All I can say is: DOH!!

On Sunday, while driving to Rotorua, Sarah and I were talking about our whole trip up to this point and how remarkable it was that in three months of traveling, we haven't had anything go really wrong. Neither one of us has been seriously sick, we haven't had any injuries, no missed planes (although we came THIS close that once...), no lost luggage, nothing has been stolen from either one of us... we were talking about our great fortune in all of these regards. There is apparently a reason that people say you should never say such things out loud.

Monday started off well enough. We'd gotten up in the morning and even (gasp!) made a plan which included spending the day doing cool stuff in Rotorua with Chris before heading back up north to the coast. We checked out of our room, stored our stuff and headed off for our day.

As Rotorua is known for its biothermal activity, sulfuric hot springs and boiling mud baths, we went to its most active geothermal reserve, which also just so happens to hold lots of Maori (the native people) history. This one is unique among reserves in the area in that the heat source is just 1 - 1.25 miles below the surface of the earth whereas others are usually around 6+ miles below. We thought it was odd that it was named Hell's Gate, until we saw it. Picture lake after lake and pool after pool of steaming, oozing, spewing, sulfur-stinking, hissing, bubbling, gurgling, boiling cauldrons of water. That about sums it up. Really makes the idea of going to the adjoining spa with sulfur water and mud treatments sound appealing, doesn't it? Oh, and while the hottest of the pools reaches temps of nearly 325 degrees Fahrenheit, of course I couldn't resist putting my finger in one of the less hot ones. I still have skin on that finger, so that's good.

The day was going well. And then we left Hell's Gate to go look for some nearby waterfalls, which we couldn't find. So we turned around and were heading back down a hill towards town when... our car got rear-ended by a big delivery truck! I was sitting in the back seat on the side where we were hit so it was close, but no one was actually hurt. It was more shocking than anything as none of us saw it coming. One minute you're sitting there, talking and laughing, and the next you hear the sound of crunching metal right next to your head. I wasn't hurt at all but I screamed mostly because I was just so completely startled by it. We were in the process of making a left turn and the truck was speeding and just couldn't slow down in time so ended up taking off the back corner of our car. Fortunately, we were still in motion when he hit us or the impact would have been much worse.

We realized there were also a couple other very fortunate aspects of it all: one was that we had listed Sarah as a second driver. We hadn't done that with the car back in Spain and she ended up driving some; if something had happened back there and she hadn't been on the paperwork, our gooses would have been cooked. The second was that we had taken the additional insurance. In all my years and in all of the cars that I have rented in all of the countries, I have never, EVER taken any additional insurance other than what comes standard with the rental. When we were picking up the car in Auckland, the guy started his obligatory pitch about the extra insurance and I rolled my eyes, prepared to turn it down as always... but then he mentioned that it is not legally mandatory for drivers in NZ to have insurance, and that changed something in my mind. While he was doing the paperwork, Sarah and I actually stood there for about 10 minutes waffling back and forth about if we should or shouldn't bother spending the money on the extra insurance. For whatever reason, despite the fact that I have never done it before, we decided it was probably a good idea. We had no idea at the time just how fortuitous of a decision that was.

Our good fortune with the situation ended there. Suffice it to say that the rest of our day was shot between police reports and phone calls to the rental agency and dealing with insurance issues. It turns out that the extra insurance gets you a replacement car, but does not get you the delivery of said car, the huge bill of which they were trying to stick us with. More phone calls, more annoyance, more lost time. Let's just say that me and Allen at A2B Rental Agency are no longer pals. In the end, the most annoying part wasn't even the money we now have to pay even though the accident wasn't our fault and even though we had the insurance, it was the lost time. I have waited so long to come to New Zealand and we have so precious little time here that the idea of wasting an entire day of it dealing with paperwork and waiting for a replacement car was insanely, infuriatingly frustrating.

