Week ending 28-Sep: Canberra

We finally got our furniture this week! We had gotten so used to living in a virtually empty apartment it was almost shocking to have a couch, kitchen table, chairs, a real bed, etc. The quarantine/customs service here is evidently incredibly thorough about letting in things that might have little organisms or diseases on them or other things that they don't want finding their way to Australia. We ended up getting all of our stuff with the exception of my hiking boots which I bet were caked with dirt…those are either being "steam cleaned or destroyed." Hoping to avoid the latter, but I guess I'll find out. In any case, it feels so good to have a real apartment that is actually a liveable space, its quite a difference to how its been!

This weekend we set out on a roadtrip to Canberra, the national capital of Australia (Leah and Monica, two uni-friends, joined us for the trip). Canberra is a city that was plopped down when a dispute between Sydney and Melbourne over which city should be the national capital couldn't be decided. And it kind of gives off that vibe of being somewhat artificial and manufactured. I'm glad we went and saw it, but I can pretty safely say that I will not need to return to Canberra anytime soon. On Saturday we walked through the "parliamentary zone" which includes the new parliament building, the old parliament building, a few memorials, etc. We saw the red and green rooms which is where the House and Senate hold session which I thought was kind of cool to see. Overall the area is kind of like a toned down version of DC…it completely gives off the vibe of being a government center but it doesn't quite have the pomp and showiness that DC has. In the afternoon we went to Floriade, which is a month long festival of flowers. There were some really cool fields of brightly colored flowers…I think some people go there to spend the day, we feel like we covered it in about 30 minutes so its all relative but I thought it was cool. In the evening we went to a restaurant and sat outside and ate and had some wine…it was nice.

Sunday we had brunch outside (it was another gorgeous day) and then drove up to the top of this huge hill that overlooks the city and went up in the tower that gives you a view out around the area. And then we visited the Australian Institute of Sports which is where promising Aussie athletes go to train to hopefully compete in the olympics and one day make their country proud. The AIS has a huge sprawling campus and I imagine it was state of the art when it was built 20 years ago but the whole feel was a little weird, like they're so into making sure their athletes can compete on a global scale. Interesting to see. Afterwards we made the drive home, got a little lost on the way but finally made it back. A slightly random weekend, but fun…Bill Bryson's descriptions of the city are pretty right-on in my mind: it feels almost like a deserted city because there is never anyone around, no matter where you're driving the roads kind of circle around on themselves and you're going to get lost, I can't remember what else, but I found it amusing. Canberra is definitely not a place I would say anyone really needs to visit unless they've got a lot of time to spend in Australia. Some pictures are below along with links for some more (not the most spectacular collection of pictures I've ever taken, just to get everyone's expectations in line)

Floriade pics:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.54gml7fp&x=0&y=v0k1zt&localeid=en_US

Other Canberra pics:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.8hmpvycl&x=0&y=1issjn&localeid=en_US

Week ending 21-Sep: Bridge Run

We finally got internet this week hence I’ve been able to put up some posts from the past few weeks. You really don’t appreciate having internet at home until you don’t have it. These Australians are charging us an arm and a leg, but its certainly worth it in my opinion.

Thursday night was a big night out after work because it was someone’s birthday. The celebration actually started with a lovely lunch down on this pier out on the water…it was a gorgeous day and felt like a very “Sydney” thing to do. Friday was pretty low key for us, BBQed at home and caught up on some sleep. Saturday was a spectacular day…it was warm and sunny and perfect. I had to go to work for a quick bit which actually wasn’t bad because it gave me a chance to stroll leisurely outside on the way there and enjoy the weather. When I got back I went down to our pool (finally we’re having weather that makes having a pool and garden area in our building worthwhile!) and had a little swim and read for a bit and kind of dozed in the sun. It was a very lazy Saturday morning/afternoon for me. Michelle, meanwhile, was off handing out “get out the vote” type fliers at this market and then out on the beach…she’s gotten fairly active in the group “Democrats Abroad” which is focusing on getting Americans living overseas registered and signed up for absentee ballots. Later that afternoon we went and saw Cirque Du Soleil which was pretty cool. They do some seriously amazing and crazy stuff. And Saturday night we had a big pasta dinner to carb-up for Sunday morning’s activities.

