Woo, three day week, lucky me! I had thursday off, and then on friday I went to a management training course down in Wollongong. I decided to stay there the night before so I could have a lie in, so arrived in the gong thursday evening. Several people I work with live there, however only Ab could make it out with me that evening. We had a nice Thai meal and as always I laughed lots with him. He ended the night declaring he reckons he should have been around in  the 1930’s, living in Germany. I think he was trying to say he wished he was a nazi. How is this guy my friend?

The whole point behind the management training day was to point out differences in how people do things, and so we were all asked to do a Myers-Brigg personality test prior to attending to assess out leadership type.

I came out as an INTP: Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving. And the summary does tend to sum me up rather well. Here’s a few examples:

INTPs are reseved, analytical, conceptual, lateral thinkers. They like to spend a lot of time alone, and do not like being the centre of attention. TRUE

They tend to undervalue feelings that are incompatible with their own thinking. TRUE – one of my failings I’ll admit.

When trying to focus on what someone is saying they may appear distracted or may appear to be trying to hide something. ??? I don’t know. Do I do that?

INTPs are perpetual learners, persuing knowledge for its own sake. TRUE TRUE TRUE!!!

INTPS read continuously on almost any topic of a theoretical nature. They enjoy reading books that stimulate thinking, increase their knowledge and add to their internal models. Their reading topics may include such things as how the mind works, quantum physics and the history of man. WOW, the freakiest thing about this summary is that at this very moment I am reading a fascinating book called ‘Phantoms in the Brain’, all about how we perceive the world (very enjoyable book, similar to the way Oliver Sacks writes), and the book I read before that is called ‘Not even Wrong’ which was all about string theory and quantum physics, and the book before THAT was all about Darwin and evolution.

Leadership styles: INTPS do not usually seek leadership roles. They don’t like directing others and will not force people to do things. YES YES YES – I hate being in a position of leadership, although often find myself there (how often do I find everyone is looking to me to make a desicion – even if its just about going to the pub!!????). However there is hope for me as a leader, even if I don’t want to do it:

In a crisis they quickly assume leadership and make quick decisions. Hmmm, perhaps this explains the pub thing. If we’re all gagging for a pint but no one know where to go this is surely a crisis, so I will step in a decide for the group.

INTPs often have diverse leisure interests such as reading, listening to music especially classical or jazz, individual performance sports such as snorkelling. For INTPs their work is often their play. Hmmm, well reading, yes. Indiviual performance sports yes (never been good at team games – I sail in a team but you have your own job to do). Like listening to Jazz???? WAY off the mark there! And their work is often their play? Not sure about that one either – sometimes I play at work. I like to experiment on our equipment. And I lark around with Ab all day, most recently by phoning people up and putting them on hold for the fun of it. Does that count?

There’s loads of stuff written, most of which fits very well. Most interestingly it tells you how this type changes at different stages in life. Apparently in midlife (35-55 years) I will develop my extroverted side. I’l become more tactful, more sentimental and more easily hurt (oh dear, don’t like the sound of that!).

The next day I woke up early to be picked up by Ab…as we were off to go paintballing! Had to get there for 7:30am, and since we were an hour away had to set off early. One of the secretaries at work organised it and managed to get a big group of people together from all aspects of the cancer therapy centre. We had physicists, therapists, nurses, admin staff, IT staff…..but not one doctor.

We all got kitted up in combat gear and divided into groups based on what colour mask you got handed. I ended up on the opposite team to my fellow physicists Ab and Jarrad – perfect, I had some prime targets to aim for! I had a good team, with some very enthusiastic therapists (mostly male….get a LOT more male therapists out here than in the UK – and a lot less female physicists) who were coming up with tactics and all sorts. We played several games, all of which involved trying to shoot each other funnily enough. I remember shooting Jarrad who was hidden on the other side of an upturned car to me looking the other way, that was too easy.  But then I started getting shots coming at me from behind….what the hell? I turn round and one of my own team-mates was firing at me. I shouted Jo ‘I’m a green you idiot!!!!’ and he suddenly looked very apologetic!

I also took a very painful shot to the head when I thought the coast was clear and made a dash for it…only to be shot smartly on the top of my head (we had full face masks…not helmets). It REALLY hurt – in fact it still throbs now and again a week later. I was a bit shocked and dazed by that one. The red painball burst in my hair and all the paint dribbled down my face like blood – everyone laughed because it looked like a real head wound!

I noticed a pretty grim shot wound on my elbow, which everyone was quite shocked by. I realised that must have been the result of a shot I took at point-blank range, fired by an unknown enemy. I was hiding in an inflatable fortress in the centre of the field, thinking I was safe. However I suddenly felt this blinding pain on my left arm, and turned round to find the butt of a gun stuck through a gap inbetween two inflatable portions where some wise guy had stuck it and fired reasiling there was someone in there. When the IT guy, Adam, later asked how I got that horrendous mark on my arm I told him….and he said ‘oh, um, that was me’.

I could also feel several large lumps under my trousers which I was sure would be large bruises. Wow, I have never had bruises so large!!! I wore a skirt to work on the monday specifically to show them off – I think I showed everyone in the department including the chief physicist, and the clinical director. The responces were all extremely satisfying. Some were sympathetic. Others looked in horror, but the best were the ones who grimaced and turned away in disgust going ‘ugh’. I have to say, I found it all great fun! (hmmm, aren’t I supposed to not like being centre of attention as an INTP?? Come on, we all love being centre of attention sometimes!).

So you can react for yourselves, here they are:

On monday I had salsa class again, and have returned to my usual crappy ability. Although the bruises certainly didn’t help, neither did the fact that I was unable to bend my legs due to aching so much from crouching behind things all day. Squatting is not good for the thigh muscles! It was hilarious at work bcause half the department was unable to walk down stairs!

On tuesday I went to the Establishment with Jarrad to do some more salsa dancing cos I keep moaning at him that he keeps going and not telling me, but comes into work and says ‘where were you, I went dancing last night!’. It was the second time I’ve been, and I was disappointed not to see many people I knew – the first time I went there were loads. I did get loads of dances though, I danced with about 6 men – all of whom were way better than me and just wanted to spin the girl round and round and round and round……and I felt sick. I felt very sick. I have never been spinned so much before, so never really had to learn how to avoid feeling sick….but I felt so dizzy! I had to sit out a lot of the night as a result, I’m sure Jarrad thought I was just being miserable. I had to cop out and ask to leave at midnight – I felt guilty as I’m sure Jarrad would have stayed on.

On wednesday I went to see The Reader with Dunc and Farz….but I missed the first half hour as I stayed a bit late at work. That meant I missed half an hour of Kate Winslet being naked apparently. The film was very emotional (the bit I saw) and brought up all sorts of issues about so called Nazi’s and people in gerenal – ordinary people turned killers. Very interesting.

