Australia Trip

Yeah so the most annoying thing happened to me today. You all know how i'm obsessed with internet right? Well it almost got us evicted from the hotel! Here check this out:



lol idiots. It's funny but its really annoying because I finally setup my VoIP phone in the room with a 514 extension (so that I could call you guys and you guys could call me locally, as if I was in Montreal). We woke up in the morning and got on the Internet, it was finally working. I was able to hook up the phone using my second laptop by sharing the internet but then on their network they had me logged on twice. We went out and left both laptops on, our goal for the day was to take pictures of the city for you guys to see. Check out the updated pictures in the link on your left. Anyways, we took some sick pictures and were really happy and headed back to our rooms in the afternoon, to find that note on our door. I went in and my laptop had been shut off by the administration, they actually went into our room, touched my fucking laptop, turned it off improperly (by just holding the power button) and left the room. So I went to bitch at them at the reception and they gave me this half assed excuse about there being a limit of users allowed on the network at once. And that the internet is meant for checking Emails, it's not allowed to be left on to be used for phones or anything. So I was like, "where is this written down in a rule book, do you guys have a list of rules that we were supposed to read before we took the place". And they said "no, we as management hold the right to enter the rooms at any time, if you have a problem we can gladly check you out of this hotel". Then they have the nerve to tell me that there's no other place in Sydney that allows internet access like they do, uh, hello? we're moving to Royal hotel in 5 days and they're giving us unlimited internet access for cheaper... Fuckin idiots. On top of that it was this new guy, they brought in their "network geek" to take care of shit since the internet kept going down. And you know how I love to school someone who challenges me with computers. So I walk into the office and explain to him how his router fucking sucks and how he doesn't know a thing about computers, he's relying solely on people's MAC addresses (which you can easily change) to see how long they're logged in for. So they saw my computer logged in twice, both computers are called GABY. What's funny is when I got there he was like, "you see, we have you here as logged in". And I just told the guy, "refresh the page". When he refreshed the page I wasn't there anymore. That's when he turned red and I turned happy. I left him my business card (not really, I just told him if they need help with the network they should come ask me in my room) and they said they would take me up on my offer. We went swimming for a bit in the pool and then headed out for supper. I picked up an 800ml bottle of beer for 3.50, pretty cheap, and now we're just chilling after a long day. We took some sick pictures, here are two more funny ones:






For more pictures, check out the link on the top left. We took these for you, so enjoy. And post comments, we love to hear from all of you :)

Of all the useless receptionists who never graduated from high school that I’ve ever met, the guy here at Billabong Hotel is the dumbest half-brain yellow crooked toothed math deficient twit I’ve ever met. I’ve been trying to connect to the Internet the entire day and kept getting Limited Connectivity messages and kept going back to the guy to reset the internet and he forgot to inform the entire hotel that he changed the internet password in the morning. So all along people were connecting but couldn’t “really” connect because the password was changed, but no one knew. Finally, the last time I go, he asks me what password I’m currently using and then gives me the “tsk tsk” as if I should have known they change the password every week. Then he gives me some half-assed excuse about people connecting from 2 cities away, give me a fucking break. When’s the last time you could connect to your wireless network at home from Toronto? He then asks me to go to my room and write down my computer name so that he can enter it into the system. Every answer he gave me sounded pre-meditated and he kept looking down as if he was reading it off a sheet of paper. This was the same guy that couldn’t calculate what half our room rate was on the first day since me and Leor had to each pay half. I’m not kidding, I actually had to do it on paper for him and show him that it added up before he charged our credit cards. No doubt he named the hotel Billabong himself, with emphasis on “bong”. I guess the name means you can make money (bills) even when you’re a dumbfuck brain fried drug addict.