Sunday we got up early for the Bridge Run. There are four different races that happen, a marathon, half-marathon, 9K and like a 4K (we did the 9k). The race starts just north of the harbour, crosses over the bridge, does a circuit through the botanical gardens along the water and finishes at the opera house. We’d been training for a few weeks so I think we were both feeling pretty good about it, but our goal really was just to be able to run the whole way. We ended up running pretty well and did it in just over 50 minutes, which for us was very exciting. And it was a gorgeous day and just fun to be taking part in the event. We ran for GSJBW and they had a tent in the “recovery village” where you could get breakfast/water/juice so we sat around there and “recovered” for a bit before heading home. We were a little tired but had to enjoy the sun while we could so went to the pool for a dip and a little reading time. For the rest of the day we pretty much lounged around, napped a little, did some errands and went out for dinner. Overall an excellent weekend in the city! The feeling is just so different here when the weather is nice…can’t beat this place!

I was shooting these as i was running so a lot are kinda blurry:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.3e8t34x1&x=0&y=-vbzsps&localeid=en_US

Week ending 14-Sep: The Hunter Valley

Spring finally arrived this week and I think the whole city was in a good mood because of it. Nothing but sunshine all week and it got progressively warmer so that by Friday it was in the mid 20s (70s). Lots of people did long lunches outside and I think everyone left work a little earlier Friday evening. Michelle and I had dinner at home on the BBQ and then went to our friend Erica’s apartment because it was her 30th birthday. But we didn’t stay out that long because Saturday morning we were getting up early, renting a car and going up to the Hunter Valley.

The Hunter Valley is NSW’s wine region. We drove up and rented bikes and biked from vineyard to vineyard, doing some tastings along the way. The weather was perfect, cloudless and warm. The terrain was definitely not flat so biking was quite an effort. Each vineyard we’d get to and we’d both be dripping sweat, our hair all messed up, sucking wind and the other people there are in their khaki pants and polo shirts and all dressed up. But unlike how I think that would have gone over in somewhere like Napa, nobody here cared that we were somewhat disastrous. Regarding the wine, we’re not big wine people so all I can say is I liked some of them, but they don’t taste all that different from other wines I’ve had. The countryside was gorgeous, but I think I’ll be forever tainted by the wine region near Cape Town because I don’t see how anything could really compare with that on a scenic level. But it was really a perfect day and biking around to get from place to place was really enjoyable. And a very momentous occurrence for us in the afternoon was our first wild kangaroo sightings! One of the guys in the winery was telling us that there are kangaroo by the dozen out on the hillside usually in the afternoons and sure enough, when we left there on the hill were dozens and dozens of kangaroo. And eventually most of them hopped down towards a little pond to drink from…it was really exciting. And then pulling into the little road where we had to return the bikes, there in front of us were three kangaroo just watching us. We walked up a bit to them and then moved off over a hill a little, but when we got closer there were still there and ended up bounding up towards us. We both thought they were charging us but they stopped a little ways off, watched us a bit more and then left. In the evening we went to this brewery, the Bluetongue, where we had some of their local brews and then had dinner in the attached restaurant. We stayed the night in the little town nearby, but trying to not spend a fortune on the fancy hotels that they have there, we booked a place that’s part of a pub. It ended up being we were right above this pub that had live music going until past 2 in the morning…lesson learned, don’t stay in a pub hotel unless you want music blasting in your room into the night. Sunday we had breakfast at a place known for their champagnes and then did a little drive to Werakata National Park which is nearby. We drove on some very “unsealed” roads into the park, in the middle of some dense vegetation…walked around a bit, thought we were going to be lost in there forever, but eventually found our way out. Had lunch at another place (basically all we did was eat and drink for the whole weekend) and then got on the road back to the city. Very fun weekend, the Hunter Valley was great. I think we’re going to go back in a few months maybe for a daytrip when it’s more wine season because the grapes are about to start growing now, but really haven’t yet so we want to see it when everything is in its prime.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.a9d5ghk5&x=0&y=alkegx&localeid=en_US

Week ending 07-Sep

The week started off stunningly, as if spring had finally arrived. Monday and Tuesday were cloudless with brilliant blue sky and sun and warmer than it had been, maybe around 70? The hopes that that was the end of “winter” here were dashed though Wednesday through the weekend: it was cloudy, gray, rainy, chilly and windy. Still, we’re hopeful that we’re almost through the 3 months of “bad” weather that Sydney has each year. So one of the key points of discussion at work this week regarded McCain’s choice of running mate…the Aussies I work with couldn’t get enough news about Palin, her love of guns, her love of moose (as a food), her daughter’s fiancé who loves to “shoot $hit,” and her general redneckish ways. All of them continue the streak of every single non-American I’ve ever talked to not liking Bush and the right wing. Its pretty fun (and also depressing) to discuss the situation…I liked the analysis that said Australia would be politically more like the US if Australia’s “middle” had the same level of population that our “middle” has. They’re just lucky enough to live in a place where the middle of their country is so inhospitable that basically no one can live there (but to be honest I can’t quite understand why anyone lives in say Oklahoma, Kansas, etc, right?). We’re all looking forward to the election…polls will start closing at Noon Wednesday here and there’s been talk of going to the pub to watch the results come in. Might be necessary.

Saturday was such a nasty day, it inspired to stay inside and read a good book (I’m reading Three Cups of Tea which I find captivating and inspiring but also makes me feel like I’m a terrible person who has done nothing good for the world, highly recommended though). Michelle has two papers due next week so she was planning to work on them but wasn’t able to motivate much on that front Saturday. After lounging through the day we went to this place for dinner where they actually have a theater above the restaurant so you go and see a movie either before or after eating. The theater is setup with all these pillows and low couches so you get to sprawl out while you watch the movie. And the restaurant is vegetarian and kind of spiritual in a way…I’m not really going to try and describe why that is because I’ll just sound like an idiot but it was delicious. It was a buffet with all these dishes made from things that I know very little about so we mostly didn’t know what we were eating at any given moment but it was all so tasty. Stopped at a pub on the way home and then rented a movie (it was quite the movie day) to watch when we got back. Pretty nice little Saturday, very low key.

Sunday was the first day it didn’t rain in a while so I spent most of the morning sitting out on the balcony reading my book while Michelle worked on her papers. Later in the afternoon we went for a run to Darling Harbour, our old stomping grounds, where they were having a sidewalk chalk festival. There were some cool drawings and things going on, but I think the deluge of rain the three previous days kind of put a damper on the festival which was unfortunate. All-in-all a pretty uneventful week without too much Australia excitement to report making this the kind of entry that you, the reader, might think “why did I just spend 2 minutes reading this worthless nonsense?” Sorry. We’ll try to do better. We did book a trip for next month to Tasmania though which we’re both very excited about. Michelle has spring break and will be going with a couple friends for a whole week and I’m going to make it down there for a 4-day weekend. Stay tuned.

Week ending 31-Aug: Palm Beach and Ku-ring-gai Chase Nat'l Park

Friday night was low-key for us because we were getting up early the next morning so we just had dinner at a Thai place on Crown St (which is the main restaurant/bar street through our neighborhood). I branched out and tried something new and was punished for being adventurous…it wasn’t nearly as good as my usual Thai dishes. Lesson being of course don’t ever deviate from your norm. I won’t ever make that mistake again.

Saturday we went to the local Hertz and rented a little Toyota Yaris (?) which was a teeny little two door car. My experience driving on the left hand side of the road in South Africa earlier in the year turned out to pay dividends because it was way easier this time. While making turns Michelle had to constantly remind me to STAY LEFT but it wasn’t the panicked situation we had driving in Cape Town when I would be in the middle of making a turn and kind of freeze because I was so confused about which side of the road I should be on. (plus in Sydney you don’t feel like you’re going to get carjacked at every turn and you don’t feel like every other driver has a gun in the car that they could pull out and use on you at any moment…but I digress). Renting cars here is really cheap (relatively) which is an exciting discovery because now it feels like we can go anywhere without real limitations. So we drive up north over the Harbour Bridge and drove up along the coast to Palm Beach which is considered, I think, the northernmost beach of the Sydney area (it was probably an hour north or so). The beaches north of Palm Beach are part of the “Central Coast” which I believe is the central coast of NSW. Anyways, we walked out to the Barrenjoey head and up to a lighthouse. The land leading out to the head is very narrow, probably a few hundred feet wide so you look back and see the narrow strip of land with the ocean and the breakers on one side and the sheltered harbour on the other. And the land to the west is part of a national park, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, which is lush forest and a pretty background. And that was our next destination so we drove back down south to where we could cut over and get to the park which is on the “West Head.” The park was great and we took a few little walks on the “tracks” (they don’t call them trails) to some viewpoints. After exploring the park a bit we started heading back to the city to return the car…quite a fun trip out of the city for the day, and so easy to do! The hardest part of driving was trying to get back to the rental car place which involved making a right turn off of Oxford Street which turns out is an impossible thing to do. Eventually we got the car back without problem.

