The Eagle Has Landed....I Think.. (Nov 15 - Nov 18)

Matt's first night in Darwin he arranged a date with a girl he met at the bar. She was pretty cute, and spent some time travelling so she had some things to talk about. So in anticipation of this date Matt and I had a gay day, buying clothes and we randomly decided to get some piercings as well. He got 3 (nose, and 1 in each ear) and I got 2 (1 cartilage, and 1 in my right ear), it was quite a lovely day. After getting all dolled up in our new digs and freshly pierced we headed over to The Tap in the evening where Matt was meeting this girl. She invited a few of her girlfriends so I tagged along to play defence. It was a pretty fun evening, all three of them worked in Darwin with some company that was currently doing a study on the army, gathering measurements of soldiers. Her friends were kind of cool, they all kept telling me that I have high energy. I think it was because I talk with my hands a lot more now because of how much I talk to people that aren't completely fluent in english, so it makes it easier to explain things, but now I do it with everybody.

After a while her friends decided to leave, so I decided to bounce as well and leave the daters alone. I ended up going out after solo dolo, first time doing that, and it was GREAT. I was just going to grab a quiet drink and chill before going to bed. I met a French girl named Laura doing a trial behind the bar, I had to tell her my drink order4-5 times until I eventually just pointed at it, she didn't make it through the trial unfortunately. But when she was finished she came to sit with me and we chatted for a while. After a few minutes I noticed an American looking black dude (waves in his head, polo shirt, jeans, air force 1s). So I approached him and asked where he was from etc etc.. of course he was from the US, and after a few more questions I found out he was a Marine and he was here with several other Marines. Then I remembered that Obama was going to be in Darwin to make some sort of speech/do some presidential stuff. So they were here to suss the situation before his arrival (Sidebar: after he told me about this..took him a while he was trying to be very secretive...I realised I'd been noticing "American looking" dudes wondering around trying not to stand out for the past few days).

So this Marine dude brought the rest of his friends over, they were pretty cool, mostly because they were buying us drinks all night. Chilled with them for the rest of the night, I kept trying to get them to introduce me to Obama or at least get me in a position where I could holla at him or something...even just a head nod would have been nice. No dice though, they told me I'd have to become a Marine or an Australian soldier to even get close to him during this visit (Sidebar: they also told me they had my back if anything went down that night... which wasn't even really a possibility, but knowing that 6 Marines have your back kinda makes you want to start fights).

I also met Robert from Holland, we talked for a while and it ended up that he was heading to Cairns and had a seat available in his car. So I secured myself a ride to Cairns, which was a sweet bonus to the night. I'm not sure what day it was but Obama eventually arrived and I caught a glimpse of him in his car...I think...his motorcade was barrelling down the road with what seemed like far too much artillery.

The next day Matt and I went to Crocosauruscove, which was pretty awesome, we got to see huge salt water crocodiles and some cool reptiles as well. I would have rather seen them in the wild but this was good enough for the time being, plus it was raining pretty heavily. Matt was leaving for Bali in a few days, so on his last night we had a pretty epic time which almost made me miss him leaving. But in my half drunken stupor I managed to chase him down at the shuttle bus and say my goodbyes. He left me with a sleeping bag and a tent like a true G.

Thanks for letting me share some of WA and NT with you Matt it was a great adventure.

Peace & Love