Day 47: Melbourne Part 1

On Friday my roommate V, her friend Ir (also from New York), their other friend C, Helen, and myself were to embark upon a 10hr long road trip to Melbourne at 1pm. I'm ready at 1pm but for some reason we don't end up leaving until 2:30. I'm hauling my bag down to the car, and then I see it, the tiny, total POS Nissan Pulsar that will be my home for the next 10hrs. I've had a cold for awhile and almost eradicated it, but Thursday night it came back with a vengence. I went to bed early, but woke up Friday morning still feeling pretty awful which will make all of this that much more fun no doubt. Before we get in, I request a window seat so that I can try and catch a little sleep because, I'm feeling ill. C is driving, Ir and V announce that they HAVE to smoke so therefore they MUST be by a window leaving Helen and I to a window seat and the dreaded middle seat. Helen is also quite sick and has a cough that sounds quite disturbing. She's very sweet though and volunteers to take the middle. So we get in the car. And by get in the car, I mean cram in like sardines. Really, V won't even move her seat up far enough for me to not be all hunched up. I feel like I'm in a crate; cool. So we get started. I try to work my way into a semi-comfortable position and snooze a bit. The girls in the front seat make this very difficult for me by turning up the music REALLY loud. Helen periodically tells them I'm trying to sleep and asks them to turn it down, which they do for 3 minute or so intervals before turning it back up to Abercrombie/club worthy levels.

Its obvious from the get-go that C has really poor driving skills; and I'm phrasing that quite euphemistically. When we finally do get on the highway, she does weird things like hit the breaks and grips the wheel really tight and shaky to where the car is constantly jerking around. Its quite nauseating. At one point, she misinterpreted what the GPS said, got off on the wrong exit and then took us on this dirt road for TEN km through a FARM to get us back on the main highway.

Oh, and then it begins. V and Ir take turns rolling down their windows and lighting up cigarettes. Smoke and cold air hit Helen and I in the face in the most unpleasant of manners. Helen coughs like she may die any minute and the air steadily gets colder and colder as we drive south until it feels like we're on the north face of a mountain in Canada somewhere during a snow storm. And after a few hours of being forced to play sardines I'm beginning to get really tense and achy. I pop a Benedryl hoping to just go out. It works a little bit for maybe an hour but its nearly impossible to sleep while the radio is blasting and the three girls I'm referring to as letters are talking non-stop in their SUPER obnoxious New York accents about drugs and hooking up with boys and all these people who I have never met (and never hope to). Oh and they can't say a sentence without putting the F word in it. At one point I was counting the number of F words Ir uses in a five minute period. It was mindblowing/appalling. I can't handle that very well. So I was extremely groggy, congested, in pain, and had nothing to contribute to any of the conversation happening leaving me feeling quite isolated in a car with five other people.

At the first gas station everyone got out of the car and I passed out on the backseat since I was finally able to stretch out a little bit. But 7 minutes later everyone was back and that meant I had to re-assume the upright fetal position, but this time in the dreaded middle seat bc I couldn't leave poor Helen there the whole time and the smokers obviously couldn't sit there bc how else would they be able to blow smoke and cold air in our faces? The second time we stopped, I asked V if I could take a turn in the front seat (due to the incredible aching in my back). She looked at me like I was quite silly and said, "Two smokers can't sit in the backseat! Someone could suffocate." Oh I get that. No wait, I don't. So I was like, "V, I'm SIX FEET TALL." She obviously didn't see why that mattered and shrugged me off like, "And your point is...?" So I carted my extremely frustrated and cramped behind back into the backseat.

Back in the death chamber, I mean backseat, I called the hostel Helen and I were staying in to get their address (the other girls were staying in a hotel... Australia's Motel 6 equivalent) so we could put it into the GPS. The hostel people informed that it would be in our best interest to get there by 1:30am because after that the desk closes and you have to track down the night warden to check you in. I make sure the other girls know this and give V the address to put into the GPS. For some reason she is completely incapable of doing this and after trying for 7min or so, C starts freaking out and tells her to put the GPS back on the dashboard. She's worried she will miss a turn even though the GPS clearly says there are NO TURNS for another 300km. Yes, 300. But she won't let anyone touch the GPS. I start stress eating lots of junk food I bought at the gas station which makes me feel even more like crap.

