Village People Pub Invasion

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Hi All, Firstly I must appologise for not having put up any pictures since our arrival. We haven't had plastic surgery and are waiting for the scares to heal or anything like that, honestly. I'll get to it straight away. Actually the Sydney marathon is on this Sunday and they're running right by our apartment so there should be many excellent photo ops.
I don't have any work today so I've a free day for a much needed (I'm told) catch up, although I have some shopping, cleaning and chores to catch up on as well. When we were travelling we were always saying how nice it would be to get to Sydney and have a base for 6 months and not have to be living out of a backpack and all that. Now we're just dying to get on the road again, this whole career and working lark is a bit of a pain. Sure it pays the bills but you can't lye in, you have responsibilities and you actually have to work (we're both struggling with this). The worst bit is that you can't just go 'f*@# this I'm off to the pub' when you feel like it.

Actually the 2 worst bits are
1: If I'm given a really sh*&ty job (i.e. polishing stainless steel posts that scratch really easily and yet have been plastered in concrete and silicone) I really struggle not to tell the boss that I'm on holiday and to go get f*@#ed, nobody does this type of work on their holidays.
2: I'm a nobody/dogsbody here. It's sounds stupid but the hardest thing to get used to is being at the bottom of the pile. At home if it comes to cow breeding or at college in assignment people always came to me to ask my opinion about this or that. Here I'm the guy who gets the sh*&tiest jobs going and there's not much I can do about it. I'm no expert in Stainless steel or exhibition systems erection. When I'm told to go and do this or that sh*&ty job I get really egotistical and have the urge to quip 'Do you know who I am?' or 'Don't you know who I am' or 'I'm sooo over qualified for this'.
- I just have to keep telling myself that this is only a short term job to earn cash for travelling not a life long career and just go and do whatever sh*&e job I've been assigned. In fairness any of the lads can be given any job so it's good to see that I'm not the only one landed with the lowest of the low. The jobs aren't really that sh*&ty either (apart from polishing or grouting) but they are so mind numbingly boring. I could be given a job that would bore the crap out of a boring person after 10 minutes and be stuck doing it for the whole day, that's the hardest part. The day starts at 7am and you work for 5 hours straight no 15 minute coffee break. At 12 you stop for 30 mins lunch break and then you work straight through to 3 or 4 or 5, no more breaks. I was actually lusting after the days of panel fixing the other day, at least you got decent breaks and a bit of variety in the day. Ah the good old days. Boredom does plan the strangest mind games.

I can't believe I'm missing out on the Top Gear show in Ireland. It was sold out in record time for a Top Gear show anywhere, anytime. As you can tell I'm a big fan and was deeply disgusted to hear my brother Gav has VIP passes, free bar access and backstage passes to meet Jeremy, Richard and James - the guys with the bestest jobs in the world. Nobody needs to guess where I come from, I'm so green at the moment. They've actually got an Australian Top Gear TV show starting monday week, with Ozzie versions of Jeremy, James and Richard and I'm not sure but I assume there'll be an Ozzie Stig as well. Should be interesting and probably complete crap compared to the original Top Gear. All Aussie tv is crap so I can't imagine Aussie TG will be any different. Top Gear is on over here at 7.30 on monday evenings, Grand designs is on on Tuesday evenings and Midsommer Murders is on on Sundays. Apart from these 3 UK shows Australian TV is absolutely sh*&e. There are 5 Tv channels and there's nothing on on them. When the olympics was on it was torture, 3 channels had all day broadcasts of the olympics and the other 2 had complete sh*& on littered wth news updates of the olympics and any and all ozzie olympic news.

The time is flying though. We're in Sydney 6 weeks on saturday, I can't believe it. We'll have left Ireland 3 months ago tommorrow. After the first few weeks, when we'd gotten an apartment and jobs, we were counting the time before we'd be on the go again. We were really hoping it'd speed up but I was just thinking about it the other day (I must have been post polishing again, there's loads of thinking time with that job) and I realised we were already 6 weeks here and that we'd better enjoy it as much as possible because we're nearly a quarter of the way through our Australian time and it'll be over before we know it.

I've heard that Sally's doing a 5k run in one go now and before work, Maeve is getting itchy running feet now - guess who she's lined up to drag along - thanks Sal. I'm really hoping we'll be back for christmas but at the moment it's too expensive but oil price are falling quickly so we'll live in hope. Ian, Maeve's friend, has booked his flights for 3 weeks along the east coast with us so we're really looking forward to seeing him and getting to see a bit more of Australia. In all of our 6 weeks here we really haven't been more than 3 miles away from where we started so I'm really looking forward on getting out into the country and seeing the real Australlia, crocs, snakes, spiders, kangaroos (which do taste delicious I must tell you (Thanks Skippy)) and everything else we associate with being truly Ozzie.
People actully say Dunny, Streuuth, Mate, G'Day, and stuff like that. I'm still just getting used to their accent it can be really hard to understand especially from people who are from outside Sydney CBD. I think the lads at work think I'm really really quiet or really really stupid. To be honest I haven't a fecking clue what there on about most of the time and tend to zone out of their conversations, then when they ask me about something all I can say is 'what?' or 'I'm not sure' or 'about 11'.

