XC 1X2

Picking up my parents. Settling in. Getting used to real life. It feels good to flip through the stash of things I left behind. My closet has been somewhat limited for the last few months and now I have a lot more brushes to paint with. I see my cast iron pans I brought up, the thought of cooking again excites me. I wound up baking a loaf of bread, just because I can again. I wrote this post a few days after getting back. I think the pace of writing finally got to me and I needed a break. Now there's plenty for me to do and I get to do it while stationary. This feels a lot like where I left of after my motorcycle trip. See you all for my next big adventure.

 We hop the congested highway to the airport and after an eternity, we’re there. In the security line I ask for a hand check on my roll of photo film. They refuse. I ask for a manager. They tell me the roll goes through the scanner or doesn’t fly. I angrily chuck it in a bin and pass to the terminal.  Now I’m salty, I have two hours to kill, and I’m sitting in a room full of people who have warrants in Florida for punching swamp creatures and DUI. My parents and I chat to pass the time and soon enough, they’re called to their gate. My flight is coming soon enough so I migrate. I hear my name called and a massive line forms, apparently the airline didn’t jive with my passport check and needs to do it again. Normally this wouldn’t annoy me but I’ve got a tight land-side connection at LAX to hit. My flight lands at five and there’s a bus that can pick me up at five forty five. The next one isn’t for another two hours. I was hoping to stash my bag in a bin and breeze through custo...

 I’m starting to lose my mind a bit. I think if I came here stressed I’d be in heaven but right now I kind of want to be stressed. I’m sitting with my toes in the sand fantasizing about doing my taxes. After over thirty weeks on the road, the prospect of a consistent bed and being able to not constantly ask for the WiFi password holds novelty. I feel more than a little out of sync with the environment.  I spent most of the day inside watching TV. This is something I seldom do. In fact, I don’t own a TV and I don’t have any streaming accounts. About the more I’ll indulge in that is watching Columbo when I am sick. I stand by that show, one of the greats.

 My last full day here. I feel like I am overdosing on liminal space and exhausted from dissociating. It’s lovely here but I don’t want to relax, I’ve been doing that for months. This place is beautiful but I haven’t taken any photos, there just isn’t anything interesting going on. Fiona flew out. I found the spicy salsa. Sleep.

 Another slow day I filled primarily by watching documentaries. At the end of the day, someone brought up the idea of going into town. Into town we went. Cabo San Lucas is a weird place. A couple decades ago this was a tiny unheard of fishing village on the sand in Baja. In the late 80s the government decided to make it a designated tourist zone. Read: sacrificial lamb territory. Attract all the worst tourists to one particular place so they don’t come to Oaxaca demanding an English menu and a blended margarita. It’s working. After four decades of attracting every degenerate in Southern California that can figure out how to buy a plane ticket, Cabo San Lucas more closely resembles Newport’s Balboa Blvd than anywhere in Mexico. If you come here you won’t need to speak Spanish beyond whatever you think you’re supposed to say to ask for another beer (I’ve heard so much butchered Spanish) and you certainly won’t need to exchange any currency. The cheap parts feel like the worst parts o...

 I woke up and sauntered into the sun to find my family having lunch outside. The whole family. My sister Fiona had popped in from the bay while I was sleeping. I can’t remember the last time we were all sitting at one table. I take my seat and take it in. There isn’t much to catch up on, we stay in touch, but there’s always plenty to talk about. After lunch Fiona gets a tour of the area and we wind up at one of the pools. My plan was simple, read my book in the sun and drink beer. Unfortunately it was not going to be so simple, a very drunk American in the hot tub was loudly conducting a very important lecture at whomever was misfortune enough to be in earshot. I relocated myself to the swim up bar nearby. When his howlings made it that far, I closed my book. If you can’t beat em, join em. This fine sunburnt specimen of an American tourist came all the way from San Marcos (hate California. Newscum made the taxes too high) to haunt my life in Mexico. Joining him in the pool was a b...

 I have no circadian rhythms left. The word jet lag implies that I’m on another place’s time. That’s not true. I’m not lagged, just a mess. I went to bed shortly after dinner, whenever that was, woke up for a few hours in the night, and passed back out again. At one in the afternoon I got a knock on my door and my mother’s voice calling my name. I answered and then the knocking disappeared. A few minutes went by and the knocking was back followed by a question about a massage. Massage, massage, right! There was a massage today. I considered skipping it to stay in bed but the urgent pounding outside my bedchamber anxiously reminding me that I had a pressing requirement to relax NOW moved me. Waking up and landing on a massage table is an interesting sensation, I recommend it if you get the chance. After a disorienting relaxation experience, it was time to chill by the pool. Beer, view, do nothing. No thinking, just vibes. This continued until dinner which happened at a restaurant wi...

