Home Again

Well, we are back in Driggs, and strangely enough, it feels to me pretty much just like it did before I left last time. Except now it is winter. Funny how that is. 

We arrived home and basically jumped right into, well, everything. We have been quite busy the two weeks since coming back, which has been a good thing overall I believe. The wedding reception has been finalized and organized. I think I have managed to send paper invites/announcements to many who would like to have one or may be able to come. However, I know I have missed people (if you've ever done it yourself, you know how knarly the address tracking down can be, especially short notice) and, at this point, I would like to say that if I missed anyone who can or would like to come, please don't be offended, rather go to the website we have to find out the details and to RSVP! The website is: http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/MarthaHansen&NoahBarge 

It is good to be back, as wonderful as being in Australia was and, even though we still don't always know what we are doing, we are in a much better physical location to try and deal with the obstacles in front of us. Plus, for me, it is beyond wonderful to be home with me parents and to have them meet Noah. The hardest part is that Robin has yet to do so, but she will be home for spring break very soon and I can hardly wait to see her. 

We are currently living in the guest room/basement area at my parents, which is actually working out quite well--particularly because we don't plan to stay for too long. We have been helping them out by re-painting and getting ready for a small(yet major) remodel of one of their rental houses here in town and are hoping to be able to move in there in the next couple of weeks, even if only for a few months. Winter is definitely here, but the last few weeks have been quite sunny and warm for February, so it's helping us ease into things. Life is just cruising along and doing well! Love to all!

Top Three

Top Three Things I Miss about Australia:

1. The beach, ocean and sunshine. I know the beach isn't for everyone, but I'm one of those lucky ones who love it, and miss it, although the Tetons are a pretty decent trade-off--plus, it has been pretty sunny since we returned. 

2.  The toilets. Seriously. American toilets suck. They are SOO full of water and prove to be totally inefficient in comparison to the water-saving, half-flush/full-flush toilets in OZ. I was (and still am) shocked every time I flush the toilet and watch what a struggle it is for all the contents of the toilet to make it down. Come on North America, where is the innovation coupled with environmental consciousness at?!!

3. The red and green "engaged" and "vacant" gadgets found on every public toilet everywhere. The are good ideas in airplanes, why not restrooms? Plus, girls, how many of you have ever walked into a public restroom and had to bend down to check for feet under the stalls to see if any were open? Never had to do it once in OZ, once I was back, first bathroom I went to in the airport had me swinging my head up-side down to see which stalls where available. I miss not having to do that.  

Top Three Things I DON'T miss about Australia:

1. I hate to say it, but the accent. It really grated on the wrong nerve, especially by the end. Don't get me wrong, I still quite enjoy much of the vernacular (I do miss getting to use the word massive whenever I want to...), but the tone and sound of the accent, not my favorite....

 

2. The spiders. Especially because so many of them are so very poisonous, yuck. I will be OK though if I never see another Huntsman for quite sometime (they are maybe an average size of an outspread human hand...). 

3. The Syndey public transit system. I know, it's public transit, which is such a good thing, but we spent so much time and money just getting from necessary point A to point B, that we can't help but be a little tinsy bitter. Plus, the way it is organized, one has to go all the way into the city center to head back in a different direction (no east west routes). I was grateful it was there, but don't miss feeding the system time and money one tiny bit.

A few more things!

First! I keep forgetting to say, to my far flung friends (and those not so far flung), that we will be having a Driggs reception on the 21st of March, which I believe is a Saturday. I do not know many of the details yet, but will soon. The idea is that official announcements will get mailed soon. If you are someone who is from far away and needs more info to see if you can come, send me an e-mail and pester me. I'll get to it soon. Much love to all!!

Also, I think, if I did things right, this is a link that will take you to a copy of our wedding ceremony:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d3ffs7c_0cp5kdkgc

The Blues to White to Driggs!

The Blues
Whew! So, whirlwind trip up north, a crazy day in and out of Sydney, and we end up at a hostel in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (as mentioned at the end of the last post). Then, something happened. We both got sick of moving around like we had been, we both lost road-tripping energy, we were both grumpy, at each other, at the weather, at the road map...you name it; basically, in a lot of ways, we were just OVER IT...whatever you choose to identify IT as, we were probably over it. So, we spent a full day at the hostel and didn’t even leave to get milk; we just ate and talked and played backgammon and read and figured out what to do with the change in momentum. We decided it was time to go back to Kristin’s, even if there were a lot of cool things to see and do in the area. We were done. So we went back...and started getting ready for a wedding! (Although, we were mostly already prepared for it). The thing was, as excited as we were for the wedding, as much as the whole crazy affair, from Yogaville to Australia and onto now, has been and continues to be this wonderful adventure, we both were feeling more and more definitively that our time with Australia was over, it was time to move on to the next step, the next chapter, the next challenges. Between our energy, money, paperwork, motivation, and a whole slew of other known and unknown factors, we decided to come home early. So the Friday before our wedding we changed all our tickets around and got ready to leave on the 10th (the traveling process I am in the middle of at the time of this writing). That done time to get married!!

