Sydney starts to get christmassy

Meant to post this a few weeks ago, so here it is and I will post another one about all my xmas antics soon. 

Christmas is fast approaching, and Sydney is starting to get a little bit christmassy, although with it being fairly warm it just doesn't feel like christmas at all.  It should be cold, wet and miserable!  However, the heat adds a different but nice factor to that christmas feeling.  However, one thing that Australia or at least Sydney does really badly is public decorations.  For example, down at darling harbour they have decided to decorate the area with 30 feet tall Santa's and a huge santa koala bear and a santa crab?! Yes a santa crab, what the hell is that i hear you say? Well, it's exactly what it says on the tin.  A crab, dressed as a santa, with a weird head too.  The also go for the stereotypical Koala dressed as Santa too.  It's all a bit strange to be honest.  Australia just doesn't do christmas like we do back in the UK.  But it's all great in it's own way.

 Merry Christmas!

Outpost - Street Art

So yesterday I went to Cockatoo Island for the first time, it is the largest Island in Sydney Harbour and is a former imperial prison and shipyard.

Outpost is an exhibition of urban art and Cockatoo Island is transformed by over 150 artists into one of the best art exhibitions you will ever see.  So I had arranged to meet Gemma and Jezza at 11am at Circular Quay to get the ferry out to the Island, then Greig and Jen decided to come along too.  So after missing the 11:10 ferry we had an hour or so to kill, and finally we were on our way. 

When we arrived it was a very strange scene, all around you are these old industrial buildings with the prison sitting at the top of the cliff and then all this art and graffiti all over the place.  It was very weird.

So after spending a few hours wondering around we finally decided that it would be best for all concerned to go sit in the sun and enjoy a beer, which was awesome.  The weird thing being that when we say down on the grass at the bar we soon realised we were surrounded by other scots, it seemed that scottish accents were all over the place.  Obviously, Scots hold urban art in high regard, always knew we had good taste.

 So after an hour of watching greig burn in the sun, we decided it best to move on and see the rest of the exhibition and the island.  So we headed straight for the Banksy exhibit.  It was showing a lot of his old stuff and some new, but was highly interesting none the less.

The rest of the day was finished off climbing to the top of the mountain to see the old prison and enjoying the random art on display.  We then headed home, very satisfied with our day and decided to have a little bbq.

Here are some of the things on show at Outpost:

Melbourne Cup

Every year on the first tuesday of November at 3pm, Australia, basically comes to a stand still.  All because of a horse race. A race that is over in a mere 3 minutes.  Millions of dollars are bet on it and millions probably lost too.  I know I lost a few bucks on it.  It is billed as 'the race that stops a Nation.' and it really does.  With the race being held in Melbourne it is a national Holiday in Victoria and in NSW most offices shut for the afternoon, and in the rest of the country everyone stops working for the race.

This year there was a film out in the weeks building up to the 1st of November, called The Cup.  It detailed the events up to and including one of the Melbourne Cups most famous races in 2002.

So now that all you brits and non-horse racing fans have an idea what it is about.   Here is the story of the day.

Our office basically shut up shop at 11:45am, all in finest of outfits (I even managed to hire a kilt for the day), we jumped in Taxi's and headed down the Sydney Opera House, our venue for the afternoon.  Canapes and drinks were provided for all, a band was playing and we had 3 hours to kill before the race.  When 3pm eventually came around most people were slightly drunk and everyone had had a bit of a dance too.  Everyone had several bets on by the time the race started, but blink and you would miss it.  It is nothing like the grand national it is over very quickly.  However, this years race was incredibly close with literally just a whisker in it.  I won nothing of course.  But several other people in the office did. 

It led to an amazing evening and night enjoyed by everyone, a few of us even ended up back in the office enjoying a few of the free beers in the fridge.  The next day however, wasn't as much fun.

That calls for Carlsberg...

I realise that I am posting more and more about advertising things now, rather than what's happening downunder, but I have decided I am to mix them both up.

So this is the latest ad from Carlsberg.  Basically, they filled a cinema in Brussels with some hard looking Bikers, all seats were taken apart from two in the very middle.  A nice little social experiment, watch and see what happens when several couples come in, what would you do? Take your seats or turn around and walk out.

Caledonia, you're calling me.....

......now I'm going home!

A great tune by Dougie Maclean and one that firmly sums up how I feel about Scotland.

I am far from home now, and not likely to return permanently for a long time.  I am far from my family and everyone else I love and care for.  But no matter where I go, no matter how far I travel, this song taught me to remember where I came from.  This song was written as Dougie was travelling and felt homesick.  Every time, I feel slightly homesick I stick this on, it makes me feel proud of where I am from and it makes me proud to tell people I am Scottish.

