Elizabeth Gilbert!

Ok So it has been brought to my attention that it appeared I moved in with my Erin (my new flat mate, although not so new anymore because, well, i don't update this thing often enough) out of convenience, and not because of her great personality so before i post my next blog entry i would just like to list 5 things that make Erin fabulous:

1. She didn't mind i was late for the viewing( it seems I've left my time keeping skills in the UK) - laid back attitude
2. She has fabulous taste in shoes (all will make sense in a few posts) - I might have to borrow them
3. When I arrived she offered me sparkling water -posh :) I could do with a little sophistication after my hostels
4. She likes wine - I knew instantly we would get along
5. She'd met just as many freaks looking for a room mate as i had finding a room. - We were clearly 2 lost souls

And i knew I'd made the right choice when i moved in and she came down to help me bring my stuff up to the room. The look on her face when i only had a backpack was priceless. Actually then we shared a bottle of wine and broke the ice and then i knew i'd made the right choice!

So Elizabeth Gilbert 

OMG so you know how that film that Julia Roberts is in, I know, she's done lots of them. The one I'm talking about is called Eat, Pray, Love were she buggers off to Italy to eat like a fat cow, India to spend all her time at and Ashram and then Indonesia to fall in love on a Bali beach (oops i hope you've all seen it or don't intend on watching it). Well the writer who wrote the book to the film is only in Sydney doing a talk about life after Eat, Pray, Love. ever so excited to discover this i knew i was definitely going to see her. The only problem is i kept putting off buying my ticket mainly because i wasn't working yet and i was concerned about work blah blah blah. anyhow to cut a long story short it was silly really because i knew i was going to go and watch her regardless anyway.

Elizabeth (or Lizzie as she's known to myself and Cheryl) was having her discussion at the Sydney Opera House of all places and on a Saturday afternoon too. Turns out even my hangover from the drunken antics of the night before couldn't stop Lizzie and myself finally being in the same room. so i dragged my tired and fabulously hungover arse out of my pit and towards the train station grabbing a bottle of pop along the way. Once at the opera house it was clear this was a big day, there were lots of people here to see her and i couldn't help but have a little squeal of pride to myself because she'd had such a good turn out. Once she was on stage i could understand why.

She was so confident and comfortable with the audience, it was like she was having a discussion with friends as opposed to a sell out crowd. One story she told really tickled me. It was part f her promotional tour after the film had been released and she was on the Oprah Winfrey show. Apparently as her story suggests, Lizzie struggles to sit in silence. She has to fill them, so she is sat with Oprah chatting away on air and she comments that Oprah has this way of making you feel as though she is your best friend even though you've only just met. The irony i felt at this because clearly Lizzie and i are bests and have been since i first met her on holiday in Ibiza (ok i read her book there but its so personal i could just tell we had a connection). 

So anyway they're on a break and Oprah shuts up and starts working on her iPad/laptop/blackberry whatever it is she uses.  Lizzie begins a conversation which goes a little like this:

Lizzie: Do you like my shoes?

Oprah: Mmmm they're nice

Lizzie: They're not mine

Oprah: gives a strange look

Lizzie: They're my friends, she lent them to me

Oprah: Nice

Lizzie: They're from Paris

Oprah: Mmmmm (clearly not wanting to discuss the shoes any further)

Lizzie: That's in France

Oprah: Looks at Lizzie over the rim of her glasses and asks 'Is that so?' 

so the commercial break ends and Oprah begins to talk about the book, the tour, etc etc etc and some how an audience member mentions Paris, to which Oprah looks at Lizzie and says, 'Thats in France' :) 

So there was more to the show than that but i'm not gonna tell you about all of it, buy your own god damn ticket! but i will say one more thing. After the show was over Lizzie said she would be in the foyer, well she was stood there for a good hour when i finally got the the front of the queue.. She was so sweet and took the time out to  talk to us all. I was so disappointed that i hadn't brought my book to let her sign. i also wanted to show her some of my fav quotes which i had highlighted.

 

She shook my hand but being the good friends that we are i asked for a hug and she gave me one. I told her all about how much i loved the book. And how my cousin and I send each other quotes and how her story had changed my life (despite everyone else saying this i told her that i actually meant it) we posed for our picture and then i left. 