To White
As I wrote briefly, the day was wonderful and beautiful and really, despite everything...I guess easy. The ceremony was at 5 pm in the evening, so we woke up in the morning, had our coffee, got food ready for the afternoon (we had hummus, pita, diced tomatoes/cucumbers mixed together, greek yogurt, fresh fruit, crackers, some fancy cheeses, champagne, and most importantly my mom’s oatmeal chocolate chip cake for wedding cake). After getting everything packed up in the car since we would not be coming back to Kristin’s, Noah left with the car to go into the city, check into our hotel and get ready for the wedding. He was such a mess and so cute. I was so grateful that his friend Sarah was in the city to meet him and be there with him while he got ready! I, meantime, had lunch back at the house with Kristin, Robyn, and Peter, then started getting ready with Kristin. That took just about long enough...Peter snapped some pictures, loaded us in the car and drove down to Kirribbilli to get married!!! From there, it was easy. The ceremony was short, I hardly remember the details because I was just smiling and looking at Noah and holding onto his hand like there was nothing else! I guess I could probably post the written text on here so all you interested parties (if you are) can read it. I’ll get that worked out. Anyway, the ceremony was great, Noah surprised basically everyone, especially himself, and remained dry eyed and composed the whole time (later he said he thought the main reason he hadn’t was that he was in utter shock at how beautiful I was when he saw me walking up the path that his tear ducts didn’t know what to do, that made me cry!). After the ceremony Noah and I spent maybe a half an hour walking around with Peter doing photos. I really have no idea how long we took, mainly Noah and I were walking hand in hand talking and Peter was snapping away, occasionally telling us to stop and look or stand and pose somewhere (although never needing to ask that we smile!!). It was a really special bit of time that I will remember forever. When we came back to the park, all the food was spread out and we (all 8 of us, including noah and myself) spent the next few hours eating, drinking, visiting in the park, getting smiles from passerbys and simply enjoying the place, the company and the occasion. It was beautiful.

At about 8pm or so, we packed things up, said goodbye and many thanks to Kristin, Robyn and Peter, then caught a ride with Matt into the city where he dropped us off at our hotel. We spent two nights in the hotel and, although it was not the classiest joint in town, it was not the worst and being in our own space, that wasn’t a tent for even two nights was wonderful and fabulous. We took ourselves out for a wedding dinner to this really wonderful woodfire pizza place (we had both been craving pizza for over a week), watched TV, sat in the sauna, and enjoyed our time. Upon checking out, we moved over to Matt and Jerry’s house in Marrickville (near Newtown) for our last few days. We really did not do much other than run a few last errands, wander up and down Newtown some, enjoy Matt and Jerry’s company, and talk about how excited and glad we were to be heading home so soon—even if it is winter. Our first night, Matt and Jerry took us out for a celebration at this wonderful Indian restaurant and another night we made dinner for them, we both really enjoyed their company and conversation. I snuck in a quick hello to my friend Haakon who went to Whitman with me and is now married to an Australian. They were just returning from a 5-6 month trip to the states and we had been planning to spend some time with them later on the month. Regardless, it was another small world moment getting to see him and say hello and catch up even if for an afternoon. He and I both had a laugh over the fact that we are both married now, long before many others we went to college with—partly because we would never have guessed it ourselves!

To Driggs!
Well, that basically leads us to now...we dropped the rental car off this morning (tuesday), made it to the airport and started waiting. The last bit of this entry can be written after the travels end me and him back in driggs together!

At the moment, we are not quite back in Driggs, but are together. We both made it to LA safely, the time change is so strange. We left in the afternoon on Tuesday the 10th in Sydney and arrived in LA before the time we left Sydney...strange. Anyway, we got to Salt Lake City last night and had a room at a hotel my parents had reserved for us. That is where we are now. Noah is still asleep upstairs and I am just excited enough to be home that my jet-lag only allowed me to sleep 7 hours last night, so am killing time and trying to let hime sleep! (I slept more on my flight than him). But, we'll be in Driggs by this evening, we have a bus at noon from here to Rexburg, then a ride with mom from there to home!

It is definitely a bit of a shock to be in the cold all of a sudden again, but is almost a nice change, at least for a day or two. Already, probably the hardest thing to adjust to is going to be the hours of daylight. I hadn't even thought about that, but when we landed in SLC at 7pm and it was already dark, I was reminded of that. Oh well, it's all about trade-offs! OK, think that is all for now :)

Georgia and the North Coast

So, as I sit in the Fiji airport in transit to LA, and eventually home, it seems like a perfect opportunity to try and catch up on past stories and write a blog entry or two...

