I keep forgetting what the last thing I wrote was – I’m going to assume that it was the day after my birthday and I hadn’t done much else at the time.
So Friday night Shannon, Sarah, Tess, Marilia and I went to see a band. Don’t remember what they were called, I guess you’d classify them as heavy alternative rock. They were OK. I mean, they were good for $20… but the venue was a dirty, smelly, sweaty hole in the wall that really could have done with a bath. And some deodorant. From there we got some Nachos and some soapy beer at about 2.30am. From there the weekend is a bit of a blur… The next night we went and got Chinese for dinner and went and saw the new Adam Sandler movie. I don’t recall what it’s called, but it was really good… by far his best movie to date – proof that he can play a semi-serious role. Definitely worth watching… then went and got a couple of drinks, and all of a sudden it was the next day, and I was rushing to get packed and in a taxi and on a plane, and within a blink I’m in a new city/country/continent.
London…
So far really all I’ve seen has been the inside of the airport, the inside of a train, a couple of streets, and the inside of the hostel. I got in at about 10am and couldn’t book into the hostel until 2pm, so I sat in the lounge – accidentally picked up some free wireless internet from somewhere nearby – chatted to a couple of people online to try to keep myself awake and eventually the time ticked away and I booked into my room. A four bunk room with no one else in it… had a shower and promptly fell fast asleep. I woke up briefly at about 9pm local time, went back to sleep and woke up at 10am this morning. Great sleep… interesting dreams about nothing in particular… So far I’ve seen and heard a LOT of Aussies around the place. Which is cool…
Anyway, that’s all for now, will try to find somewhere with wireless internet for free again – rather than pay the ridiculous amount that they want to charge here at the hostel. Right now I need to go find a new mobile phone plan… something that will work all over Europe hopefully…
Right... I found a Sim card that will do for the time being - currently my UK phone number is 07726 281 406. Also - this hostel is pretty much full of Australians. Almost nothing else... and while most of them have been fantastic, I'm seeing the obnoxious, loud, idiotic side of them at the same time... real shame. *shrugs* I'll try to not kill them in their sleep... (if they sleep... I haven't ascertained that at this time).
Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Philip K. Dick
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
My 3 day birthday, and a Sombrero...
Right… so you got what I did on the first day of my birthday – I was on a train – I mean… I guess it was my birthday – I was getting “happy birthdays” from Australia. Which being where I was born, I have to say makes my birthday in the northern hemisphere start a little bit earlier.
Coming from the warmth of the south back into the frigidity of the north was a bit of a shock to the system… but I don’t think it really hit me until I saw the snow on the ground outside the train – wind picking up ice crystals and blowing them around giving the scene a somewhat arctic-tundra-esque feeling… quite pretty, but so friggin cold…
When I got off the train I went and dropped my bags off at the hostel and decided to catch a movie. Really not time to do much else and I really wanted to see 300. So I wandered back into the subway and caught the train into the city and went to a cinema on 34th st. Huge place… anyway went in, got my ticket and sat at the back of the theatre. The 300 is an amazing movie. One of those epics that when you get out of you feel 10ft tall and bullet proof… great. I’m not going to talk too much about it for the benefit of those of you who haven’t seen it yet. All I’ll say is if you get the chance – go see it at the cinema… so good on the big screen.
In any case; local time-wise my birthday dawned in NYC. I didn’t have much time to think about it, however as I was busy packing my things and catching another train headed up to Montreal. We all know my feelings about Montreal so I won’t go on too much about the city itself… When I got in I contacted both Ashley and Natasha (hi guys!) who I met last time I was up here at the “Geography party” section of the pub crawl. Anyway – I’ve been keeping in touch with them and they were keen to catch up with me again when I got back. So anyway, Tash was sick but Ashley was still keen to come out. So it was pretty funny when not even an hour into the pub crawl I pop out side and walk in with this gorgeous, petite, girl at my side… I got some pretty funny looks. Would have been hilarious to see their faces if both the girls had come… anyway, we sat down and had a couple of beers at the first bar, and then headed to the second bar for a bit… drank more, took drunk photos, drank Sangreal (Red wine mixed with something else – just call it recipe for a hangover…) and then headed to a third bar, before disbanding at about 2.30am (honestly that’s a guess.. I have no idea what time it was…) Very good night.
The next day I was supposed to catch a bus back to Toronto at 2pm… I was way too sick to be bothered so I made an executive decision and booked into the hostel for another night. I was meant to meet Natasha for lunch – but we were both too sick for that, and ended up – thanks to my hangover – planning to go out for dinner. So we went out to a Mexican restaurant with the promise of a surprise later on… not one who takes surprises very well – especially when they’re hinted at previously… I was understandably a little scared. But it turned out (after my enormous meal) to be that they give anyone who’s having a birthday at the restaurant a sombrero hat and a slice of something with a candle in it. Hilarious. But anyway – my search for a hat is over at least for a while… and Ashley, Natasha and I sat around talking for ages afterwards… was a really nice night, and a great way to cap off my 3 day birthday… Good friends, good food, a Sombrero and “The Monkeys” walk down the street...
And they both said if I ever want to move to Montreal they’d help me out. Haha… *coughs* not that I wouldn’t. I love it here… we’ll see… maybe one day… it's very tempting guys...
Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. - Evan Davis
Coming from the warmth of the south back into the frigidity of the north was a bit of a shock to the system… but I don’t think it really hit me until I saw the snow on the ground outside the train – wind picking up ice crystals and blowing them around giving the scene a somewhat arctic-tundra-esque feeling… quite pretty, but so friggin cold…
When I got off the train I went and dropped my bags off at the hostel and decided to catch a movie. Really not time to do much else and I really wanted to see 300. So I wandered back into the subway and caught the train into the city and went to a cinema on 34th st. Huge place… anyway went in, got my ticket and sat at the back of the theatre. The 300 is an amazing movie. One of those epics that when you get out of you feel 10ft tall and bullet proof… great. I’m not going to talk too much about it for the benefit of those of you who haven’t seen it yet. All I’ll say is if you get the chance – go see it at the cinema… so good on the big screen.
In any case; local time-wise my birthday dawned in NYC. I didn’t have much time to think about it, however as I was busy packing my things and catching another train headed up to Montreal. We all know my feelings about Montreal so I won’t go on too much about the city itself… When I got in I contacted both Ashley and Natasha (hi guys!) who I met last time I was up here at the “Geography party” section of the pub crawl. Anyway – I’ve been keeping in touch with them and they were keen to catch up with me again when I got back. So anyway, Tash was sick but Ashley was still keen to come out. So it was pretty funny when not even an hour into the pub crawl I pop out side and walk in with this gorgeous, petite, girl at my side… I got some pretty funny looks. Would have been hilarious to see their faces if both the girls had come… anyway, we sat down and had a couple of beers at the first bar, and then headed to the second bar for a bit… drank more, took drunk photos, drank Sangreal (Red wine mixed with something else – just call it recipe for a hangover…) and then headed to a third bar, before disbanding at about 2.30am (honestly that’s a guess.. I have no idea what time it was…) Very good night.
