Week Nine: Edinburgh

On the train, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's. Then I listened to some Jeff Buckley and John Butler to calm my nerves. I started to think about how this opportunity is actually quite exciting because obviously I would eventually find a place to live. I started to think about how I was now at the part that I actually came for, the part that I had been organising and looking forward to for over a year. This is the time where shit was going to get real. I would describe it to somebody as like living by yourself in another country, as you see-saw from terrified to excited constantly.

I arrived in Edinburgh with my big suitcase and about 25 thousand bags. With no phone, no google maps or anything I tried to navigate my way around, trying to find my hostel. After about 45 minutes walking around by myself like a total looney-tune, I finally found the hostel. This place has a 4.5/5 star rating on trip advisor, The Baxter. If you do one day go to Edinburgh, which I highly suggest you do, definitely stay there. I was still over hostels that this point in time, but this one was pretty cosy. The staff make you scrambled eggs in the morning and it's just the best. Anyway, I settled myself in, and that day I went and got my McDonald's meal and sat with the most excellent view. I was completely alone, there was not a soul in the city I knew. It was really, really weird. So I went back to my room and watched Frozen.

Then, I started my house hunt. I spent 3 days spamming Gumtree ads trying to find places to stay. At that point in time, almost all of the people staying in the hostel were students trying to find places to live. It was crazy, it was like this desperate buzz that was everywhere I went, everyone was talking about like this "housing crisis" which apparently happens every year. Which, to me, is fucking bullshit. There was no warning, really, about the uncertainty of the housing situation. I wish someone had told me before that it was going to be so difficult. Steve told me to email my exchange co-ordinator to see if someone could help me out with finding a place to live. After spending like 35 years trying to work out the bus system, I eventually made it to the campus. A nice guy greeted me, and when I asked about receiving help about accommodation he proceeded to hand me a pamphlet with a list of websites on it that I could look at. Which were all the fucking websites I had already been looking at because I'm not a fucking retarded 83 year old woman who doesn't know how to use Google.

Before this, in desperation and fear, since I obviously was not going to get a 1 bedroom apartment to myself because I would be a total loner/recluse. Like, I like myself, but not enough to spend 4 months totally alone. I messaged this guy on Facebook who had made a sassy comment about how he flew all the way from Australia and he was told he didn't have a place three weeks before arriving in Edinburgh. Now, I figured I was going to try and immerse myself in the culture but I definitely felt more comfortable bunking up with a person who speaks English, which he was the only person that appeared to speak fluently. And, of course, he looked like a "cool dude." This is now, my good friend and room mate, Harry. (Shit, spoiler..)

Eventually, after Edlets.com noticed that I was spamming every single advert they had, they called me (I bought a phone by this point by the way) and they asked me if I wanted some help. At this point, a beam of light shot from the sky and angels sang "hallelujah" and I was so happy because it was the first time anyone had even offered to help me find a place. I had actually gotten to the point where I thought I might have to stay in a hostel for the entire 4 months. Anyway, within an hour, a nice lady from Edlets who I forget the name of, sent me a place that looked about 10 million times better than the places that I had been looking at, which was totally affordable in a prime location, 15 minute walk from the city centre and 10 minute walk from my Uni. Within two hours, we had put the deposit down on the place, and I was over the fucking MOON. I was so happy.

By Friday that week, me and Harry had moved in with two french students, Anais and Alex who were in the same boat of desperation as us. Above, is a picture of my room, that features a fucking KING sized bed, and in the right corner there, is another double bed. The white walls, I couldn't really do anything about. It's strange to live somewhere for a weird period of time where it's long enough to get comfortable in but not long enough to actually decorate.

That week, Harry, Alex, Anais and I went to a Fresher's party. Which is exactly the same as O-Week. And it was like being at an 18 year olds birthday party in a club. Everyone was too young and too drunk, and all I did was dance in the foam the whole night. It was my first foam party, and most definitely my last.

Week Eight: England

Owen dropped me off at the station where I took the train to my Mum's cousin, Gill's house who lives in Kent. I was so deadly exhausted, totally drained and I was really excited to just have some time to myself and chill. It was like being at home, with Gill and her husband Mike, they would cook me dinner, like real food, and we would watch X-Factor.

That's when I decided I would go the the local shopping centre Bluewater and get a haircut. So I walked down to the bus stop at around 2:15pm. The bus would arrive at 2:22. Extra early just to be safe. However, I don't have a phone nor do I have a watch so at all times of the day I can only tell the time by looking at the sun like some kind of cave man. I waited at the bus stop. And then I waited some more. And more and more. I started playing games with myself like counting how many red cars drove past and how many people looked at me sitting on the ground. When you live without technology or commitments, you literally have nothing else to do but things like this. I didn't realise how long I had been waiting there for, but it was kind of taking a toll on me now I was getting quite hungry. So, I gave up and walked home to get a cup of tea and a biscuit, because I'm English now apparently. I got back to the house, and realised it was fucking 3:30pm. I had been sitting on the ground for OVER AN HOUR, without even realising that I was doing that. Shocked, I looked up the next bus time because by this point I just really fucking wanted to go to Bluewater. I've already come this far, aka 7 minutes walk down to the bus stop. I needed this. So I went back for the next bus that was at 3:45pm. Then I waited some more. And even longer. So much so that I had actually sprawled myself out over the pavement and was watching the clouds go by. Time goes much slower when all you have to do is hang out with yourself. Then, a car pulls up next to me. A youngish normal looking guy rolls down his window.
Guy: Are you okay?
Katie: Yes I'm just waiting for the bus. 
Guy: I can see that. It's just... I went to the gym 2 hours ago and I saw you waiting there, I'm now on my way home ...and you're still here...
Katie: Yeah. Right, well I just really want to go to Bluewater. 
Guy: If you want... I can drive you, it's on my way home. I just thought I would help you out.
Before everyone starts shouting "you fucking idiot he's a rapist" at me, I really did assess the situation before I got into the car. He looked about 23 years old, he was wearing gym clothes. Now looking back on it, it probably wasn't the best thing to do but I had been waiting at the bus stop for TWO HOURS and I had been broken down into an insane person and I just wanted to get to the shopping centre. Anyway, he was fine he was very nice and he dropped me off at the shopping centre and everything was fine. Sometimes you just have to believe in the kindness of strangers.

