Freezing My Tits Off For Love - The Australian Idol Experience

As most of you would know, my wife has quite a gift with music (she sings, plays piano and violin and when she feels like annoying me, "Everybody Hurts" by REM over and over again until my ears bleed) and she has a healthy confidence in her ability as a performer. Yay. More power to her. However, this story is not about her, her talents or her time in Sydney. This story is mine.

We drove up to Sydney on Saturday 29 May. I had played soccer that afternoon, where we beat Canberra City 4-1. It had been a tiring afternoon as I was only just starting to return to full fitness after a mysterious knee injury (first they feared that I had torn cruciate ligaments, which is season-ending, then they thought I had torn cartilage, which no longer seems the case and now they put it all down to inflexible muscles) followed by a tear in my quad. Still, we won so it was all good. Helen had taught her piano student in the afternoon while I was busy being a winner (and adding an own-goal/slight deflection to my tally - three goals this season and it's not even quite half way through) so after a quick meal, we were off in the car and headed to Sydney.

The drive itself was fairly uneventful. I didn't take first shift as the decision was made that since I had driven through Sydney a couple of times, I was the best man for the job. The fun started once we hit Sydney proper.

Driving in Sydney sucks. Big time. Despite assurances from a friend who grew up there, it's a bitch to navigate around. Lanes appear and disappear without notice. One way streets come out of nowhere and no one drives like they give a fuck whether you survive on the road or not. With a minimum of screaming, arguing and offensive finger gestures (and that's over which page we were supposed to be on in the map of Sydney), at about 8:30pm we finally arrived at the Convention Centre at Darling Harbour, where the auditions were going to be held the next day.

After parking the car in the Convention Centre underground car park and carefully noting where we parked (and carefully noting the $20 we would be paying to get the car back out again), we set off in search for what we knew would be a fucking huge line. We wandered all over the Centre looking for a long line of hopeful wannabes. We couldn't find a line anywhere. We walked around the Centre, looking everywhere and still couldn't find a line. We guessed where it would have to start in the morning, but there was still nothing there. Turns out that was because we were blind. The line was right in front of us, right down at water level. We had missed it and got confused because there was only about 50 people there at most. Not quite believing our eyes, we checked with our friendly neighbourhood dude in a black suit and walkie talkie who confirmed that it was indeed the Idol line. Woo. We would be able to get away early the next day.

Helen staked out her spot in the line and I was sent out to find food. That discounted McDonalds straight away and pretty much ruled out the Starbucks nearby as well. After about 10 minutes of searching, I found a Wok on Inn that served take-away, so dinner was sorted fairly easily in the end. I was now in desperate need of a coffee. I did a lot of soul searching, swallowed my pride and my principles and got a Starbucks coffee. I felt so unclean and dirty, but as a former smoker and now hard-core caffeine addict, I'm used to feeling like that. At roughly 9pm, I settled in the line next to Helen. The Wait Had Begun.

To Be Continued....