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So. Sydney.
I flew up on Friday, after having a couple of beers at work. It was, apparently, the night to have beers after work, because everyone was doing it. Interesting omen for my weekend.
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] met me at the airport, and we proceeded to rescue Leonard (The Backpack of Doom (TM)) from the carosel, where [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] found us. There was hugging and talking a million miles an hour in the fashion of Aussie ficcer mates who haven't seen each other for some time, and then we got into Amanda's nifty new blue car and made the trek out to her place, which is over the Hawkesbury River and a scenic vista away from the Blue Mountains. There was drinking, and talking, and scary Eighties music clips (including the Duran Duran tribute), and drooling over John and Simon and christening Amanda's virginal pack of Chez Geek cards. And I have to purchase a set of my own cards I've decided, because it is so much fun and I need to teach it to more people and possibly make the world a better place because people would relieve their frustrations by inflicting Burgulars and The Old Man Upstairs on their virtual room-mates instead of hurling insults and tossing snails over the back fence.
Saturday morning we awoke late (having gotten to bed at four AM - the birds were starting the dawn chorus as I hit the pillow, which is kind of depressing) and Amanda went off to her animal rescue training session (a program called WIRES, which is an acronym for something, but I'm not sure what, that saves native animals who are hurt), and Seraph and I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because Seraph was unwise and let me choose the movie. Still, I think she enjoyed it, seeing how she managed to stay awake during the Meaningless Romance In The Mongolian Desert With The Chinese Gambit Character and enjoy the rest of the Extremely Nifty fight scenes and the lovely relationship between Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat's characters. And afterwards we indulged in Red Dwarf goodness.
Once Amanda got back we took ourselves to the shopping centre to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The next showing wasn't for a couple of hours, so we went shopping (and I have the perfect formal dress now) to a wonderful Thai restaurant (the same one the survivors of Auscon went to year before last) for linner (combination of lunch and dinner) and had orgasmically good food. You know it's orgasmically good because of the noises you make whilst eating it. Then it was time to go back to the cinema and watch our movie.
LXG (which is much easier to type, BTW) is a lot of fun. The fact Alan Quatermaine's character no longer has his opium addiction makes for an annoyingly "pure" heroic character (unlike the rest of them, who are deeply flawed and yet perform heroic deeds regardless), but otherwise it was very shiny and had satisfyingly large numbers of explosions and fisticuffs. Although it's very frustrating for a Hong Kong action film junkie like myself that the directors insisted on making a lot of those scenes extremely fast and with lots of cutaways so I can't see what's going on. Although it probably saves on having to hire too many martial artists... But yeah, the movie is fun, and I agree with Amanda that Dorian Grey is just too delicious for words. :)
Upon our return there was more drinking and talking, although not as much because there was to be dragon boating early the next morning.
Sunday: as I said above, there was dragon boating, which has joined rock climbing and mountain biking as the Extreme Sports Of Choice For Rossi. I don't know if Melbourne has any clubs down here, but I'm going to look for one with fingers crossed. It was that much fun. :) I also have the most spectacular bruises on my elbows because kinetic memory is stronger than concentration and a few times I did the usual close-to-the-body retraction of the arm, which means I connected with the side of the boat when pulling the paddle back. But still, lots and lots of fun.
Afterwards we headed down to the shopping centre via the local bike shop. Amanda is planning to get a bike for cycling around university campus in Hobart and wanted my advice, so she indulged my obsession and we found her the perfect hybrid for under $500. Whilst we were there we got chatting to this guy who had the singularly most perfect mountain bike I have ever seen. And to top it off, he let me take it for a spin around the car park - I swear, I fell in total and immediate lust with that bike. Too bad I don't have a spare $8500 to get one myself. After they scooped my drooling self off the floor we went and had lunch and went shopping for dinner preparations (Rossi's special spinach and cheese pie) and returned back to Chez Amanda through the most determined rainstorm I've seen outside of Queensland - it was like someone was flinging rain down at us. We played a few round of Chez Geek and then I taught Seraph how to make pie whilst Amanda got the job of finding utensils - not always an easy task. *grins* Dinner came off perfectly, approved of by her dad, who made a few noises about making simple food himself, whilst polishing it off faster than any of us. ;) After cleaning up we experimented with Word Yatzhee (good for Scrabble players), played a bit more Chez Geek, and then gradually fell asleep and whilst watching more Red Dwarf episodes.
