The Art of Loitering and Being Stranded

I'm going to lay down one little piece of information that I fully bet most of society doesn't know: being homeless is an art form. Yes, you read that correctly. Allow me to paraphrase in case you are still at a loss: being transient and living out of a car require a certain subset of skills that one must cultivate in order to survive. Or...not murder yourself from boredom.

Now that I'm sure to have piqued your interest, allow me to explain. My Swedish compadres/"roommates"/fellow bums and I have been living la vida lo[w riding]ca[r] for about a week an a half now, and even before that we were all over the place in terms of living and travel arrangements. With our undertaking of our car/home, we've also been slapped in the face by the grown-up world of automotive responsibilities. Ohhh, naive Ashley, Lina, and Johanna of 11 days ago, thinking you could just purchase your car cash-in-hand and switch the registration over and be done with it...how quaint. But as we have since found out, the obligations that we must fulfill to keep our sexy maroon sleeping quarters legally on the road are in fact, a bitch. A big fat ol' expensive and time-consuming bitch. Between having to switch the registration into our names (even more complicated since we purchased it and registered it in a different state), getting an inspection for a Roadworthy Certificate, getting the car repaired in order to get the Roadworthy Certificate, spending several hours at the Queensland Transportation Authority, and getting 6 more months of registration put on the car...it's been pretty difficult to get this all done in a reasonable time frame. Due to the Australia Day holidays, Cyclone Oswold, and regular business hours, we've had to spend the last 10 or so days in Surfers Paradise, QLD, in different stages of waiting on our car to be repaired or getting through the gauntlet of red tape and paperwork that the Australian version of the DMV deems necessary to get a car on the road (side note: they should offer free beer, coffee, and chocolate to all the poor souls that have to go to the DMV).

During our time in the inappropriately named Surfers Paradise--where if you're a backpacker and don't want to spend money to be entertained you're plain outta luck--we had to remain tied to the area for vehicular purposes, AND we were trapped there for 3 days because of the cyclone that passed through. OIY. Normally we're reasonably good at entertaining ourselves in very commercial areas, but being stuck indoors (er, incardoors) due to that ornery bastard Oswald presented new challenges. After we finally escaped and tried to cut around Brisbane, we wound up trapped in Beaudesert because of all the flooding and road closures. Going stir crazy is not a myth, I tell you! However, in that time, I personally believe that we three lowly backpackers have mastered the art of loitering, taking advantage of free services that public businesses have to offer, and killing time.

Since beach walks and going and spending a lot of (or any) money were pretty much out of the question, the three travelling musketeers could be found in one of these places:

1) Our car. Usually during sleeping hours, but we have gotten very into reading a murder mystery around bedtime each night...and in the mornings when we're trapped in the car with tree branches, heavy rain and winds assaulting the car.
2) McDonalds. Yeah, as someone who arguably fits into the hippie category I really do hate the corporate mumbojumbo and gross fast 'food' empire that is Micky D's, but oh my god. Free internet. 30 cent ice cream cones. Oh. My. God. If we had a gallon of gas for every hour that we've spent in McDonalds in the last 2 weeks, we'd without a doubt be able to do a cross country road trip. We've gotten in more computer time, reading, crosswords, sudokus, prophetic conversations, card games, and time killing than I can even begin to express. We've also taken full advantage of the free hot water they allow us to have for making either tea or oatmeal. And we've also decided that one day (perhaps today since we're still stranded in Beaudesert...) we're going to drop $3 and see who can eat 10 ice cream cones the fastest. Game on.
3) Lobby of the movie theater in Surfers Paradise. Wide open, has a cafe, don't need movie tickets to get there, and comfy couches. In case management approaches us about taking over the couches without being paying customers, our backstory is that we're simply waiting til the late show of The Hobbit. Then of course, at the end of the night, we opt not to see it.
4) Anywhere that allows me to put a book in front of my face. Currently plowing my way through Shantaram (933 pages), Atlas Shrugged (1040 pages), and the complete works of Jane Austen (7 novels in 1). I will be a literary scholar by the time I become a trophy wife.
5) Beaudesert Public library. Again, free internet. I'll give you one guess as to where I'm writing this blog right now. In  my defense, however, I spent the better half of the morning on the Queensland transport website researching which roads in the area are open so as to find the quickest escape route up north. Update: may be stranded here another night. That's ok, there's a McDonald's here!

Although this is where we are likely to be found 95% of the time, I would be remiss to discount the random parks, wheelchair ramps outside of the gym, grocery stores, and shopping malls that we've arbitrarily wandered in or sat in for embarrassingly long amounts of time. Wait, did I say embarrasingly? Whoops, momentarily forgot about NO SHAME NO DIGNITY (which if you haven't been keeping up with my awesome blog, NO SHAME NO DIGNITY is the homeless gal's YOLO). I think the words 'ridiculously' or 'mind-blowingly' are more appropriate.

All in all, this is basically how you turn homelessness and nothing to do into an art form. Just a recap: spend an absurd amount of time in places that the average individual only spends a maximum of 30 minutes, don't be afraid to mooch the free things, get as comfortable as possible, and have no qualms with the occasional passerby looking at you with judgemental eyes (they're not as cool as you anyways). Also, an important skill to have is the ability to not feel ashamed when you eat canned food in a public setting. Canned tuna and vegetables are 2 of the 3 main food groups in a backpacker diet (3rd being McDonald's 30 cent ice cream cones, obviously). Yes, I'll admit, it's not the most fun way to pass the time and is at times derelict. But, brightsides: I could be with way worse people, reading way lamer books, have way less internet access/air conditioning, and be way less in Australia. I'm looking forward to getting up north and back on the traveling trail/getting a job, but hell, this is literally that vacation from vacation that working people are always bitching about needing when they get back from their precious one week off from their dreadful jobs. Depending on who you ask, I'm livin' the dream!

PS: I drove for the first time in Australia yesterday. And didn't kill myself or anyone else. Or accidentally drive on the wrong side of the road. IT WAS AWESOME! Except for when I tried to shift gears with my right hand and not the left, and ended up grabbing at the car door. That was embarrassing. BUT OTHER THAN THAT IT WAS AWESOME!