On friday I went to watch a rugby game with Dunc. One of the super14 games, Waratahs v highlanders – Dunc supports the highlanders, a kiwi team, so I had good fun cheering on the tahs, who thrashed them! We both live a short walk from the stadium, which makes it easy to go and see these games. I thought it was funny that we were both in Oz watching this match, because usually at around this time of year our uni friend, Jeff, organises a get together at his house (a lot of our birthdays fall within a month of each other so good time to meet up). We normally have a night of drinking, followed by a recovery session in the pub the next day watching one of the 6 nations games, which was always made more entertaining since Dunc supports his scottish roots, and Gav is Welsh to the core. Made me reminice about student times.

Today I had an exceptionally lazy day, doing sod all. But tonight I’m going out for lots of cocktails…because today is my last day in my 20s. I’m not too happy about that, but what can you do ey?

 A week ago south Australia was gripped by exceptional heatwave, as you probably heard from the reports of Bushfires. Further north here in NSW we were also touched by the heatwave, enduring two weeks of consistent 35+ teperatures and not a cloud in the sky. Although the heat of the midday is not pleasant, these high temperatures do have the advantage of beautiful balmy evenings. This past week however has been grey, overcast and constantly raining, although still a nice temperature at degrees. Means I can sleep properly at night at least!

But enough of the weather report. I have to report on all the fun stuff I’ve been doing!

Over two weeks ago I came into work and one of the first things Jarrad said to me was ‘Salsa congress at the weekend!!!’. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but after sendin me a link I thought it would be fun to go along with him to one of the night sessions so on the friday I met up with him at the Olympic park stadium for a night of salsa! The night kick started with some shows – just to make me feel completely inadequate! Lots of amazing performances…most memorable being the samba girls who came out wearing practically nothing shaking everything about in a way which made me wonder how on earth they DO that with their bodies, and made Jarrad drool! Then it was our turn and we danced together for a hour or so. Good practice for me to try and follow a lead. And yeah, I’ll admit it is fun to dance with a good looking younger man!

On the saturday I met up in the early evening with a group of girls from work. I was the only physicist – there being a dstinct lack of female physicists! They were all therapists, and it was the first time I’d been out with any of them. It was prompted by the boy’s regular poker night hosted by another of the therapists, and this time the girls thought why should the guys have all the fun. We’ll do a girls night out too! I enjoyed it, and got to know some of them a bit better and hopefully they got to know me better too. We started the night with a few drinks in Darling Harbour and then went for a meal. Afterwards we weren’t too sure where to go, and being a big group of us (8 or 10 I think) it is hard to make decisions so we went back to Cargos for some dancing. I’ve been there a few times and it is always a disappointement. The music they play is just bland and it’s not just my taste, I think everyone was in need of some cheese or floor filling anthems to get it going but it never did.

We all got too hot. The club is completely open to the night air on the water’s edge, but this didn’t stop it getting too hot in there and we all made it to the exit in by midnight and without any good ideas of where to go next went home.

On sunday I went round to Dave’s place for a BBQ – amazingly the first BBQ I’ve had since I arrived in Oz a year ago!! Also, an old uni friend of mine, Duncan, arrived in Sydney the day before and plans to live here long term.  I brought him along to the BBQ too – he also knows Dave anyway from skiing. I just spent the day chilling in the sun drinking beer. I spent so long chatting that I didn’t make it to the pool! Oh well, it was a nice day!

On monday I started salsa classes again, and we spent the whole session practicing how to hold a good frame. You have to hold tension in your body to give your partner something to work with. A guy can’t lead you if you feel as limp as a rag doll. We rotated round the class and Gary, the teacher, danced with each girl in turn to see what they were doing and he actually had some good praise to say about me which I was chuffed about. He said I had a good frame and corrected me on one aspect which a lot of the girls in the class were doing as well. He then watched us dance with other partners and actually pointed me and Daryl, mine at the time, to the class with loads of praise. That was really nice!

On tuesday I went to the cinema with Farz and Duncan to watch Milk, a film about the first elected Gay senator in the US. Despite it being a subject I don’t relate to, I found a it wonderful entertaining film. The characters were all likeable and realistic,the acting was brilliant and the plot gripping and interesting. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone. (Tuesday night is cinema night for me and Farz as it is cheap night! Since xmas we’ve gone every week – there’ been so many good films out recently).

Don’t think I did anything else until last friday night, when I went to see the Top Gear Live show with Jarrad plus his brother and two friends from Melboune. The live show is not the TV show, it is an arena show with cars and stunts going on (and very hot fireworks which we could feel up in the gods!). Jeremy Clarkson and the Hamster presented it, as did one of the presenters from the Australian TV show. It was good fun, an entertaining way to spend an evening! The best bit was the car football match, England v Oz, in which I was definately a minority supporting the poms! Lots of skillful driving went on, but two did manage to have a crash in the middle of the game! England lost 5:2.

On the saturday I went and got my haircut again. My hairdresser did a particularly good job this time – she usually does but even her collaegues were walking past giving admiring glances and as I went to pay one said ‘wow, what a beautiful haircut’. The praise was aimed at my hairdresser – but I sure felt good walking out with it! After doing a bit of shopping I gave Duncan a call, since I was in the city close to where he was living. We met up for lunch, and had pizza in the rocks. We sat outside in the shade, since it was bearable there, and drank lots of water, lemonade and cold beer!

We arranged to meet up and do something in the evening, since havin just arrived Dunc was keen to try out the Sydney night-life. I got in touch with Dave to see what he was up to, and there ended up being quite a big group of us meeting up in a bar in Surry Hills (great for me as it was a short walk home!). When we got kicked out at midnight the rest went on the the cross for come clubbing. However since I could walk home, and I don’t really like clubs no matter how much I try them I s more than happy to leave them to it.

Duncan had also mentioned he wanted to go and see the cricket the next day – a one day international Aus vs NZ. I’m afraid I’m a bit peed off because this is the 3rd time I’ve had to write this up since my STUPID bloody internet keeps crashing and loosing half of what I’ve written so I really can’t be bothered to write this ALL over again. Lets just say it was HOT until 5pm when the crowd got lively. Some fun crowd games of mexican waves and inflatble penises and a dramatic end to the cricket with Aus winning. (my original post had so much more to say but stuff it, my wrists ache from typing so much).

I’m also having to re-type the re of the week. You’re just going to get s short version now.

Tuesday – went to watch Changeling. Was disaapointed (Joile can’t act, I thought she would be good).

Wednesday – went to see a film at the open air cinema with Dave as he had already got tickets but Kirsty couldn’t make it. Was very beautiful to watch a film in the open air with the cityscape to one side, the opera house framed by the bridge on the other and bats and possums adding to the entertainment! The film was great too – Vicky Christina Barcelona. A typical quirky Woody Allen film.

Friday – went out to celbrate a sailing friend’s birthday. Haven’t seen Ash for ages so good to catch up, an I lots of new people. I got very drunk, since I started the night on cocktails and also wine seemed to get poured constatly throughout the meal!

Saturday – Valentine’s day! Spent most of the day trying to get rid of my cocktail headache! Went out for a singles meal in the evening with Farz, Alice, two of Alice’s friends and Duncan (who has now found a place to live quite near me). We went to a beautiful Thai place with pink chanderliers and wicker egg swing chairs! Had a yummy meal, and delicious South Australian wine which we have madea  of and will buy again! We came back and watched a beautiful Korean film together.

