The biggest city in Australia and my first stop.



The one and only.



My first glimpse of Australia.



King's Cross, backpacker haven and armpit of Sydney.



A card from my first hostel. All of the other hostels were booked up for New Years, but Eva's found room for me.



I shared the room with Wade, an older Canadian gay guy who worked for an airline and practically lived at Eva's for half the year.



King's Cross during the day. A scummy area but a popular place for backpackers. Lots of strip joints. The guy who worked the door at Porky's motioned for me to come in every time I walked by.

From: Jeff Nyveen To: my friends and family Date: Friday, December 31, 1999 5:23pm Subject: Hello from Down Under Hey everyone, Well, here I am, at a cafe somewhere in downtown Sydney. I never thought I'd actually make it down here. But here I am, and even I can't believe it. Right now, there is a woman with enormous breasts right in front of me and behind the screen of my laptop eating what looks like crab salad out of a pineapple that has been hollowed out. Quite a sight. The flight from Houston to LA was brief. Guess who boarded the flight to Sydney along with me? Claire Danes. Steve will appreciate the significance of this. Here's the story: Once, while at USC, I chatted online with someone who said it was Claire Danes. We talked at length about her career, but I was skeptical, so I asked her to call me. She did, and we talked for about 15 minutes. She was pretty convincing. Granted, back then I wasn't too familiar with Claire's voice, but she seemed legit. Especially when she refused to give me her phone number (she said she was calling from New York). So that was it. Funny thing is, I got the whole thing on tape. Anyway, Claire was sitting in business class during the flight. That's on the upper deck (yes this plane had 2 decks), and I wasn't allowed to go up there. I really wanted to ask her if it was really her I talked to, cuz it's been bugging me these last few years. And once I was at it, I wanted to tell her how awesome she was in U-Turn, and what a great job she did with Princess Mononoke (those who haven't seen it yet should). I even asked the stewardess to go up there and ask her for me, but the stewardess returned saying that Claire was mugging down with her boyfriend and that she didn't want to interrupt. It was worth a shot. My flight over wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Sure, it was 13 or so hours, but it didn't seem like it. Maybe it was all the adrenaline, maybe it was the 4 naps I took. But before I knew it we were descending through the clouds and over the industrial coastline of south Sydney. I caught up with Claire in baggage claim, and I asked her if she had ever done that before. She told me it must have been somebody else before scampering off to customs. Oh well. Once outside, I hopped onto a bus that was headed for King's Cross, the neighborhood where there are youth hostels for backpackers like me to get a room for a few nights. Not surprisingly, most of them were booked through the millenium, but after lugging three rather heavy bags (I already know I brought too much stuff) around a few city blocks, I managed to find a hostel that had a dorm room with 6 other people. To give you some idea what it's like, the room is smaller than my bedroom in Houston, and there are three bunkbeds in it. All that for $25 a night. That's Aussie dollars, but it still seems a bit steep. I got the room for the next two nights, after which the rent goes up to $50 a night cuz of the millenium. After that, who knows. Hopefully I'll find a more permanent solution tomorrow. No Internet connections here, which sucks. Not even a phone line, which really sucks. So anytime I wanna do anything on the net I gotta go somewhere and pay for it. After plopping down my three rather heavy bags onto my tiny sheetless bed, I rested my aching shoulders for a minute. Two girls walked into the room. They were staying in the room and were travelling together. Suzanne and Karen. Both are German. Then I met Yakitake (or something like that) and his roommate whose name escapes me, who are also travelling together. They speak three words of English between them, but I could tell by their soft voices and teethy grins that they are both nice fellows. I consulted my map (thanks to Mel and Steve, it has been a life-saver), and then set off on foot to the nearest Apple store to get my piece of shit iBook repaired or replaced, also to find out if my piece of shit iBook will explode when I plug it into the wall here. It was quite a walk, about 30 minutes. They were closed. Ah, Boxing Day. It's the answer to a Trivial Pursuit queswtion in America, but it's an official day-off everywhere else. On the way back, I went into a camera store, only to discover that they have cooler names for all the same plastic shit I used to sell back home. I found a strip that looks a lot like 6th Street in Santa Monica, complete with screaming lunatics on LSD and baggily dressed, spiky-haired pre-pubescent skateboarders. Then I stopped at a cafe for a smoothie, and here I am. Having studied the map and walked around town a bit, I feel like I know my way around. The first thing that struck me about Sydney is how much like Montreal it is. Old mismatched architecture, rust stains on the sides of buildings, construction that looks like it'll never be completed, millions of tiny shops crammed together at street level, lots of high-rise apartment buildings, cracked, uneven, gummy sidewalks, crumbling curbs, dirty streets, the same bus exhaust meets sweaty gym sock city stench with a dash of ethnic food, city transit buses on every street, subways (with the same-smelling draft blowing out onto the street from below), Queen Elizabeth on all the money (which looks really cool), hilly, and a general gray drabness. The only things *not* like Montreal are the humidity (rather high), the lack of French-speaking snots, and driving on the left. There are also some cool things I haven't seen before, like Internet cafes on every street corner (every single one of them is logged onto Hotmail, interestingly enough), crosswalk ringers that make it sound like I'm playing Super Mario Brothers when I cross the street, and big-breasted women eating out of hollowed-out pineapples. And then you have the same old shit you see everywhere, like Asians in lowered Civics and homeless people on every other corner. Having spent the last 4 hours since arriving thinking about my adventure, I am only now realizing what a nut I am for doing this. Only now am I realizing how long 2 months really is, and how much money this is going to cost me. Room and board, food, travelling, whores. It all adds up. Looks like I'll have to settle in Sydney and get a job rather than roam around the continent like I was hoping to. Wayne from room #22 just invited me to get dinner with him. Thai food. My Gadar is ringing, but over the years, all of those gay advances may have hyper-sensitized my Gadar. For now, we'll give Wayne the benefit of the doubt. When he starts playing footsie, it's all over. Well, it's 5:08pm on Tuesday evening here as I type. God knows what time it is for you all. Thirteen hours on the plane to figure it out and I still have no idea how it works. It looks like it's about to rain and I still have quite a walk back to my overpriced bunkbed. I don't know when I'll get access to a phone line and be able to send this, but as soon as I do I'll fire this off. Steve: The toilets here kind of gush out water and then suck it straight down, so we'll have to wait till I get to another toilet before we solve your mystery. Until next time, Jeff

Hungry Jack's, not Burger King. Once upon a time, a guy named Jack decided to rename his Australian Burger King franchises after himself. A vicious legal battle ensued, and I guess Jack won.



The #4 McDonald's Value Meal featured a McOz burger, complete with egg and beetroot. I never had one.



The conveniently-located Global Gossip was a great place for me to connect my laptop and send my e-mails.



King's Cross at night. A smacked-up whore takes a nap.



Victoria Bitter. It didn't take me long to learn that it's the most popular beer around here.


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