Studio of Doom
Trip Start
May 26, 2004
1
14
20
Trip End
Ongoing
Sydney,
Australia
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
While waiting for a room over our head and some gainful employment we were introduced to Sydney pubs where I came across the schooner for the first time. My thoughts on this affront to nature are well documented and will not be brought up here again (fecking little useless beers........one mouthful and they are mostly gone...........mumble, grumble arrrggghhh). We went to one of the best pubs in Sydney, the World Bar which is a savage place and on a Tuesday had $8 jugs, which was nice. We also got to see Kings Cross at night. It was beautiful with all of the bright lights. Granted most of it was neon signs for the 24 hour bars, brothels and strip clubs but the place did have a nice red glow about it. The area is something else. The door men from the strip joints will actually cross the road to try and get you into the place and one day I was accosted by one of the girls on my way to work in the morning!! We also went to a nice pub near where the lads lived called The Sheaf. We did all of the touristy things too and saw the harbour bridge and the Opera House. They were both suitably impressive but when you got up close to the Opera House it looked like it had been tiled with some offshoots from some 1960's kitchen. We saw some of the great beaches around and enjoyed the sun and the sand.
The priority though was somewhere to live. We had finished our couple of days in the hostel and the guys let us crash on their couches for a couple of days. They even invited us to stay with them on a permanent basis which Fi was pretty keen on. I was a little less than taken with the idea. After hearing their tales of yore from their Asian trip I was even less keen (several episodes of mistaking beds, wardrobes, lockers and even heads for loo's being one of the many "high"lights). I wasn't looking forward to a midnight golden shower. Finally we spent the night there and that pretty much sealed the deal. Like World War 3 erupting around us. They killed each other!! Unfortunately we weren't having much luck in the apartment finding department. We went to a couple of places and got some of the worst service form the estate agents. We went into a couple of places and were told that we could go see the place on a Saturday which was a few days away and they didn't seem to care.
We did strike gold (kind of) with a place though but it was shaky for a moment. We got to a place called Ramsey's and they had a place or two available and wonders will never cease we could view it that day so over we went to have a look. Firstly the ditzy bird couldn't get the door open and it took quite a while to even make it past the front door. When we got in it was fairly obvious that there was someone still living there and they hadn't exactly looked after the place. The biggest indicator of this being a large portion of the bathroom ceiling actually sitting in the bath. When we questioned her with this she said that they "would have to get it fixed before we moved in" - No shit Sherlock!! So again we trudged off despondent but not beaten. We viewed a place that was absolutely gorgeous but was basically a hotel room and too expensive anyway and we decided to try one of the other apartments available in Ramsey's.
We went in and enquired and got some 12 year old behind the counter. Again he gave us the Saturday viewing line and we said forget it. During all of this there was some guy on his hands and knees in the place fixing something. He growled something Australian at us, without even glancing our way, which we didn't quite catch. It turned out he was asking us did we have our passports, which we did. So he gave the working experience guy a look that would skewer a rampaging hippo and told us that we could view the place that minute if we left a passport as security. So we did and off we went. Looking back it was a master class in salesmanship. We were so happy to actually get to see a place and so we were slightly blind to the absolute crappiness of the place. It was a pokey studio with a bed that folded into the wall. We should have really thought bout it more but like I said genius salesman. We went back to the office and said we'll take it and we got a two week bond (instead of the usual 4), 3 month lease and the only info he wanted from us was one of the ATM receipts for Fiona's bank. Plus we were able to move in that night but we decided to wait until the next day.
So the next day we went off nice and chipper to move in. There was still nothing brewing on the jobs front but it would only be a matter of time. We got ourselves settled in and gave the place a good scrub. It was mid winter but it was still quite warm except at night when it was very cold!! We couldn't understand why until I noticed that the "window" had slipped in its frame. It turns out that the window was plastic and had moved down leaving an inch or so gap at the top. We soon stuffed that with pillow cases but there was also a small hole in the window which we repaired with Sellotape. So it had its problems but it was home and we were happy. Of course that didn't last!!
I finally got a job working in a call centre selling insurance to people who were not expecting my call and were of course delighted to hear from me. Fiona was having a little more difficulty. We had both decided that we wanted different jobs when we arrived, I was looking for a serious proper job and Fiona was looking for a fun hassle free job. We applied for several and the call centre was all that bit for me. Fiona got an interview for a travel agent but they gave her a geography test so that was the end of that. Also we were slowly finding out that while Woolloomooloo had beautiful dockland and was full of rich people that part of it stopped just short of where we lived which was right beside authority and halfway housing. The local basketball court served as a beddrug stashmeeting place of the local displaced population. This led to the first unpleasantness. While I was at work having only started a couple of days earlier I got a phone call from a very upset Fiona telling me that our apartment building was on fire!! I left work and came back to find out that Fiona was sitting in the apartment when some little shite bags started throwing lit sparklers at the window. She let a roar at them and they stopped. Well they stopped throwing them at our window but they did manage to lob them into the apartment about. Oblivious to all of thus Fiona heard a commotion outside. Worried that the, quite large, mothers of the kids had congregated to abuse her she hid for a while but they kept up so she stuck here head out the curtain to be told to get the hell out, the building is on fire. So I got back to find her in tears and thankfully no real damage was done outside the apartment that caught on fire. Things were not going well. Particularly when this was on a day when Fiona had 'had enough of Sydney' and decided to sit home and get pissed for the day! The nice policeman told her to 'go have a cup of tea' before he took her statement!!!
It wasn't all bad. We got a George Foreman grill which was one of the highlights and we did celebrate my birthday there (I got a PS2) which was a lot of fun and Fi went to a lot of effort to decorate the place and we had a great night out on the beer. I was a bit tipsy and was giving out cos people weren't watching the Olympics opening ceremony but I soon quieted down. Saying that the two lads did have a bit of a ding dong both inside and outside the club but no punches were thrown, though I did have to spend the last half an hour of my birthday night separating them and trying in vain to talk some sense into Dizzy.
Fiona then got a job and of course despite her best efforts it was a proper job. She started to work for Pfizer doing a similar job to the one that she had left in Ireland. I was working 12-8.30 in the city and Fiona was doing 9 till whenever in West Ryde about 10k's out from the city. This is where the studio apartment started showing some serious flaws. As I wasn't up until all hours I was staying up later than Fi who had to be up and out early for the trip to work. So basically we were living in one room where the kitchen, bed and living area were all on top of each other so I was watching TV on basically mute and Fiona was waking me up at 6.30 in the morning when she was getting ready. We decided that we needed to get the hell out of there. Plus Fi was doing some crazy hours and most days I had to walk halfway to town to meet her cos of the freaks around and cos she was walking home in the dark most nights. That and the fact that there was nothing to look at in the apartment but each other and you couldn't even go into your room if you wanted some alone time.
We had been invited to one of Fiona's old Aussie friends wedding before we left Ireland so we decided to head to that and then seriously get stuck into some new flat hunting. Plus I was seriously over my "job" having recently gotten a new team leader who took offence to the fact that I didn't hound every person who I called until they cried like I should. So I decided that I would go away and enjoy the weekend in Perth and then decide when we got back if I could hack it anymore!! So we had settled in and begun our life in Australia and even though it started as a bit of disaster we were determined to make the most of it and were looking forward to the break in Perth to soothe our stressed spirits!!
