Two and a Half Blogs or Me Trying to Compensate for Not Writing for Over Two Weeks

You people should be kicking yourselves that you're not sitting where I am right now: a chocolaterie in Queenstown, New Zealand staring at Lake Wakatipu and the Southern Alps. I had the best mocachino of my life and they have free wifi. I could move in. As there's much to report this afternoon I've divided this entry into three parts. Today you'll get the first. Enjoy!

Part I- Sydney and the Goon: A Love Story.

We left our hero in a room at the Wake Up hostel in Sydney about to head down to trivia night in search of free booze and friends: both happened. Firstly, Wake Up is the greatest hostel in the history of life. Period. So I went down to the hostel bar, looked around and met the crew who I would inevitably spend the next week or so with. The cast of characters included a floozy from Western, a British Lesbo incapable of holding her liquor, the Scottish Dwight Schrute, Dutch Girl 1, Dutch Girl 2 and, of course...SVEN! We finished second out of twenty-five groups, but should have fucking won. The quizmaster thought the three largest cities in California were Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, when EVERYBODY knows it's Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose. Fucking idiot. For our efforts we all received two free beers. All in all, friendships were forged and a shitload of Aussie beer was drank.

The next day I decided to discover Sydney's famous New South Wales Gallery. On the way there I decided to pull a familiar move: iced coffee and pot. The key is with the shit Aussie ganja that was available at the time was to just smoke a ton of it, so I did. Maybe that's why I stayed at the gallery for like three hours...It was also free. When I finally get around to uploading my pics you'll see some of what it had to offer (until an angry security guard made me put my camera away). I then walked back to the hostel through King's Cross, a half artsy half seedy part of town known for it's night life and prostitutes. That night saw the beginning of a Goonfest that's still continuing. Five liters of shitty wine with a 10.5% alcohol content for only $11. How can you go wrong? That night we got faced and I passed out in my clothes with my sandals on.

Over the next couple days I explored Darling Harbour, the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Rocks and just about everything in Central Sydney. I'm going to spend a few days back there at the end of my trip and that's when I'll hit up Manly, Coogee and the other beach towns I missed on the first time around. The Gardens are so fucking nice. I spent an afternoon just walking around, eating ice cream and avoiding the birds. I met three muppets from BC back at the hostel and I'll hoppefully be meeting up with them on the coast. To put them in relation to people who may be reading, one is kind of like Adfam, one is like a dimmer version of the drunk twin, and the other is a pothead version of Paco. We also met the world's craziest Swede. He's an even sloppier drunk then...well...do I even have to say her name?

On the Saturday night that British girl, Braveheart and I headed down to the Opera house to try and get tickets to see the Beach Boys backed by the Australian Symphony Orchestra. Sadly there weren't any standby tickets left. So we got into a cab driven by an elderly Filipino woman spoke to us about her love for Brad Pitt's hairy legs and after a failed attempt to see an sold-out Avatar at the Darling Harbour IMAX we settled for a nice dinner at the Harbour...when the rain started. It was fucking pissing. It had been for days. Of course this country only gets wet when I'm in town. That night we got epically pissed. Goon. Beer. Vodka-Redbulls. More Goon. It was beautiful.

The following day, my last in Sydney, proved to be the most fucked day yet on this trip. I woke up early because I had to check out so I dumped my stuff in a friend's room for the day. We planned to shower, do laundry and then head out to Manly for the afternoon before I had to hop on a plane for Melbourne. The night before I gave the British girl my camera to put in her purse. That morning she went into her bag to get change for laundry and said ''Hey, I have your camera. Don't fly to Melbourne without it''. All good. We sat between her room and the laundry room for an hour and half while doing laundry, capable of seeing everyone who came in and out of the room. The only soul to go in other than us was an English cunt by the name of CLAIRE DUNBAR. After we finished, we went back into the room to fold and my camera wasn't in her purse any longer. Her wallet and i-Pod were, but not my brand new fucking camera. The English cunt by the name of CLAIRE DUNBAR fucking went into her purse and stole it. Then the sleuthing began. We found out her name by asking a Swedish guy who apparently shtupped her the night before. Then I went down to reception and managed to get her email address. I composed the following email:

Hey Claire,

My name is Brian and we met this morning in room 606 at Wake Up. I got your email from _____, the Swedish guy who was also staying there. I'm friends with _____, the blonde British girl who had the bottom bunk bed next to the door.

