She is a tourist. He is a holidaymaker. I AM A TRAVELLER. Volume CAN"T REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE UP TO

Here's another installment from my edge of the seat series of Travel Tales.

It's called...

Alert but not alarmed

So a whole lot of these tales are from my now infamous trip round Ireland with my own dear darling dad. Poor dad. Hope my retelling them doesn't scar him. Maybe I should stop? I'll think about it - after this! mwahaha.
For other editions, go here.


So, if you've been reading some of the other tales you know that when I was 20 I went on a trip back to Ireland with Dad, who was born and bred there, to visit our family and do some trips around the place.

On the way to Belfast we had a few days in ye olde London town. We stayed in a reasonable hotel somewhere close to stuff. I actually was talking to dad about it the other day and said I thought the hotel was in King's Cross, but he disagreed with me. Whatever, I'm pretty sure it was near Kings Cross St Pancras Station.  This detail is unimportant.
Anyway, we were sharing a room, and on arrival we checked in, exhausted and jet lagged. I'm pretty sure we dragged ourselves out for a curry in the early evening, and then returned to our tiny shared room to try and get some shut-eye before our planned adventures the next day.



Dad does London..

Dad finds plane travel unsettling, kind of like a race horse, so I have this vague memory of lying in bed squeezing my eyes shut as Dad strode around the room restlessly in his shortie pyjamas, until he did eventually lie down for a kip. Maybe Dad should travel with a Shetland pony, to calm him? Although I suppose he did have me there. I am a bit like a Shetland pony, I look quite cute until someone annoys me and then I bite them.

Right, so no sooner had Dad's head hit the pillow then we were suddenly jolted out of our jetlagged slumber by the high pitched wailing of a smoke alarm.

Dad sprang out of bed like a shot, exclaiming loudly and waving his arms.

"Oh God no..." I thought to myself. "We are going to have to be evacuated. In our pyjamas. In London. In the middle of winter. Typical. Bloody typical."

Dad lost no time in ordering me out of bed. The alarm persisted, and as I stumbled around the room looking for a jumper, he burst out into the hallway, gesticulating wildly at a staff member scurrying past with a trolley.

"Listen, you there, where do we go, what do we do? Is there a fire escape??" he shouted.

The staff member looked Dad's bare freckled legs up and down, threw his hands in the air in an exasperated fashion and continued down the hallway, faster than ever, muttering in disgust "I no speak Eeeengleeesh!".

There didn't seem to be any other staff around.

By then other guests had come out into the hallway, including a Japanese family with their frightened elderly grandfather. 

"Fer fock's sake, does nobody speak English in this focking place!" Dad exclaimed in disgust, his usual inclusive tendencies out the window.

The Japanese family looked panicked, and the elderly grandfather was clutching weakly at his chest.

Dad took one look at the crowd and determinedly seized control of the situation by directing us all down the stairs. One by one we traipsed down the fire escape, Dad and the frail old man bringing up the rear, as the alarm wailed on.

We dutifully poured out onto the footpath and congregated outside the pane glass windows of the hotel's restaurant.

As we stood shivering in our pyjamas, Dad still sporting his shorts and bare legs, we gazed into the restaurant. It was full of hotel patrons enjoying their dinners, comfortable and warm.  As we stared in at them, they gazed with bemusement back at us.

It seemed a little odd. I mean, why hadn't they been evacuated too?

Dad, starting to feel the cold on his naked legs, became more and more enraged.

"Fer focks sake! Who is in CHARGE here?!" he said, rubbing his hands together vigorously. Just at that moment, the unsuspecting manager of the hotel came out from the lobby to give the all clear. I could see Dad's eyes glinting.  I knew what was coming. I slunk away, pretending I didn't know him.  From a safe distance I watched as he vociferously asserted his consumer rights to the aforementioned gentleman*.  I didn't catch all of it, what with pretending not to know him and all, but I'm pretty sure I heard "This old man was about to DIE OF A HEART ATTACK, my good man!" and "Where are your STAFF SIR?" and "Does nobody speak FOCKING ENGLISH in this place??".

Anyway, the manager was suitably chastened and apologized obsequiously to Dad. Eventually we all trudged our way back up to our rooms and attempted to get some sleep.

