OH dear god what I am I doing here? Currently I am sitting in my new bed for the next month, in an oddly shaped and quite run-down single room (thank god it’s a single at least, totally worth the extra money) in Bunbury, Western Australia. I am thousands and thousands of miles from the nearest person I know. Right now I am feeling a lot like I was on that second day of the program when I completely freaked out. Except, I’m not completely freaking out. Most of me is, but there is this part that is saying “You’re alone. Freaking out won’t help, you just have to figure out how to make it work.” Which I think is lots and lots of progress from a few months ago.
Let’s start a little further back. On Saturday we hiked up the highest point on Lizard Island. They told us that sports sandals like Tevas would be fine to wear so that was all I brought, but it turned out that some parts of the “path” were up sheer rocks. Oh yeah, and it was spitting rain so everything was covered with a nice slippery layer of wet. I slipped and fell a couple of times, but I didn’t break anything so it’s okay. I like hiking up things but hate hiking down. After that we had our last ever snorkel which was actually really cool. I saw another octopus! We watched it for a long time and it seemed to be digging. It would disappear into its hole, then come back up a little while later and spit sand out of the hole, go back in, repeat. I have a very shakey video of it. We also saw a bunch of sting rays and a remora! Pretty cool.
Sunday was hard. Three of our number were staying at Lizard Island for their ISPs, so they came to the airport to see us off and basically everyone was crying. It’s amazing how close you can get to people in just a couple of months. When we got home the group felt small and not entirely right. We worked on our papers for the next two days, and then Monday night everyone who was left decided to take me out for my last night in Cairns. We ate at a delicious Asian place and then went to the Irish pub, P.J. O’Brien’s. We tried to go to a dancing place but it was a Monday night and there was literally no one there. So we all ended up back at the hostel bar, hanging out with the bar tender and talking. I ended up having a very heated discussion with a drunken American English major who claimed that science fiction/fantasy could never be literature, it was all just pulp. Conversations I never thought I would have in a bar in Australia.
Anyway, there was lots and lots of hugging and “I’m going to miss you so much, you’ll have so much fun”, etc. Then they came down with me in the morning and we did it all again before I got in a cab to go to the airport. I was really really sad but it hadn’t quite dawned on me yet how alone I was going to be. Actually, it still sort of hasn’t. And even though I hate saying goodbye and leaving people I was kind of excited to travel all by myself.
Most of the day went off without a hitch. Things I need to remember when booking flights: pay attention to where your seat is, and get one by the window, and ask for a vegetarian meal. But Qantas (Australian airline) is lovely and gives lots of food (even if it is mostly carbs) so I was pretty much okay. The man sitting next to me on the first flight even switched seats with me so I could try and see Uluru when we were landing (unfortunately it was on the other side of the plane, but I saw it a little bit. I’ll be back, anyway).
Ayer’s Rock airport is the tiniest airport I have ever seen in my life, besides Lizard Island. We got to walk down a set of stairs straight onto the tarmac like they do in movies but I have never done in real life. Stepping from the rainforest into the desert was pretty cool. Anyway, I walked into the airport, went through security again (I had a pocket knife in the top pocket of my backpack the entire day, I realized, but they didn’t seem to care), went to the bathroom, bought a packet of chips, and then they called my flight. We walked outside and got back on the exact same plane I had been on on the way there, only a few rows up.
This time I sat next to two British ladies. We didn’t talk much. I was super lucky, though, because one of them had ordered a vegetarian meal and didn’t want it, so I got half a vegetarian sandwich and didn’t feel quite as gross, because at least I ate a few vegetables that day.
At Perth I found my bag, and all my stuff got sniffed by an adorable beagle quarantine dog looking for fruit or other things brought into the state. I followed the signs to the shuttle that would take me to the train station but I couldn’t find it and just as I was backtracking to find someone who could tell me where to go I ran into the bus that took me to the same place.
Perth is an adorable city. The houses are small and cute and Australian. Everything looks fairly new (because everything is fairly new in this entire country) and there was a lot of construction, but things were bright and happy and welcoming. Also, I didn’t notice how few Muslims I’d seen in Australia until I got to Perth where I started seeing women in long skirts and headdresses like at home. I also didn’t notice how few fat people there are elsewhere in Australia until I got to Perth and there started to be some again. Also, all of the school uniforms I saw in Perth are the ugliest ones I have ever seen.
The people were very nice, though. I hate buses here (I don’t know if this is what it’s like everywhere else) because they never tell you what stop they are on. This happened in Cairns, too. You have to know where you’re going in order to use the buses here. It took me a long time to get the courage up but eventually I asked the old man next to me where St. George’s Terrace was and how to get to the train station from there. He was very nice and told me when to get off and how to get there. I got a lot of funny looks walking through the city with my Adventure hat (which had gotten somewhat mangled on the plane) and my luggage. I was also wearing real shoes, not flipflops, which I hadn’t done in so long that I got a blister on my heel. I am a pro at asking people directions now. It turns out that the train station is in the back of a building marked “Medical Centre” (which makes perfect sense, of course) but I had to ask at least three more people before I found it. And then I asked a security guard how to get to my train, and he told me to go down a lift into what turned out to be a tiny area outside the station, blocked on all sides by huge gates because of all the construction, with no place to sit and one old man with a handlebar moustache sitting there smoking. He turned out to be really nice too. He was going on the same train as me.
I had two hours to wait, so I went back upstairs and got a croissant and some water, and then I found the only bathroom – which I had to pay fifty cents to use! Let me tell you, that bathroom was not worth fifty cents – and I had a sneaking suspicion that where I was waiting was not where I was supposed to be waiting, so I asked the bathroom guards and one of them actually walked me to where I was supposed to go. That was maybe worth fifty cents. This waiting area had seats.
