Bath time

Scscscshhhhrrrllllll. Make a sound like slurping on a slushee only using your spit for moisture. Every now and then suck a little harder. That’s the noise the bath used to make when it emptied at my old house when I was a kid. Some sewer dwelling monster sucking the water down the drain and making mini whirlpools form at my end. And parents thought we just didn’t want to get clean!

But when I empty the german tub here at work, no sound is made. Just a slow disappearance of water until only my muck and a few hairs are left on the bath floor. Why?

So not much going on these days. MY life is pretty routine. Dislike that word and it’s connotations. For me it is not really a routine yet. More a means to an end.

(Boring life part…)

I usually wake around 7:30. Or 7am if Jo changes his alarm and doesn’t think to tell me! Ended up being ready for work at like half the hour! Crazy early!

Work then starts round 8am after a breaky of muesli, banana and joghurt. Jo joins me at around 9 most days. We waste an hour planning what to do all day and then do what we do every day. Sand a bit. Paint a bit. Smash a bit. Paint a bit more. And so on. Majority of the work at the mo is painting. Half and hour lunch and a coffee break and the day usually ends 10-11hrs later, $200NZ richer, by like 6:30pm. Dinner followed by an hour of mindless mate chatter and then music on, into our respective baths and it’s time to soak for an hour plus and for me to write something if any thoughts decide to visit me. Maybe a quick workout in the climbing gym we are building or a visit to the supermarket to fill in the night. Then it is bed as the body is usually wrecked.

(End of boring part.. mostly)

My arms are smarting. If you get paint on yours, I wouldn’t recommend using sandpaper to get it off. Ouch sums up the after effects well. Especially if you plan on bathing any time soon.

Not much else to report. In England you can buy mushy peas in a tin. In Germany you can buy jars of pickled sausages or bags of sauerkraut.

Oh, and there was a pig wandering the autobahn yesterday. 200km/hr car plus pig = not good. Wonder what happened to it? Did someone save it?

The boss

Stephen, pronounced Stchefen, is our boss here. A more laid back guy would be hard to find. He truly lives with hardly a care. Honorary kiwi for sure. He works with chemicals but lives to climb, hey, i wonder if i can make this one rhyme? this week's been crazy, 11hr days. 8 days straight, left me missing me old ways. up at 7, bed at 10, but body is exhausted... nope, too tired to rhyme for now.

Jo's bar

Jo still loves Sophass. I think that's awesome. I hope he goes back there soon. Why not? He is thinking of opening a bar there perhaps. Near Sianikville. He'd kill me to be writing this (o:

I hope he does do it. Then Sam and I can head over after Sth America and visit. Free drinks as we work behind the bar and in between we can tour the area once more. Take Sam to Vang viang!

He could call it Super Jo. Or Where it's at. Any ideas? Maybe No idea.

Would be neat if he owned a bar. And he's lost the travel bug so why not work somewhere cool till it comes back? Some people dream of what he has the chance to do. Own a bar on a tropical beach? Girl by your side? They'd kill for it.

Out damn spot! Out!

It is now Saturday the 23rd of Feb. I have a spot of paint on my eyeball that I can't blink away.

Work goes on. Life goes on. Jo and I have started to build a climbing wall in the attic here. Comes with a rolling pin I use to do pull ups on. We also ran a couple of laps of the stairs and then while carrying a 30kg bag of plaster. A few push ups and pull ups and we were done. This routine hasn't lasted though. Wasn't even to be repeated. I'm trying protein dinners too. Fish, eggs, rice, olives and capsicum. This routine has died too, haha.

We have just come back from a day off. We spent it in Karlsruhe at Jo's aunt's. I took his cousin to the pools for a bit. Swam a few laps. Borrowed some goggles off the pool attendant so they were real laps. There was a girl swimming too in my lane. Not that there were lane ropes. I plan on going back now because of her, haha. Played with Chris and his friend on the slides for a bit too. Each time they would take off, they would pull their pants right down as they thought there togs were slowing them down. Brilliant.

Then that night we went for a drink at an Irish bar. A beer and a snakebite. I suggested the bite after trying it in the Isle. Beer, cider and a drop of black current juice. Tastes like juice but has a kick to it. Then off to bed before work the next day. We left at 7!

Is the worst job to be a butterfly collector? You kill what you love.

Today at work, while fixing a ceiling to the bathroom I stole a glance outside and an aborigini rode past on a bike! I'm in Germany!

Dear diary, (man if you ever wrote that for real, you are sad. Sad and sad. Sorry. But you are.)

Today was the first day of work where I was over it. Couldn’t go around it, couldn’t go under it and so I was left being over it. And it could, and would, have been a good day only someone was playing with time. Slowing it down till it was almost still. Honestly wouldn’t be amazed if it was going backwards for half of it. As you’d imagine, this made the day drag on a bit… How was it for you? On the 21^st Feb? I heard on the radio similar thoughts to mine were voiced by uni students worldwide stuck in life draining lectures but if you were on holiday, I reckon you ought to thank the guy!

- if you want to get paid at work for doing nothing, try drinking lots of water = toilet time, and if you are truly committed, try running your hand down jib board = splinter removal time.

Or that was this morning. Then the person playing with the hours messed up big time, spilt the tin and sent time pouring out of control all over the place. Time became an unreality. Or was that the paint fumes? Woah, there’s a troll sitting under my ladder! Where am I?

