Which Bunk? Sydney Central YHA, Sydney, Australia

It’s been a while between drinks with my hostel reviews hasn’t it? Well no more. I’m back with another Sydney hostel review for you my travelling friends! Sorry they’ve all been Sydney hostels so far – I promise I am going to do reviews on other hostels in other cities too – it’s just that Sydney is the city I visit the most and there are A LOT of backpackers hostels in the emerald city!

Today I’m reviewing Sydney Central YHA. I stayed at this hostel at least ten times now, and while it’s not as good as Sydney Harbour YHA in The Rocks, it’s still got plenty of good things to list about it!

This little hostel gem baby is located a stone’s throw from Central station in the Sydney CBD. As you may recall from my previous review of Railway Square YHA, which is also located a stone’s throw from Central Station but difficult to find and with many stairs to tramp up when you eventually do find it, Sydney Central is a much easier walk and much easier to find I’m pleased to report!

The walk from train station platform to front desk of the hostel will take no more than 10 minutes, if that, and gratefully, there are no stairs and no hills. Rejoice! The hostel is right next to a convenience store and a café, and the endless eating possibilities of Chinatown are just a few more minutes walk away. The Capitol Theatre, recently showing Les Mis, is also nearby. If you really wanted some exercise you could walk from the hostel all the way down busy George Street to the iconic Sydney Harbour in about 20-30 minutes, depending on your pace. And of course, being the convenient cater for everybody city that Sydney is, you are flush with all things you could possibly need during your stay at the YHA – ATM’s, medical centres, gyms, pubs, clubs, supermarkets, parks, shops, cinemas, buses, trains and language schools just to name a few - as they are all only seconds from your grasp when you’re staying at Sydney Central.

When it comes to laying your head down for the night everything from male or female only dorms are available, in four, six and eight bunk set ups. You can also book private and family rooms (though these are often the same price as a 2 or 3 star hotel nearby, and at least with a hotel you would have your own bathroom and tv…just an FYI). Still, that being said, in a hotel you likely wouldn’t have at your disposal two enormous communal kitchens kitted out with everything you could need to cook a five course meal – you don’t even need to bring your own cutlery. It’s all here. So too are walls upon walls of shelves to store your food (complete with a label with your name and check out date to differentiate your cornflakes from someone else’s cornflakes). There’s even a free food fridge – one of my favourite things a hostel can offer a budget traveller, and a genius idea to boot. The eating area also has plenty of comfy booths as well as long communal tables that would make Jamie Oliver bubble over in glee at the shared experience of it all. Vending machines by the kitchen pump out everything from tea and coffee to icecream and drinks.

 



The dorms on offer at Sydney Central are ample and spacious – unlike some other hostels where 2 bunk beds are often cramped into the tiniest shoebox of a room. Lockers in the room are large enough to fit three decent sized bags, but you need to bring your own lock. Sheets are provided and although the doonas, mattress protectors and pillows have seen better days the only way you’re going to get a bad night’s sleep is if someone in your dorm room snores (always a dreaded possibility!). That being said though, the hostel can be noisy at times – every door in the place closes with a loud bang no matter how delicately you try to close it, the walls are kind of thin and if your room is close to the lifts you’ll hear every ding announcing its arrival on your floor, or to the bathrooms you’ll definitely hear when someone uses the hand dryer at 2am. Still, I’ve stayed at worse, louder hostels.

The bunk situation - some
travellers are not the tidiest!

 

Now, if you’ve stayed at Sydney Harbour YHA over in The Rocks like I have and loved to pieces the way every bed has a power point next to the light, you’ll be disappointed that this is not the case at Sydney Central. Still, there are enough power points in other parts of the room to please everyone. Select dorms have lockers which actually have power points inside them, which means you can handily charge your laptop or mobile and lock it away so there is no threat of it being stolen as it charges.

The shared bathrooms on every floor seem small – some with just three showers and three toilets each, but I have never come across them full, and never had to wait to use a shower. Perhaps during peak times there might be a line, but truly, I don’t think there is a peak time in a backpacker’s hostel – the people staying there are on holidays. They’re not living to normal time frames! The bathrooms will be no more packed at 7am than they would be at 10am.

