New Job

So I finally quit my job down at Searock and opted for something a little different. I applied to a few places and I'm now employed as a waitress at Jackie's Cafe in Paddington. Jackie's is basically an amazing lunch-y brunch-y place which does the most incredible breakfasts and perfect coffee, and then at lunch time the menu changes to this awesome hybrid of Italian bruscetta, pasta and salads, and Japanese sushi and sashimi. The food is all to die for and it's almost borderline fine dining as us waitresses are all in black with smart white aprons, and our service has to be immaculate for absolutely everything. Jackie is the woman who owns the place (obviously) and she's always around working with us too. Whilst she's lovely and fun, she's also a bit of a headcase and turns into a pseudo-nazi about some things, but we love her. The team of girls are all Australian and really good fun, and I'm really enjoying meeting some local people rather than just hoards of backpackers and tourists like down in Circular Quay. Not to say that I don't miss the guys at Searock (holler atcha team!) but y'know, it's just nice to do something different. 

The work is pretty full on but the hours and pay are good and the tips are amazing - we get nearly $10 an hour each at the moment, which means on Sunday I earn almost $40 an hour as pay is $30/hour! Genuinely the most rewarding thing. It's so different from the bar as the people who come into the cafe are all Aussie locals and the surrounding area in Paddington is very trendy, meaning that everyone looks like they've walked straight off someone's Tumblr to come and nibble at a sashimi salad (dressing on the side, no croutons) and have a business meeting about their new A/W 2014 shoe collection over a soy-skinny-decaf-single-shot latte. Oxford Street is full of really cool one-off Australian designers and quirkly little high-end fashion shops, it's my new favourite place and everyone who works in the shops is so BEAUTIFUL. It's the best place for people watching and for buying unique Aussie clothes. As you can probably guess, my tips seem to disappear pretty quickly ou of my purse....

Best perk of the job is free coffee and brekkie if you come early to work, and free sushi if you sweet talk the sushi chef before he packs up.

Pop in any time guys!

B

The Day My Landlord Wore No Pants

So this is a strange story.... a hilarious one, but something that will haunt me for the rest of my time here in Australia.

I arrived home from Future Music Festival at 1am and noticed that a couple of people were still awake in the house, including my landlord, Rod. I was obviously pretty drunk and didn't really want to stop and chat so scuttled past the living room with a little wave and dived into my room. Annoyingly, I noticed a huge spider up in the corner of my room and so I went back out into the kitchen to call for Rod to come and catch it for me, as he's so kindly offered to do so after my Huntsman Spider experience a few months back. He wandered into the bathroom to grab a tissue to squish the spider with and then just as he was walking back through the kitchen towards my room, I noticed something....

HE WASN'T WEARING ANY PANTS.

There he was, my landlord, striding purposefully across the kitchen with his spider-squishing apparatus, without any pants on. And by pants I don't mean trousers, I really do mean pants. Those things which hold you penis and balls and hide keep your decency? Yeah those. Any sign of those were looooooong gone.

And it gets worse.

He strode on by, completely oblivious to my pasty white shocked face, into my room and (now this is the worst bit), CLIMBED UP ONTO MY BED and REACHED UP to get the spider from the corner of the room.

I have three words for you....

ASS. IN. FACE.

His horrible, saggy, spotty, 45 year old MAN BUM was just hanging out below his tshirt for all the world to see. It all got a bit too weird and I didn't want him to turn around triumphantly holding the spider so that I could have a full frontal view of his meat and veg at eye level, and so I sloped off into the kitchen and busied myself pouring a glass of water. Eventually he left my room, and I mumbled a kind of 'thanks' at him and then hid back in my room, frantically searching for my phone to tell Harry what had just happened.

I will never forget what I saw. 

And the most annoying bit is, is that he didn't even catch the bloody spider, did he.

B

Future Music Festival

Even though it's not 100% my kind of festival, and the tickets were pretty overpriced for a one-day event, the venue was Randwick Racecourse and it was just too unbearably close not to go, and so whole group of us booked tickets for Future Music Festival last Saturday. I'm kinda annoyed that we paid the price of the tickets after seeing this video though....

...haha!

Gates opened at 12pm and Harry, Josie and I finally rocked up at about 2pm and met up with some of the others. The weather was blistering hot with clear blue skies and we spent the day mooching about, enjoying being back in the festival atmosphere and catching some of the early acts. Harry and I didn't really care much for most of the bands and stayed mainly at the Cocoon Stage which hosted the likes of djs Maya Jane Coles, Dubfire and Sven Väth. We caught a bit of Rudimental and Pharrell Williams too who were pretty good to be fair, but Sven Wäth won hands down, sorry Pharrell.
I also found a VIP pass on the floor which was pretty exciting, however only for all of 10 minutes as I didn't have the wristband to match it and the security man was having none of it and so it proved to be pretty boring in the end. Oh well.

The day was good fun though and went by pretty quickly, but there's not much to say really so here are a few snaps from the day.

