Day 50-56: Sydney (Week 3)
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2004
1
14
57
Trip End
Jan 05, 2006
Sydney,
Australia
Sunday, November 7, 2004
So Monday was big move day. Up at 9am to go next door and get a car, cheapest they had was $51 but that's still cheaper than the delivery cost from Ikea so well worth doing. Got the car and checked out of BIG and drove my stuff to the flat. Very strange driving for the first time after almost 2 months and in another country. Pretty easy really, felt like a local after 15 minutes, driving over here is pretty much the same and of course they drive on the same side of the road, there's some funny things going on with pedestrian crossings and red lights and stuff but hey, they're only pedestrians so it doesn't matter ;O) After dumping my stuff off I drove down to Ikea and bought a Queen bed (no hilarious jokes thank you very much!) - now the bed sizes here are all weird and I don't know if the queen over here is the same as the UK, but it's one down from the King, however it's still huge and it was only $95 which is about £40!
At Bondi
! The most expensive part is the mattress which is about £100.After Ikea I took a trip to Kmart to get all the bed linen, obviously over here we're about to enter summer so you don't really need a lot, just a cotton sheet really, definately no duvet required. Got a very tasteful 'stone' coloured set and a throw just in case I get a little chilly - as if! After dumping the Kmart stuff off I went to the supermarket to do some shopping. Over here there don't seem to be huge super/hypermarkets like there are in the UK, they're all pretty small and there's basically a duopoly of Woolworths and Coles - Woolworths is a strange thing, in the UK is cheap and generally nasty, in South Africa is was their equivalent to Marks and Spencer, and here it's a supermarket! Anyway, enough supermarket chit chat - being a poor traveller I went to a supermarket called Bi-Lo...very classy, it felt a bit like wandering around Asda in Norwich ;O)
Got back and started putting the Ikea bed together, of course what I don't have is any screwdrivers other than what's on my pen knife - so it took about twice as long to put together as I struggled with the most awkward phillips screwdriver in the world, luckliy most of it was the allen key type thing which is provided in the Ikea bag of crap
Bondi - Sculpture by the Sea
. Anyway, after much sweat and toil I'd produced a rather nice queen bed. Mattress was delivered about 6pm and the bed was finished by then, chucked it on, tidied up, empty my crap into the wardrobes, but the bedding on and done! Home sweet home, all looked very good of course and could have easily appeared in the Ikea catalogue itself, in fact I might submit a picture of the finished room with me in a tux with a glass of champagne lounging on the bed, I'm sure they'll go for that.As I had the car for the whole day I went over to Carlos' place in the evening, we went to the Newtown pub which is the only gay pub in Newtown, bit of a scary gay local too. Some very bizarre people wandering around, felt like I'd been transported back to Norwich! But it was free pool night so we had a couple of games and then went back to his place to watch a film, was a bit of a late one so ended up staying as couldn't be arsed to drive home...so after buying the bed and sticking it all together I never even bloody used it!
Tuesday:
Lazy day today after all that rushing around yesterday. Dropped the car off in the morning and then wandered back to the flat....absolutely no idea what I did in the afternoon, I'm sure it wasn't very eventful or I'd have remembered it
Me and Carlos
. In the evening I was walking to the net cafe to do some catching up when I got a surprise call from Jay (kiwi cabin crew guy)...turns out he was back in Sydney already for a stopover on the way to Joburg. However he's also pulled a sickie so planned on being around for a couple of nights. So we met up that evening for a few drinks and again I had a really good time. we went to Stonewall again where we met a week ago - it was karaoke night and toward the end of the evening I decided to give it ago. Thought i'd do something suitably schmaltzy so sand 'If Tomorrow Never Comes', the Ronan Keating thing. Well anyway after i'd sang they called back the last few people onto the stage and got the audience to vote on who they thought was best. Turns out there's a karaoke competition to win $1000, and I came second that night - and the only reason for that is coz the guy that came first had a shitload of friends screaming for him in the audience. So I gotta go back in 8 weeks time for the grand final!! How very very exciting! So of course the next thing you know I'll have recording contract, be releasing my first single over here, and may well release it in the UK - so keep an eye out for it, I knew if I came over here I'd finally be discovered....about bloody time! So anyway, after my dalliance with stardom we had a couple more drinks and that's as much as I'm telling you!
My new bedroom
Wednesday:
Jay got a call in the morning from Operations telling him that the doctor would be paying him a visit to check how his 'ear infection' was going....that's what he told them he had to pull the sicky coz obviously you can't fly with an ear problem. So I bugger off and leave him to wait for the doctor....he says he'll call when he knows what's going on coz if the doc says he's fine he'll have to go back to work.
Went to the gym this afternoon, jogged there, 30 mins of weights, hour Combat class then a jog back. Hadn't heard from Jay by late afternoon so gave him a bell....doctor still hadn't appeared apparently so he'd spent all day in the hotel room. Supposedly a doctor would appear sometime in the evening, and if he didn't then he'd be picked up in the morning to go to the surgery for a check up instead, sounds like a right palaver...asked him to let me know what was happening as soon as he could. In the end didn't hear anything so had a quiet night in.
