ozobel

Jazz in the vines, Hunter Valley
Just spent a great weekend in the Hunter valley at the 'Jazz in the vines' festival. My first Oz road trip was with Liz, Sarah and John. John got a present of a pale blue 1979 toyota corona with a working sterio and a couple of fold out chairs in the boot. The machine chugged it's way to the Hunter valley on Friday evening blaring out the choonz from a mixed tape found in the glove box. The hunter valley wine region is very beautiful with acres and acres of roling padocks of neat little rows of vines and plenty of 'flying doctor' style houses (now a recognised era in Australian architecture I believe). We stayed as close to the vineyards as we could afford and our posh little pad at the hunter valley accomodation center even had a pool and free tea and coffee in the rooms. We took it easy on the cocksucking cowboys (thats a drink) in Potters brewery on Friday night in preparation for Saturdays big day out.
Jazz in the vines is an all day affair at tyrells vinyard, it all starts out very civilised with crowds of people sitting on their picnic blankets, basking in the sunshine, munching on some cheese and crackers, listening to jazz and sipping on wine made from the grapes they can see growing in the next paddock. The day went on like that blissfully, the jazz was great, the wine was quaffing and the sunshine was heaven sent. Towards the evening the sky clouded over and small drops of rain started to fall on our sunkissed drunken faces, it wasn't long before the thunder and lightening came and there was a full on down pour. Far from dampening the spirit of the day, the rains seemed to add a new element of madness to the occasion. A rugby ball landed at our feet followed by about 15 mud soaked ozzies, a huge game ensued involving a couple of thousand jazz fans and one rugby ball, a real summer festival feeling. As everyone was packing up their soaked belongings the rain cleared and the sun poked through to a chorus of "Here comes the sun" led by Sarah as we danced our way to the shelter of the nearest pub. The night didn't end there it went on well into the early hours of the morning and judging from all the unexplained drunken injuries it must have been good.
We made our way back along the coast on sunday shaking our heads to David gray and smiling at what a great weekend it was. We arrived just on time to see the end of the Irish match against Argentina, a win that sees us through to the quarter finals of the world cup. I managed to catch up with Claire and Maura to celebrate the win.

Well I'm now sitting in my new office, situated high above the hustle and bustle of the Sydney CBD (central business district) with a great view of the harbour bridge and the opera house. The 27th floor is the place to be, the toilets are camoflaged into the twilight zone hallways and the the lift has 'liftvision' sort of like television or dartvision, pretty funky stuff to watch as your head spins on the way up (the air must be thinner up here). I havn't done anything yet, all dressed up and nothing to do, I'm sure the hype and madness will have to start soon.
Oz is well on its way to becoming Rugby crazy and they're still only on the first round of the world cup. The Irish fans painted the town green the other day when they packed out the stadium to watch they boys trash Namibia. There wasn't an unpainted face or a sober head in the whole city that night. There's lots more to come, the Oz v's Ireland game is set to be legendary as it falls on the same weekend as the compromise rules and the melbourn cup. Every Paddy in the country is scrubbing the beer stains from their oversized rugby jerseys in preparation for the event. Liz an I are even considering investing in something green, and maybe even some jerseys too.

Well it's been a while and there's a bit to catch up on, the hunt for employment has finally come to an end, I've been doing a data entry job with Chris the past few days. Ironically the first agency to give me a spelling test (which I obviously failed) had a job for me to start the next day. According to Gary's mail "
this makes me feel better about my bad spelling...

aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist
and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

Data entry has to be the most boring, repetitive job in the world but it's been fine and I'm reassured in the knowledge that I'll be starting a real (well sort of real) job on Wednesday. I'm going to be a production designer at a big financial institution, basically a posh name for "that bird who makes the powerpoint presentations full of pie charts" . Anyway the pay isn't as insulting as data entry and I'll be able to make it sound good on a cv.
In other news.... the housing crisis has been averted as Liz's flat mate is moving out an I'm taking up permanent residence (well as permanent as a backpacker can be) in county Bondi. I can't go wrong really, great flatmates, great neighbours, 5 mins from the beach and that warm fuzzy feeling that I never left Ireland at all, except for the sun which I'm still hopefull will grace us with it's presence soon.
On the social life side of things... I've become a regular on Chris' Tuesday night pub quiz team, where "Pommy Andy" insults everyone, gives free jugs of beer for the worst spelling (that's me pished for the night) and screams out the questions "ooo 'ad an 'it wiv this?" over the 80's tack tune blaring in our ears. Its a qualiteee night. I also know the video shop people by name so you can see I'm hitting the town with my tin of red paint over here in Sydney (please note sarcastic tone).
Well it's Friday evening and I've got that Friday feeling, I'm gonna meet some friends, drink some beer, dance away to some cheesy choonz and let the weekend roll on!

As predicted, last weeks strange sales job was short lived. My career in selling children ended on wednesday after approacing about 200 people about sponsering a child and recieving 2 completed forms. As the job only paid if we managed to actually sell the children I figured that it wasn't my calling anyway. So it's back to trapsing the streets going from agency to agency, knocking on doors and using up all my call credit being told by some psycic secretary that I'm overqualified and under experienced or that they don't have anything in my particular field. I won't let the bastards get me down yet. I'm loving Sydney after all and just had a great bank holiday weekend with Monique going to a latin music festival, sheltering from the rain in the arch of the opera house and getting aquanted with the legendary "Irish Pubs" of Sydney. Walking into the 'Cock an Bull' in Bondi junction was like taking a step through any pub in Ireland, not the fake Iorish pub feeling, the debaucherous football shirt wearing unstylishness that epitomises everything Irish. I had been putting it off long enough but I knew that you can't live in county Bondi for two weeks and not go to the biggest 'home away from home' this side of the equator. As we're having a week for reunions I'm going to meet up with Chris tonight, you may remember him from such adventures as 'Snowboarding in Queenstown' and 'Hiking the Franz Joseph Glacier'.