Kate invited me to go down to Wollongong with her and so I was due to go the evening of the Sydney festival. During the day I met up with the lovely Franzi, who came out around the festival with me, unfortunately it was only for about 2 hours so we didn’t see a lot of the fest. What we did see was a man in a dinosaur suit running about scaring little kids and a man dressed as an ATM, various bands playing different easy going music and an acrobatic show where a couple of fools were fooling about on stage pretending to hit each other. I bought some sandals and a hat (finally) from Paddy’s Market, enjoyed the random festivities and then ended up at a Barbie on the roof, courtesy of Polotoni who worked at the YHA, (please forgive me Poli if I have spelled it wrong) I chatted to him in the morning and my good mood and smile got me into a Barbie and free luggage storage whilst I was checking out. I bought my new GBF along to it and we ate loads and then I found a welsh girl and spent about an hour trying to convince her to come with me to the festival which was going on without us, in the end it worked but Jesse (GBF) was scolding me like a disappointed school teacher for taking so long and not just walking away, I would have but she was cute and I wanted her to come with us, so I made sure she did.
So off we ran with Anharrad (Welsh girl) in tow and spent ages trying to find Kate who was enjoying some awesome jazz music, which I can attest to be awesome as we did find her in time to catch the end of it and had a good jive, they even played “I wanna be like you.” (Some of us might remember that song from the jungle book.) Kate showed us all up and Jesse swept me off my feet, odd to not be the lead in a Jive but then an ex girlfriend back in England was also my dance teacher so I’m not totally unused to it. We twirled and spun, got very dizzy drunk gallons of water (which we promptly sweated out again), grabbed strangers and danced with them and finally the band sung their last song and we realized we were late for our train. So off we ran, knowing full well that we wouldn’t catch our train, I also had to pick up the bags I had left in storage at the YHA, but we ran anyway, and after a little while Kate said “Give me your bag and run, go get your stuff” so I sprinted, for the first time in a long time I ran flat out, through the obstacle course of human traffic littering the street, I ran so fast that I began to ignite, then I got to the hostel and had to describe in intimate detail the contents of the bags I wanted to pick up having lost the tags for the bags, naturally I missed the train.
So Kate and I caught the next train, we jumped on and sat there chatting to each other and the guards about all sorts of nonsense and she told me all about the place we were to go to, but not before a ridiculously painful walk carrying my 24 kg bag and a 10 kg carrier bag which felt heavier due to its awkward shape and crappy handles. When we did get to the house I was pretty pleased though, it was a cosy little place, very clean and Kate had set out a surprise for me that she had been hinting at on the train, we have a running joke about tea that started in Darwin and now results in even our nicknames for each other being tea related, the surprise was several ornate tea cups and pots laid out all over the house, from elegant bone china to oversized brightly, multi-coloured mugs. I was so tired it took me about half an hour to even notice it, however once I did I was suitably impressed.
So I spent a few days there, making combined meals of my spice filled cooking with Kate’s bizarre but delicious salad to make veritable feasts, arguing over everything from what to put in the food to the meaning of life to whether red is a good colour, swimming at the local beach and experimenting with metaphysics. We even ended up fighting when I bought a minuscule piece of ginger to use for the food, I maintain that I was right; although I’m sure Kate would differ. I would like to add that whilst not arguing we drank tea and got on like a house on fire, Kate and I do actually get on quite well.
