Dear Diary - I never thought this could happen to me.
Wait, wrong forum.
Well, in about 10 hours I'm going to start driving north, time-lapse recording it, trying not to die - you know, the usual. I'm tempted to do a segue to camera a la blues-brothers, but that'd just be cheesy.
I do have a mascot for the trip though, I'll post photos later, or tomorrow, or when I can be bothered.
Seriously, 12 hours driving a day for three days? You'll be lucky if you get three words.
Peace, love and portable toilets, I go to a far more northern place.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
An update (IMPENDING DOOM)
Well, I didn't post anything here for the Vegas leg of the trip because, mostly I was too busy working, and enjoying it too, so the spare time I got was spent putting photos on Facebook and interacting with mah buds.
Look at me, making excuses to a BLOG.
Anyway, watch this space. In around two weeks I'm going to attempt to drive to Cairns for the solar eclipse.
Then drive back.
I may even become part of the Triple-J road trip promo that's happening EVEN...as we speak. Or I type.
Anyway, I have a solar chargeable, dual-battery 1993 Daihatsu Charade. The only one on earth, I'm willing to bet. I hope all three cylinders of the engine make it there and back.
RACV will be my new best friend, I can tell.
I need a sign-off of some kind.
~ZMW
Yep, that'll do.
Look at me, making excuses to a BLOG.
Anyway, watch this space. In around two weeks I'm going to attempt to drive to Cairns for the solar eclipse.
Then drive back.
I may even become part of the Triple-J road trip promo that's happening EVEN...as we speak. Or I type.
Anyway, I have a solar chargeable, dual-battery 1993 Daihatsu Charade. The only one on earth, I'm willing to bet. I hope all three cylinders of the engine make it there and back.
RACV will be my new best friend, I can tell.
I need a sign-off of some kind.
~ZMW
Yep, that'll do.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Vegas v Brazil, part 1
Brazil - a cold shower is amazing, and sometimes not enough.
Vegas - just had a hot shower and loved it.
Brazil - breeze, water lapping, birds, boats and sunshine.
Vegas - fucking loud, everywhere. Bright neon, loud music. No escape from the noise or the gaudiness.
Brazil - cup of frozen acai berries mixed with banana, topped with oats,and crushed nuts.
Vegas - damn it vegas, mashed potato is NOT a breakfast food.
Brazil - underwear at most, and a 10 meter walk to the ocean
Vegas - Stagnant water in the fountains outside the casinos.
Brazil - Rampant alcohol consumption and party atmosphere
Vegas - Rampant alcohol consumption and party atmosphere
Brazil - Gringos are well loved and well treated
Vegas - Gringos are well loved and well treated if they have money.
Brazil - Dat Ass
Vegas - Dat Gut
Brazil - Strangers everywhere
Vegas - 4 Elvis', 3 Catwomen and a Barney. On the first night.
Brazil - fashionable bikinis and not much else.
Vegas - Long sleeves akimbo. Admittedly it's winter.
Brazil - Roads with potholes big enough to dislodge your fuel pump. You become a good defensive driver VERY quickly.
Vegas - Smooth sailing all the way.
Vegas - Concrete jungle
Brazil - Actual jungle
Brazil - Beaches and trees
Vegas - Desert and neon
Brazil - full of Brazillians
Vegas - full of everyone else.
More as they occur.
Vegas - just had a hot shower and loved it.
Brazil - breeze, water lapping, birds, boats and sunshine.
Vegas - fucking loud, everywhere. Bright neon, loud music. No escape from the noise or the gaudiness.
Brazil - cup of frozen acai berries mixed with banana, topped with oats,and crushed nuts.
Vegas - damn it vegas, mashed potato is NOT a breakfast food.
Brazil - underwear at most, and a 10 meter walk to the ocean
Vegas - Stagnant water in the fountains outside the casinos.
Brazil - Rampant alcohol consumption and party atmosphere
Vegas - Rampant alcohol consumption and party atmosphere
Brazil - Gringos are well loved and well treated
Vegas - Gringos are well loved and well treated if they have money.
Brazil - Dat Ass
Vegas - Dat Gut
Brazil - Strangers everywhere
Vegas - 4 Elvis', 3 Catwomen and a Barney. On the first night.
Brazil - fashionable bikinis and not much else.
Vegas - Long sleeves akimbo. Admittedly it's winter.
Brazil - Roads with potholes big enough to dislodge your fuel pump. You become a good defensive driver VERY quickly.
Vegas - Smooth sailing all the way.
Vegas - Concrete jungle
Brazil - Actual jungle
Brazil - Beaches and trees
Vegas - Desert and neon
Brazil - full of Brazillians
Vegas - full of everyone else.
More as they occur.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Get me out of this waking nightmare part 1.
