Ho, Ho, Hoe

Merry Christmas to all. I hope the festive season is treating everyone well.

Christmas was quite a bit different then what I'm used to. First of all the lack of snow and abundance of sun was a change. It was also my first Christmas away from home. We ended up doing a secret Santa at the hostel between all the staff members (since most of the people staying here work for accommodation anyways). I was given a shirt that has a dog sniffing another dogs butt and it says "Do I know you?" Someone around here knows me too well I think. That's a sign that I've been here too long.

After supper my friends and I were tipped off about a house party that we figured we would go crash. Getting there became half the fun. First we were going to walk there with the crappy directions we were given. Once that fell through we hailed a cab and asked him to take us to the address. The driver looked back at us telling us there is no street name with the address we wanted. Ooooooh Man. He eventually did find it on the map after 10 minutes of looking at talking to his dispatch. Then he got us lost twice and had to pull a u-turn. In the end I refused to pay the fare that he asked for because of his horrible navigational skills with a map.

The house was cool, but the party was lacking. We only spent about 2 hours there before deciding that going into town would prove to be more fruitful. All the night clubs were opening up at midnight anyways so we would be just in time. We ended up going to a techno club til 5am where I was happy to deal with the drunken idiots who plague this city and insist that I'm jack Osbourne! I try to humour people on it, but one guy thought I took it as an offensive (come on, Jack Osbourne isn't good looking so I'm not going to take it as a compliment). My German friend Stef sits down beside me and starts chatting to me and the guy comes back and apologizes to me and then tells me I'm very handsome. (uh oh) He then goes on saying that I must be good looking to have a good looking girl like Stef as my woman. Whoa!! Now this is where I'd usually pipe up and correct the guy that she's just my friend, but Stef looked scared of him and I knew this guy (like every other guy in the place) would try to pick her up if they knew she wasn't taken. So i got to be the sit in boyfriend for the night to scare off the drunken jerks. if only it were a paying job.

Christmas seemed to turn out well for Adam back down in Melbourne as well. For the guy who went from no money, no job, no woman (hey this sounds familiar) he now has it all. His own place, a new job and he got laid just in time for Christmas. It's like something out of a Disney movie.....without the shag of course. So I'm happy for him. I'm still working on getting myself a quick dose of lovin' before leaving Cairns, otherwise I'm never coming back to the state Queensland again. Gonna go back to my happy place of Victoria or New South Wales.

We shall see how new years goes. Plenty of drunk girls at that time of the year. YAY!!!!

Happy Holidays

Muckluck (no good titles came to mind)

The past month has been more or less uneventful. My days are filled with work and sleep.... sometimes drinking.

We had the staff Christmas party last week and proceeded in drinking lots and lots and lots. At some point I was able to steal my supervisors hat (which is a hat from the bar we work at). She hasn't asked for it back yet, nor do I think she knows it's missing. I'm hoping to keep it so I can bring it home.

I finally got my hair cut. Two English girls were bugging me about how out of control my hair was getting and they kept offering to cut it for me. I was uneasy about it until one of them said she's an actual hair dresser back home. The other girl is a hair dresser in training, so I wasn't too fond of her taking scissors to my mop top. It worked out in the end and I now have some hair which is more suitable for the weather in the tropics.

I've finally decided to leave Cairns in the new year and go back down to Melbourne (where the weather is a bit more to my liking). From there I'm going to work on getting myself out to Adelaide, then eventually to Perth. I decided to stick around for Christmas and New Years mainly because I'll get paid so much more by working the holidays, and money is what I would like to have right now.

On Saturday night I was given the horrible job of glass washing at work. It sounds easy, stack all the glasses of the same type onto a tray and shove them in the dishwasher, when done put the tray away somewhere around the bar. Now take into account how many glasses I'm getting when there are four glassys bringing me full trays, and I have to move around behind the bar with busy bartenders. It's a bit more stressful then being on the floor, but I survived. Near the end of the night I was still doing my glass washing and I was sipping on a glass of Orange Juice to refuel my system when two girls come by and jokingly tell me I shouldn't be drinking on the job. I tell them not to tell anyone and we all walk away happy, they then want two free margaritas in exchange for silence. Of course I can't do that and they knew it, but we had a good time with it. They ended up chatting with me while I was stacking trays for about 10 minutes or so when they decide it's time to go and one of them tells me that she'll come back in next weekend to see me cause she thinks I'm cute. At this point they are a bit away from the bar when I yell to them "Come on! I at least deserve a phone number, or a name" she happily replied "If I see you next weekend, you'll get both." What a tease.

I work hard for my money

Funny how quickly things can turn around. I went from having no job prospects to having too many that I didn't know what to do. Currently I still do my housekeeping job, now I also work at a bar collecting glasses and some days I work with an appliance delivery company and lastly I'm now being offered the night manager position at the hostel I'm staying at. Seems I may have more money when I escape Cairns after all.

The past week I've spent most of my free time chatting and partying with... (if you guessed a German girl, then give yourself a gold star and cookie). I seriously don't know what it is with me and German girls, but as soon as I hear that accent from across the room I drop everything and introduce myself. This ones a bit different. I WAS going to go for her when I originally thought she was 23 or 24, but then found out she's 32. I only work well with the young naive women. The older and wiser ones see through me too quickly. It's all good though. She's a blast to go drinking with and just having conversations. She's out here taking her rescue diving course so she can become a dive instructor. She claims her English isn't very good (she's a liar, and yes her pants are on fire) and got me to explain half of the rescue diving manual to her. At this point I could probably become a rescue diver too. In return she picked up where my German lessons last left off and I have had a chance to learn some new phrases. Our current deal that we have going is that as long as I cook her supper then she'll buy me drinks for the night. Needless to say I break out my chefs hat every night for her and every night I get passed off as a master chef. Not only by her, but by most regulars in the hostel as well. If I'm not careful, they may put me to work in the kitchen too.

The bar job is a lot of fun. It's something new so it keeps my attention and isn't as mindless and boring yet. In fact, I can't believe I never tried for a job like this earlier. Drinking + Girls = Girls Gone Wild Videos. Well there isn't a video out of our bar yet, but I'm sure I could make one. On my last shift this one girl couldn't find the bathroom and asked me if I could be bothered to show her where it is. I happily obliged and she took my hand as I safely pushed our way through a sea of people and arrived at the bathroom door. She was so overjoyed that she gave me a nice kiss on the lips. I love cute drunk girls. Even working down by the dance floor is becoming a favourite spot of mine. Girls always want to dance with the glass collectors for some reason, and you usually get to girls, one in front and the other behind you. All the while I'm hold my tray full of glasses above my head while trying not to drop it on anyone. I almost look forward to my next shift just to see what will happen next.

The other night we went out to an Irish pub called Shenanigans for their 2 for 1 drinks. At some point one of the guys we were out with says I look like Jack Osborne (it's not the first time I've been told that) but after that he kept introducing me as Jack to everyone and was bringing over random girls just so they could meet Jack Osborne. It was a riot and we all had a bang up time. One of the girls at reception refuses to call me by my real name and instead calls me Jack.

Went out to a popular backpacker bar called the Woolshed. Actually I've been there many times, but it's always fun to meet new people there. While I was there a girl recognized me and it took me awhile to figure out who she was. It was a Danish girl named Louise who I had met on the way up from Hervey Bay. She stopped in Bingara to do fruit picking and only now has got up north. We had a fun time talking about what we had done in the past month until this guy (that she just met that night) came over and thought I was trying to pick up 'his girl'. He kept trying to pull her away from me right in the middle of when we were talking. Thankfully Louise was smart enough to tell him to bugger off for a few moments while we chatted. I got death stares from that guy the rest of the night. I could have taken him though.

Happy Birthday take 2

It seems I've managed to land on my feet for the most part.

I have new mates, got myself a job and even got a second chance at my birthday as well.

November 3rd is my unofficial birthday now. A few guys took me out to PJ O'Briens for the Coyote Ugly dancers. It's just bar dancing waitresses if you couldn't figure it out. Then they hold competitions for guys dancing and they can win a bar tab, and then you get the lady dancers from the crowd who are always amazing. While there we found some other girls that I was working house keeping with at our hostel and we joined them and their friends for the rest of the evening. Around 2am PJ's was closing and we all went out to a dance club called SoHo. It was pretty dead being a weekday, but I still had a chance to talk with some new people and meet a few more girls in town. The place closed at 3am and on my way out a guy grabbed me the shoulder and said "Hey Canada! Remember me?" I didn't really recognize him until he said we met in Sydney. It was a Swedish guy named Martin who I only hung out with for one night which was actually my second night in Sydney and Sandy's (Scottish's) goodbye party. It was amazing that he remembered me for we only knew each other for about 6 hours and that was almost 2 months ago now. Simply amazing. We had a quick catch up session on what we'd both done and hoped that we'd both meet up again sometime. So Birthday the Second worked out much better and I went home much happier.

