Day 99-105: Sydney (Week 10)
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2004
1
21
57
Trip End
Jan 05, 2006
Sydney,
Australia
Monday, December 27, 2004
You see now I'm working the days really aren't that eventful, so you'll be pleased to hear that the updates will probably get shorter, unless there's a hilarious tales of office hi-jinks...but I'm somehow doubting that as the atmosphere of the helpdesk isn't really conducive to such thing, you know, having to answer phones and stuff. The guys are all very nice and friendly tho but there's just not a lot happening.
Anyway, busy busy day today....agency bloke finally popped over with contracts so I stick my signature on them and get the ball rolling as far as time sheets go. It's a little complicated as I'm using the payroll of a different agency - Geoffrey Nathan - as they have a system which gives me a slight tax break which means I get paid a little more which isn't a bad thing...but it does mean I have to fax timesheets off to 2 agencies. Tried to get through to GN and they never answered, ended up having to send an email to them....they mailed back saying they're having phone problems...good start! Couldn't fax my timesheet either so probably no money this week :O(
Went to the gym after work, Gabby took Combat this evening rather than David but didn't shadow with her...wondering if David has said he doesn't want me shadowing...hmmm, maybe it's just my paranoid delusional state?? Got home about 8, Chris from the choir had mentioned that it's the SGLC Christmas Party tonight in the same place as we usually rehearsed. Popped down for a quick hello....was a very... erm... quiet affair, no music, just nibbles. Hung around for about 30 mins, people had started leaving anyway. Chris also asked me about Christmas and said that if I've got nothing to do to give him a call as he's sure his parents won't mind adding one for dinner which was nice.
Tuesday:
On the bus this morning I sat next to a bloke with the longest legs in the world, his thigh was huge...anyway, just thought I'd share that with you. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful with no other examples of people with oversized limbs. Had a nap when I got home coz tonight was gonna be a late one, woke up about half 7 and had a little bit to eat and got ready for the Karaoke thing. That wasn't starting until about 11.30 so went to the net cafe for a couple of hours first.
Got to Stonewall just after 11 and it was packed. Found one of the drag queens who were doing the presenting and all I had to do was pick a song and give them the slip and just hang around until it started. Just after midnight they called all the finalists together to check we were there and that they'd got the right songs sorted, turns out there were about 12 of us. The final started about 12.30, there were 3 judges; a guy from the Ausse Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, some singer who's released a couple of dance singles (not that famous tho, kinda Z-List i'm guessing), and a drag queen. There were some very good singers, and a couple that weren't so great and one woman trying way too hard by having a couple of topless male dancers with her whilst singing "Let's Hear It For The Boys'....I'm mean honestly, it's a karaoke competition, she's obviously been watching too many pop idol/x factor type shows.
Whilst I was watching the other finalists I got talking to a group of Kiwis near me, couple of guys and a girl, they've been living in Sydney for a while and the 2 blokes are sharing a place. Being honest the reason I started speaking to them was coz I fancied on of the blokes....nice friendly bunch anyway. So feels like the final has been going for ages and I still haven't been called up, god knows what time it was when I eventually got up, done my bit, went pretty well but one of the girls that was before my had song Whitney Houston's 'I Have Nothing' and I have to admit her voice was very very good, I got a polite round of applause anyway...lol! Think there was only one or 2 after me...by now it was like 2am, then the judges went off to deliberate. Whilst they were doing that I got the balls up to ask the guy I liked, Rob, if he wanted to hook up for a drink sometime and he said yes so we swapped numbers.
So the big moment comes for the winner....unsurprisingly Whitney Woman won, but she did kinda deserve, but on the other hand it's a bit of an outrage that you enter a karaoke comp in a gay bar and some bloody straight woman wins!!! She got $1000, a free meal, photo shoot and some other stuff so it was worth giving it a shot. Finally got home just before 3 so it was a good job I had that nap! Still took me an hour to get to sleep - must have been the buzz of the competition...lol!
Wednesday:
Had a message from Rob when I switched the phone on in the morning....amazing! Was kinda hoping he'd get in touch coz I'm usually the first one to send a message so made a nice change. Actually didn't feel too bad in the morning considering I'd had about 3 and a half hours sleep. Don't think anything particularly exciting happened at work, morning was busy but afternoon wasn't, you'd hope that it'd be quietening down as there should be less people around before xmas. Rob and I were texting back and forth during the morning and ended up arranging to go out for a drink tomorrow after work as he works in the city too. Also heard from Arron in Melbourne.
