¨there you go miss taylor, and enjoy your flight¨
what a mammoth journey it was too! 12 hours from london to bangkok, an hour or so to stretch my legs after getting checked over twice more by security, and then back on the plane again for another 8 hour stint..
Thankfully i had a very pleasant and friendly guy from adelaide sitting next to me, and helped pass the time much more speedily. managed to get some sleep, but only the kind where i woke up every 15 minutes or so in a way that resembled a mini epileptic fit. i always seem to sleep that way on planes! (perhaps a mental point to remember if you ever have to endure a flight with yours truly)
i spent some time soaking up the influx of world youth day pilgrims arriving in clusters and sections, koreans, swedes, americans, portugese, french, and these were only the flags and symbols i managed to catch a glimpse of! (and recognise)
an italian group were strumming their guitars, playing drums and singing away when i walked out, and it continued on while i waited for my transfer bus. whether it was a welcoming tune for other wyd arrivals, or a spontaneous passing of the time, i dont know, but it is characteristic of what world youth day brings with it, and i breathed it all in with a vague feeling of familiar deja vu.
wandered into my hostel room at 9am, where i found a free top bunk bed, also noting that there were definitely 2 to a single bed in the bunk below it. Rooms a complete mess (and not my doing if you are thinking!), but im not spending much time there, and already slept a lot better this past night than the one before. i am staying in a place on the red light strip of kings cross, which meant i had the song “all that she wants is another baby…I’m gone tomorrow boy” on repeat all night from the club across the road. is really central to get around from though, and planning to move onwards, (and maybe even upwards) to somewhere else from monday.
now these aussies.. i had been in sydney for a few hours at most, am walking down the street, coffee in one hand, and the meatiest sausage roll i have ever encountered, in the other, and a slightly odd middle stops me to point out. “you’ve got holes in your pants, its where your legs go through”…
So World Youth day has begun, and being with the scots lot from the church of scotland, and having two pipers (and bagpipes) with us, has meant we can’t escape attention (to put it mildly)! ended up doing some spontaneous ceilidh (scottish) dancing in hyde park yesterday, picking out people from the crowd around to join in. sounds a bit mad i know, but there are groups all over the place singing and/or dancing from their own culture, you just have to wander and keep your ears peeled!
Yesterday was cathedral day, where every group had a ‘slot’ to walk in and do their thing. this is easier said than done when you are talking about 250,000 people (plus), and our 2pm slot turned into a 3.30 one, with the most strict security iv ever seen. i was strip searched twice, and still kept beeping the stupid machine, whereas a guy from our group managed to saunter in with his skin dhu tucked in his socks! was all a bit over the top and just felt harassed more than anything.
met a really nice small group of 10 from holland though, so keeping up my dutch, and our group collaborated with theirs to try and outsing the massive american group in front of us : )
will be back when i can again in a few days i hope to update you on the rest of it all. take care and lots of love and greetings from sydney!
Rx
