Sydney, 25 and the rest...

I haven't posted in a little while, mainly due to a lack of events of true merit. Since my last post I went to see Hard-Fi in the Prince of Wales, we have celebrated my 25th birthday (whaaahay) and visited Sydney to hook with a friend of Ian's.

Hard-Fi were class! The new album "Once Upon a Time in the West" is pretty solid, and for anyone in Melbourne if a decent band are playing The Prince check them out. Nice intimate venue, although lads watch out! The pub downstairs is "half & half", with one side of the bar catering to a gay audience. Joe and I only found out after being there a few times, haha. So don't moan and say Jonny sent you to a gay bar in Melbourne. There are a fair few bars in Melbourne like that. It is the bohemian/more fashionable version of Sydney.

The perks of being 25 are few but still by far the best is car rental in Australia. More on this later in the post but basically I can get the higher class of car/jeep here being over 25. Audi A4, Holdens (which are class) and pimped out Yutes (Aussie pickups). The birthday was a fairly Irish orientated affair. Got some of our friends over, few drinks and then on to our usual haunt of Revellers here in Melbourne. Great night, thanks to the lads (especially Joe and Frankie for looking after me) and indeed all the girlies that gave me 25 kisses... There's the second bonus! Older = More birthday kisses ;) Thanks to everyone at home for remembering me as well.

Right so onto Sydney then. Joe and Brian had headed to Perth the previous weekend to hook up with Erica/Suzie and the girls before they left Oz. They had a ball so can't wait to get to Perth eventually. Ian's friend, Nal, was heading to Sydney for a days so Ian asked would I be interested in heading up. I jumped at the chance of course, so we packed up and got a 10 hour train to Sydney. We grabbed a hostel on Pitt Street for 4 nights. A massive turn up for the books was a message on this here blog from a friend of ours Ian and Joe met in Sri Lanka, Matt from England. He was in Sydney working and was wondering where we were. On the Saturday we met both Nal and Matt and hit the town.

Sydney is a great spot, much livlier than Melbourne. We ripped it up with the two lads and I ended up staying up all night with Matt to watch the rugby final. Got to bed at 9 after 14 hours on the trot. I was back on the drink for the weekend away with Ian but did well to have 7 weeks in Melbourne (apart from the birthday) on the dry. It is possible, I can vouch for it!

Right so, what next? Well Matt had a good chat with me and Ian about coming up here for jobs. Being the sound man that he is, he had 3 agencies ringing me on Monday morning. In between "touristing" it up at the Opera House we popped in for a meeting with a recruitment agency (in our shorts and thongs... That's what flip-flops are called in Oz! I swear, no mess). So in my thongs, they went through our CVs. I rang Brian and pretty much on the spot we decided to move up here by the following weekend. The motivation for moving to Sydney after only 7 weeks in Melbourne was triple fold; (a) the jobs availability is better, (b) Sydney is far busier and more craic, and lastly (c) the accommodation situation. There is work in Melbourne but no real IT based positions. Melbourne is a tad more laid back than Sydney so we fancied getting up there to get decent accommodation and setup before the mad rush at Xmas.

Decision made then! Now the fun part. We are going for a meal this Saturday for our last days in Melbourne and then a big house party. After that we are renitng the biggest car the rental company can give us and we're going on a road trip to Sydney for two days. We arrive Monday/Tuesday with the job and appartment hunt on!

Whoa!! Big post but if you made it all the way through, I'll post after some more partying in Sydney... Oh and I'll do my best to get a job... Don't hold your the breath though! :P

The birthday party!

Melbourne harbour. Spider bridge to be precise

Ian & his camera... On the job for BOLD BEAR Designs

Botanic Gardens

Food Market, Hyde Park Sydney!

Hyde Park, display of art and photos... This pic was 11 at night and still loads of people around

Ian blocking the museum

Matt, Nal, Moi & Ian in City Bar, Sydney

The, less white than I though it would be, Sydney Opera House

Should be called, the Sydney Photoshop House... They clearly alter postcards here ;)

Me and Nal

Nal and the Bridage

The sky, my attempt at HDR

MONORAIL, MONORAIL! Sydney monorail, not much to see on it to be honest

Nal and the bridge

Outside Hyde Park

Some weird camera effects

Can anyone guess what kind of animal this is?

Filed under Jealous?, Australia >< 5 Comments