The Tale of Two Mugs

Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Brisbane
November 27th 2014

Published: November 27th 2014

Okay so my first bad morning in Brisbane, I got a much better sleep than last night but despite that I still woke up in a bit of a low. I pulled myself out of bed and opted for a cold shower to try and blast some life into me. I wandered out into the Wednesday morning air of the hostel, it was laced with a humidity that was just too heavy to be comfortable and as if to match I had a growing sense of homesickness housed somewhere inside me. My head swirled with all sorts of anxieties, I was away from my parents and I hadn’t made as many friends in the hostel as I’d planned. On top of that, the enormity of the cost of travelling had finally dawned on me and who was going to employ a backpacker for a fortnight anyway? I walked over to the balcony and looked out over the thin layer of suburbs that separated the hostel from the city centre, clouds hung over the buildings as if they were just waiting for the residents to step outside before they soaked them. I dialled mum and let her know everything was fine and nobody had lost any limbs yet before slumping into a bean bag chair and telling dad the same as I watched the spitting from the sky turn into a gentle pour.

One of the best things about my parents is that they can be very objective when they need to be and after just two short phone calls I’d already begun to feel a lot better, I stepped out from the shelter of the common room into the thin rays of sunlight that were starting to pierce through the clouds as they begun to fade. During my phone calls Katie had gotten up, showered and somehow managed to creep up behind me. Water was still dripping down her face as we exchanged our hellos, she was going to stay in for a bit as she charged up her phone and got ready for the day ahead. I, on the other hand, decided to go for a walk down Boundary Street (the one with the local Nando’s,) so it was shoes on and headphones in as I made my way down to the bank then onto Coles. I couldn’t help but mouth along to the lyrics as I went and enjoyed the me-time that was harder to find in a backpackers. I decided to grab some milk and coffee whilst I was down there and a second plastic box to take food out in.

Now in order for the next bit of the story, and the title, to make sense I need to explain this first. When we went shopping yesterday we picked up two bowls with handles on them, so in reality they looked more like two enormous mugs. Anyway by the time I got to the backpackers Katie had made us both porridge in these mug-bowl-things… now I love it when Katie cooks my food, I really do, but I think she’d be the first one to agree with me that this probably wasn’t the best porridge we’ve ever had… and it definitely wasn’t because it resembled shredded cardboard… but anyway that was the introduction to the uber-mugs and they tend to pop in and out of the days’ events every now and again. Whilst I’d been out Katie had met two Australian backpackers who were leaving that day and she was heading out with them that morning before they left. That suited me fine, I’d already had my morning walk and wasn’t really up for a second so I returned to the balcony and looked out over the now happier looking city whilst sipping my freshly bought coffee from my molecule mug.

Caffeine fix dealt with, I made my way back to the room. Now even though technically this was our third day here this was probably the first time I really got talking to my roommates. There were two German teens, brother and sister, who had befriended another German girl who lived her and happened to be racing her boat today and they were going to tag along. There was also another German girl, she was blonde and spent most of her day reading or sleeping, she had travelled most of the east coast and was flying all the way over to Perth in a few days. She was the first person I’d met who had hated her time in Sydney and she advised me to stay by the beach when I stayed there instead of the centre. There was a skinny Italian boy and an older man who seemed to keep to himself and well… hate people. But the last guy was the most entertaining. He was only about my age but he wore this great big beard, he’d brought a set of BOSE speakers with him and started blasting reggae music as we both played about on our laptops.

Soon enough Katie was back and we were cooking a lunch of sausages and scrambled egg and drinking our newly acquired coffee. Except I was drinking mine out of my molecule mug and Katie looked like she was trying to destroy a lake of coffee that had found its way into her purple-rimmed uber-mug. I could have finished my cup 4 times over in the time it took for Katie to even make a dent on hers… that being said it didn’t stop her having another one later that day.

Our next plan of action was to grab the hostel’s minibus into the city centre so we could take advantage of the free Wi-Fi in the library. But of course with our look we missed the bus, by the time we’d collected our belongings together and walked out the room all we could see was the minibus turning out of the entrance. So we walked, which wasn’t too bad, cardiovascular… and all that stuff. The library was huge though, it must have been joined to one of the Brisbane Universities because it was full of students. We were greeted by a very friendly yet overly Australian man who directed us to the computer room and the best places for Wi-Fi reception. Sat there amongst the clusters of people playing computer games, reading novels and doing research I felt at an odd parallel with my friends back in England who were probably doing the same thing in their Universities. It filled me with a new wave of determination to get into medical school and set myself up for the future that I so badly wanted, that was after I’d finished this rather enriching detour of my life that is.

And so we began searching for backpacker jobs, although it’s not as easy as it might sound. Sales, sales, sales, that’s all people seemed to want off backpackers at the moment, I had anticipated more café and bar work to be available but it seemed like people were in desperate need of salesmen. There was the odd farming job advertised but other backpackers had warned me that it was gruelling work in the fast approaching summer heat and it wasn't great pay if you weren't fast at filling the baskets. In the end we found two that really interested us, one was in Southbank Park where we’d had the barbecue the other day. A new restaurant had opened that was in need of both bar workers and floor staff so we decided to drop in our applications. The other one was a sales team, except these guys would pay for your accommodation and transport all over Australia as well as giving you full training. It sounded like a fairly good deal and hey you never know I might really like sales work.

Sunset was close upon us, so we finished up in the library and headed out to wait for the hostel minibus. That wasn't before getting a text off my little sister saying that my dad had been “attacked” by a spider and that they’d found a tiger shark washed up on a beach. All in all it sounded like the most exciting day Yeppoon had had since we moved here and me and Katie just happened to miss it. Anyway, by the time we got back to the backpackers we were feeling slightly more at ease now that we knew we had some job applications out there. But even more exciting than the thought of us getting a job was the thought of Kebab night at the hostel. The seductive aroma of grilled chicken skewers filled our nostrils as we wandered through the paths back towards our room. Each kebab was only a dollar! So we sat at one of the tables with our chicken and within minutes we had the cats upon us. A largish ginger cat had hopped up onto the bench next to Katie and was following her kebab with her eyes relentlessly, whilst I had acquired a jet black cat with white paws which had a habit of trying to claw the chicken out of my hands. But hey, cats are what we signed up for and at least they let us stroke them in-between their attempts to steal our dinner.

And then we got to the part of the night which I can only describe as Katie’s breakdown. After our dinner we had decided to have another coffee and the effect of a lake of caffeine at 7pm on my oldest friend from college was cataclysmic. She got extremely hyper extremely quickly to the point where she was pacing the room and swinging so much on the posts of the bed that I was afraid she was going to explode. At one point she wanted to go for a jog and at another there was talk of us going outside and doing a rain dance after she said “Tom, make it rain.” Luckily she crashed before either of those things happened. Now an important thing to note is that although what I've said makes it sound like she was high, there were no drugs involved. This was honestly and truthfully all the cause of the caffeine lake and the uber-mug.

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved