All Good Things...

Well, the Buzios dream had to end at some point. After living in the lap of luxury with Elise’s family in a cottage in “the Hampton’s of Brazil” and with the whole country on the verge of New Year’s eve climax, Elise and I took off to Australia. The first leg of our journey was a flight from Rio to Sao Paulo, our plane scheduled to land just after the stroke of midnight. Let me say this: spending New Year’s on a plane is not necessarily the miserable, party-less experience you’d expect it to be. Ok, it was party-less (they didn’t serve any bubbly!), but even though our plane was early, we managed to see hundreds of fireworks peppering the Sao Paulo skyline as we landed. Pretty cool sight. Then I slept on a table in the Sao Paulo airport since our flight to Buenos Aires wasn’t until eight in the morning. I mean sure, I’ve slept/passed out on flat, hard surfaces in all my clothes on New Year’s before, but this time I had exactly zero drinks in my system from our virtually non-existent New Year’s celebration, thus making the bright, noisy airport environment a little less tolerable.

Anyway, our flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney was neither transatlantic nor transpacific. Instead, it was transantarctic. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so we were never able to actually lay eyes on the Frozen Continent. What’s more, my compass was stolen in Peru so I couldn’t watch the needle to see what happened as we crossed the South Pole. Bummer.

Now we’re in Australia – what a relief to be back in the English-speaking developed world where we don’t have to worry about eating bacteria-ridden lettuce or brushing our teeth with tap water!! In fact, being in Australia is probably the closest thing to being home in Toronto right now – minus the slushy streets and 4:30 pm sunset (and the NHL season L!!)

-G

How 2011 began for us

Classic Brazilian Santas: thumbs up and wearing flip flops

I've had worse

Sea ice off the coast of Antarctica