Mendoza... leave? Impossible!

So I've had a few problems lately trying to get to Chile. Its not so much that where I am or what I need to do is hard, its just getting on the darn bus that seems to be virtually impossible. I was booked to leave on Sunday, but then changed it because I stupidly didn't get my Yellow Fever shot back in Oz, and had heard that Argentina does them for free, so thought I'd change my ticket to the Monday with the plan of waking up early, getting my free jab then be off. All is well when I wake up nice and early, kiss my friend who has let me sleep on her couch the last few days goodbye, then took a taxi to the clinic. There I discovered that the jabs were free, which was great news, but unfortunately the shots are only available on Wednesdays between 8.30 & 12noon, and that the medicine is not free in Chile, and if I'm planning to go to Bolivia I need it at least 10days prior... shit! Raced to bus terminal, faked an illness, said with my extremely bad broken Spanish and some fine tuned sign language that I was not looking forward to my windy drive through the Andes, knowing that canceling my ticket within 3 hours of departure is the full ticket price, no refund. I figured if I could manage to change my ticket without having to pay it was meant to be that I stick around until Wednesday to get my much needed certificate. Well I manage to wrangle a free change of ticket, (thank you acting degree) YAY now I can stay in Mendoza and with my new friends a little longer. Walk back to my friends place to impose myself further on her hospitality, and happily get received back. So Tuesday night comes along nicely, just a few drinks at the Inter-cambion language exchange, then a little craziness starts up where shots and litre cocktails are bought, and the night is a shambles!! I manage to get my friend back to her place with the help of a very worried taxi driver going over bumps extremely slowly, not very Argentinian taxi-driver of him. I get her into bed and pass out on the couch. What seems like moments later I hear a terrible groaning in her bedroom, a little worried I go to give her a little comforting, and maybe a glass of water or a bucket... should've looked for them first, as when I managed to sit her up, she hugged me then proceded to vomit uncontrollably all over me and her bed... f%#k I have a bus in a matter of hours, but I also have a friend that needs me to sober up and look after her. I pick her up and take her to the bathroom. While I try sort out the bedding, yuck yuck yucky stuff. I sit down for a second to close my eyes, 'BANG' shit... What's happened? Find Australian born Singaporean business woman giggling and a little bit teary on the floor of the bathroom, shower curtain down around her. It was clearly her holding on devise while falling down idea, not the best plan perhaps, but she's ok, a few bumps to the head but she's clean and ok. Now for me to shower and go to bed. What 1/2hour before I have to wake up? But its still dark, buggar, thats ok, I need it. Close eyes. Open eyes, bright sun filtering in through the curtains, SHIT SHIT SHIT, find phone, 11.46am... What the hell?? Throw dress on, grab bag and keys and race to the taxi rank. Shit, 12.07am.... please be still open, get to clinic, fly upstairs, barge through the door, which looked heavier than it was and banged loudly as I tried to compose myself with a somewhat distressed 'Hola!!" The nurse and doctor are having a cup of tea together... The nurse smiles at me, says she heard an Australian might be coming in today, and sits me down to get the certificate made. Holey moley, I must stink, try not breathe on the poor lady trying to do her job, oh my goodness, what am I wearing? My Mum always said that you should dress nicely for the medical profession, she'd be appalled at what I'm wearing, and OH MY GOODNESS, my dress is inside-out!! The extremely lovely lady who doesn't seem to be judging me, which was very professional of her, leads me through to the large man, without the white tightly fit overcoat, would be casted perfectly as a great big South American couch-potato. With no words at all, and no gloves too I noticed, I was swiped with alcohol (great more, my body must love me) and a quick, painful jab, and I was on my way. Oh yeah, and my bus was at 9.30am, so back to my couch... where tomorrow, I will catch a bus to Chile... If its meant to be of course!!

3´s the charm! HOLA!!

