Wednesday March 31, 2010 (Happy Birthday Tyson!)

We got up at 5:00 am to catch the sunrise tour called Desert Awakenings. It’s a 4 wheel drive guided tour about an hour before sunrise. The bright spot in the top right is actually Venus.

I love this photo especially because you can see the bright colors of the sunrise in the monitors of their cameras. If you are wondering what the funny looking hat is on the guy on the right, it’s a fly net/cover for his entire head. The flies in this area are UNBEARABLE. I mean, they don’t bite but jesus christ they are annoying. 818 is probably the most even keeled mellow person I have met in a long time and he was pretty much like flipping out. They go away at sunset but sure as shit as soon as that sun rose they were swarming us. They love to go straight for your eye sockets, ears and mouth. Really super annoying.

They served us coffee and juice and these yummy english muffin sandwiches that were loaded with bacon, egg and cheese. This insane woman in our group was actually throwing her bacon away because she said there WAS TOO MUCH BACON ON HER SANDWICH? Whaaaat? I almost slapped the sandwich right out of her hand. Anyways, in the midst of me making love to the bacon with my mouth I had set my camera down and wouldn’t you know it… a shooting star went by. I was trying desperately to inform the others that it was happening and I literally could not get the words out fast enough. So I just starting pointing and grunting and luckily they caught the drift of my motioning and saw the tail end of it. It was truly magical, perhaps because I was eating that magical creature called pig at that precise moment. We keep joking wit 818 that he has a direct line with Mother Nature and every time something is not going our way we ask him to please put in a ticket with her and see what can be done about it. The shooting star was pretty awesome, and I want to personally thank her. Thank you Mother Nature. Now can you please make sure that I get a good sunset this evening.

The last of the full moon.

Sunrise!

We headed off to the National Park area where we drove around Uluru. Every mark or corrosion or slice in the rock has a story. This skull killed someone once. Or something like that. I don’t know… these fables all started to run together after a while. Plus I was way too busy trying to shoot.

The crack on the right was a gash to someone’s eyebrow and the gash on the right was the blow that killed them. I don’t know, look it up.

Beware of monkeys flying.

From the inside of a cave.

Watering hole.

Ann Marie and Pete.

JARIN! Here is your FACEDOWN at Ayers Rock!!!! I was already one step ahead of you when you left that comment Ann Marie was covered in the red sand for the rest of the day. What is the process now? Do we upload this photo to their site? Do we tweet it? Figure it out, handle that ok?

Love it!

If you look closely you can see the pink monkey in his reflection, but really the reason I posted this photo is that you can see a fly on his upper lip. Seriously, you have no idea how fucking annoying these are. Thank God they don’t bite!

After the tour we went back to the hotel and chilled out by the pool for a few hours and hung out by the pool, read my book, had a drink or two, snacked on some over priced bar food, and maybe had a little nappy poo. An hour before sunset we hopped on yet another bus to drive around Uluru in it’s entirety one more time and park it to watch the sun set and get that picture perfect shot of Ayers Rock that you see on the postcards. Pete is pretty much over the rock at this point and he is definitely over sitting on buses, but hey, I did not fly across the goddamn world to miss this opportunity so we went out one last time.

The Aboriginals request that you don’t climb Uluru, but these people are clearly assholes and did it anyways. Look at that bitch she can’t even make it down on her legs, she has to scoot her butt down the side of the rock. A lot of people climb this thing every day despite the requests and repeated warnings that it is against their wishes. In fact, a man who we met at the pool the day before said “Oh the Australians don’t care if you climb it at all. It’s the rest of the world that thinks you shouldn’t” (NOT the case at all. What an A-hole)

Here is Ayers Rock in various stages of the sunset. I am fairly certain that I have twice as many photos of the rock than I do of the Sydney Opera House. I will have to count them to be sure.