The next morning Dad was up bright and early, the tumult of the previous evening forgotten. As I peered blearily out from the covers, he said brightly, "I might just pop down to the lobby to book a table in the restaurant tomorrow for when we meet up with your cousins!".

I nodded and pulled the blanket over my head. He was gone for a while. When he returned, he looked pleased with himself.

"Guess what!" he exclaimed, "They tried to tell me the restaurant is closed on Sundays!"

I could see where this was going.

"But I didn't take that lying down! I asked for the manager and when he saw it was me he told them to OPEN THE RESTAURANT ESPECIALLY FOR US! Isn't that GREAT!"

I looked at him, horrified.

"URGHHH DAAAAD!" I said, "Urghh, they are probably going to, like, totally SPIT in all our FOOD! SO EMBARRASSING! URGHH! Can't we just go out somewhere else? I can't believe you did this."

And so on.

But no, he was determined.

"Don't be ridiculous!" he said. "They are HAPPY to do it!!"

Yeah right. Happy.

So the next day, my cousin and his children drove into London to meet their long lost Australian family. We ate lunch together in the hotel restaurant, that they had indeed opened just for us.

I could feel the eyes of the surly kitchen staff on us. Every minute felt like an hour. Dad remained cheerfully oblivious to the awkwardness of the situation and the possible crimes against hygiene that might be being committed on our meals, as he regaled my cousin with the story of the fire alarm.

"So they agreed to open it JUST FOR US!"

I scrooged further down in my chair and picked at my meal, desperate to escape, as the waitress whispered and pointed.

The rest of the trip went fairly uneventfully, until right at the end, when we arrived at Heathrow for our flight to Belfast.

Exhausted, we sat in silence, finding comfort in some Burger King takeaway, me angrily listening to Sinead O'Connor wailing on my walkman. I started to notice the crowds around us thinning but ignored it, munching like a masticating cow.  Dad looked like was was dozing off.

Suddenly I looked up. Someone was standing in front of me, waving his hands and talking animatedly. I whipped my headphones out.

It was one of the airport cleaners.

"Excuse me plizz!" he shouted, "Excuse me but there is an ALARM, everbody is EVACUATING THE AIRPORT, you must hurry, plizz!"

I looked around and realised we were alone in the terminal.

"Oh SHIT!" I jumped up. "GOD DAD why didn't you hear it!? UGH! I mean couldn't you HEAR THERE WAS A FIRE ALARM! UGH! GOD DAD! It's probably TERRORISTS OH GOD! UGH WE ARE THE ONLY ONES LEFT IN HERE UGH!".

We were forced to abandon our Burger King and once again assemble outside in the cold, waiting for the all clear.

At least this time we were fully clothed.


The end.

*By which I mean, shouted at him for a while in a frenzy of sleep deprivation.

She is a tourist, he is a holidaymaker, I am a TRAVELLER! Part 3 in a Series

Hello devoted readers.

Before I regale you with the latest travel tale from my critically acclaimed series, I just wanted to do a shout out to blogger Housewifeinheels, who has done a Mummy Swap with yours truly as part of an amusing series she writes, wherein she lives a day in the life of a famous mummy blogger. Yes, famous ones. Like me. HAHAHAHA.  Still you should read it, it's FUNNY!

OK, this instalment is entitled...

Celtic Tiger My Arse.

For my other travel tales, click here.

As I have alluded to several times, when I was 20 I went on a trip back to Ireland with my Dad aka Grandpa G, who was born and bred in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  All Dad's family are still back in the Old Country, so we went to visit them and then undertook a whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle itself, just him and me.

We did the traveling in a hired Fiat Punto. It is safe to say the driving part of the trip was rather, ah, frought.  It was punctuated by my dad's intermittent outraged complaints about the state of Irish country roads, the inadequate turning circle on the Punto, the inadequate space in the driver's seat for a man of his stature, and a general vibe of getting lost at least once on every leg of the journey.

Soothing.

He was right about the roads though, they weren't great.  At one point we were driving out of what was supposed to be the main road north out of Dublin, and we came upon a traffic jam. As we crawled along in the tiny vehicle, we soon realised that the holdup was because the road was flooded. I mean, not just a little bit flooded, but like, totally inundated by a raging river that flowed alongside it.

