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Hello! My goodness, it's been a long time since an update. The longer I leave it, the less motivated I am to do one. However, I've started so I'll finish. I'm going to have to go all the way back to Christmas to start thins one. It seems like absolutely ages ago. Well, it was different to the usual Lyttle Christmas. Warmer, for a start. Although someone said it was the coldest Christmas on record. All I can say is if Christmas is that warm every year for the rest of my life, I'll be very happy. I think it hit a maximum of about 24 or 25 degrees in the afternoon. It was a bit cloudy in the morning. Still warm enough to go in the pool, which was all that concerned me, really. Bit disappointed not to have a 40 degree scorcher, although in retrospect maybe that wouldn't have been quite so fun.... Managed to eat some turkey and ham as well. But no sprouts! These Aussies don't know how to do Christmas properly, I tells ya. The beer and sparkling wine flowed nicely though (they know how to do their booze, thankfully). I got almost identical presents of beer (exactly the same) in (different) stubbie holders - how'd they know I'd appreciate gifts of alcohol so much? And in the evening I feasted on traditional Italian food. And I mean feasted, it was brilliant. I think it's safe to assume that's the first time I've had Italian on Christmas day. Suppose it was a fairly typical Christmas in a way - drinking and stuffing myself stupid. Boxing Day was a tad more sedate if memory serves me correct; round to cousin Lee-anne's for more food. The next time any of you see me, I'll weigh 16 stone and be waddling towards you. I seem to remember England being walloped in the cricket that day as well. Not a great deal changes there then. So, after Christmas is New Year. This was spent in Sydney centre (where else?) with my friend Ciaran from Darwin. Started drinking nice and early in the afternoon so that we'd be well lubricated for the fireworks around Circular Quay. Luckily I hadn't drunk so much that I can't remember them; they were very good. The Harbour Bridge looked rather spectacular. No photos unfortunately, I would have no doubt ended up with a stolen or broken camera had I teken it with me. The city was absolute carnage afterwards, thousands of people streaming into the city all at once, all of them drunk. Quite a sight to behold. I did the sensible thing, waited for a ferry for an hour, and escaped back to Manly and then to bed. I amused myself in the next few days by taking dips in the pool, given that the weather in the middle of summer in Sydney is quite pleasing. Then good old Tom, my friend from home, came out to pay me a visit for a fortnight. We found a friendly hostel in Surry Hills and based ourselves there while Tom saw all the sights of Sydney and I saw all the sights of Sydney again. I went to the zoo again, but this time there were added elephants - the only thing missing from my last visit there were the elephants. And they were most pleasing to the eyes. And then we stayed a night at Bondi, where I got a bit of a stupid sunburn on my face and chest. My face looks fine now but my chest remains a bit streaky and mildly ridiculous looking. But only if you look closely. I'm sure none of you really want to pay particularly close attention to my chest anyway. We embarked on a lovely 10km Bondi-Coogee round trip which provided some welcome exercise, which had been missing from my life in the previous few weeks (except dancing in indie clubs). After Bondi, it was back into the city, where we stayed in a real life HOTEL! Yes, that's HOTEL, not HOSTEL. I was truly living it up - I'd turned into a real-life flashpacker! En-suite bathroom, TV in the room, and get this...tea and coffee making facilities! Truly I was now living the backpacker dream, the envy of thousands of poor people making do in flea-ridden dumps in Kings Cross (all thanks to the marvellous credit card of Tom's). I went to the Blue Mountains again with Tom (3rd time), and managed to to a fair bit of stuff that I'd never done before, which made the trip worthwhile - including going down the steepest something-or-other railway track in the world, rather than up. A very different experience. And I went to the aquarium again (only for the second time. But my fourth visit to an aquarium in Australia. Can't get enough of those aquariums). Oooh, and we went to the casino. I blooming love that place. So much free and cheap stuff! And so much money around! I only lost about $2000 there. Only joking, it was actually a shade over $1500.... So then after Tom's departure, I only had a couple of days to myself before young John Barnes - my friend from uni - came over for his travels. I stayed in hostels with him for about a week. I think we got through 4 hostels in about a week due to our ridiculously lazy and bad planning. All worked out nicely though. Thank goodness he decided he'd budget himself despite having loads of money - mine was (is) beginning to run a wee bit low. The last hostel we stayed in was in Manly - quite possibly the messiest hostel room I've ever stayed in. What a disgrace. That's what you get from shoving so many German backpackers in a room, it's bound to end in mess. We whiled away a lovely couple of days on and around the beach playing catch. I've really got into catch, it should be an Olympic sport. Which takes me pretty much up to today. I moved back into Joan and Bobby's a few days ago for some home conforts - can't beat having my own room and a nice cooked dinner every night. My last week has esentially consisted of bumming around the city and being on the beach. Quite a nice lifestyle.
That's about it for now - I reckon I'll be posting again in the next couple of days....
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