Ampersand

Category: Traveling

  • Well Wishes

    I’ve been planning this trip for six months, and now, finally, we leave tomorrow. I’m going to the States for the first time since my mom died. It’s been about two and a half years. I meant to go last year, but then I got this job that was supposed to only be for twelve…

  • Part Of Your World

    My work travel season has begun, and last week I was up north in Whangarei. Besides being the location of various healthcare-sector meetings I had to attend, it’s also the easiest place to access some excellent diving in the famous Poor Knights. I have dived the Poor Knights, aaaaaaages ago, and even though the extremely…

  • Walking Around And Looking At Things In Melbourne

    I went to Melbourne, with G, last weekend, to visit Jez and Theresa. They’re flatting together for the last couple of months of my bandmate’s Australian year, and a couple months ago I got this email from T that was basically an old-timey telegram: JEZ AND THERESA FLATTING TOGETHER STOP. ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY…

  • Back To Queenstown

    It’s felt like ages since I had a bit of a holiday (even though I spent, you know, all of January in Thailand) so Thursday morning G and went down to Queenstown for a long weekend. I go to Auckland very often for work but I’ve traveled to the South Island quite a lot this…

  • The Koh Tao Fantasy

    My Koh Tao fantasy goes like this: I decide to become a dive master and study marine conservation and ecology with Caro at Koh Exist. My buoyancy is perfectly neutral as I casually untwist enough marine rope to accept every kicked-off nubbin of still-living coral and transplant them to the artificial reef. I learn a…

  • The Prayer I Cannot Pray

    I went down to Nelson for a long weekend, and on Sunday after a visit to a the Centre of New Zealand we walked up to the cathedral, just because the weather was good and it was nearby. I’ve been to the park there several times before but never inside the cathedral itself; I’ve never…

  • At The Farm

    Last week I took a couple days off and went with my friend G up to his sister and brother-in-law’s farm near Warkworth, about an hour or so out of Auckland. There was no real reason to go, other than for a little change of pace. G’s family had very kindly invited me to spend…

  • Another Trip To Golden Bay

    I went down to the South Island last week for a holiday with a bunch of friends. I was still in Tampa when they started planning it and I wasn’t completely paying attention to all the details at the time, so it was a bit of a nice surprise that they’d planned this really fun…

  • Circulation

    Last weekend I went with my friends Rachel, Angela, and Miriam for Circulation, a big ol’ circus festival down in freezing cold yet oddly sunny Dunedin. I have been super extra busy for the past…well, for the past forever, I guess, and since I haven’t been doing circus for months I just forgot about it…

  • How Was Your Trip?

    I’ve been back from the States a week—I got in off the plane last Thursday morning, paid an exorbitant cab fair home to Mt. Vic from the airport, fell asleep in my clean-sheeted bed, and woke up in time to have buddies over for tea and biscuits before work the next day. “How was your…

  • I Didn’t Stay

    The Cloud Room isn’t the Cloud Room anymore—it’s painted a sort of forest-y green now and has a lot more furniture in it as a guest room than it did back when I lived here, what feels like ages ago. I’m staying at the Blue House for one of my Seattle nights but it just…

  • Riding Around On The 86

    Last weekend I went to Melbourne, Australia to visit my friend Theresa, whom I met in Wellington and who went across the ditch last September, much to the dismay of all her friends. I was just sort of keen to get out of town, I think—much as I love Wellington, I also think there’s a…

  • Notes From My Visit To Golden Bay With My Mom

    First Night After the ferry, after the six hours in the car from Picton to Takaka, after a dinner of goat cheese and crackers on the tiny little balcony looking out over the bay, I walk down past the outdoor tea house and the Buddha in its lavender bed, to the beach. It’s my birthday,…

  • Cambodia And Malaysia: Bits And Bobs

    I’m thinking about a lot of stuff lately—well, Egypt, obviously, and #dearjohn, and this huge hurricane in Queensland, and all sorts of other things happening in my friend groups in all hemispheres everywhere. I just signed up for a circus class and I’m going to be a maid of honour for the sixth time in…

  • Stuff I Ate In Malaysia And Cambodia

    More trip stuff. January is almost over and you have no idea of any of the other things I’ve been doing—don’t lie to me, I know you have been staring off into the distance when you should have been working, wondering if I’d been wine camping this month or if I’d been back to yoga…

