Enter The Bull and The Bazzerazzi
Trip Start
Feb 26, 2004
1
28
84
Trip End
Nov 16, 2006
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Sydney,
Australia
Monday, January 17, 2005
At this point all my friends from home that I had planned to meet in Sydney have arrived. They're slowly getting jobs and have moved in to various accommodation: Brian & Ciara next to a park favoured by heroin addicts, Maxi & Celine in an apartment which required them to buy cake-making utensils and some kind of candle ornament, and Lynn & Ed in a shared apartment I've yet to see...so I'm so far unable to come up with an insult. Mick & Nodlaig are still living in the posh area of Sydney (two doors down from a brothel and transexuals on every corner).
Actually, they're all very nice places and it's nice having so many places to drop in to during the week for a cup of tea (without being told by Mrs. McCabe I'm not wanted there).
I'm still in the same job, coming up to the maximum 3 months, so will be out on my ear soon enough. Still not enough money for the east coast, so I'll have to get a new job.
I blame Christmas for the lack of money.
Christmas was so much better than I had expected and was such a laugh. It got off to a rocky start when my work Christmas party finished at 11:00 (???!!).
I worked on my birthday, which was a shame. But someone took me out for lunch and they got me a cake. People who had never taken the time to acknowledge my existence came over to get a slice. "You're so quiet!" Well, you've never once actually spoken to me, and generally ignore me when I say hello, so go fuck yourself.
Then everyone came round to the house for drinks, and got pretty hammered on cheap red wine called Morris (Chateaux Cardboard).
01 - The Axis of Evil arrive
My boss sent me home the next day at lunch. The morning had been funny while I was still drunk, but once I got to the hangover stage and I literally fell asleep at my computer, she just felt too sorry for me.Christmas Eve was brilliant. I'm not the kind to go to Irish pubs when travelling, but in this case it was the right thing to do. We needed to replace the D.H., and it was in an Irish pub that we re-established the true meaning of Christmas Eve: doing shots, getting drunk, hearing Fairytale Of New York, and chatting up Manor House girls.
On Christmas Day, a massive group of us went down to Bronte beach with some boxes of wine and chilled out there for the day, had a game of football (Ireland won), before a par-tay in Mick's house. As well as the friends from back home were people we've got to know in Sydney, including our house mate Al (who is working on scamming his insurance company to get a free SLR camera), Tony (who has a tendency to talk to himself), Craig (allegedly gets heart palputations), his girlfriend Clare (sunbathes topless), Carl (works in an ice-cream shop) and Marcus (his dad is a one-man band).
The weather wasn't great to be honest, and I have found out since that it usually isn't on Christmas Day. Malone has a theory that, when you leave Australia, you are given $50 by the government to tell everyone at home that in Sydney you can spend Christmas in the sun, boosting tourism.
As well as the inevitable reunions with the crew from back home, there have been several other reunions with people I know from various places, including a Finnish girl we know from Broome (Finnish people almost always sauna nude, so she has seen all the guys and girls in her college class naked, including her lecturer), a girl we met in China (had a tendency to describe me using words I had to look up in the dictionary.
02 - Classic
eg. 'Oblique'), an Irish girl who scarred me with a fork dipped in boiling oil a few years ago, and a girl from Melbourne I'm mad about.Also met up with my girlfriend from when I was 11 (who has a brief role in the new Son of Mask movie). I was her first kiss, and in true 'High Fidelity' fashion we discussed why our relationship failed. I was hoping to shed some light on why all my relationships are doomed. No luck.
A lot of old and new faces have come on to the scene these last couple of months, and it was with a very heavy heart that I was forced to say goodbye to an old friend...Dingo. Yes, she is no more. Possibly in the shape of a cube now...we sold her for scrap. Had been tempted to fix her and sell her but Mike & I decided that we couldn't take the thought of someone else riding her. And, no doubt, one day I'd be out at the cinema or something and see her, with her new owner. Sure, we'd smile, maybe wave politely...but I'd be so torn up inside. The thoughts of catching a glimpse of someone else with their hand in her glove box, or filling her up with petrol...I just don't think I could handle that.
So exit Dingo, stage left. Thanks for everything.
Went to the Sydney Opera House to see Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys). Brilliant concert. Brilliant venue.
I think my favourite thing about Sydney at the moment is the taxi drivers, none of which are Australian. They all have amazing stories and pretty good advice. One Vietnamese refugee really helped me get an idea of my direction in life. One of his nuggets of advice was to not get married until I'm at least 35. He could be right. According to Nodlaig, I'm destined to stay single until then anyway.
We're all going away this weekend to the Blue Mountains...should be class.
For anyone who I haven't told...I am selling a calendar of some fantastic travel photos taken by various people, which they have been kind enough to donate to me. All profit I make from sales will be donated to the Tsunami Relief Fund. Please take a look and consider buying one, preferably as a gift. The consequences of the Tsunami are much more then tacky headlines...it is hundreds of thousands of lives which have been devastated and everything possible needs to be done. The calendar can be found at:
www.cafepress.com/allcaneat