 

 

LOLZ

 

The all important free wifi is available on the ground and first floor only, but you can purchase a package if you want premium wifi throughout all the floors during your stay. Good deals are advertised on many a wall throughout the hostel and in the lifts - $112 for three night’s accommodation with premium wifi being an example I saw in August 2015 that would be hard to pass up if you’re a person who cannot live without being connected.

 

 

Sydney Central also offers an array of other activities and amenities for travellers – everything from a conference room to a cinema to lockers for hire (with power points inside! Yay!) to walking tours and pizza nights. The staff are friendly and you truly feel like you’re in the thick of the big exciting world of backpacking when you are standing in the lobby of this nine story hostel, your sheets tucked under your arm and your room key in your pocket.

 

 

This hostel also radiates with the distinct feeling of being a melting pot of gap year travellers and groups from schools, universities and organisations. There is a lot of emphasis on and information provided about travelling on to other parts of Australia, getting jobs in Sydney, learning English, setting up bank accounts and help with tax – there is even a large noticeboard covered in ads for cars, campervans and tents for sale from people who have finished their gap years and are heading back home, eager to offload the rusty old kombi they bought at the beginning of their stay and toured Oz in. I was even approached in person during one stay by a guy asking every person in the room individually if they were looking for a job. His in person approach was a step up from the array of job ads posted on the noticeboard next to the one displaying the car ads. Such extensive noticeboards and information aren’t found at, say, Sydney Harbour YHA, which is much more of a tourist frequented hostel, whereas Sydney Central is for the true travellers and gappies – those off on an adventure not just for a week or two, but a few months or a year, who want to be close to transport and all the things they’ll need to make a living in Sydney for such a long length of time.

Sydney Central might not be as close to all the famous Sydney icons as Sydney Harbour YHA is, and it’s also definitely not as new and modern, but the prices reflect this, so it’s still a good deal and a great place to base yourself during your trip to Sydney. Of all of YHA’s Sydney hostels I’m pretty sure this one is the easiest to get to via public transport and on foot, and I know in my book, that makes it a place I’ll be coming back to!

Jorgs rates Sydney Central YHA 4 stars out of 5! Check out their website at www.yha.com.au ! And while you’re there, follow me on twitter @Brindabella24 and on Instagram @brindabella24 J

 

Enjoy the fun and the sun in Sydney -
this city never disappoints!

 

Until next time,

Jorgs

Crazy travel tale #1

Hi friends! I just got home from Dubai yesterday and as you know, going to Dubai isn’t my fave, so I usually spend most of the time I am there in my hotel room, where there is a suitably large bed and a very wide screen tv (I know I know, I shouldn’t be complaining right?) and abusing the free Wi-Fi offered to crew. Anyways, on this occasion, as I spent much of the day in my pjs, I got to thinking of all the memorable and crazy situations I’ve found myself in and crazy experiences I’ve had whilst in foreign countries and I thought they would be great to share on my blog with you all.

Now when I say crazy situations I don’t necessarily mean crazy scary or crazy dangerous. Sometimes an experience has been downright unbelievable or really, really lucky or stupidly, ridiculously funny. The sort of stories I won’t even wait to tell when I get home after my trip…I’ll be telling them in the car on the way home from the airport.

One such story happened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania a few years back. I was travelling solo in the City of Brotherly Love and had been to all the must do’s already – the Liberty Bell, the US Mint, UPenn, the LOVE sign and even Amish country. But I knew there was one more must do on my list – the Rocky statue and steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Now I have never seen a Rocky movie in my life, I’m not a fan of Sylvester Stallone at all and I had zero interest in boxing OR modern art. But I still felt like I had to see it as part of my time in Philly so I wanted to tick it off my list.

So on my rainy last day in Philly before I headed to NYC, I caught the bus to the museum and proceeded to walk around for at least an hour trying to find this bloody statue with no luck. I was getting frustrated that the grounds were so large and I couldn’t seem to find what should surely be an attraction swarming with tourists just like myself. Eventually I went inside the museum and asked a staff member for directions. She looked me up and down with a disgusted look on her face (obviously thinking I was such a philistine) and gruffly gave me directions before walking off in a huff to the real appreciators of art. Awks. So outside into the gloom and doom of that wet June day I went again. As I was nearing the statue (although I had no idea still that I was close to it) a guy and a girl were approaching me on the same footpath from the other direction. They were laughing their heads off and scoffing at something that seemed like the biggest joke in the world. I went to smile as we passed each other but then they stopped. “Oh my god! When you get to the statue you have to say ‘I want to go to Fairfax, Virginia this summer’ to those people over there!” they exclaimed, pointing at a group of three people standing about 30 metres away from us.

