Race around this town
12:22 pm Thursday, 31 July, 2008
Archive for July, 2008
Don’t leave me high, don’t leave me dry
4:54 am Thursday, 31 July, 2008
I have just finished climbing the Harbour Bridge and it was awesome. I am sat in the Lord Nelson trying the last of their microbrews and they are playing me Radiohead’s High And Dry.
Today has been a good day.
More later.
It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big, I Am So Small… Do I Stand A Chance?
4:28 am Wednesday, 30 July, 2008
Tuesday evening. I am in bed in my hostel.
Continue reading ‘It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big, I Am So Small… Do I Stand A Chance?’
We all want something beautiful
3:43 am Wednesday, 30 July, 2008
Thank fuck.
I had not done any bank transfers at all. My main account had run out but I hadn’t touched any of the backup accounts as I feared I may have.
Hurrah.
I had started thinking about skipping New Zealand if I was that low on cash which would have been a fucking shame!
Thank fuck!
When your money’s gone and you’re drunk as hell
12:13 pm Tuesday, 29 July, 2008
Late Tuesday afternoon and guess what…yes it’s raining. Man!
To be slightly fair, it has not rained all day and I have had a good few hours wandering around mainly Centennial Park and other such places around Oxford and South Dowling Street.
I’m sat in a Gloria Jean’s coffee place. They are pretty decent, basically the Australian equivalent of Starbucks. The coffee is better as is the hot chocolate. The staff are not as cute, the girl in the Starbucks nearest to my hostel wins that hands down. In fact I feel like I’m slightly betraying her by sheltering in this place rather than walk 10 more minutes up the road and sheltering in there.
So the weather is not really helping with my mood. I’m feeling blue. I was feeling a bit off yesterday and then there was shenanigans at all hours in the hostel last night and I don’t feel like I got a good nights sleep and so that didn’t help. I didn’t feel like I had any high ground to complain after rolling in at 4am on Sunday morning…
What should help is that I have a last minute evening of awesome lined up for later on. I’m going to the cinema (yes, again) and again to see a movie I’ve seen in the cinema before and indeed own on both DVD and CD. As Sigur Ros are playing here this weekend, one of the local arthouse cinemas is holding a showing of Heima this evening and I just picked myself up a ticket. It was an entire $15 and I know it has so many moments that will just cheer me up. I had even considered buying it again on DVD within the past couple of weeks. It was on special as the latest album had just come out and I felt like seeing it again. I settled for not spending the money and for listening to it a couple of times instead.
Having said all that, the last time I saw it in the cinema was very mixed. It was awesome as well ya know the whole movie is awesome. More awesome as Sigur Ros played a 3 song set beforehand (that was the last time I saw them) but less awesome as the evening ended in an argument with the girlfriend which continued until the early hours of the morning and then started again within seconds of waking up. Tonight is exceptionally unlikely to bring an appearance by Sigur Ros or a 12 hour argument with anyone so it should be a whole different experience. Though whether I’d take another 12 hour argument to get another 3 song set is a question best not asked!!
I have also decided for a couple of reasons that I’m going to stay in Sydney until Wednesday of next week. This fits in with my plans as they currently stand and allows me to see Tokyo Police Club on Tuesday evening which I have decided is something that I need at the moment. So some more listens to Elephant Shell required before then!
Speaking of listening. I have come to the conclusion that Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago is unquestionably the album of the year. It beats out both Sigur Ros’ Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust and MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular and I have a very hard time believing anything better will be released, I’m tempted to say ever here but I’ll sick with this year. It may well be the greatest album ever. Everyone should have a copy.
Now other things. Going way back into the mists of time. In Dublin from the early to late nineties there was a group of people that did weekly meetups, usually for a cinema trip. Sorta like the V but without most of the booze. Most are now scattered to the four winds and many are not on speaking terms anymore. Not that that really matters as very few still see each other. Anyway the reason that I mention this is one of the far flung has ended up in Sydney. Thanks to the joys of Facebook, I got back in touch with him briefly last year and had a couple of messages back and forward. Then a few months ago I found out he had taken me and some others from back then back off his friends listing. So I found his profile again and pinged a couple of message letting him know I was in Sydney and giving him my details and suggesting a catchup. I would say it’s 10 years since I last saw him and I don’t remember how we parted back then. Anyway, unfortunately I’ve heard nothing back from him at all so I guess that’s not going to happen. I logged into Facebook sometime a few days ago to find a message from someone else from that same group that I’d seen once in about the same time frame! Who says there is no such thing as coincidence?
Speaking of defriending, ukmartinb, why hast thou forsaken me? I didn’t think the postcard was that rude!! *sniff*
Now I’m going to take a walk. It appears to have stopped raining. I noticed another Irish pub, Durty Nellie’s along the way to the cinema and I’m sure I’ve been in a good one of them before so I’m going to check it out and find some food along the way too.
We got the choice if it all goes wrong
7:48 am Monday, 28 July, 2008
Monday afternoon in Sydney and it’s raining…again. I’m sat in the C Bar which is one of the bars that Chris and I hit on Thursday evening. I’m back here because it’s handy and offers wireless. As you can probably tell by now, I’m all about the free wireless!
