Much a do about a lot

G’day!

The gun show

Down the hatch

Ok, so a couple of weekends ago it was raining so Laura bowed to my request to check out the Maritime museum, well the ships moored outside it.  For a small fee you could check out the replica of James Cook’s HMB Endeavour, the Daring class destroyer HMAS Vampire and the Oberon class submarine HMAS Onslow. My fave was by far the submarine, I can imagine it would take a very strong mentality or just a certain type of person to even survive under the oceans trapped in that hulk of steel.

Drip drip drop

Above is a pic of the one of the nights of rain we’ve been having from time to time.  Never seen rain like it, obvious now why all the drainage systems in the suburbs are so big.

Sunset by the Opera House

Dusk in the Botanic Gardens

When we’ve nothing else to do in the evenings and the weather is good (which thankfully it has been lately) we go for a walk around Circular Quay and check out the view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House.  It’s a view that we’ll never tire of seeing.  One evening we watched one of the huge cruise ships that dock in the Quay leave. Laura was certain it was going to hit the bridge as it turned – it didn’t.  Still quite a sight, lots of waving and blowing of horns.

Righto pass on to Laura –

Sydney's second goal

Valentines day was a little rainy so our plans of a romantic picnic didnt work. We went to the cinema and watched “valentines day” – I know its corny, but it was actually quite good! We then went to Darling harbour and had some lunch/tea, our $10 pizzas. It may have been a special day but the budget always applies! After this it brightened up and we went to watch the football final at the Sydney football ground between Sydney and Melbourne (Chris writing – yes that’s right,  football match on Valentines day, bow to the master). Sydney had to win to take the title, but Melbourne only needed a draw (I am well informed by Chris!). We were 3 rows from the front so pretty good seats, but I was scared of getting hit by the ball! Sydney ended up winning 2-0 and the celebrations were pretty cool. It started raining pretty heavy towards the end so we quickly went home and shared a bottle of pink cava (again budget applies so no champagne)!

Mid-flip

We completely forgot about pancake day on the Tuesday, but we tucked into some tasty pancakes the next day – as usual triple times the mixture, can never have too much, banana and chocolate mmmmmmmmmm (no banana for Laura yuk!!)

Meryl and Alec on the harbour

On the Friday evening it was lovely and sunny so we decided to go to the open air cinema at Sydney harbour. It was sold out online, but we could que. There were 100 tickets for sale on the door, we were number 133/134, but we could come back later with our raffle tickets to see if we could get in. Eventually we did and we saw ‘Its complicated’, the screen was on stilts in the harbour. The film was quite good, but the view of the harbour was the best part about the whole experience.

Chris and Tom at Coogee

Coogee beach

On Sunday we met up with Tom Frost, one of Chris’ friends from yonks ago! He is living at Coogee beach so we thought it would be a good opportunity to venture out there and absorb some rays! We had lunch with him, strolled along the beach and then Chris and I went on a coastal walk from Coogee to Bondi beach which takes around 2 hours and it was so hot, but a really lovely stroll. There were loades of little beaches along the way in nice little coves and salt-water swimming pools built into the sea.

A bay on the coastal walk

Although we saw bondi we did not stay as we had to get back to the Chinese new year celebrations that evening. The celebrations started from the town hall area through china town and ended up with some spectacular fireworks at Darling Harbour. The parade was definately worth while seeing, celebrating the year of the tiger with all different floats and dances. As I am a shorty-pie I struggled to see the parade at first, but Chris found me a nice niche and it was all good.

A Chinese dragon

Fireworks at Darling Harbour

My Sunday blues about Monday morning work did not kick in as my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Bernard were flying into Sydney for a connecting flight to New Zealand so we were able to see them, yey! After a few tears we had a quick coffee and catch up and then they were gone again and i was back at work. It was great to see them and felt like a nice little piece of home.

A brief encounter

On the Tuesday we went to watch the Twenty 20 cricket at the SCG (Sydney cricket ground). It was Austrlia Vs The West Indies. I (Laura) am probably not the best person to describe the cricket as I tend to switch off but I will give it a go……. The West Indies batted first and were pretty shocking and that’s coming from someone that doesnt know much about cricket and got the most excited about getting signs with “out” “4” and “6” on them! They got 138/7 in the 20 overs. Then Australia bat and they were really good, they got 139 with ~11 overs so won by miles and this player called David Warner got 67 and Shane Watson also got his 50 (Chris helped me with that bit!). It was a good experience and the stadium was pretty impressive!

