The Silent One Steps Forward

First of all, I must apologize for not writing thus far. If I had a good excuse I guess that now would be a good time to put it to use, but there are none available to me. I will say that now that we have settled for a few weeks we will be able to be more regular with our updates and you should be hearing more from us.

I suppose that I should give a quick rundown of my thoughts and musings since the beginning of the trip since it has already been four weeks...

It's really quite epic when you think about it:

Four siblings,scattered by time and their own adventures hither and yon, set out on a journey to reunite and reconnect after a lengthy relational hiatus. Their plan is to undertake a grand adventure seeing the world as they go, facing dangers and uncertainties, meeting friends and foes along the way and hopefully departing with a deeper understanding of eachother and the world they live in.

Sounds like a movie or at least a reality TV show. But this is our adventure and here we are in the midst of it. To this point it has been everything from exciting and thrilling to overwhelming and claustophobic. And this has only been four weeks.

This is how I see the way that the interpersonal dynamic works itself out. Each one of us has sort of been our own person for the last six years or so. Sure we would meet up on holidays and special events like graduations and such, but beyond that we all did our own thing. We had our independence and we liked it well. Now we find ourselves in this situation where we have to make decisions as a foursome and we depend on eachother for emotional support, where if someone is late we wait for them and if someone is having a bad day, we all have to bear the weight. On the flipside we have four people who specialize in certain fields and that comes to the table too. Grace-Emma is our soical person. She chats people up and makes phone calls and generally handles all of our PR. Hilko is the videographer and techie and also our resident philosopher. Annette is in charge of photography and is the 'intern' in the group(which really is just a nice way of saying she gets handed the jobs that we don't want to do.)I do finances and random logistical tasks. We like this arrangement and when it is working it is a beautiful thing.

I suppose I should say a bit about the countries we've seen so far.

Holland:

I have a very romantic view of Holland. This was my tenth time in the country and I still look at it very starry-eyed. Who wouldn't want to live in a place like Holland? It's clean, well-run, and full of beautiful stylish people. Everyone speaks English (even the bum on the street, I found out) and they are friendly and well-mannered. I suppose that there are plenty of things that are not to like about Holland; I just don't want to acknowledge them. Our time in Holland was short but very enjoyable with lots of glimpses into the culture and a lot of great memories made. Near the top of my list was happening upon a live performance by Mental Theo during our first night in the country. Who's Mental Theo? Only the greatest DJ in the world. Props to Fokko and Geke for letting us stay with them.

Germany:

We only spent a few hours here. How ironic is it that we ended up in a Texas-style roadhouse where the waitresses had to strain to understand our English? Very ironic.

England:

What I heard about England was true. London is notoriously expensive, the crowds are insane in August, everyone does carry a little Nokia phone and there really is a pub on every corner. We only spent a weekend, but we had plenty of good times and my advice to anyone headed for England is see the city for a day and spend the rest of your time in a small town. That's the real England. Props to the Swanns for being such good hosts. We owe you one. Stop by on your next trip to Fernie.

Scotland:

The truth about our time in Glasgow is that all we really saw was the inside of the hostel we stayed at and the streets that we passed on the way to the STA Travel nearby. What we saw was nice and I like Glasgow much more than London, even though London is glitzier and has way more money. People are really really nice and their accents are so cool that you want to think up random questions with long answers just so that you can hear them talk. We didn't hook up with any haggis but we will on the way out. Props to our man George at STA for all the work he did for us in order to make sure that we made it to Australia. George had faith because he worked on something that I don't know if he fully believed would even happen. Cheers

Dubai:

Another one of those few hour stops. It was 2:30 in the morning and it was 33 degrees. There were so many people. It was so much to take in. By a stroke of luck, the airline put us up in a posh hotel during our stopover. I was too tired to really apprectiate it all but one distinct memory is that my first night in the Middle East was a throwback to my first night in Africa. A lot of the same smells and sensations. Africa vets, so far my impression of the ME is that it is Africa with a lot of money. Something funny is that I am in the hotel and want to take in some culture so I flip on the telly and they were playing American Idol and the Sopranos.

Australia:

Everyone needs to come here. You will be hearing lots more from me about this country so for now suffice it to say that this is a beautiful country and I am looking forward to being here for the next few months. News so far is that we are living in a town called Warrnambool(good luck pronouncing that) on the South Coast. To give you an idea of bearings we are about 5 hours west of Melbourne right on the ocean. It takes us about 2 hours to drive to the Grampians(how do you like them apples, Colin?) We will be here for the next few months. Hilko and I are working contruction and the girls are helping at the house of the people we are staying with. It is a comfortable arrangement and leaves us with lots of freedom to explore this part of the country. Like I said you will be hearing more from us more often from here on out so I won't bore you with trite. Stay tuned.