Day1, snow and my face is frozen

Snow! I woke this morning after a night of beer and burgers with Shannon, and it is snowing. So good…

I took the advice of some seasoned travelers and tried to just sleep normal hours, so I think I went to sleep at about 11 last night… or there abouts. Woke up at 11 thismorning. Good thing we didn’t get the bus today, cause we would have missed it. Today is a day of wandering around, maybe catching a movie. We went and got breakfast/lunch at a cool little restaurant/diner place, now we’re just back at shannons room doing a few things before we go back out into the cold.

I love it.

Overseas rocks!

Blurred Horizons

Just a thought as I stare out the window of this American airlines flight to Toronto… it seems , today at least that the horizon is no more than a lighter, hazy mist in the general area of between earth and sky… no sharp line… I don’t know if it’s the weather, or if its pollution, I really don’t know… but it came to me a sort of thought… I guess… that it is sort of appropriate for my first day of my trip… yeah, I can see roughly where its going to end, but its hazy, there’s a line, but its not defined… clouds and pollution blur the details… I can see the basic outline of the landscape…

*Shrugs*

Who knows… But its fucken exciting…

Legs 2 and 3...

Leg 2. Melbourne to LA.

Flight from Adelaide was completely uneventful… I did find that my Scull Candy noise cancelling headphones work wonderfully well. Very happy with them. I also found that short flight entertainment is imensley boring. My new book “Anansi Boys” by Neil Gaiman has started well tho, so that’s encouraging.

I am on hold with Telstra trying to change my phone plan, but I don’t think they’ve decided not to staff many people on boxing day - fair enough, I guess, it might cost them money… first call for my flight has just been announced, so more when I get on the plane.

On the plane:

And its not just any plane, it’s a big red one with aborigional artwork all over it… it looks really cool. But the seat is uncomfortable – and I’ve only been here for an hour, I can only imagine in another 14 how my arse will be feeling. One of the disadvantages of a window seat – you cant easily get up… obviously having a wall to lean against when you want to sleep is a huge advantage, but otherwise, its just another cramped seat on a massive red plane.

I could have guessed, I have a child, who supprisingly is not screaming sitting in the seat behind me. He is – however fairly regularly kicking me in the kidneys so that should be a hoot... I’m sitting next to a young couple who seem really nice, also on their way to Toronto.

Going through customs was ridiculously simple and no where near as scary as some people have made it out to be. Although it is meant to be worse on the other end of the Pacific where supposedly the Americans are rude and blunt… *Shrugs* that’s their problem… I got about $450 back at the tourist rebate scheme counter, which I am thrilled about. Everyone so far has been nice. All I have to worry about is my arse, and my kidneys.

The seats even have their own little screens in the headrests. Games, and movies all at my fingertips. And I wont even have to use my laptop…

Anyway – back to my book… more later in the flight.

My little lcd monitor in front of me tells me that there is about eight and a half hours until we reach our destination. We just experienced a quite wonderful sunset, but because of how fast we are going and the direction we are traveling, it really didn’t last long enough. Time enough however to have everyone scrambling for their cameras in time to get a photo. And now it is dark.

The kid behind me has just quietened after a good hour and a half of screaming and kicking my chair.

Looks like I just got to the toilet in time, as the line up has got ridiculous…

Probably should try to get a bit of sleep at some point… really don’t know what the best way to do this to avoid jet lag is… its only 5.30 Adelaide time, but sitting does make you tired. .. I might listen to some music for a while, maybe read some more… not much more I can say… I might even watch a movie until I fall asleep…

More later. *yawns*

Leg 3.

US customs, while slow and long winded, was relatively painless. And after getting into LA at about 7.45am and wading thru the fore-mentioned beurocacy, we were running late for our Toronto flight. (I say “we” I should clarify– the young couple from Melbourne who are working in Canada. We’ve been getting along quite well, we stood in line at customs for over an hour and they let me use their luggage trolley, and chatted: was good. Would like to catch up with them for a drink when I get to Toronto, they seem nice, and they said they don’t go out much)

I got a last call for “Masson” or “Manson” so that was funny. Because of this I had to re-check in, and the lady at the desk asked me if I wanted an emergency exit isle which has more leg room, which I was thrilled about, until the ginormous guy came and sat next to me, oozing out over both armrests and complaining about how cramped these smaller plains are. Then settled in and literally 2 minutes after take off, while we were still very steeply climbing, was snoring loudly and obnoxiously. So… screaming kid kicking me in the back for 14 hours, and now being squished against the wall by an overweight computer nerd, and hoping he doesn’t roll over on me and kill me for the next 5. So I have heaps of leg room, but no room for my body...

