Day 1, New York - Who's at the door?
So after a huge day in NY walking from around 80th St to Wall St and everything in betweem to catch glimpses of those famouse places you see so much on TV, like Madison Square Garden, Grand Central Station, Park Avenue, the park near Madison Square Garden where baseball was invented but people walk their dogs their now, all of these amazing places. I've been fighting the will to sleep until now, so being a relatively organised guy I've got the thought pounding through my head saying "I know you want to sleep but get your shit sorted for the morning seeing you've got the tour departing at 7am" so I'm sorting my clothes in dirty and clean bags and stashed my New York and US books in the dresser beside my bed, you'll find out later why this was a mistake and you shouldn't use hotel drawers, but keep everything in your suitcase, believe me!
So everything's done, and I'm sitting on the bed taking in some cable tv and it's around 11pm and I'm that tired that I actually had trouble gettting to sleep, so as I started to relax I heard the lift go "Bing!" and the footsteps get closer and closer to my room, until I can hear them right outside my door and I'm thinking it must be my neighbour, I hear the door know jiggle and my heart starts racing! Oh this is great! My first New York moment where I get to beg for my life. As far as I know I've got this room to myself for the next 4 nights. Well apparently not, in comes in the tall lanking guy, looks aussie and says "Hey G'day! I'm Ryan, I'm your roomate!". Not only am I shocked by this time, but totally pissed off! At no point in time did the that Selina at Flightcentre EVER say ANYTHING about me sharing a room with someone on a Contiki tour, I was fuming! But it clicked to me that the accommodation was pretty cheap and I'd say this is how they keep it so cheap, but even after reading all of the brochures and guides they sent to me, at no point did it mention "If you're travelling alone, you will be sharing your room with a TOTAL STRANGER which we match up through your personality profiles." So after the initial shock and as fast as it happened, I built a bridge and got over it, he started chatting and telling me his story.
Ryan was a welder for Mitsubishi in South Australia and had just done the Rocky tour of Canada and showed me the photos of the friends he'd made, parties they'd had, and women he'd laid on the tour. All of a sudden my ignorance of beliving Selina at Flight centre faded. I flashed back to when I asked her about Contiki being a pissup tour like I'd heard, then she replied "Ummm, no, not these days, they've really moved away from that reputation now and are all about the travel, the experinence and meeting new people". The "Ummm" said it all, which was her womanese for "They're gonna teach you how to drink pal!". So here this guy is, smiling and laughing about "This cunt was a fuckin classic mate...oh and these cunts were such fuckin animals...and man check out these fuckin chicks...I scored with her on the last night in Vancouver...oh yeah they got lakes, man this one was fuckin crystal clear, like lookin into a fuckin mirror fuck ya!" The stories just poured out of this guys mouth. I started to wonder what stories would be pouring out of my mouth by the time I got home. So, I love a drink like the next guy, but this guy was the first of many "root rats' that I was to meet on the tour. A root rat was my interpretation of the typical guy on the tour who was all about the next root he could find and who it was gonna be with, it wasn't the quality, it was just all about the numbers and the root rat would probably even beg for it. He seemed to be your typical loudmouth yobbo at a football game with sauce from the hotdog still on his shirt collar to add to the wet spots from micro spills of bourbon as he shook his cup from yelling at the ref, "FUCKIN WANKA!!! THAT LAST PASS WAS BULLSHIT!". I knew I wasn't going to fit in with him and the type of crew I could see him hanging with, which was a blatant judgement I'll admit. After an hour or so of chatting, I gave the signal and I was off to sleep for the night, click!
posted at 12:07 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home