Abandon Ship

I bet you, your Christmas was much better than ours. Guaranteed! Don’t believe me? Let me enlighten you. We left Honolulu really early on Christmas Eve Day (December 24th or for where I am from: Christmas). Crammed into two seats with a stranger on the aisle seat we tried to get comfortable but I – lucky me – had managed to develop a severe cough, so there was no comfort for me other than hoping for short-lived relief while I desperately tried to nap. Meanwhile A played video games for 10 hours straight but to each their own…

Once we arrived in Sydney, we figured customs was going to take forever. Which it didn’t, literally the smoothest customs in the history of ever and I had my fair share of uncomfortable situations… I am not sure if you are familiar with an Australian TV show about customs border but it is a very intense show where they educate you about the craziest things people try to smuggle… It is borderline insane what some people go through, some voluntarily and definitely a lot of them involuntarily. But be this as it may, we figured we better prepare to get interrogated, especially because we had “soil” on our shoes (from the Grand Canyon, The Valley of Fire and Diamond Head) and because we had bought wood from Hawaii (wooden serving spoons) and because we had brought Hawaiian coffee with us (it is seriously the best). So, we were ready to answer all kinds of questions… Turns out, after looking at us merely two seconds, the border people were satisfied, asked what kind of medicine we had with us (allergy meds and ibuprofen) and let us go. Needless to say, we were disappointed… well, you know, as much as you can be disappointed at something going so smoothly!

Patience. I’m getting to the part, where my Christmas was worse than yours…

So, A and I had booked an Airbnb weeks in advance and made our way to the cutest neighborhood. It was an adorable little area with loads of houses just like the one we were excited to stay in. Upon opening the door, the excitement sank. You know how you enter a place, and you just don’t want to stay? At that moment, it was just a mere feeling, but comfort (especially hungry, tired and coughing) did not feel like that. I didn’t say anything though, since I figured I was just jet lagged (we just crossed the international date line which meant that we were now on Christmas Day (or as A calls it, Christmas) in the evening).

We were ready to find some food, literally, because nothing is open Christmas Day, when I found a cockroach as big as my small finger still alive and kicking in the entrance hall, very close to our bedroom (the bed was on the ground, on top of that). I stomped it, because I am an animal friend but I draw the line at cockroaches… I acted on pure instinct. I told A to stay away as I was discarding it, when he told me that he had found one in the kitchen but didn’t want to say anything, not to freak me out. On top of that we found several spiders and ants in the kitchen, needless to say that I wouldn’t want to cook in there.

So, we did the only natural thing and bolted. I contacted the host, who said she never had problems with guests staying there and also that in warmer climates cockroaches are natural (lady, I lived in Philadelphia, I KNOW waterbugs, but mine had the decency to hide and not just hang out in the middle of the day, also I would tell people before they were considering staying with us, that they were a problem…). Also, neither A nor I would have made a fuss about seeing one cockroach in the two weeks we were supposed to stay there but seeing a couple alive ones within less than an hour of us being in a place? That was not on our to do list for this world trip… But Airbnb was helpful and told us to send them evidence so they could process the request of refunding the stay (just imagine the database of gross things they had to see throughout their years of operation).

In the meantime, A had found a hotel for a couple of nights and we made our way to downtown Sydney. About 4.30 am I got a call from Airbnb confirming we were right in leaving and that they support our request, needless to say that we won’t leave a good review… This was definitely not the way I imagined Christmas to go, still coughing violently, having almost lost my voice and gasping for air…

Now what? We decided to abandon ship and change our travels altogether. Instead of staying two weeks in Sydney, we will be road tripping through Australia until it is time for us to leave. So hold on to your hats, we are excited to see what the next couple weeks will bring, also hoping that all wildlife is limited to outside wildlife… I understand that Australia is notorious for their wildlife in- and outside, but I draw the line there. This is coming from the woman who went to Malaysia to go to a cave, where the walls were crawling because of millions of cockroaches feasting on bird poop from the birds which nests are considered a delicacy in China… When it comes to wildlife, I’m definitely no lightweight, but sometimes unexpected encounters make you alter your entire plan and that’s good, because we all need some flexibility in our lives…

With this, I hope your Christmas was better than ours! Love, A&J