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.