Saturday, April 22, 2006

7am on the road between Bridgetown and Balingup

As much as I hated getting up at the immoral hour of 6am to get back to the city, the morning fog was a great sight to be seen. Living in the city I sometimes forget how refreshing it can be to take a trip to the country.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Well I survived Easter this year. I was worried I'd spend the whole time feeling sorry for myself and missing the life and the animals on Jess' farm (that's where I've spent the last few Easters). I'm happy to say I managed to stay busy, have some fun, catch up with long not-seen relies and have an alright time.

I drove about 700 km on Friday and Saturday. At the last minute, Clint and Lee invited me down to their farm near Bridgetown for a crazy filled Good Friday. I didn't get up until 10, but I quickly packed a bag and hit the road south. I took the inland road to miss the traffic and managed to get down there in 4 hours. The house down there is a 110 year old federation era plush building with lots of rooms, a ballroom, underground cellar and a 3 metre wide verandah going all around the house. When his parents bought the place it had no doors or windows, the roof had partially collapsed and was virtually ready for demolition. Lee and Clint have been slowly refurbishing it and bringing it back to its former glory. However there is still no bathroom so it was a little chilly going to the bathroom in the great outdoors!

Just as we had drunk a few bevs and were about to embark on some midnight Blackwood River marron fishing, Matt rolled up with this bottle of brown goo and made us all have a swig. Hehe yes our fun really began then, as the said brown goo turned out to be none other than shroom juice.

..so anyway needless to say our river mission was a fiasco in the dark, but luckily we never fell in as it was frikkin' freezing. It was a heap of laughs, I think next time I'll have to swig a little more. I've only touched the shrooms once before, in San Francisco years ago and back then it was a little too much for this little black duck, so i've never touchd it since. Friday was heaps cool, I will have to get a bunch of crew together and do this again this winter.

At 6.30 on Saturday morning I had to get back to Perth to get to my cousin's son's Christening. I just got there in time, and spent a few hours socialising with the Dalkieth set eating caviar, drinking Bollinger and discussing Russian business takeover ethics with my Mr Burns-esque ruthless businessman other cousin. (he said that his man in Moscow told him, and i quote: "we don't worry about Chechnya up in Moscow, because we've already taken everything of value from that place") Sigh, it's hard to imagine that guy is my flesh and blood, we are SO different.

Once I was back from the strange lands of the overly wealthy western suburbs, I had to meet with Jenn and Chris and drive another hour back to Mandurah for Nat and Tim's engagement party. That was fun, nice to see Natalie so happy, and Jenn got so drunk she made an ass of herself (hehe that was a rare sight)!

So, it is possible to not be a mess after being dumped from 3 years of devotion to a girl. I just gotta keep busy and remember that I deserve better then an aggressive, non communicative girlfriend. This Easter weekend was pretty cool and I had a heap of fun. Now I just need to meet some new people.. Hmm is it possible to break old patterns and not go for a fiesty super independent girl who will leave me once I've helped them fight their inner demons? I've done it 3 times now, if I do it again i'll be a fool. (well i know 3 times is supposed to be that but bah humbug I say!)

I can't find my travel diary, so i'll have to write the second part of my travel adventures once I've cleaned up my room.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Just wanted to tell the world that Julie is tops! She's also a fantastic writer so buy everything she writes right away and check out her blog!
I'm getting ready to write a large chunk of stuff but my computer has a virus now... eek

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Munchen to Prague in only 15 and 1/2 hours, via 1 coach, 3 hitch hikes, 2 trains and 1 trolley bus

I was having a good laugh with a friend today as she was telling me how she was stranded in Denham in the north of WA last week. There have been a few cyclones in the north of Australia recently, and my friend had to go up to the Northwest for work. The day she was due to leave to Perth the pilot decided the wind was too strong and cancelled the flight. This happened for two more days before she realised she would have to wait in the sodden town until the cyclone settled. She managed to hitch a ride to Geraldton at the last minute and a dangerous rain soaked and wind blown drive eventually got here there 4 hours later.

