An update from Tall One & Small One

Friday 1st May 2009 Tall one returns home from a hard days picking kiwi fruit to find a small one had broken into his bedroom and was sat on the bed. Tall one was confused, as small one was due back the next day. Tall one and Small one decided to go to Australia together. The flight was on Thursday. To celebrate we decided to try a pizza from Hell's Pizza. Small one placed the order and asked for a Chicken and Sweetcorn pizza. The cashier asked “which one is that?”... it was the chicken and sweetcorn one. The cashier said “oh, that's the create your own pizza”. She was right. She then asked “what would you like to put on your create your own pizza”. We said, “Chicken and Sweetcorn”.... She asked what name. Small one said, “Conor, with one N”. She entered the order, it came up as a Chicken and Sweetcorn pizza for Connor. When we collected an Asian cashier said “are you collecting a pizza for Conrad?”. No, it was for Conor with one N.

Saturday 2nd May 2009 A very dark day in the adventure of Tall one and Small one.... Hoopy had to be sold in order to fund the trip to Australia. Small one was very sad as Hoopy was his first ever car. Tall one was not so bothered. An advert was drawn up for the sale of Hoopy, which did not state the colour. Tall one did suggest the advert should be changed to include the colour, but no change was made. The first person who enquired about the advert asked what colour Hoopy was. Hoopy was grey. Hoopy was sold to the first person. A joint going away party was had for Jack and Jill leaving the next day. A flip flop was thrown by Small one towards Jack which caused much havoc and much broken glass, apparently it was all in good gesture. Beer was purchased but Jason decided to take the beer for himself. We managed to find the beer sitting in the men's room sink while Jason was getting sick in the toilet. We took the beer back and got a taxi home. The taxi driver was confused, the ride was $10. Small one gave him $50, taxi driver gave change in two $20's. Small one said “here is one $20 back, can I have two $10's”. The taxi driver gave small one two $10's. Small one then said “here's one $10, can I have two $5's?”. The taxi driver then said I have no more change. I think he wanted to be left alone. After falling asleep in the bedroom with the door locked, Tall One was awoken at 2am by his room mate Maria climbing in threw the bedroom window as he had locked her out. She fell on her bottom.

Sunday 3rd May 2009 Packing was done.

Monday 4th May 2009 We set sail for Auckland at 8am on a pre-paid bus service. The bus stopped for a 15 minute break in Thames. A cafe was found and Small one had the idea that tea should be had. Small one asked for two teas, the cashier got out two big teapots. Small one then said “can we just have one teapot?”. The cashier said “it's one teapot per person”. She did not seem to understand. The bus was almost leaving and she then brought us over one even bigger teapot which cost us $6.00. Tea was poured and Small one had to add milk to make it cool enough to drink quickly, Small one does not like milk in tea. The bus was now leaving and we had only had one sip of our $6 tea, and so left it on the table. Enough said. Arrived at Auckland at 1.00pm and checked into a seaman stained and bed lice ridden bedroom in ACB Backpackers. The No. 9 elevator button which Tall One had broken 12 months prior, was still only in place with cellotape. The disabled toilet was the best to use in ACB, it was noted that the disabled toilets do not have mirrors like the standard toilets. Presumably because ACB think that disabled people do not want to see their own disfigured bodies. When small one advised the ACB cleaner that the disabled toilet needed cleaning, the cleaner said “we do not have any disabled toilets”. As small one was leaving the cleaner called back and said “oh wait, do you mean the wheelchair toilet?”. We brought chicken and sat and made sandwhiches with chicken in them down in the ACB kitchen. The kitchen had a huge freezer labelled 'FREEZER' which people had still put their butter, orange juice and fruit into.

Tuesday 5th May 2009 Tall one needed a haircut. We tried a hairdresser's near the Sky Tower. Inside was empty but an old Asian man cutting a man's hair, he had a topless Fireman calendar on the wall. He told us, “sorry, sorry, need appointment, appointment only”. He went to look at his empty appointment book in his empty hairdressers, so we left. Small one found another hairdressers, this one with an Asian woman cutting hair. Tall one asked how much? She said “ten dollar for small one, twenty for you”... Small one did not need a haircut, but did have to leave to stop laughing at Asian woman putting pegs in Tall one's hair and suggesting ten different bottles of $100 hair tonics to use. We started a search for blonde hair dye to finish Tall one's freshly cut hair. Many depressing buskers were past. A 25 stone Maori woman was playing a toy guitar outside McDonalds, a very depressed man was playing a violin outside a Pharmacy and a man with a hook for an arm was pretending to be a statue on a milk crate. Dominos was had for dinner. When the Asian cashier asked what name for the pizza, small one said 'Conor with one N'. The cashier entered the order and it came up as one pizza for 'Karter' (with no N's).

