. Sure, there were approximately a thousand sit-down restaurants there, but it’s a mall so you eat mall food.

We left in drizzle. More gray, more straight roads, more lack of stimulation. By the time we stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota, I was virtually asleep.

Our dinner that night was the first time I felt really out of place. Sydney and I make a slightly odd pair; we obviously belong more in the city. And there we were, in a truck stop restaurant. The kind that serves chicken-fried steak that tastes like KFC and pours drinks in mason jars with no sense of ironic kitsch.

It was the halfway point — 1,550 miles. Middle of America. I had never been so far from my comfort zone. I was scared, tired, sore, and enjoying it.

Day 4

I thought Wisconsin was boring until I drove South Dakota. The state is so flat, it feels like the horizon is missing. There’s just nothing there.

Until the Missoula River. Writers should have to drive that stretch so they can experience a proper buildup and tension release. It’s just a river, but the dip towards it after hours upon hours of perfect flatness feels glorious.

If you’re crossing South Dakota, you pretty much have to hit Mount Rushmore. So we did. The buildup there is also pretty nice. Not only are there some surprisingly nice tourist towns at its base, it’s more than just faces in a mountain and that’s it. There’s a whole monument behind it, with an aisle of state flags leading up to the display. We stopped and smiled at the Oregon state flag, tangled up on its pole. It would be mine soon, we noted.

But for now, we had to snake back down the Black Hills (in a driving experience that felt out of Top Gear) and make our way to Wyoming. Where, no word of lie, tumbleweeds kept crossing our path.

Eventually, our path crossed Sheridan, WY. The winds were intense, so we rushed into the rest stop to gather ourselves.

Four days of driving were starting to really take their toll on my shoulder. At 625 miles, it was the longest single day of the entire trip. It was painful and tiring.

I did the math, based on past conversations. Sydney had never been further from home than that moment. I had been, but flying doesn’t have the same impact, the same intense sense of scale.

The reality of the whole thing hit us, and hard. We lived our lives near the Appalachian Mountains; now we were looking out at the Rocky Mountains. We had gone so far that the Fiesta’s trip meter, which maxes at 2,000 miles, rolled over. Neither of us had ever done anything even vaguely resembling this. The sheer scale was overwhelming.

We stood in that rest stop, alone save for an elderly couple in the other wing, and cried on each other’s shoulders, smiling.

Day 5

Montana and Idaho are actually interesting to drive through. Lots of mountains and winding roads. I was powering through the shoulder pain and foggy downpours like a woman on a mission. Maybe a part of me wanted to “butch up” after yesterday’s show of emotion or something.

Butte surprised me. Not because it was small — we had spent the night in a town with seemingly no traffic lights — but because, for whatever reason, it felt almost endearingly small. As in, the whole city was one tight-knit community that just knew each other so well. They worked together, they went to church together, they ate together. The pizza place we hit for lunch was packed, stuffed with residents socializing with each other and the owners. I could never live in Butte, but it had a positive character.

Even though folks were generally friendly all the way along, that was the first time I really noticed that small-town kindness. I never had to ask for directions (GPS and aggressive planning saved the day), but I had the feeling that everyone there would’ve been happy to point us the right way to Spokane.

The road to Spokane reminded me of my time living in northeast Pennsylvania. That was when I was really living among mountains, and the route was reminiscent of those highways. Roads were probably better than in PA, but after thousands of miles, we were starting to get somewhere that actually felt kind of familiar. Even the occasional industrial neighborhood sliced by the highway felt like areas in Hazleton.

Speaking of Pennsylvania — Spokane felt like Scranton. Bobby Roberts, a podcaster that Sydney’s a big fan of, calls the place “Spo-Compton”. It’s a city, worth putting on a map, but it gave the impression that its best years were and may always be behind it.

But damned if it’s not trying, at least. We stayed in a cheap yet trendy hotel that I could probably claim was somewhere in Portland or Austin. We went to dinner at a mall that seemed to be recovered from some past industrial life. There were recognizable chains with urban-styled locations. I don’t know that Spokane will be successful, but at least it’s not wallowing.

Day 6

When you’re afforded the chance to go to Walla Walla, Washington, you go. Not because it’s a great city — there’s a nice small-town-feel main street but not much else. No, you go because that name will never stop being funny. That’s why we went.

Eastern Washington (and Oregon) is mostly farms, but it’s also mostly hilly and swerving. A lot of spots that look like Bliss. A good place to talk about how much we appreciated each other; in my case, for the company on such a massive undertaking; in Sydney’s case, for showing her an experience she never expected to have.

We cried a little on Route 730, as we passed the sign: “Welcome to Oregon”. We were home.

The following day was filled with spats of tourism, visiting the Tardis Room and the Japanese Gardens and the like. Sydney flew back to New York the day after, after a great deal of begging to stay. The moment she returned, her job hunt became aggressive; it’d be a few more months before she could make the return flight and become a fellow Portlander.

I know we were both interested in moving here long before the whole drive happened. We had different reasons, different things we wanted out of the city, but we both had the desire. Yet I can’t help but feel like extending that invitation made her want to move.

Perhaps it’s just the manifestation of knowing that, between the long miles and spotty restaurants and Foo Fighters sing-alongs and rest stops and tourist traps and unfamiliar hotels… it changed her life.

It changed both of our lives.

And now, a moment of zen:

Exploring the labyrinthine caves beneath one of Budapest’s wealthiest suburbs.

