The Glorified Gypsy
The travel writings of a vagabundo
With misty-eyed misguided sentiment perhaps clouding our judgment, we downed our pints and ambled from the leafy civilised back streets of Woollahra to the concrete wind tunnel of the Junkyard, buoyed by the delights of summer. And let me tell you, the Tea Gardens did not disappoint.
Read MoreOne issue with the annual jelly wrestling competition…just try sourcing industrial quantities of KY Jelly during Mardi Gras. Seriously, it’s impossible. With typical foresight, however, I realised the consistency of hand sanitiser was exactly the same as KY Jelly, and so I spent most of February buying up all the local stock from chemists, supermarkets and old people homes in the Sydney area. Lucky I did because Australia was about to panic buy everything, including hand sanitiser.
Read MoreAs a die-hard backpacker, half the weight of my rucksack is already made up of Maggi noodles anyway, so I’m sympathetic, to an extent, about people prepping for hard times. The threat of coronavirus, however, has caused locals to buy up all the pasta, pasta sauces, rice, and toilet paper in a 10 kilometre radius. Who’d have thought people from Sydney’s eastern suburbs could be so self-absorbed and thoughtless.
Read MoreAs they’re fond of saying in Latin America, mi casa es tu casa; and that’s very much the philosophy of The Galah. (Though not legally mine, when you’ve resided in any hostel for as long as I have it’s only natural that I think of it as mine). It’s your home away from home. Naturally, mi casa es tu casa is more something one says, rather than fact and most people tend to accept that; even so, some habits are best kept to the privacy of the shower cubicle or undercover of darkness once “lights are out” in the dormitory. Pablo will eventually learn this.
Read MoreWhen I eventually did leave Pablo’s I was left with that nagging feeling of wanting to repay him. As I munched away on a ¾ Corralisima Todotorreno burger and studied Pablo’s miserably gaunt face and his bony fingers as he ran them around the greasy inside of the empty carton of small fries to extract as much nutrition as he could, it dawned on me: If I couldn’t pay it back to him, what was to stop me paying it onwards to someone else?
Read MoreNow that Winter has wrapped its moderately cold fist around our necks, the question most backpackers have is do they stick or twist? In other words, do they stay in Bondi and see the winter out like a trooper, or should they head north to warmer climes, like a Janus-faced friend who disappears when times are tough.
Read MoreI immediately drew attention to her intolerance by highlighting the hypocrisy of her views. If she was at a local fair and a kindly fireman invited her son to erect his ladder or unfurl his hose, I’m sure she wouldn’t only let him, but encourage him too.
Read MoreMy first great act as a backpacker, then, was to hold on to the idea for next year, when I was to create the now popular tradition of dressing as Santa Clause and getting battered on Bondi Beach.
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