I have less than two months left in splendid Spain. Until then, here's my countdown of things to do:
- a 5,000 word research project which involves surveys and interviews with Spaniards, as well as another 2,500 word essay for my uni in Sydney
- three exams for my uni in Spain, whilst keeping up with the homework for each class
- send a box of all the things I've amassed over the past year that won't fit in my suitcase (by things, I mean clothes and shoes)
- if nowhere else, visit friends in Salamanca and La Carolina in Spain, and Casablanca and Marrakesh in Morroco
I have a year left of university waiting for me when I get back to Sydney. I feel like I'm the only one STILL studying. Everyone else is graduating or has graduated, working graduate positions. They're getting engaged and married and having babies.
I feel like there's something wrong with me for not wanting to settle down. I'll be 23 by the time I graduate. And even then I want a few solid years of that thing I've been working for since I was 5. I think they call it a career. I want to commit to it fully, sans husband and children.
If I do that for at least 5 years, I'll be 28 by the time I even consider walking down the aisle. Assuming I even have a steady boyfriend at the time.
So instead of channelling my inner Bridezilla or changing nappies, my to-do list looks more like this:
- get a smart phone and have my first mobile contract
- find a new job, probably two
- take the L's test (again)
- get my P's
- buy a car
- get a motorbike license
- buy a motorbike
- buy a house, rent it out
- visit my family in The Philippines, probably get attacked by mosquitoes
- have a white Christmas
- spend a year or two living in a foreign country (again)
- travel more, everywhere
- improve my Spanish, learn French and Arabic
- decorate my house with my own art
- read more books
- write more
- date someone who challenges and pushes me, makes me laugh and understands me, someone I can trust completely
- fall in love with the above person, marry them, have babies with them, adopt a child with him, get a French bulldog and call it Hombre
- write a column or book (or both)
- learn an instrument, piano maybe?
- reach self-actualisation (Maslow, anyone?)
- re-learn how to use a sewing machine, and make shit!
That should keep me busy for a while. What does your list look like?
Love, Noeline
xox
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Monday, 12 September 2011
Fame or Fortune?
"If you could be either rich or famous, which one would you rather be?" asked my friend rather suddenly.
"Famous," I decided. Because for me, fame is a form of immortality. You live for as long as someone remembers you.
Imagine if everything you ever thought or did was reduced to nothing. Like you never existed.
This very fear of being forgotten has borne some of the biggest monuments known to mankind. Pyramids. Palaces. Cathedrals. Statues. The bigger the better, because the more people see it, the more they'll be reminded, and the less they'll forget.
But without any slaves under my power or a royal bloodline behind me, I'd love to be remembered for my writing. I'd love knowing that centuries from now someone would still be reading the very words I put together and stir their thoughts from my grave.
And what about you, dear reader? Fame or fortune?
Love, Noeline
xox
"Famous," I decided. Because for me, fame is a form of immortality. You live for as long as someone remembers you.
Imagine if everything you ever thought or did was reduced to nothing. Like you never existed.
This very fear of being forgotten has borne some of the biggest monuments known to mankind. Pyramids. Palaces. Cathedrals. Statues. The bigger the better, because the more people see it, the more they'll be reminded, and the less they'll forget.
But without any slaves under my power or a royal bloodline behind me, I'd love to be remembered for my writing. I'd love knowing that centuries from now someone would still be reading the very words I put together and stir their thoughts from my grave.
And what about you, dear reader? Fame or fortune?
Love, Noeline
xox
Sunday, 11 September 2011
How to pay for dinner and still be an asshole
When dating there are guys who pay for everything, guys who pay half, and guys who pay nothing.
But there's also the kind who'll shout groups of friends to show who's boss, then plan a date with his girlfriend and ask her to take care of the bill upon its arrival. Who is he really dating in this situation?
