Ashes in Brisbane 1st Test

25/11/2010 - 27/11/2010

4.50am I'm up and go to meet Garfield (Tom) and Rob next door and head down to the train station. We arrive at the airport at 6am. Me and Garfield head to the desk after trying to check in on the computers and were greeted with the message 'your flight has been cancelled'....this can't be happening!! we're going to Brisbane to watch the 1st test of the ashes, it's supposed to be a lucky day! Rob is ofcourse flying with Qantas so off he trotts, no flies on this guy, check in a ready to fly at 6.30.
Me and Garfield rock up to the desk to be told it is true and the earliest flight we can get on is the 9am flight which will get us in to Brisbane at 9.25am (because of the time difference) so we agree to that, take our measly $6 apology reward to get a McDonalds breakfast which takes up around 10 minutes of the 3 hours we have to wait!...We decided to sit in the virgin lounge and try and get on the 7am if there are any seats....our luck comes back as we are told we can get on the 7am flight, to then be told we can't! so we decide to try the 8am flight, but again...no chance. so we have half an hour to try and sort me a hostel for when I arrive...no such luck, I ring about 4 different places and they're all full with no room...luck seems to be running out, a cancelled flight and nowhere to stay once I'm there!

WE get our flight at 9, arrive in Brisbane at 9.30, grab a taxi with 3 other english guys going to watch the ashes and head straight tothe gabba...we arrived at 10.15 somehow! but a guy decided to pay the $60 taxi himself, so we obliged and got on our way to our seats. We had missed the first ball but we were there, with Rob and Chris on the beers. We decided we needed a beer and got them in. Sitting in the heat watching the ashes with beers in our hand!....this was the life!!
The stadium was sweet! 40,000 capacity, atmosphere was amazing as we were sat next to the Barmy Army, singing and the other side of us was the Aussie Jarmy Army, all dressed in Pyjamas...they didn't have any songs though apart from...'you are a w**ker!!' or 'sidddddllllleeee, sidddddlllleeee'. Although we will give them credit where its due, the army were singing 'you all live in a convict colony' and we were put in our place with 'you all live in a poor economy' quite witty for the Aussies!!
All out by 4pm, so in the 1st day we also got to watch an hour of us bowling. 5,30 and they called it a day so we headed back to hostels. I still didn't have 1 so went with Rob and Garf to ask if there was anyway I could get somewhere to sleep!....my lucky day in the end....they offered to put me in their tv room with a mattress!! jackpot!!

We headed to the Barmy Army headquarters, an english pub to have dinner and a couple of beers, where they actually serve all the beer in pint glasses!!!this is more like it!! After a few beers we went to a bar where another live band was playing. After a couple we headed back for an early night and decided to live it up the next night.

The next day we headed back to the Gabba the next day to watch us bowl, after a shocking start we managed to get 5 wickets but struggled with Hussey and Haddin. I was sitting next to this aussie woman who couldn't decide if she wanted England to win or Australia. She claimed she was English and moved to Australia 32years ago but had no sign of an english accent. I think she was just trying to be nice as I was surrounded by Australian supporters!! and to be fair they were thrashing us!!!...but the Barmy Army were giving it their all. an early finish at 4pm that day meant we went back to the hostel and meet some of the army at the hostel. some blackpool supporters dressed up in union jack trousers and monty panesar beards were sitting in the bar so we joined them with a few jugs of strongbow! what a crazy bunch!! we met another Town supporter and a scummy Ipswich supporter in that time, whilst 1 of the panesar, Blackpool supporters was trying to tell us Blackpool were the richest club in the premiership and that Charlie Adam was 1 of the best players in the premiership.....course he is mate, course!!



We headed out to the headquarters again for a drink, and then went to Victory again where beer was too cheap! and skittle bombs were a must!!...our groove came out, we had met Ron burgundy too and that's when Rob and I decided Tom looked a lot like Garfield. That entertained us for hours that night! we evenutally decided to head home. Garfield met a friend at the kebab shop, spending about an hour trying to get this Aussie guy to admit that he was his little b*tch and that all Aussies are the English's little b**ches! anyone else would have smashed him but he picked on a little fat guy and wouldn't let go until he admitted it!....he never did!hahah a lot of fun..."you are though aren't you?" "welll just a little bit?"....haha A* for effort!



