We arrived at Luna Park which is right along the harbour and pretty much followed other formally dressed people into the venue. I took a couple of snaps on the way in. I remembered my camera but didn’t remember business cards. Oops, it was a networking evening and I forgot my business cards.
I’m pretty happy with my photo of Sydney Harbour Bridge. My digital camera is better at daytime photos so the fact that it was getting dark here makes me a bit surprised it worked.
This photo of the entrance to Luna Park turned out ok as well. The smiling face looks a bit evil though.
We found the Crystal Ballroom, entered, and headed straight for the bar. I had a couple of sparkling whites before putting a stop to that and I’m glad I did. There were already quite a few people there which was encouraging. I would say most of them were from Sydney but a few people I talked to during the evening were from interstate. Didn’t meet anyone else from Adelaide though.
The awards ceremony started with Mikey Robbins doing his MC bit and a couple of speeches from others, that after Mikey’s off the cuff introduction were a bit boring and I don’t remember what was said.
There were about 17 awards to give out and people did start to get restless as the ceremony went on which was a bit of a shame if you were up for an award later on in the piece but this part was over with pretty quickly. Unfortunately we didn’t win our category but we were pretty happy just to be there.
After this was over it was down to more drinking and ‘networking’. I’m not much good at this networking thing but I was pretty proud of myself and my ability to chat to people I’d never met. I must admit it got easier as the night wore on. There were definitely sales pitches thrown at me but it wasn’t all work talk. We adjourned out the back of the Crystal Ballroom later on as the numbers started to dwindle. What a great view it was with a lovely breeze blowing around us.
I’m not sure what time it all wound up but we ended up going to the Greenwood pub on Blue Street. I can only remember this because both the pub and street names were colours. It was a great pub. It looked like an old church and had quite a big garden around it. There weren’t heaps of people there and we definitely helped swell the numbers somewhat. We had more drinks, did a bit of dancing and I had to take my high heels off towards the end because my feet felt like they were walking on daggers.
We eventually left and got back to the hotel about 3am and had a quick swim in the hotel pool which shuts at 10pm. We were pretty quiet though and it was a necessary step for our last night at the hotel.
After three hours sleep my internal clock woke me up with a bit of a headache and a very empty stomach. I tossed and turned for a couple of hours and gave in and got up, had a shower and went downstairs for breakfast. It was hard work forcing food down my throat but I knew I needed some food in my stomach. After all I had shopping planned.
I only ended up going to the Glebe markets which was pretty hard work, especially when the sun decided to make an appearance. I bought a couple of things, and had another look around the Queen Victoria Building shops and bought a couple of things there also. If I had felt better I would have gone to Paddington to have a look around there. I ended up doing the touristy thing and having my first ride on the monorail doing a couple of rounds on that.
I met my colleague at the airport and we had a hangover buster from NRG which was absolutely awful. It had watermelon, ginger, guarana and a couple of other things and it nearly made me sick but I wasn’t thank goodness.
The trip back to Adelaide was uneventful and I was home in good time. I’d been arranged to babysit a friends kid for a couple of hours then I was going round the corner to a 40th. All I felt like doing was curling up on my couch and chilling out for the evening but out I went. I did my babysitting and went out for a couple of hours to the 40th which was pretty quiet. I managed a few beers and got back to go to sleep about 1am.
Sunday was the relaxing day it needed to be.