Things I've learned so far: the Kiwi edition

So it's the evening before I leave New Zealand and I just realized I haven't told you what I've learned here yet! So that's gotta be remedied before I start worrying about the Philippines.

• If Earth ever gets invaded by aliens, New Zealand won't even notice. They have the absolute weirdest and coolest clouds here that look like an ongoing alien invasion. I mean, just google "New Zealand Clouds". Today was a prime example. I haven't taken as many pictures of clouds since the first time I flew in a plane and spent a whole roll of film on it.
  
• They have the coolest birds. Take the California Quail for instance. Not only do they look totally stylish, they either can't fly or just don't wanna. In any case, when you get too close to them, they run away from you. As in, for minutes they just run in front of you with their tiny little legs before they finally throw themselves very dramatically into the bushes (just look at them go, starting at 0:35). Let's just say I've had a lot of fun with that fact and leave it at that.
  
• They constantly tell you there's gonna be penguins and then, nothing. It's a bit like the koala scam of 2006 (Although there were koalas in the end then. Pretty much no chance of penguins here anymore.).
  
• They're very pragmatic people. When the fire alarm in my hotel room went off 7 times in the span of an hour the other night, the owner's solution when I woke him at 3am was simply "just take it off and throw it in the rubbish". Well, it solved the problem.
  
• They're the masters of road signs. Stumbled upon this one today and that one the other day:

 

• They very obviously mark rental cars as rental cars. At first I thought that's to make it easier for thieves to see who might have a lot of valuables in the car, but after three weeks behind the wheel here, I'm pretty sure it's to let the locals know they have another idiot tourist in front of them who doesn't understand that speed limits aren't suggestions that mean you can simply drive half that speed if you prefer looking around instead of concentrating on traffic. (It's probably a good thing that I'm done with rental cars tomorrow. My road rage is reaching its peak.) 
  
• They have the funniest town names. It's like the Sydney rail map all over again. Either you can't pronounce them or you can, which usually isn't any better. I went hiking in Hooker Valley the other day, saw Lake Tikitapu and spent the night in Kaka Point. Just as a few examples.
  
• Instead of traffic lights, they have people holding "Stop" and "Go" signs when there are road works and one lane is closed. And those guys wave to every single car that goes by. They also sometimes sleep on the job and that's how the other day I was in the middle of a one lane construction area when suddenly I had a line of oncoming traffic right in front of me who all expected ME to move for some reason.   

• Heating blankets are a really big thing there. I think I've had them in every bed. And they are AMAZING. I might consider an investment when I get back home.

Alright. There's probably more, but that's all my brain can come up with right now. I should probably finish packing (...again) and get to bed. I just realized I have another four weeks to go and I don't know why. There should only be three. I have no idea where the fourth week is coming from. I'm kinda starting to lose the plot here.

When it rains, it pours

Well, hello to the 3 people still reading this! I'm still alive (as witnessed on Instagram), the South Island has given me my mojo back, mostly (...although I've given myself way, way too much time in each place. If you're not into 8-hour hikes, bungee jumping, jetboating or other crazy activities, there really isn't enough to see in most places to fill two or three complete days. So basically I could have seen twice as much if I'd planned a bit more like...me?), and...I'm already in my last week in New Zealand. How did that happen?

Right now I'm sitting in my room in Te Anau (the "Gateway to Milford Sound", if you were wondering), looking at a picture of a lake that someone put in front of my window (cause my room most definitely has a wall view, not a lake view, even if the hotel name suggests something different), my room smells like wet dog, it is pouring (and has been for most of the 200km it took to get here), the road to Milford Sound is closed due to avalanche risk because of all the rain and it's still unclear whether it will open again tomorrow (because the weather isn't exactly foreceast to get any better) and there is absolutely nothing to do here. Well, you could do a completely overprized 65€ glowworm cave tour, which seems to involve crossing the lake and then hovering under the same little patch of glowworms for half an hour if the reviews are to be believed, or visit the outdoor bird sanctuary where the birds mostly hide from the tourists (and who can blame them) and which doesn't sound too appealing right now anyway considering it's pouring. So let's hope that road opens up again, or I'm gonna go stir-crazy here.

