A Fat Purple Fig

I will almost certainly fail my HSK2 exam. I elected to level up in a moment of sheer hubris, reassured by it being the second of two test levels that don’t require knowledge of Hànzì. After all, 一 二 三 四 五 人 喜 and 囍 do not a conversation make.

I climb, red-clad, onto the tour bus, offering our driver a casual zǎo shang hǎo as I pass. Our itinerary includes The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Wangfujing shopping street. Once on the road, our tour guide, Fangfang, begins by teaching us how to speak like Beijing locals.

It was a doozy of a week. The days leading up to this trip were packed to the brim, and every little task seemed determined to take its pound of flesh. (Actually, I’m not sure if ‘return email’ can be classified as a pound of flesh, but there you go – procrastinators feel things magnified.)

Texas is home to a range of ‘big things’, a quirk which I had once seen as being quintessentially Australian (The Big Prawn, anyone?). The world’s biggest pecan is here, as is an oversized bowie knife, and a pair of 33-feet-tall cowboy boots, which can be found in San Antonio. Some ‘biggests’ are of questionable appeal, such as the world’s largest convenience store and longest car wash, and other honours are downright dubious. For instance, Texas easily wins the race for state executions, and it boasts the highest number of registered firearms in the country, which sounds worse than it is (is that possible?), given they have a population of 30 million.

We follow the directions to collect our car, and are met by a young guy who greets us and says, ‘…if y’all will follow me.’ He asks where we are from. ‘Australia,’ I reply, ‘…and that’s the first time we have ever heard someone say ‘y’all.’’ He grins.

‘Welcome to the South.’

After a bagel breakfast with the Aussies staying in the room beside us, and a side of Allen and Ann, we venture out. I am keen to show off Brooklyn, and the discoveries I have made. On the way down to the piers, Kitty keeps up a steady stream of canine compliments;

‘Aren’t you gorgeous?‘
‘Oh, what a cutie!‘
‘Someone’s enjoying his walk.‘

She’s a bona fide dog fan, is our Kitty.

For someone who really isn’t fond of musicals, choosing a Broadway show is a tough gig. I got lucky on my last trip, with the fabulous ‘The Band’s Visit’, which almost had me in tears during a standing ovation between a couple of forthright New Yorkers, but that was owing more to good fortune than anything else. With Kitty in mind, I was after a crowd-pleasing classic (Chicago? Hamilton? Wicked?), but no matter where I looked, all roads led to Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.

Our hosts, Allen and Ann, are old-school AirBnb, greeting us at the door and inviting us to join them for their nightly news-viewing. Their home is beautiful; high-ceilinged and filled with art and books. Allen tells me it has been leased to celebrities over the years; Keira Knightly, Emily Blunt, and Matthew Goode, who lived here for six months while filming a series. They aren’t supposed to know who their tenants are, but the neighbours keep an eye out, and report back. I would want to live here, if I could. I mean, who wouldn’t?

Our adventure begins at Parc Omega, home to over twenty species of wild animals, near Montebello, Quebec. Team, welcome to The Amazing Race – you are about to race across Canada and the United States of America, for prize money soaring into the negatives. Choose between a car or a steel-reinforced golf buggy, and make your way through the ‘self-drive safari’, where you will face many trials.

This trip has been cobbled together over months, each week sealing the purchase of a flight, or a room, or a ticket, courtesy of a steady stream of tutoring students, reciting their irregular verbs. ‘The trip’ became the carrot, the light upon which I could focus when I was in danger of veering off course, where ‘consistency’ and ‘discipline’ are thrown into the fire.