B

Anna's 21st

So our darling little Anna turned 21 last week! The proposed plan was to meet at hers at 5pm and then go over to her Dad and partner's snazzy hotel, Blue Sydney, for a drink, and then on to dinner by 7.30pm. In true Anna style, she was still at Bondi Junction shopping for a dress at 5.15pm and had got caught in a tropical thunderstorm whilst shopping and so not only did she still need to make the 20 min journey home and get ready in the space of fifteen minutes, she also had to shower and wash her hair all over again. This meant that the rest of us all congregated in the corridor outside her room in college and waited, spying on the new freshers who have all just begun their very first semester of university. Talent spotting, as we like to call it.

Finally she made it back, new dress in hand, and we called the restaurant to push the reservation back to give us some more time. After lots of scrambling around from Anna and a few hurried photos on her balcony, we hopped into cabs and zoomed down to Wooloomooloo Warf to meet her Dad and Geraldine at their hotel. 

The bar was amazing, very swanky with awesomely comfy booths to sit in, set in the middle of the hotel with all the rooms overlooking like a kind of courtyard. Hard to explain but basically the whole hotel is a converted shipping yard and is just very modern with high ceilings and glass lifts and stuff. We chose some yummy cocktails made with 42Below vodka as recommended by Ciclely - passionfruit, kiwi and honey to be precise. Delicious! Check out their funky website too.

After a little bit of prezzie opening we went to the restaurant called O Bar & Dining which is a revolving restaurant on the 47th floor in a building in Worlds Square, George St. The view was, of course, incredible and the novelty of the revolving room didn't ware off for the entire 2 hours we spent at dinner. We ordered several more cocktails and had a delicious three course meal, so nice to be able to have some decent fish! (Poor student = no fish.) The whole evening was such fun and a great girly celebration together of our gorgeous Anna. Many hilarious speeches and stifled giggling as we stealthily printed a hand print on the glass so that we knew when we had done a full resolution....!  (It takes 1hr45mins just so y'know.) Thank you to Peter and Geraldine for treating us to such a nice meal, a very special evening. If you've never been to O Bar, then for gods sake go as the views are unforgettable and the food is amazing. Yummmmmm.

Anna's tiny weeny hands! 

Next on the birthday celebration list was a night out in Sydney on Thursday. We all met for drinks again on Anna's balcony which is 7 floors up and has the most outrageous view of the whole university, Randwick Racecorse, and the city skyline in the distance. I really wish my phone could capture how good her view is but sadly it doesn't do it any justice so just imagine twinkly city lights far away. 

We all then went down to Opera Bar and had loads of fun their ordering cocktails and watching them be made at the special pick up point, and just generally enjoying the buzzy atmosphere of the place. It really is such a special place to be, out in the open under the sky, drinking cocktails with your best friends, right next to one of the most iconic buildings in the world. So lucky! There's always live music too and so you can guarantee a good time almost any night of the week.

After that, we trooped up George St and went to The Ivy for a good dance. I bumped into a whole load of people from work which was nice and we had a big old catch up. Some how we all ended up in the same area on the top floor right by the bar with enormous comfy sofa to sit on - it was ideal! Needless to say, we made it our base and partied away into the early hours of the night.

Sober....

Trying to get Harry to stand still for a photo to send home

The special Anna Dance

Happy Birthday gorgeous girl and thank you for being such an amazing friend. Here's to your 22nd year, lets hope it's as good as the last!

B

Mardi Gras

Had only been back from Thailand for a matter of hours and was exhausted, however Anna convinced me to come and join her and Cicely etc. at the Mardi Gras parade that was happening down Oxford Street. I ran back to mine, donned some suitable sparkly fun attire and hopped on the bus with the cripple. For those of you that don't know, Mardi Gras is a huge LGBT event every year in Sydney and everyone goes completely bonkers for it. The whole festival goes on for just under a month, but as a big last finale thing the parade happens and everyone dresses up, grabs a milk crate to stand on and floods the streets to watch the floats go by. 

Anna and I ended up the other side of the street from where the others were and so watched the parade just us two. It was CRAZY! The atmosphere was amazing, everyone was so happy and dancing and just really enjoying the freedom to dance and express themselves. The costumes and performers were amazing too, such an awesome few hours!

Afterwards we found the others and grabbed some food, and then ventured out into Surry Hills to see what was going on. We found this awesome little street party where a DJ had set up in a cafe window and danced there for a bit with everyone. Some serious disco tunes were played, always got time for a bittah disco! Sadly the weather took a turn for the worst but no one let it damped their spirits and everyone stayed outside and danced for ages in the rain.

Once we'd had our fix of disco, we decided to head on down the the Cross to potentially go to a club, and on our way bumped into loads more people who we all hadn't seen for months, turning our little party of four into a group almost twenty strong! Cue mass hugs and celebratory drinks all round. It was so nice to see everyone after so long and everyone had so many stories to tell. Someone mentioned that there was some good music by Standard-Famoud-DJ-No-Ones-Heard-Of going on in Goldfish and somehow we managed to wangle our way in for just $15 with a free drink voucher!? The original price of the tickets was at least $25 and although admittedly the drinks voucher was only valid after 2am, we were pretty pleased with our achievement and needless to say I didn't get to bed until 5am.

Its good to be back, Sydney!

B