The next day I was supposed to catch a bus back to Toronto at 2pm… I was way too sick to be bothered so I made an executive decision and booked into the hostel for another night. I was meant to meet Natasha for lunch – but we were both too sick for that, and ended up – thanks to my hangover – planning to go out for dinner. So we went out to a Mexican restaurant with the promise of a surprise later on… not one who takes surprises very well – especially when they’re hinted at previously… I was understandably a little scared. But it turned out (after my enormous meal) to be that they give anyone who’s having a birthday at the restaurant a sombrero hat and a slice of something with a candle in it. Hilarious. But anyway – my search for a hat is over at least for a while… and Ashley, Natasha and I sat around talking for ages afterwards… was a really nice night, and a great way to cap off my 3 day birthday… Good friends, good food, a Sombrero and “The Monkeys” walk down the street...
And they both said if I ever want to move to Montreal they’d help me out. Haha… *coughs* not that I wouldn’t. I love it here… we’ll see… maybe one day… it's very tempting guys...
Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. - Evan Davis
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
St. Patrick's Day; a rope of sand...
Trying to filter through the jumbled memories of the last 2 or 3 days… I guess it has to start with another delayed bus trip from New Orleans back to Tallahassee… It started roughly on time, but we lost an hour and a half at one of the stops. Funny things happened – as they tend to – first thing – sitting in the Bus terminal in New Orleans – well rested and refreshed after a good nights sleep… actually after a good recovery day the day before where I hardly left the hotel room… anyway… two guys walk in and go get their tickets for the bus and I knew instantly even before I could hear them talking, that they were Aussies. So I went over and had a chat to them and we talked most of the first hour after we got on the bus… was good fun. One of the guys was here to try out for college basketball apparently 10 teams were looking at him from all over the country, so he must be pretty good. The other guy had done the summer camp thing and was traveling around afterwards using up the money he’d made. Both of them were from WA.
Anyway at the next bus stop which was the one that we lost all the time at, I met a girl who was enthralled with the fact that we were traveling around America, and more so with the fact that we were Australian. Funniest thing she said was “so Y’all flew here?”… I looked at the other guys and said as dead pan as I could – oh, no, we caught the bus. I think it took her one moment to realize what I’d said, and then another moment to process it, and then another couple of moments to realize that I was kidding… by then we were laughing at her… Then there were a couple of older guys – one who had gotten on at the previous stop and I had a bad feeling about him – he just looked wrong… you know? Anyway, there was him and another older guy talking shit, which normally you laugh off as dirty old men trying to impress young girls… but they’d been filling in some of the wait with alcohol and one of them said something to the other one, and they ended up taking it outside and had a little fight. Hilarious. I’m like – well there’s two empty seats anyway. Good thing too, cause the bus was packed. Then the next stop we had 3 people get off and about 8 people wanting to get on… Was the busiest bus I’ve been on this trip. All cause of spring break.
So, because I got in late to Tallahassee Bart – Caroline’s boyfriend offered to have me stay on his couch which was very nice of him. Caroline has a 10pm cut off unless she’s drinking, and Bart was up anyway… So I passed out on his futon and woke up to the day before St Patrick’s day – which apparently is almost as big a drinking day as the day itself. Maybe its just the fact that Tallahassee is virtually a college town, and they just like drinking. The plan for the day was that a group of people were going to drive for an hour and check out some caves that a lot of people had heard about, but not too many of them had been to. There ended up being about 9 of us; a good sized group and we took two cars – they were divided into the “hungry car” and the “not hungry right now car” I went in the latter of the two. The caves were good… not the biggest or most interesting I’ve seen, but the guide knew his stuff… *Shrugs* I met a lot of Caroline’s friends, all of whom are very cool… I’d go into that more, but I’m not going to. That night we went out to check out a couple of bars… met some really cool people including a group of people from Panama at the first bar. Bart was very helpful by saying as loudly as he possibly could at every apparent opportunity – “THIS IS MY AUSTRALIAN FRIEND” Funny stuff. Oh, and they had Australian beers – but not Coopers that I’ve found everywhere else, they had Toohey’s New and Boags Premium… awesome… Boags is great beer… but I wasn’t allowed to try it, I had to try some American efforts. They were OK. I’ve had better… From there we went to another bar which was absolutely packed… Right at the end of the night 1.55pm I was on my way to the “bathroom” and couldn’t open the door – a girl was on the inside holding it shut. They appologised as they came out and at my response stopped to talk to me for a good 5 minutes. Apparently one of them’s favourite things is guys with red hair… Anyway, they let me use the facilities and when I got out they were still waiting for me… they were like “we know this is a bit forward, but can we have your number?” Hilarious. That’s another first. Anyway, I gave Meredith my phone number… more on that later…
St Patrick’s day… wow… I think this is the biggest St Paddy’s I’ve ever experienced. So, we woke up at about midday and headed out for lunch, then I went back and thought it would probably be a good idea to pack my bags since I didn’t know where I’d be sleeping and there was a good chance I wouldn’t have the time or energy to do it in the morning. So that out the way we went and had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Hilarity. Waited for a table for about 45 minutes at the bar – managed to down a Coopers sparkling, and a Boags Premium (and well onto my second coopers) in that time… I had decided that I was “virtually” in Australia, I was allowed to drink Australian beer. Sooo much better than American beers… crazy. Anyway, 2 of Caroline’s friends arrived, Mary and Kirsten who I’d met when we went to the caves the day before. Good times. And we ate. We ate SO much… the food was actually really good… I wouldn’t call it Australian cuisine, but – I mean… what WOULD you call Australian cuisine? Kangaroo? Everyone does steak… I think we decided that it was mostly just American food with Australian names. Including the ‘Blooming Onion” which is an onion chopped but left connected at the bottom – and then coated in something and deep fried. Great. Not so good for the breath, but tasted really good. The waitress was great too… had been working there for a whole year, and I was her first bonafide Australian… pretty funny. She got wind (thanks Kirsten) that my birthday was coming up, so they brought out a candle for my icecream and a bunch of people got together and sang “Bonza Bonza Birthday” such a crack up. Then we went back to Barts place for a couple of pre-drink-drinks. A warm-up if you will… while sitting there, I got a phone call from Meredith – the girl who’d got my number the night before… I was hoping for the call, but not entirely expecting it… its hard to describe her… gorgeous doesn’t really cover it. She is beautiful… really amazingly beautiful… anyway, we chatted for a couple of minutes – she was at Wal-mart getting “St Patrickified” and planned for me to call her when we got to the bars at about 11. Which I did. And spent the rest of the evening with her and her friends – completely ditching Caroline, Bart and Mary… which I feel bad about. But only a little bit (sorry Caroline… but you saw the photos…I know you understand). Was a really really fun night… I had my first “Sex-on-the-beach” (IT’S A DRINK, MUM!) and actually, my second, third and possibly fourth as well… I’m not sure… chuck in a few shots and accidentally skulling a whole bunch of terrible green beer… needless to say I had a pretty bad headache the next day. Meredith and her friend dropped me off at Barts where I passed out fully clothed on his futon
And woke up at 10am to catch the bus to Jacksonville. That was fun. When I got to Jacksonville, I walked out the front to where the Taxi’s were, and I got approached by a guy who asked me where I was going… I told him that I was going to the Amtrak station, and he said that he’d show me how to get there, and started heading off… I was like.. so its in walking distance? And he said something unintelligible… I had some doubts, but I walked with him to the bus depot, chatted a bit along the way. He was homeless and had hurt his hand so he couldn’t work, so he just needed some money to stay at the shelter that night… He got me there safe, and we had a laugh, so I gave him about $8… still heaps cheaper than the taxi would have been – it turned out that it was a fair way – probably a $20 fare, and the bus was only 75c. so I got to the Amtrak on $8.75. Not bad. Plus I was the last one on the bus and the bus driver started to have a chat to me… so that was cool too.