So last entry seems like a zillion years ago... pretty close! Since then a whole new chapter has been in the making. I´m in Mendoza, Argentina for this one. I had my beautiful girl over for my first 2 weeks here. She is super cute, and we got to celebrate her 30th birthday together (28 if you ask her). The joint account also gave me the opportunity to have a little luxury along the way too. She´s back home now, and I miss her like crazy... Mostly to be honest because she can speak spanish, and I, well, cant! So its a little crazy here right now. I´ve spent a week intensive spanish lessons, and already think that I had a little too much information overload. My brain is actually feeling heavier, I´m gonna give it a break for a week, and go to Chile tomorrow night.
Its funny here, last entry I think I was writing all about my crappy weight issues years ago... Well, I once upon a time almost got back to a healthy size, but laziness, too many big nights, my intense love for bread, pototoes, rice and alcohol have gradually been putting (what I thought) little by little back on. In England I was weighing myself weekly, and seemed to had worked itself out, in the larger end of what I could deal with... Ya know, 15-20kilos from the ideal, but it was Winter and too fun going out to take too much notice of my clothes shrinkage. So heres the funny thing about here... every pharmacy has the scales at them that back home would charge you $1 to use, well here they are free! Funny hey!! Well not really, not ha ha funny, but it is when I decided I´ll see if all my walking while being here, and cutting the bread had made any difference... Well... I´m sure if I hadn´t been in such a good mood from my wine in the Plaza here, I may have found the first crazy ass taxi driver to walk infront of!! I had put ON 13kilos... WHAT THE F???? What has happened to me... everything I had done to get myself from the verge of an instant popcorn heart-attack victim, is now being laughed at by my stupidity, and lack of self control. I cant believe I bloody chose to think that those dodgy home scales were accurate, and that my clothes were actually getting tighter from drying them of the heater! Like seriously, I guess this is how the brain works... It can tell itself anything that it needs to, if it doesn´t want to hurt itself, or face to a reality its not wanting. I cant let this stop me from what my dreams are, I´m doing something about this shit!! Basicly, I´m officially on day 4 of my new thing... the 100days to change my world program. Lets call it the 100days to change my world program? Nah, okay... Well maybe something like "100 day smackdown-snackdown" I dunno, its not important... what is is the rules! I´m still working out the exact details... but basicly, no bread, no pasta, no rice, no "papas frites" - potato chips, no beer, no alcohol that isnt wine - with a limit on how much of that I can drink, dropping over time specified later, no soft drink, no tempting unhealthy snacking, but lots of water! And confessions... All confessions of what little tiny naughtiness, or splurge will be reported on this blog, and comments and boo´s will be welcomed! I need this, I´m 28 now, and I don´t want to spend the rest of my youth unhealthy, unhappy, and ashamed of my situation. I have a lot of love that I´m surrounded by, and friends that don´t care what I look like, but this is for me... I need to remember that I love myself, that my body is a gift, and will hopefully be moving me about for many many more years to come, without all the problems those who didn´t do something when they could´ve, seem to get and have. That and I´m too darn good looking to be fat... Well thats what a casting agent told me once!! Said that if I was plain and fat I´d get work far easier than someone whose attractive, but fat... People cant relate apparently, cant not stop feeling sorry for the poor girl that obviously cant control herself, when "oh, she´d be alright if she wasn´t a fatty!!" So this is it... Its the beginning... it start now!! Wish me luck guys... In a place like South America I´m gonna need as much help as I can with the food challenge. Steak and salad is it - not the best food for an ex-vegetarian that still prefers that lifestyle, oh yeah, the salad here is also amazing too... tomato and shredded iceberg, hmmmm... Yummy! Yep, that´s the advertised ensalada!
Okay, a que for the computer...
One last thing, I promise now, and in writing, that I will reveal my weight 4 days ago, in 96days, regardless to how well I do on this challenge, AND my weight on the final day too... Lets call it incentive! Wish me luck... I´ll need it!!
=)

Second time round...

I've just got off the plane from Berlin to Frankfurt, with this amazing guy I had to sit next to. He was a big time Real Estate entrepreneur, with 3 companies over Germany, and a beautiful wife and kids. Plus he was actually a nice guy, and paid my taxi to the hostel, (I left my big luggage in a locker when I was last here about 10 days ago) I was going to take the train, but he insisted I ride with him as he was going that way. We must've looked a bit of a sight, him in full business ettire, me in my ripped jeans from actual wear, and my faded blue hair! I've checked him out, he is legit... I knew already by how he was dressed, and his mannerisms, but I thought that someone some day may think I'm an easy target for gulibility, (which I can be, though rarely) and with Airberlin having no first or business class option I could have just seen a fancy suit, I guess. Anyways, while chatting to him, and he asking me questions about my background, saying he'd never been to Australia so was interested. I realised he was genuinely interested, and I really do have a story, and I wasn't ashamed to admit that I had done a couple of clever things when I was younger that put me in the enviable position to travel for so long... So I need to really get to the facts about me, as soon as possible, so I can get to the now with a little more background knowledge secured early on. I know I'll end up referring and digging deeper into my past a little further down the track!

