The Glorified Gypsy
The travel writings of a vagabundo
With misty-eyed misguided sentiment perhaps clouding our judgment, we downed our pints and ambled from the leafy civilised back streets of Woollahra to the concrete wind tunnel of the Junkyard, buoyed by the delights of summer. And let me tell you, the Tea Gardens did not disappoint.
Read MoreWhen the borders shut, I improvised and planned on hiring a Kombi to do the east coast of Australia - a feat that would have broken my own record of 41 times. Of course, the Queensland government put an end that. All that was left, then, was the state of New South Wales.
Read MoreOne issue with the annual jelly wrestling competition…just try sourcing industrial quantities of KY Jelly during Mardi Gras. Seriously, it’s impossible. With typical foresight, however, I realised the consistency of hand sanitiser was exactly the same as KY Jelly, and so I spent most of February buying up all the local stock from chemists, supermarkets and old people homes in the Sydney area. Lucky I did because Australia was about to panic buy everything, including hand sanitiser.
Read MoreAs a die-hard backpacker, half the weight of my rucksack is already made up of Maggi noodles anyway, so I’m sympathetic, to an extent, about people prepping for hard times. The threat of coronavirus, however, has caused locals to buy up all the pasta, pasta sauces, rice, and toilet paper in a 10 kilometre radius. Who’d have thought people from Sydney’s eastern suburbs could be so self-absorbed and thoughtless.
Read MoreAs they’re fond of saying in Latin America, mi casa es tu casa; and that’s very much the philosophy of The Galah. (Though not legally mine, when you’ve resided in any hostel for as long as I have it’s only natural that I think of it as mine). It’s your home away from home. Naturally, mi casa es tu casa is more something one says, rather than fact and most people tend to accept that; even so, some habits are best kept to the privacy of the shower cubicle or undercover of darkness once “lights are out” in the dormitory. Pablo will eventually learn this.
Read MoreI wanted England to win. Of course I did. Yet the human mind works in mysterious ways. Equal to my desire for England to win was for Marc not to enjoy being over there to see us reach the final. Yet no sooner had England reverted to type and surrendered its lead, those feelings of longing and homesickness (and wishing ill of Marc) disappeared.
Read MoreUnbeknownst to me, it’s apparent the Australian visa system has implemented the Rooney Rule and is lowering the bar for non-Anglo applicants. How else to explain why Rafinho has had it so easy since entering the country; that his route to permanent residency is practically served to him on a plate. All while others - who have been in the country for years, struggling away - are told time and again that A-Level qualifications in, say, Art & Design, are insufficient to apply for a Skilled Visa.
Read MoreI was standing in the hallway of my parent’s home, taking one last look at the photos on the floral wallpapered walls: there was my older brother winning the 100 metres on school sports day; there was my older brother on graduation day; my older brother working for the Red Cross in Kenya, and so on. None of them suggested either of us would go on to achieve anything significant, let alone my unrivalled standing within the backpacking community.
Read MoreProbably from a long line of taco makers, Juancho poured his love into each and every one of those corn discs, even taking the time to trim most of the gristle from the pork and beef cuts.
Read MoreAs much as I have an innate sense for backpacking, it would be arrogant not to acknowledge part of my skill set as a traveller is to learn from experience.
Read MoreMy first great act as a backpacker, then, was to hold on to the idea for next year, when I was to create the now popular tradition of dressing as Santa Clause and getting battered on Bondi Beach.
Read MoreOpen a shared fridge these days - as I did this morning in order to research this blog – and one is more likely to find cartons of gone-off soy or oat milk and yellowing kale. Hardly the stuff to cure a hangover.Read More