Bren on The Road

Category: Stories

  • To Where The Northern Lights Go

    To Where The Northern Lights Go

    I stood at the window, eyes skyward.

    Nothing.

    It was my third night here in Rovaniemi; one of Finland’s smaller cities, just outside the Arctic Circle. But I wasn’t here for the sightseeing. The mornings and afternoons had been loitered through, and each night was spent lounging by the window, hoping to see the famous aurora borealis come out to play. Seeing them was the sole reason I’d braved the long journey into Lapland, but so far every night had been the the same. Rain, clouds, maybe some stars. But no lights.

    I decided I couldn’t sit around and wait anymore. It was time to go hunting.

    The next morning I picked myself up a rental car and forged my battle plan. I would head north, so far north that it would be impossible for the Northern Lights to escape me. My first destination was the town of Ivalo, some 300 kilometres away.

    rovaniemi-ivalo

    I’d arranged to Couchsurf with Kaisu and Arttu, a young couple with an apartment full of animals. I arrived in the early evening, and we chilled in their lounge and got to know each other over a few Estonian beers. As I’d promised to cook dinner, we all headed to the supermarket once the sun came down, stocking up supplies for a Chinese feast. Even in this sleepy town of 1,500 in the middle of nowhere, they had not one, but two enormous supermarkets stocked with everything you could want, even uncommon Chinese ingredients you would never expect to see. But Finland has a way of surprising you like that.

    As we walked across the parking lot, to and from the car, I kept my eyes to the sky. Again it was only clouds and blackness, no different from the nights before. There would be no aurora hunting tonight. But not all was lost. Kaisu and Arttu had a ridiculously sized television, hooked up with a PS4 and Netflix. I cooked, we ate, and then the three of us boozed on wine and Finnish vodka, well into the night, until our heads and the Playstation controllers hit the floor.

    Day 2

    In the midst of inebriation the night before, Kaisu and Arttu had invited me up to their cabin in Neiden, a tiny town in Norway.

    “We’ll get some friends together, have some drinks, have a sauna.”

    It was hard to turn down such invitations. As soon as the hangovers cleared, we packed the car up and made the drive 300km north to Neiden.

    rovaniemi-ivalo-neiden

    Arttu had a charming little cabin on a small plot with around three other houses. It was so secluded he didn’t even have a lock on the front door. We just waltzed right in. There was no television or wifi inside. Just a fridge, an oven and some beds. It was perfect.

    Once night fell, Arttu’s neighbour Howard invited us to his cabin for drinks. Kaisu’s friend also came by to join us; a Norwegian girl, whose name I forget. While we sipped on local beers, Howard brought out some fresh king crab he’d caught in the river down the road. In most countries such crabs cost a small fortune, but up here they catch them by the dozen without much trouble at all. So the five of us sat there drinking, chatting, eating crab, as the Norwegians do.

    Between drinks we’d go outside to visit the bathroom, have a cigarette, run to Arttu’s cabin to refill the fridge, and each time I stepped outside I’d look at the sky, hopeful to see something. But every time there was nothing to see.

    “Tomorrow,” I told myself. “It’ll happen tomorrow.”

    Of course there was only one way for this night to end: The sauna. As usual they all disrobed completely, I followed suit. Where I’m from a bunch of guys and girls naked in the sauna is rather peculiar, but here it’s as normal as cereal for breakfast. We sat there drinking, laughing, talking, sweating, all butt-ass naked, until the early hours of the morning.

    Day 3

    The mission was to get north, as north as humanly possible. Or at least as far as a man with a rental car can go. Nordkapp was supposedly the most northern (driveable) point of Europe, and Google had me at seven hours away. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it in one day, but I was going to try. Because what better place to find the Northern Lights than at the very north of the world?

    My first order of business was to get supplies. I headed back to the Finnish border to stock up on snacks, gas and water (everything is cheaper in Finland), before starting the long drive up Norway’s coast. It reminded me of rural New Zealand in the autumn. Fiords, golden fields, mountains, empty roads. Who would’ve thought the north and the south of the world looked exactly the same in the fall?

    Every now and then I’d see a side road into a forest, a lake, a viewing point, a river, and I’d pull the car over to snap a few pictures and smell the cool air. Outside of New Zealand, I’d never had my own wheels to explore so freely. It was liberating, to truly follow the road to your own beat.

    By the time the sun came down, I had made it 360km west to Olderfjord.

    rovaniemi-ivalo-neiden-oldersfjord

    I found a small parking spot by the roadside, on the water’s edge, and decided to stay there for the night. It was dark now, and as I turned off the car and looked up through the windscreen the moon smacked me in the face. It was glowing, and full, far larger than I was used to, lighting up everything in the vicinity. I got out of the car and stood over the water below, admiring how majestic everything looked. How nature can make you feel so small. That night, so many miles from home, I felt completely free, invisible to anyone and everyone in the world.

    I only managed to sleep in that spot for an hour before the cold woke me up. I looked at the clock. Midnight. The clouds, once heavy, now seemed to be clearing slowly. If I was going to go aurora hunting, now was as good a time as any.

    I fired up the car and continued north. I drove slowly, hyper aware around every turn, expecting to see sleep-walking reindeers or half asleep drivers. But the roads were empty. Any time I hit a straight, I’d cock my head and stare up at the sky, hoping to see greens and blues and purples dancing around the stars. But there was nothing.

    Before I knew it I’d made it 100 kilometres north to Honningsvåg. It was Saturday night and the town was semi-lively for such a small, secluded place.

    rovaniemi-ivalo-neiden-oldersfjord-honnigsvag

    Some years ago I might’ve wandered into a bar to greet some new faces, but my eyes and body were tired from the long day’s drive. I parked outside the tourist office, jumped on the free wifi, and played some lullaby tunes to wind the night down. And as I piled on as many layers of clothes as I could, I checked the sky one last time.

    No lights.

    Day 4

    I woke up at six o’clock with a numbing cold in my feet. It felt like they were frozen, ready to snap off at first touch. I’d fallen asleep in the driver’s seat, curled awkwardly on my side with my feet tucked under me. As I came to, my whole body suddenly felt cold. It reminded me of those winter mornings as a kid, struggling to get ready for school.

    I decided to complete the drive to Nordkapp that morning, but after a wrong turn, I ended up in Nordvågen, a sleepy village-like place about 10km away. I parked by the road to catch my bearings for a second, when I noticed the mountains around me. For some reason they looked so climbable. Something in me was just saying “Why don’t you do it?”

    I got out of the car and looked it over, trying to visualise the path. Certain places were definitely too steep, and the rock definitely too loose, but I just felt like I had to try. I stuffed my backpack with snacks and water and went to the foot. The first ten metres were easy. Lots of big rocks, the brush not too soft. And then it got tricky. The rock was loose, as I’d expected. And the brush was soft and deep. I moved slowly, hyper cautious, suddenly wary about how high I was getting. After about twenty minutes, I found a small landing and stopped. I looked down.

    Falling from up here, there was no coming back. It was high. The same voice that had told me to come up was now telling me to go back down. But the top just looked so close.

    I kept going.

    When I finally got up there unscathed, other than a few scratches, I planted myself on a rock and looked over Nordvågen for the next hour. There’s something about climbing to the top, even of the smallest mountains, that makes you feel alive. I sat there in calming silence, and felt lucky; lucky to be in this faraway place, lucky to have two healthy arms and legs. It was a moment I needed, something to remind myself of why I was here, what the purpose of this journey was, why I continued to weather the road for all these years.

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    It was still only 10 a.m. when I finally made it back to the car. Normally I’d still be in bed, but as I didn’t actually have a bed on this particular morning, I was out battling little mountains in the Norwegian wilderness. Blessings in disguise, as they say.

    It took me about half an hour to finally get to Nordkapp. The roads to get there looked new, narrow and winding, up and over empty hills. Everything was golden from the coming autumn. Every now and then I would stop by the side of the road and take a photo, but I could never quite capture the endless orange the same way my eyes did.

    As I approached Nordkapp I saw a booth, about 100 metres from the point. I drove up to the window. A young lady greeted me.

    “Hi, welcome to the North Cape. It’s 265 kroners per person.”

    If you’re wondering, that’s about 26 Euro. Most people would probably think what the heck, we’ve come this far, but I’d fallen into this trap too many times. Honestly, I didn’t even know Nordkapp was just a cape. I thought it was the name of a small town at the tip of the world. I pulled the car over and got out. I could see the people up at the point, snapping photos, at least 300 Euros worth of entry fees wandering around up there. For some reason, I just didn’t feel the tinge of photo envy that was common in my earlier years of travelling. I snapped a quick photo from the car, and headed back to Honningsvåg.

    I found another spot overlooking the ocean to sleep that night, in a small bay by the main road. There was huge rock to the left of me, which I hoped would shield the wind and keep me a little warmer than the night before. I lay for an hour or so, pounding an old blink-182 album I’d grown up listening to in high school. I must have listened to it over 500 times as a teenager, and with it came back all the memories, flashes of different feelings and faces that had shaped me during those years. I was amazed at how the songs carried so many memories, decades after I’d stopped listening to them. And of course, between songs I’d look to the sky, hoping to be amazed, and every time the sky would disappoint. I started to doubt whether I’d end up seeing the lights at all.

    Day 5

    The next morning I drove to the tourist office to use the wifi. I pulled up all the guides about the aurora borealis, something I probably should have done on Day One. It started to become clear why I hadn’t seen them yet. I was in the wrong place. I had assumed the further north you go, the better the lights. But in some ways it was the opposite. To see the lights you need crystal clear skies. The skies tend to get cloudier the more north you go. There were also various apps telling you all the best places to see the lights on any given day, which all gave terrible forecasts for Honningsvåg and its surrounds.

    Of course I felt silly, but I wasn’t upset. I was hopeful. I was now armed with all this new intel, and still had three nights to make magic happen.

    The forecasts said that Alta, a small town a few hundred kilometres south, had the best chance of aurora action that night. I jumped on Couchsurfing and shotgun requested a few hosts in the city. A Belgian girl, Isabel, responded almost immediately. I was suddenly energised again; a shower, a bed, the lights. It was all waiting for me just a couple of hours away.

    rovaniemi-ivalo-neiden-oldersfjord-honnigsvag-alta

    When I arrived in Alta two hours later, Isabel was there to meet me in the carpark. Even from a distance I could see a glowing smile on her face. She was tallish and thin, long auburn brown hair, and her eyes a piercing blue, almost dazzlingly so. She laughed as she greeted me, and from the colour in her voice I immediately knew what a free spirited and joyful person I was meeting.

    My entire body smiled when I saw her place. Nestled in the corner of her room I had a bed, an actual bed with four legs and a mattress. A hot shower waiting. Wifi. I quickly met all of her roommates, then lay down and grinned at the ceiling. Luxury.

    “So we’re going to relax in the sauna soon. You will join us?”

    Uhhhhh. YES. It was a modest student sharehouse, but it felt like I’d checked in to the Couchsurfing Sheraton.

    Afterwards Margaux – Isabel’s neighbour – invited us over for dinner. The two of them cooked fish, mash and vegetables for the whole house, with a few slabs of chocolate for dessert. After feasting, the six of us lounged in the kitchen, full bellies, talking and playing cards as the night wound down. Moments like these, plain as they may seem, always soothe the soul when the road is long and rough.

    Come midnight we’d all saunaed, showered, eaten, and half fallen asleep, but Isabel still had one task left on the day’s to-do list. While the rest of Alta was sleeping, she rounded us up for a dumpster dive at the local supermarket. I was designated driver of the getaway car, Isabel was lead dumpster diver, Margaux and her comrades, Ali and Tom, were the bagging crew.

    The streets were empty. As we pulled into the supermarket carpark, I set the car in the shadows while the five of us shuffled over to the dumpsters with pockets full of plastic bags. Isabel opened the dumpster and jumped right in. Granted I’d only known her for six hours, but I’d never seen her look so focused. Obviously this was serious business.

    The dumpster was big, the size of a minivan, filled with six or seven full, black garbage bags. She untied the first one, yanked it open and looked inside.

    “Bread,” she said flatly as she looked over at us.

    Who wants bread?”

    Her eyes were laser focused now, the permanent laughter from earlier in the night nowhere to be seen. The bag in her hands must have had at least 25 loaves in it.

    “Just take all of it,” Tom shrugged.

    “No, we can’t eat all that!”

    Yeah. Geez Tom. We can’t eat all that.

    She offloaded five or six loaves to us, one Christmas loaf in particular catching her attention.

    “Ooooohh these ones are good,” she smiled, holding it up and admiring it before throwing it over to us.

    I laughed as I watched her tie the bag up and move onto the next one. She was a professional.

    As she pulled the next bag open, her eyes almost exploded out of her head.

    “Ohh putain! Give me the bag hurry up!”

    “What is it?”

    “Just give me the bag!”

    Tom handed over a bag, and she started digging deep.

    She pulled out a mango, some grapes, and then an endless stream of apples. Five, ten, fifteen, just slamming them into the bag, rapid fire, a huge smile on her face.

    By the end of it, we had at least fifty dollars of food, much of it in pristine condition. It was my first dumpster dive, and I was sold 110%.

     

     
     
     
     
     
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    When we got back home I took a minute to gaze out the window while the rest of them sorted through their spoils in the kitchen. Earlier in the day the aurora forecasts had been good, but suddenly they had all changed from “Yes” to “Maybe”. And the forecast from my eyeballs was saying “No”. I saw clouds, lots of them, and nothing else. I chuckled at my bad luck. My likelihood of seeing the lights was fading rapidly; chances high that I’d be seeing nothing in the 36 hours I had left up here. But such is life.

    I got into bed and Isabel and I chatted for a while before I knocked out. We laughed about a few things happening in my life, things I usually keep to myself. But it’s funny, you tend to divulge a lot of your secrets out here. You meet people, fellow travellers, and they know the deal. There’s no judgement, no preconceptions about who you are or who you should be. You ask them for their opinion and they give it. It’s someone you’ll never see again, and that makes it very easy to trust them. Because honestly, who the hell are they going to tell?

    Day 6

    I woke up late. As expected, I slept like a mummy in a coma. Isabel spent the day at school, and I stayed in her room glued to my laptop, enjoying a little rest and relaxation. I kept a close eye on the aurora forecast – most were saying it was looking good, maybe a 60% chance to see them, but I’d learned a few things from the week gone by. I didn’t get my hopes up.

    When Isabel got home in the evening I helped her cook dinner for the house – apple cake and cauliflower soup, with the apples and cauliflowers we’d snagged from the dumpsters the night before. I mostly just cut the apples and played DJ, while she did the rest. When it’s been months on the move, it’s a priceless comfort to be welcomed into a family and do everyday things again. Moments like this aren’t exactly rare on the road, but are often far between, so we tend to cherish them more than people realise. I’ve never enjoyed cutting apples so much in my life.

     

     
     
     
     
     
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    When dinner was finally cooked and eaten, and the table cleared, I decided to go for a quick drive, just in case the skies felt like being kind. I blasted my favourite song on the stereo, and headed out beyond the city lights, hoping to see some colours in the sky. I found a small field shrouded in darkness and parked there, just reflecting on the past week. It had been an adventure for sure, a tiring one, in some ways an unsuccessful one, but I’d loved every piece of it. In between thoughts I looked at the sky in passing glances, but it offered nothing but thick and heavy cloud. But lights or no lights, I only had the fondest memories of the week gone by. Tomorrow I would go home happy.

    Day 7

    My last day in Norway. The car was due back at the rental office the next morning, and I needed to start driving at 2 a.m. that night to get it back to Finland in time. But I still had the day to kill.

    I went hiking out in the hills just outside of Alta, searching for some grand canyon Isabel had told me about. After two hours of helpless wandering and a badly sprained ankle, I found it. She wasn’t kidding; it was enormous, long and winding, deeper than one’s mind could comprehend. I looked over the edge. Vertigo. 200 metres, at least. One trip and it was all over.

    I barely got to see half the canyon before I felt the need to head back. My ankle was starting to swell, and I was already hobbling on one foot, with a two hour hike back to the car ahead of me. I fiddled with my foot, trying to determine how bad it was. I decided I would survive. But the sun was starting to set. I had to go.

    Things got a little more complicated when I realised any trace of a path had disappeared. I looked around me, in every direction. It was all the same; stretches and stretches of orange hills, miles from any road or civilisation. There was a broken path I’d followed to get here, but after running excitedly along the canyon I’d lost all idea of where I was. The offline map on my phone, which barely loaded, was the only bearing I had. I needed to head west to find the road.

    After about ten minutes a couple called out to me.

    “Excuse me…do you know how to get back to the road?”

    I turned to face them. They were a young Finnish couple, maybe in their twenties, tricked out in fancy hiking gear and colourful jackets.

    “I’m not really sure. The map says to head west. So I’m just going to follow the sun.”

    They looked at me blankly. I showed them the map.

    “The road is to the west of the canyon. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west. If we just keep heading towards the sun, we should meet the road.”

    Old lessons from Jackie Chan movies.

    “Hmm okay, is it fine if we walk together?”

    “Yeah of course.”