Totally unrelated: we have been trying to run the sink in the water and see if it goes down the drain the opposite direction, but neither of us actually knows what way it goes down in the Northern Hemisphere. It appears to go down clockwise at times, but then other times it just gets sucked straight down.

As promised our room came with a hot-tub/spa. Yeah. That is it. No, that is not a sink. It is a two person hot-tub. I can assure you that 2 people do not fit comfortably in that hunk of junk and by the time I eased my body into it and my already scorching skin was completely on fire the only thing I could think of was which was the water would drain down the sink. Our spa session lasted about 4 and a half minutes and we still do not know which way the water goes down.

Tomorrow we are off to Cairns, where is it supposed to be scattered thundershowers for the next 6 days.

RICH: tell Chris that we are all starting to speak with a slight Australian accent! I definitely am beginning to THINK the way they speak but am able to catch myself before actually speaking the same way. I am sure by the end of the trip it will be classic Chris… adapting whatever accent of the person around you. Love you guys! Hope Cancun is fun and I am sure Chris is speaking Mexican by now.

Tuesday March 30, 2010

There is not too much to report today… we slept in, ate breakfast and sat around by the pool almost all day. Holy cow! We ARE on vacation! It was a gorgeous sunny day and I have a very good start on my tan. Highlights of the afternoon were watching a bird brutally attack a caterpillar to death and then swallow it whole. I have video of said event but the internet in the middle of nowhere is not that fast and I can’t upload it to YouTube just yet. Maybe in the next city we hit. It was pretty cool…

Before dinner we walked up to a look out point to see the sunset and the moonrise.

For dinner we went to the Outback Pioneer Hotel. Ayers Rock is basically just one big resort and you have access to all of the hotels, shops, restaurants. It’s very small and everything is in walking distance. The actual town is called Yulara and according to one of our tour guides it is the 4th largest town in the Northern Territory.

Dinner was one of those grill your own meat places, which is right up my alley since I don’t actually like to cook it.

My brother and I ordered the kangaroo skewers and Ann Marie and 818 ordered the combo which was kangaroo as well as crocodile kebabs, beef sausage and emu sausage. I made the mistake of not seasoning my kangaroo (I generally like my steak plain with a little salt if I am cooking it myself) and I regret it now. Ann Marie put some olive oil on hers and it was moist and much tastier than mine. Kangaroo actually tastes a lot like venison… and since I undercooked mine and it was not seasoned, it was actually pretty gross. I put mine back on the grill and then of course, it was overcooked. Peter and I are bound and determined to find it while we are here as a steak in a formal restaurant where someone who knows what they are doing can prepare it for us. The winner of the night was the emu sausage… and the bread pudding

From left to right: crocodile skewer, beef sausage, emu sausage and kangaroo skewers.

Early bed time, we have a 5:00 am wake up call to catch the sunrise.

Monday March 29, 2010

We departed Sydney at 9:30 am, landed in Uluru/Ayers Rock at 11:40am.

The flight was about 3 hours and change and we are now in a half hour time zone!? Huh? Sydney was 18 hours ahead of PST and now we are 16.5 hours ahead. So strange. What’s the point of that? Oh, I also forgot to mention that I tried flipping a coin for dinner the other night… head=seafood, tails=steak. Who knew that Australia had 2 headed coins? Queen Elizabeth now takes precedence on the coin toss as “the head.”

We are staying at Sails in the Desert, a hotel within Ayers Rock Resort. There is literally nothing out here except some restaurants, hotels and the actual rock. There is a little mini village with some gift shops, a photo lab, hair salon and a market, but that is pretty much it. We hung out by the pool for a while and ordered a few beers/wine and tried the Asian marinated kangaroo wrap before we had to get ready for the Sounds of Silence champagne/dinner tour to watch the sunset in the desert. (as it turned out the 5 minutes of silence we were promised was interrupted by a very annoying and funny looking Italian woman and her pal. I will try to get a picture of her later in her wig, hairnet and ridiculous outfits. She is quite a site.)

