Day 68 - 90 : Exploring The Top End

01/06/2016
As we love the Wave Lagoon and still don't have a job, we went there again today. While doing some groceries in the afternoon, we decided to eat 'kip aan't spit'. It smelt so good!

If you want to work in a bar in Australia, you need to have a RSA certificate. That gives you the right to serve alcohol. If you don't have it, you can get big fines for it, such as 1000 AUD and a few days in prison. They are very strict here.

In my Ultimate Oz package, I had a free course to get my RSA. After more than 3 hours with bad internet, I managed to pass the test and get my certificate.

02/06/2016
In the morning, Babs and I decided to save some money and went to the Recreation lagoon. We still hadn't heard from Top End Consulting, so we went there as well. They told us it was still quiet for new jobs and that next week would be better......

Apparently 'Ladies Night' in a bar, named 'Monsoons', is something you need to do in Darwin on a Thursday evening. So we went there and were kind of in shock. Everybody was so waisted and some staff boys had naked upper bodies. Some girls had to go on a stage with those boys and lick some chocolate sauce from their bodies, gross!
The one who managed to do it the fastest, got a price. I think it was a free trip. One of those guys was really over the top and kissed like 5 different girls within the hour, lay himself on top of the girls on the dancefloor. Felt as if we were in a sex bar.

We met Rhys, a local from Darwin. He was nice, but little bit too young (25). It was his mate's last night in Darwin before moving to Brisbane. So they both were already a little bit drunk. He said to me that he was some kind of a flying doctor, that fascinated me. After some more drinks, he started to call e a cougar, but didn't mind that. His friend was really waisted at a certain point and I saw that Babs was getting enough of it. He asked her all the time how he could hit on her, but she told him that she was not interested. He didn't get that message...

After all the annoying time, we went to the toilet and took off to our hostel. Rhys was pissed about that as we didn't say that we were going away.

That evening, there was also a very tiny Japanese guy who wanted to dance with me, I asked him to wait an hour, but haven't seen him anymore. Didn't really mind that, I think it is a little too weird to dance with a guy who is two head sizes shorter than you. PS I really don't mean this in a bad way!

We were back home around 00.30 am. Another night alone in our room, SO COOL!

03/06/2016
You may not believe it, but it is not so easy to meet local people. If you are walking in the street, you only see aboriginal people (waisted and angry) and backpackers, most of them English and Irish, and btw waisted too. Therefore I had the idea to use Tinder, I promise you, only to meet them, not for something else. I am well aware of the reputation of Tinder.

Today I had two matches, Rodolfo (Portugese) and Jason (Australia). It was nice to talk to them, but it is always challenging to meet them as you don't know if they for example have a fake profile. They both were attractive and I had a good feeling about it.

Not wanting to go out tonight, Babs and I decided to walk to the Waterfront, see the wharf and nice views. We stopped at an Italian restaurant, Il Lido, and had a drink.

Later on, while talking to Jason, we figured out that we had a mutual friend, Rhys... How weird is that?!... Apparently Jason is a pilot as well and they used to be colleagues. Rodolfo told me he was having dinner at the Waterfront, but we didn't see him.

04/06/2016
Today not really a special day as we went back to the Wave Lagoon. There was supposed to be a food and culture festival at the Waterfront, but it was not as expected. There were not a lot of people and it was very small. The only thing that was interesting to see, was a show of Chinese people in dragon costumes with music.

We heard about a bar called 'Discovery' and recommendable on a Saturday evening. We dressed up in the evening and went to the bar. It was more like a discotheque. While ordering expensive drinks, two American boys started to talk to us. They worked for the Navy and one of them had his birthday. They offered us a drink and left afterwards as they are obliged to be back at base before 12 pm.

Heading towards the dancefloor, another American soldier stopped me and asked me if I would be angry if he would kiss me.... First thought: What the ... ?! My answer was short: "YES!" He continued to talk further, but I was not really interested.

30 minutes later he asked me the same question and my answer stayed the same: "Yes I will be angry if you try to kiss me". Then he started to grap my hands all the time like a couple, I was so annoyed by that, that I pulled my hand back and left him and the dancefloor. I was happy that I didn't see him back as he was a soldier too and needed to be back at 12 too.

