US, US, baby

…Little Europe. Cities can have a Little Italy, Little India, or Little Saigon. So, my trip, I’ve decided can have its Little Europe (what to others is known as “Malaysia”).

Why “Little Europe” you ask? Well, have you ever been to Melaka? If not, let’s just say the city definitely still shows it’s Portugese/Dutch/British heritage. Most of the city’s draws are the Euro-influenced architecture from the city’s past. (One tourist spot that isn’t Euro, however, is the shop that sells shoes — now banned — used in Chinese foot binding. Horrifying…)

And well, back in KL, my ever-so-integrating host was, as previously mentioned, French. As was his roommate. As were her coworkers (well, she did work for the French embassy…). And all their friends I met, too. So it was tout francais tout les temps — or all French all the time for you non-French speakers. And they were all tres (very), tres French. Well, you know, except that they did shower every day and not one of them smelled! (Which we actually did discuss…)

On Friday night we went to a going-away party for one of the Frenchies. The whole time we were there I kept thinking of the movie “La Boum,” a really low-budget educational language film set at a party I saw in 7th grade French class. In said film, the party goers danced to imaginary music and had super-social French conversation like, “My name is Marie.” “My name is Thomas. Where do you live?” “I live in Paris.” Oddly enough, the conversation skills I learned from “La Boum” didn’t come in handy at my Little Europe party. But I did recall enough early-language skills to be able to reply “I don’t speak French” when someone struck up a convo.

And if you knew me in LA, you might remember my frustrations with not speaking the language. While cocktailing in Marina Del Rey, I’d tried to small talk a two-year-old French-speaking girl. All I could remember of my nine semesters of French was “Comment appelle tu?” After nearly five years of French lessons, how is it that all I can remember is “What is your name?” Well, OK, I actually do remember a few other things from French class…like how annoying my high school French teacher was when she reprimanded me in front of the entire class for not wearing pantyhose to prom (um, hello! pantyhose do not look good with certain open-toed shoes…and when your date is a third-generation pig farmer, I don’t think one’s lack of hosiery is going to gross him out). I also remember that my college French 1 teacher was Lebanese and had a hairlip…causing him to get this gross foam out of the side of his mouth while speaking French (but not while speaking English, interestingly). My French 2 teacher from the Ivory Coast had a gap in his front teeth. My French 3 teacher looked like an elf and always seemed to get rosier cheeks than usual when he would get annoyed at the sarcastic musings of me and my partner Jenny R. Hmmm…so I’m beginning to think if I’d spent less time finding faults with my teachers (what? me find faults in others?) and actually truly learning the language, I’d have known when the company I was keeping this past week was talking about me (and perhaps about how I smelled).

But when the Frenchies would fall back to their home language I just tried to improve on what little French I still have or used it as my excuse to zone out and daydream, which I do regardless of what language people are speaking around me.

This past week, my daydreams often left me wondering if I should later try living in a francophone country in Africa or Europe (something I’d been half-heartedly considering since I finished Teach For America and decided a job with the UN would be fablous), so I can actually re-learn the language. Hmm…good question. If I did, do you think I’d be able to find a “Little New York” or “Little L.A.” there?

Malaysia. Malaysia.

After having a day layover there six years ago and sleeping the whole time, I figured on this layover I should give the country a bit more time…a week to be exact. So here are some pics from my time there, first in Melaka, a city two hours from Kuala Lumpur then on a hike outside KL, which was a bit more strenuous than I was led to believe the night before…wanna see where it was? The slightly misleading hiker has this GPS map on his blog…

Thanks to Vincent for these last two pics…

Needed to take a zinc vitamin, so I had to pop in somewhere and get a drink. When I saw the A&W restaurant, I knew I had to have a root beer float (which I’m now realizing was probably a major contributor — along with the few bourbon and cokes later — to my sleepless past two nights). Why the draw for said drink? I haven’t had a real root beer float from A&W since they closed down the brown and orange restaurants in small-town Missour-ah.

Although the flavor wasn’t quite like I remembered (but consider I was in elementary school the last time around), it was still pretty tasty. And super American. As was the Coney Dog that would have tempted me had I not just had a big, fat Indian lunch a few minutes earlier.

What wasn’t American, though, was the Ramadan Mexicano Chicken Pita Combo that was on special. What was it, though? Who knows? A Mexican meal at an American restaurant celebrating a Muslim holiday. That’s what, I guess.

