Week ending 21-Dec

Michelle arrived back to Australia on Thursday morning which was very exciting!! In some ways 5 and a half weeks flew by but in some ways it felt like she'd been gone for ages! Work has been slowing down a bit leading into the holidays so I was able to see her for lunch and dinner on Thursday and then we got an early start to the weekend on Friday. We went to this restaurant in the Rocks called Phillip's Foote where you pick your own cut of meat and take it to the grill and BBQ it yourself…its kind of a fun concept (although it might just be their scheme to save on labor costs). Afterwards we saw the movie "Australia" which was kind of fun because of all the pretty outback scenes, but ultimately was a chick-flick love story. Entertaining enough though.

Saturday we made a revolutionary step in the world of the virtual power hour, v-power hour (copyright 2008). Eric Lee, in Chicago having just finished finals along with some of his friends there, and Michelle and I in Sydney, over video g-chat doing power hour (we flirted with the idea of extending to the century) to an hour long video of 80s tv show theme song intros. It was an epic event and one that we hope to repeat and expand on soon.

After a brief recovery Saturday afternoon, Michelle and I went out to "Carols in the Domain" which is a sydney christmas hallmark event. The domain is a big public park that is right next to the CBD and almost right up on the harbor and the event has probably around 20,000 (I'm guessing at the number, but it was a lot) people in attendance. People gather during the day and bring picnics etc and then in the evening various australian singers and choirs and groups sing carols on the stage while the throngs of people in attendance (many intoxicated) hold up candles and sing along. (giving that many open flames to drunk people can't be a good idea…) But it’s quite the feel good event that makes you think peace on earth can't be that far out of reach. On a sidenote, there is absolutely no political correctness here when it comes to talking about christmas/the holidays. You don't say happy holidays here, you say happy christmas and there is no mention of hanukkah whatsoever. Quite a contrast to new york.

Sunday michelle and I made christmas since we're going to be away on the 25th. We decorated the fake palm-like tree we have on our balcony and had a lovely pancake breakfast and opened a few presents. It was a very nice christmas morning.



In the afternoon we did one of our "urban" hikes around watson's bay to vaucluse. It was a really nice 9k walk that started on the pacific and went up to the south head and then along the harbour a bit…it was a gorgeous summer day (totally felt like Christmas…right). To wrap up our pseudo-christmas day we watched "fred claus" which was entertaining and anything with vince vaughn I enjoy.


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A link for more pics from our little hike:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.2y3a2kwh&x=0&y=-iwsu87&localeid=en_US

Week ending 14-Dec

We kicked the weekend off to an early start Friday afternoon with our desk’s Christmas lunch (would have been holiday lunch in new york, but things are a little less PC here). Having lunch in Australia is often a fairly drawn out affair and this was no exception. The food portion of the afternoon led into the drinks-focused portion of the afternoon/evening. Most of us didn’t leave our “lunch” until 8 or 9 in the evening. It was a fun one, things got pretty rowdy towards the end.

Saturday I had to sleep it off all morning but by the time I emerged from my second nap of the day in the mid afternoon it had become a perfect sunny warm day. I met up with a buddy and we had a very late brunch (I don’t know if you can still call it that at 4pm?) and then went to a friend’s housewarming party in Darling Point. Darling Point is a quiet little suburb right up on the harbor and this apartment was a classic Sydney place with huge windows all along the side that open up onto the back patio/side patio area that has so many tropical plants you could kind of feel like you’re in the jungle (well, not really, but it was cool). We ended up staying there for quite a while and had a good time, made a few new friends, had a few good Australian beers, all in all a lovely evening.

Sunday I woke up early to blazing sunshine and a brilliantly blue sky. I caught the bus out to Bondi Beach which is the beginning of a 12km “cliff walk” that goes along a few beaches. Michelle and I had done a portion of the walk before, but that was during the winter and I wanted to come back and do the whole thing on a beautiful summer day. The weather was great, had a few clouds start to roll in towards the end, but for the most part it was perfect. And the water along the beaches here is just so stunningly blue/green. I took a bunch of pictures, here are a few along with a link for more. (although at some point I guess all the pictures look kind of the same because its just beach after beach!)

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.49ni37v5&x=0&y=-8w1lh7&localeid=en_US

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Starting in Bondi you then hit Tamarama Beach, Bronte Beach, Clovelly is a little teeny beach, Coogee Beach and ends at Maroubra Beach where I caught a bus back to my place. Hung out at home for the rest of the evening, had a little spaghetti and watched a movie. Another lovely summer weekend in Sydney. And my last one as a bachelor because Michelle gets back on Thursday!

Week ending 07-Dec: Surfing

Great weekend this weekend, which was accommodated largely by the great weather we had. Thursday night was a GSJBW holiday party for the securities division (which I’m technically not in but they still invite us to their party thankfully) and its clients. The location of the party was really quite stunning, down right on the harbor in the royal botanic gardens. It was outside but underneath these huge tents. I didn’t have my camera with me but I’ve taken a picture of the exact view before:

Kind of an iconic Sydney view I’d have to say. Party was fun, even though it was 98% people I didn’t know (mostly clients of the firm). And one of the drinks they were serving was this frozen mango and champagne drink which might have been the most delicious beverage I’ve ever had. Danger was it didn’t taste like it had any alcohol…you know how that story goes.

I ended up going to sleep incredibly early Friday night because I was completely exhausted so I woke up a little after 6am Saturday and it was a perfect and gorgeous morning. Warm, blue sky, sunny, the works. I had booked myself into a surfing lesson for that morning so I took the ferry over to Manly Beach and got geared up.

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There were probably about 20 of us in the lesson and 5 instructors. They told us little bits of wisdom while we were on the beach and then we’d go into the water to try it out. Then we’d come back to the beach to get a bit more wisdom and try the next step. So after a few iterations we were in the water, trying to catch waves and stand ourselves up. It is way harder than it seems like it should be! Towards the end I did manage to stand myself up a couple of times, albeit very briefly. At the very end of the class, after going through a number of repetitions I felt like I knew what I had to do but at that point I was pretty physically exhausted from battling the ocean for a few hours that it was hard to actually do it anymore. All in all, it was tough, but I did stand up which was my goal going in and it was so so fun! I’m excited to get back out there and do it again. I had someone take a picture of me on my best wave when I stood up as you can see below.

Alright, just kidding, not yet, but give me a few years maybe? No, probably not then either. Oh well. To complement my very Australian morning I BBQed kangaroo in the late afternoon for lunch/dinner. Surfing and BBQing kangaroo…I don’t know if you can get much more Australian, right?

Sunday I skyped for a good bit with my parents, sister, bro-in-law and nephew who are all currently in Colorado. Super sad that I couldn’t be with them but skype is a great thing when you’re halfway around the world. In the afternoon I went to the Sydney Observatory where they used to study astronomy back in the day but now is a museum. Lots of interesting stuff about the constellations in the southern hemisphere that you don’t necessarily learn much about in the u.s. Also walked around “the rocks” which is a neighborhood kind of near the foot of the harbor bridge…it’s got a quaint, old timey kind of feel with lots of little pubs and shops. I’m putting that on my list of areas of the city I’d like to spend a little more time. Otherwise BBQed a bit for dinner and am crashing extremely early tonight…I think my body is still tired from surfing!

A chair christmas tree in the rocks!

The Sydney Observatory