That day I cut my hair short and dyed it purple. Since very recently, everyone I have met has considered me to be purple hair girl. Other than that, there is only one more interesting thing that happened to me during the week in Kent. Gill suggested that maybe I should contact Edinburgh Napier University about the student accommodation I had applied for. Since I hadn't actually heard anything about getting accepted, but I just kind of assumed that I would be living there since they hadn't told me anything and I started school in a week. So that day, I emailed the school asking about the student accommodation. The reply email goes as follows:
ENU Student Housing: The student housing is full. You will have to find off campus housing. 
And then my heart fucking dropped. I was like "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaat" I realised I was fucking HOMELESS. I was supposed to start school in ONE WEEK and I had NO WHERE TO LIVE. I knew NO ONE. I had NO IDEA about the city. At this point in time I was freaking the fuck out. That's when my relaxing time in Kent was cut short as I jumped on the next train to Edinburgh to find somewhere to live.

Week Seven: England

Moving on, we went to go stay with Gen's friend Owen in a place we thought was a short train ride away from London. Turns out, it was £30 return to get there every day. We arrived at Cambridge station with Owen nowhere to be seen. We walked around trying to find him for about half an hour, realising that we have no way of contacting him. Neither of us have a phone, and theres no wifi in the area. We encountered these kinds of situations too often that it makes me wonder what people actually did when there weren't phones around. How long do they have to wait for someone before giving up? What happens if he had to cancel last minute? What do we do if Owen never shows up? These are the kinds questions that run through your mind as a person without a phone about 10 minutes into the ordeal. But finally, he comes racing in, apologising for being late, being super chill. We get to his house and both me and Gen are just soooooo fucking happy that we get to stay in a normal house and not have to listen to people engaging in sexual activities or have random people come talk to you while you try and play a game of scrabble. (This is what happened in Paris, I forgot to mention that there was this 35 year old man who kept telling us we could have done a better word every time we put our tiles down.) There's a lot of things I took for granted before I went on this trip, having your own bedroom is one of them. 
That night, Owen convinced us to go out with him even though we were still reeling from Lowlands. Gen poured us some shots of tequila, before realising that there was no salt or lemon, so instead she insisted on licking vegemite off our hands, taking the shot and eating a teaspoon of chocolate powder. It didn't go down so easy. That night, we all got happy drunk and went to a club that reminded us of Melbourne's 161 with the disco dance floor. I got the kind of drunk where I danced with a girl in some kind of Haka dance routine (just letting everyone know that after I said that I watched 45 minutes of the All Black's doing the Haka on Youtube) and performed Calisthenic dance manoeuvres like walk-overs and headstands. If you've been out with me, headstands and forming break dance circles are like... mandatory.

The next day, we went with Owen to the Wake boarding park that he works at, and got free lessons. Gen, of course, stood up on her first try and spent the whole time doing laps and like learning tricks. I, of course, spent the whole time face down in the water being aggressively dragged behind the rope struggling to breathe. Later that night, Gen and I ordered an excessive amount of Chinese food and actually giggled in delight the entire time we were eating it. Never, ever, take good food for granted. 

Then, we finally took the trip into London. Our first stop was the London Tombs, which was actually one of the funnest things I've done over here. I was expecting just a historical tour of sorts, but noooooo. At the end, they take you through to this dark room and say "if anyone has epilepsy, heart conditions, pregnant or is easily frightened, do not go through that door." The problem was, that behind us an entire Portuguese family who don't speak a lick of English had no fucking idea what they had said and ushered their group of 5 to 8 year old children through the door. I, of course, was left to the back of the line. They take you through to this maze that is like completely dark except for the strobe lights flashing at you and you all have to hold on to each other and find your way out of the maze. It's terrifying even as it is, until they chuck in a few actors who jump out at places and make weird World War Z zombie noises as they chase you around the maze. Being in the back of the line, I was left to fend for myself and scream in absolute horror as a guy shoved a chainsaw in my face and screamed at me for about 30 seconds straight. Another actor burst out from his mental asylum bed shackles and grabbed me by the arm. I turned around and smacked his hand away and screamed "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO FUCKING TOUCH ME!" But I assumed I didn't have the worst time, as in every moments of silence you could hear all three of the Portuguese children whimpering in terror. And their parents did not give a single fuck.

So we finally made it out, totally exhilarated. We met up with Gen's other friends, Josh and Shayla for some ciders along the River Thames. We also decided to go on one of those giant rides that take you up and you spend the whole time swinging around. Since there was 5 of us, I offered to go on the ride by myself. It was actually quite fun. The men in charge of operating the ride asked me where my boyfriend was and then offered that they be my boyfriend instead. And I was all like "haha shut the fuck up." Then, that night we went to my first Australian bar. Which is essentially an average bar that has the title "Australian Bar." There were like two Australian flags and then some drinks that were like "kangaroo juice" or something. The only Australian bar that would be remotely related to an actual Australian bar would be a bar that resides in Australia. 

