Saturday 17 March 2012

(Day 9) The Kings X Hotel II


Saturday 10th March (Day 9) (part 2/2)


Ok, just a word of warning, I got a bit carried around on this one and I will try and not write such long posts in the future...

Tonight the venue for the hostel night out was The Kings X Hotel like it was last Saturday night.  I believe the Kings X Hotel was a regular Saturday Night fixture.  I had no plans tonight and I was in the mood for a night out tonight.  Last time at the Kings X I had a bit of a random night where I found myself on my own (Billy no mates) but as a result I managed to meet some new people who turned out to really nice and since that night I have been out with them on several occasions and have had a great time.

I went down to hang around underneath the board where I met 3 guys who looked like they were going out.  They asked me if I was going to the Kings X tonight and I said yes, we headed off straight to the Kings X and on the way I found out these guys were from Canada.  After we got into the Kings X we tried each of the different floors (each with a different theme) until we decided to stay at the balcony bar floor.

The balcony bar was by far the best floor at the Kings X.  The open outdoor area and large number of chairs and tables compared to the other floors made the balcony bar the best area to socialise.  The fact that most of the bar area was outdoors also meant the bar wasn’t too hot or stuffy (unlike some of the other floors).  The only issue with the balcony bar is that everyone else seems to like it as well and the balcony area is usually very crowded.

Most of the seating at the balcony bar consists of long benches and tables and when we got there they were all full apart from a small space at the end of one of the tables.  There was only enough room for 2 of us to sit down but after a while people from our table started to leave and we took their seats.  It wasn’t long until we had the entire table to ourselves.  Having a whole table at the balcony bar was great, standing around in the crowded area isn’t very fun but by having our own table we were out of the crowd and could enjoy the balcony bar properly.
The Canadian guys had the good idea of using the spare seats around the table we had by inviting a group of girls who were stood near us to come and sit with us and be sociable.  I got talking to a girl from Belgium and after a few minutes I was finding her pretty boring.  People have told me that Belgium is a boring country and speaking to her certainly didn’t change this opinion.

Speaking to the Belgium girl made me want to drink more alcohol, but I had forgotten to take out enough money with me.  There was a cash machine in the Kings X but it is one of those annoying cash machines that charge you for making a withdrawal.  I asked the bouncer at the door if he knew where the nearest cash machine was, he said that there was one in the club.  I said I knew that but I didn’t want to pay the $2 to make a withdrawal.  He then laughed and said that there was a machine around the corner about 5 minutes walk away.

I headed off to the cash machine but the walk felt a lot longer than just 5 minutes.  Walking down Darlinghurst Road (the main high street) on a Saturday night is stressful.  The pavement was just full of people and they all seemed to be walking in the opposite direction to me.  I sometimes had to walk on the road to avoid chains of 5 or 6 drunk people holding hands.  It was mainly backpackers and travelling who were on a night out who were walking down Darlinghurst Road, there were a few dodgy looking people in the crowd also.  Very rough looking locals who you really didn’t want to bump into.  You rather walk into a whole chain of drunk people than walk into one of these nutters.

After what felt like 20 minutes I finally found the cash machine and got back to the Kings X Hotel.  I was joking with the bouncer saying that the walk wasn’t really worth the $2 I had saved and next time I would probably just use the machine here.  He laughed and said but it is about the principle, isn’t it?  The principle of having to pay to withdraw money and I totally agree with him, what a legend.

I met up with the Canadian guys where I found one of them had a girl sat on his lap with her arm wrapped around him.  I gave him a thumbs up but he shook his head at me.  There was clearly something wrong with the situation here which I later found out myself when I sat down near her and she came and sat on my lap.  Her problem was that she was far too drunk.  She was at the stage of drunkenness where she was just not good company.  She asked me 3 times where I was from because she just kept forgetting; I kept saying I was from England.  She said she was from Canada and started going on about how wonderful Canada is and how much she loves it.  She then turned to me and said that she hated pommies and she asked me if I hated pommies too.  I said “no, I am a pommie” and she looked really surprised and offended at me despite the fact that I told her 3 times I was English.  She got up and left as she clearly didn’t want to spend any more time talking to a pommie like me, which was great because I didn’t want to talk to her.  I don’t think anyone wanted to talk to her, she was a bitch.

