I got back from a weekend trip to Eildon, Victoria on Sunday night. And, since I’m such a sucker for road trips, alone or with company, I decided to take advantage of Monday off (long weekend) and headed for the coast. I live only 100 kilometers from the Southern Ocean. I must see it.

The road couldn’t be easier. One block from my street, turn right, cross the railroad tracks, and head west for an hour. Stop when you see the water at the coastal town of Robe.

It was another hot and sunny day (as opposed to a dark and stormy night, I suppose). I had no air-conditioning (to give the car credit, it does have A/C, but it’s just one of the few things that don’t work), so I rolled the driver’s window down all the way. Yes, it’s loud that way when you are driving at 110 km/hr. But I was alone and I had no radio.

So I let it be.

I stuck my hand out the window, felt the heat of the day on my palm. I let the sun tan my bare arms as they held the wheel. I let the wind tangle my hair without worrying how it looks. I let the noise be as loud as it wanted to – the noise of the wind, of the engine, of the road. I couldn’t wipe a smile off my face. And I thought, life is good.

Life is good simply because I have a full tank of gas, and there’s not a cloud in the sky. I’m on a quiet country road, and in just over an hour, this road will end at the mighty body of water I’ve never seen before.

And life is fucking awesome because I am quite competently operating a manual transmission car – a skill I always wanted to learn, but feared before—driving on the left side of the road in a foreign country like I’ve done it dozens of times before.

I didn’t have any maps. Didn’t need to. Just headed straight west.

With wind in my hair and fire in my soul, I drove and wondered about the previous owner of the car, my seller’s grandmother. I had a silent interview with her.

What did you do in this car? Did you enjoy driving it? Did you drive it to see someone you loved? What places did it take you? What did it help make happen? Did you have any epiphanies in it, made any promises? And did you know that by random circumstance, your car would be instrumental as a learning car for a girl from half a world away who came here for a short two months to work a vintage? Thank you.

I’m taking your old car to see the ocean, perhaps for its last time, because the next owner may sell it for scrap metal.

Enjoy the view, oldie Lexie.

So, the ocean. The little town of Robe, South Australia was just like any other cute touristy place that thrives due to its proximity to water. I drove as close to the coast as possible, parked at the lookout bay, took my flip-flops off, and headed down a sandy path to the beach, camera in hand.

West Beach, Robe, SA

For those of you into these things, don’t you love the awe-inspiring feeling you get when you stand at the geographical location of the coastline in front of the open ocean? Not some wimpy bay, but the wide horizon of the seven seas – when you know that between your feet and the next continent, there are thousands of miles of this very water you are touching.

Southern Ocean coastline from Robe, SA.

So I rolled my pants up into uneven shorts and put my feet in the Southern Ocean. The water was warm, the current strong. I half-squatted to take a better picture of the rocks, and was immediately splashed by a wave from the belly down. No worries. That would dry in half an hour, but the picture was worth it. As was the drive.

Road trips. No matter the distance, they are worth every mile of unexplored roads.

Our wonderful 20th century brought into life the automobile. Spend money on fuel, people, instead clutter and stuff. Then head in any direction you haven’t been to before.

I bought a car today, sight unseen.

For AUD $500.

As of an hour ago, I am a new owner of a little red oldie, with the wheel on the right side, clutch and a gear box. (I drove a stick shift maybe five times in my life before.)

She is a red hatchback, manual transmission 1989 Holden Astra with 355 000 kilometers on it. I will have to pay a little to re-register her in South Australia (she’s from Victoria, the neighboring state), but that should be the end of paperwork.

This is now my wheels to the world, my baby, my vintage car. I can sell it back to the winery, I think, if I find no suitable buyer before I leave Australia.

1989 Holden Astra

I’ll name her Lexie, in honor of the 28-year-old horse of the same name I had the pleasure of riding last week.

This vehicle was the seller lady’s grandmother’ car. I can tell it was loved. It looks as pristine as could be for a 23-year old vehicle. Someone born in 1933 at some point picked it out, bought it, drove it, had dreams and life stories in it…Who knows how many times her grandmother’s hands handled this very wheel many years ago.

Everything is manual on this car, not just the transmission. Mirrors, doors, seats, headlights. There’s no radio. I like the look and the simplicity of the ‘80s model. It’s my birth decade. And I have a thing for older cars.