  • Cambodia: Phnom Penh and Kep

    From Kota Kinabalu I flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to meet up with my friend Katherine. Kat and I went to college together (I told a friend of hers that I ‘knew her from the nineties’) and I hadn’t seen her for four years, since our going-away parties when she was on her way to…

  • Malaysia: Borneo Dive Trip

    One of the funnier things about this trip was that I was either with a local friend who spoke the language and would take me to cool places, with whom I would have these very long and intense conversations, or I was super touristy and super on my own. I like both of those things,…

  • Somewhere Else I’ve Never Been

    I just bought the last of the four internal flights I’ll take during my upcoming trip to Southeast Asia, from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I’m going for just a little over two weeks, and I leave on Christmas Day. Something I notice as I get older is that I vacillate…

  • Tonga: Doing A Lot Of Nothing and Getting Home

    Whale swimming was probably the big huge major thing we did on the trip, the thing we talked a lot about and thought a lot about. We laughed a little, later, when we realized how actually active we’d been on our beach holiday, suiting up and getting on boats right after breakfast, when mainly we’d…

  • Tonga: Whale Swimmin’

    One of the many nice things about planning this trip (other than the decision to hold Bikini Meetings) was the happy discovery that we’re all dive certified, and that Tonga, has, like, coral reefs. Our mission was clear. We did four dives over two days and some snorkeling as well. The last time I tried…

  • Tonga: Getting There And Some Tapa Cloth

    Okay, this is turning out to be a monster of a post so I am going to split it up a bit. I don’t know if anyone cares about the kind of airplane we went on from Nuku’alofa to Ha’apai, but if you do? This post is for you! Well. You know how excited we…

  • Easter Easter Kayak Kayak

    I’d been talking with Theresa, kind of randomly, about taking a trip together somewhere for Easter weekend this year, without coming to much of a decision. I wanted to go to the top of the South Island, maybe to Shambhala again or something, but tickets to Takaka were sort of expensive and they close for…

  • Supposed To Be Packing

    I’m supposed to be packing but I had to make dinner and I had to ride the bike to the Quiet Gardens to take pictures of ibis and sandhill cranes, I had to drink tea, I had to read a book I borrowed from my sister. I’m supposed to be packing but I got a…

  • Temporary, Forever

    Pretty much the first thing I did after receiving all your gorgeous congratulations regarding the news last week was to get sick, causing me to miss a couple of work opportunities as well as the chance to make delicious Thanksgiving treats at my friend-from-high-school’s cooking school. Not to worry though, because in exchange I’ve spent…

  • ”We got to see the next president!”

    I saw Barack Obama speak today at a Women For Obama event at UM. I got the invitation via email and I’m not working or anything so I have the days free and I’ve been thinking about politics a lot recently and so there I was, trying to get parking in the Gables and standing…

  • Things I Always Forget About Miami

    Ants! Ants, ants, ants. Everywhere you go, all different shapes and sizes and colors (excluding, so far, fire ants, thank heavens). Spraying vinegar directly upon them does not faze them one bit, nor, worryingly, does accidentally microwaving them. Sweating in a tank top, at night, outside. Ibis and snowy egrets head-down in the grassy road…

  • Jet Laggin’

    Wow, I was jet lagged a little in Italy but it was nothing compared to what I’m doing right now, which, apparently, is going to bed at four in the afternoon and then waking up at ten, staring groggily at the clock and then falling back into a sweaty, dreamless slumber until three or so…

  • Up And Running

    Yeah, okay, so I guess this site was down for a little while? And I didn’t notice until people started emailing me all HEY WHY NO UPDATES I FEEL CUT OFF HAS SOMETHING GOD FORBID HAPPENED, and I had to be all Huh What? I’ve been too busy not updating to realize I couldn’t update…

  • Layers Of Time And Incidence

    Since I last wrote I have certified as an Advanced Open Water diver and been stung by fire coral in the process, spent a lot of time with my friends and my friends’ children, got some new bras for half-off, made that thing for a dinner party, texted Italy at least twice a day, chatted…

