Ooo Chabu Chacha, Dah da da da da

They ganged up on Mathew after the rest of us gave in
and fumigated ourselves with bug spray

This is the song I envision that is playing in the background as the swarms of mosquitoes and sand flies the size of pterodactyls tip-toe through my windowsill every night and rape me of half my blood while I attempt to sleep.  I typed this up on my third night at Newcastle but was too lazy to post it.  In typical me-fashion, it took almost 2 weeks to build up the will-power to finally get around to doing it, so all the tenses are wrong, but you get the idea...

I'm not sure what the worst part is, the bite or that obnoxious high pitched humming sound they make as they hover over your ear for 15 minutes before finally landing for dinner.  To make matters worse, this morning I woke up and there were at least 20 incredibly plump mosquitoes hanging out on the walls in the bathroom mocking me while I was brushing my teeth.  So here's the problem as I see it.  It's 42 degrees Celcius outside at the moment, which is probably like 485 degrees Fahrenheit, and the 8 person room I'm staying in is quite fortunately without any form of air conditioning or fan.  I bought some mosquito coils, but apparently the staff is adverse to us "burning this motherfucker down", so that leaves us with four options I figure: 

1) Keep the windows open and suffer the wrath of the band of wild gypsy mosquitoes,

2) Close the windows and hope that our sweat keeps us from bursting into flames during the night,

3) Buy a mosquito net for $5 (which is entirely too simple and thus totally out of the question), or

4) Cover myself in bug spray every night and come down with a mysterious cancer in a few years.

Choices, choices...

Good Times

Hockey, Eh?

A couple fans warming up before the game

The 2011 Women’s International Hockey Tournament ended Sunday night in a pretty wild fashion.  The last game (Australia vs Netherlands) of the tournament to decide which country takes home the gold and in turn bumps up to Division II and which takes the silver and remains in Division III came down to a pretty gut wrenching shootout after 3 intense periods and an overtime.  Netherlands ended up taking the gold with a point scored in the first pass; Australia silver; Hungary bronze.  The after party was at the campground-lodge-ish thing in the middle of nowhere and to be totally honest, I was a little intimidated.  I’ve never been surrounded by so many women at one time.  There were at least 120 women from 4 or 5 teams left when we got there (Australia, Hungary, Croatia, Netherlands, and I think Slovenia) and maybe 10 of us guys… and of those 7 were coaches or family members.

Hulk Hogan's Doppelganger

Ok, so I think I need to provide a little backstory real quick so you don’t think I’m the creepy perv guy who sneaks into a party packed with women in a foreign country.  I managed to get lost during my layover in the Los Angelos Airport on my way to Sydney and randomly met one of the girls who plays on the Australia team.  She was traveling with two other women who also lived in Canada and were on their way to Australia for the tournament.  We got to talking and they invited me to come watch the tournament which was hosted in Newcastle.  I took a bus to the first game from the hostel I was staying at in Newcastle to Warner’s Bay, where the tournament was being held, and ended up meeting the parents of one of the girls I had met in the airport.  It turns out that they had been staying in an apartment about 50 feet from the hostel I am staying in and they offered to drive me to and from the tournament.  Over the course of the tournament we hit up the beaches, hung out with the players, had quite a few beers, and blew obnoxiously into vuvu-zelas until our cheeks hurt and the rink banned them from the tournament.  Bummer.

Before the party kicked off

So back to the party… When we arrived, most of the Croatian team was already well into their post tournament celebration.  Bathing suits or not, they were all crashing around in the pool booze in hand.  It didn't take long for the other teams to catch up.  The main party was set up in a basketball court turned discotheque.  Not long after, the international shirt swapping ensued, which I am totally a fan of.  By the end of the night I managed to score a Croatian tshirt that’s about 10 sizes too small and a couple of Australian ones .  They don’t quite fit at the moment, but maybe I’ll grow into them someday.

No homo - Found myself in a woman's dress at one point during the night

Yep

Well, it's pretty obvious I'm absolutely terrible at keeping this thing up to date, so I've got a few days of recapping to do...

Australia Day was last Wednesday, and like any good holiday it must be celebrated with copious amounts of booze and drunken shenanigans.  I was headed for a relaxing day on the beach when I was sidetracked by a street performer swallowing a 5 foot long balloon just down the street from a couple guys playing a didgeridoo with techno bumping in the background. Pretty intense. I then got a call from some fellow backpackers who are staying in another hostel down the road to hang out in the botanical gardens for a few minutes.  A few boxes of Australia's finest wine were reluctantly cracked open and the rest of the day was a bit of a blur.

Sydney Harbour Bridge from the Botanical Gardens

Sydney Opera House

Fireworks over Darling Harbour

A few days ago I took a train up into the Blue Mountains... ya.

Three Sisters

Achtung!!!

Saw this guy playing a cello (maybe?) in a graffitied park in the middle of nowhere

It's rotated, but you get the idea...

On Sunday a few of us did the walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach.  I read it's only supposed to take about an hour and a half at most to do.  We did it in just under 4 hours...  Not sure how it happened, but but the time we made it to Bondi the sun was already on it's way down and it was getting a little chili.  Awesome views though.

On Monday I hopped on a train to Newcastle for the International Women's Ice Hockey Tournament.  The tournament goes on from February 1st through the 6th, so I've got plenty of time to waste away on the beach.  And I saw my first Australian Lifeguard rescue today.  It wasn't very exciting, but I couldn't help but to laugh.

Rescue in progress

The rescue-ees on the right