Boxing Day and New Zealand

Ah, the post-holidays come-down. I haven't experienced it for a while. Normally it's hideously depressing, but it isn't this time. Why? Mainly because, as I mentioned in my previous email, I haven't left the Perth Metro Area since I arrived back from the UK in late July. Its good to lament the end of some travels again.

But finally I escaped my "glass case of emotion" and jetted off to Melbourne and then the South Island of New Zealand over the Christmas-New Year period.

Before I get started, there are a few thankyous I need to dish out.
- First of all a massive thanks to Tim Maher, who organised our Boxing Day test tickets in MCC Members. It was awesome being there. Thanks mate!
- Also to Melburnians Tim Leggoe and Kylie Harrison who were convinced to come along and drink with us. It was great catching up!
- In NZ I have to give a massive thanks to Eammon's family - Megan and Mick, Tracey and Graham, and Bridget for all their hospitality (and for the Brain Erasers), and also to Eammon's girlfriend Molly who was visiting from Chicago sacrificed a lot of her time with Eammon share him with us travellers
- Finally, a big thanks to Eammon himself for putting us up, organising a heap of our travels around NZ and doing almost all of the driving. Thanks mate!

Bish's Précis

- We were in MCC members at the Boxing Day Test
- Night time highlights included bogan-watching at Crown Casino, king browns at St Jerome's Laneway, and a Kebabgedy
- I had a sleep-deprived, drunken flight to NZ
- New Years Eve was in Frankton, near Queenstown and was large
- The scenery was amazing
- Eammon and I had a dip in some glacial lakes, Lake Pukake and Lake Hawea
- Also at Lake Hawea we saw Shihad in concert
- At the concert we saw the inspiration for this Facebook group
- Eammon's got a lot of work to do to achieve his New Years Resolution

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Melbourne

This Christmas Day finished early and uncharacteristically sober for me. Shortly before midnight, my sister and her shiny new hubby Dave, Dave's mate Mark and his lively girlfriend Lisa, Kate Fitz and I jumped aboard a Qantas flight to Melbourne. Because of the time it took to serve us food, and 200kmh tailwinds, I only got about 90 mins sleep on the way over. We got to our hotel and crashed, again for 90 minutes, before getting up to meet Tim at Federation Square at 9am.

Aside from the first day's cricket, which was enthralling and included a Ponting century, there were a number of highlights at the cricket. Particularly:
- the opportunity to witness Nature's delicate, never-ending ballet between the security guards and the cup-snake builders in the Outer
- the MCC have their own monogrammed soap dispensers in their bathrooms. I was too self-conscious to take a photo of it, but Kate had no such qualms
- incredibly reasonable drinks prices (a pint of Carlton Draft $7.60 - better than most Perth pubs), the only drawback being the inability to take the drink to your seat: you have to drink in the bars

Erica arrived during the day and met up with us after stumps. That night featured extensive bar hopping in the city centre, including Cookie, St Jerome's laneway (which serves king browns!) and then the search for a kebab. After departing from the group at La La Land, I walked around for quite a while looking for a kebab joint. Frustrated, I asked some guys where the nearest kebab joint was. They said the famous Stalactites on Lonsdale St (past Swanton St). I was around the corner of King and Bourke at the time. So I walked up there only to find it was closed for renovations. I was gutted. So I walked back to Swanston St and down to Flinders St for some HJs and (where I somehow got into an argument over an obstructed emergency exit, and even took a photo of it) and eventually back to the hotel (cnr Flinders Lane and Spencer St), still frustratingly robbed of a Melbourne kebab.

It was a kebabgedy.

Day 2 of the cricket was an excellent one for Australia. I spent a good part of the day in the outer with Kate, Dave and Mark, and Kristy and Lisa once they'd done their shopping.

On the way out of the cricket I managed to see Darryl Hair. He's given up his role as a cricket umpire, but clearly still harbours hopes of being a sightscreen.

