Puerto Rico - February 2019

Puerto Rico is technically the US, and I only post about international trips on here, but wanted to call out the few days around our wedding so I could remember them.

It started with a Southwest flight on Feb. 15 from BWI with Valerie and Ben - but my cousins were also on the flight!

The week leading up to the trip had had its bumps - with a major one being that Mark's best man had pneumonia and was prohibited from flying. He still had his sister to be by his side, but Paul was missed.

Getting in, we checked into the hotel we'd be at for the long weekend - the suite at the Coral Princess Hotel. Just a few blocks from the beach, we'd rented out every room for the days around the wedding. I had made little room signs for each guest, and then I ensured that the sparkling wine that was promised as a gift basket was given to each room. Also on Friday, with the wedding party in town, we did a pre-rehearsal dinner. 

In the week leading up to this trip, the original restaurant I had booked for our rehearsal dinner had backed out on us. With 24 people and 5 days before the booking, I had reached out to Asere, where we were having our pre-wedding reception. So, we got a preview of what we'd be eating and drinking on Saturday, but on Friday night.

It was steaks and Old Fashioneds, for quite a lot of the folks. However, not all mixed drinks are created equal. It became a dinnertime roulette of which server or bartender was going to make the drink and thus how drinkable it actually was.

Saturday morning (the 16th), we started the morning with a rehearsal at Hacienda Siesta Alegre. It was early in the morning, but the sun was hot! We hid in the shade in between the walks up and down the aisle, as we scanned our memory to see what we remembered when we visited in January of 2018. If anything, it was greener and more luscious!

Mid-afternoon, Mark and I met with the owners of Kabanas, which was doing our post-wedding brunch. We looked around the place, finalized the menu, then got ready for our pre-wedding reception at Asere - this time, we were taking up nearly the entire top floor, including an outside balcony, for all wedding guests. It was a delightful time of talking with rugby friends, family, college friends, and more. We ordered a couple extra rounds of vegetarian appetizers, but overall, we'd guessed fairly correctly. We'd pre-ordered two drinks per person, then any remaining drinks the guest would have to cover. We had tickets to help with the pre-payment, but with not everyone showing up, a few more free drinks were handed out.

Then, it was our wedding day: Sunday, February 17th, 2019. First was hair and makeup, which were easy since we'd brought Kath with us to PR. Then it was time for Saul the photographer to show up... but he was much later than we'd expected or talked about with the day-of planner. Turns out, she had gotten her schedule wrong and reminded him of the wrong time.

So, Saul came in, and worked miracles in the time he did after. Glamour shots, dress shots, then the wedding party (plus two good friends of Mark, to sub in for his best man) piled into our van/bus to hit Old San Juan.

We did our first look at the fort, tried to look alluring and serious and fancy, then walked around the cobblestones and brilliantly-colored houses. I had to fling my dress to get some good action shots.

We ended up with an extra bouquet, which featured in some of our great pictures around the old city. 

Next was getting to the venue. Hacienda Siesta Allegre had a room below the bar area where I finished getting ready by putting on my lace bolero - and met up with the flower girls.

With just enough benches to fit our 100 guests, it was a full house when showtime began.

Charlotte stole the show (and broke the tension) by dumping her basket of flowers. Claire and Paige just looked lost - they knew what they were supposed to do, but not how to handle this wildcard.

Mark held it together, then we hugged our parents, listened to Pastor Scott and the readings by our sisters, said some vows, exchanged some rings, then got the shot I wanted - us kissing with our entire group of guests cheering behind us.

We went straight to the library, where we did the legal part with our friend-of-a-friend judge, then it was photo time while everyone did reception. We corralled a variety of pictures, then tucked into the back for our intro.

We had our own table, and we got to pause to watch the tables full of our family and friends before dancing and drinking the night away. The desserts of churros and ice cream were a hit - we barely got any! Charlotte stayed on the dance floor all night, while Claire and Paige feel asleep watching movies in the big bed downstairs - which I saw when I popped off to use that bathroom halfway through the night.

A few rugby friends had been eyeing the pool, and we thought they might not want photos of their escapade (and didn't want them too wet too early in the evening), so had them wait until Saul was nearly done. However, he didn't want to miss the shot, so we got some happy, damp friends to ride back to the hotel on buses with.