Rodolfo sended me a message that he was planning to come to Discovery, so we would finally meet. It is remarkable that the ones I meet work all in the aviation sector. Rodolfo is a flight attendant in charter planes. It was his last week in Darwin. He had been here for 3 months. While dancing on the dancefloor, I think it was around 1.30 am, he approached me. Didn't really know how to react as I imagined him totally different. On his profile picture he had long hair and seemed waaaaaay taller. Instead he had shorter hair and a shorter appearance, let's say maybe 1m68 maximum. Hadn't he come

towards me, I would never had been able to recognize him.

Having had a short introduction, he bought us some drinks. He seemed already a little bit tipsy. After some drinks, he introduced us to his colleagues. One of them, Pedro, was really good looking! Around 4 am Babs and I decided to go back to the hostel. Rodolfo joined us and while entering the hostel, he took me and started to kiss me. I told him he could not join us.

Later on, I received some messages that he wanted to be with me and that I had to come to his appartment. I knew what that meant and didn't want that, so said no in a friendly way. That pissed him off and started to insult me, but didn't really mind that. It was not worth it to bother about it.

05/06/2016
Not being used to stay up that late, we didn't wake up before 12 pm. We both felt lazy and tired. While I took a fresh jump in the pool of the hostel, Babs stayed in bed.

In the evening we went to Coles to get some food, it was very humid and warm outside, sweating like pigs.

Rhys asked me if I wanted to go with him to the cinema, but didn't feel like joining him, so gently said "no" to him.

06/06/2016
Having had nobody else in the room since a couple of days, we got used to that. Unfortunately we were not longer that lucky. An African woman joined us in our room. She took the bed above me (bunk bed). Everytime she moved, and that was a lot, I moved too automatically.
During the day, we went to the Wave Lagoon and watched a movie in

the evening: Madagascar 2. After the movie, we went to bed. I already started to hear some snoring. I hated it and put my headphones with some music in.

In the middle of the night, around 1 am, a man entered our room and put the lights on. That was really creepy as it was obvious that we were sleeping and he started to talk all of a sudden. We didn't had a mixed room, so that was weird too. He took his luggage after 5 minutes and left the room and never came back.

07/06/2016
Bright and early, we went jobhunting in the morning. I don't know how post officers can deliver mail as there is no logic at all in house numbers. Some of them are on the corner of another street or just can't be found.

Next we sat down at the pool of the lovely hostel, please remark the sarcasm over here.

Afterwards we went to Coles to buy some salad as it was free sausage night again. Margot, who I met in Perth with Babs, arrived that night too in the hostel. She had done a tour from Adelaide to Darwin (The Ghan).

Mark asked me to meet and I agreed to that. Babs decided to stay at the hostel. He picked me up at the hostel and we

chatted for a while at his appartment(which was very nice btw, guess he can afford a nice place as financial advisor). He was very friendly.

The African woman was still in our room, on top of me. She moved a lot, so it was hard for me to fall asleep. On top of that, she was snoring too, lovely night eeey...

08/06/2016
A.k.a. THE WORST DAY EVER!!!!!
I woke up and my body was just covered with a lot of bites. The itching was terrible. I already had a lot of them, but these were even worse. Really causes a lot of frustration, because you don't know where it comes from, which animal, as they were definitely not looking like mosquito bites. So we decided to go to the pharmacy. She gave me tablets to handle the scratching. According to her, these were bites from bed bugs. These bugs are a very common problem in Australia. Consequently we went back to the reception and informed Jack again about the bites. Previously, a few days ago, he just cut me off and told me they were bites from ants. So I tried again to convince him of bed bugs, but he just looked at me with an angry face. If his eyes were bullets, I would have been gunned down. He did not even say one word, just stood there.

Embittered as I was, I went to search for Angelo, a guy who stayed at the hostel as well and told him about the situation. He followed us to our room and we searched together for evidence of bed bugs. That is very hard, as those animals are very tiny and hide during the day. He found some marks on the wall, of which he strongly believed was poo of the bugs.

I went back to the reception and told Dave the manager about it. Don't think they went directly to our room, no no, they surely took their time. Luckily for us, when we entered the room again, the African woman found one bug walking on the wall. We immediately took a picture of it.

