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Published: January 23rd 2007
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Ok, I'll continue with the list of exciting and memorable things cos I have a fair bit to catch up on(I know, i'm slapping my wrist as i type)!
-Shanna and I ventured off to the Hunter Valley for the day to check the validity of the claims that their wines were top notch (as you should all be aware, we would be connoiseurs by now if it was measured on consumption!).Some of Shanna's uni friends came along too as well as two other english girls and we all had a great time. It was a pretty similar story to the Barossa Valley - 4 vineyards and several wines at each.We decided to buy ourselves a bottle of bubbly at one to share on xmas day. We were also supposed to visit a cheese factory but ran out of time much to Shanna's disappointment.
- Went out to a Japanese restaurant for one of my housemates' birthdays. Was a bit of a surreal experience; all of your food is cooked in front of you and then various ingredients and parts of the meal are thrown at you and you have to catch them in small plastic bowls - the
House No 36
l-r Russell, Me, Krystle, Safo and half of Eamon (the photographer was a bit pissed by this stage). raw whole eggs were the worst and unfortunately shanna ended up with egg all down her front! I'd never realised how nervous it can make you feel when you are about to have a bowl of hot, cooked rice thrown directly at you! All in all, we all had a good giggle but left wearing part of our dinner and feeling a bit peckish!
- Spent most of the following couple of weeks feeling pretty rough and dosed up on various drugs (had caught a hacking cough off one of the girls at work; got to the stage that was coughing so much that my abs really hurt although that must mean they wee getting a pretty good workout - not that you can tell!);it was partly self inflicted because there were so many social events happening as well as work and I wasn't really giving my body a fair chance to recover but I couldn't miss out on the fun - i was only going to be in sydney with that group of people once!
- The owners of our backpacker houses arranged for us to all go on a harbour cruise just before xmas. It sounded
My roomie (for most of my stay)
Lon, my fab dutch roomie, and I on the Harbour Cruise quite classy from the posters but after hearing peoples previous experiences we quickly found out classy was not going to be a way to describe it!We all got ourselves dressed up though and even the lads made an effort. Once on board there was much drinking, dancing and karaoke plus an assortment of santas!After about 4 hours of cruising around the harbour it was back on to dry land and a party back at the terraces to round off the night.
-Christmas eve dawned grey and miserable so we scrapped the idea to have a bbq the following day and decided to do a traditional roast instead. Some of my housemates headed off to the supermarket and came back with a trolley full to the brim with goodies including a huge turkey 😊 It pretty much rained all day so we spent most of it inside and watched films. We all headed out for a few drinks on the eve though - I was still feeling pretty crap so headed home and tucked myself into bed at 11pm but the others headed into town to see in Christmas day with some cheesy xmas tunes in one of the backpacker
Xmas day in oz
Santa hat - check, sunnies - check, bikini - check! bars.
- Christmas day started bright and early with a text from Shanna at 8am saying "I'm awake, I'm up. Can we open presents now?" so she headed across the courtyard to mine and we sat there on my sofa and opened our presents (to each other and from family). Then we cracked open the bubbly and enjoyed bucks fizz and scrambled eggs on toast.
The others all started to surface and after lots of rounds of hugs and Merry Christmasses we got all the gossip from the previous night and then just chilled outside under the blue skies and sunshine in our garden with drinks.
By late morning it was time to cook the dinner (mum and dad, i don't know how you stay sane every year and manage to get everything ready all at the same time!).It was decided that the girls would cook and the boys would wash up so we set to work cooking the potatoes, stuffing, vegies, pork and gravy - due to the enormity of the turkey we had decided to cook it the previous day and then just reheat it. It was quite a feat cooking for 12 people in a tiny
Xmas dinner - oz style!
Maybe not typical oz style but No36 terraces style!! kitchen with not a lot of utensils/pots etc - we had to steal next doors cutlery and crockery because we didn't have enough and they'd all gone out for the day!The oven in shanna's house also became well utilised as ours rapidly filled up.
But by 2pm everything was ready and we were all sat in our garden enjoying xmas dinner in the sunshine complete with party poppers and crackers with crappy jokes 😊
The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging in the garden, listening to music, napping and generally chilling with a few drinks before having a street party in the evening that lasted well into the wee hours. It wasn't like any christmas I'd had before and in some ways didn't feel real but I had a great day with loads of mates and like many aspects of this trip, the memories of it will remain with me for many years to come.
(Oh, and an explanation of the final pic - I have been wanting to be in possession of one of these bad boys since I arrived and after being tormented by Dan for a few weeks after he'd had some, the cash machine
Harbour Cruise
Tom, Safo and Eamon in the casino spat one out at me and I nearly wet my pants with excitement and kept it to show Shanna the proof the following morning!)
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Sarah - chilly in croxley.
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HA HA HA!!!
When you said "wanted to be in possession of one of these bad boys" the very last pic on my screen was the one with the 3 guys in it, actually the first of the last lot of pics- Ooopps! Had me going there for a while;)!! Easy mistake!Great to read what you're up to. You've made me laugh lots - Japanese restaurant sports- i can only imagine what a mess you two got in! Christmas shinanigans and turkey dinner in the suburbs of Sydney in SUNSHINE.Lucky you. Miss you heaps. shall sink your vino saturday night (thats what friends are for right?)- anne and I are off out! S. x x (We had snow here yes'day- i had to drive to Aylesbury for goodness sake! enjoy the sun. Grrrr. I'm pasty.)