A birthday, the end of a year, the start of another and some really really good people!

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30/12/08 Mat Reynolds Birthday

So the plan was to meet at twelve. So we checked out and trekked across town to check in at yet another youth hostel only to find we were about two hours early. Nae bother! We are the Kings of Wasting Time! We wandered this way. We wandered that way. We had a drink here. We had a drink there. Easy as that! Checked in and when we got to our room we were greeted by a smiley friendly girl who was cleaning our room and putting on fresh bed sheets. We dumped out stuff and it was twelve so we though we would keep out of the way by departing and meeting Mat outside the hostel as planned.

Change of plan. Meet at one. Ok. Kings of Wasting Time Remember! What to do, what to do, what to do. We had pretty much covered every square inch of the area already...plan: Eat Lunch! Wandered round the hostel until we found the common room, had lunch, watched some Simpsons went back out at one.

Change of plan. Another half an hour...ok. This time i made the plan. We would meet them at the beach. How hard can that be...We bought a day ticket at the train station. For 16 bucks, about 8 squid, you can travel on any mode of transportation device, that is public, that takes your fancy. How novel! And weren't we glad. It tooke two trains and a twenty minute ferry ride to get there.

At this point i will tell yuo about the trains. Mainly the operate undeground. Whats new there? Afterall it was based on that other famous underground system. No not the New York Metro, or the Paris Metro or for that matter any other famous underground system other than the London Underground. I say that merely because the British built it...allegedly. But even better than any other train/metro/undeground/u-bahn/maglev system i have yet been on. There are three levels to the train. You guessed it: a bottom, a middle and that all ellusive top! The middle bit is where you get on a can stand or there are more seat in the top and bottom decks. Not only that but the seats are reversable. The backs move. So if you want to sit with your friends you cansit facing each other. Or if the person you have to face is just butt ugly you can switch it to face the other way! How cool.

Anyway, we caught two trains to get from Kings Cross to Circular Quay. From Circular Quay we sailed...past the queues of people buying tickets for the ferry. After all we had day passes and then sailed the seas across the harbour to Manly Port, from where you can get to Manly Beach. (And for that matter any thing Manly you could want. From Manly butchers to Manly Fisherman, even Manly Womens Clothes. Confused?) It was an enjoyable voyage, a little rocky, but a hardened shipsman wouldn't have known the difference. Neither of us are hardened shipsmen...but we still had no problems. It has to be said, there is nothing better than a cool breeze in your hair and the smell of fish and salt.

We walked through Manly to the Manly Beach with a very un-Manly life guard. He reminded me of the hairy skills coach for Wales...Anyway the beach was lush. The water was lush. The waves were amazing. We chilled for a bit and then a girl came a plopped herself in front of us, introduced herself and asked if we minded her batheing there. we didn' have a choice, but we didn't mind either. Then another girl...then another girl...then another girl. By the time the third girl appeared a string tweaked somewhere in my head...Mat. I turned round to the smiling git!

It was a good day at the beach. We sun bathed, played ball, swam in the ocean etc. Then did our journey backwards, slightly more lobsterish than when we had left. Mat joined us on the journey back. The plan, not be altered, was: to have a shower at our respective hostels then head over to the other peeps apartment for a BBQ. Cool! The plan didn't change.

I should no introduce the other peeps. First they are English...i know! And from Norwich, but what can you do? There was Curtis. There was Zoe. Claire and Donna. And Donna's Cousin Holy-Beth, from Perth. Zoe and Donna work together, Claire is friends with Zoe from an early age and Curtis is Claire's mate from college. Easy enough and i hope to jesus i got it right.

So the plan to meet Mat and head over to the apartment ran smoothly. The BBQ side didn;t because some barstards had greedily booked the whole area so we had an indoor BBQ...in the over. We played a few drinking games and a big political/national/country debate/discussion/fight (delete as appropriate) before crawling home and into bed about 2am. We disturbed the guy in our room but were able to apologise in the morning. He was a nice enough guy from oxford. also english...oh well.

So New Years Eve. The Plan: Go back to our lovely friends apartment for ten. Head off to find a good spot then asap! As you might guess plans don't go according to plan. Rob and I were a little late but this was no biggie as they weren;t ready either. So we went for a coffee, then a game of pool, then another coffee. Mat let us in at gone half eleven. Mat, Rob, Curtis and I sat on the sofa watching various amusing television programs while waiting for the girls to be ready for a further 2 and a half hours. We left the apartment at 14.00pm. It then took us half an hour to go about half a mile. This just wasn;t working. Curtis, Rob and I ploughed ahead to get the spot, but to our dismay it had been cordened off. (we guessed this would be the case but didn't voice our views until after we found out. Therefore not being seen as doubters, just blatent and obvious wankers...) We went to join the queue. The six hour long queue. Shit! After a little while we decided not to queue as it would only lead to disappointment. We found a grassy spot with avery limited view of one of the two thousand rivets of the Harbour Bridge.

I have paid a huge load of money to be in Sydney for New Years and there was no chance i wouldn't see the whole bridge when the fireworks exploded at midnight. So i wasn't going to settle for some crap spot where we could see buggerall. Fact. I knew we could get a better view. So i went and found one!

I should explain that while looking Rob and I had a lovely Pie Floater from the very same shop that Billy Connoly visited on his tour of Oz..it was good!

So. Rob's behind me grumbling about the heat. My feet are blistered from the flip flops i was told would fit me, but didn't. I have blisters the size of my fist. not quite.. but nearly. But i didn;t give as much as the tiny rats arse that was plonked on my head in Suzhou on the cold night. I was going to see the fireworks and midnight and i was going to see the whole lot. not a small bit, the whole lot!

What did i do? Found us the spot. A small park at the end of the road our hostel was on it overlooked a naval base so the only obstrucion was the ships radio masts and towers. I could see the whole bridge, the opera house and the whole harbour! What can i say. I am amazing.

I won;t swear anymore. Until a little later on...

So Rob stayed in the queue and i ran, barefoot, across the hot tarmac to get our new friends to inform them of the new find. They were easily convinced and five mins later we were queueing in the 30 degree heat. I will admit, i burned some more but i don't care. I found the spot after all. This became my reason for everything.

Bad news was, no bring your own booze. We over came this. Two of the girls were heavily pregnant, as was Curtis. We got away with it. So they opened the gates at six and being nearly first in the queue we were able to get a reasonable spot, until, the fun nazi's turned up and said we were damaging the wood chipping or some other crap and had to move. Ok. We moved. We just wanted a good night. There were patrols of SA and SS to ensure we had no alchol and the Gestapo were working undercover and were evicting various people around us giving us the creeps. I had two cold beers courtesy of my brother in the bar. Thanks!

All in all though there was a good atmosphere leading up to the big nine o'clock...nine? Yes nine. The kids fireworks which were amazing! Truly! There were six displays along the harbour, and more probably further along, but out of view. The amazing thing was that they were perfectly synced. Each explosion, down to the milisecond was in time across the harbour. Stunning!

Then the countdown began for 00.00. We played a few drinking games, quietly and loudly, more people around us were evicted. Surely it was a matter of time. We were edgey, while the others were just drunk. It was quarter to midnight. I thought sod it. I'm getting a good view so i stood on the very edge of the Forbidden Bark area. I could see everything...

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