Spending the Festive Season (and most of my money) in Sydney

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It's been a while since I last blogged, and a lot has happened since the lazy days by the pool in the Hunter Valley. Upon arriving back in Sydney I quickly moved into a share house in Newtown; an inner city suburb just outside the CBD that I've heard described as bohemian, funky and alternative, with a bit of a gay scene. From experience, I would describe Newtown as a mecca for ethnic eateries, vintage clothes shops and scary looking lesbian goths, with a cool bar scene involving lots of kareoke and live music.

The last month or so in Sydney has been fun, but maybe a bit too much fun what with funds dwindling and hangovers gradually getting more hardcore while some kind of alcohol addiction no doubt has been steadily forming. Highlights include:
- A Santa themed bar crawl along the Bondi beachfront, ending in King's Cross with a row of shitfaced Santas, male and female, sat in a row in a free-entry strip club watching absolutely hideous-looking middle-aged women girate around a pole.
- Christmas Day at the Sunburnt Christmas music festival at Bondi Pavilion, where buying four beers at a time due to enormous bar queues ensured early afternoon drunkenness in the sun.
- Boxing day spent entirely with Aussies (no backpackers for once!) up on the Central Coast, and the day spent barbecueing in the bush before swimming and sunbathing with Aussie babes on the beach has to be the coolest way I've ever spent boxing day.
- The awesome NYE spectacle that was the Sydney Harbour Bridge midnight fireworks- 12 minutes and $5million of spectacular fireworks, watched from a perfect vantage point in the Botanic gardens that we had to arrive 14 hours early to secure.
- Not to mention the countless nights out in Newtown and Coogee, barbecues that turn into all-night house parties and the discovery of goon- $10 for 4.4 litres of boxed wine- although the hangover it causes doesn't even bear thinking about!
- Constant trips to the beaches are also a highlight, including a trip to Palm Beach where Home and Away is set, which included a bush walk up to the Barrenjoey lighthouse giving amazing views over Sydney's Northern beaches.

The work situation unfortunately has not been anywhere near as successful as the constant partying, and money is running out. I've done a grand total of 13 hours paid work whilst here, being enough to cover just over one week's rent. 10 of those hours spent waiting tables in the Darling Harbour sweatshop / European lunatic asylum that calls its the Adria Bar & Grill put me off the hospitality industry for life, although the other 3 hours, working in alcohol promotions, has the be the easiest $22 per hour I'll ever earn- walking around a club with 2 hot girls trying to persuade people to drink Midori. If only more promotions shifts were available over the Christmas period, I'd have been sorted.

So the search for paid work is taking me elsewhere, as I've now seen all I want to see in this city and it's looking like time to move on. On Wednesday I'll be travelling to the small country town of Canowindra, about 4 hours west of Sydney, with the chance to work 11 hour days picking watermelons for a living. The move seems a bit daunting at the moment, not only because watermelons are bloody massive, but also because relocating will mean leaving behind all the friends I've made in Australia so far, moving even further away from a girl I've really started to care about and living in a country pub in a town that may not even have phone signal, let alone anywhere to get internet access. But I suppose travelling is all about new experiences, and lugging gargantuan-sized melons around in a 35 degree average temperature will definitely be one of those!

As always, I've taken loads of photos and put plenty more on facebook- just a few highlights on here.

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Photos

The view over Palm Beach from the Barrenjoey Lighthouse
One of Sydney's Northern Beaches