And on the second day...
Oct. 30th, 2003 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenFor once, we managed to get up at a reasonable hour and not be dead on our feet. The lesson I've learned regarding hostels, which Amy apparently already knew, is to get there early. She selected one she thought would be good and we made for it as soon as we could get out of the one from Friday night (and get back the outrageous $20 key deposit). Footprints, or some such, I think, turned out to be incredibly busy, but we paid for the next two nights just so as not to have to worry about the irritation of doing the same lather-rinse-repeat cycle of going through hostels again.
What does one do on the morning after an aborted attempt to party down? GO SHOPPING! Our start was inauspicious, though that didn't stop us from spending a fair amount. A discount store near the Queen Vic Building had $6 tapes, and I picked up a handful, along with some calendars, and a Sydney pin, a new bag (FINALLY replacing the one I left in the cab), and, uh, a present for Michelle (heh, it's not Australiana, but you'll like it nixa, methinks--if not, I'll pounce you till you give in).
After we managed to tear ourselves away from the cheapy stuff, we tracked over to Paddington Market, which is just an indoor Sydney version of the Queen Victoria Market here in Melbourne. A tad less pretensious (er, spelling?), perhaps, with a better sense of humor overall and mostly the same types of goods. I totally caved and bought myself expensive boots that lace up the front. I've looked for affordable, fitting ones forever, and these were both. Tee... There were a couple of clever t-shirts, which I won't say what in case I use them as joint present for me and a mate of mine (seeing as I've told Michelle I had a gift for her, I decided to say what the gift was this time but not the person!!! sneeeeaky...)
Amy spent a good amount of our walking around time searching through her guide book for gay clubs to frequent for the evening. She was determined to allow her brother to live vicariously through her (in case you missed that: yes, he's gay--or in Carrie-speak, faaaabulous; Amy says he's also something of a gay parasite in that he goes after--and gets--more tail that a toilet seat). To celebrate both gay (for Amy) and alternative (for me ^.^) culture, we went for a walk to the wonderful area of Paddington and King's Cross. Paddington, along Oxford Rd is just a gay haven. My favorite sign read "WARNING: GAY MEN FREQUENT THIS BAR" over a rainbow flag emblem. Plus, there were just the cutest gay guys running around, holding hands. It makes me siiiiiigh at how cute it is.
Lunch was pizza for me at a gourmet place recommended in Amy's book, which turned out better than Carrie and my attempts to do the same in New Zealand with her Lonely Planet guide. The guy was so friendly, surprised that we were Americans and giving us the take-away discount for eating-in food because he said he wanted to encourage Americans to come to Australia. Nice guy!
In every life, a little rain must fall, and the skies opened up on way back from King's Cross--home of more fetish shops per capita than internet cafes, which is saying a lot. We ducked into the Australian Museum for a looksee, delighting that at least one place in New South Wales gave discounts to students who were from other states in Australia. There's not a whole lot to see there, not that's permanent anyhow; we didn't pay the extra for the gold and what not from Peru exhibit (I didn't come halfway across the world to see something from South America). However, it had a nice Aboriginal history and culture section, very respectful, explaining some of the 'dreaming' and 'the dreamtime' mythos--I'm still not entirely sure what they mean, but basically, the dreamtime = 'in the beginning' (Bible for the heathens like Carrie who don't know this). The exhibit even had some positive things to say about missionaries, which I had not gotten at all from my class, before going on to the normal and justified complaints against the way Aboriginal people are treated nowadays. The highlight of the tour was a bizarre picture of my teacher--he's a really famous 1970s radical, even if he's a teacher and curator of the Indigenous Exhibit at the Melbourne Museum. The picture was of him in his pjs, supposedly making a statement about the whiteness of the cloth versus the (not so) darkness of his skin.
(UPDATE: At our last tutorial, Gary Foley, my teacher, laughed when I mentioned I'd seen the picture and asked which one it was 'cause he didn't remember. This was really eerie for me because it was almost exactly like the dream I had that Saturday night. I dreamt I was in our tutorial room, the only difference being Amy was there, too, and we asked him about the picture. In my dream, he laughed and brushed it off and made one of his usual comments about being young and stupid in it even though he knew he wasn't that young in the picture. I swear he did almost the exact same thing in class on Tuesday following.)
