Here's the links to the galleries we're too wrecked to write up much tonight:
25th Birthday Celebrations
Monday, 30 July 2007
Dave's birthday and Neighbours Night
We've added two galleries of what we got up to over Dave's birthday weekend. Lovely meal Saturday, class night out with a few of the cast of Neighbours Sunday. There was also a special guest: Paul Anand back from exile in the Outback! Got all the cards that were sent over. Thanks a million everybody. Those and everything Chris did (which was stacks, see photos) made it a class day even though we were away from family and friends.
Here's the links to the galleries we're too wrecked to write up much tonight:
25th Birthday Celebrations
Neighbours Night
Here's the links to the galleries we're too wrecked to write up much tonight:
25th Birthday Celebrations
Saturday, 21 July 2007
A Manly Saturday
Hi. It's been a while but we're back with two new posts and plenty of news.
These photos are a little late going up, we were actually went to Manly 2 weeks ago now. The pictures have been on Picasa for a while but we haven't updated this thing with the links and our musings.
Gonna try out something new now (a lot of new things on here) We're adding Google Earth placemarks to mark the places we visit. Try it here with Manly. If you notice a place name we're talking about is a hyper-link just click it and open the file with Google Earth. It should fly you to the location!
Manly (so called because some old boy thought that the natives were very manly) was lovely. Hope that has come across in the photos. The weather was unseasonably nice, sunny and about 23 degrees. The ferry trip across was a bit of craic too, there was an American aircraft carrier in town so we got a good gander at that. Didn't see much of the sailors though. Chris caught a sight of three. We expected the bars to be flooded with them, there's something like 7000 packed into the floating steel thing, but they just didn't materialise. Apparently they spent $32 million dollars that weekend and they did charity work. Pretty boring if you ask us. You can have a look at the Manly galleries via the link below, you can makes your own minds up but we thought it was just perfect. Can't wait for the summer!
Moving on....some of you will not be surprised to learn that we have been watching quite a few films in our time here. We've gone legit, got ourselves a membership at the local video shop and most weeks we take advantage of their 5 DVDs for a week for 7 days. The other week we got the 4 Harry Potter films out to prepare us for the new one being released. We went and saw the new movie at the IMAX cinema in Darling Harbour, throughly enjoyed it. The IMAX screen is huge, the picture is really sharp and the last 15 minutes were in 3D! Class. Not content with watching 5 movies a week from the comfort of our bed we also meet after work on Tuesdays to go to the cinema. Tight arsed Tuesdays mean the cinemas are half price. They're always packed with Asian people too mostly. Someone in work told Dave that something like 40% of Australia, or maybe it was Sydney, is Asian, staggering. Anyways we've seen Transformers (very enjoyable, good sense of humour a great action) and Knocked Up which was an absolute gem. Hilarious and had good heart.
We were out last night on the lash. Met up with a few people through Christines work-partner on the drought desk at CWA also confusingly called Chris. Went to the Abercrombie Hotel, good spot, like most quality bars it looked like a complete crap-hole but the music was good and the beers were cheapish (the white Russians weren't though, $27 for 2!) While the beers were cheap it was actually hard to get a nice one. All the domestic stuff was either ale or blond beers which are usually rotten. Later that night the place got too packed up and we couldn't get easy access to the bar so we headed on to the bar at the Wake Up hostel where we stayed in our first week. By strange coincidence Dave ran into a boy he used to go to uni with who he only knew by the apt nickname big Dave. A Derry lad in fact. Small world. It was weird cause we were both talking earlier in the night about how there was a few uncanny lookalikes for people back home in the pub and we felt as though someone we knew was about to walk in.
We're heading out with english Chris and his mates again next weekend to the Sydney Neighbours night! Can't wait. A load of the cast come up from Melbourne and there's drinks quizzes and music and chances to get photos. Should be some good snaps on next week. As an extra wee bonus Paul Anand is coming down from Bundaberg for his last week in Oz and to help celebrate Dave's birthday.
