Summer in February is still a foreign concept to me, yet here I sit in the blistering heat. It’s forecasted at 100F today, with a heat index of WHAT THE EFF WHY IS IT SO HOT.
Despite our advantageous location of being in the Northern Beaches, I’m still feeling the dredge of summer as I type this. No air conditioning reminds me that this was once a penal colony. I believe the harshness of the environment here created a race of super humans known only as: ‘Strayans.
You’ve just landed in a foreign land. You don’t speak the language and everyone is driving on a completely different side of the road. You think “Aw, hell with it, how am I supposed to figure out where to run?”
STOP! You can do this! You even packed your bright purple and pink Brooks shoes! No going back now.
Summer in Australia announces it’s presence as a warm breeze that wafts lazily into the family room while you’re enjoying Pavlova and a cold, Australian white. Unlike Florida summers, often overwhelming in nature, Australian summers are like a warm security blanket. With them come all the perks one would expect to find in the warmest part of the year; Lazing around on beaches, eating mangos, getting sunburns.
In the last few years of globe trotting, I’ve learned a really, really important lesson: Pick an airline. Ok, you can just pick a preferred network, but then you have to stick to it.
Traveling casually, I always took the cheapest fair (which, turns out, is what most people do). Typically, I would also sign up for whatever frequent flyer program that airline offered as well. But to what end? I had a couple thousand miles on a smattering of airlines around the world. When I started traveling for business, I realized what the hell those points were even for. Continue reading
The Girl In Translation 