Thursday:
No call from Jay this morning so thought 'Fuck it' and decided I wasn't gonna keep chasing him...could it be that I'm just his dial-a-shag in Sydney, who knows, hope not coz enjoyed spending time with him and he seemed like a genuine bloke, but I may well have been taken for a ride again....we'll see
Spanish Quarter Festival
. In the afternoon I had every intention of wandering around bars trying to find work again, but in the end after a late lunch time was getting on and frankly couldn't be bothered.Evening was the rehearsals for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir (SLGC from now on thank you very much!), we went over the same songs as last week plus we started rehearsing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The Mardi Gras concert is in February and you have to have attended at least 80% of rehearsals to be able to take part in the concert, so I'm probably gonna carry on and may well do the concert too which will be cool. They've let me off any joining or membership fees until the new year which is good coz I need to spend as little money as possible.
Friday:
Gym this morning, jogged there, 15 min cycle, 45min BodyPump class, jogged back. Weighed myself for the first time since leaving the UK which was a wee bit scary...good news tho, I'm practically the same as when I left so chuffed with that, and gonna try and get a bit more off in the next few weeks. Decided to keep the gym thing running coz it's something I enjoy doing and would miss not being able to do the combat classes. Talking of which, I sent off an app to the Register of Exercise Professionals in the UK so that once i'm listed with them I'll be recognised by Fitness Australia over here and I can start looking for Combat work too.
It was really icky and humid today, and it was pissing down over lunchtime. But dried up after so went for a wander and dumped some more CVs off in bars and restaurants...it's all very painful this looking for a job malarkey. Will get the numbers of all the bars I've left CVs at and give them a call next week to chase them. Will also get tomorrrows paper coz it's a big jobs day too. Doing bugger all this evening other than sitting on the net updating this amongst other things.
Saturday:
Had a nice long lay in and then caught the bus to Bondi to go to the Sculpture by the Sea festival. As you'll know if you've checked the link it's basically an arts festival where sculptures a exhibited along the cliff walk from Bondi to Tamarama. Good opportunity to take some pics (which are on webshots already if you didn't know) and wander around in the sun.....topped up the tan a bit too. Also wandered around the beach for a bit looking at all the nice views ;O) And god are there a lot of nice views on that beach!!
In the evening I met up with Carlos and we went to Newtown for food at a place called Burgerlicious - fantastic little place which does about 20 types of burgers, and really cheap too, but good quality. After that a friend of Carlos', Eric, met up with us coz he wanted to show Carlos his new car - Mercedes CLK 320 Convertible (I think) - anyway it's just a big cock car really, purely designed for cruising around hoping that people will look at it. I get the impression he's pretty well of for whatever reason so I guess if you've got it you might as well flaunt it. Eric drove us down to Bondi and we went and had coffee (well actually I had tea - tea!! on a saturday night!!). Eric dropped me off at home around 11 and that was Saturday done and dusted.
Sunday:
Went to the City Gym in the morning, thought I'd give it a go as I had a free pass, my 15 day trial at Fitness First (or The Cult as Nicky calls it) finishes on Tuesday so thought i'd see if I could find something cheaper. City Gym is quite famous in Sydney, it's won several awards for whatever gyms win awards for and it's got quite a big gay clientele, plus Craig Mclachlan uses it when he's in town (well according to their leaflet anyway....anyone remember who the hell he is? Here's a hint!) - So anyway, went there and it was a bit shite really, not only is it way more expensive than FF but the gym kit is about 20 years old and actually looks like it'd be better off in some sort of torture chamber! I guess all the meat heads like the original 70s weights machines but didn't really do if for me....so looks like I'm gonna stick with FF.
After lunch I met up with a guy called Mark who I'd met on the net, we went down to Hyde Park and sat and chatted for a couple of hours. Very nice guy, good looking too, we seemed to get on well but as usual would have no idea whether he wants to be just mates or whatever....but will hopefully hook up again sometime next week.
Early evening I met Carlos and we went to the Spanish Quarter Fiesta, him being Spanish and all! A female friend of his joined us too...think she was originally from Chile or something like that. They'd closed a couple of streets off in the city and there were food and drink stalls, plus there was a stage with some flamenco, singing, musicians - you know...Spanish stuff. Didn't seem to be that many latinos around tho, seemed more of an excuse for backpackers to come down and get drunk, but then they don't usually need much of an excuse. We wandered around, had some sangria (very nice!) and watched the entertainment until it finished at 8pm. Afterwards we went to Chinatown which is next door and had a chinese and finally finished the night off with tea and cake - best way to finish the night off!
Carlos was thinking of going clubbing to Arq tho I wasn't too sure if I could be arsed, however he went to his to get ready and I went to mine to have a shower. After I got out of the shower there was a text from him saying he was too tired and was gonna go to bed - lazy sod, and it was his idea in the first place....so I thought fuck it and went out anyway, not as if I've got to work in the morning. So went out about 11pm and went to the Midnight Shift, was pretty busy for a Sunday, got chatting to a guy and eventually we moved off to Arq. Arq is pretty much the main gay club in Sydney - tho the boundaries between bars and clubs are kinda blurred coz so many places are open through the night or 24hours over the weekend so there are venues you can go to all hours, but Arq is generally considered a club coz it doesn't open until late and closes early morning. It's a two floor place, upstairs was a bit heavy so stayed downstairs where it was a bit more cheesy....didn't last long tho, was pretty knackered to headed back about 2.
Wonder if I'll get a job in week 4??
