Good afternoon, some would say that the blog has taken a dramatic dip in form lately and to those people i say "Yes, you are quite right" but after such a long hiatus it is only natural that something huge would be in the pipeline and to that train of thought i say "YOU BETCHA!".
For the last 5 months i have resided in Home Hill, a hole of a place that offers nothing in the way of entertainment other than the traditional Sunday Morning standoff with the local kids. This usually invovles standing on a balcony while kids throw stones at you and you return fire on the off chance you seriously damage one of them, we never quite made contact. I hate kids anyway but they took it to another level, i have never hated kids so much especially when one tried to spit at me. God i hate that place. The hostel was primitive and was only made slightly bearable by a few of the people, mainly Italian and English, some Germans, also a select 2 of the French, other than them the French remain a very despicable race of people comparable to vermin.
Over the 5 months i worked a total of 88 days which is the exact amount required to make me eligible for a second year visa which i shall be using next year when i possibly return. I cant think of too many highlights but there were some including Lance shouting "Fuck Off, Fuck Off" when Jon was coming into the room. Willo's name being announced after the speaker every morning because he is incapable of waking up on time. Lance being drunk. Fishing, which i excelled at. Football, i managed to be unofficial man of the match for 19 weeks in a row until i broke my toe and was reduced to Unofficial spectator of the match, the players award for retired in memory of me. Watching proper football at 2am or 4.45am, and then there was "The Euro 2012 Scandal" where Italy kicked off their campaign with a match against world champions Spain, after the Italians had screamed the national anthem, and declared just a small bit of hatred towards national icon Mario Balotelli, the game kicked off, 4 minutes in and through the wall of noise entered Shelley, (the owner of the hostel who lives about 50 metres away) she started shouting and turned the TV off and eventually after a lot of arguing she took the digital card away so we were left with a blank screen. She complained it was unfair on people who were trying to sleep in the rooms adjoining the main room, which is all well and good but i think the design of the hostel is encourages people to wake everyone else up.
That night will be remembered forever for the complete over-reaction from the owners, "Nugget", the owners husband, was called and he even thought about beating up the Italians at one stage even though he was grossly outnumbered and grossly overweight. As if the whole night could get more ridiculous Gio punched the door of the speaker box and bend the lock in abit, Shelley came out and quoted that he had just caused $10,000 worth of damage, i am no expert, and i know Australia is subject to extortion, a plumber charged $800 to change a toilet but even that seemed a little rich for me so i assessed the damage and quickly fixed it, free of charge, on reflection i should have demanded the $10,000 and she wouldn't have had any basis to argue. I almost forgot to mention that by this time, the Home Hill police force had been called and had descended upon the hostel, all 2 of them. They seemed disinterested and quietly annoyed at the the call out and who could blame them they had probably just got home from their silent shift until 2am when they needed to spring into action to resolve a non-existent issue. Needless to say the Italians plus some extras watched the rest of the match on an iPhone.
The next day was England vs France and with no digital TV we were all worrying. The big news was that there was to be a hostel meeting, 6pm was the deadline and it came and went while Shelley was sorting stuff in the office, eventually she pulled herself away from her seat and came to address the crowd. With around 50 people in front of her she made the brave decision to refuse everyone the right to watch the much anticipated match, this sparked scenes similar to the London Riots. Tariq in his quest for the card approached Shelley with a knife in his hand and started shouting about football being a religion while stabbing me in the leg and taking a few seconds from his rant to apologise before carrying on. After a good 15 minutes of negotiation she made it quite clear there will be no football so the English contingent decided to go see that Friendly Grocer and buy some food. On the way back our tensions were high and we entered the hostel hoping to see the French had made some progress with negotiations. I don't know why we suddenly acquired hope the French would break the habit of a lifetime and put up some sort of resistance to her decision but we did, and we were disappointed to say the least.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
I entered the office just as Shelley was closing up to go back home, taking a leaf straight out of Chris Tarrant's book i asked "Is that your final decision". She said yes but just like a shark can smell blood from miles away i sniffed out the indecision in her voice and used English Language to attack her in a most passive of ways. I explained how much the game meant to us and how great it would be to see the French get beat, i even asked her if she hated the French, i wont disclose her answer but it was obvious. She was teetering on the edge of handing over the card when in walked Kieran effectively pushing her over the edge and sealing the deal for the English. We acquired the card and around 40 people watched France stop England's flowing football with their slow tempo, simulation and reluctance to show any ambition. England were cheated.
Needless to say not much happened after that until i was crowned best fisherman after a haul of 4 fish in 1 afternoon, smashing the previous record by 3 fish! Finally the time had come for me to leave Home Hill and after an emotional goodbye to everyone that mattered, we walked to the bus stop, we put the past difference of World War 2 behind us and the English, French and German waited for the bus. I found a frisbee which provided some much needed entertainment as the bus was 20 minutes late. Thibaut was naturally a gifted player at throwing the disc whereas Willo was shit, i was embarrassed when he tried to throw it. Finally the bus arrived and during the tears and hugs the driver decided to drive off, luckily Kieran was alert and run after him telling him to stop, thats when Angry Driver #1 started swearing and complaining about being made to wait, for all of 2 minutes! I took my seat and waved to the guys knowing that i will probably never see them again, expect Jon who i have the misfortune of seeing as soon he gets home.