“Why?” I asked, cautiously laughing myself, but not really sure these people were the full quid.

“Trust us, just do it!” and then they ran off.

I really had little intention of doing it, but when I got closer to them I could see they were standing near the Rocky statue, and since I had tried for hours to find this thing, in the rain, and my sneakers were pretty much soaked through and my bag was getting heavy, I was damned if I wasn’t going to get my photo with this landmark before I returned to Australia, so I thought I would ask them if they would take my photo for me.

They happily obliged and afterwards as I said thankyou I remembered what the guy and the girl five minutes earlier had said, and decided what the hell?

“Thanks for taking my photo,” I said with a grin. “By the way, I really want to go to Fairfax, Virginia this summer.”

Well they just Lost. Their. Shit. “YES!” they yelled and pointed over my shoulder at a man standing behind me dressed up as George Washington. “You’re the last one to win!”

And with that George handed me an envelope and a bundle of brochures from the tourist bureau of Fairfax. You can imagine the look on my face, but I played along, thinking, who are these nutjobs and what have I won? They explained that the promotion they were running was going to award $100 to the first three people to go up to them and say ‘I want to go to Fairfax, Virginia this summer’, and apparently I was number three (I guess the guy and girl I’d seen earlier who had given me the hint were numbers one and two)!

The volunteers took my picture with the George Washington impersonator and then cheerily wished me a great day and said they hoped to see me in Fairfax one day soon. All my thoughts of why I had originally wanted to come to the museum that day were completely washed away by then, as you can imagine. I smiled and thanked them and walked back off in the direction I came as they packed up their pamphlets and left, no more prizes to give out.

I waited until I was a safe distance away from them before opening the envelope they’d given me. I didn’t really believe they’d given me $100. For free? Just for saying some cheesy line? No way. But lo and behold, when I ripped open the envelope I looked inside to discover $100 in one dollar bills staring back at me. That’s right – one hundred one dollar bills. Because George Washington is the president who features on the one dollar bill. Duh (and I guess he was also from Fairfax, Virginia?).

I was shocked and then started laughing not dissimilar to how the guy and girl earlier had been laughing. Did I just get a hundred bucks for free? What? This was too good to be true! The rest of the day I spent marvelling at my good luck, and the irony of how I hadn’t even seen the Rocky movies, how I had had so much trouble finding the statue and the iconic steps from the film, how the woman inside the museum had looked at me with such a disgusted look on her face when I had asked for directions, how I hadn’t even been super keen to leave the hostel at all that morning because it had been such miserable weather. And yet I had gone, and this had happened.

Totally worth it.

 

 

That moment and the Amish food I tried whilst in Pennsylvania remain my strongest memories of my time there.

What crazy things have happened to you whilst travelling? Have you ever had a stroke of luck like this? Leave me a comment and tell me all about it. I’d love to hear from you! And while you’re there don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @brindabella24 !

Until next time…

Jorgs and George Dubbya

 

 

London Love

Today I’ve decided to write about one of my favourite cities in all the world. London.

Ahhh London. She is truly one of the greatest cities on this earth I think. She has almost everything one could want (I say almost because one can’t forget how crap the weather so often is there).

 

 

I remember the first time I went there, age 22, I stood, on one of my first days there, outside the entrance to Topshop on Oxford Street and just people watched and soaked in the atmosphere for a good twenty minutes. It was a spectacular day – the sun was shining and people were out and about in force, I had freshly converted pounds in my wallet ready to be spent at Harrods and Zara and Selfridges and Topshop and the day before I had had the most dizzyingly great introduction to the city where I had seen and done much more in one day than I’d thought I would be able to. And I just remember standing on that street – one of the most famous in the world surely, next to Fifth Avenue and La Rambla and Rodeo Drive – and feeling like I was at the centre of the universe right at that very moment. Like this point was where trends began, where the coolest people were born, where future megastars of fashion, music, politics, sport and media all trod the boards before they were discovered and everybody knew their names. I’ve been to Times Square in New York City many times, but it was Oxford Street London where I truly felt like I was at the very centre of the beating heart of the world.

