ah yes, it's an update. much has happened.

since i last wrote, i left off writing about how i was w.w.o.o.f. ing for a lady who temporarily lost her memory. I ened up staying with her for another night and was told that the doctor said it is quite common for people aged 50 and up to temporarily loose their memory for anywhere up to 8 hours. Weird eh? I also recently read that the famous author Agutha Cristie went on a bender where she didn't remember anything for a period of weeks and she was lost (actually staying in some country in, but it's said that she was in hiding because her latest novel wasn't good or something...)
Anyways, i last wrote from the beautiful mount roland. Since then i';ve done and seen much. what? i'll tell you!
When i left the mountain, I went to Launceston, where I hung out with the various people i knew in the area, played some music at on the backpackers piano and also at the 'Reggae Lounge'. The lounge is under construction, and getting better every time i stop by. Lots of music and joints were played and smoked. I stopped looking for grass a while ago, so i rarely find it, but it's nice when it finds me. It was cool to play with the dudes i met a few months ago when i first showed up in town, and another friend I met in Devenport, justin, came along and impresed everone with his guitar improv- he;s excellent and plays well with the other guys. I am ok with coming up with stuff on the spot, musically, but im sure i could be alot better- it's nice to be classically trained and everything, but that's different from being able to jam well with others.
Another thing i did was some good old protesting. A huge company wants to build a billion dollar pulp mill up in this place called Beauty Point, and alot of people don't want it to be built, for alot of reasons- One thing, it will ruin the beauty of beauty point, pollute the river, result in many trees cut down, and put the smaller pulp mills out of business. Fuck that bullshit. So about 5,000 people came together in the park, and then marched around waving signs and yelling. Good times.
So i was there for two nights, in launy, then drove with a french girl to Hobart, capital of Tasmania. we checked into the Central city backpackers, and I got my own room for 120$ a week, not bad. My reason for traveling was to start treeplanting a few days later. I soon learned that the start time was 5.30am, and i needed to be in New Norfolk, a small down about 20 minutes away. So after a few days of hanging out in the hobart, I get up really early and try and get to the Bush Inn for 5.30 am one morning. I was told it was on the main street, so after a long time of driving on the main street I ask some guy where i can find the place, and he tells me where to go and i go there, only to find noone there- they didn't wait for me. I got there 8 or 10 minutes late and they're gone. I've worked for these guys before, and lost my job for being late- so i didn't even bother trying after that first miss because i knew I botched it. And who wants to get up at 4:30 in the morning anyway?? Not I sir, I am lazy. Anyways, shortly after, I saw an add on the message board about a job in queenstown- so i called the guy and got the job after talking to him for 10 minutes. He seemed nice.
After that, i spent a week in hobart, hanging out. Here are the highlights. There was a guy that said I could call him for casual work, so i called him several times a day for a week because i really wanted to work for him but he never answered. There were some cool people at the backpackers, and usually when they were going out they would ask if i wanted to come, and because I wasn't spending any money on drinks for myself, they would buy some drinks for me- how nice of them. Props to Jean, Tom, and the german guy. There was also a large TV, so i was introduced to a few amusing DVDs. One day I went for a drive and found my way onto an amazing side road through hills it was beautiful. An annoying thing about hobart is the parking tickets and speeding violations i collected; 2x25 and 35$ for parking in the wrong place (but it's where the people who ran the backpackers told me to park!!), 80$ for parking and letting my car roll a bit forward,where it stopped against the curb (without hitting anything thank the lord) but it crossed a yellow line, and later I got an email from Joan (she gets my mail) telling me i had a 110$ speeding ticket for driving 87 km per hour over the hobart bridge, which is 70 kmph. So yeah i have about, what, 250$ of fines now, which i am working to pay off.
Usually I'f im bored at night i'll go hang out in the mall- which is a street full of stores for pedestrian use only, with benches and funky architecture. If it's a weekend, all i need to do is sit down for a while, usually while working on a perspective drawing, and someone will come up to me and talk to me and maybe take me with them to whatever fun they're going to. Most major cities in tasmania have these streets, and i've met some cool people this way. One night I was hanging out there, and there was a drunk guy and his girlfriend yelling at each other in very very very loud voices, so i looked over to see what was going on and the guy asks 'what the fuck're you lookin at?' and gives me a punch in my face that hurt for days- that was really annoying because 1. who does that? 2. I don't carry a knife or brass knuckles because guys like that need to get hurt; not that i would hurt anyone, but for a long time after the incident i was still really mad at what happened and wished i could have fought back.
Another time i met this friendly dude with dread locks. He was a happy guy who took me to a few bars and introcuded me to his friends, who were also cool and bought me drinks, a big group of people who I later learned were all on some type of speed/MDMA. They were friendly enough, and there were pretty girls talking to me. At one point we take a cab back to their appartment, a very cool house, for the purpose of inhaling nitrus oxide. I did not participate in the N20 or whatever the chemical number is, but they did give me speed which I took a small amount of. It was crazy being on it, I was talking pretty fast even though I took a small bit... I thought the nitrus was interesting- they had this device which brings it down to zero degrees kelvin, which is actually -270 degrees- the whole point is to have zero movement of the atoms. Anyways, we went to a club which was fun, talked to some people, almost got puked on, then later went back to the appartment where the dudes did more and more nitrus oxide. It was crazy how much they did- it comes in packages of 8 little metal containers, in boxes with little pictures of ballons on them, because i guess they're bought from a party supply store. I passed and im glad I did. At some point i look over, and one dude is shaking his friend asking him if he's ok, and the guy looks passed out and twitching, then stopped moving and i thought he died, but he came out of it after a minute. But yeah it was an alright place, and like i said, it's nice when grass finds me, even though i'm not one to seek it out. They were definitly drug dealers- I was kindof impressed by being told, by the guy who i first met in the mall, that he was deling weed when he was 18, making more money than his mom who worked a full time job, all because you buy a pound of grass at 200 an ounce and you sell them for 280, and you make your 80$ just buy going over to a friends house, dealing the drugs or whatever, smoking a spliff with them, and making a cool 80$. Do that 2 or three times a day, and it's easy money. But yeah, im glad i don't have access to the pot anymore, for alot of reasons. Maybe i'll stop by my friends place next time im in hobart- they were nice guys.
I'm now in Queenstown- i've got much to write about still but i'm out of time in the library, so i'll continue again later,
PEACE OUT, LOVE PUAL