A broken hand, strange smells & the open air

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Trip Start Apr 30, 2007 Previous
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  Brisbane, Australia
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Hi... how's it going??!

I think I shot myself in the foot with the last post.. since then the weather has been rubbish!! Which to be honest has been a nice break from the heat but I need to get myself a tan before I hit the beach on Christmas Day... thankfully I managed to get myself some fake tan at the weekend. Saying that, I'm too scared to use it, probably come out all streaky knowing my luck. So yer, weather has been pants but at least it's helping me get to the gym.. although preventing me from swimming which is annoying. We've only got an outdoor pool and it's not that inviting when it's freezing or raining, although I'm pretty sure it would actually be really warm if I bothered to get in it.. still, it's not a chance I am willing to take, so I will stick with the gym for now.

So Friday (23/11/07) morning on the way to work I was on the bus early and it was heaving

Christmas tree with decorations

. Every seat was taken and so I had to stand. I stood near the back exit of the bus and held on for dear life as I had my usual handbag with me but also another bag full of books to take back to the library, so I was trying not to take up too much room, not hit anyone with the bags and not to fall over. As we came up to the next stop, I moved around a little so people could get out of the exit but still held onto the pole as we were still moving.. next thing I know, the door flings open and squashes my hand. The door obviously realised it wasn't completely open so it started to put extra pressure on my hand, therefore I couldn't pull it out.. plus it was ripping my skin off so thought it was best not to pull it. So once we finally stopped (which felt about 5 mins, but was probably only 5 seconds) I whacked the door with my right hand and as it jolted I managed to pull my left hand free, minus some skin but now sporting a lovely thick black mark right across my hand. During all of this, NOT ONE PERSON asked if I was ok or if I needed a hand (excuse the pun.. couldn't resist). I was sooo embarrassed. I still had to stand as the bus was full, so I held on with my right hand, not sure what to do. I could feel myself going bright red and my hand was throbbing. Damn the Aussies!! By the time I had got to work my hand was like a balloon, thankfully Chris was already in and went to get me some ice to put on it. After the swelling had gone down she put a bandage on it to keep it compressed. It's ok now, still a bit sore, I think I did some damage to my muscles as I cant fully open my hand or clench my fist tight, other than that it's ok. What an idiot. I knew I hated public transport for a reason.

Saturday Dermott announced that he was moving a mate in to share his room, which Stef and I had said was fine by us... BIG MISTAKE.    BIG.    HUGE.

At the end of the day, Dermott is paying $275 a week for his room.

At last my name in lights

. who are we to argue if he decides he wants to move someone in? He has en-suite so we're not sharing a bathroom and anyway, Dermott works with this guy and therefore he works all hours as well.. he wont be around so let's move him in. The kid stinks and somehow Dermott has started smelling even worse!!! I mean, both of them don't wash.. EVER! You can smell Dermott's feet through his trainers from the other side of the room. The new kid, Brendan, is 20 years old, eats, sleeps and watches TV. He has no money and has had a cold so has sat on the sofa 24/7 for a few days, coughing every 2 seconds which in the end got on my nerves, he helps himself to our food/drink and David's mobile and cigarettes! Neither of them know how to clean the house and according to Dermott.. that's a woman's job anyway. Well let's just say that went down like a lead balloon. So it all kicked off over the weekend now there are rules in the apartment! Stef has vowed that if anyone leaves dirty plates or food on the side, she will personally scoop it up and put it on the perpetrator's pillow... well everyone but me as she has to share a bed with me.. instead I get it all thrown in my clothes drawer. Lucky me. Anyway, if this smell problem carries on then we will look for a new flat share. Which is a shame as Dermott is actually an ok guy, we get on with him, he's barely about and he lets us use his laptop... which sometimes we get access to the internet on!!! And also he's happy about going on the lease and giving me my deposit back, which I could do with for Asia

Adelaide Street

. Anyway, the only problem left outstanding is Christmas and New Years. Stef and I will be both be in Sydney, Dermott is heading to Thailand with his lady friend which leave's Brendan in our apartment alone. No way. As Dermott's name is not on the lease yet, he has no say in what we decide to do. So at some stage I have to tell him that his mate cannot stay whilst we are away. I'm going to say Charlotte is house sitting for us, they're actually off to Townsville though which is a shame, otherwise they would pop in every so often to check on the place. We don't want him in our apartment whilst we're not there though, I dread to think what mess we would come back to. He would undoubtedly have parties and people would be sleeping in our bed and going through our stuff. Plus Suki the lady that owns it was good enough to leave her plasma TV etc for us.. I bet it wouldn't be in one piece by the time we got home!!! And who's liable.. me and Stef. So we have to sort that out at some stage, then see how we go with the hygiene issue. I might make him wash his bed sheets soon, before they go mouldy. I mean, he's not washed them in the time he's been with us.. 6 weeks or so. And he's had his lady friend stay over a few times. Nice. Mind you, she's probably just as bad as him, I mean, when he opens his door the stench hits you like slap round the face with a wet fish.. surely she can smell that as well?! How could she stay in his room in that rotten bed.. eeewww. Not worth thinking about.

