I spent the weekend in Sydney with Adam… only a few weeks to go until I move up there for good.

Saturday morning:

Waiter at a hotel I was at: So, are you going to the Mardi Gras tonight?
Me: No.

Sunday morning:

Shop assistant: Did you go to the Mardi Gras last night?
Me: NO!

Monday morning:

Ms. J: Did you go to the Mardi Gras on Saturday night?
Me: YAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
Ms. J: (backs away wide-eyed)

For the last time, I don’t like the Mardi Gras. I know I’m breaking some sort of gay law there, but those are the facts.

When I arrived at Sydney airport on Friday night however, the airport was full of gay people. While me and Adam were waiting for a taxi, there was a person standing in front of us that I couldn’t figure out the sex of. It was either male or female, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it.

See, normally in these cases, it’s either a case of (a) is it a butch woman or a feminine man?; or (b) is it a butch woman or a butch man? In this case, it was quite difficult. Normally you can figure out the likelihood of a particular person turning out to be male or female, but this person quite clearly had a 50/50 chance of being male or female. I was asking Adam what sex he thought this person was, when it turned around started cracking on to Adam. I think it was a man, but I’m still not too sure. Man-Woman people confuse me.

We stayed in a hotel on Friday night for something different to do. It was so cool, and even though we’d booked one of the cheapest rooms, somehow Adam scammed it so we got upgraded to this wicked suite. He assures me no sexual favours were exchanged, but… ah, I don’t care if sexual favours WERE exchanged if we get a cool hotel room out of it, because we got shower caps in little boxes in the bathroom (which were useful for all sorts of antics once we got drunk).

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel restaraunt. I’ve come to realise that before you can graduate from Chef School, you have to grow a goatee. It’s mandatory.

I’m going to have to get used to a whole new lot of strange suburb names in Sydney. I’m sure there’s suburb names in Melbourne that would sound weird to Sydneysiders… but the Sydney suburb Minto still strikes me as a funny name. I think Minto sounds more like an imported Indonesian breath mint product than a suburb, but it’s something I’ll have to get used to.

*****

Adam will kill me for putting this in the journal, but… umm… well, I’m well over 800 kilometres away from him at the moment so I might get away with it. On Saturday night we were having a hug on his bed, when I suddenly felt very, very strange. I came to realise what was happening in three steps.

1. At first I thought ‘Ahh… I’m getting a weird feeling in my head and stomach… this must be love.’
2. Then I thought ‘Hmm, hang on… I certainly am feeling quite weird now.. I have a feeling like I’m falling… maybe I had too much to drink?’
3. Then I realised ‘Ah. The mattress is slipping off the bed and we’re both about to crash into the wall and cause minor injuries.’

Never hug someone on the very edge of the bed.

*****

On Sunday, before I went to the airport we decided to have a bit of a look around the city. We were originally going to go and watch a movie on the giant Imax screen, but they only had some crap circus movie on. Talk about an anticli-imax… (boom-tish!)

So we worked our way around Japanese tourists studying maps of Darling Harbour with almost alarming levels of studiousness, and made our way into a shopping centre. The bottom floor of the shopping centre had regular shops, but the top level was a nightmare. I’ve never seen so many tourist traps in one place. Talk about evil tourist outlet shopping conglomerates…

I also spent a large part of the afternoon trying to find a copy of The Chaser, which is a Australian satirical newspaper in the vein of the US’s ‘The Onion’… it’s like a fake newspaper, basically. The Chaser have a piss funny website, but I want the real thing! I’ll have to have a proper search once I get back up to Sydney (it’s only really available in NSW).

