Fun times at work

Work has been busy lately. But I'm lucky in that I work at such a fun place, so there's plenty of fun times mixed in. 

Most recently was our TGIF event. Once a month, on Fridays, there's a big event. Sometimes it's kid friendly and people bring in their families. Sometimes it's not so kid-friendly, like Bingo nights. But it's always fun! 

This last Friday was Roller Disco. I cannot over-emphasize how excited I was for roller skating night.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but it didn't disappoint. They cleared our lunch room of all the tables and chairs, and set up a DJ stand. One of the Sydney skating rinks brought in their skates, and away we went! 

Setting up the DJ stand on the skate floor

Yup, that's me!

Skate time!

I managed to get three different skate sessions in. All of the hours spent skating with Holly in our childhood really paid off: it came right back to me!

A month or so ago, our team had a movie night. We booked one of our big meeting spaces with big projectors, ordered pizza, and then watched a movie after work. The movie of choice was decided after multiple rounds of voting, much debating about the quality of each person's proposed movie, and generally much excitement after we landed on Top Gun as the movie of choice. 

Pizza time before the movie

Everyone decided that such a movie required 2 screens

Some people got super into it. This jacket was rented - just for the movie watching.

Our team does lots of fun things together. Because a lot of us travel quite often, another tradition has started: people bring beers back from the countries they've visited. When enough beers have accumulated, it's time for Beers Around the World night. 

At the most recent Beers Around the World, there were a LOT of beers from all over: America, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy (and maybe some others?). 

Luckily, we have a few serious beer enthusiasts on our team, so they can provide good commentary on the beer. So it's actually like being at a real beer tasting. Only at work. With colleagues. 

Sitting where I do on the 28th floor overlooking Darling Harbour, with the sun setting early in the winter I get to see some spectacular sunsets sometimes!

Our new office is so lovely. We had some photographers come in a couple weeks ago, and it was written up in the local news. You can see me in one of the pictures! My 15 minutes of internet fame: 

http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/design/inside-atlassians-new-offices-at-363-george-street-in-sydneys-cbd/news-story/32b6293d3bade6ff2f8ad0ce814a1d4e

Melbourne winter weekend

Our last few days were spent in Melbourne. Or as the Aussies say it: Melb-uhn. We went last year and T loved the city, so we'd always planned to take a little weekend getaway there over the wintertime. Coincidentally, Toby was working with teams down in the Melbourne office, so we had a reason to go down on a Wednesday night. I worked from our airbnb on Thursday and Friday while T went to the office: just like real Melbourne life!

The view from our airbnb

The first two nights we stayed right in the heart of the city. Our airbnb was very much a city apartment: on the 11th floor and tiny, tiny, tiny! But we did have great views of the city and it was easy to get around, so it was perfect.

But on Friday night, we moved out to our weekend airbnb in the little suburb of Fitzroy. On our last trip to Melbourne, we discovered that Fitzroy is really the place to be: it's trendy, full of good restaurants, and there's always something fun to stumble into. So we were excited to check it out. Our airbnb really looked the hipster part.

The chairs faced the tv - comfy! =) 

Our time in Fitzroy involved a lot of eating. There are about 5 restaurants in the area that are completely vegan, and every place had big vegetarian and vegan menus. So we were set for food!!

T feeling very satisfied after stumbling across a whiskey bar

The salt & pepper shakers at our Mexican vegan dinner

Every vegan restaurant was absolutely packed all the time! 

Hanging out at a cider bar

Aside from eating, there was plenty to do in just exploring the streets of the neighbourhood. There were lots of cute little shops around, as well as positively unique things going on. Like this walk-up t-shirt bar, where you bring a design to the window, pick something you want it printed on while you wait there.

In a shop window

On Friday night, we came across a pop-up art space that was doing open mic shows for local youth. There was a youngish kid rapping when we were there, so we joined the crowd and listened. Pop up music - pretty cool idea!

And because it's Melbourne, there was plenty of street art to see. Pretty much every alley had something interesting to see. 

