GHOSTS, NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES AND ICED UP NEIGHBOURS

Holy crap it's another blog from Dan, quick, get the family off to bed and pass me the bowl of nuts, this is one read I'm going to enjoy. Thank you Dan...thank you.

So because of all our various tenant problems, mainly that the guy won't pay his rent or move out of our house, we are currently failing miserably to pay rent in Sydney and a mortgage in London. Given our financial predicament, we thought what a cracking idea it might be to book a trip to Tasmania. After all, if you don't have the money the bastards can't make you pay for it, right?

After finding some rip-roaring fares on Virgin Blue we nip across the Tasman Sea and arrive in Launceston in Northern Tasmania. It's pretty grim, so we grab our hire car, slam it in first and get the hell out of there, leaving nothing but a trail of road kill and a whiff of burning rubber in our wake.

We opt for the scenic route taking in the Bay of Fires on the Eastern coast (nice long white sandy beach with no one on it) and Wineglass Bay further South (nice long white sandy beach with no one on it but you have to walk an hour to get there.)

All very pretty and the weather wasn't too bad either. I was fully expecting it to be chucking it down the entire time I was there, given I’d read the horrifying statistic that seven out of every ten days are rainy. Yes...I read it after I'd booked the tickets. Hey ho.

So we drive down to Port Arthur, a former convict settlement and the best preserved in Australia. It's a World Heritage site and, honestly it's pretty spectacular. They've done a spiffing job with the grounds. No one actually lives there anymore, it's just the town as it was back in the old days. We stayed at a guesthouse called Cascades (which also happens to be a convict settlement) about ten minutes up the road. Our cottage is sort-of cosy, it's where one of the soldiers used to live in the 19th century and looks like it hasn't been decorated since. There's an open fire place, a nice rocking chair and a faint hint of death about the place. Fuck, this cottage gives me the creeps. It's all decked out like a scene from Rosemary's Baby.

Alison decides this is a good opportunity to do the infamous Port Arthur Ghost Walk. I'm dubious but what the hey, not like I'm going to die or anything. So we follow this ample lady around the settlement who looked like she'd copped it in the face with a three iron. She recounts stories of death, mayhem and strange happenings to previous tour groups. All jolly scary. Of course, when the tour ends we have to jump back in our car and drive the ten minutes through pitch black forest back to the guesthouse. Meeting not a single other car on the way. Having been warned not to drive after dusk because the chances of hitting a wallaby or wombat increase tenfold. I opt to drive very slowly, the trees appearing eerily out of the shadows. Fuck this is scary. No radio. Nothing but silence. We arrive at our convict cottage. Now I'm even more spooked out. Fuck it, let's light the fire. I strike the match and watch the fire take hold. I glance around, the place is lit by one solitary light bulb in the ceiling. I glance towards Alison. I can't see her. Where the...? I suddenly realise the reason I can't see her is because the entire cottage has filled with smoke and my vision doesn't extend beyond the tears in my eyes. I start coughing, the smoke alarm beeps with a deafening blare. I start wafting a magazine near it. Nothing, blood pours down my ears. Smoke is everywhere. I open the front door. Alison goes nuts, she thinks the ghosts will get in. Outside, there’s nothing but total darkness and a lot of forest. Very Blair Witch. Whose great idea was this then? Eventually the fire righted itself and we went off to bed, wiping the soot from our faces. Neither of us slept very well that night, let me tell you.

We drove to Hobart the next day which is okay, not worth coming over the other side of the world for but there's enough to keep your interest for maybe...two hours. I kept thinking of that song Chris Tarrant used to play every day on Capital FM in the mornings. 'Hobart, Tasmania...that's my wonderful town!' It's not as wonderful as the song would have you believe. Tasmanian propaganda.

After a trip to the Cadbury’s factory (Alison's choice) and the Cascade beer factory (mine), we drove around to Cradle Mountain where it promptly rained for the rest of the trip. Nothing like going hiking in the pissing rain when you can barely see the person in front of you due to low cloud. And the cabin we stayed in there...oh don't get me started. It was called a cosy cabin and let me tell you there was nothing cosy about it. It was grimmer than a Tasmanian beauty contest.

So having had a vaguely interesting time we fly home. Now look, I know it was windy coming into Sydney airport and I understand the pilot does his best with the prevailing conditions. What I object to when we're less than two hundred feet from the ground is looking out the window and seeing ground, sky, ground, sky. I held on to Alison as hard as I could, until I realised she was sitting to my left. After apologising to the guy next to me for squeezing his hand so hard, I did a hail Mary and prayed for a positive outcome. The wheels slammed into the tarmac and I felt the aircraft swerve back towards the runway. Suddenly I was thrown forward in my seat as the pilot, apparently realising he was out of runway (and in Sydney the end of the runway is the Pacific), slammed on the brakes. The plane found its rhythm and we managed to slow. I thanked God I was still alive and had a sudden and urgent need to give money to Cancer Research or help out at a local old people's home.

So we're back in Sydney. It's a Monday night, about ten thirty and we're about to go to bed when the neighbours above us decide to have a karaoke party. Oh that's just...I sit there, stewing. Alison tries to calm me but this is not going to end well. A group of men upstairs are singing along to a Spice Girls track, and it’s by no means a decent rendition. I leave it fifteen minutes, before hopping out of bed, yanking on some clothes and walking up to their front door. I wrap three times. I can hear them inside. I wrap again. Nothing. They must be able to hear me. I knock three more times and suddenly the door is thrown open and the guy storms out saying things like 'Look we're allowed to be as noisy as we want until eleven, okay! It's just a bunch of guys having a bit of fun so don't start with your complaining because we're allowed to.' I was taken aback. I was only going to politely ask him to turn the volume down. We start arguing in the street. He's all over me, I hadn't even got a word out. Judging by the way he couldn't seem to make eye contact I surmised he must be on Ice. We argued some more. It ended with me threatening to inform the landlady, he practically chased me down the steps, berating me all the way. Jesus Christ. I got back in, slamming the door and breathing heavily. Felt like a scene out of Jurassic Park. Alison shook her head, her eyes giving me her 'told you so' look. I explained I hadn't gone off, he'd just started on me. She suggested he was probably drinking (or was on Ice). We sat there, unsure how to proceed. It had gone strangely quiet upstairs. Then I heard him come out of his front door and down our steps. Oh here we go. He probably went back to get the nine millimetre. Three knocks on our door.

'Don't you dare answer it.' Alison hisses. Three more knocks. I stand up. 'Sit down.' She says. I stand there. Three more. I go open the door, but Alison gets there before me. 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?!' She barks at him.

'Listen I just wanted to say I'm really sorry," the man stammers, ‘don't know what came over me. I'm not that type of guy normally. We'd just been drinking (or doing Ice) and I lost it. I'm really sorry.'

We accepted his apology and he asked if we fancied going out for a drink sometimes. 'Maybe' I replied, like yeah now I want to spend a couple of hours with you in an intimate setting, are you fucking insane?

Anyway, that concludes today's blog. I do hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to all your notes on grammar and spelling.

Until next time

Danster

IN-LAWS, DOLPHINS AND FLIES

Well chaps, after a month of travelling to various places in Australia and New Zealand I'm back with a bunch of anecdotes sure to keep those belly laughs coming, for a few minutes anyway. And before you all write in saying 'Dan this is way too long' I know okay, but that's why I broke it up in to easy-to-read segments, so you can come back to it. Or if you can't get past the first paragraph without thinking life's too short, that's why God invented the delete key.

Anyway, so having had my soon-to-be-in-laws stay for a month we decided to show them all that is good about Australia and New Zealand. Having seen the Whitsundays, I thought what a jolly fine idea it might be to show them New Zealand. So we jump on a plane and hit Christchurch at one in the morning. Man, it was quiet there. Like no traffic, no nothing. Bit scary.
We hire a car and head north up the east coast to a place called Kaikoura. Now there's really only one reason to come here, swim with dolphins. Yes my friends you get to get up at 0430 in the morning, drive to a shack, yank on a scandalously tight wetsuit and jump on a boat where they try to locate the bastards in a bay about the size of the Caspian Sea. Nice. So we don our wetsuits and, unable to breathe, head into a dark briefing room where we're shown a video presentation telling you how unlikely it is you will actually see or do anything. Now, I realise this is just about managing expectation but even so, I did have to ask myself 'If I'm not going to see any dolphins why does my bank statement say you took two hundred pounds off me. Screwed over once again. A-holes.
So after the thoroughly depressing briefing, a back door opens and we are herded on to buses. I remind you it's now 0600 and the South Island has the same climate as England so at that time, do you know how cold it was? Yes exactly.
We transfer on to this boat and go dolphin hunting. The captain says look out for them jumping or somersaulting (or hiding in the shadows, smoking crack and laughing at the silly western tourists). I can't see anything because my eyes are glued shut with sleep.
Anyway, finally we see them and we all have to move towards the back of the boat and sit with our feet in the water. I tell you, dear readers, when my feet touched that water my bollocks shot up to my chin so fast, I didn't see them again until the following day. It was so cold I actually thought I might slip in to a coma there and then. Then the captain sounds a claxon horn in my face signalling I'm supposed to get in.
When I pushed myself into that water (shaking my heading and sobbing quietly) I quickly realised why I had not been born an Eskimo. However my snorkel seemed to be working and I could just about breathe if I focussed all my attention on it. I peered into the water. Nothing. Not a sausage. Just dark, cold murky water. Fuck. What the hell am I doing? I glance up at my dolphin -swimming colleagues who have all swam away humming and singing.
See, they tell you in the briefing that you have to entertain the dolphins so they're curious and swim up to you. I do this, I'm told, by singing and humming and swimming in a 'dolphin-like' way or generally looking like a bellend. Okay, if it's a bellend they want, I can oblige. So I start humming and messing about and sure enough, out of the gloomy darkness two shapes fly into view. Dusky dolphins. They swim around me; I have to spin to keep up. They swim under me and disappear back into darkness. Wow, this making a penis of myself really does work. I try it again. Another finds me, I spend about a minute making eye contact with it whilst changing my tone and pace of my humming. I can see by the dolphin's expression, I can see he's thinking 'Look at you in your stupid flippers. That wet suit looks a bit snug. Look how fast I can swim, come on...catch me you lazy bastard.' Then he buggers off.
This goes on and on, more and more dolphins. Gotta say, it was pretty special. We were in the water for about 45 minutes and I barely noticed it.

