Yet another cloudy overcast day. In the twelve days we've spent in Sydney so far this month, we've had a day and a half of sun. This is not my idea of summer.
Went to the Bear Essentials Evening Lapse. Strangely enough... I got bored, and told Chris--"this is a great setting; there's free drinks and finger foods... but... I'm bored. This is the third night with this same group of people."
Maybe I should've drunk more (I had a single beer when I arrived). Maybe I should've just made more effort. Blech. Whatever. I just haven't been able to find many people interesting here to talk to. There's been a few; last night's dinner with Russel and Seumas and Matt and David and Chris was wonderful; nice and relaxed... and with five geeks around the table, we oddly didn't veer off into talking about anything geek related!
Tonight... well, it was OK, but I just wondered what the point was? Same faces, different venue. I spent a good amount of my time talking with an American now living in Sydney about the amazing assortment of party drugs that people use here. They do it all, and do it all the time...
I'm also getting vaguely annoyed about discussing travel plans with Australians. When I mention that Chris and I are leaving next week for Tasmania, where we'll spend a month, almost every single one of them will say "oh, that's so great, you'll have a wonderful time!!!" I follow up by asking "Oh, really--what did you like about it???", hoping to glean some tips on interesting things to do.
Every one of them says "Oh, I haven't been there at all... haven't ever been further south than Melbourne or west of Adelaide." Then, they launch into a big recap of thier last visit to the States, and how they loooooooove San Francisco. Uh, that's nice--good on ya, Aussie blokes! This happened twice tonight. But hey, Americans also are starting to irritate me when they declare they loooooove Australia... though the furthest they've been from Sydney Harbour is the International Terminal at Sydney Airport... even though they've on their third visit to the country.
Plus Barry Taylor irritated me tonight; telling me I couldn't park my car up in the visitor's lot at the event (which was at Sydney Harbour National Park.) Fuck that--I paid for my annual NSW annual national parks pass. Grrrr. I just went ahead and parked the car, like everyone else who drove.
He also gave me a big no-no shake of the head when Chris and Neville and I headed down the trail to the overlook to the entrance of Sydney Harbor. OK, so we did have to move the temporary plywood across the trail entrance, but it wasn't like it was closed or anything. Whatever. It was nice to walk up there and watch the honeyeaters on the banksia bushes, and see where the ocean meets the harbour.
Mind you, it was a nice event; the band was fairly good, the nibbly bits were yummy, and the drinks were free. But after three days, hmmm... I'd think about having it as the kickoff event rather than the Day 3 event.
nods I've heard that the Sydney gay scene has quite a problem with drugs. Strangely though, I think it's Cocaine has never really made it in the scene. shrugs Hard drugs really aren't my scene.
This is the reason why I'm looking forward to getting out of Sydney as much as I want to stay, poke about and see what makes the city tick.
Bah hah hah. You can get cocaine here. I've asked. Heroin is up there too.
Is it used widely, i.e. the drug of choice? Hmmm.
Barry has one of those personalities that rubs people up the wrong way a lot - Barry, unfortunately, is just Barry - there's not a lot you can do about him. Just do what you do and ignore him.
Your point about same people different setting is valid - perhaps the pool party will be sufficiently different.