I took advantage of the interim between dinner and clubbing to nap back at our hostel. Got to chat with one of the girls in our room about playing softball and which schools she recommended for it (for Drew). Finally, all dolled up, Amy and I were ready to return to Oxford Street. We started out slow, far too fatty and expensive dinners with disappointingly NOT frozen drinks (Amy's Long Island Iced Tea wasn't great she said, but it got her tipsy enough she didn't care). After that, it was an issue of "Where to first?" The first bar was chosen at random. Amy walked straight in, the guy stopped me and I had to fish for my passport. A minor irritation easily soothed over with a Bundy and coke and a prime position to watch beautiful men bending over pool tables. I didn't get a great atmosphere of support--there was only one other girl in the bar, but no one was openly hostile. We downed a couple drinks and appreciated the view--one guy (who happened to be in the party with the other girl) was hot enough I was tempted to go and make sure he was gay.
Had I known what our departure from that place entailed, I would have stayed longer. I confess, my outfit did attract a lot of attention, though I'm not certain which people goggled at (and whether it was good or bad goggling) more: my netball skirt or my knee-high lace-up black leather boots. Either they were laughing at my attempt to be chic in a sports outfit or they liked the implications of the boots. A guy in a baseball cap got into step with us and immediately started in with the traditional, "how ya going?" Not one full sentence later, he admitted, or, rather, he declared the following:
1) That he'd just been released from prison three days ago
2) That he'd been celebrating since
3) That he'd just blown A$1,500 on prostitutes.
Naturally, that last bit tended to make us a tad "Uh..." and throw glances between us. He then mentioned how, back at whereever his supposed friends were that he was not, there was both more money and cocaine. Not drugs, but coke specifically. To save us both, Amy pulled me into a club. For a damned annoying stamp that smeared on her coat and cost us each $10, it was worth it to escape this guy, even after also being gutted at the bar and discovering it was full of people there for a specific function. We only lasted a few minutes there, but it was a good laugh. For reasons I can no longer recall, Amy and I had promised to school one another on two things: gay clubbing and being a whore, respectively. Apparently, I was doing a better job than I reckoned.
So, it was only fair it be her turn. One more club, we got there a tad early for it to really pick up, about 11 pmish, but cheap enough drinks and a much friendlier atmosphere. Especially when Amy jumped out on the dance floor and picked herself up an Italian boy straight off. Name was Martino, and I danced with him, too. He's a professional dancer, which was incredibly intimidating, but he was soooooo sweet!!! He kept playing with my hair and saying how jealous he was (he was balding, poor blighter). Once you get a few people out there, more materialize, and soon we were just having a good old time.
Know what makes it better? DRAG QUEENS. That's right, Drag Queens. One tall blonde in a black dress, some others, and the one I had to compliment with purple hair and a medieval purple dress with corset. I told him he was the prettiest girl in the room, no lie. I have to say that I can still hold to that--he was by far and away the most feminine of all the drag queens, and well, the rest of us girls just didn't pull off any of our outfits half as well. What got everyone out on the dance floor? C'mon, guess, people! Priscilla ring any bells? Fine, be that way--it was MAMMA MIA! Everyone, straight or gay, knows that song---it's just more fun to sing and dance to it in a bar with drag queens and gay boys.
Thank God I didn't run into the LEECH until that was over. If he'd ruined Mamma Mia with the hot drag queen, I'd have slugged him. So, okay, I've said that girls hit on me at Crown Casino. Well, apparently my luck is holding. I go to a GAY CLUB and manage to get hit on by the only straight man in the room (correction: his friend was straight, too, but there with girlfriend)!!! I was irritated beyond belief, but he kept on rolling with the Bundy and cokes, and I'm nothing if not a whore, as we'd established earlier in the evening, so I let him dance with me for the drinks (which I absolutely threw back without taking a breath). Combined with the jack and cokes we'd had, I ought to have been rolling, but I guess annoyance is a sobering thing. The guy kept putting his hands on my waist, trying to get my number (I told him I didn't have my phone on me and didn't know the number without it, the first part being true if not the second), asking if I had a boyfriend (I told him I didn't) and wondering why not (I told him I liked girls--Amy had promised to flirt with me should the need arise--actually, she had some comic scenario envisioned in which, given my luck, I'd be talking to a girl while she left for drinks then she could come back to call me a cheating bitch--gotta try that one sometime).