Man, our road trip up the north coast feels like ages ago, although only a week and a few days have passed since we returned. In a nutshell, it was a jam-packed, rather hectic (yet relaxing) few weeks, with MANY Kilometers covered. First, the car: Georgia. We rented the station wagon with a camp stove, a tent, two sleeping pads, some dishes, and a road map included. Getting ourselves out of Sydney was a long day; we first took the bus in from Mona Vale (wedding dress in tow), I went to a fitting for my dress alterations at a shop downtown, then we caught the train out to Traveler’s Mate, got lined out on the car, directions to a grocery store and out of town, then were off. Noah did all the driving, but, especially the first bit, both of us were constantly saying out loud, “short left, lllooonnnggg right” to one another, since that is one of the strangest things about driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Noah was a rock star though and safely drove us and the car out of Sydney and up the coast. We had been thinking our first stop would be Myall Lakes National Park, since it is relatively close to the city and we knew there was camping. However, we didn’t roll into the area until near dark and were pretty sure all the camping would be filled up since it was summer holidays, so spent the first night sleeping in the back of the car parked along a random small town street...the adventure begins!!! The next morning, we moved into an official campsite in Myall Lakes, which was a relief. While here, we took this small side trip to these sand-dunes along the coast that you can walk over (maybe 2 km?) to the ocean, it was really gorgeous and the geography was totally unlike the surrounding area of the rest of the park. It will definitely be a spot that will be a picture in my head forever.

From there on up, we were go, go, go. I think we were both just so relieved and excited to be finally out on our own doing something—and not located in a city—that we just drove. Within 4 or 5 days, we found ourselves up the coast about 300 km north of Brisbane (or more? my map is not in front of me) but just south of a town called Bundaberg in little village on the ocean called Woodgate Beach. We stayed two nights in Woodgate and it felt like we were there for a week! Other than figuring how to live out of a car, navigating, getting used to driving on the left, and basically spending oh so wonderful time with one another with nothing to do, there are a million other stories to tell :). I’m not sure I have the energy for them all! We were going to stop in Brisbane for a night-twice-and actually drove in once, parked, looked for a hostel for maybe 45 minutes, then decided to get the heck out of dodge! (I’m thinking we aren’t so much city people...). Quick highlights...we stayed three days in Byron Bay, which is sort of a circus of a town, but there is a reason it is a tourist destination. We took a snorkeling trip, which was basically a new thing for Noah, but a great thing to do, the site was out in the ocean near this random rock, so different than many places I’ve snorkeled, but we saw a turtle, a sting-ray, a massive jelly-fish, and a few different kinds of non-threatening sharks. Overall, Byron was a much needed pause in our frantic driving and we had a really great stay there, plus we found the best chocolate-banana thickshake in, possibly, all of East Coast Australia (thickshake = milkshake, milkshake = flavored milk a.k.a chocolate milk etc).

Probably one of my favorite places we stayed was this tiny little national park out in the middle of nowhere, located a fair bit inland. We had changed our minds earlier in the day about where we were going to go for the next night (what else is new) and chose this place instead only because the map told us there was a campground with toilets in the park. To get there, we drove inland and the landscape became increasingly dry, baren, and sparse. We drove through a few little towns (the ONLY towns out that direction), but other than that, nothing for miles. Then, all of a sudden, BAM we took a turn off for the park and found ourselves driving on this tiny, curvy, one lane road surrounded by green jungle on both sides. It was wild. The place we camped only had a few sites and there was an incredible view of the sky with no light pollution. We layed on our back on the grass looking at the stars and started naming them, since neither of us recognize any of the stars down here with the exception of Orion. If it weren’t for both our tendencies to change plans all the time, we would have never ended up here, but are both so glad we did!!

The final specific mention I’ll make is a place called Bellingen. Matt had recommended we stop here and missed it on the way up, but managed to swing by on the way back to Sydney. We could have stayed several more nights than the two that we did. Bellingen is located near the Dorrigo National Rainforest, which is, as it sounds, a proper rainforest that we walked through. The town had this funky, relaxed feel and a river that ran through the middle of it that one can swim in, intertube down etc. We took a little side trip to an area called Never Never Creek where we drove on this little road out in the country, stopped, parked the car and wandered up a little creek full of swimming holes until we saw one we like and jumped in. We also played golf, wandered around town, watched the hundreds of flying fox bats come out in the evening and spent a fair few hours playing backgammon at the hostel. The day we left, we woke up super early so that we could make it back to Sydney the same day for my final dress fitting in the city. Talk about a hectic day! We stopped by Mona Vale, made it to the dress appointment, then headed out of town to the blue mountains for a few days before relocating back to Kristin’s for pre-wedding stuff. Now, since this entry is quite long...I’ll start from there on the next entry, just to break things up!

Mrs!!

Here's a link to a quick few photos of the wedding from our "official" photographer and another 8 or so from the camera of a friend in attendance. Everything went beautifully, the weather was great, the food was good, the location beautiful, and the gathering afterwards small, relaxing and just great. We have actually changed our plans and will be leaving Australia next Tuesday, February 10th and will head back home to Teton Valley and the snow. Until then we are planning to stay with Matt in the city, do a few more errands, return the car, get packed, and enjoy our last few days of sunshine and summer. Thank you for all the warm wishes and good thoughts, I think if you try, you may be able to feel the glow from my smile right now if you stop and concentrate. Much love.

http://picasaweb.google.com/marthakmart/TeaserWeddingPhotos?feat=directlink