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But, in the end, I had to keep reminding myself that noone was hurt and that it could have been a much, much worse situation. And, although we couldn't go up to the beach where we were supposed to be, we were still in New Zealand and could still make the most of it. So we went to the Pig and Whistle, an awesome pub in town one of the cops recommended to us. We had some beer and we had some serious pub/comfort food (my first good, REAL beef burger in over 3 months, yay!). We cheered being alive. A little poorer, yes, but, mostly, alive.

And then we decided to treat ourselves after such a day and went to a nearby spa to soak our bones in some awesome hot springs overlooking the sea. So not all bad.

Today was, sadly, another loss. We had to wait around all morning for the replacement car, then fill out paperwork, then drive over 4 hours to get to our destination. We finally made it here early this evening, a whole day later than planned. BUT our place is right on the water and we have a room overlooking the sea. Right now I am sitting outside typing this while listening to the sounds of waves crashing on the shore. I'm in New Zealand listening to the sea and I'm alive and well. I have NO complaints.

A True New Zealand Adventure

Glow worm cave day! Once more, we owe Monique more than I can say. It was from her that we learned about the Waitomo caves. She told us that it was one of the highlights of her trip to NZ and that we should just 'suck it up and cough up the dough' as it was not to be missed. She was SO right.

There are tours where you can just walk through some of the caves and look at the glow worms but, no no, that was not what we came here for. We came for the "adventure tour", where you get to tube through the caves and see the glow worms. You also get to do some hiking, rock scaling, wading, waterfall jumping, groping your way through pitch dark caves.... THAT was the tour we came for.

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For starters, I got to wear my very first wetsuit. I can now say with some confidence that I don't see much of any activity that involves a wetsuit in my foreseeable future. Just getting it on was half the adventure! We walked a bit to the opening of the cave where, upon seeing that you had to slide down a rock and into a narrow opening just to get in, let alone how dark it appeared once you were inside, one of the women in our group started to cry. The adventure cave tour is not for wusses.

Once in, we sat for a bit to let our eyes adjust to the pitch blackness. The next couple of hours were spent winding our way through the tunnels in ice cold water (and suddenly the wetsuit was the BEST idea ever), wading through water while blindly trying to keep your footing on the rocks below, tubing, parts where you had to turn around and jump blindly backwards into pools below, jumping off of waterfalls and, oh yes, floating. Lots of floating. It was beyond amazing and SO much fun.

Also amazing were the parts where everyone turned off their headlamps and the whole cave went absolutely pitch black and you could see that the whole ceiling of the cave was illuminated by tiny glow worms which attach themselves to it. It was like when you lay on your back in a grassy field in the summertime and look up at the starry sky... except that we were doing it in tubes in ice cold water 200 feet below the ground. Awe. Some.

In our group there was a fellow American, Chris. We have encountered very, very few Americans on this trip so were kind of surprised to hear someone speaking in an American accent. She's from New Jersey and doing a couple weeks traveling on her own in NZ. Turns out she was going to the same town we were going to after the cave adventure so, as so often happens while traveling, we decided to head there together.

So this evening we all landed in Rotorua, a town in the center of the north island of NZ known for both its Maori culture and its biothermal hotsprings. First things first: hotsprings. Culture can always wait for later when there are hotsprings to be had.

We found a place a little outside of town where you can go on your own and enjoy natural hotsprings. No fancy resorts around them, no entrance fees, just straight up hotsprings in the middle of the forest. Turns out that these hot springs are sulfuric so you smell them before you find them. In fact, the whole town reeks of sulfur, some times worse than others depending on the wind, but you really can start to tell when you're getting close to the actual springs by just how pungent the smell gets. So we followed our noses and we found them, and we enjoyed. Of course it didn't occur to any of us to take off our jewelry so anything silver we had on going in came out a darkish black looking metal. Whatever, we were sitting in natural hotsprings in the middle of the New Zealand countryside... I have NO complaints whatsoever!

Okay, full disclosure: since we obviously couldn't take pictures while trudging through water in the caves, none of the interior cave photos in this post were actually taken by me. But still, I wanted to give you SOME idea of what we were looking at while in there...