That night we started by having some post-cricket drinks at Riverside (underneath Fed Square), and after showering and dressing up we headed to Southbank. We met up with Helen Fitz and her fella Pete and ate at the excellent Blue Train (where I had two - count 'em, two - salads), and from there we headed to Crown Casino.

As soon as we walked in it was clear we shouldn't have bothered about dressing up. Clearly, the reason the rest of Melbourne looks so good is because they've scooped up the dregs and put them all in a pretty container called Crown Casino. It was very difficult to tell exactly what the dress standards were but they included allowing shorts and thongs. Burswood used to have dress standards but now they, like Crown, don't care who's money they take and want to lure everyone.

Not overly keen to gamble, we headed upstairs to a bar with a view of the Yarra, had a few drinks and saw the sights, which included:
- The best tattoo ever: "SICK" in gothic script on a lady's shin ("FULLY" must have been on her thigh)
- Some "cougars" in the bar up for it with a clink of my glass and a wink - they didn't get lucky (with me)
- Something approximating a threesome on the dance floor

We left the casino in dribs and drabs. Kate and I were the last there and she saw me lose thirty bucks in five minutes on the roulette table. Then, while finishing our pints, we observed a bit of blackjack, and I tried to share my very limited knowledge with her. Obviously it wasn't enough as she was keen to get advice from someone actually playing, and in the process almost getting me beaten up by one of those scary skinny bikies: the type that's always called "Ferret".

Storms were expected day 3 but weather was fine. Too bad the cricket was rubbish. Again we spent a bit of time in members and a bit in the outer. I managed to snaffle some MCC merchandise and walk around the place a bit.

That night was our last night in Melbourne, and we headed out of the city centre. We caught up with a couple of other Melburnian mates, Kylie Harrison and Tim Leggoe.

We went to Belgian Beer Cafe Bluestone, a nice garden bar on St Kilda Rd. We kicked on to Chapel St for a while where the girls found a prop for their comedy - a superman jacket.

Booze does funny things to you. I somehow convinced myself that I could drink through until the pub closed at 3am and then tough it out to get our 9:15 flight, which meant waking at 6am.

Kate was having passport issues so Erica and I got the Skybus. I made an awful attempt to sleep on it. Then, while lining up to check-in I was still drunk and entertained Erica - and myself - by dancing a jig.

I followed this by spotting girls in the check in line:
"she wants me"
"she wants me"
"oh, she wants me"
"she's be so hot if only she could pack her bloody suitcase"

Turns out I wasn't as subtle or quiet as I thought (or as far from those girls)when making those comments. In retrospect I was pretty lucky to get on the plane.

Once we checked in I slept for an hour at the gate. Woke up needing a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, a clear indication that a hangover isn't far away. All of a sudden they were boarding. I couldn't get one before boarding the plane. Then got a choice of continental breakfast or ham and cheese croissant! Back of the net!

Christchurch

We arrived and met Eammon and Molly at the airport, and then ate in Christchurch at Coyote's and saw a bit of the Aussie collapse on day 4 of the test. We then back to Eammon's to talk rubbish for a few hours while fighting of sleep and then scoffing a delicious chicken bake courtesy of Molly. Eammon teased us with the announcement that he had a cracking New Years Resolution. Sleep won in the end though.

The following morning's breakfast cook up by Eammon dominated mainly because it included lamb. We then drove from Christchurch to Queenstown, for my first taste of the NZ scenery. We saw the unusually iridescent Lake Tekapo and then went one better in Lake Pukake and had a dip. Glacial meltwater isn't nearly as warm as it sounds. We also stopped at the quaint Arrowtown for some beers in the sun.

The landscape for that drive was pretty spectacular. At various stages in the drive the scenery reminded me of Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. Why go to the northern hemisphere eh?

Queenstown

So. Queenstown. New Years. How the heck are we gonna get accommodation? Luckily Eammon's sister Tracey and her husband Graham own a caravan park there! Once we got in, said hello and set ourselves up we headed over the road to the pub for a feed. We then headed into town and had a few drinks at the Red Rock, catching up with anither of Eammon's sisters, Megan and her husband Mick.