“Oh my God, I’m stuck!” — the thought races through my head as I desperately struggle to free my left arm from several thousand of tons of rock. My feet scrabble on the dusty floor with not even a hint of success. Panic rises as I realise this time I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

I was warned. Previous visitors were quick to say that if you’re not a fan of confined spaces exploring the Pál-völgyi-Mátyás-hegyi caves probably isn’t that great an idea. But, of course, I wouldn’t listen. How could I miss out on one of the top things to do in Budapest?

Plus, people always exaggerate how bad things are.

Don’t they?

Beginning to hyperventilate I realise I’m going nowhere until, with one great heave, a friendly hand pulled my arm free and the rest of my body through the tiny gap in the rock.

Panting, I roll onto my hands and knees, my face covered in dirt and a thin sheen of sweat that does little to conceal the pallid grey of someone who has found themselves in well over their head. “Caving is a team sport” our hyperactive Hungarian guide reminds us before inviting us to slide headfirst down a stone tube only marginally wider than the one I had just escaped.

“Does anyone ever have a panic attack?” a member of the group asks barely concealing their own fragile state. “Never” claims our guide, “people freak out as soon as we get them into the tunnel if they’re going to”, referring to the low-roofed Nazi bunker through which we had entered the cave system.

Not comforted but knowing that I was beyond the point of no return I take a few deep breaths and try to steady my nerves. The group laughs nervously at shared gallows humour while our number decreases one-by-one down the narrow stone chute. Then it was my turn.

Sliding and swearing I spill out the far end of the pipe and into a great underground cavern. Formed by the pressure of the thermal springs that make the city so famous, Budapest’s caves only became explorable as nearby Danube eroded itself towards sea level, draining the scaling mineral water along with it.

Above me, hundreds of tendrils carpet the ceiling — thread thin extensions of roots belonging to trees some 20 meters above our heads. With the warning not to touch anything above eye height for fear of triggering a collapse I duck these creepy reminders of the world above and rejoin the group.

Overhead the shadows cast against imprints of fossilised crustaceans by our flickering headlamps give them an eery sense of movement. Momentarily lost in thought, I perk up just in time to hear the guide explain that millions of years ago the entire area used to be under the sea.

Down stone slides and over piles of rock we slipped and climbed, initially thankful for our padded boiler suits before their thick-weaved fibres left everyone drenched in sweat. Before the tour they had warned that the caves were a cool 10c and that we might get cold, halfway through and all I can think about is stripping off.

The guide, sensing that the group had finally overcome it’s early panic goads us through tighter and tighter cracks, eventually daring us to take on a tunnel so narrow that you have to turn your face on it’s side so you don’t bang your nose on the roof. “I’m not going to do this” I think to myself, “it isn’t even possible”.

One by one the rest of the team struggle through the tunnel until I’m alone in the dark.

The only thing worse than getting stuck is being left behind.

My arms stretched out to make myself as thin as possible, the rock still presses on both my front and back at the same time. Thanking my stars I’d skipped lunch, I shuffle inch by inch on my shoulder blades, unable to see the way out. After what feel like an eternity my head is free. I’ve made it! Reborn from the rock!

A few caverns more and it’s almost over. Just one more tiny hole to squeeze through and we’ll be back. I push, I struggle and then I’m free — the bunker that had seemed so intimidating just a few hours ago now a welcoming retreat. We emerge blinking into the light, every single member of the group buzzing from the rush of making it out alive.

I, for one, am grateful that a well-earned ice-cold beer awaits me back at my hostel and that the healing warmth of Budapest’s thermal baths will be able to work their magic on my aching back tomorrow.

Make it happen

The caving tour costs 5000 HUF (around £15) if you book it there which is an absolute bargain if you ask me. You can find out more on their website or book it online here for about £20.

I stayed in Carpe Noctem hostel in Pest and really liked it. It’s super friendly and has a great vibe so is perfect for solo travellers. While there’s plenty of party it all takes place out of the hostel so no stag groups (or rugby teams — sorry lads, you were just a bit too crazy for me) to contend with.

Easyjet from London to Budapest cost me £150 return but I only booked the week before so you can do way better (e.g. £50 return). If you don’t have exact dates Skyscanner is amazing.

If you’re going to do something crazy like caving it makes sense to have travel insurance that covers adventurous activities. I always use World Nomads as they aim themselves at adventure travellers but you should check that they meet your specific needs and theres’ no fine print.

Want to know more? Say hi @tomhewitson on Twitter or at www.tomhewitson.com

Hitchhiking from London to Morocco, because why not? 

Day one

Technically we began this adventure fraudulently. Central London to Mottingham on a train —that’s cheating right? Technically it’s still within London, and if we’d wanted, Tom, Sydney, Hester, Timmy and I could have walked there from our fronts doors, it just would have taken 6 hours. Slightly worse for wear from last night’s escapades (end of term celebrations), we set off at 10.30 am, and Tom and I parted ways from Sydney and Hester (who were waiting for Timmy to arrive on the next train) at Mottingham station, bidding them farewell until we would meet again in Morocco!

But then we needed the loo, so returned to the station, and then when we did actually leave them and started trying our hand at hitchhiking (for the first time!). An hour later they joined Tom and I, who were still firmly rooted at a Mottingham service station, and picked up a lift within minutes. Indignant and loudly cursing their now far away arses, we were reminded of the importance of being kind to people even when they steal your only chance of a lift, by the heavens opening up and smiting us with a late-March hail storm.

We decided to individually ambush all those unfortunates who happened to abide by road laws and stopped at the traffic lights down the road. So sign for Dover in hand, I traipsed up and down the traffic, and lo and behold a woman yelled to get in! Unfortunately to do this I had left Tom with both of our massive bags, now a considerable distance away: sprinting with a bag the size of a fat, legless St. Bernard under each arm was a sight to behold.

