Excerpt

I lay sweating on my back in the tent, naked, my diving knife clutched in my right hand, and a can of pepper spray in the other. The strong wind rattled my tent, shaking the flaps, poles and ropes so violently the nylon fabric popped, sounding like sporadic gunfire. I stared at the dark, domed ceiling and shook with terror as a high beam from a vehicle slowly lit, and then left my tent. Could it be a bandito, a murderous ex-contra prowling the hills and valleys that lay in the shadow of a live volcano in the distance? Or was it a land squatter searching for a quiet place for a home and hearth? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. In the depth of my fear, I was ready to stab anyone who entered my tent.

I closed my eyes in the dark, only to confront an even deeper darkness. Why was I doing this? What sort of thing drove me to commit this mad, lonely act, to ride a bicycle across Latin America. It seemed so simple at first. It was supposed to be a leisurely three-month joyride across South America from Lima, Peru to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Instead, I was on the side of a road in an desolate stretch of north western Costa Rica, hiding from vagrants and highwaymen, perched on a cliff in front of a volcano, worn from my inability to sleep, and scared out of my mind.

I put the cold, steel blade on my bare chest, and wiped away a tear.  I was thousands of miles from home, in an alien, hostile place, alone, exhausted, and overwhelmed from seven months of intense trials through three third-world countries.

A confluence of unforeseen events had forced me to extend the length of my trip several times. And then there were the three mysteries that entrapped me: my strange intuitive desire to come to Latin America, a visit to a forbidden, sacred, symbol-laden site that almost killed me, and a new personal interest, borne from September 11th – in the geopolitical interaction between the USA and Latin America. These three subjects became my inexorable obsessions, and as with any irrational desire, my path was dangerously full of pitfalls and obstacles.

I held the cool, slim tube of the pepper spray, and checked the nozzle. I looked at the door of my tent as it shook. I glanced back at my watch, as the hour hands glowed a dim green.  It was three in the morning, and I hadn’t slept at all. I had just two more hours to endure before I could greet the sun, and the security and relief that it represented. I covered my eyes with my knife arm, and touched the cold metal tubes of my bicycle frame. I reminded myself that survival wasn’t just enduring the elements, it was also about enduring my own emotional obstacles.

And it would be two more months before I would find the link in El Salvador that would help me resolve the mystery of the symbols.

Read more about Jackfruit: A Bicycle Quest Through Latin America and David Nghiem HERE.

Copyright 2008 David Nghiem. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

“We must take root and grow,
or die where we stood”

(Henry Dugmore, 1820 British Settler
in South Africa)

Contents

Foreword
Settlers in Strange Lands
Disaster Strikes
Pet Travellers
Early Days
A New Career
The Czech Foreign Police
Our neighbour, Jana
Guardian Angels
Ian’s Sledge Ride
The Sledge Saga: Part II
The Fence
Bukov Burglary
Becherovka
Bratislava
Bratislava:  Parts II and III
Floods!
Prague
Hospoda Evening
A Visit to the Doctor
Vanya and the Vet
Driving Hazards
Cycling in South Bohemia
Blue Mondays
Bukov Braai
English Students
Martina
?eska Bud?jovice
Moravian Wine Cellar
First Czech Christmas
Reunion in Prague
The Future
Epilogue
List of Illustrations

Foreword

I admire my parents because they are fearlessly adventurous.  At an age most would be looking at retirement communities, they made a drastic move from South Africa to the harsh, wintry and completely different Czech Republic in Eastern Europe. They knew two people in the entire country when they moved there and couldn’t speak a word of Czech (a very difficult language).  They are now thriving, despite difficult circumstances, and they both speak Czech quite well. They are eccentric and highly intelligent individuals!
My Dad, a diabetic coping with numerous health problems, has been my inspiration in many ways, especially in my photographic career. I admire him for his indomitable spirit, intelligence and sense of humour.
My Mom is my biggest fan. We speak twice a week and e-mail daily even though we live so far apart. I am proud to have been her motivation for this book which I told her she should write!

Tanya N.T. Linnegar
New Orleans, Louisiana.
2008.

