Week 45: Vivid Sydney and being ill

Monday morning was an early start, 5.20am and I was dropped off at the airport for my flight back to Sydney. 

I said my goodbyes to my hosts which really sucked and got on my way. The flight went by no problem and I made it back for lunchtime. I spent the afternoon studying and then went food shopping. Tuesday rolled around and I spent most of the day practising my speech for wednesday. Tuesday evening was the classic touch footy and Game of Thrones. We played very well and lost by only one goal this week!

Wednesday appeared and I begun to start to feel ill... in the afternoon we had the study abroad farewell ceremony and I was asked to prepare a speech for the occasion. I was pretty nervous as it was my first proper public speaking but I had practised enough and thought it went very well.

Graduation hoods! :S 

Afterwards I headed to Unibar for trivia and then hit up everyones predrinks before slipping off to bed feeling ill from a cold. I tried to study on thursday and even made it to the beach but that was about it. I did manage to cook up a lovely honey soy beef steak though. Yum!

I still felt pretty grim on friday and tried to study before going out for a friends birthday at the 3 chimneys, which is a hipster bar set on a backstreet in Wollongong in a large warehouse... very surreal but it was good fun. Afterwards we drove up to mt keira it was great getting to see that view again. I must make the effort to get up there a few more times before I leave.

Birthday predrinks were happening so I made an appearance before again sloping off to bed. For some reason I didnt get to sleep til 4am so saturday morning was spent feeling very drained and on the sofa. I did pick myself up enough to go up to Sydney to see the vivid light festival which was really cool. The opera house and circular quay were all lit up with fancy lights.

Sunday has been a bit of a write off as well, I walked around at footy training in the morning and made it to the beach, but since then managed to lose 3hrs work on my independent project and have been watching tv. I think its safe to say being ill may have dampened the mood of this blog post but alas it has been a good week. The highlight was definitely vivid in sydney!
   

Week 44: Gold Coast Again!

Can anybody guess how I kicked off me week? Yes you got it, I spent monday and tuesday working away on my assignments. Tuesday evening was my weekly touch game, we played a division 1 team and got beaten pretty badly, but playing against hard teams will mean that we will improve quicker (silver lining!). When I got back to KB we watched our weekly dose of Game of Thrones down on the projector in the basement before heading down to Unibar for the a heat of band comp. We had some friends playing in their newly formed indie folk band called We Came For Dinosaurs. They were very good and came runners up which was very impressive!

Wednesday rolled around and I smashed out work in the morning before being invited to the beach in the afternoon. We had a lovely dip in the sea which still isn't too cold yet! I did some more work before heading back to the study. We hit up Unibar pub quiz and came joint first... if only I had been more assertive that zirconium is the last element alphabetically! I had no idea on most of the other questions though... they were all about greek gods and literature :|. We headed out to the Grand on wednesday evening, it was a lovely night and woke up feeling fine which is what I needed.


Thursday morning I did some work before making the journey back up to the airport... yes again... I am not too fond of the train up from Wollongong to the airport now as I have done it 6 times in only a few weeks. I times the journey to perfection and got to the gate just as the queue was nice and short, walking straight onto the plane.

The flight went smoothly and arrived at the right airport this time... the Gold Coast to be picked up by Eddy. The afternoon was spent relaxing out in Tallebudgera which is a really picturesque corner of the Gold Coast, we went for a little walk and run some errands. I rustled up some lemon and thyme chicken for dinner, not my best by far but not too bad. That evening we watched Forrest Gump, turns out its a good movie, apparently it is a film that everyone must see!

Friday was spent running some errands, cooking and polishing brass... how great visitor am I hey!? I did manage to fit in a 7km jog, on the same route as my hungover jog a few weeks back. I managed to shave off 2min/km from my last time, not a surprise really. I even spotted a koala, he/she was trying to climb through a gate, and failed so decided to sit on the fencepost instead!

We picked up fellow pommy Richard (happy?!) from the station and had a chilled evening making risotto and watching TV.

Saturday rolled around and the day was spend preparing for a big (Adult) party on sunday. I dont quite know where the day went... it seemed to fly by so quickly. In the evening we played some canaste (a card game) and got an early nights sleep.

Sunday was upon us and the morning was spent madly dashing around preparing for 34 guests for the party. By lunchtime everyone had arrived and we could relax a little bit more and enjoy the delicious dishes that everyone brought with them. I tried my first ever oyster with feta and spinach, I couldnt really taste the oyster so it was tastey! In the middle of the afternoon we played some games, tug of war, sack races that type of thing. Next thing I know its time for dessert which was amazing... orange cake is so yummy! People begun to head off home and we had the not too arduous task of cleaning up. 6 people cleaning up means it doesnt take long at all. We ordered in fish and chips for dinner and watched some TV to finish off the week in a very sleepy way.

