Kev in Aus

Chronicling the misadventures of a Canadian traveling through Australia. There's seemingly far too many of us!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! I hope everyone had a fun-filled New Year's Eve, as I know I did (from what little I remember). I've been able to connect up to the network here in the hostel through devious hacking and much pleading and whining, which also means I can upload some of the pictures I've been meaning to show people. But first, I'll get to the New Year's Eve party...

New Year's Eve is a pretty big thing here in Sydney, seeing as it's one of the first major cities to see the new year, so they like to do it in style. Basically, we were told they would be lighting fireworks off the Harbour Bridge and to see it, you can find a park around the harbour (of which there are many) and just hang out. But, of course, everyone else has the same idea, so we wanted to get there early. We started the day off at 2pm, and it all went downhill from there...

As we were taking the ferry from Circular Quay to the park we had chosen (at Cremorne Point, about 2km away from the bridge) 3 WWI bi-planes flew overhead. I thought it was pretty cool, though I'm not sure why they chose to fly those instead of something a little more 2007. Oh well, they didn't call me to plan this celebration, so I can't be complaining too loudly.

I also decided to take a picture of the Harbour Bridge before it was lit up and I got too drunk to know what was going on. If you click to zoom in on the picture, you'll notice that there's an outline of a coat hanger on the side. We were all baffled as to what this meant, so I asked one of the guys I work with at the restaurant, who is an Aussie and has lived in Sydney for 22 years, and he told me it's because the Harbour Bridge was initially designed using a coat hanger. "That's one enormous coat hanger," I exclaimed. It was then that he pointed out that it was just a model, and that I should lay off the glue. I agreed.

This is the view we had of the bridge from our spot at the park. There were approximately 4 billion people in this park, but we were able to bribe and execute enough people to get this spot.

Shawna was smart enough to pack this flag, which we hung on the tree just above our heads. This proved to be a wicked smart move, as people would walk by, and just say, "Hey, you're from Canada!" or just randomly shout "CANADA!" to which we would all go "WOOOO!". Keep in mind that this went on all night, and we were about 10 meters from peoples houses, so we really kept the property values way down if anyone happened to be doing any house shopping on New Year's Eve. But really, you don't want those people moving into the neighbourhood anyways, bunch a party-poopers!

OK, so it started off with just 3 of us at this event, Me, Shawna and Ashley (who is actually from Winnipeg! NOBODY from Winnipeg goes anywhere! Hi Ashley!). Ashley's the one with the dark hair, glasses and holding her hand up like she's waving for Journey to finish playing their set. The rest of these people just decided to join us because we had the Canada flag hanging, and they're all Canadian, from various cities. We seriously had about 2 dozen people just stop and chat with us because we were Canucks. Some joined us, some ran away in fear. It was good times.


I wasn't trying to be artistic or anything, I just wanted to take a picture of the city skyline at night, but my camera isn't so great at that. If I move my arm at all, it makes all the lights wavy like this. And at 12:30am after drinking all day long, my arm was moving quite a bit. In fact, my whole body was wobbling like a monkey after ingesting black tar heroin. But it's still a nice picture so I thought I'd include it here.

I also have some videos I took of the fireworks going off, which I will link up here once I get a permanent site to host them. That, and my skydiving video.

And finally, I would like to wish my Mom (who is blogless so no link is available) a Happy Birthday on January 3, who is turning the ripe old age of . I would also like to wish Angie (who also doesn't have a blog to which I can link. Get with the times, girl!) a very Happy 30th birthday. Time marches on folks. I hope everyone is well, and I'll be posting some more pictures and such in the next few days.

Oh yes, I almost forgot...

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Way to live the dream! Woooo! CANADA! And Happy New Year!

4:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It must be strange to celebrate New Years in a country where time flows backwards?

5:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy New Year!

Thanks for the birthday wish :)

5:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Happy New Year!

2:31 PM  
Blogger Jennifer Lavin said...

It's funny how you say you took that picture to show the city's skyline when you are so clearly taking a picture of female legs. Who do you think you are fooling, exactly?! *smooch* Have a wonderful 2007!

11:54 PM  

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