The joys of dorm rooms

Day 135 – Sydney, Australia

Until now I have been relatively lucky with my dorms: people haven’t been snoring too loudly, I haven’t been told that I was snoring loudly, and generally speaking, people are polite and try not to turn the light on at inconsiderate hours.

So I had to finally have the bad penny.

In my present dorm, I have had the following interesting situations:

• what sounded like a basketball game played downstairs, with walls trembling when a ball struck it, but could have maybe been the renovations going on underneath;
• the false fire alarm, the first when I was leaving the toilets (2min later and I would have been like the man who was coming down the stairs when I entered the stairwell, wet, naked, (built), a towel around his waist, except my towel is a tiny thing that would have been more than inadequate); since the two subsequent alarms happened when I was in fact under the shower (towel size problem still applying), I slated them to the renovations and stayed under the spray;
• the group of French people playing a card game, maybe poker, loudly, swearing, while waiting for the time to go out (thank God they went out);
• staff counting the beds, checking how many were free (obviously, some people don’t take their sheets off as requested when checking out, so it’s hard to know which beds are free or not);
• cleaning staff taking German lessons from one another;
• people singing Alleluia, clapping their hand in time with the song; I think I heard a Gloria today;
• the guy who listens loudly to rap music under the shower. He is from my dorm, doesn’t always turns the music off when finishing dressing, and use way too much deodorant -I’m sure you’re not supposed to create a cloud taking the dorm over;
• the guys working night, or one working long days and the other working night, coming back very late and sleeping in in the morning, and checking with me if the other has come back (their bunk is in front of mine);
• the guy with the shaved head and huge beard coming back one day without the beard. Total change;
• and finally, the flopping fish. He has the bunk bed above mine, likes to park his suitcase in front of my locker, and either hasn’t realised that his every movement reverberates on the whole bunk, or doesn’t care. Since I’m the beneficiary of his violent turns and his litany of “p*tain, p*tain, p*tain, mais il s’arrête jamais”, I know that he is French, can’t sleep through gentle snoring, and is inconsiderate.

And that’s how I got up early and did my laundry this morning, which was just as well as the washing machines were free.

The weather was interesting today, sunny one moment, rainy the next. I had hoped to take advantage of the sun to spend more time outside, so after doing my laundry, I headed out.

I went back to the Botanic Gardens -I really like them-, and took some pictures with the sun actually shining! So I added them to the relevant gallery, if you want a look. The bamboo groves were carved, it makes for interesting pictures -and loss of faith into the human nature, but that’s another problem.

Tonight is Saturday night, and it’s lively outside. Fun. Not.

I plan to go back tomorrow to the Blue Mountains, taking advantage again of the Sunday scheme. It should be rainy, but this time I’ll have the right gear!