RSA
On Wednesday I decided it was time to bite the bullet and do my RSA, now I’ve been umming and arring about doing this but since I was starting work (yippee I got a job at a restaurant on Dee Why beach) and since it is a necessity if you want to serve alcohol I figured I should really crack on. Now for those of you that don’t know, the RSA or the Responsible Service of Alcohol, is a legal requirement if you want to serve alcohol in Australia, i.e. bar work, hotel work, bottle shop etc. Some employers will turn a blind eye if you don’t have it, but you really should take it.
For $85 I bought myself a days tuition. Well 6 hours in a small room with 30 other students, and it was the most boring thing I’ve ever done. The course focuses on who you can’t serve and what you should do if someone is intoxicated. Because in Australia it is illegal to serve someone who is intoxicated, i.e., you can’t serve a drunk man a beer. So if your drunk you won’t get served, madness to me. When I go out on a night on the lash, I have the intention of having a few, but if your a little bit pissed in Australia it’s illegal to serve you any more. But honestly I wouldn’t worry, I was battered on Saturday night and they kept serving me, but I think this course is just designed to freak out every Pommie in Oz on purpose. Scare us into changing from the English yobs we truly are. Anyways, it was a bloody boring day… I learnt that when you want someone to leave you
1. Stop serving them any alcohol
2. Ask them to leave and escort them out
3. Call the police if necessary to get them to leave
No shit sherlock!
Another fascinating piece of information I learnt is that you can’t serve someone who is under-18 and you should ID them, but surely thats just common sense! Anyways I passed my test and got myself a certificate so now I’m legally allowed to keep the grog flowing, WOOP!
My first morning
I had some pretty serious jet lag when I first arrived, waking up at 4 am for the first few days. Although this might sound horrendous, I loved it, because it meant I was able to watch the sun rise on the beach. Which was breath taking. And if anyone saw me standing on Dee Why beach, yes I was that strange Pommie girl dancing around in excitement!
Goodbye Carnage
So it was a weekend of fond farewells and goodbyes before I departed to Australia. Oh and lots of drinking….
Friday 6th November
Lindsey, Louise, Mia and myself decided we would go out for a nice dinner at Prezzo in Old Amersham. Of corse being the bargain finders that we are we jumped onto the Prezzo website and found ourself a nice little discount, 2-4-1 we’ll take that. So with a classy dinner in mind we settled down to some good food and some great wine. However as soon as the dinner decided to wind down we decided that we would make a special trip to a ’special’ (??) destination… bonjour Revs. Our classy dinner ended up out the window once we got our hands on the six shot sticks. Put together six of the most rancid shots you can find, charge a exorbitant amount for them and you have found yourself a revs special. After necking down a vile chili shot followed by an equally repugnant chocolate one I was all set to go. Cue Mia finding the greasiest pig in the whole place and amusing us by pretending she was a contestant in Strictly Come Dancing, you’ve got some moves! Lindsey attempting to prove that you can drink wine through your eye and Louise being a responsible driver.
Saturday 7th November
Ouch, sore head!! Very sore head!! Very hungover, bleary eyed, and convinced I am going to puke everywhere. Mixing drinks is not a good idea; wine, vodka and rancid shots….. bleugh! I was dreading the drive to Bournemouth, which is where we were headed in order to celebrate Gracies birthday. We finally arrived at about 5, after being stuck in ‘average speed checks’ of 50 mph all the way down the M25.
It was a Barbie and Ken fancy dress theme! Which is pretty malleable to be honest. I was a police barbie, Louise was army, Gabi was rave, Jessie was prisoner and the birthday girl was ballerina! There was a whole heap of other barbies as well ranging from football barbie to a pink legging wearer Ken. It was so good to see Grace whose at Uni in Bournemouth and also Jessie who had travelled down from Exeter!!
