Control

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it” – John Steinbeck

That John Steinbeck is a smart guy, in less than 20 words he has managed to perfectly explain the last month of my life.

Let me digress for a moment; I need to tell you what I should be doing whilst I write this column: I should be sipping on a Margarita looking out on to Venice Beach. I should be buying tacky souvenirs and celeb stalking. I should be turning a lovely golden shade of brown. I should be able to wear a swimsuit without catching pneumonia. I should be (window) shopping on Rodeo Drive. However, I am not.

Why?

Because I thought I could control my journey.

This semester, I am farewelling our clean, green shores and heading off to the United States for a semester abroad at the University of Missouri’s school of Journalism. I like to think that generally, I’m a pretty laidback person. This process has proved otherwise. As it turns out, when I travel I have the most ridiculous tendency to want to control everything down to the finest detail.

Want an example? Frances was so convinced of her own skills of persuasion that she thought she’d be able to change rules enforced by the United States Government. Because I like planning so much, I decided to get my tickets early against the advice of travel agents who suggested I get my visa first. However the temptation of sparkly sales proved to be too much. My normally expensive return tickets to LA were cheap and cheerful so I thought what the heck, not much can stop me, right?

Wrong.

Turns out the American Government have every right to stop me. The Visa I needed had restrictions on when you could enter and leave the country. To be precise, my visa stipulated that I mustn’t enter the USA any more than 30 days before my programme started and the tickets I had booked (during said sales) had me arriving 36 days before my programme started.

However, in my little fantasy world I didn’t think that would be a problem. I mean, I knew I was arriving a little early but it was less than a week… I was sure if I just talked to them, they’d be reasonable, right?

Wrong.

Believe you me, I tried to talk to them. I tried to reason. I battered my eyelashes, flashed a cheeky grin, flipped my hair and did everything I could to epitomise grace, charm and wit.

They weren’t having any of it.

Seven days and $975 in additional fees later, I am sitting in gate 16 at Auckland Airport, ready as I can be for my flight to LA… or as ready as I want to be anyway.

I always knew this experience would be life changing, I was aware that by making this move I would be testing everything I think I know about the world from the 21 short years I have existed on this planet. I guess I just didn’t realise I’d be learning things before I even boarded my plane.

So, for now – I’m letting go. I’m rolling with it, taking things as they come and hoping and praying I can keep my feet on the ground.

LA

Wow, well where do I begin. After around 22 hours of security, flying time and transit I arrived in LA on Friday night where my friend Sarah picked me up. LA is huge – really, words do not describe the scope of this city.

I spent the majority of my time in south LA near the USC campus with my friend Kacey. This area has been known in the past to be kinda dodgy, and it was a complete change from the streets of San Pedro where I had been staying the day before – though it was nothing too crazy.

My first stop was the fashion district in downtown LA. The fashion district is a market of sorts (think Victoria Park Market) with millions of shops and stalls selling just about everything. Like the majority of places like this, the stalls got more repetitive as you walked through and many places sold similar kinds of stuff. Kacey joked that by doing this I could visit Mexico without paying the $140 visa fee, when I got there I realised what she meant. This is honestly, one of the few times I’ve ever been a part of the minority. It wasn’t anything I had necessarily paid much attention to, but I think I did feel slightly intimidated by it all – that along with the heat made for a pretty interesting morning.

In the afternoon we headed to Venice Beach, which is known for its crazies. The main street facing the beach is lined with bars, crafty stalls and people trying to sell their wares (CD demos and the like) – the atmosphere was awesome though and it was absolutely packed. After laying on the beach for a while we went and watched these awesome roller blade dancers dancing to cheesy 70’s music and saved Kacey’s friend Cassie who had a flat tyre.

That evening I experienced 2 of the best things in the world. Mexican and Yogurt Land. The girls wanted me to experience authentic Mexican rather than what they called ‘cali mexican’ so we went to the smallest, dirtiest, dingiest place we could find.

It. Was. So. Good.

Of course, because I am in America, the portion sizes were way to massive for me, I could only manage half my burrito before I felt like I was about to explode, but it was sooo good. I’ll be definitely be eating more Mexican while I’m here.

Then there was Yogurtland later that evening.

OH. MY. GOD.

Yogurtland in a nutshell is basically self-serve frozen yogurt. You choose as many flavours as you want and as much as you want and then they have all these dry toppings like Granola and chocolate chips and fresh fruit – pretty much anything you could imagine. They have all these crazy flavours as well and it’s all sooooo good, plus they sell it by the ounce so it can be pretty cheap.

On Sunday our lives pretty much revolved around traffic – we spent the day driving around and taking in the sights. First we drove through Hollywood past all the stars and the Kodak theatre etc before heading to Mulholland Drive which is pretty much were all the famous people live – unfortunately no stars were spotted this time but the houses were massive and the views of the city were amazing. After that we headed down sunset and went to this cute little farmers market which was full of amazing looking food including all these weird mountain mushrooms and this fruit that’s a hybrid of a plum and an apricot which was green on the outside and purple on the inside… I don’t know whether you can get them in New Zealand but they’re AMAZING.

