So I arrived in Sydney, Australia, last Wednesday after almost 36 hours of travel. I left Toronto at about noon on Monday afternoon and caught a WestJet flight to Vancouver. On my flight there were several members of the B.C. Lions football team who had just defeated Hamilton in a playoff game the day before. I’m not sure if this really counts as a celebrity sighting, seeing as how I could not name any one of them and most guys on the team work another job in the offseason. Ironically, that morning my sister who works at the airport had checked in the majority of the team and complained that they were acting like asses on the plane and not sitting in their assigned seats. So even if they aren’t legit celebs, at least they know how to act like it! That night, I had about a 10 hour layover in Vancouver before my flight to Sydney. Unfortunately for me, the airport had free wireless internet and I lost over $500 playing online poker while waiting for the mothership to carry me off to space, err Australia.
My 15 hour flight to Sydney was pretty uneventful, consisting of lots of TV watching, very frequent urination (why, I don’t know) and a bit of sleeping. Upon landing on what was now Wednesday morning, I took the airport shuttle to my hostel (The Original Backpackers [7/10]) and grabbed a quick nap, although this proved difficult to do as my body was not used to the 16 hour time difference and the fact that it was +35°C. And to think that it’s only spring here! After my quick little siesta, I headed out into the city for a quick stroll around and then decided that I needed to go the casino. On my way to the casino I walked past a guy who I could’ve sworn was a former pro wrestler from the tag-team the Nasty Boys. After arrival at the very nice Star City Casino, I made my way to the poker room and deposited a couple of hundred dollars into the local economy. Note to any poker players going to Sydney: the rake is atrocious and for the most part the players, myself included are not very good. Upon my return to the hostel, I logged on to my computer and the main article on Yahoo! Australia was how Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair had gotten into a scrap at the Casino that day while promoting an upcoming event. In the picture, Hogan was being led away from the stage by the guy from the Nasty Boys I had seen earlier in the day. Super celebrity spotter Brent in full effect! That night I drank my sorrows away with a couple of dudes from Ireland and Germany and vowed to not visit a casino for a very long time, or until I get to Melbourne, whatever comes first!
Thursday morning, I had to get up bright and early to catch a ride to the airport to meet my girlfriend, Leeanna, who was coming in from Auckland, by way of Los Angeles, by way of Calgary, by way of Toronto! Somehow in the chaos that is that airport I managed to find her and corralled her back to the hostel. After we got settled in our room, we took a stroll around much of central Sydney and spent part of the afternoon around Darling Harbour trying to determine if there were more Asian or British people in this country. Either way, Australia is very much like Canada in regards to the fact that it has a massive immigrant population. Ironically, that afternoon after I had told Leeanna about my D-list celebrity sighting the day before, we walked right by the guy from the Nasty Boys along with Jimmy Hart and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. Talk about scoring the ultimate early 90’s wrestling jackpot! That night we took it pretty easy and just chilled in the hostel courtyard with some cold beverages and chatted up these two broads from Germany who I’m almost 100% certain were the biggest lesbians this side of the Indian Ocean. And no fellas, they were not the adult film kind of lesbians, more like the schnitzel-eating kind with hairy armpits (No, I did not inspect).
Friday consisted of our visit to the world-famous Sydney Opera House. We walked there through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which is a fantastic green space right in the heart of the city. The craziest thing about the gardens was the fact that there approximately 25,000 bats living there, which could be seen everywhere in the trees. And these weren’t your standard run of the mill bats, but rather Flying Foxes which more closely resembled baby elephants in size! Needless to say the bats are killing all the trees in the park, and the government is working on a massive relocation project for the bats. The Opera House and Sydney Harbour were as expected, although one unique thing was that they had the stage set-up for Australian Idol outside the Opera House. We watched the recitals for a while, as they were preparing for the grand finale this weekend, although sadly Ben Mulroney was nowhere to be seen. Leeanna and I also checked out The Rocks, which was the first part of Sydney to be settled by the Europeans in the late 1700’s. That night, our hostel had a BBQ which was delicious and we ended up hanging out with the German Muff-Diving Team again over post-dinner drinks. That night we found a cockroach in our room that Leeanna killed on the wall and a couple more came scurrying out of the common bathroom. I was able to get one of them, but his mate scurried into someone’s room. Welcome to Australia!
