Sydney Day 41

Wow I have done SO much since my last post so this may be a long one.
Last Wednesday I was invited by my british friends to go to their place and eat pizza. We were 6 of us and split in to buy 4 pizzas, costing me only 5$! it was great! First time I ate pizza since moving to Australia. Afterwards I went to that Toga party! It was a lot of fun. For 10$ I got a free toga (a.k.a. bed sheet) and all you can drink beer and 'special' punch. Afterwards we all headed to a bar called Scubar and were allowed to enter wearing our togas!

I worked the next night and then headed over to my new favorite hangout - Sidebar. I thought there was a party there with people from IEP, the resource center that I go to for help and free internet, etc. but I made a mistake and it's actually tomorrow (not last week). Anyways, I got to see that real cool manager again. he told me the "wall of fame" will be up soon and he introduced him to a real kool girl from Denmark who hangs out there every other day. I also got another free beer so I think I'm going to try and make Sidebar my australian version of Biftek although I never got free beer at Biftek but I always had a good time when I was (most of the time due to Sam's drunken antics, hehe).

From last friday until last sunday there was a backpacker exposition held at town hall. I went on friday and looked around. I got so much free brochures about all these great palces to visit. There are SO many things you can see and do in Australia! I doubt I'll be able to see a fraction of all the stuff in just 1 year but I'm going to try my best! I still have to sit down and go through everything but I have an idea of where I want to go and what I want to see. Basically I'm thinking of moving to Melbourne next and after a couple of months head up the east coast to Cairns stoping along the way at various places with a big stop in probably Brisbane where I'd like to live for a short time as well.

On Saturday I went back to Bondi Beach and I took a walk from Bondi all the way to Tanarama Beach. It's just beaches after beaches here in Australia! The walk was awesome and the views were incredible! Also along the way was a special sculpture exhibit of allkinds of wacky and kooky things. I went nuts and took as many pictures as I could before my camera died. I promise to post them up very soon.

Sunday I made my way back to the backpacker expo to get more information on Victoria and Melbourne. In the process I walked by a booth just as someone said "who wants free stuff??" to which I immediately raised my hand. Next thing I know it I was in an air guitar contest. I had to compete against 2 other guys and air guitar to Jet's Are You Gonna Be My Girl. I ended up wining the contest and got a few free t-shirts and a DVD of a famous soap opera called Neighbours. Turns out the show is almost 20 years old and it's where Kylie Minogue started her career. Too bad I don't have a DVD player to watch it on but I'll eventually mail it back home to Canada where hopefully it will be safe waiting for me when I return home next year (hopefully!hehe). Afterwards, I was still looking for a booth on Melbourne and Victoria when I walked by a booth that was collecting money for breast cancer. The catch was to also get your head shaved, so, needing a haricut, I gave 10$, and got my head shaved on size 3 razor which isn't that short. The people doing it were professional hairdressers so at least they made me look clean cut and not just chop off all my hair. She cleaned my neck and trimmed the sides a bit with scissors so it looked just a like a nice decent short haircut (Note: I'm writing these details for my mom to not freak out, hehe). I also took a few pictures. For shaving my head I got entered in a draw and since only 2 other people shaved there head, I had a 1 in 3 chance to win... and I did. I won 50$ so that was a really lucky day I had.

Monday I was supposed to have the day off but I was asked to come in special because they needed an extra person. During the day, though, I went and bought a new pair of headphones since my 5$ headphones I bought in Montreal broke after a month. I also bought 2 CDs - the new Green Day album American Idiot and the soundtrack to one of my favorite movies of all time, the Blues Brothers (GO SEE THAT MOVIE IF YOU HAVN"T YET! the Original 1981 verson not the 2000 remake!) They have a bunch of CD shops where everything is 10$ except brand new chart toppers which re 20$ but those were on sale for 15$ so itr was relativley cheap for the 2 CDs. The Green Day album is quite good and I agree with what some critics are saying that it is just as good as their smash hit Dookie.

Yesturday was a really long day. I just did a lot of errands. My bag broke, so I had to get that fixed and then I was looking around the whole city for a strap for my glasses. I am going on a surf trip this weekend and I needed something to helpo keep my glasses on my face while i"m surfing or else i"ll be a blind surfer. I had no luck but instead found a pair of goggles that had perscription lenses. They are stylish and now I ca surf AND see! After shopping, I headed home and had some friends over for a barbecue on the roof! The brits and Tim from IEP came over for some hamburgers and beer, it was a lot of fun. The brits and i then went to se a movie at the IMAX theatre. Im sure I was told by someone that it was the largest IMAX screen in the world but it didn't look any different than the one in Montreal. On top of that, the movie we saw sucked SO BADLY! It was this 3D movie called Haunted Castle. The poster just said "Haunted Castle, Enter if you DARE!" I was even scared to go see it when I saw in small print "Warning: Horror theme and mild violence". What it should have said was "Warning: do not see this if you are above the age of 10". It was just this completely computer graphic movie. It lasted about 45 minutes. The story was basically about this guy who inherits his mothers castle and when he gets there thigns start to come alive (not scary) and then Satan appears and offers the guy a deal to be a rock star but first tells hims to walk around. When he walks around we see what he sees. Not one thing in it was scary and it was basically like one of those rides you go on in Disney world where the camera follows a path and the seats jerk and move when something happens in the movie except the seats didn't move. The main character was a human superimosed on the computer graphics. the guy looked 25 but when the voice over of his character spoke, it sounded like a 15 year old kid with pimples and glasses. the corniest part was when the main character, Johnny, is told to go see a show by Satan in this special thatre and as he's about to go in, his mothers spirit shows up and says "Don't go in there! It's horrible!". Inside was a band of mechanical monkeys playing really awful music while a ball and chain moved and one by one broke them into scraps of metal. SO scray NOT.

So this weekend I'm going on a "Learn to Surf" trip with IEP. It's a sweet deal. For 200$ we go down south about an hour or two away from Sydney and get 8 2-hour lessons over 2 days. The transportation, food, accomidation and equipment is all included. Plus once we return to Sydney there is a party with free pizza and beer. James, one of the brits, is going as well. It should be a blast!

I proise to update when I return from my small trip and will have more pictures up soon!