Look I met her :)

We've since become twitter friends and she's liked a post or two of mine (ok well one but you know she's busy)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs2IognqkJI

A fancy night at the Opera House

So after returning to Sydney from my Canberra escape i find myself with a tough decision, do i stay in Sydney and look for work or do I eave and keep moving. The flats I had viewed were awful and i really didn't want to stay in any of them. I had arranged 5 flat viewings and took the opinion that if i was meant to stay in sydney one of these flats would be perfect, if not, Melbourne it and nomadicy would prevail, at least for another week or two.

I arrive back from Canberra and i arrive before my scheduled arrival time, for some reason i end up being massively late. I view the first place and love it. the girl living there seems nice, the room is a good size and the complex has a gym and 2 pools :). We have a chat and i think as i'm leaving that went well, fingers crossed. I look at the time and realise i'm totally late for my last appointment and i have no chance of making my second one. I cancel the second one, mainly because i have a feeling its a dirty old man anyway and head to the second viewing all be it 40 minutes late. I get there and the house is nice and its close to a train station and best of all he has a cat :) I know me and a cat. I find myself chatting more to the flat mate who is leaving and less to the guy i would be living with. To cut a long story short i move in with the first one and suddenly I'm a Sydney resident! (Sydney-sider)

LBD, Where are the bang bang shoes?

In way of celebrating and also just to treat ourselves because we can, Beth a friend i had made during my time in hostels and i had booked tickets to see a show at the Opera house. We decided to do lunch and to 'dress up' for the occasion. I even buy myself a new shirt for the occasion, it just so happens i don't understand Australian sizing and the shirt is no where near my size, i wear the only shirt i brought with me and run for the train to set her for our meal.

If i said posh kebab you would laugh at me but the meat is presented on skewers and are 'absolutely gorgeous.' We then head down for the show and have our pre theatre drinks in the heat which turns out to be 42 degrees. Its not the best day to be wearing full length trousers in Sydney. Once inside, the beauty of AC takes over and we enjoy the show. The Opera House is very seventies in design inside but it doesn't matter because it works well and the leg room, compared to the older venues in Manchester is amazing. The show is good, it has lots of audience participation it was called 'My First Time' and centres around a blog which someone has created where people send in details of their first sexual experiences. It was interesting and parts of it were funny, but i could tell it had started life in the US and that it had been altered for an Australian audience as some of the jokes just weren't funny (as i'm sure you'll agree, i speak for everyone when it comes to deciding what is comical and what is not.)

Sneeky shot inside

Once the show was over the temperature had failed to drop much and we found ourselves drinking in 35 degree heat at ten o'clock at night, I guess Australia really does get hot. And it didn't do much for my red wine, i know it should be served at room temperature but 35 degree is a little too warm for it for my liking. I sound like a total winger, it was an amazing night. The Opera Bar's view is amazing!

Not the best picture quality

Canberra - Australian Capital Territory

January 2013

The train journey to Canberra takes 4 hours and other than open countryside and trees there are very few populated areas in-between, at least of any great size. A similar journey in the UK and you'd be passing one industrialised area one after the other, this country is so big and has so much space its hard to comprehend. So i arrived in the train station at Canberra and I had to laugh to myself. My couch surfing host had kindly offered to pick me up from the station. Maybe it was due to the mishap in Perth but my initial concern was, where will I find her, I've never met her before. So i text her something along the lines of where would you like us to meet, she confidently replied I'll find you. Ok i thought,  hope she is right. Not until I arrived could i understand her surety. The station is a tiny, end of the line station with a waiting room and one entrance in and out. I wasn't going to get lost even if i tried.

4 hours of this

She picked me up and we chatted and swapped life stories, I met her husband (McComas)who had very kindly been preparing a stuffed aubergine for our evening meal. Janet explained that their two daughters had both couch surfed in Europe and had managed to survive on a minuscule budget per day and the good nature of strangers. She said she believed if she looked after couch surfers here in Canberra, then someone would be looking after her daughters in Europe, I thought it was a nice way of thinking. I love how couch surfing provides these opportunities for people.

I had a vague idea about what I wanted to do in Canberra, there was a exhibition on at The National Portrait Gallery which i thought was worth a look and also The War Memorial.

When Janet asked me had i seen any kangaroos wince being in Australia i suddenly realised i hadn't seen with a Koala Bear, or a Kangaroo. I had been here for 6 weeks, It clearly wasn't right. so after dinner (i still think of it as tea but some people just don't get it) McComos and i went for a walk to the end of their road were we followed a dirt path, within a minute a dark blob ran across our path alone, This was my first sighting of a Wallaby. Apparently they're independent creatures who usually travel alone and very rarely are still so close to people.

