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Our first night in Sydney we ended up in a hostel in Kings Cross,. Complete with a few resident hookers hanging outside the building. After meeting a very strange N Ireland guy on reception (definitely on the run from something) we had a bad feeling going to bed on our first night in Oz. But the next day things looked a lot better, we found we were very central, and the hostel actually wasn't too bad in the daylight. We took a stroll around the city and eventually got down to Darling Harbour, basked in sun with everyone sitting out in the cafes and restaurants, and immediately we fell victim to the Sydney magnetism....we decided there and then we were taking a break from traveling and putting down some roots for a least a month!
We just happened to bump into on of the girls we met in S America and she said they had two spare U2 tickets.....Sold.... U2, Sydney we were here to stay! We walked on to the Harbour bridge
, the Rocks Markets, everything was just what you'd expect of Sydney. That night we had to go to PJ O'Briens to meet the girls and man, did it typify all things Irish. The jerseys were out in force, they played the entire collection of the Italia 90 soccer songs, and then we turned to find a guy doing some impromptu Irish dancing with his friends making a big circle around him, howling and yelping like crazed lunatics!
Met up with Briet and John on Sunday. I hadn't seen Briet in years so it was great to catch up and meet some familiar faces. They took us out to Bondi Beach and they treated us to a fabulous lunch and then spent the rest of the day in the bar downstairs drinking way to many cocktails. We'd a great day and it was so nice to live it up a little after months of backpacking.
Thanks to their hospitality we ended up staying with them for the rest of the week in their apartment while we found our feet getting jobs and a pace to stay.
We celebrated Tadghs birthday with a bottle of bubbly in the Opera bar looking over the harbour and the opera house but it was the start of a hard week of slogging over job ads and viewing apartments. By the end of the week we were getting a bit browned off walking the streets especially since it was an unseasonally hot week and we had no time to go to the beach. We were very close to packing up again and moving on but it paid off in the end when we both got set up with jobs and moved into an Apartment in Kings Cross with Olivier, Eric and Alberic, three French guys who we instantly knew we would get along well with.
The next few weeks were spent working and partying! I got a job with Amnesty International, doing data entry although I like to think I was doing my bit for humanity! I spent my days doing mind numbingly boring work, and i reckon they were carrying out some kind of experiment on the effect of boredom as a means of torture! The upside was I got to see Irene Khan the head of Amnesty who was in the office for the day after receiving the Sydney Peace prize award.
Tadgh started with the lowly job of stamping vouchers and lifting boxes but ended up wowing them with his box lifting skills and then started a data entry job with Millers Fashion group! Apparently it was a job I would have adored with all the girls just prancing around trying on clothes....although I'm sure Tadgh didn't mind it too much either. Friday nights were generally spent meeting up after work in town and celebrating the end of the week, we had a nice group of friends to hook up with by now so it was great just to feel a bit settled for a while.
Weekends were mostly spent recovering / shopping! We did go to the Hunter valley for a day and got a great tuition in wine tasting from the French lads! Apparently nothing compares to French wine so we just had to settle for about 40 bottles of substandard plonk.
Also the lads were disgusted to learn that the cheese in the smelly cheese company was all pasteurised , merde!!!!
We also finally announced our engagement to the world so that was more celebrating ....not to feel left out from the celebrations at home! Briet took me straight to Tiffanys for a look at the rings, just to look at the unattainable!....I was nearly blinded by the sparkles!
Our final week in Sydney was hectic to say the least. It all culminated in the U2 concert, the third of their 3 concerts. They didn't disappoint, it was true U2 style, a great show with Bono acting the eejit for most of it!
The only downside was the crowd were very tame and well behaved so the atmosphere was lacking a little bit. But we did our best to out-sing Bono from the crowd and make plenty of noise!
We spent our last night up on the Terrace in the apartment block...which we'd only discovered two days previously! It had a beautiful view overlooking the city and we could en see the Harbour bridge, we were disgusted that we'd missed out on manys an evening enjoying the view!
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