Fun fact, though: for some reason, whenever I check into a place, I get a bottle of milk? Not sure if they're just very aware of their calcium needs here, but it's kinda cute. Unfortunately, the milk bottles look like cleaning products, so at first I really wasn't sure what was going on, but now I've taken to drinking milk every morning (which I never do at home).

Anyway. Today's weather mishap aside, I'm actually a really big fan of the South Island (constant gale-force winds notwithstanding). The North for some reason really wasn't my cup of tea (aside from Hobbiton of course), but the South Island is really, really gorgeous. Funny thing, the day after I complained about the curvy streets on the North Island, the South Island gave me about 100km of practially completely straight road as if to apologize for its little sibling. Driving here is a lot more fun in general. The views are usually amazing (even though I can't check them out as much as I want considering I have to pay attention to traffic) and I've had quite a few "wow"-moments. So if you ever plan on coming to NZ, just skip the North. Or spend as little time there as possible. 

Alright. I'm gonna go bring an offering to the rain gods to make it stop out there. Not only so I can leave my room sometime today, but also so I didn't drive through all that mayhem for nothing...

Travelling...urgh.

I think I might be suffering from a case of travel fatigue. I don't know if that's because I'm a really, really lazy person at heart and being out and about all day every single day for a month now has just taken it out of me or if it's that, to be honest, New Zealand so far hasn't really blown me away or if it's something completely different, but urgh. All I wanna do is stay at my hotel and sleep for three days straight. In Canada, I stopped at every opportunity I could to take some pix, here I don't feel like stopping anywhere at the moment. The weather all week has been somewhere between mediocre and abysmal (and the South Island is supposed to get worse AND colder to boot, so I better get used to it...), I feel like everything is...not even far apart, but it takes forever to get anywhere, so I feel like I spend half the day in the car and most of the streets these past few days were basically 40 or 50km at a time just curve after curve after curve (and when I say curves I mean the kind that you need to drive 30 or 40 to get around), so you have to concentrate on driving so much, you don't really have the chance to look left or right and check out the environment you're actually driving through. Plus, for some reason all these curve-speeds are suggested speeds and the actual speed limit on these streets is still 100km/h (no idea why), so you always have someone glued to your bumper who's unhappy with you following the suggested speeds, so I feel pressured to drive faster and urgh. I'm just tired. Of driving, of the weather, of repacking my suitcase, of never being able to buy anything cause I'm already over the baggage allowance in the Philippines, of feeling like if I don't do something today I won't get the chance again.

I think part of the problem is actually that I'm not really allowing myself many breaks. Whenever I do spend a few hours at the hotel during the day I immediately feel bad about it, especially if the weather is nice. It's always a case of "If I don't do it now the weather's gonna be too bad for it later" (which has actually happened a few times) or "I'm gonna regret it later if I'm not doing more now" or "I'm only here here once, so I gotta do/see as much as possible". It's really kinda exhausting.

I really hope I'll get my mojo back on the South Island. For now, I think I'll mindlessly stare at the television for a few hours before I have to repack AGAIN for my flight to Christchurch tomorrow.

Bula and welcome to...wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff

So I got on a plane in L.A. on Thursday evening and when I got off 11 hours later, it was suddenly two days later and instead of me being 9 hours behind you, you're now 10 hours behind me. Time travel is weird, guys.

And for those of you who don't know, „bula“ means „hello“ or „welcome“ in Fijian. Even though it feels like they use it for everything they want. Or maybe they just do that with the tourists. I think I had to scream „Bula!“ about 70 times in the past few days.

But anyway, who has two thumbs and spent her day puking over the side of a boat yesterday? This Whiny Wanderer! Hello seasickness my old nemesis friend. If this is how it’s going to go, then I was obviously worried about the wrong end of things when it comes to the Phillipines. In my defense, though, Sarah from Australia did the same thing on the other side of the boat, so at least I wasn’t alone in my misery. And my tour group was very sweet. Three people gave me motion sickness pills, I got ginger chews, herbs to smell, people kept bringing me water or just came by to tell me how sorry they were I was feeling like shit. Once we finally made it to Modriki (the island where they filmed Cast Away and apparently also Survivor) and I could take a pill that stayed down for longer than 5 minutes, I started actually feeling better, though. And hey, look who I found there:

However, to add insult to injury I am burned to hell. My back is pretty much raw (and the back of my thighs joined into the fun yesterday). Even my shirt touching it hurts like hell. I don’t know what exactly happened, because SPF50 really is my friend, but ouch. So much ouch. I can’t sleep on my back or my side, I can’t lean against things, I can’t even actually really sit, but that really can’t be helped. I was kinda hoping it's day three, I should start feeling better, but we’ve reached agony levels today. I feel a big peeling session coming on soon. Not sure how I’m gonna make it through the next days considering I can’t really carry my backpack, but I guess I’ll have to improvise a bit.