  • Re-Entry

    I stayed near a Kiwi couple as long as I could in the line for customs, just so I could hear the accent for one more minute. I stood staring at the American dollars before finding my way outside, where Mara was there almost immediately to pick me up and hey, wow, I was in…

  • South Island: Abel Tasman National Park

    Ladies and gentlemen, we are now at the part of my South Island Pictures: The Neverending Series where I show you that awesome trip I took about a month ago with my awesome friend Alice, a trip of such fun and happiness and gossip and chatter and general silliness that it rivals only my South…

  • South Island Pictures: Picton, Kaikoura, and Queenstown

    I am writing this in Auckland, having left Wellington yesterday in something of a flurry of tears. I’ve been planning my Northland trip (diving the Poor Knights! Cape Reinga!) and getting ready to see some friends up here and the South Island feels like it never happened, really. But! Thanks to the magic of crappy…

  • Interesting People I Talked With During My South Island Trip

    S, Kaikoura. Half English, half Egyptian with curly curly hair and a sibilant, unctuous name, trying to decide if she wants to get married and have children or continue trying to make a living as a modern dancer. We talk about yoga and vegetarian recipes. E and S, Queenstown. Both English, both had affairs with…

  • In The Movie

    Last night after yoga class I walked down to the main house at Shambhala where Hannah and Ors and Donald were cooking up a red Thai curry to go over some leftover rice I had. The hill was so steep that I felt like I would walk smack into a hanging curtain of stars, the…

  • Golden Days, Golden Bay

    Since the last time I wrote I have taken an eight hour bus trip, cried my little eyes out during Once while eating an entire bag of gummy worms, spent a lot of time feeling sad and lonely in Nelson, been to the Warehouse no less than three times in three days, seen baby seals…

  • Ice

    This morning I got up early and got on a bus and put on a lot of clothes (stripey long underwear shirt, Fat Freddy’s shirt which confused my Kiwi guide a little–“where are you from?”– capri pants, fuzzy, big huge socks, big huge boots, big huge crampons, and stripey hat) and climbed up a glacier.…

  • Wandering Wanaka

    I don’t know if you’ve been reading long enough to remember the days when I planned out every single minute of my overseas trips, but trust me when I tell you that I used to plan out every single minute of my trip. During the eight months in Seattle between getting the visa and actually…

  • My Actual Birthday

    I was so sick when I got back from the dive last night that I got into bed at six and didn’t wake up, head throbbing (“Your eardrum,” said Lucas the impossibly gorgeous Czech dive instructor, “it was a little bit stressed, yes?”), throat on fire. It wasn’t until I turned on my phone this…

  • Alone In Te Anau

    Yesterday in Te Anau was nice. I walked along the lake, climbed a tree and read a book in its branches, had lunch in the sun, and walked over to a little wildlife centre with a girl staying in the hostel. I had a couple of mildly interesting conversations and a nice dinner of veggies…

  • Backpacker Lifestyle

    Things That Are Cool About This Particular Hostel In Queenstown In Which I Am Staying Until Saturday: –Fast, free internet –Lots of cool movies –Nice couches and drink coasters –Crunchie bar on the pillows when I checked in –That’s right, I said pillows: two pillows! Bliss to someone who prefers to sleep with at least…

  • Dolphin Karma

    “Why the HELL,” I grumbled to myself as I stumped along the empty Kaikoura streets, shivering in my jumper and fleece and hat and waterproof jacket, “am I paying ACTUAL MONEY to jump into FREEZING COLD WATER at FIVE IN THE MORNING?” I was not, initially, in a good frame of mind to get the…

  • Refuge

    In Rarotonga walked on the beach for multiple hours every day, went for two dives and three snorkels, got a rather embarrassing sunburn on my butt, ate coconuts fresh off the tree, wore flowers behind my ear, and rode around wearing jandals and no helmet on motorbikes around the island. I saw: hermit crabs, beach-colored…

  • Tongariro Crossing

    Last year Wellington Anniversary Day took me a bit by surprise, but I managed to make it down to Marlborough Sounds and enjoy myself just fine. You’d have thought I’d have been ready for it this year, but no, it wasn’t until the Tuesday before the long weekend that I figured out what I was…

