QUEENSLAND FUN

I've been pleasantly surprised by the good times had so far during the Queensland segment of my trip. It's not that I have anything against the place per se, but I haven't lived here since 1998 and only ever return to fulfill family obligations (not known for being too stimulating) so I had extremely low expectations for the trip. Which means of course it wouldn't be hard to exceed those expectations.

It takes much more than 9 years of absence to erase the memory of a muggy, humid, energy-sapping, sweaty, dripping, stinking hot Central Queensland summer, so I was pleased that the temperature in the Sunshine Coast was quite reasonable (I've since learned that this has been the coldest Christmas season in a decade). My journey began with a few days spent relaxing there at my sister's house, and many of those days were overcast, drizzly and delightfully warm which suited me perfectly.

Less enjoyable was the six and a half hour drive up to Rockhampton that I endured along with my two younger sisters and future brother-in-law. That's a long time to be stuck in a metal shell. With ANYONE. One perk was that my (non-driving) sister's bladder is even more demanding than mine - a fact which anyone who's ever been out on the piss with me will find quite unbelievable - so there were plenty of toilet stops on the way that were not initiated by yours truly. We finally arrived in Rock Vegas around 10:30pm and the evening was spent drinking beer and catching up with my younger brother and the folks.

We had only two full days to spend up here and the time has passed pleasantly, likely due to the fact that I've spent the majority of my waking hours each day OUTSIDE the festering hell-hole that is Rockhampton. (I've decided I'm too old to be polite about the place. It really stinks). On Saturday we set off in my brother's four wheel drive to Five Rocks, a beautiful beach in the Byfield National Park area north of Rockhampton. Unfortunately the huge sand dunes we needed to traverse to get there defeated us, so we went instead to Stony Creek for some swimming and soccer-ball-kicking action. It was so nice. It's the first time I'd jumped in a natural body of water since the Greek sailing trip and it felt gooood.

Saturday night I caught up with some old friends, one of whom I haven't seen since high school (Facebook! Hooray!), which was really cool but also a little scary. My travelling tendencies have seen me live in seven different cities in four different countries over the past five years alone, which means I'm rarely around people who've known me for more than a couple of years. The girl I met up with was a good friend at school, and she reminded me of some of the questionable decisions I made about how to spend my teenage years. Still, I wouldn't be the super-fabulous, wonderful ray of sunshine I am now without that brief skid off the rails as a teen :-)

We're driving this morning down to Bargara to meet up with the rest of the clan for our Christmas extravaganza. And speaking of dodginess from Christmases past reminds me that one cousin in particular has a lot of embarrassing ammunition about childhood choreography to very crap pop songs. I think I can still remember most of the moves to our rendition of Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now". Thank god there were no digital cameras in the eighties.

DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW, ER, RAIN

My Sydney visit has almost come to an end. It's been heaps of fun catching up with people and re-engaging with my former hometown. I'm staying with friends who live just down the road from my old flat in Annandale, so the area is familiar and comforting. Comfort is important when your entire world consists of one backpack and a load of things packed into boxes and suitcases and strewn all across the world. Speaking of which, I went out to my Sydney storage unit the other day and discovered that my treasured possessions are all just a load of crap. After all my experience moving around the world, you'd think my pre-travel brain would be a better of judge of what my post-travel brain is going to consider worthy of retention. But no, I could only access the front few boxes and they were all full of rubbish. Somewhat disappointing, really.

Something that was much less disappointing was my ninja-vist to Canberra (so-called because it was lightning fast, like a ninja). I was in the city for almost exactly 24 hours, but I rushed around and managed to catch up with loads of friends who I haven't seen for over a year as well as some I haven't seen for even longer. Unfortunately, doing my Speedy Gonzales impression meant I wasn't able to catch up with everybody I wanted to see. On the bright side though, now they have a good excuse to come over to London and visit me!

I had intended to stay in Canberra for three days, but it just wasn't working for me. Nothing to do with the people of course - it was fantastic to see everyone - but Canberra and I need a bit longer apart before we can resume our amicable relationship. I found it a wee bit depressing to be there, so I dashed back to Sydney (driving through the rain, hence the title of this entry) before my positive memories of the place were superceded by negative impressions filtered through my London lens. Pretty much anywhere in this country is going to seem boring and quiet after living in London, but Canberra is especially prone for obvious reasons (ie. it actually IS boring and quiet). I need to maintain a positive impression of Canberra because so many people important to me are from there or will be spending a significant part of their lives there which means it will always be somewhere I return to.
To visit, that is.
Not to live.
Ever again.