Saturday was when the Brent of old came creeping back in. That day was our first official day of really not doing much of anything, which is sometimes a good thing. We took a leisurely stroll around the city during the day and just chilled with the wide assortment of Irish, German, Israeli, Canadian, Scottish, American, and everyone else under the sun that night. Early in the evening, I decided that Leeanna and I needed to get rid of all our booze as we would be leaving Sydney the next morning. We had almost a full box of goon (Australian slang for a 4L box of wine) and 12 beers. Add into the mix a few x-factors (some whiskey, it was a Saturday night/party night, McDonalds) and you arrive at the end of the night which consisted of me and another guy ditching Leeanna in a McDonalds for no good reason (I was blacked out at this point). Apparently my very pissed off girlfriend found me trying to get into the hostel a short time later, but I was too wasted to know how to use this new technology they call a “key”. In conclusion, I went to the room and puked up my McChicken combo and Leeanna got all drunk-emotional and called her Mom on the other side of the world and told her I had food poisoning and was throwing up everywhere…So that’s what they call it now, eh?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009- Vegas, Chicago, and Cubs, Oh My!
So where to begin? Well first off all let me just say that I am back and my cheeseball writing will be in full effect. If you don’t like, you can go and read a novel about vampire lovin’ (or if you’re me just go and watch the movies instead. Respect to Edward Cullen, just sayin’). Now to get back on track…
I am currently writing from Sydney, Australia surrounded by beautiful oceans and koala bears galore. And by oceans and bears I of course mean German tourists and people who have a bad habit of saying “cheers” so often you would think Ted Danson was the unofficial Prime Minister of the country.
Anyways, quick back story before I go on. For the last two-and-a-half years I have documented most of my travels that take me both far and not so far (my general rule is more than five hours driving constitutes a worthy vacation blog). So I have generally spared people reading about my escapades in locales such as Niagara Falls, upstate New York, and the ever exotic Toronto! On that note though, I did get a little bit lazy and failed to write anything from my last two trips. So before I start typing in Australian (slight variation of English), you will be forced to read about some of the other shit I did, but was just too lazy to type this summer. So, in brief…
Back in July, LappDance and I went on my second trip of the year to lovely Las Vegas to catch UFC 100 and the UFC Fan Expo. All in all nothing too crazy happened by Vegas standards. Lapp kept getting hit on by women that were all hookers, but it usually took him the better part of an hour to figure this out, but such is life when you’re looking for love in the Hooters Hotel and Casino. On the gambling front, I clocked a nice win of close to a thousand dollars the first afternoon playing poker at Bellagio, but by the end of the weekend had given most of it back through poor decisions, usually involving lots of booze. As far as UFC was concerned, well anyone who watched the event can tell you it was awesome (see: best ever!). Lesnar and GSP both kicked ass, so my life was relatively complete. After the event on the Saturday night, I immediately waited for Ryan to fall asleep (we had a tough one the night before getting killed by everyone and their brother at the beer pong tables at Excalibur) and then promptly went over to MGM Grand to play some poker. I stayed awake all night thanks to various Red Bull concoctions and went to the airport the next morning drunk as a skunk and wired off my face. And as if the doctor told me last week I drink too much and it causes liver damage. What an uneducated idiot!
In August, my girlfriend, another couple and I went to Chicago for five nights of pure tourist attractions. I can’t really remember what happened and what we did and when, so I will just list random things and give them a ranking on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being totally crap, like the kind of thing you do with someone you don’t want to ever talk to you again; and a 10 being super awesome, almost akin to the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. Far-fetched, yes, but not totally unattainable, just unattainable anytime soon. So in no particular order:
1) Eat a deep dish pizza (6/10). Tons of places all over the city to do this and it really is an almost uniquely Chicago experience. Only problem is the famous places are all packed, and all the cheese on the pizza gave me exploding diarrhea.
