All the leaves are falling...

Yesterday was my last evening in Vancouver so I spent all night packing, squishing, pulling out and re-packing...I think I’ve stuffed the last of my Canadian goodies into the suitcases, which are now perfectly balanced out at 23kg each and both bursting at the seams! (I am now carrying two 2kg tubs of Peanut Butter and two big hummer bags of Jalapeno & Cheddar chips in my carry-on bag...the things I do for my fiancé! Haha I think he’s worth it!...update: apparently peanut butter is considered a liquid for airline purposes?!? It's now in the garbage bin, sad.)

My work in the dungeon is now done. It’s been 4 long weeks of mixing mud cakes, index testing, reading data, recording data, analyzing data...and the legacy I am leaving behind is a lab record for most tests completed in a single day. Yay me!? Bin and Juan took me out for sushi today to bid me farewell, it’s been great getting to know the guys in the lab! And a total bonus...I came out on top of the KCB office footy tipping competition for the Rugby World Cup after like 10 gruelling rounds of sports betting!! Yep, that's right folks, $350 bones richer #thankyouverymuch! We all know how much I love to follow Rugby in my spare time ;)

This post features the last weekend of my month long Canadian business trip...again, nothing to do with business and all to do with weekend fun! My lovely university friend, Brittany, flew in from Calgary for the weekend and we had a wonderful time drinking mocha lattes in Stanley Park and visiting the super cute animals that live in the aquarium there. 

I still can’t get over how beautiful fall has been here in B.C. I totally lucked out with mostly all sunshiney days and some of the most vibrant fall colors I’ve ever seen. Every shade of red, yellow and green filled Stanley Park, definitely a time of year to cherish. I’ve been so blessed to have had special visits every weekend that I’ve been in the city, thank you thank you. It’s been a wonderful way to re-fill the friends/family love tank! I think the tank is overflowing at the moment and should last me well into our next 9 months in Oz.

But for now I’m ready to get this 15 hour flight over and done with so that I can relax over a long weekend staycation in Byron Bay with my love! So long for now Canada, you’ve been good to me! See ya in 9 more months! Summer time here I come!

Xo Tegs

Home, home on the range...

The best part about being sent to work in Canada has had little to do with the work...nope nothing at all actually. Its that I have finally had the chance to visit my family, who I haven’t seen since we moved across the big pond over 14 months ago! This past weekend was brilliantly jam packed with great times because my mom came to spend three days with me in Vancouver...we had a fantastic time at the Alberta Ballet dedicated to Elton John, trying on my very first wedding dresses, shopping around the city and of course just relaxing and catching up over a glass of wine or two. Its not all that often that I get my mama all to myself and i enjoyed every minute of hogging her!

We met up for dinner with my Grandpa and Ann one night in Burnaby. I love how my mom lights up when she spends time with her dad! He can always put a smile on your face with his silly antics. Aren’t these pictures gorgeous?!

 
 

  

This is the farm in Ft. Langley where my mom spent her teenage days. The house is ancient and has so much character. My grandpa still keeps the yard looking picture perfect.

Melly and I had fun 
out there last weekend
wandering the property
for old times sake!

This weekend coming up marks my last weekend in Canada until we move back next year! My beautiful friend Brittany is flying out this Friday to spend the weekend with me and we have plenty of fun in store, hopefully the rain stays away until the weekend is over! 

 

Without a doubt I’ve had so much time to catch up with loved ones during my four weeks in B.C. but it’s these long week nights spent in this lonely old hotel room that i just want to be back with my love enjoying our days in the sunshine!! I’m counting down the sleeps (9!) till we are back together again...and off on another peaceful staycation in Byron Bay...what better way to get over the jet lag than to lay by the ocean listening to the sounds of the waves crashing into shore...ahhh!

Thanks for the fabulous visit mama!

Xo Tegs

OH Canada!

Well I’ve been in Canada for fifteen days now and I must say it really feels like home! Its funny how many of the differences don’t faze me in Australia, which stand out now that I'm on home soil! I love this land of beautiful mountain views, crisp fall mornings, a warm Timmies in hand, genuine smiles and polite manners, a delicious Caesar, 12% HST and tipping...wait what?!

I had a wonderful visit with my sis-in-law Kelsey, who flew in for the weekend to spend time with me. We wandered through the Granville Island markets, got lost on the Sky Train and of course had many delightful eats and drinks. 

There is definitely a nip in the air now that October has rolled around, but there is just something to  be said about the changing of the seasons that is so welcoming...like shedding the old layer of the past season and getting a fresh start on the season ahead. Not to mention getting all layered up, it's like being wrapped in a big snuggley hug!