Great.

My first impression of LA as I stared down at the “Google-Earth”esque view was that of a massive computer chip… very ordered little squares, with the occasional dampener or electrode of a high-rise building. Then it got more into the hilly bits, which were quite nice, massive houses etc, but roads that look extremely poorly planned, winding all over the damned place… I guess its so the zillionaires can see how well their cars handle on windy roads… Crazy… Other than that, I don’t think it really feels that much different to the southern hemisphere. Fistly I guess cause another Qantas flight arrived at nearly exactly the same time as ours, and the whole terminal ws filled with Australians, and secondly, cause I didn’t’ go outside… it was just like Australia, except with a few American accents… and thirdly, cause I didn’t go to the toilet to see how high the water was, and if it spins the wrong way down the drain…

And its funny how some thing said with an American accent can sound hilarious… especially – and im not being racist in the least here - the black American stereotype way of talking… From what I’ve seen its not a stereotype at all, its true… imagine, if you will, a very large black American woman, security guard/customs officer, nice as pie, smiling at everyone, and as another security guard walks past, she calls out “hey! Tyrone, yo squeekin boy!” cracked me up… he had a squeaky shoe… *coughs* guess you had to be there…

Anyway, back to sleep I think…

I’ve had a chance to talk to the big guy sitting next to me… a doctor from Toronto, who’s just been to Brisbane for a day for something to do with doctoring… he works in Canada’s version of the Royal Flying Doctors… been interesting…

More soon...

Day of Departure – Leg 1 awakenings.

Adelaide to Melbourne.

My alarm went off at 5am this morning. I turned over, moaned, and pushed my wake up time back another hour… I woke up at 5.55 am got up and had my shower. At about 6.03 I heard the house vibrating and realized that I hadn’t disabled the alarm on my phone, and it had been going off for a few minutes. You have to realize something about my mobile phone alarm – it is un-relenting. It will beep at you in progressively more persistent ear splitting tones, until you get to it and turn it off, or until the battery runs flat. I very rarely even let it beep once, the first half vibrate is normally enough to snap me awake, that’s how light a sleeper I am. Having said that, if I am snoring it doesn’t wake me up… why is that I wonder?

Anyway, I woke up at about 6.30 well after my shower and last minute rushing around was over, and waited for a while until I felt it was sufficiently close enough to 7am to wake up Sunil, who had very kindly offered to take me to the airport. Thus saving me about $25 in taxi fees. As we drove to the airport we chatted a bit… I told him about my interesting week… frustratingly interesting, both good and bad, and neither of which I will recount for the world… as I’ve said before, Life goes on…

The day has dawned cool and clear. I’m glad its not the 40+ that I predicted, because I am wearing enough winter clothes to keep me warm (I hope) in the minus whatever temperatures that are bound to greet me when I get to Toronto in 30 something hours. This has served 2 purposes – first is that I can claim as much of the stuff as possible that I’m wearing at customs on the way out of the county in Melbourne, and secondly is that I could close my bag. It is very full. I am hoping to see it again in north America….

And here I am… sitting at gate 22 at Adelaide airport, waiting the last few minutes before departure, an empty take away coffee cup on the seat next to me… a little nervous. But still not fully comprehending where I will wake up next… sweating lightly in my Icebreaker merino undergarments…

More later.

A Serendipitous Christmas Day; the emotional eye of the storm.

It really really doesn’t feel like Christmas at all…

Christmas drinks at work were good last night, and I caught up with Damien, my best friend from primary school that I haven’t seen in probably about 10 years… so that was good. I got a card from my work mates and $160, which I was chuffed with… I was expecting maybe $50 or so… it seems I am reasonably well liked… monetarily at least.

All in all, life goes on… my Serendipitousness continues… and I’m finding myself in a quite content and peaceful state of mind. Maybe it’s the eye of the storm, goodness knows the last few months have been anything but emotionally calm, and who knows what the next few months will bring… Maybe I’m subduing all of my emotions and fears and hoping they go away. Right now I feel very little… which is probably a bad thing, because I really should be packing…

I would just like to add one thing before I go and have a shower and maybe think about packing some stuff… (And thank you to Caroline for my word of the day – Serendipity) I’d just like to say that timing sucks… but life is too short for regrets.