The next day I went back to Gilligan's to follow up on a job application I had submitted for working in the bar as a glassy. I talked with the supervisor who was going to set up an appointment with the manager for me, but instead hired me on the spot and told me to come in Friday night. Which brings me to last night. My first day of work. It's all pretty simple. I just walk around holding a tray above my shoulder or head (depending on how busy it is) and fill it up with empty glasses and take them back to the bar and start all over. I do this for about 5 hours then it's home time. Plus at home time we get a free domestic beer or anything else in a can. No imports though.

Even my lady situation is getting a bit better again. My friend Garry works the bar at the hostel we stay at so I tend to hang out there and bug him for drinks all day. Well yesterday I saw this pretty blond girl checking in and I told Garry "I've found my new target." And we both had a laugh about it. About 20 minutes later she comes over to the bar and wants a diet coke but doesn't have enough money for it, so I step in and spot her the money and that gets us talking a bit. It was a pretty good and engaging conversation because we didn't ask for each others names or where we are from. We just chatted back and forth about what we've done with ourselves the past while. I'm hoping I'll see her around again soon.

As for Marie, I've been swaying back and forth on whether to at least try and smooth things about between us to at least try and regain a friend. or cut my losses and leave her as the fuck buddy that she was.

With that said, it's time to go grocery shopping.

Rock Bottom

Well yesterday was my 21st birthday and I can simply say that it was the worst birthday I've had....ever.

I only had one person to celebrate with and he doesn't like to drink or anything so it was quite the sober evening of me being miserable.

I thought things were going to be good because Marie is in town now and that she'd be nice enough to come out for just a little bit. Oh how wrong I was.

I ran into Marie a few days ago on the street as she was on her way to her first day of work. She asked me if I was available that evening and that she'd give me a call when she was done work. Well around midnight she messages me telling me she won't be coming out. Fine by me.

The next day I message her asking her if she has any free time to go do something. I got no reply.

The day after (which would be yesterday) she messages me and wishes me a happy birthday and then asks what I'm going to do and at what time. I give her the low-down and by 11pm (3 hours later) she still hasn't shown up and it's just my buddy Tjeerd and I doing nothing at this point. Plus Tjeerd had to go to bed early because of an early flight to Melbourne the next day. Out of curiosity I call Marie and get her voicemail. I leave a message asking her if she's still gonna come out or she wants to get together another time. I then walk home. Around 1am I get a message from Marie telling me "Sorry I can't come, this isn't working. You are a really nice guy and will meet a lot more people. Have fun. Marie" I'm blown away. This is like her way of breaking up with me......which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that WE WEREN'T DATING! Jeez. So she doesn't want to see me again and I can only assume was stringing me along the whole time.

For those of you who are playing along at home, your checklist should look something like this for Mike's Birthday:

No Money
No Job
No Transportation
No Friends up here (Just in this city)
No Girlfriend (which i didn't even know I had in the first place)

which equals no will to do anything!

Actually, this morning I felt much better. I called home and let my mum know of my frustrations, and Adam called me too and I explained the Marie thing to him. I think he was more shocked then I was.

I'm now more miserable then I have ever been in my entire life. It's one thing to be depressed and feeling lonely when you are still surrounded by your friends and family. It's another to be alone in a city with no friends and now a woman who hates you for no reason.

Even on the walk into town today I passed right by Marie and received one of the coldest stares from her that I wasn't even aware she could produce. It really makes me wonder what I did. In the past I can usually pinpoint problem areas, but this time I'm coming up empty. All we did was have a fun time in Sydney. We agreed to meet in Cairns and messaged each other and ran into each other everywhere in between. I really don't know what I did wrong and I'd really like to know what it was. The biggest problem is it's not a very big city and I've run into her twice already then I can assume I'll be running into her quite a bit if she's working here too.

It hurts cause I really did like the girl and I thought it could have been something great because of how it evolved from what was supposed to be a one night stand, to two people having a great time and a few laughs as they travel up the coast.

I suppose that saga has ended.

The hardest part about this is it's the first time that when I've become unhappy with a city I can't leave. At least with Brisbane I was able to jet when things went to poop. Now I have to start from scratch.

I now need a job so I can leave this city as soon as possible and get on with my life.

God bless the fates for thinking that I need to be punished for something horrible that I've done in this life time.

Fat men bounce

The past week has been quite the experience.

I went to magnetic island for a day and went snorkeling along the great barrier reef. At that point I felt that it was the best thing I've done on my trip. I couldn't believe how cool the reef was. The rest of my time on Magnetic was spent laying around in paradise.

I only passed through Townsville and can't see how it could possibly be the capital of northern Queensland. It's too small.

On the way up to Cairns we stopped off at a crock farm and watched this guy feed crocodiles. He was about as crazy as Steve Irwin. This guy will sit on crocks and poke them with rakes while he feeds them. Crazy Ozzies.

When we got to Cairns our first stop before heading into the main city was the AJ Hackett bungee jump site. Now at first I wasn't going to do it due to lack of money. But a dutch girl, Barbra, told me that she'd jump if I jumped. Sure, I can't let a cute girl out do me on this one. So I got up and did it. I jumped and took the plunge in a small pond of water at the bottom. That soon became the best thing I've done on my trip. I remember after my first bounce up when I was coming down I looked at all the girls sitting on the patio area from my bus and had to be a bit cheesy and give them the wink and the gun and say "Hey ladies!" I got my applause and laughs for the day. It was all I asked for.

When we got to Cairns I got myself into a hostel and then everyone from the bus was headed over to a club called the woolshed. I spent my night trying to hit up a German girl named Nicole who was on my left, all the while I had an English girl on my right, Hana, who was hitting on me. I think my smoothness has come back. The evening was filled with lots of free drinks from our bus driver and then lots of dancing after much convincing from Hana.

I've spent the last few days just looking for a job and saving some money, until my parents threw me some money for my birthday. So last night instead of beans on toast (which I was eating for most of my journey cause of how cheap it is) I was able to make a proper meal of chicken, pasta with onions and mushrooms. I got so excited that I ended up making way too much and invited my buddy Tjeerd over to have supper at my hostel. Not a bad meal for only spending $10 on the food necessary which also fed two of us.

Now I play the waiting game. I shall wait for Marie to get here and see what she's going to do next, plus I have my birthday coming up soon. Hopefully it will be filled with many free drinks.

The great escape

Oh dear god! I'm so glad to be out of Brisbane. I had such high hopes for the place and then found myself wanting nothing more then to escape it. OK, it's not as bad as I make it out to be. I just didn't have a great time while I was there. It's been the biggest low-light of my trip thus far and now I know never to go back for any reason.

My first screw over was the fact that the hostel was full and only had single rooms available. I had no choice but to either find a new hostel or dish out more money to pay for a single room. I suppose it's nice to have your own room to sleep in especially if I was going to try and get some action out here. 3 days there were spent exploring and waiting for my buddy Adam to get his butt up there from Byron Bay. I figured once he got there then things would be fun and we'd have a grand old time like we always do. The first day he was there I gave him a tour of the city the only way I knew he'd appreciate it, Through a pub crawl. We hit up 5 different pubs from about 2pm that day until whenever it was we stopped drinking. The general consensus between the two of us was that Brisbane sucked and we were only going to stay a few days.

One night two of his friends from England who happen to be living out near Brisbane came into town and we went out that night. It was a night of being thrown out of places cause one of his friends was only 17. It ended up okay because we found a place that didn't ID us and we became chums with one of the bar jockeys. In general it was an alright night.

The next morning some random super hot girl was on the roof and offered Adam and I a joint. I remembered my last experiences in the weed department and figured that if I wanted to seem presentable to this woman, then I had better not smoke anything. We talked for a bit and learned that she just goes around to random hostels and enjoys talking with the people, she's from Surfers Paradise and hated Brisbane as much as us. Good to see it's not just me.