How can you top a feeling like that? I was floored by it. And now whenever I go to London I always get off the tube at Oxford Circus and happily plunge myself into the throngs of people always surging around that crazy four point intersection.

 

 

Of course Oxford Street’s pulsing heart isn’t the only great thing about London. I love even the simple things, like the tube system. I know some Londoners hate the tube, but I freaking love it. So extensive, so clean, so easy to understand – a travellers best friend. Even the people who work at the tube stations I have always found to be super nice and very helpful (shout out to the man who still let me out of Stratford station even when my Oyster card didn’t work because I hadn’t paid the right fare for that zone). I love how you are never far from a tube station, no matter where you are in London. And it’s often paired with a Tesco or a Waitrose store right next to it: extra convenience!

What else to love about London? Let me get the list!

Wandering through the food halls in Harrods and seeing and smelling all the exotic and exuberant cakes and jams and chocolates and meats and seafood and cheeses and breads.

Being spoilt for choice over which musical to see in Covent Garden or in the West End.

 

 

Being a nightmare tourist and geeking out at things like M&M World or Ripley’s in Piccadilly Circus.

Sitting in a black cab late at night, perhaps on the way home from seeing that show in Covent Garden and staring out the window lovingly watching the fairy lights twinkling in the trees as you pass Hyde Park like you’re in a commercial for British Airways or something.

Coming across Boots everywhere and knowing that if you need a sandwich, or an umbrella or some sunscreen, you can definitely find all three of these things in there.

Melting over all the cute oh so British tube station names – Baker Street, Blackfriars, Waterloo, Regents Park, and my favourite – Elephant and Castle.

Walking past number 10 Downing Street and feeling like you’re Martine McCutcheon saying fuck in front of Hugh Grant.

Sitting with a coffee and a danish on a kerb in the middle of Notting Hill on a Saturday, just soaking in the market madness around you and maybe spotting a celeb or two amongst the millions of market sellers and tourists and musicians and crepe makers (side note: I did actually see a celeb in Notting Hill once. Not an Oscar winner or Beyoncé or anything, but it was someone all Brits would know: Trinny Woodall of What Not to Wear fame).

 

Spending entire afternoons wondering around places like the Cabinet War Rooms and marvelling at all things Winston Churchill. Britain does museums as well as America, let me tell you!

Going to that Tesco next to the tube station on your way home after a long day of touristing and picking out an armful of those dreadful(ly good) trashy magazines. Nobody does trashy mags like the Brits. Katie Price and Girls Aloud and Geordie Shore oh my! Night snuggled in bed = made.

Walking down The Mall when it is lined with union jack flags and heading towards Buckingham Palace. If you don’t feel like you’re truly in London walking down there then you never will. I remember in 2012 many of the Olympic athletic events had their courses run down The Mall and past the palace and I just thought it was the greatest idea – you’re running in the greatest sporting contest in the world and running so close past one of the most recognised buildings in the world that you could practically pop in for a cuppa with Liz and Phil. Now that’s awesome.

The innocently adorable way as soon as the mercury hits 22 degrees celsius Londoners are out in the parks with their shirts off, soaking up the sun. Innocently adorable to a suntanned Aussie anyway.

The way you go up in the London Eye and look down at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and think ‘woah – I’m looking at icons I’ve only ever seen in movies and on postcards’ and suddenly you’re getting a birds eye view of it, or you’re standing in front of it hearing Big Ben chime. They’re pinch me moments.

 

 

Everyone should visit London in their lifetime. Everyone. It is one of the most cosmopolitan, fast paced, smart, pretty and well-kept cities in the world. It’s so good that one day, if I had the right job, was the right age and felt it was the right time, I might just live there.

Until next time,

Jorgs

 

 

 

 

Things I don't understand about America

So as you know, if you read this blog regularly, I spend almost as much time in the good ol’ US of A as I do in my homeland of Down Under. This is through work, but also through my belief that you could spend a year in America and still not see it all, or have seen it properly, so I just keep going there on holidays whenever I have a chance. To date I have been to fifteen states, and while that sounds like a lot, it’s really not when you realise there are 35 more to see! But I’m working on it.

Anyways, since spending so much time in America, there are a few things I have found perplexing about this magnificent country. Some things I find truly confusing, weird, unnecessary or down right strange, so here is the definitive list of things I don’t understand about America (and just so you don’t want to go and blow your brains out after reading this, let me assure you it will today be devoid of any references to gun control, free healthcare and lower tertiary education fees. Maybe I’ll write about that another time…or maybe I won’t in case Jodhi Meares-like devotee’s jump all over me again).