The next day, Shayla, Gen and I sat in the back as Josh drove Owen's car to the station. As per usual, it was bucketing down with fog that forbid us from seeing even two meters ahead of us. We played Game of Thrones guess who on the train again, and then we said goodbye to Josh and Shayla. Then me and Gen thought we were going to go shopping at Harrod's all day, which is apparently this amazingly huge shopping centre. It actually turns out that it's just a normal shopping centre, much smaller than Chadstone, that is incredibly difficult to navigate and full of unachievable expensive clothes. Me and Gen accidentally got stuck inside some kind of white carpeted Gucci store and I've never felt more out of place in my entire life. After about 10 minutes of being inside Harrod's, it's tacky ancient Egyptian decor made me feel so uncomfortable that we had to leave. We then proceeded to walk around in the rain for hours. My shoes were soaking wet, so much so that I refused to walk any further so I had to buy the first pair of shoes I liked in Urban Outfitters. 60 pound later, little did I know I bought the most uncomfortable shoes in the world. I spent the rest of the day standing on my tippee-toes with my leather shoes clopping underneath my feet. By the time we left, me and Gen were sufficiently tired and hungry, so much so we reduced ourselves by standing inside the line for McDonald's for like half an hour before finally getting the train home at about 8pm. I asked Gen on the train, "out of all of the people you've travelled with, who have you encountered the most problems with?"
Definitely you.

Cold, tired and wet, me and Gen made it through the train trip and ran to the car. We got in, so over the day, when Gen tried to start the car. She tried to start the car again. Not working. She did again. 
Gen: I think the fucking car is out of battery?
Katie: Oh my god... Josh left the lights on. All day.
Gen and Katie: UGHHHAUHHGHRHGHUHHHHAARRRRRR!!!!!1
Stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no phones, we were fucked. Gen ran back inside trying to find someone to help us, eventually coming back with this young guy who gave us his phone to call Owen. After 40 minutes, Owen finally came. We were like sooo dead sorry, it was awful. Then he couldn't find the battery of his car. So he had to call his other friend to come help, after another 45 minutes his friend came. After about 2 minutes of looking for the battery, he found it in the boot.
"What do you call this then? A fucking ham sandwich?"

We eventually made it home after 3 hours at 12:30am. Gen had to leave for her flight back to Australia at 4am. Fucking nigghhhhtmareeeeee. That morning, Gen woke me up and I hugged her goodbye. We were both pretty nonchalant about it, Gen was really ready to go home, and I was still pretty much asleep. As Gen walked out the door, and I went back to bed, I realised that she was the last old friend I would see for 2 months. That was a weird feeling. I was now completely alone overseas.

Week Seven: Paris

We got to Paris and checked into our little room on the top floor of a hostel, with the whole room to ourselves. After Gen almost died of a hangover, we laid down on the floor and ordered delivery food to our door. Then me and Gen watched Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig SNL skits all night. Then, we were unpleasantly surprised as a Brazilian couple came to stay in our room and ruined everything. That night I lay awake listening to the springs bounce and heavy breathing and the sound of bracelets jingling.

This was the straw that broke the Katie's back when it comes to staying in hostels. People are all like "oh but the vibesss" and yeah I guess if you're by yourself, you need friends so you stay in a place with other drunk people. But, one of the things I hate most is forced friendships, and if I don't want to talk to someone, I wont. And after some time of telling people the same fucken stories over and over, you get bored. A lot of travellers hit a point where you just can't really be fucked. Especially if you spend the whole night listening to your "potential friends" give and receive oral sex. (Ps if it's not oral sex like no mouths were involved what is it called? Hand sex? I dunno watever.)

The next day, it was finally time to use the hostel internet to upload my Spain video. But since that internet was still 2002 dial up internet, it was taking foooorever so I left it up on my computer and me and Gen left to go do this thing we called "speed sight seeing." Both Gen and I had been to Paris before, so the necessity of actually going inside any of the tourist attractions was 0%. In one day, we went to Notre Dame and took a selfie out the front. Then we walked over this bridge that we just assumed was the Love Lock bridge coz it had all these locks on it, and then later found out that it wasn't it was just another rando bridge, but we put locks on for our boyfriends anyway (<3) (which is super lame but when in Paris ammi right) Then we hit the outside of the Louvre, took a selfie underneath the Eiffel Tower and then later that night stopped outside the Moulin Rouge. Which is HILARIOUS because we were like "oh if theres a show for like 20 euros we'll go in..." and then we get outside and look at the poster thing and the cheapest show for the week was like 130 euros, omg. so naive.

Also, that night me and Gen met up with our french friend, Charles, creatively nicknamed "french guy" who we hadn't seen in a year. We had dinner at this really good place, except I did find a price tag in my pasta so I was allowed desert for free which was awesome. After working in hospitality for 5 years, I understand that shit goes wrong sometimes and a lot of the time I really don't give a fuck. Especially since we also ordered a plate of snails. And we ate them! My friends call me food ignorant because I have really bland taste pallets and I would be contented eating baby food for the rest of my life, but I don't think it's because I'm ignorant, I'm inexperienced. When I was a child, if I didn't like something I would spit it out and scream until I was handed a piece of margarita pizza or a Mcdonald's cheese burger. As a consequence, my mother never gave me anything she thought I wouldn't like. Therefor, I didn't know what halloumi was until about May this year and I'd never eaten anything that constitutes the "thai" cuisine.