The rest of New Zealand in 8 sentences.
After that we drive further north to the Marlborough wine region. Very nice, although New Zealand really only makes decent white wine which I confess I'm not a big fan of but hell, alcohol is alcohol isn't it?
Then we drive up to Marlborough Sounds where we board a mail boat for a little trip on the water. Very pretty, blah blah.
Next, it's over to Nelson for some stunning walking along the coast, very nice, recommended.
After that we head over to Westport, New Zeland's industrial shithole...however the road down the west coast is pretty spectacular so did a bit of that.
Then Arthur's Pass, a staggering drive through the mountains. Holy crap, I think my mouth was open most of the way through that which the sandflies loved.

Once we returned to Australia we had a couple of days before Alison's parents left, so we take them up to Palm Beach (where they shoot Home & Away). It's 35 degrees, cloudy and so humid I started to wish I'd put deodorant on my balls.
We arrive, get out of the car and are confronted with something about Australia I'd heard about but never properly experienced before today. Flies. Hundreds of them. And these aren't your basic English country flies where if you lightly brush them away they tip their hat and leave contented to have been a minor nuisance. Oh no, these bastards fly at your face...over and over again. Then when they're bored of that they go for your eyes. And they will not leave you alone. We stayed about 10 minutes, bearing in mind it's a 45 minute drive from where we live. Nope, sod this, we're heading back. But the little bastards were everywhere. Not sure if the Ozzies have some sort of cream they put on because none of them seemed to even notice. Oh, and apparently it gets worse the hotter it gets. Wonderful.

Oh yeah and I had this haircut at the mall up the road. I go in and I'm confronted by this enormous humpty-dumpty girl with bad skin, sporting a black sun hat. Yes she wore a hat whilst cutting my hair. Alarm bells should have rung but I think someone must have cut the cord because I heard nothing. When she finished I put my glasses on and gasped, holding my hand in front of my face, tears welling in my eyes. It was like she'd taken a chainsaw to my head, got bored and thought 'sod it, I’ve spent enough time with this prick.' Worst...haircut....ever. Now I need a bloody hat.

Well this has gone far too long. More adventures to follow...at some point...maybe.

Ciao

LANDMINES, SHARKS AND SEMI-COMPLETED NOVELS

So it’s been a while since my last blog entry, mainly because I’ve been lazy and the days I could have been blogging I was actually on the beach, don’t roll your eyes, you would have done the same.

So what’s been happening Dan? How’s that building work next door? I take it they’ve finally stopped so you can get a good night’s sleep? Well actually no. Our neighbours who I refer to as Adolf and Eva are STILL bulldozing their house, in fact I reckon whatever it is they’re doing in there it would have been quicker to just bulldoze the place and start again from scratch.

We’ve had sharks at Manly beach which was all very exciting when Alison called me up to tell me. So being the dumbarse that I am, I figure I could run down there and check it out. Well I ran, for fifteen minutes straight at almost full pelt. Did I see the shark? Well yes...on the news that night. But having run all the way down there all I saw was firstly, no one in the water, no surprise there and one lifeboat going up and down the beach. Hardly Jaws. I was hoping to see an outstretched arm buried in the sand or a dodgy looking sailor with one leg saying things like ‘we’re going to need a bigger boat.’ Nothing. There’s 15 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Nevermind.

What else, oh yeah I finished the first draft of my novel. No I won’t tell you what it’s about cos I’m superstitious and slightly anally retentive but it’s 77,000 words and now I’ve put it in a corner to ferment for a bit so I can come at it clean, so to speak.

Oh yeah, my tenant who does some sort of mysterious consulting work for the MOD in warzones has managed to step on a land mine in Afghanistan. Or he was playing Frisbee with it or something and has got himself hospitalized. So the rent, which was never really paid on the due date at the best of times, is now doubly late. Only I could find a tenant who likes to play with roadside explosives as a hobby. Typical.

Various people have come to visit out here which is interesting, as our place is the size of a small ironing board cupboard and you can just about fit four people in if everyone stands holding their breath. Alison’s parents are here at the mo, so we went up to the Whitsundays for her 30th, hired a seaplane and checked out the Great Barrier Reef which looked...great!
Then we had a little 3 day cruise around the various islands. Now the problem with cruises is, like a box of chocolates, that you never know what kind of people you’re going to get. This boat was very pleasant, expensive and for the more well-to-do. So what kind of passengers do you think we’d get? I’m timing you? Did someone shout out Commies? No. We got middle aged English people who were consistently the dullest human beings I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Seriously, I think I had more in common with Alison’s left slipper. At least you can call it names and it won’t retort with anecdotes about sailing around Greek Islands. Man these guys were boring. One kept talking about all the cruises he’d been on, another was talking about...well I’m not really sure because he was French. Frankly I couldn’t wait to get in the water, not just to see all the pretty fishes, mainly so I could have 5 minutes of listening to nothing but the screams of my co-passengers as they were repeatedly stung by the resident Box Jellyfish.

Went to Melbourne for a few days which was nice but frankly I can’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s a nice city and has a lot going for it but as far as I’m concerned - no beaches, no fun. Yes okay, it’s got trams and museums and a bit more culture but that’s no good when it’s thirty three in the shade, is it?

Also tried our hand at a bit of whale watching. Four hours of sitting on a boat watching waves the size of small buildings and Alison running to the bathroom every five minutes being violently sick. My mum and her friend who accompanied us on that journey to Hades and back haven’t quite forgiven me. I think the theory was better than the reality on that one. How many whales do you think we saw? I’ll give you a clue, it’s between 0 and 0.

Told the BBC we’re coming back which, no doubt, they were euphoric about. We fly in to London on the 7th Jan and will be back in work sometime after the 16th Jan. There’s a date for your diaries, I’m expecting tickertape and pineapple on sticks.

Can’t believe it’s October already, seriously where did this year go? Anyway, I’m running out of things to say and you’re running out of will to live. We’re heading off to New Zealand for a few days next week so I’m sure you’ll all be tuning in to hear how I got munched by malevolent dolphins or carjacked by a bunch of unruly caravaners. I’m getting in to my writing now; see all the new words I’m using.

Till next time, take care of yourselves...and each other.

WORKMEN, KOALAS AND RELIGIOUS VIGILANTES

It's been raining in Sydney. Storms, hail, thunder, lightning, dogs, cats, panda’s. You name it, we’ve had it. Our neighbours have decided to start doing some major work to their house which basically involves a skip truck reversing down the steep driveway outside our front door every day at seven in the morning. The workmen then have a chat, catch up on old times whilst leaving the engine ticking over. After maybe ten minutes they unload the empty skip and pick up the full one, then drive it away. Passed my fucking front door. It's like living in the middle of a building site. Then they start with the pneumatic drill for most of the morning followed by the occasional dumping of whatever they dug up. It makes a fantastic crashing noise. Tell you, I'm about ready to snap.

On the plus side we have been going in and out of the city on the ferry. One day last week on the way back, we were sitting outside, the sun was out, not a cloud in the sky it was all good when the captain comes over the speaker. 'Ladies and gentlemen if you look directly ahead you'll see a pod of dolphins.’ He says. Of course everyone goes nuts and sure enough as we're pulling in to Manly Wharf there are about thirty dolphins swimming past us. Pretty cool. In fact I'm so excited I tell a few complete strangers about it on the way back towards our house. They're like 'Really? Dolphins?' and they start looking out to sea, by which time of course, the dolphins are long gone and they hate me.

The Pope was in town a couple of weeks ago and honestly it felt like he was here forever. All these kids with brightly coloured flags walking around the city in groups a little like spiritual vigilantes. And, get this; they all have exactly the same backpacks. Red and yellow jobbies with World Youth Day printed on them. Maybe they're Vatican issued but it's a little strange. You can be sitting in a food court in the city, eating your sandwich or drinking coffee and suddenly the place will erupt with Chile's Holy Saint of Our Mother's Choir blaring out in full song singing happy birthday to someone called Rodrigo. And you cannot get away from these guys. They're everywhere. They're on the ferry, outside parks, at the wharf, even outside my house. How they find me with their John Lennon guitars and poorly played tambourines I don’t know. Do you remember, in school, the tambourine was always given to the kid with no sense of rhythm? Well that’s these guys, and they can’t sing either.

Tell you another weird thing that happened. We were walking through Manly the other day and we get to the beach. It had been raining quite hard but the sun was coming out. You know that sky where it's pretty much black but yellow sunlight streams from part of it creating rainbows and crap. Well that was what was going on here. Except as we looked out to sea at the forming rainbow we saw a funnel of a tornado, in the middle of a rainbow! The twister hit the ocean surface and started whipping it up. It was the weirdest thing and yet somehow quite beautiful.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Dan's gone soft. I thought this was supposed to be a funny blog. When's it get funny? Huh? Say something witty, funnyman. Hurry up!
I don't know if it's just me but when the birds sing here it sounds like someone's being strangled. It's not like at home where they tweet, shut up then tweet again. These things moan about their breakfast, play some cards and then have a good laugh about it in the tree. I swear it feels like I'm in the middle of the Amazon sometimes.

Went to a koala sanctuary the other day. Those dudes are about the cutest things I've ever seen and in this place you can pet them and give them leaves and crap. Of course I end up next to this woman who listens in to my conversation with Alison. Here's a sample

Alison: (overhearing someone calling the koala a bear) Oh, is it a bear.
Me: Yes, it's a bear.
Alison: Really? You don't think of them as bears.
Annoying woman next to me: Actually it's not a bear, koalas are marsupials I don't know why everyone calls them bears. They're not bears.
Me: Shut the hell up.

Okay that last part was me getting carried away, I didn't say that but like Jesus lady, go bore someone else with your abnormal knowledge of koalas.

I've been feeling a little homesick recently as well. Hadn’t really hit me until recently. I don't know, just miss being able to go down the pub or grab lunch with friends I don't have to try with. It's been a little over six months since we left and I guess when you're travelling and doing loads of things you're distracted and don't think about it but maybe since we've stopped and since all the issues we have had with accommodation and money, I don't know. I kinda miss you guys.

Jesus, is he ever going to start saying funny crap? I didn't subscribe to this for a bunch of whiney, depressing crap. I get enough of that at home. Come on Dan, pull your finger out and start being funny or I'm just going to stop reading, mid sentence. Oh...where'd he go?