There is a line in the song which is quite poignant:

'And if I should become a stranger, you know it would make me more than sad.'

I would hate to become a stranger to Scotland. So come February, I will have been away from home for a year, and personally, I think that is long enough!  So I will be back, only for a while though.  I plan to come visit for about 3 weeks and then head back to Sydney.  The flights are booked, the time off work has been sorted.  So keep the month free, I will be visiting edinburgh for a few days, but mainly staying in Irvine. Plenty of catch up drinks are to be had and maybe the odd Killie game.

I think this ad from the early 90s sums up how most Scots feel when they are away from home for too long, it was also one of the first ad's I remember as a kid on TV, and partly inspired me to get into advertising:

But let's just be clear, I'm not coming home just for a pint of Tennents...............well, I may have to have one or two! ;-)

Sumo, Music and birthdays

So continuing on my new found flow of writing posts, here is another update. 

Last saturday was Chris's birthday, so we all went all to Rum Diaries, a nice little tapa's place in bondi.  We had a table for 6 booked but when we arrived, we found we were through the back in a little room all to ourselves.  The room was bizarre and as chris commented it resembled what you would imagine Churchill's war chamber to look like.  It had really old furniture, including a fire place from the 1930's, an old wind up telephone and some weird pictures of Jesus on the wall, also our table was in fact an incredibly old chest with carvings and some money trapped under the glass.  There was also a huge bookcase taking up one whole wall in the room, and after inspecting this we found that there was a hidden door in the book case, unfortunately nothing exciting was to be found behind apart from a staff office, where the restaurant music was controlled. 

Chris getting his birthday cake:

The police also joined us for a wee while too, doing there regular safety checks they had to stand in our little room as we ate waiting for the manager in the staff office.  It was all very bizarre, but an enjoyable evening had by all, thanks to Lisa for organising.

Then this weekend it was Greig's birthday.  That was mainly celebrated by watching scotland losing in the final moments of the RWC to England.  We then drowned our sorrows for a couple of hours.  Typical Scotland, so close, but never able to get over the line.

On friday night we had another work event, Hahn Super Dry Third Half Sumo Wrestling.  This was when a man mountain, took on a football team and a ladies roller hockey team.  The idea was that each team of 10 took it in turn to compete against the actual sumo wrestler in order to win money, $50 if you lasted 15 seconds and $1000 if you could beat him.  At the end of round one the girls team were winning by a couple of grand, I think mr sumo was taking it easy on them.  Never the less it was highly entertaining. 

Sabrina and Kate waiting for the action to begin.

He may have taken it pretty easy against the girls but the guys didn't stand a chance, in fact one guy got pushed so hard by him that he ended up landing in the crowd.

A few of us left the sumo early, to head back over to RFT (see friday's posting) to catch the last act performing at the Living Room.  Tim Freedman, formerly of the Whitlams fame, was the closing act on what had been a great week. 

Paul Mac, introducing him above.

Tim Freedman, was highly entertaining although i am not sure what the sponsor American Express would have made about him working his way through a bottle of wine as he performed.  The night was then rounded off by everyone have celebratory drinks, and I even managed to get to know my new Nashville cowboy guitar teacher a bit better, an incredibly nice man with plenty of interesting stories about his days touring as a rock star.

I think that's about enough blogging for one weekend, until next time. 

Now is our time

So usually this blog is about the different things I get up too in Australia.  However, I wanted to post something slightly different today.  There is a new Levi's, Go Forth poster, I see at the train station every morning and I have been finding it very poignant and inspirational lately.

 

In case you can't make out what it says, here it is:

When all is said and done, 

have you done or said enough?

Have you just gone along for the ride,

or have you steered destiny's hot rod?

When you leave this world,

did you make it any better than it was when you arrived?

All you need is all you've got;

your wits and the clothes on your back.

Your epitaph is yours to earn,

your legacy is yours to make.

Go Forth.

They have also created a viral, which has another very inspirational and poignant poem, I am not a fan of the voice but it's still very good:

Go Forth 2011 Advert

In case you can't make out what this man is saying, again here it is:

Your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
Be on the watch.
There are ways out.
There is a light somewhere.
It may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.
You can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

The poster is my favourite but I don't mind the viral either.  I don't believe that many people who read the poster or this post would not find it inspirational, or maybe I am just a sentimental loser.  Either way, I like it, and I like what it stands for.  The Jeans ain't half bad either.

Anyway, it's a bank holiday here today, so Greig and I are off to Manly on the ferry.  Enjoy your day people, and follow your dreams. Remember, your legacy is yours to make.

