Although I haven’t been playing much djembe in Sydney we did manage to see a good act last weekend. Follow that link to read about it and watch a video.

I’ve been working as a freelance web developer in Sydney and as such I’ve been trying to do as much networking as possible. As a part of that I decided to volunteer some of my time to a charity competition… Long and short of it is, I’ve been selected and will be taking part next Tuesday.

You can find out more about the full code press competition in Sydney by visiting my work blog. We have 24 hours to build a website for a charity and are competing against the Kiwis! As most of you are in the Northern hemisphere, you’ll be able to follow my progress in real time, where as most people here will be sleeping.

The best way to do that is to follow me on twitter… If you’ve never used it before don’t worry. You should sign up and reserve your real name, usename,  even if you don’t want to use it, cause trust me, this thing is already growing faster than facebook!

Lastly you can help us beat the Kiwis by taking a 1 minute survey to help us make our website better!

I arrive in London on 1st June and will head straight to Edinburgh. I’ ll go to Ireland afterwards, so I’ll be seeing y’all soon anywho!!

Laters!

J

Hi Guys, we’re still living in Manly, still hiding from the paparatsi and still loving every second of it.

Many is a beach town as I mentioned before. It is a beach town because it’s next the beach…..Manly beach in fact….and said beach looks like so:

The Corso, runs directly down the centre of Manly and it’s a pedestrianised steet a bit like a smaller Grafton street.

It looks like so:

It’s full of interesting characters like this gentle busker who is a common site on the corso:

Pure Blonde, only 41.99

I’ve bee watching crocodile Dundee every week and I really feel like I’m truely finding my inner Aussie.

These are a couple pics from the balcony:

Our house is really comfy. It has high celings which is great cause I bought an 8 foot surfboard the other day. So far I haven’t seen any sharks, but they’re defo out there. A surfer in Bondi had to have his hand reatached after a 2.5 metre great pulled it off while shaking his hand.

The next day and army diver lost his leg and hand to a bull shark in the harbour. A 3 meter gret white was also caught in the harbour a couple days ago…

Scary shit this is for sure. Sharks don’t play knifey spoony and they are defo on my mind when I’m in the water. I think that I fall back on the fact that most attacks happen at dawn and dusk, when the hunt cause the water has less visibility…

Anyway, it’s a numbers game really. I’d be really lucky to ever get hit really, more chance in car crash etc….

I’m not suprised there is such danger anyway. I mean every city needs some element of danger or threat for it to be balanced. In Dublin we have knackers. Here they don’t have knackers. I’m mean like none, it’s wierd….. I’s like St Patrick was here and turned ‘em into deadly animals like snakes, sharks and spiders.

Everyone here is so fit and healthy it’s ridiculout… I haven’t hit a djembe drum in ages, but I have started jogging and surfing and stuff. I must say I feel really good for it too.  It’s not even an efffort with this weather and beautifull scenery. We had a 2 hour walk along the coast this morning and we’re going snorkling at Shelly beach now. Two people have been killed while scuba diving here in the last 4 years, so I’m going to bring my luger with me

There’s some amazing snorkling here though as it’s a National Marine Park and it’s only a 10 minutes walk….

Shelly Beach

Anyway, I’ve been playing chess against Joe and have an open invitation out to anyone who wants to challenge me Go to redhotpawn.com (not what is sounds like) and search for me.

Well we have since shipped our asses from the camping life to the beach life…  We’ve moved to Manly, which is probably our first choice of places to live. We were tentative because it’s a 30 minute ferry ride from the city and it’s definitely not the sort of place you live in, and still go out in the city on Saturday nights.

I’m currently working from home with Irish clients and possibly Australian next week. Celine is working as a nanny about 20 minutes away by bus,  so it’s all fine and dandy…

We live on Camera Steet:

View Larger Map

For nerds and those with an interes, you can click on “street view” to see our actual building… (the one back left from the no entry sign). If you turn 180 degrees, go down hill, turn left, then turn right you’ll be able to get to the sea…

Manly is definitely a great place to be in the summer time. We are 60 second from the sea and we have such things as surfing and snorkelling to while away the summer afternoons. I haven’t done any of these things yet as the weather has stunk up until today…

I did buy a wetsuit the other day though and the waves are under 6 foot for the first time since, so I’ll probably go for a bit of a surf on my lunch break today…

I’m in an internet cafe today cause we have some cool surf dude electricians in the house ripping the electrics apart today…  so i have no pics to show you here….

I’ll update it with photos and such soon as though… Hope you’re all well and good… Please say hello, I miss you all too much not to hear from ye!

So our campsite is in a National Park and we were let know that there would be a free BBQ going on down at the river…. Knowing that BBQs always have beer, I’m like : “Free you say eh? I’m there dude…. by the way has anyone handed in a white towel, i lost mine yesterday….”

So we go down there and there’s this guy, Les, the blue eyed abouriginal guy telling us about how to throw spears and make boomerangs and stuff…. Sweet…

So I say’s, “Hey Les, got any beer?”. He says, no mate don’t drink and looks at me like I’ve offended him or something…

He did however be barbequing kangaroo, like, what you find on Kangol hats, and a suspirciously named fish called LeatherJacket. I didn’t know that having a bbq would be such a fasion parade…

Kangaroo is delicious, a little like beef, but definitely richer…. I was wondering why people don’t just each kangaroos, instead of trying to grow grass in this god-forsaken heat to feed cows? There are after all millions of the bouncing bastards round the place….

The answer to this question is that you’re not allowed to just walk around killing kangaroos and eating them, as they are a protected species and somewhat of a national icon.

What about the Wallaby’s, who’re they then? Is it only rugby that the animal is a Wallaby or what’s the story there? How many bloody animals do you need?

Sounds like vested interests to me though. They should make the Kookaburra, the national icon for all sports and events and start chowing down.

I’m sitting there chewing on a piece of roo and find i have to spit it out cause I got a fatty bit…. Next thing you know a duck comes past and eats the kangaroo, I just spat out. It’s at that moment I realise just how complex the food chain can be.

At this point, I’m trying to make the connection between an aboriginal cooking a national icon and a boat full of convicts arriving to decimate the aboriginal population.

So I mention this to a white Park Ranger, who happens to be next to me and she assures me that the aboriginal people see today as a day of reconcilliation. I push her on the vested interest, kangaroo connection, but she seems uninterested and starts telling me about the million camels that are running around wild in the outback.

Apparently 100s of years ago someone brought them here and forgot about them and they’ve been doing the bunny rabbit thing, without any natural preditors for quite some time…

I ask is there any legislation controlling them and their population and am assured the negatory…

Hmmmm.

If Bart had an elephant, why can’t I have a camel eh?

I mean they have hooves and are better equipped for this heat… She double takes my face and swiftly brings the conversation to a close…

Will defo be looking into the camel thing though… image how cool it’d be walking through town and trying a camel up outside the saloon?

So after a few indiginous animals, no beer and scaring as many Australian as possible, we headed in Sydney city for a day of free concerts around the city.

As we did so, you’ll be happy the hear It was the shittest day’s weather we’ve had since we arrived. It rained non-stop for the rest of the day, but we tried to make the best of it.

The grand finale was a fireworks show and tall ship race in Darling harbour. I couldn’t really see the fireworks though cause I had just paid 7.50 for a pint of Heinekin and as a result refused to leave the pub.

Anyway, been talking long enough for now…

If you’ve enjoyed my writing, please leave a comment!

J

Will have to show Celine first, but wanted to give Performers without borders as I feel lke what they’re doing is really amazing…

Closing date is 24th of January, which is 2 days ago though…. Surely they can’t be that well organised???

Now take that an multiply it by 20, and have them sit in a tree above you, screaming like banshees, while shitting all over your tent at 6am everyday and that’s an average wake up call for me everyday….

Man… don’t they have anything better to do?

Anne

“Australia, it’s not wrong, it’s just different”.

Sydney Opera House

It seems like January is a great time of the year to be in Sydney. New Year was quickly followed by the Sydney Festival.

They had a “First night” which had free performances across the city. We say a few free dance shows, which were pretty spectacular.
We also saw the Melbourne’s the Cat Empire who are deadly, for free!!! They’re kind of ska and bit more…

Grace Jones was also playing, but we saw her a few months back and she’s a bit to wierd to come in contact with too often….

Sydney Harbour bridge

There was a great atmosphere around Sydney anyway there’s been free gigs in the Domain every saturday night since and much like so many thins in this place, you just
couldn’t see it happening at home. Image 50,000 people sitting in Stephen’s green Dublin watching a free gig, with top class acts.