    We followed the sun for two hours, ankle deep through swamps, mud and streams. Every now and then we’d come across blueberries, which I’d eat, comforted by the fact that I might be able to survive out here for a couple of days if it came to that.

    Two and a half hours passed before we finally made it back to the road. The carpark was nowhere to be seen, and the sun was moments from dipping down over the horizon. We asked a passerby where we were, who chuckled at us getting lost, and pointed us in the direction of the carpark, a half hour walk away. I hobbled on my bung ankle, cold and muddy, but my spirits were high. It was the skies. They were a bright, soaring blue, not a cloud to be found; you couldn’t have painted a clearer sky on a canvas.

    “Maybe,” I said to myself.

    “Just maybe.”

    That night one of Margaux’s housemates cooked burritos for dinner. We sat in their kitchen eating, chatting, waiting for the sky to go pitch black while I nursed my foot with a piece of frozen whale meat. But when eleven o’clock hit, it was time for aurora hunting. I had three hours left in Norway. This was the last hurrah.

    Isabel suggested we head to Komsa, a small peak not far from the town centre. It was an easy climb for the rest of them, but challenging for myself with only one foot. But a little aurora promise was all I needed to get to the top.

    The peak boasted a sprawling view of the city lights, set against the fiord, and a 360 degree view of Alta and its surrounds. We planted ourselves on a rock overlooking the water, the moon hovering behind us. The sky couldn’t have been any clearer.

    “You’re going to see them!” Isabel beamed, smiling ear to ear. She was more excited for me than I was.

    Finally, around midnight, a small tinge of green appeared on the horizon. We all perked up and eyed it closely. It was faint and distant, but slowly grew, longer and brighter. I wasn’t even sure if it was an aurora. But soon another one emerged beside it, much thicker and far-reaching. And then they both beamed, from the horizon to the centre of the sky.

    For one or two minutes they shone above us, like nothing I’ve ever seen, before slowly disintegrating back into the darkness. I spent most of those minutes fiddling with my camera, trying to catch the perfect shot, somewhat failing to enjoy the magic of my first Northern Lights moment. For some reason I had assumed they stayed out for hours at a time. But they were gone as fast as they had come.

    “Look, behind you,” Isabel nudged.

    I turned around. They were back. A scattering of green daggers littered the sky, hovering over the city.

    We both awed in silence for a moment, mouths agape, heads slowly swivelling back and forth. I felt a sudden surge of satisfaction in that moment, and in many ways, relief. The lights were right here, sitting on top of me. Have I really found them? It was one of those moments I wouldn’t truly appreciate until many days afterward.

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    The auroras continued to pop in and out of the sky for the next hour. We sat there and gawked and pointed and ogled, watching them fade in and out, braving the piercing cold as we waited for them to come back each time they vanished. But eventually the window closed, and the clouds rolled in, like a closing curtain, tucking them away for the night. Just like that, they were gone.

    “Time to go.”

    It was almost 2 a.m. when we got back to the house. I had to leave, and soon, if I was going to get my car back in time. I said my goodbyes to the roommates, and Isabel walked me out to the carpark to farewell me with a hug and a wave. Goodbyes, of course, are nothing new to me, but I was sad that night, genuinely so, to be leaving such a warm and welcoming place.

    Alta had been the ending I’d hoped for; new friends, new adventures, all the memories I’d envisioned on the morning I first stepped into that little rental car. All that remained now was a seven-hour drive against foggy roads, tired eyes and stray mooses, not to mention a throbbing ankle that made me wince each time I pushed the clutch in. But I had no qualms about any of it. I just pulled the car out of the carpark and smiled at the long road ahead. Because after the week I’d had, I could’ve torpedoed my car right into a moose’s nose and it wouldn’t have dampened my spirits for a split second. My little Skoda and I had set out on an adventure, stayed until the end, and gotten everything we came for.

    THE END

    A heartfelt thank you to Kaisu, Arttu and Isabel for being such amazing hosts. You made the adventure possible. Until next time.

    A short story of new friendships and experiences as the Northern Lights are chased through rural Finland and Norway.
  • Hitch-hiking Diaries: From Kraków to Tallinn

    Hitch-hiking Diaries: From Kraków to Tallinn

    Recently I completed my first extended hitch-hike – around 1,300km and four countries – from the south of Poland to the northern tip of Estonia.

    hitchmap

    When I tell people about this, they often seem confused about the whole idea. Who picks you up? Is it easy? Hard? What if no one stops? But hitching is actually very popular in Europe and has been for a long time.

    So here’s an inside look: A no-frills journal of all my rides from beginning to end. As you’ll see there’s nothing crazy about the whole thing, just people helping people, two strangers keeping each other company on a long drive. If you’ve thought about hitching in the past, maybe this will give you an honest glimpse into what you’re in for.

    Kraków to Warsaw

    The idea to hitch-hike comes out of nowhere, really. I initially just want to hitch to Warsaw, as the Polish bus timetable is annoying me. And then I think, why not just go all the way to Tallinn? It’s not that far. Besides, I’d stopped finding buses and trains fun a long time ago.

    So I decide that’s the mission; Krakow to Tallinn.

    The first day is easier than expected. I get to a gas station on the highway to Warsaw. I have a ready-made sign in my bag that I actually spent a long time on. Just need to head to the roadside and hold it up. I feel kind of nervous, to be honest. I’ve never hitch-hiked before, at least not in the traditional sense. But it couldn’t have gone any smoother.

    I pull out my sign and have barely been waiting thirty seconds before someone stops. He’s maybe in his forties, a Polish guy, drives a Honda CR-V. He gets out and helps me throw my bag in the trunk.

    “Would you like some apples?” he asks, hold out a small box of green apples. “They’re organic, from my mother’s farm!”

    I smile, and we each take one before getting in the car.

    “So you must have kids,” I say, looking around his car. There’s crap everywhere.

    He laughs and nods, taking a bite out of his apple.

    He actually lives in the UK, and has driven all the way here to visit his family. Took him two days. He tells me about his two kids, both in school, and his wife, some big-shot scientist somewhere in England.

    He has a few travel stories of his own. Says he hitch-hiked all over Europe as a kid, and asks me a lot of questions about what the backpacker scene is like today. He wants to know the gear we use, what apps on my phone, the whole deal. I get the feeling he picks up hitchers like me to repay the favour from his own journeys, but to also continue adventuring vicariously through us. I’ll probably be that guy some day.

    The drive itself is easy; main highway, three hours, give or take.

    When we get to Warsaw, he drops me at a metro station and I write down my blog and email for him. He says he’ll be in New Zealand one of these days, and I tell him I’ll be more than happy to chauffeur him around. We shake hands, give our farewells, and I head into the station to get a train to my Couchsurfer‘s place. I can’t even remember his name.

    Warsaw to Bialystok

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    I head to a bus stop on the highway north out of Warsaw. It takes me an almost an hour to find my way there. I hold up my sign.

    A lot of drivers acknowledge me with smiles and nods, but nobody stops.

    An hour passes. Then another hour. Still no ride. It’s 2pm now, and I’m already entertaining the possibility that I might not be going anywhere today.

    Finally I decide to walk about 400 metres down the road to the nearest gas station. As I do, it starts to rain softly. I try to ignore this enormous inconvenience. I get to the gas station and buy a sandwich. I’m tired and hungry. I didn’t have time to eat breakfast this morning. I ask a guy standing outside drinking a coffee if he’s heading to Białystok. He says yes. I get excited inside, and ask if he can take me. He says I need a helmet; he’s on a motorbike.

    Damn.

    I stand and chat with him for ten minutes.

    A car pulls in behind me. He looks over my shoulder and says, “That lady is going to Białystok”. I turn around. It’s a flash car, some huge BMW SUV. I ask him how he knows. He says to look at the number plate – BI is the registration for Białystok. A middle-aged lady gets out and starts pumping gas. I ask him what he thinks my chances are, as lone women don’t usually give rides to strangers, especially an enormous, rugged, imposing man like me.

    “You should ask her, she looks strong, walks with some dignity,” he chuckles.

    I laugh and walk over to her.

    “Excuse me, are you going to Białystok?”

    She turns and smiles.

    “Yes.”

    “I’m looking for a ride there, would you be able to take me?”

    I put on my warmest, friendliest smile.

    She laughs and takes a deep breath, looking me over. A few moments pass.

    “If you can’t it’s totally fine, I’ll just be waiting over here, let me know.” I smile and go back to my seat. She heads into the shop to pay for her gas.

    Two minutes later she comes out and looks at me. She shakes her head, with a smile.

    “Sorry.”

    I tell her it’s fine, and it is. I watch her drive off with four empty seats in her overpriced car, say bye to my new friend, and head back to the road. I find another spot this time, much better for hitching than the first.

    After an hour someone finally stops. He says he can take me Wyszków. I ask him where that is, and he tells me it’s nearly halfway to Białystok. I decide to take my chances; better than standing around here for another three hours.

    It’s a tiny little car, beaten up, and the guy can’t be older than 25. His phone keeps ringing and he keeps denying the call.

    “Problems bro?”

    He sighs.

    “Yeah. Ex-girlfriend. You know?”

    I laugh.

    “Yes, I know very well.”

    He works at a sushi restaurant in Warsaw, and also has his own sushi joint in Wyszków, commuting each week between the two.

    “Sushi is a big thing in Poland right now,” he tells me.

    Wyszków is only 100km away, we arrive in under an hour. He drops me at a bus stop.

    “Try here. It’s a good spot, you should get someone.”

    I thank him and jump out. It starts to rain. I head under the shelter at the bus stop and wait. There are two young girls waiting beside me. I chat with them for ten minutes while the rain dies down.

    “How long do you think before I get a car?” I ask them.

    One of them says ten minutes, with confidence. I am doubtful.

    Once the rain dies a little I head back to the sidewalk with my Białystok sign. I’ve been waiting almost an hour and it’s past 5pm now. I feel like I might be spending the night here. I take out my phone and quickly search for hostels and Couchsurfers in this tiny town. None. I may be sleeping in a bus stop tonight.

    Finally a car stops. A young lady, maybe late twenties, driving a people-mover.

    “I can take you to Ostrów. It’s about halfway.”

    I hesitate for a moment and she pulls up the map on her phone.

    “We’re here. So I can drop you just before Ostrów, here. Then I need to turn off and go in another direction.”

    I decide to go for it and stuff my backpack in the trunk. She has three kids in the back, all sitting in baby seats. The eldest can’t be older than four.

    “You’re actually the first hitch-hiker I’ve ever picked up.”

    I’m flattered. I must have a kind face.

    We talk in between her kids interrupting us and asking for chewing gum. She’s my age, so we have a lot to talk about, but we’ve obviously chosen very different lives. She looks very happy, and she looks like a great Mum. I admire her. Reminds of my Mum driving in the car with my brothers and I fighting in the back.

    “My husband is going to think I’m crazy when I tell him about this.”

    Just before Ostrów, she drops me at a small parking bay, on the main highway.

    “I think you should be able to get someone here.”

    We take a few selfies together and then say our goodbyes.

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    It’s starting to get dark, and now I’m really out on the open road with no hotels, bus stops or restaurants. I don’t feel too worried though. A lot of traffic is zooming by; surely at least one of them will pick up a stranded traveller.

    I was right. After about twenty minutes a guy pulls over. He’s driving some expensive looking Volvo. He jumps out to shake my hand and throws my backpack in the trunk. A girl, I presume his girlfriend, is sitting in the passenger seat. I jump in and introduce myself. As soon as we take off, the two of them continue their conversation like I’m not even there. It’s in Polish so I don’t understand anything. Normally I would feel awkward sitting silently in the back, but I’m so exhausted from the day it doesn’t even register.

    This guy drives fast. At least 160km/h, overtaking anyone he can. I strap myself in tight.

    Just as we arrive into Białystok he starts talking to me – asks where I’m from, if I know where I’m going. I tell him bits of my story and we get chatting for the final fifteen minutes. They’re on the way back from a holiday. Judging by his clothes and his car, the guy has some money. Really cool of him to pick me up. I ask him to just drop me anywhere central, and he drops me right in the middle of the town centre. I shake his hand, say thanks, and go on my way. After a long ten hour day, I’m finally in Białystok.

    Bialystok to Kaunas

    My Couchsurfing host drops me at the first bus stop on the highway out of the city. Good place to hitch, my sign looks beautiful. I have a good feeling about today.

    I’m actually texting on my phone when a car pulls over, I don’t even notice until they’re right in front of me. I look up and see two young guys in a super flash 4WD staring at me.

    “Hey! You going to Kaunas?” I ask.

    “Yep! Get in.”

    I throw my bag in the backseat and jump in.

    They’re both Lithuanians, coming home from a business trip. They sell security systems, or something like that. They’re heading straight to Kaunas.

    After the previous leg, I’m glad today is shaping up to be an easy hitch – straight to my destination, no changing rides, friendly guys, super nice car.

    “This is a really nice car man.”

    I run my hands over the leather linings on the door.

    “Thanks, it’s actually my wife’s car. We drove all the way to Germany to get it.”

    We have a really interesting conversation about Lithuania. He says they speak the oldest language still used today, that a quarter of Lithuanian people don’t live in Lithuania, and they’re struggling to attract immigrants, even refugees.

    “You know, we are actually trying really hard to bring refugees in. We are like out there campaigning to get them here. But they won’t come. So on one hand it’s good that we don’t have all these political problems other countries are having. But it’s also bad, because what does that say about our country if even refugees don’t want to live here?”

    They speak great English, and we have a long talk about politics and business and other good stuff. Smart guys.

    Like many people around here, the driver used to hitch-hike a lot as a kid, almost every day, to and from school.

    “I lived in a small village, man. I had a long way to walk to school each day. So I know how it feels to have cars go by and nobody pick you up.”

    There are no controls when we cross into Lithuania from Poland. No border patrol, no customs agents, nothing. Just open road and a sign saying welcome to Lithuania. But I still get that little buzz you always get when you enter a new country.

    The guys are great hosts. They tell me a whole bunch of stuff to see and food to try, and wish me well on my journey. He even drops me right outside my Airbnb in Kaunas. I can’t thank them enough for such hospitality. A perfect day of hitch-hiking and a heart-warming start to the Baltics.

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    Kaunas to Riga

    Apparently the best place to hitch is outside a mall on the outskirts of town. Seems easy enough. But I get there and have no idea where I’m supposed to hitch from. The motorway is there, but there’s hardly anywhere to stand, let alone room for a car to stop. I walk around in circles for about two hours trying to find a place, before I finally get to a bus stop on the correct highway, about 45 minutes walk from the mall.

    While waiting I see a guy with a backpack walking towards me along the highway. Traveller, obviously. He sees me holding my Riga sign and smiles. I assume he’s heading to the same place. When he finally reaches me we shake hands, and he tells me he’s also hitching to Riga. Turns out he’s actually from there, heading home from his Eurotrip. I tell him he’s welcome to wait with me.

    A car stops after half an hour. He says he can take us to Panevėžys, around halfway to Riga. We decide it’s good and jump in. The dude I’m with falls asleep almost instantly, so I chat with the driver. He’s heading out to meet a business partner somewhere. He’s got wifi in his car and everything. Really cool guy.

    We get to Panevėžys and there’s no obvious hitch-friendly spots. He offers to take us past the city, out to the highway. There’s a gas station there where we’ll find a ride a little easier. It’s at least a twenty minute detour for him but he doesn’t think twice about it. I wonder to myself, what compels someone to go so far out of their way to help a stranger? Most people struggle to put a dollar in a charity bucket.

    The gas station he leaves us at is a flawless hitch hiking spot – lots of traffic, huge off-road area for cars to stop. We thank our driver and say goodbye – I wish I had a New Zealand tiki or something to give him. I make a note to bring some on my next trip. We both head into the store to buy some food and water and use the toilet. It feels good to recharge. My travel buddy asks a couple of customers filling up their cars if they’re heading to Riga, but nobody bites. It’s okay though, we’re only standing by the road for about twenty minutes before someone picks us up. He’s a young guy, 25 maybe, also Latvian. He takes us all the way to Riga.

    Riga to Pärnu

    Unfortunately, Riga was one of the Baltic capitals I was really looking forward to, but I could only stay for one day as time was against me.

    Hitch-hiking out of Riga is a little more complicated than the previous cities. I need to take a regional bus out of the city, and hitch from one of the bus stops out there. Finding the right bus is already a challenge, but I get there. Two other Latino guys are on the bus too, they’re hitching all the way to Tallinn today. I see their cardboard sign and make some small talk with them. It’s kind of funny – with the internet all the best hitch-hiking spots are shared online, so we all end up in the same spots. I try to imagine how much more hit-and-miss things would’ve been back in the day.

    When we get to the bus stop I stand up front with my Pärnu sign, them with the Tallinn sign right behind me. A car stops after twenty minutes and picks all three of us up. He says he can take us to the border, where it will be a lot easier to find rides.

    He’s a young, married guy, maybe in his early twenties. He’s commuting every day from a border town to Riga for work, and picks up hitchers quite often. I guess he does it to make the long drives a little more interesting. All four of us have a good conversation about our home countries and our travels.

