Poison and spiders

I had to fill out one of those cards declaring why you were visiting Australia, how long you were there for, where you were staying, and whether you’d brought lots of food and soil and wood with you. I had muddy boots and a small wooden tortoise with me (because I packed the essentials), but when customs asked me about it they thought on it for all of a second before deciding that “it’s fine mate”, and sent me on my merry way.

I had intended to meet Ronan when I arrived, but because I unexpectedly ended up arriving from Melbourne rather than Delhi, I came in through a domestic arrivals gate, which is not where he expected me to arrive. My first twenty minutes or so in Sydney were therefore made up of aimlessly wandering around a terminal in a tired, manic frame of mind completely inadequate to my goal of finding another tired, manic foreigner. (For those who don’t know, I’ve moved to Australia with Rachael, but our friend Ronan is holidaying with us for the first few weeks, as is Henry, Rachael’s boyfriend.)

Ronan was there somewhere, though, which was a good start, as we were – and are – sharing a hostel room. (Rachael and Henry are in a different part of town because they hate us.*) We got a bus into the city, but we didn’t know where we were getting off, so we had a stab in the dark. We got off in the right area, but then duly failed to read any maps correctly (despite the fact we are both able to use compasses and hike without getting lost and, usually, can read maps). We got lost. By this point I was feeling exceptionally unwell and was very grateful when a passing taxi driver revelled in our idiocy and gave us a lift.

Turns out the hostel was only a kilometre away from where we’d ended up and, had we taken a different turn earlier, we would have gotten there in mere minutes. Ha ha ha! Fuck off.

I passed out almost immediately, although Ronan found it in himself to sleep for an hour and then go for a walk to try and get familiar with the area. When I woke up, he was back in the room, and said “you didn’t tell me there was a massive spider in the bathroom”. I laughed, because he was being ridiculous. “No, seriously.” I frowned, and interrogated him because he was probably being a dirty liar, but then I looked in the bathroom and saw that there was indeed a big fuckoff spider curled up over the door. I speculated that it was a huntsman, based only on YouTube videos I’d watched to terrify myself before I came here. I didn’t really want to rely on that expertise when assessing how dangerous it was. (Huntsman bites aren’t dangerous, but they hurt. Huntsmen also run incredibly quickly because they don’t spin webs, instead chasing their prey down.) It could have been a huntsman, or it could have been a more dangerous spider, or a snake, or a shark (which it probably was because it was in the bathroom, where the water is). I’m a foreigner and I don’t want to take any chances.

The worst thing about this bathroom shark was that it didn’t really do anything when you were using the toilet or the sink, but as soon as you showered it started extending its legs and wiggling its mandibles. If it WAS a huntsman, then the one thing I knew for sure was that it could run over to me so quickly that there would be nothing I could do. (The layout of the bathroom is such that the shower takes up one side of the room. You are shut in at that end, but there is a gap of about a foot above the door where deadly creatures could easily run in and join you.) Ronan helpfully informed me that when he clapped, the spider stopped moving, but that wasn’t especially comforting because both of us know that clapping is not a widely used defence in the animal kingdom – for good reason. Our studies of biology have not gone completely to waste. But, we did both leave the hostel later that day, both having successfully (and independently) showered, albeit in abject fear a couple of metres away from the huntsman bathroom shark.

We attempted to meet up with Rachael and Henry, but because of internet access proving to be frequently costly and difficult to access, by the time we got to where they said they were, they’d gone. We caught a bus home, weighing up the pros and cons of the spider still being where we’d left it. As I’m a rational human being, I didn’t ever want to be near it, especially not when I was asleep. On the flipside, if it had disappeared, I was going to assume it was burrowed under my duvet and was going to bite me on the bum because spiders are creeps.

Naturally, the spider was nowhere to be seen. We went round hitting everything to see if a spider emerged, but ultimately forced ourselves to conclude that it had gone out of the window. I was horrified because I didn’t know the window had been open. Ronan explained that it was open before we checked in, which is probably why there was a spider inside.** I have henceforth decreed that no window is ever opened because I know I don’t have a deathwish.

It was that night that my stomach decided that it was especially unhappy, I think due to one of the in-flight meals. I soldiered on, because I’m in Australia, and this would be a really inconvenient time to be ill, so I logically decided not to be ill. The next day we tried to find Rachael and Henry – unfortunately wandering into the wrong hotel, leading to a comedic thread of messages (“we’re in the lobby but we can’t see you…?”; “oh, no, please don’t go to that room, we’re not in there!”). A couple of train rides later we found the two of them, Rachael being ill too, Australia presumably trying to reject us both. This was the first time I’d seen the person I’d be living in Australia with since November, so it was comforting to know she still existed and that Ronan hadn’t been keeping up an elaborate ruse to protect my feelings/destroy me out of hatred.

Rachael being a broken shell of a woman, Ronan and I cheerfully left the responsibility of dealing with her to Henry, and went to Darling Harbour on the ferry. We met up with Ronan’s holidaying cousin, and later Rachael and Henry mustered up the wellness to join us. I then spent my time watching them eat dinner while my self-important innards loudly asserted themselves as unhappy, regularly rearranging themselves for no obvious reason.

My innards’ game of squelchy Tetris continued the day after, the day that Ronan and I wandered around outside the Opera House and the botanic gardens. Again, we met up with Rachael and Henry, but I died at about half three and went back to the hostel. Determined to absorb Aussie culture, I watched Horrible Histories, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, flushing myself with water and Powerade because I guess I was probably losing electrolytes because food poisoning is kind of like a sport.

I think I’m better today.

*Neither of them provided this as the reason, but as a reader of MY blog, you are subject to MY whims.

**Rachael later said that she asked Henry what he would do if there was a spider in their room. Henry said “well, I would complain to reception”, like the hotel had ignored their booking for a spider-free room.