SPECTACULAR TRILKE, HILDERSHEIM, GERMANY

this place was unlike anywhere i have ever seen. set way up on a hill, behind lots of trees and lush looking gardens, down a long driveway, in hildersheim germany, there is a big white building that is not unlike the mansion in The Shining. it looked a bit like a hotel, but was a bit ramshackle and odd, but not in an unloved or dirty way, in an interesting and artisty way. we got into the place around 4pm, set our things down in the band room, which was a kinda cafe/bar room downstairs, and then got a tour of the whole building.

it is a massive building and section owned by what i think was a kind of collective, more like a commune then a squat, they bought it for something 1.5 million euros ten years ago, when it was valued at 3 million. i think the government wanted it to be privately owned, so it wasnt squatted or something? bear in mind that this is through deciphering stuff from between language barrier shit, and i could be wrong. it has actually been really annoying though, because some of the places we have seen like this have been really amazing, but i still cant really get a clear idea of how they function and whether or not people pay to live there, or if theyre legal, or whatever. this one was definitely legal though, they owned it outright.

this place was really so cool. there were fifty rooms i think, and about that many people living in the whole place including some young kids. some of the sqat places you see in eastern europe can haev a really militant feel to them, an angry kinda fighting vibe, and be covered in graffitti, they can feel quite intimidating and also a bit transient. i have also thought, that for these places where it is supposed to be an ´alternative´ lifestyle, they can be pretty hung up on what ´mainstream´culture is, and how to go against it, rather than cultivating a unique culture of their own.

this place was not like that at all. it genuinely had a vibe of being a peaceful creative oasis, somewhere where people who didnt like the way a lot of the world worked and functioned, could go to find a healthy and happy alternative, that was its own entity, not something that was purely a knee-jerk reaction to something they thought was evil, or wrong.

there seemed to be a lot of different people around too, not just one uniform way of dressing, which was again different to a lot of what i have seen. there were oldies and youngies, and hippies and kinda stylish girls. this was good too, sometimes at more kinda punk squats, there seems to be a negative feeling attached to woman worrying about their appearances, or wearing slightly revealing or feminine clothes. i mean, this is all fine, but i dislike the fact that in places like that which are supposedly ´anarchistic´, there seem to be a whole lot of rules in place that the people subconciously or conciously adhere to.

so anyway, this place is i think 5 stories high, and looks like it is in two wings. we were staying in some girls room, who had donated it to us for the night, and bunked up with someone else. i think if i lived in this room, i would write the most amazing book, and do the most amazing pictures and pretty much just be the most creative person in the world. it was quite big, had two sets of windows along one wall which looked out over one side of the gardens, there was a loft for the bed and underneath she had a cello i think, and a music stand, like a little music ´zone´, there were these cool looking screens in one corner where she had set up a little lounge area with a tiny coffee table and this really pretty pastel velour furniture, she had a little sink with her makeup and paints and stuff on it, the a desk up against the window with her computer and stuff looking out the window, she had a sewing machine on the floor and little pictures dotted on the walls. it was so cool. on each of our beds set up on the ground, was a little paper origami swan, and a rice snack!

in the morning we went up to this turret almost, to the upstairs kitchen. it was a large room on the top floor that kind of jutted out a little from the rest of the building. it was completely round, and surrounded with windows, with a round table and all this yum food set out, which i didnt eat cause it was too early, and it kind of scares me eating around strangers that early in the morning. to complete the the idyllic-ness, there was an older hippie woman with long wavy grey hair playing guitar at the table, you know, like soothing sounding nylon string guitar. it was kinda cheesy, but straight after i thought that, i cursed myself for being so jaded that i could find something so inoffensive and lovely, cheesy. shame on my name.

after breakfast, lisa, this gorgeous girl who kinda reminded me of J. when she was young and we all werent so old and craggy, took us up on the roof of the round room, to the highest point of the whole place. there was a round deck and deck chairs, and you could hear the wind rustling in the masses of trees below if you looked over the edge.

so basically, i want to live there. or make my own version somewhere. oh the bathrooms.....so all the bathrooms and stuff were nice and new, and even if they werent, they were clean and cool looking. everything looked like someone was looking after if, on each of the stairwells there was plants, or piles and piles of shoes stacked up on shelves, and on the bigger landings or in the foyer parts of the inside, there was cute little lounges set up, with rad looking old furniture. i am trying really hard not to say funky, cause that maeks me sick, but it really was a bit, like old and styley and artsy looking.

heaps of points, for making somewhere great to go, for making a cool life for people that you like.