As we were pulling onto the main road, the bus ahead of us stopped on the side of the road. Concerned, we didn't realize it was because there was a gas station - a source of libations - that Nyk had conceived of and Duma had rallied the troops for.

That started the after-party, which was on the top floor of the hotel. Changing out of my dress, I got to relax with one of the many, many bottle of champagne that kept showing up - I guess our free gift from the hotel was a gift that came in very useful that night! Mark dropped one on the stone floor, and God was smiling, because it bounced instead of breaking.

As we were headed to bed, we ran into Ashley and Rory, who'd been invited along to help with childcare. They had done their duties and were off to have some fun of their own.

The next morning, we made it up for our post-wedding brunch at Kabanas. We sat with friends coming in from the beach, just getting up, and those headed out. It was also delicious.

Mark and I were around for another few days - saw my dad's sisters and families out at the house they'd rented, then stuck around with his family at a condo as well. We flew back on Saturday the 23rd after our "family-moon", now a married couple.

Sydney - Sept. 15, 2018

This was it - our last day in Australia. Mark's was a very short last day - he headed out at 6am for his flight. My luggage was back at the WeWork to make it easier for me to tour around today, so, after two hours of seeing if I’d fall back asleep, then finding Dick van Dyke’s Diagnosis Murder, then a quick shower, I was back on my way. 

I rode the train (I was getting good at navigating the stations with my Opal card) up to St. James, hopped out and walked to the WeWork, then ate breakfast (thanks APT), charged my phone, and figured out my plan.

Decided first to walk north to The Rocks on my way to the Harbor Bridge and the Pylon Lookout. 

The narrow streets of The Rocks, an area just outside of the main ferry terminal at Circular Quay, are cute as long as you are going downhill on all the staircases. I wove toward the center, found a market, and realized this was the one place that I actually needed that Australian cash. I got some things, but the ornaments were cash-only, and the nearest ATM was out of service, so I considered it a sign and kept walking. 

I ended up underneath the Harbour Bridge, thinking the Pylon Lookout would start at wharf level. Instead, you had to walk out on the pedestrian walkway on the bridge to get to it. Not too hard, but quite a steep walk back up to where the bridge started. 

The Lookout was actually a museum as well. The 1920s and 1930s, when the bridge had been built, were impressive for their ability to make huge things with the machinery and manpower they had - and with telephone lines that went up for the managers to talk back down to the workers stationed at the edges!

After photos and descriptions of feats of engineering, I climbed up to the viewing deck. Looking out over the bridge, the first thing I saw were three groups of bridge walkers! For only $150 more, I too could have climbed the steel arch of the Harbour Bridge! (I made the economical $10 choice, and, looking down, I got plenty high enough.)

I gazed across the weaving of the harbour, watching ferries and, specifically, keeping an eye on a wedding ceremony site just along the harbor. I was there at 12:25 - I stayed until 12:35, hoping to catch the ceremony starting, but by then guess it wasn’t supposed to start until 1, if not later.

Instead, I learned that white cats lived in that pylon when it was a curiosity museum! Also, the pylons weren’t needed for engineering of the bridge - they were just a pretty decoration that got incorporated into the design. 

My next stop was going through the Royal Botanic Gardens to see the harbor from sea level. It was a beautiful, sunny day (and I had put my sunscreen on!) at around 80 degrees, so it was easy to meander and listen to my podcasts. I found a rock outcropping to play in, then some birds - including a kookaburra! - and some statues and some flowers, but just taking iconic pictures of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge was keeping me happy. 

My stomach was growling, and I had happened to see a daytrip out to Watsons Bay on the ferry recommended, with a fish and chip shop right at the ferry dock. 

I spent ten of the twenty minutes before the ferry trying to figure out which of my credit cards had a PIN, or if I needed to go find an ATM or use my debit card. It got sorted (my new favorite verb), and I was aboard the ferry. 

It was a thirty minute trip, and it really showed some of the ins and outs of the bays along the harbour (since there was a stop at Rose Bay), and all the water sports people did. Kite surfing and wind sailing and sailing and yachting (is that a sport?) and kayak and stand up paddle boards - and just swimming and playing beach volleyball! I’d need to pick up at least one of those before moving here!

The tempura-fried whiting almost flew away at the first picnic bench past the lunch counter, so I moved further up the hill. I’m glad I did, not because someone awkwardly tried to make me the caretaker of a lost wallet, but instead because my plan of walking around the point went out the window when I realized the Tasmanian Sea was just over the hill. 

