Famished or just Hungry

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) was somewhere I wanted to visit but hadn't gotten around to yet. I had a few things to do in the city including escorting my parents and grandma onto the Manly Ferry, and the from Circular Quay to wherever they wanted to go.

I'd gone in the day before but had some things to do in Newtown and meeting a friend for lunch, too many time constraints meant that I couldn't take time to see the gallery then.

Like always, everybody took a lot longer than necessary to get ready.

We were finally out and on the ferry to the city before 11.30am which meant we had the whole afternoon ahead of us.

The family seemed to need or want to follow me, so I led them to the office of Cathay Pacific. I was trying to change the date of the return leg of my flight, so I could stay in Australia for another week and have a little holiday of my own. I managed to locate the building and what floor it was on. When I got to the doors, I was stuck. Feeling like a child in an old fashioned school playground game I stood there for a moment trying to figure out what my next move would be. It was then that an official looking chap appeared at my shoulder and asked me what I was doing. I told him and he explained to me that I needed to either change my booking online, which I couldn't do as the check in process had already started. My other option was to call and speak to somebody and hopefully sort it over the phone.

Disheartened by my failure, I went down the lift with my head down facing deep beneath the earth below me. My family were at a nearby sculpture that resembled a pile of stacked dice. I told them what happened and we parted ways. I went off in the direction of the MCA, they went towards the Opera House for another attempt at photographing it, the bridge and the rest of the harbour.

It had been a long time since I was last at the gallery so was shocked to see such a huge number of the same pieces from before. I gather that the permanent collection should mean permanent as in forever but quite often it doesn't, maybe it did here. Some of the old ones are really good and some of the new ones were also great but there is one in particular I cannot stand. I never have and never will. A life size, saggy bottomed and crudely made Spiderman figure. That on its own is bad enough but for some reason there is a smaller than life-size man's head morphing out of the wall with an elogated neck, staring directly into Spidermans, childishly hand painted face. It is utterly hideous, just the thought of it is enough to make me almost vomit. It was one of the mainly publicised pieces after the MCA reopened after a refurbishment a few years ago. It is only my opinion but I find that piece disgusting and wish I'd never seen it.

After checking out the rest of the gallery and shop, refraining from destroying that Spiderman thing or spilling rancid bile all over the place, I bought a couple of small gifts in the shop and walked up the seemingly never-ending staircase to the 4^th floor Sculpture Terrace and Café.

What was to be one of the last sunny days of my family's visit to Australia was a glorious one. Clear blue skies as far as the eye could see, until you scanned the panorama and caught a glimpse of a huge and unflattering cruise ship, obscuring the normally picturesque and beautiful view of the harbour with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in full view. I imagine a vessel like that is quite attractive to the old aged pensioner who spends a lot of time hopping on and off cruise ships all over the world.

Hearing several large honks, calling back the remaining few passengers to the ship before it set sail, it soon slowly backed away from the Overseas Passenger Terminal and started its departure away from Sydney, for a while hopefully, never to return I thought.

I messaged my mum to get them all to come up and check out the view of the harbour as the sun began to set but I received no response so left it that my messages had not been delivered and they would not be joining me. I stayed up there watching as the sun quickly set on a warm autumnal evening. The location was perfect, I participated in some solo activities like reading, writing and watching crowds of foreign tourists come and go, along with some locals having an early evening supper or catching up over a glass or two of wine. I had a cup of coffee and a pot of tea and in the mean time decided I would go to North Sydney to meet my brother who was at some work function.

Bumping into my parents on my way to Wynyard Station, I informed them of my plan. They were in search of food. Given the time of the day and where they were it would have been a difficult task to find anywhere reasonable and not busy. I left them to their struggle and had one of my own, it took me nearly ten bloody minutes to find the station. I couldn't see any signs for it or anything. I finally found it, boarded the train and was in North Sydney in no time at all.

My parents notified me that they had gone back to Manly as the city was busy and frustrating and as it was getting late and dark they wanted to be nearer to where we were staying.

The 'Rag & Famish Hotel' was about a five minute walk up the hill from North Sydney Station, on the corner of Miller and Berry. Ideally situated for the bankers and other suite (or should that be wankers and other shits) among North Sydney's high rise offices.

I arrived before my brother, it was really busy so got myself a beer and found a couple of seats near the front door. Being a Thursday I didn't expect and hoped that these drunkards would leave soon, not stick around and behave like drunken twats and make nuisances of themselves.