I should sell this to them for their brochure.

I was so fixed on getting this fantastic shot of the didgeridoo player in front of the rock that I …

…completely missed the actual sun setting. Fail.

The cloud formation was amazing.

You can see it changing shape and color over the course of the hour and here it looks like a bird taking a nose dive into the ground.

They corral us down to the eating area…

…where we met some nice people from the UK and newlyweds from Tokyo.

From the bottom left: crocodile caesar salad, pumkpin feta salad, orange couscous salad (which almost made me vomit because it tasted just like those nasty orange jelly rings you had as a kid), overcooked kangaroo, jasmine rice with orange blossom (best part of the meal!), carrots and overcooked lamb. I guess I can’t expect everyone to eat their meat rare like I do. **sigh**

After dinner we had an astronomy expert come in and teach us a few things. Apparently there is no North Star visible in the Southern Hemisphere. Fascinating that there are different things to see. (He made no mention of the Big Dipper or Little Dipper.) Because of the near full moon I was able to capture these shots with no flash just using available light. Granted I had the camera set to the highest possible ISO, but it’s still pretty cool looking. They had a big ass telescope where we actually got to look at Saturn and saw the rings of it. Pretty amazing. Makes ya wanna run out and by a telescope.

And by the end of the evening, I had nothing left to photograph except this lonely little bug. I am not sure why, but I really like this picture.

Thursday 11.26.09 and Friday 11.27.09

Thanksgiving was the usual traditional meal with all the side dishes and pies that you would expect. There was a particularly yummy bacon corn casserole that I inhaled. The funniest part of the day was while hearing the sound of whipped cream in a can being sprayed (you know the kind that when you inhale it you get silly) and then hearing my brother-in-laws mom go “Oh boy whose jacket is this?” She had accidentally lost control of the can and sprayed a bunch of it into the pocket of my black pea coat. I thought I was going to pee myself laughing. Hearing her Irish accent and not knowing what the hell was happening in the other room just struck me so funny. Sorry, I guess you had to be there.

Today was also a great day because my brother and his wife and I bought our plane tickets to Australia and New Zealand! I am so freaking excited!! We are taking a very long 21 day trip and will be hitting Sydney, Uluru, Cairns, Whitsunday Islands and finally heading to Auckland, NZ. We tried to get the Qantas pass where you pay less and still get to travel within Australia but since we chose to start and end in different cities and hit NZ, we got robbed on the price. I don’t even want to tell you what the flight cost. Yikes. (reminds self: once in a lifetime trip)

On Friday my sister and I went to the mall and did some Christmas shopping. I know, I am nuts, but it wasn’t that bad actually. My class reunion was later that evening and I had a hotel room near the mall with some girlfriends from high school, so she dropped me off and then I had a total anxiety attack about what to wear. Jessica, Kristen and Kate met up with me and we slapped on the whore makeup and headed over to the venue where “the guys” were watching the UCONN game and eating dinner before the reunion. Most everyone is married with a couple of kids, doing the same job for the last decade. Some people moved out of Connecticut, some people are divorced, some people are doing things I never would have expected and some people looked exactly the same. Kate, Katie and Bob had done a fantastic job planning this thing and even though I was the dorky class president I wasn’t able to really help with the planning of it since I live 3000 miles away, so I contributed by building the website. It really was nice to see some of the people, some of them I got stuck talking to that I could care less about, and I managed to freak out a few people talking about my job. One old friend said “So, are you still doing photography?” and my response was “Well, sort of. It’s a different kind of ‘ography’.” She ran away.