The reason I'm contacting you is because we have a situation with a lost camera. I gave _____ my camera last night to keep in her bag. This morning she looked in her bag and noticed she still had it, and reminded me to get it from her. The camera disappeared at some point between then and about an hour ago. We've accounted for everyone from 606, and you're the last one we've been able to get in touch with.

It's a Canon camera in a black case and has all my pictures on it.

If you know anything regarding the whereabouts of my camera that was in ______'s bag I would really appreciate it. We also found a pair of blue shoes that apparently belong to you. I'm leaving Sydney tonight, but have a couple friends who are still going to be here for a little while. They would be willing to meet up with you to exchange information and give you your shoes. I've included their contact information.

Thank you

In no mood to go to the beach, a bunch of us had an early afternoon goon party that turned out to be quite the shit show. We played about half a dozen different drinking games including my favorite, Roxanne. I eventually stumbled my way to the airport (Editor's note: Flying drunk is the only way to go). Sitting there waiting to board my flight I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize: IT WAS THE CUNT! She had some lame excuse as to why she had my camera but apparently couldn't stomach the guilt of it all any longer and arranged to drop it off at the hostel the next day. British girl brought it to me in Melbourne the next day.

Lessons to be learned: 1) Lock up your shit 2) Don't trust anyone named CLAIRE DUNBAR.

I gotta run to meet up with some drinking buddies, but I'll continue all this either later tonight or tomorrow.

Peace kids.

Part II- Return of the Goonies: Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Roomate Alert!! I'm sitting at my hostel in Queenstown and in walks a creepy Korean guy with two cameras around his neck. I'm gonna name him Kim.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo my flight from Sydney to Melbourne was uneventful. A short bus ride later I arrived at the home of the lovely Double D. He gave me an extremely thorough rundown of everything Melbourne and then provided me with a place to sleep for the night. The following morning I saw him off to work and meandered on down to St. Kilda Beach where I would be staying. I took the tram there. A couple notes on trams in Melbourne. Trusted friends will tell you not to bother paying for them because they “never check”. That's a crock of shit. A few days after I arrived in Melbourne, British Girl and I each received $100 fines for not paying for the tram. But the Government of Australia can go fuck itself and their $100 fine çuz this hombre ain't paying shit. Additionally, on my last day in Melbourne, an ''undercover'' tram officer told me to take my 21.2 kg backpack off of a seat because the seats were meant for passengers. After I complied everyone on the tram started giving him dirty looks.

The hostel by the beach was packed full of British and Irish backpackers on working holiday visas i.e. drinkers. Perfect! British Girl and I teamed up with Captain Belfast and the Princess of Goon for some epic adventures involving alcohol, dancing and the like. We toured the beach, explored the city and drank more goon. Goon is an acquired taste, and I believe it to be the nectar of the devil. That being said, I'm drinking some right now. Melbourne is a beautiful city. Amazing architecture, great shops and everyone is a bit friendlier than in Sydney. I spent some times napping in the Botanical gardens, which were almost as beautiful as the ones in Sydney. Overall, Melbourne has a livelier vibe to it and is much more livable then Sydney, which at times can seem to just be filled with suits.

We saw Avatar in 3-D at the IMAX at the Melbourne Museum. This film is ridiculous. I loved every minute of it, despite the sub-par storyline. Rarely do I leave the cinema with such a smile on my face and wanting to fuck a blue bitch. The next day the British Ellen Degeneres and I rented a camper van and began driving along the Great Ocean Road. Many of you people reading this have driven with me in the past, with some complaints, most of them warranted. Overall though, I'm a pretty okay driver. This was not the case on the first day of our road trip. I was driving a massive camper on a dirty one lane highway between the cliffs and the ocean...on the left side of the road. It was FUCKED, but awesome. When I eventually get my pics up you'll see some of the beautiful things we did. The only issue was that it rained the entire first day and half of the second. Only I can get to the place with the best surfing in the universe and not be able to ride the waves.