HOME AND AWAY, BILLS AND FRAGGLES

Well looky what we have here. Dan's got a new blog out. He said he was stopping, that guy is such a lying a-hole. I know he wrote that last one but he said he probably wouldn't be writing another for a while. Right, never believe a word this guy says, I think that's the moral of the story. Well I might think about reading it if it's short. We can't all be messing about on beaches every day, some of us actually have proper jobs.

Yeah so, it's a few days before we move out and I get an email from the people who own the house. They say they've received a $500 internet bill! What the...? Turns out, because they use this 3G wireless thing to connect to the internet it costs more...a lot more. And you know what else, the phone company bill you for just being connected to the damn thing. Isn't that just the biggest kicker you ever heard? Well maybe not for you, but for us it was devastating. We'd been going off shopping and for walks along the beach with the bloody thing connected. No one told me, no one explained any of this. UGH! What the hell else can go wrong here? First we lose our free accommodation, now this. We were once again plunged in to fits of depression. When will this end, how many more nasty surprises? Anyway, we pull ourselves together and just get over it. It's only money isn't it?

Strangely, ten minutes after reading the $500 email, Alison gets a call from the extras agency she signed up to saying they need her to be an extra on some Ozzy police drama called The Cut. They ask her if she knows any guys that might be able to come along at short notice...she says she does and volunteers me! Cheers fiancée! I have to say extra work isn't something I particularly saw myself doing at age thirty but what the hell, we need the money and it might be fun. Turns out we get paid to go to a beach just south of Bondi and watch half-naked girls playing volleyball! I know, it's an utter travesty.

We were asked to be part of the crowd cheering for the Australian volleyball team. So I get changed into my swimming shorts and t-shirt. As I’m walking towards the set, one of the wardrobe girls pulls me aside and says 'I think I can use you for something else, follow me.' Uhh okay. So I wander over to another trailer and she gets me to put on a suit. I am then escorted over to this volleyball court they've constructed and told to sit in the 'V.I.P.' area. I crack a couple of funnies to the guys sitting beside me. It's about twenty minutes later I realise that the two people next to me are the lead characters and they are filming the scene right here. GET IN THERE. So I got a starring role in the show which I'm sure I'll never see but weird how that all worked out. Ironically, the money we got from that job pretty much paid for the internet bill.

Moving day comes and we need to pack up all of our stuff and move to the flat in Manly. Now, I know what you're thinking. What stuff? You had one backpack, what the hell is there to pack? Well this is true but we have bought a couple of things since we got here. Like books and magazines for Alison, some extra t-shirts for me, a pet Kangeroo who I affectionately called Joey... We actually had to make two trips...oooo I hear you say, two trips. Look, if you're going to be sarcastic I'm not going to carry on, okay?

So the place we'd found to live in is perfect. It's cosy, the bedroom is also the kitchen which also triples as the living room but it's all nice. I did a little video on Facebook for those of you who really have nothing better to do. The lady who owns it has left all her pots and pans and sheets and things. She also left this bright neon blue, furry blanket on the bed. I swear it looks like they took a large, blue Fraggle, squashed him then rolled him out as far as he’d go and sold him off as a bed throw. Now I take animal rights pretty seriously and I think killing Fraggles is frankly not on, but it does get a bit chilly at night so I'll keep it to myself for now.

Alison got another call from the extras agency last weekend asking her to be in Home and Away. Rock on! So we drive about half an hour up the road, where they're shooting it. She has to be a caterer serving food to people at some posh house. I went to pick her up and saw the whole cast walking towards the trailers to get changed and I have to say I don't recognise one of them. At least with Neighbours they've still got Lou and Harold, but that's shot in Melbourne and I’ll be damned if I’m driving all the way out there for one job. No, I don’t care if Libby asked for me personally. With all this extra work Alison thinks it's a good idea that I sign up as well. I have to say, I'm dubious but what the hell, in for a penny in for a pound.

In the midst of all this we have also booked our wedding venue for May next year. Ooo I hear you all cry. Yeah it's this stunning castle thing outside Barcelona. Alison's had it on her favourites for about a year. We're starting to plan the wedding now and I gotta say, it's more complicated than I thought. I'm looking forward to swimming in the infinity pool and tasting the Cava they make on the property. Yes, did I mention it has 300 acres of vineyards...nice!

Well, I guess that's about all that's fit to print. See, that wasn't so bad was it? Relatively short and painless. Where have I heard that before?

RAIN, MANLY APARTMENTS AND LEADING MEN

Okay, I know I said I probably wouldn't write unless there was something to tell. Luckily, since we've arrived there have been a couple of not insignificant incidents which I thought I'd share with you. I know what you're thinking, 'No, Dan I've got myself another blogger now. You can't just drop me whenever you feel like it and expect me just to carry on where we left off, it doesn't work that way.' All I can say is...I know who you really love, it's pointless to pretend, don't fight it.

The most important and immediately pressing thing is the fact we don't have sixth months free accommodation, as I previously thought. Of course, it's totally my fault, should have really broached the subject with the guys that -

a) own the house we were staying in and
b) the people who are actually paying rent and living here.

Doh! So we discovered this minor detail about two weeks ago and I swear it felt like our trip was over. See, the thing is, we had budgeted our year away banking on the fact that we would have accommodation when we got to Sydney. So this turn up for the books put a lion amongst the pigeons. We also thought the house would be empty. When we arrived we were surprised to find there were tenants. When we revealed to them how long we were planning to stay, so were they. The people that own the house are old friends of my dad and that puts him and them in a bit of a crap situation. Alison's parents have been ridiculously kind and lent us some money so we can stay and find somewhere to live. In short, it was a bit of a mess and all pretty much my fault so I felt like poo. Alison also felt rubbish as everything we were expecting in Sydney has turned out to be something quite different, but hey, that's life. At least there's good weather here right? Well... no.

The weather has been rubbish as well. It all started nicely, I went for sunny walks along the beautifulcoastline. Life was good. Then this all happens, the weather turns crappy and it literally hasn't stopped raining since.

(As an aside, it's dinner time and my ears have picked up the TV. There's a commercial saying '...the symptoms are not always easy to identify, and what you could have is genital herpes. For more information...' I swear I nearly spat out my orange juice. I mean Jesus, I know they're trying to improve public awareness but I don't particularly want to see that stuff at this time of the day. I'm trying to eat guys...come on. Anyway...)

We meet up with my one friend who lives in Sydney, Andre. I have known this guy forever. His wife, Mel, is expecting their second kid in July. It's really nice to see them again. Not just because I haven't seen them for two years but also it's just good to see familiar faces after travelling for so long. We both loved seeing Jayden, their little boy and Bella, the dog. I'm trying to persuade Alison to get a labrador and I think all this dog mingling is working, she seems to be coming around to the idea.

Alison signed up with an extras agency because she's always wanted to be an extra on film sets (and she's sad). Her first day was working on some dodgy Ozzy film called False Witness. They were filming at the Olympic Stadium and she got to dress up as a secret agent. The best story she told me, apart from this Brazlian trying to get in her pants all day (what do you expect, he's Brazilian), was when she sat down next to a guy and said 'Hi, are you an extra as well?' To which he gave her a shocked look and, trying desperately to contain the rage welling up inside him he muttered 'No, I'm the lead.' before stomping off to his trailer. Apparently he's quite well known here but she had no idea who he was. His reaction was classic though.

So we have to find a place and quickly. We decide we want to stay in Manly. (which some of you have pointed out as perfect for someone like me). Manly is 30 minutes ferry ride from the centre of Sydney and is in my opinion, the worlds best commute. However, house prices there are ridiculously high, so that's out the window. We try looking along some of the other Northern Beaches, Curl Curl, Freshwater or Dee Why. Problem is hardly any of these places come furnished and we have, well not a lot of stuff. I do have a souvenir Mate cup and decorative wine casket but somehow I'm entirely convinced those will make the place 'feel like home.'

We visit a few estate agents, most of whom look at us like they just scraped us off their shoe. Here's a sample conversation:

Me: Hi there, we'd like to rent an apartment in the area.
Dopey Blonde Receptionist: Okay.
Me: About **** a week.
Dopey Blonde Receptionist: Okay.Me: Do you have anything furnished?
Dopey Blonde Receptionist: No, sorry.
Me: Nothing? I know they're hard to come by...
Dopey Blonde Receptionist: Yeah, they are.
Me: Can I leave our details in case anything comes up?
Dopey Blonde Receptionist: No. We don't take people's details.
Me: Right.

It was kinda frustrating. Don't get me wrong, it may have been bad manors to interrupt her nail polishing session but I felt I had a legitimate claim to her time. So we try a few other esate agents, not much else around.

Eventually we walk back in to Manly again, about ready to offer ourselves up as quality shark food, when we pass an agent we had missed. In the window there was a sign saying 'Furnished Properties.' We wander in, see one we like and set up a viewing. It's in a place called Fairlight about 15 minutes walk from Manly...get in there!

We walk down the steep driveway and are greeted by Jackie, the English woman who owns the place. As we step inside, I'm confronted by the biggest plasma TV I've ever seen. The apartment is small but god it's nice. It's officially classed as a studio but it's really big and everything is new. New fridge, new kitchen, new bed, new sugar bowl. We love it immediately and hit it off with Jackie. She's going to leave us all her kitchenware and even offers to transfer the broadband to us if we want 'it's got unlimited downloads.' Man, this just gets better and better. There is a car parking space (our friends have very kindly let us have their car until they come back from London) and there's even a new mountain bike sitting in the garage just begging to be used. Outside, we're right next to a harbour and a very agreeable coastal path. You can hear the sea lapping at the rocks from our patio. Sea air permeates everywhere and the smell is amazing. We're exactly where we want to be. Fab!

So I guess things work out for the best in the end. It was pretty hairy for a while there and we actually seriously considered coming home. We even looked up the price of the flights but then realised we couldn't afford that either. But sometimes life just pulls together and things slot in to place. I'm sure next time I write there will have been some other crisis like I decide I want a sex change operation but can't front up the deposit or something. This was definitely one of the biggest we've had since leaving and I think we came out, almost untarnished. For those of you shouting at the screen sayinng 'What about Alison's hair?' I'm happy to report she went to a Toni and Guy here and the 'guy' has repaired the damage and you wouldn't know anything bad had happened. 'There is a God!' I hear you all cry. And believe me I'm with you on that. So all in all things are looking peachy again. I seem to have trouble pooing but apart from that...