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    At the border there’s a big cafe with toilets. I consider buying some food, but Pärnu is less than an hour away. I decide to wait.

    The wait is longer than expected. I’m there for at least an hour and a half until someone finally picks me up. He’s a guy with tattoos all over him and a long ponytail. Looks like a musician or artist of some sort.

    “Hey man, you going to Pärnu?” he asks, in perfect English.

    “Yeah.”

    “Cool man, jump in.”

    I ask him about the car, which is a very expensive looking Mercedes minivan.

    “My friend has a transport company, I drive for him sometimes. People get off the cruises in Tallinn and then I drive them down to Riga.”

    I take a quick look in the back. Very roomy, slick black leather seats.

    “How much does it cost them?”

    “I don’t know exactly, but it’s several hundred Euros at least.”

    I feel so satisfied with my free ride, it’s almost embarrassing.

    I get to know him a little bit. He owns a club in Tallinn, and has his own music festival. He tells me a bit about his past – played in a few bands, travelled all over Europe and America. Now he’s just settled down with this girlfriend and living easy.

    “You know, I’ve already done all the crazy shit I need to do in my life. That stuff gets kind of boring after a while.”

    I admire what he’s done.

    He proceeds to tell me all about Estonia – the history and the language and the old medieval town in Tallinn. He might look like a tough dude, but he’s obviously intelligent, and friendly as they come.

    As we pass through Pärnu he drops me in the centre and the continues on his way. I take down his details and shake his hand.

    “Thanks for everything mate.”

    Welcome to Estonia.

    Pärnu to Tallinn

    The final leg. I catch a city bus as far as it goes, and set myself up just outside a cafe on the highway. I ask the guy inside if it’s okay to hitch in front of their store, just to be sure.

    After half an hour, two kids start hitch-hiking about fifty metres in front of me. I wonder if there’s some kind of hitch-hike etiquette that says you shouldn’t queue-jump like that. But it doesn’t bother me. They don’t even have a sign, while mine is a timeless piece of art. Surely any rational driver will choose the guy with the awesome sign over two unprepared children.

    However, I’m standing there for at least an hour. Estonia is actually not the most hitch friendly place. Both times I’ve had flawless hitch-hiking spots; lots of traffic, ample stopping space, but cars just drive on past. In other countries drivers acknowledge you with a nod or smile, or make a hand signal to tell you they’re going a different direction. But in Estonia the truck drivers stare back at you like they want to fight, and the other drivers avoid eye contact at all costs.

    But finally a guy pulls over. Old BMW. Drives straight past the kids in front of me. I see them looking back at me with sour looks on their faces.

    The driver’s a young guy, maybe my age. I ask him if I can throw my bag in the trunk, and he gets out and helps me. His trunk is full of crap, so we shuffle stuff around until it fits. Then we head on our way.

    “So were you here for the festival?” he asks.

    “Yeah man, and you?”

    “Yeah, it was awesome. I’m so hungover.”

    He’s talking about the Weekend Festival, a huge music festival in Pärnu. We talk about all the shit that happened, and then he starts telling me about his business. He owns coffee vending machines, around 300 of them, and he enlightens me on how the whole business works, how much he has to pay to people, where the machines come from. Really interesting.

    “I just always liked machines growing up,” he says.

    I take a look at this kid. He probably wakes up at 7, works 50 hours a week, does well for himself, heads down to the beach in Pärnu on the weekends to chill out and party. Eats three meals a day, fixes his hair in the morning. For some reason it always fascinates me that people on the opposite side of the world live pretty much exactly the same lives as we do back home. Weird.

    When we finally get to Tallinn, he drives me around the old town a bit and finally drops me at my friends place, where I’ve arranged to crash for a few nights.

     

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    “You know, my mission was to get to Tallinn from Kraków, this was my final leg. Thanks for getting me here!”

    He laughs and we shake hands, add each other on Facebook and say goodbye.

    Tallinn. Mission accomplished.

    Have you hitch-hiked before? Got any funny stories? Share them in the comments below. Also if you love hitching stories, check out Danielle’s hitch story – basically the same route, just in reverse!

    Ever wanted to hitch-hike? Check out this diary of Bren's hitch-hike through the Baltics - it's not as hard as you think!

  • Under Stars In The Sahara

    Under Stars In The Sahara

    This camel has big mouth.

    Seriously, you could fit a basketball inside.

    I jam my camera in his face and snap a photo. I’m sure he doesn’t mind. Or maybe he does, but after a million stupid gringos doing the same thing, he’s probably over it.

    Our Berber guides tell us, one by one, to jump on our camel’s backs. They’re kneeling in the sand, makeshift blanket saddles strewn across their backs. Like kids on a school trip, we climb on, a little too excited.

    As I steady myself, the guide gives the camel a little nudge and a pssst, and it climbs up onto its feet. It feels higher than I expected.

    We start to ride. I notice the number tag punched into my camel’s ear. It’s been bolted in, with a nail the size of a cigarette. I feel sorry for him. I feel doubly sorry that he has to cart me out here on such a nice afternoon when he could be relaxing with his bros taking sand baths and comparing the calluses on their knees. Then I see the reigns wrapped around his neck. I trace them with my eyes, up around his head and through his nose. The rope is actually threaded through his nostril, so that he has no choice but to follow the chain. And the rope is then tied to ass of the camel in front. I feel triply sorry for him. Not only is he forced to stare at that camel ass in front his entire life; he’s chained to it. Even if he wants to look away when it poops, he can’t. And they poop a lot. If that’s not bad enough, his honourable death will be getting served as a camel burger in a tourist cafe as soon as his legs give out.

    Next time, I think I’ll come out by quad bike.

    The ride out is about an hour. Riding uphill is easy, but riding downhill gives the core a bit of a workout. I see one girl up front struggling, holding on for dear life. I feel bad for laughing. She just looks so funny though.

    The guide up front leads the camel train on foot. He walks in bare feet, standing on camel pee and poop with every third step. He doesn’t care. He embraces it. He’s a man of the desert.

    Of course, there are no roads out here. It’s just orange sand in every direction. But these guys know the way somehow.

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    The sun is almost setting when we get to the camp. It’s a small site, the size of half a tennis court. The rooms are tented with heavy woollen blankets to withstand the wind, but they also keep the heat in. I go into my tent for thirty seconds, then come straight back out.

    Hot.

    Way too hot.

    While the guides cook dinner we go wandering. It’s vast, and barren. The desert is big and empty – who knew? We climb to the top of the closest dune to catch the sunset and take selfies. Out here, all you can see is orange. A big sea of hilly, wavy, endless orange. I just sit and stare at it, I don’t even know what to think. What is this place? Why is it here? Mind boggling, and scary too. We’ve only come an hour from civilisation, but if everyone disappeared now I’d have no idea how to get back. I’d be dead in three days.

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    We climb back down to camp as it gets dark. The camp is set up like a courtyard, with tents in a square and a communal eating and sitting area in the middle. I lay on one of the mats and stare at the sky. Stars are slowly coming out, but I can barely see them among the camp lights.

    Dinner is soup and tagine. It’s like a stew, with meat and vegetables, and we eat by candle light. It’s all very nice. But I want to go and feed my camel.

    One by one, people drop off. A couple go to bed. A couple more. Before long, I’m the only one left and they turn out the lights.

    It’s completely dark. The weather has cooled, and the wind is starting to pinch. But it’s okay. I lie on the mat, staring up at the sky. It’s so dark, and there are so many stars.

    So many stars.

    I put in my earphones and put my phone on shuffle. Now it’s like a soundtrack. If this were a movie, this would be the scene where the main character has his moment. Staring at the open sky in the middle of nowhere and it all becomes clear. He knows what he’s supposed to do.

    Is that what’s going to happen? Maybe. I feel energy. In fact, I have a lot of moments like this. Always when I’m alone, silent, somewhere special. It makes me think about things.

    I feel a sudden surge of appreciation. Gratitude completely engulfs me. I thank the universe for letting me be here. I thank it for keeping my family safe and healthy and happy. I thank it for the journey and this crazy moment happening right now. Stars. The middle of the Sahara desert. Silence. I take a deep breath, or two or three. I don’t know what I did to be so blessed. Nothing, probably. Just one of the lucky ones. Thank you for giving me a good life.

    I get lost in the stars. You can’t count them, it’s impossible. They’re never ending. They’re so bright, brighter than I’m used to in New Zealand. Counting Stars by One Republic comes on. Poetic, almost. My body is filled with fire. I don’t know why.

    After ten minutes, whooosh. Shooting star. Can’t even remember what that means. Make a wish? Buy a lotto ticket? I don’t do anything. I just say thank you for the shooting star.

    Everyone loves looking at stars. Why? They don’t do anything cool, they don’t even move. They just twinkle. But we love it. Maybe it’s what they represent – the unknown. We’ll never touch or smell or feel them. They just tell us how insignificant we are. Look at all these galaxies. Aliens? Are there aliens? There must be. Maybe they’re on that star over there. Or that one. I wonder if they’ll arrive soon and kill us all. What are these stars? Are they planets? Asteroids, maybe? Is one of these meteors going to come blow us up soon? Probably. And none of the aliens will care. Probably a meteor killed a whole bunch of aliens already today, and we didn’t care. Damn I’m getting kinda cold.

    Whooosh. Another one.

    I don’t know how long has gone by. Maybe an hour. Maybe two. I grab my phone to check, then quickly change my mind and put it down. Because what’s the point? The time would tell me nothing. Time is irrelevant right now.

    I think about the journey that brought me here. All the small conversations, and the big ones. All the small friendships, and the big ones. It’s all led to here. But why? Where does it end? What’s it all for? One day you’ll be gone, and it’ll be like it never happened. You gotta pay it forward – leave something behind, make it count for something. It was so clear for a moment. You gotta write your book, Brendan. Write the damn book.

    Whoooosh. That’s three.

    The stars do it to you. They’re an incubator for this type of melodramatic navel gazing. It’s these solitary moments that send us to look deep inside ourselves. We become conscious of things we secretly knew all along. Even if just for a moment.

    The cold wakes me up. I look at my phone – 3am. Not yet morning. I get up to pee. As soon as I walk outside the camp, I get the spooks. There is a port-a-loo like toilet about 25 metres away, but I just walk halfway and pee in the sand, like the camels. I don’t want to get lost. This is the middle of the Sahara in the middle of the night. The sand looks grey now, and you can hear it shuffle with the wind. It’s lit by moonlight, but cold and ashen, as far as the eye sees. I’ve never seen a place like this before. It looks so mysterious. It even feels mysterious. Like I could see ghosts and shadow warriors and I wouldn’t even be surprised. I’d just think, yep, I thought I might see some shit like that out here. I hurry back to camp.

    I tell myself I’ll stargaze just a bit longer. Just until the next shooting star. I lie back down on the mat. My mind is empty now. I just stare blankly, watching the whole sky twinkle before me, waiting for it. I wonder if it’ll ever come. But it doesn’t take long. After just a few minutes, whoooosh.

    I go to bed happy.

    I’m the last to wake up. Everyone’s already taken their photos of the sunrise and is now chilling on the dunes or packing up to leave. I get dressed and go visit my camel.

    A photo posted by Bren (@brenontheroad) on

    Hey bro, hope you slept well. Sorry but you gotta take me back, I don’t know the way.

    I stroke his head and he flinches.

    Sorry.

    I wouldn’t want to be touched on the head by me either.

    The ride back to civilisation is a sobering wake-up. It’s not every day you ride a camel in the desert before breakfast. The girl in front is still on the brink of falling off, and I still find it funny. But she makes it all the way.

    The ride feels shorter today. As we arrive back, the guide gives my camel a nudge and a pssst, and he drops to his knees in a clunky one-two. I hop off and pat him on the back, and promise to never eat a camel burger ever again. I take one last photo, thank him, and say goodbye.

    Often, we go to a place and don’t learn the things we expect to learn, or feel the things we expect to feel. But the road is fickle. There is no rule book out here. You take whatever it gives you, and embrace the journey as it happens. One day you’ll look back and think, yeah, I remember that conversation, or I remember thinking of that idea, maybe in the ocean, some town by the lake, or under stars in the Sahara. Those moments change us, whether we want them to or not. So collect them, and remember them. Because that collection of moments is called life. Happening right before your eyes.

    To the many moments and memories,

    Bren

    Magical story by Bren On The Road about star gazing in the Sahara.

  • It Started At A Salsa Club In Quito

    It Started At A Salsa Club In Quito

     

    I sat at the bar nursing a beer, making small talk with the girl next to me. In front of us, the dance floor. It was lit up, like a stage at a theatre show. Couples glided effortlessly; the women twirling elegantly with their chins high and proud, the men guiding them with authority and flair.

    I examined their faces. Some concentrated fiercely, like they were solving a crossword puzzle, others in utmost calm, as if out for a Sunday jog. Some moved fast, tapping their feet in bursts; others much slower and smoother, as if winding down at the end of a long day. As each song ended the floor cleared and a new crowd of people crept on, ready for their turn to dance under the spotlight. I watched the men with envy, commanding the floor and their partners with unwavering confidence, the girls they danced with all heartbreakingly beautiful. This was Lavoe, the hottest salsa club in town. I didn’t even know what I was doing there. I couldn’t dance. Not one step.

    I looked around, uncomfortable, sad almost. How was it that everyone in this room could dance except me? So I promised myself; there on the edge of my bar stool, mesmerised by the salseros in front of me – Quito would be where I finally learned to dance.

    The following morning I asked around for dance schools. I didn’t know what I was looking for, what kind of class or teacher, what kind of style – I just looked for any school with the word bailar. I phoned a few numbers and got nothing; busy tones, no answer. The third number I called, I got someone. Lucky him. I was about to become his best customer.

    My first lesson was booked for the following day. It was a good twenty minute walk from my hostel, so I left early, careful to show up on time and leave a good first impression. It was cloudy that day, like most Quito days, and the clouds hung low, staring at you with dark grey eyes, deciding whether to rain or not. I laboured up and down the hills, into a part of Quito I’d never seen before, praying for the rain to hold until I arrived. Eventually I found it; a small studio in an old apartment complex, hiding down a grid of suburban side streets.

    I hopped up the stairs and found Frank, tucked away in a small room. Frank wasn’t exactly what I’d expected in a salsa teacher. I’d pictured a suave, long-haired 60 year-old, maybe a slight hunchback; he’d have a rusty voice from smoking too many cigarettes, and would’ve have opened a salsa school after some injury ended his promising dance career. That’s how the movies would’ve played it. Instead, Frank was a cool, young black guy, shortly cropped hair, jeans and a t-shirt, maybe only a couple of years older than I.

    We exchanged pleasantries and he showed me into the studio. Then he put on some tunes and waltzed to the centre of the room.

    “This is Cuban salsa,” he shouted over the music. He stepped gently, back and forth, his lips pulled between his teeth, moving in circles as if mopping the floor with his shoes. “And this, is rumba,” he said, tensing his arms out in front of him, swaying side to side. “On 1” he continued, moving faster, spinning up and down the floor. “On 2. New York.” He was clapping to the beats now. I watched him float around the studio, grooving effortlessly between styles, a huge smile on his face. On he went; “This one, Pachanga. This one, Son.”

    I was impressed, and confused. I’d always thought salsa was just salsa.

    Then a girl arrived. Sandy blonde hair, fair skinned, my height, more or less.

    Frank waved her over.

    “This is Ximena. Your partner.”

    I raised my eyebrows. My own partner. I was starting to feel spoiled.

    Frank ushered me to the middle of the room and faced me towards the mirror.

    “Bueno, follow me. Left foot first”.

    “Uno, dos. Back together. Tres, cuatro. Back together. Muy bien.”

    I watched his feet intensely, trying to mimic every angle, every flick. He made it look so easy. So cool.

    “Now cinco, seis. Back together. Siete, ocho. Back together. Esoooo. Muy bien Brendan. Again.”

    An hour was over before I knew it.

    As students arrived for the next class I said bye to Ximena with a beso and grabbed my things. I felt giddy, accomplished. It was that familiar rush, the joy of learning something new. I was finally learning to dance.

    I shook Frank’s hand as I passed him on the way out.

    “Can I book another class?” I asked.

    “Sure,” he nodded. “When?”

    I shrugged my shoulders.

    “Tomorrow?”

    I took class with Frank every single day from that day onward. I’d wake up, eat breakfast, write, go to the gym, and by 4pm I was at the studio. Each day I’d learn a new turn or paso – first it was the exibela. Then the enchufla. Next, enchufla doble. Then vacila, coca cola, sombrero, adios. I concentrated intensely, every movement, as if I had an exam the following morning. Each day before class I’d practise, ensuring I had everything mastered so Frank would teach me something new that day. I forgot about my travels, about sightseeing and exploring the rest of the continent. I just wanted to dance.

    A few weeks on, Frank planned a night out dancing for his students. I was sitting in the corner of the studio at the time, helping Jorge, Frank’s brother, with his English homework. Ximena came by and tapped me on the shoe.

    “Are you coming with us tonight?” she asked.

    “Where?”

    “Out. Bailando.”

    Jorge stopped tapping his pencil and looked at me, nodding, before burying his head in his book again.

    “You need to go, Brendan.”

