I slept pretty well last night, after that long and fun day I really needed the rest. 2 of the 3 Scottish guys are already gone and it’s about 1PM. LONG ASS SLEEP. There is a couple in my room after I shower, my body aches so I won’t run today and I decided that I will start Insanity on Monday. They happily greet me and after asking them where they are from they tell me in harmony, “Toronto!” Thanks god, I was starting to get a little home sick at this point. We talk about Etobicoke, where they are from and where they have been. They tell me Hobart, Tasmania is chills and that Brisbane and the Gold Coast has a lot of Torontonians that live there. They say that Darwin and Perth are very expensive as the tourism isn’t as high as in other parts of Australia. They’re daughter is in another room and too embarrassed to stay in the same room as them. I joke that it’s a good thing because she will get me trouble with my Cindy and them as well. The husband, Elliot, laughs and claims, “Ha, she’s all yours if you want to have her!” The wife, Elaine, declares, “She is a princess.” I reply, “Oh…me too. It would never work out than.” Now they both laugh.
The drunken Irish now arise and let us know that they are each feeling ill. They look pale…oh wait they’re Irish. They look hung-over… wait. They look…like…hung-over pale Irish. These Irish, Brian and Caroline, are from Mayo. It is obvious that they won’t be getting much done today. I have about 3 bags of dirty laundry so my first task today will be doing that. I head to the Laundry room and check out the prices on the coin slots: 3 dollars for a wash and another 3 for a dry. The space for the clothes looks small too and I hope I can fit all of my stuff in there. Oh yeah, I don’t have any detergent either so I have to go down to the front desk and get some. The detergent is 2 dollars and when I ask for change, because the machines only accept 1 AUD coins, I mistakenly ask for loonies. The girl behind the counter looks puzzled and I remember that they are called one dollar coins and not loonies here. Back upstairs Caroline is now on her phone talking to her mom, telling her how depressed she is that she has to come home. Poor baby! In the laundry room, all my dirty clothing barely fits in the washer. After placing the detergent in, I set it to warm water, max rinse and hit start. While my clothes are in the wash, I check my email and Facebook, followed by drying and then a haircut that is long overdue as it has not been cut since July 24th. Before that it hadn’t been cut for almost a year!
I grab some lunch and head over to a hairdresser near this underpass in Central Station. Its 10 AUD for a men’s haircut pretty much anywhere in Sydney, but this is the closest barber to my hostel so he gets my business. This place is very small and I think my room at the hostel is triple the size of this barber shop. There is one younger guy who greets me as I enter as well as an Asian lady who resembles Bjork. They are both cutting hair when I enter, so I grab a Vanilla Coke and take a seat. Once it’s my turn, I tell the guy that I want my hair to look just like his, except with wider sideburns. After it’s finished I remark that it looks like Dion Phaneuf’s latest dew, minus his caveman like jawline and without Elisha Cuthbert on my arm. I tip the guy 3 bucks since this is the most inexpensive haircut I have ever had and I look pretty pimp. The humidity here was making it look terrible and long hair makes me sweat at night to and hard to sleep. As if I didn’t have enough problems with that already. I’ll definitely get my next haircut here where it starts to get to shaggy again. For some reason I am still tired, so after my haircut I take a nap and so do Brian and Caroline.
When I wake up I am alone in the room and it is just after 9 PM. The casino has been on my mind and made me really curious yesterday to see the limits in poker, so I am going to have to check it out. My neck is itchy from the haircut, so I put on a fresh shirt.
On my way there I grab a 7 dollar pizza sub from Subway in Darling Harbour. Even at 10 PM this place is busy and I look forward to working here when I start on the 27th. There are a lot of street performers here playing music or doing magic or some sort of show. The clubs here seems pretty full and I am almost too intimidated to go into some of them since they seem very upscale and classy. At some point I will have to get a suit while I am here since I didn’t bring the only one I own with me to Sydney. Darling harbour also has a laser tag arena, a bowlerama, restaurants and the IMAX theatre that has a seven story screen making it the biggest IMAX screen in the world. Too bad only Harry Potter is playing here, otherwise I would bail on the casino tonight and peep a movie. I get lost on the way to the casino 3-4 times and have to ask directions few times as well. Finally I arrive and I am very excited to see what this massive casino looks like on the inside.
Inside Star City Casino, the security guard asks me for ID and I give it to him my Ontario drivers license. He then asks for a second piece and I am glad that I have my passport on me in my Pacsafe money belt. This dude is massive by the way: His biceps are bigger than my head and I’m assuming he needs a customised shirt just to work there. After he checks it he tells me I can go in and he tells me that the poker room is on the second floor. Inside it is busy. There are gamblers everywhere playing any game you can imagine. Many people are very dressed up and there are a lot of hot girls here. I check out the table games and the minimum bets are pretty standard: 5 AUD at roulette, 20 AUD at blackjack and most table games and 1 AUD pulls at the slot machines. I go upstairs to the poker room and am shocked by the limits for hold’em: 80/200, 250/500, 1000/2000, 2500/5000. Just to play 80/200 I need at least 100 times the second bet to buy-in which will come to 20 000 dollars. I have 500 AUD with me, so I guess I will just take 100 bucks and go fuck around at some table games. In Ontario the max games are like 100/200 limit hold’em, although I usually just play 5/10 or 10/20. Everything truly IS more expensive in Sydney.
