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.

Sober....

Trying to get Harry to stand still for a photo to send home

The special Anna Dance

Happy Birthday gorgeous girl and thank you for being such an amazing friend. Here's to your 22nd year, lets hope it's as good as the last!

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