my brain got poked

in a letter, mike asked what my favorite childhood memory was. i thought, since i have so many, i'd rub it all in your faces:

y'know, i do those dumb surveys online sometimes but i fill them out all sarcastically or as a character i've made up or something. i've been asked 400,000 times what my favorite childhood memory is and i don't think i've ever really answered it seriously. i dunno, really. there are so many, my childhood was spectacular... for the first 8 yrs of my life, my family and i would drive our westfalia down to california and go to disneyland, camp in san diego - i was 3 weeks old the first time. every summer. driving down the I-5 and my dad would have the pretenders blasting, or cindi lauper or the police. my two bassetts in the back, archie and judhead. all of those trips were just pure joy.

then of course, 1986 when we flew from here to hawaii, stayed there for a couple weeks, then to fiji, where we stayed on the mainland a few days, then sailed out to castaway island, easily one of the most beautiful places in the world. there we met a ton of people, including scott oliver and family, the guy who died in the freak accident. then off to new zealand where my folks rented a camper and drove across the north island camping. we ended up in a place call mt. maunganui where the camp ground was filled with people from all over the world and every night we'd put all our chairs in this massive circle, play music and tells stories and laugh til like 2am. then we flew to surfer's paradise in queensland, aus. where we rented out an apartment that overlooked the beach. stayed there a while. then off to sydney - hooked up with friends we'd met in fiji, then to melbourne where we hooked up with more friends we'd met in fiji, took the train to adelaide where we moved into our house and stayed for a year. we'd sit on the beach in the winter, everyone called us crazy canadians. we'd eat shark, go wine tasting every weekend. my grandma and grandpa came out to visit us and we went to some petting zoo deal, and when they brought out the koala for people to hold, my grandfather elbowed his way through a crowd of kids so he could hold it first. haha.

on break from school that year, we flew to singapore, which was so eerily clean, and quiet, the people almost robotic. the cost of a low crime rate i guess... then we flew to penang, malaysia and stayed at a hotel which has since almost been leveled by the tsunami. the casurina. beautiful. literally in the middle of the damned jungle. when we left the hotel it was just a dirt road dotted with shacks. but up the way we found this little restaurant that served watermelon juice and it was so tasty we went there every day. then back to adelaide. the end of the year was hard, saying goodbye to everyone.

on the way home we stopped in sydney to stay with the olivers in their mansion overlooking the sydney harbour. then to noosa heads, queensland which is just a beach town but what a fucking beautiful beach. we flew to tahiti, stayed on the island of moorea, which is just mind-fucking. it's so fucking beautiful, bungalows on stilts over the water, the water was so clear. we had christmas there, we decorated a palm tree with half-dressed polynesian dancers, and santa came to visit in an outrigger canoe, in bare feet, with an umbrella. i perfected my free diving in the middle of the ocean there, saw a purple octopus and collected shells off the bottom of the ocean. i think the only time i wasn't in the water was when i was in bed. i forget what i got for christmas that year, it hardly mattered. that's honestly probably the absolute best time of my life, tahiti. absolutely stunning. the most beautiful, friendly people in the world, the beach is so beautiful it's tear-jerking.

cancun a few years later was great, too. we were there for about 3 weeks and this was before the place turned into spring break hell. our hotel was half built and i'd run around with this guy i'd met from baltimore, playing cops and robbers. he was training to swim on the us olympic team, and i kept beating him in swimming races. haha.

and then the road trip from perth in 92, to kalbarri, coral bay, monkey mia, and finally the US naval base on the west coast of aus, exmouth. we took the trip with the other families who'd exchanged to perth that year. one family from richmond, one from st catherines ontario, one from melbourne and one from england, and us. we all drove up there and stopped in these teeny weeny tiny towns along the way and we saw some of the most beautiful, isolated scenery in the world. and coral bay was more alive with reef life than the barrier reef. you walk into the bay up to your knees, bend down and look in the water and it's just teeming with neon fish and coral and clams. beautiful. monkey mia is a huge tourist thing cause wild dolphins come in and swim with people and you can feed them and shit. and exmouth was crazy. there was maybe 100 people there, almost all americans. the beach was absolutely deserted. no buildings in sight, just the base up the way. so there's just this stretch of the whitest sand and the most electric turquoise water. and not a single soul for miles. manta rays swam around by our feet when we went in the water there. and wild horses woke us up in the morning, sniffing our tent.

so. there you have it. my billion favorite childhood memories. you can see why it might be hard for me to sit in an office now. heh. wanderlust.

Currently listening: White Pony By Deftones Release date: By 03 October, 2000

Labels: mike

posted by Courtney at 12:33 p.m.

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