The previous night Eammon revealed to me that he hadn't had a ladyboy in 2008. So we moved on to a bar filled with painfully young revellers and all had one. After a couple more drinks before retiring for the night.

Some time during that night we also found that Kate had sorted out her passport issues and will be joining us. Excellent news!

The following day was New Years Eve. Before getting stuck into the beers we had a cricket game to watch! New Zealand and the West Indies. The weather started grubby, which was a shame as I had the perfect t-shirt for the day.

I had the task of explaining the game to Molly too. She wasn't too bad actually; she didn't ask any questions like "how many points do you get for a home run."

Nonetheless, the rain presented another threat - that I would have to explain the Duckworth-Lewis system to her. Thankfully, when it rained it stayed raining and the game was abandoned. So we headed off to the pub a bit early!

Having abandoned the illusion of sport there was no pretext to hide behind; it was just straight boozing from here. Not feeling overly mobile, we went to the local pub (which happened to be the one over the road from the caravan park) and we were soon met by a good chunk of Eammon's family. It was a pretty large night and included Eammon and I trying to take photos for a high-art calendar concept: digital camera photos taken through holes such as straws and rivets in benches. Check out June and July (my current profile photo).

The highlight of the night though was Eammon finally announcing his New Years resolution. He's attempting to run a four minute mile.

2009

Kate arrived early morning. Once awake, we gathered in town for the famous FergBurger of Queenstown (it didn't disappoint) and then headed out for a tour of central Otago wine country. We headed to three wineries, with four of us drinking and Eammon driving us around, He was a lonely, bemused non-drinker for the first two wineries before his brother in law and a mate turned up at the last, so they could grumble about wineries together at the back of the tasting bar. Actually, at that particular winery they would have had good company with the grumpy barman.

That evening we took the boat into town from the Caravan Park, and painted the town red. The end of the night involved Kate trying to do the "worm" on a chesterfield couch in a bar, and four of us (Megan, Kate, Eammon and I) trying to drink about three litres of a milky concoction called "Brain Eraser". I still don't know what was in it. But I know by the end of it I'd advised Eammon he had to do a "baseline" mile run early in the year to see where he's starting from. And then I'd agreed to join him on that run.

Shihad and the West Coast

On the 2nd we drove to a small town called Lake Hawea to pitch a tent and watch Shihad in a pub there. It was a huge night for everyone - well almost everyone. One chap in front of us was passed out by about 6:35pm and didn't move until about 10pm. We spent most of the time in between mocking him.

And we're not done yet: join the "Passed Out Guy at Lake Hawea" group on Facebook.

The night ended with Molly being mocked for not having greasy enough hair, and then trying to write her name with her forehead on a window at the pub. Don't worry, I don't even think it made sense at the time.

On the 3rd I took the wheel and we drove up the west coast to a small town called Whataroa. Without a shower, the first stop was Lake Hawea itself. As I say, glacial meltwater is not as warm as it sounds. The girls found that out this time too.

On the way to Whataroa we saw some incredible west coast scenery, not least Franz Josef Glacier. Getting to the glacier involves wading through a very icy river and knee depth, which means access to the glacier relies on a dress code of Capri pants and shorts. No long pants please!
Alas, also on that trip I lost my dear possession, my digital watch. Stopping at the bottom of a hill, I got some stuff out of the back. I thought I got my watch but couldn't see it. But said "it'll turn up somewhere". We started to drive off and I heard a crunch. I dismissively said "oh, that's probably my watch". Kate opened the back door and said "yep, you're right". Rest in peace my well-travelled bundle of 1s and 0s.

Whataroa had one pub which did surf and turf on a stonegrill, which was good enough for me.

Return to Christchurch and The Mile

After a hike at Okarito, the last day of driving took us through Ross, Hokatika (for jade shopping) and Arthur's Pass (for inquisitive kea) and back to Christchurch, where we had our fateful mile run. After measuring the course exactly, and warming up, we set off racing - and I must emphasise this - not each other but the clock. The times we registered were 5:58 and 6:10. Eammon has some work to do before the end of the year.