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Dad, wild eyed, as the car in front of him crawled into the torrent. "Fer focks sake! It's a focken river!"

I started to get a bit panicky as the tiny Punto edged closer to the water.  Looking around all I could see in the way of emergency services was one police officer, knee deep in the river, and wearing a reflective jacket, vaguely waving the traffic forward into the water.

I looked to Dad for reassurance that we weren't going to be swept to our deaths.

"Celtic tiger my ARSE!" he said in disgust. "Will you look at that! All their European Development Funding and they can only put one focking guardai on when the road is focking flooded. Focking disgrace."

Suffice to say we weren't killed and the Punto survived but it was a close shave.

So the driving was a little bit stressful.

One of the trips we did was to a part of Ireland called Dingle.  It's a popular summer holiday spot but of course we were heading there in the depths of winter. Sensible.  We had a pretty nice trip most of the way there until it started getting dark at like 2pm or something and we still hadn't arrived at the cottage we had booked. Dad was losing his mind and I was probably weeping.  Eventually we pulled over and found a phone so he could call the place . Turns out it wasn't in Dingle but somewhere else. Trouble was we were in Dingle. You feel me?

[Source] This is Dingle. Cute, no? I don't have any photos from this part of the trip, they must be at Dad's. No matter.

Anyway after driving round in ever decreasing circles of rage, Dad eventually found a pub in Dingle proper that we could stay in.

When we got up to our room I announced I was going down to the bar to have a drink BY MYSELF.

Dad declared that to be out of the question, over his dead body, had I seen the types down there etc.  Because I was a compliant child (yes I know I was and am still actually an adult but this shit dies hard), I didn't tell him to get effed and go anyway, but threw myself sobbing in rage onto my bed while he listened in a bemused fashion and read the papers.

Cue the next scene.  Morning dawned, we set off again and finally got to the cottage cabin type place we'd booked. The place was called Rossbeigh Strand.  It was pretty adorable and I was bloody grateful for some SPACE.  I flopped immediately on the couch and turned the TV on. Dad tried to encourage me to come with him on a bracing walk along the blustery beach but I politely declined (ie. rolled eyes, sighed, and scowled at him til he left).  Off he went jauntily whistling a tune, the only man alive who thinks suitable attire for a walk on a windy beach in the Northern Hemisphere in the depths of winter is a mustard coloured parka and stubbies.

I breathed a sigh of relief and promptly fell asleep.  When I woke, it was dark.  I sat up and checked the time. 3 hours had elapsed and Dad was still gone! I felt a rising panic.  Where was he? What should I do? Who was going to make my dinner?

Just as I was really getting worried, the door to the cottage flew open with a bang, the wind howling in, and Dad appeared in the doorway, windswept and wild eyed, with twigs stuck in his parka.

"DAD! Where have you BEEN!?" I cried.

He staggered in and collapsed on the couch to recover.  Eventually he revealed to me that he'd become lost and disoriented on his deceptively harmless beach stroll.  He'd apparently set off up the beach for a while, before deciding to walk through the dunes, thinking he would take a look at the beach on the other side.  He trudged along for what seemed like an eternity, walking until he lost all sense of direction, with nothing but sand as far as the eye could see.  At one point, lumbering over a bluff, he startled some unsuspecting sheep, who bleated furiously at him and scattered away in a panic. Undeterred, he clambered ever onwards, not knowing his arse from his elbow.

[Source] I'm guessing Dad hadn't seen any aerial shots like this of Rossbeigh Strand before he set out for his stroll. That's a mofo of a sand dune people. No wonder he went all Burke and Wills on me.

Eventually, with great relief, he came to the other side of the dune, and was met with what he described as a huge decaying seal or other blubbery sea creature.

As darkness descended and with the stench of the sea creature assaulting his nostrils, he had not choice but to set back out over the dune, once again losing all sense of direction. Forced to navigate by the setting sun, he wondered if he would ever be reunited with his surly and ungrateful daughter again.  As luck would have it he did make it safely to the other side, and 3 hours later, returned to the aforementioned cottage where I had been snoozing, unaware of the drama unfolding just outside my door.

The rest of our stay at the beach cottage was comparatively uneventful, until we got all the way back to my Aunt's place near Belfast and Dad realised he still had the key to the cottage in his bag.