When I got away from him, his friend and his friend's girlfriend danced with me. The girl was the hottest one among them, crimped blonde hair, chubby, dressed like white trash kicked off the beach when the sun went down...does this begin to illustrate my frustration? I hit on her as shamelessly as I dared, asking her if I could kiss her, hold her hand, etc. I'm a terrible liar, but her boyfriend pushed her at me once or twice, in what seemed suspiciously like a test of my prior claim. I was soooo relieved she wouldn't really have anything from me that I'd offered (not that kissing a girl wouldn't have been a welcome alternative to her friend with the sticky hands).
After faaaar too long, they departed, all of them waving like we were good friends and would see each other again (not if I can help it!). That meant I could turn my attention back to Amy's progress with Martino. I found out things had progressed, on the whole, rather well. Martino was dancing crotch-to-crotch with another guy, who introduced himself as John. I told John definitely to stick with Martino, like I was any judge of character? John laughed and said Martino was hot but he was intimidated that he was a dance, yadda yadda. It took Amy and I about one joint attempt of throwing John into Martino for the two of them to hook up. Generally, I don't truck with PDAs or just watching others be all kissy-kissy, but there really is nothing cuter than to gay boys grappling and tongue-ing one another. Maybe that didn't come out right, but trust me, they're soooooooooooooooooo CUTE!!!!
Thus did Saturday evening end on a very high note. I got propositioned for the first time, Amy's brother was rolling in his sleeping bag (he was camping that weekend) in pleasure, and we put two boys together. We walked the long way back to the hostel practically skipping even though both of us were in heels that were absolutely killing our feet by that point of the evening. We collapsed happily, cooing all the way to our beds, Amy triumphant that she'd schooled me in the ways of gay clubbing, me exhausted and content to snuggle into bed thinking happy thoughts and best wishes for Martino and John. Even if not, hey, I DANCED TO MAMMA MIA WITH DRAG QUEENS IN SYDNEY!!!!!
'Nuff said.
What does one do on the morning after an aborted attempt to party down? GO SHOPPING! Our start was inauspicious, though that didn't stop us from spending a fair amount. A discount store near the Queen Vic Building had $6 tapes, and I picked up a handful, along with some calendars, and a Sydney pin, a new bag (FINALLY replacing the one I left in the cab), and, uh, a present for Michelle (heh, it's not Australiana, but you'll like it nixa, methinks--if not, I'll pounce you till you give in).
After we managed to tear ourselves away from the cheapy stuff, we tracked over to Paddington Market, which is just an indoor Sydney version of the Queen Victoria Market here in Melbourne. A tad less pretensious (er, spelling?), perhaps, with a better sense of humor overall and mostly the same types of goods. I totally caved and bought myself expensive boots that lace up the front. I've looked for affordable, fitting ones forever, and these were both. Tee... There were a couple of clever t-shirts, which I won't say what in case I use them as joint present for me and a mate of mine (seeing as I've told Michelle I had a gift for her, I decided to say what the gift was this time but not the person!!! sneeeeaky...)
Amy spent a good amount of our walking around time searching through her guide book for gay clubs to frequent for the evening. She was determined to allow her brother to live vicariously through her (in case you missed that: yes, he's gay--or in Carrie-speak, faaaabulous; Amy says he's also something of a gay parasite in that he goes after--and gets--more tail that a toilet seat). To celebrate both gay (for Amy) and alternative (for me ^.^) culture, we went for a walk to the wonderful area of Paddington and King's Cross. Paddington, along Oxford Rd is just a gay haven. My favorite sign read "WARNING: GAY MEN FREQUENT THIS BAR" over a rainbow flag emblem. Plus, there were just the cutest gay guys running around, holding hands. It makes me siiiiiigh at how cute it is.
Lunch was pizza for me at a gourmet place recommended in Amy's book, which turned out better than Carrie and my attempts to do the same in New Zealand with her Lonely Planet guide. The guy was so friendly, surprised that we were Americans and giving us the take-away discount for eating-in food because he said he wanted to encourage Americans to come to Australia. Nice guy!
