Happy Australia Day!

Last week I celebrated my first Australia Day! It's the national day of Australia and is celebrated every year on January 26th in commemoration of the arrival of the First Fleet in Australia. According to Wikipedia, the First Fleet was "the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 consisting of 10 Civil officers, 212 marines, including officers, 28 wives and 17 children of the marines, 81 free persons, 504 male convicts and 192 female convicts." They came to establish the first European colony in Australia, and landed in New South Wales (the state where I live). Basically people do the same thing as you do on the 4th of July in America- I ended up having a barbeque and drinking beer by noon. There was a free concert in the park about a five minute walk from where I live, so we ended up sitting out on the grass and listening to the runner-up from Australia's Got Talent sing Frank Sinatra mixed in with Nessun Dorma and a few other arias, followed by a fireworks show.


Australia Day was on a Thursday, so I took Friday off work and went to the Gold Coast with Hayden. It's about an hour plane ride away, and known for its really beautiful beaches and sunshine. Unfortunately Queensland has been caught in the middle of some pretty massive tropical storms lately, so by the time we got there the water was really murky from all of the storm drains that feed into the ocean. There were also a bunch of branches and logs lurking in the water, waiting to hit some unsuspecting swimmer in the head. Here are a couple pictures of the cleanup effort that was underway when we got there:

View of the main beach. It stretches on for about 7 miles.

There were backhoes all over the beach raking all the debris into little piles, followed by a dump truck that would come and collect them...

All of the shops sell stuff with the flag on it for Australia Day (flip flops, towels, shirts, stickers), so here I am modeling a flag that you can clip onto your car. You can see that there are a lot of high rises in the downtown area (known as Surfer's Paradise), many of which are vacation homes that people rent out when they're not using them.

On the hotel balcony. The weather was hot but you can see how gloomy it is in the background. Unfortunately it was pretty much like this the whole trip...

Ouchie!

Sorry, this is kind of a gross post but also cool!

I fell during my run yesterday. It wasn't the kind of fall where you feel it happening for a few seconds, it mostly happened like this:
Me: Oh look at the beach.
Me: Isn't the sun pretty on the water?
Me: Looks like the tide is in. Surfers got an early start.
Me: Ow that pavement really hurts.
It was really embarrassing because the only people who are motivated enough to get up that early/the only people who were there to witness it were SUPER ripped dudes. Anyways I cut my route short and went home. BUT I was bored at home tonight and noticed my scab is shaped like Australia!! Kind of neat.

Lazy Weekend

I woke up really early for no reason today, and since I couldn't get back to sleep I'm already on my second episode of MacGyver, which is apparently on all days at all times. Occasionally they mix it up with an episode of Murder She Wrote or M.A.S.H. It's strange which shows end up being a big deal over here.

More vocabulary to add to the list:

Cossie=Swimsuit
Grog=Booze
Pom=English person
Sparky=Electrician
Go to the cinema=Go to the movies
Petrol=Gas
Rice Bubbles=Rice Krispies
Z=Pronounced "zed"
H=Pronounced "haych"
Period=Full stop
Demister=Defroster

Bundeena

Another day off, so I decided to take the ferry to Bundeena. It's a really small village that's surrounded by Royal National Park, and you can only get to it by boat or by taking a drive through the park. There's a lot of artsy people living there and no chain restaurants or anything, kind of like going out to Vashon. There are several beaches within walking distance of the dock, and I heard that they're a lot less crowded than the Cronulla beaches since you can't really drive there, so I decided to make the trip out.

The ferry dock is right next to the Cronulla train station, and it was so small I almost walked right by it! The boat is the longest continually operating ferry in New South Wales-it's been going since the 1930s. The ride to Bundeena took about 20 minutes since the water was really calm and blue today.

The beach out there was absolutely beautiful! There were only about 20 people total on a half mile stretch, and I couldn't tell if they were residents of Bundeena (there are houses all along the water) or if they had taken the boat in. The water is really calm compared to Cronulla since the beach is on a bay rather than right on the sea, and I was wishing I had brought along a swimsuit. Instead I just sat on the beach and read my book for a bit before heading back home. I'm going to try to go back pretty soon and take a look around the national park!

Horderns Beach

View of the ferry dock

Happy Boxing Day!

Yesterday was Boxing Day. Since there is no such thing as Black Friday in Australia, Boxing Day is the day where everyone gets up really early and goes shopping. It's also a public holiday (so is today) so I get a few days off in a row to sit around. Instead of shopping I went down to the beach near my house. When I got there the tide was fully in and the waves were pretty rough-there is usually about 40 feet of sand between the rocks and the water but this is how it looked yesterday. Instead of swimming I ended up just reading the paper and drinking a beer. Christmas Day was hot and sunny so one out of two days isn't too bad I guess...

This beach is a little rockier than the main beach, but I like it because it's usually a lot more quiet. Also the path leading to it is too steep to bring prams (strollers) and eskies (coolers) down so that scares off some people...

The sports section was ALL cricket today:(

Christmas Celebrations

This weekend was  the Christmas party for Hayden's work, so we got to spend the night in the city. Everyone here has pretty massive Christmas celebrations, and my work already had a lunch a couple of weeks ago at a really nice seafood restaurant in Glebe. But since Hayden DOESN'T work in the arts, his boss has more money to spend on hotel rooms, dinner, top shelf booze, etc. So I got to dress up and go out for Italian food in Darling Harbour on Saturday night. Darling Harbour is a really nice section of downtown with tons of bars and cafes. It's right on the water, and there's no roads running through it so it's really nice for walking around and sightseeing. It reminds me a lot of the waterfront in downtown Seattle, just bigger and maybe a little more sanitary.

Having a nightcap after dinner. 

View of the Harbour on Sunday. We stayed at Four Points.

Another view of the Harbour. It was kind of cloudy but definitely warm enough to eat outside.

Champagne and oysters!

I had a really good weekend but I'm definitely paying for it today. I slept for almost 12 hours Sunday night and woke up with a cold today so I'm going to try and take it easy for the next few days.

Messiah

I've been getting a little antsy since I haven't really been doing anything music-ish lately and my trumpet isn't here with me in Oz. Luckily the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs needed people to sing in the chorus for Messiah this month. Specifically they needed sopranos. So this alto decided to pose as a soprano and give it a go.

I've been rehearsing about once per week for the last couple of months, and we had dress rehearsals pretty much every night this last week. I really like my free time, but it's been nice having structure and places that I HAVE to be at certain times with the threat of consequences if I don't show up. I'm definitely on the younger end of people who are doing this-for some reason, a three hour long baroque oratorio doesn't appeal too much to some crowds. But the music is really beautiful and it's so much better when you know it really well and can anticipate what is going to happen next. Handel wrote the entire Messiah in twenty or so days. This is incomprehensible to me, and the best I can hope for is stretches of moderate productivity fit in between TV/Facebook/blog posts etc.

Opening night was last night and I think it went really well! The oboist was struggling a bit, bringing back memories of 7th grade and my brief and tragic oboe career. The chorus is singing it from memory, which actually was not as hard as I expected. The only song I need to review is "Amen". That's a five minute song with one lyric: Amen. Not easy. I'll try and sneak a few pictures from inside the opera house on Saturday to post.