Homecoming

Instead of flying straight home to Boston, I made an excellent decision (if I do say so myself) to stop in Los Angeles first for two weeks. My friend Kim met me at the airport with a balloon, an American flag, trail mix and a bottle of wine--what else does one need upon arrival to the US? I spent my first days seeing friends--Kim, Carrie, Amy Y., Mara--and then Passover started and I got to see even more friends--Amy B., Rebecca, Brad--while enjoying matzah ball soup and a retelling of how the Jews got out of Egypt before properly baking their bread. All was good--did some hiking, went to a yoga class, and spent a night in Hollywood with all of Mara's folk, but then everything changed on Saturday night.

Mara and I headed to the Santa Monica to meet up with all the west siders. We picked up Carrie, Kim and crew and headed to the meeting place, a spot called Wokcano. We walked in and it strikes the customer as a restaurant kind of place and I was like, really, we're gonna sit at a table all night? But as you walk through, the restaurant turns into a big outdoor space with a gorgeous loft like balcony. I follow Carrie up the stairs and hear "Surprise!!" Awesome. The first face I see is my friend Fef (Rebecca). She was one of my closest friends in LA and had recently moved to Austin and happened to be in LA that weekend. All was right in the world. There were so many amazing faces from all of Amy Y.'s friends to friends from high school to the girls who planned it (thanks Amy and Mara!!).

Right after I make my way around the room and say hello to everyone, I see my godmother Shelley reach the top of the stairs and I am in disbelief. She lives an hour out of LA and I had already planned to stay with her a day later but it shows how well my friends know me that they invited her. Well, Shelley is my godmother because she is my mom's best friend so literally 5 seconds later my mom walks in...and I lose it. She flew cross country the day before after finding out about the party. It is too good to be true. I haven't seen my friends and family in so long and this was such an amazing gathering. Well, I burst into tears and so does my mom and Mara and Amy and Kim...but we recover, order wine and have a truly amazing night.

My friends put in such a great effort--planning, showing up, keeping it a secret--but it was really the best to see the plotters get surprised! The night ended with me, Mara and Kim eating matzah pizza--not too shabby.

The rest of my time in LA has continued to keep me on my toes--I spent time with my mom, Shelley and her family, Amy and her friends and Kim and I are headed to Santa Barbara for a day of wine before I head back to Boston for the summer.

Now I am just missing my men...Jason, Oded and my Dad. A girl can dream!

My Best Dive Ever

Before leaving Coral View, Oded and I decided to go diving one more time. We knew the dive masters from having dove there before and knew that they only took us to the best sites. They walked up to us at breakfast and asked if we were in the mood to go diving that morning--we were. Based on conditions that day, they took us to the Blue Lagoon--think Brooke Shields in 1979 and every over the top vacation brochure you have ever seen--see through blue water, white sand beaches, remote islands. This is the Blue Lagoon. We boated over there, put on our gear, tipped over backwards and descended to the white sand below.

Almost immediately, the dive masters asked us to kneel on the sand. They opened a bag of "fish food" and schools of gorgeous fish came swimming our way, surrounding us in color. As this is happening, I see Oded writing on the dive master's underwater pad. I was immediately concerned that something was wrong with his equipment but he turned to me so I could see what he had written. The pad read, "Will you marry me?" I was so surprised but shook my head yes as best I could. In Oded's words, "She smiled, closed her eyes, slapped me on my mask a few times, smiled again, let a few bubbles come out of her mouth, and kissed me underwater. I chose to take it as a yes."

Then we dove for another forty minutes, saw amazing fish and surfaced with big smiles on our face. No dive will ever top this one...

Bula!

After two months of trekking, sky diving and more rain than imaginable, we left New Zealand more than ready for two weeks on the beach. We arrived in Fiji right in time for sunset and a fire show at our hotel. After an hour of ten Fijians tossing, eating, and swirling fire sticks, we immediately felt the difference between being in a Western culture and being in Fiji. We spent one night on the mainland before jumping on a boat and beginning two weeks of island hopping.