So I sat and read my book and talked to the man with the handlebar moustache (who had also found his way to the right place) for the next two hours. He was nice and very talkative but somewhat weird. He thought I was fifteen. Do I look fifteen? I do not look fifteen. He also asked me if I had been in Australia my whole life, after I had spoken with my extremely American accent and told him I was studying abroad in Australia.
The train ride was nice, although the sun set pretty soon after I got on the train so I couldn’t watch the country fly by. I read and listened to Bill Bryson (all three of the books I am currently reading/listening to are about people travelling alone, which I think has been helping me out) and talked a little bit to the nice lady sitting next to me, and fell asleep.
When we got to Bunbury Station I thought “Yes! I made it!” My boss for the next month, Valissa, had told me she would meet me at the train station at 8:30 and take me to the backpacker’s hostel, presumably telling me on the way how to get to where I was going to be working, when she expected me there, and lots of other stuff she hadn’t mentioned in the emails.
She wasn’t there when I first got there, which was okay because the train was a little early, it was only 8:20. I watched everyone else get picked up or jump into taxis, and every new car that turned into the station I thought “Oh, that must be her!” But it wasn’t. None of them were her. I stood there for half an hour, with the station security guard standing anxiously behind me, obviously needing to wait until the last passenger was gone before she could shut up the station. I used the payphone to call her but it went straight to voicemail. At 9:00 I left a message telling her I was here and needed to leave the station so the security guard could close up and telling her where I was staying and my cell phone number (although I didn’t have any money on it, so I have no idea if that will work or not). Then I took a cab to the hostel.
Oh yes – sidenote – the security woman thought I was from Canada, which I thought was funny.
So I pulled up at the hostel late (they close at 9 but had said they would wait for me when I told them my train was at 8:30). The woman (who was maybe Dutch or something?) seemed annoyed and said “Did you walk from the train station?!”
She showed me my room and the kitchen and checked me in but said I wouldn’t be able to get any internet access until 8:00 the next morning when the next office person came in. The hostel was less than I was expecting. It’s small and the hallways are dark and windy. My room is extremely tall and long but not very wide at all, and the paint and wallpaper are cracking and peeling, the wardrobe doesn’t close all the way, and there are cobwebs on the high reaches of the ceiling that make me nervous because I have no idea what kind of spiders live in Western Australia. I have one window that looks out directly onto another rooftop and a sort of metal wall.
But, at least it is a single. I dumped my stuff and tried to call my mom, but the payphone was horrible and ate my money. I ended up putting money on my phone specifically so I could call, but then that didn’t work either, so I used my phone card with my cell phone. It worked and I got to talk to my mom and then Bobby which made me feel better, until the phone cut out in the middle of my conversation with Bobby, saying that I had used up all the money on my cell phone. All in all I think a conversation and a half cost me nearly $30 and I’m not sure how using my calling card on my cell phone used up minutes on both. But I got to talk to both of them and that’s the important part.
I thought I would completely fall apart as soon as I was alone, but I sort of haven’t yet. I still feel like I might but I have things I need to do and crying won’t help. I want to thank Daniel very much because last night what I did instead was collapse into my bed and watch Disney’s Robin Hood on my computer until I fell asleep (which was about ten minutes). I have a feeling watching movies alone in my room is going to be a thing I do a lot for the next five weeks, and the only two I have are both Disney movies I got from Daniel, so thanks.
I miss you all. All I really want to do right now is go home, it really is a similar feeling to last time. But instead I’m going to go eat breakfast, figure out a way to post this, email my advisor here to ask what’s going on, and my advisor at home to try and set up a ridiculously hard semester for next year. Hopefully I’ll be able to call Bobby and finish the conversation from last night, and maybe even meet some people in the hostel. I love you. Wish me luck, I’m going to need it.
P.S. Everything is slightly better now. I met a nice old British man who was telling me about his travels and about how he was really scared to travel all by himself, too, but he’s loved it and doesn’t want to go back to England. The woman working this morning couldn’t print me off an internet time code for some reason, so I spent most of the morning roaming the streets looking for somewhere to get internet. The German girls here told me there was a McDonald’s with free wifi not too far away, but I think they meant by car because after half an hour or so of walking I gave up. I did find an internet café eventually, and I used their computer even though it was ridiculously expensive (a dollar for ten minutes). Valissa still hadn’t emailed me (although I did have an email from one of the other potential advisors I had emailed a month ago, telling me I could go back to Queensland and do research on wallabies, which briefly sounded like one of my only options – and not a bad one either, that actually sounds pretty cool and is way closer to people I know. Damn). I emailed Valissa and was freaking out to my mom on gtalk and just deciding to go down to the dolphin centre and see if I could find her when my phone rang.
Apparently Valissa thought I was coming in tonight, not last night. She was really apologetic and kept saying “Oh you poor thing!” and told me she’d come here at 11 and bring me a bike to use to get to the centre. Also, apparently there is a barbeque tonight that I’m invited to.
On the way home I found a café that said it had wifi, so after I meet Valissa I’ll go back down there and hopefully post this and talk to people while I eat lunch. Bunbury is a cute town and I’m starting to get the feel for where things are already (although I haven’t been able to find a Newsagency to pick up a new phone card yet). I get the day to myself today and start work tomorrow, it sounds like. Hopefully I can throw myself into my work and time will fly by and I will not be as lonely. Having internet would also help that. I couldn’t even get on Facebook at the internet café, but I could see my inbox full of people commenting on it wondering if I got here okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment