Dancing Amongst Stars

The pure euphoria I felt as I watched the lights of Los Angelos come into full view beyond my tiny, oval airplane window was nearly overwhelming. I was literally bouncing in my seat, my entire being just tingling with desire to set foot once again in my dear country. I’m home, I’m home, I’M HOME!!!

My good friend Julie, who I first met in 5th grade volleyball, was at the airport to greet me when I was finally able to squeeze my way through customs. Her first words? “My GOD, you are freakishly tan!” Yes indeed – one of the few good things I could thank Fiji for.

The sun was shining, the temperature light and warm. If it had been up to Julie and me, we would have gone straight to the beach. Unfortunately, my other potential souvenirs from Fiji needed immediate extermination. Thus, we drove straight to Julie’s apartment and proceeded to execute “Operation Bedbug Bye-bye” for the remainder of the afternoon.

Julie was the ideal LA tour guide, offering various ideas on how to see the great expanse of all there is to see and do in the LA metropolitan area…in 3 days. On my first evening, we walked the pier at Santa Monica, stopping every so often to watch the various street artists and applaud their performances. Then, we ended the night toasting my return with mega-marvelous margaritas and authentic Mexican cuisine. Salud!

It’s funny the things you miss when you are away for 14 months. While you’re gone, you have cravings for certain foods; miss the comforts of familiar places. What was the first stop shop on my list? Target. When you’ve been stuck with “The Warehouse,” New Zealand’s mediocre imitation of Walmart, you’ll long for the day when you can pass under that red bull’s-eye, walk through those automated doors, and smell the sweet smell of that all-in-one superstore. Oui, Target, oui, oui!

Next stop, Hollywood! As Julie and I made our way over the Star-studded sidewalks, I was in visual turmoil, torn between seeking out my favorite celebrity names on the ground beneath me and ogling in jaw-dropping wonder at all of the colorful stuff surrounding me. We saw Jack Sparrow snapping photos with wide-eyed pirate fans, random people curled up on the ground next to their favorite Star for that special photo-op, and even a gigantic, life-sized wax figure of everyone’s loveable and freakishly green friend, Shrek. I was constantly pointing at the ground exclaiming, “Look! Beyonce!” or “Hey! It’s Kermit the Frog!” or “OH MY GOD, BARBARA STREISAND!!” When we reach the Chinese Theater, the concrete slabs running up to the building were filled with signatures, quotes, and hand prints from a remarkable number of outstanding persons who have made extraordinary contributions to worldwide entertainment; the cast of Harry Potter, Shirley Temple, Sidney Poitier. As I browsed through this cement floor of celebrity imprints, I couldn’t help but giggle when I discovered the gray indentations of thick dreadlocks. Ya gotta love Whoopi.

I was really hoping to be selected as an audience member for the “Ellen Show,” but, as we discovered, if you aren’t up at the crack of dawn to call in and leave a message after the beep, you’re s.o.l. So instead, we found our way to the Getty Museum which has got to have one of the best views of LA. Standing on the balcony, the entire city is sprawled out before you, a smoggy haze draped sleepily over the jagged skyline. The massive (what is it now, an 18 lane highway???) is seriously impressive. The museum itself was fun to explore and the open air garden, just shy of the spring bloom, was a lovely place to stroll in the sunny, yet cool weather.

While I was very much enjoying my time in LA, thoughts of home were constantly barraging my mind. You see, seven months prior, I had booked a multi-plane ticket from Sydney to Los Angelos to Minneapolis. I just chose not to tell anyone. Eventually, a few people got in on the surprise – The Etheridge Family (as my backup story for my “Australian Easter plans”), my best friend Allison (as my welcome hug and personal taxi home from the airport), and my cousin Alana from California (as my fellow accomplice and token videotographer). What started out initially as “oh man, it’ll be so much fun to surprise everyone!” eventually took a very detailed and convoluted course as the 210 and some-odd-days began to tick off one by one.

