In one week from almost exactly this moment, I will be arriving back at my house.
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Went and climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Ward! It was outstanding.
Even though a view from a high place is the same from anywhere, when you've climbed something like 1,480 steps to get to that high point it's waaaaay better.
Behold some of these photographic gems. You're not allowed you own cameras, so these are just the ones they take of you at the special spots.
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| Oprah did it, so I needed too. |
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| How sweet are those suits? |
Ward even put this one on his 'bridge wall'. Basically one of the walls in his study is covered in photos from when he takes people on the walk. This was definitely the best choice.
We came back to the house and I went and grabbed some Indian take-out. Oh my lord. $10 for the most delicious dal lentil soup and these, slightly odd but still yummy, veggie puff/samosa thingys. I was in heaven.
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| facebook, lentil soup and veggie puff things. |
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| the room the Young's so kindly let me stay in. |
Re packed my entire bag and tried to figure out how the hell to get to the bus station.
Went to 'the shops'. It was the scariest part of my whole trip. Think Pleasentville scary. They're all so perfect and I went to the 'candy shoppe' and this kid was getting his usual end of the school week milkshake. Want to know what? He shook it up and got a chocolate instead of his usual cookies and creme. I kid you not.
I felt like they were going to kidnap me and make me sell perfectly shaped and coloured produce in the 'village shoppe' or whatever the fuck it was called.
I called Len and we agreed I'd call him on Monday to make plans to meet him & Kathy and go up to Toowoomba or have Doc & Phil come down. So stoked.
Re packed again since I needed something to do.
Ward & Kim had to go out for dinner but they figured they'd be back by around 8.30 so one of them coulee drive me into the bus station but, thankfully, I asked for a taxi number in case. Which is good because when I left their house at 9.20 they still weren't back.
I'm a little bummed since we didn't really say goodbye since they thought they'd be back to early, but hey, I left them a nice note and they knew I had to be gone from Rose Bay at 9.30 at the absolutely latest. So I mean, yes.
Anyway, my lovely taxi driver who had a hard to say Indian name that I've already forgotten and I had a pleasant drive into the city. We talked about India and travelling alone in other cultures. He's from the North, from a town I'd never heard of about 2 hours northwest of Varanasi. I think. Somewhere in that area.
I'm now sitting on some bench outside the Premier Bus Station on Eddy Avenue.
Of course.
My bus is supposed to leave at 10.30 so everyone's supposed to be here at 10.
So, of course I got here at 9.40. I feel so frazzled about this whole goddamn place.
I hope I can relax a bit more in Byron Bay, I really do.
I'm going to have a heart attack at this rate.
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11.30 PM
Been on the bus for about an hour now.
I'm not going to lie, I started feeling calmer the second I got on.
I'm feeling generally spiffy as of now and am almost looking forward to the next 11 hours of the ride.
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March 5th
7.50 AM
Well, I slept so well. I was pretty much asleep from midnight until 6. Hell yes.
We had a meal/stretch/smoke break at 1 so I woke up for that but then went right back to sleep.
Just finished another break. I had two cups of dreadful instant coffee and some toast.
We're about three hours from Byron I think.
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| The one photo I took. Somewhere between Sydney & Byron Bay. |
Like I said before, I'm feeling 100% again.
I think maybe the fact that I was staying with someone so I wasn't on my own made me more nervous when I had to do things by myself? I'm not sure but I'm back on track.
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I walked around for ever trying to find a hostel. Nomad's had no room and eventually I found the YHA. Which is actually a pretty nice one.
And well. It rained. All day. So no beach time for me!
My four roomates are two couples, so I'm not feeling 5th wheel-y at all. No sir.
But I went for a long walk all around town. Bought my bus ticket to Brisbane, I'm leaving at noon tomorrow. I had wanted to leave in the afternoon but it was about $25 cheaper to go when I'm going.
Ran into Hailey, one of those annoying English girls I met in Alice. The ones who wanted my help packing and were so dreadful. Except the older one's done and Hailey was way nicer this time around.
I went to Woolworths too. So exciting!
