Nathan's Campus Life

My little brother, Nathan, five years my junior attends Australian National University in Canberra, Australia’s capital. 

I stayed at his quality apartment on campus. It’s the third level up and he has his own balcony, oven, stovetop, two mini fridges (one for beer and the second for food or moldy substances formally known as food) and a tiled shower. I neglected to post a picture of former tomatoes, carrots and peppers we found wedged in the back of the fridge.

Nathan’s place is fantastic. I was honored to stay there, and it was perfect timing since most all the semester final exams were on their last week. He is getting two degrees a Bachelor’s in Chemistry and one in Engineering (material or mechanical, I’ll have to ask him the details).  Basically he studies hard and consequently parties harder. 

Nathan’s not a stinky dude, but he likes to smell good. I liked the Gucci cologne, probably because it has the best packaging--I admit to being a label whore when it comes to wine and perfume.

Since it was below 8 degrees Celsius (46.6 Fahrenheit), I tested Nathan’s new road bike down the hallway of his dorm floor. I enjoy a winter day inside, I’m constantly grateful I’m escaping Arizona’s heat for a short while. 

One of the highlights of my Canberra visit was meeting and hanging out with Nathan’s adorable and sweet lady-friend, Hannah. She’s cool because she puts up with my brother and her name is a good-looking palindrome. 

We were invited for a delicious Korean dinner dish, made by her Mom, Kim. Hannah’s Dad, Terry, is partial to Tasmanian products. He insisted I drink Cascade beer, I was hesitant at first, picturing the popular dishwashing detergent. He told some ridiculously hilarious stories about his college day and drinking games, most of which involved spilling water on the pants of your drunk friends. Hannah’s little brother, Michael, had some profound opinions and was cracking me up as well.  Thank you, Beven family.

 

The Journey Begins

My trip begins in the Singapore airport. After saying goodbye to my kitty and loved ones, I flew from Tucson, Arizona to Los Angeles. The same day, in fact, that the Laker basketball championship parade was happening in downtown L.A. It was a long flight from LAX to Tokyo, then to the fabulous Singapore airport.


I had a eight hour layover, after catching some sleep on the last flight. I was wide awake on landing and ran straight to the showers. I paid $8 and took a hot shower. It was sweet! I wandered the empty airport in the dead of the night, visited the muggy butterfly gardens, checked my Gmail and ate a delicious sandwich. I was anxious until 7am when the Charles and Keith shoe shop opened. I was told by my high school friend, Rani, to check it out. So I tried on some sexy heels. Trying on absolutely gorgeous shoes elevated my mood 200% and I was ready for my 7.5 hour flight to Sydney.


On my flight from Singapore to Sydney, I sat next to a woman from China, she spoke beautiful English and wore a white surgical face mask. The moment I sat next to her, she warned me she wasn't sick but was taking precautions because she travels several times a month. I respected her choice and was so exhausted I really couldn't care less, I just nodded and said, "Good for you." Recent events have changed the policy for entering Australia. I was required to fill out and sign a form saying I'm not sick and have not had contact with other people who are sick. There was a family with two small children in the row behind us. One of their two-year-olds had a fever, which caused a massive panic among the Singapore Airlines stewardesses. They had to contact Sydney airport so that an inspector would be ready to board the plane while we were at the gate. No big deal, I thought. Kids get fevers. It was the end of the flight and if I caught any flu, it was too late to worry. The Chinese woman beside me felt very differently. She panicked and she yelled. She was on the edge of her seat and kept repeating, "This is very bad, this is bad." I was getting very annoyed, after traveling for 30+ hours and just one short flight away from seeing my little brother, she was the last thing I wanted to deal with. The inspector released all of the passengers after only five minutes.

My 25 minute flight from Sydney to Canberra was just as dramatic. I sat in front of a 19-year-old who had a serious phobia of flying. Once we took off, I heard heaving breathing, crying and screams in the seat behind me. Apparently, this girl had had a rough flight when she was a child and was deathly afraid of flying. I felt horrible for her. A woman next to her, a complete stranger to the young girl, keep her calm and was constantly talking in order to keep her distracted. She got over it once the plane was smooth... all was well and I had arrived at my final destination: Canberra!

Aqua woman

Shots from the aquarium:

Eric Clapton: we went down to the crossroads

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Thank you, family and friends for your wonderful comments, much appreciated. I miss you all. How can I be homesick, if I'm at home?
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We saw Eric Clapton, the legend of all rockers, on Sunday. He is sixty years young, and plays better than my ears remember. My dad is his number one fan, seriously, and loved it! There was an other guitar player with him that was really impressive, Derek Trucks, he has a band of his own too, check him out.
Clapton is one of the greatest artists of all time. He played a few new songs, some bluesy & slow. Then the classics Layla, Crossroads, Wonderful Tonight and Cocaine. He switched guitars several times, played alone, but mostly with the band. His hands move smoothly and with such bold sound, I wish he played Sunshine of your Love.


There was a relatively older crowd at the concert, only a few people my age. Surprising, because I assumed everyone loves Eric Clapton, young and old, red and blue.


Bittersweet story: we almost didn't get in to see Clapton at all. We were running late, after finding a distant parking spot and jogging to the stadium. We didn't have the tickets from Blue Tix (part of Virgin Blue), because they were never delivered from the online purchase. But we did have a letter from Blue Tix with our info and seats, and the tickets were supposed to be waiting for us at the gate. We walked to the box office, then line for pick-up; but there were no tickets for us and when we showed them the letter they said, "What am I supposed to do with this? We've never heard of Blue Tix"

We were thinking....SHIT....so we waited, and calmly argued, and finally asked for this lady moron's supervisor who came over to explain our seats were not secure because we had no ticket. They finally let us in, we saw two people in our sweet seats, with tickets; and we had to accept extra seats off to the side. The seats were not as good as the ones originally purchased to view Clapton. Moral, Blue Tix sucks moth balls!

Cedge and Anne, family friends, are almost in the center of this crowd.

It seemed they finished early, but we enjoyed it so much time flew by fast.