Sydney

	We settled into the Pine Inn on the busy Parramatta Road in Burwood after our long journey. This bar offered cheap rooms upstairs for $55 per week. This is a steal when you consider that most other hostels at the height of summer offer deals about three times that price. So what's the catch? Sydney is famous for being one of the most sophisticated cities in the world. Modern and cosmopolitan are not words to describe The Pine Inn. This shebeen was a parochial microcosm of the Irish in their worst incarnation. This was, as they call it, an Irish pub. Many of these people away in a foreign country for the first time, ghettoised, vulgar, drunk, loud and obese were a characiture of our worst foibles. These people are the Irish abroad.
Drawn like flies to shit this pub attracted losers from all corners of the globe. Contrasted against the backdrop of this beautiful city my heart broke as the two weeks we planned to stay turned into five months.There was Jeffrey the resident gardener from Sri Lanka who watered the trees with petrol befores setting them alight. Among many notable achievements during his 70 years - he aquired five pubs and three houses, he ran the 100 metres in under 10 seconds and depending on his mood he was a millionaire or a billionaire. Paul from New Zealand who was politically incorrect at the best of times. Graham from London who had to abscond because he was being hen pecked by the girls from Kilkenny. Many an afternoon was spent watching Beauty and the Beast, a debate type program where the presenter did nothing more than insult the women on the panel.

	Fergus, Mairead, Donny and Tom from Kerry.
Having said that though, I made some good friend here in the Pine. And we did have some good times. After a week or two I got a job in a warehouse. But due to cutbacks or my bad attitude.... I can't remember I was let go after four days. Right away though I got a job in the CBD which is part of a chain which owns the Establishment and the Slip Inn. Check out the website and see what a swanky place it is. However don't be fooled by the lack of punters in the photos. It was usually busier than this. Shifts were scarce and I never got more than three in a week if I was lucky. Other work for a while was scarce.

So I made the best I could of the situation and went to the beach quite a lot with my
	new friends. I will be killed if I don't mention Mairead who I became friends with during my time in the Pine. In her quest to get a tan she dragged me to the beach for every day of her holiday, while she was in Sydney. She was with me for the unluckiest day of my time in Australia when I had to be rescued by a life guard when I went
boogy boarding at Palm Beach. The sea was very stormy and seeing as there was many surfers out there I couldn't resist the waves which were colossal. But the life guard sensed that I was a bit of a novice and decided to rescue me whether I liked it or not. Looking back though it probably wasn't a good idea. Anyway before I got onto his rescue board he told me to abandon my own board. Of course this washed up on the beach long before we arrived back leaving my friends wondering for a couple of minutes. Here I am before and after. That's Mairead with me.

	So when we went for a walk along the beach afterwards I got stung by a jellyfish. We decided that the beach was unlucky and settled for a game of football which tore my big toenail off. Incidentally you may recognise the beach as the place where they film
the outdoor shots in Home and Away. So we decided to scarper before Tug or Morag arrived to hassle us.

	Mark and I.
So off we went to Manly Beach to concentrate on Mairead's tan for a few hours. Getting to a new beach seemed like a great idea and we had a lovely time but when I got back to the car I noticed that there was a few people surrounding it trying to get in. They were trying to get in so they could get at the hand brake which had failed. My car had rolled down the hill into the one in front and damaged it. It was a policeman's car. The repairs cost me $1,200. So unhappy was I that I went out to dinner with my brother's friend Thomas, got drunk and violently ill.

	Saint Patrick's Day came around and living in the Pine we were in the centre of all the activity in Burwood's Irish Community. After a couple of schooner's of Toohey's New we went to the Rocks where we intended getting into the Mercantile. But the queue was much too long. Donal went his own way and Fergus, Mark
and I settled for a box of piss under the Harbour Bridge. You can barely make out the the Opera House behind Fergus' head. Believe me its there. I managed somehow to get out of working that night in the Tank. It was the only bar that I hated working in. After having a nice afternoon drinking we went to some other bar in the city, had a few more before going to another bar. Unfortunately on our way home we got into a fight. Mark suffered concussion, Fergus got sore knuckles and I got a black eye. When the swelling went down a couple of days later it turned out that my eye was badly bloodshot. I spent the next month listening to people passing remarks about me and asking me was I ok? But it led to my getting a job as a door to door sales man. One of the punters in the CBD decided I would be a good sales man when he heard how I got a red eye. He thought the eye would get a sympathy vote from customers.
So began my new enterprise. Despite several warnings from concerned friends I went into training with the gang who was selling Optus products like tv channels and the internet etc. What could I lose? I wasn't working during the day at the time and I was guaranteed $100 if I completed the training. It can be a great earner if you believe in what you are selling. But most of the time I felt like agreeing with the customers when they said they didn't need fifty extra channels. It provided some funny moments. The pep talks before going out selling were usually entertaining. After reading out some statistics about how we kicked the Melbourne team's arses a plant in the audience would erupt into ecstatic applause. This infectious euphoria would consume us all and before I knew it I would be roaring as loud as I did when David O'Leary scored his penalty against the Romanians in 1990. The Ozzies would be remembering some similar glory - like when Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup or the time Harold Bishop made his comeback in Neighbours - while they cheered this news. These carefully orchestrated events weren't dissimilar to Hitler's torch lit parades with everyone cheering only because everyone else was.

Some of the top sales men were really impressive when I saw them in action. To see them persuading someone who had no interest to sign up for the full package was a sight to behold. Eventually though I decided to give it up. I was able to get scraps of work from different agencies to make up a fairly decent working week. If it wasn't for the support I got from my girlfriend at the time - Caitriona - I would have found constantly searching for work much harder to swallow.
	I met Caitriona one famous night in the Pine and we went out for a few months. She was a ton of fun. But it was never meant to be and we fizzled out. Unfortunately I have no photographs of her to show you.
These are pictures of Fergus and I on board the Kitty Hawk. This is the oldest aircraft carrier in use in the world.

In June Fergus left to go to Thailand for a while before returning home to Ireland. But before leaving we went to a bush party on some mountain on off the road to Newcastle (north of Sydney). These were some of the instructions which we received for this secret party. It was held ot a location which was only revealed to the "public" upon calling a phone number which accessed a recorded message. We were delighted after a couple of hours on the road when we reached the end of the
	road without getting lost. But there was no party to be heard. So we drove around until eventually we met a group of travellers who were looking for the same party. Then we met another gang... another. After another couple of hours there was a twenty stong convoy of cars and combis searching for this elusive party. Imagine our surprise when after driving for six hours we found it. In a secluded forest beats were pumping through the trees amid mesmerising lights shining on a multi coloured spider's web which gave me the impression that there was a roof above the dancing crowd. Here I was in the bush listening to deafening music knowing that nobody except us could hear it. However the party didn't live up to the excitement we experienced on the journey. But we had fun.
In July after my income began to increase enough for comfort I decided to move out to Bondi. This was a breath of fresh air. The Biltmore backpackers facing the sea provided me with a room with a top class view of Bondi beach. Despite the cold it was lovely to be able to get away from it all strolling up to Bronte Beach or jogging along the sand of Bondi. Some of my workmates from the CBD lived out this way and I met up with Daniel, Christian and Steve one night in the Beach Road Hotel, which has great jazz-funk sunday sessions.