Monday was still rainy (on and off), which was fine since we'd planned to go indoor climbing. Talk about the perfect Rossi weekend - all my obsessions were being catered for. :) Before going to the gym, however, I had to pack 17 three video box sets into Leonard - Amanda's selling me her Buffy and Angel tapes as she's converting to DVD. Her Dad was most amused, watching me cram them in - all but two fitted, and those went in my other bag. There was also the trying on of my new dress with a pair of shoes Amanda had - I came out into the kitchen and Amanda's Dad nearly fell over. "Wackadoo", was his verdict, which was very good. :)
So, having packed and loaded everything into Amanda's little blue car (does it have a name btw?), we went down to the gym and climbed for about two hours - basically until our arms gave out. I conquered a real bastard of a climb - the first hold was about one and a half metres off the ground, with no footholds; I had to smear my shoes against the wall to get enough traction to lever myself up to the next handhold - sandpapered one elbow and one knuckle and got absolutely off my face on endorphins. Seraph and Amanda did really well, with all their dragonboating muscles - I'd better get some more training in, or I'll be left behind! Considering I haven't been properly climbing for about two years (the exhibition walls at the St Kilda Festival don't count, since they were practically ladders), I did pretty well myself, and the day served to remind me how much I miss climbing, now that The Mill has changed hands and doesn't have Ladies Night any more. :(
I seriously need to find myself a climbing buddy so I can get back into it.
We stopped off at Seraph's house to dump her stuff and to check the vegetarian yum cha place in the city we intended to go eat at was open. Just as well we did, since it wasn't (public holiday), so instead we headed for a pizza place called Woodies (I think, details are getting hazy after the day I had at work today), stuffed ourselves with the best pizza I've had outside of La Cucina in North Brunswick, and then we stopped and had a drink (beer for me, soft drink for the other two, since Amanda was driving and Seraph doesn't drink beer) at the Mean Fiddler pub to kill time before getting me to the airport. Eventually we got to said airport, and eventually it was time to get on the plane and eventually I got home. And eventually my weekend ended (as will this LJ post soon). ;)
So, that was my trip to Sydney. It was wonderful seeing Seraph and Amanda again (I haven't seen Cupcake since last Auscon in December), and I had a wonderful time. I'm a tad tired and stiff now, with all the physical activity, but it was worth it I tell you, worth it! And both of them are required to come to Auscon this year, no excuses unless they come with cast-iron promises to visit at another time instead. ;)
And speaking of Auscon, now I can actually think about orgainising it, considering all my personal travel is pretty much done with. Until New Years', at least. :)
I flew up on Friday, after having a couple of beers at work. It was, apparently, the night to have beers after work, because everyone was doing it. Interesting omen for my weekend.
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] met me at the airport, and we proceeded to rescue Leonard (The Backpack of Doom (TM)) from the carosel, where [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] found us. There was hugging and talking a million miles an hour in the fashion of Aussie ficcer mates who haven't seen each other for some time, and then we got into Amanda's nifty new blue car and made the trek out to her place, which is over the Hawkesbury River and a scenic vista away from the Blue Mountains. There was drinking, and talking, and scary Eighties music clips (including the Duran Duran tribute), and drooling over John and Simon and christening Amanda's virginal pack of Chez Geek cards. And I have to purchase a set of my own cards I've decided, because it is so much fun and I need to teach it to more people and possibly make the world a better place because people would relieve their frustrations by inflicting Burgulars and The Old Man Upstairs on their virtual room-mates instead of hurling insults and tossing snails over the back fence.
Saturday morning we awoke late (having gotten to bed at four AM - the birds were starting the dawn chorus as I hit the pillow, which is kind of depressing) and Amanda went off to her animal rescue training session (a program called WIRES, which is an acronym for something, but I'm not sure what, that saves native animals who are hurt), and Seraph and I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because Seraph was unwise and let me choose the movie. Still, I think she enjoyed it, seeing how she managed to stay awake during the Meaningless Romance In The Mongolian Desert With The Chinese Gambit Character and enjoy the rest of the Extremely Nifty fight scenes and the lovely relationship between Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat's characters. And afterwards we indulged in Red Dwarf goodness.
Once Amanda got back we took ourselves to the shopping centre to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The next showing wasn't for a couple of hours, so we went shopping (and I have the perfect formal dress now) to a wonderful Thai restaurant (the same one the survivors of Auscon went to year before last) for linner (combination of lunch and dinner) and had orgasmically good food. You know it's orgasmically good because of the noises you make whilst eating it. Then it was time to go back to the cinema and watch our movie.
