Good Friday

Grace, Goose and I ventured off in the car that Grace is borrowing off her Godmother to Bondi to spend the day enjoying the weather and having a good old girly catch up. The weather out here has been awful recently as we are steadily easing in to the Australian Winter, but thankfully the rain seems to be holding off for the big Easter Weekend and was a bright and sunny 25 degrees!

Grace picked me up from my place and then we swung by to get Goose from hers and drove on to Bondi. All of us were a little hungover from various events the night before and spent the journey relaying some of the ridiculous things that had happened. Grace had been at a wine tasting which had been hosted at her Godmother's house and the girls had succeeded in getting the sommelier pretty drunk and convinced him to open a very expensive red wine, Goose suddenly remembered how we had tried to get a security man to teach us how to use the slot machines in the pub (!?), and I had scratches all over my knees from attempting to break in to the Roundhouse via the external balcony for the event which I had failed to remember to get a ticket for....  I didn't really care about the event at all, it was more just the game of trying to get in. Needless to say, I was found and escorted away. Naughty me.

We found a place to park not too far from the beach and wandered down to find a cafe to grab some breakfast and a coffee to have on the beach. We threw off our shoes and went for a paddle in the sea and had a good giggle watching all the asians take their holiday snaps. This has become one of my favourite passtimes when on the beach in Australia... I mean, does taking a photo of your family really require you to get into the deep squat position!? The sun was blazing and we sat and relaxed in the sand for a while, watching all the surfers do their thing and feeling a little bitter that we hadn't invested more time in learning to surf this year. At one point an aeroplane spelt out 'Jesus = Love' in the sky, which  was.... amusing. I spose it was Good Friday an' all....

...and then she threw me on the ground.

Sadly Grace had to go back home to pack and get herself to the airport as she was flying to New Zealand that afternoon, and so she left Goose and I in a happy hungover heap on the beach. We stayed for a little longer and then went for a wander around the back streets and invested in some retail therapy. There are some really good shops in Bondi, if you know where to look, and most of them had some kind of Easter sale on which proved to be a little taxing for our bank accounts.... whoops. I found some awesome dresses which will be really useful for upcoming 21sts this Summer when I get home and Goose and I actually bought the same pair of sandals, with the promise that we wouldn't wear them on the same day out here, but the quite nice and sentimental idea that when we wear them independently back home we would think of each other and our lovely day spent in Bondi. TWINS! If you're heading down, some good shops to check out are Carousel, Me and Moo, Academy Brand, nANA jUDY and Tuchuzy.

This one's for you, Moo!

We then finally decided to go and get some food and after a browse around the various cuisines on offer we settled on Mad Pizza and shares a sweet potato and feta pizza (sounds strange but it was amazing) and a chicken and rocket salad. 

...and after pizza we moved on to a random little cafe opposite called Shabbaba which had coffee.... AND BAKLAVA! Praise the lord for Shabbaba, I think they saw us coming.

Finally we decided it was about time that we stopped spending money on clothes and food and head home to go and sleep. A lovely girly day and a very Good Friday! I was feeling a little sad about not being at home for Easter as it's one of my favourite times at home, what with all the baking and the Spring walks and, er, well.... chocolate, but now I'm feeling a little better and this weekend is looking set to be a good one.

Happy Easter!

B

Mardi Gras

Had only been back from Thailand for a matter of hours and was exhausted, however Anna convinced me to come and join her and Cicely etc. at the Mardi Gras parade that was happening down Oxford Street. I ran back to mine, donned some suitable sparkly fun attire and hopped on the bus with the cripple. For those of you that don't know, Mardi Gras is a huge LGBT event every year in Sydney and everyone goes completely bonkers for it. The whole festival goes on for just under a month, but as a big last finale thing the parade happens and everyone dresses up, grabs a milk crate to stand on and floods the streets to watch the floats go by. 

Anna and I ended up the other side of the street from where the others were and so watched the parade just us two. It was CRAZY! The atmosphere was amazing, everyone was so happy and dancing and just really enjoying the freedom to dance and express themselves. The costumes and performers were amazing too, such an awesome few hours!

Afterwards we found the others and grabbed some food, and then ventured out into Surry Hills to see what was going on. We found this awesome little street party where a DJ had set up in a cafe window and danced there for a bit with everyone. Some serious disco tunes were played, always got time for a bittah disco! Sadly the weather took a turn for the worst but no one let it damped their spirits and everyone stayed outside and danced for ages in the rain.

Once we'd had our fix of disco, we decided to head on down the the Cross to potentially go to a club, and on our way bumped into loads more people who we all hadn't seen for months, turning our little party of four into a group almost twenty strong! Cue mass hugs and celebratory drinks all round. It was so nice to see everyone after so long and everyone had so many stories to tell. Someone mentioned that there was some good music by Standard-Famoud-DJ-No-Ones-Heard-Of going on in Goldfish and somehow we managed to wangle our way in for just $15 with a free drink voucher!? The original price of the tickets was at least $25 and although admittedly the drinks voucher was only valid after 2am, we were pretty pleased with our achievement and needless to say I didn't get to bed until 5am.

Its good to be back, Sydney!

B

Grace's Massage

By chance, as well as Oli, Grace also bought me a massage for my birthday - can't complain! We hadn't found time to go together yet, but eventually we were both free on Tuesday and met at Circular Quay and caught the ferry across the harbour to Neutral Bay. Seeing as we live in the Eastern Suburbs below in Sydney, we hardly spend any time in the Northern Beaches, so it was nice to go on a little adventure.

We went to this lovely little place called Thai Waya and had the most relaxing full body thai massage. It was very different to the one I had on my spa day, as at Park Hyatt they used a lot more oil etc. and this massage was more about working out the knots and all our stress from exams (well, Grace's stress.... I'm not feeling particularly stressed at the moment!). They properly climbed all over us and even used their knees to massage us! Kinda bizarre but actually amazing. I'm going to have to be careful not to get too used to weekly massages...!

Afterwards we stopped by a bar right next door called Cactus Blue and decided we would just have 'one drink' before we caught the ferry back. Several drinks and a free birthday-shot of absinthe on the house (!? and also bleugh) from the barman later, we finally left. We should have seen that coming.... look at the size of our wine glasses buckets.....!

The ferry ride home back into Circular Quay was amazing. Its nice to get out on the water sometimes and properly take in the Opera House and the bridge from a different perspective. The city is always so impressive at night.

Thank you Gracie for a lovely girly evening! Loving the fact that I've somehow managed to drag my birthday out for a good three weeks....

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