 This morning and I got off on the wrong foot. A 5 am alarm is never a good way to start the day, especially after a long night. I shove my stuff into my bag and head off to the airport. The hotel’s shuttle is packed full of weary travelers who all, like me, have some need to be at LAX before sunrise. Owie. The van smells like ass, someone hasn’t washed themselves well and the driver has remembered to crack the radio but not the ventilation. Good morning. I check in, toss my bag on the belt, and begin my security ritual. Mainly this means moving the roll of film I was gifted in Uzbekistan into my pocket as a reminder to request a hand check. It’s not in my carry on. I see my duffel roll down the belt and I’m filled with a sense of frustration dulled by sleeplessness. This thing I’ve managed to keep safe for over a month is now getting blasted with X Rays. It might come out okay, it might not. I’ll have no way of knowing until I shoot the roll, pay to have it developed, and see my m...

 I thought for a while about what to call this post. You may have noticed by now that I name the posts after the places I visit. When I’m traveling it’s the start and end points. Over the next two(?) days I’ll fly fourteen and a half hours from here to LA, layover in a hotel overnight, and then fly to Cabo. Going going, back back, to cali cali for less than a day. It doesn’t feel right to call Los Angeles one of my destinations, too final. I’m going to Mexico. Australia has been lovely. I feel like I’ve picked up a rock and seen a whole world underneath it. My whole life I’d been told that I have family down here. After years and years of thinking that I should probably head over, I’ve finally done it and what an experience it has been. Particularly, at this point in the trip it just feels so good to see people who understand more about me than the average stranger. After some brief mechanical delays, we are pointed at the sky and due east. The flight proceeds uneventfully enough. ...

My last full day in the land of Aus. I had some small errands to run and Ash elected to accompany me on my adventure into the city. The first stop was an Ugg store, my dad’s birthday is coming up and he was after a pair of house shoes. The Aussie specials are not currently produced in any form I’d call a house shoe, strange. All chunky soles and high calves these days. Oh well. Laneways, Laneways, Laneways We walked further to check the next thing off the list, get Marcel a magic. This is a Melbourne special. A double ristretto balanced out with a dallop of steamed milk. This tastes like the perfect evolution of the cappuccino. Highly recommend. As we sipped our coffee on crates in a laneway we noticed a flock of barristers in gown doing the same. A quick Google later and we were on our way to the Victoria Supreme Court to see what we could see. No more open sessions for the day but they did have some cool exhibits. Big judge gowns and Santa robes. Vintage wig tins. Some fantastic bike...

 It’s been a while since I spent a morning at a proper museum. Plenty of folks have been steering me to the Ian Potter Center and so downtown I went. The IPC displays the domestic collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and has an interesting mission. It shows contemporary and antique indigenous and European Australian art, an interesting mission. Where many galleries might divvy up the space, the IPC mixes all four together. You might see a traditional handmade Aboriginal fish trap displayed alongside oil paintings of white settlers. The juxtaposition is fascinating and helps to remind you of the depth of the history at play. One of the most incredible rooms was a display of bark art. Aboriginals would traditionally peel bark off of trees and paint them. In one room, there is a collection of antique, classically styled modern, and contemporary examples all displayed together. The eye dances from piece to piece and has a lot to take in, the ideas in each example are radical...

 After breakfast and being confronted with footage of last night’s festivities (oof) another relation scooped me up to spend time together. Ruthie and Sam Persol are relations of mine not far from Sam and Eva Menahem. Sam came by the house to pick me up and took me on a tour of his Melbourne. He’s lived in the area for some years and as a local councillor, knows his best well. He took me back to his for lunch where Ruthie was waiting. We caught up over open-faced sandwiches, talked about family, and ate bread with vegemite (it had to happen at some point). Our next stop was a local theater for a fundraiser. Sam is a competitive table tennis player and his local club was selling tickets for a screening of Marty Supreme. Every subculture is excited for its time in the limelight and this is no exception. The movie was weird and good. Sam notes that the quality of the playing was not quite up to snuff. Back to their house for dinner, the whole mischpocha was invited to sit around the t...

 There’s a charm to seeing a city by bicycle. Ash volunteered to take me out on a rip through the inner burbs, winding by the Yarra river and into the city proper. When he and his friend rocked up for the ride in Lycra and on drop bars, I became concerned for my morning. My spidey senses tingled as I felt myself descending from type one fun into type two fun. Best to keep it there and not hit type three. The paths are lovely here and you have a great view of the natural environment as you roll around. Bikie (front) cyclist (back) The ride kicked my ass on the way back. I can feel that I’ve been out of the saddle for too long and what should have been an easy rip was more of a struggle for me than it should have been. I’ll blame the dragging brake. Getting back to the house was a welcome gift and I immensely enjoyed the shower and rest that followed. Once we had recovered. Ash and I wandered into the Melbourne CBD. Ages ago he was gifted his great grandfather’s camera, a Zorki C. No...

