Another Day on the Beach

Thursday, October 27

In Vancouver Island parlance - it chucked it down again all night here. I get the feeling that there will be no tanned Jen returning home from Oz.

I didn't sleep well at all and I dreamt this morning that I went to a party at Carol's (hi Carol!). Although it was apparantly in Calgary. At the party, I threw my jacket in the crawlspace - like a low cellar that ran across the house, but when I went to get it - it was gone. Someone told me that Sipes had had his parking money stolen but my entire wallet was gone. Everything. My licence, credit cards, money - well you get the point. I lost my entire identity.

Then Matt walked in and took me back.

What do you think that means? Some deep dark malevolent part of myself believes that I have to give up everything (erm, which I actually would have to) to be here? Or just that I'd written about him last night?

Whatever.

Today, I've been to Canal Rocks and for a drive around the Margaret River wine country. I've actually only been out of the house for 2 and a half hours but I've driven past roughly 30 wineries, two breweries, two cheese farms and an olive oil farm. They're pretty packed in out here, I tell ya.



Anyways, I only stopped at the Hayshed Hills winery - it came highly recommended and I wanted to taste the white port I'd bought to take back to Perth for Drew - unfortunately they didn't have any so I ended up with three bottles of wine and a tshirt. Of course!

I also went to the Margaret River dairy farm to pick up dinner for the next two days - no more dodgy seafood combinations for me thanks - and got a variety of cheese and yoghurt for $18. I'll come back later and give you a list and a picture. Then to some place called Glynys to taste a couple of ports.

I'm not sure if I'm going to ship just some or all of them home - it's a chance but it will totally suck to have to carry them around in Sydney and then home. Maybe if I pack them in seperate boxes - it'll be pricey but hey, they were pricey wines. So maybe that's fitting.

Now, it's 1:40 pm and I'm sitting in the Dunborough Hotel Three Bears Pub having some sort of Pale Ale before heading to the bakery for lunch and then maybe home again. I think I've done enough for today - I'm fatigued. ha.

Sign on the wall in here..."BEER. Making ugly people better looking since 1862."

Also - did anyone think a Pub named the Three Bears is a tad bit strange in a country without bears? Or was that just me?

Thank God for Friends. And Other People's Friends.

Saturday, October 29 - Sunday, October 30

So yeah, although I've now been up for just shy of 24 hours, I am feeling a little better.

The rental car has been returned, although, granted, just to some random parking guy so god knows what they'll charge me for being an AWOL foreigner for 6 hours.

I'm CHECKED IN.

And they were really nice about it. Losers.

I'm sitting in the swanky Qantas club with a lot of people who are looking at me like I'm scruffy. Which I am. I'm having a cup of tea and some fruit while I sit and watch the sun rise.

Then, in 20 minutes or so I'm chucking back a Gravol and hopefully, waking up as I hit Sydney.

Where Sandy got the text message in time and has also brought a car. Which means I won't spend the day lugging things around and wanting to cry.

Rather than right now, wanting to cry with relief. Which is a completely different thing.

Anyways, let me back up a little to my FIRST arrival at the airport. I was here 40 minutes before the flight. They said I was too late and then booked me on the next one. While being very impolite. Which seems to mean here that they'd overbooked my original flight and were just glad I was late and they could tell me to piss off. (Melbourne Cup and all.)

Then they tell me that the airport CLOSES and I HAVE TO GET OUT.

Nice.

Well, at 11 pm on a Saturday night the rental people are mad if they think I'm giving back the car.

I figure, hey, I'll just call Jen and Dan and get directions back to the party.....

....except like the fuckwit I am.... I threw their number out when I cleaned out the car.

Now. Hmm. Who else do I know who might have their number? Yeti? Nope, he's at the mine.

Yup. You guessed it. Mr. Man Matt.

So, I bit the bullet (so to speak) and I called.

He didn't answer.

So, like the amazon hunter gatherer woman I am I actually found my way back to the house party!I'm getting SO much better at this getting lost thing.

Whereupon the people who were still standing (or still standing even without their pants on) made me feel much better and managed to calm the shaking of my hands with a couple glasses of wine.

The couple that were dressed as terrorists were quick to drunkenly enact revenge scenarios for me as well. Which was very cute.

Then they gave me free run of the house and all tottered off to bed about 1:30 am. Hence my previous post.

So, I'm torn - loveperthhateperthloveperthhateperth.

At least it'll be a couple years before I see it again. And I'm sure Matt'll be happy that he's no longer got to share all his best mates with me.


I guess if that's the worst that happens in my travels, I'll be blessed. But the little upsets are good practice and that's what this trip is all about, after all is said and done.

