Bondi

We are in the new flat!  Moved out of the darlinghurst horror flat yesterday morning and down to Bondi.  There are plenty of memories to take with me from the last place, I wouldn't necessarily say that many of them are good memories but I will certainly look back at that place and be grateful that I am not there any longer.  On top of everything else, we probably had the worst letting agent in the world in Furnished Property.  Let's just say that they will be getting a strongly worded email from us.  Only after the bond is back in our accounts of course.

However, that is the past now to the future.  The bondi place is cracking and we are well under way to settling in, although I still don't have a bed, although I am told it will arrive tonight.  We have been out spending a small fortune on all the different things we need but we seem to have almost everything now.  Here are some pictures of the new place. I have left out bedroom pictures as they are both a bit of a mess at the moment.

Melbourne

A weekend of fun, beer, good neighbours, hangover (of the film and booze varieties) and………….oh yes, x factor auditions.

On Thursday we made a dash for the airport after work for a long weekend in Melbourne.  The bonus being that Chris was able to meet us and come along too.  The flight took about an hour and had passed before we knew it, although the old teacher lady sitting behind me stuffing her mouth with shortbread as she gave her opinions on every teacher in her school to some unfortunate woman, was fairly annoying. 

We arrived at our hostel and dumped our stuff in our tiny cramped room, where there was barely enough standing space for all 3 of us, and headed directly to the pub at the corner.  Although we couldn’t have too heavy a night as we had an early start our first tour of the weekend. 

We woke at 7:30am the next morning and headed downstairs where we were picked up by this bus.

Yes people, we were heading to Ramsey Street, or Pin Oak street as it is actually known.  Our tour guide, was an Irishman called Gerry.  And too him everything about neighbours was ‘incredible’ or ‘amazing!!!’  “Did you know that no one has ever had sex on neighbours and that one person got pregnant just by holding a boys hand?! Incredible!!!”

We firstly headed to the Neighbours Studio, where we parked up beside the bus stop that everyone uses when leaving the show.  This is actually in a set at the back of the studio beside the carpark, across from Carpenters Mechanics and beside Grease Monkeys.  The lassiters complex was over the other side but we couldn’t go there as they were filming.  As part of the tour we were promised a ‘star’, and I use the word ‘star’ very lightly.  I was hoping for one of the Kennedy’s, preferably Susan.  However, out comes this guy between Chris and me.  We don’t know who he is, as none of us had bothered to watch neighbours for about 6 years.  But we were told he is one of Paul Robinson’s sons.  He was very nice and turns out he is Scottish and moved to Australia when he was younger.  So, there goes my ambition of being the first Scot on neighbours. 

After this we then headed to famous street.  Just about a minutes drive from the studio, it is hidden in a suburban estate, and is actually called Pin Oak.  There is 24 hour security here as someone once took a piss of Harold Bishops balcony and the real owner came out and smacked him with a cricket bat. I doubt Harold would have done that.  So now there is a guard there 24/7.  All houses genuinely are owned by real people apart from the one where the Scully’s and Ramsey’s used to live, no idea who is in there now, it was bought by the studio last year and is now used as a make up/storage place for when they are filming on the street.

Here are some photos of us on Ramsey Street, outside some of the houses.

Outside the Kennedys:

House of trouser:

The Robinsons:

The house now used for make-up etc:

This was probably my highlight from the whole weekend.  Being on the set is very weird and surreal, but very cool.  The rest of Friday was spent wondering around the city centre and in the pub, naturally, followed by going to see The Hangover – part two at night. A must see.  And then back to the pub.

On Saturday we wondered around the city taking in some local attractions.  We went up the Eureka tower, which is the largest residential building in the southern hemisphere.  The lift goes up so quickly you start to feel your ears pop, and although the view at the top is stunning, it did make me feel slightly queasy, I am not good with heights, part of the reason we didn’t go on the glass floor viewing platform, the other being it cost an extra $27.

We then headed to the SBS visual image museum.  This was full of memorabilia from old TV shows and Films and lots of little exhibitions about Aussie film.  Here is the actual car from the Mad Max films:

We then spent the rest of the afternoon wondering about the shops as Melbourne is supposedly famous for it’s shopping, poor mans Glasgow if you ask me though.  Then at 6pm we headed to…….Bed. 

Well, we headed for a nap for a couple o hours, as we wanted to stay up all night and watch the Champions League Final, which kicked off at 4:45am Australian time.  So, by 8pm we were up and then headed downstairs to the pub, and then across the river for some dinner.  We decided that the best place to watch the game would be in the Casino as it would be the only place still open at that time in the morning.  So we had a little gamble, when in rome and all that.  Chris did well and managed to win a couple of hundred dollars, I didn’t.  I broke even.  However, come 3am we were all starting to flag and headed back to the Hostel to watch the game in the TV room there.  I am not going to talk about the game, lets just say that Barca did well. Bloody Spanish!!!

We didn’t rise on Sunday until mid afternoon.  After getting a Wagamama’s for dinner we decided that we should go see a show of some sort.  We heard that Cirque du Soleil was in town and showing at the Rod Laver Arena so we decided to head to that.  When we got down there it is was only 5:30pm and thought that the show wouldn’t start for another couple of hours.  However, we were 30 mins late.  So we decided to take a walk around the area, as there are loads of other stadiums.  The next one we came too, was very busy and had X Factor posters outside, not that we wanted to go in, but we decided to go and have a look to see what was happening.  We then managed to find ourselves in the queue and then into the audience, which turned out to be half empty, and apparently that was the biggest crowd they had had all weekend, I fear for the next series of the Aussie X Factor.

