21/12/12

With the van dropped off and the road trip over, I'll start this new blog entry. When we dropped the van off we got a train back to Kings Cross, making a beeline to our hostel via Greg's. I haven't seen Greg since OzIntro and it was great to catch up. Hell, it was great for him to share a couple of beers with me. Tonight, we hit Sydney like there's no tomorrow. Well, there's not meant to be after all! $5 BBQ at Greg's hostel, then free entry to a club all sounds pretty good to me!

22/12/12

We're all still here, I don't feel hungover, and everything is just fantastic. The clubs last night were pretty decent, rammed, but decent clubs. I ended up calling it a night at 2am and sat against a tree waiting for the others to exit the club, spoke to a few randoms and didn't get any food. However, because of the 2 free drinks, free entry to both clubs and for some reason being a bit of a lightweight, I only spent $20, and that is what I call a good night out! Not to mention the $5 BBQ beforehand. It filled me up and the best thing is you can't even buy that amount of food for $5! So considering I'm not hungover, what is in store for today? Meet up with Greg late morning, walk over to the place we've chosen for New Years Eve. Just to make sure it's decent view of the bridge, not too much of a walk etc etc.

What a day that was. After getting to the OzIntro office to collect my mail (and parcels) Me and Greg went to walk over to Pyrmont, the park where we will spend New Years Eve from midday until the fireworks. It was a bit of a mission, but we figured, with everything there is there: Toilets, view of the bridge, grassy area, shade, bbq area. It's worth it. After this, we set thoughts to Christmas Eve and the party boat we're going on. Wasn't planning on going, buuuuut... It looks epic. Free booze, 800 party-minded people and Sydney Harbour. Should be a good laugh! So it's obviously fancy dress, and let's just say it's going to be smurftastic! Getting the blue paint though, was too much effort, likewise with the white shorts. When that was done (eventually) I made pizza for dinner and chilled out. This was short lived as Greg's mate arrived today so we headed out to grab a beer or 4. With $3.90 beers, it was hard not to have 4! After this, Me, Max and Ben got a tub of ice cream to go with the chocolate cake we bought earlier, heated it up and had warm cake and ice cream whilst watching the end of Hot Fuzz. Easily the best part of the day. So with that in mind, I go to bed, a happy chappy.

24/12/12

It's 10am and I've been awake for an hour. I'm pretty tired, but yesterday was a good day. Got up fairly late, had breakfast and skyped with Lisa in the morning. In the afternoon; Me, Max, Ben, Greg and his mates Rolo and Sam all went to Bondi. We made the mission there me and Max with our surfboards and it wasn't too difficult. Gives me hope for Christmas day. The waves on Bondi were huge, but I caught a couple and rode them in, even swapping with Greg's rented foamy for a wave. Damn, I forgot how easy they were! At about 5pm we headed back to the Cross and got food for dinner. This doesn't sound that great, but I had some spuds cooked up from the night before, so I just bought 2 porterhouse steaks (reduced to $7), some mayo and mushrooms for a beautiful steak, potato salad and mushroom dinner. So I mentioned about Christmas Day, my plans have changed slightly. Instead of trying to organise people and get a BBQ and food down to Bondi, with my surfboard, on Christmas Day. I'm doing a Bondi Sandwich. In the morning I will be hungover, that's inevitable, so I'm going to surf in the morning. About 10am I think. This will give me enough time to get back for the 2pm BBQ at the hostel. Then I everyone is going to the beach. Hopefully I would've been satisfied with the morning surf and won't need to take my board again in the aft. Plan for today is to wear this goddamn santa hat all day and all night. It's the only thing that feels Christmassy.

25/12/12

Well Merry Christmas! It's only 1:45am but there's so much to write about this evening's Christmas Eve Booze Cruise! We all started blueing up about 5ish and being really careful not to get any paint anywhere in the hostel, my god we were blue! This was the start, we got our drink on and at 6:15 we headed to the boat. The boat that didn't leave until 7:30. So when we arrived there were a lot of people in fancy dress just standing around. Kind of like fleet services on the Army Navy rugby game every year! Truly a sight to be seen, and then you realise it's Christmas eve, and around this time on this day usually you'd be making your way to the pub for some family banter. It really isn't that dissimilar! Instead, I'm heading onto a boat for some backpacker banter! We got on and got the drinks flowing, the party boat was just like the party bus; however instead of stopping at clubs, it just had the party on board. Really glad I did it. The one issue was when it finished, everybody piled off and got onto busses, busses which couldn't take all the people. 'There will be more' There wasn't. And by the time we got a taxi back I was sobering up and definitely not in the mood to go out and waste money on booze. So I headed home, only realising half the way that Max was with me. We grabbed a kebab and got back to the hostel where we found a lot of the residents chilling in the dining area. This was probably one of my favourite parts of the night. Socialising with people I'm going to spend Christmas with. One of the girls is going to Bondi tomorrow morning to meet her friend, so we'll be getting the same busses/trains hungover tomorrow morning. Just a quick note so I don't forget this; Painting yourself may look awesome, give you celebrity status and give you a 5/6 pulling rating (I'm the only one that didn't pull) BUT! It takes a bloody long scrubbing shower to get it off. So considering I'm back as normal white as white Steve, I bid you Good night, and Merry Christmas to all!

