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Motto of the past months:
There's always a bigger fish.
This blog has been about as dead as it can get for the last couple of months. I intend to change that again. Not that anyone would notice, not that anyone would have noticed it had vanished in the first place, but you know, it's a good feeling to tell yourself, that you did everything possible to bring your story out there.
Let me try to summarize what happened so far, since I got back from Australia:
Remember my License Cataclysm storyline? It had a follow-up. I failed again. Now I have 2 months left to finish my license, or otherwise I will have to start from scratch later on, which also involves alot of extra costs. But I just can't get over my fear of failing. We will see how it turns out.
Right after I came home from Australia, my girlfriend left me for another guy, who left her for his ex.
Remember my plans to go to Uni in the Netherlands? Been there, done that. FIrst Exams are through, and I am doing pretty well so far. Bunch of nice guys are with me in the course and we are having heaps of fun. The course is just what I had been searching for.
In the upcoming weeks, I will try to get back to regular posting. I have a few fun stories to tell, about Laptop purchases, failed relationship attempts, heaps of booze-stories etc etc.
It is time to get a working domain again, and to recover all lost pictures. I will put my spare time in there.
So long,
stay tuned, http://www.thebadlands.de is back up and running.
Franz
Hi guys,
here comes the third and last email to the elite clique that receives my australia-mails, which actually have turned into germany-mails now, because well, to make the longest story short: I am back in Germany since 3 weeks.
Yeah I know, I haven't written anything in ages (Atleast to all your english speaking folk, who haven't been receiving my german newsletters...). It was too much for me tbh, and I had to draw a line: Mail to a gazillion germans and leave out the few purely english people, having the opportunity to maybe meet them online and tell them about recent achievements, or ditch the gazillion germans, having to tell them every single piece individually... Sorry english speaking folk, you were overruled :)
So I was in Brisbane, enjoying life there, looking around for jobs in the city, until I had a rather biggish fight with my hostdad there. He was demanding (not asking for, or explaining why, he was actually even shouting at me) rent, which I was fine with anyway, but the way he talked to me kind of made me think that I might be unwanted for the time being. I decided that I would like to change my location asap again. I thought that I maybe shouldn't stay around Brisbane anyway, as I had seen most of it already. The Interwebs quickly showed me my way.
I scrolled through pages where Families and Au-Pairs were advertising their places/qualities, and found this half german half australian family, that, as a necessity, did not want a female Au-Pair. This caught my interest, and I immediately mailed them. Within hours I had gotten an answer and the emails were going back and forth. I told them I'd love to come and stay with them asap, and we arranged something for only a few days later. I immediately booked a flight to Melbourne, as this was the place, they were located at, and got really excited.
On the day of the flight, I got up at 5 in the morning, because the flight was supposed to leave at 8:45am, or so I had thought. I rushed to the airport, arriving there fairly ate (8:10am), only to not see my flight on the Departures-list. I was wondering what was going on. I went to the check-in, checked my stuff in, until the lady said 'Oh this is such a good idea, checking in so early, it allows you to spend another day without hesitation in the city.'. I was puzzled. I asked her what she meant, and she replied 'Well, with the flight leaving in 21 hours, you have so much time on your hands.'.
SCREW YOU GOD, WHY DO YOU ALWAYS MAKE ME DO THESE STUPID THINGS. PLEASE LET ME WALK MY PATH WITH A FEW LESS OBSTACLES ON IT.
Anyway, back to city, a bit of doing this and that, back to airport later on, and board the plane. Yay, another episode done. But wait, this also means I will arrive at 1:15am, not 1:15pm as I had planned before. SCREW YOU GOD.... wait no, let's not start with that again, it's time to take things into your own hands, and work with whatever you got. That's right, sleep at the airport, who fucking cares :) said and done. I arrive, get my bags, get a few whoppers at Macces, eat 'em up, get sleeping and awake at ten in the morning (okay it wasn't that good a sleep, I woke up every 45 minutes, but hey, what'd'you expect...).
