I'm going to be honest with you. My first day in Australia I spent in the hospital. Thailand had been good to me, a bit too good maybe. I came back with more souvenirs than expected. Mosquitoes loved my sweet Belgian chocolate blood, a spider bit me and turned my foot into a purple balloon and last but not least: a lovely parasite decided to make his home under my skin. How wonderful.
After hours of playing musical chairs in the waiting room, my brain automatically switched to Grey's Anatomy's channel and all I was wishing for was a devastating dish of doctor deliciousness to run through the door, grab me by the hand and prescribe me a tablet of white chocolate three times a day and as many weddings as possible to heal my skin. Instead a woman walked in, pointed at my boyfriend and yelled with a thick Aussie accent: JOKE THE ROCK, you're up! We were all confused but she gave me a tetanus shot and antibiotics and that was that.
She told me to keep my purple foot lifted to stop the swelling, what I translated as a demand to binge-watch old movies with my balloon foot on a pile of pillows. I decided I felt better and after one day on the couch we ran to the beach for fun kiting times and camping under the super moon. Oh how good it feels to be back in Australia! Catching up with friends in and around Byron Bay, singing songs while dancing around in fairy dresses, drinking fruit punch, finding snakes in the bushes, painting flowers on houses and swimming in creeks with no clothes on: home sweet Straya! :)