Then a guy who was dressed in a Tellytubbie-style outfit stopped us to ask for directions. We noticed he’d just asked someone before us for directions, so I assumed the info he’d gotten wasn’t that clear. So after Adam spent a good five minutes explaining how to get where he wanted to go, the guy goes “Okay, thanks” then turns to the guy next to us to ask for directions. Some people are just nuts. Then again, I don’t think I know Sydney well enough yet…

Utopia Records is my favourite music store in Australia and now I can visit whenever I want once I move up to Sydney. However, one gripe: I gave my backpack to the staff for them to mind while I had a browse (they give you a little ticket with a number on it so they know what bag is yours). I handed back my ticket, and they gave me a handbag back. (If you’re wondering, no. I don’t have a handbag. I have a backpack). It’s a wonder he didn’t ask me ‘So, did you go to the Mardi Gras last night?’

*****

I visited Sydney around this time last year, and spotted possibly the worst ever name for a convenience store: The Millenium Convenience Store. When I move up to Sydney, I’ll have to go into the city and see if they’ve had the sense to rename the store, or maybe they’ve gone out of business… one can only hope. If they are still in business, I’ll see what trouble I can cause them.
Every time I go into Sydney’s central business district and see the monorail zooming around, I just know I’m going to get the Monorail song from The Simpsons stuck in my head. Monorail, monorail….

All the time I was in Sydney’s CBD, there was something strangely comforting about the whole place… and I just realised what it is! There’s no trams! (No dangerous Melbourne-style trams, anyway). Trams scare me. I’ve almost been run over by them god knows how many times, but if I only crossed the road when the green man flashes, I probably wouldn’t have this problem.

So then I jumped on my plane back to Melbourne, which stopped over in Canberra for 2 hours. The funniest thing about Canberra airport is the lisping announcer.

Canberra Airport announcer man: Attenthion ladieth and gentlemen, Qantath flight four eight theven from Thydney hath landed at gate thix.

Endless entertainment, but only if you’re a mean arsehole like me.

You know the emergency procedures thing the airline staff run through at the start of each flight? There’s something slightly unnerving about an insanely grinning blonde named Dottie showing you how to operate a life jacket. She made even the oxygen masks falling down from the roof of the cabin look like it was going to be a ball of fun.

On that flight they served us a muffin and an orange juice, but I can’t drink orange juice because it gives me ulcers, so I asked Dottie if there was anything else I could have.

Me: Are there any other drinks I could have?
Dottie: (insane grin plastered to face, yet speaking in extremely patronising tone) No?! We only have orange juice, so you’ll have to have that.

That fucking grin was painted on, I’m sure of it.

*****

Then I got to Melbourne and found my tyre was flat, which meant catching a train home from Spencer Street station. I’ve never been to this train station in Melbourne at 10pm at night, but seeing four police catching two drugged-out idiots having a dry root in an instant photo booth was kinda amusing.

Ah! Speaking of Spencer Street train station, before I go on, let me tell the story of the Gay Bagpipes Man. There’s a particular busker who stands on the main Flinders Street train station steps in Melbourne, underneath the clocks. I’m sure you’ve seen him, he’s got long hair, he dresses up in a kilt and plays the bagpipes. He’s the blokiest guy you could imagine. I’m sure he’s just doing it for a laugh and isn’t really Scottish. Anyway, I was chatting in some crap gay chatroom once last year…

Me: Hi, how are you?
Chatroom person: Not bad.
Me: How was your day?
Chatroom person: Pretty busy - I’m actually a busker. Made a fair bit of money today.
Me: Really? Wow. So do you play guitar or something?
Chatroom person: Nah, I play bagpipes. I’m sure you would have seen me. I play at Flinders Street train station.
Me: Hmmm. (Sceptical)
Chatroom person: No, really. That’s me. I play bagpipes and stuff.
Me: If you want to pretend to be someone, you could have at least picked some b-grade soapie actor.
Chatroom person: I am the bagpipes man! I swear!

I described to the alleged bagpipes man what I’d be wearing the next day, and said I’d tip him some money - but he had to make sure he said g’day to me. Of course the bagpipes man didn’t. I just had this gut feeling that the person I was chatting to on the net was a bogus gay bagpipes man. Anyway, this is totally off the subject, and… I’ve got no idea. I talk myself in circles sometimes (ie never reaching a point)

*****

Have you seen all that stuff about Riverside Retirement Home on the news? For people overseas who may not know about this, basically a retirement home in Melbourne was found to be treating people in the home pretty shabbily. Giving them baths in kerosene is quite common practice for this retirement home, apparently.

