So after your catch up of my last six months in Sydney...the main things I actually wanted to tell you about are my encounters with the Crazies of Surry Hills! Yes they are insane! So insane in fact I felt the need to write a whole post about them!

Here is the inside goss on my most memorable encounters with some of them! Enjoy!

So after a few days of working on reception again I came to realise that work was actually my new form of entertainment...and I don't mean catching up on my TV programmes whilst there's nothing to do sitting behind the desk. I am actually referring to the crazies of Surry Hills. These people have been entertaining me for the past 3 months. There should be a book written about them. It would be a best seller...Honestly, I've never seen so many weirdo's from the same area in my life! At least three or four times a day you'll get a crazy wandering into reception asking to book a room here, obviously our answer is always "Sorry we are full"! One guy walks in stinking of alcohol and hiding his wife outside asking for a room, I saw the wife…she looked like an old, drunken aboriginal woman, she didn't even have shoes on. "No room in the inn sorry!"We don't want to be mixing with these people.

Not everyone comes in asking for accommodation though, I had one woman come in asking for help to find a club. She was an older woman, and didn't seem that odd at first so I decided to help and asked her what club she was looking for. Her reply was I don't know, a club, a big place I can meet someone. I thought she had planned to meet someone and didn't know the address so I asked "where are you meeting them? What's the address?" She just kept saying "somewhere I can meet people, a big place like a bowls club or a dance club?" She didn't have a name or anything and the conversation just went back and forth. She just walked out saying she didn't have enough information. I just sat there in awe. How can I help you if you don't know where you want to go? You bloody idiot!! They don't only wander in either some even call! There is one guy that calls every Saturday without fail! Every time he will ask..."Hi! is your internet working?" and if you say yes he then asks...."Oh could you check the train times for me please!" No mate this is a hostel not the train information desk! Even the people that don't wander in are insane, we've had people walking past barking, yes as in barking like a dog. There's been a guy singing "rain rain go away come on back another day!" on repeat...over and over again, when it's not even raining, the latest one was a guy off his face on god knows what asking if anyone had a cigarette. Everyone replied no so he just stood there for about 5 minutes, started yelling abuse at everyone and then walked of cursing.

Even though there are many turned away and ignored the odd crazy manages to worm their way in and book a room here. They either book online, so we are unable to turn them away or they seem normal at first and turn out to be actual nut jobs! They are like bed bugs...once you've got them they're impossible to get rid of! I've been having to live with a few for the past 3 months! We have Glen...the sex pest drunk that is completely inappropriate towards women...so much in fact we have had to ban women from his room as most of them complain that they are scared of him. We have Anne the violent sort of drunk...always clinging on to new meat (men) in the hostel, she's like a vulture on the prowl for her prey! And once they are hooked in, the instantly regret it as she start crying and going into depth about things nobody really wants to know within the first day of meeting someone new. There's also a CRAZY Kiwi guy here called Simon...which I actually despise!!! I can't even describe how much. I can't even be in the same room as him for longer than one minute, and if he comes to talk to me on reception I can't even pretend to be nice to him, I tense up and have my fist at the ready because his face is just one that you want to punch! He is so rude and has the most mono tone voice EVER. Instead of having a conversation with people he talks at people about random s*** that nobody cares about. He comes up to me on reception and put his phone in front of me saying he needs to find the address written on the phone. The computer for guests is free...look on Google maps you lazy s***! It happened so many times I taught him how to use Google maps so he doesn't ever have to ask me again! Anyway that rant is over with!

We've even had bloody 82 year olds checking into a 4 bed dorm! Can you believe that? All because they want to spend as little money as possible. The man could barely bloody walk or breathe properly let alone climb up onto a bunk bed! I mean c'mon, are these guys serious? Pay out a bit of money you stindgy people, you should be looking after yourselves and not have to worry about whether you are going to fall off a bunk bed! That's not the way to go! There's a few years left in you yet!

