Mittwoch, 30. Januar 2013

Next stop, teh Golden Coast

My time in Melbourne comes to an end so time to write some sort of recap.

We arrived on teh 15th and since i screwed up with our flat here we had to stay teh first night in some hotel around teh corner which was allright though. On teh 16th we could finally move into our pad here which is def. better than teh one in Sydney because it's cheaper, larger and has 2 decent bedrooms - only downside is that it's a little bit moar far from teh beach but after 10mins walk you are there no biggie. We staying in St Kilda here and this suburb has defintitely an interesting fucked-up vibe which i like alot. You see all kind of different people on teh street ranging from tourists, surfers, backpacker, bums and hookers. Also funny is that we are basically living 100m away from teh street prostituion hotspot of Melbourne which we realized after seeing those girls grinding street corners in their heels during bright daylight - kinda clueless though which guy takes their services bc they all heavily on meth from wat they look like...
All in all i like Melbourne def. alot moar than Sydney bc it doesn't seem that crazily overregulated which guarantees moar personal freedom - here for example there are no signs that forbid alcohol at teh beach and i can drink my corona out of teh bottle... Very important point for me is always the nightlife which is way better here as well. (almost a joke to compare nightlife here to Sydney haha).

Living room of teh current flat

St Kilda beach

View from restaurant at teh beach

So after we arrived we kept a low profile the first couple of days until friday where we went out with two fellow australian grinders. Unfortunately we learned the hard way that it's not easy to get into a club after midnight with four completely different dressed guys. Had some fun though anyways i would say. Next day me and my roomie went out alone and started in the Crown Casino (biggest casino in teh southern hemisphere) where the Aussie Millions just had started. Casino itself was insanely busy as well, ok, maybe normal for a saturday. We checked out the both clubs in teh casino which were fairly boring in my opinion that we moved on to a more fucked up place with the beautiful name "Tramp". This was some electro basement club as you would imagine it. Went busy pretty late but i liked it alot bc this was like the first time this year i heard good music.

In front of teh Crown


Next couple of days was back to teh office until i managed to ebay some tickets for Australian Open quarter final of Roger Federer and Jo Tsonga. If I would've been clever enough to buy them beginning of teh month it would've been around 140 per ticket, 3hours b4 teh match we paid 325 per ticket. Anyways, teh seats were well worth it:
Australian Open

Since watching possibly 5 hours of tennis might get boring i decided to put some money on teh line before. Official odds were like 5:1 with Federer as a favorite so i offered teh same odds on 2+2 and Facebook but got bashed heavily at 2+2 for giving such ridiculous odds. 5 minutes b4 teh game i got action though from a swedish mate who was part of teh group in Brazil last year so that it was my 1500$ vs his 300$. In retrospect prolly not teh best bet i ever made but my heartbeat was over 140 from that moment str8 for 5 hours and i prolly was louder in teh end of teh match than teh 6 frenchkids behind us combined. Everything worked out as you know so i was effectively paying 25$ for 5th-row seats in a sick Australian Open match :)
After this great success i decided it's time to bet some more money on teh last 2 games so that i opened an account with mybet and deposited 300euros which i split on Federer winning his semifinal and Djoko winning teh championchip. In retrospect prolly should've bet all on Djoko but afterwards it's always easy to say. Made 14Euro out of those 2 bets which is almost two beers though so no need to complain...

Last friday my malta roomie arrived in Melbourne as well and brought shitty weather with him as usual. We went out this evening with his sister in Brunswick (supercool suburb for barhopping) who is a local here so that we saw some stuff we wouldn't have seen otherwise. Were grinding some pretty amazing bars and clubs, everyone on his own very special with a very unique vibe - liked it alot. We also managed to go to Revolver upstairs in teh end and given all teh bad things i heard beforehand i loved it. Superdark technoclub which is opened nonstop from friday til sunday afternoon - what moar can u ask for?

Teh tripping house, where they had pizza for 4$ in teh backyard

Bombing on teh way to teh next place

Saturday was Australia day and weather was unfortunately still shit. Given my slight hangover i decided not to start at 10am like originally planned and rather get some moar sleep and start in teh afternoon. We started as a pretty big group and went to a couple of places before finding teh final destination which was a club called Warehouse. Fair to say that was teh best chickwise i have seen so far down under. Was prolly age related though bc teh oldest girls in there were maybe 21 and as we all know until that age most of them look fit.
Would've expected something different from Strya day though. In teh end this was just a normal night out were u started drinking a little bit earlier than usual. I would've imagined something moar like a carnival day were teh whole city is drinking and out on teh street all day...

