Tom's Oz Travels

Well, I guess I failed on the old blog-me-jobby. Thing is, we’ve been here for a while now and ‘trying’ to save money so we can move on in oct (once I come back for my fleeting two week visit to the UK). But the saving isn’t going great, getting drunk is just far too fun.

Well, I’ll try a chronological update backdating what’s gone on, so grab a cup of tea, pack of digestives and get comfy, this is a long one. – So Dad, you don’t have to moan at me when I ring home now 
Lets start with the boring stuff, Work. Works going well, the company are really really nice. They even let me come in last week late because I was going out the previous night for quite a big night out…now that’s my sort of company. And as always, I’ve changed to a more IT based role here now, making a new company website/ticket management system/CRM. Geekin’ it up for beer moneys, I spose I can live with that. If anyone’s interested http://aits.skinzy.net/new/ is how the new one is currently looking. (http://www.compuclean.com.au is the current one…). I’m here till I leave for the UK for Amy’s wedding then I think i’ll come back for 2 weeks then we’ll go off up the east coast. It depends on money as we still have to buy a car/campervan type thing and I need to get back to Australia some how in oct. We’ll sort that problem out later.

So, the last update was in May, what’s have we done…hmm, I guess the first big thing was my birthday. For this, we had ‘The Strand, Beer Pong Tournament 2010’. – As you can see this is the setup for the games. Basically teams (picked at random) you have to throw a table tennis ball in to the oppositions cups and if it goes in they drink it. There’s more to it but you get the idea. Congrats to Ben and James for winning.

I had a really good birthday, seems like so long ago now! Conny, one of the long term Germans living with us even made me a cake! . Then after the pong tournament we went to the pub and drank some more…good times were had, hangovers were had more. The next day woke up and went down for some food, bar staff gave me a pint and a shot. As if I didn’t feel bad enough!

Oh actually, dad pointed out the other day I never blogged about Newcastle. Me, Rich a German (Martin) and an American (Monica) hired a car and went to Newcastle for the day, the actual city reminded me of the UK Newcastle, so we swiftly left in search of something else, and we found sandboarding, that was a lot of fun, but a hell of a lot of effort walking back up the dune once going down. But look how high Rich can jump..!

I think I blogged about this, but we also went to the blue mountains for a day, that was fun, a few nice walks and a really nice drive: .

We went to the ANZ Stadium to watch a Rugby League game called State of Origin, it’s basically a massive derby between Queensland and New South Wales. The weather was absolutley tipping it down, but a brilliant experience. I think it was something along the lines of 80,000 fans there. Mental. This is the train on the way there

And the actual stadium:

There’s a street near us which leads to the opera house / botanic gardens etc and for the end of June they had a light show on a lot of the buildings and on the opera house. Again, we left the strand and ventured to see it, it was actually really cool.

And of course, the obligatory beer in front of the harbour bridge next to the opera house:

For the world cup, we were lucky to have an official Fifa Fan Fest at Darling Harbour, down the road. Basically 3 massive screens where they showed every game live. Okay, it was quite a lot of effort watching the world cup here as the late game was on at 4:30in the morning!

Watching the Germany game with a load of Germans…that was fun.

What else big have we done, apart from drinking, for Richs birthday we got quite drunk and then went to get in a club, couldn’t get in and ended up in an Irish bar on the dance floor with a live band shouting a long to Johnny Cash, was a rather good night!

The company I work for let me take their company cars for use on the weekends so soon we might go do something fun like go to Port Stephens or similar, somewhere a bit more north and hottttttttt. Driving in Sydney is insane, you basically have to bully your way or you’re going to stay in the same lane for ever, it really is insane.

We’ve had a proper little family going here at the strand, but it’s slowly getting smaller, so Rich and I are looking for an apartment for the last few months in Sydney, try and save a bit of money.

Heres a picture of Swedish Midsummer, a big event in Sweden, the Swedish guys here cooked us all proper meatballs / made vodka with fishermans friends and generally provided a great night for us all:

What happens when it gets cold on the roof or it gets closed….Thank you Room 18!

Okay, that’s enough for now. I promise when we start travelling properly this will be updated, but no one wants to hear about me at work and getting drunk on the roof! What have you all been up to? Missing you all loads. I hope you’re all going to buy me beers at the Wedding as I will have no money!

Just incase any of you pesky Germans are reading this, ich schlafe mit deiner mutter, Zigeuner! This is for you:

Tom xx

Really haven’t done much since my last posts, just been looking for a few jobs, and a lot of sitting around and even sometimes reading! It’s a hard life…

But that’s going to change now i’m employed. I had the fun choice between two jobs I was offered, one for Johnson and Johnson, doing reporting based on their complaints, and the one I accepted, for a small Australian IT company, helping with a bit of sales, a bit of data work and a bit of design work. I’m not sure when I start, some time in the next week I think. But luckily I start at 10am .

Hmm, what else have we done, as always, with a hostel it’s quite often someones last night, so there has been a lot of saying goodbye to people. On the whole though, it’s been a quiet week. We’ve been here over a month now, that’s scary!