I walked along the cliffs, which had memorials and signs for suicide hotlines, which was sad but uplifting for those that were giving hope and ways to get help.

The ocean against the cliffs was artistic, though a sunrise there would be stunning instead of nearing sunset. I went along to the two viewpoints that were closest on the map before checking my watch - my ferry was leaving, and I had a plane to catch!

I made it onto the 4:50 boat, back to the WeWork by 5:45 to change and grab my luggage, and airport by 6:30 via the train again. (Exiting, I had $1.30 on my Opal card - nearly perfect guesstimations of train and ferry costs.)

The Hawaiian Airlines check-in was just opening, so essentially the entire flight was queued up for bag tags and passport checks. I found a restaurant that took Priority Pass, bought enough food for two meals, then continued binging on the “Up and Vanished” podcast while cross-stitching.

A layover in Honolulu (another lounge) and a flight to NYC before getting to DC. Essentially, it was two red-eyes in a row. While the long flights are a downside, they are where the majority of this blog got written - so forward-thinking of me. And that's all from the Grand Canyon + Australia 2018 30th birthday trip!

Wollongong and Bondi - Sept 11-14

I headed out mid-day on Tuesday from Manly to get down to Wollongong to see where Mark was working. While it was nice to bookend my week with working in the Sydney office, it wasn't necessary, so I figured hanging out at a hotel would be fine as well. I found Mark and his hotel, he made me dinner in his kitchenette, and I, again, slept for a bit before my meetings at midnight. 

Wednesday was all at his hotel. I met him and coworkers for lunch at a Thai place in a trendy part of Wollongong, then took an afternoon nap, worked until dinner, and walked with Mark to Clifton, 1km and one town down. We found his coworkers again (plus one of their partners, so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t work together) and sat in the back area of a bar where others didn’t find us until they’d had a drink on the other side. 

We conversed - well-traveled people, Australians who’d lived in England, took month-long vacations to America, and still knew which spiders and snakes could kill you. We got a lift back and the cycle started again - a little bit of sleep before a midnight meeting, then up by 7am to catch the tail end of their day. 

Thursday the 13th I was headed back to Sydney, and I actually timed my train so I wouldn’t have to wait half an hour to ride an additional 90 minutes, as I did on the way down. I was giving a noon session presentation on UX at APT - cobbled together a few presentation from back in DC, then did a lot of Q&A. 

For evening activities, a coworker had made a reservation at Mr. Wong’s, a well-known Asian fusion restaurant. It was down an alley, so you felt cool just for knowing how to get in. And the food was on point. The fried ice cream was a “religious experience” for some of my coworkers (maybe if I liked butterscotch more? It was certainly delicious!)

I took at taxi out to Bondi where I was staying on a coworker's couch for the evening, and we took a walk along the beach and circled the town before heading to bed. 

Friday, Mark headed in from Wollongong, but there were company-wide meetings and office sessions that I was busy attending. He came by at 5, we grabbed some beers from the WeWork taps (well, a cider for me), and I introduced him to the dozen people in the office. We rallied some troops (three coworkers and a partner) to go to The Baxter Inn - yet another entrance in an alley that made me feel special.

The bar had a speak-easy feel, and we only had to wait a bit for a table to open up and us to sit. Sadly, it was very, very loud. Still, with some vocal gymnastics, we conversed over whisky and wine. 

Mark hadn’t had dinner, so we headed off to a recommended Hunter & Barrel, a round restaurant on the water. I convinced Mark to get the lamb (which was pricey, but worth it!) while I got bread with oil and dukkah (an amazing spice blend).

We finished with a walk over to The Star, a fancy but kinda empty-looking shopping mall so we could try Messina, a recommended gelato shop. We entered by a movie theater but otherwise, the white hallways were pretty echo-y - until we got to gelato. Dulce de leche, strawberry and cream, and chocolate - great end to the evening. 

Sydney Area - Sept. 9-10

Early Sunday morning, we caught an Uber to our flight, dropped off our bags, then hustled over to the lounge to spend ten minutes eating before heading to our flight to Sydney. A detour to the bathroom, and we were among the last group to board the plane. 