 

Why is your cheese orange? And why are there so many different types, and why do they almost all taste exactly the same (and nothing like cheese in Australia tastes)?

Why do you let dogs stay in hotel rooms? And why must you bring them onto aeroplanes, into clothing stores and into shopping centres? It’s unhygienic and gross, and unless it’s a service animal I really don’t think it belongs there.

Why are you obsessed with drying your clothes in a tumble drier? Why can’t you just hang them on a clothesline in the sun?

Why does your chocolate taste terrible? (Cadbury and Lindt > Hersheys by a miiiiiiillllleeeee)

Why do you buy so much bottled water? Every time I go to Vons or Walmart or Target every single person is wheeling out a trolley full of 64 pack single serve bottles of water. You know you can refill the one water bottle you have right? Or just keep a jug in the fridge and fill up a cup from it anytime you are thirsty right?

 

 

Why are all your national monuments and select national parks free entry and why hasn’t this brilliant idea been adopted in other countries in the world?

Why do you wear foam platform thongs/flip flops? And why do you think these are fashionable? They are hideous. Haven’t you seen how the rest of the world wears Havaianas? Your platform flip-flops make you look like you belong on the set of a 1998 teen movie.

Why have you not abolished the use of drive through ATMs as a tiny way of perhaps helping the obesity cause? Every time I see a drive through ATM I feel like I’m looking at the definition of laziness.

Why do you say carmel instead of caramel? Is this just certain people’s accents gone whacko?

Also, why do you say kabob? It sounds so strange.

 

 

What is up with half and half milk? First time I heard of this I assumed it was milk that was half full cream and half skim, but then an Auckland flight attendant I work with one time made me try a glass of this stuff and I realised immediately I was wrong, and that it is in fact half milk half runny cream AND OMG WHY WOULD YOU EVER DRINK SUCH A THICK CONCOCTION THAT LEAVES A VOMIT INDUCING FILM ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF YOUR MOUTH AFTER YOU’RE DONE DRINKING?

Why are there so many places that offer to cash cheques for you? Why can’t you just go into a bank and do it there? Why do you need a third party to do it for you? Why is it easier to go into one of these dodgy looking shop set ups on most city streets than to just go into your local bank branch? Do these dodgy looking places give you the money immediately and the bank makes you wait or something? (and PS…why do you even still have cheques?)

Whose idea was it to make cinnamon flavoured chewing gum? No…just no.

Why do your Subway stores not have carrot to put on my sub?

Why are you still pre metric? It seems like you are literally the last country on earth to use Fahrenheit, inches and pounds.

Why do you call capsicum ‘peppers’? The first time I heard of this I imagined a hot, spicy, chilli type vegetable, when in fact it was just a green capsicum – possibly the most unspicy, unpeppery thing there is.

Why is your Mexican food so good and so readily available? And why has this trend not yet reached Australian shores?

Why do you omit the word ‘of’ all the time? “He’s been in Texas a couple months” Is it laziness?

Why haven’t you got rid of tipping yet? It is such a pain in the ass. Example: my taxi fare is $35, and I give the taxi driver a $50 note. He then gives me back $15 and then I have to give him a few dollars of that fifteen back as a tip. ARGH SO MUCH TOO-ING AND FRO-ING. Not to mention the poor man who drives our crew buses to and from the airport who not only has to load 21 crew member’s numerous pieces of luggage into the back of the bus but has to stop 21 times in the middle of it all to accept each crew members tip they give in way of thanks. Why can’t his company just pay him what he deserves?

Why do you still have pennies? I got back from a recent double banger of two trips in 10 days to LA for work and emptied out my wallet onto the bed when I finally got home and counted no less than 28 pennies in my pile of change *pulls hair out* I know I could put these all in a tip jar, but even though they’re annoying, they’re still money to me and I am too tight with and worry too much about money to even give 1c away when I could painstakingly count out fifty cents worth of pennies and hand it to a cashier at the local In’N’Out. But still, they’re a pain in the butt (but I’ll keep them anyway – like I said, money’s money.)

