Sense of Place <part2>

We have the single most kickass harbour in the whole world.

I could never live inland. It's creepy. I need to be near the ocean.

Its kinda nice when you get a whiff of salty air. I dunno, it kinda makes everything seem fresh-er.

Yeah. And seeing ships pulling in and out of port is spectacular. The only place better than an airport is a dock.

yeah, the airport is cool too. i like how its in Bankstown. away from us. + a cool thing- is where my (good) ex lives now- near Stanmore- you get the low flying planes-- and i mean really low-- its the fucking coolest.

Bankstown has a pissy little one... I think you mean Botany Bay. It's right slap bang on the thing, in the ideal location to make 747s rattle my girlfriend's windows every five minutes.

Yeah, you know what i mean-- the flight paths and shit-- are all over the less-expensive suburbs. ( i was being a Shore ass for a second there dude ).

more perks:-

- Rohan and I are here
- we wont let Eminen into the Country ( a def. + point )

Why do you think they -are- the poorer suburbs in the first place?

Bankstown-- is that what were talking about?

Dude. You know what kind of people live there.
Is there even anything to discuss here- i thought it was obvious.

And anything is poor in comparison to Shore and Vaucluse.

Mmm.... vaucluse...

yeh, mmmmm fit Bondi girls......

Dad used to live down near there. Ooooh wow.... there's a reason Bondi's famous, and it's not the beach or the waves

most def. i can hear it now......

'COME ONE, and COME ALL, for the Saucy British backpapers, all at Bondi, close to the city!' Woo.

Backpacker/youth hostels are great places. You ever stayed in one?

ive got this idea if- youre in the city, why live in virtual squalor?
i mean, i like camping and stuff, and i dont mind cutting loose and becoming a bronzed beach warrior-- its just- when youre in the city-- whats the point of not having creature comforts?

oh, so thats a 'no, i havent'.

It's fun. You meet some awesomely weird people.

*sensing Ro has a story behind that one*

so, please. elaborate. interesting how?

is it like,
-- rutted with them furiously interesting?
-- genuine intellectual and emotional connection interesting?
-- smoked opium and learnt Cantonese from them interesting?

which is it to be?

Elements of the latter two.

I go down to a small town in the southern highlands with a friend of mine, staying at this youth hostel, and it's full of the most colourful characters.

No kidding, there was two lesbians, a bunch of psychotic hippies from somewhere in england, two other aussies packing their way up to cairns, and this creepy french girl.

The girl was weird - and kinda cute. I swear she made all her clothes herself, too. She never spoke to anyone in the hostel, except when she had to help clean the kitchen. But we found her down at the glow-worm caves that night, and she hadn't heard us approaching (light rain, no mood to chatter amongst ourselves) and she's there against the back wall of the cave, running her hands over the unexposed bit - the overhang sheltering her from the cave. She was humming, too. Me and my friend kinda stare at each other for a moment and leave.

Oh, and we introduced ourselves to the locals too The train line down that way doesn't run any more, except for special steam locos going out to Thirlmere, so the (circa 1930s) station is deserted and overgrown, and the tracks not much better. Neither of us had ever stood -on- a train line for obvious reasons (except for crossing them briefly) and so decided (in the rain, still) to go check the place out. It had started raining down properly, so we both shoved on our trenchcoats and walked out there.

I don't smoke, but my friend did - and being that we were so cheap we were in a hostel for the night, he couldn't afford ciggies, so he'd stocked up on the cheapest thing he could find to fix his nicotine addiction - which were cheap-ass cigars. And this guy isn't the most bring-home-to-mother type either - at this stage his hair was bushy and afro-like, and he was recovering from a bad job with hair dye, so his hair (instead of the intended blonde) had turned out - of all things - goldish.

So when these three girls and two guys (half drunk) were walking down the road home or something and wanted to cross the tracks, they turned in and found me, 5'10, long blonde hair, massive black navy trenchcoat, standing in the rain next to this guy a half inch shorter with a 'golden-girls' haircut, puffing on a fucking huge cigar, also in a massive greatcoat.

They stop what they're doing, one of the girls (they nearly walked into us) squeals with shock, and they look at us dumb-founded for a moment before hastily walking back the other way.

By the time they'd walked all the way out of sight, we finally looked at each other and just burst out laughing. It was so funny

We finally got back into the hostel at about midnight, and we'd collapsed on our bunks when there was this fucking loud screaming from one of the other rooms. I sit bolt upright in bed, but my friend just shoves his head under his pillow. Another girl screams now, and he finally gets pissed off and gets out of bed. We both go into the other room. The weird french chick and the two lesbians (ok, they might not have been, but they looked it) were on their beds or against the wall and there's this dirty great huntsman (venom-less spider, furry, brown, about the size of your husband's hand) on the floor, scurring about a bit, disconcerted by something. It's actually got it's fangs out by this stage, but they're harmless. For some reason this didn't help the situation, as the girls were still freaked out. One of them says that it was 'fucking ON me as i was sleeping!' ... she must have thrown her covers off and knocked the poor thing onto the floor or something, which would explain why it was so spooked. The french girl didn't look scared really, just kinda sleepy.

