Footscray

Footscray is a strange and confronting place. The train from my house to the city is incredibly well mannered. Carriages are free from society's lower reaches, and everything moves along harmoniously and rather boringly as the train makes its twelve minute journey into the city. The train out to Footscray, however, could not be more different. Nor more interesting. Old ladies sit rolling joints, groups of glazed-eyed teenagers suck paint fumes from a silver streaked plastic bag, couples with prams have fights, and strange people strike up conversations with you.

This morning on the train, the highlight was the spectacular wig worn by the old Italian man with his Asian wife. It sat up in the air, combed and coiffed, and at the nape of his neck there was at least two centimetres of space between the mullet strands and his neck. It was a dark blonde colour, without a streak of grey, and shimmering in the light through the train window. They got on with me at Spencer Street station, and alighted one station before me at South Kensington. I do not know where they were going, or what they were doing, but I hope the wig made the day all the more special for them.

On my way to work I felt I needed some caffeine. I never drink caffeine, and I really do mean never, but lately I've been finding sleeping very difficult, and waking up even harder. I've had to contend with strange lucid dreams, too. This morning I was a police investigator, trying to solve some kind of case involving a party at a very rich family's home. My weapon was a Pump water bottle, and when I brandished it at the gun toting socialites they snickered. I told them it was a gun, and that they'd better watch out, but then accidentally squeezed it and some water shot out. Completely blowing my cover. The night before it was a little more disturbing, and to do with alternative forms of feminine hygiene products, but I'll spare you those details.

So in pursuit of coffee I chose the place with the classiest signage. This place was Naken Japan, in Footscray mall. Strangely enough, the only thing Japanese about Naked Japan is the plastic water lillies in bowls of stones on each table. It is not even owned or run by Japanese people, nor does it serve food - let alone Japanese food. From what I can tell, it is owned by African immigrants, and African immigrants are their main regular customers.

My coffee from Naked Japan was average, due to inferior quality soy milk, so I will have to continue exploring the streets of Footscray. I'm thinking for my next coffee I will try the hospital cafeteria styled place next door called Café D'Afrique. Perhaps in spending less money on fancy signage they have more money for good coffee. I'm also intrigued by the selection of food in the bain marie, and would like to try African without having to sit by myself in one of the restaurants. I've somewhat explored the Vietnamese part of Footscray, including the best place to buy moon cakes, so now I think I should try the other dominant culture's culinary offerings.

I will give you my review of Café D'Afrique tomorrow.

Things About Hostels

I woke at 5am, desperately needing to go to the toilet. This I managed without difficulty. However, when I went back to bed, I realised there was something quite bizarre happening in the bunk above me. The guy in the top bunk, whom I had never actually met, was rolling around violently, and whispering to himself in some other language. He was then making kissing noises, in his sleep. Even though it was bright daylight outside, I briefly went back to sleep, but was awoken again half an hour later by the abrasive creaking of the bunk above. I decided that, in order to catch the train to Oslo, I needed to get up anyway. When I arose, I looked over to find that the guy above me was actually a guy and a girl, attempting to sleep together on one top-storey single bed.

Does anyone know what the etiquette is about couples in 12-bed-to-a-dorm hostels?

I'm twenty minutes from catching a train - next post: Oslo.

More from the bathroom of København H station.

Above the sinks in the men's rooms:

Free for use washing.
For all other purposes, 5.00Kr.

For what other purposes would the wash basins in the men's room be used, and would 5.00Kr really be enough to cover them?

Two houses

I didn't always live in the house I am typing from now.  In fact, up until about four months ago I lived in a very different suburb with four very different people to the two I live with now.  Up until four months ago I had slept in the same bedroom I was placed in on arriving home from the one and only time I've ever been in a hospital.  

The house I grew up in is situated in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne.  Not outer outer, but outer enough to make a trip to work in Footscray an hour-and-a-half-each-way journey by public transport.  The suburb I grew up in is not outer enough to be bogan, yet not inner enough to be urban.  

As a result, many of the people who grow up in these middle suburbs never leave.  They finish high school, travel each day to university or work, never deviating from their well planned out route, and then come home to eat a dinner of spaghetti bolognaise with their parents consisting mostly of prepackaged and prepared ingredients.  When they do move out of home, they move into a nice suburban house with their long term high school boyfriend in the same postcode as their parents, then get married and have babies, and continue the middle suburban cycle.

Fortunately, I managed to happen upon friends in my middle suburb who transcend this pattern.  For all but one friend, they are not friends I went to high school with.  My friends from high school are all very much living in their middle suburb bubble.  The last I heard, they were of the opinion I'd "gone off the rails".  This statement was based purely on several of them running into me after midnight at the 24 hour Coles doing my regular grocery shopping.  They too were at Coles at 2am, however were having a "girls night" and buying munchies.  This is (apparently) much less deviant than grocery shopping.

Although all these friends do transcend the middle suburb pattern, most still live with their parents in order to save money while they're still welcome.  I now live in the inner north-east, which means I travel back to the outer east very often to visit.

I did so last night.