Wednesday 6th May 2009 A $2 breakfast was found in Dennys. Pancakes, eggs and bacon for tall one and toast, eggs and hash brown for small one. This time we managed to share a teapot between us for $2.80 which contained five cups of tea although it did take a little explaining to the Asian cashier. We were thrilled to pieces.... we were achieving. Two drunk Irishman sat down on a table next to us. One asked the waiter for cracker jacks? The waiter said they did not have any, and the Irishman said “what else do you not have black boy?”. Then while one went to throw up in the toilet, the other tried to order two lagers at 8.00am. For dinner we had planned another Domino's from our Asian friend. However there was a bomb scare that lasted four minutes, we were told to evacuate the area and that no pizza could be ordered. Instead, we decided to go to Wendys for a burger and milkshake. Tall one asked the fat girl behind the till if he could have a Cheeseburger Supreme meal. The fat girl asked what drink Tall one would like. Tall one asked if he could upgrade his drink from a coke to a milkshake? The fat girl told him no, no upgrade, no milkshake with meal deal. Tall one said, “ok, can I have a Sprite”. The fat girl asked, “would you like to upgrade you're drink?”. Tall one replied, “yes... to a milkshake!?”. She said, “No, no milkshake with meal deal would you like to pay 70c to upgrade your Sprite to a bigger size?”. Tall one said “no, I wanted a milkshake” and then asked if he could change his Sprite to a Coke instead. The fat girl said that was fine and then gave Tall one his cheeseburger supreme meal with a Sprite.

Thursday 7th May 2009 Up at 4.00am for flight at 7.50am to Sydney. Small one had a sad goodbye with Johannes and Sara, but to make things better got the hat he truly loved from them. On the bus was a 70 year old man that kept insisting on helping all the young girls with their luggage, staggering about trying to lift heavy cases while the bus was moving and everyone else just watched. A ginger Irishman got onto the bus and asked the bus driver for a single return ticket, the bus driver said, “you can only have a single one way”. When we arrived at the airport the driver said this was the last stop. The ginger Irishman then asked the driver where he gets off for the planes whilst all the other passengers were getting off with their luggage. We stopped for a Subway breakfast in the airport and asked for a tea and a coffee. The Indian cashier said “the tea is over there and the juice is over there...” Small one told her “we don't want Juice we want a tea and a coffee”. The cashier said “sorry, you're coffee is over there and here's your juice”. We boarded the plane, the Air Stewart Manageress introduced herself over the tanoy, she had a bad lisp and told us about the “Jetsssphstar sssphervices”. The other air steward was a young camp guy who kept winking at Small One, but could never remember where Small One was sat when he had to return with water. Landed in Sydney with Small One's dodgy visa brought from a lady called 'Daisy' and about $500 between us of the required $10,000. Immigration asked for no proof of funds or proof of Visa, did not stamp our passport and said it's all done on-line. We were achieving again. We caught the double decker tube train into the City seating in the disabled seats by the door. When we arrived at the Town Hall stop we realized we'd only paid for tickets up to four stops before at Central Station, so expected to have to pay extra when they did not let us