And now I’ve been on a train for nearly 18 hours… Thinking of going to see a movie once I get in to NYC and have dropped my stuff off at the hostel. Get rid of the rest of my USD.
I don’t think I have much else to say right now… spending tomorrow (Birthday) mostly on a train should be fun… but with real fun at the end with ANOTHER pub crawl in the awesome Montreal. Can’t wait for that. I will relate what I remember in my next post…
Anyway at the next bus stop which was the one that we lost all the time at, I met a girl who was enthralled with the fact that we were traveling around America, and more so with the fact that we were Australian. Funniest thing she said was “so Y’all flew here?”… I looked at the other guys and said as dead pan as I could – oh, no, we caught the bus. I think it took her one moment to realize what I’d said, and then another moment to process it, and then another couple of moments to realize that I was kidding… by then we were laughing at her… Then there were a couple of older guys – one who had gotten on at the previous stop and I had a bad feeling about him – he just looked wrong… you know? Anyway, there was him and another older guy talking shit, which normally you laugh off as dirty old men trying to impress young girls… but they’d been filling in some of the wait with alcohol and one of them said something to the other one, and they ended up taking it outside and had a little fight. Hilarious. I’m like – well there’s two empty seats anyway. Good thing too, cause the bus was packed. Then the next stop we had 3 people get off and about 8 people wanting to get on… Was the busiest bus I’ve been on this trip. All cause of spring break.
So, because I got in late to Tallahassee Bart – Caroline’s boyfriend offered to have me stay on his couch which was very nice of him. Caroline has a 10pm cut off unless she’s drinking, and Bart was up anyway… So I passed out on his futon and woke up to the day before St Patrick’s day – which apparently is almost as big a drinking day as the day itself. Maybe its just the fact that Tallahassee is virtually a college town, and they just like drinking. The plan for the day was that a group of people were going to drive for an hour and check out some caves that a lot of people had heard about, but not too many of them had been to. There ended up being about 9 of us; a good sized group and we took two cars – they were divided into the “hungry car” and the “not hungry right now car” I went in the latter of the two. The caves were good… not the biggest or most interesting I’ve seen, but the guide knew his stuff… *Shrugs* I met a lot of Caroline’s friends, all of whom are very cool… I’d go into that more, but I’m not going to. That night we went out to check out a couple of bars… met some really cool people including a group of people from Panama at the first bar. Bart was very helpful by saying as loudly as he possibly could at every apparent opportunity – “THIS IS MY AUSTRALIAN FRIEND” Funny stuff. Oh, and they had Australian beers – but not Coopers that I’ve found everywhere else, they had Toohey’s New and Boags Premium… awesome… Boags is great beer… but I wasn’t allowed to try it, I had to try some American efforts. They were OK. I’ve had better… From there we went to another bar which was absolutely packed… Right at the end of the night 1.55pm I was on my way to the “bathroom” and couldn’t open the door – a girl was on the inside holding it shut. They appologised as they came out and at my response stopped to talk to me for a good 5 minutes. Apparently one of them’s favourite things is guys with red hair… Anyway, they let me use the facilities and when I got out they were still waiting for me… they were like “we know this is a bit forward, but can we have your number?” Hilarious. That’s another first. Anyway, I gave Meredith my phone number… more on that later…
St Patrick’s day… wow… I think this is the biggest St Paddy’s I’ve ever experienced. So, we woke up at about midday and headed out for lunch, then I went back and thought it would probably be a good idea to pack my bags since I didn’t know where I’d be sleeping and there was a good chance I wouldn’t have the time or energy to do it in the morning. So that out the way we went and had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Hilarity. Waited for a table for about 45 minutes at the bar – managed to down a Coopers sparkling, and a Boags Premium (and well onto my second coopers) in that time… I had decided that I was “virtually” in Australia, I was allowed to drink Australian beer. Sooo much better than American beers… crazy. Anyway, 2 of Caroline’s friends arrived, Mary and Kirsten who I’d met when we went to the caves the day before. Good times. And we ate. We ate SO much… the food was actually really good… I wouldn’t call it Australian cuisine, but – I mean… what WOULD you call Australian cuisine? Kangaroo? Everyone does steak… I think we decided that it was mostly just American food with Australian names. Including the ‘Blooming Onion” which is an onion chopped but left connected at the bottom – and then coated in something and deep fried. Great. Not so good for the breath, but tasted really good. The waitress was great too… had been working there for a whole year, and I was her first bonafide Australian… pretty funny. She got wind (thanks Kirsten) that my birthday was coming up, so they brought out a candle for my icecream and a bunch of people got together and sang “Bonza Bonza Birthday” such a crack up. Then we went back to Barts place for a couple of pre-drink-drinks. A warm-up if you will… while sitting there, I got a phone call from Meredith – the girl who’d got my number the night before… I was hoping for the call, but not entirely expecting it… its hard to describe her… gorgeous doesn’t really cover it. She is beautiful… really amazingly beautiful… anyway, we chatted for a couple of minutes – she was at Wal-mart getting “St Patrickified” and planned for me to call her when we got to the bars at about 11. Which I did. And spent the rest of the evening with her and her friends – completely ditching Caroline, Bart and Mary… which I feel bad about. But only a little bit (sorry Caroline… but you saw the photos…I know you understand). Was a really really fun night… I had my first “Sex-on-the-beach” (IT’S A DRINK, MUM!) and actually, my second, third and possibly fourth as well… I’m not sure… chuck in a few shots and accidentally skulling a whole bunch of terrible green beer… needless to say I had a pretty bad headache the next day. Meredith and her friend dropped me off at Barts where I passed out fully clothed on his futon
And woke up at 10am to catch the bus to Jacksonville. That was fun. When I got to Jacksonville, I walked out the front to where the Taxi’s were, and I got approached by a guy who asked me where I was going… I told him that I was going to the Amtrak station, and he said that he’d show me how to get there, and started heading off… I was like.. so its in walking distance? And he said something unintelligible… I had some doubts, but I walked with him to the bus depot, chatted a bit along the way. He was homeless and had hurt his hand so he couldn’t work, so he just needed some money to stay at the shelter that night… He got me there safe, and we had a laugh, so I gave him about $8… still heaps cheaper than the taxi would have been – it turned out that it was a fair way – probably a $20 fare, and the bus was only 75c. so I got to the Amtrak on $8.75. Not bad. Plus I was the last one on the bus and the bus driver started to have a chat to me… so that was cool too.
And now I’ve been on a train for nearly 18 hours… Thinking of going to see a movie once I get in to NYC and have dropped my stuff off at the hostel. Get rid of the rest of my USD.
I don’t think I have much else to say right now… spending tomorrow (Birthday) mostly on a train should be fun… but with real fun at the end with ANOTHER pub crawl in the awesome Montreal. Can’t wait for that. I will relate what I remember in my next post…
Thursday, March 15, 2007
It Starts With a Sandwich
I had an interesting evening – the evening that will color my memory of New Orleans… and it will color it an interesting shade of green. More on that later
So, Getting a bit peckish at around 6.30 I wandered down to the lobby and asked the people behind the counter where would be a good place to eat, they asked what kind of thing I felt like – and I responded in the most helpful way I could think of – food. The look they exchanged said a great deal. But they replied with “Mothers”. Somewhat of a local legend apparently. Basically a diner with local specialty foods like jambalaya, Po-boys (like a subway except better), red beans and rice, etc. So I went, and stood in line outside for I guess 30 minutes at least. Assuming correctly that if people are willing to line up for food, then it must be pretty damned good.
