Arriving in queensland its hard to believe I’m in the same country. Where I’ve come from its cold and rainy….clearly winter. But here its gentle and warm(er) not as warm as I was hoping, but obviously tropical.
Tiger Airways is THE cheap carrier in Australia and I got cheap flights….of course the planes were old and the concourse barely attached to the airport, but that is the price I didn’t pay. I was running late had no idea where the terminal was and ended up running halfway across tullimarine (Melbourne airport) to find terminal four, a nice phrase for the shack that houses tiger in Melbourne. I barely made it…last one allowed to check in for the flight. Honestly, for a borderline shoddy establishment, they sure do keep tight to their timetables!
After a cramped sleep on the plane (I always sleep on planes, its really the only acceptable way to pass the time as far as I’m concerned) I landed on the goldcoast. Also known as bris-vegas to aussies everywhere, I can only assume because of the overweight population, excess of temptation, and cheap and cheesy shopping everywhere.
I’ve rented a car for the week because there is virtually no public transportation here. Its quite weird to have a car. I don’t have a car in melbs and don’t want a car in mebs, we in fact, rent out our car space for $60 a week and its fabulous! The problem, as some of you may remember from the madness that was Gena in America last year, I’m not really used to being a driver anymore. I’m fine actually driving, probably safer because I pay much more attention driving than I ever did before. The problems usually arise after happy hour when someone asks “hey Gena, how are you getting home?” My general answer is “TRAM!” because where I live, I can always take the tram home and its safe no matter how much I’ve had to drink because I’m not driving. When I’m not at home, especially when I have driven this usually creates a BIG problem. Over the winter/summer when I was in NoVa, several times I forgot I had driven to the bar and had to a) take a cab home and b) ask my step-father/some other friend to drive me back in the morning to pick up said vehicile….ouch. tres embarrassing. Luckily for me, I’m on an anti-biotic so that shouldn’t be a big problem this time around.
I digress, so I get my car and the fancy gps I’ve decided to rent along with it (for $3.50/day!!) and am on my way. Since I haven’t really had a car for the past 2.5 years I have very little experience with gps, so as much as I love the idea of it, I kind of distrust it too (the robots are taking over!) My fears proved well founded when within 10 minutes of leaving the airport I was in New South Wales. The next state. I had driven across state line. THIS WAS NOT RIGHT. I am positive that the gold coast and surfers paradise are in queensland, the sunshine state! That’s where I needed to be. It turns out the gps did know best and NSW was just a detour to northern motorway. Huh, who would’ve thought? Go south to get north, leave the state to get to another city within it? TOM-TOM (that’s the gps, mom) sure had a funny idea about “fastest route”. But soon enough I found myself to be thrilled with TOM-TOM. It really knew what it was doing and how to get me around….sweeeeeet. Pretty soon I found myself talking to it, “great job TOM-TOM. Thanks for that TOM-Tom. Not sure where in NSW I’d be without you TOM-TOM.” Then I got concerned. Is that normal? Is it ok to talk to your gps? I figure it must be, because you can’t really have the music too loud or else you won’t be able to hear it. You can’t drive with the windows down (which lets be honest, is the best part) because it drowns out TOM-TOM’s voice, so what else am I supposed to do?
Soon enough I got back into the swing of being a driver and was pleased to discover that driving a stick is indeed like riding a bike….you can never forget. Wvertime I rent a car here I request a manual, but generally as soon as I open my mouth to say “thank you” they assume that:
American + female = can’t drive stick…argh. But not this time around, the fine establishment I’ve rented from, cut price car rentals (its all in the name isn’t it?) did indeed give me a stick and soon enough I was racing off lights with the best of them!
Vroom vroom = FUN!
Long story long, I made it! Hooray! I’m sitting on the camps now as I type this, under a gazebo watching horses walk past surrounded by the squawking of birds (hey! It can’t all be pleasant). The language school shares grounds with a horse riding academy. I’m wearing flip-flops and sitting outside. Didn’t exactly picture this when I woke up in rainly dreary melbs this morning. I’m a lucky one alright!
xx
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