Strya day


Since saturday i wasn't doing too much besides hitting teh gym, running and grinding. Regarding fitness i'm back doing alot of cardio in order to get a visit from Mr. Sixpack at teh Gold Coast one day. It's pretty amazing for running here down at teh promenade - you always have enough space compared to Malta in summer and temperature in teh evening is quite good also. Hitting gym quite frequently as well (managed to get 2weeks membership in Fitness First for 4.95$ instead of paying 20$ everytime i go) and changed nutrition so that i don't eat pizza and pasta anymoar and moar fish and chicken instead. Should show results quite soon if everything goes well. Deadline for being shredded is Future Music Festival Brisbane in March - definitely looking forward to this one:

Future Music Festival Brisbane

I think that's a good overview what happend teh last 14days and in 2days our plane leaves to teh Gold Coast were we will move into teh sick Broadbeach Villa - really looking forward. Also realized that teh Casino and one of teh best nightclubs there is only 500m from our home which might possibly be dangerous but we'll see what happens.



Pokerwise i'm quite happy with teh volume i managed to put in (100k hands so far) but not so much with teh actual results. Was running pretty shit in Sydney but last couple of days things seem to get better again. Haven't checked results teh entire month so was quite surprised to see i'm only up 4k$ without rakeback which is not good considering teh money i spend here on living. On teh brightside i'm up around 8ish with rakeback while i started last year in Thailand with +/-0 so it's not uncommon for me to start teh year slow...

January garph so far

That's all 200 and for me too run breakeven for 60k hands alot of shit has to happen bc i cannot remember many hands i would play differently... But yeah, once again, this is poker, one month u hit everything, get paid everytime, win every flip, etc and another month fish keep owning u constantly. Games are fairly good so i'm not too worried. Only thing which sucks here is that it's really hard to put in any volume if you want to have a somehow normal schedule. Peaktimes here are between 1:00 and 15:00 and i don't plan to sleep from 16:00 until midnight. Therefore you unfortunately miss alot of good games and possibly play at times where there are just not many bums around which makes it hard to put in serious volume. Playing superlong sessions is also no real solution bc my game decreases significantly after moar than 2-3 hours playing straight. Honestly no clue yet how i handle this time difference, for now i just hope to run better at teh Gold Coast that i'm not forced to go over teh high volume approach.

That's it for now, Peaze out!


Also decided from this blog on to give recommendations for all kinds of stuff: books i recently read, electronics, nutrion, etc. Motivation for that is obv. too make some money with that blog on teh one hand but also to give some recommendations of stuff you might like as well. So for teh case you hate affiliates and advertising like i do or think i have already enough money you can stop reading now and wait for teh next update.

If you looking for interesting books though or wanna know how you can massively improve your travel setup you might want to continue reading.

Since I'm a big fan of successful people and their biographies i end up with such books alot. 2 i just finished during teh last 2 weeks i will present here.

First book is of Florian Homm, one of germanys first hedgefond managers who managed to accumulate over 300million dollars and than lost over 90% of it back. He's basically telling his version of teh story and seems to be quite an intelligent and interesting baller. This is like teh perfect book for a long flight or a day at teh beach:



German Paperback:
Kopf Geld Jagd

German Kindle Edition:
Kopf Geld Jagd

English Kindle Edition:
Rogue Financier


Another book I just finished couple of days ago is teh biography of Rolf Eden, one of germanys oldest playboys. Teh guy has 7 kids with 7 different wifes and his current gf is in her 20s while he is 82. Guy pretty much lived that life and was like teh biggest nightclub owner in Berlin back in teh days. Was a very nice read and this guy has very interesting perspective towards life, highly recommended... This booked is called "Immer nur Glück gehabt" which means something like "Always ran lucky..."



German Hard Cover:
Immer nur Glück gehabt

German Kindle Edition:
Immer nur Glück gehabt

German Doku:
The Big Eden

Book doesn't seem to be translated in any other languages even though it would be a good read for sure.


Last but not least no book but a travel screen. Last year when i was travelling South America I only had my 17" Laptop with me. While this is allright and you get along if you stack your tables it's still difficult with teh lobby and Tracker and Ninja and whatsoever so i started searching last year for something where i could "park" all other software besides my poker tables on. By then i didn't even know such travel screens are existing until i found that one on amazon -  def. one of my best investments in case of poker. The thing works just with USB, has a resolution of 1366*768, is 14" big and fits easily in to any suitcase or handluggage. Was definitely a nice and much needed addition to my 18" Alienware!




