I have two Icelandic girls living in my room.

I met them during a two week trip to Bali with my good friend Booger and now, two and a half years later, they have come to Australia for a holiday. They arrived on a Tuesday, we had drinks on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning I moved into the back shed and they moved in to my room. Having the girls around I remembered how good it is living with someone from another country. Hearing a foreign language in the lounge room somehow changes the dirty, sparsely furnished surrounds of a student house into an exotic house of excitement. Flatmates and friends alike feel compelled to show the foreigner a good time, and no one ever gets tired of hearing the theme to Neighbours sung in another language.

It also made my remember how good it is to live in student housing. Sure the only food in the house is stuck to a plate under the couch and the furniture is two milk crates, but there is always something slightly abnormal going down in student houses. There is always a flatmate up for drinking, or board games or sitting on the roof. It is spontaneous as well, the fact that two Icelandic girls suddenly appeared in the house barely raised an eyebrow, it is quite a reasonable thing.

The Icelandic girls told me a story about how in the 1700s Iceland was ruled be the Danes who outlawed dancing, and signing. Then this wealthy English guy came over and said to the Icelandic people "I am your new King, let's dance." The Icelandic people shrugged their shoulders and danced. This lasted a couple of years before the Danes found out and told the rich English guy to leave. During that time the guy had lived in a castle had his choice of Icelandic birds and danced and boozed. He was living like a King.

At an old student house I lived in at Nedlands we often rented a room out to foreign students or travellers. We would put ads up around uni, and while most the people that answered the ad would pause outside the house check the address and then keep on driving, internationals were lured by the cheap rent, or perhaps they just didn't know better. It wasn't that the house was disgusting it was a giant two story house it's just that the stench of parties never quite left that house. The house won the 1998 Grok Student House of the Year award, largely due to its main attraction; Poo Toilet.

The property was on quite a large slope and the sewage was blocked so that gravity would force poo up into a mound over the toilet bowl and then on to the ground such that we had to build a little platform of bricks just outside the toilet so visitors could witness the glory of Poo Toilet without getting their shoes dirty. I used to love taking new friends down to Poo Toilet, preferably when a house mate was having a shower so that they could get the full experience of Poo Toilet bubbling and popping away like a living tower of excrement. And in summer if you got up extra early, before the house had made its new addition to the mound, you could see the little foot prints of rats all over poo toilet. That would keep you smiling all day.

Sadly the health department was alerted to the potential epidemic breeding in our back yard and organised for Rotor-Rooter to come around and unblock the sewage. The appointment was made for 1pm, so at about midday a small group of friends gathered on the balcony that overlooked the backyard, for a few drinks to farewell the beloved Poo Toilet.

One particular international flatmate was Tomoko, from Japan. Tomoko started out quiet, then was introduced to rampant goon drinking by me and my friends. Then she was introduced to the lounge bong by another flatmate who was particularly fond of the moon cabbage. Within three months we couldn't help but be bleary eyed monsters that stumble into the living room and tell her and her friends to keep it down. Within six months she was on the next plane back home, after a phone call from her parents who had just received notice of her academic progress.

This is the same house that I lived with the craziest person I have ever lived with; Voyko. Also in residence was the equally crazy Mark Genge, who needs no introduction and is one of the best people to live with. But Voyko is someone to be seen to be believed. An old UWA boozehound, a Manics treasurer, uni student for 6 or 7 years without picking up a degree. He introduced me to the older crew of Uni types, who are great to know as they party like students but actually have jobs. I lived with Voyko for about two and half years, during which he worked as a welder to raise money to go travelling. It took him that long because he'd spend his money every night at the Broadway Tavern.

Voyko would finish work at about 5pm, be at the Tavern by 6, stay till closing and then he would drive the few hundred metres to our place. Most of the time he would make it to the lounge and pass out in front of the TV, until he managed to somehow wake up at 6am to make it to work the next day. Other times he would pass out, for some strange reason next to the telephone, if somehow he was waiting for a call, as if he would hear the phone.

One memorable time he rolled his car into the front wall and passed out. Me and several friends came home to see his little green Escort, headlights on, door wide open and the horn blaring. He had passed out on the steering wheel. We woke him up and tried to get him inside, but he just looked at us in a sleepy intoxicated way and closed the car door, locked it and passed out on the horn again.

Even after this night out he managed to get to work, in a 40°+ shed all day, welding (the hottest job in the world), drink 8 litres of water and not piss once, probably because his liver was fucked. But he would never complain.

I must admit, I thought that I was doing a pretty good job at drinking until I met Voyko. After Voyko left, somehow I got placed in charge of the bills. My money sense, at best bad, and what comes around goes around. Over the next few months the power and phone would go off and on. Horrible, especially the five days or so in the middle of winter that we went without hot water.

But it is the memories of student housing that you want to look back on. All flatmates are crazy in some way, and this is perhaps the best thing about shared houses, they teach you to get along with different personality types. The longer you live in shared houses the more mellow you become. It would take a lot to shock most shared house people. You've been woken up, locked-out, hit-on, had your power cut off, lived in a constant mess, never had any food but always dirty dishes, strange friends, boy/girlfriends ... there is always something going on. And if there's not, then do something crazy, make a mini golf course in the backyard, make a movie with just your house mates, have a dinner party, rent spas and have a huge party. So, I can't have a Telstra or Western Power account and my credit rating is shot. At least I've had fun, with memories laughs and fucking interesting times. I have danced, and, like that English bloke in Iceland, lived like a King.