There's also the confused guy fighting an inner battle. One side of him wants to be all modern and advocate equality of the sexes by going Dutch, and the other side of him wants to be all romantic and gentlemanly by paying for everything. So as a coping mechanism against footing the bill he'll complain about how much of a rip off everything is and how much better his mum can make the same dish. He'll count how many hours he worked to pay for the meal in front of you, and how much money that leaves him for the rest of the week and how now he can't buy the pair of shoes he's been eyeing for the past couple of weeks. Then before you know it you realise you lost your sense of taste about five mouthfuls ago. He's been barging on so much now it's impossible to enjoy your food and everything was just a stupid waste of time and money.
Guys, whatever you decide, be graceful about it.
Love, Noeline
xox
But there's also the kind who'll shout groups of friends to show who's boss, then plan a date with his girlfriend and ask her to take care of the bill upon its arrival. Who is he really dating in this situation?
There's also the confused guy fighting an inner battle. One side of him wants to be all modern and advocate equality of the sexes by going Dutch, and the other side of him wants to be all romantic and gentlemanly by paying for everything. So as a coping mechanism against footing the bill he'll complain about how much of a rip off everything is and how much better his mum can make the same dish. He'll count how many hours he worked to pay for the meal in front of you, and how much money that leaves him for the rest of the week and how now he can't buy the pair of shoes he's been eyeing for the past couple of weeks. Then before you know it you realise you lost your sense of taste about five mouthfuls ago. He's been barging on so much now it's impossible to enjoy your food and everything was just a stupid waste of time and money.
Guys, whatever you decide, be graceful about it.
Love, Noeline
xox
Monday, 29 August 2011
One Day
When a book is so good you never want it to end. "One Day" by David Nicholls is one of them. I recommend everyone to read it if it's the last thing you do!
Some of my favourite quotes:
- As soon as she'd met him at the arrivals gate on his return from Thailand, lithe and brown and shaven-headed, she knew that there was no chance of a relationship between them. Too much had happened to him, too little ha happened to her.
- "I got to know you. You cured me of you."
- They're dancing together now, sucking in their cheeks and grinning at each other and once again Dexter is struck by how easily conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind. In the olden days, when people only had alcohol to fall back on, talking to a girl would involve all kinds of eye-contact, the buying of drinks, hours of formal questioning about books and films, parents and siblings. But these days it's possible to segue almost immediately from 'what's your name?' to 'show me your tattoo,' say, or 'what underwear are you wearing?' and surely this has got to be progress.
- She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scrabble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.
- Suki is the nation's ideal girlfriend, a woman for whom bubblines is a way of life, verging on a disorder.
- Self-pitying, self-righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she had always needs the most.
- In the supermarket on Nicolson Street they shopped for a picnic, both a little uncomfortable in the strangely domestic rite of sharing a shopping basket, both self-conscious about their choices; were olives too fancy?
Love, Noeline
xox
Some of my favourite quotes:
- As soon as she'd met him at the arrivals gate on his return from Thailand, lithe and brown and shaven-headed, she knew that there was no chance of a relationship between them. Too much had happened to him, too little ha happened to her.
- "I got to know you. You cured me of you."
- They're dancing together now, sucking in their cheeks and grinning at each other and once again Dexter is struck by how easily conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind. In the olden days, when people only had alcohol to fall back on, talking to a girl would involve all kinds of eye-contact, the buying of drinks, hours of formal questioning about books and films, parents and siblings. But these days it's possible to segue almost immediately from 'what's your name?' to 'show me your tattoo,' say, or 'what underwear are you wearing?' and surely this has got to be progress.
- She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scrabble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.
- Suki is the nation's ideal girlfriend, a woman for whom bubblines is a way of life, verging on a disorder.
- Self-pitying, self-righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she had always needs the most.
- In the supermarket on Nicolson Street they shopped for a picnic, both a little uncomfortable in the strangely domestic rite of sharing a shopping basket, both self-conscious about their choices; were olives too fancy?
Love, Noeline
xox
Thursday, 28 July 2011
The politics of the lid
During my first week in Spain, a friend who didn't want to leave her bed asked me to go out and get her a hot tea, take away. "Un te para llevar, por favor," I said. They look confused.
What I got in return was a plastic cup of tea, the top covered in foil. Turns out it wasn't my Spanish, it was asking for tea 'take away' that took them aback.
