Nice and Sunny Here
For most of the last month I've been caught in a hostel groundhog day. I moved from the Firetrap out to the Jericho Beach hostel, which used to be a barracks and still feels like one. So after 3 days I moved back downtown and to the Hostelling International Central hostel. This place is the best hostel I've ever been in. Swipe cards for the dorms, nice big lockers, individual "washrooms", helpful staff and a great little common room full of good sofas.
My roommates for most of my three week stay were Wayne and James. Wayne is from Rutherglen Vic and is as Aussie as you'd imagine a bloke called Wayne from Rutherglen Vic would be. James is a 21 year old from Toronto who worked as a bouncer and is 6' 7", 130kg. We called James "Chewy" because "James" didn't suit him and he was about as big as Star Wars's Chewbacker - who he could do a mean impression of. The first time I met Chewy was when he walked into the room after work (at 4am), said "f*cking Aussies" and went to bed.
Anyway, a typical day at the hostel would go like this - get up about midday, have breakfast, read a book until about 4pm when people would congregate in the common room before grabbing takeaway beer from the bar downstairs to bring back up. New people would be welcomed and we'd have a drink for those departing. Sometimes we'd play drinking games, usually settling for "roadrunner" which is a version of "wiz bang boing" - if you follow. After a while we'd go to the local bar (always crappy) with the cheapest drinks on offer that night. We'd flail around the dancefloor for a while before stumbling home, searching for Wayne on the way. Then it's a matter of falling up several flights of stairs to bed.
The biggest nights occurred when there were quite a few young Kiwis and Aussies about. Kiwi blokes are always named Cameron or Damien for some reason (hi Damo) - although one of them insisted that Kiwis are sometimes called Steven. Whatever. One night one of the Kiwis, Cameron (Damien?), decided to show the various representatives of non-Rugby playing nations what a haka is. He did this on the common room table and as loudly as possible. Now, the table withstood the continual stomping admirably but failed to withstand the big jump at the end. It snapped in half and sent the Kiwi flying. While lying on his back he said, "who told me to do it on the table?".
I spent a view nights at the forgettable Cambie Seymour hostel before thankfully getting out of downtown (and hostels) and moving into a basement room in West Point Grey on Tuesday. The houses along the street are amazing, classic Canadian homes from the 1930s made of wood and with beautiful gardens (apart from our house which was slapped together by drunks over a couple of days in the 70's I believe). Being Vancouver, no one waters their yard but the lawns are lush anyway - the opposite to Canberra I suppose.
My basement suite (henceforth known as the basement sweeet) is really cool (in both senses of the word). The sweeet has three ground level windows that look out into either the back garden or onto the ferns running alongside the neighbouring house. I have my own bathroom and more space than I'll be able to fill for a while.
My housemates are (a different) James, who is a chemisty PhD student rarely seen during the week, and Lindsey, a nanny (as well as a social work student) who once worked behind a bar in a northern WA mining town (but she assures me she wasn't a "skimpy"). Lindsey is subletting from Nicola who has gone to Montana to analyse caribou dung. Nicola is doing a master's in wildlife. Apparently she flew by helicopter up into the BC mountains to collect dung and then packed it in ice for the trip to Montana. Cool sh*t.
James went to school with NBA MVP Steve Nash in Victoria (which I, perhaps alone, think is pretty cool). I went to the local driving range with him (James not Steve) and his mate Matt on Friday. The University Golf Course is amazing and the driving range beautiful. Matt hit the balls nice and straight and about 200 yards each time. James had a bit of trouble using his vintage woods and drove a golf ball much like I did. I hit a couple of 150 yarders but, taking into account the slice, I reckon the balls travelled about 200 yards in total. The guy next to us kept belting the ball into the net at the back of the range (300+ yards). I made a crack about how it must be the clubs (which he wasn't supposed to hear) so he switched to an iron and continued to hit the balls past the 300 yard mark. B*stard. Afterwards we went up to the clubhouse, which, despite being a public course, was as impressive as the country clubs you see in the movies. Drinking beer looking over a lush course was grand. 300 yard guy gave me a smug look on the way out and I was this close to making him my first glassing of my time in Canada.
