Enabler

The Hickster, who I've mentioned here before, is someone I met in July when I was up at Port Douglas on a snorkeling trip on the reef. Turned out she was relatively new to Sydney, which was perfect since most of my good friends were in the process of moving to other countries. At this point she's probably my best friend in Australia, as she is very social and always up for an adventure.

On Saturday night, me and the Hickster decided to meet up for a glass of wine because we hadn't seen each other in a couple of weeks. We instantly started ordering bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, and within hours were dancing wildly to the "greatest" dance hits of the 90's.

This tends to be how almost every outing together turns out. We briefly came to the realization that night that she and I haven't sat down to dinner or anything remotely civilized other than the day we met. It's by no means that we aren't able to have fun without being drunk. I would say that I have some of my most interesting and even, dare I say, philosophical conversations with the Hickster. Alas, we both love similar wine and that always seems to be more than enough justification to order bottles, starting a vicious cycle.

And so, we've started brainstorming for things we can do that wouldn't involve such ridiculous amounts of booze. We've attempted a games night at my place that resulted in no games being played and me dragging about two garbage bags of empty bottles down to recycling the next morning. We did a picnic in the park once which was mostly subdued, but probably would have taken a turn for the worst if we didn't each have somewhere else to be shortly thereafter. And once we tried to give ourselves credit for only having one bottle of wine after work one Friday, but considering I had a flight super early the next morning and the Hickster's flatmate was at home recovering from surgery and dependent on her for food, it's safe to say that it took something close to an act of god to accomplish that.

If anyone out there can help us find something to do that might be a little healthier and cheaper than supporting the Sydney nightlife industry, we promise to be fascinated by your suggestions.