It was an early arrival in Melbourne that morning. Our lack of love for the city was reflected at the border entry when they too were hesitant to let us back in. I have never had problems crossing a border before, so obviously Australia would be the first to be a pain in the butt.Ok, it wasn't actually that bad. Apparently lots of working holiday makers go to NZ and then come back on another visa and try to work illegally and they were just making sure we weren't doing that. We had our onward tickets to Bali in November to prove we were leaving and assured them we did NOT want to stay in Australia any longer than planned. So they let us through. Yay.
We dropped off our bags at a luggage storage kiosk and hopped on the bus back into the city. It was an overcast, grey day, naturally, and we had no feelings of nostalgia flood us as we made our way out of Southern Cross station onto the streets of Melbourne. It was actually a decisive notion we shared that we missed absolutely nothing about Melbourne (well, excluding our friends.) That morning it was all running errands, taking care of finances, mailing home our absentee ballots (for Obama of course), and getting much needed (cheap!) hair cuts. We stopped at the usual cheap baguette sandwich shop to see that their prices had indeed increased again. No more $3 sandwich--now they are $4.50. Lame. Anyways, we had a light meal before meeting up with our friend Lewis at the Ludlow Formation for a quick, free, and I must admit, delicious coffee and some catching up before heading on. Our main reason for spending the day was to meet up with our old New Zealand ski field friends Pete and Natalie, who had recently moved to Melbourne for their working holiday. Luckily they were getting on with the city much better than we did. It was great to see them, catch up, and offered us the opportunity to skip out of the CBD and hang out at their place in the suburbs for the afternoon. Natalie went out and bought lots of yummy snacks and ingredients to make pizzas for us that night. However, starting that early afternoon I was getting a queasy feeling in my stomach. I eventually took a nap hoping to make it better but just woke up feeling much worse. I was able to down one piece of pizza but that was about all I was going to be able to eat for the next 48 hours. The stomach pains and waves of nausea persisted for the rest of the afternoon and evening, rendering me a pretty useless, unsociable guest. I had hoped it wasn't appendicitis or something, and thank god it wasn't--just a good ole' bout of food poisoning. Thanks, Australia.
Though it may not be all their fault. I had a meatball sub at the Subway in Wellington airport the night before and so I suspect the culprit was the improperly stored fake meat product that eventually ended up in my stomach. They will be getting a strongly worded letter.
Anywho, by around 9 o'clock in the evening after I had tried a soothing hot shower and laying down some more, I finally upchucked the entire contents of my stomach into a bucket. Not a nice visual, I know, but it pretty much sums up my feelings toward Melbourne. I felt better afterward and hoped that was the end of it. . . of course it wasn't. By around 10:00 p.m. we said our goodbyes and took the tram back to Southern Cross Station to catch the return bus to the airport where we would spend the night. It should come as no surprise that, obviously, the Melbourne airport is far inferior to Wellington as a place to crash. There were no comfy benches to speak of, no showers, heaps of construction, and the prayer room on the ground floor where I had hoped we could crash was right next to the moving walkway where a loudspeaker was very loudly and repeatedly giving directions in both English and Chinese on how to properly board the walkway. . . .over and over again. Apparently they don't turn that obnoxious stuff off at night. So we walked around, me in sheer agony with having to carry my pack on my back while fighting the constant urge to vomit. We eventually just found a quiet-ish spot on the floor near other poor travelers where we parked it for the night and attempted to get some shut eye. Sleep did not come easily, as you can imagine, and in the morning it was time to once again make the painful trek down to the check-in area where I thought I would literally pass out from the pain--or just throw up right there all over the floor. Luckily, I at least made it through check-in, security, and getting to the gate before I bolted to the nearest bathroom to empty whatever else was left in my poor food poison-riddled stomach. Never again. From that point on I have been extremely wary of any meat products I don't cook myself.
We made it through the flight relatively unscathed and were ready to begin our tour of Tasmania!
(No pictures for this post, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want any more visuals anyway.)
No comments:
Post a Comment