On our last full day in NZ we had a day of walking around Christchurch (I managed to get sunburnt in 22 degree "heat"), saw the Botanical Gardens, and then driving around Lyttleton which reminded me more than a little of Albany, and the hills above. We headed home the following day.

So that was it! I noticed a couple of things about NZ while I was there. First of all in the inevitable losing of my voice from boozing, I noticed I picked up a sympathetic kiwi accent. I dunno what it was. Maybe I was too weak in my perpetually drunk and hungover state to fight of the pity for our little fellow antipodeans (is that patronising enough for you?).

Secondly, and possibly linked to that, I noticed that the Kiwi radio reports of Australia's cricketing demise. They were loaded with shaudenfreude, and a maybe a hint of an inferiority complex. I don't know whether it's a symptom for what Warnie called the "frustrated Australians", but they were pretty happy with our demise in the Melbourne test. I notice this sort of thing in a few isolated places in Australia to one degree or another - in Tassie and even in Perth.

Nonetheless, there will surely be more of this attitude towards the Aussie cricket team if its predicted slide continues.

For anyone who made it this far, happy new year! The next trip will be overseas. To Rottnest! For the first time in 12 years I'll be back on the island for Australia Day. Should be ace.

For now though it's back to more regular (and, thankfully, shorter) blog entries. In fact I'm likely to start a series of blog entries that might even be coherent in the near future. Stay tuned!

Cheers, Rosco

Christmas Update

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Santa's Precis:
- I started and ended the year in Australia but did a heap in between
- I've been back in Perth for five months now without travelling which must be some sort of record
- hence the lack of travel emails
- Its been a big year for the family, beginning with an engagement party and ending with a wedding
- Curse my lack of creativity in buying presents
- Not surprisingly I have travels planned for 2009

Fear not my involuntary groupies, I don't have long so I'd better be quick. I've just had a massive Christmas lunch which included quite a bit of turkey. It's only a matter of time before the chemicals hit me and I pass out at the keyboard. It's already knocked out three of us so it's only a matter of time. If I don't make it you'll notice: one of my mates was fighting off sleep when writing a while ago and lost the battle. The result was 5 pages of the letter E.

I hope you'll notice anyway.

Not wanting to sound like Eddie McGuire, It's been a big year in 2008. I began down in Margaret River to celebrate the wedding on Emmanuel and Mel. That was in the middle of a 17-day binge which undid a lot of the good work I did in London gyms for two years. And it certainly undid the Delhi belly I'd recently suffered.

After celebrating the Engagement of my only sister to Dave (I don't want to ruin the ending but he's now my brother-in-law) in a Bollywood themed extravaganza in February, and a few nights of mayhem at the Beck's Music Box I jetted back to London, hoping to get a new visa and continue there for a couple of years. I got a job very quickly and beavered away to save money (to apply for a visa costs 1500 squid, plus a flight back home while you wait for entry clearance, so about 3k in total). But it wasn't to be. I did the sums and was about 1500 squid short of my income requirements. I was of course very sad but decided to use the funds to travel for about eight weeks in Europe. I wont further bore you with details of that - I managed to send out 16 blog entries during that trip: 8 weekly updates and 8 stories from the road. I may have mentioned that there are plenty of places I'd return to, specifically Paris, Freiberg and Istanbul. I followed that with a whirlwind tour of the UK which relied on the special generosity of Shane Balzan who lent me his car, and a good chunk of the Tucker family (who are pretty much my UK family). Thanks again for all your generosity, it was really wonderful!

So I arrived home on July 26, went to a wedding celebration that very night (to drown my sorrows at the Saints losing to the Eagles at Subiaco), and started work back at DPI on July 28. That's right, your taxes paid for my jetlag.

And really it's been pretty quiet since. In fact I don't think I've left the metropolitan area of Perth. I'm surprised at how difficult it is to stay still actually as I definitely have the travel bug.