Anyway, yeah I ate a snail. There's a video of it. I pick up the snail with these tongs that made me feel like Edward Scissorhands and I slide the snail into my mouth. My face is scrunched in anticipation of disgust, however after a few chews I look into the camera and say "Oh, it's alright. Oh it's actually fine. It's quite nice. Tastes like chicken." And that's all good, but then you start psyching yourself out, thinking about the texture which feels you're eating a big giant loogie and then everything turns awful and you spit it out into your napkin and curse yourself for ordering a bowl of twelve snails.

That night, I experienced a feeling of most inner turmoil, as if a storm had brewed inside of me and lightening struck my heart and my stomach sank out through my butt and I am still recovering from this experience until this very day. We get back to the hostel, and I turn on my laptop. The operating system is missing. My computer some-fucking-how DELETED EVERYTHING. All my photos. All my videos. All my work from Italy. All my music. My movies. Everything. I was left with a blank skeleton of a computer. But since I'm in fucking France I can't do anything about it because I don't speak French. That was the day my computer died. RIP. So, my Spain video I made never saw the light of Youtube and I will never see Shlomo's set at Lowlands that we strategically videoed so it didn't matter that we were too fucked up to remember it. It's all gone, still to this day. Everything is gone. I still haven't fully restocked my famous iTunes playlists, they are yet to be made again.

To cheer me up, me and Gen planned a day to Versailles. Which has been one of my favourite places in the whole world since I first went there in 2008. This was when my parents took me to Europe with them, on a trip they would think I'd appreciate. However, I don't have any siblings or cousins my age. So, I spent the whole month on some kind of Contiki tour for middle-aged historians and it was so fucking boring. I vowed to myself I would never step into another Medieval Castle or Ye Old Battleship ever again. It was the holiday of a lifetime if I was about 40 years older. I spent the whole month talking to myself and doing things I didn't want to do. One night, my parents and my auntie and uncle invited me along to a romantic dinner along the river Seine and I told them to fuck off bc I wanted to stay home and watch Dude, Where's My Car? for the 175th time. I was too young and too bored to appreciate the historical and cultural value of Europe, and I would have much preferred to go somewhere like America where all I have to do is eat McDonalds and go to theme parks. Anyway, the only place that actually entertained me was Versailles. It's this huge extravagant glamorous Palace, where Marie Antoinette had her own retreat park built for only her and her friends. If someone asks me the question, if you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? and it would undoubtably be Versailles. That day, me and Gen dressed as "ladies" and had a wonderfully pleasant time.

On our last night, we sat in front of the Eiffel Tower and watched in awe as the lights twinkled for so long I might have had an epileptic fit. It was really, really nice. That was another strange "I'm in Europe" kind of thing. All and all, this series of days was essentially a romantic getaway for Gen and I, as two girls who are often mistaken for lesbians in "the City of Love."

Week Six: Biddinghuizen (Lowlands)

Gen and I reunited at Amsterdam airport, where we spent a night staying at our friends apartment that we met in San Sebastian. I got to have a brief experience at a "coffee shop," which I'm surprised they are called because its obvious no one goes there for coffee. Then, I was enlightened to a franchise called "Wok to Walk" and it's essentially just Noodle Box but for some reason it was so much better...

Anyway, we went to sleep comfortably, preparing ourselves for the days ahead. On August 14, 15 and 16, me and Gen were at Lowlands located in a village called Biddinghuizen in the Netherlands. Line up included: Glass Animals, Vance Joy, Flume, Disclosure, Duke Dumont, Boy and Bear, Jungle, XXYYXX, Chet Faker, Gesaffelstein, Snoop Dogg, Die Antwoord, Shlomo, Kaytranada and Cashmere Cat.

I had previously ordered tickets to a bus that would take us straight from the train station to the festival. Gen and I left with our backpacks, rushing around, doing errands before the bus came. Eventually we made it to the bus station. As I poured 4 litres of vodka from glass bottles into plastic bottles, we waited for the bus. Then I finished doing that, and we were still waiting. Then we waited some more. After an hour, we decided we should check where the bus was, maybe we were in the wrong spot. Gen went to call the bus company, the conversation that occurred was as follows:
Gen: Hello, I am waiting for the bus to Lowlands, I'm just wondering whether it's late?
Guy who answers phone: The bus was yesterday.  

After finding another means of transport, me and Gen got on the train to Lowlands, it turns out it was a lot less difficult than we thought it was going to be. We spent the train ride talking to two guys who I can only describe as Pain and Panic from Disney's Hercules. But they were cool dudes. We went to pick up our "recyclable tent" as the company likes to call it, or as we liked to call it, a giant garbage bag. Made from plastic, I'm surprise the tent didn't just blow away in a storm. Me and Gen set it up and poked about 50 holes in it in the first five seconds. After our tireless effort, we decided to have a nap. Neither of us owned working phones at the time, so we had no way of telling the time. Eventually, I woke up to the sounds of "holdin' on...holdin' on" and I screamed at Gen that we had to run quick because Flume was on, in my delirium I was very excited about this, when in reality I don't really like Flume that much. But his set was good. Anyway, then we decided that 5:30pm was appropriate time to get drunk and that is exactly what we did. Along the way, we met our friend Hein, who insisted that we were "real rock n roll chicks." Duke Dumont was also that night, he might have been my favourite set.

