I just arrived in Alice Springs, smack in the center of the continent. That I am here and not in Sydney is a bit of a surprise for me as well, but here I am an it's all good. And tomorrow I'll leave for a three day camping trip to Ayers Rock and its surroundings. How I got here was a bit chaotic, though.

Do you remember Chelsea, that absolutely gorgeous and lovable girl I met in Brisbane who said that she could arrange for me to fly on Virgin Blue really, really, really cheap? Well, the problem was that when I decided to take her up on her offer she was on holidays in New Zealand, but of course I didn't know that. And for some reason (beats me why) I had not gotten her phone number. So I just mailed her and was really surprised and confused that I didn't get an answer. And that wasn't like her at all! Eventually I did get hold of her, but unfortutantely that was when the disadvantages of non-realtime communication kicked it. To cut a longs story short: She had reason to believe that I had flown to Alice Springs already and wanted her to book the flight to Sydney when I was still sitting in Sydney, hoping for her to book a flight to Alice for me. What added signficantly to me biting my nails was the fact that I had already booked a tour to Ayers Rock leaving early tomorrow! So I absolutely had to be here today! Fortunately, at some point I remembered this old-fashioned thing called "phone book" and did manage to call her. That was yesterday evening.

The vampire in the plane

Unfortunately she not only caught a bad cold but also had burst the bloodvessels in on her eyes when doing a bungy jump in New Zealand (o.k., now I'm definitely not gonna do that!) so that she felt like shit and looked like a vampire with a very bad hangover. Imagine veing with your kid on board of a plane and being able to tell him/her "If you don't behave I'll give you to the evill stewardess!" Of course she didn't go to work like that and for some stupid reason she physically has to be at work to book flights. So she couldn't book me. But fortuantely my luck didn't run out and I managed to secure a cheap place on the 09.00 flight this morning - less than twelve hours before departure. Chelsea was really sweet though and said she could try to get me another flight via Melbourne that might make it to Alice in time for my tour but since I'm out of fingernails I declined. She'll organize the flight back to Sydney for me now, shich is far less time critical since I've change my flight to Aukland to next tuesday. Anyhow - that's how I came to be in Alice Springs today. As I said it was a bit chaotic.

I repeat: It's a big country

At the danger of boring all you guys and girls to bits - I once again realized how bloody big this country is! I mean, I just flew 3,5 hours and I've still not left the country. In fact it takes eight hours to leave te continent if you fly from Sydney to the northwest. You can fly from Europe to the U.S. of A. in that time! Bloody big, I'm tellin' ya!

A night with Heidi

So what did I do all those days and nights I've been hanging out in Sydney. Not much, really. Walking around during the day, getting drunk at night pretty much sums it up. Though the locations of the places where I do get drunk at night have improved considerably since I went out with Heidi last week. Remember Heidi? She's the one who bought me a cake on my birthday! Anyhow: Heidi took me to this pretty cool bar last wednesday (Bondi Beach Road Hotel on Beach Road in, you guessed it, Boni Beach). And it was so weird. There we poor tourists had been - scouring the bars in broadway and near the big roads of city and only found almost empty places with only a bunch of 50 year olds staring ito their beers and all of a sudden I was in this place with hundreds of young, good looking, happy (i.e. drunk), dancing people. I could hardly believe it. And I found it even weirder that this place would be so hard to reach by public transport! But who cares when you are having fun. Heidi and her friends also gave me some good tips for where to go out in Sydney so that my nightlife has improved quite dramatically. Prospective visitor take note: In Sydney you have to know where to go when, else you'll scratch your head in bewildernment over the tumbleweed tumbling through the streets.

Absinth, ah that lovely Absinth!

And my night were really quite funny! As I mentioned earlier I think that Steff has a great potential for infidelity, but I think she's simply not out of Germany for long enough to live up to that potential. Sad but true but what can you do. Well, I did get her hillariously drunk: she pushed me back to the hostel in a shopping trolley which of course eventually fell over crushed her under the trolley and me, giving her a nasty bruise that basically goes up all of her leg. But nothing else happened. Unfortunately. Ah, well, I'm having a good time with them anyhow.

The only person I find a wee bit annoying is a young guy from Munich who has attached himself to us/me a bit too much. He's just a bit too eager to please and too eager to belong. In one of my more selfcritical moments I reflected that maybe, just maybe, I was a lot like that - seven, eight years ago. No wonder I find him annoying!

Servas! Von wo kumstn a Du nachat her?

The other thing I find annoying about Sydney and Alice Springs is that there are sooooo many Germans here! On the airport shuttle bus today, two thirds of the passengers were German, Austrian or Swiss. And in Alice Springs it feels like that as well! Btw.: Why is it that Germans find it so annoying to meet other Germans? I find it annoying and most other Germans find it annoying as well. But why is that so? Is it because there are so many of us that we never can escape from our roots? I don't know. I just find it funny, after all, Italians tend to be hapy about meeting other Italians, Swedes happily embrace other Swedes, Canadians tend to rejoice when they meet other Canadians (real ones that is, not Americans pretending to be Canadian). Only Germans tend to try to leave the room undetected whenever they hear others speak German. Saying "you don't travel around the world just to meet people from your own country" is certainly part of the explanation, but it's not everything.

Off to Ayers Rock (Uluru)

Well, maybe I'll have an epiphany when I get to Ayers Rock - or "Uluru" as it's officially called, tomorrow. But I'll doubt it. But I'm pretty sure that I'll enjoy the next few days of camping and swagging under the stars before I'm off to New Zealand.