After 10 minutes, the manager and Jack finally came to have a look in the room. Did not even take 5 seconds when Dave told the bug on the wall was a bed bug. How surprising... One part of me was releaved, knowing the reason of all those bites, but the other part was so pissed about the fact that they didn't want to believe me now and a few days ago. They could have prevent me for having more nasty bites. I have to pay for those medicins too.

In this situation, having discovered the bed bugs, we immediately had to put all our clothes in a a bag to clean, our backpacks and other things with zippers as well.

Another consequence was that we had to change rooms too, as they have to put the room in quarantaine for a couple of weeks. When Dave and Jack were in our room, they reacted all their frustrations out on us, like for example that it will cost them 3000 AUD to clean the room and bla bla bla. As if I can do something about that? And that has really nothing to do with my business. I didn't ask for those bugs either..

The other room, a 6-share, was so hot! The aircon was not even working properly. This all really felt like one big nightmare. Unfortunately, the nightmare was not about to end soon...... Apparently a girl from the reception, a trainee, made a mistake with our e-nights. She told us we could use it in the same hostel, but in real you can use 3 nights in one hostel and use the other 2 nights in another YHA hostel within two months. As we thought we could use it in the same hostel, we paid for the 5-night package as it saved us a lot of money. Sadly we discovered that the girl made a mistake. We explained the situation to Jack, but he is just not into compassion and said we could use those two other nights in another hostel. But there is the problem, I am staying in Darwin until the end of August and Babs is leaving Australia in July. Neither of us could use those nights in another hostel and it was already paid. In brief, no compassion, no refund in money.

When I heard this, I just had it with the hostel and all the sh*t, sorry for the use of that word, but it really felt like that. So angry how they threated us. That was the traw that broke the camel's back, as in I'M DONE WITH THIS!!!!

Having no clothes, towels, toilet stuff, we could not even refresh ourselves. We felt so dirty in 35°C humid conditions. While thinking how we would handle this all, I decided to call the headquarters of YHA (based in Sydney) to complain. Normally I am not keen to do this, but really, I was completely pissed off. The woman at the telephone was very friendly. After a 15 min-talk about everything that happened, she felt sorry for us and said she would contact YHA Darwin and get back to us after speaking to them. She did not break her promise and called me back within 30 minutes. According to her, YHA Darwin regretted how they threated us and would come with a solution to make it up to us.

Finally this is what we got: Our 2 nights refund, apologies and 4 nights in a private room for the same price as a 6-share. Normally 130 AUD/night, now 31 AUD/night/person. Releaved we were, we packed our stuff and moved into the private room. The nightmare reached its end.

BUT not yet...
We went to seek our clothes that YHA cleaned, and what do you guess.... They didn't bother to separate whites from colors. Babs looked at her clothes and all white ones were covered with purple marks. Back to the reception, they thought it was normal to put everything together to clean. Conclusion: They were not to blame for the damage according to them, no refund and clothes to throw away. Babs contacted her mother to see if her travel insurance could cover something up, but unfortunately for her not. We tried to put Vanish on it, but it didn't help.

Margot wanted to go for a drink in the evening to celebrate her birthday at 12 am. Therefore we decided to go to Monsoons. It was a quiet night, had some drinks, gave kisses at 12, and went afterwards back to the hostel. We were so tired of everything that happened that day. Finally the nightmare was officially over.

Today was uncle Joris's birthday, so I wished him a happy birthday on whatsapp and chatted a little bit.

09/06/2016
During the day, we went to the Wave Lagoon together with Margot. I was in contact with Jason and we both agreed on meeting each other tonight at Monsoons. It was Ladies Night again. I asked him to bring some friends, as I thought Margot would join us for her birthday, but she wanted to go to the Mindil Sunset Markets instead.

Arriving at Monsoons, Babs and I went to the bar to get our free drink. After 10 minutes, we bumped into Jason and his roommate Athos. They both were very nice and sympathetic. No going out can't end without awkward situations. While talking to Jason, I got a message from Rhys if I was at Ladies Night. I didn't reply and all of a sudden I saw him entering the bar. We bumped into each other and he decided to talk to Jason and Athos, and ignore Babs and I. Didn't really mind that. The 4 of us stayed until 1.30am and went back home.