I hope.

HOMEBAKE 2007

It's summer time!! Having escaped from a cold Scottish winter I was expecting Sydney to deliver searing sunshine and sunburned skin. Instead it's been mostly cloudy, cool and rainy. Still, feeling a bit chilly at 21 degrees is better than shivering uncontrollably in a flat with a dodgy boiler as the sun goes down at 4pm and the temperature drops below 7 degrees. Not that I want to rub it in or anything, guys :)

I've seen more sunshine over the past few days than in my last month in Scotland. I'd forgotten how bright the Australian light is and also how incredibly high the sky appears to be. I'd become so used to constant cloud cover over the UK that the sight of a seemingly never-ending expanse of bright blue sky kind of freaked me out. It still does actually. Crazy country.

Anyway, 48 hours after landing at Sydney airport I was rocking out at "Australia's premier all-local festival". And by 'rocking out' I mean snoozing under a tree. Jetlag stinks. But I was snoozing to the tune of some really great Aussie artists. I saw (heard) Art of Fighting, Ed Kuepper, Kisschasy, Angus & Julia Stone, Josh Pyke, Sarah Blasko, Missy Higgins, The Divinyls and Paul Kelly, as well as this DJ guy called Muscles who was surprisingly good. It was a really chilled day, and a great way to ease myself back into the Australian lifestyle.

Speaking of Aussie lifestyle, I'd forgotten how repulsive drunken Australian men could be (I've managed to live in the UK all year long and not have a single trashy night out in any of the Walkabouts). And the smell of a warm Carlton Draught tinny as it's tipped down one's top by an incoherent, stumbling bogan with a bare chest and a shirt tucked into his pants like a flappy tail. Very important cultural experiences that I'd managed to erase from my memory after only 10 months away.

Some of the experiences I've been more than happy to reacquaint myself with include: seafood laksa, affordable sushi, Coopers Pale Ale, Sydney's Chinatown, the ANZAC bridge, the Annandale pub, Smith's crisps, eucalyptus trees and King Street Newtown. And of course, all the friends I've managed to catch up with over the past couple of days. I'm only in Sydney for a week, then I plan on moseying on down to Canberra. It will be interesting to see if that little trip provides any nostalgic memories. I do like the Dickson Asian Noodle House. Mmmm, laksa. Gotta go, suddenly hungry.

SCHRODINGER STICKER

This sticker is funny. You can read up about Schrodinger's famous thought experiment here if you like, but I'm guessing if you're not already familiar with it you won't be very interested in the explanation. I'm really such a nerd.

NINJA EDIT: A friend has pointed out that I'm really only a Pop-Nerd because my nerdiness doesn't extend beyond popular science/internet fads/etcetera. Apparently you need to be much more well-versed in the obscure to qualify for the Nerd crown. Damn it! Not only will I never be geek-chic (due to a complete inability to comprehend the concept of megabytes and ram and all that crap) but I now realise I'm going to have to work a lot harder to be accepted into the Halls of Nerd-dom as well. Will seek out the latest Lynne Truss book to guide me along the path, she's one big nerd.

LEAVING LONDON

I've just had another fantastic weekend in London. Arriving off the Edinburgh train late in the afternoon, I went straight to a friend's place to get ready for the party of the century. It was a combined housewarming/birthday party for four people. The night began with fairy bread and chocolate crackles (at my insistence - I was by far the most demanding of the birthday quartet) and ended with smashed wine glasses, spilled drinks, tequila shots and absinthe. I woke up on the sofa the next morning, dazed and confused.

There was no time for hangovers, as I was booked in to spend all that day with a good friend from New York who was coincidentally in London the same weekend that I was. I hadn't seen him since we both lived in Vietnam so we caught up on three and a half years of travel and adventures and also managed to practice our rusty Vietnamese language skills over dinner. The whole of Monday was also full of catching-up-with-people-before-I-go-overseas appointments which were a heap of fun but the hectic (compared to my sedentary Edinburgh lifestyle) pace of the whole weekend left me sleep deprived and happily exhausted. Monday night was my official farewell/birthday dinner and it was spent in wonderful company at an amazing Thai restaurant in Fulham. So today I'm completely exhausted and am looking down the barrel of a 22 hour flight back to Australia. Hopefully I won't be sitting next to anyone as horrible as I did on the way over. I'm thinking the lack of solid sleep over my last weekend might help me combat jetlag. Ever the optimist.