Emergency Nando's

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So while I’d been asleep Snow White had kissed all of her dwarves off to work and they proceeded to make their way into my head and started mining my skull. The hangover was unbearable, the post-steak events of last night had involved meeting some new roommates and a bottle of Southern Comfort. There was a travelling pair of friends from Manchester, they’d been to Sydney and were heading up north to spend 3 months in Yeppoon. Why anyone would spend more than a week there is beyond me, but these guys had hated everywhere they’d been to so far. They hated Sydney and they looked disgusted at the hostel, with the guy asking if he had to take the sheets off the bed when they checked out. Yes, of course you do. It’s a hostel not a hotel. Learn to live on your own, cook your own food, earn your own money, do your own laundry and most importantly spend those 3 valuable seconds of your life taking the sheets off the bed you spoiled little rat bag. They were so chavy it was unreal and yet somehow they were also the snobbiest people I’d met since I’d been here. They both seemed mortified by the prospect of getting a full time job and they said that Brisbane was like living in the 70s. Well if that was the case then I can’t wait to see how they cope in Rockhampton.

The other guy was a 20 year old from New Zealand, he had dyed silver hair and was over here for some equivalent of Comic-Con. The southern comfort was already wreaking havoc on me when I met him, but my first impression of him was that he was very intelligent and probably someone who I could see myself being good friends with. The following morning however I couldn’t have had an opposite opinion of him. He was an arse! He was just one big arse sleeping in the bed opposite me. Any remnants of the rest of him had long been shoved up his arse until that was all that remained of his existence. Needless to say I wasn’t his biggest fan. He was the type of person who thought he knew everything and would interrupt you mid-sentence to correct what you were saying or to sharply veer onto another topic of conversation if he was bored with you. He also loved telling people what to do and how to do it… but after all who better to do it? In his mind he was God.

I couldn’t bear being in the room with him any longer and after grabbing a shower I slowly and painfully headed to the kitchen. Now I felt pretty rough but I didn’t feel like I was going to be sick, my head felt like it was about to explode and more than anything I just felt run down. So I decided to take some paracetamol. Worst mistake in the world! The second the tablet hit the back of my throat I lost control of everything. The taste was so vile as the bitter water swirled around my mouth and I quite comically proceeded to throw up in the bin. Luckily the lady on reception was lovely and caring and asked the cleaners to discretely change the bin bag. I probably should have scurried back into bed then and there but stupidly I got on the bus to the city. I really just wanted to type another entry out and get it online but after 4 hours sat in that library I had typed out less than half a page and learnt a surprising amount on the biochemical effects of alcohol. I even went a bought a scone to try and get my blood sugars right, probably the worst thing I could have done where the diet was concerned but it really did help me feel better.

Katie left back to the hostel to get ready for her job interview and I stayed with our Austrian friend while we planned his sequence of flights around the country. I met up with my trusted female companion an hour later and went to track down the restaurant where the interview was going to happen. On the way I picked up some nurofen and it was a welcome relief as it dulled the shockwaves that ran through me with each step. Katie ventured inside and I went for a wander, my plan was that I could get to the library and finish off what I’d been working on all morning and then just meet Katie on the bus back. On the way there I saw another huge lizard just sunbathing on one of the rocks, it was so out in the open it might as well had had a sign but it was shocking the amount of people that just walked past it. Whether it was because they just didn’t see him or whether it was because they were just so used to this kind of thing I don’t know. All I know is that I took a copious amount of pictures.

About half an hour later I got a call off Katie, the interview went well, he still had to interview a few more people but she was feeling confident. We hopped back onto the hostel bus and made our way back. I still wasn’t feeling great from last night so I promptly curled up on my top bunk and dozed off. It was dark when I regained consciousness and I had half a mind to sit down with Katie and blast through a few episodes of Hannibal, but the new guy was in the room and I was simply unable to cope with him droning on about internet speeds and data processing or him trying to educate me on the distribution of liger populations. My god, I could’ve killed him. He spoke to me like I was stupid and as he told me about how much he liked wasps I stared and imagined him being hit by a bus. It was all too much. I’d not had the best day and was eager to return to bed. I still didn’t feel too well and I wasn’t in the mood to put up with my new roommate so I did what anyone would do in this situation and went for an emergency Nando’s.

After a quick phone call to mum I was indulging myself in a whole chicken smothered in Nando’s extra hot piri-piri sauce. It was glorious and I remembered nostalgically all of the great times I used to spend in these outlets with my friends in England. It was a nice treat, it gave me some space and time to think. Reflecting on my time in Brisbane was odd, on one hand I really liked the city and I was thrilled that I had a car on the way but at the same time I still missed the social network that I’d built up in England and I missed my family even if they were held up in Yeppoon. All in all though I was happy with my experiences of travelling even if it had only been 5 days.

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