18/12/08

Arrived in Sydney at 8:10 am. Got off the bus and struggled to get my flip flops on, my toes were all puffy and flat from not moving in over 12 hours. Burns suffered the most, he had proper granny ankles, you couldn't see any definition on his ankles at all, he had two round balls for feet. Pat rang Peter from the pay phone and found out where we needed to go to meet up. It was just straight down the Pitt St. Walked down Pitt St. for what seemed like an eternity before finally getting to number 37. Met up with Peter, he's a really nice friendly Bloke who loves everything about Sydney. We all had showers in his office and he gave us a good idea of things to do in the city.

We started by walking down the harbour, saw the bridge and walked round the Opera House. Then ended up in the botanical gardens. The sun was shining so we layed down for a while and attempted to top up our tans. We went for a walk around the Queen Victoria shopping centre, on the way stopping at PriceLine to use some sun cream, Pat accidently squirted half a bottle into his hands and spent ages trying to rub it all in. Everything in the QV was well out of our budget but the sight of the giant christmas tree started to put us in the christmas mood for the first time. Started to get hungry so we went to a pub and ordered some sandwiches, they hadn't arrived after 50 minutes and we were about to ask where they were when the manager came up and asked if we were still waiting for food, he then handed us our money back so we all got free sandwiches. Now thats what I call service. I went to get a hair cut while eveyone went with Coops to get her another phone to replace the one she lost the other night. Went to Starbucks to get waste a bit of time before going back to Peters office.

Peter showed us the way back to his place and we met his wife Kerry his son David and girlfriend Gabriel. It's quite weird being in an actual house after months of hostels, they had loads of chirstmas decorations up which was cool, but its still weird getting into the christmas mood when its in the mid 20's outside. Spent the evening chatting and they put on the best meal we've had so far, we each had a giant steak with potato salad, mushrooms and onions. Awesome. We were all still nackered from the awful bus journey so we went to bed fairly early.

19/12/08

Had a good night, was woken up to Helen whispering 'I think he's awake', at about 11am. Got our stuff packed for the day and wandered off to Botany Bay for lunch. The moment we stepped on to the beach the wind hit us in the face, the sea-gulls were flapping as hard as they could in to the wind and weren't moving anywhere. We struggled to make some sandwiches on a bench and decided to move once we'd eaten because it was so cold in the wind. Walked back down the road and found a park, so we stayed there all day playing barefoot frisbee and football and attempting to dodge the broken glass. Burns went to grab some of the water we bought earlier and the bottle fizzed as he opened it, all blame was instantly pointed towards the girls for picking up carbonated water. I had to put sun cream on my head because the camp hairdresser the other day didn't understand what a number 1 was. Set off to go back to Peter and Kerry's and realised the thong on my flip-flop had snapped so I had to walk like a tit until I found a newspaper on the side of the road wrapped up with a rubber band which I nicked to hold it together for the journey.

Got back and Pat and I realised how filthy our feet were so tried to scrub them in the shower, I think they are now permanently stained. Sat out in the garden reading a bit of Kemp on Gangs and attempting to tan without burning my head. Peter got back and he and Kerry entertained us with stories of their past, and sorted us out with a very good spag bol with a meringue and ice-cream desert.

20/12/08

Peter and Kerry cooked us all cheese on toast and beans and Peter then gave all our bags a lift to the bus stop for us, what a ledge! Got the bus and train to Martin Place and headed in to the Domain, for Woolworths 'Carols in the Domain'. Arrived at around midday and picked ourselves a decent spot for the day. Kerry and Peter had sorted us out with an Esky and an awesome bag with wine glasses, knives, chopping boards etc. We made full use of the tools provided and had some wicked sandwiches. Eventually some entertainment began in the form of men dancing around in kangaroo and koala suits, we decided to crack open a few of the Hahn's from the esky at this point. Burns and Coops went off to find a new camera as he had lost his at some point on the way back from Taz. When they got back it got rather cold and started to rain a little so I had to don a hoodie and trousers. We had bought Peter and Kerry a 2 litre box of wine as a gift a few days ago as we were told you couldn't go wrong with a 2 litre box, but we'd obviously made a bad choice as we'd been told to take it to the park, drink it and replace it. So we got the glasses out and Burns Pat and I started drinking it, it was awful, each sip felt like a shot of aftershock going down, Pat seemed to like it though. Pat decided to go to the toilet, and after he hadn't returned within 30 minutes Helen was like 'I wonder if he's gone for a 2', when he did finally return he had 12 beers with him, 6 Boags and 6 Hahn, awesome! The beer made the entertainment slightly more bareable. Eventually we got to see Kate Ritchie and Delta Goodram so it wasn't all for nothing. But without doubt the highlight of the event was the Wiggles, I don't know what is wrong with Aussies, but the moment they arrived on the stage the entire crowd of around 30 000 stood up and started singing and dancing along to what I can only describe as something you would see at 5 am on channel 5 on a Saturday morning, the place was going mental everyone was loving it and we just couldn't suss it out. Towards the end of the night the others all got Kebabs and we made our way back on the train, unfortunately we couldn't all fit on one because people wouldn't move along so me and the lads were stuck at Martin Place while the girls traveled on to Hurstville. As we were waiting at the train station a family of fat birds arived, one of them looking rather ill. I remember the mother shouting out to one of her daughters to 'hold her back' and the next thing I saw was some munting fat chick spewing her guts up on to the tram line. The next thing I knew there was some girl repeatedly punching some bloke in the face. One of his mates attempted to divert peoples attention away from the fight in the most retarded way by shouting 'Stop looking' at the top of his voice. Sat on the train and Burns came up with a classic bit of sign language for rednecks swigging cans of Jim Bean with Santa Hats on. Got back and snuck in as quietly as we possibly could to try not to wake Peter and Kerry, we didn't do a very good job because Kerry was up shortly after we got back. Had a rather interupted night because I was sharing a bed with Burns again. He was doing his classic internal burps one after the other, literally like one a second, after 5 minutes of it I turned over and managed to kick him in the stomach causing him to choke on one and that seemed to make him stop for a few minutes.

