Yesterday, I had agreed to meet up with Anna from my tour group at 9:30 this morning. We met up and headed to the Traveller's Contact Point office to use the free internet service. We also needed to go by the bank to pick up our bank cards and stop by Woolworth's to buy cheap phones for our prepaid SIM cards.
Anna is from North Whales and is 27 years old, like me. She left her job as a university agriculture teacher to come to Oz.
Also joining us this morning was Kane, a 19 year old insurance salesman from somewhere in the UK with a wicked accent. He is hilarious.
After a while, we were joined by Emma, a 20 year old from London. I like her because she suggested vodka with lunch. What a perfect idea for a rainy, non-eventful day like today!
We went to an Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy's for lunch. I'm sure there are tons of establishments around the world with this name, but it is significant for me because there was a crappy bar in Waco when I was at Baylor called Scruffy Murphy's. I also had my first legal drink at a Scruffy Murphy's in Orlando, Florida.
After lunch, the crappy weather, or the vodka, made me want to cuddle up in my bunk bed at the hostel. It is rainy and cold out. Nothing like how I pictured Australia. I was wearing my Old Navy flip flops that made for dangerous walking in the rain, as the sidewalks are made of stone and are slippery. I also didn't come prepared with a rain jacket or an umbrella. And on top of that, my legs, hips and feet are killing me from all the walking. I am convinced that one of my legs is longer than the other and that is causing all of this discomfort. Yes, that, and not the fact that I have walked at least 10 miles in cheap, plastic flip flops and am just overall lazy from driving everywhere in America.
Back at the hostel in my co-ed room, I meet roommate #2, Frankie. She is from the UK and has been living in this hostel for 6 months.
Since I arrived, it seems that everyone I've met is either from the UK or Germany. Both sound like foreign languages to me. I am getting ancy to see other parts of Sydney that have more locals and less backpackers.
At around 8pm I met up with some of the people on my tour to go out for a drink. We decided to go back to Scruffy Murphy's, as it is a short distance to run in the rain and we had seen an advertisement for Drag Queen Karaoke when we were there for lunch. The clencher for the group was the $7 jugs of beer, equal to a pitcher.
It wasn't long before the girls, Anna, Emma myself and Laura from Scotland, were up on stage singing "Livin on a Prayer". We earned a free jug for that. And the two drag queen hostesses where spot on all night. Of course, I was picked on for being "the American girl". But the brunt of the jokes were on a group of regulars to karaoke night who were mentally handicapped. Good ole politically correct Australia! We had a blast! Photos to follow.
