Dear all,
Finally back in Sydney again.
I flew in tired but happy having spent a marvellous New Year back in Tasmania.
God but I love that place.
I took a taxi and was chatting to the driver and said this to him. He told me that he'd come here fifteen years earlier for two weeks construction work. He said he knew within five minutes that he would stay here for the rest of his life.
And he had.
I was relieved to find that my suitcase was still alive, I wasn't overly confident that the twenty bucks I slipped the porter at the Sydney Central hotel would stop him or someone else emptying it.
The porter proudly announced that I has been upgraded at no extra cost to myself.
The upgrade consisted of a small portable colour television in a small room.
That didn't work.
The rooms are clean but more like a rabbit hutch than a bedroom, there's no air conditioning, the showers and loos are down the coridoor and the noise from the open windows from the city below is deafening.
Not bad for eighty bucks a night.
As you can see I've gotten into the lingo, I even say G'day from time to time.
Unbeknown to me that first night the room was crawling with mosquitos. They weren't a problem when I stayed there briefly a month ago, then Sydney was drowning in monsoons. Now it is awash with the little buggers. I must have been bitten about fifteen times in the night, the underside of my right arm is so swollen it looks like I've burst a blood vessel.
There's some satisfaction in smashing the bastards against the wall with a paper, and seeing the blood smeared over the white paint. It is bright red, and you know, that almost all of that spread blood is probably yours, sucked out the night before.
I'd had enough, so the next day I moved out of moisquito central and into an apartment in Chinatown, Syndey.
It's odd staying in a Western city where Chinese is the first language. Even the internet cafes are set up for Chinese keyboards and character sets. I'll be staying here until next Friday trying to get my bloody visas sorted out.
Now they all should have been sorted by now, but unfortunately I hit a tiny little snag before the cold-filled Christmas.
I washed my passport.
It's still readable, but the consul in Melbourne advised me to get it replaced, but I need the damn thing to travel around on planes and to get the visas for Cambodia, Vietnam and India sorted out.
A sort of vicous circle, but I'm hoping to get the ball rolling this week.
I'll have to stay in Australia longer than planned but what the hell I love the place.
yechydda,