Very English like but more expensive and no kebab eating

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Wednesday 28th April 2010

I arrived in Sydney in the morning - it felt really cold when compared to the heat and sweatiness of Asia. And everything that I had heard from backpackers in Asia about Australia was true - it was bloody expensive.

My first impressions of Sydney and Australia were that it looked alot like England. I then had a quick walk around the area near my hostel and thought that Sydney still looked like England though newer and cheaper looking.

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I then had a walk through some nice botanical gardens before I could see the famous Opera House in the distance. It did not look that imposing from a distance but up close and personal, it did look very impressive particular with the backdrop of the Harbour Bridge.

More walking around Sydney and more thinking that it reminded me of England. The only thing that reminded me that I was not in England was the fact that a branch of Woolworths was open.

I had agreed to meet up with Tim (whom I had met in Tibet) in Sydney. He told me that I should meet him and his friends at a bar next to the opera house. I felt ridiculously under-dressed when I turned up in my dirty t-shirt and ripped shorts as most people in the bar were dressed up for the opera. Not only was I under-dressed for the occasion but I was under-prepared for the extortionate beer prices in the bar.

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The prices of Sydney were definitely not making me fall in love with the place.

I then went back to my hostel which was located in the Kings Cross area of Sydney. It is a rather seedy part of Sydney and full of drunks and mad people who, in between bouts of talking to themselves out loud, will sometimes try and talk to bemused passersby.

I was sharing a room with some Dutch and Germans who said that they were going out in Kings Cross. I went along with them and we ended up in some really crap bar/pub that was full even though that music was crap. The DJ was playing really bad 70s and 80s and every now and again the music would stop for no reason. I felt like putting in a request for that Smiths song which ends by continuously repeating 'Hang the DJ'.

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At the end of the night, the Germans and the Dutch went to a Kebab Shop for a Donner Kebab and rather strangely for the true Brit that I am, I did not have a kebab and simpy had a coke. Hmmm, a very bizarre end to the night.

Thursday 29th April 2010

I woke up the next morning with a bit of hangover. I blame this on stupidly not having a greasy kebab at the end of last night.

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In the afternoon, I met up with Tim in Kings Cross for a coffee. In the evening before, I had thought that the area had its fair share of weirdos. During the daytime, I thought that it had more than its fair share of weirdos - men with strange beards and hairstyles, very unclean looking people, drunks, deadbeats and generalised strange looking people.

Tim said that he was not going out tonight so I thought that I would head to Melbourne on the night bus.

Ah, the night bus and my first introduction to the no-nonsense straight talking of Aussies. It would appear that after the first pit stop that someone (not me) on the bus had shat all over the toilet and not bothered to clean up.

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In England, the Driver would have probably have just put an 'Out of Order' notice on the door of the toilet and told people that it was no longer in use. But I was in Australia and that is definitely not how they do things here.

Over the microphone, the bus driver treated everyone on the bus to a graphic description of the amount of shit that had been left in the toliet together with a rant about how disgusting he thought that the shit culprit was.

Ah, I was loving Australians and their straight talking - they take no shit here (except in and around toilet areas).