The next thing we saw was a Kangaroo a little in the distance. We kept walking and i was busy taking pictures, when all of a sudden i realised that i was surrounded by the buggers. They were everywhere. Without exaggerating i think i stopped counting at about 20 odd. My favourite one was this old Kangaroo, who used his tale more than the others did to help him walk, a little like a walking stick i guess. He was chasing all the young kangagarangers and they were hopping away, hoping he'd loose interest but he didn't loose interest, he just couldn't keep up :)

Being the great tour guide he is McAmos gave me a little background information on the 'roos. Apparently they don't do as much damage to the land as other animals do such as cows and sheep. The eat the vegetation further away from the root and they do not disturb as much of the land as they're much more delicate on there toes. Apparently in substance farming ways they are much more considerate to the area in which they live and we really should eat more of them to stop damaging the land in the way that cows and sheep do. I was also told they're free range so taste great. I've not tried one yet, but i will :)

So the nest day i visited the city centre. I saw The National Portrait Gallery and realised, i don't know Australian Celebrities so i kind of mixed out on some of the importance of some of the pictures. The National Gallery was good and i saw Parliament House, Old Parliament House and the Aboriginal Embassy.

What a great pear you have

Back to the future?

Apparently it used to be bigger

That night we went out for a meal and i ate Ethiopian food for the first time. I really liked it, lots of grains, lots of pulses; not forgetting this bizarre bread which i guess was similar to naan bread, but had a very sponge like consistency. I still enjoyed it, whatever it was made out of, apparently i was told the bread was made from the smallest type of grain. After dinner we went on a drive through the city suburbs and as the drag racing (not men in frocks the other type of drag) was in town and the students were not we saw lots of beer drinking guys sat on the tops of cars, looking like ageing hooligans. I'd like to think some of them were nice people really. Here they're called 'Bogans'

We drove to the top of a hill, which the name if escapes me, but from the view point at the top you could see all of Canberra. including the Anzac Avenue. From this view point it was clear how Canberra was purpose built and pretty the layout is. The lake with the symmetrical bridges leading to Parliament House. Airport to the left and not very much to the right. It made me laugh, my hosts said they rarely use Canberra airport as there are no direct international flights, instead they drive or get the bus to Sydney International, as it's only 3 hours drive away. I don't think that a drive of only three hours would be seen the same way back at home. If people had to drive for 3 hours to get to their airport i wonder how many would still fly, so often at least.  

So back for another early night i was doing really well at catching up on sleep. This sleeping in hostels in Sydney is really not my type of travelling, I've got bed bug bites, sleepless nights and a mattress in a bunk bed which i can feel the slats through. The next morning i had very kindly been offered a lift to the war memorial because it was a little time consuming to reach on public transport and given my departure in the early afternoon, i was working against the clock.

The war memorial was amazing. I followed a tour around for part of the trip and found that the manner in which it was performed left such a sombre note. The memorial took in all the conflicts which Australia and New Zealand had been involved in. It showed all the servicemen who had been lost during  the first and second world wars in Egypt and France. It was also demonstrating the actions of Australia in Vietnam, Cambodia, Zaire and Indonesia. 

My main disappointment came when the tour guide got to the amiga decoding device which was massively influential in the ending of the second world war. She mentioned about the hardworking men who helped de-scramble the code, yet no mention was made of Alan Turning or how he was treated after the war (he was gay and chemically castrated because of it). I guess his legacy isn't so prominent here as it could be, but I'm sure there have been lost of great people who have helped to finish wars who's work is often overlooked and not recognised in the manner which would be most appropriate.

Still not a wasted visit by anyones mean i made my excuses and left the tour for my rail replacement bus service back to Sydney, and would you believe the coach was over 30 minutes faster than by train, marvellous!

My First Impressions of Sydney

28th December 2012 - 4th January 2013

Choo Choo, Choo Choo, Thomas

So my train arrived into Sydney. The journey was long, a couple of hours on a coach to a station called Casino just other the board into New South Wales, a few hours wait and then a 12 hour journey over night down the coast to Sydney. I had hoped that the scenery would be intriguing and exhilarating, turns out green is green, but when its dark its all black! The moral of this story if you want to see scenery, don't book a night train.

