Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

Camilla left Sydney for Fiji on Wednesday, and I went off to Bondi Beach. I lay out under the sun, the one I was telling you about that is so strong it just goes right through you leaving no shadow, for about 2 or 3 hours. It wasn’t the greatest idea of my life considering I hadn’t come home till 5 that morning after hanging out at a pub with two English guys and a Swedish guy and girl from the hostel, and had to wake up around 9 to see Camilla off. I went to the park to take a nap because my room was too unbearably hot, which isn’t surprising since it’s on the top floor of a 4 story house.

I went to bed early that night and woke up early in the morning already boiling. I headed out for a walk around the city and ended up trying to find a cool place to sit in the gardens. I was entirely unsuccessful. I returned to the hostel to see if I could get one of the English guys to go running, but he had just gotten back from playing football and didn’t seem too enthused. He invited me to come out with him and his friend that night. He said he had to get a shower first and about 45 minutes later he came downstairs not at all dressed to run. I asked him, “you going for a run?”

“I just ran up the stairs and back. I’m knackered.”

So I went off myself, and later he asked me what happened with the run, saying he’d waited. Anyway, that evening when I got back downstairs after showering, I found that these English guys and two others I’d met, Ed, Danny, James and Mark (at least I hope that’s what their names are) had disappeared, and to be entirely honest, it made me depressed; I had been looking forward to going out. But it was still relatively early so I still had the hope they were just gone for dinner, and sure enough I ran into one who informed me that the others were primping. We headed out, 3 English guys and myself. They had nicknamed me Texas since I’d mentioned I was born in Texas. As one could imagine hanging out with three guys between the ages of 20 and 22, many many things were said that were far too innapropriate to share here. But even though they teased me relentlessly and often risquely about a variety of things, they were decent guys, telling me that if they ever cross the line, to let them know. In fact, they somewhat restored my hope that there are good guys out there.

We ended up staying out until 6:30 in the morning, after the sun had fully risen, and we all had to get up in a few hours to check out of the hostel. They were headed for Melbourne, and I was headed for Bangkok (the sound of which was found relentlessly entertaining to them). When I reached the top stairs of the hostel, and opened my door, Tanya a roommate, the Swede I’d met in Wellington, was standing there looking as stunned as I was. We both had to laugh at the fact that I was returning after she’d woken up. I set my alarm for shortly before 10, and went to sleep. In the morning the English guys had disappeared and I figured maybe they’d left, and again, it made me sad. And again, I was wrong, they were just sleeping in. So I spent my last day walking around the city with them.

It’s so strange just how attached I get to people after only about 2 days, and how no matter what it always gets me down when I leave, which happens with increasing frequency. I didn’t get any of their emails or anything, though I did leave my phone number with one of them. Whether they’ll ever text me, I don’t know. But it would be great if when I go to the UK I’ll already know some people, so I hope they do text me.

And now I’m in Bangkok. I arrived at my hotel at 2am after an 8 hour flight. Loneliness immediately set in. My mum wanted to make sure I didn’t end up in a roach infested, dangerous hostel in a bad part of town, so as a birthday present, she booked a hotel. But in all honesty at the moment I think I’d rather be in a roach infested hostel, because then I wouldn’t be alone. I mean the hostel I stayed in in Sydney was pretty disgusting, with roaches, and hookers on the street corner. How bad could it be really? This morning at breakfast, I couldn’t hold back the tears. Four days seems like a very long time when you’ve been on the road 5 months, just had a great time in Sydney, and are now very much alone. I’m looking forward to staying in a hostel again in Honolulu. But then I really should quit feeling sorry for myself. I’m in Bangkok, a city that reaks from pollution, but I am sure is none-the-less an awesome place to visit. Maybe I should leave the hotel and have a look around.

I think in my last post on Australia, I forgot to mention that I cried for about 2 minutes when the plane took off from Christchurch. I have to say, thank you New Zealand, I learned so much from you.

So on with life. On Sunday, Camilla and I walked down to the wharf and caught a ferry to the zoo. Admission into the zoo is expensive, especially compared to the measly $0 you have to pay to go to the National Zoo. We took the gondala up to the top of the hill to start looking around. First thing we saw was koalas, the cute furry spokesmen, you might say, of the Sydney zoo. They were being their adorable, drug stuppored selves. We spent the day walking around looking at animals, you know, the thing you usually do at the zoo. When we went to the alligator exhibit, Camilla gasped and took a step back. The head of an alligator poked up silently out of the water outside the safety rails. “Is that real?”

“Haha, I don’t think so.”

“They have a sick sense of humor.”

