March 2004

Week 48: Monday 1st to Sunday 7th March

In the first week of March, Richard’s 3 month contract at Customcall came to an end and he said his emotional goodbyes to those he had worked with. He soon found new employment at Sydney Fish Market where his job was to keep the Fish looking well presented to attract potential buyers. Perhaps it was the early starts or maybe the fact that no matter how hard he washed he couldn’t get rid of the stench of fish from himself, but he only lasted a few shifts before being sucked back into the telesales world with a job at Synergy alongside Jon and Liam.

Phil and Kate arrived back in Sydney on Thursday 4th and on the Friday they joined Matt and Kelly for an Italian meal at Caminetto the Rocks. It was a beautiful setting and delicious pastas and pizza were accompanied by a couple of bottles of red wine. Attached to the restaurant, which you have to walk through to get to the restrooms, is a fascinating Gallery exhibiting work by Charles Billich, the official artist for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. After the meal the diners met up with Liam and Rich and went to the Brooklyn Hotel on George Street for a few drinks and a dance.

On the first weekend in March, Matt, Rich, Liam, Jon and Chris Rogers hired a car and went down to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix. The car was hired from Europcar based at the Novotel where Dan and Adam worked and as a result they got a particularly good deal on a smart white Hyundai Elantra with all the trimmings. They stopped for lunch at Holbrook, a small town that is notable for 90 metre long submarine. Before WWI Holbrook was known as Germanton, and during the War it was decided that a name-change was in order. It was decided that the town could do no better than be named after a great war hero, and so in 1915, Germanton became Holbrook. Ever since then it has maintained a special link with submarines. Holbrook Council acquired the HMS Otway when it was decommissioned and scrapped and it is now displayed proudly by the side of the road. After 10 hours of driving, the guys arrived in Melbourne and made their way to Leanne’s flat. Leanne, who Rich and Liam first met at Wakeup Hostel when they arrived in Sydney, and her flatmates (all from Barry Island) had kindly offered to let the guys sleep on their floor for the weekend. That evening was spent out on the town, checking out the many bars along the waterfront and meeting up with the many others who had also made the journey down from Sydney such as Connor, Dougie, Cira and Aisling.

On Sunday, everyone woke up a bit heavy headed and got the free tram along with thousands of others to Albert Park. Once in the ground the guys made their way to a good viewpoint at corner 10, marked there territory and met up with Sam, Dave and Martin. The build-up to the main event included a V8 Supercar race and a Celebrity Challenge, although who exactly the celebrities were was anybody’s guess, presumably Aussie soap and reality TV stars. The race itself, although exciting and exhilarating, produced a rather predictable result with Schumacher and Barricello completing a Ferrari 1-2. When the race finished the crowds poured onto the track and headed up the home straight to see the podium celebrations which was an awesome and thrilling experience. The evening was spent in the legendary St Kilda area of Melbourne, and the guys met up with Lisa, the Brummie lass that Matt and Liam had met all those months ago diving in Ko Tao, Thailand.

Back in Sydney Phil and Kate spent a wet-weekend seeing more sites of Sydney, and shopping. Due to rain the annual Mardi-Gras was a bit of a wash-out although that didn’t stop the record being broken for the largest simultaneous dance to YMCA by the Village People!

Week 49: Monday 8th to Sunday 14th March

The week began with Phil returning to the fold after 3weeks of sight seeing with Kate. She flew home at 5pm and was not looking forward to the 27hour flight home. The weather brightened up on Tuesday, so Ads, Jon, Liam, Phil and the Danes, Lise and Nadja (who were crashing at the flat for a few days ) headed for Bondi and did the beach thing. That evening was spent taking advantage of the cheap drinks and the Pavilion. Halfway through the night a bouncer came up to Matt and asked him to leave. After a bit of a discussion it turned out that the idiot got the wrong person, quite funny though! While the others worked, Ads, Phil and the Danes paid a visit to Taronga Zoo, we all agreed it was one of the best zoos we had been to. The location is fantastic with wonderful panoramas of Port Jackson and the Opera House and bridge. Thursday was a day of culture for Ads and Phil as they visited the Chinese gardens in Tumbalong park near Darling Harbour. It’s a very peaceful and tranquil place, Adam soon changed that by donning a traditional outfit and charging about with a Samurai sword, not surprisingly he got a few stares. The highlight of the weekend was St Patrick’s day parade in Hyde Park. The event is celebrated all around the globe and Sydney has its fair share of Irish. Liam, Matt and Phil met Chris and Jen and joined in with the festivities, in other words had a few beers. That evening the others chilled in the flat while Adam and Phil went to see Spiritualized perform at the metro, a bloody good show.

Week 50: Monday 15th to Sunday 21st March

Sadly the next three weeks were not the most exciting, so we won’t go into any detail for the first two and bore you. As you can imagine, working and trying to save money in one place isn’t full of interesting events, well not for you readers anyway. The only things of note were Jon and Adam leaving work much to their relief and going to another concert with Phil at the Metro, this time to see Elbow, another good show. Not much else happened apart from the usual card games, video watching and occasional visit to a bar.

Week 51: Monday 22nd to Sunday 28th March

The main event for the week was the celebration of Richards birthday. For some reason we were all awake at about 8am and wide awake so we decided to make a trip to McDonalds for a birthday breakfast. None of us were working so we had a whole day to waste. It started with Rich opening his presents in the lounge, he seemed especially pleased with his new vest, it should keep him warm in the cold Aussie winters. Along with the vest he was lucky enough to receive a John Pilger book and a bottle of Beefeater gin, should start the night off well, we thought. Once we had all got sorted we went and met up with Chris, who bought along Anthony, we collected some BBQ food and headed for Coogee. Coogee is a beach near Bondi, just as good as it’s more famous neighbour but smaller and less crowded. We made use of the free BBQ grills and had a few burgers and sausages and a drink or two before starting a game of cricket. We took over the grass area behind the beach and had a good old civilised game of cricket. We carried on playing until it eventually got too dark to play and returned home to spruce ourselves up for a big night out. To make a change we all decided to go to Newtown, a suburb of Sydney. We had heard it was a good place to go for a drink. As it was it wasn’t amazing but we had a laugh in a couple of places and Jon and Adam even went on stage to sing Rich a song. We’ve got to give it to them they put in the effort, but they weren’t too hot. After a few in Newtown we made our way to Kings Cross and ended up in Empire, there we strutted our stuff on the dance floor and had a brilliant night, loads of laughs were had and we were having such a good time it soon flew to 5am. We decided to head home to sleep and await the sore heads that would follow in a few hours.

Week 52: Monday 29th to Sunday 4th April

Thursday saw our April fool on the site and we were pleased to see a few people fell for it. The usual evening drinks were had at the Pavilion and Star Bar. On Saturday, while Rich and Liam worked, Matt and Phil checked out Australia’s largest and oldest museum – The Powerhouse. This is a fantastic science and everyday life museum. Its really interactive and its quite possible to spend days looking round. The best part for the two was spending an hour in the music lab creating a tune. The rest of the weekend was filled with football watching, car hunting and a rather nice Sunday roast.

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