As always still spending a hell of a lot of money, for example one club we go to (okay, we know people who work there so we don’t pay) but if you did have to is $25 just to get in the door, that’s insane. It’ll be good when I get my first pay!

For now, I have to work out what to have for dinner, we spend so much shopping, yet never have anything to eat! Grr

Tom

After a few lapse days of not doing a whole lot useful we decided to go to the Aquarium in Darling Harbour yesterday. It was actually a really good laugh, we saw a lot of sharks and dugongs (woop woop, sorry DE lot if the song is now in your head).

We’re going to the wildlife centre today then up the towery thing, i forget what it’s called but it’s really high up. Should be some nice pics.

Oh, and Happy Birthday for yesterday again mother . Last night we played a few drinking games with the lovely goon and then went to a club called the Gaff, was aight, rather drunk – but theres no real shock there.

Still not made it to a beach, but we will! It’s a bank holiday weekend here for everyone, Anzac day, I think it marks the date of the first big military fight fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War, or something along those lines. Apparently you can bet randomers on the streets on a game of heads or tales with 10cent coins or something along those lines, I shall report back when I know.

Currently whilst writing this i’m listening to a German girls iPod, with her ‘cheesy’ playlist, a cross between English and German very cheesy songs. The current is “Coco Jumbo” by “Mr President” – Delightful.

Okay, now I guess I should get ready to go out. Byebye

I guess i’m just as lazy in Australia as I am in the UK, but there we go. What have we done since my last blog post? Well, not a lot to be honest, we saw a live band on weds night ina bar/club type place who were pretty good. Spent a lot of time at the bontanic gardens playing cards and chilling out and that’s about it…Untill we heard on Friday that the Stereophonics were playing a free acoustic gig in Hyde Park. That’s literally down the road from where we are, so obviously we couldn’t say no to that!

They were really good and helped on by a few jugs of snakebite made the evening pretty damn good to be honest!

Today i’m up earlier than normal replying to everyone’s lovely emails (sorry i’m so slow!) and about to start looking for work. I’m loving chilling out here, but i’m not sure my body is enjoying 2L of goon wine a day….

Rich and I are officially rubbish, we’ve still not been to a beach… but this week we definitely will.

My language skills are improving! I can now count to five in English, Finnish, German, French and say many a swear in German.

Right, i’m off to be productive….wish me luck!

Tom x

The recurring thing that I keep writing about is getting really drunk, but whens 4 litre box of goon is cheaper than water its just far too easy. Last night was a new record for drinking I think. On reflection starting drinking at 2pm wasn’t our smartest idea ever! But it was fun so meh .

Were currently sitting in the botanic gardens which are huge and probably my new fave place on earth. Right next to the opera house. Just sitting in the sun, may even play cards in a min, as I said before, lifes well hard.

We’ve opened our bank accounts, so if anyone wants to give me any money it’d be appreciated. Applied for our tax code and I’ve updated my CV, I guess at some point we should look for work! I have a number of an agency so I’ll ring them soon.

Everyone we’ve met in the hostel has been awesome and I’ve learnt more drinking games in the past week then I have ever known. Were definitely going to stay in this hostel for a while.

The picture is our view at the moment, I’m doing this on my phone so I don’t know where it’ll end up on this post.

I hope you’re all well, send me an email!

Tombeech@gmail.com

Laters! X

It’s 10am here and i’m awake after quite a big night, starting with a game of poker on the terrace, which got moved in to the laundry room, drinking 4.4litres of wine between me and rich and then going in to town to watch the football at 1am. I don’t feel too bad considering how much we drank. So yeah, I thought i’d blog.

Our days at the moment are really strenuous, we wake up, have some sort of breakfast, chill out on the roof terrace for a while, then wonder in to Sydney to explore new places, yesterday we went to the market which was HUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. Then eat some sort of lunch and chill out again in Hyde park for a few hours. When doing this yesterday there was a man walking his pet goats, apparently he got them in a divorce settlement!

From there we come back here, chat to everyone and cook some dinner, then see what everyone else is doing and go from there.

So yeah, lifes hard

Today we’re going to go check out the opera house I think, actually my toasts just popped, so toodle pip!

Tom

Well, after a fun 11:30hour flight, followed swiftly by an 8:30hour flight we made it! Okay, we don’t really know where we’re staying tonight, but all that is important is we have a beer!

So, i’m not sure what the next step is? I’ve already had a few run ins with vodafone aus, who so far have been rather annoying. Especially their automated system .

We’ve managed to get a bus in to the centre of Sydney from where we were staying last night. We even had to do some walking, clearly we’re fitting in. We didn’t exactly know where we were going on the bus, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time. For which I would agree, (although ask me tomorrow if we found somewhere to stay).

Jet lag hasn’t really applied which is great, I probably slept for 3 hours on the second flight, and not really at all on the first. I also don’t hate Rich yet, so it’s gone well .

I hope everyone at home is well, i’ll write a less boring post when I know what the hell we’re doing..! Until then, we’re going to get drunk and mostly likely sleep on the beach.

Ta ta x

Tom