My time in Australia has finally come to an end. Did it end on a good note you ask? Meh. Yes and no.
I'll explain.
After Bello, I, as you know, made my way to Sydney, where Pablito organized it so I could crash at his parents place. Which was a trip! His parents are some really good people to say the least. They were extremely helpful and accomodating along with being great company. I just hope they saw the same in me :S
Yet again, it felt like being home. I had my own room with a king size bed along with an en suite bathroom, with one of the coolest shower heads I've ever come across. It's basically a huge rectangular block with silicon nozzles sticking out of it, which gave a nice even pressure and great spread. Awsomeness in a shower head.
My first day in Sydney I printed out ads for Voa to be put up in all the hostels around town, which was really fun to do, because I kept on seeing the same cars, and the same day of posting, so I was quite literally following in some ones footsteps on this one. And one thing that really got me was that some hostels wanted charity donations for the ad to be posted on their notice board. First one I posted at, I thought "yeah, okay, why not?" Next one, my suspision rises with the third when they say they take a minimum donation, I knew it was all BS. Anyway, I posted in about 24 different hostels. Mind you though, it was only a few that asked for the donation.
Towards the end of my list of hostels, I go into the Apple Store and see what cool stuff they have, and while there, decide to go see a movie. It basically boiled down to two movies: RED or The Social Network. Both of which were going to be playing at the same time, and decide to decide when I'm standing infront of the cashier. As I'm walking into the cinema, I see something out of place...or better said, something I recognized. It was in the shape of a tall, slim and well built man (funnily enough, I have a hard time using the term man, how old do you have to be to be considered a man?) I yell out a name I had associated to it. No response. I tap him in the back and lo and behold, it is Jose from Rosemere! I had seen this guy for about 2 years and it was in New Zealand, when we lived in the same hostel. We embrace each other and are both equally shocked about standing infront of each other.
We go and watch RED together, and grab a pint afterwards to catch up and exchange stories of adventures past. I bought the round, since he paid for the movie, and without asking the price, I bought a scooner of Ashanti beer, which was pretty good, but bloody dear! 9 bucks! That's more expensive than in Sweden.
On my way back to Manly, I started to think about what the chances were of bumping into him, while on my to, pontentially, watch a movie about the popular webpage Facebook. What I've learned about bumping into people is that there is a small pattern to it all, which is basically you have a greater chance to bump into someone at the touristic spots than the more plain spots, since both are usually out to do some sight seeing. Although...wait...I have bumped into a fair few people in non touristic spots during my time away. Hmm...Anyway, see how I would find it interesting? If not...well, too bad. I can't explain it any further without sounding like a complete wanker.
Once, I got to Manly, I was going to meet the parents of Pablito from up in Bellingen, since he was so cool as to hook me up with a place to stay with them. At first I was a bit concerned that it would be a bit awkward, but it was quite the contrary, they were really fun and interesting to hang around. Both lively and excited about life, something you don't see very often for people in their age.
I was given my own room with a king size bed and an en suite bathroom, which had one of the best shower heads I've ever seen. It was a big rectangular block with silicon nozzles giving a nice even spread and dripping kind of shower. Awesomness!
Next day in Sydney I drive my car to where all the backpackers advertise their car, where I met a hitchhiker I picked up a fews before, a couple from the cherry farm, and a girl from Darwin who is friends with my ex workmates. It seemed pretty cool. Not to long into it, there was a group of us sellers sitting around heckling passersby saying how awesome our cars were. A lot of people looked at my car, but no one was fully interested. Most of the potential buyers were looking for a full sized van of course. N00bs. They don't know style when it's sitting right in front of them :P Well, seriously, as nice as Voa is, it's a pretty crap car if you're two and it's raining. Not a whole lot of space for just chilling around INSIDE of the car. Oh well.
Head back home to Manly, and eat dinner with Pablitos parents and his brother and his brothers flat mate. Which was really nice and chill. Fun too see different family dynamics in action. It always fascinates me.
It's now been almost a week since I started writing this, so I'll do my best to recollect it all.
Ok! Here goes!
Next day, after the dinner, I drive back to Victoria St, where I met some people I worked with in TAS, had breakie with them, and then drove their gear to the airport for them, so they didn't have to take it on the bus with them.