CAFE WAGNER BATHROOM, BERN, SWITZERLAND

this bathroom was in the basement of a really dingy and dark club that we stayed at when we played there in Bern. it had a lot of towels in it, which was great, because i dont want to get mine wet. it was kind of weird, because it was one of those detachable shower heads on a long hose, but the holder thing was broken, so you couldnt hook it up to stand beneath it. this turned out ok, because all i really did was sit at the bottom of this shower for an hour before we played, and another hour in the morning, before we left.

it was a seriously inspired decision to get out of bed an hour early, and sit there in the shower. my eyes felt less devastated and molested, but still retained the look of two angry little red smudges weeping boozey stingy tears.

this bathroom was ok, considering. and any bathroom that i can sit in for two hours in less than ten hours, makes me a happy little alcoholic. thanks cafe wagner! but really, get some light bulbs, its like a tomb down there.

i think it was MATTIA'S BATHROOM, DRESDEN but who can be sure

the girl that showed us this 'bathroom' was one of the most annoying drunk people i have ever encountered. she just kept rambling and spitting into my face and she talked really close and she had this obnoxious high pitched laugh that bounced inanely off the walls of the car when we were driving back to where we were staying. and she wouldnt give my damn bag back, she kept on insisting that she would carry it. i didnt want her to carry it! i wanted to fuckin carry it!! how many times does a person have to make a grab for a bag they own that you're wearing before you realise they probably want the fuckin thing BACK! surely that sort of thing transcends the thin fabric of language barrier? this woman actually insisted on tickling my feet from the bottow of the ladder when i was pretending to have passed out to avoid smoking weed with her. she just kept grabbing my feet and tickling and laughing that nylon laugh of hers. why would you do this? i have no idea.

this bathroom gets no points at all because it had no sink, no mirror, was not inside the actual apartment, i couldnt work the key, there was no shower, i couldnt work the flush, there were no products, i was shown to it by the most annoying dick head in the world, and it was directly beside a locked door of identical proportions, which i could not get into, but which i strongly suspect contained riches and pleasures akin to aladdins cave.

HOTEL BATHROOM, TILBURG, NETHERLANDS

this bathroom was sweet, cause we could stay in forever, and mine had a little plastic stool in it, which i dragged under the stream of water and sat on for ages.  i didnt like to think about all the syphlitic back packer asses that had sat nude on it before me though.  im glad i chose the shower closest to the wall, because when i brushed my teeth and washed my hair, all the scummy water ran under the shower wall, all over stef's feet in the next stall. 

ELLA'S BATHROOM, TILBURG, NETHERLANDS

ella was real nice, looked young but was kinda old, looked a bit like patti smith, taught us about gypsies and a little about her divorce, which had ended a twenty year marriage.  her house was really 70's and kitschy, with orange lights and veneer looking walls.  when we got back to her house she took us out to sit in her courtyard outside, brought out this massive bottle of red wine and some beers for her and sam.  she was living with the young guy who organised the gig for us,he was a kind of skinny nerd who was really cool and nice, and i dont know but i had a feeling they may have been sleeping together, because the next afternoon when he got up, he was nude except for wearing her dressing gown, but i could be wrong.  i mean it was definitely her dressing gown, but he may not have slept with her to get it.   

her bathroom smelt like incense, which it is a wonder more people do not use this to de-scent their toilets, as it really does smell nice.  it was one of those ones that the floor is on a slope and is made of the same stuff that the bottom of the shower is made of, and the shower had no curtain, so its kinda like showering in the whole room.  she had one beauty product, which was one smallish jar of moisturiser, which she had told us the night before that she had never really used before until her sister had forced it upon her a month ago.  she had really good skin for how old she was, considering she smoked and drank too.  

the only bad thing about staying with ella, was that we stayed there with the other band that we had played with that night.  the girl in the band was nice, but the guy thought he was the most famous cool guy in the world, in a way that you knew he secretly suspected he was the lamest loser in the world, and lived in constant fear that he was going to get exposed at any minute.  i knew he was a loser, cause in the morning when i was in the shower shaving my legs with a blunt rasor, (see how obsessed with legs i have become!?)  i could hear him scrambling eggs, in this brisk robotic way, kinda angrily and repressed.  and he also didnt offer to make breakfast for all of us, which i would've done if i had discovered eggs, a whisk, a bowl, some oil, some bread, and some butter.

it was really a shame that this guy stayed with us, because ella really was unusually nice, and we had a really good time there apart from him.  he had a costume change before they played, even down to his shoes.  i hate people like him, they are really what is wrong with music in so many ways.

this bathroom lost all its points, cause i could hear him through it's walls, and it made me furious, right down into my guts.