In the Land of the Kiwis

Yesterday, December 10th, was the date I was originally supposed to fly home. But due to the many, many changes and extensions we have made along the way, instead I have another two weeks of travel on my hands... woo-hoo! It's so hard to imagine that right now I should be in freezing cold Lancaster adjusting (begrudgingly) to winter but instead am sitting here in short sleeves enjoying some bonus time in the sun. I have to be honest, were it not for Christmas, I would most definitely have extended my time even farther but, alas, I will definitely be home by Christmas Eve. And so I intend to fully enjoy these "bonus" two weeks I have here... oh, yes, I shall!

So instead of spending Friday flying back to reality, I enjoyed it as my last day in Melbourne. I spent some time in the morning in one of the coffee shops that Melbourne is famous for before meeting up in the afternoon with Sarah and Monique. For our last few hours in the city, Monique took us to Lygone Street, the "Little Italy" of Melbourne, full of coffee shops, gelaterias and Italian restaurants. She took us to THE gelato shop, Casa del Gelato. It's run by an Italian family who splits their time between Australia and Italy (also running a gelato shop there) so it is the real deal. These are the times that it really pays to know a local who can show you THE places to go.

And then, in one final incredibly generous gesture, Monique insisted on driving us to the airport. Keep in mind that we met back in India and had one lunch together, that was all she knew of us. And yet she was willing to give up four days of her time, resources and energies to go out of her way to make sure we enjoyed her city. I'm sure I've said it before, but I continue to be overwhelmed by such acts of generosity from people around the globe. It has given me a completely new understanding of and appreciation for what it truly means to be hospitable. I can assure you that I will happily "pay it forward" many times over in the future. Once you have been the recipient of that kind of hospitality and experience firsthand the difference it makes in your travel experience, it would be nearly impossible to not want to be able to offer that same kindness to someone else in the same position. And so it goes...

We made it Auckland, New Zealand without incident on Friday night and checked ourselves into a semi-grungy little hostel downtown. But we weren't really too concerned with the accomodations as we had no plans to spend any real time there. Since we now have only a week here (also due to previous date changes), we wanted to spend as much of it as possible outside of the city. Mostly because a) we are kind of 'citied out' and b) everyone we have spoken to along the way has told us that New Zealand is GORGEOUS and the best way to experience that is to beat it out of the city ASAP and go driving around the countryside. Done.

Fortunately, our grungy little hostel had internet (even though I'm pretty sure dial-up used to be faster) so we got online and reserved a car. I love making plans as you go. We landed in Auckland at 9:30 at night with no hotel reservation and no idea of what we were going to do in this country. By 11 pm we were settled in a hotel and had a game plan. I LOVE the freedom of being able to do that, to figure things out as I go and work on intuition as to what the best choices are. It may sound odd, but I find travel to be even more interesting that way, rarely knowing exactly where you'll be or what you'll be doing more than a day in advance. All part of the adventure!

We spent a few hours Saturday morning milling about downtown Auckland (a really nice town, actually. For being a big city, it feels oddly small town, which is hard to explain) before picking up our car and heading south... in the left lane, I might add. I've driven on the left side of the road before but not much and figured it would take some adjusting but, surprisingly, it took very little. I think because so many of the countries we've been in on this trip drive on the left, that unconsciously I've gotten used to it just even by being a passenger. It no longer seems strange for me to ride on the left side, so I guess it also makes sense that it doesn't really feel that strange to drive on it, either. It does seem strange to me, however, that they ALLOW me to drive on the left side of the road here! I'm always amazed at how readily they just hand over keys to someone from a foreign country who, as far as they know, has no experience in driving on the left side. Seems dangerous, really. And, yet, I will happily take those keys and drive....

