Clearly Canadian

Sydney was as entertaining as ever.

The highlight of the weekend was returning to my old haunt of twelve years ago, the GarryOwen Hotel in Rozelle. Unbelievably, I was reunited with my old mate Yummy, who I last saw on a memorable Friday night in November 1996, when he gave me the most cherished gift of a South Sydney jersey.

It was amazing to see him again and we reminisced about the good old days and had a general catch-up of what we've been doing since.

The GarryOwen itself hasn't changed a jot. It's as if the place had been locked in a time warp, circa 1996, waiting for my return. I don't think it's even had a coat of paint since I was last in there. I think the website that I visited prior to moving over here, showing it looking like an Ikea showroom, was merely a group of projected images of what they intend to do with the place one day. For me, it was great to see it once again, in all it's shabby glory.

The only lowlight of the weekend was getting in such a state on Anzac day that I caused a bit of a kerfuffle in our dormitory on my return, after a full day on the turps.

We were in a four 'person' dorm and when we checked in, our room-mates were out. So, naturally, we had a quick scan of their gear to see what we could ascertain about them. The only items that weren't buried in dirty rucksacks, were a pair of boxer shorts on the top bunk and a map of Australia, written in French, on the bottom bunk. So me and Young Al assumed that our roomies were two French blokes, or hommes as they are so fittingly called in their native tongue.

That was at nine in the a.m. Fifteen hours, one emotional reunion and many, many schooners of VB later, I returned, prepared myself for slumber and crashed out.

I don't know how many hours later but I became aware of someone gently shaking me and speaking to me in a Chinese accent. I don't know how long this went on for, I thought I was dreaming, but eventually I stirred. I also became aware that I was coughing and spluttering like someone close to death. I sat up and looked to my right. There was this Chinese kid holding a bottle of water out to me, saying,

'You want drink water? You cough'.

I also heard frustrated rustlings from elsewhere in the dorm. I slowly realised that I had woken the whole room up with the cough I've had for the last week or so. I accepted the water and drank it.

The Chinese kid climbed back into his bunk and I tried to settle down again but had another coughing fit. I decided I should stretch my legs. Slowly rising from my pit, stretching, scratching and yawning, I scanned the dimly lit room for my jeans which contained my room key and the key to the bathrooms. Barely able to see, I fumbled around for an age before, once again, I heard a Chinese voice.

'You want more water?'

Before I could reply, I heard another voice. Quite a few octaves higher than the last, Canadian or American in origin and nowhere near as friendly.

'Hey man, this is a mixed dorm. I don't need to see your penis!'

Clearly female and clearly unimpressed.

Sure enough, previously unbeknown to me, my bojangles were on full display. In a futile act I used my hands as a temporary shield, found my undercrackers and headed for the door.

The next morning was tricky. My apologies seemed to fall on deaf ears. We left for our day out in Manly.

However, on our return from the beach, our female room-mate had mellowed somewhat. She introduced herself as Veronique, a French Canadian travelling around Australia. She even brought me a packet of cough sweets.

I apologised a few more times and she seemed to see the funny side of things.

My things, probably.