So the evening began with plenty of booze flowing at Grace’s uni let house and a cheeky game of ring of fire. Then it was on to one of the uni halls which is located nearby to meet a whole heap of other people, then en masse we wandered down to the town. 1st destination was Walkabout, where shots were a quid and a snakebite was 3 pounds. Beauty! And the music of choice… cheesy pop hits of course. So after busting some moves to the good old Spice Girls and Cotton Eyed Joe we decided to make a move. 2nd destination was Bliss, were we headed down the basement and had a groove. However Andy and I weren’t pacified and bullied the DJ upstairs into playing Cheryl Cole which turned into an X-factor mix, we had Alexandra Burke, Robbie Williams and even a bit of Whitney Houston. Eventually others joined us from the basement area and we were stomping to our hearts content. Jessie had to leave so had a tearful goodbye, I’m going to miss that girl so much! Then Gracie and I popped out for a ciggie, which prompted her to announce to the surrounding revelers that her ‘best friend was leaving for Australia and I’m going to miss her (glug glug)’, well that is just about what I could make out in between sobs. And when I say sobs I mean the racking heaving type, which wouldn’t stop. Every time I went near her for the rest of the evening there would be a wail and then the tears would begin… oops! Alcohol and goodbyes don’t mix! I’ll miss you too Gracie! So we eventually stumbled in at around 5.30 and settled down to a good nights sleep on Gracies couch.
Sunday 8th November
Woke at 1.00 p.m. … WHAT!! I fly to Oz the next day and had heaps to do, like umm finish packing. Slightly overslept. So we bundled everything back into the car and set off to make the journey. Bloody average speed checks! I arrived home just in time to go to the pub to say goodbye to John and Kara who I worked with at the club and Digger was also there. Cue a few too many pints and much laughter! The best colleagues any one could ask for! And for dinner a roast dinner courtesy of my little brother Arthur! A classic English sunday, pub then roast, what more could you ask for on your final evening?!
Monday 9th November
Departure day!! Gabi, Lindsey and Louise popped round for breakfast, pancakes, once again courtesy of the little bro and we just sat chatting whilst I flung the final few bits and bobs into the suitcase. It didn’t feel like we were saying goodbye at all, I was just so high on anticipation. Mum drove me to the airport and dropped me off in floods of tears. So after a big hug I unloaded my luggage and off I went. The evening before I had checked in online, and changed my seat so that I would now be chilling next to Sam and George, two fellow 10 pound poms! We caught up once we had got through security, where George had caused a mini security scare when he was pretending to take pics and promptly got his camera confiscated until he proved he hadn’t taken any pics. We decided to go and grab some breakfast and settled into a proper English fry up and a pot of tea. We had a little shop and then the plane was boarding so we wandered over to the departure gate. Plane arrived, I’m a bag of nerves and excitement. A few final calls to family and we board. I love that feeling when a plane takes off, your stomach starts doing a little dance and you begin to relax into the flight. So what can you do to make time pass whilst on a 10 hour flight. In flight entertainment of course! I watched two movies and they both made me tear up, pretty embarrassing when you consider one is a animated cartoon one called Up, it was poignant I swear! George and Sam’s adventure sounds insane! I can’t wait to hear about how there stay in the infamous firetrap of a hotel proceeds. We spilt at Hong Kong where there journey was to start and I was to catch a connecting plane to Sydney. Considering boarding for the connecting flight was a 8.30 am and our plane touched down at 8.35 am it was a bit of a rush to make it. But I did 
I slept almost the entire way there on the flight and woke up to breakfast being served (which was in fact dinner) about an hour before we touched down. The plane lands and I almost run through customs and security, dropped my bags and gave Geoff the biggest hug I could muster. Then stood back and laughed, seems he’d decided to grow a beard whilst I’d been gone. But I was here, I’d arrived! G’day Australia!
Reminiscing
Ok, so this might get a little deep, but since I have time to kill I figured I would write down my thoughts. Here I am, just chilling out on the bus on the way to Cirencester, in order to say goodbye to my Dad and his partner. I’ve already had a weekend of goodbyes, and there were plenty of tears flowing at work on both Saturday and Sunday. But it got me thinking about how many times we have to say goodbye to people.