THE FINALE - HAIRCUTS, SUPERSHUTTLES AND MERRILLS

So having jumped on a bus back to Mendoza, a strange feeling is slowly starting to come to realisation. Our trip in South America is almost at an end. I'm not quite sure how to feel about this, afterall it seems only yesterday we were saying tearful goodbyes to our parents at the airport. Yet nearly five months later here we sit, staring out of a window on a bus heading North through the winelands of Argentina. In two days we'll be in New Zealand, strange how fast time flies.
Anyway, enough of this depressing crap. Here's a classic anecdote.

We decide that it might be cheaper to get our haircuts in Mendoza rather than waiting till we get to Sydney. So we wander along the various streets trying to find a reputable hairdresser. Eventually we come across this place, it's small and you have to be buzzed to be allowed in. Somehow the alarm bells did not ring. They didn't even ring when we saw the other clients in there and the various dodgy beehive incarnations that were being created. By now, of course we're well used to no one speaking English but one of the customers does and translates for the girl who greets us. The customer, by the way, is having her eyebrows tinted and it looked like a hammer horror movie. Something didn't feel quite right but what the hell you only live once. I immediately volunteered Alison to go first. 'How much?' I asked.
'Thirty pesos each.' The woman replied. I nodded.
Unsure, Alison went to have her hair washed. She kept glancing at me, a concerned expression on her face. I looked around telling myself this was going to be one great haircut for the both of us. I heard a yelp from Alison. The girl washing was being a little rough but I thought nothing of it. Alison was then bought over to the chair where we were introduced to this seventy year old guy, with long grey hair in a ponytail and a slight twitch in his eye. Strange, kinda assumed it would be one of the women doing it, where did this guy come from? Oh well, this is going to be great.
'They didn't condition it.' Alison whispered as she sat down on the chair. Bit strange again but my mind immediately started replaying moments from the latest Bourne film and I quickly forgot any concerns. I did notice, however, the guy take out his cut-throat razor. 'I'm sure he's a professional.' I hummed to myself. He then applied the razor...to Alisons hair. Actually started cutting it. Of course Alison, being the patient, understanding person she is put up with this for about a second before launching in to
'Uhh...no! Scissors!' The guy looked almost surprised.
'You want scissors?' He asked, no hint of irony in his voice.
'Yes please.' Alison said with a Chandler-esc incredulity. She looked at me in the mirror. You could almost see the idea forming in her head. 'I've made a terrible mistake.' She didn't move however and the guy carried on cutting. I noticed he seemed to be yanking clumps of her hair and snipping here and there with no discernible plan. 'I don't remember them doing it like that in our salon at home' I thought to myself. I noticed a line forming around the middle of her hair where he apparently wasn't bothering to make any effort in layering. It suddenly occured to me that the way the man was cutting her hair would be kinda like the way I would cut a girls hair...if I had no idea what I was doing!
Oh dear. This is going to be bad I thought. It occurred to me to raise the issue with Alison but I didn't want to get in to trouble so I kept quiet. She had only asked for a trim but as I glanced at the floor, there appeared to be great clumps of hair. Hmmm. Not good. And yet, still, I did nothing. The man started to blowdry it, Alison having to show him how to use the brush to give it a vaguely straight look. He finished, she looked at it. She knew. I knew. 'What's this?' She asked, pulling bits of her hair around and showing him. 'This bit is longer than this.' Then she noticed the line around her head, the lack of layering. Oh god.
'There's a massive line here. You've ruined my hair! I only wanted a trim!' He protested his innocence but I felt I should get involved. So I came out with the classic line 'Have you ever cut hair in your life before?'
The man seemed to take offence but I actually asked it with genuine curiosity. Alison was starting to get upset. I asked how much.
'Fifty pesos.' He replied. Say what?
'Hang on, you said thirty.'
'Blowdry, extra.' I blinked. Alison got there before me.
'So you ruin my hair, hack it to pieces and you want to charge us double the price!' She looked at me. I knew what she was expecting, be the man. Sort this dufus out. Take charge. And I did, in best way Dan can. I paid him and we left.
Alison was crying all the way back to the hotel, and pretty much the rest of the day. In fact, now I think about it most of the week. It was like she went in to some sort of weird mourning. I kept trying to reassure her. 'It's okay, it will grow back. Another hairdresser will fix this, no problem.' Nothing I said worked. In fact she came back at me with even more venom.
'It's ruined, the wedding will be ruined.' She replied.
'The wedding isn't til next year.' I attempted to say.
'Don't care, everythings ruined.' Man did she go on about it.

So we jump on another bus over the Andes leaving Argentina and most of Alison's hair behind. It's one of the most beautiful bus rides I've been on and certainly the curviest road I've ever seen. We arrived in Santiago and stayed in a nice hotel called the Orly in the rich district. I would elaborate but our last night in South America was quiet and unremarkable. We did feel sad to be leaving and as we sat on our bed watching Vote 2008 via Dominican Republic TV I thought 'I'm gonna miss this place.' Still, can't hold on to these things, I'm sure the next adventure is just around the corner.

The next day we fly to Auckland. It's another Lan flight and I hear grumbles from some of the passengers as they realise the plane doesn't have individual TV's. So we settle in, put the blanket over us and try to get some shut eye. I don't know how long I was sleeping before I was woken by the people next to me speaking rather loud Spanish. Being one not to make a fuss, I turned over and tried to carry on sleeping but damnit they had woken me up and were now speaking so loudly I thought they must have had some kind of hearing impairment. I waited about five minutes before saying 'Excuse me, would you mind keeping it down I'm trying to sleep. Sorry.' I like that little apology at the end. Gives it a kind of 'not my fault you're so bloody loud' feeling. They all turned to me, and, looking suitably miffed shut up. Nice. Of course now I was awake I couldn't get back to sleep but that's neither here nor there.

Of course it's winter in the Southern Hemisphere and we were expecting rain and nastiness but actually it was rather pleasant. We arrived at 0400 and went to our hotel right in the middle of Auckland and had a little nap. We wake up the next day and wander around the city and decide to go to Waiheke Island about 30 mins by boat from the mainland. Everyone keeps telling us it's paradise here and they were not wrong. It is absolutely stunning. Has a real community feel, nice beaches and best of all some of the most stunning views of vineyards I've ever come across. We went to this one vineyard called Mudbrick which had a 360 degree view of the island! Jealous yet? Thinking you might come out to Auckland afterall?

So when it was time to leave Auckland we got picked up by this Supershuttle van thing, where they take multiple passengers to the airport and it's less than a regular taxi. At 0625 we get a call saying the driver is going to be a little early so when we're ready just head outside. We finish packing and are outside around 0635. I say good morning to the driver. He's like 'You're going to make the other passengers late?' Huh?
'Sorry?' I replied.
'You were supposed to be out at 0625, now I'm going to be late with the drop off.' Injustice screamed out of my very being.
'We booked you for 0645! The guy on the phone said don't hurry. We're early as it is.' I tried to reason.
'0645? Well what time were you hoping to catch your flight?' He asks practically throwing my luggage in to the trailer. This guy is stirring the beast inside.
'I don't have time for this crap.' I actually said that.
'I just asked you how you thought you'd get to the airport for an 0800 flight by leaving here at 0645.' Now I'm angry.
'Our flight is at 0900! Doesn't take an hour to get to the airport on a Sunday morning and if the other people have to be at the airport for 8 then maybe you should have sent another van!' I yank open the door to the van and climb in. That shut him up. We got evils from all the other passengers.
'It's not our fault.' I pleaded. But they had already pronounced judgment. SOB's. By the time we got to the airport I think he realised the mistake was his and he started calling me sir. What a dick.

Nevermind, we got to the airport and caught the flight to Christchurch. The Supershuttle driver took us take us straight to Addington Jail. Or rather Jailhouse Hostel which used to be Addington Jail before it was converted. You actually get to sleep inside the cells. Really echoey and atmospheric. At night we sat in and watched the Shawshank Redemption. I wanted to start rattling the bars or get a tattoo but Alison didn't let me. We had our first roast for four and a half months and my first pint of Guinness in an Irish pub. Tell you what, it was great. How I've missed these little pleasures.

Then we go to the airport and catch our final flight. To Sydney. Where we will be for the next six months. As we go through New Zealand customs we get an official who looks like she's at the end of her shift. Brill.
So we approach. 'I notice you've only stayed here for four days, any reason for that?' She asks, peering over her glasses at me.
'Well, we've been travelling around South America and kinda ran out of money. We were going to spend two weeks here but we've been here before so we changed our flights.' This statement does not impress her.
'You ran out of money in South America? It's dirt cheap there.' She stares at me. What is this?
'Brazil isn't, Chile isn't...' I try to counter
'I've been there four times I know what things cost.' O..kay.
'So I see you're going to Sydney, how long are you staying there?' Bollocks.
'Uhh...six months?' I reply tentatively.
'So you're spending six months in Sydney and four days in New Zealand.' Her face looked like it was tightening up for a punch.
'Umm...yes.' I don't mean to offend you, dear woman, but can we get the passport stamped and allow me through. 'But we're planning to comeback in October, so we'll spend all the money we make in Sydney, here.' A sly grin on her face. That's more like it. STAMP, STAMP.
'Enjoy your trip to Sydney.' She says, deadpan. Thanks...I think.

A Tribute to My Merrill Ventilators
Dear Merrills, I just want to say thank you for not giving up on me, these last few months. You've been there, through thick and thin. Through hot and cold, dry and wet. You never gave me a blister even when I walked for 3 days straight. My feet were as untouched by the earth when I took them off as when I had put them on. In the heat you were cool. In the wet...well, no one's perfect. We trudged across glaciers and deserts. Hiked up mountains and down beaches. Along city streets and dusty roads. You were there for me every step of the way. No complaining, no fuss. Just there. With me. On my journey. My blister kit remained untouched as I stand in awe of your comfort. This is not an advertisement, nor is it an arse-kiss for Merrill. It is merely a thank you note from me to a very special pair of shoes.

We arrive in Sydney, the chap living at the place we're going to stay at picks us up from the airport. Mitch has the flu and has been off work all day but he still drove all the way to the airport anyway. Nice guy. We drive to the house our friends have let us stay at. It's beautiful. It's huge and has a view of the valley and in the distance, the sea. Immaculately designed and perfect for our needs, I couldn't have asked for more. They've even let us use their car. That Christmas present for them is going to have to be a sail boat or private jet or something. Mitch's girlfriend, Pipper has a lovely little dog called Audrey who I take for walks along the coast.

