It was more than ten years back in 2004 that I traveled to Sydney, Australia. I was travelling not on a family vacation or a holiday, but on work. I were travel blog guest post there on a software consulting project (don’t want to go into more details of this boring topic), and this was my second trip to the beautiful city. I had earlier spent three months in Sydney, but due to project related work-pressures I was hardly able to explore the city, and neither did I get a chance to really meet anyone there. So this time I wanted to see around the city and make friends there. I never knew that I would be soon meeting and making good friends with a witch in Australia!
Yahoo messenger was in vogue those days and with some travel blog australia searching, I was able to connect to a lady. She was from Sydney, appeared much older than me, but was fun chatting. So when I told her that I’ll be travelling to her city in a week and was looking to find a friend there, she was game.
I was staying at the Travelodge Macquarie North Ryde Hotel, near the Macquarie Shopping Center. Once I landed and joined work I updated her and we fixed a time on a Saturday morning to meet. She came to meet me on a Saturday morning at my hotel, dressed in black from head to toe. She also had pitch black hair and was wearing black shades over her eyes. We met at the lobby and then after we were acquainted, she offered to drive me around the suburbs of Sydney to which I readily agreed.. While I was boarding her car, I seemed to notice a little sticker on the rear of the car.It red ” My other car is a broom!!”
The insides of her car had everything.. from used coke cans to heaps of cigarette buds in the ashtray. There were lots of papers, dress items, pillows, additional sleepers, a towel and a couple of small cardboard boxes at the back. The front seat was full of ash and the car reeked of cigarette smoke. Additionally, the side view mirrors had cobwebs on them. The car was dirty!!!
Northern beaches, Sydney.
The mind kept looking for answers as we began chatting on weather, then about the city, then about Australia, then about India ( my country) then about my religion – Hinduism. She said she knew about Kali and Krishna ( which are Hindu Gods and Goddesses) and said she also worships them. Things were not matching.
“Are you a Christian?” I asked with some confusion.
“No, I am a Wiccan. Do you know what is Wicca?” She asked me.
“Well, no,” I replied.
And she explained about the Pagan mother religion that was in vogue before Christianity came. The religion which is connected to King Arthur and his Excalibur, and Sir Lancelot and the round table of the Knights. She explained how wizards and witches had been given different explanations as Christianity came to power and started to spread all over Europe and the European colonies.