Rollin' With The Celebs

So, I didn't mention it as we thought it was pretty insignificant at the time, but towards the end of our dinner at Catalina's on my birthday, a big group of very fancily dressed people came in and sat at a table right next to us. The were all clutching 'Vogue' goody bags and seemed to think that they were all pretty important. Pah, whatever, the Birthday Princess was in da house. They aint got nothin' on me and my galz.

One of the waiters asked us if we wanted to move as he expected that group to get pretty noisy but we said that we were fine, mainly because we were enjoying people watching. There was one women who was wearing the most ridiculously ostentatious dress I have ever seen, so much of it that she could hardly sit down, but so little of it that you could see right through the fabric to her bar legs. Very strange for a restaurant... what a silly dress. Goose bumped into her in the loos and chirped up "Oh you look... nice, where have you been?" and apparently she just gave her a blank look and muttered something about a Vogue magazine launch. Oh really? Cool. Well, we're just going to carry on with our evening and not really pay you much attention, giving you funny looks as you kind of float above your seat because you can't sit properly in your big pretentious purple poofy dress.

Until, a couple of days later, Goose spotted this....

Oh. 

Shit. 

So dress lady was kinda important then. And her silly dress? Oh, just a bit of Dior haute couture we've got there. What a RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE MAGICAL FAIRY QUEEN DESIGNER silly dress. I wish I'd touched it. It's still a silly dress, and that's $50,000s worth of purple netting wasted on, well, still being able to see her legs... but I'll never get that close to a dress like that ever again. 

Perhaps Erica thought Goose was just trying to play it cool when they were in the loo together, or perhaps she realised we were just clueless British girls who don't know any Australia celebs. (I still don't know who she is....)

You can have a little look at her Vogue interview here and some more shots of her big celebratory day as a Vogue cover girl with all her other famous fashionista pals here. 

Even though it feels like a bit of a whoops on our behalf, I quite enjoy that we were completely oblivious to the fact that she was famous and just carried on as normal. That dress though....

B

Pen Pals

I had a very entertaining day at the bar yesterday. I made a new friend, his name is Bill, he's about 87 years old, and he's an absolute babe.

It all started when he came in on Saturday and whilst the bar was quiet during the afternoon, he sat and ordered about fifteen 'double scotch on the rocks'. I served him every time and he tipped me $2 for each and every drink I poured (sadly our tips are pooled, so every time I had the pain of dropping the coin into the tip jar) and he struck up a friendly conversation with me. Turns out he's an avid music fan and told me that he's just come from watching 'South Pacific' at the Opera House. It's his favourite musical and he's seen it performed over 30 times all over Europe, however this was his Australian debut and he was VERY excited about how good it was. The lead female singer is apparently amazing guys, he recommends this production highly, shall we go!? We soon became best buds and chatted away merrily until Happy Hour struck and I had to actually do some work. He's an ex-army Captain and lives in Plymouth in Devon - what are the chances! - and we bonded over our love/hate relationship for the south of England. He was the funniest little man with teeny weeny eyes but enormous glasses which made him look like a human bush baby, and the strangest little pencil moustache I have ever seen.

On Sunday, he came back and stood in exactly the same place at the bar, and the same happened again. The bar was dead, even through happy hour as the weather was rubbish (and no one comes to Circular Quay when its even slightly cold) and so we chatted away for most of the afternoon. When he had to leave, he did the equivalent for his generation of 'add me on Facebook' and gave me his address so that we could be pen pals! He also took my home address (not my Australian one because I'm moving here soon and don't know what my future address will be), and promised to send me a Christmas card and postcards from all over the world (Mum take note, you'll need to be forwarding them out here to me!). He gave me a big kiss on the cheek and pressed another $2 coin in my hand and shuffled out the door, pissed as a fart but happy as anything.

Everyone else working on the bar thought it was absolutely hilarious, but they'll be jealous when I get my Christmas card and they don't! I just hope he keeps his word....! Watch this space for Bill updates. I miss him already.

B

Surprise Spa Day

So the other day, Goose suddenly dropped into conversation that we were 'busy' on Thursday afternoon and that I had to keep from 1pm onwards free. After Oli saying that 'his present wasn't arriving in the post' I put two and two together and knew that they were up to something.... Both furiously denied it but I was awfully suspicious and was very nervous about whatever adventure they had planned for me. Worried to the point where I was more scared about 1pm coming around that the exam I had at 12pm. 

Finally, I met Goose and she shoved me in a taxi and whisked me away into the city for a.... SPA DAY! I was correct in my suspicious of her and Oli sneaky-skeakying behind my back and this whole afternoon, all the treatments and everything for both of us, was a prezzie from Oli. 

On the way she read me out a confirmation email about what pampering we were going to receive and we arrived 20mins later at Park Hyatt Hotel Spa in The Rocks just on the western side of Sydney Harbour. We were chaperoned from our taxi into the hotel and directed upstairs to the spa - Goose even took the lift! Up there we were greeted by a lovely woman who told us that we were receiving an hour full body massage and an hour facial. HOUR FULL BODY MASSAGE!? Genuinely the best news I've ever heard. 

