Sunshine and sand is marvellous, but, she adds: "We do miss coming in from the cold to a good pub with roaring fires, full of people, pints and mulled wine – British friends of ours who have been here for years and years all agree that they'll never have that kind of festive feeling while living down under".
Eventually you slump on the pavement somewhere between the two, your belly full of brown pints and insipid neon cocktails.
There are club nights; Seani B's got his 1Xtra show; and student union DJs occasionally blast a "Rum & Red Bull" chorus at a room full of pound-fifty pints.
In a corner by a window is a table with its own Guinness tap, where customers can pull their own pints (and those are full European pints of 20 ounces, not the typical 16).
The aim of the game is to down a full pint of alcohol via a large intake of spirits and other drinks, and then nominate others to do the same within a 24-hour period.
Watch the NekNomination videos of people drinking pints full of live goldfish, or dead mice, or stripping in supermarkets, or riding horses into supermarkets (these things always catch on in the countryside eventually), and you can't help but wonder if British youth haven't lost the plot a bit.
No slot for overpriced farmers' markets, micro greens, corporate food festivals, the inability of pubs to serve a full pint of beer and a very definite "no" from the editor to my suggestion that the whole article could consist entirely of pictures of Jamie Oliver.
Once, a long time ago when I was very young, I had one boss I didn't like, and I ended up pouring a full pint of beer on his head in front of the entire team.
The only downer was Martin Tomlinson from Selfish Cunt (right) who was walking around the party with a pint full of urine, trying to get people to drink it.
