Monday, March 3, 2008

Leaving Darwin

No matter how prepared you think you are to sell everything and move overseas. You’re not. You can never be prepared for that I don’t care how many lists you write you will always forget SOMETHING. Chances are its one of the most important things to.

I blame most of my unreadiness on the fact I resigned from work on the Wednesday 5th March leaving me with only five days to organize the rest of my life. I still had to sell my car, pack up all the extra shit and get together all the paperwork I would need. Oh and I also had to prepare my going away party which was on the Saturday night.

I had a list of things I needed to do and I think I accomplished half of them. Thanks to Tom we got the power of attorney pretty much sorted out easily although thanks to a banksa fuckup we discovered we needed an extra form! I had all the tickets etc already sorted including all the visa information. Except for the stuff required for the American visas which we forgot to get on Friday then forgot again on Monday… Lucky for us we were heading to Melbourne for a few weeks so we could sort that out there.

Saturday night was our farewell party which was filled with mixed emotions for me. I was a lot less prepared once again then I thought I was. I didn’t have enough party games ready – the ones I did have ready were received well thankfully – I was tired and hot and just stressed out from all the preparation. I had had my volleyball finals on that night as well and had even run out on Tom and Simon because of the time clashes. I was in fact sick of organizing everything. I retreated into a bit of a shell and just coasted the rest of the night. I did enjoy myself and the costumes were fantastic!! Liana was in this amazing black sexy pirate wench outfit and in true twin style Carmen was the sexy anime ninja. I do have photos and I will stick up the best. Now there always has to be one cross dresser in the group and in ours it is John. Right down to the manly hiking boots was John the Pirate wench. I could go on about all the costumes I guess, Leigh’s pants were awesome :D, Dions dildo sword did the rounds. But anyway that’s enough of that!

The dildo caused a little trouble to the end of the night when Clayton ran around hitting people on the back of the head and happened to hit Simon who not in the mood swung around and hit him back. This causing a dishonorable sneak attack later in the night when Simon was leaving where Clayton came up behind with a beer bottle and hit him hard enough to split the skin but not to break the bottle somehow. Then after disabling poor Simon but slamming his hand in the door he grabbed him a headlock and began to hit him repeatedly. Mum screamed us over so a couple of Clayton’s mates pulled them apart and then I inspected Simons head for serious injury only to once again become covered in Simon’s blood. I swear that is becoming a regular event to me lately! Anyway no serious injury thankfully just a bad cut and a sore face and wounded pride perhaps as he never had the chance to hit back. You know that kind of dishonour could only come from a NINJA!!!

Sunday 9th was pretty much a write-off but I did manage to get the last few crates of storage stuff out to Dad’s shed and have a swim because it was a really hot day. Monday the 10th on the other hand sucked from the moment I woke up to the moment I left on the airplane it was disaster after disaster. The guy who was supposed to be buying my car turned out to be in Adelaide so I decided to sell it to another guy only to be considerably fucked around by him wasting at least three hours of what precious time I even had! After him calling me asking where I was for the second time I got to the destination only 10 minutes late to discover the person signing off on the car wasn’t even there! Not to mention he demanded I went to MVR with him to make sure the car wasn’t stolen. I was already behind in everything it was close to 4pm and I hadn’t even started packing plus I had dinner at 6pm with my family. In the end I just thought fuck it. I told him not to worry and walked away. I called the guy in Adelaide and told him I was leaving the car with mum. It has since been sorted and the money ended up in my account on Friday the 14th.

Dinner was another disaster the place I booked wasn’t even open on Mondays. I don’t know why they took my booking and didn’t tell me. When we found that out I just couldn’t deal with the stress and yes I broke out in tears. I wasn’t sad I was just so frustrated with everything. I wasn’t going to have enough time to do anything and I was freaking out. Dinner cancelled turned out to be a blessing, we went back to my place and I could fix up my computer whilst we sat around eating pizza and talking.

Mum stayed back and packed my suitcase for me which was another blessing in disguise since I am hopeless at that sort of thing. Rhiannon, Dan and John all took Brendan and I to the airport where we met Mum. Brendan and I had our last Paul’s Iced coffee for who knows how long.. That was a sad moment in time for what is a Territorian without iced coffee?

Now I’ve been in Melbourne for a week and I have two more to go. We haven’t done that much. On Thursday the 13th we had our American VISA interviews. We waited in line for 40 minutes before being pushed through security where I even had to take my shoes off! Then up to the sixth floor where we went through more security at least I got to leave my shoes on this time. I had enough of Brendan making fun of my odd socks. We sat around till our number was called then went to a little window where some bloke took all our forms. Then we had to wait again till we got called to another window where the guy asked a few questions. All I got was
“So doing the working in Canada program hey”
“yes”
“Are you coming back to Australia?”
Lol! As If I would say no they would refuse the visa on the spot
“Yea I just wanted to see my family in the states and stuff first”
THEN guess what to get the five year visa I needed to leave head down to Australia post and get a money order for 30 bucks. I then had to wait in line again and go through all the security just to drop the damn money order off. We got there at 9:30am we left at 12pm.