So I stood in line.
While waiting in line a guy in front of me asked me a few questions, which I didn’t know the answers to, but we ended up chatting about other stuff. He was a theatre/TV producer in town looking for a location to film something or other… really interesting guy. Not that it makes any difference but he was black… which made it more interesting for me that he even spoke to me at all – mainly because from what I’ve experienced so far from the black community in that they tend to keep to themselves… Definitely not the case in New Orleans… it’s been really good in that respect. He found my tales of traveling around by myself intriguing (I’ve found this a fairly common response – apparently its not something that’s very common for Americans to do… *Shrugs*) anyway, I apparently amused him enough that he shouted me dinner – I guess almost as much for the company while eating as anything… not being entirely comfortable with being bought dinner I told him that he better be coming out drinking so I could buy him a few drinks.
Anyway, we chatted while eating our sandwiches and he said he wanted to head back to the casino where he was staying and play some more blackjack – which he had been having a good run at yesterday. So off we wandered and I found myself sitting at the high rollers table in the casino (free drinks for just sitting down!!!), where he pulls out a wad of cash – about $1500. I’m like… whoa… and he asked me if I was going to play – I said $100 (1 chip) was the equivalent of 4 night’s accommodation for me, not the sort of money I have to throw away… so he started off doing quite well, and then lost it all. But in between all that “excitement” this other guy comes and sits at the table and puts down $1000, blows it all in 2 hands, then gets a $10,000 (he’d asked for $20,000) line of credit and eventually leaves us to sit at his own table… after we’d finished we went and joined him. Really nice guy, but money to burn… crazy… each chip was $500. I think the biggest bet I saw him place (and win) was maybe somewhere in the vicinity of $8000… maybe more… amazing.
So after that we headed down to Bourbon street – the heart of the French quarter and a buzzing hive of activity even on a Tuesday night… amazing place, it was like you turn off the main street and you’re instantly In another world… you go from a normal weekday night, do the midnight on a Friday or Saturday night. Walking around first thing I saw was a sign advertising “The strongest drink in the world” a mixture of 151 proof rum of some sort and something else, all mixed together in a slushy and served like a frozen coke. Except green and sickening… it was very strong though… walked up the street a bit further and found an awesome band playing covers – really amazing. They guy on the saxophone was unbelievable… the singers were both as good as anything I’ve ever heard.
We then found a group of fortune tellers sitting on the side of the road doing palm readings and tarot cards – the guy I was wandering around with wanted his fortune read and sat there and got both palm and cards done, didn’t say much, but at the end he said it was pretty accurate… I thought what the hell, it will be interesting, and so I got my palm read. Always something I’ve wanted to do… Apparently I’m going to live into my 90’s (nice to hear) have 4 kids (bit of a worry), be reasonably wealthy, but have to work for it, have 2 life partners (the second of which I will meet while studying!!!), I’m a reliable person, etc, etc… love to travel… and I have a “work hard; play hard” attitude to life… funny cause earlier that day I’d been wearing my FCUK WORK t-shirt which says Work hard play hard underneath… hmmm… spooky… overall I was impressed. There’s heaps of other stuff that he said, and I wish I had been more sober at the time so I could remember it all… but anyway… whatever…
Great night…
WARNING: MUM YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ FROM HERE ON…
The night came to a conclusion with my first (and maybe last) visit to a strip club. I will say one thing for the girls, as gorgeous as they are, they are mighty strong. A couple of them could climb all the way up a 27foot pole and slide down it slowly using nothing but their legs… crazy stuff… I’ll say firstly that I didn’t get a lap-dance or anything like that… in fact I’m not sure what was going on, but it wasn’t really that interesting. My friend went for a 30 minute “private” session for a good 45 minutes and I sat at the bar… chatted to a couple of girls – most of whom when they realized that that they weren’t going to get any money out of me, left pretty quick. The exception was a girl called Ryan. Absolutely stunning girl who was interesting, well traveled, smart, and just seemed happy to have someone to talk to that didn’t want to rub their face in her chest… (Not that I didn’t want to… but I guess I wasn’t in the mood) anyway, she’d come over and chat to me between “working” it was actually the most fun I had all night just talking to her. Bizarre. My friend left at about midnight citing exhaustion… I stuck around until about 2… at one point a girl came over and I laughed at her… I think she was a bit offended… but I was so drunk… the whole place just seemed ridiculous…
Anyway, that’s my excitement for the week so far… I’ve spent today sleeping off a pretty terrible green hangover… not nice at all…
Talk to you soon – probably after St Patrick’s Day!
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. - William Shakespeare
So, Getting a bit peckish at around 6.30 I wandered down to the lobby and asked the people behind the counter where would be a good place to eat, they asked what kind of thing I felt like – and I responded in the most helpful way I could think of – food. The look they exchanged said a great deal. But they replied with “Mothers”. Somewhat of a local legend apparently. Basically a diner with local specialty foods like jambalaya, Po-boys (like a subway except better), red beans and rice, etc. So I went, and stood in line outside for I guess 30 minutes at least. Assuming correctly that if people are willing to line up for food, then it must be pretty damned good.
So I stood in line.
While waiting in line a guy in front of me asked me a few questions, which I didn’t know the answers to, but we ended up chatting about other stuff. He was a theatre/TV producer in town looking for a location to film something or other… really interesting guy. Not that it makes any difference but he was black… which made it more interesting for me that he even spoke to me at all – mainly because from what I’ve experienced so far from the black community in that they tend to keep to themselves… Definitely not the case in New Orleans… it’s been really good in that respect. He found my tales of traveling around by myself intriguing (I’ve found this a fairly common response – apparently its not something that’s very common for Americans to do… *Shrugs*) anyway, I apparently amused him enough that he shouted me dinner – I guess almost as much for the company while eating as anything… not being entirely comfortable with being bought dinner I told him that he better be coming out drinking so I could buy him a few drinks.
Anyway, we chatted while eating our sandwiches and he said he wanted to head back to the casino where he was staying and play some more blackjack – which he had been having a good run at yesterday. So off we wandered and I found myself sitting at the high rollers table in the casino (free drinks for just sitting down!!!), where he pulls out a wad of cash – about $1500. I’m like… whoa… and he asked me if I was going to play – I said $100 (1 chip) was the equivalent of 4 night’s accommodation for me, not the sort of money I have to throw away… so he started off doing quite well, and then lost it all. But in between all that “excitement” this other guy comes and sits at the table and puts down $1000, blows it all in 2 hands, then gets a $10,000 (he’d asked for $20,000) line of credit and eventually leaves us to sit at his own table… after we’d finished we went and joined him. Really nice guy, but money to burn… crazy… each chip was $500. I think the biggest bet I saw him place (and win) was maybe somewhere in the vicinity of $8000… maybe more… amazing.
So after that we headed down to Bourbon street – the heart of the French quarter and a buzzing hive of activity even on a Tuesday night… amazing place, it was like you turn off the main street and you’re instantly In another world… you go from a normal weekday night, do the midnight on a Friday or Saturday night. Walking around first thing I saw was a sign advertising “The strongest drink in the world” a mixture of 151 proof rum of some sort and something else, all mixed together in a slushy and served like a frozen coke. Except green and sickening… it was very strong though… walked up the street a bit further and found an awesome band playing covers – really amazing. They guy on the saxophone was unbelievable… the singers were both as good as anything I’ve ever heard.
