I wake up well rested at around 8 AM. All my roommates are still passed the fuck out from the night before. I grab my no name shampoo and conditioner from my bag as well as my tiny bottle of Dove body wash that I got back in Toronto during the World Cup. I also grab my travel can of Shick Fusion shaving foam as well as my only Mach 3 disposable razor. I can only use razors with 3 or more blades as my facial hair gets quite thick, even only after a few days. I won’t even deal electric razors. My father used to tell me that electric was the way to go and Philips is the best brand. On my last birthday my mother gave me a Philips Arcetec which is considered to be the best electric razor ever. God knows how much she spent on it, but I’m sure it was well over 2 hundred dollars. She couldn’t give it to me in person on my birthday last year for reasons that I will discuss later on. I’m guessing she bought it well in advance as she often does with gifts. After the 4th use it broke. Me being mister fix it tried to take it apart and soon realized that the motor inside has overheated, expanded and melted the plastic pieces inside. The warranty had expired at this point and it still sits in my bathroom to this day. Some technological things just don’t pan and it’s funny because my father owned an older Philips his entire life and never had any problems. I took his apart when it broke once and it stopped working because all the metal pieces inside had finally rusted after being cleaned too many times. They just don’t make em’ like they used too. This is also the reason why I choose to ride a push bike as opposed to a motorcycle: If the motor or engine or suspension were to break down, it may require you to go see a mechanic to have it fixed unless you know that one machine INSIDE OUT. All bikes are pretty much universally the same as are most razors and they don’t require gasoline or electricity to run smoothly.
I bring my laptop to breakfast and wrote a little bit, however the fatigue is still not allowing me to truly write to my full potential. It is sunny out and I soon realize it will be hot day. Great! My breakfast today is a roll filled with egg and ham, orange juice and coffee. This coffee is worse that Tim Hortons, even worse than Williams, even worse than COFFEE TIME!!! This sort of dampers my mood and don’t even finish the cup as I go upstairs to repack my bags in order to go to my next hostel which is only a few blocks away. I hand the guy behind the desk my swipe key on a rope and my pillow case. Peace. It only takes me minutes to get to my next hostel a few blocks away and the girl behind the counter tells me that I can’t check in until 2 PM. Weak. She asks if I want to store some luggage and I decide to store my main Swiss Gear duffel bag there. She hands me my receipt and of course it’s number 10 (always 10). My bike is still locked up on Pitt St. near my old hostel and I want to ride around the city to take pictures. I unlock my bike and noticed that my front derailleur cable has been frayed…so is the back one. This will require maintenance, but I don’t have the funds until my bank drafts clear. This bike requires more than that though and I knew this before leaving. The last minute decision to take this bike instead of my green Steve Bauer Sirroco is now haunting me. Of all 5 of my bikes I know this one the least, all though it is the most expensive and best one of all. I can still fix it though…trust thy hands.
I take some pictures in Hyde Park which is like Central Park in NYC. There is a busker making massive bubbles in the shady parts of it. Some other notable spots I arrive at include the museum, the art gallery of New South Wales, the Royal conservatory of music, the courts houses and city hall. As I arrive down to the harbour, it’s not the same as the first time I saw it yesterday through virgin eyes. This disappoints me because I don’t want the Opera house to become some mundane thing I barely notice any more like the CN tower has become to me in Toronto. I don’t even notice it anymore back home; it has become just a vestigial feature of Toronto to me.
I take some pictures in Hyde Park which is like Central Park in NYC. There is a busker making massive bubbles in the shady parts of it. Some other notable spots I arrive at include the museum, the art gallery of New South Wales, the Royal conservatory of music, the courts houses and city hall. As I arrive down to the harbour, it’s not the same as the first time I saw it yesterday through virgin eyes. This disappoints me because I don’t want the Opera house to become some mundane thing I barely notice any more like the CN tower has become to me in Toronto. I don’t even notice it anymore back home; it has become just a vestigial feature of Toronto to me.
Sunscreen time so I don’t burn and I burn easily. In Jamaica I feel asleep in the sun for 4 hours and for the next 2 weeks it looked like I had leprosy or some sort of flesh disease (Illmaculate). Australia also has the highest rate of skin cancer of any first world nation.
In order to get into the Botanical gardens next to the Opera House, I must dismount my bike as they don’t allow bicycle riding there. I’m cool with that and I figure it would throw off the rhythms and positive vibrations. What a beautiful place to be. Wow, my mother would love this. My grandfather, who was a devoted gardener, may have liked this even more than she would. The grass is like fairway on a golf course: cut very short, but still thick enough to allow people to walk on it without damaging the root structure. The colours are quite vibrant as the sun reflects off of the foliage. I don’t know the names or class or genus or species or kingdom of any of the plants here but that doesn’t really matter as I can enjoy their aesthetic beauty in a romantic way as opposed to as classical manner. I’ll explain that later. I feel very present in this garden and I haven’t felt this way in a long time. The last time I felt this present since I was at my cottage as a little boy. Ironically, that is how I feel today: little a newborn baby seeing something new. Nostalgia I guess, although I don’t miss home yet.
