I stood in the shower just staring at it. I had tried everything. Push pull, turn left, turn right... I had even lifted up the little spigot thing on the bath tap but still the water just kept gushing out. I'm not sure if it's because I'm running on a very small amount of sleep or the country of America just radiates something that lowers your IQ but for the life of my I can't remember how to turn off the shower.
My room in the hotel wasn't ready when I arrived at 8am in the morning and I can understand that. I checked my big bag in with them and with my bulking backpack decided to venture into this strange new territory. Down the street I'm on is the famous Santa Monica pier so naturally, I head directly towards it.
Only one crossing, or 'crosswalk' separates me from the wooden planks of the pier and I press my fingers to the button. "WAIT" A voice commands. Oh, okay. that's a bit obvious isn't it? I draw my hand away and wait but there's something wrong. Where's the beeping? The pinging telling you that you shouldn't walk? Maybe I didn't press the button right? I better push it again to be sure. My fingers are hovering mere millimeters from the chrome surface as a voice jumps out at me dripping with authority "WAIT". I jump, and the man behind me laughs. "New here I'm guessing?" I'm completely red as I tell him I only just arrived at the states. As we talk every five seconds the crossing tells us to wait and then after the walk tells us it is okay to move we say our goodbyes and go our separate ways.
The pier itself is beautiful, I'm lucky enough to share it with only a handful of other people at this time of day. The pigeons, oh god the pigeons are the fattest, fluffiest pigeons I have every seen. They make the Australian pigeons look like bulimic runway models. As I walk they all come in turns, landing on the railing beside me to scope out if I have any food for them before flying off. Slowly shopkeepers a begin to pull out carts, lift shutter on windows and open doors and a sign catches my eye. Funnel Cakes! What are those? My brain does a triple jump in logic and now all I can think about is a trapdoor spider hiding under a waffle covered in a scoop of ice cream and covered in topping.
As the pier starts to get crowded I retreat back into the buildings of the city of Santa Monica where it is still relatively quiet and get down to business. I should find a shop to get a new sim card from so I can call everyone I need to and I should get some wifi so I can tell my family I arrived safe. The second should be a very easy job since this is America and there's Starbucks and McDonalds on every corner right? Right? About 40 minutes of searching later I stumble into a Coffee Bean and get my fix of internet and caffeine and damn, it's good.
Six hours later of wandering the Third Street Promenade making a list of things to come back and buy once I've had a shower and nap. Finally I'm able to get into my room and of course I head to the bathroom where another surprise awaits me. The toilet bowl is half-full of water. It must be clogged, how unprofessional. I'm a little disgusted at such a slip on the hotel's before and decide to see if it will clear with a flash and my hand automatically goes to the top of the cistern to press the buttons. The buttons which aren't there of course, because this isn't Australia. Eventually I figure it out, there's a lever to the side and I flick it down. the toilet bowl drains before quickly refilling to the same level. Huh. My bad, guess this is just how they are.
I'm still standing in the shower and decide to give the handle another turn and just my luck a miracle occurs : it turns off. Thank you water gods, I can finally get out and buy some dinner.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Fake Taxi
"So where are you from?"
"Australia..Oh."
I've just climbed into the back of the shuttle bus that's going to take me to my hotel and the first thing I notice is that I'm not sitting behind the driver's seat as I thought. I knew that the cars here are left-hand driving but actually seeing these seats that are in the wrong place is extremely jarring. When I had left I had been confident that I would be able to drive myself about Michigan unaided but now as I do up my seatbelt my confidence begins to waver.
The driver thankful misses my small noise of surprise and we start going through the basics of polite conversation. Where are you going? How long are you staying? Meeting friends here? First time here? Each of the questions I answer politely with a small on my face as we pull out of the airport and it's then I ask a question that, in reflection, I wish I had been more specific.
"So, do you know any good places to go in L.A.?"
"Oh yeah, pretty thing like you will have no problem picking up a man and having yourself some fun. Just head down to the beach or pretty just walk up to anyone you like and give them a bit of a wink and you'll be set. Unless you like girls, and if you do that's all good! People coming on holiday usually take the chance to experiment without the stigma of their town knowing. Yeah actually you'll be wanting to hit up West Hollywood, BIG gay scene there lots of pretty girls like you looking for other pretty girls. You know I picked up this girl and she asked me the same question she was like 'Uhhh I don't know if I'm gay or bi-sexual so I told her to go...'."
