Days Gone By of A Charming Nobody

A few weeks after I completed the last exam that would mean I’d knocked out a (very underwhelming) BA in 3 years; I took a flight to San Francisco. It was a stormy bumpy ride on a Pan Am plane that seemed to have bits missing. I swear I could see outside through this little open bit next to my foot.
I almost didn’t make it into the country which became my home for 9 years. For some reason after reading my visa application the immigration guys at the airport had this idea I was planning to overstay my holiday visa and work in the country illegally...They interrogated me, like really. “So you said you planned to stay in the United States of America and work”. I kept saying “No, I did not say that!” That’s the most indignant I’ve ever been. Here I was such a nice girl and they were so mean to me. They went through my luggage in the middle of the airport and pulled out my underwear and diary which they went through. They made me carry my bags around the airport. I was finally allowed to take my connecting flight from Hawaii to Fan Francisco, but they cut my visa down to a few days and told me to get to Mexico as fast as possible. I had to run what felt like miles to make my flight as the little bus that was taking people there had long gone. Thankfully they help the flight for me. And then there I was. Face to face with the boyfriend.
We didn’t really have a plan as I recall. The boyfriend I had not seen for 4 months, his slightly older sister and one of his smart handsome charming friends and I were to embark on a road trip which would take us to Mexico. Being an expert at living in the moment, I was just there.. Why not? What would I have done in Australia with an arts degree and no plan...? And PJ had asked me to come and I’d become driven in terms of making that happen. I’d begged and borrowed money and there I was. It was winter not summer.
I sort of remember what PJ was wearing when he picked me up from the airport. I also remember what I was wearing. I hocked a whole lot of stuff at the Balmain Markets before I left. Including 21st birthday gifts which were sold for stupid prices (that glass thing for jewellery turned out to be fancy crystal I later found out). Before I even left the markets I’d spent the money I made on new clothes.
We ended up in a bar, my first American bar. It was probably called Jacks or something like that. There seemed to be more bourbon than coke in my drinks (which is the opposite of the way things were done in Australia), and after 3 of them I had to go to the bathroom. I actually crawled on my hands and knees from the bar around the corner to our hotel without the others realising. I vomited and lay down sensing it was on my newish-and-chuffed-with garment and my hair and fell asleep. This is not the romantic reunited with PJ evening I would have expected.
The following morning PJ’s sister Chris introduced me to these bucket sized cups of drip coffee that had a caramel sort of flavour. I recall there were these Mexican food looking breakfasts and doughnuts everywhere at an ugly place we went to right around the corner- next to that bar. OK. So we sort out my visa situation. The Australian Consulate is very empathetic. It’s pretty impossible to call immigration. We go down there and get this thing called a visa extension form and pay a bunch of money. All the public buildings and infrastructure seems so old fashioned compared to shiny and new Sydney. This makes it seem more like the movies. Ed, (PJ’s friend the traveller/writer) says we absolutely must obtain acid because we are going to Vegas. (I have to tell the truth right now, I didn’t know who Hunter S Thompson was, but I was somewhat familiar with acid- but only ever in small amounts. Control freaks like me can only ever get a tiny bit into certain drugs). We go to Haight Ashbury and the boys are amazed how cheap it is. Ed had this weird fat bound-with-coloured-cottons ponyrat’s tail that happened upon his hair in India. Maybe that made it so easy to get the drugs. Not sure. Anyway, we seemed to have everything we needed and more...(in a fit of over excitement at how cheap luxury cosmetics and Persol sunglasses were I’d been downtown and spent half my modest funs. PJ notes I am spending money like a drunken sailor and I wonder why I’ve never heard this expression before............)