It's Fun To Stay At The YWCA!

The calendar on my phone was showing the 16^th of September and chirping at me, reminding me of the date. That date has always been in my mind as my big brothers birthday. But this year it would be different. No family meal at home, no dreary weather out of the window and no phone calls to relatives around the country. For this year, and this year only, it would be celebrated in another country on the other side of the world.

As James got out of bed and went to have a shower I crept out of bed and laid his birthday present on his pillow for him to discover on his return. We had said that we wouldn’t get each other presents as we need the money for food and shelter, but I couldn’t resist buying it when I saw it in the Coles supermarket the night before. It was only something small – a Birthday Boy badge and ribbon. It was only as a joke and I didn’t expect him to wear it out of the hotel room but he donned it and wore it with pride. We had given ourselves a good lie-in as we hadn’t got to bed til gone 1am and the complimentary breakfast had gone down very well. We needed to arrange a few travel and accommodation bookings so we spent the morning on the netbooks trying to find places to stay in Canberra and/or the surrounding area. There wasn’t much, and it seemed like the priest we had arranged to couchsurf with in Canberra had gone quiet on us.

The Birthday Boy

After lunch we took a stroll through Sydney town centre, with a vague heading towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge again as I wanted to get some picture in the sunshine – the ones from the day before had been quite overcast and dull. It felt good to be back in a big city again with all the hustle and bustle that came with it, and we firmly decided that we weren’t the beach bum type people that gravitated towards the small surfer towns. Nah, concrete jungles are more our thing. We made it across town and finally got to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and climbed the stairs to get on the street level so we could cross it. It had been chillier in Sydney than what we had experienced up in Queensland and with a powerful wind blasting across the bridge our zip-up/tracksuit tops were definitely needed. The views from the bridge were fantastic and so much better with a nice sunny day. It is clear why Sydney Opera House is one of the most iconic images in the world. We made it all the way across the bridge but turned round before we reached the land on the other side – there didn’t seem much over there apart from housing. The return leg was much the same as the first so I won’t bore you with any more details of it.

Sydney Opera House...obviously 

Once we were back on terra firma we had a final stroll round the city in a vain attempt to find a trivia/quiz night, which had been James’s only real desire for his birthday. We had no luck as apparently Sydney does not seem to operate on a Sunday, but go out on a Tuesday and you can do whatever you like for next to nothing! So, with time against us, we headed back to the hotel to find somewhere nice (cheap) to eat and to have a few tasty (cheap) beers. We needed to get ready for before 6pm as we were scheduled in to Skype the parents. Once that had been achieved and James had thanked them for the birthday wishes, plus an addition to the Travelling Fund, we set out to celebrate like we had never done before.

The first stop was the Star Bar which had a meal deal on if you purchased a beverage. We took advantage of the deal and ordered steak and chips (me) and steak and mash (James) and a schooner of Carlton Dry (both). It went down a treat, although not as good as the one in Southport of course, as did the second schooner. Once we had finished those we were abruptly ushered out of the area we were sitting for some unknown reason, so we left and had a look round for somewhere else to sup some ale. We had passed a place that seemed to be called simply “pub” and we thought we should take a closer look. It turned out to be the Three Wise Monkeys, a place that we had seen on one of the local maps that did $6 pints. It was a touch pricey for our liking but “when in Rome” so we walked to the front door to poke our heads inside. A burley doorman stood in front of us and pointed to us both and said those immortal words “you got ID?”. Now being of fairly youthful looks and having shaved off my 5-week beard I am used to being ID’d at 31, but for James to be ID’d on his 35^th birthday was just brilliant. We chuckled to ourselves as we both reached for our UK Drivers License and he looked at them and handed them back, without even saying a word. A “happy birthday mate” would have been nice!

Once inside we ordered two of the most “economical” pints we could (Tooheys) and grabbed a table near a rather large TV on the wall. The cliental seemed just what we were after – a slightly more mature set of people than the ones we had been getting used to in Cairns and Airlie Beach, etc. The big TV just so happened to be showing the highlights of the English Premiership football, and this was a fantastic bonus as we had been severely lacking some good football action. Sadly, the game that was just finishing was the Liverpool vs Sunderland game in which we (Liverpool) drew, which was a (nother) disappointing result. We had not seen the goals as it was only the last few minutes of the game, but we were happy to have at least seen some EPL again for the first time in a long while. We were even happier when they showed another game straight after – QPR vs Chelsea. Sadly, this finished 0 – 0 so we had still not seen any goals. We were onto our next pint of Tooheys by now and were desperate just to see the ball hit the onion bag so we held on for the next game, Aston Villa vs Swansea. It took about 15 minutes but finally we saw a goal. I always liked that Lowton fella.

A proper pint in a pub with the football......bliss!

It was getting late so we split from the Three Wise Monkeys and made our way back to the hotel room for a night cap. We both needed to be up early (ish) in the morning so we knew a proper full night out would hit us hard the next day (and in our wallets). Once back in the hotel we settled down for a drop of chilled white wine that had been safely tucked away in the communal fridge. James went out to get it and came back empty-handed. It was not a good sign. Nobody had pinched it, which was good news, but we had forgotten that the kitchen area was locked at 21:00. Rooky mistake. Our wine was so near but so far, inaccessible due to a locked kitchen door. So we had a glass each of my remaining red wine and enjoyed the last few hours of the day before retiring to bed and setting the alarm for 8:00 the next morning.