My Year Down Under...: Anna's 21st

So our darling little Anna turned 21 last week! The proposed plan was to meet at hers at 5pm and then go over to her Dad and partner's snazzy hotel, Blue Sydney, for a drink, and then on to dinner by 7.30pm. In true Anna style, she was still at Bondi Junction shopping for a dress at 5.15pm and had got caught in a tropical thunderstorm whilst shopping and so not only did she still need to make the 20 min journey home and get ready in the space of fifteen minutes, she also had to shower and wash her hair all over again. This meant that the rest of us all congregated in the corridor outside her room in college and waited, spying on the new freshers who have all just begun their very first semester of university. Talent spotting, as we like to call it.

Finally she made it back, new dress in hand, and we called the restaurant to push the reservation back to give us some more time. After lots of scrambling around from Anna and a few hurried photos on her balcony, we hopped into cabs and zoomed down to Wooloomooloo Warf to meet her Dad and Geraldine at their hotel.

The bar was amazing, very swanky with awesomely comfy booths to sit in, set in the middle of the hotel with all the rooms overlooking like a kind of courtyard. Hard to explain but basically the whole hotel is a converted shipping yard and is just very modern with high ceilings and glass lifts and stuff. We chose some yummy cocktails made with 42Below vodka as recommended by Ciclely - passionfruit, kiwi and honey to be precise. Delicious! Check out their funky website too.

After a little bit of prezzie opening we went to the restaurant called O Bar & Dining which is a revolving restaurant on the 47th floor in a building in Worlds Square, George St. The view was, of course, incredible and the novelty of the revolving room didn't ware off for the entire 2 hours we spent at dinner. We ordered several more cocktails and had a delicious three course meal, so nice to be able to have some decent fish! (Poor student = no fish.) The whole evening was such fun and a great girly celebration together of our gorgeous Anna. Many hilarious speeches and stifled giggling as we stealthily printed a hand print on the glass so that we knew when we had done a full resolution....! (It takes 1hr45mins just so y'know.) Thank you to Peter and Geraldine for treating us to such a nice meal, a very special evening. If you've never been to O Bar, then for gods sake go as the views are unforgettable and the food is amazing. Yummmmmm.

Anna's tiny weeny hands!

Next on the birthday celebration list was a night out in Sydney on Thursday. We all met for drinks again on Anna's balcony which is 7 floors up and has the most outrageous view of the whole university, Randwick Racecorse, and the city skyline in the distance. I really wish my phone could capture how good her view is but sadly it doesn't do it any justice so just imagine twinkly city lights far away.

We all then went down to Opera Bar and had loads of fun their ordering cocktails and watching them be made at the special pick up point, and just generally enjoying the buzzy atmosphere of the place. It really is such a special place to be, out in the open under the sky, drinking cocktails with your best friends, right next to one of the most iconic buildings in the world. So lucky! There's always live music too and so you can guarantee a good time almost any night of the week.

After that, we trooped up George St and went to The Ivy for a good dance. I bumped into a whole load of people from work which was nice and we had a big old catch up. Some how we all ended up in the same area on the top floor right by the bar with enormous comfy sofa to sit on - it was ideal! Needless to say, we made it our base and partied away into the early hours of the night.