In two days, I’ll be in India. Excited? Of course. But spending the next four months land-locked and not seeing the ocean makes me a little squeamish, I have to say. It’s definitely the longest I will have gone in nearly the past five years without seeing the big blueness of the sea…and after four years in LA and seeing the ocean every day, it’s pretty scary.

So with my last chance of spending time with sand and surf dwindling, I had a wonderful guy I’m staying with in Kuala Lumpur dites-moi (coincidentally, he is French) a good place to go for some beach time.

He sent me to a special island called Pulau Tioman, off the east coast of Malaysia. So me and my one-hundred-and-one pounds of fun made the six-hour bus jaunt and two-hour ferry ride to the island. And if you’ll excuse and expression I use, the island was gorgeous! Even though monsoon season threatened overhead the first day, the rains held off enough to help me lose a bit of my flip-flop tan.

Because the island takes so long to get to, it’s still pretty remote. Much more quiet than most islands I’ve been to in my lifetime. Definitely no American fast food chains here. Instead, most restaurants are just little huts on the beach. Eating my noodle dinner while watching the waves break was definitely an enchanted evening and just what I needed.

Oh, and I forgot to mention one of the coolest parts of the island…it’s also the filming location of my second-favorite movie musical. If you haven’t figured out which one it is from the photos or all the incredibly cheesy clues, then you’ve got to be carefully taught musical appreciation like I was and shown this gem in 6th grade gifted class (yes, I was gifted…scary, I know).

If you still need another hint as to what movie it was, I’ll just say that I was super excited to find a man on a motorbike to chase down the bus after it made off with my bag. It had my ginormous Pureology shampoo and conditioner bottles. Not only are they impossible to find abroad (and seem to provide my fellow travelers with a good laugh), but getting them back also meant that I could wash (that man right out of) my hair.

*Yes, I know this post was probably as corny as Kansas in August…but what I can say? I’m Jayna. And I’m corny.

In Malaysia, wandering the streets of Chinatown, you’re caught in a downpour. What’s a girl to do?

Run into the Halal McDonald’s and grab an Oreo McFlurry, of course.

A month (or so) ago, I posted 9 Reasons Why Every American College Student Should Study Abroad. Now that my time in my study abroad land is over, I thought it appropriate to give a new list, one that relates the nine reasons why every American ex-college student should re-visit her study abroad land, or more accurately nine reasons Jayna’s glad she came back to Australia.

Why the new self-indulgent list? Because I’m self-indulgent. And because according to my drunk ex-roommate, “That’s great, Jayna! *drunk pause* You’re having self-realizations!” (Yeah, remind me not to call the LA roomies after The Office on Thursday nights.)

And now, said list…

1. You can think about how much you have/haven’t changed when it comes to the guys you date and what you’re like to date. And feel pretty bad for them.

2. Regardless of cultures or time, nothing beats the feeling of sitting down with an old friend and feeling like you did last time you saw him/her half a decade ago.

3. You’ll still be bagged on for being a Yank.

4. Now that you’ve already done all the fun sports stuff, you can sound like you know what’s going on. And be truly heartbroken that one of the country’s best (and hottest) athletes didn’t have such a successful stint at an LA rehab clinic and was busted again for drugs (Really, has any LA rehab clinic had success with a celeb’s drug problem? Why send him there? But if Lindsay or Paris winds up dating an Aussie named Ben soon, I have a pretty good idea where they met…)

5. You can use your language skills you picked up last time. OK, so even if Australians speak English, it is a whole different language sometimes. And your translation skills will come in handy when playing wing woman for your Aussie pal while the US Navy and Marines are in town.

6. It’s cheap! Oh, wait. Nevermind.

7. When you eat at the Hare Krishna restaurant, you can flash back to the time you visited a Hare Krishna temple for your social movements class and remember getting reprimanded for putting the scriptures on the floor.

8. At The Deen, you can have flashbacks to the second (and last) drink you had in Australia. Then while walking through the rest of the bar, you can have more flashbacks related to No. 1.

9. All the cool kids are doing it.

Well, hello, there!