.... and so we drove to Waitomo, a town famous for its glow worms caves. We found a place to stay and got settled in. We had the whole evening free and only then, when pondering how best to use it, did we realize that the caves ARE this whole town. It is set out in the boondocks, with nothing other than rolling green hills around for stretches as far as the eye can see. The entire town population numbers approximately 300 and when I asked a guy what we should do in town in addition to the caves he replied "Well, there's a pub". So there really, truly is nothing to do. Which is kind of nice. And so we chill. And we look at green all around us and realize that we haven't seen green in a very long time. And we breathe really clean, fresh, pure, non-city air into our lungs. Divine.

Sun! I Saw Sun!

Yesterday it occurred to me that over the past two weeks, I have only had one day without rain. So I was due. Today I finally got to see what Melbourne is like when seen under brilliant blue, sunny skies. And, as predicted, I now like it even more.

Monique works as an independent contractor and it has worked out very nicely that she has just happened to have off all of the days that we've been here. So, once again, she generously shared her time and Melbourne expertise with us. But today we got outside of the city to see some of the surrounding area, the infamous Australian bush.

We drove about an hour and a half to a little town called Daylesford. Think small town America, but with an Australian twist. Along the way we made stops, the first being at a coffee shop, of course. Then we pulled into what seemed like the middle of nowhere to fill up our water bottles at a natural spring that Monique knew about. I have never had naturally fizzy water before but it was just like seltzer water straight from the spring. Unfortunately, it also had a horribly strong sulfur/saline taste; Monique says it's an "acquired taste"... I say I don't have enough time in Australia to acquire a taste for it. I may also not have enough time in my natural life to acquire it, either.

But the spring water was forgotten as soon as we got to the Chocolate Mill. It is billed as being for 'serious chocoholics' only. No problem there. Their products are all made with only fresh creams and butters and no preservatives whatsoever so they don't sell it anywhere but there as it has such a short shelf life. But it is oh-so-good while it lasts. I had a chili hot chocolate that was made with actual chocolate, all melted and gooey on the bottom of the cup. Sinfully indulgent but so worth it. I mean, I AM on vacation, after all.

Downtown (and I use the word 'downtown' loosely) Daylesford consisted mostly of one main street, lined with old style shops and restaurants and hardware stores and such. It had a small town charm that reminded me a lot of the town where I grew up, so it felt homey and nice to be there. .

We also drove around a bit in the countryside, to a place with natural hot springs, and a couple lake areas, one in which we had a picnic lunch and one in which we saw a peacock just roaming about. We made stops at cute little roadside stands that sell honey and eggs on the honor system. It was nice to get outside of a city and see lots and lots of green... very good for the soul. No kangaroo spottings yet, but will continue to keep an eye out. Monique is an awesome tour guide, but apparently there are some things that even she can't arrange. I remain hopeful.

Oh, and tonight when I saw some Christmas cards at Monique's house, I said "Why on earth are people sending out Christmas cards so early?!". Sarah kindly reminded me, again, that Christmas is only a little more than 2 weeks away. I seem absolutely incapable of wrapping my mind around this concept. Seriously, why will it NOT sink in??

So Much for the National Symbol

My love of Melbourne continues. Even if perhaps Melbourne doesn't return the sentiment.

The day I arrived here it started to rain and it has not stopped yet. There is so much rain that it is making major news around the country. Melbourne has been under strict drought restrictions for nearly 3 years... and then I arrive and that very day the heavens open up and it pours and pours. For that matter, the weather has not been on my side anywhere lately. In Sri Lanka it rained every single one of my ten days there; and I'm not just talking a few showers, I'm talking torrential afternoon downpours that lasted for hours and flooded the yard. It rained the whole first day I was in Singapore. And then Melbourne. But still I love Melbourne, even when it's grey and gloomy. Imagine how much more I would love it when it's sunny and has blue skies!

Today I discovered one more reason to dig this city. It offers an amazing service to its visitors: there is a free bus that transports people around to all of the major attractions and different neighborhoods. Just to be nice, just because they want the people that come here to be able to fully appreciate their city and all it has to offer. I kept waiting for the catch, the part where I had to pay the hidden fee or cough up the big tip... but no, it's just free. Awesome! So I used that this afternoon to get around to some of the places I hadn't seen yet.

