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!

13. The Hunt

Okay, okay, I know.... It has been forever since I had a blog entry. What can I say? Things have been incredibly boring to be honest. The only thing I have been doing is hunting. Hunting? For what?...... don't worry, it isn't Kangaroos.

I have been on the job hunt and house hunt here in Sydney and let me tell you it's been quite the intense search. This "global financial crisis" has hit Sydney pretty hard as it has hit many other cities. There have been several major job cuts and this has thrown tens of thousands of employees into the hunt as well. In total it took me three weeks to find a job because every interview I went to had at least 40 other people in competition for the role and half of those were Australian. American Express has become my employer for the time being through a recruitment agency and so it's been quite something to go through. I have an appreciation for people back home who are new to Canada and trying to find work, residents and citizens always seem to get work over newcomers or visitors.

The house hunt has also been interesting so far. I've met some dynamic people with some interesting backgrounds. This being my first time living on my own, it's a bit of a learning curve, but I am making progress. Hopefully I will be into a place on my own (or with flatmates) soon enough!

Anyways, this is where my life is at. One day soon, I'll have something interesting to update you with!

(P.S.- The photo is over a night sky over Sydney...)

12. Le Update

So I haven't really updated this blog since arriving back from Melbourne. Nothing terribly exciting has happened since coming back, so I guess this is why I haven't bothered. 

I am feeling like the vacation part of things is slowly trickling away and I am wanting to settle into my life here now. I have been job hunting since coming back from Melbourne and with the way things are going with the global financial crisis, there is a lot of competition for jobs here. I have been on one interview so far and have a second one lined up for the same job. It's a little disheartening to look at the numbers of how many jobs I have applied for and how many I have gotten an interview for.... it's not very good hehe.

I haven't started looking for apartments yet because there is really no sense in me looking if I don't have a job to pay the rent. So I am still kind of waiting on that. Living out of suitcases is slowly starting to drive me mental. I am tired of wrinkled clothing that I either have to wash or iron to get the wrinkles out.

Alas, that is how my boring life goes at this point. I'll update again when I have something more interesting to update you on!

11. Wicked

I just thought I'd split my update into 2 as this next bit isn't very long. While in Melbourne, I was lucky enough to go see Wicked. Wicked is a musical that is about the 2 witches from "The Wizard of Oz" and it tells you about their story. It was something I was told would be a great show to see and since it was in Melbourne, I figured I would go.

I had an absolutely amazing time. The show was really well done (much to my surprise) and that was with 3 understudies! I sat in a great seat (about the 10th row or so) and met 2 Australian girls who were quite funny. One looked like Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks (and funnily enough her name was also Natalie) and her friend Sarah. They were entertaining before the show and during intermission. 

As always, I purchased a program but I also got myself an umbrella from there as it was funky and I didn't have one for Australia yet. Now I do.

Next up for me is a concert on the 3rd (just after my birthday) and then who knows what. I am starting to look for work as well. I shall keep you posted! :-).

10. The Australian Open

First of all, let me apologize for the lack of updates. I have been incredibly busy with being in Melbourne and then coming back here to Sydney and settling in more, so my updating hasn't been a priority. Let me update you on how it was at the Australian Open...

Originally I was supposed to go for 3 days total to watch tennis, however jet-lag had other plans for me. It finally caught up to me and I spent Tuesday in bed in my hotel unable to go to any matches. Thankfully, the hotel TV had tennis on 3 separate channels, so I watched that all day. 

Wednesday was the night I got to go to Rod Laver Arena and watch a night session. For me it was very lucky as They had lined up 2 Australian players for that session: Jelena Dokic, who was making her return to tennis after all the drama when she was younger, and Bernard Tomic, a 16 year old who had made it to the 2nd round in his Grand Slam debut. Jelena's match was fiercely competitive and it was so amazing to watch. She may be older, but her shot making is still very much amazing. She ended up beating Anna Chakvetadze (who is a top 20 player) and advancing to the 3rd round (where she ended up beating Caroline Wozniacki, the number 11 seed!). It has been an amazing run for her and I was so lucky to be there for that match. She was so emotional afterwards and was just so happy to have been back on Rod Laver Arena. Go Jelena! 

Bernard Tomic started off quite well, but his inexperience and age caught up with him quickly. Things started to go downhill quickly for him after the first set, but he has a lot of talent and we should hopefully see great things from him in the future. He just needs to get more experience playing with the top players in the world. 

Thursday marked the day session I went to and it was very exciting for me as I found out that I would be getting to see Serena Williams play at Hisense Arena. I also caught Elena Dementieva in her last set once I got there and she played incredibly well. Serena had a bit more of a tough battle to fight. Now, I hate to be mean and judge on appearances, but Gisela Dulko, who was playing Serena, looking like a drag queen. She reminded me of those girls in high school who cake on make, get a streaky fake tan and have terrible highlights. She was pretty intense. In all fairness, she did make Serena play her best tennis. In the 2nd set, Serena managed to come back from 0-3 and win the set 7-5. It was close, but she did it! I am glad I got to see Serena at the Australian Open.... it fulfilled one of my many dreams.

They have a lot going on on the grounds around the tournament. They have shops, live theatre, music, food.....a lot! I got to wandering around the outer courts because the rest of the matches at Hisense were pretty boring and I didn't feel like sitting around. I came across the practice courts. Now most tennis fans know that this is your opportunity to see players up close and get some good pictures and potentially that lucrative autograph. I was lucky enough to see Roger Federer (before the hundreds of people crammed around his court), Daniela Hantuchova (a top 20 player) and.....SERENA WILLIAMS!. Evidently she didn't play enough, so she was out practicing some more. It is the coolest thing to be about 10 feet away from someone you've only ever seen on TV. You also get to see how amazing their tennis is up close. She has great movement and some great shots... I was very impressed. I didn't hang around to see if I could get an autograph because I had to go and there were scads of people hanging around her court as well. 

Overall, I had a great time at the Australian Open and I am glad I was able to go.

Link to Australian Open Photos - Day Session

Link to Australian Open Photos - Night Session

(Tip for the photos: It will take you to a message I sent myself if you click on this link. Just click on the photo album title and that will take you to the pictures! You don't need to sign up for Facebook to view them!)

Above is a bonus video of Serena Williams playing!