5/22/11
I thought I might have a little round of creativity this morning but that doesn’t seem to be the case. There is so much to do here in the little metropolis of Darwin, 120,000 civilians strong. At the moment I’m worried about getting my luggage out the door at 6am and properly labeled for our kind hearted tour guide to pick it up. I keep hearing the words of our perky guide say with a smile and that delightful Aussie accent, “This is a tour, not a holiday.” I’m not complaining, just realizing that my mode of writing is dependent on being free of schedule, interruptions for food, people coming into the room, phone calls, having the news already read, and my room organized.
I kind of like the Internet too for writing. America is the home of information services and I fear I’ve grown too accustomed to the free Wi-Fi everywhere I go. It’s right though, I just pretended this morning that my cup of chamomile tea cost me $15.00 for the morning and the Internet was complimentary.
It’s sort of just an information overload at this point. Day 1 was all-cute with an integration of information learned into a little pretend story. Now there is just so much it isn’t even possible to pull it all together in a nice little package with a bow. Oh, well.
Swimming at Bondi beach and the Iceberg club has been a huge highlight for me. We rolled into Sydney on Friday and went right to the beach. It was a decent 22 and there were plenty of people surfing, skating, swimming, and laying out. I stated to feel a little better as well and think I’ve just been finishing the time zone shift plus the cold I had before departing. We ate at Iceberg’s, I sat on the beach, I swam a quick 100M in the rock pool, and we finished it of with the cliff walk. Dad took some footage of me swimming. I found the ocean fed pool to be really fascinating and I loved how picturesque it was right by the ocean. It was unabashedly touristy, childish, and enjoyable. My mom probably liked the extra time to sit and dad didn’t seem to mind as long as I was enjoying ‘my’ vacation, which I was whole heartedly. The night was capped off with some good squid, pizza, and Maker’s Mark. There is a good selection of American booze on hand at all times.
Tomorrow will be the end of my first week here but I’ve been traveling for over a week. Now that the jet lag is starting to really subside I noticed some twinges of homesicknesses yesterday. It came in the form of thoughts like, “Ahh, I’m sick of moving by plane, bus, and car,” or “It will be nice to sleep in my own bed.” It doesn’t have me disabled and I’m still pumped about the adventure, just aware of my own personal habits feeling a little stress. I’ve wondered how performers change time zones so easily and go out to do their show. However, it’s just like my shoulder being sore and going out for a swim, you ignore it, and you feel better for the process and the distraction from the pain.
By the way, somewhere back there a few days ago we went to the Hunter Valley Region and tasted some semillions and shirazes that blew my taste buds away at Tyrrell’s winery. Ate some bangers, mash, and mushy peas at Madigan’s pub. Also, took a tour of the Hunter Valley Gardens. Beautiful, beautiful. I took a million pictures, actually 120, in that one-day. My profile picture is a crop of me in front of the vineyard and the hills.
I found this really cool ‘pine comb’ called the Banksia Grandis. Woodworkers smooth them out and make neat things out of them. I was impressed.
Gawd it feels really good to sit here with my fingers on the black keys. Its like a burden lifted and I keep letting out these big exhalations for some reason.
Last night in Darwin I went ‘out on the town.’ Yeah, that basically means that I thought about being wild and crazy, having a drink, meeting people, yadda yadda, but decided it wasn’t really worth the hassle after I walked up and down the main street a couple of times. I saw lots of interesting people though. A couple natives were just chilling on the sidewalk singing crazy songs along with an Asian kid playing a didgeridoo. Digeridoo isn’t what the Aboriginals call them. They have five or six different names. The dige name comes from Westerners just calling it what they thought it should be called. Cultural bastards.
5:30pm
Its happened and I was trying to prevent it. The blog is just spillage of my mental digestion. I won’t fight it anymore. Its about all I can handle at this point and maybe when I look back at the piece it will bring my back exactly to where I was instead of where I wanted to be.
Jet lag is over. I’m well and back at the normal life. Its good to know I could travel the world more extensively and not just be an anxious ball of raucousness. Just had a cup of tea and it felt great to have the perk without sickness to do some late afternoon writing.
There is a lot of bus riding. I saw some cathedral ant mounds, crocs, wallabies, a salmon gum, a ghost gum, lots of natives, birds, and lots of nothingness on the trip to Katherine. We did a river tour of the Katherine Gorge. I liked the heat, the sun, and the water. I’m pretty wordless right now. I supposed I should call it a day and go out to ‘social hour’ with my traveling chaps.