The next day, I am so severely disappointed in us. We slept until the afternoon, until we decided that we should go see XXYYXX. We hung out with some people from the tent to us, and I spent the entire time puzzled as to why none of them were wearing pants. Then Gen and I tried to watch Chet Faker but the amount of people with beards standing in the crowd made me uncomfortable and so we had to leave. We then returned to our tent and laughed ourself into a nap. I told Gen we needed to wake up at 8:30 because I wanted to see Gesaffelstein. Later on that night, I awoke. I crawled out from underneath bits of plastic flaps and looked to the people in the tent next to us.
Katie: Hey, hi. Sorry. What's the time?
Rando guy: 1:30
Katie: Is that... 1:30pm?  
Rando guy: No...the sky is...dark... it's 1:30am. 
Katie: Oh, FUCK

After we totally fucking WASTED a WHOLE DAY, we were determined to put on our "yolo" hats and go hard. But first, lettuce get a kebab for breakfast (as seen in picture.) This is where Gen was spotted by a "style expert" from fucking teen VOGUE (or some shit I can't actually remember the website) where the lady asked to take a photo of Gen's outfit and I literally spat out my food and screamed with laughter since she had bought that outfit from Primark and had been wearing the same thing the entire duration of the festival. Update: unfortunately, Gen didn't make it to the website. I would have like to have shown the picture.

That afternoon, I had the pleasure to see Snoop Dogg aka Snoop Lion. And by see, I mean stand about a kilometre away and look at him on the big screen. But as he emerged from behind a cloud of smoke from the joint he was smoking, wearing a bucket hat and bopping to California Love, I lost my shit. Also, Die Antwoord are still the coolest people in the world, Yolandi makes me proud to be a tiny blonde albino. And then, the rest of the day is lost. Next thing I remember doing is regaining consciousness during Kaytranada's set about 10 hours later. Go hard or go home, am I right?
We did have video evidence of everything that happened, but again, more on that later.

We let the sun rise, then crawled back into our plastic bag. At what I thought was mid afternoon, I forced Gen to get up and leave the festival straight away. The festival the day it finishes is never fun. Seeing flattened grass from where tents used to be and the disgusting amount of rubbish left on the ground, it's a buzz killer if I ever saw one. We looked at our tattered piece of plastic tent, that if you return at the end of the festival, you get 15 euros back. We took a look at what it had become, and said a big "fuuuck that" and practically ran away from the festival. Post-festival-depression is a real, debilitating illness that should be taken seriously. Experience the worst hang-down ever, me and Gen SOMEHOW organised a train to Paris that night.

Week Six: Copenhagen & Aarhus

On the plane to Copenhagen, I thought it would be a good idea to place my iPhone into the airplane pocket in front of me. Then I said to myself "better not forget that!" And then I forgot it. Regardless, I made my way to the hostel where I was meeting my cousin, Steve. This "hostel" completely lacked the occasional charm of a hostel, with its party atmosphere and quirky DIY vibe. This "hostel" was pretty much just an office building filled with bunk beds. We arrived in our room at 10pm at night whilst everyone was still asleep. There was a 65 year old married couple who had pushed their beds together and were sleeping in their underwear. We then decided to take a stroll around, which inevitably was just a long detour to a Macca's run. But Copenhagen was looking pretty cool to me. Steve told me about a place near Copenhagen, that I think is genuinely called "Pusher street" where it is legal to buy and sell drugs. The only thing that is illegal is to take photos. Pretty cool.

The next day we walked to this statue that you can vaguely see in the background of this selfie. For some reason, this statue of the Little Mermaid is like really famous. This statue can be added to the underwhelming tourist destination list. We walked for about an hour to take this photo, and then we left to go get calzones for lunch. Steve and I did also play an extended game of Game of Thrones guess who, which spanned a few days. Then we encountered this amazing franchise called Joe's Juice or something, which is most famously known for their incredibly attractive super-model like staff, with so many different kinds to choose from. Me and Steve did sit at the counter for about 45 minutes watching them dance around, making coffees and turning blenders on and then off. Riveting stuff. Then we got caught in some kind of rain blizzard and I actually almost blew away almost 5 times. Later that night, we were originally going to see Planet of the Apes, but when in Denmark, films have Danish subtitles, so when the monkeys start speaking in monkey sign language to each other, we wouldn't know what they are saying. So we saw Guardians of the Galaxy, which is like the best fucking movie ever. Then, we went to the Tivoli, which is like an adventure park from a fairytale. Lovely.

Then that night I stayed awake the whole time listening to an old man instigate an earthquake with his mouth every time he snored. He had had actually forewarned me that day, as if telling me he snores would make me hate him any less. The next day we took the train to Aarhus, were Steve was working. I stayed in his friends apartment on a blow up mattress for 3 days, as I was visited by a strong wish to remain in bed the entire time. People don't think about that when you travel, that you forget that you bring yourself with you. You're hungry, you're tired, you're hot, you're cold. It never ends. 

Week Five: Barcelona, Pamplona (Kind Of), San Sebastian

On this fateful day, I finally was reunited with my two best friends Gen and Catherine. For Catherine, we got to share one night in Barcelona before she left to go back home to Australia. That night we went to Ramablam or whatever the name is of the biggest club in Spain or whatever. We dranks and impressed people with our music tastes, I should be a DJ. But seriously, someone teach me how to be a DJ.

