Day 185-7 - Sydney

Day 185 (Thursday 17th) - Rob & Wahroonga

The rest of Wednesday was pretty slow - Sam returned from work and cooked us Spag Bol, which was very nice of him, Em returned from Uni & work knackered, and we sat and chatted in front of the TV for a while. Thursday I went to try and get my debit card from a bank in the city, but Em & I dicked around for so long that I didn't get there until 4, by which time it had closed. I met Rob (Laos/Thailand Rob) after he finished work, and we went for a drink and dinner in the Greenwood, a pub which I remember going to with Jez and Maggs - the only pub I remember, oddly. It was awesome to see him, he's having a BBQ/party next Saturday to which Dave, the other chap we met in Laos, should be coming. We met Em in the Union Hotel, just near her place, and then Em and I went off to meet her mates Mike and Jordan at Cookie's house, miles out in Wahroonga, yet another astonishingly rich Sydney suburb, full of mansions. We sat around watching DVDs and eating pizza for a while, before getting the most surreal cab ride I have ever had - Mike, Em and I got in and told him we wanted to head to the City via North Sydney. This is a fairly simple journey from what I understand, yet the driver found it necessary to stop for a good five minutes and dick around with the SatNav, with the meter running. The journey was mostly conducted in silence, with slightly cheesy music playing, until a live Beegees set came on the radio prompting the driver to turn the volume up very loud indeed, and then return to his stony-faced silence. All very odd.

Day 186 (Friday 18th) - Newtown, Rob again and Back In The Day

Today Em & I had a productive day, doing all the pesky tasks we had to do, including getting my card, after 60-odd days relying on the credit card. We headed to Newtown for a walk around. Newtown is a sort of cool, bohemian and laid back area, where Em used to live, which has an amazing profusion of Thai restaurants. It was an enjoyable wander, after which I went to meet Rob again down by Circular Quay, for a beer in a flash(ish) bar full of people in suits. We got a bus out to his mate Jess's house, which was an incredible place in Edgecliffe - appropriately named, as from the veranda we could see all the way across the valley to the other side of the bay. The house was pretty flash and exceedingly well stocked with alcohol, and also had an amazing music system wired through the entire house. During our conversation for some reason Jess claimed to be a lesbian and warned me about the rampant homophobia which is endemic in Jamaica - not entirely sure how we got onto that. Oh, Rob says she isn't a lesbian either, which further compounds the confusion. I met a few other cool people there, particularly Dan, who has offered to take me surfing at Bronte at some point this week.

The reason for all these people meeting up was a sort of reunion - a couple of mates of Rob's were putting on a night in YU in King's Cross called Back In The Day, which they hadn't done for years, and loads of Rob's old schoolmates were going along. In had another extended conversation with Jess in the Dj booth, mainly about the nature of religion or some such nonsense, I can't entirely remember - at the time we felt exceedingly high-minded and intelligent, but most likely we were spouting drivel. It was a pretty cool night, the music was ok but as the evening wore on I found myself increasingly wandering alone around the club, so I was pretty pleased when closing time rolled around and we were booted out, as I had been ready to leave for a little while. On our way home we consumed a couple of suspect cuboids of "chicken" on skewers and got a cab back to Mosman - somehow by the time we got back to Rob's it was half four, and high time for bed.

Day 187 (Saturday 19th) - Food, Drink & DJs

We awoke around noon and had home-made bacon, maple syrup & mayo baguettes, which were delicious. My first bacon in a very long time. Soon afterwards we went to meet more of Rob's mates in the Broadway Bar for farewell drinks for one of his mates. This lasted quite a while, and involved a fruitless search for other pubs, a kebab and chips with chicken salt (in daylight), and a few games of pool. Next stop was going to pick up Lucy, who came to the gig with us. We picked her up in Newtown, where I was yesterday, and went for a Japanese dinner - that being the third meal in 6 hours, a little excessive I feel.

DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist present The Hard Sell was a pretty wierd gig. We weren't really sure what to expect, but it was definitely nothing that we could have anticipated. It was a bizarre and disjointed sequence of music, more a number of disjointed mini-sets than one coherent show. They are both obviously awesome DJs, but the use of 8 turntables and no computers or keyboards may have been pushing it a bit, as on occasion there were mistakes and obvious errors, which detracted from the enjoyment a bit. Also it was very stop-start, which I suppose it had to be as they were using all imaginable genres of music, making a steady build somewhat tricky. Anyway, afterwards we headed back to Rob's and were in bed pretty early as I had to be at Em's before she went off to a fitness expo, and he had something on as well. Rob's life seems to be a rather hectic string of social engagements, linked together with work and sleep. Since I met him he has come from work, to meet me, then out for the night with one group of mates, then home-sleep-work, then to a date, then meeting me for a drink, then a house party, then a club night, then home-sleep, then drinks with mates, then dinner with me and Lucy, then the gig, then home-sleep, then to a surprise birthday lunch. Sounds exhausting.