    I looked at him, then at Ximena, then back at Jorge.

    “Why?”

    He put his book to the side and looked at me.

    “Dancing in the studio is easy,” he said.

    “You need to dance in the club. You need to practise there. It’s different, you’ll see. You need to go.”

    It was around 9pm when we got to the club. I looked up at the sign. Cafe Libro. It just looked like a regular coffee shop to me.

    As we filed through the door, the bouncer gave me a once-over, followed by a nod and a smile, as if to say, “don’t worry my Asian brother – you’ll be fine,” and waved me through. It was a small club, or cafe rather, with a few scattered tables and an open dance floor. It wasn’t quite Lavoe, but still intimidating enough for a gringo like me. As we entered, the dance floor was still empty other than a couple of kids practising in the corner. We were early.

    We grabbed a table in the back. I chatted to Ximena and the other students, who didn’t seem nervous at all, but looking around I could already tell Jorge was right. It was different dancing here; people watching you from every angle, music so loud you can’t hear each other speak. It’d been about two weeks since my first class, and I had learned a lot, but the studio was safe and private, where you could try new moves and mess up as many times as you liked, rewind the tape, have the whole dance floor to yourself. The club felt like a performance. I was nervous, but I guessed that’s what Jorge was talking about. I was supposed to be nervous.

    When the music finally came on, a couple of students jumped up to dance, like a bunch of kids waiting for a theme park ride to open. I sat back and watched, anxious but also intrigued. The dance culture seemed so polite here, so colourful and fun. There were kids as young as fifteen and grandparents probably in their seventies, tapping along the dance floor, smiling, laughing. No fights, vomiting in the corner, screaming or drowning in alcohol. Nightlife back home was so dirty and obnoxious, but here it was vibrant; beautiful even. I’d never seen anything like it.

    When the next song came on, Frank looked at me, slouched in his chair. He pointed at my chest, then at Ximena, raised his eyebrows at me and pointed to the dance floor. I smiled nervously and hesitated for a moment. Ximena laughed and grabbed my hand.

    “Bailamos.”

    As we walked towards the floor I could feel the eyes on me. Ooh look at this Asian fella, let’s see what he can do, maybe he’s like some professional from Korea or something. I chuckled inside. How disappointed they were about to be.

    Ximena and I squeezed into the crowd. I took her right hand in my left, placed my hand on her hip, starting counting the beats. I could hear Frank’s voice in the back of my head – “Uno dos! Cinco seis!” I started moving, and Ximena followed, laughing at my intense concentration. I tried a basic turn. Exibela. It worked. I tried another one. Enchufla. It worked again. I got more adventurous. Coca cola. Adios. Enchufla Doble. They all worked. I tried a move I’d just learned that day. El ocho. It didn’t work. I muffed it. I tried again and muffed it again. Ximena laughed. I did too. Nobody cared. It was only dancing.

    Later in the night, Frank took a girl to dance. I was chatting with the others and didn’t think too much of it, until the music started. I’d seen Frank dance plenty of times in the studio with Ximena, but this was clearly a different Frank. As the music started he held her close, his hands pressed against her hips, swaying melodically as the song’s energy grew. He’d always told me in class to listen and feel, but it was only seeing him now that I started to understand. As the drums started he spun her, violently almost, catching her hands and pulling her back towards him. His feet punched the floor rapidly, certainly faster than the eight beats he’d taught us, and their arms flailed wildly but always came together somehow, like a jigsaw puzzle. She’d throw her hands up and he’d catch and spin them in a split second, she’d glide across the floor and find his arm just as she fell. Finally she arched her back and swung her arm behind her; Frank grabbed it in his stride, as if he’d been waiting for it, and twirled her like a whisk, once, twice, three times, four times.

    I leaned into Ximena. “How many spins was that?”

    She laughed, hearing the awe in my voice.

    “Muchos.”

    By now half the tables were watching. The men nodded in approval, raising their eyebrows, the women pointed and smiled to their friends beside them, as if to say “I want to dance with him next.” Frank was unfazed. His feet moved fast, but in slow motion, his face emotionless and calm, but clearly having the time of his life. It was all effortless, like he was dancing alone in his own bedroom.

    When the song ended I shook my head, amazed.

    “How long will I need before I can dance like Frank?” I asked Ximena.

    Her head collapsed forward, laughing, as if I’d just asked her to marry me. She didn’t even bother to answer.

    From then on salsa became my day. I was inspired all over again. I’d wake up in the morning and practise my moves in my apartment, in the kitchen as I cooked breakfast, as I brushed my teeth, in the shower, anywhere. In the afternoon I’d head to my class, and when it was over I’d practise in the corner, watching the other classes until the studio closed at night. Frank started pulling me into the group classes, which often needed guys, adding another few hours of dancing to my day. Between classes I’d hang around the studio, practising my new moves with Ximena, teaching Frank how to build his website and helping Jorge with his English homework. Ximena often arrived late so Frank would introduce me to something new while we waited, like rumba or pachanga or cha cha cha. The songs on my phone quickly changed from Eminem and Justin Timberlake to Maykel Fonts and Los Van Van. I knew I’d never dance like Frank – he’d danced his whole life, in Cuba, New York, learned from some of the best. But it didn’t stop me from trying.

    Three or four weeks later I’d become Frank’s star pupil, or his estrella de la escuela, as he liked to say. Most people new to salsa only came once a week and gave up after ten classes or so. I, on the other hand, had been at the studio every day for over a month, often for hours, trying to cram as much salsa into my head before my impending flight home. Frank used me in his beginner classes to demo the basic pasos, and as Ximena and I danced in the corner he’d point at me and say “See that kid, only been here five weeks!” as if I were some real-life infomercial. I’d been at the studio so much I was even catching up to Ximena, and Frank was now needing to teach new moves to both of us.

    But then came the real test.

    It was a Wednesday. Frank and I were just closing up the studio when he asked.

    “You want to go dancing tonight? I’m going to Lavoe.”

    Lavoe. Wednesday was no joke at Lavoe. The first time I was there had been a Wednesday, and it seemed like every dancer on the floor was a professional. Of course I knew some salsa of my own now, but not Lavoe salsa. With Ximena there it might’ve been okay, but she’d already gone home. It was just me and Frank. He assured me I’d be fine.

    Always do what you’re afraid to do, I told myself.

    “Alright. Let’s go.”

    As we entered the club Frank and I nestled ourselves by the corner of the dance floor. I looked around. It looked different to the first time I was there, or perhaps I just noticed things differently. The women sat patiently, watching, waiting to be asked to dance. In between songs, couples shuffled off while men wandered around offering their hands to the ladies and leading them to the floor. Interestingly, the girls never said no. In the bars back home, such an approach would be met with rolled eyes and cold shoulders. Here, it was accepted with a smile. And why not? People just wanted to dance.

    Frank knew a fair amount of people and had taken off to dance before I knew it. I, however, stood there and watched – not Frank, but the others dancing around him. Everyone was brilliant, as I’d remembered, but I knew what I was looking at now – the Colombian dancers and the Cuban dancers, the linear and the circular footwork. Wednesday at Lavoe was like a professional show, and it was mesmerising to see it up close after all those hours in the studio. With so much talent on display I wasn’t sure if I planned on dancing, but eventually Frank introduced me to a friend and insist I take the floor with her. I took her hand. I wasn’t nervous, not about the club anyway, but dancing with a new partner was always difficult. It didn’t help that she was gorgeous.

    I noticed the difference immediately. She didn’t dance like Ximena, didn’t anticipate my turns like her. As I tried different pasos, she was left stuck, guessing my movements. While Frank’s lead was strong and authoritative, mine was poor and lazy. Within ten seconds I was overcome with self-doubt. After a minute I was imploding. By the end of the song, I’d been humbled back down to zero.

    Reality check, Brendan. You still can’t dance.

    We got home around 3am that night. I slumped on the couch, annoyed at my lousy performance. I put on some music and played the night over in my head, visualising my lead, drilling the turns into my head. I was frustrated and embarrassed. How could I still not dance? I refused to go to bed. While the whole of Quito slept, I stayed up and practised, in my underwear, until I danced myself to sleep in my kitchen.

    By my sixth or seventh week all the practise was paying off. The days of obsessive salsa had me dancing freely with a whole Rolodex of moves in my head. But just as I had found my feet, things were also coming to an end. My departure had crept up on me and it was now only two weeks until my flight home. I hadn’t seen much of Quito, barely any of it in fact, but through the studio, through the dancing nights, Frank and Ximena, I felt like I knew Quito, like I understood it, like it was home. I’d found friends here, a routine, a reason to stay. I didn’t want to leave. The thought of it weighed on me each day, heavy, like a collection of wet Monday mornings. During my walks home I would study the doors, the street names, every old lady selling fruit by the roadside, trying to cherish every last Quito moment. Ten days left, nine days, eight days, I’d say to myself, trying to make sure every last day was counted and appreciated. But the truth was I just needed more time. I wasn’t ready to leave.

    I spent my final Quito days just like I’d spent all my other days – dancing. I spent the afternoons with Frank and Jorge, trying to rumba, the evenings with Ximena working on my estilo. In a week we’d say goodbye, maybe for a while, maybe forever, but for my final days I didn’t allow myself to think about it. I didn’t need to. I was familiar with this feeling now, of leaving pieces of myself around the world, and through the years it had grown into something heavy and tiresome, like an evil deja vu – no longer inspiring and poetic like it used to be. I figured I was finally running out of pieces to leave.

    The Wednesday before I left we went to Lavoe one last time: Frank, Ximena, a few friends and myself. The place wasn’t new anymore, nor intimidating. As the music came on, I pulled Ximena to the floor and tried the hardest paso we knew. She laughed at my newfound confidence, as did Frank, and I could tell they were both proud of how much I’d learned from them. It wasn’t lost on me that this might be the last time Ximena and I danced here, the last time we danced anywhere, and I let my arms swing free with everything I knew.

    As the night wound down, Ximena and I sat by the bar, chatting. Naturally we’d grown close over the last two months, I suppose as dance partners do, but it had become more than that – a rare friendship, of shared stories and comfort and curiosity and respect. Every day we danced and talked and laughed together, an energy only we shared. She was the part of Quito I’d miss the most.

    “Sometimes I still get nervous dancing in here,” I told her. “There’s no gringos, I stand out so much.”

    She laughed, nodding.

    “Yeah, I see them watching you.”

    “But you can dance now,” she continued. “So what are you worrying about?”

    I looked up at the faces in front of us, all dancing free, in their own world. She was right – there was nothing to worry about. It was only dancing. I looked over at the bar stool where I’d sat months earlier; where I’d watched so enviously as everyone had danced and shouted and laughed their night away. It felt like a lifetime ago. Salsa was alien to me back then, frightening almost. Now it was just something I did in my kitchen. I looked over at Frank, laughing with his cousin, and at Ximena next to me, sipping on a mojito. There was so much I wanted to say to them; so much to thank them for, all the ways they’d helped me learn and change and grow in only a few short months. But it wasn’t the time for that. This was Lavoe, the hottest salsa club in town, and perhaps, the last time I’d ever be here. I looked at the crowd, their smiles, the lights, listened to the drums, taking a beat to appreciate it all one last time. Then I grabbed Ximena’s hand and pulled her to the dance floor.

    “Bailamos.”

  • A Bowl Of Potato Soup In Rotorua

    A Bowl Of Potato Soup In Rotorua

    “What are you cooking?”

    “It’s like a potato soup thing.”

    “Is that like, a German thing?”

    “Yeah.”

    She had a pretty smile. Really straight teeth, too. I always liked girls with straight teeth.

    I turned back to my chicken, steaming slowly in my pan. Hostel kitchens are always interesting. Everyone’s trying to cook something healthy, but with the cheapest and lowest quality ingredients. There’s a sparse selection of kitchen tools. And there’s the whole international thing, too; the Asians are always boiling stuff, the Aussies are eating like four packs of instant noodles, the Brits usually go for a quick and dirty pasta, and of course there’s that one gourmet chef trying to make gnocchi or falafels or something. It’s the most diverse kitchen in the world, only the food quality is about as good as an upside-down prison.

    I peeked into her pot as I passed by to collect some cutlery. I cracked a smile. It looked like glue. Hot, steamy, bubbly glue.

    “Are you going to let me try it?”

    “Sure, when it’s ready,” she smiled.

    She was a petite little thing, dressed in simple shorts and a tank top, with a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. The typical travelling girl’s outfit.

    When my chicken was done I scooped it onto my salad and took it out to the dining area. Five minutes later, she walked around the corner and plonked her soup on my table, along with a plate of salad, salt and pepper, a glass of water, a fork and spoon, and an apple cut into quarters, all arranged nicely in front of me. I smiled inside. Germans.

    “It’s not the best soup I’ve ever made.”

    I looked it over, grinning.

    “Alright, here we go. Do you mind if I use your spoon?”

    “No not at all.”

    I took a small scoop, blew on it lightly and slurped it down. I didn’t know what to think. It just tasted like potatoes. Soupy potatoes.

    “Yeah. It’s not bad.”

    She laughed.

    “You can be honest.”

    “I’m always honest,” I said, smiling. “If it was shit, I would’ve just said, yo, this soup is shit.”

    We chatted away like old friends as we ate our lunches. I’d known her maybe fifteen minutes, but there’s something about meeting people in hostels. It’s like you already kinda know each other – I know this girl ain’t a princess because she sleeps in a bunk bed, I know she ain’t a rich kid because she’s not at the Radisson and I know she’s cool because she’s out here travelling the world by herself. It’s easy to talk to someone after that. You already have so much in common without even knowing each other.

    I scooped the last bit of salad out of my bowl.

    “So, what are you up to today?”

    “I don’t know, I’ll just go sit in the sun probably and do nothing. Then I have to go to work.”

    “Cool. Can I join you?”

    “Yeah, of course.”

    We spent the next fifteen minutes talking about where to go. I had just spent the weekend at a friend’s wedding down south, and had stopped in Rotorua for a couple of days to break up the long drive home. I didn’t know this city at all. She, on the other hand, had supposedly been living here for a few weeks now. I bugged her to think of somewhere cool. She was the local here, at least out of the two of us.

    When we finally made it out the front door she was still clueless.

    “Okay, so how about we drive,” I suggested. “You tell me where to go.”

    We jumped in my car and headed off. She directed me left and right through the town centre, along Lake Rotorua and then off on some road out of town.

    “Where the hell are we going?” I asked.

    “I dunno. Somewhere,” she laughed.

    As we chatted away, it struck me how absurd this would’ve been to me five years ago. Going off with a complete stranger, driving to nowhere, talking as if you’d known each other since graduation. People aren’t so open in the real world. You can’t just say hello to a stranger without them thinking you’ve got Asperger’s. I guess that’s why you can’t be away from the road for too long. You miss the openness, the traveller’s spirit, the ability to just say hi for the sake of saying hi.

    “So tell me, why do all Kiwis drive in bare feet?”

    I looked down at my feet. Indeed, I was driving in bare feet. I’d tucked my flip flops under the seat before we took off. I guessed it was one of those quirks she had noticed, the same way I’d been noticing them about her. I didn’t have an answer – sometimes there aren’t reasons for these things. They just are.

    Eventually, after leading me down some winding roads we found ourselves lakeside at a place called Blue Lake. There were a few people around, but it was mostly empty. I’d never heard of this place before. I guess she was like a local after all.

    “C’mon, let’s walk down there,” I said, pointing to a small enclave by the water’s edge.

    We sat out there and talked, on the rocks, throwing pebbles into the water like little kids at the beach.

    “So, I don’t even know your name,”  I laughed.

    “Don’t tell me though. I’ll guess.”

    She looked at me, grinning.

    “Okay.”

    “But you have to tell me the first letter, at least.”

    ” J.”

    “J..is it a German name?”

    “Yeah, it’s really German.”

    I didn’t even think.

    “Julia.”

    “What the hell!”

    She looked to the sky, laughing.

    “Is that really it?”

    She nodded, still laughing. I sent my own laugh to the sky. I didn’t even know Julia was a German name.

    We sat there for over an hour, talking about nothing, looking out over the glassy lake. It was easy to talk to her; she was youthful, bubbly and free spirited, not jaded by a cubicle or dead-end job. When you meet people out on the road, there’s a certain twinkle in their eye; not a metaphorical one but a real one. You can see it. In the office, it’s nowhere to be found. Eyes are glazed, uninspired. But on the road, the eyes shine. You can’t miss it. It’s a difference as clear as night and day.

    We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting out there, talking about life. It was playful, relaxed – a reminder of the simple joy of doing nothing in the company of another human being. In the morning we’d been strangers. Now, friends. I flirted hopelessly. She laughed at my cheesy jokes.

    I didn’t see her again until the following evening. She walked into the kitchen while a few of us were sitting on the benches chatting, and gave me a smile as she came to flick on the kettle beside me.

    “Hey you. Do you want tea?”

    She was wearing all black after her shift at her waitressing job. Her dirty blonde hair was up in a small ponytail, glasses on, not a speck of makeup on her. She looked nice.

    “Sure.”

    She pulled two cups off the shelf and popped in the tea bags.

