After moving out of the o so fabulous Lakes Resort on Wednesday I checked into the Asylum Backpackers Hostel Cairns. The Asylum is a slightly different establishment. Those of us staying there are not guests or tenants. We are referred to as inmates. I have only taken a couple showers in the last 5 days because there isn't really any point to it. With the heat/humidity I don't really ever stop sweating. And on top of that the Asylum is just plain dirty. I sit in one of their chairs or lie down in the bed or just wander out to the reception area with the dirt everywhere and the effects of the shower are lost. I love it. This place is awesome. It is a relatively small hostel so I know at least the names of most of the people. They have free breakfast every morning (cornflakes and milk) and free dinner every night (meal voucher to one of the bars in town). They claim to have free internet but that's not really true. Free internet means one computer in the lobby where we can sign up for 15 minute time slots throughout the day. I don't bother and walk down to Mcdonalds with real actual free wifi. The library doesn't even have free wifi. Gotta love Mcdonalds. Let's see what else...
First night in the Asylum I met a few guys at dinner and we headed down to the Rhino Bar for Power Hour. You pay 8 dollars and get as many drinks as you can take from 10 to 11. Great evening. As many drinks as you can take doesn't mean as many as your stomach can handle. It means as many drinks as you can get after elbowing your way up to the bar for each drink. You have to develop a system in the chaos. We adopted the buddy system. One person fights and pushes and shoves and gets some space at the counter. Once he gets his drink and has to clear out he lets his partner into his vacated space at the bar and has his drink right behind his buddy while his buddy works to flag down the bartender again. Once he gets his drink the partner finishes whatever is left of his drink and swaps back up to the bar. We managed 1 drink in the first 15 minutes without the buddy system and by 11 we had polished off about 12 (mixed drinks usually didn't have a full shot in them so it didn't feel anything like 12 drinks in an hour). After that we danced the night away for a while before wandering over to The Heritage which was doing Wii Bowling night. It was my first time bowling in a year or so but I managed a 180 which was enough for the W. So far I love Cairns.
Friday night is all you can eat bbq night at the hostel. $4AUD gets you all the sausage, lamb, chicken, and steak you can eat. I knew Sydney was an expensive place to live but I didn't realize how cheaply you can survive elsewhere. One of the favs around The Asylum is goon pong. Beer pong except for it's played with tea cups and you are only allowed to bounce the ball and it's played on a really long table. And they don't believe in water cups so the drinks get pretty dirty pretty quickly. O and the tea cups are filled with with boxed wine (goon). The Asylum has a lot of character. TV is in a room out in the back. They have 4 different sport channels piped in here among other things. 3 of the channels are focused on rugby or cricket or soccer or other aussie sports. But then they also have ESPN. ESPN! I have watched a couple nba games. I caught a bit of the world baseball classic. The big party night at the Asylum is Monday night. There is a pub crawl and drink deals and food and fun all around. Right now it is Sunday night and its the first night I have been here that people are taking it easy. Resting up. I'm excited for tomorrow. So far I love Cairns
I've had a week now in Cairns and the original plan was to get down to Byron Bay to meet up with the rest of the rescuers but I don't know if I am ready to leave yet. There is still a lot I want to do around here. It's a super touristy little town and I didn't think I would enjoy it that much for that reason. But so far I love Cairns.
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