Finally some sun!

It's been raining for almost two weeks, which of course is just unacceptable! There was finally a glimpse of our sunny winter weather this weekend though!

We braved the rain on Saturday to grab some breakky and got treated to a super double rainbow.

When the rain came back as a mist, I decided enough was enough and headed out to the Kirribilli Markets.

Sunday looked even more promising, so I decided it was time for pretending it was summer. I caught the ferry up to Manly and walked around the corso, popped into some shops, and generally acted like a tourist.

 

You wouldn't know it was winter by looking at the crowd on the beach!

It was a great day for celebrating the sun before the rain set back in!

 

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Happy bday, T!

Last weekend was Toby's birthday. And in true Toby style, all he wanted for his big day was to stay inside. Luckily, it was pouring down rain (or "pissing down" as you'd say here), so it was not so painful being inside for 2 days.

We had a full but quiet birthday weekend: lots of snacks, meeting online friends for games, opening presents, and venturing out just one time to go see a movie. It was a perfect Toby weekend if there ever was one!

Here's Toby in some of his best bday moments.

You'll notice he is "in uniform" in two pictures - that was his birthday gift to himself!

Happy birthday to T!

 

 

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Australia keeps being weird

Periodically, things happen to remind us that we are in a foreign place. This week there were a few of those...

The first one was pretty innocuous. I bought some Rice Krispie cereal for a recipe, and when I got it home, I realized it had a different name!

 

I always wonder about the renaming of things like that. How does rice bubbles make any more sense than Rice Krispie, I wonder? There must be a reason, and I would love to know.

A funny one happened when we went to our anniversary dinner on Tuesday. I went to the restroom and these signs were plastered all over in the bathroom:

I don't want to think too hard about what necessitated those signs being made!

And finally, one thing we've learned is that it can be really hard to get packages here. We have a small mail slot in the front of our building, but delivery people won't leave bigger packages unless there happens to be someone walking into our building at the exact time they are delivering so they can then leave it in the lobby. Usually we just get a package notice, which we can pick up at the little post office in Kirriblli between 8:30 and 5, Monday through Friday. Which also happens to be the hours that the average person is at work. So it gets really difficult to get packages delivered to us, and I've started just having things delivered to my office.

The alternative to rushing home early from work or carting home a package on the train is to use a parcel pickup service. We've recently learned how these work: there are certain convenience stores/markets that are dedicated parcel pickup areas. When you order a package, you can have the delivery person leave it at one of these stores and then you can pick it up later - usually to later hours like 8 or 9. What we didn't realize is that senders can choose that packages be left at these stores. So this week, we got a package notice and it said we had to go to a store that was about 15 minutes away. We'd never walked to that area before, and when we got there, I saw why. Toby called it "Assault Station."

 

Inside wasn't much better. It was run by two older Chinese people (maybe a man and daughter) who didn't speak much English. The store was a wreck: you could rent one of the DVDs from their personal collection (just in the normal DVD case) for $3 a night. You could also buy things from dusty shelves, like an egg, a melon, a serving platter, a chicken figurine - pretty much any random thing you could think of. The man went into a little side closet, which seemed like a food storage/laundry room/package room, to collect my parcel.

The store was so bizarre, so dirty, and so unexpected, that when we walked back outside with the package, we just looked at each other and asked "what just happened?!" Needless to say, it gave us a good laugh. And I won't be too sad if we have to take another adventure out to get a package there again!

 

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Anniversary dinner at the hospitality school

Our anniversary was on Tuesday, so for fun I booked us a dinner at a hospitality school in North Sydney. The school is called William Blue, and the school has a student-run restaurant. All the reviews I read about it said that the food was very good, and the service was mainly described as "over-eager" and "awkward." What more could you want from a fine dining experience!?

So on Tuesday, T and I met at the school/restaurant after work for our dinner adventure. The dining area wasn't particularly fancy, and we were the only ones there. There were, however, about five student servers and two supervisors pacing around!

T trying to ignore the stares of the students

In the kitchen, there were about six students and two chefs.

Basically, we had great service!

The food itself was OK. It was from a small menu: three appetizer options, three mains, and three desserts to choose from. It all had the potential to be really good, but overall it was just pretty good - maybe a little bland? It was still really fun to order and then hear the chefs coaching the students on the preparation!