Paul was supposed to be staying with us for the week but we have just learned that he'll be shacking up with some Swedish bird in a hostel. We'd been down to K-mart this morning to get a blow up matress as well. Gonna have to leave that back which isn't so bad because we'll get a chance to have another look at the puppies at the pet store. Took a photo on Dave's phone which we're gonna put straight below here to brighten up the blog a little.
We were out and about in Balmain last week for a bite to eat when we came across an amusingly titled shop selling bedding and that. Think Ratz'll enjoy it if he ever looks at this thing. Have a look below:
Oh yeah forgot to mention we've gone and got the internet in. The cafe nearby us is a bit shit, the keyboards have all funny squiggles on them, we think it's called Chinese and we couldn't be arsed to head into town everytime we want to email. So anyways we should be easier to keep in touch with now. We even have landline number too so let us know if you'd like that so you can give us a buzz. We're much too tight to be phoning you. Here's some more photos below. Enjoy! Hope you're all having a fun summer!
Love,
Dave and Chris
As some keen eyed observers may have noticed the fonts on this post are a little screwed up. No explanation can be found for this at time of press but no doubt Dave'll come back to it cause it's the type of thing that'll nag him.
These photos are a little late going up, we were actually went to Manly 2 weeks ago now. The pictures have been on Picasa for a while but we haven't updated this thing with the links and our musings.
Gonna try out something new now (a lot of new things on here) We're adding Google Earth placemarks to mark the places we visit. Try it here with Manly. If you notice a place name we're talking about is a hyper-link just click it and open the file with Google Earth. It should fly you to the location!
Manly (so called because some old boy thought that the natives were very manly) was lovely. Hope that has come across in the photos. The weather was unseasonably nice, sunny and about 23 degrees. The ferry trip across was a bit of craic too, there was an American aircraft carrier in town so we got a good gander at that. Didn't see much of the sailors though. Chris caught a sight of three. We expected the bars to be flooded with them, there's something like 7000 packed into the floating steel thing, but they just didn't materialise. Apparently they spent $32 million dollars that weekend and they did charity work. Pretty boring if you ask us. You can have a look at the Manly galleries via the link below, you can makes your own minds up but we thought it was just perfect. Can't wait for the summer!
Moving on....some of you will not be surprised to learn that we have been watching quite a few films in our time here. We've gone legit, got ourselves a membership at the local video shop and most weeks we take advantage of their 5 DVDs for a week for 7 days. The other week we got the 4 Harry Potter films out to prepare us for the new one being released. We went and saw the new movie at the IMAX cinema in Darling Harbour, throughly enjoyed it. The IMAX screen is huge, the picture is really sharp and the last 15 minutes were in 3D! Class. Not content with watching 5 movies a week from the comfort of our bed we also meet after work on Tuesdays to go to the cinema. Tight arsed Tuesdays mean the cinemas are half price. They're always packed with Asian people too mostly. Someone in work told Dave that something like 40% of Australia, or maybe it was Sydney, is Asian, staggering. Anyways we've seen Transformers (very enjoyable, good sense of humour a great action) and Knocked Up which was an absolute gem. Hilarious and had good heart.
We were out last night on the lash. Met up with a few people through Christines work-partner on the drought desk at CWA also confusingly called Chris. Went to the Abercrombie Hotel, good spot, like most quality bars it looked like a complete crap-hole but the music was good and the beers were cheapish (the white Russians weren't though, $27 for 2!) While the beers were cheap it was actually hard to get a nice one. All the domestic stuff was either ale or blond beers which are usually rotten. Later that night the place got too packed up and we couldn't get easy access to the bar so we headed on to the bar at the Wake Up hostel where we stayed in our first week. By strange coincidence Dave ran into a boy he used to go to uni with who he only knew by the apt nickname big Dave. A Derry lad in fact. Small world. It was weird cause we were both talking earlier in the night about how there was a few uncanny lookalikes for people back home in the pub and we felt as though someone we knew was about to walk in.