The day started with rain in the morning, followed by partly cloudy skies and grilled cheese for breakfast. Then a Chinese guy just randomly unlocks the door to our room and walks in, without even knocking to see if we were changing or anything, and he replaces our towels, almost taking mine in the process. There’s something funny about Sydney, the guys here all look like women, none of them have chest hair. But the women here are very nice to look at, none of them have chest hair. I need a McGill t-shirt, so I can walk around representing my city proudly. I’m still waiting on my custom made t-shirt that says “got malca?” on the front (a play on “got milk?”). We bought everything we need to get the phone setup in the room, the crossover cable, a house phone and a 4 plug power bar. Leors converter died, I think its from that time back in jail (the abbey) when we plugged in the montreal power bar into it and it overloaded, so I have nothing to plug my shaver into, it wont work on these plugs. If I come back with a knee-length beard it’s not my fault. I’m sitting here, waiting for the idiot next door to simply go upstairs and reset the router so that the internet comes back up. So I’m writing this down in Microsoft Word.

Note to all of you that just started reading this blog: when I say “jail”, I’m referring to The Abbey on King, the first hostel we stayed at in our first week in Australia. It may be used in sample sentences such as.
- I’m so glad we’re out of jail.
- Back when we were in jail, …
- I feel like this place is turning back into a jail.

This is Gabriel signing off, reminding you to stay in school, and if not, you might be able to run your own hotel one day, so it’s not that bad if you drop out in the end.

Guys and girls, please write comments (click on the comments link right under), so that we know what you think and that you guys are actually reading :)

First off, all of you who think you're so smart with your jokes about Kangaroos and Koalas, everyone says the same thing, you weren't the first to know there are kangaroos here. And second of all, I still haven't seen a kangaroo OR koala here, there's no infestation, I don't see Kangaroos jumping from roof top to roof top scavenging for food or mating in the night. So please refrain from joking about it, it's like Australians joking about us living in igloos, it just isn't true. Sure there are people in Canada that DO live in igloos very very much up north, just as there are kangaroos here in a different area. Now that we got that out of the way and I've offended most of you, here's day 11.

I woke up in the morning at 4:30am, couldn't sleep because of the booze I drank the night before and that damn fan next to me making crunching noises. I know I could have shut it off, but then it'd be too hot to sleep, so it's a lose lose situation. Regardless, I got on my laptop at 4:30am and spoke to people till 8am so I was happy to hear from some of you. When Leor finally woke up, we both took showers and headed out. We grabbed some breakfast and walked to the nearest bus #370, the plan for today was to go to Coogee beach, this time with towels, sunscreen and music. We took the bus down, this time doing it like pros, $1.80 ready and student ID out. We got to Coogee beach 30 minutes later to a beautiful day. Very very hot for the most part. We tanned and went into the freezing cold water (with HUGE waves that knock you off your feet) until 3pm. At that time, the sky was already getting cloudy and so we decided to head back. When we got back we went online for a bit and then walked to IGA to pick up groceries for the week. When we got back we ate supper and relaxed as a thunderstorm came in with beautiful lightning and the cries of birds getting hit by it. I stayed up most of the rest of the night working on work-stuff so thats not really interesting. Just know that I miss everyone and I can't wait to see all of you when I get back. I keep getting news about people getting engaged in Montreal, what's the rush? Is life really that short? My plan is to get married when I'm 27 or 28 but sometimes (like my married sister says) it just happens, it's not planned. Lots of things to think about. The internet signal is still low and disconnects every once in a while, at which point I have to walk next door and bitch at the receptionist who's tired of going upstairs every 10 minutes to reset it. Tough luck, thats the only reason I'm staying here for now, Internet. That's why we're paying an outrageous price of $225 AUD for 8 nights stay, as compared to $130/week in other places. Regardless, I'm very happy with where I'm staying right now. I have been able to leave my laptop in my room unattended twice without it getting stolen, so that's good. I wanted to post some pictures today but that would require actually taking pictures which we havent had much luck in doing. We saw some funny stuff we wanted to photograph, first off there's a street called "High St." but someone ripped off the sign (probably a college student thinking he was funny), so we couldnt photograph it on the way to the beach. We also saw something else that was funny, a mannequin completely naked posing with a purse. They're selling purses with porno now, that's amazing. I got a nice tan today, I'm glad I went to the beach, it was worth it. The plan for tomorrow is to go to K-mart and grab some junk food and maybe visit the city a little bit, we'll see what happens. This is gaby signing off for the night.

