It's over

As the end of the holidays approach, I reflect with a distinct sense of nostalgia on what has occurred throughout. Here I am, listening to Oasis, packing my bags, reduced to reading Harry Potter the Third (yes, I am retro) typing this post, recalling the holidays.

My trips abroad were good and insightful. They ridded me of my 'frog at the bottom of the well' outlook. Not really. But it's a new phrase I got off my Dad. Which is another thing I learnt. Enquire within for more information.

Fishing at Metung was good as always. I learnt that maybe fish don't actually like being caught, so they avoid hooks.

I hope I have a better year this year. I hope you all do. Have a good one, friends.

I only like the Aus Open when the underdog wins

As stated in my post title, I only like the Aus Open when the underdog wins. Clearly Federer wins too much and someone needs to stop him. Only Ankit would go for Federer. That being said, it was a good final all in all.

I was in a fit of rage a minute before because I thought I had been played by the people who run the buses (someone) and Connex. But now I've just received news that the BelDale line has, in fact, been fixed. Not that it was broken before. The end result being that I don't have to catch the Glenny and a Happy Me.

Lakes Entrance

I've found that it's a good idea to keep your eyes open when you're playing music. It allows you to actually see your music, which is probably a good thing when you're playing.

I'm actually going away for a few days this week and won't be back until Thursday. So don't worry about asking me to go to the Aus Open. Though I doubt anyone would have anyway. Anyway, I'm going to Lakes Entrance. Fishing. It's a great place. A bit slow, but yeah, good place overall. I'll probably blog about that as well. So stay tuned.

NYE

New Years Eve, just got back from Sydney, what better time to reflect on the past year. Year 11 has been a tumultuous year, with huge highs and massive lows. Some of the highlights:

- World Cup and consequential moments: Australia qualifying for second round, Zidane's headbutt, etc.
- Holiday in Canberra and Sydney: had what could be classified as a good time.
- Clarinet exam: fluke or no fluke, I liked the result.
- Meeting new friends, hanging with old ones: you know who you are.
- Finding my groove: don't worry, I know what I mean.
- Finding out I actually passed Year 11. I actually didn't get expelled.

Some definite lowlights:

- Exams. Just school exams in general.
- Australia crashing out of the World Cup. Almost cried.
- Homework overload. I'm sure you've all experienced it.
- I'm sure there's some more, I had a lot a few moments ago.

Thanks to all my friends (haha, I hear you say) and family for a generally great 2006. Hope next year's a lot better than this one. Go enjoy the fireworks now and have yourselves a great new year.

Sydney, a day

Reporting live from Sydney:

First stop today: the Chinese Garden. A great place, full of lizards, plants, a lake, trees, ducks and lizards.

We then took a ferry to the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. I think it's a bit over-rated, but it's still worth going to.

I've noticed that people in Sydney think nothing of bowling you over. They just keep walking. They also seem to find it very hard to say 'excuse me' or 'sorry'. Maybe I'm just being to general and forming my opinions based on a few bad people, but I seem to keep meeting bad people.

So anyway, I'll be back in Melbourne tomorrow, probably in time to watch the fireworks. Wish I could have stayed in Sydney for that. Rooms are a bit expensive at this time though ($1300). Just a bit.

Anyway, I've enjoyed my journey to Canberra and Sydney. It has indeed been insightful. Quote and ad lib: "Journey to Sydney was a grrrreat success."

Sydney

Before our journey to Sydney this morning, we visited the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra. Wasn't much to do there, apart from "making your own coin" and looking at the history of the mint. At around 11 o'clock we said good-bye to Canberra and travelled to Sydney, arriving at about 2 o'clock.

Sydney is a great place...if you like crazy driving, insane road designs, angry people, crazy driving, hard to find hotels, random weather and crazy driving. Things started off great, with two hoons with apparently broken indicator lights cutting in front of us. The situation got even better when we couldn't find the actual CBD. When we finally found it, my dad nudged a Benz. Even though you couldn't see it, the guy just blew up. We offered him our apologies and insurance number, but he told us, in effect, to get lost. So we did.

We got lost. Then we found a funny little Chinese restaurant near our original accident site so we parked there. After lunch, we found out that the Mr. Benz decided to stick a note to our windscreen after driving away and he said he wanted us to contact him. How weird is that? That's Sydney people for you.

We started searching for our hotel. After an hour and a half of no left turns, no right turns, dead ends, roadworks and angry people to reach our destination. The place is alright, but the chairs are falling apart.

On first assessment, Sydney seems to be a bit crowded and fast-paced. I'll get back to you when I scout stuff out better tomorrow.

Journey to Canberra

The journey to Canberra. It began today with me waking up at 4:30, feeling all revved and ready to go. Then I remembered how long it would take to get there and calmed down significantly. Anyway, we left at about 5 o'clock in the morn. The journey was relatively uneventful, unless you count the excruciatingly bad pun about us being 'yesmads' instead of nomads (clearly I didn't come up with it) and the toilet that was, to put it mildly, dirty. We also got ripped off by this 24 hour convenience store thingo for breakfast.

We started entering Canberra, but believe it or not, we almost got lost. We began our search for the golden arch, the yellow M, McDonald's. Anyway, we found it eventually at about 1 o'clock, although it took a while. It seems that Canberrasiders/Canberralians/Canberrazoids like putting the M sign down at ground level, hidden by huge buildings. Then they left two burgers, a coffee and a Happy Meal toy out of our meal. What do you expect?

We decided to take up John Howard's invitation to coffee at Parliament House at 3 o'clock, but he never fronted. In other words, we were stood up by Johnny. It's an alright place I guess, not all that exciting, but that's pretty much what one visits Canberra for. It's good if you like history. There's lots of museums here, but I think we'll just be visiting the Royal Australian Mint and leaving after that tomorrow. Until my next post, au revoir.