The next morning I ring the family, and organize the pick-up again, organize myself a coach ticket and take off towards one of the many stops before I reach their little home, far outside Melbourne. Somewhere out in Yarra Valley I get picked up by Sonja, and we drive the last few kilometers by car. No buses travel in that direction anyway. As we get closer to the National Park, they live next to (Yes, next to fits damn perfect - I could spit there) there are several warning signs about all sorts of rare plants and animals and whatnot. I get all excited about being able to hopefully take a few shots of the rare animals.
We get there, the family greets me, the kids are cute, cuddly and very nice, everything is a big pancake with maple syrup and they lived happily ever after.
Wait, wasn't this the story of Franz' trip? There's gotta be some bad thing to it, right?
Yes you are right afterall. Turns out, the mum is a total maniac, the parents are not delighted by my work (What do these guys expect. I do that stuff for free afterall, gee!) and the mum finally decides to kick me out. And when I say 'kick out' I mean 'Trick me out of the Campavan I live in, dump all my stuff outside of it very quickly, lock it up, and drive off with husband and kids, leaving me alone'-kick-out. And no, I am - sadly - not joking. That is what happened. Exactly. Like. That.
So I am standing there, packing my things in my backpack, it's a wonderfully hot Saturday, and I try to figure out what to do next. Gladly, I wasn't completely ran over, because I had planned to leave the family this day anyway, secretly, but hey, I had planned so. I pack my things, begin to walk/hitchhike my way towards Melbourne. After less than 10 minutes of walking the parents with their kids packed up in the car pass by - they had arrived back home while I was packing, if I forgot to mention that - only to slow down, and stop. I approach them, acting as if I am not mentioning them, and the maniac winds down her window only to ask me, if I want to say goodbye to the kids, so their memory of me is positive. What the heck is wrong with that woman, she just kicked me out, it's her fault if the kids take an additional hour to put to bed for a week now.
Anyway, I find someone who picks me up and drives me to the city, yay, luck is with me.
WRONG.
I find out that this god forsaken Saturday is the worst day as a backpacker in Melbourne to have no room:
- F1 Grand Prix is in Melbourne, heaps of tourists
- Swimming Championships in Melbourne, heaps of tourists
- National Rugby League Opener game, heaps of Australians
- Australian Football League Grand Final in Melbourne, heaps of Australians
Isn't that great? Yay.
All Backpacker Hostels are packed, and there's not a single bed leftover. What do I do? I start biting my way through, and finally get an adress of a friendly halfgerman halfaustralian who will give me a room for 90 dollars (+ bills) a week. It took me all day to find it though. I finally sense independence, finally I am not dependant on someone to be cool with the way of life I have - I pay for my room, and BAM that's it, no obligations to wash dishes and whatnot.
After only one single night I find out that Marcus, the person I live with, is nobody I want to stay with for longer than one week, but it is definately better than Misses Maniac outside in Yarra Valley. I start strolling through Melbourne every day of that week, organizing visits at new rooms, and finally find a place where I would like to stay. It's a nice chick and her Kiwi-friend, quite a bit outside of Melbourne, which both seem to be pretty cool. So end of the week I pack my things, and leave to Frankston, my new hometown.
Episode Frankston turns out to be yet another dead end. After 2 weeks of living in Frankston I still haven't got a job, because I am too darn far outside of the city, and my back-up money is draining. Fast. I need a new home. This time close to the city and please, god, bless me with a nice place.
After around 4 weeks of traveling from one end to the next on end I find a nice place in 'Little Vietnam' how I like to call it. A place with a very religious thai family, who boost their income with 5 small rooms in an apartement, which they rent to overseas students. My roommates are awesome. I live with 2 frenchis, a 34 year old golfcoach student at Melbourne Uni and a Thai chick which studies Design.
And this is where things get boring. I get a job, live off it, enjoy my free time, enjoy my livingplace. I start getting horribly bored. My thoughts trail off to Germany, to how things would be if I was there... Plus, my phone-sessions with my mum and my girlfriend are getting more and more frequent, and longer. Homesickness is starting to spread. My brother tells me of this uni-course, he is interested in, and when I skim through the description, I mention how this course is exactly what I have been looking for in a uni-course. Thoughts start to trail off to said Uni-course, and to ideas like whether I could take part in it, or not, whether I am qualified enough, and if that might be the course I should take.