But this is where I leave you. I'm going to knuckle down, do some writing and enjoy life here for six months. I will post new blogs when there are stories to tell but they will not be as regular.
What's this Dan, you're leaving us? But...but...why? Did I do something? Was it something I said. No. Please! Come on, I need your blogs, what am I supposed to read when I'm bored at work and surfed every site I can think of?
Who else's writing style can I ridicule as much as yours? What am I supposed to delete if I don't get any more of those silly group messages in my inbox...crap I really enjoyed deleting those! Damnit Dan, I'm invested and you chose now to just walk away. Well screw you. You don't get to walk away from me, I'm going to unsubscribe from you HA!

Thank you for being with us on our journey, I hope I've shared some of the more quirky, entertaining stories with you. If nothing else, at least it was a way to kill time when work gets dull. Chao!

WINE, SPONSORSHIP AND MASSAGES

So after our little stay at the not-so Happy Hostel we thought we´d take a three hour bus ride to a place called Talca south of Santiago. By the way I haven´t really talked about Santiago mainly because it´s one of the most unremarkable places I´ve been. Don´t get me wrong, it´s not offensive. There is a nice castle on a hill, it has an efficient metro and it´s not dirty or anything but there´s just not much to tell you so I won´t. So for those of you that were tuning in order to know all the specifics on Santiago because you were about to book your plane tickets, I apologise.

Now then, Talca is in the heart of the Chilean winelands so no further explanation needed as to why that´s a good idea. The bus from Santiago dumps us in the middle of nowhere. The hotel we´re staying in has some rather strange instructions like ´When you get to the bus station, call us then take another bus to the depot (takes 15 minutes) and we´ll be there to pick you up. Sound like a pain in the arse? Well it was. Of course the local bus never came. We tried calling the hotel from the payphone. Number didn´t work. Tried calling from my mobile, nothing. Alison´s mobile didn´t even get signal in Chile so that´s out. Well this is just great, now what? It´s blazing hot outside, our bags are really heavy and the bus station in Talca wouldn´t look out of place in Bangkok. No one speaks English or they do a good job of hiding it. I sigh quietly, I do love these moments. ´´Right, we´re taking a cab.´´ I announce. Alison looks unsure but sod it. So we find a cabby and he agrees to take us there, for suitable compensation I might add.

The place is way outside town, down a dusty road. We arrive and unload our bags, stroke the dog and pay the cab driver. It´s quite beautiful. Lavender dances outside our room in the breeze. Outside there´s a pool that looks like the dogs have been playing in it too much. The view is great. Apart from the dog the place appears to be empty. Including reception. An eighteen year old girl races passed us. ´´Oh excuse me, could you...?´´ I start to say but she´s gone. I can hear crickets from somewhere and is that...tumbleweed over there...

Eventually the girl comes back. She´s German but speaks good English, hurrah. She shows us our room. Nice. We say we want to visit vineyards. She tells us prices and how we get there. Turns out it costs a small fortune to get out of this place and will involve taking a bus, then a taxi, then another bus before meeting up with the van that will convey us to the tour...´´Uhh, what?´´ I say. The German girl smiles sweetly. ´´But the vineyards are closed at the weekend.´´ She adds this minor detail just for good measure. Well this is excellent. We´re here for two nights, it´s already late Saturday afternoon and we leave on Monday morning. I look up to the sky and shake my head. So you know what we do. Nothing. We stay at this German encampment in the middle of vineyards and see...absolutely no wineries. Nice going Dan.

Just to rub salt in the wounds, turns out they don´t sell any food and if we want anything to eat we´ll have to walk for forty minutes to the supermarket to get it. Oh, and we can´t use the kitchen either. They do do dinner though. Silly price but I´m hungry. ´´It´s vegetarian.´´ The girl mutters sweetly. I´m breathing deeply now. Things are spiralling and I´m going down with them. So what we do is sit in the sun, read and have dinner. They do sell wine (again for suitable compensation) so we get ratted. I read an entire James Patterson book in a day. Don´t think I´ve ever done that before. Go me, I can read!

So after the weekend trip to the vineyards in which we saw none, we hop back on the bus back to Santiago and then jump on another bus to a place over the border in Argentina called Mendoza. Now this is the heart of the Argentinean winelands. Surely we should be able to salvage our wine tasting experience. Of course Argentina comes through in fine style. After a lovely ride through the Andes we arrive at our hostel where we are greeted by this cross-eyed geek who´s singularly one of the most stupid people I´ve ever met. I thought he was being obtuse but Alison assured me it´s just lack of grey matter. I was trying to do some laundry. We hadn´t done any for a couple of weeks and I thought it was probably about time. Could I get through to Einstein? Nope. He didn´t have some piece of paper we had to fill out. When will you have the piece of paper? Don´t know. Where is the main square? Down there (points at a wall) and so on.

We booked ourselves on a wine tour for the next day. And did we sample the delights of Argentinean wine? Answer - yes! And what a glorious thing it was. For 20 pesos each (about 3 pounds) we had 6, yes that´s six glasses of wine to sample. Brilliant. We had so much fun that we decided to do it all again the next day. This time we hired bikes and made up our own tour. We had lunch at one of the places that had been recommended to us by the bike hiring company. Bet they got a commission or something. It was a fancy place behind an electric gate. We cycled in and were asked to remain in the car park until we could be met by the chef. Ten minutes later he came out and explained the prices (which were ridiculous by the way). I really wasn´t sure but Alison said we were here now so may as well.

So the chef shows us the menu all the while saying how great the restaurant is. ´´Look, we even won this award.´´ I look at the dodgy mock glass idol. It had some crappy engraving. I look around the restaurant. Not another soul. I´m starting to wonder if we have, in fact, entered the Self Deluding Restaurant. ´´It´s excellent food.´´ The chef said again. Really, excellent food you say? You, the chef thinks it's excellent food, well stop talking about it and bring some out my good man. We stayed and ate his "excellent" food which was wholly unremarkable. I thought he would have had a great career in Santiago.

We catch a bus to San Rafael it should take a couple of hours but a flat tyre means it takes most of the day. We arrive at our hotel. You know what it´s called ´´The Red Wine Club.´´ How cool is that? And was it nice? Ohhh yes. And was it the cheapest hotel we´ve stayed in the entire trip. Oh YES! And was it like a five star boutique, OHH YESS! Get this, we´d already booked to stay there two nights a few weeks ago for about 20 dollars a night! That´s 10 pounds! Then, they email me and say they are doing a promotion. Would we like to stay an extra night for free, receive a complimentary bottle of wine, go on a free vineyard tour and get a free massage? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Is a bear catholic?

So we go on our FREE wine tour which is all very interesting and one of the vineyards there is selling a 1985 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for, wait for it....ten pesos (one pound fifty!) Got to be a catch right? Must be corked or something? Well turns out some of the batch was corked and the vineyard couldn´t guarantee the quality so were just selling them off. You might open a bottle that smells like pig vomit or you might get lucky. We opened it and it was the strangest tasting wine but somehow very nice. It wasn´t corked but was unlike anything I´ve tasted. You get the idea.

So then it´s time for the FREE massage. ´I hope she knows what she´s doing.´ Alison mutters. The last masseuse felt like she had just read a book and then simply declared herself one. The time came, the doorbell rang. The receptionist found us and said ´´The masseuse is here.´´ We walked in from the garden to be greeted by...a bloke. My mind went crazy. A man. But....(I heard in my head ´´Would you like a free massage?´´ echoing over and over) how could this be? I´ve had men do massages before but the theme running through most of them is they hurt, quite a lot. I swallowed. He set his table up in our hotel room. Alison went first. He asked if she minded him being in the room while she got undressed. She said no. I said yes and he left the room. I sat there watching the TV, occasionally glancing over. She seemed okay...hmm. He finished. My turn.

´´How was it?´´ I asked. ´´I´m not saying anything. You go.´´ Uh oh. He started. Oil first, I could hear it squelching in his fingers. All fine. Then he goes for my shoulders. It was okay. All fine yes...OW! I don't know what he was doing but it bloody hurt. And he kept on and on doing it. Then the other shoulder. Wholly crap! More pain. I made a mental note to look up ´´Massage´´ in the dictionary and see if it said anything about them being pleasurable. JEEZ! He hit another spot. I nearly blurted out ´´ALRIGHT I´LL TELL YOU WHERE THE DEATH STAR PLANS ARE, JUST STOP!´´ But I refrained. On and on it went. Time seemed to slow. I was breathing the pain in deeply. But it still....OUCH!!! Damnit man, didn´t you go to massage school?! Just as I think it´s over he grabs my head with both hands and yanks it. This is it. Bye Ma! The man is trying to twist my neck off my shoulders. Tears are streaming down my face as something cracks. Finally he stopped. I sat up. Alison was smiling at me. ´´It´s okay?´´ He asks. I give him an unsure smile and nod. In my typical English way I say ´´Oh yes, very good, thank you so much.´´ He left. Alison looked at me. ´´Well?´´´She asked. ´´I thought he was going to kill me.´´ I said and rushed over quickly to hug her.

We wander back from a very mediocre meal that evening and settle in for a movie on the TV. Only problem is the the movie is Titanic. Ah well. What the hell. But, get this, when the commercials come on you know what company is sponsoring it? Guess? No? Royal Caribbean Cruises! Say what? Obviously someone in the marketing department was having a bad day or didn´t attend the relevant meeting to update his bosses on his plans for sponsorship that week. I suspect he´s working at Pizza Hut now.

Anyway the time has come, once more, to depart. Come on, it won´t be long before I return. Let´s not have any tears. Can we be brave? Good. By the way I don´t have the Death Star Plans so don´t email.

Chao

Dan

PORN STARS, WHALES AND A HAPPY HOUSE

First off I must apologise for the delay in getting this latest dispatch out to you. It´s been rather hectic these last weeks and I haven´t really had time to sit down and type it all up. "Damnit Dan, why do I bother to read your crap if you´re just going to pull this kind of stunt?" I hear you cry. Fear not however I have some nice, juicy anecdotes to impart to you so sit down and eat your greens.

Where did I leave you? Ah yes, sitting in Puerto Natales, watching the Paraguaian election (Boy that was ace television), waiting four days until our ship departed for Puerto Montt. The idea being we thought it would be kinda neat to board, what can only be described as a cargo ship, and sail half way up Chile. It takes four nights and you supposedly see fjords, whales and crap. Great, I hear you cry. Yes and I shall come to it shortly. The upshot of not doing our ´W´ trek was we had to stay in Puerto Natales for four days. Now, if you like freezing cold weather, hurricane force winds with absolutely nothing to do during the day, Natales is your town and I suggest you get on a plane and come down here immediately.

