Long Postament

Well this will be a pretty long update as lots has happened since my last post.

My last post covered the unfortunate event which saw me snapping my wrist on the ice and requiring surgery and two k wires. It really wasn’t perfect timing as I was just starting to get into grinding the hu sngs and was feeling confident in my ability to beat the games and move up.

The medication I was on at first post the operation really affected me physically and mentally besides the fact I was one handed I didn’t feel like doing anything then feeling sorry for myself. It is only when you lose use of something you take for granted you begin to really appreciate what it was you once had. I could barely dress myself, couldn’t wash properly and couldn’t complete the most trivial of tasks. It was only after two weeks that the pain in my wrist and the affects of the surgery and prescription drugs wore off, I became more competent. I got my cast changed and my hand and arm was not a pretty site the K wires sticking out of my wrist encrusted in dried in blood combined with the dried in disinfected and blood covering my arm. Thankfully the new cast was lighter and easier to manage, however I still couldn’t leave the house with our friend Mr. Frost giving us a snow storm like I’ve never seen before and with Australia looming in a couple of weeks and the need for a speedier recovery than expected it would be foolish to jeopardise. I missed a number of friends 21st’s and countless social events and didn’t drink for 3 full weeks. One of my favourite days of the xmas period was looming around the corner and I was determined to attend but it was out of my hands and sure enough the ice returned and it was only on the last minute I decided to go in and see how bad the streets where, you see it was no normal occasion it was our annual 12pubs of Christmas on Camden St. which usually promises ridiculous attire and creepily messy behaviour by the 30 strong crowd involved and it was the combination of transport from pub to pub coupled with drink that made me apprehensive. I went and braved it and my fears where greatly exaggerated as the streets where clear of ice in the city centre and a great day was had by all.

The cast had to come off a week early due to me leaving for Australia on the 9th of January, so I got it off on the 5th of January and had to the two K wires out too, it left for a small dilemma as I had to get all my physiotherapy in one session and will have to judge myself on the recovery. One of the k wires didn’t want to leave my wrist and made friends with my nerves as it was getting removed, the shadow doctors face looked in more pain than me.

It took a getting used to using my wrist again as it was extremely weak, the advice I was given was to treat my wrist as it never had been broke which I did and do the necessary exercises.

My going away party came and went and before I knew it I was on my way to the airport to start my Aussie Adventure, the route I planned was Dublin- Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpar- Sydney. It started at 3am on a Sunday night and I arrived in the hostel in Sydney at 9.30pm on the Monday. Some of you may know I have had my run ins on long distance flights and I wasn’t looking forward to it too much, I heard Malaysia airways where pretty decent, my first 12hour flight had a screaming baby the whole way but he wasn’t even a baby he was like a 3year old toddler, but that in no way prepared me for my next flight, I was disappointed to see the plane was significantly smaller and me and my mate Ayo where taking bets on the seating arrangement of the plane and whether we would have entertainment. We got on board they somehow had 9seats going across the plane. Sit down take off far bit smaller and less space then the last trip, finally get in the air, my entertainment doesn’t work, oh well I’ll wait until someone comes by and also my head was bouncing from the screaming kid who is now two rows ahead of us. Eventually one of the guys comes round and I tell here my entertainment is not working. Sorry sir blah blah blah let me reset it and it should work fine don’t press anything until it comes back on, hour passes no sign of my screen or anyone coming back. Eventually he comes back and I’m like its still not working, goes off again, comes back with a voucher for the on air shopping worth about 24euro, he keeps apologising and invites me down to the crew seating to watch a film, I wasn’t in humour of kicking up a big fuss as I wasn’t going to be using the entertainment system and was happy enough with my ipod. In the row in front of ours there was an Indian family consisting of mammy daddy baby grandad and granny. Mammy sat with her full seat back then next seat granny didn’t, so I could see too well what was going on, my seat wasn’t pushed back. The baby spent the whole flight trying to ripe mammys top off to get some “bitty” and looked overjoyed every time he got some. It was defo something I could have done without seeing.

I was surprised at how easy and quick going through customs was, we got a train to hostel in world square, 19bucks a night 18person dorm, there was a great buzz in the place even though the quality of the place was below par. I set up my bank account with relative ease. Got internet for 79$ for 4GB’s which I have 3months to use and can top up at a cheap enough rate. One thing I have noticed since being in Sydney is its quite expensive, especially drink, but everything seems dearer when the currency value is greater than your own but the decreasing value of the euro made things seem more expensive.

I did the oz party bus the other night which involves a bus kitted out wih a DJ box and lights and stuff driving around to 5different locations for 5free drinks and entry, all for 30$ which was great value. The group mentality on the bus especially with drink on board brought back memories of my days of going to bohs matches. People do lose the run of themselves smashing the roof of the bus with their fist jumping up and down like lunatics, screaming at the top of their lungs. I am glad to say I was firmly in the middle of all the non sense and had to remember to not smash my healing wrist off the roof, there is a small chance I may have broke my left hand J. there was one interesting game played for 300bucks worth of prizes and it really shows how far people will go for free stuff, 5guys 5girls have get into various positions and the last to do so came either leave the game or take an item off each, it got down to the final two as most got down to their pants and bottled out, to stay in the game one of the guys(very camp guy) got his kit off and tugged on his knob as he pulled down his briefs and saved the girl from getting her baps out. The sick part was he still didn’t win the top price. The strippers friend did stalk me for the entire pub crawl and I in no way led her on, my chattyness got the better of me, the lads had great craic the next day slagging me as I said I’d take a blowie off here but nought else you might ask yourself why not? If you seen here in the flesh it would take a long time before the beer goggles would come into effect you might hit a coma first. The crawl ended in a foam party.

Yesterday we went out to visit a friend of ours who came over to Sydney in October on her own, she is living out in Coogee the lads laughed at me in the morning as I was plastered in sun cream before we left. A day of drinking beers on the beach and was great to catch up and see how shes been getting on. We are all meeting up again tonight in the city and going out again. One lads new nickname is RED as he got an absolute pounding off the sun and I had the last laugh.

The flooding over here has greatly affected our plans as we where going to get out of Sydney pretty rapid move up the coast of which is mostly flooded now. Its pretty mental 12people died and 60 missing the last time I seen and they reckon they will not find most of their bodies. We are going to look into the fruit picking to get it out of the way until then we need to get the bank accounts up and running.

Poker wise I have the dongle now so I will be able to play when I get a chance I have played a couple of hu sngs but no real volume as people are constantly coming up to you in the hostels and chatting. I’m sure when I need more money I will find a reason to play until then.