The last breath of summer

Sugar

The Austral

Leaving Convo

Oh.my.lord I can finally take a deep breath! Having just boarded the national express coach from London Heathrow to Bristol, I’m on the last leg of the journey to my new home. The last 28 hours have been a plethora of emotional states. Checking into the airport in Adelaide 6KG overweight (in luggage) and having to re-pack all my bags or suffer paying $94 per KG eeek… I grabbed handfuls of heavy clothes and shoes to hand to M and C so as not to hold up the convoy of other friends that were seeing me off… I reckon the trick of minimizing luggage is to do it fast, the longer you think about it the less you want to take out. Lining up to check in all over again and finding my passport with a stressful sigh and a pounding heart for the second time in 20 minutes, I placed my luggage on the weighing belt ‘28Kg’ – damn it, I thought, I could’ve kept 2kg worth of the shoes… J had an evening shift that night so instead I got not only one but NINE of my Australian lovers to say goodbye to. We had a cheeky smoke, a blurry photo and lots of bear hugs before I turned to leave, keeping my mind occupied so as not to totally lose it now I was on my own. For some reason I have a habit of shortening the time a flight usually takes (in my head) and extending the waiting time between flights. So I thought Adelaide – Dubai was 6 hours, when in fact it read ’12 hours to destination’ when I sat down in my aisle seat. Double!? Man… Sleeping pill, cheesy rom com and whoosh – we were away in the warm night sky of Adelaide as the spring flowers began to bloom and the natural confetti of cherry blossom drifted through the streets. I woke up every few hours to try to get into a comfier position, contorting into all sorts of shapes while faintly aware of the smell of vomit from a poor soul a few rows in front of me… I could only imagine what it would’ve been like when smoking was legal on planes, eugh.

Devils Crossroads!

Best dressed <3

Arriving in Dubai to a bustling airport at 5.30am after an 8 hour sleep, I washed up and made my way to the gate that read ‘London Heathrow’, only to find out four hours later that my flight had already left, I was in fact at the wrong gate and to secure a seat on the next flight would be £260 – no English accent, boobs or sob story was enough to sway the fee so I regretfully handed over my debit card and waited at the right gate. Keen as ever to get out of Dubai, I was one of the first on the plane and got talking to an English airhostess that insisted we’d make it to London an hour earlier than scheduled – leaving my mind at rest for the 7 hours ahead. But Murphey’s law, a few people missed the flight etc etc. and we were delayed by 1.45 hours, mann.. So though it was a big grey cloud, the silver lining still exists… arriving safe and sound (despite being warned by our paranoid barista that I may be shot down), ‘National Express’ being babes and not charging me extra for a new coach ticket and the excitement of moving into a new house with new housemates J … but is summer reeeeally over??

Percussions

Ali Baba and Morgan at the house
partyy

To be fair, Uni summer’s are rather ridiculous in length compared to what schools used to be so there isn’t too much to complain about. In my last blog post I was en-route to Malaysia to see the family. What a whirlwind of a week that was, lots of fabulous food, trips down memory lane with childhood videos (laughing at J’s pre-pubescent chipmunk-like voice), pampering sessions, yoga, swimming and Q.T with loved ones. J and J managed to change their flights and come over from Burma a few days early so we scoffed high tea, enjoyed high afternoons and a very intense session of ‘break out’ – a new activity to do in KL! It’s a 45 minute simulated ‘challenge’ in which a group of you are split into teams, handcuffed and lead into little rooms where you’re given roles and abstract challenges/ clues to find each other and the way out. I can’t say I contributed much other than shrieking at every sudden movement and jolting J who was handcuffed to me (I do apologise…) – and that intensity didn’t really wear off into the rest of my last evening in KL, leaving the family in streams of tears it wasn’t long before I heard my name over the loudspeakers in the airport calling for the last passenger on the flight who was holding everyone up – whoops :s! That just about got me into the zone. I love the moto ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ and definitely reckon that applies to travelling, in my case anyway…

Rather unimpressive tasmanian devils

Happily stoned on eucalyptus

Whaaaat

Emus

I felt a bit like this in my aeroplane seat..