Anyways, as far as first lifts go, we struck lucky: a lovely Martinique couple who were keen to try out their brand new car drove us all the way to the white cliffs of Dover.

As we approached the ferry terminal, we saw hitchhiker after hitchhiker… no one seemed to have had any luck. Rumour had it that only 2 groups had managed to hitchhike across the channel that day, others had given in and paid the £30 fair after 6+ unsuccessful hours. Despite our eventual luck, I was still a little bitter and knew deep in my soul that those lucky bastards that we had started this adventure with were undoubtably one of those two groups (I was right!), so out of sheer audacious determination and naive optimism and, let’s be honest, mostly poverty, Tom and I decided to join the multitudes and give it a go anyways. Barely 20 minutes later we were picked up by a lovely man named Pungadjee — he regularly commutes all the way from Germany to the UK… lucky for us, but a killer for Monday mornings I’d think.

The ferry was fun! We explored, took selfies, chatted to staff, and were given free shots by a bored shop attendant of the most expensive alcohol I have ever seen: smoked vanilla and molasses rum, and then gold leafed cinnamon spiced vodka. Literally no one was going South once getting off the ferry, partly because 1/4 of the ship were fellow hitchhikers (mostly paid passengers who had given up — HA!), there was a coach trip going somewhere North, and then there were a ton of Ministry of Defence people, none of whom could tell us what exactly they were up to except that they had strict no-hitchhiker policies. WHATEVS. Pungadjee dropped us off in a nearby town and we walked to the service station to camp out for the night…

Hitchhiking to Morocco: Day one was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Otherworldly Drama in a Very Foreign Place

Have you ever opened your hotel room door and seen a bunch of wild monkeys in the hallway walk right by you like they’re paying guests in the room down the hall?

Welcome to India. My fiancée Laura and I came here because I’ve never found a place outside my home country that I like more. Laura’s never been here, but she’s a seasoned traveler who cut her teeth backpacking in Africa and loves foreign countries, the more foreign the better.

We’ve just left our hotel and are in a taxi headed to the train station. Our cab is driving down one of the city’s main streets, a pretty normal street, which in India means it’s teeming with people, animals, surreal chaos and a lot of color.

On every block of every city women and girls right down to the youngest toddlers are covered in gorgeous, dramatically colorful flowing robes and saris, embellished in raucous elegant jewelry, decked out way beyond the bounds of acceptable western style. Groups of women of any age are an explosion of color that give any street rich vivid visual flavor.

Cows, oxen and water buffalo wander free, like they do on pretty much every street in this country. Monkeys careen off rooftops, dangle off of electrical wires, amble along the sidewalk, nurse their young, linger and skirmish and frolic and dance just out of arms reach. We pass a camel standing waiting for orders from its owner on a street corner. I catch a glimpse of an elephant cruising down a crowded side street. Herds of hundreds of goats grind traffic to a halt — this happens so often you stop noticing after a while. Dogs chase cats, cats chase dogs, vehicles swerve to avoid the chase, people swerves to avoid the vehicles.

Hindu culture may be famous for its holy cows, but all of these animals are holy here. To live in India is to live among wildlife, not just in farms or villages but in cities of millions of people.

We’ve arrived at the train station and are boarding our train, gearing up for a nine hour ride across the countryside. The dusty rattling train car was probably built in the 1930's or 40's. Locals in our car stare at us unblinking as we settle in, as if we’re beings from another world. We are. I counter their stares with a smile and they grin ear-to-ear. The air is cleared and we’re old friends for the rest of the ride, pantomiming and sharing snacks. This happens over and over.

Train travel is iconic to India — when I was here ten years ago the Indian railway network was the largest employer on earth. It might still be. India is vast, like my home country the United States. There are well over a billion people within its borders, quadruple the population of the US — it’s the second largest country in the world by population, just behind China. Their overstressed railway system carries eighteen million people a day (Amtrak by comparison carries less than 100,000).

Our train leaves the station and we have a look around. Indian trains keep their doors wide open while the train is in motion — sometimes they just don’t have any doors at all. Feel free to stand in the empty shell of a doorway and watch the world go by — the locals do it all the time. It’s exhilarating, just hold on tight.

Scrub brush and endless farmland fly by. Women in bright saris walk gracefully through the fields carrying massive bales of hay on their heads. Gypsy women wearing huge gold nose rings and rich red patchwork robes lead water buffalo tilling cotton fields. A caravan of cattle-drawn carts rolls down a road parallel to the train tracks. Empty desert rolls by for awhile, then I spot a young girl alone in the blazing sun carrying the largest hatchet I’ve ever seen.

We’re stopped at a small train station now — I can see that things are getting chaotic in the train cars with the cheapest seats. Way more people than can fit in any one car are crushing their way through the doorways trying to get on. People trying to get off crush their way right back. Some getting on have tickets, some definitely don’t, some don’t make it on to the train at all — there isn’t nearly enough room for everyone. It’s too crowded for the conductor to check tickets.

Each of those train cars is now overfull in a way we can’t really relate to in our orderly western lives — people are more than willing to endure the throng of humanity inside the train in the crippling heat or dangle out the open doorways for hours just to get where they’re going. I feel a swell of gratitude that we paid a few extra dollars for seats in air-conditioned cars, where every ticket gets checked carefully so the car isn’t subject to the crush.