My friend just says "Oh, for fucks' sake, shut UP!" and stomps down on the thing, barefoot and all. Squishes it all over the wooden floor in a mess of guts and fur.

He's half way out the room when one of the lesbians says, "Wait, I'm not going to sleep in here with that on the floor!"

He looks really annoyedly at them, points to the french chick and says, "You, rock-stroker, go clean it up," and leaves.

The french chick left at like 5:30 the next day after fuckall sleep... I feel kinda bad for her

k i dunno about the rest of England, but Reading rules because

*Reading Festival! wooop
*Summer X-cess (this afternoon frestival where shit bands play but i'm gonna go anyway cuz it'll be a laugh)
*the fact we have 2 cinemas 10mins drive away from each other
*I live here! duh! hehe
*The Oracle. It's a shopping centre, but it's got a river running through it so you can have lunch by the river in the middle of winter without getting rained on
*Looooong summer afternoons lazing around my friend's/my area
*The fact i can get just about anywhere in Reading in a maximum of 2 bus rides
*London is only an hour's train ride away (London rules)
*various other stuff

wow i never realised Reading kicked THiS much ass

weird southern highlands town eh?

which one? Bowral? Mittagong? im scared.

good story though.

Close. Near Mittagong, although the name eludes me at present.

Reading sounds nice, kinda. Well, as nice as somewhere can be without having Sydney Harbour right slap bang in the middle

Arklow! Woooo! We have....a lot of butchers, actually. The legal kind, that is. Also a thriving culture of heroin addiction. We do however have the coolest pub in the universe, or at least the coolest pub in this town.

i live in a small town in westchester, new york, just thirty miles form the big city. i suppose it's no different than many other middle class neighborhoods, but there are a few things about x that few people outside of the town would know. for instance, during the revolutionary war there were two battles on glover field. i used to play baseball there during high school. still related to the rev war, there's a monument at one of the elementary schools commemorating these battles and underneath it (rumor has it) is a cache of colonial flintlock rifles. we always thought about digging them up and risking jail time. still keeping with the revolutionary spirit, george washington and his staff stayed overnight in a house that still stands to this day.

oh, and dick clark and susan powder (stop the insanity weight loss guru) went to the same high school i did.

Milton

-its a small town which provides for much car fun
-after a while of living here, anythign seems acceptable to you i.e.: sniping kids with your paintball gun as they play manhunt (sort like hide and seek) at 10 pm, paying 30 bucks for a fog horn
-i dont care where you come from and how many times you say it " yo man i come from this big town with the hottest girls etc etc", small towns, specially mine has the hottest chicks. and about 75% are low maintenance
-the girls are more down to earth and smarter, yet still provide the ability to have stupid fun

massachusetts is...well...the only place i ever want to live. i can't really put my finger on it, but i dont have some sort of massachusetts-supremacy thing...i don't know. it's just my home.

hey i like the sound of that french chick... heh.

hrm. well, no myths to dispell about where i live. texas sucks.

do you own bowling shoes, gucci

By God I want bowling shoes.

One of the friendly neighbourhood feminazis, in one of her 'fuck the system' moods, once turned up to my house, tapping on my window, at 10pm at night, with a pair of bowling shoes she'd nicked from the local bowling alley. They're still in my wardrobe.

Ok, so a)give me directions to your wardrobe and b)WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE?!?

Well, you take the first plane to Sydney. Then, you leave the international terminal, and take a train to Sydney Terminal. Then, you get on an express train to Wyong, and...

... hey wait just a minute - I know where this is going! You won't get -me- that easily!

Damn you and your mindular nimblitry. But you know it's just gonna be one fiendish scheme after another until I get those shoes...

Also: hur hur. You said Wyong.

believe it not Juan- its a North Shore suburb. we dont lie.

Yeah, Wyong -train- That's a looong train ride, given you also have to guess where the smeg to get off.

Why guess? Have you got the illiteracy bug as well? Cant read a timetable and map eh?

bowling shoes are retro chic, but i much prefer saddle shoes. still, to order bowling shoes, click on:

[url]http://www.dextershoe.com/bowling_home.asp[/url]

major credit cards only, please.

i walked off with apair once. ba dum bum.

Actually, Wyong isn't that bad...there's a place not so far from me called Coolafancy.