Touch Football

I meet with my friends once a week to play touch football. Sometimes we play well together and I actually make a slight difference to the outcome of the match. Other times I sit on the wing hoping I don’t make an ass of myself. Lately I’ve the feeling that I want to be good at this game. I want to smoothly catch a pass side step my opponent to slide into score. It’s a simple dream, not very big but it’s what I want.

 My life has become filled with small dreams. Little things that I would like to do to make small differences. I feel the most joy in these small places, the most connected to who I am and those around me just by achieving them. It’s so weird that these small things now elude me.

My friends are runners, they dive to tag in defense they step around the edge of the field and score tries. They are fast and smart and are so much better at coping with everything in the game. I find myself wondering what I am doing in this team. Which misinformed person thought to include me? Or was it just whom ever they could find?

I remember as a kid being so good at Physical Culture. Effortlessly climbing trees, doing cartwheels sometimes the splits. Every year I would win club championship, there was no question that I would not. I understood the game and played without even trying “How could anyone find it hard?” At school I danced circles around the other students. I was always ahead so quick to understand a concept. Even now I feel faster than everyone else but I don’t try to win because my I don’t think my body can keep up.

I would never have thought the small wins would keep me so impassioned. I always assumed I would drive ahead of the pack whipping my flag in the air and let everyone eat my dust. If I wasn’t winning I wouldn’t be happy. I look at my friends and the choices they make mesmerize me. They seem to steadily work towards a life I want but can’t have. I can’t have a partner, I know this and I know why I can’t have one. For some reason I feel this is linked to my being able to play sport well. I don’t know why I just know that the point at which I stopped being good at sport was the point I closed the book on ever being in a happy relationship.

Son of bitch

Let me start by apologising. Did I really write posts that started with Meeting some destination? As in "Meeting Borneo". You can't meet Borneo. You go to Borneo. You arrive in Borneo or you can depart from Borneo. You can dance around naked in Borneo or drink tequila and spew in its canals. But you can not for the love of God meet Borneo down a street. You can not sit on a rooftop bar and claim to of met the essence of Borneo. Especially when you have only stayed there for one month. Please trust that if I could slap my past self around I would. I'm writing a few things and am going to publish them on this site. It is probable these writings will have nothing to do with travelling but I am linking them together because although I cringe when I re read the posts I did work hard on them. And I think that sometimes you should give yourself a bit of credit when you are trying your best.

Meeting Borneo

Since arriving home I have been slack updating the last month in Borneo. Luckily I have lots of notes and photos to refresh my memory!

When I decided to do the Great Orangutan Project I didn't realise what a gift I was giving myself and even though I knew what I was getting it still gave me the biggest surprise.

I farewelled dreary London and enjoyed the last few days of hospitality at my brother's house. No hot showers and general civilities for a whole month. Could I handle it?

Number one get on plane to Kuala Lumpur check.

Number two get on plane to Kuching check. Meet driver at the front who would take me to no doubt the dingiest hostel in all of Malaysia.

I walked out the arrivals and looked for a guy holding up a sign with my name. Nothing then a guy walked forward and said "Angela lovelly to meet you". Turns out Richard our driver has a spooky ability of picking volunteers from the arrivals and knowing their names. There were definately others he could have confused me with on my flight. Rochelle and Jack were from a mining town in Australia and I could see they were a little shocked with Borneo.

I had been to Thailand before so the heat and fragrant smells weren't new to me.

The dingiest hostel in all of Malaysia was actually so nice that I have upgraded its title to the best hostel I stayed in. Dark woods, smells of Frangipani comfy beds, clean white sheets, hot water, a cafe and upstairs bar that overlooks the unbelieveable view of the convention centre.

I met the other volunteers and became relaxed straight away. Volunteering is my line of work. I've done it so many times now that I completely accept the role of the worker bee, essentially that the managers will tell you what to do when to do.

That night the volunteers who had just finnished their month stay regalled us with funny stories and we started the bonding process with the current volunters.

Claire a very goregous version of Gwenth Paltrow was coming back for her second month. I knew then there must be something good to make people speak so affectionately about the staff and animals.