I saw the university, the harbor, the Italian neighborhood, museums, Federation Square, the trendy areas... but the one where I spent the most time was the Shrine of Remembrance which is, as you would guess, a memorial to the men and women who have served their country in times of war. I unexpectedly found it to be a rather emotional experience. I have always appreciated the people who serve in the armed forces back home but since my own beloved nephew decided to join the Marines this year, it has a newer, even deeper meaning for me. That there are men and women who have such a sense of honor that they're willing to risk their own lives to protect the lives and the freedoms of their fellow countrymen is a very profound and personal concept to me now. As I looked at the exhibits there and the medals of valor that each represented a certain number of men and women who have died in service to their country, I got teary eyed. I can not possibly thank them enough.

In the evening, Monique, Sarah and I met up at the Queen Victoria Market. On Wednesday evenings it turns into a night market and is quite the institution and the thing to do here. There are stands with of all sorts of Australian handicrafts and really unique items. There are also rows and rows of food vendors offering just about every type of food you can imagine. We tried a number of different things and shared them but the most interesting were the meats that Monique got.... kangaroo, emu and crocodile! Frankly, I was surprised that they eat their national symbol but it turns out that it's quite popular and, as a bonus, pretty healthy. So of course I had to try them all. I mean, really, how can one turn down trying kangaroo while in Australia? They were actually all pretty good but the emu was my favorite as it had the most flavor. For some reason, the idea of eating crocodile creeped me out a little and it took me a few minutes to work up the nerve but it turns out that it tastes pretty much like, no joke, chicken.

Tonight while I write this I am listening to some Christmas music, trying to force my mind into comprehending that it really is almost here. So far, it is definitely NOT working.

Down Under, baby!

You know how sometimes you get to a place and from the very first moment that you're there you just have a really great feeling about it? Yeah, that's how I felt about Melbourne from the first second I stepped out of the airport. So far, my intuition has been dead on.

Of course, getting here was another matter altogether. Because I added so much time to Sri Lanka, it messed up my flights and resulted in this: 7-hour flight to Perth, 5 hours sitting in the closed and nearly deserted Perth Airport in the middle of the night, 3.5 hour flight to Melbourne. I got a grand total of about 3 hours of spotty sleep over the course of the night so by the time I got to Melbourne I was ti-ired. Not grumpy-tired like I was when I got to Singapore two days before (seriously, what is UP with me getting all these crappy red eye flights lately??) but tired like I could curl up in a ball on a cement floor and sleep tired. But I was SOO excited to be in Australia and to step out into Melbourne that I pressed on.

Got all settled in my hostel (Sarah opted to stay with a Couchsurfer about an hour outside of the city, so I'm staying downtown on my own) and decided to hit the pavement and check out the area I'm in and acclimate myself. Turns out I'm in THE area, right in the center of Melbourne and within walking distance of almost everything I want to see and/or do. Awesome. And as if that isn't awesome enough in and of itself, there is bubble tea everywhere here! I think I might move here.

One day when we were back in India (which now seems like a lifetime ago), we were having lunch and I noticed a woman sitting by herself a couple tables away. Having traveled on my own in the past and knowing what it's like, I felt compelled to ask her to join us. We had a great time talking and comparing India travel stories. Her name was Monique and she lived in Melbourne. She said we should look her up when we got there. A lot of people say things like that so you learn to not take them TOO seriously, but it turns out that she meant it.

Today she picked me up from the hotel and showed me all around her great city! Everything I thought about Melbourne yesterday was confirmed today. Love, love, love it. It's a big city, yet it somehow manages to feel small. It's a metropolis, yet it has lots of green. The people are citydwellers yet come across as friendly and laid back. There is great old architecture mixed with very modern architecture. You cn amble alongside the river that runs through it and almost forget you're in the middle of a big city. It is full of cool restaurants of every possible variety, trendy bars, lots of museums, all different types of neighborhoods, funky shops, high end shops, cool little alleyways lined with all of the above...