Thinking I'd try my luck in a big city such as Barcelona, I asked for a pasta 'take away.' Again, I got a container with a flimsy piece of foil wrapped over the top. Needless to say the sauce would have spilled everywhere had my friends and I not decided to sit on a park bench nearby.
Who needs lids when you're in a country that actually sits down and appreciates their
food? Lids are for countries with worker bees who work to live and live to work. Australia, I'm looking at you.
Love, Noeline
xox
What I got in return was a plastic cup of tea, the top covered in foil. Turns out it wasn't my Spanish, it was asking for tea 'take away' that took them aback.
Thinking I'd try my luck in a big city such as Barcelona, I asked for a pasta 'take away.' Again, I got a container with a flimsy piece of foil wrapped over the top. Needless to say the sauce would have spilled everywhere had my friends and I not decided to sit on a park bench nearby.
Who needs lids when you're in a country that actually sits down and appreciates their
food? Lids are for countries with worker bees who work to live and live to work. Australia, I'm looking at you.
Love, Noeline
xox
The etiquette of borrowing money
Don't you hate it, how quick some people are to borrow money, and how slow they can be at returning it? The power play is reversed and suddenly we're the ones embarrassing ourselves as we try to find ways of casually reminding them of their debt.
Borrowers with no regard of paying people back as soon as possible tend to be the kind of people with little value for money – probably spoilt. What they don't understand is that their friend is compromising their own spending habits while they do without the money they lent. Even if it was just sitting in the bank, that's interest lost. If it was something substantially expensive like a concert ticket bought over the internet with a credit card, that's interest being charged.
You think it's an even exchange frozen in time. In reality they're losing more money than they lent you. And they probably value your friendship too much to bring it up and make you feel guilty about it.
That person did you a favour. It's not up to you to pay them back at your convenience. If you can afford to be shopping, drinking, clubbing and going out to dinner in the interim – then you can afford to pay that person back.
Love, Noeline
xox
Borrowers with no regard of paying people back as soon as possible tend to be the kind of people with little value for money – probably spoilt. What they don't understand is that their friend is compromising their own spending habits while they do without the money they lent. Even if it was just sitting in the bank, that's interest lost. If it was something substantially expensive like a concert ticket bought over the internet with a credit card, that's interest being charged.
You think it's an even exchange frozen in time. In reality they're losing more money than they lent you. And they probably value your friendship too much to bring it up and make you feel guilty about it.
That person did you a favour. It's not up to you to pay them back at your convenience. If you can afford to be shopping, drinking, clubbing and going out to dinner in the interim – then you can afford to pay that person back.
Love, Noeline
xox
Cultural Retardation
I was recently on a Busabout tour around the Greek Islands. Some of the people you come across are pretty cool, others just downright idiots. Let me tell you why.
One girl was pissed off that the Greek people she came across couldn't speak English 'properly.' "I'm going to be so relieved when I get to England after this," she said. She's one of those righteous ethnocentric people who expects people to speak perfect English when she's clearly the one traveling in their country. What makes it even worse is that people like her dislike immigrants speaking their native tongue whilst in Australia. Double standards much? I wonder, when was the last time she spoke perfect Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish or what-have-you to a tourist? Someone tell me, where's that good old Australian tolerance we preach we possess in such a diverse, multicultural society as ours? These people should be frustrated at them selves for not being able to communicate properly, not at the locals.
Also, there exists a kind of rivalry between the people who decide to go on a tour with Busabout or with Contiki.
With Busabout, you have the choice to hang around the tour group and join every single group activity offered. Others simply show up at every departure point to the next island before disappearing to do their own thing. This kind of flexibility attracts different types of people. There were party people, and people who wanted to relax. There were kids straight out of high school and people halfway through university degrees. There were people on a break from work, and there was even a newly-wed couple on their honeymoon.