10/06/2016
Fagged as we were, we slept until 11 am in our private room. Later, we went to Top End Consulting again, but again, still no new jobs... Jason joined us at the Waterfront. After chilling at the pool, we went back home and in the evening I watched 'Premonition'.

11/06/2016
Babs and I went to the Recreation lagoon today. Sitting down at our

usual spot in the shade, I saw somebody waving towards us. I looked back and realised that Jason and Athos were there too with two other friends. That was funny as we didn't know about each other's plans. The other guys were Pete and Tim.

In the evening, we went together to the Greek Festival at the Esplenade. The atmosphere was really nice, seeing people dancing the Sertaki together. We explored a little bit and had some typical Greek dessert: Eclair (didn't know this was Greek), honey puffs (looks like our 'oliebollen', but with a lot of honey and no white sugar on top of it) and a croissant with cream in it. Around 10.30 pm we went home. It was our last night in the private room, so we needed to pack our bags and make sure we wouldn't forget something in the room.

12/06/2016
Back to the 6-share with the bad aircon, hooray... We were reunited with our African roommate of the bed bug-room. After the check-in, Mark picked us up to go to the Berry Springs National Park. This was a 45min drive. The place was very nice with a little waterfall. You would expect the water to be cold as it is just natural spring water,

but the temperature was very nice. The water was so clear that we could see everything underneath us, most of that were rocks.

For lunch, we had chicken wraps at a picnic area, chilled a little bit afterwards and went back in the water. There was one drunk guy who wanted to die I guess. He climbed on a tree, 10m above sea level, you could here the branches break. Nobody even knew if the water was deep enough for his jump. He didn't care, continued climbing and finally jumped in the water. He is lucky he survived, really took a great risk. We went back at 5 pm.

Feeling like having a bbq in the evening, we went back to the Greek festival with Jason. Unfortunately, having arrived late, most of the food was already sold out. The sausages looked good, but while eating, I had the feeling I was eating plastic. It was so disgusting. No more chicken and pork, I finally decided to eat a wrap with lamb. Didn't like it so much, but finished it as I was really hungry. While we walked to the festival, I took some time to skype with my parents, as it was Father's Day in Belgium.

13/06/2016
Everybody in our room was very frustrated this morning. A girl woke up around 6 am to have a shower, dry her hair and pack her bags this early. I hate it when people don't pack the evening before, it is so selfish not to bother about somebody else's sleep. She did not even bother to just put all lights on while everybody was still sleeping.
We woke up around 10.30 am and went to have breakfast together with Jason. We took a bar at Smith Street, in the mall outside.

Later on, after breakfast, we decided to walk to the Waterfront and the Sea Wharf. Arriving at the Waterfront, we bumped into Mark. Felt a little bit weird, two Tinder "dates" at the same place, same time, meeting each other. Mark didn't have to work today as it was Queens Birtday, a public holiday. While we were at the Sea Wharf, we saw a massive cruise ship arriving at the harbour. Jason had to fly in the afternoon, so we went back to the hostel and sat down at the pool of YHA. The water was really cold and dirty.

Wanting to have a quiet night, Babs and I watched 'Finding Nemo' in our room and went afterwards to bed.

14/06/2016
Nothing really to do in Darwin CBD, Babs and I decided to take the bus to the suburbs. It is 7 AUD for the whole day, 3 AUD for three hours. Our first stop was Parap. As we walked out of the bus, we were in the middle of nowhere. Even with the fact that we were on Stuart Highway, there were just no shops in the neighbourhood. We started walking further until all of a sudden I got a message from Jason, asking if we were the two backpackers on Stuart Highway, looking like they were lost. That was really weird that he saw us. He came just from work. He offered us a lift to the suburbs and guided us a little bit. Nightcliff was really nice with the pier. But unfortunately, like everywhere around Darwin, you can't swim in the sea, too much of a risk of bumping into crocodiles.

Last stop was Casuarina Mall. Jason took of his pilot costume, as he didn't want people to look at him in a strange way. We walked into Woolworths and what did I see........... BISTO SAUCE!!!!!!! Njammie!!!! I bought two boxes and I am planning to send it home.
We took the SMELLY bus back, Jason had already been gone, and took a shower.

In the evening we could enjoy some free sausages again at the hostel. We finished our night by watching 'Happy Feet' in our room.