We wake up in the morning, very happy to know that we're leaving The Abbey (jail cell) today. I make eggs for breakfast, trying to finish whats left, and Leor makes cereal (he steals someone else's milk from the fridge). We sit in the lobby from 9:30am till 11:30am since we can only check in at the next hotel at noon. We finally head out and hail a cab. We get a small cab so we have to force all our luggage into it, it was funny, some of it was practically sitting on the driver since we have so much shit. We make it to our hotel and drag our shit to the reception. The receptionist asks us where we're from and suddenly starts talking about how he skis also, he's a ski instructor in Australia, great, i don't give a shit. Anyways the mountains here have like 5 runs, he's nothing compared to us Canadians. Just give me my room key. We leave a deposit for the room key and after paying for the week we make our way to our room. Very nice room compared to what we've seen. We have a balcony (great view) of the wall of the building next door, and 4 beds in the room (for 2 of us ??? ). We also have a couch, a fan, a desk, a chair, very nice, we're spoiled :). There's a pool downstairs which looks ok, and we have a common room with very comfy couches, nintendo n64, a 50" television, a collection of movies and a VCR. On top of that we finally have internet, a low signal that keeps dying but better than nothing. We chill in the room for a couple of hours checking our emails etc, and head out for lunch. We stop by this Thai place where Leor eats food that kills his stomach for the rest of the night. We go back to our room and chill until we head out for supper and grab a pizza, a 800ml bottle of beer and a 770ml bottle of vodka orange passion (thats mine), we get back to the room and chill for a bit. We're exhausted since we had to wake up early in the morning to get ready, so we're ready to hit the sack. The plan for tomorrow is to go to Coogee beach with towels this time, and chill the whole day. Gotta get some relaxing in before school starts on March 6th. Check out the link on the left for updated pictures of our trip!

We called this day, "Laundry Day". We went out in the morning to look for laundry detergent. After shopping around for the cheapest liquid detergent that didn't look like it was bottled in someone's basement, we head back to the hostel to begin doing our laundry. We seperated the whites and the colors, taking as much time as we can, trying to pass the day. This is our last day at The Abbey, so we're very happy. We get upstairs, fuck, we don't have change for the machine. Oh well, gotta go look for a 2 dollar coin and a 1 dollar coin. I go to the nearest place next door and ask the lady for change for a 5 and she happily gives it to me. I rush back, we throw our shit in both machines (colors and whites seperated!) and the wash begins. I go downstairs and watch TV with Leor for about an hour before we go back upstairs to check on the laundry, it's done. We try to save money by throwing both batches into the dryer (another $3, money runs like water here, it's annoying). After begining the dryer, we head back downstairs and watch some more TV as we wait for it to finish. About an hour later, I go upstairs and the machine is done. But when I open it, what I feared would happen had actually happened, the clothes were still a little wet. We brought them downstairs and started hanging them randomly in our room wherever we could. Hanging from the top bunk bed, laid them down on my luggage etc. We left the room and walked around the city a bit. When we got back later that night, the humidity of the clothes had made the air so thick it was hard to breathe in the room. Nevertheless, most of the clothes had dried, so we were able to put them away. We made omelets for supper, yum, mine was mixed with the tomato sauce we had left from the macaroni and pasta. For all of you that feel bad for me right now as I'm explaining this, don't. The truth is I'm having a blast and I need this experience so that I could tell my kids "when I was your age...". Me and Leor are having the time of our lives and wouldn't trade it for anything (that's a lie, i'm sure I could think of something). We head to sleep, knowing that the next day would be the dawn of rest at a new hotel.