In October, my mom mentioned that they were thinking of hosting a German exchange student, Melina, for the upcoming summer. I have always wanted my parents to host an exchange student, but it wasn’t until my bedroom was vacated that they decided to consider it. Well, me being the stubborn secret keeper that I am, told Ma and Pa to go for it! Melina could use my room, no worries. Tell her to make herself at home :-)

In December, Mom and Dad offered to fly me home for Christmas. As I had already committed to working in the Milford Sound over the holiday, I didn’t feel good about leaving. And, at that point, I only had a month left on my NZ work and holiday visa, and after that, just 2 months more until I was flying home anyways (unbeknownst to them, of course). It certainly wasn’t an easy thing to do, telling my parents basically, thanks, but no thanks. How, I wasn’t quite ready to come home just yet. What do you think about me coming home for a visit this summer instead? Don’t worry about booking anything though; I can sort that out when I find the time. (Mamma Mia…)

On February 14th, five months after booking my real ticket, I fashioned a false one. To accompany my faux itinerary, I sent along this email:

Hi Mom and Dad!

Well, I did it! I bought a ticket!! Spent all night at the computer last night looking up flights via LOADS of travel sites and finally settled on the cheapest option I could find - hitting the "BOOK FLIGHT" button at 2:47am! I can hardly wait :-)

The 29+ hours of travel time is going to be a pain in the arse...but, all the layovers apparently make the flight much cheaper, so...I'll just have to deal with the wonderfulness of jetlag. ;-) I'll be seeing you at the Minneapolis Airport on Thursday, June 23rd!!

Love you heaps and heaps,
Anna

I can be fairly confident when I say that from that moment on, the date June 23rd was burned, hot and fiery, into my mother’s mind. Ooo, I’m such a sneaky little bugger! (And, I can also say with certainty that my mom would whole-heartedly agree.)

Since my ten days in Fiji was, in reality, an extended stop-over, I had to make up a yaddy-yadda story about how I was going to Fiji with a girl-friend, “just-because.” My mom took that to mean that I wanted a vacation, so I was fine with leading her to believe just that.

>>> As a side note: For those of you who don’t know my Mom, she is an awesomely awesome woman. She is also extremely difficult (if not down right impossible) to surprise. So, if I was actually able to pull off this surprise homecoming, it was gonna be nothing less than epic. Capital E-P-I-C.

>>> As another side note: Once again, for those of you who don’t know my mom, she traveled as a young woman to Greece, spending several months abroad in a country that was going through some pretty serious political mayhem at the time. One day, as my Grandma was outside hanging clothes on the line, a taxi pulled up at the end of the driveway. My mom proceeded to step out of the car and shock the livin’ daylights out of her mother! Heavens! What kind of daughter would DO such a thing?! Now, may I continue with my story, please?

In the month or so prior to leaving Australia, I spent many a night awake thinking about how I could pull off this bombshell of a surprise. Should I surprise them individually? Or all at once? In different places? Or at home? What if they just found me soaking in the hot tub, and then I could jump out and give them all big, wet hugs? Sigh…the possibilities were endless. But, foremost on my mind was making sure that Mom, Dad, and my sister, Cate, wouldn’t have even the itty bittiest inkling of a thought that I was coming home. Needless to say, this took a grand effort from a few of my co-conspirators and a large amount of creative storytelling on my end.

As far as my family knew, I was returning to Sydney after my “vacation” in Fiji, celebrating Easter with our longtime family friends, the Etheridges, and then returning to the Rhythm Hut where I had been offer a sweet job, working and drumming there until it was time for me to return to the states on June 23rd. While in Los Angelos, I emailed Mom midway through telling her how I had just gotten back from a beautiful stroll in the Sydney Botanical Gardens and how I found the Flying Foxes just as fascinating as I did ten years ago. Like I said, seven months of secret keeping and the backup stories get marvelously complex.

I had used my four days in LA to slowly but surely assimilate back into American culture. I found that the oddest thing about being back was getting used to hearing the American accent everywhere. If I heard an American accent while traveling, my ears would perk up and my brain would casually mark them with a red, white, and blue sticker. For my first couple days in LA, my brain was in sticker frenzy, and I was just starting to gradually absorb the normalcy of being back in the States. But now, I was Midwest bound – the land of hunting, fishing, and questions like “oh yaa, dontcha kno?” I couldn’t have been more excited.