Guess Who's Back...
07.10.04 (8:19 am) [edit][b]Day 217[/b]
Me!
I know what you're thinking... where, why, what and when?
Well Ive been busy (read lazy), just living my life as a Sydneysider.. working 9-5 Mon to Fri, going out weekends just like at home really but with a wider variety of people to go out with and a lot more places to visit.
Having said that, there has been some notable moments since my last post. The biggest being England's Euro 2004 campaign.
I watched all the games in a pub called the Great southern in George Street which was a morning mass of either very tired, very drunk or a mixture of the two England fans. Kick off times over here where either 2am or 4.45am. The majority being the later. Now there are two schools of thought about how to approach these games given the very early starts. Which are
A) Go out late (about 10pm) and stay out drinking until after the match.
or
B) Go to sleep early (about 6pm) and get up in time for the match.
Choice A is at first glance the most appealing option to most but considering nearly all the England games were on "school nights" the chances of drinking till 6.30am and still managing to find my work nevermind doing any were remote.
It will come as no surprise that I favoured option A for the first 2 games. The France game was just unbelieveable! The place was a sea of Red and White and the chanting was loud and the beer was flowing! By the end, the place was in shock as daylight appeared and a bunch of Irish lads sung "Viva la France" down George Street. It was very strange to feel that drunk, shocked, upset, angry and tired all at the sametime! It was feeling that I'd meet again after the Portugal game.
For the Swiss and Croatia game I tried option B as not getting paid for days off and being poor really pisses the hostel manager off. ( if I "forget" to pay for the coming week she leaves love notes on my door saying "Matty please report to the manager") Going to bed at 6 or 7 thinking you may get some sleep is just plain wrong. If you are lucky you may get a few hours and thats usually between 12 and 4!! But at least you're sober.. well until you get to the pub because everyone else in there is drinking and me being very sensitive to peer group pressure I would join them, leading to the strange feeling of going to work with lack of sleep and having had 3 or 4 schnoors! But I managed it douse this feeling with a gallon of coffee and the occasional ciggeratte.
All in All in was good experience in a very middle class English backpacking way. ( I say middle class as nearly every fan was wearing the England Rugby shirt, and these people were not still here from summer finals, and also I heard the linesman being called the "Touch Judge" more than once....) And it always funny to see an Aussie lesbian from a womans "soccer" team in a Wolves shirt telling the ref to "rack off!"
Right I have to go now but I'll post again soon tell you about my adventures in speed dating!
Have fun
Matty x