Homsickness spreads further and further, as my objectives for the rest of the year become clearer by the second:
- I want to take study 'Knowledge Engineering and Computer Science'
- I want to have some time with my family before that
- Course starts in the beginning of Septembre, which means, I have to come home pretty early
- my scar has been getting worse and worse, and I need to get an operation done
- my drivers license still isn't finished
I decide to take an early flight home. I wanted to arrive early enough to surprise my girlfriend. I told her I would arrive 3 days later than I actually did, and prepared everything for take-off, and of course I didn't forget to get into another awkward situation.
Remember how I told you about my landlord out in Frankston? The chick? I was at her place to have a few beers and say good-bye. She gets up with the words 'Gotta go take a wee.'. I sit there, sip on my beer, and when she comes back (from behind me) I turn around, only to find her completely naked infront of me, trying to digg me.
Okay.
Pretty normal situation.
Obviously I get up, saying that I have to take the next bus home, because it is the last one I can take, and all that gibberish, take my jacket, and leave.
Two days later I leave for Brisbane, only to stay there for two days, say goodbye to the Seymours, and then finally leave to Germany.
:)
This is, how Australia ended for Franz aka rooster|sexeh aka TheRoyalty.
Stay tuned on http://www.thebadlands.de.
Cuddles and kisses to all the girls nonetheles ;)
So long,
Franz
Hi guys,
here comes the second email to the elite clique that receives my australia-mails.
I've been in Australia for just over 1 month now, and I can say, I have seen quite alot of stuff already. Let me go on, from where I stopped last time.
My hostdad, remember, he was in hospital, is back home since quite a while now, and he apparently has a burst appendix, which they will find out, when he returns to hospital in 2 weeks. Wish him luck for that.
Like I said, I went to Katherine in the North of Australia, to start my first job, where my cousine used to work. She told me, it was the best money, she earned in the time she traveled through Australia. It was my plan to stay there for 2 months, to earn some money, and then travel back to Brisbane maybe, or travel on towards the westcoast. Well, the plans changed fairly quickly. But let me start at the beginning of my travel.
I took the plane from Brisbane to Darwin on Wednesday 1st Feb in the evening, and arrived safely in Darwin at around 2 am. It was my plan to go seek an internet cafe, to hang out there for a few hours, whilst waiting for my Bus to Katherine, which was supposed to leave at around 7 am. But first I needed some food and a toilet. So I went and found a supermarket to get me a sandwich, and while eating it, a guy from the cleaning unit joined me, to have his 'lunchbreak'. While we were sitting there, talking about Darwin and my journey, I told him, that I needed to go to a toilet, and if he knew where I could find one. He said, he could let me into the toilet under the supermarket, which is supposed to be for the cleaning unit. I agreed and the 2 of us took the lift downstairs, where he let me in the locked toilet. So I took a piss, washed my hands like my mum taught me, and reorganized my clothes and hair, and finally went outside again, only to find that the cleaning unit guy had left. The first thing I remembered was, how he had to use a key to use the lift. I was starting to panic, that I couldn't get out. I approached the lifts and found that I can easily use them. Inside the lift I found heaps of buttons, and I couldn't tell which one was the right one, so I just went ahead and Hit 'G', for Ground Level. So my lift starts moving, and halts again. I open the doors, only to find myself in a dark corridor, which I had never seen before. I go back into the elevator, trying to go back to the toilet level, pushing buttons, without getting it to work. You can imagine how I was totally freaking out. Stuck in a dark corridor that looks like it could be the entrance to a 5-star Hotel. The only thing I could think of to do was to push the Emergency Button, because this obviously WAS an emergency. The woman who answered my call listened to my story, and finally told me, that she wouldn't believe me, and would call the police, because I was not supposed to be in that building, and that I was gonna be arrested.
RRRRRRRRRRRIGHT!