MICHEAL'S BATHROOM, MUNSTER, GERMANY

so first micheal was the chef at the place where we played, he cooked this really yum meal that sam had only made me eat half a subway for in the afternoon, so i would still be hungry by dinner time.  this made me angry at the time, cause i thought sam would want some of my subway, cause my thing is, i would rather buy someone their own food item, than share my one.  is this selfish?  i dont know if it is, all i know is that most times, i will get the amount of food that i feel like eating, i dont get extra so i can share and still not be hungry.  this makes me sound like the greediest pig, and maybe thats accurate.  anyway, it turned out best that i didnt gorge myseld too much at lunch, because dinner was very very nice.   

i learnt a couple of things on this night, the first being that its quite difficult to discern between nice weirdos and scary weirdos when there is a language barrier.  i think we all found ourselves giving quite a bit of time to people who i think were just using us for ciggies and free drinks.  live and learn.

anyway so after the gig we walked about half an hour carrying all our stuff to stay at the chef micheal's house.  the second thing i learnt:  when people say five minutes down the road, they always, always mean at least half an hour.  sam and stef motored off ahead, so i got stuck making pretty useless conversation with the chef guy walking behind them.  in all honesty, i think my conversation consisted at least in part, of me learning how to say 'i am playing with my balls' in german, like the disgusting tourist i am.

so we get back to his house, and its about 9 stories high, and he lives on the top floor.  the higher we got in the building the hotter it got, till by the top it was like in a steamy bathroom.  the guy was so nice, he actually gave the three of us his bedroom, and slept in the lounge, actually i think he went out to another party after we went to sleep, so he musta been wasted in the morning.  he had water bottles and towels for us, and told us to be ready for breakfast in the morning.  he was stuck in a bit of a drunken glitch for a while in the door of the bedroom as he was saying goodnight, he kept repeating over and over, 'ok, well sleep well.  see you in the morning, we will have breakfast, frank will come over', then standing there with his hands on his hips for an awkward moment, before he began the cycle again.  maye he was that wasted; maybe he wanted a kiss goodnight.

so the bathroom.  i have three words for you: hair, removal, cream.  this was a welcome find in a bathroom, as i have been getting ingrown hairs on my legs, and i hate wearing shorts in the summer with really scabby legs.  however, whatever points this bathroom racked up for having this luxury item were immediately taken away by the following three words: two, in, one.  there was no conditioner, which is really annoying, how does two in one work anyway?  surely the two things cannot co-exist in the same product?  conditioner giveth what the shampoo doth take away?  it did have a hairdryer AND a powerpoint though, and anything that saves me rummaging through the giant suitcase crammed full of shit that sam and i share, gets my vote.  and earns valuable points.

so the guy who we stayed with was taller than me, he musta been about 6"2'.  and his bathroom ceiling was way too short for me to stand in, he must've had to be hunched over all the time when he was in there.  and where the shower was, a shower/bath combo, the roof was espcially low, with a skylight window directly over where you stood in the shower, that you could open and stand up straight, with your head poking out, surveying the goings on on the street below.  when i got up, and i was still fuzzy and bleary from the wine the night before, i stood there like a dazed bird on a beach, my red eyes poking deleriously out of the roof of the bathroom, blankly watching two old ladies talk in german in a carpark on the ground, feeling the most detached i have felt in a long time.  

toilet in bathroom, lost points.  toothbrush + toothpaste combo, gains points.  comes out somewhere on top.

SPECIAL REQUEST: STEFMATTNICKELLEN'S BATHROOM, ADELAIDE

it has been quite a while since i have been in this bathroom, which is really unfortunate, as it is closely associated with being overcome with happiness and hilarious memories from drunken nights before.  some people might be surprised to hear , on seeing this bathroom, that the sight of such a room would ignite so many warm feelings, like a drop of pink food colouring in a bowl full of water.  i will have to describe it how i remember, but it quite possibly has changed a lot since i laid eyes on it.  

so it has a stereo in the bidet which was pretty annoying cause i always wanted to try one of these things and this time woulda been especially good, under the watchful eyes of a tween poster of mary kate and ashey olsen locked in an incest-y embrace, but i was thwarted by the stereo and an assortment of broken cd cases including the strokes, room on fire, which i believe was matt's.  actually, its not really a stereo, more of a dusty battered boombox, like ghetto blaster thing.  i have never heard it blasting, it was quite possibly broken.  i perhaps wouldnt have used the bidet anyway, as i am as yet undecided about its purpose; is it a bum washer, or a fanny washer?  is it both?  how do you dry your bum or fanny after you use it?  do you stand or squat?  is it possible to blast other people's poo particles into my own fanny?  i am unsure as to whether i would've had the mental agility to navigate through this potential minefield of possibilities on a half-cask-of-rose hangover, so maybe would've steered clear regardless of the presence of unused appliances inside the porcelain fixture.  i think i have only encountered one other bidet on my bathroom adventures, again which i was unable to use.  one day.

the shower in this bathroom has a lovely heavy pressure and has always been hot when i have needed one, but perhaps not after.  the door is broken and after you have manouvered it across to be kind of closed,  you can sit rather comfortably on the bottom of this shower as it is very warm.  if water goes out of the half closed door, there were always a mangled pile of people's towels or a sodden brown bath mat on the floor to catch the drips.  i think most people might be too squeamish to sit on the bottom though, due to the sickly feel of sitting on various species of fungi, and the slick oily texture of the unwashed surface.  