This must be why they have no cow back at home

So less of the journey and more of the destination. Sydney was bright and less humid. I found my hostel, only the reception was closed and as the night on the train had provided me with very little sleep i had no energy to explore. I sat myself down on a park bench and waited. If i had been more prepared i would of bought a bottle of wine and looked like a wino, shame my preparation skills never seem to get it right.

Clouds? in Australia? Nahhhhhh, doesn't happen

So a few hours later, after many false attempts, i finally got into my hostel, attempted to sleep, it didn't work but i was just grateful for being horizontal with my eyes closed. My first few days in Sydney were really busy, I was meeting people with whom i had only ever spoke with via Facebook and i was catching up with old friends whilst trying to make new ones. I also managed to purchase some wine and sample a box or two. Its far more expensive here than in Italy.

Just a reminder it was close to Christmas Time when i arrived

In an attemt to catch up this blog and get my posts more current i won't go into much detail but my first week in Sydney consisted of the following:

First gay night out in months, and thanks to the white wine, we lost each other within the first hour of being out. Sorry Gaz!

My first boat ride on Sydney Harbour, watching Harbour Bridge and the Opera House sit there so proud, it's such an iconic symbol of Australia it felt so surreal watching it just pass by as i sailed over to Manly, to be honest its almost 3 months later and i still have that same feeling now. Drinks follow the boat ride over looking the ocean, i wish i knew the name of that bar it was amazing, a very good introduction to Sydney and the Northern Beaches.

Afternoon drinks in Newtown (a little bit like the Northern Quarter in Manchester or Camden in London) which turned into a full night of drinks. Newtown is a few stops out of the city by train and it feel like another world. There is no chain restaurants, no chain bars, no chain shops, everything is individual and quirky. I loved it as soon as i went there. And the bars have beer gardens/roof terraces so what is there not to like. It was also the night of my first Indian curry in Sydney, It was good, but it made me realise, i won't get an English curry for a long time.

I decided i wanted to live here, so viewed some flats. I viewed some awful flats. I mean flats with mould growing in the bath. Flats that had grease mixed with grease mixed with dust and fluff, mixed with more grease. Rooms in flats that had cardboard boxes as walls and curtains as doors. I think my most shocking room viewing had the be in a building I'd already seen a room in. The add said 'Own room, own balcony' Great i thought, This ones sounds really good. I got there and the lady showing me the apartment was faffing around about meeting me in reception but i had such a god feeling about this flat i thought that the wait was worthwhile. We climbenbed in the lift together (yes i do now use lifs occasionally) and she made a small attempt to make conversation but her English skills weren't great, I didn't mind, i was about to have my own room and own balcony. When i got to the 22nd level ready to view the room, i was so pleased when she asked me to take off my shoes, my own room and clean common areas, this place will be perfect. But then guess what happened? She took me out to show me the balcony and i began to understand how little English she really understood. The add didn't mean to say 'Own Bedroom, Own Balcony.' It should have read 'Own bedroom, ON Balcony.'

I just thought it was funny

The owner had simply put a glass wall up above the balcony glass railing/barrier thing and with the addition of a cotton door type arrangement, voila an extra bedroom. My favourite part of the room was how the bed was push up against the glass wall looking 22 floors down, i decided there and then i couldn't live in this place and left.

New Years Eve the main event and also the end aim point of my entire journey to Australia. This was amazing. It felt as thought the journey had finished and now i was here it was time to start putting down routes, finding work and generally making a life for myself here. I had tried unsuccessfully to get on a cruise on the harbour. I won't say I'm not disappointed, but i know i tried all i could. After watching video clips of the event last year and listening to Andy and Adam's experience from previous years i knew that i had to get onboard, so i rang up the cruise company, they said they were full. I rang an hour later, it was full. I rang 90 minutes later, it was full, I rang an hour later, it was full. I did pester them all day. It was still full. I even turned up at the wharf, praying that someone would decide at the last minute not to come,(or get stuck in traffic) it didn't happen. So a little deflated but not defeated i headed back to the hostel and went to plan B, roof top drinks followed by Circular Quay to watch the fireworks.

It was an amazing night the atmosphere was brilliant and we had a great view of the Harbour Bridge, over the railway tracks. Even the crowds boo's when i train came past and block the display, did nothing to dampen the celebrations.

We didn't go there lol

Hangover cured by a kebab and a beer (well actually i drank water but it doesn't quite sound as rock and roll when i'm honest does it, and by kebab i mean pieces of meat ok skewers, not that horrible donner meat we have at home) and a walk around Wooloomberloo (yes that is a real name) and the Botanical Gardens i decided that i really did want to stay in Sydney, again, definitely lol

The morning after the night before, fresh as a daisy!