As you can imagine I'm quite stunned as he continues to rattle off his tale. In front of the bus a boeing 747 is coming in for landing over the street we are driving down and it can't be more than a couple of hundred meters above the ground. Luckily, it's enough to break my rather stupefied star of the side of his pudgy red face. He thinks I'm a lesbian? I do a mental check of myself to see why he would jump to that conclusion. Flannel patterned and crumpled shirt with jeans, short and messy hair, no make-up and I stink to high heaven... okay, fair call shuttle dude.
"So I gave her my number and I told her to call me after she goes and does her thing, we can get coffee and she can tell me how it all went. So we meet up for coffee a few days later and she tells me how it goes. I ask her if that's what she was looking for. Anyway we keep talking and I find out she comes from a small town. now everything starts making sense. I ask her if she knows the saying 'WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU MA'AM' and she don't have any idea! I start explaining that most men are just there to get in and make themselves feel good. It's probably why she thinks she ain't like men. So we go up to her hotel room..."
Wait, what?
"And you know, we fool around, I go down on her and make her feel good. Turns out no man's ever done that for her and she goes down on me and I teach her a few tricks..."
Holy mother of god. Am I in a fake taxi? For those of you naïve of the tricks of the internet a fake taxi is a taxi with hidden cameras in which a man picks up easy looking women. After a short conversation he and the passenger agree that instead of paying the fare with money she'll pay with sex instead and it all gets recorded and put up on the internet in a genre known as, yes, fake taxi. My eyes flick around the back of the bus looking for places a camera could be hidden.
"This is one of the best jobs for picking up chicks. You know and it's not just the young ones who come to L.A. to mess around. It's old birds as well, married woman to. All of them come here for a bit of experimenting. I had this one lady, she'd been widowed for a few years and she asks me..."
I keep zoning in and out of the conversation, but the general gist of it is the same as the previous young lady. This can't be real, can it? Are all Americans this open to complete strangers? He's still rattling on to himself in his sexually promiscuous monologue when I hear a the lyrics of a song I have always thought as being purely American drift out of the radio,
"Jeremiah was a bull frog. Was a good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink his wine."
The short, middle-aged man with paunch, no hair and rather strong body odour drones on and on, breaking every so often from his anecdotes of debauchery to insist I mess around while I'm in L.A. I don't have the heart to interrupt him to explain that I have no intention to do so and when I asked about places to go I meant art galleries, restaurants, museums etc. It's still another five minutes to the hotel and in that time he covers how men need to have sex to live while for women its a nice optional salad on the side plate of a relationship. How its better to sleep with a person then start a relationship then getting to know them first. Also it sucks when you give men a wrong number when your not interested and its much better to tell them outright.
We finally arrive at the hotel and he takes my bag out of the back of the bus and after passing it to me offers me one of his cards. Of course I laugh nervously and refuse, thanking him politely for driving me here. It's the first thing I've said since asking him about places to go fifteen minutes ago.
In the shower later I swear softly to myself as a thought strikes me mind. I should have taken the card and told him, "Alright, but I'm transgender and I always pitch."
"Australia..Oh."
I've just climbed into the back of the shuttle bus that's going to take me to my hotel and the first thing I notice is that I'm not sitting behind the driver's seat as I thought. I knew that the cars here are left-hand driving but actually seeing these seats that are in the wrong place is extremely jarring. When I had left I had been confident that I would be able to drive myself about Michigan unaided but now as I do up my seatbelt my confidence begins to waver.
The driver thankful misses my small noise of surprise and we start going through the basics of polite conversation. Where are you going? How long are you staying? Meeting friends here? First time here? Each of the questions I answer politely with a small on my face as we pull out of the airport and it's then I ask a question that, in reflection, I wish I had been more specific.
"So, do you know any good places to go in L.A.?"
"Oh yeah, pretty thing like you will have no problem picking up a man and having yourself some fun. Just head down to the beach or pretty just walk up to anyone you like and give them a bit of a wink and you'll be set. Unless you like girls, and if you do that's all good! People coming on holiday usually take the chance to experiment without the stigma of their town knowing. Yeah actually you'll be wanting to hit up West Hollywood, BIG gay scene there lots of pretty girls like you looking for other pretty girls. You know I picked up this girl and she asked me the same question she was like 'Uhhh I don't know if I'm gay or bi-sexual so I told her to go...'."
As you can imagine I'm quite stunned as he continues to rattle off his tale. In front of the bus a boeing 747 is coming in for landing over the street we are driving down and it can't be more than a couple of hundred meters above the ground. Luckily, it's enough to break my rather stupefied star of the side of his pudgy red face. He thinks I'm a lesbian? I do a mental check of myself to see why he would jump to that conclusion. Flannel patterned and crumpled shirt with jeans, short and messy hair, no make-up and I stink to high heaven... okay, fair call shuttle dude.
