(i wrote this yesterday, couldn't post til now)
Ok! First legit blogging session commence. First off, I'm safe and sound in Melbourne, and it is 5:45PM on Wednesday the 14th. Which means I am 16 hours ahead of all you sluggish souls back in the chilly northeast. It also means that my body thinks it is nearly 2AM. Forgive me in advance for spelling and grammar, and Happy Valentine's Day!
I am writing from a little cafe on Elizabeth St that I was directed toward for free wireless. They sort of have it; they want to charge/rob me for access. But, I'm sick of walking for now so I'm going to sit here and write until I get hungry.
Ok. I'll begin at what I think is the beginning. This is going to be a long one. I will add pictures later, which may elicit a closer read to what is probably going to be a lengthy entry. So the day before I left was Sunday. Sunday was weird... I got up early to pack and go get a bunch of last-minute stuffs, largely from the travel bins and snack aisles at kmart/tops. I LOVE THOSE TRAVEL BINS ETERNALLY. I love that traveling allows me to guiltlessly give in into my strong urge to buy all those killer tiny versions of shit I don't really need. Highlight purchases from my excursion include:
mini bodywash: caress "glowing touch"
a plastic watch with smiling, waving penguins on it (cost: $6)
mini intensive therapy lotion
those crunch asian wasabi-flavored bulk snacks
After I was mostly done packing (waiting on laundry), I did my taxes online. I include this because TurboTax is often unintentionally hilarious. See, they have you go from page to page answering Yes/No or checking boxes. Usually these pages have a theme--sometimes they don't. My favorite example is the page that asks you to check which things apply to you, and the things are(paraphrased):
- can you be claimed as a dependant last year?
- did you serve in the military last year?
-did you go blind last year?
-did you die last year?
hahaha.
I stayed up last organizing and downloading podcasts, watched an ep of x-files with Jessa, then went to sleep around 1AM.
Next morning, up early to shower and put my stuff in the car. The transition from home to rochester to JFK was pretty uneventful. I was pretty sad to leave my mom, but happy to be embarking at last. At JFK, I ate clam chowder and chatted with a kid named Alex who had just gotten off work at the McDonalds. Listened to a podcast about quantum mechanics. Grabbed a water. Boarded my plane at 4:20.
Journal entry interlude:
"It took us over an hour to leave JFK due to some repair thingy, but now we're taxiing. The air smells like burnt rubber and there was smoke around the plane a minute ago, which is disconcerting from a plane that is flying us across the country. My new friend and seatmate Chanah is reading her prayers quietly in Hebrew to calm down, so I thought I would write as some calming therapy, me style. --I just saw the most amazing airplane out my window. Bright red, covered in graffiti-style art... Quantas rocks. Chanah is also bound for Australia, cause she studies at a Jewish seminary in Sydney. Neat fact: her family practices homeopathy; we have a lot to talk about (if only I spoke Yiddish! Hah.)
It's misty out, and the sun has set now, and the shores of the City and Island look like some kind of colossal glittery sensorimotor homunculus stretching out away from my window. Parking lots, empty, lamp-lit, are eerie from high above with their spotted patterns of pooled light. I love taking off. It kind of feels like going home. You know, until I remember that Twilight Zone with John Lithgow and the creature that walks on the plane's wing and rips off the engines. eek.
Anyway, we're totally chasing the sunset, which is cool. I just took half a sleeping pill, hoping that it will keep my dreamy and so the flight will be quick."
I watched the pretty colors of the in-flight movie, marie antoinette and read a magazine, then presto, the lights of shangri-L.A. beneath me. Yay for drugs.
When I "woke up" part way through my flight from LA to Sydney, grumpy and delerious, this is what I wrote:
"Airplane Food
Ok. Let me put a disclaimer on this and say that I love airplane food, I really do. Ask Julia... that awesome dinner we had on the way to rome?...happiness! And furthermore, it's great as a little project to pass the time on a long flight. So when I was handed one of those neatly squared little boxes at 3:30AM eastern time, I thought, ok, sure, i'll wake up for this. Alas, United Airlines has a strange conception of what a vegetarian might want as a "snack" in the middle of the night: cold, unseasoned brown rice mixed with cilantro, golden raisins, green peas, and tangerine slices, all on a bed of iceberg lettuce. So now here I am sitting stuck in the middle of the middle aisle between two older women who find it hard to get up so i can go pee, miserable and sore from (barely) sleeping upright for six hours, a really annoying chant about ethiopia stuck in my head that i must have dreamed up--and I am ready to throw this tin of animal-friendly "snack" of "pilaf salad" (?!?!?!) at the nearest flight attendant's head. Whatever. Fuck. iPod in, eye mask down, I will attempt to sleep until breakfast.