But since i had already arranged a couch to surf on in Canberra i figured whats a few days in the capital and off i went …………..

  

Brisbane in a Nutshell

Ok I'm about three months behind on this blog thing so drastic actions has to be taken. I'm gonna be rushing my Brisbane post. In a nut shell i spent three weeks ish catching up with family, sleep,my suitcase and being reunited with the sun. For some reason Perth didn't seem to want to show me much of it.

Where did those sunnies go?

Time for mass? Nah!

My aunty and uncle live 17 stops (yes i counted) outside of the city. The house has this decking which other looks an abandoned gold course, the view is amazing. And they get some many tropical birds just flying up onto the decking and posing for pictures. One of the cockatoos 'Rocky' even fed straight from my hand. He didm't seem very happy about it though and he constantly had one of his eyes on e just incas i made some sudden movements.

They d have some different wildlife here. The cockatoos often wake my aunty and uncle up at 4 am if their bird seed has run out and if that doesn't work they are quite happy to get onto the deck and attach anything that has been left outside, usually the mosquito coils or the feed in tuber wear boxes.

These bird will share with NO ONE

Cockatoo

Some little creature

A Toad

A friendly Iguana

An Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the water spout

Golf Course View

Moghill Ferry

Now since being in Australia i have been the but of a few practice jokes around wildlife. I did get told about the 6 foot Tasmanian Devils which exist, yo know the ones that stand on their back two legs and spin around a little. I then got told about these different breed of koala bears, called 'Drop Bears.' These are an evil version of Koala Bears and they only live in New South Wales, apparently they 'drop' onto people from high tress and then kill them. So when in New South Wales its very important to be aware of the drop bears.

A Drop Bear

Ok so those 2 creatures above aren't rally real. Their are Tasmanian Devils but they are only small, and the drop bear is a figment of some sick blokes imagination. But having believed in these two descriptions when someone told me about these 'Bush Turkey's' who build huge mounds as a nest, i thought they were pulling my leg. 45 minutes into the conversation and 3 or 4 different people telling me about them i started to think, ok maybe these things are real, I've still to see one though.

A Real Tasmanian Devil, NOT 6ft

So my time quickly passed here, what with beach visits and failed job attempts. Well except for that one job i got offered, selling christmas reindeer antlers and flashy badges. I went to the interview because i though that as the add described the role as 'Santa's Little Helper' i was expecting that i would be an elf in a grotto putting up with winging little kids, sorry beautiful little children quint nicely to see Father Christmas; i was wrong. It turns out the role was to see these Antlers and badges for charity and I would get 10% of my total sales, and when one of the guys stated that some of our top sellers were selling over a hundred doors worth of antlers a day, i decided that the role probably wasn't for me. Christmas came and went and we even fired water rockets into the sky. I loved it, the kids loved it and even the adults did, but i still have no idea how it works!

Bush Turkey

Still it was time for my journey to continue. I had train tickets booked to get to Sydney in time for the New Year and then i was off to Canberra and Melbourne and a general intention to ride as many trains as possible in a three month period. Writing this in hindsight i didn't use half as many trains as i expected but thats probably a good thing because there was quite a lot of flood to come in the next few weeks.

My First Week in Oz, Who Needs a Suitcase?

November/December 2012

Ok so before when I was in Sri Lanka and I said that I was at the lowest point of my trip, well I was wrong. This is the lowest part of my trip. I’m in Perth, they let me in (it did become a real worry), but the novelty was quickly rubbed off my face when I approached the lost baggage desk and was told they couldn’t help me with my suitcase as they use a different system. Looks like I won’t be getting my case back in the next few days then. What a great way to travel; by train for 3 weeks, with 2 changes of clothing, one of them being a leather coat and fingerless gloves. Anyhow that’s not the worst part. So I’ve missed my bus to the hostel because I was asking silly questions to the baggage assistance. You know silly questions like ‘How do I get my baggage back’ and such like. So I jumped a taxi and decided that the last thing I wanted was a Rochdale taxi driver, you know the type, I’m sure they’re not exclusive to Rochdale, the taxi drivers who insist on making small talk with you despite your obvious high level of not interested at all. Well I found one of those. He told me how he’d lived in Melbourne for x amount of years when he first came to Australia and how he loves Perth (the cynical side of me believes it’s because he can charge twice as much for his fares now). He also told me that storms were forecast for the next day. What a great stroke of luck I thought, I’ve just left torrential rains in Sri Lanka, I’m glad they’ve followed me. Still a bit of rain might help my homesickness.