Contiki, on the other hand, caters more to the younger 18-35 year old demographic. Clubs, bars and parties feature more frequently on their itinerary than on Busabout's, which is fair enough if that's what you're after in a holiday. But one day, the two tour groups happened to be waiting at the same dock, waiting for the same boat to take us to the next island. "The Busabout people are next to us," one girl said. "I wonder what they do," she continued. "Their tour doesn't offer much. I'm so glad I went with Contiki." And that's based on what observation? Just because we're not table top dancing in our short shorts and wonderbras spilling beer on other people doesn't mean we're not doing anything.
Another night during dinner, the girl I was sitting next to was relating her previous travels to her friends. "Guys, you have to go to Hong Kong, it's absolutely amazing," to which her friend replied: "I don't know, I don't really like Asia. There's nothing to do there. I'd rather just stick with Europe." WHAT AN IDIOT. But I guess if you're looking to be surrounded by more white Australians and dance in bars that play the same music as in Australia then yeah, you're right, there really is nothing do do in Asia.
I was traveling with two other friends and we were having a massive rant about exactly this. One of them concluded that there are four types of people...
1. Tourists: People who just want to see the major tourist attractions and monuments, and take photos in front of them.
2. Travelers: People who at least try to engage with the host society on some level – they will pick up some of the language, try the local delicacies and learn some of their history.
3. Sojouners: People who settle down and make a life for them selves in a country.
4. Wanks: People who have no interest in appreciating or respecting the culture. Like the people in the examples above, they want the rest of the world to speak perfect English, serve their kind of food and play their type of music.
Ugh. Some people have too little sense too much money on their hands. It disgusts me. Fuck immigration, we have bigger idiots in the country who shouldn't be let out.
Love, Noeline
xox
One girl was pissed off that the Greek people she came across couldn't speak English 'properly.' "I'm going to be so relieved when I get to England after this," she said. She's one of those righteous ethnocentric people who expects people to speak perfect English when she's clearly the one traveling in their country. What makes it even worse is that people like her dislike immigrants speaking their native tongue whilst in Australia. Double standards much? I wonder, when was the last time she spoke perfect Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish or what-have-you to a tourist? Someone tell me, where's that good old Australian tolerance we preach we possess in such a diverse, multicultural society as ours? These people should be frustrated at them selves for not being able to communicate properly, not at the locals.
Also, there exists a kind of rivalry between the people who decide to go on a tour with Busabout or with Contiki.
With Busabout, you have the choice to hang around the tour group and join every single group activity offered. Others simply show up at every departure point to the next island before disappearing to do their own thing. This kind of flexibility attracts different types of people. There were party people, and people who wanted to relax. There were kids straight out of high school and people halfway through university degrees. There were people on a break from work, and there was even a newly-wed couple on their honeymoon.
Contiki, on the other hand, caters more to the younger 18-35 year old demographic. Clubs, bars and parties feature more frequently on their itinerary than on Busabout's, which is fair enough if that's what you're after in a holiday. But one day, the two tour groups happened to be waiting at the same dock, waiting for the same boat to take us to the next island. "The Busabout people are next to us," one girl said. "I wonder what they do," she continued. "Their tour doesn't offer much. I'm so glad I went with Contiki." And that's based on what observation? Just because we're not table top dancing in our short shorts and wonderbras spilling beer on other people doesn't mean we're not doing anything.
Another night during dinner, the girl I was sitting next to was relating her previous travels to her friends. "Guys, you have to go to Hong Kong, it's absolutely amazing," to which her friend replied: "I don't know, I don't really like Asia. There's nothing to do there. I'd rather just stick with Europe." WHAT AN IDIOT. But I guess if you're looking to be surrounded by more white Australians and dance in bars that play the same music as in Australia then yeah, you're right, there really is nothing do do in Asia.
I was traveling with two other friends and we were having a massive rant about exactly this. One of them concluded that there are four types of people...
1. Tourists: People who just want to see the major tourist attractions and monuments, and take photos in front of them.
2. Travelers: People who at least try to engage with the host society on some level – they will pick up some of the language, try the local delicacies and learn some of their history.
3. Sojouners: People who settle down and make a life for them selves in a country.
4. Wanks: People who have no interest in appreciating or respecting the culture. Like the people in the examples above, they want the rest of the world to speak perfect English, serve their kind of food and play their type of music.
