April 2nd
Sweet Thursday. Optics class in the morning and then day to myself. Today I decided I was going to the place on the train map that sounded the silliest. The winner: Woy Woy, NSW.
I hopped a train with my backpack full of a large bottle of water and swim stuff and attempted to make my way there. I however had to stop for about 45 minutes in Berowra. Rather than sit and do nothing while waiting, I decided to explore Berowra. I have come to the conclusion that there is NOTHING to do in Berowra. I got a meat pie at a local bakery. I wanted Chicken Curry; they were out. I asked for a veggie pie, I got steak and mushroom. Whatever. As always, the meat pie was delicious and artery clogging.
I found a bathroom in this sketchy strip mall which was only sketchy because it looked so abandoned for 2pm on a Thursday. I went to investigate the quiche shop only to find they only sold whole quiches, which would have been a little strange to carry around all day.
Berowra, at its finest:
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
So many things wrong with this:
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
Finally, I caught the train to Woy Woy and arrived at Woy Woy station. I hadn't exactly planned what I wanted to do once I got there, so I attempted to find a map of where I was. I stumbled across their mall and went inside asking different retailers if they could point me toward a map or tourism center or something. I eventually was directed to the travel agency in the mall, where I found a woman who actually cared about helping me and printed me out a map of Woy Woy, Umina and Ettalong, all areas around where I was. I cannot thank her enough. She then told me to catch the bus from the station to Ettalong, where there was a beach and shops and such. I went back to the station and started my bus adventure.
I got on the bus with my handy dandy map and rode along, following the map to see where I was. I eventually got close to my destination, but assumed the bus might stop a little closer. I was so wrong. The bus kept going, and going, and it's next stop was across a river and past a mountain, and in my brain, I just kept whispering "shit, shit, shit, shit, shit" repeatedly to myself. I was kind of freaking out.
I asked a nice lady next to me how to get back to Ettalong and she looked at me worriedly and started to explain how to do it. We stopped the bus driver and she pointed me in the direction of the bus stand going toward Ettalong. She shouted at me "just flag down whatever bus stops there first." ok...
The view from the bus stop:
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
So I sat at the bus stop, waiting for any bus to come by, and the first one to do so was a school bus full of primary school students. The driver first tried to tell me that this wasn't a public bus, but I think he saw my general distress and terror at being lost and caved and let me on. Then I rode the school bus for the first time in probably five years.
When I got on, every single kid on the bus just stared at me for about 20 minutes until they forgot I existed and played like they were before. The school buses in Australia are just normal public transportation buses, except they hold children and act as a jungle gym on wheels. The seven year old boys in front of me were passing the time by playing with crumpled pieces of construction paper and trying to throw them out the window. I enjoyed watching them.
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
Eventually I got to the beach, by this time it was about 4pm, and most of the sun had set. I didn't care. Damnit, I got there and I was going to lay on the beach. I didn't really want to touch the water because it was pretty full of seaweed, but whatever. I enjoyed myself.
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
It started getting chilly, so I packed up and caught the bus back from Ettalong to Woy Woy station. I hopped on the train back and while I was waiting some rebellious kids were jamming to "A-Punk" by Vampire Weekend. I smiled.
Pretty sunset at the station:
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
I spent the train ride home listening to the soothing sounds of Robert Sinnerbrink's Wednesday Lecture (my aesthetics class) like I do every Thursday and read a little more of my Aesthetics material.
View from the train (Subtitle: "Experiments in Sepia"):
From Woy Woy and Ettalong Beach Adventure |
I got home later than I intended (**shakes fists at gods of public transportation**) but it didn't really matter. I didn't have anything to do the next day, so I called my friend Tara and inquired as to her plans for the evening when I got off at the station. We decided to go to Uni Bar for their bad taste party. I bought some $5 clothes at the Australian Wal-Mart (The Big W) and ran home to get clean and changed. The outfit was ridiculous. Here's me and Tara looking fine in our mismatched prints (me) and brown with black (Tara):
We had a blast there, which was surprising considering my last few times there weren't so fun. We met a bunch of people there, a few we already knew, and then a few we'd never met. One guy bought both Tara and me drinks which was pretty cool. I like freebies. He also then told us that his mother was psychic and that in Australia, plumbers make as much as doctors. I lost interest, but he seemed nice enough and Tara talked to him for awhile.
We ran into Greg, Janaki and Lindsey and a few others, and since I had been doing work for so long, it had been awhile since I'd seen them. It felt so good to get out and be social. Also, the bar there closes at some strange hour like 12:30am, or 11:30pm, either way, we left soon after that happened, which was probably a smooth move since I had class the next day. I came home, got changed and went to bed.
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