26/12/12

I have only just now got enough time to write about yesterday and today! I'll try to run through it chronologically, but please forgive me if I'm a bit all over the place...

I awoke on Christmas morning fairly early considering the smurfing good time I had on Christmas Eve, around 07:30am! I lay there for 10 minutes working out how hungover I was before realising it was in fact Christmas and I had presents from the parents in my locker! I opened them up (disappointed that they weren't wrapped up inside the parcel paper) But more than happy to find a book I've wanted for a while, a harmonica to replace the one I broke and last, but my no means least; A f*** load of biscuits. People say a lot about the difference between Aussie and English chocolate, it's not that different. But the biscuits are massively different! Around 8am, the family called, from Christmas eve in the UK to Christmas morning in Australia, I got passed around like a w**** at a stag party, talking to every family member going. It was nice though, chatting to people where I would normally be at that time of year. When I finished on the phone; Max, Ben and I grabbed the boards and went to Bondi to fulfil my Christmas dream: Surf Bondi Beach on Christmas day. And let me tell you: It was a massive disappointment. The weather was overcast, the waves choppy and multi-directional. Just 1 day earlier the waves were huge and it was hot. Baking in fact! I managed to catch 1 wave, which I surfed in, wearing my santa hat. Dream fulfilled, but it was definitely not what I had expected. We sat on the beach for a bit, drying off, shivering when an unsuspected gaggle of females arrived. We merged and sat around our Christmas tree on the beach. That's when it started to rain. Wonderful. I think Bondi Christmas is a lie. I don't think it's ever sunny. With this in mind, we headed back to the hostel to start a traditional Christmas. A Christmas that consisted of: Tea & Biscuits, BBQ, Turkey Dinner, Chocolate cake, Beer, Wine and movies. Drinking throughout the food and films got me very drunk. Casually drinking always does, so by 6pm I was asleep downstairs. I must've been half drunk, half asleep because I woke up at 9pm in my bed upstairs. Waited to skype with the rents Went downstairs sober, had another beer and watched the second half of The Dark Knight Rises. The hostel was together as a family and made it a really awesome day for everyone. And that was Christmas day!

Boxing Day couldn't have been more different than the one I had planned. 'Relax around the hostel' I thought to myself, 'That will be nice' In reality I watched the start of the Yacht race from far East Sydney, went to the pub in the aft and then got Chinese in Chinatown. It was quite a nice day. As Ben said: Not making plans opens your day up to spontaneity. A good day all round, although I do feel a cold coming on, hopefully it'll pass. Tomorrow we're going to watch The Hobbit in the morning, and keeping the afternoon open for whatever Sydney throws at me!

