The joys of free wifi

Otherwise known as Welcome to Hong Kong.

My head hurts, my ankles are swollen and my eyes are a tad bleary. It's 1.27am in Sydney, 2.27pm in London and 10.27pm in Hong Kong. I have no clue which timezone my body thinks it's in, all I know is that it aches all over and just wants to be home already. If home is where the heart is - Sydney! And don't spare the horses. If it's where all your crap is kept and you do your washing and attend to general life and studies, well then London here I come. Just not for another two and a half hours. Oh, and then another 11-odd. Good times in economy.

Leaving was crap - I fucking hate it. Hate saying goodbye, hate having to try not to cry, hate thinking how long it will be until I see everyone again.

I had THE best morning before I left. Mum and I walked to Avalon and had the most beautiful swim. The water was blue and clear and just the right sort of refreshing temperature and there were perfect waves to dive under and jump over. Heaven.

Anyway. This is rubbish. I am tired - too tired even for tears - and looking forward to getting to London. I am slightly concerned though - if the air conditioning on a Cathay Pacific jumbo leaves me with chattering teeth, what the hell is London going to do me??

There's no place like home

How in god's name has the last month gone as quickly as it has? Fucking hell - that's all I have to say. And please, don't make me go...

Am back to London tomorrow and feel a curious mix of excitement and utter desperation at having to say goodbye. It's truly a case of, well, I would be excited to go if it didn't mean leaving.

In the interests though of 2009, hopefully The Optimistic Year, and of making it somewhat easier to walk through the departure gate tomorrow (Mum's Crying Is Only Permitted Between the Hours of 2pm and 3pm rule will no doubt also help) I think a list is essential. A list of Things I like about London. So here goes...

1. It is highly unlikely that the temperature will ever soar high enough to make my eyeliner smudge to the point of two black eyes
2. A non-existent UV rating means less vigilante-like behaviour when it comes to the factor 50+ sunscreen and vampiric-like hunting for shade
3. There are good museums and art and "stuff"
4. It is close to Europe - Greece for Easter, school trip to Venice, weekend in Barcelona - it does have a certain poetry to it
5. No screeching psychotic cockatoos in the backyard


There are probably others if I really thought about it but five seems like a solid kind of number so I might just leave it there. The point was in the exercise surely and not the outcome?

In truth I am looking forward to seeing the girls at home again, and my school chums and to school generally though I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of how busy the next nine months are going to be, especially in light of the last month - which has been glorious in its nothingness.

Days on the boat....


Nights on the harbour....


Early evenings on the beach...


And the lovely weddings of lovely friends in the lovely sunshine...


And all while in the bosom of the family. I can't tell you how I've missed the boisterous madness that is my nearest and dearest. Juvenile dinner table conversation, serious discussions about how to spend a hypothetical $30 million lottery win, laughter, swims, cheese and wine and a front verandah with sit-in-me-forever chairs under a starry Sydney night. It's been so, SO good.

What I've realised most about being home, and what I love so dearly about Sydney is the space - the geographical space, the airspace, the head space, not so much the parking space, but just the general sense of freedom and ease that comes with living here. Something desperately absent from Encroach Upon Me London. How to remedy this when I'm back I'm not entirely sure - yoga perhaps or an amble through Hampstead Heath once a week. I don't know. But I do know it's something I'm going to have to work out because I don't think I can justify a fornightly weekend in Portugal. Though goodness I'd like to try...

Strangely I haven't spent as much time as I imagined I might at Bondi while I've been home. I think in some small part because when it looks like this - drowned in people....


Well, it reminds me of London. And not just because most of those thousands of people are themselves English.

It's late here so I should probably go and finish packing. My frigging suitcase looks like one of those ridiculous sandwiches you get at trendy gourmet cafes - splayed open and piled high with too much shit to actually be able to close, thus sending the goats cheese and baby spinach straight down the front. It's a good look. Right up there with the public re-pack at the check-in desk when said sandwiched suitcase hovers 5-10kg above the weight restriction. Something to look forward to tomorrow.