Then later that night we went to see our second Aussie Rules Football game…the Swans (Sydney) were playing the Lions from somewhere, we actually don’t know…probably somewhere in Victoria or something. This game was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground which is in Centennial Park which is about a 15 minute walk from our apartment (as opposed to the first game at Olympic Park which is almost an hour train ride). SCG is a smaller stadium and I think much better really, the crowd seemed more into it and it just had a better vibe in general. The Swans won easily and I think the win puts them into the playoffs or something? We understand the basics of the game pretty well now but whenever the referees call penalties we have no idea what’s going on. Still need to try to read more about it. The basics are simple though: knock the living daylights out of the other team and while doing that try to kick the ball through the goalposts. Easy.

Sunday Michelle made me do yoga which I found extremely challenging and then we did our Sunday training run for the Bridge Run coming up. Then we had pancakes at home which were fantastic. Leah came over and we went to the Australia Museum where they were having a special exhibit on Aboriginal artwork which was pretty cool. The rest of the museum was about all the animals in Australia that can kill you. There are a lot. Pretty much pick a type of animal and the most poisonous of that animal lives in Australia. In the afternoon we had a few other friends come over to our apartment and we BBQed. It was rainy and not the warmest day but I just love BBQing…it was yet another experience that makes me really excited for winter to be over! We had a tamer BBQ menu this time rather than our kangaroo from last week…just teriyaki chicken and some grilled veggies. Maybe next week we’ll throw some shrimp on the Barbie!!

As always, a link to more of the pictures from the weekend’s events:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.211cit39&x=0&y=lfkbqg&localeid=en_US

Week ending 24-Aug: Blue Mountains Trip

We’ve survived our first week in the new apartment and we both really do love it. Its in a great spot, very convenient to both work and uni (you don’t say school here, that’s what little kids go to), lots of restaurants and bars around and the apartment itself is just really nice. One whole wall is floor to ceiling windows which is great, except this being the winter it gets so cold in the apartment at night. The first night here we weren’t prepared for this, hadn’t figured out how to use the heat and only had a light blanket so we froze. But we’ve since started using the heat a little and got an extra comforter.

Work this week was relatively intense…I was at work till 1:30am Wednesday night (some things are constant at Goldman no matter where you are I guess!) and then Thursday night was another late evening. There were a bunch of people there late Thursday wrapping up a deal and around 11pm most people had wrapped things up and there was a huge surge to go out to the pub for a beer. I figured it would just be a drink or two, especially since people had been working so hard the past couple days but we ended up staying out till the bar closed (which thankfully is not 4am like it is in nyc). It was really fun, but the frustrating thing about it was the next day at work, I was feeling exhausted and run-down but it seemed like everyone else who had been out just as late as me and probably drinking more were not fazed in the least bit. I don’t know what it is but these Aussies are evidently super-human.

Friday night we began Michelle’s multi-day birthday celebration welcoming her to the ranks of 27 year olds. After work we went to the Orient Hotel in the Rocks for dinner. It was a great dinner and I ended up having kangaroo! It was quite good, it’s a lean meat, not really gamey at all. And the novelty of eating Kangaroo was fun. We also had a chocolate lava cake thing for desert that was so good. Then Saturday we took the train with two of our friends about two hours out of the city to Katoomba which is in the Blue Mountains. We did a little bush-walking out there, hiking down into a gorge that is a rain forest filled with eucalyptus amongst other types of trees. Very pretty, but very cold given its up in the “mountains” and it’s the middle of winter. After we had our fill of bush-walking we came back into Katoomba and had dinner and a few drinks before taking the train back to the city.

