Tag: weather

Around again

Everybody knows that when you return from a ridiculously awesome holiday, the first thing you do is start planning your next holiday. It’s a somewhat useless tactic designed to distract you from the fact that you’re back in your real world with your real job and your real responsibilities.

To be honest, I was ok going back to work. I love my job and get on famously with the people I work with. Plus I had a bazillion stories to tell – so many that I’ve begun noticing people ducking through doorways when they see me approaching. No matter, they’ll keep.

Our trip was so immense it did take us a little while to begin working on the next one. We’d been home for almost as long as we’d been away before we started considering our options. We don’t have 99 days this time, we only have 16, so it would need to be a short flight to an easy destination.

Now, the thing is, when you’ve been 99 days around the world, covered three continents, seen sunshine, snow and autumn leaves and gazed at twenty-seven different versions of Water Lilies, it’s very difficult to choose your next adventure.

”Somewhere relaxing,” I suggested, “Hawaii? Fiji?”

Neither of us could work up the enthusiasm.

“Somewhere in Australia? Tasmania? Broome? Adelaide? Uluru? Darwin?”

Maybe?

I switched tactics.

“How about somewhere we’ve been before? Sri Lanka? Japan? Malaysia? Vietnam?” Less effort, and all places we’ve said we’d like to go back to.

”Those are possibilities,” said Don. Now we were getting somewhere.

”Which one?”

”Ummm…”

We discussed a fishing holiday, a road trip, a staycation. Camping at the beach. Returning to Singapore seeing as I’d spent the whole time sick in the hotel room last trip.

We stopped thinking about it for short periods of time, only to suddenly circle back with new suggestions.

And finally, after taking into consideration that we don’t have much time, we don’t want to fly too far, we don’t want to spend too much money and we really just need somewhere to relax, we’ve booked our holiday.

We’re going to Peru.

Five nights in Bangkok

No but seriously, have I mentioned we love the heat?

Urgh.

We’ve been to Bangkok several times before. We love this city – the whole noisy, hectic atmosphere of food, markets, people, shops. But Bangkok is hot. Like, really hot. Muggy, sweaty hot. We can no longer wear the same clothes five days in a row hot. It’s quite a dramatic change.

To counteract the heat, Don has purchased cloth trousers and more sarongs, and I have purchased batik* Thai** pants and an elephant singlet.

I shall wear all of these back in Australia.***

However counteracting our new, cooler outfits we are eating chilli for breakfast, lunch and dinner at street vendors across the city. Big, fat red chillies that take you completely by surprise**** if you’re not looking. Chilli to turn your face red and make sweat cover your brow.

To counteract the chillies, we’re drinking gallons of water. Bottles and bottles of water, as well as bottles and bottles of Pepsi***** and Coca-cola.

Counteracting all of this water and cola consumption, we are walking everywhere (in our new outfits), for miles and miles, seeing temples and markets and statues and shops and people. It’s pretty hard going.

To counteract being hot and worn out from walking****** we’re buying fruit at every corner. Vendors sell it from ice laden carts, chopping it fresh in front of you – watermelon, pineapple, mango, other fruit.*******

Yep, Bangkok is pretty fabulous, but pretty darn hot.

I guess the other thing we could use is our air-conditioned hotel room and the swimming pool, but then that would be quite lazy of us.********

________________________________________________________

*not really batik, just “batik-look”

**not worn by any Thai people, worn only by tourists

***probably not, going on past experience

****yep

*****not really Pepsi, a kind of sugary cola substitute

******ok so perhaps we’ve jumped in a tuk-tuk several times

*******small, round brown things, sliced green things, pale yellow segmented things

********alright yes we are totally being lazy every afternoon from around 3:30pm

Layer upon layer upon layer

Iceland

I have completely acclimatised to the freezing cold weather, and have the cold weather habits of people who live here down pat.

Bahahahahahaha! I have no freaking idea what I’m doing.

It is cold in Iceland. Freezing cold. Several layers of clothing cold. It’s a science getting dressed for this, and every morning I drive Don mad with a string of questions. What’s the temperature? What does minus 1 mean? Is it much different to 3? How long will I be inside? How long will I be outside? What do I have to carry? Is it snowing? Is it raining? Will I be too hot? If I take layers off how much will I have to carry? How many days in a row can I wear these socks? Long or short sleeve thermals?

In the end the answers to any of these questions have been irrelevant because I’ve been in the same clothes for five days in a row. And everything about them is a drama.

I have three layers of pants. Thermals, followed by thick tights followed by even thicker leggings. They may keep my legs warm, but it’s a complete nightmare getting them on. And getting them off? Every time I need the bathroom I have to roll them down my legs, creating a giant black Lycra wad around my knees. The crotch of each pant hangs at varying levels between my legs so for even a hint of comfort I’m forced to try to separate each layer and hoik them up one by one. All this while holding all of my other clothes out of the way. At the end of the day I peel the whole lot off in one go, only to find I have three elastic band welts at various heights around my stomach. Charming.