And today….I spent hours writing this blog….twice. And enjoyed being in out of the grey skies drinking tea!

I got a shock this week, whilst in my usual blurry eyed state fumbling for a playlist on my iPod that will while away the hour of the daily commute. There, sitting innocently as if in the hope I might not notice, was a new playlist, called ‘party’, which I had certainly not created. I had plugged my iPod into iTunes the night before and can only assume that iTunes, fancying itself to be a bit of a DJ had decided to compile this playlist and add it to my iPod all by itself. So…I played it, and the verdict….well pretty good. So good in fact, I decided to write a whole blog about each song in the list!

So you can experience the wonder of this playlist yourself I have recreated it on blip.fm: http://blip.fm/invite/keri

Song #1: Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by the Crash Test Dummies

Wow, what sort of party kick-starts the night with this song? An iTunes party, that’s what sort. iTunes obviously feels the need to inject some deep resonating vocals into the evening – the lead singer sure has a low voice – lower than the guiness-world-record for limbo dancing, it’s that low.

Song #2: All My Life by the Foo Fighters

Ah, this is more like it, a tune to get you jumping around. With this as only the 2nd song on the playlist this is surely going to be a good night.

Song #3: Spin Spin Sugar by the Sneaker Pimps

ooo, good tune. May even go so far as to call it a TUNE. However it is slightly marred in my mind because whenever I hear it I am taken right back to my particle physics lectures at uni in which we covered spin-spin interactions between electrons. Physics does have a tendancy to ruin a song.

Song #4: Yellow by Coldplay

Hmmm, I am starting to wonder if  iTunes is stuck in the era of late 90’s/early noughties Indiepop. Then again, it is more likely to be a reflection of the collection of songs on my iPod I guess. Clever mix though – gets the crowd dancing with Foo Fighter and spin-spin interactions, then lets them have a bit of beer break with Yellow. Don’t want to wear them out too early on

Song #5: Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix

Nice. Has increased credibility and moved out of the 90’s/early noughties era in one swoop. This song always reminds me of the film Withnail and I, which in turn reminds me of annual cottage holidays I went on with a group of old school mates in which we would banish ourselves to a cottage in the middle of nowhere with no means of escape and wait and see what happens. A bit like Big Brother but with no cameras. Or gay people. This inevitibly lead to us trying to communicate with the surrounding sheep. Therefore, Jimi Hendrix makes me think of sheep. Funny thing, the mind.

Song #6: I Predict a Riot by the Kaiser Chiefs

DJ is working the crowd up again I see. What more can I say, except POGO! Oh, and I’m going to see the Kaiser Cheifs play in March too – whoop!

Song #7: Numb by Linkin Park

This song reminds me of the time I went to a party and said something along the lines of ‘I bought the Linkin Park album the other day, and was surprised to find that I actually liked it’ which I instantly thought was a really really stupid thing to say because why would I buy an album only to be surprised that I liked it??! However, there was one good thing to come out of the party: this photo of me apparently holding a star taken by my friend Mike’s brother, Russel:

Song #8: Inspector Gadget theme tune

awesome – Numb followed by Inspector Gadget!! Is iTunes a genius? Let’s just ignore the question ‘why do you have the Inspector Gadget theme tune on your iPod Keri???’ for the time being shall we? Personally I can’t see how any music collection could be complete without it.

Song #9: Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana

Wow, Numb followed by Inspector Gadget and then Smells like Teen Spirit. iTunes must either be an utter genius, or completely mad. This song takes me right back to my student days. Nirvana had long since split, but it this song was one of the staple union tunes of a friday night, and I imagine it probably still is. You had to go to the cool underground part of the union to hear it, away from the Abba and Boney M stuff going on in the main union above.

Song #10: Talk Like That by the Presets

This song will always take me back to Sydney, wherever I am in the world. Have the Presets made it over to the motherland yet? If not, why not.

Song #11: Stairway to Heaven by Rodrigos e Gabriella

erm, ok. A little accoustic guitar in the middle of our playlist. I think I see what iTunes is doing – built us up to a frenzy there with Insepctor Gadget, and worried there’s going to be mass coronary embolims with such excitment has decided the party needs to come down again.  I went to see these guys play at the Guildford festival, just a week after I discovered them. I decided to see if they were playing any UK gigs and was amazed to find out they would be playing 15min down the road from me the next week!

Song #12: Baker Street by the Foo Fighters

I’ve been to see these guys too. Thing I remember most is that Dave Grohl has a habit of standing with his feet close together, whilst playing guitar and swinging his hips from side to side whilst bent over to sing into the mic. It looked funny.

Song #13: Standing in the Way of Control by Gossip

Ah Beth, and your habit of taking your clothes off. If anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about here she is in all her glory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P86b3ghuA0k&feature=related

Song #14: Tied up Too Tight by Hard-Fi

I’m sure they stole the start of this song from a version of Tetris on the N64. Was a good version of Tetris too, you had to complete levels in order to  unlock ancient buildings from around the world. I got the sphnyx and and colloseum. Informative AND addictive, that is what you need a good game. Couldn’t find this song on Blip.fm, so you can’t hear it, sorry.

Song #15:  Bandages by Hot Hot Heat

I got this song on one of Jim’s infamous xmas compilation albums (see the link to the Angriest Man in Crouch End on the right).  Reminds me of the time I invited him and some friends round for dinner at my new place, and as a housewarming gift they bought me some ENORMOUS wine glasses which unfortunately resulted in me getting very very drunk and having a horrendous hangover the next day. I miss those wine glasses. They are currently in my parents’ loft. 

Sing #16: Somebody Told Me by the Killers

They’re American, yet oh so English. Funny, but I just noticed iTunes has manged to pick pretty much the iconic tune that each of these bands is most well known for. Starting to make me wonder if in fact I did make this playlist after all. But na, there’s song’s in here which I just would never think to add, like Baker Street. Must have been iTunes.

Song #17: Numb by Linkin Park

Haven’t we heard this before? Oh the disappointment. You know when you meet some crazy old guy at a bar, and despite your most desperate must-not-make-eye-contact-with-crazy-guy efforts lest he should pick on you, he inievtably makes a bee-line for you and starts his drunken ramblings. After some amusing anecdotes and words of wisdom you start to feel guilty about your initial impression that he is just the local drunken nut, and start to think: ‘This man is wise. This man has lived. Listen, and you may learn’. Only, after another 2 anecdotes  he starts to re-tell one he told you just ten minutes previous. Doh, the ultimate mistake, he has repeated himself completely unawares – sure sign of complete and utter madness. Well – this is what iTunes has done to us now. It was a toss-up between genius and madness with the whole Insepctor Gadget to Nirvana thing – but now with the reption of Numb our suspicious are confirmed. I’m afraid iTunes is a song short of a playlist.