That was ok though, because when he rang the lady who owned it, she told him that he had left two pairs of trousers underneath the mattress of his bed, so they were able to do a sort of hostage style exchange via mail.

Before you ask about the trousers under the mattress, I too was a little confused as to why Dad was storing them there.  Turns out he does that so he doesn't have to iron them.  He's innovative, I'll give him that.  Who knew?

When I finally got all the way home to Australia, I told Mum about the trouser incident, and she remarked that on a holiday to Bali in their courting days, Dad had left his trousers under the mattress in the villa there too.

So it's a pattern. Who knows how many pairs of pants he's left? He is like the Scarlet Pimpernel, only he leaves pants instead of a calling card. The Scarlet Pant-pernel.

Do you put your trousers under your mattress? Ever been lost in a sand dune? Or a desert?

No, me either.

Bon voyage my fellow travellers.

xx

Linking up for TALK TO US THURSDAY...

He is a tourist. She is a holidaymaker. I, am a TRAVELLER. Part 2.

Here's the second instalment in my cliffhanger series of travel tales.

The first one is back here.

His name was "Pierre".

As I may have alluded to before, when I was 20, my Dad and I embarked on an odyssey to the Old Country (ie. Ireland) for about 8 weeks at the end of the year 2000.

It was a wonderful trip, but I would be lying if I didn't say by the end of it, I was FAIRLY keen to get away from the old fellow for some ME TIME.  The plan was that on the way home, he and I would fly together to Frankfurt where we would then part ways, at which point he would go back to Oz and I would continue on to spend a week in Paris staying with my cousin D and his lovely wife I.

I know.  The excitement!

Paris at the turn of the new millennium was everything my youthful heart could have hoped for.

Paris just being all Parisian.  Look at the Parisian-ness of it all!  Skating, coats, ice rink, noice old building, etcetera.  

I more or less spent every day walking around the city by myself. I would whack on my Docs, kit up in my weird black coat and traipse around feeling like I was in a novel. Instead of lumping my backpack around everywhere, my cousin gave me a handbag to carry, so I didn't look so much like a tourist.  This convinced me that I looked EXACTLY like a Parisian person.

This is me on the left out at some bar getting my Paris on with my cousin and his wife I. I am pretending to be sophisticated and drinking some sort of cocktail arrangement. Yeah, I am so cool and relaxed with the whole being in Paris thing. I was just like Amelie, in that movie called, um, Amelie.  

It didn't take me long at all to start feeling like I could totally understand and speak French too!

I would nod and answer questions from shop assistants and train conductors by smiling and waving my hands around, repeating "Oui, oui! Camembert, cafe au lait, Pepe le Pew!!" or something similar until they left me alone, shaking their heads, leaving me smugly convinced I was a natural.

Once, a French person even stopped me and asked for directions! I TOTALLY BLENDED IN I WAS SO EFFING FRENCH!

One day I was walking back to the train station after having a successful day at the January sales.  I was swinging my Euro-tat filled shopping bags and practically skipping along the path outside the Louvre. I know, the Louvre! SO COOL!

Here's the ole pyramid thingoes outside the Louvre, with some GENUINE PARISIAN PEOPLE walking about.  SO COSMOPOLITAN!

Yeah so I was skipping along outside the Louvre feeling very French indeed when I saw a young guy across the road.  He looked like your typical French 1990s dude, deck shoes, pale Jerry Seinfeld jeans and an earnest expression.

I tried finding a picture of a similar young man in Paris but when I Googled "Young man in Paris" I only got these pictures...tee hee hee hee...

[Photo source]

[Photo source]

[Photo source]

He didn't look like that.

Anyway as I walked past, he caught my eye, and dashed across to me as I clumped along the cobblestones. I tried to ignore him.  I know, such good manners and sophistication! I was doing my antipodean family proud.

He waved, and fell in next to me, pointing to his watch and asking me a question in French.  Because of how we were in France, and all. Ha.

I guessed he was using the time honoured trick of asking a lady for the time of day in order to strike up a conversation. Probably so he could, like, steal my purse or something.  I was ONTO HIM!

