HI Everyone, It has been a while since i last wrote and what with new year coming up (tomorrow!!) i thought that i would reply to all your emails at once to save me a bit of time!! I will try and reply seperately in the coming days but i wanted to wish you all Happy new year now. Anyways, Since i last wrote (i think i was in Hong Kong) i have safely arrived in Sydney as you all know.(a massive thanks to Neil in Hong Kong who was an amazing star whilst i was there. Thanks again mate) Since i have been here, i have done the usual touristy things...looking at the harbour bridge, and the opera house etc. It has been average weather here with some days being 30 + and others the cloudy boring days with rain that i expect many of you are seeing back home in the UK! For xmas eve we (me, Kerry her brother and her mates) went on a booze cruise around the harbour. There was free drink and food between half 7 until after 11 so we obviously took full advantage! The music mostely consisted of cheesey pop songs from the 80's and 90's with some xmas tunes thrown in, but we had a really good night. Once we got off the boat, the people from the hostel and me headed back to Kings cross where we saw in xmas day with more drinks and a bit of a sing song! The views of the harbour bridge and the opera house were fantastic all lit up, and something that you never seem to tire of Since i have been here we have been bowling, i have watched the new James bond film, played golf and a game of cricket with the guys from the hostel. We played firstly in the street outside the hostel on xmas day, then in the local park on a astropitch...we had 2 innings and everything, it was very serious and involved lots of sledging!!!. I have spent a few days on Bondi beach in order to top up my tan..and spent a few days watching Englands shocking display of cricket! I actually think that Town Malling could do a much better job against the ozzies than them at the moment. I dont understand how they can be playing so bad! I am just praying that they dont win 5-0 as they will be even more unbearable than they are at the moment. They are really loving it at the moment....i was not in a good mood as you can imagine!! We will see how the next test goes though as with them all playing really bad we might be able to secure a few tickets (if we want to go of course!) to one of the days. We have however got 4 tickets sorted for the 20-20 game against Australia at the SCG on the 9th of Jan which i am really looking forward to. We bought them off Ebay for 200 dollars which is about 80 quid, so we are really pleased. I think that some of the other guys from the hostel will be getting tickets aswell so it should be a good laugh, so keep an eye out for us. Hopefully we will win, although whatever happens it will be a good atmosphere, and we should get to see some big hitting ......even if it is our bowlers going into the stands! On xmas day we didn't go to the beach in the end as the weather early on was not that nice however it cleared up to about 30 degrees by about 3 (which was a little late). We all chipped in 30 dollars (12 quid) and bought 10 crates of beer, 8 litres of wine and loads of food like sausage rolls, prawns, burgers, sausages, cod, corn on the cob, rolls and salad to cook on the bbq in good old ozzie style. We had a really good day eating, drinking, playting games and listening to music so it made for a nice change to the traditional (cold) xmas we are all used to! I have been living in Kanga house in Kings Cross for around 2 weeks now and although the rooms are very basic (and quite small) the people there have been really cool. I am currently hanging around with about 15 people all english ranging from 19 - 29. We spend some of the days together, and most of the evenings so that has been really good. I expect that i will extend my stay in there for another week or so until after everyone leaves, and after the cricket etc. From there i am not really sure what i will do although i have heard that i need to get to Melbourne before march in order to get the best of the weather so i may do that, however i may stay for a month or two here and top up the funds by getting my ass back to work (not looking forward to that after over 2 months off!!!) Well i think that is about all there is to report at the moment. I am planning on doing the bridge walk (over the harbour bridge) in the new year which although expensive should be really good. For New year i think that we are all planning on getting a massive pic nic together to spend the whole day in the botanic gardens eating, drinking and playing card games with music before one of the biggest firework displays in the world!!! Apparently they have spent over 1million dollars on fireworks to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the harbour bridge. They are expecting thousands of people to pack in around the harbour and gardens so it should be an amazing atmospehere, and a spectacular show. I cant wait. Anyway, I guess that i'd better go as we have some planning to do for tomorrow (and maybe tonight) so i hope that you all have a fantastic new year. It will be around 1 in the afternoon for you when the New year arrives for us so by the time you are there i expect i will be fast asleep!!