Jan 2007

Wow...I can't believe I'm having to back track this far! I keep promising to spend some time updating the blog but there is always something far more pressing to do when I finally get internet access...checking emails, downloading music, reading every Hollywood gossip story on e-online - you know how it is! But now it's 2007 and about time I pulled my metaphorical pants up and started writing about what happened to us five months ago!

SYDNEY - everyone knows where that is. Contrary to the belief of stupid people, Sydney is not the capital city of Australia (no Mum, I didn't think it was!). However it does have the highest population of people - and hookers from what we saw!

Sydney, seemingly like many Oz cities, is made up of a central business district (which will henceforth be refered to as the CBD because I am lazy) and many millions (slight exageration) of little town-like suburbs. Each of these has a personality all of its own so if, like us, you are travelling to Sydney and planning to stay in one of these wonderful, and far cheaper, areas of the city you might like to know about the one we stayed in.

If all suburbs are unique characters, Kings Cross is the filthy slapper who's a bit too old to squeeze into a tight Topshop mini skirt and boobtube but does anyway as she just doesn't care anymore...possibly because she's high on the skag! It's fantastic!

Disembarking from the train ride from hell (I'll have to give that it's own entry another time...where we can hopefully find a way to upload video because we entertained ourselves on the overnight journey by surupticiously filming the violent drunk women sitting behind us and the resulting footage would make Bernard Manning blush) we got to Kings Cross Station at 7.30am and we promptly surrounded by prositutes, pimps and drug dealers and most were doing pretty good business despite the time!

We were very early for our check in at the hostel but we hadn't slept for about 36 hours so we decided to try and find it anyway in the hope we might be able to get in early and get a bit of rest! But first thing was first...Maccy Ds for a well deserved brekkie and to ask directions! Slight hurdle there was that no one seemed to speak English but that couldn't stop us..ever the girl scout I always come prepared with addresses and phone numbers of where ever we're staying so I decided to find a phone box that wasn't the residence of a homeless person and call the hostel.

This might have worked had the hostel picked up its phone but such is life and we were both far too tired and sweaty to be too annoyed! Luckily, Andy spotted a little internet cafe where we could look up the address and directions so we were not entirely ost just at this point! So, armed with a takeaway Maccas tea and a map scribbled on the back of a receipt we went in search of our hostel...The Pink House.

The clue may have been in the title but when we finally found the right road, there was a huge building painted a rather vular shade of what I can only assume was once a pink-like colour! We were home and having been in the same clothes without a shower for two days, we were both very very grateful!

The Pink House isn't the most modern hostel we have ever stayed in, nor is it the cleanest or have the biggest rooms but it was an absolute blast that I would eagarly recommend to anyone going to Sydney! The staff kindly let us kip in the TV room until our room was cleaned - which they saw to really promptly - a TV room that had sky TV too! Comedy Central 24/7! Woo! The room was small and looked as though it was decorated by 'Changing Rooms - The Poor People With Bad Taste Hosted By Trishia' edition but it was quaint! The combination of pink walls and leopard print bedspread, although marginally harsh on the eyes at first, grew on me surprizingly quickly...this may have been due to our first major discovery about Australian culture!

GOON - noun. Defined as a very cheap wine in a box which is consumed primarily poor travellers and the homeless. Interesting fact: hobos drink the wine and then take out the foil bag which the wine is stored in, blow it up and use it as a hobo-pillow. "The More You Know"!

Oh yes, Goon! The fabulous fall back of the poor backpacker! We didn't know the conotations of drinking this foul excuse for an alcoholic beverage while in Sydney...and knowing the traditional Aussie name for it came later as well (Thanks to Aussie James from Subway, if you'e reading this!) We needed an alcohol fix so we headed to one of the bizarre outlets known as "bottle shops".

I don't remember how much we have told you of Aussie culture (no jokes now...they do have some!) so stop me if you've heard this one! In Australia you cannot buy beer, or any other alcoholic drink, in a supermarket - I know...it's a travesty! You have to find a place called a bottle shop which is a specially licenced shop, staffed by specially licenced people to get your booze! This confused us! That said, we found one and were stoked to find that they sold Lindenmans in 4 litre boxes for $12 (about 5GBP)! Back home my mum and dad buy wine in boxes from France when we have parties and they have class so I figured that if it's good enough for them, it can't be all bad! We bought a box of Merlot, or some other generic red wine, and wandered back to our hostel for an evening of drinking and watching South Park reruns on Comedy Central!

The wine actually wasn't bad...everyone in the hostel seemed to have one so we felt like we fit in pretty well! Unlike the awful hostel in Brisbane, this one really felt like a home and we quickly made aquaintances with both people who lived there and those who were passing through like us. This atmosphere was definately fostered byt he hostel staff who hosted regular party nights, of which our first night was one! We sat around answering quiz questions, playing childrens party games with balloons and getting steadily more drunk as the evening progressed and had a wonderful time! (As an aside - why do we always say "got steadily more drunk" when, in fact, there is anything but steady about getting drunk?!)

So, our introduction to Sydney was a good one! A great hostel with fun people even if there area had more strip clubs on one street than the whole of Soho! The woman on the reception desk told us Kings Cross is technically the safest suburb in Sydney because there are so many hookers, pimps and junkies that the police presence is the highest in the area! Fantastic!

For those of you actually curious to know things about the city, or for my mum who is currently praying that I am doing cultural things and am not just drinking my year abroad away, I promise I am getting round to that stuff but art gallerys and museums just aren't as entertaining to reminise about or write about as the fun stuff!

Day Two (we slept the first day if you remember)...