Despite all that I have to say, though, that Fiji really is very pretty and the people are very, very sweet. Took them only about 5 minutes after me leaving the airport to become concerned about me not having a husband and children at my advanced age. No, but honestly, everybody’s been really nice. Got greeted by a couple of skirt-wearing ukulele-playing singers when I arrived at five in the morning and singing overall seems to be a big thing here. Lots of very nice Australians to chat with, too. And they have lamingtons! OMG, I didn’t even know how much I’ve missed these. And raspberry lamingtons at that. Not sure I ever had these in Australia.

Was forced to take part in a traditional Kava ceremony on Saturday, because apparently you haven’t been to Fiji if you’ve never done that and let me just say…wow, not sure I’ve ever had to drink anything more disgusting. Looked like used dishwater, tasted even worse and let me tell you, that taste stays with you for a looooong time. But hey, all in the name of intercultural exchange…or something.

Anyway. I think I also realized why I haven't won the lottery yet: Because I'd be a really shitty rich person. I've been staying at this resort in Fiji and it's not even a particularly nice one. Looks like one at first and then you realize your fridge is broken, your tv is from the '70s, you share your bathroom with quite a few creepy-crawlies (including a persistent mosquito who got me 4 times - so now I'm hoping there's no dengue fever in my future...) and soundproofing is a non-existent concept in the place (which is especially amazing when you have about a dozen roosters closeby who start their damn jabbering at 4 in the morning). And yet, behind every corner there's some guy waiting to rip your bags from your hands - not to steal them, but to carry them for you or to open doors for you or close them for you (and then of course expect a tip). I am very much capable of carrying my own purse, thank you very much. Plus, I don't have tipping random luggage carriers and door openers in the budget dammit. This stuff is freaking me out. As also evidenced by the business class freak-out of 2018.

Alright. Next stop: New Zealand. Where it's 20 degrees colder and the weather predicts nothing but shit conditions wherever I go. Well. I guess it had to catch up to me sometime...

Confessional

So. A few confessions.

1. I'm over rocks. Even if they’re pretty. Made my way from Page to Las Vegas the other day and stopped at the Valley of Fire on the way and ...urgh. Don’t get my wrong, it’s a nice park. Interesting rocks and all. Not to mention the name was even accurate temperature-wise, too. But after Arches, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Bryce Canyon and Zion, my level of excitement regarding rocks has dwindeled to...pretty much zero? A 2 out of 10? Good thing then I had another National Park on the list today. Last one, though, before I’m off to Fiji tomorrow night. (That is, if I survive L.A. Can you tell yet I’m worried about L.A.?) And it had cacti. And (Joshua) trees. So the rocks were more...decoration. And I still find it weird to see cacti out in the open instead of in their natural environment in my living room.

2. I kinda don’t really like Vegas? Which...seems to be new? Cause I really, really remember hating L.A., but I have no such memories about Vegas. And they were both part of the same vacation back in the day. Granted, I liked it better after the sun went down yesterday (honestly, you just have to spend an hour at the m&m world and poof, sun gone, instantly better), which is probably the only way people should see Vegas anyway, but still, meh.

3. I might have a slight obsession with m&m worlds. I’ve been to every single one in the world multiple times (except Shanghai, cause honestly, when the fuck did they open one in Shanghai??) and I always buy something (so yes, I broke the “no buying anything because I have too much luggage already” rule). In my defense, I always try to buy something that is useful. And in this case, doesn’t take up much space. So I did say no to the 3$ blanket they wanted to sell me at checkout (which I really, really wanted) and opted for a pair of socks. Yellow of course. Cause Yellow is my spirit animal.