We arrive in Jodhpur, a six hundred-year-old desert city ruled by maharajas up until mid-last century. We’re here in time for Holi, a holiday where India takes the day off and goes batshit insane.

Locals start playing pounding Bollywood music out of huge speakers around 8am. Today people in every town and every city in this country will run wild and frolic in the streets dousing friends and strangers in powdered paint, every color of the spectrum. Anyone loose on the streets is fair game.

A lot of locals are drunk or high by mid-morning. Men spot me, pull out handfuls of powdered paint and rub it into my bald-shaven head. A few minutes after I step out of my hotel my clothes are covered. Everyone’s clothes are covered. People are dumping buckets of paint off the rooftops.

A guy down the street has just ripped his friend’s shirt right off his back — the topless man is laughing and flailing as his buddy picks him up and tosses him in a pool of water. Around the corner there’s a dance party going off in a town square, people are crowdsurfing right out on the sidewalk.

I pass by a large family — one of them dumps a bucket of water on my head and invites me to dance with them in the streets. I oblige, and in the mayhem I accidentally back up too close to a wandering bull. Damn! He head butts me in the ass. I stumble a few feet forward and catch my breath.

It’s 99 degrees in the sun and two teenagers have filled the neighborhood with a primal drumbeat pounded out on camel skin drums. I’m assaulted by children with water balloons from up above, families are nailing me with them from balconies four stories off the ground. Groups of kids on the street carrying high volume pump-action water guns are attacking me — my sunglasses are covered in water and paint and I can’t see. The glasses are there to protect my eyes from the flying paint and taking them off isn’t an option, so I’m forced to run.

I love every minute of it. This is my kind of party.

Laura and I wind up at a rooftop shindig overlooking the main town square. It’s crowded with people and we’re all dancing up to our ankles in garlands of marigold flowers, wading through tens of thousands of orange flower petals covering the rooftop. Clouds of powered paint explode in the air. Locals are scooping stacks of petals off the roof onto trays and lobbing them at anyone close enough to get covered.

Members of the press and TV camera crews are on the rooftop recording the spectacle. Laura is deep in the fray covered in a rainbow of paint — she gets cornered by reporters and gives an interview: seven news crews train their cameras on her. We never get to see if she made it on TV, but a photo of me dancing on the rooftop winds up in the city’s newspaper the next day.

Cowritten with Laura Wald

While you’re here check out some more of my photos…

My experience accepting a job as an Au Pair

It started out harmless.

A casual conversation with a friend of a friend about the year she spent abroad working as an au pair in Australia.

The scars still fresh from a failed five-year relationship, I was searching for a cure to the pain. An exit strategy.

Not to mention I hated my job, and the direction it was taking me.

Arriving in my empty windowless office I found myself in front of my computer googling “au pair jobs abroad” and “best countries to be an au pair”. I had an hour each morning before my office was filled with noisey nosey woman. And I used this time to indulge in my fantasies of moving abroad.

Without any expectations I made a profile on an au pair website. Answered three simple questions. Where do you want to go? How long do you want to stay? When do you want to leave? Anywhere, Forever, Now.

Next thing I know my inbox is filled with inquiries from families all over the world. Australia, Italy, France, Germany. I found myself emailing back and forth with dozens of families. Setting up Skype interviews at odd hours of the night.

Okay this is getting more serious.

A hesitant call to my Dad and then my step-Dad. Too nervous to talk to my Mom and explain what I was considering doing.

A couple months went by. I had found an amazing family in Dusseldorf, Germany. The mother was from Charleston (the city I had made my home the past 6 years) and it felt like a sign that this was the perfect match. But after looking over the visa guidelines for an au pair, there was one hiccup. A new law stated that I had to pass a German test before starting the visa process. Learn German in a month? Not going to happen. And so it was over.

Well that was fun. But really? What was I trying to accomplish? Did I think running away would be that easy?

A couple more weeks went by, and I had ended my search.

I’m not sure why I went back on that website and broadened my profile to include one more country, Denmark.

The first family I came across had three little boys. Well that’s too many. Everything I had read said that first time au pairs should stick with two kids at most.

I sent them a message anyways. What the hell? I’m not really going to leave anyways.

Next thing I know I’m skyping with them at 6:00 pm my time and Midnight their time. Immediately I loved them. They were so friendly and warm.

Could I really move to Denmark? God its so cold there. But I went to college with a girl who was studying abroad from Denmark. Might be nice to know at least ONE person.

One more skype “interview”. And then a follow up email.

“Hi Britta,

I have been in contact with many other interested au pairs ( suppose it’s quite trendy to work as an au pair in Denmark at the moment).We both think that you undoubtedly match our family perfect and would like to offer you the job as an au pair from the middle of January and as long as you like (max 24 months). I am sure that we will get on well, that you will be a big help in our everyday life and that we can offer you a really great stay here in Denmark and hopefully a long-standing friendship☺”

Okay, now I think I really found the perfect family. I drove home the next weekend to talk with my mom and step dad about me possibly accepting this.

The host family gives me two weeks to make a decision.

Battling back and forth whether moving away for an entire year is something I could actually do. The stress and excitement about this decision completely overwhelming me.

Five days till my decision deadline. Drunkenly blurt out at a party that I am moving to Denmark. Most likely out of defense that I was doing just fine after my recent break-up. Okay, if I start telling people about this then I will have to do it.

One day till my decision deadline. One last phone call to my step dad. He asks one basic question.

“If you don’t move to Denmark, will you be sad?”.

The answer was simple. “Yes”.

“Well…I guess you are moving to Denmark then”.