    As she passed me my cup, I noticed how short her nails were and smiled. Over the last few years I’ve developed a theory – the longer a girl’s nails, the crazier she is. I hadn’t sensed any crazy in her the day before. I guess the nails were just an affirmation.

    We stayed in the kitchen that night, tucked in the corner, chatting away until one in the morning. I have no idea what we talked about – travel, Germany, school, work, life – probably a bit of everything. I told her I’d take her on a date if she came to Auckland. She said she’d take me on a date if I went to Germany. It was fun to talk about, but we both knew neither was likely to happen. I was heading back to Auckland the next day and the sad reality was, we’d probably never see each other ever again.

    The next morning, as I handed my keys into reception and lugged my bag down into the car, I sent her a message.

    “I’m off. Come say goodbye?”

    I watched the ellipses flashing on the screen before it dinged.

    “Ok one sec.”

    She came out in her pyjamas two minutes later, still half asleep. Hair in a mess, sleepy eyes. I could only laugh.

    We sat in reception and chatted for five minutes. There wasn’t much to say. I liked her, sure, maybe she liked me too, but all we could really do was hug and say “It was nice to meet you.” As we walked our separate ways, I sent her a smile and wave. She sent one back. Then it was over.

    Five years ago, goodbye wouldn’t have been that easy. I might have dwelled on it, wondering what could have happened, where things might have gone. That’s the true challenge of life on the road. The long flights and the lost sleep and the rickety bus rides – you get over that stuff in a day. It’s the goodbyes that leave the marks. They come too soon and too often, each one chipping away at you, little by little. The road leaves you more what-ifs than you care to remember. But sooner or later, you accept this is just the way it is.

    When you travel, you don’t get to explore every story. The time between hello and goodbye will always be short, and that’s just a part of the life you chose. You can have the most epic boys’ night, and then suddenly everyone’s gone the next day. A second date with a pretty girl that never gets to happen, no matter how amazing it could be. But that’s also the reason we love it so much, because you never know what’s waiting for you at the end of the next bus ride. Perhaps a fleeting romance, a new best friend, maybe even a special someone who might just change your life. When you travel, there are stories waiting behind every bowl of potato soup. A simple hello is all you need to find them.

    To your next adventure,

    Bren

    Which hellos and goodbyes do you remember most from your travels? What short stories have made your trips memorable? Share them in the comments below!

    rotorua

  • I Found New Zealand In Ahipara

    I Found New Zealand In Ahipara

    I still remember my first surf class.

    I wriggled into a wetsuit, lathered my face up with super thick sunscreen and walked down to the beach feeling like Aquaman in my spongy suit with a rocket ship tied to my leg. They say Kiwis love to surf, but at 28 I’d never touched a surfboard in my life. That’s the Chinese side of me, I guess. Chinese people don’t surf. When’s the last time you saw a Chinese surfer?

    My first wave was tiny, the smallest splash of water. When the teacher pointed at it and lined me up, I almost thought he was joking. Yet it picked my board up and sent me flying. That’s all it took; one wave. I knew I had to learn more. I signed up for a full week of surf camp a few months later.

    Brett didn’t really look like a surfer. He was a Maori dude, maybe late 30’s or early 40’s, and he could’ve been anything really – a plumber, a lawyer, a taxi driver, but not a surfer. He didn’t have the beach blonde locks or the California slow talk, which is what you’d expect from someone who surfs for a living. But I guess stereotypes are only true until they’re broken.

    The drive up to our camp from Auckland was a long one, so we had a lot of time to talk. I noticed the Maori in his humour, the surfer in his opinions but also the wisdom from his years in the water. It was clear he lived for the ocean; he had studied the way the wind and the weather patterns affected the swell, why the waves formed in the shapes that they did, how the climate halfway around the world affected the waves that we experienced in New Zealand. He noticed small details, like when the wind changed from a north westerly to a westerly, or when it softened earlier or later than expected. Surfing, it seemed, was about a lot more than just a board and a wetsuit.

    As we made the drive north he rattled jokes off constantly about anything that came to mind – landmarks, bad drivers, the towns we passed through – like a twelve year old kid. But every now and then we’d pass the ocean and his tone would change; he’d explain the shape of the beach, the difference between a spring tide and a neap tide, and why the waves were coming in the way they were. As soon as the subject moved to surfing, it was all business.

    We arrived five hours later to our home for the week. It was a small town, and quaint, littered with weathered corner stores and clean but empty sidewalks. Every house had a small front yard, the lawns unkept and a mossed over dinghy or kayak leaning against the fence. This was Ahipara.

    “There’s the hospital,” Brett pointed out as we drove past. “Just make sure you don’t get sick after 4:30, cos ain’t nobody gonna be there,” he laughed. I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.

    As we pulled up to our quarters – a beautiful chic beach house right on the shore of 90 Mile Beach – I unloaded my stuff and went to look out over the ocean. Many Kiwi families own a ‘bach’ – a small beach house where they come and enjoy their weekends during the summer – but not my family. I didn’t grow up with the sand on my doorstep. I’ve lived in New Zealand almost my entire life, but my school holidays were mostly filled with video games or sports tournaments. The whole sailing, surfing, collecting shellfish thing – that was all “white people stuff” to us when I was a kid. I didn’t grow up with the ocean like a lot of other Kiwis.

    The next day we headed to Shipwreck Bay – one of Ahipara’s gems. Brett parked up on the cliff, overlooking the beach, and tried to explain how awesome these waves were, coming in one after the other in almost perfect sequence. I didn’t get it. They just looked like waves to me.

    “If you wipe out, cover your head. Then grab your board and paddle out to the side and out the back. If someone’s surfing at you and you think you’re gonna get hit, let your shit go and dive under the water. The fins are only a few inches long, so you’ll be safe down there.”

    Brett talked a lot. He kind of needed to, but a lot of it went over my head. I heard the important bits, though.

    It was standard surf class to start off with; we caught some smaller waves and whitewash, practising all the things he was teaching us. We stayed pretty close to the shore that morning, but after a couple of hours in the water I was ready for the big time. He’d shown me how to paddle in and pop up, how to watch and read the wave and stay on the board all the way into the beach. I still wiped out on pretty much every ride, but he told me it was just a matter of practise now. He sent me out the back, to where the real surfers were.

    There was a bunch of us out there, bobbing in the ocean in the afternoon sun – a loud American guy, a couple of local kids, myself, Brett also grabbed a board and got in eventually. As the waves came in everyone would turn their boards around and paddle, riding the waves into shore before paddling back out for another ride, but not me. I sat there on my board, floating in the water; watching, observing. I didn’t feel ready yet. There’s a rulebook in surfing – an unwritten one, and I was trying to decode it all. Are these guys in a queue, or just sitting wherever they want? Is there a rule of who goes and who doesn’t? Is there some sort of system, like smaller board, first wave, bigger board, second wave? I had no idea. The rules of surfing aren’t clear to the newbie like myself. You need to learn them through the grapevine.

    Between sets, everyone sat out there waiting for waves, chatting. I watched intently. It was like a secret community, detached from the world, just men and their boards, playing out in the ocean.

    “Check out all the birds around that boat,” I overheard Evan say to Brett, as we all sat around during a short lull. Evan was a local guy, a friend of Brett’s who seemed to surf a lot. I turned and looked behind me. A small boat sat bobbing in the distance, maybe 200 metres away, a flurry of birds circling overhead. “Maybe I should’ve gone fishing instead of surfing.”

    I looked over at him, laughing. Fishing instead of surfing? On Tuesday? In my house it was either study or do your homework. Maybe it would’ve been nice, to grow up in Ahipara.

    That evening Brett cooked up a feast for dinner. He seasoned a couple of chickens, stuffed them, and roasted them in the oven with a bunch of veges. Then he grabbed the rice and pulled out the rice cooker.

    “You know how these rice cooker things work, bro?”

    I turned to see if he was being serious. In a Chinese home the rice cooker is the equivalent of a toaster, so it was a question you’d expect a six year old to ask.

    “You just put in two cups of rice and then fill the water to the line marked 2,” I told him, laughing.

    He examined the inside of the pot looking for the markings, then filled it with water, fiddled with it for a while and finally turned it on.

    “That might be a bit too much rice for us,” he mumbled, as he peeked through the top of the pot.

    I shrugged.

    “Don’t worry bro, that just means fried rice for breakfast.”

    He looked at me.

    “You know how to make fried rice?”

    Err, do you know how to make toast?

    Day 3. His eyes were sharp.

    “Stop fuckin’ around. When you’re in the water it’s time to put your fuckin’ game face on.”

    He was getting angry, obviously.

    It was early morning and Brett had taken me out behind the rocks, beyond the learner waves. He figured maybe I was ready for something a little more thrilling. I still felt like a schmuck in the water, but I was up for anything if he was willing to show me.

    Things weren’t quite clicking though. Perhaps it was the early start, or my busted shoulder, but I was paddling like a nine year old girl. Eventually I made it out the back behind the breaking waves, and sat up on my board next to him waiting for the swell to come in.

    “Dude, you’ve got to get your shit together. We don’t have long out here. Plus it’s absolutely unheard of to get these waves all to ourselves. Unheard of.“

    I didn’t get what he was so angry about. We’re surfing, bro. Chill out.

    After a couple more waves we paddled back into the bay. I caught a wave, got rolled completely and sat there for a moment, giving my aching shoulder a rub and catching my breath. Brett got in my ear again.

    “Dude. Seriously, you can’t fuck around when you’re in the middle of a set. If you wipe out, get your shit and paddle away. No time to fuck around.”

    I nodded.

    Chill the fu*k out, bro.

    The following wave was no better. I caught it badly, rode it for a few seconds and then got tumbled like a sock. As I plunged into the water the wave rolled over me and I came up, gasping for air.

    “Mother****!” I screamed, irritated.

    I took a moment to catch my breath and figure out what I did wrong. Was I not leaning forward? Did I not get the right angle? Who knew. I gave my shoulder a little rub, looked around for my board and pulled the leash towards me. Then I saw Evan, on the wave after mine, coming towards me quickly. He was still a good 20 metres away, so I tried to gauge whether he was going to hit me or not.

    Yep, going to hit me, ooh no no, gonna go past me for sure, ooh shit maybe he might hit me, oh nah, definitely gonna go past me.

    Until he was right in front of me, and he was going to hit me.

    I let all my shit go and dived as deep under the water as I could. After two or three seconds, I felt the wave give a solid tug on the board, pulling me a metre backwards, and as the water calmed I came up to breathe. The first thing I heard was Evan swearing his face off. I looked around and found him bobbing in the water, ten metres away, clutching his leg. The wave had taken my board and flicked it out the face, smacking him on the leg as it flung out. Earlier in the day I’d dropped my board on my finger and winced, so I knew getting one thrown at your leg would’ve hurt like a mother*****r.

    I floated there, not sure what to do. Evan was still cursing and Brett didn’t look happy either. I paddled over and apologised profusely. He took it as well as he could. I knew he was dying to let loose on me, and he should’ve. Had he not been Brett’s mate, things might’ve been a little different.

    As I turned to paddle back out, Brett’s words rang through my head. “No time to fuck around! Grab your board and paddle away!” It made sense now. I’d been in my own little world out there, but it wasn’t my own little world. We couldn’t just chill out. What was I even trying to do out here? I couldn’t surf. I wasn’t a surfer. I belonged by the sand, on the baby waves.

    I spent the rest of the afternoon bobbing out the back, watching. I was done for the day. This wasn’t my ocean. I didn’t feel welcome here anymore.

    I was pretty weathered when we got back to the beach. I wriggled out of my wetsuit and massaged my shoulder. Brett was over at Evan’s car, chatting away. I knew what they were talking about.

    “You left a few marks mate,” he said as he walked back.

    I nodded, upset with myself.

    “We better get him a box of beers,” he suggested. I nodded again.

    I pulled on a shirt and Brett and I hoisted the surfboards up onto the roof. He threw me the straps.

    “Strap those bad boys on tight mate,” he said, fiddling with the rest of the gear.

    He had explained on the first day how to strap the boards on the roof, but I’d been busy eating a banana or something. I looked at the straps.

    So this clip will probably go around this bar, and then that one will go over there and then….

    Who was I kidding. I had no idea.

    Brett saw I was clueless and came over to help. He stood on the other side of the roof and threw me one end of the strap.

    “Thread that one through the front mate.”

    I threaded it through the front.

    “No, through the front.”

    I looked at him.

    “It’s through the front.”

    He laughed out loud and shook his head.

    “Man, you must be tired.”

    I still didn’t know what was wrong with the strapping, but eventually we got it all strapped down in a way he was happy with. Once we’d pulled the straps tight, he came over and asked if I could tie it down.

    “You know how to tie a bowline?” 

    I shook my head. He laughed and took the straps off me.

    Whatever bro. You don’t even know how to cook rice.

    On the way home we bought a box of beers and Brett took it around to Evan’s place that evening as a peace offering. I wanted to pay for it, but Brett insisted on splitting the bill. Even though I’d done the damage, he was the one responsible for me out there, he said.

    He got back around 11pm with a few beers under his belt. I was in the lounge reading at the time, still feeling shitty about what had happened. Brett grabbed another beer from the fridge and sat beside me on the couch.

    “There were a few people over at his place. A few opinions came out eh.”

    I smiled and nodded. I could imagine.

    “A few of them saw the whole thing and were pretty horrified, to be honest,” he laughed.

    “But I explained it to them like this, you know: you’re a 29 year old retired accountant. And they were like what? Really? And I was like yeah, he’s not an idiot. This is just a totally new world to him. They were literally laughing out loud when I told them about you strapping the boards to the roof. A lot of them were on your side after that, they kinda started to understand.

    But in the end Evan was just like, thank you so much, for the beers. He actually thought you were some foreigner dude. When he heard you say sorry in your Kiwi accent, he was all good about it.”

    That night Brett and I sat there and talked it out until 2 or 3 in the morning. I thought it was cool, how he’d stood up for me. He certainly didn’t need to. As we talked about the week, he told me he’d been disappointed watching me paddle half-heartedly that day, as those morning waves had been my chance to really surf some bombs. He said that had been my moment, to really show him what I could do; that those might be the most perfect learner waves I’ll ever see in my life. When the surf is that good, you gotta go for gold. You gotta surf until your arms fall off.

    “I knew it straight away, the very first day, when I saw you do those burpees out here on the lawn. My expectations for you have been up here, this high. That’s why I’ve been so hard on you. Your popup is effortless, you got awesome technique, awesome athleticism. For someone your age that’s crazy. People your age usually have trouble picking this up, but you don’t have that problem. You could be really, really good man, seriously. All you need to do is go out there and put your game face on, but I haven’t seen you do that.”

    I was disappointed in myself too. I hadn’t thought of surfing that way. I’d thought of it as a hobby, like playing frisbee. Not something you bring your game face to. All day he’d been saying it – get your shit together, put your game face on. But I hadn’t been hearing him.

    It wasn’t too late. I still had one day left.

    The next day before our surf we headed up the coast to collect some shellfish for dinner. Brett had asked around town for which spots were hot, so we jumped in the van and made the journey north.

    Eventually we pulled off the main road and took a side road onto the famous 90 Mile Beach. Brett parked the van up on the bank and we headed down to the water to try our luck.

    I watched him dig his toes into the sand, hunting for treasure. I copied him. I found one straight away and quickly pulled it out of the sand.

    “That’s a tuatua, right?”

    “Yeaaah bro!” he screamed.

    But that was the last one. After digging for three or four minutes, we found nothing. He looked out into the ocean and screwed his face up.

    “The tide’s too high man. We need to be down there,” he said, pointing a few metres out into the water.

    Neither of us had our swim gear, so we called it quits and headed back to the van.

    With his foot flat on the pedal, he floored it up 90 Mile Beach, 100km an hour. Every now and then he’d turn and look at the water, looking for something, and then after ten minutes or so he pulled over and parked the car.

    “This looks better. We’ll probably find some here.”

    I looked down the beach, confused. I could see at least a few hundred metres in either direction and it all looked identical to me. The tide was at the same spot, maybe even higher, the beach looked the same, so did the water. What did he see that I didn’t?

    We walked down to the water’s edge and dug our toes in again. I watched Brett wriggle his feet in and after a few seconds he smiled, bent down and dug his hands deep into the sand.

    “Look at that!” he laughed. His hands were overflowing with tuatua, literally. He couldn’t even hold them all.

    I bent down and did the same, digging my hands in the sand and rummaging around. I could feel the little suckers wriggling between my fingertips. I pulled my hands up and looked at my palms, filled with five, six, maybe seven tuatua, wriggling themselves back into their shells.

    “Go get the bucket from the car, bro!” he yelled, laughing.

    I couldn’t believe it. It was like finding hidden treasure. Maybe this guy can’t cook rice, but he can smell the shellfish in the sand 90 miles away.

    When we arrived back that afternoon Brett sent us out to surf on the beach just outside our bach, 100 metres from our backdoor. I sunscreened, suited up and headed for the water. The ocean looked different to me now. I didn’t see a playground anymore. It was more like a boxing ring, a place for battle. Me against the water.