We then found a group of fortune tellers sitting on the side of the road doing palm readings and tarot cards – the guy I was wandering around with wanted his fortune read and sat there and got both palm and cards done, didn’t say much, but at the end he said it was pretty accurate… I thought what the hell, it will be interesting, and so I got my palm read. Always something I’ve wanted to do… Apparently I’m going to live into my 90’s (nice to hear) have 4 kids (bit of a worry), be reasonably wealthy, but have to work for it, have 2 life partners (the second of which I will meet while studying!!!), I’m a reliable person, etc, etc… love to travel… and I have a “work hard; play hard” attitude to life… funny cause earlier that day I’d been wearing my FCUK WORK t-shirt which says Work hard play hard underneath… hmmm… spooky… overall I was impressed. There’s heaps of other stuff that he said, and I wish I had been more sober at the time so I could remember it all… but anyway… whatever…
Great night…
WARNING: MUM YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ FROM HERE ON…
The night came to a conclusion with my first (and maybe last) visit to a strip club. I will say one thing for the girls, as gorgeous as they are, they are mighty strong. A couple of them could climb all the way up a 27foot pole and slide down it slowly using nothing but their legs… crazy stuff… I’ll say firstly that I didn’t get a lap-dance or anything like that… in fact I’m not sure what was going on, but it wasn’t really that interesting. My friend went for a 30 minute “private” session for a good 45 minutes and I sat at the bar… chatted to a couple of girls – most of whom when they realized that that they weren’t going to get any money out of me, left pretty quick. The exception was a girl called Ryan. Absolutely stunning girl who was interesting, well traveled, smart, and just seemed happy to have someone to talk to that didn’t want to rub their face in her chest… (Not that I didn’t want to… but I guess I wasn’t in the mood) anyway, she’d come over and chat to me between “working” it was actually the most fun I had all night just talking to her. Bizarre. My friend left at about midnight citing exhaustion… I stuck around until about 2… at one point a girl came over and I laughed at her… I think she was a bit offended… but I was so drunk… the whole place just seemed ridiculous…
Anyway, that’s my excitement for the week so far… I’ve spent today sleeping off a pretty terrible green hangover… not nice at all…
Talk to you soon – probably after St Patrick’s Day!
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. - William Shakespeare
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
New New Orleans...
Righto… So the train took a good 12 hours to get from Atlanta to New Orleans… but it was actually not too bad… I slept a bit, but was mostly entertained by the two children sitting in the seats next to me (and their mother).
I got into New Orleans I guess at about 9pm, and waited for a bit for a taxi to arrive that was willing to take me to my hostel… Take this as a review on Joe and Flo’s candlelight hostel – Don’t do it. The look my cab driver gave me as I told him where I needed him to take me should have been enough for me to say “okay, take me somewhere else. Now” but I didn’t… I’d already paid for a night and I’m a bit stubborn like that. When he told me that there were 2 people shot on the street the night before, and one boy died, Again, I should have taken the hint and told him to find me somewhere else to stay… and then when he gave me directions on how to avoid the bad areas when I went into town the next day, I should have been scared enough to get him to take me straight back to the train station and I’d wait there for the next train to anywhere-but-here-ville. But I was in a good mood, and too tired to stuff around, so I got out at the hostel. He was nice enough to give me his number if I changed my mind and needed a lift – fast. Then I sat in the foyer/lounge at the front of the hostel for an hour while I waited for someone to arrive – he apparently had to drive from his house to book me in… and when I got to my room and was greeted by a not-so-sane guy sleeping on the bottom of the bunk that I was meant to be staying on the top of… the itchy bed and the 2 inch thick mattress with what felt like bars of steel running across… I decided pretty quickly that I’d be there for one night only and used the one good thing that they had – free wireless internet – to book another hotel for the next 3 days. Luckily enough I found a reasonably cheap place right in the city, of course it doesn’t have free internet though. So I got here and fell asleep at about 4pm with the intention of getting up at 9 or 10 and going out, but I slept soundly until about 8am this morning. Nice.
One thing that did hit me was the guy that ran the hostel, also ran a shuttle bus service pretty much whereever you want to go. I felt a bit bad getting him to take me to another hotel, but he chatted to me along the way, about New Orleans, and the aftermath of Katrina... how he understood why people committed suicide, and that he'd thought of it himself. He'd lost everything, and was one of the people that hadn't seen any of the money that got poured into the community to help. He didn't get any new car or plasma tv like a lot of people apparently did. He lost everything and once he finally got his house livable, a smaller tornado ripped through and tore off the back of his house again. So he's back living in a trailer... I really felt sorry for him... I tried to offer advice, but it all came out sounding cliched and he'd probably heard it all a million times, but he listened and talked while we found the hotel... As I got out and paid him the $10 fare, I gave him a $2 tip, as I would have any taxi driver... you should have seen him... he said "is this for me?!" I said yeah... he said that he'd never got a tip before... it was really sad... I told him that I hoped things got better for him...
I didn't know what else to say...
Today I’ve wandered a bit around the French Quarter – mostly gift shops, bars and strip-joints… looking for lunch and wireless internet that I wouldn’t have to pay for… eventually I found a sure bet – Starbucks. I think I found the only one in the world that doesn’t have wireless internet. In fact I’m not sure if the girl just didn’t understand me or whether that was really the case, but she looked at me funny when I asked.
So I’ve had to pay for it back at the hotel – but it only seems to work downstairs in the foyer – not in my room…even then it's intermittent.
Damnit.
Anyway, I can’t think of much else to write today… and I’d better leave the hotel before I decide to have a nap… not a good idea when there’s a comfy king-size bed waiting for me… going to go for a run instead… American food is terrible… fattening stuff...
Oh, okay, I guess I should really tell you what I think of New Orleans too… it’s nice… it has charm – especially the French quarter – I think the most interesting thing about it is the smell…
Hard to describe the smell…
It smells like road-kill… and it seeps into your skin… its hard to enjoy a place when it smells like its dead.
and a storm’s a-brewin…
I got into New Orleans I guess at about 9pm, and waited for a bit for a taxi to arrive that was willing to take me to my hostel… Take this as a review on Joe and Flo’s candlelight hostel – Don’t do it. The look my cab driver gave me as I told him where I needed him to take me should have been enough for me to say “okay, take me somewhere else. Now” but I didn’t… I’d already paid for a night and I’m a bit stubborn like that. When he told me that there were 2 people shot on the street the night before, and one boy died, Again, I should have taken the hint and told him to find me somewhere else to stay… and then when he gave me directions on how to avoid the bad areas when I went into town the next day, I should have been scared enough to get him to take me straight back to the train station and I’d wait there for the next train to anywhere-but-here-ville. But I was in a good mood, and too tired to stuff around, so I got out at the hostel. He was nice enough to give me his number if I changed my mind and needed a lift – fast. Then I sat in the foyer/lounge at the front of the hostel for an hour while I waited for someone to arrive – he apparently had to drive from his house to book me in… and when I got to my room and was greeted by a not-so-sane guy sleeping on the bottom of the bunk that I was meant to be staying on the top of… the itchy bed and the 2 inch thick mattress with what felt like bars of steel running across… I decided pretty quickly that I’d be there for one night only and used the one good thing that they had – free wireless internet – to book another hotel for the next 3 days. Luckily enough I found a reasonably cheap place right in the city, of course it doesn’t have free internet though. So I got here and fell asleep at about 4pm with the intention of getting up at 9 or 10 and going out, but I slept soundly until about 8am this morning. Nice.