We had an awesome dinner, the new dish for me was the ferns with garlic and chili. And I started to take note of the very different kinds of people doing this project. I was actually the youngest there, a few men but mainly women.

We laughed at how we had all passed out before dinner and marvelled how nice the place was. I didn't think much about it then but I was very trusting of the process, maybe if I had never volunteered before I would have been scared and felt apprehensive but I was really prepared to be told what to do.

The next day after shopping for a bit we left for Matang, stopping to shop in our houses and get some lunch. Tried Rotti for the first time a pancake with curry dipping sauce. Very tasty.

The heat was to be honest overwhelming for a white girl, from whiteville, whitevallia England. And when we slept in our quite nice stilt house under my mosquito net I couldn't get comfy and wondered how on earth I would endure the next month.

My skin broke out like a 16 year old the next day, but since I was essentially cleaning out cages and working in sweating conditions I could not hope to look hot in any little bit.

We took a walk of Matang and first impressions of this place was that it was doing some very important work. I have very specific views on conservation in Malaysia that I will share with anyone over a beer but I won't publish them here as quite literally there are people who could loose their jobs over it.

Borneo

I have been doing the Orangutan project for the past week and so far we have been chased twice by orangutans. It's hard running through the jungle.

I'm really loving the project, so much so that I can see myself coming back again to travel through Asia.

Matang is a very humble centre that is working incredibly hard to protect and save endangered species in Malaysia. I have some pretty good shots of a baby orangutan that is being weened by the staff. And I have a favourite, a Gibbon named Yue Yue. Actually I think all the volunteers love her as much as I do.

This is just a quick update as I'll be home soon and this is the only weekend with internet. I'm going back to the jungle in a couple of hours and I won't come back to Kuching until I leave for Sydney.

I'll post photos of Borneo on Facebook and hopefully will see you all very soon.

Lots of love

Angie

Berlin and Lisbon -

Just a short two days left in Berlin then I'm back to London to get some final vaccinations before heading to Borneo. If I didn't mention earlier I have decided to spend a month volunteering for the Orangutan Project in Sarawak. I pretty much decided I would do it once I got here and hence had to get vaccinations in England and changed travel plans to suit. But that's okay because the travel plans were only in my mind and they weren't very good anyway.

Lisbon.
So if my mum hasn't already told you the unthinkable has happened! I got pick pocketed on my arrival to Lisbon. Somewhere between my ride on the aerobus and the short walk through Rossio Square, some thieving piece of poo got my wallet without me even being aware of it. Have you ever been in a foreign country with not a cent to your name? No way of calling home? No way of retrieving any money? No idea how to get to the embassy? I have. And now I can tick that off my list of life achievements.

I am a very lucky person indeed that the hostel let me stay and lent me money over the weekend. I got my credit card sent out and some cash transfered so that by Monday I was feeling okay again. In two days time though when trying to book online with said credit card, I realised it was a pointless piece of plastic. I'm going to write an angry letter to St. George. All the eftpos machines in Europe have chip detectors so they won't accept my card. I'm sure though if I needed to build a house of cards it would be a killer base wall.

Anyway Lisbon and shit what can I say? It's nice, it has culture, the people steal shit blah blah blah. But in all honesty it is a beautiful place and the average person on the street in incredibly kind and chatty.

Though what is going on with the Swiss? One older Swiss guy upon hearing that I had my stuff stolen said "Oh we thought you were being antisocial sitting by yourself."
"No I'm trying to work out money transfers so I don't starve to death."
Next day this American guy comes up to me and says "You know the Swiss guy? He's not feeling to well and was wondering if you would mind running some errands for him today?"

Well gee insult me one day we must be best friends the next. Good thing I was leaving and could very graciously decline his kind offer to let me run around all day for him.

Flew to Berlin had my drinks bought by the guy sitting next to me. I really did not feel like getting chat up I just wanted to get to Berlin. Pretended to sleep for four hours.

Berlin
Berlin is cool without ever trying. I walked past a graffited wall and there was two sky blue mopeds parked next to it. It was so casually cool that someone in Australia would probably set it up as an installation piece and charge for it.

