Tales of Prisoners and Sheep-Fuckers ...
Also: What on earth is a "Hitler-Rating"?
Singapore
27.-29. June 2000
Yes, I know. Singapore is not exactly a part of Australia, but I did a stop-over there on my way to the sheepfuckers and that's why it's in here. After a wonderful flight with QUANTAS (excellent service, and the food was actually edible!) I arrived in Singapore at about 7pm. Took a step out of the airport and found myself under palm trees in beautiful tropical climate - 30° and 90% humidity. Having checked in my hotel, I took a walk round Clarke Quay, had something to eat and started looking for a place where I could watch the EURO 2000 semifinal that was on next evening. There really was a pub, just a few meters away from the hotel, that was broadcasting the game live. Excellent. The next day I participated in one of those city tours - but it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Actually, it was quite interesting, the guide was a cynic and provided (when asked and his mic was turned off) interesting information apart from the usual tourist bullshit. In the afternoon, I took a walk round the city, and spent some time in Little India and Chinatown, getting seriously stuffed - food is excellent (if you like Asian style) and cheap. In the evening I hit the pub early enough to make sure nothing and nobody was ruining my view of the vidscreen. It was a pretty funny thing, watching this EURO semifinal in a pub in Asia. I'd witnessed some Singapore league soccer on my hotel room's TV earlier that day and that was extremely horrible. Due to the time lag, the game started at 2am local time and thus I didn't make it back to my hotel before 5 in the morning. There wasn't much sense in trying to sleep, I had to check out at 11, so I stayed awake, checked out early, and enjoyed another day in Singapore - the plane would only leave in the early evening. There is one thing that Singapore is renowned for, and that is shopping. You can find a mall every few steps, multi-story buildings all selling the same bullshit. Much more interesting are the various markets or bazars, especially in the Chinese, Indian, and Arabian parts of the city. And, of course, the millions of millions of cool food places :-). A myth that is still being spread about Singapore is that computers and electronics are sooooo cheap - forget it. It's not true. I finished my stay in this fascinating city with a visit to two museums of Asian Civilization, which was a very smart move - they were really interesting, at least if you have a faible for Asian culture, as I do. Well, after that it was back to the airport, back to QUANTAS and off to Australia.
Armidale
30. June - 05. July 2000
QUANTAS flight part two was every inch as good as part one. I arrived at Sidney International at 5am and managed to get through the paranoid Australian customs quickly and easily. Having to catch my domestic flight to Armidale at 8.45am, I asked an airport official for the way to the "Impulse Airlines" terminal. He gave me, of course, the wrong instructions - the Impulse terminal was at a totally different location and I had to take a taxi to get there. Did I already mention that it was cold (well, at least compared to beautiful Singapore) and raining? After several attempts I finally managed to find the Impulse 'terminal' which was basically a hut in a concrete desert. Wow. Nevermind, I thought, you just have to hang out here for a few hours, so it doesn't matter. I 'checked in' my luggage and made myself comfortable in the 'waiting lounge'. At about 8am, several other people started to arrive and I was looking forward to leaving soon. I hadn't had any proper meal in the last twelve hours, I hadn't slept for 48 hours - so my nerves were a bit strained. There was nothing in this place besides shitty tea and coffee - which didn't help me fight the starvation process I was in. Those of you familiar with Murphy's Law already know what's coming. There was no plane, no boarding call, no nothing. Only after I enquired at the counter were we informed that the flight was delayed because Sidney tower wasn't allowing the plane to land. Ok, shit happens. After another hour, two businessmen who were on the same flight started to grow very angry indeed, threatening the girl behind the counter etc. Now it was the weather that was keeping the plane from landing. Strange though, that planes from/to Canberra, Melbourne, you name it, had no trouble taking off or landing. Hmm. At about 11 o'clock, I started to snap, kicking the furniture and shouting around in German. I should perhaps mention that my hair was cut fairly short, I was wearing black jeans, Doc Martens, ... . Well, several minutes later, a plane suddenly appeared on the tarmac and we could board. Strange. The plane obviously hadn't been cleaned for several days ... but this couldn't really bother me in my current situation. After about two hours' flight the pilot finally anounced that we were approaching Armidale. Inside the airport another Impulse guy was waiting for us and ushered us into a taxi that would take us to town. Well, it certainly did, but not the way you might expect. The place we had landed was actually Tamworth, a fucking redneck country capital that is 112km away from Armidale. So, I had to stay alive for another 90 minutes before I eventually got to Armidale airport. Of course, there was no one to pick me up, as I was 6 hours late by now. But several questions were piling up in my brain by now: Why didn't the pilot tell us that we were landing at Tamworth but anounced Armidale instead? Was he deliberately deceiving us to prevent a mutiny or did he really think he was approaching Armidale? If so, how did he manage to get hold of a pilot's licence? Why didn't Impulse airlines offer us any refreshments, sandwiches, etc. as a small gesture of apology for the significant delay? Why did my travel agency in Germany tell me that QUANTAS doesn't fly to Armidale? How much are they being paid by this stupid motherfucking Impulse Airlines company? So, here's a first piece of advice: book flights with QUANTAS or one of their subsidaries (Eastern Australia Airlines), even if they should be a bit more expensive. At least they provide a decent service. NEVER fly Impulse airlines!