cause this bathroom is pretty dirty.  since staying there stef has insisted to me that she cleaned this bathroom regularly, indeed, the MOST regularly of them all, and despite the fact that i never saw evidence to prop up this statement, on asking nicks opinion on this claim, discovered that her cleaning mostly involved taking all of his beauty products off the sink, and stuffing them into his drawer.  i cannot say either way.

this bathroom gets a hundred points for always facilitating happy hungover showers, generally into which sam and i would huddle, saying over and over again what a good time we were having staying with these amazing hygenically challenged friends of ours.  it also gets points for being the origin of an unusually entertaining photograph i have been privileged enough to see, of nick sitting on the toilet in the nude, talking on his cell phone, beside a full bubble bath.

it loses points for having very few products i was interested in pilfering.  there was a lot of iodine for some reason.  little brown bottles of iodine.  it gains points for having really good lighting, making you feel quite hot every time you put your make-up on for going out.  it also has a really big mirror which two people can comfortably doctor their faces in front of, no problem.

less points because it is so close to the living area and it needs to be soundproofed.  i have memories of overhearing some very intense screaming vomiting.

there is actually another toilet in the house, which again bumps up the overall score, which you reach by passing through a blue and green beaded curtain, which basically ensures a shoe-in for the highest score possible, though it was kinda beadless in patches.  on the floor of this toilet is a big hard cover book, that if my memory serves me correctly was on greek gods?  and maybe a birthday book as well?  great bathroom reading, educational AND interesting.

it gets five points for surprisingly always having loo paper, indicating some standards amoungst the housemates, and gains another five for always being filthy enough so that when we stayed, i could clean it, and really feel like i had made a big gesture to say thank you.  more points alloted as we were allowed to use it and stay when we were complete strangers, and they didnt know us from a bar of soap, which was the beginning of a lot of things.

oh, and it always had a pile of trashy mags beside the toilet on the corner of the bath!  and stef had nice face cleanser which felt like it repaired the damage the weekend had done.  she still does.  all in all, quite a high point, one might say.

JANE AND DAVIDS BATHROOM, GENEVA

so sam's folks live in geneva, switzerland, a seemingly lovely place with moutains and lakes and shopping or whatever gets most people in a tizz about places being amazing or not; i am however, not the person to say one single word about the place, as though we have spent many a tour-break day here in the last year, much, if not all of my time has been spent with my sizeable nose pressed up against, either the computer screen against which i am currently pressed up, or the television screen in the next room, which has enabled the watching of jane and david's rather large quantity of DVDs.  i have however, been into the town approximately five times, once even to do christmas shopping, and spent one night drinking pinkish wine with sam and stef, at what i suspect was the local derelict sports club.  i have lost much of my self respect for finding it much too terrifying to try out my high school french on the  people of the city, preferring to go into a type of burning faced paralysis, rather than spit out a few unassuming french words.   i have lied with both brilliant flair and commitment, to my mother about day trips to italy and france, both within minutes drive from sam's parents house, deftly choosing the minor mental gymnastics required to concoct believable travel anecdotes, over the guaranteed violent berating i would receive from my mother, if she ever found out i sat on my arse all day and watched b grade rom coms, instead of turbo-sight-seeing my fervent way across switzerland.

jane and david have two bathrooms at their house, which is an average sized apartment on the top floor of an 15 story building over looking the mountains and lake geneva.  possibly stunning, but somewhat wasted on me.  they have one small bathroom, which has a toilet and a shower, and a larger one which has both those two things also, but including a bath.  

the first bathroom has a shower head that propels the water so finely into your back and shoulders, that it feels more akin to acupuncture, than cleansing.  the boiling hot needles swing widly between way too hot and way too cold.  i flood this bathroom almost every time.  someone left some nice clinique cleanser in there a while back, which i have just finished, after polishing it off steadily over a few visits.  which is a shame, as it was one of those ones that makes your face feel tight as a skanky girls latex halter top on a thirty degree day.  this bathroom loses points for the lack of soothing moisturiser, which is needed after blasting your face then vaccuum sealing it with the cleanser.  it also looses points, a bit unfairly, for always having extreme shit stains in the toilet, undoubtedly the fault of me and my band mates, as opposed to the bathroom itself.  it has lovely thick paper, which you really only need about three squares of, and a nice new toothbrush which i have since claimed as mine, that does a great job of removing the food which tends to fester in the huge cave made my my wisdom tooth.  the bathroom also loses points for having a medicine cabinte which makes a noise as you open it, exposing you as a thief and liar.  but gains points for being warm, and also for not being the only toilet.

the other bathroom, trumps the first one hands down for having a strangely big stock of panadeine, and some anti aging eye cream that makes me feel like scarlett johansen stuck her eye skin to my face.  good, in other words.