I was taking photos with my small point and shoot, and I only took a few photos with the big fancy Nikon because let’s face it, it’s hard to hold a drink and use an SLR at the same time. I didn’t eat any of the buffet food, and I decided to go shot for shot with a buddy who probably weighs close to 240 pounds. Oh that is just brilliant! Tequila? Really, Laura? TEQUILA? I don’t even like that shit! I drank it once in high school and wanted to kill myself the next day and the only other time I drink it is in Mexico, because that is usually the only hard liquor you can find. One thing led to another, I lose my small camera, become “that girl” and generally proceed to embarrass myself in front of everyone. We wrapped up at the reunion and headed over to another bar where a lot of our friends from elementary and junior high school were. Many of our childhood friends ended up going to a Catholic high school in the next town over and their class reunion was also the same night. So naturally I continue my drink-a-thon with Phelper, and then I see three guys that I had crushes on at some point in my childhood. After some investigation (and a very awkward moment in the bathroom with one of their wives) I learn that Joe is single. Let’s rewind about 5 years. Someone had mentioned that they saw him and they reported that he was hot, had a great body and owned a very successful business. Funny how the wife part escaped my memory. Anyways, about 3 weeks ago his name popped into my head and I thought how awesome it would be to run into him this weekend. He didn’t show up at the actual reunion, but got wind that we were all meeting at this bar, so lucky me… I didn’t recognize him (possibly because I was only able to see out of one eye) and was totally taken aback when I started talking to him. Upon discovery of his “singleness” I made a point to let everyone in the bar know not to let him leave without notifying me. I found out later that I made his friend go into the men’s bathroom looking for him at one point because I thought he ditched out without saying goodbye. What a jackass. Long story longer… I got a ride back to the hotel from him since the girls went to fucking Denny’s with the guys. Puke! Hang on… let me see…. lure Joe back to my hotel or go eat at that shit-hole? Pretty simple answer I think. Unfortunately I was cock-blocked (pussy blocked?) by the two guys he had promised rides home to and also the fact that he was a nice guy and refused to let me do something I might regret in the morning. He obviously doesn’t know me very well.

The next day we were texting back and forth and I invited him to dinner with my family. My sweet innocent sister was not comprehending that I would not be returning to her house that night and that I would find my way back there in the morning. I felt like I was lying to my parents about a “sleepover” at my girlfriend’s house. It was pretty funny. Keep in mind, that Joe is sober. I immediately assumed he had gone to rehab or something and he simply explained that he tried it in high school a few times and it just wasn’t for him. (sound of record scratching… whaaaa?). After dinner we went back to his place and attempted to watch a movie, talked for hours about our lives, his ex-wife, his kids, our jobs, my blind dating adventures, traveling….etc… It was great to catch up and I fell in love with his Doberman who thinks he can fit on your lap. When it came time to “go to sleep” it was a little awkward, he got a little shy so I asked if he wanted me to sleep on the couch (HAHA yeah right like I was going to actually do that.) Here is a guy who is coming out of a messy divorce where she cheated on him and traumatized him, and here is me, having sober sex with a stranger for the first time in who knows how long. If you do the math, it has been longer that he hadn’t seen each other than the time that we actually knew each other. That to me is “sex with a stranger.” (And seriously… as a single person for the last 3 years I can honestly say that when you hook up with someone for the very first time alcohol is usually involved. Even if it is one or two glasses of wine, something to loosen things up a little. Who meets someone at the grocery store and then goes and has sex with them? When was the last time you met someone in yoga and then took them back to your place for a one night stand?) The awkwardness went away quickly We laughed about how silly it was that we had never tried this out before.  We have been talking and emailing and chatting this week… making each other laugh. I have lured him into the world of porn and am making him a list of videos to watch in his spare time or  during those sleepless nights alone. He is amazed that I can talk freely about sex, porn, masturbation, and all kinds of other shit that most uptight women on the east coast shudder about. I am very open minded and at times think like a man. In the last few years I have been accused of intimidating men and I just don’t see it. I wish that my honesty and openness wasn’t regarded as such. Someone recently told me that I should try harder to give men the warm fuzzies and be sweeter. lol I just don’t really know what that means I guess. Oh well, I am just me being me.