Jet Lag, Tourism, Motorcycles, and Drifting

After 26 hours, I finally landed in Brisbane, Australia. I was super tired and all I wanted to do was take a shower. We headed to immigration and I was taken aback by all of the questions. Now one would think that with all the traveling I do I’m always prepared for immigration, but I always forget to obtain an address for where I’m staying so I just threw a random hotel down. After being questioned about who I was staying with, why I was only staying for five days, my motives for travel, and showing the confirmation for my flight out of Australia, I was allowed in the country. As soon as I was headed to get my luggage, I was again stopped by another immigration agent, who asked me even more questions, like “how long have you known the person you’re staying with?” “where did you meet?” I’m was thinking “damn, is it because I’m black?” Sheesh. I think they really aren’t used to seeing black people travel unless they are celebrities. And I definitely was the only black body in that entire airport.

After waiting forever and a day for my luggage, I headed to customs and of course they flag me. Apparently you have to declare ALL food. Who actually reads those forms? Not me. So the large bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos once again embarrassed me. But after some snooping through my luggage and a few questions they let me go. I headed out to the hallway and didn’t see Matyas, the guy I’m staying with. For a second I started thinking, wouldn’t that suck if he didn’t show up and I was in a foreign country where I knew no one else? So after about ten   minutes, I pull out my iPhone and turn it on knowing that the proceeding call would cost me approximately $3,567.58. He answered quickly. He was outside driving in circles. Whew. Safe. So after changing some money USD to ASD I was on my way.

Hmmm. Nice car. He hops out. Hugs. Luggage and I hop in and we are off. What lovely weather, even though its like 730 in the am. He lives with his parents who are Hungarian. I could barely understand his father when he introduced himself. I’ve got to really focus with this one. After a bit of convo, Matyi heads to work and I head to sleep.

A couple hours later I wake up with the intent of painting my nails on their gorgeous balcony while grooving to some tunes. I grab my nail polish and go to grab my ipod and its not where I expected it to be. I check another bag, still no luck. I begin to get frantic. I look everywhere. No iPod. My worst fear realized, I left my iPod on the plane. After painting my nails I called Qantas. No luck. Call back tomorrow. I’m sad.

When Matyi made it home from work, we hopped on his motorcycle and headed into the city and did a bit of a foot tour.

Although it was a little too much walking for my jet lagged little self. Brisbane is quite a nice city. Reminds my of some city in Florida. In the middle of the city is a man-made beach, which is super out of place. It was really weird watching people sunbathing on sand, with nothing but concrete surrounding them. People were even tanning on nearby grassy knolls.

For dinner we had Nando’s, one of my favorite restaurants which is also in London. I was in heaven. After dinner we went to meet his car friends. We met in a parking lot and by this point I was drunk with sleep so we headed to “Hungry Jack’s”, known in the states as “Burger King”, to get me some coffee. I am no coffee connoisseur, but this had to be the worst coffee that I’ve ever had in my life. But it did its job and I managed to stay up for the night’s main event. DRIFTING!!!!! If you haven’t seen “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift”, youtube drifting and you will understand what I was able to experience, not that I actually wanted too because it was very scary. But totally worth it!

This is the best picture I could get. Wish I got some video.