Then me and Gen decided to spend a day at the beach, but first lettuce get some lunch! We stop at this seaside lunch place and order some calamari and pizza, sounds delicious! Yes, let's order a plate full of Ebola and get sick and die. This is exactly what happened. But, I have been blessed with the stomach size of a babies fist so I don't really eat that much. Gen, on the other hand, inhaled a whole bowl of what was essentially live squids, and half a fluro orange margarita pizza. Cue food poisoning. Huzzah! I spent the next few days on a holiday in Spain by myself, going out to karaoke and shot bars with a bunch of randoms, they were cool though. Also, I had a new experience with a thing called a Monica Lewinsky. I was fortunate enough to not have it happen to me, thank god my dignity and humility remains intact. For those who don't know a "Monica Lewinsky" is a beer bottle inside of a giant plastic brown dick, that the bartender blindfolds you and shakes it into your face. I was lucky to witness a girl happily ingest the whipped cream and suck the fake penis before doing a slut drop and howling a classic "Whew!" like a girl from an American sorority. Which I assume she was. This same girl later on got mad at her almost-boyfriend for having a conversation with another girl. #doublestandards




The next day, Gen feeling bright and refreshed for our next journey, insisted that we move to San Sebastian. After waiting in a line for 2 hours, we find out that there are no trains leaving for San Sebastian that day. We were already 2 days behind "schedule" so we opted to board a train that had a stop over in Pamplona for the night. We voluntarily, and foolishly, decided not book a hostel for the night, assuming we could spend the 5 hours in the deserted train station making a horror film. For the spare time we had, we rode bikes along the beach of Barcelona. This was practically the first time I had explored the city in daylight, and I decided that I kind of liked it. It's v exotic.

Then we got on the train, spent a few hours playing Game of Thrones guess who, then finally arrived at our destination. Pamplona. Home to fucking NOTHING if you don't come during the running with the bulls festival. We step out into this shack made of cardboard and tumble weed rolls past. A 95 year old man rattles his keys at us and tells us we have to leave the station because he needs to close up. We walk out onto the road with our suitcases and realise that we are in the middle of no-where at midnight and we have no where to go. We spend the next 45 minutes inspecting bushes and playgrounds that we might be able to sleep in. After a serious conversation with myself, I had actually mentally prepared for the fact that we would be straight up homeless for the night, a stream of light from the heavens comes beaming down upon an open, vacant hotel. That night we stayed in one of the nicest places we'd stayed so far, with the best showers and free Wifi, and they served a free buffet breakfast in the morning.... that we missed because we were asleep... but still we won we won the homeless game.

We made it to San Sebastian the next day. We were staying in this hostel which was definitely just this dude's apartment that he painted white and put in a few bunk beds. But it was cool, it felt like we were all friends living on top of each other in some kind of sitcom. Me and Gen discovered a place that offered a two course meal and a bottle of wine for 11 euros, and we spent that day drunk driving our bikes along the beach. We met some fellow Australian's and we all went bike riding together, it was glorious. I fucking love bike riding. However, I also fucking hate swimming. For some fucked up reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to swim to this island here in the middle. I have always been a horrible swimmer, I'm the dyslexic equivalent for swimming. After doggy paddling the entire way and almost drowning, we made it to this centre island here.

That night, like stepping into some sort of horrific nightmare, something happened to me that may have traumatised me deep into my bones. But first a back story: 1. I'm mildly claustrophobic, I'm v irritable and, to quote Gen, my personality is too big for a confined space. 2. There were a collection of infuriatingly stupid people staying in the hostel. 3. There was an elevator in the building. 4. We had all been playing Kings beforehand. Guess what happens next.

We got drunk and decided to ride the elevator down when were leaving but the infuriatingly stupid people clambered in after us, one of these people being fucking like 6"5, and fucking BROKE THE ELEVATOR. And I was stuck there, I remained in this space for 40 minutes, not speaking to anyone and slowly panting through the crack in the door, with my friend, sweating profusely, while the other fuckwits tried to play "I never" to pass the time. At one point, the rage spiralled up in me, so infuriated, that I lunged forward and pushed my bodyweight against the door in which it decided to just break open. I flew out, screaming, then I asked if anybody had actually tried to open the door. Nobody cared. Time for more beers. We slammed down some vodka shots to try and suppress the memory of such a traumatic experience. Then the fun continued, when a guy from the hostel was being pinned down by the police for punching his girlfriend in the face. Or something. Best night.

The next day, me and Gen parted ways that morning. I somehow managed to travel from San Sebastian to Copenhagen by myself, I am still not quite sure how this was accomplished. I did past the time editing together an amazing video of Spain. Want to see it? Well you fucking can't. More on that later. 

Italy: Chapter One

I also chucked together a little video of Italy too.

Week Four: Milan

And here we are on my last night in Italy. Jake was there too but we needed someone to take the photo. After certain experiences you know that you're not supposed to give random people your expensive belongings because they run away with them. But, on that, my experience was pretty safe, I didn't have anything REALLY bad happen. Don't let people scare you with all those stories of gypsies throwing babies at you.  In hindsight, it was really amazing. Not the gypsy babies part, I meant Italy as a whole. I learned a lot about myself, and that I'm a walking contradiction, especially when it comes to being both laid back and easily frustrated. I learned a lot academically as well, it marks the beginning of my effervescent love for Celtx.

So, on the 1st of August I waved out the window of a bus on the way to the airport, so that I could meet my friends in Barcelona. To my misfortune and lack of organisation, I missed my fucking flight. After about an hour of lying spread eagle, crying heavily, I accepted my fate and spent the night in Hotel Ibis where I had dinner by myself in the hotel bar and then went to sleep in my overly large bed. I felt like Clooney in Up In The Air and that made me feel okay again. Anyway, the next day I check out and actually left for Barcelona this time.

Week Three: Rome

For our last weekend, me and Tammy decided to escape to Rome. We stayed at this "hostel" Gen recommended. But when we got there, it turns out it was like a freakin' summer camp. We had our own private cabin and there was a pool and a bar and it had it's own restaurant. I would have been able to just stay at this place the whole time, like fuck Rome.