SETTLERS IN STRANGE LANDS

My great-great-grandfather, William Thomas Collen, had the distinction of being the first British Settler to step ashore on South African soil.
Arriving as a nineteen-year-old with the party of English settlers sent to colonise the Cape in 1820, he leapt from the rowing boat carrying them to dry land from the sailing ship,  Chapman, swimming to shore in Algoa Bay on the south-eastern coast of Africa, at the site of what is now the flourishing city of Port Elizabeth.
I have always been very proud of this lone pioneering ancestor who arrived on foreign soil, so far from his homeland, without any family, to establish himself and future generations in South Africa. Thus I am British by descent, South African born and bred, someone who definitely inherited the strong pioneering spirit of my illustrious forefather, having now embraced an entirely different country and culture, that of the Czech Republic.
As I gaze from my sunny upstairs study window out on the frozen pond and fields beyond, in this winter landscape in the heart of Europe, I feel that my life has almost come full-circle.  The place of my birth is far away, in that other very different, dry, harsh Kalahari landscape which provided exactly the same feeling of freedom, peace and oneness with Nature as I now experience in the icy calm of the South Bohemian village of Bukov.
The dramatic decision to change our lives began when my husband, Ian, turned sixty-seven. I was fifty-seven at the time. It was thus with natural incredulity and disbelief that family and friends heard of our decision to uproot ourselves from our comfortable lifestyle in sleepy East London beside South Africa’s Indian Ocean, where we had spent most of our lives, to relocate to the Czech Republic.
“The Czech Republic! Isn’t that near Bosnia? There’s a war going on there…” , “The Czech Republic, what made you decide to go there? Czechoslovakia, isn’t that Communist?”, “You’ll freeze to death there!”, “All they have to eat and drink there are beer and potatoes!”… were just some of the remarks we had to grin and bear, and explain away during the build-up to our Great Trek.
So why did we decide on this gigantic leap? Many reasons contributed to our decision. Having travelled extensively in the past, we both love exploring different countries and cultures. The increasing crime and violence in our country had reached disturbing momentum, where we daily heard news of friends or acquaintances being mugged, burgled, hijacked, robbed or even worse.
The elderly, especially, were easy targets and we did not envisage living out our old age behind high walls, with twenty-four-hour Armed Response and a pack of Rottweilers on guard. We loved our garden with its open outlook and split-pole fence and realised that this would all have to change, should we wish to retire in South Africa in reasonable safety.
Both Ian and I had spent most of our working lives in hospitals for the disadvantaged, he as a doctor and I as a radiographer. It disturbed us to see the decline in medical services for the poor, but at the same time we felt that there was little more that we could contribute at this stage and that the time had come to consider our retirement in a peaceful, stable environment.
Going back to our roots in Britain, an  obvious first choice, was sadly not feasible due to the high cost of living and strong British currency. Emigrating to the USA or Canada, other tempting choices, also proved impractical for the same reasons.
For many years, our best friends in East London had been Louise, a South African, married to Marek, a Czech immigrant who had come to South Africa at the time of the Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia.  After the fall of Communism and the peaceful split of the former Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak Republics, our friends decided to leave South Africa and return to Marek’s homeland at the end of 1994.
In 1995, we visited them in their new home in South Bohemia  and immediately fell in love with the Czech Republic. Ian commented, “If ever we leave South Africa, this is where I would like to live!”
The beginning of 2002 saw Ian past retiring age and with two painful cervical spinal operations behind him and our only daughter married to an  American and settled in New Orleans. We thus came to the unanimous decision to make a dramatic life change by relocating to the Czech Republic. We hoped that we would see a lot more of Tanya that way, reasoning that America was slightly closer to Europe than to Africa.
It was with the super-human assistance of Marek and Louise, who bought a house and renovated it on our behalf in the village of Bukov in South Bohemia, that everything seemed to fall into place. We had e-mailed them certain specifications and they, knowing us extremely well, eventually found our dream home.
So, without ever having set eyes on our new abode, apart from in two photographs, and knowing only two people in the entire country, we sold up everything and moved from Africa to Bukov on the first day of March, 2002.
Even now, nearly seven years after our arrival, we are still overawed to actually be living in this unbelievably beautiful, peaceful countryside in our picture-book wooden chalet. The view from my study in Summer is an idyllic one of green fields, with the occasional deer coming down to graze, a lake in the foreground and a forest in the distance. At times I have to pinch myself to realise that it is not all merely a dream.
Bukov, our village a few kilometres from the Austrian border, is a tiny, sleepy place where time has stood still. Its only commercial ventures are a very basic hospoda (pub) and potraviny (grocery store). Most of the cottages close to our house are owned by city-dwellers who come out to the country at weekends for the fresh air and tranquillity. During the week, we virtually have the place all to ourselves.
Our nearest town, Trhova Sviny, is a quaint market town dating back to the 13th century (the name means “Pig Market”). It boasts a well-stocked supermarket, a few cosy restaurants and pubs, guesthouses, a service station, Post Office, Bank and all the other essential small businesses.
Whenever  I  go to Trhova Sviny, I am transported back to my childhood when, as a family, we would go on a weekly shopping expedition into Vryburg, the nearest town where everybody knew everybody else and would raise their hats in friendly greeting as we passed them by in the main street.  Trhova Sviny is much the same.
All our main shopping, however, is done in ?eska Bud?jovice, the capital of South Bohemia, thirty kilometres north of Bukov. More than eight hundred years old, Budweis (as it is known in German) is a fascinating city with narrow, cobbled streets and alleys, atmospheric street lamps, quaint pubs, restaurants and vinrny (wine shops).
Relocating to a country with an unintelligible language is either brave or foolish, I am not sure which. I have a degree in Linguistics, am fairly fluent in Afrikaans and have a basic knowledge of German and French, but in Czech I have met my nemesis. This impossibly difficult language, where one may find five or six consonants strung together in a row, has certainly led to many hilarious, frustrating and strange incidents in the past few years.
Apart from ahoj! (”hi”), dobr den (”good day”), d?kuji (”thank you”), na shledanou (”goodbye”) and a few other essential phrases, our Czech ability has not progressed one iota.   However, we have to report that there are quite a few Czechs running around South Bohemia today, sporting South African English accents.. .