Here’s to Serendipity! May it continue to fill our lives with confusion and happiness! Cheers!




If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. - Sir Francis Bacon

If you had to remember a city, today would be the day to remember it.

I have probably said it before, but I really like Adelaide. Today was a really nice summers day, mid 30s at a guess, warm breeze, lots of smiling faces. I have spent the day not packing, I might get a chance to do some tonight, but I don’t know… I think having everything organized so early has given me nothing to worry about, I’ll probably leave the packing ‘til the last minute, just so I don’t feel so anal.

Anyway, I’ve spent the day in the usual manner, mostly wandering around the city. Got a hair cut… last one in Australia for a while, and I made it practical (so I can wear a beanie) yet fashionable (I paid $59 for it… better f@%#*g look good). I also got a message from the travel agent saying that my Contiki tour stuff has come in (good thing it came in today, wouldn’t have had a chance later in the week…) that came in a really cool document pouch thing, which is a shame, cause I had already bought something that would do the same job… *shrugs*.

Then I sort of started walking in the general direction of the river, but for one reason or another (main reason is I couldn’t be bothered) I turned around and decided to head home, figured I could write my entry from the comfort of my air conditioned house, laying on my bed… but I got to the parklands at east terrace and it was nice and shady and so very very green and I decided to find a piece of grass and stop. So I’ve stopped.

So other than that; I’ve drunk 3 bottles of green iced tea. Which I have grown a taste for. And I’ve been walking everywhere in my crocs. Which now that they have stopped rubbing the top of my feet off, have become quite comfortable, and only leave black marks everywhere, which is better than blood any day of the week. And I’m trying to not think of how close I am to leaving… as excited as I am, its all a little daunting. I don’t think I’m afraid, but I’m definitely nervous.

In other news, I’ve found the program that I’m going to use to do my photos with and send them home, had a play with that yesterday, all pretty straight forward. I also downloaded the program that the Uni uses for the digital imaging part of their course. It’s a really cool program by Google called sketchup. And it’s FREE! Or at least the basic version is. Have a play @ www.sketchup.com . Good fun, and there’s a really good tutorial at the start that gives you some really good grounding. Also my “soup-n-salad” looks like it will be in at Crumpler before I go, which I’m happy about.

And that’s about it, I’m going to go read for a bit, and then continue not packing probably…

Entry 2 - A Giant Mug with a Bagel, and Sand Castles in the Mall.

So….

I think interesting is the best word to describe what happened today. Joan Lesley “international psychic” (I assume psychics aren’t limited by international travel) on first impressions, quite an ordinary older lady, sort of like a young grandmother in characteristics and familiarity… with a bachelor of psychology. She said some very interesting things. To start with she asked when I was born, instantly she was saying that I’d had a tough year…(after confirming what everyone this year has told me – that I don’t look 27) she asked when my ex was born (I didn’t tell her I had an ex – but I guess these days, who doesn’t?) and I told her. She proceeded to describe her and her entire family to me in fairly accurate depth and detail – even to the point of saying that the parents were into something like spiritual or religious or something (they are pastors). Spooky. Anyway, without getting too nasty, she told me exactly what she thought of her, what she’s like and even gave a sort of description of her. All very accurate. Then she asked me about who I was seeing now, and again, without going into specifics, told me that she liked her. A lot. I replied that so do I. and she asked why I was so worried about it, etc etc… don’t want to jinx what she said, but it was all very interesting. Told me about my traveling… said that the New Year was going to be awesome and that the next 5 or 6 years would be fantastic for me, a whole new start etc… Maybe in part I heard what I wanted to hear, maybe she used her psychology degree to read me more than her cards… but there was definitely some interesting things said. She finished the session by calling in the girl from the office and telling her to do some “cleansing and balancing” and ‘cause its Christmas, not to charge me for it (she was a master of the add on sale) and then she said to do something else which I couldn’t pronounce and under her breath said “and only charge him half price for that” *rolls eyes*. Anyway… they took me to the back room and told me to take off my shoes and socks and roll up the bottom of my pants, then I laid on my back on a massage table, they placed a weighted blindfold over my eyes and stuck some headphones on my ears and played elevator music to me with a background of twittering birds and heavy rain. I like rain, but the foot massage was even better. They did some other things that I’m assuming cleansed and healed and balanced me, but I would have paid $30 just for them to do the foot massage for half an hour. It was good. When they’d finished they suggested that I had a lot of pent up stress and that I should definitely come back before Christmas for another healing… I told them I was working right up until I leave and bid them thank-you and goodbye. One interesting thing is that Joan taped the session. That’s right. Tape. I don’t own a tape deck. In fact I know very few people that own tape decks. . . I think its time for her to go digital, I should have tried to sell her a CD recorder… with an extended warranty (at half price). As I left I was told I should drink plenty of water and juice and not cross my arms or legs.

