The beginning

Home Sweet Home- DUBLIN

bren02 — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:42:00 GMT

Well I've been told by my the old man that i'm not even in ireland yet according to this so I thought its definitely time to update!
I've now been in dublin for 2 months and absolutely love the joint. It didn't take me too long to get set up and it feels good to finally be earning some much needed euro's! So i'll glance over the past couple of months....

For my first 3 weeks I stayed with one of our Irish friends we met in berlin Roisin and her swedish house mate ulrika who were both awesome putting up with me while I got firstly a job sorted and then a house. It was a very entertaining few weeks though as the house was a bit of a half way house with hurls coming and going between there and kilkenny and wherever else. Greg and Dan changed their travel plans to include dublin so they rocked up randomly on a saturday night too which was gold! Mitch, madge, eages and kav also popped over to dublin for a couple of nights which was a great result to catch up with all them again. It also resulted in me missing a second interview with some mob but I didn't want the job anyway, so I told myself!

It took me just over a week to get a job which I was pretty happy with. Going for interviews was quite interesting considering I had no black slacks, shoes or any shirts. Thankfully I borrowed shoes two sizes too small and some black pants of hurls sisters boyfriend, a shirt from hurls and a tie from the good old op shop! too easy! One of my second interviews at a joint I all of a sudden realised it was door to door sales they were referring to when they were talking about "field marketing". what a load of shit! I was fuming when I realised so gave them a nice spray for wasting mine and their time which was enjoyable.

The way I found out about the job I ended up taking was when we were out on the piss on a random wednesday night I met another aussie bloke who was working at a gym so he gave me his bosses email and the rest is history. Its a very cruisy job! Basically this is what my normal day from 12 to 8 consists of:
12- set up with manager
12.30- 2.30 I go out "prospecting" for new members which means me and 2 other blokes either go out with promo girls giving out free guest passes (tough gig) or we go have a couple of pints or on the more civilised days we go for a coffee.
3-4 hit up the gym with another bloke in an attempt to get back in some sort of shape.
4-8 make calls trying to get people down the gym and take muppets for tours round the gym and hopefully sign them up.

So as you can see its fuckin joke. I would've liked something a bit more challenging but it'll do for the time being...
I also just started another job to get a bit more cash last week with a promo company which is even more of a joke than the gym. My first shift I was meant to handing out pamphlets in nightclubs with 4 others but instead we ended up back at one of the birds house knocking back red wine so yes another tough gig!

As for housing, finding a decent place with normal people was proving harder than I thought but eventually striked gold with 2 irish blokes who are great value and a really nice spanish chick. However since then, the spanish chick has moved out and the newest edition is a chick from galway who is also good fun and she also works at a dirty nightclub round the corner! haha how convenient! The house is great, we've got a big fuck off tv with a dodgy box so we get about a 150 channels which is handy and one of the blokes has dj decks which is great for kicking on at ours when everything closes up!

Now that I've updated the work and housing side of things, what else have I been up to:
I've done all the touro things like the kilmainham jail and the guiness factory which was good fun and ya get a free pint of guiness at the end in their roof top bar which overlooks the whole of dublin which is pretty cool. Now that I'm all settled I'll be planning to take little trips around Ireland over the next couple of months to places such as kilkenny, cork and galway.

I was meant to go to denmark a couple of weeks ago with hurls but stupid me had a monster night on the friday night and missed my bloody flight! The one consolation was listening to my irish taxi driver on the drive back trying to cheer me up. My favourite line was "would it make you feel better if the plane crashed?" hilarious... I also saw the presets live the other week and am gonna try and get tickets for kings of leon this weekend at dublins new 02 arena which will be pretty awesome. My upcoming trips will be to london for christmas and catch up with everyone there then probs to scotland for new years.

Anyways I hope all of you are well and are enjoying all the xmas parties and WARM bloody weather!
I hope everyone has a great chrissy and new year! And hopefully speak to ya's soon! :)

Bren/Chick
+353 85 285 4030

BANG BANG BERLIN

bren02 — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 12:38:00 GMT

BANG BANG BERLIN!

After the dam, we hired a car, actually not just any car, a merc; why not cruise along the german autobahns in style! It was quite a rush flying along the roads at 200km per hour with hurls driving! My only hairy moments were when he wanted to have a dart- the compromise was that he'd slow to 140 for this...not really much of a compromise tho! We stopped off in hamburg for 2 nights which was good to recharge our battery's before hurls birthday festival in berlin. Hamburg was actualy quite a pituresque city, much more than I had expected. Then onto Berlin!