The first place we stayed, Bay of Plenty, was like Lost with some huts. The people were so nice, standing knee deep in the ocean playing us a welcome song on their guitars as we arrived. They taught us how to open a coconut, net fish, and dance like Fijians and served amazing homemade food. Our room was perched on the top of a hill overlooking the ocean and provided an amazing view for sunrise. We stayed only one night and headed to Coral View, a more populated island.

Our first morning at Coral View we headed out with the dive masters on a shark feeding dive. We took a boat twenty five minutes away from all land and dove 18 meters down in the middle of the ocean. Once we were all assembled and holding onto a rope, one of the dive masters opened a trash can of dead fish and at once hordes of fish came and feasted on the impromptu meal, and one by one reef sharks would swim by and take their pick.

Then, all of a sudden, you see all the small fish swim away and in comes a sickle cell lemon shark--more than 4 meters in length and fierce. It was like watching the Discovery Channel in front of your face. The shark came in, cleaned up, whipped its body as it swam through and disappeared again. We saw two of those sharks during the dive and eleven other sharks total.

We left Coral View after 4 days because we wanted to see other islands. We spent a rainy night one an island misnamed White Sandy Beach before moving on to Manta Ray Island, a supposedly high end backpacker resort. We were not terribly impressed and headed back to Coral View for our last few nights, with our new friends Colleen and Colin in tow. The staff, food and accommodation at Coral View was awesome--the staff were constantly singing, everyone knew our name and there was 24 hour power--a big deal on the islands! But this was not what would ultimately be what I remember about Coral View...

New Zealand in Review...kind of

New Zealand is renowned for its nature, its laid back lifestyle and its warm people but when you get past Lord of the Rings, most people find New Zealand to be stuck 20 years in the past, in a charming sort of way. One traveler in a guide book remarked, "When I got to New Zealand, I thought it was closed." This is not far from the truth and I think Kiwis rather prefer it this way--a kind of self and state preservation. But there are some things that we have encountered that support the notion of New Zealand being 20 or even 40 years behind.

Glaciers are popular here--one may even say they are New Zealand's "thing", along with fiords, sounds, beaches and forest. So we set out on a famous and much recommended walk to view a glacier, but the walk starts down 30 kilometers of unpaved road where we needed to cross three bodies of unbridged water. Seriously? Pave your roads!

Driving on the North Island, we noticed a sign for a toll road. In the US, this would necessitate a toll booth where you either interact with a living human being or where the fee is electronically charged to a pass each time you enter the road. In New Zealand, the options are 1) prepay the toll online 2) call and pay for the toll within 3 days 3) pull off the road and pay at a machine where traffic officials assist you in the somewhat complicated system. The bugger is that you never enter the toll road--it just is. What?!!

New Zealand is definitely home to the most dramatic scenery I have ever encountered but I have a few suggestions: street lights, two way bridges, and street signs, just to name a few. After tramping uphill for hundreds of kilometers, waiting for the non-stop rain to abate, and surviving the unpaved roads, Oded and I are more than ready for Fiji!

Hot Water Beach

All the photos of people on holiday in New Zealand show smiling faces amidst the sand and surf, and seeing as the North Island has actual glimpses of a much missed sun, we headed to Coromandel, a peninsula in the northeast. Full of beautiful bays where the forest meets the beach and awe-inspiring sandstone structures stand solo in the sea, Coromandel is as lovely as it is rumored to be, but its real wonder is not enjoyable during most of the daylight hours. On either side of low tide, which for us was at 6:50 PM, at one beach in one small area, a natural hot spring exists under the sand. Aptly named, Hot Water Beach draws hundreds of people each day at low tide, With spades in hand, groups of people dig out natural hot water pools. As you approach the area, the sand warms your feet with each step until you slowly feel your foot burn and you know you are there--the water gets as hot as 149 degrees Celsius. We learned quickly to dig deep, fortify the walls of our little pool with dry sand, and then just sit and relax. The tide crawled up and over every now and then but the springs were so hot, the cold water was welcome. All in all, good free fun.

