16. A New Car and the Blue Mountains

I will be the first to admit that I have neglected this blog and am extremely lazy at updating it. So I am finally getting back on track with it! (Really this just means something interesting happened so I have something to write about...)

My friend Stephen decided that it was time he get a new vehicle. Don't get me wrong, he has had a ton of good memories with his Toyota Camry (lovingly renamed the Kath & Kim Camry), but it was time to move on. You'd be pretty sick of having to jump-start your car every 2 days because the battery wouldn't hold a charge! After doing some heavy research, he decided the Audi A3 was for him. (Who am I kidding? It was German and goes fast....I don't really think that's research, but at least he knew it was both!)

So I went with him to pick up his new Audi and man does the thing go! Who could say no to a car that likes going fast very quickly! It's pictured above, but let me rave about my favourite parts of the car: PANORAMIC SUNROOF. I'll admit I am a bit of a sucker for a nice sunroof, but a panoramic one is nuts. What is it you may ask? Why let me tell you! Not only is it one in the front above the driver and front passenger seats, but there is a fixed panel above the back seats as well. *swoon* If I could fall in love with a part of a car, it'd be a panoramic sunroof.

After Stephen picked up his new car, what better thing was there to do asides from go on a mini road trip?! Well we decided to go to the Blue Mountains as it was a nice drive and I had never been before. The Blue Mountains are quite spectacular to see, but in comparison to the mountains back home, then look more like speed bumps. They are definitely deceiving though as the go on for awhile, but do not have the high peaks like ones back in Canada do.

The Blue Mountains gets its name from the haze that sits over them. This bluish haze is from the Eucalyptus trees that are rampant through Australia and more densely spread over the Blue Mountains. It is really cool to see and I am told its more prevalent at dusk & dawn. We managed to view a few places, but the most famous is the 3 Sisters. We went down into the valley and walked around a bit. To get down there, you have to take a ridiculously steep train. They claim it's the world's steepest railway, but I am not too sure if it counts considering its attached to a cable. And when I say steep, the backs of the seats in front of you keep you from falling out, but if the cage wasn't above you, you most certainly would. Heading back up we took a gondola.

On the way back we stopped at a German cafe and it was so cute! The mountains have a bunch of little towns and they are kind of cute, but at the same time kind of dumpy. They are certainly no match for the Alps in Europe!

15. Another Bloody Water

So when Jonas was here, we went to this Kiwi burger place called Burger Fuel. Among their interesting flavours and doofers (patent pending apparently....I told Jonas to look into it) they had the most bizarre water bottle for sale. So considering I was in stitches while reading it, I figured I needed to type it out here for all to enjoy.

Here is the story of Another Bloody Water.....

Since we unceremoniously (some say rudely) barged our way into the overcrowded bottled water market with a good looking bottle, a smartarse name and a devil may care attitude it has come to our attention that our competitors don't like us*. They think we are taking the piss. That we mock the overly flowery, exaggerated language and the poorly drawn waterfalls and diagrams of volcanoes on their labels. They think that we are not taking the serious aquatic science of bottled water...well seriously.

So to quash any future smear campaign and rumour mongering they may come up with, we're going to set the record straight right here. Smart Alec name-yes. Just another water-no.

First up our water is bloody good. Better than most. It comes from a spring, high in the Victorian Alps, which is a bloody long drive from civilization (see:pollution). The only farms in the area are organic which means no nasty pesticides or any of those other evil poisons end up in the water. In fact we deal with the rampant blackberry problem by setting our deer on them. It's a tough gig for the deer, but they seem to like it. And while we're blowing our own trumpet, independent Government approved laboratories have done tests and they reckon it's lower in sodium than all other major brands on the Australian market. Did we say it tastes bloody good?

So there you go, Doubting Thomas competitors-cards on the table. Enjoy Another Bloody Water, everyone. And then when you're done with that enjoy another Another Bloody Water. And so on.

*We don't actually know if our competitors don't like us. But being competitors we're pretty sure they don't.


So there you have it...quite funny! Directly scribed from water bottle to my blog!

14 - Jonas visits from Canada

Well the time has gone extremely quickly since Jonas first arrived to when he left. Fifteen days truly seems like a ton of time, but let me assure you it went by fast! I wasn't even the one on vacation and it went by fast.

I started off by showing Jonas around the city a bit. We headed to Hyde Park, the CBD and then the Botanical Gardens and the Rocks and Darling Harbour...all in one day! I did my best to tire him out and it worked pretty well.

At that point I ended up catching a nasty cold and started feeling like shiza (that's German for shit for those who don't know) and missed work and man it was unfortunate. Due to illness, I couldn't go out and do anything for a while. Luckily, one of our mutual friends was also here and so he got to head off and do some cool stuff with him. For example, he went to Adelaide and wine country there...the lucky s.o.b.....

Once he got back, I took him shopping! What a good shopping companion I am! We managed to find some new clothes for him that worked well for him. It's always fun going out and doing something like that. (And when I say "something like that" I mean spending someone else's money hehe!)

Afterwards, we headed back to my new flat (more on this in another blog later) to make some dinner before our evening plan. Jonas decided to pack and I was working on dinner when this massively huge lightning/thunderstorm rolled through. It had ridiculously intense
rains and lightning, but only last for about 20 minutes or so. The sun came out afterwards and we thought nothing of it.

For the evening, we had planned to do the BridgeClimb on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I actually wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be, but Jonas was just as nervous as I thought he would be. We spent a good part of an hour filling out all the forms and getting suited up and learning how the walk would work. As we were doing this, the room had a huge wall of windows and we just kept seeing flashes of lightning.

By the time we were at the start of the course the skies just opened up and it was an absolute downpour once again. Numerous flashes of lightning mixed with loud thunder really didn't give us much hope of completing the journey. We went out anyways in rain gear to the next safe area and we were absolutely soaked! It was gusting up to about 35 km/h and when you have a ton of rain flying at you that fast...it kind of hurts hehe.

The storm persisted and we didn't get to go past the first safe area, so Jonas and I never got to climb to the top, but we were close! It is one of my goals to do it before I leave here.

As I am writing this, Jonas is on his way back to Vancouver and will be somewhere in New Zealand to make his transfer home, back to shite weather and cold temperatures! It may be turning into fall here, but it's still 20+ degrees and sunny nearly every day!