No frills

Given the engine is in as good of a shape as it was said to be, Lexie and I are going to bond big time, provided I learn to handle her clutch. Short-term or not, it’s the first time I ever owned a manual transmission vehicle.

I drove Lexie around a block three times after I took ownership. It was right past sunset. (There is no one on the road around here, especially in the evening.) The clutch was tight and hard. I liked the feel of it. I’m not quite in sync with it yet, but at least I didn’t stall the engine once. And I enjoyed it.

No better place to learn than flat and rural Coonawarra.

Just remember to drive on the left, and that the turn signal is on the right side of the wheel. Oh, and that clutch and shifter thing.

I hope Lexie’s interior is as good as her exterior. We’ll see.

I can get attached quickly.

When I first got the winery, I heard a familiar sound of summer – crickets. Aww, right?

Wrong. At the outdoor part of the winery, it felt natural. It is summer here, after all. But it was strange to hear crickets also inside the facility, walking amongst the tanks. Maybe it was some strange sound effect the winery put up? Nope. Confirmed – those were actual crickets.

Perhaps it’s soothing and palm-tree-ocean-thought-inducing to hear them. But seeing them was far from it.

Crickets look like big lazy grasshoppers. They jump around a bit, away from you thankfully, as if doing you a favor. Everywhere here is teeming with them.

The sound is constant. And loud.

Outside the house, walking to the store, at the winery, at work – anywhere you stand still, you can guarantee yourself this sound effect.

Back in Oregon, I used the iPhone’s timer function a lot at the winery to time things like filling barrels. Ironically, my timer alarm is set to “crickets”.  At work last week, I missed on the timing because obviously, the sound wasn’t different enough from the actual crickets.

I’m impressed at the quantity of them. And I’m not a big fan. Definitely wouldn’t want one for a pet.

They still beat snakes and poisonous spiders as critters in the “annoying” vs “can kill you” category. Fair enough.

Mid-week last week I needed to drive to town from work to open a bank account so I could get paid. Important logistics stuff. (Being the advanced country Aussies are, they only do direct deposit, thankfully, even in the most rural of places. Good on them.) To drive to the bank, the winery let me borrow one car that was available. It was a small rickety pick-up type.

Manual transmission.

This is Australia. Wheel on the right, left side of the road.

Theoretically, I know how to drive a stick shift. I drove it a few times before, but since I don’t own one, I rarely get a chance to practice much. The first time I was learning to drive a manual, as a teenager, I stalled the car on a busy road and was terrified of drivers beeping at me from behind. I hate incompetence. I hated not being able to figure out the clutch-gear dance right away. I always admired manual transmission cars and wished I could be one of the cool drivers who know how to use them without conscious thought.

Before coming to Australia, I told myself that if chance presented itself, I would take it. Most cars here, for buying or renting, are manual.

So the chance (necessity) presented itself.

Maybe it was this determination that prompted me to say, “Yeah, no worries, mate” when offered the vehicle. Maybe it was the anything-goes-adventure-wise travel attitude, or the unreal amount of caffeine that morning.

There was no other car available to borrow, so it was that or nothing.

This is the flattest wine region of Australia. I live in a rural area. There is no better place to practice driving a stick shift on my own on the left side of the road. No one behind me; no hills or angry drivers to worry about. Summer. Daytime. Easy road. Just remember to drive on the left.

I sat behind the wheel on the right hand side, nervous but determined to a) get the hang of it, and b) not lose face in front of the vineyard crew. The car was parked in front of their shed. I fumbled with the clutch a bit in reverse but got it working pretty quickly. I then took the car to town to run my errands. “Taking the car to town” involves driving 15km on a country-type “highway” which literally ends in town. My thoughts went something like this:

“Ok, to drive out of the winery’s driveway, I can go on second, then third, then hit the clutch and brake, practice starting the first again to turn onto the main road, switch all the way to fifth as I accelerate to 110km (the speed limit) until I hit the town without hitting any wrong gears, slow down and shift to 3rd-4th as I look for the turn I need, then slow down some more and hit the clutch again smoothly to downshift, turn and park…”

Proud to say I haven’t once stalled the engine (my biggest worry from teenage driving days), and shifted gears smoothly enough to keep the car running like it should. I might have had it running at too low a gear for a couple of times, but that I quickly corrected.