Berlin, where do i start!? What an awesome joint! I'll definitely be heading back there at some stage as the week there was right up there with the best of my trip. Big call but it was unbelievable! Once again we did the free walking tour which was more like a performance from this chick who put on the best history show i've ever seen. Berlin has so much recent history so it really was fantastic to see the places where many events took place. I'm no history nerd but it really was brilliant. Even the boys agreed!

After getting our history lesson out of the way it was time for us to get back down to the business of doing what we do best- destroying ourselves...
We landed in a super hostel which was always chockers full of people and the best part was it ran a 2hr happy hour between 5 and 7 everyday which was ample time to get everyone in the mood! So the first night we just stayed at the hostel bar and ran riot there as the next day was hurls big day so we wanted to keep a few petrol tickets...

Hurls birthday (friday) started before midday when we met 3 crazy irish girls who were already on the gas and basically didn't stop until monday... I loved a quote from one of the girls about the irish "we're not alcoholics, we just don't stop drinking!" Couldn't have said it any better myself. The fri night we hit up another pub crawl and this time grega and I managed to make it through the whole night and then some! We went to some awesome bars and clubs which berlin is famous for and ended up at 7 in the morning at an underground club which can only be described as Berlins revolver! happy days! haha
Another highlight was being knocked back from a club because we weren't dressed fetish enough, only in berlin!

The next day I was in a bad bad way and spent a few hours with my head in a basin due to a dodgy hot dog van outside one of the clubs but thankfully came good for the satdy night. It was only hurls, 2 of the irish and another random aussie who were up for hittin the town and what a move it was! We went to this club called 'weekend' which was set on two levels at the top of a building with windows right around overlooking berlin, it really was the best! And the joint was going off! We met a heap of cool people and had an absolute ball! And as an added bonus I actually remembered the whole night for a change!

Berlin is also where I finally ran out of money and therefore it was time for a reality check and head to either london or dublin to set up shop and start earning some much needed coin! I was definitely leaning towards london purely for the reason that I knew more people there and it was looking like i'd be able to get accommodation and work quicker but then along came the crazy irish and it didn't take long for them to convince me to head to dublin and by the tuesday hurls and I were being put up by one the of the irish girls and her swedish housemate. I'll write a dublin update very soon now that I'm set up pretty well and have some more time on my hands.Hope you are all well and my number is +353 85 285 4030

cheers, bren/chick

THE DAM!

bren02 — Wed, 1 Oct 2008 08:40:00 GMT

THE DAM!
Crew: Greg, Dan, Hurls and myself

Well well well where to I start...what a bizar place!
Its the only place in the world where you can be in a hostel full of people, yet everyones sitting by themselves giggling like little kids or staring blankly at a tv screen- very strange! Amsterdam definitely did a number on all of us! We were there for 5 nights and the score was definitely 0-5 the dams way!
The first night, Grega didn't make it out and I had to leave a nightclub due to rolling around on the ground and couches with uncontrollable laughter; I was definitely in a happy place! The second night we went on a pub crawl which lasted 2 bars for dan and I due to the rookie error of going too hard too early...very poor form I know! On day 3 I did the free walking tour which was super! Its a very cool city with all its old houses and canals etc.

Then on the sat night dan, hurls and I caught a fairy and followed some random guys towards a night club on a boat which hurls had heard about from some chick he'd barely met. So realy I don't blame greg for his paranoia in refusing to hop on the ferry when we had absolutely no idea where we were going. But it ended up being worth it, the boat, actually it was more like a ship was the best venue for a nightclub i'd ever seen, however it did hurt when we realised it was there once a month Jazz night, ouch to say the least!

Our last night though was when everyone really lost it! Our last memories were leaving a bar where we'd had free drinks for an hour and all smashed atleast 10 vodka red bulls in that time after spending the whole day knocking back pints. Next thing you know Dan had his phone stolen courtesy of some of grega's handy work, hurls thinks he got bashed as he couldn't explain the bruises all over his body and I came too 2hrs away from amsterdam with no recollection how I got there...So after a 2hr ride back I was greeted by police who very kindly took me back to the police station and gave me a cup of tea while I sobered up and remembered the name of my hostel. Yes, another round to the DAM!

The next day we were all happy to get out of there and start our road trip to BERLIN via HAMBURG!

