well i’m on my way…

So I arrived at this so called worst hostel in Fremantle to no one at the reception desk-which I need to add that was surrounded in chicken wire.  Interesting.  I pressed the Page button on the portable phone dock and waited until the receptionist came about 10 minutes later.  It was like a ghost town-there was no one in the lobby or the internet room.  I paid for the 4 nights and went up to my new home for the next 5 days.  The room is very airy with a high ceiling and a little balcony that has become a clothesline.  After I put the sheets on my bed, one of my roommates came in and I asked her about the hostel.  She said “It’s good enough, but it is very famous for bedbugs.”  Bedbugs!  I’ve heard about these guys, and seen what they leave on people-I’m not too keen on bedbugs!  But, being a backpacker and on a budget, I decided to stay and hope for the best.  (After one night I’m not affected, so far so good.)  I showered and set out to discover Fremantle.

My first thing on the itinerary was to find the Fremantle Arts Centre-Ani Difranco is playing there Wednesday and Thursday night-I had yet to get tickets, and this is THE reason I’m staying in Fremantle.  (I will stay in Perth after here.)  Thursday night was sold out, so I bought my ticket for Wednesday and wondered about how to get tickets for Thursday.  I walked around the suburb-it has a lot of nice shops, restaurants, cafes…It’s pretty hippie-rific here and dreadlocks are everywhere!  I noticed people walking around shoeless, popping in and out of shops like it was no big deal.  I knew I was liking Freo already!  I went to the grocery store, got some food, and headed back to the hostel to make dinner and find out about Thursday night’s concert.

I looked up craigslist.com and found nothing but found a similar Australian site called gumtree and got two numbers for tickets for Thursday night.  The first one I called says she will meet me an hour before the show at the venue!  What luck!  I jumped up and down in the middle of the street so thrilled about seeing Ani two nights in a row!  And in Australia!  Who hoo!!!!  I just hope she shows. 

I took a walk after dinner to digest my food and noticed it was eerily quiet.  The sun was still up, it was 7 pm, and all of the shops were closed.  Nothing was open save a few expensive restaurants.  I headed back to the hostel taking this as a sign.  Fremantle is a port town. 

I did some of the touristy stuff Wednesday morning, found Bathers Beach (not too impressive), the Shipwreck Galleries (pretty damn cool-although I do believe I picked the day to go that my Aunt Dianne O’Connor and my sister would have chosen for themselves.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then nevermind.), and the Roundhouse (the first building built in Fremantle and was used as-gasp-a prison!)

Soon I’m off to the hostel (that isn’t that bad-it could be really nice if they wanted it to be) for an early dinner and to go to day one of my concerts.  My next post will be a concert review, I’m warning you now, so enjoy this until I get to Perth.

To those of you in North America-stay warm!  😉

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.