My roommates for most of my three week stay were Wayne and James. Wayne is from Rutherglen Vic and is as Aussie as you'd imagine a bloke called Wayne from Rutherglen Vic would be. James is a 21 year old from Toronto who worked as a bouncer and is 6' 7", 130kg. We called James "Chewy" because "James" didn't suit him and he was about as big as Star Wars's Chewbacker - who he could do a mean impression of. The first time I met Chewy was when he walked into the room after work (at 4am), said "f*cking Aussies" and went to bed.
Anyway, a typical day at the hostel would go like this - get up about midday, have breakfast, read a book until about 4pm when people would congregate in the common room before grabbing takeaway beer from the bar downstairs to bring back up. New people would be welcomed and we'd have a drink for those departing. Sometimes we'd play drinking games, usually settling for "roadrunner" which is a version of "wiz bang boing" - if you follow. After a while we'd go to the local bar (always crappy) with the cheapest drinks on offer that night. We'd flail around the dancefloor for a while before stumbling home, searching for Wayne on the way. Then it's a matter of falling up several flights of stairs to bed.
The biggest nights occurred when there were quite a few young Kiwis and Aussies about. Kiwi blokes are always named Cameron or Damien for some reason (hi Damo) - although one of them insisted that Kiwis are sometimes called Steven. Whatever. One night one of the Kiwis, Cameron (Damien?), decided to show the various representatives of non-Rugby playing nations what a haka is. He did this on the common room table and as loudly as possible. Now, the table withstood the continual stomping admirably but failed to withstand the big jump at the end. It snapped in half and sent the Kiwi flying. While lying on his back he said, "who told me to do it on the table?".
I spent a view nights at the forgettable Cambie Seymour hostel before thankfully getting out of downtown (and hostels) and moving into a basement room in West Point Grey on Tuesday. The houses along the street are amazing, classic Canadian homes from the 1930s made of wood and with beautiful gardens (apart from our house which was slapped together by drunks over a couple of days in the 70's I believe). Being Vancouver, no one waters their yard but the lawns are lush anyway - the opposite to Canberra I suppose.
My basement suite (henceforth known as the basement sweeet) is really cool (in both senses of the word). The sweeet has three ground level windows that look out into either the back garden or onto the ferns running alongside the neighbouring house. I have my own bathroom and more space than I'll be able to fill for a while.
My housemates are (a different) James, who is a chemisty PhD student rarely seen during the week, and Lindsey, a nanny (as well as a social work student) who once worked behind a bar in a northern WA mining town (but she assures me she wasn't a "skimpy"). Lindsey is subletting from Nicola who has gone to Montana to analyse caribou dung. Nicola is doing a master's in wildlife. Apparently she flew by helicopter up into the BC mountains to collect dung and then packed it in ice for the trip to Montana. Cool sh*t.
James went to school with NBA MVP Steve Nash in Victoria (which I, perhaps alone, think is pretty cool). I went to the local driving range with him (James not Steve) and his mate Matt on Friday. The University Golf Course is amazing and the driving range beautiful. Matt hit the balls nice and straight and about 200 yards each time. James had a bit of trouble using his vintage woods and drove a golf ball much like I did. I hit a couple of 150 yarders but, taking into account the slice, I reckon the balls travelled about 200 yards in total. The guy next to us kept belting the ball into the net at the back of the range (300+ yards). I made a crack about how it must be the clubs (which he wasn't supposed to hear) so he switched to an iron and continued to hit the balls past the 300 yard mark. B*stard. Afterwards we went up to the clubhouse, which, despite being a public course, was as impressive as the country clubs you see in the movies. Drinking beer looking over a lush course was grand. 300 yard guy gave me a smug look on the way out and I was this close to making him my first glassing of my time in Canada.
posted by woden pete @ 12:49 PM
0 Comments
