Saturday, November 26, 2005

Washing Powder

I went to iron a t-shirt and my jeans in the laundry room earlier and some kind Swedish man gave me the rest of his laundry powder as he was leaving to go back home tomorrow... What a nice start to the day, despite it being about 2pm... (I finished work last night at 4am, hence the nice huge phat lie-in).

Gotta say that the new bar I've started in is a bit mad, its down to earth, serves pretty rubbish drinks; cheap nasty vodka, Jack Daniels, loads of cheap spirits I'd never seen before etc etc and the coffee isn't very nice, but the staff are crazy and half of them boogie around the place like they are out on a night out. Last night there were a load of 17 and 18 year olds in the place for an end-of-year afterparty, and some staff kept on dancing on the bar in front of the dancefloor. Usually the place will close at midnight on a Friday and Saturday, and hopefully tonight I'll finish at about 1 or 2am at the latest. It should be busy, mad, with everybody running around trying to whack out drinks as fast as they can... Its a bit more O-Bar'ish, which is what I want.

I'm working 7 days this week, and 7 days next week. So no time for me to go out and blow all my cash on booze... Good in some ways I guess, probably good for my internal organs too!

I also found a packet of easy-cook rice in the kitchen, which I swiped off the 'Free Food' shelf. Bargain.

Am off to buy some trainers, as my McFly shoes/trainers are taking a beating with the messy bar floor and me walking around in them every day.

Hope you are all well,

Good luck with the job at O-Bar Kelly!

Stevie Wonder.

xxx

Thursday, November 24, 2005

The Search Continues

I'm still searching for a house, although with working late and getting up late the next day its difficult to actually view any places, half of me is giving up with looking for a place and half of me just wants to sulk in the corner of a bar somewhere until someone actually gives me a place to live on a plate so-to-speak... I've got Thursday off and I will definitely go looking for somewhere then. Johnnie and Shaun from back home-home in sunny Melton Mowbray have been travelling across Singapore, China and Bangkok and are arriving in here this week, so it'll be cool (and rather strange) to see them down-under here in Sydney! Then hopefully we'll all be able to get a place along with Lawrence and one or two of his mates, then I'll be a lot happier! Can't say I've got enough money for a bond at the moment but we'll worry about that when it comes to it! Despite being paid each week for a full weeks work I'm always running out of cash still... Shaun and Johnnie have even mentioned getting a job back in McDonald's, oh the joy of it if we all did! Don't know how long I'd last being a puny crew member again wearing that crap uniform thou! We'll see, it could be a laugh for a shift or two anyway!

Have moved into the other Central YHA hostel, its quite big and pretty decent, expensive but I slept loads last night after I got thru the snoring of the people in my dorm (gonna get me some earplugs later!) and I only got up at 1pm. Today is a lazy day, until I go to work in a few minutes... Met a guy called Matt who is from Bournemouth, he just got to Sydney today and is looking for a web-design job for a few months before he goes off travelling again, and there is also a new addition to our dorm room, some crazy looking bald-headed chap featuring a goatee Japanese guy! Who looks like he could be a samurai warrior person, ace.

Gotta go to the gym, haven't been for a week and a half, don't wanna become a fat lil' Stevie P do I!?!! I'll go tomorrow, I promise! Now you have to make sure that I actually go!

Speak to you soon dear folk.

xxx

Monday, November 21, 2005

I've gone off on one...

