Blog 18 - The Last Resort

Blog 18 - The Last Resort

In Los Angeles transit lounge. 8.25pm LA time means 11.25pm Miami time which means 1.25pm tomorrow Melbourne time. Not weird at all. I am beginning to see why rock stars walk onto the stage in Phoenix and say "Good Evening Detroit!!" The last few hours have been a blur of escaping the stifling humidity of Miami, enduring the dull drudgery of a five hour flight east to west across the US (paid for own meals, one TV playing reruns of sitcoms which I lipread not wanting to pay the $5.00 for their crappy headphones ("which you get to keep!!" - whoopee!)) and then wandering like zombies around the glossy but vacuous international lounge contemplating Prada handbags and Tag Heuer watches as if they were in some way affordable. Whatever time it is in whatever time zone, I need a drink!

This blog is about North America - Canada and the United States. There's a structure in every horror or action film, after the big final climax, where you are left with the final five to ten awkward minutes of tying the storyline up before rolling the credits. (Stay with me, I'm going somewhere with this!). For me, following the epiphany that was Scandinavia with it's social democracy, it's beautiful lakes and it's daggy song contests, North America was relegated to this tag-on at the end of the journey. Which is a shame, because while much of the last four weeks tested us physically and emotionally, some of it was truly fantastic and memorable.

Following a flawless departure from Helsinki, we watched the stretch of skyscraper loom closer and closer until we landed with a thud at JFK. Renae and I caught ourselves singing snatches of pretty much every song ever written that has New York in it ("it's a helluva town..." "If I can't (bom bom) MAKE it there..."). Immediately we were confronted with the two things that confounded us throughout the whole of the US, the fact that every price didn't include tax...and the tipping thing.

We found ourselves second guessing about who to tip, and how much (for the record 10% is now soooooo 2000, 18-20% about the going rate now). We chuckled about the "suggested tipping options" on some of the bills. We ended up pretty just throwing ones and fives randomly, sometimes at strangers. But it made us feel better.

Hilariously, the four of us, plus our nine (!) bags, braved the subway from JFK to Central Manhattan where a nice apartment (airbnb, who else? I might become an ambassador for them) and an equally nice person, Renae's sister Rhona, greeted us. Billie was still on crutches and getting used to her training legs having only lost the cast 24hours earlier, so Rhona's selection of deli produce, fruit and a Budweiser helped calm a frazzled family. A few days later, Renae's other sister Tania and niece Kadie arrived too. Full house and a family reunion in New York. It was slightly surreal.

 

There's a bit of a saying about discovering your own New York - about discovering the things that make it special for you. I kind of get that: that one person's Fifth Avenue is another's Strawberry Fields in Central Park. But the thing is that the city is just so overwhelming. It's the sort of place that if you spend a month or seven, you could possibly scratch the surface and get under its skin a bit. But we were there five days, so we did tourist stuff! And it wore us out.

 

 

We zoomed up the Empire State Building on a torrential day best suited for huddling inside under blankets. For the exorbitant fee to get up to the top, we were disappointed to only be able see about 10 meters in front of us. But it made for a unique experience I suppose. Jessie gripped the rail and whimpered to go back inside. Billie practically tried to squeeze through the bars. The clouds floated through us providing brief glimpses of the grey streets, huge grey buildings and yellow taxis, which were everywhere.

(And doesn't Jessie look happy to be there...)

 

For Billie's birthday (well, the belated family one), we went off to the Central Park zoo. Central Park really is an oasis in the middle of a manic city and it does amaze me how much you can feel at peace, ignoring the 500 school kids that were there. It was a lot smaller than I expected, and certainly smaller than they portray on the film Madagascar. No lions, zebras, giraffes or hippopotami. No monkeys to throw poo at me. But some cool tropical exhibits, really fun performing seals. We all enjoyed it, chomping on our street vendor bought hot dogs.

 

And then there was the Statue of Liberty. Renae and I last visited New York six months after 9/11 and the Statue was closed, as well as half the other landmarks. Making the journey from Manhattan on the ferry, looking back at the immense skyline and approaching Liberty Island, you cannot feel slightly awestruck - like you are in the presence of celebrity. We didn't climb her, we were too slow to get our act together and tickets sold out. So we walked around listening to the slightly cheesy audioguide, soaked in the facts (thickness of two pennies! seven spikes on the crown signify the seven seas...I've got plenty more!) and genuinely basked in her shadow.