Manual transmission driving is a conscious process for me. Because of this, sitting behind the wheel on the right side and shifting gears with the left hand is actually no harder because I don’t have practice shifting gears in general, so I don’t have to re-learn the repetitive movement. Shifting with the left hand actually felt more natural. Maybe because I’m a born lefty (or so I think).

I got there and back safe and sound, with a big stupid smile on my face that lasted all day. Proud that I didn’t look for an excuse and instead learned I could conquer a personal annoyance that bothered me for years. I’m still not super-confident about driving a stick shift. But at least I know I can do it well enough to get around and control the car instead of the car intimidating me.

For some, it’s no big deal. For me, it was a big personal victory. It made me feel I can conquer the world.

We don’t remember life by things we never do, wishes we never fulfill, or places we never go to. We create a memorable life by the quality—and quantity—of moments when we decide to say “yes” to something and just go for it, doubts and all, and damn the consequences. Screw the status quo. Screw the possibility the “new thing” could end up as a complete fiasco. Sure it can, but so can sitting home and doing nothing. Might as well go for it.

We drink a beer or two every night after work. I think it’s a tradition most wineries adhere to during vintage.

Tonight, our Cellar Door Manager Anna joined us. As we drank beer and talked horses, she mentioned she has a couple and would like a riding buddy for the evening. Long story short, I said yes. I’ve only been on a horse once before, but how could I pass up an opportunity to ride with a new friend?

She drove us to her house. As we were walking over to where the horses were, she mentioned nonchalantly, as if pointing to a butterfly, “Oh, there is this rattlesnake somewhere. He is poisonous. When I see him, I’ll kill him. I haven’t seen him yet. Just in case, watch out.”

No worries. Hearing of all sorts of critters is the Aussie way, I learned. I’ve never actually seen a live snake anywhere close by. I’m not skittish about them – or of spiders or rodents. Or so I think. Doesn’t matter for now.

The horse I got the pleasure of riding was a 28 year old beauty named Lexie. He was lovable and patient. I got to brush him, bridle him and saddle him. I felt his sweet warm breath on my hand.

Brushing Lexie.

Anna then taught me how to get into the stirrups, and up I went, and so did she on her horse, and we took off. First, we walked the horses across the road into a path they knew well (around her property). Then she taught me how to get the horse into a trot. I bounced up and down, but at least I kept it vertical in the saddle. It was more challenging and way more fun than I thought. I loved it.

Lovable Lexie.

We rode off into the perfect summer Australian sunset. If I had a camera with me and didn’t bounce up and down in the saddle, I would have taken this picture: the black-brown silhouette of the horse’s head and ears against the orange setting sun from the vantage point of the rider (me) in the saddle enjoying her bonding experience with Lexie the horse and being thankful for the present moment.

Lexie the horse.

After doing my business at the airport – get the first cappuccino, buy a pre-paid SIM card with a local number, email home to let them know I’m on land, call my host for pick-up, etc., I was finally out of the busy terminal.

The easiest way to get to the city’s main bus/rail terminal, Southern Cross station, was to take the express “Sky Bus” shuttle. During that 20-minute ride, I had an interesting conversation with a gruff-looking Aussie guy I sat next to. He looked like Eminem with a suntan. He had tattoos all over his arms and the cutest Australian accent. He turned out to be a boxer and a born and raised Sydneysider trying his luck on a one-way ticket to Melbourne. We parted ways as randomly as we met. I love those impromptu conversations with strangers you know you’ll never see again. Best of life stories come out of those.

Melbourne greeted me with a heat wave unwelcome even to locals. I knew it was summer, but that weekend, Melbourne experienced the hottest days of that summer. I landed into a 38C (100F) sunshine. Leaving wintery Boston, I was still wearing boots, black pants and a long-sleeve shirt. I wasn’t exactly dressed for summer coming off a plane.

My gracious host picked me up very quickly. We drove to his house in the southern part of the city, right on the beach. Damn. Wow.  Some people know how to live. The house was light and spacious and featured a porch with the fantastic view of the ocean.

My host's porch at sunset. Inspiring place to live

We had a quick lunch. I changed into the lightest clothing I brought and went off walking to explore some of the city on foot.

I walked along the beach to the tram stop and envied people swimming and relaxing on the sand. It was damn hot out. Using a map and the tram system grid, I took the tram to the city centre to hit a couple of cafes. I liked Melbourne right away. It reminded me of both Boston and Portland. It’s a cute, compact yet cosmopolitan city. And it’s serious about coffee – getting my cappuccino fix was going to be no problem.