We're heading out with english Chris and his mates again next weekend to the Sydney Neighbours night! Can't wait. A load of the cast come up from Melbourne and there's drinks quizzes and music and chances to get photos. Should be some good snaps on next week. As an extra wee bonus Paul Anand is coming down from Bundaberg for his last week in Oz and to help celebrate Dave's birthday.
Paul was supposed to be staying with us for the week but we have just learned that he'll be shacking up with some Swedish bird in a hostel. We'd been down to K-mart this morning to get a blow up matress as well. Gonna have to leave that back which isn't so bad because we'll get a chance to have another look at the puppies at the pet store. Took a photo on Dave's phone which we're gonna put straight below here to brighten up the blog a little.
We were out and about in Balmain last week for a bite to eat when we came across an amusingly titled shop selling bedding and that. Think Ratz'll enjoy it if he ever looks at this thing. Have a look below:
Oh yeah forgot to mention we've gone and got the internet in. The cafe nearby us is a bit shit, the keyboards have all funny squiggles on them, we think it's called Chinese and we couldn't be arsed to head into town everytime we want to email. So anyways we should be easier to keep in touch with now. We even have landline number too so let us know if you'd like that so you can give us a buzz. We're much too tight to be phoning you. Here's some more photos below. Enjoy! Hope you're all having a fun summer!
Love,
Dave and Chris
As some keen eyed observers may have noticed the fonts on this post are a little screwed up. No explanation can be found for this at time of press but no doubt Dave'll come back to it cause it's the type of thing that'll nag him.
Google Maps and Picasa join forces
Some of you sharp people may have already noticed this but for those that haven't...recently Google added maps features to picasa web albums. Dave was almost literally blown away (luckily he was attached to the ground by a safety harness) and Chris was pretty impressed too. So now it's possible to record where our photos were taken and display them on maps with satellite imagery and all that fancy stuff too! We've updated many galleries with locations and added almost precisely where some were taken. As a bonus you can even view the photos on Google Earth. We've added placemarks for where we are working and living too which you can download below. These will allow you to see where we spend a third of our time Monday to Friday and most of the rest of it. If anyone wants to stalk either of us this should make it relatively straightforward.
Have a look at the little guide we've put together which may explian these new fancy features better. Click the following link: Google Maps / Picasa Guide
Click on the following links to download the Google Earth placemarks of our lives. Choose to open them in Google Earth if prompted. Obviously you'll need to have Google Earth downloaded to take advantage of this.
Have a look at the little guide we've put together which may explian these new fancy features better. Click the following link: Google Maps / Picasa Guide
Click on the following links to download the Google Earth placemarks of our lives. Choose to open them in Google Earth if prompted. Obviously you'll need to have Google Earth downloaded to take advantage of this.
Chris' Work - Country Womens Association
Dave's Work - Ambulance Service of NSW
Our house
The Abercrombie Pub - Good on Friday nights
Dave's Work - Ambulance Service of NSW
Our house
The Abercrombie Pub - Good on Friday nights
If you couldn't be arsed with all that mucking around with Google Earth here's a screenshot showing where our lives happen.
Monday, 2 July 2007
Loadsa new pictures and stuff
We've been off this internet thing recently but rest assured we're thinking about all you people way over the other side of the planet. We've been taking plenty of photos of our excursions into the city and that and we'd like to share them with you's now.
Before the links to the gallery we'll start with a general update on our lives:
Chris is now on her third job here, she hasn't been sacked for stealing office supplies or anything (although it'll be a shock if she isn't due to the amount of pens she's already brought home) she's just been promoted up the pay scale. Currently she is working at Country Womens Association which can be found on the internet here. She earns mega-bucks to 'assess and process' applications for drought relief funds and all the checking that this involves. Faxes are an important tool of the trade as the farmers don't seem to have internet and the post is shit. The farmers have definitely had it hard here cause the weathers gone mental in recent years. She has a friend spookily also called Chris who is from England and has travelled all around Australia with his redundancy money. The old people who make up the rest of the staff make tea, chuckle a lot and love the Queen (Elizabeth that is.)