2) Tour of Wrigley Field (7/10). The Cubs weren’t in town that weekend, so we had to settle for the tour. A great stadium with a lot of history (I still liked Fenway more), but it was a bit pricey and I just don’t like National League baseball teams.
3) White Sox vs. Yankees at U.S. Cellular Field (8/10). Great newer stadium with a good atmosphere, something that has been lacking in Toronto for the last 15 years. The fact that the peanuts were delicious and I was able to purchase a foam White Sox finger made it all the more enjoyable.
4) Architecture Cruise (7/10). One of the things that everyone who goes to Chicago inevitably does is take a cruise through the rivers that run through the city on one of the many tour operators. Very interesting and full of great sights to see, but it was a bit repetitive and any boat without a pirate show and/or burlesque act must by law receive no higher than a 7/10 on the Brentski® ranking scheme.
5) Lincoln Park Zoo (5/10). This place was way out of the way and well it does get props for having free admission, it was far from a world-class zoo. Leeanna was less than impressed with me that day, as I recall I made her walk over 14km that day, mostly to and from the zoo. Oh, and then I made her walk the ENTIRE zoo circuit and see every single animal, obscure mountain goats and all.
6) Get harassed by homeless men (9.5/10). By far the most memorable part of the trip was some of the funny encounters we had with homeless people. One guy summed up best when he chased me and Leeanna down a side street late at night and said “Yo, slow down! Why do all white people think we’re going to murder them!?” Needless to say I was quite frightened, but keeping true to my spirit I did not give him cash, but did cave a little bit and gave him a can of beer. Another favourite move of the homeless folks of Chicago is to play the role of the “homeless black war hero”. Sure seems to be a lot of vets living on Michigan Avenue. Now, if they actually are all vets, I deserve to rot in hell.
7) Buy $5 bottles of wine from 7-Eleven and drink in the hotel room. (8.5/10). I mean who doesn’t love doing this on vacation? Cheap wine and TBS movies = Jackpot!!!
Now, enough living in the past, up next Australia bitches!
I am currently writing from Sydney, Australia surrounded by beautiful oceans and koala bears galore. And by oceans and bears I of course mean German tourists and people who have a bad habit of saying “cheers” so often you would think Ted Danson was the unofficial Prime Minister of the country.
Anyways, quick back story before I go on. For the last two-and-a-half years I have documented most of my travels that take me both far and not so far (my general rule is more than five hours driving constitutes a worthy vacation blog). So I have generally spared people reading about my escapades in locales such as Niagara Falls, upstate New York, and the ever exotic Toronto! On that note though, I did get a little bit lazy and failed to write anything from my last two trips. So before I start typing in Australian (slight variation of English), you will be forced to read about some of the other shit I did, but was just too lazy to type this summer. So, in brief…
Back in July, LappDance and I went on my second trip of the year to lovely Las Vegas to catch UFC 100 and the UFC Fan Expo. All in all nothing too crazy happened by Vegas standards. Lapp kept getting hit on by women that were all hookers, but it usually took him the better part of an hour to figure this out, but such is life when you’re looking for love in the Hooters Hotel and Casino. On the gambling front, I clocked a nice win of close to a thousand dollars the first afternoon playing poker at Bellagio, but by the end of the weekend had given most of it back through poor decisions, usually involving lots of booze. As far as UFC was concerned, well anyone who watched the event can tell you it was awesome (see: best ever!). Lesnar and GSP both kicked ass, so my life was relatively complete. After the event on the Saturday night, I immediately waited for Ryan to fall asleep (we had a tough one the night before getting killed by everyone and their brother at the beer pong tables at Excalibur) and then promptly went over to MGM Grand to play some poker. I stayed awake all night thanks to various Red Bull concoctions and went to the airport the next morning drunk as a skunk and wired off my face. And as if the doctor told me last week I drink too much and it causes liver damage. What an uneducated idiot!