First cafe in Melbourne

By seven in the evening, I was back “home”, showered, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed due to all that fantastic caffeine ingested earlier. We were about to have company for dinner. Meanwhile, I was in awe of Melbourne sunset.

Melbourne sunset from the porch, over Pinot Gris from Mornington Peninsula

I was busy taking pictures of the sun setting over the bay when a bunch of wine-loving Aussies descended on the house my host and his roommate share, each bringing either food or wine. Or both. I think there were about a dozen of us at the end.

Red wine lineup for the evening

For my end, I brought him a bottle of 2008 Bergstrom Pinot Noir from Oregon. We opened it along with the first bottle of the night, Pinot Noir from Mornington Peninsula. Oregon got high scores. I’m glad it transported well.

Happy to be useful and contribute to the cooking, I helped my host make chicken wings in the oven the way I used to cook them at home: salt, pepper, turmeric, in the oven at 400F for about an hour.

We ate, drank and talked well into the night. Lots of good wines were drunk, compared and shared.

I was to sleep on the couch in the living room adjacent to the porch. After everyone left, I sat on that porch for a while, looking at the silhouettes of the palm trees and feeling the warm, salty ocean air on my cheeks. I went to bed inspired – but not before encountering and slapping with a flip-flop the critter that is bound to become my nuisance in Aussie land – a big-ass cricket.

I changed coasts again and flew from Oregon back east to Boston to see family before heading back west to Lost Angeles to take the Qantas long-haul flight across the Pacific. I made sure to have a window seat on both flights. I will fight tooth and nail for window seats. They never lose their advantage of being able to see the sky. I’m so not the “isle seat” person.

On a sunny winter afternoon on Wednesay, I left Boston and followed the sunset for almost the entire duration of the six-hour flight to LA.

Flying west following the sun

After a two-hour layover at LAX, I encountered my two favorite words at the airport.

International Terminal.

Those two words indulge my sense of wonder as if I am six and Santa Claus just gave me my present in person.

International means I get to use my passport. I get to fly somewhere foreign. That word alone embodies adventure.

So of course, the prospect of spending the next sixteen hours squeezed into a small amount of personal space on a plane doesn’t faze me at all. I heard good things about Qantas. I got my window seat confirmed. So I spent the waiting time drinking beer at the terminal’s bar and guessing what kind of food and wine they’ll offer on the plane. Got my priorities in line, obviously.

Free wine on international flights. Another advantage of long-haul.

Last year when I flew Air New Zealand, I got delicious Marlborough Pinot Noir. Quantas also met all expectations. The food was good, the wine was decent, and movies were plentiful.

Our Airbus 380 double-decker was gigantic and packed. I wonder how many people need to fly to Melbourne every day. That plane held at least 450 of us.

I watched two movies and was soon out sleeping like a baby for several hours. (I can sleep on planes without any of those funny-looking neck pillows or eye patches, which is why I tend to prefer red-eye flights.)

When I woke up, I turned on the monitor in the seat in front of me – just in time to track the flight path pass a milestone.

We crossed over the equator, which meant winter just became summer.

Several hours later, we crossed the International Date Line, which meant Thursday just became Friday.

Several more hours after that, I watched through Qantas’s Skycam on the screen how our plane touched down on the runway in Melbourne.

Last year, when I traveled across the Pacific for the first time, I wasn’t a seasoned packer. I took way too much stuff in two cumbersome suitcases on wheels. I ended up mailing one of the bags home from New Zealand at the end of vintage before traveling the South Island. Sending a bag home cost $200 – that’s six nights of hostel accommodation.

I learned traveling how little clothing you really need, and that on the road, weight means frustration and misery. Golden rule of backpackers: how little stuff can I get away with?

Before driving across the country from Boston to Oregon, I got rid of tons of things I knew I wouldn’t need, including clothing, shoes and old clutter. It felt great to leave lean, with just essentials, camera, gumboots and laptop.

So this year, a bit obsessed with luggage weight, I put a lot more thought into my packing. I invested in a great lightweight Osprey wheeled backpack that holds 80L of stuff. I have no idea why they measure luggage dimensions in liters, but after doing some research, 80L seemed to be plenty.