After that we went to the F1 Melbourne Grand Prix. What a crappy racecourse they have. That’s all I have to say about that!!

Friday night I met some of my Dota friends in Town. Its funny meeting people you have known online for the last year only to find them to be completely different. Take Dino for example I don’t know if he was shy or what but he barely spoke to me even though I thought we had a great online relationship and he was fully pushing for the meeting in the first place. On the other hand metro boy Rob was really friendly and him and I don’t talk much online or basically just hang shit on each other. I found Jay and Zanes offline personalities so different from their online ones. They are both super nice when online they are super jerks. Zane reminds me of John in the way that his mannerisms are so gay. Scott was to busy hitting on my boyfriend both of them with the weird borat references. Every time I go out Brendan ends up cosying up with another bloke! Maybe I should not be wondering about Zane and John but instead my own boyfriend! We caught this cab home this Indian guy who could barely speak English and had no fucking idea where he was going. The cab cost an extra 20 bucks then it should have. By now it was 7am so we just wanted to get to bed.

Sunday 16th we went to the Markets both Eltham and Wooleys. All I got was a bunch of strawberries. Man they were nice strawberries though!

Monday 17th we went to the city where I hung out with Aunty Maureen and Nanna. We had lunch and they took us to the Eureka Tower which is apparently the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere. It sits at 301 metres with 88 floors. They charge you like 16 bucks to get to the top. I wonder if they just built it to make lots of money. And what’s on the other 87 floors? The view on the top is unreal it sits right on south bank and you basically get a 360 degree view of Melbourne from 300 metres high. So I was quite impressed but the cost seems a little high to me, just to see the top floor!

Thursday 20ST Melbourne decided to get cold. Like 12 degrees Celsius or something. My cousin Gary picked me up for dinner at his place. His place is made out of mud bricks which I had helped create 10 or so years ago. I can’t find the brick I signed though when I go there…

We played Buzz monkey or something on the playstation which was fun then he took us home about midnight.

Friday 21st We went to Melbourne zoo with Nanna. I brought an orangutan. That night I went into the city to meet up with another Dota friend of mine Sam who had flown down from Perth. However the club he was going to with his brother had a crazy dress code and me coming from Darwin where everything is thongs and singlets was hopelessly unprepared. So we had a couple of drinks then Brendan and I said our goodbyes and caught the Night Rider bus home. The driver was really cool and since we were the only ones left on the bus he dropped us right at the bottom of the hill.

Saturday 22nd. Was lunch with some other forum geek friends of mine. I pwned at Mario Kart DS. I was also feeling sick. I was going to catch up with Sam again but I felt like shit so we just went straight home.

Sunday 23rd. Had lunch with my aunty and uncle in Diamond Creek. Then went into the city for the rave. Unfortunately I was still feeling sick with the flu so I couldn’t quite get into it. The setup was pretty cool but the music was just not calling me. I danced a bit and I saw the DJ I wanted to see “Sean Tyas” so that was ok. Brendan and I walked back to Dave and Simon’s hotel room where we chilled out for a little bit before catching a cab home. We made sure we asked the guy if he knew where “Greensborough” was first. Thankfully the guy could actually speak a little English!!

Tuesday 25th Brendan and I caught the train into the city where we hung out at Federation square for two hours waiting for Simon. We had brought the laptop so we just soaked up the free wireless internet in a cafĂ©. I got my hot chocolate and Brendan got his iced coffee. Not Paul’s but still pretty good. Some lady was interviewing people for ABC radio about how technology made us ‘bored’ She came up and asked us a few questions. I bet she never uses our response because it was pretty lame.
She asked Brendan “So do you ever find you get bored?”
Brendan “Um no not really”
*crickets chirping*
We did abuse the 350kb/s download to get some much needed programs we didn’t bring with us, like SUPER (MP4 converter) Itunes and of course firefox. I started searching for more things I could download but Simon finally showed up!

We went to GAME ON which was a history of video games through the ages. There was a heap of playable games. I think we spent a good hour in there before getting tired. Then we went up to Southern Cross station to the factory outlet. Brendan and I went a little nutso on the icebreaker clothes spending just over $200. It was all 50% off though…. Anyway icebreaker is a New Zealand brand the wool ‘merino’ is super thin and soft and traps heat sooo well. Really good to wear under ski jackets and stuff so will be awesome for Canada.

Wednesday 26th We went to Ballarat to visit my extended family. I forget the exact connection. Something like 2nd & 3rd cousins. It was wet and cold the whole day. Topped 9C

Thursday 27th Quiet day. We had a few things to do down at the shops like pick up our American $$ Then about 3pm Gary & Gail picked us up for dinner. We played a lot of pool on a really bad pool table that you can’t bounce off. That’s my excuse for playing like shit.

Friday 28th & Saturday 29th. Spent the time with Brendan’s mother and sister.

Sunday 30th Caught up with Dan for lunch who was down for the day buying a hilux. Then packing and now writing up the last few days of this…