Day 1
Happy to report no dingo has eaten my baby yet.
The plane ride here was not so bad. I spent most of my time overcrowding the Australian woman’s space who was sitting next to me with my knees over her arm rest. She was kind enough not to care though. +1 for the Aussies. That, coupled with the fact that the airline provided us with so much free entertainment that I never once had to reduce myself to reading my travel books, 2 novels, book of poetry, or anything else slightly intellectual or educational whatsoever. (Because who studies abroad to actually learn anything?) Instead, I spent my time watching the Maltese Falcon and HappyThankYouMorePlease. I also sent chair-to-chair IMs through the in-flight TV screens with Kristen…who was sitting right next to me (because talking is so outdated). Want to know the other wonderful thing about V Australia? The pre-departure safety run through! (Not kidding) They show a video onto everyone’s monitor and it is HILARIOUS. Besides the fact that the narrators have accents, the graphics are not to be beat. It look exactly as if you were playing The Sims: Airplane! It had everything to dorky dads making corny jokes, embarrassed teenagers full of angst that were obviously too cool to be seen laughing, surfers that were more into reading magazines than listening to the attendants, and random walking babies in the background carrying huge water bottles the size of their body. Add the sarcastic jokes that were carefully folded in, and we have a winner! I actually watched more safety videos of my own accord just because I wanted to. Anyways, we landed right just as the sun rose in the sky and set off to get our bags.
Customs was a breeze, and none of our stuff got lost in transit. Kristen and I each packed 2 bags. 2 big bags. 2 heavy, big bags. You know what’s hard to maneuver through a very crowded airport and a tiny train and up hills into a tiny hostel? Answer: 2 heavy, big bags x2. But we managed and I am proud to report we now have very strong muscles in our arms that were sore the next day J Our hostel is wonderful. Kristen honestly could not have picked a better place. Its cute, clean, has lockers for your bags, the lobby plays dance music all day (and the staff occasionally puts checking you in on hold to bust a move), the stairway has really cool art on the wall, has free breakfast, a fantastic view from the rooftop lounge, shares a wall with easy access to the bar next door (The Winking Lizard) and has plush toys of angry birds in the windows. Oh yeah, and the bathrooms have access to condom machines, tampon machines, and a flat iron for our hair. Obviously I’m only going to need two of these…but I’ll let you decide for yourselves which ones I mean. We got here around 8 am and couldn’t check in until 2:30 pm so they held our bags in their office for us, and Kristen and I went out to explore.
We took a free walking tour (Thank you Russ), that showed us pretty much the entire city in one day. Our tour guide, Russ, had some pretty cool stories. Like how bartenders would get people drunk, open a trap door that they’d fall into, and then wheel them off to a ship before they sobered up and SURPRISE, they woke up enslaved and pretty much headed straight for a disease ridden life. Also, where Town Square is sitting used to be a burial ground with bodies buried just below the surface. So when they started to rot, the whole town could smell it so they dug them up and reburied them elsewhere and built Town Square in its place. However, they didn’t get all the bodies, so now and then when they renovate or expand the building someone has the pleasure of saying “Cheers, mate. I found another one. Let’s go surfing, eh?” (This particular guy apparently originated from Canada) Also, as our tour guide stated, Australian’s are very unoriginal when they nickname their architectural structures. For instance, the bridge is known as “The Ugly Coat Hanger”…because it looks like a coat hanger. And an apartment building facing the Opera House in known as “The Toaster”…because it looks like a toaster. By the way I saw the Opera House J Oh, and he also made it a point to show us the last public urinal. Good times. Once we reached the harbor, which was clear across town, he left us there. Luckily, Kristen and I are GENIUSES when it comes to using maps and we found our way back…eventually. Then we checked in to our hostel, met some of our roommates (who are all lovely people), showered, got all fancied up to go out on the town for some pizza….and fell asleep in our clothes before we got the chance to do so. End day 1.
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