15/06/2016

Nina, a German girl from the hostel, recommended me to apply at a bar, called 'Rorkes'. She is working there too and says she earns a lot of money. So I checked and updatet my resume and went to the bar in the morning. The manager was not there, so I left my resume. Never heard of them ever again. I don't have really experience as a bartender or waitress. Rorkes is very close to the Waterfront, so we meet up with Margot at the recreation beach. She was already there, exploring her books of Bali, as that was her next destination. Bali is only a 2h flight from here, crazy right?!

Later that day, Jason came to the Waterfront as well and introduced his friend James. He just came back from freezing Melbourne. It's their home. Laying in the grass it's not so comfortable, so we decided to go to James's appartment for a swim. The appartment block has like two pools, a tennis court, ... His father is very rich, I could never afford a place like that. The appartment was very nice and big. We watched the sunset and the view was amazing. James had still leftovers of food from yesterday, so we put them on the bbq and ate it on the balcony.
After dinner, we went back to the hostel to pack our stuff as we had to change rooms again. The sink of the new room was so dirty, the girls were not friendly either. They took the whole room to themselves, almost no place to leave our bags.

Stupid is the fact that the room was smaller than a 4-share and we had to share it with 6 in total. We also received a messafe from Top End Consulting that we were invited to a V8 casting the following day.

Today's story of an English member of YHA:
The guy had sex with another girl from the hostel in the bathroom of a 6-share room. He apparently put the girl on the sink and the whole sink and washtable just came off the wall and was broken. Imagine how the girl must have felt like. She would have blamed her weight. They had to pay 200 AUD for the damage. The next day, Dave the manager, installed a new sink in the room.

16/06/2016
Full of energy, Babs and I went to Top End Consulting in the morning for the V8 briefing. We all received a paper with information on it, such as dress code, some rules, where we had to meet, ... As Babs and I didn't have black shoes and pants, we took the bus to the Casuarina Mall. We were lucky, at Kmart we found shoes for 10 AUD and black trousers for 9 AUD.

A few days ago I made a bet with Athos. He told me that Norway was not a part of the EU and I just couldn't believe that.
Surprised as I was, he was right. The deal was, in case he lost, he had to make a typical Greek dish and for me the other way around, a Belgian meal.

I lost, so today I did some shopping of groceries for preparing the Belgian dish. I decided to make 'Gehaktballetjes met kriekjes en puree' and for dessert 'Rijstpap'.

Believe it or not, but in Darwin, it is very hard to find the right ingredients, such as f.e. vanilla sugar, saffron, ... The minced beef was not so tastful, the mashed potatoes were already cold by the time the beef was ready. But at least the 'Rijstpap' was lovely. We were 5 in total to eat: Athos, Jason, James, Babs and I. I bought 3kg potatoes and 2kg minced beef. That was maybe a little bit exaggerated :).

Having had dinner, we all chatted until 2 am. Jason brought us back to the hostel.

17/06/2016
It had been "a long time ago" since we last had been to the Wave Lagoon. Sounds kind of sarcastic right. Jason joined us to the lagoon and in the evening we ate the rest of the

Belgian food from yesterday.
After dinner, we went all to Discovery. There was a party called 'Hot Dub Time Machine'. The DJ started at 12 with music from the fifties. He played about 2-3 songs a year. Logically he ended by the year 2016.
Because Babs and I had to work early the following day, we went home around 2.30 am. We didn't stay until the end, the party lasted until 3 am, so we never knew which song maded in 2016. My opinion stays the same: The best music is from the nineties!

I loved 'Daft Punk - One more time / Sir Mix-a-Lot - Baby got back (song of my best friend Sanna and I) / Vengaboys / Ace of Base, ...'
We saw balloons above us on the dancefloor. They released them the moment the DJ started to play 'Nena-99 Luftballons'. That was so cool!

18/06/2016
Oh My God! Only 3 hours of sleep. I had to wake up at 6.20 am to get myself ready to work at the V8 circuit. I felt so sick, kind of in panic that I won't survive a whole day of working. The minced beef of yesterday was not really well cooked, and with my sensitive stomach, I think I suffered from a food poisoning.