The title says it all. 4:45pm Saturday afternoon (airport announcement this very moment, so that's chronologically unchallengable). I'm sitting on a toilet at Miami airport. There is a handicapped guy in the stall next to me that sounds like a combination of Hodor and crunk. I'm on the brink of collapse from fatigue. I'm sore. I'm tired. My insides are only barely that. My throat hurts. How did this happen?
Rewind 24 hours.....
So I've begun the journey back to Miami. But all is not well.... there is slight tickle in the background of my throat and a slightly rumble in my stomach. Or perhaps further down. Then the first painful spasm hits me. Oh gawd, what on earth? It can't be the food, surely? I ate everything offered to me for ten days, why now? Suddenly I realize, I've been eating festival food. And all the festival food stalls had been instructed to only use bottled water in cooking processes. That restriction didn't apply to the last three days. And I've been eating street vendor food. Oh... Dear. The gravity (sic) of the situation hits me. Stuck on an eight hour flight with food poisoning and an increasingly sore throat? It's every bit as horrific as you're imagining. Oh and the cabin is too cold, but the stewardess refuses to find me a second blanket despite the first barely covering my legs, and won't turn the aircon down. Not sure which was worse. At least I kept my bodily eruptions below the belt. Small mercy, but I had enough willpower and the thought of throwing up on the plane.... Yeah.. No. Somehow I sweat, shit, cough and micro-nap my way to Miami. 5pm or so touchdown.
A hurried exit and another trip to el banos, and I was ready for customs. Turns out however that Customs wasn't ready for me.
Or for the other 3000 backed up travellers. This is not an exaggeration. We were put into a line and forced to stand in it with barely an explanation for 3 hours. Three fucking hours. What made it even more unbearable was the there were two queues, one for citizens and one for visitors, and the citizens line progressed at a rate of knots, while we were at a standstill. . 25 counters... 14 dedicated to locals. 5 to visitors. Even though there were more of us. I passed the time conversing with a girl called Nadja, who was on her way to Barbados to continue her biological science degree. We coped by planning various ways we could pretend to be crippled to jump the queue like so many wheelchair-bound slackers who had been passing us. She even offered to break my leg and be my wheelchair escort. Eventually we settled on stapling ourselves together and pretending to be conjoined twins. The American Airlines staff kept announcing nothing except to tell us to get out of the way of citizens, and calling everyone "my friends". That hurt. As if to punctuate the futility, the speaker announcement would sound off every 15 minutes.
"Welcome to Miami. The time is now 8:45pm. You have been stationary for no reason for 3 hours and 45 minutes. You will lose the will to live in 15 minutes. Staff will be happy to replace this with the urge to kill."
We finally (in every sense) made it through customs. I wanted to continue the dialogue with my new friend, but was ushered into the clusterfuck that was the baggage collection area before she was cleared, and I never saw her again.
Clusterfuck is appropriate... 8 baggage rotisseries, each with roughly 1/8 of 6000 items of luggage waiting for their owners. It was like baggage graveyard, and no indication of what carriage had carried what flight's stuff. 30 minutes exploring that, but I found my luggage, and mercifully the last few remaining braincells belonging to AA staff banded together and ushered everyone through without the usual scanning routine. Small mercy though.
Step 1. Exchange my currency. Oh look, the currency exchange is closed. Ok. Be sensible, find the information desk and ask. Ah there it is. Oh look... also closed. Hmm. Ok. Oh, an info phone, pick it up for help! Except that's a lie, it's "pick it up until you get sick of being on hold (approx 15 minutes) "Ok, don't panic. Find a security guard and ask. Ah, all the open stuff is upstairs in departures, just where all these lost souls need it. Ugh.
Ok, I have local currency. Now I need a hotel. I have a smartphone, surely all this tech can help me? For once I'm right. But free Internet at an airport? Au. contraire. Oh well, fuck it. 4 bucks for 30 minutes. 28 minutes later I'm booked into a hotel for the night, 20 minutes from the airport with a free shuttle. My years of being a geek pulled me through on this one. Of course we got spat out at concourse e because of the bullshit, and the shuttle was waiting at concourse d. Not a small walk if you know Miami airport, and the pedestrian path is closed, so I have 10 minutes to navigate a path worthy of Escher.
So it's ten thirty, and I'm on my way to the hotel. The connecting flight leaves at 7:25, so I have to be at the airport at 5ish. Fine. Means a taxi since the shuttle doesn't start until 6am, but honestly I don't give a fuck. Check in, get to the room, and I get 4 hours sleep. I also leave too early for my complimentary breakfast, but I can barely drink water without hitting bathroom with stomach cramps 10 minutes later, so it's no great loss. 88 bucks for 4 hours in my first bed sleep in 10 days? Bargain.
No drama getting to the 'port. No, my dear readers. The trouble comes inside the airport.
