My fellow hostellers either haven't noticed that I am reticent bordering on the socio-phobic, don't care or are too polite to mention it. As a result my first week in the fine city of Sydney has been spent visiting numerous nightspots, dancing like no one is looking and eating out - in other words being sociable. I think I've coped reasonably well, although at times I've felt as out of depth and place as a paraplegic in an arse kicking contest. For the most part we've been going out down King's Cross, which is a neon mess of boozers, strip joints, massage parlours, night clubs, kebab shops and tourist tat shops. Despite a preponderance of what Bob refers to as "pigeon kickers" and the two or three large, bald who hang around outside each girlie joint, pulling off the not inconsiderable trick of simultaneously hailing you like you're their best mate and glowering at you like they can't wait to push your teeth through the back of your skull, the area's actually quite nice, with far less of the latent threat of violence that I've felt in other cities. On a couple of occasions we've left KX (as T-shirt vendors insist on calling it) behind and travelled further into the city itself. I have now experienced my first foam party, which left me feeling like I'd been doing the washing up with my face. Bob suffered some sort of allergic reaction to the foam or, as he insisted on calling it, "chemical burns", that left his face looking like he'd been bobbing in tomato puree. It's since gone down, but he has so far refused to let any photos be taken of him, which may prove to be problematic as Australian CV's may or may not (we've received conflicting advice) require a phot to be included. On another occasion we went to an indie night in a city centre pub, which was pretty much like every other shit indie night throughout the world, with the notable addition of seemingly limitless free sangria. This proved to be my undoing somewhat and there are apparently photo's circulating of me over-enthusiastically getting off with with a girl I had met earlier in the night. I haven't seen them. I do not want to see them. Bob has been in his element, sharing none of my curmudgeonliness, and has already proved his worth by blocking various torrent sites, which has endeared him to the hostel staff, but probably not to the creepy guy in the dorm next door who was apparently downloading porn. Nevertheless he's been complaining that he's not yet regained his Canadian era confidence and swagger. Personally I think it's a matter of time and he needs to put things in perspective, we shall see.
Outside the hostel I've been exploring down town Sydney on foot. The opera house and harbour bridge are, of course, instantly recognisable, though I was slightly taken aback by the scale of both, especiallyy the bridge, which is indeed stamped with the name of the great okayish town of Middlesbrough. I'm also quite taken with the botanic gardens, which you have to pass through to get to central Sydney. There was a bit of a kerfuffle midweek when it emerge that my phone had slipped out my pocket during one of my perambulations. Luckily it was picked up by a lovely Thai lady, who, instead of keeping it or selling it for jelly babies and fizzy drinks as someone in England might do, instead waited while me and Bob came to retrieve it. My immense gratitude was tempered by a slight sense of shame at being such an immense wally, this was compounded by the revelation that the lady wasn't a little old wifey as I'd pictured, but a rather attractive twenty something. On Wednesday we met up with Bob's Australian friend, Erin, and her mate Lilly, both of whom were lovely. There is talk of seeing her again, plus random Canadians, later this week. In the interim, this week should mainly be about job hunting. With any luck by the end of the week I'll have swapped my shit call centre job in England for a shit call centre job in Australia. I shall let you know how I get on
Love and Fishes
Dave
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