Sunday, 14 August 2011

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!

Wednesday, 10 August 2011

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 10th 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.