This weekend was Thanksgiving and I am so thankful to have had my twin sis Meliss come to spend the holiday in Vancouver. We squeezed in some shopping, Earl's dinners, and some great family visits. Its always far too long between seeing our grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins...

There are just so many things to be thankful for in this crazy, beautiful life I am living! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to share this time with my love, who is still home in Brisbane! Its easy to forget the wonderful freedoms that come from living in (two of) the most gorgeous country(s) in the world! For happiness and health, for the opportunity to gather with family and friends and to be able to travel this gorgeous globe with the love of my life! For pumpkin pie (a variety that doesn't even exist in Oz!!) and for turkey dinner...so much gratitude...thanks for taking the time to stop by and have a read!

xo Tegs



What are you thankful for?

The drama at 35,000 ft!

Hi my lovely friends! I FINALLY got my laptop back from the computer dr. and am happy as a clam (how happy are clams, really?!) to be reunited! The timing couldn’t have been much better either, because a week ago I was asked to go to Vancouver for a work assignment. So this post is being written at 35,000 ft, travelling at 524 mph. At this point in the trip I’ve travelled 4021 miles and have 3883 miles left to go...Ughh, only half way! I’ve been sitting in the same spot for exactly 7 hours...and am only getting stiffer and lonelier as the miles pass. The drunk blondie in the row beside me has decided to invent a 3rd seat in a 2 seater pod and has decidedly perched herself upon the two wayward travellers like a liberated lap dog...it’s strange, I know, but the unlimited alcohol has caused her to lose function of volume control and she has made it very obvious that she has taken full advantage of the complimentary beverages...of which she has now been cut off from. Of course the two dudes can’t decide if she’s a total lunatic presenting them with a most peculiar form of entertainment, free of charge...or if they are building some sort of complex and meaningful relationship over topics ranging from James Bond and Mr. Bean to a fuelled rant about how they will never meet another girl like her, “one in a million, even in Australia”...but wait, oh he has! He almost married someone like her, hence he is returning to Canada, he explains as she lay across the two guys, making a human bed of them, all of this in the span of 2 minutes. Much to her horror, the seat belt sign has been turned on, the captain must be catchin my vibes. Too bad they are still in hand holding distance from her assigned chair.

Anyways enough of that, so here I sit, anxiously waiting to get across the Pacific and back onto Canadian soils! It just hit me that this is the first time I am making the 8000 mile journey alone, and I already miss my love more than I can even begin to describe. I am sooo looking forward to catching up with family and friends in Vancouver in every spare minute that I’m not working. Given that I only had a weeks’ notice to put life in Brisbane on hold, the prep for this trip has been hairy to say the least. But I’m ready to indulge in all great things Canadian for the next month. I think a Caesar with my twin sis tops the list right now!

I will use this time, being glued to my seat, to catch up on our Aussie spring adventures, which were riveting compared to the moment I find myself in right now...seriously, this girl just put her bare feet through the chair space and onto my arm rests...ew!! I give her about 20 mins before she passes out for the rest of the flight...at least one of the attendants has finally taken the initiative to remind her she’s not in a bar. 

Here are some snaps from September, which has already come and gone. For Dave and I September began in Cairns, where we met for a decompressing vacay after I completed my one month field rotation in PNG. It was the most relaxing four days we’ve had in a long time. Just beaches and sand and more beaches, all in all, a lovely time. Now that Summer is rolling in, we can already feel the heat. So last weekend we spent the day at Main Beach on the Gold Coast. It was a perfect 31 degrees of sunshiney bliss. We snacked on a picnic, swam in the surf and read our books by the sound of the sea all day long. It was a perfect day, so I won’t say much, I’ll let the pictures do the talking!

xoxo Tegs 

Snap!

Oh hey there blogger friends! So sorry to have taken FOREVER to finally post again, but I am having some technical difficulties. seriously. The cable cord that charges my laptop has been on its last leg for months now (anyone who has skyped with us may know we had to gingerly hold the cord at the precisely correct angle so the computer would keep its charge) and it finally kicked the bucket. Dropped dead. Kaput. Gonzo. I mean it snapped right in two pieces, which left me hopelessly unable to charge my laptop. The computer is now laying there gathering dust, and selfishly hording our photos from our Cairns mini vacation that I so desperately want to share!! So this is a little reminder to hang in there, hopefully the Cord Dr. will have it mended in the next two weeks and I can get back to my happy blogging self once again! Thanks for stopping by :)
xo Tegs

Welcome to the Jungle!

Helloooo…is anybody out there??