EUROPE TOUR NUMBER 3

so now it is a while later, quite a while later in fact, and i had forgotten about this blog.  but now, we are touring again, through europe for the third time, and the cast has changed but the bathrooms are still the same.  maybe my penchant for designer body products has lessened, but my appreciation of other peoples tooth brushes most definitely has not.  i am not going to backtrack, but if a particularly good bathroom comes to mind from the last year, i will add it in.  i have new priority products and new base levels of how low i will go.  we will see if the tone has changed, maybe i'm over it, maybe i'm too good to just review bathrooms anymore, but probably not.

NIKKI'S BATHROOM MELBOURNE

sam and i used to live in nikki's house, so she gets one thousand points for never ever throwing away one empty bottle or container in the two years she has used this bathroom. i have been able to closely monitor her product useage, as i could see exactly how much she gets through in six months, judging by how much the wreckage has overflowed since we left. i will always have a soft spot for the bathroom, because in the first place, it has unlimited hot water, and secondly, when i lived there i could crawl into the shower and sit hungover in the bottom of it for hours and hours and no one would ever tell me to get out. which is telling of what a rad housemate nikki was, and also what a selfish alcoholic bitch i am. loses one point for having a half sized bath. gets the point back for having a radio.

ART'S BATHROOM MELBOURNE

art let us stay at his house, and didnt even go back there himself, which makes him really nice and generous. he has a very stark but very stylish bedroom that i enjoyed lying on his bed and looking around. i did a minimum of snooping, to show how greatful i was for him letting us stay at all. although, we did get him into the laneway festival for free, on our artist passes. however, it was still really nice of him. he has lots of good books, which i wish i was reading now, and if he had not been such a champ, i would probably borrow for the rest of time without asking, but again, as a mark of respect, i leave on his shelves. he has the craziest house, it's a big square, with rooms all around the outside and a courtyard in the middle, with a scrabble piece mosaic on the wall. art also had a cool thing in his room, of some cute pictures slicedup and stuck to his venetian blinds, so that when the blinds are closed your can see them staggered down the blind. it looks really cool. when i first went to art's house about eight months ago, i found it really depressing, but now looking out his bedroom window that is right onto a weird apocolyptic concrete section thing, thats got an old bench press and other assorted 20th century debris, it feels almost tranquil.

the bathroom was absolutely filthy, covered in pubes and cockroaches and tampon wrappers and hair dye trash and so much scum and dust and green slime and this stuff that looked like spilt piss with hair and pubes stuck in it, and rusty shaving cream cans and choked old rasors and empty bottles (that had actually once held really nice Aesop products) and yeah, thats about it. the bathroom is actually really nice, so because i like cleaning, and also to say thanks for having us, i cleaned it for him. i suprised myself by not being grossed out at all, picking up foetid gunky hair nests from the plugholes, and not minding scrubbing off fifteen years of other people's skin from the floor and wall of the shower. i used their bathmat to mop it all up, and threw the bathmat somewhere where i wont say in case art ever reads this.

points for really nice hot heavy shower, and for having matching organic shampoo and conditioner, which felt like salon quality when i was lathering. points again for a manly big square bar of soap, like what cowboys would have wrapped up in a piece of leather with a single rasor blade. and because i didn't mind doing it, they dont even lose points for having a bathroom that looked like the bottom of a bikini waxer's rubbish bin. points for having a power point in there too, so i could blow dry.

TARA'S BATHROOM MELBOURNE (really, her brother FAGAN'S BATHROOM, but where TARA is staying)

Tara gets points straight off the bat for letting me have a shower at her house, even when i'm not technically staying, or even sleeping there. this considerate attitude is in part due to a very generous nature, and also due to the fact that she is both our drummer and one of my oldest friends, therefore understands the feeling of not having anywhere to clean my armpits in. her bathroom has the toilet and shower in the same room, which as always, makes for a brisk rather than leisurely visit, but also has a fan, which most people know is a blessing for taking a crap in a house that has wooden floors, ie. sound carries very well and noises need to be masked somehow. if there is no fan, you can also run the tap, but in australia with the drought and all that, you would probably be harshly judged if you had the tap in the sink running solidly for five or so minutes. you could also run the shower, but you run the risk of greatly truncating your actual showering time, as people will think you have been washing the entire time.

tara lives with two other very well groomed females, so i was very disappointed to find little to no makeup or even moisturising products in their medicine cabinet. there was only useless items like contact lense fluid, and lots of toner, which i myself never use. there was a hidden gem though, a bottle of ingrown hair spray, that i liberally applied to my spotted bikini line. this is one product that i may one day actual purchase for myself.

tara's shower is hot and everlasting, and when only tara is home, i had no problem enjoying for an extended period of time. it also had a wonderful little temperature gauge thing, that you can set digitally to your ideal temp, and then only turn on the HOT tap, and feel it perfectly warmed for as long as you require it. there is a stained glass window right on the shower wall that goes to the outside garden, making for a more religious feeling wash.

this bathroom loses points for only having body wash and not soap, and also for only having a dermatologist brand of facial cleanser, which i found far too gentle for my skin. it gains points for being partially owned by one of my best friends ever. but loses them again for only having that clear blue gel toothpaste, and having an electric tooth brush that i was dying to try, but which i couldn't because everyone would hear the motor running and know that i was passing them on my gingivitis.