through the barrier. When we got to the barrier the Muslim ticket attendant just waved us through an open barrier because of our bags. We were achieving again. Caught a bus to our $10 a night hostel in an out of town suburb, Balmain we found online. Checked in and found he 8 bed dorm so small and un-tidy that the only place to put our luggage was on our beds. The linen provided was damp as was the mattress and the bathroom and kitchen was filthy, the kitchen having only 2 cups between the 60 tenants. We decided to stay one night only and find somewhere else tomorrow, losing the remaining two nights we'd paid for. Into the city to open bank accounts, we asked in Anz and Westpac where both told us we would have monthly charges of around $6 for having an account. Anz did give Tall one a free biscuit, and Westpac served a man who claimed to be half Irish and half Jamaican but born in England. We tried Commonwealth bank where an American guy called Nicolas took us into his office. Without prompt he told us he'd give us both Visa/Debit accounts and take the $5 a monthly charges off. He gave us coffee and biscuits, suggested some good bars and drew us a map of how to get to Vodafone for us to get new Australian Sim cards. At one point he declared he was going to open up Michael, perhaps he did have a reason for helping us both out. We were achieving even more. Vodafone directed us to Dick Smith's electronic store as it was only $2 to buy a Sim card there. There was an offer for $150 credit for a $29 topup, Small one asked the small Indian cashier how the topup offer worked. She replied, “well you pay us money, and we give you a voucher with this number on and then you have to phone up with your telephone and you put in the number that we give you which gives you credit....” Small one did not mean that, Small one is not from Mars, Small one wanted to know how the offer worked. Tall one needed a new mobile phone battery and asked a fat man working in Dick Smith's if they sold that type. The fat man said they did not. Tall one enquired if he knew where he could buy a mobile phone battery... the fat man said, “probably a phone shop”.... again, Tall one is not from Mars. Upon leaving the shop an Asian attendant by the door insisted on searching our bags. We opened them for him but he did not even look inside and said we could go. Tall one and Small one then sat in a back alley opposite a fat traffic control woman to setup their new mobile phone providers. Phoning the number stated to register they were led through a long automated system where you had to say your postcode and spell your name to an answer phone. Upon spelling his surname, Tall one was interrupted after B...A...R...T... by the automated voice saying 'Thankyou' and moving on before the spelling was finished. Small one could not complete the setup as the automated woman could not understand what he was saying and so had to telephone an actual person to complete registration. We were now achieving less. A terrible night at Balmain backpackers involving a Chinaman setting off his alarm clock 4 times at 3am and rustling through takeaway bags until Small One told him to shut up. When Tall one went to use the toilet a girl walked past and he thought she said 'Good Night Michael'. He called back 'Goodnight' and closed the bathroom door to urinate. The girl came back and said through the closed door “Myrtle is that you?”. Tall one did not respond. She continued, “Myrtle? You can't use that toilet Myrtle?”... Tall one was scared and waited for her to go.