 I shook my head and said the only French I knew - "I'm sorry. I don't speak French."  Well schooled by my over protective and cynical Aussie mother about the danger of Foreign Men in Strange Cities, I furrowed my brow at him discouragingly, and marched along the street, swinging my bag higher and more aggressively and clomping ever faster in my huge boots.

Just another picture of Paris.  Those crazy Parisians with their Arc de Triumph and their cars and their relaxed road rules.  

Not discouraged, he sped up and kept pace with me, this time speaking enthusiastically in English.  He asked me where I was from, and I grudgingly admitted "Australia".

"Aha!" he exclaimed. "But, mah gerrrrlfrrend, she hess jerst left to leev in Australie! She will be studying in Canberra."

Oh yeah, I thought to myself.  Right. What a coincidence. I'll bet she is.  Pfft.

I smiled wanly at him and strode on.

"My name, eet ees Pierre," he added.

OF COURSE it is, I scoffed internally, rolling my eyes.  What a cliche.  Who did he think I was, some LOSER TOURIST??  I was practically a local.

"Meh-bee you would like to hev a coffee wis me?", he asked eagerly, smiling into my scowling face.

HOLY SHIT! I thought, suddenly panicked.  If text lingo had been invented back then I would have been thinking OMG and WTF.

Why is he asking me this!? Oh crap he is totally going to KILL ME AND STEAL MY PASSPORT! What do I do?

He continued talking as we walked and questions ran through my head.

Surely it was wrong to have a coffee with a RANDOM STRANGE MAN who accosted me in the street outside the Louvre? 
Or was it?
 If I said no, would he, like, PUNCH ME IN THE FACE AND TAKE MY HANDBAG!?  
Why do all young men in Paris wear deck shoes?


I was in between a rock and a hard place.

Eventually I said, coolly, "Sure, OK. We can do that. Yep. No problem. Coffee. Excellent idea. Hehe. Yep. I'm down with that. Yes sirree. Coffee. Me and you. Uh huh. Let's go. Indeedy do."

He looked pleased, which freaked me out even more.  Still, I had committed myself, so we walked together to the cafe that he suggested.

We sat down at a table in the corner, and he looked eagerly into my eyes while I thought, Great, it's probably some bloody set up, he probably knows the owner and they are going to STEAL MY HANDBAG AND PASSPORT AND RAPE ME AND DUMP MY BODY IN THE SEINE, SO TYPICAL!!!! I AM NOT FALLING FOR THIS ONE BUDDY!

He ordered coffees and water.  The waiter brought them to the table and I sat nervously fiddling with the napkin until Pierre reached out suddenly and grabbed my hand.  He stroked it and said, "Meh-bee, while you are in Paris, Sarah, I can perheps be your French boyh-frahnd, oui?"

My eyes widened in horror and I snatched my hand away from his tender grasp.

TOTALLY PROOF HE WAS GOING TO DRUG ME AND KILL ME! I'D BE IN ALL THE PAPERS!  ARRRGGHHHH! WHY HAD I AGREED TO THIS FOOLISH IDEA ANYWAY!!!!!

"Um, no no, er, no, I don't think so.  No, thanks all the same, no, I don't think that's a good idea at all.  I'm terribly sorry.  Oh, is that the time? Oh no, I have to run, I have to meet my COUSIN at his HOUSE WHERE I AM STAYING and they are expecting me RIGHT NOW!"

I jumped to my feet, my arm connecting with the jug of water and sending it flying across the table, soaking my ill fated suitor's jacket.  He looked dismayed and a bit disgusted.

I stammered a hasty apology, grabbed my bag, and practically ran screaming from the cafe.

I ran all the way to the train station, and when I got back to the apartment I told my cousin and his wife the story of my near miss, between breathless tears.

My cousin's wife, Parisian born and bred, rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, French men! Pah! Zey are all the same...I cannot even eat mah lurnch in ze gardens wissout heving one try it on wis me.  Pah.  Why do you sink I married an Australian man?"

Blinking back my tears, I said "So, that was normal? He wasn't, you know, a sex pest?"

"Ah, no, zey are all ze same I tell you!" She threw her hands up in disgust.

I felt dejected.

He'd obviously seen something charming in my corduroy pants, multi-coloured boot laces and sleeveless turtleneck, and I had cruelly spurned him, panicked by my over developed sense of STRANGER DANGER and the constant burden of my hyper sensitive bullshit detector. The poor bastard.

