Snap Back to Reality

Well, here we are. The Real World. Life. Adult life.

We've had a lot of fun over the last 5 months and we all decided its about time we got down to some hard graft. Or, more to the point, we've run out of money and we have no choice. In my early efforts of employment I amused myself by attempting to secure a job advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald as: Waiter/Waitress needed. Lingerie cafe. I can only say I was greeted with indefensible sexism from the lady on the other end who, despite my protests, insisted I would not look good in lingerie. How could she tell?!

That is one thing I have noticed in Aus. Political correctness doesn't matter. No one cares. It's brilliant. The other day we watched as an afternoon soccer programme made very strong implictions that the Germany coach was a raving homosexual. Just today we sat around laughing at an advertisement where the punchline is a child being denied its favourite snack food to comedy effect. I cant do it justice. It's hilarious. I'm going to try and find the link...

We are currently watching the junk that is "20 to 1" a clip show archiving "great" TV moments. Either not much was going on before the world cup here, or this show has a very limiting budget. We did, however, just watch a man jump off a bungee only to continue straight into the water and not come back. I feel a little shaky.

On that note, I'm going to have to go and calm myself before bed. I hate real world bed times.

Steve x x

OOO!!! Look who has time on his hands!

hello, and welcome from Australia, Oz, Downunder, the outback, the other side of the world, that island which has our queen on their banks notes...

.....What ever you want to call it, we, for the next half a year will call it home!

Its been a great week, a rest week, exploring sydney (well exploring Sydney's shopping malls to find semi respectable attire) and surrounding suburbs. Mosman, the district of sydney we are very kindly being put up in by james' uncle and family, is great. We are a very modern family now indeed, 2 parents, 3 20 somethings ( thats us) 3 kinds- 6, 13 and 16- and a dog named riley.I have tried to adopt riley as the lady magnet, tho all i have got so far is..... well nothing.

We've watch the kids play football and basket ball, gone shopping for clothes and prepared meals. We really are all grown up.. and we have even started applying for jobs, some with more success than others!!

We've watched football at Darling harbour and been to the equivalent of soho, where nearly every bar was a (cover your ears mums) strip bar. We did NOT go in any, we found the most sophisticated bar on the strip sank a few beers and got a night bus outta there!

Our daily tasks include having breakfast, lazing around, looking for jobs, sending off cvs, checking emails again and again to see if we have had any replies. Then we eat, check the emails again, play computer games, then check again. And after all of that we are hungry again and worn out from checking our emails.. and facebook, and twitter and doing cool things to our blog (this thing). Our life, to be honest is tough.. really tough.. im not sure how we are gonna cope!

Talking of the blog, look at its new look.. very snazzy isnt it??... 'yes it is jonny' , 'why thank you, i did it all my self'

You can now easily add it to your feeds (RSS and atom and yahoo and google etc etc) so you never miss a thing. You can also search the site for anything easily too. Amazing isn't it? 'Yes it is....... ( blah, blah, blah...) and the back ground is now a bit globe. And no, i have not done what everyone is asking for.. i have not added any more photos, tho i will when i can (be bothered)

I really must go, i have to some work on my cv, or maybe just watch some world cup football.. sorry i mean soccer.

G'day mate, Throw another shrimp on the barbie and any more stereotypical things you want to think of

Good day to you.

jonny xx

Its nearly over...

After 6 weeks, New Zealand is coming to an end.

We have traveled around, north to south, east to west, totaling up over 7 thousand Kilometers. Its been an adventure, its been inspiring, and its been expensive. But worth every penny!!

We have picked up 4 hitch hikers on route, stopped at too many vineyards to remember - tasting wines varying from petrol to passion fruit. We've camped at 3 petrol stations, been to 3 spas, eaten lamb only once but eaten chili con carne aver 20 times (never eating it again), become aces at making Tuna pasta (another, ' not eating that again' food stuff) and avid fans of 'luncheon meat' . We've embraced illegal freedom camping, but told to 'move on' only once. We bought snorkels and snorkeled in stormy waters seeing nothing, burnt feet on hot water beach, been shocked at the price on internet at every moment of the day, wallowed in natural thermal rivers getting too hot and slept in the van in freezing conditions only to wake up with frozen windows. We have seen New Zealand's stunning landscapes from both ground and air, jumped from suspended platforms and from planes. We've come to think of a hot shower to be a luxury, been initiated into the camper van club by giving the obligatory wave to every, and i mean every van we drive past, made countless U turns, visited every I-site and had no trouble with the language barrier for once! And to top it off on our last day we saw hundreds of baby fur seals messing around in a waterfall pool. Overall Its been incredible and memorable, and we now have no money left.

So what have we done in our last few poverty stricken days.. we have watched the world cup, drank copious amount of alcohol, eaten out at an indian where he did us a very 'hush- hush' deal, lunched at a thai restaurant with speakers big enough for a night club, and more recently lunched at a Harry Krishna vegetarian place, with harry him self serving us! Well, you gotta live properly hav'nt you!?!

Tonight its an all night sports fest, starting with NZv IRL rugby, then world cup footie with Argentina taking on someone( and being now a bit argentine, we will be wholly behind our second home nation) then its the england game. Thanks to time differences, we shall start this marathon at 7.30 pm, and get back to our room at around 8.30 am tomorrow. We will then catch (or not) a plane to sydney, where we shall sleep for days.

I hope you have enjoyed our traveling blogs. Sydney and the following months will be a little different, with us trying to get jobs to enable us to continue this trip until the real world catches up with us. While the blogs may involve less stuff about where we have been ( not that most of them have informed you of this, leaving it to a blog like this which tries to list all the highlights as the others have been far to full random stories, and hungover blatherings) we hope to continue them in some shape and form. The pics will also keep on coming and get close to up to date very soon, as if you were relying on them to see where we had been, you would think we stopped at the top of a Patagonian mountain for the last 2 months!

Its been amazing, and now i must go as i want to have a minute or two of sleep before our last night as backpackers.... for a while anyway!

jonny xx

Lemmings on Tour

Well we all survived. It was pretty scary getting a little cable car out to a pod in the middle of a canyon. Further still knowing that soon I would be jumping from that pod for no apparent reason. It didnt help that the pod in question had a glass floor and sweyed with every movement.

As one of the heaviest I was thrid to jump. A little nervous one might say I think I had the look of a rabbit in headlights. I edged over to the ledge and on the count of three leaped into nothingness. I managed to perform a scream reminicent of Barry White singing according to eye witnesses. Still the bungy didnt snap and we all made it safely. My foot release mechanism failed so I had to be winched back up upside-down.

Then onto a Sky Dive. Another tremendous Barry White voice for my concerningly depressed jump instructor but a much more beautiful and enjoyable experiance. Especially the glide down - very serene.

All in all its been an action packed few days. We're going to calm down now with a nice mountain walk. I cant help looking up at them though and wondering "I wonder if we could attach a bungy rope to that..."

Steve x x