And that was it. I hung up the phone. Immediately I typed up an email to accept the position for one year in Denmark. Just have to press send. Rocking in a chair on the front porch with my roommate. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Anxiety and excitement swelling up in the pit of my stomach. I press down on the enter key. Heart skips a beat. Okay. That’s it. The email is sent. I look over at my roommate. I can’t believe I did it. I’m not all talk anymore. I’m actually moving. To Denmark. That’s 4,400 miles away.

I’ve been in Odense, Denmark for 4 months now, and I can say, without a doubt that running away was the best thing I ever did. My host family is a perfect match. I’ve made some amazing friends. I’ve already traveled to 4 different countries. With plans to travel to 5 more in the next two months. Being an au pair has finally enabled me to travel as much as I’ve always wanted. I thought a life like this wasn't possible. But not anymore. Now I’m chasing the World. And damnit if it’s not the most beautiful thing ever.

The Decision to Leave was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My search for an Aussie life in some conventional and some not-too-conventional places

It never occurred to me that moving to a new country in your mid-30s would be a whole different kettle of fish to moving to a new country in your 20s.

I’d lived in Spain for going on 7 years when I moved to Australia. During my first two years in Madrid I was engulfed in the warm embrace of my fellow international colleagues. Our work hours were late and so were our drinking hours. 2 or 3am finishes on a week night were not entirely uncommon. 6 or 7am finishes on the weekend were standard. During those first 2 years, I can’t remember a single evening when I didn’t count the number of hours of sleep I’d be able to get or plead with myself to have an early night the following evening. I didn’t know then that I was living in Europe’s officially most sleep-deprived capital.

Around that time, a uni friend put me in contact with her best mate; an English girl with a Spanish boyfriend who was looking for pal. We met at a terraza in Opera. She had a coco-cola, I probably had a beer. I talked incessantly and she grinned. It was like an awkward first date and after an hour or so we said our goodbyes. I had the impression that I’d overwhelmed her with my buffoonery. She was much quieter and more considered. I doubted we’d catch up again.

Two days later, I got a phone call. “Oh my god, my Dad is visiting with his evil girlfriend. You HAVE to come to dinner with me.” OK. I guess we were friends. At dinner, I talked and talked — as was my party trick - and she seemed to survive a bit better thanks to my presence. We became best friends.

She had one or two other best friends — Spanish friends. My Spanish was still very rusty. With a certain amount of alcohol, it was much better . Too much, it was worse than stone cold sober. It was a delicate balance. We met them in bars. They brought more friends. Soon 5 or 6 of us were meeting up on a regular basis, and overwhelmed by the speed of the conversation, the slang, the sudden change in subject, the flying insults and compliments and general volume of the noise — which even I couldn’t compete with — I would sit, like a stunned fish in the corner, inanely grinning and nodding at any word I may have understood, regardless of whether I’d understood the context or not.

I would be both excited and terrified by the prospect of being able to contribute something, anything to the conversation — ideally in context. My “sííí’s” were long and emphatic. My “no me digas” (no way!) confidently projected, even though there was only a 50/50 chance of understanding what I was in a state of shock about.

My worst misunderstanding occurred when my beautiful Spanish friend, who spoke zero English, invited me go to her parent’s country house in the mountains outside Madrid. I was delighted to accept, and in relief at having understood the departure details, paid no attention to any subsequent information. As I excitedly approached her at the bus station the following Saturday, she pointed at my handbag and said “where’s all your stuff?” “What stuff?” “We’re going away there for the weekend. You didn’t bring any clothes?” Shit. Saturday night, I was out in the best of cousin Maria’s wardrobe.

Such social disasters made me feel like the special kid whose friends had taken pity on her — a charity case. I had no idea why these Spanish chicas invited me along to participate in almost everything that they did; parties, trips to the cinema, weekends away to meet the family. They really liked me and I really liked them, but it was based more, I guess, on the recognition that we were similar people, rather than any sparkling conversation I was able to contribute. It was a completely new kind of friendship for me and it was kind of amazing.

So, with a successful track record of creating a social life in a new city where I couldn’t even properly communicate with the locals, I landed in Sydney feeling fully equipped to do the same in Oz. I had the language, I had the contacts and I knew what a quoll looked like. No ex-pat life for me. I would have Australian friends and live The Australian Life.

Plan A — Live with Aussies

I’d had my own apartment the whole time I’d lived in Madrid, but, practically speaking, had been living with Australian friends for the previous 2 and a half years. They liked to cook and knew how to download movies.

It wasn’t just me “living” there. There seemed to be a never-ending stream of family, friends, friends of friends, couch surfers and others who were invited to stay. No stay too long, no claim to friendship too tenuous. Having heard of many Aussies living 8 to a 2 bed apartment in London, I deemed that this was, indeed, The Australian Way.

So, when I moved into a shared house in Paddington, it never occurred to me to get the “ok” signal from my flatmates before I started filling the calendar with visits from friends and family. I have to say, on the whole they were awesome. The first few batches were welcomed into the home, and pals on blow-up mattresses on the dining room floor were courtesly tip-toed around when leaving for work in the morning. However, understandably, this soon became a little tiresome for them.

Then there was the weevil incident. Well, 2 actually. Being new to Oz and not understanding the proliferation of all types of wildlife into the human living area, I didn’t realise that all food kept in cupboards needed to be stored in such a way that it would survive a nuclear attack. I know I absolutely should’ve learnt my lesson after the first time we had to throw out all rice, bread, cereal and other foods. But I didn’t. It happened again. It was no fun for anyone and especially not for my flatmate that found herself, once again, waging war against the critters while I was out God knows where.