LXG (which is much easier to type, BTW) is a lot of fun. The fact Alan Quatermaine's character no longer has his opium addiction makes for an annoyingly "pure" heroic character (unlike the rest of them, who are deeply flawed and yet perform heroic deeds regardless), but otherwise it was very shiny and had satisfyingly large numbers of explosions and fisticuffs. Although it's very frustrating for a Hong Kong action film junkie like myself that the directors insisted on making a lot of those scenes extremely fast and with lots of cutaways so I can't see what's going on. Although it probably saves on having to hire too many martial artists... But yeah, the movie is fun, and I agree with Amanda that Dorian Grey is just too delicious for words. :)
Upon our return there was more drinking and talking, although not as much because there was to be dragon boating early the next morning.
Sunday: as I said above, there was dragon boating, which has joined rock climbing and mountain biking as the Extreme Sports Of Choice For Rossi. I don't know if Melbourne has any clubs down here, but I'm going to look for one with fingers crossed. It was that much fun. :) I also have the most spectacular bruises on my elbows because kinetic memory is stronger than concentration and a few times I did the usual close-to-the-body retraction of the arm, which means I connected with the side of the boat when pulling the paddle back. But still, lots and lots of fun.
Afterwards we headed down to the shopping centre via the local bike shop. Amanda is planning to get a bike for cycling around university campus in Hobart and wanted my advice, so she indulged my obsession and we found her the perfect hybrid for under $500. Whilst we were there we got chatting to this guy who had the singularly most perfect mountain bike I have ever seen. And to top it off, he let me take it for a spin around the car park - I swear, I fell in total and immediate lust with that bike. Too bad I don't have a spare $8500 to get one myself. After they scooped my drooling self off the floor we went and had lunch and went shopping for dinner preparations (Rossi's special spinach and cheese pie) and returned back to Chez Amanda through the most determined rainstorm I've seen outside of Queensland - it was like someone was flinging rain down at us. We played a few round of Chez Geek and then I taught Seraph how to make pie whilst Amanda got the job of finding utensils - not always an easy task. *grins* Dinner came off perfectly, approved of by her dad, who made a few noises about making simple food himself, whilst polishing it off faster than any of us. ;) After cleaning up we experimented with Word Yatzhee (good for Scrabble players), played a bit more Chez Geek, and then gradually fell asleep and whilst watching more Red Dwarf episodes.
Monday was still rainy (on and off), which was fine since we'd planned to go indoor climbing. Talk about the perfect Rossi weekend - all my obsessions were being catered for. :) Before going to the gym, however, I had to pack 17 three video box sets into Leonard - Amanda's selling me her Buffy and Angel tapes as she's converting to DVD. Her Dad was most amused, watching me cram them in - all but two fitted, and those went in my other bag. There was also the trying on of my new dress with a pair of shoes Amanda had - I came out into the kitchen and Amanda's Dad nearly fell over. "Wackadoo", was his verdict, which was very good. :)
So, having packed and loaded everything into Amanda's little blue car (does it have a name btw?), we went down to the gym and climbed for about two hours - basically until our arms gave out. I conquered a real bastard of a climb - the first hold was about one and a half metres off the ground, with no footholds; I had to smear my shoes against the wall to get enough traction to lever myself up to the next handhold - sandpapered one elbow and one knuckle and got absolutely off my face on endorphins. Seraph and Amanda did really well, with all their dragonboating muscles - I'd better get some more training in, or I'll be left behind! Considering I haven't been properly climbing for about two years (the exhibition walls at the St Kilda Festival don't count, since they were practically ladders), I did pretty well myself, and the day served to remind me how much I miss climbing, now that The Mill has changed hands and doesn't have Ladies Night any more. :(
I seriously need to find myself a climbing buddy so I can get back into it.
We stopped off at Seraph's house to dump her stuff and to check the vegetarian yum cha place in the city we intended to go eat at was open. Just as well we did, since it wasn't (public holiday), so instead we headed for a pizza place called Woodies (I think, details are getting hazy after the day I had at work today), stuffed ourselves with the best pizza I've had outside of La Cucina in North Brunswick, and then we stopped and had a drink (beer for me, soft drink for the other two, since Amanda was driving and Seraph doesn't drink beer) at the Mean Fiddler pub to kill time before getting me to the airport. Eventually we got to said airport, and eventually it was time to get on the plane and eventually I got home. And eventually my weekend ended (as will this LJ post soon). ;)
So, that was my trip to Sydney. It was wonderful seeing Seraph and Amanda again (I haven't seen Cupcake since last Auscon in December), and I had a wonderful time. I'm a tad tired and stiff now, with all the physical activity, but it was worth it I tell you, worth it! And both of them are required to come to Auscon this year, no excuses unless they come with cast-iron promises to visit at another time instead. ;)
And speaking of Auscon, now I can actually think about orgainising it, considering all my personal travel is pretty much done with. Until New Years', at least. :)