End result: total luggage weight under 40 lbs, including three bottles of Oregon Pinot Noir and one big bottle of Ninkasi Red Ale. Those wine bottles are heavy – alcohol alone weighted 12 lbs, a third of the weight of the bag. My roommate joked that all I do is transport wine around the world.  Well, I have to represent! I’m going to be introdued as “the girl from Oregon”. The least I can do is bring my new wine folks some Pinot from the place I worked in.

Mentally and physically, it makes me feel light and focused seeing all my belongings for the next three months neatly packed into one bag in little cubes, with a backpack holding the trusty Nikon, two lenses, laptop, and peripheral electronics. I am ready to make two foreign countries my temporary home again.

It was mineral and dry, the Riesling that made me finally appreciate the varietal.

It wasn’t about sweetness. It was about acidity, as all wine is to me. Acidity is key. The balance of acidity is the most important characteristic – it’s the pepper on the steak, the thing that holds it all together.

When an ambitious young winemaker decides to set up a new estate in Germany, it usually doesn’t makes news. But if it’s 1984, and the newcomer happens to be a woman set out to make different (oh no, “authentic”) styles of Riesling, soon people take notice. For Sybille Kuntz, the leading figure and founder of Sybille Kuntz estate, breaking old-world traditions in more ways one just served as free press.

Today, Sybille Kuntz and husband Markus Kuntz-Riedling together run the Sybille Kuntz estate and are considered “leaders of the Mosel region Riesling renaissance” for their focus on producing dry and refined wines that emphasize the character of the region.

This afternoon, I had the privilege of attending a roundtable discussion and tasting led by Sybille and Markus themselves, at Rialto restaurant in Harvard Square, Cambridge, which I was kindly privy to thanks to sommelier Miguel Escobar at 51 Lincoln restaurant in Newton.

Riesling Tasting Setup at Rialto, Cambridge

We tasted through a gamut of current selections, from the elegant and mineral trockens (dry) to honey-like (but dry-fermented) ausleses – some of the spiciest Rieslings I’ve tried. The wines were superb. Always have been, since I discovered them for myself years ago – before I had a chance to buy and introduce them to my customers at the wine store.

The Lineup

Their personal mantra is that “wine is made in the vineyard, not in the winery”. This means low yields, pre-picking, green harvesting, careful watch over fermentation, and commitment to organic methods.

What’s most fascinating to me about wines I like are stories behind them. Meeting the winemakers deserves attention for that reason alone. Learning from winemakers as they present their creations at a tasting is another education entirely—because as a whole, German wines are easy to enjoy, but not easy to digest (intellectually). There is too much nomenclature. Between the laws on geographical classification and styles of quality, it becomes confusing as hell unless you are 1) in the industry and 2) regularly taste and update yourself on current wines.

Sybille Kuntz’s wines are on the mid-price side, but they are worth it—because they are good. They make you care and they make you question. They educate you on the wonderful diversity of the Rieslig grape. They make you curious. And once you are curious, you are hooked.

Nikon is where it’s at when it comes to photography. And looking through your city like a tourist certainly has photographic opportunities.

Boston is a pretty the summer. Here are some snapshots of August life in beantown:

This one is a classic view of Back Bay from the Longfellow Bridge – the one connecting Boston and Cambridge that is also home to the Red Line T. I liked the details of the rusty iron and focused on those, leaving Back Bay as a suggestion in the background.

Back Bay from Longfellow Bridge

Swan Boats in Boston Common. It’s a tourist thing. I’ve lived here for more than a decade, and never been on one of those. It’s just not something locals do. I mean, you can cross the pond on foot without getting your knees wet sometimes. But the boats sure look pretty.

Swan boats in Boston Common

Classically maintained classic car on sale in classic Back Bay, off Newbury Street.

Easy to park in Back Bay...

Hot August afternoon at the Charles River by the Museum of Science.

The Charles River, next to the Museum of Science

Kendall Square, Cambridge. MIT students’ hangout. The Republic of Cambridge begins here.

Kendall Square, Cambridge

Memorial Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge. I call it the “Harry Potter Building” for its Hogwarts-like appearance.

Memorial Hall, Harvard.

Laila is a five-month old German Shepherd whom I met while walking along the Charles River in Cambridge. Love her curiosity, the playfulness in her manner, and those ears!

Laila