blogz0r ___ version fifty seven

Well that’s me back in my home town, folks. Good old sunny Harrogate in lovely North Yorkshire beckoned with a hint of sunshine and a bit of cold wind. I think I’ve successfully missed the brunt of the UK winter which went according to plan!

Stepping off the plane on Sunday was a strangely surreal experience. I was glad to get out of the thing after having my legs cramped into a space not even suitable for a child-dwarf, glad to be back on British soil and very glad to see my beaming girlfriend at the arrivals gate

So, Australia then?

I arrived in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia in November with the intention of staying there for a couple of weeks before moving on to pastures new. Unfortunately, this time was kind of extended to the point of rediculousness as Lee and me drunk lots of beer and generally monkeyed around before I decided to up and go in search of the bright lights.

Adelaide is a lovely place, the climate is the best out of all of the places I visited (hot and dry) but the fact it’s a big farming town has its limitations. Granted, it has some great bars and restaurants, but it all feels a bit “meh” after a while (for me anyway) and I ended up craving the buzz I get from big cities so decided to get off to Sydney sans my monkeying partner.

I ended up in Sydney with a tenuous offer of a place to stay in Newtown (south west of the city), and luckily this turned out to be peachy as a base to look for somewhere closer to the CBD. I ended up crashing at a house with a lady called Christine who was a yoga teacher with a bit of a wacky side. We had some bizarre chats while I was there, and I ended up befriending a little stray kitty who she’d named Marquis II or something (I think his brother was Marquis). I found a place to stay in Surry Hills fairly easily after I’d arrived and moved into a shared house the following week.

Surry Hills is around 10-20 mins walk into the town centre (depending which end you’re in) and was buzzing! Sydney is a very gay city and this lends itself to giving the place a really good vibe – people seem really happy, and the streets feel really safe which is generally not expected with cities of this size. The suburbs can be pretty grubby in places though, and if you’re on the train system you could just as easily be travelling through any part of London.

In fact, walk through certain parts of Sydney (Bondi for example) you’ll think you are in London from the amount of grating southern accents you’ll hear from all the posh boys hanging around.

Enough of that though.

Bondi is like the most famous beach in Sydney, but is apparantly not that nice, so I went along to be an official myth buster. MYTH BUSTED. I really liked the beach – the sand was all soft and not coarse between your toes, and there weren’t too many Germans on it either (there were a shit load of Portugues Man ‘0 War washed up on the beach though, and they’re worse than Germans). I didn’t go surfing (mainly because I don’t know one end of the board from the other) so I can’t comment on that kind of thing. Soz.

So, erm yeah – Sydney rocked. The bars are great (in particular The Loft, the city really modern, the buildings big and shiny, the restaurants absolutely quality (prawns prawns prawns prawns!) and the vibe of the place is very pleasing.

Would I live there for an extended amount of time?

Maybe:

The problem I have with Australia as a whole is the lack of creativity. I know this is a sweeping statement, but everything from TV, music, bands and art seems to be lacking something, and I think that something is originality. I was really dissapointed by the contemporary art museum in Sydney (to the point where I thought they were taking the piss), really dissapointed in the original music coming out (how many times do you guys want to rehash the same tossy rock songs that every other band in the world has ever written, and still get it wrong?), really dissapointed by TV (the only original TV seemed to be shitty soaps and quite possibly the worst cringe-worthy comedy shows I’ve ever witnessed).

That said, Cut Copy are OK… and Pendulum are just awesome

All in all though, the trip was totally wicked. My time spent over my birthday in Cairns were just awesome, and chilling in Sydney with Han ranks up there amongst some of the happiest memories ever

Here’s passing on the baton to Lee to keep us all updated on his travels…

Dogger.