Hop. Skip. Crump.: Goodbye

Showing posts with label Goodbye. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Lengths

The coals are hot,
To walk across,
Without your shoes,
But in the end,
Know that you've got nothing to lose.

Nothing to lose.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Push the button.

I push buttons all day, everyday.

Keyboards for a start.

Phone keypads.

Light switches.

Elevator buttons.

Train doors buttons to open them. ( God forbid anything happened here out of courtesy, even the train doors aren't chivalrous.)

I push metaphorical buttons too: my boss, my colleagues, my friends, my suppliers. I may not like/mean to cause a stir, but the drama sometimes follows me.

I'm going to Madrid tomorrow to celebrate pushing buttons.

I've pushed enough buttons now to be happy about where these jabs and clicks and index finger driven actions have taken me.

Tapped enough keyboards to create enough of the right words to have the damn good life that I lead.

Dialled enough wrong numbers to learn some lessons and punched a few right ones to get a few good answers.

Turned out some lights on some good and memorable nights, and flicked them on again to wake up to a new chance everyday.

Pissed off enough bosses to get me where I am today.

It takes a split second to push a button and those buttons, no matter how trivial at the time, will definitely shape your life.

"Send"

"Open"

"Delete"

"Buy"

"Confirm"

"Apply"

"Call"

"End call"

Cheers to the buttons, the fingers that pushed them, and the hearts that tell them "Just do it".

Thursday, December 30, 2010

The highs are high, the lows are low

It happened.

The holiday.

The amazing and random.

The discoveries.

The cosiness of being with familiar and loving people.

The thing that was a pleasant surprise that you couldn't have orchestrated even if you tried.

The moment you've been hoping would happen for months also eventuates.

After all the anticipation, it came and it went.

Then, the visitors leave. The alarm clock is back on. The familiar frustrations come flooding back. The uncertainty of 'what does it all mean?' wafts back onto your radar.

Now what?

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Stepping out into the real world

I check out of the hostel today and move into a friend's apartment in the Old West area for around about a week.

It feels weird, even though I was dying to get out of living in a hostel, this actually means that I will be living IN AMSTERDAM, and technically, not a traveller based in a hostel anymore. (Even though I haven't travelled in a couple of weeks, being surrounded by travellers sort of made me feel like one.)

Living in this hostel has taught me so many things about people, and a little bit about myself. I have run into so many oddballs living here - staff AND guests, but also some really fantastic people.

I am having a coffee with one of the girls that works here tonight, after she finishes work. I wrote about her in one of my first posts when I arrived in Amsterdam. Her name is Hailey. It will be nice to extend my network of friends - I have been hanging out a lot with my Swiss friend Laura, and my Norwegian friend Sverre. Not that there's a problem with that (in fact, we'e had some pretty random and crazy times), but it's always nice to get to know new people.

I am also having a coffee with a guy called Bastiaan on Friday, who lived in France with a friend of mine, Lauren from Adelaide (for a year I think). New people, new opportunities, new perspectives, new friends!

Today is the 9th day of the 9th Month of the 2009th year (by the Christian/Roman Calender anyway..) I wonder what it means???

it might signify good news on the job hunting front!! JOB JOB JOB JOB JOB is my mantra for today!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened...

Like I said in a previous post, every Spanish town has it's own festival to celebrate their patron saint. ("Festa Major" - meaning "Major Festival".) Sitges is a little seaside town, about 20 minutes drive from Barcelona, who's patron saint is Bartholomew. Technically you could travel Spain for a month and get amongst a festival nearly every day for every little town you may happen to stop at.

August 23rd is the day of annual festival. The reason that we came to Sitges is because our friends, Sarah and Georgina met two Spanish guys from Sitges about 6 years ago, when they first travelled Europe. These two little ladies lived with Miguel and Alex in Dublin and have forever been BFF.

A posse of 11 of us rented a villa for a week in the town centre, and lazed by the pool, drank a lot, and relaxed. We were all in various stages of travel - some coming from London on their way to do some backpacking, some on their way back to Sydney, some arriving in Europe to start new lives, some en route back to London from New York, some just from Sydney and London to be with us. We were a mixed bunch of friends, some of us had known each other a while, or only met once or twice, some for the first time. We left firm friends after such an awesome week. On Saturday, we bought matching dark blue tee shirts, as is the custom for friends attending the festival together that read; "Diables de Sitges " - literally, the Devils of Sitges.

Miguel and Alex and their girlfriends and friends all had tee shirts made, as they do every year. Their's said : "FM09 - Be lost" - designed around the Sitges town flag in white and red. So everybody, young and old, families, and friends, walk around the main street together in matching tee shirts - for bonding reasons and reasons of practicality. When there are thousands of people in a small street, it makes it easy to spot lost little souls. Also, some groups of friends get their names printed on the back of their tee shirts.

Alex and Miguel have a longstanding tradition with their BFFs, breakfast in the morning together before making their way to the main street of the city to watch the parade and carry on. Then, once the parade is all over, everybody goes home for a siesta, and then meets for the fireworks on the beach and more party times.

Everything about this day was amazing, there was nothing but love, joy and pride in the air; pride for city and culture, love for new friends and old friends and general togertherness, joy for being gifted with such an awesome day, and most of all - crazy fun times.

When everybody left the Villa on Wednesday, George, Tim, and Steph and I stayed, as we got one night free in the Villa. The feeling of emptiness and sadness that washed over me was something I had never felt before - I couldn't believe one incredible week had passed with such a big gang of us, and it was all over - it felt like a mega bad hangover was just setting in. So we... I mean.. I... tried to drink away the emptiness. Needless to say, that didn't quite work.

I left Sitges yesterday, and came back to Amsterdam, with hope that an experience like that wouldn't be isolated, that it would happen again some day soon, and in the meantime, soldiering on and focusing on making my own way, with a new sense of vigour and spirit.

Just arrived - eager to create some chaos, but waiting quietly to get to our Villa

Sitges, palm trees, beaches, sunshine, friends ... a recipe for bliss

Pretty much where we were all week... poolside

Casa Lola

The lifeblood of the holiday

Hanging outside the Villa

George: Feel my Chin!
Me: No! Gross!
George: Cmon Rani, I was going to pluck a splinter out of your infected foot - NOW FEEL MY CHIN!!
Me: Ewwww.... ok.... EWWWWWWW