I’ve worn four shirts with the same big red puffy jacket over the whole lot every day. It’s so puffy the one time I tried carrying a shoulder bag I got so tangled up in scarf, sleeves, strap, hair and hood that Don had to rescue me before I cut off my airway. Now instead I have cash, cards, tissues, camera, phone, spare battery, hair tie and gloves all stashed in the three pockets of the jacket. Every time I pull the gloves out, all of the other items go flying. Every time I need something and I’m not wearing the jacket I spend 20 minutes searching through metres of red puff just to locate a pocket. Almost always the wrong pocket.

I can’t put my hair up because if I do I can’t jam my beanie far enough down my head. I left my hair loose for two days and ended up with three enormous dreadlocks. I tried low hanging pigtails like a five year old, but have now settled on a sort of a side plait.

But all of this is nothing compared to the time and effort spent whenever I go from inside to outside or from outside to inside. We’ve been getting around in a big Nissan Patrol for the past few days, which has been great, but space is at a premium.

Getting out of the car? Pull on hat, wind scarf around neck, look for gloves that aren’t stashed in pockets like they should have been and put them on. Undo seatbelt. Untangle scarf from seatbelt. Wind scarf back around neck. Manoeuvre one sleeve of puffy jacket on before exiting the car and getting too cold. Exit car. Pull on other sleeve and try to connect puffy jacket zip while gloves are still on. Fail. Take off gloves, connect zip. Look for gloves again, find them in the snow, pick up and put back on again.

Go see waterfall/geyser/glacier/snow/mountain.

Come back to car. Unzip and remove one puffy jacket sleeve before entering car. Sit, pull on seatbelt. Remove the rest of puffy jacket, get tangled in seatbelt. Undo seatbelt, remove puffy jacket, stuff puffy jacket in a ball on the floor. Remove beanie, gloves and scarf one by one and stuff on the floor. Do up seatbelt. Realise we’ve already arrived at the next waterfall/geyser/glacier/snow/mountain.

As you can tell, it’s a slick routine I have going here.

Most people would think I’m a local if not for the accent.

Expect a slide night

It’s week nine and I have taken 2,562 photos. Many photos of buildings, paintings and churches, some photos of food, multiple selfies, lots of squirrels, even more lion statues, lots of Don and me standing in front of famous things grinning inanely. Photos with our heads chopped off, photos with only half the background.

But if there’s one subject with which I may have gotten a tad carried away, it’s autumn.

Well come on, everywhere is full to the brim with trees, their leaves changing colours at varying rates – we don’t get that at home. Clouds of red, orange, brown, yellow, rust stretched as far as you can see, blankets of yellow and brown to shuffle and swing your feet through, massive bursts of red. It’s just so beautiful, I could happily spend all day just walking through the parks, gardens and wilderness. Taking photos.

In Lucca, London and Scotland, Queen of the autumn leaf brigade, I’ve taken:

9 landscape photos of various parks
7 close ups of leaf litter
10 selfies with background leaves
2 photos of Don disappearing into a leafy wilderness
6 photos of me crouched amongst the leaf litter
15 photos of individual trees that looked particularly pretty
18 photos up tree lined avenues
1 photo of Don and Kristin disappearing into tree lined avenue wilderness
8 photos of London landmarks carefully framed amongst the autumn leaves
16 photos of Scottish castle surrounds
15 photos of Scottish castles within their surrounds
7 photos of trees along a bubbling creek
5 photos of sheep in fields surrounded by autumn trees.

As I said, a tad carried away. Thank goodness our next stop is Iceland.

Welcome to Scotland

It was four degrees when we arrived in Aberdeen. Four.

That’s ok, we were expecting the cold so we were dressed appropriately when Kristin picked us up from the airport. And even better, Gary had built a roaring fire to welcome us after the long drive to their country home.

A burning, crackling, coal driven, flames hurtling up the chimney roaring fire.

I took my coat off at the front door and we snuggled into the living room with several drams of whisky, welcome to Scotland champagne, a determination not to peak too soon and the roaring fire.

After a while I had to take my shoes off. Gary put more coal onto the fire. We drank some more whisky and champagne, a bottle of red was opened.

It got warmer. I took my socks off. Gary put even more coal onto the fire. We switched to white wine, the whisky kept coming.

It got even warmer. Burning up a wee bit, I took my scarf off. Then I took my jumper off.

Gary put more coal onto the fire and brought out more whisky. I took my shirt off. Then I shoved the sleeves of my long t-shirt up my arms.

It was one degree outside, yet sitting in that tiny living room was like being in a bikram yoga class with endless alcohol.

In danger of stripping down to my underwear, Kristin eventually moved us into the dining room where it was icy cold and much more comfortable.

It wasn’t that we couldn’t feel the cold. Because there’s no way we peaked too soon.