As a recent guest blogger on The Lost Girls, many of you reading this are probably just now finding my little ol’ blog here. So, with that in mind, I thought I’d introduce you to what’s been going on here at US, US, baby…

First, the title…all of that can be explained by reading stuff in the sidebar, which also has some answers to questions you might have about me and my break. But why write about America abroad? Well, I just find it fascinating how difficult it is to get away from American culture. I honestly love America, but that doesn’t mean I’m always happy with it…but probably the best way to describe that part of me is by letting you know I’ve watched more hours of American Idol than I have of political debates. But I’ve never voted for Idol but definitely voted in every election, big and small, during the last four years…

Oh, and now to the mostest part of my hostessing:

Most commented on: Gratuitous-Jayna-Was-Here Photo #8
Most delicious-looking photo: From the Other Side
Most early food post: Da Doo Ron, Ron
Most emo: Forget About It
Most first-time viewers: I Love This Smile
Most homesick: Well, Mate
Most random place in a post: A Bear-y Good Time
Most scary-faced photo: Idol-Oz-Ation

If you’re new, hope you enjoy it…and if you’re not new…well, then, hello again…

New York’s Fleet Week is basically legendary in America. If you’ve never experienced it, Sex and the City’s Season Five had a great episode that shows a lot of what it’s like for a woman in the City during that time. For those unwilling to watch it, just imagine a beautiful, bustling city that sadly has more women than men. Now, imagine for one week in late spring — when skirts and open-toed shoes are finally able to be worn again — boat loads of athletic-built men (who’ve seen few women for the last four months) unloading into the city, uniforms and all. It’s basically every New York gal’s dream (well, you know, besides the job at the top of the masthead, the three-bedroom apartment in SoHo, or the new pair of Manolos). My first summer in New York, Fleet Week happened to be the second week of our stay. I’m pretty sure it’s what spurred my friend Kim and I’s pact that summer that we’d never leave a bar until both of us had gotten a drink bought for us (which definitely brought out some good stories by the end of the summer).

See, it’s not that we were the most beautiful girls stepping into the New York joints. But, well, guys in New York buy drinks for girls all the time. And military guys are often even more old-school…buying drinks (and dinner), opening every door, walking the girl home. It’s the kind of treatment girls like me grew up getting from guys, friends or otherwise, and tend to expect from any guy in pursuit…and it’s the kind of treatment girls who’ve never had love for its doting nature.

OK, OK…so I haven’t been watching any Carrie Bradshaw lately or reminiscing with old photos…so why bring all this up? Well, this past week in Perth was pretty much a mini Fleet Week with our own US Navy and Marines unloading more than 5000 service men and women onto the shores of Fremantle, near Perth.

It was honestly so entertaining watching their reception by the locals. The war in Iraq and US policy are extremely unpopular in Oz right now (to say the least). But none of that spilled over to how the Americans were greeted. The local 20- and 30-something women were practically out in droves hoping to meet up with a young Yank. One visiting British girl was telling how excited her coworker was to hear about the boats’ landing. “We’re SO going out this weekend,” she’d said. “The American Navy’s in town. You need to hook up with one. They’ll like buy you jewelry! But don’t sleep with them. You might get an STD.”

So, maybe dating an American sailor is kind of like doing politics with America. We strike up a lot of excitement and bring the promise of nice things for other countries, even if they know they might get a little dirty from it…and well, in the end, a little gold goes a long way in getting people to forget about the bad.

But when you’re a visiting American, politics definitely don’t matter and dating an American really has no novelty. You just need to think about enough banter to get you through a polite conversation with the 20-year-old based out of San Diego who bought you that drink (or how to play wing woman for your Aussie friend).

I can’t figure out why So You Think You Can Dance is so big over here. One, Australians have worse rhythm than Americans (when a performer at the Australian Idol concert asked the audience to clap along it basically was like listening to applause…). Two, it’s majorly delayed, so anyone could find out the final results if he/she wanted. Three, it’s a huge time commitment each week with both the dancing and results show wrapped up in one.

But it’s huge here. And now they’re casting for an Aussie version of it…

On another note: I’ve had five donuts in the past two days.

Finally. I went surfing. Yahoo!

I went to a two-day “surf camp” outside of Perth in a small little place called Lancelin. I have to say it was a bit frustrating…it’s been probably two years since I’ve been on a board and my whole body is quite out of shape. Mustering the strength to just push myself up was basically impossible. Major struggles.

But all in all, it was a good time. Good instructors, adorable house host, and some great sunset and star watching. I even got a few fun bruises and a scrape on my forehead to show off for all my hard work, too.