THE CZECH FOREIGN POLICE

The Czech Republic is a very special country. However, if you as a foreigner wish to make it your permanent home, you have to go through the Mill of the Foreign Police.
Arriving as a “foreigner”, or cizinec, the very fact of  not being able to pronounce this word, instantly labels you as such, wishing to live and work permanently in this country, involves an enormous amount of red tape, paperwork, patience, frustration, blood, sweat and tears.
On a mid-winter Monday morning, I had to “report myself” at the offices of the dreaded Foreign Police in ?eska Bud?jovice, on just the first of many such memorable occasions. (Ian, having the good fortune of having a mother who was born in Britain and thus himself obtaining British (EU) citizenship, was exempt from all these hardships.)
A visit to the Foreign Police entails getting to the door of the ugly brick building bespattered with graffiti, at the crack of dawn in dark sub-zero conditions, in the vain attempt to be first in the queue. The “Erotic City” just opposite the Police station provides some macabre distracting thoughts to frozen toes and fingertips.
The doors officially open at 8am, not one second earlier.  The huddle of deep-frozen foreigners line up dejectedly outside the glass doors, behind which a perfectly cosy, well-heated, spacious foyer lies.       Staff of the Foreign Police, having arrived at 7.30am, do not allow the alien mob inside until the very last stroke of eight has sounded, while they themselves lounge around, chat cheerily and sip steaming mugs of coffee in the comfort and warmth within.
Alas! It seems that if you are keen enough (or crazy enough) to desire permanent residence in the Czech Republic, you have to prove it first by your stamina and forbearance in withstanding sub-zero temperatures, before even being allowed to enter the hallowed portals of the Foreign Police.
Once the doors open, there is a general stampede into the over-heated interior of the foyer and up the stairs. Now your fitness and athletic ability really come into play.  Despite the fact that you might have been standing outside since 5am to be first in the queue, if a young guy  who arrived only at ten minutes to eight manages to outrun and out-elbow you up the stairs, your fate is sealed.
Once up the stairs, you join the scrum to be the first at the ticket machine, which spews out the official Numbers.  It is these Numbers which rule the day. If you have the misfortune to get Number 194, you will probably not be seen on that particular day, but will have to wait until the next opening day to be granted an interview with the Foreign Police, who by the way, speak no “foreign tongues” apart from Czech!
Clutching the slip of paper bearing your precious Number, you scramble to gain  a seat on one of the upright, cold, green plastic chairs which surround the grim, prison-like waiting room.  After a decent interval, a policeman or policewoman will appear at the door and shout out a number in Czech, which almost all the waiting foreigners do not understand, being something unintelligible like “ty icet-tyi” (”forty-four”).
If you have the misfortune of not understanding when your Number is shouted out, you will miss your turn and will have to go through the entire procedure on the next open day.   Each lucky alien whose Number gets called out, disappears within the inner realms of the gloomy offices for what seems an interminable length of time to those unfortunates waiting and listening outside for their Numbers.
Once actually ushered into the hallowed internal office, you will be seated opposite a grim-faced Gestapo like policeman or an even more terrifying policewoman straight out of the pages of a communist novel. A plastic flower will adorn his or her desk. Grey plastic furniture fills the room and a glass cabinet full of trophies of dubious origin is the only other ornamental frivolity of this chamber of horrors.
There will be no other language spoken except for Czech, so you had best know the phrases “nerozuma­m” (”I do not understand”) and “nemluva­m esky (”I do not speak Czech”) although these will not gain you much favour or sympathy, merely the utter disdain of your interrogator.
You will have your passport and sheaf of doklady (documents) seized, your bulging Police file opened, numerous phone calls and discussions going on over your head. Questions will be hurled at you in Czech. Trembling, you try to answer “ano” or  “ne” (”yes” or “no”), praying that you are making the appropriate responses and do not find yourself hurled into solitary confinement without even the option of letting your spouse know where you are.
If you are so fortunate, your ever-filling passport will eventually be adorned with numerous important-looking official stamps of various colours. You will be given directions on a piece of paper as to the next date you are to appear before Them. If your doklady do not meet with official approval, you will be given a list of further documents to produce, told to return with them and be formally ushered to the door.
Shaking in your boots, you exit, thanking Them profusely, “D?kuji moc”, for what?  For not locking you up in leg chains or putting you on the rack?  You count your few blessings, until your next visit to the Foreign Police.
Maybe I exaggerate slightly. In 2004, when the Czech Republic joined the European Union, I was entitled to obtain a kind of second-class Permanent Residency as the wife of a British citizen. Life became distinctly easier for this unwanted alien and outcast from Darkest Africa.
I was granted Permanent Residence for ten years, after much to-ing and fro-ing and countless documents having to be officially translated from English to Czech.
A very important document was one signed by Ian which “allowed me to live in our own home”. The sheer diabolical inventiveness of the Foreign Police red tape never ceased to amaze us.
I recounted my last visit to the Foreign Police in an e-mail to Tanya:
“Yesterday was a really good day as I got my Czech Permanent Residence, valid until 2015. I could hardly believe my eyes! NO more Czech visas! No more visits to my favourite Police Station!
Guess what? They now have a brand new system. Instead of the numbers being yelled in Czech at the waiting foreigners, there is a flashing neon sign up which displays the next lucky number being called.
Yesterday they also had a pile of new booklets in the waiting room, especially for us aliens to read all about the Law as pertaining to foreigners. Unfortunately these were all only printed in Russian and Japanese, so I fear that now I will never know the Law.
Despite my new status as Permanent Resident I do, however, still require visas for most other countries in the world, except the European Union states. I can only hope that things change for us Africans one day.”