Wonder what became of him.  I'm sure these days he's married to someone who looks like this:

[Photo source]

And they probably have children who look like this:

[Photo source]

And they presumably shop somewhere like this:

[Photo source]

He's bloody lucky he didn't become my "French boyh-frehnd" because I would have probably made him move to Queensland and shop at Aldi.

A near miss for him indeed.

Until next time my friends, au revoir!

And don't forget, never trust a man in a foreign country! Ever!  He might want to BUY YOU A COFFEE!?  The horror.

EDITED TO ADD: Linking up with Blogs and PR's Talk to me Thursday!

He is a tourist. She is a holidaymaker. I, am a TRAVELLER! PART 1 in a series.

My paid working week came to a close, as is usual, yesterday afternoon.  Quite pleasant to wave my long suffering colleagues goodbye knowing I don't have to worry about them until next week.  Although it's hard to get in the groove for just two days.   I obviously still mostly have my brain set to "mother of small child" mode because I do some dumb things. Like when I'm on the phone trying to say something without letting other people in the office hear, I use the universal parenting technique of spelling the words out, like I do with M when I don't want P to hear.  Note to self: Spelling words out loud is NOT a secret code.  Pretty sure my colleagues know what B-O-R-E-D spells.  And pretty sure some of them think I'm an I-D-I-O-T, but there you have it.  I can just see them rolling their eyes as they listen to me hissing down the phone in a sort of stage-whisper, spelling out words on the lowdown like I think it's the Enigma Code.

The funereal atmosphere at work was actually somewhat alleviated by the absence of a couple of senior overlords, so, as the proverb goes, us mice played up.  We went crazy and talked in the corridors and PLAYED MUSIC IN THE OFFICE!  I know, somebody stop us we are HAVING TOO MUCH FUN!

One of my colleagues R is planning her first solo overseas jaunt to Europe, and her planning has been making me think of the somewhat limited overseas travels I've undertaken in my life.

As anyone who has been lucky enough to walk the path less traveled alongside me can attest, I am well known for my adventurous, risk taking nature. I'm always the first to rush over and tie the bungee chord to my feet before plunging over the nearest available cliff,  the first to skip joyfully into the whitewater raft, the first to chow down on crunchy roasted grasshoppers and so forth*.

So I thought I'd get all Lonely Planet on your arses and do a little series on some of the more interesting anecdotes and places I've visited.  Just call me Bear Grylls.  Or maybe Bearina Grylls.

Here's the first instalment.

I left my heart stomach in Koh Phi Phi.  

M and I were having a wonderful honeymoon in Thailand.  M did spend 24 hours of it chucking his guts up in the hotel room, but apart from that the two weeks had gone brilliantly.  The final day of the stay was to be the best part of all!  We decided to go on a boat trip out to the beautiful Koh Phi Phi islands (is that tautologous? might be.).  Seen that movie The Beach?  Yeah, some pretty awesome backpacker style cool destination, thanks very much, perfect for a cool boho hippie type relaxed beach person like me!!!!! WHAT MORE COULD I ASK FOR!?

See this is Kho Phi Phi.  Gaw-jus, right? Photo by us.

I should pause here to add that the whole tour was basically my idea.  Because if anyone embodies the cool suntanned Thai-fisherman pants wearing Aussie tourist in Asia it is ME!  I practically scream HIPPIE TOURIST!!!!!!!!

Annnnyway, at my nagging, M booked said tour and we got up early that last day and tooled out to the marina to climb aboard our luxurious vessel.

My first inkling the whole thing wasn't what I thought, was when, instead of being greeted with this sort of transportational arrangement...

[Source]

...we were met with this.

Taken by me. After the first journey was over.

I was vaguely disappointed but figured, what the hell.

The fact that they started handing out sea sickness tablets to us as we boarded probably should have set off a few more alarm bells for me but despite my hardcore fear of boats, the ocean, the beach, death, sharks, deep water, and so forth, I remained in an uncharacteristically relaxed honeymoon-esque frame of mind and chose to ignore the twinges of doubt and cheerfully found a seat.

Me at the beginning of the trip, full of excitement and anticipation, and wearing a pink name tag.  See, TOTES BOHO HIPPIE WITH A SUNTAN!!  Well, I'm wearing a cheesecloth shirt anyway.

