SYDNEY!

Well Hello,


I made it to Sydney, but I must say that the first 2 hours of being here has been more intense than all my time in FREO. Talk about exhilerating being here. The flight was great, I sat next to a guy who was flying into Sydney for a day to do paint business. I got off the plane and started looking for Dominique and Nora who said that they would be looking for me, but alas I couldn't find them, and the airport was really dead. So I followed the mass of people to the baggage claim, found both my bags. Yes, we are cooking with gas now. It was nice, Qantas didn't even charge me for the extra bag. But talk about ridiculous, with the amount of baggage I have it looks ridiculous when I walk around, and the bags were definitely at their breaking point carrying the laptop, even though I was under the weight limits by 20 pounds.

Then the problem was finding how to get to the hostel. Looked for all the shuttles, but nothing was running because it was too late (10:30). There was a HUGE line of people getting cabs, so I guess that being my only option, I relented knowing it would be expensive. In my 20 years I have never ridden cabs as much as we have down here. So I told the cab driver that I needed to go to the Wake up! hostel, this guy has absolutely no idea what he was doing, so I took a deep breath and hoped for the best. We made small talk and he was having trouble understanding me, citing my thick accent. The first time I have ever had to deal with someone saying I have a thick accent, mumbles yes but never accent. By now I was thinking it was a little ridiculous that a cab driver that works at the airport didn't know where a hostel was, I mean didn;t he drop of people there all the time. So he is toying around with this gadget in the car that is supposed to tell him where everything is and tells me there is no reason to have a dispatch because all the technology was right there. YEAH RIGHT.......So he is messing around there still, and I come to find out, he only has been on this job for TWO WEEKS. Thank god I looked at a map of where the hostel was located, I mean briefly, But doing that saved me a ton of time, as he dropped me off in the area that I thought it was, just as I had resigned myself to a long night of searching, I look to my left and see the Wake up! logo. AWESOME.

WOW what a hostel. THis thing is like 8 stories tall, I walk in the front door, and all I could hear was the pulsating bass of the side bar. And this place is booked to the roof, the receptionist was turning people away left and right. I guess $35 is a reealy good rate for Sydney. I finally got checked in, only to find that my roommates were sleeping so, that kind of sucked for getting settled, I guess I'll just have to wait for the morning. SO now I am in the common area where they have like 24 nicer computers with huge screens, and an awesome TV, not to mention a sweet couch. This is going to be amazing for the next five days.

Sydney has a completely different feel from Freo. The streets are packed with people, at this time in Freak mantle, the only people out would be the kids and the drunkards. I'm very excited to walk around tomorrow and see whats around. Talk about being in the heart of it all.