First things first, Get luggage –check. Find address of accommodation-check. Get taxi with a quirky driver who loves to talk-check. Get key from safe at hostel and get into room to find Lindo-Uh oh.
I arrived at YHA Darwin at 2:30am. Now the plan was, they were going to leave me the key in the safe out the back and give me the code, so that I could go and get the key. Lindo was going to be arriving early, so I gave him the code so he could check in. Now, the problem was that there was one key, so he was meant wait for me outside so I could get in. No Lindo in sight. Shit. No key. Even bigger shit. No mobile (I left it behind in Melb as I thought I wouldn’t need it). Fuck!
Imagine a dingy YHA hostel- Office out the front with a open gate on the left hand side, which leads you to the back, where you see block of different doors leading to peoples rooms. There is a safe right behind the office, but my key isn’t in one of them. I don’t even know the room number so that I can knock. The safest course, I decided was to move my luggage back behind the office, so that you couldn’t see it from the streets. Then, I had a brilliant idea (I love those- especially if they’re mine).
I ran out the front of the hotel. Yes! Ran back behind the office. Good my baggage was still there. Pulled out my laptop from the luggage (which was a task in itself) and scribbled something on a piece of paper and ran out to the front again. I checked my pockets and found exactly was I was looking for: 2x 50c coins.
Now I was standing in a phone booth, so I rang mum first to tell her that I had arrived and was “safe” (why worry parents I say!) and that she shouldn’t worry. Then I rang Lindo. He was drunk. He was off at a pub. He said “we” a lot, so I had no idea if he was delirious or if he’d made friends.
Ten minutes later, a very drunken Lindo and another white guy comes barging down the street, talking at the top of their lungs (Lindo, who sounded aussie, and the other sounded very…Irish) and behaving in a friendly way. Lindo has either just come out of the closet or is more drunk than I thought. It turned out to be the latter explanation.
The Irish guy was Karswei, a teacher who was about to go overseas to move to England. He seemed like an interesting enough guy with plenty of stories, which, mixed with his accent and Aussie colloquialisms, made for interesting conversation (or at least funny enough for my liking). And he was also ranked 8th in the world for Irish dancing. It’s fair to say that he made our trip that much more interesting.
Together, in their drunken melody, they explained what had happened: Lindo and Karswei came on the same bus from the airport and found that, while Lindo had the code to the safe, Karswei didn’t, but had a room key inside. The key for the room I had booked was not there. It was 3:00am.
In an effort to keep posts short and interesting – I’ll stop now.
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