Hats off

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You might remember that the TWAT hats first premiered on a trip to the USA, a few years ago. It turns out they are the gift that keeps on giving.

It was September 2022 when Karen first had the idea of getting funny hats and t-shirts for a girls’ trip to Vegas and New York.

We spent a fair bit of time coming up with an acronym. OK. It took us five minutes. And about five minutes after that we realised that TWAT could mean just about anything.

Pretty soon it turned into Tina’s Wild American Tour. And after that, nothing was off limits. Here are some of the variations I can remember:

Two Wild Australians Travelling
Two Women About Town
Tonight Was A Treat

And many more that I forget now. Feel free to send suggestions.

The renovated pink TWAT hats were created in Vegas in 2025 for the NRL trip. Again, what could possibly go wrong?

Karen was kind enough to lend hers to Jane for our cruise to Spain and Portugal in October 2025 – which I just realised I forgot to write about. So here goes:

I can only describe the whole adventure with one word: Tada. Imagine us, everywhere we went, leaping into the room wearing bright pink hats, soon to be teamed with matching pink singlets and sparkly jeans, saying: “Tada!” Shout out to Mark, who told me he was sure he came out of the womb saying: “Tada”. I was stunned. Finally, I understood myself. “Me too!” I replied.

We met many fun people on this cruise, some that will be lifelong friends. Yes, we do look like the cast from a reality TV show. Yes, they are all extremely hot.

Hot Caleb. Hot Jane. Hot Tina. Hot Erik. Hot Chris. Hot Dari.

There were a few exceptions. Stay tuned for the murder mystery that Jane and I are writing based on this trip. We have all voted for who will be murdered. In the book of course. Sorry Frank. And Penny. Yeah nah. Sorry not sorry.

The key takeaway from our visit to Spain, Portugal and Morocco (I didn’t know we were going there, due to my “Do you want to…” policy) is that the Police are extremely hot. We very quickly took to calling them Hot Rozzers. If you don’t know what a Rozzer is, check this out.

I’m talking so hot they look like strippers. So, we all mainly spent our time trying to get arrested. And then praying for forgiveness.

There was a lot of Karaoke. A lot of burgers at 3am. And best of all, we lost weight due to dancing in the nightclub for 5 hours every night.

Even the Emirates staff wanted to wear our hats. It may have been because we entered the plane to the song: I’m Still Hot.

Tada.

But two TWAT hats are not enough. Firstly, there was White Night on the boat. And then there was possibly the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid. Caleb wanted to dress up as me for Halloween. I was so honoured. Well, I was, up until he looked better in my outfit than I did. Then I was a little bit jealous, or jelly as we say here in Australia.

Don’t panic. The fun did not end there. Next, there was NYE at Tina’s, where it turns out the number of TWATs was growing.

I write this to you on Lunar New Year, the first day of the Year of the Horse. What could be better? I’ve decided that this is the theme song for this year.