Epic Night

2/9/10
My journal got soaked today. It was on the outer perimeter of the Tee-Pee when it started to dump rain on us. I had forgotten that Catlin had lifted the rain-fly around the edge of the tp up so that we could get more airflow, and about 20 minutes into the downpour I realized that my journal, three pairs of shorts, and a couple tee-shirts got completely soaked.

I moved the wet clothes into areas where they could drip dry and I took my towel to the pages of my journal. Fortunately all the pages where I had used water-soluble ink had already been recorded on my computer.

Last night was ridiculous.

For serious.

I was planning on having mmmmm maybe two beers. 1/2 of a pitcher and then call it a night. We went to this place called cheeky monkey’s (8 dollars pitchers, best deal so far in Australia) and I bought a pitcher for me and Anna to share. Then, Kat discovered the margaritas. They came out of a slushie machine and they were 5 dollars. And they tasted great. And they had a lot of Tequila in them. And so the night began.

Cheeky monkeys was a pub/restaurant that had a two-level stage at the end of it. There were a number of booths around the side, and then three long cafeteria-style tables up front—with the stage in front of that.

We sat at one of the metal tables (the place was packed) and ate our 7 dollar meals—amazing bargains again (Anna and I split a giant bowl of fries w/ chicken tenders on top). We got intoxicated to a minor degree and laughed ourselves silly at the contests and events that occurred on the stage.

The first one involved three sets of two partners, one male one female. All of the males were given a small length of plastic hose, with a balloon attached to one end. They were instructed to place it inbetween their legs, while the female partners got to their knees. The first female to “make her man pop” (meaning to explode the balloon behind their partner) won a free surf lesson. The woman who won did it in about 30 seconds. The other two women had their balloons about 1/3 full.

The next contest was the fake orgasm contest. There were three males and three females. The girls sucked. A lot of screaming. One of the males was boring and not too into it. The first and last males were amazing.

The first one who, mind you, did not want to be selected for the challenge at all, took it to the limit. His charade involved gesticulations of the arms, legs, pelvis, and feet. His voice was evenly tempered and his chosen words were comedic, yet oddly inspiring.

The last male, Jackson, (out group had made friends with him earlier) should have won. His orgasm went something along the lines of:

“Oh yeah baby I’m gonna, wait— hold on just a second—don’t move, I’m gonna. Crap. Hold it. Just stay. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. Fuck. Sorry. That doesn’t normally— Do you want me too—ok yeah I know where the door is…”

Brilliant.

What was even funnier was the group of males next to our group who felt a big enough connection to Jackson to yell out “HEY! YEAH! GO DUDE!! THAT”S ME RIGHT THERE!”

Priceless.

The second to last competition was a scavenger hunt. This was not announced. They just asked for 3 males and 3 females to get to the stage. They had been announcing that there would be a dance competition in a bit, but they had been asking people to sign up. I was pretty sure that this was not the dance comp, but I wasn’t entirely sure. They needed another male. What was I going to do but volunteer?

It was pretty fun. We had to get flyers from around the bar, an empty glass, a straw, a condom to put over our hands—y’know, the basic drill. The last person back each time got eliminated. On my way down for a….straw? maybe? I dunno. On my way down from the stage for something I took the rim of a glass to the head (just above my right eye). I didn’t notice it until afterward, but it swelled up and I got a nice clean cut, about 1.5 cm long on the outside of right eye socket. I was actually kind of proud of it the next day, as Robin commented that is was “more than a little BA” (That’s ‘bad ass’ for all you old people).

The last contest of the night was a dance competition. The first round had 8 people. They danced to three or four different types of music, then four were eliminated. Same deal for the second round, and two got knocked off.

For the final round, the two finalists had to choose a partner from the audience. That partner became their stripping pole, and they had to strip for the win. The gentleman competitor was quite agile, and performed some incredible moves. He got down to his boxer briefs, and made his “pole” cry with laugher.

The female competitor, well, what happens at the cheeky monkey stays at the cheeky monkey.

They used a decibel meter to decide the winners for each round, and we had to cheer three times in order to determine a winner for the final round. The male won (50 bucks cash and a $50 bar tab) by .7 decibels (116.5 to 114.8).

Then they started the music and the LC crew did what it does best. We started a dance party. We rushed the stage and danced it out til 2 in the morning. It was a great night.

(photos to come)

Photo's pre-Epic Night

There are photos from before the epic night. I will place them here once I get to an internet Cafe and can upload photos. My internet@ my homestay is too slow.

Posts

I know I know. I have not been in contact with anyone for two weeks. I have many posts to type up and a few to write. I want to upload pictures but the internet at my host family is even slower than Arundel. I think I will have to find an internet cafe downtown somewhere so #1 I can upload stuff and still maintain some level of sanity, and #2 so that I don't slow their connection speed down to slower than it is already. More to come soon.

Mom, Dad, I miss you and I will skype you soon.

Love,
-Chris

Bus to Byron

2/8/10

Made it to Byron. Currently sitting in a hammock chair after a refreshing afternoon swim and bask in the sun. We are staying at the Arts Factory Lodge and it is quite an interesting place as it is very hippie-centric (what with the murals of mother nature and tee-pee's and dreadlocked people about) but it is also quite yuppie as Byron is a complete surfer/tourist town. The "tee-pee" we are staying in has wood floors and beds and an electrical outlet. Also, next to our tee-pee is a platform for spiritual healing, including massage, sound, and aroma therapy. Only 80 bucks an hour. Or one could venture over to the "didge pit" and make your own didgeridoo for 165 dollars.

