Birthday fun in Bondi

On Friday evening we went to a birthday party/housewarming for my friend Pauline. She is the partner of a guy I work with, and four of us girls get together fairly regularly. She's just moved into an apartment in Bondi so that they can be closer to the surfing, so she celebrated her birthday in their new space!

It was another night with a group of expats. We spent a good long while discussing how hard it is to pay taxes when you are a resident of one country and live in another. Toby and I were the lone Americans in the group, and we are certainly the most pitied of all - the complexity of the US tax system is known throughout the world! We also talked for a long while about how confusing it is in Australia to have debit cards that you can use as a credit card and a credit card that you can use as a debit card. I have to admit that I haven't understood that since the day we got them and I always just make my best guess at the register. Knowing that there are expats all across Sydney doing the exact same thing made me feel better!

The birthday girl getting a birthday hug!

We had a good night, and then it was time to head back home. Leaving Bondi at midnight is its own kind of adventure. All the drunken tourists, backpackers, and uni students are leaving too. So the bus was packed with smelly, loud people, blatantly disregarding the open alcohol laws and having fun doing it. And when we got to the train, it just continued. However, people were generally happy and behaving, just being goofy. It was a great people-watching exercise. Our favorite was this guy, who boarded the train with a single flipper and just looked at it for the 20 minute ride.

 

Good times in Bondi!

 

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An international Thanksgiving

Never in my life would I have predicted I'd be having Thanksgiving dinner with Spainards, an Austrian, a German, and a Belgian. But so it happened this week, and it was just as happy and warm as a back-home celebration!

Our dear Spanish friends wanted to host a Thanksgiving dinner at their apartment for us. They were anxious to see how close to the movies a "real" Thanksgiving dinner would be like, and I was just as anxious for an excuse to make some of my favorite Thanksgiving foods! So we rounded up some of the expats that hang out together and planned a fun evening.

Toby and I made most of the food so we could pick out the most important Thanksgiving dishes for people to try: sourdough stuffing, gravy, and broccoli casserole. The Spainards made a chicken (because turkey is hard to buy for less than $80 - $100) and roast beef, and the German made mashed potatoes. Conspicuously absent was anything cranberry; I've yet to find cranberries here (although my friend Susan said she found a seller last week). Cranberries notwithstanding, we had a great spread!

My Thanksgiving flowers from Esther

Without a doubt, the favorites were the broccoli casserole and the pumpkin cheesecake with pecan pie topping. It was the first time everyone had eaten both of these dishes, but they were a hit! There were a lot of dubious looks at the pumpkin pie….

But everyone really liked it (or at least said they did)!
A big topic of conversation through the evening was everyone's various Christmas traditions. There are some really weird ones, but it was interesting what themes were consistent across the various homelands. Who knows...maybe a Belgian Christmas celebration is up next!
It was a lovely night. We are really blessed to have such a wonderful substitute family here in Sydney!

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A day out at Paddy's

On Sunday I went to Paddy's Market. Paddy's is a mishmash of touristy, cheap junk and then amazingly great produce that is way cheaper than the supermarket. I would shop for all our produce there, except that it's not really convenient to our apartment. But on Sunday I was on a mission for Thanksgiving dinner produce, so I went for it!

First I went through all the souvenir stalls. They all look the same, and there is row after row of these - it's really easy to get turned around.

Some are more chaotic than others. Like this one that sold all kinds of home improvement-type things. How you would ever know if they had something you need, I couldn't begin to understand.

 

Apart from all the chaos, Paddy's is pretty fun. My favorite part is the grocery section. It's chaotic in its own way, especially toward the end of the day when everyone starts lowering their prices and shouting out their deals to try and clear their stock.

But at the time I was there, it's more just about finding what you want. The tables are really wide, so if you want something that's on the far side, you just tell the shop minder what you want and they pick it for you. If it's in your side, you put the produce in a bag and give it to them to weigh. It can be a little confusing and they really don't like it when you pick up certain things that apparently they're meant to handle for you. But the food is so cheap, I don't mind getting scolded to get it!

I was hoping I might find an Amercian pumpkin there, but it was not meant to be. I did get lots of other great veggies though, so I consider it a successful day at Paddy's!

 

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Shelly Beach

Saturday was my long-awaited beach day! That particular day was sandwiched by two really hot days (right around 100), but it was a more pleasant low 90's day. So we rented a GoGet car, packed up some snacks and gear, and headed out to the beach!

Shelly Beach is right by Manly Beach but much smaller. It's also nice and protected from the harbour, so lots of families go there. Basically it's a quiet and pretty beach - and best of all, there is a water refill station, parking, and restrooms nearby.

This was also the inaugural use of our new beach tent, a purchase I'd made over the winter after Toby made it clear to me multiple times over the previous summer that the sand and sun really put a damper on his enjoyment of our beach days. Turns out a beach tent was just what was needed: he loved it!

And I have to admit, it was pretty nice for getting out of the sun!

