[ blessed to be a witness - ben harper ]
25 Mar 06
??:?? ??
Bye bye australia…sad to leave. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was an awesome vacation, escape, and learning experience. So good to spend a week with Suave though. We should live closer. Cause we’d be good friends. Well, we are anyway, but…yea…
So, I was up at 6:45am today to pack up and get to the airport. My flight was at 9:55 out of Sydney. I first had to fly to Brisbane. Then we had a little more than an hour layover in Brisbane, which was lame because that was just lengthening the already ridiculously long day. The flight out of Brisbane was scheduled to leave at 12:50pm. Didn’t leave til 1:30pm. I wasn’t thrilled about the flight before even boarding because from the looks of it, I could tell it’d be a full flight, which meant sitting next to a potentially shitty person for 12 hours (whereas there was an empty seat next to me on the 14 hour flight going). Turns out I’m sitting next to a shitty person for 12 hours. He’s a really awkward, uncomfortable, tall man who has been asleep virtually the entire time. I guess I’d prefer he’s asleep, though it sucks to have to wake him to go to the bathroom. I watched A History Of Violence at the start of the flight, then Chicken Little for a little change of pace. I had no idea what to expect of A History Of Violence. I did like it, though there were some things about it that seemed left out or just didn’t seem to make sense or seem right, aside from the brutal murders themselves. Chicken Little…hehe…awesome.
Okay, so my last day. We aimed to leave the house at 10:00am as to fit in everything we hadn’t gotten done the day before. 10:30am was close enough. We drove out to Bondi to go to the beach one more time. Again, it was beautiful. The waves were really nice at first for boogie boarding, but the current quickly got really, really strong and the winds picked up significantly which kind of changed the whole outcome of the morning. Either way, it was fun.
Drove back to Suave’s uncle’s to shower & change, then took the train into Newtown for lunch at a sushi place where I tackled 4 huge fucking rolls, finishing 14 of the 16 pieces (only cause Suave took the other 2). Oh man…sushi.
We started walking towards the Uni keeping an eye out for a costume shop type of store because we were going to Vanessa’s 20th that night which had a Uniforms theme. We found this amazing 2nd-hand clothing store with the most stuff I’ve eveerrrr seen. Kelly would’ve been in heaven. Anyway, we walked out with two of Anita’s “Mondo Bakery” uniform shirts.
Then we walked down to the Uni to ask Vanessa where the gift shop was so I could get a sweatshirt. Her roommate Lauren tried explaining, but decided to just drive us there. Got a sweatshirt for $84.00 (AUD) marked 15% off from $99. Ridiculous. I asked if I get the student discount cause I’m a student & the lady said yea & I showed her my Cal Poly ID. She asked if I had a Sydney Uni ID though cause I had to be a Sydney Uni student. I told her I was just visiting & that’s where Suave jumped in looking for his “ID.” He got the lady to believe he left it back in his “apartment,” which then triggered a long string of dangerous questions thrown his way. When he said he lived at the Sydney Uni Village, she took interest & asked him about the place, how many roommates he had, what it’s like living there, if there’s much partying, how much it cost to live there, etc. One of those “you had to be there” moments, cause surely everything he was saying he was just improvising. Made for a good laugh when we left.
Anyway, we took the bus from the University down to Circular Quay to catch a ferry to Taronga to go to the zoo. We bought our tickets just as the 4:45pm ferry left, so we had to wait til 5:15. At 5:10, we realized that not only had we bought single-way passes, but the zoo closed at 5:00. So, we bought the return tickets since we already had one way, took the ferry to Taronga, got off, walked up the ramp, stood there for a minute, turned around & got right back on the ferry back to the Harbour. At least I can say that we eventually made it to the zoo.
With a bit of time left to kill before dinner, showering, changing, & Vanessa’s, I thought we should go to where we did the BridgeClimb the night before. When you do the climb, you get a free pass to the Pylon Museum, which is inside one of the bridge pylons & you can go atop it to take pictures of the city from high up. The second we reached it, it finally clicked that the museum also closed at 5:00pm. Basically, Suave and I did so much fucking walking in two days it’s ridiculous. So, we walked back to the Circular Quay train station to get the train back to Summer Hill.