Mark was heading down to Wollongong for work when he got in, and his driver was waiting for him. I had gotten an address for a coworker’s place up in Manly, so I gave the wine bottles to Mark and we parted ways for a few days. I made my way (with a large suitcase) into Circular Quay (pronounced Key) and onto a ferry! Manly is north of the CBD (central business district) of Sydney, but we had to cruise past the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House on the way - already being a successful tourist!

Leah and her husband were hanging out, and I chatted for a bit, then took a walk with Leah. We wandered though the Saturday market (didn’t have the salad fixings we wanted for dinner), then watched her husband surf on Manly Beach before stopping by the grocery to pick me up a steak and cookies (and salad) for the evening’s meal.

It wasn’t time to cook yet, so I disappeared for a nap. When I woke up, Leah’s husband was just back, and the suvee was pretty much done with the first cooking of the steaks. The “barbie” (these were Americans, so I can’t vouch if they actually say that in Australia) was started and each steak got a nice sear. Asparagus, salad, and some cookies, popped in the oven to re-warm, and  I was super satisfied. 10pm, so, bedtime, right?

Monday I followed Leah to work the next day - she commuted on the fast ferry (smaller and 10 minutes faster than the one I took yesterday) and we got to the WeWork space where we’re renting for two more weeks until a move into a centralized Mastercard tech hub in North Sydney.

I claimed a desk which had a keyboard and monitors... but the keyboard didn’t have any labels on it! I don’t touchtype numbers well, so I spent 15 minutes trying to get my RSA token to work before realizing I was entering it incorrectly. 

Monday mornings are an office-wide meeting, so I sat in as they discussed clients and sales prospects and schedules and workloads for the next week. Then it was catching up on emails from the previous eight work days of holiday, and then a very acidic salad with pumpkin for lunch. (Pumpkin not just being a fall food in Australia - I approve.)

When Leah and her husband were talking about some of the good food they had made in Australia, lamb came up. As I was spending one more evening with them, I asked if I could request it - and, by 3pm, we had confirmation that lamb lollipops were bought and ready to suvee then sear. 

Man, that was a great dinner as well! More wine, a couscous salad, and minty yogurt. 

I slept for an hour before waking up for my midnight meeting (10am east coast) to greet my team as they started their day!

 

Adelaide - Sept. 8

Saturday was our day to relive what Mark knew about Adelaide, so we started the (slightly sluggish) morning with a trip over to Flinders. Their older daughter was going to dance class afterward so she accompanied Manoj, me, and Mark in her leotard. 

The campus is built on a hill - the boys pointed at where they played soccer together (how they met), then headed into the main quad to see if Mark could orient himself to find the archeology buildings. They were past the snazzy student center, where I beat an eight-year-old at foosball. 

Next on our to-do list, after we dropped her off at dance, was shopping. Mark fell in love with black opals - a type that are a lot bluer and greener than you’d expect from the name - when he lived here eleven years ago. He tells everyone that he had decided when he was in grad school that he wouldn't buy a girl a diamond before he bought himself a black opal. Given that our engagement ring was a family heirloom given to him, he was able to squeak by that one on a technicality. 

The first shop was nice, but it was hard to connect the information we knew with what they were selling. The second shop knew how to cater to non-locals - a brochure about the types of opals, with a graphic for how opals are mounted. Larger opals can be set once they are polished. Smaller, thinner cuts can be mounted as a “doublet”, using a backing stone to help the color and the strength, or a “triplet”, with both a backing stone and a see-through layer on top to protect the stone. 

Once the few men’s rings that they had didn’t fit Mark’s style, we moved on to the loose opals. Each opal is so unique - the light plays differently, and the patterns within them have names like “graffiti” and “Chinese writing.” Mark’s favorite, the “rolling flash”, didn’t have any at the size and price point we wanted, but he also realized how unique the one he saw in person years ago was. We spent a long time looking at options, and had narrowed it down to three when the salesperson took it out into the sunlight with us. One continued to light up, and that is the one that Mark took home. It was over the baseline for getting taxes back, so we got below list price for it. And it was Australian dollars anyway (which are $.75USD to A$1)!

With our search successful, we stepped back outside and realized how hungry we were. We were meeting the rest of the family at a party at park in Adelaide Hills, so we headed that direction for food. 

