Life Regarding Australia (Part 2 of 137)

When I got to Townsville, I took a cab. I was sans-luggage (read about the flights in a separate piece), and I wanted to go to sleep. I was booked at the "Sugar Shaker", the name of the Holiday Inn right in the central business district.

It is bright as hell and hot when I hail a cab, and I try to chat with the driver, but he's not really interested and neither am I. He takes me on a 5 minute drive around Castle Hill to the CBD. I hand him a red $20 bill and tell him to keep the change. He looks at me oddly and just takes the money somewhat disgusted. I could tell I did something wrong, but I walk into the hotel lobby and forget about it until later. I need a shower.

The girl helping me with at the desk is cute as hell. She has dark straight hair put up and a flawless complexion. I don't remember our conversation but I think everything is OK with the room. It's on the sixth floor.

I get into the room and think I should call someone. I pick up the phone and hear weird static, like the line is fried. But, this is Australia. This is a normal dial tone. I hang up. I use the bathroom and want to flush. There are two buttons on the top of the comode. This is normal. I hit the wrong one, and water continues to flow for minutes. I finally hit the right one and all is well. I shower and shave.

I turn on the TV and wait about 20 seconds for it to power-up. I watch music videos for a few hours, because my sleep patterns are screwed up. This channel (I found) plays music videos every Saturday morning. And, good ones. It's Saturday morning and I haven't slept yet. Eventually I sleep.

I wake up when I hear a lightning strike (one of the only ones heard in Australia). It's dark outside and I look at the lights to try and figure out my bearings. I haven't left the hotel yet. It's raining from what I can tell. Tomorrow is for exploration.

(continued...)

Life Regarding Australia (Part 3 of 137)

There are a few things I will remember about my time at Adventurers Backpackers Resort. One is the noise. Two is the boredom. Three is the pain. The hostel was an old three-story motel, complete with a pool on the 3rd floor. It was sparsely populated in January (the dead part of the season), and the people who lived there were construction workers and miners who were too cheap to live in an apartment. There was a large open rec' room and a gigantic kitchen with gas pilots. All in all, not bad and basically quiet unless you were in the "inner ring" (the rooms facing the parking area). My first room there was a single (in the outer ring), facing the bus stop and the railroad.

The hostel was in the beginnings of the bad part of town. The backpackers was on trendy Palmer Street. This was not a bad street, it just *became* bad about 50 m (learn metric!) from the last fish 'n chips shop. Seedy characters, who did or did not live in the hostel were always roaming around. Resident miners and workers would get shitfaced every night, and sing anthems like soccer hooligans. Being a foreigner in a foreign land, it was kind of frightening. Sometimes it was as scary as Flinders Mall at night (I'll explain later). Palmer St. also had a "men's hostel" nearby that was unbecoming, and parallel was the Railway Estates. The construction workers felt right at home, maybe because at 6 AM they would walk next door and resume hammering and banging on a new condo project. The noise.

Basically I worked 9-5, and the rest of the time was free. I didn't make any friends (it wasn't the friendliest hostel), so I was sure glad I brought my Gameboy Advance. There was not much to do if you didn't have a car or bike. Taxis weren't cheap, and the city had a tendency to favour those with wheels. The malls were too far away. The beach was a 30-min walk, Flinders St was 10-min, the cinema was 20-min, the ferry was 30-min (explained later) and the rock pool was a solid hour. The first few days in the hostel, I walked around in my beloved Van skate shoes. Those started to hurt me, so I bought some thongs (sandals) and figured I would be good. Not so. There was a lot of fucking walking without wheels. Eventually, I got the stamina and the callouses, but in the meantime, I had to bide my time staring at cinder block walls in my room, and try to write a little and read a little. I played Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Metroid Fusion and Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap all the way through. The boredom and the pain.

(continued...)

Life Regarding Australia (Part 1 of 137)

Tonight, before I settled down to bed with a cup of tea and a ratty novel, I told my friend that there is no such thing as nonfiction. History books, scientific journals, autobiographies--they can't be 100% truthful. We are human and we embellish; we lie to save ourselves. I'm worried about the audience on this one. I want to entertain.

Before I over-reflect on my statement, I must go on and do this before it gets replaced by new adventures. I must write about the beginning, the middle and the climax (hopefully not in that order). I must write about Life Regarding Australia. Everything from here on is "nonfiction". Where do I start?

(continued...)

Mothballs

It smells like a truck of mothballs jackknifed as I cross the River Bridge. I don't even know where to buy mothballs. The traffic is light on a Friday. I am in a good mood after withstanding Pasta Indigestion the night before. It seems I have become allergic to my boiled vermicelli after an excessive incident last November. Fortunately, nothing came up or out of me.

Who invented the moth ball?

I listen to a few Sonic Youth tunes as I take the off-ramp. Their new album is supposedly different. I sort of like it. A few songs near the end are worth saving. Kim Gordon's songs aren't worthy. The last track, "Or", is really haunting. Weird forced-sex lyrics.

What warranted this age-old war on the moths and their brethren?

Another day of work. Will I have the guts to leave such an easy job? The people here are nice, and I can do anything I want. Probably the best job I've ever had. I think the "no business training whatsoever" thing is going well for me. Bring some science to these talking heads. Ooh, another meeting where I can interrupt! These people are weary of meetings.