So backing up a few days. On Friday I had a very quiet one. Between the lack of sleep on Thursday and the late night that followed, I stayed in bed quite late and that was good. Then I just really wandered around locally without doing very much. It rained on and off for most of the day so there was not much touring to do!
I did find that the Blockbuster just around the corner from my hostel will let travellers rent if they have some id and pay a $50 deposit. So 5 movies for a week cost me $10 and the deposit. This could be a nice cheap way of having a few quiet nights along the way. The first movie that I watched and I really only watched it because I had watched everything else in the series was the latest Highlander movie; Highlander: The Source. Words cannot actually describe how bad it is. With Jim Byrnes and Peter Wingfield you would have thought there might be a couple of redeeming moments but no it’s utterly shite from start to finish. It makes Highlander II look like Citizen Kane. Ugh
Then it was Saturday and I was to meet another local Vite, Mark Annabel for drinks. Mark had pinged me a meetup point that looked pretty easy to find. It was a lovely day and I had time to kill before meeting up with him so I figured I’d walk there and see what I could see along the way. And so I did and it was very nice. Sydney’s a whole lot nicer when it’s not raining! I walked down through Hyde Park and then all the way down Macquarie street. That was when looking over to my left and seeing the water that I realised I had gone way too far and was past Circular Quay. But having the time to spare and it being a lovely day I just kept walking. So then of course there was the Harbour and the bridge and the Opera House and the sun was shining and I spent a good hour or so just wandering around enjoying.
I successfully met Mark just after 3pm and then in a somewhat similar fashion to Thursday we took off on a pub crawl and I sampled many fine (and some not so fine) Australian beers. It was a pretty decent evening though it was somehow passed 4am when I got back to my hostel. That’s some going. Sometime in between this Australia had beaten New Zealand in the rugby, there were college kids dressed in nurses uniforms (and other less pleasant costumes), random punching, random I cannot I have any more beer…oooh cider sounds good, and then talking our way into one more bar at sometime around 3am just for another drink. Ye gods. I’m very impressed that I made it all the way back to my hostel, Mark kindly made sure I was in a location that I knew so I was off to a good start but no bloody taxi was going my way, they were all going into the city and so I walked.
Then the next day I got up around midday feeling surprisingly good and after getting a call from Chris met him in the same pub Mark and I had hit second on Saturday and the evening ended (early, thankfully Chris remembered his work commitments on Monday!) with girly (but very cheap) cocktails somewhere in the middle of no-where in Sydney. Along the way there were two Irish bars that had slightly decent writeups but both failed, the first one particularly badly.
So I think that if there’s a bit of sunshine during the week when I can get out with my camera that I shall have a very good week. All around the Harbour area seems to be just lovely and the type of place I can wander for hours with my camera and then find a quiet cafe to sit with a drink and my book. If it rains some more (with no doubt it will), there are a good few museums and all that to check out and of course some movies from Blockbuster.
So far though I really must say the highlight of Sydney was in one of the bars that Chris and I went to on Thursday. I must preface this by telling you that we just went in for laughs and we did not stay for a drink but we did admire the tastefully displayed “Dress from Showgirls” hung on the wall. Pure class, Sydney now has a lot to live up to!
Now to update the beer list as best I can. The only problem (and it’s a terrible problem to have) is that there was a lot of microbrew places and so I can tell you that Nelson’s Blood is an excellent Porter but you can only get it in one pub in The Rocks in Sydney and so perhaps it’s not that handy for you to know!
15.44 Sydney Australia Monday July 28th
You know you can always change your mind
2:12 am Monday, 28 July, 2008
You know what’s nice? Realising that you are slightly lost, you have gone past the place you were looking for but because you have time and it’s a nice day, you just walk on anyway. You come to the end of the road and on your left is the Harbour Bridge and on your right is the Sydney Opera House and the sun is blazing down.
That’s nice.
I’ll be the first to admit this is a bright but haunted age
10:11 am Friday, 25 July, 2008
It’s lashing rain. It started raining in Byron Bay on Wednesday morning and it pretty much hasn’t stopped since.
So combined with not enough sleep yesterday and then somehow it being going on 1am when I got back to my hostel after drinks with Breach, it’s been a quiet day. I have no idea how it got so late. I ordered my first beer around 4.30 so it did turn into just a bit of a session.
Last night went very well. I don’t remember (or didn’t know) the names of many of the pubs we went to or the beers we drank. I do recall sometime in the last pub deciding that a different, preferably new, beer in each pub was too much and that it was time to pick one and stick to it. That was probably a very good idea. I think that another 3 or 4 (or however many it was) of mixing drinks would have killed me. Also, we had picked the first drink there based on the tap label being the nicer of the two new beers so it was probably time to settle down.
Some wandering today has found that The Polyphonic Spree and Tokyo Police Club are playing in Sydney next week. Tickets are not hugely expensive…okay TPC tickets aren’t hugely expensive. I may do that…I saw them, having never heard of them, at Reading last year and was very impressed. The first (well technically second I think) EP is much better than the first album they are touring but I’m pretty sure it’ll all work live.
Anyway, time to grab some dinner somewhere I guess.