 

 

 

If one needs an antidote to the serenity of Central Park, then why not try Times Square? There you can practically feel the neon and LED prickling on your skin, screaming advertisements for chocolate and Broadway shows. It also reinforces another New York stereotype, that locals look down and tourists look up. To the point that there's even a seating section in the middle of the square where you can soak up the indescribable...experience of the place. I loved it, especially at night, but it seemed to overwhelm and disconcert the kids.

 

My highlight was the Museum of Modern Art. I initially dragged the kids there so Renae could explore the shops, but the place won them over. I didn't need winning over, as I knew that seeing works by Van Gogh (Starry Night), Rousseau, Picasso, Chagall etc in the flesh would be enough. And it was.

(me, Rousseau, Chagall, Warhol...)

What else to say about New York? It's big, daunting, fairly dirty. It's both dynamic and soulless. But one morning I got up before everyone and jogged the fifty blocks along street-swept streets, shiny from rain, dodging the commuters and street vendors, until I reached the John Lennon memorial in Central Park. I was there before the hundreds of tour group operators waving their tacky flags and with their lemmings taking 45 photos without actually looking at where they were (what's with that?). It was just me, a few other joggers and people with their dogs. Through the greenery, across the street, were beautiful deco buildings outside one of which John Lennon was shot dead so many years ago. The Beatles came onto my iPod as I jogged back home. I had a raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese for breakfast.

That was my New York.

 

The sisters dispersed. Rhona went to ride Route 66 and Tania and Kadie explored more of the US. We hired a car and headed north west into New York State. The roads were big and friendly and driving was pretty easy. I've officially mastered driving on the right, which means I'm likely to crash the car within a day of returning, or at least be the funny story at the end of the news bulletin ("Unbelievably, today a man was seen driving over the West Gate Bridge the wrong way...")

We stopped in a place called Seneca Falls, near the Finger Lakes, and in a lush wine district of America (who knew? Not just the Napa Valley apparently). We stayed at a Holiday Inn and the excellent service, quality of room and price meant we searched them out for much of the rest of the holiday. We still had a few airbnbs to go, but quite frankly, we were getting sick of cleaning our crap up. Just another symptom of the exhaustion we were all now feeling. So a hotel pool, a kiddie menu and a comfortable bed was the antidote. It worked.

The next day was glorious sunshine, and a checkpoint into our final country, Canada. It was funny and reassuring to see the Queen on currency again, and the miles turning back into kilometers. Though the minute I got Canadian dollars out at the border my card got frozen. Apparently we forgot to say we were travelling there. It annoys you, but in some ways it reassures you as well.

We stayed in Toronto in a quirky and leafy suburb that reminded us of home. It had a great coffee shop on the corner, and the provocatively named Christie Pits Park on the other corner, where we watched baseball sitting on the hill one sunny Saturday. It's a place I felt immediately comfortable, and like Canada in general, I would have liked to spend more time than we did.

And the family roadshow rolled on, with my brother Sam arriving not long after us (eventually, following a few plane delays, and with his luggage arriving the next day!). We had a great time together, checking out the cool and hippie Kensington Market, walking around the central part of Toronto (he took the kids to the aquarium while Renae and I had some grown up time wandering around the harbour side), and what was an unexpected highlight for me, Niagara Falls.

 

The spray is the first thing you notice. Actually, the casinos, fast food outlets and hotels are the first things you notice - but the spray's a close second. The falls creep into view, smaller than you may expect (possibly because you look down at them), but the sheer power and volume of water moving over the falls is something to behold. We got the pass that did everything. We got to stand behind the falls, which sounds more impressive that it is. We watched a strange interactive film about the formation of the falls, narrated by a chipmunk or something, where water got sprayed at you. Kids enjoyed the spectacle, but I doubt would remember any of the facts! But the boat trip on the Canadian version of the Maid of the Mist, called the Hornblower, was absolutely fantastic. It was wet and wild. They kept handing out rain ponchos, we kept needing them! A final visit to the fastest flowing rapids in the world capped off a full day, and reminded me that there's a joy in going off the beaten track, but sometimes the touristy "on the beaten track" stuff is pretty good too.

 

Our other Toronto highlight was meeting Jack and Jordan, two relatives from the Vandenberg side that, up until about a year ago, we never knew existed! We had a great dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant. Whilst we discussed family and who fits where (Jordan is deep into the research of the paternal family tree), it was interesting to observe that the Dutch heritage in both the Canadian and Australian sides seems to have been very much diluted. For me, that's something to think about.

We left Toronto driving east, trying to make Quebec City before realising it was too far to travel, heading towards Montreal before making the same decision. So we found a place called Gananaque, the gateway to the Thousand Islands. We did a cruise through the islands, skirting between the US and Canadian borders and considering what we would need to do to have a holiday house here! It looked peaceful and serene...if you ignored the tourist cruise boats I suppose.