No one's gonna be telling him to grow some balls..

Alpacas

Piggiees

J and his spirit animal

Show bags :)

The Royal Adelaide Show!

Back to Adelaide for the last 2 weeks of J and the crew. Family get-togethers, trips to Cleland national park to gawk at some real Aussie wildlife! Seshes in the backroom, the odd encounter with a nut job and his knife :s, bike rides to Glenelg (the local beach) along the beautiful river torrens passing flocks of pink cockatoos and the odd caveman on the way… We had an escape up to ‘Goolwa’ a seaside town where a lot of Brits strangley happen to reside (suddenly hearing the accent everywhere throws you off tilt a bit). Stepping into Jacks grandparents beach house took you back in time to the 90’s, 70’s, 60’s etc.; adverts for cigarette packs, old toy dolls and comfortably worn furniture. We thrived in our newfound passionate 

Wood cutting contests?

liberation, cooking beautiful meals, taking long walks on the beach and quick dips in the sea (haha sounds a bit like what you’d write under ‘interests’ on a dating website :p). Our last day was spent cleaning the house in a meditative silence that took longer than expected meaning we missed the penguin feeding on Granite Island but sometimes, I find the more activities you try to pack into a holiday can sometimes be unessacary stress and detract from enjoying being on holiday. Since doing Vipassana I can’t help but be far more aware of the distractions that I fill my time with, given, the more you’re ignorant towards it the easier those distractions become again; that reminds me of the scene in the Matrix where Cypher chooses to be plugged in again and utters ‘ignorance is bliss’ as he bites into a juicy steak). 

H and I

Walking to Paradise with my
Kiwi girls

A few days of not having any responsibility to anyone but each other and ourselves meant that at least some of the distractions could be minimized. On our way back past the vineyards in Barossa valley, we stopped to buy some vibrant oranges and continued to wind our way along back to the city… realising halfway that we’d forgotten to turn the water and electricity mains off, set-baack (something we’re learning to become increasingly equanemous to..)

J came to visit S and V in Adelaide on a short flight from KL adding another chunk of love to the team. A mandatory Wednesday night out at sugar and a house party with the theme ‘time warp’ at Wayville with the 3000w strobe light, pro decks and speakers (along with N’ party tricks) sent everyone off into their own extremities. The comby that was parked in the garden acted as a d&m room and the mattress on the grass a perfect trippers escape. Everyone was positively surprised at the lack of noise complaints after the 6am fire works went off with Psy blasting in the background. 

& Massive Indian cook-ups

Yummy fresh lunches

We managed to lift ourselves out of bed around 3pm to find scraggly bits of tin foil, blue face paint and a few passed out boys in the back room, what a successful night. We let the memory of the night stew, to head to Sky view for one last panorama of Adelaide. Lying in the grass and reflecting on the passed few weeks, having the daunting conversation of future plans… We had a relaxed last catch up with J’s dad in town, a sentimental Indian dinner and sauntering arm in arm through Rundle Mall with a midnight blue sky in the background, we made our way to ‘Cocolat’ for dessert that evening. One lonely busker was playing a melancholic harmony that drifted through us for about 20 minutes as we kissed, locked fingers and merged, indulging in the romantic cliché that I wanted to pause and leave as a still frame to linger forever… but anitya, impermanence, all things come to an end.
We’d extended my flight by another week already and it was already down to the last day, a nostalgic Greek brunch at Yia Yia’s house where we’d stayed on the very first night, a Mexican pot-luck lunch at Wayville as we chatted and chilled, with T sitting casually in his pig-suit and sunnies drinking goon :p and then off to the airport… and onto a plane… and somehow, back here.

Goolwa

The ability to have family on the other side of the world is amazing, and hopefully if they tire of the summer heat perhaps England’s appeal will grow but until then, I’ll just have to have a cup of concrete and harden the fuck up ;) Thank you and I love you all.



Mix of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Ol6M0d9sg