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Published: January 31st 2006
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Look!
Dolphin cruising in Jervis Bay. It's been a while since I updated this thing, I see! Both Christmas and New Years have passed and I'm enjoying the month of festivals here in Sydney, and I feel at home!
To start off with the Christmas weekend. I had no clue how to spend my first Christmas away from my family, figured I could just as well spend it at the house. Luckily my German friend, Heike, from down the street dragged me out and smacked me. Of course we're not gonna sit at the house, you mad??? So we packed our bags and hopped on the train south. Jervis Bay, here we come! Or so we thought ...
The train terminated in Nowra, a sad excuse for a town three hours south of Sydney. From here, a bus was supposed to take us to Huskisson at Jervis Bay. You think the bus showed up? But of course not! So at around half nine we managed to holler down a taxi and prayed it wasn't too far away to Huskisson. Right ... $60 later ... Finally in Huskisson, where we hurried to get our tiny tent up and then we hurried over to the Huskisson Pub. A
Alberto
And relax ... really good pub with a huge verandah overlooking the bay (we couldn't see it however; it was pitch black). So there we were, finally enjoying a cold cider ...
The next day was Christmas Eve, and the boys - Marc and Alberto - came down from Sydney in Marc's backpacker van. We had big plans of a fancy dinner and a big night out. We started with a dolphin cruise, however (Marc didn't go, he figured he'd seen enough dolphins already), and a nice little boat trip around the bay. It sure is a gorgeous bay, with snow white beaches, incredibly blue waters and a nice, cool wind from the ocean. And we did see a lot of dolphins. They practically came up to the boat and said hello and stuck around our boat for a good half hour, before they decided enough was enough and scampered off. Such incredible animals! I liked dolphins before, but now ... I love them! We came back to Huskisson in time to buy some food and alcohol for the night and Christmas Day. We couldn't be bothered cooking on Christmas Eve, so we went to a really lovely Italian restaurant in the town,
Dolphin
Coming up to say hello. where we celebrated Christmas together - a Swede, a German, an Italian and a French-Canadian. Even Alberto really liked that restaurant! After a lot of food we rolled back to the pub and really had a full night out, finishing up skinny dipping in the bay at midnight (not very clever, since sharks do come here). All the wine led to a terrible hangover on Christmas Day ... The boys went back to Sydney in the afternoon after our barbie, so Heike and I went down to the beach with some wine to relax and enjoy ourselves. And during our wine fest, this really nice Aussie guy comes up to us and asks for a smoke. We ended up talking to this guy till the early hours the next morning.
Heike and I stayed in Jervis Bay until the 27th, and went biking to Hyams Beach, which according to the Guinness Book of Records, has the worlds whitest sand. It did really hurt my eyes walking out into the sand, but it was so lovely I soon forgot my "pain". The 27th turned out to be a small nightmare again. After really having checked that there would be buses back
Cruisin'
Heike and Alberto. to Nowra, we sat down at the bus stop and waited. Did the bleepin' bus come? NO! NO! NO! And we refused to pay another $60 for a taxi, so we stuck our thumbs out and hitched back to Nowra with a lovely family of three. It was a gorgeous weekend, but it was great to be back in Sydney!
New Years, then ... Same story there, had no clue what to do with myself! I did have som vague plans of going to Tasmania, but these plans faded. This time I stayed in Sydney and that really turned out to be a very good decision, indeed! My housemates and I had a barbie at our house with a few friends coming over. Some of us really wanted to see the Harbour Bridge fireworks, but how to manage that was a tricky question. We watched the 9 o'clocks between the trees at Bourke Street and we were still thinking of walking up to the very crowded McElhone Stairs in Pott's Point to share the experience with thousands of strangers. But, lo and behold! At around half ten, Matt comes over and tells us of a roof top in Pott's
Marc
Merry Christmas! Point where we might be able to go for the 12 o'clocks! An invitation was needed, but he was pretty sure he could get us in. We walked over to the place at half eleven, and yes, we did get in ... and up! What a perfect view; the city skyline, the opera house, Harbour Bridge, the harbour ... We could see everything. When it came closer to midnight, we could hear the whole city count down the seconds. And then the fireworks ... All I can say is, wow! After this wonderful display we had a great night and didn't get to bed until the early hours of a +44 degrees New Year's Day.
After the holidays comes January, a month of festivals and events here in Sydney. I've been to numerous concerts, including doing a three-in-a-row in The Domain. For thee Saturdays in a row, the city offers free concerts in Sydney's biggest park (a five-minute walk from our house, excellent!) - jazz, classical, opera. And we went to all three of them! We camped out in the park from about three in the afternoon every Saturday (the concerts started at 8pm), sweating and panting in the
Hyams Beach
My feet at Hyams Beach. heat and sunshine, but it was worth it in the end. Great concerts, especially the jazz. We were about thirty people in our "little" group, celebrating Esther's 30th birthday. We were dancing and laughing and we were really sad when the concert was over. The last one, which was just this past Saturday, was a free opera concert - Madama Butterfly.
Australia Day was on Thursday the 26th, so that meant a day off work and celebrations. We went to see the annual vintage car show at Hyde Park, before we went up to The Rocks and had a fabulous lunch and some very nice beer. The night was spent at the Beck's Bar at Hyde Park Barracks, enjoying Mad Racket. Excellent artist, completely mad, but sooo good! On Friday, we celebrated Mozart's 250th birthday by going to the St. George Outdoor Cinema to see the Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform some Mozart before the big screen showed Milos Forman's classic film Amadeus.
So, it's been about six weeks of parties, festivals and music here in Sydney, where people definitely know how to throw a good party and enjoy themselves!
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