4. Also, pumpkin Reese’s are an abomination. That’s not really a confession, but it needed to be said.  What's with this weird pumpkin obsession anyway?

Alright. I gotta go get packin’. Packing for flying is so much more involved than packing for the car for some reason. And then I gotta decide whether I’m gonna get up for sunrise tomorrow or whether I’m too lazy. (My bets are on “too lazy”, but hey, I’ve surprised myself before…)

Run, Forrest, run!

Welcome to this week’s episode of “Things I’ve learned so far: The U.S. edition”!

• Apparently, the whole world thinks I’m up to no good. Including the U.S. Which, you know, offended. I’d still like to find out one day why that even is, though. And do they talk to each other about that or do I just look incredibly suspicious wherever I go?
  
• Salt Lake City is a huge-ass town. My mantra yesterday morning was basically “Scotty and I just have to make it out of the city, then everything will be alright”. Yeah. It took me 75 minutes to get out of the city - going 120 on the Interstate.
  
• I really, really hate Interstates. After suffering through the I95 for a year right after getting my license in times when Google Maps wasn’t a thing yet and you printed out directions from Mapquest and taped them to your steering wheel, I thought I’d kinda gotten cool with Interstates. Well, that was almost 20 years ago and that cool has evaporated. Whoever designs these things deserves punishment.
  
• The bigger your car, the smaller the lanes on those Interstates seem. And when you have a car that is even more of an alarmist than my Canadian ride, that means you get regaled with alarms every 20 seconds. “OMG, there’s a car next to you! ALARM!” “OMG, there’s a car close behind you! ALARM!” “OMG, did you really just try to change lanes while there was a car in the vicinity? ALARM!!!!” I mean, my rearview mirrors are giving me proximity warnings for fuck’s sake. What are drivers even for, nowadays? (I really HAVE missed Cruise Control, though.)
  
• Scotty, by the way, is the name of my car now, because I still kinda feel like I’m on the Enterprise (or maybe I should have called him Jamie seeing as he’s an Outlander...heh….never mind). YouTube showed me the way of the Outlander, though, so I wouldn’t say we’re best friends now, but we’re definitely getting along a lot better.
  
• If I really want to, I can. I was really hesitant to do the Delicate Arch hike at Arches NP yesterday, because urgh, all uphill and we all know I don’t do well with uphill, but after sitting in the parking lot for 15 minutes debating on whether I was gonna survive, I thought screw it and just did it. (And to most of you that hike is probably not even considered a hike it’s that short, but I think we’ve established that my fitness level is about zero, right?) And I’m proud to say: others were sweatier than I was when I arrived.
  
• Apparently, cows have toxic breath that can kill rattlesnakes. At least that’s what my Navajo guide told me today. If that’s true, then that is some breath. He also told me, though, that when you get bitten by a rattlesnake you have to let a stinkbug pee into your mouth and swallow it, so maybe he was just taking the piss (no pun intended). 

Anyway. Off to Page, Arizona tomorrow. Which I believe is in another time zone. Even though I already AM in Arizona right now, but am still on Utah time. Which I should probably figure out before I set my alarm for tomorrow. So, now basically. I'll leave you with the view from my hotel room today: 

Bonus points for whoever finds the connection between the picture and the post title. ;) 

Sal Tlay Ka Siti

So I’m back in Calgary (aka “the disco bed”), flying out to Salt Lake City today (that is, if Westjet or Delta or whoever the fuck I’m actually flying with today will finally let me check in - apparently during the seven million times they changed that flight after I booked it, they started producing duplicate bookings for me and so now I seem to have multiple seats and the system can’t handle it…) and I can’t believe the first country’s already over.

Before I talk about that, though, there’s one topic that’s been bothering me all week: why aren’t cinnamon and maple syrup more of a thing in Germany? I feel like they should be. I’ve taken to slathering everything I eat in maple syrup this week. Especially my cinnamon swirl bread. (When I didn’t have fun with the pancake machine at my hotel. I mean, a PANCAKE MACHINE. You press a button, and a minute later, out comes a perfectly browned pancake. WHAT??) Today, my waffles came with strawberry cinnamon cream cheese. My car snack this week were Cinnamon Bun Oreos (and suddenly I like Oreos way more than I usually do). We should definitely make this a thing at home. I don’t think I can go back to living without cinnamon in everything I eat.