I was about an inch from the bottom of my beer when Dom arrived, walking through the door to where I sat. I was hungry, he was a little tipsy from boozing all afternoon at the work function and not too hungry as he claimed to have eaten lots of different meats. Walking towards the pub I saw a sign up high above the awning about 'buy one, get one free steaks', the decision for what to eat was already made up in my mind. It wasn't for the pub but for the restaurant upstairs, I was still very much interested.

We had a couple of beers, over which we were to make a decision or it was up to me to persuade Dom that I wanted in on these steaks.

Steak it was and soon I hoped, I was... f***ing hungry. I tend to eat barely anything if anything at all during the day, so when it comes to dinner I am really hungry. I would say starving but I've always been told it's wrong to use such a word as there are people in the world who have no food and are truly starving, being hungry even for a whole day is nothing in comparison.

We'd been drinking 'Hangman's Pale' and Aussie Pale Ale. We went upstairs to get a table and start the process of ordering food, eating food and becoming satisfied by eating food.

When we got to the entrance of the restaurant we were greeted by the most beautiful creature I did ever lay eyes on. I could happily have stared at her all day instead of Sydney Harbour. I don't know if it was me being a drunken buffoon or I was stunned by her presence but it was quite an oddly awkward experience asking for a table for two and then going to the table. To keep her anonymous all I will say is that she had bleached blond hair and some piercings. Not that anybody even reads this, I don't want it to be at all embarrassing for her and even for me or others who were part of this story. I went off downstairs to grab a couple more beers to see us through dinner. When I returned upstairs Dom was by the bar on the phone and hadn't sat down yet. As soon as he'd finished we went to our freshly set table and sat down. There was something quite surreal about the whole restaurant experience. It looked kind of like it was a fancy restaurant, the one you'd normally expect to dress up to visit but then at the same time there was something very casual about it. A white guy who looked quite annoying with dreadlocks and an attractive girl on his arm. Rather than focusing on ordering and eating, they were more interested in sucking each others faces off which is wholly inappropriate in a restaurant. That led me to believe it was more casual than formal.

The management or whoever is responsible for hiring staff pick them very well. The girls are gorgeous and the guys, the guys are non existent. That night anyway. Not only were all of them as gorgeous as the last and next, their service was spot on too. I was very impressed with it all. If I lived and/or worked nearby I would become a regular and make the Rag & Famish Hotel my local.

It might sound rude of me but I struggled to keep from looking at the waitress. Sadly she only showed us to our table and we were waited by a couple of different and equally as stunning waitresses. It was such a pleasant experience, even with our order being cocked up. Wether it was my fault for not actually ordering any steamed snow peas or they forgot I don't know. The situation was quickly resolved once I got their attention. I mean, how are you supposed to call the waitresses over, a) do you stick you hand up and look like an immature little school boy, b) do you make some kind of noise or gesture hoping to attract their attention, or c) do you patiently wait for them to glance over at you where you make some kind of signal and they come over and then you explain the problem. I opted for c. With the other two options you either look like a silly little bugger or like an absolute twat who deserves to have spit in their food.

Perhaps I over think the whole thing but I couldn't do anything else to keep my mind off the waitress.

The worst thing about the whole story is that I never did anything to make my overly conceived thoughts clear. After all, I'm on holiday from England, I don't know the next time I'll be in Australia etc...

I thought they'd mixed up our order but I was wrong. Dom just happened to have the fattest piece of rib eye steak I have ever seen. It was about an inch thick at its thinnest. I had rump which wasn't as thick but overall was a larger chunk of meat. Once the steamed peas came out, we were left to enjoy our food, every last bite. It was a good steak, they were both brilliant steaks. The whole meal was good. However bizarre the experience felt it was a good one.

After we ate, we returned to the downstairs bar where it had cleared considerably since we'd gone up for some food. It was still quite busy but nothing in comparison to before. There was a guy playing music in the corner, I don't know if he was playing originals or acoustic covers. He seemed to be playing for the remainder of the night.

The idea of going for a couple of drinks ended up with us being there nearly until close. It felt that way but I can't be sure, I quite drunk and hadn't kept track of time. At one point I left Dom at an outside table on his own. When I got back from the loo, he was surrounded by a bunch of drunk rowdy men and women. I later found out after talking to a few of them that they are his colleagues, the ones he'd been drinking with and eating meat with all afternoon.

Dom moved onto wine and I moved onto Young Henry's 'Natural Lager', a cloudy, unfiltered and additive free lager. A lager brewed the proper way with bags of flavour and ever so light and refreshing that I could have sunk a whole keg, or half or maybe a few more pints than I did.