That's More Like It

Well, the new hostel is definitely an improvement. Much more what I was thinking when I thought "hostel." When I came back to the room at the end of day, all my roommates who were there introduced themselves and then we all discussed our plans for the night. They are all solo travelers like me, and we all went out with a group from the hostel. I felt so international--in the large group I was the only American. There was one Canadian, and her accent made me feel at home. Others were from Japan, Denmark, Finland, Argentina, England, and a large group from Sweden. There were even two Aussie brothers who were down from Cairns for a concert, but they had both been born in and lived in Fiji for the early part of their childhood. They promised that if I went to Fiji I could stay with their grandparents and get a real taste of local island life. Not a bad offer.

Here are a few things I learned from this social experience:

• Club music in Sydney is pretty much the same as club music in Michigan. The only difference is that here they play Europop instead of Reggaeton.
• It is very much true that Scandinavian people are ridiculously beautiful. How can they stand to travel abroad and be around all these non-beautiful people?
• Fosters may be Australian for beer in the USA (and also in Finland because my Finnish roommate knew that commercial too), but not so much in Australia. I still have yet to see Fosters being sold anywhere.

So many new things to take in!