Went to the gym after work, was flagging a litte and didn't really feel like I had the energy to a combat class but I did coz I must maintain my incredibly lean, toned physique.... ;O) Bit of grocery shopping and the bus home and that's about it for the day. Evening was spent in front of the telly. Did have a 'discussion' with Nicky as I'm sometimes feeling like every time I see her there's something I've done wrong...slam the door, not wash up quickly enough, leave windows open, etc, and this time I'd left the fan on in my room and I said I was getting fed up with feeling like a kid always doing stuff wrong...anyway we had it out, not really a full on argument but just clearing the air a bit and all was well with the world again.
Thursday:
Can't remember much about work, don't think it was particularly eventful, nipped home quickly after work to get ready to meet Rob for my date. Met at the Hyde Park fountain at about 7, it was a pretty humid evening and had started to drizzle a little but still very very warm. He turned up on time, and we wandered over to Darling Harbour for some drinks, he was pretty chatty and we seemed to get on well. We basically wandered from bar to bar working our way from Darling Harbour down to George St which is one of the main bar strips in Sydney, we also stopped off for something to eat.
Generally the evening was perty good, but he was either very shy or was just feeling uncomfortable, he didn't seem very at ease. One of the most outrageous points of the evening was when he told me that his friends said that I was a bit old for him coz they thought I was late thirties....LATE THIRTIES!!!! For crying out loud!!! I mean they were pissed when they met me but that's ridiculous, luckily he disagreed with them. The 'date' came to an end about 10.30, he got the train home, the goodbye seemed a little awkward, I guess I kinda got the impression that I wouldn't be seeing him again. Ah well, to be honest he wasn't that interesting, didn't have much to say for himself and didn't seem to have much to do in his life other than work and go out drinking, he was a nice guy but don't think they'll be a beach wedding for a little while.
Friday - Christmas Eve:
So it's christmas, well almost....was pretty quiet at work, a couple of people had taken the day off. I decided that I would buy a little Christmas cake for everyone to share so nipped out and bought that in the morning, Paul went out and bought coffees for everyone, Helena bought some Lindt chocolates, and the other guys were miserable buggers and did nothing. Actually it was quite a chilled day, I'm enjoying working there, Paul and Claire are the main guys that I seem to get on with and have a laugh with but they're all really friendly and you can talk to anyone really, most of the day was spent chatting as there weren't many calls coming in and the office was pretty quite too.
I finished at 5, and it was pissing down, the skies were dark and generally it weren't feeling very christmassy at all. When I got home Niki was packing ready for her trip home for xmas, she was about to catch the cab to get to the airport so wished each other merry christmas and she was off...place to myself for a week, woo hoo!!! Nipped to the supermarket to top up for xmas and treated myself to some xmas pudding and cream, will have that tomorrow probably. Thought I'd get my arse out of the flat in the evening doing my usual jaunt up and down Oxford St. You may recall that Jay the Kiwi Quantas bloke said he was gonna be in town on xmas eve and that we should do dinner, of course I haven't heard anything from him which isn't a suprise, thing we'll consign that 'friendship' to the pile marked 'Done'.
Stared off in the Oxford where I bumped in a guy from the choir, I think his name is Keane, I can't remember, it's terrible coz I've met him a couple of times and I really don't want to say "What's your name again??". Anyway he kindly invited me over to his on xmas day afternoon as him and a couple of friends were going to have some brunch. He was with one of his flatmates called Heiko....German guy, very very quiet, hardly said anything! Anyway, thanked him for the offer and said I'd get in touch in the morning.
Moved on to Stonewall for one, nothing exciting to report there. Next stop was the Shift, reasonably busy. Had a little dance and a drink, spotted a guy who I thought was quite good looking and he kept looking at me too. Went on for ages as these things do, thought "Is he ever gonna come and speak to me?", well in the end I did all the hard work again and went and said hello. His name's Alain (French spelling coz Dad's French), he was with a couple of friends. We got on really well and he was very chatty, could actually hold a conversation and he had a really smiley face. We all moved on to Manacle for some more drinks, didn't really stop chatting and his friends were pretty easy to talk to too. When we left Manacle his friends went home so we went over to Oxford for one, by now it was about 3am. We still seemed to find plenty to talk about and I felt really comfortable in his company, neither of us was particularly drunk, he was driving so had only had a couple, and I'd had a couple of waters. Anyway, we said our goodbyes but he did say that he wanted to see me again and asked what I was doing tomorrow evening, so we arranged to hook up and go see a movie....like a proper date! Awwww...... :O)
Saturday - Christmas Day:
So I'd started the week thinking Christmas Day was gonna a pretty quiet solitary affair. In the end things worked out quite nicely. Woke up about 11am but no pressies waiting for me :O( Ah well...got plenty more christmasses. Unfortunately it wasn't a typical Sydney Xmas Day, it was overcast and pretty breezy, certainly not a sunny scorcher and not a beach day either. Sent a text to Keane (that's what I'm gonna call him until I confirm his name anyway!) to check for brunch. The nice thing is that he's only a 10 min walk away in Paddington so didn't have to travel far. Wandered around for about half an hour looking for a bottlo (off licence) which was open but nothing was, just convenience stores and over her they don't sell alcohol, oh and the reason I was looking is because I didn't want to go to brunch empty handed, but as I wasn't expecting any invites I didn't have wine in the house. Well it turns out that it's illegal to sell alcohol on Christmas Day, so no bars are open either.