German link:
ThinkVision

UK link:
ThinkVision

US link:
ThinkVision

Freitag, 11. Januar 2013

Counting down those days...

Saturday afternoon here and i'm slightly hungover and not able or willing to work so i might just update teh blog i figured.

After 12 days in sydney i'm counting down teh days already to move on. 12 days is not really a long time but for sure long enough to know that tis is not my city and will never be.
My first impression that all tis is just another version of London with way better weather becomes moar and moar obvious. And people who know me know that i'm not teh biggest fan...

In general everything is quite cool. People are relaxed and friendly, food is decent, weather is good, you feel safe everywhere, everything is nice, clean and modern, etc. But when i take a look at all teh small things i just find so many things which piss me off so much that i wanna puke.

I already mentioned teh prices and probably could write a book about it but if you come from europe it is even hard to imagine if you haven't seen it for yourself. I laughed at those people telling me about it upfront but now getting teh cheque for it...

Lets take yesterday for example. German friend of mine is with his sister and her boyfriend in town so obv. decision is to go out. Beforehand i tried finding information about what's happening that night so that i can make some sort of plan where to go and where not to go. In any other 4.5mio city i browse teh internet for 10 mins and get a list with events, wat music they play, opening hours, dresscodes, whatsoever. In every other city i can ask people as well what is happening and you get some advice - here i wrote with 5 different people and basically nobody could tell me anything (and i don't blame them). Here i searched for an hour and found nothing besides some clubnames and how their interior is build. So plan is to have no plan and just go out and go wit teh flow. While tis might work in most cities here it is a recipe for disappointment. We managed to accidentally hit a bar where i inquired for teh guestlist for teh basement club of it so we start drinking there. It's a nice terrace and seems to be cool place. After it's my round to get drinks i realize that a 0.3beer costs 9AUS$. After couple of rounds they basically close teh place at 12 so that u have to go downstairs to teh club. Name of it was The Chinese Laundry and it was recently voted as Sydneys number 1 club. After saving a whooping 5$ wit teh guestlist and only paying 20$ we realize that they play drum and base in all 3 rooms and are definitely not intoxicated enough to take that for teh next 3 hours so we leave after another beer which costs now 2$ moar i think. While they def. had a topnotch soundsystem i've seen nicer basement clubs in german villages but nevertehless tis one makes sydneys number one... well... From now on i'm absolutely clueless wat to do and it's like 1am already so you could basically go home bc u know the real good chicks are already home anyways and 2hours later everything shuts down regardless. However we decide to go to Kings Cross which is like teh entertainment area for teh younger crowds and hop into a club called goldfish there. This one charged only 10$ but is even moar empty than teh one before. So we spent teh next 2 hours in teh smoking area drinking another 5 beers for 10$ each. At 3 we decide to make one final attempt at another club called tunnel which is around teh corner and free entrance with a stamp. In this one there are maybe 30people left at 3am that i rather quickly decide to call it a night and take a cab back home. And i swear teh amount of semidecent chicks i saw after 1am goes against zero. If i compare all that to what i saw in Buenos Aires last year i'm close to tears.
In teh end we for sure had a funny evening wit lots of laughs but i can have such an evening everywhere in this fucking world without having to spent over 200$ and still not being drunk.

Went out last saturday and on tuesday as well, Saturday we had a table in one of sydneys new hotspots called marquee directly in australias 2nd biggest casino. While teh club is quite nice 2bottles of belvedere and one of tequilla came down to 1.2kAUS$. For that amount i get over 20 bottles champagne in most places in Malta - nough said. I got to know first hand how dangerous it is for me to have a club directly in a big casino as well. After leaving Marquee i have a little fussy memory but think i threw 50bucks on black while passing a roulette table and doubling up. Afterwards i decided to play some good ol NL200 and sat down at a 5handed table with 2 asians who were like 2000$ deep each and me being completely shitfaced at that point. After folding 4 hands i finally get KK in teh 5th one and squeeze those 2 asians who obv snap. Flop is KT2 rainbow and after continuation betting one of those guys really folds his hand. Turn is a meaningless 7 probably completing teh rainbow (on teh other hand what do i know i could barely read teh board in that state) where i decide it is time to go all in and put teh asian guy to a decison. At this point i'm convinced there is not possible way i can lose that hand. Asian snap calls my overbet? like a boss and flips over Q9o with a massive grin on his face bc he prolly already knew wat about to come and river is my friend teh J of hearts as expected. After about 30seconds when teh dealer starts pushing my 200$ in his direction i start to realize that topset is not enough and i lost teh hand. I tell teh asian nice hand and decide to chase loses at a 2/5 table instead. Thankfully there is a waitlist of 5 people at 5 in teh morning so that i get bored rather quickly and piss off...