Later, the inevitable happens. About 2 hours out of Melbourne Ir suggests that they drop their stuff off at their hotel first and then take us to the hostel. Fine, whatever. I'm so achy and tired of being cold and doused in smoke that I keep repeating in my head, "I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead..." Helen and I start making fun of the other girls and the fact that we wish we were dead to ourselves to try and make light of the situation. They of course are so wrapped up in themselves that they have no idea we're laughing at them. Perhaps this was also because our laughter was the half-hearted sort that is characteristic of people that wish they were dead.

Finally we make it to Melbourne and get to their hotel at 1am. Helen gets out of the car and helps them get their bags out, then comes and gets back into the backseat with me. And then we wait. Ten minutes later, V calls Helen and says that they'll be right out. Another ten minutes goes by, aaand nothing. I call V and tell her to hurry up and she replies that they're coming right then. Five more minutes go by and I'm getting really stinking impatient AND its 1:25. I call V again, she says, "We're coming right now!" in her obnoxious New York accent and HANGS UP ON ME. At that moment, something in my brain snaps like a twig. All of the injustices done to Helen and I over the course of the last day flash before my eyes and I imagine what I was feeling is similar to what the Hulk feels like when he's turning green. FINALLY the girls come out. Not only did they put their stuff in the room, like they were supposed to, but they took the liberty of SHOWERING, getting dressed up, putting on makeup, etc before strutting back to the Nissan Pulsar in which they left Helen and I, who are SICK, in the backseat of OVER half and hour ago. AND ITS AFTER 1:30. I go freakin' nuts and start yelling at them for being inconsiderate you-know-whats and all three of them are on me in a heartbeat screaming back. A memorable quote occurred when I was like, "WHY DIDN'T YOU HURRY UP!?" to which V replies: "Uh, we WANTED to GO OUT KATH-A-RYN!" This goes on and I don't even know what I'm yelling about anymore until Helen butts in and shuts everyone up. Then we drive in awkward silence the very short five minutes to our hostel. Which I found in the GPS in a matter of 1.5 minutes by the way. This is the longest five minutes of my life; my cheeks are burning, I feel my heartbeat in my eyeballs, I want to cry or break windows or scream. Instead I just sit there and feel my heart pound, loathing yankees thinking about how everything people say about them is true and how I really had NO idea that anyone could be that inconsiderate. I thought manners were this thing that adults just had and used them even though they don't want to sometimes, but they suck it up for the sake of common decency. I was so shocked.

We get to the hostel and as soon and Helen and I get our bags out and shut the trunk, V, C, and Ir drive off not caring to see if we get in ok even though its PAST 1:30 and they've caused us to miss proper check-in. AND they have the nerve to yell YOU'RE WELCOME out the window at me as they drive away. Really, I am in disbelief.

The next bits of my life are an angry blur, but we managed to get inside and get our beds. Helen and I decide that we will certainly not subject ourselves to that ever again and we will book plane tickets home first thing in the morning. I lay there and try to fall asleep because I'm so exhausted, but my mind is just spinning at the events of the last hours.

The next morning its cold and raining, great. Helen and I get breakfast then go to the nearest internet cafe and book tickets home on Jetstar on Monday. I call my parents and try to convey to them what just happened. Mom ends the conversation with a comment on the girls' character that made me feel a bit smug because if Cynthia Davis says that about you, it must be true. Then we get coffee and I have some amazing banana bread. It works well as comfort food. We go back to the hostel and sit down to unenthusiastically try to plan our day because we honestly have no idea what one is supposed to do when one visits Melbourne. Then Helen gets a text message and does the "I don't believe this" chuckle. I ask her what it says and she insists I don't worry about it which gives me the go-ahead to demand to read it. Its from V and says something to the effect of, "We're not mad at you, Helen, but we're really pissed at Kat for the way she handled things last night when she started bitching like child." Yes, they said I was "bitching like a child." At first, I don't think it bothers me that much. Then I just kinda feel like someone cut a big hole in me somewhere and drained the life out of me. I tell Helen I really just want to go lay down, which then becomes our plan for a day. I was still shocked and all I could think about was how much I missed Sydney and wanted to go home (back to Sydney) and that this whole thing was a HUUGE mistake. And you know I'm not a crier, but I lay down and let out a few tears before falling asleep in my tear, snot, and drool puddles; the absolute picture of defeat.

And this is where I will leave the story for now because re-telling that is quite draining. Isn't that AWFUL!? Yea, I know. Don't worry though, things do get better.