So here we are, overjoyed with our giant cabin to ourselves. We went to go lay by the pool like superstars, and as all summer camps are, it was crawling with teenie boppers twerking to the pool DJ's and trying to impress each other. Me and Tammy were watching on amusedly, before being interrupted by the bartender who insisted on pouring peach schnapps into our mouths straight from the bottle. In which me and Tammy replied, "yeah okay, but we're not paying for it." And then he murmured something about it him being horny while doing it and it was gross but he was pretty funny otherwise. Then he forced the guy next to us, who I like to call Ewan McGreggor, to do the same. We struck up a conversation with our now good mate Louie, who was french but reading a Japanese book and he remained our friend for the whole time.

Later that night, the bartender invited us back down to the bar with his friend and we were like yeah why not free alcohol. We got into discussions about communism and what weapons you would use in a zombie apocalypse,  in which Louie replied "the bagpipes." And it was probably the funniest thing I've ever heard. Then we invited ourselves to a toga party that was held by a top-deck tour. Which was largely inhabited by other Australian's. As I watched a multitude of guys stand on the bar and flap around their bare willies, it was the first time I was kind of embarrassed to be Australian. Then 10 minutes later I was doing my break dancing moves, so I can't really talk. Later on that night, me and Tammy were enjoying ourselves on our own patio, as shown in picture, when the two bartenders fucking FOLLOWED US back to our bungalow. It was the most awkwardest thing ever we were like "okay......goodnight" and then they wouldn't leave. Can I just mention that these guys were like 30 years old. I can't really remember how we managed to escape but I imagine that it was something along the lines of me dissolving into a puddle of liquid and discreetly seeping through the crack of the front door. That night I forced Tammy to let me spoon her because I felt afraid for my life.

The next day we went to the Colosseum, which was fucking AWESOME. I really have a soft spot for historical torture so learning about all this was like the most interesting thing I've ever heard. First of all, the building has been around since 72AD which is like, if "Jesus" had made it to a Grandpa he would have been alive when it was built. It's so crazy, there were people with lives back then. They'd waltz on down like we go the cinema, they're like "lets go throw some Christian's to the lions" and then afterwards they'd go have an orgy. That was their lives. My favourite story, favourite in the kind of way that I actually yelled "oh my fucking god", was they would wrap the criminals in raw meat and catapult them from the top of the building into a pit of starving animals, and all the animals would jump to catch the person in mid air. How fucked up is that. 

Here I am walking around Rome, nothing really interesting to say here but this picture needs more recognition. 

And here is a really nice picture of me and Louie. 

Week Two: Milan & Venice

I realised I hadn't introduced my purpose of being in Milan. Aside from travelling, I was also studying Italian Cinema and Creative Writing with 5 other Australian students. For the first week, we all waddled around as a group of ducks exploring their new environment. Here we found:

At first, I felt significantly underwhelemed by Milan, as most of its architecture is pretty bland and industrial. Early into the second week, we discovered the canals which dramatically increased my affections for Milan, it's a pretty nice place to be. There's also this thing called "Apertivo" which is like 3 hours long and you get a fucking FREE buffet. Smartest idea ever, skip dinner and fill up on free chicken wings, let the juices run down your chin and enjoy the fact that its pretty much FREE. The only downside is you have to buy a drink to get the buffet - which is a total shame #sarcasm. I had the best fucking sangria I've ever had.

Later on that week, Tammy, Jake and I made our way down to Garibaldi. Not sure what the actual name of the street was but it was buzzzin'. We sat around drinking mojitos, smoking a shisha and playing "two truths and a lie." 

The next day we jumped on a train to Venice. This place blew my mind. I turned to Tammy and Jake and said "we will probably never get to come here again." Apparently, in a few years its all going to be underwater. That made this whole thing a lot more like.. surreal I guess. It's a beautiful place. But the city is a microcosm of human pollution. It's a beautiful place but then there are drunk people and fat American's everywhere just throwing their rubbish on the ground and suffocating the streets. It's kind of overwhelming. And sad.

But here I am not giving a fuck sipping on an espresso martini. Or whatever the bartender made, since he had no idea what an espresso martini was. Can I just say, I'm gonna go ahead and say it. Whoever said that Italy was the coffee capital of the world is obviously a 82 year old Italian man who hasn't left the country in his entire existence. Melbourne absolutely fucking OWNS Italy in coffee. I actually don't think I had one nice coffee in Italy at all. Or if I did, it was so average that it deserves to be forgotten. My favourite kind of coffee in Italy was one that came out of a fucking ice cream machine.

Anyway, this was a very nice little restaurant anyway. We were sheltered from the sun via vines and I had some kind of vegetarian pasta dish and I felt really clean and like a real adult.

Then we found this incredibly spiritual podium thing that goes out onto the water and we watched the sunset. Tammy and I talked about how strange it was that we were sitting on the other side of the world. At that time, I thought that I would have much better moments in my travels then sitting there, but to be honest - I don't think I have. 

And now I just wanted to include this picture because it looks like if the Grand Budapest Hotel was on water and I really like it. If I could live somewhere in an imaginary world I would live in this building.

Week One: Milan & Lake Como, Italy

Torn between total heartbreak, anxiety, fear of the unknown and I guess a mild excitement, I got on a plane from Melbourne to Milan. I spent the entirety of 28 hours stuck between sleeping asian ladies and business men. The only thing I really remember about it now was that I watched a Brittany Murphy movie and I seriously cannot believe she is dead. And that, as a naive flyer and since I am still part child, I thought it would be a good idea to book the window seat. Which I realise now is the stupidest thing ever because I spent about 75% of the time of the flight crouched on the seat, watching the people next to me sleep. It's because I felt too polite to wake them up, so when I was literally seconds away from pissing my comfortable plane appropriate pants, I did a spider-monkey-like jump over to the empty seats behind me and made it to the plane toilet, aka the claustrophobic's nightmare. 