On tuesday we went to Kings Cross as well to teh Coyote Party. When i heard there was wet t-shirt contest at midnight i was quite sure of what crowd to expect :) Musicwise it was prolly teh worst i heard in my last 10 years of clubbing, even worse than anything in Malta haha, but at least there were some girls. Even though age avg was maybe 20 with shitload of backpackers and busto travelers my Corona still was 8$ (in retrospect that was quite cheap). Definitely saw two funny things there: 1. if u wanted to smoke you'd have to get in a queue for 10mins until they let you on teh terrace (there was prolly space for 75people outside but yeah it is better to just let 25 outside and keep teh rest waiting in a queue) / 2. one kid at teh bar in front of me realized that teh drinks are quite weak so he ordered 6 shots, paid and started pulling them into his 0.3cup to get some sort of an allright drink (after i drank a sambuca and a jaeger later i cannot blame him - even in malta i haven't seen such a watered bullshit, teh jaeger was almost tasting sweet...) However teh bartendress did blame him and instantly took away his drinks after she saw wat this guy was up to and even his complaining "but i paid for that stuff" couldn't help him. At least he got his money refunded haha. Now Malta friends imagine tis would happen in teh Nordic Bar hahahaha.
Overall sad at it is that was one of teh better nights out here. Another amazing thing is no matter in which clubs you go and wat you drink you always drink out of plastic. You pay 1.2k for a table - you get wat u derserve - PLASTIC! These morons even refill my beloved Corona in in those disgusting cups which takes away at least 50% of it's taste. But all makes sense. Prolly two years ago a guy punched another guy with a bottle in a club so better play it safe and make life miserable for every clubber out there. Furthermoar this refilling bs costs time so you always have to wait way longer for drinks compared to if they just give you teh bottle ffs.

That's for teh nightlife i've seen. I'm invited to another party tonight but for now i prolly rather grind teh donkey saturday before i invest another 200++$ for nothing but disappointment.

Still loving Bondi Beach where we staying atm but if i see how much potential this thing has and how it is actually makes me sad. You have to think about it this way. There is a massive 1km sandy beach (imo nicest beach i've ever been to) with basically zero families so all people who are there sunbathing daytime are between 16 and mid 30s. And this thing is packed everyday, with thousands of people from almost everywhere in teh world. Now you would assume naturally that nightlife at such a place has to be huuuuuge, right?! Nope, ur wrong, not down here. Alcohol at an australian beach is forbidden anyways and there are no beach bars whatsoever either. To make things worse teh last bar in Bondi Town closes at midnight, there are no clubs. I don't know why tis is exactly but probably bc of brilliant australian laws like everything else. If you would put a couple of beachbars directly at that beach, leave them open til 2am, play some good music and open some clubs behind teh beach tis would be some of teh sickest nightlife spots you could ever imagine. So it's just a nice beach - not moar, not less :( talking of wasted potential...

Another interesting experience here was last tuesday where i def. had my hottest day ever with something like 42°C. Wind was like you using a hot hairdryer and i actually went swimming in teh cold pacific for once bc it was just mindblowing. Even when we went out at 23pm it had still 36°C.

Since we living kinda directly in teh center of Bondi food options are quite good even though as usual superexpensive. When it comes to food delivery services it is pretty weak though for teh size of teh city. It's superhard to get anything delivered in teh afternoon (which is not teh biggest problem bc you can just go down to teh shore and get something there) and it is impossible to get anything delivered after 22pm. I haven't managed to find a single nighttime delivery here! Given teh hours i play here (peak between 12midnight and 2pm) this sucks balls bc i haven't planned to start cooking here. Teh stuff which delivers for dinner is quite decent most of teh time though but when u pay 20$ for a pizza you would expect some quality, would you?!

Also managed to return to teh gym here and averaging like 3.5visits a week so far which is good. Aso quite motivating here bc all those guys are working out like crazy which you cannot say about all gals unfortunately. Downside is it closes at 9 in teh evening and even earlier on teh weekend which makes it difficult sometimes. For teh most part it seems like this city completely shuts down at night in every fucking aspect.