My, what a pretty sunrise.

It's Time To Fly

Tuesday, November 2, the longest day in the year

God always reads our knee-mail

Sign outside a church in Moss Vale NSW.

So, where was I?

Or, more rightly, where AM I?

Once I actually arrived in Sydney it was terrible weather so we had lunch and walked out in the rain long enough for me to take a picture or two to prove I was there - before heading out for Canberra.



And yanno, I slept in the car a lot cause I'd been up all night.

But whatever, Canberra was wonderful. It feels like a lot longer than 6ish years since I've seen Sandy but it was truly a great visit. She and her friends did a damn fine job of making up for the airline mess in Perth and leaving me with a good couple of days to end my trip.

It's good as well to catch up with someone and find that they struggle with some of the same things you do. Even though we're worlds apart, we're close. And that makes me very happy.

And although my horses in the sweeps came in 11th and 14th, I am totally in awe that I was in Australia for the history making moment of the Melbourne Cup.

For those of you who know as much about it as I did - it's been run 145 times (I may get some of this wrong) and only four? times in all that time has a horse won two back to back.

It's a handicapped race (meaning the horses carry extra weight based on their track records to make all the horses basically 'equal'). The winning horse was carrying 56kg (ish) which I think is the highest amount any of them have ever had to carry.

So, for the first time EVER a horse (a mare, and 7 years old even) has now won three races in a row.



I teared up. It was an utterly amazing experience.

Then I got drunk.





Then I hauled my sorry ass out of bed and flew from Canberra to Melbourne, then (late) from Melbourne to Sydney. THEN Sydney to LAX and now I am sitting in yet another airport bar waiting for my last flight back to Vancouver so I can grab a shuttle and crash in the hotel before heading back over to the island tomorrow.

I'll spend 22 hours actually on a plane today and so far, about 6 hours sitting in airports. The nightmarish thing is it's only 12:24 pm and I left Canberra this morning at 8 am.

Once I get home on Thursday, I have to work on Friday and then I have a grand total of 2 days off in the next 14.

By Sunday, I'm sure I'll be hard pressed to remember I was even gone.

I have learned one more thing though - I have to stop wearing white freaking t-shirts to travel because then I inevitably spend 95% of my in-transit time with some sort of shit all over the front of my shirt.

Honestly, about flight number 2 today I even drooled a little bit of chocolate bar to join whatever that red sauce is on my right breast.

*sigh*

I had thought I might get a decent bath at some point (since I don't have one at home and I've been missing it a ton) but water's too scarce in Australia so it may very well turn out that the high point of October/November 2005 will be the airport hotel bathtub.

I may even sleep in it.

Canada. The Land of Plenty. Plenty of Water. And Water Pressure.

Wednesday, November 3

I was close - a news story on Makybe Diva.

First - a memory, cause I have tons I haven't mentioned....

Walking the dunes at Lancelin and talking about different sport cultures, Drew is explaining to me what he didn't llike about snowboarding -after trying it.

"Well, it's just the whole thing - you have to hang out and be cool, get piercings, a tattoo, dye your hair blo..... er, much like you, Jen."

I don't think he realized quite was he was saying. ha. It was all the more funnier because he's a pretty serious guy.

Okay, so one..I didn't think I'd be quite so happy to feel cold rain. ahhh. No extreme mugginess, no sweat, just cold rain.

I love this hotel. I love it's bathtub.



I love that I turned on the TV for the first time in almost 4 weeks and the episode of Lost is the NEXTone I haven't seen yet.

Although I've just realized that the flight in Lost was from Sydney to LA.... successfully navigated today.

I love that I can relax in this honking big bed with a glass of duty free Laphroaig (the best scotch EVER).

I love that I could travel through 5 airports on 5 planes in three countries in a day but be unable to get a ferry back to the island, not running due to high winds. sheesh.

Since this trip was a 'training' one then I guess I've learned some things and eventually I'll get around to explaining all of it because there are internal learnings and practical learnings but right now, in this commercial break, I will tell you two of the practical ones.

I rock at packing. There wasn't a lot I didn't use.

The other good thing about that is that at least the military will make me better at carrying it.

There's a little drawer in every airplane lavatory that holds free 'female supplies'. And that, folks, is a good thing to know.

Don't Have a Cow, Man

....or more specifically, I think someone ATE a cow.



....but seems quite happy to have me home.



I'll be back over the next few days putting in and playing with the rest of the photos, highliting some and babbling on about a few more things - I have some taken with certain people in mind - before retiring this journal and returning us to our regular Life of Jen programming.