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Published: June 24th 2006
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Trader Bar
The bar and resident English bartender It's been a while, but I have finally had the chance to spend some quailty time with the internet in order to publish my new blog so here goes...
I have been a very busy boy of late, working nearly every night at Trader Bar which is really good for me because I actually feel like I'm earning and saving money now. I worked out the other day I'm actually earning more working at Trader bar than I was at the call centre in Sydney, which is fantastic!!!
Because I haven't written for a while the order of the various events may be up in the air so I apologise for that now.
I joined the gym which I have been going to quite a lot which is good for my body, but in recent days I have been working flat out and only seeing about 2 hours of daylight each day. I start work at 4pm normally and work until 12 Weds and Thurs then start and finish later on Fridays and Saturdays respectfully. So in order for me to get to work on time I need 2 hours planning before my shift for food, shower and getting on
Trader Bar sign .
The bar is really hard to find down a little alley in a basement, this is the only clue as to where it is. the tram into the city. With the world being on just now I keep getting home from work and watching the games, that start here at either 12, 2am or 5am, so end up sleeping in unil 1:30ish so don't have any spare time in-between.
Working at TB (Trader Bar) has been really cool, I feel nice and settled in now and have my head around all thier cocktails, so working there is becoming much better, being able to add some Si-Flair to my drink making! Though it all went downhill a bit when a glass didn't land in my hand when I threw it up and broke the fridge door, OOPS!!!
It's begining to be quite a lot of fun and we normally have a few drinks behind the bar helping to get my tip-making cheakiness in full flow and works a treat! I'm making some really good friends there too which is always nice and it's pretty easy going. We always get asked for Jager-bombs (they're huge out here!) and we normally set them up on the bar. So for example if some one wants 3; you line three glasses on the bar and turn a forth upside
Trader Bar
view from the bar down then half fill them with Red Bull and balance 3 shot glasses filled with Jagermeister on the rim of the glasses. You then knock the one on the right and a domino effect happens dropping the shot glass into the redbull and then they are to be skulled. These happen quite regularly and often invlove us too. Not very classy at all but it's a crowd pleaser and Aussie's can;t get enough.. we lined up 17 right along the bar the other night and I knocked the first one everyone went crazy for it!! Woohoo!
The music in the bar is at a perfect level, more like backgorund music so I'm able to talk to pretty much every customer which is what I enjoy to do most. I have met 4 people from Cheadle or Cheadle Hulme (where I live at home) all of which have said they's had many a night at Pitcher & Piano, Didsbury and speak highly of it which is awesome. Even over here P&P rocks! Funny to think I have probably served them ages ago!
I get SO much attention for my accent it's brilliant, though I do have to tell the same story
over and over. "Manchester, for about 7 months now, been to...., got about 4 months left in Oz, with two mates, yes I think Melbourne's really cool, having an awesome time" you can fill in the missing questions that I get asked.
I have been asked if I'm scottish, irish, dutch and my favourite so far Jamaican???? People are also really intruiged by how the bar works as well because it isn't like a normal bar. The TV's above the bar have prices for each different thing i.e. European beer, Australian beer, spirits, wine, cocktails and as people buy certain things the prices fluctuate. So if a big crowd of people are buying lots of beer the price of beer will rise and other things like spirits will drop. It's really quirky and fun but a bit annoying that I never know how much anything is?! So it all works like the stock exchange which can then, in turn, attract 'the suits' most of whom will have worked in the stock and talk to me about demagraphics and crashes etc, thinking that I have an idea of what they are talking about, luckily I'm good at Bull****ing!
On a Friday
and Saturday night the stocks will crash maybe 3 times which means all drinks drop to bottom price of $4, $4.50 or $5 so it goes crazy and chants of #buy, buy, buy# echo around the bar and it becomes very busy indeed.
I'm trying to follow England as much as I can but with work etc. it's not easy.
The atmosphere here for the world cup has been incredible. For a country that doesn't care about football at-all normally the Aussie's have really grabbed world cup fever by the neck and it's everywhere. Every advert, every shop front, every topic of conversation is based around the world cup. If Australia weren't in the Finals I would really struggle to find any World Cup enthusiasm so it;s all good and we're in full support of our new home team! We showed this by heading to Federation Sq. (the main sq. in Melbourne) for Australia vs Brazil. Fuelled on a load of VB beer we joined the 12,000 excited fans to watch the game at 2am on the big screen. The atmosphere was electric and we got fully involved even though it was a cold 3 degrees!!!! My loud voice
It's such hard work?!
Kenny, Adam, Tim and me sitting on the ches-lounge (?) enjoying a beer behind the bar, sweet! was put to work in the second half starting the famous #Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy..# chant with about 2000 people around us replying with #Oi Oi Oi# ....Nice!!!! The atmosphere died a bit when Brazil scored their second goal but all in all 2-0 was a good result and Oz played really well. After that we headed to a club that Matt works at called Q Bar walking down the packed, bustling and VERY cold city streets to try and find a taxi to the bar. We had been drinking during the game (illegally, oops!) so were pumped for one of our now very infrequent nights out. As our nights out have been so few, we tend to let it all go and have an awesome time showing off our very impressive East Coast dance moves as you can see, a lot of fun was had and cheap Bundabergs and coke helped fuel our enthusiasm even more!
I went to a drinks gathering at Adam's (bar manager) at the other night at his flat in the Docklands area, it's a very nice flat and Paul from Neighbours was there, he's a friend of Adam's. He used to live with Harold
and play Aussie rules for Erinsborough High! Another star spotting was Izzy from Neighbours and now lead singer of 'Rogue Trader's' working out at St. Kilda gym which was nice!
The cash is flowing in nicely picking up 4 shifts a week the last few weeks which is excellent and relaxes me. I'm still not happy about the weather here though, especially when as a few of you guys back home have said are getting sun-burnt, shocking. It' about 15 degrees and raining here today. 15 degrees is pretty much the average temperature, rubbish!!!
I'm definatley a lot happier here now and having a good time, even when I work on Wednesday and Thursday with only about 10 customers in the bar which can get very boring!
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Just in case you need to tell us you've been sitting around on it again: Chaise long!! French x