Moving- Part 3: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving… In Australia

When you are born and raised in the northern hemisphere, and then move to the southern hemisphere as an adult, it’s hard to grasp the holiday spirit.  Even when I lived in Orlando, and wore shorts on Christmas Day while working at Walt Disney World, it still felt like Christmas.  Then again, it was Disney, so we had fake snow and Christmas carols playing everywhere.

Back May, before making my permanent move out here to Australia, I came out for a one week “get to know you” visit.  It was a good thing that trip went well, seeing as I had already signed a contract and quit my job.  During that trip I went to dinner at my soon-to-be-new boss’s house with his family.  His nine-year-old twins and I got along quite well, comparing recess games, favourite foods, and holiday traditions.  They have never seen snow except for in the movies, so the idea of a white Christmas was a quite appealing to them.

Last night I happened to notice that A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was scheduled to air on television in the States.  I must confess that this was the first time I actually thought about Thanksgiving, partially because we don’t see Thanksgiving commercials or the corresponding accoutrement in the stores.  But probably also due to the fact that as I sit here writing this blog post at 6am, it is already well above 90 degrees, hence the idea of cooking a turkey and eating pumpkin pie in traditional Thanksgiving (i.e. Church of America) fashion lacks appeal.

But I do have SOME thing- many things, actually- but ONE thing in particular to be thankful for. My Thanksgiving is being celebrated in style, in my new house, surrounded by my belongings…. wait for it…. that arrived… from the States!  That’s right folks, hell hath frozen over and my ship has come in!

Last week around 2pm my apartment looked like this:

By 3pm, my apartment looked like this:

But, here’s the best part of the story.  Back in February when I accepted this job I started watching everything I could on youtube about Australia.  I ran across this television series called Border Security: Australia’s Front Line.  And, let me tell you, the front line takes their jobs seriously.  But in all honesty, I can understand their tenacity.  Australia is very isolated and has an incredibly delicate environment.  By being vigilant about what comes into the country, they have avoided many of the diseases which have proven deleterious in other parts of the world.

For instance, if you typically fly with snacks, make sure you eat your beef jerky before you arrive otherwise it will be confiscated due to fear of foot and mouth disease.  I know, I know, it’s a processed food and can’t possibly spread that disease, but as I said the Australians are cautious, to the point of being almost paranoid.  If you plan to come here for diving, leave your wetsuit at home.  They don’t want to risk you bringing in any parasites that might be harmful to the wildlife here.  When I climbed Kilimanjaro two years ago, my Australian “buddies” gave their hiking boots to our guides and porters because they said they would be confiscated due to the concern there might be a trace of dirt on them once they got home.  They said they might as well give them to someone who could use them rather than having them confiscated and destroyed.

Well, having watched Border Security, read lots and talked to friends about what I could “get away with”, I was worried that my bike, golf clubs and wooden giraffe from Africa might meet their demise in Australian Customs.  But it turns out flattery will get you everywhere.  I wrote the Customs officials little love notes and put them all over my belongings.  And they even wrote me back.  Here is the note I put on my golf clubs.  And as you can see, they responded by welcoming me to Australia:

As I’ve said before, I LOVE coming back into the U.S. after being gone for a long time because the Customs officials always say, “Welcome home!” after stamping my passport.  But, after my recent experience successfully receiving my things, I think the Australian Customs Department may be my new bestie- at least on this side of the (other) pond.

The Four Best Friends That Anyone Could Ever Have

When I travel I tend to think of people that I meet as Single Serving Friends.  I’ve actually considered writing a book by that title.  The reason I refer to them as Single Serving Friends is because I often meet people while I’m travelling, spend a few days with them, have a great time, and then never see or hear from them again.  It’s really just the nature of travel.  I expect the three guys who were part of my AF group during the Kilimanjaro trek will be Single Serving Friends, but for one week, we were the four best friends in the whole wide world.