After about 20 minutes the Canadian guys said they were going back, they said they had been up the night before and they were all exhausted.  I didn’t spend that much time talking to them (since I had spent most of the night walking to a cash machine) and I didn’t really get to know these guys but they seemed pretty cool.

Just after they left I started talking to a guy who came and sat next to me.  He had black wavy hair that was swept back and a well groomed beard.  He told me that he was a local guy and that he was a journalist, he then started going on about how much he loved journalism, I think he was pretty drunk. 

Between conversations with him I started talking to a group of girls who had sat down at the other side of me.  I found out these girls were from England and Ireland.  It was nice talking to people from the home country.  We started talking about places in England but the journalism guy butted in and said that he was finding our conversations about England boring.  He said because he was a journalist he wanted to talk about controversial topics.  I suggested that we could discuss Aboriginal people and their land rights which I had heard is a sensitive topic at in Australia.  I thought I had him but he returned by saying “let’s talk about the IRA”.  At this point most of the girls who were sat around stood up and said they wanted to leave.  He had clearly offended most of them by mentioning the IRA.

After we left the Kings X the girls said they were going to a dance club across town and that they were getting 2 taxis.  Most of the girls went in the first taxi and I was left behind with 1 of the girls and the drunk journalism guy, by this point the girl and the journalism guy were kissing a lot and weren’t really making great company.

After a bit of waiting we finally managed to get a taxi to take us to this club.  There was a band playing at the club and because of this it was $20 entry, I was not expecting to have to pay this much but luckily the girl said she would pay for me (which was very nice of her).  I think she was also drunk.

The band playing were not what I was expecting.  It was some sort of very heavy drum and bass that included remixes of Prodigy songs.  There were 2 guys on the stage with mics shouting out aggressive sounding lyrics.  They were both bald other than a small but long section of hair that they had at the base of the back of their heads.  They looked like they had cut their own hair but missed a bit on the back and it looked stupid.  We couldn’t find the group of girls from the first taxi and the journalism guy wasn’t making great company.  The girl I was with was very nice but we couldn’t really talk with such loud and annoying music playing.

We made several attempts to find the others and I eventually found them in the other room (which was away from the live music) but by this point they were moving on and I had to find the girl I was with originally and the journalism guy to say they the others were moving on.  I was told that the girl I was with knew which bar they were heading off to but when we got outside it turned out that she knew the bar but didn’t know how to get there.  I was pretty tired at this point and I said I was going to head back but the girl convinced me to stay and make it to the bar.  Together with the girl knowing a bit about where the bar was and the journalism guy's limited local knowledge we finally stumbled to the bar, but it had taken us so long to get there that the other girls had just left to go home.

By this point I was convinced that the journalism guy was actually gay.  I was noticing that he had a very gay manner about him and he was checking out any guy that walked past.  I know he was kissing a girl most of the night but I had noticed that the kissing had looked awkward.  I think he was so drunk that he just wanted to kiss anyone, I guess I was lucky that he hadn’t turned his lips towards me.

We spent some time in the bar where I had some interesting conversations about travelling and stuff with the girl I was with.  The journalism guy had gone off to annoy some other people at this point.  It was getting on to about 3:30 in the morning and I was extremely tired.  I said I was definitely leaving now because I was just too tired.
Overall tonight was pretty interesting.  I had met a boring person, a slightly weird drunk person, a very drunk person who was a bit of a bitch but everyone else was pretty cool.  My nights out at the Kings X are never simple. 

Who knows what weird and wonderful people I will meet next time at the Kings X hotel?

2 comments:

  1. that journalism guy sounds a bit annoying - there's always some idiot in a group of randomers and he had all the right makings of one - I mean if you're gonna talk about the IRA on a night out you might as well talk about terrorism in general "remember when they killed Sadam Hussein" "Erm no. STFU Buzz Killington" - it's not good conversation and you end up arguing because of it being such a contraversial subject

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  2. He was just talking about something he knew nothing about, and he was drunk off his face. Who knows what he is like sober?

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