Adam and I spent most of our time in the "Down under Bar" in the basement of the Palace Hotel(it's actually a hostel). On one of those nights he informed me that he had invited down a few of his roomies to drink with us. One of which was a Dutch girl named Iris who he was hoping to shag at some point. Iris and her friend Cloe joined us and then a bit later Adam's other roomie, Erthan, joined us and it was a party. The bar was packed and everyone was enjoying themselves. I kept scanning the room for good looking girls who looked available. At about 11pm two girls sat down at our table and I looked over at Adam and said "Bingo". I thought it wouldn't be too hard considering my recent string of luck since I had been in this country, but before I could get over to her another guy seemed to be trying his luck and this girl blew him off completely. Yikes, that was enough to scare me stupid and not try anything. Adam and Iris were bugging me to just try my luck anyways, but I kept refusing. Iris then took it into her own hands. She started talking with the two girls and found out that they were dutch as well, so the conversation soon changed languages from English to Dutch. This always scares me when girls start talking in another language and keep looking back at me. I don't know if I should smile, or turn away. After a few minutes of conversation between the two Iris told me to just start talking with her. So I went for it. I did the usual travellers questions to get to know her, and we seemed to be hitting it off pretty well. Until she started asking me if I believed her on anything she had told me so far, I didn't know what else to say but "are you giving me a reason not to believe you?" The only thing that seemed doubtful was that her name was Stoop. I think at some point I just lost interest and then she told me that it was nice to meet me and that she was going to find her friend...... I was stunned. It took me a minute just to process what had happened. I just got my first blow off in Oz. Sure I started to lose interest, but I was about to boat that bass and she did it to me before I could act. I can't complain I suppose. I went a solid Month and a Half with having my way with almost any woman I felt an extreme interest in. This was just a kick to the head that told me I'm not as smooth as I think I am.

The next day I decided I hate Brisbane even more then before and that I was going to make a run for it while I still could. I booked to leave on my bus the next day and spent my time sunbathing. Stupid Idea. I pretty much fell asleep in the sun and burnt my chest and stomach. Another point to Brisbane. In an effort to make my last night a bit better, Adam and I went in search of a bottle shop that wasn't a rip off. One doesn't exist in the center of Brisbane. We went back to the rooftop patio of the hostel and drank a lot until I had an awesome idea. Two Kiwi guys gave me an entire bottle of Vodka and I somehow drank it all in 20 minutes. I don't even like Vodka straight! For me, I can't remember finishing the bottle. I woke up sitting on the toilet, pants still up, no puke around me or anything. I felt drunk still. I walked back through the rooftop patio and layed down on a bench until a familiar figure from last night hovered above me. It was an American guy, Brett, who informed me of the previous nights antics. He told me that I'm now the most popular person at The Palace and that my buddy from England was looking after me last night. I checked my pockets and realized I didn't have my room key or my mobile phone on me and figured Adam would have it. I raced down to his room and beat on the door. No answer. Erthan came along soon afterwards and told me that Adam was around the hostel somewhere just not in the room. I went back to the roof to collect my thoughts, if it was possible at this stage. One of the guys who works at the palace saw me and remembered me and let me into my room. There I found everything I thought I was missing and a note from Adam saying 'I guess you won't be checking out today, Give me a call when you wake up." I checked the time on my mobile, it was 2pm. I missed my bus by about 3 hours. Time for sleep.

I woke up at around 5pm and gave Adam a call. He came up to my room and brought me food. He told me everything that happened. Apparently I was so drunk a few girls wanted to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital and get my stomach pumped. It took two of the biggest guys to carry me back to my room where Adam watched over me until about 9am. What a guy. This is why he's my best mate out here. At some point I had hit my head because I found blood on my pillow and the back of my head hurt like crazy. Around 6pm he said I should make an appearance on the rooftop. I came out and sure enough, Everyone knew who I was. Everyone was asking me if I was okay and how I was feeling. It was funny, I had gone from just a normal guy to instant superstar at the hostel (not in the most classy way or in any way that I would choose to do again in the future). I spent my night hearing how everyone thought I was just the funniest thing they had ever seen and how they were all impressed to hear from Adam that I didn't puke a single bit. I was now known as the Hardcore Canadian, and Brett said my name is now going to be a verb for getting drunk. That night he said "I'm going to get seriously Miked tonight." I was off drinking and smoking for the last 3 days I was there. Food didn't even taste that great. I get the shivers whenever I think of Vodka now.

I rebooked my bus and spent my last day taking in the sights and animals at the Koala Sanctuary with Adam, Iris and Erthan. Good fun, got to finally see a Koala, tons of birds with names I can't remember, a couple of Dingos and a Tasmanian Devil. In the evening Iris decided that we should go to the store, buy some stuff and just cook a big dinner for the 4 of us. That was quite the experience having Iris and Erthan argue over what they wanted. On the walk back from the store Adam notices Freja (my German fling) walking down the street with her friend. I would've walked right past her, I didn't even notice. He invited her out to join us for a few drinks tonight while her and I just stared at each other smiling and not saying a word. It was kind of awkward. That night on the rooftop where I was now famous I spent my time chatting to (yet another) German girl. I'm using the German that I have learned and applied it to ice breaking with German girls. It seemed to work in this case. Around this time Freja starts text messaging me apologizing for not saying anything to me today in the street and invited me out to china town to meet up with her for a drink. That's way too far for me to go so I had to decline. Instead I told her we would just meet up later when we both get the Cairns in the north. The text messages went back and forth asking me when I was leaving and if I had time before I left to see her. I was leaving at 11am the next day, so the trooper that she is got herself up and made her way downtown just to see me for an hour before I left for Airlie.

I suppose I couldn't have asked for anything more. I was able to see Freja again, and in all honesty I was thinking about her around that time. We talked about our travels and what we had done the last 2-3 weeks we hadn't seen each other and then talked about where we were going next. The hour flew by and all I wanted was one more to spend with her, but I had to go and get on my bus. We had our goodbye hug and she was on her way. I wasn't in any mood to make conversation with anyone on the bus at this time. I just kept to myself and listened to my music.

At our lunch stop I finally broke my silence and chatted with another Canadian girl and (surprise surprise) another German girl. They became my companions for the next bit until they were to get off in Hervey Bay. We stayed in Mooloolaba that night and left for Hervey in the morning. I was going straight through to Airlie so I bid farewell to them and waited until the bus filled up with more people to chat with. A cute girl got on and all I could think was (ching ching). I didn't make my move til much later in the day though. Our overnight stop was at a place called Bargara. Funnily enough, this cute girl was in the same room as I was and it was the perfect time to make my way in on conversation. Her name was Louise and she's from Denmark. We had some good fun chatting and I got to know another guy name Tgerred from the Netherlands.

That evening was a BBQ where a bunch of us just sat around drinking wine and chatting with a few other girls from the bus going south bound, while we were from the north bound bus. Nothing really happened between Louise and I for I think I was still thinking of Freja too much to really push too much on Louise. She was to get off in a nearby town and do fruit picking anyways. So the next morning I said my goodbyes to her and it was off to a ranch in a small city called Dingo.

That morning at the town of 1770 some people that I knew from my bus up from Sydney to Brisbane got back on. Lindsay, Richard, Julie and Rhiannon told me all about what they had done since I had last seen them. It was a fun reunion. Along the way we blew out a tire on our bus and had to pull over in the middle of nowhere. Our driver got the spare out and put it on but realized that the airbag that levels out the bus was now leaking. We all had to sit on the right hand side of the bus to even it out. Reminded me of that part in the movie Speed. We spent an hour replacing the tire. We got to our lunch stop where a guy came out and fixed up our buses spare tire and gave us a new one, but he couldn't fix the airbag, that had to be fixed in Rockhampton. That took almost 2 hours once we got there. The day was kind of a waste. We got to Dingo much later then expected.

The Dingo ranch was fun. It became a rivalry spot between the North and Southbound buses where we had drinking competitions and a tug-o-war competition as well. There was line dancing and more table dancing. In the morning we got to go on a tour of 45,000 acre ranch in the back of a truck which reminded me of one of those Safari trucks in Africa. We were able to try our hand at throwing boomerangs, Didgeridoo playing and cracking a stock whip. One girl had the chance to shoot a Winchester rifle. The guys weren't allowed to. Damn. It was a great day which ended in just a lot of driving to get us out to Airlie.

Airlie beach is a small place which reminds me of Byron Bay a lot. Not nearly as good though. The first night we went out to a bar called Morocco's which is right beside the hostel I'm staying at. Julie, Lindsay, Richard, Rhiannon and Eve joined us as well and ended up dragging me out to McDonalds at 2am for food. I can't stomach McDonalds so I didn't eat anything. They taught me this thing that they do whenever they go drinking, you hold up your fingers to describe how pissed you are. 1 finger means 10%, 2 is 20% and so on. It provides a lot of fun when people start to argue over how pissed they actually are. At this point I realized just how much fun I had been having since I left Brisbane. Which proved my point that it was a hell hole.