We set off at a cracking pace.  In a small speedboat.  Across the ocean.

People, I'd never been in a speedboat before.  They. Are. Fucking. Scary.  And you know what?  When the sea is rough, they are even. Fucking. Scarier.

And the sea was angry that day my friends.  Like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.**

As the boat made it's way out across the open water, going THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, I began to feel a tad nervous in my tummy.  M patted my hand manfully and reassured me that all was well, it wasn't too rough, speedboats just went THWACK as a matter of course.  I calmed down a little.

Until.....pffft....putter putter putter sputter spurt pffttttttttttt. Silence.

The fucking motors (as depicted in above photo) had died.  Our formerly calm and nimble boathands (one also depicted above) started jumping about and talking loudly and in a panicked fashion in Thai, what with it being in Thailand and all.

"What the FUCK is happening!" I hissed at M, "What the fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, we've broken down in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN!" 

M tried to calm me but wasn't having much luck.

I don't know if you've ever been on a tiny crammed broken down speedboat in the open water on a choppy day in a foreign country, but what happens is the boat sinks....down...down...down, until the "choppy" water and waves are looming over you like the fucking Perfect Storm is about to hit.  And the boat stops going THWACK THWACK THWACK and starts going UP and down, UP and down, UP and down until the family sitting across from you get seasick and the little girl throws up all over her mum's lap.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck", I mutter, wringing my hands. "We are going to die out here I JUST KNOW IT and it smells like VOMIT I DON'T KNOW WHICH IS WORSE."

At one point I sprang to my feet and attempted to walk to the other end of the boat, in a sort of panicked attempt to escape the situation, and while doing so I was thrown into the lap of various Russian tourists including this woman in the orange bikini...

Anyway, just as I was really about to totally lose my shit and plunge overboard in a foolhardy attempt to swim for freedom (in the DEEP WATER with the darkness and the sharks and the gahhhhhhhh), the nimble boathands finally kicked the old girl back into life, and we rose once again from beneath the waves and THWACK, THWACK, THWACKED our way over to the island.  When we got there I looked like this...

After.  Aged 20 years, no shit.

Once we got to the sticky uppy out of the watery bits of Koh Phi Phi, can't remember what they are called, we were all supposed to go snorkelling.  M plunged in, again quite manfully, and in what can only be described as the BRAVEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE, I gingerly crept down and bobbed around in the water for a while too, while the fish nibbled my toes and gnawed at my fingers.  Don't think I wasn't replaying that shark attack scene from The Beach over in my head a thousand times. Because I was. Like a mofo.

There were about 20 million billion trillion other people and boats there and no-one dropped their anchor, so despite the crowds of bobbing snorkelers, every two seconds one of the boats would randomly start up their propeller in order to ensure none crashed into each other.

There was one huge ancient boat there that contained a massive number of Chinese tourists.  The tourists on that boat sort of lined up so their tour guides could shove life jackets on them and then practically throw them into the water to flounder blindly around en masse.  Didn't seem to matter that they couldn't swim.  One panicky be-life-jacketed girl made an ungainly beeline for our boat, reaching blindly out to us and trying to grab onto the freaking propeller, oblivious to the screams of warning from us and our boat dudes.

See?  Like shooting fish in a barrel.

I was waiting for the water to turn into a bloodbath, it seemed only a matter of time before one of the whirring propellers sliced the head off a bobbing snorkeller.  Fortunately it didn't happen and we continued on to the main island for our classy smorgasboard luncheon with this guy...

Rocking the swimming trunk and multi-plait look.  And why not? Good luck to him I say.

The trip back to the mainland was less eventful but I have never been so freaking glad to see dry land ever in all my days.  This was me later the same day.

Toasting our survival.

 So there you have it.

Do you think I can get a job on Getaway?  Anyone else like to wear swimming trunks and/or man plaits?  Are you brave and fearless and adventurous like me?

*Um, NOT! So not.  Irony again.
**Thank you George Costanza.

Weather. Flab. Travels with Dad. Tolerance

The weather is doing my head in.  Yesterday - boiling, hot.  Roasting the living daylights out of our already dry and crackly garden.  Definitely bushfire weather.  I was so sure a storm was brewing. But nothing, nada.  Not a drop.  Rain, damn you!