Back to Armidale. Shudder. It sucks. If you ever want to experience what 'boredom' really means, this is the place for you to go. I was booked into the 'University Flats' by the nice people at the International Office. These flats are real shitholes, the windows aren't isolated at all, most of them are dirty and there's one fridge, two toilets, and two showers for eight people. But anyway, I didn't expect a luxury hotel and I've slept in places far worse. I was then left on my own, no one bothered to explain to me where I could get some food, how I could get to town, or other important things. Luckily, I met another guy from my home uni, who had arrived here a day before me and we went to the uni bistro/bar with an Australian flatmate of his. Creepy place, this bistro. People hang around, listen to shitty music (worst of the 70s and 80s), and play pool. And you can tell by their looks, their conversations, that this is what their pitiful existence is all about. Thus ended my first day in Australia: frozen, hungry, exhausted, and pissed off. The next few days weren't much better, though. I checked out the town, and felt like visiting the location where Romero filmed Zombie. All those dead people living in this ghost-town. Saturday evening, 10pm, deserted streets. On my first visit to town I kinda lost my way and asked an elderly couple for directions. They helped me out and as we walked along, they started telling me that abortion was at least as bad as what Hitler did to the Jews, that it's all the feminist's fault, etc. Typical gay-bashing, pro-life, right-wing bullshit. But that's Armidale for you. The only good Christian is a very dead one, IMHO, anyway. The following Sunday was the best day in this fucking town so far since I could watch the EURO 2000 final that night (and the replay of the two semi-finals before that) - and the right team won (themselves the cup and me some money). That was a perfect night - world class soccer from midnight 'til six in the morning. On Monday, first thing I did was asking them to transfer me to another flat because the hole I'd first be assigned to was too dirty and the people were strange. The only things you can do here, besides getting drunk, are renting videos, reading books, masturbating all day ... you get the idea. So I decided to escape the boredom and spend a few days in Sydney. Which was a brilliant idea. Bought a ticket, hopped on the McCafferty's bus late at night and took refuge from the ennui for a few days.
Sydney
06.-10. July 2000
I arrived in Sydney at noon that Thursday and it was SO great. I think it is impossible to find words for this feeling of relief, of life, that was setting free heaps of endorphins in my brain. There were living people! And I'd already begun to think that Australia had been taken over by the undead. Anyway, I stayed with some really nice guys there and had a great time. Shopping frenzy, excellent food in Chinatown, chillin' out, etc. I'm quite good now at FIFA 2000 - so watch out guys, when I get back I'll kick your arse around the stupid playstation. Unfortunately, orientation weed (yep, deliberate typo here, insider joke) started on July 11 so on Monday 10 I had to take the Greyhound back to Armidale. The journey was kinda funny, after the break (at a small gas station in the middle of nowhere) the driver told some guy who'd been drinking beer on the bus to get off. Guy refused at first, driver threatened to call the police, guy got off the bus, started shouting nice words at the driver. Then it came to pushes and shoves and instantly, the second the guy had touched the driver, five Australians rushed out of the bus and beat up the drunk guy. Then they left him lying to bleed in the parking lot and the bus left. Tough customers, five on one drunk guy, very brave. They sure got too much testosteron around here. Assholes are like opinions - everybody gotta have one. Unfortunately, Australia's got a lot of them, arseholes I mean, not opinions. You shouldn't get this the wrong way, though. It might sound like I don't like Australia or the people living here - on the contrary, I really like it. It's just that the majority of the male population could do with a little less macho and a bit more brain ... but they're all very nice. And the country is great, anyway, just don't go to Armidale.
Bore-me-dale®
11. July - 08. September 2000
Back in Armidale, bonjour tristesse. International weed sucked nearly as
much as Armidale in general. Ok, people were friendly, there were free
drinks, sandwiches, etc. and a free trip around the Waterfall Way, but
that's what they're being paid for on the other hand. They told us
lots of useless shit and forgot to mention the really important stuff.
Then they gave us shitloads of outdated information and that's it -
another week gone by. Didn't meet any interesting people either. By now,
I'd begun to develop a theory - which I was able to verify later on. Well,
we were finally able to enrol on Friday and managed to fight our way
through bureaucrazy - the fucking Arts faculty put up a bit of a fight ...
luckily three of my four units were from the Faculty of the Sciences where
people were just people and not stupid pricks.
