One Week to Go!

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One more week until the departure is upon me, and there is SO much to do. Just had a call from Aunty Wendy and started to get very excited about my visit to Norway.

Last night the girls and I decided to "get out of the Suzza" and headed out to Balmain. We figured this could be a good opportunity for me to give my travel skills a work out before the real deal. Hey, a girl's gotta start somewhere 😊

Kick off at the Trinity corner, where we took a cab to Balmain. First watering hole was the London (where else), but after one drink we were all over the Thomas Tank Engine experience (way too much shunting) and walked up to Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar is quite an interesting place. As you walk in, you see a long corridor with the requisite glass, dark timber and leather armchairs. At the end of this corridor is a massive staircase with function rooms and a terrace bar upstairs and a huge function room downstairs. We made our way towards the staircase and comandeered a niche at the corner of the bar. So far, so good.

It was then that we noticed the bar connected to the TAB next door! What a strange combination, people out having a good time, socialising, having birthday parties, dinner etc without needing to give up their gambling den. I noticed the TAB actually had it's own bar, with the same glossy, Sydney glass and timber furnishings - even stranger. We weren't too worried about basking in the glow of the TAB's results screens and got down to the business of enjoying ourselves. It should be noted that the draught beer at Monkey Bar was quite ecclectic and reasonably priced. Some of the beers included Coopers Red, Coopers Green, Red Oak Pale Ale as well as the standard CUB muck. The biggest surprise of all was paying less than $15 for 3 beers, each of which came in its own branded glass. Normally this would be enough to have me raving about the place, but I have to say I found the Monkey Bar sadly lacking in charm, ambience and guy candy.

After our first beer, we switched to bubbles and barely made it through the novel (and never to be repeated) culinary combination of bubbles and chips. The hours slipped by, we had a visit from Brian / Braz / Paddy and before we knew it, we were hankering for the security blanket of the Eastern Suburbs once more.

Our next mission, find a cab that will take five passengers. Someone must have been looking after us, because the very first cab to come our way was a little mini-van thing. We could have taken two more revellers with us, which would have certainly added volume to our chant of 'Kitty's, Kitty's, Kitty's!" Never fear, the cabbie was a crowd pleaser and even survived Wag's constant refrain of "where in the f*ck are we?".

As that beacon of bad taste (Kitty O'Sheas as it will always be known) neared, we coached Wags in how to ensure entry to Kitty's when you're three sheets to the wind. It's a secret handed down to many a first timer...do NOT say a word and just walk straight in, oh and DON'T look like you know Brian until safely inside or you're done for.

The usual shenanigans ensued, plenty more drinks, lots of booty shaking to truly aweful music and befriending any random who crossed our paths. The highlight of the night had to be the Irish Gingaling belting out "Sweet Child O' Mine" and performing a truly inspired air guitar solo. It struck me that a talent for air guitar may be the byproduct of a guy who's had way too much time with his hands.

We also adopted Duncan as our coat-watcher. He didn't say much, but did take very good care of our belongings. When we did get chatting to him, we found out that he was in the bar trying to come down slowly from some illicit substances he'd taken earlier with friends. It's always the quiet ones eh?

The last we saw of him he was walking home looking sad that I didn't take up his offer to sub for my hot water bottle.

Again we were blessed as a cab materialised happy to take us to the Suzza at change over time and we alighted at the Trinity corner around 03:00 (thanks Nikki for the timecheck). A quick serve of cheese on toast, hot water bottle prepared and I was off to the land of nod confident that I will be able to carry off this 2 month European odyssey. Only eight more sleeps to go!

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