A little back story. American Airlines is currently under bankruptcy protection. So what little staff are left really don't seem to give a flying rat's left testicle about the customers.
The queues for check in are horrendous. Only 4 staff checking in the entire domestic department of AA. I get directed to wait in a line. 45 minutes. At the end of this line is get told I am in the wrong queue. The nasty bitch at the desk made it seem like it was my fault. Great. Directed to the correct queue. Chatting with everyone for the 2 hours that I was in that line. General concensus is that none of us have been treated so badly by an airline before. I arrived at the check in counter. "I'm sorry sir, luggage check in for this flight closed ten minutes ago." In a tone that of course implied heavily that it was my fault for not being there at 3. You could hear my muscles twitching. My options? Waiting list for the 3pm flight. Great. Off goes my luggage, and off I go to find a breakfast that I might be able to hold down, and ponder how to spend the next 8 hours.
The airport hotel restaurant seemed a likely place for inoffensive food, plus on the seventh floor, offering a perfectly timed arrival to take photos of the sunrise over the airport. Might as well make the best of it. The eggs Benedict stayed down, and the fresh orange juice was like mana from the gods. I had three glasses of that. But the food was salty on an epic level. Including the egg yolk - are they genetically inserting the sodium gene into chickens these days? Sure seems like it. Still, it didn't cause cramps, and stayed down. Still forcibly ejecting, but the pain is gone. The coughing remains. Luckily I'd had the foresight to get some lozenges at Salvador airport before I left.
So, what to make of my day? I'd spent much of my down time at the festival reading and finishing A Game Of Thrones, so I might as well take advantage of the USA economy and find the next book. Shopping time. Walked the length of the airport looking for the Borders that was referenced on the map.... until I realized that they'd closed down in airports. Silly me. The replacement store had even kept the old fixtures and colour schemes. So I wandered and found my book. Wait, 9 bucks each? Wow, the gst really fucked the Australian book industry over. Bought all four paperbacks. Couldn't resist.
Next is decided to enjoy some of the wonderfully unfree Internet that was on offer. 8 bucks for 24 hours. Good enough for me.
I get to catch up on all the video game news, movie news, other news. Bitch about my experiences on facebook. Check the bank. Work out how to get to the hotel when I finally reach Vegas. All worthy pursuits, and it kills time until the airport bar opens. At this point it's 11am, and I'm past exhausted. So I break my fast and have coffee, despite my self imposed ban. Ah well. Two won't hurt.
I do some more browsing, and before I know it, it's 12:30, leaving me with the 90 minutes I allowed myself to clear the security check and get to the gate. Surprisingly it took half an hour, no more, and so I arrive at the gate one hour ahead of schedule......yay? No.
Stay Tuned - Part two follows almost immediately.
Rewind 24 hours.....
So I've begun the journey back to Miami. But all is not well.... there is slight tickle in the background of my throat and a slightly rumble in my stomach. Or perhaps further down. Then the first painful spasm hits me. Oh gawd, what on earth? It can't be the food, surely? I ate everything offered to me for ten days, why now? Suddenly I realize, I've been eating festival food. And all the festival food stalls had been instructed to only use bottled water in cooking processes. That restriction didn't apply to the last three days. And I've been eating street vendor food. Oh... Dear. The gravity (sic) of the situation hits me. Stuck on an eight hour flight with food poisoning and an increasingly sore throat? It's every bit as horrific as you're imagining. Oh and the cabin is too cold, but the stewardess refuses to find me a second blanket despite the first barely covering my legs, and won't turn the aircon down. Not sure which was worse. At least I kept my bodily eruptions below the belt. Small mercy, but I had enough willpower and the thought of throwing up on the plane.... Yeah.. No. Somehow I sweat, shit, cough and micro-nap my way to Miami. 5pm or so touchdown.
A hurried exit and another trip to el banos, and I was ready for customs. Turns out however that Customs wasn't ready for me.
Or for the other 3000 backed up travellers. This is not an exaggeration. We were put into a line and forced to stand in it with barely an explanation for 3 hours. Three fucking hours. What made it even more unbearable was the there were two queues, one for citizens and one for visitors, and the citizens line progressed at a rate of knots, while we were at a standstill. . 25 counters... 14 dedicated to locals. 5 to visitors. Even though there were more of us. I passed the time conversing with a girl called Nadja, who was on her way to Barbados to continue her biological science degree. We coped by planning various ways we could pretend to be crippled to jump the queue like so many wheelchair-bound slackers who had been passing us. She even offered to break my leg and be my wheelchair escort. Eventually we settled on stapling ourselves together and pretending to be conjoined twins. The American Airlines staff kept announcing nothing except to tell us to get out of the way of citizens, and calling everyone "my friends". That hurt. As if to punctuate the futility, the speaker announcement would sound off every 15 minutes.