In every life, a little rain must fall, and the skies opened up on way back from King's Cross--home of more fetish shops per capita than internet cafes, which is saying a lot. We ducked into the Australian Museum for a looksee, delighting that at least one place in New South Wales gave discounts to students who were from other states in Australia. There's not a whole lot to see there, not that's permanent anyhow; we didn't pay the extra for the gold and what not from Peru exhibit (I didn't come halfway across the world to see something from South America). However, it had a nice Aboriginal history and culture section, very respectful, explaining some of the 'dreaming' and 'the dreamtime' mythos--I'm still not entirely sure what they mean, but basically, the dreamtime = 'in the beginning' (Bible for the heathens like Carrie who don't know this). The exhibit even had some positive things to say about missionaries, which I had not gotten at all from my class, before going on to the normal and justified complaints against the way Aboriginal people are treated nowadays. The highlight of the tour was a bizarre picture of my teacher--he's a really famous 1970s radical, even if he's a teacher and curator of the Indigenous Exhibit at the Melbourne Museum. The picture was of him in his pjs, supposedly making a statement about the whiteness of the cloth versus the (not so) darkness of his skin.
(UPDATE: At our last tutorial, Gary Foley, my teacher, laughed when I mentioned I'd seen the picture and asked which one it was 'cause he didn't remember. This was really eerie for me because it was almost exactly like the dream I had that Saturday night. I dreamt I was in our tutorial room, the only difference being Amy was there, too, and we asked him about the picture. In my dream, he laughed and brushed it off and made one of his usual comments about being young and stupid in it even though he knew he wasn't that young in the picture. I swear he did almost the exact same thing in class on Tuesday following.)
I took advantage of the interim between dinner and clubbing to nap back at our hostel. Got to chat with one of the girls in our room about playing softball and which schools she recommended for it (for Drew). Finally, all dolled up, Amy and I were ready to return to Oxford Street. We started out slow, far too fatty and expensive dinners with disappointingly NOT frozen drinks (Amy's Long Island Iced Tea wasn't great she said, but it got her tipsy enough she didn't care). After that, it was an issue of "Where to first?" The first bar was chosen at random. Amy walked straight in, the guy stopped me and I had to fish for my passport. A minor irritation easily soothed over with a Bundy and coke and a prime position to watch beautiful men bending over pool tables. I didn't get a great atmosphere of support--there was only one other girl in the bar, but no one was openly hostile. We downed a couple drinks and appreciated the view--one guy (who happened to be in the party with the other girl) was hot enough I was tempted to go and make sure he was gay.
Had I known what our departure from that place entailed, I would have stayed longer. I confess, my outfit did attract a lot of attention, though I'm not certain which people goggled at (and whether it was good or bad goggling) more: my netball skirt or my knee-high lace-up black leather boots. Either they were laughing at my attempt to be chic in a sports outfit or they liked the implications of the boots. A guy in a baseball cap got into step with us and immediately started in with the traditional, "how ya going?" Not one full sentence later, he admitted, or, rather, he declared the following:
1) That he'd just been released from prison three days ago
2) That he'd been celebrating since
3) That he'd just blown A$1,500 on prostitutes.
Naturally, that last bit tended to make us a tad "Uh..." and throw glances between us. He then mentioned how, back at whereever his supposed friends were that he was not, there was both more money and cocaine. Not drugs, but coke specifically. To save us both, Amy pulled me into a club. For a damned annoying stamp that smeared on her coat and cost us each $10, it was worth it to escape this guy, even after also being gutted at the bar and discovering it was full of people there for a specific function. We only lasted a few minutes there, but it was a good laugh. For reasons I can no longer recall, Amy and I had promised to school one another on two things: gay clubbing and being a whore, respectively. Apparently, I was doing a better job than I reckoned.
So, it was only fair it be her turn. One more club, we got there a tad early for it to really pick up, about 11 pmish, but cheap enough drinks and a much friendlier atmosphere. Especially when Amy jumped out on the dance floor and picked herself up an Italian boy straight off. Name was Martino, and I danced with him, too. He's a professional dancer, which was incredibly intimidating, but he was soooooo sweet!!! He kept playing with my hair and saying how jealous he was (he was balding, poor blighter). Once you get a few people out there, more materialize, and soon we were just having a good old time.