I wasn't to motivated to sell the car that day, which is bad, but meh. By this point in time, I didn't really give a rats ass. After having dropped off their gear, and saying good bye to them once more, I decided to head back home and prepare for the up coming night with Jose. We had decided to eat at a pizzeria which my friends that I just dropped off recommended, and I can vouch for it too! It was Jose, his missus, a friend of theirs, and me, and we smashed about 4 bottles of wine I think, and I didn't feel a thing since we had literally gone balls to the wall on this one. Entre, dinner and dessert! It was delicious!
After which Jose's missus decided to head home and go to bed, and at which point the rest of us headed over to the The Hero of Waterloo, where we only bought one drink, because they were closing up for the night. Since neither of us were very keen to head on home, we decided to keep on moving our bloated asses over to The Löwenbräu Keller where we kept on drinking and partying until it closed, and decided that we were all to drunk to do anything else, other than keep on partying, so we head over to Kings Cross, where we all got the ingenious idea of going to a gentlemen's club, where we had a blast!
Ah yes...it was awesome and quite a night to remember. However, our female partner in crime was crashing in the middle of the club on the benches, so we all decide to go to Jose's place which is only around the corner to get some serious R'n'R.
Jose grabbed the rose some random dude had bought our female comrade, and tried giving it to his sleeping missus who had tried calling several times during the night, and upon giving the rose to her, he was beaten up by it....we all decided to go to sleep at that point. Next thing I remember was that our female comrade was running around the flat swearing grabbing all of her stuff trying to make her way out to the races.
I woke up not too long afterwards with Jose making me a cup of tea, and me preparing to close my bank account and book some tickets to Seattle and all the way home.
Today was also going to be the day that someone had promised me that they would buy my car off of me (at a reduced price too of course), and while I was trying to contact him all day, no go. This however, was all after I had booked my tickets to the States. So at by this point, I was shitting myself, thinking that I wasn't going to have any cash for Aotearoa or the States. Happiness.
I go to the bank to see what the story is about closing it and all that jazz, and when I asked them about my balance, it had over 1000 dollars more than expected, and we began talking about how I could get the money out over seas and other boring things, and it all ended up with me leaving my account open (which I'm now happy about mind you).
Once I was done at the bank, and had trying to call this guy with little success, I go back to Manly and prepare my bags for the airport, and decide that I had to take a risk with my car, since the guy I had offered to give it to for free wasn't going to take for reasons I understand and won't mention, I decided to take my chances with the girl that I had met the night since she said that she had a spare parking space where she was living. Call her up and organise it so she becomes my seller for Oz. Big risk? Bloody oath, but what other choice did I have. To make some money out of it at least. I could of have scrapped it, but then that wouldn't of accomplished anything in the end. And yes, I have thought it through, and the car could already be sold for all I know. But I know someone else on the ground who can help me out, need be – Jose. However, my Spidey senses tell she's a good egg.
End up chilling having a small yarn with her until I had to head back to Manly to get ready for my 03.30 wake up. Great.
My trip to Manly was long. Really long. Not so much in 'physical' time, but more like the mental time. You know what I mean. When you're going to do something big, or important, time slows down so much that it just becomes insane. I start thinking about coming home, about my time in Oz, people I've met, the people I want to meet again, and so much more. Almost depressing actually, and we all know how great I am about that, eh? Hmm....
I stay up the whole night, just slowly packing and taking my time. Before I notice it, it's already 03.00. I cram the rest of my gear into my bag with no real structure and pray for sleep to over take me.
Pablo's father drives me to the airport and I fall asleep in the car while he's talking about something I'm not too sure about. Great man. Very very great man, who had the misfortune of getting brain cancer. So fucking bullshit. It seems like only the good people are set to have the bad luck. Ok, it could have been worse, and he is still alive, which is borderline a miracle I suppose.
I go to the check-in desk, and then the onslaught of terror begins. Proof that I'm leaving NZ, proof that I am a human being, proof that the sky is blue and not purple. Retarrrrrded.
The woman was even skeptical about me getting into NZ, and very doubtful about me getting into the States. Great. Happy days.
I end up having to go to a printer hidden away in some random part of the terminal to get stuff printed out, and then finally check-in.
