It's a real conversation stopper, and I should really just start inventing a new home country to please those people that always look so disappointed with my answer.
Where are you from?
Um, Ballina.
Where are your parents from?
Australia.
...
and then they get all awkward and don't say anything more.
Last night I took Claire up to Byron because she has been staying with me for the past week. It was such a nice, chilled out night. As soon as we got out of the car we heard this music coming across the park and decided to follow it and see what was going on. We ended up in this packed little bar, listening to this girl who was an incredible performer. Her name is Vanessa Baker, shes athletic, eclectic and a super babe. You can have a listen to a few snippets of her here.
Over the week I have been trying to give Claire the proper "Byron experience" and looking back I think we pretty much got there. Some highlights for the week include;
-Walking in on a conversation in the art shop involving one old lady trying to find the best portrait artist around to paint a portrait of her two cats.
-Being offered purple haze by a guy that was either an undercover cop, or a really awkward douche bag.
-Walking down the street past a guy with a gigantic llama on a leash.
-Buying so much stuff from the op shops that Claire had to wear about 20 layers to compensate for buying carry on luggage only for her flight home.
-Seeing teriyaki tofu being sold alongside hot dogs by the late night snack vendors.
-Having a picnic on the headland in the beautiful sun and watching the wales go past. (I'll upload some photos from our picnic because it was glorious)
And finally, this conversation;
*We had been next to this older lady in the crowd at the beach hotel listening to this crazy band and she had been absolutely losing her shit, jumping around and whipping her hair all over the place. This conversation happened about 10 minutes later...*
Lady: Hey girls!
Us: Hi :)
Lady: Man this is good, I love this band, love getting right into it.
Us: Wow yeah you must be getting hot in that vest. (she was wearing a gigantic fur vest)
Lady: Yeah I am, but i can't take it off because I can't lose it.
Us: Fair enough.
Lady: Yeah because it's my dog.
Us: *blank faces but inside screaming "No, no, OH GOD, NO!"*
Lady: You think I'm weaird, don't you? I know you think I'm weird now.
Me: (strangely high pitched) Weird is good!
lady: *looks me up and down* Yeah well you obviously like a bit of weird, don't you?
Claire: (I don't remember what she said but it was pretty much just a colourful word vomit of reasons to justify why turning your dead dog into a vest is a plausible thing to do. I think it involved that it would be just like cuddling the dog, and its better that she didn't go out and kill a healthy animal to make a coat. A real mixed bag of comments haha.)
This lady then takes the vest off, and sets it down on the pool table, before kind of holding it in the shape that it would have been in when it was a dog. At this point we were being way too enthusiastic in an attempt to hide how freaked out we were, and so we decided to bail to the bar before she offered to make us matching ones!
I would say that we had a pretty successful week, and I loved having someone to show around to all my favourite little spots. It's amazing how much fun you can have pretending to be a tourist in your own town!
No comments:
Post a Comment