"Welcome to Miami. The time is now 8:45pm. You have been stationary for no reason for 3 hours and 45 minutes. You will lose the will to live in 15 minutes. Staff will be happy to replace this with the urge to kill."
We finally (in every sense) made it through customs. I wanted to continue the dialogue with my new friend, but was ushered into the clusterfuck that was the baggage collection area before she was cleared, and I never saw her again.
Clusterfuck is appropriate... 8 baggage rotisseries, each with roughly 1/8 of 6000 items of luggage waiting for their owners. It was like baggage graveyard, and no indication of what carriage had carried what flight's stuff. 30 minutes exploring that, but I found my luggage, and mercifully the last few remaining braincells belonging to AA staff banded together and ushered everyone through without the usual scanning routine. Small mercy though.
Step 1. Exchange my currency. Oh look, the currency exchange is closed. Ok. Be sensible, find the information desk and ask. Ah there it is. Oh look... also closed. Hmm. Ok. Oh, an info phone, pick it up for help! Except that's a lie, it's "pick it up until you get sick of being on hold (approx 15 minutes) "Ok, don't panic. Find a security guard and ask. Ah, all the open stuff is upstairs in departures, just where all these lost souls need it. Ugh.
Ok, I have local currency. Now I need a hotel. I have a smartphone, surely all this tech can help me? For once I'm right. But free Internet at an airport? Au. contraire. Oh well, fuck it. 4 bucks for 30 minutes. 28 minutes later I'm booked into a hotel for the night, 20 minutes from the airport with a free shuttle. My years of being a geek pulled me through on this one. Of course we got spat out at concourse e because of the bullshit, and the shuttle was waiting at concourse d. Not a small walk if you know Miami airport, and the pedestrian path is closed, so I have 10 minutes to navigate a path worthy of Escher.
So it's ten thirty, and I'm on my way to the hotel. The connecting flight leaves at 7:25, so I have to be at the airport at 5ish. Fine. Means a taxi since the shuttle doesn't start until 6am, but honestly I don't give a fuck. Check in, get to the room, and I get 4 hours sleep. I also leave too early for my complimentary breakfast, but I can barely drink water without hitting bathroom with stomach cramps 10 minutes later, so it's no great loss. 88 bucks for 4 hours in my first bed sleep in 10 days? Bargain.
No drama getting to the 'port. No, my dear readers. The trouble comes inside the airport.
A little back story. American Airlines is currently under bankruptcy protection. So what little staff are left really don't seem to give a flying rat's left testicle about the customers.
The queues for check in are horrendous. Only 4 staff checking in the entire domestic department of AA. I get directed to wait in a line. 45 minutes. At the end of this line is get told I am in the wrong queue. The nasty bitch at the desk made it seem like it was my fault. Great. Directed to the correct queue. Chatting with everyone for the 2 hours that I was in that line. General concensus is that none of us have been treated so badly by an airline before. I arrived at the check in counter. "I'm sorry sir, luggage check in for this flight closed ten minutes ago." In a tone that of course implied heavily that it was my fault for not being there at 3. You could hear my muscles twitching. My options? Waiting list for the 3pm flight. Great. Off goes my luggage, and off I go to find a breakfast that I might be able to hold down, and ponder how to spend the next 8 hours.
The airport hotel restaurant seemed a likely place for inoffensive food, plus on the seventh floor, offering a perfectly timed arrival to take photos of the sunrise over the airport. Might as well make the best of it. The eggs Benedict stayed down, and the fresh orange juice was like mana from the gods. I had three glasses of that. But the food was salty on an epic level. Including the egg yolk - are they genetically inserting the sodium gene into chickens these days? Sure seems like it. Still, it didn't cause cramps, and stayed down. Still forcibly ejecting, but the pain is gone. The coughing remains. Luckily I'd had the foresight to get some lozenges at Salvador airport before I left.
So, what to make of my day? I'd spent much of my down time at the festival reading and finishing A Game Of Thrones, so I might as well take advantage of the USA economy and find the next book. Shopping time. Walked the length of the airport looking for the Borders that was referenced on the map.... until I realized that they'd closed down in airports. Silly me. The replacement store had even kept the old fixtures and colour schemes. So I wandered and found my book. Wait, 9 bucks each? Wow, the gst really fucked the Australian book industry over. Bought all four paperbacks. Couldn't resist.
Next is decided to enjoy some of the wonderfully unfree Internet that was on offer. 8 bucks for 24 hours. Good enough for me.
I get to catch up on all the video game news, movie news, other news. Bitch about my experiences on facebook. Check the bank. Work out how to get to the hotel when I finally reach Vegas. All worthy pursuits, and it kills time until the airport bar opens. At this point it's 11am, and I'm past exhausted. So I break my fast and have coffee, despite my self imposed ban. Ah well. Two won't hurt.