Shortly after, the shared living experiment ended. Best to be left to create my own mess and run my own hostel.

Plan B — Do Stuff

I like doing stuff, so this part of the plan to meet Aussie mates was going to be easy. The first bit of “stuff” I did was to sign up for a charity ocean swim. This would surely take me straight into the inner-sanctum of Aussie life because there is nothing more Australian than a good ocean swim. We’ve all wanted to be a member of the Summer Bay surf life savers’ club. I was about to make the fantasy of millions of Brits a reality.

Now, the problem with this as a tactic for meeting people, and especially potentially meeting guys is a) you’re in a swimming costume, a tight plastic cap that makes your face look like Joan Rivers’ and goggles and b) your face is in the water 90% of the time. Makes chit chat a bit tricky.

It was an incredible experience, but did basically nothing for my social life.

Another bit of stuff I did was to join a Mountain Biking group. I scoured the internet for ages looking for a cycling group that didn’t cover 80km before work on a Wednesday morning. Not much luck.

I did, however, find a mountain biking skills course, which led to a mountain biking weekend in Canberra which was absolutely fantastic. One of the girls on the weekend was much fitter than me, but much more of a scaredy-cat and, consequently, we ended up being at the same level. She suggested I join her Mountain Biking group via the Meetup website (I joined other Meetup groups too — more sappy ones which I abandoned early on).

It was great. We headed off to Wingello State Forest and did another muddy track closer to Sydney. For the first time in 18 months I encountered a group of predominantly heterosexual men. It was unbelievable. Scaredy-Cat and I dilly-dallied around at the back while the others catapulted themselves ahead. It was fantastic.

Alas, the lack of a car to get to many of the locations ended up putting a dampner on this hobby. Scaredy-Cat was able to give me a lift when her pro-MTB pal was away, but otherwise it was a little tricky scamming lifts off people who generally lived much further away. I should’ve really looked at another solution — like buying a clapped out anything, because it was really ace.

Plan C— Invite yourself to dinner

An Aussie friend in Madrid had shot a few emails ahead of my arrival to friends of hers in Sydney. We made tentative plans to meet, but time passed and the emails disappeared into the back pages of gmail.

Some 18 months later, I saw a Facebook interaction between my pal and one of these “introductions.” Puffed up with courage, and a certain amount of desperation, I joined in, offering a great bottle of wine in return for a dinner invitation. A date was set. Other friends invited. A great feast was planned. As the date approach, I realised, with total mortification, that I was travelling with work that day. I called and apologised profusely. No matter, the generous pal said. We’ll just move it.

And he did. It was a great night. We ate stupendous food, drank stupendous wine, swapped tales of Madrid, Sydney and life in general and I came away full of glee at having made two new lovely friends.

In return for their hospitality, I wanted to return the favour and set a date for dinner at mine. I knew I couldn’t cook, but I wanted to show how much I appreciated their effort so spent the weekend honing my culinary skills. The Italian chicken cacciatore came out a blinder first time round. No need to worry about that. The self-saucing lemon sponge took more effort but by my 4th sponge I was confident that I had a crowd-pleasing dessert ready to go.

By the time the boys turned up that evening, my nerves were fraught. It’s very annoying how nervous I get when I entertain. I think it’s the anticipation that you’re not just being judged on your personality but your whole kit and kaboodle. They were greeted by a stiff smile and a manic invitation to make themselves comfortable at my best Ikea formica table. Shortly after my other pal rocked up, having had a shit day at work. She was lovely, warm but similarly frazzled.

The cacciatore came out. It looked a little different to the prototype. “Oooh,” proclaimed the recent arrival. “I love hotpot.” “At least the dessert’s safe” I thought. We picked our way through the chicken drumstick dowsed in its watery sauce and had a nice old chat. I got up and popped the dessert in the oven, and after what seemed like an eternity, but in fact was obviously about 3 minutes, took it out and served it — cold self-saucing lemon sponge and ice cream. Outstanding.

I saw those lovely boys once more after that. They invited me to a party where I drank, moaned and made poor song choices for the dance floor. Never mind.

Plan D— Volunteer

I’d always wanted to volunteer. In Spain, I’d been a little intimated by the prospect of trying to console a desolate Spaniard with less than perfect Spanish. Australia was my opportunity to get stuck in.

I fell in love with The Wayside Chapel from the moment I stepped through its doors. With its $8 million make-over it looked nothing like a drop-in centre for the homeless, which, to all intents and purposes, it is. They said all the right things about the importance that my contribution of handing out towels and toiletries to the city’s less fortunate and clean would make. More importantly, they had over 500 other volunteers on their books. This was where I was going to meet my Aussie clan.

I signed up for a fortnightly shift of 2 and a half hours. With an air of great trepidation and a little fear I arrived for my first shift. The girls on my shift were very nice. Both English, which I was more than a little disappointed with, but I watched as they warmly greeted each visitor, offered towels, jumpers, and clean undies. I began to join in.

A few people began to arrive asking where the Narcotics Anonymous meeting was. “4th floor,” I said with my most understanding smile. I noticed a guy in a suit having a snack in the cafe. “He must be here for NA too,” I thought. I was learning quickly. As he approached, I cheerily called to him “4th floor!” and helpfully directed him towards the lift. I continued to do the same with anyone else who I judged to be slightly better dressed than your average homeless character.

