why i always carry my bag with me, goddamnit

An anonymous lad with whom I have been travelling lately (Matt) asked me one day, "yeah vicki, why do you ALWAYS carry your little backpack EVERYWHERE???" though at the time I could only answer something on the order of "i like having a lot of stuff with me," i can now elaborate.

tonight, i went to the Salamanca rectango live music area in the early evening, where they were a handful of tasmanian children (devils? naw!) with their parents drinking cascades and some young-pre-parentage people (though all over 20 or so I would say). That was quite fun, even though I wasn't there long enough to loosen up a lot and go dance in the main area. But I did say hi to a guy wearing a Green Mountain Club tshirt (aussie, not american, though).

Anyways so afterwards I decide, hey, I'm at Salamanca, I'm hungry, I've been eating cheaply, I'm gonna go out to dinner here! I wing up chosing this restaurant because there will be music playing around 8 pm. It's 7:45 pm. After some shuffling I wound up sitting outside. I got a drink promptly but it took maybe till 8:10 for them to come and take my order. Then, I wait. There might have been music, I think, but since I had moved outside, I couldn't really hear it. The good waitress, but who didn't seem to be my main waitress, was nice and brought me a paper, because I'm sitting there by myself and all I had was my emergency cell phone and my camera and my ID and money, cause I had thought "oooh I'm going out on the town I'll look nicer and bring a purse, not my big little backpack!"

Anyways, long story story, the food (a salad with meat, which was cold when it arrived, purposefully i think) came at 8:45!!!!!! And by this time I was cold outside! I had read that entire paper (after starring into the square for a while too). The most interesting article being about China's recent addition of stringent green building requirements. It appears to be a good facet of communism! I ate my dinner, was sure to ask for my bill very promptly, and needless to say I left a very small tip. Others near me were served my faster, by the way. Then I bought I cookie somewhere else--in spite of them and to make me happy.

The moral of the story is ALWAYS carry your little backpack with your book and journal in it so that when you, now single as a traveller, are standing there or sitting there awkwardly watching small children or starring off into space, you can actually have something to do and not have to sit there for 40 minutes waiting for one salad.