Ugh. Some people have too little sense too much money on their hands. It disgusts me. Fuck immigration, we have bigger idiots in the country who shouldn't be let out.
Love, Noeline
xox
Monday, 18 July 2011
Everyone makes mistakes, traveling makes you more prone to them.
Picture this:
- Getting an email from the hostel you thought you made a booking for for the next month saying "Tell us about your stay"
- Realising you bought non-refundable tickets online to a children's concert in a bull ring, not an actual bull fight.
- Buying an expensive return ticket when you were only going one-way.
- Rushing to the bus station and making it just in time. There's two in town and turns out you're at the wrong one. Sobbing to the ticket-man who charges a fraction of the normal ticket price. A trip that was meant to take 2 hours ends up taking 6 because it just so happened the next bus going to the same place stopped at every god damn "pueblo" on the way.
- Accidentally locking you and your friends out of your hotel room. Reception is closed for another two hours. The bus that leaves for the restaurant for dinner with the rest of the tour group leaves in 1 hour. Oh, and we were all in our bikinis.
- Going to the bus station and looking out for the bus company you bought tickets for, only to miss it because you should have been looking out for a subsidiary of that company all along. Asking a bus driver where we could buy tickets, only to be let on another bus without having to pay. It's empty and no one else gets on. It's just you, the bus driver and your two other girlfriends. Wondering whether you've just been kidnapped for two hours before landing in Pamplona safe and sound for the Running of the Bulls.
- Not purchasing your train ticket online thinking you could just buy it at the window. They sell out and you end up having to spend an extra night in Barcelona, losing a night in San Sebastian - and having to buy a first class ticket because that's all that was available for the day after.
For the sake of making my friends and I feel better, do share your own stories if you have any!
Love, Noeline
xox
- Getting an email from the hostel you thought you made a booking for for the next month saying "Tell us about your stay"
- Realising you bought non-refundable tickets online to a children's concert in a bull ring, not an actual bull fight.
- Buying an expensive return ticket when you were only going one-way.
- Rushing to the bus station and making it just in time. There's two in town and turns out you're at the wrong one. Sobbing to the ticket-man who charges a fraction of the normal ticket price. A trip that was meant to take 2 hours ends up taking 6 because it just so happened the next bus going to the same place stopped at every god damn "pueblo" on the way.
- Accidentally locking you and your friends out of your hotel room. Reception is closed for another two hours. The bus that leaves for the restaurant for dinner with the rest of the tour group leaves in 1 hour. Oh, and we were all in our bikinis.
- Going to the bus station and looking out for the bus company you bought tickets for, only to miss it because you should have been looking out for a subsidiary of that company all along. Asking a bus driver where we could buy tickets, only to be let on another bus without having to pay. It's empty and no one else gets on. It's just you, the bus driver and your two other girlfriends. Wondering whether you've just been kidnapped for two hours before landing in Pamplona safe and sound for the Running of the Bulls.
- Not purchasing your train ticket online thinking you could just buy it at the window. They sell out and you end up having to spend an extra night in Barcelona, losing a night in San Sebastian - and having to buy a first class ticket because that's all that was available for the day after.
For the sake of making my friends and I feel better, do share your own stories if you have any!
Love, Noeline
xox
Friday, 24 June 2011
How to travel whilst continuing to live in your own little bubble
Imagine a gap of about 1cm. That's how close I came to booking a particular hostel in Portugal. Luckily, I met a girl in Budapest who had been there previously and stopped me. She warned that it was a hot spot for other Australians who swarmed there for the cheap drugs and alcohol, a lot of times ending up sleeping together.
"New girls would check in every morning and within minutes they were being checked out by the other guys in the hostel, based on looks. If you have white skin and blonde hair you were pretty much in."
And then I realised I knew a few people who fit this category. Australians who go overseas and party hard with other Australians without actually taking in any of that country's history or culture. And then they say that they love traveling. No honey, you love partying. There's a difference.
The only part about their culture you know is the extent to which they're compromising theirs to satisfy tourists like you. I've met some people and told them that my parents are from The Philippines. Some of them talk about how it's such a beautiful place with nice people. Is it really? I've been there twice and never been to the tourist resorts. The Filipinos I know, including my own family live in poor conditions. The shower is a bucket of water you pour over yourself. A hot shower means boiling a separate pot of water and mixing it in. To flush a toilet you manually have to pour a few buckets of water down the toilet bowl. Going to school means hoping to God you have relatives overseas who can send you the money. Or studying your ass off to get by solely through the few scholarships that are offered. People are nice because they're making do with what little they have. Not because they're swimming around as happily in their beaches as you are. The rest are nice because it's the only way you'll give them money.
I'm all up for people who want to relax rather than sightsee - as long as they admit it. Nothing wrong with it, heck I went to Ibiza. Just don't try to act all haughty and cultured about it.
Love, Noeline
xox
"New girls would check in every morning and within minutes they were being checked out by the other guys in the hostel, based on looks. If you have white skin and blonde hair you were pretty much in."
And then I realised I knew a few people who fit this category. Australians who go overseas and party hard with other Australians without actually taking in any of that country's history or culture. And then they say that they love traveling. No honey, you love partying. There's a difference.
The only part about their culture you know is the extent to which they're compromising theirs to satisfy tourists like you. I've met some people and told them that my parents are from The Philippines. Some of them talk about how it's such a beautiful place with nice people. Is it really? I've been there twice and never been to the tourist resorts. The Filipinos I know, including my own family live in poor conditions. The shower is a bucket of water you pour over yourself. A hot shower means boiling a separate pot of water and mixing it in. To flush a toilet you manually have to pour a few buckets of water down the toilet bowl. Going to school means hoping to God you have relatives overseas who can send you the money. Or studying your ass off to get by solely through the few scholarships that are offered. People are nice because they're making do with what little they have. Not because they're swimming around as happily in their beaches as you are. The rest are nice because it's the only way you'll give them money.
I'm all up for people who want to relax rather than sightsee - as long as they admit it. Nothing wrong with it, heck I went to Ibiza. Just don't try to act all haughty and cultured about it.
Love, Noeline
xox
From Budapest
Sorry for being MIA recently. In the past two weeks I've...
- Graduated with a diploma from my host university in Spain
- Moved out from the student residence into an apartment with three amazing housemates (who knew living with three boys would be cleaning than living with one other girl)
- Went out almost every night celebrating San Bernabe, a week long medieval festival in my town commemorating when they resisted French occupation, living off wine, bread and fish when all other food supplies were cut off
- Finished a two thousand five hundred word correspondence assignment for my uni in Sydney
- Bid farewell to all my closest friends in Spain as they head back home to their countries
- Started my three month holiday vacation around Europe, during which I will probably forget a lot of the Spanish I've spent the last six months learning.
I'm currently writing from my hostel in Budapest where luckily enough I've managed to find some Mexicans and a Colombian who I've been able to speak Spanish with. Score! So far I've learnt how to say 'no mames wey,' 'que chido,' and 'jodido.'
OK, I'm out!
Love, Noeline
xox
- Graduated with a diploma from my host university in Spain
- Moved out from the student residence into an apartment with three amazing housemates (who knew living with three boys would be cleaning than living with one other girl)
- Went out almost every night celebrating San Bernabe, a week long medieval festival in my town commemorating when they resisted French occupation, living off wine, bread and fish when all other food supplies were cut off
- Finished a two thousand five hundred word correspondence assignment for my uni in Sydney
- Bid farewell to all my closest friends in Spain as they head back home to their countries
- Started my three month holiday vacation around Europe, during which I will probably forget a lot of the Spanish I've spent the last six months learning.
I'm currently writing from my hostel in Budapest where luckily enough I've managed to find some Mexicans and a Colombian who I've been able to speak Spanish with. Score! So far I've learnt how to say 'no mames wey,' 'que chido,' and 'jodido.'
OK, I'm out!
Love, Noeline
xox
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