28/12/12

It's 15:18 and I've just woken up (again). Walking home this morning at 10:30 from the otherside of Darling Harbour was not what my life needed. Wait, let's back up. So yesterday I awoke at around 10, Ben checked out of our room and it was apparent that none of us were going to watch the Hobbit in the morning, instead, we'd go for the evening showing. Having my late morning free, I made the effort to put an advert on gumtree for my board. Followed by a trip to the gardens to start reading my book, play a bit of my ukulele and just chill out with the bridge and opera house in view. I was there for no longer than 45minutes before I got a call from someone wanting to buy my board. This disrupted my chilled out morning and meant I had to get back to the hostel in the next hour. Fine. When I got back, a group of the guys were heading off to Redleaf beach, I joined them later, but I'll get to that. I sold my board for a ripe price of $180, just $20 short of what I paid for it, technically I rented a board for about 20 days for $20. Not bad. I probably could've gotten more if I had tried, it was an easy sale and only took 2 hours since I posted the ad to get a response. Me and Ben headed into town to buy the cinema tickets and grab his beach stuff, the 8:45 showing was sold out. But the 00:01 showing still has plenty. Go on then. We will be watching the Hobbit at the midnight showing. This is the first part of the reason why I've just woken up. After we bought the tickets, me and Ben headed to Redleaf beach, a strange little beach which was effectively a harbour, but with a fenced off pool of the water. It had a couple of floating platforms you could climb on and jump off, so it was nice to have a dickabout in the water, without waves either, so I didn't really miss my board. On the way home I decided I'd make an awesome burger for dinner, and that I did. Truely spectacularly juicy WAYGU beef, topped with grilled Spanish ham, mushrooms and obviously cheese, I certainly had a lot. But I'd need it, little did I know I wouldn't eat again for 19 hours (now). I watched superbad in the common room and by the time that had finished, it was time to make a move to watch the Hobbit. But wait, the trains don't run at 3am when it finishes, am I going to pay a fortune to get a taxi home? Am I going to walk home? No. Let's think, what does Steve do when there isn't public transport until the next morning? He makes a night of it. Google was able to give me three 24hour pubs in Sydney; Scruffy Murphy's, A bar I had visited a few times in my first week here), bit of a walk and tends to be more of a club in the early hours. A bar in North George street, way too far. Finally Pyrmont Bridge Hotel. It's close and a bar. After the Hobbit, we made our to the bar, naturally the bouncer questioned our motive. "You pissed lads?" "Nope, haven't had a drop" "Why are you out at this time then?". Eventually he let us in, after requesting our IDs, Ben didn't have his, so he got asked something which would prove his age "What year were you born?". Good one. Glad to see the intelligence of bouncers doesn't change country to country. I'm glad Ben was of age, otherwise that question certainly would've fooled him! A few beers later, at about 4am, with just 50minutes to waste until the first ,train back, Lucy completely butted in to our conversation, chatting to Ben. ;Her friend Rachel joining us just after. I know my duty. Let's just say my duty was fulfilled. We got kicked out at 6:30am, I'm skipping a lot here, including stories about a swimming pool, jumping a fence, a sofa bed and Max leaving at 7am, but I woke up fully clothed at 10am in their apartment when Ben woke me up. A quick exit saw me walking to the station in jeans on a hot Sydney summer morning. I felt just awful, physically sick. OH! Hang on, I don't think I mentioned, the last couple of days I've caught the hostel's sore throat/head cold. So regardless of what happened last night, today's plan was to chill at the hostel and not do anything anyway. So waking up at 3pm didn't worry me.

30/12/12

I need to decipher whether 3:32am is still the 29th because I haven't been to sleep yet, or the 30th because; well, it is technically the 30th. I lie here, nearing the end of December having spent the day meeting up with people, lying in the sun and swimming in the clear blue waters of Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia. In the UK, the 29th December probably would've been spent going to town, meeting up with people and having a coffee at Costa. I think I prefer this version. The waves at When we .were there, Bee from the hostel said that a few of them were going out tonight. A few? Understatement, much? No less than 30 people were drinking in the courtyard, and when the hostel only has ?48? beds, that's a pretty good turn out! I won't go into the night out, but I got kicked out when I was looking for Hannah because I was 'too drunk', a rule Australia are pretty harsh on. Anyone that knows me, knows that I have to be pretty slaughtered to show when I'm very drunk, I mean; come on... I'm writing pretty coherently at 3:40am, I couldn't have been that drunk only a couple of hours ago. Oh, piece of advice if you ever go to Kings Cross in Sydney; There's a kebab shop with a green sign saying 'Best Kebab' and 'Pizza' underneath in blue. Believe it. Truly awesome, and a lot more classy than you'd imagine from the red light district of Sydney!

Well yeh, that was last night. This morning's motivation to get up was water. I needed water. Quickly followed by bacon. I made my way to Woolworths to buy bacon, beans and hash browns and cooked me and Max a mini fry-up. God that was good. I then drank milk and watched Come Dine with Me, and then Jamie's 30 minute meals. It was shaping up to be a pretty good hangover day, not feeling too bad, but just enough to excuse monging out all day. Then I remembered it's Ceri's birthday. Ah Crap. I have to somehow get over to Coogee for about 3/4pm. So far, with that in mind, I decided to go to the gardens, find a tree and chill in the shade then make my way. Just so it doesn't seem like too much of an effort. This was short lived as I went upstairs to change; I decided my bed is much more comfy. I've spent the last couple of hours looking through old photos on facebook and eating chocolate. I'll get up when I have to.