Don't Tell My Mom*

In the New Zealand tradition of waiting, Oded and I arrived in Taupo (the center of the North Island) with a long list of things to do and instead of actually doing them, we waited. We waited for the wind to lessen, the clouds to clear, the rain to end, because as we have learned, nothing is worth doing in New Zealand if the weather is not perfect.

First on our list was bungy jumping--my first time and Oded's fourth. Set on the side of a gorgeous rock walled blue-green river, the jumping deck stood 47 meters over the water. After watching a few people get harnessed in and jump, we got in line. As it was my first time, I dove the regular way--arms over my head, head first. I stepped to the edge, looked down, cleared my mind, and opened my eyes. A truly fun feeling of plunging downwards but short lived as the bungy did its job and yanked me back up. Oded, a bungy veteran, having done the third highest bungy in the world (168 meters in Nepal), jumped backwards, the accepted scariest way to do it. On a count of three, he threw himself backwards and plummeted feet first before gravity flipped him over and he fully submerged in the water head first--an awesome sight.

Next on the list--skydiving. Thankfully the wind was too strong for our first dive time because the morning we actually jumped was cloudless and blue skied--a perfect day. The process is quick--get weighed, get geared up, watch a two minute DVD on what to do and you're in the air with a stranger strapped to your back, at the edge of an airplane door. Again, I cleared my mind but whereas I had to decide to jump at the bungy, my tandem master just rocked me out of the plane and I was rushing toward the ground in a 60 second free fall. With views of Mt. Tongariro, Lake Taupo, and both the east and west coast of the North Island, it was unbelievable. It is an experience without comparison and serious fun. After about a minute, Albert opened the parachute and I went from a rush of wind in my ears to the most complete silence I have ever known. From there we spun and floated our way back to base, taking in the views and the absurdly surreal sense of flying. Oded jumped 30 seconds after me and loved it just as much.

All of these high flying adventures were just stall techniques as we waited for the track to be opened on the Tongariro Crossing, a trek hailed as New Zealand's best day walk. Usually hype oversells things but the Crossing is definitely the best walk I have done in New Zealand. It took us just over 6 hours to walk the 20 kilometers but the track was well built and full of beautiful scenery--volcanic craters of all colors, fresh snow on the mountain tops and emerald lakes with clouds of sulphur rising in the distance. (For followers of Lord of the Rings, this is Mt. Doom.) The walk provided great views at all times, but I have to say that I am not too sad to be done trekking in New Zealand!

*Of course my mom already knows! She was the first one we called after jumping...Doesn't mean she's happy though...:)

Richmond, Not Just the Capitol of Virginia

Having survived our trek in the cloud, Lina and Gil headed south while Oded and I headed north. By chance we stopped for the night in Richmond, a town of no note to backpackers and kiwis alike. We arrived around seven and headed straight to a little festival in town someone told us about. Local wineries and breweries lined the streets serving tastes, glasses and bottles. Tables were packed with locals, young and old, consuming baked potatoes, crepes, and "American" hot dogs. Little boys walked barefoot eating shaved ice, dyed red, blue and orange. A band played in the background, an audience to the show the locals put on. They sang everything from Aretha to Pink to Sweet Home Alabama and after the wine took hold, everyone was on their feet, dancing. Teenage girls in short shorts danced in groups, their bra straps showing for effect. A mother swayed to the music with her son in her arms. Couples with white hair danced dances that have names that I should know (waltz?) and of course a quartet of Israeli boys jumped around, all curly hair and cigarettes. The sun set, at first lighting the sky in shades of purple and orange, but after time faded to soft pinks, blues and some purple still. The music lasted for hours and the crowd only sang louder and danced harder and when it was time to go home, couples strolled hand in hand while the neighborhood kids chased each other with cups of water, the slow at a disadvantage. A small town at its best.