You know when you tell people you’re moving to Sydney, they think of three things. 1) Christmas Day on Bondi Beach eating BBQd turkey. 2) The legendary New Year fireworks over the harbour. 3) Spiders.
Well, let me tell you, I’ve witnessed the first two, and either I’ve picked a bad year to come over here, or people who have raved about them in the past were just seriously inebriated. The third thing is not as common, but just as big as you hear.
I’m not the first of my family to travel; my older brother did Australia nearly ten years ago now, and made the front page of the national paper for his Santa hat/swimming trunk attire on Bondi. There he was, looking all slim and tanned and drunk, with a turkey in one hand and beer in the other. Hearing his stories of a crazy party with a small army of backpackers was making me pretty excited for my first Christmas away from home. Except, someone came along and pooped all over my version of events, and Sydney had a big injection of anti-fun.
Alcohol is now banned in most public places, including Bondi beach. They had police on patrol, on Christmas day, peering into people’s picnics and scowling if anyone seemed to be having too much fun. And bikini/santa hat attire? HA. I went in a woolly jumper, boots, and a blanket and spent the whole time wishing I was in front of a nice roaring fire with a Yorkshire pudding. The beach was deserted- a group of us huddled in a beach hut, ate our sandwiches as fast as possible, necked a bottle of wine, and went home.
Going home is never that straight forward after a bottle of wine though, is it? Two buses and a train ride later (we do NOT live that far from Bondi), I found myself standing solo, in the dark, in a Wisteria Lane style suburb, while Sean and two adopted Scottish backpackers attempted to Carol sing their way to… what? Money? Food? Beer? All they got was some polite “thank yous” and the clicks of several doors closing. One household, who didn’t answer the door, were “punished” with some petty crime; I woke up the next day with a crystal swan in my handbag.
Now then, LONDON, I’d like to have a word. For years and years you’ve tried your hand at pyrotechnics, only to be out-sparkled time and time again by Sydney. I hate new years, as a rule. I’ve spent it being dragged to family parties, on failed and expensive nights out, or being completely shunned by society altogether and eating twiglets with my dad (actually one of my favourite new years). So, this year, living in the party capital that is Sydney, I had high hopes.
A plan was set; I was working until 3, so Sean and a small crew of other orphans (that’s what the Aussies call Brits around Christmas time because we have no family, mean) were to set out early in the morning with several boxes of wine and blankets to secure the best spots in the house. What we failed to account for? Japanese bloody tourists. THEY CAMPED OUT 45 HOURS BEFORE THE FIREWORKS STARTED.
Plan B: take a bus ride to Balmain, and watch the fireworks from there. No worries. It was alcohol friendly so we found a lot of like-minded people set up. Wine, doritos, party mix, sunshine, poker, view of the harbour. In what I can only assume was an attempt to attract some publicity to the city, Sydney let Kylie have free reign of the celebrations. I think the results of this are nicely summed up by Sean’s tweet at the time “Sydney just gave Kylie an iPod and told her to make things pink”. The music was random and disjointed, in stark contrast to London’s cleverly mixed and very London playlist. The harbour bridge didn’t look anywhere near as impressive from our backwards view, although reports from Circular Quay suggest that the bridge was only used in the finale anyway. I would’ve thought golden hot-panted Minogue would have gotten the hang of using your best assets, apparently I was mistaken.
To give Sydney its due credit, it has a rather squiffy coastline. The harbour really does split the city in two, and it’s not a clean line, it’s an “I’m erosion and I’ve had one too many rums and am going to wander inland in any meandering manner I bloody well want to. Fankyou” line. So about a dozen boats were stationed down the harbour and each one given a matching, perfectly synchronized set of fireworks. Which meant, from our viewpoint, we had one set immediately behind us, one just in front, plus the harbour, and another boat in the distance. It was all a little Armageddon. We oohed and aahed, missed the countdown, kissed at midnight +25 seconds, and waved sparklers (I held mine gingerly at arm’s length, still afraid of everything).
The afterparty at ours was a bit of a washout; sun-stroked, inebriated, exhausted from the trek home, we attempted a half-hearted drinking game while my housemate Beckie snoozed on the sofa (she woke up every ten minutes or so to shout “I’m having fun!”) before heading to bed, leaving a scattering of sun burnt backpackers across the living room.
That was a bit of an epic post. If anyone is still reading, HI MUM. Tomorrow (maybe not tomorrow, I might go and get drunk tomorrow), I shall come back bearing good news. A lot of it. Night chaps.