Babs had a shift one hour later. I had to be at Skycity at 8 am. It was a 30min walk from the hostel to Skycity. There was a tent where we could fir our uniforms. Half an hour later the bus took us to Berrimah, Hidden Valley. By arrival, we got a little briefing and then had to go our tent. I was one of the waitresses of tent 1, the furthest without aircon....

Alan, a very friendly employee of Skycity, was my supervisor. I liked the job, but it was so hot. We had to serve drinks, clean tables, ...
The first break was at 10.30 am. I ate some bananas to get some energy. Around the noon it started to get very hot in the tent and we had to walk a lot. As I had new shoes, I started to feel pain around my toes and ankles. I knew what that meant: Blisters, lots of them, and nothing in my bag to cover them.

The next break, lunch, was at 2.30 pm. I was starving. The tent where we had to eat was standing in the sun and it had no aircon or fan in it. You could easily faint in it. I tried to eat very fast and drink a lot of raspberry juice to have enough sugar in my system. I think it was between 40-45°C in it.

I didn't see Babs the whole day. Later on, around 5.30 pm, most of the people were gone and we had to set up all tables for the next day. That was not evident... The organisation was not really good prepared. There was the organisation of Skycity and the one of V8 itself. Both of them had another set-up in minds. First I did what Skycity wanted to have. A few minutes later, a lady from the V8 came angry and said to change everything the way she wanted it. One situation like that I could handle in the heat. But of course, it didn't stay with that one situation. I had to change things like 5 times, repeat it over and over again. A waste of time and energy if you ask

my opinion + it causes a lot of frustration.

Tired and full of pain I was, work stopped at 7 pm. We had to wait for the bus of 7.20 pm. Fonda, a lovely local who I worked with, offered me a lift to the hostel. I was so grateful for that as I couldn't walk on my feet anymore.

Arrived at the hostel, Babs was already there. She worked in another tent and they had the possibility to go home around 5.30 pm. We both were very tired and had feet covered by blisters. We went early to bed to get some sleep, but that didn't last for long....

19/06/2016
Miss Asia in our room was in a selfish mood, waking up at 4am this morning, didn’t mind to make a lot of noise in the room and put the lights on so everybody was wide awake. I love those sharing nights in the hostel, especially when you have to work that day...

Again waking up early in the morning. I put a lot of plasters on my feet, hoping it would help a little bit against the pain. Smart as I was, I walked to Skycity in flipflops. That saved me at least a little bit of suffering. Today’s shift started at 8.30 am in Hidden Valley. We had to do the same job as yesterday, but they added two new French girls to our tent. According to me, they sucked at

their job and we didn’t need the extra help. There were a lot of moments that we just stood still and waited for work, because there was just nothing to do. I got three tables yesterday, and the French girls decided to pick my tables. I told Alan, my supervisor, about this situation, but he only said that he was aware of this and that we would need the extra help during lunch time.

One of the French girls refused to speak English to me. I know I can speak French, but just didn’t want to give her credit for that. If she would have been friendly, I wouldn’t have mind it. But she felt so superior and wanted people to adapt to her language, I don’t think so. I kept speaking English, whether she liked it or not. We are in Australia, not in France.

I got my first break at 10am. It was a good moment to take another painkiller for my feet, because they were really killing me. Lunch break was at 2pm. Again had to take a painkiller, pain didn’t want to go away. The more I walked, the more I suffered. And trust me, I had to walk a lot during the day.

The only thing that lightened the pain a little bit, was the appreciation of the people. The customers were the same from yesterday, and some of them were very friendly and said that they really appreciated the way I was helping and serving them, that I was doing a real great job. That gave me a satisfying feeling.

Another thing that frustrated me, was one of the new French girls who didn’t mind to dress the way she liked it. Babs and I especially went to Casuarina Mall to buy the asked shoes and trousers. The girl just wore jeans, white and black shoes, and had her cellphone in her pants. And nobody said anything about it… They told us very strictly that none of this was allowed, but apparently she could make the exception over here.