The paper here is wide, not the printer paper but the newspaper. I’ve always found a US broadsheet to be just a little bit unwieldy. If you have a Eurocentric commitment to the square root of two and the AX sizing system, your wide broadsheet just got wider. The whole thing feels off in the hand.  I walked from the house and started my day with a new experience, a flat white. Allegedly it was invented here and I haven’t had one yet. Skip it, it’s an extra milky cappuccino. If you love hot milk, hate coffee, and want to tell people you like coffee it’s a great choice. Why? I had to kill some time before my first real excursion, a trip to an art installation at the Jewish Museaum of Australia. Tammy Kanat is making some really incredible woven contemporary art and it was a treat to see her stuff. Full of creativity and craftswomanship. They spin too More art? Why not!? I pointed myself back to the CBD to The Nicholas building, a historic high rise known for being a vertical artist’s ...

 I woke up at Sam and Eva’s at about 9. For me, that’s par. In this house, I’ve been unconscious for an eternity. This is an early rising crowd, I think the contrast might be good for me. After a cup of tea I zipped off to downtown. While freshening up, I noticed my hair is growing more than a little too long. Might be best if my first stop is for a haircut. I exit the subway and while getting my bearings find I’m right next to a barber, perfection. The barber expertly lowers my ears and asks a lot of questions about American politics. Lotus of us yanks have been in town for the Australian tennis open and he’s not clear on how things are out there. Apparently we give strongly conflicting answers based on our political orientation. That alone is a bad sign. We really are living in two different realities.  I took a caffeine stop at Pellegini’s, the oldest espresso bar in the country. They got started in the 50s when some members of the local Italian community brought a machine ...

I haven’t had a good long overland train ride since I left the US. Sure, there were some rail days in Europe but the legs out there are so short and full of transfers that you hardly get any time to relax. Long haul rail is like being on a ferry. You’re exposed to some truly desolate places with all time to unwind and space to stretch. I picked up some snacks for the road and got on my way. Luckily for me, my room is across the street from Sydney Central with a grocery store on the way. Easy and peasy. I found my platform and took my seat. First class on the XPT here is comparable to a typical seat on the Surfliner back home. Unfortunately I don’t get the second story views or the outlets I’ve grown to love. Why is it that outside of the US people think it’s acceptable to run a 10 hour long train service without outlets. Just absurd. My seatmate is an Aussie from the northern part of the country. He just flew in to Melbourne and is going out to the middle of nowhere to spend some time ...

 I am once again in a country that knows how to melt cheese. Highly exciting. Yes, you can find things with melted cheese in them in Turkey and India. No, they are not plentiful enough or well done to be noteworthy. Pizza. I was craving pizza. I don’t think I’ve had any at all since leaving Italy. Since I slept in, I happily wolfed down a pie on my lonesome as a late breakfast. The topology of the transit network here is pretty unique and I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. They’ve got a ton of electrified mainline rail running through the city center in tunnels which feels kind of S-Bahn like. Sometimes the trains through run and sometimes they’re pushed through a little loop and spat back out. It’s almost like the trains are run through a massive traffic circle underneath the city. On top of this (literally) there’s a tram network and one metro line. Also frustrating me is the letter designations. The mainline trains are labeled T and then a number. In any other part o...

 A much needed full night’s sleep. Thank God for earplugs. Amaris had already woken up for her hostel’s 10 am checkout time. Since I still had a room, she came by to stash her bags inside. I needed breakfast so we walked to a cafe close by while I hashed out a blog post. Gotta keep that #content coming. After breakfast we popped over to the Sydney Opera House. Something our trip to the film lab betrayed is that the woman she entrusted to take a photo of her in front of the opera took a photo of her blocking the opera. Do-over success. With the botanical gardens nearby, it was only natural for us to wander over and explore it. The park is full of curious flora and fauna. Being an island, the only living things that look familiar here are either imported or humans. Everything else looks like it came from some uncanny valley of evolution. Great fun. First opera house of the trip I don’t go inside I can only relax in the grass for so long and suggested a cup of tea. Google betrayed a p...

 I tossed the eye mask when I was in the airport. It was clearly made for Asian faces. My head is too big and my nose is too pointy to wear the thing. I tossed it on at one point and it felt like a wrestler was pressing his thumbs into my eyes. Not pleasant. After trying to sleep without one, I’m seconded guessing my choice. I hate sleeping on planes and I hate waking up on planes. Become conscious, do not move. At least I managed to finish my book. We land and I breeze through immigration and customs. Annoyingly, the land of AUS still uses paper arrival cards. In 2026 that means you need to hunt down a pen from some Good Samaritan nearby. I nervously declare my sack of tea and the border force welcomes me to New South Whales. Fantastic. I’m renting an Airbnb which means check in doesn’t start until four. Luckily, it’s near central station so there are plenty of luggage storage options. I stash my bags with the local cig stop and head north. A fun coincidence, my friend Amaris from...