"So I gave her my number and I told her to call me after she goes and does her thing, we can get coffee and she can tell me how it all went. So we meet up for coffee a few days later and she tells me how it goes. I ask her if that's what she was looking for. Anyway we keep talking and I find out she comes from a small town. now everything starts making sense. I ask her if she knows the saying 'WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU MA'AM' and she don't have any idea! I start explaining that most men are just there to get in and make themselves feel good. It's probably why she thinks she ain't like men. So we go up to her hotel room..."
Wait, what?
"And you know, we fool around, I go down on her and make her feel good. Turns out no man's ever done that for her and she goes down on me and I teach her a few tricks..."
Holy mother of god. Am I in a fake taxi? For those of you naïve of the tricks of the internet a fake taxi is a taxi with hidden cameras in which a man picks up easy looking women. After a short conversation he and the passenger agree that instead of paying the fare with money she'll pay with sex instead and it all gets recorded and put up on the internet in a genre known as, yes, fake taxi. My eyes flick around the back of the bus looking for places a camera could be hidden.
"This is one of the best jobs for picking up chicks. You know and it's not just the young ones who come to L.A. to mess around. It's old birds as well, married woman to. All of them come here for a bit of experimenting. I had this one lady, she'd been widowed for a few years and she asks me..."
I keep zoning in and out of the conversation, but the general gist of it is the same as the previous young lady. This can't be real, can it? Are all Americans this open to complete strangers? He's still rattling on to himself in his sexually promiscuous monologue when I hear a the lyrics of a song I have always thought as being purely American drift out of the radio,
"Jeremiah was a bull frog. Was a good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink his wine."
The short, middle-aged man with paunch, no hair and rather strong body odour drones on and on, breaking every so often from his anecdotes of debauchery to insist I mess around while I'm in L.A. I don't have the heart to interrupt him to explain that I have no intention to do so and when I asked about places to go I meant art galleries, restaurants, museums etc. It's still another five minutes to the hotel and in that time he covers how men need to have sex to live while for women its a nice optional salad on the side plate of a relationship. How its better to sleep with a person then start a relationship then getting to know them first. Also it sucks when you give men a wrong number when your not interested and its much better to tell them outright.
We finally arrive at the hotel and he takes my bag out of the back of the bus and after passing it to me offers me one of his cards. Of course I laugh nervously and refuse, thanking him politely for driving me here. It's the first thing I've said since asking him about places to go fifteen minutes ago.
In the shower later I swear softly to myself as a thought strikes me mind. I should have taken the card and told him, "Alright, but I'm transgender and I always pitch."
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Lounge Musings
You're waiting for a train. A train that'll take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter. Now, tell me why?
A familiar line for most people. It keeps running through my head but there are a few differences.
You're waiting for a plane. A plane that'll take you far away. You know where this plane will take you and this is a big step.
Sly is currently sitting at gate 86 of the Brisbane International Airport. Of course she's the first one there. Gate 86 is the next to last gate right at the end of the airport and on the way here I've stopped at in front of every plane that has been parked and run my eyes over them and each of them puts the same thought in my head.
They all look like giant balloons.
I don't know if other people think they same when they look at them, and then I wonder if many people actually -look- at the planes they board. Mine is VH-OJA, a QANTAS jet from the spirit of Australia fleet nicknamed 'Longreach' obviously named with a tip of the hat to the rural Queensland town. Like most QANTAS planes the majority of it is white, the tail a cherry red with the signature flying kangaroo stenciled to it. The patchwork of panels that make up the skin gleam faintly in the mid-morning light but still you can make out areas of dirt and dust, a smear of grease here or a small streak of oil here. Not alarming things, like the car you drive to work planes do get dirty.
There is people in the lounge now, staring at there phones, reading magazines, even a gentleman that has fallen asleep already/again. I am, however, watching the ground crew as they prepare the flight. The catering truck has just pulled away and my thoughts start to wander to the meals I'll be served during this 16 hour haul. Then the stories I've heard that the cabin crew having to eat different meals during the flight incase one of the meals causes food poisoning lingers on the front of my thoughts but I'm not sure if that is policy or myth.
Now they are closing the baggage hatch and I think of United Airlines 811, the first episode of the first season of a series called "Mayday : Aircrash investigations" where a short circuit in the door and two designs flaws caused explosive decompression to occur. It also makes me think of the Lockerbie bombings where shortly after take off in the U.K. a bomb in the cargo hold of a passenger jet exploded and rained down wreckage on the town of Lockerbie killing people on the ground as well.
