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I've fallen out with Stuart Maconie. A non-existent apostrophe when describing something belonging to Leeds, a mere 4.5 pages dedicated to Sheffield (with most of that being about what is now Hallam Union), and NOTHING other than a mention of it being Philip Larkin's home afforded to Hull. I am most unimpressed. Poncy Lancashire boy.
So I can't even remember when I wrote my last blog and what had happened, but in the past week there have been a few things worth typing a bit about. Actually, maybe I should just check where I got to last... Ahh, that's it, I remember. Wow, that was a boring entry!
By now I feel as though I know every grain of Bondi Beach sand personally, and have even had the time to bother giving the new Panic! At the Disco album a second chance (it's actually quite good, if you disspell pre-conceptions of it being another FYCSO and can overlook the blatant Beatles' rip-off on some tracks and ever-so-slightly irritating flamboyant Baroque-ness [if in doubt of the real word add '-ness']).
Last Thursday I drank my first schooner of Aussie beer, and pretty decent it was too. I don't know what my former manager and educator in essentials of Australian travel was on about when she said that there was only one drinkable beer because so far I've found at least 3! All with suitably ridiculous names to suit the ridiculously-named measure it's served in (schooner - about 3/4 of a pint).
Charlie had Friday off work so I bought a public transport day ticket and we took the bus and then the ferry to Manly, to get to which you travel down and out of Sydney harbour and then slightly north. On the north side of the harbour there are some brilliant small beaches surrounded by nothing but forest, whereas the south side is dominated by LA-esque mansions. To lots of people the harbour ferries are their primary method of transport when commuting between home and work in the CBD (I LOVE that the city centre is simply called the Central Business District; it greatly pleases my inner geographer); it's a pretty cool way to get to and from work it has to be said.
Manly and Bondi are often described as being similar in that the focus of both is the beach, however I think that Manly is much, much nicer and has a completely different feel. There are boats moored, seafood restaurants (instead of the McDonald's and Hungry Jack's at Bondi), a really nice pedestrianised high street that's home to lots of surf shops (I saw some Billabong Metallica boardies... how cool?!), shark nets up in the harbour to provide a safe swimming area, and little penguins that live under the ferry jetty! Charlie assures me that when she lived in Manly she spent many an intoxicated journey home trying to spot one of these illusive little tykes but to no ovail.
After arrival in Manly (I accidentally typed it as "Manky" then, but I assure you it is not!) we had the best fish and chips I've ever had (except maybe Hull fish and chips, the time I didn't throw it up) and both managed to get some flip-flops, hurrah! We then walked along the edge of the main beach (Manly is on sort of a thin spit, with the harbour/ shark nets on one side and the pedestrianised street leading directly across the spit to the beach on the other side) to Cabbage Tree Marine Reserve and to Shelly Beach (so-called because the sand is just small shells).
Shelly Beach was the location of my first ever snorkeling attempt (see ridiculous Facebook photo), which didn't go too smoothly to begin with. Firstly, I managed to choose the snorkel and mask that leaked, secondly I couldn't get to grips with the fact that I needed to breathe through my mouth (but when I did it sounded as though I was having an asthma attack), and thirdly I was scared of every shadow I saw after Charlie told me that "of course" there were sharks in the water there. But when I did get to vague grips with it (after swapping masks and snorkels and giving up trying to dive because I just got confused about the whole not breathing thing) it was brilliant and even the stupidly small fish I saw were brilliant. I have since learned that everything is 3 times bigger through a diving mask, or something, but I am no less impressed. Even when we got really cold I wanted to keep going... I'll definitely do it again, but I may need some lessons from some lovely person who's done it before and it patient :-) Oh, and a child's mask that might actually fit my face.
I was convinced that I saw a shark in the harbour on the ferry back to the city. But apparently the majority of lifelong Sydney-dwellers have never seen a shark, snake or dangerous spider so I was probably wrong.
On Friday evening Charlie and I met H (my former SUWFC committee member and housemate) and her colleague, Lesley, on Oxford Street to sample a bit more Australian beer/ larger/ ale, spot gay rugby players and sneak in free (well, just me) to a dub night in a place even dirtier than Corporation and full of people who weren't even aware that they were there, I don't think. It was really good to see H after so long, and Lesley and I are into all the same bands so I have a potential gig-buddy there.
Saturday was spent mainly... I can't even remember what, but I definitely left the house. And then in the evening Charlie, Nick and I went down to the beach to use one of the communal BBQs (which are really just hot-plates) to cook our sweetcorn and wretched veggie sausages (it took me about half an hour to eat mine; they REALLY didn't go down well!). The people using the BBQ next to ours were a group of 4 British gap-yearers (?!), 2 of whom proceeded to have the most enormous blow-out argument about one not appreciating the effort the other had put into organising the hostel in Kuala-Lumpur/ Phuket, much to our, and their travel-buddies' amusement.
Sunday was the '1st Australian Red Bull Flugtag' (which I had mistakenly called the "Luftwaffe" on Friday night when discussing it with H), which I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you that it's that thing where people design and build what are meant to be flying-contraptions and then launch them off the end of a 6m high platform into the harbour. Needless to say that we (or any of the other 59, 996 people) didn't see any new world records (the record is 60m, and the furthest distance 'flown' yesterday was 14m...) but it was pretty damned amusing. The winners 'flew' a boat with a giant flounder attached... The sight of a huge furry penguin on rollerblades being towed into the harbour by a guy on a bike is not something you see every day!
Maybe the fact that I've gotten 'round to writing another blog is indicative of the fact that I've been toiling hard all day on tailoring my CV ("resume") to fit some job applications I've found and am interested in, and am currently stuck on this strange Aussie concept of writing a cover letter to accompany every application. Hopefully I should've sent off some applications by the middle of the week and can start thinking about moving out, either to the Wood Duck Inn (thanks, Dan!) or into a room somewhere.
- I've never eaten so much Thai food in my life before.
- This is mainly for Liam and Patrick: cheese is not measured in terms of mild, medium, mature etc. but in terms of "tastiness". It amuses me greatly. "Tasty cheese for tea?" "Beans, tasty cheese and pasta?"
- When I went grocery shopping (at Woolworths!) I didn't see a single product that wasn't grown/ produced in Australia, except some Greek feta.
I feel like this website's going to explode if I write any more so I'd better stop now. There's a messageboard on here if anyone would like to leave me a lovely comment (because Rowan's is so lame!). READ: WRITE ME SOME COMMENTS! :-D
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