London town!

bren02 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:15:00 GMT

London town: 24th - 30th september
Now grega and I changed our plans a bit for a few reasons. First and foremost we got wind that fat boy slim was playing at brighton beach on the 27th sep which in our eyes was something that simply couldn't be missed! also hurls was flying into london on the 24th so it was gonna be easier for him too... After 3 trains, a bus, a 10 hr wait at an airport, a plane and another bus we finally arrived in london! thank god! we crashed and burned the first day we were there then we did all the touro things on the friday including big ben, the eye, westminster abbey, buckingham palace and a few pubs of course!

We kept the friday night in check as we knew the saturday was gonna be an absolute monster of a day! And boy did it not disappoint! Loz woke greg and I up at 3am and shoved a cocktail straight down our throats and chucked on some barnesy, happy grand final day in london! bang! by 5am we were smashing up the temple walkabout and there was a massive crew of us. It was the first granny I hadn't been to in 5 yrs but the temple certainly didn't dissapoint! by midday we were absolutely polaxed after countless snakebites and whatever else was going but our day was still only just starting...

By 1 we were on a train down to brighton beach and thankfully i slept the whole way to sober up a little... Now, whats all this crap about the london weather?? we couldn't have asked for any better, it was absolutely super! The acts before fat boy were pretty good and were the perfect warm up before he took the stage at 8.30ish. unfortunately it was too good a waarm up for grega who did a number on himself and had to put up the white flag with an hour to go- it was funny as. Unfortunately I lost the camera which i took with me to fat boy (what else would you expect from me) but it seriously was one of the best things i've ever been too! it was fuckin awesome and i was wrapped we decided to come to london for it!

The next few days we just kicked back in london with one of the highlights being a trip to the speakers corner in hyde park. basically anyone can head there on a sunday and start mouthing off about any subject they feel passionate enough to speak about. For example, one guys topic was "all jews are racist" so he got up there and started expressing his opinion and as you could imagine it didn't take long for the jews in the crowd to start having a go back, it was great viewing! particularly when your a little scattered on a sunday and need a cheap laugh at the expense of others...

anyways thats about it from london, for now... next stop AMSTERDAM!

Ze fest!- Munich, Germany

bren02 — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:31:00 GMT

well well well. its been a while since i've done any sort of up date so I guess I'll do it place by place starting with oktoberfest in munich about a month ago.

"ze fest" Munich 17th - 24th sep

How can you go wrong with a beer and food festival?? Exactly, you can't! For those who haven't been, picture the Melbourne show but bigger and replace the showbags stands with beer and the animal halls with beer halls full of people drinking themselves into oblivion while dancing and singing and just getting involved in blatant debauchery! Grega and I got to Munich on the wednesday before it all started and had the pleasure of taking part in free beer tasting at our hostel while being lectured by a big and I mean big german girl on how to say cheers in german (proost) and that if we didn't look each other in the eye when saying proost we'd have 10 years of bad sex! Good enough reason for me...

On the Thursday we met up with a Tony B and co at the camp grounds and it was great to see that we had the biggest tent in the whole grounds- a giant teepea. We also caught up with Will Dunn who happened to have the worst tent in all of the fest which you can check in some photos that i'll eventually get up. On the Friday most of our crew went to watch the afl prelim but for once in my life I put footy second and went along with some perth boys to watch the infamous 100 club at another camp ground. Basically its a massive group of people who have been touring right through the european summer and they all meet up at the fest to do the 100 club which is 100 shots in 100 minutes with a MASSIVE TWIST! There were about 80 people doing the 100 and at least 1500 people there watching these blokes and 1 disgraceful chick drink whatever was put in front of them by the judges in the middle. Once it starts the bake beans chillis eggs etc start coming out which doesn't seem too bad but then when people start spewing they don't just spew on the ground, no they're made to spew into a beer bong (funnel with a hose coming out of) then someone else doing the 100 would be made to scull it. yes scull someone elses spew. so wrong! But it got worse! I seriously couldn't believe what I was seeing, next thing you know the judges and other randoms are pissing into peoples buckets and also into the beer bongs so the people still in were literally drinking other peoples piss.... Once it finished the whole place just erupted with people smashing bottles, eskies, tables and whatever else you could get your hands on. It was definitely one the more bizar displays I'd seen!

The Saturday- finally it was time for ze fest! And boy it didn't disappoint! We had a mini reunion catching up with people who we hadn't seen in ages which was awesome! We just stood on tables smashing down litre steins and eating whole chickens! What more could anyone want! The atmosphere was amazing and everyone was there with same intentions of having as much fun as they possibly could! One of the boys, Andy Kav arrived in munich at about midday on the saturday and by 6pm he was in the medical tent on a drip, we got a call from a nurse saying that he couldn't speak english, it was hilarious! Its really hard to explain how much fun it is to someone that hasn't been. But its definitely somewhere that everyone has to go and experience!