I was completely stunned. She was saying I would be arrested, because some cleaning unit guy let me into the toilets. So I finally convinced her, that it wasn't my fault, and she said, that I'd have to wait for the manager to arrive in the morning (at around 7am) and hung up on me. Can you believe it? So I went out of the elevator, and sat in that corridor for 45 minutes, until I heared some voices. I yelled for help, and gladly I saw a security guard walk by, and he let me out with some sort of keycard. Of course I had to explain the whole story again, back and forth, but after one and a half hour, I was finally out of that bloody building again.
So I did actually manage to catch my bus to Katherine, caught a bit of sleep on the way there, and finally arrived in Katherine at around 2 pm, and was stunned by the heat and humidity that really got me. My new boss on the farm I'd be working at picked me up, and showed me everything I had to do, before he got me to my youth hostel.
I registered there, got my key, went up to my dorm room, only to find my roommates smoking pot inside of the air con-ed room. This trip really did start great. I bought a few things before going to sleep, because I had to get up at 5 in the morning to start my farming work.
I get up at 5, get lunch ready, get picked up and driven to my work, thinking I will start my lemon picking job. I was wrong yet another time. I was put into the Chemical Spraying Group, which didn't really bother me, but after 4 days of doing the same chemical spraying shit, without any protection, I approached my boss, because we had always spoken about lemon picking in the emails. His response basically was 'I got these 10 Indonesian guys picking lemons on contract who cover the lemon picking by far, so I can't let you pick lemons until they are gone, which is in 2 months'. All I thought was 'fuck off'.
I had met a few germans in my new Youth Hostel I had changed to, after the first night, and they said, their work on a different citrus farm was rather easy, and I should prolly change over to their place. Which is what I did.
It goes on, don't worry.
The day I changed my working place, 2 Australian workers started there too, which were rather nice on the first day. The second day, they went to the boss, saying that the germans, which had been working there fine for 4 weeks, and I would be stealing gas, taking drugs all the time and be taking breaks without writing them into the timesheets. Sadly, the boss believed them, and thus, from the third day on he was taking his time checking our work, and he put the australians into a position to check us too, which made us quit after the third day.
So now I am back in Brisbane, after hesitating to Katherine, buying one of the last tickets back to Darwin, and waiting several hours at the airport there, to actually get a ticket for a flight back.
It's time to get a job again.
Oh, and happy Valentine's Day!
:)
I keep you all posted.
Cuddles and kisses to all the girls ;)
So long,
Franz
Hi guys,
you may call yourself the elite clique who receives my very special australia-mail.
I've been in Australia for about 130 hours now, and snap has there been alot of stuff happening already. Let me summarize the weather for all of you in the cold: 35 degrees, sunshine and a mild breeze. But let me tell you about how my trip went so far:
I departed from Germany on wednesday last week, being a bit worried, whether China Airlines would be anywhere near the standard I was hoping to have on my 36 hour flight (okay okay, it had a break of around 17 hours). I was positively surprised when I got onto the plane, and sure, that I'd enjoy the flight. Flew to Taipeh, had a bit of sleep here and there, watched a few movies (Irongrid Gang is quite good (features XZibit) and The Departed is awesome) and generally rather enjoyed my flight. In Taipeh I had to, like I already mentioned, wait 17 hours, to depart to Brisbane. You wont believe how easy it is to sleep in the middle of a huge airport with only foreigners around and lots of them actually around, talking all sorts of weird gibberish. You get used to it, and have sweet dreams of Microsoft Office (Or atleast I did so). The flight to brisbane, though, was pretty bad. I had a blanket on me and I was freezing anyway, and I had basically no chance to get some sleep, as the plane was stuffed with people. No stretching out your legs on a second chair right next to you. Thing is, I was gonna arrive at 9 in the morning, which meant I HAD to stay up for another 12 hours atleast. Turns out it is rather easy to do, because there is no chance, that you sleep in such steamy hot weather. I was welcomed by my hostmum and hostsister and got my bags (30 minutes of wait because of some problem with the luggage) and left to my new home. The rest of the day was really nothing special. Just stay awake, and tell the story of your scar on your arm over and over.
