5 o'Clock Somewhere #1

Two countries, two writers, one shared moment

Welcome to NE Where, a weekly travel-focussed journal for curious people. I am currently walking one of the Camino routes in Spain, and over the next three months will also be travelling through Indonesia and Morocco - and I’m sharing updates of these journeys with members of NE Where On The Road. For less than $1 a week NE Where On The Road members also have unlimited access to NE Where’s growing archive, which is packed with inspiration and ideas for an unforgettable trip to Bali, stories about exceptional women, and other tales about interesting people and places. Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Listen to this post, instead of reading it:

Dear NE-One

Have you ever paused for an instant and thought, I wonder how this moment – this moment right now – is unfolding on the other side of the planet? I have, often.

The juxtaposition of place and time fascinates me – so I connected with women around the world and invited them to take part in a project I’ve called 5 o’Clock Somewhere (yes, Country fans…). At exactly the same time, pairs of writers in vastly different places sit down to record the world around them – and what’s emerged is something truly beautiful.

Below is the first instalment of this project: an essay by Australian writer and performer Jan Cornall, who recorded 5pm in Sydney, and the second is by American essayist Samantha Childress who, at that exact time, was sitting down to breakfast at a hotel in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Two very distinct worlds, united by a single, shared moment.

Here is how that moment unfolded:

5pm – Sydney Park, Sydney (Australia)

I’m sitting on a bench at the top of a green hill in the park at the end of my street. It’s my favourite time to be here — the dog walkers are out, the sweaty joggers, the elderly strollers, parents and kids on their way to the playground to burn off some pre-dinner energy. There are pathways galore that wind up and down through wetlands, small bush forests, a large herb garden, creeks, ponds and waterfalls — all man-made of course and this former wasteland is all the better for it. Once a huge rubbish tip and before that a quarry, years of planning and tending have transformed a toxic mess into an urban oasis. There are even rare birds to be found. If you follow a twitcher (binoculars and low slung cameras are a dead giveaway) you might even catch a glimpse of the Pacific Baza or the Powerful Owl.

You can hear the scrape and clack of teens riding boards and scooters in the skate park below, the relentless hum of traffic from the main roads that border the park on all sides, the roar of jet planes taking off from the international airport just a hop, skip and jump away.

But always, when I get to my hilltop vantage point, peace descends.

I never walk barefoot here but it feels like I do. Crossing the grassy slopes instead of following the asphalt paths, the spring of earth underfoot is like a reassuring balm. A dirt path through a patch of dry forest brings forth the scent of crushed eucalyptus leaves and the tangy aroma of the native wisteria with its tiny, purple flowers that cling to everything in sight. I don’t mind the scratch of twigs, prickly grasses and stinging vines on my skin. I always emerge feeling like I really have gone bush, even if only for a short moment or two.

The sky flushes pink. A strong breeze has sprung up and there’s a dance going on in the stands of eucalypts below the hill. Each tree has its own personality, a unique way of moving their limbs — some sway horizontally, some vertically, others in random circles and grand figure eights. They line the path and come to greet me, bowing and waving as if I am a precious being. No, no, I tell them — you are the precious ones. No, no, they reply —we are all precious beings!

Maybe it is true that our ancient ancestors are indeed trees, plants, rocks and earth. That we carry the same DNA, that we are all part of one big living organism. Of course Indigenous peoples have known this since the beginning of time, but when you feel it in your bones in the park at the end of your street —it’s something special.

The wind has dropped. Darkness creeps across the wetlands, sweeps up the slope of hill to reach my feet. The frog chorus starts up and sings me home.

Jan Cornall is a Sydney-based writing teacher and mentor who leads creativity retreats for writers and artists. She’s written plays, musicals and novels and has performed at festivals around Asia-Pacific and Europe. Currently Jan does most of her writing on On The Writers Journey, her Substack.

9am – Plovdiv (Bulgaria)

It’s 9am, and my husband, Nick, and I have just sat down for breakfast at Villa Flavia in Plovdiv. The breakfast room is an enclosed porch, and the tables are set with white linen tablecloths and bentwood chairs, a candle burning at each one. My seat faces the hotel courtyard, where there are several tables, each one empty. It’s too chilly to eat outside. This is one of those early autumn days that feels crisp as freshly washed bed sheets; a refreshing change from the nine-month summer in Amman, our current home.

The morning sunlight is just starting to peek over the garden walls. Above these walls sit the hilly streets of Plovdiv’s Old Town and the terracotta roofs of homes whose brightly painted facades curve romantically in the style of the Bulgarian Revival, a reclamation of national identity that swept the country in the 19th century, after hundreds of years of occupation by the Ottoman Turks. The sky beyond them is a clear, soft blue.

Below me there is even more history than above: underneath the floor of this hotel is what was once a Roman bath, accidentally unearthed during renovations. A plexiglass oval cut into the floor of the breakfast room lets guests look down and see the ruins. All that remains are a few brick arches and a couple slabs of the marble floor, which was once heated by slaves stoking fires in the hollow spaces below.

Nick and I are early risers; we were the first guests down to the breakfast room, to desecrate its perfect arrangements of meat and cheese and pastry. We piled our plates high and had a few moments to ourselves to munch on blini and Bulgarian cucumbers (which have the most wonderfully delicate sweetness, like no other cucumbers I’ve ever tasted). Now the tables around us are filling in. It’s mostly other couples – this hotel is a quiet, boutique sort of place – and they are mostly speaking languages I don’t recognize or understand, their voices low and full of shh-ing, dzh-ing, and oi-ing. It sounds Slavic to my ear, but is it Bulgarian? Russian? Polish? Not that I could distinguish them if I tried. I wish I could eavesdrop. Hotel breakfast rooms are the best for eavesdropping – for overhearing other travellers’ unfiltered thoughts about where they’ve been and where they’re going, their moments of irritation and of awe.

Amid the chatter, butter knives scrape across pieces of toast. The clank of porcelain coffee cups reminds me that I’ve been paying attention to everything but my cappuccino, and now it is getting cold. I take a gulp. I’ll need the buzz for a long day of wandering the streets of Plovdiv.

Samantha Childress is an American expat living in Amman (Jordan). She recently quit her job as a policy advisor to write full-time, and her newsletter, Caravanserai, is a place for incisive commentary and deeply personal stories about travel and expat life in the Middle East.

I am so grateful to Jan and Samantha for the time they’ve so generously given to NE Where - and for affording us a peek into their world. The next installment of 5 o’Clock Somewhere will be from India and the Mediterranean, and I can’t wait to share that with you next month.

Until next time,