Yesterday I was exploring Airlie (not hard to do when it's only one big main street) and who do I happen to run into? My favourite German girl, Freja. Her plans to go to Rockhampton and then to the great keppel island fell through because of how expensive it was. Instead, her and her friend are going over to the Whitsunday islands to camp for a few days and then she's off to Cairns. I felt kind of awkward again meeting in the street, especially when she started to yell at her friend in German and then her friend stormed off. I felt like I had done something wrong by saying hello to them. It was only a quick meeting for I was getting uncomfortable and just made the excuse that I had things I had to do before I left, she did the same excuse.

Today is going to be another day of nothing. I think I'm going to lay around the pool and read my book, and then I leave tomorrow for Townsville/Magnetic Island, and after that I'm off to Cairns. Freja texted me asking me I'm going to be there, and I've told her only that I'll call her when I get there. I can only hope that the next time I see her, it's for an extended period of time.

Dear Dairy, Jackpot!

I'll make the warning that this entry will be long and full of mistakes due to how much I have to write up and how little sleep I've had the past few days.

Freja ended up taking me to this museum of art around the circular quay one afternoon and I'm now convinced that I could be an artist. They had an exhibit where it was a photocopy machine that had been beaten with a crowbar (I think) and had lots of paper jammed in it. It was supposed to be art. Makes me think all those printers and file cabinets that we used to smash at work could have been considered art. That evening Adam's friend, Cliff, came into town and stole Adam on a trip up to Byron Bay. I bid farewell to my travel partner (for now at least).

The next day we went out to Bondi beach and enjoy what we thought was going to be a sunny day. It turned out to be a pretty cloudy day, then you work in the sea breeze and it actually turns out to be quite chilly. We spent our time on the beach bundled up and cuddling each other to keep warm. That's when Freja tries to explain something to me, but says she's unaware of the English way of saying it. Being the smart boy that I am, I thought I knew what was coming and wasn't really surprised. She said something along the lines of "this feels like a relationship" so I tried to make a quick save and explain to her that I wasn't looking for anything serious and that we are just having a good time. Now I think she was trying to say that she didn't want a relationship either, but after explaining my take on it she told me I didn't understand. So basically nothing changed. We still spent our time together and if anything we got along better then before. She became about 10 times more flirtatious with me while I was a bit more reserved. The rest of the evening was with the two of us sharing each others music collections and showing each other photos of our friends and family. I'm quite glad I got my haircut before coming out here, because she made quite a bit of fun of my passport photo and some of the old photos on my digicam card. Around 3am I decided that I would just pull an all nighter since I had to get up at 6am to take the train to New Castle in the morning anyways. Freja wouldn't let me (jeez, talk about being all motherly). I kept telling her to get off to bed and that I'd watch TV til morning and head off. Basically she pulled me my arm and forced me up the stairs to my room. I got a small bit of sleep.

That morning I went and caught a train to new castle (3 hour ride) to visit family I hadn't seen in years. My uncle picked me up at the train station and took me back to his house where I was greeted by my Aunt, 2 Cousins and my 2nd cousin whom I hadn't met before. I was rewarded with a BBQ lunch and found out that it happened to be my Aunt and Uncles 35th wedding anniversary. So I got cake too! I got to go for a small walk with my Uncle and Cousin to take a look around the area and have a gander at the new golf course. At the end of the day my cousins offered me a place to stay with them next time I come back into Sydney, well as long as I get back before January. My cousin is pregnant with twins, so their spare room will be filled with two more kids. That must be hard. My uncle was kind enough to drive me another 40 minutes back to the train station all so I could get back to Sydney and spend what was left of my evening with Freja who was leaving the following morning. We went over to the Empire hotel for a few drinks with two other girls, Kari and Amy. Apparently we got in at the right time for it was half price on certain beers and Amy had a 2 for 1 voucher all night. We put down $10 and got 8 schooners. Not too shabby at all.

That night Freja and I turned in a bit earlier then usual and I was ready to say my goodbyes to her. She wanted something more "special" instead. I don't need to explain it anymore then that. I eventually kicked her out of my room around 5am so that she could get some sleep before her early departure. I didn't wake up til 3pm and didn't get a move on with my day until close to 5pm. It was a wasted day for me to spend doing a lot of nothing. I packed up my stuff that night and got a good nights sleep for my adventure that was to continue the next morning. With both Adam and Freja gone and I had already spent 2 weeks and seen most sights, there was no reason to stay anymore. Off to Brisbane I went.

I got back on the Oz Experience bus and went on another wild bus adventure. Our bus driver wasn't nearly as good as our last one, but he was still enjoyable. He did subject us to the same music over and over again over the course of 3 days though. There is only so many times I can listen to "The Land Down Under" song. I get it, we're in Australia and it's a song about Oz. Give it up. Like usual, it was quick to find someone new to spend my time with. Funny enough, the first guy I talk with and befriend just happens to be English (I have good relations with that side of the world right now it seems). His name is Paul and we spent a lot of time getting to know each other. He reminds me a lot of myself actually, which is probably why we got along so well. Our first night was spent at some camp grounds in the Warrambungles (I'm sure I spelt it wrong). We spent our evening drinking, playing guitar and taking a late night swim with two Swedish girls, Emma and Anna.

The next day was tough. Not only were Paul and I bit hungover, but we were unaware that we were going on a 3 hour climb up some small mountain to a great lookout spot. I was in a world of pain for the first half, but after the whole hike I was feeling quite good. Cure for a hangover, go climb a mountain. We then drove our way out to some town in the middle of nowhere for our overnight stop. My cellphone had no signal and there was no national bank where I could get money from. Damn. I was stuck with the $20 I had in my wallet for spending on drinks (didn't last long). That night I got acquainted with 2 other German guys, Phil and Haiku. The evening was spent having supper with the two Swedish and actually getting to know them a bit more. I even started to fancy one of them a bit. We then played a bit of pool and drank a lot.

The next morning I decided to call the Oz Experience office and change my travel plans. I got myself switched over from going straight through to Brisbane to instead spend 3 nights in Byron Bay with most others. The day was all driving, so I was all sleep that day. We got into Byron Bay a bit later then expected, but not too late for partying. Our bus driver was given the next couple of days off and wanted to go get wasted with us. He took us out to a bar called "Cheeky Monkeys". Interesting place. They do games every night to win prizes like cruises, or free surfing lessons and so on. The first thing I notice is that all the table tops are a metal surface which reminds me of the type of surface associated with oil rigs (I don't know the proper name for the type of surface) and I was asking everyone why they would make tables like this. My question was soon answered around 10pm when the table dancing started. They don't have a dance floor so everyone dances on the tables instead. I had more then my fair share of dance time. Paul, Phil, Anna, Emma and I didn't leave until around 3am. I even tried to get myself a bit more friendly with another German girl on our bus (I must stop with the German girls). Nothing really happened except for some talking.

We eventually got back to the hostel, grabbed some more beer which we had purchased earlier and walked up to the beach. We walked around for a bit and Phil walked around in this dangerously rocky area. I thought I'd do the same (way to go me). Naturally I slipped banged up my hand a bit (or so I thought). I didn't give it another thought until we got back to the hostel an hour or so later. I was in the washroom with Paul, gabbing about the Swedish girls, when he looks at my wrist in horror and almost yells "You're bleeding pretty bad there Mike." Sure enough I had blood all down my left arm and hadn't even noticed. I got it cleaned up and took a look at my wrist. Seems my watch tore up my wrist a bit when I took that dive at the beach. I also banged up my leg a bit when I noticed blood on my jeans too. Nothing life-threatening. I now have my first Ozzy war wounds. On our way out from the washroom Paul spotted our bus driver getting his mojo on with some girl. We figured this could be used as blackmail later on.