For us however, we were stuck in our hostel watching endless episodes of ´House´ on TV. One thing really gets me though. As I watch this programme, the adverts come on every five bloody minutes and you know what they´re promoting? House! Yep, they stick an advert of a programme I´m already bloody watching! Needless to say shouting ensued and people started banging on the walls telling me to shut up.

Anyway, the days pass slowly. Then, good news. We find out the ship (called the Navimag) has been delayed due to, yep you guessed it, bad weather conditions. Damnit. So we have to stay ANOTHER night and reorganise our plane tickets. Luckily Alison flirts with a nice chap called Herman who worked for the airline (Lan). He agreed to change our flights for free! Great, thanks Herman buy you a drink next time our paths cross!

So finally the day comes, we wander down to the docks and look upon our vessel with awe and wonder. Awe, because there´s a huge black mark where the name of the ship should be and wonder because we were starting to wonder how long it would take before the smell of the cattle in those trucks parked on the deck would take to reach us (as it turned out, not long at all).

We find our cabin and to be honest, it´s not bad at all. Four bunks but we´ve got the whole cabin to ourselves, get in there! We take a stroll around the ship. It´s designed as a cargo vessel, hence the cattle, but takes a certain amount of passengers as well, for an eye-wateringly large amount of money. I won´t bore you with how much but I could have had a second holiday with the money (or a honeymoon even).

We settle in and watch the rather beautiful fjords roll gently passed us. It´s cold but somehow that doesn´t seem to matter, everyone is in high spirits. Maybe because they all seem to have bought three cartons of wine each. Westerners are such alcoholics. (We bought bottles, none of that carton crap.)

We met a nice American couple who were on holiday and bored them stupid by telling endless newsroom anecdotes. They got their revenge by shagging all afternoon in the cabin next to us. Man, they went on ALL afternoon. It was like ´´Come on buddy, give her a rest, you´re gonna break her.´´ He, apparently, couldn´t hear me. God, it was like porn for the blind. I was starting to feel a little insecure when someone shouted ´´Whales off the port bow!´´

I left our porn-star neighbours to it and climbed the stairs outside to the main deck. I looked out. Our guide had mentioned we were cruising through a protected bay area of Chile which housed twenty Blue Whales. Neat! I stared at the rolling white horses, the blue sky and felt the raw wind whipping at my face. Nothing. What the hell. ´´Did someone say they saw a whale?" I asked. ´´Yes, over there.´´ Someone replied and pointed. I looked again. In the far, far distance I saw the unmistakable spray of whales. ´´Wow,´´ I said ´´That´s amazing.´´ Seriously, it could have been a guy with a hose for all I knew. Whales! Great. We did see some dolphins playing in front of the ship which was nice. And once very few hours we would see a few sea lions swimming calmly. Then, seeing the ship and crapping their pants they desperately tried to get away from us. That was funny.

The days roll passed and we finally get to Puerto Montt. We say our goodbyes to our ´´Debby Does Dallas´´ comrades and walk to our hostel. First impressions of Puerto Montt. Crap hole. What the hell is this place? Looked like someone was having a laugh when they designed it. Like ´´We´ve got all this natural beauty around us, mountains, streams, fjords...let´s build a damn-ugly port, fill it with oil tankers, build some truly hideous buildings and oh, just for good measure have our sewage run out of a pipe right in front of the main promenade. Good job, fellas.

We walk up a forty five degree hill, backpacks in toe because I foolishly thought the hostel was right next to the port. Wrong. Alison had wanted to get a cab but I had put her mind at ease but assuring her it was a five minute walk. Wrong again. Twenty five minutes later, we arrive panting and in a sweat and are greeted by this old lady with weird, screwed up hair. She speaks a little English and shows us in. The place was nice enough, she had two little poodles which never took their eyes off us and would occasionally bark. I suspect to make sure they still could. Scrawny little rat things.

We thought we´d done okay, the hostel wasn´t expensive but the woman started behaving strangely. Alison went downstairs to give her our passport details. Things were going well till she opened mine. "Daniel Grant?" "Daniel Grant?" I thought perhaps she had been reading my blogs. But no, she knew my name and she didn´t like it. I had tried to make a reservation a few weeks earlier but she kept replying in Spanish so...I had ignored her. She made her feelings known to Alison who just shrugged and said ´No entiendo.´ I sat on the bed listening and shivering. It was like being in a cabin in the woods where the monster is outside stalking you. I was just glad Alison was dealing with it. That woman was scary.

Whilst we were in the hole that is Puerto Montt and after counting our money, we came to the conclusion we had none. Well, not strictly true but we have used far more than we ever intended, so after much soul searching and a few beers we came to the conclusion that we would not spend any time in New Zealand. Instead we will fly to Auckland, use our plane ticket to Christchurch a few days later and move our Sydney ticket so we just arrive there as soon as possible. We have friends in Sydney who are being ridiculously generous by letting us stay in their house. I´ll have to get them a really cool Christmas present. Not sure what though. A plane ticket to Puerto Montt has been crossed off the list so that´s one down at least. Is it coming through that we weren´t impressed with ´the Montt?´

We catch our flight to Santiago the next day and take a cab to our hostel. The Happy House Hostel it´s called. Let me tell you, dear friends and readers, there wasn´t much happiness going on there. The Lonely Planet (authoritative, indispensable guide book that it is) describes this hostel as ´´...simply the greatest renovation this author has ever seen.´´ This chap obviously hasn´t seen the new Wembley stadium.

It was nice enough when you got there but we have learned, painfully in some cases, that looks can be deceptive. And they were in this place. Our room was next to the smoking room so every five minutes a waft of smoke would gently find it´s way in to my nostrils. The windows had about as much soundproofing as a Wendy house, so when those buses and dust carts came thundering by at 0600, I felt I was about to get run over by them. The hostel itself was, wait for it, above a bar. Oh yes...Happy, HAPPY days! And...they had live bands on every night. Smiles all round. The heating did not work (and let me tell you Santiago is cold at night). Thought I might warm up with a shower. But after waiting with my hand under the water for ten minutes, quickly realised the place had no hot water either. But the pièce de résistance was the dogs. I swear they´re still barking in my head now and it´s been a week! Happy times at the Happy House Hostel.

There´s more. Plenty in fact. But I fear I may have lost you somewhere after paragraph four. Your eyes are glazed and you seem a little sleepy. I shall let you go. But I will be back and with even more tales of our epic, soon to be finished trip around the Southern American continent. Till that day comes, take care of yourselves and each other.

ESTATE AGENTS, GLACIERS AND HIKING

So I wake up to the sound of an alarm clock the day after the proposal. I´m utterly hungover, one might even go as far as to say I was still drunk. It´s 0500 in the morning, we have an 0800 flight to catch to El Calafate in Argentinian Patagonia. I move slowly to turn the alarm off and get myself out of bed. Alison looks almost as bad as me. We have to pack and be ready for some guy from the estate agency who´s coming round to check the apartment. He´s going to make sure we haven´t trashed it or anything. So we have a bit of work to do. It feels as if someone is ice fishing in my head.

We get everything ready and wait. 0530 comes and goes. It gets to 0545. We have to leave at 0600 to get to the airport in time. 0555, where the hell is he? At 0600 we are about to leave when the buzzer goes. He´s sorry, he went to the wrong place or some other equally unlikely story. I bark at him that we have to go or we will miss our plane. He tries to reassure me, there´s no traffic, it won´t take that long. He´s got thick glasses and he looks like he likes those Argentinian steaks a bit too much. He runs around the apartment looking through cupboards and making notes. He then says he will take us to the airport. Great. So we jump in his car and he floors it to the airport.

Now I think most Argentinians would agree with me when I say they can´t drive or perhaps more accurately they have a complete disregard for other users of the road. Not as bad as some countries but let´s say they´re in the top 5. I´m pondering on this as we speed through another red light and nearly end up on the other side of the in the central reservation. We are going so fast I can´t even see things through the window. Everything´s just a blur. I do notice, however, an ambulance. It´s lights are flashing, it´s siren is on and it´s in a hurry. We, it seems, are in more of a hurry because we race passed it! Let me repeat that for those that had nodded off. We overtook a speeding ambulance! I had to blink twice to make sure what I was witnessing to be true. Again, like Juan, our Bolivian taxi driver all those months ago, I wanted to tell our man to slow down. Did I know the Spanish? Nope. So in typical English fashion I sat there terrified to my very soul until at last he bounced the car up on the curb outside departures and we got out, shakily. He said goodbye and screeched away. It was then I realised he´d dropped us at the wrong terminal. Bastard. We trundled the fifteen minute walk to the other terminal, checked in and made our flight. No thanks to to our bumbling estate agent man.


So we arrive at El Calafate and immediately I´m hit with a cool blast of air. The temperature is markedly different from the seventy degrees in Buenos Aires. We jump in a cab to our hostel which is little like being in a school dorm but okay (as long as they don´t keep me up at night everything will be fine.)

Now bear in mind we´d just got engaged, what was the first thing we wanted to do? Yep, tell everyone we´d ever met. So we mosey on down to the nearest telephone and Internet places and we have a bit of a shock. First the Internet is painfully slow so Skype´s out of the question and second the telephones are painfully expensive.
It costs one pound forty per minute to make a call from mobile! Damnit. Well I have to call my brother and sister which I do but in terms of friends it seemed to take ages to actually find a way to tell people. Every time I wrote an e-mail and tried to send it was like waiting for a second Ice Age. Anyway, finally we told everyone that needed to know. Alison´s mum was particularly happy as the day we had got engaged was also her sixtieth birthday. Smooth!

So what is there to do in El Calafate? Glaciers. Big, crashing, noisy. They´re a bit cool (apologies for that one). We pay a quite insultingly large amount of money to go ice trekking on this one glacier called Perito Moreno. They strap on these iron claws on to our shoes called crampons and we go walking on the ice. It´s a beautiful day and whilst some of our group are behaving like children by throwing snowballs (Alison) I enjoy bumming around on the ice. It´s like looking at blue mountain peaks. The ice is so heavily compacted that when the sun shines through, it makes them look bright blue. I know what you´re thinking. Dan, I didn´t read this for some goddamn geology lesson, I read it to be entertain so entertain me, bitch. Okay. Man, you guys are a hard audience.

