Day 17 - Behind The Vine; Brass Monkeys

Yuzu and Nicole saying goodbye

April 25th, 2015

I wanted to start this post by wishing my Uncle Wayne a very happy 70th birthday! I didn't get a chance to call him on the day, so I figured I would throw something on the blog post that his birthday landed on. Happy Birthday OB1!

I was woken by Yuzu calling me at 8:30 to tell me that Nicole was leaving. Nicole, herself, then made an appearance in my room to make sure she saw me before she left. I dragged myself out of bed to see her off, which was brief due to her impending bus. We exchanged promises of meeting up and she tried one last attempt to get us to go to Bali with her. 

A little hungover, I tried to sleep for another hour. It was one of those crappy sleeps where you are pretty sure you just laid there for the entire time, though went by faster than it expected. Realizing that my time was up, my skeleton dragged the rest of me through the routine of getting prepared until the “espresso” (lots of coffee powder in little water) took effect in the car.

Hmm.. Cabernet or Merlot..

Liz had invited me to go along with her to check out the wineries/vineyards fairly close to Perth (not Margaret River). We had originally planned to do a Cider and Pork festival, which we did pass on the way, but opted to do this instead. I wasn’t really feeling like drinking overpriced - probably even by Perth standards - alcohol at this time. We toured around, got some good interviews/quotes from the people working the vineyards (Except bloody Wal! (he was picturesque)). We stopped at a brewery, assuming it would be cheaper, due to the fact that breweries aren’t as haut couture as wineries.

Liz was flying out to Sydney that night, and I had a very informal invitation for a trial run/training session with a job in town. I showed up to the job to find that the owner, who was keen before, was now a little hesitant to even bring me in to be trained, and especially not today. I gently pushed for the training, and he told me to come in the next day at noon. Sweet.

Behind the Vine

Since I didn’t have to train, I now had several hours to nap before viewing a share house. Several beautiful hours of sleep later, I stagger down the street, shedding drowsiness onto the sidewalk as I went. The place is still pretty close to the hostel, which is a great location to a lot of shops and bars. The land lady seems quite nice, and the room is awesome. While it is a little more than I'd like, I end up taking it because it’s still cheaper than the amount I'm currently paying to sleep in a room with several other people. Seriously though, this place is on par with some of the better places I’ve rented over the years.

Back at the barren hostel, I am glad to sit down and am glad get some work done. This was the plan. Instead, as soon as I start typing, everyone decided to climb out from wherever they were hiding and swarm the place. I had some pretty interesting conversations with American Jesse, Aussie Peter, Dutch Bram, and a few others. Bram generously offers to drive me to my new place the morning I move out, as he will have a car that day. Awesome, that makes the day much, much easier than having to make at least two trips with heavy packs.

Striking a Pose at the Gates

I didn’t intend to drink that night, and turned Bram down, but gave in when Peter came back with wine that wasn’t goon. After some somewhat rude (on my part) attempts to get thoughts down, I gave up and accepted an invitation from Korean Cassie to go with her and a few others to the Brass Monkey.

Brass Monkey, You Funky Monkey

My impression of the Monkey was that it was a pub, which is what it looks like from outside. Inside was like an old pub at first, which turned into a fairly large club, complete with an open skylight, some sort of tarp stretched over to block the sun/bird poop, and at least two floors. We perched atop the second floor, Cassie, French Vincent, French Agate, and a few other people that I didn’t get to know very well. Cassie was fairly tipsy after a half pint of cider, and was pushing for the group to move to mustang. I didn’t particularly feel like heading there again, and wanted to at least get Day 16 written down before the memory decayed too much. I went home and accomplished this, and went to bed relatively early so that I could be fresh and alert for my trial the next day.

I go inside to find a fairly drunk French Maxime and his friend, French Vincent (not the same as the one who is dating Korean Cassie). We talk about french, they teach me a few words and phrases, and I encourage them to get to the bar, as it’s getting a little late.

Vincent and Cassie on their second last night

I returned to my room to find my goddamn pillow had been snagged while I was away. There were 8 people sleeping in the room, and it was pitch black. Instead of harassing everyone to find my pillow, I rolled my towel up, watched the season finale of daredevil, and fell asleep.