Make what you will of that.

One interesting thing I did notice was the presence of a lot of Catholic symbolism; posters, wall hangings, statues etc. I’m not quite sure what the Catholics would think of that, especially when at one point Joan said that the Archangel Michelangelo (or something) was standing at my right shoulder protecting me… I mean, that’s nice of him, but I’m sure he has more important things to attend to… like peeling God’s grapes or something…

Then my schedule led me to the gym where I had an appointment to cancel my membership. The lady came over to me and asked me my name… gave me a puzzled look, went away, came back and told me that my membership was cancelled in July, and that I hadn’t paid anything since then. I’ll have to check my bank accounts, and to be fair, I haven’t actually checked that it has been coming out, I just assumed. But I never cancelled it, and according to the normal rules of gym membership, if you do cancel you should still have to pay out the rest of the 12 month membership costs, and I didn’t. So. That’s good news… I’ve saved several hundred dollars without actually knowing it. It doesn’t really reflect in my bank balance and I don’t know what I’ve done with the extra $39 a fortnight, but I am glad that it hasn’t gone to a membership that I haven’t been using.

Then while waiting for 6 o’clock to roll around I found a Starbucks and got a “Venti” mug of the coffee of the day, which was Verona… a dark chocolaty sort of coffee in a ginormous mug. They also had bagels there, and as I’m going to the states soon, I thought I probably should try one. I picked a Blueberry bagel, and after electing to pay the 75c for light cream cheese I watched as the girl battled with a bread knife to try to saw thru the dense donut shaped bun. I then waited 10 minutes for her to remember that after it had been toasted, she’s actually meant to give it to me, and smiled as she handed me the luke-warm bagel and said if it wasn’t hot to tell her and she could do me another one. Not being one to complain I said it was fine and sat down to my bagel and cream cheese and enormous mug of chocolaty coffee… and wrote some of this entry. I realized at one point that I was sitting with my legs crossed and quickly un-crossed myself.

Then I left for the Architecture info night. On the way I passed some very cool sand castle sculptures with a Christmas theme. Very cool, I guess if you have to make snow men out of something when its 40C outside, it might as well be sand…

The architecture information was very interesting… I really felt like I was keen to be back in that environment of learning and study. Good thing about the course is that it involves a lot of hands on stuff, very few exams and a lot of group work. All of which suits me fine. The model building looks really great, and there are a lot of excursions and field trips to go on… wait and see if I get in I guess.

Time to head home, the wind is starting to pick up and it’s getting quite cool (nothing to what I’ll be experiencing in a couple of weeks – but enough to raise the hairs on my arms and harden my nipples)

Anyway, I guess if I’ve gotten anything out of today, it’s the thought that if you are what you drink – then I’m a giant mug with a blueberry bagel…





Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing. - Randy K. Milholland

And it rolls around again - First Entry: 12 Midday...

Going to be a fairly full day today, shopping this morning was interesting in itself. I took a backpack and filled it with all the liquids and heavy stuff so my arms didn’t drop off… but it was seriously about 15 kg I reckon. That was my second workout for the day, as I finally motivated myself enough this morning to go for a run!

In about an hour I’ve got to leave for town… got that appointment with the psychic… that will be very interesting. They told me to have questions to ask her, and photos of people you want to know stuff about. Some things I think are probably best not to know, so I think I’ll just let her tell me what I “want” to hear… that in itself should be interesting. A few of my cousins have been to see various “seers” and have come back with spine tingling hair raising revelations or predictions… so… yeah… I’ll let you know.