Well, now the government has intervened and are closing down the retirement home. However, not all the families of the residents are happy over the government’s plans to move the residents to a nearby hospital. Apparently the families have to sign consent forms before the senior citizens are moved to the hospital, and most of them are refusing to sign them. I saw on the news that they can legally charge the government with abduction, if they move one of the home’s residents without consent.

Now, think about it. Abuduction? Come on. Who’d want to abduct an eighty year old bed wetting woman? I can hear the threats now… ‘I’ll crotchet you to death, sonny Jim…’

*****

I’m starting to realise there may be more differences between New South Wales and Victoria than I realise. I keep forgetting that Victoria is probably the only state in Australia that calls those big glasses of beer “pots”, whereas the rest of Australia calls them “jugs”. I’m going to get major cases of the FuckIwishIcouldstartagains again. I haven’t experienced the FuckIwishIcouldstartagains since I moved into uni, but I’m sure to get them when I move up to Sydney. So what are exactly the FuckIwishIcouldstartagains? Let me give you an example…

(Scene: A pub in Sydney)

Mate: Whaddya want to drink?
Me: Ah, just a pot of VB thanks.
Mate: A what?
Me: … um, a pot of VB?
Mate: Hahahahaha! You idiot!
Me: ..?
Mate: A pot. Hahahahhaha!
Me: (realises they’re called jugs in New South Wales, and thinks FuckIwishIcouldstartagain and order a schooner instead)

*****

There’s quite a following at work of The Jerry Springer Show. Every lunchtime we all gather around the TV set in the tea room to have a watch. The Angry Brit, who sits next to me in my cubicle, is quite a big fan of the show, but today at lunch…

The Angry Brit: Screw this show. I’m going for a walk.
Me: (staggered) You’re not watching Jerry?!
The Angry Brit: Yeah. I don’t want to.
Me: Why’s that?
The Angry Brit: This episode is boring. I don’t want to watch this show unless transsexual prostitutes are involved.

I love the way on The Jerry Springer Show, after they come back from the commercial breaks, the camera swings around in an alarmingly drunk fashion, giving us random, alternating shots of the audience and the studio roof.

We also get a lot of those Telemall Shopping ads in the breaks of Jerry Springer. An ad for an abdominal builder came on the TV today…

TV announcer: This product will give you the washboard abs you’ve always wanted!
Jolly Man: I’ve got washboard abs. (pats beer gut)
Me: Um… no you don’t.
Jolly Man: Nah, it’s just a really old washboard.

*****

I heard someone talking about personalised numberplates, and overheard what could be a really cool numberplate for my Datsun: DATSIK. Speaking of cars, have you seen this new obscene orangey-gold colour on some new cars? They look like bloody chicken nuggets on wheels.

*****

Ms. B was playing at being a smartarse today. She had a sheet with some work-related info on it that’s quite useful, and she’d photocopied it for a few people around us. She realised she’d forgotten to copy one for me.

Me: Oi - where’s my sheet?
Ms. B: Oh. Sorry.
Me: Grrr. I want my sheet.
Ms. B: Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this… but you’re not in our photocopying group anymore.
Me: Oh really? Is that so?
Ms. B: Yes. In fact, we’re not even going to come down your end of the cubicle.
Me: Fine.
Ms. B: Us elites will stay up this end of the cubicle.
Me: Good. I don’t want to talk to you anyway. (pause for emphasis) Don’t even make eye contact with me.
Ms. B: That’s good, because none of us want to come down and visit you in the Bronx anyway.
Me: (points outside) Oooh! There’s a thunderstorm building out there. Why don’t you be a good little girl and go and run around outside and hold some coathangers in the air?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2000 at 11:11 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.