Thursday we went to teh opera house which is for sure an impressive site and always has been one of teh places i wanted to stand in front of - check! Afterwards we ended up in a german pub teh "loewenbraeu keller" where a friend of mine got a little drunk but was definitely a good time. Pricing as always was interesting with a 0.5glass of german white beer for 13.5$ as my personal favorite.

Leaving to Melbourne on tuesday so defo looking forward for tis one. Flight company booked stuff off my cc but haven't received any confirmations and when i wrote them they obv didn't reply so that might get interesting. Hope for teh best end expect teh worst i assume. I furthermoar screwed up teh accomodation dates so that we had to book a hotel for teh first night until we can move into our crib. Melbourne should be a good time especially bc aussie millions taking place during that time so that i will be able to meet up, party and chill with alot of fellow grinders and MTT donkeys out there. Furthermoar our flat there seems a little bit moar spacious than our current one while having a way better price which is good as well...


Pokerwise it's going pretty meh atm. Kinda satisfied with teh volume i put in so far and games are definitelly decent but seem to have some sort of my usual breakeven downswings which happen every now and then. Only played 200 so far and while i made 1.7k$ directly teh first day tis year (all above EV obv) it was quite bad after that especially teh next two days. Haven't checked any results afterwards but if i'm lucky i might be up 1.5k$ + some rakeback which is not even close to teh money i've spent here so far. But it seems to get better lately and month is still young so i'll see wat happens. Hours for playing here are as already mentioned prolly teh worst i have experienced so far. Best time to play is essentially between midnight and 2 in teh afternoon and i you do that your lifeschedule is fucked up for real. Atm i mostly play from like 6:30am to 2pm and another session after 22pm with 2 or 3 sleeps for 2-3hours which is for sure not optimal but i'll guess i get used to it.

Last but not least as usual some pictures of teh recent events and days, greetz from down under,

peaze
<3

Game over at 3:30 after a night of mediocre clubs and expensive beverages

Sydneys Central Business district

Teh intoxicted TimStone in teh Marquee

Posing in front of Opera House

Tower Bridge or something like that :P




Dienstag, 1. Januar 2013

2013 has started - first impressions of Sydney

Allrighty,

arrived on teh 29th so here for a couple of days and ready to share my first impressions of sydney with you guys. First and foremost happy new year and best of luck to everybody.

At the airport i was waiting in a line which was literally 300m long until i could present my passport after 45minutes and thereafter you have to wait another couple of minutes with your bags on the ground while they send a doggy sniffing on your lugage. Have never experienced such strict customs anywhere so far but they really don't want to get any food/drugs whatsoever in their country. Nevertheless managed to bring in my protein powder even though i almost threw it away at one point.
After this procedure i met my main travel buddy in the arrival hall and we proceeded to a taxi after buying some aussie sim cards for our phones.
Since teh airport is insanely central for such a big city we arrived in our new home 20 minutes later:

living room

Location is pretty superb with seaviews and only 200m from teh beach. Furthermoar there is a shitload of restaurants, shops and bars around. Barracuda was absolutely nothing compared to what choices you have here. Unfortunately pricing was/is "suberb" as well. For teh 17 days we staying we pay around 6.000AUS $.  Flat is nice and clean for sure but given that it maybe has 50m² in total and one bedroom is the kidsroom with a bunkbed (i won teh flip for the bigger room luckily) i was suspecting some sort of scam. After seeing other prices in tis country (moar about that later) i can say price for teh flat is on teh higher side but definitely no scam...

First night we directly met up with american onlinepokerlegend Joe Ingram and went clubbing to Marquee, a club directly in teh casino. Joe befriended one of teh big pokernames Tony G teh night before but even he was not able to organize us a table with his blackcard so that he left and it was back in line for us. Tony is for sure an oldschool baller, have only seen him for 20 mins or so but superfunny how he interacts with people :)
After waiting 40mins again it was finally clubbing time. Entrance was 30$ and vodka bull between 12 and 15$. Definitely expensive but not supersick for such a club. Unfortunately they closed at 4 and we didn't really managed to find something else to continue. Seems tough in general to find decent afterparties here even though alot of those clubs close superearly (4am seems to be fairly late for here tbh). But since we are no locals we might just don't know about teh right spots yet?! Also that night i made teh experience that they charge any amount between 12 and 25$ for a pack with 25cigarettes which is like up to double teh price u pay in London.