Friday 8th May Tall one and Small one got the hell out of that backpacker's early and found a new hostel, in City centre for the same price. It SEEMED better, but was run by Muslims. Small one was convinced that the hostel was a front for terrorist recruitment. We had a good steak meal in a depressing hole that was closing down. The open plan kitchen had two white men teaching an Asian to cook Chinese food. When we complimented the white chef on his good steak, he said “oh, ok”. Tall one applied for a Waiting job in a Asian run cafe where the manager could barley speak English. The Muslim hostel proved to be also a HOLE. The kitchen was rancid, no crockery or cutlery. A 2 litre bottle of milk we brought was drunk within the day by someone. To get the fecker back we brought some Orange Juice and Small One pissed in it. The next morning someone had drunk the lot, payback is sweet. Another bad night's sleep as the middle aged Asian man who wore orange pants and slept on a broken bed got up at 4am and turned the main bedroom light on. He then stood over his bed with his hands on his hips and adjusted his washing, re-arranged three plastic bottles, we shouted at him to turn the light off and he just said “two more minutes”. He then did this EVERY night we stayed there. On our second to last night in the hostel Small One asked for just two nights rest, and he complied. Saturday 9th May Paid $85 each to do the RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol, LOL) course. From 9am till 2pm, taught by a man called Brett who opened the course by telling us his life story. 90% of the others sitting the course were Asian and looked confused. Brett went through his presentation telling us when we see a slide marked red with 'IMPORTANT' and he says 'write this down it's important' that this will be in the test. Throughout the presentation he told us thirteen things were important. When we came to do the actual written test, there were thirteen questions to answer and we were allowed to keep our notes. Small one and Tall one finished within five minutes and got 100% correct, the Asians were still on the first question. Brett told us that he expected about 75% of the class to fail. We went to Woolworths supermarket to buy lunch. From the deli counter we got hot wedges, two sandwich rolls and also some fruit. When we came to pay, we were told we had to pay for each item at three different tills. As far as Small one and Tall one were concerned we were in one store and on one floor, and all the cashiers worked for Woolworths. An experience we never want to experience again. In the evening Tall one had an hour and a half trial in a coffee shop. Most of that time was spent stood grinning at customers as there was no work to be done. The manager did not speak English very well and never phoned Tall one back about the trial. Small one had also been turned down for work at a newsagent stand made out of a toilet, as he was told he would not get this job in Sydney due to the fact he did not speak Chinese. A second failed job for small one was an attendant in a shoe shop. Where he was told by the Asian manager that he had to be a girl to get the job. For dinner we had a steak in a restaurant for $2. Small one got charged more for not ordering the correct beer that came with the dinner. The Muslim cashier said it was Small one's own fault for not asking which beer was included in the deal. After dinner we stopped in Hungry Jacks (Burger King) to buy a milkshake. There was an old tramp sat in there eating a little ice cream. We spent ten minutes taking photographs of him until he got so pissed off he moved downstairs. Sunday 10th May It was raining very hard. We had to walk back to Balmain backpackers to get our key deposit back for the beds we did not sleep in. We got the $20 deposit back and spent it on a Subway breakfast. We ordered four of the breakfasts and coffees, as the Indian cashier told us we could either have one large breakfast sub and one coffee for $10 or for $4.50 each a small sub and a coffee. Back at Darling Harbour we decided to spend the day NOT looking for jobs or better hostels. Walking around the harbour side we took photographs of many many Asian tourists who all had umbrellas out even though the sun had now been out for over an hour. Another half an hour walk took us up to Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We asked a foreign couple in colourful raincoats to take a photo of us by the Opera House. As the wife took the photo the husband took his own photo of us as well. Further around the corner we encountered more weirdos to take photos of, including an Aborigine playing a didgeridoo while a bearded man sat in a bush behind him, and a small man sanding on a milk crate in Spiderman pyjamas giving a sausage balloon to a fat bald man. We then had our photographs taken with an Australian Policeman who really did not look happy about it. The harbour was surrounded by hundred's of Asian couples having weddings, and keen to have our photograph taken with them we managed to stop two Asian Bridemaids. We asked a passing little old lady with a huge broken teethy grin (who we had been pointing and laughing at about half an hour earlier) to take our photograph with the Bridesmaids. Small one and Tall one held the bouquets, the old lady spent a long time trying to use my camera saying she's not used to these cameras because of her eyes and suggested we used someone else. The photo was taken and Small one and Tall one continued walking round the harbour. We found another wedding, this time the Bride and Groom who were having their actual wedding photos taken. We asked their professional photographer to take a photo of us with them using my cheap digital camera. The groom seemed a little uncomfortable. As the photographer was complaining about the bad flash on my camera the little old lady came w2alking past again and took out her own digital camera and took a photo of us for herself?? Walking through the Botanical gardens there were strange white turkey birds everywhere and then we found a speakers corner, where two men were stood near each other on vegetable crates giving worldly advice to tramps and lonely people in the park. We stopped by one of them, a man called Rupert. He proclaimed from his vegetable box that you did not need friends, love or self esteem to be happy. He asked what worldly advice Small one and Tall one wanted to know. Tall one wanted to know where the toilet was, but we asked where we could get a job. Rupert suggested that we volunteer to work at a building site for free for two months. Make our selves indispensable in that time and then they would employ us after 2 months. We did query what we would use to buy food for during those 2 months and he suggested maybe we only worked for free for a week then. We finally got back to the Muslim backpackers, we had been walking for 13 hours.