Okay, so we've established that I was poor... pretty darn poor, and way below the Australian standards povety line. But I had a loving family, though a little unconventional to be sure. I will maybe come back to the Father topic later, as it's not relevant to me now, I will continue. I have also stated that I was once upon a time a pretty smart kid, though my teens helped me into a certain normality, and rebelion. And I have four sisters, three quite a bit older, and one younger.

So now, for who I am in super brief, as I've now only got 8 minutes left in this internet cafe, and I'm not the fastest typer in the World, even more so when a few of the letters are not where they are meant to be!

I have just turned 28 years old, I finished studying in Nottingham just over a week ago, I am an actor, a traveller and last years runner up Most Popular Drag King, for the Also Awards in Australia. I'll go into that further down the track too I'd say. I am a few hours from leaving on a big jet plane for Argentina, which will be country number 65, and I will also be seeing my partner and soulmate when I get there. It's her 30th birthday in a few days, and we didn't want to be apart for it, and what's better than discovering a new place together when you're moving out of your 20's? We have been together for almost 3 years, and though we are the picture of the perfect same sex couple, we do have our problems occasionally. The main one is the obvious distance when I'm travelling of course, and her having to be the responsible good mortgage payer back in Melbourne, Australia. I have a dog that I love very much, Belle, though she too has had to be left behind with her fantastic Nan (my Mum) as travel with pets is vitually impossible when you're Australian, and as you can tell, even my love for home and everyone back there, my need to travel in strong! I was bitten badly by the travel bug about 5 years ago. Before that I was running a business (or two) and working away my desire to do anything not safe. Though, with my Mum's strong influence to do whatever scares you most, I sold up and started out on my first adult around the World adventure. It was meant to be only a year, though it was extended a little! I took my Mum for the first leg with me, through North America and ending in our 2nd home, Lochem, The Netherlands, after five & a half amazing months of having my Mum to myself and dragging her around with me... Did I mention it was her 60th birthday present from me? My Mum is Dutch, and until recently had kept her nationality, having no real memories of her birthplace, she wanted to go back for a while to live. Her and her most recent husband (a joke, they've been married this year 20 years) moved over in October of 1992, with two young children, 8 and 9 year olds girls... I was that nine year old! We lived there, went to school there, learnt the language fluently there, celebrated double christmas there, and all and all became good little dutchies, in out teeny tiny town of Lochem. That was my first taste of the World around us, and though yet again we did everything on the tightest budget imaginable, every holiday or long weekend we'd all pile up in a tiny hatchback, one of my older sisters also joined us by then, and we'd drive to other countries, and sometimes a few in a day... It was amazing to me, this little Perth girl vowed to herself that when she was older she'd explore as much of the World as humanly possible someday. I don't think I'll ever achieve such a high demand, though the closer I get the more I get the feeling that there's so much more. I don't know if everyone knows this, but Perth in Western Australia is geographically the most isolated city in the World, and I think that plays a huge role in my desire to push the limits a little and sometimes a lot.
When I was younger I was also incredibly athletic. I was a cross country runner, was in the state long distance relay team, and did hours after many hours of Ballet dancing. It's another story completely, but my oldest sister is one of the highest ballet teachers in Australia, becoming the youngest Fellow, and continuing her ballet career very successfully in the choreography side, as well as teaching. Having her as my teacher, as my Mum would put it, was good because it was free. With that again, I excelled. I did very well in dance, did a little acting and could sing, I was hoping to use my top dance grades and singing ability to her me get into the Musical Theatre Degree at WAAPA in W.A. however that dream was shattered when I oddly got glandular fever. I recovered from that okay, but then started turning a nice shade of Simpsons yellow. I had developed a serious liver disfunction. The liver being as clever as it is, has healed a lot by now. Though the medication and the recovery result was my bodies now extra 70kilos of body fat! I literally gained double and a bit of my original body mass in just over a year. I was a vegetarian, that ate extremely healthy, too healthy I later found out, but yet I was Morbidly Obsese. I got to just over 140kgs, I think thats just over 300lbs. Needless to say, I was shattered, devastated, and the realisation that my dancing, singing and most importantly my acting dreams were now dashed and doomed! I was 17 years old, and I was the ugliest, fattest, most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. I was already living by myself by then. Mum had kicked me out of home well and truely before then. It was what I needed, and I was ready to leave. I was asked if I wanted to come back, the only catch was I had to live by the house rules, which were quiet strict, I don't think I'm ready for that chapter just yet though. My response was, 'are the rules still the same? No? Well thanks, but no thanks. I'll be fine!' Which I honestly think I was.
Okay, so what to do? You have just looked at something thats disturbing in the mirror, and recognize it to be the 'new' you... You consider breaking that mirror, and possibly everything else around you, yet something inside tells you not to, and starts to grow a little within you. A belief that this is not entirely the end yet, you can do something, can't you? That something to me was get away and work, work until you make something of that misrable self...