Went for dinner and lunch a couple of times as well and prices here range from expensive to very expensive. Don't think we managed to have one bill below 50$ so far with 2 people, one drink, no starters. And we did not only went to baller places... At better places it is basically impossible to go out with under 50$ per person and even then u have only one drink and no starters :/

By far teh sickest so far was tis though:

For what i paid 35$ in a convinient store. Alex was laughing about me for buying in that store only to discover that it costs basically teh same in the big supermarket he went teh next day...
Regarding food the only thing which really seems reasonably priced are the big fastfood chains. Paid 12$ for a large sub and a drink at subway which is allright i guess...

Internet we had in teh flat was quite horrible so that i realized teh 2nd day here that it will be impossible to work with vodaphone from here. Went to a large mall and got a telstra 4g modem with 5GB for 150 bucks. This should be moar on teh expensive side as well compared to other countries but at least now i have fast and reliable internet and can start going back to work soon.

Yesterday was our first real beach day and NYE.


Beach is definitely one of teh sickest ones i've seen so far packed with all kind of different people. Girls at teh beaches in Brazil are way hotter in general though. Seems like all teh guys here are working out like crazy while many girls haven't seen teh inside of a gym ever which seems pretty weird. You still find some hotties nevertheless but by far not in teh same frequency like in south america.

For New Years we went for a 4 course menue b4 started drinking. Was kinda funny how teh waiter tried to scare us away with teh price when we entered and asked for a table for 3 given Ingrams and my outfit haha. Unfortunately lost my first flip there (flipping wit Joe prolly minus EV anyways) and teh food was on me but u cannot always run good i assume.
Before midnight we celebrated in Ingrams pad and watched fireworks from there and went clubbing after.




Since we were afraid that it would be a pain in teh ass to get into any decent club after 12 we purchased tickets for 100$ in advance which was an epic fail after we could buy for 40$ at teh door haha but i guess shit happens. We arrived there at like 0:40 and they stopped serving alcohol at 2am. ON FUCKING NEW YEARS EVE????! so we moved on to another place which was similar meh like teh first one but at least they seemed to have a better liquor licence. All in all not too many highlights that evening besides maybe teh sickest fireworks i saw so far in my life.

My feelings about Australia or better Sydney are pretty mixed so far...
I really love teh vibe of our suburb, all teh small shops, teh insane beach, etc. You see Ferraris and next to it guys in there 20s riding there skateboard down teh hill. The crowd here is supermixed, many different nationalities, hipsters, backpackers, surfers - you name it. Weather is quite decent as well even if i would've imagined it hotter but i will not complain. Most days so far were between 25-30°C with only few clouds and basically no rain. Everything is also highly organized compared to most other places i traveled to. If i need something in a shop i get good service and fast handling of teh matter. In Brazil and Argentina i needed moar than 2 hours to buy a phone and a SIM card lol. That people speak english obviously helps as well. you can communicate with every single person you meet unlike last year where maybe 10% of people were speaking english. Sydney also feels pretty safe as well but that was quite obvious. So far it feels like Sydney is a way cooler and slightly moar expensive version of London with better weather.

Unfortunately not everything is good down here. Main point are for sure teh ridiculous prices. I mean I guess that people have higher salaries here, minimum wage is 16 an hour etc. but you cannot tell me that people here find it normal to pay 35$ for 4litres milk and 2 kelloggs. I make way moar a year than an average salary here is but even for me it seems just too much haha. The first night out we bought a bottle of Vodka at a bottle shop and Vodka Absolut was over 40$. For this price i get teh very same bottle with some mixers in a club in Malta or Buenos Aires... There's a shitload of Backpackers here at Bondi and honstly i have no clue how they finance there trip and how long they going to be busto once they home again. The other point which definitely not works in my favour are all those rules and regulations. If you take yesterday for example they have divided central Sydney in like 15 different parts for NYE from where u could watch teh harbour fireworks. In at least half of those 15 parts was no alcohol allowed. I mean, it's NYE, cmom, really?! Cannot imagine that happening in any european city besides London maybe. Fortunately alcohol in Ingram's place was no problemo :P

But still Sydney seems like a very interesting place and everybody should paint their own picture anyways. Also it's kinda early to draw any conclusions after only 3 days here so i'm kinda excited of all those things about to happen in near future. Pokerwise i haven't played a hand since teh 26th but depending how my slight hangover feels later i might be back on teh grind tonight again...

best rgds and sunny greetz from Sydney!