Went to dinner at a Thai place again & I had Aussie Pad Thai. Probably the best Thai I’ve ever had. Went to the house, showered, changed, and headed to Vanessa’s party, but not without getting lost first, of course. The party had social awkwardness written all over it for me, being a non-drinker and not knowing anyone other than Suave and only having met Vanessa, Lauren, & Emma a few times. Suave didn’t really know most people either. The party was just that - awkward. One highlight was meeting Vanessa’s friend Rory who happened to also be from California & lives in the San Fernando Valley (which is also where my mom lives). Small world. The party was at a bar on campus that was reserved just for us. Most people were completely smashed by the time we got there, especially Vanessa, Emma, & Lauren. Around 11:00 or something, we finally all left the bar & took taxis into the city to go to the Plantation night club at King’s Cross. That was definitely better than the party because at least there was something for me to do really, which was dance. Got really tired and kind of sick of the group close to 1:00am or 1:30, which was when we left the club to get late night kebabs again. Damn those things are amazing. The US would be a much better place with them. So the night went on. The drunk crowd did their drunken stupidities on the streets in Sydney until we finally got in cabs again to head back to the Uni around 2:30am. Said bye to everyone there, then I drove Suave & I back to his uncle’s where I first had to pack. I didn’t get to sleep until 3:30am.
So, with about 3 hours of sleep, I got up to say goodbye to my spring break & an amazing friend and begin my journey via Qantas airlines once again. It’s 2:20am and there’s about 4 ½ hrs left until LAX where I get to have a second Saturday. (Left Australia at 1:30pm Saturday afternoon & we get into LAX at 7:00am Saturday morning…longest day of my life.)
I guess that’s it. Oh cool…looks like we’re just off the shore of Hawaii. Spring break, anybody? Soon I’ll be driving back to school for the final quarter of my 1st year at college. Not thrilled about starting up classes again, though I am extremely excited to be singing. Ah...that’ll be so nice...
Sorry if these crazy long entries got boring & tedious, but I wanted to remember my trip in pretty decent detail.
??:?? ??
Bye bye australia…sad to leave. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was an awesome vacation, escape, and learning experience. So good to spend a week with Suave though. We should live closer. Cause we’d be good friends. Well, we are anyway, but…yea…
So, I was up at 6:45am today to pack up and get to the airport. My flight was at 9:55 out of Sydney. I first had to fly to Brisbane. Then we had a little more than an hour layover in Brisbane, which was lame because that was just lengthening the already ridiculously long day. The flight out of Brisbane was scheduled to leave at 12:50pm. Didn’t leave til 1:30pm. I wasn’t thrilled about the flight before even boarding because from the looks of it, I could tell it’d be a full flight, which meant sitting next to a potentially shitty person for 12 hours (whereas there was an empty seat next to me on the 14 hour flight going). Turns out I’m sitting next to a shitty person for 12 hours. He’s a really awkward, uncomfortable, tall man who has been asleep virtually the entire time. I guess I’d prefer he’s asleep, though it sucks to have to wake him to go to the bathroom. I watched A History Of Violence at the start of the flight, then Chicken Little for a little change of pace. I had no idea what to expect of A History Of Violence. I did like it, though there were some things about it that seemed left out or just didn’t seem to make sense or seem right, aside from the brutal murders themselves. Chicken Little…hehe…awesome.
Okay, so my last day. We aimed to leave the house at 10:00am as to fit in everything we hadn’t gotten done the day before. 10:30am was close enough. We drove out to Bondi to go to the beach one more time. Again, it was beautiful. The waves were really nice at first for boogie boarding, but the current quickly got really, really strong and the winds picked up significantly which kind of changed the whole outcome of the morning. Either way, it was fun.
Drove back to Suave’s uncle’s to shower & change, then took the train into Newtown for lunch at a sushi place where I tackled 4 huge fucking rolls, finishing 14 of the 16 pieces (only cause Suave took the other 2). Oh man…sushi.
