Going off the grid

Just in time for the Eurovision finale last weekend we took our rented car and headed out of Sydney and up north to visit friends. Before I got there I new that it would be somewhat remote but I didn’t expect it to be totally off the radar. It took some time for the brain to process but while there, it was no biggie. I tried to get a good photo of the house but it proved to be more difficult than expected since it was surrounded by lots and lots of vegetation. See for yourselves.

The absolute highpoint of the visit was when our hosts took us for a walk in the nearby forest on Saturday. Big parts of the area used to be under water and therefore, wherever you looked you found fossils. While me and Mike turned every other stone, Munson was enjoying himself running around and feeling as free and happy as a dog can be. He eventually found a pond which he half drenched to quench his thirst.

The vegetation of the forest was a new experience for me as it totally differs from what we have in Sweden. There were thousands of different Gumtrees, Wild Passionfruit and Mahoganytrees, but the one that really caught my eye was the Grasstree which starts from being a little shrub to grow to a 4 meter tall tree. The fully grown to the right was expected to be over 70 years old.

The Gaslight Anthem

I don’t remember how or exactly when I started to listen to The Gaslight Anthem. But I instantly fell in love with their second album, “The ‘59 sound”, and since then they have released two more albums which I’ve played many times. So when last year when we still lived at the farm in France I saw that the band was scheduled to play in Sydney it didn’t take many seconds for me to log onto the net and book two tickets. They’ve been playing in Sweden a couple of times but I have never been able to see them and I thought it was about time that I brought Mike to a concert and not the other way around.

The concert was at Enmore Theatre which is a 15 min walk from the house, we passed it the same day during the afternoon and we could clearly hear the band doing the last practice/sound check before the show. The doors opened at 19:00 and the supporting act entered the stage about a half an hour later. When he was done we waited about 20 min until the stage went dark and out stepped the main act. Besides the excitement of seeing my favourite band play live, the first thing that came to my mind was how damn loud it was. Let’s just say that if I didn’t know most of the songs already I would have a hard time trying to figure out what the hell Brian Fallon sang. I quickly exchanged looks with Mike and we decided to move further back for our ears sake. The loudness was a damn shame because I really like Brian’s voice. The set was 22 songs long and the only bad thing I can say about that is that they didn’t play enough songs from their third album “American Slang” which happens to be my favourite album. All in all, I was satisfied with the concert, after we moved further away from the stage the sound wasn’t unbearable loud anymore and It’s not every day that you get to see your favourite band play.

On a sidenote, as we entered the venue I quickly spotted their touring guitarist, Ian Perkins, who in 2011 formed “The Horrible Crowes” together with the singer and released one of the best albums that year titled “Elsie”.

Here’s a iPhone photo of us.

Finally home

Since I last wrote two major events have happened. Firstly, after we’ve been couch surfing since we got here we’ve finally moved into the house in Marrickville. I had seen a couple of photos of it from the time when Mike didn’t live in France and Munson was only a little puppy but clearly not enough. If you look at the house from the street really plays a number on you since the house is much more longer than what you think at first sight. I know it would be smaller place than the house on the farm but I think there will be plenty of space for two guys and a big dog. One thing that I really like about the house is that the ceiling in  the house are very high with beautiful decoration. The kitchen and the laundry room, which leads out to the backyard does not have the same high ceilings since it was built as an extension over 20 years ago. The house needs to be fixed up a little bit, but it’s a very cute house. Since our furniture haven’t arrived yet the house is very empty. We’ve made lots of trips to warehouses and malls to get the essentials. The guy we last stayed with was nice enough to lend us a mattress and we was able to take over an old washer machine from one of Mike’s friends.

Secondly, everyone’s favourite fluffy Malamute was finally released from quarantine. Ever since we picked him up he hasn’t left us unsupervised, he’s even neglected the meaty bone we gave him as soon as we came home yesterday. It’s truly wonderful to have him back with us and I’m certain he feels the same way. He’s been to the dog park twice already and according to Mike he was beyond bliss this afternoon when the two of them went there, while I was busy playing football with the Sydney Rangers FC. It was only casual but they wanted me to play in competition, something I would love to do if a membership wouldn’t have cost nearly 400 dollars.