We're Strangers Here Ourselves

If you've read some of Bill Bryson's books*, you'll probably get a good chuckle out of the title of this blog. If not, I'll fill you in. Simply put, it refers to the feeling of being back in your own country and yet feeling like a complete stranger (i.e., idiot foreigner). And that is exactly how we felt.

Yes, save for the last three and a half months, I spent my whole life looking left then right before crossing the road and the last 14 years driving on the right. Yet despite this, I could not for the life of me remember to look left first at intersections, nor did I feel the least bit comfortable riding on the right side of the road. By the time Monday rolled around and Matt and I were walking around San Francisco, I had resorted to quickly and constantly turning my head right and left while crossing roads and hoping for the best (and probably looking like a total fool).

Everything seemed more strange than familiar. We found ourselves drooling over the shopping (okay that was just me) and the plethora of food options - sushi on every corner, mexican, spanish, ethiopian, wings. And neither of us could get over how cheap things were: $5.50 for clam chowder in a bread bowl, $3.75 for a beer, $125 for a really nice pair of jeans. It was awesome and made us think California was affordable. Wow.

The night we left the U.S. we stopped in a little corner market to pick up a few novelty food items to take back with us. We couldn't find crystal light, but we did buy marshmallows, graham crackers, a bottle of hot sauce, two bottles of blue cheese dressing, and a bag of beef jerky (the beef jerky was most definitely not mine). It probably looked like a pretty disgusting smorgasbord to the checkout guy.

Anyway, our short trip was rather eventful and was quite a lot of fun:

We left our place here in Townsville around 9:15am on Thursday October 1st and arrived in Santa Cruz 44 hours later in the afternoon of October 2nd. Yes, it took us 44 hours to get there. To make a long story short, our first flight from Townsville to Sydney was delayed three hours, which put us there well after our Sydney-San Francisco flight had departed. When we did finally arrive in Sydney we raced to the United counter only to find that it was empty. As luck would have it, there was one guy left in United's administration office one floor up from the ticket counters who was nice enough to book us on the flight for the following day. Of course, that meant we had almost 24 hours to kill in Sydney....

Turns out Sydney is a great place to get stranded. We took the train downtown, checked into a hotel, and set out to explore the city as much as we could. The Harbor Bridge and the Opera House were about a 10 minute walk from our hotel, and both were incredible sights to see. They're even more beautiful than you could imagine from a photograph, and as we sat sharing a basket of yam chips and beers, we couldn't stop thinking about how lucky we were to be there.

The next day we flew from Sydney to LA, then from LA to San Francisco, both flights being relatively uneventful. My dad and sister Meg were both there to pick us up at SFO and take us down to Santa Cruz. That night we had delicious dinner at Bittersweet Bistro with our parents and Matt's extended family. It was so wonderful to see everyone.

Saturday was the big day when Brian, Matt's brother, and his fiancee Julie tied the knot. The ceremony and reception was to take place that afternoon on Mount Madonna Park near Santa Cruz and Watsonville, California. While getting ready at the hotel, I had a slight problem with my dress. After moving the zipper halfway up the back of my dress, it simply would not budge. (And just in case you were wondering, it was not because I no longer fit in the dress!) Having packed lightly for the trip, I didn't have a backup dress but my sister Meg offered to give me the dress she was wearing since she had a spare outfit she could wear. What a relief that was. We quickly changed clothes and headed out to the wedding.

On the way to the ceremony Matt received a phone call from Brian. He urgently needed him to stop by a grocery store to pick up a few bottles of hydrogen peroxide. Why you ask? Well, Bingo, the "best dog" in the ceremony, had become a bit too friendly with a skunk at the campsite the night before and no one could bear to stand within a few feet of him. Literally minutes before the wedding Matt was helping Brian give Bingo a hydrogen peroxide sponge bath. It did help, at least enough so that the members of the wedding party didn't have to hold their noses during the ceremony. Anyway, the wedding was absolutely gorgeous as was the bride. We had a blast and we were so happy to have been there.

On Sunday we said goodbye to Brian and Julie at brunch and then went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with both of our parents. Since our flight left Monday evening, we spent the night Sunday night in San Francisco and we spent the day bumming around the city. The highlight of the day for us both was the delicious sushi dinner. It was heavenly.

We caught our flight from SFO that night and arrived back home in Townsville around 11am on Wednesday. Exhausted and happy. But without the beef jerky, which got confiscated at customs in Sydney.

We'll put photos up as soon as we can.

*"I'm a Stranger Here Myself" is Bill Bryson's book about moving back to the US after having spent at least a decade in England.