Dave is working with the Ambulance Service of New South Wales grilling applicants whose dream is to become Ambulance drivers or Ambos as they call them here. (more to follow on Aussie Abbreviationed words) He likes being on the other side of the interviewing table especially when the candidates really push it with the whole honesty thing. He can't say too much here as it wouldn't be prudent given all the confidentiality and that but barely a day goes by without an funny anicdote emerging. There is sometimes cake and free sandwiches left over from functions elsewhere in the building. His coworkers are all nice, a few of them are really into rugby so Dave is looking forward to the world cup even more now.
The photos are an assorted bunch of our days out to the beautiful Darling Harbour area as well as some of the harbour (from none-other-than the Harbour Bridge.) We spent a class Saturday afternoon at the acquarium and the neighbouring wildlife park. We got a photo taken with a koala but disappointingly couldn't hold it. We got a little pet of its ass though. Unfortunately the photo of this incident isn't digital and has a copyright notice printed on it. We expect to be able to hold the koalas at Taronga Zoo so don't be too disappointed!
Oh yeah, almost forgot...as we mentioned earlier the Aussies are quite fond of shortening words and know almost no bounds as to which words they'll abridge. For example:
Before the links to the gallery we'll start with a general update on our lives:
Chris is now on her third job here, she hasn't been sacked for stealing office supplies or anything (although it'll be a shock if she isn't due to the amount of pens she's already brought home) she's just been promoted up the pay scale. Currently she is working at Country Womens Association which can be found on the internet here. She earns mega-bucks to 'assess and process' applications for drought relief funds and all the checking that this involves. Faxes are an important tool of the trade as the farmers don't seem to have internet and the post is shit. The farmers have definitely had it hard here cause the weathers gone mental in recent years. She has a friend spookily also called Chris who is from England and has travelled all around Australia with his redundancy money. The old people who make up the rest of the staff make tea, chuckle a lot and love the Queen (Elizabeth that is.)
Dave is working with the Ambulance Service of New South Wales grilling applicants whose dream is to become Ambulance drivers or Ambos as they call them here. (more to follow on Aussie Abbreviationed words) He likes being on the other side of the interviewing table especially when the candidates really push it with the whole honesty thing. He can't say too much here as it wouldn't be prudent given all the confidentiality and that but barely a day goes by without an funny anicdote emerging. There is sometimes cake and free sandwiches left over from functions elsewhere in the building. His coworkers are all nice, a few of them are really into rugby so Dave is looking forward to the world cup even more now.
The photos are an assorted bunch of our days out to the beautiful Darling Harbour area as well as some of the harbour (from none-other-than the Harbour Bridge.) We spent a class Saturday afternoon at the acquarium and the neighbouring wildlife park. We got a photo taken with a koala but disappointingly couldn't hold it. We got a little pet of its ass though. Unfortunately the photo of this incident isn't digital and has a copyright notice printed on it. We expect to be able to hold the koalas at Taronga Zoo so don't be too disappointed!
Oh yeah, almost forgot...as we mentioned earlier the Aussies are quite fond of shortening words and know almost no bounds as to which words they'll abridge. For example:
Renos - Renovations
Firies - Firemen
Probie - A person on probation
Ambos - Ambulance driver
Bikies - Cyclists
Vinnies - St Vincent de Paul
Salvos - Salvation Army
Kero - Kerosene
Firies - Firemen
Probie - A person on probation
Ambos - Ambulance driver
Bikies - Cyclists
Vinnies - St Vincent de Paul
Salvos - Salvation Army
Kero - Kerosene
That's all we can come up with off hand but we may add more as we learn them. We think you'll be astounded by what we have already.
Another strange cultural difference from home is that Aussies all call their girlfriend/boyfriend their partner. It's dead funny, well we thought so anyway.
One of Australias greatest achievements has to be the ANZAC cookies. They are delicious:
Another strange cultural difference from home is that Aussies all call their girlfriend/boyfriend their partner. It's dead funny, well we thought so anyway.
One of Australias greatest achievements has to be the ANZAC cookies. They are delicious:
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