One thing that did hit me was the guy that ran the hostel, also ran a shuttle bus service pretty much whereever you want to go. I felt a bit bad getting him to take me to another hotel, but he chatted to me along the way, about New Orleans, and the aftermath of Katrina... how he understood why people committed suicide, and that he'd thought of it himself. He'd lost everything, and was one of the people that hadn't seen any of the money that got poured into the community to help. He didn't get any new car or plasma tv like a lot of people apparently did. He lost everything and once he finally got his house livable, a smaller tornado ripped through and tore off the back of his house again. So he's back living in a trailer... I really felt sorry for him... I tried to offer advice, but it all came out sounding cliched and he'd probably heard it all a million times, but he listened and talked while we found the hotel... As I got out and paid him the $10 fare, I gave him a $2 tip, as I would have any taxi driver... you should have seen him... he said "is this for me?!" I said yeah... he said that he'd never got a tip before... it was really sad... I told him that I hoped things got better for him...
I didn't know what else to say...
Today I’ve wandered a bit around the French Quarter – mostly gift shops, bars and strip-joints… looking for lunch and wireless internet that I wouldn’t have to pay for… eventually I found a sure bet – Starbucks. I think I found the only one in the world that doesn’t have wireless internet. In fact I’m not sure if the girl just didn’t understand me or whether that was really the case, but she looked at me funny when I asked.
So I’ve had to pay for it back at the hotel – but it only seems to work downstairs in the foyer – not in my room…even then it's intermittent.
Damnit.
Anyway, I can’t think of much else to write today… and I’d better leave the hotel before I decide to have a nap… not a good idea when there’s a comfy king-size bed waiting for me… going to go for a run instead… American food is terrible… fattening stuff...
Oh, okay, I guess I should really tell you what I think of New Orleans too… it’s nice… it has charm – especially the French quarter – I think the most interesting thing about it is the smell…
Hard to describe the smell…
It smells like road-kill… and it seeps into your skin… its hard to enjoy a place when it smells like its dead.
and a storm’s a-brewin…
Monday, March 12, 2007
The 'Dirty' South
After an 18 or so hour train ride – almost sleeping some of the way, almost awake for the rest of the time, no doubt thought that the train is heaps better than the bus. I wish I’d known about the rail pass earlier. Whatever, it’s all been an experience. Anyway, yeah, after the train ride into Jacksonville, Florida (sitting in the train station waiting for Caroline watching local Television and learning about how proud some 12 year olds apparently are about having sex…) we drove a couple of hours into Tallahassee. On the way we stopped at a Wendy’s for lunch, just as a busload of old people arrived. Standing in line, an elderly man started chatting to us and soon asked where I was from; telling me then that he really likes Steve Irwin (I didn’t want to mention that he’d died, as I wasn’t too sure that he knew) then he said that he was 91. I was impressed – he seriously didn’t look a day over 89. He did seem to have all his faculties though, which is impressive, and he’d had a full and interesting life – of which he gave me the abridged version – navy, merchant marines, carpenter, etc… then he asked me an interesting question – he said that trees in the northern hemisphere for whatever reason have a tendency to “twist” to the left, and he wondered if in the southern hemisphere they twisted in the opposite direction… It stumped me, but I said I would try to find out. Not that that will help him, but now I want to know. And I guess… Well… whatever, if anyone knows the answer to that, let me know. That would be cool.
Anyway, so we went to Tallahassee, Caroline, her friend Kim, and me. Them tired from they’re 4 day trip to Vegas, and me from my epic train ride… we drove in relative silence… not uncomfortable, just exhausted… which was fine… in fact, I was semi-surprised by the lack of uncomfortableness… was good. Anyway, yeah, we got to Tallahassee and Caroline’s place, a nice apartment in a quiet part of town, chatted for a little while, checked our emails and then pretty much passed out. Later that evening we met with Kim for Mexican, nearly went out drinking, but instead decided that we were all still tired, so we went back to sleep. Probably had my best nights sleep in 2 weeks. The next day we decided to head to Atlanta.
Firstly I’d like to say that I rarely make judgments on places before I’ve seen them. Of course there are exceptions – LA and Miami… I guess would be the 2 that stand out the most, and are the 2 places that I really have no inclination to go see just now. I mean, at some point, sure, but just not right now. So when Caroline suggested that we headed up to Atlanta for a few days (her boyfriend and his friend were going to be there at some point too) I was like, yeah, sounds good. But even though mum and dad have been there, and told me good things, I had no strong feelings on the subject in either direction, completely neutral (I guess it’s my Swiss heritage coming out). I was pleasantly surprised. I like Atlanta. I like it a lot… the people over all were friendly, the subway, while limited to a rough cross, was fast, efficient, clean, and probably the newest that I’ve seen so far, the city itself was similar, clean, new, and barring some issues with their roads not making a lot of sense, seemed to be laid out quite nicely. Anyway, we stayed with Caroline’s College friend Rick. Really nice guy (after some initial skepticism on his behalf of our odd friendship) and his couch, while extremely ‘compact’ was very comfortable.
The first night there we decided to catch a movie and get dinner at the same time... Checking the internet we found a movie that we both wanted to see, and then with the miracle of the internet, got a map and directions there. It was the best accident of the trip so far, we found an awesome little area with restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, and a really cool cinema. SO we got dinner, and went and watched Zodiac. Good movie – apart from about half way through, I realized that my wallet wasn’t in my pocket. After searching frantically around the chairs, and a couple of dashes out to the service area to see if anyone had handed it in (both times I came back into the theatre the same thing seemed to be being said in the movie) I tried to relax and watch the movie. Nothing more could be done for now… I started going through what I’d have to do when I got back – call credit card companies, etc, call mum and dad and organize then to send the cards up to Shannon’s my plans for New Orleans would have been shot, and I’d have to borrow money from Caroline to get the bus from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, but then be stuffed cause I wouldn’t be able to pay for accommodation for the night in NYC… so yeah, I didn’t pay that much attention to the rest of the movie – Caroline said that I sighed heavily several times which I don’t remember, but can imagine would make sense. Anyway, the movie seemed to go on forever, at the end of it I went up to a police officer and told him my plight, he calmly grabbed a torch and we went back into the theatre and obviously a veteran of many lost wallets, especially in this theatre, quickly located it. Between the seats inside the armrest in a little pocket seemingly designed for hiding wallets in.
Relieved I slept will that night.
The next day we met Bart and his Danish friend Simon for the Coke museum, and later for dinner, and then Caroline, myself, Rick and his girlfriend, went out to a bar for a few drinks. That was fun… played a drinking game with a jug of some pretty terrible beer… anyway, the next day we went to the Atlanta Aquarium… by far the best aquarium I’ve ever been to… really amazing… they were almost more a SeaWorld than an aquarium, they had beluga whales, otters, seals, etc, as well as the norms. Really good.
Anyway, then we got a couple of hotel rooms and Simon and I went out drinking while Bart and Caroline “caught up” and we got back at about 3am… if you take into account daylight savings starting and us loosing an hour somewhere.
And now I’m on the train… which has been good… sitting with a single mum and her 2 kids, really funny. An old lady sitting in front of me asked me if I had kids cause “you’re really great with kids… you should have kids” *coughs* one day… one day…
Now I’m tired again, time for a nap…
Ciao.