Song #18: Baggy Trousers by Madness

Wow, it’s almost as if  iTunes is trying to tell us something by picking a song from Madness at this very moment. It is saying ‘yes, I am a nut job, so what’. We have little option but to ride out the rest of this playlist, with a sympathetic ear as if to say ‘yes dear, whatever dear, you poor poor thing you.’ 

Song #19: Australia by Manic Street Preachers

Another reference to manic ranting – and perhaps another hidden message. Australia….hang on, that’s where I am. Is this a reference to me?  Is iTunes sending me a personal warning? Getting.Slightly.Paranoid.

Song #20: The Riverboat Song by Ocean Colour Scene

Well, there’s nothing mad or Australian about this. Perhaps I can relax. No hidden meanings here surely. This used to be the theme tune to TFI friday, when Chris Evans was still cool. Perhaps iTunes is merly reflecting the madness one feels as you approach the end of the working week and finally….TFI friday! The repetition of Numb is in f clever analogy of the repetitivness of the daily routine. iTunes, all is not lost….

Song #21: Don’t Hold Back by the Potbelleez

This song was played constatly when I arrived in Australia. Over and over and over again. It will remind me more of Sydney than even the Presets. Good tune…..for the first 1000 times. And good remixed too….at least for the first 20,000,000 remixes. Getting just a teeny bit annoying now though.

Song#22: Have a Nice Day by the Stereophonics

Ah, this is a nice song. Nice lyrics – can’t help but feel good listening to this. I saw them live last year, and they were awesome. This song reminds me of 2nd year at uni when I lived with Lisa, Duncan, Jeff and Chris. Gav also lived in Lisa’s room and Dave was the bloke on the sofa. We had three cars between five of us, and Duncan’s 4×4 outshone the other two. We all used to pile into it to go to uni, and this song would ALWAYS play, and we would all sing along. Then amuse ourselves that five students were turning up for lectures in a 4×4. And now Duncan has come to live in Sydney – he arrived last week! No 4×4 though

Song #23: Creep by Radiohead

So this is the grand finale. After all that emotion and worry and paranoia iTunes now decides to make us all depressed. Party goers are now reduced to sobbing into their half empty mugs of warm beer, ‘I’m a creep – it’s soooo true *sob* I just don’t belong anywhere’. Perfect end to the night I’d say.

So there we have it. I hope to try out this playlist at a party sometime soon

I get some traffic to this blog from search engines, and I can see what terms people have typed in to get to my blog. Some are amusing….and I have no idea how they link to my blog or why they clicked on it! Here are some of my favouites from the past few months:

ridiculous figure skating outfit

india speaking confuses me

wrist excersied

golden gaytime 4 chances

what kind of officers wear green uniform

weekend fun mates

man leaning over car

taking off wetsuit

You really have to wonder what some of these people were actually looking don’t you. And I also wonder, since they clicked on my blog, did they find what they were looking for there……?

Sorry about the interruption, where was I?

We’d just arrived in the Blue Mountains and made it to Echo point, and were keen to explore this beautiful scenery. I asked at the tourist information office what would be a good walk to do for a couple of hours, bearing in mind it was already around 4pm. The route he suggested surprised me by it’s length but since he was the expert, and I’ve been here a couple of times before but not done any bush-walks I was keen to do it, as were Mike and Martin so we set off.

The route took us west along the cliff edge, slowly winding down into rainforest and waterfalls. The alieness of this landscape is what thrilled me the most. The flaura is so different to England, and the smells too. But especially the sounds – the cicadas and parrots and kookarburras. All very exotic sounding to my ears.

The track took us down to the floor of the valley- which meant we had to go down somehow which meant lots of steps…and also meant we would have to go back up at some point too!

It was fun wandering along with Mike and Martin. We chatted away about all sorts of stuff, from the local geology, to the anthropic principle to what we were going to have for dinner in the evening! It was also the perfect time walk, as earlier in the day it had been too hot for hiking, but now it was late afternoon it was still hot, but not as severe.

It took us back east past the rock formation called the 3 sisters, although we couldn’t see them from the bottom due to all the trees. We swung round them and contunued along the valley floor, past the set of steps known as the Giant Staircase which takes you from the bottoof the valley straight up to the 3 sisters….we wisely went past them! The route took us further along the bush to a stairway closer to our accomodation in town….which meant lots of steps anyway! They were pretty hard going, and certainly made you feel the heat. But we all did it without too much trouble but afterwards all we wanted was to find a good bar and haved a long cold drink!

Katoomba is pretty cruel in that respect because the only pub in town happens to be furthest away from the valley, and also slightly uphill! However we got there and enjoyed beers and pizza. It took us about 3 hours to do the walk, and I’m so glad we did it as the next couple days we didn’t get the chance to do anymore bush walks. It is an area I will certainly try to visit again.

The next day was overcast and a thickfog had desended into the valley. This didn’t bother us however, as I had booked us all on a tour to some caves in the region, so we went to town to meet our coach.

The journey itself, which took about an hour, was part of trip, giving us more views of the valley, which is looking particularly green since we’ve had a decent amount of rain in the last few months. It also had some excitement as the driver had to squeeze the coach through single-lane tracks which balanced on the cliff edge…one false move and we plummet! Was a bit silly really, as our coach wasn’t even half full, they could have got away with a much smaller one.

Anyway, we arrived at the caves and had tickets to see two of them: Jenolan cave and Orient Cave. The cave complex is so extensive you could spend a week and not see all of them. I’ve seen a few caves in various places around the world. These were probably the best I’ve seen. The Orient cave in particular is spectacular, it is chock full of features of all shapes – stalagtites and stalegmites make an appearance of course. I also like the way they presented them – with nice lighting picking out the features which the guide could change to highlight different parts. One guide took us into the Catheral chamber of Jenolan cave,and as we walked in were greeted to Land Down Under by Men at Work! I found that amusing, being in a cave in Oz with this piping out (the point being to highlight the naturally good acoustics of the chamber).

The tour took all day, and it was evening when we got home. We went back to the studio to get ready to go out, but decided we had timeto watch a film. The studio had an eclectic mix of DVDs! From Life is Beautiful (or La vita è bella – Italian film) to Surf Ninjas. Well…obviously we had to opt for Surf Ninjas! I personally was disappointed by the lack of surfing in this film.

We went to a really nice Italian restaurant in the evening. A cosy place, with a nice atmosphere and an owner who obviously took great pride in his work. I always think it is a good sign when the owner personally takes orders…and doesn’t bother to write them down but memorises them instead. It’s also a good sign when I can manage to fit three courses of food in, which I did!

The next day the dense fog had thickened. It made it pointless going for a bushwalk, since we wouldn’t have been able to see anything! It was also pointless going to a viewpoint for exactly the same reason – so, after a slap-up full English breakfast (yeah….I did eat rather a lot this fortnight!!!) we caught the train back to Sydney.

I can’t remember what we did when we got back, but I think we were probably all pretty tired and didn’t do a lot. Martin went to do a few laps of the pool. I went to buy house essentials and Mike got his hair cut. I think we went to Maya (best local ever!) for dinner in the evening with Farz, and it might also have been the night that we watched the film ‘21‘ (good film).