We had a pretty great day at the beach: Toby wrote while I read, snorkeled, and catnapped on repeat. The snorkeling was really great - there was lots of really cool fish and coral hanging anout and the water was pretty gentle. It really made my beach day. And Toby said he had a great time too!

Before we left for the day, we walked up to the overlook across from the parking lot.

It was a super, wonderful, amazingly fun day!

 

 

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A social week!

This week was a fun, busy one, with a couple of surprise visits from people!

First up in the week, we met this guy for dinner!

 

Scott was just back in Sydney for a day on business but took some time to catch up with us. It was really good to see him!

On Tuesday after work, I went to a panel on women in tech. A couple of the women I work with were on the panel, and I got to meet some interesting people. I might be a little biased, but I thought it was a really good session.

After Wednesday being a normal evening at home, Thursday was back to social activities! I headed out to drinks after work for a friend who's leaving. We had drinks at a tiny little bar called The Spooning Goat that was decorated in a Star Wars theme. It was a completely bizarre place, but a really fun night!

And on Friday, we were out for dinner again with an old colleague of Toby's from Lexmark. Ashley worked in the Cebu office; she and Toby had never met in person but had worked together for a while. They've stayed in touch over Facebook, so when she planned her trip to Sydney, she got in touch and asked if we could meet for dinner. We went to the Sydney Tower for dinner, and it was like we'd all known each other for years. It was a really lovely evening!

And just as a completely unrelated side note, our local Woolies is now carrying this:

 

 

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Cockatoo Island

Not all of my activity ideas are raging successes. Sunday was a good example of that. I'd wanted to go to the beach, but the morning started off pretty rainy. So Toby convinced me to put that plan off for another weekend, but said we could do something else so the fun picnic lunch I'd prepared would still be put to good use.

The rain cleared up in the late morning, so I looked through my list of "Sydney activities" for a good picnic location. I've heard a lot about Cockatoo Island since we've been here: there are concerts and art shows there, and lots of school kids go on field trips to it. Reviews online also talk about the camping facilities, so I figured this might be a great place for us to check out!

To get to Cockatoo Island, we took the ferry over to Circular Quay. From Circular Quay we switched ferries. With 20 minute waits for each ferry, we were pretty excited by the time they arrived. 

Cockatoo Island, it turns out, is a weird mishmash of different things. Historically, it was first used as a convict housing area, where convicts mined the sandstone that could be sent back and used in the city. So there are some old convict housing buildings there. Then it was converted to shipyards, all through the war and up until 1991. So there are lots of left-behind pieces of machinery around the island. 

Now the island is mainly used to house art exhibits and shows in the old warehouse buildings. It's also set up for camping and glamping, and there are hundreds of tents in a row. It is a little odd.

We walked around the island for a little bit, but it became more and more obvious that if there wasn't an art show happening, you have to be really, really interested in old buildings to get a lot of enjoyment out of the area. It also was incredibly windy - so windy, in fact, that we had to hunker down in some stairs to try and have our picnic lunch. Not exactly what I'd intended!

There were some nice views though!

But before too long, we'd had our fill of the wind and the old buildings, so we headed back to the ferry. Unfortunately for us, a group of Scouts had the same idea and filled up the first ferry that came through. 

But we made it on to the next ferry! And even though the trip out was kind of long and sort of a bust, we still had fun. And we can say we've seen Cockatoo Island. My only regret? We didn't see a single cockatoo!

A few weekend pics

Last weekend was lovely weather. I took advantage of it on Saturday with my paddleboarding adventure. On Sunday, it was so nice, I even got T out of the house with me.

It was a hot day, but nice and windy so it felt great outside!

We went out for a walk down to The Rocks and to an Italian restaurant where we had a groupon for lunch.

We had a really nice lunch, just enjoying the breeze and watching all the tourist goings-on. And then we had a nice walk back up through The Rocks.

Elsewhere in Sydney, the jacaranda trees are in full bloom! This whole street smelled nice when I walked through it.

And all the other flowers are blooming too!

It's a wonderful time to be in Sydney!

 

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Paddle wording at Rose Bay

Saturday was sunny and warm, so I gathered up my activity partner, Anu, and a couple girls visiting the Sydney office and we headed out to Rose Bay for some paddleboarding and kayaking!

The view at Rose Bay

I had a vision of it being like the paddleboarding in San Diego, just with the beaches of Sydney around instead. The first difference was that the paddleboard company was a lot less "professional" than the one I visited before. It was, in fact, just this guy standing at a table beside his signs and a bunch of boards and kayaks.

The other difference was how rough the water was! I should have checked the wind forecast, because it was really windy. The paddleboard guy told us to stick close to the shore, which we did, but even still it sometimes felt like I was paddling really hard and getting nowhere. On the plus side, when we turned to go back to the beach, I didn't have to paddle - I just stood there and let the wind take me!

These activity buddies wisely opted for a kayak instead of a paddleboard

Safe and sound back on the beach!

We only lasted about an hour on the water and then we were beat. But that was alright, because then we made it back to the city just in time to discover a Thai festival where we had our lunch!

And then I went home and had a nap! =)

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