It’s been over three very long, tiring weeks since I have had any real contact with the world, outside of the PNG jungle. Today is my last day on site before I close out 25 wild days in Papua New Guinea and I have finally got a chance to write a little bit about what life has been like out here.

Working 12 hours a day for 25 days straight, almost feels as though I’ve woke up and am strangely on some episode of Survivor or something. Ok, so maybe it’s not quite THAT dire, but the living can get pretty rough out here (especially for what little old me is used to!)

For starters, I was assigned a bodyguard (thats him to the left) when my colleague left site to return to Brisbane! Yes, you read that right, a bodygaurd!! I did this nervous laugh when asked if I wanted one and the supervisor said, No, I’m not joking, I think it’s better to be safe than sorry!! Umm, what?!?! So of course I obliged. I definitely had lots of hard work cut out for me, but at least I wasn’t going to have to go it alone. He was very friendly and helpful and even gave me a hand-crafted Bidum that his mother had weaved as a parting gift. (These ‘purses’ are all the rage out here, let me tell you, it’s a funny site to see hundreds of big, beefy men carrying their belongings in these elegantly weaved, colorful shoulder bags!) I told him he was a great ‘sidekick’…but seeing as English isn’t the spoken language here it required an explanation…so I said, we make a good team, like Batman and Robin!

The language barrier has been only a small bump in the road out here. Most of the crew can understand the basics, the tricky part is trying to explain how you want them to go about the job when you are standing next to a rig that is banging and clanging and everyone has ear plugs in to attempt to salvage what’s left of their eardrums after hours of standing next to what sounds like a freight train. I got a lot of smiles and head nods before I eventually realized that doesn’t necessarily indicate understanding. Thankfully I latched on to a few guys who spoke English just about as fluently as they spoke Pigeon and everything smoothed out.

The people I have worked with have been so wonderful and I have so many special memories of our time together. I loved listing to their funky music, hearing all their stories about village life, and the traditions of their culture. The thing that stood out the most was just how helpful and kind everyone is here. I am taking home a new respect for the hard working lifestyles that everyone here are happy to lead day in and day out, with the brightest of smiles. You wouldn’t think this is a place where disease is rampant, internet doesn’t really exist and someone asks what that thing is that you are listening to?…an ipod!

The food at the mess (aptly named dining hall) was often daunting…rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner! It usually seemed that whatever was for dinner the previous evening, ended up being for lunch the next day…coincidence?...I think not! The food that I did recognize was usually full of grease…so it was slim pickings most of the time. I was told not to eat the raw vegetables so I did shy away from that, but lord knows cooked cabbage gets old fast! I had a bad stomach bug in the first week, but my innards must have become accustomed to the grub after that.

One afternoon I was taken on a personal tour of the site and as we drove to the edges of the boundary (its massive…actually a huge river runs through the center and the site stretches for kilometers on both sides) we could see people rummaging in the rainforest. We got out to meet this tiny frail old man…I thought he looked about 65 but my guide said he was probably only about 40, just evidence of what a trying lifestyle does to your body. He invited us to see his ‘house’ it was basically a little shack built out of branches with a palm leaf roof. There was a little black spot on the ground where he had built a fire. Nearby, there was a gigantic stump where tree had been cut down with piles and piles of wood cuttings scattered on the forest floor. He told us (in Pigeon to the guide) that he had carved out a canoe from the trunk.

Then he took us to see his garden…a quaint little plot where he was growing tobacco. He was really proud of it and wanted me to take a photo of him working in it. It was such an amazing eye opener to see that this is his everyday life! I just can’t imagine it. As we drove the outskirts of the site we saw more and more people emerging from the bushes…usually armed with hunting bow and arrows. My guide explained that these people are all refugees that have escaped from Indonesia and walked 20km across the border into the Western Province of PNG, where our site is located, in search of freedom and a better life. We then saw a group of six men, ranging from little boys to elders, all working together to carve a canoe from another tree stump. One of the men showed us his hunting spears…I flashed my biggest, brightest ‘please don’t use that on me’ smile I could muster. It was terrifying and amazing at the same time.

 It’s actually crazy to think I might miss this place when I leave…but just the raw beauty of the jungle, the bright red clay, the swamp land that houses native crocodiles, the warm humid heat that bear hugs you at any hour, and the friendly faces that have been so welcoming, it has all added up to one big adventure that will not be soon forgotten.

 

 

Today I’m jetting off (private jet style...only 1 other couple on my charter) to meet my love in Cairns for a well deserved vacay to celebrate our anniversary of eight most truly amazing years together and one fabulous year of life in Australia! Its time for us to unwind at the Great Barrier Reef.

From the heart of the Papua New Guinea jungle,

Xoxo Tegs