And We Begin Again

If you had asked me on January 1, 2009, "Where will you be at this time next year?", I might have replied, "I'll be back in Portland, after living in Brisbane for a year" or maybe I would have claimed, "Oh, I'll most likely be living in Baltimore, a quick plane ride away from family and childhood friends" or maybe, just maybe, I would have told you, "I'll still be living overseas, travelling, exploring..." I cannot say for certain what my answer would have been, but I can tell you today, January 1, 2010, I have no idea where I will be on January 1, 2011.

On January 1, 2009 I spent my New Year's Day morning with some of my best friends, in a greasy, delicious dive in Hanson, Massachusetts. We laughed over bottomless mugs of semi-decent drip coffee. We gorged ourselves on bacon and orgasmic blueberry, cream-cheese pancakes. (Seriously, I think someone might have climaxed at the breakfast table.) We stumbled back to our vehicles, said our goodbyes and embarked on 2009.

I woke up alone this morning, after working until 11PM last night, New Year's Eve. I would not have told you a year ago that was how I would spend my New Year's Eve 2009. It's been a very...full year, to say the least.

When I think about it, I suppose 2009 was not much different from other years past. I spent time with family and good friends, I learned more about those who would become good friends and I met new people from around the world, who I am sure I will keep in touch with for years to come. There was birth and there was also death. There were moments of laughter, hysterics even. And tears and frustration. We moved, twice, which might be an all-time low record for Conor and me. I spent time in four different countries and almost twenty different cities. I started a new job, a challenging, and most days, rewarding, new job. I woke up every morning for almost ten months without my favourite companion's snout on my pillow. I didn't eat meat for half of the year. One of my best friends got married. I climbed mountains in New York, skated on a frozen pond in New Brunswick, snorkelled in the Great Barrier Reef and kayaked through New Zealand's Milford Sound. I spent eleven months with my favourite person in the entire world. All in all, it was an ordinarily extraordinary year.

What will 2010 bring? I have no idea. More moving, I'm willing to bet. Also, much more laughter. Hopefully there will be a few less tears, and many more mornings with a snout on my pillow. Yes, I wish I had woken up with friends this morning and consumed enough coffee to make my hands shake, but I wouldn't trade the last year for a similar New Year's Day. 2010, here we come! Here's hoping for more extraordinary.

The Best of Times

I often find beginning a post difficult. Every day is busy - my mind is always racing. Between work, sleep and sightseeing (yes, we are still tourists), it's hard to sit down, collect my thoughts and put together an interesting (and organised) post.

In the last month alone, Dylan came to visit for over a week, we travelled north to Cairns and Port Douglas to see the Reef, Conor and I moved into a new apartment and we hosted Thanksgiving dinner for over 30 of our (closest) friends. I snorkelled in the Great Barrier Reef with two of my favourite people, settled in to a cute new apartment in Paddington (a lovely suburb just west of the city), celebrated my 27th. birthday and cooked two turkeys for a handful of our friends and 20 (of my 24) staff from French Twist. It's been a hectic month.

First off, Dylan's visit was great. Although we were hosting two other Americans at the time, we managed to squeeze everyone into our two bedroom apartment, enjoy a couple games of Settlers and spend some quality time catching up and exploring one of the amazing natural wonders of the world. The three of us headed to Cairns a few weeks back (I flew separately from the boys, first class, of course - thanks to Dylan's miles). We attended a two hour lecture on the reef, rushed even further north to Mossman and camped out at a lovely B&B for the night. The next day we drove to Port Douglas, hopped on a boat, with about 25 other tourists, and sailed two hours to the Reef.



The Great Barrier Reef is, without a doubt, great. The fish, the coral, the colors - amazing! We went on three separate dives and rented a digital camera for the excursion. I think we took over 400 photos in just eight hours. We had a fabulous time floating on the surface together, in the middle of the ocean, for an entire day.

After Dylan's departure, Conor and I started packing up our belongings and the company's furniture, and a week later, moved into a one bedroom apartment in Paddington. We signed the papers on the apartment before I had a chance to see it in person. Although it's smaller than the last and fairly plain, the Paddo apartment feels much more like home. The neighbourhood is quiet and we have great folks living next door. I'm currently sitting on our balcony, staring through palm trees at the CBD. What a difference location makes...this apartment has improved our lifestyle quite a bit. We are surrounded by boutiques, cafes and restaurants, art galleries, movie theatres and there are two grocery stores within walking distance. We share a great bbq, patio and pool with only about twenty people - the common spaces are clean and always full of friendly people. We love our Paddington apartment.

Thanksgiving deserves a post of its own, but since I am such a terrible blogger, I will summarise the big day now (because who knows when I will sit down and write again). We started cooking the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I don't think I stopped, except to sleep for six hours, until the following day at four o'clock. Conor and I made pumpkin and cranberry bread, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, butternut squash soup, two turkeys, bread rolls, gravy, cheese platters, pumpkin pie, apple pie...the list goes on. Although we have cooked Thanksgiving dinner for our families the past two years, we have never cooked a dinner so large, for so many people, in such extreme temperatures. There was no turkey trot this year. I could barely trot the 20 metres to the pool to toss myself in after the long, long day. We ate and drank and ate more. We crammed over 20 people into our tiny apartment. We drank more beer, more wine and more gin than I have ever seen one group of people consume in one sitting - except for maybe Dog Head.

Thanksgiving was a success. We introduced our Australian friends to a fabulous American holiday. Fun was had by all. And I am still getting asked for the recipe for my cranberry bread!