So I arrive at my hostel check in and take myself to bed, frankly because although its only 2240 I haven’t slept in 2 nights and I want to get me into bed. I was very pleased to find that my room had only 4 beds, but the other 3 beds were taken already by sleeping bodies and there was this strong smell of sweaty men, those of you who have ever worked at hospitals will know exactly what smell I’m referring to, and to reinforce this smell around the room, the room had no windows. I like to think of it as my little prison, that I was charged to stay in. Can you tell that Aussie hostels are nowhere near as nice as some of the ones in Europe and Central Asia?

Anyhow the lack of sleep I had experience for the past 48 hours was too powerful so I made my bed and climbed into it. 40 minutes later I was still awake. I thought I’ll just put a little film on with my ear phones to help me sleep. Disturbing everyone in the room for probably the 3^rd time that night I discovered my worst nightmare. I didn’t have an adapter for Australia, so I had no way of charging my stuff, and no one to ask because everyone was asleep. About an hour later lying in bed and listening to the sounds of a snorer in the opposite bunk I reached the lowest part of my trip.  Having already disturbed the man sleeping below me by dropping my blanket on him as he slept I couldn’t stand lying there anymore and I took myself back downstairs to the common area to watch a film. Someone was already there, watching inglorious Bastards. This isn’t the best film to watch from half way through. Actually let me rephrase that, this film isn’t worth watching but it did hold my attention slightly more than the Mr Sleepy Head’s snores so I watched and tried to work out what was happening. I never worked it out. I was just grateful to get out of that little prison.

So film watched and then I chose another which turned out to be even worse I returned back to my cell and crashed out, probably around 2 or 3. I got woke up the next day at about 7, but of course all devices being dead and not  quite having a grip on how many time zones I had changed in 3 days I had no idea what time it was, but the cells bright lights aren’t conducive to a lie in so as much as I tried to fight it, I found myself toddling off downstairs to get some breakfast, and then back up the stairs to reception to get cutlery and a cup (apparently we can’t be trusted to keep them in the cupboards of the kitchen like normal people do), and then back down stairs again to prepare breakfast.

I did have things to do, I had to go and buy an adapter, then I had to find a place to charge stuff and then I was meeting a friend of a friend for coffee. See one of the benefits of coming to Australia is that everyone at home knows someone who has moved there. So I began speaking with a girl from the same town as me, Terri, who had moved to Perth 6 months earlier. Thanks to the wonder of Facebook we’d chatted and today we were doing lunch. Terri turned out to be my little knight in shining armour, but more of that later.

Before meeting Terri I thought it would be a good idea to check my emails because I had emailed to book my train tickets from Singapore. Luckily I had received a reply and I thought that all my requests would be facilitated. How wrong could I be? The train I wanted to get from Perth to Adelaide was only operating once per week (seriously once per week!) and was fully booked for 3 weeks so unless I wanted to have a constant 6 day trip to Brisbane via train during Christmas week, I was a little stuck. Still I didn’t have time to think of that I had coffee to be getting.

Terri and I had arranged to meet at Perth Central station. So as I stood on the walk over that crossed what I thought was all of the platforms I had this sudden feeling of dread in my stomach. I didn’t know what Terri looked like. I mean I had obviously seen her pictures on Facebook but the image of her had completely gone out of my head. As I stood at the top of the stairs which led people down to the platforms I began to eye up any woman who appeared to be standing on the walkway that little bit too long. It’s not a pastime I’ve done much of before, nor one I intend on taking up on a regular basis. Anyway after about 10 minutes it became apparent that a woman similar age to me was stood at the top of the stairs too. Could this be Terri? She had found herself in a similar position to me. I thought for a while and decided to be brave and go and say hello. After all if I can ask an Armenian man who spoke no English to use his mobile telephone, I’m sure I’ll survive what I presume is a native English speaker.

I approached her slowly, giving myself the opportunity to change my mind in case Terri began to appear on the stairs. I interrupted the lady who was clearly very busy reading Facebook on her mobile with the very original line:

 ‘Are you Terri?’