On our adventures we met some really cool people including two English backpackers who had been sleeping on the beaches for weeks, a couple stuck up Canadians, a Californian surfer dude and about half of Germany. Both nights we parked our van at Surfside Backpackers at Apollo Bay. This hostel was essentially four or five houses converted into living space for backpackers and was run by a little old lady who looked like the old lady who sings Rapper's Delight towards the end of The Wedding Singer. As the road trip went on I got better at driving on the wrong side of the road. British girl and I have clashing tastes in music but could agree on basically three songs: “Wonderwall”, “Billie Jean” and “Fuck her Gently”.

Back in Melbourne on Saturday was a day I'll never ever forget because it was the day I saw AC/DC perform live in their hometown in front of 60,000 fans. I downed a near-dangerous amount of goon and got on the tram to go see the prodigal sons return home. The opening act was Wolfmother, who were really great. They played a version of “Joker and the Thief” that redefined the track for me. Then the big boys came on stage. “Back in Black”, “You Shook me All Night Long”, “Thunderstruck”, you name it, they played it, along with some righteous new shit I'd never heard before. When they played “She's got the Jack” they would put the camera on girls in the audience who all (quite willingly) showed their tits. I got home form the concert having seen 35 boobies, most of them nice. Angus Jones did a 25 minute guitar solo and they encored saluting those about to rock. I was with a French guy who knew every word to every song. When we got back our mated were still downing goon and partying hard. Epic night.

The next day was the annual St. Kilda Beach Music Festival. When the Princess of Goon, the British Girl and I woke up we had to hike to a town half an hour away to buy booze because the damned festival was DRY. But we eventually got our goon, some lunch, and something else that shares a name to everyone's favorite film about an out of control bus. Well with all that in us it didn't quite matter that the music wasn't great and that we all got sunburnt. The entire town was fucked up and dancing. Epic weekend. Monday I took it easy, did my laundry and headed back to the Lovely Double D's for a few last zzz's before heading to the airport.

So that was Melbourne mates. Shout out to Hairy Leslie for his 23rd birthday.

Bondi & Such

You people need to get your lazy Canadian asses down here. Epic beach chills, awesome people, and of course...GOON! I''ll admit, the sun is quite fierce and the green ain't adequate, but one can adjust.

As I look back on Bondi from my new hostel back in the city, I'm half-watching my new German roommate arrange his belongings and fold his newly laundered clothes with Nazi-like efficiency. His name is Sven. I assume he enjoys bratwurst and the like. Now he seems to have misplaced something and is searching high and low. I don't have the heart to lend him a hand because I want to document what happens next. He's scratching his blonde head of hair while he nervously contemplates where this lost item may be...wait.... he found it! A t-shirt. Phew! He just left, to do a load of whites I presume.

Back to the lecture at hand: Bondi. Saturday morning I checked out of the Mecca of all hotels after snagging a free $18 buffet breakfast: gather 'round children and I'll tell you how to eat for free in Sydney between 8 and 11 AM. Go to the second floor of the Mercure Hotel at 820 George Street (across from KFC) and simply smile politely (the same way you do to elderly Jewish women on cross-continental flights) and walk towards a vacant table. Put down a book/newspaper to claim it as your own and then approach the buffet (I used Chandler's The Big Sleep, you can use any book of your choice. Except Twilight. Ass-hats who use Twilight should be tarred and feathered and forced to spend their remaining days having enlightened conversations about goose-stepping and the current state of the Euro with Sven). Avoid the over-ripened grapefruit halves, but go nuts on the scrambled eggs, fresh pineapple and small little lamb sausages that melt in your mouth. If you really want something toasted be prepared to put it through the majigger like five times. Have two to three cups of coffee because getting one on the street is like double what it costs at Timmy's. If an Indonesian busboy approaches you to take away your empty dishes, let him; that's what they pay him for. When you finish eating to your heart's content, simply walk out. Ta da!