The next day (Saturday) we had planned to have a BBQ in the afternoon, and then leave for the Valley, which apparently is the best place to party in Brisbane. But before all that, I had to clean up my drumming skills for a little jamming session with my hostbrother Jona and his best mate (see, I'm half Australian already, only by using the word mate :) ) Mikesh. Pretty fun.
So then was the BBQ, more people to get to know, more telling the story of my scar on my arm, and some fine ladies, woohoo :). After the BBQ, we started getting ready. 20 people, ready to party, and boy was I stunned, when I saw the Valley. I mean jesus, in Germany we'd call that place redlight district. Can you have any more girls with less clothes on? Not that I didn't like it, especially as most were quite drunk, but daaaaamn. I got back down to earth when we were standing at the entrance of the first nightclub, when the 'security guy' said that my shoes didn't fit the dresscode, and thus I'd not be allowed in. I mean what the hell, who the hell looks for shoes in a dark nightclub with drunk people. On to the next club with yucky techno music and overpriced drinks (whole valley had that, and apparently any australian partying place does). A jack Daniels and a vodka-red bull later we went on to the next club, where we faced a similar scenario as in the first club... being underdressed. We all decided to go to a bar sort-of-thing and hang out there, play pool, and enjoy their rather cheap (well compared to other bars in Brisbane) beer. And boy I tell you, one of the girls with us, Zoe, she's got a funky tongue, if you know what I mean *wink*.
Get home at 5 am, wake up at 9, because you cant stand the heat anymore - gawd that sucks bad.
Waking up, talking to my hostmum, hearing the story about how she passed out on the toilet during the night, hitting her head bad, and nearly biting a good piece of her tongue off when hitting the ground - scary. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were really nothign special, my hostmum left to Tasmania for some sort of excursion.
Then the night from Tuesday, I all of a sudden wake up, look at the clock and see that it's like 2 am. I lay there, and all of a sudden a car comes up, stops right near the house, and someone gets out and starts talking. And I'm like, what the hell is going on. So I get up on my arms to take a look out of my window, and see a car standing there, reading the letters 'AMBULANCE' and I'm like 'Right, the Ambulance, of course' and get back into bed, and then taking a thought, and going 'wait, what?!? what the hell does an ambulance do right next to the house!', until I remembered that my hostdad has had problems with his stomache in the evening, so I think I should probably not get up, to not stand in the way, and ask questions later. You gotta know, my hostdad was in hospital for liver cancer only have a year ago, so I was quite afraid, that it was something bad, especially as my hostmum was away for like another week. Turns out he had bad stomachache and kept throwing up.
We visited him today, and it's not really better yet, so I hope he'll improve over the next few days.
In about a week and a half I am ridin' in the north to start my job as lemonpicker, and I hope to raise some good money doing it.
I keep you all posted.
Love and kisses to all of you, cuddles go to all the girls ;)
So long,
Franz
Motto of the post:
If you need proof, that god takes drugs, take a look at the poor creature that we call 'Platypus'
The net few posts will be my newsletters which I wrote during my Australia-period.
I know, I'm a lazy bastard, sue me =)
Cheers,
Franz
Motto of that time:
Everything that rises eventually falls.
Remember the whole 'Passing the driver's license is an easy job.' thing? Well, I think I was wrong.
Two days before my flight left to Australia, I had my final driver's license test. Of course I failed.
Oh well, I will move on. I can do it without that.
So long,
Cheers,
Franz
Motto of the day:
Es geht gut, der Berg ist ueberschritten.
It has been mastered. Australia is only centimeters away and I am nearly ready to do this. LET'S ROCK!
License: Theory - passed. Final Test - Up in a few days.
Visa: Granted and approved.
Tickets: Arrived
What else to do:
Insurance - yuc.
Decide what to bring - boring.
Pass the Final Driving Test - erm, ez?
<3 to everyone supporting me.
If anyone wants to receive regular mails from Australia, mail me your E-Mail adress to Hahn.Franz ( at ) googlemail dot com.
So long,
Cheers,
Franz