    I spent about two hours in there getting tumble dried by the waves – paddling out, trying to catch something, getting smoked, paddling out again. I didn’t care. All I needed was a good one. Just one good wave.

    Before long the sun had started to set and my arms were about to fall off, but I was still out there fighting. I got battered by another set, but I couldn’t go in just yet. I got back on the board and paddled out again.

    I was half dead when I finally made it out the back again. My feet were freezing, I couldn’t feel my shoulder. When the set came in, I hesitated for a moment, wanting to catch my breath. The first one didn’t actually look like a good wave, but once I saw it standing up behind me I knew I had to either paddle for it or get smoked. Brett’s words rang in my head. Four strong paddles – one two three four! I paddled for my life and felt the water pick my board up, sending me flying. I jumped to my feet. I didn’t fall off.

    I looked left. The wave was breaking there. I looked right. It was breaking there too. I’d never surfed a wave that broke both ways. I had to go left. I only knew how to go left. I grabbed the rail and leaned left. The board sped up and I put a knee down and held the rail tight, my mouth wide open. I looked left again, right again, the rumble of the water roaring behind me. All of Brett’s words ran through my head; “Watch the wave, move with it, keep the board on trim, stay low, chin knee toe, always chin knee toe!” I shuffled my foot under me, trying to get a better stance. I was moving fast now. I leaned forward, and sped up even more. I took a split second to glance behind me, watching the wave crashing violently against the back of my board. But I was there. I was on it. I could see the beach, and I still hadn’t fallen off. I was surfing.

    Brett was standing outside on the porch smiling when I got back to the house. His eyes were beaming and he held his thumbs up, nodding with a grin from cheek to cheek.

    “Mate you were looking behind you, looking to the side, nice and low, leaning left and right!” he beamed, re-enacting it all on his imaginary surfboard in front of me. He’d been watching from the kitchen window.

    “Shit mate. That was real surfing right there. I was up here saying to myself, ‘Welcome to the club buddy.’”

    That night, we devoured our pot of tuatua. We must have had over 100 but we demolished it all in about ten minutes. I usually buy my tuatua in bags of ten from the supermarket – getting them fresh from the beach is like an impossible dream, at least in my neighbourhood.

    As we sat at the dinner table that night, chatting away like old friends, I thought back over the week. I’d seen a different New Zealand up here, one that I’d never seen during my years growing up in my own community. Up here, everyone knew how to strap boards to the roof. Everyone knew where to find shellfish in the sand. Everyone knew how to tie a bowline. And, everyone knew how to surf. The New Zealand I knew was different. My friends can all cook the shit out of some fried rice by their 7th birthday, but ain’t none of them ever owned a surfboard.

    New Zealand’s a funny place, really. Lots of skin colours, lots of cultures, but we’re not really thrown in a mixing bowl; we’re still stored separately in little tupperware containers in different parts of the country. Things like the All Blacks and fish and chips can bring us together sometimes, but we tend to keep to our own a lot, too. That’s New Zealand, and it’s not necessarily the New Zealand that I like or want. We pride ourselves on being multicultural and diverse, but there’s still a lot left to learn from each other. Being multicultural requires a lot more than just ‘same country, different neighbourhoods’. Being open is easy when you’re travelling the world – everything’s new and exciting – it’s easy to embrace it all. It takes a bit more effort at home. You have to go look for it. You have to want to find it. You can spend your whole life adventuring in faraway places, but sometimes the greatest travel lessons are waiting for you in your own backyard. I learned that in Ahipara.

    That was our final day. The next morning we were heading back to Auckland, but not before one final surf.

    “If you want to surf tomorrow, you’ll need to get up at around 6. You’ll have around an hour in the water. We need to be out of here by 9.”

    My alarm went off at 6am sharp. My whole body hurt and my shoulder was practically in pieces, but I wanted to shake hands with the ocean one more time, if only to say goodbye. I didn’t know if I’d ever be here again.

    It wasn’t a warm morning. The sun wasn’t out yet, and there was a classic morning chill that reminded me of the early winter mornings from my 9-5 days. Half asleep and shivering, I squirmed as I pulled on my wetsuit, still damp from the day before. I had to be quick. I only had an hour.

    As I grabbed my board and headed towards the sand, Brett came out in his underwear and gave me a few pointers.

    “Look at the waves. See how much softer they are today. You’ll have to catch them on much less of an angle. Keep that board much straighter when you paddle today.”

    I nodded and headed towards the sea.

    As I walked across the sand, I scanned the beach on either side of me. The sun was only just starting to rise, and there wasn’t a person in sight. I had the entire beach, the entire ocean, to myself.

    When I finally got to the water’s edge, I set the board on the sand and kneeled down to tie the leash around my ankle. I felt my toes sink and stopped for a moment, watching the sand swallow my foot while the ocean washed over it. It was icy cold, sending a sharp chill through my body. I welcomed it. It was refreshing, in a way.

    Wrapping my leash, I pulled it as tight as I could. As Brett said on the first day, “it’s impossible to tie your leash too tight,” so I tried two or three times, getting it a little tighter each time. When I finally stood up to head into the water, I looked back at the house one last time. The sun had half risen now and our blue roof and walls shouted against the reddish tinge in the sky. In between me and the house lay fifty metres of golden sand, empty and spotless, other than my footsteps running down the middle.

    I looked left. Nobody.

    Right. Nobody.

    I smiled. For thirty seconds, I just stood there, taking a moment to soak it all in. Peaceful. Happy. Beautiful. Doing what you love. These were the kinds of moments we live for. It was the ultimate postcard shot and I didn’t have my phone or my camera with me, but I didn’t care. I just took a deep breath, smiled, and told myself to be grateful for how fucking awesome life is.

    Then I grabbed my board, turned, and ran into the water.

  • A Diary: Five Days In London

    A Diary: Five Days In London

    I wake up to the clanging of dishes in the kitchen. Someone’s up. Not me, though. I lie huddled under blankets on the couch, awake, but still.

    I’m guessing it’s George – she told me she’d be getting up early.

    After five minutes of dozing I peel myself off the couch and put on some pants. And then I sit back down. Do I go and say hello? Or should I leave her to do her morning ritual in peace? Back when I was a suit, I hated being disturbed in the morning. Any place before 8am was not my happy place.

    Eventually I get up and walk into the kitchen. She’s sitting there, eating a pretty typical white girl breakfast – eggs with some green stuff. I think about reaching over and stealing a bite, but decide our friendship isn’t quite there yet. We only met some 12 hours ago.

    I grab a glass of water and sit. We talk. She looks smart, dressed up all fancy in some office girl clothes, like Ally McBeal. In another life, I would’ve been sitting next to her, tailored suit and tie, chowing on a bowl of rice, eggs and soy sauce, getting ready to head to my own London office. But not in this life. There is no big-shot fancy-suit broadway-show London in my story. The only London I’ll know is the sleep-on-a-couch, eat-prepackaged-supermarket-meals and watch-buskers-in-Trafalgar-Square London. The high life passed me by a long time ago.

    Stephen Brown is a farm boy. The way he talks about horses, one would think he’s going to end up marrying one. But the farm isn’t around right now. Right now, he’s a big shot in London, which I’m thankful for, because I’m sleeping on his couch. I knew I stayed friends with this guy for a reason.

    I know Stephen Brown from my accounting days. He worked downstairs, I worked upstairs. Same shit, different desk. But we got along, me and him.

    When I get home from my day out in London, he’s sitting there eating fajitas.

    “Want some of this, bro?” he asks.

    Yeah, I do, actually.

    We sit and eat at his dining room table. Damn, I miss having a dining room table.

    I look around his kitchen. There are veges in the fridge, spices on the rack, protein up on the top shelf. He’s got a motorbike outside. A girlfriend with a sweet smile. A healthy paycheck.

    The man’s got a life here in London.

    In New Zealand, people always speak of “the London thing”. You go to university, you get a job, you save up some cash, and then you get that one way ticket to Heathrow. You get your two year visa, earn some pounds, do that funny thing with your taxes, travel Europe on the weekends, and then bring all that dosh home to buy a house. Want to travel? Do the London thing. Want to earn mad cash? Do the London thing. Everyone loves the London thing.

    Stephen Brown is doing the London thing. He’s doing it well. He’ll head home with memories and some mad stacks. But what about me? What about my London thing? I did the exams. I got the grades. But there’s no London thing in my story. There are no big paychecks. I don’t get the chance to fall in love with London like they do.

    I get home and the house is empty. It’s 7pm. Stephen Brown is nowhere to be seen. Neither are his roommates. I sit on the couch and listen to Taylor Swift.

    Then I hear the door. It’s Rachel.

    “Hi!!” she says enthusiastically as she walks in. A little too enthusiastically, in fact. She pulls off her heels with a smile. What’s she so happy about?

    “What’s up?” I say, smiling.

    “I’m gooood, I’ve just been at the bar, I’m going to make a cuppa, would you like one?”

    “Sure. Green, if you have it.”

    She’s so bubbly – reminds me of Summer Roberts.

    “Yeeeaaah of course! I’ve got green with ginger and lemon, and jasmine green, and plain green, what would you like?”

    “Green with lemon, if you don’t mind,” I say, trying to sound British.

    She fiddles in the kitchen for a few minutes and then, with teas in hand, hands me mine and sits back at the kitchen table.

    “So…” she begins, giggling, “Steve told me that, you were like, working as an accountant, and then one day you just said FUCK IT and started travelling around the world. Is that true?”

    I nod slowly. Stephen Brown talks too much.

    “I guess it’s kinda true, yeah.”

    “Oh my gosh, I would so love to…just…drop it and go like that.”

    “You should,” I smile.

    “I’m going to, soon. I really want to.”

    We talk for the next half hour. She tells me everything about her. Her past relationship and why she wants to travel and all her drama and fears and plans. No filter, it all comes out. I’ve known this girl maybe 72 hours and she’s already telling me her entire E! Hollywood story. After hearing her travel plans and giving my bit of advice, I tell her how every traveller out there fits into a box; a profile.

    Me? I was the Peter Pan 9-5 Corporate Runaway.

    Her? She’d be an Eat Pray Love girl.

    But it’s weird, because I see a lot of myself in her story, too. I also was the broken relationship need-to-get-the-fuck-out-of-here guy once. I offer that to her, so she knows I get it. I’ve been there too, bro.

    “So what did you do today?” she asks.

    “I just woke up, meditated, did some writing, walked around, got some food.”

    “Meditated? What’s that about?

    “I just do it, to clear my head. It’s easy. We can do a session now, if you want.”

    “Yeah! Can we? Let’s!

    She jumps up and comes over to the couch, and I pull out my phone and start a beginner’s audio. We do ten minutes. I can hear her breathing super deeply beside me. I’m impressed. She’s taking the shit real serious.

    When it’s finally over, she opens her eyes slowly in a gaze, staring blankly in front of her.

    “Wow. I feel so mellow right now. How often do you do that?”

    “I try to do it every day. It helps with the writing.”

    “That’s so awesome. I really need that. I find it really hard to clear my head. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I can never seem to stop talking.”

    No. I hadn’t noticed at all.

    I haven’t played touch rugby for around four years. The last time was back in Auckland, when I still had a life there.

    Today that changes. Stephen Brown has a team here, with a bunch of my old office mates. He gets home from work and insists I come and play.

    “Can I play in bare feet?” I ask. I don’t travel with much, especially not a pair of touch boots.

    “Probably not. Those shoes will fit you, bro,” he says, pointing to a pair of boots by the front door.

    “Whose are they?”

    “Dunno, just take em.”

    I laugh to myself as we head out the door in our flip flops and stubbies with a rugby ball between us. I feel like I’m back in primary school.

    When we get to the field it feels strangely familiar, like I’ve been here before. I see my old workmates – Seok, Phil, James, chatting away like it’s any old Thursday. It’s a flashback to five years ago. We could’ve been in Auckland.

    I don’t care much for the game. It’s fun, of course, and I run hard, but I’m not too bothered by whether we win or lose. I don’t know why. As competitive as I am, right now I’m just happy to throw the ball around. After so long, a game of touch just feels like a comfort from home, rather than something to get worked up about. Kind of like a mince and cheese pie in Asia – doesn’t need to be spectacular; you’re just happy it’s there and, as long it’s hot, it’ll get the job done.

    In the end, we win. Good times.

    Once we do all our post-game handshakes and hip hoorays, we head to the bar across the road for drinks. I’d forgotten how much of a luxury it was, to head to the bar on a weeknight. On the road, every night is a Saturday. As we sit there and sip away, I find myself paying more attention to the rest of the bar than the friends I’m sitting with. I see the guys in their suits, sinking the stress of the work day in the beers in front of them. They laugh tiredly at each others stories, probably about their douche bag boss or that mid-life crisis lady in the office they can’t stand. Funnily enough, I’m kinda jealous of them. I miss telling those stories.

    In fact, I’m a little jealous of everyone in here. They all have some normalcy in their life. They have a local bar and a close circle of friends to kick it with on a Thursday. When someone asks them what they do, it’s an easy, one-word answer. They know where they’ll be sleeping for the rest of the month. When they buy drinks, they don’t need to count their pennies.

    Maybe it would’ve been nice, to do the London thing.

    Friday night.

    I used to look forward to Friday night. In fact, it was probably the only thing I used to look forward to. Every day in the office, every morning ironing my shirt, every evening sitting in rush hour traffic; all I was doing was looking forward to Friday night. And not because of the booze or bar hopping that came with it, but just because, if only for just a moment, I had my freedom back. If you get drunk or play Playstation all night on a Tuesday, there are consequences. If you do it on a Friday, nobody cares. I used to live for Friday night.

    Stephen Brown and I jump on a bus and head out to tonight’s house party.

    “This house is full of Aussies bro. They’ll be having a bender tonight.”

    We head up to the top floor of the bus and take the front seats. I always wondered whether I’d end up riding the famous London double decker. The first thing I notice are the empty bourbon cans on the floor.

    “Do people come up here and get pissed a lot?” I ask him.

    “Yeah bro, even on the tube. On Waitangi Day there’s a massive pub crawl on the Circle line. All the Kiwis just getting smashed on the train. Funny as.”

    When we get to the house everyone’s already a little smiley. Not to mention it’s the most Australian house ever. Drugs, booze, dirty dishes. It’s all free flow. You’d be forgiven for thinking we were in a Colombian hostel.

    I knew the moment I entered this wasn’t my scene. It doesn’t seem like Stephen Brown’s either. Him and I sip beers, but there’s no powder on our noses. We’re good.

    After an hour, everyone heads to the local bar. They all head straight to the dance floor, bopping away. I stand in the corner, sober. Three girls sway to the music next to me and I say hello. Turns out, they’re from Paris. Maybe I should’ve guessed from the silly hat one of them was wearing. I tell them I’ve been in Montpellier for the last month, studying French, and try bust out some of my Français. I butcher it, of course, but it’s a great conversation starter. I’m taken back to France and suddenly, it feels like I’m on the road again. This is my comfort zone. Over the course of the night, a couple of cigarettes and some drinks, I feel like my French improves three-fold.

    Around 1am the bar closes and we migrate back to the house. As soon as I walk in, the lines of dust are already sprinkled on the table. It’s kindly offered to me, but I decline, politely. But as I watch them indulge, I remember. I remember that feeling, the need to rebel and blow off steam and let the demons out after a week of being whipped in the back. Five days of alarm clocks, office politics, lifelessly punching a keyboard while watching the world go by. It sucks so much soul out of you that when that weekend comes along, you make damn sure to take it for everything it’s got. And as I spectate, I feel it again, if only for a split second. But that split second is all I need to remind me why I walked away from it all.

    Sitting in Gatwick, I replay the five days over in my head and realise that, despite the short visit, I’ll remember London well. And it’s not Trafalgar Square, or the Eye, or Buckingham Palace that I’ll remember. Instead, I’ll remember it as a flashback; a brief step back into that life I left behind when I chose travel all those years ago. I got a glimpse of the old days here; the stressful mornings, early nights, collared shirts and long commutes. But also, and perhaps more importantly, I was reminded of the good things I had to leave behind. I don’t get to have a George to eat breakfast with each morning; a Rachel to kick it with at night; a house of friends to watch Geordie Shore with on Tuesday and a touch team to sink beers with on Thursday night. On the road, you don’t get that community of familiar faces and places to take comfort in and call “home”. Sure, you might make new friends on the road every day, but it can still be the loneliest place in the world. Everyone’s a friend, but everyone’s a stranger, too. Soon you realise, at the end of the day, there’s no one else. It’s really just you and your backpack out here, taking on the world.

    Five days. That’s all London is for me. Like in so many other cities, I’ve come, taken my photos, and I’m gone. I don’t have a London thing in my story. For me, it’s just another stop around the world.

    -Bren

    Sometimes travel isn't about travel at all. Five days in London brought back many blessings and demons. Here's my diary.
  • Melancholic In Montpellier

    Melancholic In Montpellier

    “So, are you starting to feel melancholic about leaving Montpellier?” Moritz asked.

    I took another bite from my pizza slice and smiled. It’s interesting talking to people who speak English as a second language – they tend to come up with funny ways of saying things.