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. - Russell Baker
Anyway, so we went to Tallahassee, Caroline, her friend Kim, and me. Them tired from they’re 4 day trip to Vegas, and me from my epic train ride… we drove in relative silence… not uncomfortable, just exhausted… which was fine… in fact, I was semi-surprised by the lack of uncomfortableness… was good. Anyway, yeah, we got to Tallahassee and Caroline’s place, a nice apartment in a quiet part of town, chatted for a little while, checked our emails and then pretty much passed out. Later that evening we met with Kim for Mexican, nearly went out drinking, but instead decided that we were all still tired, so we went back to sleep. Probably had my best nights sleep in 2 weeks. The next day we decided to head to Atlanta.
Firstly I’d like to say that I rarely make judgments on places before I’ve seen them. Of course there are exceptions – LA and Miami… I guess would be the 2 that stand out the most, and are the 2 places that I really have no inclination to go see just now. I mean, at some point, sure, but just not right now. So when Caroline suggested that we headed up to Atlanta for a few days (her boyfriend and his friend were going to be there at some point too) I was like, yeah, sounds good. But even though mum and dad have been there, and told me good things, I had no strong feelings on the subject in either direction, completely neutral (I guess it’s my Swiss heritage coming out). I was pleasantly surprised. I like Atlanta. I like it a lot… the people over all were friendly, the subway, while limited to a rough cross, was fast, efficient, clean, and probably the newest that I’ve seen so far, the city itself was similar, clean, new, and barring some issues with their roads not making a lot of sense, seemed to be laid out quite nicely. Anyway, we stayed with Caroline’s College friend Rick. Really nice guy (after some initial skepticism on his behalf of our odd friendship) and his couch, while extremely ‘compact’ was very comfortable.
The first night there we decided to catch a movie and get dinner at the same time... Checking the internet we found a movie that we both wanted to see, and then with the miracle of the internet, got a map and directions there. It was the best accident of the trip so far, we found an awesome little area with restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, and a really cool cinema. SO we got dinner, and went and watched Zodiac. Good movie – apart from about half way through, I realized that my wallet wasn’t in my pocket. After searching frantically around the chairs, and a couple of dashes out to the service area to see if anyone had handed it in (both times I came back into the theatre the same thing seemed to be being said in the movie) I tried to relax and watch the movie. Nothing more could be done for now… I started going through what I’d have to do when I got back – call credit card companies, etc, call mum and dad and organize then to send the cards up to Shannon’s my plans for New Orleans would have been shot, and I’d have to borrow money from Caroline to get the bus from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, but then be stuffed cause I wouldn’t be able to pay for accommodation for the night in NYC… so yeah, I didn’t pay that much attention to the rest of the movie – Caroline said that I sighed heavily several times which I don’t remember, but can imagine would make sense. Anyway, the movie seemed to go on forever, at the end of it I went up to a police officer and told him my plight, he calmly grabbed a torch and we went back into the theatre and obviously a veteran of many lost wallets, especially in this theatre, quickly located it. Between the seats inside the armrest in a little pocket seemingly designed for hiding wallets in.
Relieved I slept will that night.
The next day we met Bart and his Danish friend Simon for the Coke museum, and later for dinner, and then Caroline, myself, Rick and his girlfriend, went out to a bar for a few drinks. That was fun… played a drinking game with a jug of some pretty terrible beer… anyway, the next day we went to the Atlanta Aquarium… by far the best aquarium I’ve ever been to… really amazing… they were almost more a SeaWorld than an aquarium, they had beluga whales, otters, seals, etc, as well as the norms. Really good.
Anyway, then we got a couple of hotel rooms and Simon and I went out drinking while Bart and Caroline “caught up” and we got back at about 3am… if you take into account daylight savings starting and us loosing an hour somewhere.
And now I’m on the train… which has been good… sitting with a single mum and her 2 kids, really funny. An old lady sitting in front of me asked me if I had kids cause “you’re really great with kids… you should have kids” *coughs* one day… one day…
Now I’m tired again, time for a nap…
Ciao.
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. - Russell Baker
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Meat Pies in Brooklyn
So how’s this for random? I was checking my Gmail account the other day, and Google being Google obviously have adds and things. So there’s this little text add at the top of the page that happens to catch my eye – Real Australian and New Zealand meat pies. I’m like, yeah, right, whatever, until I read the next line that says – Made fresh in Brooklyn – Free Delivery. I was like SAY WHAT!!!? I could so go a meat pie right now; I’m going to get one. So I spent an hour on the subway and walked for at least half an hour to find this place and I wasn’t disappointed! Meat pies! Awesome. So I had a potato pie and a steak pie, a flat white coffee, and a lamington. I also got a steak and cheese pie, a plain mince pie, and 2 sausage rolls to take back to the hostel to have for dinner last night, and breakfast this morning. I’m all pied out. I’ve had my fix. But check them out @ www.dubpies.com
Good stuff.
Apart from that, the girl serving there was from Melbourne, we had a good chat about all things Australian, the vegemite/folate scandal, and the problems with finding a decent block of Cheese in North America. She had a gripe about snooty Americans coming in and calling her pies “Cute” and I agreed that “cute” is not a description that should be attached to a chunky steak pie. Ever. Over all it was nice – you could buy Milo, She knew what a flat white was, and all the prices INCLUDED sales tax… I took a whole bunch of menus and distributed them around the hostel… I hope they do well.
Brooklyn is a beautiful suburb… I really liked it, narrow streets, Victorian style townhouses and buildings… Clean. I’m disappointed that I didn’t go there earlier or for longer… I would have stayed and wandered around some more yesterday, but it started snowing. And I already have a cold… I don’t need it go get worse… and I’d forgotten my camera anyway…
Other than that I caught up with one of the Aussies that was in Boston when I was there… funny guy… hmmm. Yeah… anyway, we went out to a bar up the street from the hostel and had a few drinks… met a couple of local girls and chatted to them for a while, Lily and Stephanie. That was fun… they introduced me to their favorite beer – Chimay; which is a Belgian style brune. Quite nice. Chatted about music, accents, and which countries are most likely to be destroyed in a nuclear war. Then after they left, the other Aussie (– we shall for the purpose of the story, call him Michael… for no other reason than that is his name…) called the bar lady over and asked how old she thought he was… and how old she thought I was for that matter… This is always a fun game for me, but this worked out well – she said I looked 24 (seems to be the most common age I get mistaken for…) and he looked 26. He’s 21. He was so devastated… it was great. And still playing the game she asked how old we thought she was (this is when it gets dangerous) he said 22. There was no way she was 22 but there was no way I was going to say that she looked 28, so I said 26. She was 29, and obviously happy with our answers bought us a round of shots on the house… good fun…
And now its time for an apology – I thought I’d posted this one, but I obviously hadn’t. so, here it is… a few days late – but safe and sound. Right now I’m in Atlanta and I’m due to catch a train at 8am tomorrow down to New Orleans for a few days, I’ll write something for you on the train and post it (hopefully – assuming internet access at the hostel) in the next few days.
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.
- Nick Diamos
Good stuff.
Apart from that, the girl serving there was from Melbourne, we had a good chat about all things Australian, the vegemite/folate scandal, and the problems with finding a decent block of Cheese in North America. She had a gripe about snooty Americans coming in and calling her pies “Cute” and I agreed that “cute” is not a description that should be attached to a chunky steak pie. Ever. Over all it was nice – you could buy Milo, She knew what a flat white was, and all the prices INCLUDED sales tax… I took a whole bunch of menus and distributed them around the hostel… I hope they do well.