Have you ever seen the movie, The Hangover?  If you haven’t the premise is that this guy is about to get married so his two best friends decide to take him to Vegas for a bachelor party.  In an effort to bond with his future brother-in-law, the groom brings along his fiancé’s brother as well.  Once they get to Las Vegas everything that could possibly go wrong does; they get arrested, they steal Mike Tyson’s tiger, the responsible dentist marries a stripper, and they lose the groom.  At the end of the movie the goofy brother-in-law sings a song about how they are the Four Best Friends that Anyone Could Ever Have.  On our last night together Rod, Matt, Tom and I were joking about how the four of us mimicked the characters from The Hangover.

I was obviously the groom because in the movie the groom misses his own bachelor party, and here on Kilimanjaro, I missed the summit.  Tom was the brother-in-law because in the movie the brother-in-law slipped roofies (or ecstasy, I forget) into the drinks of the other three.  This analogy was the funniest because Tom is a vegan, so he was always offering people papaya pills (gives you energy) or spirulina tablets (helps with altitude sickness) or some other vegan remedy to keep you healthy.  We all learned a lot about veganism during this trip.  Matt was the responsible dentist because on our trip he was just that, the voice of reason, and very responsible.  And Rod was Bradley Cooper, because he is tall and funny.

Though we didn’t have the same challenges as the characters in the movie we had our own unique experience which brought us together, most specifically the 8 members of the NSA, who we tolerated through gritted teeth (and then commiserated with one another about in private).  I can’t imagine having done Kilimanjaro with anyone else.  I will miss them very much.  Considering we started off four strangers, all from different continents, we couldn’t have gotten along any better.

The Awesome Foursome- Matt (South Africa), Tom (Israel), Kelly (USA), Rod (Australia):

Why Do We Climb at Night?

On each of the seven days of our Kili climb we hiked for a minimum of six hours.  As I said in a previous post, I forgot to keep notes, but if I remember correctly this was the rough schedule of our climb (I am confident most of these start/end times are correct):

Day 1- depart entry gate at 12:30pm, arrive camp 6pm

Day 2- depart 8am, arrive camp 2:30pm

Day 3- depart 8:30am, arrive camp 4pm

Day 4- depart 8:30am, arrive camp 3:30pm

Day 5 (Part A)- depart 8am, arrive camp 12pm

Day 5 (Part B)- depart 11pm, hike all night until sunrise, keep hiking until you have had enough, and then return back to camp sometime on Day 6 between 7am and 10am

Day 6- return from hiking through the night on Day 5, sleep a few hours, then depart 2:30pm, arrive camp 4:30pm

Day 7- depart 7am, arrive exit gate at 1pm

During one of our evening chats Tom and I wondered why it was necessary to attempt the summit at night.  Well, in the wee hours of the morning on Day 6 we found out: If people saw how far they had to go they would never make it.  It is a total head game.

On summit night I was so sick and miserable I couldn’t wait for it to be over.  It is hard to walk because you have so many layers on to stay warm and then you are trying to climb over huge rocks, many of which are slippery and icy.  And the wind seems to never end.  My dad coached both me and my brother in lacrosse when we were younger and the one thing he would constantly tell us was, “always keep your feet moving, never let them stop even if you are moving in place.”  I tried to repeat that to myself over and over again on that night.  I also thought about lots of other things.  I think I was slightly delirious at times, but I remember thinking about how I had to write a funny blog post about the freezing pain I was in at the time, how I was looking forward to moving home in a few weeks, and debating what color nail polish I should select when I got a long awaited manicure and pedicure as a reward for climbing Kilimanjaro.  I think the nail polish debate may have lasted a very long time: It’s summer in the U.S. so I will be wearing flip flops when I go back.  Maybe I should get red like I normally do, but splurge and add some flowers.  Or maybe I should go for a fun color.  Hey! Kelly! Remember that time you painted your toenails blue and then had N* in yellow for Navy when Tommy was playing lacrosse?  Maybe you could do that.  But if I got blue on my toes, what would I get on my fingers?  I didn’t say these were deep thoughts, simply thoughts which let me know my brain hadn’t frozen.

In the end I did not reach the summit.  I turned back about 400 meters short of the peak (so I climbed 94% of Kilimanjaro- but I am a professor after all and that equals a grade of an A).  I cried as I made the decision to turn around, but it really was the best choice for me.  I had been incredibly dizzy and my depth perception was completely messed up so I was tripping and having a very hard time keeping my balance.  On top of that it was blizzard like conditions and my energy was zapped.  Initially I was disappointed, but the next day when I heard there were six evacuations off the mountain and someone had died that night I was sure I had made a wise choice.

