Pen Pals

I had a very entertaining day at the bar yesterday. I made a new friend, his name is Bill, he's about 87 years old, and he's an absolute babe.

It all started when he came in on Saturday and whilst the bar was quiet during the afternoon, he sat and ordered about fifteen 'double scotch on the rocks'. I served him every time and he tipped me $2 for each and every drink I poured (sadly our tips are pooled, so every time I had the pain of dropping the coin into the tip jar) and he struck up a friendly conversation with me. Turns out he's an avid music fan and told me that he's just come from watching 'South Pacific' at the Opera House. It's his favourite musical and he's seen it performed over 30 times all over Europe, however this was his Australian debut and he was VERY excited about how good it was. The lead female singer is apparently amazing guys, he recommends this production highly, shall we go!? We soon became best buds and chatted away merrily until Happy Hour struck and I had to actually do some work. He's an ex-army Captain and lives in Plymouth in Devon - what are the chances! - and we bonded over our love/hate relationship for the south of England. He was the funniest little man with teeny weeny eyes but enormous glasses which made him look like a human bush baby, and the strangest little pencil moustache I have ever seen.

On Sunday, he came back and stood in exactly the same place at the bar, and the same happened again. The bar was dead, even through happy hour as the weather was rubbish (and no one comes to Circular Quay when its even slightly cold) and so we chatted away for most of the afternoon. When he had to leave, he did the equivalent for his generation of 'add me on Facebook' and gave me his address so that we could be pen pals! He also took my home address (not my Australian one because I'm moving here soon and don't know what my future address will be), and promised to send me a Christmas card and postcards from all over the world (Mum take note, you'll need to be forwarding them out here to me!). He gave me a big kiss on the cheek and pressed another $2 coin in my hand and shuffled out the door, pissed as a fart but happy as anything.

Everyone else working on the bar thought it was absolutely hilarious, but they'll be jealous when I get my Christmas card and they don't! I just hope he keeps his word....! Watch this space for Bill updates. I miss him already.

B

Sydney Running Festival

The city was in chaos today as it was the Sydney Running Festival and there were people running EVERYWHERE. There's an organized 10km run, half marathon and marathon and they all end at Sydney Opera House. My bar is in prime location as all the runners run past on their home straight! Getting to work was a right pain though because all the buses stopped on Elizabeth Street and I had to talk down to Circular Quay, darting across the running routes and dodging speedy runners.

Coming down into the harbour

Home straight!

400m to go

Looking out from my bar towards the last leg of the race along the Quay

When I got to Searock it was dead as everyone was being very conservative as it was 10 o'clock in the morning, however things soon picked up a bit as everyone wanted to celebrate and have a drink. Endless runners came in with their medals, looking very pleased with themselves. I happened to notice that most of them were only the 10km runners though... perhaps the half and full marathon runners take their sport more seriously! Anyhow, it was fun to join in with the celebrations and the atmosphere down in the harbour was amazing.

Tally also dropped by for some drinks and I managed to wangle her some oysters for a quarter of the price they usually are! She's celebrating her last week in Sydney as she leaves on Saturday and so she's benefiting from the perks of having a friend who works in a bar...! 

Going to be so sad to see her go but I'm not jealous of her returning to the British winter...

B

John Simpson Donkey Cake

Drunk and Disorderly Diana called us today and told us she wanted to bring us a present to thank us for rescuing her! We met her at Coco Cubano and this magnificant piece of artwork was her gift to us...

A donkey cake! Now, there is more behind the reason of why this cake is a donkey shape, other than it being the only cake tin she had (!), and Goose has explained it all in perfect prose on her blog:

"This is a John Simpson Donkey cake. Now, Diana gave us a little history lesson and told us all about John Simpson. John Simpson was an Anzac (Australian & New Zealand Army Corp) who served in WW1 at Gallipoli. He is some sort of Australian hero because apparently he somehow got hold of a donkey and risked his life by ferrying injured soldiers form the front line to the beach where they could be taken to hospital. According to the great Wikipedia, he is part of the 'Anzac Legend'. Diana thought it fitting to bring Becky and I this cake because, although we were sans donkey as it were, we did pick up an injured/drunk soldier and ferry her back home."

How cute is that!? It was great to have a little catch up with her and hear all her news. We sat together and reminisced about the John Simpson day, and ate ALL of the cake...