My next day in Byron was rather lame. It was raining quite heavily which meant to beach for me. Instead, Paul and I walked around town (that took all of 10 minutes considering it's just a small, small town). Around this time was when Paul got the rumour mill started about our bus driver getting it on with some girl from the bar. Eventually he told just about everyone from our bus until we got up to a young English chap named Richard. Apparently it was his sister, Eve, who was the "lucky" girl. I'm not sure if either of us knew that Eve was his sister. No more discussion about our bus drivers evil ways commenced after that. We bought some more booze and took it back to the Swedish girls room where we met some more Swedish guys. The end of the evening was a bit of a downer for Paul since he had been working his magic so much with Emma and didn't seem to get anywhere that night. Phil and I tried to keep his spirits high. To keep him happy, we took him back to Cheeky Monkeys for more table dancing and cheap meals ($2 meals). I was even able to win us a super cheap jug of beer ($1.50!!). They play this game where the host will say how much a jug of beer is going for and then says how many of which coins he wants and the first person to get up to him in 10 seconds gets the jug for that price. If no one gets up in 10 seconds then the price goes up and the amount of coins changes. I was quick on my feet and happened to have the proper coinage needed. In the process some English girl was upset with me because I beat her to the stage. Tough Shit Missy. Phil eventually got thrown out of the bar for some reason, so we all left. We headed up the main street and grabbed some drunk food (Kebabs) and then turned in.

Yesterday I was finally able to get ahold of Adam who still happened to be in Byron. I went to the beach first before meeting up with him later in the day. I introduced him to the group and we all had some drinks. I tired out pretty quickly because of how early we started drinking and we decided on getting some more Kebabs. YAY. I was tired and went to sleep around 11pm or 12pm after packing up. Phil and Paul went out with Emma and Anna for the night. I was awakened around 3am by Phil, Paul and Emma returning to our room. Phil and Paul were both pleading their cases on whose bed Emma would sleep in. Paul won because Phil has a girlfriend back home. I was on the bunk below Paul who now had Emma up there with him. I wasn't looking forward to what I thought would be a now sleepless night. Thankfully Paul is quite the gentleman and didn't "get it stuffed". He just cuddled with her.

This morning I woke up to see Emma and Paul still curled up in bed. I did my best not to wake anyone while I grabbed my stuff and went for a quick shower. When I returned to the room Paul was up and he told me that he wouldn't be getting on the bus with me today like we had both originally planned. He's gonna try his luck with Emma over the next few days and move into the same apartment style room that her and Anna are living in. I wished him all the best and told him to get in touch with me when he makes up to Brisbane if he's up here while I'm still here. Gave my goodbye to Phil as well and was on my way. I was on the bus with only a few people from my last trip and didn't waste time making friends with anyone else on the bus since most of them got off in the first hour when we stopped at Surfers Paradise and then I was getting off at the next stop, Brisbane.

So here I am, in Brisbane. Gonna go take a small nap, grab some grub and explore a bit. Probably won't get up to too much for the rest of today for I am still knackered. Maybe I'll even try my luck and see if Freja is still here or if she's moved on yet.

"We Germans aren't all Puppy Dogs and Rainbows"

The fun never stops down here. By 'fun' I mean good stuff and bad stuff.

I'm quite frustrated with young children these days. They walk slow and link their arms together and block off entire sections of the sidewalk. Thanks guys. I guess that's my only gripe. It's just annoying when you're running to get a train and you have a 'red rover' style line of people in your way and you can't get around them.

Last gripe then on to some good stuff. Both my brothers, Steve and Matt, have similar views on this action as I do. We all recently learned that my Aunt out here as Lou Gehrig's disease and her vocal chords are paralyzed now rendering her unable to speak. Now first off, my mum sent this to me in an email..... an EMAIL!! Jesus. She knows my phone number, this is something that is phone worthy. Steve put it best when he said "I'm afraid to come home drunk one night and open up my email to see it say dad was gunned down by mob members. Also, some magpies made a nest under the deck and the weather is still holding up. love mom" Leave it to my mom to be very subtle about stuff like that. Secondly, I feel pretty bad because I haven't gone out to New Castle to see my aunt and uncle yet and I guess I should have before all of this happened. I am for sure this week. Gonna give my uncle a call tomorrow and set up a time to visit.

Time for some happy stuff. I recently switched up hostels and went back to Kings Cross. Which is the single best move I've ever made. Luck just seems to be on my side in this upside down country. The night before I actually move up to the hostel (the same one my buddy Adam is staying at) I'm there with Adam and some of his buddies. We're waiting on a few of them to get changed so we can head up to a small Irish pub called "O' Mally's". Just before we leave a cute girl comes by and sits down in the small courtyard area and starts smoking. I can't help but ask her for a name and where she is from. Her name is Freja and she is from Germany. She knows a fair bit of English, but gets lost on larger words and slang words. Other then that she has the cutest accent. I can't resist to extend an invitation out to the pub with everyone else. She tells me it's her first day in Australia and could really use some company, so she agrees.

Up at the pub we scored some free drinks through another guy from Manchester (Those English guys I tell ya. They can get anything they want.) Just after getting a drink Adam and I see our good friend Elodie (I recently found out how to spell her name) from France. So we talk with her for a bit then I put all attention and effort in Freja. For the first bit things look great. Not only did I get her email address, but I got her phone number (a German number for now. She'll get an Australian one eventually) and her room number as well. Things couldn't get much better, could they? Well being the man whore that I am I get my tongue action in for the night (I'm a horrible person I think) and for the rest of the night at the pub it was a make out session. Not my first choice of places to have one, but it will do. Most memorable part of the evening was when the live music started, the big aboriginal guy was singing to classic songs like "lean on me", well he eventually comes to the song "my girl" and I don't take much notice since I'm still face pressed against Freja. About half way through the song, two drunk guys come up to me and Freja and start to Serenade us. They even change the words to "your girl" and would point at me. I was so embarrassed but I laughed it off as I noticed that entire section of the pub watching us. I thanked the guys afterwards and we had a good laugh about it. Adam eventually tells me to save his chair for him. He never came back. I figured everyone had left and not told me and Freja because we were a bit 'busy'. I end up walking Freja back to the hostel where she seems reluctant to let me go home. I seriously needed to go if I was going to catch the last train of the night, but she kept grabbing my arm and pulling me back for another kiss. Now you may think it's romantic and kind of cute (which it is) but not when I rely on this last train to get me home. Sure enough, I missed the last train. Taxi time for me. I take the taxi to the 24 hour Kebab place (perfect after drinking food. I'm addicted to them.) and walk home. Thus the end of Sunday night.

Monday morning I pack up all my stuff and move out to the Jolly Swagman in Kings Cross. I splurged a bit and decided to get a double room in case I could get some more action off of Freja (best decision ever). That afternoon I found Freja and she invited me to go out and show her around Sydney. I took her out to the botanical gardens and then to the Opera House. She was tired (already?) and wanted to sit down by the ocean front. She curled up and buried her head into my chest and looked like she was going to fall asleep. After a few minutes she looks up at me and kisses me. The next 10 minutes are going to go down as the most romantic 10 minutes of my life thus far. Or at least of my Australian adventure. What's more romantic then sitting outside the Opera House looking out at the ocean and harbour bridge while making out with a cute blond German girl? After I finally got her moving again we walked down to darling harbour and took the train back to Kings Cross. I'd been bugging her all day to teach me German and she said she'd give me a lesson when we got back to the room. I'm thinking, "sweet, hopefully she'll teach me some useful phrases like what Gidda taught me." Freja had other ideas instead. Adam told me to come back downstairs and then we'd go out to trivia night at the pubs. I didn't think I'd be too long so I said I'd be about 20 minutes. How wrong I was. Instead Freja and I had a 2 hour sex session (sorry for the mental images, I wont go into details.) Adam knocked on the door twice. The first time Freja told me not to answer it even though I knew what it was about. We both got dressed eventually and headed downstairs where I was greeted with grins and comments like "The infamous Mike" from some of Adams other friends. Nice to know that everyone knew what Freja and I were up to.

We went to trivia night and got our asses beat down. Freja and I turned in and went back to the hostel and hung out in Adams room with his roommate, Clement from France, and exchanged good music. Freja was tired (again!) and wanted to go to bed. Just before going to bed she got a phone call from home and she seemed pretty upset. She told me that she didn't know the English words to explain the problem and when she tried to I couldn't understand it anyways so we gave up. I told her to just go to bed. So she slept in my room cuddled up with me.

Today we got off to a late start. She wanted to go to the Aquarium, but I had some other stuff I needed to do today and told her that we'll meet up tonight back at the hostel. I think I may try to take her out for supper at a place called "Thai Power" that Steve told me about.

The next few days will probably be quiet ones for me. Laundry day tomorrow me thinks.

Germans, Polish and French, Oh my!

On Wednesday I was happy to have my camera in working order again so I figured it was time to head out and get back to to taking pictures like crazy. I happened to be out on the perfect day as well for everything just worked out perfectly.