 

We dined on Schnitzel. Renae had salad with Thousand Island Dressing. When in Gananaque...

Back into the US. Boston came highly recommended from pretty much everyone we spoke to, so we had three nights there. We did a hop on-hop off bus tour that introduced us to the sights. Everything was "the oldest..." or "the first...", reinforcing that Boston is clearly one of the more significant cities in America. We ate lobster rolls, the Swan Boat, and cruised the harbour. It was clean, leafy and charming, and our day around Harvard Square, checking out the university, shopping, watching the buskers and generally chilling confirmed everyone's high praise.

 

After a stop half way to New York (we just wanted a beach to relax on), we dropped the car at JFK and flew down to Miami, running into Tania and Kadie at the baggage carousel. The humidity hit us instantly.

What we saw of Miami didn't really extend beyond the airport hotel and the view in the middle distance. So it seems unfair to say I was underwhelmed. The diversity in population was immediately apparent, with every sign cowritten in English and Spanish. The were palm trees everywhere and they followed us right up the Florida Turnpike as we made our way to Orlando.

Our accommodation was in a resort full of condos, three golf courses, about eight swimming pools and a water park. It was swish and we felt slightly pampered. For the CVDBs it was a nice way to end our 93 accommodations (pity our last night in Miami was so crap, and the 16 hour flight was fairly unbearable!).

 

We hit Universal Studios. So did half of the American population. We sucked up the outrageous entry price (as well as the express pass which, whilst the equivalent of kicking someone when they are down, saved our sanity when it came to waiting in cues) and as a result, stayed until close, thereby maximising our cost/benefit value!

 

Oh there was Harry Potter world, with its butterbeer (which we've now had in the two places in the world where they serve it...other than Hogsmeade I guess...), and vomit inducing rides (I survived! Renae nearly didn't!). There was Simpsons world, with its Krusty Burgers, Duff beer and...er...vomit inducing rides (actually the best ride we did). We got drenched in water rides (fine, as it was really hot), Billie and I got roles in a disaster movie (Billie sharing a scene with The Rock...on film anyway) and generally kept going till we could go no more. After a year of historic castles, UNESCO listed sites and art galleries, a day of obscene commercialism and deep fried everything was perversely appropriate.

 

Kennedy Space Centre was next. Highlights there were the enormity of the launch pads, the space shuttle Atlantis, and unexpectedly, the impressive array of bird life in the area! And we saw an alligator in a lake by the side of the freeway on the way home.

(Hang on, didn't I take this one already...?)

 

The next day, being gluttons for punishment, the others went off to Disneyland and were generally underwhelmed. I played a golf course designed by Tom Watson. It was complete with about 5000 bunkers and I shot a million, but it was fun.

We caught up with Susan, whom we first met in the middle of Tuscany what seems like a hundred years ago. It was terrific to see her again.

But then, eventually and inevitably, Orlando was over. The drive to Miami and our last night in a hotel was over. Even the transit lounge where I started this blog, waiting for our LAX to MEL flight to board, is over.

Now I'm sitting in my in-laws house (we have three weeks before we can get into our house). It's quiet. It's early Sunday afternoon. I've survived my first day of work.

Am I pleased to be home? Yes and no. There's something nice about not thinking about the next accommodation/flight. There was something wonderful about seeing everyone we love waiting for us at the airport gates. But the itch, the desire to still be exploring and learning, that's still there. The money's not!

I've slept a lot and the exhaustion, the (literally) world-weariness is dissipating. Signing off on this blog is another freedom in a way too. I know a few people have read it, so that's nice. But writing it, as well as the daily diary that I wrote, was for me as much as for others.

The kids have plans to see their friends and getting back into the necessary swing of normal life. Their desire to go back to school is weird, but not unexpected. I could (and probably will, but that's another story), write a book about what I've learnt about my two girls. Yes, there's "opportunities for improvement" that this trip inevitably brought to light (and they would happily say the same about me), but they have shown a resilience and a maturity and now have a perspective on the world that can't not hold them in good stead as they get older. More than anything, I'm simply so proud of them.

Renae is sick. Actually we all have a cough that a sixteen hour flight probably didn't help. This journey, as with any situation where you are together pretty much 24/7, had the very real possibility of driving a wedge between us. It did the opposite. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

And so, as a couple and as a family, we might wander around like displaced souls for a while, searching for the true meaning of why we did what we did, and "where to from here?". But we can at least do so in the comfort that we will do it together. We did this, we can do anything.

So, it's been fun, but that's the blog for now. Bye from the CarolinVandenbergs!

 

 

 

 

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