Her response (which if your wondering was ‘eeerrrgggh what?)’ I knew it wasn’t Terri. Mainly because she spoke with an ‘Australian’ accent (the first I’d heard since the airport yesterday). Deciding that I couldn’t possible make more of a fool of myself than I already had done, I asked the mystery lady if this was the only entrance to the train station in Perth. Looking at me a little confused she informed me that this wasn’t the only entrance. I think she also made some comment about it being a big station, it had 5 platforms next to each other it was hardly London Euston but who am I to judge I come from Rochdale. She went on to tell me there was another entrance to the underground around the corner onto some street. Great I thought, Perth has an underground system, how come I’ve not seen it, and this is the thinking which led onto my next question:

 ‘So this underground entrance ........ It leads to the trains ............. and these trains go ............. like ............ under the ground?’

Where's Terri?

I can’t describe the look I received back with this response but I got the impression my mystery lady wished she had arrange to meet her friend at a different location. So becoming overly concerned that I would never meet Terri and not seeing any payphones around to use I made a huge mistake. I used some of the new fond principles I had picked up from Armenia and Sri Lanka and I asked the mystery lady would it be possible for her to text my friend who I was meeting to let her know where I was. Clearly over stepping the limits of Australian social acceptability my mystery lady was in shock and, presumably, just wanted rid of me so she text Terri for me, explaining where I was and told her I’d be waiting. I thanked her and tried to explain that I wasn’t a freak and that I was meeting a friend of a friend and that I had only just arrived in Australia etc etc etc.

Yeah she wasn’t interested and for some reason I couldn’t find a way to shut my mouth. I think that after so long of being with people whose first language wasn’t English I kind of went a little mad when I was speaking to a native English speaker. She didn’t say much, she just tried to pretend I wasn’t there.  I needn’t have worried about recognising Terri because as soon as I saw her I knew it was her, climbing up those stairs. We said our hellos, and I felt the need to introduce her to my mystery lady to prove that I wasn’t just standing in train stations as an excuse to talk to women. So I thanked her for sending Terri a message to which Terri questioned:

 ‘Oh was that your number?’

The mystery lady, clearly irritated by our interactions replied shortly:

 ‘Yes, don’t text me!’

And walked off. I wonder should I have told her I was gay, but in hindsight I think I should have just said a little less.  She wasn’t even interested when I told her my suitcase had been lost. So yeah story over, I think it’s safe to say Australia, for all of its positives, isn’t Armenia, and here it’s not appropriate to ask for help on the streets, a good lesson for me to learn.

So Terri and I did lunch and coffee and chatted, and then decided it was time to have a real drink, which is  when I began to tell her the story of my night in the hostel, Including the falling blanket, the snorer and the lovely smell. Somewhere in the middle of this conversation Terri invited me to stay at her place, as she had a second bedroom and so long as I didn’t mind having to sleep on an airbed. I jumped at the chance and so my times in hostels were over, at least for the next few days. A few beers later we jumped on the free bus back to my hostel to collect me few remaining possessions. We chose to use the bus not because it was a far walk, but because it had started to rain, and was windy and these two things combined did make us both feel a little cold. The conversation was flowing and then I suddenly realised I had no idea where Terri lived, so I asked her. You can imagine the look on my face when she said ‘Cockburn,’ what a horrible name for a suburb.

Still it was 15 minutes outside of the city by train and there really was nothing there. It was so strange. Whilst on the train Terri tried to prepare me for the ‘city’ (It’s definitely a city, it has a sign describing it as one) and not to expect very much. The conversation was broken slightly by the waves which were crashing over the usual sea defences and up onto the highway which travelled parallel to the railway. I later found out these waves caused a closure of some of the lanes on the highway. I thought Australia had good weather?

Anyhow Cockburn city centre was great, it had a little shopping centre and a train station and a few apartment complexes. It’s definitely a place that’s still being developed. I met Terri’s other half and enjoyed pizza and beers, much more civilised than hostel life.

Aren't we Pretty in the Rain

So as the weather was freakishly bad whilst I was in Perth, there wasn’t a great deal we could do. On the Friday the forecast was better and we decided that a trip to Freemantle would be good. We took the train so that we could both have a drink and before you knew it, we were walking around Freemantle.  Freemantle is so different to Perth. Perth is all new and high rises with huge glass fronted panels. It springs up from the middle of nowhere and its impressive how much the city has grown in such a short space of time. Freemantle is old, well by Australian standards. Every structure is a low rise building built a hundred and odd years ago at most and it looks pretty. The town is also quite alternative and funky. We went to the markets and I suddenly had a craving for chippy. I knew I wouldn’t get proper English chippy chips but surely a fish a chips shop here cant struggle to get chips right. So we went in and looked at the menu and they had about 10 different types of fish to choose from, I’m not even a fish eating type of person, but I gave up and order teriyaki chicken and rice instead. I loved it.