Room For Thought

Well, yet again, it's been a while since my last post.  It's been a busy old month here in Sydney, plenty has been happening, work has been manic, there have been plenty of nights out and of course the Rugby World Cup is on only a hop, skip and a jump away in New Zealand.

Firstly, I have been involved in a project here for American Express, their Room For Thought project, here we created an area like no other, you could experience a pop-up restaurant in the first week, a fashion boutique of bike helmets and currently we have live gigs from Australian bands simultaneously being streamed to your living room through Facebook.

Here is a link to where you can find out all the information on it: http://www.facebook.com/#!/americanexpressaustralia

Although not directly one of my projects I have been trying to help out where I can, and it's been great fun.  The best bit is actually getting to go to the events.  Two weeks ago a group of us went along to The Drummer Restaurant (the first event).  The idea of this was that it was run by refugees from Sudan and Burma, with a floor being dedicated to each culture.  We were on the Burmese floor and the food was fantastic!  I started with Beef Koftas and then Goat's Stew. 

The Burmese part of the Drummer Restaurant:

My starter of Beef Kofta's:

 
I even managed to persuade a group of colleagues to come and help me support Scotland against Georgia before we went along to the game.  I don't think they were that interested but I appreciate them coming along none the less!

Kate, Danni and Soph really were not interested in the Scotland game, more just looking for any excuse for a drink!

Sophie, Josh, James, Me, Sabrina and our local Burmese colleague William.

Last week we had the very successful fashion event at RFT, although I didn't manage to make it along to any of the days.  Although, I hear it was a great success. 

However, this week has been The Living Room, which intends to create an atmosphere as if in your own living room watching a gig and it certainly achieves this.  This has been my personal favourite of the 3 events.  Lot's of unsigned Australian acts, even some you might have heard off all being mentored for the day by the writer/producer/performer Paul Mac.   I went along on Wednesday night to work at the event, looking after the performers and helping set up the stage between acts.  It was great fun and I got to listen to some great music too.  It was so good I decided to go back last night too, to see Dappled cities playing, a fantastic young Aussie band.  I also even managed to get a private guitar lesson of an old cowboy from Nashville, Tennessee.  That was great, and made even better when he started playing Loch Lomond and I couldn't help but to start singing along.  There are pictures of this, when I get a hold of them I will post them up here.

If you read this quickly enough you will be able to watch the last couple of acts of the week playing live on facebook through this link:http://www.facebook.com/americanexpressaustralia?sk=app_263461633663964#!/americanexpressaustralia?sk=app_263461633663964

I will be at the final performance to see Tim Freedman playing at 11:30am UK time, 8:30pm here, so look out for me in the audience!

City2Surf

This is a big run that takes place in Sydney every August.  A run from the city centre all the way out to Bondi Beach, a total distance of 14k.  Although not running it, it was finishing just down the road from the flat so and I know several people that were running it.  Knowing how much it means to see people you know at the end of a run, after doing the edinburgh 10k last year, I decided to go and support them. 

80,000 people were taking part and it was incredibly difficult to find anyone I knew running over the the finishing line.  However, I did see my mates terry, gemma and justine finishing though.  It was a great atmosphere around Bondi today and it was thoroughly enjoyable being out watching everyone. 

Afterwords, everyone heads to the pubs around Bondi, so I decided this was part of the activity I could definitely take part in.  Although after spending a couple of hours in the Beach Road Hotel, it was more than enough.  It was packed the brim, you just couldn't move and after spending time trying to find people.  I decided enough was enough and I left everyone to it.

Well done to everyone I know that completed it, Gemma, Justine, Terry, Will, Josh, Sean and Joshie!

A busy few weeks

So the last few weeks have been fairly busy.  Firstly at work my boss got left very suddenly. This meant that I had to take on a majority of his work until a replacement was found.  However, it was a short wait as a freelancer was brought in a couple of days later to help out.  Although he is now leaving to work in New York, alright for some, in the next couple of weeks.  So the work may pile up again in the next couple of weeks. 

One thing I thought Sydney would be great for is having lots of random things going on.  Much like Edinburgh does.  I was, however, beginning to think that I was wrong and even a few English people here have told me that not much goes on and they were slightly disappointed.  In the last few weeks though, things have been happening around the city.  Firstly, there was the Sydney boat show, which was great, but looking at some of these boats just made me feel slightly jealous.  They were amazing, and what made it worse was that I had to walk past them every day on the way to and from work.  The show was on for a few days at the beginning of this month in Darling Harbour.  However, I now have a growing ambition to own a catamaran just like this one. 

Then today was city2surf.  I will create separate post for this though. 

