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

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