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We went for lunch to the Veggie Bar, which Monique described as "very Melbourne", followed by coffee at Mario's, supposedly the best cup of java in the city. This is exactly how the conversation went when we walked in:

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Monique: I'd like a soy chai.
Waitress: We don't have anything soy and we don't do chai.
Then, looking at me: And we don't make anything skinny or decaf either.

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So, basically, don't even ask. It was like "We make coffee. Real coffee, nothing else. Nothing frou frou, nothing frothy, so don't waste my time." I LOVED it.

We checked a few other things out and then met up with Sarah who had come in on the train. We walked along the river, wandered around the trendy little alleys Melbourne is known for, bought some divine chocolates at THE chocolate shop in the city, walked by the Melbourne equivalent of the Christmas windows at Macy's in NYC (SOO weird to do while wearing short sleeves), walked through Chinatown where, of course, we got a bubble tea (I mean, come on, it had been nearly 24 hours since my last one) and ended the day eating delish dumplings at a divey little Chinese restaurant where people line up outside to get in.

It's so great having a local to show you around as they can show you things, the REAL things of a place that you would never find on your own. Once again I find myself really and truly overwhelmed by the willingness of a virtual stranger to give so much of her own time to be kind to someone she barely knows. Even more confirmation that my immediate impressions of Australia being an awesome place were absolutely dead on!

Singapore. Short but (semi) Sweet

Singapore made it into our itinerary because we had to lay over here between Colombo and Perth. And, since even layovers count as a 'segment' in the Round the World ticket, if you have to stop somewhere, you might as well at least check it out while you're there. Since I stayed back in Sri Lanka longer, Sarah is now ahead of me in our itinerary so I spent my two days exploring Singapore on my own.

I have to say that whenever I talked to someone about Singapore and asked them what they recommended to do here, the answer inevitably was some variation of "Uummm, well, there's not much to actually do in Singapore". I kept pressing, convinced there had to be SOMETHING, and eventually got a few suggestions but none that really interested me. After having now seen it firsthand, I understand why people were hardpressed to come up with recommendations. Turns out that if you don't love to shop (I hate it), aren't into zoos (only occasionally, by which I mean once a decade at most) and don't dig botanical gardens (not even remotely), Singapore isn't for you. It was not for me.

Now, I have to admit that I didn't go into the city with a very enthusiastic approach, and I can grant that that certainly had something to do with my ultimate feelings about it. My red-eye flight from Sri Lanka was short and allowed for just 3 hours of sleep the night before arriving in Singapore and, since I was determined to not crash during the day so as to not throw myself off sleepwise, I spent most of the day in an exhausted fog. It also didn't help that it poured all morning and rained to one degree or another nearly the rest of the afternoon. So then I was exhausted AND wet. Turns out that Exhausted + Wet = Grumpy.

I dragged my sleep deprived self out of the hostel and made the 15-minute walk to the subway station... only to remember I had left my wallet back at the hostel. I was SO tired at that moment that the thought of having to walk all the way back to get it almost made me start to cry. By the time I got back there, it took every single ounce of inner fortitude to not just give up and let myself go to sleep. But I knew if I did I would sleep the whole day away and, as I only had 1 1/2 days in Singapore, that would have been ridiculous. So I forged on and walked back to the subway and finally made it downtown.

I walked around in the rain to see the older parts of the city by the marina (Merlion Park, the famous fish/lion statue) and then headed over to Orchard Street, the famed heart of the shopping district. Now, I don't like to shop under normal circumstances. Throw in throngs of Christmas shoppers and it actually becomes infuriating to me (particularly when I am exhausted which makes everything annoying to me). I found my annoyance growing by the moment so I found a cute little outdoor place set way back in to escape the crowds and get some lunch... and nearly, literally, fell asleep on the table. As it was only 5 or so, I still couldn't let myself go back and go to bed so I rallied one last time and went to see a movie to force myself to stay awake until I could go to bed at a normal hour. At the end of Day One, I was not impressed with Singapore. Basically, it was a city. A very nice city, yes, but not a particularly remarkable one. However, it did have one remarkably redeeming quality for me up to that point: its abundance of bubble tea. I had two. Singapore was looking up.