THE FENCE

On the occasion of my sixtieth birthday, we decided to host a party for our friends and some of the neighbours in Bukov. The party took the form of a “braai”, also popular with the Czechs and known here as a grilovan.
Early in the afternoon of a balmy Spring day, the guests started to arrive. Marek and Louise, our expatriate friends from South Africa, were naturally invited. Jake, their teenage son, brought along his friend, Martin, who took the opportunity of interviewing Ian about his experiences as a doctor in South Africa for his university thesis. Jana arrived from next door, bearing many gifts as usual.
Bukov, the name of our village, means “by the beech trees” and we have one of the loveliest specimens in our garden. Beer, wine and conversation started to flow as we gathered around the fire beneath the shady branches of our lovely old buk.
Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Navratilov came along. She is a friendly, attractive lady who spends holidays and weekends in the rambling old farmhouse just above us. She and her husband devote their entire free time in the renovation of this home, intending to retire there one day.
Sipping a glass of erven vino (red wine), she enquired if we knew who had put up a make-shift fence next to their gate? Pepe, another neighbour, had told her that Ian had erected it and that they, the Navratils, were not allowed to go through it!
This had really upset them as it barred their access to the main road. Apparently, Mr. Navratil and Pepe had nearly come to blows over this matter. Mr. Navratil was, in fact, still fuming about The Fence and therefore would not be attending our party.
Anyway, nobody knew who had put up the fence. Suddenly, a whole deputation arrived, including Pepe and his wife. A great deal of shouting in Czech, arm-waving and drinking of toasts subsequently ensued, while the matter of The Fence was hotly debated.
The din attracted even more (uninvited) neighbours who also gathered around to join in the noisy fracas. Thankfully, Marek was able to interpret some of what was going on for us.
The question remained: “Who had put up the fence?”  Nobody owned up. We certainly didn’t know anything about it and I had never even set eyes on the offensive fence.
The party got really loud as yet more gatecrashers from the neighbouring cottages joined in, all bearing bottles of wine, beer or spirits, thus entitling them to be admitted to the free-for-all.
One unknown man became quite obnoxious. When I later told Ian that he had kissed me upon leaving, he replied, “He even kissed me!” This upset him much more than the fact that he had kissed me.
The same unknown gatecrasher, having helped himself to some of my cutlery in the kitchen, took off his shirt and stuck the knives, forks and spoons on to his hairy chest, boasting that he had magical magnetic powers.
Louise was quite disgusted and remarked to me, “Isn’t he revolting?” realising only later that his girlfriend, who sat silently beside him watching this performance, understood every word as she spoke good English.
Vanya then entered into the fray. Pepe and his wife had foolishly brought their two small poodles along to the party and Vanya, having a poodle-phobia, naturally attacked them. There was nearly murder on our hands. The high-pitched yelps of terrified poodles intermingled with the noisy Fence debate still going on, until someone, I think it was I, had the presence of mind to forcibly separate the animals before there was any serious bloodshed.
Marek, who occasionally suffers from dizzy spells, then collapsed on the lawn and had to be helped to bed. Ian, who had been strangely silent during the whole hullabaloo about The Fence, also abruptly retired to bed. The gatecrashers and invited guests eventually all departed, leaving only Louise, Jana and I by the dying embers of the fire.
We unanimously put our “thumbs down” for all mu (men) who couldn’t last the course and had faded from the scene just as we were starting to enjoy the party. We three women sat talking in Czenglish until the early hours of the morning. As dawn was breaking, Jana finally went home next door, while Marek and Louise slept over with us.
The cherry on the top came the following morning when Ian suddenly calmly disclosed to us over breakfast on the patio: “It was I who put up The Fence!”
We were totally dumbfounded. Marek admiringly told him he should take the Oscar for Best Actor, as he had totally denied all knowledge of The Fence the previous evening with such a straight face. Ian confessed that, only in the light of day, had he remembered that he had actually put up the makeshift fence a few days before, to stop Pepe from piling any more of his wood on to our plot.
He had certainly not intended to block the access of the Navratils, nor had he said that they were not allowed to go through it. That had obviously been a bit of trouble-making by Pepe, designed to stir up things in our tranquil neck of the woods.
Strangely enough, when we all rushed out to check on it, The Fence had been magically removed overnight, and this time it was not the doing of Ian, but of some unknown person.
Marek remarked, “The plot thickens!” which nearly had us in hysterics, as the Czech word, plot, is “fence” in English.
Ian wisely agreed to take our advice and never to own up about the very curious matter of The Fence.

Copyright 2008 PEARL HARRIS. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section 1: Move Yourself
1. Why Are You Going?
2. Where Are You Going?
3. When Are You Going?
4. Do Your Research
5. Budgeting
6. Rolling Up Your Life
7. Visas and Permits
8. Language Lessons
9. Finding a House
10. Finding a Job
11. Taxes
12. Vaccinations and Other Medical Issues
13. Other Preparations
14. Coping: Time Management
15. Coping: Stress Management
Section 2: Move Your Family
16. Move Your Partner
17. Move Your Kids
18. Move Your Pets
Section 3: Move Your Stuff
19. What Not to Take: Discarding
20. What Not to Take: Storing
21. What to Take With You
22. Moving Day
A Final Note
Epilogue: After the Move
Extra Resources