I wake up in the morning and take a 30 minute shower, still trying to regulate the water while I have shampoo in my hair and face and crying inside. We have breakfast, I have cereal to try to finish the milk, it expires tomorrow. We sit down and watch the soccer game on TV a bit, crazy game. When it ends the owner of the hostel asks us what we’re doing today and we tell him we want to go to the beach. I feel like he’s trying to get us out of the hostel to steal our shit, so I’m very wary of the situation. He gives us detailed information on which bus to take and we decide we have nothing to lose and it’ll let us see the place a little better, so we gather our stuff and head for the bus across the street. We get on the bus and pay the $3.70 toll each and sit down for about 30 minutes. The bus stops directly on the beautiful Coogee beach and we’re happy once again, almost as happy as when we found out we finally had a weak signal for wireless internet. We hang out on the beach for about 4 hours and walk up and down some of the streets. We finally get on the bus on the way back and ask if there are student discounts (jewishness kicks in), apparently it’s $1.80 each with the student card so I get a little happier as now I have a pretty good tan and a cheaper way back home. We get off the bus and go to our rooms for some relaxing time. Surprise, my laptop’s still there (the reason why I’m still typing this) and I’m starting to feel tired from the sun after effects. Should have worn a hat today. It didn’t help much either that I was wearing an orange “Los Angeles County Jail” t-shirt I picked up in Cali, as I was getting strange stares from other people. People here can’t take a joke. But regardless, it fit the situation we were in, because our room still looks like a jail cell. I miss my girlfriend, I wish she was here. Meanwhile Ali G season 1 keeps me sane and smiling. We end the night with a large portion of macaroni and tomato sauce, followed by a soccer game on tv and jay leno.

We go back to school to get our student ID’s finalized. It takes about 1 minute and we’re out. We decide to go to the mall to get a phone to use with the VoIP box I have so that we can call home for free once we move into a place with internet. On our way in, we realize there’s something called RentACentre where we can rent furniture for the duration of our stay at the Royal hotel. She marks down the prices and it comes out to $25/month for a TV and $25/month for a full sized fridge. We’re very happy and take down the contact details. The prices for a phone are too high and we just settle for a Subways sandwich and head back to the hostel. We get back and watch satellite tv for a couple of hours, there are some funny comedy shows on, south park and jay leno. We go back into our rooms and start typing up this diary on our last 7 days, laughing as we recount the shit we’ve been through but hopeful for things to get better.

We get back to orientation and leave after 15 minutes of listening to who we call Ed the Drunk talking about life in Australia and how everyone swears at everyone else regularly in a good way. He called everyone Ye Old Bastards and explained some Australian slang on which the other teachers didn’t even agree. We walked out and headed to the student union to get our passport pictures taken for our student IDs, we wait in line and they take the pictures. The Chinese guy at the booth tries to sell Leor a picture of the guy before him thinking he was that guy. So I guess it’s true what they say that to Chinese people we all look alike because this guy didn’t at ALL look like Leor. We head back to orientation and follow them for the “Sausage Sizzle”. Great, my first week in Australia and they’re already using terms that make me shake in my flip flops. When we get there after following people who weren’t even going in the right direction, we wait in line to receive hot dogs and onions with ketchup and mustard. I grab the hot dog and pass it on to Leor and I eat my onion with ketchup and mustard sandwich slowly and painfully. So this is what it’s come down to… During the next couple of hours of orientation we’re given important information on the whole enrolment process and we are finally sent home. On our way back, we stop at Pizza Haven to pick up two pies. We head back to the hostel, starving, and collapse on our beds as we devour the pizza in what seemed to be a second. One of the best pizzas I ever tasted because I was starving. We watched some TV, filled out the forms, whined about the internet having disappeared once again, and got some sleep.

We wake up in the morning and rush to see the apartment. A man makes us fill out a form and then shows us the room we’d be living in. I have to admit it was very nice compared to what we’ve seen and we are almost ready to take it. The man then shows us what he claims to be a gym (with 3 machines, one with a guy who looked like he wasn’t moving for a while) and pool, also not very exciting. Our only problem right now is that we found out the internet is not wireless and we only have one Ethernet jack. To add onto it, the price we determined for internet at the hotel (which was $100 for unlimited), was actually $100 a month so that added costs. We also took into account the cost of the laundry machine etc and realized that we were actually way in over our head and promptly left the place realizing we’d have to live at the Royal hotel. We make our way quickly back to the orientation which had started at 9am, it was now 10am. We walk into a room hall filled with students and are given a pre-made package. Time goes by as the bitch giving the speech realizes no one’s listening to her and she announces “Tea Time!”. We go out to tables filled with cake, orange juice and tea. We sit down for a smoke and Leor suddenly gets the urge to drop the kids off at the pool so he runs to the nearest bathroom. While I’m alone, a guy sits down next to me and starts talking. I find out that he’s in the surf club and when Leor gets back we all talk and he tells us where we can go to sign up at 12. We are excited since this surf club apparently offers free transportation and lessons. We follow the group to the next building for speeches by different departments. We leave in the middle and head to where the clubs are and meet the other surfer guys. One of them starts speaking to us in French and we’re amazed someone actually speaks French out here. We sign up and move onto the next booths to see what other groups have to offer. Lunch is served and we’re still walking around getting information. We pass through Hillel who were very uninformative but quite nice, and finally head outside. Leor explains to me that the surfer guys are also Christians so we’re working with a tough crowd and we joke about the hymns they sing on the bus on the way down to the beach. We get back to the hostel and begin to make dinner, pasta. Of course, the way the week was going, we had to pick the wrong stove top and we waited 30 minutes for the water to boil before trying another one in which the water boiled within 2 minutes. We made the pasta quickly and ate even quicker. I felt like an old man as eating wore me out and I was glad to just hit the sack for a great night of sleep.