In the afternoon, Babs went to search me at my tent and told me she had the permission to stop working and go home with the bus of 4.30pm. As I already took 5 painkillers today and still suffered so much from the pain, I asked Alan if I could go home as well as I almost couldn’t walk on my feet anymore. He just wanted me to bring some glasses downstairs and that was fine by me. I didn’t had my watch on, so by the time I was finished with work, the bus of 4.30pm already took off. I had to wait 30 minutes for another bus to come and pick me up. I put my shoes off and it was horrible. I had one crooked toe, for a while I really thought it was broken. Not being able to walk anymore, I asked the bus driver to drop me off at the bus station of Skycity instead of the parking. Just my bad luck, the bus to Darwin CBD didn’t saw me and took off. I had to wait 30 min for the next one, no cellphone, no idea what time it was. I waited, and waited and waited. Seemed the bus of 30min didn’t come, that can happen as it was a Sunday. So I waited again another half an hour for the next bus. Finally that one came, fortunately. Being used to another bus, I thought I let the bus stop on the right bus station. You can guess, of course that bus had other bus stations. So with my sore feet, I still had to walk more than 500m to the hostel. Around 7pm I finally arrived at the right destination, the YHA.

No energy left over, Jason picked us up to go out for dinner.

While waiting for the schnitzel, I almost felt asleep on the table. After the food, he brought us back to the hostel and it didn’t last too long to fall asleep.

20/06/2016
Timmie’s bday today!! Feel so sad not being there to celebrate it, but I thought it was a good idea to surprise him with a videochat. First, during the day, Babs and I went to the Wave Lagoon. We agreed on the fact that we deserved some quality and relaxing time after having suffered so much pain on the V8. Jason joined us later that day, as he only had to work half a day.

In the evening he made us some wraps. Babs was so tired, that she decided to stay in the hostel to catch up some sleep. Jason picked me up and after dinner we watched ‘Independance Day’ on the television. He had to wake up early the next day for work, so he asked me if I would mind it to go home, even if the movie was not finished yet. I agreed to that and he dropped me off at the hostel.

Evening in Australia means that it is not early in the morning

anymore in Belgium. Before heading towards bed, I tried to do the videochat with Tim. Luckily for me, he answered his phone, so I was very glad to see him back again. It was the first time since I had been back in Australia. The chat was short but worthwhile, as Tim was at his work and couldn’t talk that long. I was happy that he liked the surprise, so went satisfied to bed.

So exciting, Wave Lagoon again today. What else is new. Today was the 6th time already we had to change rooms in the hostels. I think, by the time we will leave the hostel, we definitely would have seen more than half of the rooms. After sunbathing at the lagoon, we went to Jason’s apartment to have some ice cream with chocolate sauce, njummie! Jason put the television on and it was all over the news: Bomb alarm in Brussels, close to City 2. I immediately had to think about my brother who works close to this building. I send him a message and luckily he answered me back that everything was fine, that it was just a false alarm. I hate it how this world is changing since the last few years. Why can’t people just try to live in peace? All those innocent lives that are being killed by those stupid self-murdering terrorists. If they want to kill themselves, that is their decision, but don’t involve other people in this.
In the evening it was free sausage again! Hooray! Jason, Babs and I decided to go to Litchfield National Park and Katherine in the weekend. I was so excited about it. Couldn’t wait until the weekend was there! Jason also arranged an overnight stay at his friend Isaac in Katherine. He and his wife just got a baby and were happy to have us for a night. It was a good opportunity for Jason to see them again, as they were planning to move back to New-Zealand in a few weeks. Everybody happy :).
After the free sausage, Babs and I went to our new room and saw our new roommates, well at least one of them. It was a guy, I guess around his end thirties, looking like a weirdo/pedofile, sorry for using these words, but it really seemed that way. He had something on him that gave you goosebumps, not in the good way. And by the way, he smelt very bad as well!

22/06/2016
Of course we had to have a man in our room who snores. I noticed that he fell asleep in the same clothes he wore yesterday. In the beginning I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to that, but that was about to change soon.. When he left the room, he didn’t change clothes. He just woke up from his bed, put his boots on and left for the whole day. Not even a shower?!
Oh and something else happened in our room. While waking up, I saw that Babs had send me a message in the night. I didn’t see that, because the stupid wifi was not working again. She sent that she was hoping the two people were not about to do sexual affairs. Didn’t understand at all what she meant by that, until the moment I looked down towards the other bunk bed. Apparently we had 5 people in a 4-share. There was a girl sleeping together with a guy in the same bed. Kind of gross, they really looked dirty. The only thing I had in mind, was being happy that I slept with my headphones and didn’t see or heard anything last night. Because one of them was enjoying a