So as we finish walking down a steep bit we come across a table with lots of glasses set upon it. Hmm, I wonder. I can tell you´re thinking the same thing. Our guide then produces a bottle of ´Famous Grouse´ whiskey and smiles. I like his thinking. Then, just for a little extra class he takes his ice pick and hacks off some thousand year old ice from the glacier and tips it in to our glasses, quickly followed by the whiskey. Nicely done!


The next day we jump on a catamaran and see other glaciers and mountains. This time I get to play my favourite role by standing on the front of the catamaran and shouting "Ice berg right ahead!" Also Alison and I held our arms outstretched as the catamaran zipped along the water. I could almost feel Celine Dion behind me.

The day after we took a bus to a place called El Chalten about 3 hours north of Calafate. The Argentians wanted to incorporate the beautiful mountain range called Fitz Roy next to El Chalten into their territory in 1985. Chile wasn´t too happy about this, so they had a little race as to who could get there first. The sneaky Argentinians only went and built El Chalten as a way to say "Hey Chiliean neighbour, our towns already here, can´t have this slice." And the Chileans were like ´´Dude, this is so not cool.´´ But the Argentinians were already sitting down to dinner and had a bottle of wine open so the Chileans thought they´d let this one slide rather than cause a fuss.

So El Chalten is the youngest town in Argentina. I tell you this because I want you to be cultured so that next time someone stops you in the street and asks you "Do you know the story of El Chalten?" You say hold your head up high and say "Yes, Dan Grant told me." Anyway, we stayed in a nice cabin with a little kitchen and all was well with the world. We would do a few hours of hiking then come back to our cabin and get stupidly drunk on Argentinian wine.

So after all this fun we jump on another bus to a place called Puerto Natales (I hope you´re paying attention to all these names cos there´s going to be a test at the end). Natales is just over the border in to Chile and represents the gateway to the most impressive national park in all of South America called Torres Del Paine (roughly translated to Towers of Paine, or pain as we would soon discover). Natales used to be an old fishing village but now depends mostly on tourism. I have to say the weather here holds no punches. It´s rainy and windy and sunny, and snowy and did I mention windy? It´s like living in a hurricane 24 hours a day. I think bleak is a more descriptive word perhaps. I kept thinking, why would anyone settle here? The first Europeans to arrive must have actually thought "It´s crappy, rainy, cold and miserable. Perfect! Let´s build our houses right here." I think, good job we´re going hiking in this sort of weather, I love a challenge.


However...

Such is the way things turn out we had decided to do this famous trek for 5 days in the national park called the ´W´. It´s called this because the trail takes you in roughly the shape of a ´W´. Anyway we start the walk. 4 hours north to a glacier and a hut-like structure that we would stay the night in. Of course, nothing is ever simple. Half way to our hut, the path is cut off by a running stream. In the middle is a large log. It looks stable. I take one step on to it. It rocks a little. But I´ve committed myself now so the next foot steps forward. The log flips and throws me straight in to the stream, my big backpack and everything. I lie on my back, water flowing around me. Alison is saying something to the effect of "Are you okay?" But I´m a man. And I´ve just made a fool of myself. So I immediately stand up, swear and carry on. I´m soaked, I think I´ve busted my knee and my pride is in little pieces next to that bloody log.

Alison, wisely leaves me to it for ten minutes before attempting communication again. By which like I´ve come off the boil a little and can communicate back. "I´m fine, just so stupid."

Anyway we reach the hut and stay the night. It´s rustic but not particularly endearing. Alison had banged her toe rather badly on the Inca Trail and the nail had turned a rather dashing shade of purple. It hadn´t really been causing any problems on our trip but the cold must have awoken the beast inside. Because the next day she could barely walk. And just to make matters worse it rained, hard. All day. And it was cold. And just not that pleasant. So by the time we got to the next camp we had decided we couldn´t carry on.

Back to Puerto Natales we go. Our hostel is somewhat surprised to see us but accommodate us. So we get to our room and settle in for all-night results coverage of the Paraguayan election. Man, why don´t we get this in England.

THE PROPOSAL

So we´re coming to the end of our trip to Buenos Aires. I´ve been trying to figure out how I go about proposing to Alison when we´re in each others company all the time. Answer...with difficulty.

First problem: The ring
What kind, how much? How do I get out of her company long enough to find it? Since we´ve been renting an apartment in Buenos Aires, I figure this is the perfect time to go ring hunting. I make up some rubbish about going for a walk. I know it sounds lame but she bought it. Ha, so gullible! So I went for a walk along a parade of shops in the very agreeable Palermo district. I look in the first jewelry store window I come across. You know what I think? These rings suck. They look like rings my great grandma wore. To make matters worse they look like they haven´t been cleaned since about the time she wore them. The woman behind the counter looks over her glasses at me and I scamper away.

Next shop. Looks like they sell rings to goths. Next one - Closed. Next one...hmmm, maybe. Alison had bought some earrings in this Argentinian pink stone she liked (don´t ask me what it was called, I don´t know). This one sold these pink stones in rings but they somehow just looked very ordinary. Man. By now I´d been gone about two hours and I wasn´t sure how much more I could justify being away. So I trudge back empty handed.

We do a bunch of activities like Tango dancing, which I really enjoyed. And went to an estancia, like a ranch outside Buenos Aires where I got to look like a girl on a horse for the afternoon.

All the while, I´m trying to work out how I get away from Alison to get this blasted ring. And meanwhile the clock is ticking. We are running out of time in Buenos Aires. What am I going to do? Maybe I just wait for some other time. Yet it does seem like this is the right moment.

Then, a lifeline on our last day. "Can you pop to the shops and get some potatos?" Alison asks. I jump up from the sofa almost too eagerly. Recovering quickly I say "Uhh, sure." I casually walk out of the building and break in to a run down the road nearly knocking over a woman with bad cankles, (big ankles) eliciting shouts of Spanish-abuse. It will have to be the jewelry shop up the road, don´t care how ugly the ring is. I´m on a clock. I get to the shop and look once more in the window. Man, they really are some of the most ugly rings I have ever seen in my life. Maybe she could use it as an emergency cheese grater or something, I dunno. I can´t, I just can´t buy her something so utterly repulsive. I´m going to have to go up to the parade of shops again. I´m only supposed to be getting potatos but...sod it. I run up the road, in my Berkenstocks and it´s not comfortable let me tell you.

On my way, however, I see a jewelry shop I hadn´t noticed before. I cross the road paying no attention to the beeping horns and screeching tires. I look in the window. There´s one ring that is not bad at all. Great. I go in and the woman pulls it out. Yep, that´s the one. I pay and run out. I´m nearly back at the apartment when my mind does a 180. "Hey Dan, how bout those POTATOS!" Bollocks!

I race to the greengrocers just outside our building. Of course there´s a queue and of course they are nattering away in Spanish. I feel like I´m going to combust there and then. The man sees my internal strife and interrupts the conversation so he can give me my two goddamn potatos.

I race up to the apartment and try to catch my breath. I open the door. Alison turns and stares at me. "Where have you been?" I freeze. I can´t even begin to...and then words just come out of my mouth. Like divine inspiration although this was more like divine perspiration I say
"There was an enormous queue at the store and they totally ignored me for ages so I had to go up the road, really annoying." I let it hang there in the air. She considered what I said for a few seconds, I could hear the cogs clanking. I was about to say "What´s that clanking sound?" when she piped up and said "They´re always doing that, they did the same to me when I was there yesterday." I let out a breath. Phew, got away with that one, I think.

Second problem: Picking the moment

So then we spend the rest of the day walking around Buenos Aires, going to our favourite spots. We had drinks by the river, then some more drinks in the Bohemian San Telmo. I suggest we go to a restaurant we went to the last time we were here. They had the best steaks in all of Argentina and let me say dear reader, that is a pretty special accolade. It was called Gran Parilla Del Plata and a very simple, yet elegant place.

We wander over there hand in hand. I´m hoping she can´t detect the quiet panic going on inside my chest. "You okay?" She asks. I swallow, my throat is dry. "Oh yeah. I´m great. Couldn´t be better. Feel like a million pounds." I reply. My mind interjects "Stop talking Dan, stop talking now." Unfortunately it says this as I´ve already started mouthing the next reason I´m feeling fine, so what you´re left with is me with my mouth open looking like a goldfish. She frowns and we carry on.
My internal monologue continues, "Jesus Dan, get it together or she´s going to end up telling your kids how you screwed up this moment. Why are you such a loser?" It´s a good question and one I haven´t formulated a proper response to. Anyway...

We get to the restaurant and I could feel sweat building. I ordered water and a bottle of their nicest Malbec. We talked for a while. I was trying to work out how I do this. Damnit I should have prepared this better. I should have written down what I was going to say.

I love you...I should have done this a long time ago...I don´t know, you say it! Time passes and the restaurant begins to fill up. There are people sitting outside, I look at their food. It looks nice. I then glance over at the staff, they are chatting away to one another. Little do any of these people know what was about to happen. Frankly neither did I. We eat our beautifully prepared steaks. Damn it´s like melt-in-your-mouth good. I think I´ve had enough wine...what am I doing, I´m standing up. I´m looking at her. "Think I´ll just go to the toilet." I mutter. She nods. I wander up the stairs passed the slightly bored staff. I get to the toilet and try to avoid my reflection. My heart is thumping, thank god for wine. I take out the ring and look at it. It´s not bad at all I decide, afterall this is only the second time I´m seeing it. I breathe in, take one glance at myself and walk out.

Down the stairs I go. I walk slowly but I think, with purpose. I get to the table. She turns to see me, I seem to have stopped behind her chair. I bend down and I say "Look you´ve dropped this here." She looks totally perplexed, wondering what she dropped. I stay on one knee as I look up and say the most ridiculous bunch of phrases I´ve ever said in my life. I can´t honestly remember the exact words but it was something like "Look, I know I should have done this a long time ago. I hope it´s not too late and well the thing is I love you and I´ve loved you for some time now (Jesus Daniel!) and I was wondering if you would be my wife and...what´s that face for?" Her face went from a confused frown to shock to tears pouring down her face. It seemed to take the age of the universe for her to get what it was I was doing. She still thought she´d dropped something. Anyway, finally the penny dropped and she started balling her eyes out. She looked outside, the people were beaming, then other people in the restaurant started to catch on. Then the waiters and waitresses were staring. She gave me a kiss, her eyes shiny. Of course whilst this is going on I´m still on my knees and the floor doesn´t look too clean and my knee is starting to ache. "So is that a yes?" I ask.