 

 

Why are you obsessed with eating turkey? And why do you so often put turkey in something when it should definitely be chicken? Like in a club sandwich? A club sandwich should definitely be bacon and chicken, not bacon and turkey!

Why do you not find cheese in a can gross? For reals, why?

Why is maple syrup bacon a thing and why do you offer to put it on my hamburger?

Why do so many people buy peeled baby carrots that are in containers with hummus or by themselves at the supermarket? These carrots look drier than the skin on my hands after I’ve been working in the galley on a 16 hour Dallas to Sydney flight.

 

Despite all these weird and perplexing things, I still love you America, and can never get enough of visiting you. I love your friendly people, your amazing array of food (pre-packaged baby carrots aside), your breath taking landscapes, your top notch museums and your sick theme parks!

 

What do you find weird about countries you’ve visited? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Jorgs

A Fortunate (Travellers) Life

Oh my goodies dear readers, I have not put in an appearance in soooo long. I’ve been a bit busy (lots of travel, situation: normal), a bit down in the dumps for reasons I can’t even put my finger on, a bit too busy with crazy full work rosters and also just zero-ly motivated to write anything at all.

But now I am back. Sure is nice to have a span of days off that lasts more than five minutes! And the number one thing on my to do list was blog. In capital letters. Second only on the list to my mountains of laundry (of which I did three loads this morning and my washing basket is still not empty…I think some things are just going to live in there for life and never get washed. Clearly I never wear them anyways).

Like I said, I have been a little down in the dumps lately and I couldn’t even tell you why, because I don’t know myself, but yesterday as I was feeling sorry for myself on the way home from an eleven day stint at work, I began thinking of things I should be grateful for, and things I should appreciate as a ways of slapping myself out of my self pity mode.

And of course my mind immediately turned to travel (again, situation: normal). I had a think that even though the last two years of my life have a lot of the time been pretty shithouse, I am so fortunate that the rest of the time I’ve been able to travel to some freaking incredible places, and have some pretty incredible experiences and met some bloody incredible people, and for that I am forever lucky. Heck, ever since I started travelling overseas seriously in 2009, I have gone to some amazing places.

Some places I have been to are true bucket list experiences. Some were bucket list worthy and I didn’t even realise they were until I was there. That they should’ve been on my bucket list all along. Visiting Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and actually moving aside the bookcase and climbing up the narrow staircase/ladder to the secret annexe where the Frank’s hid from the Nazi’s for two years was an example of this.

But further than that I have climbed the Eiffel Tower, scaled the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sailed through the canals of Venice on a gondola, been inside the Statue of Liberty, walked the Freedom Trail, stood amongst the snow on the highest mountain in Europe, toured Wimbledon, walked through Kensington Palace, touched the Berlin Wall, been mere metres from dolphins in the middle of the Ionian, watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, seen the largest sitting Buddha in the world in Hong Kong, walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and back again and done the same with the Brooklyn Bridge, taken a helicopter over the Grand Canyon, toured the iconic Sydney Opera House and Radio City Music Hall, been stunned into silence at Pearl Harbor, walked the Las Vegas strip, felt infinitely small next to the enormous rock faces of Yosemite National Park, stood in front of the White House, walked amongst the ruins of the Acropolis, thrown a coin into the Trevi Fountain, toured through Changi Prison, ‘held up’ the Leaning Tower of Pisa, explored an Amish town in rural Pennsylvania, walked over the remains of Pompeii, snorkelled in the crystal waters off Thailand and Vietnam and driven across Australia.

How can I possibly think I am not leading a fortunate life when I have done all those things? And when I can continue to do all those things almost on a monthly basis due to my job, the fact I spend 99% of my money on travel and due to this terrible affliction I suffer from called wanderlust?

I can’t. I am very lucky. I may not have heaps of friends, a boyfriend, my own house, be free of a HECS debt or living a life of luxury, but I have my passport, a camera and a thirst for adventure so what else could I possibly need?

And I’m going to write about every single one of those adventures, plus a few other random things I come across or have an opinion about, so keep coming back to visit my blog and I will be updating as often as possible for you all.

Your grateful traveller,

Jorgs

 

Worshipping the sun and the sea in
Nha Trang, Vietnam, earlier this year

 

My Fantasy Dinner Party Guest List

So the other day I was watching the Friends episode where Ross ditches Isabella Rossellini from his list of five women he’s allowed to sleep with. And don’t ask me how but it reminded me of a list I’d made ages ago in my phone of all the people who would be on the guest list for my fantasy dinner party…and I thought it’d make a cool topic for a blog post!