Oh, the Aussies! A minute later, a couple strolled up to the bars and the woman stepped back in shock. Good laughs

We wandered on, lost by the signs that stopped informing you at the most inconvenient of times which way to go to see the platypus. We found the nocturnal house where animals with funny names were hopping around like kangaroos, and doing the “hokey pokey.” Wink wink.

“If these animals sleep during the day, do you think they turn the lights on in here at night?” I asked.

“Yeah it can’t be dark all the time.”

Sure enough, Camilla found a sign that read, “Lights are gradually turned on at night…”

This was the first of many such times when we answered our own questions and had them verified by the signs. We are such experts! Between the two of us, Camilla and I can figure out the entire universe.

We found the dingos, which are pretty creatures. And the kangaroo and wallabee exhibit was interesting, we actually walked through their enclosure with no safety fence, only signs that warned people to stay on the path. I will have to share the pictures I took there as soon as possible because they are hilarious. We finally did find the platypus and wombat. I have to say I had them switched in my mind in terms of size. The wombat was the size I expected a platypus to be and vice versa. The platypus is really quite small, and the one at the zoo was playing in the bubbles like an otter. The wombat on the other hand has an enormous head and is about the size and shape of a larger bull dog.

The giraffe enclosure which we happened to pass on the way out overlooked Sydney harbour. Imagine this… giraffe heads sticking up over the opera house and harbour bridge. I have pictures of this too. We headed back on the ferry, and stopped for gelato and went up to touch the sails on the opera house. We noticed a Cony Island sort of place on the other side of the harbour next to the bridge, we decided we had to check it out.

The next day, Camilla and I headed off to the botanical gardens to find a good spot to have a picnic. We found one, overlooking the water with the opera house and bridge in the background. We sat in the grass with our baggettes, brie cheese, chicken and apples and had ourselves a meal. All was going well until a brazen bird with a long beek walked up and probably thinking I was holding my sandwich out to him, snatched it right out of my hand.

“That bugger!” Soon a number of sea gulls had come to try and steal the sandwich from him. I picked up my flip flop and threw it at him. The birds scattered, and I walked over grabbed the sandwich and threw it in our trash bag. No worries folks, bird flu is not in Australia, and I didn’t eat anything more until I washed my hands.

Camilla and I sat reading. A man lay not too far off. He had his hand in his pocket and kept moving around rhythmically in a strange way so that his pants were falling down. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt, that maybe he didn’t realise it, but I soon started to suspect that it was intentional. Having just taken Abnormal Psychology, I can tell you it seemed awfully remniscent of expositionism. So I said quietly to Camilla who had just started eating a strawberry, “Camilla, I think we should go now. The guy behind you is freaking me out.”

So she non-chalantly finished her paragraph without looking at the man and we packed up and moved on. The funny thing is I have seen an inordinate number of crazies roaming the streets. I probably shouldn’t be saying it this way since I am working toward a profession in clinical psychology (unless of course I end up changing my mind), but it’s true. I can’t count the number of people I have come across talking to themselves, and suffering from tics. I’m no doctor yet, but I would have to say I have definitely run across a lot of schizophrenics. I suppose I was somewhat warned by a woman in my same tourgroup in the Cadbury factory. She was an Aussie who when we were talking about the statistics for the quantity of chocolate consumed per person in each country, said, “Americans probably eat more, you have much better mental health than we do.” Now I have quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that she’s right.

We headed across the harbour bridge which is actually a very monotonous walk. I felt like I was walking through a windy tunnel that just kept going. When we reached the other side we looked at a sign that pointed in the direction of a number of places. Luna Park seemed the best candidate as a name of an amusement park. We headed in the direction and found it. Seeing as it was midday Monday, the place was deserted. We rode one ride, the Wild Mouse, which was a little wooden roller coaster with a number of short drops and an effect that makes you feel like you’re going to fall off the side. The cars only held two people, so we each took our own. When I came down the first drop there was a camera flash. As we walked out back into the street, the pictures were displayed on a screen. I had my tongue sticking out and my hair flying up straight behind me like I had two horns. It was a perfect picture.

We made our way back across the bridge, and stopped for more gelato before heading back to the hostel.

Tuesday watching a movie was the only substantial thing we did. The movie was called Stay with Ewan McGregor and what’s his face from The Notebook, I can’t for the life of me remember. It was strange, very difficult to understand, but pretty good. I think I burned a lot of calories sitting in that theatre just thinking about the movie.

That night we all hung around in the courtyard of the hostel talking about the usual… sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and of course politics. Being an American, the subject of Iraq and hilarious anecdotes of American stupidity always seem unavoidable. An Irish guy told me that he was once asked in all seriousness by an American, where he could find leprichauns (spelling?) in Ireland. All I could do was laugh very hard and apologize.

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