Passport, check...

So I wish I was asleep right now but for various reasons, among them cold feet, I am not. Wide awake would be too strong a term and yet here I find myself, vaguely awake but far from alseep - and typing. I can't decide if it's narcissistic or just peculiar. Either way - it's technically tomorrow by 26 minutes which means I'm Sydney-bound in exactly 11 hours.

I'm really so excited to be heading home for Christmas, though it feels a little strange at the same time. I haven't been gone long enough for it to feel like any sort of significant homecoming and yet there's a weird sort of ambivalence to it, for want of a better word. I guess because I know I'll be back in London in a months time and am not sure how I feel about that, despite so looking forward to next semester, and I'm also not sure how I feel about not knowing exactly when I'll be home again. It's a whole lot of strange wrapped in a whole lot of yay. Gosh I can't wait to be back in Sydney.


Though ironically enough London has proven quite charming-slash-quirky-slash-sunny (shock! horror!) the last few days. Maybe The Tired has turned me slightly gaga but I could swear to a smug but dulcet whisper of nar-nee-nar-nee-nar-nar being carried on the icy winds strangling every street corner in central London...

Yesterday I went to Borough Market. If heaven were a place on earth that sold cheese and brownies and organic vegetables and "Specialities by Italian monks" it would be this very place.


Just so divine - before the crowds get to be too much you can seriously just do laps of the entire market sampling repeatedly from all the cheese platters and bread stalls. There is something here for every appetite and I only sated one of mine (the inner organic vegetarian one) so I'm determined to make this a more regular visit in the day-to-days of London life next year.


Then last night I went out for dinner for a school friend's birthday. The night before we'd had our end of term party, at this cool little champagne bar in Soho called Amuse Bouche. Tres fancy but a lot of fun - and a lot of free champagne... Last night was more of the same, only not so free, but then how can you put a price on drinks that look like this:


If ever you have to fill out one of those ridiculous time sucking but secretly kinda fun "how well do you know me?" emails... well my favourite drink is now officially (and after some concerted research it must be noted...) the lychee martini. Hello my friend. (Pansies remain optional).

After eating this amazing Moroccan meal one of the other girls from school, who appears to know every well-connected person and hip establishment in the entire Zone 1, and probably also Zone 2, took us out. We went to this member's only club called Sketch: picture if you will (no pun intended...) the requisite skinny door bitch plus the most hilariously hipster crowd known to man and the tabloids, think dudes in skinny jeans with afros and sunglasses and girls who haven't eaten since 1997 in faux fur coats, shiny lycra tights and crazy headbands.

The wallpaper was a moving video art installation and the halls were filled with paintings and kinetic sculptures and so much attitude I just had to laugh. I've never felt more like a tourist than I did last night - but I have to admit, it was so fucking out there that cool really is the only word for it.

It wasn't a late night but I've felt exhausted all day today, especially after letting my inner anal retentive clean freak loose on the house. But I feel happy to leave now knowing that the kitchen cupboard doors sparkle like new.

Ok. I need to find me some sleep.

Sydney here I come...

Cake and vodka

I. am. so. tired. I am SO pleased that I never have to work with two of my three group members ever again and I. am. so. SO. in. need. of. sunshine.

We had our group presentation yesterday and I suppose it went reasonably well, given my exacting standards but a big "whatevs" because the semester is now finished and I have five days to re-set my body clock, pack and starve before arriving home for a month of sunshine and swimming and family time. Hur-rah.

I am so exhausted that I physically have the shakes. On Sunday night I was so tired and stressed that I didn't get to sleep until 4.30am - but at least I spent the time productively, cleaning the stove, re-writing our group report and finessing my presentation. I wanted to vomit after we were finished - thanks in part to the sudden departure of adrenalin but I'm unwilling to rule out the diet coke and red bull I had for breakfast as another contributing factor....