There are people that I was very close to growing up, but with unspoken words we often said goodbye to our friendships. There are big moments of change as you move through childhood where people take different directions, the main one being a change of school. When primary school finished, many of my friends went to another school and we all drifted apart, but that was ok because I had found a new group. The next big change was after GCSE’s when people either left for work, college or another sixth form. I had a very tight knit group of friends; there were about 10 of us that were inseparable, but many left and with everybody having busy schedules I’m sad to say we never actually managed to get all 10 of us together at the same time again. Maybe it was because we were lazy and didn’t make enough effort but thinking back on the jokes we shared when we younger it really is a shame!
Now everyone is heading off in different directions again, spread around the country and even the world and it’s becoming even harder to all catch up. This is where the magic of social media comes in, without things like E-Mail, Facebook and Skype I know those unspoken goodbyes would probably come drifting through again. It’s so much easier to keep in touch with those you love nowadays. This is where I think travel has changed the most in 30 years, without communication friendships sour and it is easier to stop this from happening nowadays.
I know the goodbyes that I will say in the next week aren’t finite, but that doesn’t make them any easier to say. I’m just looking forward to saying G’day to a new chapter in my life.
Nice to see you… now bugger off!
I’ve worked at Amersham and Chiltern Rugby Club for the last six years now… a long time and I have effectively grown up there. It was my last weekend at A & C so I just wanted to say thanks and goodbye to a few people.
Firstly everyone that contributed to my pressie, a massive thank you to you all, I could never have imagined everyone being so generous. I was a teary eyed mess when Jerry gave it to me, so thank you all so much. Thank you also Olive and Richard, the earings are gorgeous!
I’m going to miss you all so much. The A Team; John who is an Uncle to all of us. Kara, Shona and Rachel who I could crack jokes with all day long. Paulie Bum Bum and Daisy, the culinary master and Mary Poppins herself.
The best thing I’m going to take away from my time at the club are the memories and the great friendships I have made! And you best all keep in touch.
So I will love you and leave you with a few quality shots that I feel best represents the time I’ve spent with you all…
I’ll miss you all
Much Love
xxx
CHARITY!
So my little brother is cycling from Chalfont and Latimer station to Aldgate East station on the 7th November, which is a grand total of about 30 miles, in aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s also going to be dressed in an Alice in Wonderland costume! Brilliant! It’s easy to donate, just click on the link below
http://www.justgiving.com/Arthur-Edwards
Countdown
At present it is 24 days, 14 hours, 36 minutes and 54 seconds until Monday, 9th November 2009, 12:30:00
24 days
590 hours
35435 minutes
2125088 seconds
Wow, thats a little scary! I can’t believe it’s really so soon.
But I cannot wait.
I’m going to Australia!
It’s strange because I keep thinking that I’ve planned this all so well but actually I have no idea on the details. Yes I have a flight, accomodation, tax file number and a gorgeous boyfriend out there. But no job and no plans. I know I want to go to uni in Sydney in Feb 2011 so I figure I should work for the next year, but I have friends coming to Oz travelleling and I would love to explore Oz with them aswell. Rawh far to much to think about!! I just hope it will all fall into place when I get over there. In the meantime… the job hunting and frantic planning continues.
Question Answered
At the last STA Travelbuzz meet up we asked a few questions to gain some insight into things to do and places to visit when we arrive in Australia. Well our questions have now been answered…
Thanks very much!
Birthday Fun!
07/10
My Birthday
Very, very messy!
Cocktails, jugs, shots, two-for one offers, dancing, shocks, lindas massive mistake, sick, surprise… loved it
09/10
Gabi’s Birthday
Cafe de Paris
Pre-drinks, cocktails, danny the ledge, cheeky table, jokes, dancing, pinching, brilliant!
Return of the players…
So it was another infamous players night again….
ALL FOUR TEAMS WINNING!! Dirty pints, solid drinks, buckets, sambuca, blushing, giggles, strokes, squashed, dancing men, port, nakedness, hiding cars, edible pants, stumbling, soco and lemonade, witty retorts, daves pedo skills, shots, downing drinks, shakira downing J2O’s, and the new britains got talent winner…..