INTRODUCTION
This is not a book about how to immigrate to, or from, Australia, the US, the UK, or any other country. Nor is it a book about how to live or work overseas.
Rather, it is a practical guide for how to organise a move to the other side of the world, for yourself, your family, and your stuff, no matter where you’re going.
Every year, thousands of people make permanent or temporary moves away from their home country for work or lifestyle. But just moving across a city can be stressful: psychologists generally recognise ‘moving house’ as being a major life stressor.
For example, one study, available at http://www.caper.com.au/family.htm, found that people’s rating of the intensity of stress experienced from moving house was 82%, behind divorce or marital conflict, being robbed, illness, and financial difficulties, but ahead of changing jobs, receiving counselling, or having a new baby. Other sources claim moving house as one of the four top stressful life events (along with a death in the family, divorce, or losing a job).
Imagine, then, the stress associated with having to pack up and move to another country, which can also involve initial financial strain and decisions which feel irrevocable (they aren’t, by the way). It can be overwhelming.
This book will help you organise such a move, whether it’s for good, a few years, or a few months. It gives advice on what kinds of things you should be thinking about and getting done at each stage of the move, from the very first decision to go, to settling in at the other end. It is not specific to any one country or nationality (though many of the examples are Australian), but does provide help on where to go to get the specific information relevant to your particular situation.
The book is divided into sections on moving yourself, moving your family, and moving your stuff. Obviously, some sections will be more relevant to you than others: for example, if you are being transferred by your company, you have little choice on where and when to go, whereas if you are just leaving your parents’ home for overseas work, you don’t have a lot of stuff to move. Feel free to cherry-pick the parts of the book that are useful to you rather than read it from cover to cover.
I have tried to include examples from my own expat experience whenever I could, and other examples I have heard of from other expats.
Sometimes these are given as specific case studies at the end of the chapter, while other times, the examples are interlaced within the text of the chapter. While your own experience will be unique, it can be useful to know that others have gone through similar experiences.
Remember also that it’s a huge move to shift countries. Be sure you : and your family: understand the challenges involved, but also try to relax and enjoy the process.
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t think of everything. Friends and families back in your original country can bring extra items when they visit, or you can organise things in the new country (with some extra difficulty and expense): just because you forgot to do it at home doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be done at all.
Now, let’s get started on how to organise the biggest move of your life!

Copyright 2008 Wendy Palmer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Chapter 1
WE’RE OFF
The 8,333-mile leap