I arrived in Townsville and sat on the kerb for about 20 minutes thinking how i wanted someone to help me, before grabbing the bull by the horns and asking a bus driver, he gave me the information i needed and i waited at the bus stop, a very long bench. A girl came at sat practically on my lap so i naturally assumed she fancied me and wanted conversation but she looked Slovakian and wasn't attractive. That's when i struck up conversation with a Canadian lad, he was a gimp but polite none the less so we talked before he followed me onto the bus. I had small talk for a while then saw my motel so i got off the bus directly outside the accommodation, excellect service! It looked a bit run down from the outside and at reception i was subjected to yet more small talk with the employee, finally she handed over my key and i got out sharpish.
It was a proper motel like the ones you see in the American films, i said hello to my neighbour, a man by himself eating cake on a chair outside his door, weird. I entered the room and was relieved to see a clean room with a double bed/fridge/TV/kettle/shower/toilet/desk/no foreigners. I threw my stuff to the floor and started a 30 minute journey walking to the supermarket. I spent that night watching TV, something about asylum seekers, Pawn Stars, Hardcore Pawn and other American shit.
The next morning i woke up nice and early for my 12:45 flight, checked out about 10 and waited for a taxi out the front, luckily it was a fairly short journey as for the whole duration the driver bored me to tears about how good his Kindle was, he was so boring i even thought briefly about ringing Jon. Even though the journey was short i was still charged $17 for the pleasure of having me ear chewed off, naturally being the big spender i am i waved away the $3 change in a scene similar to the AutoGlass advert. I took after my father for the day as i arrived way too early, luckily it wasnt a boring wait as school were obviously on some sort of trip and i admired all the females who were of course AT LEAST 16. Finally i decided i would look at checking-in, when i dropped off my bag she asked if i had any aerosols in my bags, of course i did, deodorant and hairspray i said "errmmm" and she didnt even stop, she wished me a good day and i left. Sydney airport was boring so i quickly got on the plane for Perth, while waiting to board the gate staff called for some priority people to come to get on the plane first, one of them was none other than John Mclain, from then on i knew i was safe. Once i arrived at Perth airport i went to leave to retrieve my baggage and come up against security, im not exaggerating for a few seconds i genuinely did think i was at the wrong airport, EVERY one of the staff were Pakistani i presume, all of them. I went through the detector and was stopped by a man who wanted to conduct a test on me to see if i had traces of explosive material on my clothing, the irony was wasted on him but obviously i had nothing to hide.
Outside the airport i was greeted with a queue for the taxis that wouldn't have looked out of place at Thorpe Park, it was scandalous. Behind me in the queue was a man who was heavily drunk and had reduced himself to kicked his luggage along the floor instead of carrying it. He started talking to me asking where i was going, i said the road name and he asked where it was incase it was near him. Now im no fool, this man was irritating enough waiting for a taxi so imagine what he would be like in one. he asked a woman to locate his destination on her phone, she did, then he asked her to find my location before i interrupted saying "No it's fine i will trust the taxi driver" she got the hint and put her phone away. Inside the taxi i had to sit next to an Indian man (it's amazing that they love driving taxis so much) we didn't talk at all, i was worried to talk incase sick came out of my mouth after glancing at the meter. I was very close to chopping off an arm and a leg when it came to paying but instead handed over $30 for a 15 minute ride, i was annoyed but then in perspective it was worth paying extra so i didnt have to be near that drunk, a note to people in Perth, unless there are a few of you do not get taxis alone its disgusting.
We arrived at the hostel and it looked filthy from the outside, inside wasn't much better and i waited at a closed reception before ringing the bell for assistance, a voice came from the other side of the barrier saying "We're closed", i replied "I know, but i want to check in", "Ok wait" she said. Wait is exactly what i did, for 10 minutes before Pop Idol legend Darius Danesh came to assist me, i had booked a 2 bed dorm room so i was resigned to the fact i would be sharing, we approached a door and entered, inside was about 5 bunk beds, i was almost about to say "WAIT, YOU HAVE MADE A GRAVE ERROR!" before he opened a side door where my room was, all 2 beds of them.
Sadly i did have someone in there, a quick look at HER belongings revealed her to have a Spanish name and University of Leicester card. About 20 minutes later she arrived, turns out she was Colombian, she told me she was from the capital, so obviously as i have such an extensive knowledge of capital cities i replied with a smile "Bogota?" she seemd excited and said "Yes! Have you been?" i was tempted to say i lived there for 6 months but i think i would have been quickly outed as a liar so i said no but i would like to go. She was nice and gave me some free stuff, she lived in Scotland and was in Perth for a conference, she was an electrical engineer, i was hoping that all electrical engineers were not as boring as Jon and luckily she wasn't. We quickly got to sleep and 5 minutes after lights out she requested a cuddle as she was cold by i only have eyes for girl so i refused.
Then we all went to sleep and for now this is all, but there will be another edition coming soon (tomorrow)
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