Then later: After dozing for about an hour, I am shocked awake by what is unmistakenly the feel of fingers around my ankle. I'm not kidding. I wanted to believe it was just someone stretching out their feet behind me, but no, those are hands. Sweet. I squealed into my pillow and jerked my feet up. A few seconds later, a tap on my shoulder behooves me to "look under my feet, please, for a lost pair of eyeglasses." Way to go, lady, that probably should have been your first move in the search. My adrenalin is unwelcome here. I hate you right now.
The monitor on the ceiling says that it's -47 degrees celcius outside. That makes me a little happier. I love that this Boeing is a tiny little encasing of heat and oxygen and safety in a sea of icy, lifeless atmosphere. Four hundred hearts pumping away in a cocoon 35000 miles up. I wonder if I'm closer to or farther from the moon right now than I ever could be on earth? According to my baller new penguin watch, we have exactly three hours to go... I started out for australia 28 hours ago, and i've got 8 left."
Ok. I'm just going to keep transcribing from my journal. It is keeping me awake rather nicely without demanding that I actively remember.
"Hey, journal, it's Wednesday the 14th. Guess what? It was never the 13th for me! I never could have written in you on the 13th! Aiieee!! Happy Valentine's!
I'm at the departure gate in Sydney right now, about to embark on the last leg of my journey. The 14hr flight wasn't that bad, overall. Sleeping wasn't awesome, but nobody bothered me (save for ankle-lady) and the one woman I talked to was really nice. When we were getting off the plane, I talked to her sister, and she told me that her late husband was a Cornell alum! And was in DU! Crazy! Then, when I was in line for the next flight, the couple behind me asked if I was going back to the US at some point and would like their five bucks USD, as they wouldn't need it again. Why yes, thank you, delighted to take it off your hands (they refused to let me give them Australian money for it). So I talked with them for a little while, and it turns out their home is a block from the hostel I am staying at... hey, would I like a ride from them back to Melbourne? Why yes, I would love one! Hopefully you nice people are not a predacious pair of sex offenders or something!
Me right now:
window seat
legs curled up
socks, white
sweatpants, black
tshirt, grey
ipod,in
watch, on
sunglasses perched on head
hair piled on head
sun shining on me
cabin air across my skin
dirty dirty dirty
happyhappyhappy"
So that flight was quick, and I got my ride to the Nunnery, my hostel. My new friends still refused to take money from me. They gave me their address in case I needed anything. I love them! It's 30 degrees C here, so that's about 85-90F. And sunny. Yeeha!!
The Nunnery is awesome. It really used to be a nunnery, and it is beautiful, and very clean. I am staying in a dorm-style key-lock room with 11 other travelers. It's cool and dim and breezy in there. Everyone seemed really friendly in the brief minutes I talked to them before fleeing for the shower. Scrubbing off that flight felt like heaven, but I had to make it short. There is a draught in Victoria, we must conserve water! I then walked to Joe's Garage because they have wireless, and got a salad and a beer and called my mom and sent messages to people. And wrote:
"Oh my God. It smells so good here. It smells like Italy did in Tivoli or Ostia, only maybe even better! The waiter I befriended seems to have gifted me an extra Peroni, so i'm hanging out a while longer here even though my lappy died (haven't bought a plug converter thingy yet).
My life feel perfect right now. I wish i could put this day in the freezer and come back to it always. It's almost 90 here today, a warm-cozy-shiny February 14th. Lupe is on in the cafe, and they are playing the whole album. I need to buy more tank tops, a bathing suit, a dress, and sandals.
Fuck i love this album.
I want some cigarettes.
I'm totally tipsy right now. Haha. That damn salad was not enough to waylay the effects of two beers + jet lag. I am totally brave to finish this one. Go me. Hey you know what? You can't say cell phone here. It gets disdain/confusion. It's mobile. so you know.
Life is hazy right now. I feel like i'm on some kind of waystation plane of reality. Which I guess I am. It's floaty here. It aaaaall floats."
I've spent the rest of today walking around dazedly. Heading off to find some food now. Cheers!
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