There's not much to tell concerning the following weeks. The niveau is
even lower than in Germany, so I managed to get along quite well in my
units, although I was a bit out of my depth. Armidale sucks, did I mention
that? Against my nature, I decided to give it another try and talked to
some dumbfucks around here. To no avail. Just imagine this: they were playing
stupid 'Eye of the tiger' by the even more stupid 'Survivor' at one of their
'parties'. There's just two words to this: corny and retarded. My theory
proved to be valid: I
was from another planet. All those braindead idiots can talk about is
"where do you come from", "what are you studying", and
"do you play pool". Brrrr. I met perhaps two or three people with
whom it is possible to have a normal conversation. Sad, but true.
Hey Amerikkka, couldn't you just bomb this town with a shitload of Napalm
after I've left? I'll send you the coordinates. The existence of this
town and of these people is a crime against humanity.
At the end of July, I took refuge in Brisbane for a few days and found it to be a wonderful city. I liked it even better than Sidney. It's big enough to offer various benefits of civilisation, and yet the atmosphere is very relaxed and laid back. In the info section you can find some useful addresses. Anyway, I took the Greyhound to get there because that's the only way to get out of Armidale - I do not like this company very much. The bus was one hour late, the heating was broken and I was deep-frozen when I arrived in Brisbane at 9.45am on Saturday. I met a funny Dutch guy on the bus who kept telling me that he didn't like Chinatown because they are always full of criminals. Aha. Well, I like criminals. We stayed at the Backpacker's Palace, which is a not too recommendable hostel right in the centre of the city. I went to see two shows of a local punkrock band that afternoon and evening and met some nice people. The music scene is different, or should I say strange, compared to Europe, especially Germany. But it was nevertheless funny. Unfortunately, I had to leave Brisbane after only three days ... but I'll be back soon.
Well,
since then I was constantly counting the days until semester break ... which
has become synonymous with 'escape', 'freedom', 'having fun' etc. Just a few
more days, then it's bye-bye and fuck off to Armidale for four weeks.
Another thing that's worth mentioning when talking about people here is their
obvious limited capacity to consume alcohol and their even more limited
capacity to cope with the ensuing state of 'being drunk'. Although they'd
of course never admit it. Add to this a widespread homophobic, sexist, and
with most people at least latent racist behaviour and you know how beautiful
life in Armidale can be. Well, you get all of this shit with people in your
hometown/homecountry too, but there you've got certain people and places
(pubs, cafes, youth-centres, whatever) you know who aren't that way - here
you don't know anyone and enlightment has not really taken place in this
part of the world, so you're forced to put up with it. The only difference
to Germany is that in Germany those people are (in addition to being sexist,
racist, etc.) unfriendly and you're quite unlikely to come into too close
a contact with them anyway, if you're careful enough, whereas in Australia,
most people are extremely friendly and helpful ... at least as long as you
don't tell them that you don't think the most important thing about a women
is her body and whether or not she is 'highly fuckable', for example. But I
think I'm being unfair here - it's just like I hate, and I really mean hate,
not dislike, most of the people living on this earth, so it doesn't make a
difference whether they're German racists or Australian ones. It's strange
though, that I somehow always have the expectation that people outside of
Germany wouldn't be so fucked up and stupid, but unfortunately they aren't.
The disappointment isn't exactly easing the bitterness and misantrophic
attitude, so don't be too shocked. Australia is a really nice place to go,
just make sure you don't end up in a fucking country redneck town. And don't
expect people to be different from other Western Europeans or Americans. You
can count on English-style hospitality, friendliness, and to a limited degree,
politeness though. And that's a whole lot if you're coming from that shitty
hostile Germany country. But Australian men are certainly very concerned
with being male or tough and are careful not to show any behaviour that might
be considered appropriate for females rather. So fuck all of you dickheads.
You'll OD on your bloody meat soon anyway.
Ah, and btw, the uni is a piece of shit, too. It's main intention is to rip-off its student's.
Wed, Sept. 6: Something very embarassing happened today. I went into a hardware shop down in the 'mall' to buy some gaffer-tape - never leave home without it. Anyway, I picked up a roll of that tape, it cost AUD 5.87, and walked over to the counter. Woman said: 'That's $5.87 ...', I handed over a ten dollar bill. Then she went to check on the price again, came back and reconfirmed that it was 5.87. I nodded and she said: 'But I'll make it 5$ for you.' Oh, thanks a lot. It was only when she put the tape into a bag and handed it to me that I realized that I had given her a fucking five dollar bill (foreign currency, you know ...) - but I managed not to blush and left the shop as quick as possible. Man, she must have thought I was a really cool arsehole trying to barter for a stupid roll of tape. Well, 'twas very kind of her to sell it for five bucks - so praise Australian women working in hardware shops selling tape. Hooray and g'day.