Tuesday 12th May Had a job interview to work in a call centre for a company called Aussie Farmers Direct at 1.30pm. Another job agency, Sirius telephoned and after reading our CV's suggested we come in and register and that she'd start sorting out warehouse work for us straight away. Small one was convinced she'd get us work as she was Irish (bitch) so we blew off the Aussie Farmers job interview. Went to Sirius office where we had to right out our job history and experience again and then sit through an hour computer test on Warehouse safety – scoring 100% each. After the test the Irish woman (bitch) sent in a colleague to tell us they had no work for us as we had no warehouse experience, and so we went home still with no job (bitch). It was also the day the Australian budget came out, we walked down to the internet café at 7pm and past a man in a suit with a red tie slumped in the doorway of a bank sitting in his own vomit. A couple were asking him if he was alright, we were hoping they would not move him on as we had to get back to the hostel to get the camera. When we got back he was thankfully still there, and we stopped two Asian boys to take a photo of Tall one and Small one crouched by the drunk with our thumbs up. Went and saw Defiance at the cinema. On the way home Small one got excited, wearing his adorable hat. Running across the road screeching doing an Irish jig. An Asian girl pointed and shrieked “Ahh what's that!”.

Wednesday 13th May Managed to salvage the Aussie Farmer interview which was now at 9.45am with training to start at 10am if we were interested. As we walked into the office door an Irish voice called out 'Conor Hegarty...'. It was Mr Pat Harkins from Small One's school days. He was on his first day and dressed identically to small one. The Athlone dress code must be brown shoes, blue jeans, white shirt and black jumper for first day of work. Pat told us the job was to be milkmen selling door to door and not call centre as in advert. Our interview lasted five minutes, and we started work at 10am as we had no other options anyway. We would be signing people up to have free delivery of Australian dairy and grocery products.

Thursday 14th May First day door to door. We were told to get to office at 1.00pm, but the other salesmen just played football for an hour and a half. Then we left at 2.30pm, got to site at 4.00pm where the driver said we were due a lunch break. Started knocking doors at 5.00pm when it was getting dark. Cockatoo parrots where shrieking and flying over the street as we worked. Small one had been making notes of the house numbers knocked and writing comments next to each why no sale was made. When signing up one new customer the man read small one's notes and saw he had written 'Asshole' next to the house next door. He did agree however, that the neighbour was an asshole. We left site at 8.30pm and got home by 10pm. As we walked home in the dark past the train station a very pale young man with some kind of bible in his hands grabbed small one and said “excuse me we are only stopping intellectuals today...” small one ran away. Past him a rough craggy old woman asked Tall one for some kind of money or help and Tall one said “I don't think so, thank you”. Past her, an Asian girl came up to Small one and asked “where is centre bank, centre bank?”. Small one did not know what she was talking about, until she said it properly, as “where is St George bank” (where the vomiting businessman was)

Friday 15th May Before starting work at 1.00pm we moved out of the Muslim hostel. Across the bathroom walls somebody had written 'I WILL KILL YOU' in permanent marker. Before we left I ate a mandarin in the TV Lounge which has been occupied all week by two dick heads stoned out of their faces watching TV 24/7. One of them changed to a movie channel and turned to us and asked if we could read what the movie was about on information page. Small one ignored him, whilst Tall one drearily read out, “Doctor T and the Women.... Richard Gere plays a gynaecologist with women troubles....”. Enough said, the junkie decided to watch and we got the hell out of the Muslim backpackers. Moved into Harbour side Hostel for free accommodation in exchange for handing out hostel leaflets at Central Station 12 hours a week. Nice big hostel, place clean and we were given our own room. We stopped and bought ourselves a clipboard each for door to door work. Small one brought a green one, Tall one brought a blue one. The blue one cost 50c more as it was blue, or so the Indian cashier said.... (do any Australian's have jobs in this country?). Second day door to door, Small one made $250 in 5 hours, Tall one made enough to pay for his clipboard. Walking home at 10pm through Hyde Park we were chased and intimidated by one small possum. We through down a cereal bar for it but it kept on running after us, however we did live to tell the tale.

Saturday 16th May Between 10.30 and 12.30am Small one and Tall one went to central station to hand out the leaflets for their free accommodation. It was a dull two hours, but a couple of successful referrals were made. Most of the time was spent giving directions to Town Hall and George Street. When walking home the same very pale young guy with bible from Thursday night grabbed small one again and said “that's a nice T-Shirt are you from Pakistan or Sydney?” (Small one's tan is not that good to be mistaken for a Pakistani). Went food shopping and brought frozen oven pizza and lasagne only to find that the hostel has no freezer or oven. At night went Possum shooting in Hyde Park.

Sunday 17th May The Lord's day, a day of rest. Had our free cereal and coffee in hostel and watched as an Asian couple had a plate of green peas for breakfast and then washed their eye glasses in the sink. Sometimes hard to believe we are in Australia as not met an Aussie yet. Back down to Central station for more leaflet work. A marathon was being run in Hyde Park and was full of hideous smelling people. Went for three pints of Guinness with Eddie and Elana, after they left Small one tried balancing his mobile phone on top of a pint. It fell in and had to be held under a hand drier by Tall one until it worked again.