When I touched down in Milan-town, I realised I had to make it to the student accommodation by myself. This involved such Italian cultural activities as swatting away beggars and crooks and sitting on a sidewalk of some kind of shanty-town, crying. This is the suburb we lived in for the next month. If I could liken it to anything would be like if Footscray was raped by the Bronx, it would give birth to Lambrate. On several occasions did we spot smashed out windows of cars and homeless drug addicts that looked like the members of the Prodigy. But after a while, we grew to love it, it did become our home, with creepy discomforting charm. Aside from the fact that the communal area was practically Count Olaf's kitchen, there were boogers smeared on my bedroom walls from the previous inhabitant, and someone should have advised against telling Italian men which room you stay in, in case they visit you at unorthodox hours of the morning, I won't go on to talk too much about the state of our living conditions, because I know that in comparison to other places, it really wasn't that bad. 

Right, let's start from the beginning. This is my second day in Italy, the pink still in my hair and the red wined stained teeth that, I was still coming to terms with, was acceptable to have at midday, because like, fuck it I'm in Europe. I got to meet up with my fiercely fabulous friend Gen and her boyfriend, David. We spent a lot of this time drinking because, to be honest, there really isn't anything else to do in Milan, other than look at this building here, the Duomo. It is pretty cool, it took 600 years to build and we actually saw some real life dead priests in glass coffins. But it's one of those places you take a ridiculously embarrassing tourist photo out the front of it, then you're done.

I feel a tiny bit bad about it now, that I didn't ask any of my other soon to be friends in my course if they wanted to hang out with us. I found out later, everyone pretty much just sat in their rooms crying about how the Wifi didn't work. I regret this now, we could have started off with a bang.

Also, this is the last photo I took with my DSLR before it got stolen out of my bag on a train. I would just like to say a big Fuck You to whoever did that. I gave my fair share of coins to homeless people and I would have happily bought you lunch if you didn't steal my fucking camera, asshole.

But eventually it was all good, I did this cool thing that I consider "friend-speed-dating." Because by about 4 days later, me and Tammy were already going out to a club together and this was like the 3rd time we'd been drunk that week so I guess that's pretty impressive. This photo here is taken on our luxurious rooftop, that we essentially had to ourselves. I think if I had to live here long term I would have bought some furniture like a sun baking chair or whatever they're called, instead of watching Tammy laze around on her tea-towel sized towel. Anyway, we had some good times on this roof. I'm happy for this roof, it was an Italian summer and we got to watch the sunset a lot of times and it contains a lot of happy moment's on this roof.

The story behind this photo is that we went to an outdoor club that played a lot of Pitbull and the DJ would announce the song changing by tooting a loud siren noise, that coincidently is at the start of like every Pitbull song. Also, I just remembered they played Linkin Park's "Numb" and Eminem's "Real Slim Shady," and they weren't doing this as a joke, Europe is about 10 years behind on music. This is also the first time we learned that Italian men think they have the right to dance with you and touch you whenever they want, which lead to me and Tammy dancing on a podium for literally the entire night, we actually had the security guard rejecting guys who wanted to dance with us. We were like famous people, it was pretty cool.

The next morning Jake woke us up at 6am and somehow we made it to Florence, even though I was so hung over I spent the whole time with my eyes closed. Here I am in the city that's in Assassin's Creed 2 and I really enjoyed posing like Altair and making eagle noises as I synchronised my viewpoints before jumping into a hay bale below me. I also had to pay like 1 euro to use the bathroom which is like utter bullshit. I really enjoyed Florence because it was so stereotypically Italian, it was one of the first times it really hit me that I wasn't at home anymore.

Here's Tammy. We sat here and I had my 75th pizza and we had to buy water which is bullshit. We walked around for most of the day until we realised that there's only so much walking you can do before you wear your legs down into stumps and then you don't have feet anymore. Then we got back on our tour bus, literally just so that we could nap. I think the bus took us somewhere in the countryside, but I wouldn't really know because I was asleep. 20 euros well spent. 

Then on the way home we accidentally left Tammy on the train and I've never been so irrationally fearful for someones life. I actually think I had serious heart palpitations and if I had to run anymore I might have just collapsed and died on the spot. After taking this ridiculous trek back home turns out she was in her room and she was fine. 

Now here we are in Lake Como. Someone somewhere started a rumour that you can swim in this lake, and thank you very much to that person because it caused our tour guide to laugh right in our faces. We were under the impression that we were off on a train to relax by the side of this picturesque location. Instead, we were greeted by an overtly arrogant hung over guy whose tour guide skills peaked at statements like "I know you don't give a shit about this..." or "This thing here is pretty boring but I'll tell you anyway." And for some reason he kept slapping my hat with his hand, I think it was supposed to be a joke but it was straight up violent. Then during the lunch break he got into a fist fight with the other tour guide and then he just ditched us and left us stuck in the middle of no where. In summary, Lake Como was shit. I'm sure the place is nice on other days, because as we were told George Clooney has a holiday house there but I didn't see him so it doesn't count.

Also, on the train back a group of men were taking photos of Tammy and it was hideously creepy. We had experienced a lot of misogyny in our time in Italy, but Tammy has a black-belt so better fucken watch out.

Here we are that same day at the Holi Festival, back in Milan. It was actually an extremely fun afternoon, except unfortunately we spent the whole fucking day at Lake Como so we had no time for pre-drinks so I was stone cold sober the whole time. The music was intense ear-rapingly bangers, I had an American girl watch me dance and tell me I was her "spirit animal," and me and Tammy proclaimed our love for each other for the first time.