Maneuvering a large pack through the trains and buses of a major city isn't easy, but I made it to Bondi Junction without a problem...yet. I got on the bus that goes to the beach. Fifteen minutes later I noticed my surroundings becoming more and more suburban and less and less beach. I asked a quiet Asian girl where the bus was headed, got off, crossed the street, and took the same bus back in the right direction towards the beach. At this point sweat was pouring down my back like Niagara. The new bus was comfortable and I was elated when we finally hit what was unmistakably Bondi beach. (Editor's note: ''Use Me'' by Bill Withers just came on shuffle, gonna play it twice). I obviously missed my stop while staring out the window at the awesomest beach ever and had to walk like seven long, hard blocks back to my hostel with my pack on my back.

For the second time in three days I approached a reception desk with enough sweat on my forehead to fill a juice box (Apple-Grape). All in all, my threes nights at Bondi Backpackers hostel were great. The place could have been cleaner and the staff could have smiled, but it was alright. When/if I spend more nights at the beach I'll probably stay somewhere else. ROOMATE INTERUPTION NUMBER TWO!!! Sleeping guy in the bunk above me finally woke up. His name is Michal (try pronouncing it quickly in a thick Yiddish accent) and he's Danish. The poor guy is sick and went to get some soup. The hostel by the beach produced some quite interesting characters. The dramatis personae: Tall Angry Guy, Drunk Irish Rob, Small Irish Allan, Steve, Chevy, Math teacher dude from Edmonton, German Girl, Zack (also) from Edmonton, Unemployed British Girl #1, Unemployed British Girl #2, Happy Tom the Red-Head and a Scottish girl who went by V. There was also a middle-aged acid flashback named Heather who had very strong opinions on the downfall of Australian agriculture and the inflation of food prices.

That first night Chevy and I went bar hopping along the beach and had some laughs, and several drinks. We met up with out motley crew back at the hostel and drank goon and smoked very sub-par green until the wee hours of the morning. The next day we hit the beach. So pristine. The most amazing part is that it's so close to the city. In Montreal terms it's like taking the metro to Cote-Vertu, getting on a ten minute bus and finding yourself at a world-class beach (instead of Luddy's house). We swam, tanned, and people-watched all day long. Slightly burnt by the sun, I headed back to the hostel and joined in with others who were watching hours of American sitcoms on the TV in the lounge. I went to bed early that night. Yesterday was way too hot to spend at the beach, so I took the proper bus back to the junction and did the only thing around there that was air-conditioned: I saw Invictus. It was awesome, but that funky theater worked on a system of reserved seating. I was in seat G-10, one over from (another) elderly couple who brought their own sandwiches and cans of diet Fanta. My intentions for my last night at the beach were to revisit the goon, but I got so caught up in fun conversation in the lounge that midnight came and went before I had a chance to start drinking.

This morning I showered, laundered and checked out all by 10 AM. Bussed to the Junction, back on the train, and checked in here at the Wake-Up hostel, voted #1 hostel in Oceania and #1 large hostel in the world. This place is epically clean and has everything you could ever need. It's slightly pricier then I would have liked but I'll take it. You met two of my roommates already, but there are also two very disagreeable looking girls with Baltic accents. I'm gonna call them ''Slobodanvia'' and ''Mika'' until I find out what their actual names are. This afternoon I walked to Darling Harbour. It was really beautiful but I'll have to go back when the weathers nicer. The Sydney Aquarium was kind of a bust, but on my walk around town I noticed a bunch of cool shit and listened to my i-Pod on shuffle, which seems to be the move so far. Missy Elliott and Cat Stevens back to back? Damn right.

Some friends from Bondi are staying here as well and in a few minutes we're going to compete in trivia night for a $100 bar tab. Little do these fuckers know that I was on a nationally ranked trivia team back home and am dying for free booze.

Shout out to Tush