Los Angeles airport was a madhouse. From a carousel in the domestic terminal, we retrieved our four brand-new, fully stuffed bags and began looking for signs to the international terminal. We thought we should have enough time to find and get on board our Qantas flight, but we were not sure, and we were hoping to find, somewhere in that Friday night LAX mob scene, Kristi’s best friend, Scottie. She was living in Los Angeles and she’d driven to the airport to see us off. Normally, finding each other would not have been much of a problem since she always carried a cell phone and we did, too. Told ours wouldn’t work in Australia, though, we’d left it behind.
With one very large and one medium-sized suitcase rolling along behind each of us and with our carry-on bags strapped to our backs, Kristi and I walked to the international terminal. The taxis and buses in the streets were just creeping along anyway and we were in a hurry.
Packing: how big? how heavy?
Kristi: Maybe this is a good time to tell you about bag size and weight limits. Qantas allows (as we write this, anyway) two checked bags per passenger with a maximum weight per bag of 70 pounds. Flying in economy class, we were allowed one checked bag with total dimensions (height plus width plus thickness) of up to 62 inches (158cm) but the two together could not have dimensions adding up to more than 106 inches (270cm).
If you begin your flight with a US airline, though, the rules of that company will determine the size and weight of your checked luggage. American Airlines passengers, for example, can have two checked bags with total dimensions of 62 inches each, but each one can weigh only 50 pounds, 20 less than the Qantas limit.
Before you start packing, though, check with the first airline you’ll be boarding. The carry-on and checked-baggage regulations change from time to time and vary depending on what country you’re flying to. If you show up with one over-weight bag and one under-weight bag, and if the desk clerk isn’t too busy, you can transfer your carefully packed stuff from one to the other.
Returning to the US from Australia, if you check your bags with Qantas all the way through to your destination, we found, the heavier weight is accepted by connecting flights on American or Delta or Continental, even though you’ll have to retrieve your bags at your first US stop, take them through customs, and re-check them. Again, the rules of the country of origin or the original airline seem to rule.
We’d packed to the limit in weight, but we were pretty sure we were not over because I’d weighed each bag on the bathroom scale. I did that by weighing myself and then weighing myself holding each bag. Kristi had to read the scale. We did the math and shifted items until we were about a pound under limit in the heaviest bags. At the DFW ticket counter, we crossed our fingers and then breathed a sigh of relief when our suitcases passed their weight test. There was nothing in any one of the four bags that we wanted to be without.
Kristi: We were also afraid that our largest bags might be rejected because, if you put a tape measure on them, they are a fraction of an inch wider than regulation limits. That made me nervous, but the check-in counter folk we have encountered so far seem happy with eyeball measurements and the little bit of extra width didn’t hang us up. May that always be the case.
We used every square inch and nearly every ounce of what the airline allowed us, knowing that we’d be living out of those suitcases for a little while or a long time. The things we had movers transfer for us could take months to reach us, we were told. (They did: two and a half months.) So, we had struggled with two hard questions.
1. What goods should we spend lots of money having shipped? We got rid of our television and other electronic entertainment gear, but I wanted to bring about 50 music CDs and to store a couple of hundred more. A few special cooking tools, including our bread machine, went into our “ship this” collection. We also decided to ship our nice, firm mattress, which we’d just bought although a Qantas employee I talked to on the phone while we were making these decisions told me with frost in her tone, “We have bedding in Australia.”  Since we’d be arriving in winter, we shipped out lightweight summer clothes. But since we’d learned that Brisbane winters are mild we took the chance of shipping, not packing, a couple of heavy coats we thought we might need sometime. (We did, but not until our second full winter.)  Into our bags, we put only a couple of light jackets.
2. What should we be sure to fit into our luggage? For an undetermined number of months we’d have to live with what we’d packed or we’d have to buy replacements in Australia at prices about which we had no clue. Would our favorite products be available down under? (Answer: Some, yes; some, no. More on this later.) We played a guessing game with less than complete information and I’m not sure we made the best decisions in all cases.
If we had these decisions to make again, we would ship less and buy more replacement goods here. Strangely enough, I’m still happy that I brought an eight-pound lump of metal in my suitcase, a transformer I’d bought on eBay so I could use our US-built appliances with Australian electrical current. A smaller one would have worked, but this was what I had, and it let me use my electric toothbrush right off, and, as soon as they arrived, our bread machine, espresso coffee maker, and scanner, too. I haven’t seen these transformers for sale in Australian stores.
I’d still want our music CDs with us here and we needed most all of the clothes we packed or shipped. Clothing, by the way, seems awfully expensive here. Still, I now think that traveling light is generally a good policy even when you’re moving. Ship some things that’ll help you feel more at home, yes, but don’t be too generous with your choices. Australians do make good bedding.
By the way, please note that the name of Australia’s main airline contains no “u.” It’s an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services,” and it drives some Aussies nuts to see it written as “Quantas,” as I invariably spelled it at first.
Meanwhile, back at LAX…
Kristi: When we finally got to the international terminal, we kept our eyes out for Scottie, but the crowds were so large we had little hope of spotting her and we needed to be in line at the Qantas check-in as soon as possible. It was a good thing we went straight there because we hit a snag with Bob’s visa.
Since my passport was due to expire in a few months, I had acquired a new one while we were still in Oklahoma. Although I didn’t notice the difference at the time, my new passport arrived with my middle initial omitted, listing me just as Robert Hill. The paperwork Australia had sent us listed me the way my old passport had, as Robert L. Hill.
That, the Qantas worker at the ticket counter said, would not do. As she frowned at the passport and the visa, my mind raced ahead to visions of saying goodbye to Kristi at the gate, finding a hotel room, waiting until the appropriate offices opened on Monday, and then catching a later flight across the ocean. Before I could get to even worse fantasies about being barred from Australia forever because of one missing initial, the woman behind the counter smiled ever so slightly and said there might be a solution. After conferring with someone by phone, she produced a form for us to fill out and, with that and an extra $50 payment, we were able to check in.  We were free to go. To the next long line.
By the time we’d made our way through the security checkpoint and found the gate for our Qantas flight, we were approaching boarding time. All Kristi could do was find a pay phone and call Scottie’s cell phone. They talked for a while and I’m sure they shed a few tears of disappointment. We’d been looking forward to seeing Scottie and it would have been cool to have her send us on our way. As it was, she had a nighttime trip to LAX for nothing.
On board
But we made it, and at 11:20 p.m., Friday, June 24, I wrote in my notebook, “We’re on our Qantas flight and our mood is improving. We just had a conversation with a stewardess who was standing behind our seat and I agree with Kristi that it is fun to hear her talk. We think we’re going to like Australian accents.”
We lucked out with seating on this flight. Since we were in the back row of a section, there were no knees pressing into the back of our seats, and because we had a three-seat section to ourselves, Kristi could sleep with her head in my lap for much of the long night’s flight. It’s easy for me to sleep sitting up, so I did some of that, but I also read, watched television, and enjoyed knowing that our long-anticipated move was actually happening.
So much uncertainty and preparation had gone into the months, week, and days before this flight that it was a relief to know that, important or not, anything we’d omitted from our lists couldn’t be attended to now. Here is just one such list, which we’d put together three months earlier:
Finish negotiating possible house sale.
Weigh merits of renting our house instead. Furnished, unfurnished?
Arrange for movers.
Choose and contract for a storage unit.
Clean out garage and office.
Mow the lawn.
Plan garage sales.
Advertise garage sales in paper.
Sort things to sell, give away, discard.
Follow up on visas.
Get appointments with authorized doctors.
Bob: get new passport.
Sell both cars.
Check on reserving a Prius in Australia.
Get motel reservation for first week in Brisbane.
Announce our decision to move to those who don’t know.
Find out about airline luggage limits, size, weight.
Buy luggage.
Both Kristi and I had even longer to-do lists related to our jobs, but now, as we sat in the plane on the LAX runway, every item was either checked off or abandoned forever.
And we had said our goodbyes during the previous weeks to families, friends, and colleagues. While Kristi had spent a couple of days in Houston with her parents, two of my brothers, Mike and Ronald, had visited me in Oklahoma. We’d sat on the back porch of our house in Norman, drinking beer and talking, looking out over the lawn and trees that Kristi and I had spent way too many hours tending. My other brother, Gary, came to Fort Worth to hang out with me as I finished up my work for the Unitarian Universalist Association, the day before our departure. And I’d spent extra time with my daughter, Lyn, her husband, Scott, and my grandsons, Cooper and Casey.
In several situations, I’d found myself to be unexpectedly tearful. My emotions were much closer to the surface than normal in the blur of busy-ness just before we left. And then, almost before I knew it, Kristi and I were in the midst of (according to a web site’s estimate of the distance from Dallas to Brisbane) an 8,333-mile leap from the country we’d always called home.
Kristi: It certainly was a long flight from LAX. My advice about long flights is: sleep as much as you can. The Qantas plane we were on had TV screens in the seat backs in front of us that gave us access to several channels of programming. Sleeping as much as we could, though, was the best help.
Our direct flight to Brisbane took a bit more than 14 hours, a long time to be sitting in a metal tube with a few hundred other people. If you get a flight that requires a stop in Melbourne or Sydney, the trip can be much longer, of course. Fortunately for us, Qantas offers this late-night direct flight from LAX to Brisbane, currently, six times a week.
Arrival
We landed in Brisbane just after sunrise on Sunday, June 26. Back in Dallas, in the time zone to which our bodies were attuned, people were enjoying the Saturday afternoon we’d skipped. Not one of our bags had been lost by Qantas, though, and getting through customs was simple, uncomplicated, and fairly quick.
Kristi’s new boss, Wendy, graciously picked us up, drove us through Brisbane, and dropped us off at our motel in St. Lucia, leaving us to sleep or recuperate in whatever way we preferred. Our second floor unit had a bedroom, small kitchen, and living/dining room, but when we opened up our bags so we could get to our clothes and other things, there wasn’t much space left for moving around our rooms. We didn’t care. We were safely housed and full of energy. It was time to go out and begin exploring.
CityCat tour
Who told us to take the CityCat, the river ferry with catamaran boats? Perhaps it was Wendy. Whoever made the suggestion did us a great favor because this was the best imaginable way for us to spend our first hours in Brisbane. We got directions to the nearest CityCat stops, bought all-day tickets for a little over $5 each, and rode up the Brisbane River to the University of Queensland campus. We found Kristi’s building easily and I took pictures of her standing by its sign: Human Movement Studies. I figured her family would like to see where she’d be working in five days. The building was all locked up for the weekend, so we caught another CityCat and headed back in the other direction on the beautiful river.
You can sit well sheltered inside the CityCat’s cabin, but we managed to work our way to the front railing so we could face into the wind and have a good view of everything on this cool and partly cloudy day. From the UQ stop we went to the West End stop, then darted across the river to Guyatt Park. A longer ride took us back to the Regatta stop in Toowong, which is where we had got on. From here the ferry speeds along what is called “the long reach” to North Quay (pronounced “key”) in the Central Business District (CBD). Then we went over to South Bank Parklands, on to the Queensland University of Technology stop, then to Riverside, Sydney Street, Mowbray Park, New Farm Park, Hawthorne, Bulimba, and, finally, Brett’s Wharf. Then we rode back to the Regatta stop.
By the time we got off, we’d had a conversation with some tourists, including a farmer’s wife who told us not to look for mangos until December because the season starts around Christmas most years. We had also gazed at the tall buildings of the CBD and at the bridges, parks, warehouses, businesses, apartment complexes and homes that line the river as it twists and turns like the huge snake that, according to Aboriginal legend, lives on its bottom. It was a little more than two hours well spent, and after two years we still delight in riding the CityCat whenever it is convenient to do so. For most trips, Brisbane’s excellent train and bus system makes more sense, and a ticket on one – CityCat, train, or bus – entitles you to ride the others without extra charge.
For pure enjoyment, though, nothing beats the CityCat as a means of getting around. If everything in our new life could be counted on to proceed as easily as our first day, we decided, then we could begin to use, with great sincerity, a phrase we kept hearing from Australians: “No worries.”

