hot topics of backpacker conversation

Toady the hot topic of conversation in the hostel is the thief who was up to no good last night.

Somehow a bloke with blond hair and grey trousers managed to get hold of one of housekeepings master keycards and used it to enter every room on the second floor. Fortunatly at 11pm plenty of people in the hostel are still wideawake and chilling out in their rooms, so when a strange bloke walks in and out of every room on a floor everyone notices and the matter is quickly reported to reception and a posse of angry blokes quickly forms to ferret out the little bastard.

Unfortunately they didn't catch up with him. He disappeared as soon as he was rumbled. But that didn't stop every one from being on edge for the rest of the night.

The formerly relaxed attitude to valuables and personal property has now been shaken up and people are now carrying their valuables around with them instead of casually discarding them in the relative safety of their rooms.

why run if you have nothing to hide?

Yesterday one of the girls in the hostel told me that an innocent Brazilian man had been shot dead by London police becouse they thought he was a suicide bomber.
I didn't believe her. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in the UK.

I was horrified when I found out it was true.

This sort of thing just doen't happen in the UK. The British Police aren't a bunch of gun crazy gung-ho ametures, yet they have suddenly instigated a Shoot to kill policy against suspected suicide bombers.

The dead man was shot becouse he ran away from the police when he was challenged by them. It is speculated that he did this becouse he was in the country on a student visa which had expired. I suppose he feard being deported back to Brazil.

It is not at all uncommon for police and immigration services to swoop at Tube Stations to catch people unawares as they travel to and from work. I have seen it myself on several occasions.

Labour peer Lord Ahmed warned that illegal immigrants would try to run away if challenged by police.

"And whilst we need to catch those illegal immigrants or asylum seekers, nevertheless we can't shoot them because they're not terrorists," he said.

(BBC News)

share the germs

I have made friends with a South African girl who is in my room at the hostel. Well actually she made friends with me. She was quite determined about it actually.

She's a bit odd. She keeps wanting to share stuff with no regards for germs.

As you are by now probably sick of hearing, I have been quite ill for the past 2 weeks. She knows this, she sees the runny nose and hears the coughing and the violent hacking up of phlem. So quite why she would then ask to take a bite of food from the same fork as me or a sip of drink using the same straw or offer to let me stick my finger in her pot of lip balm is beyond me.

When I'm around someone who is ill I try to not even breathe in the air they have just exhaled for fear of catching something. She seems determined to ingest whatever bacteria and viruses my body has expelled forth. I just don't get it. Maybe they didn't study hygiene at her posh private school.

P.S: I have just added a back dated post about San Francisco (with pictures) which you can read Here

More bombs in London

I was just about to log off the internet when I noticed a news head line that another set of 4 bombs have gone off in London (suspected to be the work of a copycat group).

I am so glad I'm in Australia at the moment and not having to live with that kind of fear. The press here is still reporting daily on the first set of bombs and the Australian victims who are still in hospital.

Yesterday Australian Premier John Howard visited 2 of them in hospital in London and was asked by one if he thought the Iraq war had anything to do with the attacks. Looking very awkward he said and which targeted Australian holiday makers had happened before the Iraq war.

I read somewhere that there is no need for suicide bombings in a Liberal democratic society such as the UK. How right they are. There is no shortage of avenues for expressing your political messages and ideology to a national audience without fear of censorship or retribution, so why resort to violence?

Certainly there are many areas of the word where free speech is not a right or a privilege and the only way to get you message across is through dramatic action. The UK is not one of these places.

The only thing these people are doing is inspiring hatred and negativity towards their cause.

Common sense is in short supply

The day after I arrived in Australia I emailed my CV (thats a Resume to everyone outside the UK) to a temp agency I had found. On the Monday I got an email saying that my CV hadn't attached properly and could I send it again.

I did and didn't hear another word until I emailed her a week later to see if she had received the email. She informed me that she had but she couldn't contact me as I had only given her a UK mobile phone number.

Ok, fair enough, her boss may not be to pleased about her making international phone calls but she had my email address. Why couldn't she have emailed me to ask me to come in to register?

This ranks right up there with the time at my old job when I was urgently trying to contact an 18 year old student. I had sent her several letters which included a reply slip and prepaid envelope for her to give me an answer at absolutely no cost to herself what so ever. Eventually I spoke to the girls mother who gave me her email address. This is what the halfwit wrote to me in her reply email: "I was unable to phone you with a response as I do not have a mobile phone."

Ignoring the all prepaid envelopes and reply slips that were in with the letters I sent her, HAS SHE NEVER HEARD OF A PAY PHONE?!!!!

For Gods sake people use your heads.

Earth Girl gets her hearing back

My bunged up ear finaly popped this morning, right before I puked up the banana I had for breakfast. Surprisingly it tasted almost the same on the way up as it did on the way down. Grossed out yet ?

Since I have nothing to do all day except lay in the TV room infecting everyone with my germs. I have had plenty of time to catch up with my travel journal.

I have been keeping a daily diary of what I've been up to but have fallen behind since arriving here. It's not very interesting stuff it mostly follow the format of 'saw such and such sight today, spoke to a girl from Sweden in the kitchen, this city sucks/is okay'. Very boring stuff , but it's still good to keep a record of it. When I'm old and grey I'll have something to look back on - if I can still read my writing.

I've also had the opportunity to compose blog posts to fill in the huge gap in time and space where my posts jump from arriving in San Francisco to leaving Fiji. So expect some back dated posts soon. But don't worry I'll let you know which ones they are.

