Trying to help

So the last week has been reasonably fun, my room wnt from being bad to pretty good, most people staying in the room have been keen to go out together which makes things a lot better. I havent been taking many pictures as Im not as confident taking random photos of people I don't know too well.

As people have been asking me to post some photos, here are a couple from last night in the hostel bar.

In other news, the weather has turned pretty bad over here, plenty of grey sky and not much sun, reminiscent of Yorkshire! So the plans to move out to the beach have been put on hold until next week at least. It also means a lot of the attractions and activities to do around Sydney aren't going to be nearly as much fun. The only place I have been to this week is to see the fishes swimming in the aquarium!

I'd like to put Craigs mind at rest, Ive started running again today, managed a 7k run along the beaches which was pretty mice, but I think Im going to feel it in the morning! Hopefully I can keep this up and train at least 5 times a week.

A few people have been asking if I am anywhere near the bad weather conditions, by far the funniest question came from Matt Lamb: 'Prio, is it on fire or flooding there?' No Matthew its dry and cool, thanks for asking. That does bring me on to a huge issue over here at the moment. The Victoria bush fires have claimed 181 lives so far, with that figure expected to carry on rising quite a lot.

There is an extreme sense of people sticking together and looking after their own, which is great to see. One of the biggest problems they are having is a lack of volunteers to do a wide range of things down there. Today myself and another guy from my room have registered our details to be a volunteer. I don't know what the chances are of being asked to do something are, but right now its something I would like to do, so I'm just going to see what happens.

Thats about all for now, just about to head out to a charity auction, hopefully I can grab a cool prize while donating to a great cause.

Laters all

John

Week One

Ok, so I havent done much in the last few days worth writing about (yeah I suck), Im gonna do a quick update and then give my first impressions of the city.
Things seem to have got quite a bit better in the room, theres no unsociable French people (sorry Dad) for a start. Seems to be a pretty good mix at the moment, and a few people are pretty keen to go out around the city, which is great for me.
Yesterday was interesting, Woody hooked me up with a friend of his who works in the city, so I sent to meet her when she finished work, we went for a few drinks near where she works (nr Darling Harbour) with some of her work friends. The bar we went to was really cool, overlooking the water. It was full of workers from all the offices in that area, so it was kinda cool to see a slightly different side of things, as opposed to the backpacking scene where Im staying. I had a pretty good time, even tho I didn't really know anyone, and they probably felt they had to go out of their way to accomodate me in their conversations etc. I'd definitely do something similar again given the opportunity.
I left there around 9.30 and came back to the hostel, Thursday night is Swedish night, so a few of us made our way down to the hostel bar. The night was pretty uneventful, and we wound it up around midnight.
I managed to get up pretty early this morning (9am), in a slightly drunken/tired haze I went about finding everything from the night before. Phone [x] wallet [x] clothes [x] camera[ ] :-(. I spent an hour searching for the camera, to no avail. I decided maybe caffeine would help matters, so headed out for breakfast and came back a little after when the room was empy, half an hour later, no camera, mortified! I graduall came to grips with the realisation I was about to go and buy my 4th camera in 13 months.
The next four hours was spent wandering the streets of Sydney camera shopping, eventually I settled on a pretty decent looking Olympus camera, setting me back $350, which is roughly 80 beers, for those unfamiliar with exchange rates. Reasonably happy with my purchase, I walked back to the hostel. Within 3 minutes of reaching my room, my old camera reappeared, in one of my trainers! So, to summise, I lost 6 hours, $350, but now have two cameras, happy days!
Tonight I had just had a few beers around the hostel area, settling for an early night as a few of us have planned to hit the city tomorrow night for my first proper taste of Sydney nightlife!
Thats me up to date, still nothing too exciting to report about, I'm sure I can address that issue in the next few days though!
This is a quick list of my random thoughts after a week in Sydney, laters folks!

• Flying for 24 hours isn't a good feeling, and is gonna mess you up for a while, I suggest anyone making the journey stays in a hotel for their first night.
• The heat and humidity can be intense, walk at half the pace you do in the UK.
• Wakeup is a crazy place, but highly recommended
• Australians dont drink Fosters, nor have they heard of it.
• Food and drink prices are reasonable, clothes and cameras aren't
• French people arent fun
• North American accents arent
• British people are the most friendly (hard to believe I know)
• $7 steaks are the nuts
• Im good at photographing tigers
• Sharing rooms with 7 people is tiring
• The city is stunningly beautiful (I'll prove it soon enough)
• Most of Eastern Asia lives in Sydney
• 80% of Australians in Sydney are extremely friendly, this is far far higher than anywhere else I've been.

Ok enough for now, tired, bed, etc.

Hope everyone enjoys sledging, its 44 degrees this weekend, holla!

