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The Great Barrier Me

It's a challenging notion to be reminded of your boundaries. As a traveler who has up and deserted life in search of, well, something, it's easy to begin to feel invincible. Every arrival at each new location feels like a success in and of itself, each on-time flight, every time your bag shows itself on the baggage claim, every language barrier surmounted.... all these little successes start to feel like victories in light of the robust Rolodex of potential disasters.

Only a week in, I got my traveler ego checked QUITE quickly. Enter, the challenge of the Great Barrier Reef:

Our tour departed promptly at 8am from the docks of Cairns, shipping us out on a lofty 2 hour boat ride (auspiciously preempted by motion sickness tablets) to the first reef stop. What a surprise that Curtis and I were accompanied by none other than an entire Canadian high school....#Old...#Again. 

Slithering into our blue and already saturated wetsuits (which is both gross and vastly more difficult than one would think) we listened to the crew's countless tutorials, watching eagerly like a pack of avatars (so many James Cameron references to be had here). 

Couple of things I will pause to say here:

1.     I have never been scuba diving

2.     I have never been snorkeling

3.     I was not prepared for this at all

You can watch as many tutorials as possible, but when that moment comes where your face is submerged in seawater and you are trying to retrain your brain that it is not only okay to breathe under the ocean's surface, but necessary for your survival, nothing that can prepare you. It is the most alien experience. You literally need to talk your mind off the ledge. Unfortunately, my mind over matter mentality is not as mature as it should be, and I pretty much convinced myself I was invoking an early death and the reef was, in fact, my reaper. God bless the poor diver that got stuck trying to acclimate me to this all while I was in the midst of a full blown panic attack; which was probably the least conducive state to diving, since 1000% of the principle surrounding the sport is to breathe slowly and normally. That was a no for me. Sorry, but if you've never struck a match, nothing can prepare you for running into a burning building-even if you have the right equipment. 

I accepted defeat under the assertion that I could attempt the descent at the second stop, and took to snorkeling. I was overcome with awe as the coral sprung up everywhere beneath me. Some existed as independent towers, skyscrapers nearly grazing the surface, some existing as cul-de-sacs of culture, different creatures congregating in their shared corner of the universe. I was face to face with fish, blue, green, yellow, all opulent, opening their mouths releasing little o shaped exhales. Sections of the reef were reminiscent of lava rock, left over from nature's volcanic tantrums, while other parts looked exactly like human brains, the coiled mass of wrapping pink wires. It was stunning. There are not enough adjectives in the English language to do the Great Barrier Reef justice. You have to see it for yourself to understand that the vibrant visual palette of "Finding Nemo" is not, in fact, a Pixar exaggeration. 

I started to feel the hurdle of my humanness fade away; each aquatic acquaintance I became enamored with allowed me to be less concerned with my own mortality. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty prepared for my second diving opportunity. 

Round Two:

I've got this. I can do this. Down we go. I'm doing great. Oh my god. This pressure in my ears, my head is going to explode, wait they told us how to counteract this, just plug the nose and blow through the cheeks....oh and there goes my mask, completely full with salt water, it burns, IT BURNS! I can’t see, I can't breathe! GET TO THE SURFACE. Okay we have recovered. Sorry about that. Down we go. Oh wow we are really doing it. It's so close I can.........MY EARS I CAN'T POP THEM...

You get the idea. This was it, on rotation, issue after issue. It's hard to maintain any chill when you are convinced you're going to perforate an ear drum or lose vision completely or, you know, die. Dramatic? Maybe, (definitely) but it's a different world down there. I was depressed that the mellow state I had mentored myself into once again became the malevolent fortress of my doom. 

You can convince yourself all you want that you can handle anything, but when you are actually faced with the stakes it's often times more challenging than you ever imagined. Those are the boundaries, the ones that you have already hurdled in your head before ever even encountering, which are the toughest ones to fail at when faced with their tangible reality. It's the human condition, no doubt, to underestimate and overestimate ourselves in nearly everything, and while the dread of defeat hangs heavy around my neck, I can at least say that I tried. I tested my limits and they tested me right back. This battle is yours, barrier reef, but the war wages on. 