A quick look around the markets and it reminded me of ‘Affleck’s Palace’ in Manchester. We didn’t buy anything but it was nice to have a wander around and view the different things the stalls had for sale. One of my favourites being this palm sized ball of rubber or plastic or some other manmade type material. It could be moulded into a variety of shapes and ‘moods’ I wish I could remember the name, although I guess it doesn’t really matter because it’s not like you’re actually going to go online and try and find one to buy.

Enough shopping done, we went for a drink and opted to try a few different ones by buying this platter of beers. It was great, I’d had something similar in Tel Aviv but here each beer came in a glass a little less than half a pint. You had six beers in total, and each beer came with a little piece of paper giving you all the important information on the beers, its ingredients, its name and most importantly its alcoholic strength. The Australians are very aware of how much alcohol they consume. The night consisted of another platter of these and a bottle of wine in a bar called ‘Little Creatures’. I didn’t realise at the time that ‘Little Creatures’ is actually a brewery and that we should have been drinking their home brews and not a (not so) cheap bottle of red. Still it was nice to sit outside and watch the sun go down over the ocean. Australia seemed like a nice place from this point on. Not wanting to miss out on any of the live entertainment we had seen advertised earlier, we decided to jump into a tuk tuk and get there as fast as we could. Except it wasn’t quite a tuk tuk. It was some bloke (English I think) who pedalled us there whilst we sat in the back. It turned out this was his first night doing the job, and the only way he made money was through his fares, and even then he had to still pay rental on the bicycle tuk tuk, I don’t think it’s a career option I want to pursue.

Just to keep you up to date with my new plans but thanks to the missing bag situation and the fully booked train situation I decided my best option would be to fly straight to Brisbane and stay with my aunty and uncle until my case arrives and get a few weeks work in before Christmas, ready for my big NYE celebrations in Sydney.

The morning after the night before thus became my last day as I had booked a flight for Sunday at around 11 o’clock in the evening.  I had arranged to meet my cousin who lived about 60 km south of Perth and meet his wife and son. Sat on the train going down to meet him, I started to have a little panic, what happens if I don’t recognise him, I mean people’s appearance changes in 13 years. I myself was only 12 the last time we met. Deciding that it was too late to worry about that now I pushed that thought out of my mind and enjoyed the ride on the train.  Once I left the train station Ben was waiting for me, thankfully I didn’t have to ask anyone for help this time so a repeat performance of my time, curb crawling, in Perth’s Central station didn’t occur. Surprised at my lack of luggage I began to explain about my suitcase taking a little holiday of its own and how it might join me at some point in the future. I met his wife Bec and their son Cohan, who was surprisingly quick to take to me. We chatted and played with Thomas the Tank Engine and learned about each others life’s whilst swapping stories and updates of family back in the UK. It was really nice to be around family after so long without it.

So Ben, Bec and Cohan live in Secret Harbour which except for sounding like a really cool name is right on the sea so their home is about 15 minutes walk to the beach. And the beach was powder white sand and busy, but not too busy. Apparently there are plans to build an apartment complex complete with additional dining facilities etc right on the beach but apparently, they’ve run out of money. The suburb is 60 km south of Perth and its main ‘attraction’ I guess is the gold course which the houses are built around.  Everything here is walking distance, although sometimes there is no pavement to walk on so you question if they really want you to walk anywhere. The place seems to have been designed really well and the street look really pretty with their manicured flower beds and tree lined pavements.  We went out for a meal on the Saturday night and as we walked I got to see my first ‘drive-through’ bottle shop (off licence/liquor store), I definitely need to get me a car so I can try one of those.

The next day was a special day; it was the first fake Christmas. Because Ben, Bec and Cohan will be in Queensland for Christmas they had arranged to have Christmas celebrations with Bec's family before they left, today was Christmas with Cohan’s Uncle Adam (no not me, Bec’s brother is also called Adam). After an early morning game of ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ which involved a huge pop up Thomas and carriages it was time for the celebrations to commence; and what food should you have on Fake Christmas Day number 1? Curry of course : ) I really enjoyed the day but soon came the time to leave and set off for the airport for the longest flight of my trip so far, and funnily enough the only flight that was not going to take me to another country!