The only travelling I've done since then has been lingual: I started learning French again at the Alliance Francaise in Nedlands. I've always wanted to learn another language and French is my second language at the moment (second by a long, long way mind you). I wanted a second language for a number of reasons, not least because it makes you think about English a bit more and hopefully allows me to be a bit more articulate (which isn't difficult). I have found it really enjoyable actually. For those in the know, I start at Intermediate level next year (which is level A2 in EU classification). Thanks also must go to Ines, who has been good enough to give me additional tips and clarification on a weekly basis with the benefit of being a native speaker.

At about the same time I moved into new digs in a great location in Subiaco, with two old friends, Nick and Kate. They've both been really great housemates so far - certainly they've been tolerant of my temper tantrums when I can't connect to the bloody internet for some reason. The house is awesome, as those who attended the housewarming a few weeks ago could attest.

We also had guests for two weeks: Mark "Chop" Leslie and his lovely girlfriend Nao crashed in the room next to me. They were involved in two memorable meals while they were here: the Hungry Jacks Quad-Stacker demolition and also some incredible Japanese food cooked as a thankyou to us. It was our pleasure!

December 13 was a particularly important day - Kristy and Dave's wedding. Aside from a minor scare with the wedding venue on he day (predictable when Dave said earlier in the day that he wasn't nervous at all), it seemed to go off without a hitch. I was honoured to be the MC for the reception, even if it did mean I couldn't drink much until my speaking duties were done. It was a wonderful celebration and was a great way to kick off a long and successful marriage, no doubt.

A week later (last Saturday) we did it all again, with Sleepy and Vanya getting married. Another excellent wedding and seven and a half hours of reception we ended up at the casino again.

Which is great because it will be good practice for my next trip, which starts tonight! There are seven of us jetting off to Melbourne on the red-eye to watch the Boxing Day test, and (hopefully) three of us will then head to NZ for New Years and a few days after. It should be fantastic!

Before that I have the rest of today to get through (must... fight... sleep). It's been a very relaxed day with great company and fantastic food. The only problem is that I am cursing the laziness of my purchasing choices for presents: so many rectangular presents (books, DVDs, CDs etc) - I really dislike buying them as I feel I can do better, but each year I fall into that trap. I'll do better next year.

In fact I hope to do better on a number of fronts next year: 2009 already involves trips to Broome (April), UK and France (July) and Sydney (September), so plenty of opportunities to get into interesting situations and then bore you with the details. The first such email will probably arrive in a couple of weeks from my travels to NZ and Melbourne.

In the meantime, let me take this opportunity to say thank you for listening to my rants during the year. I hope Christmas has been wonderful for you and that 2009 is just as exciting! I wish I could email or call you all individually but for now you'll have to make do with this!

Anyways, enough about me. How about you? What did 2008 hold for you? And what about 2009?

Take care and enjoy yourself,

Rosco

PS. I am still to put up pics of some of my travels in Europe but will do so as soon as I can!

The Pits

I came back from lunch today to the familiar guffaws of my neighbouring cubicle farm occupants, making the usual jokes about when I'd sign up for Iraq etc.

They were making the jokes as I'd got a haircut, and the jokes were familiar because I always get this haircut nowadays: No 2 on top and No 1 on the sides. While the guffaws (there's something about the word guffaw that's appropriate here - maybe because it reminds me of the laughter of Cletus, the Yokel from the Simpsons) were many, I was happy to be self-effacing also, calling myself Jarhead etc.

While this was all good fun, the experience of the haircut itself was a touch more worrying. First of all the price of the haircut was pretty exorbitant at $18. While many people, women in particular, will scoff -or perhaps guffaw - at my complaint at this price, a few things need to be borne in mind. Specifically:

(i) With a haircut like mine, which a blind man could do while hungover, there isn't that much variation in quality

(ii) Bearing that in mind, my barber is one of the old school establishments. By "old school" I mean mediocre. And by "establishments" I mean unisex salon.