There are a great number of nationalities here and its pretty cool. A lot of people from france/germany/england and western europe, but Russia, the low countries, and eastern europe have made a decent showing too (as well as one or two Israelis). Oh and you shouldn't forget the Canadians. But everyone does anyways. It's good to know that they are still the butt of everyone's jokes even outside the U.S.

A few of us didn't want to bother walking across cap to change after swimming today, and seeing as how we've all seen each other essentially naked by this point (Kangaroo strips and aucre don't leave much to the imagination) we kind of just minded our own business while drying off and changing. What hippies.

We, (meaning Jack, Lauren and myself) had a hell of a time getting here. We checked into the bus terminal @ 5:30 (about an hour early and went across the street for a monterous burger and a couple brews. We got on the bus an hour later and it was almost completely empty. We moved so that each of us could have two seats to ourselves. The first movie that played was sleepless in seattle. I had never seen it and it was a total chick flick but I'll admit, it kind of got to me. It was about home, and family, and lovers: all things I miss very much right now--oh and there was some sarcastic little kid that climbed on shit, which was my real connection to it.

THEN at 10pm we picked up more passengers. At 11 the turned off the tv's and the lights and let everyone try and get some sleep. I then heard a laugh. A high-pitched, wheezy, smoker laugh that carried over the engine and road and even the fat guy snoring three rows ahead of me. It was the kind of laugh I associate with drunk sorority girls and over-privileged southern-Californian royalty. This woman kept laughing her wheezy girlie laugh, almost like cuddly machine gun fire, and walking up and down and up and fucking down the bus.

Because there were empty seats behind me, she came back and started running her mouth off. The most favorable description I can giver her is that of a loud, obnoxious, giggling, c*nt. The other descriptions involve terms and phrases that I learned during my freshman year on the baseball team, and they are not repeatable here by any means.

Around 1:45 I was about to politely ask her to shut the fuck up, when she started talking about her boyfriend and certain aspects of her social life, and drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs--oh, and I almost forgot: drugs.

She couldn't stop talking about her experiences with them and her access to them and then I realized the reason that she hadn't shut her crass mouth for longer than 20 seconds in the past three hours was because she was definitely on something, either cocaine or ICE (that's what they call speed here).

From 2-4:30 she just let her mouth run off and when the two guys admiring her belly shirt/sexual aura weren't responding to her comments she talked to herself, sometimes posing hte question "Isn't it only crazy people that talk to themselves?"

"YES" went my brain

"fucking tweakers" went mouth and lips (under my breath of course)

A highlight was when she was in the bathroom shouting:

"HOW DO I FLUSH THIS THING!? FLUSH DAMNIT! FLUSH FLUSH FLUSH!"

Anyways. She crashed around 4:30 so I slept from 5-8 and and Arrived in Byron @ 8:30. We got some breakfast hung out at the beach and met up with Catlin, Kat, and Anna, got our tee-pee and started kickin back.

There are lizards all over this place and they are the least bashful animals I have seen in my life...apart from maybe Oscar. They will not move unless you flail one of your own appendages at them, and even then its only a few inches. There are also a lot of wild turkeys around here. I'll try and get some photos of them.

There had to be one before I left

This guy was on my ceiling when I woke up this morning. Needless to say i got out of bed quick. I'm heading off to Byron Bay just south of Brisbane tonight, and I'm not sure when I will have internet again, but I will try and get as much written as possible while I am basking in the sun at the beach!

Last Week

I can't begin to describe last week. I've slept 16 out of the past 24 hours. My mind and body are still reeling from it. I will try and put up some bullet-point outline of Aboriginal Camp up in the next few days, but if you want to know about it, you'll have to skype me or call me sometime. Off to do research.

-Chris

Pizza and Beer

1/30/09

Went out for "Pizza and Beer Night" last night. This genius idea was spawned by Kat Morrison weeks ago, but it always seemed to get put off. Seeing as how we are leaving for aboriginal camp today, we decided that there were no excuses for not having our pizza and beer night. We headed down Glebe street (the one next to Arudnel which has a fantastic assortment of restaurants cafes and little shops) to an italian joint that has a motorcycle in the front window. We had gourmet wood-oven baked pizza (Kelsey and I split a lamb and spinach one, best pizza I've ever had...and I've had a lot of pizza). We then headed down to the AB hotel and I bought 5 jugs of beer for everyone, as it was our last night in Sydney, and I'm only spending 262 dollars on travel and lodging expenses for my week of independent travel in two weeks, and our budget for food, lodging, and travel expenses is $650. Throwing down 50 dollars on a group of close friends for three marvelous weeks in Sydney didn't seem like that big of a deal. It made for a good night, followed--for many of us--by a couple hours of slightly intoxicated packing as we prepared to depart for Aboriginal camp. I won't be in contact for the next week, and will only have internet for a few days before I head off for my week of independent travel, but I'll try and update as much as I can. I can't wait for this upcoming week!

The makings of a good night.

The response to this photo:

"Ha! It's a perfect blend of Femininity and Masculinity"

"Well, I mean, it is Chris..."