So, now Goose and I are full of lots of cake and a little bit of Australian history, and feeling pleased that our little Australian soldier is back on her feet again! 

B

Post

I received my first piece of post from home today! A lovely letter from the one and only Lizzie Nash, all the way from Salisbury.

We've promised to each other that we'll write back and forth from Australia to UK this year to make keeping in touch a little more exciting. I am yet to write my reply but I promise I'll send it soon!

If anyone else fancies sending me a little piece of England then you can find my address in the Write To Me! section of this blog. I love writing letters and receiving something from home in my letterbox is genuinely the most exciting thing!

Missing everyone,

B

Drunk and Disorderly Diana

So, at about 3.30pm Goose and I decided to nip to Coles (supermarket) and set off on our way up High Street. Halfway up the hill, we discovered a bike and two little feet poking out of the bush. These feet belonged to Diana, and poor Diana was not in a very good state. At first, we thought that she had fallen off her bike and hit her head and was badly concussed, but after getting a little closer we smelt the pungent smell of alcohol (definitely Goon), and realised that she was just, excuse my french, really fucking hammered. She had been quite sick and was obviously not feeling too well, and so we tidied up her hair with a complimentary hair tie and snapped into Mummy Mode.

We learnt her name, and asked if we could borrow her phone and managed to call her housemate, Carly. Carly said she couldn't come and get her because she was getting ready for a job interview, but we said we'd walk her home and she gave us the address. We stood Diana up and whilst I took her bike, Goose held her up by her backpack, and we set off on one of the most hilarious journey's I have ever had!

Diana soon perked up a bit and thanked us for rescuing her, and whilst she took to marching ("I'm going to march, it will sober me up!"), we tried to get her to tell us why she was so drunk. She didn't seem to really know the answer, or what she had been doing, but it was something to do with a sports event at UNSW (she was dressed in sports kit) and it was "all Harry's fault". We're guessing she'd had a match of some sort and then they'll all hit the Goon pretty hard, and then when she attempted to cycle home, the hill was a little too much for her and she fell off her bike and passed out in the hedge. She had no recollection of even getting on her bike, let alone falling off! 

We ambled along slowly, me trying to master walking-pace peddling, and Goose holding Diana back by her backpack like a toddler making sure she didn't step out into the road. Here's a little video we took so that we could add her on Facebook and name and shame her the next day....

Isn't she hilarious!? Definitely my favourite Aussie that I've met so far.

After many embarrassed thankyous, lots of laughter, repeated invites to a BBQ and declaritions that "Brits were awesome", we returned Diana to her house, and Carly, and left her to drink some water and have a much needed shower.

Despite the whole round trip to Coles and back taking nearly 3 hours (it should have been 1, tops!) Goose and I felt very proud of our good samaritan deed of the day and are thoroughly looking forward to hearing from Diana tomorrow!

B

Harry and Bean's Big Day Out

Harry calls me 'Bean' because he know's another girl called Becky who he used to work in a pub with, and her nickname was Bean. He says that we're bizarrely similar in mannerisms and looks, and so then I became 'The Other Bean', but when 'Original Bean' isn't around, I just become 'Bean'!

We had a slow morning and then jumped on a bus to Bondi to go and explore. I haven't properly been to Bondi Beach yet so it was a fun touristy thing for both of us to do. Even though it's the middle of Winter out here it was 25 degrees and amazingly sunny!

Despite knowing that everyone back home is having an incredible time at Boomtown Festival, and missing them all loads, we were feeling pretty smug to be enjoying a day like this one together in Australia on the beach. "How did we wangle this one!?"

We spent the whole day wandering around all the little cafes and shops and lying and chatting on the beach. There were loads of people preparing for the beach party that will be hosted here at the end of City2Surf. City2Surf is a huge annual 14km run from the centre of Sydney to Bondi and over 80,000 people come and run from all over the world. My friend Grace is running tomorrow, so we'll be rooting for her (though she'll be fine as she recently ran the London Marathon. 14km!? Pah....)

After we got bored of watching people learning to surf and weird old men running up and down the beach in their pants, we decided to do the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee. It took us about two hours but we go to see loads of other bays such as Bronte and Tamarama, and we stopped and watched this group of guys who were filming themselves doing stunts on rollerskates at Bronte. One of them jumped down some 15ft stairs and landed it... unfortunately I didn't manage to film it but it was pretty impressive to watch.