We've actually managed to get rid of some crazies...Two girls mainly come to mind when I think of weirdo's that have departed. One was a girl called Melissa. This was one girl that seemed quite normal to start with but after the unfortunate event of having to share a room with her I couldn't have been more wrong. She was insane. And from meeting a few of these people who are all either Kiwi or Australian, I have come to the conclusion that any Aussie or Kiwi that stay long term in low budget hostels are not all there. Melissa's mum lived 20 minutes away yet she chose to stay in a dorm in the hostel. I had many strange encounters with her, but the main one that comes to mind was one day sitting with Dani and Suz in the kitchen she comes up and starts talking to us. She asks me for some advice. First she asks "Do you think I should rent a flat and then look for a job or vice versa?" That to me is a stupid question, which was actually my reply. I said, "What do you think? If you rent a flat how are you expecting to pay for it without a job?" Idiot! Then she tells me: "I've been thinking lately about going back to college, I had one module left to complete and once I finish that I can become a councilor or something. The only thing is I left college 3 years ago and I don't think they will let me go back, I was pretty much a rebel and a w**** when I was there and the teachers hated me I don't think they will let me go back." One I was thinking, Ok that's a load of b******s and two: it was 3 years ago I doubt they are going to stop her going on a course to finish one module! I said if that's what she wants to do she should so it. She then went on and on about whether to go back or not and eventually said: "Well when people are talking to me I tend to switch off and stop listening and then switch subjects..." She wants to become a councilor or therapist? Really? She talked so much crap. We would have some talks and five minutes after them she would start the conversation again as if it had never happened! She would even have pretend phone calls to ex boyfriends on the phone in the room, and the reason I know they were fake calls? Well the whole conversation was her talking, there was no time for the "other person" to reply to any of the questions she was asking, it was all her. Also on a few occasions I'd walk into the room and she wouldn't even recognise me she's just give me an evil look, I'd walk out and come back 10 minutes later and she knew exactly who I was. Seriously the strangest roomie EVER!!

The NUMBER 1 crazy award has to go to Rose...the girl from 20B. Another one which seemed quite normal at first. A day after checking into her room she came down to talk to me about the rubbish under her bed. She said to me in the quietest, timid voice: "Hi, erm I'm a respectable girl and nice to people but the girls in my room are messy and there's rubbish under my bed..." she repeated that she was a respectable person over and over again so I eventually offered her the option of moving rooms. She had booked herself into an all girl dorm and the only other rooms available were mixed dorms. I emphasised the fact that there would be boys in the room with her over and over again which she seemed ok with as she said to me: "I think it would be best to move rooms, I'm a respectable girl. Boys like me because I don't bug them or pounce on them, I will be nice to them." I found what she was saying very weird but I moved her none the less. I changed the rooms and payments on the system. 10 minutes later she's back in reception: "Erm there's boys in my room." Seriously??? I told her over and over again that it was a mixed dorm, which is what my reply to her was but in a nice manner. Her reply to me then was: "I'm scared of boys, I think I'll be better back in my old room!" What a pain in the ass! She'd had a few weird encounters with a few of us, I'd even caught her walking down the stairs like a snail as I was trying to pass her, she got scared an backed up into a corner as I passed. She'd just had a shower but I don't think she knows what a towel is, or if she does she doesn't know how to use one because she was pretty soaking all her clothes were wet. The funniest thing about her was her checking out. She came downstairs pretty much scared and almost crying, saying "I just can't stay here any longer, the girls in my room are mean to me and it's not fair because I'm a nice girl!" This would have been an issue if there were actually other people in her room with her, but there weren't she was the ONLY girl in her room! Crazy??? Yes I think so!

These people are sooo strange I find it funny, but my all time funniest moment has to be these chinese people that came in to reception. As soon as they walked in I knew this was going to be difficult. I was right! They couldn't speak a word of English, wel actually that's a lie. The only english they knew was..."No speak English!" My instant thought was, "Great, how's this going to work?" All they kept doing was signalling at me and talking in chinese as if I should understand them. I said: "I'm really sorry but I don't understand what you want." She said again: "No speak English!" my reply to that was: "Then we have a problem!" I didn't understand her and she didn't understand me, we were just going round in circles. There were arm signals flying about everywhere and then she picked up a leaflet with a womans ass on it, pointing at it and showing it to me then she put it on the wall. I though maybe she wanted a night out or something...well I couldn't contain my laughter...I had to run out the back into the office. I couldn't breathe! I was trying to tell Paul (the manager) to go out and try and make sense of what they were saying. It was sooo funny, it just brought back memories of the Grand Canyon when we were in the helicopter and the man was miming actions at us. After 30 minutes of trying to get some sense out of them it turn out they were just trying to tell me a room number! Didn't quite get that if I'm honest haha! Theyir sign language skills were all wrong!

Since Christmas the place has going from being a pretty cool place to being a home for the homeless or somewhere like the YMCA or a rehab centre! We have an allocated room for crazies now...the dreaded 31B. If you have an odd vibe about you...you are allocated to that room...immediately!

So to sum up. Surry Hills...Full of Crazies...but sooooo entertaining! It's Brilliant! I literally have the BEST job here, but it's time for me to get back to sanity and some normality! Road trip up the West Coast of Australia with Justine, Curly and Joe...can't see it being that normal if I'm honest.

I'll keep ya'll posted.

Much Love

J.L xxx