In August, my girlfriend, another couple and I went to Chicago for five nights of pure tourist attractions. I can’t really remember what happened and what we did and when, so I will just list random things and give them a ranking on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being totally crap, like the kind of thing you do with someone you don’t want to ever talk to you again; and a 10 being super awesome, almost akin to the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. Far-fetched, yes, but not totally unattainable, just unattainable anytime soon. So in no particular order:
1) Eat a deep dish pizza (6/10). Tons of places all over the city to do this and it really is an almost uniquely Chicago experience. Only problem is the famous places are all packed, and all the cheese on the pizza gave me exploding diarrhea.
2) Tour of Wrigley Field (7/10). The Cubs weren’t in town that weekend, so we had to settle for the tour. A great stadium with a lot of history (I still liked Fenway more), but it was a bit pricey and I just don’t like National League baseball teams.
3) White Sox vs. Yankees at U.S. Cellular Field (8/10). Great newer stadium with a good atmosphere, something that has been lacking in Toronto for the last 15 years. The fact that the peanuts were delicious and I was able to purchase a foam White Sox finger made it all the more enjoyable.
4) Architecture Cruise (7/10). One of the things that everyone who goes to Chicago inevitably does is take a cruise through the rivers that run through the city on one of the many tour operators. Very interesting and full of great sights to see, but it was a bit repetitive and any boat without a pirate show and/or burlesque act must by law receive no higher than a 7/10 on the Brentski® ranking scheme.
5) Lincoln Park Zoo (5/10). This place was way out of the way and well it does get props for having free admission, it was far from a world-class zoo. Leeanna was less than impressed with me that day, as I recall I made her walk over 14km that day, mostly to and from the zoo. Oh, and then I made her walk the ENTIRE zoo circuit and see every single animal, obscure mountain goats and all.
6) Get harassed by homeless men (9.5/10). By far the most memorable part of the trip was some of the funny encounters we had with homeless people. One guy summed up best when he chased me and Leeanna down a side street late at night and said “Yo, slow down! Why do all white people think we’re going to murder them!?” Needless to say I was quite frightened, but keeping true to my spirit I did not give him cash, but did cave a little bit and gave him a can of beer. Another favourite move of the homeless folks of Chicago is to play the role of the “homeless black war hero”. Sure seems to be a lot of vets living on Michigan Avenue. Now, if they actually are all vets, I deserve to rot in hell.
7) Buy $5 bottles of wine from 7-Eleven and drink in the hotel room. (8.5/10). I mean who doesn’t love doing this on vacation? Cheap wine and TBS movies = Jackpot!!!
Now, enough living in the past, up next Australia bitches!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Chapter 1- If You Were 1/16th Native You'd Understand!
This strange little planet we call Earth that we all inhabit is full of peculiar people full of different ideas and opinions. We also tend to have ‘rites of passage’ if you will, that we all seem ready and eager to conform to. Inherently these tend to be either motivated or set into motion by our race or religious background. There are many cases of this in North American society, for example, for a young Jewish person it might be their Bar or Bat Mitzvah; for a young North American Italian it may be the first time they are introduced formally to a relative who is associated with organized crime; a young African-American might feel like a man the first time he slam dunks over top of the rich white kids from the suburban prep school; and for a Portuguese teen, it may be that first day on the construction job where he will work for the rest of his life.
Myself on the other hand, well I was born a pretty much normal, boring suburban white kid. Therefore, I have only one rite of passage, and it involves drinking copious amounts of booze and ending up in a police car. My background is such that I cannot trace my roots back on either side of my family outside of the great country of Canada. Now, I know what you are thinking, “That’s impossible”! Well let me tell you that you are in fact wrong Bruce (I have a thing about calling people generic names like Bruce, Doug, and Dikembe. And for this I apologize). As great is sounds, the whole being one hundred and ten percent Canadian is not all it’s cracked up to be. I mean I have never in my life been able to cheer for a country in the World Cup of Soccer. Do you have any idea how agonizing this is? So my first twenty-five years of life have therefore been spent rooting for whoever was playing against Portugal, Italy, or Brazil. Such is my pathetic life.
