Long Time No See, Stranger

A certain Mr Oliver Amphlett has come out to visit! 

I went to go meet him at the airport and after a little bit of an emotional (on my behalf... with everyone staring, it was very embarrassing) reunion in the airport we headed off to begin our intense three week catch up and travel adventure!

We spent the next few days mooching about in Sydney, waiting for Oli to get over his jetlag, going to places like Searock, UNSW campus, Circular Quay etc. As my standard jetlag cure for everyone who first arrives in Sydney (Harry was the first victim, my family shall be the next), I made him do the Coogee to Bondi walk. It's quite a long walk, but the views are amazing and you go down into each little cove and can see all the different beaches. The walk finishes by walking past Icebergs which is a super famous sea pool/bar/club just on the edge of Bondi, and then you end up right on the beach where we stopped for a few drinks at The Bucket List.

We spent some time shopping in Surry Hills and found the most amazing cupcake place called Sparkle Cupcakery which is a very cool little place and the cupcakes are YUM.

We also found a shop with a skate park in the back of it....

...how incredibly hipster. I also found my new favourite shop which is called Service on Oxford Street. It stocks loads of amazing one-off stuff by Australia designers and everything is beautiful and very unique, but sadly pretty spenny. 

One of the days we went to the markets in The Rocks and then headed to right underneath the Harbour Bridge for Oli to do some of his long exposure photography.

We also went to go see Justin Martin play at The World Bar with Harry which was a good night out, and met up with Nelly for a nice supper at a gorgeous little tapas place near home called The Spanish Fly. So strange to all be out in Sydney together!

We leave for our big East Coast road trip early tomorrow morning... very excited!

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Harry and Bean's Big Day Out

Harry calls me 'Bean' because he know's another girl called Becky who he used to work in a pub with, and her nickname was Bean. He says that we're bizarrely similar in mannerisms and looks, and so then I became 'The Other Bean', but when 'Original Bean' isn't around, I just become 'Bean'!

We had a slow morning and then jumped on a bus to Bondi to go and explore. I haven't properly been to Bondi Beach yet so it was a fun touristy thing for both of us to do. Even though it's the middle of Winter out here it was 25 degrees and amazingly sunny!

Despite knowing that everyone back home is having an incredible time at Boomtown Festival, and missing them all loads, we were feeling pretty smug to be enjoying a day like this one together in Australia on the beach. "How did we wangle this one!?"

We spent the whole day wandering around all the little cafes and shops and lying and chatting on the beach. There were loads of people preparing for the beach party that will be hosted here at the end of City2Surf. City2Surf is a huge annual 14km run from the centre of Sydney to Bondi and over 80,000 people come and run from all over the world. My friend Grace is running tomorrow, so we'll be rooting for her (though she'll be fine as she recently ran the London Marathon. 14km!? Pah....)

After we got bored of watching people learning to surf and weird old men running up and down the beach in their pants, we decided to do the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee. It took us about two hours but we go to see loads of other bays such as Bronte and Tamarama, and we stopped and watched this group of guys who were filming themselves doing stunts on rollerskates at Bronte. One of them jumped down some 15ft stairs and landed it... unfortunately I didn't manage to film it but it was pretty impressive to watch.

When we arrived at Coogee the sun was beginning to set and everyone was out in the park just above the beach having bbqs and relaxing in the last of the (Winter) sun. This is the area that I will probably move to for next semester, as I am hoping to move out of halls and find a house, so it was nice to be able to have a look around.

We were both tired after walking so far and so we just cooked some supper and had another chilled evening. Harry also has to be up off nice and early tomorrow to go meet a friend to catch a train to the Hunter Valley. I'll be sad to see him go but I live right next to Randwick Racecouse (which he got very excited about) and so he'll be up here fairly frequently, hopefully. Similarly, I'll probably go stay with him in the Hunter Valley sometime soon to get out of the city for a while which'll be nice.

I'm slowly amassing recruits out here, now I have Tally AND Harry! To all those still at home though, I miss you all and I'm enjoying seeing your smiling faces every day and I have hundreds of photographs up all over my room - such fond memories of the very brief month of English Summer I had before I came out here. I hope you're all partying through the rest of it on behalf of me!

Missing y'all, heaps of love,

B

Harbour Bridge Walk

Today a few of us decided to head out and explore a little. Jack, Stan, Kellie, Meaghan, Adam and I caught a ferry across from Circular Quay to Milson's Point, and planned to walk back across the Harbour Bridge.

The views from the ferry were amazing. I've done it once before at night, but it was great to see it all again in the day.

The journey was really quick as Milson's Point is just across the harbour. When we arrived, we had a quick wander around the famous Luna Park, which is all a bit weird and very dated. Felt like the set from a strange thriller or something.... Apparently, even though the rides aren't very good, it's quite fun at night, so we may come back.

Next we headed off to walk up over the bridge. The views from there were amazing too, and we could see people above us who were doing the Harbour Bridge Climb - I would love to do it, but it costs $200!

Once we were over the other side we took a stroll through The Rocks Markets, where lots of amazing jewellery and trinkets are sold from tiny little boutique stalls. There was one man selling pendants and bracelets made from the inner parts from old watches. There were so beautiful, I may have to invest in one at some point....

We spotted some food stalls and I bought a butternut squash, feta, spinach and pesto wrap for lunch which was delicious. A $10 lunch out here is pretty cheap... I still can't get used to the prices out here though.

The markets were really nice, and thankfully not too busy. None of that awful hassling going on either, where people grab you and drag you into their stall. I bought a small silver ring and a birthday present for Hannah (Moo, if you're reading this, I hope you're impressed with my planning ahead!)

Once we were back down in the harbour again, we got distracted by this crazy contortionist woman...

She was very weird.... her big finale was climbing into this tiny little glass box which was up on stilts. She calls herself "Bendy Em" and well yeah... she was pretty bendy! She's apparently the only contortionist who does it live on the street. Pretty impressive... but still, very strange.

After that, we headed over to the Opera Bar on the east of the harbour to enjoy a drink in the sun before it set. Kellie lives in New York and obviously she still can't drink because their drinking age is 21 out there, so she still finds it a total novelty to order a drink at a bar! She doesn't even know what her favourite drink is... crazy!

Despite it still being Winter, and far from peak season, the bar was still buzzing and full of people enjoying the weather. I think I'm going to apply for a job down here on the waterfront as I really like the atmosphere and they pay well! $20 an hour during the week, and more at the weekend. So good!

Tonight we're heading out to Chinese Laundry, which is a famous electronic dance club in Darling Harbour, so I'll post about that tomorrow.

Here's a little snap of me being a tourist...

Tada!

B