From www.hyperdictionary.com.

So scarce is time-off work in America, that the locals have two distinct words to describe exactly this phenomenon.

In Australia and much of Europe, people have "holidays" and plenty of them. But in the US there are "holidays" which are single days off work, decreed by the government and/or religion, and "vacations" which are periods (usually two weeks) of paid free time. So the term "going on holidays" doesn't really make sense here. When I talk to Americans I use their phrase, "taking a vacation".

I often think, while I'm on my way to work, that it would be nice to have a long weekend away. A break in the routine of sleep and work. To go somewhere like Daylesford or the Grampians. But eventually reality takes over; after all, I am a practical woman!

I really don't have the energy to take a three-day weekend and to head off upstate for a break.

In any case, I don't seem to have much luck with holidays in the Australian sense of the word. Something always goes wrong. On top of the weather being bad AND choosing Italy in August when it is closed, or Tasmania where it is always closed, or having a relationship break-up in Paris, or some other disaster, they invariably turn out to be so exhausting that I need a real "holiday" to recover.

I can remember a string of holidays where it was the wrong place at the wrong time ...

The first such was many years ago, with my first boyfriend - not a practical man to put it mildly. We packed up the green Mini Minor with a borrowed tent and primus stove, and a few meagre provisions, and headed off "north" around four on a gloomy Melbourne Friday afternoon, for a long weekend.

As night descended it became obvious that he just wasn't going to find that romantic little glade next to a sparkling stream that he'd somehow got into his head.

So he started taking side roads and soon we were on unlit dirt tracks with no idea of where we were. Eventually he stopped, pitched the tent, and we both fell asleep exhausted. When dawn broke I awoke and became aware of a nasty smell; peeped out the tent flaps and was not even surprised to see that we were camped in the middle of a rubbish dump.

Still, we cooked our bacon and eggs on the Primus, re-packed, and left just in time to avoid becoming land-fill, as huge bulldozers awoke and barely missed burying our car.

Another time, another man. Easter in Wallhalla, Victoria. An interesting-looking weather-board hotel with a disquieting resemblance to Bates Hotel in Psycho. We were the only guests and there was only one staff member - the owner, whose wife had left him the day before. He was expecting a university student to arrive "any minute" to help him.

Saturday morning, ten o'clock, no sign of breakfast. We could hear him snoring. Rain was coming down steadily when a semi pulled up outside and a rather vague-looking university student emerged saying she was sorry she was late blah blah.

Around mid day, after we heard the student and the owner fighting about wages, a cold breakfast of greasy fried eggs arrived. Believing that sisterhood was alive and well, I tried to be nice to the student/waitress who had obviously been crying and who was wiping her dripping nose on her sleeve as she plonked out breakfast down.

"No wonder his wife left him", I commiserated. Only to be betrayed five minutes later when she returned to her fight with the owner and repeated what I'd said.

We spent a rather uncomfortable weekend in the hotel, where the steady rain kept us inside for the duration.

And how could I have forgotten the time that my first husband took me and our new baby on a holiday to the coast where his "good friend's parents had a holiday house". We arrived only to find that his good friend had chummed up with a band of hippies and had been kicked out of his parent's house. The mother looked concerned as she gazed at me holding a heat-exhausted baby and returning to our non-air-conditioned car. "Just head down the track towards the beach - they are camping there", she yelled.

Which we did. Only to find several spaced-out hippies attempting to pitch tents on the fine Merimbula sand.

"Hey Phil", his mate called out to my husband. "Good to see you. Can you help us with the bloody tent poles, they keep falling down".

I spent the rest of that holiday cooking tofu and brown rice, cleaning all day and trying to get the baby asleep in a tent pitched on gravel, while the hippies sat around, trying to convince my husband of the superiority of their lifestyle.

And now husband number two - he left his passport behind and only realised at the check-in at La Guardia after our our $80 car service had dropped us off for our holiday in Europe. Missed the plane and had to pay for a car back to the apartment and then back to the airport. But that three hour delay and the $240 in fares to the airport were nothing to the problems in store on the way back, when we were held up for several hours as he was initially denied boarding because he'd left his tickets OUT of America (required for a visa waiver), on the coffee table in Manhattan.

This is the same man who, when taken to a special room for interrogation at the Canadian border as his US visa had run out, was asked (to prove that he was married to me) what my birthday was. Quick as a flash he jumped up, left the interrogation room to the amazement of the US Immigration official and the heavily-armed security guards, and called out, "Hey Kate, when's your birthday?". Did he really think that they wanted to know, that they couldn't see it on the computer screen on the desk, that was showing every place I'd lived in the US, everywhere I'd worked, my entire history?

The guards didn't unholster the guns. They were too surprised. And it all turned out to be a good thing after all, as the officer was convinced that we were in fact legitimately married. Only a real husband could be so silly.

Then there was the holiday on Long Island in the fake Victorian B&B - but that really IS another story

These memories and more come flooding back, when sitting in the bus on my way to work through the busy Manhattan traffic, I start to dream of a quiet weekend away. They serve a good purpose by jolting me back to reality.

Holiday or vacation, I just don't have either the time or energy for either anymore...

New York
October 2004