Hey,
Let me start by saying that I think all this travelling stuff is taking its toll - slowly but surely! The Greyhound Bus in Oz was good, but there are only so many 12 hour journey’s I can take on a bus where the gear box is louder than an Ozzy Osbourne concert - it makes the Spirit tour bus seem a dream! Not only that, but the drivers are EVIL! Living out of the back pack is another thing! I never know what underwear is clean, if I have to roll any more of my clothes I'm going to scream, and having to budget for silly things like shaving foam is getting me down - I just can’t get to grips with the no-frills backpacker shite! Cooking is an issue too. The most we can muster up is a tuna salad! We're experts now! Luckily we haven’t shared too many dorms, we've either been lucky and not had anyone else in or a twin is just as cheap, however we have had our fair share: hairy women, smelly old men, Germans and even lesbians! Erghhhh. It’s at this point that I wish I was Marry Poppins and just pull out a hat stand and a full length mirror out my back pack - having to use a compact to see what you look like can get quite interesting!
After leaving Byron and Louise, we headed down to the bright lights of
Sydney (a 12 hour jobby!!!). We had booked into a hostel before we got there, but by the time we got off the bus we were so exhausted we got convinced by a women trying to sell another one, so we just said yes. It was cheap and supposedly close to the centre which was good enough for me! Little did we I know there was a hill the size of Everest to climb every time we ventured out of the hostel! Thank god I’m not 20 stone still! Having said that, Lee has a thing for walking fast, so there I am trailing behind him, catching my breath with my spiked-bottom shoes and my hiking stick! We shared a room with a Dutch couple for most of the week in
Sydney. When we first checked in, we walked into the room and they were sleeping, both on a single bed entwined in each other- what a mess! They were lovely and only 18 and 19. They had only been together for a month and she was a confessed bi-sexual, so I probably give them a shelf life of about another month or so! We dragged them to a gay club one night which was a lot of fun. The guy got chatted up by possibly the oldest gay local in Sydney who nearly had a heart attack when the guy said he was straight - poor him! And then he nearly got knocked over by a 7 foot drag queen running through the bar desperate for the toilet - almost death by drag! I know better from my experience with the creatures to just MOVE! I got offered a drink by an unfortunate looking man, but I NEVER refuse a drink so I gladly accepted. He had glasses on with lenses sooo thick when a laser beam hit them, someone almost had open heart surgery across the dance floor… and he had a Neighbourhood Watch sticker in the other! I was pissing myself inside!
Sydney was a nice city, don’t get me wrong from my previous email. Walking round and seeing the city and sights was lovely. The Opera house was fab, and we actually watched a Shakespeare in one of the theatres there.
Darling
Harbour was so nice at night, and we even got chatting to a young couple, the guy was from
Harrow of all places and the women a local. His two opening lines where 'Have you got any pills on you?' and after I told him only Nurofen, his second line was 'So, are you a poofter then?’ I turned on bitch mode and said 'we don’t generally like being called that. I’m either queer or homosexual to you!'. He was drunk and out of it so I quickly forgave him. I got talking to his partner, who was mad and lovely, and decided our topic of conversation should be her sex life! So there I am, sipping on a lovely Belini, talking about her different tendencies and sizes and shapes of her vibrators! A very stimulating (excuse the pun) conversation to say the least! They offered to take us out the night after; I gave them the wrong phone number.
We did check out the much talked about gay scene - naturally! It was good, with some good clubs and bars, although I do think
London is definitely on par if not better. The drag shows were just brilliant - choreographed down to the last lady-like step. The hair, makeup, shoes, and dresses everything was perfect and they all looked like stars. The names are brilliant too: Maxi Shield, Candy Box, Chelsea Bun - sounds like a sick and twisted collection of Mr Men books! I don’t know how those 'ladies' do it every night, which they do! Vida - no wonder you look better in a dress than an A-lister! I think Lee got sick of seeing every drag show in
Sydney, but believe me; he has dragged me into enough Ralph Lauren shops to last a fucking life time! Lee attracted a few weirdos! One guy from
New York took a fancy to him, I personally thought he looked a bit like Edward Scissor Hands but I kept shtum! Anyway, they exchanged numbers bla bla bla then one night we went out and Lee decided he didn’t like him, and didn’t really talk to him all night. Then when we got back to the hostel, he received a text saying 'Please don’t contact me again, you’re rude and arrogant.' After a few similar texts flying back and forth, the
New York guy said 'You’re a pretensious snot!' which I found hilarious, and quite accurate!
We went to the Aquarium, the
Harbour
Bridge,
Oxford Street, Newtown
(for shopping),
Bondi
Beach and just generally walked around. It is a lovely city, but I wouldn’t live there,
New York is still my first choice. I would love to go and see Mardi Gras though.
After leaving the gay capital, we headed further south to our last stop in Oz, Melbourne. We checked into our hostel of choice - The Nunnery! We walked in and were greeted by mounted Bibles, statues of old nuns holding bibles, shrines to some Holy Farther and all things Catholic! I thought if the Rabbi could see me now! I definitely thought it was haunted, but it turned out to be a really nice place with a good atmosphere. That was until
our key-card stopped working at 3am when we got back from a night out! We thought we would have to sleep in the reception area coz it was closed, until I had the genius plan of breaking into the office and stealing a master key!!! We complained the following morning, and I demanded compensation - whether it’s against nun's rules of not! I also got bitten to shit by bed bugs - so I became quite hostile to that place by the end of the week! They seemed to love me, and hate Lee which is usually a good thing in my eyes, but not when bugs are concerned!
Melbourne was really lovely. The weather was crap, but c'est la vie! We shopped and walked around; looking at everything there was to look at. We checked out the gay places obviously which have quite a lot to be desired for! We even went to a Dracula themed night, which is quite unlike me, but it was funny never the less. There was music, comedy and food for the night and we had fun. Louise was with us for the first few days which was good, she had lived there previously so knew where to go. The night before we left we went to Neighbours night. I kind of knew what to expect, but for someone who doesn’t watch the soap, it was kind of like a room full of right weirdos who had nothing better to do than to perv over Harold Bishop! Quite concerning! Although Harold loved it and it turns out he is also a bona fide pervert! It was an alright night with a little quiz and some music, but we left shortly after the security guard started to power trip and abusing everyone when he was moving the tables! Besides which, we had a 6am flight to catch!
So we did enjoy the last couple of weeks in Oz, even though at times it got a bit tedious and I think we were slowly itching to move on to some proper countryside and views, in other words New Zealand. We are in
New Zealand now, but you will have to wait for another update, I’ve gone on far too long and I should get some sleep, we are climbing some giant ice cube tomorrow!
Hope everything is fierce where you are, let me know any goss because we will be in New Zealand for a few weeks, and seeing as there are 39 million sheep, I’m going to need something more stimulating to read and look at!
Lots of love as always
Si xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