Just as well we saved our energy, since the next day we went and had…..surf lessons!! This was actually Jarrad’s idea – and I kind of ruined his plans a bit by deciding it would be a good thing for Mike and Martin to do too when they got here. We got the train to Jarrad’s place, who opened the door looking every bit the surfer dude in his boardies and he drove us all down to Wollongong where we were to have lessons. I hadn’t told Mike and Martin what we were doing, but I think they had suspected long before!

I have tried surfing before, but never had a lesson so it was good to finally understand how exactly you are supposed to go from horizontal to standing in one movement! Not that it helped much. I caught a few waves, but only stood up once….but hey I stood up! Didn’t exactly surf as I fell off with shock at standing up, but it was more than I’d ever managed before. The thing that got me though was that I was worn out within about ten minutes of trying, and seemed to be the only one worn out too. It wasn’t until the end that I realised if I stayed in shallower waters I got less tired and also caught more waves….baby waves that I could handle! Jarrad was good – he’s only had one lesson before but stood up most times. Not modest though, he said in the car ‘I went out to catch blue waves (before they break) and I caught one, stood up and thought “yeah, I look good” ‘!!!!

We grabbed fish & chips from the palce Tony reckons is the best fish and chip shop (in the world?) and they were indeed go. We ate them in a park nearby….with a family of opportunistic magpies hanging around! 

This day also happened to be the start of the Sydney festival, in which loads of gigs and events are put on around Sydney- a lot of them free, so after we’d got changed we headed out to catch some of the music. It was a beautiful evening, and we started off in the Domain watching The Cat Empire who were awesome live . A real lively mix of latino and ska beats! We also had the stunning backdrop of the cityscape right next to us, and the orange sky as the sun set. Was really cool. We headed off after they finished and found ourselves watching some wierd pipe organ which they played with flame throwers…didn’t quite work though as you could hardly hear it in the open air, and being situated next to DJ Medhi and his dance tracks didn’t help! It was heaving, and the marshals had closed off some of the areas since they were full (the ‘areas’ being just streets in the city centre….however they are wide enough to take concert sized crowds) so we missed out on Ajax, but went back to DJ Medhi to dance. It was fun, but too squashed to be comfortable so after a while we headed to the Domain again to watch Grace Jones – you read that right. The 80s pop icon is probably in her 60’s but still giggin’! Was interesting to see her, I recognised a song or two and she had some impressive hats! But I was tired from all that surfing, and I think most of us we done for, so we went home. Wow I ached for days after that!

Sunday. What did we do on sunday? Oh yeah, I remember. Mike and Martin went on a Hunter Valley wine tour…but I stayed at home and had a day to myself. I was worn out, and needed a bit of me time, and I was due to start work again the next day so I was worried I’d burn myself out before my work had even begun. Certainly wasn’t looking forwards to resuming the 5:30am starts. Mike and Martin seemed to enjoy their trip – bringing back yummy gifts of wine and marinaded cheese (the cheese is all gone btw…I added it to 90% of the things I cooked in the last few weeks, it tasted so good! And my housemates are now on a quest to recreate it for ourselves!).

On monday I went to work, and said my goodbyes Martin in the morning since he was flying out in the afternoon. Work was pretty normal…and I got back with enough energy to take Mike out for dinner at Darling habour. I’d taken Martin there, but not taken Mike yet so I was glad I got the chance to since it is one of my favourite areas. The next day after work Mike took me and my housemates out for a meal. We settled on a woodfired pizza place nearby, which did really interesting pizza topings. Mine included avocado and pumpkin seeds and roquet on it! After that I decided not to give in to the temptation of sleep, and went with Mike to the Establishment – a bar which does a salsa night every tuesday. We managed a bit of dancing together – Mike does Sarock so we adapted it to a salsa beat, and even made up our own Meringue!  I also spotted a few people from my salsa class, who said hi and many promised me a dance later. I danced with one guy, Pete, who has picked up a lot of new moves! However, I ran out of steam before I got to dance with any of the others and decided to go home. However I would like to go again!

On wednesday I had promised Mike we’d go out to some more the Sydney festival gigs, but by the time we had cooked dinner the one free show had already started and I felt so tired. My early morning starts and two nights out just finished me off – the wine probably didn’t help! So I felt bad for not going out, but I just couldn’t manage it and we had a night in. The next day Mike left too….so when I got home from work there was no one left to entertain

So that is what I did over xmas and new year….and why I didn’t get a chance to write until now! The last few weeks I’ve just been getting back to normal. Doing a tonne of washing and re-stocking the fridge which had been left untouched since I ate out every night, and enjoying lazing around not doing anything last weekend.  Well – I did do something, I went to see a series of short plays at a theatre in Newtown with Tony and Nadia to watch a friend of Nadia’s who I’ve met before in one of them. Was very good. We went for a Thai meal afterwards too (I’m still eating out lots….in fact we’re about to go out tonight!!).

Later tonight I’m going t with Farz to watch one her friends play in his band – heavy metal – should be fun!!!

There will now be a short intermission.

The Larch.

Erm, I think Monty Python beat me to that joke actually, sorry.

BLOODY HELL it’s hot! It reached a minimum temperature of 25 degrees a night. It was so hot today I felt drained just popping to the local organic supermarket to buy salad for lunch and spent the rest of the day sprawled on the sofa in the relative cool of our lounge, which still felt as hot as an oven. I attempted the pool in the morning, and it was lovely in the pool, but on the poolside it was roasting and I gave up.

It has finally started to cool, and a wind has picked up. I’m sat in my room with my patio doors to the back terrace wide open, and unfortuanely the wind has just blown in loads of dead leaves so now my bedroom floor is littered with them and looks more like the floor of a forest in Autumn!

Anyway, I disgress…..part two awaits!!!

Oh dear, it’s been a long time since my last update (sorry mum!) which means I have loads to write. And the reason I haven’t written is because I’ve been doing loads of things….which means I really do have LOADS to write. Eeep, hope I can remember everything. This is gonna take a few hours, here it goes!

Christmas. Seems like a long time ago now, but since I haven’t written anything about my xmas over here, my 1st xmas in Sydney, I should really start with that. I had a couple of parties in the run-up. I had a salsa xmas party, which was great fun, got to dance with loads of guys (some were nice too!) and just let my hair down and have fun whilst practicing those moves. We also had a physics xmas meal in which went pretty well too, although was very tame compared to my London colleagues who know how to party (photos on facebook).

On xmas Eve Farzana invited a few of her friends round for dinner. We cooked up some food between us and I was expecting us to sit round the table and eat together. Well, that never happened!  We started off on the terrace, and as more alcohol got drunk decided dancing was a good idea. I set my iPod up on some speakers and it was great how everyone decided to have a go at DJ-ing – they managed to find things on there that I never even knew I had and songs I don’t often play got aired, which is always fun. We went from the Eagles ‘Hotel California’, to Billie Jean, to ‘Rythm is a Dancer’ by Snap! I also had to play ‘Raoul and the King’s of Spain’ by Tears for Fears to Farz’s mate Rahul with the unfortunate effect that we all ended up with this song stuck in our heads for weeks afterwards. You can get the song stuck in your head too, by clicking here (opens in new window).