So after 3 very long hours and 18 auditions later Mel B, Ronan Keating and a couple of aussie judges were done, and so were we, and in dire need of a pint. 

Monday was very chilled out and consisted of golf, pool and a few beers before our late flight home.  An awesome weekend all round, now need to book the next trip!

Intel: Museum of Me

I don't usually post this kind of stuff but it is pretty cool.  You just need to open the link and click the button, and it does the rest for you. A museum of your social media life on facebook. Very cool.

Click here for the link

Everybody needs good Neighbours!!!

Well, we don't really have any at the moment. Actually, our are absolutely awful.  However, this weekend we head to Melbourne.  And amongst going out sightseeing and finding a pub to watch the Champions League Final, we will be going on the Neighbours tour.

We get picked up at 8:30am on friday and head to outer suburbs, via the studios, to Ramsey Street and then out to the Lassiters complex.  We also get to meet a star of the show, could be past or present.  So we will wait to see who that is. I am holding out for Karl or Susan!!!

Pictures will be up sometime next week.

Bondi - here we come!!!

Well in a month we move from our current place.  And as I mentioned in my last post, we were close to securing a new flat.  Well, we will soon be moving to bondi, and the flat is only a stone's throw from the beach too.  Here are a couple of photos from the advertisement although the lounge is slightly different now and has french windows that open out into the garden.  When we finally move and it looks a bit more homely, I will post more up.

Flat hunting, AFL and watching the champions!

In one month our lease is up on our crap flat in Darlinghurst, so we decided to get a head start in looking for a new place.  We decided early on that we want to move back down to Bondi, where we stayed for a week when we first got here.  So after spending several hours online looking we went to view a few places.  And we found a nice little place about a minute walk to the beach, and right on the transport links to the city.  Usually it's a complete dog fight here to get a flat, and apparently you have to as ruthless as possible, but it seems they actually want us in their place.  We now have until wednesday to decide if we want to take it.  Although we are in no rush as plenty of other places are sure to come up, however, this is pretty good, and i really can't be arsed searching for any longer than i have too.

On sat night we decided to head to our first AFL (Aussie Football League) game, otherwise known as Aussie Rules, otherwise known as a made up sport!  This was on my list of things to do, see post from 21st of March, so that is now two things down on the list of 10 and we are booked to go to Melbourne in 10 days time, and hopefully the neighbours tour, so that will be another couple completed.

So we went to see the Sydney Swans playing at their home ground, the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground).  It was my colleague Bel who had drunkenly talked me into going the night before, so we arranged to meet her, her husband and friends at the ground.  After a couple of beers in the pub we then headed into the ground, being a cricket ground this place is huge as i am sure you can see from the pictures below.  And although we didn't have a clue what was going on during the game there was plenty of cheering and noise, we even managed to offend two old ladies sitting in front of us, nothing to do with me I must add.  We eventually got the hang of it and i think i now understand the main rules.  But essentially it is just a big scrummage of guys running around kicking a ball about, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of skill involved apart from kicking ability and i am sure that if it wasn't for my crap knee i would be a star of the AFL.

We also managed to meet the club mascot, a big swan, this is mostly down to Will, who is the mascots 'handler', and who works with me at Momentum.  It was great though and we will definitely be back. Possibly this weekend.

Afterwards we headed to the pub to watch a proper sport, real football, as Man Utd drew with blackburn to win the league!!! Get in!!!

Greig with Bel in front of him and her friends.

New friends, surf and.............Spider bites

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post, but not much has been happening and I have been working hard, however on Friday night Greig, Chris and I decided to meet up for a few drinks.  Greig met us and informed us he had been bitten by a spider and his hand was now swollen.  Which it was, although it looked more like a sting than a bite to me.  See what you think?

So we started the night by going to the Shangri la in the Rocks, a bar on the 37 floor of a hotel.  The views were stunning but the drinks were coming in at a lovely $20 each. So we only had the one and then decided to move on, we were planning on heading to the Australian Pub to get a crocodile Pizza but when we got there is was packed.  So we went a small pub crawl before eventually finding the Hero of Waterloo pub. There was live music and good drinks so we ended up staying there for most of the night.  There was a dancing santa to entertain us too.  I say dancing santa, I mean old, drunk, hairy man.  But he was entertaining none the less.  Chris had been on the whisky most of the night, so was now being extremely aggressive for some reason and wanted fight with us, but he ran away and found a new friend in a homeless women to talk too down at circular quay.  He chatted to her for a while, so greig and I decided it best to go to the pub across the road.  He eventually joined us and informed us he had now learned this women’s life story, I am sure it was fascinating.   We finished the night by getting a pizza on the way home, disappointingly it was not a crocodile pizza but it was good none the less.  The croc pizza will happen one day. 

A pint, a proper pint, these are a very rare breed in Oz, beer is usually served in a schooner.

Chris with his new friend:

The next morning we were up fairly early considering, and headed, on the bus, to Dee Why, up on the northern beaches.  There had been a surfing competition on all week and now there was a kind of exhibition surfing competition on, where some celebs (I have no idea who any of them were) were competing with proper surfers against each other.  We arranged to meet Gemma and friends up there.  It was a very enjoyable afternoon, I would tell you who won the surfing but I don’t know who any of them are and although a couple of pictures are below, apparently one of them is from home and away, so we booed him and sang the neighbours theme tune…………………..we didn’t really but I did in my head a little. 

Some 'famous' surfers, we had no idea who any of them were:

On that note we have now booked to go to Melbourne at the end of the month and we will be taking in the neighbours tour.  Apparently we get to meet a star.  We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with lunch an by watching random surfers and taking a walk up the beach, followed by going to the cinema to see source code at night.  A good weekend all round.