When we arrived at Coogee the sun was beginning to set and everyone was out in the park just above the beach having bbqs and relaxing in the last of the (Winter) sun. This is the area that I will probably move to for next semester, as I am hoping to move out of halls and find a house, so it was nice to be able to have a look around.

We were both tired after walking so far and so we just cooked some supper and had another chilled evening. Harry also has to be up off nice and early tomorrow to go meet a friend to catch a train to the Hunter Valley. I'll be sad to see him go but I live right next to Randwick Racecouse (which he got very excited about) and so he'll be up here fairly frequently, hopefully. Similarly, I'll probably go stay with him in the Hunter Valley sometime soon to get out of the city for a while which'll be nice.

I'm slowly amassing recruits out here, now I have Tally AND Harry! To all those still at home though, I miss you all and I'm enjoying seeing your smiling faces every day and I have hundreds of photographs up all over my room - such fond memories of the very brief month of English Summer I had before I came out here. I hope you're all partying through the rest of it on behalf of me!

Missing y'all, heaps of love,

B

Goose's Blog

This is Goose...

And this is her blog, which you should also follow....

http://goosegoestoinfinityandbeyond.blogspot.com.au

Tally's Birthday

This morning I met my flatmate, Isabelle. She's from South Korea but goes to Cornell University in the states and is lovely! She was only there for a bit to drop off some of her stuff but we agreed to meet later at the 'Afternoon Tea' that UNSW is hosting for all the international students.

The tea was held at 3.30pm in the sports pavilion overlooking the sports ground called 'The Oval'. We all chatted and grabbed some more free food and drink and I managed to find Dan who's a guy also doing Music at Newcastle who's done the exchange too. We all met loads more people, some great, some not so great... I had to teach this one 6ft American guy called Dylan how to make instant coffee because he filled his cup half full of the granules and then was about to add only milk. Bizarre...

It feels like freshers all over again, which I guess it kind of is because we're all new, but it seems weird because we're two years older now and it should be really easy to just all get along, but some people are just so... awkward!? I have met some really nice people though, and I'm sure I'll meet loads of Aussies when I start lectures on Monday. There are hardly any Aussies in halls because in Australia, most of them live at home and then go to their local uni.

After the tea I grabbed some stuff from my room and then hopped on a bus to Circular Quay and caught the 6pm ferry to Manly to go see Tally, a friend from home, who's birthday it was. Tally's come out here to stay with some family friends in the Northern Beaches to work and travel round Australia for a few months. The ferry ride was incredible as it was already dark and we left the harbour between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera house and the city was all lit up - it looked amazing. I sat outside for the whole journey and happily snapped away.

Tally met me off the ferry at the other end and we were taken out for dinner by Sam and Helen, the people she is living with. Sam is a musician, a hip hop artist, and Helen is his mum and they live in Belrose just above Manly. Helen took us to Hugos, an amazing pizzeria by the water, and treated us to some amazing pizzas and wine. After dinner, Helen took all of Tally's presents and balloons home and we went to go meet Sam's friend Nick in a nearby bar. A few drinks later, we headed home to chill at Sam's house and celebrate Tally's birthday late into the night.

The next day, Sam and Nick had to work, but Tally had the day off and so we headed into the city to go exploring. We spent most of the day shopping and I invested in a new pair of trainers as I have vowed to myself to get fit. I chose the offensive purple and orange colour so that I can't accidentally-on-purpose lose them in my room and actually, I quite like them! They're super comfortable too and should earn me kudos with all the sporty Aussie's.

Tally and I headed to roam round Darling Harbour and we stopped for a drink at the Cargo Lounge, where I also bought her a chocolate fondant as a birthday treat. I really liked the atmosphere down on the waterfront so I asked at the bar if they were hiring, but the girl said to come back in a few weeks when the summer season starts to kick in and they up their staff numbers.

Once we were tired of walking around, Tally came back with me on the bus to see where I lived and I showed her around the campus a bit. Whilst we were in my room, we remembered that we'd heard that Fat Freddy's Drop were playing in a month and a bit, and so we booked our tickets together. If you don't know who Fat Freddy's Drop are, they're an amazing reggae/ska band who we saw at Outlook Festival last summer.

Tally soon had to head back to Manly as she was working early next morning and I went to go find the others to tell them to book their tickets too.

We have an induction day tomorrow with all the other international students... doesn't sound like it's going to be much fun, but it'll be useful I guess.

B