It has a hansome mix of old and new buildings. I really like that about this town. So many places I have been too have clung so desperately to their buildings, that they stop providing for the people that live there. I understand the importance of museums and cultural institutes but I don't understand the importance of apartments that are so archaic, the people who live in them are forced to hump their heaters in an attempt to keep warm.

I am getting tired of being harrassed. I think being on my own has made me an easy target for every person on the street. And since having my stuff stolen I really care a lot less for these people. Every story is the same, it's always about sick kids and lost train tickets. Eventually I'm going to start introducing these people so they can form a support group for people who have lost train tickets/sick kids and get some kind of community awareness.

Now that I'm coming to the end of my European escapade I've gotta say that while my tone may sometimes border on the morose. I've actually sshh really enjoyed travelling alone. I never thought I would be the kind of person to befriend strangers so quickly but when you have to, you just have to. I don't know what happens to people when they travel but I think everyone goes through the strange leap from avearage day Joe to super explorer happy fun times. Though at the same time I don't want to give the impression that every single minute is so awesome that everyone should be really jealous. Like I wake up in the morning take a shot of heroin, then ride horses, play with puppies, do backflips and have cocktails at night.

Sometimes its waiting around for a connection or a tour to start, or going to a really cool shop and it's a Sunday and closed so you go to a park instead.

Or sometimes it is, as it is tonight. Sitting in an eight person hostel room with one other guy. He is very shy, which is cool I totally dig his personal space. He has been here ever since I arrived. And I'd like to think that after two nights with a family with small children (yes who on earth brings small children to a hostel) we have formed an unspoken bond. Yes I'm sure we must have because we are still sitting here quietly enjoying the company, not speaking.

Happy fun hour!

I have had some really funny incidents staying in Europe's finest hostels and hotels. And when ever something strange happened I thought to myself "make sure you remember that - you may need to do stand up one day and that was gold". If you are ever thinking about staying in the odd hostel or two I hope my experiences will convince you to do it. They are a lot of fun and you will meet some of the nicest albeit quirkiest people this side of the world.

In chronological order of dates

Edinburgh - St. Hostel
I stayed in a twenty bed dorm in Edinburgh. Some of the beds were behind partions so it was hard to see who was and wasn't there. One day I thought I was alone and started singing to myself, three guys were asleep around the corner. But that was not as bad as one guy who didn't realise myself and another girl were reading on our beds. He got up to go to the bathroom... naked. Saw us let out an "Ep!" and ran back to his bed.

London - Enterprise hotel
One night I lay in bed dreaming of monkeys. "Ee e Ee e Ee e" Turns out it was the couple above having sex. Well fair enough they were staying in a hotel room. Check the time 6am! Who the hell is having sex at 6am. Then 9am. Then 10am.

Also, I wrote this in my blog but when I lugged my suitcase up many stairs through London town and I got to my room and there were a set of stairs inside the hotel room, I was so pissed off, I decided to fashion a sled out of a box and slide down them. I don't know how this could nullify the sheer magnitude of stairs I had to deal with but it did make me happy.

Paris - Love and Peace Hostel
Dude vomiting all over himself and the floor. I can laugh about it now I realise how absurd the situation was. It was a three person bunk bed in a room so small you had to climb into the bed so the others could walk past you. The two of us on top were pretending we couldn't hear anything because we were "sleeping so deeply". You know when you want to avoid awkward situations, so when they say "hey hope I didn't keep you up" you say "no, why what happened?" even though you were fully aware of the whole ordeal and plan to write about it in your blog. Well that's exactly what happened to me!

Madrid - The Cat's Hostel
An older gentlemen stayed with us in a 10 bedder and that guy could snore! We all sat up in our beds wondering aloud to each other how he wasn't waking himself up. He paused for a second and someone said "Is he dead?" to which the whole room cracked up laughing. The older gentlemen wakes up and moans "Be quiet". This one guy says "I know buddy they're very inconsiderate" but the older gentlemen doesn't hear him he is fast asleep.

Another night a guy brought a girl back to our room and lets just say if I didn't see "Where do I come from?" in year 6, I would be up to speed after their on the covers romp. I mean really what kind of self respecting person does the dirty dirty in a packed hostel room with their mates camera's flashing off every 10 seconds? I ask you?

