Seeing Sydney

G’Day Mate!

Well, here I is in Australia! Presently I’m sitting on my bed in ‘The Maze’, a hostel in the centre of Sydney, while waiting for the shops to open in a couple of hours so I can go pick up some photos I took of the Sydney Harbour and Opera House yesterday.

It’s been a while since I last wrote a Travel Blog Post cus I’ve had to do tons to get where I currently am, not to mention get over some bitching jetlag.

My last post said that I was just getting ready to get on the plane to come here. Well I made it OK, except I had to pay 90 fukken quid for 2 pieces of checked luggage cus I packed my liquids in the wrong bloody bag and, as I say, got a serious case of jetlag from sitting on a bloody plane for about a day.

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I decided to pay for a Taxi to my hostel cus I was too fried to work out which bus I needed at 6am so that cost me around 25 quid but it was worth it.

My room was nice (the ensuite shower was like a pressure washer) so I decided to stay there four more days to get on my feet.

After a lot of maths and some tips from a receptionist in Westend called ‘Allen’ I found out that it was cheaper to book my room online and then pay at the desk.

This is dam stupid in my book cus you would think it would cost less to book at the location than go through a travel agent and then the company and then the specific hostel. Go figure.

At any rate the desk price for where I was cost about 80 dollars (about 40 quid), online it was 50ish AU and then when I changed to ‘The Maze’ it dropped again to about 40 a night so at 20 UK it works out at 140-150 a week which is perfectly acceptable on my budget, and to be honest this place is quite nice.
Rooms and showers are clean, kitchens nice and tidy (tidier in The Maze then Westend), the staff are friendly and everything (food shops, travel goods like plugs and cables etc) are in close range so I would personally recommend it if you don’t know anywhere better.

The only real complaint is that I can’t keep track of my fucking key! I try to put it in my left hand pocket, like I always did with my house keys for the last, like, 10 years but I keep putting down in places and in other pockets. It’s bloody infuriating.

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Over the last week and a half I’ve been putting together my CV and applying for Games Jobs.

Unfortunately there isn’t much industry here for games (I haven’t seen 1 games shop while looking around yet) and, although there are some companies, no one has even requested an interview yet.

This one company called Conkerberry (a AU games recruitment company) did email details about a junior games designer position but that was a couple of days ago now so I’m not sure about it.

See http://siolis.squarespace.com/Curriculum vitae for the newest copy of my CV.

On my current budget, I can afford to stay here for a good three or four months without any kind of job, so long as I don’t waste my money, but today I plan to go hunting for a bar job cus, since seeing the sights yesterday, I’m burning to me that camcorder I want.

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I’m having fun with the girls of this place though. It’s enough to turn a guy’s head right. In Westend they kept on sneaking looks at me, in The Maze kitchen they keep on trying to catch my eye and when I went to the harbour yesterday some chick followed me half way along the bloody pier, apparently too shy to say anything to me but determined to catch my eye.

On the one hand, I’m male and very straight so I’m enjoying the attention of course but it’s like, why doesn’t any one of them actually say anything to me. I mean, it’s like watching peacocks strut around showing off their feathers in the hopes of being noticed. I like strong women right, so what kinda message do you think you’re sending?

On the other hand it’s sorta creepy. Like ‘The Children’ kinda creepy where you turn around and there’s this, albeit usually attractive, women standing there smiling at ya, but in a predatory sorta way. I mean ok, you’re attracted to me, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t taste nice!

Frankly the only person who has matched my personal interest of ‘strong women’ is a receptionist in The Maze called Laura who emanates confidence like a small sun. I hesitate there though cus those guys are hired for being nice and helpful so it could be professional demeanour rather than attraction.

I’m not too bothered about it at the moment to be honest. Not till I’m sure if I’m sticking around town for long anyway.

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On a connected note, I heard a couple of days ago about the Swine Flu thing.

Talk about panic! I checked up on some details and, except for the Mexicans, it’s not quite as bad as it seems.

As it turns out some pigs got infected by Swine, Bird and Human influenza all at once and the things melded together to form the new strain.

What the news papers and online reports are saying in small print under the banner headlines of ‘PIG FLU PANDEMIC SWEEPS GLOBE!’ is that there is a drug course treatment which was stockpiled after the Bird Flu out brake, it’s no worse than any other flu and ppl in 1st world countries have even recovered from it without even being hospitalized.

The reason ppl are going nuts over it is that its hit Mexico hard, although they don’t have the health care we do. The 100 or so that have died from it have been young, it’s true, but what they don’t report is what kind of healthcare they received. There’s a massive gap from ‘100 Mexicans die of pig flu in their beds’ to ‘100 New Yorkers die of pig flu while in hospital quarantine’.

Personally I’m not worried. I’ve got premium health insurance designed for ppl going diving and surfing in waters filled with sharks and box jellyfish and walking in the Australian outback where there are taipan snakes and even worse spiders. I think I’ll be ok if I catch a dose of strong flu and get some of the stockpiled drugs in one of the nation’s biggest cities. Assuming of course the virus can brake though and disable the biological systems of a 130 kilo muscle bound 24 year old that is.

Proper hygienics is what you need to practise anyway. I haven’t actually been ill in years, partly due to my good living and exercise and partly due to my personal sanitation rituals. I mean, how hard is it to clean your hands after the toilet and before cooking food, wiping surfaces down, covering your nose and mouse when you sneeze etc. Flu viruses are of the nature of bacteria and viruses which don’t hold up well against basic sanitation. Plus I don’t often have physical contact with anything except meself so less chance there too.

Anyway, I’m safe in my mind and that’s all I care about personally. There are other ppl to treat the Mexicans and as memory serves, the avian flu hit farms around Oxfordshire and that but it was contained.

The important thing is not to panic.

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On a lighter note, I’ve started up a bit of a dialogue with my Sister to report my activities back to my parents.

I was going to email them but obviously they had troubles with their email so this was simply easier.

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As I said, I visited the Sydney Harbour and Opera House yesterday and had a look around, which was nice.

I thought it was a bit cheap that they wouldn’t let me take any pictures of the Opera House’s interior cus the thing is copyrighted but what can ya do?

I got some nice pics of the outside and this nearby bridge which looked quite picturesque. I should have just posted them up along with this so do have a look.

When I got a job of some sort I’m gonna get this camera I want and then take a proper look around and get some footage.

I wouldn’t mind finding a way to get paid to do that actually; go to places and get footage of the locations.

If I can get some nice shots I might get a deviantArt account or something and post them up proper.

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Bit miffed about the price of stuff over here though.

I thought that things would be cheaper than at home, given that my currency is worth twice as much as AU dollars. But as it turns out, stuff here is twice the price in AU, so stuff which costs 100 at home is 200 here, or worse. Checked the cost of Red Bull for example and the stuff is 3 dollars so that’s about 1.50 a bloody can. Total rip off.

Given the exchange, I could have saved myself about a grand and gone to London and probably lived better for less, although I couldn’t have known that I suppose.

Half the trouble is that this place isn’t so much a tourist resort than a tourist country, so things are bound to be more expensive.

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Think that’s about it.

The flight was horrible, the acom’s grand, the games industry here sucks, the girls of awesome/creepy, I isn’t worried about Swine Flu, I’m mailing my Sister a lot, the scenery is nice, I gotta buy a camcorder and, although the living is cheap, most shopping isn’t.

Oh and I’m bloody knackered after all the running/walking/climbing I did yesterday so I’m going to take it easy and go find me a pub to work in so I can buys me camera.

Toodles.

/Ollie