Arrived..Weary and Rambling

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At long last I have arrived in Brisbane. The journey consisted of 3 flights (Toronto to LA, LA to Fiji and Fiji to Brisbane) and lasted a total of 42 hours. Overall the flights were okay minus one scary moment from Toronto to LA where I was awakened by turbulence so severe that instead of flying horizontal, the wings alternately dipped between high and low.

At one point the plane dropped, a feeling similar to rounding the top of a roller coaster, all cabin power was lost (lights, headrest televisions, air conditioning etc) leaving only the fast paced sound of beep...beep....beep. I happened to make eye contact with the guy next to me and the fear was evident on his face, as likely with mine. We regained power after about 5-10 seconds. I was reaffirmed that this was no normal turbulence by a passing member of the flight crew, who happened to be caught serving drinks during the chaos, in their hurried state to get to their seat mentioned to another member of the crew that they have never had that happen before. Needless to say I was awake the remainder of the flight.

Welcome to LAX. Passing through LAX was a difficult experience yet again. Last time I was stripped to my boxers and this time my bike tested positive for a “suspicious substance” and they had to open the box. Despite the word "Fragile" being written all over the box, I watched a member of baggage screening toss and slam the box, cut almost every corner to open it and put two strips of scotch tape across the top to hold the box back together. Having found no weapons of mass destruction, the box was cleared. At this point the box was in shambles and the baggage officer had the audacity to tell me that my box was unfit for transport. After about 5 minutes of arguing I was able to convince them to allow the bike onto the flight.

I arrived in Nadi, Fiji at 5 AM and stored my luggage so that I could spend the next 10 hours exploring the island. While storing my luggage I recognized a person from the flight from LA and asked them if they were waiting from the 8:40PM flight to Brisbane, as luck would have it they were. Together Alfredo (Mexico) and I set off to explore Nadi.

Fijians are very nice and most people greeted us by saying “bula” meaning hello. Despite being quite nice, we quickly learned that most people are looking to take advantage of you or offer you something for free, only to expect something outlandish in return. Thankfully, Graham had warned me prior to arriving. Alfredo and I took a bus to a junction and walked about a half hour to the beach. As we walked, we were surrounded by thick, lush tropical vegetation and mountains filled the background. The beach was great and the water a little cool; it was 8 AM after all. After walking length of the beach, we decided to walk to town. It was a long walk but a great way to see the local culture. Not wanting to walk back to the beach, we decided to catch a bus. Despite the signs in the window and the direction they were traveling, none of the buses seemed to be going our direction. Not knowing what to do, I approached a local woman and she stood with us when the next bus arrived, when we asked the driver if they would take us to our location and he said no, the woman yelled at him in the local language and then politely turned to us and said “this bus will take you where you need to go”.

Alfredo and I ended our exploration around Nadi by spending the next 4 hours lounging on the beach and drinking beer.

The Apartment

This story is WEIRD and proves the point that "it's a small world after all". Before I get into the story I need to provide some background information.

Background: While in University I had a housemate by the name of Graham, Graham has been living and travelling in Australia for almost 2 years. In recent weeks Graham and I have been in-touch and it turns out he is living in Brisbane. 

Story: Sally arrived in Australia on July 13th and whilst in the air, Graham was kind enough to provide me his phone number and offer to help Sal get oriented with her new surroundings. In one of our emails Graham had mentioned that on Saturday his housemates were having a house party and that I needed to "drink a red bull and attend". In the very same email, Graham mentioned that 2 rooms were available for rent in his house. When I talked to Sal on Skype, which is the most amazing online communication tool, I gave her his number, told her about the prospect of an apartment and briefly mentioned the party. 

A few days ago Sal called saying she had an interesting story. While in orientation, she met a girl who happened to know of an apartment for rent. Later in the day, while walking to meet the girl, Sal ran into another girl from her program who was also looking for a place to stay. Being the social-butterfly that Sal is, she invited the girl to come with her. The apartment that they viewed just so happened to have 2 rooms for rent.

In passing conversation, the person showing the apartment mentioned that they were having a house party on Saturday. I guess this perked Sal's interest and she inquired about the people who lived in the rooms. The person showing the place mentioned that a guy by the name of Graham had lived in one of the rooms and he was recently in-between places. Sal, even more intrigued asked if they knew his last name. The person had no idea, but mentioned that he was from a city north of Toronto in Canada. The information provided up until this point was odd but Sal needed irrefutable evidence and asked the person if they had any pictures of Graham. It must have seemed odd to the person showing the place that his girl was so interested in the guy who had lived in the apartment, they obliged and showed her some pictures on the fridge. The housemate in the pictures was none other than my old housemate Graham. 

Ending: Sal has booked the apartment that Graham previously occupied. Who needs to worry about getting home safe after the house party? Not us...Well there is a set of stairs and Sal has had some problems with Canadian staircases, hopefully international staircases will be a lot kinder to her. 

Have a Good One