Couple of hours later (I update when I get a thought you see) and I am entering the land of the bad trip. It feels as though I am painting door frames with a miniscule brush over and over, door after door, room after room and it just won’t stop!!!

Kill me, dress me, wash me, run with me, learn the time with me… become me!

Sitting in a cauldron of boiling water, the likes of which were last seen on Island adventures gone wrong when the little pygmy natives cooked the lost white missionary, I try in vain to blink away the streams of liquid salt pouring into my eyes. The instant tan line I have attained in less than a minute is sadly a bright red one and the ominous music in the background is giving off the impression things might not be looking too good for me right now.

And fudge is it HOT!

My armpits are foaming though that could be the soap. Or on the other hand, I could have armpit rabies??

Just knocked off another 10hr day and writing my journal in the bathtub is probably not the greatest idea I have had this lifetime. Oh, did I say? I’m now a builder.

Flew back into Germany bout a week ago from old England ways. Couch surfed around Frankfurt for a few days and then hitched down to Karlsruhe. Couch surfed some more and then moved on to Landau where I met up with Jo again and began work. Needed some down time.

Oh, just checked. It is sweat. Thought for a moment that perhaps the shower was running.

- If my sweat is this salty, does that mean I have too much salt in my diet??

So far at work I have smashed two walls, 30 windows, and a door. Also stripped wallpaper, sanded and ground walls, selotaped paper to a floor, drawn lines, built Noah’s arc and screwed some screws. I have also inhaled enough paint fumes to get an entire country high and so all in all, a pretty productive week I feel. Should have been inhaling primer fumes but the paint tin looked the same and it was all in German so if you ask an ENGLISH speaking person to primer the walls, how the hell are they gonna be able to tell the difference! Oops (o:

Now, with Jackson playing in the background, a stomach full of blue berries and rice pudding and of course, the sweat aiding in keeping the bath full, I lye contemplating, well, nothing really.

I prefer showers but I was told I couldn’t take one yet as the tiles hadn’t been laid. Um, how about the fact that there is no shower head either? Wouldn’t that be a pretty good reason?

I am quietly content these days. It’s good to be doing something productive and good to catch up with Jo again. Lots of laughs and no thoughts of the moro for now. Never mind trying to remember the name of yet another person met along the travelling road (O:

- If there is a soulmate for everyone and someone settles for less, are they stealing someone else’s soulmate??

My hair goes past my shoulders now at the back. Some would call it a mullet, I call it awesome Mr Henry. Um, actually no I don’t. I call it The invisible wisdom of a thousand trees. Um, no again. I guess I call it a mullet too. Haha.

Oh, Venga Boys.

Hey, anyone want to tour Ireland, Scotland and Iceland with me? Otherwise met in South America in around Oct? Anyone want anything posted from the land of sausage?

Hitch hiking

WHy did I go off hitch hiking? When did I become averse to it? Catching, and paying, for a bus from the airport to Frankfurt Mein. Why? Heading off to Karlsruhe I found myself once again tempted to take the train. Why? No hassle was one reason. Embarrassment of rejection another. Thankfully though, reason came through and I soon found myself standing proudly in a gutter, thumb erect to test the wind of the day, a stupid grin stuck to my face and a both a hopeful smile and doubtful grimace visible in the depths of my eyes.

A bus from the airport goes past.
The driver waves with a smile.

Some girls in a car drive past.
They toot, wave and offer a smile.

An old man putters past.
He shakes a finger and wrinkles his knowledged brow.

Beeeeep! A horn sounds behind me. I turn to see two cars waiting just down the road. 15 minutes has passed.

A garden designer picks me up. Nice man. We drive to the next town. Nice man. We get lost and enter and exit the town four times in the next hour. Nice man. He drops me at a rest stop near the autobahn at the end. Nice man.

I wait 3 minutes.

A campervan pulls out and then back in again. A man climbs out and invites me in. He has been drinking. He talks a lot. The driver has little to say. I smile and nod. I understand little. The noise of the road muffling. They drop me in Heidelburg city. A city is not a good spot for a hitch hiker.

I walk to a road leading away from society. I wait 5 minutes.

A lady pulls over 3 lanes to reach me. But we are heading different places. We are heading nowhere. She suggests a sign. Idea. I make one with pen and paper. ‘KARL’ it reads. I wonder if some think it is my name?

I wait 5 minutes.

A guy from Cameroon pulls over. Good music. We drive off. His place is close to mine. The car steams on the autobahn so we pull in for water. He offers to take me to the train station. Only 20 minutes to Karlsruhe from there. “No thank you” I respond. I’m dropped next to a road heading to Karlsruhe.

I wait 2 minutes.

A truck pulls over. A man leans over and opens the door. A big black face greets me. White teeth and shaggy hair. Bad breath. But he has a bone and so ignores me mostly. Just chews at it while the driver and I swap pointless tales. He’s a carpenter. His dog is a mongrel. I help deliver some furniture. He drops me on my street.

I walk to Kim’s. I’m couch surfing her place tonight. She invites me in but we are soon off again. This time to her friend’s place to play board games. 3am comes and goes. Time for bed. My couch awaits. She has a dog too. A ridgeback. Nice dog.

Life...

90 years = 788 923.149 hours

24 years = 210 379.506 hours

this means I have about 578 543.643 hours left to live! that's heapS!

cool

and i am alive. but made of lifeless atoms. take me apart one atom at a time and put all the atoms in a pile and nothing 'alive' is left...