JULIAN'S BATHROOM HOBART

Julians bathroom is the type of bathroom I would have if I had a house. well, its probably more like what i would've wanted to have when i was eighteen and carried round D H Lawrence books in my bag to seem learned. there are pictures on the wall and magazines on the floor. the picture's on the walls are of naked ladies, but they're old fashioned sepia photographs and the girls are wrapped in muslin with single white breasts peeking delicately out, not like play boy pics or something. i cant figure out if this makes julian sleazy, i suspect that the fact that the girls are 'arty' pictures, rather than run of the mill porn, is a subtle way of being sleazy, but not seeming so. there is a big window in this bathroom that opens wide up and looks out over the city of hobart, and even in the winter when it is bitterly cold outside, the window is always open. actually, their whole house is like that. some people just like fresh air i guess. i don't, i like it cosy and cloying, except for after a party when you wanna blow the hangover away. this bathroom loses points for having the toilet and shower in the same room, a predicament that i'm very used to by now. however, it gains points for having a big medicine cupboard, like a metre square, that always has Codral in it. and pain killers too. this time, it also had Voltaren, but i'm not sure exactly what this does, so i didn't indulge. i think it would've made me sleepy, and we had to play that night, so i didn't wanna try. this bathroom has high pale green ceilings, and almost feels like you are an artist in the sixties when you are in it. julian gave us all clean towels, so there was no need to use someone elses.

julian's shower is the worst shower i have ever encountered. the actual space that the shower occupies is fine, in fact it has a lovely echoey feel like the showers they have by spa baths and saunas to cool down in. but the water pressure is pathetic, just one tiny tiny dribble, that's either third degree burn hot, or pneumonia cold. you have to wash one limb at a time, and with the giant window open, it is fuckin cold. i think julian lives with only one guy, who is, by all accounts, quite strange, so i was suprised to find a duo of very designer looking shampoo and conditioner. i knew they were very expensive because there was very little written on the square bottles, and because they weren't called shampoo and conditioner, they were called something like 'GLUTTONY' and 'DESSERT'. i couldn't figure out who of the two guys would've bought something like that, and i know that neither of them has girlfriends. unfortunately, due to the lack of any sort of water pressure, i did not sample these products, so cannot say whether they were amazing or not. julian gets extra points for not apologising, or even mentioning, his severely retarded shower head. i get extra points for resisting the use of their tooth brushes, and settling for floss and mouthwash. julia loses points, for saying she was going to use the bathroom when we were drinking after the gig, when really she was slinking off to bed leaving me to talk to our host.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: LAURA’S BATHROOM LONDON

While we were in London, we stayed at my friend laura’s house. It was a really really cool house, and not lame or kitschy at all. It was really cold, because it was London at the start of winter, and also because the whole living area was just below street level. They had this tv that made everyone look green, and a clean kitchen that I think laura was the only one who cooked in it. One night we stayed there after we had been to a party nearby. The party was…very lame to be honest, full of annoying pretentious type people who talked about very boring things and didn’t wear interesting clothes or be funny or even dance to good music, they played annoying 30’s slapper (flapper) music all night, which ONE song might’ve been passable, but they played it the whole time, and once everyone had their go at doing a very simple version of the charleston with their hands all out and jazzy-like, pulling a hilarious over the top mime happy face, there really were no other moves you could do. Apart from putting on smells like teen spirit and totally bust their groove by moshing drunkenly into them and all their friends. So we weren’t the favourites, to say the least. But that was the high point of the night.

So anyway, we had to stay there, we’ll we certainly didn’t HAVE to, but laura was kind enough to offer since we were about five hundred thousand miles from where we were living. And in the morning, after three hours sleep, after nine bottles of wine, after a massive screaming match with Sam, after talking to too many annoying people, after sleeping in an ice chamber, after spewing in their toilet, after begging god to no avail to take me away from this hellish place, Sam and I had to get up and go have breakfast at the crack of dawn with his parents and his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. Who are, incidentally, all amazing people. But who all were, incidentally, on my list containing every other person on the planet, of people whose eyes I did not want to have to look into over a mediocre London vomit-fest excuse for a fuckin breakfast.