Anyway. Canada pulled out all the stops on my last day yesterday and put on its sunshine pants (well, mostly, but sunshine for all the parts that mattered), which of course meant I had the urge to stop EVERYWHERE I’d already been again, because of course sunshine pictures look better than cloudy pictures. Which means the five hour drive from Jasper to Calgary took me approximately ten. Ah, well. I’m only here once. And after elk, elk, more elk, some bighorn sheep, and even more elk all week, they even pulled a bear (a black bear to be exact) out of the hat for me at the last minute, so I’d know all those bear warnings aren’t just publicity stunts. I missed the turn-off for a waterfall I wanted to go to (I don’t even know why, I indicated, I was on the right lane to turn - and then just blew past it anyway. Guess I’m starting to get a little tired here…), had to turn around somewhere, came back around the corner, and there he sat on his butt, in the middle of the road. So naturally, I slammed on the brakes, took about five seconds to comprehend “Bear. There’s a bear sitting in front of my car. Camera? Camera!!” But until my camera was up and running he had ambled into the woods. (The woods I had to walk through 2 minutes later I might add…)

And lo and behold, once you can actually see more than 10 feet in front of you, the Icefields Parkway is a really pretty route to drive. Snow-covered mountains everywhere, waterfalls, glaciers and larch season is still going strong despite the snow, so yeah, that definitely made up for the shitty drive up. After that drive, by the way, it looks like Banff and Calgary got all the snow, while Jasper actually didn’t in the end and it’s a veritable winter wonderland here. Jasper got the cold, though. My highlight were the -8°C yesterday (even though the -2°C plus the hurricane-force winds the day before felt colder somehow...). I mean, I was prepared for cold, but I wasn’t actually prepared for THAT much cold (and to think, last Monday I could walk around without a jacket for most of the day). So I’m kinda hoping for a few more degrees in the U.S. Would be nice to NOT have to wear my whole wardrobe at once for a change.

By the way, fair warning, the next Asian that walks into my shot to take heir 7th million ridiculous selfie is gonna get bludgeoned with my tripod, I swear to God.

Also, if you didn’t get the reference in the post title, go watch Book of Mormon. Do it. You won’t regret it.

Alright, I'm off to catch my airport shuttle. Keep your fingers crossed I actually make it to the U.S. today...



UPDATE:

I think today officially counts as the first whiny wanderer day. I blame being tired on being somewhat overwhelmed with everything today, but so far, the U.S. and I haven’t really gotten off to a good start.

So I did eventually make it to Salt Lake City, but of course, in typical Nicole fashion, it wasn’t exactly straightforward. After about 15 minutes of the Delta agent trying unsuccessfully to print my boarding pass, a second person had to get involved, and then of course - and those of you familiar with my TSA adventures can get ready to laugh now - it turns out I was “randomly selected” for SSSS. (If you don’t know what SSSS is, let’s just say it's a big fat lie that people are“randomly selected” to go through that - which kinda explains why probably 80% of the people usually subjected to it are men from Middle Eastern countries). So my boarding pass got put in a bright orange envelope, I got my very own TSA agent to take care of me, all my belongings got special “SSSS” flags and then we basically went through EVERYTHING. Thank god I learned during that great experience in Hamburg a few months back that you should always have your devices powered when you fly, because I had to turn on every single device with a battery in it. Phone, computer, cameras, you name it. Fortunately they at least passed on the extra thorough pat-down. But I swear, there’s a conspiracy going on here. How do I keep ending up on these lists???

My new rental car is also driving me to tears right now. First of all, that thing is a cruiseliner. My little Canadian Ford Fiesta could fit twice into that car. I couldn’t find anything. Not how to adjust the seat, not how to turn off the damn seat heater (and it might not be the height of summer here, but it’s definitely not cold enough for me to constantly get my butt roasted), not how to work the damn handbrake. And then my GPS wasn’t working and I had to guess my way to my hotel - which included a pretty busy Interstate and me not being able to really see anything, because - you guessed it - the mirrors weren’t my friends either. YouTube has kinda helped me out on most fronts now, so let’s hope tomorrow’ll go a bit better where the car is concerned. Or it’s gonna be a long 10 days. I already break out in hives when I think about having to drive through L.A. next week.