Arrived for brunch about 1pm, Heiko was there and just one other friend, Glen. They'd just eaten the main food - my fault I missed it tho as they started at 12 - but I did have some ham, cheese and toast. We basically sat in the back garden eating and drinking for most of the afternoon. We wandered over to the Cross midway through the afternoon to get a DVD and Keane wanted to get something to smoke ;O) They were good company and it was a much better alternative to sitting on my own in the flat all day. I left about 6.30 and on the way home got a call from Alain to see if I still wanted to go out.
We decided we'd go see a movie, bizarrly enough some cinemas are open xmas day! Alain came round about 7, he'd been at relatives all day so had eaten plenty but all I'd had was the food at Keanes so needed some proper food before going out. I rustled up some chicken thing and then we went for a drive out to the cinema. When we got in the car he gave me a small box of chocolate fudge....aw.... what a sweetheart! Of course I felt guilty for giving him bugger all....oops! He also bought us a little Christmas Candy Cane each...well at least he knows the best way to my heart..lol. We went the Bondi Juntion cinema but went via Coogee Beach just for a little drive as we were early, there was plenty of people around even tho the weather wasn't very good, lots of people on or near the beach with picnics and plenty of booze.
Got to Bondi Junction for just before 9. Decided we were going to see The Incredibles....guess that's out over there already, if not pretty soon, it's the latest Pixar movie. Feel really comfortable with Alain, even held hands in the cinema...aw - don't vomit please!! Haven't done that for a very very very long time!!! Movie was good, would recommend it, good fun. Got out of the cinema about half 11, was feeling knackered by now as I didn't really have very much sleep last night. Alain wanted something to eat so we nipped to the Cross to get something and whilst he was getting food I phoned home for Christmas. Went home to eat and just chill, kicked Alain out about 1 tho coz was absolutely knackered...we're going to get together again on Bank Hol Monday I think, go do some shopping. Had a great night with him tho and looking forward to seeing him again, not gonna get too excited tho otherwise it'll all just blow up in my face knowing my luck, will take things easy and see how they go......
Sunday - Boxing Day:
The plan was to jog to the gym and have a little workout coz Park St Fitness First was open 11-3pm....but got a call from Carlos in the morning asking if I fancied going to the beach, now if you had the choice what would you do???? So chucked the beach bag together and met him at the bus stop about 1.30. He suggested we go to La Perouse, I haven't been there yet but apparently there's a nudist beach, not that I'm gonna get my bits out for all to see, but like finding new beaches so we got the bus there.
There are really 2 beaches at La Perouse, one of them is nudist and there's a little walk to get to it, it's quite small but nicely secluded and the water was beautiful. The nice thing about nudist beaches is usually they're really relaxed and there's not loads and loads of screaming kids....they also seem to attract plenty of gay guys and couples which ain't a bad thing. When we got there Carlos spotted a friend of his so we pitched out towels up next to them. Just spent the afternoon chatting, sunbathing, swimmining, wandering around the rocky coves....was a lovely was to spend Boxing Day, and the weather was beautiful too, sunny, blue skies and hot, much better than yesterday....topped up the tan too....no burning as I certainly learnt my lesson a few weeks ago!
Left the beach about 6, Carlos' friend gave us a lift back into Newtown and we all went to have some dinner at Burgerlicious....bargain burger place which does great food for 11$ (£5). Got a bottle of wine from a bottlo and had that with the meal - lots of restaurants in Sydney are BYO (Bring Your Own) - needed something to eat tho coz all I'd had all day was breakfast and a growing boy like me can't survive on that!!! Went back to Carlos' after dinner to raid his fridge for desert, well he offered! And he had mince pies so had my first mince pie this year....mmmmm......
Jumped on the bus home about 8 and dropped into a net cafe to finish the diary as I'm not back at work until Weds so will have forgotten everything by then. So that's it, Sydney Christmas is almost over, I think I've sent most of you an eCard or a text so you should have heard from me but if not I hope you had a fantastic Christmas....next week we'll see what New Year's Even brings!!!