After that we tried to head to Malibu and sort of did, but because it was a Sunday and because it was their first weekend of decent weather the traffic was INSANE. We were pretty much at a standstill for the couple of hours we were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. I really loved LA but to be honest I don’t think it would be a place I could ever live. Mainly because of the traffic and lack of public transport, it really is atrocious.

That evening Sarah had a family dinner at home so I stayed with Kacey at her place where we got through a couple of bottles of wine and had a bit of a catch up which was really cool. Kacey doesn’t have power in her apartment at the moment, though luckily she does have a plug just outside her door – so it was pretty funny having to switch all the plugs over so we could get some light from a lamp/watch a movie on the computer/charge something. Of course, I was pretty jetlagged and I fell asleep at like 7pm (the wine may have also had something to do with that though…) but after I woke up Kacey took me for a tour of her old university, USC which is just down the road.

USC is a private university and from the outside doesn’t look much, but when you actually walk through campus it is quite beautiful – apparently USC and UCLA are generally universities that are used in movies when they need a high school/college location so next time I watch a movie I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled!

Monday was my last day in LA – both Kace and Sarah were working but Kacey works in the Beverly Hills area so she dropped me off there to explore Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. This place is obscene in so many ways and I think it really personifies everything you imagine LA to be – flashy cars, designer clothes and mansions. The neighbourhood itself is very beautiful – if a bit pretentious. The houses are incredible though I did have a bit of an issue trying to understand how these people can actually justify living the way they do, so that made me a bit uncomfortable but it is a beautiful area. Rodeo Drive was much of the same, all I could think of the whole time I was walking down there was Pretty Woman haha but it was a really nice area – very scenic and great for people watching.

My last night was spent drinking and eating – the three of us hit a couple of bars downtown including this awesome rooftop bar called the standard which had amazing views of the city and water beds. After that we headed to In N Out burger which is this famous takeout you can only get on the west coast… iiiit was pretty damn good. The burgers were amazing, not too keen on the fries coz they were covered in fake melted cheese but the burgers were really good. It was pretty much a heart attack in a box if I’m being honest but it needed to be done!

That’s all to report from LA, I’ve been in Columbia for 4 days now so I’ll send out another one of these soon – maybe after I get back from Chicago.

Hope everyone is well and remember to check out next weeks issue of debate (I’ll be in every 2^nd issue until the end of semester)

x

in the kitchen

When I have a lazy afternoon (or if i'm lucky, a whole day) there's nothing I love more than mucking around in the kitchen. I am no by no means a food connoisseur, and to be honest i'm not a future master chef either. But I love creating things from scratch, adapting old recipes, and playing with flavours to make something amazing.

One of my favourite things to do is to bake bread. No breadmakers, no powders or pre-made mixers. Just some flour, water, a bit of yeast and some good old sunshine :) Sometimes I make it flashy, by braiding the dough or adding secret spices to make is sizzle, but this time I kept it simple and made a gorgeous onion and herb loaf.

I also had a block of chocolate to use up that I didn't know what to do with - I could have made my almost world-famous chocolate chunk cookies but I felt like something new. So, my boyfriend gave me his chocolate pie recipe which was a bit exciting to try (though he forgot to tell me at what temp to bake for and for how long... I figured it out though :P )

I think I did a good job for first try, tasted pretty damn good too...

Yum :)

I'm gonna miss not having endless resources and a bottomless pantry when I move out of home again.

Food for Thought

Why is it that food such a focal point in life? Stop and think about it for a moment, you may be surprised to realize how instrumental a part food plays in life. It’s your shoulder to cry on, it fosters relationships, enables connections between unlikely comrades, it is crucial in times of celebration and as I recently found out, it is absolutely vital in times of distress. Because when we are distressed, we bake.

Why is it that food such a source of comfort? We all know that food has been present through the ages. Since the beginning of time it has been there to nourish and sustain life. And, like the creatures on this earth it has evolved along with us. From birth, human beings are taught to rely on food - a crying baby will have their troubles soothed through the breast of its Mother. It seems to me the idea of food as a comfort mechanism is instilled within us from a young age. Food takes us away from our worries, and for a few glorious seconds it makes us forget.

I recently found out the power of food to alleviate gloom when a family friend passed. When we found out, mum and I headed to the kitchen to bake for the family – there was something oddly therapeutic about it. Maybe it was the act of making something from scratch – of using our hands to release emotion. Or maybe it was the fact that by creating something we could possibly bring joy to another person, to contribute to the betterment of a situation.

This was particularly seen during WWI and II when worried mothers, daughters and lovers sent care packages containing homemade cookies and cakes to their loved ones abroad. This was their way of helping the war effort – not only did it make them feel like they were contributing to the betterment of a bleak situation, by giving soldiers a little taste of home it boosted morale and reminded them who they were fighting for.

Like the care packages sent to war-torn countries, our baking had the same affect and unsurprisingly we weren’t the only people that had baked. We all sat around the kitchen table where we ate, talked, laughed, and reconnected. The circumstances were the same, but for a brief moment in time we were able to put the sadness to the side and just be happy.

No, our baking didn’t change the world. It didn’t stop imminent disasters, and it didn’t make the reality of the situation any less unpleasant but it served its purpose. It comforted, it bridged lost relationships and most importantly it brought small smiles to the faces of those who needed it most.