Before I left my home, I called my family home to see if my middle sister wanted to come with me to meet some other friends for coffee.  She wasn't home, but my youngest sister was, and so she took me up on the offer instead.  I arrived to pick her up just after eight, as I'd said I would, to discover she was not home.  Not only was she not home, but she was out driving.  She only got her license a few weeks ago, and the thought of her on the road is a little disturbing.  It's worrying enough thinking of my middle sister on the road, let alone the littlest one too.

While waiting for my youngest sister to arrive home, my middle sister appeared at the front door.  I offered my original coffee invitation, and it was accepted, and so we waited for the youngest and then all left together in my car.

Despite disliking the outer east, there are a lot of things I really do miss.  All of them people, and my sisters the most.

I miss being loud in our house, and bursting into song at inopportune moments.  If our life were a sitcom it would surely be one in musical form.  I also miss watching bad TV with them and shouting at the characters on the screen.  And I miss knowing that there will be someone around to talk to me about random things that are really not very interesting, but that I want to hear all the same.

Living in the inner north-east is very different.

Almost as much as my sisters I miss two of my friends.  I miss being able to drive five minutes up the road to meet with one for coffee, and I miss wandering ten minutes up the road at midnight to meet the other at a designated street corner where we will wander around the silent streets and chat about all the things that would be awkward to say in a family home.

Right now, I'm a twenty-five minute drive from home, but most of the time it feels as though I could be on completely the other side of the country.

How Did I Get Here? Part Two: København.

Københaven H train station is an odd place. About ten minutes ago, I felt the need to relieve myself of some excess internal luggage, and so went to the downstairs bathrooms by the GAD bookstore. Just at the entrance to the bathroom is a manned kiosk, offering shower time at a hefty price. Why would people shower, at a cost, underneath the central train station? In any case, the most fantastic part was the sign which read:

Kondomer, 50.00Kr.

Why would this not be an automatic dispenser? Why do you have to buy them from the dark, dirty, unshaven man from the dingy kiosk? And 50Kr is a little more than AUD10 - how many do you get in a packet? Because it could turn out to be a very expensive rendezvous, indeed.

Tonight will be my last night in Denmark. I first made these travel plans about five years ago, when I realised that almost everybody in my first year French group had been to Europe, except me. When I first made these plans, I had somebody I intended to go with. That didn't quite work out for me. So I got myself into the position where I could save up my scholarship money, and I could take five months to just wander around Europe. I knew I'd miss Adelaide, but everyone told me that I would catch this highly contagious 'travel bug', and never wish to return.

Tomorrow I will catch the 8.26am train from this very station to Oslo, Norway - home to even more vikings, and the paternal side of Benn's family. And the whole trip I will be wishing that the train would take a slight unexpected detour and somehow end up at an old farmhouse in suburban Melbourne.

When I first got here, I was delighted. The architecture is stunning, and I found myself wandering through lofty 400-year-old apartment blocks and hoardes of cyclists. After a few hours, I was horrified. I was alone, on the other side of the world, unable to read the signs or eavesdrop on people's conversations. There was nobody to run into on the street - nobody to drop in on when I was bored. I couldn't e-mail Benn and ask to catch up for lunch, and (more than anything) I couldn't spend my entire day shooting e-mails back and forth with Erica.

Really, Copenhagen reminds me of Melbourne, except with beautiful architecture. I took a (rather frightening) long walk into suburbia last night, to the point where I was surrounded by Arabic fruit and veg stores and Domino's Pizza. Even then, 45 minutes walk from town, each building is five stories tall with magnificent stone frontages and beautiful rooves. It is Melbourne because it is incredibly multicultural, and commercial life doesn't cease to exist when you happened to have left Rundle Street. But for all of this wonderful architecture, I'd still rather be taking my holiday to Sydney Road than Vesterbrogade.

I have had a Danish Danish, and eaten ice-cream in Copenhagen. I have seen the Royal Castle (photos forthcoming), the Art Gallery (exquisite, but full of impressionists), and followed the High School Graduates on their annual expedition of getting completely shitfaced and yelling at passers by on the backs of specially-decorated utes, while wearing the strange sailors caps which are their version of our graduation boards. This began at 11am and continued until midnight, when I finally got to bed, only to hear the fireworks start from the small room in my hostel.

So today I intend to find a Danish cookbook, buy my first European notebook, and buy a train ticket to Norway.

Sticky

Today I went to work.  I managed to sit in some glue, and when I went to the bathroom discovered the seat of my underwear stuck to the seat of my pants.

Blonde, Nordic Girls. And us.

And now, for some background.

Erica and I first met in January of this year. When we first met, we both had other partners - I was in a rather brief fling, and Erica was introduced as the girlfriend of a friend of mine. Suffice to say that neither relationship lasted, but we kept in contact. I even brought her to Adelaide to play at my band's last pre-Europe gig. And when it all got too much, we had to actually talk about it.

I had planned by European excursion since late last year. When we got together, it was only one month before my departure. I told her it would be easy for me to keep chaste running around another continent, if she were prepared to wait for my return. She told me I would be missing out on all of these blonde, nordic girls. But I haven't, not at all - they have been captured in photographic form, along with many other things, on our Flickr:

flickr.com/photos/neitherblondenornordic

Have a look. I might even write some more about last night before the day is done. I will leave now, though, for I must go buy a better, non-scam phone card. I need to call someone quite special.