Things you've never dreamed of

Look mom I’m socialising with the internets!

I follow chocolatesuze on Twitter and she mentioned free Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on the 28th and do any food bloggers want to come? Crippling social anxiety nearly made me say no but FREE + ice cream? I’m down with that. So I woke up way too early on a Saturday and caught a ferry to Manly.

Fuck me, $12 for a return ticket? Oh OK whatever. I take the ferry almost every morning to work, but I’ve never been on one of the big-ass ferries before. It has a cafe, gazillions of seats and uhh… a lot more lights.

There was a queue about half a block long when I got there but thankfully the weather down in Manly isn’t as horrific as the rest of Sydney. Ben and Jerry’s had an impressive cast of thousands for their Sydney grand opening, complete with camera crew, gift bags, tambourines, cow bells, dancing girls (not the rude type), stickers and the po-po to make sure that people don’t get run over in their haste to get ice cream.

There were a few of these characters around.

The people moo-ver. GET IT?

The line moved quickly – I only had to wait about 15 minutes to get my ice cream.

Surprise! Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield themselves were swell enough to make an appearance for the Sydney grand opening. They stuck around for a few hours to feed ice cream to the greedy masses.

My first ice cream of the day – peanut butter cookie dough. I’m a total peanut butter fiend and the combination of malt ice cream and generous gobs of salty-sweet peanut butter blew my mind. Just put this in an IV bag and hook me up.

At this point I’ve met up and been introduced to a few bloggers who were there. I spotted Susan a.k.a chocolatesuze first because she’s one of the few bloggers who actually has photos of herself on her blog.

Sheryl from One Bite More, Yas from Hungry Digital Elf, Ninja from The Ninja Review (plus new camera) and Susan of chocolatesuze. Sheryl’s partner stealthily moved out of the shot. Not pictured because they came later and I had camera envy are Jacqueline from Penguin Says Feed Me and Richard from Here Comes the Food. I’ve come to the conclusion that Sydney food bloggers are a ridiculously attractive bunch (I’m an exception because I had ice cream stains down my front and didn’t realise until I was on the ferry home, FML). Ask them for tips on how to scoff down 6 cups of ice cream in a day and still stay slim.

Susan loves introducing me to people so she can get me to tell them what my blog name is.

Look at this picture and tell me they’re not awesome.

Queued up again for the second time and got a free spoon. No you can’t eat it.

Second ice cream: Cherry Garcia. Cherry ice cream and dark chocolate chunks. This one is probably everyone else’s least favourite but I quite liked it. If you don’t like maraschino cherries, don’t get this one.

HOT ICE CREAM ON ICE CREAM ACTION

Everyone started to get sick from all the sugar so we had to have a restorative salt break. Yes, I’m a freak who puts tomato sauce on fish and chips.

God help me third round. This is Susan’s fourth and Sheryl’s fifth (I think). Susan, Yas and Sheryl’s Richard opted for lighter sorbets.

For my third and final ice cream I got the Chocolate Macadamia. I love the shit out of this – it’s vanilla and chocolate ice cream with chocolate covered macadamia nuts. It’s absolutely perfect, second only to the peanut butter ice cream.

Sarah from a PR agency I can’t remember the name of came by to talk to us – I think she got in touch with Susan about the opening. She asked us for our blog names and I went oh shit, how about I just write down the URL for you. She laughed heaps when she saw what I wrote, which was a better reaction than what I was expecting.

I’ve never had Ben & Jerry’s before and the hype around it made me kind of wary but now I’m like, where have you been all my life? I love the fact that these guys are social activists, I mean hippies and ice cream can’t be anything but a good combination. It was also really good to meet up with other Sydney food bloggers who – despite my social awkwardness and potty mouth – were very friendly and welcoming. Definitely worth the $12 return fare. Thank you Susan for organising, and thank you Ben & Jerry’s for the delicious ice cream and resulting spare tyre.