Yesterday was pretty mental, I spent all of yesterday looking at a couple of rooms to stay, then I went to work for a few hours and got my hair cut (finally!) after being paid. I was so tired as I'd had about 4 hours sleep the night before, but it was Friday and I had the night off, so off I wandered down to meet a mate in a hotel bar in the city for the first schooner, as they call them over here, they don't have pints!! A 'schooner' isn't even as big as a pint, its something like 485ml. We wandered down to Darling Harbour for another drink then decided to hit the local Side Bar to scout out some talent. Being a backpackers bar and typically full of English they actually 'do' pints there, which is most enjoyable I must say... I stayed there for most of the night and got fairly ratted whilst talking to a couple of lovely Kentish girls, who Lawrence, being the legend he is, introduced me to them as "the most beautiful girl in the world", and, "the other most beautiful girl in the world", (aka Gemma & Clare). Clare went off on one and went to bed and everyone seemed to bugger off back to Darling Harbour. I then introduced Gemma to the world of Dr. Pepper shots, (which is, for those that don't know, is a shot of amaretto, dropped straight into a tall glass already containing the measures of; a quarter coke and a quarter lager, and downed in one. Although the barmaid, bless her cotton socks and rather stunning good looks, didn't know what I was on about when I tried describing to her what I wanted (drink wise I mean!))... From then onwards I don't really remember anything in the bar but I know the rest of the night was good!!!

Very bad camera skills...


Today I'm so spaced out from lack of sleep I can't really use the computer properly, or even my mobile phone. A can of Red Bull about midday threw me out of sanity for a while, and I think now I'm on the comedown stage of my night out, and its half-one in the afternoon. I slung on last nights jeans and a thick t shirt for no apparent reason other than that I wanted to avoid being in my dorm with the people I probably annoyed last night when I got in rather late, and they were the first clothes I laid eyes on, and today its sunny and really hot and I'm hungover sitting in this net cafe wanting to just fall asleep on the keyboard... and today I'm supposed to go to the gym as I haven't been all week!!!

A couple of us just went to go and view an apartment which is fairly central to the city, and it was really high up in this block of apartments and the rooms and whole apartment was absoutely mint, but just too expensive to get into. The guy wanted 6 weeks bond as a deposit plus two weeks rent up front, plus $150 for the security keycard deposit. In total it would have been about $1355, (which today according to XE.com is about five-hundred and seventy eight of your English pounds my dear) and I really do not have that kind of cash lying about, although the apartment is mint and in the basement of the building there is a swimming pool and a gym and a spa / jacuzzi thing, plus the views of the city were really sweet, I'm just gonna have to keep on looking for somewhere to live whilst I continue my stay in hostels!...

That reminds me, check out this hostel, the YHA Railway Square in Sydney, thats where I am at the moment, its very chilled out and I can get a good nights sleep there too. I'm sleeping in a train carriage thats been converted into an 8-bed dorm room, as the actual hostel building I think used to be part of the railway buildings and was a postal depot or something like that. The pictures show Central Station which is the main rail station in Sydney, thats the actual view from outside the dorm room! Its not that loud either, despite being where it is. I highly reccommend this hostel if you ever go to Sydney backpacking. The showers are powerful enough to almost blast you out of the cubicle and there is a lil' pool outside by reception too. The kitchen is large and on the whole the hostel is very clean and decent. Its about $28-$32 a night depending on how many you share with in a dorm. The Wake Up! hostel across the road is cool too, I stayed there when I first came to Sydney, although it lives up to its name, you can hardly ever get any sleep! But you do meet tons & tons of new people which is always good... As long as they aren't w*nkers I guess....

Hostel meets train station...

Thats all for now my little darlings, much love and peace to y'all...

P.S. Thanks to Lil Jo who let me invade her hostel room in the Wake Up! and use her hair straighteners before I went out, (Ghd's, only use the best!) yes I'm still a girl when it comes to my hair!

Friday, November 18, 2005

I found Nemo...

Today I went to the Aquarium which is in Sydney's Darling Harbour (posh bit for food and bars by the way), with Jason and one of his dormmates who for some reason has the nickname 'Custard', (real name is Shell, or Michelle I'm guessing)... Anyway it was much fun and I almost ran out of battery on my camera but I took enough snaps of fish, shark, various pondlife that looked freaky and funny-looking catfish dudes for you to all browse at, and I found lots of fish that belong in that animated film too, even Dory and that French guy too. Wow, what legends.