Then I have to go to the gym and get them to cancel my membership. Such a waste of money that’s been. Should just tell people to get glandular fever – that helped me loose weight, since then I’ve never felt better. And I’ve started running, I honestly think that’s the key – exercise… stuff diets…

Then at 6 I’ve got an information night at Adelaide Uni about the Architecture course I’ve applied for. Don’t find out whether I’ve gotten in until about the 16th of January. And I’ll be somewhere in the US at that time…

But right now I have to go down and see if I can figure out how to extract the power supply from my PC… and take that to the place I bought the computer from on the way into town. Hopefully it’s that that’s not working, cause I really can’t’ be stuffed carrying the whole tower down there. And I’ve only got one more day off work before I leave, so I don’t have time anyway…

More later in the day.

Aimless Wanderings... Results and Christmas Shopping.

So I got thru a day off without blogging… amazing. I think the main reason for this would have been the fact that I was actually uncharacteristically busy. I woke up at about 8, which is about normal for my days off... unfortunately gone seem to be the days of me sleeping in until 11am (or staying in bed until 5!) I got up and once showered and dressed I went to do my weeklyish grocery shopping. Came back, pottered around the house for a bit, and then called Amber, spoke to her for a satisfying and conversation filled hour or so… maybe a bit more, then decided that I would move my room aground.

I’ve been in my room now for nearly a year and its been the same the whole time, on Tuesday I moved it all around, made myself a heap more room, and only get to enjoy it for another 3 weeks… wish I’d done it months ago…it looks good… Bed in the corner, view out the double door onto the balcony if the curtains are open... yeah... looks good.

Then I checked the mail, in it was my stat test results. I did quite well, 166/200 and better than more then 90% of the rest of the people that have sat the test. Hopefully it’s enough to get me into architecture… I think the first round of offers come out tomorrow. I'll let you know.

Anyway, after that I went into town, didn’t take my notebook cause I had my bar course afterwards. So I wandered around town for a while… somehow hurting my leg in the process… felt like I’d strained a ligament of something on the side of my right knee, which was annoying.. but when I went to get something to eat from Woolies for my bar course dinner, I got some pain killers and some fish oil tablets… took 2 pain killers and a fish oil tablet, then another 2 painkillers about an hour later when it still wasn’t feeling any better… and its come good… still on the fish oil… someone told me it was good for aches and pains and stuff… and I don’t know if it’s the tablets or the fact that I’m just not in any pain, but… well, I’m not in any pain…

Went and booked a session with a psychic next week… will let you know how that goes…

Then I went to my bar course…last session and practical test. Got my results for the written test – got 48/50. And as happy as I am with that, it’s really not very surprising considering, as I said, that the teacher was going around giving us help… I think I did quite well in the prac. Didn’t spill the tray, poured 3 passable beers, messed up my fruit cup a little bit, but not too bad… think I did alright in everything else…

Then walking home at about 8.45 down Rundle Street, I walked past the nova cinema. Well, that’s not right, I didn’t walk past it, I walked into it… saw that a movie that I sort of wanted to see was on in about half an hour, and decided that since I’d had such a good day, and that it was a Tuesday so the tickets were cheap, I would watch a movie. The movie was A Scanner Darkly… interestingly made movie… cell shaded over actual filmed footage… strange effect, sort of messes with your head a bit… took a while for my head to get adjusted to the style. But over all, money well spent, and a nice end to a very nice day.

Yesterday at work was good too... the last few days at work have actually been really good… lots of people realizing its Christmas and deciding that they finally want to buy a TV… and I’ve found myself using the line “I’m leaving in 3 weeks, I want to do as many deals as I can before I go… blah blah blah” seems to be working, cause the last 2 days I’ve worked, I reckon I’ve done nearly 10G a day… so that’s good. If I can do that sort of thing every day before I leave, it should help the bank balance a little bit at least. I think I only have maybe 2 more days off work before Christmas...

Christmas shopping is hard…

Anyway, it seems like I’m really just dribbling today… no real continuity to my thoughts… Today I’ve done a bit of Christmas shopping (not much mind you…) wandered around town as aimlessly as my thoughts… it’s a nice day again, and again I’ve found myself down at the river front… watching some people building something on the grass… looks like maybe the flooring for a massive pavilion or something… anyway… enough for now… I’m reading a really good book at the moment and I want to get back to it…


See ya.



No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating. - Harold Rosenberg