The one thing I will say about the guides is that they really know how to assess your condition and then give you just enough information to help you make the decision that is best for you.  My guide on summit night was Willie.  He kept checking my eyes and while he didn’t say anything to me about how I was doing, he knew.  When I was wavering about whether or not to turn back he told me, “IF you keep going and can’t make it then it will be difficult to get you off the mountain safely the higher we go.  And IF you do make it to the top we are going to have to bring you down in a stretcher.” As soon as I heard I would be brought down on a stretcher I decided to sacrifice my pride instead of my dignity.  I hiked back down on my own, I did not catch a ride in one of these:

The three AF boys all made it to the top and I am happy for them.  But none of them stayed more than five minutes and you couldn’t see a thing in their pictures.  So in a way I don’t really feel as if I missed out on too much in the end.

Porters and Personal Details

When you climb Mt. Kilimanjaro there are a number of memories you have which might not strike someone who hasn’t experienced the challenge as noteworthy.  But for us, there were a few details we will never forget.  For instance, meals.  I am quite confident I will never eat porridge again, and I am instituting a six month ban on soup.  Of course, ginger tea is a completely different story.  Every one of us loved it and mentioned we would almost certainly go home and make it again.

Sore body parts, for better or worse, were another poignant memory though I’m sure that isn’t a surprise to anyone.  But writing this several days after coming down the mountain, and the fact that it still hurts a little to walk, highlights the fact this was not a walk in the park.

I was particularly impressed by the porters.  While we were using walking sticks and specially made boots in an effort to keep ourselves upright the porters were carrying awkward, bulky loads on their backs and balancing other loads on their heads with ease.  The porters never used walking sticks or needed to hold their arms out for balance and many wore flip flops when the temperature was warm.  But there is nothing quite like a porter traffic jam.  On day 4 we had to climb Baranco Wall which includes the Kissing Rock.  The Kissing Rock gets its name from the fact that you literately have to press your entire body against the rock in order to not plunge over the side of a cliff.  I was in a near panic attack while traversing the Kissing Rock and had to have someone carry my backpack for me because I was afraid I might tip myself over.  But, the porters crossed Baranco Wall and the Kissing Rock as if it was no different from any other part of their normal duties.  Here is a view of a porter induced traffic jam, though in all honesty they move at twice the pace any of the climbers did:

And then here is a small glimpse of the Baranco Wall (not the super scary Kissing Rock):

One thing I won’t miss, but will always remember from Kilimanjaro were the nightly medical checks.  Each night the group would have dinner together and towards the end our head guide, Safiel, would come in, brief us on what we needed to know for our climb the following day, and then he would run through a medical questionnaire with each of us- in front of the rest of the group.  So in addition to the staff knowing: your oxygen level, pulse, if you had diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, headache, difficulty breathing, had peed in the last two hours, had a bowel movement in the past 24 hours, if you were taking Diamox (altitude sickness pills) and Melarone (malaria pills); all your fellow climbers were also up to speed on your bodily functions.

Ah memories.  Actually, there is one more which I can’t possibly forget.  On day 2, when I got separated from my group and wandered into camp late, I arrived to find Tom, the Israeli contingent from AF, sleeping on a rock.  I thought it was funny, so I took a picture.  Well, this started a trend, and a friendship.  After this first picture, Tom would often announce, “Ok Kelly, let’s go take some funny sleeping pictures.”  From that point forward we would select tents next to one another and often chat until we fell asleep.  The rest of the group got a big kick out of this and as Rod (the Australian AF member) said, we carried on like “twins in a bunk bed.”  I thought that was an accurate assessment because Tom reminded me of my little brother (also named Tom- Tommy actually) as they were the same age, had similar interests and were MASTERS at agitating me to no end.  Thank goodness my brother didn’t come on this trip as the two of them could have teamed up against me.  Here’s the inaugural sleeping picture.  Looks comfy, don’t you think?: