Would You Like Fries With That?

If you’ve ever experienced the Sunday Scaries (the anxiety of having to show up for another dreadful week of pushing numbers across a spreadsheet) then let me tell you that the end of a holiday brings on the Sunday Scaries, now a full two weeks prior to my actual return date.

I am back in Amsterdam for my last 20,000 steps tomorrow which is planned to be a whirlwind last day before the billion-ty flights it’s going to take to get me back to the east coast of Australia. Honestly, I am wondering if at this point I don’t just buy a direct flight from Bangkok to Brisbane and wear the cost of cancelling the flights through Perth. NEVER EVER is saving $100 worth the extra 20 hours in transit – note to future self. Don’t ever cheap out again, mk.

In fact, there’s a few things I have learnt whilst travelling solo and so in the spirit of the old debating teams ‘fifty things I learnt at Australs’, here’s what I’ve learnt on this trip:

1. Book the direct flights – sleeping on your bags in Suvarnabhumi is only romantic in the retelling.
2. Do not bother with cash, literally nowhere [in Europe] wants your Euros. Not even the toilets – they have pay-pass now.
3. You do not need a special little wallet for your passport. It will comfortably sit in your jeans pocket for 72 hours and then no one [in the EU] will ever ask you for it.
4. Bring a water bottle – better yet, one of those ones that squish down into running vests. You’ll look like a nonce but you will save yourself dozens of Euro. DOZENS. And it will fit in your purse.
5. Bring a spork or a FRED (Fucking Ridiculous Eating Device) – you will be surprised how often you wish you had a spoon.
6. Follow the ABCs of phone care – Always Be Charging. Anywhere you can, even if you’re on 90% because you know what’s better – 100%.
7. If you are addicted to caffeine (no shame) an emergency Redbull goes a long way. Your dentist will hate you; your brain will love you. Buy them at a grocery for 1,50. Now you have the mental capacity to search for a good coffee.
8. Always carry a little reuseable shopping bag. Bags cost extra everywhere and know you’ve reached your limit when that bag is full.
9. Kindles/e-Readers weigh less than books. They smell worse but they are lighter.
10. Always carry your rain jacket, even if the weather is 30 degrees and sunny. The sky is a liar.
11. Always carry your sunglasses, even if the weather is 2 degrees and raining sideways. The sky is a liar.
12. You can wash your gym gear by showering in it – the moisture wicking fabric will dry on the towel rack.
13. Wear pantie liners for long transits – can’t change your clothes but can change your liner.
14. Victoria’s Secret perfume ‘Bombshell’ attracts bees. You’ve been warned.
15. Just follow the car in front of you is sound advice for driving on the wrong side of the road. You will always be on the scenic route, but you won’t be on the evening news.
16. Dutch is a silly language. If you can read/speak English and German you can understand it though.
17. Finnish is a silly language. If you read/speak Swedish you can get by though – Swedish is also an official language of Finland and everything is written in both.
18. I took off all my jewellery to travel – this is a mistake – keep a simple ring in your pocket, you never know when you might need a husband. Better yet when he’s 6’4 and in the military. Real jealous type.
19. Talk to people. Be that guy who asks for directions, recommendations, or for a photo. 90% of the people I’ve talked to have been fascinating. One was a fucking weirdo but you get that.
20. Nuremberg and Nürnberg = same, Nürburg = different.
21. Rent the Porsche. Don’t live a little, live a lot – the left lane of the Autobahn is for you.
22. We live in a digital age – get an unlimited data eSim – everything is online – visas, airline check-in – you’re not getting through the airport without data.
23. Get up early – you want to see the sights without the bus load of people go before 10am.
24. Take up space. You have as much right as anyone else to be looking at art, monuments or to take a picture. Don’t be rushed out of politeness.
25. If you’re travelling in another country for leisure, you’re a tourist. If you’re living in another country, you’re an immigrant. If you call yourself a traveller, a backpacker or an expat, that’s your white privilege showing.
26. Every place in Australia is relative to Sydney. I live north of Sydney – that’s all anyone really wants to know.
27. Always pay in the local currency – the terminal will ask you and the exchange rate your bank gives will always be better than the absolute ROBBERY the terminal will charge.
28. Better yet, travel card – local currency – boom baby. Until you try and move more money and your bank sends you an SMS as part of MFA but you can’t receive the SMS because you turned your Aussie sim off and then you panic about your bank locking you out of the app but you won’t use your computer to check your banking because the network’s not secure so then you annoy everyone with your cash until pay day.
29. You can’t use cash on a bus.
30. No one drinks the local beer – the Dutch don’t drink Heineken, the Danish don’t drink Carlsberg but I’ll tell you they are the cheapest ones so I do. All light beer tastes the same – fight me.
31. Recycle your beer cans properly! And your coffee cups! And your water bottles! And just recycle everything ok.
32. You make the rules – it’s your holiday. See what you want, go at your place. Just because something is on a ‘must do’ list doesn’t mean you are obliged to do it.
33. White sneakers go with everything. They won’t stay white, but you will stop caring.
34. There is no need to wear tech gear in a town – I just want you to know, if you’re walking around a city in your North Face, Columbia or zip off at the knee pants you look like a knob. Unless you’re going to the airport in which case I understand the puffer jacket and the hiking boots didn’t fit in the bag but otherwise. Knob.
35. Fanny packs – knob. LV or Gucci cross body fanny pack – rich knob or fake knob. And if you’re worried about pick pockets – wearing an industrial strength, cut-proof bag will out you as a tourist who thinks they have something worth stealing … plus you look like a knob. Just take the bag you’re used to using.
36. The drivers’ side of the car is on the wrong side. You will get in on the wrong side and sit directly behind the driver, and you will give yourself the ick.
37. Leave town, see the countryside, walk through royal estates and across private golf courses. When questioned use your broadest smile and your thickest accent. How could you possibly know? There’s no monarch in Australia. (We are a constitutional monarchy, King Charles III is our king, but no one needs to know that).
38. You need to eat a vegetable. Probably once a week – stave off scurvy and gout – probably. Not a doctor.
39. Keep moving, depression can’t hit a moving target.
40. Let the world impress you. Laugh at funny things. Enjoy good food. Talk to animals.
41. There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes – ride a mountain bike in the pouring rain in the middle of the night. Walk a husky through a bog. Sit in a creek and pan for gold.
42. Put hot water in cordial. Be surprised to find your new winter drink.
43. Pay for the biggest luggage allowance – just trust me on this and ask no further questions.
44. Children will be enamoured with Scotty – you will have to explain that yes, he is on a leash, no he is not a dog or a seal. He is a sea lion. If you want the child to go away start lecturing them about endangered Australian sea lion populations and the need for stronger environmental protection laws. Kids can’t understand English but their parents will come and get them pretty quickly. Or you’ll have an interesting conversations. Win-win.
45. If you don’t want anyone to come near you, start a debate with Scotty, and just loudly say things like, ‘Well you would think that wouldn’t you!’.
46. Trams are cool. They just fucking are. No notes.
47. You better get real used to pork and fish because that’s what’s on the menu and every country seems to have their special fish. Herrings, Salmon, Pike, Sardine – whatever shaped fish the chocolate comes in – that’s the local delicacy. Or sausages, they’re the wurst.
48. Napolean reshaped Europe. The man had his fingers in every pie. All of them.
49. At some point every country I went to was ruled by Sweden. People don’t love it. It’s a little bit funny to me. Google their current king, he cracks me up.
50. I’m not ready to stop travelling but I miss my dogs. And my people. In that order.