Make my bloated tired ass to the immigrations, where I warn the lady that my passport is fragile, and she doesn't give to shits about it, and almost breaks it, claiming it wouldn't be her fault.
Here's how I see it: The local council puts up signs not to start a fire, since everything is dry, and something bad could happen. I look at the sign, take it down, take a shit on it, and then set it on fire, and walk away. Well, not my problem.
What. A. Fucking. Bitch.
She made leaving Australia that much better. As awesome as that country is, there are some serious fucktards who don't deserve to be breathing, or at least be removed from the gene pool.
I'm drowsy, and incoherent. I just want to sleep.
I wake up, and I'm in NZ. Move to the immigrations, ready to turn around and give the finger to the world. Instead, they take me to the side, and issue me a months visa on a temporary form of identification which has the same value of a passport.
Get into Auckland and call my BFG (Big Friendly Giant) in the Bay of Islands. He's surprised and happy that I'm coming up.
I don't really want to go into too much detail about my trip up there, but I will say that it was beyond awesome. Awesome is the feeling I had when I woke up the next morning knowing that I was in a place where I truly loved.
Here's what I did there: got drunk, met awesome people, did some work, drove around the islands, ate amazing food, came first place on quiz night, did 3 dives, and did some serious thinking about it all.
Man...leaving there was a really hard thing to do. Seeing the summer roll in made the whole leaving process even harder. However, the hardest part was meeting this cool French dude, who was going to be my BFGs deck hand over the summer. It reminded me so much of myself it's just crazy. He was 23, one year younger than what I was when I was in Paihia first. Living the dream.
Damn.
The actual leaving NZ wasn't easy either, with immigrations that is, since I had that special ID. Yeah. Oh, and this was the...4th or 5th consecutive pat down and 'random' search that they did to me. I was just laughing about it.
No big deal, but it still got me nervous about getting into the States.
Flight over was epic and harsh. Had a one hour stop over in Tahiti before doing the final leg to LAX.
Upon getting to LAX, and finally having assembled my story to have any sort of coherent meaning, I step in front of the immigrations officer, and tell him to be careful with my passport, since I had been travelling for such a long time, it had become a tad bit fragile.
He carefully scans my passport, asks how long I'm in the country for, logs my fingerprints, and tells me to enjoy my trip. That's it!
Ok, a bit more security than the other countries I've gone to, but still! How piss easy was that?! And I was worried that I had entered the wrong details for my passport in the visa waiver. Lucky boy I guess.
Grab my bag, and make my way to my next flight, which was 5 hours away. No rush. After having checked in, I start trying to make contact with my friend Kobe here in Seattle, to verify that I was now in the US, and all was well.
I land in Seattle, and Kobe (who has been an awesome host) was there to meet me, which was a bit surreal, but freaking awesome!
What have I done here? Partied (had some amazing cocktails), a lot of beer (not to the point of getting drunk, just to enjoy), great food, a lot of shopping, went to the Swedish Cultural Center (which doesn't have any Swedes working there) and meeting some great people.
I also did 2 dives here which was pretty fun. The vis was clear and I saw a HUGE octopus twice. I have never seen anything quite like it.
Was invited to a brunch at the home of Kobe's friends which they hold every Sunday, and the house was beautiful, and unlike anything I've ever seen! It was an old church which was been modified to be liveable and is a real piece of art. It has so much potential it's not even funny! The only issue is funding.
Ok, I've been trying to piece this blog together for a while now, and as you could tell, the end has just kind of flopped together.
Several things that I've noticed:
Seattle is a great place
I need friends close by
Travelling sucks, because you never want to stop
Growing up is mental suicide
My mind is blown away by the consumerism in the US
I think I'm pretty emotionally dead in certain ways
I also ended it with Amy. Long story short, I'm too shitty of boyfriend to be together with her. I'm still way to selfish and have my own plans which she isn't involved in. She doesn't need to be waiting for something which I'm too afraid to commit to, she doesn't deserve that.
Any who. Ah yes, I've put on some more weight in my last weeks, since I felt that this is the end of very important chapter in my life, and just kind of went bananas, and now feel like a bloated tub of shit. So once I get to Sweden, it's back to the no-carb diet. Looking forward to it.
Ciao!