Anya had created a map with six different wineries on it around the area, but we started with her lunch recommendations - Seasonal Garden Cafe. It was in a slightly German-influenced town, with cute storefronts, but mostly, it was delicious (even though I made the boys sit inside - after the dive yesterday, I didn’t need another hour of being slightly chilled). Mark and I both ate our sandwiches open-faced, but then the bread was so good we ate the second slice as well. 

Then we were off! We started at O’Leary Walker, which was my favorite of the day. It was very nice, but unpretentious. It was a “make your own” tasting from their wine list that was 20 bottles long, and each of us did a little something different. I did the whites, then found a great rose. Mark did the reds, and we actually really enjoyed the Pinot. Manoj jumped around (since he was driving), but we all tried their high-end, barrel-aged Shiraz blend, and agreed it was significantly better than the others... but not three times better like the price suggested.

Next on the list was Shaw + Smith. They had a sleek building (where you weren’t completely sure if you knew that you were going through a door, a window, or an off-limits hall as you were walking in). We eventually got greeted and seated with a placemat with their six types of wine they were serving. Mark and I shared a tasting, and we enjoyed some, but the experience was sub-par. It was $15, no personal touch (until near the end), and the wines, at at least $30 each, were more than I wanted to spend. 

We left the building, and Mark’s dreams had become reality. He said that adding kangaroos to the vineyards would be a perfect Adelaide day - and two were waiting for us when we came out! They were quite a few rows back, so hard to photograph, but it’s among the Australian clichés we were able to live out. 

The wine guy who eventually stopped by our table at S+S recommended CRFT as a new winery nearby to try. The tiny house was set back into its vineyards, with room for just a few groups. The family next to us was making a great end of the day, with their cheese and olives. Mark saw the olives and perked up - we’d had at least two glasses of wine each at this point (they make sure they tell you as they pour - it’s an Australian law to know exactly how much you’ve drank.) Out came olives and a few good tastes of wine, but just the German Guetter Vietlinger white was the only one that interested me - and we’re headed into fall in the US, so we weren't interested in bringin home whites.

Empty-handed but not disappointed, it was time to join up with the rest of the family. We got to the park, parked when we saw a field with adults and kids running around, but got the call from Anya that directed up to the large manor house where our (well, their) party was. 

Kristy was having her 40th, and all the friends and family were invited. We drank, met people, tried to determine if Mark had met them a decade ago, talked about our vacation, and munched. At six or so, so large pots of pre-bought curry were set up, with a trickling flow of rice from the rice cooker and naan. We feasted!

A cake, singing (with more “hip hip hoorays”) and a lovely speech by the birthday girl, and Mark, Anya, Manoj and another friend or two sat around and talked until our rides told us it was time to leave. Which was good, because we hadn’t packed up the laundry yet. 

We consolidated cars and made it back to south Adelaide. We said our goodbyes to the girls (who shouldn’t be up at 6am when we needed to leave) and Manoj and Anya for their hospitality, got our bags ready and, yet again, fell into bed.

Rapid Bay and Adelaide - Sept. 7

Manoj and Anya has somehow managed to work their schedules and the cars such that they could give us a ride to Adelaide Scuba - meeting before 9am for our prep for our dive.

Mark’s favorite underwater creature that he’s ever dove with was a leafy sea dragon. These large seahorse relatives have branch-like growths that hide them well, but their appearance isn’t very practical for swimming. Rapid Bay was determined as the site for the day, so we geared up. After getting our 7mm wetsuits, Mark also asked for a hood for us - which was good forethought. The dive shop acted like it was cold, but not too bad... which is all relative. 

We hopped into the dive shop’s twin cab truck for the 90 minute drive to Rapid Bay. I scouted for kangaroos (with no luck), and we learned about our guide, Darrill, and his similar story to ours - meeting his partner while he was helping with a dive class she was taking!

We stopped at a bakery (Yar-something?) on the way to the bay and grabbed a donut for now and a pie (literally a mini pie for me, but a hand pie for Mark) for later. 

It was nearly 11 when we cruised up. We set up gear, changed into our suits, and soaked up the last of the mid-70s and sunny external weather.

Rapid Bay had an old wooden pier that declined over time, rotting and becoming unsafe. The connecting section to the beach was destroyed to prevent people from walking on it, and a new metal pier was built more recently. The old pier, parallel and longer than the first, ended in a T that split out to both sides.