Know what makes it better? DRAG QUEENS. That's right, Drag Queens. One tall blonde in a black dress, some others, and the one I had to compliment with purple hair and a medieval purple dress with corset. I told him he was the prettiest girl in the room, no lie. I have to say that I can still hold to that--he was by far and away the most feminine of all the drag queens, and well, the rest of us girls just didn't pull off any of our outfits half as well. What got everyone out on the dance floor? C'mon, guess, people! Priscilla ring any bells? Fine, be that way--it was MAMMA MIA! Everyone, straight or gay, knows that song---it's just more fun to sing and dance to it in a bar with drag queens and gay boys.
Thank God I didn't run into the LEECH until that was over. If he'd ruined Mamma Mia with the hot drag queen, I'd have slugged him. So, okay, I've said that girls hit on me at Crown Casino. Well, apparently my luck is holding. I go to a GAY CLUB and manage to get hit on by the only straight man in the room (correction: his friend was straight, too, but there with girlfriend)!!! I was irritated beyond belief, but he kept on rolling with the Bundy and cokes, and I'm nothing if not a whore, as we'd established earlier in the evening, so I let him dance with me for the drinks (which I absolutely threw back without taking a breath). Combined with the jack and cokes we'd had, I ought to have been rolling, but I guess annoyance is a sobering thing. The guy kept putting his hands on my waist, trying to get my number (I told him I didn't have my phone on me and didn't know the number without it, the first part being true if not the second), asking if I had a boyfriend (I told him I didn't) and wondering why not (I told him I liked girls--Amy had promised to flirt with me should the need arise--actually, she had some comic scenario envisioned in which, given my luck, I'd be talking to a girl while she left for drinks then she could come back to call me a cheating bitch--gotta try that one sometime).
When I got away from him, his friend and his friend's girlfriend danced with me. The girl was the hottest one among them, crimped blonde hair, chubby, dressed like white trash kicked off the beach when the sun went down...does this begin to illustrate my frustration? I hit on her as shamelessly as I dared, asking her if I could kiss her, hold her hand, etc. I'm a terrible liar, but her boyfriend pushed her at me once or twice, in what seemed suspiciously like a test of my prior claim. I was soooo relieved she wouldn't really have anything from me that I'd offered (not that kissing a girl wouldn't have been a welcome alternative to her friend with the sticky hands).
After faaaar too long, they departed, all of them waving like we were good friends and would see each other again (not if I can help it!). That meant I could turn my attention back to Amy's progress with Martino. I found out things had progressed, on the whole, rather well. Martino was dancing crotch-to-crotch with another guy, who introduced himself as John. I told John definitely to stick with Martino, like I was any judge of character? John laughed and said Martino was hot but he was intimidated that he was a dance, yadda yadda. It took Amy and I about one joint attempt of throwing John into Martino for the two of them to hook up. Generally, I don't truck with PDAs or just watching others be all kissy-kissy, but there really is nothing cuter than to gay boys grappling and tongue-ing one another. Maybe that didn't come out right, but trust me, they're soooooooooooooooooo CUTE!!!!
Thus did Saturday evening end on a very high note. I got propositioned for the first time, Amy's brother was rolling in his sleeping bag (he was camping that weekend) in pleasure, and we put two boys together. We walked the long way back to the hostel practically skipping even though both of us were in heels that were absolutely killing our feet by that point of the evening. We collapsed happily, cooing all the way to our beds, Amy triumphant that she'd schooled me in the ways of gay clubbing, me exhausted and content to snuggle into bed thinking happy thoughts and best wishes for Martino and John. Even if not, hey, I DANCED TO MAMMA MIA WITH DRAG QUEENS IN SYDNEY!!!!!
'Nuff said.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 10:41 am (UTC)AAAAAAAAAAAAAH to gay man fetish!!!
?????????????? to pretending to be a lesbian in a gay bar...
Listen you...
Date: 2003-10-30 04:09 pm (UTC)But I'm glad I could live up to your "Priscilla" standards.