Sunday our BBQ finally arrived! We had to go on a mission to find a propane tank but finally got one and ended up BBQing at home for dinner. And what meat was the first to grace our new Aussie BBQ? Kangaroo of course! I’d heard that most aussies don’t actually eat kangaroo and its more a tourist thing, but they had ‘roo steaks and marinated ‘roo kebabs at the grocery store so maybe it is more of a normal thing to have? Not sure. But I really like it. Michelle I think liked it but is having a hard time getting over the mental component of eating kangaroo. I’m hoping she’ll come around. Next weekend I promised her we can do chicken or something a little more down the middle. Having the BBQ out on our balcony is another thing to add to the list of what is making me so excited for winter to be over. Grilling and then sitting outside having dinner on a warm evening is maybe my vision of heaven.

A few pictures from the Blue mountains and other things are below and a link to the whole gallery also.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.3ay09ikl&x=0&y=-vudzxy&localeid=en_US

Week ending 17-Aug

The past week at work was fairly uneventful. Things are slower than they’ve been is what everyone is saying. We’ve watched a fair bit of Olympics during the day…all the swimming events are live for us around lunchtime so that’s been cool. Everyone at work bashes on Americans (usually for things we deserve to be bashed on) so they’ve anointed me as an honorary Canadian so that I won’t be offended (I’m not). Friday we celebrated one of the guys at work’s birthday from the previous weekend by getting a case of beer (which I think they call a slab) delivered in the afternoon. So once again, it was Friday afternoon and we were drinking beers in the office. And once again everyone assured me that this isn’t something that normally happens. I’m not sure what to believe because that’s now two consecutive Fridays. I’ll have to report back after next Friday. Anyways, after that a bunch of us went to a bar nearby for a few drinks. Michelle was with some of her school friends at our apartment and they were heading to a place in the Rocks so I rendezvous-ed with them…we went to a bar at the top of some hotel which had nice views of the harbour (although the views weren’t as nice as from my office) and then we ended up at some other huge bar nearby that had many floors and playing lots of different music and we stayed out for a while there.

Next day was fairly low key for us, we watched some Olympics and did some random errandy things. That night we went to the Aussie Rules match between the Sydney Swans and the Geelong Cats (Geelong is somewhere in Victoria I think). Mike, my boss at work has these season tickets and wasn’t going to be able to go so he gave them to me…he said I should go with someone who knows the rules so I could learn a little bit so of course I went with Michelle who happens to be an expert on Aussie rules (that’s of course a sarcastic statement). We had a great time at the game and we had read up a bit on wikipedia before going so we both had a pretty good understanding of the basics, but a lot of the calls made by the referees we had no idea what was going on. We pretty much cheered when the crowd cheered and booed when the crowd booed. It might take some more in depth reading to learn a bit more about the game. They play their games out at the stadium that was built for the Olympics in 2000…its this whole area of Olympic venues about a 45 minute train ride west of the city. The Swans got destroyed, Geelong is evidently like the unquestionably best team this year so Sydney didn’t have much of a chance.

Sunday was moving day for us. We said goodbye to our temporary place in Darling Harbour and moved our junk to our new place in Surry Hills. Our temporary place was nice and served its purpose perfectly but it was really exciting to move to our permanent place. The area is just so much better, in many ways its like the west village of Sydney. Our place is of course pretty empty except for the few things we’ve bought of the last week or two since our furniture is still somewhere in the Pacific. Its kind of amusing to have all this empty space. So we walked around the ‘hood a bit looking for BBQs or outdoor furniture but we were unsuccessful on both counts. We went for a nice run from our place into the CBD to the opera house, through the botanical gardens and along the water and then looping back…it was such a nice place to run so convenient to our place! This is the first day of our training for the Bridge run we’re doing in a few weeks. We were supposed to start the training three weeks ago technically so hopefully we’ll be able to catch up. And then we had dinner at a nice little Indian place a block or two away…its great having good restaurants so close again!