It was a very fun night and a great way to start xmas (photos on facebook). I unwrapped most of my presents from home at the stroke of midnight! Most people crashed at ours overnight, so after a lie in we headed to Manly beach with a picnic hastily concoted by myself and Farz. The day started off overclouded, but by mid afternoon it cleared to sunshine and we spent a very pleasent few hours sat on the beach. I loved looking up and down and seeing all the families and friends sat on the beach celebrating xmas wearing various xmas hats. It was all quite surreal (photos on facebook)

In the evening we just chilled out watching films on TV – very much what I’d normally do for xmas really. I was really just waiting for my family to skype me though, so I could see them on xmas day. They did and all sat there looking  bit sleepy as they’d just got up. I made them unwrap my pressies on skype so I could see!

I had a fun xmas, felt pretty happy and not really homesick. However, there was something missing. It wasn’t really xmas for me. Its a bit of a none event here in Oz. They have a bit of a build-up, the shops start selling tinsel and xmas lights go up in the streets. But it’st not the same big deal as it is back home. It is so grey and dull in England at this time that we all cling onto xmas as something to look forwards to in the dark months. Xmas lights actually mean something when the sun sets at 3:30pm. Here I never really saw them as I was most often at home by the time the sun set late in the evening. I heard not one xmas song in the shops. I had no mulled wine. Who wants to stuff themselves silly with chocolate and roast dinners and xmas pudding when it is 30 degrees outside?

I also missed out on spending xmas with my family together in my sister’s new house. I regretted that, I would have loved to have been there, all together with my sister and her cats. So I’ve decided – 2 years celebrating xmas away from home is enough. Next year I want to go home for xmas, despite meaning I’ll sacrafice some of the Ausie summer for our grey British winter. I need that grey British winter for xmas – it makes xmas something to cuddle up to and emmerse yourself in!

Boxing day was another great day. A girl I work with, Tania, knows I love sailing and knows I am a stray over here at xmas with no family so she invited me to join her on a booze cruise to watch the start of the Sydney-Hobart race. Those is the sailing world will have heard of this – it is one of the big race events on the sailing calendar with yachts racing south down the coast of Australia from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Sydney (the yacht club I belong to)  to Hobart on Tasmania. It unfornately became synonymous with tragedy in 1998 when 6 sailors died in severe weather conditions (more here). 

It was a blisteringly hot day, and a very pleasant cruise on the boat. There was just one coach-load of friends on a rather large yacht, so not crowded at all. We sat on the deck in comfy chairs swigging beer waiting for the start of the race. It was very exciting – lots of helicopters and motor boats flitting around the yachts trying to get a good view. Wild Oats and Scandia stood out as huge impressive boats – not surprisingly they came 1st and 2nd. The start was awesome – all the boats milling around – then suddenly they were heading all in the same direction towards the start line. They were going too fast! I saw several boats pull very questionable tacks right across the paths of boats behind them in order to lose ground  to avoid crossing the start too early. I saw all the front runner’s sails flap as they tried de-power to time it just right – then the cannon fired just as they reached the line, timed to perfection by some of the skippers, and they close-sheeted the sails and took off. We tracked them for about half an hour…but had to turn back home. I couldn’t think but wonder how amazing it must be to be one one of those yachts right at that moment – surrounded by TV cameras and boats and helicopter in the middle of an exciting race. I admit, I was jealous!

The next two days were the weekend. I didn’t really do much – some shopping and generally lounging around! I went to work for the three days in between xmas and new year. There weren’t many physicists, but there weren’t many patients either so we weren’t too busy and it was a pretty easy few days at work.

On wednesday my good friend Martin arrived from England! I took the morning off work to meet him at the airport and get him settled at home. I felt a bit guilty leaving him to go to work, but I think he appreciated the time to sort himself out after 36hours of flying and stop-overs! He happened to arrive on New Year’s Eve…..so me and Farz took him (and ourselves!) to watch the famous Sydney fireworks on the harbour. I thought it was cool how Martin’s first ever view of the harbour bridge and habourside would be when it was lit up with fireworks.

We got a fantastic spot right next to the bridge with an awseome view of the fireworks. It was stunning – fireworks sprung out from the bridge like bright streamers, but they were also going off on the harbour behind the bridge, and also a spot to our left down the harbour and even from the tops of the sky-scrapers in the CBD (we were on the north side of the shore so got great view of those too). Photos on facebook.

Making our way home was hard work. We had to get across the bridge…but it was closed to pedestrians because funnily enough they’d set off lots of explosives from it so had to make it safe! The only way across was to get on a train…..which about 1million other people wereo trying to do! However, by walking to the stop one up from the view point we managed to beat most of the crowds and managed to get onto a train. It went across the bridge….and decided not to work anymore so we were stuck there half an hour as they tried to fix a door problem. We got fed up and decided to get off and walk home. This is an experience in itself as I’ve never before seen Sydney full of drunk people with no traffic on the roads. People were strewn all over the place, lying in the middle of the road just because they could! Me and Martin went for a drink at a local pub – it was about 2am by this time but we were keen to keep going. Eventually we went home.

New Years Day was gloriously sunny. So, after a slap-up full English breakfast at the local pub what could be more perfect that taking my English friend to Bondi beach to recover for the day. Christmas may have been a let down in Oz – but New Year suits the sunshine. We set off quite late, so got back quite late. But decided to head out for food anyway and I took him to one of my favourite locations – Circular Quay. It was nice to see Sydney in a civilised state again after the drunken chaos that was New Year’s Eve! All trace of rubbish and drunkeness had been removed (the same can be said of Bondi beach, where I know a lot of people partied, but it was all clean when we got there). It was gone 10pm when we found a place to eat – a lovely Italian place with a terrace lit up with fairylights and an impressive backdrop of the bridge and opera house. It was a very delicious meal, and nice atmposphere – they didn’t even hurry us up to leave despite us staying until gone midnight drinking wine.

On the 2nd took Martin into the city to explore and to show him my favourite bits. We walked through Circular Quay in the daytime for a change, and looked in to see what shows were on at the opera house. I took him to the Botanical Gardens, another favourite of mine., where we got lunch. LOTS of lunch! SO much we were given a large box to carry itall in which amused us and the guy who served us congratulated us on our choices! I took him to see the amazing fruitbats – thousands clinging upside down in the trees. I like seeing the parrots and the Ibis’s – just so unlike anything you see in England.

I decided Darling Harbour was a good place for dinner, so I took us through the Rocks (nice old part of Sydney) and down George St to Darling Harbour where we found a bar and had some very good cocktails. I called Farzana and she came and joined us – Martin getting amusingly drunk on his cocktails which he claimed where the best he’d ever had. We went for dinner at a Malaysian place which I’ve always liked – particaularly the HUGE buddha which greets you as you enter. It does excellent food very quickly which was perfect for us as we were heading to the cinema afterwards to see Benjamin Button. A strange tale, and a very entertaining couple of hours. 