Then I came back and watched the entire 3rd season of Psych & Black Swan. That is a seriously crazy movie. It's on my top 10 movies of all time, but I think I'm going insane. More than I thought before. Little bit bummed since I knew how it was going to end about half way through, but it was still thrilling when it did.
Setting my alarm for pretty early tomorrow, around 7. I want to be able to go for a walk along the beach before I go, since I'm not actually going to get to tan/swim.
Oh well?
I started biting my nails again when I was in Melbourne for the second time.
I literally hadn't bitten them once my whole trip and now they're ugly again. Not nearly as bad as the were before I left but still not nice.
I'm really upset about it honestly.
I know what happened, why I started again. But I don't know what to do when I feel like that other than biting them. I need something to do with my hands and since I don't want to take up smoking... anyone have any good ideas?
It's not about biting them, so I don't need nail polish or bandaids or anything, it's about something to do when I get really stressed about something.
I realised the reason it was so easy for me to stop when I came here is because I'm not stressed in the slightest. Nervous, yes. But there was never any pressure. And when I'm by myself I'm never stressed, it's when there are other people involved that I freak a bit.
We'll see, hopefully I can get a handle on this.
There's no wifi here (!) so I can't update tonight, I guess you'll have to wait to hear about getting to Brissy too.
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March 6th
Slept well in that I was asleep all night but I'm still super tired.
It's 8, so I'm just going to check out and leave my bag in storage so I can go for a walk until about 10.30, instead of having to be back at 10 to check out.
If all goes smoothly, I should be in Brisbane at around 2.30 this afternoon.
I can't believe that in four days I'll be getting ready to get on a plane to New Zealand, on my way home.
Let me tell you about the people in my room.
Andre. One of the Swedish couple. Looks ridiculous, has some huge tribal tattoos on his arm and chest and wears his cap backwards. But, of course, he's probably the nicest person in the room. Everyone else buggered off yesterday afternoon and we talked for a while. Nice guy, I got in his good books a bit since I recognised that they were speaking Swedish & because I know where Malmo is.
Yohanna/Johanna. His girlfriend. I've said about 10 words to her so far, she's really quiet and I think maybe her english isn't as good as his.
Morgan. English girl. She's the first one I talked to and she seemed really nice, but I'm not so sure now. She's really weird with Mark (her boyfriend/my other roomate). She always needs his attention so she'll start whining or something. Ugh. But she was really nice last nice when she came in a turned on the light when I was going to sleep, she was super embarrassed and got what she wanted quickly then turned it out. So kudos for that.
Marl. Nice english guy, he seems a bit fed up with Morgan to be honest. He's the one who seemed the most interesting is getting to know about me yesterday, which is always nice.
All in all no new BFFS but no real duds either.
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Went and walked around for a while. Walked down to the beach, the surf was not too bad looking. Nothing exactly mind blowing though. Only stuck around for a few minutes since I didn't have a whole lot to do.
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| the beach! |
Went and had a super amazingly delicious breakfast. Probably the best soy flat white I've had my whole trip.
Now I'm back at the YHA using the internet before I need to go catch my bus in an hour.
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Back in Brisbane!
The bus ride was generally uninteresting. It took us about 4 hours, including a few breaks.
Got to Chill, everything was all sorted out from before so checking in was easy. I'm back in room 215, on the same bed I was in when I first arrived.
I will literally spend my first & last night in Australia on the same bed.
Popped over to Coles, then relaxed for a while. Ate some food and got hit on by some guy who thought that telling me how drunk he got a a music festival last night and how much he threw up would make me like him.
He also said that he pants he wore, and I quote "look like a hobo who hasn't washed them in a million years owns them."
What does that even mean? And how is that supposed to make me like you?
Talked to two of my roomates, lovely girls from Yellowknife. One's going to uni in Halifax starting in September. Go figure. I just realised I don't know their names, I'll need to find that out.
Elijah (for non-campers: Elijah is a friend of mine from the homeschooling camp I go to in Vermont.) and I are married on Facebook as of this morning and I keep getting message from non-campers asking if I'm really married or saying congratulations about it.
I just about die laughing every time I get one. I'm up to 7, non of which are jokes that I can tell.
Tomorrow I'm going to wander around for a bit, I need to call Len back to make concrete planes to see him/everyone else I'm related to that I've never met.
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