Read more about Moving to Australia: Two Texans Down Under and Robert Hill HERE.

Copyright 2008 Robert Hill. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Introduction

“Why do you do it?”

Shivering and clutching my extra large cup of coffee gingerly between my stone cold, unfeeling hands, I slowly turned from staring out the window to face the convenience store clerk. The young, pretty, sandy-haired girl looked at me from across the counter with an expression of polite interest while I carefully considered my answer. To buy myself a little more time I took a few sips of the steaming creamy beverage.

There was no use pretending that I didn’t know what she was asking about. The weather had turned on me and I’d been caught out unprepared. This Texas-bred boy was slowly freezing despite donning all the riding gear I had stashed on the big Valkyrie motorcycle. After fueling I’d stumbled into the store and my hands were shaking so violently she’d had to help me pour the coffee. She’d also had to add the sugar and cream…I couldn’t even grasp the small packages, much less tear them open. I’d been riding in the freezing misty conditions for hours, and right now I just wanted, intensely, desperately, to get home.

I turned back to the window. Looking through my own reflection, the cold misty evening outside was cruel and repelling. This night’s conditions were going to be absolutely brutal. I shivered violently and wondered if maybe, just maybe, this could be the time I simply wouldn’t make it. Home was still an awfully long way away.

Why do I do it? Yah. Good question. Right then I was wondering that myself.

When I started writing the ‘Life Is a Road’ series, I hoped to include stories that helped to answer the question of: “Why ride?” For a time I thought I’d succeeded, but then found the occasion to wonder if I really had. How could it be possible that I had answered that question, or even attempted to answer that question, when many times I wasn’t sure of the answer myself?

