Sydney: Sydney Tower and Oxford Exploration

Trip Start Jan 12, 2006

Trip End Mar 01, 2006

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Flag of Australia Sydney, Australia
Saturday, February 18, 2006

This whole 10am hostel checkout thing is ludicrous. Nearly every hotel in the world has a noon checkout time - and real hotels are where old people stay, people who normally check out at 10am because they want to go sightseeing instead of recover from their hangovers. But hostels - homeland of partiers, revelers, non-sleepers - at hostels they make us check out at 10am? Granted we're paying less than a hotel, but come on, couldn't we sleep in an extra hour or two just to make the day a little less painful?

So this morning Teva got up first - he's looking for a 'flat' so he goes to bed early and gets up at 8am to go flat hunting... and once one person starts rustling his bags then another starts, then there's a few moans, then everyone is up within half an hour. Kind of fun since it's like adult summer camp and you're laughing about other guys talking in their sleep and who snored and who didn't and silly stuff like that..

01 - Sydney Tower

. but also a bit brutal as the day goes by and you realize you're running on just five or six hours of sleep.

Decided to be a good tourist and visit the Sydney tower on my first solo traveling day in Sydney. It was okay. It cost $25 to get to the top of the tower - 80 stories - but it seemed like it was going to be worth it since they include an IMAX-like movie beforehand about Australia - but turns out the movie was rubbish and a poor imitation of IMAX. The views from the top were great, though, and really helped me orient myself, so by the end of the tour I felt like a true Sydneysider, able to navigate myself pretty much anywhere.

This came in helpful, especially with my other hostel mates, who had just hopped off 27 hour plane flights from Europe and were totally in awe of being in a city and being in a warm climate. Of course I had adjusted to all that already, plus had gotten used to using my Lonely Planet guide to get myself around, so I became the pseudo-leader for the day and night and even the next day - after all it was about to become my birthday Aussie time, and it was nice to have some nice company and felt even better to feel in charge and independent.

By this point Teva was out of the picture - he was off flat hunting the entire time I was there - and Brandan had moved out after finding his sister in Sydney (what luck!). So we had a new guy in the room. And I shit you not his name was Ben - from a small town in England, his accent was nearly indecipherable. So the group for the next two days was Ben, Sven, and Ben. I wish I were making this up, but that's the absolute truth

02 - Ben up atop Sydney tower

. Every time we met other travellers we'd go "Hi I'm Ben, I'm Sven, and I'm Ben." They'd just start laughing.

I stole myself away from the Ben-Sven-Ben clique for a few hours to explore Oxford street, the gay area, during the day time. It was pretty quiet and not much to explore visually, but there was good shopping. Against my better judgment (since I have no more room in my pack already), I bought two CDs - well three actually - I bought the Bodyrockers CD since I've been hearing the techno song "I like the way you move..." everywhere I've gone and have become obsessed with it... also bought the single with some remixes...and some sort of House music mix, since I think everyone besides America releases and appreciates good vocal house music more than most people I know back home.

I also went to a shop called "Aussie Boys" and bought a really funny t-shirt. I don't usually go for t-shirts with token sayings on them, but this one made me crack up the instant I saw it. It's in handwritten script, all messy and nervous looking, and it goes, "Dear mum and dad - I'm gay - hope that's okay - love me please, that's all." I don't think I'll ever wear it myself but figured I had to buy it since it made me laugh so hard.... maybe it will be a good "coming out" present for one of my friends some day

03 - Day trip to Manly Beach

. Or maybe my mom would wear it? She's a proud gay mom, but I'm not sure if she'd feel that comfortable wearing a shirt like that.

If only someone had shown me that shirt when I was in high school... or if only someone had just sat me down and told me everything was going to be okay... that everyone would love me still, in fact they'd love me more and understand me more and appreciate me more - if only someone could have told me all that long ago I think I would have far fewer hangups. But I guess we're all running on our own schedules, and for some reason I didn't feel comfortable to confront it all even in my own head until age 21. Amazing how powerful the mind is like that. But I won't complain - I'm one of the lucky ones. My "mum" and dad have loved me more ever since I've told them, instead of disowning me or refusing to pay for my college tuition like my two former boyfriends. "I'm gay - hope it's okay - love me - that's all." It's perfect. That's all you need to say... and, for me, at least, everything turned out very okay.