Autumn is rolling on into Sydney now and it’s caught me by surprise in many ways: so far, it’s been warmer and drier than Summer, and
in a way Summer never really seemed to start in the first place. My sleepy little suburb, Kensington (home to a sign saying “Smile, you’re in Kensington, and very little to smile about) is now slowly being covered in brown leaves and I find myself wondering what happens to the tropical plants over the road at this time of year. I’ve never seen a tropical plant outside of Summer. I kind of assumed it was always Summer anywhere they would grow.
I work in a fairly classy bar. It has a dress code of sorts, and the drinks are pretty pricey. Our clientele is, largely, the rich and those pretending to be rich. While it’s quiet, the bar is extremely civilised, but when it gets busy, the place turns a little more interesting. Despite the appearance, people can get a little feral there.
What really gets me about hangovers is the way that my thoughts work as I move through the morning after the night before. Normally the important thoughts, like “I need to do some shopping” or “If I don’t eat something, I’ll die” float in and out of my daily random musings, such as “I wonder if sharks will ever learn to walk on their tails” and “I wonder if cats know that humans aren’t cats”, leaving me more or less at the whim of my poor, broken brain as it tumbles around in its chaotic way. On any given day there’s a good chance that I’ll forget to eat for a good few hours, then realise that I’m out of food, and then I’ll fall asleep hungry and tortured by unanswered questions about animals.
One memory from my travels that sticks in my mind is one particular evening when I was in a rather unusual hostel on a backstreet of New York, somewhere around 55th and 8th. I was sat on a couch that looked like it had been saved from extinction by an enterprising tramp and subsequently abandoned once more, only to be picked up by this place and made useable with the addition of a throw-over, which was, as is traditional, bunched up around the corners of the sofa and not covering much of the sitting space at all.
The concept of a hotel in Australia is an interesting thing. I’m not talking about your traditional bed-and-breakfast type situation, although they do of course exist, I’m talking about pubs and clubs with some kind of restaurant function, which are known in Australia as hotels for some reason that I don’t fully understand.
The concept is reasonably basic: have a bar, offer food, satisfy the RSA regulations. Food is considered a good way to combat drunkenness, you see. Given the Aussie diet, this has led to just about every bar pasting up large signs outside offering “The $7 steak! (Conditions apply)” or “The $5 steak! (Conditions apply)” or, sometimes, even “The $9 steak! (No conditions!)”. Most bars then provide an eating area, often to do with their licence.