People watching is one of my favourite hobbies. The best place to partake in this activity is in the airport. This next event I am about to share, not only woke me up from my delusional state of not having gone to sleep, but was like an episode of “Days of our lives”, minus sexy time. HBO live, front and center.

This time again, I worked on saturday night, only to catch a flight at 7 the following morning. I believe, I cleaned the bar in record time that night, so I could leave the bar by 4:30 to make my flight. Luckily I left promptly, or else I wouldn’t have witnessed this. I checked in, arrived at my terminal, curled up into a ball, and let the sleep take over me. As I was about to drift off, I heard a little feud going on a few feet in front of me. A petite Japanese lady was seconds away from missing her flight, but had one too many bags to board. So the Jetstar staff told her she could not board unless she left one of the bags behind. The lady who basically disappears when turned to the side, tries to communicate with broken english in her high pitched voice. She explained to the girl that she requested online to bring four bags and not two, but the girl would not have it. Though, to be frank, the Jetstar girl looked deceptively nice, but was a real bitch. She wouldn’t give the Japanese lady any time of day. “you have 1 minute to get on that plane or you’re not going…” “you’re not taking that bag… I’m done talking to you.” Their audience, were the sporadically spread out group of couples and singlets (like myself) sitting in the chairs waiting to board our own flights. Anyways, the blonde jetstar gal ended up closing the gate. Things then got real heated up (as if it hadn’t already) and the Japanese lady chucked her trolley at the blondie. “Oh no she didn’t”. The man staff that was occupying the same space as the two girls were, was a bit more considerate and more patient than blondie, but that chuck caused him to lose it. This poor Japanese lady. A herd of Jetstar staff stampeded down to the terminal and what seemed to be the “boss” lady tried to talk to the Japanese lady, but this small, unfortunate incident resulted into 4 words: “the police are coming.” Seriously? A minute later, two male cops came strolling down, as if they were walking the red carpet and approached the lady. In the end there were five cops surrounding the Japanese lady and her translator. The clock hadn’t even struck 7am, let alone my trip hadn’t begun yet, and ridiculousness had already began. I suspected this trip wouldn’t be anything less than exciting, and was I right.

….

13 dollars later, I arrived at the Ghan Station. The Adelaide airport is so far away from everything. Granted, most airports are like this, but riding in the bus to the Ghan station made me think of something George Winters once said: “If God had really intended men to fly, he’d make it easier to make it to the airport.”  The train was scheduled to leave at 12:20pm, but I had arrived around 8ish… the kiosk/stores/cafe weren’t even opened. Luckily enough there was free wifi which I did not anticipate on having. I passed time by scrolling through my iphone, reading some, and exploring the minimal train shop and forcing myself in cafe food consumption. Choo Choo’s was it’s name-o. I kid you not. I could not have come up with a better name. Choo Choo’s cafe… where do I begin. You all know my love for food, but when this particular helping touched my palate, my love to nom quickly dwindled. I ordered my per usual soy mocha and because I hadn’t eaten since 8 the previous night, I was famished. I ordered what sounded to be nomable, chocolate chip spearmint muffin and a ham and cheese sandwich (though I got ham, cheese, and tomato…). Sounds decently good right? More like a flavourable round piece of cardboard. let me tell you about the soy mocha of a “coffee”. Never in my life had I wished to be chugging down the soy mocha from The Potter. I reckon the only point that resembled my order was the soy. Chocolate syrup? The “barista” must’ve had bad aim. The coffee itself? It wasn’t. I took a sip and forced the next four down thinking I could trick my taste buds… but they were hardly fooled. Every sip taken, it was rejected. I had spoiled my buds for 5 months too long for them to settle for stale. I was more than OK to chuck this full drink into the rubbish. Typically I don’t throw away food that I purchase, but this was an exception. Honestly, 7-eleven coffee taste better than Choo Choo’s. The muffin. My hunger was terminated once this muffin greeted me. It was cold, stale (surprise) and tasted nothing like the name. I crunched on through, but again threw the remains away. My stomach as you can guess was nowhere satisfied-so I gave the cafe another chance (3 times the charm?) and ate the sandwich. I do not know what spread they used, but it was repulsive. When I tried to scrape it off, the bread came off with it. You can assume where that item went. So I headed over to the train shop and purchased some lollies (candy) and a bag of crisps. Yay for healthiness. I ate all of it and it lasted for the entire overnight train ride. By the time my stomach endured through the adventure of inedible food, people were trickling into the terminal. Before I knew it, we were boarding up the train! Trains are my favourite. I was seated in the red seat compartment. The seats were nice and more spacious than I expected. These seats were definitely made for comfort, as I could curl up in a ball and sleep. If I didn’t excercise as I do and ate the way I do, I wouldn’t fit. The leg space was more than enough as well. I am only 5’7″ so I don’t need much room to make me happy, but Yao Ming could sit comfortably here too.

getting ready to board!

The seats

restaurant on the train

My journey to the center had began and I could not be any more excited. I slept so much on this ride, I am pretty sure it made up for the loss of sleep I didn’t get whilst examination period. Anyways, when I finally awoken, the first thing I realised were the people travelling along with me. It seemed as though everyone was German. Throughout my year of learning german back at home, I felt like I learned/talked more german in the short week in SA and NT than that whole school year. During the night, I was freezing. Luckily I was wearing my XL TCTW navy jumper and could engulf myself in it. Stupidly, I forgot I had Mike’s sleeping bag with me and could use that to warm me up. I only came to this discovery when I awoke early the next morning and had only a few hours left. But at least I was comfortable during those remaining hours? Oh well. When the train arrived in Alice Springs, I got off the train and two things hit me: my legs and the heat. Since I had been sitting down for so long, my legs had lost it’s memory of how to function, and the heat hit me like a freight train, goodness gracious. As soon as my feet touched the soil, my light gray shirt quickly turned to dark. My trip had officially begun, but the pace of it beginning was frustratingly slow. When I got off the train, I walked towards the pick up area and was waiting for the hostel’s shuttle bus to come pick me up. One problem though, I had no idea where I was staying, the name of the hostel that is. I called the agency that booked my accommodation but the girl never did answer my question and I had hung up before I realised. I then assumed it was “Alice Lodge Backpackers”. Wrong. Found that out when I arrived at the place and the receptionist informed me it was Toddy’s. Wrong again. Luckily this time I didn’t make a trip over there to be turned down again. I called the agency once more and they answered my question- Annie’s place. Their tag line- “the happiest place ever.”Cheesy I know, but as I came to find out, a few tour guides stay there. One of them included a guy named Dingo. I’ll get to him later. 8 dollars and 50 cents later, I arrived at Annie’s via Taxi (so much for free transportation) and went into the city to reconfirm my place on tour and bought some snacks for the trip. I spent a solid 30 bucks alone at a gas station… Shell I recall. One item I bought was a meat pie. I was starving yet again and my stomach got the best of me. This meat pie was definitely not a smart decision and had its payback the following morning whilst on the van to Uluru.

eeeeee!

This beginning of my week long trip had just begun and unexpected things were occurring randomly. I loved it. Whenever I travel, I typically don’t have any set plans, just my arrival and departure tickets, and even then my departure tickets change. Whatever happens, happens and I always welcome those events with open arms. This is the best way of travelling and experiencing life.