Weatherwise all's well here. The sun is shining it was 31 at the weekend, then 18, then 28 tuesday, then 16 yesterday and about 22 today. Apart from yesterday there have been no clouds it's soo nice especially for winter. Last Saturday Maeve and I went out for a lovely stroll arond the Botanical gardens, a tour of the Goveners house and generally soaked up the perfect sunshine with the green lawns and the Opera house and Harbour Bridge as a dramatic background. It was a perfect day.

After that we went around to Aidan's new place, slab of Carlton in hand, for a good gawk at his gorgeous new apartment and a nice feed before heading off to watch the match Liverpool v. my beloved Man Utd.
It was a very strange/surreal experience. We were in the Cock and Bull in Bondi Junction. It's a well known Irish pub and supposedly good for watching matches. At first they didn't want to put on the match as Australia and N. Zealand were playing in rugby. So we were relegated to a small tv in the corner. In fairness there were only a few people there to see the match. After about 10mins the Rugby was over and they put the match on on the big tv down the back. By this stage there were maybe 20 people watching the soccer on the small tv and 0 watching the highlights of the rugby - Australia had just lost by 4 points so any interest was quickly extingusihed.

At the back of the pub there was a big screen and open double doors straight into the nightclub. It's quite strange to watch a football match to the soundtrack of the latest disco classics and not Eamon Dunphy and Johnny Giles and Co. Then out of the very full nightclub came one of the Village People - the one in leather trousers, leather cap and leather waistcoat with the standard issue Rab C fishnet vest, in black, and very dodgy fake moustache. Imagine his delight when he saw his beloved Liverpool playing his very unbeloved Man Utd. on the Tv. Well it was like when one cow breaks out into a field of lovely lush grass and moos back to all the others about her discovery and they take no time at all in breaking out too. In 2 minutes flat the nightclub, bar some hardcore dancers, emptied out into the pub. We were engulfed by a very odd crowd, there was the rest of the village people, nurses, cops, criminals, transvestites(real and fake), bling singers, jockeys, priests, strippers, prositutes, and my favourite Elton Lennon. He was trying to be a hybrid of Elton John and John Lennon and was not impressed when I suggested he should be called John John. In fairness he'd put too much thought and effort into his orange Elton like coat and brown Lennon like wig to be just a John John.

Now of course this strange/colourful lot had to be from Ireland, north of Cork city to be precise actually 'Norries' to be really precise and they had the accent to prove it. Poor Maeve had probably spent the last 3 years trying to tell her Dublin colleges that Cork people really weren't like that, well all that was really blown out the window by the drunken and hillarious antics of 'her' native Corkconians. Most of them (about 34) were for Liverpool and very few (exactly 1, yellow and green attired jockey with whip) was for Man Utd. The poor lad got taken to shreds by his people when Liverpool went 2-1 up and went on to win. I was in my red Ferrari T-shirt which was my most approritate item of clothing I had for supporting the Red Devils. I was mistaken for a Liverpool fan (the match was in Anfield) and not given too much grief. I'm not sure what was worse though, being saved from the indignity of loosing to Liverpool by being mistaken for a Scouse or being identified with this loud yobbish group of louts. They were great craic in fairness. They disappeared into the dark and mysterious world of the Discomania in the corner of the pub (it was a bit like the Star Gate Warp thingy) as soon as the final whistle blew. It was really hard to take the footballing observations of one of the YMCA people seriously even if what he was saying was probably very acccurate, d'ya kno boy.
After the Cock and Bull we headed to Aidan's favourite the Tea Gardens. It's a rough enough spot with a really rough reputation. We didn't stay too long, a couple of drinks, no more. When I went to the toilet I saw one of the funniest things I seen all trip. Two Irish lads, one big, one small, having a bit of a mess scrap. Smally was just after washing his hands when biggy grabbed them before smally could dry them. Then biggy started slapping smally's face with smally's own wet hands. Smally didn't have a chance, the lad was so polluted he couldn't mount a credible defence and just had to put up with his own arttack on himself. His only defence was barely legible let alone credible, all he could say was 'fuss off' or fuzz off'. Poor chap, the humiliation. About 3 minutes later as we were leaving the pub biggy and smally were at it again, this time biggy had a black eye and smally was about to be given his fair dues by biggy.

We have big plans for the rest of our time here. We're off to see Des Bishop news week. We're planning on taking a seaplane sightseeing tour of Sydney, Bondi and Watsons Bay sometime soon. We've loads of things we want to see and do before we leave Sydney in Feb. Our grand plans include: climbing the Harbour Bridge, racing Formula Ford cars at Oran Park, a week around Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, Jeffords and keep my promise to Pete that we'd visit his brother Mick as well. Also Aidan and Emer are planning to go to Melbourne at the end of October for an alternative rules match and the start of the Gold Cup week. We'll be busy and the time is flying by already. We've already a quarter of our time in Sydney used up so we've a lot to do in a short space of time.

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Photos

Another Super Saturday
After a serious session the night before this was just what the doctor ordered, a good old snooze in the sunny Botanical Gardens

Looking better than she felt
Maeve puts on a brave hungover face.

Ready, Aim, Fire
Now Maeve is that really a good idea???

Eye in the Sky
Watching the Sydney marathoners from the luxury of my own bed, it was 7.22am afterall

Inspired!!!
Maeve decides we should do the Coogee to Bondi walk

Mid Session Interval
Clovelly Beach

A salad in the sky
Enjoying the Ozzie way of life