I ride tens of thousands of miles every year, and have experienced extremes of the fantastical and the mundane, as well as everything in between. I’ve seen beautiful and stunning landscapes that could truly take my breath away, and just as often, I’ve ridden through hostile and forbidding places that seem to go on forever.

Folks often ask me why I choose to include certain stories in these books, and then completely fail to even write down others. The answer’s not clear. Some places, some people, some rides find a place in my memory. My experiences, both tragic and amazing write themselves into my soul long before they find themselves being put to paper. The tragic ones I used to write down and then shred. I suppose I was hoping this in some way would help me purge them from my experience…cleanse them from my soul.

That would be the easy way. Yeah, I know, the easy way seldom works. In the end, we are the sum of our experiences. All of them, good, bad, magical, and mundane, make us what we are and help determine what we can become. We can’t hide from our past.

In this volume I’ve chosen a series of short stories I hope help to illustrate that.

The clerk was waiting. Despite all my experience, despite all those rides, right then, standing there, I found myself completely unable to answer what for me should be a simple question. I looked out at the cold and hostile wind-swept world, lonely, uncertain, and shaking from the cold, and simply wondered why.

I glanced at the heavy cruiser and even in the gray light and covered with road-grime she still seemed to call for me. The trees across the road whipped in the wind and a smattering of sleet rattled and skipped across the parking lot. The windows of the store shook in the moaning wind and distorted my reflection. It was cold. It was ugly. It was brutal. But it was time.

I. Simply. Had. To. Ride.

I turned to the young lady, crunching my now empty coffee cup and tossing it in the trash. She was eyeing me closely. Hers had not been an idle question and I was taken aback that I didn’t have a ready answer for her.

My mouth worked. The windows rattled, as the sleet, heavier now, blew under the canopy to bounce off them. I looked up sharply at the noise. I’d have to work hard to get south before the roads got too bad to navigate the big machine on. That would be a challenge, but already my heart quickened, looking forward to the prospect.

It is the experience that drives me. Excitement, passion and lust for the journey are parts of my core. I learned long ago that life is a road, and it’s how we travel that road and what we see and do along it that define us, not some intended destination at the end of it. It’s really not about life—it’s not about getting there. It’s about living—it’s about what we do along the way. I smiled. Yeah. That’s it. I did know.

I pushed open the door and winced at the cold blast of air that cascaded into store. I had an answer for her, but I wasn’t sure what she’d make of it. Why do I do it? As I forced my way into the harsh, darkening, windswept evening I stopped and said over my shoulder with a grin, “It’s about the ride babe. It’s all about the ride.”

Life is a road. Live. Ride. See. Fly.

Are you ready?

Copyright 2008 Daniel Meyer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt:

It is almost beyond words to describe the beauty of the rainforest. It is harder still to express how that beauty affected me. My reaction was almost physical—an intense serenity, an elated peacefulness poured through me, like cool water in a dry land.

The forest is rejoicingly beautiful and incredibly green. As one descends, the trees close overhead, so even the sunlight filtering in seems green. Water trickles over moss-covered rocks, joins with other trickles, forms streams that end in waterfalls and great, deep pools that spill endlessly down the mountainside, disappearing and reemerging from the fabulous tangle of undergrowth. Fig trees with fantastic aerial root systems twist into weird, intricate shapes. Palms, mahogany trees, figs and gum trees stretch high overhead. Ferns attain amazing sizes. Trees drip with vines. We could hear the calls of wild birds and see an occasional flash of vivid color, but the only creature we saw clearly was a brush turkey building its nest.

Most of the trees grow straight and tall, trying to reach above the green canopy and into the sunshine. Some grow at precarious angles, wedged into gaps in the mountain’s side, clinging to boulders for support. Fallen trees have become gardens of moss, ferns and shelf-like, orange fungus, but even the living trees support mosses and ferns. Creeping vines carpet the forest floor in green. Climbing vines, some with thorns, twist up, over and around, hanging in festoons from tree to tree. Small, subtly colored flowers peek through the leaves of many bushes. The rich beauty of the place is almost overwhelming.

By the time we had descended to Cedar Creek Falls, we were breaking out of the rainforest and getting back into eucalypt forest. There, a great slash of bare, gray rock cuts through the trees, where Cedar Creek bursts through a broad cleft and falls to a series of deep pools connected by cascades and rapids.

Stained, stone walls rose up on the far side of the pools, but the slope on the side where we stood was like giant, uneven steps, broken and worn. We climbed down through the rocks for a better view, balancing along stone ledges paralleling the rushing water, hopping across boulders. There were people swimming in one of the lower pools, and boys diving from the cliffs into the deep water below.

“Idyllic” was the first word that came to mind, but it is not strong enough. This, to me, this whole day was far more wonderful than “rustic contentment.” It was a revelation. I wanted to stay, and my gaze clung to everything around me, trying to hold me there.

I am beginning to understand that the nice landscaping around the office and the occasional sunset during the drive home are not enough, at least for me. This beauty, this wildness, this everything real and alive is something I must have as part of my life. My mind may be well served indoors, but what my starving spirit craves can only be found outside. I need culture, but I need nature, too—and maybe more.

Copyright © 2008 Cynthia Clampitt. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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