Also recently, my old lecturer Paula McNulty was visiting Sydney, and it was great to meet up with her and her travel companion, Andrew.  It is always great to see a face from home.  And since Paula is a veggie, just to annoy her, I thought it best to go to Sydney’s most famous Restaurant and Grill, Hurricanes.  This place is awesome, and are famous for their ribs.  Pork, beef or lamb, although I would recommend going for the pork, they are amazing and come in half and full racks.  This time though I went for a steak, however Andrew went for the full rack of ribs, and finished them.  Always impressive!

6 months downunder

Today marks the 6 month mark since I arrived in Australia.  This got me thinking, about everything that has happened since the 10^th of February.  And all I can say is what a 6 months it has been, most of it documented on this blog.  I can’t believe it has been six months since all my leaving drinks and parties.  And 6 months since I saw all my family and friends.  I’m missing you all. 

It’s been an amazing 6 months, firstly there was the stop over in Bangkok, which was amazing, total culture shock but a great one at that.  I can’t help but laugh when I remember the first hostel we were in when we arrived in Bondi,, the Lamrock Lodge,  I can safely say I am delighted not to be living there now.  It just reminded me of Barlinnie Prison.  Absolutely horrible!  Then we moved into Chris and Lisa’a pad, which was like a 5 star Hilton compared to the Lamrock.  Unfortunately, we could only stay there for a week, until they kicked us out.  That week also involved meeting the worst recruitment person in history, she basically told me just to go home as I was wasting my time here. Two fingers to you now lady!!!

After that we ended up in, what was actually a very decent hostel, in Glebe and kept going by the local pizza shop.  We also spent the week looking for a flat to live in, without any luck at all.  However, eventually we came across what we thought was a nice flat in darlinghurst, well first impressions gave us that idea anyway.   However, shortly after moving in we realized we were blinded by our desperation and willingness not to be homeless.  No matter though as they moved out a few weeks later and we found two new flatmates.  Kerry and Pam from America.  They also moved in shortly before I started my first job in Australia, freelancing at momentum.  It turns out it was a good choice of place to work as I was eventually made permanent and moved into Production, and I am still with them now and loving it.  It’s a great company with great people.

Living in Sydney has been amazing, it’s a crazy place.  So much to see and do and getting invited to lots of random events, like the Island, visiting manly and the blue mountains all the different wildlife places have been cool.  And living in Bondi has been amazing. 

I have also managed to do a lot of touristy stuff especially in Sydney.  I think pretty much every tourist this has been done.  I just need to do the tour of the Sydney Opera House and climb the harbour bridge, the latter of which might be happening this weekend.  I also went to Melbourne for a long weekend.  Which was awesome.  It’s a great city and one which I would like to go back too.  The highlight though was doing the neighbours tour and going to Ramsey Street!

I have much planned for the future too.  Trips aplenty hopefully, including Brisbane, Adelaide and New Zealand all feature highly on the list, as does Cairns and Uluru.  So I better get planning. 

Spider alert

Well it's been nearly 6 months in Australia and I have mainly gone spider free so far, apart form the little one.  However, as I was making my porridge in the office kitchen this morning, all i heard was a scream from reception and i turned round to see a huge huntsman spider running across the desk. 

Now I am sure you are thinking that I jumped in and caught or killed it.  But no, my instant reaction was to go "cool" then, run away.  It was huge!!! No chance i wanted to try and catch this:

Thankfully a freelancer had arrived in reception, and being the 'bush' girl she is, was not afraid at all and just scooped it up and put it outside on the balcony.  NO CHANCE I WILL BE GOING OUT THERE FOR A LONG TIME!!!

Settling in...

So this is my 4th week in full-time permanent employment in Australia.  I was only freelancing before.  And so far things are going well.  It's been incredibly busy, but it's all good fun and I am enjoying it. 

Things have been a bit mad, but i am working on great clients, inc Coke and Lion Nathan (Australia's big beer company).  So the work is really interesting, although there's not much I can give away on here. 

I also have my first work party on friday, to celebrate the end of the financial year (which is the end of June here), any excuse for a party.  There was a awards ceremony in which i managed to pick up a trophy for have the best (or maybe it was worst) accent.  No matter, i was very happy as you can see. 

The night carried on quite late and turned into the usual mess
that advertising agency nights out usually do.  People embarrassed by doing stupid things and drinking far too much as usual.  I am sure there are many photo's that will be hiden away for eternity.  The worst part is I am sure it will happen all over again the next time we have a party.

Apart from work, living in Bondi has been awesome, I am out on the beach every saturday morning for a walk and last week managed to snap the photo's below.  The Bondi winter festival has been on for a few weeks now and they have a little market with an ice rink built on the sand at the south end of the beach.