I do some more browsing, and before I know it, it's 12:30, leaving me with the 90 minutes I allowed myself to clear the security check and get to the gate. Surprisingly it took half an hour, no more, and so I arrive at the gate one hour ahead of schedule......yay? No.
Stay Tuned - Part two follows almost immediately.
Get me out of this waking nightmare part 2
Part two. When we left our hero, he was gallantly arriving at the required waiting gate with 60 minutes under his belt. Not a comfortable place to keep them. That might explain the cramps.
So. This fucking bitch behind her desk is trying to calmly inform not only the waitlisted people, but people who were booked and checked in on time, that the flight was overbooked. "why would you do that? " was the inevitable question. She calmly explains that it's policy to do that on all flights to ensure a full load for cost purposes if there are cancellations. "So why does a bankrupt airline need to save 0.5 % on their fuel costs? " I asked testily. The reply I got was the glare of a stumped and overtaxed brain cell, and nothing more. As I stood there waiting and fearing the worst, I listened to her lie outright to four different people that they had to be moved to a later flight because they had been the last to check in. Fucking psychological bullshit. Needless to say there was much consternation. By now I was just barely able to remain upright, and I didn't want to sit down for fear of passing out. I was ready to kill at this point, and as the plane finished boarding to capacity, she told me without a shred of sympathy that she couldn't even book me on the next flight, instead had to waitlist me again for it.
Something inside me broke. "No. That is not fucking good enough. 22 hours I've been fucked over by this airline due to incompetence, and made to feel like it's my fault. You will do better than that, right now"
I think she may have sensed the blood lust in my voice. Or maybe because I'm six foot two, had glowing bloodshot eyes, wearing a bandana in gang colours, and if you were to describe my voice in fantasy-fiction, you would say that it was quiet but hard, like razor-sharp steel.
"Fine sir, the rebooking office is just near gate 14".
"That's just dandy", and I march off. Idly I noticed a kid planking across two handrails on a down escalator for the entire trip.
After explaining my ordeal reasonably calmly, followed by a musing that she might consider calling a medical team because I was in very real danger of passing out, we found a solution involving passing through Dallas. Not ideal but at least confirmed. "is exit row ok sir? "
I almost giggled hysterically, and lifted one leg onto the counter. "Are you kidding? Have you seen these things? "
She laughed. "good answer" and it was done.
I refuse to feel relief.
Time for dinner, since my stomach is behaving itself again, so off I go in search of the least salty food I can find. I settle on quesadillas, (sour cream, avocado, pico de gallo, all good anti-salt. Would it be enough?
I enquired of the Latino waitress "do the papas fritas have much salt? Can I get them without? "
"sorry sir, we get them pre seasoned, but it's light"
"I only ask because my eggs Benedict those morning was so salty, ESPN were doing live coverage of a buggy race across the flats of my egg whites"
"oh no sir, not that salty. I always have to add salt when I eat them. If they are too salty I will remove them from the bill" Fair deal, nothing to lose.
Of course they're damn salty. Don't care though, I have two big orange juices and an espresso. And watch a "someone or other's got talent" clip of a professional regurgitator while I eat.
Charlie texts me to tell me that he is in vegas, and that the cab driver drove off with his laptop. Translation, he left it in the cab. Oh and of course he doesn't have the travel insurance i told him to get two weeks ago. Great, he's going to be in a shitty mood for the whole show. I told him to leave a message with the cab company. He doesn't know which company. Sigh. 20 minutes later the cab brings his computer back. Another small mercy.
Nothing left now but to get a bottle of water and have a final bathroom break. And so there i was, with a handicapped man moaning in the next stall. I'm beyond ludicrously exhausted. I correctly predicted a crying child sitting next to me and a small child tapping on my seat. Thanks, Murphy.
Oh, one last thing. That bitch from the other gate was attending this gate too. I stared at her, but she refused to make eye contact. Just as well.
As we take off, I raise my middle finger to Miami and press it against the window for the entire take off.
Fuck you, Miami. Fuck you sideways with a rake. I should sleep, but I'd rather write all this down before my coping mechanisms fade the details out and store the experience under "bad dreams, do not access"
At least I'm passing solids again. I guess happiness is relative.
So. This fucking bitch behind her desk is trying to calmly inform not only the waitlisted people, but people who were booked and checked in on time, that the flight was overbooked. "why would you do that? " was the inevitable question. She calmly explains that it's policy to do that on all flights to ensure a full load for cost purposes if there are cancellations. "So why does a bankrupt airline need to save 0.5 % on their fuel costs? " I asked testily. The reply I got was the glare of a stumped and overtaxed brain cell, and nothing more. As I stood there waiting and fearing the worst, I listened to her lie outright to four different people that they had to be moved to a later flight because they had been the last to check in. Fucking psychological bullshit. Needless to say there was much consternation. By now I was just barely able to remain upright, and I didn't want to sit down for fear of passing out. I was ready to kill at this point, and as the plane finished boarding to capacity, she told me without a shred of sympathy that she couldn't even book me on the next flight, instead had to waitlist me again for it.