I'll do an update on London, Amsterdam and Berlin shortly. I'm currently living in Dublin and my new number is +353 85 2854030

Hope you are all well!

bren / chick

The Vodka train and Poland

bren02 — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Righto, guess its time for another update...

In poland at the moment and am leaving for munich tonight to put the body through some more punishment.

The vodka train was great apart from a few hairy moments with some mongolians. One incident involved Cambo and I having our breakfast while getting threatened by 4 mongolians blokes who'd just nailed 2 bottles of vodka in 20 minutes right in front of us at 7 in the morning....We also nearly got beaten up at every club we went to in the capital city ulaanbaatar which kept us on out toes!

They were't all bad though, our tour guide was super and we had a ball out in the mongolian country side riding horses and camels and drinking 5 dollar bottles of vodka. Cambo's horse stacked and he went down like a sadk of shit which was pretty funny once we realised he wasn't hurt. We stayed in these little tent things called gers and when we went to visit a couple of the proper nomadic families we were quite surprised to see that most of them had a satellite connected up to their ger for their tv's and radio's, weird.

Moscow was nothing short of awesome! We did all the tourist things like red square, the kremlin and st. basils which were all pretty impressive. Cambo and I nearly got more than we bargained for at the Kremlin as we didn't realise that we'd wandered into a restricted area, next thing you know we were surrounded by 6 army personnel which gave us a bit of a fright! The nightlife was pretty good in russia too and all the beat up about moscow being a dangerous place is all a load of crap.

After moscow cambo and I flew to poland and stayed in the capitial warsaw for a couple of days then went down to krakow and auschwitz. The concentration camps and death camps were pretty full on but krakow was a pretty cool joint and I definitely could've stayed there for a while longer. Now in wraclaw and by pure coincidence the hostel we'd booked to stay at last night was closing down today so they had a bit of a closing down party last night which we were only too happy to participate in!

Am now going to try and have a couple of quiet nights before our all out assault on oktoberfest starts!

Entry number 1- beijing fun

bren02 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

okay people, you knew it wouldn't take long, yes I've lost my first phone- lasted a whole 2 weeks, what a disgrace!
having an absolute ball tho. met all the vodka train people yesterday and went out on the piss with them last night. this joint we were at had 15 yuan jager bombs which is about $3, hence the lost phone!

the olympics was awesome! everywhere we went we were like celebrities to the chinese. they just loved it. They're all a lot cooler than most of the asians back in oz (no offence to anyone but its true) The after party for the opals silver medal was out of control! Singing true blue with steve waugh and john eales was definitely one of my life highlights- yes I am an aussie bogan! all the mens and womens b ball teams were there too which was pretty cool and free booze was another bonus!

The night life in beijing has been great! we just go bar hopping and meet randoms everywhere. Next thing you know its 8 in the morning and I'm asleep at the end of the train line....ouch. or at the the cop station after falling asleep in a cab which was a bit of an awkward situation!

We partied with the dutch heaps at the heinekin house which is their official olympic house. They sure know how to party and when they win a medal they just go nuts! we weren't allowed in one night cos it was dutch only as they'd won a couple of gold so we managed to get under a fence and go in a back way then swapped out bright green and yellow singlets for some orange polo's with our new dutch mates and had an absolute belter of a night. The next morning I woke up in the dutch shirt and covered from head to toe in canadian fake tattoos which I was a little confused about. It turns out the canadians we were sharing a room with saw me walk in and collapse so went to town on me! The yanks unofficial house is the budweiser house which was athletes only but each athlete could bring in 1 friend so we'd just grab a random athlete and walk in and it was also free booze there too which you didn't see me complaining about. I've got plenty of photos but have had heaps of trouble uploading them but I'm hoping to sort it out tonight.

Went to the great wall the other day which was one of the best things I've ever done. I did this 10km hike along it then at the end there's a big flying fox to get down which was awesome. There was this pommy in our tour group who was real crack up and I was chatting to him on the way there, then next thing you know we'd been going about half an hour and I look back and he had this asian lady fanning him while he was spewing his guts out- it was brilliant!

Anyways people, thats about it from me as I'm boarding the much anticipated 'vodka train' in a couple of hours so hopefully all my training should get me through! hope all is going well back in the land of oz. Miss you all!

Bren / chick