day 3 and 4 of 24 - homested

day 3.

There's not a lot to say about day 3. I wake up at 6am. Finally have my first smoke. As i gaze at a tree i had planted as a 12 yearold, that had now bloomed from a sappling to this 30 ft beast, i am feeling incredibly light headed and fall back against the west side wall of my house. This area was my secret hiding place of years earlier when i snuck out to have a smoke. It all seems so eerily familiar. Except these woosy feelings. I spent the next few hours writing the previously journal entry. Man, they take awhile...and rushed beyond the far perfection that i wish to pay it.

The day is unremarkable. My parents are working and i become bored and frustrated. I don't have access to a car, as i'm not insured, but so desperately feel like escaping the house. I decide to call some insurance companies and procure myself a 3 week coverage. I escape for awhile, visit my old university. Walking around, it remains identical to memory. I stumble my way to one of the old pubs i used to frequent and order a beer. I enjoy a smoke and my beverage in solitude as i reflect how costly beer had now gotten. For the next couple of hours i drive around the surrounding suburbs before finding a supermarket and buying some groceries for dinner. I also treat myself to a six pack of aussie stout, and a bottle of bundaburg rum.

My sister calls and wants to meet up. She comes home straight from work and we take the family dog to a park. We walk around talking about life, her upcoming wedding, and enjoy the interaction of our gentle giant dog with all the other park visitors.

We go home. She keeps asking me to go home with her so i can see her house, and meet her dogs; all of which are new additions to her life that i have never known or met. We eat a lovely meal of fillet steaks (mmmm), and vegetables prepared by our cullinarily proficient mother. I miss her meals.

My sister leaves for her weekly game of basketball, and i sit myself in front of my fathers new tv. a 60in monstrocity. an idolic monument to my parents constant entertainment and company. I'm awoken by my sister later in the night. She demands that i awake and come with her. In my drowsy zombie state, i realize quickly that i'm completely incapacitated (and obviously not yet adjusted to jet lag), and thus my presense at her homestead would be completely wasted. She stomps off upset, but i'm too tired to care. I go to my room and collapse immediately.


day 4

6am wake up again. same secret visit again. My family informed me that today we were going to go to werribee zoo. It's a safari type deal. I'm not terribly excited, but still look forward to spending time with the family. I wait for my parents to awake and get themselve prepared for the day. In the interim, i write and think about what the rest of this trip had install.

Before long we are heading towards werribee. It's on the other side of town, about 1.5 hrs away. I forgot how huge melbourne was. After another equally painful drive, we arrive in what appears to be a sparcely populated region of town, on the line of the urban/rural fringe.

The zoo itself seems small and underfunded. It reminds me of waco zoo. We take the bus safari tour. There's a lot of hooved animals. The coolest moment was a giraffe that decided to run along side our bus. It was like a moment out of jurassic park. The rhino's and hippo's were also cool.

Finally we get done after several hours. We agree to all meet up for lunch/dinner in a nearby suburb. There's an italian restraunt that we haven't been to in years, and i'm excited to visit it as i remember it being quite good. The pizza is quite an aussie style. I also got tortellini cabonara. I forgot how much i missed this dish, and both of them together proved to be a veritable heaven for the senses.

My mother had been feeling sick, and saw a doctor's office nearby. In the interim i took the opportunity to enjoy some nicotine-based pleasure, and found myself at the local library. Feeling somewhat introverted and reflected, i tried to procure some great text to read while i waited. I went through every conceivable "worthy" book i could remember through the computer system, finding very little, or what they did have, being checked out. I felt sad about this. There's books upon books of fictionous crap, magazines, dvd's, and non-fictional types....but hardly anything that you would expect, nay, demand a reputably library to include. In dissappointment, i headed to the mall nearby to find myself a bookstore. Again, shelves filled with utter crap, and a small single shelf dedicated to "classics'. There couldn't be more than 50 books total. My heart tears, and i wonder where our society is headed and how shallow and stupid we're becoming. I can get 5 copies of a brittney spears autobiography, but would be hard pressed to find a copy of ivanhoe. ridiculous.

We finally make it home, and shortly after AJ arrives. He's one of my travelling companions on this trip and a fellow melbournian. Like me he did a term of baylor, and loved it. We have very different views on things, but for some reason we are on the same wavelength when it comes to our humour bone, and we're always joking and having a great time, albeit stupid male aussie hooligan behaviour. We have a couple of beers with my family and kid around. My parents seem overwhelmed by the whole affair. Aaron was coming in, and aj was swinging through to pick me up so we could go to the airport together. We head off on the hour long trip, kidding around and making stupid yet hilarious navigational errors. We finally get to the airport, and we agree that i will go inside, and get aaron, and aj will wait outside with the car. I sit there and wait. And wait. And wait. Until i'm the only one left at the customs exit. He did not show up. Finally Aj came in, it's been 1.5hrs since his plane has arrived and every other passenger has left. We consider that he might have missed his connecting flight. Regardless we get concerned. There's an information booth nearby, and we get to talking to the couple manning the station. Jokingly one of them makes a comment about a cavity search, and a moment later, aaron emerges from one of the doors. Excitedly and curiously we probe him with the questions as to his tardiness. He jokes and says he feels like he got the terrorist treatment, devulging that he had been stripped search, on top of which, his only bag had been lost by the airline. We could tell by his speech that he was well exhausted mentally. We joke about the incident and quickly make an exit. We end up back at my place, and have a couple of beers before heading to bed. We agree that we will take aaron on a tour of the town in the morning. The idea seems exciting. The boys also divulge our travel plans for the next few days, and i realise i have far less time at home then i thought. It's going to be an interesting couple of weeks.

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