Walking out the 200 meters on the new pier to the steps with all the equipment (and 8kgs of weight to hold my wetsuit down once I was diving) was rough - my waistband was not tight enough to take the weight off my shoulders, which dragged the already tight neck of my wetsuit even tighter. The fisherman and their catches (specifically the cuttlefish, whose ink they were using to graffiti the slate of the dock) were a slight distraction that I was grateful for as I felt like I was choking.

The shock of the cold water couldn’t frighten me enough to not get that heavy weight off my back, so in I went, inflating my BCD and putting on my fins. Good thing we had gotten practice in the cold pool at the Deep Blue Hotel’s hot springs!

Down we went, with cold water flooding my suit and hood. I (per usual) was a little slow at going down, but releasing the pressure from the hood helped. We followed a set of spikes drilled into the sandy bottom to get across to the pier, and, at the pier, the sea life greeted us. 

The red corals and starfish, the old wood along the bottom now covered with blues and greens of plant life - it was so colorful, and in an individual way. Along a tropical coral wall, everything bleeds together. Here, the separate species made each seem more intricate and more colorful. The hermit crab walking along with its found shell. The sand crab, moving sideways along the sand between the beams. The “fancy” crab, with a long, dangly, frilly bit off its head and one claw that was bigger to snatch anything that would come to investigate. The starfish were of multiple types and colors, and every so often I’d see a sea urchin. 

The guide hasn’t seemed worried about old fishing line (instead, he had talked about blue ring octopus that have a venom that will kill you... thanks), but I saw some pretty significant lines. As I was packing for Mark for diving, I had restricted him to just a few pieces of equipment. His line cutter was not one of them, since I believed our guide would have one. 

Looking back to check on Mark about ten minutes into the dive, he motioned me over and had me look at his fin - a piece of line had gotten caught under his heel. It was easy for me (with two hands and perfect vision of his foot) to extract and didn’t require cutting, but I’m sure all that both of us were thinking about was that line cutter that he didn’t have. 

After extracting him and checking that he was doing ok, we moved along the old pier for twenty minutes before reaching the T-shape and heading right. Mark took pictures galore, swimming over to this or that thing that was tantalizing - and he’s a man, so his air tank was emptying slightly faster than mine. In this case, my hands were also starting to get numb - really, I was just cold all over. We turned back not long after getting past the T. 

You know what we didn’t see? A leafy seadragon. If we had, I’m not sure I would’ve gone in for a second dive. 

The walk back wasn’t as bad - the general numbness, the exertion adding some warmth, and, the trick I kept in mind for the next time - a very inflated BCD that gripped on my hips to better balance the weight there and not just on my shoulders. 

We got back to the car and Darrill fired up the heater. I wasn’t going to fully get out of my suit as we switched tanks, ate lunch, and took care of bodily functions, but I unwrapped my torso from the suit and used a towel instead.

An hour later, re-warmed, we started all over. The trip down the dock was easier with an inflated BCD, and now, we were going to be strategic with our air. We were going to snorkel (or just swim on our backs, as I did) mostly to the T, then find “the grid” - a I-bar grid that had turned into a good place to find sea dragons. 

In the car ride, Darrill said he had only not seen sea dragons on a day that was so turbulent and such low visibility that he couldn’t even see his face, so he had a lot of confidence in us seeing one. 

We got our with five to ten minutes of swimming, then headed down. My ears were worse than the first dive, so I swam above as we headed toward the grid. About five or ten minutes into the dive, we got there. We each took a row and swam along, looking on the leeward side (and the “windward” one too, really - not going to not look somewhere). The surge wasn’t very rough, but it was a consistent rocking motion, and sea dragons aren’t good swimmers, so they stick to the calmest water they can find - like sheltered between I-beams. 

It was twenty minutes into a 40-45 minute dive, and we hadn’t seen a dragon. The grid had been searched, and Darrill just headed out along the pier and - fist pump! - he spotted one. 

It was pretty outstanding - this frilly green thing hovering over a mix of sand with some coral polyps, but not the waving sea grass I was expecting that would complement them. The poor thing was being controlled by the water - mostly upside down and resigned to its fate. The little fins were working, and it poked at a rock or two with its beak, but mostly we just drifted along with it for ten minutes, taking pictures and enjoying the ride. 

