[I know I’ve written about the events of this Christmas before, but I wanted to turn it into a slightly more journalistic piece of writing, so here it is for your reading pleasure.]
The Australian Christmas is a strange event for a pasty white British guy like myself. For me, Christmas has always meant bitter cold, the kind of rain that soaks you to the bone in 10 seconds, huge dinners, and wishing you had an open fire. For Australia, however, Christmas happens around the beginning of Summer, so it marks the first trips to the beaches, the firing up of backyard barbeques, and the donning of even more extra-strong sunblock to ward off the obscene amounts of UV light that pour through the hole in the ozone layer.
It’s been a while since I wrote one of those boring livejournal-esque blog posts that doesn’t contain any interesting information but tells all you readers what I had for breakfast, so here we go.
Lately I’ve been eating muesli for breakfast every day without fail. Work is going ok; it’s not the best job in the world but it’s certainly not the worst. There’s a good crowd of people there, I enjoy being on nights and the pay is decent, although it’s only now, after Christmas and New Years have taken their toll, that I’ve managed to start saving any money. I’m saving enough though; I reckon I will manage to avoid starvation and malnutrition through Asia. Thanks to all this money coming in and finally having a kitchen that isn’t shared with 200 people I’ve got back into cooking and I’m absolutely loving it. I’ve finally, after all these years, learned to make omelettes, and I’ve been trying to eat healthily, which has resulted in me losing about an inch off my waistline.
G’day mates! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. It was a real pleasure to chat to all of the people who I phoned and who phoned me: you made my evening, and morning!
My Christmas, like all good Christmasses, started in a supermarket, with James and I running around trying to buy anything we could find that featured reindeer or santa while Hamish showed his age and followed us around like a disappointed parent. We eventually left with very few ridiculous purchases (although we did get some reindeer-adorned napkins) and a full Christmas dinner, along with plenty of wine, beer, and port.
And finally, after a month or so of wasting time and faffing about, I’m employed and I have a flat. I’m living in Kensington, which is a rather nice suburb of Sydney, about 10 minutes bus ride from the city centre and 20 minutes from the beach, and I am working as a barback in a place called Establishment, which is incredibly classy and pretty awesome. Merivale, the company that owns the bar, also owns 7 other extremely cool venues around Sydney and is about to open the largest hospitality joint in the Southern hemisphere, called Ivy, which I am hoping to move into. My first shift was on Saturday, and was supposed to be 6pm-12am, but I ended up working until 4:30, then the staff all went to the club downstairs until 6am. All in all, a pretty good night.
Simon and Sina have left now, leaving me all alone in Sydney. I’m just starting to get my head around the fact that this place is my home now, for maybe 3 months, maybe 6, maybe 12, depending on how well it all goes. I’ve been sorting out things like a permanent mailing address and a tax file number and it’s all starting to seem very real indeed.
