you know that kid who would go to a friend's house to spend the night and be all excited but at 2:30 in the morning would be so home sick that he would call his parents to come pick him up? i feel like him today. i'm exhausted, have no friends (at least in this timezone or any timezone that i can talk to regularly), and i do not understand the bus system here so it looks like i'll be paying out the butt for taxis for a couple of days. on the bright side, after 24 hours of traveling, an hour walking around in the almost-rain, and no make-up, i got to have my student id card picture taken. as un-photogenic as i am, this one really takes the cake. i'll work on uploading it to the blog if possible, because it's so bad it's hilarious.
now that i have whined, i will tell you about the coolest thing that happened to me today. i'm deboarding the plane, dreading picking up my 66lb piece of luggage when a man in a blue shirt and all sorts of nametags approaches me. he asks me if i will participate in the training of a customs drug dog. what this entails is wearing something they have prepared with a scent and standing in line while the dog goes by.
part of me is all "hell yeah, this will make for great blogging!" the more skeptical side of me is all, "no no NO! you saw brokedown palace, don't fall for this crap! you'll be arrested before you even get out of the airport!" well, after affirming and reaffirming with "Steve" that this was not some sort of set up, i agreed. he took me off to the side and gave me what he called a moneybelt but what we all know damn well was a fanny pack. he asked me to put it on and cover it with my shirt. this sounds easy enough, but it took me like 5 minutes because i couldn't get it tight enough and it wouldn't tighten in a normal, american way. meanwhile i'm making ridiculous small talk due to dilirium and it turns out i was selected because of a "low risk assessment." hmm. this does not explain why i always get "randomly selected" for searches.
after it was satisfactorally attached, he asked me to expose a little bit of it. frankly, i felt this was cheating a bit. if i'm smuggling pot into australia, i'm going to make pretty damn sure some of it isn't exposed. but i shut my trap and did as asked. then i got a thank you card with a golden retriever on it. Steve escorted me to the appropriate customs line where i still had to wait for 87 hours. finally, a cute labrador pup came through. i was rooting for her, but she didn't get it on the first try. they made her do it again, and she found me. boy was she cute when she did, too. she sat down beside me and stared up at me - i was really close to petting her.
then they sent another dog through because she's been doing training longer. after the first pass, she missed me, too, but she nailed me on the second and kind of jumped up on me. i really really wanted to take her with me, but i guess the customs people would frown upon that.
so that's my one exciting story. in other news, i was mistaken: the flight was only 14 hours, not 17. my row-mate, a 20something guy, only got up ONCE to pee during the entire time, and that was when we were almost landing. i know because i kept waiting for him to get up so i wouldn't have to disturb him during my four exits (really, that is good for me).
one last thing: i was very excited when i got on the plane to find out that we had "on demand" entertainment. there were dozens of movies and tv shows and whatnot. i had a lineup all planned out and i'll be damned if the fucking thing didn't work. that's right. for the first oh, 8 hours or more, there was no entertainment on the flight. seems like that shouldn't happen on such a long flight, but that's just me. when it finally did come on, there were only like 6 movies and you had to watch them at a certain time without rewind, pause, and fastforward. it was better than nothing, but by that time i was too comatose to care.
gotta make my way back to the hostel in some way...it's getting dark and i don't want to be out alone. i wonder if i can rent a friend somewhere?
3 comments:
I don't know if I could have resisted petting them either! That would have been the hardest part. You get some crazy propositions down under, huh? I'm sorry you're lonely! buck up, we're all still here and love you!
We're with you, Nik! You remind me of my friend Kim because no matter where she goes, something out of the ordinary happens. I know you'll find friends before too long!
Sorry that you are feeling lonely. We're all thinking of you! Thanks for keeping us updated on your travels. Hang in there. It will get easier soon!
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