Day Two was a great improvement. For starters, it was sunny and clear and beautiful. Secondly, I decided to avoid the downtown as I wasn't in the mood to be in a city. My hostel was in the Joo Chiat area, a much quieter, sleepier, more traditional part of town with lots of colonial architecture. I spent the day walking along there, admiring the charming old buildings and meandering about. I found a place to get a reflexology foot massage and decided to check it out. I have seen them all over the Asian countries I've been in and have to confess having my doubts about its value as a therapeutic tool. But I decided to try it for myself and have to say I am now a firm believer. It was surprisingly painful (fist-balling, wincingly painful) at parts but I must admit that I walked out of there as relaxed and loose and limber as if I had just come from a full hour Thai massage. Remarkable.

For the rest of the afternoon, I made my way down to the marina section where there is a park with lots of trees right on the water's edge. Spent a couple of hours sitting on the shore, listening to the waves while reading (and, okay, napping). And then, on my way back to the hostel to catch my ride to the airport, found more bubble tea. Now THAT is the way to spend a day in Singapore.

Farewell, Sri Lanka

The Tree Trimming party on Wednesday was a success! Due primarily, of course, to our awesome homemade cherry pie. In addition to that, it was nice to get to meet some of Dineli and Nigel's friends and get even more of a sense of their life here.

Other than my last day in Thailand when I saw some outdoor Christmas decorations at a shopping center (with, inexplicably, two 20-feet tall bunny rabbit statues among them), I hadn't seen anything of Christmas before getting to Sri Lanka. And I have to say that when you see Christmas decorations while walking around in 85-degree weather, it just doesn't evoke the same feeling. Having always spent Christmas in a cold climate, it's been interesting to realize how totally intertwined those two things are for me: it just doesn't SEEM like Christmas to me when it's warm. So, hearing Christmas music and seeing all of the decorations at the party was the first time it started to sink in at all that it's actually the holiday season. Even so, it still doesn't seem real somehow and I have this feeling that I'm going to get home and be SHOCKED that it's Christmas. It's hard to explain but it's pretty surreal.

Thursday may have been the ultimate chill day, recouping from the party the night before. Dineli, Nigel and I did manage to make it out to dinner at a cool German pub in the evening, but that was the extent of our excursions for the day. Here dinner is usually eaten between 9 and 10 which, as a night person, I totally dig. I'll definitely miss that when I get home. I will also miss really good beer. I have never really liked beer before this trip. I'm now realizing that was because I was never trying good beers. Between Belgium (famous for their beer prowess), India, Thailand and now Sri Lanka, I have had some really good ones and am shocked to now say that I count myself among the ranks of beer drinkers. I will have to make it a mission to seek out some good ones when I get back to the States. So I guess travel DOES broaden one's horizons!

And so I arrive at the end of my time in Sri Lanka... finally. Four days turned into ten pretty quickly and I'm pretty sure that Dineli and Nigel were starting to wonder if it would ever end! But it's now time to move on, yet again. I'm at the point now where every day I extend in one place takes time off of another and, as my time is officially running out (yikes!), I have a lot to cram in to my final three weeks. Being here has been wonderful. I fell in love with her kids (the baby even learned to say "Auntie" while I was here!) and I got to see life in Sri Lanka. But more than anything it was wonderful because I got to reconnect with an old friend and to be a part of her life here for a short time. She and her husband were beyond generous in allowing me to crash at their place for so long and also in giving so much of their time and resources to treat me like an honored guest.

They are planning a trip back to Toronto and possibly Lancaster in the spring so I shall see them again in the near future. But, for now, off to Singapore.... !