Later on that evening, one of the permanent staff members approached the front desk. “The Honeybees are practising tonight. They’re amazing. Do you want to come and hear them?” “The who?” I responded. “The Honeybees. The gospel choir that rehearse in the main hall here. Come on, I’ll show you.” We walked up the back stairs and crept into the main hall. Sure enough, there was the suit guy and a handful of other “well dressed visitors” I’d helped earlier on in the evening.

I fell happily into my fortnightly routine with another beefy lad who always wore a flat cap. Between switching on showers or charging phones we listened to his favourite jazz musicians and he shared an array of his political views. But with commitments of travelling for long periods of time, I reluctantly, but temporarily, gave up my shift.

When I returned to Wayside a few months later, I decided to up the ante and commit to a weekly shift. The Monday evening slot became free and I turned up to be greeted by a lost, lovely friend from my shared-house days, another bright, smart young girl who wouldn’t be out of place modelling in Harper’s and a shifty looking guy in his late 50s, with a worn rosary bead tattoo and a single headphone always hanging from one ear, who shuffled about smoking and directing the visitors wondering around in circles outside. Not for the first time, I wasn’t sure if he was a volunteer or a visitor, but that’s the point of Wayside — to be a community with no “us and them” which is why I no longer change out of my work clothes before I arrive. They can take me as I am. It turned out that The Shuffler had credit in the cafe which meant free tea deliveries from the twinkly-eyed, eternal truth-seeker who fed the visitors both with stodgy pound cake and music from his self-made ukuleles.

Monday nights are now my Saturday nights. I can never resist an opportunity to go for a few post-shift beers to listen the tales of The Shuffler. They make my eyes water and my toes curl, but I know I’ll never have another friend like him. As well as putting the world to rights, the 5 of us also get together to form the most feared trivia team in Kings Cross. “With not even one glance at their mobile phones, they have got the highest ever score. They’re just amazing,” declared the obnoxious quiz master. Really, we were the only team of over-20s (except the Harper’s model), but, still, it’s nice to hold some kind of status in the Cross that’s not linked to crime.

Looking back now, I guess I was never really looking for an Aussie life. I was looking to find a place in my new country where I felt like I fitted in. It’s been one hell of a ride testing many waters, trying on different hats and helmets and I’ll continue to do so. But in one of the grubbiest parts of Sydney, I found a little pot of gold which gives me a great deal to look forward to on a quiet weekend.

Cover photo of Malcolm Turnbull, ex-Leader of the Liberal Party and now Liberal Communications Minister and Animal, Kings Cross’ “favourite biker” taken at The Wayside Chapel’s 50th annivesary.

Found myself in a strange town was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What goes up… 

The day began with strawberries, yoghurt and bread given to us by the lovely couple from the day before, and most significantly: our first lie in. It was a beautiful day, and we frolicked through the pulchritudinous streets of Seville. (I couldn’t use “beautiful” again so I googled a synonym and like the sound of “pulchritudinous” so there you go.) There are so many little side streets and hidden cafes and secret shops, and the cobbles and walls, and general layout of the city is so beautiful, it was like being on a movie set for a Hollywood depiction of Spain! I since have looked up some info about Seville, and have learned that apparently, the Cathedral is bucket-list worthy… but Tom and I were feeling the pinch of having spent money on accommodation for the night, so decided not to spend 8 euros each on going in. DAMN US. If we’d realised maybe we would have… actually, knowing us, 8 euros is 8 euros. We probably would have still been too broke.

All in all, we were mesmerised by Seville. It’s so pretty that I decided to start planning a honeymoon there. I’m actually not obsessed with weddings or marriage or anything, I swear.

After a lunch of primarily olives, we decided to plod onwards with our journey, knowing that we were only 200 km away from the ferry crossing, very possibly we would be in Africa by tonight!

As with all cliched stories that try to build up tension, all I can say here is… Little did we know… blab blah blah.

Yeah. So basically we walked miles in the wrong direction to find a motorway exit — literally had to walk to the edge of the city, only to find out from some snickering mothers on a school collection round that we were waiting in the wrong place, still not exactly sure what was wrong about it. Anyways, it had taken us a bloody long time to get there — it was swelteringly hot and we had to keep walking. Upon finding a service station facing the correct motorway entrance, after absolutely hours we got picked up by a lovely guy who dropped us off about a kilometre down the road at what he insisted was a “really good roundabout” for getting to the Algeciras ferry crossing. By this time we had eaten the rest of our meagre rations of food. It had taken us all afternoon to get a couple of miles outside Seville. But we were so optimistic. So young. So naive.

Here we waited for three hours to no avail. As the sun began to set, and it began to get cold and darker, it dawned upon us that with no food and no real chance of being picked up here, we had three options: 1. hitch back into Seville even though we would have exactly the same issue of getting back out again tomorrow, wasting many many more hours and more money on a hostel. 2. Keep trying to hitch from this spot, but potentially have to camp on the roundabout and starve to death. 3. Walk until we find the next slip road/ service station and camp there till morning, obviously which would involve illegally walking on the motorway, so fingers crossed the police would pick us up and drop us somewhere good.

We chose 3.