Family’s, young people, old, you name it…. In Dublin there’d be loads of drunk shites around the place wrecking it….

The Aussies really know how to do things right in so many ways.

I have to add that all my Interactions with them has led me to believe that they are largely very polite, kind and friendly…more about that later anyway….

Me at the bridge

So Virginie and Nicola were here when we arrived and we were well looked after for our first few days. They kindly let us stay in their tent until we got our own 2 and showed us around and all that.
They were also really advanced in their plans for NEw Years and we were totally happy to float along with that.

So apparently securing a good spot for the fire works is quite a mission that takes some preparation.

Tarp

Nicola, Flo and a few other French folk, when down to Cremorne on the 30th and put down loads of tarp and wrote their names on them with tape. Now in Australia, what this means is “G’day mate. Me and my mates are going to come back here tomorrow night and hang out here to watch the fireworks, please don’t nick my tarp or try stand / sit here tomorrow”. Impressive to say the least and my education of what a tarp is for is well underway.

So we went over there in the afternoon of the 31st and spent all day there drinking and eating, swimming etc….
…and we had like, the best spot in Sydney, for the $4 million dollar, who needs a healthcare system, happy birthday James, firework display.

Celine and Nicola, even whipped out a birthday cake from somewhere, much to the delight of me and a anyone with a 4 metre radius!

Cremorine by day

Goodbye 2008

Celine and are are re-united and once again anway and that’s defo a good reason to celebrate yay!!!

Spear in da nose

We’ve been living on a campsite since later December. It’s pretty sweet as far as campsites go, but camping is never easy at the best of times. We have all mod cons like warm shower, clean toilets and even Internet, but we’ve had a few drawbacks. Like ALL our food being robbed out the fridge, waking up at 4am when the assholes next to us arrive home, waking twice in 1 night with a possum, bandikoot or jumping rat or something trying to rob our food.

Seems my run of luck getting ripped off is set to continue…

We bought a 2nd hand tent from this really nice Mebourne couple who were on holiday in Sydney over Christmas. Everyone had told us that tents were really expensive, so we were searching high and low for a 2nd hand tent and this seemed like a great solutions. They wouldn’t have to take their tent down at 5am the next morning and
we wouldn’t have to put our new tent up either.

So we gave ‘em $150 (75 euro) and we had a beautiful new home.

As a part of the deal, we also got 2 free fold away chairs worth($50) and a combi-table 4 chair set that packs away into a suitcase (worth $100). We also got a “REALLY GOOD TARP” (his words, not mine …. being Irish, I have no idea what a tarp is for, let alone, what constitutes a good one) – worth *shrug* $50. They had also paid for 2 extra days on their site, so got that for free (worth $70).

It only took a day for it to become apparent that all was not well in the health of our new housing friend…
It seemed that the main pole was snapped and had been for some time. In fact it had been really well wrapped in masking tape to hold the thing in place at all….

SHHIITTTT!!!

It seems this type of tent (Spinifex) is only sold by 1 chain of shops in Australia (Anaconda). The nearest Anaconda is pretty hard to get to from where we live, when you don’t have a car. I spoke the manger and he assured me the would be able to us a replacement pole, no problem.

So we went in there and the guy was like, hey I could have sold you a new tent for $150 dollars. I thought, shut you ****ing pie hole. “Wow, really” I said.
He ended up feeling so sorry for us and sickened to the core of his being that someone could rip off some poor, cash strapped backpackers that he sold us $300 tent for $75 (I hope his boss isn’t reading this…. sorry Cleatus!!!)

Anyway, so now we have 2 tents and all the apparel, mentioned above. Now bearing in mind we wouldn’t have got the tent at the price if we hadn’t first bought the broken tent we’ll look at the math:

OUTGOINGS
Broken Tent                 - 150
New tent                        – 75

Total outgoings          – 225

ASSETS / Value
Broken Tent                      – $150
Fold away chairs            – $50
Foldaway table chairs – $100
Tarp                                     – $50
Campsite                            – $70

Total Assets                      – $420

Now as Paddy will tell you, I’m no accountant, but it looks to me that we’re $195 in the good out of all this….
I won’t here anything else about it…
James and Celine 1, Australia 0!!! In your face Australia!!!!

That’ll have to go against the car rental of getting us off this campsite with all this shit, if that day ever comes.