Solo Traveller

I think it takes a great deal of courage to go and travel in the singular. It is something I have always wanted to conquer even when my European trip was just a twinkle in my eye back in Australia when I was still trying to find the best escape route from my cushy domestic flight attendant life in 2005. The most I had ever surmounted were single entry visits to the movies (which I quite enjoy funnily enough!). Next would be to defeat the lone visit to a bar, live band and then a single holiday which are still yet to be achieved on my invisible to do list. But the question I have is it necessary to have to overcome these things? And does it make you a weakling if you cannot?

Watching the movie Paris Je T’aime* in bed last night, one story really spoke to me and that was of the American woman who sat on the park bench in Paris eating her baguette alone, shedding a few tears of both joy & sadness. As she looked around the park she breathed in all the couples around her (including friends and pets). She had come to Paris to fulfill a dream to practise her French learnt at night class. She spoke about standing on the tallest sky scraper in Paris and looking at the view, and although she had wonderful friends and 2 loving dogs back home , she felt it was at a time like this she wished she could say to someone “check out this amazing view”.

This scene had even more significance to me right now as I am pretty much alone in a foreign city for a week, not by choice, but due to my work. Even when I do attempt to be courageous and head out the door, camera in tow, with no real clue as to where I am heading or what to go look for, I turn right back around within an hour or two, after struggling with trying to ask for directions off some local shop keepers, or just purchasing a simple pair of shoes and asking for them in my size. Hardly anyone speaks a decent amount of English here (rightly so I think as it is their country) but because of this, my normal confident self, even finds it difficult to go into Subway and ask if they speak English or point at the sandwich I want for lunch.

I know if I were with a friend or travel companion I WOULD have more guts to get out and venture further as I have done in the past trips to France, Mexico & Spain to name a few. However due to this being a 'work' trip a travel companion is not available. This just makes ‘my real holiday’ that starts on Tuesday (inclusive of like minded travel buddies), that bit more exciting for me.

See, I am not half as adventurous as you all think I am.

* a collection of short films about Stories of Love from the City of Love

National Lampoon's European Vacation.

I am in Hamburg. As much as I would love to say it is part of my version of Lampoon's European Vacation, sadly it is not. But don't feel too sorry for me though, this is another work trip that was sprung up on me last week, which does cut into my leave somewhat, planned for this coming Saturday and now delayed to Monday much to my ever patient travelling companion's dismay. Not much has changed to our itinerary except my anticipated but short stay in Dubai being scrapped and he is already on a flight to a 'boys camping trip' somewhere in England instead. It just means for me I have a week to check out Hamburg (once again on my own - or with the gang^ if I want) on the bosses account and time.

Never having visited Dubai apart from brief stopovers like most people who've trialled Emirates or Etihad airlines, and having been advised there is not a great deal to see there (other than couples having sex on the beach), I never really thought I'd be missing much. Recently however, a couple of friends from the UK moved to Dubai, and although I now live so close, my work makes it hard for me to leave the compound for long enough to visit, so a stopover was perfect this holiday. Unfortunately it was not to be, due to this work trip (although my Dad still refuses to call my job work - he still thinks I haven't yet found the working part to my "working-holiday" that commenced late 2005). Anyhow, my next leave due in October will definitely have a Dubai stop to visit the girls with hopefully a trip to Jordan to see the Lost City of Petra and maybe Muscat, Oman.

As for THIS vacation I have planned for next week, the itinerary looks like this:
London 4 days > Ibiza, Spain 1 week > Portugal 1 week.

Stayed tuned!


^ my pilots and crew (usually 3-4 middle aged men who just want to drink beer and eat steak)

I've got wheels!

Birthday in the Dessert (oops Desert)

With the milestone birthday occurring last year, this one really didn’t seem to be that important to me, and for the first time since I can remember, I had to be reminded 2 weeks out that my birthday was arriving. Usually I would have had some form of celebration planned months in advance, losing sleep over the invitations and venue, whether it be drinks at the Brekkie Creek in Brisbane, a dinner with family at a nice Italian joint (as long as it was gluten free!!!) or dancing the night away til the early hours. This year felt a bit anti climactic.

With the drama of last years birthday over (turning 30 is overrated) I really don't have the same desire for limelight as in the years passed anymore. I mean, hardly exciting when your closest friends are scattered over the world and your family are half a planet away. And working with an almost ‘standby’ schedule for 10 weeks at a time, I had no way to plan anything special (or let anyone plan it for me). With online helpers like social networking site Facebook reminding people when it is your birthday, I deleted that functionality months ago, so really no one would know it was my birthday unless I told them.

Bearing witness to 5 months worth of how expats celebrate birthdays here in the desert (many celebrations over as many weeks, puts the original Festival of ME# to shame), I thought I would much rather lay low and if anything, just have a nice dinner on the day with my man, and maybe a couple of friends.

In the end, it was a lovely weekend with my man taking me across the border for an appetiser of cocktails followed by our favourite restaurant and a bottle of wine. The next day entailed a pool party at one of the pilot's houses with my ‘actual’ birthday one day later taking me by complete surprise at the end of the weekend by turning into a really special day. Delicious dinner with a few select friends who amazed me with my favourite tiramisu cake after dinner and the best birthday present - the Calvin Klein watch I have been searching for a year and happened to conveniently turn up at my local mall last month. I got a surprise (well kind of as I actually asked for it...) birthday card sent in the mail from my Nana of which I look forward to every year as she makes it herself and this time she didn’t get delayed in Melbourne on her way to see me in Brisbane reminiscent of last years 'festival' as obviously I was not there to be visited.

All in all, turning 31 actually seemed to be less eventful and maybe a lot more pleasant than turning 30. Not that the number bothers me, but perhaps this year because there was less of an intinerary, there was less that could go wrong...mental note for next birthday...PLAN NOTHING!!!

# Festival of ME a term coined by the lovely L for my 29th birthday in London, when the celebrations accidentally lasted over a period of a few weeks. This reference has now stuck with all my immediate family calling my 'birthday period' the 'Festival of ME'.