Something inside me broke. "No. That is not fucking good enough. 22 hours I've been fucked over by this airline due to incompetence, and made to feel like it's my fault. You will do better than that, right now"
I think she may have sensed the blood lust in my voice. Or maybe because I'm six foot two, had glowing bloodshot eyes, wearing a bandana in gang colours, and if you were to describe my voice in fantasy-fiction, you would say that it was quiet but hard, like razor-sharp steel.
"Fine sir, the rebooking office is just near gate 14".
"That's just dandy", and I march off. Idly I noticed a kid planking across two handrails on a down escalator for the entire trip.
After explaining my ordeal reasonably calmly, followed by a musing that she might consider calling a medical team because I was in very real danger of passing out, we found a solution involving passing through Dallas. Not ideal but at least confirmed. "is exit row ok sir? "
I almost giggled hysterically, and lifted one leg onto the counter. "Are you kidding? Have you seen these things? "
She laughed. "good answer" and it was done.
I refuse to feel relief.
Time for dinner, since my stomach is behaving itself again, so off I go in search of the least salty food I can find. I settle on quesadillas, (sour cream, avocado, pico de gallo, all good anti-salt. Would it be enough?
I enquired of the Latino waitress "do the papas fritas have much salt? Can I get them without? "
"sorry sir, we get them pre seasoned, but it's light"
"I only ask because my eggs Benedict those morning was so salty, ESPN were doing live coverage of a buggy race across the flats of my egg whites"
"oh no sir, not that salty. I always have to add salt when I eat them. If they are too salty I will remove them from the bill" Fair deal, nothing to lose.
Of course they're damn salty. Don't care though, I have two big orange juices and an espresso. And watch a "someone or other's got talent" clip of a professional regurgitator while I eat.
Charlie texts me to tell me that he is in vegas, and that the cab driver drove off with his laptop. Translation, he left it in the cab. Oh and of course he doesn't have the travel insurance i told him to get two weeks ago. Great, he's going to be in a shitty mood for the whole show. I told him to leave a message with the cab company. He doesn't know which company. Sigh. 20 minutes later the cab brings his computer back. Another small mercy.
Nothing left now but to get a bottle of water and have a final bathroom break. And so there i was, with a handicapped man moaning in the next stall. I'm beyond ludicrously exhausted. I correctly predicted a crying child sitting next to me and a small child tapping on my seat. Thanks, Murphy.
Oh, one last thing. That bitch from the other gate was attending this gate too. I stared at her, but she refused to make eye contact. Just as well.
As we take off, I raise my middle finger to Miami and press it against the window for the entire take off.
Fuck you, Miami. Fuck you sideways with a rake. I should sleep, but I'd rather write all this down before my coping mechanisms fade the details out and store the experience under "bad dreams, do not access"
At least I'm passing solids again. I guess happiness is relative.
A little in-between update.....
Here's an update on the whirlwind that was my final 3 days in Brazil.
Firstly, When I left the festival I realized that I could count the number of people who DIDN'T have tattoos on one hand. Literally 4 people I saw out of the thousands had no tattoo.
Anyway, after saying goodbye to some wonderful people, including a lovely boy by the name of Fabio who I found out later thought I was gorgeous, I headed with my friends on the mild little 2-3k walk back to the entrance - on the plus side we had a local muscle-clad man take our bags in a wheelbarrow for 20 bucks.
One open-back truck ride later, and we're in a car and on the road - Me, Marco, Juliana and Daniel.
Next stop - Boipeba Island. We rocked our arses into Valenca - a little port town with some amazing buildings and churches. I may not be a fan of the religions but I can appreciate the architecture.
Anyway, we had a choice of a slow 4 hour boat ride, or a fast 50 minute ride for a few bucks more. Yes, we chose the latter. The estuaries, little secluded tropical shacks surrounded by palm / dende and coconut trees.
They created the impression of a perfect place to wait and plan world domination.
After the 50 minute wind abrasion, arrived at the island. Damn it was hot. Marco and Daniel went searching for a place to stay for a few days while Juliana and I waited in the shade and she conversed with the local rugrats (who solicit business for the many resorts around), about the nature of language, and geography.
We ended up at a charming place, on the second floor up some uneven stairs - one apartment with 2 rooms, one for M+J, one for Daniel and myself. Lovely place, the roof fans spun so fast I fully expected the roof to take off. I ended up sleeping on the balcony on the hammock that was provided there. Awesome.