Broken Hand

Anyway....

Sunday I headed over to the airport to meet David. I was there about two hours early so after chatting on the phone for over an hour, I sat watching people arriving and seeing them cuddle and kiss their loved ones and walk out of the arrival lounge with big smiles. It made me think about that day when I arrive back at Heathrow to find all my family on the other side of the arrival lounge.. it gave me goosebumps watching them all. It's like that scene out of Love Actually. I'm really looking forward to that day and frequently dream about it! Anyway, David got here safely, although he nearly got on the wrong flight and didn't realise he has three stops in total so was completely drained after travelling over 24 hours and losing a day somewhere along the line.. it's so weird travelling this far, you leave Saturday morning, travel for a few hours and arrive two days later. I'm going to gain a day on the way home though which will be weird. I will use it wisely... and sleep.

Anyway, although David is staying with us, he's pretty much out and about 24/7 and therefore I haven't got to see him much! He's got that new Australian buzz and wants to find out as much as he can, plan where he's going to go and what he's going to do.

Oh Dear

. where as I am working all the time, tired in the evenings and saving hard for Sydney! I've lost that buzz... only because working and living in Brisbane is getting boring now. It will be back though a few days before Sydney though I'm sure.

Thursday 29th November Stef, Elmo and I all headed over to South Bank for the opening night of 'Brisbane Open Air', we were promised live acts, live bands, a huge bar and snacks etc... we expected quite a glamorous event... instead we found a huge blow up TV which they projected the film on to, a few people with beanbags and a load of deckchairs; which was for the press only, a red carpet, a small bar with one type of beer and two types of wine, ready made sandwiches and a dj who was dj'ing through an Mac computer. It wasn't really the opening special I thought we were going to be in for but we had fun anyway. We quickly made friends with the guy walking around with free Rosé tasters! Although we wasn't offered any of the free canapés that were being passed around to the people with blue wristbands, sitting on the deckchairs. We were in the red wristband crew sitting on the grass. How annoying. We were thinking about ditching the night and going out into town for a bit but the people next to us offered us a picnic blanket to sit on, so we stayed. We watched the sun go down and saw millions of bat's (that are absolutely massive by the way) wake up and fly about.

Casino

. it kind of felt like Gotham City. The film was 'Hairspray'.. if you haven't seen it.. watch it. Even David enjoyed it, although he wouldn't admit it! Turned out to be a good night though, we also got to watch a break dancing class that was taking place in the SunCorp Piazza which was next to the open air cinema. Pretty cool, although I don't see us enrolling any time soon.

After the cinema I got home to find a huge box on the kitchen table.. my Christmas box from Bev and Dad. I tore into it and found a box full of prawn cocktail crisps!! Never in my life did I think that I would hope and prey for prawn cocktails crisps for Christmas!! It was immense though. My first packet in 7 months!! They also sent family photo's, letters, 'wiggle' pants, 'I love my dad' socks, perfume, jewellery etc.. but hey it's all about the PRAWN COCKTAIL CRISPS!!!!!! Oh and Galaxy Ripples... mmmmmm chocolate has never tasted so good!!!

Annoyingly enough I am still waiting for my box from mum which was sent 5 months ago!! Henry still has it in Cairns, although I managed to finally get hold of him and he's sending it this week (fingers crossed).

Friday was my work Christmas party, unfortunately I had a phone call to tell me a friend from school, Chris Pattle, had died in a head on collision

Christmas Tree before the decorations

. Although Chris and I have barely spoken since leaving school all those many years ago, it hit me hard. I guess it hit me just how far from home I am and that I am completely helpless over here. I actually felt really alone for the first time since leaving home, although thankfully Stef came to my rescue. Work sent me home and Stef came to meet me in town. I bumped into my mate Dave in town and dragged him to the pub, he had just been sacked so we drowned our sorrows for an hour. After a few rather large glasses of wine we headed back to the apartment, I was shattered so fell asleep on my bed, Stef and David ended up having a movie marathon. 12 films in total over the weekend, I watched 0... although I did read a whole book. "Well done me".
Friday night we decided to head out for a few as some of my work mates were still out after the Christmas party, although we didn't actually leave the apartment until after 11pm so by the time we got out, only Daiji was left!! Met with him and had a few drinks and then Daiji went home and David disappeared so Stef and I headed back to the Press Club for a boogie... quickly got bored and decided we could afford to stay out any longer and instead headed to New York Slice for a slice of the best pizza this side of the world (well it is at 4.30am anyway).