    Moritz, my youngest classmate at 19, had become my comrade during class breaks, where we’d walk down to the boulangerie each day and buy a pizza slice to keep us going until lunchtime. I’d always get the vegetable, him the salami and cheese – a difference in health consciousness easily explained by the decade between us. After four weeks of French school I’d come to look forward to this time of day – a chance to rest the brain, eat, and get a little sun to help recover from the early morning wake-up. So as we stood outside in the sun putting down our pizzas before the second block of classes, I pondered his question.

    It was easy to see why I got along with Moritz – a carefree, artsy fartsy, minimalist kind of guy, who wrote and recorded rap music in his free time and only wore black and white clothes because “it’s easier to do laundry that way”. At only 19, he’d uprooted his life in Germany and after a 5 month stint in India had brought his life to France, where he was going to learn French and live here for “maybe five months, maybe a few years, or maybe forever.” While I was still chasing a six figure cubicle at 19, he was already out there putting his stamp on the world, and still had his teenage innocence to go with it. He kept telling me he wanted to “live a traveller’s life like me”, but what he didn’t realise was he was already well on the way to a life far more exciting than mine. It takes a few certain attributes to live a life on the road – you need to be open to all people and cultures, you need to be very slow to judge people, and you need to be generous and willing to welcome people into your life. It was easy to see the kid had all of that. I already knew, when this kid got to my age, he was going to have footprints around the world.

    Lara was a girl I met on my first day of school. We were somehow introduced while standing outside the school gate, and just like that, we were friends. We had lunch together that afternoon with Moritz and a few others, and during our meal I was stunned to learn she was only 16. Back in New Zealand I’d never be caught dead hanging out with 16 year olds, ever, but here I was in France and the two of us were getting along like old friends. When people say travel breaks down barriers, they often mean it on a broader, cultural level, but it also does so in a more subtle, more personal way – a way where a 29 year old from New Zealand and 16 year old from Switzerland can meet in France and be friends and there’s nothing odd about it at all.

    And so every other day, Lara and I would see each other outside school or at the bar or wherever our paths happened to cross, and we’d chat like old friends and share little pieces about our lives back home and things that were on our mind. She had a cool, unhurried vibe about her; the kind of person who always had time to stop and chat, and was genuinely curious about people and the world. Over the meals and drinks we shared I realised how much we had in common – she’d already done her first solo travel gig – a 5 month high school exchange in Canada, was now in France alone to study French, and was then to return to art school in Switzerland. I was jealous seeing all these kids getting started on their world journeys in their teens but also excited for them; happy they recognized the opportunity to use these experiences to enrich their lives with language and education rather than sleeping on Thai beaches, sunburnt and hungover. I could only imagine how many enviable adventures were waiting in front of them.

    David and Ash joined my class during my second week of school. David, a German Filipino and former pro ball player from California, and Ash, a Fijian Indian from Canada, were both in their late 30’s, had just finished culinary school and were now in the south of France to complete six month culinary internships at hotel restaurants in Nice and Antibes. I was excited to see them join us, if only to even up the gender teams in class for Moritz and I, and over the next couple of weeks I was surprised to see how well we all got along. Both still had a child-like playfulness in them and goofed around just as much as I did; whether we started playing Puff Daddy during our presentations or made jokes about Michael Jordan’s hot Cuban wife, those two were all about the goofing. On our first night out together, we sat around sipping gin and tonics and listing our top 5 rappers of all time; David backed my inclusion of Eminem while Moritz called me out for not including the Wu Tang Clan – but what I remember about that night had nothing to do with music – it was simply an affirmation that no matter what your age, you don’t need to be tucked away in some suburb battling with a mortgage. Those two were my real-life reminders that as long as you’re willing to get out there and break the mould, you can go to culinary school at 37, come to France, learn to make a crème brulee from the originals and still spill a few gin and tonics with the kids.

    I met Lorena around the same time I met Lara. A tiny, 17-year old, adorable little Swiss girl, who became another one of my friendly faces I’d bump into around school. And of course, when she claimed to make “the best pesto spaghetti ever” I had to call her on it and see if she was for real. One Thursday, her and Lara came around armed with pesto, spaghetti and mini Oreo ice-creams, and proceeded to clunk around my kitchen putting our dinner together (which was delicious, by the way). But it’s not the spaghetti I remember from that night. Lorena had mentioned before how much she loved to sing, and so naturally, as we slouched around my coffee table holding our bellies, I asked her to sing for us. Every single person I’ve met who claims to be a singer or to love to sing always scoffs at this request, so I was already expecting her to say no. But, she kind of just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Ok, close your eyes”.

    And then she sang.

    Lara and I lay there, listening to Lorena sing all her favourite songs a cappella for the next half hour, and that, along with Oreo ice creams, was the perfect end to the night. There were nervous giggles in between and she forgot a few words now and then, but that only added to the beauty – it was raw, unfiltered talent, unedited and real, echoing through my tiny studio. It was a reminder that talent is out there in every corner of the world, waiting to be appreciated, and it’s up to us to go and find it. All artists, whether they’re writers or singers or painters or dancers tend to inspire each other, and that night was a timely jolt of inspiration for me. Whatever you have, whatever you can create, put it out there. Someone will be listening.

    I had a few drinks with my classmates on my final night, and in between wines Lara and I shared a cigarette out on Moritz’s balcon. We talked about tattoos, of all things, which is strange because neither her nor I have any, but it was an easy conversation, as if we’d been friends since childhood. Slowly the conversation then weaved into starsigns, and then Switzerland, and then the Chinese zodiac, and it was apparent she was a lot more level-headed than most 16 year olds, or at least more so than the 16 year old version of me; a trait I’m sure her early solo travel career had blessed her with.

    And so the two of us sat out on that tiny balcon, chatting long after the cigarettes had burned out, and I realised that yes, I am feeling sad, or melancholic, as Moritz likes to say, about leaving Montpellier. Yet the melancholy had nothing to do with France, or French school, or even Montpellier itself. It was the thought of leaving the people this chapter had brought into my life, and the lessons they had brought with them – Lara, who taught me friendships can be born anywhere with anyone, Moritz, who reminded me to always be open to people and slow to judge, David and Ash, who taught me to never let go of my youthful curiosity and playfulness, and Lorena, who reminded me to always share your gift with the world, just in case someone out there is waiting to receive it.

    On my final day, Moritz dropped me at the bus stop to bid me goodbye. We stood in the line chatting about nothing for ten minutes, until it was finally time for me to haul my bag on board and head on my way. As we did the awkward hug and handshake, I told him to “appreciate every moment here, because they’re going to be some of the best years of your life.” – my attempt at some elder brotherly-like advice, although I doubt he really needed it. The kid doesn’t even know it, but he, along with the others, taught me so many little lessons that will and already have influenced me in this journey through the world.

    After many years on the road, I spend a lot of time trying to piece together these moments and where they fall in the bigger picture of things. When I look back on it all, what will I remember from Montpellier? What did it teach me? What part will it play in my travels and my story? I’ll remember the long mornings in French class, of course, the cheap bottles of wine, the fancy boulangeries stacked with eclairs and baguettes; but most of all I’ll remember France as a reminder that it’s not so much the place, but the people, that make the road such a magical place to be.

    A short story by Bren On The Road. Melancholic in Montpellier is a reminder that it's not always the place, but the people, that make the road such a magical place to be.

  • A Night At The Border

    A Night At The Border

    It’s Wednesday in Cannakale. I’ve been in Turkey six days and still have so much to see, but I’m already gunning to leave. It’s just not my kind of place.

    I decide today’s the day I’m getting my bus to Bulgaria. I jump out of bed and head to the Metro Turizm office around the corner.

    The minute I walk in the door I can tell I’m going to have problems. The guy at the desk is looking at me like I’m here to steal his wife.

    “Hi, can I get a bus ticket to Bulgaria?” I ask.

    He shakes his head.

    “No bus.”

    “Would you be able to tell me where can get one?”

    He rolls his eyes.

    “Other company.”

    “Ok, could you tell me the name?”

    “No.”

    Awesome. Thanks.

    I turn and walk out. As I turn my back, I hear him condescendingly mumble something to the colleague next to him.

    Careful, ticket master. I can mumble too.

    I go back to my hostel and ask my receptionist, who tells me the company Truva should be able to sell me a ticket. Thankfully the people at the Truva office are a little more helpful, and while I can’t get a ticket to Bulgaria, I’m able to get one to the town of Edirne, which sits right on the border. They tell me I’ll need to buy another ticket from Edirne to Bulgaria with a different company.

    I head back to the hostel and jump online to try and find a ticket from Edirne to Bulgaria. It doesn’t take long to find one, however it’s with Metro Turizm. That means I’ll be going back to visit my old friend again.

    I put my game face on and head back to the Metro Turizm office. Unfortunately my old friend isn’t there anymore (I was looking forward to a round two), so I talk to his colleague.

    “Hi, I want to buy a ticket from Edirne to Plovdiv.”

    “No bus,” he says, shaking his head.

    Weird. I pull out my phone and show it him the ticket on their website.

    He sighs, sits up from his slouch and takes a look, and then looks up at me. I raise my eyebrows at him and he reluctantly starts punching away on his keyboard. Thirty seconds later I have my ticket.

    With everything now booked, my trip looks like this:

    5pm to 9pm – Cannakale to Edirne (Turkey).

    11:30pm to 4:30am – Edirne to Plovdiv (Bulgaria).

    The first trip from Cannakale to Edirne goes without incident. The bus leaves on time and arrives on time. At around 9:15pm, I step off the bus at Edirne bus station. Now it’s just a two and a half hour wait, then a bus to Plovdiv.

    No sweat.

    The bus station is a little secluded and eerie, so I sit in the small cafe there until about 10pm, after which they close and I’m forced to migrate to the benches outside. It’s around 5 degrees out here. I weather the cold the best I can.

    During my wait, I show my ticket to three different Metro staff walking around and ask if I’m in the right place. They all nod and tell me to wait.

    11pm rolls around and I start to worry. I’m clearly the only one left here waiting for a bus. A couple of people are scattered around, but they don’t appear to be waiting for a bus. To make things worse, this bus stop is getting sketchy as hell. There are wild dogs running around. Everything’s closed. It’s dimly lit, underneath a huge bridge and nobody around – the kind of scene where a bunch of thugs would emerge in an action movie and mess somebody up.

    By 11:15pm I’m sure something is off. I show another random guy my ticket, who is very smiley and seems helpful. His English is terrible, but he looks at my ticket and tells me I’m in the right place. Perhaps I’m just the only person travelling to Bulgaria tonight. I sit next to him and we continue chatting. I feel a lot less like a clueless tourist with a local to talk to.

    Almost bang on 11:30, a Metro bus arrives. I feel a jump of relief, but my hopes are quickly dashed. The bus says “Edirne” and isn’t going any further than here. My new friend jumps up, shakes my hand to say bye, and runs over to greet his kids as they get off the bus.

    Damn.

    The few other people scattered around meet their respective friends and family off the same bus, and just like that the station is empty.

    Now I’m standing alone at a sketchy bus stop at 11:30pm in rural Turkey, freezing with five or six wild dogs and waiting for a bus that probably isn’t coming. It’s almost funny.

    After five minutes or so a Metro staff emerges from the bus that’s just arrived and heads inside to the Metro office. I run after him and show him my ticket. He rubs his eyes, takes off his glasses and gives it a quick look.

    “Hmmm,” he mumbles.

    Hmm? What is he hmm’ing about? Is this a good hmm or a bad hmm?

    Of course it’s a bad hmm.

    He shakes his head at me, saying something in Turkish and pointing out into the distance somewhere.

    “I don’t speak Turkish, sorry,” I say back.

    “No bus.” he says. “Kapikule bus. No here bus. Kapikule bus.”

    Kapikule? What the hell is a Kapikule? And what do you mean no here bus?

    Two taxi drivers see us talking and come over. The guy explains something to them and they nod and try and explain it to me. Their English isn’t any better though.

    “Autobus not here!” one of them shouts, shaking his head.

    “Autobus here!”

    He plots a few imaginary points in the air with his fingers.

    What’s he trying to say? I’m at the wrong stop?

    “Come, taxi taxi, go autobus. Taxi, then autobus,” he says, ushering me to his taxi with urgency. After a few confused moments, I eventually decipher his mimes to mean the bus stopped somewhere else, and that I should take a taxi and maybe we can chase the bus and catch it at the border. I play out what I think he means with hand signals and Turklish, and he nods enthusastically.

    “Ya ya ya. Taxi, go autobus! Taxi, autobus!” he says, tapping his watch furiously.

    Translation: I need to get in a taxi to chase the bus and we don’t have much time. The bus didn’t pick me up. It’s gone without me.

    I take a deep breath and try to relax. Then I get angry. I’ve been sitting at this shitty bus stop for two and half hours and now I’m being told the bus doesn’t stop here. What do you mean the bus doesn’t stop here? My bus ticket says Edirne. Logically a bus from Edirne should stop in Edirne, no? What the actual f#ck?

    But then I tell myself, chill. This is travelling.

    I turn back to the Metro guy.

    “Is there another bus?” I ask.

    “No. Bus tomorrow.” he says, holding up five fingers.

    “5 o’clock?” I ask

    He nods.

    I survey my options, of which there are two. Wait five hours for the next bus (and who knows where that one will decide to stop), or jump in this taxi and see if I can chase down my original bus.

    I conclude I’ll probably get murdered if I sit in this bus stop for the night, so I get in the taxi.

    The driver really puts his foot down. Burning 140 km/h on an empty highway, I study the tail lights of every vehicle in front of us, hoping to see a Metro sign on the back somewhere.

    edirne

    No luck.

    After about ten minutes he pulls into a service station. It’s one of those classic middle-of-nowhere service stations you see in the road trip movies.

    “Bus stop here,” he tells me, pointing to the ground.

    The bus stops here? How the hell was I supposed to know the bus stops here? We are literally in no-man’s land, at some random gas station with a few kebab joints and nothing to be seen in any direction. Even if I had wanted to come here, I wouldn’t have any idea how. There was no bus sign or bus stop, no nearby town. I guess I would have just told my taxi to take me to “that gas station in the middle of nowhere?”

    The driver jumps out and heads over to some food joint to chat to someone. They exchange words for about 30 seconds and he runs back and nods at me.

    “Bus here 11:30.”

    Of course it was.

    Back on the road we go. Zooming down the empty highway, I cross my fingers that we’d catch my bus up ahead, but deep down part of me knows it’s long gone. It’s around midnight now, and surely the bus had hit the border a long time ago.

    When we finally get to the border it’s around ten minutes past midnight. The driver points somewhere in the distance towards border patrol and says “Go, passport, bus.”

    I squint into the distance and try and look for a bus, but it’s pretty dark and I can’t see too far ahead. I guess I’ll take my chances.

    I hop out of the cab, give the driver all the Turkish lira I have left and walk across the border. Interestingly, the border patrol don’t find it strange that some lone Chinaman is walking across the border at midnight. He just stamps my passport and goes back to his iPhone game.

    I walk for a good 3 minutes from passport patrol into the neutral zone. I’m no longer in Turkey, not yet in Bulgaria. Literally in the middle of nowhere. It’s empty and eerily silent – I see a duty free shop, a few cars, a security guard and some trucks. But no bus.

    So there I am, standing between the borders with an expired bus ticket at midnight with no one to call. The duty free shop is the only thing with signs of life, so I head inside there to get out of the cold.

    I drop my bags, slump against the wall and slide down to the ground.

    And then I start laughing. I’m exhausted and have no ideas left. I’ve got no Turkish lira, no Bulgarian lev, just a few USD that the buses may not even take. There’s no ATM. I also need to piss, but I don’t have any coins for the toilet.

    So I laugh.

    Two minutes of hysterical, uncontrollable laughter. What’s the plan of attack? I’d already resigned myself to the fact that I’d be sitting here until morning, but what next? Should I go pee on the pavement, sit here until 5 o’clock and then maybe see if the bus that’s supposed to be coming will let me on? Or wait until morning and then try and catch a taxi into town (if any taxis come past here) and catch another bus from there? Snooze until sunrise and then go stick my thumb out and try and hitchhike to somewhere, anywhere, so I can at least find a hotel and a bed? It wasn’t exactly life or death, but none of my immediate options sounded like much fun.

    At that moment a security guard comes up to me. He sees my defeated slouch and my stupid laughing and my bloodshot eyes, so understandably he approaches with caution.

    “Wait bus?” he asks, pointing towards the border.

    I nod.

    “Mmm. Couch?” he asks, gesturing to some couches on the far side of the building.

    I smile and shake my head.

    “I’m fine, thanks.”

    He gives me a smile and a nod, and walks away. This lifts my spirits a little though. After dealing with so much crap today, I appreciate the gesture.

    The next hour passes slowly. I sit and ponder my life. Passing in and out of sleep, I wonder how long I could sit here before I get reported missing. I drink a bottle of water in my bag. I even consider rationing it in case I’m out here a while.

    Finally, at around 1:45 a bus comes by. To my surprise, it’s a Metro bus.