Week 43: Melbourne Baby!

So the beginning of the week once again left me studying all day Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday evening we had our first touch footy (rugby) game. It was a tentative first game with us all learning the ins and outs of all of the rules like the dummy rule (yeah right!). But alas in the first few minutes I managed to find a gap in the opposing teams defence and got the legs motoring to score our first try. After the game we headed to our sponsor (The Bally Hotel) for some dinner and I managed to consume a bowl of chips after a very late lunch. I made it back to KB just in time to watch Game of Thrones down in the basement.

Wednesday daytime I spend studying before heading down to town and the beach. It has definitely cooled off temperature wise but the water was still relatively warm. In the evening I popped over to some pre-drinks before heading out on the party bus. It was good fun but I didn’t feel too bright in the morning. I even managed to have a nap Thursday arvo, after getting some work done. By this time I packed up my bits and bobs ready for my trip to Melbourne. Leaving at 5pm I got the bus then train then a flight down to Melbourne. I am still amazed how easy domestic flights are! I arrived with no problems and was picked up by a friend at the airport. By this time it was time to get some shut eye.

Friday rolled around and we were up at 6am for a day trip along the Great Ocean Road. After some debacle with my friends tickets we were all split up on different buses for the day. We covered almost 500km in the day, and stopped off at numerous beaches and tourist spots along the way. The highlights were definitely the 12 apostle, it was pretty great getting to see some good old Limestone cliff getting annihilated by the Ocean (Durdle Door eat your heart out!). Another highlight was seeing some wild koalas and getting landed on by some little colourful parrots. Near the end of the day we stopped off at Loch Ard Gorge, which was a stunning enclosed bay sunk into the limestone. We also stopped off to see London Bridge, which used to be a double arc but fell through in 1990 leaving a stack with an arch in, some bagpipe players rocked up as we were leaving… very odd. The journey back was long and the rest of the evening spent relaxing!

After a good night’s sleep I made my first real trip into Melbourne. I walked down to Flinders Street, popped into St Paul’s Cathedral and Hoosier Lane which is a few back alleys full of graffiti. I then met up with a friend and we had a lovely breakfast sat in a café on Degraves Lane. After this we popped over the river to the National Gallery in the drizzley rain. By this time we were getting pretty tired so decided to go to a pub which donates all profits to charity and had a lovely fruit smoothie in their cosey pub. Next we stopped off in a few shops before heading up to the National Museum. Being a concession we got free entry and had a great time looking at a range of exhibits. A few hours later we emerged ready for dinner so met our hosts at an Italian and devoured some pizzas for dinner. By this time we headed back and gathered our belonging for the trip back to Sydney. Excluding a slight flight delay and a mad dash between trains at Wolli Creek we got back all safe and sound by 00.30. Long day!

Sunday came around and I had a very lazy morning and first half of the arvo. We went out and had a little touch footy training session which was good fun, im starting to get the hang of it. I then decided to go for another 5km run… it was pretty tough but got my average below 5mins per km (by 1 second). Tonight will be pretty chilled I assume before another busy week of study.  

Week 42: Colour Run!

I woke up nice and early monday morning, 6.30am, in order to dash to Brisbane airport and head back to Sydney. I got the train back from Sydney airport and managed to make it back in time for my fieldtrip. For our fieldtrip we drove up to Scarborough and looked at alluvial deposits in the Hawkesbury sandstone on the cliffs and rock platforms. Clambering over the rocks was pretty fun, except the slipping and cutting my hand and arm bit.

Fieldtrips to places like this! Only in Australia :)

Tuesday went past relatively quickly and uneventfully, I did some work, went to the beach for a brief swim as it has started to cool off now then did some food shopping, before making an amazing risotto, finishing off the day watching Game of Thrones. Wednesday passed in a similar blur but instead this time I spent a good 11hrs studying. Thursday I finished my assignment and handed it in. I make a fairly bland teryaki chicken for dinner before making an appearance at some predrinks before heading to bed for a good sleep.

Risotto mmm (with wine as the secret ingrediant)

Friday was slightly more exiting... I got my haircut! Crazy I know! Then did 278 slides of lecture notes... where has this week gone? In a blur of study :|. Saturday was another early start as I was off on another fieldtrip, this time to Bundeena. The rain held off and we had a surprisingly good day learning about 6 different channels that formed in the Triassic period. I came home and spent the evening writing up some notes.

The highlight of this week was the colour run! Its a 5km "run" and you get coloured dye thrown over you as you go. It was heaps of fun, a group of 8 or so of us all stuck together and had great fun getting all colourful! It was worth getting up before 7am for, definitely. In the afternoon I finished off some Geology reports and then went for a chilly swim and walk along the beach.

Not one for selfies but this had to be done!

Not too much to rave about this week, I guess every week cannot be full of new experiences and exciting adventured. Although next week will be!