21/12/08

Woke up and Peter cooked us a fry up, best breakfast we've had so far, everything was perfect. Headed in to town to go to the Neighbours Trivia night, which for some reason starts at 3pm. Got there and realised only Conor, Jennae, and some other randoms I can't remember the names of were going to be there so we decided to leave it. The lads decided to go to see a game and I started to go around a few shops with the girls. I'd had enough of it after the first shop and told them I'd meet them and the dangerous tree in the Botanical Gardens. Went for a wander around Circular Quay and found a library where a model of Sydney was placed under a perspex floor, that was pretty impressive, but not as impressive as the pie shop Peter was going on about that I managed to find directly opposite it. I got a huge sausage roll for $2.50 and then went and layed in the Gardens until the girls showed up. The heat was crazy, you can't lay in the sun for more than 10 minutes at a time or you start to burn and if you're in the shade its so cold you get goose pimples. The girls showed up and they decided they wanted a pie from the pie shop I described. When they got back we wandered round the other side of the gardens and found a place you could donate 1 dollar and have Zorb races, so we had a go at that. Quite good fun but very tiring, I think I'd rather just sit in one and be shoved down a hill. Wandered around the gardens a bit more before deciding to get some form of dinner. Ended up walking for about an hour to find a Woolworths, which isn't anything like what it is/was at home, and got potato wedges with chicken. We all ended up with a rediculous amount of wedges, must have been like half a kilo each, I managed to finish mine along with a large McD' shake when we got to the train station. Such a bad idea, felt sick for the entire walk back to Peter and Kerrys. Got back and they greeted us with tea, was good tea, and felt rude not to drink it so I was literally on the verge of spewing up half digested wedges on their living room floor. Managed to hold it in and we spent the evening chatting before going to bed. Kerry saw our the state of our feet and informed us that she'd spent the morning scrubbing the shower floor with bleach because she thought we'd all showered in our thongs, not the best thing to be doing in someone's house.

22/12/08

Was a lovely day, so we sat out in the garden for a while. David told us that it would be good to go to Crunulla Bay. We set off on the half hour walk to the train station. Found a cheap place to buy pies and sausage rolls at the station, they were really good, made the bag go see-through in seconds. Got to the beach and as we aproached the sand we could start to feel the wind. Tried to lay our towels down on the sand and then get on them before they blew away, and within 2 minutes of laying face down in to stop the sand blowing in our mouths and eyes our towels were buried. We thought we'd better sit on the grassy mound just away from the sand. Layed there in the sun all day reading until about 5. The heat from the sun was really intense all day but you couldn't feel it becuase the wind was so strong, the moment I stepped into the shade I got goosbumps from the wind. Burns and Helen both snoozed on the way back, Burns looked well funny sitting there with a book open and nodding his head as he was drifting off and still trying to read at the same time.

Got back to Peter and Kerry's and cracked open a few Hahn's while Peter and David cooked some lamb chops on the BBQ. They were showing re-runs of Top Gear, first time we've seen an ep in a long time so we made the most of it. It was the episode where May and Clarkson buy vintage cars and attempt to park them in the middle of london, brilliant. Had an awesome meal, so many chops and sausages, and Peter and Kerry weren't happy until they were all gone, such good hosts. They even provided an ice cream and sorbet desert, covered in Baileys of course. To finish the evening off we went for a walk with Kerry round the local area checking out all the christmas lights. One house had clearly outshone all the others, there were so many lights, the guy had gone crazy, there were even tiny moving figures of people ice skating, it was intense. The weird thing was that the christmas lights were wrapped around a palm tree rather than a christmas tree.