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“I’ve walked on two legs since I was a child, But when did I realize that some ways out Past the horizon for thousands of miles There are people like me walking on legs like mine” 

ALL OF THE FEELS. Every traveler needs this song in their audio arsenal. 

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Stay Woke

Hostels are the overtly obvious option for backpackers. Not only are they predominantly merciful in the pecuniary department, but they remain one of the best ways to meet fellow travelers, make connections, and bond with your kindred free spirits. If you’re anything like me, however, the mere idea of social interaction can be taxing, so it takes a pretty solid gaggle off gypsies to drag me out off my solitude. This being said, the crowd at Wake Up did not quite fit the bill for me. Social mingling felt like a less than desirable feat, given the dripping misogynistic makeup of it all (a bikini contest? Really guys?). However, I’d promised to table my pretentious snap-judgements during this trip, so I reluctantly obliged my attendance at the hostel party that night with Curtis.
 There is this fascination everywhere else in the world with what they call “American red cup parties,” which, are probably rather fanciful in the notion, but when in motion, they are horrifying. As a patron of a cacophony of college frat parties, I genuinely feel I can give an expertly objective opinion on the matter: they fucking suck. So, where the theme for our hostel’s party was “Fraturday” (lovely combination of frat and Saturday) I wasn’t so much surprised as I was saddened, staring down the face of a sentence I so desperately thought I’d escaped almost three years ago. 

My limbs were heavy, drenched in discomfort, which proved a detriment to my already disastrous attempts at dancing. The basement packed us all in, a fine sardine prison-slathered in the familiar shoulder to shoulder sweat. It was funny, how foreign this felt to me-how hilariously offbeat I was, posing as such a tepid tourist at a party themed in homage to my own country. I suppose it was more of my recognizing the reflection in the mirror being held up to our culture, but wishing I couldn’t. 

The Wake Up! Hostel bar was simply blaring with its lack of originality. I sat, smiling at the sweet transcendence of flirting across the tired iterations of eligible bachelors; a British brawn was busy showing his sensitive side to a bird, who sat enchanted as he yodeled off his love for Hemingway and art (a little too loudly). Another native Australian was doing his best with broken Spanish, trying to flaunt his mastery of the language, while compromising the integrity of a cotton tee, bought three sizes too small. 

They were all just so much bettter at it; the way they all moved, so free and confident and entitled. The way Xavier watched Sarah scoop her hair up in a delicious ponytail cascading down her neck, looking something like hungry love-satisfied lust. It was hard to not appreciate the display of youthful intent in all its benevolence. It’s also really hard to ignore the inkling to forgo the frat festival for your bed at 9 pm. The latter nearly always won nowadays. We felt our age, with more acute agony than any birthday could ever incur, surrounded by the ghosts of our 20 year old selves as we stepped into the vortex; tiny grains of sand being sucked back up through the hourglass. The air was thick with dejavu, as I watched them archaically waltz around, drowning in misery over their improper wardrobes and drawing near to tears over their uneven eyeliner. I remembered how I used to LIVE for this. I would get back from my four o’clock class and crack a beer and dance around my apartment blasting our “DRAAAANK” playlist, nearly attacking my roommate when she wandered in hours later. And it was just odd this time. It wasn’t mine-I was stealing someone else’s scene. It seemed hard to care about what they were wearing, let alone the mess that I looked like. 

I could feel the superiority that age allowed me to hold over them, but damnit, I was envious of it all; envious that once upon a time WE were the kings of kegs and red cup royalty, and how we had been forced to retire our crowns, now shimmering on foreign craniums. It was all a world I had been a part of only months ago, only now it seemed so silly to me, so paper thin, so fragile and warped. I felt pity for them, knowing how infinite the alcohol makes them feel—and how it will all be yanked away from them soon enough. We are never really ready to be free of kegs and cups, beers and buds. For years we create freedom in the realm of restriction, feasting on the false sense of ease. I miss it terribly, I think, but in such a jaded way, as I know they will too, soon, when they are forced to step down from the beer cooler thrones, away from the Franzia boxed bags of fortune.