Marco decided that it would be a good idea to hike around the island the next day, so we did. Juliana took a tractor while the men trudged up and downhill through sandy paths and mountains in scorching heat. Still, it was fun. Or "character building". One hour later we were on a fairly unpopulated beach drinking beer, eating amazing octopus and shrimp and swimming in water - it was a definite tropical paradise moment. Then we walked around the beaches in one direction, which was seemingly a dead-end, but we ran into some friends of Juliana - I swear that woman knows everyone in Brazil - and they convinced us to go a bit farther and lo and behold, another hidden beach with incredible crab, beer, and seclusion. Every beach has a soccer goal-posts setup for when the tide is out - some of them play when the tide is in but it's not as serious, or dry. I took some video, I'll put it up when I get the chance.
Our trek went back the way we came, and since the tide was now out we could follow the coast all the way around and back to the hostel. another hour around beaches, past little trails heading just inland and out again, rocky shores, saw some interesting graffiti in the middle of nowhere on an abandoned brick structure on an empty beach, and amazing insects just as the sun went down that were calling "SI! SI! SI!" with their buzzing - very strange and eerie.
Wearily we trudged the remainder of the 50-minute walk back -We'd decided to have lobster since it was so cheap, and share the bottles of champagne that Kyah and Adam had left behind. Made for an excellent late meal after a very long hot day, even shared it with the owner of the little run-down restaurant on the edge of the water. Then a quick run through the tourist markets for trinkets, and back to the apartment. Next day, we departed, boat ride and all back to Valenca.
At this point I was going to get a bus to Salvador, leave my luggage at the airport and explore for a night, but Juliana received a phone call while we were on the boat basically telling her that her import license hadn't been renewed, and she had a shipment waiting at customs (several umbrellas) that the customer had to have ASAP - of course the internet or a proxy isn't good enough for the bureaucratic nightmare that is Brasil, so she had to go back to Sao Paolo immediately. The crux of this being that now we were all going to Salvador by car, saved me a bus ride but what now?
The car ride was uneventful save for the multitude of road-works on the way - one stop gave us the opportunity to have a tapioca + coconut icecream, damn good it was too, and we got to take a ferry across the bay to Salvador - about 45 minutes, and it gives you an opportunity to see the full scope of the size of Salvador. Massive compared to Melbourne. And yet, it is eclipsed by Sao Paolo? One day I'll have to see that in person.
Waiting in the line for the ferry, more culinary delights presented themselves thanks to the opportunists who congregate wherever traffic stops (every speed-bump in Brasil is a veritable super-market) - burnt sugar coconut cakes, utterly fantastic.
Juliana had booked a flight by the time the ferry reached the other side, and it was decided that we had time to have a last meal together before she left. So we headed to a beach-front set of stalls / cafe's - we were supposed to go to itapua beach but we didn't have time - where we had an authentic acaraje from a street vendor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acaraj%C3%A9) and then decided on a moqueca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moqueca) as the final meal, and ate it as the sun set right in front of us on the horizon over the water. Pics to come later. More beer of course, then a dash to the airport to see Juliana on her way, and I bid farewell to one friend on this trip.
Now the next problem - where to sleep? Turns out Marco has a friend who travels a lot who offered the use of his apartment. A modest little penthouse on the 12th floor of a building with amazing views of the city. Seriously, what a way to cap off the day, sitting on a deck chair next to the spa, drinking beer and staring at the stars and the city lights. And to think I'd woken up that morning on a tropical island several hundred km away.
Next morning I stole out alone and early to get a taxi to the airport, bidding my friends farewell in their half asleep state, as I closed the bedroom door. Sunrise over Salvador as I checked in my luggage, was placed in an exit row seat (thank you deity of choice), and off we go :) Next stop is Miami for a night and then on to Vegas for the CES. But shit was going to go a bit wrong first....
Firstly, When I left the festival I realized that I could count the number of people who DIDN'T have tattoos on one hand. Literally 4 people I saw out of the thousands had no tattoo.
Anyway, after saying goodbye to some wonderful people, including a lovely boy by the name of Fabio who I found out later thought I was gorgeous, I headed with my friends on the mild little 2-3k walk back to the entrance - on the plus side we had a local muscle-clad man take our bags in a wheelbarrow for 20 bucks.
One open-back truck ride later, and we're in a car and on the road - Me, Marco, Juliana and Daniel.
Next stop - Boipeba Island. We rocked our arses into Valenca - a little port town with some amazing buildings and churches. I may not be a fan of the religions but I can appreciate the architecture.
Anyway, we had a choice of a slow 4 hour boat ride, or a fast 50 minute ride for a few bucks more. Yes, we chose the latter. The estuaries, little secluded tropical shacks surrounded by palm / dende and coconut trees.
They created the impression of a perfect place to wait and plan world domination.