Stupid people always talk about 'culture shock' or similar things - IMHO you can stick this bullshit of your's right up your arse. But there was/is one thing that is really different and at first I couldn't really pinpoint it ... but after a few weeks it suddenly dawned on me: biros. Biros? Biros! I never ever (as far as I can recall) bought a biro in my life. You always get them as gifts from companies, bars, political parties or whatever. Or they miraculously find their way from your friend's or parent's desks into your pockets. Or they simply manifest out of thin air. Nevermind how they come into your possession, they're always there. Plenty of them. Different colours, different styles, but always something to write with. And they never run empty. I brought four of them to Australia and after just two weeks they'd all run out of ink. So I started looking around for free ones - nothing! I really had to go into a shop and buy a fucking biro for one dollar. This really hurt. I don't mind spending money on useful things - food, records, books, computers, movies, clothes, tickets, you name it - but on bloddy biros? Never even thought about it before. So that was a real shock to me. I'm convinced they have special rays at customs which dry out your biros when you arrive in Australia. Fuck that shit.
Trippin'
08. September - 09. October 2000
Yup, unfortunately I'm still alive. Sorry about that. I started out from
Brisbane where I hung around for a few days enjoying civilisation, good
food, a nice climate, and so on. On Tuesday, I got on the northbound OzEx
bus which was a big mistake. But more of this later. The overnight stop was
at Moolooloba, a shitty place, and I was staying at a stupid hostel. On
Wednesday I got off at Hervey Bay which was a good idea. This is a very
cheap place to stay - it's got cheap hostels (see address section), cheap
supermarkets, cheap food, etc. And nice beaches with very few people
polluting them with their inferior presence. This is becoming a bit boring
to read, isn't it? Well, I'd better finish this off tomorrow, my head is
still busy with strange c-functions although I already handed in the fucking
assignment. Anyway, Hervey Bay was a nice place to stay for a few days, chill
out on the beach, and raid the local PizzaHut (Hitler rating: 2 out of 10).
This is now perhaps the point where I should explain some things first before
I continue and this text becomes even more incoherent and confusing than it
already is. "What the fuck is a Hitler rating?" you may well be
asking by now (or, if you are of the rather boring type "What the heck
is a Hitler rating?" - go fuck yourself). Well, a Hitler rating is an
indicator of how well a PizzaHut satisfies the enormous appetite (the
non-euphemic expression would be 'abnormal feeding frenzy') of a German student
in possession of several dockets that give him discounts to the all-you-can-eat
lunch menu. To be precise, I got all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta, salad, fruits,
vegetables AND desserts (mousse au chocolate and ice cream!!!) for AUD 3.60!
Hold your breath for a second here - $3.60, that's not even 5 DM. Crazy.
All-you-can-eat situations usually have four severe drawbacks: the are
offered at a time when everyone's sleeping, the quality of the food is bullshit,
there is not enough food, and you have to compete with a lot of arseholes
for your food while your in predator-mode. These drawbacks don't apply to
PizzaHut Australia. The offer is valid every workday from 11.30-14.00,
the pizzas were quite good for PizzaHut standards (fresh vegetables) most of the time,
there were hardly ever any people there, no competition and plenty of stuff
to eat. Back to Hitler and his rating. To be able to judge the different
Huts I encountered whilst travelling this vast country, I chose to give
them a rating on a scale from 1(vomit) to 10(lovely). This rating was
determined by various factors such as quality of the food, the number of
vegetarian pizzas available, the speed with which they were 'refreshed', and
so on. For example, the Armidale Pizza Hut rates 6 out of 10 on my scale
because: quality of food = 7, -3 because it's in Armidale makes 4, +1 because
they don't put any hundreds-and-thousands on top of the mousse makes 5, and
+1 because there is absolutely no competition. Hope you got the picture. Well,
that's the Hitler rating anyway. Back to business. The Brisbane Hut rated 8 out
of ten, the food was really good, I sort of beat a fat guy in an eating competition,
there was delicious apple pie, but, alas, there were quite a few people there.
Hervey Bay got only 2 out of 10 because they were too slow with the pizzas,
especially the veggie one's and the food wasn't that brilliant. But I'm
sure that I wasn't writing about a stupid US fast food chain originally ...
ah, I remember, I wanted to tell you a little bit about my travels through
Australia, the country with severe testosterone and style problems. Well,
the way I attacked these all-you-can-eat happenings might be worth mentioning,
too. The day before I only had two sandwiches and some fruits so that I
was already nearly starved to death when I finally staggered into the
magical Hut. Then there's the effiency issue: it's important to eat as much
food as possible in two and a half hours - in order to maximize your intake
you have to heed some rules: don't eat to fast, chew everything extensively,
don't drink anything, have some salad and/or fruits for a change in regular intervals
(the oranges also offer a way round the drinking problem), don't eat those
cheese-only pizzas, go to the toilet from time to time, take little breaks,
and try to ignore the awkward looks from the staff and the other customers.