Day 4

So its 8am on a Monday morning, pretty sure I haven't seen this hour for years! I think I lost my phone last night (took me 3 days, well done John) so I had no idea what time it was when I got up, luckily its two hours to superbowl so all is not lost!
The last two days have been pretty so so, Ive had a great time looking round the city, it really is an amazing place, unfortunately life in the hostel hasn't been great so far. Im staying in an 8 bed dorm, with the idea of meeting as many people as possible by doing so. However I managed to run pretty bad by getting stuck with four french people. Now Im not normally one to discriminate based on nationality, but really these people are pretty bad socially! This has made it pretty tough to meet people, as I havent really had anyone to go out with. I was pretty temped to jump ship and find a new hostel, until I found out five people are leaving today, so hopefully we can get some people with similar interests to myself in (eat, drink, sleep, rinse, repeat, etc)
As a result of all the above the last two days have been pretty tame, I have spent my time touring the city some more. Im planning to start doing activities and stuff this week, which means you're finally gooing to get some photos!
Theres an english girl in our room who seems pretty cool, went for some food with her and her friends last night ($8 steak, holla!) and then watched the tennis. Pretty great match overall, even if I did keep falling asleep in the bar during the 5th set. I was gutted that Federer lost though, and promptly walked out in disgust afterwards and went straight to bed!
That pretty much brings me upto date, sorry I havent really done much yet, I promise I will this week and give you some cool stuff to read and see.
Congrats to Jolene and Craig for becoming my first follower, you get a special prize (no idea what yet!) Special prize number 2 will goto the first person to leave a comment!
Everyone take care and have a great week.

John

One day in!

So far, so good, I think!

The flight was pretty average in my opinion. Seats weren't comfortable, food sucked, I slept about 3 hours in total! They had a pretty good choice of films tho, so at least that made up for it!

Got into Sydney airport around 10am as expected, customs seemed pretty relaxed, quarantine even more so. As evey single person of asian origin was having all their luggage scanned or searched, the quarantine official took one look at my passport and told me walk straight out of the airport!

Managed to somehow get to the hostel without getting lost! All in all pretty impressed, its certainly clean, which was obviously one of the main worries, the staff were extemely friendly, and there were hordes of scantily clad girls floating around, which is always a good sign!

When I checked into my dorm, there was noone else in for me to try and befriend, so I decided to head out and explore the city a bit. Only got as far as Darling harbour, and the shoppping precincts, but I was pretty excited with how it all looked.

After I was all walked out, I returned to the hostel for a change of clothes (it's hot!) There were a couple of french girls in there who are staying in the same room. They turned out to be pretty friendly and invited me to join them in going to Bondi beach. Never one to turn down a sight seeing opportunity, I joined them and we ended up walking from Bronte beach to Bondi, which was pretty nice. The whole feeling of the area made me think I might like to spend a month or so living by the beach.

The rest of the night went by pretty slowly as the tiredness kicked in (fell asleep twice on the beach and repeatedly on the bus back!) We had a few beers by the beach then came into the city for pizza which was decent enough.

No idea what the plans are for tomorrow yet, gonna see who is in my room when I wake up, and try and tag along with whatever theyre doing! Hopefully in a few days I will have taken enough pictures to start posting a few.

Until then, stay warm.

John

23 hours to go!

Welcome to my blog of 2009. As you will know, Im John, male, 26, Halifax, etc etc. I'm flying to Australia tomorrow evening for a year and I'm going to try my best to record the next 12 months of my life, for a few reasons.

• To give me something organised to look back on
• To help people keep in touch with my exploits and experiences
• To entertain
• Because Im addicted to taking photos!

As I write, I feel Im pretty close to being ready to leave, my bags are nearly packed, the loose ends have pretty much been tied up, and I've said the temporary goodbyes to most of my friends and family.

Saying goodbye has probably been easier than I thought it would, or should have been. This isn't because these people aren't extremely important to me, they really are, it just doesnt quite seem final or real yet. Knowing myself, it will be in the next few days that I realise how much I'm gonna miss everyone. To those I have said bye to in the last few days, and think that I might be apathetic regrading them and others close to me, I promise you this isn't the case, theres a certain number of friends (you know who you are) who I will miss like a fat kid misses chocolate!

The plan for the next couple of days looks a little like this:

• Get to Manchester airport around 3pm tomorrow (cheers Woody :-) )
• 16.50 flight Manchester to Heathrow, arrive ~18.00
• Check in at Heathrow, this involves doing anything humanly possible in an effort to get an upgrade for the longhaul flight!
• Depart from Heathrow at 22.10
• Fly for around 12 hours, arrive for refuelling at Hong Kong around Thursday 18:00 local time
• depart HK at 21.25
• 10 hour flight to Sydney
• arrive 09.40 local time

From there its straight to www.wakeup.com.au where I am booked in for two weeks. The next couple of days will be spent alternating between sleep and drink!

Ok I think that's enough for know. This is the first time I've kept a blog, so I hope everyone will be patient with my incoherent ramblings initially.

As I post more I would to see as many comments as possible from people, whatever you feel like saying!

Bye for now, wish me luck! I'll catch you all in a few days!