I go to a roulette table a grab 100 dollars in chips, no specific colour, although they give you the option in roulette not to mistake your bets: Just 100 AUD in red 5 dollar chips. My buddy John Fried is one of my old gambling buddies and he says always bet on black, so I go 40 on red and lose. I put the other 60 on black and win. While the dealer is paying me out this drunken guy next to me slurs, “Daaats myy Mooiney kii”. I object and tell him that I bet on black because the hot chick next to me did. She smiles and smile back although she is with 2 guys (like that has stopped me before). The dealer is now wondering what’s going on and I explain the situation. He tells the pit boss and they have to call upstairs to review the cameras. It turns out I did in fact bet 60 bucks on black, so I get 1 to 1 on my money and double up to 120 dollars. The girl and the 2 guys tell me that guy tried the same shit on them at another table earlier in the night and I now regret not selecting coloured chips after all. I get my money and leave the table and as I do so the girls stops me. She tells me she likes my accent and asks me where I’m from. I tell her and she excitedly hugs me…OK. “I LOVE CANADIANS! You guys are so cool!”, she yells and heads turn to watch us, sort of the same way you’ll hear a scream when someone wins money and people turn their heads in reaction. I tell her I have a girl back home and she seems sort of devastated. Not that this girl isn’t cute because she is great: dark skin, short, thin, glory rack (high 7). Just to mess with her I saw, “I don’t think your borefriend over there would like it either if he saw me kissing you.” Classic. I now place my right hand on her lower back and pull her in closer. “Oh, him…” she says, “…we’re just friends. He just buys me stuff and drives me around.” Inside I laugh and my just to see if I can get away with I feel her up a little as I unapologetically grope her ass. I guess she enjoys this as she now caresses my shoulders. I tell her I have to go “meet my friends” and she pouts and whispers in my ear, “You’re sweet. Here, call me…please?” I mention that I don’t have a phone yet, so she writes down her number on a cocktail napkin and puts it in my front right pocket, near my now rock hard erection. This has never happened to me before and I am quite flabbergasted on the inside. She kisses my cheek while firmly gripping my hands and as she walks smiles and off blows a kiss goodbye.
I go to bathroom, wash my face and rack my brain on what to do next. Should I cheat on Cindy? I have cheated before on other girls, but those girls were bitchy value takers and in some cases they cheated on me. I take the napkin out and written in black pen it read Sandra with a phone number under it. After 15 minutes of deliberation I crumple up the napkin and throw it in the rubbish bin. I didn’t come here tonight to fuck chicks, besides I don’t know this girl at all: She could be a stalker, a skank with STD’s or a nutcase just trying to make her boyfriend jealous. The dudes she was with are way bigger than I am as well and I don’t need to be beaten up this early in the night. She could also be an escort for all I know, I mean this is a casino, and I don’t pay for pussy…period. I go to the blackjack tables and fuck around for a hour and get up to 165 dollars. My focus has wandered though and all I can think of now is how I should fuck this Sandra girl.
Back at the roulette tables, I have a rollercoaster ride with my money and get down to 40 bucks then back up to 150. Down to 50, then up to 185. Finally my focus is clearly non-existent and the next thing I know I am down to the felt. Oh well it’s only a hundred bucks. When I was 19 years old I lost $17 500, my whole bankroll at the time, in one night playing 25/50 No Limit hold’em. Back then I was chasing an altogether different ghost and if I had that kind of money now I would have used it in other ways for better purposes. I did make all that money gambling in the first place and learned a tough lesson: Never to sit with your entire bankroll at one time. I was a different person then and I can’t believe the person I have grown to become. At the time I was also a virgin and getting girls was far outside of my reality. Money was the reason why I gambled and I wanted money because that’s what I thought got me girls. Like Al Pacino says in Scarface, “...you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.” Sure I don’t have a lot of money, but I do feel that I have POWER. As I tap out I notice this one very drunk Australian guy who has been playing at the same table as me for about an hour. He bought in for 500 dollars in green chips and got it up to almost 3000, but he got greedy and has lost it all and then some. His wife is now clinging to her purse as he begs for more cash. The look on her face is priceless and I know the feeling they both have: No control.
I leave the casino and start walking home, only to get lost a few times. I stop some people and scare them half to death by asking them the time: 3 AM. There are girls pouring out of the clubs now and George Street is a Zoo. These guys bump into me and yell in my face, all I can do though is laugh and keep walking. After what feels like forever I get back to the Bounce, where I am staying. After losing only a small amount of money and turning down vagina tonight I realise that I have CONTROL. I could have rebought after losing the 100 bucks and I could have cheated on Cindy by banging some 7 in the bathroom, but I have changed and I am in control of my life...in certain aspects anyways.
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