01/01/13

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Well, what can I say? It certainly was a happy new year, or at least a fantastic end to 2012. I don't quite know how to fit all of this in effectively. The 30th wasn't too interesting, after I wrote that blog entry I went to the meal which was pretty decent, but a lot of effort for a hangover. Drinking was probably a bad choice as I experienced my 2nd hangover of the day on the way home. The day before New Years Eve, this was probably a bad idea. When I got back, we went to Woolworths to get the food for New Years BBQ and stuff; this took a lot of effort as we hopped from 2 different shops, a km apart. Not what my hangover(s) ordered. But hell, we got the stuff and by 11pm I was ready to pass out. For the next day was going to be a long one. Up at 8:30 to get ready and make our way to the spot I found.

New Years Eve came and I got up about 9:30 to leave at 10:30ish, I emptied my main bag so I had enough room for beer, bbq stuff and anything else people wanted to throw in. Surprisingly lighter than I thought it was going to be, we set off. 4 of us left the hostel, planning to meet Ben, Greg & his crew there. As we got off the train at town hall, I heard a shout "Steve!", turns out we got the same train as Greg, a crew of 20+ walking through the station, we got up to street level and whilst Greg went to get ice, we waited for Ben. Unsure about busses, we decided it would be best to walk the 1.6km to Pirrama park. It was around 11:45am when we got there, and I knew instantly it was the best choice. The weather helped, but it was perfect; The bridge in view, a good group of people and not too busy. This is where we will spend the next 14hours and see in 2013. The first 5 hours were spent putting sun cream on, reapplying sun cream, cooking, eating, drinking and more drinking. Obviously these last two caused an increasing number of people to need the toilet, and the queues increased. There was a portable urinal which had 4 'stations' for guys to stand at, however this quickly filled up and started overflowing. This is the only thing which could've been better, just a few more of them would've been great. But guys being guys, and actually some of the girls too, we found other places to go. At around 16:30, and reasonably drunk, I played the sensible card and eased off the booze, this was a good plan. I hit the water and at 17:31 I captured my thoughts in the notepad on my phone: "It's times like this when I really appreciate my own personality, the traints I have which really enhance my own life. It was mentioned at Thala that I am valued in a friend group because without me, things don't get organised. I sit here, half cut, looking at the harbour bridge, knowing I've done well. A group of no less than 25 enjoying what I conjured 2 months ago. I mean, sure, I don't know all these people, but everyone who invited them is here because of me." Full of my own self importance, I took a walk around the area, soaking it all in. I got on it again at around 7pm. The vibe was fantastic, the whole afternoon was chilled out, everybody enjoying themselves and mingling. I don't think I can get across how brilliant it was. Then the evening came, I started drinking again and things started to pick up. At 9ish I sat on the ledge of the boardwalk next to a 12ft drop to water, ready for the family fireworks. Considering these were the little fireworks, they were pretty spectacular! I used this time to actually get pictures of the fireworks instead of wasting time at the midnight fireworks. After these I guess it gets a bit hazy, I saw this as the start of the night so I think I started drinking more. We ate biscuits (thanks again Mum & Dad), lit up some sparklers, got a couple of group pictures, Max got told off by the cops for lighting up a BBQ, this was the last picture I got of Max, I'll explain why this is relevant in a minute. I got talking to Ben, the girl he had his eye on for that .night her friend. Obviously, seeing it as my duty once again to play the wingman. Midnight fireworks came and went, they weren't as spectacular as I was expecting, but maybe that is because we were quite far away to really get the awe factor. So after the fireworks people started to depart, some went to the casino down the road, some went to find a club whereas me and Ben ended up on Bronte beach with girls. Bronte beach is 10km from Darling Harbour, so we obviously got the train and then walked, however in the morning, having not slept, the walking part came at quite a challenge, especially not knowing the direction. Eventually we got a bus, then the train, then I walked through Kings Cross at 7am. Stopped off for a cheeky kebab and skyped with the family before bed. WHAT A NIGHT!

The next day, I awoke at 1:30pm actually feeling pretty good! Dancing around the kitchen, cooking up some breakfast. Then it hit me. I know what my life needs right now; Roast dinner. Who can get involved? Obviously Max... wait, where is Max? He wasn't in when I got in at 7am, he wasn't there when I woke up at 1:30pm when I woke up. Talking to Michelle, a girl in our dorm, I did start to worry. At 3pm we found Max in the common room eating cereal. Turns out he had a similar night to me and Ben! Ben! That's who else, I asked a few others but because everyone's leaving, they want to use up their own food. I cooked a pretty good lamb roast, some amazing gravy if I don't mind saying so myself and got some ice cream for dessert. I ate half the tub, a mere 500ml of it whilst chilling in the courtyard, then went in to the common room to watch Anchorman. This is a fantastic start to my New Year.