(iii) Last time I got my hair cut there (September) it was $15, and the time before that (February) it was $12

Accepting this - because I was too lazy to go around the corner and check out the other old school establishment in the area - I walked in sat down and the lady started with the clippers. I don't understand how, no matter where on your head they're cutting your hair, you only ever
seems to be looking in the armpit or at the jowls of your barber. I honestly wonder whether it's some sort of geisha-like secret art form taught at barber college, but it's remarkable.

Needless to say, on such a humid day, it wasn't pleasant. It's quite possible that the only things less attractive than dinner lady arms are dinner lady armpits.

No wonder I get my hair cut so short - it makes for a long time between visits.

So it's come to this: Brown Ponchos

APEC is an unusual institution: its members share the attribute that they border the most vast expanse of water in the world. Hardly a unifying factor. It's surely not surprising then that APEC is most known for its shocking fashion sense. All leaders dress in some vaguely national vestments from the host country and force smiles - even more so than usual. It's right up there with spirited economic negotiations, posturing on the environment and the Alexander Downer Perpetual Trophy for Karaoke.

We've sat through these images year after year - usually it's the only vision of a tedious conference that makes it to the TV. And they've mostly been the same: loud, silk numbers from Korea, Thailand or Vietnam showing how poor the world's leaders manage to look in loud, formless attire. That was the case in during boom times anyway.

Last year, however, the cracks started to appear: in Australia the world leaders wore dodgy knock-offs of Driza-bone coats, the always cringe-worthy and staple Olympic Opening Ceremony clothing of Australia that seems to please pensioners and those with a romantic ideal of The Man from Snowy River, but make the rest of us cringe. Unlike the previous attire, these were only made in Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

Signs were there that things were going downhill. The sheen and lustre normally associated with gatherings of world leaders had been replaced by a dash for the bargain bin at Big W. And everyone came out with the same clothes. It's almost like the pending economic doom demanded some cutback in discretionary spending.

It shouldn't surprise us, then, that this year in Peru they all donned brown ponchos. If, as Samuel Johnson said, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, then surely ponchos are the last refuge of the under-dressed.

It is not just this blogger that thinks they look like potato sacks - the conservative media agrees with me. It might be a nod to the tough economic times we are in at the moment, or it might be a case of diplomatic tit-for-tat, where, after a sleight early in the history of APEC which saw leaders wearing alfoil or curtains or whatever, each host country now tries to make other leaders look like complete tits by wearing tat.

I wonder how much further it can go, but I guess we will find out next year, when Singapore hosts the conference. If they're wearing barrels, the jig will be up.

The perils of a small tea-spoon

Two things I find about caffeine:

(i) You easily build up a resistance to its effects

(ii) It's quite easy to become dependent on its effects

For me, as a creature of habit I can regulate this. I only have two cups of coffee per day, one in the morning (about 8am) and one in the afternoon, about 2:30 or so. It's therefore difficult for me to up the dosage and increase my caffeine dependence.

Or so I thought.

As befits the pubic sector, we only have instant coffee, and perhaps more amusingly we only have one teaspoon in our kitchen. I don't know if this is some malicious attempt by Mabel, the tea lady, to limit the rate at which cuppas can be produced, or if it's simply that everyone else has nicked our spoons, but it's what we're stuck with.

Worse still, it's a small spoon, much smaller than your stock-standard 5ml teaspoon (check it out in the photo, with my snazzy St Kilda Hall Of Fame mug). Therefore it represents something of a watershed for caffeine addicts: do I accept the restriction of less coffee in one teaspoon (and perhaps tacitly concede that I have an addiction to caffeine and need the intervention of a smaller spoon), or do I "stick it to the man" (or Mabel) and have an extra half tea-spoon anyway, maintaining my caffeine intake (or possibly increasing it through semi-accidentally scooping too much)?

For me it's a no-brainer. I come to the kitchen when most in need of caffeine, and I'll be damned if some quanta-nazi is going to deny me a single milligram of stimulant. To be honest I'd be surprised if work expected anything different from me: they know I need all the stimulus I can get, and there's no money in the budget for me to head to a strip club.