This morning, cool, crisp, blowing a gale, blue, blue sky.  Gorgeous, but no rain.

As I write, it looks like this.  Fingers crossed it pours! 

Yesterday, I wore one of the dresses I got from my recent op shop visit, in this post.  It was the one that Mum suggested would benefit from some sucky-in undies, Bridget Jones style.  Well, my other resident fashion critic (ie. P) told me "Mummy, you've got a big tummy.  I think there's another BABY in that big tummy!".  I thought about pulling some giant pants on underneath, but frankly it was too damn hot.  What's the point of a cotton summer dress if you layer it up with sweaty old synthetic bloomers.  So I decided to embrace my mummy tummy.  I mean, really.  I know if I exercised every day and ate less ice cream it would be reduced, it's not brain surgery, but at the moment I don't do either of those things so I still have postnatal flab.  If you've got nothing better to do than feast your eyes on my jubbly bits then go ahead, I can't be bothered caring any more.

Spoke to Dad (Grandpa G) on the phone last night.  When he was here last week I showed him my blog.  Dad's first reaction was fairly predictable.  He looked the blog over silently, eventually remarking suspiciously, "It seems like an enormous amount of WORK, Sarah."  I tried explaining it was just like having a hotmail account or making a word document, and that it was quite fun and easy but he remained skeptical.

Last night on the phone I asked if he'd been reading it.  He paused, and said, "Yes, I've looked it over.  It just seems like you are putting so much WORK into it", naturally inferring that I should probably be putting more work into, say, raising my children or finding a new job.  If you are reading this Dad, don't worry, I've got it sorted, P's at kindy and I've just propped the baby in front of the TV with a bottle full of juice and "In the night garden" on repeat*.

While Dad was here we also reminisced a bit about the odyssey to the Old Country (ie. Ireland) that he and I made when I was about 20.

Dad (aka Grandpa G) representing in his navy Driza-Bone.

The trip was noteworthy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the obvious incongruity of a 20 year old girl trailing moodily around Ireland and the UK with her 50-something father while her contemporaries were arguably "living it up" backpacker-style.

It led to such amusing anecdotes as "That time Dad and I accidentally went to a gay bar together" and "The Fiat Punto was a bad choice", whilst simultaneously giving rise to such inciteful geo-political commentary as "Celtic Tiger My Arse!".

The "gay bar" visit showed me up for the gormless and graceless youth that I was.  Clutching our Guinness factory souvenir bags in my hands, I followed sulkily after him as he strode down a Dublin road in search of a pub where he could get a pint and a toasted sandwich.  Spotting one ahead, he made a beeline for it and disappeared through the doors.  As I entered and peered into the somewhat dimly lit establishment I could see that he had made himself comfortable in a corner booth, so I sort of flounced over and slumped down across the table from him.  Dad went up to the bar to order our lunch, and when he returned to our seats we both sat in silence watching one of the bar's employees putting up Christmas decorations.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom I began to notice the other two or three patrons.  They were all dressed in variations on this theme...

http://www.hollywood.uk.com/

I began to notice some pictures on the walls that looked a bit like this...

http://www.jollyswagman.com.au/mardi-gras/ 

"Daaaaaad, I think it's a GAY BAR!!!"  I hissed at him, what little grace and poise I had going out the window at what I saw as the most embarrassing place to be with your uncool middle aged father.

"So what?" he said, utterly unfazed, finishing off his sandwich. I sank further down into my seat, counting the seconds until we could escape.  As we left, I looked up at the sign above the door.  The bar was called "Out on the Liffey", which is a cute pun, and after consulting my trusty Lonely Planet it was revealed to be the trendiest and most happening gay friendly joint in Dublin.

I reminded him of this story when he visited last week.  He said earnestly, "I remember! They did an excellent toasted sandwich, the beer was cold and they weren't too busy."

Good on you Grandpa G, you are a paragon of tolerance and you don't even know it.  Shame you had to be there with your red-faced and spluttering daughter because she totally brought the tone down.


*Not really.  I was just using a dramatic device known as "giving cheek to your sainted parents". I wasn't voted "Most Sarcastic" at high school for nothing.