After returning to my hostel I grab some brochures as I want to do some touristy stuff while I’m here. Specifically sky diving, the great barrier reef, the blue mountains as well as seeing a couple of the other cities here like Brisbane, Melbourne, Cairns, Gold coast, etc. It’s now 1:33 and I still can’t check in. The girl behind the counter is telling where the Market City is and this is important so I can grab some bread and peanut butter as a snack. Instead, I decide to try to bike to Bondi beach and this will take me about an hour. Half there I realize I don’t have my map…shit! I’m like fuck it; I enjoy being lost since I feel I’ve been lost for the majority of my life. This area is very hilly and at times I nearly run out of breath climbing the steep hills on my bike. The areas near the beach are very honky tonk and run down and not maintained well whatsoever, but you can tell there is money here by the types of stores, cars people drive and clothing that they wear. It must be a worldwide thing because every area I have ever been too that is close to the beach (Hampton beach, Montego Bay, Orlando, Malibu) are all very similar. You can see seaweed and shells even on streets nowhere near the ocean. I can now see the water from a highpoint where I stop to drink some water and there appears to be hundreds of sailboats around the marina.
I inch closer and closer to the shore and see a sign that reads Double Bay. I guess I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque because the route map for the ferry’s show me that Bondi beach is way South East of here. Like over half an hour away. My energy is running low and I will have to check it out another day. My camera ran out of batteries earlier today so I can’t take pictures of the Marina in Double bay. As I leave I get the feeling I’ve been here. It reminds me a lot of Yorkville in Toronto if Yorkville were on the water. The restaurants and boutiques are quite posh and the women walking around are dressed to the nines and are in full makeup mode. This one hill is killing me and I almost pass out pedaling up to the top of it and sure enough at the top there is an even steeper hill going in the direction I need to take in order to get back into the city. It is now slightly overcast as I make my way back to my hostel where I can FINALLY check in.
The room is not clean, but not dirty. My roommates are from all over the world: One cute welsh girl, 2 Irishmen, a Scotsmen, a kiwi chick, a German girl and an Englishmen. One of the Irish guys named Brian is being temporarily evicted as he hasn’t paid for the night even though he has told the desk people he will be staying here through the New Year. I’m writing on my laptop as the kiwi chick comes in and tells me that I’m in her bed on the top bunk. Oops. The Welsh girl quickly rectifies the situation by blaming the hostel. She also asked me if I’m going out tonight and I shake my head and let her know I just want to get some pictures of the harbour. She seems disappointed in this for some reason.
It’s Saturday and most people usually go out at night to get drunk, do drugs, hang with friends, get laid, etc. Not me. I move to the beat of my own drum and rarely hear the cadence of others. I want to take some night pictures of the harbour to show my friends and family back home. It takes only 10 minutes to get down the Opera House by bike from my hostel. The streets are alive and there are people EVERYWHERE, unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere else I’ve been to. The Ocean is quite calm as I arrive near the bridge. At night the harbour just lights up and there are just as many people here during the day as at night. I take out my freshly charged camera and get some phenomenal shots. A performance must have just ended at the Opera house as there as hundreds of people pouring out of there all dressed up. Carrying playbills from whatever show they have just witnessed. Since I’m a jackass I bike around the harbour as fast as I can, weaving in and out between the all the people. A slight smirk is pasted on my face as I swerve to avoid the Sydney-siders. There are these benches on this hill adjacent to the bridge that 3D and dread would think is the best spot EVER to bun it down. I didn’t come here for that though. This trip is almost like a detox or a rehab from my old life, although at some point it will go down. My true reason for this journey is self-acceptance. I wish to gain a new level core confidence that I’ve only read about. It hasn’t permeated mentally yet that I am enough.
The streets are so busy here at night and the girls are just so beautiful. There is a serious abundance of my exact type of girl here (looks wish at least). Once again I am speeding and swerving back towards my hostel, this time on the sidewalks. Hahaha. There seems to be a lot of guys rocking black Metallica T shirts. James, Lars, Kirk and Robert must be in town rocking the hell out tonight! I hear the sound of a distorted guitar in power drive playing the solo from “Fade to Black”. As I edge closer to the noises I see across the street what appears to be a Samurai playing an electric guitar behind his head. I am in shock! This guy knows seems to be able to play every great metal song ever made and I’m not talking playing, I mean he is fully owning the fucking street. Onlookers seem to be hooking this guy up with tip after tip. After each minute of play he sticks out his tongue and throws horns to the crowd and gets a great reaction as well as more tip money. This guy puts any Busker I have ever seen to shame. A true master in his craft and has probably spent the majority of his life learning to master this skill. Don’t think I can ever look at guitarists or street performers the same way ever again. I give him 2 AUD and I never tip buskers. I also took two videos of him playing so I felt obliged to hook him up with a little something something. Upon arriving at the hostel I am fatigued from all the biking and excitement of the day. I have a quick shower and pass out around 2 AM.
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