We found out on Friday that our landlord is in town and wants to do an inspection on Monday, when we are out of town. Despite us trying desperately to dissuade her it is happening so besides doing the mad panic trying to pack we have had to make the house immaculate and de-Macchiato'd as we never actually asked permission to get a cat. Mack is now in a cattery and all his stuff is disguised as coffee tables and the like.
Anthony, in his infinite generosity has offered to drive friends of friends (read Anth's love - hate ex girlfriend and her new blokey English husband) up to Sydney with us. Surprisingly the trip actually goes fairly well despite the distinct lack of air-conditioning in the car.
Our accommodation for this evening can barely be described as adequate. Rising damp seems to be an architectural feature and the bathroom is, well, fragrant. Fortunately the bed is comfortable so I'll save my complaints about the hefty $60 fee until tomorrow.
2:30am Anth's boss rings for advice on how to fix some obscure computer problem. In future I am charging Anth's company $50 every time they wake me, no matter how urgent.
As a city for driving pleasure this place totally sucks. Roads alternate wildly and randomly between being one and two way, and it is almost impossible to turn right anywhere. We did manage to find one road that was straight for over a kilometre, which impressed Anthony greatly.
Found new accommodation. $80 a night B+B right next to the convention centre which is where I'm meant to be most of the time, plus the room is rather nice.
Parked car in secure parking at midday, went back at 4 and we'd been broken into. Stupid junkies didn't notice either my mobile on the passenger seat floor or Deb's camera under the seat but did make off with half a 2 litre bottle of warm flat lemonade. Lemonade must have a really high resale value around here.
Registration and welcome drinks at the conference. This bar has only two white wines, a syrupy Riesling and a Chardonnay that leaves you picking splinters of oak out from between your teeth. At least both come in bottles. Anthony frightens me and my lab mates by getting along a bit too well with my supervisor.
Dinner at The Rocks but Dana wants to stop by her hotel first. Anth asks if The Rocks is walking distance and Dana thinks so. 5km and nearly an hour later we finally catch up with the others at the restaurant. Dana and I stop at a bar for cigarettes and I get carded. I concede I have a young face but I never thought I had the breasts of a 17-year-old. At the restaurant we are paying for the view - The Sydney Opera House. The most vegetarian thing on the menu is fish and chips. Anthony pretends he's eating tofu. Even then the fish is dry, oily, small and costs $20. I order a Caesar salad. Perhaps I've been spoiled by living in St Kilda too long but my understanding is that a Caesar consists of young cos lettuce leaves, toasted prosciutto, poached egg, garlic-fried sourdough croutons and anchovy fillets in a creamy, tangy Caesar dressing. This was limp bitter lettuce with boiled egg, bacon bits, chopped toast and milky oil. At least they got the anchovies right.
Stop briefly at a real shocker of a bar. A drunk guy keeps staggering into us, the main beer on tap is Tooheys and they are playing dodgy 80s hits like MC Hammer and Michael Jackson. Perhaps an early night is in order after all.
6am wake-up as there's a recycling truck outside our window breaking bottles for 10 minutes.
Another culinary experience. This time its nachos with sweet chilli sauce and tinned kidney beans instead of salsa and chilli-con-carne.
Poster presentation. My new fixed up poster is still missing data points on one of the graphs but it is less obvious than the first print-out and no-one seems to notice it. Stand around for 2 hours waiting for people to ask me questions. The only people who do so are the prize committee. Hopefully they don't notice the discrepancies between the data on my poster and the data I submitted in my abstract 3 months ago.
Pilgrimage to Newtown. Made it to Gallery Serpentine (http://www.nightmachines.com/serpentine/) and drooled a lot. Now have my wedding outfit on order plus a new frilly lacy top for $50. Not much in the shop that isn't on the website so I pledge to order myself a shitload of stuff once I have a regular income.
I love this suburb. Its like being in Brunswick Street but before the yuppies replaced most of the second-hand book shops and recycled clothing places with boutiques and cafes. The quest for a tasty coffee comes to an end in a converted fish shop. The latte is the size of a small milkshake.
Finally a scrummy meal as well. Tonight it's Thai food. I get stuck next to Roger, my supervisor, but he's being generous with his wine so it's not such a bad thing. I have my first D+M with one of my lab mates and realise they already knew I was a freak so I've been on my best behaviour all year for nothing. She is also hiding most of herself under a "I'm at work now" mask.
Off to the pub across the road. Roger is buying. The bar staff are all pissed and aggressive so we all get booted out at 11. Off to another bar down the road. We all get carded, including Ross who is having his 29th birthday today. $4.50 cointreau on ice and pints of Kilkenny so we all settle in for some really heavy drinking. Turns out one of my fellow workmates has a nipple piercing he's never told anyone else in the department about.
Very drunk. Should drink water but Sydney tap water tastes foul and I don't have any bottled water with me. Hope I can sleep most of it off instead.
Urgh. 10am checkout. Place is fully booked tonight so must find alternative accommodation. Find somewhere in the middle of the city where the building is pretty shabby but the rooms aren't bad for $59. Close parking is $19 plus $15 overnight surcharge. Blow that for a game of soldiers! Park back over at the last place and get the monorail everywhere.
Drive down Oxford Street, the place where they hold the Mardi Gras. Sit and have coffee and play a quick game of "Not Eurotrash / not a German lady" (http://www.blairmag.com/blair3/gaydar/euro.html and http://www.blairmag.com/blair4/dyke/.) Get a shocking case of passenger arm (like driver arm where you get sunburnt only on your right arm) and go perv in all the spanky and leather shops along here. Drool.
Conference dinner at Darling Harbour. Surprisingly the food isn't bad, nor is the wine. A fellow workmate has brought his girlfriend along and she's great value. Anth was almost having trouble getting a word in.
Drinks at a bar downstairs. Two dodgy wog boys try to pick up Dana and I, despite my mentioning that my partner was there. Margie makes observations on the whole "Picking up by proxy" thing where guy manages to pick up girl, and guy's silent friend gets to pick up girl's silent friend without having to do any of the real work. Later I get chatting with two dodgy researchers from RMIT who try to get me to do my PhD with them, all the while staring at my breasts. Escape around 3am.
Thankfully I remembered to buy water without its own unique flavour so I scrub up mostly OK, if still exhausted from the last few nights.
Spend most of the day at the Powerhouse Museum playing with all the interactive science stuff (very cool. Highly recommended) before going to the awards ceremony at the end of the conference. I miss out but Dana wins a $300 poster prize. I figure I'll hit her up for free drinks next time we go to the Nott after work.
Bail out of this shitty town. Try to make it as far down the Hume as we can before a big storm hits and we are forced to find shelter. End up at a budget motel in Yass, about 3 hours out of Sydney. Room is nicer than anywhere we've been all week, $51 and we get our own bathroom.
Drive, drive, drive. Repeat for about 5 hours. Make it about a half hour out of Melbourne. Car overheats. Majorly. Sit for half an hour letting it cool down, replace the coolant, drive for 5 minutes, car overheats. Repeat. Call RACV. The guy tells us that we have to put the coolant in the radiator, not in the surge tank on the side of the bonnet. Ooops. Let car cool down for an hour. Replace coolant in radiator. Drive for half an hour, car overheats. Sit for 15 minutes, drive across the West Gate Bridge, car overheats. Call a tow-truck, wait an hour, get towed home. Yes, it took us 5 hours to make the last 50km.
Finally we return to the land of tasty food and good coffee several hundred dollars poorer and with a very sick car. Next year the conference is in Newcastle. But hey, how bad can it be?