Lisbon - The Poet's Hostel
I seem to have issues with snorers. I got moved to a room during my second week where a large guy had the record for the loudest snorer in the world. Look I'm sure he has a winning personality but sometime in his youth he shoved a penny up his nose and his subsequent attempts to snort out his bus change every night have remained fruitless. And I went to great lengths to deal with it. Ear plugs, pillows, going to sleep first and timing it so that I would be deep into my rem cycles. Nothing worked. I started to look like a torture victim after my third day. But the funniest part was when he wakes up one morning looks over at me and says "Geez dude you don't look so good - you need to get more sleep!"

On the last night there was this one guy who I had shared a room with for three nights suddenly broke into these long soliloquies in his sleep. It was so random and entertaining.

Well there you have it - fantastic reasons to stay in hostels.

Madrid - much better

Sitting at Charles De Gaulle airport my feet resting on my suitcase as a symbol of my defiance to everything French I thought "I hope there is dog poo on my shoes". That would be a lovely view for the Parisians sitting around me at the airport. I really didn't like Paris. I read an article that said "during the sale seasons in Paris retailers are almost happy to have tourists purchase their wares" and that was attempting to publicise the town. It may sound harsh of me, especially to those who insist that Paris is wonderful but to me Paris is not a town that delivers on the hype.

My next stop, Madrid, may also be crap but at least it wouldn't be Pairs.

Madrid is a wonderful capital city full of wide planned streets that colesce with small windy lanes punctured with forums full of performers, markets, restaurants, bars and heaps of people.

On my first day there I spent four hours walking around. The weather is more like Australia so it is funny to see the townspeople in ski jackets complaining about the cold. It really isn't cold at all.

On Sundays the parks are packed with kids on bikes, rollerbladers and families teaching children to ride bikes. If they weren't speaking Spanish I could have sworn I was back in Australia. Especially with the odd outdoor senior fittness class.

My humble abode at the Cat's Hostel allowed me to meet an array of colourful individuals. First roomies were the Brittish girls on exchange from Salamanca university. There were amazed that I was travelling alone and asked me all these unusual questions, which I had never thought about, like sharing with unknown males. My honest answer was that in every hostel the men were my age or younger and I was pretty confident I could kung fu most of them if I absolutely had to. Most of the guys in hostels wear tight jeans and live on vegan food and read Hemmingway. They are not that much of a threat but they do have interesting insights about prose.

The next night I got talking to some very nice American girls who had just come from Lisbon and a Brittish girl who was writing her thesis and having a pretty awful time in Madrid. Just then a gaggle of South American boys wandered in and completely blew my theory of effeminate men occupying hostels. They were from Argentina and apart from being very loud they were also very confident. I think one of them said.
"There are four women and there are now four men perfect".

We started talking about everything from healthcare to theivery in our respective countries. It is very interesting to see the competition between North and South America. The girls did not consider the boys to be American but technically, they were and demanded we adjust any gerneralisations about American people to suit both continents.

I did manage a couple of museums and I did go to a couple of restaurants but the most fun I had was walking through the public gardens, parks and bar hoping. If you are thinking about travelling through Europe make sure you stop by Spain. Even if not Madrid some of the other cities are very much worth a look see.

Interesting experience 1: For lunch one day I decided I would have an authentic Spanish meal. I ordered Paella to start then ordered something really awesome to say in Spanish. At the time I had no idea what it was but I hoped it was a large plate full of spicy vegetables. It was steak and chips. Can you believe it? The most interesting thing I found to say in Spanish is the blandest meal.

Interesting experience 2: One of the street performers was a very over weight man wearing a full spiderman outfit. He kept doing all these crazy moves that were hilarious. Unfortunately my camera was back at the hostel charging and I never saw him again so it may have been some kind of spiderman pychosis I was in.

Interesting experience 3: The showers in Cat's had a button which sprang back after ten seconds and stopped the flow of water. It was quite humourous to be having a shower battling with the button and hearing seven girls groaning about the same thing in respective cubicles.

N.B Photos coming soon.