*Note: You will notice most of the guests are athletes, musicians or actors. Also, the list is pretty long and most of the guests are Australian. But hey, it’s my list, not yours.

The definitive list is as follows…

Lisa McCune – Australian actress, singer, theatre legend and according to me and my friend Nikki, a national treasure. She is my favourite actress, and I have followed her career for a very long time. I also live in the suburb next to the one she grew up in – good conversation starter?

 

 

John Farnham – Australian singing legend. Because he has been my favourite singer since before I knew what music even was. Every Christmas it was cassettes of his latest album under the tree, and later CDs that still today are in my car to pop into the plyer whenever I feel like a bit of The Voice. I know every single word to every single one of his songs, and it is one of my greatest disappointments that I am 29 years old and still have not been able to afford to, or had the opportunity to, go see him live in concert. I just know one of these days he is going to retire for good and I will have missed my chance (wahhhhhh!). I once worked in a bar at one of his concerts, so I could HEAR him singing in the distance, but I couldn’t see him (double wahhhhh!).

 

Carrie Underwood – American country music singer. One of the most successful of all time, and certainly the most successful person to have won American Idol. Seems like a genuinely lovely person, and her music has helped me through many a bad day.

Paul Barry – Australian journalist, author, current host of Media Watch, Walkley Award winner. Asks the hard questions, has had his business card stomped on by Alan Bond and written many a scandalous book on the Packers. Pretty sure we could talk all night about his experiences in print and television.

 

 

Liz Chetkovich – Gymnastics Australia’s High Performance Manager and the brains behind the establishment of the highly successful women’s gymnastics program at the West Australian Institute of Sport. Because me and my friends who follow gymnastics in this country call her Queen Liz – I think that’s enough of an explanation as to why she makes my list.

Nastia Liukin – American gymnast, Beijing 2008 all around gold medallist. My favourite gymnast of all time. A huge inspiration.

 

 

Rob Sitch and Jane Kennedy – husband and wife comedy duo who are 2/4 of the Working Dog gang. Creators of The Castle, Frontline, The Dish, The Hollowmen, Thank God You’re Here, The Late Show and many other television shows, books and films. Since they’re married I’m counting them as one person.

 

 

Tony Wheeler – the founder of Lonely Planet travel guides. I’ve read his book, but would kill to just sit down with him and ask him even more about how Lonely Planet began.

John Marsden – author. Even though I’ve read a tonne of books since high school, the Tomorrow series remains my favourite series of books of all time. I have read Tomorrow When the War Began about 30 times since I discovered it at 14. I’ve read the other six books in the series almost as many times.

 

 

 

Tina Fey – comedian and creator/star of 30 Rock, Mean Girls and the author of Bossy Pants. Everyone loves Tina Fey. She is just COOL. We could be best friends.

Paul Kelly – Australian singing legend, a true poet. Farnsy and Mr Kelly are almost equal to me, but because I’ve listened to Farnsy since birth and I haven’t done that with Paul Kelly, Farnsy *just* inches him out. But I still know every word to every one of Paul Kelly’s songs too, and have been lucky enough to see him in concert with Neil Finn in 2013 (it is the best concert I’ve ever been to, no question). In my opinion Paul Kelly is one of the greatest songwriters Australia has ever produced. His lyrics are like poetry and his music comforting and familiar. I cannot celebrate Christmas without playing How To Make Gravy 574385783496593 times. I just can’t.

 

 

Claudia Karvan - Australian actor, director. Because she is just cool. One of the coolest people on television. And one of Australia's greatest actors.

 

 

Bruce McAvaney – sporting commentator. Is there a more iconic Australian voice than Bruce’s? I know he is made fun of, but I love his voice. It’s part of my childhood. I would talk with him about Sydney 2000 and all his other Olympic experiences for hoursssss.

 

Judith Lucy – Australian comedian. My favourite comedian EVER. I would sit her next to Rob Sitch and Jane Kennedy because they have already made a few shows together and talking to the three of them at once would make my head explode – in a good way.

 

 

Stuart Diver – survivor of the 1997 Thredbo landslide. So much respect for this guy. I have read his book 3 times, and feel so inspired by the strength he has showed not just during the 65 hours he was stuck in alpine conditions before being rescued, but also through the loss of two wives and still be able to soldier on today. What a champion.