Cheers. There's not much to tell about the first two weeks of the trip. I
spent a couple of days on Great Keppel island and had a great time but
basically all that I did in those first two weeks was hanging out on some
beach or other. The beaches, I should add perhaps, are no match for those
tiny patches of sand they call beach back home. You can have a whole beach
fo yourself - there's no one to bother or hassle you, just chill out, enjoy
the sound of ocean, the clear water, and the beautiful fish. No fighting
over every square centimeter with fat, ugly people. No surf nazis. I already
mentioned that Hervey Bay is a cool and cheap place to hang around for a few
days and although many people will tell you that it is full of tourists I
didn't see too many. An even better place to stay is the above mentioned
Great Keppel island as very few people ever go there, but you have
first-class beaches, cheap accommodation, snorkelling, diving, ... . There's
a ferry running from Yeppoon, which is near Rockhamptom, and Yeppoon
Backpackers offer a great package deal (and they do pick-ups from
Rockhampton). Besides that, they're nice people with a nice hostel, too.
Rockhampton, on the other hand, is a shitty town ('the beef capital of
Australia', says it all, does it?) but this didn't stop me from launching
another full-scale attack on the local PizzaHut (Hitler-rating: 6.5 out
of 10, the pizzas were excellent, but they were a bit slow to bring out
fresh veggie one's and they put this sugar stuff on top of the mousse).
This was also the day when I crossed the capricorn-line which meant tropical
climate from now on. I love it. So I continued to make my way up north,
more sun, more beaches, more hanging out. Except for one overnight stop:
Dingo. If you ever plan on travelling Australia, take my advice: don't
fucking go to Dingo and Armidale. Although the former is much worse than the
latter. To put it in a nutshell, it's some wannabe cowboys trying to rip off
tourists. They're in cahoots with the bus company that's why they were doing
their overnight stop there. Ahh, and yet another piece of advice for
potential visitors of Oz: don't travel with Oz Experience. Or Northern
Territory Adventure Tours, but I'll deal with them later. They suck. Don't
be fooled by their brochures - it's nothing special, on the contrary, it's
really annoying. Unless you fancy sharing a bus with stupid English pricks or
American bitches who don't know how to behave properly and suffer from a
severe lack of style and intelligence. Furthermore, the drivers always try
to sell you something, be it an expensive hostel (which is at least co-owned
by their company, I presume) or some other stupid shit. Fuck off. It gave me
enough time though to contemplate on what I really hate. Here we go, an incomplete
list of people of groups of people I despise and about whom I wouldn't give
a fuck if they were shot tomorrow (hell, I'd even pay for it):
Will Smith, Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Streisand, Guns'n'Roses,
Genesis, Kelly Family, Phil Collins, Britney Spears, George Orwell, William Golding,
Guenther Grass.
And some of the shittiest pieces of "art" (burn, baby, burn):
Independence Day, StarWars: Episode I, Men in Black, Trainspotting, Shakespeare in Love,
Lord of the flies, The Songlines.
Guess I've now manoeuvered myself into a position where people might ask themselves what the best way to travel Oz is. Hmm, depends on your time and money. But there are some patches where really nothing is happening - and you might as well take a plane instead of crawling through red dirt for a few days. This is especially true for Cairns-Darwin and Adelaide-Alice Springs - you should really do this by plane. Then there's the east coast, with a lot of islands and stuff to do and see - I'd recommend buying a kilometre pass from one of the two big bus companies (Greyhound or McCaffertys) - this means you can get on and off wherever you want. Maximum flexibility. Almost all hostels do courtesy pick-ups from the coach terminals. If you don't like buses you could also buy a car - this is more expensive at first, but just check the notice boards in the hostels, there's almost always people looking for a lift (so you can share fuel costs). Fuel is cheaper than in Germany, but not much, and as the distances in Oz are huge, you'll probably end up spending a lot of your money on fuel and repairs for your car. Anyway, the easiest way (and the one I'd strongly recommend) is probably to fly to Oz and just check it all out down there. There's always heaps of specials or short-term offers around. If you've got any specific questions, feel free to email me. Time to take a break.