Our food was: a goat cheese soufflé, a field mushroom tart, and chocolate mousse.

The best part of the evening was that we got all that food, plus wine, plus basically our own personal chefs and severs for $70! Plus, it was fun talking to the students. So it was a very fun night.

 

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Jazz time in Chatswood

I can't really complain about the winter days here. It's cool in the mornings and night, but unless it's rainy, the days almost always warm up to be really pleasant. This weekend was a great example - there was a Roaring Twenties afternoon in Chatswood, so T and I caught the train up to get lunch and listen to the live music. It was cool, but perfect for sitting and letting the sun hit your back!

We grabbed some veggie burgers and had a good little picnic listening to the bass and keyboard players.

Later in the afternoon they were showing a 1920s film on a big outdoor screen, but we didn't stay for that. Our two hours in the sun made for a perfect Sunday!

 

 

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Game of Codes

Since I work with a lot of geeks, I should not have been surprised that our end of financial year party was a little nerdy. Or maybe a lot nerdy. But really, really fun!

The theme of the party was a take on Game of Thrones: the Game of Codes. We were all sorted into houses of 6 or 7 people. And then we were bussed off to Manly for an afternoon of Game of Thrones-themed activities!

The activities were on the grounds of a hospitality school, which was originally constructed as a seminary in the 1800s. So it had a good castle-y feel to it.

The grounds were organized like a village. Our teams could walk around and participate in as many activities across the village as we wanted.

The goal was to compete in activities and get gold coins. And then once a team got a certain number of coins, they could advance to the next level of social standing. The winning team was the one who made it to be nobles.

Our first activity was violin lessons. We had to learn a simple song and then play it for the Queen. This activity actually turned out to be one of my favorites of the day!

Then there were tons of other cool things, like a log throw:

Cardboard chariot-building and then racing:

Barrel racing:

Potion-making:

And sword-fighting:

One of the coolest things about the afternoon was the number of people that were there to add to the ambiance. All the people at the booths were in costume and character. And there were characters that wandered around to interact with all of the teams. There were even knights on horses that greeted us when we arrived and patrolled the grounds while we did our activities!

Unfortunately, my team didn't win. Or do that well in any activity, to be honest. But it was still a super fun day! I had a really good time with my co-workers and I feel really lucky to work for a place that puts on such amazing parties!

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Pyrmont Growers Market

The first Saturday of every month, there is a big farmers market in Pyrmont Bay Park. I've been wanting to check it out for a long time, but something always seemed to be going on. So this Saturday, I decided nothing was going to stop me!

The market was at a park right along the bay. It was a beautiful place for it!

I met a co-worker's wife there, and we walked through all the stalls together. There was so much good-looking produce - mainly winter veggies like root veggies, squash and citrus. But there were also some apples and greens that have just started coming in.

In addition to all the produce, there were also plenty of dairy and meat vendors too. And a few tents cooking up breakky sausages.

I bought a package of exotic-looking mushrooms from the mushroom tent.

We also watched a food demonstration from a local celebrity chef.

I didn't buy much besides a fresh peach and mango juice and my mushrooms. But it was so inspiring to see all the lovely (and giant!) produce - next time I'll go back with more cash. And I'll drag Toby along so we can be inspired by all the ingredients and make something fabulous!

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Aroma Festival

Last weekend was another beautiful winter's day. And on Sunday, we had a reason to go down to Circular Quay: the Aroma Festival! The Aroma Festival is mainly focused on coffee, but really anything that could show up in a morning tea break gets a showing. I went last year with from friends from work, and this year I dragged T along with me!

We headed over in the late morning after our Sunday Skyping was done. By the time we got there, it was pretty crowded!

And it was warming up nicely, which meant that one of us made for the shade anytime he saw a chance.

There were tons of fun booths to check out. Lots of them were selling coffee and tea. And a fair few were selling tasty-looking treats.

There were also plenty of food trucks, like this cute one that had a bandstand on top.

We opted for some nachos. And a seat in the shade of course. =)

We wandered through all the booths, checked out $1,000 espresso machines, and watched some performers. It was a lovely way to spend part of our day!

 

 

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