First off, when wandering up the street towards the bridge and opera house I noticed that there were two helicopters in the air just hovering. 'That's weird' I thought, but kept going anyways. Eventually I saw a third Heli move into formation and started to notice police officers all over the place and they had blocked off a huge Portion of George St. to traffic. Pedestrians were still aloud to go through, so I kept moving and figured it may have been some kind of big accident. In fact, it was the parade for all the Australian Olympic athletes. Good for me and being out at the right time. So I got a picture or two of all the Athletes lined up on the steps of town hall. I thought that was a stroke of luck that I was able to take that in.

Next up, I figured I would backtrack a bit and take a water-taxi from Darling harbour over to the Circular Quay and go to the Opera House from there. It would be a good view from the boat of both the bridge and Opera house. Well I had just missed a taxi and it would be half an hour before the next one. I was better off walking anyways. I cut a path through the parks around Darling Harbour and went over Pyrmont Bridge where I continued my trek northwards to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I didn't make it too far until I heard someone yell my name (even being fully aware that I don't know anyone here I looked anyways) and saw my buddy Adam, from the bus from Melbourne to here, waving at me from across the way. This worked out great since I hadn't seen him since our first night in Sydney and he didn't come out with Sandy and I on Monday night. I was now able to catch up with him and now that I have my cellphone we swapped numbers. Yay. He introduced me to his new friend, Christi, who hails from Vancouver. Then they both invited me on a small pub crawl. I could go see the Bridge anytime. I wanted to hangout with a friend instead. So we hit up some places. 3 wise monkeys and Cheers, Around this time Adam is getting a bit hungry and so was I. We headed over to Ali-Baba's (think of Subway only with Kebabs in a wrap. Great food.)

This food chain offers those scratch cards where you win free stuff so when we were in line for our food a girl comes up and gives me the card she just scratched for an order of free chips (fries) and says that if I want to I can keep them or share with her. Hmm, cute girl wants to share? Sure. We join her and the 2 friends she's sitting with and ask them their names and where they are from. The girl who gave me the free chips is Alexa from Poland, and her friends were Tina from Germany and Elody from France. Luckily for us Adam knew some German so he tried talking to Alexa and Tina as best as possible in their native language. I talked with Elody as best I could. She doesn't understand some of the words I use, but she got the gist of it for the most part. When we were about ready to set off Adam was saying goodbye when I give him a nudge and ask him if he knows how to ask the girls out for a beer in German. He didn't know all of it so we just asked if they'd be interested in getting a drink. Surprise, they said Yes. The 6 of us headed to Scruffy Murphy's and had a drink or two while getting to know each other. By the end of the night when they were turning in they asked us what we were doing the next day. We got invited to go on a bit of an adventure, a Walk from Manly to Spit bridge (a 3 hour walk as we learned later) and Alexa wanted to go to Bondi beach to see the Sunset. Heck, why not. They asked us to meet them at their hostel the next morning at 10:30am. Done and done. I made a note of it and we bid girls good night. Adam, Christi and I continued onto another pub which I didn't catch the name of and then back to the bar below my hostel. When we got there Adam was shocked to see the type of people that stayed here and asked me "How many friends have you made here?" to which I replied, "none really. Look at these people They aren't backpackers." Adam: "You need to switch hostels real soon. These aren't your type of people." I thought about it and he's right. Everyone here looks like they are ripped right out of a fashion magazine. I need to get back to the backpacker community like which I had when I was in Melbourne. We had a drink then called it a night, especially if we had to get up early the next day and meet up with the foreign girls.

The next morning I had to figure out the train system without the help of Sandy. Now this usually wouldn't be a problem, because most train stations only have 3 or 4 platforms. I'm lucky enough to be right beside Central Station which has 25 platforms of pure train goodness. After drifting from platform to platform looking at the different routes I finally find the one I need (platform 24 of course.) and proceeded to meet up with Adam in the Kings Cross area. We walked our way over to the girls hostel and waited....and waited... and waited some more.

By 11am I figured this was the girls way of standing us up. Adam kept telling me to have faith and he went in and asked the guy who runs the place if he knew where the German, Polish and French girl were staying. Not only did he tell him but he let Adam go bang on their door (I'm surprised he didn't just give us the key while he was at it.) The girls had overslept and Adam had the pleasure of waking them up. Apparently they still wanted to go do this, especially as how it was Alexa and Tina's last day in Sydney before Tina goes back to Rockhampton(where she lives with her boyfriend) and Alexa goes back to Germany (she goes to school there). Back to the waiting game. At 11:30am Elody comes out and gives us the customary kiss of the cheek good morning (I love France) and tells us that they're just going to have some breakfast. Being the gentlemen that we are we tell her to take her time and we'll wait outside. After another hour the girls finally join us outside and we are on our way. For the record it is now 12:30pm and Adam and I just spent 2 hours sitting on a sidewalk in the hot sun. I'm not sure if we're gentlemen, desperate, or that sad of people for waiting so long. The entire time I was assuming the worst and just figured they weren't interested in going with us. Adam told me to keep the faith and all will turn out well. His goal is to restore my faith in women.

We couldn't have chosen a better day. Not a cloud in the sky, a cool ocean breeze and it wasn't really hot out, just nice. We walked through the botanical gardens which come up behind the Opera House. Even got to see some Bats sleeping in the trees. We made our way to an area called "The Rocks" which is a touristy area which still has a lot of the old brick and stone buildings from long long ago. Adam tells me it's what Manchester looks like. We then caught a ferry at the Circular Quay (where all the ferries originate) and went to Manly. We started our walk which was supposed to be 3 hours but we eventually gave up about 2 hours in. Then became the search for the bus which would take us over Spit bridge and to the train station. We caught one bus and asked the driver where we had to go, He was so nice that he allowed us on without using our ticket (it's part of the whole transit system in Sydney for trains, buses and ferries) and told us when to get off and gave us directions to the next bus stop that would take us into town. What a friendly guy. We finally made it back to a section of town in the far north and got ourselves to train station and took the train over the Sydney Bridge into the central business district (where I'm staying) and switched trains to go to Bondi. After getting off in Bondi we had to take another bus (jeez) which took us down to the beach. We missed Sunset by about 30 minutes. We said our Goodbyes because Adam and I were going to get supper in Bondi while they were going back to their hostel to pack. Elody asked us for our phone numbers so we could get together and go out again soon seeming as how she's staying in Sydney for quite awhile. Yay, another friend.

I was so dead tired that I went to bed around 10pm.

Quite an adventurous last 2 days. Today is going to be a lazy day. I'm hoping tomorrow I'll get out to Paddy's Market and check out what they sell. It's supposed to be similar to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. That wastes a few hours.

mmmmm, Danish

Last night Sandy invited me out to the bar that's in the basement of the hostel that I'm now staying in. It was gonna be a goodbye thing for him since he's going home on Tuesday. Anything with drinking is always a big 'yes' in my book. So I got to the bar about 10 minutes before I was set to meet him and help myself to a drink. I'm patiently waiting at the bar when guess who happens to recognize me and come over for a chat? Gidda and Medda, the cute danish girls from my bus trip up here. Sandy invited them out as well and that works out well in my favour. Sandy was late so I had plenty of time to get talking with the girls. I put most of my efforts into Gidda and it paid off. She's the sweetest, cutest girl I've had the pleasure of courting in quite some time. The conversation was flawless. No silent pauses.... at all. That's kind of a first. We both did our part to keep up the conversation and when one person ends the other starts up something new. I had already learned from the bus ride out here that she has good musical taste, so I tested her on other things. She has excellent taste in movies and TV. She hates reality shows which earns her brownie points. The real test in the TV sector was when I enquired about 24. Success! She watches it and loves Keifer Sutherland. Little things like that continued for 3 hours of us seeming to like all the same things. I thought I had blown it at one point during our music topic when we were talking about bands from our home country and she mentions Avril Lavigne and I say I don't like her music. The look in Gidda's face was what I thought was one of surprise and hurt. I thought I offended her when she tells me she's happy to have met a Canadian who doesn't like her crap. It was a close call and I really felt myself sink in my chair when I thought I hit a nerve. Glad I was wrong about reading that facial expression. The music topic was pretty much endless and even found both of us at the jukebox looking at all the songs and saying 'yay' or 'nay' to what was in there. I would say only about 1 in 10 did we disagree on. I now have the names of some Danish groups that I'm supposed to check out when I get a chance as well.