Rested? Alright, here we go again. I finally ended up in Cairns where I stayed for a few days in a really nice hostel, Castaways, to recover from the heavy toil of doing nothing for two weeks. Cairns itself sucks, but there is lots of stuff you can do from there, like visit the Tabletops Rainforest/Kuranda for example, or fly to Darwin. Especially the latter event was very pleasant as I got another nice meal, one of those nice blankets, socks, ... . Ahem. Anyway, Darwin is a much nicer place than Cairns and it's very tropical, too. Hot and humid, like Singapore. I stayed at another nice hostel, Elke's Backpackers, and jumped on a tour to Kakadu National Park the evening I arrived there. This 3-day tour is definitively among the top-five of the best-things-in-my-life list. It's kinda hard to describe it properly, it was just so marvellous. The park itself kicked arse and the guide kicked it even a bit further, if you know what I mean. His name was Wayne (the company was Aussie Overlanders) and he was an extremely cool guy: very knowledgeable, calm, un-hectic, and nice. And he was a bloody good cook, too. If I were to rate the food he prepared (in the fucking bush on a fucking fire, no modern kitchen sissy bullshit, mate), it would get a Hitler-rating of 11 out of ten. But (luckily) he's not a PizzaHut, so he won't be Hitler-rated. Aside from the food he also excelled in knowledge about nature, wildlife, aboriginal art and basically all that's related to the area and the people that live there. The best part of the tour was day two when we walked/climbed up to the top of Twin Falls, then climbed down a rather steep and narrow chimney and several other plateaus, taking breaks from time to time to rest and go for a swim in the pools and sit under the waterfall (nice massage, btw). After climbing up again we walked down to the bottom and swam some 800m up the gorge to hang out on the nice sandy beach where the falls come down. This day actually annihilated my thesis that you can't have a good time without a computer :-) . Enough of the hippie bullshit, I spent another couple of days in Darwin and was even able to follow Bundesliga back home without having to sell my arse in the streets - the Northern Territory Library has free public internet access. Lovely. I also visited Litchfield Park but it can't compete with Kakadu. Too touristy, to easy to access, and not as magnificient. Although it's still far better than every attraction in Germany but after KNP it was a bit of a let-down. I went there with NTAT (Northern Territory Adventure Tours or Never Travel Again Tours) for free because they fucked up the booking for the trip to Alice Springs. The driver was quite entertaining, an ex-Australian Airforce guy who looked funny, talked funny, and dressed funny ('funny' in the sense of 'peculiar' or even 'ridiculous'). But he was nice, in a way, partly, I reckon, because we were the only two younger people on the trip and we didn't have beer bellys and whinge all the time. Or perhaps he liked boys - although all Australian males are strictly heterosexual, of course. I think it's a capital crime to even insinuate anything else. Nevermind, after 10 entertaining and relaxing days it was time to leave Darwin and travel down to Alice Springs. Unfortunately I had already bought the NTAT ticket long in advance so I was stuck with them. [There is another company running tours from Darwin to Alice, it's called Remote Experiences and was recommended to me by our Kakadu guide, Wayne. So I figure they're pretty good, too.] Despite the evil forebodings, I set forth ere dawn to arrive on time at the NTAT terminal. It did not take long until the fellow travellers had assembled and our host was ready to undertake the strainous journey. But Morgoth hadn't slept either and his poison was already at work. (Did I tell you that I really like Tolkien?) Btw, my five favourite English words are:
- Ere (long)
- Henceforth
- thus
- thou/thee
- valour
In their folly, NTAT had overbooked the bus again and there we sat, waiting for ours until they finally cut a deal with someone. It was early in the morning, otherwise I'd have cut that deal myself, but I was still a bit slow on the uptake. Eventually we left and there's not much to tell of that three day journey. The food wasn't very good (Hitler-rating: 1 out of 10; poor quality, not enough, un-cozy atmosphere), the schedule wasn't very good, the bus wasn't very good, and the driver wasn't very funny. Furthermore, and this is perhaps the worst thing, there were American girls on the bus. If you should ever find yourself in the position to explain the meaning of the word 'dumb' to a non-English speaking stranger - just lock him in a room with some US citizens for a few hours. That'll do nicely. But there were also some nice people. I didn't have to kill anyone. Nevertheless I was quite glad when I arrived in Alice Springs and my mood continued to lighten when I'd checked into the hostel (Elke's Outbackpackers). I reckon that this was by far the cleanest hostel I'd stayed in so far. Just perfect. The town took me a bit by surprise - I had expected a laid-back, small outback town - but Alice had more to offer than Darwin or Cairns. First of all, and this is of course the most important thing in favour of this city in the middle of nowhere, there is an excellent record store. In the middle of fucking Australia. In the fucking desert. A recordstore with cool stuff. Left a lot of money there. But there also a Reptile House which is definitely worth a visit. Heaps of lizards and snakes - IMHO lizards are the coolest animals in the world anyway. There's also a Desert Park (a few minutes out of town) which was well worth its entrance fee. A nice presentation of the various types of wildlife and vegetation. And Alice still had something in store, one of the weirdest events I've ever witnessed, the annual Henley-on-Todd Regatta. This is typical Australian stuff. If you stay in the sun for too long you'll eventually develop some really crazy ideas. Like having a regatta in the desert for example. As there is no water people just build boats of various shapes and size without a bottom and then run their boats, literally. At noon. In the fucking desert heat, the merciless sun drying out what's left of their brains. It's great fun to watch though, it reminded me of the Upper-Class-Twit-of-the-Year Monty Python episode. Only this was live and uncut. This was the perfect grand finale of this beautiful trip, just another bit of Australian freak show before Qantas took me back to Sydney. Where it was raining. The first rain I'd seen in nearly five weeks. Then the Greyhound delivered me back to prison, where it was not only raining but fucking cold, too. (But I reckon any temperature below 35°C feels cold to me ...) While I'm talking about things that piss me off, don't you find it very annoying too what other people buy? I mean, you're travelling with a bunch of people and they all somehow feel the urge to buy corny shit. Here's the top-five list of things NOT to buy in Australia:
- Billabong wear
- 'Koalas/Kangaroos/Emus/... next xy km' signs
- Didgeridoos (unless you're a musician)
- Victoria Bitter (or similar) shirts
- Esoteric, new-age, hippiecrap bullshit 'craft'
Suck-me-Dale®
10. October - 24. November 2000
Remember what I wrote before I left for the holiday?