"Yes!" she says. She only had one bloody line and still she needed prompting from the wings. The restaurant clapped and the people outside cheered. I stand up, wiggling my slightly numb knee. Alison´s a mess, I´m a mess. The waitress brings over two glasses of champagne. I down mine immediately. For the rest of the evening the smile couldn´t be wiped off our faces. We went home, got another bottle of champagne, called our parents and got horrendously drunk together. I´m such a softy.

BUENOS AIRES - TANGO SPECIAL

Yes Alison dragged me kicking and screaming to Tango lessons. Man, what a delight it was. So we get there and it's set, not in a nice 18th century café but in what looks strangely like my old school hall.

I keep making jokes like 'We could just go to the bar over there and order a bottle of wine..' and 'It looks closed, let's go order a bottle of wine.' It wasn't closed however. We went in and bought our ticket for 12 pesos, a bargain in any other circumstances. We had made sure the lessons were in English as well but of course, come the time, everyone there was Argentinean and spoke nothing but Spanish…nice.

I'm wearing a white t-shirt, jeans and black shoes, going for my mid-life look. As we sat down and waited for proceedings to begin, I looked around the room. There was a bunch of couples, whispering to each other. That couple over there looks far too professional for my liking. So do those two to the left, giving me evils. I sit there, my palms are sweaty. Why did I agree to this, let's face it, if I hadn't I would still be hearing the moaning in Australia in two month's time.
The teachers arrive and I swear one of the guys looks like he'd just been to a Metallica concert. What the hell…every time he spoke, all I could think was 'get a haircut. Tuck that shirt in. Have those Big Macs every other day maybe?' Strangely his partner is a skinny nothing of a girl. Looked like the lightest of pushes would break her in to pieces.

So things begin. Another man with greying hair starts talking in Spanish. I'm distracted by his tufts of hair springing out of his shirt. Of course I nod in all the appropriate places. I chuckle when everyone laughs, try to fit in as best I can. I look at my watch 19:15. The lesson finishes at 20:30, okay…you can do this. Our Michael McDonald lookalike gets us to stand up. My head was thinking 'Do I have to?' but my body obeyed almost willingly. I made a note for my mind to have a conversation with my body later to cut out that sort of enthusiasm.
The first thing we seem to be doing is walking in a circle. Brilliant. 'Michael' is teaching us how to walk again. 12 pesos down the toilet. He wants us to slink as we walk, move sexily or something. I'm just ogling at everyone else, trying to copy what the other apes are doing. That guy over there looks like a muppet, I surely look better than him. I notice there are more girls than boys. Maybe 15 girls and 8 boys. Ha some of those losers won't get to dance. Alison informs me however that we have to change partners? Oh for goodness sake, I throw my hands up to the heavens. 'Why should I be punished because someone can't get themselves a boyfriend, it's not my fault they're ugly.' Alison shoots me a scornful look and we carry on walking in our circle.
Then 'Michael' splits up the group in to beginners and advanced.

We get Metallica man and his waif of a partner. I can't believe this guy is going to try to teach me Tango. He belongs in a cage with me poking bananas through the bars. Anyway, they show us a move and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. It seemed quite elegant. First step here, second step there. We split again, girls on one side, boys on the other. I'm standing next to the muppet, his worn out Nikes seem particularly inappropriate. The boys follow Metallica Man, the girls follow the waif. Then we have to rejoin our partners. Of course I take to it like a Llama to water (a Llama with no means of floatation). I fumble around, step on toes, huff and puff. Try again, damnit I can't do this stupid thing. Time check: 19:45. How can there still be 45 minutes to go? Try again, nope. I'm utterly useless at this. I'm at the point of tears when Metallica man barks 'Switch partners.' Alison gives me a nervous glance. I roll my eyes 'Maybe we can just carry on, who's going to know..?'

'Hi, do you want to dance?' A blonde, very pale, slightly butch girl is standing in front of me. 'Uhh…okay.' I take her hand and we start. I still stumble around like the bumbling arse that I am. She is patient with me as I step on her shoes for the fifth time. Then she starts small talk, where am I from, is this my first time etc. I'm as polite as I can be but the frustrations soon came out. I'm a man, and I can only do one thing at a time. I can't talk and remember the steps as well, I just can't.

'Change partners!' The monkey man barks. Alison is back with me. 'You're sweating.' She observes. 'Yeah…well, I can't do it.' I say grumpily. 'Yes you can.' She takes my hand and we start again. Except this time, I'm starting to get it. My feet are placing themselves in the right place at the right time. Don't get me wrong I still look like a girl but at least I'm getting the moves right.

'Very good, see you can do it.' Alison says. She's trying to be encouraging but in my typical male way I find it condescending. Time check: 20:15. Horrah! Only fifteen minutes to go.
Then we have to change partners again and I get this lumpy American girl, who's looks annoyed about something. Maybe it was dancing with me or maybe she'd just been told her home was to be repossessed but either way she was plenty pissed. Just what I needed with my burgeoning Tango moves. We started, I screwed it up. I apologised. She huffed. We started again. I stepped on her toe. She yelped. I apologised. And on and on. I was starting to panic, I couldn't do it under this sort of scrutiny. She was being mean and I wanted to go back to Alison. My prayers were answered when she stopped abruptly and made some lame excuse about her new shoes hurting. Whatever, I thought. And I went back to Alison who was dancing with the monkey and had her eyes closed stench of his pits making them water. 20:30, time to go. As we left, Alison was beaming. 'Thank you for doing that.' She said. Yeah right, I thought. Well we're off to an Argentinean 'futbol' game tomorrow. How do you like them apples!

BROKEN TOILETS, CUBIERTOS AND HIGH JUMPING

Another blog in such quick succession? What is he, on drugs? Alas, my friends he is not. I wrote the last blog and it was so long I thought it might throw you in to the depths of despair by publishing it all in one go. I didn’t want to be responsible for a spate of suicides in the Greater London area so here is what I affectionately label Part 2.


So we spent Easter in Rosario and the day after our little ordeal with Luis the psychopathic nightman we get up at two in the afternoon and decide to go for a walk. I have to say it’s great being back in Argentina. It’s cheap, the people are friendly, you don’t feel like you’re going to be raped every time you step out of your door. It’s just a great country. We find a restaurant for dinner and I’m pumped. I want a good Argentinean steak and now. And get it I do. The food is impeccable, the service is good, the wine is divine. The only issue came when they delivered the bill. Something called Cubiertos for 5 pesos. Interesting. What’s that? I didn’t order any Cubiertos, whatever it was. So we ask the waiter, who can’t speak English, so he runs away and comes back with someone who can. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Hi there, (showing the bill) what’s this…cubiertos?
Waiter: It’s for this (he points at the knife.)
Me: The knife?
Waiter: For the cutlery.
Me: You’re charging me for the cutlery?
Waiter: (Nods and smiles)
Me: 5 pesos…to use the cutlery? What did you expect me to eat the steak with…my hands?
Waiter: (Smiles some more and shrugs) I’m sorry I’m from Germany...(leaves)

Rosario was nice but we were definitely ready to go after 4 days. So we jump on another bus back to Buenos Aires. Because we love this city, we have decided to rent an apartment in the San Telmo area. I had this idea that we would eat steak, drink wine, go jogging along the river, do some writing and just relax before we head off to Patagonia for a couple of weeks. Well the reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. You’ll think I’m making this up but I assure you everything I write is from truth (or truth as I recall it)

So it was Friday and we get to our apartment and immediately I’m worried. There’s these hippie student types just hanging around outside the building which is an old big window jobbie. So after clearing them off the steps to the door, we go in with the agent. First impressions? Nice, big, modern. Upstairs bit has bedroom and bathroom. Downstairs - kitchen, living area. It’s on the ground floor so when you open the windows, there’s the street…with the hippies. Not to worry, I’m sure they’re just there during the week. There was no fan or air con (bear in mind it’s 85 outside, I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me because I know in England it’s pissing it down and cold but stay with me if you will). The gas oven took as long to light as it takes to read the Book of Genesis out loud and the bed didn’t have sheets on it.

Also the agent wanted us to pay in cash, a fact they had omitted to tell us. So I had to go traipsing around San Telmo looking for a cash point that would accept my card (most of them didn’t), then when I finally found one, it would only let me take out a maximum of 250 pounds. So I come back sweating like a fat man who’d been chasing a runaway M&M and I’m not happy. After much discussion they agreed to let us pay the rest on Monday. The agent leaves. It’s not two minutes she’s gone when Alison yells downstairs ‘The toilet doesn’t work.’ She was right, it didn’t flush. More phone calls. The agency said they could get a plumber round tomorrow. I asked where I was supposed to take a dump in the meantime. She didn’t have an answer.

Then Friday night comes and San Telmo becomes a party town. Revellers out till late, drunks, noise. Brilliant. And it’s hot. I can’t open the windows without letting the whole street see my arse so I just have to lump it.

The following night, our neighbours upstairs decide to throw a party and are shouting and screaming until four in the morning! I mean literally screaming. And the jumping as well, let me not forget that. Were they engaged in some sort of crude high jumping competition? Who knows? All I do know as I gaze at the clock through cracked, sore eyes is that I want to kill people, but I haven’t got the energy or tools at my disposal. Then just as I’m starting to nod off (bearing in mind it’s now 0530) there’s noise outside. A different kind of noise. I crawl on all fours to the window, beaten. I look out to see, a market. They are setting up a market outside our apartment. With all the metal banging and yelling. What…the…hell.

So come Monday we take a trip to the ‘Agency’ (Sounds like the CIA but I assure you it’s a lot less impressive). And after barking at them for half an hour they eventually offer us another apartment in a district called Palermo. This place is nice and it is where I am writing to you now with a glass of Malbec at my side. It’s on the 5th floor, it has a sunny balcony, it’s quiet and…it’s got a toilet that works! It even has a remote to close the shutters, nice. So things at the moment are very satisfactory.

I suppose I’d better sign off, this has been far too long-winded. I need to learn the ancient art of editing. Well at least I didn’t leave it open ended like last time, although I know you secretly love those Eastender cliff hanger writings.

And so, with a heavy heart and even heavier stomach (need to lay off those steaks) I say Adieu.

Dan