Despite this entire lack-of-family lineage, I have discovered a few things over the years. First and foremost I have a French last name, so there is some French in me. According to my grandparents we also have some Native blood in the Moreau clan. Natives are generally associated with a few things in this country: living on reserves, not paying taxes, huffing gas, and generally getting drunk as fuck. Unfortunately for me, I am still forced to pay taxes and am not eligible to live on a reserve. This leaves me only two options, huffing gas and consuming so much alcohol that I piss myself (another story for another time). I’ve never really liked huffing gas all that much, as I found it made me kind of woozy and I kept hallucinating that I was seeing the characters from that PBS show Today’s Special. Mostly it was that mannequin that was supposedly a security guard and that talking rat named Muffy. Really I mean what kind of dignified talking rat puppet would let someone name them Muffy. Anyways, getting back to the point here, I suffer from a problem that many people of the Squaw (I think this is a pretty racist Indian word, not too sure on that one) background suffer from. What is this you ask? Well to put it bluntly, I get so retardedly drunk that the stupidest shit imaginable happens to me.
So there you have it. I’m a putz. Admittedly, people have used harsher words to describe me, but we’re going to stick with that one. It just sounds so smooth coming out of the mouth, putz... putz... putz...putz...putz!
This is just the beginning though, as ahead I will attempt to rehash some of the more ridiculous moments that have occurred in my life over the last seven years or so.
Myself on the other hand, well I was born a pretty much normal, boring suburban white kid. Therefore, I have only one rite of passage, and it involves drinking copious amounts of booze and ending up in a police car. My background is such that I cannot trace my roots back on either side of my family outside of the great country of Canada. Now, I know what you are thinking, “That’s impossible”! Well let me tell you that you are in fact wrong Bruce (I have a thing about calling people generic names like Bruce, Doug, and Dikembe. And for this I apologize). As great is sounds, the whole being one hundred and ten percent Canadian is not all it’s cracked up to be. I mean I have never in my life been able to cheer for a country in the World Cup of Soccer. Do you have any idea how agonizing this is? So my first twenty-five years of life have therefore been spent rooting for whoever was playing against Portugal, Italy, or Brazil. Such is my pathetic life.
Despite this entire lack-of-family lineage, I have discovered a few things over the years. First and foremost I have a French last name, so there is some French in me. According to my grandparents we also have some Native blood in the Moreau clan. Natives are generally associated with a few things in this country: living on reserves, not paying taxes, huffing gas, and generally getting drunk as fuck. Unfortunately for me, I am still forced to pay taxes and am not eligible to live on a reserve. This leaves me only two options, huffing gas and consuming so much alcohol that I piss myself (another story for another time). I’ve never really liked huffing gas all that much, as I found it made me kind of woozy and I kept hallucinating that I was seeing the characters from that PBS show Today’s Special. Mostly it was that mannequin that was supposedly a security guard and that talking rat named Muffy. Really I mean what kind of dignified talking rat puppet would let someone name them Muffy. Anyways, getting back to the point here, I suffer from a problem that many people of the Squaw (I think this is a pretty racist Indian word, not too sure on that one) background suffer from. What is this you ask? Well to put it bluntly, I get so retardedly drunk that the stupidest shit imaginable happens to me.
So there you have it. I’m a putz. Admittedly, people have used harsher words to describe me, but we’re going to stick with that one. It just sounds so smooth coming out of the mouth, putz... putz... putz...putz...putz!
This is just the beginning though, as ahead I will attempt to rehash some of the more ridiculous moments that have occurred in my life over the last seven years or so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