We tried to get some bikes out for a ride, but Garfield refused to ride them as he had something in his trousers, it was affecting his walking that's for sure...."he's definitely s**t himself!"...so the bikes stayed where they were..We got back. I went into my tv room to find out it was full and I had actually been upgraded to a bed!! Garfield got to the toilet and we got a few hours kip. Up at 9, we went to the Gabba to try and get tickets for the 3rd day, luckily we got 4 tickets together but we just had to sit and watch Hussey and Haddin smash us even more. Until 2pm, however we did get to see Monty Panesar, a highlight there! Then we headed to the airport back to Sydney. An awesome weekend!! The next 2 days we nailed them in the bowling and batting, 517-1. The cookie monster is a hero!.. Hopefully we can get some tickets for the Sydney test in January

Balmoral Beach :)

23/11/2010

Sar finally had a day off from her 2 jobs. After working non-stop for 10 days! This was in my 2 weeks of no work stint, so we decided to do something with our time...beautiful day, 33'C, so we got on the bus at the top of the road and decided to see what Balmoral beach had to offer. We had heard a lot of good things from Jess, Ange, Julz, Tracey and nearly everyone we have met! 15 minutes on the bus and we had arrived. It was beautiful, a long beach again with the rocky headland and houses all built into the hillside surrounding the beach. Then in the middle of the beach there was a bridge out to an island which broke the beach up into 2 parts. We sunbathed for most of the day, took a picnic consisting of pancakes and bread with an avocado dip...yummy! We went to the island to see the great view and get a bit of shade before heading back to the beach to get some more sun....the water was FREEZING! So cold that we chickened out of swimming and decided to paddle and then go back to our sunbathing. Another great beach, just 15mins away...Sydney is getting better by the day, we are living the dream in an amazing city! Definitely heading back once the weather gets back to it's best...possibly Christmas day
We revisited on 14th December...again we both had the day off and the weather has been amazing for the past week! 11am we arrive and lay there until 4. This time I have to take a swim and it's ice cold, sooo refreshing as it's wayyy hot! after 5 hours in the sun Sar has missed everywhere with he cream! red everywhere!! apart from a strip on her arm and 1 of her knees! the sun is leathel!

Melbourne Cup

02/11/2010

The Melbourne Cup came around on 2nd November. We didn't know much about it other than it was a big annual Horse racing event down in Melbourne but we decided to muscle in on it too and place a bet. Sar got told the favourites were number 3,8 and 11 so we decided we would bet $20 on 5 horses. I had heard good things about number 13 (surprisingly!) so we put our money on numbers 3, 7, 11, 13 and 21....We got back with our bet placed so all we needed was any of those horses to get 1st, 2nd or 3rd and we won, too easy....We watched it in our lounge cheering on the horses and...none of them won, number 3 came 3rd so we got a about $3 back! wooooo
13 was a terrible decision, hardly worth racing, and who won....number 8!!! we spent hours kicking ourselves!! we had got told to put money on 3, 8 and 11 and decided we knew better and left number 8 off!! we would have won $100!!!! just to run it in, we should have known...8 is my lucky number, not 13!!!...maybe next year. Tom had put his money on 8 and won $70 back...just to rub it in!

Jobs

2 1/2 months into our year stint in australia and we have gone through a lot of jobs! As soon as we arrived, I had the choice of choosing either an ice-cream man or a removal man. I went for the removal man and gave the boss a call....We had randomly got this number off a guy we met diving in Indonesia! Sure enough I rang him and he offered me work the next day. 6am pick up! It turned out the work was a doddle, filling containers with school tables, desks and chairs to send off to Papua New Guinea etc, and the odd house removal which was nothing the guns couldn't handle.
Although once we moved into our Flat, it meant I needed regular hours. The removal work was on a basis that if he needed me he'd ring me at 9pm the night before and say he'd pick me up at 6. So sometimes I never got the phone call or rang him asking for work and he had nothing for me, so I started to look elsewhere. Also the fact that we had a close encounter with 7 red back spiders on 1 job put me off a little bit, I hadn't signed up for that!
Me and Sar both registered with agencies within the first week hoping to find any job we could....Sar's got back with nothing...useless!! mine got back to me with a job in an airport trying to persuade people to sign up with insurance...I turned this down as I thought the chances are if someone is in the airport, the chances are they have already got their insurance sorted! Plus I think for the sake of the company it would be best if I didn't do a shitty job like that!!

So I held out the removal work for a bit longer, starting to get regular hours but then every week my pay would be wrong, so I'd have to chase it up and really hassle him for the money. So I continued looking. I got a text from this guy who asked me to do some call centre work for him...the ironic thing was he couldn't talk on the phone about it, it was all through text! so I did 3 9-5 shifts and to be honest....it was hell!! getting abuse on the phones all day ringing people in Victoria asking if there was a political election, which party they want to vote for...as you can imagined I got told to shove it everywhere possible!!
luckily, well not at the time, he then had no work for the next 2 weeks. So I had turned down the airport job, no work at the call centre and the removal jobs were about 2 jobs a week...It was time I got my amazing as ever CV out on the road, got my RSA so I could work in a bar and went on the job hunt...I handed it into about 10 bars, 3 cafes and a bakery. A week later I heard nothing back so decided to chase them up, and out of the blue the bakery offered me a job!! the local bar up the road is a possibility too, so 3 jobs later here I am working in a bakery with full time hours!...wearing white trousers, white top, an apron and a hat...this job is a real mans job...so much that when the removal guy rang me to do a job I couldn't tell him I was working in a bakery, instead.....a cafe!