Nemo, today...


It was only $19.00 with me International Student Card (ISIC) thing so was well worth it. I just wish I could learn how to take decent photos with my camera when its dark.. Sorry about some of the pictures, but there are some cool ones in there. The big shark in the photo below isn't like a paedophile shark with that little'un attached to its bits, the little one attaches itself to larger geezers and feeds off of them, but also provides some sort of good stuff for the larger thing, but I can't remember for the life of me what it is, maybe some sort of free privatehealthcare I dunno....

'Sharky & George'... possibly...


After the fish-spotting we wandered over to Star City and me and Custard were amazed at the size of the bloody thing. I think its Australia's largest casino, and it was fairly packed with people just throwing away their money. I'm glad I don't gamble, I don't understand it anyway. However, people like Ryan, or Shorty would probably love this place!...

Anyway, I'm talking s**te, so...

BYE!

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Lost my O2 Sim card d'oh!

I left my UK O2 sim card in one of the dorm rooms in the Wake Up! hostel so I can no longer check all those nice messages that you lot are sending me... Bugger, I've had that number for about 4 years as well.. Maybe I can get someone back home to buy a Pay As You Go O2 sim card and get that number transferred over.. In the meantime, my Aussie number still works and is somewhere below in this blog.... So I will still expect lots of nice text messages from you all especially seeing as it doesn't cost you lot anything more to send a text abroad than it does to send a text to anyone else in England. No excuses!

Its 2am, I've finished work and for the first time in perhaps ever in Sydney I'm not going out to get laced. I had a nice beer on the walk home; 'James Squire', an Australian brewed nectar style ale that has a foamy head and a long slightly nutty finish, quite lovely actually, and has an interesting story on the front of the bottle about him being fined about five dollars and sentenced to 300 whip lashings; 150 at first then the rest when he could take them! He received the fine and lovely lashings when him and this other convict geezer stole medicine and a load of paper (for beer bottle labels perhaps?!)

Look out for 'Crown' lager too, thats perhaps the only other nice beer that they have in New South Wales.

My cup of tea is empty, bedtime methinks. Tomorrow I am going to find somewhere to live. I'm also going to get my hair shaved off....

Night.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Burnout

Last night I got drunk.... Again.... Excuse my crap grammer and maybe some of my spelling, I'm still recovering. I think I've been drunk most nights, and I have definitely not had a day without alcohol since I left England, that was over a month ago. I'm starting to run out of cash, but I get paid on Friday so all should be good. I've been looking for a house with a few people I met in the hostel, but its proving difficult as all estate agents only provide a minimum of a 6 months let, and we only wanna stick around for 2 or 3 months. We're gonna go trawling through the internet later on and the paper tomorrow to look for privately advertised places, hopefully we'll get somewhere soon. Met a load of guys and a couple of girls who are from Chelmsford too! What a small world.

I've had too many late nights out and living in the hostel is killing me. As well as working about 50 hours a week, I finish at about 1 or 2am and then wander down to the bar as soon as I get back to the hostel, get drunk and stumble in to the dorm room at about 3 or 4 in the morning and get woken up by the people in the dorm room who have a more-normal-than-me sleeping pattern. I don't think I've had a good nights sleep since I left Fiji a few weeks ago and its taking its toll on me.

Last night was wild, me and this guy Lawrence went down to the bar below the hostel called the Side Bar, and the bar was decked out, Las Vegas style, as they were celebrating the opening of another Wake Up! hostel in Vegas, apparently... Anyway, we met up with a few girls from the hostel; Sophia who is this crazy Sweedish girl, Amy who is from Yorkshire and we also met this girl who I think is called Anna who is from Brazil. There were playing cards all over the floor and we all got drunk and started playing kiss & blow with the cards, alongside sticking cards in intimate places and using our teeth to get them out. I'm sure people were looking at us thinking we were crazy but we didn't care, we were all smashed and it was a great night out. The pictures don't do it justice! I was a bit of a naughty boy and when we left, me and another Sweedish mate Chris went up to his dorm room on the 7th floor, and my friend Jo was in there asleep... Of course, I was drunk so proceeded to jump on her and woke her up. Eventually I woke most of the room up and then I passed out on her bed with my feet next to her head and my head just on the mattress. When I woke up I really did panic for half a minute before I realised where I was! I was SO hungover as the $10 cocktail jugs really did f**k me over.

