Beetroot, Pumpkin & Lychees

During one of my many flights to Australia, a nice middle aged woman told me during conversation "to take pictures of all the strange things throughout your travels. You won't notice it during your time in Australia, but it's very easy to forget all those small, everyday things that you come to love."

As you know from my last blog, Em and I made it out alive from WA and are now soaking up the sun in Port Douglas, Queensland. With the remaining weeks hanging over my head, I've started to think of all the funny things in Australia that I've come to adapt to...and even think as normal. I'm actually worried - am I going to go through culture shock when I get back to Ohio?? I thought it was supposed to be in reverse!

I started to take more pictures. No, not like the million and one photos I have with Emily....but of cafe menus, street signs or odd things that catch my eye. A "sushi and waffle" place or an ice cream shop half turned into an Internet cafe....what strange combinations. On the other hand, how genius! Just think about it, if I have to run to an Internet cafe to print my resume, do you really think I'm going to pass up that mouthwatering milkshake that's staring me square in the face, especially when it's so easy to eat?? I love the fact that Australians are very much European when it comes to presentation. Colorful menus and chalkboard signs can be seen outside almost every cafe. Wide open displays of sandwiches and morning pastries. Even in cold Melbourne, outdoor seating would always be occupied - people enjoy being out in the crisp air and seem perfectly content reading the specials penciled on the window or scrawled on a large board by the door. The signs are both eye catching and HEALTHY. The biggest seller, which I just recently realized was a bit out of ordinary from home, is juice. Different concoctions of apple, watermelon, orange, pineapple and mango advertised as an "immune booster" or "liquid breaky!"....or ones that I'm not a big fan of - containing carrots, beetroot, ginger and honey to help those horrible hangovers or gain some antioxidants. The biggest difference from these cafes than the ones back home is the fact that they are simply juice. You watch the employee put the steroid size carrot through the juicer. You could even choose which apple out of the dozen if you're really that picky. No fake supplements or essential amino acids thrown in there to false advertise and bring up the price. It's just pure goodness and tastes delicious :)

I've also adapted to funny things like pumpkin used as a savory ingredient verses a sweet one. For the last time - no, I would not like pumpkin on my pizza! I don't even want to get started with beetroot. In my previous knowledge, I thought this was a favored vegetable of the older generations and maybe that odd family member. I stand corrected. Salads, sandwiches, dips, juice, pasta....you name it - it's there. Aussies could just eat this up. As for me, I'll be happy to make it back to my land of pumpkin pie and green colored salads.

I've tried to taste as much of the different foods 'down unda' as I can during my time spent in this country. Lychees are a very popular tropical fruit, eaten whole or found in sweets and martinis. It looks like a clear, egg shaped jellyfish to me....but if you get past the gooey texture, it has a nice sweetness to it. Add it to my martini, but that's about it for me. Kangaroo is an obvious popularity. My first meal of kangaroo wasn't until Perth, eight months into my trip! My main reason being how expensive it is. However, Little Creatures is known all over Perth for their kangaroo skewers...and with my employee discount, I couldn't pass it up! It has a slightly gamey flavor and unique tenderness to it that's unlike any meat I've ever had. Kangaroo also has the least amount of fat and highest amount of iron in comparison to any meat source...so it's definitely high on my list!

Meat pies. Sausage rolls. A full English breaky. Chicken/avo/capsicum toasties (aka avocado and peppers). Steak sandwiches. Kangaroo skewers. Wedges with sweet chili sauce. Olives and feta. Fresh Juice. I feel like I'm a fat girl trapped in a skinny body. I'm starting to make a list of my favorite meals that I know won't be the same when I get back home....hahah unfortunately, my list looks like it's made up of the unhealthy bar food and pastries. I haven't been good at keeping up a food blog, because honestly - I never eat out! The last time I've enjoyed "fine dining" was at a wood fire pizza place, celebrating our second night in Perth. On the other hand, if the life of a backpacker has taught me anything, it's how to eat on a budget. The key is friends....between four people and a bottle of wine, you can make a tasty spaghetti bolognese or vegetable curry for less than five dollars. Perfection.

I think that's enough rambling on food...I'm getting hungry and the last of my groceries are a tin of baked beans and half a loaf of bread to share with Emily. On a exciting note, Christa Rossell is on a plane to Australia at this very moment!!! It's been almost a year since we've seen one of our best friends and I couldn't be more happy to see her. The three of us have rented a camper van to take us down the east coast, stopping at all the hot spots, and ending in Sydney. We're saying goodbye to normal living, as we'll pretty much be living out of this van for three weeks!!! On August 17th, Christa heads back to the States as Em and I fly to Melbourne to say our final goodbyes to Australia. I'll try to write during our last adventure - but realistically, I'll be living out of a van....so don't be surprised if my next big blog isn't for a few weeks :)

~ Cheers ~

nomads

Melbourne – Ritz for Backpackers. Jessica House. Carlisle St, St. Kilda. McIlwrick St, Windsor.

Perth – Sundancers Hostel. Hines St, Hilton.

Port Douglas – Parrotfish lodge.