Pause

I had an interesting discussion with a friend last week. Following a conversation we'd had the day before about my inability to complete anything with more than a few hours to spare, she confessed the next day to having pondered later about whether I was the laziest ambitious person she knew or the most ambitious lazy person. I conceded that would indeed be a tough nut to crack. And then we parted ways and I went home and did my washing, re-arranged the contents of my drawers and considered writing my essay.

I'm not sure if I've solved it for her but I can tell you this much for free - when a girl is too busy even to procrastinate she is fucking busy my friend.

The final countdown

This time in two weeks I will be kicking about Hong Kong airport waiting for my connecting flight home. Too exciting!

If only this week was over already. Currently I'm 17 minutes down with only six gazillion to go. The sad thing is that there is so much to get done this week I'm not even sure six gazillion minutes will be enough. Just as long as I don't eat my way through this assignment like I did the last. Hell no.


It has been a reasonably productive weekend I suppose - though someone please remind me of my rule about not drinking diet coke after 4pm - another 4am session of bolt awake thumb-twiddling and I will do more than howl in frustration.

Two more weeks, two more weeks.

I went to a school friend's birthday party on Friday night - more cocktails (hello raspberry martini my friend) and a chance to wear some ridiculous heels and a sparkly dress - certainly a shift in gears from my usual attire, channeling 12 year old boys in my converse and baggy pants.


Everyone was in good form, and I think might have even been hit on - though it's hard to know, the last time someone hit on me I was five and in the sandbox, and you know, literally hit on. A slightly peculiar guy but fun to pretend I was normal. He told me I had a lovely nature - I told him that was lovely as usually people found me sarcastic and combative. I think he thought I was joking. Whatever the case it was nice to have a moment of non-social retardation, however fleetingly. And I look forward to welcoming back my social life at the end of this week, once the project is finished.

Until then I shall just continue to whisper softly to myself "two more weeks, two more weeks..."

Happy Hour

A rhetorical question obviously but could there be anything more wonderful than £3 cocktails? Apart from anything else they help keep the maths gloriously simple when it comes to multiplying by four...

Yesterday was a cocktail day. It had to be done. In fact, I could probably argue for it being a cocktail week. [Have just realised how close I'm skirting to poster child status for Alcoholics Anonymous - but whatever, it's been a long few days...]


Earlier this week I went babysitting. Old friend of my mum's hairdresser who now lives in London with her husband and four kids. I don't remember the last time I baby-sat, I certainly don't remember the last time I had to duel intellectually with a seven year old (Are you married? Why not? How old are you? I think mid-30s [are you fucking serious?!?!?...] How many degrees do you have? Our other babysitter has 10.) but it was a good night, and a dream run once they were all in bed. Lovely kids, lovely parents and a house full of Australian food stuffs. Oh Vegemite I've missed you.

It was a late night though, or perhaps I should say early morning, as I didn't get home until 2.30am. Thankfully they paid for a cab (living as they do on the absolute other side of London) and I had a lovely ride home through the deserted streets of London - and a free philosophy lecture from my cab driver about why it is important to be good in life.


Then yesterday I had my first slide exam. One hour, 12 slides and the most vomitous drivel imaginable masquerading as rigorous visual analysis. You can see why I needed a cocktail or four. Perhaps I'll re-imagine the evening as a homage to Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen from 1975 - C for Cosmopolitan, T for Toast on the couch at home, M for Mild headache this morning...

I do need to get up and get on with the day - I have a date with the library this morning and a longstanding guilt-riven obligation to the temple that isn't quite my body to take it to the gym. Then I need to come home and get this bloody group project started. We have 10 days to put an entire issue of an art magazine together - from concept to editorial to ads to images. If we can pull it off it will be phenomenal and I'm looking forward to it but it's going to be one loooo-oo-ong week. A week punctuated by fun outings for birthday parties and hopefully some tobogganing in Hyde Park, but nonetheless a disproportionately long and stressful week.

In my Peter Pan happy place - this is where I would be this weekend:


Swimming from Bondi to Bronte. I am so longing to be home in the sun and sea that I feel physically a bit sick. And no, before you say anything, it has nothing to do with the cocktails.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas...