Saturday 30 July 2011

Hello Children, it is I; Rhona!

Been a while since I blogged last, hey!  Yeah I was full of promise in my last post about mobile blogging.  It turns out that i'm not disciplined enough to blog from my phone.  Perhaps disciplined is not the right word, maybe I should go with 'couldn't be arsed'.  Yeah, let's go with that.

So, you want the big bad update then?  Hmmm, lets see what I can do.  (Yeah, okay, I know - you don't really care, but tough cookies...you're gonna hear all about it anyway!)

Today is Saturday, tomorrow is Sunday, yesterday was Friday Friday Friday (sorry, couldn't resist).  Today really is Saturday though and I'm just sitting on G's couch, listening to some music on youtube.  Right now, I'm listening to a band called Hugo and their rendition of Jay Z's 99 Problems.  Och, here you go - click the video and be happy for 4 minutes.....



I actually discovered a new band on Youtube a month or so ago.  They are called Boyce Avenue and do acoustic covers of popular songs.  I especially love their rendition of Rihanna's Only Girl (in the World).  Here you go - take a listen...



Gives me goosebumps just listening to it!

I digress - back to the update.  Well, I'm still in Alice and i'm still alive (YAY!).  It's quickly coming up to my departure date and it's not fair!  It feels like i've been here just a couple of weeks.  My trip has had it's highs and lows but I wouldn't change it for a thing (well, maybe a couple of things but lets not get into that right now!)  One of the highs has to absolutely be the weather!  It's just been glorious here every day apart from 3 days where it was drizzling.  Can't complain at that and was in fact quite nice to be out in.  Of course, all  natives thought I was a bit mad at going out in it, but hey...i'm scottish!

Okay, something I'm not proud of.  Went out drinking last weekend with a bunch of guys.  There had been some fighting talk before my arrival that a certain Australian could drink me under the table.  Well, that theory was tried and tested last weekend and it's safe to say that at 0600 the next morning, I was still standing (not falling over!) and he was passed out.  I kept up with the lads all night, drink for drink, in fact I was a few drinks ahead by the end of it and at the end of the night I was still standing!  Just talking to G about it now and oh my he's pretty defensive about it!  He claims that I'm lying, but that's utter nonsense.  I was there, I know what happened, his male ego has taken a beating and he doesn't like it.  He says there's two sides to every story, and I think that everyone will find that they completely agree with each other.  I win, he loses, and okay, i'm a little proud!  Ut oh, G now looks like he could beat the crap out of me.  Okay - he gave it a good go and if the bouncers that he started on hadn't told him to drink water in the Casino then he would have probably given me a good run for my money.  (that's mollified him a little)

Let me tell you all about a night out in Alice Springs with G and his mates.  It all starts out good until someone wants to have a fight (as G just confirmed just now "i'll f***ing fight anyone!") then there's no stopping them.  We were having a nice quiet night, having a few drinks, having a few laughs, learning a few home truths(!) when a bully of a doorman (or yardman!) started in on one of G's mates for no other reason than the fact that he had had a few drinks and was merry in a loud, harmless way.  Sort of justified that G and friends should get defensive, however, no need for people to square up to each other and for WW3 to break out (okay, exaggeration, but you know what I mean).  We were moved on from that pub by the ensemble of bouncers that appeared out of nowhere to backup the doorman and we ended up in another pub where it took a wee while for the guys to calm down from their encounter.  There was live music in 'Rock Bar' which made me a happy chappy.  G is sitting next to me just now giving me his 2 cents worth - I've to make sure I tell you all that heaps of people were coming up to him to say hi - I won't deny that he's got a reputation in this little town.  "One of them even gave me a Wet Pussy" says he - a drinking shot. 

So, no fighting in Rock Bar.  But - i'm not even going to mention the taxi journey to the Casino as I don't  think I could even repeat what was said in that vehicle.  Let's just say that I doubled back and apologised to the taxi driver once they had all left it.  Alcohol has a lot to answer for.  We got to the Casino and straight away it kicked off.  One of G's mates was refused entry for looking intoxicated (hello!) so he swiftly verbalised a few swear words and threats to the big Samoan doorman.  This really helped in our goal of getting in!  J (the intoxicated one) walked out and went home, but not before pounding on the window from outside and threatening the doorman again.  G, being the loyal friend that he is, started in on the doorman for not allowing J in.  This swiftly made the doorman decide that another of his mates, M, was intoxicated too so he wouldn't get in either.  I do think it's fair to say that they were all intoxicated!  Yep, G quickly stuck up for M and had another go at the doorman.  25 minutes later, I was sitting on a couch at the entrance with D, G's sobour mate, whilst G and said doorman were still exchanging (not so nice) pleasantries.  EVENTUALLY another of G's mates managed to sweet talk the doorman and we ALL got in...on the condition that G and M drank water all night.  Hilarious!  It was pretty much the end of the night after that, G and M and said other friend decided to leave whilst D and I were at the toilet (not together!) - nice, huh! - so we stayed a bit longer and when we did eventually get home, G was sound asleep on the couch....sooooooo I WIN!  Woohoo!  Children - I'm not cool - don't aspire to do that next weekend!

Tomorrow (Sunday), G and I are taking a mini road trip to Uluru (Ayer's Rock).  We're going away for a couple of days and incorporating another couple of touristy places aswell which I just know is going to be awesome!  I can't wait to see the big rock and the other stuff we'll be visiting. 

OMG I nearly forgot!  Last week I went out on a truck journey with one of G's mates, D (whose wife has just gave birth to the most adorable little baby girl!).  He sub-contracts for a company who has the government contract to go out bush and pick up burnt out cars from the side of the roads.  Believe me, there's a lot.  I'll do a little extra blog about the aborigines and the issues here later.  Well, we were out about 250km from Alice in a big huge Wentworth truck that has a crane attached to it to load the cars onto the truck bed and D taught me how to drive it!  It was amazing!  I was totally a truckie!  I've even got a photo to prove it...

How cool!!  We also passed the Tropic of Capricorn (you know, the earth's lines and all that).  It was a pretty cool day actually.

I'm borrowing G's neighbour's laptop just now to write this blog.  She's awesome.  She has two little kiddies, K (a boy, 9) and E (a girl, 4).  The little girl is besotted with me and it's fair to say i've had her over at G's every day since she met me.  She's such a beautiful little girl with big brown eyes and long dark hair...in fact there's an uncanny resemblance to a young Demi Moore in her.  She's just so adorable!  She got me a present yesterday.  I had been playing a little kiddies game with her that she has and she said to her mum, M, that she wanted me to have an identical game so that when I got home I could play it with my neice.  How cute is that!  So i'm now the proud owner of Pet Shop Haven!  She also gave me 5 cards which she had made herself for me.  Too cute!  M, K and E have been great - they took me a couple of touristy places and have been lovely.  G has been working so much that i've been left to my own devices a lot of the time so it's been nice to have another person to interact with.  I took the kiddies to Alice Springs Reptile Centre.  I figured that if I had the kids with me i'd have to be brave if there were any spiders there (we all know how I feel about them) and so if the kids are there then i'd have to suck it up and deal with it.  Luckily there were no spiders there, but there were loads of snakes and goannas and even a saltwater croc called Terry!  We were in time for the handling talk so I got to hold a snake!  Amazing!  The pictures are on my phone so i'll have to upload that picture separately.

Some things are in the pipeline for when I get back to not-so-sunny Scotland, but i'm gonna wait until everything is in writing before I blog about it.  So look out for another update soonish!

Hey - if you read my blog regularly (I know some of you do), why don't you 'follow me' - link is on the right hand side and it means that when I do have an update, you are automatically informed!


Rhona out.