The evening found us getting closer and closer. I saw where it was going pretty quick and remembered what happened last time I got close to someone who I would probably never see again. It got pretty good during our language lesson she was giving me. I asked her to teach me more Danish and everything she told me was things like "You have beautiful eyes" and other compliments of that nature. The last one she taught me and I bungled up pretty bad and don't remember now (damn) was "I would like to kiss you". So when she has me repeating it back to her she says "yes". Well that's the invitation I was looking for. If anything, she was probably pretty frustrated that I hadn't moved in sooner in the evening to kiss her. So I got my lip action from the Danish now. We were pretty close the rest of the night until we all packed it in. I can only hope that the rest of my trip proves to be this fruitful or better.

Today was much more calm. I went to darling harbour and explored a bit. Got some information on taking a water taxi tour around the Opera house and the Bridge. I think I'll do that sometime within the next few days. I also have to continue my search for a camera battery charger. I've hit up a few stores and 2 of them sell it but are both currently out of stock (of course) and I was told to check back later in the week. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday will be a day to do that.

The hostel I'm staying out now is pretty posh and I feel out of place. It's more like a hotel with dorm rooms. I have met my second Calgarian. A girl in my room who is on the bunk below me hails from the snowy city. She's not as fun as the last Calgary girl I met. Nice person, just not very outgoing and kind of boring, so I don't spend time talking with her much.

I'm gonna call up my uncle tomorrow or Thursday and hope to get together with him at some point and catch up on everything that's happened since I last saw him, and see what he's up to these days. Maybe I'll even get a chance to see my cousins and their baby that I haven't met yet. My brother tells me that she's a bit of a spoiled baby. Oi.

Sydney, Sweet Sydney

After 3 long days of bus riding I have arrived in Sydney unscathed and with minor disappointments.

My bus trip is a whole tour thing that goes up the east coast and it promotes a "hop on and off" system where you can get off at any of the stops it makes and catch another bus on a later day. It's pretty good because we get to go to some touristy places and some other not so known places. All in all the actual ride itself was terrific.

The group was pretty small. We started with only 8 people when we left Melbourne, so that made making friends a bit easier then expected. It was a pretty good mix group as well. We had a Girl and 2 guys from England, one Scottish guy, an American, 2 German girls and myself. It was fun being the only Canadian. For the first bit of the trip we just called each other by our countries. I was Canuck until we got around to introducing ourselves properly. The American guy was kind of keener. He kept trying to impress everyone with his vast knowledge of the universe. Whenever he wasn't around our tour bus driver even made fun of him. We dubbed him Captain America in the end.

The first night was spent at a camp site up in the great dividing range. It was fucking cold. We did a cool night tour with a 4WD jeep and a big spotlight looking for animals. We also reunited a baby lamb with it's family after it had escaped from it's pen and couldn't get back in. Got to see a crap load of Kangaroos and even some Wombats. Played some more pool as per usual and tried chatting up the German girls a few times. They both didn't know much English so the language barrier was a bit of a pain, but they did very well considering I can't speak English properly. They both stayed back at the camp for a few days so they wouldn't be on the bus in the morning. Dang, down to 1 girl between the rest of us guys? That was fun.

The second day was to take us out to Canberra. Learned a lot about the history of Canberra which I'm not going to repeat here. If you're interested in it you can go get a book on it. I must say that I found it rather stupid that the government spent over a billion dollars in building their new Parliament building and filling it with 200 million dollars worth of artwork. Plus it has 3000 rooms, most of which probably don't even get used. I think they are just trying to show off or something. Pfft, lousy government. Spent the night at a very cheap hostel and then went out drinking with our bus driver and the rest of the gang. A fun time was had by all. At one point Kirsten (the English girl) said she wanted to go ask Captain America something and he had already retired for the night so she needed my room key. I put it down and in my drunken state completely forgot about it. Scottish (Sandy) convinced me that I had lost it and should go around asking people for it. So I did. I went to the people sitting at the table where we were before, I went to the bar and even asked random women. Convinced that I wouldn't get my key deposit money back I shrugged it off and didn't care too much after drinking some more. In the morning Captain America gives it to me saying that Scottish passed it off to him. We all had such a good laugh about it.

Today was the long trip from Canberra to Sydney and thankfully we were given 2 more girls to add to the trip. Not just any girls though. Young, Cute, Danish girls. I have now discovered I'm in the wrong country. I need to be in Europe. They had the coolest names too. Medda and Gidda. This morning I was at that point which I call Drunk Over. It's between being drunk and having a hang over. I took quick steps to start talking with Gidda the whole trip. I had her teaching me her language for a bit, but sadly I can't remember much of it. Stopped off at the usual small towns and hung out with the Kangaroos and so on. Got to Sydney this evening and 3 of us are staying in the dodgy end of town. Tomorrow I'm moving on up to a new Hostel more in the city center. The cleaner side of town. This place will do for now though.

That's the last 3 days in a nutshell.

Worst part of the whole trip so far is that I can't get my camera battery charger to work. So my camera battery is about to die and I need to find out if I can just buy a new charger out here for it. I have the Canon number for New South Wales and I'll have to do some calling to find out what I can get. There goes more money. I should be happy that it's the worst thing to happen.

These are a few of my favourite things

At this point I believe it's natural to begin to miss certain things. The most obvious would be family and friends, but I won't go into that. I'm talking about being a bit more materialistic.

Laptop: Poor little guy. He's just gonna collect dust for the next little while.

Cellphone: My god how I miss my cellphone! I know it serves me no good out here except for the use of text messages, but I miss having it clipped to my belt and being able to look at it and see that I have voicemail or messages. It gave me that feeling of importance.

My Music Collection: I wasn't able to burn all my music before coming out here and now I'm really wishing I had an extra week to get the rest and even buy new stuff. CD prices out here are horrible. That still hasn't stopped me from buying them though.

TV: Even though I didn't watch much for TV back home, I think I just miss Canadian/US commercials. Oz commercials are starting to bug me. It's still unknown to me if they show 24 out here. For the sake of everyone I encounter they better air 24.

REAL Football: I can't figure out Aussie Rules Football for the life of me. I've resorted to Soccer and Cricket. Aashish should be proud of me for trying to figure that game out.

Hockey: The only hockey people know out here is field hockey. I have to make sure I say ICE hockey when I talk about the sport. I want to see the World Cup Hockey! Canada is doing so well from what I've read.

I can't say it's all bad though. Out here at Subway they have pineapple as a topping choice. I thought it was strange at first, but then tried it and I'm kind of dumbfounded as to why we haven't taken that up yet. If it's also true that out here the Asians from Japan bring all the crazy fads with them, then the next one to hit north America (if it hasn't already) is going to be video messaging on cellphones. I can't believe at how popular that is over here. Cellphone are also going to get bigger again instead of smaller. Who'd have thunk it?

On the move

The other night my brother went out to some artsy-fartsy movie that I wouldn't enjoy so I decided I'd be a bum and lay around the rez building for the evening. My bro's next door neighbour, Derek, came by and asked if I wanted to go to the pub with him and some other folks from the building and possibly some other rez buildings. I'm not one to turn down an invite so I jumped on the chance and went to the pub and had a great time. I got to meet a few other folks from different buildings and some more Canadians (woohoo). My night ended up turning out okay after all and I suppose I can't write off that day as a total crap shoot.

Friday was interesting. I spent my last day with my bro and in the evening, after we were done with his campus radio show, I grabbed my bag and headed off again into the great unknown. I had already done some research on which hostel I figured I'd want to stay in so I was a bit ahead of the game in my planning for once. I made my way up to Hotel Bakpak and got myself settled. They have a bar in the basement so I quickly made my way down. In the elevator I met an Irishmen named Ray who took me around and introduced me to his crew that he's been hanging with. We played about 10 games of pool and I wasn't playing too horribly until the last 2 games. Soon afterwards another bloke who was watching us play pool started to talk to me. I would end up spending the rest of my night chatting with him. He's a Kiwi named Steve and is a damn funny guy. I continued to get more lucky as I met, amazingly, another Calgarian. Her name's Michelle and we spent most of our time trying to figure out if we both knew any of the same people. It was a long shot, but still provided for some fun conversation.

I was lucky again to get a room by myself and have a good quiet sleep in an actual bed! No more sleeping on the floor for me. This morning I crossed the street and went over to the Queen Victoria Market. It's quite the bustling market. You got everything from fresh Produce and meats, to T-shirts, pants, bags and other stuff. It's all pretty well priced as well. I saw the didgeridoo I want! Too bad it would put me back $150 and then I'd have to carry it wherever I go. When I come back to Melbourne before I go home I'll make sure to get one, a boomerang and hopefully an Australian flag that I can put on the wall of my room when I get back. So many things that I want, and so many things to get for others, but not enough room in my bag, or I don't feel like trucking it across the country. I'll have to figure something out. Maybe buy it and mail some of it home. That will cost more money...... damn, I need a job.

