Tuesday, October 7, 2008

We've arrived!!!

Had a horrific start, both of us sick and seriously jet lagged. Spent the best part of three days in bed. Feeling better now though, :-)

Cottesloe where we are staying is beautiful. Here is a picture of the beach:



And the view from our window:



We'll add more when we have a faster interweb connection.

We have learnt one thing; people in hostels are weird. They all have this look they give you, like they don't expect to see new faces, even though this is undoubtedly a backpacker's hostel where people are, inevitably, backpackers and therefore generally arrive and move on. Well, at least they're meant to. In reality, half the people have been here months. They are a mystery to us all; they don't appear to worry about money, as seen by the fact that they shop on the beach front where prices are ten times higher than Woolworth's a fifteen minute walk away, and they take taxis into Perth every weekend. They only eat instant noodles and pizzas, yet the kitchen is still sometimes devoid of any sort of pot, pan or utensil.

Even the ones passing through are oddities, talking about going on two week tours with adventure holiday companies, and their further travel plans and you wonder where their endless supply of money comes from. Our room mates are weird, at least the ones that have been here more than a few days are. There's a mother and her unbelievably skinny daughter with hair down to her waist. The mother's days are a mystery, but she's hardly here. The daughter's are not a mystery; she's always here. In fact she rarely leaves her bed, and when she does it's to stomp across the floor to the bathroom, where she does goodness knows what in there, but rarely does it sound like she's going to the loo. She looks anorexic and acts depressed-we joke that perhaps she's throwing up because we just can't figure her out.

Then of course there is those with laptops who gather in the hallway near the fire door. We've taken to joining them, sitting on the hard wood floor with our tiny laptop perched on our knees. The reason? It's the one place you can get a free internet connection. Oh, happy days.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

OMG

OH EM GEE. Can't sleep. Too nervous...it's just sunk in that we're going to be on the other side of the world in a couple of days and will probably be there for the better part of a year. AAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

That picture really is horrible. Damn my wide face. Oh well, possibly soon to come: us in our swimming cossies. Muuuuch better.

Laura

Yikes

God, that picture looks awful. My hair is not usually that all over the place and I am usually not that red faced. I just don't photograph well. :-( Seriously, that was about our tenth attempt, because I kept blinking...

Just over twelve hours to go until we get our first flight. Then we'll be at Heathrow, and there should be time for a quick Burger King and to stock up on some snacks and sweets for the flight before we check in to our flight to Singapore, and from there, Perth!!!

We have found a few McDonalds around Perth with wifi (in case of absence of free wifi in the hostel), so should be able to update quite often.

My stomach is turning somersaults. Plus I feel quite sick, but I think that's because I ate too much desert. But I'm not as nervous as I thought, more excited. We're all packed-have ten times more clothes than we planned, but still tonnes of room left-and just have to remember our toothbrushes in the morning and that's it. Yay!!

Australia here we come!

Jenny

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Is that us?

GASP is that us? An awful picture of us but a picture none the less. So now everyone knows what we look like. For anyone possibly reading this who isn't family or friend (doubtful), Jenny on the left, Laura on the right.

Less than 48 hours to go...

I'm so excited I don't think I'll sleep for the next two nights. I keep thinking how awesome it is going to be.

We have loads of random people (some of them who we've never met) giving us contact details for their friends and relatives in case we get stuck-so I hope that's an indication of how nice Australian people are. We have got in contact with some lovely people who house sat for us last summer, and who live not far from Perth, and they have assured us there is plenty of casual work at the moment (something about lots of people moving up north because of something...) which is nice. Casual work is just what we need.

We're much more organized than we seem (although our bedroom is a tip-stuff everywhere) and tomorrow is our dedicated packing day. Then Wednesday we'll have to be up early to get to the airport. Ahhh! It's completely insane. We have had a few sudden bouts of terror, but we will be okay. Have heard of people who have worked for their accommodation at the hostel we're staying at, so that's a good sign-we could do with that. And we are armed with recipes that will keep us going with food for several days at a time, and hopefully win over some of our fellow backpackers (like vegi-curry...mmmm-could eat it for a week, might actually do so).

Also, teeny tiny computer is brilliant!! I have got the hang of the keyboard now by using it to write for the last two days-my real laptop feels huge now though...we'll just have to find a wireless hotspot to use it and we're sorted.

Jenny

Friday, September 26, 2008

Aussie Dollars

HOW COOL ARE AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS??? With the teeny tiny transparent windows. I will never get tired of holding them up and looking through them. I'll be doing it every time I pay for something. I'll have to ask someone in Australia why they have that...

That's all I wanted to say...I'm unnaturally amused by the tiny windows in their currency.

Laura

P.S. I watched a video all about making Australian money, because I'm sad like that, and it's made of plastic. So it doesn't rip and you can even get it wet. Coolness.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

One week to go

One week to go! OH EM GEE!!! Aussie dollars are ordered so we're ok for money when we get there and we have about £20 for Heathrow to get some lunch, so we just need to remember to get some Singaporean dollars at the airport. Still have to buy a couple of things (including a wallet or purse that isn't falling apart). We found it surprisingly hard to find plastic bowls and cutlery suitable for taking with us. We thought we'd better take our own in case the hostel isn't very well equipped in that sort of thing, and apparently you have to pay a deposit to borrow cutlery so it's easier if we have our own.

We practised packing our clothes and had looooaaads of room because our backpacks are pretty big, so that means we can take a bit extra with us and also have room to bring things back when we finally return. We're both very scared now, as well as very excited. I think I'm more excited than scared at the moment, quite looking forward to the journey even though I hate long haul flights (although I've only done two before, to and from Ecuador on the way to Peru). I think the closer we get the more our scarednessosity will outweigh our excitement.

There's internet in the hostel but it's expensive so we won't be using that for much more than emails. Jenny is taking a tiny laptop with her (it's literally about 30x15cm or something...I don't know, I can't measure things) so if we can find somewhere with free wireless (bound to be a cafe somewhere...hopefully) we'll update from there. There'll probably be one more post before we leave and then after that expect our next one to be from the other side of the world. Woohoo!

Edit: Changed time to Perth time...has been on some American time for ages and just thought to change it...was going to do Swiss but thought we'll be there next week so it's on Perth time. A bit confused though because it's GMT+8 and I thought it was GMT+7...perhaps it's because the UK are on British summer time?