I want to tell you about the day I had yesterday. I want to tell you about it, because I don’t think it was anything special. It had nothing to do about being in Australia. It had nothing to do with a beach, a surfboard, sand or sun. None of that. It had everything to do with company.

My new gym friend is Reena. She is this drop dead gorgeous woman who is of Indian and Fijian descent, but full on Aussie. She has travelled to Canada on numerous occassions and for that reason alone we were already bonded. It was nice to share stories of Canadia with an Aussie who can relate to my experiences. On Saturday, Reena invited me to her 30th birthday party slash going away party. Yes, she is going away, but I will get to that story later. Patience grasshopper. So the theme of the party (and we all know I am a sucker for any THEME parties) was Bollywood. I told Reena that I didn’t have anything Indianesque to wear, so asked what should I do. She flat out told me to wear cotton pants and throw a towel on my head. I laughed and thought, “was this girl fer real? Cause trust me, I have no qualms walking around town with a towel on my head - but will that be offensive?” I opted to wear my bohemian shirt and linen pants, and that was as Bollywood I was going to get. I attended the party with my mate Geramae and we had a great time. Ironically enough, all the Indian guys at the party donned a pair of jeans and a dress shirt. All the rest of us blokes came in our lame attempt to look Bollywood! Pretty funny.

The next day, the hungover Reena sms’d me and asked if I wanted to meet her and her mate Nic for lunch. I agreed and this my friends, was the beginning of a great day.

We met at the local pub where we sat in the warm spring sun and sipped on a couple of lemons, lime and bitters (a refreshing Aussie non alcoholic drink - yes, there are non aloholic drinks here!) and we munched on $10 steaks. As we quenched our thirsts and satisfied our stomachs, we sat there without a care in the world - without any regard for time or space. It was great. We all had nothing to do, no items on our agendas, no items to cross off on our “things to do” list, it was easy.

We sat, we talked, we laughed, we shared stories. I sat there talking freely, without any angst, without any prejudice, giving of myself to these strangers - really. I mean, I only knew Reena for a total of what - 6 hours at best?! And Nic I had just met that day.

We ended up moving the conversation and company to Darling Harbour where we decided that we were going to read our books in the park. We grabbed a cup of coffee, or tea in my case seeing as how I now no longer drink coffee, and sat there under the same spring sun that we first met under. However, our plan in wanting to spend the afternoon reading became an impossible feat. WE WERE TOO BUSY TALKING ALL THE TIME!

Here’s the deal:

Reena - is taking off to go to India to work with tigers. How cool is that hey?! She is going to travel to various Indian tiger reserves where she will volunteer her time for the upbringing of endangered tigers. Whilst her heart yearns for the betterment of an endangered animal, I sat there listening to her with a guilty conscience. I hate cats. Is that bad? I was chased by a cat when I was a young lad and hated the fact that cats were so god damn tempermental and had such sharp claws that could claw my eyes out. Didn’t like them then, don’t really like them now - but I do have to give props to Reena though. She is doing the world some good and God bless her for that, but in the event that she fails - hey, I won’t be too sad. Ha ha!

Nic - a soulful man with an interesting parallel life story to mine. He has great insight on things and is a spiritual man. He is the “been there and done that” type of guy who retrospectively looks back at life and smiles. I reckon I have a lot to learn from Nic. Without even knowing it, he has already given me great advice just from what he says about his own life. He too is a travelling man like me and is in fact heading out to India and England in the new year. I love what he has to say about India. He says, “India is one of those places that sucks you in and then spits you out when its done with you.” It’s all a part of his love/hate relationship with India. He goes there to these holy places where he meditates. I haven’t learned anything yet about the art of meditating. I reckon it’s because I have the attention span of a - hey look - a butterfly!

It was a great day indeed. We sat there until the cool wind and the dusk sky told us it was time to go home. We threw on our jumpers and parted our separate ways. I miss my friends back in Canada. I wish they could come out here, if even for a day - just to sit out in the park with me and talk.