{"id":2979,"date":"2014-02-17T01:24:38","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T09:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2979"},"modified":"2014-02-17T01:24:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T09:24:38","slug":"come-and-find-me-sydney-australia-02112014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2979","title":{"rendered":"Come and Find Me  &#8211; Sydney, Australia \u2013 [02\/11\/2014]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><a href=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/lucy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2980\" alt=\"lucy\" src=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/lucy.jpg\" width=\"275\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/lucy.jpg 275w, https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/lucy-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" \/><\/a>There comes a time when you just can\u2019t take any more falling down walls, or people muttering heaven knows what to you in Polish, there comes a point where you just have to GET OUT ~ Under the Tuscan Sun<\/i><\/p>\n<p>When I wrote to Garnet a few weeks ago letting her and her hubby know that I would be in Sydney this week and would they like to meet up, I hadn\u2019t really thought about how desperate I would be by that point to just <i>get away<\/i>.\u00a0 Because honestly, in every job, no matter how much you love it \u2013 there hits a point when you just need to get away, because you feel like if you take one more itty bitty thing, your brain is simply going to snap in two beyond repair.<\/p>\n<p>So needless to say I was very <i>very<\/i> happy to see friendly, understanding faces when I made my way to our agreed upon meeting spot. Which was a bookstore, which is dangerous, because well \u2026me and books\u2026which was made even more dangerous by the fact that Australia? Is apparently obsessed with cooking, and this place had a <i>huge<\/i> cookbook section, with an equally huge section of speciality baking cookbooks\u2026freya do I ever miss baking. I was good though, I didn\u2019t buy anything. Not even one of the ones that was all chocolate based recipes that I\u2019m certain I could have had way too much fun with.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we made our way to a little back alley Korean restaurant which we had practically to ourselves since it was still early in the evening, and spent a relaxed hour or so trading stories of life since we had last met a year ago. Turns out emotionally that Garnet and I have swapped places, when we last met up she was just about to go into her final exams at Uni and I was on the upswing of a really good season, so she was drained flat and I was perky, this time it was the other way around. But these guys and I have known each other for over ten years, we\u2019re way past the point where they\u2019re going to judge me on not being little miss smiley all the time.<\/p>\n<p>Having made no real plans and since I had nothing in mind except being as far away from work as possible, we ambled several blocks after dinner in search of an incredibly illusive speak-easy style whiskey bar, which turned out to be <i>so<\/i> elusive that when we <i>did<\/i> find it, it wasn\u2019t there. Well, it was <i>there<\/i>, but it was closed, and since the door to the stairway that leads to it looks remarkably like the door to an electrical locker you could have sworn that there <i>wasn\u2019t<\/i> a bar there at all. At first we thought were had taken a wrong turn somewhere (\u201care we in the <i>right<\/i> dodgy back alley?\u201d) but then at least twenty other people, all dressed for a sophisticated evening out, turned the corner over the course of the next ten minutes and stared confusedly at the same locked metal door. I swear there should have been a hidden camera. The secret bar that it so secret that no one can find it.<\/p>\n<p>Since the speak-easy was apparently not in the cards, we just kept walking, and ended up at a tiny, dimly lit pub-style bar\u2026which, from the moment I walked in, felt familiar. Not because I frequent bars, I really don\u2019t, but because of what this particular bar offers every Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Y\u2019see, all Swing Dancing clubs have the same feel\u2026this one? Was no different.<\/p>\n<p>Garnet and I met at the local Swing Dance scene years ago, so whenever I\u2019m meeting up with her anywhere in the world, I pack my dance shoes into my carry bag. She\u2019d hunted this place out online specifically because I had mentioned the possibility of wanting to go dancing, what she hadn\u2019t mentioned \u2013 because at the time she didn\u2019t know \u2013 was the band.<\/p>\n<p>They had a band. A <i>real<\/i> band.<\/p>\n<p>While we were ordering our drinks and slipping on our dance shoes we were watching the band start to set up\u2026<\/p>\n<p><i>What do you think? These guys gonna be any good?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Dunno, only been here once and they weren\u2019t playing that night. Looks like they\u2019ve got some brass players though, we\u2019ll just have to see\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p>And then the set kicked off, and the band screamed into <i>In The Mood<\/i>, and suddenly I was transported back to being 21 years old, listening to my father play on New Year\u2019s Eve\u2026and it didn\u2019t matter that Australian customs had tossed my room during their random inspection earlier that day, it didn\u2019t matter that I missed home and my family and my friends, that I didn\u2019t have a valentine, that the internet was still slightly broken\u2026none of it mattered. For just one shiney shiney, I <i>was<\/i> home, and my crazy upside-down world was turned right-side up again\u2026<\/p>\n<p><i>So\u2026may I have this dance?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Hells yes\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes? You just \u2026need\u2026.to\u2026.get\u2026out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There comes a time when you just can\u2019t take any more falling down walls, or people muttering heaven knows what to you in Polish, there comes a point where you just have to GET OUT ~ Under the Tuscan Sun &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2979\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,72,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-grand-world-voyage-2014","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-M3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2981,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2979\/revisions\/2981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}