Monday, October 6, 2008

Oh am I gonna miss this...

After a fun, but mostly restful week spent with a friend in Melbourne, I flew into Sydney on Sunday and my friend Dom picked me up from the airport and deposited me straight onto his boat. It was a beautiful day… made even more beautiful by the fact that 8 of us were jetting through Sydney harbor drunk on wine and full of delicious dips and sandwiches. I was reminded of my first few weeks in Sydney when Dom took us to a party in the middle of Sydney harbor and I was pretty sure I’d died and gone to heaven. (Of course back then, I was tanner, skinner, and financially solvent). About 20 min into our trip, we met up with another boat load of people, tied the two boats together, and spent the next few hours toasting in the sun. Sigh.



At around 4:00, the weather changed pretty dramatically and it got quite cold, so a bunch of us headed back to Dom’s parent’s place to warm up in the hot tub. After 6 hours of drinking, we were all sufficiently loose and some silliness ensued. People kept showing up and some didn’t have bathing suits so they just got in their clothes… some got in without.


We were probably in the hot tub for 2 hours straight and once our skin had absorbed as much water as was humanly possible, we took off to continue the party over at fight club. At the time, I thought fight club was an actual club, but in reality, it’s a mansion where a bunch of Dom’s friends live. It’s called fight club because, well, aside from looking very much like the house in the movie for which it is named, you just don’t talk about what happens in fight club.



Many an insane party has been thrown at this mansion. I will refrain from breaking the code of silence, but let’s just say that you can imagine what you get when you mix a huge pool, a hot tub, a sauna, and 10 crazy drunk people. And I’m informed that that’s par for the course and nothing compared to the bigger parties. Well, it was a good introduction nonetheless. The following night we went to a relatively tame and civilized dinner party there and had a few laughs about the pics taken the previous night. I think running for public office is now officially out of the question for me.

I caught up with some friends over then next 2 days, and on Thurs, Dom and I were off again, as he’d invited me to be his guest on a helicopter trip down to the Grand Prix in Melbourne. Dom is a pilot and he and his friend would be spending the week bouncing around Melbourne. Well, I had just come from Melbourne, but could not turn down a free, private helicopter tour of said city. The flight was amazing… so beautiful that I kept clicking pictures with the one hand not occupied by the clutching of an air sick bag to my face (which was pretty much as green as the meadows over which we were flying). We ended up having to take a break at a beautiful little spot halfway through the flight so I could regain my bearings.






We spent the next few days hanging out with Dom’s friends, one of whom I had actually met randomly the week before. I had been staying with a friend of my cousin’s in Melbourne, and his best friend (whom I’d met at a party) happened to be good friends with Dom. Small world this is…or maybe Dom just knows everybody.

We spent 4 event-filled days in Melbourne and I had a great time despite persistent back pain and a pretty nasty cold. On our first day in town, we went to lunch with the 6-time Motor Cross champion of Australia. I know nothing about motorcycle racing, but people kept stopping him to get his autograph, so that was a bit surreal. The next day, we met up with another of Dom’s friends for lunch and ended up presiding at a marketing meeting for Saurina Tuna. How do you spell random? It was pretty fun though… I found myself totally in my element giving art direction advice on a new line of gourmet tuna labels. Oh, to once again let the word “Helvetica” roll off my tongue…dare I say it actually made me miss work! That night, 5 of us went out for dinner and we gorged ourselves on chocolate to the point that we could barely function. By midnight we were totally spent… this of course after making idiots of ourselves on a crazy sugar high before the inevitable crash.




Anyway, I flew back to Sydney on Sunday as I didn’t want to cram all my traveling into one day. I was planning a big night out for my last night in Australia, but everything in my body was saying hell no. MY back was on fire, I was coughing up a lung, and for once, I had to draw the line. I’m disappointed I didn’t get one last crazy night out, but I think I’ve had enough over-the-top nights to make up for it… plus it’s clearly time to face reality and take care of my much-abused body.

So this is it for now folks. I leave you now to begin another adventure… that of readjusting to “normal” life back at home. I can’t believe how fast these 9+ months have gone and that this segment of my life is over. If I do decide to pick up and venture back out to paradise, I will most certainly keep you posted on whatever it is I manage to get myself into. Bye for now!