Hours go by and finally morning breaks. The guy under my bunk gets up, puts on his jeans and leaves the room. I sit up in my bed and Leor gets up on his. There was only one thing I could say to him, “we gotta get out of here”. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, get back to our room, get dressed, and move my valuable shit into a locker in the front. We meet the second guy in our room, his name is John and he directs us how to get to the University. So it’s 8am and we go down to pay for our rooms. I still don’t understand why I have to pay for what I just went through. We leave the hostel finally breathing normal air but at 36 degrees Celsius. We walked in the general direction up King street to get to the University of Sydney. I’m feeling messed up because I see cars driving on the wrong side of the road, the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car and the fucking walking sign poles are making weird Mario brothers 3 noises everytime it’s safe to walk, and bomb ticking noises everytime it’s not. After almost getting hit by a car a couple of times on the way down, we finally get to the University of Sydney gates and ask the parking guy where we’re supposed to go. Surprise, it’s not like McGill where they make you fill out forms and send you to other departments, he actually points us in the direction of the building and we follow his instructions. We get to the International Office but we’re early, it opens at 9. I don’t give a shit, I’m just happy to be out of the hostel and in student territory. It’s 9:15 and the doors finally open. We go in and we’re given some information about where to go for orientation but it starts at 10:30 so we went to the Royal hotel to check it out. The guy tells us all the rooms are booked so pretty much we’re fucked and need to find a place before we’re stuck at the abbey forever. We went to a nearby bench and sat down for about 30 minutes just to pass time. Finally it’s 10:15 so we make our way to the orientation. At the orientation, a woman explains to us what we already know, typical of a university arrival session. On our way out we made our way back to the international office to look up places to live on the university website. We got two leads, each live 5 minutes away in opposite directions. We go to the first house for 2pm, the owner’s name is Cherry. We’re shown some rooms in the shared house varying in price from 130 per week to 150 per week. We’re still unsure as there’s no internet and there was a dead cockroach in what would have been Leors room (Leor argues this would have been mine). So we leave but tell her we might get back to her. We follow our next lead to a shared house with wireless and Ethernet internet. The owner’s name is Tai and he greets us nicely. We love the place and are ready to sign for it but he informs us that it is only available on 6 or 12 month leases and we are only there for 4 months. So we ask him to check with the seller to see if he can allow 4 months and he says we should get back to him at 8:30pm. We head back to the hostel, hopeful, wishful but still unhappy about where we currently live, and lie down in bed to get some rest. The jet lag is kicking in, I pass out for 2 hours. When I wake up I’m dazed and confused, Leor says he called Tai and Tai sold one of the two rooms to a Chinese girl for a 1 year lease so the place is unavailable now. I think I was sad but I was too tired to express it, I just said OK, went to the bathroom and went back to bed.