04/01/13

Okay, I think after that massive blogging I couldn't face writing any more for a couple of days. So although you might think I have a few days to catch up on, I wrote most of the last entry on the 2nd because not a lot happened, and then I just have yesterday to write about because it's 10:52 and all I've done is check out and cook breakfast. Well, the last couple of days have been completely orientated around food. As you know, on the 1st I cooked up a bloody lovely roast dinner for me, Max and Ben. On the 2nd, I grabbed some chicken thighs from woollies, a bunch of herbs and, granted I was lazy here, but some chips too. Chicken wrapped in bacon with a Spanish/Italian sauce, chopped tomatoes, chilli, rosemary, garlic, thyme... you know the type. The best thing about it; to save washing up I cooked the chips in the same dish as the chicken, they absorbed all the chicken juices. If I can't cook when I go to Tasmania, I'm going to be pretty upset. Yesterday I went to a nearby park, Elizabeth Bay park, on the water's edge, grass, plenty of trees. It was beautiful. Armed with my Ukulele, my book and a beer, I was set for the afternoon. That was until my beer went straight through me and there weren't any toilets around. After a short 2 hours, I headed back to the hostel and did the same back here. I ate a small lunch and was still hungry, but I resisted. For tonight is the steak challenge! 1kg of steak, chips and salad, for only $20! If you eat it all, you get your money back! In my mind, if I don't eat it all, it's all you can eat steak and chips for $20. And that's bloody good! So the time came, 6 of us heading towards our meaty fate. We got there, ordered. "Sorry, I don't think it's on, you might need to ask downstairs". I made my way to the bar downstairs, sheepishly asking if the steak challenge is on. The waitress headed into the kitchen and emerged with good news. It's on. We made our orders and sat ready and waiting. The telephone rang at the bar and the waitress broke the bad news. Apparently it's not on. I have no idea what the confusion was, the waitress asked the bloody kitchen! We all begrudgingly ordered our alternatives, 5 out of 6 going for the biggest burgers on the menu. Everyone was starving. This said, Greg struggled, Ben didn't finish and if I'm being honest, I was feeling full. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Maybe I'm not ready. I used to be able to eat so much, but travelling, saving money and eating less has obviously taken its toll. This brings me to today; I have little to do today. My flight to Tasmania isn't until 6am tomorrow morning and I was planning on spending 11pm - 6am in the airport, watch a film or two, get on the flight and sleep. This has been thrown up in the air since I found out the airport closes at 11pm until 4am. Leaving me with 2 options, stay another night at blue parrot or wait outside the airport for 5hours. I asked the hostel to extend, even though I will have to leave at about 3am, it means I can shower, get some shut eye and then leave. However, they are fully booked. If someone cancels or doesn't show up, I've got a bed, if not, airport for me.

05/01/13

Just passed midnight, I arrived at the airport, closed as expected, but the train station section of the airport is. So at least I have somewhere dry and warm to waste the next 4 hours. Very warm. I'm not alone though, with a group of Asians in the very airport looking train station. This changed, and this changed quickly. As a man in an orange hi-vis vest cleared everyone out. A separation formed as I started talking to two German girls, then, as the lift kept opening, more Asians turning left and again, more Germans joining us. I enjoyed talking *with them, one of them even thinking I was German, she told me (in German) that my accent sounds very English. We watched a couple of episodes of How I met your mother and as I sit here, slightly chilly at 2:07am I am surrounded by 6 sleeping German girls. Extra note: I ended up talking to her quite a bit, went for a coffee before our flights and got another invite to Germany! Looks like I'll be looking Claudia up when I hit Munich later in the year!

I guess whilst I've got a bit of time, I can sum this blog up and upload it when I get a chance. Christmas and New Year in Sydney was different to what I expected, but an experience I wouldn't change for anything. I leave Sydney having not seen a lot of the touristy areas this time around, but it felt more like home. Not in the sense that I could live here, cities still aren't really my thing, but it felt like home because it was a familiar place which I knew my way around. For the first time in months, I am travelling to somewhere unfamiliar, to meet people I don't know and do a job I've never done. I love this s***.