tarajoey

I have to leave for Melbourne today and have not yet mentioned the rest of Spain and Amsterdam. It’s amazing that the five weeks has gone by already yet while I was experiencing it, I had the odd moment of not knowing if I could cope with another day off and felt like I needed to have some normalcy. Normalcy. I don't know what that is anymore. In one sense I am looking forward to going home and moving forward but on the other side I feel a bit apprehensive, as though I’m not quite ready. It was though I was expecting to go back home feeling stronger about my path, feeling I had more direction or that I would know what to do about some small part of my seemingly turbulent life back in Melbourne. ... read more

19th April After becoming engaged we decided to have a crazy night out in Paris. Since we were staying next to the “red light district” of Paris, the Moulin Rouge area, we thought you had struck gold. Only thing is the place was dead, it was more like a ghost town. Each bar we went into was fairly quiet, except for one that had a dance floor. Parisians are interesting in the way they dress. It feels as though you have walked into an art house movie – everyone has either bought their clothing from an op shop or gotten their fashion style from an op shop mannequin. Either way – it’s vintage day every day in Paris. The young men are decked out in grandpa caps, coloured tshirts and black jackets. Every jacket is 80’s ... read more

Up until April 26th. Lombok. How I don’t ever want to see you again and here I am having to write the same painful blog again – about nothing – due to bad Spanish internet connection. We paid 6 euros for the internet for 24hrs only to have to not work after 12 hours. How we are going to explain this in Spanish and get our internet back, I don’t know – but I guess if you’re reading this now, we managed, or we waited until Amsterdam. So, Lombok. To keep it quick, there wasn’t really much to see except for the occasional shack, then another shack, a bar with trafficked women, then another, then another shack, a perverted muslim man, maybe another or maybe they’re just staring at me because they’re not used to tourists ... read more

18th - 21st April Early morning of the 18th we meet Eyal out the front of our hotel at 7am so we can all catch a boat together to Gili Island. This is a small island off Lombok., there are three Gili islands. Lombok is where the wedding is going to be. We have heard our other friends are staying at Gili Island Trawangan. We have booked a car to take up to the harbour and a boat to take us quickly there. There are only so many boats leaving the harbour. Eyal is as I remember him. I met him once or twice quite a while back through the friends on this trip. He is hung over and explains as he is Jewish and with an Israeli background he found is very difficult to get ... read more

First day of sleeping in for a while so decided not to do any tours today. Instead we decided to find our barings, work out where we are, where everything is and make plans and organise for tomorrow. After all, we both were told our plane would arrive in Danpasar, not near Kuta, at a totally different airport! We've laughed this off but it's made us a little worried for when we have to travel from Bali to Paris on the 27th. Sometimes it feels like nothing here is what it seems to be. The people here are very kind, friendly and I am warming up to them quickly. but they make up their own rules as they go. Bartering is just expected and I don't feel guilty about refusing a sale because they just smile ... read more