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Bullet points

Day 181 - Sydney

13 days into this unexpected tangent in the trip and some notable achievements could be listed. We were now regulars at the Coogee Bay Hotel (henceforth CBH), a bar known (to locals at least) as 'the animal pen'. We had taken in the famed Bondi Beach. I had swum on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. I had a job. Once more I had plunged into the masked ball of interviews where every interviewer pretends that they are offering the world's greatest job and every interviewee maintains the fantasy and professes to have dreamed of one day having such a position. I could now add 'Senior Administrator' to my garlanded résumé. The company? Accenture Plc., a multinational management consultancy firm with 250,000 employees worldwide. Well to be accurate 250,001. Not bad in less than a week. with a view from my desk of Sydney CBD 'fallen on my feet' would be an apt phrase to use. Before I started though myself and Mike found the time to catch up with our Irish partners in (petty) crime from Bolivia and Chile. Little had we expected to meet Dee and Darren again so soon when we bid them farewell at the bus station in Santiago and what a pleasure it was to see familiar faces. Another old face (30 to be precise) was Jon, a friend of mine from back home. A full ten years had passed since we went our separate ways after college. He had settled into life on the other side of the planet with a girlfriend, baby on the way and the hint of an Australian accent to complete the look. Me and Mike attended his 30th birthday party in the King's Cross area of Sydney. There is also an area called Paddington though I failed to find Fenchurch or Marylebone (yeah, yeah Paddington isn't on the Monopoly board, creative license innit). I also temporarily suspended my contempt for rugby league as a silly, bastardised form of the game in order to watch State of Origin, an annual competition between New South Wales and Queensland. The three match series resulted in a heartbreaking last game loss for NSW but myself, Mike, the girls and their posse of Irish friends drowned our 'sorrows' at CBH regardless. We had (we thought) ensconced ourselves back into normal life rather well. Australian bank account, phone number, a necktie or two and a local - all the trappings of civilised existence were obtained and all my earnings squandered at the aforementioned public house. Plus ça change...

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Location: 19 Vicar St, Coogee NSW 2034, Australia

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