    Didn’t the guy say the next bus was at 5am? No more buses today? First they wouldn’t even sell me a ticket, then they forget to pick me up, then they make me chase the bus across the border and now they’re sending the 5am bus at 1:45? Surely I’m being Punk’d – this is all a set up and the world is eating Doritos while watching my night play out on reality TV.

    I jump up and run over to the driver. As I pass the bus, I notice the sign on the front says “Plovdiv / Sofia”. A promising start.

    “Do you speak English?” I ask him.

    He shakes his head.

    Undeterred, I show him my ticket and try explaining the entire situation. With my best English/sign language combination, I explain how I was waiting for my bus for 2 and a half hours but my bus decided to stop at a gas station instead of the bus station (easy mistake to make) and then I got a taxi to the border to try and catch it but I was too slow and now I’ve been waiting here for 2 hours as well and I’d like to jump on his bus if possible.

    He muses over my ticket, and then shakes his head, pointing to the bus number on my ticket. It says 42XX, and then he points to the number on his bus, which says 44XX.

    In other words, it’s a different bus.

    NO SHIT.

    I try explaining it again but he doesn’t understand. Or maybe he does and he doesn’t care.

    “Please, look – I have a Metro ticket for Plovdiv. I was waiting for my bus but it didn’t come. I’ve already been waiting for 5 hours, since 9pm.”

    He shrugs his shoulders, points at his bus number again and shakes his head. I nod and try to keep explaining but he’s not interested. He pulls out his phone and walks off.

    By now, I’m about done.

    Fuck Metro Turizm. There’s no way I’m letting this bus go without me on it. I’ll pull out my Boracay scrapping skills if I have to. I don’t even care if I get arrested and thrown in jail for the night. Who knows – with a little luck, the jail might even be in Plovdiv.

    At that moment another younger guy in a Metro uniform walks past.

    “Excuse me, do you speak English?” I ask in desperation.

    He stops and looks at me.

    “Yeah.”

    Yeah?

    Yeah you speak English?

    Impossible. It was like finding a Turkish unicorn.

    I show him my ticket and give him the whole story, with a few dramatisations thrown in for good effect. He looks over my ticket and nods slowly.

    “So you want to come with us now?” he asks.

    I shrug my shoulders.

    “Well, yeah.”

    “Alright, I’ll just check with the driver but it should be ok.”

    Ten minutes later the driver returns with some shopping. The new guy starts pointing at my ticket and explaining everything while the driver looks me up and down, trying to decipher if I’m full of shit or not. They chat for a good thirty seconds before he nods again and walks away.

    “Yeah it’s ok, you can come with us.”

    I smile and scream a victory cry inside. The universe has mercy.

    While we stand around waiting for some staff to tag my bag he asks for my passport to add me to the passenger list. I hand it to him and he looks over it quizzically.

    “Wooah, New Zealand!” he smiles.

    While he takes down my details, I ask if he knows why my bus didn’t stop at the bus station. He seems surprised as I am, and tells me it should’ve stopped there. I ask if his bus stopped at Edirne station, and he says they did. I explain my little stop at the random gas station and my car chase in the taxi, which he finds hilarious. I start to see the funny side too (not).

    I compliment him on his English, which brings a smile out of him.

    “My mother always told me growing up, teach English, teach English. I never wanted to learn it, but my mother kept telling me, teach English, teach English, teach English.”

    I figure he actually means “learn English”, but I understand.

    “You’re probably the third or fourth person I’ve met in Turkey who speaks English,” I tell him.

    He laughs.

    “Yeah, actually there is not really many staff in Metro who speaks English. So I can get a good job here.”

    “What’s your name?” I ask him.

    “My name is Emil,” he says, shaking my hand. Then he hesitates for a moment and looks back at me.

    Do you think it’s okay if we be friends on Facebook?” he asks.

    I laugh.

    You rescued me from a life on Turkey’s border, bro. Facebook BFF’s for life.

    Once on the bus I knock out immediately. I sleep like a rock, and a couple of hours later I am woken up to someone shaking my shoulder. It’s Emil.

    “Here is Plovdiv,” he says.

    I quickly grab my things and get off, along with two or three others. The whole debacle feels like a dream. I’m finally in Plovdiv, with two arms and two legs. I don’t believe it.

    Emil pulls my backpack out of the storage compartment and brings it over. I shake his hand again and give him my card.

    “Here’s my email. Add me on Facebook, man. And thanks for everything.”

    He gives me a smile and a friendly nod.

    “Yeah, and one day I will see you in New Zealand!” he grins.

    I give him a salute and he jumps on the bus and takes off.

    So I’m finally in Plovdiv. I look around. No cars. No taxis. Looking pretty sketchy.

    I’m kinda stranded here, alone. At a random sketchy looking bus stop at 4am.

    Doesn’t that sound familiar.

    Luckily, this is short lived. Only a few minutes pass before a bunch of taxis roll up and stop to pick people up. I walk up to the first one and show him my hostel’s address. I’m also armed with the knowledge that a taxi to the hostel shouldn’t be more than 5-6 lev (3 euro).

    The first guy looks at the address on my phone and nods. He asks for 20 lev (10 euro). I tell him 6. He screams out “Nooo 6!” and looks away.

    I go to the next cab. He wants 10 lev. I tell him 6. He shakes his head and waves me away.

    By now, all the other cabs have gone. I’m the only one here, and I’m left with these two.

    In my stubbornness, I stand out there in the cold, leaning on my backpack. Ain’t nobody else going to dick me around today. Either I’m getting a cab for 6 lev or I’m dying here in this bus station with my backpack between my legs.

    One of the cabbies gets out and stands next to me.

    “10 lev, ok?”

    I ignore him.

    “10 lev ok? Far away. 10 lev.”

    I look at him.

    “6.”

    He shakes his head. Two minutes of silence pass.

    “Ok 8. We go.”

    I shake my head.

    “8 is ok. Old Plovdiv far away. 8 lev,” he says.

    “Look, I’m paying 6. Otherwise, I’ll sit my ass in this bus stop until morning and I’ll walk.”

    My face is so cold that my nose is about to fall off and I can barely feel my fingers, but I’m beyond the point of caring. On any other night I’d just pay the man, but I’m already so deep in misery tonight. Might as well take it to the max.

    He grabs my backpack and starts loading it into his cab.

    “Ok 6,” he says.

    The drive is short and we arrive after about ten minutes. However, he doesn’t drop me at my hostel door. He stops at some intersection and tells me he can’t drive up anymore.

    “No car here. Just walk 50 metre and hostel on left,” he says, motioning with his hands.

    I pay him, grab my backpack and get out. The Old Town here in Plovdiv is gorgeous in the dark, with dimly lit streets and cobblestone paving. The only problem is it’s impossible to wheel a bag across these roads.

    Like a crippled duck, I battle to clunk my backpack across the cobblestones looking for my hostel. I waddle fifty metres and turn left. All I see is a bookshop. I go another fifty metres and turn left again. A few restaurants, hostels, but not the one I’m looking for.

    Hungry and tired, I stop and collapse on the curb for a moment to catch my breath. It’s 4:30am, and the silence and cool morning air is actually quite refreshing. Then, as I look around it occurs to me that the place is a ghost town. There is absolutely nobody else out here. So, with no one around to rob me, I leave my bags and jacket in the middle of the street and go jogging around the alleyways trying to find my hostel. It only takes me five minutes or so to find it.

    I run back and get my stuff, and then finally get myself, with all belongings, to the hostel door. I ring the doorbell, hear a bit of shuffling inside, and finally a girl answers. She looks like Eliza Thornberry. I always liked Eliza Thornberry.

    “Are you Brendan?”

    “Yeah, hi.”

    “Hi, welcome!” she whispers.

    She moves aside so I can pull my bag through the door. As soon as I get inside, I collapse on the couch beside us.

    She closes the door and looks at me.

    “How was your trip?”

    I crack a smile.

    “Oh. It was fantastic.“

    Photo credit: Ross2085@Flickr

  • Better Luck Next Time, Sydney Airport

    Better Luck Next Time, Sydney Airport

    The plane hits the pavement. I look at the clock.

    10:51.

    Check-in for my next flight closes at 11:45.

    I do the math slowly in my head. 54 minutes to get through customs, collect my bags, and make it upstairs to check-in.

    Easy peasy.

    Well, it should be easy peasy, except for one problem – this is Sydney Airport. Things don’t move so quickly in Sydney Airport.

    Ten minutes pass and we’re all still sitting on the plane. I peek over the heads in front of me, trying to see what’s going on, but all I see is a long queue of vegetating passengers.

    I have a bad feeling about today. I have a feeling that, I dunno, maybe Sydney Airport is out to get me.

    Finally we start moving. I don’t have a watch, or a phone, but I glance at the time on the girl’s phone beside me.

    10:59. 46 minutes.

    I should make it.

    As I get off the plane, I walk briskly down to arrivals, ready to head straight through as I’ve filled out all my forms on the plane. Or so I thought.

    “Ebola form, everybody needs to fill out an Ebola form,” I hear a lady saying. I head over and take one, and start trying to fill it out while walking through the crowd. “Why the f**k didn’t they give me this on the plane,” I curse under my breath.

    I’m starting to think I was right. Sydney Airport is out to get me.

    As I get to customs I head straight to the Smart Gate machine, which should help me avoid the massive queue of Chinese passengers that have arrived on my flight. I flip open my passport and slide it in, waiting patiently for the machine to do its thing. The loading circles spin and spin for what seems like forever, and then an error screen pops up.

    “We cannot process you today. Please head to the Assistance Desk.”

    FUCK. I knew it.

    Sydney Airport is out to get me.

    I line up for the assistance desk, which luckily moves quite fast. I get to the front within a few minutes and hand my passport to the lady.

    “Are you just in transit?” she asks, glancing over my form.

    “Yes.”

    “When’s your next flight?”

    “12:45.”

    “12:45?? Are you going to get through in time?”

    “Well, I’m trying,” I smile. “What’s the time now?”

    “11:12.” 

    She hands back my passport and waves me through.

    I quickly do the math again in my head. 33 minutes before check-in closes. Phew, I think to myself, relaxing a little. As long as they don’t take forever with my bag, I should get through with plenty of time to spare.

    But soon I realise that’s a little naïve. Of all the airports I’ve been through Sydney has always been one of the slower ones, and of course on this day, they decide to take forever with my bag.

    A guy stands beside me tinkering on an iPad. I glance at the time. 11:20. No bag.

    11:25. No bag.

    11:30. No bag.

    This can’t be happening.

    Sydney Airport is out to get me.

    By now I’m endlessly muttering the most horrible of words under my breath while simultaneously praying to all the Gods I can think of. F***, s*** you m***** f****** Aussies can you please f****** bring out my m***** f****** bag already.

    At that moment, after almost twenty minutes, my bag magically pops out onto the belt. I roll my eyes, grab it, and rush over to the quarantine line. Ten minutes ago it was completely empty, but as luck would have it, there’s about 15 people in front of me now.

    An officer walks past and I stop him.

    “Excuse me sir, check-in for my flight closes in 15 minutes, I know it’s a long shot but is there any way at all you can get me through this line a little faster?”

    “If it’s in 15 minutes you’ve already missed it mate, ‘cause ya gotta get over to the domestic terminal first.”

    “No, it’s an international flight, it’s just upstairs.”

    “Well mate, if it’s an international flight and it leaves in 15 minutes you’ve missed it as well,” he laughs.

    I’m not sure if he’s an idiot or just being stupid on purpose.

    “No, it’s an international flight and the check-in closes in 15 minutes, I can make it if I can just get through here a little faster.”

    He looks at me with a confused look, and walks away.

    “Thank you,” I shout as I watch him walk off, quietly muttering a few F words in his direction.

    Ok, Sydney Airport. I get it. You’re out to get me.

    As I stand in the quarantine line, I decide the battle is over. I don’t have a watch and my phone is dead, but I’m guessing I have about 10 minutes to make the flight, and there’s no way I’m getting through this line in 10 minutes, let alone upstairs and to my check-in counter. I grit my teeth with frustration, and my mind starts cycling through the five stages of grief.

    First comes anger. F*** this shitty airport and their half-arse processing.

    Next, bartering. Maybe, if I bribe one of these officers to let me through first I could still make it?

    Then, denial. No way. I don’t miss flights. I’ve never missed a flight in my life. These clocks are all wrong and I’m still gonna make it.

    Then, in the midst of my denial I find myself at the front of the line.

    The officer glances at my form and sends me over to an inspection desk.

    “Station number two,” he points, waving me through.

    I rush over to the table and lift my bag up. Just as I do so, the lady pulls off her gloves and starts walking off somewhere.

    “Just give me two seconds darling, I’ll be right back.”

    I smile and nod, and then visualise myself punching her in the nose with brass knuckles on.

    Sydney Airport is still out to get me.

    I turn and watch her chat to some lady for thirty seconds, probably about the latest issue of House and Garden. I grit my teeth, quickly losing my patience. How much time do I have? I have no idea.

    Finally I open my mouth to say something but just before the words come out she turns back and returns to the table.

    She picks up my card and looks it over slowly.

    “Do you have any nuts, seeds, plants, fruits….”

    I watch her lips move in slow motion, slowly shaking my head without really hearing what she’s saying.

    “Ok, you can go.”

    Almost in shock that she didn’t want to check my socks for caterpillar eggs, I decide I might have about 90 seconds to get upstairs before check-in closes. I question for a second whether I should even bother trying, but then I slap some sense into myself. I’m a traveller. This is what we do. NBA players sink three-pointers over a double team in Game 7 with three seconds to go. Lawyers give impassioned closing arguments to swing the jury and win impossible cases. And travellers, we catch flights. This is what we do.

    I grab my backpack, throw my jacket under my arm, and I run. I sprint. Flurrying out of the arrivals gate, I draw the attention of almost everyone in the building. Some look at me with amusement, like I’m a Chinese madman overexcited to see his long lost family. Some look at me with terror, as if I’ve just planted a bomb and perhaps they should be running too. But I don’t care.

    All those hours in the gym, this is what they were for. I run and run and run, weaving through the crowd, sprinting for my life, gasping for oxygen while dragging 16kg behind me with one arm and holding my backpack under the other. I get to the escalator and haul my luggage up, my arm slowly turning to jelly. Others sense my urgency and move to the side, looking at me with confusion.

    As I finally get to the departures floor, I take two seconds to catch my breath while looking at the check-in screen.

    Fiji Airways….Fiji Airways……..where the f*ck is Fiji Airways…….

    C1!!

    I look up at the signs of the counters in front of me.

    H, I, J, K.

    You’re fucking kidding me. As luck would have it, I’m probably as far away from my counter as I could possibly be.

    I guess Sydney Airport really, really wants to get me.

    In the back of my head I’m almost certain the check-in closed a long time ago, but as the greats say, better to try and fail, than to not try at all.

    I squint and look across to the far end of the airport, seeing counter C way in the distance. Almost instantly, I break into a full sprint once again. I’ve got hardly anything left in the tank, but this is the home straight now. All or nothing.

    The counters go past in one big blur; H….G….F…..

    My legs are barely holding up, but they manage to keep moving.

    E….D……..

    As I approach counter C, I see the Fiji Airways sign and stumble over to the desks.

    “Excuse me…..

    Excuse me..…sir,” I gasp, sweat dripping down my face, half collapsed on the counter.

    “Check in……..for Nadi………”

    His eyes jump.

    “Nadi! Shit mate you better hurry up, it’s about to close in a few seconds!”

    He jumps up out of his chair runs over to one of the computers, tapping away furiously.

    “Hand me your passport mate. You’re checking in a bag? How much does it weigh?”

    “About 15…” I say, still gasping for breath.

    Without even putting it on the scale he jams it all into the computer, while I pull my passport from my back pocket and hand it over to him.

    I watch his eyes running furiously across the screen, at the same time shouting out orders to the ladies around him. Obviously this guy didn’t get the memo about the airport being out to get me.

    Almost like robots, the staff tag my bag, chuck it onto the belt, and process my ticket at light speed. I’m still in a daze as I watch them move around me in a blur. As I stand there, leaned over the counter, I notice the small puddle that’s collected from the beads of sweat dripping off the tip of my nose. I look at it and smile. Have I really made it? 

    And then, I finally hear it – the beautiful sound of my boarding pass coming out of the printer.

    The guy at the desk slots it into my passport, breaths a sigh of relief, and looks up at me with a nervous smile.

    “Far out, mate, literally, you just made it. I have never, ever seen anyone make it by that close. I printed your boarding pass and the check-in closed literally a split second later,” he laughs.

    “Thank you man, I really, really, really appreciate it,” I say, still barely able to breathe.

    “No worries mate, have a good flight, head straight to the gate please,” he smiles, handing over my passport and boarding pass.

    I nod, collect my things, and head straight to the gate.

    I quietly wonder to myself whether Sydney Airport will fight to the end, but they don’t. I head through customs and security without issue, leisurely stroll to the gate, and step onto the plane.

    In the end, a valiant effort, but it just wasn’t quite enough.

    Sorry, Sydney Airport.

    You can’t get me.

    Photo credit: onefound @ Flickr

    Shout-out to Fiji Airways for their awesome staff who managed to check-me in at light speed and also to Sydney Airport for keeping life interesting. Until next time.