Mothballs used to be highly inflammable. Did you know inflammable means the same thing as flammable? I did. But, now they aren't. I mean mothballs. Now, they aren't so highly flammable.

I'm thinking about where I am going to be next year. Should I take the whole summer off? My dad and the business world would say "what about the gap in employment?". Sometimes I hate the world of Capitalism. It breeds greed and mistrust. I drive home and see capitalism in action: big cars and big egos. The greedy drivers try to sneak in lanes. They don't want to wait like the good people. They want to get home and heat up pizza rolls and watch "Friends" as soon as humanly possible. They don't realize that the person in front of them is late to pick up their stepdaughter or late to a job they can't afford to lose.

I was at a friend-of-an-acquaintance's home last November. It involved lots of whiskey—the most I've ever ingested. After I woke up, I drove home and suffered a hangover for two days. The pain continued when I tried to eat any kind of grains. Beer, vodka, bread, pasta--it all made me want to throw up. Even at a wedding in December, I could not drink the spiked punch without feeling the dagger in my abdomen.

What god-fearing couple in all of Christendom wants to get married around Christmas? Did some magazine with ulterior motives brainwash these poor people into thinking that winter wedding last longer? I pray I will never know the truth.

The Last Leg

Florida got more than its fill of hot tropical storm action last summer. I was ordered to evacuate the Keys at least 3 times. I took the government up on that offer only once, in late August. What people don't realize (and won't remember) is that Hurricane Katrina hit south Florida before infamously waterlogging New Orleans.

The trip back to Florida from Arkansas is teeth grinding and less fun than a colonic. Especially when you're alone and Nature wants you to die. The road is hypnotizing, the music is stale and your stomach eats itself. It is a race to get home within 2 days with only some insect casualties obstructing your view.

I wake up early, knowing full well about the arduousity awaiting me. It's 6AM and there's fog when I take the back road across the floodzone of the Ouachita River. I pound through that with the ease of a confident stock car racer. The first part of the trip is the most complex, but easy. It is switching from two lane highways to interstates back to two-lanes. I make it through podunk Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, all the time listening to the solemn radio talk shows hinting of impending doom.

For some reason, I really like Chevron stations and I exclusively seek them out along the way. I must have that wonderful gas, even if it means switching lanes and pulling out in front of a turning Ideal Bread truck. My brakes screech and I lurch across the divided highway. I try to be inconspicuous as I quietly fill up, and make no eye contact with the Ideal man unloading the stuff at the station. Everyone has a Mississippi driving story...

I get past Tallahassee, the normal stopping point for a sane person driving all the way to the end of Florida. I get to Lake City and find a place to stay. The first part is over, but the worst is yet to come. It's going to be all interstate driving in the morning and afternoon, until I get to Naples. I wake up and get right on with the slow torture. It starts raining about an hour south of my resting point... the effects of Katrina are still here. Then I notice my Airbag Warning light is on. This probably means they won't deploy when I fantastically collide headfirst into the jagged metal of a semi and its 25,000 lb payload. But, I must press on.

Interstate 75 from Tampa to Naples is the least sane driving I have ever experienced. I have heard it is equivalent to Miami city driving or the roads of southern California. The license plates and the drivers' minds are usually out of state. No one signals and everyone is pushing 90 to get back to civilization and water their lawns. I take the Naples exit in the afternoon. It is a cold, dreary rain for August. I know the routine through Naples because I lived there very happily for 6 months, but I decide to take a road through the city and test the streetlight timing. At the second stoplight, I apply the brakes when I see the yellow. I slide straight for 5 seconds and finally my brakes catch in the middle of the intersection. I freeze and thankfully have enough room to scoot back into the right place. I am really fucking by tired this point, so I chug down an energy drink to keep my wits for the last 3 hours of this hellish ordeal.

The Last Leg is Highway 41 through the Everglades, then a back way through Homestead to the main drag of US-1. This is where the endangered Florida Panther dies a lot. You can go really fast, so fast that you can hit a gator and think it was just one of the thousands of white egrets along the edge of the highway. I slip through the turns and straightaways of 41, because I've done it so many other times. I get to the Indian Reservation and slow to the speed limit. The police jurisdiction only lasts a few miles, but these Indians pull over anything that doesn't have the Miccosukee decal on the back glass. Finally I resume cruising all the way to the stoplight with the Casino Resort. I can almost feel the sheets of my bed and read the personal emails.

One more little jaunt through back roads and then its US-1 all the way to my trailer. I get through downtown Homestead and throttle up on The Stretch to show the tourists how to properly handle the Overseas Highway. I blow through the passing zones and drawbridge and hit the city limits. I coast at 45 mph to Mile Marker 101. I had done it. I park my car and inspect the damage. My trailer has seen its share of wind and rain. My roommate dug in an stayed there throughout the whole thing. She seemed fine. Nothing horrible there, just some 100 lb limbs and lots of debris. Thank god.

I had taken a gamble and skipped Thursday and Friday work, only to stay in Arkansas for about 30 hours, then head back to be home by Monday night. I said I would never drive that again alone, but I would about 4 months later...