After finding out the ridiculous cell phone prices of 36 cents per minute PLUS a fucking connection charge for LOCAL CALLS!, the hunt continues for a place to stay. We make our way back to the Royal hotel to ask the manager if there are any rooms available in the near future. The manager, Jason, greets us very nicely and informs us that there is in fact a double room available march 5th until the time we have to leave. We’re very happy to hear that and agree to come back to see the place at 4pm. Meanwhile, we make our way back to the hostel and stop by IGA to buy food for the week. We’re cheap jews so we’re looking for the cheapest edible food we can find. We pick up two garlic microwavable pizzas and head back to the hostel. When we get there we’re starving and find out they’re not microwavable. I don’t give a shit, I still throw mine into a microwave and hope for the best. Out comes a dough-tasting garlic drenched cheese sorry excuse for a pizza that I happily devour as I’m starving from lack of food. Leor throws his into the oven along with my second pizza and we sit at the table to eat. John comes out and looking like a fucking hobo, Leor offers him half of his pizza expecting him to say no. John accepts it with puppy eyes and devours the pizza in front of amazed Leor. As of then, John is known as the homeless starving hobo who eats our table scraps because he’s poor. As I’m eating my pizza, I’m happy knowing that we’re moving out of that 4 bunk shithole into a 2 bed room the next day. We rush down to the Royal hotel to check out the place and it’s better than we expected, we leave a 100 dollar deposit each and are now secure knowing we have a place to stay from march 5th until july 4th. We make our way back to the room and lay down, with half a pack of cigarettes done, we were finally going to get a good night’s sleep.

We wake up refreshed from sleeping near a dust ridden fan, regardless of which, it was a cooler night. We hit the dysfunctional showers, for 20 minutes of trying to figure out how the fuck to regulate the temperature and about 4 minutes of actual cleaning. After getting dressed and grabbing a bowl of cereal and coffee, we make our way down to the Broadway shopping center to pick up a converter for Canadian -> Australian plugs. We get to the shopping center and being the jew that I am, we shop around for the best price for a converter, it’s down to between a Chinese luggage selling fat guy and an electronics store. I think I’ll feel more comfortable using my Visa in the latter. We walk out, I grab an ice cream and Leor grabs what he describes to be the worst hot dog he ever ate and we walk out of the shopping center. As we’re about to cross the street, Leor notices that there are apartments for lease next door to the shopping center. So we go in to have a look, it can’t hurt right? A man describes to us what he claims is one of the last 20 rooms left in the hotel. We’re baffled because these rooms apparently have a kitchen, tv, fridge and a bathroom inside. So we decide the price is right and agree to come back the next day to have a look at the place. We go back to the hostel and have soup for dinner. We quickly create a spreadsheet comparing prices between that apartment and the royal hotel. From the spreadsheet we determine that it might be better to pay the extra bucks to live at that hotel. So we connect to the low signal wireless internet from the guy 8 houses down and get the hotel’s contact information to find out what time they’re open the next day. We go to sleep hopeful and excited as to what the next day will bring.

Welcome to The Abbey on King. We arrived at midnight to the smallest piece of shit hostel I’ve ever seen in my life. The truth is we almost missed it because the sign is so small and it’s connected to a restaurant. We get to the door with 4 pieces of luggage each, glad to finally get to a bed to rest but the fucking door is locked. Luckily, the owner left his mobile number on the door and he was able to get his always drunk and grunting heavy Australian accent speaking old man whore of a janitor to come unlock the door. As he grunts for us to go upstairs, I knew this was not going to turn out to be a good night’s sleep. As we pull our luggage up 2 flights of stairs wondering how the fuck we went from living with the richest people alive in Los Angeles to being demoted to this ugly shit ass excuse for a hotel, we stop by a door marked Room 2A. The janitor opens the door to a half naked man on the bottom of a bunk bed, facing another empty bunk bed. I never thought I would know how it feels to be in a jail cell. I jump onto the lower second bunk and leave my luggage next to the bed in case someone steals my shit. I’m already feeling like shit because it’s 32 degrees Celsius at night and I’m sleeping next to a guy I’ve never seen before. Just as I am about to close my eyes and pass out from the heat, the door unlocks and opens and another man walks in. I open my eyes and see that he’s staring at me, so I wave and say “hello”. The reply I get makes me shiver and wonder what else can go wrong, he says, “you’re in my bed”. Apparently, the half drunk janitor had forgotten to inform me that the lower bunk on the second bed was taken, so I moved my shit to the upper bunk with half-naked-man and try to fall asleep. No luck. I can’t sleep but I stay still so as not to disturb what could be a psychopath underneath me.