Foreign Chants and Summer Starts

Yep, it appears Summer is poking her shiny little face from behind the tail of Winter, at least she did on Sunday, but it wouldn’t be right to start a blog post without having a giggle at the French.

Saturday Matteo and I went to Darling Harbour to watch the Wales France game with a bunch of others from the hostel. There was quite a crowd there which was good, until some girls in bright yellow ‘DHL’ shirts started handing out those awful inflatable tubes that are supposed to replace the simple act of ‘clapping’. The plastic tubes made an awful racket at first, but the crowd soon grew tired of the barrage of what sounded like a cheap plastic drum kit and in the moments that passed soon after it became apparent that the crowd was mostly made up of French types!

Now, I don’t mind French people, in fact most of the French people I have met so far have been a good laugh, however I cannot help but feel like I’ve been cheated into believing French is somehow a romantic language. You haven’t heard French until you’ve heard a large gathering of French people watching an international match, if you are struggling to imagine what it must sound like I have made up a little pictorial example of the image that came to mind on Saturday...

So France won and seemed quite happy about it. After the match I was très fatigue but was convinced by Nils, Matteo and Pauline to go to a quite spot and drink beer. Needless to say I was easily convinced. So we went and had a few sneaky ones before walking all the way back to the hostel because we were all off to the beach on Sunday!

I can do art I can!

The view from the 'quiet spot'

And it’s here that I felt that summer was well and truly on the way as the 30oC sun beat down onto Manly without a single cloud materialising. I don’t need to tell you what it’s like to be on a beach in the blazing sunshine, as I’m sure many of you readers have fond memories of those few days of sun you had a couple of months ago, so here’s some photos, each worth 1000 words apparently.

Shelly Beach

'Matteo' is Italian for 'messiah'

After the beach a few of us went for something to eat and drink and we were massively entertained by the brutal onslaught laid on the Aussies by the Kiwis. Seriously, the whole bar was up for an even match up between the world’s top union teams and then... silence... New Zealand came on stronger than a girl suffering a ‘heavy flow’, but without the mood swings.

New Zealand had one mood : Kill! 

Back to the hostel via the ferry and work on Monday, oh joy of joys.

After a relatively easy day at work I was still very tired, but got convinced (peer pressure is a bitch) to go to a boat party! Oh yeah! I’m on a boat.... oh... nope, didn’t exist as it was the day before. Oh well, I still went out to Shady Pines (only a 45 minute walk from Circular Quay) for a few brews and peanuts.

I only had a few ales...

The cow was not impressed...

Then I went back to the hostel, as staying sensible was the only option when another day of work loomed, but I need to rack up those dollars if I want to get a car, which seems like an impossible dream.

An impossible dream can also be an awesome dream!

And now it’s Tuesday, tomorrow is Wednesday 19th October, which is significant in some way... I think it has something to do with a birthday...? Yep, it’s Heikki Kovalainen’s birthday tomorrow!

Happy Forehead to yooooooooou!