Melbourne is definitely a bit more trendy and gritty than Sydney, overall. Put that trendiness together with the Aussie humour, and you get an attitude that I find hilarious. It's hard to properly capture, but I saw some signs during our weekend there that points to it. 

Please visit our damned shop

Too darn cold to stay open late... 

Thongs (flip-flops) are frowned upon (but not explicitly against the rules)

We also took a walk out to Fitzroy Gardens during our afternoon on Saturday. Even though the weather was freezing, the sun was out for most of our walk, so it was fun to walk through some of the residential areas and then explore the park. 

Bionic Ear Lane

Entering Fitzroy Gardens

This guy was freezing

Our big event of the weekend was going to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak at the convention center. T is a big fan of the NDG and I like him a lot too, so we were really excited to hear him talk. It was a great evening. 

Our Sunday plans were to go to the Queen Victoria Markets and hang out for a while before it was time to get our flight back to Sydney. The markets partly indoor but mostly outdoor, and they're the biggest open air markets in the Southern Hemisphere. Visiting the markets have been on my Melbourne To Do list for a while. 

T ruling up some enthusiasm for market-time

Lots of meats, cheeses, and veggies inside the old building

Aside from the food parts of the market, there were tons of stalls that just sold normal market type things: crafts, clothes, weird market junk. If you had the stamina, you could spend hours wandering it. 

Unfortunately, the downside of the markets being mostly outside was that it was absolutely FREEZING cold. The wind was really strong - even the Melbournites were complaining about the cold. I realized there was no way I could hang out for a long time at the markets and stay happy, so we headed outside the city to the Scienceworks museum where we knew we could stay inside. 

It seemed that lots of families had the same idea as us on that cold day. Luckily the museum was really built for kids to burn off energy. Like this exhibit where kids could race against an Olympic sprinter. 

Or where big kids could climb on the climbing wall. 

We had a good time hanging out at the museum, and then spend our remaining few hours in Melbourne at cafes/bars: anywhere that feel warm! It was really a great weekend, and we got to feel like we lived in the city foremost of it, which was a a really fun way to experience it. Yay for Melbourne weekends!

Until next time, Melbourne!

Whales in Woollahra

Sunday was a perfect Sydney winter day: cool and sunny, with a brilliant blue sky. On winter days like this, water in the harbour is extra beautiful, so we went for an afternoon adventure in the eastern suburb of Woollahra.

Woollahra is about a 20 minute bus ride from our apartment. We didn't have a plan beyond jumping off the bus and doing some wandering alongside the oceanside walk. So when we got off the bus, we walked through the neighbourhood for a while before getting to the edge of the land.

Even in winter, there are plenty of flowers

From the bus route, we cut through some residential streets to the Macquarie Lighthouse and the cliffside walk that is beside it. 

The cliffside walk goes along the water, and once we got up to it, we saw lots of boats out in the water. Around this time of year, Humpback Whales and Southern Right Whales migrate up north form the Antarctic feeding grounds and go to right along the east coast of Australia. So it's a good bet that when boats are gathered in a clump outside the harbour, there's some whales to be seen!

And sure enough, there were at least a few whales out in the water breaching. We stood and watched for a while, and our patience was rewarded with some coming in really close to the shore. We would first spot them by their spouts, but the closer ones we could easily seem them breaching above the water. Unfortunately, I didn't get any great pictures of them with my phone camera. =/

We watched the whales for a while, and then we headed further up the path, through the sport fields and back toward the bus route. 

The succulents are loving the sun

Before we made our way back to the bus stop, we explored the South Head Cemetery, on top of the hill. It's a mixture of really old gravesite, and some from the 90s. It's a peaceful spot, with views back out to the ocean and the whales. 

And then we caught our bus back home. 

On the alert for the bus

Not on the alert for the bus

It was a short but happy winter afternoon adventure, and our day was really made by the whales sighting! I hope they have good journeys up north, and maybe we'll see them with their calves in a few months!