So I get to have a shower though. Well, not so much get to have one, as slunk into the shower to try and humanise myself as quickly as possible before anyone else has woken up. So the shower is at the top top floor of this house, I think there were four floors maybe. And it’s got this dodgy looking glass door. And when I opened this door, the door opened up into the actual shower, like the shower room was the shower, and the floor was slightly concave with a drain in the middle of it. And a toilet. And a window right beside the shower that won’t close, and is wide open. Over the whole grey windy freezing city. And the shower is four piddling dribbles, that barely coat my left shoulder blade. And the main door to the shower room keeps blowing open. And there’s no towels left in there for me to use. So I have to use my shirt. And even though my friend laura use to be a hairdresser, there are no nice hair products, and no hairdryer. And all my clothes got wet off the floor. And then to exacerbate the hollow depression of the whole experience I went and waited for the bus outside on a Sunday morning and there was no souls around just me and this bleak bleak morning and I listened to Elliott smith sing 2.45am, and hear him tell about splitting things back in two.

So that was an awful awful bathroom. That has been my only bathroom so far to get no stars whatsoever.

JULIA’S PARENT’S BATHROOM HAMILTON

This bathroom feels slightly uncomfortable to use as the one that (I think) most of the family use, is the master bedroom ensuite. Greg and Louise’s entire house has a most interesting nook and cranny vibe, and this bathroom is kind of down and to the left of their bedroom. Once inside though, it is more than worth the awkwardness. Firstly, there is a giant mirror. The entire bathroom is very well lit, due to giant windows that open out onto a few trees that grow just outside it. The light comes in all nice and speckly through the leaves, and the rustling makes it kind of seem like a health retreat or something. They have a toilet AND a bidet, which in no way marrs the experience, as there is another bathroom and another toilet downstairs. I did not, regrettably, get to use the bidet, which would have been an interesting chapter, and maybe next time I will ask if I can. Or maybe not. Steph and Matt’s house has a bidet as well, but last time I was there it was filled with a stereo and a broken Strokes CD.

The walls of this bathroom are covered in tiles that are a very soothing shade of blue, and when you turn around after admiring all of this you are confronted with the most intriguing and affluent sight: the shower room itself is very large, about three cubic metres, and has TWO SHOWER HEADS, directly opposite each other. This would instantly remove any duel-shower obstacles. This is also extremely frivolous, but as Greg is a builder, and so most probably constructed this masterpiece himself, it is to be forgiven. The water was hot and powerful, and had I not already insulted their extreme hospitality by sleeping my hangover off until 2pm, I would’ve felt more than comfortable taking my time and enjoying myself. The shower heads were also removable, which is a fine thing for people such as myself who on occasion are too tired and/or too depressed to stand up whilst cleansing. The large windows did have one small downside, as I felt quite breezy and exposed, and the doors of this bathroom are actually made of glass, so look directly into the bedroom, but if proper notifications are made, then this needn’t be a problem. Louise has that Dove Summer Glow moisturiser which explained her unusually tanned arms, but which I didn’t (of course) judge, as I too use this particular product. I did not sample any other products, but it looked as tho there would’ve been a very respectable selection.

JUDY’S BATHROOM AUCKLAND

This is a tough one as this is Sam’s family and I wouldn’t like to insult anyone by my review of their bathroom. They had Dune perfume, which personally I love, but which is an unfortunately obvious thing to sample in someone else’s house. There was a really nice talcum powder that smelt like musky roses. Judy gets a bucket of extra points, because when Julia said, ‘do you mind if I take a quick shower’, she answered, ‘you can take a long shower if you like’, and I believed her. Again, the toilet in the bathroom dilemma, and this bathroom feels very central to the whole house, so if you are too long in there, or go too often, you feel very exposed. Toilet window opens into lots of shrubs, which gave a nice ‘going bush’ feel to the whole episode. The shower was over a bath, which was a lovely feeling after being cramped into too many tiny boxes, but does make it even more uncomfortable to have two in there. Sam and I very rarely have harmonious duel-showers anyway though, as he prefers it to be hot enough to melt my flesh and I prefer it cold enough to freeze his. Actually I might just go back to the talcum powder for a moment, as this is an extremely underrated bathroom item to discover. Talcum powder not only makes you smell amazing, but also gives your skin the softest most wealthy feeling texture. It makes you feel slinky and clean when you use it before going to sleep, and makes your bed smell yum too. Not enough girls buy talcum powder to put in their bathroom for me to use. This bathroom also had scales, which this time around was not a high point, as we have been eating way too much mac donalds and other assorted crap, and the scales were not kind to me. However I did not care enough to stop eating mac donalds and now the thought of it makes me feel violently ill. Followed by wanting it. Followed by eating it. Followed by feeling violently ill.

This shower was hot and had good pressure, oh and it had disprin in the medicine cupboard, which made my morning a happy one. This shower was unusually good at alleviating a hangover.