On saturday we threw a party! It was originally planned because Martin thought he was arriving on the 1st – which would have meant he would have missed celebrating new year’s eve (although he actually arrived a day earlier). We were due a party anyway!

Me and Farz spent most of the day cooking up delicious things and filled the table with our efforts. It all looked pretty tasty, if I do say so myself! The party was brilliant – just the right number of people and all the right amount of food (every scrap got eaten!) and alcohol (we had a few bottles left to enjoy but not a fridge-full!). I don’t really remember many specifics of the party. I just remember I flitted around from person to person chatting and having fun. I really enjoyed myself and was completely oblivious to security turning up twice to say they’d had complaints from neighbours! Even did a bit of dancing. The last guests left around 3:30am. I think that’s a sign of a good night – nothing worse than when everyone leaves by midnight! Me and Farz congratulated each other the next day – pleased we’d managed to put on such a good night!

Got a rude awakening by Tony, Nadia and Jarrad who came to collect Jarrad’s car which he’s left at mine. Was pretty funny having them all turn up again! Then me and Martin went to get some recovery Yum Cha from China town. Wow, green tea is such a hangover cure!!! Then we got the ferry to Manly beach where we intended to spend the rest of the day. However when we got there found out that there was a strong wind blowing off from the pacific. We tried to stay there, but I got cold in the wind and fed up of sand blowing all over me, so we moved to the beach on the harbour-side instead. This was much more pleasnt. It was sheltered here, the sun felt hot again and no more sand blasts! We stayed there until about 7pm – and were treated to a stunning sunset over the cityscape on the ferry on the way back home. I think we got a take-away curry from Maya, my fantastic local Indian restaurant, and brought a film back to watch – Kite Runner (very good film), with some wine.

The next day Mike arrived!! He didn’t arrive until the evening though. In the morning I had planned to go to the pool but made the mistake of sitting in my hammock on the terrace and decided I didn’t want to move! Martin went to the pool by himself instead and I enjoyed a bit of me time. In the afternoon we headed back to Darling Harbour for some more cocktails. We also planned to have a chocolate based snack at the Lindt cafe, to keep us going until Mike arrived as we weren’t sure if he’d want to eat or not when he arrived. Unfortunately their kitchen had closed, but we could still get a mocha and a cake from the counter so we did that and sat outside.

We took a strole home – I fancied the walk. Then realised it was time to meet Mike at the airport so hailed a cab and got there just in time. Well….perhaps a couple minutes late as Mike had already gone through customs and was about to phone us when we spotted him and ran up to him!

We let him get showered and sorted before going to a local Thai restaurant for food. Then we came back and had a few beers on the terrace in the dark with the crickets chirping all around us. It was very good to be chilling out, chatting to old friends in the warm evening.

Now starts a week of things I had booked and planned and tried to keep secret from them to add an element of surpise to our daily activities! We went into the city again so that Mike could experience it and had lunch at the opera bar with that amazing backdrop of opera house and bridge again. We also went back to the botanical gardens to chill out in the sun before our evening adventure: climbing to the top of the Sydney Harbour bridge at twilight!!!!

The bridge climb was bloody brilliant and both Mike and Martin thought so too. I’d heard the twilight session was the best, as you go up in daylight – watch the sun set over the city at the top and go back down in the evening with the city all lit up before you. That is exactly how it happened, and couldn’t have timed it better. The sun was sinking lower and lower as we were climbing up, all kitted out in jump suits with headlamps and radio headphones and even a fleece each. As we got to the summit, taking in the amazing views, the sun slipped below the horizon – a ball of orange in the clear sky. The city lights started to come on, and by the time were were making our way down again we had the beautiful glittering city to guide us. The fruitbats took to the skies too, flocks of them winging overhead, jet black against the orange sky.

It finished late, and we were hungry. There was only one place still serving food at 10:30pm on a tuesday night – Pancakes on the Rocks, handily near the bridge. So we went there and had much needed savoury pancakes, yum!

On the wednesday we had another exciting trip – we went to the Blue Mountains to stay for a couple of days. We took the train to Katoomba, a 2 hour trip which gets very scenic as you leave the city and enter the Blue Mountains themselves. We found our apartment, a very nicely presented studio and by the time we’d got sorted we left to explore around 3pm. We walked to Echo point – a great look-out point for panoramic views across Grand Canyon-esque valleys covered in green plants with a haze of blue around them…….

…I’ve got to stop here. I’m going out for dinner! I shall write part 2 at a later date……

bye xx

I’m following Stephen Fry on Twitter (the udpdates on the right of this blog are from Twitter) and it’s very funny reading his daily tribulations! One thing I’ve learnt about him is he is a bit of a techie-geek: he posts updates on twitter several times a day, seems to have about 5 different mobile phones and also uses SMS speak occasionally, which is perhaps surprising given his reputation as a liguistic intellectual! But today’s posts are pretty funny, especially given that they are from Stephen Fry. Just goes to show even he is not above getting angry at the limitations of today’s technologies, and in the heat of the moment makes spelling mistakes…here they are:

‘I hate Vista so much I want to cry. Bought a Vaio. The most useless $4k ever spent. It just will not join a sec-enabled network. HOW???? ‘

‘The network is there. I press to join it doesn’t even ask for a password! It just can’t join. How insultingly dreadful can software be? ‘

In responce to another Twitter user who must have suggested he buy a mac: ‘I have nine macs!!!!!! I don’t need another fucking mac. I just want ONE ARSING PC that isn’t complete SHIT ‘

‘Too late. It’s going out the window. I can’t put up with this sort of arse’

‘Listemn I have parallels, I have fusion, I have 2 distros of Linux. I need jsut one, just 1 of cunting Vista so that I can review things’

And finally: ‘Still taking deep breaths. Thank you all for your concern. The Vista devil spoke thru me and it wasn’t pretty. x’

In case you need proof that these are the words are Stephen Fry just visit his blog. On the right you can the see the title ‘Stephen’s status updates’ – click on ’see all updates’ and you will be able to find the posts I added above – alternatively sign in for Twitter and choose to follow Stephen Fry yourselves!

yup, I did actually take 3 days off work with an infected wisdom tooth…sounds ridiculous huh. But it was so painful, especially at night so I couldn’t sleep in-between taking doses of painkillers. And my cheek swelled up on one side, and I couldn’t open my mouth to eat.

But the other issue is my hour long commute into work. I couldn’t get an appointment to see a dentist, or GP until 11:30am on both wed and friday…add to that the waiting times due to them having to squeeze me in (half hour one day, an hour on friday). Then the trip to the pharmacy…..by the time it was all done it was 1pm. An hour train ride into work and it would be 2pm….so hardly seemed much point, especially since I felt in pain, hungry and disfigured.