Upside down laziness

Sunday was pretty much a mirror image of how my Sundays back home are.... lazy. Yup, it was a lazy Sunday. I guess I can't say that I didn't do anything though. My brother, One of his residence mates and I went shopping and picked up some of the essentials. My essentials being Tim Tams, probably the best biscuit/cookie I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. They should put warnings on the boxes to these things. Anything that warns people of the addiction that they are about to experience. I'm almost all out and feel that I have to take the tram back to the store to buy more. I fear my trip has been financially hindered by my Tim Tam addiction. Beaten by a cookie, how degrading. The next step will be to try and smuggle some back into Canada. That could prove troubling considering how much trouble it was just trying to get into the states without smuggling anything in.

I was lucky enough to experience Nigel's cooking last night. This Kiwi can cook! (I don't believe I've mentioned before that he is from New Zealand.) Put him up against an iron chef, and make the theme ingredient lamb and you got yourself a battle. He cooked up a feast just for 3 of us. I was put to shame. I thought I knew my way around a range, but he could have whipped up a meal fit for royalty before I could boil a pot of water. I was surprised enough at the fact that he even cooked for me. I'm no sure I have too many friends who would cook my little brother, or even my older brother just out of the kindness of their hearts. Only about 30 seconds ago I was informed that he is cooking supper for us once again. I'm starting to feel like a real big mooch at this point.

Today was laundry day. It was boring... plus it rained pretty heavily which only reinforced my thoughts of how Melbourne is a lot like Vancouver. I'm thinking I may have to cut loose and make my way to a hostel in the city within the next 2 days. I figure staying with my brother for a week is good enough and it's time for me to get on my adventurous ways. I seem to have gotten too comfortable too quickly around here. I get along with most everyone in the residence. In fact, last night the cute Norwegian girl made me watch Olympic handball with her and taught me as the game went along. Seems she played handball for 10 years and knows the game inside and out. We then got into some good conversation about education systems in other countries and how they compare to our own. I'm quite intimidated by her now. She's so smart and passes it off as nothing. I'm afraid I'm going to say something stupid and I'll no longer be worthy of chatting with her. I do take pride in the fact that she said I was one of the few people that was actually able to pronounce her name correctly. Too bad I can't spell it. It sounds like Ing-Vale. That is of course how you would say it, not spell it. Seems most people call her Ingrid because they can't remember her real name. What a trooper.

Hopefully I'll sleep easier tonight.... well as easy as someone sleeping on the floor of a shoebox can be.

Par-tay

The past couple of days have been pretty much a non-stop party.

Yesterday I got to watch my brother and his friends do their radio show on the campus radio station. It was fun to experience and kind of gave me an interest in the radio business. We'll see how long that actually lasts.

We then went to some pub not too far away from the University and just ended up getting a few drinks and some food. One of my Bro's friends suggested that we just grab some more alcohol and go back to campus and watch TV. Wow, it's like they are reading my mind sometimes. So the adventure began with trying to find a suitable bottle store which sold good stuff, plus a grocery store to buy some munchy type things. We gathered our materials and headed back to the common room at the University to watch some TV. It seemed that a lot of other people had the same idea. We had quite the party going on in the common room on Friday and it ended up being more fun then I had thought it would be. I was able to get a chance to talk with some of the other people that live in the same rez as my brother. I was lucky enough to talk with a very cute Norwegian girl for an hour or so, and in that time I still didn't catch her name. I've also met one of the nicest and most talkative person ever. His name is Derek and he always has a crazy story to tell or has 10 questions lined up to ask you. Silence is not an option with that man. He's pretty taken with the sport of fencing and went so far as to show me how the basics are done. An interesting sport it is. It got pretty late and Derek and I cleaned up the common room as everyone else went to bed. I didn't notice how much I actually had to drink until I had to get up and move. Good night over all.

Today was fantastic. My brother and his friends, John and Meg took me into the city to explore. I first got the experience a bit of the Queen Victoria Market. It was closing up shop for the day (it closes very early on Saturdays apparently) but it was a good enough taste that I feel that I have to go back another day and experience it fully. We then grabbed lunch and poked into every interesting shop as we aimlessly wandered from street side to street side. The guys wanted to see some viewing of a new art movie called "The Control Room". We worked our way up to the theatre that showed it and bought some tickets. We then had some time to blow before the movie so we walked down another street which is filled with restaurants from every country. A guy will stand outside each place and as you walk by they will talk to you to try and make you go in and eat. They'll offer things like discounted meals or even free dessert. It was nice to have someone who was talking to me on the street have something to offer me for once, instead of it being a bum just wanting any spare change. We then headed back to the theatre and watched the Control Room. The movie was spectacular. It's about the news network Al Jazeera (the Arab equivalent to CNN) and how they covered the Iraq war. It was much more worth the watch then anything Michael Moore could have done. After the movie had ended I had an elderly lady approach me and ask me if I was American (she must have heard me and John talking before the movie started) and asked me about my views on the movie and the points it makes. I had to disappoint her by explaining that I'm Canadian, but I still made my views heard.

Onward to the pub! We started a search for a friendly and not so busy pub to have a drink at. We found one which was down an alley way. I felt uneasy about this alley way stuff, but it seems it's quite a common thing in Melbourne. They aren't scary Alleys like we have back home, but instead have shops lined all the way down them. At the bar the bartender asked me where I was from. When I replied "Canada" her next question was "What's your hockey team?" I told her it was the flames and she told me she was a Canucks fan. We had a small chat about hockey until the bar got busy and I had to let her get back to work. Always nice to hear that the triumphs of hockey have reached all the way to the southern hemisphere. After some drinks we went in a desperate search for food which just ended up being a few slices of pizza. At this point I wanted to go home, but Meg insisted on showing me the Crown, which is apparently the biggest Casino in the southern Hemisphere and it's placed right by the Yarra river. It's an amazing building. It has a hotel, shops, restaurants and finally the casino all under one roof. It looks like it does quite well considering how busy it was in there. We then just walked along the river side until it was time to head back to the tram station to head home.

The highlight of the evening was finding a road called Batman Avenue. It's pronounced slightly differently then the super hero, but I thought it was very amusing. There is also a Batman park. We need more streets and parks named after super heroes. They'd be way easier to remember for directions. So far so good in Oz.

We interrupt this show to bring you a commercial with 2 guys in sumo suits selling cellphones

I have not witnessed more horrible TV then the jargon they play down here. It's not just limited to their programs, but the commercials too! I have no real way of explaining it either, so now you all will just think I'm crazy. I may seriously have to tape some of these shows and commercials just to bring them back and let everyone else witness the craziness that is Oz TV.

They have their own version of everything. Australian Idol, Australian who wants to be a millionaire, Australian The Price is right. Australian rules football (which is actually like a more violent version of Rugby). It's scary. They even have their own version of Mad TV or SNL called sketch house. It would probably be funny if I understood what the jokes were about. I just laugh when the studio audience does.

The next big thing they have down here is Hungry Jacks. It's Burger King just with the name changed. Even the logo is the same. Apparently somewhere in the middle of nowhere there is a burger king and he got to keep his name while Burger King had to change theirs. Hence you get Hungry Jacks. I laugh whenever I see a commercial for it, and pretty much drew a crowd when I was laughing at the Hungry Jacks sign I saw on a street corner. I think they take their fast food seriously out here.

I'm starting to miss my party crew already. It's just not the same without being called up by someone to go play pool, go clubbing or even just to drink the night away. It's harsh. I've been sober for 48 hours. There should be no excuse for that. My older bro is supposed to take me drinking tonight, Oz style. We'll see if I can keep up.

I'm still suffering from major jet lag. I stayed up as late as I could last night to ensure I'd get up at a reasonable time today, which I did, but I'm still here falling asleep at the keyboard and it's only 6:30pm. Damn you international date line.

Today was an easy day. I slept, watched TV and when my brother got off of class we had some food and did his dishes. Now I'm here waiting for him to grab me so we can go to the campus bar. I figure I'll stay here another 2 or 3 days then book it to a hostel. other then that, I still don't have any plans for what I'm doing out here.

Still Plagued by thoughts of Crystal. Damn cute women and their long term affects on me. Worse then drinking or drugs.

Not much else to comment on for not much happened today for me to comment about. I'll make it more interesting in the days to come.