After the 50 minute wind abrasion, arrived at the island. Damn it was hot. Marco and Daniel went searching for a place to stay for a few days while Juliana and I waited in the shade and she conversed with the local rugrats (who solicit business for the many resorts around), about the nature of language, and geography.
We ended up at a charming place, on the second floor up some uneven stairs - one apartment with 2 rooms, one for M+J, one for Daniel and myself. Lovely place, the roof fans spun so fast I fully expected the roof to take off. I ended up sleeping on the balcony on the hammock that was provided there. Awesome.
Marco decided that it would be a good idea to hike around the island the next day, so we did. Juliana took a tractor while the men trudged up and downhill through sandy paths and mountains in scorching heat. Still, it was fun. Or "character building". One hour later we were on a fairly unpopulated beach drinking beer, eating amazing octopus and shrimp and swimming in water - it was a definite tropical paradise moment. Then we walked around the beaches in one direction, which was seemingly a dead-end, but we ran into some friends of Juliana - I swear that woman knows everyone in Brazil - and they convinced us to go a bit farther and lo and behold, another hidden beach with incredible crab, beer, and seclusion. Every beach has a soccer goal-posts setup for when the tide is out - some of them play when the tide is in but it's not as serious, or dry. I took some video, I'll put it up when I get the chance.
Our trek went back the way we came, and since the tide was now out we could follow the coast all the way around and back to the hostel. another hour around beaches, past little trails heading just inland and out again, rocky shores, saw some interesting graffiti in the middle of nowhere on an abandoned brick structure on an empty beach, and amazing insects just as the sun went down that were calling "SI! SI! SI!" with their buzzing - very strange and eerie.
Wearily we trudged the remainder of the 50-minute walk back -We'd decided to have lobster since it was so cheap, and share the bottles of champagne that Kyah and Adam had left behind. Made for an excellent late meal after a very long hot day, even shared it with the owner of the little run-down restaurant on the edge of the water. Then a quick run through the tourist markets for trinkets, and back to the apartment. Next day, we departed, boat ride and all back to Valenca.
At this point I was going to get a bus to Salvador, leave my luggage at the airport and explore for a night, but Juliana received a phone call while we were on the boat basically telling her that her import license hadn't been renewed, and she had a shipment waiting at customs (several umbrellas) that the customer had to have ASAP - of course the internet or a proxy isn't good enough for the bureaucratic nightmare that is Brasil, so she had to go back to Sao Paolo immediately. The crux of this being that now we were all going to Salvador by car, saved me a bus ride but what now?
The car ride was uneventful save for the multitude of road-works on the way - one stop gave us the opportunity to have a tapioca + coconut icecream, damn good it was too, and we got to take a ferry across the bay to Salvador - about 45 minutes, and it gives you an opportunity to see the full scope of the size of Salvador. Massive compared to Melbourne. And yet, it is eclipsed by Sao Paolo? One day I'll have to see that in person.
Waiting in the line for the ferry, more culinary delights presented themselves thanks to the opportunists who congregate wherever traffic stops (every speed-bump in Brasil is a veritable super-market) - burnt sugar coconut cakes, utterly fantastic.
Juliana had booked a flight by the time the ferry reached the other side, and it was decided that we had time to have a last meal together before she left. So we headed to a beach-front set of stalls / cafe's - we were supposed to go to itapua beach but we didn't have time - where we had an authentic acaraje from a street vendor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acaraj%C3%A9) and then decided on a moqueca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moqueca) as the final meal, and ate it as the sun set right in front of us on the horizon over the water. Pics to come later. More beer of course, then a dash to the airport to see Juliana on her way, and I bid farewell to one friend on this trip.
Now the next problem - where to sleep? Turns out Marco has a friend who travels a lot who offered the use of his apartment. A modest little penthouse on the 12th floor of a building with amazing views of the city. Seriously, what a way to cap off the day, sitting on a deck chair next to the spa, drinking beer and staring at the stars and the city lights. And to think I'd woken up that morning on a tropical island several hundred km away.
Next morning I stole out alone and early to get a taxi to the airport, bidding my friends farewell in their half asleep state, as I closed the bedroom door. Sunrise over Salvador as I checked in my luggage, was placed in an exit row seat (thank you deity of choice), and off we go :) Next stop is Miami for a night and then on to Vegas for the CES. But shit was going to go a bit wrong first....
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Private entry
It's nearly midnight, tomorrow I leave the festival to explore the region with my Brazilian friends for a few days before heading to Vegas to work. I have beer, and marching powder in my septum, and am sitting near the chill out stage which is playing 70's funk, on a beach in brazil. Good night to dance. Nice breeze. Last swim in the atlantic today. Savoured it. Looking forward to shaving at a hotel. Oh, face is.numb. Might take myself up on that dance alone under the stars and love it. :)
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