Anyway, pain and swelling have gone so I feel much happier, and although today was monday I had my fortnightly day off work, so I got my hair trimmed (needed a tidy) and mentioned to the hairdresser that I wanted to get high-lights put in. I had in mind I could discuss it with her and book an appointment for next week, but she said I could have it done straight away….so I did! I love it! I now have some blonde streaks through the front. I’ve never had my hair coloured before, so quite exciting for me!

What else have I been up to? Oh yeah, went on a booze cruise around the harbour last weekend with Dave and some of his friends to celebrate the end of Movember. I for one will not be mourning the loss of all those ridiculous moustaches that have krept into being through the month of November in the name of charity! The  booze cruise was good fun (I have never known the combination of booze+cruise to be anything but!). Rain mostly held off to let us enjoy the boozing and cruising in the sunshine. We got back to Darling Harbour at around 5pm, so headed to Cargos to carry on the boozing. Cargos has a great location on the water-front – however it is unforutnately a low-brow bar with high-brow pretentions. This is evident in its stupid policy of enforcing a dress-code after 8pm…despite the fact half the people in the bar came in earlier in their jeans and flip-flops! However it is large, has outdoor seats by the promenade and serves booze, which what we required at the time!

On tuesday I went to see Quantum of Solace with Farz which pleasantly surprised me. They stripped Bond down to its best: lots of action as Bond remains suave throughout and got rid of most of the gimmicks which have become cliched over the years: the bad chat-up lines, the gadget-packed car, the disfigured evil baddie. I loved the fact that the baddie in this film was in the environmental business – nicely blurring the lines between good and evil.

That’s really all I have to say for an update. Pete’s not been sailing recently, so no sailing to write of. Salsa class was pretty much the same as always. And being run-down with tooth-ache I didn’t feel like doing anything for half the week anyway.

Very un-exciting!

I’ve been living in Australia for about 10 months now. Long enough to have noticed many of the quirks that make it unique in the world, yet not long enough not to notice those quirks as quirky anymore. Quirks isn’t a great word really, but I don’t know how else to describe all those little things that stand out as different to the ‘normal’ way of doing things back home. I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m saying they’re different - in fact they are probably the whole reason why travelling and living abroad is a good thing to do, because you realise there are different ways of doing things.

I’m going to attempt to summarise some of these for you, and in the interests of entertainment I’m just going to pick the most entertaining! And of course most of these have a Sydney perspective, they might not apply to the rest of Oz.

1) one of their most popular ice-lollys is called ‘Golden Gaytime‘ (made by Walls). The 4 lolly multipack says on the box ‘4 delicious chances to have a gay time’.

2) lolly doesn’t mean lolly over here. In the UK sense lolly, of course, refers only to lolly-pops. Over here lolly is used instead of the word ’sweets’ to describe all sweets that are and aren’t lolly-pops. So you get lolly shops. Oddly though, for all those homesick ex-pats you also get ‘British lolly shops‘ which I always found odd because they would be called sweet shops in Britain, never lolly shops….

3) something I noticed today…for the first time I noticed a British import section in the local supermarket (Coles). In amongst the tins of mushy peas, chip shop batter and PJ Tips that made up most of the section, was also some strange product called ‘Our Mate’ which looked suspiciously like Marmite. I’m guessing to avoid treading on the turf of Vegemite they’ve had to remove the ‘mite’ bit from their name! (if you’re wondering, Vegemite is indeed very similar to Marmite, but not as pungent. It’s easier to eat – in fact I might got so far as to say it’s nicer…controversial!

 4) To avoid this becoming a list of different names for things I’m going to summarise several in one point. All pubs are called Hotels (a bit like us calling our oldest pubs Inns, since that’s what they started off as I guess).  Burger King is called Hungry Jacks, Weetabix is called Weet-bix, off-liscenses are more sensibly called Bottle Shops (or Bottle-o’s), the word ‘wog‘ is not offesive here and people use it surprisingly frequently. It has a different meaning – it refers to someone of Eastern European descent, and people are happy to describe theselves as wogs, such as my Eygptian colleague Remy. After the initial shock of hearing it I soon realised that my friends weren’t all racists, and one day asked them what they actually meant when they said it.

One day I said something like ‘I was rooting around in my handbag to find it’ when my colleague said, you don’t want to say that around here, it means something different. I soon found out what it meant! You could use it in, say, the phrase ’sheep rooter’ – used here to descibe someone from New Zealand (as opposed to Wales!). This caused me problems when I was shopping for a wireless router. To avoid embarrassment I had to switch to pronouncing router in the American (and Australian) way to rhyme with grout-er. I hated to do it, but far better then the other option (I’ve never come across rooter as a sexual term in England, but perhaps I was just being innocent, I’m not sure, so I assume it’s an Aussie term)! 

5) you can buy sparkling ale

6) Australians hate Bondi beach (probably because it’s packed with Brits!)

7) Australians LOVE Top Gear! Ok, so this is’t a difference to UK, where we also love it. The Aussies loved it so much they’ve been lapping up every imported series and have recently started their very own Top Gear Australia, identical to the original in format, but with Aussie presenters!

they don’t censor swear words in songs (at least not Triple J, the radio station I listen to, probaby most  similar to XFM in London). This is a good thing in my opinion, as word are just words, and we do not need a nanny state to tell us what we can and can’t listen to.

9) They don’t know what an aubergine is (but an eggplant on the other hand….)

10) They laugh when I say yoghurt (again, they use the American pronounciation)

11) they have kiss and ride areas outside train stations, which along with the sign showing a person leaning into a car window confused me; why was there a sign to the local kerb crawling area!? Thankfully it just means a drop-off/pick-up point for cars

12) I love the slogan for the SBS World News: ‘If you live in the World, it’s home news’

14) Sydney smells nice. It’s true, I often walk about, especially where I live which is close to the city centre (you might say it’s the distance equivalent of Clapham from Lambeth, perhaps closer), and I catch wafts of beautiful scented plants many times as I walk from the station. Quite surprising in a major city, and definately an improvement to the black, fuel-scented ‘air’ of London.

15) school kids really do wear those horrendous purple tarten uniforms as seen in Home and Away

16) gangs of ‘transit officers‘ (and here) patrol the trains, in groups of 3+ (I’ve seen 6 in a group before). They’re puffed up and swagger with an irritating air of arrogance, wearing ridiculous over-the-top outfits, carry hand-cuffs and batons…and all they seem to do is check tickets. Very different to the geeky train-spotting guards that check tickets on UK trains.

17) there’s lots of flies and cockroaches

18) there aren’t many wasps

19) birds are noisier (especially the parrots which make a horrible sound), but I quite like the sound of them

20) I also ike the sound of the crickets and cecadas buzzing in the trees around the city. I just know that in years to come if I hear that sounds, or smell a fragrant plant I might be taken straight back to my time in Sydney.

21) taxi drivers don’t know where they are going

22) contrary to what most Brits will tell you, it is possible to get a decent curry round here, my local Indian, Maya, is a case in point. Beautiful food!

erm, ok I’m struggling a bit now. The trouble is you spot these things and then don’t think about them again until you next see it! But I hope it enlightened you a little on the ways down-under!