Seven homes in eleven months. I lived in all these places for various amounts of time in Australia, from one week at the Ritz to four months in Windsor. These are not simply names of places I’ve stopped over during a fun weekend on the Gold Coast or holiday in the Whitsunday Islands – they each had a special impact on me and at one point I considered each of these my home.

Think of your favorite place in the world. The place you go to in the back of your mind to calm you, focus, or meditate. If anyone has done relaxation exercises before a big race or big exam – you know what I’m talking about. It’s your “happy” place. Well, without going further melodramatic on everyone, I’ve found that place of mine. It’s a park at the end of the main street in Port Douglas, Queensland. A circle of grass carved out over the rocks with tall, outlining palm trees overlooking the ocean and mountains of the Daintree Rain forest beyond. Em and I went there the other day to take what must be the millionth photo and soak up the sunshine. We got to talking. Like I said, it’s my “happy” place….it brings out thoughts, emotions, laughter, reminiscing and smiles.

I leave Australia one month from TODAY. Eleven months have passed….and where have they gone??? Well, for one thing – it hasn’t gone like I expected. We rocked up to this country with wayyyy too much luggage, expecting to sort out comfortable housing, proper jobs and a steady life pretty easily. Mistake number 1. Things may look difficult, but that doesn’t mean it has to be terrible. I look back and we had the time of our lives just trying to figure out the journey. We thought hostel living would be the worst thing that ever happened to us. “Sharing a communal bathroom?? Yuck.” Well, without Ritz I wouldn’t have met the amazing friends that truly made up some of my best times in those first few months. And Jessica House...that’s just funny. I got to have a puppy for a few weeks, but really the only life lesson with that move was – don’t rush into things!! Our house on Carlisle Street in St. Kilda was a step up in the fact that we had our own place to take care of and call our own. We literally had to put the bunk beds together piece by piece and clean the bathroom with fuming chemicals until it finally went back to that original shade of bright green. We created a life of friends and work in an environment that almost made you feel guilty if you were homesick or woke up in a bad mood. People thrived on making the most of life. We lived around the corner from a sunny beach, cappuccino strip, the iconic Luna Park and a pier where penguins would play around sunset. Did I have the “proper” job that I originally intended to find?? No. We both had to work our butts off in hospitality this entire year to make our way through this country, but I don’t regret a minute of it. Each job, each person and each place taught me something about myself that I didn’t know before.

So the grand plans of AUSTRALIA!....beaches. bbqs, surfing, sunshine, sheilas, crocodile dundee, 'no worries, mate' mentality…..became something entirely different to me. Em and I didn’t end up living in a sunny beach town (pretty much opposite until now) traveling to New Zealand or Southeast Asia, and could name about a hundred more places in Australia we’d like to still see for that matter. But when I stepped off that plane last September, I would never have guessed I’d make the friendships, however fleeting, that would impact me for a lifetime, that I’d make instant connections with people and still keep in touch – even if it means months/years without seeing them, find love and discover heartbreak, and explore a country that always seems to offer more as soon as you feel you might have reached an endpoint. Eleven months ago, I would never have expected to find Melbourne the city that I will always consider my “home away from home”. When we made it to Perth, I found friendships that made me realize, once again, why I am traveling. It's sometimes not the places you end up, but the people you meet along the way that make it significant. As poor as we all were, get ten good friends in one room and somehow you all creatively make feasts from nothing and have wine and laughter to last night after night.

Now, I find myself sitting in one of my favorite places in the world in Port Douglas. It is in every way paradise….small and friendly, a gorgeous main strip lined with palm trees and coral colored buildings, and set in Northeast Australia with tropical rain forests to one side and white beaches to the other. I live in a small room with my best friend plus four other people. I work at the hostel for free rent and live out of a bag. I eat at free bbqs and only cook when I have a bunch of friends to share it with. I’m renting a van to live in as three of us travel down the east coast for my last three weeks in Australia. I’m in no way living in luxury or working a “proper” job….but I couldn’t be happier. All these months and experiences have shaped me into who I am now. I can finally say that I’m living like a “true” backpacker (shout out, Josh!). This lifestyle is not forever – so I guess it’s easier to live out of a bag when you know there’s an endpoint – but it does enable you to live in the present and cherish where you are and the friends that you get to share it with.

Em and I have moved all the way from the lovely Ritz backpackers, dusty Jessica House, creepy Carlisle, “home away from home” McIlwrick, heartbreaking Sundancers, bogan Hilton and now to the laid back, tropical Parrotfish. I’m home in one month and Emily is off to teach in China for one year. I really hope I won’t move seven times next year as I travel back home to Columbus, Ohio….but at the same time, I don’t see this as the end as my life as a nomad. Even if I settle back in the Midwest, I plan to keep traveling and discover the world. It’s a passion that I don’t want to let go of and now I have friends all over the world to help me out! Australia, Canada, England, Mexico, France, Holland, Germany, Ireland…..I will even have my best friend in China.

I have one more month with Em to explore the sunnier parts of this country and weave our way back down to Melbourne, back to where our adventure began. The ending will be bittersweet, but not something I'd like to dwell on now! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for following this sappy blog. More to come soon of life in Port Douglas, funny diets, swims in the Great Barrier Reef, encounters of the rain forest and plans of the upcoming weeks :)

Cheers and good day, mate