Sophia gets friendly with Amy... Game on!


My eyes hurt and I've not had anything to eat yet and its 7 in the evening! Going for a $5 steak in a bit though (not sure how good it will be!) with Lawrence & Natalie. I was supposed to go and send a shirt back home to this shop in Nottingham as its too big for me and I need a smaller size, and then I was supposed to also pick up my tax file number from the post office too, but as I was rushing to the post office Amy was sat outside a pub with a pint bottle of Magners and I couldn't resist a liquid breakfast of Irish cider. It didn't quite taste right though, and it was $10, which is just over 4 squids, but it was still good.

I will definitely need a nap later on, but I think I will probably start drinking again later, as its my day off today. Work is ok at the moment as well, we've had a new food menu launch and a new cocktail menu. The food is lovely, expensive but its really really nice. I get food on my break too which is awesome. Paid on Fridays and we get our share of the previous weeks tips on Mondays.

I gotta go, if I don't have something to eat soon followed by a sleep I think I may fall over in the street and fall asleep in the gutter.

Miss you guys,

x

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The Scottish

This isn't quite a 'what-I've-done-thats-interesting' post, but more a 'what-I've-done-and-I'm-thinking-about-in-my-head-at-the-moment-thats-probably-not-very-interesting-to-you-guys-and-girls-back-home' post.

4 Scottish birds moved in to our dorm yesterday, and came bursting into the room at about 4 or 5am, I can't remember what time it was, I was shattered from work and today I'm so so tired, I almost fall asleep every time I sit down! The new girls were being loud but it doesn't matter because they are all quite hot and funny so I'll forgive them for stopping me from sleeping! I was going to go to the beach today, but I got up too late, and earlier it was cloudy, now its really sunny and hot I wish I had gone to the beach! Anyway, now in our dorm there are 3 guys and 5 girls. Bargain. Sorry boys, no pictures.. (Yet.. Maybe..)

I've got work in a few hours, I don't want to go, I'm probably going to look for another job where I actually get to TALK to lots of people rather than just serve drinks to the waiting staff. Maybe I can find a company to sponsor me because I've studied Music Technology, and I'll be able to get a better working visa and stay here for more than 12 months... Yeah whatever! Stop dreamin' Stevie... Working nights all the time is annoying because I never get to go out, get drunk and flirt anymore!!!

Now you British are 11 hours behind as opposed to just 9 hours, as we put our clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time and you guys put the clocks back an hour, right?

Can't believe Man Utd got spanked by 'Boro at the weekend, and damn Chelsea for battering Blackburn, even though I hate both teams to death, its about time Chelsea got a good hiding from someone.

I need to go shopping, I'm kinda running out of food, although I never did have much food anyway.

Need to find an apartment or house somewhere to rent for a few months, but for some reason watching the females waltz around the hostel seems quite appealing at the moment.

Oooh, a fire alarm...

[5 minutes later]

Wow, the fire brigade got here and were in the building before we left the front door, and we're only on the 3rd floor! Thats a response time for ya Blair!

Gonna join a gym, there are loads of Fitness First ones in Oz and I'm here for a whole year so lets do it. Gotta look after my fat belly...

Bec, and indeed a few certain other peeps, not had a text from you for weeks, I'm not pleased!!!

I'm off to peruse t'internet for a day-time job, I'm bored of Khosh bar/restaurant already, and its only been a week...

Ciao.