Then my thoughts begin to drift and I start sizing up the plane itself. It's such an immense thing. I was trying to get a photo of it before people started to arrive at the gate but no matter what I tried I couldn't a shot of the body and just one of the wings in a single frame it is just that immense. To estimate I would say it is about eight to ten city buses in size and with that I marvel that the seemingly majority of air crashes don't result in deaths on the ground as well. Ten buses worth of metal falling from the sky...
Strangely though, these kind of thoughts don't trouble me. I am still excited to step up to the counter and flash my passport and boarding pass to the steward and buckle up in this hundreds of tonnes of gravity defying wonder machine. I am going on a adventure and nothing is going to stop me.
Now for something completely different....
I have always wanted to travel. There's always been obstacles though. Health mostly, or to be more specific mental health which in turn lead to frequent job swaps and a strange attraction to low paying hospitality positions. I have been, however, rather stable for a long time. Stable job, stable pay, stable family, stable boyfriend. I've been able to keep the same job long enough to accumulate enough money and holidays that I can actually take one. Not happy with just picking one or two locations in my month long sojourn I've decided skipping across the United States of America then through Europe. Spending a few days in each locale this is about as whirlwind as it gets.
I've got my pass, my shoes tied tight. I hope I don't miss any flights.
And since I need to curb my swear and vulgar language while I visit these foreign locales I'll get this out of my system now:
Look out world you mother fucker, I'm coming for you. Las Angeles... Sly's about to make you her bitch.
A familiar line for most people. It keeps running through my head but there are a few differences.
You're waiting for a plane. A plane that'll take you far away. You know where this plane will take you and this is a big step.
Sly is currently sitting at gate 86 of the Brisbane International Airport. Of course she's the first one there. Gate 86 is the next to last gate right at the end of the airport and on the way here I've stopped at in front of every plane that has been parked and run my eyes over them and each of them puts the same thought in my head.
They all look like giant balloons.
I don't know if other people think they same when they look at them, and then I wonder if many people actually -look- at the planes they board. Mine is VH-OJA, a QANTAS jet from the spirit of Australia fleet nicknamed 'Longreach' obviously named with a tip of the hat to the rural Queensland town. Like most QANTAS planes the majority of it is white, the tail a cherry red with the signature flying kangaroo stenciled to it. The patchwork of panels that make up the skin gleam faintly in the mid-morning light but still you can make out areas of dirt and dust, a smear of grease here or a small streak of oil here. Not alarming things, like the car you drive to work planes do get dirty.
There is people in the lounge now, staring at there phones, reading magazines, even a gentleman that has fallen asleep already/again. I am, however, watching the ground crew as they prepare the flight. The catering truck has just pulled away and my thoughts start to wander to the meals I'll be served during this 16 hour haul. Then the stories I've heard that the cabin crew having to eat different meals during the flight incase one of the meals causes food poisoning lingers on the front of my thoughts but I'm not sure if that is policy or myth.
Now they are closing the baggage hatch and I think of United Airlines 811, the first episode of the first season of a series called "Mayday : Aircrash investigations" where a short circuit in the door and two designs flaws caused explosive decompression to occur. It also makes me think of the Lockerbie bombings where shortly after take off in the U.K. a bomb in the cargo hold of a passenger jet exploded and rained down wreckage on the town of Lockerbie killing people on the ground as well.
Then my thoughts begin to drift and I start sizing up the plane itself. It's such an immense thing. I was trying to get a photo of it before people started to arrive at the gate but no matter what I tried I couldn't a shot of the body and just one of the wings in a single frame it is just that immense. To estimate I would say it is about eight to ten city buses in size and with that I marvel that the seemingly majority of air crashes don't result in deaths on the ground as well. Ten buses worth of metal falling from the sky...
Strangely though, these kind of thoughts don't trouble me. I am still excited to step up to the counter and flash my passport and boarding pass to the steward and buckle up in this hundreds of tonnes of gravity defying wonder machine. I am going on a adventure and nothing is going to stop me.
Now for something completely different....
I have always wanted to travel. There's always been obstacles though. Health mostly, or to be more specific mental health which in turn lead to frequent job swaps and a strange attraction to low paying hospitality positions. I have been, however, rather stable for a long time. Stable job, stable pay, stable family, stable boyfriend. I've been able to keep the same job long enough to accumulate enough money and holidays that I can actually take one. Not happy with just picking one or two locations in my month long sojourn I've decided skipping across the United States of America then through Europe. Spending a few days in each locale this is about as whirlwind as it gets.
I've got my pass, my shoes tied tight. I hope I don't miss any flights.
And since I need to curb my swear and vulgar language while I visit these foreign locales I'll get this out of my system now:
Look out world you mother fucker, I'm coming for you. Las Angeles... Sly's about to make you her bitch.
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