Her adventure reminded me of the time I woke up one morning after a hefty night on the town with my booze hound Bavarian friend when I was living in Munich. We had drunk far too much, so much so that by the time I staggered home she had already crashed and was unable to wake up to open the door to let me in. After a restful (not) two hour slumber on her doorstep I climbed on her roof to whack her bedroom window to grab my bag for a four day trip to Prague.
This turned out to be the beginning of a three month trip and the start of my Eastern European fascination.

I really should find my travel diary to remind myself of the details before I start to write about this, after all I was horrendously hungover when the trip began.

By the time I got to the bahnhoff everyone was waiting for me, so I quickly shuffled aboard the bus. Firstly, it was the first time i'd seen a scruffy looking bus since I had been in Germany. Everything is so darned shiny and new in Munich! I tried to get some rest as the bus took off, but in the back of my head I was nervous that I had no entry visa to the Czech Republic. The previous day, in the Czech Consulate, the amazingly surly lady at the counter advised me that 'everyone' gets their visas at the border when you get there, and insisted I not arrange one beforehand. Naively I nodded my head and proceeded to buy an el cheapo ticket before heading off to meet Sabine at her local booze establisment. She hadn't been drinking for TWO days and was edgy to start drinking straight away..

Just as I was finally nodding off to the hum of the engine, the bus rolled to a stop. We had reached the Czech border. As I rubbed my eyes, a well dressed border guard stopped by my chair and commanded to see my 'Pass'. I showed him my passport, which did not impress him. He flicked through it a few times and said in halting English: "Where's your visa? You have no visa, you can't come in". I said that I wanted to purchase one now, and he started shaking his head vigorously. "No no, you must be mistaken. You CAN get a visa at the border, but only at the Waidhaus Border", he said. "And where is that?" I asked knowing that I would not like his answer. "A few hundred kilmetres north from here." He waved his hands, choosing not to notice the look of hungover horror on my face.

Yep, so there I was, turfed off the bus in a place I did not quite know whereabouts it was, and had no idea what to do next. The bus took off in a cloud of diesel fumes. I scratched my head. I took out my wallet and realised that I didn't even have any Czech money on me. Hmm, I was starting to feel like a bit of a dumbkopf. It was nearly 9am.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? STAY TUNED FOR SOME MORE TALES OF MY BONEHEAD ADVENTURES NEXT TIME..

Monday, April 03, 2006

I'm finally back online after a little time away. I needed the break. This break up thing has been an up and down experience. After three years means that I have to change my entire lifestyle. It's actually been alright most of the time (except for the fact that I no longer have anyone in my little black book). It has given me opportunities to get up to new stuff, for instance, i found myself at an art gallery opening on Saturday and had the finest of wine, cheese and ice cream served to me by tuxedoed butlers, before finding myself having late night nachos in some seedy den. And i seemed to have inadvertantly begun a Tuesday night backgammon challenge at the moon cafe with Sarah, have got back into my cult movie night with Bec, and spent some time at Casa de Brun with Jeff. Casa de Brun is Jeff's pad - a true bachelor pad in the glorius 70's suburb of Bullcreek, and it is a regular drop in centre for pretty much most people I know (in Perth).

Last night I dj'd on rtr fm on my own for the first time in years! I was a little shaky at first, but by the end of the show i was on fire! I will be doing another show this Sunday at 11pm Perth time on 92.1fm. If you want to listen online, follow the links on www.rtrfm.com.au I will be playing two hours of ambient electro music, mostly cruisy tunes with some glitchy and IDM ish kind of stuff.

Some new CDs I've got my hands on lately:
(yeah it's all fairly low key tunes at the mome)

Arovane - Lilies
Isan - Lucky Cat
Helios - Unomia
Pan American - The River Made No Sound
Corker / Conboy - Radiant Idiot
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