Sunday, after a quick clean up around the apartment and a whinge at our stinking housemates, we headed over the other side of the river to a place called Caxton to meet with Char, G, Ging, James, Cow Head and Karaoke. Corona's were only $4 so everyone took advantage and then we headed into the restaurant for some dinner. Bit of a disaster that turned out to be. We were put in the corner away from everyone else.. I guess we were kind of loud. The waiter forgot about us and after waiting for about half an hour for someone to take our order G had to finally ask someone to come over

David & Stef

. Then we sat for another hour or so until we started to enquire how long our food was going to be. When we walked in the restaurant was empty, now it was filling up and everyone else seemed to be eating.. well everyone but us. The food turned up about 15 mins after that.. stone cold. We all complained and sent most of it back, the rest just ate it as they were so hungry by that point!! Anyway, we complained and complained until they finally gave in and gave us some meals for free. The service was terrible though, at first they offered to take the bread off the bill!! $4.. seriously?! Although James insisted he would pay for the bread as the bread was actually the nicest part of the meal!! So over all, food was crap but the company was good.

After dinner we headed to Normanby which is a massive pub/club which everyone heads to for 'Sunday Sessions'. They have live bands in the courtyard, a huge car park which is the smoking area with a Smirnoff ice tent, then you head up the stairs to a huge room where they were playing funky house, there was a massive centre bar, then another room connecting room with pool tables in and then a few other rooms.. all massive and easy to get lost in. I'm guessing the place holds a couple of thousand people.. easily. It was heaving as well and took forever to get to the bar so after a while we decided to head back into the valley.. although once we got there we realised how late it had got and everywhere was shutting

David

. So we headed home in the rain.

Monday 03 December work asked me if I am happy to extend my contract until 18th January.. which obviously I accepted. At least I know I have a job to come back to after Sydney and will have money coming back in. Plus I do love it here now, I am all settled and get on really well with everyone so I am happy to stay.

The Christmas lights were turned on in town on Friday, it doesn't seem right seeing Christmas lights and Christmas tree's in the boiling hot sun with fake snow flakes hanging off them!

Anyway, not many plans up ahead at the moment, I seriously need to stop going out and buying concert tickets and start save some money for Sydney... although I am chuffed to bits I am going to see the Foo Fighters in June at Wembley... Jason if you're reading this.. you are a legend my friend. Also off to the see The Gossip on 12 December so that should be good. Although Beth will probably get naked and make us feel ill.. we'll just have to sell the pictures to Marcus (AKA Mr W) at The Sun for loads of money. Done deal??!

Before I sign out, I want to congratulate my mother

Daiji, Stef & David

. It has taken her 2 months to name the kitten. 2 MONTHS!! Anyway, a huge warm welcome to 'Micha' the latest addition to the mad household that I like to call 'home'.

Anyway kids, I shall leave it there. Not many pics to add at the moment but will try and get some more soon.

Much love to you all... please please please be safe. I don't want to have to come home any earlier than I already am!!! (hehehe)

I shall leave you with the Aussie version of Jingle Bells... I know you all desperately miss me singing it all year round.
 
Keli xxxxx
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Aussie Jingle Bells

Dashing through the bush
In a rusty Holden Ute
Kicking up the dust
Esky in the boot
Kelpie by my side
Singing Christmas songs
It's summer time and I am in
My singlet, shorts & thongs

Chorus
Oh, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells
Jingle all the way
Christmas in Australia
On a scorching summer's day
Oh
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells
Christmas time is beaut
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a rusty Holden Ute

Engine's getting hot
Dodge the kangaroos
Swaggy climbs aboard
He is welcome too
All the family is there
Sitting by the pool
Christmas day, the Aussie way
By the barbecue

Me & Daiji

!

(Chorus)

Come the afternoon
Grampa has a doze
The kids and uncle Bruce
Are swimming in their clothes
The time comes round to go
We take a family snap
Then pack the car and all shoot through
Before the washing up

(Chorus)

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Davud	Me & David	Daiji & Stef	Sun Set
And Again	And once more for luck

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