Darrill turned us back, and we did the fastest swim I’ve ever done while diving to get back to the steps. I don’t know if it was the cold or the air that caused the speed up, but my legs churned all the way back. I was breathing very regularly - not out of breath, but definitely working. We made it to the steps, rejoiced for a second, then we launched ourselves toward the car to get out of our suits, dry, and packed up. 

I had become more accustomed to going from salt water to dry recently, but the salt residue was a big pet peeve of mine for a while. Given that the closest showers were at the shop (and we didn’t have a dry towel anyway by the time we got there), I switched into dry clothes and called it good. Well, I did the bottom half of switching when we got to the public restrooms by the bakery... and Mark got me a mini custard pie. 

We drove back, talking about wine and spotting a few kangaroos here and there. I can’t remember if I decided to nod off or not...

Back at the shop, Anya was coming to pick us up, so we chatted with the owner, who talked about wreck recoveries in the Philippines, as well as some apparently well-connected US divers that we hadn’t heard of (unsurprisingly - Mark doesn’t actually read his PADI magazines).

Anya pulled up and graciously offered to take us the 25 minutes back home to shower and change, but with a dinner reservation in an hour downtown, it would’ve been tight. Mark just continued wearing his hat, and my sunglasses became a headband. 

Anya’s parent live in a condo right near the CBD (Central Business District - a beloved acronym in Australia). We looked for street parking and, finding none, took advantage of the open garage door under the condo to park in a neighbor's spot. 

Up at her parent’s place, her dad was watching some “footie” (which is a generic term for rugby in the north, Aussie-rules football in the south - though in this case, it was Aussie-rules), and I learned more about the game that I had picked up slightly for the night before.

Manoj met us at the apartment, and we all walked over to a great Asian tapas restaurant - really, the way better version of Wah Wah Gee in Geelong. We had duck pancakes (after harassing the girls about pancakes shaped like ducks or made of ducks in the car), chicken, prawns, rice, wine, and, yet, still saved a hint of room for dessert at the family’s favorite gelato place. I had bread and butter bread pudding gelato (the raisins didn’t take away too much for the flavor). 

On the way to dessert, we had lost Anya’s father when he popped into a bar to check the score. There was fifteen minutes left in the game, so Manoj, Mark, and I joined for the ending before taking a borrowed car back to south Adelaide. As exhausted as we all were, we again started pouring some wine and talking. A small fire was made (which took much more effort this time), we started our laundry, and the first load got hung to dry as we headed to bed. 

Adelaide - Thurs., Sept. 6

We took our time getting started in Geelong for our drive to Melbourne, to get things appropriately packed up for our flight to Adelaide, Mark's old stomping grounds. My planned portion of the trip was completed, and it was time to stop by Mark's alma mater and then get ready for work on Monday.

We filled the little red car with gas, dropped it off, then went through security. We found a restaurant that worked with our Priority Passes and got eggs on buns and Bloody Mary's before our unmemorable flight.

Landing in Adelaide, we took quick a long and traffic-y Uber trip to Mark's friends' house - he was going to see Manoj and Anya for the first time in about a decade! Mark met them when he attended Flinders for his masters in the late 00s. And I was getting to meet them and their daughters for the first time.

After dropping off our stuff in the guest room, we met the girls and the dog and got a quick tour. Their backyard included a large clothes rack (dryers aren't common) and a half-built chicken shed that was mostly a cover for the girls to do "discovery" behind it.

Anya, Mark, the girls, and I then took a walk along the trails to the girls' school, complete with downed trees as play equipment and story settings. They lived by the gorge, what they called a large park that separated them from Flinders, so we did a bit of downhill into that before Manoj called with his ETA. We walked back along the neighborhood streets to get home for dinner.

The meal of pork with cracklin, mustard, slaw, and potatoes was the gas in the tank we needed for the birthday dance party. Though a day late, they celebrated by taking out half a cake (that they had made and eaten the previous day) and attractively covering it with strawberries - and at the end of the "Happy Birthday" song, they added a “hip hip hooray” at the end that’s classically Aussie.

The girls performed an impressively (and probably slightly impromptu) choreography to Shake It Off (and I showed them a Jazzercise move or two). We did a cultural exchange as well: they taught me how to “floss” before dinner and I taught them the “shopping cart.”

After the girls went to bed, Manoj built a fire and there was lots of reminiscing about Mark visiting in Nepal. When Manoj had had his eyes closed for five minutes (and I was struggling to keep my eyes open), we decided to call it a night.