Motorways are surprisingly lovely for long, rambling country walks, I’ll have you know, what with the constant thrilling question of “will we die?” looming over one’s head. The wildlife is exquisite, and ranges from the decades of litter humans have disposed of out of their car windows, to strangled weed flowers desperately attempting to convert petrol-infused air and carbon monoxide into oxygen. Deceased animals at all stages of decay are a fun additional feature: I mean, have you ever wondered how long it takes for a corpse to become a skeleton? Sure you have, and with so much opportunity to ponder these questions as you crush the little and not-so-little skulls of multiple species of deceased creatures, you even get to apply these questions to yourself, for example, “How long before we die Tom? How long before our bodies join all these rodents and sheep and foxes? How long before the next depressed and unsuccessful hitchhiker tramples our bones?” Additionally, one may come across a breed of dog surprisingly close to werewolves, when one crosses a caravan park which is, apparently, the best guarded caravan park in the world. A night spent camping secretly behind a shitty ill-stocked service station, who most substantial vegetarian options are oranges and Doritos to fill the growling stomachs that have been empty for hours of walking, is surely the best way to end such a day. I would highly recommend dozing to a constant splattering of rain to lull you to sleep on the earth that’s so lumpy it feels like it’s being passive aggressive. Once curled around a boulder, it is comforting to hear an endless drone of lorries and cars rush past throughout the night, knowing that most of them would probably find this whole thing amusing, ridiculous and pathetic, and still would not pick us up if we stuck out our thumbs and tried to flag them down.

We walked 25km that night, which we could see because of the signs above the motorway which marked how far away Seville was. Much of that walking was in the dead of the night. And yes, it really was as awful as I have melodramatically made out.

Hitchhiking to Morocco: Day six was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our addiction is our identification. 

Sitting at a cafe table in Piazza San Marco, I anxiously turn the box of matches around and around between my thumb and ring finger while gently holding onto a single cigarette. I impatiently wait for the seasoned waiter to bring out the double espresso before I strike the match and take that first inhale. The jetlag, herds of tourists and kit of pigeons make me anxious, and I need a fix. Except, I want the ritual to be exact, just so.

The combination of nicotine and caffeine hits the blood stream and immediately the distance between me and the pigeons and tourists widens. Relief comes even before my body assimilates the chemicals. The gentle clink of the espresso cup as the waiter sets it down, the flimsy paper of the cigarette touching my lips, smell of the sulfur from the match; the fixation is as much a matter of ritual as it is a deep seated craving.

Irrespective to the object of obsession—the red soles of Christian Louboutin, the timeless proportion of Hermès Kelly handbag, the intricate hand-woven details on a Jean Paul Gaultier couture corset, the expansiveness of the world seen through Sabastio Salgado’s lens, the shine of Jeff Koon’s balloon dog or the luminescent glow of Magritte’s sky—the reaction is the same. First, a restless, eager anticipation of what is to come. Upon sight and contact, a dilation of pupils, a quickening of pulse, followed by a momentary silencing of the world. Everything fades away. There is only you and it. Satisfaction has a taste; it is as good as you imagined it would be. Release and euphoria. Nostalgia and yearning sustain you until next time, until the next fix.

It is no wonder sex, drugs and rock n’ roll tend to be the default addiction for most people over fashion or art. The sheer economics of fashion and art make them prohibitive for most to seek a constant high.

Is there a direct correlation between the cost of fulfillment and the duration of euphoria? More importantly, why must we obsess?

I chew on the word. Fixation. Addiction. Obsession. My mind freely associates and stumbles upon the authoritative glow of the red light of the darkroom, warning others off; magic is happening in these dark chambers, do not approach. The sharp chemical fumes, the individual trays with developer, fix, wash and water bath. The practiced hand navigating in the dark and Joy Division crying in the background. The negative is carefully placed in the enlarger, and a single sheet of paper comes out from the thick plastic lightproof bag, locked down on the easel providing precise borders. The light comes on for a fraction of a minute. Then the paper is dropped into the developer, and the image appears. Next comes the fix, adhering the magic permanently in silver.

The obsession is an identifier; our individual self has been crowned with a noun as well as given a pack designation, a road map to find our own kind. The chosen interest renders our sense of self, places us into a category—permanent, much like the chemical solution.

I am a Dead Head.

I am a collector of vintage Chanel.

I am a connoisseur of fine wine.

I am a collector of modern art.

I am a street artist.

I am a photographer.

Some prefixes are riskier to enter into than others; art collector is an especially difficult one. The designation of collector implies expertise, wealth and knowledge, when in reality that is not always true. Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, a postal worker and a librarian amassed one of the most important post-1960s art collections in the United States. They lived frugally on Dorothy’s income, never ate out or traveled and only bought what they liked and could carry home. The Vogels dedicated Herb’s entire salary to collecting art, to getting that fix and pleasure they craved. Their pleasure was a private one, counter to the splashy headline-chasing acquisitions of others.

The self is an insatiable mistress. Her hunger is intensified by the Internet age, new media and the constant stream of endless options. Feed me, she demands. Before long, the method of construction of this self, this identity, becomes so well integrated, it is hard to tell where the label starts and the true self ends. Did we construct this sense of identity from the outside in or from the inside out? Are you choosing Yohji Yamamoto because you are avant-garde or are you avant-garde because you have an affinity for the Japanese designer?

At what point does one step over that invisible line and go from casually experimenting to being a hardcore addict? Or is this a slippery slope where once you pop, you can’t stop, and control is merely an illusion? Perhaps an even more interesting distinction is between obsession and passion. Is this addiction symbiotic and fluid? Or one-note, merely a prop like that second wife?

It’s hard to tease out the nuance. How can we build our fixations into a sense of identity while there are tourists and pigeons about? The double espresso is now a long forgotten memory, and I want to kiss the handsome stranger in the impeccably tailored suit, just to know what nicotine tastes like from his lips. Instead, I pick up my camera bag and disappear into the beautiful cliché that is Venice in a Helmut Lang jacket with Rag and Bone boots.

Fixation. Addiction. Obsession.  was originally published in Travel Narrative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.