free night at the hostel, they left the room early in the morning, avoiding the risk to be caught by the reception.
For lunch, Babs and I went to the sea wharf. There are all kinds of little snackbars over there. The food (steak with pepper sauce) was disgusting. Didn’t last long before I got the feeling being sick of it. Aussies really don’t know how to make sauce. Everytime I order extra sauce, it just taste like nothing and looks awful.
By arrival in our room, there was an unpleasant surprise waiting for us. We opened the door and it was not even possible to breath because of the smell. Mister weirdo didn’t bother to put his reeking boots outside the room, so the room was covered with a disgusting smell of sweat socks. Nasty bwoak! We bought ourselves a spray with lemon odor and used it in the whole room. He didn’t say anything about that. I just can’t believe he didn’t do anything about his smell. It was not possible to not smell it.
At least we had something to look forward to and to escape the smelling room. Jason picked us up and made us some real Italian spaghetti. It was delicious. He has Italian roots, so I guess it’s right to say that Italian people know how to make the best spaghetti:).
My lucky day today, as I saw on the television that the new season of Criminal Minds was about to start today. So excited! I made a bet with Athos that I was able to shut up during the two episodes and not say a word at all. Guess what, I won! Price: Free ice cream from Trampoline, that is soooooo delightful, fresh made, njum njum.
Coming home, the lovely smell of sweat socks was waiting for us again. Joyful we were. Sprayed again with the lemon and tried to fall asleep.

23/06/2016
Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Again, the guy slept with the same clothes he was wearing the days before, that makes it already 48hours?! The thought only makes me already feel like vomiting.And the worst thing about it, that he again didn’t shower and again left the room with the same clothes. D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G
We received a message from Top End Consulting to come on over to work for Skycity on Territory Day (July 1st). The agency put us on the list as available to work, so we only had to wait a couple of days for the exact confirmation and details.
We also asked them if our payslip from V8 was correct, as they didn’t put tax off the amount. Apparently they only take tax if you earn more than 450 AUD a week. The system doesn’t really make sense because we ran into a girl who worked at the V8 as well and she earned a little more as I did, but still less than 450 AUD, and they took 5 AUD tax from her… No need to worry about it, guess they know what they are doing.
In the afternoon we took the bus to Casuarina. I planned to buy some presents for my family, as we have a lot of birthday to come: Daddy (June 30th), Jade (July 3rd), Lars (July 8th) and PJ (July 9th). We also bought a gift for Athos. Today he reached 500 hours of flying and that is a big deal in the aviation world. We tried to buy him a plane toy, but that was easier said than done. Was so hard to find a toy, ‘Planes’ is not so popular over here.
Taking the bus back to Darwin CBD, it was loaded with a lot of Aboriginal people. I don’t have a problem with them, but they have a very specific body smell and that is particularly not a good one to be honest.
Back home, we started to pack our bags to put them in Jason’s car later. We were going on a roadtrip in the weekend and didn’t want to leave our bags in the luggage store of the hostel. Would be a lot safer if our stuff is taking care of in the apartment of Jason and Athos.
Around 7 pm, Jason picked us up, we put all the stuff in the car’s boot and went to ‘The Cav’, a nice restaurant known for its steak. Every Thursday they do a promo: 2 steaks for the price of one. Sounds like the perfect deal eeeey. We had to be an even number to make advantage of the promo, so we were 6 in total: Jason, Athos, James, Pete, Babs and I. The steak was lovely, but the sauce not that njummie.
All of a sudden, just after having had dinner, Pete stood up and left within a few seconds. I was kind of in shock, didn’t see that one coming. But the guys explained me that it was not that abnormal. He just sometimes does that. I felt ok by that, as long as he was not upset or angry by something.
Ladies Night in Monsoons, we had two drinks over there. James was already getting a little bit tipsy. It was a quiet night, nothing that spectacular, so we all went home around 11.30pm.
Of course we had to bump into mister sweat socks again in the room. Sprayed again and went to bed. I looked at the guy and noticed he had AGAIN the saw clothes on, makes it 72 hours now, right? EEEEEEEW!