God Bless the NHS

I have just had to pay $50 dollars. Yes, $50 to see a doctor. I can't believe it. I was in there for about 10 minutes. He took a look down my throat and in my ears and told me there was nothing he could do apart form prescribe me some antihistamines to clear up my ear pain.
$50 for a prescription I didn't need as those same anti histamines are available over the counter anyway. WTF!!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you never truly appreciate your own country until you spend some serious time away from it. And you can never truly appreciate the NHS until you have had to pay a ridiculous sum of money for 10 minutes with a doctor in a foreign country.

The NHS may have its faults, I don't deny it. But the main thing is that it does work and it is there when you need it.

Healthcare should be free, not just for the privalidged few who can afford it. I may not have got a lot out of today's appointment but I did get peace of mind that I don't have some horrible ear, nose and throat infection that will leave me deaf and mute. But what if I didn't have the money to pay? I would have to ride out the misery of being ill while the stress and anxiety of fretting about what is wrong with me made me even sicker. That's no way to live.

poor me

I'm so ill.
The cold I have been suffering since Fiji has taken a turn for the worse and I feel like death warmed up. I look like it too.

just call me Mrs Mop

I have just finished a very long day cleaning other peoples houses with a strange little man who insisted on demonstrating correct way of dusting a shelf.

After yesterdays disasterous work session at the hostel the Job Club lady rescued me from the clutches of the inept General Manager with the offer of some paid cleaning work for a local contracter.

To cut a long and not very interesting story short I finished up the day with $60 cash in hand and the oportunity to come back tomorrow to scrub a patio untill it sparkles.

I'm gonna give it a miss this time. But I'll hang onto his number incase I get really desperate for money. It wasn't the best job I've ever had but it certainly isn't the worst (yesterdays washing out the bins from the hostel kitchens probably takes that prize position) and money is money after all.

bye bye party room

He was at it again yesterday. Not once but twice. I asked to be moved and today I will be shifting all my stuff into a new and hopeful shagging free room.

And I've also got myself some work. It's in the hostel and it's only for free accomodation and it's probably going to be a lot of cleaning and lifting but it's better than nothing.

the party room

Yes, my dorm room is the 'party room' of the hostel, due to the antics of the 4 boys who have been living there for several months.

The first night was OK. I told them how tired I was and that I was going to bed early and they said they would try to be quiet. They didn't of course and I woke up but it was 5 in the morning. I'd had most of the night undisturbed so I didn't mind.

Last night was a different story. One of them brought a girl back at about 11pm and proceeded to shag her for the next 2 hours. Being a Sunday everyone was in the room trying to sleep and everyone was kept awake by the grunting, groaning, giggling and loud whispers eminating from behind the privacy sheet. (Thankfully the bunkbed frame didn't squeek.)

After she left we were all highly amused when it turned out he had no idea who he'd just shagged. He met her in the bar and thought she was the girl who had just moved into our room that morning. It wasn't.

He didn't actualy care as he'd had the 'root' he was determined to get at the start of the night. He'd have preferd it if he haddn't had to buy her a drink first, but he suposed it's a small price to pay.

things start to return to normal

...or as close to normal as they've been for the past month.

I phoned home and everyone is OK. Mums hospital was put on Red Alert but didn't get any of the casualties at there not close enough to the city center. The casualties were spreat between, Great Ormond Street, Kings, UCH and St Marys.

The blasts were the hot topic of conversation in Fiji all day and in the bar that evening everyone was glued to BBC news.

As soon as some one hears the accent the start talking about the bombs. It's nice to know that so many people care.

You'll be glad to hear that my inital wave of panic disipated and I didn't rush to the airport to fly home. Instead, I continued with my plans and am now in Brisbane, Australia.

The airline broke my suitcase, I droped and smashed my bottle of duty free rum, my ears won't pop, I have a cold and I feel like shit. But my family is ok so I'm going to stop complaining.

home has never felt so far away

20 minutes ago I was sitting on a beach in Fiji and my only care in the world was the agonising decision of weather to go scuba diving or turtle feeding this afternoon.

A fellow Londoner I made freinds with came over with a face so serious I knew something had been wrong.

"I've just had a text message from my mum, theres been 4 bomb blasts in London."

Shit. We hot footed it over to the internet cafe for news. 3 blasts on tube trains and one on a bus. I don't think I know anyone who takes those routes, but you never know. I know my Mum will be affected as a Nurse in one of Londons Biggest hospitals she'll be dealing with the brunt of the injuries. I hope she'll be Ok.

I'm certain she's glad both her daughters are out of the country.

I am seroiously considering flying home. You need family at a time like this.

Tijuana

While in San Diego I took a day trip across the Mexican border into Tijuana.
I smelt it as soon as crossed the border. Poverty.

If you have never been to a developing country then you won't know what I am talking about. Those of you that have will be able to recall the universally distinct and palpable Third World stench. It lies somewhere between raw sewage, rotting garbage and a big city.

As you cross the footbridge over the river border between Mexico and the USA, the stunning view and distinct smell state most clearly the nature of the country you are entering.

Tijuana appears as a ramshackle mass of concrete buildings sprawling as far as the eye can see. The sea of buildings is punctuated by a gigantic but lone Mexican flag.

Tijuana is not beautiful, but it is stunningly different from its counterpart just across the border.


Mariachis waiting for restaurant owners to hire them for the night.