Brooklyn is a beautiful suburb… I really liked it, narrow streets, Victorian style townhouses and buildings… Clean. I’m disappointed that I didn’t go there earlier or for longer… I would have stayed and wandered around some more yesterday, but it started snowing. And I already have a cold… I don’t need it go get worse… and I’d forgotten my camera anyway…
Other than that I caught up with one of the Aussies that was in Boston when I was there… funny guy… hmmm. Yeah… anyway, we went out to a bar up the street from the hostel and had a few drinks… met a couple of local girls and chatted to them for a while, Lily and Stephanie. That was fun… they introduced me to their favorite beer – Chimay; which is a Belgian style brune. Quite nice. Chatted about music, accents, and which countries are most likely to be destroyed in a nuclear war. Then after they left, the other Aussie (– we shall for the purpose of the story, call him Michael… for no other reason than that is his name…) called the bar lady over and asked how old she thought he was… and how old she thought I was for that matter… This is always a fun game for me, but this worked out well – she said I looked 24 (seems to be the most common age I get mistaken for…) and he looked 26. He’s 21. He was so devastated… it was great. And still playing the game she asked how old we thought she was (this is when it gets dangerous) he said 22. There was no way she was 22 but there was no way I was going to say that she looked 28, so I said 26. She was 29, and obviously happy with our answers bought us a round of shots on the house… good fun…
And now its time for an apology – I thought I’d posted this one, but I obviously hadn’t. so, here it is… a few days late – but safe and sound. Right now I’m in Atlanta and I’m due to catch a train at 8am tomorrow down to New Orleans for a few days, I’ll write something for you on the train and post it (hopefully – assuming internet access at the hostel) in the next few days.
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.
- Nick Diamos
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Road Trip #2 - I Love Montreal!
No, really, I do… I could live there… I even love not being able to speak the language, it’s hilarious. Where do I start? I guess… I got into Montreal on Thursday evening, after having had about 3 hours sleep the night before. At least I wasn’t hung-over… that would have been awful, I was just tired. But when I got in I discovered that it was pub crawl night at the hostel… never one to pass up an opportunity, I thought, bugger-it, I’ll sleep tomorrow. So… go out I did, I have a habit of getting pizza at 4am in Montreal with random people that I meet along the way. And that happened again. We ended up in a diner Me, Chris (the tour guide) and two of his friends from the Geography party that we ended up at – Natasha and a girl that looked suspiciously like Avril Lavigne. I feel terrible that I can’t remember her name – all I think of is Avril… by no means a bad thing. Really good night.
The next day I slept… got up at about 2pm, to find that Montreal had received nearly a foot of snow, and it was still snowing… was a good day, mostly because I didn’t do anything. Then the evening rolled around and an Aussie guy – Wes, from Sydney, who had been one of the other 5 Aussies out drinking the night before, found me and told me about this festival they were having down in Old Montreal. I’ve always wanted to go to old Montreal, so we headed down there, got Wild-boar-sausage-on-a-stick (surprisingly good) went on the 120ft ice slide, and wandered around for a while 'til we got cold and felt like heading back to the hostel. Got in at about 11, nice early night.
Yesterday other than organizing my train ticket – again, during the day I didn’t get up to a great deal. Until 6.30 that is when there was an organized tour back to old Montreal and Ice Skating! I’ve been wanting to go ice skating since I’ve been here... its SO much fun. I honestly think the last (and first) time I went ice skating would have been in Hobart maybe… 7 or 8 years ago… so its been a while… mind you, I do have rollerblades and the motion is almost identical, but I haven’t been on my blades in probably 5 years… at least… So it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. Ended up cruising around quite nicely, getting up a fairly good speed – and if I needed to stop I could always throw myself into a bank of snow. Which I did several times, just for fun. I found that I am good at turning left, not so good at right. But I am proud to say that I didn’t fall over (accidentally) at all. Came close a couple of times, but it didn’t actually happen. Much to the disappointment of a particular French girl who had pushed me into the snow on the way there. I’m sorry Pa, I think I like French people… girls at least.
And I’d just like to say that Switzerland is NOT neutral. Not at all. Bastard.
So anyway… I think this time in Montreal, I’ve met more Aussies than any other part of my trip… there were 5 of us the first night on the pub crawl, and a completely different 5 (except me of course – common denominator) when we went ice skating, plus a heap of others that I only met in passing, there would have been 16 or 20 just in the 3 nights… most of which had come from Whistler or the other west coast snow resorts for a change of scenery, and to get away from all the Australians. No such luck… Anyway, we went ice skating, then we went drinking. It’s a good thing the bars close at 3 otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten ANY sleep last night, as it is I had to wake up at 7.30 so I could pack and be ready in time to catch the train. Which I am on now. And YES it’s so much more comfortable than the bus. Not hard, but anyway… this is going to be a 9 hour trip… so there will be sleeping involved. At least they have a power point so I can charge my laptop while we’re moving. No internet, but that’s not the end of the world…
I can’t think of any more to say right now… I might think of something later.
Ciao.
The next day I slept… got up at about 2pm, to find that Montreal had received nearly a foot of snow, and it was still snowing… was a good day, mostly because I didn’t do anything. Then the evening rolled around and an Aussie guy – Wes, from Sydney, who had been one of the other 5 Aussies out drinking the night before, found me and told me about this festival they were having down in Old Montreal. I’ve always wanted to go to old Montreal, so we headed down there, got Wild-boar-sausage-on-a-stick (surprisingly good) went on the 120ft ice slide, and wandered around for a while 'til we got cold and felt like heading back to the hostel. Got in at about 11, nice early night.
Yesterday other than organizing my train ticket – again, during the day I didn’t get up to a great deal. Until 6.30 that is when there was an organized tour back to old Montreal and Ice Skating! I’ve been wanting to go ice skating since I’ve been here... its SO much fun. I honestly think the last (and first) time I went ice skating would have been in Hobart maybe… 7 or 8 years ago… so its been a while… mind you, I do have rollerblades and the motion is almost identical, but I haven’t been on my blades in probably 5 years… at least… So it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. Ended up cruising around quite nicely, getting up a fairly good speed – and if I needed to stop I could always throw myself into a bank of snow. Which I did several times, just for fun. I found that I am good at turning left, not so good at right. But I am proud to say that I didn’t fall over (accidentally) at all. Came close a couple of times, but it didn’t actually happen. Much to the disappointment of a particular French girl who had pushed me into the snow on the way there. I’m sorry Pa, I think I like French people… girls at least.
And I’d just like to say that Switzerland is NOT neutral. Not at all. Bastard.
So anyway… I think this time in Montreal, I’ve met more Aussies than any other part of my trip… there were 5 of us the first night on the pub crawl, and a completely different 5 (except me of course – common denominator) when we went ice skating, plus a heap of others that I only met in passing, there would have been 16 or 20 just in the 3 nights… most of which had come from Whistler or the other west coast snow resorts for a change of scenery, and to get away from all the Australians. No such luck… Anyway, we went ice skating, then we went drinking. It’s a good thing the bars close at 3 otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten ANY sleep last night, as it is I had to wake up at 7.30 so I could pack and be ready in time to catch the train. Which I am on now. And YES it’s so much more comfortable than the bus. Not hard, but anyway… this is going to be a 9 hour trip… so there will be sleeping involved. At least they have a power point so I can charge my laptop while we’re moving. No internet, but that’s not the end of the world…
I can’t think of any more to say right now… I might think of something later.
Ciao.
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