"Somehow I can't quite shake off the feeling that Armidale III is
going to be as shitty, boring, and annoying as the first two parts."
Guess what - I was damn right! I'm back in my cell paying for all those
sins I must have committed sometime along the way. Can't remember any though.
Whatever you say is wrong - whatever I say is right! That's one part of my
personal philosophy. Fits in nicely with some of the other parts:
"I'm better than you", "I don't give a shit", and
"Fuck off!". So much for neurosis. Back to Armidale. The water
is still shitty, it keeps fucking up my skin. The climate is still shitty,
it keeps fucking up my health. The atmosphere is still shitty, it keeps
fucking up my mood. And the VCR is gone. Aaaargh! There's only one tiny
little silvery ray on the horizon but to me it looks like the light of the
trees of Valinor itself indeed. It's called UEFA Champions League and it's
on SBS. Thank you and goodbye, next update coming soon. Oh, after all this
negativity here's something to comfort you: the sun is still shining out of
me arse! Here's some things I do like (it always feels so much better to end
things with positive lines, oops, now there's flowers growing out of my
anus, too):
- Top-five female singers:
- Tori Amos
- Bjoerk
- Aimee Mann
- Neneh Cherry
- Joni Mitchell (uh-oh, the flowers ...)
Enough of this idle talk. If someone can tell me two different (although not necessarily unrelated) meanings of the Singapore-English phrase "He's aftering that woman" something funny might happen. (I know a very small blonde person who would call me 'disgusting' if she were here.)
He's back. I've just realized that my sentence is nearly over - have to find something new to whinge about then, I guess. I completed all the assignments successfully and managed to write a compiler in C although I still don't know that ugly language ... I recommend learning a language always from easy to hard not the other way round, as I had to do it. You shouldn't start with the system calls and hash tables. Now there's only four exams to sit and then I can finally get out of this fucking town. Good on me. As you might have expected nothing of importance has happened here. The number of freaks seems to increase daily - I've never seen so many physically or mentally (or both) disturbed people in one spot. There must be some radiation or something in the water. It can't be the fairly limited gene-pool only. We all know, when the English discovered this beautiful 'uninhabitated' continent a couple of years ago they sent their convicts over to clean up their country. Therefore all the human genes in the average Australian are prisoner's genes. But Australians are more diversified: they all have a great amount of sheep's (or sometimes other animals') genes in their DNA. Which explains a lot of the strange and sometimes frightening appearances down under. But the Armidalian's must have been fucking themselves for centuries to mess up their DNA that way. In-fucking-credible. Und erfuell mal wieder mit Links die Testnorm. But it's not only the Australians who are freaking me out - after the break two Indonesians moved into our flat and their religion somehow dictates them to wash their arses after shitting. This would be of no concern to me if they didn't use a bucket to do this and thereby flood the whole bathroom with an amalgamation of water, pubic hair, and remains of urine and shit. Yummy indeed. And even this bizarre custom would normally elicit only a frown from me (I've seen so much weird people doing weird things ...) if they cleaned up their mess afterwards. But they don't. So the bucket mysteriously vanished (into the big container). So they got a new one. And guess what? Tonight this bucket will have a terrible accident. Sometimes I have premonitions. Sometimes deja-vus. Some hippie arsehole criticised me for my behaviour - he said I wasn't tolerating their religion. Damn right he was - I do not tolerate anyone's religion. If I had my way - any openly religious person, whether Christian, Muslim, or whatever would be shot straight away. And all the churches and temples would be burned to the ground. Turn the other cheek and I'll break your fucking chin.. Yeeha. Auf 92 beats in der Minute. So keep your religion to yourself and in your fucking room. And you might be pretty low on the list when the revolution comes and perhaps I've run out of ammo by the time I get to your name. This hippie also called me racist - I don't have a problem with that either. I know a lot of people who think I'm a fascist anyway, so racist fits quite nicely, doesn't it? Fuck all of you. Fact is that I'm more intelligent than most people and I'm quite conscious of that. And yes, I'm arrogant. As fucking hell. I don't need to talk to scum like you because you are not worthy of my attention. Time to get back on the track. I think I mentioned earlier that the travel agent in Germany where I bought my ticket sucks major arse - I can only re-emphasize this statement. From now on I'm going to buy my stuff on the Internet exclusively - you don't get much service there but you don't have to pay for it either. Let those incompetent bastards go to hell (or broke). Would be nice though if we met in a dark street with no witnesses present ... but you're gonna get yourz anyway. God will punish you :-) i.e. I'll arrange for some accident or other, you little slimy bastard. So much for today - I have to do a little bit of cooking or I'll drop dead. Apropos dropping dead - I haven't told you about Trier yet. That's the town where I'm from and it's a fucking dangerous place, ya know. Basically, you can't walk the streets without Mr 44 by your side - it's a constant struggle of survival. I killed perhaps fifty people last year on the streets and that's not including the usual gang casualties. So if you ever consider visiting this seemingly peaceful town make sure you're well armed. Bring your bullet-proof vest, too. You can never be too careful. Still it's quite likely that you'll catch a knife in the ribs if you hang with the wrong bunch of people. If you get into a streetfight (which is quite likely, I have to fight for my life every morning I go to work for example) don't hesitate to use your heat. Smoke the other guy before he smokes you. And don't even dream of anyone else coming to your help. This is a tough place where only the meanest and fittest survive - if you're weak, if you're a hippie, you're dead meat. That's Trier for you and we're damned proud of it. Thug life forever!
Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk!
(Phony arseholes like you get outlined in chalk ...)
Wait a minute - I just passed by a mirror and routinely used it to check whether someone was sneaking up behind me (this is what life in Trier does to you) - when I something about this mirror-image of mine struck me as not being quite right (I know, I know, save the jokes for later). I got it. This is a real shock: I'm not black! And I just learnt from one of my flatmates that Trier is not Compton as I'd thought before. This means that all the above is bullshit! I'm a white, skinny, pussy from a peaceful German town! Fuck, what am I gonna do now? What would you do if you'd been thinking that you're one of those really hardcore gangsta-rapper guys for the last couple of lines and then suddenly discover that you're not? Ice, Ice, baby.
<display grin>
Well, well, well, little Alex ... . Do you know this phenomenon: people travel
some 500m away from their homes and instantly start complaining about the
time difference, jet lag, and similar bullshit? Even if it's only one hour?
Frankly speaking, I don't give a shit if you do know about it - the question
was merely rhetorical. So shove that answer up your arse. Anyway, it seems
to me like they can't stop whinging. But all this stuff is bullshit -
if you can't take a little bit of jet lag you're not fit to survive. Period.
What really fucks me up is the disturbance of my weekend routine: I'm on
withdrawal from Bundesliga and it HURTS! It's fucking painful! Usually,
on a Saturday, I turn on the radio at 3pm (SWR1) and enjoy the live broadcast
of the Bundesliga games. Well, actually, most of the time it's rather suffering
than enjoyment but that's another story. Then I prepare some food and if it's
a good day I get the timing right so that I can settle down with a plate of
whatever in front of the TV precisely at 6.30pm for RAN. This, of course,
doesn't work in Australia. And if it wasn't bad enough that I can't get my
daily dose of soccer on a regular basis my favourite team is not exactly top
of the championship either at the moment. Allright, they beat the paedophiles
from Genk at home in the UEFA-Cup which was great, but they're already out of
the national cup and doing very badly in the Bundesliga. So every Saturday night,
after following the live broadcast on the Internet (from 01.30am ...), I end up
depressed, angry, confused. The only thing which provides a little bit of comfort
is a website called Comunio.
This is sort of an online soccer management simulation. Check it out if you're
interested in soccer. If not, you're a pathetic sissy anyway.
I promise, I won't use the f-word in this paragraph. Although the events described within the following lines re-emphasize the fact that I magically attract negative energy. I am the personification of Murphy's Law. Everything that can possibly go wrong will do so at the moment most unsuitable to me. I never have any luck, if I was one of those stupid religious people (While I'm at it, congratulations George W. Bush, there's something I always wanted to tell you and Mr Gore: Your both arseholes. Sue me, bitches.), I'd whinge about being cursed etc. But I'm not - so I simply assume that God hates me because I call him "the biggest bitch of them all."
Mel B. (ourne)
24. November - 04. December 2000
Werder Bremen still continuing their losing streak - fuck life, at least 'twas warm and sunny in Melbourne. There's a certain rivalry between the two largest Australian cities as to which is better, whatever that means. Personally, I liked Melbourne better. There's much more culture happening there than in Sydney. Sydney beaches are supposed to be better but I've never been a surf-nazi anyway. Btw, do you know the movie "Surf-Nazis must die"? Yeah, I know, I'm sick. Heaps of nice cinemas, bookshops, recordstores, pubs, and, hark, hark, gardens in Melbourne. Yup, I've really included the word "gardens" in this list. Incredible, isn't it. That's what growing older is all about. I fucking love palm trees. I'm afraid there's not much to tell about the time I spent in Melbourne - except that I enjoyed it very much. Didn't waste a lot of energy though, if you know what I mean. Just hanging around (mostly in the shadow thanks to the hole in the ozone layer) eating, eating, eating, eating, eating, hanging around, doing nothing in particular listening to Q-Tip. "Amplified" rocks! You may have realized by now that I've lost interest in writing this report - this is why it's over now. Suffice to say that the flight from Sydney to Frankfurt was alright, the meals were very nice, as was my seat neighbour. Hi btw, if you should ever happen to read these lines. Thank you and goodnight
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Christian Kohl.
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