beautiful ones

one of the main differences about travelling alone is that you don't have anyone from home that knows and loves you with you to keep you reassured that you're normal. i've found that it can be quite ungrounding at times. you meet lots of ubercool people wearing their billabong and you suddenly start feeling v inadequate, especially if you've put on basically a dress size in the last eight months so you don't feel like you look like you anyway. it's most disconcerting. and then everyone seems to have fantastic lives, going out every night (where do they get their money from?!) and you feel like you should be doing the same. it's much easier to reject all this as the bollocks it is when you have someone there who knows you to be the fabulous, independent modern woman of the world that you are and you can sit on your beds and snigger at all the wannabes together. and sydney seems to be especially bad for being populated by beautiful people. everyone seems to dress v well and all the backpackers seem to be tanned and toned, the bastards. but then maybe they've been here for months and starved themselves into the bargain aswell. i went to bondi beach the other day (see pic) and did a rather nice coastal walk from bondi to coogee beach. but, my god, HOW many joggers?! and they were all super skinny. i think i'm going to have to call on all my defences to survive this. i mean, i went shopping in town yesterday cos i was so pissed off with all the clothes i have and i actually bought a vest top from a surf shop. i KNOW. i can't believe i did it, myself. but it was in the sale and it is actually quite nice. and it's not billabong so that's alright then. and to atone for myself i then went to paddy's market and bought two tops for a tenner. bargain. that's, like, four quid. so i'm now going to throw out all the clothes that are depressing me and attempt to look cool myself. though not in their billabong way, hopefully. plus, all my old tops seem to have got suncream all over them so i needed to buy more clothes, really. honest. (ps. HOW difficult is it to put suncream on your own back?! i'd completely taken rachael for granted for that). so, yeah, recent thoughts have been about how travelling on my own is challenging me, mentally as well as physically (as in applying suncream). but i did think yesterday when i was watching dragon boat racing for the chinese new year at darling harbour that it was quite nice being on my own. it meant that i could stay there for as long as i liked, watching them all row like buggery for aaages.

incidentally, is being quirky a good thing? was talking to a chap from bristol last night in the pub and he said i was 'the quirkiest girl he'd ever met'. what does this mean? i mean, no-one fancied phoebe out of 'friends', did they...?