RA’S BATHROOM WELLINGTON

Ra’s house was a really cool artisty apartment in Wellington. It looked right out over the ocean from the front windows and it was packed full of really entertaining and cool things that people who had lived there over the years had left. There was trendy fashion magazines, but not lame ones, and lots of prints all over the walls. There was a massive computer there that we could check our emails on, and we all slept on a couch each. As I always sleep with earplugs in, I have no problem sleeping in people’s lounges, as I cant hear them when they get up, go to work, etc. I don’t know how my friends do it, sam especially is a light sleeper, but maybe we’re all just so tired by the time we got to sleep. They had a kitchen that was cool, but I wouldn’t have wanted to cook in it, just make expensive cups of coffee like they did. Ra made these marmite and cheese toasties one night, but we had already had fried chicken on the way home, so we passed. I think if you lived there, you would eat out most of the time, I mean food is so good everywhere there, and they seemed like people who would be too busy/funky to cook. They had lots of music on their computer, so I did a work out to MIA and naughty by nature. I found it hard being social with her flatties, but Ra is kind of more Julia’s friend, and Julia and Sam both knew a couple of them from when we used to live in Wellington, so they kind of took care of the social obligations. In saying that, I really like Ra, and she has developed a very becoming grey streak sweeping back from her forehead into her hair, which was very interesting to watch.

Because the people in this flat were young and not poor and not ugly, I was correct in assuming that they would have a lot of lovely designer bathroom things. They had a really nice Kerestase (?) shampoo, which on later scrutiny proved to be for balding heads, but still provided a great clean. They also had one of my favourite bathroom suprises, that St Ives apricot facial scrub. Lost points here for having the finer scrub, not the heavy duty one. Lost points also, for having Close Up toothpaste, which is obviously just melted lollies Gained points for having the shower up a little step and kind of hidden away from the rest of the bathroom, made it nice and womb-like, a quality I much admire in a shower facility. They had an Aesop facewash/cleanser thing, which smelt lovely but was too oily for my face. Very expensive though, which prompted me to use it twice. Very sharp razor. Lost points for having too many housemates, therefore felt too greedy staying in the shower for very long at all, especially since the toilet was in the bathroom as well. Toilet in the bathroom is a double-edged sword, as on one hand you can very inconspicuously take a shit by masking the sound with the cold water on in the shower, but bad in terms of how long you view as your fair quota of bathroom time.

Lost a large amount of points for having three crap pairs of tweezers that kept luring me with their shiny new appearance to try them, only to experience multiple disappointments. Also, the bathroom window looked directly into the kitchen window, making it virtually impossible to squeeze anything in the mirror without being too nervous someone was watching you.

They had some funny drawingsin the toilet though, and a good strong flush.

CAMP A LOW HUM BATHROOMS LEVIN

These bathrooms were the most disappointing of all, as since they were public ones, they had absolutely nothing in them at all, only water and a tap. Not even a bar of soap. Not even a bathmat, which I believe to be pivotal in the whole showering experience. BUT to be fair, when I was vomiting between 4am and 9am, and everyone was asleep, I could drag myself into the shower and sit there for about an hour and a half without anybody bothering me, and without the water going cold. Which was really, really good. Maybe not as good for the people who had to have cold showers after me. But, to be fair, I did think it was one of those everlasting gas hot water cylinders, the water stayed so constant and strong during my sickness.

These bathrooms got gradually more and more shitty over the four days we were at camp. I would not have sat at the bottom of any of them vomiting by the last day. Actually, I probably would’ve, but only out of complete desperation.

MUM’S BATHROOM HAMILTON

Although technically, this bathroom was in the same house as the first one, it deserves a mentions for two reasons. Firstly, because my mum insisted that if I used it, after every shower I had to squeegee down the glass walls with this very professional looking scraper thing. Which was annoying and predictable. Secondly, it had this extendable mirror thing attached to the main mirror that had a flippable head, with one side a MAGNIFYING glass, so my pores were even HUGER and easier to squeeze. Amazing. I found hairs that haven’t even been born yet. Partnered with my infallible tweezers, this bathroom was a must-have for any body for whom hair removal = ecstasy. This bathroom also had movie star lights all around the mirror. Felt very glamorous.

MY BATHROOM HAMILTON

The first bathroom on this tour was my small one in my mum’s house, I guess. It had a shower that was like five needles stabbing you, but had nice organic soap with oat grains or something in it. The little black kernels would come out of the bar in the shower, and when they fell on the ground I’d always think they were cockroaches, cause there are a few of those at mums. Once in the shower a cockroach fell out of the fan above my head onto my shoulder. The bathroom itself was spotlessly clean, typically for my mother, but I messed it up quite a bit because it was upstairs and out of her way so she couldn’t monitor how tidy I was keeping it. She made sure I had clean towels though, which was good. Also, I had a good quality face mask in there, from the only day spa I’ve ever been too, and it was good to be able to leave stuff in there and not worry about dead beats like myself stealing/using it. However, due to my poverty, this bathroom scores very very low in the haircare department, as there was NO conditioner and the only shampoo was this crappy one from a hotel. And a blunt razor, which did nothing for my ingrown hairs on my legs. And the only light was a heat lamp, which was stifling for the summer. Extra points for the toilet being right beside and on the same level as, a window. And I could see people arriving at the back door from sitting if I left the door open. It was very close to my room too.