The DJ was building up some new beat, all white headphones and neon hanging from his lips. At the apex of the edm static, Curtis and I couldn’t fake it any longer, exchanging exit strategy stares, we stole to the elevator, the tiny glowing incubator that echoed our already amplified anxieties; WAKE UP!

We were woke indeed, privy to a truth we were adamantly trying to avoid: we were overgrown, outdated, overtired and old.

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Sydney, you have got some pretty bomb breakfast food: The Mothership bowl, from the "Single O" in Surry Hills is packed with spinach, quinoa, pickled carrots, sweet potato, cabbage, avocado, poached eggs, topped with sunflower seeds, olive oil and lemon, paired with warm banana bread with pepe saya espresso butter and a glass of Kombucha...I think this is heaven.

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Section 1: Sydney

Sydney, Sydney, Sydney…..

The destination I have heretofore maintained a rather contentious relationship with-at the hands of heartbreak-failed to redeem itself in full. As the first leg of a three month journey, the excitement was palpable and the expectations, inevitably, insurmountable. Despite the sour taste in my mouth, I truly wanted to be blown away by Sydney, and Australia on the whole. I recognize that’s a difficult feat to achieve in two weeks, but stranger things have happened.

Mother Nature quickly reminded us that though we freed ourselves from the maelstrom of chaos that is Corporate America, we could not so tactfully eschew her clutches. Not only did it rain every single day-yes that’s correct, there wasn’t a dry day in the week-but it was monsooning. There is no hyperbole intended here, we were, quite literally battling sheets of water accompanied by winds blowing with umbrella-breaking force. I love rain, the dreary, grey wetness off it all, but it’s difficult to advocate for when it is the sole perpetrator perverting all of your pretty plans. Gone were the dreams of hiking the blue mountains, irritating were the walking tours with soggy shoes and injured umbrellas, pale were the days spent in a hostel bar instead of a sand bar… I could perorate on being a prisoner of the precipitation, but I also must remember that these things are to be expected, and I’m in no position to be kvetching over such petty matters. In hindsight, we were being stalked by an impending cyclone, so, given the circumstances we lucked out; the universe’s tactful reminder that things could always be worse.

We tried our hand at walking tours with the hope to gain some knowledge about Australia’s culture. The local sights tour took us around the opera house, Darling Harbor and a few other squares and gardens. The next tour was a five hour walk along seven local beaches, beginning at Coogee and ending at the famous Bondi. We were starving for historical context, but instead of feasting on facts we were thrown mere crumbs of which Victoria’s Secret models have posed for photoshoots on each beach…

What it had: In one word: Accessibility. Within one day we were navigating like pros; the lack of a language barrier left us free of any communication blunders, the public transportation and nightlife never failed to feel safe, secure and familiar. A little too familiar….which brings me to my next point:

What it lacks: Sydney felt familiar-a little too familiar. Our shortcomings were mostly of our own making, we were lazy tourists in total honestly. In our defense, however, it’s hard to sustain stamina in a city that does not evoke much intrigue. Sydney lacked the feeling of displacement, and while that comfort might be what some tourist crave, it’s exactly what we were running from. We quit our lives to see the world for goodness sake! We were longing to sway in the push and pull of some foreign friction-bring on the language barriers, bring on the novel customs and curious cuisine! Perhaps it was the rain, perhaps it was my stubborn subconscious not wanting to be proven wrong, but Sydney missed the mark for me. I felt smug, settling into that conclusion if we are being honest. Perhaps there’s satisfaction in realizing the wonder of it all isn’t so wonderful after all.

I’m not naive enough to say I cannot be corrected, Australia. To generalize your entire continent based on the bland experiences in one city is no doubt a dangerously ignorant notion. Perhaps, then, it’s better to say: I expected you to steal my heart the way you have with so many before, but it seems we are leaving on terms that feel more like ‘let’s be friends.’ Ironic, isn’t it? How the closeness made us more platonic?

Let this be a cautionary tale for the rest of our journey, then. A lesson learned the hard way, that being confronted with the tangible reality of our minds eidonlons can be jarring, especially when they stand in stark contrast to the pedestal versions we so unfairly elevated to such great heights.

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