Sar had no luck with the agency mallarky and her CV looks a lot better than mine, plus she's also added a picture of her face on her CV which has worked well! Sar had no work for around 1 month apart from the odd babysitting job, 1 of which she saw a huntsman spider and rang me to drive over and kill it!...I told Sar to smack and if not get the little Aussie kid to, she must be used to them living here...that didn't go down well, she started crying!! So I got in the car ready, and sadly we had a flat tyre!...turns out the spider was on the outside of the window anyways!!!...mr toad!!
So 1 month of sitting around, she got a call for an interview at a shop and nailed it!!
Sar soon got a job at Forever New, a womeswear shop and on her 2nd shift got offered to be jewellery manager! and also, meeting Tracey through our Aussie friends we met in Vietnam, managed to swindle her a role in a cafe up the road doing 3 days at each job! Sar also got offered a few jobs but had to turn them down as she already had too many hours offered to her!! So 2 1/2 months in and we are finally going well... I thought I'd post a blog if anyone is interested in what jobs we've done and what we're doing now, plus so we don't forget!...It's not as easy as it's made out well for us anyways!

Both getting ready for work in the morning, Sar calls me in the room to find a HUGE huntsman on the wall...As I have a duel with the spider, he wimps out and runs under the bed. Luckily he ran onto a box. Pulled the box out, Sar hands me a flip flop and I smash him...huntsman in the house count: 1 - huntsman surviving in the house - 0

Halloween

Halloween had come around and like usual we wanted a party for it, just like being back at uni. Jess had arranged to rent a village hall out and have a party there but that fell through, so instead we went over to julz's for pre-drinks before heading into King's Cross to a club where if you're dressed in fancy dress you get free entry. Elyse was also coming down from Newcastle to party so we got to see her again which is always good news. Once we have regular jobs rolling and cash flowng we aim to go up to Nelson Bay, home to Jess, Julz, Elyse, Ange and Chris to party!
We couldn't decide what to dress up as but last minute decided Sar would go as a doctor, I would go as a mime and Tom would go as a vampire. Being pretty skint it was hard to get a costume together but Sar found her kids costume for $5! I had bought a stripy t-shirt anyway so just needed some facepaint and a hat so we got by!
The night before we had gone out to the Oaks for Rob's birthday and Sar got pretty drunk! So she decided to drink water for the halloween party. That was a bad move as she got to realise how bad the club in Kings Cross really was being in a sober state! I decided to take a goon to drink (box of cheapo wine), which was a bad mistake. The next morning I had the worst headache ever!! We met the rest of Julia's housemates and many other of their friends which was cool and hit the club, which turned out to be, only girls dressed up get in free, not guys! $15 each for us! Ordering cider at the bar and the barstaff didn't even know they sold what we were ordering is always a good sign!...The club was a bit of a dive but we had fun nonetheless

Summer Bay - 20th October

Although I had work as a removal man, it wasn't guarenteed everyday work. Some days I would get a call and it would be a 3 hour job, other days an 8 hour job and some days, no work at all. It turned out I had no work at all, Sar still didn't have a job so we decided to do something with ourselves. Rob had lent us his car, a beast....Ford Falcon estate, automatic. The easiest car to drive in the world, well once you've hit the gearstick to start her up!!



We set off, Sar with the map in her hand and me behind the wheel. We set off north and kept going until we hit Palm Beach. The famous beach known as the 'Home & Away' beach where it's set, 'Summer Bay'. We found a parking spot, and decided to walk up to the end of the beach. A beautiful day, probably one of the hottest we've had since being in Australia, so it was all good. As we walked past, the home and away cast were out filming up on the top of the beach. We were going to head over to see the hero Alf, but decided we would stop off on the way back. We continued right up to the end of the beach and sat up on the sand dunes admiring the amazing view of the whole beach, as well as trying to figure out how to get up to the lighthouse....we were unsuccessful, much to Sar's delight!! 1 thing we did notice was the number of dead birds that had been washed up...that was a bit weird, but didn't dent the beauty of the beach a bit....Almost orange sand and the sea around Sydney seems sooo blue, as if we were back in Indonesia! After spending a few hours at the beach, we decided to slowly drive back and stop off at the many beaches we past on the way up. We stopped off to get some food. Sar found a nice restaurant, but it came with a price tag, so as we sat down and looked at the menu we decided maybe we should skimp out and go to the chip shop next door......Great move!! huge portions for $4! 2 pieces of fish and too many chips....now we're back eating real food!



We stopped off at Whale Beach, Avalon Beach and Freshwater Beach on the way back, which were all similar to Palm Beach but smaller versions. They all had the orange sand, the blue water, a few surfers surfing the waves and the rocky headland at each end with houses built on the edge of the hillside around the beach.. Driving round the winding roads admiring the views over the next beach and then winding down again to the front of the beach until we got back to Sydney. It was an awesome day, we couldn't believe what was so close by. A few miles out of the city and there was this paradise of beaches to take your pick from, and this was only the northshore beaches!