One of my roommates in the hostel is Arno ("Arnold in French" he says). A nice fellow, very outgoing and surprisingly anxious to talk, I haven't had too much trouble with his accent. He's on vacation for two months, started in new zealand and is on his way down through the center of Australia right now. Plus he had the hat I've been looking for :) A Barmah Foldable Oiled hat (1062) size large. Anyway, he's from a city just outside of Paris and chided me for having seen germany and italy but never having seen his country. I told him I would and he said it had better be the next one I see. Hey, who's going to argue.
Later on I met two girls from Sydney who are on a quick three week tour of their own country. Hun le and Lavina are originally from korea and malasia respectively but have been in sydney for the last seven or eight years. They were sweet and tried not to make fun of my microwaved stirfry as they ate their freshly made meal. We shared dinner and talked about photography (Lavina is a little farther along on the enthusiast track than I am), dogs - they laughed that I keep addie overweight so she can't jump the fence, life in our respective cities, and places we'd like to see. They're both accountants of all things, though Hun le is currently unemployed and traveling (first time taking the hostel route). Hun le and I tried to explain the virtues of unemployment to Lavina, but she just didn't buy it. It was a pleasant four hours and helped finally kick my jetlag. I got pictures, but not digital, so this will be an entirely text based post. Anyway, I came away with a list of things to do and see in Sydney that I couldn't possibly complete in less than a week, never mind two days (the movie on the water sounds really cool if hard to get tickets for).
So Alice started off seeming like a wasted day, and I guess I didn't really need an entire 24 hours here, but it's always nice to meet more people. The flight for Cairns leaves in 4 hours and I have to return the rental car in two. I've been hoping the costal cities will be a little cooler, but from what I hear they're just as hot. Guess we'll see.