She then gave us some locker wristband things and showed us to the changing rooms and told us we could go and relax in their rooftop pool for half an hour. We changed into our bikinis and snuggled into those amazing fluffy white dressing gowns thats spas have, and headed up to the pool, where we were greeted with the most incredible view and two glasses of champagne!

Thats a 'two-one' I'm doing, not a 'fuck-off'

We had a little swim and then headed down to our spa room for our massage and facial. The two hours flew by and we both went into some kind of trance state and then all too soon we were left alone to get changed and go back to the real world. 

We delayed the reality check a little by venturing back up to the pool and lounging in our robes for a bit, enjoying the view and singing Oli's praises, but then eventually said a HUGE thank you to the staff and stumbled back to normal life. We wandered around the harbour and The Rocks for a while and found this little beauty....

I WANT ONE! I'm going to move to Sydney and drive it back and forth from my house to the spa and back again.

What a lovely spoiley surprise day! Oliver, congratulations, you done good boy, and how nice that Goosey and I could enjoy it together. An enormous thank you from both of us. I don't know why I was so worried.... silly me.

B

Apocalypse

This past week has been a bit of a weird one for the weather. You may have seen on the news that NSW has had awful bush fires up in the Blue Mountains and elsewhere, the worst they've had in a century infact. All the Australians are pretty worried as it's only Spring time and usually the bush fires don't happen until December or ever January.

Although the fires haven't affected Sydney directly, I've had a few friends who haven't been able to come into uni as they live up in the mountains and their families are on 'fire watch' for the house and they're having to be at home to help incase they need to emergency evacuate their homes. Scary stuff....! Harry also messaged me to say that they were all also on standby with the horses. Leeeetle bit worrying....

Sydney has, however, had great clouds of smoke pass over the city, making the whole day feel like twilight and turning the sun into a tiny red lazer dot in the sky, meaning that we've had some very odd Apocalypse days. Everyone's been taking some amazing photos of the smoke, so I thought I'd put a few up here to show you all how weird this week had been:

The view out of my flat over the city with the smoke cloud above

Smoke cloud rolling off in the distance over Sydney

Goose's pic of the red sun

Goose's pics of the crazy purple smoke skies

So yes, been a bizarre week as most of the time it has felt like night time, and other times it feels like the sun has been setting/rising with all these amazing colours for about four hours. I think they're managing to control the fires now, but it was a bit worrying for a while as there were three and they were worried that they would all join up and cause was huuuuuge fire.

Fingers crossed it doesn't get any worse.

B

The Big Two-One Weekend

So, you may or may not have heard, but I turned 21 on Monday....

My friend Jamie turned 21 on Saturday 19th and so we decided to share a big birthday weekend together and plan lots of activities for everyone to do. Most people work and a lot of people had big assignments due in so we made it so that everyone could dip and in out of what they could manage all weekend.

For Saturday, Jamie went to the races with some people, which was basically just an excuse to get dressed up, drink champagne and bet (....and win!) on some horses. Sadly I couldn't make it as work wouldn't give me Saturday day off as I had asked for Saturday night and all of Sunday off too, but here's a few pics of them all looking pretty....

Jamie the birthday boy

As soon as I finished work I was spoilt with some free cocktails and sat and relaxed for a while at Searock. Karl, the big boss man, has a girlfriend called Ali and she took me to the Guylian chocolate cafe/shop just down the quay (which they conveniently also own, along with hundreds of other bars and venues in Sydney) and let me choose a birthday cake - for free! I chose a raspberry and dark chocolate cheesecake and it was a serious work of art. Huge thank you to Karl and Ali for that very spoily surprise present...!

I got back home and came and found Harry who'd come to Sydney again for the weekend to celebrate and we grabbed some supper and started to get ready. We all met up for drinks in the evening at a friend's flat and then headed out to Soho in Kings Cross to party all night. Harry wasn't let in at first because apparently 'only people in gangs wear Nike Air Maxes' in Australia (who knew!?), but I spoke to the bouncer in my best doe-eyed English accent and eventually he let him in. Harry was very pleased....

Needless to say I don't really remember much of the night, apart from when Stan and I met a girl outside who was staying in a hostel across the road and took us on a tour of it for a while. It was actually an incredibly nice hostel, and we met some of the people staying in her 14 bed room (yeah, I know....) who were eating 3 litres of spaghetti bolognese, but then realised that we should probably get back to the club and continue partying with everyone. Harry and I also heckled the DJ upstairs until he played a song we wanted, which was probably slightly rude but was hilarious all the same.

In the morning we woke very hungover and went for brekkie at our local, Coco Cubano. Slowly, everyone crawled out of bed and we all met by reception at 1.30pm to head down to Ivy Pool Club. 

When we got down there, we were waiting for people outside and everyone going in ahead of us was incredibly dressed up in fancy dressed and stilettos, and guys in tight white shirts and disgustingly bling-y sunglasses, and we decided to bail and just go for a drink down in Circular Quay at Cruise Bar instead. Some of the boys who did go in gave us a ring and said it was amazing and the people who were really dressed up looked like twats and everyone who was casual was having far more fun, and so Harry, Grace, Anna and I all decided to head back up and give it a go.

Inside everyone was partying hard and dancing to the DJ round the pool. No one was swimming, but most people were sitting round the edges and paddling, drink in hand and drunkenly dancing in the sun.  I'm so glad we did go in and all of us had a great time and everyone was very generous and bought me (too) many celebratory mojitos.

Harry and Bean taking a dip

The venue is pretty cool but it is full of people who're just there to be looked at, but it's still a good place to have a party because it's a little bit different. Also, because the pool is up on the roof you're up amongst all the skyscrapers and stuff which is a pretty cool atmosphere.

Goose came down after work to join us, but she doesn't like Ivy much as the only way you can usually get up to the Pool Club is in a lift. Incase you didn't know, Goose doesn't do lifts and so had to be escorted up the stairs by some security men. This is her causing havoc....

VIP Goose

We partied into the evening but then I had to head back because I was already hungover from the night before, and now drunk from drinking all day, and had to try and get an early night because I had a Spanish exam next morning.... oh dear. We stayed an enjoyed it as long as we could though, and Harry and I heckled the DJ again (this is developing into a bad habit....) and he played our favourite song for us just before we left which sent us into a mad drunken dance frenzy. 

I woke up the next morning and gave myself a nice birthday breakfast and tried to revise a bit for my Spanish exam. The exam was at 11am and lets just say it was a bit of a non-event and leave it at that.... Sadly only a few pieces of birthday post had arrived from home (Australia is very behind as there was a bank holiday recently and everything is taking ages to come through) but I opened the cards I had and I'm looking forward to receiving lots of little bits and pieces that have been promised to me in the post over the next week! An extended birthday is always fun.

Strawbeeeeees!

After my exam I met Goose (who was delirious from being up all night after Ivy finishing her essay, bless) to celebrate my actual birthday a bit and then I took a quick nap and got ready to go out for lunch with Amber and Susan.

The two sisters took me to a lovely little restaurant in Woolahra called Chiswick Restaurant which was so gorgeous and had delicious food. Perfect place for a gossipy birthday lunch. They gave me some amazing prezzies and cards and took some photos to send home to the fam to let me know I was in safe hands.

Very yummy and very spoily.

When I got home, I got everyone together for some cake and fizz in my flat before Goose, Grace and I headed out for dinner. We got the Guylian cake out and everyone tucked in.

Note the flowers from Goosey!

Once everyone had left it was a quick change into some nice clothes and then we hopped in a cab to Catalina in Rose Bay. Rose Bay is a gorgeous area and Catalina is the most incredible fine dining restaurant. Very, very smart indeed and perfect for a 21st. Lucky us! Big thanks to my parents for funding it, perhaps we'll go again when you guys are out here!

We sat outside overlooking the bay and Sydney Harbour to our left and had some celebratory champagne and the girls gave me my prezzies. Goose got me a gorgeous crystal ring which is very unusual and looks great with all my other jewellery, and Gracie got me an hour long massage in an amazing spa nearby. What a lucky girl I am! Perfect presents.

Goose does sincerely apologise for her appearance in this photo... none of us are quite sure what happened here. A bit like that horrific school photo of me from about 2008, for those of you who know what I'm talking about....

Goose calls me Azbecky.... because of some literature reference where there's a prince called Prince Azbecky, or something.... I dunno.

You can arrive by sea plane to Catalinas....!

The chefs at Catalina are all amazing and they have won loads of awards for their food. We ordered some scallops, tomato and mozzarella salad, and marron tail for our entrees, and then salmon and veg and toothfish for our mains. Amazing. Have a look at the menu here, you'll be very jealous. All their waiters and waitresses are trained sommeliers too and so recommended drinks to have with our food. Before our entrees we got a Fire Cracker cocktail/aperitif type thing, and then some lovely wine to compliment our mains. Also, Goose and I decided to get a peanut butter and banana cake thingy for a pudding (which was delicious), and Goose sneaky sneaky ran to the kitchen and asked them to put a candle on it....!

Their cocktail menu had a Sazerac which I have never seen on any other cocktail menu anywhere...! It sounds disgusting but a barman made it for Oli and I at Gaucho's cocktail bar in London when we went there for dinner once and it has been our little secret favourite ever since. Nice surprise!

When we were finished we sat outside and had more cocktails and chatted for a while more looking at all the twinkly lights in the bay. We spent a total of 4 hours there just eating amazing food, drinking expensive wine and having a good 'ole girly catch up! A perfect evening.

I am currently still feeling a little jaded (two days after....!) from the excessive partying at the weekend/Monday (I literally drank solidly from about 5pm on Saturday until midnight on Monday) but I had an amazing few days and feel very loved and spoilt by everyone. It was a little weird not being at home to celebrate with everyone, the fam in particular, but I still had a great time and thank you to everyone for the ridiculous amount of facebook messages/emails/cards/presents that have been sent to me. I miss you all lots!

Huge love to everyone, I better go and start behaving like a real adult now....

B