Monday, June 27, 2005
Friday night in Tullamarine airport
Soundtrack: “Employment” by Kaiser Chiefs
17th June. I was sharing a room with two quiet, polite French guys, and another boy on the bunk on top of me who hadn’t materialized. He turned up pissed at 4am. Then his Kiwi Experience tour leader turned up at 6.30am to kick him out of bed. I BLOODY HATE KIWI EXPERIENCE, MAGIC BUS AND STRAY. Let me expand. These three companies ask people to pay money for transportation, and they drive you around all the major stuff in NZ. You still have to arrange and pay for your own accommodation, though. I was traveling by supersaver coach pass or whatever it was called, so I was doing the exact same thing as them, but paying $200 less and not rolling in drunk every night because all I wanted to do by then was sleep. And I did not take well to being deprived of rest by these idiots jumping on “shag buses.” I mean, they weren’t even appreciating the country properly. They were just getting drunk and trying to get laid at night, and then sleeping it off on the bus the next day and not even seeing anything.
Later, I managed to lift myself from bed 30 minutes before checkout and met up with Fiona. We wandered around the center of Chch for a bit, which exposed it as being a rather dull and expressionless little city. Getting fed up pretty quickly, we ended up taking the bus to the airport stupidly early. Fiona and I sat around for hours playing shithead and reading gossip mags, and then it was time for me to get on my plane back to Melbourne.
I finished reading “Anna Karenina” during the flight, which is an achievement, considering I’d been spinning the monster out for over a month. #For those of you who haven’t read it and are considering to do so, look away now.# I was really disappointed with the ending, as after Anna’s wonderfully dramatic suicide, it cuts straight to Levin’s thoroughly dull story two months later. Most infuriatingly, Tolstoy barely touches on how Vronsky and Karenin felt after her death, and for me, there was this vast potential for some really powerful, emotive writing.
On the rest of the journey, I refused to watch the romcom that they were showing, and sat gazing at the clouds out of the window and singing along to “X & Y” and “Employment,” as I was the only person in my row. Then followed three hours in Tullamarine Airport, which I managed to pass without any reading material. The first couple of hours were okay, because it was still fairly early and therefore not very busy. However, the weekend rush soon kicked in, and I was very glad that I had had ages to reclaim my baggage and re-check it (which I had to do because I was using two different airlines). [Bytheway, Virgin Blue self-checking is soooooooo cool. You can chose your own seat and everything. All you have to do is scan in the barcode on your itinerary, and then drop off your baggage, and everything’s sorted.] By the time I had to make my way to the gate, though, the place was full of people going home or on holiday for the weekend, and it was impossible to move very quickly at all. Half the flights were delayed, and so there were lots and lots of angry/frustrated people wandering around as well. I was an island of calm in a sea of madness, and I sat in the waiting lounge eating my ice smoothie, even though it was cold outside.
I arrived back in Adelaide shattered, but relieved that I’d have a good bed where the mattress didn’t sink in in the middle and where I wouldn’t get woken up in the middle of the night by some smelly roommate who’d been unsuccessfully on the pull. I’m really glad I went out to NZ and it’s an experience I’ll always hold dearly, but by God, I needed some rest when I got back.
17th June. I was sharing a room with two quiet, polite French guys, and another boy on the bunk on top of me who hadn’t materialized. He turned up pissed at 4am. Then his Kiwi Experience tour leader turned up at 6.30am to kick him out of bed. I BLOODY HATE KIWI EXPERIENCE, MAGIC BUS AND STRAY. Let me expand. These three companies ask people to pay money for transportation, and they drive you around all the major stuff in NZ. You still have to arrange and pay for your own accommodation, though. I was traveling by supersaver coach pass or whatever it was called, so I was doing the exact same thing as them, but paying $200 less and not rolling in drunk every night because all I wanted to do by then was sleep. And I did not take well to being deprived of rest by these idiots jumping on “shag buses.” I mean, they weren’t even appreciating the country properly. They were just getting drunk and trying to get laid at night, and then sleeping it off on the bus the next day and not even seeing anything.
Later, I managed to lift myself from bed 30 minutes before checkout and met up with Fiona. We wandered around the center of Chch for a bit, which exposed it as being a rather dull and expressionless little city. Getting fed up pretty quickly, we ended up taking the bus to the airport stupidly early. Fiona and I sat around for hours playing shithead and reading gossip mags, and then it was time for me to get on my plane back to Melbourne.
I finished reading “Anna Karenina” during the flight, which is an achievement, considering I’d been spinning the monster out for over a month. #For those of you who haven’t read it and are considering to do so, look away now.# I was really disappointed with the ending, as after Anna’s wonderfully dramatic suicide, it cuts straight to Levin’s thoroughly dull story two months later. Most infuriatingly, Tolstoy barely touches on how Vronsky and Karenin felt after her death, and for me, there was this vast potential for some really powerful, emotive writing.
On the rest of the journey, I refused to watch the romcom that they were showing, and sat gazing at the clouds out of the window and singing along to “X & Y” and “Employment,” as I was the only person in my row. Then followed three hours in Tullamarine Airport, which I managed to pass without any reading material. The first couple of hours were okay, because it was still fairly early and therefore not very busy. However, the weekend rush soon kicked in, and I was very glad that I had had ages to reclaim my baggage and re-check it (which I had to do because I was using two different airlines). [Bytheway, Virgin Blue self-checking is soooooooo cool. You can chose your own seat and everything. All you have to do is scan in the barcode on your itinerary, and then drop off your baggage, and everything’s sorted.] By the time I had to make my way to the gate, though, the place was full of people going home or on holiday for the weekend, and it was impossible to move very quickly at all. Half the flights were delayed, and so there were lots and lots of angry/frustrated people wandering around as well. I was an island of calm in a sea of madness, and I sat in the waiting lounge eating my ice smoothie, even though it was cold outside.
I arrived back in Adelaide shattered, but relieved that I’d have a good bed where the mattress didn’t sink in in the middle and where I wouldn’t get woken up in the middle of the night by some smelly roommate who’d been unsuccessfully on the pull. I’m really glad I went out to NZ and it’s an experience I’ll always hold dearly, but by God, I needed some rest when I got back.
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heyo stepho - do you read your comments? My guess is proberly not, so It's worth a shot. How's it going? I'm leaving the old kampuchea soon, which is sad but will in no way affect you. Are we going to the same university? Saying that we might not be because I'm not sure how sucessfully I sorted that shit out before I left. Well, anyways.....email me if you have a change on your crazy world tour. Do you fancy thialand at all, because a lot of the crew will be there in august.
Anyways, will soon be appricating the irony of celebrating american independance day in vietnam. Hope there are some good parties and not too much shooting.
Naomi
Anyways, will soon be appricating the irony of celebrating american independance day in vietnam. Hope there are some good parties and not too much shooting.
Naomi
# posted by 
: 12:02 pm
: 12:02 pm
Ah, hello Nomz. As far as I know, I'm still going to old University of Liverpool, as when I called Mum from a freezing phone box in Alice Springs, she told me that all my accomodation shit had come through, but I still had to sign it myself, so I better not end up without a room or anything...
I shall be in Singapore and Malaysia in the first half of August, then playing Stravinsky and recovering in the second half, so probably no Thailand for me.
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I shall be in Singapore and Malaysia in the first half of August, then playing Stravinsky and recovering in the second half, so probably no Thailand for me.
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