We started walking towards the Uni keeping an eye out for a costume shop type of store because we were going to Vanessa’s 20th that night which had a Uniforms theme. We found this amazing 2nd-hand clothing store with the most stuff I’ve eveerrrr seen. Kelly would’ve been in heaven. Anyway, we walked out with two of Anita’s “Mondo Bakery” uniform shirts.
Then we walked down to the Uni to ask Vanessa where the gift shop was so I could get a sweatshirt. Her roommate Lauren tried explaining, but decided to just drive us there. Got a sweatshirt for $84.00 (AUD) marked 15% off from $99. Ridiculous. I asked if I get the student discount cause I’m a student & the lady said yea & I showed her my Cal Poly ID. She asked if I had a Sydney Uni ID though cause I had to be a Sydney Uni student. I told her I was just visiting & that’s where Suave jumped in looking for his “ID.” He got the lady to believe he left it back in his “apartment,” which then triggered a long string of dangerous questions thrown his way. When he said he lived at the Sydney Uni Village, she took interest & asked him about the place, how many roommates he had, what it’s like living there, if there’s much partying, how much it cost to live there, etc. One of those “you had to be there” moments, cause surely everything he was saying he was just improvising. Made for a good laugh when we left.
Anyway, we took the bus from the University down to Circular Quay to catch a ferry to Taronga to go to the zoo. We bought our tickets just as the 4:45pm ferry left, so we had to wait til 5:15. At 5:10, we realized that not only had we bought single-way passes, but the zoo closed at 5:00. So, we bought the return tickets since we already had one way, took the ferry to Taronga, got off, walked up the ramp, stood there for a minute, turned around & got right back on the ferry back to the Harbour. At least I can say that we eventually made it to the zoo.
With a bit of time left to kill before dinner, showering, changing, & Vanessa’s, I thought we should go to where we did the BridgeClimb the night before. When you do the climb, you get a free pass to the Pylon Museum, which is inside one of the bridge pylons & you can go atop it to take pictures of the city from high up. The second we reached it, it finally clicked that the museum also closed at 5:00pm. Basically, Suave and I did so much fucking walking in two days it’s ridiculous. So, we walked back to the Circular Quay train station to get the train back to Summer Hill.
Went to dinner at a Thai place again & I had Aussie Pad Thai. Probably the best Thai I’ve ever had. Went to the house, showered, changed, and headed to Vanessa’s party, but not without getting lost first, of course. The party had social awkwardness written all over it for me, being a non-drinker and not knowing anyone other than Suave and only having met Vanessa, Lauren, & Emma a few times. Suave didn’t really know most people either. The party was just that - awkward. One highlight was meeting Vanessa’s friend Rory who happened to also be from California & lives in the San Fernando Valley (which is also where my mom lives). Small world. The party was at a bar on campus that was reserved just for us. Most people were completely smashed by the time we got there, especially Vanessa, Emma, & Lauren. Around 11:00 or something, we finally all left the bar & took taxis into the city to go to the Plantation night club at King’s Cross. That was definitely better than the party because at least there was something for me to do really, which was dance. Got really tired and kind of sick of the group close to 1:00am or 1:30, which was when we left the club to get late night kebabs again. Damn those things are amazing. The US would be a much better place with them. So the night went on. The drunk crowd did their drunken stupidities on the streets in Sydney until we finally got in cabs again to head back to the Uni around 2:30am. Said bye to everyone there, then I drove Suave & I back to his uncle’s where I first had to pack. I didn’t get to sleep until 3:30am.
So, with about 3 hours of sleep, I got up to say goodbye to my spring break & an amazing friend and begin my journey via Qantas airlines once again. It’s 2:20am and there’s about 4 ½ hrs left until LAX where I get to have a second Saturday. (Left Australia at 1:30pm Saturday afternoon & we get into LAX at 7:00am Saturday morning…longest day of my life.)
I guess that’s it. Oh cool…looks like we’re just off the shore of Hawaii. Spring break, anybody? Soon I’ll be driving back to school for the final quarter of my 1st year at college. Not thrilled about starting up classes again, though I am extremely excited to be singing. Ah...that’ll be so nice...
Sorry if these crazy long entries got boring & tedious, but I wanted to remember my trip in pretty decent detail.