  • Multiple Beaches

    It had been a while since I’d got out of town, even for a day. I’ve been trying to save as much money as possible, of course, as I’m very aware (very very very aware) that I’m leaving soon I feel like I want to do as many Wellington things as possible with as many…

  • Dive Boat Pictures

    Before I get started showing you all the people I was on the boat trip with—it was only two weeks ago but it feels like two years ago, now, as I sit on my bed with my down comforter wrapped around me and the heater on—let me show you my Adventure Diver card. It’s one…

  • Underwater Diving Pictures

    All photos in this entry taken by Mark Fallon and used with permission. Pretty much, on this blog, we’re switching off between All Pictures Of Cute Animals Chiara Saw On Holiday, All The Time, and All Pictures Of Cute People Chiara Saw On Holiday, All The Time. Since we just did cute people it’s time…

  • Cairns Pictures

    After I left the wallaby project I took the overnight train to Innisfail to meet my friends Melanie and Nathan, who were lovely and gorgeous and made me breakfast and drove me around the Tablelands and were generally impeccable hosts. You are going to just have to believe me on this because my camera took…

  • Wallaby Project Pictures

    I’m not really sure how to structure this entry…it doesn’t make sense to do it chronologically, really, because most of these pictures were taken on just two days when I had the time. And there’s not much of a theme, either: they’re all just…pictures of various things. They go pretty much no way at all…

  • Brisbane, Rockhampton, and Great Keppel Island Pictures

    Babies, I am still sick and it still sucks. Today the dryer repairman came to fix…well, to fix our dryer…and he was all “So why are you home from work today?” and I was all “Uh, I’m between jobs at the moment and trying to get a new visa” and he was like “At least…

  • Sydney Pictures

    If you were following along while I was away you already know that I wasn’t that taken with Sydney. the best thing about it was meeting my friend Steven’s friends Louisa and Jo, but it was like, at a brunch with Jo’s mum, and then I didn’t get to meet up with them again the…

  • Melbourne Pictures

    I am still horking up intriguingly-colored hunks of mucus and procrastinating finishing unpacking my pack and folding my laundry, but I thought I’d better start posting pictures as soon as I could because I’m already forgetting various parts of the trip—even parts that were, like, four days ago—and if I don’t get on it my…

  • Neutral Buoyancy

    Oh, my people. I have done the best thing ever in the world, by learning to dive. I wish I were underwater on the reef right now. If you had told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be having the time of my life on a boat with forty strangers, I don’t…

  • Raise Your Hand

    Okay, y’all, I seriously have like four minutes on this computer before I go to my Barrier Reef Wildlife Identification class, but everyone raise your hand if you just got a hundred percent on your Open Water exam? Wait, whose hand is that? THAT WOULD BE MINE. So far I love diving. It’s been a…

  • Vacation Guilt

    I’ve been in Cairns a whole week now and I have…basically done nothing. I’m feeling a little guilty about this. Well, not nothing. I’ve stayed up late almost every night and I’ve gone to the shopping centre approximately eight thousand times–returning from one of which, inexplicably, with a bag full of tight jeans and push-up…

  • Chillaxin’ in Cairns

    It turns out that I can’t leave for my dive trip until Monday, so I have the whole week to just hang out in Cairns. The past couple of days I have been doing things like emailing A. frantically to get her to fax me copies of tickets so that I won’t be stopped at…

  • Some Things People Shouted At Me Last Night At Cairns’ Worst, And Consequently Best, Dive Bar

    “ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE NOT A LESBIAN?” “WOW, SO YOU’RE ITALIAN, AND AMERICAN, AND YOU HAVE…HOW DO YOU CALL IT? GHETTO BOOTY!” “I HAVE A BRITISH ACCENT AND I CAN SALSA DANCE. AMERICAN GIRLS LIKE THAT, RIGHT?” “I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU GIRLS HAVE REALLY AMAZING BOTTOMS.” “SO, WHEN YOU SAY YOU’RE…

  • Innisfail

    Y’all, thanks so much for all the lovely and supportive and friendly comments and emails since I wrote that last sad entry. I am currently sitting with a cup of tea in the beautiful Melanie’s house in my boob tube since all my other clothes are in the wash, and getting ready for a bath…

  • Wallabies Ahoy!

