town day

You may wonder why I’m boring you with the small-ities of my day to day life in Australia. I’ve studied the trends associated with my blog and the amount of people that read it. If I write regularly, people read regularly. So write I will. I’ll write while I’m back in Australia so that when I’m over in Europe, you’ll still read and know what’s going on.

So there you have it. Read away! Tuesday was a day of rest. I was fairly zombie-ish but managed to get 6 loads of washing done to take the stink out of my clothes. Serious stink, mind you. Not a slight one. I couldn’t wear my clothes because they stunk SO much. The good news is that they just needed a wash to get the Mongolian pollution out of them.

I’m still having trouble putting toilet paper down the toilet and I’m eating like a horse because I see all these yummy things that I haven’t had for ages and just.must.have. For example, I needed chicken chips yesterday. There was no small packet, so I got the big one (you know, the party size one) and ate the LOT. Oh man. It better stop soon. I have a meat pie, sausage roll (I’ll make my own), lots of dumplings, and some lollies left to devour before I stop.

Wednesday was town day. I had to get a new Medicare card, License, debit card, film, health insurance….. I went to Pilates with Nikki and then had a massage to get rid of some of the sore bits from Mongolia. Salad sandwich and custard tart for lunch and I checked out the Ariat boots so that Ebony and I can go in and buy some when she finishes exams. I tried to get my license but without my passport I had no ID. I tried to get a bank statement but to no avail (and three visits to the RTA and Commbank respectively). I’m still driving illegally. Health insurance with Westfund, because it’s local and it’s easiest. I’ll go in today to finalise that and get me some decent new sunnies. Then I got my hair lopped off. It needed a good cut.

There were the ‘where is Mongolia’, ‘What is Mongolia’, ‘What do the people look like’ and ‘is it Asian’ questions. All the things I was dreading about coming back to. I know it sounds snobby of me but I swear it’s not. It just sucks that other people don’t even know where I went, let alone understand the concept of a nomadic people, developing countries, corrupt governments and pollution beyond anything they have seen before. It sucks because I have to explain, and then know that most of what I said wasn’t understood. It sucks because I know what I’ve seen, and not many people understand what I’ve seen. But it’s okay! It’s way better than I thought! I guess I don’t have the added stress of BEING in Mongolia now, so my tolerance level for everything has changed and it means I can tolerate the feelings that go with trying to explain a different culture and being a part of it.

I got home (it’s a 40km drive to town), popped in to say hello to Nate and Nikki and chilled out for a minute. I’m still exhausted. Orkhon Valley trip, epic week of packing and goodbyes, Olgii week and then my 3 days of travelling to get home. For dinner we went to the pub. The Cooyal Pub. It’s halfway to town for us, which means it’s about 25km from Mudgee. It’s a small pub that’s gone through some upheavals through its life but it’s currently thriving as the local beer and pool joint. They sell lots of by-products of chicken schnitzel, steak, deep fried lamb chops, pizza etc. When I asked for a glass of white, I had two options: cask or fruity lexia. I chose cask, I don’t think I could ever drink fruity lexia again. Dinner was nice but I hit the wall pretty quickly.

Lots of sleep sleep sleep in my comfy comfy comfy bed with a big doona and decent pillows and the best of all: my teddy! This morning I’ve been baby sitting Nate. He was a bit naughty last night because he’s been having trouble eating and stuff, so Nikki’s having a sleep while I entertain him.

I’ll go in to town later to get a license and fix up my health insurance. You know, heaps less QLD’ers that I met have health insurance, because when you pay your (?) bill (I think your electricity bill), you also pay for ambulance cover, so the whole state is covered. In NSW we don’t have that option, so everyone has at least ambulance cover. And when I mean everyone, I mean, some people – more than QLD.

The photos above were taken in town yesterday – Mudgee. It was a hot-ish day but lovely all the same. Smells are great at the moment. Everything smells so good!!!! Chips, the air, rain on the ground, food smells, cheese smells, fresh clothes smells.. Everything!!!

Nate’s just woken up, he’s not so keen on watching me type. Adios!