Twenty20 at the SCG

That’s it for now, we have plenty more to see and tell so watch this space……

Bridge walk and ice cream

Hellooo

Raining here in Aus.  Thought I’d do a quick post about some of the stuff we’ve done and not posted yet.

Well Laura’s enjoying her work at Westmead, even with the cockroaches in the hospital.  I’ve had no luck finding work yet, certainly seeing alot of the city though.  We’ve found this great place on Darling Harbour that does $10 steaks and they’re damn nice!  We seem to be getting into the pattern of going there Monday or Tuesday, nice to eat some proper food.

Ice cream by Darling harbour

The other weekend we went for a walk across the Harbour Bridge.  It’s as impressive close up as it is from a distance, although walking along it you do feel like you’re in a prison.  High fences and barbed wire all the way.  Can get some great photos of the harbour though.  At one end we saw some people getting ready to do the bridge climb.  This is where you get all harnessed up and climb up along the very top of the bridge.  Tempting, but costs like $100 odd.

At the start of the walk along the Harbour Bridge

On the bridge

View from the bridge

On the Sunday we left Cecilia’s house we took them for breakfast to Bayview Harbour.  Like Palm Beach this was the kind of place where you’d be quite happy to spend a long period of your life in one of the $10 million houses overlooking the water.  The full English (or Bayview Special) was just spot on.

Noah and Ellie at Bayview

Bye for now. X

Australia Day and a place in the city

Afternoon all

OK been a while since last post.

Well it was Australia Day on the 26th Jan.  No I’d never heard of it either.  Big thing over here though.  Steven and Cecila took me, Laura and the kids to Palm Beach during the morning.  It was busy with families having barbis and playing cricket.  Laura sunbathed while I made a modest sand castle with Noah and Ellie.

Laura on Palm Beach

The most exciting part came just before midday.  I was in the water when suddenly about 10 meters away I spotted a fin coming towards me, a lifeguard must have spotted it at the same time because this loud siren started blaring and everyone started legging it onto the beach from the water, think that scene from Jaws.  I must have only made it by a whisker…. Ok fine, that was a lie, I was on the beach at the time, but the rest was true.  Once everyone was out of the water they sent out sea planes and boats that circled the water for about half an hour until everyone was allowed back in.  Once the drama had passed Steve took me out, him with his new surf board  and me with one of the kids bodyboards, to catch some waves, so much fun!

Steve surfing

The other entertaining, althoughI suppose more serious part of the day was watching an Asian family repeatedly get carried out by a rip current (which was clearly labeled).  Three time the life guards (who were certainly not reminiscent of Baywatch) had to rescue them from getting carried away into the sea, they simply would not listen.  In the afternoon we went back for a barbi and the triple j hottest 100 and were joined by Maggie and George from Laura’s work.

Afternoon barbi. check out the hat!

Well the housing situation has been sorted.  Here comes the story – We had been looking at places all last week.  Most we had found from gumtree, easyroom mate and the like.  Call us fussy but they were mostly dumps – dead cockroaches, smelly, carpet held together by parcel tape, bad locations etc etc, you get the picture.  Anyway, we eventaully found a perfect place; our own 1bed apartment, 2 minutes from central station, secure building, clean, gym and the girl living there wanted tenants until the end of April.  Tailor made right?  Well after we had seen it we still had a few other places to check out and she had a few other people to show round that night.  So we said we’d be happy to take it (for the asking price and for 2 months) and for her to let us know how the rest of the viewings went.  Two hours later and we get a call saying someone else who saw it offered 30 dollars above the asking price a week for 3 months, oh well.  So that one went by the wayside.  Several days later and we checked out a two-bedroom place in the center of the city.  The Indian guy who was living there wanted co-tenants until April and the place was.. okish, anyway, we where getting desperate so we took it.  Other people were interested so we gave him a token 200 dollar deposit in exchange for a key to seal the deal.  30 minutes later and we were on the bus heading back to Cecilia’s house when we got a text from the girl with the one bed place saying the other people had changed their mind and were we still interested.  Great timing.  Talk about numerous buses coming at once.  Well we took the girls word that we could have the 1-bed place and rang the Indian guy hoping that if we did it quick enough he’d return the 200 dollars (plus we did have a key), which luckily he did, albeit grudgingly.

New place

So on Sunday (31st Jan) we moved into our new place, no swimming pool or big house but the location is perfect! Plus… we’ve got foxsports (sky basically) for $16 per month, complete bargain!  And yeh the whooping of Man City and Arsenal was very awesome – even if I did have to watch it at 3am.  Role on the six nations.

Back soon, X