    Okay y’all, I have about fifteen minutes before I go to the bowling alley here in Rockhampton, Beef Capital Of Australia, to catch the bus that will take me to the zoo which is where I meet the people who will take me to the wallaby ranch farm thing, so this will have to be…

  • Katooooooomba!

    So, as you know, since I was feeling a little eh about Sydney I caught a train to the lovely Blue Mountains town of Katoomba, which sounds to me like the sound that your (or, well, my)belly makes when you blop it up against someone else’s belly. I found a really great hostel there and…

  • Sydney So-So

    Hmm. Sydney. I am…challenged, a bit, by Sydney. It’s been pretty up and down since I got here on Sunday, and I’m not sure how the rest of the week is going to shake out. First, though, I have to say that my last couple of days in Melbourne were superb in the extreme and…

  • MELB = COLD

    People, don’t believe the hype about Australia being all endless summer and warm golden beaches because it is a LIE of the DEVIL. I have spent the past couple of days devoutly wishing for my thermals from the South Island and posing for a lot of pictures in which I am clearly thinking Hurry Up…

  • Owaka

    The first thing we did when we got up in the morning in Owaka was notice some sheep grazing in the front yard of the house next door. Since at allchiara.com we like to embrace stereotypes wheresoever we may find them, I whipped the camera out immediately, making up for all the sheep we hadn’t…

  • Oamaru

    From Dunedin, after the chocolate factory tour, we had another beautiful drive and ended up in Oamaru, where we purported to see some very rare yellow-eyed penguins, because that’s kind of what you do in Oamaru. On the way up we stopped at the Moeraki boulders and had a delicious lunch of sundried tomatoes and…

  • Dunedin

    From Queenstown we drove over to Dunedin. When I say “we drove” I really mean “Lydia drove,” because that’s what she did, all week. The last time I drove was from Seattle to Portland almost a year ago; I would have been willing to try to drive on the wrong side of the road/car on…

  • Queenstown

    After an hour’s delay at Wellington airport they got on the speaker and were basically like, “Yeah, Queenstown is closed, we’re flying you to Christchurch and after that you’re on your own, good luck with that.” All these rumors were flying around the terminal about which roads were closed and about how maybe we could…

  • Wairarapa Weekend

    No one ever tells me about public holidays here—imagine my surprise at learning Labour Day was in October, and that Wellington has an anniversary, not to mention that everyone gets the day after Christmas off too– so I was pretty excited to learn that Kiwis get Good Friday and something called “Easter Monday” off. I…

  • Random Weekending Wellingtonian

    Last week at lunch my co-workers asked what I was doing for the long weekend. “What long weekend?” I asked, slurping down the tail end of my tea. Due to the vicissitudes of my Filofax, I can tell you when every bank holiday in the UK is but am always blindsided by things like Labour…

  • Flora And Fauna

    Somehow Mom managed to score a free business-class upgrade on her way here and since she bounded off the plane in very high spirits last Friday morning we have been having some very fun mother-daughter time. “I can’t believe I’m in the South Pacific” she said, her first day here as we were taking advantage…

  • Christmas In Whitianga

    Ooooh, girl. I had such a good time in Whitianga over Christmas! Not to toot my own horn too much or anything, but clearly I am a genius for deciding to get out of Welly for a couple of days and embrace, if only briefly, the backpacker lifestyle again. Let me recount it for you…

  • Fiji Pictures

    It’s been a pretty good, if slightly unreal week in Wellington, about which I hope to write more later. It’s been a little bit of a tough day today though, for no particular reason: I have a sore throat and I am worried about getting a job and I want to have a conversation that…

  • Octopus! Resort!

    People of the world, a major life’s goal has beeen realized by your friend Chiara: I SAW AN OCTOPUS AT THE OCTOPUS RESORT! It has been an incredible week in Fiji. I’m hopping on the plane to Auckland in about forty minutes and this keyboard is totally freaking me out but I’ve had the most…

  • What I’ve Been Doing On My Summer Vacation

    I’ve been spending this week in California with my mom and sister, taking a trip down the California coast to Santa Barbara and back up again to the Bay Area, from whence I’ll leave for Fiji the day after tomorrow LA LA LA LA LA NOT REALLY HAPPENING LA LA. Would you like to see…