 

The following people almost made the cut…

Bryan Brown – Australian actor

John Wood – Australian actor

Ashleigh Brennan – Australian gymnast, four time Commonwealth Games medallist, 2 time Olympian

John Adam – Australian actor, theatre performer. For the eye candy.

Nadine Garner – Australian actress, singer.

Ric Birch – creator of the Sydney and Atlanta Olympic Opening Ceremonies, among others.

Meryl Streep – actress. Because why wouldn’t you invite Meryl Streep to your fantasy dinner party?

Bridget Sloan – American gymnast, 2008 Olympian, one of the greatest NCAA gymnasts of all time.

Alec Baldwin – actor. The male version of Meryl Streep.

 

 

Who would be on your ultimate fantasy dinner party guest list?

 

Your host,

Jorgs

 

 

*Thanks interwebs and google for the pictures. I promise I'm not stealing them and claiming them as my own.

A Traveller’s Education

Last week I spent five days in Singapore with Mumma Jorgs, and since it was the first time I had travelled with her in about eight years, I realised a couple of things – namely that I have a whole education in me now thanks to my extreme case of wanderlust. I suddenly knew how to do things in Singapore that my Mum didn’t. And what’s more, she was relying on me for it. It was like the roles had been reversed, and it was so odd, as all the other times I’d travelled with her I’d been much younger and she had been the one who had figured out how to get places, how to fix problems, how to get back on the right road when we got lost, how to handle dodgy taxi drivers. But now, it’s me.

It feels good, but scary. Just like that time, at barely 22 and so incredibly young in so many ways, I stepped onto a plane bound for London and left little old Perth behind for three months. I was beyond scared, but also beyond excited. No doubt my parents were worried (especially my Mum, who is a chronic, chronic worrier) that something terrible would happen to me, or that I wouldn’t be able to tackle the challenges travelling occasionally throws at you, but the second I stepped onto that plane and away from familiarity and comfort was the start of my traveller’s education.

Travelling teaches you things you can’t learn in school, or in university. Only the wanderlusters can step into the massive train stations of NYC, London, Paris or Hong Kong and feel confident they can tackle the routes that splay out on the map like veins through the body. Only wanderlusters learn to have the balls to politely but firmly ask for their passport back from a customs official in an airport who wants a bribe in exchange for giving it back. Only wanderlusters can add three nights of two minute noodle dinners and three mornings of free hostel pancakes and know it equals a $300 bridge climb in Sydney or a paraglide in Austria and that it is definitely the right answer to that mathematical equation. Only wanderlusters can have their minds expanded through the meeting of other travellers from far away countries, of other religions, of other races, of greater experience and become better people for it. Only wanderlusters can be so resourceful and quick thinking that they can track down their travel buddie’s dropped mobile phone on Hollywood Boulevard with just a few short phone calls and a bus ride.

In Singapore it was me who found and booked our hotel, made sure it was a good location, figured out the best way to get around and explored the recommendations given to me by friends and fellow crew when deciding what we should see and do during our time in the country. It was me who navigated the complex subway, with its huge escalators and dizzyingly big stations when my Mum just wanted to take a taxi because she saw it as less intimidating and much easier. It was me who educated her on liquids, aerosols and gels and the Smartgate machine at the airport.

And all these answers I had, I had gained through firsthand experience during my travels. Of course it helps that I am now a flight attendant and travel for work every week, but I learnt many things about travel before I even ever entered that profession.

I feel sorry for those who have yet to have the opportunity to learn on foreign soil and in tricky situations. I hope y’all get the opportunity soon. I feel sorry for those who think they don’t need to get a travellers education or who don’t want one. And I applaud and encourage those about to set off on an adventure and start their own traveller’s education – as nervous and apprehensive as they might be, when they return, whenever that may be, they will return a different person. A person able to tackle so much more than they could before they left and a person who will be so much more confident within themselves and compassionate, accepting and open to and of others.

I have a buddy who is about to set off on such an adventure in the coming months, so this blog entry is dedicated to her. Follow her journey as she attends a performing arts summer school in London and then her adventures through the rest of the UK and Europe by following her new blog at https://teashakespeareandthetraveller.wordpress.com/ .

Until next time wanderlusters,

Jorgs