The room I am staying in consists of fifteen bunk beds packed together in a space roughly the size of my old living room back in Boulder. My mom would probably hyperbolically refer to the room as a refugee camp. I, on the other hand, will euphemistically describe it as cozy and social. The hostel reminds me a bit of a ski bum dorm in a resort town. There are a variety of languages, it is a rarity to find a local Australian, and people are referred to by where they are from: the Finnish girls, the British guy, that weird girl from California who asks too many questions and loses things constantly...etc. Becoming a backpacker in Australia (which really is an identity out here) is akin to joining an international community of nomads, we spend little, need little, and carry our homes on our backs -- kind of like turtles.
Anyway, I got to my hostel --> showered --> decided to explore: My hostel is situated next to a variety of, bars, internet cafes, other hostels, and travel agencies plastered with deals for the low-budget traveler. The Central Business District is only about a ten minute block away. Walking around Brisbane I noticed two major differences from the US: 1. there are no homeless people. 2. It is clean. Other than that, Brisbane reminds me a little bit of parts of San Diego if you subtracted the beach and added a giant public pool in the middle of the cultural center (okay maybe there are three big differences...)
When I returned from exploring, I met some guys back in the hostel. They laughed at my "accent" and then invited me to where ever they were going. We bought this terrible "wine" stuff called Goon. It is the cheapest alcohol you can get out here. They also bought some lemonade to mix with it, which confused me until I later found out that Goon tastes like great fruit juice mixed with rice vinegar. Anyway we met up with some Finnish girls and German guys and we all sipped Goon together and that is how I spent my first night in Australia...not bad.
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