I'll leave that will be for the next entry...

Oh yeah, I recharged the internet for another half hour somewhere in there; don't want you to think I was lying about the slow two finger typist that I am ... Sometimes I use three!!

the first entry!!

I'm not sure as yet what this blog will have in it, only that I know it will be useful for me to start it!
My name is Jessica Window, I'm currently in Berlin, Germany and travelling again around the World. I just finished my degree in Theatre Arts, studying at Victoria University, but ending it in Nottingham at NCN on an exchange program. I have always been acting, as my Mum was a casting agent, and when I got older I thought that a university degree might be useful in actually attaining some level of academic theatre knowledge and value. My history is somewhat all over the place, so as I continue with this blog will become evident hopefully, that I have had many lives in my 28 years.
On Thursday, I will be heading to South America, Buenos Aires, Argentina to be more precise. It will be my 65th country, according to Hostelworld Country counter. I'm very excited, though a little nervous, as I haven't been to South America before, and my Spanish is pretty limited. I am hoping that in Bolivia possibly, I will do a homestay and spanish lessons so my six months there will be easier to get around and the more I can learn the better. I met someone recntly that heard a little about my travel experiences and said that I should write a book, mostly aimed at women, as I have mostly done my travels solo. I have met many inspirring people over my years of travel, and hope I can one day be someone elses inspiration to see the World and make the most out of the one life we know we have for certain. I do have a very strict budget, and I try to do as much local and touristy things as I possibly can with it. I don't have money from any family member or funding, everything I have I have had to work for. Which of course means some scarifice.
I come from a relatively poor background, where my Mum was a single parent of five daughters, the three oldest were teenagers when my little sister and myself came about. My mother put a lot of importance into education, so thats where all her money went in for us. I remember clearly that once a week my Mum got us to go buy the $2 box of fruit from the fruit n vege market, it was the box of bad fruit that I think was intended for the family rabbit, or maybe stewing, though for us it was our 5 a day! It was almost a joke how much money my friends at school had for their lunches, and when I'd open my lunchbox my heart would almost break at the disturbing news that once again I was getting a pear with the bad bit cut out, and a baked-bean roll that was still frozen in the middle. I know my Mum was doing the best she could now in hindsight, but hindsight still doesn't let me forget it. My Mum had so many jobs to pay the mortgage, that at the time was incredibly high because of the Keating government I believe, and the recession in the 80s. Needless to say, I wasn't the most popular girl in my class, it didn't help that I was also the youngest, having been put up to year one when I was meant to be in Kindygarden. The age difference when you're just a kid is enormous, and it didn't help that I was also the brains of the class. Oh, thank goodness for my teens and drugs and alcohol, destroying my intelligence to now be considered mediocre!! That's really not meant to be a compliment and an advocacy of drugs and alcohol, quite the opposite really, had I not been a somewhat teenaged rebel, I could have been trying to cure cancer by now in a lab, not just raising money by shaving my waist-lengthed dreadlocks off. That's another story, but something I am quite proud of. Basicly a friend of mine got cancer, and she was scared of losing her hair, quite normal I'd say. There is a Leukemia foundation in Australia that is famous for the World's Greatest Shave, so I decided I'd sign up. I had waist-lengthed coloured dreadlocks, that I've already mentioned clearly, so thought I might russle up a bit of cash. I did! The media wanted to follow my shave, and it was tellivised (not sure of spelling, I'm not a great speller) on the 7pm Project on Channel Ten. They didn't end up showing the final result, because the shave to a zero I had auctioned off to my biggest sponsorer. That honour went to my life long friend Dean Radbone, he sponsored me $252, $2 more than his Wife Helen. So shaving cream and razor, I was Bald... that was one year ago almost exactly. With the television sponsorship that McDonalds gave of $50,000 (though they would have given it to anyone that the TV chose) and the $7000ish that I raised, I think my hair did pretty good.
So right now... well right now, I think I'll leave this first entry, as I have my friend from Berlin waking up from her nap, and we have a dinner to work out, I'm voting on a place called Koriander in Oranienburger, its great food, with cheap cocktails ..... YAY!!! We're going!!
:)